Peter, son of Petenye

Peter, son of Petenye
Ispán of Zemplén
Reign	1312–1317
Predecessor	Amadeus Aba (?)
Successor	Mikcs Ákos
Died	between 1318 and 1321
Issue a son
Father	Petenye

Peter, son of Petenye (Hungarian: Petenye fia Péter, Slovak: Peter Peteň; died 1318/1321) was a Hungarian lord at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. Initially a loyal supporter of King Charles I, he turned against the royal power and established a de facto independent province in Zemplén County after 1312, exploiting that political vacuum, which emerged following the dissolution of the Abas' dominion.

There is nothing known about his origin and family relationships. His father was a certain Petenye (also Petene or Pethune), who served as Master of the treasury in the court of Elizabeth, spouse of junior king Stephen. Historian Jenő Szűcs claimed that Peter's namesake great-grandfather ("Peter I") owned Vécse (today Vojčice, Slovakia) by 1217 (while others argue it referred to a member of the Aba clan from the Tarján branch). Accordingly, four generations bore the same forename in the upcoming decades. His son, Peter II ("the Freckled") bought Albény and Tehna with the permission of King Béla IV in 1245. Szűcs argued this was the first step in the development of the Gálszécs lordship (today Sečovce, Slovakia), the core of Peter, son of Petenye's dominion. These lands were part of the so-called "gyepűelve", a mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited area beyond the eastern border of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Peter, son of Petenye first appeared in contemporary authentic charters since 1283, during the reign of Ladislaus IV, although a false diploma already mentioned him in 1263. In that year (1283), Ladislaus IV donated him the so-called Veker's Gate near the Veker (today Krivošťanka) Mountains, once an important part of the Hungarian border system in the eastern territories. Alongside Reynold Básztély, former Palatine of Hungary and a certain James, he served as noble judge (Hungarian: szolgabíró; lit. "servants' judge") of Zemplén County sometimes after 1289 (some historians dated to around 1286 and 1291). By 1297, Peter owned Gálszécs (or Szécs), the territorial centre of his landholdings. The village of Szőllőske also belonged to his property as an "inherited land" in 1298. By 1308, when a charter referred to the lordship as "land beyond Terebes" (today Trebišov, Slovakia), he owned several villages and estates between the Bodrog and Tisza rivers (the region of Bodrogköz), for instance Rozvágy, Salamon (today Solomonovo, Ukraine), Záhony, Kiszte, Kásó (today Kysta and Kašov in Slovakia, respectively). When Charles I confiscated Peter's lands in 1317, the Gálszécs lordship consisted of 18 villages.

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