The story of Hungary

by Ármin Vámbéry

The German party, in their turn, were now victorious, and obtained possession of the crown of St. Stephen, the most sacred relic of the nation. Otto marched into the country, but under the auspices of a bad omen. The crown was, through some accident, lost on the road, although his attendants discovered it afterwards, buried in the mire. Otto, whose vanity prompted him to display, marched in a procession through the capital, Buda, adorned with all the paraphernalia of royalty, and from that day on, every king succeeding him has, after the coronation, repeated this special pageant. Otto was as much the shadow of a king as Wenceslaus had been before him. In order to consolidate his power he asked in marriage the daughter of the most powerful Hungarian lord, Ladislaus Apor, the vayvode of Transylvania. Receiving a favorable reply, he hastened, full of hope, to Transylvania, but on his arrival was thrown into prison by the wily vayvode. After his liberation, which took place soon afterward, he turned his back for ever upon Hungary, and was satisfied with the empty title of King of Hungary. The crown, however, remained in the possession of the vayvode.

The Italian party were now left masters of the field. The most obstinate and uncontrollable oligarchs were by this time tired of the disorders prevailing in the country, and all combined with a hearty good-will to place Charles Robert, of Anjou, upon the throne of Árpád. On the 27th of August, 1310, Charles Robert was crowned for the fourth time, but in this instance with the sacred crown, which had been at length obtained from Apor. Charles was now the lawful king (1309-1342), and could, without interference, set about the task of restoring order in the country, a work to which he proved fully equal.

The king had many difficulties in his way. The ruler de facto and de jure could call but a small portion of the kingdom really his own. The endless dividing up of the territory, which was characteristic of Germany at the close of the last century, was to be found in miniature also in Hungary. The disorders prevailing under the rule of the last Árpád, and of the two kings succeeding him, had encouraged the lawlessness of the marauding nobles. Every one appropriated as much territory as he could, and exercised royal or princely authority in the domains thus acquired by him. While so many had become the possessors of large estates, the king was without any personal patrimony. These little kings had to be reduced, one by one, to submission, and deprived of the usurped lands. The most powerful of them was Matthias Csák of Trencsén, and his subjection gave the greatest trouble, and consumed the most time.

The power and territory of Matthias Csák extended from the Northwestern Carpathians to the Theiss and Danube. The castle of Trencsén was the seat of this petty king. From this fortified castle on the Vág, built on a rocky eminence near the commercial road leading from Silesia to Hungary, he was in the habit of sending his marauders to devastate the neighboring country. He pounced like a bird of prey from his rocky nest upon the unwary merchants who were passing with their ships below, and the poor traders esteemed themselves fortunate if they got safely off by leaving a portion of their wares in the freebooter’s hands. The plunder thus got together enabled him to display royal pomp, and such was the dazzling sumptuousness and luxury exhibited at his castle that, compared to it, the king’s palace seemed to be but a poor hut. Csák had his own palatine treasurer and other officers of high rank, and when he went about he was attended by an escort of several thousand armed men. It was only after a good deal of solicitation that Csák consented to receive the Pope’s legate, Cardinal Gentilis, and even then the legate had to meet Csák at the place specified by the latter, who wished this church dignitary to understand that he should feel highly honored by being permitted to shake his hand.

In the beginning, Csák seemed to submit to Charles, and, swearing fealty to the king, he consented to be represented at the third coronation. In order to win Csák’s friendship and support, Charles made him the Guardian of the Land. But this new honor did not prevent him from very soon becoming weary of his subordinate position, and when a law had been passed ordering the restitution of the royal castles and domains which had come into the possession of subjects or strangers, his wish to be independent became even greater than before. An armed contest soon ensued between the king and his powerful subject. It was preceded, however, by a papal excommunication of Csák and his adherents, extending even to the dead, but the impious rebel retorted by laying waste the lands of the neighboring high prelates. Csák’s power stood at that time at its height. He was the master of a domain containing over thirty fortified castles, which, to this day, is called by the people, after him, Matthias Land, and it was quite natural that the king was reluctant to beard the lion in his own den. The king’s troops first entered the territory of Szepes, hoping to find there the weak point of the antagonist, but they were compelled to retreat before the captains of Csák. The decisive battle took place in 1312, north of the town of Kassa. The engagement was sharp and bloody, and terminated in the defeat of Csák’s men. The ancestors of the Báthorys, Tökölyis, Drugets, and Széchenyis, who were amongst the most powerful families in Hungary, fought on this occasion by the side of the king. Although humbled, Csák’s power was not greatly impaired, for we find him, a few years later, strong and bold enough to attack John, king of Bohemia, and take from him the fortified castle of Holics.

