[8] [Béla III] left castles and large estates to his second son [Andrew], and provided incalculable wealth for his journey to Jerusalem, to which he himself had made a vow.
[17] Andrew acted as "caput ecclesiae in regno suo" (head of the church in his own country) over the Dalmatian ecclesiastical institutions[citation needed], having previously he donated privileges to the Archdiocese of Split and the St. John monastery at Biograd in 1198.
Pope Innocent III, who strongly supported Emeric in his feud against Andrew, refused to confirm these elections, and ordered investigation regarding the candidates' political relationship with the duke.
Blaise, the chief notary of Zadar acknowledged Emeric as "our sovereign", while Andrew was referred to as only "duke" then "the king's brother, who is present in Dalmatia".
[3][20] "[...] It really got to Our ears, that in the first week of the past Lent, on the Wednesday of Ember days [10 March 1199], in the evening gloom, when Our Reverend Brother, [Boleslaus], the Bishop of Vác sang Compline with his fellow canons, you [Emeric], arriving to the Vác Cathedral, ordered them to hand over the keys of the sanctuary to you and the bishop [Boleslaus] leave the church [cathedral]; and when he was afraid of the trap set against him, as it gave rise to very strong suspicion for the [late] hour, he was reluctant to obey the royal command, you ordered: the gate of the sanctuary shall be broken by force; and when this bishop and the canons, for this reason, turned to the Lord and began to sing amid tears: »O Lord, look down from thine holy house, and consider us: bow down thine ear, O Lord, to hear us.« [Bar.
[...]""[...] Because Your Holiness have supreme power and authority after God [...], We will reveal to Your Highness the injustices committed against Our Majesty by some disingenuous [...] prelates, who stirred up Our brother [Andrew] [...] against Us.
In January 1198, Pope Innocent III had rebuked John, the abbot of Pannonhalma for conspiring with the duke against Emeric and ordered him to appear before the Roman Curia in person.
The king himself physically assaulted Boleslaus, while his troops broke the lock, looted the treasury and confiscated numerous documents, which allegedly contained the preparations for a planned conspiracy against the monarch.
[24] Emeric denied any physical abuse in his reply letter, according to him, the canons of the cathedral chapter voluntarily opened the gate, and Boleslaus' involvement in the conspiracy was revealed.
The king narrated in his letter to Pope Innocent that the bishop maintained relationship and corresponded with Duke Andrew and the other conspirators, and guarded their group's funds at the cathedral of Vác in order to finance their rebellion against Emeric.
Since after the incident and the subsequent civil war, several barons defected to the court of Duke Andrew, it is plausible the king had good reason to open the cathedral treasury, according to Szabados.
[25] In his letter, Emeric also narrated that Mog, Palatine of Hungary secretly swore loyalty to Andrew, but he was deprived of his office, when his betrayal was revealed.
When Emeric attempted to appoint his partisan Mika Ják as the new palatine, Boleslaus' brother, Elvin, Bishop of Várad excommunicated the lord, because he had formerly captured one of the bishopric's priests, who functioned as a messenger of the king's enemies who supported Duke Andrew.
Emeric claimed the neglect of Saul Győr was due to the safety of the archbishop, whose lives would have been endangered by the adherents of the pro-Andrew prelates in the royal court.
The Chronica regia Coloniensis narrates that the pope sent Conrad of Wittelsbach, the Archbishop of Mainz from Italy to Hungary in order to mediate between Emeric and Andrew.
[29] The report of the Continuatio Claustroneuburgensis says that "the king of Hungary made peace with the duke of Austria and accepted his younger brother back into the joint reign" in 1200.
For Innocent, it seemed much more reassuring that the launch of the much-advocated crusade did not depend solely on a frivolous prince, but also that the monarch of an important European power had sworn to take part in the holy war.
Therefore, the pope gestured for the king in February 1203: under the burden of excommunication, he ordered the ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries to swear loyalty to the legal heir to the Hungarian throne, the child Ladislaus (who was born sometime after 1200).
... [After] much wise thought, with inspiration from heaven [King Emeric] found a successful way by which he might recover his right to the kingdom and still remain guiltless of bloodshed.
As he passed through the midst of the armed multitude, he cried out in a loud and strong voice, "Now I shall see who will dare to raise a hand to shed the blood of the royal lineage!"
The Continuatio Claustroneuburgensis narrates that "Emeric, the king of Hungary – even though he gave his word to his brother through monks – tricked him into captivity and imprisoned him [Andrew] forever".
Italian scholar Boncompagno da Signa's tractate Rhetorica novissima contains a letter of Duke Leopold VI of Austria, in which the monarch mentions that Emeric imprisoned Andrew "for no reason".
The Annals of Admont records that Emeric crowned his child Ladislaus, "who was not even three years old", imprisoned Andrew, "suspecting that he is preparing to attack the realm", and guarded him in the palace of Esztergom.
[33] Thomas the Archdeacon tells a different story in his chronicle Historia Salonitana decades later: accordingly, Duke Andrew once again rose up in open rebellion against Emeric.
19th-century scholar Gyula Pauler combined the records, considering that, with an ulterior motive, Emeric called his younger brother to consult, where upon his arrival, he captured him with the royal scepter in hand without bloodshed.
He considered that the Continuatio Claustroneuburgensis represents a pro-Andrew point of view and Emeric's death is listed twice both times under the wrong date (1203 and 1205), thus the authenticity of the narration is debatable.
He argued, although the Historia Salonitana represents a pro-Emeric position, but the work itself was compiled sometime around 1266, when Emeric and his branch died out a long time ago (in 1205), therefore, there was no reason to distort the truth.
[43] The subsequent letters of Pope Innocent III suggest that serious tensions burdened the relationship between Andrew and the queen mother Constance of Aragon after Emeric's death.
[46] Unlike the former claimants to the Hungarian throne, for instance Prince Álmos, Boris Kalamanos and Géza, son of Géza II of Hungary, Andrew could not count on the support of one of the great powers of the region, i.e. the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire because of their anarchic domestic conditions, the German throne dispute and the chaotic rule of the Angelos dynasty, respectively.
An increase in the donation of royal estates into private hands after his coronation, and thus the change in the Hungarian social structure, may be a sign of subsequent gratitude and payment.