The Realm of St Stephen

A History of Medieval Hungary, 895-1526

Pal Engal, Pal Engel, Andrew Ayton, Pál Engel, Tamas Palosfalvi

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9780857731739
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Now recognised as the standard work on the subject, Realm of St Stephen is a comprehensive history of medieval Eastern and Central Europe. Pál Engel traces the establishment of the medieval kingdom of Hungary from its conquest by the Magyar tribes in 895 until defeat by the Ottomans at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. He shows the development of the dominant Magyars who, upon inheriting an almost empty land, absorbed the remaining Slavic peoples into their culture after the original communities had largely disappeared. Engel's book is an accessible and highly readable history. 'This is now the standard English language treatment of medieval Hungary - its internal history as well as its regional and European significance.'
--- P W Knoll, University of Southern Carolina (From 'Choice') 'A lively and highly readable narrative '
--- Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona (From 'Mediaevistik')

 

Chapter 1

The Carpathian Basin before the Hungarians

The central areas of the Carpathian basin have been quite densely inhabited since Neolithic times. Its earliest known inhabitants were Indo-Europeans, and it was they who named the Carpathians, the Danube and most of its main tributaries, like the Tisza, Maros/Mureş, Körös/Criş, Dráva/Drava. There were Illyrians in Transdanubia during the Bronze Age and they were joined by Celts in the Iron Age. The Great Plain was occupied from at least the seventh century BC by Iranian horsemen, such as the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans. For nomadic people coming from the East, this was the last region where they could pursue their traditional way of life relatively undisturbed. The eastern part of the Carpathian basin, later called Transylvania, which was rich in salt and gold, was the territory of the Dacians, another Indo-European people who were probably of Thracian origin. The plains and valleys of Slovakia, where settlement was possible, were inhabited by Germans, among them the Markomanns and Quads, who are known from their wars against Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–180 AD). Their memory has also been preserved by a few toponyms, such as the Váh, the main river of Slovakia.

ROMANS, HUNS AND AVARS

The territory of Transdanubia was conquered by the Romans in the time of Augustus (d. 14 AD) and became part of their province of Pannonia. The Dacians, led by their king, Decebalus, were subdued by Emperor Trajan in 106 AD, and from their lands another province with the name Dacia was formed. Roman rule in Dacia lasted for only 165 years, for in 271 the Emperor Aurelian was forced by the frequent attacks of the Goths to withdraw the Roman legions. Pannonia, on the other hand, remained part of the Empire for more than four centuries, and this seems to have resulted in the complete romanisation of the province. Evidence of the high standard of living of its inhabitants is to be found in the ruins of numerous civitates and muncipia, like the legionary camp Aquincum in present-day Budapest, and also in villae of the Late Empire, such as that of Balácapuszta, near Lake Balaton, which is famous for its mosaic. The line of the Danube, which constituted the frontier of the Empire, was flanked by the watch-towers and castella of the limes, the remnants of one of which can still be seen in the very centre of Budapest.

Roman rule proved to be a short-lived episode even in the history of Transdanubia. From the third century onwards its cities were devastated by repeated Sarmatian and German invasions, and what remained of them was completely destroyed around 430 by the nomadic Huns. The whole of the Carpathian basin became part of their short-lived empire. From here, King Attila launched fierce attacks against Constantinople, Italy and Gaul until his death in 453; and it might have also been here, somewhere in the Great Plain, that he was visited by the envoy of Emperor Theodosius II, the rhetor Priscus, who has left us a vivid description of the king and his court.

Whereas the memory of the Romans and of the Germanic peoples has only been preserved by archaeological sites, that of the Huns was to play an important role in medieval and even modern Hungarian historical thinking. Medieval clerics from Hungary, learning of the Huns in Western chronicles, promptly recognised that their fierceness and bellicosity were not unlike the mentality of their Hungarian contemporaries. Developed and reinforced over many generations, the theory that the Huns and Hungarians were of common origin, even identical, has remained part of national mythology until recent times. The theory has, of course, been refuted by modern scholarship. The possibility that the Árpádian kings of Hungary may have been Attila’s descendants cannot be wholly excluded, and it is more than probable that the ancestors of the Hungarians, who themselves appear as late as around 830, had once lived under the rule of the Huns, together with a number of other Turkic, Germanic and Iranian peoples. The Huns were, however, an Asian people whose empire disappeared without trace before the end of the fifth century, and whose language, apparently a Turkic one, had certainly nothing to do with that of the Hungarians.

