The Kingdom of Hungary between 1526 and 1867 existed as a state outside the Holy Roman Empire, but part of the lands of the Habsburg monarchy that became the Austrian Empire in 1804. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the country was ruled by two crowned kings (John I and Ferdinand I). Initially, the exact territory under Habsburg rule was disputed because both rulers claimed the whole kingdom. This unsettled period lasted until 1570 when John Sigismund Zápolya (John II) abdicated as King of Hungary in Emperor Maximilian II's favor.
In the early stages, the lands that were ruled by the Habsburg Hungarian kings were regarded as both the "Kingdom of Hungary" and "Royal Hungary". Royal Hungary was the symbol of the continuity of formal law after the Ottoman occupation, because it could preserve its legal traditions, but in general, it was de facto a Habsburg province. The Hungarian nobility forced Vienna to admit that Hungary was a special unit of the Habsburg lands and had to be ruled in conformity with its own special laws. However, Hungarian historiography positioned Transylvania in a direct continuity with the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in pursuance of the advancement of Hungarian interests.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz, which ended the Great Turkish War in 1699, the Ottomans ceded nearly all of Ottoman Hungary. The new territories were united with the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary, and although its powers were mostly formal, the Diet of Hungary in Pressburg ruled the lands.
Two major Hungarian rebellions were the Rákóczi's War of Independence in the early 18th century and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and marked important shifts in the evolution of the polity. The kingdom became a dual monarchy in 1867, known as Austria-Hungary.
Royal Hungary (1526–1699)
Royal Hungary (1526–1699), (Hungarian: Királyi Magyarország, German: Königliches Ungarn), was the name of the portion of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary where the Habsburgs were recognized as Kings of Hungary in the wake of the Ottoman victory at the Battle of Mohács (1526) and the subsequent partition of the country.
Temporary territorial division between the rival rulers John I and Ferdinand I occurred only in 1538, under the Treaty of Nagyvárad, when the Habsburgs got the northern and western parts of the country (Royal Hungary), with the new capital Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava). John I secured the eastern part of the kingdom (known as the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom). The Habsburg monarchs needed the economic power of Hungary for the Ottoman wars. During the Ottoman wars the territory of the former Kingdom of Hungary was reduced by around 60 per cent. Despite these enormous territorial and demographic losses, the smaller and heavily war torn Royal Hungary was as important as the Austrian hereditary lands or the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in the late 16th century.
The territory of present-day Slovakia and northwestern Transdanubia were parts of this polity, while control of the region of northeastern Hungary often shifted between Royal Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania. The central territories of the medieval Hungarian kingdom were annexed by the Ottoman Empire for 150 years (see Ottoman Hungary).
In 1570, John Sigismund Zápolya abdicated as King of Hungary in Emperor Maximilian II's favor under the terms of the Treaty of Speyer.
The term "Royal Hungary" fell into disuse after 1699, and the Habsburg kings referred to the newly enlarged country by the more formal term "Kingdom of Hungary".
Habsburg kings
The Habsburgs, an influential dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire, were elected Kings of Hungary.
Royal Hungary became a part of the Habsburg monarchy and enjoyed little influence in Vienna. The Habsburg king directly controlled Royal Hungary's financial, military, and foreign affairs, and imperial troops guarded its borders. The Habsburgs avoided filling the office of palatine to prevent the holders amassing too much power. In addition, the so-called Turkish question divided the Habsburgs and the Hungarians: Vienna wanted to maintain peace with the Ottomans; the Hungarians wanted the Ottomans ousted. As the Hungarians recognized the weakness of their position, many became anti-Habsburg. They complained about foreign rule, the behaviour of foreign garrisons, and the Habsburgs' recognition of Turkish suzerainty in the Principality of Transylvania. This was usually under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, however, it often had dual vassalage -Ottoman Turkish sultans and the Habsburg Hungarian kings- in the 16th and 17th centuries). Protestants, who were persecuted in Royal Hungary, considered the Counter-Reformation a greater menace than the Turks, however.
The Austrian branch of Habsburg monarchs needed the economic power of Hungary for the Ottoman wars. During the Ottoman wars the territory controlled by the Kingdom of Hungary shrank by around 60%. Despite these enormous territorial and demographic losses, the smaller, heavily war-torn Royal Hungary had remained as economically important to the Habsburg rulers as the Austrian hereditary lands or the Bohemian crownlands even in the late 16th century. Out of all his countries, the depleted Kingdom of Hungary was, at that time, Ferdinand I's largest source of revenue.
The Reformation spread quickly, and by the early 17th century hardly any noble families remained Catholic. In Royal Hungary, the majority of the population became Lutheran by the end of the 16th century.
Archbishop Péter Pázmány reorganized Royal Hungary's Roman Catholic Church and led a Counter-Reformation that reversed the Protestants' gains in Royal Hungary, using persuasion rather than intimidation. The Reformation caused rifts between Catholics, who often sided with the Habsburgs, and Protestants, who developed a strong national identity and became rebels in Austrian eyes. Chasms also developed between the mostly Catholic magnates and the mainly Protestant lesser nobles.
Kingdom of Hungary in the early modern period until 1848
18th century
As the Habsburgs' control of the Turkish possessions started to increase, the ministers of Leopold I argued that he should rule Hungary as conquered territory. At the Diet of "Royal Hungary" in Pressburg, in 1687, the Emperor promised to observe all laws and privileges. Nonetheless, the hereditary succession of the Habsburgs was recognized, and the nobles' right of resistance was abrogated. In 1690 Leopold began redistributing lands freed from the Turks. Protestant nobles and all other Hungarians thought disloyal by the Habsburgs lost their estates, which were given to foreigners. Vienna controlled the foreign affairs, defense, tariffs, and other functions.
