Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1526)

The medieval Kingdom of Hungary was a multi-ethnic monarchy in Central Europe. It came into being when Stephen I, grand prince of the Hungarians was crowned king in December 1000 or January 1001. His legislation focused on the reinforcement of royal authority and on the acceptance of Christianity by the population. Although written sources emphasize the role played by German and Italian knights and clerics in the process, a significant part of the Hungarian vocabulary for agriculture, religion and state was taken from Slavic languages. Civil wars, pagan uprisings and the Holy Roman Emperors' attempt to expand their authority jeopardized the survival of the new monarchy, but its position stabilized under Ladislaus I (1077–1095) and Coloman (1095–1116). They also occupied Croatia and Dalmatia.

Rich in uncultivated lands and in silver, gold, and salt deposits, the kingdom became a preferred target of mainly Western European colonists. Their arrival contributed to the development of the first towns, including Esztergom and Székesfehérvár. Situated at the crossroads of international trade routes, Hungary was affected by several cultural trends. Romanesque and Gothic buildings, and chronicles written in Latin prove the predominantly Roman Catholic character of the culture, but Orthodox, and even non-Christian communities also existed in Hungary. Latin was also the language of legislation, administration and judiciary, but "linguistic pluralism" (János M. Bak) contributed to the survival of a number of tongues, including a great variety of Slavic dialects.

The predominance of royal estates initially ensured the sovereign's preeminent position, but the alienation of royal lands gave rise to the emergence of a self-conscious group of lesser landholders. They forced Andrew II to issue his Golden Bull of 1222, "one of first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch" (Francis Fukuyama). The kingdom received a major blow from the Mongol invasion of 1241-42. Thereafter Cuman and Jassic groups were settled in the central lowlands and colonists arrived from Moravia, Poland and other nearby countries. Royal power was restored under Charles I (1308–1342), a scion of the Capetian House of Anjou. Golden and silver mines opened in his reign produced about one third of the world's total production up until the 1490s. The kingdom reached the peak of its political and military influence under Louis the Great (1342–1382) who led military campaigns against Lithuania, Southern Italy and other faraway territories.

The expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached the kingdom's southern frontiers under Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387–1437). The first king of Hungary without dynastic ancestry was Matthias Corvinus (reign: 1458–1490), who led several successful military campaigns and also became the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Austria. The territories of the kingdom strongly decreased as a result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The country was split into two parts in 1538 according to Treaty of Nagyvárad and due to the Ottoman occupation in 1541 the country fell apart into three parts: a central portion controlled by the Ottoman Empire as Budin Province, a western part, called Royal Hungary, whose nobles elected Ferdinand as the king, in hope he would help expelling the Turks, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, out of which later the Principality of Transylvania emerged.

Background

Main article: Principality of Hungary

Further information: Géza, Grand Prince of the Hungarians; Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin; and Hungarian invasions of Europe

The Hungarians conquered the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Written sources and place names prove that they find a dominantly Slavic-speaking population in the territory. Early Hungarian society was based on patrilineal families. Several families made up a clan, which in their turn were organized into tribes, and the tribes formed a confederation. The tribal confederation was headed around 950 by the grand prince, always a member of the family descending from Árpád (the Hungarians' leader around their "land-taking" in the Carpathian Basin), but in fact no central authority existed.

Hungarian "land-taking"

Battle of Lechfeld (August 10, 955)

Launching raids against neighboring peoples was an important source of income for the Hungarians already before their arrival in Central Europe. Following their "land-taking", their plundering expeditions primarily targeted the successor states of the Carolingian Empire. This "age of adventures", as it is euphemistically mentioned in Hungarian historiography, came to an end with the victory of the future Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I in the battle of Lechfeld in 955. Emperor John I Tzimiskes also halted Hungarian raids against the Byzantine Empire in 970.

Contemporary authors described the Hungarians as nomads in the 9th and early 10th centuries, but Ibn Rusta, Gardēzī and others added that they also cultivated arable lands. Indeed, some early loanwords of Turkic origin is connected to viniculture, pig breeding, and other activities assuming a sedentary way of life. For instance, the Hungarian words for lees (seprő), hog (ártány), sickle (sarló), and plough (eke) were borrowed before the 10th century. All the same, the great number of borrowings from Slavic languages prove that the Hungarians' way of life underwent fundamental changes in Central Europe. For example, cseresznye ("cherry"), iga ("yoke"), kovács ("blacksmith"), ablak ("window"), patkó ("horseshoe"), and bálvány ("idol") belong to this group. The cohabitation of Hungarians, Slavs and other local ethnic groups is reflected in the assemblages of the "Bijelo Brdo culture", which emerged in the middle of the 10th century.

Although themselves pagans, the Hungarians demonstrated a tolerate attitude towards Christians, Jews, and Muslims. For instance, Abraham ben Jacob wrote of Jewish merchants from Hungary acting in Prague in 965. The Byzantine Church was the first to successfully proselytize among Hungarian tribal leaders: in 948 the horka, and around 952 the gyula were baptized in Constantinople. In contrast with them, the grand prince, Géza (c. 970–997) received baptism according to the Latin rite in the 970s. He also began to consolidate his authority over the tribes by force. He erected fortresses, and invited foreign warriors to develop a new army based on heavy cavalry. Géza also arranged the marriage of his son, Stephen with Giselle of Bavaria, a member of the family of the Holy Roman Emperors.

