Angevin Dynasty
1301-1382 		Reformation









Hungary in the Late Middle Ages, 1382-1526



With the death of Louis I. the Great, the Hungarian-Polish union fell apart. A few years later the Angevin dynasty ended and the Hungarian throne fell to SIGISMUND, son of Emperor Charles IV. of the Luxemburg Dynasty. In 1396 Sigismund organized a crusade against the Ottoman Turks, which ended in defeat in the BATTLE OF NICOPOLIS.
Sigismund attempted to implement reforms, in Hungary as well as in the Empire, meeting suspicion and at times open hostility on the side of Hungary's magnates (who controlled most of Hungary's estates and who wished to monopolize the royal council as well). HUSSITISM was a problem in Hungary, too, as there were Hussite communities in the country and a Hussite bible translation was published in the 1430es. Hussite raids ravaged western Slovakia.
In 1437-1438, a major PEASANT REVOLT broke out in Transylvania; it was suppressed in 1438. During Sigismund's rule, Venice had reestablished it's rule over much of Dalmatia; Sigismund, frequently short of cash, had to pawn a number of cities in the Slovakian Zips region to Poland.
Under Ladislas V. Postumus, the wars against the Ottoman Turks, who in recent years had subjugated most areas south of the Danube, were resumed. In 1444 Ladislas V. Postumus lead an army of crusaders, many of them Hungarians, into Ottoman territory, where they were defeated in the BATTLE OF VARNA.

The country's DIET, in which the landowners - nobility, the church, cities were represented, grew in political importance and here it was the wealthy magnates who dominated politics, as they could afford to stay for lengthy debates while others were pressed for time. In a time of frequently changing dynasties it was the diet which had the right to elect a king.
Hungary's next king, Matthias I. Corvinus (Hunyadi) again pursued an active foreign policy. In 1478 he gained Moravia, in the 1480es, Styria, Vienna (1485) and most of Austria was occupied. During his reign, Budapest became a center for Renaissance Humanism. Most famous is the BIBLIOTHECA CORVINIANA.
When preparations for yet another criusade against the Turks were made in 1514, another peasant revolt broke out - Hungary's magnates had used their influence in the diet to pass legislation in their favour, tying the peasants to the farms. The revolt was suppressed. In the South, Turkish raids devastated the landscape. Belgrade fell in 1521, ani in the BATTLE OF MOHACS 1526, King Louis II. himself fell while his army was annihilated. Hungary was defenseless against Turkish raids.





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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