680 years ago, on November 12, 1335, in Visegrad, the residence of King Charles I Robert of Hungary, a meeting of the rulers of the three powers - Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic took place, which laid the foundation for a military-political alliance, the first in Central Europe. Karl Robert, together with Casimir III of Poland and Jan Luxemburg of Czech, agreed to restrain the expansion of the Austrian Habsburgs and establish new trade routes bypassing Vienna. In addition, Jan, in exchange for recognition of his rights to Silesia and 120 thousand Prague grosz (400 kilograms of silver), renounced his claims to the Polish throne.
From the history of Hungary
As a result of certain historical processes, Hungary finally became a part of Western civilization. At the same time, Hungary did not dissolve in it, retaining its national characteristics, including the sphere of socio-political structure and culture. Hungary was seriously different from its Orthodox neighbors to the east and southeast. It retained its integrity, in contrast to the conflicting Balkan states, which, after a period of power, degraded and were eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire, and Russia, which was going through a period of disintegration and the transfer of the center of political activity to the northeast (Vladimir and Muscovy Rus). The Hungarian kingdom remained a solid state formation with clear and more or less constant boundaries. This allowed Hungary to survive the invasion of the Horde, the end of the Arpad dynasty - the family of princes (since 1000 - kings) of Hungary, who ruled from the end of the 9th century to 1301, and fierce feudal wars, including the battle for the vacated throne.
Hungary's economy was stable, although industry lagged far behind the advanced countries. However, the presence of mines, where most of the gold and silver was mined for the mints and vaults of Europe, combined with a strong central government, allowed Hungary to have a powerful army.
The last third of the 13th century was overshadowed by the struggle between groups of barons, who literally tore the country apart, driving it into anarchy. Dynastic problems only exacerbated the situation. Under the young son of Istvan V - Laszlo IV (1272 - 1290), the fire of civil war blazed in the kingdom. The matured Laszlo tried to appease the feudal lords with the help of the Kuman-Polovtsi (his mother Elizaveta Kumanskaya was the daughter of Khan Kotyan). Laszlo Kun was able to unite the country.
However, the papal legate Bishop Philip, who arrived in Hungary officially to "strengthen the status of the king" in the conditions of feudal turmoil, but in fact was called by the opponents of the king, who complained to Rome that Laszlo had allegedly abandoned the Christian faith and completely adopted paganism and the way of life of his relatives - Polovtsy, by his actions caused a new turmoil. Rome was outraged by the king's alliance with the pagan Cumans. King Laszlo was forced to agree to the introduction of the so-called. "Polovtsian laws", which forced the Polovtsians to stop leading a nomadic lifestyle and settle on reservations. The Polovtsians responded with an uprising and plundering of the eastern regions of Hungary. As a result, the papal legate turned the former support of the Hungarian throne - the Cumans - into rebels, destroying everything that the king managed with great difficulty to do to restore the Hungarian state.
King Laszlo had to confront his recent allies, the Polovtsians, and defeat them, and then fight the commander of Transylvania, Fint Aba. Fint managed to defeat, and in 1282 Laszlo Kun finally defeated the Polovtsians. Part of the Polovtsians left the Kingdom of Hungary for the Balkans. However, internal turmoil greatly weakened Hungary. The king, having lost hope of arranging affairs and pacifying the magnates, again became close to the Polovtsy. In 1285 East Hungary was ravaged by the Horde. Although the king managed to defend Pest, the Hungarian state fell into complete decline. King Laszlo IV was excommunicated. Pope Nicholas IV even thought about organizing a crusade against Hungary in order to transfer power to Laszlo's nephew Karl Martell of Anjou. The country was in ruins. In 1290, the noble Polovtsians, dissatisfied with the king's ambivalent policy, killed Laszlo (according to another version, they were just mercenaries hired by tycoons).
