Lodomer (; died 2 January 1298) was a prelate in the Kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the 13th century. He was Archbishop of Esztergom between 1279 and 1298, and Bishop of Várad (now Oradea in Romania) from 1268 till 1279. He was an opponent of Ladislaus IV of Hungary whom he excommunicated for failing to force the Cumans to adopt the Christian way of life. After Ladislaus' death, Lodomer and his suffragans were dedicated supporters of Andrew III of Hungary, who aimed to restore strong royal power against the rebellious lords and oligarchs.
Theories of origin
Lodomer or Ladomer was presumably born in the 1230s, not long before the First Mongol invasion of Hungary. He had an unnamed sister, the mother of Thomas, also an Archbishop of Esztergom, who studied in the University of Padua, courtesy of Lodomer. His ancestry, parentage and kinship relations have long been disputed among historians. Based on alleged "old manuscripts", 18th-century historian Miklós Schmitth claimed Lodomer originated from the territory of the Kievan Rus', and was a relative of Rostislav Mikhailovich and the Rurikids. (Lodomer can be interpreted as a Latinized form of the Slavic name Vladimir.) It is presumable that, in fact, Schmitth deduced that conclusion only from the prelate's forename and its similarity to Ruthenian principality Lodomeria. Referring to a papal letter allegedly from the end of the 13th century, historian János Török also argued in favour of the Ruthenian ancestry in 1853. He argued Lodomer's real name was John and called himself "Lodomericus" ("a man from Lodomeria") after arriving to Hungary. However contemporary scholar Nándor Knauz proved that papal letter was written 100 years later, at the end of the 14th century, and it referred to then archbishop John Kanizsai.
Himself Knauz also dealt with the issue in his large-scale monography Monumenta ecclesiae Strigoniensis. He claimed Lodomer originated from the gens (clan) Monoszló and has put forward three arguments; Archbishop Lodomer called a certain Maurice of Mencshely and Gregory, son of Saul from Monoszló as his blood relatives ("consanguineorum nostrorum") in 1292, when he donated his land of Henye in Zala County to them. When Gregory bought Sásdi (near to Monoszló) in 1297, the cathedral chapter of Veszprém referred to him as Lodomer's nephew ("nepos"). In 1317, Charles I of Hungary mentioned his loyal servant Egidius, son of Gregory, who died without male heir, as a member of the Monoszló clan. Thus Knauz identified Gregory, Lodomer's nephew with Gregory II Monoszló, the father of Egidius. A 1296 charter also mentioned that Gregory related to Bánd and Csaba, members of the gens Atyusz. Lodomer's biographer (2003), theologian Margit Beke supported Knauz's claim, arguing Lodomer issued his last surviving charter in late 1297 in Monoszló, two months before his death. However genealogist János Karácsonyi refused Knauz's theory, as Gregory Monoszló's father was Thomas, as he already outlined the clan's family tree at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
For the first time, Karácsonyi's contemporary Mór Wertner identified Lodomer as a member of the Vázsony kindred, as he considered Bánd and Csaba belonged to that clan too. Later he revised his position and claimed the archbishop was the son of a certain Lawrence, a local landowner in Henye, mentioned by a royal charter in 1237. Historian Attila Zsoldos refused Wertner's argument, as the fact that Lodomer was granted landholding in Henye is not necessarily link to his hypothetical ancestry. Instead, Zsoldos clearly identified Maurice of Mencshely with Maurice Vázsony, the bailiff of Archbishop Lodomer's episcopal court in Esztergom. Zsoldos assumed Lodomer was the brother of Gregory's father, Saul, himself also a son of certain Mika. After philological and canon law considerations regarding the phrase "consanguineus" used by the well-educated Lodomer in 1292, historian Tamás Körmendi argued that Maurice and Gregory were the archbishop's patrilineal relatives – thus Lodomer himself was indeed a member of the Vázsony clan and the son of Mika. Historian Péter Kis considered that there were two Monoszló clans at the end of the era of Árpáds: the first, which originated from today's Podravska Moslavina (; in Croatia) and provided influential barons; and the second one, a significantly poorer and minor clan, Lodomer allegedly belonged to this, which came from Monoszló in Veszprém County, near to Vázsony and Mencshely.