History
From ThreadsOfTime
Prehistoric Survey
No written sources on the early history of the Hungarian people have come down to us. Consequently, the material for study must be sought in the evidence of language, archaeology, ethnography and anthropology. Comparative linguistics provides the main field of research for what is known as Hungarian prehistory, for it demonstrates that the Hungarian language, judging by its vocabulary and structural pecularies, belongs to the Finno-Ugrian group of the Uralic languages, more precisely, to its Ugrian branch. It has not been possible to determine whether the original home of the Uralian prehistoric peoples was in Europe or Asia. It is believed, however, that the common homeland of the Ob-Ugrians and the ancient Hungarians (the Magyars) was along the central Volga. The ancestors of the Hungarians were for the most part fishermen and hunters, but is is probable that they were acquainted with animal husbandry, the tanning of leather, pottery, and the carving of wood and bone.
In the middle of the first millennium B.C., the ancestors of the Hungarians migrated from the lands they had shared in common with the other Ugrian peoples and moved south. Here they came under the influence of the Bulgar-Turkic pastoral tribes, with a resulting change in their manner of life: their primary occupation as mounted nomads was transformed into herding, and they lived in a tribal society. In the course of their migrations, they came into contact with different nomadic empires which formed with amazing speed on the steppes only to collapse later with the same dramatic suddenness. In the middle of the fifth century B.C., the ancestors of the Hungarian people joined the Onogur tribes of Bulgar-Turkic origin and lived with them along the northern shore of the Black Sea. For a time they were subject to the lax sovereignty of the Turkish Empire. Later a part of the Onogurs withdrew themselves from the Khazar overlordship and migrated to the south to found the Bulgarian homeland on the lower Danube. Another group of the remaining Onogurs drifted towards the Volga, while the rest formed a tribal alliance under Khazar overlordship. As time went on, they began to use the name of the strongest tribe in the alliance - the Megyer tribe - as a generic term for the whole group. This is the origin of the name Magyar, and of Magyarország - the name for a Hungarian and for Hungary in their own language today. The world applied to them in foreign languages (Hungarus, Hongrois, Hungarian, Ungar, etc.) derives from the term Onogur. Accounts of the Magyar migration differ in different sources. All we know for sure is that they were forced by the attack of the Pechegens to move west to the land between the Don and the Dnieper. Fleeing from this region after another sweeping offensive in or around 895-896, they entered the Carpathian Basin, familiar to them from their earlier raiding expeditions. At the time of the Magyar Conquest, the area was inhabited mostly by Slavic ethnic groups; and Great Moravia, situated on the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, had been in a state of disintegration since the death of Prince Svatopluk. The military power of the Pannonian Slav principality in the west did not represent notable strength. The rule of the Bulgars, extending over the Great Plain and Transylvania, was not consolidated. Under these circumstances, the Magyars were able to overrun the whole area of the country without difficulty. The military leader of the conquering tribes was Árpád, and after the founding of the state, his descendants became the rulers of the country.
The History of the Carpathian Basin
The land occupied by the conquering Magyars had been inhabited since prehistoric times. According to the archaeological evidences found at Vértesszõlõs, the Carpathian Basin had already been the dwelling place of prehistoric man half a million years ago. In the caves of the Bükk Mountains, for example, the one hundred and fifty thousand-year-old tools of Paleolithic man have been unearthed. Human settlement also existed in the Middle Paleolithic period in the region along the middle section of the river Tisza, and in the Neolithic period the people of the Körös culture, who used polished stone tools, had already taken up farming. Tee earliest known art also originates from the people of the Tisza, the Great Plain and later from the Bükk and Transdanubian cultures. During the early Iron Age, Thracians settled east of the Tisza and Illyrians west of the Danube. The latter erected enormous earthwork as defence against the Scythians and later against the Celts, who came from the west.
