Before 1038 Peter Orseolo was born in
Venice, the only son of
Doge Otto Orseolo. His mother
Grimelda was a sister of
Stephen I, the first King of Hungary; historian Gyula Kristó suggests that he was born in 1010 or 1011. The Venetians rose up and deposed Otto Orseolo in 1026. Peter did not follow his father, who fled to the
Byzantine court in
Constantinople; he instead went to Hungary, where his uncle appointed him commander of the royal army.
Emeric, Stephen's only son to survive infancy, died in an accident in 1031. Stephen's cousin
Vazul had the strongest claim to the throne, but the King overlooked him and named Peter as his heir. On Stephen's order, Vazul was blinded shortly thereafter and his three sons
Levente,
Andrew and
Béla exiled, which strengthened Peter's right of succession. The King asked Peter to take an oath respecting the property of his wife,
Queen Giselle, suggesting that Peter's relationship with his aunt was tense.
First rule (1038–1041) , 1664) Peter succeeded King Stephen I, who died on 15 August 1038, and adopted an active foreign policy. Hungarian troops plundered
Bavaria in 1039 and 1040, and invaded
Bohemia in 1040 to assist Duke
Bretislav I against Holy Roman Emperor Henry III. Hungarian chronicles recount that Peter preferred the company of Germans ("who roared like wild beasts") and Italians ("who chattered and twittered like swallows"), which made him unpopular among his subjects. He introduced new taxes, seized Church revenue and deposed two bishops. Audaciously, Peter confiscated Queen Giselle's property and took her into custody. She sought help from Hungarian lords, who blamed one of Peter's favorites (
Budo) for the monarch's misdeeds and demanded that Budo be put on trial. When the King refused, the lords seized and murdered his unpopular advisor and deposed the monarch in 1041. They elected a new king,
Samuel Aba, who was a brother-in-law or another nephew of King Stephen I.
Exile (1041–1044) Peter first fled to
Austria, seeking the protection of his brother-in-law,
Margrave Adalbert. He approached Emperor Henry III for help against Samuel Aba. The new Hungarian monarch invaded Austria in February 1042, but Adalbert routed Aba's troops. Henry III launched his first expedition against Hungary in early 1042. His forces advanced north of the
Danube to the river
Garam (Hron, Slovakia). The Emperor planned to restore Peter, but the locals were strongly opposed. Accordingly, the Emperor appointed another (unnamed) member of the Hungarian royal family to administer the territories. The Emperor returned to Hungary in the early summer of 1044, and was joined in his advance by many Hungarian lords. The
decisive battle was fought on 5 June at Ménfő (near
Győr), where Samuel Aba's forces were defeated. Although Aba escaped from the battlefield, Peter's supporters soon captured and killed him.
Second rule (1044–1046) Following Samuel Aba's death, Emperor Henry entered
Székesfehérvár and restored Peter. Peter introduced Bavarian law in his realm, which suggests that Hungary became an imperial fief. He accepted the Emperor's suzerainty on
Whitsun 1045, giving his royal lance to his overlord (who returned to Hungary). A number of plots to overthrow Peter indicate that he remained unpopular. Two of King Stephen I's maternal cousins (Bolya and Bonyha) conspired against Peter in 1045, but the King had them arrested, tortured and executed. Bishop
Gerard of Csanád invited Vazul's exiled sons to the country. An
uprising by pagan commoners ended Peter's second rule in 1046. Peter planned to flee again to the
Holy Roman Empire, but Vazul's son Andrew (who had returned to Hungary) invited him to a meeting at Székesfehérvár. The deposed king soon realised that Andrew's envoys actually wanted to arrest him. He fled to a fortified manor at
Zámoly, but his opponent's supporters seized it and captured him three days later. All 14th-century Hungarian chronicles attest that Peter was blinded, which caused his death. However, the near-contemporary
Cosmas of Prague relates that
Judith of Schweinfurt, widow of Duke
Bretislaus I of Bohemia who was expelled by her son, fled to Hungary and married Peter about 1055 "as an insult to"
her son "and all the Czechs". If the latter report is reliable, Peter survived the ordeal and died during the late 1050s. He was buried in the cathedral of
Pécs. His original tomb was excavated in June 2019. '' ==Family==