Hungarian Conservative

The crusader army numbering tens of thousands that St John of Capistrano recruited played an important role in the successful defence of the Fortress of Nándorfehérvár and in the battle that ended the siege. John Hunyadi would have been defeated at the fortress walls if Capistrano had not attacked the Ottoman camp with his crusaders on 21 July.

‘Their book collections were also incorporated into King Matthias’ library, now known as the Bibliotheca Corviniana. This can be considered the first royal library to be consciously established and developed. It began to flourish especially after Matthias’ marriage to Beatrix, daughter of the King of Naples (1476). The queens always had prayer books for personal use, the possession of which was part of being a pious queen. However, the educated Beatrix completely transformed the court of Buda, and in her wake came the great representatives of the Italian Renaissance.’

‘The first units of the First Crusade, and then the main army led by Godfrey of Bouillon, did cross the Hungarian Kingdom, but by then King Coloman was on the throne, the successor of Ladislaus. It was also well known that the only Hungarian-led crusade to the Holy Land was launched in 1217 under King Andrew II. Yet Hungarian medieval narrative sources record one more. They tell an interesting and controversial story about King Saint Ladislaus…Given the fact that the Hungarian king died on 29 July 1095, almost half a year before the first Crusade was announced at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, modern scholarship quickly lost confidence in the historicity of the account.’

Galambóc (Golubac in today’s Serbia), still an imposing fortress on the banks of the lower Danube section, first appears in the annals of history when Turkish invasions approached and even reached the former borders of Hungary. King Sigismund, however, is not usually praised in military historical literature for the siege of Galambóc, although he acted with great foresight and care.

During the reign of King Stephen, the political aspect of the King’s devotion to Mary was only secondary and could be seen much more as the individual devotion of a fervent Christian believer to Mary. However, posterity took a different path and gave it national importance, being the basis for the Regnum Marianum idea of the 18th century.

The contrast between the brilliant achievements of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and the inertia of the kingdom of the Jagiellonians is almost a cliché in Hungarian history. To this day, many seek the causes of the 1526 Mohács tragedy in the damaging reign of the weak Jagiellonians. However, more recent Hungarian and international historical research has taken a much more positive view of the Dynasty’s performance.

Politics permeated St Adalbert’s tragic life as much as the birth of the then-nascent and emerging states of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary. That is the way Adalbert became the patron saint of all three Central and Eastern European Kingdoms, helping them to preserve their independence and join medieval Europe as autonomous Christian communities.

The modern reader might scoff at the medieval chronicler’s words about divine assistance, even dismiss it as gibberish, as he rather tries to find rational reasons for military victory. This attitude, however, fit in perfectly with medieval thinking, and the protagonists were fully convinced that their success or failure was due to the gaining or lack of heavenly support.

‘King Matthias of Hungary (r. 1458–1490) spent many years of his reign in the saddle. This was the case in 1463, 1467, and 1475, when he “celebrated” Christmas in Jajce in Bosnia, in Brașov after the Battle of Baia, and then in Belgrade after the siege of the Szabács Castle against the Ottomans.’

In the Hungarian memory, the Rákos assemblies have become a symbol of the freedom of the Hungarian nobility. The diets in Rákos, as well as the assemblies held in Pressburg (today’s Bratislava, Slovakia) after 1540, played no small role in ensuring that the unity of the country did not disappear after the Turkish rule and that the occupied parts of the country did not entirely break away from the Kingdom either.

French historian René Grousset was the first in the international literature to show an understanding of the Crusade of Andrew II and many more continue to do so today. We do not see the campaign as successful because it was Hungarian, but because it was, in its time, a uniquely well-led, and, in our modern terms, ‘peace-making’ campaign with limited objectives.

Today’s Budapest was created on 17 November 1873 by the merger of Pest on the left bank of the Danube and Buda and Óbuda on the right bank. The rich and tumultuous history of these settlements has been documented since the 11th century.

The Mariazell Basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary is one of Austria’s most popular tourist attractions and a national pilgrimage site. Its foundation dates back to the mid-12th century, yet the construction and re-foundation of the present church in the 1370s was due to a generous donation from King Louis the Great of Hungary.