Shortly after the death of Attila, the Hun empire was swept away by the revolt of German peoples. One of these, the Gepids, established themselves east of the Tisza, while the Transdanubian region was soon occupied by the Langobards. Around 567 or 568, the Avars, another nomadic people from the East, invaded the Carpathian basin. They decimated and subdued the Gepids, while the Langobards, wishing to avoid the same fate, moved to the valley of the River Po and founded a new kingdom there. Like the Huns, the Avars were nomadic horsemen of the steppe. At the time of their arrival in the Carpathian basin they lived off livestock breeding and plundering. At first they launched devastating attacks against the Byzantine Empire and the Merovingians. In 626, allied to the Sassanid rulers of Iran, they almost succeeded in capturing Constantinople. From this time on, however, they occur less and less frequently in the sources. Their power diminished, finally being confined to the Carpathian basin, where they were subjugated between 791 and 803 by Charlemagne and his lieutenants in a series of three bloody campaigns. By that time they seem to have abandoned nomadic life in favour of settled agriculture.

References to the Avars in the laconic Byzantine and Frankish sources seem to suggest the continued existence of a single people. Yet the archaeological evidence of the Carpathian basin, based on thousands of burials, clearly demonstrates that there was an important change in the ethnic structure during this period. Around 700, another people moved into the region. Archaeologists have given them the name ‘late Avars’, because their material heritage is neatly distinguishable from that of the Avars proper. In fact, they seem to have belonged to the Onogurs, a Turkic people. The Onogurs, also called Bulgars, had lived in the seventh century in the region between the Rivers Don and Volga. Their name, meaning ‘ten Ogurs’ in Turkic, is one of those denoting the political union of a certain number of tribes. The short-lived Onogur-Bulgar empire was destroyed around 680 by the Turks of Inner Asia, later to be known as the Khazars. Some Onogur tribes then moved to the Balkan peninsula where they founded the Bulgar khanate, predecessor of present-day Bulgaria. The ‘late Avars’ who occupied the Carpathian basin can be identified with another Onogur group, those who are known to have fled from Ukraine towards the West.

One of the most important developments of the Avar age was the Slav migration in the seventh century, which completely transformed the ethnic patterns of central Europe and the Balkans. It might have been at that time, or even earlier, that they infiltrated those peripheries of the Carpathian basin that had been left unoccupied by the Avars. Their presence in some regions of Transdanubia, modern Slovakia and Transylvania is clearly attested by ninth-century sources, and also by a multitude of Slavonic toponyms in Hungarian documents of the earliest period.

In the ninth century, which began with the fall of the Avars and ended with the Hungarian conquest, the Carpathian basin was in the sphere of influence of three political powers. Ancient Pannonia, up to the Danube, had been part of the Carolingian Empire since the time of Charlemagne. By its repeated divisions (817, 843) this province, called Oriens, was allotted to Louis ‘the German’ (843–876) and his successors, including Emperor Arnulf (887–899), who was the last king of the eastern Franks to possess some kind of control over this far-eastern part of his realm. The Carolingians were represented either by vassal princes, like the Slav Pribina (c.840–860) and his son Kocel (c.861–870), who had their residence at Mosaburg (modern Zalavár), or by governors, such as Arnulf’s lieutenant, Duke (dux) Braslav, who may have been the founder of Pressburg (originally Brezalauspurc, ‘Braslav’s castle’).

North of the Danube a new political entity, Moravia, was being formed around 830 under the Slav prince Moimir. He and his successors tried, through constant warfare with the Carolingians, to preserve their independent status. Prince Svatopluk I (870–894), an outstanding figure of the dynasty, seems to have controlled a vast region from Moravia to the heart of the Great Plain. He even attempted to conquer Pannonia and proved a dangerous rival to Emperor Arnulf.

The third important power in the region was the Danubian Khanate of the Bulgarians, which reached its apogee under the reign of Krum (803–814), Boris (852–889) and his son, Tsar Simeon (893–927). They ruled over the greater part of the Balkans, and were powerful enough to pose a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire. They were also neighbours to the Franks between the Rivers Drava and Sava, which resulted in frequent clashes between the two powers. An important stronghold of the khanate to the north-west was modern Belgrade, which retained its epithet ‘Bulgarian’ (Alba Bulgarica, Hung. Nándorfehérvár, ‘white castle of the Bulgarians’) under Serbian and/or Hungarian rule until the end of the Middle Ages. Archaeological evidence shows that the southern part of both Transylvania and the Hungarian Plain also belonged to the Bulgarian empire. The Bulgarian territories in Transylvania were controlled from another ‘white castle’, built on the River Mureş (originally Belgrade, now Alba Iulia, Hung. Gyulafehérvár).

