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Hungary Reign of Ulaszlo II and Louis II
Matyas's reforms did not survive the turbulent decades
that
followed his reign. An oligarchy of quarrelsome magnates
gained
control of Hungary. They crowned a docile king, Vladislav
Jagiello (the Jagiellonian king of Bohemia, who was known
in
Hungary as Ulaszlo II, 1490-1516), only on condition that
he
abolish the taxes that had supported Matyas's mercenary
army. As
a result, the king's army dispersed just as the Turks were
threatening Hungary. The magnates also dismantled Matyas's
administration and antagonized the lesser nobles. In 1492
the
Diet limited the serfs' freedom of movement and expanded
their
obligations. Rural discontent boiled over in 1514 when
well-armed
peasants (if they are in rebellion they are not really
acting as
serfs) under Gyorgy Dozsa rose up and attacked estates
across
Hungary. United by a common threat, the magnates and
lesser
nobles eventually crushed the rebels. Dozsa and other
rebel
leaders were executed in a most brutal manner.
Shocked by the peasant revolt, the Diet of 1514 passed
laws
that condemned the serfs to eternal bondage and increased
their
work obligations. Corporal punishment became widespread,
and one
noble even branded his serfs like livestock. The legal
scholar
Stephen Werboczy included the new laws in his Tripartitum
of
1514, which made up Hungary's legal corpus until the
revolution
of 1848. The Tripartitum gave Hungary's king and nobles,
or
magnates, equal shares of power: the nobles recognized the
king
as superior, but in turn the nobles had the power to elect
the
king. The Tripartitum also freed the nobles from taxation,
obligated them to serve in the military only in a
defensive war,
and made them immune from arbitrary arrest. The new laws
weakened
Hungary by deepening the rift between the nobles and the
peasantry just as the Turks prepared to invade the
country.
When Ulaszlo II died in 1516, his ten-year-old son
Louis II
(1516-26) became king, but a royal council appointed by
the Diet
ruled the country. Hungary was in a state of near anarchy
under
the magnates' rule. The king's finances were a shambles;
he
borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact
that
they totaled about one-third of the national income. The
country's defenses sagged as border guards went unpaid,
fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to
increase taxes
to reinforce defenses were stifled. In 1521 Sultan
Suleyman the
Magnificent recognized Hungary's weakness and seized
Belgrade in
preparation for an attack on Hungary. In August 1526, he
marched
more than 100,000 troops into Hungary's heartland, and at
Mohacs
they cut down all but several hundred of the 25,000
ill-equipped
soldiers whom Louis II had been able to muster for the
country's
defense. Louis himself died, thrown from a horse into a
bog.
After Louis's death, rival factions of Hungarian nobles
simultaneously elected two kings, Janos Zapolyai (1526-40)
and
Ferdinand (1526-64). Each claimed sovereignty over the
entire
country but lacked sufficient forces to eliminate his
rival.
Zapolyai, a Hungarian and the military governor of
Transylvania,
was recognized by the sultan and was supported mostly by
lesser
nobles opposed to new foreign kings. Ferdinand, the first
Habsburg to occupy the Hungarian throne, drew support from
magnates in western Hungary who hoped he could convince
his
brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to expel the Turks.
In
1538 George Martinuzzi, Zapolyai's adviser, arranged a
treaty
between the rivals that would have made Ferdinand sole
monarch
upon the death of the then-childless Zapolyai. The deal
collapsed
when Zapolyai married and fathered a son. Violence
erupted, and
the Turks seized the opportunity, conquering the city of
Buda and
then partitioning the country in 1541.
Data as of September 1989
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