When the Kingdom of Hungary took shape, the hill became the seat of a royal county — a stolica, run by a count the king appointed, who collected the taxes and led the soldiers of the district. A stone castle was standing here in the eleventh century, and beside it a church of the Holy Saviour, built straight onto the Great Moravian foundations. The border with the German Empire was only a few kilometres west, so the castle was besieged: in 1052 Emperor Henry III camped below it for two months and went home without it. Hungarian chroniclers added the story of a swimmer called Zothmund, who is said to have dived at night and holed the German ships — a good story, written down long afterwards, and impossible to prove.Keď sa sformovalo Uhorské kráľovstvo, stal sa kopec sídlom kráľovskej stolice — župy, ktorú spravoval kráľom dosadený župan: vyberal dane a viedol vojsko celého okolia. V 11. storočí tu stál kamenný hrad a pri ňom kostol svätého Spasiteľa, postavený rovno na veľkomoravských základoch. Hranica s ríšou bola na západ len pár kilometrov, a tak hrad zažil obliehanie: v roku 1052 pod ním cisár Henrich III. ležal dva mesiace a odišiel s prázdnymi rukami. Uhorskí kronikári k tomu pridali príbeh plavca menom Zothmund, ktorý vraj v noci prevŕtal nemecké lode — pekná historka, zapísaná dlho po udalosti, a dokázať sa nedá.