24 September is the Feast of St Gerard in the Hungarian Catholic Church. St Gerard’s cult is still very much alive in Hungary: in the Hungarian Defence Forces, he is the patron saint of technical troops, and because of his significant literary activity, he is the patron of Catholic schools and teachers.

Despite all the uncertainties, the chronicle written by Master P., or as he is known to many because of the obscurity of his person since its discovery, Anonymus, has been one of the most important documents of the search for Hungarian historical consciousness and identity.

The year 1000 is not only memorable for Hungarians: at the turn of the first millennium, unexpected events took place in the whole of Europe, including on the fringes of the continent barely touched by Latin Christianity, in Poland and Hungary, where Christian conversion had been going on for years.

Surprisingly, the earliest royal secular knightly order in Europe was founded in 1326 in Hungary, a country just emerging from civil war, by King Charles I, in honour of St George, the patron saint of knights since the crusades.

His courtly representation, international Gothicism, and the reception of the Renaissance in Hungary can be considered Matthias’ most brilliant achievements, which were also highly appreciated by his contemporaries. It is undoubtedly a unique phenomenon of 15th-century Hungarian history that the Italian Renaissance had such a great impact in the country.

‘The significance pilgrimages had in terms of building clerical and diplomatic relations cannot be overlooked either. A whole slew of abbots, bishops, future archbishops, historians, poets, theological thinkers, and monks later canonised as saints visited Hungary. They brought highly cherished relics, luxury items of the East, and—not least—news with them.’

What is extraordinary about the image of Attila as a ‘Hungarian King’ is not that it has evolved, but rather that it has expanded into a system of arguments with daily political impact, and although it has undergone significant changes, it has survived the 21st century.

The year 1473 seems incredibly early for printing in several respects, as north of the Nuremberg–Augsburg–Venice line and east of the Rhine–Main line, book printing was not yet feasible at the time. In addition, it was no less rare for a nation’s history to be printed either—the Buda Chronicle, the first printed book in Hungary by 15th-century printer Andreas Hess, can be considered the second of its kind in the whole world.

In the last decade, archaeological, archaeogenetic, and historical research into the prehistory and early history of the Magyars has produced results not seen in a long time. The Battle of Pressburg, which often provoked extreme reactions and became a real media event, also played a decisive role in this—of course, in a positive sense.

The concept of the ‘Bulwark of Christendom’ appeared in all border areas where two civilisations and religions came into contact. However, the conscious and regular use of the term is linked to the Italian humanists of the 15th-century Renaissance, who greatly contributed to the formation of the modern image of Europe.

The image of Dózsa in Hungary has undergone so many metamorphoses that it would be difficult to link it to a single political trend or party. He could fit the role of a national hero who took up arms against the Turks under the banner of the Cross blessed by the Pope; a ‘martyr of the proletarian movement’; and a victim warning against the retaliation after the Revolution of 1956 all at once.

Sigismund of Luxembourg, the ruler who ascended the Hungarian throne in 1387, and whose first wife was the granddaughter of Charles I, could, of course, have heard of his predecessor’s order, and perhaps even followed his example when he himself founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408.

From the perspective of Europe, the Hungarians’ conversion to Christianity was by no means an unbroken continuation of their raids—the Hungarian people was still considered suspicious, barbaric, and prone to paganism for a long time.

Charlemagne’s figure, as well as the myths and legends associated with him, had a great influence on medieval Western European chronicles and fiction, but medieval Hungarian historiography—similarly to Central European—was surprisingly little affected by it.

Keeping the memory of St Ladislaus alive is a common cause. As the organisers of the erection of the equestrian statue of the Holy King said in response to critical comments: ‘The legacy of St Ladislaus is above all the courageous admission of the Christian faith, which is a universal value and part of our European identity.’

Life in the East was not at all easy for the newcomers, as they had to preserve their traditions while developing their identity in a completely new social and religious environment.

In addition to strengthening the alliance between the Kingdom of Hungary and the German Empire, Blessed Gisela’s marriage to St Stephen permanently committed the country to Western-style Christianity and development.