Large parts of the Carpathian Basin were still under the rule of semi-independent chieftains when Géza died in 997. His son had to fight for his succession with Koppány, the eldest member of the House of Árpád. Assisted by German heavy cavalry, Stephen emerged the victor in the decisive battle fought at Veszprém in 998. Thereafter, he applied for a royal crown to Pope Sylvester II who granted his request with the consent of Emperor Otto III.

King St Stephen I (1000–1038)

Main article: Stephen I of Hungary

King St Stephen (sculpture in the basilica dedicated to him in Budapest)

"If any warrior debased by lewdness abducts a girl to be his wife without the consent of her parents, we decreed that the girl should be returned to her parents, even if he did anything by force to her, and the abductor shall pay ten steers for the abduction, although he may afterwards have made peace with the girl's parents."

Book One of the Laws of King Stephen I

Stephen was crowned the first king of Hungary on December 25, 1000 or on January 1, 1001. He continued to consolidate his rule by waging successful wars against semi-independent local rulers, including his maternal uncle, Gyula. He also proved his kingdom's military strength when repelled an invasion by Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1030. At that time, marshlands, other natural obstacles and barricades made of stone, earth or timber defended the kingdom's borders. A wide zone known as gyepü which was intentionally left uninhabited for defensive purposes also surrounded the country.

Soon after his coronation, Stephen I set about developing a state similar to the monarchies of contemporary Western Europe. He founded dioceses and at least one archbishopric, established Benedictine monasteries, and prescribed that every ten villages were to build a parish church. His laws were aimed at the adoption, even by force, of a Christian way of life. He especially protected Christian marriage against polygamy and other traditional customs. Districts organized around fortresses and called "county" became the basic units of royal administration. Each county was headed by a royal official known as ispán, who was either a foreign knight or a local lord. Most fortresses were made of earth and timber.

From legal perspective, early medieval society consisted of two main groups, freemen and serfs, but intermediate categories also existed. All freemen had the legal capacity to own property, to sue and to be sued. However, most of them were bound to the monarch or to a wealthier landlord, only foreign colonists (known as "guests") had the right to free movement. For instance, freemen owning property in lands attached to a fortress were divided into at least two groups: the "castle warriors" (who served in the army), and the "castle folk" (who cultivated the lands, forged weapons or rendered other services). In addition, all freemen were to pay a special tax, the "pennies of freemen" to the monarchs. With a transitory status between freemen and serfs, peasants known as udvornici were not required to pay this tax. Serfs theoretically lacked legal personality, but in practise they had their own property. They cultivated their masters' land with their own tools, and maintained 50-66 percent of the harvest for themselves.

Stephen I's laws and charters suggest that villages inhabited by a sedentary population were the most widespread type of settlements. An average village was made up of no more than 40 semi-sunken timber huts with a corner hearth. Many settlements were named after a profession, which implies that the villagers rendered a specific service to the monarch or his representative. For instance, villages bearing the name Födémes ("beekeeper"), Hódász ("beaver hunter"), Gerencsér ("potter"), and Taszár ("carpenter") belong to this group.

Early Middle Ages (1038–1242)

Pagan revolts, wars and consolidation (1038–1116)

Further information: Coloman of Hungary, Ladislaus I of Hungary, Pacta conventa (Croatia), and Vata pagan uprising

King St Stephen at the funeral of his son, St Emeric

"No one shall buy or sell except in the market. If, in violation of this anyone buys stolen property, everyone shall perish: the buyer, the seller, and the witnesses. If, however, they agreed to sell something of their own, they shall lose that thing and its price, and the witnesses shall lose as much too. But if the deal was made in the market, and agreement shall be concluded in front of a judge, a toll-gatherer, and witnesses, and if the purchased goods later appear to be stolen, the buyer shall escape penalty (...). "

Book Two of the Laws of King Ladislaus I

Stephen I survived his son, Emeric which caused a crisis that would last for four decades. The monarch who considered his cousin, Vazul unsuitable for inheriting the throne named his own sister's son, the Venetian Peter Orseolo as his heir. Vazul was blinded, his three sons expelled, thus Peter succeeded his uncle without resistance in 1038. However, the his preference for his foreign courtiers led to a rebellion, which ended with his deposition in favor of a local lord, Samuel Aba, himself also related to the royal family. Supported by Emperor Henry III, King Peter returned and defeated his opponent in 1044, but he had to accept the emperor's suzerainty. His second rule ended with a new rebellion, on this occasion aimed at the restoration of paganism.

