Árpád dynasty

After occupying their homeland, Magyar warriors set out on military campaigns into western Europe. The purpose of these campaigns was twofold: to determine the number and strength of nations to the west and to ward off any incursions into the Carpathian Basin by a show of might. Despite other tribes (i.e., Normans, Arabs) also raiding Europe at the time, the Magyars were overwhelmingly successful. They travelled extensively into the present day territories of Germany, France, Italy and even Spain. Their military success was largely due to light cavalry tactics, great mobility, routine and discipline. The incursions continued until the Magyars were decisively defeated by the Germans at Merseburg in 933 and Augsburg in 955.

The descendents of Arpad ruled the Magyars for over 400 years afterwards. They systematically transformed a wandering pagan people into a westernized Christian nation. Prince Géza, great grandson of Árpád, ascended to the throne in 972. Géza brought in Christian missionaries from Germany and was one of the first to be baptized. Inconverting to Christianity and introducing the new faith to his people, Géza and his son, Stephen, determined the future of Hungary by linking it with Rome and the west in lieu of Byzantium and the east.

A brief history of the first Hungarian kings

896: The Hungarians, or Magyars, organized in a number of tribes, occupied the valley of the middle Danube and Theiss (Tisza). Under Árpád they had come from southern Russia by way of Moldova, driven on by the Patzinaks (Pechenegs) and other Asian peoples. The Hungarians were themselves nomads of the Finno-Ugrian family. For more than half a century after their occupation of Hungary, they continued their raids, both toward the east and toward the west.

906: The Hungarians destroyed the rising Slavic kingdom of Moravia.

955: Battle of Lechfeld, in which Emperor Otto I decisively defeated the raiding Hungarians. From this time on, the Hungarians began to settle down and establish a frontier.

927-97: Géza, the organizer of the princely power. He began to reduce the tribal leaders and invited Christian missionaries from Germany (Pilgrin of Passau, 974; St. Adalbert of Prague, 993). Christianization had already begun from the east, and was furthered by large numbers of war prisoners.

997-1038: St. István (Stephen), greatest ruler of the Árpád dynasty. He suppressed eastern Christianity by force and crusaded against paganism, which was still favored by the tribal chiefs. Stephen allied with the west, married a Bavarian princess, called in Roman churchmen and monks, and endowed them with huge tracts of land. With the help of the clergy, he broke the power of the tribal chieftains, took over their land as royal domain, administered through counts (föispán) placed over counties (vármegyék). The counts and high churchmen formed a royal council. Every encouragement was given to agriculture and trade, and a methodical system of frontier defense was built up (large belt of swamps and forests, wholly uninhabited and protected by regular frontier guards; as time went on this frontier was gradually extended).

1001: István was crowned with a crown sent by the pope. He was canonized in 1083.

1002: István defeated an anti-Christian insurrection in Erdély (Transylvania).

1030: Attacks of the Germans under Conrad II.

1038-77: A period of dynastic struggles over the succession, every member of the Árpád family claiming a share of the power and sometimes calling in the Germans for support.

1038-46: Peter Urseolo, son of István's sister and the doge of Venice, succeeded to the throne.

1046: Peter was overthrown in the course of a great pagan rising of the tribal chiefs, who massacred the Christians and destroyed the churches. This was the last serious revolt.

1047-60: Endre I (Andrew), who managed to restore the royal power.

1049-52: The three campaigns of Emperor Henry III against the Hungarians. Andrew managed to hold his own, and in 1058 the emperor recognized Hungary's independence from the empire.

1061-63: Béla I, brother of Endre and popular hero of the campaigns against the Germans.

1075-95: St. László (Ladislaus) I (canonized 1192), the first great king after St. István. He supported the pope in his conflicts with the emperor, and at home restored order and prosperity.

1095-1102: Kálmán I (Coloman). Another strong ruler. Kálmán conquered Dalmatia from the Venetian Republic. Thus practically the whole of Croatia was incorporated into Hungary and came to be governed for the king by a bán (viceroy). Nevertheless, the Croat landed magnates preserved their local assembly, while the Adriatic port of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) gradually emerged as an independent city-republic with strong commercial positions in southeastern Europe.

1116-31: István II, in whose reign the dynastic struggles were resumed.

1141-62: Géza II. Intestine conflicts were greatly complicated by the efforts of the Greek emperor, Manual I, to extend his sway over Hungary.

1173-96: Béla III, who had been educated at Constantinople. He married the sister of Philip Augustus of France and established a close dynastic connection with France. Béla was a strong ruler who successfully defended Dalmatia against Venice.

1205-35: Endre II. The most disastrous reign in the Árpád period. Endre was renowned for his extravagance and for his generosity to his foreign favorites. A crusade to the Holy Land (1217) cost him much money, which he raised by alienating huge tracts of the royal domain, facilitating the emergence of large landed magnates, or oligarchs.

1222: The Golden Bull, forced on Endre by the lesser nobility or gentry, led by Endre's own son, Béla. This document became the charter of feudal privilege. It exempted the gentry and the clergy from taxation, granted them freedom to dispose of their domains as they saw fit, guaranteed them against arbitrary imprisonment and confiscation, and assured them an annual assembly to present grievances. No lands or offices were to be given to foreigners or Jews.

1235-70: Béla IV. A strong ruler who tried desperately to make good the losses of the preceding reign. The magnates, in reply, attempted to set up a rival ruler, and Béla in turn allowed some 40,000 families of Kúns (Cumans), who were driven westward by the Mongol invasions, to settle in the Tisza region in the hope of securing support against the magnates.

1241: The great Mongol invasion, which took the country by surprise, in the midst of its own dissensions. Béla's army was overwhelmingly defeated at Muhi on the Tisza, and he was obliged to flee to the Adriatic. The Mongols followed him, but suddenly gave up their conquests when news arrived of the death of the Great Khan. Nevertheless, the Mongol invasion left the country devastated. For defense purposes, the nobility was allowed to build castles, and these soon became bases for feudal warfare and for campaigns against the king himself.

1246: Béla defeated Frederick of Austria, the last of the Babenbergs, who had taken advantage of the Mongol invasion to appropriate some of the western provinces.

1270-72: Stephen V, a weak ruler.

1272-90: László IV. His efforts to curb the feudal aristocracy were of little avail, but in alliance with Rudolf of Habsburg he succeeded in breaking the power of Ottokar in the battle of Dürnkrut (1278).

1290-1301: Endre II, last of the native dynasty. He continued the struggle against the domination of the feudal aristocracy, but with little success.