in this period. Géza even allowed his Muslim soldiers to take concubines. Early years Géza was born the eldest son of Béla the Blind, a cousin of King Stephen II of Hungary, and Helena of Serbia in 1130. Géza's father had been blinded, together with his rebellious father, Álmos, in the 1110s on the order of Stephen II's father, Coloman, King of Hungary, who wanted to ensure Stephen's succession. When Géza was born, his parents lived on an estate that King Stephen had granted them in Tolna. Géza's father succeeded King Stephen in the spring of 1131. In the same year, Queen Helena took Géza and his younger brother, Ladislaus, to an assembly held at Arad, where she ordered the massacre of sixty-eight noblemen "by whose counsel the King had been blinded", according to the Illuminated Chronicle. Reign Minor king (1141–1146) King Béla died on 13 February 1141 and Géza succeeded him without opposition. The eleven-year-old Géza was crowned king on 16 February. During his regency, his mother and her brother, Beloš, ruled the kingdom in the first years of his reign. One of Géza's first charters, issued in 1141, confirmed the privileges of the citizens of Split in Dalmatia. In the charter, Géza is titled as "By the Grace of God, King of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia and Rama". According to historian Paul Stephenson, the towns of central Dalmatiaincluding Šibenik and Trogiraccepted Géza's suzerainty after a Hungarian invasion around 1142. Hungarian troops assisted Prince Volodimerko of Halychwho had been the ally of Géza's father against the pretender Boriswhen Great Prince Vsevolod II of Kiev invaded Halych in 1144. Although the Hungarian auxiliaries "were of no use whatsoever", according to the Hypatian Codex, the grand prince could not occupy Volodimerko's principality. Boris was the son of Eufemia of Kiev, King Coloman of Hungary's second wife, whom the king expelled on the charge of adultery before Boris's birth. According to the chronicler Bishop Otto of Freising, Boris approached Conrad III of Germany to seek his assistance against Géza at the end of 1145. Upon the recommendation of Vladislav II of Bohemia, the German monarch authorized Boris to muster an army of mercenaries in Bavaria and Austria. Boris stormed Hungary and took the fortress of Pressburg (present-day Bratislava in Slovakia). The royal forces soon imposed a blockade on the fortress and convinced Boris's mercenaries to surrender without resistance in exchange for compensation. The