An important development of this period was the reappearance of Christianity. It is unlikely that early Christian communities from the Roman period could have survived the Hun and Avar invasions; but from the ninth century we have plenty of information relating to Christians in Pannonia and Moravia. Our most important source is the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which was written around 870. As a consequence of the Frankish conquest, Pannonia adopted the Latin rite, and its ecclesiastical government was disputed, even after the arrival of the Hungarians, between the dioceses of Salzburg and Passau. On the other hand, the Bulgarians converted to Orthodoxy in 864, while the conversion of the Moravians led to a political rivalry between Rome and Constantinople. An important role in this was given to the Greek ‘apostles of the Slavs’, Cyril and his brother Methodius, who was consecrated archbishop of Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica) by the Pope. In Moravia it was the German church that finally gained the upper hand, but the consequences of its victory were soon swept away by the Hungarian conquest.

PROBLEMS OF CONTINUITY

When the Avars arrived in Pannonia the only remnants of Roman rule were uninhabited ruins. The destruction caused by the invasions – mainly those of the Huns – seems to have been more brutal here than in the West. Not only was life in the towns interrupted for centuries, or indeed permanently, but judging from the evidence of toponymy the indigenous population also disappeared, and with it all traces of romanisation. The only place that preserved its ancient name was Sabaria (now Szombathely), the first Roman colony founded by Emperor Claudius in 50 AD; but even this name was used only in medieval Latin documents and not in the vernacular. On the site of Pécs, the centre of southern Transdanubia, there had also been a Roman town, Sopianae, but its medieval Latin name was Quinqueecclesiae (‘five churches’, German Fünfkirchen), which may have derived from an early Christian community. These are almost the only signs of the survival of Roman civilisation in medieval Hungary. In the Middle Ages, Transdanubia was certainly more developed than the eastern part of the kingdom, but this fact can hardly be attributed to its different roots. The Pressburg region had never been exposed to Roman influence, yet as early as the twelfth or thirteenth centuries it was, in terms of its level of civilisation, not unlike Transdanubia.

The impact of the Dark Ages on the later development of Hungary has also been considered insignificant. There is hardly a single aspect of that development where modern historiography has taken account of Avar, Frankish, Bulgarian or even Slav antecedents. Everything reported by written sources since the eleventh century is thought to have been an autochthonous development, created ex nihilo after the conquest. If there were earlier influences, they would have come from the pagan traditions of the steppe. The organisation of the kingdom, the conversion to Christianity and the birth of settlements have all been presented according to this interpretation. It is as if the nomadic newcomers of about 895 found an uninhabited land, a tabula rasa in every respect.

The evidence furnished by archaeology and linguistics seems to fit into this picture. The ‘late Avar’ finds cannot be dated to a period much later than the reign of Charlemagne, when the Avar empire was destroyed. The next layer of finds belongs to the Hungarian conquerors. No other archaeological evidence has been connected with the ninth century, thereby filling the yawning archaeological gulf between the Avars of 800 and the Hungarians of 900. Only in some parts of Transdanubia, in Transylvania and Slovakia are there cemeteries attributed to a Slav population. The results furnished by toponymy seem to be in perfect accordance with the archaeological evidence. Most of the early place-names in the region are thought to be of Hungarian origin. Slavonic toponyms appear only in the peripheries of the Carpathian basin. This suggests that the genesis of the network of settlement cannot be dated to a period earlier than the arrival of the Hungarians.

A book such as this may not be the best place for a critical reassessment of accepted views. However, it must be stated clearly that the picture outlined above is far from being wholly convincing. First, it is hardly conceivable that the central part of Hungary could have been left uninhabited throughout the ninth century. In the case of the Great Plain, we can do no more than draw attention to the problem; where Transdanubia is concerned, the doubts have some evidential foundation. The earliest charters of about the year 1000 show a dense network of well established villages in the region of Pécs and elsewhere. It is not easy to visualise how they could have come into being in a matter of a few years. We ought, therefore, to suppose the presence there of a ninth-century population. If so, they could only be ‘late Avars’, for all the archaeological finds in the area preceding the Hungarian conquest belong to this ethnic group. Indeed, certain sites attest the biological coexistence of Avar and early Hungarian populations. These facts may suggest that the dating of the Avar cemeteries of the latest period should be re-examined.

