A History of Hungary (Barta István, Berend Iván, Hanák Péter, Lackó Miklós, Makkai László, Nagy Zsuzsa, Ránki György)

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A History of Hungary
Author	Barta István, Berend Iván, Hanák Péter, Lackó Miklós, Makkai László, Nagy Zsuzsa, Ránki György
Publisher	Zrínyi Printing House
First published	1973 Budapest
Source	https://archive.org/details/HistoryHungary/mode/1up

The Origins of the Hungarian People and State

From Primitive Society to Feudalism

Ugrian Prehistory

The origin of the Hungarian people is, to this day, a matter of dispute. The most reliable clue is the linguistic evidence that Hungarian is one of the Finno-Ugrian languages. The bulk of its vocabulary, as well as its grammatical structure, is common to all Finno-Ugrian languages, particularly to the eastern, Ugrian branch. The present-day distribu¬ tion of Finno-Ugrian peoples and the occurrence of words in the Finno- Ugrian languages for botanical and zoological features that can be geographically localized has convinced philologists that the ancestors of these peoples inhabited the area between the middle Volga and the Urals, probably in the neighbourhood of the Kama river. This Finno- Ugrian community eventually split into the Finnish and Ugrian branches. Later the Ugrian branch divided into the present-day Ug- rians of the Ob valley—the Voguls and Ostyaks (Man'shi and Chanti) —and into the ancestors of the Hungarians. The division, according to the philologists, took place around 500 B.C. The fact that the Hun¬ garians belong to the Finno-Ugrian family of peoples is indisputable. The exact location of the original Finno-Ugrian homeland, as well as the process leading to the separation of the peoples, is still a matter of controversy. All the theories, however, agree on one point: during the first millennium B.C. the majority of the Finno-Ugrian peoples lived somewhere in the European part of what is today the U.S.S.R. The Ugrians lived further east than the Finns, very probably below the Volga bend and on both banks of the river. This area was still in the belt of deciduous forests but very close to the steppes.

The Finno-Ugrian peoples were already at the time skilled in pot¬ tery making, weaving and spinning. They bred livestock and tilled the land with hoes. Influenced by their neighbours, the nomadic pastoral communities of the steppes, the Ugrians learned to breed horses and, around the fifth century B.C., they began to use bronze, and later iron. Primitive agriculture and livestock breeding did not replace hunting and fishing, however, particularly as the forest region abounded in fur-bearing animals.

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The nucleus of these empires was the armed retinue of a wealthy chieftain. His retainers, recruited both from impoverished members of the clan and from outsiders, enabled him to gain control first over his own clan and then over others, sometimes speaking different lan¬ guages, until he eventually formed a tribe comprising all the clans he controlled. Finally, he became overlord of a confederation of tribes. A man of rank in the conqueror’s retinue was appointed head of each tribe. These tribal chiefs, in their turn, had their own armed retainers who enforced the obedience of the clan leaders. The ruler of the con¬ federation of tribes, or empire, ‘the king of kings’ (the khagan), sat enthroned above his subjects. He maintained his position with myths concerning his divine origin. He nominated his kinsmen as viceroys over these groups of tribes or ‘peoples’. These nomadic empires rose swiftly to power and their disintegration was no less sudden and dramatic.

From the fifth century A.D. onwards, historical evidence proves that the Hungarians were subjects of the successive empires of the Huns, the Avars, the Tu-kines, the Onogur-Bulgars and the Khazars. They were part of the Onogur-Bulgar tribal federation which was formed about the middle of the fifth century, and which during the seventh century constituted an independent, if short-lived, empire. At the end of the century, the federation was reduced to dependence upon the Khazars, who were descendants of Huns, intermingled with Alano-Sarmatian elements. Some of the Onogurs fled before the Kha- zar conquerors to the lower reaches of the Danube river, where they subsequently established an independent state. Another group of Onogurs founded the Bulgarian state of the Volga region. The name of the disintegrating Onogur federation of tribes was preserved by the Hungarian tribes, which stayed on and came under Khazar rule.

The status of the Hungarians within the Onogur tribal federation and their political organization are not known. But some information is available, from Arabic and Byzantine sources, about their life under Khazar rule. The Khazar conquerors appointed chiefs to head the Hungarian tribes; the foremost of them, the paramount chief or kende, was the third highest dignitary in the Khazar imperial hierarchy. The other chiefs, too, held office in a strictly hierarchical order. The gyula and horka were next to the kende in the hierarchy. The names of other office-bearers survived in Hungarian tribal names (e.g. Tarjan, Jeno). Each of the chiefs had an armed retinue, recruited from outside the clans. These armed retainers were called jobbagy, a term which in later feudal times came to mean ‘vassal’.

The leaders of the tribes and clans claimed hereditary rights to military and judicial offices: hence the beginnings of a hereditary aristocracy. Men of rank recruited into their service poor or impover¬ ished freemen and also made use of slaves, who had been bought or taken captive in war. The internal structure of the clan was thus transformed. In addition to the kinship-based families—of which the clan had previously consisted exclusively—there arose a new type of family: a wealthy one to which blood relations as well as some de¬ pendent freemen and slaves or bondsmen belonged (the latter two with a lower status than the kin). This wealthy family became the leader of the clan. Within the framework of the primitive community a division into classes gradually emerged.

The Hungarian Tribal Federation

In the seventh and eighth centuries the Hungarians’ neighbours, the Khazars and the Bulgars of the Volga region, gradually developed agriculture, thus laying the foundations for the transition from the tribal framework to the social and political patterns of feudalism. These changes in neighbouring territories did not fail to make an im¬ pact upon the Hungarian community.

The last group of words of Bulgar-Turkish origin incorporated into the Hungarian language are all agricultural terms, including some relat¬ ed to wine growing. The Hungarians’ gradual change-over to agri¬ culture is attested, inter alia, by Dzhaihani’s remark that they ‘have plenty of crops’. Their leaders sold furs, exacted as taxes from the peoples of the forest belt, and slaves, brought back from their cam¬ paigns, to Arabic and Byzantine traders, from whom they purchased silk fabrics, swords, armour, ornamental vessels, harness and orna¬ ments for their dress. It was noted by Dzhaihani’s informant that the latter were worn by Hungarian dignitaries, and many of these objects have been unearthed in tenth-century burial places in present-day Hungary. Although the Hungarians of the steppe remained predomi¬ nantly nomads and failed to establish towns, there is little doubt that their economy grew stronger and that the disintegration of their old social system continued unabated. They adopted the Turkish runic alphabet and adapted it to their Finno-Ugrian language. With the loosening of the bonds of the clan system, there began the process which ultimately led to the transformation of the federation of seven tribes (Nyek, Megyer, Kiirt-Gyarmat, Tarjan, Jeno, Ker and Keszi) into a united people calling themselves Magyar or Hungarian.

fhe leaders of the Hungarians, although of Khazar descent, no longer had any feeling of community with the Khazar empire, and in the early ninth century they shook off Khazar rule. Once a dignitary of the Khazar khagan, the kende now became the paramount chief of the Hungarians. Following the pattern of the dual kingship system that existed in both the Khazar and the Avar empires, he shared his rule with the gyula, who was second in rank. Although the Khazar ruling class never accepted the desertion of the Hungarians, the latter repulsed every Khazar attempt to re-establish their overlordship and even counter-attacked to such an extent that around the year 830 the Khazars were compelled to build the fortress of Sarkel in the region between the Don and Volga rivers in order to secure their communica¬ tions. The Khazars also encouraged the nomadic Pechenegs to attack the Hungarians. This device proved more effective in keeping the Hun¬ garians at bay—although in the end it proved to have been a two- edged weapon as, by enlisting the Pechenegs, the Khazars themselves opened the door to a fresh barbarian invasion, which led to the early destruction of their young steppe civilization. But a Pecheneg attack in 889 dislodged most of the Hungarians from the Volga bend and they moved to the region stretching from the Don to the lower reaches of the Danube.

Conflicting information from the available sources has inspired a variety of theories about the Hungarian migration. There have been attempts to locate Levedia and Etelkoz, mentioned in thirteenth-cen¬ tury chronicles as the homelands of the migrating Hungarians at va¬ rious dates before their conquest of present-day Hungary, at various places between the Volga and the Danube. The territory bordered by the Kuban river and the Caucasus is also believed by some historians to have been a dwelling place of the Hungarians for a while. However, the available evidence on the route that the Hungarians took from the Volga bend does not satisfactorily bear out any of the theories men¬ tioned. All that is certain is that the majority of the Hungarians did not leave the Volga before the second half of the ninth century. Here, on the banks of the Volga, a Hungarian Dominican friar called Julian, on an expedition to the East in the first half of the thirteenth century, found a few Hungarians who had been left behind when the majority began their westward trek.

When the Hungarians had already reached the region of the Dnieper river (the Etelkoz or ‘land between rivers’ of the chronicles), they met with the Slavs and became embroiled in the political struggles over the hegemony of the Middle Danube Basin. The year 892 saw them fight¬ ing, in alliance with Arnulf, king of the East Franks, against Prince Svatopluk of Moravia, while in 895, instigated by Byzantium, they attacked Czar Symeon of Bulgaria but were defeated. The Pechenegs seized this opportunity to occupy the Hungarian settlements along the Dnieper. In the absence of their best warriors the Hungarians were unable to defend themselves, and so, led by their two chiefs, Kursz&n, the kende, and Arpad, the gyula, they moved to the Carpathian Basin which they had come to know during earlier raids.

The Conquest of the Carpathian Basin

When the Hungarians invaded the Carpathian Basin, they found there no well-established state capable of offering effective resistance. At the end to the eighth century, Charlemagne had crushed the Avars who inhabited this area. The Slavic tribes, now that they were free from Avar domination, began their independent political organiza¬ tion, but these young states were compelled to defend themselves against the expansionist policy of the East Frankish Kingdom. The Slovenian principality which had been established on the territory of the former Frankish margravate, in what is today Western Hungary, had failed to attain independence, while by the later part of the, nin th century the Moravian Empire, whose control extended east of the Western Carpathians to the region of Nyitra, was on the point of disintegration, a process accelerated by the Hungarian invasion, rhe territories east of the Danube came under Bulgarian influence after the collapse of the Avar Empire, but the Bulgarians, who were locked in a struggle with Byzantium, lacked the power to establish effective control over any part of this area. Feudal anarchy was rampant in the East Frankish Kingdom under the last of the Carol- ingians; thus the Hungarians were able to conquer the Basin quickly and with comparative ease. First they subdued the vicinity of Nyitra, then, after 900, they extended their rule over Pannonia (Western Hungary), and very probably to large areas of Transylvania. Archaeo¬ logical finds indicate the early arrival of the Hungarians in these areas. In the south, the Hungarians reached the Save-Danube line.

Historical sources available contain no reliable information con¬ cerning the details of the Hungarian conquest. The Hungarian chroni¬ cles of later periods, drawing on the sagas of the tenth-century war- leaders and somewhat naive etymologies of place names, speak of Moravian and Bulgarian ‘dukes’ in parts of Hungary which were undoubtedly inhabited by Slavs during the tenth century. Some of these ‘dukes’ surrendered to the conquerors; others perished in battle and their people were subjected to the rule of the Hungarian leaders.

The Slavs living in the Basin—or at least some of them—practised relatively advanced stock farming and tillage and pursued various handicrafts. Words in Hungarian of Slavic origin dating from this period testify to this. The Slavs also had an advanced social organiza¬ tion. The clan and tribal chiefs (zhupans and voivodes) already formed a ruling class which had subjected part of the population to feudal exploitation and had built strongholds to safeguard its rule. These strongholds were in the centre of the area controlled, and the sur¬ rounding lands were tilled by slaves and dependent freemen.

After the conquest, the Hungarian chieftains with their armed retainers and bondsmen moved into the fortresses of the Slavic zhupans or else they built strongholds of their own. Those Slavic leaders who surrendered to the Hungarians were probably allowed to retain their property but the land of those who resisted passed into the hands of the Hungarian chieftains. These developments quickened the pace of Hungarian feudal evolution. Agriculture, thanks to the influence of the subject Slavs, became an increasingly important sector of the economy on the domains of the Hungarian chieftains, but the free Hungarians of the clans usually remained herdsmen.

Toponymical evidence suggests that the Hungarian conquerors occupied the Carpathian Basin as far as the beech and fir-tree belt, because the forests, lacking undergrowth, offered no grazing for their herds. The Slavs, on the other hand, kept away from the grassy plains and settled in the oak forests of the western and south-western parts of Pannonia and around the Basin, on the wooded slopes of the Carpathians, and they also penetrated the beech forests along the river valleys. The Slavs who did not live in the oak and beech forests were slowly absorbed by the Hungarians after the conquest. Recent research suggests that the number of the Hungarian newcomers was about 400,000, while the indigenous population is estimated at half that number. Until about the mid-twelfth century when the moun¬ tainous regions began to be populated, some 200,000 square kilo¬ metres (77,200 sq. miles) of the country’s area may be assumed to have been inhabited. With a population density of 3 per square kilo¬ metre, the Basin was therefore rather sparsely inhabited at that time —this estimate accords with the occupational pattern of the Hun¬ garian community, a pattern characterized by the predominance of stock breeding.

The Hungarians presumably settled in clans and tribal groups. However, as the primary function of the tribe was military, it gradual¬ ly dwindled in importance and the basic unit in society remained the clan. But the clan had by now ceased to be primarily a community of free herdsmen descending from a common ancestor. In place of kinship ties, the clan was held together by the wealth of the chief and his family, and by his power to maintain a large retinue containing both slaves and free herdsmen. The majority of the native Slavs, who were engaged in agriculture, were subjected to the Hungarian chief¬ tains, a fact which was decisive in the final transformation of the clan from an organization based on kinship into a social organization based on territory.

The leaders of the tribal federation, the tribal chiefs, were all recruit¬ ed from 40 or 50 powerful families. About the middle of the tenth century, Constantine Porphvrogenetos describes the Hungarian feder¬ ation of tribes as a loose association for the purpose of defence against outsiders. Inter-tribal relationships as well as the very structure of tribalism began to lose their importance, as, after the settlement, the most efficient fighting force was no longer the arms-bearing free tribesmen but the armed bands of the most influential chiefs. This process of tribal disintegration was so rapid that not even the names of the tribes were preserved in tradition, and the story of the military adventures of the tenth century was remembered as a series of exploits carried out by some distinguished chiefs and their armed retinues rather than as joint enterprises of some tribes.

"De sagittis Hungarorum..."

The half century following the conquest offered the Hungarian chief¬ tains unique opportunities for achieving glory and enriching them¬ selves. The anarchy prevalent in the disintegrating Carolingian empire was an open invitation to marauders. The fleet Hungarian horsemen were able to make surprise attacks on villages and cities, sack and burn them before the slowly moving armies of Carolingian armoured knights were ready to move into action against them. The Hungarians developed certain tactics for use in battle. They would make a surprise charge, then turn tail and pretend to flee. When the serried ranks of knights had broken up in pursuit, they would turn about, shower a hail of arrows upon their confused enemies, and slaughter them in hand-to-hand fighting. As early as 899-900, a large Hungarian army ravaged Lombardy for a whole year. During the following decade, the Hungarians attacked Bavaria in order to strengthen their hold on Pannonia and also to extend its western frontiers. During these cam¬ paigns, in 904, the kende Kurszan fell a victim to a stratagem planned by the Bavarian lords, who invited him to a feast and there murdered him and his retinue. The death of the kende enabled the gyula, Arpad, to seize the office of paramount chief. In 907, when the Margrave Luitpold was killed in a battle near the Enns, the Hungarians were able to seize the territory of the defunct Ostmark to the banks of the river. From this base, over the next few years, their mounted bands invaded Germany, often as allies of the Oder and Elbe Slavs in the latter’s struggle against their Saxon conquerors. They were helped by Arnulf of Bavaria, who had bought his peace from them and supported their enterprises against his great adversary, Henry I, the Fowler, King of Germany. King Berengar I, too, enlisted the services of the Hungarians to fight against his rivals and several times from 919 to 926 the Hungarians went ravaging and destroying through Italy. By this time, even the German king was reduced to paying annual tribute in return for immunity for his country from the attacks of the Hungarians.

The annual tribute received from the German and Italian rulers, together with the lion’s share of the spoils taken in treasure, cattle and slaves on the marauding campaigns, greatly increased the wealth of the chiefs. Some of this booty went to their armed retainers, who made up the bulk of the raiding armies.

According to some historians impoverished herdsmen who had lost their livelihood took part en masse in these campaigns, but it is more likely that only those who possessed the necessary horses and arms could afford to join in the campaigns and raids and thus have a chance of getting a share of the booty. The Hungarian warrior was buried together with his sabre and horse, but in a great number of tenth-century burial places so far excavated no sabres have been found. At this stage of the disintegration of the primitive community system, the abandonment of military duties was the first step along the road to loss of freedom, which was the fate of an increasing number of impoverished Hungarians at this time. Besides the subjected Slavic peasants and the imported slaves, these impoverished Hungarians swelled the ranks of servants who tended the growing herds of the wealthy chiefs and cultivated the latter’s farmlands, which were being augmented at the expense of the common land.

However, the once abundant flow of the spoils of war. which further increased the distinctions in wealth amongst the members of the clan and tribe, soon began to dwindle. The need for defence in the face of recurring Hungarian attacks helped to bring to an end the state of anarchy in Germany, which had been the prime factor in making possible the Hungarians’ initial successes. Henry the Fowler’s policy of strengthening the royal power in Germany bore its first fruit on the battlefield of Merseburg. Here, in 933, a reorganized army of German knights routed a Hungarian force that was attacking because of German refusal to continue payment of the annual tribute. For years afterwards, the Hungarian chiefs left Germany alone, taking advantage, instead, of Bulgarian-Bvzantine tension to plunder the Balkans.

Henry’s death, however, was followed by a return to anarchy and Western Europe was again open to attack by the Hungarians. The military campaigns were placed under the command of the horka Bulcsu, who for nearly two more decades made the name Hungarian a word of terror. Once again, in the churches of Christendom, terrified congregations repeated the prayer ‘De sagittis Hungarorum libera nos Domine (‘From the arrows of the Hungarians, save us, O Lord’). Hungarian armies crossed the Alps and the Pyrenees. They reached the Atlantic seaboard, the Mediterranean coast and the Bosphorus. The Byzantine emperor, as well as the German and Italian princes, now paid annual tribute to the Hungarians to gain immunity from their attacks. The horka Bulcsu went to Byzantium in 948 for peace negotiations and was converted to Christianity. He was raised to the status of patrician by the emperor. But the ‘man of blood’, as his contemporaries referred to him, was denied the chance of becoming a Hungarian Clovis. In 955 he was routed at Augsburg by an army of the German princes under the leadership of Otto I. He was taken prisoner, and hanged along with his fellow commanders. The descend¬ ants of Arpad, who still bore the title of paramount chief, although for a while eclipsed by Bulcsu, were destined to lead the Hungarians in the transformation of their society through changes in their social organization and foreign policy.

The Independent Hungarian Monarchy to the Battle of Mohács (1000–1526)

The Rise of Feudal Hungary

Conditions during the Transition to Feudalism

The disaster of Augsburg put an end to the marauding campaigns in the West. For the next ten to fifteen years Hungarian raiding parties continued their attacks on the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans, in alliance with Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev. But from 970 onwards then- way to the south too was blocked when the Byzantines succeeded in extending their frontiers to the Danube.

The political situation in the territories around the Hungarians now well established in the Carpathian Basin began to change. The power of the Khazars and the Volga Bulgars, already weakened by the at¬ tacks of the Pechenegs, was crushed by Svyatoslav’s campaigns. The Pontic steppe was once again overrun by warlike nomadic tribes, who threatened the existence of the young Kievan state. The economic and cultural ties that had linked the Hungarians, even after they moved to the Basin, to the Iranian Moslems were finally severed: burial finds dating from after the middle of the tenth century contain no Arab coins (dirhems), so frequently found in graves dating from earlier years. This indicates that the Moslem slave traders found little to interest them in this region once the Hungarians slackened off their forays for slaves. The Khazar and Volga Bulgarian towns also began to decay. Volga Bulgars and Khorezmian (kdliz) refugees and traders as well as clans of nomadic Pechenegs who moved into Hungary were to remind Hungarians for centuries to come of their one-time links with the world of the Pontic steppe. But the future of the Hungarians was to be closely linked with that of their neighbours in the south and the west.

The borders of the Byzantine Empire stretched as far as the Danube. The Holy Roman Empire had succeeded in restoring the Ostmark and, by bringing a Christianized Bohemia and Poland into feudal vassalage, was making its presence felt from the north. The Hungarian leaders realized that they would have to place their relations with their neighbours on a different footing.

The internal development of Hungarian society likewise called for a political change. The chief of the clan, now well on the way towards becoming a feudal lord, rose to be head of a province and lord over warriors who were bound to him by personal ties. He exacted a variety of sendees from impoverished freemen and slaves and from independ¬ ent cultivators who were members of his clan. Relationships based on kinship were thus replaced by a local unit whose centre was the castle inhabited by the chief of the clan.

The increasing power of the clan chiefs further weakened Hun¬ garian tribal organization; it also became the foundation of the new form of government which was evolving inevitably as a result of the development of a feudal state. A struggle for supremacy amongst the tribal chiefs ensued, which was won ultimately by the paramount chief, a descendant of Arpad. This was owing to the consistent policy of expansion initiated by Arpad himself when he seized the opportuni¬ ty of Kurszan’s death to secure for himself and his descendants the office of paramount chief and to take possession of Kursz£n’s dwell¬ ing area (situated in the vicinity of present-day Budapest). Villages named after Arpdd’s sons and grandsons are evidence that by the middle of the tenth century the lands bordering on the banks of the Danube south of the Danube bend (a little way to the north of the present capital) as well as the eastern and southern parts of Trans- danubia (the area lying west of the river) were directly controlled by the paramount chiefs family. This probably arose as die result of the practice of appropriating the possessions and offices of commanders and chiefs who were killed in campaigns abroad. The death of Bulcsu and of his fellow commanders brought the western parts of Trans- danubia under the paramount chief’s authority, and put an end to the other chiefs’ control of the middle reaches of the Danube and the area west of the river.

A similar process of expansion was taking place in the East. The gyula, second to the paramount chief in the hierarchy of the tribal federation, whose residence was in Transylvania, followed Bulcsu’s example by going to Byzantium in 950. He, too, was baptized, receiv¬ ing the rank of patrician. Greek monks carried through successful missionary work in the land of the gyula, a region which as far as can be deduced from the evidence, extended westward as far as the Tisza river, around the middle of the tenth century. The federation of Hun¬ garian tribes therefore, centred as it ivas around two seats of power, was on the point of pulling apart. This may be the reason for the practice, traceable to nomadic Turkish tradition, of distinguishing between ‘white Hungarians’ and ‘black Hungarians’—terms used in German and Russian records dating from the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries to distinguish between western and eastern Hun¬ garians

The Struggle for Power by Géza and Stephen

Geza (970-997) continued the expansionist policy of his ancestors, with its tendency to disrupt the tribal organization. He compelled the clan chiefs, by now independent heads of provinces and mostly related to him, to recognize his overlordship. A ruthless, iron-handed ruler, he brought them to heel; he appropriated for himself two- thirds of the territory controlled by them, and more if they put up resistance. He placed his own officials (called ispan, meaning sheriff or count, derived from the Slavic zkupan) in their castles and settled the area around them with warriors from various tribes (called job- bdgy, iobagiones in Latin). According to a chronicler, this ruler, who was ruthless towards his own people, but generous towards strangers, found only meagre support among the Hungarian tribal aristocracy for his efforts to organize a feudal state. The majority of clan chiefs naturally clung to their independence and only yielded to force. For this reason, the hard core of Geza’s armed force consisted of a band of retainers, whose members were recruited abroad. At first, these were Russian warriors, but in later years G&za relied more and more on German and Italian knights.

With their assistance, Geza made use of the experience gained else¬ where in organizing a feudal state. He sought to establish even closer ties with his feudal neighbours. In 973, he sent an embassy to the Emperor Otto I, offering him an alliance and asking him to send missionaries into Hungary. He thought that conversion to Christianity would strengthen the new social order and government. Moreover, this move would demonstrate to his neighbours his determination to discontinue his people’s earlier aggressive foreign policy and his desire for peace. He hoped thereby to head off a probable German attack. It was a natural course of action for Geza to seek to establish contact with the German emperor, since his rival, the gyula, was allied to Byzantium. The missionaries did arrive, but they made slow progress in their work, for the paramount chief, although he and his family were baptized, still tolerated paganism. In this respect, as in others, he did no more than prepare the ground for the transformation of his country. In the same way he took only the initial steps towards reducing the Hungarian tribes of the east to submission by taking a wife from the family of the gyula of Transylvania and by marrying one of his daughters to a tribal chief of the Upper Tisza region, a chief who owed no allegiance to the gyula. He was the first Hungarian ruler to carry his dynastic policy beyond his borders: his three other daughters were married to the doge of Venice, a prince of Poland and the son of the Czar of Bulgaria. For his son Vajk, who was baptized Stephen, he sued for the hand of Princess Gisela of Bavaria.

Stephen received his education from Adalbert, Bishop of Prague, who lived briefly in Hungary, and from Adalbert’s disciples who settled there and founded the local ecclesiastical organization.

The Hungarian chiefs, who resented Geza’s policies and clung to paganism and the old order, supported Koppdny’s succession to the throne. Kopp&ny, who ruled over the possessions of Arpfid’s family south of Lake Balaton, was the eldest male member of the family, and his accession would have been in keeping with the old nomadic order of succession. Stephen sent his German knights to subdue his ambitious kinsman. Koppdny was killed in battle, his body was quar¬ tered, and the victorious young prince caused parts of it to be nailed to the gates of three castles in the west of the country as a warning to those who opposed his rule. He sent the fourth quarter to his uncle, the gyula, in Transylvania. Stephen, having consolidated his power by force, wanted the sanction of a royal crown. Tradition has it that on Christmas Day in the year 1000, with the consent of the Emperor Otto III, he was crowned king of Hungary, with a crown received from the pope.

Kingship involved the claim to rule over the whole of the Hungarian federation of tribes, including ‘Black’ Hungary. The assertion of such a claim was made easier by the fact that the gyula of Transylvania no longer completely controlled the eastern parts of the country. In the southern part of the region east of the Tisza, on the banks of the Maros, a powerful clan chief, Ajtony, had established his rule. He was the lord of a castle built on the site where the town of Csandd was later built. He relied on the power of the Bulgars, then temporarily in the ascendant in the Balkans. He had invited Christian monks from Vidin to his lands but he himself persisted in his heathen faith and polygamous ways.

Stephen, securing the alliance of Byzantium, which had for many years been locked in a life-and-death struggle with the Bulgarians, cut off the gyula of Transylvania from his only possible supporter, thereby forcing the gyula recognize him as his superior. He then launched an attack upon Ajtony. Ajtony was killed in the ensuing battle, and his province was annexed to the Kingdom of Hungary. His clan, like the descendants of earlier rivals of the Arpads, carried on as lords over a modest region that comprised but a few villages. A German monk, writing about 1006, recorded the event: ‘King Stephen of Hungary attacked Black Hungary with his forces and, with coercion, intimida¬ tion and charity, was pleased to convert that entire land to the true faith.’ Thus the feudal Kingdom of Hungary was established and com¬ prised all the Hungarian tribes and clans. An attack launched by the Czar of Bulgaria was defeated by Stephen in alliance with Byzantium and the war was carried into Bulgarian territory. This campaign helped to hasten the eclipse of the Bulgarian state.

The Organization of State and Church under Stephen

The land formerly controlled by the clan chiefs had already become royal domain as the result of the expropriations started by the para¬ mount chief Geza. Stephen continued and completed the organizing work begun by his father: he turned the regions inhabited by the clans into the basic administrative unit of royal power, i.e. the megye or county. Two-thirds of the county’s population of freemen, villeins and slaves were placed, along with the area they inhabited, under direct royal authority. The population of Hungarian and Slavic freemen were divided into companies of tens and hundreds, under the command of jobbagys, that is, the vassals of the king. Part of this population was employed by the ispans (sheriffs or counts) now installed in command of the castles formerly owned by the clan chiefs, for services in and about the castle. Another section of the population was put to work under the charge of udvarispdns (stewards of the royal household) serv¬ ing to provision the royal household. Grants from the crown lands were made to bishoprics and monasteries which were founded in large numbers, and to high-ranking members of the king’s armed retinue. When these grants of land were added to properties taken earlier into private ownership, large feudal estates were formed. The owners of these estates formed the feudal ruling class whose members were bound to give military service and allegiance to their sovereign. In the be¬ ginning, the lands held by the lords were dwarfed by those of the king and the Church; they received, however, princely remuneration from the royal revenues in return for their services as ispans.

The laws and institutions of the feudal state thus ensured for the royal power that degree of concentration of forces, economic as well as military, without which the young Hungarian state would never have been able to develop the fabric of feudal class rule or resist its neighbours’ territorial ambitions.

The king’s efforts to consolidate law and order and to secure his frontiers, found an ideological justification in the concept of the Christian feudal kingdom. The Hungarian heathen world of beliefs had been rooted in the social conditions of tribal society, and, to¬ gether with the epic poems eulogizing the exploits of military leaders whose very names struck terror in the hearts of people throughout Christendom, helped to preserve an outlook that was diametrically opposed to the new social and political order. King Stephen did not shrink from taking ruthless measures to spread Christianity, whose doctrines preached obedience to feudal superiors and favoured a settled way of life based on agriculture rather than a nomadic pastoral life. Although the influence of native Slavic Christianity, as well as the work of Byzantine and, later on, Bavarian missionaries had paved the way for the massive conversion of the Hungarians, pagan resistance was still very strong. Those who in the process of feudal transforma¬ tion had been deprived of their power or of their freedom demonstrat¬ ed their protest by clinging to old beliefs. However, the leaders of the resistance were punished with a savagery that was meant to serve as a deterrent: for instance, Tanuzaba, a Pecheneg clan chief, was buried alive. The ispdns sent soldiers to drive the people en masse to christen¬ ing ceremonies. Royal ordinances obliged the people to build churches, provide for the sustenance of priests, attend divine services regularly, and pay tithes. The king made grants of land to the ever-increasing number of bishoprics and Benedictine monasteries, and built and fur¬ nished their churches.

The clergy and monks, whose ranks were soon swollen by local recruits, spread the culture of feudal Europe all over Hungary. The first ecclesiastical schools were founded. Gerard (Gell6rt) of Venice, tutor of King Stephen’s son and, subsequently, Bishop of Csanad, was a noted ecclesiastical author of his time. Nor did the Hungarian ruling class, in these early years, ignore the Greek culture of Byzan¬ tium. The old Basilian monasteries of the eastern parts of the country were permitted to carry on their work undisturbed until the latiniza- tion of the thirteenth century. What is more, kings, even at later dates, founded monasteries of the Eastern rite for their Byzantine or Russian queens. The first was founded by King Stephen himself, on the oc¬ casion of his son’s marriage to a Byzantine princess. Thus, the schism between Western and Eastern Christianity, which was deepening at this period, was not reflected in Hungary until many years later.

The Early Period of Feudalism (11th and 12th Centuries)

The main characteristics of the first two centuries of feudalism in Hungary were the same as those found in other European countries at that stage of development. They were a subsistence economy based on agriculture; the absence of towns and towns artisans; only limited and mainly local trade; survivals of slavery among serfs farming with tools owned by the feudal lord; and, lastly, the predominance of crown lands (together with ecclesiastical lands, which were closely bound up with the king’s domain) over other feudal holdings.

Extensive Farming

Stock breeding, a legacy of the nomadic past, continued to be the Hungarians’ chief source of livelihood, although crop growing made steady advances. Foreign travellers, even as late as the twelfth century, described the country as one vast grazing-ground broken only by scattered patches of cultivated land. However, stock breeding had by now become closely linked with agriculture. The fields, dressed with manure, were cultivated until the soil was exhausted. When this hap¬ pened another area of pasture would be tilled. The population shifted its quarters as the ploughs moved on to other parts of the land. This system of agriculture is dependent on an abundance of land being avail¬ able for farming and on huge stocks of animals. Millet was a major crop at first, although both wheat and barley, which had been known to the Hungarians in the Pontic steppe, were increasingly cultivated.

The plough had also been used in the steppe, and had since been adapted to local conditions by modelling it on that used by the native Slavic population. The Slavic names of some parts of the plough are evidence of this. The plough was usually drawn by a team of eight oxen. These were little, small-horned, thin-boned beasts, and, judging from the evidence of bone finds, they belonged to the breed indigenous to Central Europe. Horses, huge stocks of which were bred, had on the other hand been brought in from the steppe. They were not employed for ploughing and were used only to draw wagons or for riding, but their meat was eaten. They were still a small breed in the tenth century, but by the eleventh century attained the height of the Euro¬ pean thoroughbred horses. There were also large stocks of sheep and swine.

The level of farming was above average on the lord’s demesne (the telek, Latin praedium ). On this farm, a permanent area was marked off for agriculture. It was divided into two parts, which were grazed and ploughed alternately, but the change was not made each year and exhausted land was grazed for several years until it had regained its fertility. This was a step towards the time when stock breeding w'ould become subordinate to crop farming. The centre of the lord’s demesne was the manor-house (the ‘court’); all around it were fields, which were worked by slaves (servi) with close-cropped hair, using the lord’s plough and oxen. The more remote farms belonging to the lord were worked by semi-free slaves (i liberti ), who were attached to the lord. They were obliged to deliver a part (usually two-thirds) of their crops to their lord. In the same way, the slaves who tended the lord’s vine¬ yards were permitted to work on their own. The harvested crop was stacked in the fields and there the grain was threshed by the trampling of stock animals. Guibert, a French abbot travelling with an army of crusaders through Hungary, admired the tower-high stacks of grain along the Danube, containing the harvests of several years. The peasant hand-mill of early times was gradually replaced by watermills, which were mentioned in records as early as the middle of the eleventh cen¬ tury as appurtenances of manors.

Slaves, Serfs, Freemen

In essence, this system of farming corresponded to the one, then in a state of disintegration in the West, under which slaves settled on the land gradually became serfs. However, in Hungary as elsewhere, their slave origin was never forgotten. They had no right of ownership over the land they tilled or the animals they tended, and their lord was free to move them elsewhere, if he so desired. They were bought and sold together with their farm implements and draught animals, and were not allowed to leave their lord. Their condition of servitude did not change even if they were required to perform some special service, such as carting, fishing or working at a craft, instead of tilling the land.

Their services became considerably less oppressive as a result of a

gradual fusion with the class of freemen. The latter lived in villages which, as a result of the administrative division of the country into counties, became royal domain and were subsequently enfeoffed to lords spiritual or temporal, or which were formed by communities of free settlers on land in feudal tenure.

The freemen {liberi, the vulgares of King Stephen’s laws), by now forming a clearly distinct class, held shares in common fields but were required to perform various services for the king or for their lord. Their status as freemen, which distinguished them from slaves and serfs, rested on the fact that no services could be exacted from them other than those agreed upon with their lord. Freemen were employed, as a rule, as overseers of slaves and serfs, mounted messengers or as wagoners, and were required to deliver to the lord a fixed quantity, instead of a percentage, of their crops.

The lords distorted the freeman’s right to leave his holding by driv¬ ing off their land any freemen who refused to undertake ‘voluntarily’ to perform the services they demanded, however oppressive. Legal sentences and unpaid debts also reduced numerous freemen to servi¬ tude. In spite of these hardships, a large number of communities of free peasants survived on both royal and baronial or ecclesiastical lands. Their freedom was protected by the king, who exacted military service from them or made it possible for them to commute their lia¬ bility to military service into money payments.

The holdings from which freemen had been driven, sometimes entire villages, were added to the lord’s domain. Sometimes serfs were settled amongst freemen, and attempts were made to extend the services re¬ quired of them to the freemen. Mostly, however, it was the serfs who were assimilated by the freemen as the steady advance of agriculture, the improvement of its techniques, and the growth of population meant that the lord’s manor became more and more obsolete.

Menials of county castles and manors serving the provision of the royal household were better off than other classes of common folk. The jobbagys, originally armed retainers, were mostly bailiffs, stewards or other lower-ranking' officers, and were freemen. In time, some of these acquired free holdings. The more lowly castle servants ( cives, castrenses), who were bound to the royal court, lived in village com¬ munities. The vastness of the estates belonging to the castles and the court made possible an extensive differentiation of services. Certain families, often entire villages, were assigned special tasks. The in¬ habitants of one village worked as wagoners, those of another engaged in fishing, other again pursued bee-keeping for the king. Certain vil¬ lages were required to provide food, or wine, or products of domestic crafts. There were villages whose inhabitants were obliged to serve in turn at regular intervals in castles or royal households as cooks, bakers, stablemen, hunters, messengers, watchmen, armour-bearers and other house-servants. This system of domestic service evolved on the estates of the Arpad family during the first half of the tenth century and subsequently became universally adopted in the organization of county castles. Some of the inhabitants of the villages attached to the county castles, however, were only obliged to give military service. These services and dues devolved from father to son and were from time to time recorded in registers, a practice which gave these people far-reaching protection against a lowering of their status and con¬ ditions.

Handicrafts and Market Places

There was no place for towns in the economic and social system of early feudalism. With the primitive farming methods current at the time, agriculture could not produce' sufficient surpluses to support a class of full-time craftsmen. In general, towns could not develop be¬ cause comparatively large areas of land could only support a few people. Even members of the ruling class were unable to keep their personal servants, such as cooks and armour-bearers, under their roofs all the time, since the latter, if concentrated in a small area, would have found it impossible to make a living by their chief occupation of farming. The lords’ solution was to summon their servants from their distant homes for periodic spells of service. Difficulties of transport restricted the movement of farm produce to the lord and those around him from the place where it was grown. Supplying food for the large royal household was particularly difficult, so eleventh and twelfth- century monarchs used to spend only part of the year at their favourite residences (Esztergom and SztSkesfehervar). For the rest of the year, they and their household would stay at country houses (courts) on their domains, or they would pitch their tents on the crown lands and consume the food and drink that had been collected from the neigh¬ bouring villages.

The vast majority of the population lived on food they produced themselves. None but the ruling class could afford imported goods, such as spices and fine cloths. These commodities were imported by foreign merchants. Goods were traded at fairs. Although coins had been minted ever since the days of Stephen, cattle were still the princi¬ pal means of payment during the eleventh century. Market-places were designated by royal decree, for the king provided for their protection and took customs revenue from them. As a rule, fairs were held at important crossroads, often uninhabited places.

A number of foreign merchants settled in Hungary at this time. In the tenth century, some Volga Bulgars settled at Pest and, later on, Walloons and Italians (both called ‘Latins’) near the royal residences at Esztergom and Szekesfehervar. The business activity of these mer¬ chants was confined to meeting the needs of the ruling class for luxury goods, and this alone, in the absence of a class of artisans, could not lead to the growth of towns.

The first stimulus leading to the development of handicrafts separate from the peasant economy came from the system of deliveries on royal and church lands. Under the system of organization followed on the king’s domain (similar to the practice evolved in neighbouring Bohe¬ mia and Poland), specific handicraft services and mining were exacted from certain villages (or from certain families of craftsmen in those villages). These services were continued from father to son. Contempo¬ rary records tell of the existence in the tenth to twelfth centuries of communities of royal or church iron-founders, blacksmiths, armour¬ ers, potters, wood-turners, carpenters, tanners, spinners and weavers. The name of various trades and tools leads us to believe that, in the early days at least, the majority of craftsmen serfs came from the native Slavic population. As the Slavs became absorbed into the Hun¬ garian population, the techniques of peasant crafts spread. The re¬ mains of a perpendicular treadle-loom, for instance, were found in two weaving cottages during the excavations of the ruins of a twelfth- century Hungarian village along the Tisza river.

By the middle of the eleventh century, therefore, Hungarian pastoral society had become assimilated in essentials to the feudal societies of contemporary Central Europe, inasmuch as primitive agriculture and handicrafts, occupations complementary to the all-important stock breeding, had been improved through contact with the local Slavic (and, in part, Western European) skills. These more advanced tech¬ niques received a powerful stimulus for continued specialization by the division of services practised on crown and church lands.

For the time being, however, this development, which represented an outstanding improvement over the productive forces of pastoral society, was not yet considerable enough to strain the framework of a natural economy. The feudal state was capable of maintaining public order and defending itself only by concentrating its meagre surplus, and by binding the bulk of rural manpower to the castles and the royal domains.

The German Attack and the Domestic Crisis

After a long period of peace which facilitated the consolidation of the young feudal state of Hungary, it became apparent towards the close of the reign of King Stephen that the Holy Roman Empire, after bringing Bohemia and Poland into vassalage, was planning to extend its suzerainty over Hungary. An attack launched in 1030 by Conrad II, however, ended in a crushing defeat for the emperor, who was even compelled to cede part of the Ostmark to the king of Hungary.

The last years of Stephen’s reign were made difficult for him by the problem of succession. After the untimely death of his only son, Eme- ric, his nephew, Vaszoly, was in a position to lay claim to the throne. But V&szoly became the leader of those Hungarian lords who resented Stephen’s strong rule and were jealous of the king’s foreign knights. They plotted to overthrow the king but failed. Vaszoly received a horrible punishment for his part in the conspiracy: he was blinded and had molten lead poured into his ears. His sons, still minors, fled to Polish and Russian territories.

