King Ladislas I of Hungary – alternatively Saint Ladislas, Saint Lasislaus or Saint László – is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. He isn’t a well-known one to be sure ranking in sort of middle-ish obscurity between the totally obscure like Saint Botolph of Thorney and Saint Magnus Erlendsson of Orkney to the known but obscure like Saint Monica of Hippo and Saint Maria Goretti of Nettuno.
The interesting thing about the eleventh century Hungarian King Ladislas I is that he was an ardent Catholic Christian and as a result of which he was an ardent opponent of the jews as well as the forces of Islam. (1) As a result of which Ladislas took it upon himself to a introduce legislation – in the vein of the seventh century 28 Jew Laws of King Erwig of the Visigoths – (2) to address the jewish question in eleventh century Hungary: (3)
‘The laws of Saint Ladislas forbade marriage between Jews and Christians. Jews could not keep Christian servants. Christians could not sell servants to Jews. Jews could not by land and could reside only in diocesan centres.’ (4)
Similar laws were also applied by Ladislas to other enemies of Christianity most notably Muslims (5) in a similar vein to the famous Romanian monarch Vlad the Impaler who also fought both jews and Muslims as enemies of both Europe and Christianity. (6)
Thus we can see that – while there isn’t much other information about Ladislas’ attitude to the jews – he was certainly an opponent of theirs
References
(1) Jean Sedlar, 1994, ‘East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500’, 1st Edition, University of Washington Press: Seattle, p. 56
(2) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-origins-of-the-28-jew-laws-of
(3) Edward Palmer, 1875, ‘A History of the Jewish Nation’, 2nd Edition, D. Lothrop: Boston, p. 101 ; Raphael Patai, Jennifer Patai, 1989, ‘The Myth of the Jewish Race’, 2nd Edition, Wayne State University Press: Detroit, p. 125
(4) Nandor Dreisziger, 2016, ‘Church and Society in Hungary and in the Hungarian Diaspora’, 1st Edition, University of Toronto Press: Toronto, p. 55
(5) Ibid.; also https://kosherica.com/jews-in-hungary/
(6) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/vlad-the-impaler-opponent-of-muslims