In the Late Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Hungary, a country in Central Europe, experienced a period of interregnum in the early 14th century. Royal power was restored under Charles I (1308–1342), a scion of the Capetian House of Anjou. Gold 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 power 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 under Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). In the next decades, a talented military commander, John Hunyadi, directed the fight against the Ottomans. His victory at Nándorfehérvár (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) in 1456 stabilized the southern frontiers for more than half a century. The first king of Hungary without dynastic ancestry was Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490), who led several successful military campaigns and also became the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Austria. With his patronage Hungary became the first country which adopted the Renaissance from Italy.
Background
The Kingdom of Hungary came into being when Stephen I, grand prince of the Hungarians, was crowned king in 1000 or 1001. He reinforced central authority and forced his subjects to accept Christianity. 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 was taken from Southern Slavic languages. Civil wars, pagan uprisings and the Holy Roman Emperors' unsuccessful attempts to expand their authority over Hungary jeopardized the new monarchy. Its position stabilized under Ladislaus I (1077–1095) and Coloman (1095–1116). Following the succession crisis in Croatia as a result of their campaign the Kingdom of Croatia entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102. Both of them were regarded as a successor by hereditary rights Coloman was crowned in Biograd in 1102 and the title now claimed by Coloman was "King of Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia".
Rich in uncultivated lands and in silver, gold, and salt deposits, the kingdom became a preferred target of the continuous immigration of mainly German, Italian and French colonists. The colonists were mostly peasants who settled in villages, but also large number of townsfolk arrived as craftsmen and merchants. Their arrival contributed to the development of Esztergom, Székesfehérvár and many other cities and large number of villages in various parts of the Kingdom. Situated at the crossroads of international trade routes, Hungary was affected by several cultural trends. Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance buildings, and literary works written in Latin prove the predominantly Roman Catholic character of the culture of the Kingdom, but Orthodox, and even non-Christian ethnic minority communities also existed. Latin was 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 1241–1242. Thereafter, Cuman and Jassic groups were settled in the central lowlands and colonists arrived from Moravia, Poland and other nearby countries.
History
Interregnum (1301–1323)
Andrew III died on January 14, 1301. His death created an opportunity for about a dozen lords, or "oligarchs", 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 where everybody was obliged either to accept their supremacy or to leave. For instance, Matthew III 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. In Croatia the situation for the crown became even more dire, as viceroy Paul Šubić and the Babonić family achieved de facto independence, with Paul Šubić even minting his own coin and being called by contemporary Croatian historians as the "uncrowned king of the Croats".
At the news of Andrew III's death, viceroy Šubić invited Charles I of Anjou, the late Charles Martel's son, to claim the throne, who hurried to Esztergom where he was crowned king. However, most secular lords opposed his rule and proposed the throne to King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia's namesake son. The young Wenceslaus could not strengthen his position and renounced in favor of Otto III, Duke of Bavaria in 1305. The latter was forced to leave the kingdom in 1307 by Ladislaus Kán. A papal legate persuaded all the lords to accept Charles of Anjou's rule in 1310, but 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. Taking advantage of the lack of unity among them, he defeated them one by one. He won his first victory in the battle of Rozgony (present-day Rozhanovce, Slovakia) in 1312. However, the most powerful lord, Matthew Csák preserved his autonomy up until his death in 1321, while the Babonić and Šubić families were only subjugated in 1323.
The Angevins' monarchy (1323–1382)
Charles I introduced a centralized power structure in the 1320s. Stating that "his words has the force of law", he never again convoked the Diet. Even his most faithful partisans depended on revenues from their temporary honours, because the king rarely made land grants. This practice ensured the loyalty of the Drugeths, Lackfis, Szécsényis, and other families who emerged in his reign.
The king even afforded to grant privileges which contradicted customary law. For instance, he occasionally 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, Roman law never replaced customary 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).
Charles I reformed the system of royal revenues and monopolies. For instance, he imposed the "thirtieth" (a 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. The new mines 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. However, most profits from the mines were transferred to Italian and South German merchants, because the value of imported fine textiles and other goods always exceeded the price of cattle and wine exported from the kingdom.
