Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages
Encyclopedia
The Kingdom of Hungary was formed from the previous Principality of Hungary
with the coronation of Stephen I in AD 1000. This was a result of the conversion
of Géza of Hungary
to the Western Church in the 970s.
This kingdom was led by the Árpád Dynasty
for the next three centuries. Eventually the Árpád line died out and the Kingdom of Hungary again descended into anarchy, with the most powerful nobles competing for control.
After the Árpád Dynasty ended, Hungary's nobles chose a series of foreign kings who re-established strong royal authority.
The kingdom disintegrated as a result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Before the Ottoman occupancy, on 24 February 1538, the Habsburgs and Szapolyai divided the kingdom according to the secret agreement of Nagyvárad. The country was effectively split into three parts in 1541: a central portion controlled by the Ottoman Empire
as Budin Province
, a western part controlled by Habsburg Austria as Royal Hungary
, and Transylvania
as the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom
which became an Ottoman vassal state.
until the establishment of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary
in 1867.
The term Natio Hungarica
was reserved for the elite with participation in the Hungarian Diet.
In the 970s—as a pressing result of the changed domestic and foreign affairs—chief prince Géza
adopted Christianity
, and started spreading it in the country. At the same time he started to organize the central power, too. He hardly ever made war against foreign countries during his 25-year-long princely rule. His peace policy was reinforced by dynastic marriages—which were quite usual at that time—between his children and members of foreign ruling families, in order to consolidate the rule of the Magyars in the Carpathian Basin.
Géza
's efforts to establish a stable state power and guarantee the throne for his son were not successful because he had to share the country with the other members of the principal family. Prince Koppány
also laid claim to the throne. In the Hungarian succession the theory of seniority
—the right of the oldest living brother—prevailed. Koppány
also laid claim upon the principal's widow, Sarolt
. Géza's will, that his first-born son should inherit the throne, contradicted the ancestral right.
In connection with adopting Christianity, the question of vital importance was whether Hungary should join the western
or the Eastern Orthodox Church
. Initially (around 948) the Hungarian noblemen joined the Byzantine Church. In the autumn of 972 Saint Adalbert of Prague
was sent as bishop of the Hungarians by Pope Silvester II
to spread western Christianity among the Hungarians. He christened Géza and his family. His wife, Sharolt, had been baptized by a Greek
bishop in her early childhood. The decision to accept the second christening was dictated by foreign relations. The last phase of the Hungarian raids was directed against the southeast, and this alienated the Byzantines
. It may have been a warning to the Hungarian principality when the Byzantine emperor abolished the political
and religious
independence of Bulgaria
in the mid 11th century, after a period of short integration of the First Bulgarian Empire
and the Eastern Roman Empire.
Consequently, the Hungarian chief prince needed the political, moral
, and occasional military help of the German empire because of the Byzantine threat. Adopting western Christianity
was thus both a cultural
and a political event for the Hungarians. During Géza's reign, the plundering campaigns came to an end. His efforts to establish a country independent of other powers was almost successful before he died.
When Géza died the issue of succession to the throne created tension at the court: by ancestral right Koppány
should have claimed the throne, but Géza chose his first-born son to be his successor. The fight in the chief prince's family started after Géza's death, in 997. Koppány
took up arms, and many people in Transdanubia
joined him. The rebels represented the old faith and order, tribal independence and the pagan belief. His opposer, Vajk Stephen, got the name István (Stephen) when he was christened, at that time the prince of Nitra
, supported by the loyal Magyar lords and German and Italian knights wanted to join European Christian community of independent states. Stephen won the throne struggle and became chieftain/prince. The victory of the Christian István over the pagan Koppány
in the battle for succession was of the utmost importance in determining the future course of Hungarian history.
Stephen consolidated his rule by ousting other rival clan chiefs and confiscating their lands. Stephen then asked Pope Sylvester II to recognize him as king of Hungary
. The pope agreed, and legend says Stephen was crowned on Christmas
Day in the year 1000. The crowning legitimized Hungary as a Western kingdom independent of the Holy Roman
and Byzantine empire
s. It also gave Stephen absolute power, which he used to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church
and Hungary. Stephen ordered the people to pay tithes and required every tenth village to construct a church and support a priest. Stephen donated land to support bishoprics and monasteries, required all persons except the clergy to marry, and barred marriages between Christians and pagans. Foreign monks worked as teachers and introduced Western agricultural methods. In the earliest times Hungarian language
was written in a runic-like script
. The country switched to the Latin alphabet
under Stephen. From 1000 to 1844, Latin was the official language of the country.
Stephen administered his kingdom through a system of counties (administrative model of Frankish Empire
), each governed by an ispán count, or magistrate, appointed by the king. In Stephen's time, Magyar society had two classes: the freemen nobles and the unfree. The nobles were descended in the male line from the Magyars who had either migrated into the Carpathian Basin or had received their title of nobility from the king. Only nobles could hold office or present grievances to the king. They paid tithes and owed the crown military service but were exempt from taxes. The unfree—who had no political voice—were slaves, freed slaves, immigrants, or nobles stripped of their privileges. Most were serfs who paid taxes to the king and a part of each harvest to their lord for use of his land. The king had direct control of the unfree, thus checking the nobles' power.
Clan lands, crown lands, and former crown lands made up the early realm. Clan lands belonged to nobles, who could will the lands to family members or the church; if a noble died without an heir, his land reverted to his clan. Crown lands consisted of Stephen's patrimony, lands seized from disloyal nobles, conquered lands, and unoccupied parts of the kingdom. Former crown lands were properties granted by the king to the church or to individuals.
Stephen also subdued semi-independent princes like Ajtony in South-Hungary near the Mureş River
(Maros) and Gyula
in Transylvania
.
was defended against nomads from the east, and Székely
s (a tribe related to the Magyars), and Saxons
were settled in the 11th and 12th centuries. Stephen created the Hungarian heavy cavalry as an example for Western European powers.
After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles. In 1051 armies of Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountains
and at Pressburg (Pozsony, today Bratislava
) in 1052.
In 1091 Ladislaus I of Hungary conquered Croatia
.
According to an alternative history based on the document Pacta Conventa
, which is most likely a forgery Hungary and Croatia created a personal union. There is no undoubtedley genuine document of the personal union, and medieval sources mention the annexation into the Hungarian kingdom. The actual nature of the relationship is inexplicable in modern terms because it varied from time to time. Sometimes Croatia acted as an independent agent and at other times as a vassal of Hungary. However, Croatia retained a large degree of internal independence. The degree of Croatian autonomy fluctuated throughout the centuries as did its borders.
The 11th and 12th centuries were relatively peaceful, and Hungary slowly developed into a western type of feudal economy. Crop production gradually supplemented stock breeding, but until the 12th century planting methods remained crude because tillers farmed each plot until it was exhausted, then moved on to fresh land. Gold, silver, and salt mining boosted the king's revenues. Despite the minting of coins, cattle remained the principal medium of exchange. Two important kings led portions of the remainder of the Árpád dynasty
.
(1205–35), a profligate spender on foreign military adventures and domestic luxury, made huge land grants to nobles who fought for him. These nobles, some of whom were foreign knights, soon made up a class of magnates whose wealth and power far outstripped that of the more numerous lesser nobles.
In 1211, he granted the Burzenland (Transylvania) to the Teutonic Knights
. In 1225, Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, hence Teutonic Order had to transfer to the Baltic sea.
He led the Fifth Crusade
to the Holy Land
in 1217. He set up the largest royal army in the history of crusades (20,000 knights and 12,000 castle-garrisons). When Andrew tried to meet burgeoning expenses by raising the serfs' taxes, thereby indirectly slashing the lesser nobles' incomes, the lesser nobles rebelled. In 1222 they forced Andrew to sign the Golden Bull
. The Golden Bull of 1222
was the first constitution in Continental Europe
. It limited the king's power. The golden Bull—the Hungarian equivalent of England's Magna Carta—to which every Hungarian king thereafter had to swear. Its purpose was twofold: to reaffirm the rights of the smaller nobles of the old and new classes of royal servants (servientes regis) against both the crown and the magnates and to defend those of the whole nation against the crown by restricting the powers of the latter in certain fields and legalizing refusal to obey its unlawful/unconstitutional commands (the "ius resistendi"). The lesser nobles also began to present Andrew with grievances, a practice that evolved into the institution of the Hungarian Diet.