However, there were many who opposed the destruction of the Christian monarchy. They proposed the crown to Andrew, one of Vazul's sons. Indeed, Andrew returned to the country, defeated King Peter, suppressed the pagans, and was crowned king in 1047. His subsequent cooperation with his younger brother, Béla, a talented military commander ensured the Hungarians' victory against Emperor Henry III who invaded the kingdom at least twice between 1050 and 1053. A new civil war broke out when Duke Béla claimed the crown for himself against his brother and his brother's son, Salomon in 1059. After Béla's death in 1063, his three sons accepted Salamon's rule. The young king and his cousins jointly defeated the Pechenegs plundering Transylvania in 1068. However, conflicts within the royal family caused a new civil war which lasted up to Salamon's abdication in favor of one of his cousins, Ladislaus in the early 1080s.

Ladislaus I whose rule was "a period of exceptional importance and efficiency for the consolidation of the new order in state and church" (László Kontler) promulgated three law books which prescribed draconian punishments. His laws also regulated the payment of royal taxes (including customs duties, and tolls payable at fairs and fords) and of the tithes. He forbade Jews from holding Christian serfs, and introduced laws aiming at the conversion of local Muslims (known as böszörménys) to Christianity.

King Zvonimir of Croatia who had married Ladislaus I's sister died in 1089 or 1090, which created an opportunity for Ladislaus I to claim his crown. The Hungarian troops invaded and occupied the neighboring realm, although a native claimant to the Croatian crown, Petar Svačić still resisted in the Petrova Mounts. All the same, hereafter Croatia and Hungary remained closely connected for more than nine centuries.

King St Ladislaus's legendary fight with a Cuman warrior

Zadar, a Dalmatian town under King Coloman's suzerainty

Ladislaus I appointed his nephew, Álmos to administer Croatia. Although a younger son, Álmos was also favored against his brother, Coloman when the elderly king was thinking of his succession. Even so, Ladislaus I was succeeded in 1095 by Coloman, while Álmos received a separate duchy under his brother's suzerainty. Coloman soon had to face with two plundering bands of crusaders who attempted to take Nyitra (Nitra, Slovakia) and Moson on the borders. The royal forces routed them in short time.

Thereafter Coloman's army invaded Croatia where Petar Svačić fell in a battle in 1097. A late 14th-century manuscript, the Pacta conventa states that Coloman was only crowned king of Croatia after concluding an agreement with twelve local noblemen. Although most probably a forgery, it reflects the actual status of Croatia, which was never incorporated into Hungary. In contrast, Slavonia (the region between the Petrova Mounts and the river Dráva) was more closely connected to Hungary, because here many Hungarian noblemen received land grants. In both realms, the sovereign was thereafter represented by appointed governors who bore the title ban. Likewise an appointed royal official, the voivode administered Transylvania, the eastern borderland of the kingdom. In 1105 Zadar, Split and other Dalmatian towns also accepted Coloman's suzerainty, but their right to elect their own bishops and leaders remained unchained.

Like Ladislaus I, Coloman was a great legislator, but he prescribed less severe punishments than his uncle had done. He issued a separate statute on Jews, ordering that their transactions with Christians were to be put into writing. His laws concerning his Muslim subjects aimed at their conversion, for instance, by obliging them to marry their daughters to Christians.

The Kingdom of Hungary in the 1090s

The presence of Jewish and Muslim merchants was due to the role of the kingdom as a crossroad of important trading routes leading towards Constantinople, Regensburg and Kiev. Local trade also existed, which enabled Coloman to collect the marturina, the traditional in-kind tax of Slavonia in cash. The Olaszi streets or districts in Eger, Pécs and Nagyvárad (Oradea, Romania) attest to the presence of "guests" speaking a Western Romance language, while the Németi and Szászi placenames from the period refer to settlements established by German-speaking colonists.

Most subjects of early medieval Hungarian monarchs were peasants cultivating arable lands. The kingdom, with its average population density of four or five people per 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi), was scarcely populated. Therefore, peasants only cultivated the most fertile lands, and moved further when the lands became exhausted. Wheat was the most widely produced crops, but barley, the raw material for home brew was also grown. Animal husbandry remained an important sector of agriculture, thus millet and oats were produced for fodder. Fishing and hunting also contributed to the nourishing of communers, since even peasants were allowed to hunt in the forests which covered large territories in the kingdom.

Duke Álmos initiated at least five revolt against King Coloman. Finally, the king decided that his brother menacd his own son's succession, thus Álmos and Álmos's son were blinded around 1113. Indeed, Coloman's son, Stephen II ascended the throne without difficulties at his father's death in 1116.

Colonisation and expansion (1116–1196)

Further information: Béla III of Hungary, Gesta Hungarorum, and Transylvanian Saxons

[Although Hungary] "is divided into seventy or more counties, from the proceeds of justice two thirds go to the royal treasury and only one third remains to the count; and in so vast an area no one but the king ventures to coin money or collect tolls. If anyone of the rank of count has even in a trivial matter offended against the king or, as sometimes happens, has been unjustly accused of this, an emissary from the court, though he be of very lowly station and unattended, seizes him in the midst of his retinue, puts him in chains, and drags him off to various forms of punishment. No formal sentence is asked of the prince through his peers, (...) no opportunity of defending himself is granted the accused, but the will of the prince alone is held by all as sufficient."

