Mikod (also Mikud or Mykud) was born into the gens (clan) Kökényesradnót,[1] which initially possessed landholdings in the southeastern part of Nógrád County.
[1] Two donation letters of King Ladislaus IV of Hungary, issued in June and July 1279, preserved details on Mikod's military service from the earlier decades.
According to the narration, when Mikod and his soldiers, as part of the vanguard army, tried to break into the fort and to set his own flag inside, Ottokar's defenders severely injured his right hand and rib with a spear.
[2] By the early 1260s, both Mikod and Emeric Kökényesradnót were considered important partisans of Duke Stephen, King Béla's eldest son and heir, who administered his provinces in Styria, then Transylvania.
Thereafter, the Kökényesradnót brothers were also oriented in Transylvania, establishing a wealth there and roughly abandoning their inherited possessions in Transdanubia, which laid in senior king Béla's domain.
According to the aforementioned charter of Ladislaus IV from July 1279, both Mikod and Emeric took an active part in the fighting, are the only known persons who were present in all battles along the Transylvanian front.
[9] Simultaneously, Béla IV launched another attack against Stephen's province in Northeast Hungary, while the Cuman vanguard was followed by an army of greater significance led by Lawrence, son of Kemény, which forced the younger king and his accompaniment to retreat to Feketehalom (Codlea, Romania) in the easternmost corner of Transylvania.
[6] As a compensation, he was granted the village Bálványos (today Unguraș, Romania) and its namesake castle with a surrounding settlement called Németi and its accessories in the same county in 1269.
Béla IV also donated Koppánd and Ivánkatelke (today Copand and Căptălan, respectively, Romania) along the river Maros (Mureș) to Mikod and Emeric in the same year.
The document confirms that, beside the aforementioned settlements, Mikod and Emeric were the owners of Jenő (today Fundătura, Romania) in Doboka County (also a former donation from Stephen).
Because of their loyal service and "heroic" involvement in the civil war, Mikod and Emeric were granted large-scale donations in Transylvania, altogether 13 known possessions in four counties, including two former royal fortresses by Stephen V.[15] The brothers were granted surrounding estates and villages near Doboka Castle – today all belongs to Doboka (Dăbâca, Romania) – and an uninhabited land Lózsárd (Lujerdiu), in addition to another estates along the Aranyos river, Kerekegyház, Igrictelek and Mészkő (Cheia) near Torda.
[16][17] Nevertheless, Mikod remained a close ally of those barons, who once were considered confidants of the late Stephen V and consisted one of the two rivaling baronial groups during the 1270s civil war.
[19] Around the same time, Mikod built his fort, Torda Castle in Aranyos Valley, to the west of the namesake town on the border of his estates (Szentmiklós, Kerekegyház, Igrictelek and Mészkő).
Unable to pay the summon, Mikod donated his land Szentmiklós to Peter Monoszló, Bishop of Transylvania in order to finance the re-construction of the St. Michael's Cathedral in March 1288.
[24] Mikod pledged a portion of his village Nagyfalu in Baranya County to his "relatives" Julius and Peter Kán in March 1294 for 50 silver marks with a redemption period of seven months.