Kingdom of Hungary

• Old Hungarians


  The 7 Magyar tribes from the region of Ural Mountains that invaded the Carpathian Basin at the end of 9th century
• Hetumoger


  The federation of the 7 Magyar tribes
• Magyar


  Possibly comes from the name of the most prominent Hungarian tribe, called Megyer
• Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin

  1. Migration of peoples following an attack in 894 or 895 by the Pechenegs and Bulgarians

  2. Approximately 100.000 – 500.000 people crossed the Carpathians

  3. Army of 20.000 light-horsemen led by Kurszán and Árpád

  4. Kurszán killed, Árpád became leader

  5. Took control over the lowlands east of the Danube

  6. Attacked and occupied Pannonia in 900

  7. Exploited internal conflicts in Moravia and annihilated this state sometime between 902 and 906
• Strengthening control over the Carpathian Basin

  1. Defeating a Bavarian army in the Battle of Pressburg in 907

  2. Launching a series of plundering raids between 899 and 955 westward into former Francia
• Hungarian army


  • Mostly light cavalry, highly mobile
  • Attacking without warning, quickly plundering and departing
  • Using arrows and the tactics of a feigned retreat
• Westward raids were stopped

  With the Magyar defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955
• Creation of the Kingdom of Hungary

  1. Defeat at Lechfeld convinced survivors to settle down

  2. Semi-nomadic Hungarian population adopted settled life, turned to agriculture and assimilated the original Slavic population

  3. Tribal leaders and clans established fortified centers like Székesfehérvár, Esztergom or Nitra

  4. Consolidation of the Hungarian state began under Géza, supported Christian missionaries

  5. Géza's son Stephen I became king, defeated rival Koppány, crowned in 1000

  6. Established the archbishopric in Esztergom, encouraged spread of Christianity, launched paying of tithe

  7. System of local administration based on counties organized around fortresses
• War with Poland ended with a peace treaty with Boleslav of Poland that obliged the Polish king to hand over all the territories he had occupied in the Morava valley to Stephen
• The territory of today's Slovakia was attached to the Hungarian Kingdom during the next few decades of 11th century
• Stephen I was canonized in 1083 and became the patron of Hungary as the founder of the state
• Stephen's death caused decades of civil wars, pagan uprisings and foreign invasions in the kingdom
• Duchy of Nitra


  Important political centre within the Kingdom of Hungary, governed by younger members of the Árpád dynasty as autonomous rulers
• Dissolution of the Duchy of Nitra

  In 1105 king Coloman of Hungary dissolved the Duchy and its territories have been incorporated into the royal domains
• The Zobor Abbey received two charters of grant from Coloman in 1111 and 1113, the first originally preserved documents from the territory
• Around 1200 the Gesta Hungarorum was written, the first book to describe the history of the Hungarians
• Andrew II's reign


  1. Introduced a new grants policy, giving away money and royal estates

  2. Introduced new taxes and ordered the exchange of coins twice a year

  3. Farmed out the collection of taxes and administration of the royal mint to Jews and Muslims

  4. Forced to issue the Golden Bull of 1222, confirming privileges of the Hungarian nobility
• The Golden Bull of 1222 is one of the first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch
• Béla IV's reign


  1. Attempted to restore royal authority, revised land grants causing discontent

  2. Supported development of towns, granted them with royal charters

  3. Defeated by the Mongols in the Battle of the Sajó River in 1241, country devastated

  4. Introduced radical reforms to prepare for a second Mongol invasion, allowed barons and prelates to erect stone fortresses and set up private armed forces, promoted development of fortified towns, allowed colonists to settle in depopulated lands

  5. Influenced by civil war with his son Stephen supported by Ottokar II of Bohemia
• The last decades of the 13th century were full of conflicts with neighboring countries and conflicts between the king and powerful lords, the oligarchs
• Andrew III of Hungary, the last member of the House of Árpád, died in January 1301, a struggle for the throne followed
• The Anjou Age began in 1308
• Béla IV


  • Promoted the development of fortified towns
  • Thousands of colonists arrived from the Holy Roman Empire, Poland and other neighboring regions to settle in the depopulated lands
• The last years of Béla´s reign


  Influenced by the civil war with his own son Stephen supported by Ottokar II of Bohemia
• The last decades of the 13th century were full of conflicts with the neighboring countries (like Ottokar II of Bohemia) and conflicts between the king and the powerful lords: the oligarchs, like Máté Csák of Trencsén who ruled de facto independently the north-western counties of Medieval Hungary</b>
• Máté Csák of Trencsén held the office of the palatine which was the highest-ranking office in the Kingdom of Hungary
• Máté Csák of Trencsén had a royal-like court at the Trenčín castle
• After the death of the last Árpád king, Máté Csák of Trencsén played an important role in the battle of the throne supporting different claimants for the throne
• Andrew III of Hungary - the last member of the House of Árpád – died in January 1301
• A struggle for the throne followed the death of Andrew III
• Oligarchs in the early 14th century

  • Achieved de facto independence of the monarch
  • Strengthened their autonomy
• Máté Csák of Trencsén, the most powerful Hungarian oligarch supported King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and later his son as the candidate for Hungarian throne
• The Bohemian prince was crowned, but couldn't gain political support and left the country leaving the throne to Otto III, Duke of Bavaria, who was also crowned king of Hungary
• The third claimant to the Hungarian throne, the Neapolitan prince, Charles of House of Anjou, had the support of the pope and could actually gain enough political support to be crowned Hungarian king and defeat all his opponents in 1308
• Charles I of Anjou (1308-1342) defeated all the great lords, the most famous is the Battle of Rozgony (Rozhanovce) in 1312
• Matthew Csák preserved his autonomy up until his death in 1321
• Reforms introduced by the House of Anjou kings


  • Charles I introduced a centralized power structure, the king did not hold Diets and administered his kingdom with absolute power
  • Promoted opening of new gold mines, which made Hungary the largest producer of gold in Europe
  • The first Hungarian gold coins – florins - were minted during his reign
• At the congress of Visegrád in 1335, Charles I mediated reconciliation between two neighboring monarchs, John of Bohemia and Casimir III of Poland
• Treaties signed at the Visegrád congress contributed to the development of new commercial routes "the Czech route" linking Hungary with Western Europe (Prague – Brno – Trnava – Buda)
• Reforms introduced by Louis I of Anjou

  • Louis I's Privilegium pro Slavis ("Privilege for the Slavs") from 1381 was the first indication of official bilingualism in a town
  • Ensured that the Slovaks in present-day Žilina, Slovakia enjoy the same privileges as the town's German citizens