Andrew II's son Béla IV
(1235–79) tried with little success to reestablish royal preeminence by reacquiring lost crown lands. His efforts, however, created a deep rift between the crown and the magnates just as the Mongols were sweeping westward across Russia towards Europe. Aware of the danger, Bela ordered the magnates and lesser nobles to mobilize. Few responded, and the Mongols routed Bela's army at the Battle of Mohi
on April 11, 1241. Bela fled first to Austria, where Duke Frederick II
of Babenberg held him for ransom, then to Dalmatia
. The Mongols reduced Hungary's towns and villages to ashes and slaughtered a great part (estimations go to 25–30%) of the population before news arrived in 1242 that the Great Ögedei Khan
had died in Karakorum
. The Mongols withdrew, sparing Bela and what remained of his kingdom. Another theory says, that Ögodei's death wasn't the only reason for the withdrawal of the Mongol Army. It is also possible that the leadership of the army realized that the campaign wasn't so successful as thought, due to the well-fortified castles and towns, and this would lead to a demoralisation soon. Therefore they decided to abort the campaign. The biggest calamity for the population were the periods of diseases and food shortages after the Mongol invasion. Only strongly fortified cities and abbeys could withstand the assault. As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications, meant to be defense against a possible second Mongol invasion.
Bela realized that reconstruction would require the magnates' support, so he abandoned his attempts to recover former crown lands. Instead, he granted crown lands to his supporters, reorganized the army by replacing light archers with heavy cavalry, and granted the magnates concessions to redevelop their lands and construct stone-and-mortar castles that would withstand enemy sieges. Bela repopulated the country with a wave of immigrants, transforming royal castles into towns and populating them with Germans, Italians, and Jews. Mining began anew, farming methods improved, and crafts and commerce developed in the towns. Additional Rumanians (Wallachs)—who already had some settlings in Transylvania—were also welcome to cross the Carpathians. Furthermore he resettled the Cumans
of Cuthen, who left the country before the Mongol invasion into Kunság
/Kiskunság/Nagykunság, and gave them autonomy. After Bela's reconstruction program, the magnates, with their new fortifications, emerged as Hungary's most powerful political force. However, by the end of the 13th century, they were fighting each other and carving out petty principalities.
King Bela IV died in 1270, and the Árpad line expired in 1301 when Andrew III, who strove with some success to limit the magnates' power, unexpectedly died without a male heir. Anarchy characterized Hungary as factions of magnates vied for control. During the reigns of the Kings after the Árpád dynasty, the Kingdom of Hungary
reached its greatest extent, yet royal power was weakened as the major landlords (the Barons) greatly increased their influence. The most powerful landlords started to use royal prerogative
s (coinage, customs, declaration of wars against foreign monarchs).
: "The juridical nature of the relations between Austria and Hungary" Arts and Science Congress, held at United States St. Louis in 1904 )
of royal power at the expense of oligarchic baronial powers
, followed by a period of vast political-military expansion
and sphere of influence
in Central Europe
, the Balkans
and Eastern Europe
under Hungary's first foreign king, Charles Robert, from the House of Anjou
and his son Louis the Great. Central Europe was at peace, and Hungary and its neighbors prospered.
Considerable political influence in European and in the affairs of Holy Roman Empire
followed with the accession of King Sigismund
as King of the Romans
in 1410. The last phase of this era was dominated by the energetic House of Hunyadi embodied by Regent-Governor John Hunyadi
, a much heralded crusading general and his son King Matthias Corvinus. The Hunyadis placed robust crusading interventionism
into neighboring states at the forefront of their realpolitik
foreign policies. King Corvinus' meritocratic secular humanist
Renaissance
bureaucracy
and a flowering of Italian Renaissance
culture created Europe's first Renaissance state north of the Alps
.
Hungary's first two foreign kings, Charles Robert
and Louis I of the House of Anjou
, ruled during one of the most glorious periods in the country's history. Central Europe was at peace, and Hungary and its neighbors prospered.
(1301–1308), the first Angevin
king, Charles I of Hungary
(King: 1308–1342) -An Árpád
descendant in the female line- successfully restored the royal power, who defeated oligarch rivals, the so called "little kings". Charles I was crowned as a child and raised in Hungary. His new fiscal, customs and monetary policies proved successful under his reign. Charles Robert also introduced tax reforms and a stable currency. (For the new taxation and customs system see the economic policy of Charles I article.)
One of the primary sources of his power was the wealth derived from the gold mines of east and northern Hungary. Eventually production reached the remarkable figure of 3,000 lb. of gold annually—one third of the total production of the world as then known, and five times as much as that of any other European state. He reestablished the crown's authority by ousting disloyal magnate
s and distributing their estates to his supporters. Charles Robert then ordered the magnates to recruit and equip small private armies called banderia. Charles Robert ruled by decree
and convened the Diet only to announce his decisions. Dynastic marriages linked his family with the ruling families of Naples
and Poland and heightened Hungary's standing abroad.
Hungary was the first non-Italian country, where the renaissance appeared in Europe.
The Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento
to Hungary foremost in the Central European region. The development of the early Hungarian-Italian relationships was a reason of this infiltration, which weren't manifested only in dynastic connections, but in cultural, humanistic and commercial relations. This effect was getting stronger from the 14th century. In the first half of the 14th century, the statues of ladies, knights, court musicians, servants and guardsmen mark not only the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, but also the beginning of a new age. Dressed in full-length gowns, richly gathered cloaks, pointed shoes and daring hats, they are an unexpected reminder of a flourishing, almost decadent Hungarian Trecento, whose mere existence was no more than a conjecture before the miraculous appearance of the archaeological foundings at Buda Castle.
The power of the former Árpad Dynasty was still based on the vast royal estates. Under the Angevins, the royal family was restored as the greatest land owning family of the realm (they had one-third of all lands), but Angevin power was rather based on the possession of castles (some 160 out of 300, while the most powerful non-royal family possessed seven).
, erased all legal distinctions between the lesser nobles and the magnates, standardized the serf
s' obligations, and barred the serfs from leaving the lesser nobles' farms to seek better opportunities on the magnates' estates. The decree also established the entail
system. Hungary's economy continued to flourish during Louis's reign. Gold and other precious metals poured from the country's mines and enriched the royal treasury, foreign trade increased, new towns and villages arose, and craftsmen formed guilds. The prosperity fueled a surge in cultural activity, and Louis promoted the illumination of manuscripts
and in 1367 founded Hungary's first university. Louis extended his rule over territories to the Adriatic Sea
, and occupied the Kingdom of Naples
several times. Under his reign lived the most famous epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland due to his successful campaigns against the Tatars and pagan Lithuanians. Two successful wars (1357–1358, 1378–1381) against Venice
annexed Dalmatia and Ragusa and more territories at Adriatic Sea
. Venice also had to raise the Angevin flag on St. Mark's Square on holy days.
Louis I established a university in Pécs
in 1367 (by papal accordance). The Ottoman Turks confronted the country ever more often. In 1366 and 1377, Louis led successful campaigns against the Ottomans (Battle at Nicapoli in 1366), therefore Balkan states became his vassals. From 1370, the death of Casimir III of Poland
, Louis became king of Poland in 1370 and ruled the two countries for twelve years. Until his death, he retained his strong potency in political life of Italian Peninsula.
While Louis was engaged in these activates, the Ottomans made their initial inroads into the Balkans
.
(1387–1437), Louis's son-in-law, won a bitter struggle for the throne after Louis died in 1382. Under Sigismund, Hungary's fortunes began to decline. Many Hungarian nobles despised Sigismund for his cruelty during the succession struggle, his long absences, and his costly foreign wars. In 1401 disgruntled nobles temporarily imprisoned the king. In 1403 another group crowned an anti-king, who failed to solidify his power but succeeded in selling Dalmatia
to Venice
. Sigismund failed to reclaim the territory. Sigismund became king of Bohemia
in 1419. In 1404 Sigismund introduced the Placetum Regium. According to this decree, Papal bulls and messages could not be pronounced in Hungary without the consent of the king. Sigismund congregated Council of Constance
(1414–1418) to abolish the Papal Schism
of Catholic church, which was solved by the election of a new pope
. In 1433 he even became Holy Roman Emperor
. In response, Sigismund created the office of palatine to rule the country in his stead.
