VI. HUNGARY.
THE ARPAD DYNASTY.—The chiefs of the Turanian Magyars, about 889, elected Arpad as successor of the leader under whom they had crossed the Carpathian Mountains. They overran Hungary and Transylvania, and terrified Europe by their invasions (p. 249). After their defeats by the emperors Henry I. and Otto the Great (p. 261), they confined themselves to their own country. The first king, Stephen,—St. Stephen,—was crowned, with the consent of Pope Sylvester II., in the year 1000. He divided the land into counties, organized the Church, and founded convents and schools. He conferred on the bishops high offices. He established a national council, composed of the lords temporal and spiritual, and of the knights, out of which sprung the diets. Ladislaus I. conquered Croatia (1089), and a part of the "Red Russian" land of Galicia (1093). Coloman, "the Learned," a brave and able man, annexed Dalmatia, which he wrested from the Venetians (1102). In the reign of Andrew II. (1205-1235), the "Golden Bull" was extorted by the nobles, which conferred on them extraordinary rights and privileges, including exemption from arrest prior to trial and conviction, and the control of the diet over appointments to office. It even authorized armed resistance on their part to tyrannical measures of the king,—a right that was not abrogated until 1687. Hungary was devastated by the great Tartar invasion (1241-42) (p. 283). The kings of Hungary supported the cause of Rudolph of Austria against Ottocar of Bohemia (p. 332).
INVASIONS OF THE TURKS.—The last king of the Arpad dynasty died in 1301. There was a division of parties in the choice of a successor. Pope Boniface VIII. and the clergy supported the claims of Count Charles Robert of Anjou, who was related to the former reigning family. Under the son of Charles Robert, Louis, who also succeeded Casimir III. as king of Poland (1370), Hungary became a very powerful state. Galicia was regained, Moldavia and Bulgaria were conquered. After the death of Louis, his daughter Maria reigned from 1386 conjointly with Sigismund, afterwards emperor, and king of Bohemia. He established his supremacy over Bosnia. From this time the invasions of the Turks begin. There had been a party in favor of raising to the throne Vladislaus, king of Poland; and after the death of Sigismund's successor, Albert II. of Austria (1437), and the death of the queen, he gained the crown (1442). He was slain at Varna, in the great battle in which the Hungarians were vanquished by the Turks (1444). John Hunyady, who had several times defeated the Turks, and who escaped on the field of Varna, was made for the time "governor;" but on the release of the son of Albert, Ladislaus Posthumus, who had been kept from the throne by the Emperor Frederick III., he was recognized as king (1452). Hun-yady was made general-in-chief. Frederick had also retained in his hands the crown, which had been intrusted to his care, and which Hungarians have always regarded with extreme veneration. A little later, great advantages were gained over the Turks, to be lost again in the sixteenth century.