Westernization
1196-1301 		Late Middle Ages
1382-1526







Hungary under the Angevine Dynasty, 1301-1382


In 1301, King Andrew III. died, and with him ended the Arpad Dynasty. The result was a conflict over succession. The Croatian Sabor elected CHARLES ROBERT OF ANJOU king in 1301; in Hungary proper he was crowned in 1310, after two other candidates, Venceslas of Bohemia-Poland (1301-1305) and Otto of Wittelsbach (Bavaria, 1305-1308) had reigned.
It is characteristic that all of these kings had been foreign-born; both feudal and church law were international and high nobility, through a long practise of intermarriage, had created an atmosphere in which a foreigner could be tolerated as king.
Still Charles had, in some regions, to establish his rule by force; by 1323 the reunification of Hungary was completed.
Angevin Hungary was naturally allied with the Angevin kingdom of Naples and closely allied with Bohemia and Poland. Charles' son LOUIS THE GREAT was crowned King of Hungary in 1342 and King of Poland in 1370, establishing a PERSONAL UNION of both kingdoms. Louis also hoped for the crown of Naples, but campaigns in Italy in 1347/48 and 1350-1352 were not successful. Furthermore, Louis pursued an active Balkans policy, securing Belgrade from Stephen Dusan's disintegrating Serb Empire and forcing the Venetians to withdraw from Dalmatia (1358). In the East, Halich (Eastern Galicia) was gained, placed under Hungary.

Louis'reign resulted in numerous achievements, but had several flaws. One was a lack of state institutions outside the monarchy which would hold the Empire together. Another one was the fact that he had no son. Immediately after his death, the Polish-Hungarian union broke apart and Poland, dissatidfied with Louis having resided in Hungary, demanded from future kings that they took up residence in Cracow.





EXTERNAL
LINKS 		Magyar Conquest of Hungary, from A Short History of Austria-Hungary by H. Wickham-Steed, 1914
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE Peter F. Sugar (ed.), A History of Hungary, Indiana Univ. Press 1990, 432 pp.


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 11th 2004

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