Like earlier Hungarian kings, Sigismund elevated his supporters to magnate status and sold off crown lands to meet burgeoning expenses. Although Hungary's economy continued to flourish, Sigismund's expenses outstripped his income. He bolstered royal revenues by increasing the serfs' taxes and requiring cash payment. Social turmoil erupted late in Sigismund's reign as a result of the heavier taxes and renewed magnate pressure on the lesser nobles. Hungary's first peasant revolt erupted when a Transylvania
n bishop
ordered peasants to pay tithe
s in coin rather than in kind
. Also, Husite teachings spread among the population making the bishop more unpopular. The revolt was quickly checked, but it prompted Transylvania's Szekel
, Magyar, and German
orders to form the Union of Three Nations, which was an effort to defend their privileges against any power except that of the king. During his long reign Royal castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. The first Hungarian Bible translation completed in 1439, but Hungarian Bible was illegal in its age. Hungary was the first non-Italian country, where the renaissance appeared in Europe.
Additional turmoil erupted when the Ottomans expanded their empire into the Balkans. They crossed the Bosporus
Strait
s in 1352, occupied much of Bulgaria
in 1423, and defeated the Serbs
at the Battle of Kosovo
in 1389. Sigismund led a crusade against them in 1396, but the Ottomans routed his forces in the Battle of Nicopolis
, and he barely escaped with his life. Tamerlane's invasion of Anatolia
in 1402–03 slowed the Ottomans' progress for several decades, but in 1437 Sultan
Murad II
prepared to invade Hungary. Sigismund died the same year, and Hungary's next two kings, Albert II of Germany
(1437–39) and Władysław III of Poland (1439–44), known in Hungary as Ulaszlo I, both died during campaigns against the Ottomans.
, John Hunyadi
, to rule the country until the former came of age. The son of a lesser nobleman of the Vlach ( though some historians suggest a Cumanic) descent, who had won distinction in the wars against the Ottomans. Hunyadi rose to become a general, Transylvania's military governor, one of Hungary's largest landowners, and a war hero. He used his personal wealth and the support of the lesser nobles to win the regency
and overcome the opposition of the magnates. Hunyadi then established a mercenary
army funded by the first tax ever imposed on Hungary's nobles. He defeated the Ottoman forces in Transylvania in 1442 and broke their hold on Serbia in 1443, only to be routed at the Battle of Varna
(where Władysław I (of Hungary) himself perished) a year later. In 1446, the parliament elected the great general János Hunyadi
as governor (1446–1453) and then as regent (1453–1456) of the kingdom. In 1448 Hunyadi tried to expel the Turks from Europe, but because of the treachery of Serbs and Vlachs he was outnumbered and routed in the 3 days Battle of Kosovo Polje
.
One of his greatest victories being the Siege of Belgrade in 1456.
Hunyadi defended the city against the onslaught of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. During the siege, Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However, in many countries (like England and Spanish kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon thus transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Popes didn't withdraw the order, and Catholic churches still ring the noon bell to this day.
Hunyadi died of the plague
soon after.
, was imprisoned in Bohemia. However, lesser nobles loyal to Mátyás soon expelled László. After Ladislaus's death abroad, they paid ransom for Mátyás, met him on the frozen Danube River, and proclaimed him king. Corvinus (1458–90) was, with one possible exception (John Zápolya
), the last Hungarian king
to rule the country.
This was the first time in the medieval Hungarian kingdom that a member of the nobility, without dynastic ancestry and relationship, mounted the royal throne.
A true Renaissance prince, a successful military leader and administrator, an outstanding linguist, a learned astrologer, and an enlightened patron of the arts and learning. András Hess
set up a printing press in Buda
in 1472.
Although Matthias regularly convened the Diet and expanded the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, he exercised absolute rule over Hungary by means of a secular bureaucracy
. Matthias enlisted 30,000 foreign and Hungarian mercenaries in his standing army and built a network of fortresses along Hungary's southern frontier, but he did not pursue his father's aggressive anti-Turkish policy. Instead, Mátyás launched unpopular attacks on Bohemia, Poland, and Austria
, pursuing an ambition to become Holy Roman Emperor and arguing that he was trying to forge a unified Western or Central European alliance strong enough to expel the Ottoman Turks from Europe. He eliminated tax exemptions and raised the serfs' obligations to the crown to fund his court and the military. The magnates complained that these measures reduced their incomes, but despite the stiffer obligations, the serfs considered Matthias a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates. He also reformed Hungary's legal system and promoted the growth of Hungary's towns. Matthias was a true Renaissance man
and made his court a center of humanist culture
; under his rule, Hungary's first books were printed and its second university was established. His library, the Corvina
, was famous throughout Europe. It was Europe's greatest collection of historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century, and second only in size to the Vatican Library which mainly contained religious material. His renaissance library is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
. In his quest for the imperial throne, Matthias eventually moved to Vienna
, where he died in 1490. His death is supposed to be caused by poison
.
, king of Bohemia (Ulászló II in Hungarian history), precisely because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse (meaning "Good" or, loosely, "OK"), from his habit of accepting with that word every paper laid before him. Under his reign the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense.
Matthias' reforms did not survive the turbulent decades that followed his reign. An oligarchy of quarrelsome magnates gained control of Hungary. They crowned a docile king, Vladislaus II (the Jagiellonian king of Bohemia, who was known in Hungary as Ulaszlo II, 1490–1516) the son of King Casimir IV of Poland, only on condition that he abolish the taxes that had supported Matthias' mercenary army. As a result, the king's army dispersed just as the Turks were threatening Hungary. The magnates also dismantled Mathias' administration and antagonized the lesser nobles. In 1492 the Diet limited the serfs' freedom of movement and expanded their obligations while a large portion of peasants became prospering because of cattle-export to the West. Rural discontent boiled over in 1514 when well-armed peasants preparing for a crusade against Turks rose up under György Dózsa
(a borderguard captain) and attacked estates across Hungary. United by a common threat, the magnates and lesser nobles eventually crushed the rebels. Dozsa and other rebel leaders were executed in a most brutal manner.
Shocked by the peasant revolt, the Diet of 1514 passed laws that condemned the serfs to eternal bondage and increased their work obligations. Corporal punishment became widespread, and one noble even branded his serfs like livestock. The legal scholar István Werbőczy
included the new laws in his Tripartitum of 1514, which made up the espirit of Hungary's legal corpus until the revolution of 1848. However, the Tripartitum was never used as a code. The Tripartitum gave Hungary's king and nobles, or magnates, equal shares of power: the nobles recognized the king as superior, but in turn the nobles had the power to elect the king. The Tripartitum also freed the nobles from taxation, obligated them to serve in the military only in a defensive war, and made them immune from arbitrary arrest.
When Vladislaus II died in 1516, his ten-year-old son Louis II
(1516–26) became king, but a royal council appointed by the Diet ruled the country. Hungary was in a state of near anarchy under the magnates' rule. The king's finances were a shambles; he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The country's defenses sagged as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. In 1521 Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent recognized Hungary's weakness and seized Belgrade in preparation for an attack on Hungary. After that, Louis II and his wife, Maria von Habsburg tried to manage an anti-magnate putsch, but they were not successful. In August 1526, he marched nearly 100,000 troops into Hungary's heartland. Hungary's forces were just gathering, when the 26,000 strong Hungarian army met the Turks with bad luck in the Battle of Mohács
. Hungarians had well-equipped and well-trained troops, and awaited more reinforcements from Czechia and Transylvania, but lacked a good military leader. They suffered bloody defeat leaving 20,000 dead on the field. Louis himself died, thrown from a horse into a bog.
After Louis's death, rival factions of Hungarian nobles simultaneously elected two kings, John I Zápolya (1526–40) and Ferdinand
of Habsburg (1526–64). Each claimed sovereignty over the entire country but lacked sufficient forces to eliminate his rival. Zápolya, a Hungarian who was military governor of Transylvania, was recognized by the sultan and was supported mostly by lesser nobles opposed to new foreign kings. Ferdinand, the first Habsburg to occupy the Hungarian throne, drew support from magnates in western Hungary who hoped he could convince his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
, to expel the Turks. In 1538 George Martinuzzi
, Zápolya's adviser, arranged a treaty between the rivals that would have made Ferdinand sole monarch upon the death of the then-childless Zápolya. The deal collapsed when Zápolya married and fathered a son. Violence erupted, and the Turks seized the opportunity, conquering the city of Buda and then partitioning the country in 1541.
Principality of Hungary
The Principality of Hungary, also Hungarian Principality or Duchy of Hungary , was the first documented Hungarian state, a tribal alliance in the Carpathian Basin, established 895 or 896, following the 9th-century Magyar invasion of Pannonia.The Magyars , a semi-nomadic group of people led by Árpád...
with the coronation of Stephen I in AD 1000. This was a result of the conversion
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...
of Géza of Hungary
Géza of Hungary
Géza , Grand Prince of the Hungarians .Géza was the son of Taksony of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Hungarians and his Pecheneg or Bulgar wife. Géza's marriage with Sarolt, the daughter of Gyula of Transylvania, was arranged by his father.After his father's death , Géza followed him as Grand Prince...
to the Western Church in the 970s.
