Rostislav Mikhailovich - His Struggle For Halych

His Struggle For Halych

Béla IV, who had returned home from Dalmatia after May in 1242, approved Rostislav’s marriage to his daughter, Anna. The king was seeking to organize a new defensive system by creating client states to the south and east of Hungary, and in his search for a vassal whom he could appoint to Halych, he chose Rostislav.

On learning that Béla IV had given his daughter in marriage to Rostislav, his father believed that his efforts to form an alliance with the Árpád dynasty had finally been realized. Mikhail Vsevolodovich therefore rode to Hungary expecting to negotiate the agreements that normally accompanied such an alliance. However, Béla IV rebuffed him, and he, greatly angered also by his son, returned to Chernigov and disowned Rostislav.

Acting as his father-in-law’s agent, Rostislav made two unsuccessful attacks of Halych. Sometime in 1244, he led a Hungarian force against Przemyśl; Daniil Romanovich, however, marshaled his troops and routed the attackers making Rostislav flee to Hungary. In the following year, Rostislav recruited many Hungarians and Poles and launched an attack against Jarosław north of Przemyśl; on August 17, 1245, his uncle, with Cuman help, annihilated the enemy, and Rostislav had to flee again to Hungary.

In this battle, where the horse of our most liked son-in-law, the prince /Rostislav/, who have already been mentioned several times, was killed, Master Lőrinc, following steadily the passion of customary faithfulness and thinking more of the life of the above-mentioned prince than his own life, gave the horse he was riding to the prince mentioned above, and he flung himself at the thick lines of the enemy exposing himself to streams of perils, which have been proven to us by the narration of the above-mentioned prince and the reports of our many followers and other trustworthy men. —King Béla’s Charter of April 13, 1264 to Lőrinc, Judge of the Royal Court and Count of Moson

After his defeat, Rostislav never returned to Halych.