Stephen designated Peter Orseolo, the son born of the marriage of his sister and the doge of Venice, as his successor. On Stephen’s death, in 1038, Peter’s accession to the throne proceeded smoothly. The events which had preceded his accession, however, made Peter sus¬ picious of the Hungarian lords, and for this reason he tilled his en¬ tourage with Germans and Italians. Among the leading members of his household guard were two English princes, Edmund and Edward, the banished sons of Edmund Ironside; in all probability this is the first documented instance of a Hungarian-English connection. The constant influx of foreign knights contributed to the strengthening of feudalism in Hungary on the one hand, but on the other created tension between the native and foreign elements of the ruling class. This time it was King Stephen’s brother-in-law, Samuel Aba, who assumed leadership of the malcontents: in 1041, he drove out Peter and had himself crowned king of Hungary. Peter fled to the Emperor Henry III, who considered the factional struggles in Hungary an ex¬ cellent opportunity for intervention. The fear of a German attack made some of the Hungarian lords pause and consider, but Samuel Aba carried out bloody reprisals on those whose loyalty to him wavered. He sought to win the support of the freemen, who resented feudal subjection by promising to release them from feudal services. This move encouraged the adherents of the old pagan ways, until then re¬ luctant to rise in open revolt. Many dispossessed clan chiefs and free¬ men, who had been reduced to conditions of servitude, united by their hatred of the Christian Church and by their resentment of the domi¬ nance of foreigners. joined Aba. The feudal lords, Hungarians as well as foreigners, became alarmed at the mass proportion this movement began to assume. They deserted Samuel Aba, and he was routed in 1044 by the Emperor and assassinated in flight. Peter reoccupied the throne and took an oath of fealty to Henry III. The king and lords, however, weakened by conflict and with their ranks decimated by feuds, were not strong enough to prevent the outbreak of a pagan uprising.

This rebellion was organized and led by Vata, one of the dispossessed clan chiefs of Black Hungary. After the ransacking and burning of Christian churches and the massacre of priests (one of the victims was Bishop Gerard [Gellert], who was later canonized), the rebels turned against the Christian feudal lords. The lords, much afraid, left Peter to his fate and appealed to the Arpad princes, V6szoly’s exiled sons, for support. Andrew was living in Kiev, where he had married a daughter of Yaroslav the Wise; Bela had married a Polish princess, while Levente, the third son, persisted in his pagan faith. Vata and his associates also pinned their hopes on the Arp&d princes, and offered them their support against Peter in return for permission to extermi¬ nate the priests and foreigners and a pledge that tithes and feudal taxes would be abolished and the pagan faith restored. The princes returned to Hungary at the head of a Russian force but were careful not to commit themselves before Peter was decisively routed. However, after Peter was overthrown, Andrew proclaimed himself king (1046- 1060), and then proceeded to crush the Vata uprising and consolidate feudalism. He also fought himself out of German vassalage. Henry III made two attempts to assert his suzerainty by force, but the attacks were repelled thanks to Prince Bela’s military ability and to the ef¬ ficient system of castles.

These events were recorded in the Gesta Ungarorum, the first history of Hungary, written by an anonymous monk. Although this chronicle is not extant, it has been possible to piece it together, owing to the fact that it was incorporated in several other chronicles written at later dates. The author of the Gesta, who is deeply contemptuous of the pagan, nomadic past of the Hungarians, eulogizes unreservedly King Stephen’s work as founder of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary, and is full of hatred for the German expansionist ambitions which aimed to destroy the independence of the Hungarian state. German-Hunga- rian tension was reflected even in Hungary’s spiritual and cultural life. Andrew I, in his effort to repair the serious damage inflicted upon the Hungarian Church by the pagan revolt, ignored the nearby German provinces, which ought to have been the most obvious source of assistance, and enlisted instead the co-operation of the French-speaking clergy of distant Lorraine, a province that had been causing Henry III serious problems through its disobedience. Direct Lotharingian in¬ fluence can be seen in the beginnings of manuscript illumination in Hungary and in the final form of the liturgy of the Hungarian Church. Monastery libraries came to be filled with manuscripts from Lorraine.

Andrew I, continuing in the tradition of the nomadic past, or, per¬ haps, adopting the practice followed by the Slavic princes of Eastern Europe, shared his rule with his younger brother, Bela, and ceded part of the country to him along with the right of succession. After a son had been born to him, however, he changed his mind and wanted to secure the throne for his heir, Salomon. This led to an armed conflict, and in the battle Andrew was mortally wounded. Salomon sought refuge with his brother-in-law, the Emperor Henry IV. This dynastic feud provided an opportunity for the outbreak of a fresh pagan rebellion, under the leadership of Vata’s son, J&nos, who had been baptized only for appearances’ sake. A vast multitude of people assembled for the occasion of Bela’s enthronement and the old demands of fifteen years before were voiced once again. But the rising failed to find any response among the ruling class: according to the chron¬ icler’s record, only ‘villeins and servants’joined the pagan leader. The pagan ideology was now merely a cloak for spontaneous protest against oppression, and the king’s soldiers had no difficulty in dispers¬ ing the poorly armed rebels. In this the last flare-up of pagan resist¬ ance there was already a flicker of the fire of the peasant revolts of later centuries.

The Investiture Struggle and Expansion in the Balkans

The accession of Bela I (1060-1063) led to fresh fears of a German attack, but the outbreak of war was averted by the sudden death of the king, which made possible the peaceful return of Salomon from exile. Bela’s sons, Geza and Ladislas, were invested with their father’s princedom by way of compensation, an act which led inevitably to the resumption of the dynastic feud. The struggle between Salomon and his cousins, however, took place against the background of a totally new international situation—the investiture struggle—with which it inevitably became interwoven. In 1074, King Salomon was defeated and fled to Henry IV. Prince Geza, on the other hand, appealed to the Pope for assistance. Pope Gregory VII saw this as an auspicious oc¬

casion for the reduction of Hungary to papal vassalage. He hoped for the same success as he had recently achieved with the Norman principality in southern Italy and the Kingdom of Croatia. Thus re¬ ferring to an alleged offer of homage by King Stephen (an offer which had, in effect, never been made), he promised the victorious Prince Geza that he would recognize his title to the crown in return for Geza’s acceptance of papal suzerainty. But Geza thought the loss of inde¬ pendence too great a price to pay for papal recognition, and he had himself crowned king with a crown that had been sent him by the Emperor of Byzantium.

After Henry IV had done penance to Pope Gregory at Canossa, Germany was torn by internal strife, and as far as Hungary was con¬ cerned the menace of a German attack was removed. Thus G6za’s successor, Ladislas I (1077-1095), was able to make up his own mind as to which faction it was in his interest to join in the great struggle. At first he favoured an alliance with the Pope as he was interested in weakening the power of the Emperor, who was claiming the allegiance of Hungary. Ladislas, a deeply religious man, in order to enhance the prestige of the kingship and of the Church, obtained from the Holy See the canonization of King Stephen and of his son Emeric, and was himself revered as a saint shortly after his death. However, in develop¬ ing his foreign policy, he was guided by political interests rather than religious feelings; and as soon as his interests came into conflict with papal policies, he changed sides without a moment’s hesitation. This change was due to the Croatian question.

During the latter half of the eleventh century, Croatia was torn by internal strife. The mountain tribes rose to assert their independence from the feudal kingdom that had been established in the economically more developed maritime provinces. In this conflict, the king relied on the support of the wealthy merchant cities of the coastal region : Zara, Trau, Spalato and the smaller towns of Dalmatia. Although these were the last remaining islands of Roman civilization in the Balkans, where Slavic influence was rapidly increasing, they tended to offer their allegiance to the Kingdom of Croatia rather than to Venice, whose monopolistic trade policies threatened their very exist¬ ence. In 1075, Venice conquered the towns of Dalmatia; and in order to recover them. King Zvonimir of Croatia was compelled, in 1076, to place his country under papal suzerainty. Following his death, in 1089, the Croatian lords invited King Ladislas I of Hungary, brother of the widowed queen, to extend his power to Croatia and Dalmatia by right of inheritance. Ladislas accepted the invitation and occupied Slavonia, the northern part of Croatia stretching as far as the Kapela mountain range. In 1091, he extended his power over the rest of Croa¬ tia and Dalmatia. For the next three hundred years, Hungary was embroiled in a succession of wars and campaigns for the possession of Dalmatia and in related Balkan problems which became of prime importance in Hungarian foreign policy.

Hungary’s conquest of Croatia and Dalmatia incurred the hostility of Byzantium and Venice, and, as a result, Ladislas soon lost the towns of Dalmatia. It also marred his relations with Pope Urban II, who energetically pursued the investiture struggle, and refused to agree to Ladislas’s occupation of Croatia on grounds of inheritance: he wanted to confer it on him as a vacant papal fief. But Ladislas would not accept such limitation of his power, and so recognized the anti¬ pope Clement III. Ladislas was succeeded by the ecclesiastically-mind¬ ed Koloman (1095-1116), and Urban took the first step towards re¬ conciliation, as he realized that, rather than obtaining a forced oath of fealty, it would be to his advantage to have the king of Hungary as an ally by helping him to conquer Dalmatia. An alliance to serve this end was concluded with the Norman prince of Sicily, and cemented by Koloman’s marriage to a Norman princess. By the time the bride arrived on the Dalmatian coast, in 1097, the Hungarian army had captured the greater part of Dalmatia in a surprise attack, and only the cities still remained under Venetian rule.

At this time Venice was occupied with the First Crusade: she was busy providing sea transport for the crusader forces and organizing her eastern trade. Byzantium, also, became involved in wars that were to go on for centuries with the newly established crusader states. Hungary was affected by the Crusade as unruly armies made their way across the country, but Koloman was more than compensated for the damage they did by the fact that he had a free hand in Croatia. In 1102, he obtained homage from the maritime regions and, in 1105, from the towns of Dalmatia. He appointed a ban or viceroy at the head of each of the three provinces of Slavonia, Croatia and Dalmatia, and intro¬ duced into these territories a pattern of local government based on counties. His title of King of Croatia and Dalmatia was also recog¬ nized by the Pope. The Dalmatian cities on their own initiative invited Koloman to protect them from Venice, and for the next three hundred years they remained loyal to the king of Hungary. The pro-Venetian and pro-Byzantine factions remained minorities all this time and only managed to seize power briefly on a few occasions by relying on ex¬ ternal armed assistance. Koloman’s successor, Stephen 11 (1116-1131), lost Dalmatia for a decade, but Bela II (1131-1141) reconquered it and Zara alone remained under Venetian rule. Hungary’s frontiers in the Balkans were extended during this period by the annexation of Bosnia and Serbia. These territories were also organized into districts under the rule of a ban.

Hungarian-Byzantine Rivalry in the Balkans

Hungary maintained relations that were, on the whole, peaceful with the Slavic states on her northern border, that is to say the principalities of Bohemia, Poland and Russia. Marriages between members of the ruling houses were frequent and helped to strengthen the ties between the states. Kinsmen would come to one another’s assistance in the course of the frequent struggles for the thrones; thus, Bela I and his sons received assistance from the Polish princes, while successive kings of Hungary intervened in the struggles among the Russian princes. In the eleventh century marauding raids of nomadic peoples, the Pechenegs and the Cumans, presented a temporary menace. This men¬ ace was, however, averted finally by Ladislas I, whose legendary campaigns appealed to popular imagination and generated a whole cycle of sagas.

The fresh outbreak of the struggle between the Pope and the Em¬ peror which occurred about the middle of the twelfth century put Hungary in a difficult position. This time she was faced with a threat, not from Germany, but from Byzantium, which was enjoying a tem¬ porary revival under the Emperor Manuel I. Manuel was determined to recapture the Balkan provinces, which Byzantium had lost to the kings of Hungary. He even hoped to extend his influence over Hungary itself in order to safeguard Byzantine hegemony in the Balkans. Faced with this threat, Geza II (1141-1162) wanted to secure as his ally against Byzantium the Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), but the clash in 1159 between Frederick and Pope Alexander III faced him with a difficult choice. His alignment was ultimately decided by the influence of the head of the Hungarian clergy. Archbishop Lucas of Esztergom.

Archbishop Lucas had brought home from the University of Paris ideas of a universal papal power. On his return to Hungary, he spared no effort to keep the Hungarian Church, and through it the whole country, in obedience to the Pope. From the Church’s point of view there were good reasons for his policy. During the twelfth century the power and influence of the great temporal lords greatly increased. They sought to extend their possessions at the expense of the crown and church lands. Koloman had already made a law for the recovery of alienated royal estates. The clergy saw that they would only be able to retain their traditional property and political influence if the royal power was strengthened at the expense of the temporal lords, and if this was accompanied by an increase in papal influence which would force the king to respect the interests of the Church. This policy found a gifted and determined supporter in the person of Archbishop Lucas. Geza ITs eventual decision to recognize Alexander III as the legitimate pope, and, if need be, to back him by military force against Frederick, was taken under the influence of his arguments. Hungarian assistance stood the papal faction in good stead; but as the latter failed to make recompense for such assistance, Hungary was left to her own devices in her struggle with the Emperor Manuel.

The Emperor, after the death of Geza II, was able to foment fac¬ tional strife in Hungary by encouraging pretenders to the throne. Geza’s successor, Stephen III (1162-1172), was not yet of age and the country’s forces were paralysed. After securing the co-operation of Venice, the Emperor occupied Dalmatia, Croatia, Sirmium, a prov¬ ince between the Danube and the Save rivers, and the provinces of Bosnia and Serbia. Resistance was organized by Archbishop Lucas, but the danger of Byzantine conquest was not averted until 1171, when Venice, having quarrelled with Manuel, began to subject the cities of Dalmatia to her own rule. The defeat of Manuel’s ambitious designs put an end to Byzantine hegemony in the Balkans. Venice and Hun¬ gary were preparing, in rivalry with each other, to take her place in the peninsula. Manuel had to content himself with having Prince Bela of Hungary, the heir apparent, living at his court. He designated B61a as his successor, hoping to attain by this expedient his stubbornly pursued objective: the incorporation of Hungary in the Byzantine Empire. However, a son was born to him in the meantime, and in 1172 he gave Bela leave to return to his native land, as in the spring of the same year Stephen III died, and an embassy came from Hungary to take the new king home to be crowned.

B61a III (1172-1196) did not serve Byzantine policies. He gained the backing of the Pope and the Hungarian clergy, put an end to factional strife, and managed to win the loyalty of the ruling class. In 1180, on Manuel’s death, he recaptured Croatia and the Dalmatian cities. The city of Zara took this opportunity to shake off Venetian rule and put itself under the protection of the king of Hungary, which it greatly desired. In 1182, Sirmium, Bosnia and Serbia came, once again, under Hungarian rule. In 1188, Bela III, taking advantage of the internal disputes of the Russian principalities, occupied Halicz and continued to hold it for some time. His campaigns of conquest in territories within the zone of influence of the Eastern Church coincided with the ex- pansionist policies of the Papacy, then at the zenith of its power, and here, as in his domestic policies, Bela made clever use of papal support. The early feudal monarchy appeared to have attained the height of its internal and external power under Bela III. In reality, however, in¬ ternal stability was by now undermined and territorial expansion served merely as a safety valve, albeit a temporary one, for tensions generated by the domestic crisis.

Disintegration of the Early Feudal System (1196–1241)

During the second half of the twelfth century, the secular element of the Hungarian ruling class was becoming increasingly discontented with the existing arrangement under which, as ispans (counts) or castle officials, they drew only indirect benefit from the concentration of peasant manpower and feudal property within the system of castles and royal estates. Like feudal lords throughout Europe, they wanted to become fief holders and the seigneurs of the serfs settled on the lands whose management was entrusted to them. The king’s ability to resist these desires was undermined by the failure of the economic and military organization of the castles and crown lands to keep up with the development of the country. Consequently, they failed to continue to provide an adequate basis for royal power.

The slow process, which, by the middle of the thirteenth century, culminated in the disintegration of the castle system and of the royal estates, and in a complete reorganization of the social structure of their population, was set in motion by the development of agriculture, handicrafts and commerce.

The Development of Agriculture, Handicrafts and Commerce

During the twelfth century, the area of agricultural land increased. Little-used woodlands and marshy areas were now converted into arable land; and more valuable cereals, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats, were gaining ground at the expense of millet. These advances were made possible by the widespread use of heavy ploughs, drawn by teams of eight to ten oxen, that were suited to tilling hard soils. Owing to the growing need for draught animals, cattle breeding caught up with, then outstripped, the formerly predominant horse breeding. This resulted in a considerable improvement in the fertility of the soil due to increased use of manure. This was one of several conditions that made possible the introduction on the villages’ common lands, through the serfs settled on the land, of the same system of crop- pasture rotation as that used on the lord’s demesne. Wine growing, presumably of Roman origin in the country west of the Danube (Transdanubia), spread to areas north and east of the river. In the wine-producing districts of Tokaj, Eger and Nagyvarad, which became so famous in later years, viticulture was established by French settlers.

The surplus population began to spread out from earlier centres to other parts of the country. They were joined by immigrants—mainly French and German settlers ( hospites ) from the Rhineland—in intro¬ ducing new technique. The wooded, hilly border regions were settled and were organized into counties. The population of these regions to the north and east consisted of Slovaks, German immigrants, Ruthen- ian and Rumanian shepherds (the last two groups are first mentioned in thirteenth-century records). The ruling class of the areas inhabited by non-Hungarians was formed of Hungarian feudal lords enfeoffed from royal lands, free Hungarian soldiers and local leaders rising into the land-holding ruling class. About the turn of the thirteenth century, the inhabited area of Hungary was about 220,000 square kilometres (85,000 sq. miles), and the total population was around two millions, giving a population density of 9 per sq. km.

By now the rural population was producing large enough surpluses to leave substantial margins for the market after meeting the deliveries due to the lord. These surpluses were exchanged for handicrafts. Peasants possessing the skills for making commodities such as iron implements, carts, saddles and pottery, all of which were much sought after, became separated from the farming population. Villages whose population had long before begun to discharge their obligations for service in handicrafts were at a distinct advantage. They were the cen¬ tres where different crafts gradually evolved; they became settlements of craftsmen specializing in one particular product. These early crafts¬ men did not, of course, detach themselves from agriculture altogether; they only devoted part of their working hours to handicrafts.

Other centres of the emergent class of craftsmen were found in the royal, episcopal and county residences, where craftsmen supplying the upper stratum of the ruling class with certain simple products were able to trade their own handicrafts in exchange for other goods they needed. In notes on their travels made by Arabic merchants who visited Hungary about the middle of the twelfth century, several county seats are described as populous towns in whose markets slaves, cereals, animals and domestic handicrafts, as well as imported goods, were on sale. In a report that was discovered recently, an Arab merchant named Abu Hamid likened the ‘towns’ of Hungary to Baghdad and Isfahan—obviously implying a busy centre of local trade. From these documents, from the striking increase in the number of fairs held in places other than county seats, and from the increasing importance of money in the economy, it would appear that the division of labour between agriculture and craft industry had already begun in the course of the twelfth century, and that the preliminary conditions for urban development were ripening. The same Abu Hamid writes of the mining of precious metals in Hungary. Evidence of its rising output is shown in the growing improvement of the standard of coinage and the sub¬ stantial royal revenues from money exchange. During the second half of the twelfth century, this revenue nearly equalled in value the entire income from the royal lands.

The Decline of the Castle System

The organization of the royal household and court became an increas¬ ingly complex task. The Royal Council became a permanent institu¬ tion, and the duties of its members became clearly defined; new offices were also created. The nddorispdn (comes Palatinus) or Count Palatine advanced his position from the head of the royal household to the king’s deputy in juridical and military matters. His successor, the udvarbird (comes curiae) or Steward of the Royal Household, was, in his turn, soon invested with juridical duties. The Lord Chief Treasurer, Master of the Horse, Cupbearer to the King and Warden of the But¬ teries—the officers in charge of running the royal household—dele¬ gated the strictly administrative duties to some of their attendants, while they acted as political advisers to the king. The highest court dignitaries, the ispdns, the bans (viceroys) of Slavonia, Croatia, Dal¬ matia, Bosnia and Serbia, the voivode of Transylvania, as well as the Archbishops of Esztergom and Kalocsa and the bishops constituted the body that governed the country—a body which, owing to the social background of its members, represented the interests of the large land-owning class at least as whole-heartedly as those of the king. In 1181, Bela III made it obligatory for administrative matters to be put in writing and, in 1185, set up the Chancery, the office which took care of the official records.

The royal household, enlarged and increasing in pomp and splen¬ dour, now demanded more refined articles than the crude products of the peasant-craftsmen living on the crown lands, and required services more skilful than the clumsy bustling of peasant servants taking weekly turns at the court under socage. Imported luxury articles and a per¬ manent household staff of servants made the continuance of whole groups of services unnecessary. Owing to the hereditary nature of these services, however, the number of families (and even villages) whose members were obliged to perform duties by now outdated or redundant —such as cooks, scuttle-men and armour-bearers—or to supply prod¬ ucts the royal household no longer needed, had greatly increased.

The castle force of armed peasants was of little use in campaigns of conquest. What the king now needed for his wars were professional men-at-arms rather than these peasant soldiers, and Koloman did, indeed, oblige the big landlords to muster such men. However, his successors could not rely on such baronial private armies, as there had been a precedent, in the early twelfth century, of such private forces refusing to obey the king’s orders. Gradually, armed men quit the castle forces and enrolled directly in the king’s own armed following, the so-called royal servientes, which came to constitute the nucleus of the royal army. These soldiers, because of the high cost of knightly weapons and the difficulty of handling them, could not possibly con¬ tinue to live the fife of peasant soldiers and in practice became the lords of the castle bondsmen who were assigned to provide for their maintenance. The officers of the castle force also quietly turned the lands they held into fiefs, cither driving away or reducing to serfdom the freemen living there.

The widespread growth of a class of minor feudal landowners meant that large areas of land and many people were no longer under the king’s direct seignorial authority. Despite the resulting decline in the royal revenues, the ispdns carved an ever larger share of these re¬ venues to provide for their own maintenance as well as that of the castle organizations under them, that is, to swell their own power.

Meanwhile, on the large estates, secular as well as ecclesiastical, the process was completed which fused slaves and freemen into a homo¬ geneous class of serfs, who were obliged to work and to make payments in kind to their lords. At the same time, the amounts of produce due were increased. A similar process took place on the small feudal hold¬ ings that came into being on castle and crown lands, while the castle and crown lands proper, where the traditional services were preserved, yielded low incomes compared with the properties in ecclesiastic or secular tenure. Here, payments in kind were not required for the simple reason that the royal household did not need large quantities of produce. The royal household officials sought to obtain, even from the serfs living on the royal demesne, payments of money in place of farm produce, which was difficult to market, or the products of do¬ mestic crafts. As this endeavour, owing to the limited development of trade, was bound to produce unsatisfactory results, they strove to in¬ crease other cash revenues. An inventory of Bela Ill’s revenues may safely be accepted as reliable with regard to the breakdown of the various items. According to this, only half of the royal revenues came from the counties and the crown lands (and only a third of this was paid in cash); the other half was accounted for by minting profits, customs duties and tolls, the mining monopolies and the taxes paid in cash by the royal hospites. For the central power, therefore, direct control of landed property had ceased to be the only—and even the principal—source of revenue. This made it all the easier for the king to give large areas of his demesne to the land-hungry barons and lesser lords as soon as they felt strong enough to demand more than small grants of land and launched a concerted attack aimed at the destruc¬ tion of the castle system and royal estates.

Alienation of the Royal Estates

The fate of the castle system and royal estates was of interest to the Church as well. If the crown lands were to pass into the hands of the barons, the Church would be unable to acquire any more possessions. Moreover, the land-hungry temporal lords might then be encouraged to lay claim to church lands as well. But even more was at stake—the status of the Church as a political force. The Hungarian clergy made desperate efforts to assert their interests amid the economic and social changes taking place, and in these efforts they were able to rely on assist¬ ance from the papal power, then at its zenith. The two empires—the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium—had declined, and the rise of England and France was only just beginning. In this period of tran¬ sition, the papacy was the dominant political authority in Europe. The papal writ ran in Hungary; and if the kings did not always prove readily submissive, they were careful to express their objections in none but the humblest way.

B61a Ill’s sons’ struggle over the succession provided the Pope with a welcome opportunity to intervene in Hungary. Prince Andrew mis¬ appropriated the fund his father had left for a crusade by using it for financing an army against his elder brother, King Emeric (1196-1204). In 1198, he conquered the provinces of Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Serbia and organized them into a principality. His sup¬ porters began plotting in an attempt to secure for him the crown of Hungary. But the king dealt with the plotters in good time; Bishop Boleszlo of V6c, who handled the rebels’ correspondence and funds.

was dragged from the altar of his cathedral and sent into captivity. Then the king confronted Andrew’s army, which was moving against him, and routed it in the summer of 1199. The brothers were recon¬ ciled, but Andrew’s adherents paid the penalty for their part in the con¬ spiracy. The rebellious prelates were divested of their office by the Pope, and so were the secular lords. In exchange for support from the Pope,Emeric took up the cross;but before setting out for the Holy Land, he was directed by a papal command to the Balkans, in a campaign against the Bogomil heretics.

While Emeric was busying himself in Bosnia on the Pope’s behalf, French crusaders, at the instigation of the doge, captured Zara in 1202; then, in 1204, they took Byzantium and founded the Latin Empire of Constantinople. This scandalous miscarriage of the Fourth Crusade threw cold water on Emeric’s zeal. Although the crusaders, threatened by the Pope, did evacuate Zara, a Venetian garrison stayed in the town until 1204. Before the fate of Zara was settled, Emeric could not possibly think of leaving for the Holy Land, especially as Andrew had once again taken up arms against him. In 1203 the two brothers met on the banks of the Drave. The king walked into the rebel camp, unarmed, to take his younger brother into captivity. Peace, however, was not restored, and only his untimely death saved Emeric from further bitter disappointment.

Andrew II’s reign (1205-1235) was in part taken up with a stubborn but hopeless effort to secure the Russian principality of Halicz. This campaign, costly both in human lives and money, ended in utter failure, yielding him nothing but the hollow title of King of Galicia and Lodomeria. Andrew embarked upon another senseless adventure when, in 1217, after much procrastination, he resigned himself to accepting the leadership of the crusade which the Pope had been pressing with dogged persistence. Even now it was not the desire to recapture Jerusalem for Christianity which fired him with enthusiasm, but the vacant throne of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. He plan¬ ned to win the Pope’s goodwill by first leading a crusade to the Holy Land; but because of the ineffective way he conducted the campaign he incurred the displeasure of the Holy See, which slighted him by elevating first his father-in-law, Pierre de Courtenay, then the latter’s son, Robert, to the imperial throne. The enterprise consumed huge amounts of money and also led to the loss of Zara, for Andrew was compelled to cede the town to Venice in return for the naval transport provided by the Venetians for his army. Disheartened, he returned at the end of 1218 to Hungary, where he found the situation chaotic.

The struggle for the succession between Emeric and Andrew, and their campaigns, led to the collapse of the castle system and royal demesne, already undermined from within. At first huge portions of land, later on whole counties were given as fiefs to office-holding barons and their relatives. These lords sought to introduce on their newly acquired fiefs those more exacting forms of exploitation which had been evolved on baronial demesnes—an innovation that was fiercely resisted by the peasants of the former crown lands, who clung to the traditional services. The king’s knights or servientes and the officers of the castle forces, too, sought to ensure their established rights in the face of the new fief-holders, who were trying to incorporate them in their own armed retinue. Seething revolt spread to the population of the large estates of the Church and of temporal lords alike. The courts were flooded with lawsuits to define rights; but even though a plaintiff might be able to make a good case for himself he found it difficult to enforce his right in the face of the mighty barons. Baronial factions fought one another over the disintegrating royal demesne. In 1213, during one of Andrew’s Halicz campaigns, Queen Gertrude herself fell victim to a conspiracy of the ousted palatine, the ban Bank, and his followers. The king dared not even punish the majority of the culprits, so firmly was he in the power of the rising oligarchy.

Social Struggles. The 'Golden Bull'

The king’s economic policies, intended to make up for the loss of the crown lands, did nothing but make the existing muddle still worse. Andrew IIlevied emergency taxes; as he was anxious to raise money quickly, he passed over the feudal financial machinery—too clumsy for the royal court’s needs—and adopted the practice of farming out minting and taxes, customs and mines to Moslem and Jewish money¬ lenders, who recovered their capital with interest from the population. This prelude to the introduction of a money economy permitted plenty of abuse and, under conditions of an emerging, undeveloped com¬ modity economy, imposed on the tax-payers a greater burden than they could bear. The landlords also protested at the taxes imposed upon the population of their estates, which siphoned off money on which they themselves could otherwise have laid their hands. The clergy, while they hastened to adjust themselves to the new conditions of the time by insisting on tithes being paid in cash, protested at the salt monopoly—until recently the Church’s privilege—being farmed out to moneylenders.

Open resistance was started by the servientes and the officers of the

castle forces. Like the great barons, they too claimed areas of the dis¬ integrating crown lands for themselves, oppressing the peasants they subjected; nevertheless they, like their peasants, were interested in slowing down the rapid disintegration of the old order and in curbing the great lords’ lust for land. For this reason, confident of popular support, and relying on countrywide discontent, they started a move¬ ment in defence of their threatened liberties. Their movement was taken advantage of by a group of disgruntled barons to further their own plans for seizing power. As a result of the action of this group, Andrew had to issue an edict in 1222—known from the gold seal appended to it as the Golden Bull—under which the servientes were exempted from taxation and assured protection against harassment from the great lords. Apart from these articles, the ‘Golden Bull’ furthered the barons’ effort to curtail the powers of king and Church. It extended the powers of the Count Palatine and accorded the ‘nobles’ (i.e. the barons) the right of armed resistance, should the king break his pledges. The edict banned the collection of tithes in cash and set a ceiling on the amount of money the Church could make through its salt monopoly.

The clergy were shocked at such a show of submissiveness on the part of the king and at once became alarmed at the mass movement. The Pope and the Hungarian prelates wanted to have a king who was tough in his dealings with the lay lords but obedient to the Church. They thought they had found such a monarch in the heir apparent, Prince B6la, who had already been invested with the title of ‘junior king’ and was known to be dissatisfied with his father’s policies.

Prince B6Ia was convinced by his ecclesiastical advisers of the importance of bolstering the royal power, recovering the lost crown lands and, also, taking back the leases which had been granted on various taxes. His advisers hoped thus to be able to oust the great lay lords, who had grown rich on royal grants of land, and the Moslem and Jewish moneylenders, who had acquired leases and other com¬ mercial benefits, and so recapture their former position of strength. With the help of the Pope they prevailed upon Andrew to issue, in 1231, a revised version of the‘Golden Bull’, from which the clauses the Church had found prejudicial to its interests were omitted. Included in it, however, was a provision under which the jurisdiction of church courts was extended to cover certain types of lay lav/suits. Furthermore, the resistance clause of the original edict was deleted and replaced by another one threatening excommunication of the king by the Arch¬ bishop of Esztergom for any breach of the terms of the agreement.

At the beginning of 1232, Archbishop Robert, with the authorization of the Pope, did in fact excommunicate Andrew for the latter’s continued employment of Moslem and Jewish moneylenders and for restricting the Church’s salt monopoly. The king was compelled to conclude with the Pope’s envoy the Treaty of Bereg, in which he conceded the demands of the Church.

The Hungarian clergy, under the protection of the papacy, managed to retain their power—at least for the time being—during the great social upheavals of this period.

The Invasion of the Mongols

Bela IV succeeded to the throne in 1235 and reigned until 1270. His life was one stubborn yet unsuccessful struggle to restore and pre¬ serve the royal authority in an age when economic and social develop¬ ment had already undermined the traditional basis of central power while a new basis had not yet been formed. Nearly a century had yet to pass before such a development took place; by then commodity production and a money economy would advance sufficiently for taxes, customs and other revenues to make up for the loss of income from the crown lands, and for armed retinues of lords loyal to the king to replace the soldiers from the castles. But in this period of transition, B61a IV saw no other solution to his difficulties than the restoration of the former economic basis of royal power. He set up commissions charged with the task of revising grants of land and recovering alienated castle and crown lands. In an attempt to curb the oligarchy, he went as far as to remove the chairs from the royal council hall and burned them to prevent the leading dignitaries from sitting down in his presence. His efforts to recover the crown lands, however, met with universal resistance. They not only failed to produce the desired result, but also poisoned relations between the king and the majority of the ruling class—the grave consequences of which became evident during the ensuing Mongol invasion.

In 1237, the Mongols attacked the Cuman tribes, which inhabited the area between the Dnieper and Dniester rivers. Some of the Cumans led by their King Kotony fled westwards and asked for permission to enter Hungary. B61a IV marked out a district in the region between the Danube and the Tisza for them, in the hope that the Cuman warriors would be loyal to him in his struggle with the barons. However, the Cuman herdsmen soon clashed with the neighbouring farmers, as their herds trampled over the crops. The resulting animosity provided food for agitation and the barons were quick to turn it to good advan¬ tage in their struggle against the king. They clamoured for the expulsion of the Cumans in order to remove the mainstay of the monarchy. The king, however, was increasingly reluctant to let the Cumans be expelled as he had received fresh news of the approach of the Mongols.

A few years before, a Dominican friar named Julian had travelled east to find the Hungarians who had stayed in the ancient homeland. He did, indeed, find them along the Volga river; but when he set out for a second time to make contact with them, he learnt that Mongol hordes were advancing west. Soon the news that Kiev had fallen reached Hungary. A Mongol invasion of Hungary looked imminent.

At the last moment, Bela lost even the Cumans; a mob, incited by the barons, murdered King Kotony, and the Cumans left Hungary for the Balkans, killing and ravaging on their way. A large number of barons looked on indifferently, even with hostility, at the king’s efforts to rally resistance when the Mongol hordes reached the frontiers of Hungary. Apart from the prelates, only a few barons led their soldiers to the king’s standard.

The Mongols entered Hungary at three points in the spring of 1241. From the north came hordes that had ravaged Poland and Silesia, another army advanced from the direction of Transylvania; while the main body of the Mongol force, led by Batu Khan, entered from the north-east, through the Verecke Pass, where the Hungarian horsemen had come many years before on their western migration. King Bela made an attempt to halt the enemy at Mohi, on the banks of the Sajo, a tributary of the Tisza, but was routed and fled westwards, crossing the Danube into Western Hungary and from there on to Austria, to Duke Frederick of Babenberg. Frederick, however, took him prisoner and released him only for a large ransom. Fleeing his Mongol pursuers, the king finally found refuge on the Dalmatian coast, on the offshore island of Trau.

Only a few castles were able to put up a successful resistance and the whole of the country east of the Danube fell to the Mongols. The invaders, of course, slew those who attempted resistance; but, in order to intimidate the population, they went further than that and mas¬ sacred defenceless people. No one was able to save himself except those who had hidden in good time in the forests or marshes or fled to the hills. Here, their numbers were decimated by starvation. As the Mongols had failed to take Hungary in a single assault, they were compelled to stop and to make preparations for the winter and for the conquest of the country west of the Danube. Survivors were, therefore, lured out of their hiding-places through promises of immunity so that they would work to produce the supply of food needed by the invaders.

But when the harvest was over, the unfortunate folk were ruthlessly massacred or taken into captivity by the Mongols, who were careful not to leave potential enemies in their rear when they resumed their westward march. Crossing the frozen Danube, they invaded Trans- danubia. Here, however, they found themselves faced with better organized resistance. They did not bother to break it by mustering their superior force, since their main objective was the capture of the king. This they failed to do before their withdrawal from Hungary in the summer of 1242. The reason for their sudden departure was probably the Mongol practice of contenting themselves with terrorizing the population of a country during their first visit, and leaving the final conquest to a later date. In this case, however, that final conquest never took place, owing to the disintegration of the Mongol Empire.

The Mongol invasion inflicted on Hungary serious losses in terms of human lives as well as material resources. It dealt an even heavier blow to the castle system and the royal estates, bringing nearer their inevitable disintegration. The defeat sustained by the royal army was also a defeat for the king’s policies; in this acute crisis of a devastated country, Bela was forced to reconcile himself to sharing his land and power with the barons.

The Dawn of Chivalry

Some signs of the growing self-assurance and increasing demands of the great landowners became apparent about the turn of the thirteenth century even in the sphere of culture. In earlier years, art and literature had been confined to the royal court and the Church. The earliest monasteries founded and built by baronial families date from the middle of the twelfth century; the monarchy continued to lead the way in architecture even to the end of the century: the most significant pieces of contemporary architecture—the cathedral and the royal palace at Esztergom—were built by French architects for Bela III.

French influence in Hungary reached its highest point during this period. Bela III married twice and both his queens were French prin¬ cesses, who brought with them their knights, priests and architects from France, while growing numbers of Hungarian students went to Paris to study at the university. Graduates of the University of Paris became clerks who staffed the Chancery.

One of the notaries of the royal chancery was ‘Magister P.’ (com¬ monly referred to as Anonymus), a historian who was not content to write a mere continuation of the eleventh-century Gesta Ungarorum, bringing it up to date, but brushed it aside and proceeded to write a fresh History of Hungary. He made no secret of his aim to write a genealogia nobilium which he set in the story of the Conquest of the new homeland by the Hungarians. His work embodied a wholly novel approach. Unlike earlier writers of Hungarian history, he rehabilitat¬ ed the pagan past and, by drawing liberally on popular epics and sagas, glorified the tenth-century ancestors of the baronial families of his time, stressing emphatically that they had acquired their properties by force of arms. In an attempt to justify the efforts of the aristocracy of the late twelfth century to confine the power of the king, he traced kingship back to a decision taken by the nomadic tribes to elect a prince and not to King Stephen’s triumphal subduing of the tribal chiefs. By writing a History of the Trojan War, a story much favoured by French chivalry, ‘Magister P.’ catered to the budding literary in¬ terest evinced by the upper stratum of the contemporary ruling class. He may also have been the author of a romance of Alexander the Great, parts of which exist in the body of Hungarian letters of later years. Both stories were thus available in Hungarian translations, and their influence can be seen by the popularity in Hungarian baronial families of the early thirteenth century of such classical first names as Achilles, Priam, Hector, Helen and Alexander. The earliest record of vernacular sacred literature—a funeral oration—also dates from tliis period.

Vernacular literature and a secular outlook were new to Hungarian culture; both of them were connected with the cultural and political aspirations of the secular lords. The literary education of the Western European age of chivalry also began to exert an influence upon the upper stratum of the Hungarian ruling class. Two Provencal trouba¬ dours—Peire Vidal and Gaucelm Faidit—turned up in King Emeric’s court, and Andrew II was accompanied on his crusade by two eminent German minnesingers, Neidhart von Reuenthal and Tann- hauser. About this time, too. King Ladislas I began to be regarded as an embodiment of chivalric ideals, and Bela III pressed for his canoniza¬ tion.

For some years during the first half of the thirteenth century, the secular lords set the trend in the field of architecture. The finest pieces of Late Romanesque architecture in Hungary, already showing some elements of Gothic, are the family monasteries of some of the great feudal lords—in particular those of Jdk, Leb6ny and Zsambek.

The Emergence of the Towns and the Nobility (1241–1308)

After the Mongol invasion it was imperative for Bela IV to reconsider the question of defence. In most of Europe the feudal landlords usually contributed armoured knights for this purpose. In Hungary, however, Bela’s attempts to reclaim alienated castle lands had greatly hampered a move in this direction. B61a IV was, therefore, obliged to give the Hungarian feudal|lords a free hand on their estates. In the course of reconstruction after the Mongol invasion, he granted estates to his barons with the stipulation that they erect fortresses and garrison them. The old county castles had been earthen structures, fortified by a stockade; stone castles had been the exception apart from the royal residences such as Esztergom and Szekesfehervar, which escaped capture by the Mongol invaders. B61a IV launched a campaign to build new stone castles—the Red Tower of Sarospatak and Salomon’s Tower at Visegrdd are well-known remains from this period. These castles consisted of a single keep of several storeys. The feudal barons, following the royal example, erected similar castles throughout the country during the following decades. These strongholds are examples of growing baronial power on one hand, and, on the other, of the sub¬ stantial strengthening of the country’s defences.

The final dissolution of the old order based on the county castles and royal estates was brought about not only by the emergence of a landed oligarchy, but also by the development of the middle layers of feudal society: the burghers of the towns and the smaller landowners (the so-called ‘nobility’).

The Growth of Towns

The earliest traces of urban life go back to the end of the twelfth century, when trade and agriculture began to separate and commodity production for the market began. The legal separation of the burghers from the peasantry also began through the granting of charters to towns freeing them from feudal obligations and specifying their privileges. The earliest of these charters was obtained by the citizens of Szekesfeherv&r in the middle of the twelfth century, and granted them the freedom to elect justices, market rights and immunity from customs duties.

The rights given to towns in Hungary were derived from those given to groups of foreign settlers, known as hospites. The latter had obtained the privileges of choosing their own justices, living according to their own customs, and paying taxes in money based on their holdings of land instead of a poll-tax in kind.

From the thirteenth century onwards, not only foreign settlers were called hospites, but the term was applied also to those serfs who had either escaped from their landlords or left them legally, and had become established settlers elsewhere, obtaining the privileges of the hospites.

Most of these had been peasants, with a fair number of craftsmen among them. It was in their settlements beside royal castles and the bishops’ residences that viticulture was first developed. The foreign trading settlements were also engaged in handicrafts. The Hungarians serving in the households of royal castles and episcopal estates carried on similar activities. Economic conditions were thus ripe for their assimilation with the foreign settlers when the social and political conditions were ready for such a development. This happened during the reorganization of the county castles.