Charles Robert then turned his attention to his other rebellious subjects, reducing them to submission, one by one, leaving Csák to be dealt with by Providence. He had not, however, to wait very long, for in 1321 this great lord died. The manner of his death is described to have been frightful. Worms generated by his own body consumed him slowly. There was no one after his death to inherit his vast estates and with them his great power. Matthias Land was divided up in smaller sections, and distributed amongst the king’s favorites. The subjects of Csák, amongst them his palatine Felician Zách, submitted at once to the king.

The king’s attention was too much engaged by this domestic warfare to allow him, while it lasted, to display the energy which marked the subsequent years of his reign, an energy which was destined to make Hungary an influential power in Central Europe. During these days of civil strife he had his seat in Temesvár, and his household was so little befitting royalty that its poverty frequently elicited the complaints of the higher clergy. But matters quietly changed when Charles transferred his residence to Visegrád, the royal palace to which cling so many fond and sad national memories, and which in our days still, though in ruins, looms up on the right bank of the Danube as a monument of Hungary’s ancient power and glory. Charles was full of ambitious schemes to raise his family to the greatest possible power, and the extension of the power of Hungary was deemed by him to be the readiest means of accomplishing this aim. First of all he stood in need of money and soldiers, but his genius enabled him to procure both. He exploited the rich mines of the country, and raised the commerce and industry of the realm to a flourishing condition, and the wealth of the people increased to such an extent that he felt warranted in levying direct taxes, a mode of taxation which had before been entirely unknown in Hungary. The manner in which he created an army bears witness to his ingenuity. The county system had become so loose and disorganized that no soldiers could be expected from that source. He had to look for them in another quarter. Charles knew, very well, the chivalrous disposition of the nation, which, in the matter of display, had still preserved its Oriental character; he knew, too, from history, that those who appealed to the vanity of the Hungarian were never disappointed, and he laid his plans accordingly. He transplanted into Hungary one of the graceful institutions of Western Europe, that of chivalry. Knights there were in the country, but they were not numerous and had not proved to be enthusiastic adherents of the king. Charles understood how to win the affections of the great lords; he distributed coats-of-arms and founded orders. In the wide courts of the castle of Visegrád, knightly tournaments became frequent, and the new knights, with their fresh heraldic devices, had an opportunity of meeting each other in armed combat in the presence of their foreign king. The king’s court came to be the resort of noble youths, and boys of noble descent became the playmates of the royal princes. In order to rouse the warlike spirit of his great nobles, he allowed those of them who joined in a campaign with a certain number of soldiers, to lead their men under banners bearing their own armorial devices.

An event, however, of most tragic issue, which has furnished a fruitful theme to Hungarian poets and artists, almost overthrew the effect of the king’s wise policy and endangered his life. The scene of the occurrence, which took place on the 17th of April, 1330, was the magnificent palace of Visegrád. The former palatine of Csák, Felician Zách, had become one of the king’s chief councillors, and he, with his daughter Clara, one of the queen’s maids of honor, a lady of extraordinary beauty, resided in the king’s palace. Casimir, the King of Poland, and the queen’s brother, was at the time a guest at Visegrád, and during his stay there, behaved improperly towards Clara Zách. The infuriated father, on learning this, broke in upon the royal family sitting in the dining-hall, and intent upon avenging the affront offered to his daughter, threatened every one in his way. He fell with sword drawn upon the royal children and their parents. The children remained unhurt, but the king was seriously wounded, and the queen had four of her fingers cut off. John Cselényi, the queen’s treasurer, finally rushed to the rescue and felled the exasperated father with his bronze pole-axe to the ground, and the alarmed servants, who had meanwhile hastened to the hall, gave the miserable man, in presence of the royal family, the coup de grace. A frightful and most cruel punishment was inflicted, for her father’s bloody act, on the unhappy Clara and all the members of the Zách family. The maiden’s ears, nose, lips, and hands were cut off, and in this condition she was tied, together with her brother, to a horse’s tail, and dragged through the land until both died a miserable death. The Zách family were exterminated to the third degree, and the remoter kinspeople doomed to slavery. Such a sentence upon those who had committed no crime was a most vindictive and savage one, and the people saw the avenging finger of God in the results of the unhappy campaign of that year against the Wallachians. One of the chronicles, referring to the disastrous issue of the war, says: “The king had hitherto sailed under favorable signs, and cut, according to his heart’s desire, through the stormy waves with the ship of his fortune. But changeable fortune had now turned her back upon him. His army had been defeated, and he himself is suffering tortures from his gouty hands and feet.”