Charles I also ordered the minting of stable golden coins modelled on the florin of Florence. His ban on trading with uncoined gold produced shortage in the European market which lasted until his death in 1342. Following this, in 1343, the Romanian-led Voivodeship of Maramureș was established, which would exist until 1402. Thereafter his widow, Elisabeth of Poland transported enormous quantities of gold to Italy in order to promote the claim of their younger son, Andrew to the Kingdom of Naples. Andrew who was Queen Joanna I of Naples's consort was assassinated in 1345. His brother, Louis I of Hungary accused the queen of his murder and led two campaigns against her in 1347 and 1350. Although he twice conquered her kingdom, she regained it on both occasions.
The first campaign against Naples was abandoned because of the arrival of the "Black Death". In Hungary, fewer locals fell victim to the epidemic than in Western Europe, because the kingdom was still an underpopulated territory with well nourished inhabitants. Indeed, colonization also continued in the 14th century. The new settlers mainly came from Moravia, Poland and other neighboring countries. They were customarily exempted of taxation for 16 years, which is reflected by the lehota ("lightening") placenames in present-day Slovakia.
Earlier distinctions between freemen, serfs and udvornici disappeared in the 14th century, because all peasants had acquired the right to free movement by the 1350s. Most of them cultivated well defined parcels with a hereditary right to use it for a rent in cash and in-kind "gifts" due to the landowner. The legal position of "true noblemen" was also standardized when the idea of "one and the same liberty" was enacted in 1351. For instance, all noblemen received the right to "adjudicate all offences committed" by the peasants living in their estates (Martyn Rady).
Most towns were still dominated by German merchants, but more and more Croat, Hungarian and Slovak peasants arrived from the nearby villages to settle in the towns in the 14th century. Louis I's Privilegium pro Slavis ("Privilege for the Slavs") from 1381 was the first indication of official bilingualism in a town. It ensured that the Slovaks in Zsolna (present-day Žilina, Slovakia) would enjoy the same privileges as the town's German burghers.
Louis I who was heir presumptive to Casimir III of Poland assisted the Poles several times against Lithuania and the Golden Horde. The foundation of Moldavia, a Romanian principality east of the Carpathians is also connected to these campaigns. Along the southern frontiers, Louis I compelled the Venetians to withdraw from Dalmatia in 1358 and forced a number of local rulers (including Tvrtko I of Bosnia, and Lazar of Serbia) to accept his suzerainty. However, his vassals often rebelled against him in the 1360s. Bogdan, a Romanian voivode even achieved the independence of Moldavia. Louis I's suzerainty over Moldavia was only restored when 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 in 1375. Therefore, Louis I was the first Hungarian monarch who had to fight against the Ottomans.
Religious fanaticism is one of the featuring element of Louis I's reign. He attempted, without success, to convert many of his Orthodox subjects to Catholicism by force. He expelled the Jews around 1360, but allowed them to return in 1367.
New royal castles were erected, for instance, in Visegrád, Diósgyőr, and Zólyom (present-day Zvolen, Slovakia) under the Angevin kings. Patricians' houses unearthed at Sopron and other towns, frescoes and sculptures found at many places (including Esztergom and Nagyvárad) point at a flourishing Gothic architecture and art. Codices decorated with miniatures (among them the Illuminated Chronicle) attest to the high level of book illumination. William of Bergzabern, Bishop of Pécs founded a university at his see in 1367, but it was closed shortly after his death in 1375.
New consolidation (1382–1437)
Louis I was succeeded in 1382 by his daughter, Mary. However, most noblemen opposed the idea of being ruled by a female monarch. Taking advantage of the situation, a male member of the dynasty, Charles III of Naples claimed the throne for himself. He arrived in the kingdom in September 1385. Although the Diet forced the queen to abdicate and elected Charles of Naples king, the queen's partisans murdered him in February 1386. Paul Horvat, Bishop of Zagreb initiated a new rebellion and declared his infant son, Ladislaus of Naples king. They captured the queen in July 1386, but her supporters proposed the crown to her husband, Sigismund of Luxemburg. Queen Mary was soon liberated, but she never again intervened in the government.
Sigismund distributed more than 50 percent of the royal estates to his supporters. Furthermore, large territories in Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia remained controlled by Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and Ladislaus of Naples's other supporters. When Queen Mary died childless in 1395, her sister, Queen Jadwiga of Poland claimed the throne for herself, but Sigismund's partisans defeated her troops.
In the meantime, Stefan Lazarević of Serbia accepted the Ottoman sultan's suzerainty, thus the Ottoman Empire's expansion reached the southern frontiers of Hungary in 1390. Sigismund decided to organize a crusade against the Ottomans. A great army consisting mainly of French knights assembled, but the crusaders were routed in the battle of Nicopolis in 1396.