Research Notes:

The Vita Arnulfi names "Arnulfum comitem de Lo et Sophiam ducissam de Hungaria…et ducissam de Hui" as the children of Emmo Comte de Looz, adding that Sophie was the mother of "regem de Hungaria". This manuscript, written at Oudenbourg abbey, is dated to 1220. This is late to be reliable. In addition, the document represents the ancestors of Comte Emmo in a way which is inconsistent with earlier primary sources. "Ducissam de Huy" has not yet been identified. Sophie is identified as the first wife of King Géza in Europäische Stammtafeln. Kerbl, in his analysis concerning Géza I's [second] Byzantine marriage, does not mention this supposed first marriage. If it is correct, the marriage presumably took place while Géza was a hostage at the imperial court, which Kerbl dates to [1062/63]. This is consistent with Sophie having been born in [1044/46], which is somewhat earlier than the expected birth dates of Emmo´s other children. As the county of Looz was among the temporal possessions of the Bishop of Liège and, as such, part of the duchy of Lower Lotharingia under the suzerainty of the German emperor, it would not be improbable for a daughter of the comte de Looz to have been staying at the imperial court and for her marriage to have been arranged with another noble visitor. The Vita Andreæ, first abbot of Averboden, in the Chronicle written by Nicolas Hogeland Abbot of Middelburg, records that "Sophia de Los, Hungariæ regina, comitis Arnoldi Lossensis soror" sent letters to her brother after hearing that he intended to found Averboden abbey. This report is clearly anachronistic as the abbey in question was founded in 1135, when Sophie de Looz could not possibly have been queen of Hungary. The question remains whether Sophie´s supposed marriage to King Géza I is based on speculation, suggested by an as yet unidentified secondary source which was trying to make some sense of the passages in the Vita Arnulfi and the Vita Andreæ by identifying the most likely Hungarian king who could have been Sophie´s husband.... Whatever the truth of the matter, the chronology of the births of King Géza´s older children suggests that their mother could not have been the Byzantine wife whom he married in [1066/75]. ¹