Otto of Freising: The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa

Leutschau (Template:Lang-hu, Template:Lang-sk), a center of Zipser Saxons

Unsuccessful wars with the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and other neighboring states characterized the reign of Stephen II. The first mention of the Székelys from 1116 is connected to one of his early wars, when they fought together with Pechenegs in the royal army. In this period both ethnic groups lived in scattered communities at the borderlands, including Bihar County and southern Transylvania.

Stephen II who died childless in 1131 was succeeded by his cousin, Béla II, Duke Álmos's blinded son. In his reign, the kindom was administered by his queen, Helena of Rascia who annihilated his opposition by ordering its leaders' massacre. Indeed, Boris Kalamanos (an alleged son of King Coloman) who claimed the throne for himself received no internal support in the following decades. Géza II, the son of Béla II who succeeded his father in 1141, adopted an active foreign policy. For instance, he supported the Welfs against the Hohenstaufens in Germany, and Uroš II of Rascia against Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.

Géza II promoted the colonization of the border zones of his kingdom. In his reign Flemish, German, Italian, and Walloon "guests" arrived in great numbers and settled in the Szepes region (Spiš, Slovakia) and in southern Transylvania. He also invited the Cistercians and the Premonstratensians, two new monastic orders of the 12th-century reform movements. He even recruited Muslim warriors in the Pontic steppes to serve in his army. Abu Hamid, a Muslim traveler from Al-Andaluz who visited Géza II's court refers to mountains that "contain lots of silver and gold", which points at the importance of mining and gold panning already around 1150. However, the first records on silver mines were only made in the next century.

Géza II was succeeded by his eldest son, Stephen III in 1162. He had to face with a rebellion led by his uncles, Ladislaus II and Stephen IV who claimed the crown for themselves. They were supported by Manuel I Komnenos, who forced Stephen III to cede Dalmatia and the Szerém region (Srem, Serbia) to the Byzantine Empire in 1165. Stephen II granted liberties to the Walloon "guests" in Székesfehérvár, including their immunity of the jurisdiction of the ispán, by which he set an example for later monarchs for the development of towns.

Europe around 1190

When Stephen III died childless, his brother, Béla III ascended the throne. He reconquered Dalmatia and the Szerém region in the 1180s. A list made between 1185 and 1195 shows that more than 50 percent of his revenues derived from the annual renewal of the silver currency, and from tolls, ferries and markets. According to the list, his total income was the equivalent of 32 tonnes of silver per year, but this number is clearly exaggerated. The historian Miklós Molnár suggests an annual income of 23 tonnes of silver, but even this sum would have been the double of contemporary English monarchs' yearly income, and would have been higher than the annual revenue of the French crown.

Béla III emphasized the importance of making records on judicial proceedings, which substantiates later Hungarian chronicles' report on his order of the obligatory use of written petitions. The example set by the monarch also urged the landowners to put into writing their transactions, which led to the appearance of the so-called "places of authentication", that is cathedral chapters and monasteries authorized to issue deeds on transactions and other legal proceedings. Their emergence also attests to the employment of an educated staff. Indeed, students from the kingdom appeared in the records of the universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna and Padua from the 1150s.

Further aspects of the 12th-century French culture can also be detected in Béla III's kingdom. His palace at Esztergom was built in the early Gothic style, while Achilles and other names known from two emblematic works of contemporary chivalric culture, the Legend of Troy and the Romance of Alexander were also popular among Hungarian aristocrats. Pál Engel, László Makkai and many other historians argue that "Master P", the unknown author of the Gesta Hungarorum, a chronicle on the Hungarian "land-taking" was Béla III's notary.

Age of Golden Bulls (1196–1241)

Further information: Andrew II of Hungary, Béla IV of Hungary, Golden Bull of 1222, and Friar Julian

Red and white stripes of the Árpáds on King Emeric's seal from 1201

Hermannstadt (Template:Lang-hu, Template:Lang-ro), the center of the Transylvanian Saxons

Béla III's son and successor, Emeric had to face at least three revolts stirred up by his younger brother, Andrew. Furthermore, the armies of the Fourth Crusade incited by the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo took Zadar in Dalmatia in 1202. Emeric was succeeded in 1204 by his son, Ladislaus III. However, the child king died in a year, thus his uncle ascended the throne as Andrew II. Stating that "the best measure of a royal grant is its being immeasurable", he distributed large parcels of royal lands to his partisans. This change of ownership also threatened the castle warriors and other groups of freemen living in these lands who had so far been directly connected to the sovereign. Since royal revenues decreased with the distribution of royal estates, the introduction of new royal taxes and their farming out to Muslims and Jews became widespread.

Andrew II was strongly influenced by his wife, Gertrude of Merania. She openly expressed her preference for her German kin and compatriots, which caused her assassination by a group of local lords in 1213. A new uprising broke out while the king was in the Holy Land on his crusade in 1217 and 1218. Finally, a movement of the so-called "royal servants" (free landholders who owned service directly to the sovereign) obliged Andrew II to issue his "Golden Bull" in 1222, which summarized the royal servants' liberties, including their tax exemption and their right to be personally heard by the monarch or his palatine in legal cases. Its last provision even authorized the secular and spiritual lords to "resist and speak against" the king and his successors "without the charge of high treason".