B6Ia IV planned to transform the county castles into up-to-date fortresses by offering refuge to the unprotected inhabitants of the neighbouring settlements in exchange for their help in the defence and upkeep of the fortifications. Bela himself ceded his former seat, Esztergom, to the archbishopric, selecting Buda as the royal residence. The reconstruction of the city was also due to his efforts: after the Mongol invasion, he settled the surviving inhabitants of the destroyed settlements of Pest and Buda, along with a number of new settlers, on the Castle Hill, where new city walls were built and a new royal palace erected. The new settlement was given the name of Buda, while the reorganized old one was henceforth called O-Buda, i.e. Old Buda. With the reconstructed and newly populated Pest, the three settlements form the nucleus of present-day Budapest. Bela IV endeavoured to move other trading settlements into the reorganized county castles—e.g. Esztergom, Szekesfehervar, Pozsony, Sopron, Gyor and Kolozsvdr. Their populations were thus united into one community, comprising both the foreign settlers and the original castle-dwellers (cives), who were given the benefit of the formers’ privileges. The twofold social origin of the Hungarian town is clearly seen by the term cives et hospites in contemporary documents. Aside from the towns which developed from castles, other new towns grew up throughout the thirteenth century from German settlements, e.g. Nagyszeben, Brasso, Beszterce in Transylvania and Kassa, Locse, Kesmark and Bdrtfa in the north.

The Hungarian town, like its Western European counterpart, owed its freedom directly to the ruler. It was liberated from the juris¬ diction of the county and its inhabitants could dispose freely of their possessions. They no longer paid taxes on their individual holdings of land, but each town paid a lump sum to the king with each burgher contributing his share. Within the confines of the town all burghers were equal and had full rights, subject only to the jurisdiction of the town council (in matters of town property even the Church and feudal lords were subject to the town council). The town’s dignitaries assumed the hereditary title of count (comes), and were the local landlords, merchants and mine owners. They governed a population of peasants, who cultivated the land attached to the town and worked in their spare time in handicrafts or in the mines.

The development of towns in Hungary was only partly the result of local conditions: European economic development contributed to it in equal measure. In llie thirteenth century Western Europe began its economic expansion towards the east. In the north, the Hanse towns and the Teutonic Knights penetrated into the Baltic; in tire south Venice and Genoa expanded their trade into the eastern Mediter¬ ranean lands and the coastal regions of the Black Sea. Somewhat later in the same century the territory in between began to participate to a greater extent in European trade. The reasons for this expansion of trade can be explained by Western Europe’s need for precious metals, and the yearning of Eastern Europe’s ruling classes for the luxuries of life. In the second half of the thirteenth century mining for precious ores started on a large scale in the Czech, Polish and Hungarian mountains, followed by copper production in Hungary and lead mining in Poland. This contributed to an increase in trade with other coun¬ tries, including trade in agricultural products as well. Prague, Breslau, Cracow, Lemberg, Buda and other commercial centres on Hungary’s northern border were engaged in exchanging by barter mining and agricultural products and commodities, mainly for textiles from Western countries. In mining, Western capital, to a large extent Ger¬ man, shared with the Hungarian ruling classes in exploiting the country’s mineral resources. German capital helped mining towns in Eastern Europe obtain charters from their rulers for the exploitation of silver and copper. In the second half of the thirteenth century Selmecbanya, Besztercebanya, Golnicbanya and Rozsnyobanya were granted charters. Part of the ore and smelted metal obtained went as revenue into the royal treasuries, and part was used to close the gap between the value of commodities coming from the West and the limited amount of agricultural products available in exchange. Side by side with mining for copper and precious metals, a superior method of producing iron was introduced by the citizens of the new towns, who, by the end of the thirteenth century, were exceeding the output of the king’s servants with their backward methods. In the second half of the fourteenth century Hungarian iron became a well-known export commodity, especially in northern countries.

County Administration and Autonomy of the Nobility

Royal castles were rapidly turning into towns, and their inhabitants into free citizens; on the other hand, the problem of the great number of castle retainers (jobbdgy) and royal knights (servientes) living in scattered villages remained unsolved. These small feudal landlords had exercised their rights in the area around the castles and on the royal estates. But the great feudal landlords, who had obtained these lands as royal grants, had no respect for the rights of their inferiors in rank. The small landlords had to join forces to defend their inde¬ pendence. The institution of the county justice, a remnant of the castle system, seemed to them inadequate. They tried to win local autonomy by electing from their ranks their own judges who, jointly with the ispein, should have jurisdiction over the whole county, including the feudal estate population. But the first step was to establish that the small landlords had equal rights with the great feudal landlords.

After the Mongol invasion, Bela IV, in order to exercise control over the feudal oligarchy, encouraged these activities. On the one hand, he confirmed the rights of the smaller landlords by recognizing their ‘nobility’; on the other, he accepted the new county organization by issuing a decree in 1267, ordering that two or three ‘noblemen’ of each county attend the Szekesfehervar assizes which were about to develop into a national assembly or diet. By that time the great feudal landlords had come to be called ‘barons’, whereas the title ‘nobleman’ was applied to former royal soldiers who had become small and middle landlords.

By the end of the thirteenth century the new county organization was legally recognized. It was headed by a baron, appointed by the king as ispan, and under him judges and jurymen chosen from the nobility. In this way the small landlords could in the majority of cases keep their land free, and participate in the political and judicial rights of the feudal ruling class, but they could not keep themselves free from the influence of the growing power of the feudal oligarchy. Not wanting to suffer from their whims, and eager to obtain more land, the nobility offered their services to the barons as familiares , i.e. vassals, serving as administrative officers on the baronial estates or as retainers in the baronial armies. No wonder that in the course of time, county autonomy became a mere illusion, or else the tool of the feudal oligarchy.

Feudal Oligarchy versus Royal Power

Besides supporting the citizens of the towns and the autonomy of the counties, Bela IV tried to secure the help of the Cumans in order to check the expansion of baronial power. The Cumans were called back from the Balkans, given land in the region between the Danube and the Tisza, and, in order to cement their ties to the king, the crown prince, Stephen, married the daughter of their chieftain. The king also tried to obtain the assistance of the friars. From the early thirteenth century onwards, the Dominicans and Franciscans had been extremely popular in Hungary because of their eloquent preaching. The rulers of Hungary used them for converting the heretical Bogomils and the pagan Cumans, and Bdla IV tried to counterbalance the higher clergy with them.

Baronial ambitions could, for the moment, be satisfied abroad. Bela IV intervened in the dynastic struggles following the extinction of the Austrian Babenberg family. According to an agreement made with Ottokar II, King of Bohemia, Bela obtained Styria, to be governed as a duchy by Prince Stephen. Styrian lords, however, dissatisfied with Hungarian rule, expelled the Hungarians at the end of 1259, offering the duchy to Ottokar, who, after the victory of Marchfeld in 1260, took possession of the territory together with the rest of the Babenberg heritage.

For two decades at least, the forces of feudal anarchy had been tied down in rebuilding the country, sharing in the spoils of the royal estates and fighting abroad. Yet anarchy was ready to break out as soon as the feud of B61a IV and his son, Stephen, ‘the younger king’, provided the opportunity. The ruling class broke into two factions, and in the course of the struggle it soon became evident that the real masters of the country were the barons with their huge estates, and the power given them by their control of the county administration. The Pope offered to arbitrate between the two sides, hoping thereby to obtain the suzerainty so far repeatedly denied to him. Bela refused once again and in his last letters to the Pope he declared that he never had and did not expect to have help from the Holy See.

At the time of his death in 1270, papal intervention reached its highest point; while formerly pretending to support royal power, the Pope now openly joined the forces of feudal anarchy.

During the brief reign of Stephen V (1270-1272), the baronial fac¬ tions no longer endeavoured to hide behind dynastic struggles. Some of the barons managed to detach parts of the country, placing them under foreign rulers, in order to secure their support against the king. After the death of Bdla IV, the ban, Henrik Koszegi, offered his castles to Ottokar II, King of Bohemia. In the war which followed, the Bohemian army was defeated in a battle fought beside the Rdba river.

Ottokar II made his peace with Stephen, forgetting about Henrik Koszegi, who was obliged to ask his king’s pardon. He was unrepent¬ ant, however, and with the help of the queen’s favourite, the ban Joachim, carried off the young crown prince, Ladislas, in order to blackmail the king. While pursuing the traitor, Stephen V died sud¬ denly, and power passed into the hands of the queen, Joachim and Henrik Koszegi. The Csdk family organized a faction for their over¬ throw. In 1274, they succeeded in carrying away the young king and attacking their rivals. Henrik Koszegi died on the battlefield and the ban Joachim followed him in 1277. The sons of Henrik Koszegi continued the fight, and following their father’s example, asked the help of Ottokar II. This action encouraged the Csdk faction to support Rudolf of Habsburg in his fight against Ottokar for the possession of the Austrian provinces. Hungarian support secured Rudolf’s victory in the battle on the Marchfeld (1278) which also paved the way for the establishment of the future Habsburg dynasty.

When Ladislas IV (1272-1290), surnamed ‘the Cuman’, reached his adolescence, he tried to throw off the protection of the barons and establish his power with the support of the Cumans, from whom his mother descended.

The nomadic Cumans were a considerable military force. They still lived in a tribal society and observed pagan ritual, while each free member of the community performed military service. The Hungarian feudal lords tried to subject them and therefore the Cumans allied with the king against them. The feudal lords then suspended their factional struggles and joined forces against the king and the Cumans.

Their leader was Lodomer, the energetic and erudite Archbishop of Esztergom, who, considering the king’s alliance with the pagan Cu- mans a threat to the Church, appealed for papal intervention. With the help of the papal legate, the barons and high churchmen forced the king to agree to a law introducing Christianity among the Cumans and terminating their nomadic customs.

The king, however, was not willing to enforce the law extorted from him, and was excommunicated by the papal legate. Ladislas, in reply, delivered the legate into the hands of the Cumans, and went to live among them. He renounced his wife and married according to pagan ritual a Cuman woman called Edua. He was captured by the barons, who forced him to join in their warfare against the Cumans. In 1280, in the battle of H6dto, the Cumans were defeated, but Ladislas’s determination remained unbroken. In 1285, he called in the Mongols, who, joined by the Cumans, devastated the country. Only a small number of Hungarian lords remained loyal to the king, who surround¬ ed himself with Cumans, Mongols and Moslems. After sending his wife into a nunnery, he made Edua his lawful queen. Lodomer an¬ nounced a crusade against him, but before this took place, Ladislas was murdered by Cuman assassins hired by the barons to rid them of the young king, who fought for his power to the last.

The Feudal Anarchy

The grandson of Andrew II who was at that time in Venice was chosen by the barons to succeed the childless Ladislas IV. Andrew 111 (1290-1301) was just as helpless against the flourishing feudal anarchy as his predecessor had been. The country was divided into regions independent of the king, each in the hands of a baronial faction. Under their auspices neither royal nor church property was spared; they confiscated estates, and put their relatives and supporters into vacated church offices. The Church protested, seeking protection from the king, but owing to the lack of papal support Andrew was unable to intervene. At the death of Ladislas IV, the Holy See had declared Hungary a papal fief, and had granted it to the young Neapolitan Prince Charles, a member of the House of Anjou, who was related to the Hungarian royal family. Charles soon found supporters among the Hungarian barons.

Internal strife and threats from without forced Andrew III to rely upon the county administration and the diet, which had a considerable majority of rank and file nobility. The assembly of 1298 excluded the

barons. Power was taken away from the ispan, appointed from the ranks of the barons, and county administration was entrusted to the justices, representing the nobility.

This early attempt at a monarchy controlled by a diet failed, but showed that the nobility was in the ascendant. Their political con¬ sciousness was expressed by Ladislas IV’s chaplain, Simon Kezai, who confirmed that the community of the nobility was the real represen¬ tative of the country, both by Roman law and scholastic teaching. With this view in mind, he wrote a history of the Hungarian con¬ quest, adding to it the history of the Huns, as the ancestors of the Hun¬ garians. It was not the saintly King Stephen who was put before his king as a paragon, but the pagan Attila, known as ‘the scourge of God’, a defiant gesture referring to Ladislas’s attitude to the Church. K6zai openly declared himself a partisan of the nobility, and approved of the king’s alliance with them against the barons. The alliance, however, was still too feeble to contain the forces of feudal anarchy, which reached its climax in the contests after the death of Andrew III, the last Hungarian king of the fine of Arpad.

A baronial party declared the Bohemian Prince Wenceslas, Ottokar II’s grandchild, a descendant of the Arpads on the female line, king of Hungary; but he, not being able to consolidate his power, resigned and handed over the crown to his relative, Otto, prince of Bavaria. Otto was captured by the voivode of Transylvania, deprived of the crown and forced to depart in shame. Rumours spread that kingless Hungary would be divided between the duke of Austria and the king of Bohemia.

Among the claimants to the throne, Charles of Anjou seemed the most powerful. He secured for himself the support of the Hungarian high clergy, due mainly to papal protection and a substantial loan from Italian bankers. Because of the devastation caused by the baro¬ nial struggle, the country was on the brink of disaster, and the clergy, afraid to lose their possessions, were ready to support a potential protector with foreign support.

In 1308, the Pope sent Cardinal Gentile to Hungary and his surviv¬ ing correspondence gives an idea of the prevailing state of corruption. In Transylvania, the all-powerful voivode tried to force the clergy to make his son a bishop. The bishopric of Pecs was occupied by the ban, Henrik Koszegi, lord of Transdanubia; the consecrated bishop was set aside, and the clergy, after announcing Henrik Koszegi’s excommunication, were expelled. The title of ‘palatine’ was wrongly used by three barons. The southern provinces were held by Slavonic barons, each assuming the title of ban. The latter were supporters of Charles of Anjou, wanting him more as a party leader than a ruler. These barons assumed the offices of ispans —they lived in princely style, coining their own money, ravaging and pillaging the countryside and forming alliance with foreign powers. The papal legate succeeded, after prolonged negotiations, in obtaining formal recognition of Charles I (1308-1342) by the barons. Seeing, however, that papal authority was no longer sufficient to stem the anarchy, the legate withdrew in 1311, after first excommunicating the most formidable of the barons, Mate Cs&k. In reply, the latter declared himself an in¬ dependent ruler and waged war for the possessions of the Archbishop of Esztergom. As a result Charles was forced to withdraw into the southern parts of the country.

The Transformation of the Hungarian Peasantry

Feudal anarchy accelerated the gradual amalgamation of the serf and free elements of the peasantry. Growing productivity in agriculture and the ensuing development of barter trade swept away the last impediments. In the course of time, landlords came to see clearly that the lands cultivated by serfs yielded much less than those of the free peasants or hospites cultivating their communal possessions. The constant complaints of the population of the former castle lands and royal estates because of heavy taxes made the whole peasantry into a revolutionary force. In the second half of the thirteenth century there were continuous revolts, dues left undelivered, and mass escapes, growing into large-scale movements from one lord’s land to another.

The landlords who first profited from these movements were those who needed new hands for their newly granted lands. The loss in population owing to the Mongol invasion had made labour increasing¬ ly scarce. Thus it was not difficult for the escaped peasant to find better labour conditions with a new landlord. It would have been in the in¬ terests of the ruling class as a whole to stop this trend, which reduced the level of exploitation of the peasant, but they failed to halt the movement because the new barons in need of labour were ready to grant protection to the escapees. Naturally, it was first of all the serfs who tried to improve their lot, and were ready to leave at once if not granted the same privileges as enjoyed by the free peasants. As a matter of course, landlords proved willing to reduce labour services and dues in kind and institute a hereditary system of land leasing. In many cases this was equivalent to freedom of socage and of movement. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, slaves employed as domestic servants were the last to be freed. The former slave settlements became villages based on communal cultivation, but if the landlord proved too severe, no one would work on his demesne. By the first half of the fourteenth century, the former demesnes were mostly deserted and the term praedium came to denote an uninhabited place.

At the end of the thirteenth century the ruling class was obliged to recognize the peasant’s freedom to move, as well as his hereditary lease and communal use of his land. His obligations, like those of the foreign settlers, were no longer determined according to his personal status, but according to the amount of land leased from the landlord; one part of the dues owed could be paid in money, the rest in a defined quantity of goods. Some labour services remained as a legacy of serfdom, but owing to the decay of the demesne they were negligible compared with payments in money and kind. The position of the peasantry changed considerably. They were more and more generally called jobbagy. This actually meant the application to the formerly unfree peasantry of the name which in early feudalism designated freemen acting as officials in royal castles, who in the meantime had merged partly into the nobility and partly into the urban burgher population. This by itself shows that the distinction between bonds¬ men and freemen existing before feudalism ultimately disappeared, and a uniform class of tenants emerged.

Attempt at Adriatic Hegemony (1308–1437)

The Development of a New Aristocracy

The outcome of the peasants’ migration and the development of the towns was to concentrate the smaller landlords and some of the greater feudal lords around the central power in order to defend their common interests. The advantages of allying with the king were first recognized by that section of the ruling class which was unable to hold its own against the most powerful barons. The most fervent supporters of Charles of Anjou belonged to the poorer branches of the baronial families who had been pushed into the background, robbed and ex¬ pelled from their family properties by the richer members. In his first years King Charles was supported by members of these families, such as the Sz6c$enyi, Szdcsi, Bebek, Nekcsei, Garai, Lackfi and others. They and their retainers, together with other victims of the feudal oligarchy, made up the king’s armed forces. Willi this army Charles was able to fight against the overlords of the provinces. By 1321, with the death of Mate Csak, the feudal anarchy came to an end after ten years of fighting. Charles’s power was at last estab¬ lished, and he could move his seat from Temesvar to Visegrad.

After the fall of the great feudal barons, Charles regained the illegally alienated castle lands and royal estates, but still held only a small portion of what had been indiscriminately given away by his predecessors. The old castle system had been decaying, and Charles had no intention of restoring an antiquated institution. He organized the remaining royal estates around castles, and made them independ¬ ent of the county administration. The)' were governed by castellans, whose duties were more economic than military, as the latter had become more and more the right and obligation of the feudal ruling class and, to some extent, of the bourgeoisie. The royal castle was garrisoned by a small number of armed guards; the country’s stand¬ ing army consisted of a few thousand soldiers paid by the king, to¬ gether with the companies of the county militia, and secular and ecclesiastical private armies. The county and baronial armies fighting under their own banners were called banderia.

The new type of army was the logical outcome of the strengthening of the feudal system. Several hundred castles and several thousand villages were owned by a few aristocratic families who also became the temporal and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the country. A great part of the small and middle nobility who owed them fealty as familia- res (vassals) served in their armies and managed their estates.

The crushing of the great barons prevented the creation of new feudal provinces, but could not prevent the feudal disintegration into large estates. The feudal lord enjoyed not merely the dues and services of the peasantry of his estate, but also held jurisdiction over them. He collected royal taxes on his own estate and his soldiers fought under his leadership in the royal army. As voivodes, bans and ispans the barons and their officials administered the affairs of large areas not immediately under their feudal jurisdiction. In these circumstances no direct political role was left open for the nobility with small and middle-sized estates. In the fourteenth century the king held diets only on rare occasions.

Economic Policy of Charles I

Charles I tried to base his power on direct and indirect royal revenue called regalia (i.e. on taxes, customs, mine and coinage monopolies) and not on his holdings of land. His chief adviser, his childhood friend from Naples, Palatine Fiilop Druget and the second man on whom he relied, Domotor Nekcsei, Lord Chief Treasurer, were inspired by foreign example, especially by that of the more advanced Bohemia. They tried to take advantage of the demand in Western Europe for precious metal. In the second half of the thirteenth century, Hun¬ garian silver production had increased rapidly, and in the early four¬ teenth century, a more important event, the discovery of gold, had led to the founding of mining towns. Free trade in these metals lured a great number of merchants to Hungary, especially from Italy and Germany. In exchange for gold and silver, the Hungarian market was inundated by foreign luxury articles. In 1325, a monopoly was introduced as in Bohemia which made it compulsory to exchange silver and gold ore at the royal mint. In spite of the low rate of exchange it brought a good income to the mine-owners, at the same time supplying the mint with sufficient metal for coining money at yearly intervals. Foreign merchants were compelled to accept gold florins and silver denarii, instead of unminted metal, however, it was good business, because the Hungarian florin was one of Europe’s best currencies.

In order to increase his income from his metal monopoly and moneta¬ ry reforms, King Charles changed the mining law passed by Bela IV. The law had provided free mining even for foreign miners in exchange for a certain portion to be delivered to the royal treasury. The owner of the ground, should it not be the king, received nothing, but was even obliged to offer the land to the monarch. No wonder that the landlords were not eager to report finding metal ores, and prevented any attempt at mining. King Charles reversed this situation and by allowing the owner of the ground to take a share of the profit, he encouraged landowners to promote mining. The so-called ‘chambers’, offices founded during the Arpad dynasty for the administration of precious metal mining, the coining of money, the salt mines and the collection of customs revenue (the so-called thirtieth) were farmed out to foreign and Hungarian merchants.

The feudal ruling class, because of their military service, were excused from payment of taxes. The king, therefore, could obtain revenue only from the peasantry and bourgeoisie, and, occasionally, from the clergy. As money was no longer reminted yearly, the extra renewal tax was not available. To recompense himself, the king levied a new tax, called ‘chamber profit’ (lucrum camerae), and, in spite of frequent protests from the landlords, extra taxes were levied on the peasantry. The towns were also frequently overburdened by extra taxation, but they enjoyed the privilege of paying lump sums at long intervals. The towns had chiefly a financial interest for the king, and legally they were controlled by the treasurer responsible for royal revenues. Charles was also more daring than his predecessors in taxing the Church. The higher clergy were expected to pay consecra¬ tion charges, give New Year presents and send soldiers into the royal army. After the death of an ecclesiastical dignitary, his estate remained tied to the crown until a new appointment was made. The king also claimed one-third of papal tithes collected for the crusades. During the Avignon period, the popes were too weak to defend the rights of the clergy and compromised on this point.

Foreign Affairs

The foreign policy of Charles was closely connected with his plans for the economic reconstruction of the country. He did not wage war for conquest. His attempt to bring the former Cumania, in the Wal- lachian plain, formerly part of Hungary, under his control failed owing to the resistance of Bazarab, the Rumanian voivode, who during the days of feudal anarchy had made it into an independent province. Charles acquiesced, and recognized the Rumanian state. He then concentrated his attention on events of decisive importance to the future of Hungary beyond the western and northern borders.

From the second half of the thirteenth century onwards there were dynastic contests between the Austrian dukes and the Hungarian and Bohemian kings in order to unite East-Central Europe under their hegemony. Bela IV as well as Ottokar II and his successors had vainly attempted conquests. The Habsburgs who had secured the Austrian provinces and the Luxemburgs who, following the ex¬ tinction of the Premysl family, had ascended the Bohemian throne, tried to extend their powers over the German Empire by the renewal of their expansive designs against Hungary and Poland.

Charles wisely saw that it was to his interest to hinder the expansion of both German dynasties. Wladislaw Lokietek, King of Poland, was in agreement with him as he was threatened by an attack from John of Luxemburg who already held Silesia in subjection and aspired to the Polish throne. The friendly relations between Hungary and Poland were sealed by the marriage of Charles with Wladislaw’s daughter, Elizabeth. This was followed by a settlement of the Polish-Bohemian conflict at the meeting of the kings at Visegr&d in 1335, which was brought about through the mediation of the king of Hungary. John of Luxemburg was to resign his claim to the throne of Poland, and Casimir, Wladislaw Lokietek’s successor, surrendered Silesia to the king of Bohemia. Simultaneously, a treaty w^as signed between Casimir and the Teutonic Knights. The main advantage for Charles was the Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish-Bavarian alliance against the Habs¬ burgs, which enabled him to regain from them the Hungarian border territories lost during the period of anarchy. The alliance also had economic aims: Hungarian, Bohemian and Polish trade with Germany and Italy had suffered greatly from the staple right of Vienna. To circumvent this impediment, new trade routes were devised through Moravia to Buda, and to Cracow. Thereby a new road to Eastern and Central Europe was opened to South German merchants, principal¬ ly from Nuremberg, who succeeded in gaining control of the pre¬ cious metal trade through a series of privileges granted them in the following decades. Partly by squeezing out the Italians, and partly by compelling the Viennese traders to act as their agents, the South German merchants paved the way for their economic hegemony over East-Central Europe, which to a large degree contributed to the weak¬ ening of Hungary’s orientation towards the Adriatic and its gradual incorporation into the Central European system of states.

Charles had succeeded in obtaining peace and normal relations on the western and northern borders. However, he did not manage to secure the southern provinces which had been in the possession of the Arpad kings. The Croatian, Slavonian and Dalmatian areas remained in the hands of the local baronial leaders, who offered the Dalmatian towns to Venice in return for support against the king of Hungary. In order to hold Venice and its ally, Stephan Dushan, King of Serbia, in check, Charles tried to form closer ties with his Nea¬ politan relatives. His younger son, Andrew, married Joanna, the grand¬ daughter of King Robert, and successor to the throne of Naples. His elder son, Louis, inherited the crown of Hungary.

The Adventure in Naples and Expansion in the Balkans

Louis (1342-1382) was not hampered by unfavourable conditions in his efforts to build up the edifice begun by his father. He inherited a full treasury and secure western and northern borders. He himself was filled with ambition for conquest—his heroes were Alexander the Great and St. Ladislas of Hungary, who had launched the first expansion towards the South.

With the death of King Robert in 1343, the question of the succes¬ sion to the throne of Naples became acute. According to the contract made with Charles, Prince Andrew with his wife were jointly to hold the throne; but Joanna, greedy for power and detesting her husband, did not want to accept this situation. The Pope, the liege-lord of Naples, was not pleased with the idea that the Hungarian Anjous, with their claim to the Dalmatian coast, should get a foothold in Naples.

Prince Andrew was murdered with the complicity of his wife in 1345. As Joanna had been involved in her husband’s murder, Louis demanded from the Pope that she should be deprived of the throne, and Naples be ceded to him according to the family law of the Anjous. With his army reinforced by Italian and German mer¬ cenaries he invaded Italy in 1347. He occupied Naples, but the Pope, reluctant to grant it to him as his fief, turned the king of France and Charles IV, Emperor of Germany, against him. The diplomatic discus¬ sions took years, and Louis’s army in Naples crumbled in the mean¬ time. His second personal appearance on the scene in 1350 did little to help matters. Seeing that his plans for an Adriatic empire were unrealistic, Louis resigned his claim to Naples in 1352, but never recognized the legality of Joanna’s rule.

Despite his failure in Naples, Louis did not give up his attempts to secure supremacy in the Balkans and the Adriatic. The only positive feature of his policy was its connection with the Dalmatian towns’ struggles for independence. In the course of the wars with Venice which began in 1356, he not only liberated those Dalmatian towns which had once belonged to Hungary, but also extended his supre¬ macy to the hitherto independent Ragusa. In the treaty of Zara, signed in 1353, Venice resigned its rights over the Dalmatian towns.

This was the last phase in the completion of his father’s policy. In the course of centuries, the Hungarian-Croatian-Dalmatian union had grown into a political reality, its existence and security being equally desirable to the Hungarian and Dalmatian ruling class. The situation was not the same beyond the Save and in the provinces along the Lower Danube, where the interests of the Hungarian rulers clashed with those of the Serbian, Bulgarian and Rumanian ruling class, who desired political independence. After ten years of useless warfare, Louis had to accept merely formal vows of allegiance from the Serbian, Bulgarian and Rumanian rulers. Hungary’s Balkan expansion would have been justified if Louis had accepted leadership against the Turkish menace. He failed to do so and, in the seventies, the Turks subjected his Balkan vassals one by one.

In addition to the marriage settlement of Naples, Charles left his son a claim to the throne of Poland, which cost Louis substantial sacrifices. More than once, he had to render military assistance to his uncle, Casimir the Great, in his, wars against the Lithuanians. At the death of Casimir in 1370, Louis inherited the throne, adding greatly to his worries. He was unable to stem the feudal anarchy and so the Polish barons succeeded in extorting from him the first substan¬ tial concessions limiting royal powers.

The aging king again turned his attention towards the dream of his early days, Naples. He had willingly resigned the throne of his ancestors, but he could not forget the wickedness of Joanna. He adopted his cousin, Charles, Prince of Durazzo, to serve as an instru¬ ment of his revenge, and sent him with a Hungarian army to Italy to win Naples from Joanna. This was in 1378, when Louis’s diplomacy managed to bring about a coalition of Genoa, Padua, Verona and the Austrian dukes against Joanna and Venice. His fleet joined that of Genoa to besiege Venice, but they proved powerless against the deter¬ mined defence of the Venetians. In 1381, the treaty of Turin reiterated that Dalmatia was a Hungarian possession. By then Charles of Durazzo was master of Naples, and Louis, shortly before his death, had his re¬ venge, as Joanna was strangled by Hungarian mercenaries.

Seeming victories had gained for Louis the surname ‘Great’; but he had to pay dearly for it. Wars had increased feudal disintegration, and baronial power had been strengthened by the spoils of war and new royal grants. New alliances were made and new baronial families became dominant. Three factions under the Lackli, Garai and Hor- vati families struggled for power at the end of the reign of Louis.

The Loss of the Hungarian Possessions in the Adriatic

Louis I died without male issue and he desired his daughter Mary to inherit both the Hungarian and Polish crowns. She was to marry Sigismund of Luxemburg, the younger son of Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. The planned marriage was the symbol of long-standing political aspirations in Central Europe: the union of Hungary, Poland and Bohemia. For the Polish ruling class, however, the connection with Hungary and Bohemia was not desirable, as the Luxemburg dynasty did not conceal its sympathies with the Teutonic Knights. Mary’s succession to the Polish throne had to be abandoned, and her sister Hedwig (Jadwiga) inherited the crown.

The Hungarian ruling class was no less antagonistic with regard to the new foreign policy. From among the baronial factions only that led by the Lackfis approved of the marriage of Mary and Sigismund. The Garais and Horvatis, resident in the southern parts, regarded the scrapping of the Adriatic policy as disastrous. Profiting from the baronial factional struggles, Charles of Durazzo, now King of Naples, at the invitation of the Horvatis returned to Hungary with Italian mercenaries in 1385, and was crowned king. A few weeks later, how¬ ever, he was murdered by the Palatine, Miklds Garai, who was jealous of his power. Ladislas, the young son of Charles, was declared king by the Horvatis. In order to seek peace talks, Queen Mary, her mother Queen Elizabeth, and the Palatine Garai took themselves to the south, but they were attacked, the Palatine and his retainers slaughtered, the queens captured, and Elizabeth smothered in prison. After these events the Lackfis and the younger Miklos Garai, seeking to forget past enmities, gathered around Sigismund, offering him a hard bargain. He was to make a bond with the barons: they were ready to recognize him as joint ruler with Mary, provided he promised to rule in con¬ junction with them, a promise which could be enforced by arms. This was the price he had to pay for the release of his wife, and subsequently he was crowned king in 1387.

The Turks were advancing on Hungary and a few raiders had al¬ ready crossed the frontiers by that time. King Sigismund was fully conscious that his forces were inadequate, and called for international support to help defend Hungary against the Turks. Crusades were a thing of the past, and the appeal of 1396 could only mobilize a couple of thousand adventurous Western European knights, who joined the Hungarian forces and penetrated into parts of the Balkans al¬ ready under Turkish rule. The battle of Nicopolis, a resounding vic¬ tory for the Turks, helped to renew old differences. Istvan Lackfi and his relatives considered the time ripe for seizing power, and or¬ ganized support for Ladislas of Naples, but fell victim to the snares set by Garai and his Styrian friend, Hermann Cilli, in 1397. Another baronial faction declared Ladislas of Naples king in 1403, and he was recognized by the Pope. This faction was soon crushed by Sigis¬ mund, and though he granted a universal pardon, subsequently his officials were all chosen from the Garai faction. Revenge for the papal intervention was exacted by the statute of 1404, according to which no papal edicts could be made public without royal consent (placetum regium) 4 , in practice this meant that the Pope was deprived of his right to appoint the higher clergy in Hungary. In 1417, the Pope formally recognized the Hungarian sovereign’s right to designate archbishops and bishops.

Sigismund’s rule was no longer threatened by dissenting factions and pretenders, but he greatly depended oil the Garai faction’s sup¬ port. The Order of the Dragon, founded in 1408 under the auspices of the king, comprised the members of the Garai faction and other barons who joined them. According to its rules, the king was merely the first among the knights, primus inter pares. During the thirty- odd years of Garai’s uninterrupted palatineship, the 24 barons who were members of the Dragon Order, shared the high political and military offices with the highest going to the Garai-Cilli families. A new aristocracy was recruited from the rising nobility and care was taken to see they fitted closely into the existing political structure.

The strengthening of the baronial administration was not unwel¬ come to Sigismund, as it gave him a free hand for the realization of his dreams in foreign affairs. Turkish expansion had been stopped for well over a decade by Tamerlane’s victory at Ankara and internal troubles within the Turkish Empire. The Hungarian ruling class enjoyed apparent security, and Sigismund turned all his energies to trying to solve the problems of the Holy Roman Empire and the schism in the Church. In 1410, he was elected emperor, and he did his best to rid himself of Hungarian affairs. The first result was the loss of Dalmatia. Venice bought Dalmatia from Ladislas of Naples and waged war in its cause in 1411. Sigismund pledged 13 towns in the district of Szepes to the king of Poland to pay for their defence, but (14th Century)

he cared more about being crowned emperor, so he made terms for an armistice and ceded to Venice what had been conquered. For six years he was away from Hungary, but after he had achieved the great aim of his life, mending the schism in the Church, he found himself confronted with the Hussite uprising of 1419. He thought his Bohe¬ mian throne more important than Dalmatia, and in 1420 Dalmatia was formally ceded to Venice.

More than three hundred years of involvement in Adriatic affairs

had ended for Hungary. Both political and economic affairs had The serf and the free peasant of early feudalism developed into the

tended to make Hungary give up its relatively independent position unified class of tenants and the town bourgeoisie in the fourteenth

between the Adriatic and Central Europe and become instead a part- century. These social developments were accompanied by the swift

ner in the Central European political system which was developing. growth of the forces of production and a considerable rise in the

economic and cultural level.

Mature Feudal Society (14th Century)

Beginnings of Agricultural Commodity Production

The loosening of peasant obligations in the early fourteenth century led to a considerable agricultural development. It was about this time that the three-field system of cultivation began to spread. Each of the tenants was allotted a plot of land in the open fields and could keep his animals on the common pasture. His house with garden, farmyard and plots were together called a ‘tenure* (sessio). The peasant had a hereditary right to his tenure provided he fulfilled his obligations. If he moved on, or if he died without an heir, the tenure returned to the landlord. The tenure was the basis of the peasant’s obligations to his landlord; he usually paid dues in money (census) and in kind (corn or wine), sent enforced gifts on holidays (munera) and offered labour services (at that time mostly one day a week.)

This method of cultivation aimed at self-sufficiency, but with com¬ modity production becoming more widespread, freer methods were introduced. Viticulture, which needs a lot of labour, was the first to emerge from the tenure system; once his dues in wine had been delivered to the landlord, the peasant was able to dispose freely of his vineyard by selling it or pawning it. He could also obtain extra plots for cultivation, in addition to his hereditary holding. With serfs escaping, and obtaining their freedom in ever greater numbers, the landlords were left with many untenanted holdings. These could be easily acquired by peasants with draught animals, some of whom even used hired labour. In return for extra holdings of land or vine- yards, the landlords demanded the second tithe, the first being due to the Church. The second tithe was called the ‘ninth’ (none).

The greater productivity of peasant labour made the landlords yearn to exploit the peasants more fully by obliging them to pay the ninth on their hereditary tenures as well. This would have deprived the peasant of the greatest achievement in his struggles: payment of fixed rents and dues independent of the volume of production. The payment of the ninth could only be enforced if the peasantry was deprived of its right to move where better labour conditions prevail¬ ed. Such a law was attempted after the failure of the Naples campaign and the great plague of 1349 which followed.

Nobility versus Peasants

The higher clergy and the aristocracy increased their wealth and power as the primary beneficiaries of the Naples adventure. Their noble retainers also shared in the spoils, but the nobility at home was left to bear the brunt of the expensive warfare. King Louis had managed to spend his father’s enormous wealth, and was obliged to have re¬ course to heavier taxation. The biggest burden was placed on the peas¬ antry, but affected also the yield of the feudal landlords’ estates be¬ cause the overburdened tenants were unable to render adequate service. The barons were compensated by more and more grants of land, but the nobility of small and medium means could only try to manage by raising the level of peasant services, but this was rendered more or less impossible because of the free movement of the peasants. The ravages of the plague—although much less serious than in West¬ ern Europe—also caused great movement among the peasants towards landlords offering better conditions. This meant, in effect, that the barons were the only landlords who could offer the newcomers more advantageous conditions, as only they remained unaffected by tem¬ porary fluctuations in their incomes. Moreover, the barons were pre¬ pared shamelessly to abduct peasants by force from the unarmed nobility. The nobility protested en masse and demanded equal chances in the exploitation of the peasantry, eventually forcing the king to call the long-silent diet.

The diet of 1351 extorted a number of favourable concessions from the king. With reference to their ancient rights, codified in Andrew II’s ‘Golden Bull’, the nobility demanded equal privileges (una eademque libertas) with the barons; first, that with the death of the male heir their estates should not become crown properties, but pass to their next of kin by right of descent; and, secondly, that they should be authorized to sit in judgement over their tenants, in all except criminal cases and that, in criminal cases, the county court including their representatives should pass judgement. The nobility also tacitly included among their privileges the barons’ right to be exempted from taxation. Thus, the rights of the nobility were codified, entitling them to become the future legislators of the country.

Yet the main difference between the baronage and the nobility had not been obliterated, because the barons were still able to offer more favourable terms to the peasantry. Forceful abduction was explicitly forbidden, but this did not prevent the peasant from moving himself to the landlord offering better conditions. At that time, free movement was not yet explicitly forbidden. The ruling class unani¬ mously demanded that permission to move should be withheld if the peasant had not paid his dues. This was agreed and codified by King Charles. It was not in the interest of the barons to check completely the movement of the peasant. All the nobility could achieve was that the king and the barons were obliged to collect the ninth on their estates, too, so that no peasant could be won over to another lord by remitting this burden.

It was primarily the Sekels (szekely) on the eastern border of Transylvania who succeeded in preventing the intrusion of feudal relations. The Sekels were a Hungarianized Bulgarian-Turkish tribe who had joined the Hungarians before the Conquest. Up to the end of the fifteenth century they kept up their military organization, grant¬ ed to them at the time of Geza and Stephen I, as the duty of freemen. The Sekels remained free peasants cultivating communal lands in exchange for military service. Throughout the fourteenth century their leaders were regarded as equal in rank with the nobility, but they could not subject the rank and file Sekels, and so employed prisoners of war or hired labour on their lands, and could obtain new posses¬ sions only outside the area occupied by the Sekels. The old order began to be broken up only in the fifteenth century, when the poor Sekel, not capable of rendering military service, had to work for the rich. But the majority of the Sekels remained free peasants obliged to render military service.

A similar, but quicker development may be observed among the Cumans who settled in an area surrounded by feudal estates, and the Alans (Hungarian jasz), a tribe of Caucasian origin, who had come with them. After their conversion to Christianity they gradually mingled with the Hungarians, becoming the tenants of either the king, their own chieftains, or Hungarian landlords.

The nomadic Rumanian and Ruthenian shepherds, who lived in the northern and eastern mountainous parts, had no strong organiza¬ tion like those of the Cuman and Alan tribes; thus their resistance to the internal and external forces of feudalism was weaker. The Ruma¬ nians had originally served as border guards and, in the thirteenth century, were organized into autonomous districts. At the head of their settlements stood the kenez, and at the head of the districts stood the voivodes. The majority of the voivodes and the kenez obtained noble status in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and subjected the free shepherds. The Rumanian districts were transformed into counties under the local nobility. The leaders of the Ruthenian shepherds themselves became tenants of Hungarian barons and no proper feudal ruling class could develop amongst them.

The German settlers in Transylvania and the Szepesseg (Zips, at the foot of the Northern Carpathians), called Saxons, developed the highest forms of local autonomy. Many of their village settlements grew into towns during the thirteenth century. These German towns, with the surrounding German villages, did not form part of a county administration, but came directly under royal jurisdiction. Political leadership was in the hands of town patricians, who could levy taxes but could not turn the free German peasants into their tenants.

The Growth of Boroughs

The statutes of 1351 exempted only fortified towns from the payment of the ninth. The provision seemed to be favourable to the towns but was actually weighted against them, because there were few towns fortified by walls, as most had not been rich enough to provide them.

Throughout the early fourteenth century, the king continued to issue charters to towns. The landlords, on the other hand, tried to counteract the flood of population moving into them by granting the same privileges to their own villages, provided they remained under their supremacy. More and more townships developed which were subject to landlords. Some reached a high standard of develop¬ ment (e.g. Debrecen in the fourteenth century, with its prosperous trade and commerce), but they were far behind the royal towns as far as legal and economic independence was concerned. Their own justices could not pass sentences except in minor cases; in criminal cases the landlord and his officials sat in judgement. These towns had no right of appeal to the king, the landlord being their highest judge. In addition to the legal system, the citizens were at a disadvan¬ tage because they did not pay them taxes in one sum, but were liable for taxation individually to both landlord and state.