After his death, the central government of the Hungarian kingdom, in fact, ceased to exist. Laszlo had no children, and the main line of the Arpads was cut short. Andras III (1290 - 1301), the grandson of Istvan V, son of the Venetian Thomasina Morosini, was elevated to the throne. However, the nobility doubted his legitimacy. His father, Istvan Postum, was declared a bastard by his brothers, so the new king immediately faced a number of contenders for the throne. Emperor Rudolph I, who considered Hungary a part of the Holy Roman Empire, nominated his son, Duke Albrecht I of Austria, to the Hungarian throne. The Polish adventurer, who declared himself András Slavonski, the younger brother of King Laszlo IV Kun, claimed the throne, but his army was defeated by the supporters of András III. In addition, Queen Mary of Naples, sister of the slain king, also announced her claim to the crown. Later, she passed on these claims to her son, Karl Martell of Anjou, and after his death, to her grandson Karl Robert.
Andras III forced Duke Albrecht I to abandon his claims to the Hungarian crown. The king fought against the supporters of Charles Martell of Anjou and the feudal magnates, barons. By the end of his reign, Andras (Endre) was able to restore a certain stability in Hungary and temporarily suppress some of the barons. However, on the whole, he was unable to overcome the separatism of the tycoon oligarchs, who had power over entire regions and relied on their own armies and smaller feudal lords. So, in the west of the country, Andrash was not openly recognized as king by the Kysegi clan; Laszlo Kahn was autocratic in Transylvania; Omode Aba and Kopas Borshi are in the northeast. Matthias Chaka had more than 50 castles and fortresses in the north-west of the country, more than 500 villages and villages.
The reign of King Karl Robert
"The last golden branch of the Arpad tree" Andras unexpectedly died in January 1301. As a result, the stay of the Arpad dynasty on the Hungarian throne ended. Charles Robert, a representative of the Anjou-Sicilian house, who was supported by the Roman throne and the barons of the southern provinces, ascended the throne. For almost a decade, he had to fight other contenders for the Hungarian throne, and then another decade with the separatism of local tycoons-oligarchs. Nevertheless, Karl Robert became one of the most successful rulers of Hungary, preserving the unity of the kingdom and restoring the country's economy.
At first, under the pretext that Karl Robert was crowned “incorrectly” (without the Crown of St. Stephen, and in Esztergom, and not in Szekesfehervar, as tradition demanded), the majority of the ecclesiastical and secular nobility did not recognize his power and proclaimed King Wenceslas of Bohemia (later he would become the last king of Bohemia from the Přemysl clan), the son of Wenceslas II. Wenceslas became engaged to Elizabeth Töss, daughter of King András III, and under the name Laszlo was crowned with the Crown of St. Stephen in Szekesfehervar by Archbishop John of Kalosz. However, Pope Boniface VIII confirmed Karl Robert's claims to Hungary, and his maternal uncle, King Albrecht I of Germany, provided him with military assistance. The magnates Matus Chak and Aba, who had previously supported Vaclav of the Czechs, went over to Karl's side. Therefore, the Czech king Wenceslas II soon realized that the position of his son in Hungary was too weak, and decided to take Wenceslas and the crown with him to Prague.
In 1305, Vaclav of Bohemia, having occupied the throne of Bohemia, abdicated the Hungarian throne in favor of his supporter and relative, Otto III, Duke of Bavaria, who was the grandson of King Bela IV. The Bavarian duke was crowned under the name of Bela V, but, without serious support in Hungary, was defeated. In 1307, the magnates at a meeting in Rakosz again proclaimed Karl Robert king, but the richest aristocrats (Matush Czak and Laszlo Kahn) ignored the convention. Only the third coronation in 1310 became “legal”. However, having become king, Charles had not yet received full power, it was necessary to pacify the tycoons-oligarchs.
Possessions of Hungarian magnates in 1301-1310
The tycoons came into force not because of the fall of the Arpad dynasty, this only accelerated the process. It was a long and natural process, characteristic of all feudal powers. The power of the king was gradually weakening, and large feudal lords, many of whom held high government posts (palatine, voivode, ban, ishpan), used them to expand their power and wealth. This led to the emergence of "states within a state" with their rulers, courts, armies, which pursued an independent policy, tried to establish dynastic and diplomatic relations with other states and participate in external wars. The magnates tried to completely get rid of the central government.
