Bulcsú Lád
[2][3][4] However, as historian Attila Zsoldos pointed out, some documents from the pre-Mongol invasion period (in 1232, 1234 and 1240) already refer to the prelate as "Blaise" or "Basil", while a single mention of "Bulcsú" as the incumbent bishop from the year 1245 was also preserved.
[8] In this capacity, Pope Honorius III delegated Bulcsú to that ecclesiastical judicial court to judge the lawsuit between Pannonhalma Abbey and Stephen II, Bishop of Zagreb over the tithes in the lands beyond the Drava river at the turn of 1226 and 1227.
[10] Upon the request of Uros of Pannonhalma, the Hungarian king entrusted Bulcsú to copy and deposit the former verdicts in favor of the abbey by Archbishop Ugrin Csák and Palatine Nicholas Szák.
[11] The so-called salva semper preludes (arenga) in the royal charters between 1228 and 1229 connect to Bulcsú's activity as chancellor, but it is plausible that all three documents were formulated in the chancellery of Pannonhalma Abbey.
After receiving the report and the letter in support of Andrew II, the pope ordered papal legate James of Pecorara on 17 February 1233 to deal with the canonization issue among other matters.
After a hearing of both parties in Rome, the pope delegated Bulcsú and two other clerics – the Bishop of Cumania (possibly Theodoric) and the provost of Bethlen (present-day Beclean, Romania) – to judge over the lawsuit in November 1235.
[15] During the conclusion of the Oath of Bereg (August 1233), papal legate James of Pecorara instructed Bulcsú and four other Hungarian prelates, whose dioceses were inhabited by a significant number of Muslim or Jewish communities, to separate those people from Christian settlements and ensure the permanence of segregation during their annual cruises.
[16] The pope mandated Bulcsú and two clergymen to judge over the lawsuit between Archbishop Robert of Esztergom and the abbey of Garamszentbenedek (today Hronský Beňadik, Slovakia) in September 1235.
[17] In the 1230s, Bulcsú Lád was embroiled in a harsh and unprecedented confrontation with the Benedictine abbey of Bizere, which laid on the left bank of the river Mureș (Maros) in Arad County (present-day Frumușeni, Romania).
Bulcsú refused to acknowledge the verdict; his episcopal troops plundered and seized the territory of the Bizere Abbey, capturing and imprisoning the abbot and 32 Benedictine friars.
The pope, then, mandated Hungarian abbots Uros of Pannonhalma and N of Szekszárd to represent the interests of the abbey and validate the ecclesiastical censures against Bulcsú and his partisans.
[20] A papal letter from June 1236 narrates the subsequent events: the conflict deteriorated in an unprecedented way, even among the conditions of the time, when Bulcsú sent another armed force against the monastery.
[20] Pope Gregory IX delegated the abbots of Pécsvárad, Tihany and Ercsi to investigate the crime and perform the excommunication against Bulcsú and his accomplices (including Cornelius).
Therefore, Pope Gregory appointed the abbot of Zirc, the prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Hungary and Lucas, the provost of Győr to verify Bulcsú's claims in his letter issued August 1237.
If Bulcsú was found unfit to fulfill his dignity, he had to be forced to resign and a new bishop should have been elected to supervise the observance of canon law, according to the papal instruction.
Pope Gregory authorized his chaplain Johannes de Civitella, who resided in Hungary during that time, and the abbot of Pilis in February 1241 to examines Bulcsú's state of health.
[24] However their army, accompanied by a large number of civilian refugees, were confronted by the fleeing Cumans in the Danube–Tisza Interfluve, who looted and destroyed many villages on their way towards the Balkan Peninsula via the region Syrmia.
[7] Csanád (today Cenad, Romania), the episcopal see was seized and set on fire by the Mongols led by Böyek (Bogutai), while the whole region was occupied and looted.