As for the Muslims and Jews, the Golden Bull prohibited their employment in royal administration. This ban was confirmed when Andrew II, urged by the prelates, issued its new variant in 1231, which authorized the archbishop of Esztergom to excommunicate the monarch in case of his depart from its provisions. Since, non-Christians continued to be employed in the royal household, Archbishop Robert of Esztergom placed the kingdom under interdict in 1232. Although the archbishop refrained from excommunicating the monarch himself, Andrew II took an oath in 1233, which included his promise to respect the privileged position of clergymen and to dismiss all non-Christian officials. A growing intolerance against non-Catholic Christians also began to take root in the kingdom, as it is demonstrated by the transfer of the Orthodox monastery of Visegrád to the Benedictines in 1221.

Andrew II invaded the neighboring Principality of Halych several times, but all his attempts to occupy it proved to be unsuccessful on the long run. In his last years, his son, Béla played a preeminent role in the formation of the kingdom's foreign policy. He persuaded a group of Cumans to accept his suzerainty in 1228 and established a new march in Oltenia in 1231. As soon as succeding his father on the throne in 1235, Béla IV tried to reacquire alienated crown lands, which created a deep rift between the monarch and the magnates just as the Mongols were sweeping westward across the Eurasian steppes.

The king was first informed on the Mongol threat by Friar Julian, a Dominican monk who visited a Hungarian-speaking population in "Magna Hungaria" (east of the Volga River) in 1235. In the next years, the Mongols routed the Cumans who dominated the western parts of the Eurasian Steppes. A Cuman chieftain, Kuthen agreed to accept Béla IV's supremacy, thus he and his people were allowed to settle in the Great Hungarian Plain. The Cumans' nomadic lifestyle caused many conflicts with local communities which contributed to their growing unpopularity.

Mongol invasion (1241–1242)

Further information: Battle of Mohi

[The Mongols] "set fire to" [the cathedral in Nagyvárad] "and burnt the church, together with the women and whatever there was in the church. In other churches they perpetrated such crimes to the women that it is better to keep silent (...). Then they ruthlessly beheaded the nobles, citizens, soldiers and canons on a field outside the city. (...) After they had destroyed everything, and an intolerable stench arose from the corpses, they left the place empty. People hiding in the nearby forests came back to find some food. And while they were searching among the stones and the corpses, the" [Mongols] "suddenly returned and of those living whom they found there, none was left alive."

Master Roger's Epistle

Batu Khan, the commander of the Mongol armies invading Eastern Europe sent envoys to Béla IV and demanded his submission in 1240. The king refused to surrender, thus the Mongols decided to invade his kingdom. Béla IV ordered his barons to assemble with their retinue in his camp. In the royal camp, a riot broke out against the Cumans who were considered as the Mongols' allies, and the mob massacred their leader, Kuthen. The Cumans soon departed and pillaged the central parts of the kingdom.

The main Mongol army arrived through the northeastern passes of the Carpathian Mountains in March 1241. The royal troops met the enemy forces at the river Sajó where the Mongols won a decisive victory on April 11, 1241. Even the monarch could hardly escape from the battlefield, where many lords and prelates fell. Béla IV fled first to Austria, where Duke Frederick II held him for ransom. From Austria, he and his family went to Dalmatia where they found refugee in the Klis Fortress.

The Mongols first occupied and thoroughly plundered the territories east of the river Danube. When the Danube was frozen in early 1242, they crossed the river and began to plunder the western regions. The contemporary Abbot Hermann of Niederalteich even recorded that "the Kingdom of Hungary, which had existed for 350 years, was destroyed". In fact, the kingdom did not cease to exist, since the invaders neither could take a number of fortresses nor could capture the royal family.Furthermore, Batu Khan ordered the withdrawal of all his troops when he was informed of the death of the Great Khan, Ögödei in March, 1242.

A "major wathershed in the medieval history of Southeastern Europe" (Florin Curta), the Mongol invasion and the famine following it had catastrophic demographic consequences. At least 15 percent of the population died or disappeared in this period. Local Muslims suffered especially heavy losses which is demonstrated by their total disappearance from the sources by the end of the century. Traditional transcontinental trading routes also disintegrated, which contributed to the decline of Bács (Bač, Serbia), Ungvár (Uzhhorod, Ukraine) and other former centers of commerce.

Middle Ages (1242–1526)

Last Árpáds (1242–1301)

Further information: Andrew III of Hungary, Béla IV of Hungary, and Ladislaus IV of Hungary

Eastern Europe around 1250

Béla IV realized that reconstruction after the Mongol withdrawal required internal support, so he abandoned his attempts to recover former crown lands. Instead, he granted large estates to his supporters, and allowed them to construct stone-and-mortar castles that would withstand enemy sieges. He initiated a new wave of colonization which resulted in the arrival of a number of Germans, Moravians, Poles, and Romanians in the second half of the 13th century. The king also reinvited the Cumans and settled them in the plains along the Danube and the Tisza.

New villages appeared which consisted of timber houses built side by side in equal parcels of lands. For instance, the settlement network of the so far scarcely inhabited forests of the Western Carpathians (in present-day Slovakia) began to develop under Béla IV. Typical houses built in the villages in the subsequent period consisted of a living room, a kitchen and a pantry, thus the former huts disappeared. The most advanced agricultural techniques, including asymmetric heavy ploughs, also spread in the whole kingdom.