Limited though the autonomy of these towns was, it granted their inhabitants greater freedom than in the villages, where the peasants were constantly harassed by the officers of the landlord. In addition, the landlords also granted market rights to their towns, which always acted as an incentive to agricultural production and trade. These towns generally developed within the baronial estates, because only the barons were able to turn to their own advantage the movement of the population. They could also obtain trading privileges from the king, and extend their protection to subjects trading outside the boundaries of their estates. The landlords with small and medium estates wanted to prevent the king and great landlords from exempting their unfortified towns from the ninth tax, which would encourage even greater movement among the peasantry. The ninth tax became a stumbling block to town development, and created a distinction between two types of town in Hungary: one with full autonomy (royal town), the other subjected to a landlord. In the eyes of contem¬ poraries, the town wall became the symbol of its status, which was reflected in the title given to the two types. The fortified town became known as a city (civitas), and the unfortified one was called a borough (oppidum).

The statutes of 1351 were a victory for the nobility, but in point of fact they still remained far behind the baronage. The nobleman could not oppose the baron, as he himself was usually the baron’s vassal. The nobility did not succeed either in fully exploiting the peasantry. Constant improvements in the technique of agriculture and increases in output meant that despite the higher level of taxation, the well-to-do peasant was left with a considerable surplus to sell. Increased taxes forced even the poorest peasant to consume as little as possible and take his goods to market. The right of free movement, in spite of illegal attempts to break it, made it possible for him to move into the towns. Many availed themselves of this opportunity, thus leaving more and more uncultivated strips in the village fields. The nobility’s antagonistic attitude towards the towns may have weakened, but could not prevent this development which, about the middle of the fourteenth century, intensified even in the more backward, cattle¬ raising Great Plain.

Boroughs developed in the Plain under specific circumstances. Archaeological research, examining old bones, discovered that the small cattle with fine bones and small horns indigenous to Central Europe had been reared to be 15 per cent bigger by the middle of the fourteenth century; they became the ancestor of the large, beautiful animal with enormous horns, the pride of Hungarian agriculture, and the best export commodity alongside wine for centuries to come. Although written records speak of cattle export at the end of the eleventh century, its development was connected with the rise of the flourishing South German towns in the fourteenth century, which were ready to buy any number of cattle from Hungary. Owing to geographical factors, and the relative backwardness of agriculture in the Great Plain, the demand for cattle brought new economic oppor¬ tunities which influenced the development of boroughs. During the fourteenth century the new boroughs in the Great Plain developed out of rich villages with enormous grazing lands (e.g. Debrecen, Kecske¬ met, Cegled, Nagykoros, Hodmezovasdrhely, etc.). Their peasant leaders took up the proud rank of civis or burgher and grew rich from their export of cattle.

Trade and Industry in the Royal Towns

During the second half of the fourteenth century, agricultural com¬ modity production gave impetus to the development of handicrafts. After 1370, the first guilds were formed, and by the beginning of the fifteenth century they were found in practically all of the larger towns and boroughs. The agricultural production of a great many towns had decreased, and the relative share of handicrafts had increased. In about two dozen towns, numbering over 3,000-5,000 inhabitants, 25-30 per cent were artisans, and from two-thirds to three-quarters of them were full-time craftsmen engaged in 50 to 60 trades. In the fifteenth century, handicrafts became increasingly differentiated from agriculture. A new marketing region emerged around these towns, with a radius of 50-60 kilometres. On the weekly market-days com¬ modities produced by the towns and foodstuffs produced by the villagers were exchanged. The rapid development of handicrafts threatened even the strict organization of the guilds; there were local attempts by rich merchants at organizing industrial production. The patricians of Bartfa, benefiting from the town’s privileges in linen bleaching and the output of handicrafts by urban and rural domestic workers, developed a large-scale linen industry, which, by the middle of the fifteenth century, had created its own market, producing more than the imports from abroad. By the end of the fourteenth century, merchant capital was penetrating even the copper mines of the country.

With the development of wholesale markets in certain commodities, the internal struggles of the bourgeoisie intensified. The leadership of the towns by wealthy landowners was more and more questioned by the rich merchants, one-time craftsmen themselves, who engaged in the export of agricultural goods and the import of textiles. In Buda, Pozsony, Sopron and Kolozsvar their agitations won them representa¬ tion on the councils. The artisans, who had backed these agitations, tried to seize power themselves, but the new patricians held them in check, at times invoking the help of the feudal ruling class; so the artisa ns had to be satisfied with forming ‘outer’ councils, as an appar ent check to the ‘inner’ councils of the patricians.

King Sigismund relied on the rising merchants in his policy toward the towns and supported them, approving their accession to power within the towns. In 1405, an assembly of the royal towns was called together, along with the representatives of boroughs and privileged villages, making altogether 250 settlements. As a result of the discus¬ sions, a royal decree granted freedom to towns and other settlements able to fortify themselves by walls; autonomous jurisdiction was introduced, taxes were united and town merchants exempted from payment of tolls, foreign merchants were excluded from wholesale markets. The Buda system of measures was to be adopted throughout, and the free movement of peasants into towns was confirmed. The weaving of cotton cloth was concentrated by royal decree in Kassa, and linen bleaching in Kassa and B&rtfa. These regulations, although inspired by the example of the more developed Italian and South German towns, answered the needs of local development.

Sigismund was the first, and also the last Hungarian king to re¬ cognize fully the importance of the towns, and consciously try to further their industrial growth. Contrary to the custom of the Anjou kings living in the fortified castles ofVisegr&d and Diosgyor, he moved his seat to the largest Hungarian city, Buda, making it into the capital of the country. But he expected for too much from the measures he took, and when he saw that his revenues from the towns were not increasing sufficiently he soon withdrew his support. After 1410, boroughs were granted and pledged to the barons in great numbers. Not more than 30-35 towns out of those originally receiving the priv¬ ileges of a free royal city were able to maintain their status, the rest had to accept the restricted autonomy of boroughs subjected to land¬ lords. Subsequently, only a few boroughs were granted the status of a royal town, such as Pest and Szeged, two outstanding trading centres in the Great Plain. In these circumstances the bourgeoisie had to wait a long time before it could become a distinct class. Sigismund himself gave up the idea of basing his central power on the towns, and by 1428 he had only bitter recollections of his experiment. After one abortive attempt to collect taxation he is reputed to have said: ‘I wish there were no towns at all in my empire!’

The Peasantry and the Hussite Movement

The development of craft industry and of a money economy induced the landlords to increase the burdens of the peasantry, especially their monetary obligations. The unbalanced economic policy of Sigismund, and his constant need of money resulted in the deterioration of the currency, which again hit the peasantry hardest. In answer to the new forms of exploitation, many peasants gave up their tenure, hired out their services to other land-owning peasants, or else moved into the towns. The villages abounded in untenanted land and the landlords, contrary to the royal decree, tried to force the peasants to stay.

The southern provinces, devastated during the dynastic struggles, suffered again owing to the renewal of the Turkish wars in 1416. The Turkish raiders plundered Transylvania and the southern areas year after year. The oppression of the landlords and the unceasing Turkish raids paved the way for the Hussite movement. Village and town clergy who had studied at the University of Prague began to preach the revolutionary doctrine. In 1432, peasant revolts started in the areas adjacent to Bohemia. The subsequent rising in Nagyszombat and the neighbouring countryside was organized by a Bohemian Hussite. Revolts soon broke out in the south and also in Transylvania.

At the request of the frightened ruling class, the Pope sent the Fran¬ ciscan friar James of the Marches as inquisitor to Hungary, to stem the Hussite heresy. The inquisition dealt with Hussites and members of the Greek Orthodox Church alike, as the inquisitor wanted to bring the Serbs and Transylvanian Rumanians under the Church of Rome. With the help of the feudal lords, the inquisitor succeeded in extirpating the southern Hussite movement. The Hussites, with their priests, moved into Moldavia. The first translation of the Bible into Hungarian was made there by them. In Transylvania, on the other hand, oppression and the inquisition gave rise to a large-scale peasant uprising.

From both an economic and social point of view, Transylvania was the least developed province of Hungary. Consequently, the raising of feudal obligations was doubly grievous to the peasantry there. The clergy expected the tithe to be paid in money, and in a good currency too, at a time of primitive economic conditions and deteriorating currencies. The Orthodox Rumanian peasantry were embittered because they were also expected to pay the tithe, even though strictly it was due only from Roman Catholics. It was the last straw when the Bishop of Transylvania stipulated that arrears of tithes were to be paid in a currency worth more than the previous one. Those who refused were excommunicated. In 1437, the Hungarian and Rumanian peasants of Transylvania rose in several places in protest. Antal Budai Nagy, an impecunious Hungarian nobleman, assumed lead¬ ership. An unprepared feudal army sent against them was routed, and the treaty of Kolozsmonostor laid down that there should be free movement for the peasants, changes in the system of tithes, an end to the ninth and a reduction in money obligations. The peasants were also given the right to meet yearly to check whether the landlords had kept to their promises.

The r ulin g class, on the other hand, was unwilling to see its privileges curtailed. The Transylvanian nobility, the Sekel military leaders and the German or ‘Saxon’ patricians made an agreement called the ‘Union of the Three Nations’, a treaty of the privileged classes against the peasantry. The bishop tried to separate the petty nobility from the peasantry by recognizing their exemption from tithes. In fact, many of the lesser nobles betrayed the peasants. So, too, did the citizens of the towns, who at first had sympathized with the uprising. The counter¬ attack of the nobility, however, was not wholly successful. The previous concessions to the peasantry were renewed, although with less favour¬ able conditions, and the right to arbitrate was left to the king. Sigis¬ mund had died in the meantime, and the nobility, seeing that owing to the long period of delay and uncertainty, the peasant army was beginning to disintegrate, launched a new attack. Antal Budai Nagy died in the battle of Kolozsvar, the city which sided with the uprising throughout. The other [leaders were executed and the movement ruthlessly crushed.

Gothic Art in Hungary

Economic development, increasing agricultural commodity produc¬ tion, mining and an expanding foreign trade all contributed during the fourteenth century to promote a flourishing cultural life under the influence of Late Gothic art. Cultural life in that period was still under ecclesiastical influence, mainly under that of the mendicant friars. The greatest historical work of the period, the Illuminated Chronicle, a summary and continuation of earlier historical writings, was inspired by scholastic learning, especially by that of St. Thomas Aquinas. The thirteenth-century chroniclers had mainly been interested in social conflicts, while the historians of the fourteenth century sang the praises of the alliance between king and feudal society, of established order inside, and foreign conquest outside the realm. In these works the king is presented as an absolute ruler, and also the first among the knights, enjoying the devotion and respect of his loyal barons. The first original Hungarian courdy epics known to us (which are extant only in sixteenth-century variants) recount the adventures of the knights who toured Europe as retainers of Louis I and Sigismund. A late offspring of the French chanson de geste is the story of Miklos Toldi, a warrior of great physical strength who showed his bravery in the Neapolitan campaigns, while the history of Lorinc Tar, who in 1411 visited the cave in Ireland known as the Purgatory of St. Patrick, attests to the growing interest shown by Hungarian noblemen in travels abroad.

Over and above the chronicles and songs of chivalry that were often not set down in writing but passed on orally, sermons and the legends of Hungarian saints, there were no original works of note in Hun¬ garian in the literature of the fourteenth century. The early promise of vernacular poetry developed no further. The steady hold of the Latin tongue can be explained by the fact that no lay intellectual stratum had developed as in the Western European countries. The writing necessary to administration also contributed to the cultural monopoly of the Church. The clerks of the royal chancery were recruited from the clergy, and authoritative documents were issued not by a public notary but by authorized ecclesiastic institutions, such as chapters and convents (loci credibiles).

Ecclesiastical officials were educated abroad, no longer only in Paris and Italy, but, since the middle of the century, also in the newly established Central European universities of Vienna, Prague and Cracow. Louis I established a university at Pecs in 1367, but it soon ceased to exist. The stadium generale started at Veszprem in the thir¬ teenth century, and the university of 6buda founded later by Sigis¬ mund, suffered the same fate.

Secular tendencies are more obvious in the arts. The king and the Church were responsible for the greatest number of buildings, and, after them, the feudal lords. The narrow, grim residential tower or keep was superseded by a more sumptuous building. The lord’s castle and the auxiliary buildings were defended by a surrounding wall, with small turrets. Where space permitted, the main building was rectan- gular, with a turret on each corner, and the dwelling quarters alongside the walls enclosed a large yard, which served for tournaments, very popular at the time. The castle of Didsgyor, Louis I’s favourite resort, was built on this plan, and imitated by Istvan Lackfi, the most powerful aristocrat of the fourteenth century, when he built the castle of Tata.

The burghers, too, played their part in ecclesiastical building, as a great number of Gothic parish churches were erected through their efforts. At the same time, in the larger towns there were already stone houses with storeys, built in Gothic style, with small recesses in the vaulted doorways which were used for wine-selling. Present research suggests that the style of the Hungarian peasant house as it survives today took shape in this period. The peasant cottage of the twelfth century consisted of a single room, with an open fire-place dug into the earth. It was low and sooty, and remained the dwelling of the poor after the fourteenth century, while in the new houses of the well-to-do peasants the open fire used for cooking was in a separate room and the tile stove of the ‘clean room’ was fed from the kitchen to keep the former smokeless. The country nobility occupied similar houses, built occasionally of stone instead of earth and sometimes having many rooms.

As the style of dwelling improved, furnishings and clothing became more luxurious. The upper ruling class had silk hangings round the walls and the same covering on their carved wood furniture, which replaced the old stone furniture. They had settees, chairs, beds and carpets on the floor. The clothing of the Western European knight was not entirely adopted; the country nobility continued to wear the long tunic. It was obvious that there was plenty of gold and silver in the country from the trimming on clothes; silver buttons and buckles have been recovered, even from peasant graves.

The flourishing craft of silversmiths and coppersmiths produced conditions which enabled sculpture, independent of decoration on buildings, to be developed early in Hungary. None of the life-size statues of kings by Mdrton and Gy orgy Kolozsv&ri in Nagyvarad have come down to us, but from their other surviving cast bronze works, the herma of St. Ladislas in GyoT and the statue of St. George now in Prague, we can form an estimate of the realistic art of these two gifted pioneers of the early Renaissance. Hungarian art must have had close connections with the Italian Trecento, as evidenced both in the sumptuous buildings of the Hungarian ruling class, and the paintings of the humblest parish churches, with their passionate expression of human emotions. Although none of the paintings with secular subjects that embellished the royal and feudal palaces have come down to us, their style is preserved in the miniatures of Miklos Meggyesi, the heraldic painter of Louis I, who illustrated the Illuminat¬ ed Chronicle. The artistic trends of this period created conditions which enabled Hungary to become later one of the first centres of Renaissance art in Europe north of the Alps.

The Alliance of the Monarchy with the Nobility (1437–1458)

The anti-feudal movements had convinced the barons that political rights would have to be extended to the nobility and the upper stratum of the burghers. In 1435, the barons no longer prevented the calling of a diet, nor hindered the codification of the nobles’ county jurisdic¬ tion. The development of a monarchy relying on the nobility was hastened not only by the common interests of the feudal class, but also by its internal contradictions.

Tensions between Barons and Nobility

During the fifty years of Sigismund’s rule there were tremendous changes in the pattern of land holding. On the death of Louis I, out of the roughly 22,000 towns and villages in the country, 15 per cent were owned by the king, 12 per cent by the Church, 53 per cent by the nobility, while the 60 most distinguished baronial families owned only 20 per cent. By the end of Sigismund’s reign, only the proportion held by the Church remained the same, the other ratios changed considerably: the royal holding was down to 5 per cent, that of the nobility down to 43 per cent, while the 60 baronial families had increased their holding to 40 per cent, half of which was in the hands of the Garai-Cilli families. In concrete figures 2,250 royal and 2,000 noble parishes passed into the hands of the barons. Sigismund had ceded not only most of the royal estates to the barons, but also the actual administration of the country. Acting also as voivodes, bdns and ispdns, they were permitted to collect royal taxes in their areas, and use the money for hiring mercenaries. Many new barons were created during the reign of Sigismund from among the nobility (such as Ujlaki, Thalloczi, Rozgonyi, Per6nyi, Paloczi, Hedervari, Csaki and Hunyadi). They were granted considerable possessions as a reward for their military services rendered with armies equipped from public moneys. The military and political independence of the barons was greatest in the southern part of the country, where the Turks were a threat; there power was concentrated, during the first thirty years of the fifteenth century, in the hands of a few powerful barons, notably the Garai and Cilli and the emerging Ujlaki and Cs&ki families.

The most powerful barons maintained a considerable administrative machinery, with military, economic and legal advisers, and a chancery with a large number of notaries, employed to draft documents. The latter were recruited from the educated elements of the nobility, who, like Sigismund’s retinue, accompanied their lords on their journeys as privy councillors. Sigismund’s new proposals in favour of the towns and counties and against the barons originated from his clerks who came in part from the nobility and partly from burgher families.

The raising of the cultural level of the nobility created a new educated class. The greater productivity of peasant labour, concomitant with an increasing exploitation of it, provided the material means for the middle and well-to-do nobility to buy new commodities, sometimes of foreign origin, and enabled them to send their sons to good schools at home and abroad. From the middle of the fourteenth century, three Central European universities, Vienna, Prague and Cracow, provided educational opportunities not too far from Hungary. In the early fifteenth century, many Hungarians were designated as litteratus, while others gained academic titles, i.e. baccalaureus and magister. A large number of Hungarian names appear in the university registers. The Latin schools in Hungary also provided the legal knowledge needed in municipal, county and royal offices. The better-educated nobility were granted posts in the enlarged county administration after Sigis¬ mund’s reforms, and more opportunities arose for secular notaries to find employment in the authorized ecclesiastic institutions (loci credi- biles), thus breaking the Church’s previous monopoly of education.

Though striving to obtain these new posts, the nobles directed their main energies toward the acquisition of more land. In this they were greatly hampered by the baronial expansion, which excluded them from the possibility of obtaining royal grants of land, and even threatened them with the loss of their existing holdings. The fate of the poorer members of the nobility, who lost their lands and were compelled to take the plots of the peasants and work them with the sweat of their brows, was a grave warning. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, there were thousands of such impoverished nobles; their situation was aggravated by the attitude of both Church and State, which regarded them as peasants and expected taxes from them. Some moved into the towns, working as artisans or making use of their meagre knowledge of Latin to draft occasional documents, others became itinerant clerks, constantly on the move, or else joined bands of robbers, becoming outlaws themselves.

The educated elements in the royal administration of Sigismund gave voice both to the dissatisfaction and to the ambitions of the nobility in the royal decree of 1435. Among other things it also con¬ tains a new definition of the state: ‘the whole body of the Kingdom of Hungary is represented by the high clergy, the barons and the nobility’. The protagonist of this new concept of the state was Janos Vitez, a young clerk in Sigismund’s privy chancery and the pioneer of humanis¬ tic learning in Hungary. It was mainly due to his judgement and diplo¬ matic skill that the political aspirations of the nobility were triumphant in the unruly years following the death of Sigismund. He was an advocate of the rights of the nobility but joined them in the interest of royal power, as he was convinced that the Turkish menace could only be checked by a strong centralized monarchy in union with the nobility against baronial abuse.

The Monarchy and the Estates

In 1437, Sigismund’s son-in-law, Albert of Habsburg, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, was recognized as King of Hungary without baronial opposition. But the barons exacted a severe price for withholding opposition, obtaining the right to sanction land grants, the appointment of new office-holders and the use of royal revenues, while leaving the defence of the country wholly to the king. Sigis¬ mund’s advisers, both burghers and noblemen who were retained in Albert’s service, admonished him to shake off baronial tutelage with the help of the nobility. This was the background of the diet of 1439, where the nobility, encouraged by the king’s advisers, defeated the barons and annulled the conditions under which Albert was made king. The use of the royal revenues and the appointment of office¬ holders passed back into the control of the king, with the exception of the palatine, whose appointment required the consent of both barons and nobility.

Albert was not able to avail himself of the new rights granted by the diet, as in the same year he fell victim to the same plague which foiled his campaign against the Turks. After his death, the Garai-Cilli faction supported the claims of Albert’s widow Elizabeth, and his posthumous son, Ladislas. In opposition, the new aristocracy which had emerged under Sigismund, demanded an end to the German-Bohemian connec¬ tion. which they considered a burden and no help in the wars against the Turks, and the dismissal of the Garai-Cilli faction. They invited WladislawIII, King of Poland, to the throne. In due course, war broke out between the two sides. The supporters of Wladislaw (1440-1444) won the day, but the new king remained unrecognized by the supporters of Ladislas Habsburg, who placed one part of the country under the protection of the infant Ladislas’s guardian, Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor, while Slavonia and Croatia were ruled de facto by Ulrick Cilli, and the northern counties by Jiskra, the Bohemian mercenary of Queen Elizabeth.

Wladislaw’s position was strengthened by the military achievements of J&nos Hunyadi. Hunyadi came from a Transylvanian Rumanian noble family, but was thought by his contemporaries to be the natural son of Sigismund. He had lived in Sigismund’s court since he was a young boy, accompanying the king on his journeys, and had spent some time in Italy as a condottiere. Well trained in mercenary warfare, he was successful against the Turks and King Albert placed him at the head of the Banate of Szoreny. Wladislaw regarded him as the real leader against the Turks and appointed him voivode of Transylvania and ispan of Temes. With the exception of Slavonia and Croatia, which was in the hands of the Cillis, the whole of the south of the country was entrusted to Hunyadi and his friend, Miklos Ujlaki, ban of Macsd.

With the consolidation of the leading role of the nobility, the political conditions for a successful resistance to the Turks had been created. J&nos Vitez, as protonotary and the real head of the royal chancery, won over King Wladislaw to the idea of an alliance with the nobility. At the diet of 1440, the king reaffirmed the political rights of the nobil¬ ity, as expressed in the more than two-hundred-year-old Golden Bull, and the legal decrees of Andrew III, Louis I and Sigismund, thus laying down the constitutional foundations of a state based on the alliance between king and nobility. From then on, the diet sat each year, or sometimes twice a year, taking over from the royal council the making of decisions on political questions. Henceforth, in royal decrees the consent of the nobility, as well as that of the high clergy and barons, is always mentioned: no law could be codified without it. The royal towns were also represented in the diet; their weight, how¬ ever, was not great, compared with that of the two feudal estates.

The order of the nobility, however, was still not an equal partner with the high clergy and baronage. Their position as vassals of the barons kept a considerable part of the nobility under baronial influ¬ ence. Neither the power nor the class-consciousness of the nobility was strong enoughTor them to take independent political action, and it was only in unison with the king that they could oppose the barons, j&nos Vitdz and his circle cultivated this alliance, but the king, deprived of resources and threatened by a rival claimant to his throne, was not strong enough to give the nobles the support needed to bring them under his influence. Compromise became inevitable; the king was forced to seek an alliance with the baronial faction which had obtained the support of the majority of the nobility. It was incontestable that in such a partnership the leading role would be played by the barons, or rather the most powerful among them.

Hunyadi's Wars against the Turks

It was fortunate for Hungary that Jdnos Hunyadi was its most power¬ ful baron. Wladislaw rewarded his commander-in-chief with unpre¬ cedented gifts, and within a short time, his wealth surpassed that of any other baron. His authority and popularity attracted the support not only of the anti-Habsburg barons, but even of the nobility. His friendship with Janos Vit6z secured him close ties with the court. After concluding an armistice with the Habsburg party based on a territorial status quo, Wladislaw could turn his attention to the Turkish war.

Hunyadi obtained neither money nor manpower from the king. He organized and equipped an army from the revenue of his own estates and from the taxes collected in the districts under his juris¬ diction. The core of his army was made up of Bohemian Hussite mercenaries. In addition, Hunyadi could rely on his own adherents, his relatives and his vassals of noble rank. As a last resort he also enlisted peasant elements in great number against the Turks. His first victory was achieved with their help against the Turkish army, which had invaded Transylvania in 1442.

Later in the same year, Sultan Murad II sent an army of hundred thousand men against Transylvania to reverse this defeat. Hunyadi crossed the Carpathians with an army of 15,000 Sekels and mercenaries and launched an unexpected attack. For the first time he employed the Hussite tactics of setting up barricades of wagons on the flanks of his army. The prolonged heavy fighting was finally decided when an attack was started on the Turkish flank by the wagons with mounted guns.

For the first time a sizable Turkish army had suffered a crushing defeat in Europe. The news of Hunyadi’s victory travelled far and the hope of final delivery for those suffering under the Turkish yoke in the Balkans was revived. Hunyadi was no longer satisfied with suc¬ cessful defence, and wanted to strike the enemy in his own home, to get to the roots of the Turkish menace. He persuaded the king himself to head the campaign. After repeated victories in the autumn of 1443, he occupied Nish, then Sofia and proceeded towards Adrianople. In the mountains he found himself face to face with the Turkish army, with the passes blocked by the enemy. The difficult terrain and a severe winter finally forced the Hungarian army to retreat. The peoples of the Balkans, hoping to be freed, awaited Hunyadi’s return, ready to join in the fighting. But the war was halted and Wladislaw signed a treaty with the sultan’s emissaries at Szeged. At the instigation of the papal legate, however, Wladislaw broke his word and launched a new attack, but foreign support failed to materialize and he was crushed by the Turks at Varna in 1444. The king fell in battle and Hunyadi himself had the greatest difficulty in escaping.

The diet of 1445 recognized the succession of Ladislas of Habsburg on condition that Frederick III release him and the crown of Hungary. Frederick, however, did not comply. The diet of the following year, due to the well-organized campaign of Janos Vitez, then Bishop of Varad, acclaimed Hunyadi as regent of Hungary. The success of the Hunyadi party and Hunyadi’s unquestioned authority were based on the support of the nobility. Hunyadi did not prove to be ungrateful. New decrees were passed by the diet to curb the power of the baronial county administration in favour of the nobility, and in the royal court new jurors from the nobility were elected. This, however, did not lead to the strengthening of the central power since Hunyadi did not possess all the royal prerogatives and even the nobility within the diet were reluctant to grant them to him. During the sessions of the diet Hunyadi was expected to divest himself of his power, and attend with the same status as any member of the baronage. He was not granted power to extort obedience from Cilli and Jiskra.

Tn those circumstances, it was impossible to concentrate sufficient strength against the Turks. Nevertheless, Hunyadi made another at¬ tempt to attack, but was defeated on the field of Kossovo in Serbia, owing to the treachery of George Brankovich, a Serbian despot who was Cilli’s father-in-law, and the delay of the Albanian leader, Skan- derbeg, in 1448. He was captured while trying to escape by Branko¬ vich, and was released only after making an agreement with him and Cilli. In 1450, the Palatine Laszlo Garai and Miklos Ujlaki joined the alliance. It was finally sealed with the betrothal of Hunyadi’s two sons, Ladislas and Matthias, to the daughters of Garai and Cilli re¬ spectively. The only advantage gained by this alliance was a successful appeal to Frederick 111, supported in 1453 by a common movement of the Austrian and Bohemian nobility, for the release of the young king, Ladislas of Habsburg.

Clash between the King and the Hunyadi Party

King Ladislas V (1440-1457) appointed Hunyadi his commander-in¬ chief and royal treasurer, and made him the beneficiary of numerous distinctions and grants. The king, however, was completely under the influence of Cilli, his relative. Jealous of Hunyadi, Cilli entered into a new alliance with the Palatine Garai and with Ujlaki, their obvious aim being the overthrow of Hunyadi. Janos Vit6z, the king’s chief chancellor, was faced with a dilemma. As a staunch opponent of ba¬ ronial power and an advocate of centralization, his position and prin¬ ciples obliged him to continue as the supporter of royal power and turn against his old friend, Hunyadi. In 1454, he drafted a scheme, authorized by the king, according to which the government of the country was transferred from the hands of the barons into the hands of a council made up of paid officials. Royal revenues were to be handled by the same body. Hunyadi protested, the plan for centrali¬ zation failed, and Hunyadi was confirmed in his old offices mainly because of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Sultan Mohammed II’s preparations to attack Flungary.

In 1456, a Turkish army of a hundred thousand men started to be¬ siege Nandorfehervar, the present Belgrade. The king fled abroad and the barons held back. Hunyadi with his small army went to face the formidable enemy outnumbering his troops ten to one. The Pope an¬ nounced a crusade and sent Giovanni Capistrano, a Franciscan friar, to Hungary. His moving sermons, translated by Hungarian Francis¬ cans, mobilized the people of the southern provinces. Soon some 20,000 crusaders joined Hunyadi’s army. The Turks, after first break¬ ing holes in the city walls, launched their decisive attack on 21 July. But the attack was repulsed. The following day the crusaders, eager to fight, broke out and attacked the enemy. The bloody battle con¬ tinued into the night, until at last the exhausted Turkish army abandon¬ ed their quarters and fled.

This unprecedented victory drove the Turks from Hungarian soil for seventy years, but Hunyadi, soon after his victory, fell a victim to the plague which was decimating his army. After his death, the barons allied with Cilli believed that the time was ripe for crushing the Hu¬ nyadi party. The first step was to try to get rid of Hunyadi’s sons, Ladislas and Matthias. After Ulrick Cilli fell victim to a murder at¬ tempt by members of the Hunyadi party in the spring of 1457, the Hunyadi brothers were called to Buda by ruse, and Ladislas Hunyadi, charged with complicity in the murder, was executed. Hunyadi’s widow, Erzsebet Szil&gyi, and her brother, Mih&ly Szilagyi, organized an armed opposition. Ladislas V fled from the troubled scene to Prague, taking Matthias Hunyadi with him as a hostage. Here, the young king met his unexpected death in the same year. This event cleared the way for the election of a new king in both Hungary and Bohemia.

The Hunyadi party and the nobility favoured the election of Mat¬ thias as king of Hungary. During his imprisonment in Prague he had become betrothed to the daughter of George Podiebrad, regent and later King of Bohemia, and thereby he regained his freedom. A diet met in January 1458 to elect the new king. Mihaly Szilagyi led a large army of mercenaries to Buda and on the frozen Danube the assembled nobility also moved menacingly towards the castle where the barons were meeting. The citizens cheered Matthias, and the barons, not daring to defy the consensus of opinion, elected him. The diet ap¬ pointed Mihaly Szilagyi, the uncle of the fifteen-year-old king, as regent.

An Experiment in Centralized Government (1458–1490)

The Success of Matthias Hunyadi's Policy of Centralization

The young Matthias Hunyadi had two men to support him: his uncle, MiMly Szilagyi, the regent and leader of the Hunyadi party, and his tutor, Janos Vit<5z, the chief chancellor, an old enemy of baronial policy, and an adherent of centralized government. The terms of the election had stipulated safe-conduct for the members of the Garai party and the abolition of the only considerable source of royal re¬ venue, the levying of war taxes, which had been granted from time to time by the diet. Had Matthias reconciled himself to this he would have become the prisoner of the barons. However, Vitez warily watched the first steps of his royal pupil and saw to it that he did not do so. Matthias soon forced his uncle to resign his office as regent, thus making clear that he did not wish to rule as the party’s puppet.

The barons, afraid of strong rule, united and Szilagyi, Garai and Ujlaki formed an alliance in defence of their interests. Matthias, on the other hand, was not reluctant to imprison his uncle for this re¬ bellion, and when he was released sent him against the Turks. The old warrior then atoned with his death for his misdeeds. Garai and his allies, however, continued their resistance without him and in 1459 offered the throne to the Habsburg Emperor Frederick III. Matthias won to his side those barons who feared the rise of the Garai party, and with the death of L£szl6 Garai, soon afterwards the whole con¬ spiracy collapsed.

The united forces of the ruling class were then turned by Matthias against Jiskra. The powerful mercenary, who had remained uncrushed by Janos Hunyadi, was now compelled to submit. He handed over his castles to the king and was given estates in exchange in the southern part of the country. He was subsequently able to find an outlet for his overheated ambitions in the service of the king. In 1463, Frederick III offered peace. He returned the Hungarian crown, but retained some of the border territory he had occupied and demanded the re¬ cognition of his right to the succession should Matthias die childless. This was the price paid for the security of the country, political unity within Hungary, and the possibility of attack instead of defence on the southern border.

Bosnia, a nominal dependency of the Hungarian Crown, was oc¬ cupied by the Turks early in 1463. Matthias issued orders for the baronial banderia to take up arms. To their 12,000 men he added his modest royal army of 2,500 mercenaries, and together they occupied the fortress of Jajce, thus restoring Hungarian sovereignty in the nor¬ thern part of Bosnia. In the following year Sultan Mohammed II per¬ sonally launched an attack against Jajce, but Matthias’s army forced him to retreat. At the same time Pius II announced a new crusade against the Turks under his personal leadership. Matthias was en¬ couraged to advance in Bosnia, but owing to the sudden death of the Pope, the crusaders dispersed, and the small Hungarian army was stopped by the overwhelming number of the Turks. Matthias returned from the campaign having recognized that the forces of Hungary only sufficed for defence, and that the great plan of Janos Hunyadi to expel the Turks from Europe could only be accomplished with wide European cooperation.

Matthias’s successes in foreign policy rested on the results of cen¬ tralized rule. His royal power was based on the support of the nobility against the baronage; consequently he tried to weaken the institution of vassalage (familiaritas) which had tied barons and noblemen to¬ gether. He took away the barons’ right to engage mercenaries, and prevented them from using royal taxes to recruit retainers for their private armies. Noble retainers in the baronial service were removed from baronial jurisdiction and placed under county and royal justices. He also reformed the judiciary by raising the personal jurisdiction of the king above that of the palatine and chief justice, and by appointing expert lawyers to the royal court.

A hired army and a paid administration were costly, and Matthias could only raise money by taking back from the barons royal revenues which they had either been granted or had taken by force. He was successful in the new venture. While Ladislas V’s revenues in Hungary were hardly more than 200,000 gold florins, Matthias, towards the end of his reign, was raising about one million. The treasury was run by expert officials, which put an end to baronial tax collection and em¬ bezzlement.

Nevertheless, his revenues were barely sufficient for the strengthen¬ ing of the achievements of centralized rule. Matthias, unlike absolute rulers in the Western countries, could not fall back on the financial support of the bourgeoisie. He could pay only his soldiers in money; his officials were rewarded by ecclesiastical offices and grants of land, and thus unwittingly he increased the number of feudal lords, the natural enemies of centralization.

Foreign Capital in Hungarian Trade

Matthias was fully conscious of the political and economic importance of the towns. It was during his reign that the development of the cit¬ izens of the towns into a distinct political body was completed. The seven most important royal towns, Buda, Pozsony, Sopron, Nagy- szombat, Kassa, Eperjes and Bartfa (later joined by Pest), had earlier been given separate courts of justice under the Lord Treasurer, with some members of the nobility amongst the jurors. Under a decree issued by Matthias, these courts were transformed into institutions presided over exclusively by the burghers. Other royal towns, such as Szekesfehervar, Esztergom, Loose, and later Szeged and Kolozsvar, were put under personal royal jurisdiction without any baronial inter¬ vention. It was also during Matthias’s reign that the mining towns were given corporate autonomy. Although representatives of the towns continued to play a secondary role in the diet, the towns became en¬ tirely free from baronial interference, and were directly under royal supervision. The Hungarian towns, however, needed protection not only from feudal oppression but also from the competition of foreign capital.

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the volume of imports grew considerably. After 1450, the royal revenue from customs duties on imported foreign goods grew fivefold in a period of three decades. Seventy-five per cent of the imports from Western countries were textiles and 20 per cent metal goods. Spices were also important items. Ninety-eight per cent of the Hungarian exports were agricultural and mining products, mainly cattle, wine and copper. Due to its staple right Vienna played an important part in Hungary’s foreign trade; it was there that South German cloth merchants bringing their wares met the Hungarian merchants driving their cattle and carrying copper. Hungarian trade with Northern Europe was mainly in the hands of merchants from Breslau and Cracow, interested not only in cattle and copper but also in Hungarian wine. The greatest attraction for foreign traders continued to be Hungarian gold. In the fifteenth century, the annual foreign trade deficit of Hungary averaged 200,000-300,000 gold florins, which left the country as currency and returned as foreign commodities.

Western industry, already managed at that time by capitalist entre¬ preneurs, was producing cheaper and better goods than the Hungarian guilds, which were still in the developing stage. Hungarian merchants considered it a quicker and safer investment to take part in foreign trade or to buy land than to engage in the development of domestic industry with its remote and uncertain chances of profit. Moreover, their capital, on the comparative scale of medieval trade, was small. A thousand-florin capital counted as exceptionally large in Hungary, while the 16 richest burghers of Augsburg owned capital totalling half a million. Because of this lack of capital, the Hungarian merchants had to rely for credit on the South German traders, whose money was dominant in Hungarian foreign trade, so that in point of fact the Hungarian merchant was a mere agent. About the middle of the fifteenth century, the merchants ofPozsony mortgaged their real estate to the extent of 65,000 florins; the South German credit was equi¬ valent to the combined fortunes of the bourgeoisie of the town. In 1489, about half the credit in the account books of the merchants of Cracow was lent out to the merchants of Kassa. In the circumstances it is evident that the bourgeoisie could not accumulate capital, the wealthier merchants preferring to leave the country, or buy land and become members of the feudal class.

Owing to the fact that foreign goods were reaching the country in unlimited quantities, industrialization in the Hungarian towns halted in the middle of the fifteenth century. Capitalist ventures at industriali¬ zation died off, and the domestic mining enterprises closed down one after the other. In 1475, J&nos Thurzo, in association with the mer¬ chants of Cracow and South Germany, started to free the Hungarian copper mines from flooding. During the course of this he was able to buy many mines from the impecunious owners. But even his capital was not large enough, and it was only later, in partnership with the Fuggers, that the enormous business was started which soon produced transactions in Hungarian copper running into millions on the world market. At the end of the century. South German capital, after taking over most of Hungary’s foreign trade, penetrated Hungarian mining as well.

Setback in the Development of the Towns

In the fifteenth century, agricultural production was centred around the boroughs, with produce coming in mostly from peasant tenures. There were over 800 of these boroughs and, about the end of the century, one-sixth of the peasant population, i.e. approximately half a million (out of the country’s four million inhabitants), lived in these settlements numbering about 500-1,000 each. The development of the borough out of the village was one form of the stratification of the peasantry. The landlords’ income originated first of all from taxes levied on the boroughs. In the fifteenth century, the tendency to com¬ mute taxes in kind to money rents became general. Lump-sum money payment was demanded from the boroughs, and payment by the peas¬ antry was also expected in money. The simultaneous increase in peas¬ ant production and exploitations by the landlord contributed to the break-up of the peasantry into different strata. Up to the middle of the fourteenth century, the peasant had as much land as could be worked by himself and his family, but by the fifteenth century the majority of the peasantry owned only half a tenure, or even less, and at least 20 per cent owned only a small cottage and garden. Some of the peasants were landless but for an occasional small vineyard. Those peasants who had become rich, mainly those living in the boroughs, became the upper stratum possessing an ever growing part of the means of production and employing the poorer elements of their kind as hired labourers.

The stratification of the peasantry into rich and poor created the preconditions of capitalist production in agriculture. Further de¬ velopment, however, was prevented by the decline of industrialization in the royal towns. Between 1450 and 1500, the population of the most flourishing commercial towns, such as Buda, Pozsony, Sopron, Kassa and Eperjes, decreased by 10-20 per cent, and their tax contributions declined by about 30 per cent. Less and less agricultural produce was sold on the town markets, all the more so as the townsmen were trying to make up for their losses in manufactures by becoming agricultural producers themselves. The decline of the home market for agricultural produce could not be made up by any amount of increased cattle and wine exports. The capital behind the cattle and wine export, though in the hands of the richer peasants living in the boroughs, came directly or indirectly from the South German creditors; the same was true for the cloth import. In comparison with the busy nature of commerce, there was very little circulation of money in the country. Well-to-do peasants continued to pay the wages of their labourers in kind, by a share of the produce. This considerably retarded a general commuta¬ tion of services and tithes to money rent, which was much desired by the ecclesiastical and temporal feudal lords, themselves obliged to pay for foreign goods in currency. Thus the exploitation of the peasants became greater and it was not rare to find all the inhabitants of a village leaving in order to escape from the tax collector. Matthias was per¬ suaded by the nobility temporarily to stop the free movement of the peasants by decree for a year or two, though he himself was opposed to the wish of the barons and nobility to bind the peasant to the land.

Attempts to Establish a Central European Empire

Matthias himself was not unaware that the peasantry could bear no further burdens, just as he soon came to realize that neither were the towns able to grant the financial support he expected. If not fully conscious of the momentum of South German capital penetrating into Eastern Europe, he could not help seeing that the money nec¬ essary for his plans for centralization was being taken out of the coun¬ try by the foreign merchants. It was evident where the money leaving the country could best be stopped: at the towns of Vienna and Breslau. The possession of these two towns would mean the control of the whole Central and East European trade, with a share in the profits, provided the ruler could, at the same time, master feudal anarchy in Austria and Silesia. Matthias believed himself strong enough to con¬ quer Austria and Bohemia, uniting them with Hungary in a centralized monarchy.

He was not alone among Central European rulers in his ambitions to found an empire. Casimir IV, King of Poland, the son-in-law of Albert of Habsburg, had a claim to the throne of Hungary and Bohemia, as did the Habsburg Frederick III. At that time the Central European states were already united by economic and dynastic ties, their political union was only a question of time. The majority of the Hungarian ruling class, on the other hand, did not approve of the war launched against Bohemia in 1468. It was preceded by the most severe form of taxation: Matthias imposed extra taxes upon the peasants, and loans, never to be repaid, upon the towns. The landlords, on the other hand, could not get the services from their exhausted tenants. In 1467, a baronial faction planned to depose Matthias, but the con¬ spiracy was uncovered by the king. In 1471, another, more serious con¬ spiracy, headed by Janos Vit6z, came to the same end. Six years earlier, the former tutor of Matthias had been elevated to the highest office of feudal Hungary, being appointed Archbishop of Esztergom, but after that a rift developed between the old politician and his now independent pupil. As a prelate he resented the confiscation of church revenue and extra taxation; as the ideologist of the war against the Turks, he grudged giving up what he regarded as the only just and necessary war for needless adventures. These reasons made him the head of the conspiracy which invited Casimir, a son of the Polish king, to the throne. For reasons of state, Matthias imprisoned Vitez, and then, for reasons of affection, he released him; but the aged statesman did not long survive his humiliation. After the failure of the con¬ spiracy, the Polish pretender, who had entered Hungary at the head of a small army, hurriedly left the country.