This kingdom was led by the Árpád Dynasty
Árpád dynasty
The Árpáds or Arpads was the ruling dynasty of the federation of the Hungarian tribes and of the Kingdom of Hungary . The dynasty was named after Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the tribal federation when the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin, circa 895...
for the next three centuries. Eventually the Árpád line died out and the Kingdom of Hungary again descended into anarchy, with the most powerful nobles competing for control.
After the Árpád Dynasty ended, Hungary's nobles chose a series of foreign kings who re-established strong royal authority.
The kingdom disintegrated as a result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Before the Ottoman occupancy, on 24 February 1538, the Habsburgs and Szapolyai divided the kingdom according to the secret agreement of Nagyvárad. The country was effectively split into three parts in 1541: a central portion controlled by the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
as Budin Province
Budin Province, Ottoman Empire
Budin Eyalet was an administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire in Central Europe and the Balkans...
, a western part controlled by Habsburg Austria as Royal Hungary
Royal Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary between 1538 and 1867 was part of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, while outside the Holy Roman Empire.After Battle of Mohács, the country was ruled by two crowned kings . They divided the kingdom in 1538...
, and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
as the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom
Eastern Hungarian Kingdom
The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom was the name of the area under the rule of King John I of Hungary. John I of Hungary was the former voivode of Transylvania and the wealthiest and the most powerful landlord after Mohács, secured the eastern part of the kingdom with the help of the Ottomans...
which became an Ottoman vassal state.
Name
The Latin name (as well as the Hungarian and the German ) was revived in the 1840s to denote the Habsburg-ruled Royal HungaryRoyal Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary between 1538 and 1867 was part of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, while outside the Holy Roman Empire.After Battle of Mohács, the country was ruled by two crowned kings . They divided the kingdom in 1538...
until the establishment of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
in 1867.
The term Natio Hungarica
Natio Hungarica
Natio Hungarica may refer to:*pre-modern kingdom of Hungary, the members of the Hungarian Diet*in the modern era, a concept in Hungarian nationalism...
was reserved for the elite with participation in the Hungarian Diet.
Principality of Hungary
Géza of Hungary
Géza , Grand Prince of the Hungarians .Géza was the son of Taksony of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Hungarians and his Pecheneg or Bulgar wife. Géza's marriage with Sarolt, the daughter of Gyula of Transylvania, was arranged by his father.After his father's death , Géza followed him as Grand Prince...
adopted Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and started spreading it in the country. At the same time he started to organize the central power, too. He hardly ever made war against foreign countries during his 25-year-long princely rule. His peace policy was reinforced by dynastic marriages—which were quite usual at that time—between his children and members of foreign ruling families, in order to consolidate the rule of the Magyars in the Carpathian Basin.
Géza
Géza of Hungary
Géza , Grand Prince of the Hungarians .Géza was the son of Taksony of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Hungarians and his Pecheneg or Bulgar wife. Géza's marriage with Sarolt, the daughter of Gyula of Transylvania, was arranged by his father.After his father's death , Géza followed him as Grand Prince...
's efforts to establish a stable state power and guarantee the throne for his son were not successful because he had to share the country with the other members of the principal family. Prince Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
also laid claim to the throne. In the Hungarian succession the theory of seniority
Seniority
Seniority is the concept of a person or group of people being in charge or in command of another person or group. This control is often granted to the senior person due to experience or length of service in a given position, but it is not uncommon for a senior person to have less experience or...
—the right of the oldest living brother—prevailed. Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
also laid claim upon the principal's widow, Sarolt
Sarolt
Sarolt was wife of Géza, Grand Prince of the Magyars.She was a daughter of Gyula of Transylvania and was probably educated in the Eastern Orthodox faith...
. Géza's will, that his first-born son should inherit the throne, contradicted the ancestral right.
In connection with adopting Christianity, the question of vital importance was whether Hungary should join the western
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
or the Eastern Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
. Initially (around 948) the Hungarian noblemen joined the Byzantine Church. In the autumn of 972 Saint Adalbert of Prague
Adalbert of Prague
This article is about St Adalbert of Prague. For other uses, see Adalbert .Saint Adalbert, Czech: ; , , Czech Roman Catholic saint, a Bishop of Prague and a missionary, was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians. He evangelized Poles and Hungarians. St...
was sent as bishop of the Hungarians by Pope Silvester II
Pope Silvester II
Pope Sylvester II , born Gerbert d'Aurillac, was a prolific scholar, teacher, and Pope. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman...
to spread western Christianity among the Hungarians. He christened Géza and his family. His wife, Sharolt, had been baptized by a Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
bishop in her early childhood. The decision to accept the second christening was dictated by foreign relations. The last phase of the Hungarian raids was directed against the southeast, and this alienated the Byzantines
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
. It may have been a warning to the Hungarian principality when the Byzantine emperor abolished the political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and religious
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
independence of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
in the mid 11th century, after a period of short integration of the First Bulgarian Empire
First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...
and the Eastern Roman Empire.
Consequently, the Hungarian chief prince needed the political, moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, and occasional military help of the German empire because of the Byzantine threat. Adopting western Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
was thus both a cultural
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and a political event for the Hungarians. During Géza's reign, the plundering campaigns came to an end. His efforts to establish a country independent of other powers was almost successful before he died.
The Reign of István (Stephen)
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
should have claimed the throne, but Géza chose his first-born son to be his successor. The fight in the chief prince's family started after Géza's death, in 997. Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
took up arms, and many people in Transdanubia
Transdanubia
Transdanubia is a traditional region of Hungary.-Traditional interpretation:The borders of Transdanubia are the Danube river , the Drava and Mura rivers and the foothills of the Alps roughly along the border between Hungary and Austria .Transdanubia comprises the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron,...
joined him. The rebels represented the old faith and order, tribal independence and the pagan belief. His opposer, Vajk Stephen, got the name István (Stephen) when he was christened, at that time the prince of Nitra
Principality of Nitra
The Principality of Nitra also Nitrian Principality or Slovak Principality is the name for a polity of Nitra Sloviens, centered on large agglomeration, a multi-tribal centre around Nitra, Slovakia. The initially independent Principality of Nitra came into existence in the early 9th century...
, supported by the loyal Magyar lords and German and Italian knights wanted to join European Christian community of independent states. Stephen won the throne struggle and became chieftain/prince. The victory of the Christian István over the pagan Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
in the battle for succession was of the utmost importance in determining the future course of Hungarian history.
Stephen consolidated his rule by ousting other rival clan chiefs and confiscating their lands. Stephen then asked Pope Sylvester II to recognize him as king of Hungary
King of Hungary
The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918.The style of title "Apostolic King" was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used afterwards by all the Kings of Hungary, so after this date the kings are referred to as "Apostolic King of...
. The pope agreed, and legend says Stephen was crowned on Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
Day in the year 1000. The crowning legitimized Hungary as a Western kingdom independent of the Holy Roman
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
and Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
s. It also gave Stephen absolute power, which he used to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and Hungary. Stephen ordered the people to pay tithes and required every tenth village to construct a church and support a priest. Stephen donated land to support bishoprics and monasteries, required all persons except the clergy to marry, and barred marriages between Christians and pagans. Foreign monks worked as teachers and introduced Western agricultural methods. In the earliest times Hungarian language
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
was written in a runic-like script
Old Hungarian script
The Old Hungarian script is an alphabetic writing system used by the Hungarians before the Middle Ages...
. The country switched to the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
under Stephen. From 1000 to 1844, Latin was the official language of the country.
Stephen administered his kingdom through a system of counties (administrative model of Frankish Empire
Frankish Empire
Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...
), each governed by an ispán count, or magistrate, appointed by the king. In Stephen's time, Magyar society had two classes: the freemen nobles and the unfree. The nobles were descended in the male line from the Magyars who had either migrated into the Carpathian Basin or had received their title of nobility from the king. Only nobles could hold office or present grievances to the king. They paid tithes and owed the crown military service but were exempt from taxes. The unfree—who had no political voice—were slaves, freed slaves, immigrants, or nobles stripped of their privileges. Most were serfs who paid taxes to the king and a part of each harvest to their lord for use of his land. The king had direct control of the unfree, thus checking the nobles' power.