In the early years of our era, the Romans, who had conquered the Celts, extended their rule to the region of the country lying west of the Danube, which then became a province of the Roman Empire under the name of Pannonia. A century later the province of Dacia was formed in the region of Transylvania. The four centuries of Roman rule created an advanced and flourishing civilization and the founding of the majority of the present-day towns in western Hungary can be traced back to Roman antecedents. For example, both Sopron and Szombathely (Scarbantia and Savaria), located near the Austro-Hungarian border, developed into important settlements along the Amber Route which extended from the Baltic countries to Italy; the predecessor of Pécs in southern Hungary was the Roman town of Sopianae, and Aquincum, the Roman predecessor of today's Budapest, was a large town along the river Danube with a waterwork system, a sewage system, steam baths, markets, and two amphitheaters.
After four centuries of existence, Roman civilization was swept away by the great migrations. For five hundred years the Carpathian Basin had been already the "the people's highway", with various tribes such as the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Lombards migrating across the area after sojourning for various lengths of time. Later, the empire of the Huns came into being, the military power that finally forced the withdrawal of the Roman legions. After the fall of the great Hun and Avar nomadic empires, only the Western Slavic and Southern Slavic people succeeded in establishing themselves in the Carpathian Basin.
The advanced economic and political conditions of the Slavs, who had been settling in the area since the 6th and 7th centuries, exerted a significant influence over the Magyars; in fact, several words related to agriculture and handicrafts are expressed in the Hungarian language by words borrowed from the Slavic peoples.
Saint Stephen's Legacy
An outstanding representative of the remaining works of Hungarian Romanesque art (astonishingly great in number despite all later losses through destruction) is a haggard male head carved from red marble. Naturally, we do not know the identity of the artist, and since we can only surmise that it depicts King Stephen I, the first king of Hungary, art historians refer to the statue as "the royal head from Kalocsa", the town where it was uncovered. It is a portrait whose hard features suggest formidable energy and resolve, and bear witness to great wisdom and understanding. King Stephen was probably this kind of person. Against formidable odds, he proposed and implemented fundamental changes in Hungary. In the course of this transformation the nomadic Magyars, who had been living within the framework of tribal organization, settled permanently in the area, took up the occupations of agriculture and handicraft, and exchanged their ancient pagan belief for Christianity. Later events proved the choice a historic one.
The events that led up to it were as follows. In the first half of the tenth century, during the decades the followed the Conquest, raiding expeditions of Magyar mounted warriors subjected all Europe to a constant state of terror. In time, however, they began to feel the effects of Western counter-strategy. When the Magyars invaded Bavaria in 955, the armoured cavalry of Otto the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, checked their advance, and in the decisive battle at Lechfeld it annihilated the Magyar assailants. Although the Magyars launched further attacks on Byzantium following this devastating defeat, it became clear that they had arrived at a decisive historic cross-road. Two alternatives confronted them: either they settle down, form a state and adjust themselves to the people of Europe, or else the same fate would befall them as that of the other nomadic peoples who had been annihilated in previous centuries.
The first steps towards consolidation were actually taken by King Stephen's father, Géza (972-997), the last Magyar prince, who called in feudal knights and missionaries from the west to help break the resistance of his people which was impending the spread of the new faith and checking the transformation taking place within the country. However, the great task of implementing the change to Christianity was carried out by (Saint) Stephen I (997-1038) who defeated the forces of the rebellious tribal aristocracy, was crowned with a crown received from the Pope, and replaced the ancient tribal structure with the newly founded Hungarian State. The counties became the organizational units of the state and were ruled by governors (comes) appointed by the king. By rigorous measures, Stephen I forced those still loyal to ancient pagan beliefs to convert to Christianity, organized eight bishoprics and two archbishoprics, and decreed that every group of ten villages should build a church. Since there were two to three thousand villages in the country, this order resulted in a greatly increased demand for construction work, coupled with the demand for ceremonial robes, as well as metal and goldsmith's objects for the churches. Furthermore, thanks to the work of craftsmen invited from abroad, Hungarian goldsmiths, metallurgists and stonemasons, the Magyar art of the Conquest gradually blended into the Romanesque style, which was just spreading throughout Europe at that time. This style became so deeply rooted in Hungary, that for a long time to come, even small village churches were built in this manner. In the course of his long reign, the most important political objectives developed by Stephen I were the introduction and implementation of internal reforms and the preservation of the country's independence. These same political objectives were passed on to his successors. He himself fought successfully against Holy Roman Emperor King Conrad II, frustrating his plans of conquest. Among his successors was King (Saint) Ladislas I (1077-1095), who increased the territory of the country, and supported the Pope in the investiture wars against the Holy Roman Emperor. At the end of the twelfth century, King Béla III - educated during his stay as a hostage at the court of Emperor Manuel and almost succeeding him on the Byzantine throne - put an end to the interference of Byzantium with some clever and form political maneuvering.