Supported by the Catholic nobility of Moravia and Silesia, Matthias was crowned King of Bohemia in 1469. In 1471, however, at the death of George Podiebrad, the Bohemian nobility recognized the Polish prince Wladislaw Jagiello,who had promised toleration to the Hussit¬ es, as King of Bohemia. He then formed an alliance with Frederick III against Matthias. In 1474, the united Polish and Bohemian armies broke into Silesia, and besieged Breslau, with Matthias behind its walls. The siege was soon given up and in 1478, in the Treaty of Olmiitz, both Matthias and Wladislaw recognized each other as Kings of Bohemia, and the country was divided, with Matthias retaining Moravia and Silesia.

Matthias succeeded through diplomacy in isolating Frederick III, owing to his friendly ties with the Swiss Confederation, the Italian princes and Ivan III, Grand Duke of Muscovy. His famous ‘Black Army’ of 20,000 horsemen, 8,000 infantry, 5,000 wagons and a newly created artillery, all in full pay, together with the banderia of the Hun¬ garian baronage, crushed Habsburg resistance in continuous and relentless siege warfare. In the summer of 1485, after half a year’s siege, Vienna fell, and, with the exception of the Tyrol and Upper Austria, the Austrian provinces of the Habsburgs fell into Matthias’s hands. He thereupon transferred his seat from Buda to Vienna.

The Programme of the Absolute Monarchy

Matthias introduced centralized administration into the newly oc¬ cupied provinces. Even the independent principalities in Silesia were subjected to the royal power. There were swift results: taxes were lowered in Hungary and political tension lessened. The way was clear for another major step in the direction of centralization: an attempt to free the royal power from the control, not only of the barons, but of the whole feudal ruling class. After 1471, the diet was called only on rare occasions by Matthias, and he exercised his authority by royal decree. In the royal council the baronial members hardly ever func¬ tioned, as matters were handled by the royal secretaries. His officials, the officers of the chancery and treasury, were by preference intellectuals of bourgeois and peasant stock, not even noblemen; his private secretaries, Peter V&radi, later chancellor, and Tamas Bakdcz, were of peasant descent; his treasurers, Gyorgy Hando and Orban Doczi, were from the towns. He also liked to employ foreigners, free of local influence.

A uniformity in outlook, characteristic of officials in Matthias’s administration, was due to their humanist culture. Many of them were actively engaged in writing fashionable humanist compositions, such as letters, occasional poems or history, while all succumbed to the passion of book collecting. They were brought up mainly in Italian schools, in that late period of humanist culture which no longer represented the uncompromisingly anti-feudal efforts of the bour¬ geoisie but tried to bring bourgeois aspiration under the wing of the feudal state power, thereby forging theoretical weapons in support of centralization, or else for absolute government. The culture of Matthias’s officials of bourgeois and peasant stock made them sup¬ porters of centralization, to which they were attached in any case by personal and class interests. Without formulating political theory, one can clearly see their views from the rules of the royal chancery, from the attitude of court historians toward the past and from record¬ ed statements of theirs.

Matthias and his humanist circle were aiming at the highest form of centralization: absolute monarchy. ‘The king himself is no slave or tool to the law, he is above it, ruling over it’—this statement was attributed by the Italian humanist Brandolinus to Matthias himself, and we have no reason to doubt its authenticity, less so as the law of 1468 clearly speaks of the absolute power (absoluta polestas) due to the king. According to Brandolinus, Matthias distinctly disapproved of the republican government of certain Italian cities and of the tyranny of rich over poor; he did not tolerate in his monarchy that anyone ‘should be unjust at the expense of others, or that anyone should form a party’. ‘In our country,’ he said, ‘no one can have too much confidence in his own power, or lose too much of his confidence due to his helplessness... No one should possess so much as to deprive others of the necessities of life, no one should abound in unnecessary things.’ The ‘social’ character of Matthias’s absolutism, although exaggerated by Brandolinus, clearly shows his desire to keep the classes counter-balancing each other.

The principle of justice was applied by Matthias in a sense un¬ known in Hungarian history. He threatened his favourite, Bishop Miklos Bathory, one of the leading Hungarian humanists, that if he did not give up torturing his tenants, he would be thrown into the Danube. This story and others like it, inspired a belief that Matthias went about in disguise to find out what wrongs had been done to the people by the barons, and the epithet ‘just’ was added to his name. ‘Governors in our country,’ he told Brandolinus, ‘are only temporary servants,’ and, indeed, he acted accordingly, by dismissing and im¬ prisoning his advisers at the summit of their powers, if they became unworthy of his trust.

Matthias's Compromises with the Ruling Class

From his plans and achievements it seems that Matthias’s absolutism was greater in theory than in practice. His economic power could only be based on his Central European empire, which in its turn depended on the Hungarian ruling class, and, as a natural consequence, he had to make concessions at the expense of absolutism. They could not be avoided, as opposition to his centralized rule never ceased to exist; it may have temporarily moved underground, but gained new force by the alliance of the newly created barons and the nobility. The fact was brought home to Matthias by the political activities of the Zapolyai family. In the field of military and financial organization, Imre Zapo¬ lyai and his brother Istvan were among Matthias’s ablest officials. As former members of the impecunious nobility, they had speedily risen to find their place amongst the richest barons. It was around them that those who were dissatisfied with the new rule by decrees gathered, hoping for a restoration of the diets. Matthias was obliged to retreat and assume a realistic position as was put forward by Janos Vit6z, consonant with conditions in Hungary. In 1486, he called a diet which voted new privileges to the nobility. County autonomy was again recognized with the stipulation that the baronial ispan should appoint his deputy from the local well-to-do nobility, and not from his own retainers. This was the first step towards making this alispdn the re¬ presentative of the nobility and not of the barons. The nobility even went a step further; although recognizing the king’s ‘absolute power’, they requested that in case of a misunderstanding between the king and the diet, the palatine should mediate the dispute. This was ac¬ corded, the palatine becoming not only the king’s deputy but the defender of the rights of the nobility. The diet appointed Imre Z&po- lyai as the new palatine.

So far Matthias had succeeded in compromising with the nobility without conceding any of his actual rights, but the new provision for the appointment of the palatine was a blow to absolutism. Matthias endeavoured to outweigh it by consolidating Hungary’s leadership in Central European political integration. In his last years he worked in that direction.

He did not succeed, however, in making himself Holy Roman Emperor; in the year following the occupation of Vienna, Maximilian I of Habsburg became emperor, having been previously ruler of Bur¬ gundy and the Netherlands. Though pushed out of one part of Austria, the Habsburgs obtained new power in the German Empire, and with Maximilian a new, energetic person began to manage the affairs of the family. Nor did Jagiello expansionism stop entirely. Both dynasties had a claim to the throne of Hungary. Left without a legal heir, Matthias appointed his natural son, Janos Corvinus, as his successor in Hungary and Bohemia, and tried to obtain Maximilian’s support by promising the return of Austria. Maximilian seemed willing to negotiate, but Matthias, although not yet fifty years old, died un¬ expectedly in Vienna in the spring of 1490.

His reign marks the zenith of Hungarian feudalism. An exceptionally gifted personality, in exceptionally favourable circumstances, he had achieved the highest form of centralization as well as extensive foreign conquests, all in three decades. After his death the political edifice collapsed, but the memory of his great achievements has survived in the creative works of the Hungarian Renaissance and humanism.

The Renaissance and Humanism in Hungary

Humanism in Hungary flourished in the royal chancery and was connected from the start with efforts toward centralization. Its originator was the outstanding Florentine humanist, Pier-Paolo Vergerio, who was active in the chancery from 1417 onwards, and greatly influenced his colleagues, especially Janos Vitez. The humanist patriotism of Vitez owes much to his initiation by Vergerio: the con¬ frontation of human values (humanitas, virtus) with birth and rank, and the identification of the defence of human values with defence against the Turks. The idea of the real patriot was enlarged and was no longer confined to the barons, but spread also to the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, or to anybody engaged in the noble contest with pen or sword. Humanist educational ideas clearly mingle with the political, military and organizational aims of the nobility in the diplomatic correspondence and speeches made by Vit6z at home and abroad, propagating unity against the Turks. He was also the

first to be engaged in the humanist passion of collecting books for his library. An avid builder, he collected scholars and artists around him. and although he himself was never able to go to Italy, he sent many Hungarian youths there for their education.

One of these was his nephew, known as Janus Pannonius in human¬ ist literature. Son of a carpenter from the southern part of the country, he rose to become Bishop of Pecs and the first great Hungarian poet, and one of the greatest European poets of the time. With his artistic instinct, he introduced human passions and emotions into the then declining and formalistic humanist poetry. His satirical epigrams openly ridiculed fanaticism, asceticism, clerical greed and credulity, without sparing even the sanctity of the Pope. His elegies, on the other hand, bewail the fate of the poet, isolated in barbarian Scythian surroundings, but inviting the muses to the banks of the Danube. A number of other poems proudly speak of the noble task of the Hungarians as defenders of Europe against the Turks, and of the deeds of their leaders, the Hunyadis. The patriotism of Janus Pan- nonius is basically the same as that of Vitez, but he is more critical. He was also inspired by the anti-Turkish and anti-German feelings of his contemporaries, but disliked war as not being congenial to poetic inspiration. He expected speedy victory over the Turks and peace for his country to enjoy the blessings of culture. It is no wonder that Janus Pannonius was among the first to join Vit6z’s conspiracy against Matthias’s northern expeditions, and he was also the only one who did not expect mercy. He met his death while escaping in 1472.

The conspiracy of Vitez and Janus Pannonius had made Matthias for a time suspicious of the Hungarian humanists, but he did not want to miss the blessings of humanist culture. He invited foreign, mainly Italian, humanists to his court. One of them, Antonio Bonfini, wrote a history of Hungary in elegant humanistic Latin; another, Galeotto Marzio, recorded Matthias’s witty sayings. Jdnos Thuroczy, by profession a judge of the royal court, wrote a history of the period. Although a man of acute intelligence, he was only on the fringe of the humanistic court circle, his education being somewhat less refined. In his chronicle, there is a curious mixture of the humanist con¬ ception of the role of heroic virtue in opposition to fate in moulding history and the nationalism of the nobility in its xenophobia, making the Hungarians the successors of the world-conquering Scythians and Huns, and celebrating Matthias as a ‘second Attila’. Thuroczy is the representative of the class-conscious nobility, emerging victorious under Matthias from the crisis earlier in the century.

On the king’s orders, Thuroczy’s chronicle was twice reissued. Matthias hastened to make the newly invented printing press the instrument of his political propaganda. Posters were printed against Frederick III. At the instigation of one of his officials, the first Hun¬ garian press was established by Andras Hess in Buda, in 1472, its first publication being a Hungarian chronicle in Latin. The quick introduction of printing is evidence of the widening of the reading public. The development of education did not produce universities, despite the efforts of Sigismund, Matthias and Janos Vitez, yet many students, both nobles and commoners, studied at the universities of Vienna, Cracow and Prague and at Italian universities. Bibliophilism, emerging from the monasteries, had spread among the top layers of the ruling class and occasionally even among the well-to-do towns¬ people and the nobility. The largest libraries were in the possession of the humanist clergy holding high political positions, but more out¬ standing than any was the famous collection of Matthias, the Corvina library, numbering more than five hundred sumptuously produced books containing the treasures of classical and humanistic literature.

Renaissance art entered Hungary along with humanist culture. Its centre was the royal court, since Sigismund’s reign permanently established in Buda. The Gothic palace of Sigismund was expanded by Matthias in the Renaissance style, and embellished with the sculp¬ tures and frescoes of Italian masters and with products of the royal faience workshop. Exquisite summer palaces were built at Visegrdd, Tata and Kom&rom. The king’s builders and decorative artists catered to the humanist members of the Hungarian ruling class, and Renais¬ sance art penetrated into many parts of the country. Hungary became the most important centre of humanism and Renaissance art beyond the Alps, spreading its influence throughout Central Europe.

The Collapse of Royal Power (1490–1526)

Victory of Feudal Reaction

Renaissance culture was still in full bloom when its socio-political foundations collapsed. The barons, newly raised by Matthias, were anxious, as was clearly stated by the new palatine, Istvan Zapolyai, ‘to rid themselves of harassment and oppression’, which they felt they had suffered under Matthias notwithstanding the advantages they had enjoyed at the same time. There were claimants in plenty to the throne of the heir apparent Jdnos Corvinus: in addition to Queen Beatrice, there was the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I, Wladislaw, King of Bohemia, and another Jagiello, John Albert, a Polish prince. The decision was in the hands of Palatine Zapolyai, who enjoyed the support of the nobility, and was himself in favour of the weakest pretender, Wladislaw. Janos Corvinus was isolated and had to be content with the provinces in the south and the title of ‘King of Bosnia’. He died young, in victorious warfare against the Turks in 1504. The diet proclaimed Wladislaw II (1490-1516) as King of Hungary, but severely restricted his power: he was prevented from levying extra taxes, or acting without the consent of the royal council. Wladislaw promised to marry Queen Beatrice, but the ceremony as performed by Bishop Bakocz, the king’s secretary, was deliberately fraudulent, in order to obtain the subsequent annulment of the mar¬ riage by the Pope. Queen Beatrice, deceived and defrauded of her property, eventually returned to Italy.

John Albert and Maximilian tried to enforce their claims by arms, but they were driven out of the country by Matthias’s ‘Black Army’, which thereby performed its last feat. The barons, on the other hand, felt uneasy while such a formidable striking force existed in the king’s hands, for it was likely to limit their influence and even render them superfluous. In order to end the war a treaty was signed, by which Wladislaw restored the Austrian provinces, recognized Maximilian’s right to the title of king of Hungary, and agreed to his succession if he (Wladislaw) died without an heir. The Black Army, having rendered all the services required of it, had to be destroyed. It was sent against the Turks without supplies and when the famished army began to plunder, Matthias’s famous commander, Pal Kinizsi, a hero of the Turkish wars, was sent with his baronial army to annihilate them. After this most modern army of its time had been destroyed, the barons made the diet force the king to grant regular pay to the baronial armies. This arrangement meant a return to the age of Sigismund: once again, the baronial armies were to be maintained from public funds.

The administration, the second pillar of the royal power, did not meet the fate of the royal army, for its leaders—owing to a mistake which Matthias was unable to avoid—were barons, archbishops and bishops. Tam&s Bakocz was appointed chancellor and then Arch¬ bishop of Esztergom. Instead of using the administration now under his control for the strengthening of royal power, he exploited it for his own ends, to compete with greater success for power with the barons. Royal revenues soon reverted to the barons, they were able to collect the taxes, so that the treasury became depleted even more than before Matthias’s reign, with a yearly revenue under 200,000 florins. At the same time, Bakocz’s own yearly income, with the aid of extortion and bribery, rose to 100,000 florins, and the Renaissance splendour of his palace in Esztergom outshone the royal court. Other church dignitaries and barons also succeeded in thriving at the ex¬ pense of the royal estates and revenues. In their greed, they fought each other tooth and nail. Wladislaw looked on impassively at this waste and corruption. Being a man of lazy disposition and little talent, he did not even attempt to rid himself of the tutelage of the barons and prelates. Because he approved and nodded assent to all their wishes, he obtained the name in Hungarian ‘Ladislas Dobzhe’ (Polish for ‘all right’). The expenses of the royal household were paid from his revenues from Bohemia, but he was often compelled to obtain loans at exorbitant interest rates to cover even his kitchen expenses.

The abasement of royal power was not primarily due to Wladislaw’s personal qualities, but much more to a system which enabled the most powerful baronial family to isolate the king from the nobility. The leaders of the centralized administration could not rely on the nobility against the barons, and were thus compelled to form a baronial op¬ position. Out of this cul-de-sac of power concentration, a two-party system developed under the reign of the Jagiellos: the court party, comprising church dignitaries in state employment and those barons who supported the power of the king for the sake of personal advance¬ ment, and the nobles’ party, led by the Zapolyais with the support of other barons.

The political scene was dominated by the struggle between the Court and the nobility, fought at the diets held on the Field of Rakos in the outskirts of Pest, with the intrigues of barons and prelates of both parties in the background, involving many temporary alliances and feuds. To resist the demands of the Zapolyais for the throne, ex¬ pressed in an ever more undisguised manner and with the support of the nobility, Wladislaw’s government was obliged to turn for aid to the Habsburgs, having no adequate resources at home.

After the death of Istvan Z&polyai, his elder son Janos, Voivode of Transylvania, became the leader of the nobles’ party. His cause was advanced by an unscrupulous lawyer, Istv&n Werboczi, a former clerk in Matthias’s chancery and then spokesman of the nobility in the diet. In his speeches, Werboczi often appealed to the traditional anti- German sentiment of the nobility. At the first diet of 1505, a well- armed demonstration of the nobility demanded the resignation of Wladislaw and the appointment of Z&polyai as king of Hungary. The court party, on the other hand, appealed to the Emperor Maxi¬ milian I, who threatened Zapolyai with war and forced him to retreat. The second diet of the same year, however, declared that should Wladislaw die without an heir, a ‘national’ king would be elected to rule over Hungary. In 1506, a male heir was bom to Wladislaw, so that—for the time being—Zapolyai’s hopes remained unfulfilled.

Economic Decline and Social Tension

The decay of royal power and the subsequent anarchy delivered Hungary to the Habsburgs, who in the meantime had added to their possessions the Low Countries, the Kingdom of Spain and the American colonies. Wladislaw II and the court party were entirely dependent on the Habsburgs, which enabled the Fuggers to acquire Hungarian mining interests. Towards the end of the fifteenth century. South German capitalists began to show a lively interest in the Central European metal mines. It was they who granted the necessary loans to the Austrian iron industry, but later on they found the more profitable mining of copper, lead, mercury, silver and gold more attractive. Among them the Fuggers were the most prominent. They established business connections with the Habsburgs through their silver mining activities in the Tyrol, and became their chief creditors. It was owing to the Habsburgs that the Fuggers first came to Hungary where they became partners of the Thurzos in 1494, establishing several foundries. Because lead was used for the smelting of copper ore in order to extract silver, they bought up the Austrian lead mines one after another, and in 1502 took over the gold mines of Silesia. The mines in Wladislaw’s kingdom contributed to the wealth of the Fuggers, and indirectly promoted Habsburg expansion through the unlimited credit granted to them. The alliance of the greatest political and financial powers of the age decided the fate of Hungary and Bohemia, and it was merely a question of time when the two crowns would pass from the Jagiellos to the Habsburgs.

Towns in Hungary, in these circumstances, continued to decline rapidly. It no more occurred to Wladislaw to rely on the towns against the barons than it did to protect them. In his financial straits he granted royal towns to the barons; the burghers themselves were obliged to redeem their freedom. The city of Esztergom was unable to do so and degenerated into a borough of the archbishop. The towns, trying to extricate themselves from their predicament bought peasant-villages, and tried as collective landlords to find their way into the feudal ruling class. The more the towns produced for them¬ selves, the smaller the market for Hungarian agricultural commodities became, so that the peasants earned less and less. At the same time, the landlords increased their pressure for bigger payments. The peasants who tried to improve their lot by escaping were forcibly brought back, and the nobility contemplated stopping their free move¬ ment altogether.

The great landowners were not opposed to the free movement of the peasants, because they could always direct it towards their own estates. The nobility, on the other hand, suffered by losing both the peasants who moved into the towns and those who were forcibly carried off by the unscrupulous big landlords. Finally, the efforts to restrict the free movement of the peasants proved stronger.

The boroughs enjoyed a relatively favourable form of taxation, payment in a lump sum, but the introduction of the ninth made their situation worse. Deterioration in the fife of the peasantry was responsi¬ ble for the uprising of 1514, the greatest peasant war in Hungarian history, which involved peasants throughout the whole country.

The Great Peasant War and the Mohács Disaster

Archbishop Bakocz, who headed the court party, tried to avert the danger of both internal unrest and continued Turkish raids by an¬ nouncing, with the consent of the Pope, a crusade against the Turks in 1514. Hosts of peasants joyfully moved into camp near Pest. The leadership was entrusted by the archbishop to Gyorgy Szikely (D6zsa), who had won a reputation for valour in the skirmishes with the Turks on the Hungarian border. The urban poor, artisans, students, village priests and impecunious noblemen joined forces with the peasantry. The barons, distrustful from the beginning of the idea of the crusade and scared of the armed peasant masses, persuaded the archbishop to stop further recruitments. Henceforth the landlords forcibly prevented their tenants from taking up arms and the de¬ pendents of those who had already joined the army were maltreated.

The news of the suspension of the crusade and the hostile behaviour of the landlords exasperated the peasants. Some leaders of the people in the camp considered that the opportunity was ripe to improve the lot of the peasantry by restricting the privileges of landlords. Dozsa identified himself with the peasantry, and decided to lead his army against the lords who were trying to stop the crusade. From Pest he went to the boroughs of the Great Plain and declared war against the oppressors of the people. At the same time, he sent his lieutenants to diverse parts of the country where the peasants were assembled, in order to organize and conduct them to the main force.

The peasant army crossed the Tisza and occupied one by one the fortified castles beyond the river in the southern part of the country, lstvan Bathory, a member of the court party and ispdn of Temes, was entrusted by the barons with their defence, but he was forced by the triumphant peasant army to retire into the fortified castle of Temesvar. Dozsa had Temesvar under siege when relief for the castle arrived in the form of the array of Z&polyai. Because disaster was threatening the whole ruling class, Zapolyai had come to terms with Bathory, his former enemy. Dozsa attacked Z&polyai, but his chances were small against the well-equipped, more experienced cavalry of the nobility and he was defeated after courageous fighting.

The smaller peasant armies w'ere wiped out, and ruthless retaliation followed. Dozsa was made to sit on a red-hot iron throne, with a red- hot iron crown on his head, and burnt alive. The peasants were mur¬ dered and hanged by the thousand. The diet passed an ex post facto law sanctioning the death sentences of the leaders, and decided that the peasants were to be perpetually and universally bound to the land and deprived of their right to own land. lstvan Werboczi com¬ pleted his work on Hungarian common law in the same year; the ‘Tripartitum opus iuris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae’ codified the equality of barons and nobles and listed their rights (una eademque nobilitas). It became not only a universally accepted law-book, but also the bible of the nobility, because Werboczi added to his book the retributive laws made against the peasantry. The Hungary of the coming centuries based its legal system on the joint conception of freedom for the nobility and servitude for the peasant¬ ry- ....

During the reign of Louis II Jagiello (1516-1526), conditions inside and outside the country further deteriorated. According to a double marriage and succession settlement made in 1515, Ferdinand Habs- burg. Archduke of Austria, was to marry Wladislaw’s daughter, Anne, and King Louis, Ferdinand’s sister, Mary. This agreement made final Hungary’s ties with the Habsburg dynasty on the eve of the struggle between Habsburgs and Turks for the hegemony of the Mediterranean and Central Europe. In 1519, Charles of Habsburg was elected Holy Roman Emperor, with the help of the Fugger money and the vote of Louis II as King of Bohemia, but owing to his obligations in the West and anarchic conditions within the German Empire, Charles could not engage a large force for the defence of Hungary. Ndndorfeh6rvar (Belgrade) fell in 1521, but the ruling class, bound up in their party struggles, did not worry about the defence of the country. Louis II had no other choice but to hand over the forti¬ fied castles of Croatia to Ferdinand of Habsburg, who garrisoned them with his own mercenaries. The court party, headed since the death of Bakdcz by the Palatine Istvdn Bathory, sent one embassy after another to the German imperial diet asking for help, but all in vain. In the meantime, Bdthory, accused of embezzling money col¬ lected for defence against the Turks, had been relieved as palatine by Zapolyai, and the nobility had intervened in favour of Werboczrs election. The court brought the copper mines under treasury manage¬ ment, but only deprived itself of credit from the Fuggers. The lack of funds also created critical conditions in the mines and was responsible for the rising of the miners in Besztercebdnya. Werboczi proved a worthy partner of the peasant scourge Z&polyai in his suppression of the miners in the spring of 1526. This coincided with the decision of Sultan Suleiman II, to launch his grand attack against Hungary. The small, badly organized Hungarian army was annihilated by the Turkish artillery and the assault of the janissaries on 29 August 1526 at MoMcs.

From the Battle of Mohács to 1711

The Division of Hungary into Three Parts (1526–1571)

Until the sixteenth century, the social structures of the various Euro¬ pean countries, even if they differed in level of development, still showed the same general tendencies. The increasing break-up of a self-sufficient economy, a gradual change-over to simple and later capitalist commodity production, together with attempts at centraliza¬ tion in the political sphere, were general tendencies everywhere. During the sixteenth century, however, considerable changes took place and Europe became divided into two regions, one where trade and another where agriculture was preponderant. The dividing line between the two regions, once it settled down after the initial period of changes, ran along the Elbe and the eastern foothills of the Alps.

The fate of the Central European states, among them Hungary, also depended on the economic and political changes which began in the sixteenth century. Those historic forces which had contributed to the slow emergence of the Danube monarchy of the Habsburgs, the Prussian state and the Russian empire, eroded the economic and social foundations of the independence of the Hungarian, Bohemian and Polish states. Hungary was first to meet disaster.

Two Kings

There were other reasons than military why the battle of Mohacs was more than a defeat; it was, in fact, one of the greatest disasters in Hungarian history. The military defeat brought into operation certain factors which might have emerged much later, and possibly only one by one. The first of these factors was the growing Turkish menace. Between Hunyadi’s victory at Nandorfehdrvar and the fall of the same fortress seven decades later, fighting had continued around the southern border of the country, but the Turks could not break through the Save-Danube defensive line. During the reign of Selim (1512-1520), the Turks had turned their backs on Europe, and given their attention to the occupation of Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Arabia. To offset this respite, the military bases acquired in the Middle East multiplied the strength of the Turks. The accession of Suleiman II brought a change in policy; the Turks turned again towards Europe, and owing to the turmoil in Hungary it was impossible to prepare effective defences against them. The twofold structure of the Turkish army, a massive core of spahis (cavalry) and janissaries (infantrymen) and an undisciplined auxiliary army depending upon its overwhelming weight of numbers, would have required a similar army to counter it. An army of this type had been organized by Hunyadi at Ndndorfehervdr, consisting of mercena¬ ries and crusaders. With the crushing of the‘Black Army’and Dozsa’s crusaders, the Hungarian ruling class had deprived itself both of mercenaries and of a massive force of armed peasants such as the peasant crusaders had been. The baronial and county battalions did not make up for either at Moh&cs. Nevertheless, the country had not yet been crushed. The sultan marched into Buda, but soon removed his forces from the country, fearing a counter-attack, for there was a Hungarian army intact under Zapolyai, which was late to join the battle of Moh&cs.

The country’s defence, on the other hand, could not be properly organized, because of the political situation. Louis II died on the battlefield of Moh&cs. As he was the last of the Hungarian-Bohemian branch of the Jagiello dynasty, the decree of 1505, excluding the elec¬ tion of a foreign ruler, came into force, side by side with theHabsburg- Jagiello mutual succession agreement. It provided an open field not only for the most powerful Hungarian baron with the bulk of the nobility behind him, that is to say, J&nos Zdpolyai, but also for the Habsburgs, who were striving to establish supremacy over the Euro¬ pean, and more specifically, Central European states. If the Hungarian ruling class had established a united front in favour of either of them, it would have made possible joint action against the Turks. Both parties, however, looked upon the succession as a unique chance for the consolidation of their power.

As soon as the sultan retired from the devastated country, J&nos Zapolyai (1526-1540) was crowned king by his adherents. The court party, under the leadership of the Palatine Istvan Bdthory, and the dowager Habsburg Queen Mary, summoned a counter-diet, which elected the Habsburg Ferdinand I (1526-1564), the younger brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Zapolyai asked for the support of the king of France, a deadly enemy of the Habsburgs, but he receiv¬ ed no substantial aid. Ferdinand, with money obtained from the Fug- gers, organized an army and expelled Zdpolyai from the country.

Abandoned by his adherents, Zapolyai fled to his brother-in-law, the king of Poland. The latter did not want to get involved against the Habsburgs, but the cause of Zapolyai was fervently supported by a Polish aristocrat, Hieronymus Laski. He and the French ambassador jointly advised Zdpolyai to put himself under the protection of the sultan. Suleiman II accepted Laski’s proposal, and in 1529 he personal¬ ly launched an attack against Vienna. He did not succeed in occupying the seat of the Habsburgs, but Zdpolyai was able to return under the auspices of the Turkish army, and the frightened country took him back. Ferdinand’s party dwindled and he could keep control only over the western counties.

The magic circle had closed. The Hungarian barons had to realize that they were no longer free agents in their struggles, but had become the tools of two great powers, both wishing to keep Hungary for important strategic reasons. Charles V aimed at European supremacy, in the centre of his endeavours was the possession of Italy and the ending of the German wars of religion. The Turks, on the other hand, wished to obtain supremacy in the Mediterranean and extend then- power in the Danube region. The two powers clashed in the Mediter¬ ranean ; the outcome seemed doubtful until the victory of the Habsburg fleet at Lepanto in 1571. As the king of France, the ancient enemy of the Habsburgs, was also interested in the Mediterranean, the Danube region, in spite of its importance, remained secondary. The Habsburgs could not concentrate their forces there for a decisive battle and had to satisfy themselves with defensive action in the military zone of Vienna and with maintaining their hold on the western part of Hungary. A Turkish attack launched against Hungary in 1532 exhausted itself after the siege of a few castles. Until 1683, in spite of several attempts, the Turks failed to advance as far as Vienna. This was not entirely due to the effectiveness of the castle defence system, but also to the simple fact that the supply lines of the Turkish army did not reach beyond the western frontier of Hungary.

Constant attempts by two foreign powers to conquer Hungary made the country the scene of continuous battles. Turkish armies and Habsburg mercenaries, while clashing with each other, devastated the country and plundered the inhabitants. There would not have been peace even without the foreign soldiers. Within the confines of the two parts held by the two kings, their adherents continued their incessant private warfare. They plundered the estates of supporters of the op¬ posite side, and levied taxes, tithes and all other contributions possible on the peasants to cover their own war expenditures. They frequently changed over from one side to the other, according to the opportunities offered them by one or the other king. When at long last the members of the Hungarian ruling class came to realize that the civil war ought to be stopped and one of the kings made to resign, it was brought home to them that they no longer controlled the affairs of their own country. The Turks could not accept a solution which would have turned the whole country against them, nor could the Habsburgs agree to a pro-Turkish Hungary which would be a base for the enemy in its constant raids against them. Hungary could not extricate itself from the rivalry of Vienna and Constantinople and the partition continued.

Frustrated Attempts at Union

When Zapolyai died in 1540, his infant son, John Sigismund (1540- 1571), declared king by his supporters, was besieged by Ferdinand Habsburg at Buda. In 1541, Suleiman JI personally offered help to his protege’s heir. The enemy was dispersed, but Buda and the central part of the country remained in Turkish hands. Only the parts beyond the Tisza were ceded to John Sigismund in exchange for an annual ‘defence’ tax. This arrangement, with Hungary partitioned into three, lasted for a century and a half. The largest portion was the eastern kingdom ruled by the Zapolyai dynasty; it covered about half of the country, its western border extending along the Tisza as far as Szoinok, then past Eger, Miskolc, Kassa, Eperjes and Bartfa in the north. The fall of Buda must have been a clear indication, even to the most naive, that Suleiman, in spite of his promise, would prevent and not help the union of the country under John Sigismund. The Zapolyai party thus lost the moral and political basis of its existence, and there was nothing left to its leaders but to forget its past traditions and make common cause with the Habsburgs.

The reunion of the country, by then desired by the majority of the Hungarian ruling class, was left to the ablest statesman of the time, Gyorgy Martinuzzi, a monk of Croatian origin, Bishop of Vdrad, known by his nickname ‘Friar George’.

In the last years of Zdpolyai, Martinuzzi was the most influential man at court. The dying king left the fate of his young widow, Isabella (daughter of Sigismund I, King of Poland), and his infant son in his hands. Martinuzzi tried to keep his vow, and it was he who called in Suleiman to help against the besieging Habsburgs, and so involuntarily paved the way for Turkish rule. Fie devoted the rest of his life to atoning for this mistake, and offered the eastern kingdom to Ferdi¬ nand, should he be willing to grant John Sigismund the family posses- sions of the Zdpolyais, worth any small kingdom, and compensation to Isabella. The first step was for Ferdinand to send an army strong enough to fend off Turkish intervention. This had to wait for some time, because the army sent in 1542 to recapture Buda failed and Ferdinand had neither money nor inclination for a new venture. It was Suleiman, on the contrary, who was able to attack: he captured a great number of Hungarian castles and fortifications in the following year, thus extending the Turkish domain in Hungary.

It was only in the spring of 1551 that the long-expected detachment of Ferdinand’s army set foot in Transylvania. Queen Isabella was persuaded by Marlinuzzi to resign the crown in her son’s name, and accept estates in Silesia. But the army of 7,000 hired soldiers sent under General Castaldo was—according to the sarcastic remark of a contem¬ porary—‘too large for an embassy, too small for warfare’. Martinuzzi started negotiations with the Turks to gain time till the arrival of newly promised help from Ferdinand. The help never came, and Cas¬ taldo, believing rumours and stories about Martinuzzi’s treachery and his intimacy with the Turks, became afraid of a trap and brought about the murder of the ‘friar’.

This act hastened Turkish revenge. In 1552, two Turkish armies were sent against the Hungarian border fortresses, which, in fact, were hastily fortified medieval castles, monasteries and the like. The Habsburg army and the troops of the Hungarian nobility risked only a single open battle against them; after this ended in defeat, no further attempt was made to help the besieged castles, which had to surrender to the Turk one by one. The Pasha of Buda met resistance only at the castle of Dregely, whose heroic defenders under Gyorgy Szondy, instead of surrendering, fought on in the smouldering ruins to the last man. The Grand Vizier attacked from the south and surrounded Temesv&r, the key to the east of the country. Its commander, Istv&n Losonczi, pleaded for help, but Castaldo remained unmoved. At the request of his despairing soldiers Losonczi applied for and was granted a safe-conduct, but after his surrender the Turks ruthlessly massacred the whole garrison. The Grand Vizier continued on his way to take the most important fortress guarding the crossing of the Tisza, the castle of Szolnok. After taking it, he joined forces with the Pasha of Buda and together they proceeded to besiege Eger. With the fall of Eger the north-eastern part of Hungary would have come under Turkish rule. Its small garrison, under Istvan Dobd, held out heroically for thirty- eight days against continual Turkish assaults. Autumn weather at last compelled the enemy to withdraw. The plan of uniting Hungary under Habsburg rule remained impossible for a long time.

Political System of the East Hungarian Kingdom

On the orders of the Turks the Transylvanian diet of 1556 recalled Queen Isabella and John Sigismund. The East Hungarian Kingdom of the Zdpolyai dynasty was restored, butits size was drastically reduced. The Tisza region as far as Szolnok, occupied by the Turks in 1552, was not returned to John Sigismund. Beyond Transylvania, his rule extended only to the region of the Tisza north of Transylvania, and even there how long he could remain in power depended on the attitude of the local oligarchy. In Martinuzzi’s life-time, the centre of the East Hungarian Kingdom was outside Transylvania, in the Tisza region, though Queen Isabella held her court in Transylvania, at Gyulafeh6r- v£r. After 1552, however, the southern part of the Tisza region was in Turkish hands, and the northern part up to Tokaj belonged to the Habs’ourgs; consequently Transylvania became the mainstay of the Zapolyai kingdom. This greatly influenced the future of the state and its political structure, because the social development and ethnic composition of the two parts, i.e. Transylvania and the Tisza region, were entirely different.

The Tisza region was a country of big feudal estates. The great majority of the villages belonged to the Bishop of V&rad and a few aristocratic families, and the nobility were in their service. No free town had developed in this extensive region. This was the most pronounced¬ ly agrarian part of Hungary. On the other hand, there were nu¬ merous boroughs, considerable agricultural production, cattle-breed¬ ing centres giving more freedom to the peasants than was enjoyed by the villages. This economic and social structure had transformed the Tisza region into the classic land of feudal anarchy. Had the centre of gravity of the East Hungarian Kingdom remained there, central power could not have extricated itself from the bondage of the leading local barons.

The social conditions of Transylvania were entirely different. This province had attained a less advanced form of feudal development than Hungary. The territories of the Sekels and the Saxons with the mixed Rumanian-Hungarian counties, ruled by the nobility, had form¬ ed autonomous administrative districts. The mixed Hungarian-Saxon county towns, of which the most important was Kolozsvar, had their own local autonomy. The Sekel dignitaries, the Saxon patricians and the members of the nobility, the so-called ‘three nations’, were often divided by differences, but as members of the ruling class, had in¬ terests in common in relation to the oppressed classes. In Transyl¬ vanian society the voivode, appointed by the king of Hungary, assumed the highest judicial and military power. He also balanced the political differences of the three ‘nations’, playing them off against each other if necessary. In his official capacity he was given enormous estates, compared to which everybody else seemed poor, even the Bishop of Transylvania, although he was very rich indeed. About the middle of the sixteenth century only four Hungarian aristocratic families, the B&nffys, the Kendis, the Bethlens and the Apafis, owned more than fifty villages each, and these were divided between many members of each family. In Hungary they would hardly have counted as members of the baronage, rather as well-to-do nobility.

After the return of Isabella and John Sigismund, the office of the voivode and the bishoprics of Transylvania and Varad remained vacant, their enormous estates being managed by the treasury. The king disposed of their incomes and of the church tithes. The king thus became the largest landowner, which furnished him with the basis of central power. The diet consisting of the representatives of the three ‘nations’ and the nobility of the Tisza region obediently endorsed any royal wish. The organized opposition of the nobility, so typical in Habsburg Hungary, was hardly known in the eastern kingdom (the later Transylvanian principality), and only court intrigues were record¬ ed in its history.

Queen Isabella obtained privileges, greater than any Hungarian monarch since Matthias, and greater than those of any western ruler, including the Habsburgs. The queen used her absolute power in the name of her son: she appointed her officials, mainly foreigners, without consulting the diet and she entered into negotiations with foreign powers as she pleased. She had no preconceived political conceptions, but her instinct for power coincided with certain tendencies in histori¬ cal development, resulting from the social conditions of the East Hungarian Kingdom, and unwittingly she became the pioneer of centralized government.

The New Principality of Transylvania

After the death of Queen Isabella, in 1559, the affairs of the Transyl¬ vanian court were run in the name of the helpless John Sigismund by Istvdn Bathory. 'Hie most powerful aristocrat of the Tisza region, Bathory was holder of the highest military office, the governorship of Varad. His great political ambition was to preserve the vestiges of Hungarian independence (‘our survival’, as he said) by strengthening the East Hungarian Kingdom, under Turkish protection. He hoped to win lasting peace by checking the expansion of both Habsburg and Turkish power. To this end he persuaded John Sigismund to make his peace with the Habsburgs and reconcile himself to the temporary partition of Hungary. Ferdinand I himself was not averse to the idea of a settlement and invited B&thory to negotiations in Vienna. The lengthy discussions were interrupted by the death of Ferdinand in 1564, then in 1566 by the renewed attack of Suleiman II against Hungary, which proved to be his last, and was rendered memorable by the siege of Szigetvar. The castle had been reduced to a smouldering ruin when its captain, Miklos Zrinyi, at the head of his Hungarian and Croatian soldiers, broke out and engaged the besiegers in single combat to the last man. Owing to the long delay caused by the siege and the sudden death of the sultan, the Turkish army withdrew from Szigetvdr. The new sultan, Selim II, did not continue his father’s policy of con¬ quest. The explosive force of the Turkish Empire had exhausted itself; the Turkish political system proved unable to consolidate the economic and social life of the conquered countries, and through their ruthless exploitation the sultan undermined his own power. The Turkish decline only became apparent in another hundred years’ time, but its beginning became manifest with the Treaty of Adrianople, signed by Selim II and the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian II as King of Hungary (1564-1576) in 1568, which sanctioned the partition of the country for a long time to come.

Bathory’s policy was triumphant. According to the agreement of Speyer made in 1570, John Sigismund resigned his title of King of Hungary, contenting himself with the title of ‘Prince of Transylvania and Sovereign of Parts (Partium) of Hungary’. Outside Transylvania, i.e. in the Tisza region, he could only hold territories in fief from the Habsburg king, but, owing to the Turkish control of Transylvania, this restriction had no meaning at all. The new political structure, the Principality of Transylvania, could actually fill the role allotted to it by Bathory. After the death of John Sigismund in 1571, B&thory as the newly elected prince of Transylvania, tried to establish his power.