Clan lands, crown lands, and former crown lands made up the early realm. Clan lands belonged to nobles, who could will the lands to family members or the church; if a noble died without an heir, his land reverted to his clan. Crown lands consisted of Stephen's patrimony, lands seized from disloyal nobles, conquered lands, and unoccupied parts of the kingdom. Former crown lands were properties granted by the king to the church or to individuals.
Stephen also subdued semi-independent princes like Ajtony in South-Hungary near the Mureş River
Mures River
The Mureș is an approximately 761 km long river in Eastern Europe. It originates in the Hășmașu Mare Range in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, Romania, and joins the Tisza river at Szeged in southeastern Hungary....
(Maros) and Gyula
Gyula III
Gyula III, also Gyula the Younger, Geula or Gyla, was an early medieval ruler who apparently ruled in Transylvania . His actual name was probably Prokui, yet Prokui cannot possibly be the same as Gyula. Around 1003, he and his family were attacked, dispossessed and captured by King Stephen I of...
in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
.
Stephen's most important successors, and the Mongol invasion, reconstruction
Stephen died in 1038 and was canonized in 1083. Despite pagan revolts and a series of succession struggles after his death, Hungary grew stronger and expanded. TransylvaniaTransylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
was defended against nomads from the east, and Székely
Székely
The Székelys or Székely , sometimes also referred to as Szeklers , are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, Romania...
s (a tribe related to the Magyars), and Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
were settled in the 11th and 12th centuries. Stephen created the Hungarian heavy cavalry as an example for Western European powers.
After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles. In 1051 armies of Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry III , called the Black or the Pious, was a member of the Salian Dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors...
tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountains
Vértes Mountains
Vértes is a mountain range in north-western Hungary, in the Central Transdanubian region, between the ranges Bakony and Gerecse.The Vértes Mountains are part of the Transdanubian Mountains. Area of the Vértes occupies 314 km2. It is about 30 km long and 11-12 km wide...
and at Pressburg (Pozsony, today Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) in 1052.
In 1091 Ladislaus I of Hungary conquered Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
.
According to an alternative history based on the document Pacta Conventa
Pacta conventa
Pacta conventa may mean:*Pacta conventa , a contractual agreement between the Polish nobility and king, in force from 1573 to 1764*Pacta conventa , a contractual agreement between the Croatian nobility and the Hungarian king, in force from 1102 to 1918...
, which is most likely a forgery Hungary and Croatia created a personal union. There is no undoubtedley genuine document of the personal union, and medieval sources mention the annexation into the Hungarian kingdom. The actual nature of the relationship is inexplicable in modern terms because it varied from time to time. Sometimes Croatia acted as an independent agent and at other times as a vassal of Hungary. However, Croatia retained a large degree of internal independence. The degree of Croatian autonomy fluctuated throughout the centuries as did its borders.
The 11th and 12th centuries were relatively peaceful, and Hungary slowly developed into a western type of feudal economy. Crop production gradually supplemented stock breeding, but until the 12th century planting methods remained crude because tillers farmed each plot until it was exhausted, then moved on to fresh land. Gold, silver, and salt mining boosted the king's revenues. Despite the minting of coins, cattle remained the principal medium of exchange. Two important kings led portions of the remainder of the Árpád dynasty
Árpád dynasty
The Árpáds or Arpads was the ruling dynasty of the federation of the Hungarian tribes and of the Kingdom of Hungary . The dynasty was named after Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the tribal federation when the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin, circa 895...
.
King Coloman the "Book-lover" (1095–1116)
King Coloman published his most famous law half a millennium before other governments: De strigis vero quae non sunt, nulla amplius quaestio fiat (As for the matter of witches, no such things exist, therefore no further investigations or trials are to be held).Béla III (1172–1192)
Béla III was the most powerful and wealthiest member of the dynasty. Béla spent annual the equivalent of 23000 kilograms (50,706.3 lb) of pure silver. It exceeded those of the French king (estimated at some 17000 kilograms (37,478.6 lb)) and was double the receipts of the English Crown. He rolled back the Byzantine potency in the Balkan region. Agricultural methods and the clearing of additional land produced enough surplus to support a class of full-time craftsmen. In the 13th century Hungary's nobles were trading gold, silver, copper, and iron with western Europe for luxury goods.Andrew II (1205–1235)
Until the end of the 12th century, the king's power remained supreme in Hungary. He was the largest landowner, and income from the crown lands nearly equaled the revenues generated from mines, customs, tolls, and the mint. In the 13th century, however, the social structure changed, and the crown's absolute power began to wane. As the crown lands became a less important source of royal revenues, the king found it expedient to make land grants to nobles to ensure their loyalty. King Andrew IIAndrew II of Hungary
Andrew II the Jerosolimitan was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych...
(1205–35), a profligate spender on foreign military adventures and domestic luxury, made huge land grants to nobles who fought for him. These nobles, some of whom were foreign knights, soon made up a class of magnates whose wealth and power far outstripped that of the more numerous lesser nobles.
In 1211, he granted the Burzenland (Transylvania) to the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
. In 1225, Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, hence Teutonic Order had to transfer to the Baltic sea.
He led the Fifth Crusade
Fifth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
in 1217. He set up the largest royal army in the history of crusades (20,000 knights and 12,000 castle-garrisons). When Andrew tried to meet burgeoning expenses by raising the serfs' taxes, thereby indirectly slashing the lesser nobles' incomes, the lesser nobles rebelled. In 1222 they forced Andrew to sign the Golden Bull
Golden Bull of 1222
The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by King Andrew II of Hungary. The law established the rights of the Hungarian nobility, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law . The nobles and the church were freed from all taxes and could not be forced to...
. The Golden Bull of 1222
Golden Bull of 1222
The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by King Andrew II of Hungary. The law established the rights of the Hungarian nobility, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law . The nobles and the church were freed from all taxes and could not be forced to...
was the first constitution in Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
. It limited the king's power. The golden Bull—the Hungarian equivalent of England's Magna Carta—to which every Hungarian king thereafter had to swear. Its purpose was twofold: to reaffirm the rights of the smaller nobles of the old and new classes of royal servants (servientes regis) against both the crown and the magnates and to defend those of the whole nation against the crown by restricting the powers of the latter in certain fields and legalizing refusal to obey its unlawful/unconstitutional commands (the "ius resistendi"). The lesser nobles also began to present Andrew with grievances, a practice that evolved into the institution of the Hungarian Diet.
Béla IV (1235–1270)
Andrew II's son Béla IV
Béla IV of Hungary
Béla IV , King of Hungary and of Croatia , duke of Styria 1254–58. One of the most famous kings of Hungary, he distinguished himself through his policy of strengthening of the royal power following the example of his grandfather Bela III, and by the rebuilding Hungary after the catastrophe of the...
(1235–79) tried with little success to reestablish royal preeminence by reacquiring lost crown lands. His efforts, however, created a deep rift between the crown and the magnates just as the Mongols were sweeping westward across Russia towards Europe. Aware of the danger, Bela ordered the magnates and lesser nobles to mobilize. Few responded, and the Mongols routed Bela's army at the Battle of Mohi
Battle of Mohi
The Battle of Mohi , or Battle of the Sajó River, was the main battle between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary during the Mongol invasion of Europe. It took place at Muhi, Southwest of the Sajó River. After the invasion, Hungary lay in ruins. Nearly half of the inhabited places had...
on April 11, 1241. Bela fled first to Austria, where Duke Frederick II
Frederick II, Duke of Austria
Frederick II, known as the Quarrelsome or the Warlike , from the House of Babenberg, was the duke of Austria and Styria from 1230 to 1246....
of Babenberg held him for ransom, then to Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
. The Mongols reduced Hungary's towns and villages to ashes and slaughtered a great part (estimations go to 25–30%) of the population before news arrived in 1242 that the Great Ögedei Khan
Ögedei Khan
Ögedei Khan, born Ögedei was the third son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire by succeeding his father...
had died in Karakorum
Karakorum
Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, and of the Northern Yuan in the 14-15th century. Its ruins lie in the northwestern corner of the Övörkhangai Province of Mongolia, near today's town of Kharkhorin, and adjacent to the Erdene Zuu monastery...
. The Mongols withdrew, sparing Bela and what remained of his kingdom. Another theory says, that Ögodei's death wasn't the only reason for the withdrawal of the Mongol Army. It is also possible that the leadership of the army realized that the campaign wasn't so successful as thought, due to the well-fortified castles and towns, and this would lead to a demoralisation soon. Therefore they decided to abort the campaign. The biggest calamity for the population were the periods of diseases and food shortages after the Mongol invasion. Only strongly fortified cities and abbeys could withstand the assault. As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications, meant to be defense against a possible second Mongol invasion.
