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Poznan was the name of a Slovak noble house in the Kingdom of Hungary, of Swabian origin, as well as the surname of several members of the family. By marriage with the Hunt family in the late 12th century, they created the house of Hunt-Poznan.
Some Hungarian authors give the name as "Pázmány" for one of the latter branches of the house of Hunt-Poznan. Contemporary sources also sometimes cite the name as "Patzmann/Pazman" (see source section below).
According to some historical and genealogy research, the Poznans came from Germany, but according to others the ancestors of this family were already nobles at the time of Great Moravia and preserved their possessions after the incorporation of their territories into the arising Hungarian state.
In the 10th century, the (Nitra-) Poznans were one of the local noble families, ruling in the region of today's north western Slovakia. When Michael of the House of Árpád ruled the neighboring Principality of Nitra (south western Slovakia; 970 - 995), the Poznans acknowledged his sovereignty over southern parts of their possessions and became nobles at the court of Michael in Nitra.
During the 10th century the Poznans kept their Christian faith (the territory was converted to Christianity around 800 and then again by Cyril and Methodius after 864). They oversaw the famous, but now partly devastated, (?) Benedictine monastery below Zobor hill and became it's secular patrons in the last quarter of the 10th century.
After Michael's death Vajk (Stephen I) (995-997) became the new prince of Nitra . Young Stephen and the local nobility, spearheaded by the Poznan and Hunt houses, developed very close personal ties. While fighting the Koppány rebellion in 997, Stephen took shelter with his "magnates" Poznan and Hunt ("Poznano" and "Cuntio"); they in turn made him a knight and added their troops to the retinue of Stephen's Bavarian wife Giselle, which consisting largely of German knights. The united forces then defeated Koppány, making Stephen the sole ruler of the emerging Hungarian state.
As a reward Stephen granted Poznan and Hunt estates in the Nitrian principality and former Koppány's possessions in Somogy, appointed them his bodyguards, and throughout his reign were in constant attendance and influenced all his decisions. By the 11th and 12th centuries the Poznans estates were mainly in the valley of the Nitra river.
Subsequently many side branches split off from the family and considered themselves separate families beginning around 1200. The old so-called Zobor deeds of 1111 and 1113 mention 12 nobles from Nitra who had to confirm by oath the privileges granted to the Zobor Abbey by King Stephen I. At least four of the nobles mentioned came from the family of the Poznans.
Important members of the direct line were prominent nobles in the kingdom, Kozma of Poznan and his brother or cousin Moses of Poznan. Kozma, for example, led other nobles to revolt against King Stephen II on an expedition to Galicia in 1123.
One of the descendants of Kozma was "Poznan". His sons were:
- Farkas (bequeathed his estates to the Benedictine monastery in Sväty Beňadik in around 1164-1165),
- Csanád (owned estates around Nitrianska Blatnica), and
- Ambróz (properties around the lower Váh and Hron rivers).
Ambróz is the oldest known ancestor of the Forgách Ivanč family and probably the father of the Nitra administrator Thomas, the ancestor of the counts of Svätý Jur and Pezinok. Thomas and his sons Alexander and Sebes occupied important posts in the kingdom and received immense estates, mainly in the region of Bratislava in 1206-1218, because they had been loyal adherents of Duke (later King) Andrew in his wars with King Emerich.
Moses' descendants were the noble Sek, Šišov-Hradná and the Gečs from Bučany.
The Poznan' male line died out in the mid-12th century; allied by marriage to the Hunts, the line became "Hunt-Poznan".
Sources
- Ján Lukačka: Beginnings of the formation of Aristocracy on the territory of Slovakia (available online)
- Lukačka, Ján. 2002. Formovanie vyššej šľachty na západnom Slovensku.
- Ján Steinhübel: Nitrianske kniežatstvo , Veda, vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied + Vydavateľstvo Rak, 2004, Bratislava
- Hunt-Poznan in: Slovakia and the Slovaks - A concise encyclopaedia, Encyklopedical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1994