Glad (Bulgarian: Глад, Hungarian: Galád, Romanian: Glad, Serbian: Глад) was the ruler of Banat (in present-day Romania and Serbia) at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 900 AD, according to the Gesta Hungarorum. The Gesta, which was written by an author known in modern scholarship as Anonymus in the second half of the 12th century or in the early 13th century, is the earliest extant Hungarian chronicle. The Gesta did not refer to the enemies of the conquering Hungarians (or Magyars), who had been mentioned in earlier annals and chronicles, but wrote of a dozen persons, including Glad, who are unknown from other primary sources of the Hungarian Conquest. Therefore, modern historians debate whether Glad was an actual enemy of the conquerors or only a "fictitious person" made up by Anonymus. In Romanian historiography, based on the mention by Anonymus some 300 years later, Glad is described as one of the three Romanian dukes who ruled a historical region of present-day Romania in the early 10th century.

According to the Gesta, Glad came from Vidin in Bulgaria. He occupied Banat with the assistance of "Cumans" before the arrival of the Magyars. Anonymus wrote that Cumans, Bulgarians, and Vlachs (or Romanians), supported Glad against the invading Magyars, but the latter annihilated their united army in a battle near the Timiș River. The Gesta presents Ahtum, who ruled Banat in the early 11th century, according to the longer version of the Life of St Gerard, as Glad's descendant.

The earliest record of the Magyars (or Hungarians) is connected to their alliance with the Bulgars against a group of Byzantine prisoners who were planning to cross the Lower Danube in an attempt to return to their homeland around 837 AD. They dwelled in the steppes north and northwest of the Black Sea. A group of rebellious subjects of the Khazar Khaganate, known as Kabars, joined them, according to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The Annals of St. Bertin states that the Magyars launched their first military expedition against the Carolingian Empire in 861.

The Magyars invaded Bulgaria in alliance with the Byzantine Empire in 894. In retaliation, the Bulgars entered into an alliance with the Pechenegs. They jointly invaded the Magyars' lands, forcing them to leave the Pontic steppes and cross the Carpathian Mountains in search of a new homeland. In the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars "roamed in the wildernesses of the Pannonians and Avars" before attacking "the lands of the Carinthians, Moravians and Bulgars", according to the contemporaneous Regino of Prüm.

The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin is the principal subject of the Gesta Hungarorum, which is the earliest extant Hungarian chronicle. Most scholars agree that a notary of Béla III of Hungary, who ruled between 1173 and 1196, wrote the Gesta after the king's death. According to an alternative theory, the author of the Gesta, who is now known as Anonymus, had served Béla II of Hungary before starting to complete his work around 1150. Anonymus did not write of Svatopluk I of Moravia, Braslav, Duke of Lower Pannonia and the invading Magyars' other opponents who had been mentioned in works written in earlier centuries. Neither did he refer to the Magyars' fights with the Moravians, Franks and Bavarians which had been described in earlier annals and chronicles. On the other hand, Anonymus wrote of local polities and rulers—including Gelou, the Vlach duke of Transylvania, Menumorut, the lord of the regions between the rivers Mureș, Someș and Tisza, and Salanus, the Bulgar ruler of the lands between the Danube and the Tisza—unknown from other primary sources.

Stirrups, horse bits and spear points from inhumation graves unearthed at Sânpetru German suggest that the Avars settled along the Mureș River in Banat soon after their conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late 560s. However, most archaeological finds in the lands south of the Mureș that had been attributed to the Avars are dated to the "Late Avar" period. Written sources show the survival of Gepids under Avar rule in the wider region of the Timiș River. For instance, the Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta wrote of "three Gepid settlements" which were destroyed by an invading Byzantine army in 599 or 600. A rich burial yielding weapons unearthed at Pančevo and the Treasure of Sânnicolau Mare show that an important center of power existed in Banat in the "Late Avar" period, according to archaeologist Florin Curta. However, "Late Avar" cemeteries did not survive the 8th century.

The Franks launched a series of expeditions against the Avar Khaganate in 790s, causing its disintegration. Krum of Bulgaria, who reigned between around 802 and 814, soon tried to take advantage of the fall of the Avars and invaded former Avar territories, but no contemporaneous report mentioned his conquest in the Carpathian Basin. The Abodrites who lived in "Dacia on the Danube as neighbors of the Bulgars" sent envoys to Emperor Louis the Pious in 824, complaining "about vicious aggression by the Bulgars" and seeking the emperor's assistance against them, according to the Royal Frankish Annals. The Abodrites inhabited the lands along either the Timiș or the Tisza. According to a memorial inscription from Provadia, a Bulgar military commander, Onegavonais, drowned in the Tisza, implying Omurtag of Bulgaria's attempts to expand his rule in the region in the 820s. The Bulgars invaded Moravia in 863 and 883, suggesting that they controlled at least the crossing-points across the rivers Mureș and Tisza, according to the historian István Bóna.

Bóna writes that the Bavarian Geographer is the last source which contains contemporaneous information of the eastern regions of the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. According to this source, which is actually a list of the tribes inhabiting the lands east of the Carolingian Empire around 840, the Merehani, who had 30 civitates, or fortified centers, lived along the southernmost parts of the empire's eastern frontiers. Their land also bordered on Bulgaria. According to an alternative theory of the location of Moravia, which is primarily based on the Bavarian Geographer and Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus's report of "great Moravia, the unbaptized", Banat was the center of this early medieval polity, which was annihilated by the conquering Magyars. Archaeologist Silviu Oța identifies the Merehani with the Abodrites, adding that they were obviously a Slavic tribe. The name of the Karaš and other rivers implies that a population speaking a Turkic language—Avar, Bulgar, or Pecheneg—also inhabited the Banat in the Early Middle Ages, but those rivers may have received their names only in the 11th and 12th centuries.