Bela realized that reconstruction would require the magnates' support, so he abandoned his attempts to recover former crown lands. Instead, he granted crown lands to his supporters, reorganized the army by replacing light archers with heavy cavalry, and granted the magnates concessions to redevelop their lands and construct stone-and-mortar castles that would withstand enemy sieges. Bela repopulated the country with a wave of immigrants, transforming royal castles into towns and populating them with Germans, Italians, and Jews. Mining began anew, farming methods improved, and crafts and commerce developed in the towns. Additional Rumanians (Wallachs)—who already had some settlings in Transylvania—were also welcome to cross the Carpathians. Furthermore he resettled the Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
of Cuthen, who left the country before the Mongol invasion into Kunság
Kunság
Kunság is a historical and geographical region in Hungary situated in the current Bács-Kiskun and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok counties. Like other historical European regions called Cumania, it is named for the Cumans, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks that settled the area...
/Kiskunság/Nagykunság, and gave them autonomy. After Bela's reconstruction program, the magnates, with their new fortifications, emerged as Hungary's most powerful political force. However, by the end of the 13th century, they were fighting each other and carving out petty principalities.
King Bela IV died in 1270, and the Árpad line expired in 1301 when Andrew III, who strove with some success to limit the magnates' power, unexpectedly died without a male heir. Anarchy characterized Hungary as factions of magnates vied for control. During the reigns of the Kings after the Árpád dynasty, the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
reached its greatest extent, yet royal power was weakened as the major landlords (the Barons) greatly increased their influence. The most powerful landlords started to use royal prerogative
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
s (coinage, customs, declaration of wars against foreign monarchs).
The Medieval Hungarian State
"Medieval Hungarian constitutional development made the power of Hungarian Kings the most efficient one of medieval age, and that reason was the absence of feudalism. No doubt, infiltrations of feudalism, as prevalent through-out Europe, are to be found in old Hungarian institutions, but as an accidental inter-mixture only, not as their essence and chief feature. That blending of public prerogative with rights belonging to the sphere of private law, which is the essence of feudalism never prevailed in the organisation of Hungarian public powers, never broke their action on the nation as a whole. To this early prevalence of public law in the government of the country do Hungary owe not only a superior efficiency not detrimental to liberty of Hungarian public powers, but in connection with it an early growth of conscious national unity, of patriotism on broad lines, at a time when tribal feeling and feudal allegiance sub-divided all European nations into small units which paralysed each other, and into a corresponding fractional mentality adverse to the very idea of State and to inchoate national feeling." ( Count Albert ApponyiAlbert Apponyi
Count Albert Apponyi de Nagyappony was a distinguished Hungarian nobleman and politician from an ancient noble family dating back to the 13th century. He was born on 29 May 1846, in Vienna, where his father, Count György Apponyi, was the resident Hungarian Chancellor at the time...
: "The juridical nature of the relations between Austria and Hungary" Arts and Science Congress, held at United States St. Louis in 1904 )
Hungarian Aristocracy in Medieval Age
The local (regional) power of aristocracy from medieval Hungary was based on three pillars: the court offices they performed; their domains and castles; their suite based at the institution of familiaritas (a kind of vassality). This study – reconstructing a concrete instance – tries to follow the interactions between these factors and to introduce the reader in the strange world of medieval Hungarian noble society with its legal procedures, practical solutions, family links, policies and rivalries. One of the conclusions I made, is that from these factors the primary and the most active one is that of court connections of aristocratic people and their political roles. They had chances to obtain new estates (conserving they actual power) and to protect their interestes only being in this status. Another conclusion is, that political changes on the national level (in the royal government, for ex.) had an instantly effect on the regional situation, on the fate of some estates, on the family policies and regional balance of forces.Rank list of the most important medieval baronial titles and high offices
These barons were (under Sigismund of Luxemburg):- the count palatine (comes palatinus)
- the voivode of Transylvania (woyuoda Transsiluanus)
- the judge of the royal court (iudex curiae regiae)
- the bans of Slavonia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Macsó, and Severin (bani)
- the master of the treasury (magister tavernicorum)
- the master of janitors (ianitorum regalium magister)
- the master of stewards (dapiferorum regalium magister)
- the master of the cup-bearers (pincernarum regalium magister)
- the marchall (agasonum regalium magister)
- counts of Pozsony (present day Bratislava) and Temes (present-day Timiş county)
- the high treasurer (summus thesaurarius)
- the count of the Szeklers
- the secret chancellor
Golden Era (1308–1490)
This first phase of this era was characterized by early centralizationCentralization
Centralisation, or centralization , is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group....
of royal power at the expense of oligarchic baronial powers
Nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary
The origin of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary can be traced to the Magyar conquest of Pannonia in the 9th century, and it developed over the course of the Middle Ages...
, followed by a period of vast political-military expansion
Expansion
- Mathematics :*Expansion *Polynomial expansion*Taylor expansion*expansion of a graph*The converse of a reduct, in model theory or universal algebra- Other uses :*Expansion card, in computer hardware*Expansion pack, in gaming...
and sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
in Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
, the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
under Hungary's first foreign king, Charles Robert, from the House of Anjou
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
and his son Louis the Great. Central Europe was at peace, and Hungary and its neighbors prospered.
Considerable political influence in European and in the affairs of Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
followed with the accession of King Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
as King of the Romans
King of the Romans
King of the Romans was the title used by the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire following his election to the office by the princes of the Kingdom of Germany...
in 1410. The last phase of this era was dominated by the energetic House of Hunyadi embodied by Regent-Governor John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
, a much heralded crusading general and his son King Matthias Corvinus. The Hunyadis placed robust crusading interventionism
Interventionism
Interventionism may refer to:*Interventionism is a political term for significant activity undertaken by a state to influence something not directly under its control....
into neighboring states at the forefront of their realpolitik
Realpolitik
Realpolitik refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on power and on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic or ethical premises...
foreign policies. King Corvinus' meritocratic secular humanist
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
and a flowering of Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
culture created Europe's first Renaissance state north of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
.
Hungary's first two foreign kings, Charles Robert
Charles I of Hungary
Charles I , also known as Charles Robert , was the first King of Hungary and Croatia of the House of Anjou. He was also descended from the old Hungarian Árpád dynasty. His claim to the throne of Hungary was contested by several pretenders...
and Louis I of the House of Anjou
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
, ruled during one of the most glorious periods in the country's history. Central Europe was at peace, and Hungary and its neighbors prospered.
Charles I (1308–1342)
After the destructive period of interregnumInterregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
(1301–1308), the first Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
king, Charles I of Hungary
Charles I of Hungary
Charles I , also known as Charles Robert , was the first King of Hungary and Croatia of the House of Anjou. He was also descended from the old Hungarian Árpád dynasty. His claim to the throne of Hungary was contested by several pretenders...
(King: 1308–1342) -An Árpád
Árpád dynasty
The Árpáds or Arpads was the ruling dynasty of the federation of the Hungarian tribes and of the Kingdom of Hungary . The dynasty was named after Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the tribal federation when the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin, circa 895...
descendant in the female line- successfully restored the royal power, who defeated oligarch rivals, the so called "little kings". Charles I was crowned as a child and raised in Hungary. His new fiscal, customs and monetary policies proved successful under his reign. Charles Robert also introduced tax reforms and a stable currency. (For the new taxation and customs system see the economic policy of Charles I article.)
One of the primary sources of his power was the wealth derived from the gold mines of east and northern Hungary. Eventually production reached the remarkable figure of 3,000 lb. of gold annually—one third of the total production of the world as then known, and five times as much as that of any other European state. He reestablished the crown's authority by ousting disloyal magnate
Magnate
Magnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...
s and distributing their estates to his supporters. Charles Robert then ordered the magnates to recruit and equip small private armies called banderia. Charles Robert ruled by decree
Rule by decree
Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick, unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group, and is used primarily by dictators and absolute monarchs, although philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben have argued that it has been generalized since World War I in all modern states,...
and convened the Diet only to announce his decisions. Dynastic marriages linked his family with the ruling families of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
and Poland and heightened Hungary's standing abroad.
Hungary was the first non-Italian country, where the renaissance appeared in Europe.
The Renaissance style came directly from Italy during the Quattrocento
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...
to Hungary foremost in the Central European region. The development of the early Hungarian-Italian relationships was a reason of this infiltration, which weren't manifested only in dynastic connections, but in cultural, humanistic and commercial relations. This effect was getting stronger from the 14th century. In the first half of the 14th century, the statues of ladies, knights, court musicians, servants and guardsmen mark not only the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, but also the beginning of a new age. Dressed in full-length gowns, richly gathered cloaks, pointed shoes and daring hats, they are an unexpected reminder of a flourishing, almost decadent Hungarian Trecento, whose mere existence was no more than a conjecture before the miraculous appearance of the archaeological foundings at Buda Castle.