Political System of the West Hungarian Kingdom

The western and north-western part of the country, for a longer time under Habsburg rule, became part of the Habsburg Empire as the ‘Kingdom of Hungary’, an integral section of the great monarchy, as planned by Charles V and his brother Ferdinand. The latter had tried to comply with the task allotted to him in the world-wide dynastic design of the Habsburgs: the pacification of the internal anarchy within the German Empire and the checking of the Turkish menace in the Danube region. To this end, he tried to unite countries with entirely different historical traditions and ethnic compositions, like the Austrian provinces, Bohemia and Hungary, into a Burgundian type of administrative system. In 1527, he established his central admin¬ istration, to which, in principle, the administration of each country and province was subject, but, in practice, the opposition of the nobility prevented an actually united, central government. The court council never became the leading administrative power uniting the Habsburg countries, as planned by Ferdinand I, because the appointed Hungarian and Bohemian members were reluctant to participate. In 1537, the Hungarian and Bohemian section ceased to function, and in 1556, the Austrian provinces also withdrew, and the council became an exclusively German body. Instead of central government, indepen¬ dent governing bodies functioned in each country. After 1531, Fer¬ dinand I succeeded in preventing the appointment of the leading Hungarian official, the representative of the nobility, the palatine. Instead a church dignitary was appointed as president of the Hun¬ garian council. The Hungarian governing council was reorganized after 1542 as a collegiate body. Its members, on the other hand, were recruited from the feudal aristocracy, who were not uncritical instru¬ ments of the wishes of the ruler, and, in judicial matters, were nearer to the diet. In these circumstances, the Hungarian governing council failed to act as a bridge between the monarch and the administrative bodies, which still enjoyed wide autonomy. The county officials ap¬ pointed from the nobility were able to conduct affairs with almost complete disregard of the central government.

The right of most Western central governments to interfere directly in the life of the peasants, though they were under the rule of the landlords, did not really exist in the Habsburg Empire. New taxes could only be levied on the peasantry with the consent of the nobility. The chief weapon of the nobility against centralization had always been the right to vote taxes. Jurisdiction over the peasantry had, also by feudal right, been in the hands of the landlords. The failure to establish centralization in administrative and judicial matters con¬ tributed to the decay of the court chancery, an intermediate organ between the monarch and the executive official bodies. The court chancery remained the organ for expediting business only in the Aus¬ trian provinces; Hungary and Bohemia were given chanceries of their own.

In financial and military matters, however, Ferdinand I succeeded in subjecting the fiscal chambers in the different countries to the central organs. The Hof hammer developed into a supreme authority exercising direction and supervision over the Austrian, Hungarian and Czech treasuries. Although it had jurisdiction only over the management of crown lands and the regular royal revenues, with the public revenues voted by the nobility coming under it only in exceptional cases, admin¬ istration through the fiscal chamber proved to be the most lasting result of Habsburg centralization. The realization, through the estab¬ lishment in 1556 of the War Council, a centralized supreme military administration, was of similar importance. Ferdinand only succeeded in forming one central organ that drew together all the threads of political fife. This was the Privy Council, the personal advisory body of the monarch. In the composition and operation of this body the nobility had no voice whatsoever, although admittedly it did not function as an authority at all, as its decisions reached the administra¬ tive officials as the personal directives of the ruler. Its members included aristocrats and prelates from the German Empire, Austria and—less frequently—Bohemia, and also lawyers from the German Empire. Since the Habsburg emperor had very little actual power in the German Empire, in reality the Privy Council ruled countries that were hardly represented in it, if at all. Its activities were regarded as alien rule, not only by the completely disregarded Hungarian nobility, but by the Austrian and Czech nobility as well.

The Habsburg system in the sixteenth century was characterized by a contradictory position with regard to central government, for the monarch was granted a free hand in foreign affairs and military mat¬ ters, but in administrative and judicial matters full autonomy was granted to the nobility. The policy of Charles V and Ferdinand I was not based on the mercantilist protection of their subjects for parti¬ cipation in world trade, as was that of the absolute rulers of France and England, but sought to obtain credits from South German and Italian merchant bankers, mainly Genoese, who were not even under their rule. They could not have done otherwise, as the bourgeoisie in their own countries had not advanced far enough in capitalist develop¬ ment (except in the Low Countries, the first to dissociate itself from the Habsburg patrimony) to furnish sufficient credit for the many- sided needs of Habsburg policy. Foreign credits freed the Habsburgs from the control of the nobility, but in return they were obliged to pledge their mines and a considerable portion of the royal revenues to foreign merchants, and accord them many privileges in domestic and foreign commerce, which could not but be detrimental to the internal development of trade and industry; what was more, the extension of the policy of centralization was hindered, thus paving the way for its crisis.

The Establishment of Effective Defences against the Turks

The royal income of Ferdinand of Habsburg, according to the estimates of Venetian ambassadors, amounted to three million florins, the Aus¬ trian provinces contributing one and a half million, the countries of the Bohemian crown one million and Hungary half a million. It would have been a considerable sum had half of it not been spent as advance payments on royal debts. On the death of Ferdinand I his debts amounted to seven and a half million florins. This had risen to ten millions by 1573. The annual cost of defence against the Turks amount¬ ed to an average of900,000 florins, the remainder being hardly enough for the royal household and central administration. Any expense be¬ yond the maintenance of the military and political status quo only added to the state debt, creating a growing drain on revenues. The German Empire of which Ferdinand was first king then emperor, contributed only special grants until 1556, after which regular financial aid was given. Owing to administrative difficulties in collecting the money, however, not more than half of the aid became available, about 100,000 florins around the middle of the century, and, later, 200,000- 300,000 florins. Imperial policy cost the Austrian Habsburgs much more: the election expenses to the German throne alone amounted to 350,000 florins, most of it spent as bribes to the German electors. Ferdinand was obliged to borrow from the Fuggers, and incurred new debts amounting to one million florins.

In these circumstances, notwithstanding the results of Ferdinand’s policy of centralization, the fact that the revenues coming from Habs¬ burg Hungary were greater than those from the whole country in Jagiello times, and the number of new fortifications built in the frontier district, central power never properly established itself. Local ad¬ ministration in Hungary as well as military defence v/as mainly in the hands of feudal self-government. The royal chamber officials also employed the local county administration to collect the extra war-tax (dica, a constant and increasing burden in the life of the peasantry) and the tithes, which were farmed out from the Church to the State. The final control of royal revenues was thus given over to the nobility, and because of the privilege obtained in the Jagiello period by the big landowners to keep an army of hired soldiers, they were able to ap¬ propriate illicit sums of money. Behind the fine of fortified castles controlled by the central power, there existed a series of private castles in the hands of the landlords, the garrison of which were paid partly from state money and partly from the landlords’ private income. The private feudal armies contributed considerably to the defence of the country, but even more so to the power of the aristocracy among whom only the Perenyis, Losonczis and B&thorys represented the baronial families from the period before Mohacs. The others (the Nadasdy, Zrinyi, Batthyany, Dobo, Forgach, P&lffy and Rakoczi families) were descended from military and civil office-holders, and from other elements of the nobility and townsmen who had become rich during the sixteenth century. The land-owning aristocracy filled the highest posts in the political administration and, also, claimed vacancies in the command of royal castles, judging themselves offended if the Habsburgs appointed foreign mercenaries to command the castles. The nobility, which had lost its land during the Turkish occupa¬ tion, looked for new opportunities to advance themselves by military service, but they had not yet extricated themselves directly or in¬ directly from the influence of the big landlords. Private feudal armies flourished in the sixteenth centuiy, and with the influence of the nobility dwindling in the diet, the counties became the tools of the aristocratic fdisp&m (lord lieutenants).

The actual political system of the Kingdom of Hungary was a balance between the central power, relying on foreign funds, and feudal autono¬ my. Thus the central power and the feudal ruling class were able to collaborate and ward off the Turkish menace. The line of border castles was strengthened, reaching from the Adriatic through Croatia, along the northern shore of Lake Balaton, up to the Danube bend and to the foot of the Carpathians and the Upper Tisza, and remained so in the sixteenth century. The new defensive tactics of the castle garrison, with their constant harassing assaults, forced the Turks to build their own fortifications along the frontiers. The expansion of the Turks was halted, and they could no longer reckon with any territorial gain. No more could be achieved by the joint efforts of the Habsburgs and the Hungarian ruling class. The compromise, therefore, of the Habsburg dynasty with the Hungarian ruling class began to weaken towards the end of the sixteenth century, as a result of the development of economic and social forces.

Interruption in Economic and Social Development (16th Century)

The discoveries and colonizations of the Western countries considerably increased their existing advantage in economic development over the Eastern European countries. Contrary to the general belief that Eastern Europe was isolated from world markets by changes in the routes of international trade, Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian copper, mercury and iron and Silesian and Bohemian linen reached Asia and the American colonies from the ports of Venice and Antwerp. The real reason for the economic and social backwardness of the countries of Eastern Europe was precisely their foreign trade, then- dependence on the capitalist economy of the West. Owing to this relationship, the economic and social development of the Eastern European countries stood still, and even deteriorated, compared with the West. The long-forgotten, brutal methods of feudal oppression and exploitation were renewed in the system of the so-called ‘second serf¬ dom’ which was connected with the renewal of the self-managed dem¬ esne of the landlord to the detriment of the peasant’s tenure.

In Hungary, owing to the Turkish occupation, the general Eastern European trends produced the most unfavourable economic and social structure.

The Decay of Town Markets

Large, important Hungarian towns, including Buda, Pest, Szekes- feh6rv£r, Esztergom and Szeged, became military settlements under Turkish rule, with modest local domestic industries. Nor could the towns of the Habsburg kingdom and of the Transylvanian Principal¬ ity keep up the level of development achieved in the previous century. Citizens who had escaped from Buda and Pest increased by 4,000-5,000 the number of the inhabitants of Pozsony and Nagyszombat, but most towns about the middle of the sixteenth century had an average popula¬ tion of 2,000-3,000. Not only were handicrafts stagnating in the Hun- garian towns, but their trading importance also diminished during the sixteenth century.

The structure of Hungarian foreign trade changed very little. In the middle of the sixteenth century 90 per cent of imports were manu¬ factured commodities, while 99 per cent of exports to the West were agricultural produce and metal ores. Whatever change had occurred had not been favourable. About 80 per cent of all exports were made up of cattle, the rest being copper, inconsiderable compared to previous figures. The copper mines of Besztercebanya, so flourishing at the beginning of the century, were given up by the Fuggers in 1547, because of uncertain conditions inside the country, and the more competitive price of Swedish and Japanese copper on the world markets. The importance of precious metals (gold and silver) had also diminished. About the middle of the century, the yearly production was only 500 kilogrammes of gold and 6,000 kilogrammes of silver in the whole of Hungary. The latter comprised 20 per cent of the total silver production of Central Europe, which was extremely little com¬ pared with the 200,000 kilogrammes a year produced in America, increasing by the end of the century to one and a half million kilo¬ grammes.

The majority of manufactured goods which constituted the bulk of imports came from the West. As their price rose less than that of agricultural products, the price revolution enabled Hungarian ex¬ porters of cattle and wine to buy more foreign commodities. Cloth was imported mainly from Germany, Moravia and Silesia, and partly from England, especially kersey, the typical cloth used for soldiers’ uniforms. With Turkish fashions gaining more ground, the import of eastern silks, linens and leather goods also increased. Metal goods, weapons, knives and scythes were imported mainly from Nuremberg and Styria. With rising standards of comfort and style inside the home since the Renaissance, it was not only the barons, but also the nobility and the well-to-do bourgeoisie who wanted to own a German bed and an Italian armchair in place of the bench used previously. They also wanted English, Italian, German or Turkish utensils made of lead, copper, glass and pottery, instead of wooden plates and mugs; German, Polish or Italian tapestries, Turkish rugs for the walls and floors of their rooms, Viennese locks and padlocks to secure their coins and jewellery.

The conservative guild system of handicrafts in the Hungarian towns could not successfully compete with the products of foreign workshops. In the second half of the sixteenth century, as a result of the price revolution in Europe, the prices of raw materials rose,

compelling Hungarian artisans to raise their prices. The nobility insisted on their reduction and the county administration was entrusted with the task of forcing the towns to comply with their instructions. The result could only be a further decline in handicrafts, aggravated by a new development: the landlords began to employ artisans on their estates to produce the most important commodities. The peas¬ antry did not need the superior products of the town guilds, and bought the cheaper goods of the unskilled artisans of the county boroughs.

Owing to the decline of their trade, the attraction of the markets of the royal towns diminished while the markets in the boroughs became busier, because the agricultural produce of the large estates and of the peasantry were also on sale there. By this time the royal towns had lost their former role in handling cattle exports. This was the only profitable business which fell into the hands of the well-to-do peasants and the lesser nobility. They either sold their own cattle, resold bought cattle, or else acted as agents for the big landlords.

Because of the price revolution and the decline in trade and handi¬ crafts, a shortage of food appeared in the royal towns. The first re¬ action was the thorough utilization of every bit of common land within the town boundaries for cultivation. Later the town purchased villages farmed by tenants and, like any other landlord, obtained cheap food from the tenants’ dues. Vineyards were especially favoured, but if the area bought was not suitable for wine, individual citizens, or the town itself, bought land in the Tokaj region, and produced their own wine there.

Increasing Labour Services

With the loss of an outlet to the royal towns, the landlords and the peasants competed, even if with unequal prospects, in the agricultural markets of Hungary. Though the town market was declining, peasant production continued to rise throughout the sixteenth century, due to the increase of foreign trade. From the surviving records of the land¬ lords and from the records of church tithes, it appears that a wealthy section of the peasantry was in the ascendant, producing far more grain, wine and cattle than its own needs.

In the war-torn parts of the country, the means of agricultural pro¬ duction had no chance to develop. Within the areas of the numerous destroyed villages of the Great Plain, former arable land was used for extensive cattle breeding. The peasants living inside the boroughs rented the fields of deserted villages for the breeding of thousands of oxen to be exported to Western countries. Debrecen, under the leader¬ ship of the rich cattle-merchants, developed handicrafts, and the number of its inhabitants and the rate of its trade surpassed any royal town. In other parts of the country, agriculture developed further: about the middle of the sixteenth century viticulture in the Tokaj region was reorganized with the invention of the methods to produce the sweet aszu wine, which gave new impetus to wine export to Poland. In certain wine-producing regions all other forms of cultivation were stopped by the end of the sixteenth century, and vine-growing occu¬ pied every inch of ground.

The flourishing of the cattle-breeding and wine-trading boroughs was interrupted, however, when the landlords began to market then- own produce. Figures are available on the commercial activities of the landlords in the fifteenth century and even before, although they did not produce commodities themselves, but sold those of their tenants. The demesne declined in the thirteenth century and existed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in only a few places. In the fifteenth century, it had still not been uncommon for landlords to buy their household necessities in the markets of the boroughs; but by the early sixteenth century, many landlords already produced their own wheat, wine and cattle on their newly expanded demesnes, called major (manor), sending the surplus to the market for sale. It is obvious that by then the landlord no longer bought the products of the peasants and as the town market continued to shrink there was little for the peasant to sell and even less to buy. He had little money to pay trades¬ men and merchants and even less for the landlord. About 1530 it was common custom, throughout the country, to enforce the labour serv¬ ices of the peasants on the manorial fields side by side with hired labour. By the middle of the century, one baronial manor after the other reduced hired labour by expecting more from the tenants than the weekly one-day labour service fixed by law, making it compulsory for two days, or even three days a week, on every third week, or even every other week. But this custom was soon transgressed by landlords and their officials who demanded unlimited labour services whenever it pleased them. The raising of labour services was accompanied by peasant revolts throughout the country in the 1570s.

Labour service limited the peasants’ own commodity production, although the price revolution enabled them for the time being to com¬ pete on the foreign markets. But the change in the agrarian system brought about other changes, too. About the middle of the sixteenth century, villages and boroughs were obliged to sell the landlord’s wine regularly, or else during a certain period of the year visit regularly the inn under the landlord’s management. With this arrangement wine, the most profitable commodity on the Hungarian agricultural market, became monopolized by the landlords, a tremendous blow to the peas¬ antry, who were thus deprived of the best source of their income as wine producers—the retail sale of wine. Even later, at the time of the heyday of the manorial system, the landlord’s wine monopoly was his best source of income, contributing from a half to two-thirds of the total income of the estate. The landlords obtained wine for their inns and for the ever-increasing foreign market in Poland and Silesia from the traditional ninth and by forcing the peasants to sell. These forced sales became common in other commodities too, and they were sanctioned by the diet about the middle of the century. Buying at a low price and selling some at the highest price to the peasantry, while exporting the remainder, created a comfortable market for the Hun¬ garian ruling class in exchange for the ever-shrinking market of the towns.

The Turkish Occupation and Its Effects on Economic and Social Conditions

In both the Habsburg kingdom and in the Principality of Transylvania the manor system based on labour services began to flourish, with the difference that in Transylvania the Sekel and Saxon peasants could not be compelled either by their own dignitaries or by the Hungarian nobility to perform forced labour services. In the parts under Turkish occupation, however, special conditions prevailed.

The landlords and the majority of the town bourgeoisie fled from the Turks, and the remaining village and town population became ordinary tax-payers of the sultan. The villages were given in fief to the spahis and the rest of the country—the bulk of the boroughs— paid their taxes direct to the Turkish treasury. The Turkish occupiers administered both villages and towns themselves, hiring out the col¬ lection of taxes to men appointed from their own ranks and placing jurisdiction in the hands of the kadis (judges). The level of dues did not differ from what it had been under the Hungarian lords, except for an additional poll tax on all non-Moslems, and some other special Turkish taxes. The spahis, like others who rented estates from the sultan, tried to exploit the peasants as much as possible, not knowing how long they would be allowed to stay. On the other hand, they only collected taxes and dues in kind, without expecting manorial labour services from the peasants.

During the sixteenth century, the Hungarian state and the landlords also tried to levy taxes on the peasantry under Turkish rule, a custom reciprocated by the Turks in the villages on the Turkish-Hungarian border. In the Treaty of Adrianople (1568), and in succeeding treaties as well, the arrangement known as Hungarian-Turkish condominium was formally sanctioned, meaning the sharing of taxes collected by both parties from the peasantry. The king of Hungary and the sultan mutually agreed to cede half of their tax revenues to each other, per¬ mitting the Hungarian landlords who fled beyond the border to levy taxes in their villages under Turkish rule. This right was enforced from time to time by deeds of arms by the garrisons of the border fortresses.

The border militia, who had a special reputation for bravery, rendered service in the castles of the king and the barons, and gradually rose to form a warrior elite. They assumed the special tactics of ‘offensive defence’, meaning the constant harassment of the enemy. They were obliged to do so by force of necessity, as neither king nor landlords could offer a regular pay, and their living had to come from the spoils of their raids in Turkish territories. In peacetime these raids continued incessantly, with Hungarian and Turkish warriors challenging each other to ‘friendly’ encounters during the lull.

In Western Europe this was the time of the creation of national states and national churches. In Hungary, owing to economic and social circumstances, and to the influence of the ideals of the Renais¬ sance and the Reformation, the military fighting spirit fostered na¬ tional consciousness: the idea that the Hungarian nation had the mission of defending the whole of Christianity against the pagan Turks.

Late Renaissance and Reformation

Humanist and Renaissance literature and art flourished in the country after Moh&cs, moving out of the royal court and the closed society of the high church dignitaries into the ranks of the nobility and towns¬ men. About the middle of the century, most of the writers were still churchmen, like the two outstanding writers of Renaissance memoirs, Miklos Olah and Antal Verancsics, Archbishops of Esztergom. Under the influence of Erasmus the cult of the national language began, tak¬ ing the form of Hungarian translations of the Bible which were culti¬ vated by the lesser clergy. The first church reformers also came from the ranks of Hungarian followers of Erasmus. The Reformation in Hungary took root in the court of Louis II and in the Erasmian circle of Queen Mary, and, after Mohacs, though both Ferdinand I and King John Z&polyai were devout Roman Catholics, it spread uninter¬ ruptedly. At first it was the ideas of Luther which spread, but by the fifties the teachings of the Swiss reformers prevailed in Hungary. Even the ideas of the anti-Trinitarian Servetus, burnt at Geneva, had sup¬ porters, who in Hungary combined them with Anabaptist ideas. The anti-Trinitarian movement was headed by Ferenc D&vid of Kolozsvdr; he propagated mystic teachings about the coming of the ‘thousand- year empire’ and the ruin of the ‘infidel’, along with ideas attacking the dogma of the Trinity. In 1570, the year prophesied by him, the suffering peasantry of the Tisza region, oppressed by both landlords and Turks, rose under Gyorgy Karacsony, aiming first to drive out the Turks and then to turn against the landlords. Their first venture against the Turks, however, proved unsuccessful, and the Hungarian feudal lords combined forces to suppress the rising. After this event, the anti-feudal Protestant sects could only continue in small communities, such as the Sabbatarians in Transylvania, who survived to the end of the nineteenth century.

The nobility, except for a small minority, welcomed the Reforma¬ tion. They had opportunities to receive church property, while manag¬ ing to check the revolutionary trend of the Reformation; and they forged from its democratic ideas weapons for restricting royal power. In the beginning, the preachers, mainly of peasant and urban origin, tried to raise their voices in support of the just grievances of peasantry and townspeople; they openly criticized the lords for oppressing their tenants and neglecting the defence of their country, but in the course of time, as their livelihood became threatened, they compromised and became themselves the defenders of the feudal system. The landlords managed to sponsor not only the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches, but also the anti-Trinitarian (later the Unitarian) Church as well. In the German towns and the Hungarian and Slovak parts of the north¬ western region Lutheranism won, whereas Calvinism spread mainly in parts of the country under Turkish occupation and in the Transyl¬ vanian Principality. Anti-Trinitarianism spread in the same regions as Calvinism, but on a smaller scale. The Reformation had taken a heavy toll on the Roman Catholic Church, which was reduced temporarily to a small minority of the population.

The Reformation influenced favourably the development of the Hungarian language, as the reformers preached in the vernacular. Of the numerous Bible translations, that of G&spar K&roli, which was printed in 1590, was most popular, and influenced the development of the literary medium to as great an extent as Luther’s Bible translation in Germany. Many schools and printing presses came into existence.

The famous Calvinist schools of Debrecen, Sdrospatak and Maros- vdsdrhely, and the anti-Trinitarian school of Kolozsv£r became col¬ leges as early as the sixteenth century.

In Transylvania religious toleration—unique in this^epoch—existed until 1570: the three offshoots of the Reformation, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anti-Trinitarianism, were declared established reli¬ gions along with Roman Catholicism, but the Orthodox religion of the Rumanian peasantry was only tolerated. In this atmosphere, the more extreme proponents of the Reformation, expelled from their own countries, were given shelter, men like Blandrata, Sozzini, Paleolog and Sommer. Istvan B&thory restricted anti-Trinitarianism by permit¬ ting the Jesuits to settle and by the introduction of the Counter-Re¬ formation, but he could not limit the other Protestant religions. The only change in Transylvania in matters of religion was that, with the restriction of the anti-Trinitarians, Calvinism prevailed.

Literature also became a means for the reformers to propagate their ideas. The poems of Andrds Szkdrosi Horvdt, the plays of Mihdly Sztarai and the tales of Gaspar Heltai admonished both the Roman Church and the feudal lords for oppressing the people. After the sup¬ pression of radical trends within the Reformation, not only the subject- matter, but also the style of literature changed. Instead of religious controversy, the temporarily silent ideas of the secular Renaissance were reintroduced. In the court of the B&thorys, humanist historians, like Ferenc Forgach and Istv&n Szamoskozy, were heartily welcomed.

Patriotic ideas mingled with those of humanism and the Reforma¬ tion in the poetry of Balint Balassi. His patriotic and religious poems and his love lyrics achieved high standards of perfection in Hungarian literature.

In architecture, it was only after MoMcs that the Renaissance style finally prevailed over the Gothic. The Reformation did not inspire new church buildings, but the Turkish occupation encouraged the building of castles. The best buildings of the sixteenth century are fortresses built by Italian architects (the most advanced being those of GyoT, Komarom and Ersekujvdr in Hungary, and Vdrad, Szamos- ujvdr and Fogaras in Transylvania), residential castles built by Italian and Hungarian masters and fortified manor houses. The most typical was the quadrangle castle with four turrets, one in each corner—many of these survive in every part of the country (S&rv&r, Nagybiccse etc.).

The Crisis of Habsburg Power (1571–1606)

In the last third of the sixteenth century the power of the Austrian Habsburgs was seriously threatened. The background to the crisis was the strengthening of the feudal ruling class, which both crushed the peasantry and obstructed the life of the towns. But the compromise between the ruler and the nobility was upset only when the resources of the dynasty underwent setbacks caused by the failures of the South German merchants and the constant blows levelled at Spanish power in the Low Countries and on the English coast.

From the seventies onwards, all over the Habsburg countries, the nobility attempted to restrict central government, and their efforts, especially in the Hungarian diets, became more and more forceful. In 1576, the royal governor, speaking in the name of the Estates, called upon King Maximilian to relieve the country ‘from the slavery and tyranny introduced under his rule and formerly unknown in these parts’, meaning the absolutist provisions of central government. It was well-known in Vienna that many barons and nobles in the Hungarian kingdom adhered to the Transylvanian prince, expecting from him the reunion of Hungary and the end of Habsburg rule.

Centralization in Transylvania

Istvan Bathory (1571-1586) had brought about such consolidation in Transylvania that it was quite natural for the Hungarian ruling class, dissatisfied with Habsburg rule, to turn to him. He was the vassal of the Turks and paid taxes to the sultan but he could prevent Turkish interference in the life of the country and could act independently in foreign affairs, and it was he, not Maximilian, who secured for himself the vacant crown of the Polish Jagiellos in 1575. He appointed his brother Kristof as voivode of Transylvania, but managed the affairs of Transylvania himself through the Hungarian chancery at Cracow. The fact that the prince of Transylvania was at the same time king of Poland meant that the fate of the country was involved with the Polish-Russian-Swedish struggle for supremacy in the Baltic. Bathory and his Polish adherents fostered the idea of an Eastern European empire stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The plan was hardly real- istic at a time when anarchy in Poland prevented the supply of either material or military forces for a sustained campaign.

In Transylvania B&thory very shrewdly played against each other the conflicting interests of the three ‘nations’—the Hungarian nobility, the Sekels and the Saxons—and, in the meantime, created a new social basis for his power in the rising social class of the free military peasantry. Such a class had been formed earlier by the Sekels, but their unity was disrupted by the endeavours of their leaders to make them their serfs. The common people, hit also by Martinuzzi’s new taxes, rose up in defence of their liberties. The rising failed in 1562, and afterwards the mass of the Sekels became the Prince’s serfs, but the Sekel leaders were granted equal rights with the Hungarian nobles and the landlords’ rights over their Sekel servants. B&thory, in order to make up for his loss of soldiers, raised to the rank of nobility indi¬ viduals and groups of Hungarian, Rumanian and Sekel peasants, oblig¬ ing them to perform paid military service in his Russian campaign.

His officials managing the affairs of Transylvania were men of h umanis tic culture, educated at the University of Padua, who obe¬ diently executed Bathory’s orders to extort money contributions and soldiers from the reluctant Transylvanian nobility for his wars fought in pursuit of apparent Polish interests. His distant hopes of reuniting Hungary with Polish help were frustrated, however, by his premature death, when Transylvania came under the rule of his mediocre nephew, Zsigmond B&thory (1586-1598).

A New Court Aristocracy and the Fifteen Years War

The internal crisis in the Habsburg Empire had in the meantime be¬ come more acute. During the reign of Rudolf (1576-1608), the struggle between the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian nobility, who were mainly Protestants, and the Catholic dynasty, became a religious issue. The number of aristocrats who had become rich from commodity production had grown, and in return for loans supplied by them to the dynasty during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, they took into their possession most of the treasury estates. The Austrian landed aristocracy moved into key positions in the central financial admin¬ istration, sharing the rent of state revenues with the office-holding bureaucracy and with Austrian merchant capitalists released from the South German pressure. A growing number of the landed aristocracy abandoned the camp of the opposition and took up their position in the service of the central power. This aristocracy cannot be identified with the court aristocracy of absolute monarchies in Western Europe, because they were active partners in economic life and capitalist ven¬ tures; they could rather be compared to the commercialized nobility of England. This society, however, was backward in capitalist develop¬ ment, and the feudal ruling class had not assumed bourgeois virtues; on the contrary, it was the bourgeoisie that became feudalized. The basis of power and wealth remained the feudal estate, and the rising bourgeoisie also wished to become feudal landowners.

At the end of the sixteenth century, the forces wishing to support centralization were still in a state of formation. The leaders were them¬ selves hesitating about whether to join the opposition or the central power, but favourable conditions during the fifteen years of the Turk¬ ish wars helped to show the way towards the final decision.

Tension within, and renewed attack from the Turks, forced the Habsburg court in 1591 to agree with the Hungarian nobility and start the v/ar. But the Habsburgs had so many debts that they were unable to incur new financial and military obligations, so there was no proper army to fight against the Turks, only the private armies of the Hungarian aristocracy and the castle garrisons. The war was carried on by temporarily hired foreign soldiers under mercenary lead¬ ers, dismissed and reorganized from year to year according to the amount of money available from papal and German donations. But the Turkish force was also weak and the Habsburgs could boast of some initial successes.

The cooperation of Transylvania and the two Rumanian principal¬ ities was very helpful. The adviser of Zsigmond B&thory, Istvan Bocs¬ kai, could see no other way out for the country, now deprived of its Polish backing, than alliance with the Habsburgs. He hoped to have a voice in Hungarian affairs should the war against the Turks be suc¬ cessful. In 1595, Bocskai and Michael, voivode of Wallachia, won a decisive victory over the Turks at Giurgiu, and most of the escaping Turks perished in the Danube. The Transylvanian army captured the Turkish castles along the Maros river. But the allies lost a battle at Mezokeresztes in 1596 when the sultan personally led his army. The war dragged on for another decade, with the border fortresses chang¬ ing hands several times, but neither party could get the upper hand. In between their battles, both the unpaid soldiers of the Habsburgs and the Turkish marauders plundered practically the whole country.

Zsigmond Bathory, wanting to extricate himself from this unlucky war, ceded Transylvania to King Rudolf of Habsburg. The Transylvan¬ ian ruling class, however, fearing Turkish retaliation, desired peace with the sultan. After fierce civil war, Basta, the mercenary leader of the Habsburgs, held the country in terror for years.

The ruling class of Habsburg Hungary became embittered because of the miseries of the ever-prolonged Turkish war, their inferior role to the foreign mercenaries in conducting the affairs of the war and, last but not least, because they were not able to benefit from any boom brought about by the war itself. The Hungarian commodity-producing landlords tried to get contracts with the army or offer loans against treasury security, but always found the Austrian landlords, the office¬ holding bureaucracy or their allies, the rich bourgeoisie, blocking their way.

The most typical representative of the new Austrian capitalists, Lazarus Henckel, the son of a chamber official in Hungary, started as an agent of a firm in Ulm, and went over into business on his own. During the Fifteen Years War he supplied cloth for the Habsburg army, monopolized most of the cattle trade in Hungary, and advanced loans to the court on the strength of future financial aid to come from Germany. By about 1604, the Habsburg court owed him approximately one million florins. To cover it, he was promised a share in the copper business in Beszterceb&nya, and the confiscated estates of a Hungarian magnate, Istvan Uleshazy.

Ulesh&zy himself, a one-time nobleman, had worked his way into the Hungarian aristocracy through engagement in commercial enter¬ prises and became a firm opponent of the large-scale interests of Austrian merchant capital in Hungary. He was charged with treason, not only as a means of forcing the withdrawal of an inopportune in¬ dividual, but as the first step in a general attack against the Hungarian aristocracy. The confiscation of their estates was an attempt to break the resistance of the strongest opposition to Habsburg absolutism and, also, to replenish the empty treasury of the ruler. The Austrian aristo¬ crats and bourgeois capitalists around the monarch hoped by this means to obtain estates in Hungary and the right to own commercial monopolies there. The Hungarian high court acquitted I116sh£zy, but the Habsburg court falsely condemned him to death and ordered the confiscation of his estates, so that Illeshazy was obliged to flee abroad. While the Habsburgs were engaged in preparing new charges against the Hungarian landlords. General Belgiojoso occupied the Protestant churches in the towns and confiscated the goods of resisting burghers.

The Bocskai Rising

Resistance in Hungary found a worthy leader in the person of Istvan Bocskai who, disappointed with Habsburg policy, had retired to his estates near V&rad. He was persuaded by the pro-Turkish, young lead¬ er of the Transylvanian exiles, Gabor Bethlen, to organize an uprising against the Habsburg rule with Turkish help. Belgiojoso found out about the rising and in the autumn of 1604 advanced with his army against Bocskai. Beyond the few hundred garrison guards of his castles, Bocskai had no armed forces at his disposal, as his negotiations with the Turks had only been in the initial stage. In this situation he asked for the help of the marauding soldiers of the Tisza region, and also succeeded in winning over the Hungarian mercenaries of Belgio- joso’s army.

These soldiers, called heyducks ( hajdu) were peasants who had escaped in great numbers from the Turkish devastation and the land¬ lords’ oppression and had taken up military service for hire, or else plundered the country for a livelihood. In the wars against the Turks they distinguished themselves for toughness, but in want of a standing mercenary army, only some of them could become regular soldiers. The Hungarian diet had several times ordered that they should be reinstated as peasants, or failing this, wiped out. Bocskai with his enlisted heyducks repulsed Belgiojoso’s attack and occupied Debrecen, Kassa and, after some misadventures, finally expelled Basta’s army, which was sent against him, from the country. The majority of the ruling class were forced by the peasantry in unison with the heyducks to join forces with Bocskai. The nobility of Transylvania elected him prince and the sultan offered him the crown of Hungary.

At the height of Bocskai’s power, social unrest became apparent. The Transylvanian nobility wished to restore the kingdom of Hungary under Turkish protection, but the landlords of Habsburg Hungary, headed by 1116shazy, wished for agreement with the Habsburgs, in exchange for religious toleration and autonomy. Both parties agreed on one point: that the disarming of the heyducks and the peasantry in their train was a matter of first importance, or the rising might easily rid itself of the control of the feudal lords, and break out into a real peasant war. In this situation there was nothing left for Bocskai but to attempt to open negotiations.

After long delays and discussions, a compromise was reached in 1606, and signed as the Treaty of Vienna. It recognized the independ¬ ence of the Principality of Transylvania, accorded religious toleration in the towns and frontier castles in the part of the kingdom returned to Habsburg rule, and stipulated that the government should be in the hands of appointed members of the Hungarian aristocracy and nobility. A solution to the heyduck question was suggested by Bocskai: he gave them a similar status to the free Sekel peasants doing military service. Ten thousand heyducks were offered land and exemption from feudal burdens in return for free military service. With Bocskai’s me¬ diation the Treaty of Zsitvatorok was signed in the same year by the Turks and Habsburgs; it ceded Eger and Kanizsa to the Turks, who had previously occupied them, and secured peace for the country.

The System of 'Perpetual Serfdom' and the Subjection of the Towns to the Nobility

The settling of the heyducks marked a breach in the system of op¬ pression of the peasantry by the landlord. On the other hand, all the achievements of the Bocskai rising had only strengthened the position of the ruling class against the endeavours of the central power and the struggles of the peasantry. The diet’s Act of 1608 recognized the final judicial power of the landlord over the peasantry, and the county was to be the only administrative body with power to decide the movement of the peasants. In these important matters, therefore, the intervention of the central power had been excluded.

The absolute power of the landlord was intended to secure labour services. In order to achieve it, in the seventeenth century the Hunga¬ rian ruling class established a system which enabled them to bind the peasantry by force and judicial trickery. The term used by contempo¬ raries, the so-called ‘perpetual serfdom’, is a Hungarian version of the Eastern European ‘second serfdom’. Refusal of labour services and escapes had been considered formerly as an injury to the landlord demanding compensation. Seventeenth-century legal practice distorted this principle by regarding a refusal to comply with the landlord as seditious and to be dealt with according to the landlord’s will, in¬ volving even the death sentence. The only way open to the serf to escape the death sentence was to commit himself to ‘perpetual serf¬ dom’, i.e. renounce the right to move freely and sign a declaration of obedience. Any attempt to refuse to comply was severely punished, and in the course of time the social status of the whole peasantry came to be regarded as ‘perpetually serf’. Early medieval serfdom was thus restored in a new form.

The production of the manor was based on the unpaid labour ser¬ vices of the serf, whom it was customary to regard as tied to the land in the sixteenth century and whose lack of freedom to move was de¬ finitely established by the seventeenth century. In Hungary there were slight differences from general Eastern European custom. Wheat in Hungary was a negligible item in foreign trade, being mainly bought up on the home market to meet the needs of the armies fighting in the country and in the frontier castles. Hungarian cattle, on the other hand, were exported in considerable numbers to supply Austria, Bo¬ hemia, Moravia, Silesia, the South German towns and Venice; Hun¬ garian wine was equally in demand in Poland and Silesia. Labour services could never be exploited to such advantage in cattle raising and viticulture as they were in wheat production. The manors pro¬ duced more wheat than anything else; their cattle breeding and vine¬ yards were insignificant. About the middle of the seventeenth century, as the management of manors had traditions a hundred years old to draw on, more than half of the wheat production on most estates came from the manor, whereas the peasants produced seven to eight times more wine than the landlord’s vineyards. Similarly, the animal stock of the landlord was only in exceptional cases larger than that of a well-to-do peasant.

The peasants’ own production in Hungary suffered severe setbacks, but it did not dwindle to the same extent as in other countries with similar developments, where wheat was the dominating agricultural product. A more serious blow was exerted on agricultural commodity production by the general European economic depression of the seven¬ teenth century, which diminished the buying power of both land¬ lords and peasants.

The system of ‘perpetual serfdom’ added new difficulties to the development of the towns. Indirectly it retarded progress in the towns by preventing the movement of the peasants into them, and by con¬ tributing to the backwardness of their markets. In addition, the land¬ lord’s trading and manufacturing activities crippled those of the bour¬ geoisie. More directly, the nobility inflicted several blows on the towns. Any nobleman moving into the towns was exempt from paying taxes, being outside municipal jurisdiction and regulations. The bourgeoisie lost its monopolistic position in its own markets, and the county author¬ ities even stopped their price-regulating functions by imposing their own towards the end of the sixteenth century. Thus about the middle of the seventeenth century towns in Hungary came under the control of the nobility, noblemen being elected to the councils, with decisive votes. The townspeople themselves engaged in agricultural activities; the main income of some towns came from the villages which owed labour service, and from the sale of wine. Only those towns were re- cognized as free which owned villages with serfs, i.e. acted as a col¬ lective landlord.

However heavy the feudal burden on the peasantry and towns, the ruling class was nevertheless not successful in making the system of perpetual serfdom universal. The resistance of the peasants, as mani¬ fest in the number of escapes and uprisings, led to a freer economic and social development. Movement into the boroughs did not stop; although their privileges were considerably restricted by the landlords, even so they offered better conditions than the villages. By then many serfs had obtained noble status from either the Habsburgs or the princes of Transylvania in return for their military services. The num¬ ber of noblemen holding a peasant tenure with feudal obligation, but otherwise free, rose to thousands in the seventeenth century. And the number of heyducks, exempt from feudal obligations in return for military service and receiving portions of free land, rose throughout the country.

The landlords also needed administrative and peace-keeping of¬ ficials, who were mainly recruited from the poor nobility and heyducks, regarded as the reserves of the ruling class. With the peasant burghers of the boroughs, they constituted the free—at least, comparatively free—sector of peasant production exempt from the burdens of per¬ petual serfdom. Their privileged posidon served as an example to the great masses of the oppressed peasantry.

Transylvania versus Habsburg (1606–1648)

Transylvania, the Stronghold of Resistance

Bocskai died in 1606. His last will defined the mission of the Principal¬ ity of Transylvania by instructing the prince to interfere in Hungarian affairs whenever the privileges of the Estates were being threatened by the Habsburg king of Hungary. The Treaty of Vienna, which had been signed by Bocskai as prince of Transylvania, seemed to provide scope for this activity, because it codified the privileges of the nobility. The treaty, however, was made against the wishes of Emperor Rudolf by his brother. Archduke Matthias, and the emperor did not show any willingness to sanction it.

The freedom of the heyducks, promised by Bocskai, depended on the implementation of this document. In 1607, their captains called them to arms, proclaiming their wish to have a Calvinist Hungarian ruler instead of the ‘faithless, foreign papist’, King Rudolf.

The Hungarian ruling class had no intention of breaking away from the Habsburgs but the raising of the heyducks was a good opportunity to ask for the resignation of Rudolf in favour of his brother Matthias II (1608-1619) who was willing to sanction the Treaty of Vienna. The Estates of Austria, Bohemia and Moravia soon joined the Hun¬ garians in a federation to ensure the mutual recognition of their priv¬ ileges. Some of the heyducks, satisfied with the Treaty of Vienna, happily settled down in their boroughs beyond the Tisza allotted to them by Bocskai. The majority, however, entered into the service of Gabor, the last descendant of the Bathory family, to win for him the Principality of Transylvania.

Cardinal Khlesl, Matthias II’s minister, tried to defend the key positions of the central power against the Estates. He could not de¬ pend, however, on agreements made with the Hungarian nobility as long as they had hopes of support from Transylvania. Khlesl, in order to achieve his ends, organized a conspiracy to get rid of Gabor Ba¬ thory; then, having failed, he sent an army in 1611 to conquer Tran¬ sylvania. The army of the pro-Habsburg Hungarian aristocracy suffered a heavy defeat. Bathory, however, owing to a quarrel with the heyducks, was assassinated in 1613. The court of Vienna prepared for another attack against his successor, G&bor Bethlen, but the council of the Hungarian, Austrian, Bohemian and Moravian Estates held at Linz ordered its postponement.