Internal migration was also instrumental in the development of the new domains emerging in former royal lands. The new landholders granted personal freedom and more favorable financial conditions to those who arrived in their estates, which also enabled the peasants who decided not to move to improve their position. Béla IV promoted the development of more than a dozen of towns, including Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia) and Pest, by granting privileges to them.

Although threatening letters sent by the khans of the Golden Horde in the 1250s and 1260s proved that the danger of a new Mongol invasion still existed, Béla IV adopted an expansionist foreign policy. For instance, Frederick II of Austria died fighting against Hungarian troops in 1246, and Béla IV's son-in-law, Rostislav Mikhailovich annexed a number of territories along the kingdom's southern frontiers. However, conflicts between the elderly monarch and his heir, Stephen caused a civil war in the 1260s.

All the same, Béla IV and his son jointly confirmed the liberties of the royal servants, hereafter known as noblemen in 1267. By that time, "true noblemen" were legally differentiated from other landholders, even from ecclesiastic nobles, Romanian cneazes and other groups of "conditional nobles": true noblemen held their estates free of any obligation, while everybody else owned military or other well-specified services to their lords in exchange for the lands they held. Local administration also began to transform in this period: four or two "judges" were elected in at least twenty counties by the end of the century who represented the local nobility in official procedures.

Realms ruled by the House of Árpád in the second half of the 13th century

However, the wealthiest landholders who could afford to erect fortresses forced the lesser nobles to join their retinue which increased their power. One of the leading barons, Joachim of the Gutkeled clan even captured Stephen V's heir, the infant Ladislaus in 1272. Stephen V died in some months which caused a new civil war between the Csák, Kőszegi, and other leading families who attempted to control the central government by acquiring the young king. An assembly of the spiritual and temporal lords and of the noblemen's and Cumans' representatives declared the king to be of age in 1277, but he could not strengthen royal authority. Furthermore Ladislaus IV whose mother, Elisabeth was a Cuman chieftain's daughter preferred his Cuman kin which made him unpopular. He was even accused of initiating a second Mongol invasion in 1285, although the invaders were routed by the royal troops.

When Cuman assassins murdered Ladislaus IV in 1290, the Holy See declared the kingdom a vacant fief and granted it to Charles Martel, crown prince of the Kingdom of Naples whose mother was Ladislaus IV's sister. However, his claim was only accepted by some Croatian noblemen, including Paul Šubić. The majority of the lords supported Andrew, the grandson of Andrew II, although his father's legitimacy was dubious.

Andrew III was the first monarch who took a solemn oath to respect the liberties of the Church and the nobility before his coronation. He regularly convoked the prelates, the lords and the noblemen's representatives to assemblies known as Diets, which started to develop into a legislative body. He was also the first to emphasize his coronation with "King St Stephen's Holy Crown" in his charters.

Anarchy (1301–1323)

Further information: Battle of Rozgony, Ladislaus Kán, and Matthew Csák

Andrew III, the last member of the House of Árpád died on January 14, 1301. His death created an opportunity for about a dozen lords who had by that time achieved de facto independence of the monarch to strengthen their autonomy. They acquired all royal castles in a number of counties which started to form autonomous "provinces" where everybody was obliged either to accept their supremacy or to leave. For instance, Matthew Csák ruled over fourteen counties in the lands now forming Slovakia, Ladislaus Kán administered Transylvania, and Ugrin Csák controlled large territories between the rivers Száva and Dráva.

Holy Crown of Hungary

At the news of Andrew III's death, Charles of Anjou, the late Charles Martel's son hurried to Esztergom where the archbishop crowned him king. Even so, most secular lords opposed his rule and proposed the throne to King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia's namesake son. However, the young Wenceslaus could not strengthen his position. Therefore, he renounced in favor of Otto III, Duke of Bavaria in 1305, but the latter was captured and forced to leave the kingdom in 1307 by Ladislaus Kán. Although a papal legate who arrived in 1308 persuaded all the great lords to accept Charles of Anjou's rule in two years, most territories remained out of royal control.

Assisted by the prelates and a growing number of lesser nobles, Charles I launched a series of expeditions against the great lords in the following years. Taking advantage of the lack of unity among them, the royal troops defeated them one by one. The king won his first victory in the battle of Rozgony (Rozhanovce, Slovakia) in 1312. However, the most powerful oligarch, Matthew Csák preserved his autonomy up until his death in 1321, while the Babonić and House of Šubić families were only subjugated in 1323.

The Angevins' monarchy (1323–1382)

Further information: Charles I of Hungary and Louis I of Hungary

Charles I introduced a centralized power structure in the 1320s. Stating that "his words has the force of law", he never convoked the Diet. He only donated the lesser part of the lands acquired from the oligarchs to his own followers who thus depended on revenues from the counties and castles that they held as temporary honours. This practise ensured the loyalty of the Drugeths, Lackffys, Szécsényis and other families who emerged in his reign.