The language of the ‘late Avars’ (that is, the Onogurs) is not known but it is generally supposed to have been Turkic, for this was the language of the early Bulgarians who belonged to the same people. We must take into account, however, that the name Onogur, in the form ongri, was the early Slavonic name of the Hungarians, and that this was what became known in all European languages through its Latin form Hungari. It is first mentioned, many years before the conquest, by a Frankish source that speaks about the Wangariorum marca, the ‘Hungarian frontier’, somewhere in present-day western Hungary or Austria.¹ It seems to refer to a surviving ‘late Avar’ population. It is not, therefore, impossible that those Onogurs who arrived in the seventh century could have been a Finno-Ugric (that is, Hungarian) speaking population. In other words, one might suppose that the ‘late Avars’ were in fact Hungarians.

This hypothesis, first articulated a number of years ago by the archaeologist Gyula László, could account for a large number of hitherto unexplained phenomena. It involves, however, a reinterpretation of the whole of tenth- and eleventh-century Hungarian history and the revision of many questions upon which scholarly consensus has hitherto existed. Since even the preparatory works, which would be indispensable for a proper evaluation of the evidence, are still lacking, we shall have to set aside this hypothesis in this book.

Chapter 2

The Pagan Hungarians

The first, rather scattered historical data concerning the Hungarians come from the ninth century. However, they did not make themselves known to Christian Europe before the end of the century when, having occupied the Carpathian basin, they began to launch their devastating raids against the West.

THE ORIGIN OF THE HUNGARIANS

Although it is believed that the pagan Hungarians knew a version of the runic alphabet, probably of Turkic origin, they have left no written sources. Everything we know about them comes from their literate neighbours. The first detailed description of them derives from Muslim merchants who visited the land of the Hungarians around 870. The information that they provided was incorporated into the geographical work of Jayhani, who was working in the Samanid court of Bukhara around 920. This compilation was lost, but later Persian and Arab works (for example, Ibn Rusta, Gardizi and the Hudud al-Alam) preserved certain sections of it. After the conquest, the Hungarians disappeared from the horizon of the Muslim writers, but at the same time Byzantine and Western authors began to provide information about them. The Emperor Leo VI (886–912) concentrated on their warfare in his Tactics, only occasionally including details of their everyday life; but his son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913–959), wrote in detail about their past and their political organisation in his De administrando imperio from around 950. This work is a most valuable source of contemporary Hungarian history, but also a most problematic one, since the account contains obvious errors and misinterpretations. Reporting on the Hungarian raids, Western chronicles, annals and hagiographic sources sometimes give precious data on the way of life of the invaders. To all this can be added some obscure, though sometimes valuable, pieces of information that have been preserved in later Hungarian chronicles.

Not surprisingly, a leading role in the study of this period is played by archaeology. This has been developing quite rapidly for several decades, adding immensely to our knowledge of tenth-century society, though few traces have as yet been found of Hungarians living before the conquest in what is today Romania and Ukraine. Also of great importance to the study of tenth-century conditions is linguistics. Within the rich toponymic heritage of the Middle Ages can clearly be distinguished different place name types, and those formed from a noun without a suffix – from the name of an ethnic group, an occupation, or a person – clearly belong to the oldest type. Although the misuse of toponymic evidence can result in hazardous and unjustifiable hypotheses, when used with caution, place names are most helpful in the reconstruction of post-conquest (or later) settlement patterns.

Although the earliest mention of the Hungarians comes from about 830, as a people they are obviously much older. Their language belongs to the eastern – that is, Ugric – branch of the Finno-Ugric family of languages, its closest relatives being Vogul and Ostyak, spoken by two small peoples who until recently lived off fishing and hunting in the north-western corner of Siberia....

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Carpathian Basin Before the Hungarians
• Chapter 2. The Pagan Hungarians
• Chapter 3. The First Century of the Christian Kingdom
• Chapter 4. The Twelfth Century
• Chapter 5. Early Hungarian Society
• Chapter 6. The Age of the Golden Bulls
• Chapter 7. The Last Árpádians
• Chapter 8. Charles I of Anjou (1301–1342)
• Chapter 9. The New Monarchy
• Chapter 10. Louis the Great (1342–1382)
• Chapter 11. The Monarchy of Louis the Great
• Chapter 12. The Years of Crises (1382–1403)
• Chapter 13. Sigismund’s Consolidation
• Chapter 14. Sigismund’s Foreign Policy (1403–1437)
• Chapter 15. Trade and Towns
• Chapter 16. The Rural Landscape
• Chapter 17. The Age of John Hunyadi (1437–1457)
• Chapter 18. King Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490)
• Chapter 19. Hungary at the End of the Middle Ages
• Chapter 20. The Age of the Jagiellonian Kings (1490–1526)
• Maps
• Genealogical Tables
• Abbreviations
• Endnotes
• Bibliography