Sarolt exerted a powerful influence on her husband which allowed her to also influence his government.[3] She was watched with suspicion by Catholic missionaries.[4] The chronicles accused her of drinking insatiably and even committing manslaughter.
Sarolt and her husband received baptism late in life. They raised their son as a Christian and changed his name from Vajk to Stephen as a sign of their faith.[5] After her husband's death in 997, one of his distant cousins, Koppány, who declared his claim to the leadership of the Magyars against her son, Stephen (Vajk), wanted to marry Sarolt, referring to the Hungarian tradition. Koppány, nevertheless, was defeated, and shortly afterward Sarolt's son was crowned as the first King of Hungary.
According to the Gesta Hungarorum, Sarolt had a sister named Karold and a brother. This brother can be identified as Gyula III.
Sarolt was born around 950 (based on the birth years of her children). Her name is of Turkic origins (Šar-oldu) and means white stoat.[6] She was married to Géza around 970, which was likely also the start of his rule as Grand Prince of the Hungarians. Géza was a great-grandson of Árpád, who led the Hungarian tribes during the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin.
^"In these days, he [Saint Adalbert] sent [a letter] to the High Prince of the Magyars, or rather to his wife who had been holding the whole country in her power with a hand of a man, and who had been governing everything owned by her husband" (Bruno of Querfurt: Sancti Adalberti Pragensis episcopi et martyris vita altera).
^"Christian faith made its start under her direction, but the sullied religion mingled with paganism, and this idle and faint Christianity was turning worse than barbarism" (Bruno of Querfurt: Sancti Adalberti Pragensis episcopi et martyris vita altera).
^Commire, Anne, ed. (2002). "Sarolta (fl. 900s)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications. p. 806. ISBN0-7876-4074-3.