The castle at Kremnitz (Template:Lang-hu, Template:Lang-sk), a mining town founded by German miners from Bohemia

Charles I's golden forint

The king could even afford to grant privileges which contradicted to customary law. For instance, he authorized daughters of noblemen to inherit their fathers' estates, although local customs required that a deceased nobleman's inherited lands were to be transferred to his agnates in lack of a son. Nevertheless, customary law was never replaced by Roman law which gave rise to the appearance of lay officials who possessed "a good command of Latin and a fair knowledge of common law" (Pál Engel). They were employed not only in the law-courts headed by the palatine, the judge royal and other high officials, but also in the administration of the counties and by the "places of authentication".

Charles I reformed the system of royal revenues and monopolies. For instance, he imposed the "thirtieth" (a general tax on goods transferred through the kingdom's frontiers), and authorized landholders to retain one third of the income from mines opened in their estates. Mines opened thereafter in the Carpathians produced around 2,250 kilograms (4,960 lb) of gold and 9,000 kilograms (20,000 lb) of silver annually, which made up more than 30 percent of the world's production up until the Spanish conquest of the Americas in the 1490s. The king also ordered the minting of golden coins modelled on the florin of Florence, which proved to be a stable currency. His ban on trading with uncoined gold produced shortage in the European market, which only ended after his death in 1342.

His widow, Elisabeth of Poland transported enourmous quantities of gold to Italy in order to promote the claim of their younger son, Andrew to the Kingdom of Naples. However, Andrew who was Queen Joanna I of Naples's consort was assassined in 1345. His brother, Louis I of Hungary accused the queen of his murder and led two campaigns against southern Italy in 1347 and 1350. Although he conquered the kingdom, the queen, supported by the Holy See, succeeded in regaining it on both ocassions.

The king's first campaign in Italy was abandoned because of the arrival of the "Black Death", which also appeared in Hungary in 1349. However, the kingdom was an underpopulated territory with well nourished inhabitants, thus less locals fell victim to the epidemic than in Western Europe. Even so, it decimated the countryside, while the next wave of the plague which arrived in 1359 primarily destroyed in the towns. Around that time, town dwellers only made up around 3 percent of the kingdom's population.

Colonization continued in the borderlands. The new settlers who mainly came from Moravia, Poland and other neighboring countries were customarily exempted of taxation for sixteen years. The lehota ("lightening") placenames in present-day Slovakia refer to this practise. All peasants had by the 1350s acquired the right to free movement. Similarly, most peasants' right to use well defined parcels for a rent in cash and in-kind "gifts" became hereditary.

Louis I the Great in Zadar in Dalmatia

The legal position of "true noblemen" was standardized by Louis I's decree of 1351 which declared that they all enjoyed "one and the same liberty". It also established an entail system by prohibiting childless noblemen to freely bequeath their inherited lands. Moreover, all noblemen received the right to "adjudicate all offences committed" by the peasants living in their estates (Martyn Rady).

As heir presumptive to his uncle, Casimir III of Poland, Louis I assisted several times the Poles against Lithuania and the Golden Horde. Hungarian campaigns east of the Carpathians led to the foundation of Moldavia, an eastern march under Louis I's suzerainty. He also compelled the Republic of Venice to withdrew from Dalmatia in 1358. Thereafter Tvrtko I of Bosnia, Lazar of Serbia, and Ivan Stratsimir of Vidin were forced to accept his suzerainty, although they rebelled against him more than one time in the 1360s. Likewise, Bogdan, a Romanian voivode initiated a successful revolt against him in Moldavia. Here Louis I's rule was restored after he was elected king of Poland in 1370. His control over Wallachia, the other Romanian principality always remained doubtful. Vladislav I of Wallachia even allied with the emerging Ottoman Empire. Therefore, Louis I was the first Hungarian monarch to fight against the Ottomans in 1375. He even had a chapel built in Mariazell to commemorate his victory over them.

Religious fanatism also featured Louis I's reign. He attempted to convert many of his Orthodox subjects to Catholicism by force, but he failed. He expelled all the Jews from his kingdom around 1360, but allowed them to return in 1367.

Internal stability contributed to the development of culture under the Angevin kings. New royal castles were erected in Visegrád, Diósgyőr, Zólyom (Zvolen, Slovakia) and other places. Although the Ottomans would destroy most monuments in the 16th and 17th centuries, patricians' houses unearthed at Sopron and other towns, frescoes and sculptures found at Esztergom, Nagyvárad and other places point at a flourishing Gothic architecture and art. Likewise, the Illuminated Chronicle and other codices decorated with miniatures attest to the high level of book illumination. William of Bergzabern, bishop of Pécs founded an university at his see in 1367, but it seems to have been closed shortly after his death in 1375.

New consolidation (1382–1437)

Louis I was succeeded in 1382 by his daughter, Mary, but most noblemen opposed the idea of being ruled by a female monarch. They preferred a male member of the dynasty, Charles of Durazzo who had acquired the Kingdom of Naples with Louis I's active support. The young queen's partisans were also divided, since most of them proposed her marriage to Sigismund of Luxemburg, a brother of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, but her mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia decided to give her in marriage to Louis of Orleans from the French royal family.