The Mongol Invasion and the Second Conquest
It is the spring of 1241. The first sentries of dreaded Mongol forces appear at the north and north-eastern passes of the Carpathians. They are riding tiny, long-haired horses, and are wearing iron-plated armoury made of leather straps. After provoking and harassing the defending forces with feigned attacks, Batu Khan's forces concentrate their power and irrupt into Hungary through the Verecke pass, the route used by the Magyars at the time of the Conquest. The commander of the defending forces, the Palatine of Hungary, flees wounded from the scene of the battle. He just escapes death. The assailants first swoop down upon the northern part of the country, looting and massacring as the proceed forward. Later they come to grips with the main Magyar forces, led by Béla IV, in the valley of the river Sajó. During the night, the Tartars secretly cross the river and set fire to the Magyar camp. The greatest part of the besieged Magyar army, suffering an attack from the rear, is annihilated. The survivors flee towards the west and south. Soon the northern part of the country is completely under the assailants grip. When winter sets in, the Mongol forces cross the ice of the frozen Danube with ease and the whole of Transdanubia, the land west of Danube, is at their mercy. Only a few fortresses protected by stone walls hold out and, in fact, succeed in repelling the attack. The rest of the region up to its western border is occupied by the Mongols. From the western border, the Austrian Prince Friedrich mounts an attack, not against the Tartars, but against the surviving Magyar towns, and occupies Sopron and, for a short time, Gyõr. He imprisons Béla IV, who had fled to his court, and releases him only for a heavy ransom. The Tartars pursue the king, who is trying to organize resistance, and search for him everywhere. They follow his trail to Zagreb and Dalmatia. He finally takes refuge in Trogir. To quote a German chronicler: "After three hundred years, Hungaria was no more."
In fact, it did appear as though Hungary had been annihilated by the Mongol invasion. However, internal dynastic conflicts erupted within the Mongol Empire, resulting in the withdrawal of the Mongol hordes from the country in the summer of 1242. Hungaria survived the apparently fatal devastation. Its population decimated, its towns reduced to ashes, and its villages razed to dust, the country survived. Béla IV began the reconstruction of the country, building castles and fortified towns to forestall the threat of another Mongol invasion. He invited German, Walloon and Italian settlers, and by granting them special privileges, promoted urban development. The king, who was called "the second founder of the state", planned the construction of Buda Castle, raised the settlements of Buda and Pest to the rank of towns, and founded the Dominican convent on Margaret Island. On this island, which lies between Buda and Pest, his daughter Margaret - who was later canonized - lived as a nun. The Mongol invasion proved to be a turning point in more ways than one. The country's survival was proof of the strength of the people. However, the manner of reconstruction - though necessary under the circumstances - became the source of further internal strife and feudal anarchy. The king, fearing another Mongol invasion, encouraged feudal lords to build strongholds. These new strongholds, however, became a basis of a power in which the role of the king became more and more insignificant. At the same time, a growing number of lesser nobles were forced into positions of dependence by the greater lords as soldiers in their private armies. The stormy and glorious reign of Béla IV (1235-1270) was followed be renewed struggles over succession and battles between opposing factions. Later, with the death of king Andrew III, the male line of the House of Árpád became extinct, and thus, the right of inheritance through the female line became a possibility.