To challenge the oligarchs and take up the unification of the country, one had to be a talented statesman and military leader. Karl possessed these talents. It also helped that he was young and simply outlived many of his opponents, not allowing their heirs to enter in full force. Initially, the king settled in Temeshwar, where Baron Ugrin Chak, one of his most reliable companions, ruled. The king was able to gradually, one by one, defeat the enemies who quarreled with each other and almost never entered into an alliance against the king. Interestingly, to finance military operations, the king actively seized church property.
In 1312, the king defeated the troops of Chak and the sons of Amada Aba, but this was not yet a decisive victory. After Laszlo Kahn's death in 1315, the king took control of Transylvania. In 1316 the Kyossegi clan was defeated, in 1317 the army of the Palatine Kopas Borshi was defeated. In 1319 Karl Robert defeated the Serbs invading South Hungary. After that, Karl Robert occupied Belgrade (later the Serbs recaptured Belgrade), as well as the territory of Machva. The death in March 1321 of Matush Chak, the most powerful tycoon of the kingdom, led to the disintegration of his possessions, and the royal troops were able to occupy all the fortresses of the deceased nobleman by the end of the year. In 1323 the king defeated the troops of the Shubich and Babonich in the south-west of the country, establishing control over Dalmatia and Croatia.
Thus, Karl Robert restored the unity of the state and was able to start the necessary reforms. The idea of the country's unity was symbolically expressed in the fact that the king moved his residence from Temesvar to Visegrad (Vysehrad) - in the very heart of Hungary. Here, by 1330, a new royal residence was erected at the local fortress.
For twenty years of struggle, Karl Robert gained great authority, in addition, he was smart enough to show the continuity of politics with the Arpad house. The king emphasized that his main task was "to restore the good old order." During the war, many of the castles of the fortress passed into the hands of the king and his supporters. The king retained many of them in order to be the largest landowner of the kingdom, as in the time of the first Arpads. The rest of the property was distributed among the nobles, who from the very beginning served the monarch with faith and truth. Of the influential families of the previous era, few were able to hold their ground, mainly the old aristocratic families assimilated with the new nobility.
The new barons were loyal to the king. Moreover, their holdings were not large enough to threaten royalty, even with the royal castles they ruled. Charles Robert established the so-called "honor system": instead of large donations, a loyal servant of the king received a position ("honor"), thus, he became the keeper of the royal in the field and the king's representative. At the same time, these positions were not provided forever - the king could recall the person replacing a specific position at any time. All this firmly strengthened the new Angevin dynasty. Charles stopped regularly calling state assemblies, which he did regularly while his position was unstable. Karl Robert took all the territorial royal courts under his personal control by selecting judges loyal to him, strengthened the central apparatus.
Karl strengthened the economy. The king abolished the private customs duties between parts of the Hungarian kingdom, imposed by the magnates during the interregnum. The old customs system was restored to the borders of the kingdom. Customs became royal regalia again. The king successfully curbed inflation by introducing new coins with a constant gold content. Now only the king could mint a coin. Florins (forint) have been minted since 1325 in the mint opened in Kremnica and soon became a popular means of payment in Europe. And the circulation of gold and silver in bullion was henceforth a royal monopoly.
The financial reform led to a significant replenishment of the treasury. After the discovery of new deposits, gold production increased significantly (up to 1400 kg per year). It was one third of all the gold mined at that time in the world and Hungary mined five times more gold than any other state in Europe produced. At the same time, 30-40% of the income from gold mining settled in the royal treasury, which allowed King Charles Robert to carry out important reforms and at the same time maintain a luxurious court. In addition, silver was mined in Hungary. Since 1327, local landowners were given the right to keep one third of the income from the mining industry, which stimulated its development. Gold and silver attracted Italian and German merchants to Hungary.