Ban Michael Bazarád, then the ruler of Wallachia, dared to ignore his dependence on the crown of Hungary. Charles eagerly seized the opportunity to punish the traitorous vassal, and hoped, at the same time, that the indignation of the people against him for his cruelty would subside at the news of a victorious campaign against the Wallachians. Declining the offers of peace made by the repentant ban, Charles boldly advanced, with his spirited knights, over the impassable and unfamiliar roads of Wallachia. He had penetrated so far into the land that his further advance was rendered impossible by the absence of any road, and he was determined to retrace his steps. The Hungarian army was led astray by the Wallachian guides, and in retreating found itself quite unexpectedly hemmed in between steep and towering rocks from which there was no outlet. A shower of stones descended on their heads; the Wallachians who occupied the heights sent down dense volleys of rocks and arrows upon the doomed Hungarians. Charles himself owed his escape to the generous devotion of Desiderius Szécsi, one of his men, with whom he changed dresses. This brave warrior sealed his devotion with his life. The enraged Wallachians, mistaking him for the king, attacked him from every side, and after valiantly resisting, he finally fell on the battle-field. His sovereign escaped in safety, and Wallachia maintained her independence.

Charles, upon his return home, once more busied himself with the carrying out of his ambitious schemes for the aggrandizement of his family, and the results of his efforts gave ample proof of his political sagacity. He acquired for his family both Naples and Poland, although as yet on paper only. Poland became only under his son Louis the undoubted possession of the Hungarian king, while Naples never came under his control. In 1335 Visegrád resounded incessantly with the din of feasting and merrymaking; never before nor afterwards were so many royal guests harbored within its stately walls. There were Casimir, become King of Poland, the last descendant of the Piast family; John, the adventurous King of the Czechs, who subsequently died the death of a hero on the field of Crécy; his son Charles, the Margrave of Moravia, and subsequently Emperor of Germany; three knights of the first class belonging to the order of German Knights; the dukes of Saxony and Liegnitz, and numerous church and lay magnates. The entertainment of so many distinguished guests constituted a heavy draft on the royal treasury. A contemporary chronicler states that “fifteen hundred loaves of bread and one hundred and eighty flasks of wine were needed daily for the court of the king of Poland.” Whilst the guests were feasting, Charles employed all his ingenuity in shaping the destinies of Eastern Europe. His negotiations with Casimir, the King of Poland, resulted in an agreement that Poland should descend, after his death, to Louis, the son of Charles. Two years later Charles had the satisfaction of learning that the Polish nation had confirmed the private arrangement, and had acknowledged the right of his son’s succession to the throne of Poland. One of the finest monuments of Hungarian mediæval architecture, the cathedral in Kassa, owed its completion to this welcome news. Queen Elizabeth ordered it to be completed in her joy at the elevation of her son Louis. Charles had also tried to secure Naples for his son Andrew, by having him betrothed, at the age of six, to Joanna, the grand-daughter and heir of the king of Naples. In July, 1333, the young prince proceeded to Naples to take possession of his kingdom, as his father thought, but in reality, as subsequent events proved, to the place of his destruction. Charles died at a not very advanced age, having brought most of his plans to a successful issue in his lifetime.