I of Hungary, which was under the command of Csanád. According to a scholarly theory, first proposed by historian György Györffy, Stephen I established Arad County after Ajtony's fall. On the other hand, historian Gyula Kristó writes that Ajtony's whole realm was transformed into the large Csanád County during Stephen I's reign; Arad County only developed into a separate administrative unit in the second half of the or in the . Middle Ages The remains of an 11th-century stronghold, made of earth and timber, were found at Arad. At an assembly held in Arad in 1131, the wife of King Béla the Blind, Helena of Rascia, ordered the massacre of 68 Hungarian lords. Arad Castle and the estates attached to it were first documented in a royal charter, issued in 1177. The first known ispán, or head, of Arad County, Paul Csanád, was mentioned in a royal diploma, dated to 1214, but its authenticity is suspect. The earliest authentic document that referred to an ispán of Arad was issued in 1240. The western regions of the county were included in the Deanery of Arad of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Csanád; the Archdean of Arad was first mentioned in 1288. The earliest documents suggest that the kings owned most lands in the plains along the Maros. However, the distribution of royal domains started at the end of the . For instance, Ladislaus I of Hungary and his brother, Lampert, granted five villages to the Titel Chapter before 1095 and Béla the Blind established the Arad Chapter in the 1130s. The Hodos clan was the only local noble kindred in the county; they were the patrons of the Hodoș-Bodrog Monastery. Members of the Csanád, Csák and Dorozsma clans received estates in Arad County in the early . The effects of the Mongol invasion of Hungary cannot exactly be determined, but at least four monasteries disappeared. Solymos Castle (in present-day Șoimoș in Lipova), the first fortress built by a nobleman in the county, was erected after the withdrawal of the Mongols. Ecclesiastic institutions, prelates and lay lordsincluding the bishop of Csanád, the Arad Chapter and the Garais, Lackfis and Telegdisheld most former royal estates in the first half of the . The existence of four elected "judges of the nobles" was first documented in 1311, proving that Arad County had transformed into a "noble county", an institution of the local noblemen's self-government.