The dowager queen only assented to her daughter's marriage to Sigismund when she was informed that Charles of Durazzo had landed in Dalmatia in September 1385. However, a Diet dominated by Charles of Durazzo's partisans forced the queen to abdicate and elected him king at the end of the year. Although he was murdered in less than two months,Paul Horvat, bishop of Zagreb and his relatives declared his son, Ladislaus of Naples king. They also captured Queen Mary in July 1386. Her partisans soon set up a solemn league with its own "seal of the regnicoles" and proposed the crown to Sigismund. All the same, he had to take an oath of respecting the kingdom's "ancient good customs" before being crowned in March 1387. Queen Mary was soon liberated, but she never again intervened in the government. Sigismund distributed more than 50 percent of the royal castles and the villages attached to them among the members of the league in the following decade, but from 1392 he also granted lands to his own favorites, including Stibor of Stiboricz and Nicholas II Garay. Moreover, large territories in Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia were held till 1391 by King Tvrtko I of Bosnia, thereafter by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, who both were Ladislaus of Naples's partisans. When Queen Mary died childless in 1395, her sister, Jadwiga of Poland claimed the Hungarian throne for herself, but Sigismund's partisans could easily defeat the invading Polish troops.

In the meantime, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached the southern frontiers of the kingdom. For instance, Stefan Lazarević of Serbia was forced to accept the sultan's suzerainty in 1390. Sigismund who made several raids against the Ottomans and their allies between 1390 and 1395 decided to organize an international coalition against them. Indeed, a great army consisting mainly of French knights and led by John the Fearless, the Burgundian crown prince arrived to Hungary, but the Ottomans defeated the crusaders in the battle of Nicopolis on September 25, 1396. Following the catastrophic defeat, Sigismund refrained from offensive actions against the Ottomans and concentrated on the defense of his kingdom which became a regular target of Ottoman raids. For this purpose, the Diet of Temesvár (Timișoara, Romania) of 1397 obliged all landholders to finance the equipment of mounted soldiers in accordance with the number of peasant plots in their estates.

Sigismund's open bias towards his mostly foreign favorites gave rise to a number of plots against him which were led by the members of the league who had earlier supported his coronation. The Lackffys were the first to rebell in 1397, but they were soon captured and excecuted. Next most native barons of the realm turned against the king who was captured and imprisoned in 1401. Led by John Kanizsai, archbishop of Esztergom the barons administered the realm in the name of the Holy Crown, "the impersonal sovereign of the kingdom" (Miklós Molnár). However, the barons could not reach a compromise on Sigismund's succession, thus they restored him to the throne in six months. In the next year, the barons offered the crown to Ladislaus of Naples. Although most prelates, a great number of lesser nobles and even Pope Boniface IX supported Ladislaus's claim, Sigismund gained the upper hand by the end of 1403. Thereafter, Sigismund declared that no papal documents could be proclaimed in his kingdom without a royal consent. The Diet of 1404 also approved his decree prohibiting the appointment of prelates by the Holy See.

He founded his personal order of knights, the Order of the Dragon, after this victory. Members of the order were mostly his political allies and supporters. He encouraged international trade by abolishing internal duties, regulating tariffs on foreign goods and standardizing weights and measures throughout the country. Due to his frequent absences attending to business in the other countries over which he ruled, he was obliged to consult Diets in Hungary with more frequency than his predecessors and institute the office of Palatine as chief administrator while he was away.

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.

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 Transylvanian bishop ordered peasants to pay tithes 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. The first Hungarian Bible translation completed in 1439, but Hungarian Bible was illegal in its age.

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.

This coat of arms first appeared during the reign of Louis I (1342–1382) and evolved into the one used today.

Age of the two Hunyadis (1437–1490)

Further information: John Hunyadi, Matthias Corvinus, Ottoman–Hungarian Wars, and Black Army of Hungary

After Władysław III, Hungary's nobles chose an infant king, Ladislaus V the Posthumous, and a regent, John Hunyadi, to rule the country until the former came of age. Hunyadi was the son of a lesser nobleman, who had won distinction in the wars against the Ottomans. He 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 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.

Western conquests of Matthias Corvinus.

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 Hungary, 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. 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.

Decline (1490–1526)

The magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of Vladislaus II, 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. The freshly elected King Vladislaus II donated most of the royal estates, régales and royalties to the nobility. By this method, the king tried to stabilize his new reign and preserve his popularity amongst the magnates. After the naive fiscal and land policy of the royal court, the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense. The noble estate of the parliament succeeded in reducing the tax burden by 70-80 percent, at the expense of the country ability to defend itself.

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.

Battle of Mohács (1526)

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.

Disintegration (1526–1541)

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 an agreement between the rivals, called the treaty of Nagyvárad, 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 Wars
• Ottoman-Hungarian Wars

References

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• Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); Anonymus and Master Roger; CEU Press; ISBN 978-9639776951.
• Master Roger's Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament upon the Destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary by the Tatars (Translated and Annotated by János M. Bak and Martyn Rady) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); Anonymus and Master Roger; CEU Press; ISBN 978-9639776951.
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