The power of the former Árpad Dynasty was still based on the vast royal estates. Under the Angevins, the royal family was restored as the greatest land owning family of the realm (they had one-third of all lands), but Angevin power was rather based on the possession of castles (some 160 out of 300, while the most powerful non-royal family possessed seven).
Louis the Great (1342–1382)
Charles Robert's son and successor Louis I of Hungary (1342–82) maintained the strong central authority Charles I had amassed. In 1351 Louis issued a decree that reconfirmed the Golden BullGolden Bull
A Golden Bull or chrysobull was a golden ornament representing a seal , attached to a decree issued by Byzantine Emperors and later by monarchs in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The term was originally coined for the golden seal itself but came to be applied to the entire decree...
, erased all legal distinctions between the lesser nobles and the magnates, standardized the serf
SERF
A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
s' obligations, and barred the serfs from leaving the lesser nobles' farms to seek better opportunities on the magnates' estates. The decree also established the entail
Fee tail
At common law, fee tail or entail is an estate of inheritance in real property which cannot be sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the owner, but which passes by operation of law to the owner's heirs upon his death...
system. Hungary's economy continued to flourish during Louis's reign. Gold and other precious metals poured from the country's mines and enriched the royal treasury, foreign trade increased, new towns and villages arose, and craftsmen formed guilds. The prosperity fueled a surge in cultural activity, and Louis promoted the illumination of manuscripts
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
and in 1367 founded Hungary's first university. Louis extended his rule over territories to the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
, and occupied the Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
several times. Under his reign lived the most famous epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland due to his successful campaigns against the Tatars and pagan Lithuanians. Two successful wars (1357–1358, 1378–1381) against Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
annexed Dalmatia and Ragusa and more territories at Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
. Venice also had to raise the Angevin flag on St. Mark's Square on holy days.
Louis I established a university in Pécs
Pécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
in 1367 (by papal accordance). The Ottoman Turks confronted the country ever more often. In 1366 and 1377, Louis led successful campaigns against the Ottomans (Battle at Nicapoli in 1366), therefore Balkan states became his vassals. From 1370, the death of Casimir III of Poland
Casimir III of Poland
Casimir III the Great , last King of Poland from the Piast dynasty , was the son of King Władysław I the Elbow-high and Hedwig of Kalisz.-Biography:...
, Louis became king of Poland in 1370 and ruled the two countries for twelve years. Until his death, he retained his strong potency in political life of Italian Peninsula.
While Louis was engaged in these activates, the Ottomans made their initial inroads into the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
.
Sigismund of Luxemburg (1386–1437)
SigismundSigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
(1387–1437), Louis's son-in-law, won a bitter struggle for the throne after Louis died in 1382. Under Sigismund, Hungary's fortunes began to decline. Many Hungarian nobles despised Sigismund for his cruelty during the succession struggle, his long absences, and his costly foreign wars. In 1401 disgruntled nobles temporarily imprisoned the king. In 1403 another group crowned an anti-king, who failed to solidify his power but succeeded in selling Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
to Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
. Sigismund failed to reclaim the territory. Sigismund became king of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
in 1419. In 1404 Sigismund introduced the Placetum Regium. According to this decree, Papal bulls and messages could not be pronounced in Hungary without the consent of the king. Sigismund congregated Council of Constance
Council of Constance
The Council of Constance is the 15th ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, held from 1414 to 1418. The council ended the Three-Popes Controversy, by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining Papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V.The Council also condemned and...
(1414–1418) to abolish the Papal Schism
Western Schism
The Western Schism or Papal Schism was a split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. Two men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of Constance . The simultaneous claims to the papal chair...
of Catholic church, which was solved by the election of a new pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
. In 1433 he even became Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
. In response, Sigismund created the office of palatine to rule the country in his stead.
Like earlier Hungarian kings, Sigismund elevated his supporters to magnate status and sold off crown lands to meet burgeoning expenses. Although Hungary's economy continued to flourish, Sigismund's expenses outstripped his income. He bolstered royal revenues by increasing the serfs' taxes and requiring cash payment. Social turmoil erupted late in Sigismund's reign as a result of the heavier taxes and renewed magnate pressure on the lesser nobles. Hungary's first peasant revolt erupted when a Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
ordered peasants to pay tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
s in coin rather than in kind
Payment in kind
Payment in kind refers to payment for goods or services with a medium other than legal tender ....
. Also, Husite teachings spread among the population making the bishop more unpopular. The revolt was quickly checked, but it prompted Transylvania's Szekel
Székely
The Székelys or Székely , sometimes also referred to as Szeklers , are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, Romania...
, Magyar, and German
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
orders to form the Union of Three Nations, which was an effort to defend their privileges against any power except that of the king. During his long reign Royal castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. The first Hungarian Bible translation completed in 1439, but Hungarian Bible was illegal in its age. Hungary was the first non-Italian country, where the renaissance appeared in Europe.
Additional turmoil erupted when the Ottomans expanded their empire into the Balkans. They crossed the Bosporus
Bosporus
The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...
Strait
Strait
A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...
s in 1352, occupied much of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
in 1423, and defeated the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
at the Battle of Kosovo
Battle of Kosovo
The Battle of Kosovo took place on St. Vitus' Day, June 15, 1389, between the army led by Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, and the invading army of the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of Sultan Murad I...
in 1389. Sigismund led a crusade against them in 1396, but the Ottomans routed his forces in the Battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
, and he barely escaped with his life. Tamerlane's invasion of Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
in 1402–03 slowed the Ottomans' progress for several decades, but in 1437 Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Murad II
Murad II
Murad II Kodja was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1451 ....
prepared to invade Hungary. Sigismund died the same year, and Hungary's next two kings, Albert II of Germany
Albert II of Germany
Albert the Magnanimous KG was King of Hungary from 1438 until his death. He was also King of Bohemia, elected King of Germany as Albert II, duke of Luxembourg and, as Albert V, archduke of Austria from 1404.-Biography:Albert was born in Vienna as the son of Albert IV, Duke of Austria, and Johanna...
(1437–39) and Władysław III of Poland (1439–44), known in Hungary as Ulaszlo I, both died during campaigns against the Ottomans.
Count John Hunyadi's era
After Władysław III, Hungary's nobles chose an infant king, Ladislaus V the Posthumous, and a regentRegent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
, John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
, to rule the country until the former came of age. The son of a lesser nobleman of the Vlach ( though some historians suggest a Cumanic) descent, who had won distinction in the wars against the Ottomans. Hunyadi rose to become a general, Transylvania's military governor, one of Hungary's largest landowners, and a war hero. He used his personal wealth and the support of the lesser nobles to win the regency
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
and overcome the opposition of the magnates. Hunyadi then established a mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
army funded by the first tax ever imposed on Hungary's nobles. He defeated the Ottoman forces in Transylvania in 1442 and broke their hold on Serbia in 1443, only to be routed at the Battle of Varna
Battle of Varna
The Battle of Varna took place on November 10, 1444 near Varna in eastern Bulgaria. In this battle the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II defeated the Polish and Hungarian armies under Władysław III of Poland and János Hunyadi...
(where Władysław I (of Hungary) himself perished) a year later. In 1446, the parliament elected the great general János Hunyadi
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
as governor (1446–1453) and then as regent (1453–1456) of the kingdom. In 1448 Hunyadi tried to expel the Turks from Europe, but because of the treachery of Serbs and Vlachs he was outnumbered and routed in the 3 days Battle of Kosovo Polje
Battle of Kosovo (1448)
The Second Battle of Kosovo was fought at Kosovo Polje between a coalition of the Kingdom of Hungary and Wallachia led by John Hunyadi, against an Ottoman-led coalition under Sultan Murad II.-Background:At 1448, John Hunyadi saw the right moment to lead a campaign against...
.
One of his greatest victories being the Siege of Belgrade in 1456.
Hunyadi defended the city against the onslaught of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. During the siege, Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However, in many countries (like England and Spanish kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon thus transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Popes didn't withdraw the order, and Catholic churches still ring the noon bell to this day.
Hunyadi died of the plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
soon after.
