Assassination of Gertrude of Merania

Assassination of Gertrude of Merania
Murder of Gertrude, depicted the 9th painting of Life of St. Elisabeth of Hungary cycle in Heiligen-Geist-Hospital, Lübeck (15th century)
Location	Pilis Mountains, Kingdom of Hungary
Date	28 September 1213 (1213-09-28)
Target	Queen Gertrude of Merania
Attack type	Assassination by stabbing
Perpetrators	group of Hungarian lords led by Peter, son of Töre
Motive	Possible grudge against German (Meranian) influence or personal motives against Gertrude

Gertrude of Merania, the queen consort of Hungary as the first wife of King Andrew II (r. 1205–1235), was assassinated by a group of Hungarian lords on 28 September 1213 in the Pilis Mountains during a royal hunting expedition. Leopold VI, Duke of Austria and Gertrude's brother Berthold, Archbishop of Kalocsa were also wounded but survived the attack.

The assassination became one of the most high-profile criminal cases in the history of Hungary, and caused widespread astonishment across Europe in the 13th century. Despite a relatively diverse and large number of domestic and foreign sources, the motivation of the killers is unclear. According to contemporary sources, Gertrude's blatant favoritism towards her German kinsmen and courtiers had stirred up discontent among the native lords and prompted her murder. Later tradition says that Gertrude's brother Berthold raped the wife of Bánk Bár-Kalán, one of the lords, who, along with his companions, took revenge for the grievance. This story inspired many subsequent chroniclers and literary works in Hungary and the rest of Europe.