Khlesl, nevertheless, succeeded with his new tactics of trying to divide the ruling classes in the Habsburg countries. He tried to recruit new members into the loyal court aristocracy by gifts, offices and the propaganda measures of the Counter-Reformation. In Hungary the new policy was successfully supported by Peter P&zmany, a former Jesuit who became Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate. A distin¬ guished writer, he won over to the Roman Church a great number of aristocratic families. Owing to the institution of perpetual serfdom, which encompassed the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, this brought about the reconversion to Catholicism of the peasants de¬ pendent on the landlords.

With the rising number of converted aristocrats leaving the camp of resistance, the struggle of the remaining Hungarian Protestants for religious freedom and the right of the nobility to self-government became more difficult. The movement was headed by the Protestant landed aristocracy, who expected support from the Calvinist princes of Transylvania.

The Confederation of the Estates in the Habsburg Countries and Their Alliance with Transylvania

Transylvania emerged from the ravages of the Fifteen Years War during the rule of Gdbor Bethlen (1613-1629). The trend of Bethlen’s policy followed that of Istvan Bathory and Bocskai who had tried to organize a standing army of the free peasantry, independent of the Estates. Bethlen proceeded consciously on these lines. He gave nobility to peasants, defended the liberty returned to the Sekels by Bocskai and established new heyduck settlements in Transylvania. At the same time, he did not permit the aristocracy to acquire large new estates and ordered the return of the treasury estates which had passed into their hands in the troublesome years of the past decades.

Bethlen was not content with the resources provided by the pos¬ session of feudal estates. He instituted an economic policy far in advance of the backward Transylvanian conditions, even mercantilist in some of its features. He invited foreign craftsmen and miners to Transylvania, organized state trade based on monopolies and gave full support to the towns. He tried to make his court at Gyulafehervar

a cultural centre, and established there the first Transylvanian uni¬ versity. In strong contrast to the policy of the loyal pro-Habsburg aristocracy, he supported the peasantry by increasing the number of free peasants and, within the system of perpetual serfdom, by trying to defend the serfs from the abuses of their landlords. He made it punishable by law to stop the children of the serfs from attending school. His pro-peasant policy naturally aimed at increasing their tax- paying capacity, nevertheless it won for him the sympathy of the peasantry in Habsburg Hungary suffering from the oppression of the landlords and from the violent Counter-Reformation.

The Habsburg court anxiously watched the new consolidation of Transylvania in the economic and political field. It did not risk a frontal attack, but a number of adventurers were sent to Transylvania as pretenders to Bethlen’s throne. Bethlen easily dismissed these provo¬ cations. The outbreak of the Thirty Years War gave him an opportu¬ nity to make an open challenge.

All the international political differences emerging in the Thirty Years War produced the first all-European armed conflict. To the differences between the Austrian Habsburgs and the German princes was added the resistance of the Estates of Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Hungary against Habsburg absolutism. The Habsburg- Transylvanian controversy also produced a worsening in Habsburg- Turkish relations in due course. Western European hostility to the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs revived, creating an anti-Habsburg front from England to Transylvania.

There was an indirect relationship between the struggles of the Habsburgs and their direct enemies, and the contest between Sweden, Poland and Russia for the Baltic. As long as the Swedish-Polish al¬ liance lasted, the affair could be isolated from the conflict of the Habsburgs and their enemies. During the reign of Sigismund III, how¬ ever, the Swedish-Polish relationship loosened, and the Baltic question again became acute, permitting the rapprochement of Sweden and Russia. The Polish ruling class asked for the help of the Austrian Habsburgs against a possible alliance between Sweden and Russia, thus breaking with the policy pursued by Poland throughout the six¬ teenth century and provoking an attack by the Turks, until then neu¬ tral towards Poland.

In this very complex European situation, Bethlen first tried to profit from the conflict of the Austrian Habsburgs with the Protestant princes of Germany and the resisting Estates of their countries, in order to obtain the restoration of an independent kingdom of Hungary. He first intervened with an army to help the Bohemian insurgents. It served as an encouragement to the Hungarian and Austrian Estates to renew their confederation in support of Bohemia. An army of Tran¬ sylvanians, Bohemians, Moravians, Hungarians and Austrians reached Vienna in the autumn of 1619. The power of the Habsburgs in Central Europe was in danger. The Hungarian adherents of the new Habsburg king, Ferdinand II (1619-1637), combined with an army of Polish mercenaries to attack Bethlen’s forces from the rear and the siege of Vienna was frustrated.

Habsburg centralization, however retarded, was still more success¬ ful in mobilizing its resources and gaining outside help than the weak confederation of the Estates, which was torn by internal differences. Bethlen’s attempt to involve the Turks in the conflict did not prove helpful. Neither the federation of the German Protestant princes, nor the English father-in-law of Frederick, King of Bohemia, helped the Bohemians; on the other hand the League of the German Catholic princes was more active. The League’s forces, combined with the Habsburg army, defeated the Bohemian insurgents in the battle of the White Mountain in 1620, before Bethlen’s relief force could arrive.

Ferdinand II tried to break the Bohemian ruling class by executions, the confiscation of their estates, and the introduction of absolute gov¬ ernment. The Austrian Estates also capitulated. Fifty years of econom¬ ic and social development brought about the end of the Austrian and Bohemian feudal resistance, and political leadership slipped into the hands of the Catholic court aristocracy, who held the key positions in the absolute monarchy.

Gábor Bethlen and the Anti-Habsburg European Coalitions

Hungary escaped the fate of Bohemia, but the top stratum of the Hungarian ruling class was not invited to join the new aristocracy in the Habsburg court. It also turned out that the idea of the reunion of Hungary, fostered by Transylvania, was mere illusion. The centralized Transylvanian principality was strong enough to keep the idea of re¬ sistance alive in Hungary, but hardly strong enough to restore the centralized Hungarian kingdom of Matthias Hunyadi against the wishes of both Habsburgs and Turks. After the sultan had refused his consent to the union of Hungary and Transylvania under the same ruler, Bethlen too came to realize that the idea was impossible and, although elected king of Hungary in 1620, he refused to be crowned. In 1622, he signed with the Habsburgs the Treaty of Nikolsburg which recognized the Treaty of Vienna and the ceding of seven Plungarian counties to Transylvania. Thus Bethlen’s power came to extend over half of Hungary.

Bethlen, not being able to achieve more by himself, had great hopes in the Western European anti-Habsburg powers. He arranged far- reaching diplomatic connections to organize a grand anti-Habsburg coalition. In 1623, when his hopes began to be realized, he occupied Habsburg Hungary, and encircled the imperial army in Moravia. But aid from the West never arrived, and he deemed it best to renew the old treaty. He was even prepared to give up his anti-Habsburg activ¬ ities if Ferdinand II would appoint him governor of Hungary. But Vienna would not hear of that.

Bethlen again attempted to reach an understanding with the Western powers. He joined the English, Dutch and Danish alliance. According to a common plan, the Danish were to attack in the West, and Bethlen in the East. In 1626, the allies sent the mercenary army of Mansfeld to Bethlen’s aid. Wallenstein proceeded in person to Hungary to pre¬ vent Mansfcld’s army from joining up with Bethlen, but he arrived too late. The armies of Wallenstein and those of Bethlen and Mansfeld were facing each other. Bethlen wanted to give time to Mansfeld’s army to recover from fatigue, and assumed delaying tactics. Wallen¬ stein, on the other hand, dared not follow him deep into the country, and preferred to withdraw, but owing to attacks in his rear by Bethlen’s cavalry, the withdrawal turned into a disorderly flight. Habsburg Hun¬ gary fell for the third time into Bethlen’s hands, but he was again compelled to make peace, because the Habsburgs were winning on the western front.

In the last years of his life, he made plans with Gustavus Adolphus to encircle the Habsburgs, but his death prevented him from witnessing the intervention of the Swedes.

Gábor Bethlen's Political Legacy

The widow and successor of G&bor Bethlen, Catherine of Branden¬ burg, was under the influence of a Habsburg coterie of aristocrats, and seemed willing to deliver Transylvania to the Habsburgs. It was again the heyducks who staked their lives for the independence of the prin¬ cipality. Their boroughs were situated in the seven counties which had returned to the Habsburgs with the death of Bethlen. They were afraid of losing their liberties with the return of the rule of the Hungarian aristocracy, and they refused to take the oath of fealty to Ferdinand II. The palatine, Miklds Esterhazy, set out to punish them, and at the same time conquer Transylvania. Two young Transylvanian lords, D£vid Zdlyomi and Istvan Bethlen, tried to save Gabor Bethlen’s legacy. The first thing was to help the heyducks, and they succeeded in repulsing Esterhazy’s army. They invited to the throne of Transyl¬ vania the richest Hungarian Protestant aristocrat, Gyorgy R&kdczi (1631-1648). Rikoczi moved into Transylvania at the head of the heyducks, and was acclaimed its prince by the diet. EsterMzy’s second assault also ended in failure and he was compelled to make peace. The heyducks remained under Habsburg rule, but were able to pre¬ serve their freedom.

EsterMzy, on the other hand, did not give up the idea of conquering Transylvania, and prepared for a third attack. The marauding of his soldiers induced the peasantry of the Tisza region to rise in the summer of 1631. Their leader, Peter Csdsz&r, called upon R&koczi, begging him to intervene. In the meantime, the Swedish ambassador offered a military alliance to the prince. There would have been a good chance of defeating the Habsburgs, but Rdkdczi, the landlord, had no sym¬ pathy with the peasants and stifled their rising.

R&koczi added no new bricks to the political edifice built by his great predecessor; he rather removed some. He was determined to acquire new estates, and expanded his family lands into the largest holding of that period. Bethlen’s main interest had been the develop¬ ment of trade and commerce; Rakoczi, on the other hand, based his power on his immense landed property. Bethlen had not ascended the throne as a member of the aristocracy, but worked his way upwards as a humble member of the nobility; landed property was but a means to central power in his eyes. Rakoczi, on the other hand, as the richest member of the aristocracy, looked upon land as the source of all power. He needed the labour services of the peasantry and had little sympathy for augmenting the number of free peasants performing only military service; and, instead of protecting the labouring masses, his legal measures provided for their more efficient exploitation.

His participation in the Thirty Years War had nothing to do with the distant idea of the reunion of Hungary, his main concern being the safety and further enrichment of his family estates within Hungary. In 1644, he entered into an alliance with the French and the Swedes, and set off to render aid to Tortensson during his siege of Vienna. Order¬ ed back by his Turkish protector, he was obliged in 1647 to sign the Treaty of Linz, which restored the seven counties to him. It is to his credit that he extended religious toleration to the Protestant peasantry in Habsburg Hungary, for the first time transgressing the principle of cuius regio, eius religio.

The Cultural Split

The secular culture of the Renaissance of the late sixteenth century gave way in the first half of the seventeenth to militant religious trends. In the wake of the Counter-Reformation, a new Catholic culture was in the ascendant, with the Jesuits as its pioneers, and P6ter Pdzmany foremost among them. In his literary work baroque style is first used in Hungarian literature. The establishment in 1635 of the university of Nagyszombat, which was removed to Pest in the eighteenth century, is connected with his name. The aristocracy, converted to Catholicism under his influence, became the first patrons of baroque art.

The then Protestant majority of the country remained unimpressed by baroque art. Both in literature and art, the traditions of the Re¬ naissance and the Reformation continued to prevail. In Transylvania and in the seven counties under Transylvanian rule, the cultural in¬ fluence of Bethlen flourished. Bethlen invited to his university in Gyu- lafehervar German teachers who became the spokesmen of the new Protestant ideas prevailing in England and Holland. Many Hungarian students were sent to study at the universities of England and the Low Countries. They returned enriched by the teachings of the Puritan Revolution in England, the philosophy of Descartes, and the results of the newly developing natural sciences. They became the propagators of the Puritan movement, which tried to bring about educational re¬ form side by side with democratic trends within the Church. Janos Tolnai and other Hungarian students established a Puritan League in London for the reformation of Hungarian schools based on a democratic Church. After his return Tolnai became headmaster in S6rospatak between 1639 and 1642; he insisted on the introduction of the vernacular into the schools and suggested that the Church, ulti¬ mately responsible for cultural life, should be under the leadership of an elected presbytery, representing the people. Conservative members of the Church called in the help of Gyorgy Rdkoczi I, who, afraid of another democratic insurgence, removed Tolnai from his post.

There was no way, however, of stopping the trend of Puritan ideas. Under the influence of the bourgeois revolution in England, the activ¬ ity of the Hungarian Puritans gained force. Their leaders were in constant touch with the intellectuals in Cromwell’s circle. After the death of Gyorgy Rakdczi I in 1648, Puritan ideas prevailed in schools, in both towns and villages, as a result of the teachings of progressive ministers. Gyorgy Rakoczi II (1648-1660) was no less averse to Puritan reform than his father. But the Puritans, regardless of punishment and the loss of their posts, insisted on Hungarian schools for the people, and democratic leadership in the Church. Some members of the ruling class realized that it would be useless to oppose all efforts to achieve changes; it would be meaningless to stop reforms which did not interfere with the feudal foundations of society. The dowager princess, Zsuzsanna Lorantffy, extended her protection to the disgraced Tolnai, who was subsequently invited to Sarospatak, together with the greatest educator of the period, Comenius, who taught in the school between 1650 and 1654.

In the year when Comenius departed, the most outstanding repre¬ sentative of the Hungarian Puritan movement, Janos Apaczai Csere, began his work. He consciously propagated the bourgeois ideology of the English Revolution among his students; his ideal was the educated, many-sided citizen, with a practical turn of mind. He passionately attacked the feudal backwardness of Hungary and its undeveloped industries and trade; he believed that the only hope of progress was in up-to-date education. In his Hungarian Encyclopaedia he summarized the great scientific achievements of the age, and he was the first to propagate in Hungarian the ideas of Copernicus, Descartes and Althu- sius. He had far-reaching plans to establish a secular intellectual class in a country where, as he says, ‘there are, as far as you can see, villages numbering one to two hundred families, where only the schoolmaster and the preacher are the people’s eyes, ears and tongue’. The prince seemed to hear the slogans of the English Revolution—and not without foundation—in Apaczai’s ideas, and the dangerous man was banished from Gyulafehervar to a secondary school in Kolozsvar. But Apaczai did not stop his teaching or the propagation of his ideas; nevertheless his superhuman efforts soon consumed his energy and he died young.

Apaczai’s death coincides with the end of the historic role of the Principality of Transylvania. Gyorgy Rakoczi II’s anti-Habsburg pol¬ icy led him to seek the throne of Poland. In alliance with the Swedes, he wanted to conquer Poland, but the badly organized campaign ended in a dreadful disaster in 1657. The Turks had long been suspi¬ cious of the independent political activities of the princes of Transyl¬ vania and looked for an opportunity to strike them down. Transylvania was invaded by Turkish and Tatar troops and Rakoczi himself died in 1660 fighting against the invaders.

Resistance to Hapsburg Absolutism (1648–1703)

Tension between the Habsburg Government and the Hungarian Estates

The Treaty of Westphalia shut out the Habsburgs from the German Empire, but gave them a free hand in the eastern countries. The defeat of Protestantism in Austria and Bohemia also brought to an end the resistance of the Estates in the hereditary countries of the Habsburgs, thus paving the v/ay for the emergence of absolute government. The Austrian court aristocracy was the solid foundation of absolutism. Nevertheless, the Habsburg government, afraid of the Principality of Transylvania and the Turkish power behind it, did not openly attack the Hungarian Estates and their autonomy, seemingly even respecting their right to elect a new king. The Hungarian aristocracy acknow¬ ledged with relief this attitude and gathered round the monarchy; the leading families became reconverted to Catholicism as a sign of accord.

The tensions which made the Hungarian ruling class rely on an absolute monarchy against their own serfs and the Turks created a dangerous situation, ready to explode as soon as any change came about in the foreign relations which maintained the balance. The col¬ lapse of the Principality of Transylvania after 1657 deprived the Hun¬ garian Estates of their support, and in the second half of the seven¬ teenth century Habsburg absolutism was ready for a frontal attack against the autonomy of the Estates. The Hungarian ruling class was not strong enough to defend its privileges single-handed, and was faced with the choice of seeking the support of the Turks, overtly, without Transylvanian mediation, or of some other anti-Habsburg power, or else of surrendering to Habsburg absolutism and merging with its court aristocracy.

The foundations of Habsburg absolutism had solidified during the Thirty Years War: the court aristocracy, the state officialdom and the merchant capitalists of Austria had combined to safeguard their in¬ terests. The Hungarian aristocracy did their best to become partners in the new power. Their attempt failed for more reasons than one: the court of Vienna showed reluctance to admit those Hungarians who headed the resistance of the nobility, while the Austrian aristocrats, office-holders and merchants intended to manage the foreign trade of Hungary without the participation of the Hungarian aristocracy. In addition to copper, the Austrian capitalists wanted to obtain the monopoly in the export of cattle, the other important Hungarian ex¬ port item. In 1622, a company called ‘Landsverleger Compagnia’ was established, with the exclusive right of handling the export of Hungari¬ an cattle from Hungary to Germany. The company failed in a short time, but was reorganized under the name of the ‘Kaiserliche Ochsen- handlung’ in 1651. The close relationship between the Austrian aristoc¬ racy, the merchants and the absolute monarchy was revealed by the fact that the monarch personally guaranteed the capital in return for 12 per cent interest.

These were the first signs of the protectionist economic policy of Habsburg absolutism and brought about a serious reaction in Hun¬ gary among those interested in the cattle trade. Simple traders in the boroughs and among the lesser nobility failed in due course. Aristoc¬ ratic traders, on the other hand, regarding the matter as a breach of their privileges, protested by means of statutes in the diets, and tried also to divert the cattle trade towards the Adriatic port of Buccari, in the hands of the Zrinyi family. Battles were fought between the im¬ perial army safeguarding the monopoly and the Zrinyis’ private army.

Habsburg absolutism in its fight with the Hungarian Estates con¬ ducted an economic policy which tried to exclude Hungary from the economic unity of the Empire, treating it as a sort of colonial depend¬ ency. It was only towards the end of the seventeenth century that the Austrian mercantilists tried to define the theory of this economic policy, and their practical achievements were rather modest up to the middle of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, their policy was a severe blow to the interests of the Hungarian ruling class. In addition to political and religious grievances, the diets of Hungary repeatedly dealt with economic problems, with the speakers of the opposition accusing the court of Vienna of ruining the country by making use of its money for foreign interests. The representatives of the counties belonging to the landowning nobility were the most clamorous: they were no longer the spokesmen of the aristocracy, but the defenders of their own interests, those of the Protestant nobility, who produced ‘The Grievous Complaint’ in 1655. According to this pamphlet the nobility no longer expected anything from the Habsburgs: ‘We do not expect gifts, do not ask for offices, we no longer foster any hope.’

The Economic and Political Aspirations of the Nobility

The political re-emergence of the nobility was the direct outcome of the changes in their economic and social situation. The setback in production for the market in the seventeenth century contributed to a decrease in the number of paid garrisons in the royal frontier castles and, also, of the private armies of the landed aristocracy, but the number of unpaid heyducks increased both in the royal and private landlords’ service. As part of a settlement policy, and in return for exemptions from labour services, a great number of soldiers’ villages had grown up. The nobility withdrew more and more from military service, mainly because during the seventeenth century the royal cas¬ tles employed, in addition to the free peasantry, ever greater numbers of foreign mercenaries, mostly Germans.

In the management of the great estates less and less scope was given to noble retainers; instead the landlords employed as their officials landless members of the nobility and the citizens of the boroughs. They were no longer regarded as vassals, but employees on yearly contracts. The century-old institution of the familiares declined and the nobility was no longer under the thumb of the aristocracy, but at the same time they lost the chance to make extra money in addition to their modest incomes. Many of them tried their luck and failed in trade, often in the cattle trade, which was under the curse of the general economic depression. The uneasiness of the nobility became stronger as the central power became more exacting in forcing the Counter-Reformation on them. The economic measures of Vienna made even some of the aristocracy resentful, helping the rapproche¬ ment of the Catholic aristocracy and the Protestant nobility to form a united front of resistance to absolutism. Differences with Vienna became even more pronounced owing to the Turkish threat.

There had been considerable changes in the parts of Hungary under Turkish rule now for more than a hundred years. During the Fifteen Years War the country became so impoverished that it was impossible to maintain the Turkish army and the administrative organs out of the tax contributions. As a result the castle garrisons had been reduced, many kadis recalled, and far-reaching autonomy given to the Hun¬ garian population, including legal jurisdiction and tax collection.

This lessening of Turkish control was not only welcome to the Hun¬ garian peasantry, but it also encouraged the Hungarian landlords who had fled to claim their rights in the Turkish areas. During the seventeenth century, the Hungarian landlords exercised more and more control over their estates in Turkish-occupied Hungary. They raised the contributions of the peasants and harassed them with their officials. The counties developed special administrative organs for the management of villages under Turkish rule and during the seventeenth century made it a capital offence to appeal to the Turks in legal matters.

In these circumstances the landlords of small means, living in Hungary but having landed property in the Turkish-occupied areas, developed an increased interest in those territories. During the seven¬ teenth century, they were outspoken in demanding the reoccupation of those parts and retaliation for Turkish raids and plunder. In the 1640s, while the Habsburgs had their hands tied during the Thirty Years War, the Turks began to occupy many villages on the co mm on border and, simultaneously, to restrict the rights of the Hungarian landlords. The Habsburgs, on the other hand, remained uninterested even after the Treaty of Westphalia, not wishing to interfere in Turkish affairs. They had their attention turned towards the west, and were more concerned over the expansion of the French. They had no wish to change their treaty obligations with the Turks.

The Hungarian ruling class was exasperated to see that the Habs¬ burgs did not take steps against the Turks, even forbidding private ventures by the garrisons of the frontier castles and by aristocratic armies. Contrary to the provisions of the Treaty of Vienna, the Hun¬ garian frontier castles were garrisoned by foreign mercenaries. It had been rumoured in the court of Vienna that Hungary would not be released from Turkish rule unless the Hungarian Estates pledged themselves not to secede from the Habsburg dynasty when freed from the Turks.

Miklós Zrínyi's Political Activity and His Wars against the Turks

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, it began to dawn on the nobility and some of the Hungarian aristocracy that they could not expect any change in Habsburg policy. Anti-Habsburg feeling led to a special nationalist ideology, which differed little from the primitive germanophobia of the nobility of the days of the Jagiellos. The idea of the nation had still been confined to those enjoying privi¬ leges but with the protest against the economic exploitation of the country and the insistence on the expulsion of the Turks, it assumed certain new features.

The political and military theory of an awakening national con- sciousness fills the poems and pamphlets of Miklos Zrinyi, ban of Croatia. Only one of his works appeared in print in his life-time, a heroic epic called ‘The Disaster of Sziget’. The poem celebrates the heroic self-sacrifice of his ancestor at Szigetvar in the sixteenth century as an encouragement to action against the Turks. Since his early youth he had defended his estates against Turkish raids, and could only draw the lesson that no help was to be expected from the War Council of Vienna. He turned away from the Habsburg dynasty, going first among the Hungarian Catholic aristocracy to propagate the idea of a free Hungarian state in his military treatise ‘The Coura¬ geous Commander’ (1651-3) and in his ‘Meditations Concerning the Life of King Matthias’ (1656).

In these works, circulated in manuscript, he dwelt on the traditions of centralization in Hungary and on the examples of King Matthias and G&bor Bethlen, but surpassed the latter in giving up the idea of ‘one country, one religion’, which was impossible in Hungary. His support of religious toleration paved the way for the political union of the Catholic aristocracy and the Protestant nobility, and that of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania. He worked for the election of Gyorgy Rikoczi II as king of Hungary, accepting for the moment the traditional Transylvanian dependence on the Turks, but with an insistence on future action against them. He urged the importance of the reorganization of Hungarian national defence, discussing its possibilities and methods from the point of view of con¬ temporary military science. As head of the opposition in the diet, he tried to realize his ideas, but the Hungarian aristocracy was not yet determined to break with the Habsburgs, and in 1655, the son of Ferdinand III, Leopold I (1657-1705), was elected king of Hun¬ gary.

The subsequent collapse of Transylvania proved to Zrinyi that his plans lacked realism. But the revival of Turkish military power and its new aggressive tendencies raised hopes in him that the Habsburgs would sooner or later retaliate. In 1661, Leopold I actually sent help to Transylvania against the Turks, but General Montecuccoli, at the head of his forces, had not reckoned with the difficulties of warfare in Hungary, and not being able to get provisions, he withdrew, leaving Transylvania to its fate. His soldiers plundered whatever was left behind by the Turks. Zrinyi’s pamphlet, ‘The Turkish Opium’, called to arms not only the Hungarian ruling class, but also the down¬ trodden people, reviving his idea of an independent Hungarian army, without producing serious reaction either in Vienna or among the Hungarian aristocracy.

In 1663, the grand vizier, Ahmed Kupriilu, waged war against the Habsburgs in revenge for their intervention in Transylvania. The Hun¬ garian army, comprising the retainers of the aristocracy and the feudal levy of the nobility, was defeated. The court, afraid of an attack on Vienna, sent Zrinyi to meet the Turks. With his rapidly organized army, Zrinyi drove the retreating grand vizier as far as Buda. Pressed by public opinion, the emperor was obliged to grant a free hand to Zrinyi, who during the winter of 1664, in a series of lightning strikes, occupied one by one the castles of the Turks along the Drave and burnt the bridge of Esz6k, the most important crossing-point of the Turkish army. In the meantime, the Habsburgs received help from the German Empire and from France, and Zrinyi could proceed to the siege of Kanizsa. Before the castle fell, the grand vizier launched another attack. The court re-appointed General Montecuccoli as commander-in-chief, and he ordered a retreat. He won the battle of Szentgotthard over the pursuing Turkish army, but in the difficult international situation, the court did not exploit the victory. The Treaty of Vasvar was signed in the same year (1664) giving up all the territories recently conquered by the Turks.

The Treaty of Vasvar exasperated the Hungarian ruling class as well as the people newly subjected to the Turks, not to speak of the garrisons of the Hungarian castles which were dismissed on the plea of peace. The treaty was, however, not unwelcome for the merchant capitalists of Austria. They exerted their influence on the court of Vienna to be lenient with the Turks because they had received priv¬ ileges from the sultan at the expense of the eastern trade of the French. To exploit these the ‘Orientalische Compagnia’ was founded with the capital of the Austrian aristocrats and merchants. It established factories for producing woollen fabrics to be exported to the Turkish Empire, and for wearing silk cloth from imported raw silk, and, last but not least, it controlled the cattle trade of Hungary. There was again a loud protest from the Hungarian merchants concerned, and even the Hungarian chamber administering royal revenues insisted on a return to free trade, because the monopolies of the Compagnia severely cut down the customs revenues.

Zrinyi was killed in 1664 by a boar while hunting. After his death, induced by the loss of territories and by renewed economic grievances, the Hungarian aristocracy and clergy, tolerant toward the Habsburgs until now, turned to Louis XIV, hoping to recover their freedom with the help of French aid.

The Conspiracy of the Aristocracy and the Kuruc Rising

The fifty-year struggle of Louis XIV against the Habsburgs offered the Hungarian ruling class the possibility of foreign aid in their struggle against the introducing of Habsburg absolutism. Leadership was in the hands of the palatine, Ferenc Wessetenyi, and after his death it fell to the temperamental P&er Zrinyi, Miklos’s brother. Their conspiracy was discovered in 1670 by the court. Some of the leaders were executed, others managed to flee to Transylvania. This was the beginning of a bloody terror. The estates of the conspirators were confiscated, Protestant preachers accused of anti-Habsburg propaganda were imprisoned and sold as galley-slaves, and the political autonomy of Hungary and toleration of the Protestants were suspend¬ ed. Towns and villages were victimized and plundered by the imperial soldiers, who came into the country in swarms. This terror achieved conditions in which the ruling class in its final plight was able to win wide support among the people for the defence of their common country.

Peter Zrinyi promised exemption from dues to any serf fighting against the Habsburgs, and the promise was repeatedly renewed by each leader of any anti-Habsburg faction. The serfs did not fight to defend the landlord’s power, but for their own interests, and to ease their feudal burdens. This was not a mere illusion, because the anti- Habsburg aristocracy and nobility, badly needing the support of the peasants, kept their promises—however reluctantly and even re¬ treating at times—so that channels were opened for the serfs to rise into the lower ranks of the nobility and into the free status of the heyducks.

The system of perpetual serfdom also began to loosen its tight grip under the effect of economic development. About the middle of the century, the peasantry began to gain some ground in its fight against labour services. Scores of serfs fled to the boroughs, while others assumed nobility and heyduck privileges. With the impoverishment of the remaining peasantry, labour service diminished until the exist¬ ence of the production system based on it was threatened. Landlords were obliged to try to employ hired labour. In the 1650s, on certain estates, it became possible for the peasantry, especially in the boroughs, to commute their labour service and contributions. From the money received, labour was engaged and oxen bought to cultivate the mano¬ rial land. Where, owing to the lack of money, it was impossible for feudal dues and labour services to be commuted collectively, the well-to-do peasants were permitted to commute their services, one byone. in a lump sum. These peasants thus fell into the category of the tax-paying, landless small nobility. Some peasant settlements were granted collective heyduck privileges. The trend of economic devel¬ opment thus coincided with the easing of the strictness of perpetual serfdom out of political necessity.

The active participation of the peasantry in the anti-Habsburg struggle started, as at the time of the Bocskai rising, through sections of the peasantry entering active military service. Then it was the hey¬ duck, now the soldier dismissed from castle service, who first joined the anti-Habsburg movement of the Hungarian ruling class. The kuruc army was organized around the nobility who had fled to Transylvania. The origin of the word kuruc goes back to the crusades against the Turks, deriving from the Latin cruciatus. During Dozsa’s peasant uprising, the name became associated with the anti-feudal peasant wars, and was used in that sense throughout the second half of the seventeenth century. The refugee armies were derisively referred to under that name by the pro-Habsburg members of the ruling class to frighten off the landed nobility from joining. The refugee leaders adopted the nickname to win the confidence of the wide masses of people, and in due course a new nickname was applied to their op¬ ponents, the pro-Habsburg party, that of labanc, deriving perhaps from the German Landsknecht.

The majority of the Hungarian ruling class, however, was more afraid of the kuruc movement than of Habsburg oppression and held aloof. The first attacks of the ‘refugees’ on the imperial armies failed. The puppet prince of Transylvania, Mihaly Apafi (1661-1690), closely controlled by the Turks, could give them hardly any help, except asylum. They knew, however, that their success would depend on considerable foreign aid. Through Transylvanian mediation they obtained help first from the Turks. Then, in 1675, Louis XIV, happy to see the Habsburgs troubled by diversions within their territories, promised material help and training officers for the kuruc movement. Turkish auxiliary troops and French money enabled the young kuruc leader, Imre Thokoly (a descendant of a peasant family which became wealthy in the cattle trade and was received into the aristocracy), to win many battles. Within a short time he occupied the north-eastern part of the country and was acclaimed prince by his adherents.

In the meantime, the social structure of the kuruc movement under¬ went considerable changes. The kuruc army became a regular merce¬ nary force, partly absorbing and partly excluding from itself those elements of the peasantry who had originally joined them for anti- feudal objectives. The kuruc state became after its foundation a feudal one. It did not ease the condition of the peasantry, and the landed nobility only fared better as long as they were actively fighting against Habsburg absolutism, in the defence of their privileges.

The Habsburg government, heavily engaged in fighting against the French, came to realize that it could not succeed against the kuruc by force, and so it decided to end its absolutist methods. In 1681, a diet was called which restored the autonomous government of the country, and also granted partial toleration to the Protestants. A general amnesty and a promise to return their estates won back the majority of the kuruc nobility to the Habsburgs. The kuruc army, on the other hand, was firmly against the armistice, fearing the loss of its livelihood, and Thokoly and some of his adherents continued to resist. The kuruc principality, however, torn by internal disunity, was swallowed up in the Habsburg-Turkish wars.

The Expulsion of the Turks and the Establishment of Habsburg Absolutism

The grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, set the Turkish army in motion against Vienna in 1683, but suffered a decisive defeat. Thokoly did not participate in the warfare, and his offer to rid the country of the Turkish army after its defeat was rejected by the Emperor Leopold. The latter was not willing to negotiate with him even at the request of John Sobieski, King of Poland, who had been responsible for the liberation of Vienna from the Turkish siege.

The international army of the Habsburgs, under the command of Charles of Lorraine, later under Eugene of Savoy, inflicted defeat after defeat on the Turks. In 1686, Buda was occupied; the following year Transylvania was invaded, and, although Turkish resistance revived from time to time, the war was concluded with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, when the sultan resigned his right over most of Hungary. Thokoly tried in vain to keep his camp from dissolution by promising villages to his troops for future settlement. The majority of his soldiers joined in the wars against the Turks. Thokoly, however, did not give up, and in the end differed little himself from a Turkish mercenary leader. After the treaty, with some trusted followers, he chose to live in Turkish territory until his death. His heroic wife, Ilona Zrinyi, followed him, after defending for years the last stronghold of kuruc resistance, the castle of Munkacs.

The war was used by the Habsburg government to introduce virtually absolute rule into Hungary. In 1687 a diet was called again, but only in order to proclaim, under threat of arms, the right of suc¬ cession of the Habsburgs, without election, and to abolish the right of the nobility to resist illegal actions of the king, secured to them by the ‘Golden Bull’ of the thirteenth century. Thus Hungary became legally one of the Habsburgs’ hereditary provinces, and the autonomy of the Estates, although it continued on paper, could never come into force with the country occupied by the imperial army.

The material burden of the war was borne mainly by Hungary. Supplies for the army came mostly from peasant dues, and between 1685 and 1689 a sum of twenty million forints was extorted by means of taxation from all Hungary. New forms of taxes, so far unknown in Hungary, were levied, such as purchase tax. The rise in the price of salt was a severe blow to all. The nobility were deeply concerned at the breach in their tax-free status. The diet of 1687 tried to fend off the danger by making the small nobility without serfs bear the brunt, but soon the landed nobility were also forced to pay periodic lump sums in lieu of more regular taxation.

The cherished hope of the ruling class of reclaiming their ancient lands after the expulsion of the Turks met with bitter disappointment. The Habsburg government set up a commission, known as neo- acquistica comnrissio, to deal with the problems of land ownership in the returned parts. It introduced a complicated procedure, re¬ quiring written proofs for the recognition of ownership. Most of the families who had escaped from Turkish rule had lost their documents, and with them their estates. Others were not able to pay the cost of the commission’s charges, and were compelled to sell some of their land, however low the price. In these circumstances much unclaimed land remained with the treasury; some of it was granted to the Hun¬ garian aristocracy, but most of it went to the leading members of the Austrian court aristocracy (Eugene of Savoy, the Heisslers, Starhem- bergs, etc.), and to chamber officials and army suppliers (Harruckern, Krapf, etc.).

The introduction of absolutism hit the burghers of the towns and the peasantry more acutely than the nobility. They had to bear the brunt of taxation and the billeting of soldiers; they had also been the direct objects of rape and plunder by the army. Warfare in Hungary appealed to every soldier in the imperial army, from the generals to the lowest of the rank and file, as an immediate source of riches; and plunder was the order of the day not only in the reoccupied castles, but even among the population ‘liberated’ from the Turks. In 1687, General Caraffa organized a court martial at Eperjes: wealthy citizens and members of the nobility were executed, purely for the sake of confiscating their possessions, on a charge of complicity with the Thokoly party. The city of Debrecen was obliged to pay 1,800,000 forints as war damages, which were forcibly collected. Caraffa was the most notorious, but by no means the only extortionist, the smaller ones only lacking executive powers, not insistence. The re¬ venue of the treasury was seriously threatened by the army’s abuses, until finally it was necessary to decide the rivalry for the administration of the country between the army and the civilian authorities. After 1695, civilian administration came into force, seriously restricting, if not abolishing the soldiers’ abuses.

There were many projects put forward in the Habsburg court for the new political administration of Hungary. The most notorious of the proposals was that of Leopold Kollonich, president of the chamber of accounts and Archbishop of Kalocsa. His proposals, called Ein- richtungswerk, wanted to leave the Hungarian Estates with only the shadow of their former privileges, but also suggested a number of healthy ideas, such as the development of industry and the repression of military abuses, which were hardly likely to meet with the approval of the court of Vienna. Finally, the Habsburg government in Hungary decided on leaving policy unplanned, but expanding the executive power of the chamber of accounts, and relying on haphazard manage¬ ment. What was insisted on was higher taxation and a settlement policy for the depopulated areas.

Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–1711)

Revival of the Kuruc Movement

The country, although delivered from the Turks, was in a state of upheaval because of absolutist rule. There were scattered risings throughout, with the peasants attacking the salt and customs houses, or, occasionally, even the army. The inhabitants of whole villages fled to the woods and mountains to escape the tax-collector, while roaming bands lived by robbery and smuggling. Returning members of the Thokoly emigration sowed the seeds of a new kuruc rising among them. In 1697, a new peasant revolt broke out under their leadership in the Tokaj region, but was stifled in blood by the imperial army. Unrest, however, did not subside, and the imperial authorities, as well as the Hungarian ruling class, expected the outbreak of a general peasant war.

During the kuruc risings, there emerged a group among the peasants, who tried to link up their class interests with a national policy, developing the instinctive anti-feudalistic endeavours into a con¬ scious political conception. It dawned on these peasant leaders that it would be impossible to fight against oppression coming from the landlord and from the state at the same time.

The leaders of the Tokaj revolt selected as the leader of a general anti-Habsburg rising the richest landowner in the country, young Prince Ferenc Rakdczi II. His father, Ferenc Rakdczi I, son of Prince Gyorgy Rdkoczi II, had been elected prince of Transylvania, but pre¬ vented by the Turks from assuming his throne, had lived on his estates in the Habsburg kingdom. He had participated in the Wesselenyi rising, and was ransomed for a fabulous sum. After his death, his widow, Ilona Zrinyi (daughter of the beheaded Pdter), married Tho¬ koly. The child Ferenc Rdkoczi II was, after the fall of Munk&cs, separated from his mother, and Archbishop Kollonich, appointed as his guardian, sent him to study in a Jesuit college in Bohemia. Returning as an adolescent to Hungary, he was believed both by Vienna and by the members of the Hungarian ruling class to be one of the staunchest Habsburg supporters. He proved worthy of this trust by rejecting the appeal of the rebellious peasantry in the Tokaj region, and proceeding to Vienna to join the court. His experiences, however, of the Habsburg government and the influence of his Hun¬ garian friends, first among them the young aristocrat Miklos Ber¬ csenyi, convinced him that he could not turn his back on a mission for which he was fitted both by the traditions of his family and by his enormous fortune. He therefore set himself in the forefront of the fight against the Habsburgs, who were plundering his country and depriving the Hungarian ruling class of its hereditary privileges.

The War of the Spanish Succession seemed to provide a splendid opportunity for Rikdczi and the nobility around him to start hostilities against the Habsburgs, aiming first of all at restoring the independent Principality of Transylvania. Rakoczi appealed to Louis XIV in the capacity of the legal successor of the Transylvanian princes in their alliance with the kings of France. The conspiracy was discovered in its initial stages by the Habsburg authorities, and Rakoczi was arrested and dragged to the prison of Wienerneustadt, where his grandfather had been executed. He succeeded, however, in escaping to Poland where Bercsenyi was expecting him. His attempt to organize a revolt from beyond the frontiers proved futile, since neither the aristocracy nor the landed nobility answered his appeal.

It was again the peasantry which intervened. An outlaw leader, a former serf of Rakoczi, Tam&s Esze, got into contact with the Tho- koly emigrants, and started a kuruc rising under the joint leadership of himself and Albert Kis, a former Thdkoly officer of peasant stock. In the spring of 1703, he got in touch with Rakoczi, asking him to take over the leadership of the rising. This was the opening needed by Rakoczi to break out of his isolation, and he accepted, appealing from Brezan in Poland to all inhabitants of Hungary, noblemen and commoners, to join in defence of the liberty of the nation.

Initial Success in the War of Independence

The Hungarian ruling class received the appeal of Brezan and the arrival of the peasant troops crossing the frontier under Rdkdczi with mixed feelings. They regarded the rising as a desperate adventure by R&koczi and thought it risky to revive the peasant war. The peasant masses were not moved by being regarded as part of ‘the nation’, but Rakdczi’s promise that all those fighting against the Austrians would become free was a great incentive. In the initial stages it was not made clear if Rakoczi’s promise was valid only for the time of the fighting,

yet the peasantry regarded Rakoczi as ‘the deliverer of the poor’, and thousands of Hungarian, Ukrainian, Slovak and Rumanian peasants enlisted under banners with the slogan Pro patria et libertate. Within weeks there was a considerable kuruc army which invaded the Tisza region and the lands between the Danube and the Tisza, reached the border of Moravia by August and occupied Transdanubia early in 1704. The kuruc troops scored victories in Transylvania too. The imperial army withdrew into castles and fortified towns.

The attitude of the Hungarian ruling class was hardly affected by the unexpected kuruc victories. The nobility withdrew under the pro¬ tection of the imperial garrisons, only joining Rdkoczi from necessity with the fall of the strongholds. As time passed, more and more of the nobility began to realize that only active participation could make the movement conform to their interests. Little by little, under the in¬ fluence of Rakoczi’s personality, the nobility took the lead in the kuruc army, identifying itself with the movement and expecting the solution of its problems from the joint victory. From among their number came the best advisers of Rakoczi, the organizers of the war of independence in the military, economic and diplomatic field, with Pal Raday, the head of the privy chancery, as their leader. The majority of the aristocracy and high clergy kept aloof from the war, regarding it from the beginning as doomed to failure, and contrary to their interests. Only a minority joined Bercsenyi and Sandor Karo- lyi, Rakoczi’s first two aristocratic followers. R£k6czi was indulgent with regard to their hesitations because he always insisted that the aim of the rising was first of all to restore the political autonomy of the country under the leadership of the aristocracy. The nature of independence was first defined as under the Treaty of Vienna: Habs¬ burg rule, free of absolutist measures, and based on the autonomy of the nobility in Hungary, guaranteed by an independent Principality of Transylvania. The first step for R&koczi was to be elected prince of Transylvania.