Matthias Corvinus and the Early Absolutism
Some magnates resented Hunyadi for his popularity as well as for the taxes he imposed, and they feared that his sons might seize the throne from Ladislaus. They coaxed the sons to return to Laszlo's court, where Hunyadi's elder son was beheaded. His younger son, Matthias Corvinus of HungaryMatthias Corvinus of Hungary
Matthias Corvinus , also called the Just in folk tales, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458, at the age of 14 until his death...
, was imprisoned in Bohemia. However, lesser nobles loyal to Mátyás soon expelled László. After Ladislaus's death abroad, they paid ransom for Mátyás, met him on the frozen Danube River, and proclaimed him king. Corvinus (1458–90) was, with one possible exception (John Zápolya
John Zápolya
John Zápolya was King of Hungary from 1526 to 1540. His rule was disputed by Archduke Ferdinand I, who also claimed the title King of Hungary between 1526 and 1540. He was the voivode of Transylvania before his coronation.- Biography :...
), the last Hungarian king
King of Hungary
The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918.The style of title "Apostolic King" was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used afterwards by all the Kings of Hungary, so after this date the kings are referred to as "Apostolic King of...
to rule the country.
This was the first time in the medieval Hungarian kingdom that a member of the nobility, without dynastic ancestry and relationship, mounted the royal throne.
A true Renaissance prince, a successful military leader and administrator, an outstanding linguist, a learned astrologer, and an enlightened patron of the arts and learning. András Hess
András Hess
András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472.He printed the first book in Hungary on June 5, 1473 in his Buda press. Hess was probably of German origin. He dedicated the book, the Chronica Hungarorum or Buda Chronicle to the person who had invited him to Hungary.Today a square is named...
set up a printing press in Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
in 1472.
Although Matthias regularly convened the Diet and expanded the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, he exercised absolute rule over Hungary by means of a secular bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
. Matthias enlisted 30,000 foreign and Hungarian mercenaries in his standing army and built a network of fortresses along Hungary's southern frontier, but he did not pursue his father's aggressive anti-Turkish policy. Instead, Mátyás launched unpopular attacks on Bohemia, Poland, and Austria
Archduchy of Austria
The Archduchy of Austria , one of the most important states within the Holy Roman Empire, was the nucleus of the Habsburg Monarchy and the predecessor of the Austrian Empire...
, pursuing an ambition to become Holy Roman Emperor and arguing that he was trying to forge a unified Western or Central European alliance strong enough to expel the Ottoman Turks from Europe. He eliminated tax exemptions and raised the serfs' obligations to the crown to fund his court and the military. The magnates complained that these measures reduced their incomes, but despite the stiffer obligations, the serfs considered Matthias a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates. He also reformed Hungary's legal system and promoted the growth of Hungary's towns. Matthias was a true Renaissance man
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
and made his court a center of humanist culture
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
; under his rule, Hungary's first books were printed and its second university was established. His library, the Corvina
Bibliotheca Corviniana
Bibliotheca Corviniana was one of the most renowned libraries of the Renaissance world, established by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary and Croatia between 1458 and 1490.-History:...
, was famous throughout Europe. It was Europe's greatest collection of historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century, and second only in size to the Vatican Library which mainly contained religious material. His renaissance library is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
. In his quest for the imperial throne, Matthias eventually moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he died in 1490. His death is supposed to be caused by poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
.
Jagiellon Dynasty and Decline of Hungary (1490—1526 (1538))
The magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of Vladislaus IIVladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary
Vladislaus II, also known as Ladislaus Jagiellon ; was King of Bohemia from 1471 and King of Hungary from 1490 until his death in 1516...
, king of Bohemia (Ulászló II in Hungarian history), precisely because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse (meaning "Good" or, loosely, "OK"), from his habit of accepting with that word every paper laid before him. Under his reign the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense.
Matthias' reforms did not survive the turbulent decades that followed his reign. An oligarchy of quarrelsome magnates gained control of Hungary. They crowned a docile king, Vladislaus II (the Jagiellonian king of Bohemia, who was known in Hungary as Ulaszlo II, 1490–1516) the son of King Casimir IV of Poland, only on condition that he abolish the taxes that had supported Matthias' mercenary army. As a result, the king's army dispersed just as the Turks were threatening Hungary. The magnates also dismantled Mathias' administration and antagonized the lesser nobles. In 1492 the Diet limited the serfs' freedom of movement and expanded their obligations while a large portion of peasants became prospering because of cattle-export to the West. Rural discontent boiled over in 1514 when well-armed peasants preparing for a crusade against Turks rose up under György Dózsa
György Dózsa
György Dózsa was a Székely Hungarian man-at-arms from Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary who led a peasants' revolt against the kingdom's landed nobility...
(a borderguard captain) and attacked estates across Hungary. United by a common threat, the magnates and lesser nobles eventually crushed the rebels. Dozsa and other rebel leaders were executed in a most brutal manner.
Shocked by the peasant revolt, the Diet of 1514 passed laws that condemned the serfs to eternal bondage and increased their work obligations. Corporal punishment became widespread, and one noble even branded his serfs like livestock. The legal scholar István Werbőczy
István Werboczy
István Werbőczy or Stephen Werbőcz was a Hungarian jurist and statesman who first became known as a scholar and theologian of such eminence that he was appointed to accompany the emperor Charles V to Worms, to take up the cudgels against Martin Luther.He began his political career as the deputy of...
included the new laws in his Tripartitum of 1514, which made up the espirit of Hungary's legal corpus until the revolution of 1848. However, the Tripartitum was never used as a code. The Tripartitum gave Hungary's king and nobles, or magnates, equal shares of power: the nobles recognized the king as superior, but in turn the nobles had the power to elect the king. The Tripartitum also freed the nobles from taxation, obligated them to serve in the military only in a defensive war, and made them immune from arbitrary arrest.
When Vladislaus II died in 1516, his ten-year-old son Louis II
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
Louis II was King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia from 1516 to 1526.- Early life :Louis was the son of Ladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife, Anne de Foix....
(1516–26) became king, but a royal council appointed by the Diet ruled the country. Hungary was in a state of near anarchy under the magnates' rule. The king's finances were a shambles; he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The country's defenses sagged as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. In 1521 Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent recognized Hungary's weakness and seized Belgrade in preparation for an attack on Hungary. After that, Louis II and his wife, Maria von Habsburg tried to manage an anti-magnate putsch, but they were not successful. In August 1526, he marched nearly 100,000 troops into Hungary's heartland. Hungary's forces were just gathering, when the 26,000 strong Hungarian army met the Turks with bad luck in the Battle of Mohács
Battle of Mohács
The Battle of Mohács was fought on August 29, 1526 near Mohács, Hungary. In the battle, forces of the Kingdom of Hungary led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent....
. Hungarians had well-equipped and well-trained troops, and awaited more reinforcements from Czechia and Transylvania, but lacked a good military leader. They suffered bloody defeat leaving 20,000 dead on the field. Louis himself died, thrown from a horse into a bog.
After Louis's death, rival factions of Hungarian nobles simultaneously elected two kings, John I Zápolya (1526–40) and Ferdinand
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558 and king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.The key events during his reign were the contest...
of Habsburg (1526–64). Each claimed sovereignty over the entire country but lacked sufficient forces to eliminate his rival. Zápolya, a Hungarian who was military governor of Transylvania, was recognized by the sultan and was supported mostly by lesser nobles opposed to new foreign kings. Ferdinand, the first Habsburg to occupy the Hungarian throne, drew support from magnates in western Hungary who hoped he could convince his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
, to expel the Turks. In 1538 George Martinuzzi
George Martinuzzi
George Martinuzzi was a Croatian nobleman, a monk, bishop of Oradea, archbishop of Esztergom, cardinal and Hungarian statesman.-Biography:Martinuzzi was born in Kamičac, Dalmatia...
, Zápolya's adviser, arranged a treaty between the rivals that would have made Ferdinand sole monarch upon the death of the then-childless Zápolya. The deal collapsed when Zápolya married and fathered a son. Violence erupted, and the Turks seized the opportunity, conquering the city of Buda and then partitioning the country in 1541.
See also
- List of Hungarian rulers
- Bulgarian-Hungarian WarsBulgarian-Hungarian WarsThe Bulgarian–Hungarian wars were a series of conflicts which took place between the Bulgarian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary between the 9th and 14th centuries...
- Ottoman-Hungarian WarsOttoman-Hungarian WarsThe Ottoman-Hungarian War refers to a series of battles between the Ottoman Empire and the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Following the Byzantine civil war, the Ottoman capture of Gallipoli and the decisive Battle of Kosovo, the Ottoman Empire seemed poised to conquer the whole of the Balkans...