Prosperity of the Angevin Period & the Stormy Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg
In the early 1970s, the fragment of a Trecento-style statue was unearthed during archaeological excavations in one of the courtyards of Buda Castle. Further excavations uncovered over forty statues and fragments, a veritable graveyard of statues. In all probability, they had adorned the Friss (New) Palace of Sigismund of Luxemburg, later Holy Roman Emperor.
The statues of ladies, knights, court musicians, servants and guardsmen mark not only the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but also the beginning of a new age. Dressed in full-length gowns, richly gathered cloaks, pointed shoes and daring hats, they are an unexpected reminder of a flourishing, almost decadent Hungarian Trecento, whose mere existence was no more than a conjecture before the miraculous appearance of the archaeological foundings at Buda Castle. Charles Robert, the descendant of the Naples branch of the Angevin House and through his grandmother of the House of Árpád, became king after the death of Andrew III, the last monarch of the House of Árpád. At the height of the feudal anarchy, the barons, whose power was far greater than that of the king, fought battles and made alliances. However, by gradually overcoming the power of the barons, breaking the resistance of the renegade towns and putting an end to chaos, Charles Robert, who grew up among the modern financial and trading life of Naples and Milan, brought prosperity to feudal Hungary. Knights, soldiers, businessmen and artists from Naples and other Italian towns brought a new vitality. This is why the achievements of the Trecento appeared relatively early in Hungary as compared to other European countries, and why they formed a new kind of unity, merging local tradition and Gothic art in the works of succeeding generations.
Charles Robert was a realist in economic matters. He had no plans for conquest and held that his two greatest achievements were the introduction of a new Hungarian currency, the gold forint modelled on the Florentine design, and the meeting he arranged between himself and the Polish and Bohemian kings at his castle in Visegrád, which gave birth to important decisions concerning the development of foreign trade between their countries. His son, Louis I (1342-1382), came to be known as Louis the Great because of his dynastic and expansionist policies. His forces advanced as far as Naples, Treviso, and the Bulgarian Viddin, and he later acquired the Polish throne. Since he died without male issue, the throne was assumed by Sigismund of Luxemburg, Louis the Great's son-in-law. This fullblooded and gluttonous king, who lived for the pursuit of love and adventure and wasted enormous amounts of money, had one great aim - winning the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which he acquired in 1433. Sigismund made extensive use of the resources of Hungary to further his aims abroad, and loans linked to mortgages on the royal estates played a growing part in financing his ventures. This policy reached such proportions that by the middle of the fifteenth century, the estates of the great barons made up more than half the territory of Hungary. Central power was finally weakened to such an extent that only Sigismund's alliance with the powerful Czillei-Garai League could ensure his position on the throne. Meanwhile, the expansionist Ottoman Empire was posing a direct threat to the country, and after the resounding defeat at Nicopolis in 1396, all Sigismund could manage was feeble resistance against repeated Turkish attacks upon fortresses in the southern region of Hungary.
Sigismund's turbulent and stormy reign, however, also had its positive aspects; towns grew and flourished, and the multilingual and educated royal court exerted a favourable influence on the development of the arts and culture in general. Large-scale building schemes provided ample and long term work for the artists, for example, the building of the Friss (New) Castle in Buda, the castles of Visegrád, Tata and Várpalota. In Sigismund's court there were patrons such as Pipo Spano, a descendant of the Scolari family of Florence, who invited Manetto Ammanatini and Masolino da Pannicale to Hungary. Artistic frescoes were painted, beautifully illuminated codices were produced by the royal workshop, panel painting flourished, and so did sculpture.
The Hunyadi Era
When the noon-day bells chime from the church steeples of Europe, they serve as a reminder of a historic event that took place in 1456 under the medieval walls of Belgrade Nándorfehérvár, the capital of present-day Yugoslavia. The protagonists were Murad, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and János Hunyadi, the outstanding military leader of the age. Belgrade was besieged from all sides by 300 thousand Turkish soldiers. The sultan had planned to capture the great southern stronghold and from there push into Hungary, and the west. Belgrade's defence was led by Mihály Szilágyi, Hunyadi's brother-in-law. The fate of the fortress was critically important for the future of Europe. Pope Calixtus III called for a crusade and sent Giovanni Capistrano, a Franciscan friar, later canonized, and an outstanding orator, to Hungary. He was to help Hunyadi recruit soldiers to relieve the forces at the castle.