In addition, to replenish the treasury, Karl Robert streamlined and reformed the system of regalia, consisting of direct and indirect taxes, taxes and monopolies. Salt mines in Transylvania became the most important source of income for the Hungarian kings, who had a monopoly on the production and trade of salt. Customs duty was now imposed on all foreign trade - 1/30 of the value of the imported goods for all foreign traders. Moreover, the tax was collected much stricter. An annual tribute of 1/5 florin was levied on all peasant farms. As a result of these reforms, the economic devastation in the country was overcome, the country's economy was developing steadily, the treasury was full, which increased the military power and international prestige of the Hungarian kingdom.
Florin Karl Robert
These were serious successes. However, one should not exaggerate them. Hungary remained a rather deaf and backward corner of Europe. Only the production of precious metals allowed Hungary to occupy a worthy place in the economy of Europe. Hungary was a supplier of gold, silver, cattle and wine, while its markets were occupied by manufactured goods and luxury goods from other countries. At the same time, the country was quite deserted, because of this it was bypassed by the plague of the "black death". The Angevin dynasty encouraged the influx of migrants from Moravia, Poland, Russian principalities, and also attracted Germans and Romanians, providing the settlers with various benefits. However, the lands in the north and east remained rather sparsely populated.
The unification of the country, almost absolute power and successes in the economy allowed Karl Robert to pursue an active foreign policy. However, he failed to achieve great success. From 1317 to 1319 he conquered the Machva region from Serbia. The cities of Dalmatia fell under the rule of the Venetian Republic. Karl Robert's desire to unite the crowns of Hungary and Naples met with opposition from Venice and the Pope, who feared that Hungary might gain supremacy in the Adriatic. Charles's attempt to subjugate Wallachia (the Romanian principality) ended in complete failure. In November 1330, the Hungarian army found itself in a trap set up by the Wallachians on a pass near Posada and was almost completely killed. King Charles himself miraculously survived, changing into the clothes of one of his knights. Only a strong economy allowed Hungary to rebuild its army.
Karl achieved great success in diplomacy, concentrating on relations with his northern neighbors - Poland and Bohemia. Three states found themselves in a similar situation. The Piast and Přemysl dynasties in Poland and Bohemia were interrupted at about the same time as the rule of the House of Arpad in Hungary. Karl Robert, Vladislav Loketek and John (Jan) Luxemburg helped each other. Karl took third wife Elizabeth Polskaya, daughter of Vladislav Loketka (Lokotka). And Vladislav's successor, Casimir the Great, appointed the king of Hungary or his heir to the throne in case he dies without an heir.
Charles' greatest success in foreign policy was his mediating role in the reconciliation of Casimir and John. John, in exchange for recognizing his rights to Silesia and 120 thousand Prague groschen (400 kilograms of silver), renounced his claims to the Polish throne. This happened in 1335 during a meeting of three monarchs in Visegrad. Here a three-sided defense treaty was concluded against the expansion of Austria and an important trade agreement. The purpose of the trade agreement was to organize new trade routes to Germany, bypassing the territory of Austria, in order to deprive Vienna of its transit, intermediary income.
Karl's foreign policy did not bring any other special results. Although it was this decisive and purposeful ruler who saved Hungary from chaos and collapse, laid the foundations of the greatness and glory with which his son, the brilliant warrior King Louis I the Great (Lajos the Great), would glorify the Kingdom of Hungary. Louis the Great will become one of the most famous rulers of Europe in the Late Middle Ages, expanding the possessions of his state from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and almost to the Baltic in the north. Among his vassals were the rulers of Bosnia, Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia and Bulgaria. Hungary will reach the peak of its greatness. However, the foundations of his power were laid precisely under Carl Robert. Louis only used the potential that his father created in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Hungarian King Karl Robert died in Visegrad in 1342. The funeral ceremony was held in Szekesfehervar with the participation of his allies - Casimir III of Poland and Charles IV (the future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire).
