A member of the family, John Szapolyai, was King of Hungary between 1526 and 1540, but he only ruled the central and eastern parts of the kingdom, because many Hungarian lords and prelates supported his opponent, Ferdinand of Habsburg.

The first known member of the family was one Ladislaus Vajdafi Szapolyai, who was a Slavonian nobleman with estates in former Požega County.

[1] Most notably the today small eponymous village Zapolje in Rešetari municipality, Brod-Posavina county.

[2] His eldest son, Emeric, was the first member of the family to achieve the status of "true baron of the realm" when Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, appointed him high treasurer in 1459 or 1460.

[3][4] The sudden emergence of Emeric and his two brothers – Nicholas and Stephen – during Matthias Corvinus's reign gave rise to scholarly theories about their kinship with the royal Hunyadi family.