Before the siege of the fortress began, Pope Calixtus III issued a bull calling for prayers for the defenders of the fortress and ordering the ringing of the bells at noon. The peoples of the southern region flocked to Hunyadi's army, and troops arrived from Poland, Germany, Vienna and Bohemia, composed primarily of artisans, students and peasants. There was a shortage of food and ammunition at the fortress, so their position appeared hopeless. However, at the last moment, Hunyadi arrived with his relief forces. His boats broke through the blockade set up on the Danube by the Turkish ships and succeeded in establishing communication with the beleaguered garrison. Hunyadi organized the defence of the stronghold and the counterattacked, destroying the Turkish forces. The Turkish army left Belgrade defeated and having suffered severe losses, including the loss of its fleet. Hunyadi's victory at Belgrade was the most severe defeat the conquering sultans had ever suffered, and for another half century, it saved Hungary from similar attacks by the Ottoman power.
János Hunyadi's (c. 1407/9-1456) career was an astonishing one. The youth who was descended from a family of the lesser nobility was first a page, and later the leader a mercenary unit. In the service of the Italian princes, including the Sforzas, he became acquainted with the techniques of organizing a modern mercenary army and learned the importance of the foot soldier and the artillery. His remarkable gifts as a military commander and statesman were responsible for his meteoric rise, in the course of which he became one of the greatest landowners in the country, a baron, Ban of Szörény, Voivode of Transylvania and the commander of the campaigns againts the Turks, as well as governor of the country.
The day after his victory at Belgrade, Hunyadi died a victim of the plague which devastated the war-stricken country. It seemed for a time that with his death the power of the Hunyadis had also come to an end. As a result of political intrigue, his older son Ladislas was executed by the king, and the younger son, Matthias, was taken as a hostage with him to Prague. However, in the year of the Belgrade victory, the neurotic king, Ladislas V, died suddenly in the Bohemian capital. A large-scale movement launched by the lesser nobility, townsmen, and of course, the Hunyadi faction, forced the barons participating in the Diet held at Buda Castle to elect fifteen-year-old Matthias as the ruler of the country. According to the chronicles, the resistance of the barons was broken by fifteen thousand armed nobles, who marched over the ice of the frozen Danube to the walls of the Castle. This action was so successfully accomplished, that after long weeks of procrastination, the decision favouring Matthias took only a few hours to make.
There are few figures in Hungarian history surrounded by as many legends, anecdotes and entertaining stories, as that of King Matthias. His image as the defender of the common people against the arrogant barons is just as much a part of Hungarian historical folklore as "Mátyás deák" (Student Matthias). In this characterization, Matthias roams the country in disguise, unveils injustice, rewards virtue, and conquers the hearts of young girls and beautiful women, who never even suspect that the clever, goodlooking traveller they hold in their arms is the king himself.
Obviously, tales and fables known to many peoples have exerted influence over Hungarian folklore (e.g., attributing the deeds of Harun-al-Rashid, memorialized in The Thousand and One Nights, and other legendary heroes to Matthias). It is also obvious, however, that the historical memory of a nation, as well as its nostalgia, is manifested in the tales about Matthias; for the reign of King Matthias between 1458 and 1490 was the golden age of medieval Hungary. With astonishing strength and political wisdom, the adolescent elected to the throne of the country broke the resistance of the various baronial factions opposing him and, with a series of measures, built up a centralized monarchy based on the absolute power of the ruler. He created a highly disciplined mercenary army supplied with modern weapons, and reformed the system of jurisdiction. This, together with the creation of a stable centralized power and public security, provided a solid basis for the development of industry and commerce. Matthias encouraged the growth of towns and made Buda his royal residence, which consequently became one of the most beautiful in Europe. To the Gothic Friss (New) Palace in Buda Matthias added a new wing in the Renaissance style which held his famous library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana. The first printing press was established in Buda in 1473. There was also an outburst of scientific activity. Hundreds of Hungarian students made their way to the universities of Vienna, Cracow, Padua and Bologna, returning to Hungary to spread the influence of the new learning. In Pozsony now Bratislava the Academia Istropolitana was founded; at the court of Matthias, Antonio Bonfini was writing his Rerum Hungaricarum Decades, and the Italian humanist Galeotto Marzio, was also active there. Janus Pannonius, the humanist poet famous throughout Europe, worked in Pécs. Nor were architecture and the fine arts neglected. The royal palace of Buda, the magnificent palace of Visegrád with its three hundred and fifty rooms and the fortress castle of Diósgyõr were all embellished with works by Hungarian and Italian artists, including Benedetto de Maiano, Verrocchio, Leonardo and others. A portrait of Matthias was painted by Mantegna.