The repression of Protestants and the land seizures frustrated the Hungarians, and in 1703 a peasant uprising sparked an eight-year rebellion against Habsburg rule. In Transylvania, which became part of Hungary again at the end of the 17th century (as a province, called "Principality of Transylvania" with the Diet seated at Gyulafehérvár), the people united under Francis II Rákóczi, a Roman Catholic magnate. Most of Hungary soon supported Rákóczi, and the Hungarian Diet voted to annul the Habsburgs' right to the throne. Fortunes turned against the Hungarians, however, when the Habsburgs made peace in the west and turned their full force against them. The war ended in 1711, when Count Károlyi, General of the Hungarian Armies agreed to the Treaty of Szatmár. The treaty contained the emperor's agreement to reconvene the Diet in Pressburg and to grant an amnesty for the rebels.
Leopold's successor, King Charles III (1711–40), began building a workable relationship with Hungary after the Treaty of Szatmár. Charles asked the approval of the Diet for the Pragmatic Sanction, under which the Habsburg monarch was to rule Hungary not as emperor, but as a king subject to the restraints of Hungary's constitution and laws. He hoped that the Pragmatic Sanction would keep the Habsburg Empire intact if his daughter, Maria Theresa, succeeded him. The Diet approved the Pragmatic Sanction in 1723, and Hungary thus agreed to become a hereditary monarchy under the Habsburgs for as long as their dynasty existed. In practice, however, Charles and his successors governed almost autocratically, controlling Hungary's foreign affairs, defense, and finance but lacking the power to tax the nobles without their approval.
Charles organized the country under a centralized administration and in 1715 established a standing army under his command, which was entirely funded and manned by the non-noble population. This policy reduced the nobles' military obligation without abrogating their exemption from taxation. Charles also banned conversion to Protestantism, required civil servants to profess Catholicism, and forbade Protestant students to study abroad.
Maria Theresa (1741–80) faced an immediate challenge from Prussia's Frederick II when she became head of the House of Habsburg, facing the First Silesian War. In 1741 she appeared before the Diet of Pressburg holding her newborn son and entreated Hungary's nobles to support her. They stood behind her and helped secure her rule. Maria Theresa later took measures to reinforce links with Hungary's magnates. She established special schools to attract Hungarian nobles to Vienna.
Under Charles and Maria Theresa, Hungary experienced further economic decline. Centuries of Ottoman occupation and war had reduced Hungary's population drastically, and large parts of the country's southern half were almost deserted. A labor shortage developed as landowners restored their estates. In response, the Habsburgs began to colonize Hungary with large numbers of peasants from all over Europe, especially Slovaks, Serbs, Croatians, and Germans. Many Jews also immigrated from Vienna and the empire's Polish lands near the end of the 18th century. Hungary's population more than tripled to 8 million between 1720 and 1787. However, only 39 percent of its people were Magyars, who lived mainly in the center of the country.
In the first half of the 18th century, Hungary had an agricultural economy that employed 90 percent of the population. The nobles failed to use fertilizers, roads were poor and rivers blocked, and crude storage methods caused huge losses of grain. Barter had replaced money transactions, and little trade existed between towns and the serfs. After 1760 a labor surplus developed. The serf population grew, pressure on the land increased, and the serfs' standard of living declined. Landowners began making greater demands on new tenants and began violating existing agreements. In response, Maria Theresa issued her Urbarium of 1767 to protect the serfs by restoring their freedom of movement and limiting the corvée. Despite her efforts and several periods of strong demand for grain, the situation worsened. Between 1767 and 1848, many serfs left their holdings. Most became landless farmworkers because a lack of industrial development meant few opportunities for work in the towns.
Joseph II (1780–90), a dynamic leader strongly influenced by the Age of Enlightenment, shook Hungary from its malaise when he inherited the throne from his mother, Maria Theresa. In the framework of Josephinism, Joseph sought to centralize control of the empire and to rule it by decree as an enlightened despot. He refused to take the Hungarian coronation oath to avoid being constrained by Hungary's constitution. In 1781–82 Joseph issued a Patent of Toleration, followed by an Edict of Tolerance which granted Protestants and Orthodox Christians full civil rights and Jews freedom of worship. He decreed that German replace Latin as the kingdom's official language and granted the peasants the freedom to leave their holdings, to marry, and to place their children in trades. Hungary, Slavonia, Croatia, the Military Frontier and Transylvania became a single imperial territory under one administration, called the Kingdom of Hungary or "Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen". When the Hungarian nobles again refused to waive their exemption from taxation, Joseph banned imports of Hungarian manufactured goods into Austria and began a survey to prepare for the imposition of a general land tax.
Joseph's reforms outraged nobles and clergy of Hungary, and the peasants of the country grew dissatisfied with taxes, conscription, and requisitions of supplies. Hungarians perceived Joseph's language reform as German cultural hegemony, and they reacted by insisting on the right to use their own tongue. As a result, Hungarian lesser nobles sparked a renaissance of the Hungarian language and culture, and a cult of national dance and costume flourished. The lesser nobles questioned the loyalty of the magnates, of whom less than half were ethnic Hungarians, and even those had become French- and German-speaking courtiers. The Hungarian national reawakening subsequently triggered national revivals among the Slovak, Romanian, Serbian, and Croatian minorities within Hungary and Transylvania, who felt threatened by both German and Hungarian cultural hegemony. These national revivals later blossomed into the nationalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries that contributed to the empire's ultimate collapse.
Late in his reign, Joseph led a costly, ill-fated campaign against the Turks that weakened his empire. On 28 January 1790, three weeks before his death, the emperor issued a decree cancelling all of his reforms except the Patent of Toleration, peasant reforms, and the abolition of the religious orders.