Matthias pursued a vigorous and active foreign policy. In the early years of his reign he launched an offensive attack against the Turks. Later, he conducted an expansionist foreign policy towards Moravia and Silesia, and finally, against Austria. After occupying Vienna in 1489, he transferred his royal residence there from Buda, and it was in Vienna that he died in 1490. At the time of his sudden death, he left behind him a flourishing country which stood at the forefront of European development.
The Peasant Rebellion of 1514 and the Battle of Mohács
A contradictory and ominous political figure at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Tamás Bakócz had been, in the course of his career, royal secretary and Bishop of Gyõr under King Matthias's reign. Under the reign of Matthias's successor, Wladislas II, he was royal chancellor, Archbishop of Esztergom, and later a cardinal. A master of Machiavellian intrigue and a remarkable political strategist, trusted by Venice and mediator between Milanese and Florentine bankers and Buda, he rose in the course of a few decades from the son of a wheelmaking serf to the rank of the richest and most powerful men in the country. In 1510, Bakócz set himself the greatest objective of his life, the attainment of the vacant papal throne. He arrived in Rome at the head of a magnificent delegation, and for months he attempted to dazzle the Eternal City with sumptuous festivities on which he spent enormous sums of money. As far as the papal throne was concerned, his efforts remained fruitless, for the conclave elected young Giovanni Medici as the head of the Church. However, the new pope, Leo X, "consoled" Bakócz with a Bull which enabled him to declare a crusade against the Turks. The status of the serfs had deteriorated in the course of the preceding years due to increased oppression, including restriction of their freedom of movement. Bakócz and a section of the landowners were convinced that the serfs would march to the faraway battlefields, and consequently, the tense internal situation would become less dangerous. The majority of the barons and nobility, however, opposed putting arms in the hands of the peasants. When men from all parts of the country began to gather together for the holy crusade against the Turks, many of the landowners used force to keep their serfs at home. They oppressed the families of those who had gone, forcing them to accept the labour and duties of those absent from home. The crusading force, formed as it was of the dissatisfied masses, rapidly turned into an anti-feudal army. When Bakócz, urged by the alarmed feudal lords and nobles, suspended the crusade, the infuriated masses refused to obey his orders. György Dózsa, a Székely cavalry officer who had already proven himself in battle against the Turks, led his army to the Hungarian Great Plain where larger and larger groups of peasants joined him, and the towns on the plains also sided with them. Realizing the threat to their power, the barons and the lesser nobility temporarily set aside their differences at this point, and the cavalry of the nobility swooped down on the peasant army, which had laid siege to Temesvár now Timisoara. The peasant forces suffered decisive defeat at the hands of the experienced and well-armed nobility, and after the uprising had been finally crushed, ruthless revenge was taken on the peasants. Dózsa was captured, seated on a red-hot throne, crowned with a red-hot iron crown, and burned alive. Thousands of peasants were executed. The Diet was convened in the autumn of 1514 proceeded to pass a law depriving the serfs of all freedom of movement.
It was under these circumstances that the decisive attack of the Turks took place. After occupying two of Hungary's southern bastions, the Turkish Sultan Suleiman II (1496-1566) launched a large-scale offensive with a well-equipped army of eighty thousand in the summer of 1526. The Hungarian forces, led by Louis II, barely consisted of twenty thousand men who were poorly armed in comparison to the Turkish army. The decisive battle was fought at Mohács by the Danube river and ended with the annihilation of the Hungarian army. Fifteen thousand were killed in the battle, and the king himself died on the battlefield. This event was one of the tragic turning points in Hungarian history, and its efforts were felt for centuries to come. The territorial unity of medieval Hungary, together with its independence, were lost.
The Tripartite Division of Hungary
On August 26, 1541, fifteen years after the Battle of Mohács, Buda Castle became the scene of unusual events. Ferdinand of Habsburg had been besieging the castle since April, but without success: the Hungarian defence forces continually repelled his attacks. On this day, Sultan Suleiman also appeared under the walls of the castle. Roggendorf, the Hapsburg commander, clashed with the Turks, but shortly afterwards, made a quick retreat. At this point, the sultan invited John Sigismund, the one-year-old prince, to his camp, together with the Hungarian leaders. While the festivities were in progress in the camp, janissaries pretending to be peaceful visitors infiltrated Buda Castle and once inside, disarmed the Hungarian guard. The Sultan declared that a Turkish garrison would be stationed in Buda, and that the region of the Great Plain would become part of the Ottoman Empire. The child John Sigismund and his power was limited to Transylvania and the region beyond the Tisza.
The events leading up to the Sultan's coup reached back fifteen years when, following their victory at Mohács the Turks did not occupy Hungary. Instead, looting and pillaging wherever they passed and seizing large number of people as slaves, they withdrew from the country. This provided an opportunity for organizing the resources of the country against another Turkish offensive. However, this did not happen. The lesser nobility elected the wealthiest landowner in the country, János Zápolyai, as king (1526-1564) on the throne at their counter-Diet. The dual election was followed by internal warfare. After the mercenary army of Ferdinand of Hapsburg drove Zápolyai out of the country, he sought th Sultan's support in regaining his throne. In 1529 Suleiman II personally led his forces into Hungary to help Zápolyai. On the site of the battle of Mohács, Zápolyai formally planted the vassal's kiss on the Sultan's hand. From this point on, Hungary became a battleground. The Turks viewed Hungary as the springboard for their attack on Vienna, and the Hapsburgs, for their part, attempted to maintain at least the northern and western parts of the country under their influence. In this way, Hungary became the locale for a great power struggle, in which both sides strove for decisive power in Europe.
After the Turkish occupation of Buda in 1541, the central and most fertile part of the country, the region of the Great Plain, became part of the great Ottoman Empire which stretched over three continents. The supreme ruler of the entire Hungarian territory was the begler bey of Buda, who, having the title of pasha, was directly responsible to the Sultan. The Ottoman system of taxation inflicted a heavy burden on the Hungarian serfs, and the law restricted their freedom of movement. The "heathen" were not allowed to build stone houses and could not repair their damaged homes without permission. On the other hand, the Turks left the population to practice the religion in peace. When war broke out, the Ottoman army again spoiled, destroyed and plundered the country. At such times, Hungary became a veritable slave market; Asian slave traders traveled as far as Buda and transported thousands of slaves to the interior of the Ottoman Empire. The resulting sense of uncertainty forced the population to take refuge in the larger settlements, a movement which led to the depopulation and desolation of hundreds of villages.
After the battle of Mohács, the western and northern areas of Hungary came under the rule of Ferdinand of Hapsburg as the Kingdom of Hungary. Charles V left the government of the eastern part of his Empire to his brother Ferdinand, who exerted all his energies in an attempt to unite Austria, Bohemia and Hungary under one centralized government. His Council of War strengthened the front defenses which ran through the heart of Hungary, and by the second half of the sixteenth century, a network of frontier fortresses had been created. For over a century this network remained the frontier between the Ottoman-occupied part of Hungary and part of the country under Hapsburg rule. Consequently, the area along the line of border fortresses became the scene of continual clashes between the defenders and the Turkish raiders. The eastern region of the divided country, Transylvania, fell under the rule of Zápolyai's son, John Sigismund.