Since the Treaty of Vienna, however, social forces had changed to the same extent as the situation in foreign affairs. The military strength of the war of independence depended on the peasantry and on the landless small nobility. They had to compromise their differences with regard to the feudal landowning classes, however, in order to enable Rakoczi to pursue the war until Habsburg policy could be forced to make concessions in a more favourable international climate. Rako¬ czi’s decree exempting the fighting members of the peasantry and their families from their feudal dues had not pleased either the landowners or the peasantry. The landowners tried to disregard the concession, while the peasantry wanted to be entirely free of obligations, not only the fighting members but their extended families, and in some cases, the whole village community. In some boroughs there were attempts to end all the landlords’ privileges and occupy the manorial lands. Rakoczi dealt severely with these attempts, but also stopped the abuses of the landlords. He succeeded in temporarily stemming the class con¬ flict and consolidating the social foundations of the war of independ¬ ence.

His expectations in the field of foreign affairs, on which an early victory depended, met with less success. Louis XIV did not deny him the financial contributions enjoyed by Thokoly earlier, but he formed no open alliance. Charles XH, King of Sweden, on the other hand, regarded the kuruc movement as an act of rebellion against the lawful ruler. Alliance with the Turks, in the given situation, was entirely out of the question. England and Holland, on the plea of support for the Protestants in Hungary, but actually to help their Austrian ally, volunteered to mediate between Rakoczi and the Habsburgs. The negotiations met with little success, as Rakoczi in¬ sisted on the recognition of the Principality of Transylvania, and the implementation of the Treaties of Vienna and Linz regarding the rights of the nobility and religious freedom. Vienna was not ready to grant either, thinking merely of amnesty and a restricted form of autonomy. Another serious blow to the independence struggle was the victory of Hochstadt won by the emperor and his allies in August 1704, which rendered a joint movement against Vienna by French, Bavarian and Hungarian forces impossible. It seemed likely that the only course was prolonged resistance.

The Crisis and End of the War of Independence

The war had to be pursued by Rakoczi and his collaborators under grave economic conditions. To safeguard the confidence of the people, the kuruc state levied no taxes, but tried to raise the full cost of an army numbering 80,000 men, and conduct diplomatic activity covering most of Europe, from customs, mine revenues and the confiscated estates of adherents of the Habsburgs. Copper coins were minted as substitutes for gold or silver coins, and a war industry, considerable by Hungarian standards, was created to supply arms and clothing to the army from state workshops. Any shortage was covered by imports managed by a state-run foreign trade enterprise. The Hungarian ruling class, while executing these grand economic projects, began to get acquainted with mercantilist principles and practice. The state administration was supplemented by new features, such as the standing economic council.

These measures made it possible for the former barefooted peasant army, fighting with axes and scythes, to become a well-clothed and fed, disciplined, relatively modern regular army. However, most of the troops were light cavalry, suitable for quick, guerrilla warfare; they could not put up a stand in battle against the regular imperial forces. They also had few well-trained officers. From among the many ignorant, inexperienced aristocratic officers Jdnos Botty&n was excep¬ tional for his military knowledge and skill. As a former imperial colonel during the wars against the Turks, he had already distin¬ guished himself. The imperial army, on the other hand, as long as the war in the west occupied its main forces, could not defeat the con¬ stantly renewed kuruc resistance, in spite of battles won.

In 1705, at the time Rakdczi held a diet in Szecseny to consolidate the kuruc state organization, the majority of the country was still in kuruc hands. A part of the nobility was inclined to proclaim Rakoczi as king of Hungary, but some kuruc aristocrats, desiring peace with the Habsburgs, were opposed to their dethronement, declared Rakoczi Hungary’s governing prince, and appointed a senate composed of nobles as his advising body. This was to be an interim measure, as Rakdczi himself had little confidence that the war could be won single-handed. As agreement with the Habsburgs seemed very un¬ likely, he wanted to invite to the throne of Hungary any member of a European dynasty hostile to the Habsburgs. The new victories of the kuruc army in Transdanubia, the temporary occupation of Tran¬ sylvania in 1706, and the defence of Transdanubia encouraged the diet of 1707 at Onod to dethrone the Habsburgs and declare Hungary an independent state.

Signs of collapse were clear, however, at the time of the 6nod diet. There emerged a peace party, openly desiring agreement with the Habsburgs, and silencing it could not help solve the economic and social troubles. The economic resources of the country had been spent: the copper coins deteriorated, the army was in tatters, unpaid and fighting with worn-out weapons. The soldiers lost hope, and not only because of financial troubles. The officers from the aristocracy and the nobility, without any consideration of the effect on the army, began to order their former serfs in the fighting force to go back home. Their dependents at home were again being obliged to render services. The social foundation of the independence struggle was crumbling.

Rakoczi did not lose hope entirely, since he still had his alliance with Czar Peter the Great, made in 1707, and connections with the court of Prussia. He offered the crown of Hungary to the Prussian crown prince. In 1708, with a desperate effort, he re-equipped his army, and tried to cross into Silesia to join the Prussian forces. His way was blocked by imperial troops, and owing to the mismanagement of his seconds-in-command, he lost the battle of Trencsen. This defeat sealed the fate of the war of independence. The act passed by the diet of Sarospatak in 1708, declaring the fighting peasant entirely free, came too late. The wavering elements became open traitors; and inertia and despair prevailed in all hearts. The kuruc forces were in constant retreat, and at the end of 1710 Rakoczi was compelled to visit Peter the Great in person to ask for immediate intervention. During his absence, his deputy, Sandor Karolyi, acting without authorization, offered peace to the Habsburgs in 1711. Rdkoczi refused to recognize the Treaty of Szatmdr, which was made against his will, and went into voluntary exile. He lived first in France, and later died in Turkey at Rodosto in 1735. Bercs6nyi and some of his other adherents followed him into exile.

The Treaty of Szatm&r promised an amnesty to all who had partic¬ ipated in the war, provided they were willing to swear allegiance to the Habsburg ruler. It also recognized the autonomy of the country.

The Baroque Culture of the Kuruc Period

Conflict between the Hungarian ruling class and then the whole people, on the one hand, and the Habsburg monarchy, on the other, co¬ incided with the introduction of the baroque style into Hungary.

Baroque style in Hungary, as throughout Europe, was character¬ istic of the Counter-Reformation. A specific feature of Hungarian baroque, however, was that national elements had the upper hand over religious ones. The two great pioneers, whose influence prevails in the intellectual atmosphere of the kuruc age, Zrinyi and Apaczai, appealed not to Catholics and Protestants, but to the whole nation, including, though still tentatively, the social classes outside the sphere of the ruling class. The most positive feature of their nationalism lay in their recognition that economic and social backwardness, reflected in inertia, internal strife, poverty and ignorance, was the most dan¬ gerous enemy—a bigger threat than the Turks or the Austrians. They wanted to remedy this backwardness and suggested military and educational ideas for reform.

The nationalism of the kuruc period deprived Zrinyi and Apaczai not of their passionate appeal, but of self-criticism in national matters. The political poetry of the nobility in the kuruc period of the 1670s recalled the example of the ancient Scythians, of Attila, Matthias Hunyadi and Bocskai in contrast to the bleakness of the present. These poets despised the Austrian oppressors and the Catholic priests, but occasionally also the peasants and their rebellion. Caught between foreign oppression and the dangers of a peasant uprising, the nobility could only desire a tolerable compromise. This accounts for the pes¬ simistic attitude of the poets, and the hedonistic passion, turning its back on insoluble political problems, which fills the pages of Istvan Gyongyosi, the most popular poet of the age.

At the end of the century, the pessimistic, yet formally over¬ decorated baroque poetry of the upper class gave way to more serious and politically more progressive trends.

The political poetry of Rakoczi’s war of independence is dominated by the verses of the outlaws, not by the poetry of the nobility. The out¬ law poets demanded in the name of the downtrodden sections of society the freedom often promised but yet ungranted to the soldiers. A new nationalism, teeming with anti-feudal ideas, confronted the nationalism of the nobility.

The nationalism of the nobility was also transcended, though differently, by the ideas of a narrow circle—that of the intelligentsia of the upper aristocracy. Ferenc Rakoczi II himself was a member of this circle, and so was Miklos Bethlen, chancellor of Transylvania. From a political point of view, both of them professed ideas favouring centralized national government. They were far more interested in economic questions than their contemporaries, and more eager for the scientific novelties of the age.

Rakoczi and Bethlen contributed to literary thought by writing political essays and memoirs. One a Catholic, the other a Protestant, both were the representatives of deep religious feeling coupled with tolerance, which springs from Jansenism on the one hand and Puri¬ tanism on the other, both essentially anti-feudal, bourgeois philosoph¬ ical trends of the age. Both were characterized by intensive self- analysis and severe self-criticism, as found in Rakoczi’s Confessions written in exile, and Bethlen’s Memoirs, written while imprisoned in Vienna. Both books are remarkable psychological records, the pioneers of psychological writing in Hungary.

In the last decades of the seventeenth century, science in Hungary made great strides forward. In the footsteps of the Hungarian Puritans, different trends of mechanistic philosophy developed in Hungary, with some original thinkers in the Protestant colleges. The most important philosopher of the time, Janos Pdsahazi, professor at Saros- patak, confronted with deep insight the teachings of the Cartesians and the Atomists. In addition to Descartes and Gassendi, the great figures of contemporary English scientific life made their influence felt: the professors at the Lutheran college of B&rtfa taught Bacon’s philosophy and propagated Atomism in the spirit of Boyle. They were the first to do so in Hungary. During the first years of its existence, the Royal Society established contact with scientists in Hungary, and in 1669 commissioned Edward Browne to study mineral resources and mining in Hungary. The book he wrote was the first in a long succession of travelogues on Hungary by Englishmen.

Science in the seventies suffered greatly from the closing of many Protestant schools. For a time Transylvania became the asylum of Hungarian Protestant culture. The great representative of old Hun¬ garian book-printing, Miklos Misztotfalusi Kis, worked in Kolozsvar, and the first Hungarian producer-playwright, Gyorgy Felvinci, also directed his secular plays in that city. The colleges of Gyulafehervar and Marosv£s6rhely welcomed the expelled professors and students of the college of Sarospatak.

One of the achievements of Rakoczi’s war of independence was to reopen the closed Protestant schools—S&rospatak being the first to open its gates. The first Hungarian physicist, Istvan Sim£ndi, taught in those years at Sdrospatak; R&koczi himself had watched his experiments. Modern history and literary criticism had its pioneers in that period. The Jesuit Gabor Hevenesi compiled a collection of historical documents in 140 volumes; a citizen of Selmecbanya, David Czvitinger, was the author of the first Hungarian bio-bibliography.

Baroque style penetrated more slowly into the arts than into literature. The first baroque buildings were Jesuit churches; the oldest which survive are in Nagyszombat and Gyor. Baroque was applied only as interior decoration in secular buildings, for castles and manor houses continued to be built in the Renaissance style—such as Miklos Bethlen’s castle at Bethlenszentmiklos, which he designed himself. The only baroque palace of the century was built by Palatine Pal Esterhdzy at Kismarton.

Habsburg Absolutism and Hungary (1711–1760)

Under the Treaty of Szatmar the Hungarian ruling class accepted a compromise with the Habsburg dynasty. In exchange for recognizing again the hereditary succession of the Habsburgs as laid down in the Act of 1687, it could remain in the possession of its estates, enjoy exemption from taxes, dispose freely of its serfs, and share in govern¬ ment through the county administration and the diet. The right of succession was extended to apply also to the female line of the dynasty with the acceptance in 1723 of the Pragmatica Sanctio, the succession settlement of the Austrian Habsburgs. Charles HI, who acceded to the throne in 1713, after the short reign of Joseph I (1705-1711), gave a solemn pledge to govern Hungary in accordance with her own laws and in agreement with the diet.

The balance between the dynasty and the Hungarian ruling class, which had been upset by the brutal absolutist measures of Leopold I, was seemingly restored. In reality, however, no effective power re¬ mained in the hands of the Hungarian Estates with which to resist the introduction of any absolute measure. The chief means of resist¬ ance, the army and the funds for its upkeep, had been placed by the diet at the disposal of the ruler. The nobility was glad to be rid of its military obligations, and the aristocracy of the cost of its private armies; all they needed was sufficient military force to keep the peasantry in check and prevent a possible attack from the Turks. The ruling class, therefore, expressly demanded the presence of the imperial army in the country. There was bargaining over questions of taxation, but the diet consented again and again to raise it to the very limit, until it reached the maximum contribution which could be ex¬ pected from the peasants. The foreign-speaking army under foreign leadership had to be billeted on the peasantry and also fed by them. At the same time the Hungarian peasants were dragged into regiments serving in other Habsburg lands, sometimes never to return. The Habs¬ burgs maintained the political partition of the country: Transylvania was governed as an independent province, separate from the Hun- garian governing council; the southern parts reoccupied from the Turks, on the other hand, were put under the direct control of the War Council of Vienna as military frontier districts.

Habsburg-Hungarian Compromise (1711–1760)

The Consolidation of the System of 'Perpetual Serfdom'

The Hungarian ruling class was determined to get rid of those free elements of the peasantry who could again threaten to become re¬ sponsible for a kuruc movement or another anti-feudal peasant war. In agreement with the government of Vienna they gradually stopped the privileges of the heyduck settlements. If the inhabitants disagreed they were entitled to take to the road, but wherever they went they could only become serfs again. Only the privileges of the heyduck towns founded by Bocskai, which were sanctioned by law, were able to survive as the last relics of a freer social trend. The free Sekel peasantry were obliged by the Habsburgs to do heavy frontier guard service from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards. The medieval privileges enjoyed by the free Cuman peasants were lost in 1702, when the monarch pledged their land to a remnant of the Teutonic Order. After long struggles, the Cumans succeeded in freeing themselves and regained their privileges in 1745, at a cost of half a million florins.

The heyduck and Cuman villages which escaped serfdom developed into densely inhabited boroughs. Their example encouraged other boroughs in the Great Plain to look for ways of achieving freedom. After the expulsion of the Turks, the landlords tried to stop these endeavours, and even tried to curtail the privileges of the boroughs surviving from the Turkish era. Only the largest and richest ot them managed to pay their contributions to the landlord in a lump sum and preserve their internal autonomy. On the other hand, they suffered from the struggle of the haves and have-nots for the posses¬ sion of land. To overcome the discontent of those thirsting for land, from time to time the local authorities released plots of land for viti¬ culture to cottagers. These measures promoted viticulture by opening up new areas to cultivation in the sandy dunes of the Great Plain, but they were hardly enough for the many landless labourers who were not able to find work because industry was at a standstill. For these people the privileges of the borough simply meant that instead of ‘perpetual serfdom’ they had to hire their services at any rate to any bidder.

With the restoration of the land released from the Turks, the con¬ ditions of the village peasantry went from bad to worse. After a hundred and fifty years of Turkish occupation, living in the midst of continual wars, the population of the country hardly surpassed the four million of Matthias’s day. Scarcely more than half of these were Hungarians, as the heart of the Hungarian settlements on the Great plain and in Transdanubia had been most severely hit. The land in¬ vaded by the Turks went out of cultivation; where villages had once flourished and crops thrived, fishermen navigated the flooded rivers, and immense grazing lands fed herds of cattle and horses. The romantic beauty of the Hungarian puszta, with its mirages, is the sorry result of two hundred years of desolation.

The war had hardly ended before Hungarian and Slovak peasants from the north were settled in the depopulated areas. The restrictions of ‘perpetual serfdom’ retarded, however, the rate of growth of the new settlements. But competition among landlords for new settlers made it possible for many peasants to find better conditions with lighter contributions than formerly. The Great Plain was the first to fill up from the internal movements of the Hungarian and Slovak peasants. In Transdanubia and along the southern border, the court and the new aristocracy (Hungarians and foreigners who had bought their enormous estates very cheaply) invited in foreign, mainly German Catholic peasants (the so-called ‘Swabians’) and also Serbians.

The Hungarian and the foreign peasantry, fighting against flooding, woods and disease, transformed the savage land with tremendous effort into cultivated fields. But the land, broken and cultivated by the sweat of his brow, could not belong to the peasant. The foreign settlers enjoyed far more privileges than the Hungarians: exemption from taxes for some years, the right of free movement, and the commutation of labour services. In many instances they were even given tools and draught animals, yet for all this they were and remained serfs. The landlords only waited until their new settlers felt at home before in¬ creasing their burdens. After a few generations the foreign peasants were also considered as perpetually tied to the land, and their right to free movement stopped. New baroque residences were erected in the villages, with considerable empty land behind them, and manorial land, taken from the peasants, needed the continued labour services of the serfs.

The two centuries long struggle between the peasantry and the land¬ lords for the control of agricultural production ended in the eight¬ eenth century in favour of the landlord. The free peasant elements were suppressed and the settlers were reduced to serfdom. By checking the development of the free peasantry, the landlords successfully pre- vented peasant commodity production from developing adequately. This gave free scope to the development of capitalist commodity pro¬ duction on the manorial estate. It was not entirely accomplished in the eighteenth century, but its basic precondition, the absolute posses¬ sion of the land by the landlord and the creation of manors, happened thereabouts. By the middle of the eighteenth century, more than half of the arable soil had become the privately owned land of the land¬ lord, the foundation of the later capitalist estate system.

The real reason why the landlords wanted to set up a manor was not in order to cultivate their fields intensively; none of them engaged hired labour, relying instead on labour services. It is true that most of the manorial land was hired out to poor peasants under miserable conditions, far worse than the land allotted in tenures, but the main reason was to free the land from ordinary state taxation. The manorial land was exempt from taxation, unlike the tenures of the serfs.

Agriculture in Hungary developed a great deal in spite of heavy feudal restrictions. More and more land was cultivated and cultivation became more intensive. New plants were acclimatized, including tobacco, maize, potatoes and fodder crops. Owing to the expansion of the manorial land and the new settlements, the boroughs were left without enough grazing land on which to raise their cattle. They went over to intensive animal husbandry, wintering the animals on dry fodder. Shortage of land also forced the boroughs to produce higher yields of wheat and wine. This was supported by the Habsburg government, as Austria and the Bohemian provinces largely depended on Hungarian foodstuff. The development of agriculture, however, did not contribute to the development of industry and trade.

Agrarian Towns and Foreign Merchants

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the main income of the bourgeoisie was still derived, even in the large towns, from viticulture. Craftsmen and merchants combined their trade with cultivating their vines, while the upper ranks in the towns went in for vine growing on a large scale. They worked hand in glove with the nobility, who assumed political leadership in the town councils. Trading activity was confined mainly to the exchange of foreign commodities and Hungarian agricultural products; guildsmen sold their own goods at the fairs. The number of craftsmen amounted to only 10-20 per cent of the total population of a town. The great majority were still pre¬ dominantly farmers who on occasion engaged in trade.

The development of agriculture finally moved industry forward from its primitive position. New guilds emerged in towns, boroughs and villages, and the craftsmen supplying the local markets increased their output. Handicraft industry was circumscribed by the guild system, and only in the larger towns did it break away completely from agriculture by the middle of the eighteenth century. In not more than 20-30 towns, about the same number as before Mohacs, was the proportion of those engaged in trade and handicrafts as high as 20-25 per cent; and the number of trades was between 50 and 60, corresponding in general to the situation in the fifteenth century.

The antagonistic attitude of the Hungarian feudal ruling class was still affecting the growth of towns in the eighteenth century, and the Habsburg government did little to relieve the towns from feudal pressure. Towns had only on rare occasions been granted the title of free royal city. After the expulsion of the Turks, only Buda and Pest, and then Szekesfehervar, Esztergom and Szeged were given back their privileges. In 1693, Debrecen became a free royal city. If the land¬ lord opposed a town being granted the privileges of a free city, the court of Vienna did not interfere. Among the episcopal towns, Gyor became a free royal city in 1743 and Pecs in 1780. Ihe veto of the episcopal landlord prevented Eger and Veszprem from obtaining their much coveted liberties. Vac was held back for another reason—it could not raise the funds to pay the tax to redeem itself. Among the boroughs of the temporal lords, not a single one had gained full freedom before 1848.

In these circumstances neither the bourgeoisie of the free cities and boroughs nor any other section of Hungarian society was engaged in the trade of agricultural products, which fell into the hands of Greek, Serbian and Armenian merchants. They had gradually penetrated into Transylvania during the seventeenth century, and trade agree¬ ments made by the Habsburgs and the Turks opened the way for them into the Kingdom of Hungary. As Turkish citizens they at first only settled temporarily in the country, taking their earnings back home. Originally they had dealt in articles from the East, but their agility and diligence, and their established capital introduced them into the business life of the country. Many of them finally settled down in Hungary, in the towns along the Danube, forming auto¬ nomous trading colonies. In the second half of the eighteenth century, they were obliged by the Habsburg government to resign their Turkish citizenship and lost the privileges it had given them. Their participa¬ tion in the trade with the Turkish empire thus ended, but they contin¬ ued to play an important role in internal trade.

Aristocracy and Nobility

The temporal and spiritual aristocracy regained their much-threatened supremacy within the ruling class during Rakoczi’s war of independ¬ ence. As bishoprics and archbishoprics were allotted to the members of the Hungarian aristocracy, most of the land was concentrated in the hands of a selected few. Within the ruling class, a group of 10-20 aristocratic families became far superior in wealth to the others, possessing large, medium and small estates. The leading group com¬ prised the Esterhazy, Batthyany, Palffy, Nadasdy, Csaky, Erdody, Kohdry, Szechenyi, Forgach and Zichy families. Sandor Karolyi, responsible for the Treaty of Szatmar and rewarded with enormous estates, Antal Grassalkovich, president of the chamber, who had distinguished himself in court service and in busily building up his fortune, and Pal Festetics, a treasury councillor, w^ere newcomers to the group.

The nobility, who were mainly Protestant and numbered several hundred thousand, made up about 5 per cent of the total population. They lived within the framework of county autonomy, and ranged in wealth from the bene possessionati with hundreds of serfs, to those who were landless, impoverished and living like peasants. The Habs¬ burg absolutist government managed to breach the tax immunity of the nobility by obliging those without land or serfs to pay, but it did not manage to interfere directly with the relationship of landlord and serf. The extent of the peasants’ state contribution was regulated by bargaining between the king and the diet. The members of the lower house of the diet represented the counties (since the sixteenth century the diet had been divided into two houses: the upper house, with the aristocracy and the high clergy, and the lower house, with the rep¬ resentatives of the counties and towns). The allotment and collection of the taxes was the duty of county officials.

The king appointed the foispdn, who merely supervised the county officials. These were elected by the nobility from their own numbers. The posts of county officials were regarded as nobile officium and carried a nominal salary, not providing a livelihood. These circum¬ stances were not conducive to proper office routine. County officials acted only in the lower judicial courts, in tax administration and in the management of supplies for the army. Even if their importance in the formulation of national policy diminished, their influence on public opinion remained considerable. Public health, public works and economic development were only dealt with incidentally, from the point of view of public order. The poorer nobility had neither the means nor the knowledge to advance beyond primitive methods of cultivation; the well-to-do were hardly interested in the matter, and with good reason, because agriculture was considerably restricted by the narrow home market, the backwardness of transportation and the meagre opportunities available in a badly organized foreign trade. There was little opportunity for more than the haphazard disposal of surplus production.

Late Baroque Culture

There was nothing to promote economic progress, nor any alluring prospects on the horizon to dissolve the deep-rooted conservatism of the nobility, brought about by the bitter experience that any change would promote either absolutist measures against their privileges, or the unrest of the peasantry, desiring to be rid of their burdens. The dreary inertia of their conservatism was embellished with the slogans of the ideology of national heroism and stoic idealism. The Jesuits, the intellectual leaders of the triumphant Counter-Reformation, were their busiest propagandists. During the emergence of absolutist government and before the Catholic higher clergy were firmly back in the saddle, the Jesuits were seen as indispensable. After victory was achieved with their help, they became inconvenient, but they never¬ theless retained their influence on the nobility. With the restriction of the Protestant schools, the Jesuits had complete hold over university education (at the university of Nagyszombat and the newly founded university of Kassa), and partial hold over secondary education and book publication.

The culture disseminated by the Jesuits during their monopoly was no less old-fashioned and reactionary than the recipient Hungarian nobility. Hungary was declared ‘Regnum Marianum’: the constitution of the nobility was placed under the protection of the Virgin Mary, and her miracles were proclaimed by the establishment of a string of holy places. Fanaticism was aroused in order to convert the Protestant peasants, against their will, and the nobility itself, to the new militant Catholicism. Even the remaining Protestant noblemen were impressed by the tales of ancient national glory, the glib repetition of stories of military valour and the Jesuit gift of oratory. The new creed preached the shallow wisdom of renunciation and the pseudo-stoicism of the golden mean, adopted from Jesuit education and literature and put for¬ ward at meetings of the diet and the count}' council. The Jesuit presses reproduced century-old treaties of religious controversy, the philosoph¬ ical works of Seneca and Boethius, and the scientific works of Aristotle. Numerous books appeared giving accounts of miraculous healing at the places devoted to the Virgin. What was more, two- thirds of the books appeared in Latin, as opposed to the seventeenth century, when they were published mostly in the vernacular. The rhetorical Latin of Jesuit education and of Jesuit authors degenerated into a ‘kitchen’ Latin which became the class language of the nobility, a hindrance to the spread of modern ideas.

The Protestant schools in their desperate struggle for survival could no longer be bridgeheads for progress as they had been when pro¬ pagating Puritan and Cartesian ideas. They were more receptive to scientific thinking than the Jesuit schools, and strode forward with the introduction of experimental physics at the beginning of the century. Their dogmatic Cartesian thinking, however, placed them in as great an intellectual isolation as the neo-scholasticism of the Jesuits. The most important cultural trend was connected with the name of Matyas Bel, a Protestant educator of Pozsony. He and his associates became the pioneers of the practical trend in German pietism and of the early Enlightenment in Hungarian education and science. Bel gave the first large-scale picture of Hungary’s ethnic, economic and cultural conditions in his momentous volumes on the country: Nova Hungaria (1735-42). The first attempts at technical and welfare innovations came from pietist circles. Bel made plans for an orphanage; his friend and the map-designer of his books, the engineer S&muel Mikoviny, was the first to deal with the important question of regulating rivers. The Protestant intelligentsia, who resented the restrictions on their church and set themselves ambitious economic and cultural goals, did not command sufficient numbers or social significance to be able to realize their plans. Their protectors, the more cultivated members of the Protestant landed nobility (among them P&l Rdday, poet and founder of a renowned library) were occupied with organizing the defence of the Protestant Church against the Counter-Reformation, and had little influence in national affairs compared with the Catholic aristocracy.

Under the political system of the Counter-Reformation, in the face of the backwardness on every level, only the Catholic aristocracy, spiritual and temporal, had the means, power and political freedom to raise the level of contemporary standards by bringing them closer to the Western European scene. Most of them, however, were content to transform their immediate surroundings and adorn them with baroque splendour. Their palaces were built and embellished by out¬ standing foreign masters. Cathedrals rose in the midst of dusty villages and bleak towns. Baroque art in Hungary is represented by the buildings of Hildebrandt, the sculptures of Donner and the frescoes of Maulbertsch. The only eminent Hungarian artist of the period, Adam Manyoki, the portrait painter of leading Protestant noble per¬ sonalities, was compelled to leave the country and became a court painter in Dresden.

Aristocratic Mercantilism and the First Manufactories

There were a few Hungarian aristocrats who were able to identify the interests of their own class with those of the country as a whole. These few devoted themselves wholeheartedly to adapting mercantilist ideas to Hungarian conditions, by applying the experience gained in the course of building and defending the kuruc state and creating an independent Hungarian economic policy. It is no coincidence that after the Treaty of Szatmar the very same men who had been promi¬ nent in the Rikoczi era endeavoured to restore the economic and cultural life of the country. They compromised, accepted the amnesty and tried to increase prosperity, in order to realize part of the dream which would have been possible within a fully independent Hun¬ garian state.

Time settled many of the problems which had come to the surface during the fifty-year struggle between the absolutist government and the Estates. Both king and diet felt the need for a new political system. The diet of 1715 sent out a commission which, after years of pre¬ paratory work, drafted proposals for various fields in the life of the country. The commission had members from the aristocracy and the nobility, together with Sandor K&rolyi and Pal Raday, and other kuruc members. They proposed a central Hungarian governing body, another version of the governing council created by the Habsburgs’ centraliza¬ tion policy of the sixteenth century and abandoned after the Treaty of Vienna. The economic plan, produced entirely by Karolyi, lays down the principles and practice of Hungarian mercantilism. In order to prevent Hungarian currency from leaving the country and to in¬ crease its internal use, leather, textile and iron manufactories were to be established to process Hungarian raw materials. Craftsmen were to be invited from foreign countries and the guilds gradually abolished. Other measures to encourage trade were the establishment of uniform weights and measures, the ending of internal tariff zones, and the building of navigable canals. The draft also proposed the building of schools, the setting up of printing presses and the opening of public health institutions. The governing body’s function would have been to organize and not merely control or supervise. Its task would have been to search for foreign markets, test the quality of products, oversee the central distribution of raw materials and goods and the creation of state manufactories, and replace the Church in control of education and censorship.

The drafters of the scheme only took into consideration needs, not possibilities. The court of Vienna was wary of an independent Hun¬ garian mercantilist venture. The diet, on the other hand, was alarmed by the possible eventual cost of the scheme, and by the danger that a planned central financial fund might interfere with the nobility’s privilege of tax exemption. The governing council was actually established in 1724 in conformity with the principles of the system, but its scope, owing to the doubts of the court of Vienna and lack of confidence on the part of the nobility, was much narrower than in the proposal, and of the suggested schemes little was accomplished.

The failure to realize the schemes for the development of state-run trade induced Kdrolyi to organize it by private enterprise. With the palatine, Janos Palffy, and two of the EsterMzy counts, he establish¬ ed a Hungarian ‘Compagnia’ for running the cattle trade and for establishing manufactories. Their scheme failed owing to opposition from Vienna. But in keeping with a decree of the diet that the troops stationed in Hungary had to be clothed and equipped at home, Karolyi established the first Hungarian factory for woollen fabrics in 3722. His example was soon followed by Palffy and the Esterhazys. Until the middle of the century, the Hungarian aristocracy was engaged in schemes for creating woollen mills, iron-foundries, pot¬ teries and glass factories. The treasury also established works of its own. The number of workers was small, and instead of employing hired hands, masters from the guilds were engaged on contract. The masters brought their own tools and implements with them, maintain¬ ing their independence to a certain extent by working also for other customers outside the factory. These humble efforts did not alter the general backwardness of trade in Hungary, for most of them failed by the middle of the century.

In 1748, notwithstanding the efforts of some aristocrats to develop industry, the foreign trade balance showed the following customs items: out of total imports worth 4,360,000 forints, 56.5 per cent were textiles and metal goods; and out of total exports worth 6,050,000 forints, 55 per cent were cattle, 27.5 per cent other food stuffs and 15 per cent industrial raw materials. In comparison with the situation in the sixteenth century there were only two—rather important—dif- ferences: other agricultural goods than cattle appear in the exports, and most of the imports were now coming not from faraway Western countries but from the hereditary provinces of the Habsburgs. This was not due to far-reaching state planning but to the inner logic of economic development. The early Hungarian factories failed owing to primitive labour conditions, high production costs and bad manage¬ ment. A protectionist policy could have helped them avoid their initial failures, but this could hardly be expected either from the government in Vienna or from the officials of the nobility at home. A decisive change was to come about in the middle of the century wit h the War of the Austrian Succession.

The Use of Hungary as a Colony

With Charles III the male line of the Habsburg dynasty became ex¬ tinct. The succession of Maria Theresa (1740-1780) was challenged by a French, Bavarian and Prussian coalition. The enemy was ad¬ vancing into the Habsburg provinces when Maria Theresa entreated support for herself and for her babe in arms, later Joseph II, from ‘the gallant and courageous Hungarian nation’ at the diet of 17 m Pozsony. The nobility, moved to tears, offered their ‘life and blood (vitam et sanguinem) to her. Their emotional outburst was supported bv the sound reasoning that the monarchy in its plight might be obliged to give them more privileges. The throne ol Maria Theresa, and the Habsburg Empire for that matter, was saved by the quickly organized Hungarian regiments. Europe came to know expert Hun¬ garian commanders hitherto neglected in the imperial army. Ferenc N&dasdy, who won the battle of Kolin with a daring cavalry charge and Andres Hadik, the victor of Berlin, were not just examples of individual Hungarian bravery, but also excellent soldiers equipped with the highest accomplishments of contemporary military science. Hadik became the first Hungarian member of the War Council and

subsequently its chairman.

Maria Theresa repeatedly insisted on her indebtedness to the Hun¬ garians, but except for bestowing honours, organizing a Hungarian bodyguard and visiting Hungary, she gave no palpable signs of it. The monarchy remained firmly committed to absolute rule, and the Hungarian ruling class continued to be afraid of losing its autonomous privileges. Nothing was done to resolve other latent conflicts of interest between the industrial hereditary' provinces and agrarian Hungary. The loss of Silesia, the richest and economically most developed prov- ince, compelled the government of Vienna to put into effect new economic measures which even further aggravated the differences be¬ tween Vienna and Hungary.

The first step in the new policy was the introduction of a system of customs designed to cut off Hungary from its century-old trade with Silesia and divert it towards the hereditary provinces. The Austrian and Bohemian provinces, however, could only step into Silesia’s shoes if their industries could provide the same type of goods as Hungary had hitherto imported from Silesia. They were unable to do this unless Hungary supplied them with cheap raw materials and all competition was excluded. In 1754, prohibitive tariffs were placed on all goods imported from outside the Habsburg Empire; all goods except raw materials exported from Hungary to Austria were also heavily charged; but manufactured goods exported from Austria to Hungary enjoyed protective tariffs.

Minor changes were made in the tariffs throughout the century but there was no fundamental change. This rendered industrialization in Hungary extremely difficult. Habsburg economic policy did not treat Hungary in the same way as the Western countries treated their colonies overseas. Industrialization was not prohibited, it was even granted privileges, but the factories in Hungary were run in conformity with the interests of Austrian industry. With the end of the Silesian imports after 1750, many new industries were started. This did not lessen the colonial relationship—regarded even by contemporaries as such— established between Austria and Hungary. The attempt to confine Hungarian foreign trade to Austria, the facilities promoting the import of Austrian industrial goods, and the considerable economic difference between the western and eastern parts of the Habsburg Empire, were enough in themselves to make this relationship clear.

By 1770, 87 per cent of Hungary’s exports were going to Austria and 85 per cent of its imports came from there. The structure of this restricted foreign trade had changed little compared with former standards. In 1767, 52 per cent of Hungary’s exports consisted of cattle, 26 per cent of cereal products, mainly wheat, 16 per cent of leather and wool, and 5 per cent of tobacco. These figures show that Hungarian agriculture was becoming more intensive, but also reveal a decline in the flourishing wine trade with Poland and Silesia, and, at the same time, indicate the general backwardness of Hungarian in¬ dustry. Eighty per cent of the imports were industrial goods, of which 55 per cent were textiles; another 20 per cent comprised spices and colonial goods, tea, coffee, sugar, cocoa and fruit. There are no reliable data available showing to what extent Hungarian industry could supply the home market, but various facts suggest that both the bourgeoisie and the well-to-do elements of the peasantry regularly bought foreign commodities.

The economic dependence of Hungary on Austria reached such a degree by the middle of the eighteenth century that it formed a basis for the Habsburg administration to revive their old plan to break the resistance of the Estates, this time applying the measures of an ‘enlightened’ absolutism.

Enlightened Absolutism—Hungarian Enlightenment (1760–1790)

During the Seven Years War (1756-1763), the need to save the Habs¬ burg Empire and achieve the return of Silesia brought the government of Vienna face to face with situations which could not be solved by old political methods. In order to encourage the growth of economic resources, raise the tax-paying potential, and improve the effectiveness of the state administration, new strides forward had to be made in centralization. The advisers of Maria Theresa were men under the in¬ fluence of the French Enlightenment, who tried to persuade the monarch to introduce reforms which combine the abolition of the privileges of the Estates, and the weakening of the influence of the Church with economic and cultural benefits for the non-noble classes, in order to broaden the social and financial basis of feudal absolutism. The religiously minded queen could never entirely sympathize with the secular ideal of an enlightened absolute ruler, but she identified herself with humanitarian reforms, accepting as their basis a more centralized form of government.

The central governing body of the new regime, the Staatsrat, was established in 1760. Its leading spirit. Prince Kaunitz, regarded the autonomous rights of the Hungarian nobility, and above all their exemption from taxation, as the chief obstacle to centralization within the empire. He looked at industrial development in Hungary in the same context: if Hungary became industrially independent of the hereditary provinces, the resistance of the nobility would increase. He believed that the system of protective tariffs should continue. On the other hand, the methods of Hungarian agriculture should be improved, and with it the lot of the oppressed peasantry, because such measures would strengthen the empire from an economic point of view, thus adding to the deterioration of the political position of the nobility. This attitude determined the trend of enlightened absolutism in Hungary for the next thirty years, and the Staatsrat only made exceptions temporarily and in single instances in connection with the setting up of new industries in Hungary—permission and support be- ing given only where it would not harm the industry of the hereditary provinces.

The Urbarial Patent and Its Consequences

The central government went on to attack the privileges of the Hun¬ garian Estates with renewed vigour at the diet of 1764. The exemption of the nobility from the payment of tax was circumvented by a pro¬ posal that their military services should be commuted to a money pay¬ ment. Another attempt was made to provide for uniformity in the extent of peasant burdens. Both proposals met with violent op¬ position; the queen was compelled to give up the taxation of the nobility but insisted on the immediate reform of the serf system.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the burdens of the serfs in Hungary were generally unbearable. In the northern and western territories where the population was most dense owing to the Turkish wars, the expansion of the landlords’ manors rendered more and more peasants landless. In this situation the number of cottagers far ex¬ ceeded that of peasants with tenures. The peasantry of the former Turkish territories, on the other hand, complained at having lost their freedom, and at increases in their obligations to perform labour services. The dissatisfaction of the peasantry broke out in open revolt in the Transdanubian area in 1765. This development was welcome to Maria Theresa, who saw it as an opportunity to force the frightened Hungarian lords to accept reforms for the peasantry. The Patent of 1767 provided for the exact amount of land to be given to the peasant as a tenure, prohibited the inclusion of peasant plots in the manor and prescribed the exact obligations of the peasant in kind, in money and in labour services.

The Urbarial Patent regulating peasant burdens came into force little by little, bringing relief to the majority of the peasantry. In the long term it undid the odious law of the sixteenth century, which had stated that the peasant had no right to the land. The patent established the unalienable right of the peasantry, in theory at least, to a tenure. The feudal landlords misused the regulation in order to inflict new burdens on villages and boroughs in a more favourable position than that stipulated under the patent. Most boroughs had by then com¬ muted their obligations in kind and in labour to the payment of lump sums to the landlord; the patent, on the other hand, stipulated how much labour service was due on each tenure. Had the landlords succeeded in forcing on the boroughs the procedure stipulated for the villages, it would have meant the complete loss of their autonomy, and instead of facing the landlords as a community of peasant- citizens, they would have been split up into single individuals. The community and autonomy of the boroughs only served the interests of the citizen-farmers, and their hired labourers or cottagers felt that they had fared worse than the ordinary serf obliged to do labour services. The landlord’s policy was to incite the cottagers of the boroughs to break out into rebellion, but the rebels remained alone as soon as the landlord had raised the rents, i.e. achieved his real aim. The boroughs paid a high price to avoid a return to the status of villages obliged to render labour services. The cottagers profited little, because their poverty rose in proportion to their rising numbers within the community.

The Urbarial Patent did not stop the development of the manorial economy. The landlords did not need to resort to the confiscation of tenures for further expansion, as they already had plenty of land at their disposal. The large-scale development of wheat-growing estates started about the middle of the century, with the ploughing up of grazing land, the forced purchase of clearings from the peasant at a low rate, and, last but not least, the expulsion of the cottagers settled on manorial land. The landlords also succeeded in getting the full benefit of the labour services regulated by law. Hungarian wheat obtained constantly expanding markets owing to the war and the industrialization of the Austro-Bohemian provinces. The great land¬ lords could make large profits from the booming conditions by steadily increasing their wheat production. Between 1748 and 1782, the volume of wheat exports grew fivefold, to reach nearly 100,000 tons. Wool exports also increased considerably: between 1748 and 1764, they had not amounted to 1,000 tons, but thereafter they rapidly went up to 2,500 tons, and, by 1782, to 5,600 tons. Wool was also produced by the large estates, some of which specialized in sheep farming. The two characteristic items of peasant production for export, cattle and wine, lost ground. The majority of the slaughter animals in the export trade were no longer Hungarian, but came in transit from Poland and the Balkans. The change in the structure of agricultural exports from Hungary denoted the final triumph of manorial pro¬ duction over that of the peasants.

The Modernization of Agriculture and New Industries

The great increase in manorial production brought about the large- scale modernization of the big estates. The introduction of advanced crop rotation in place of the old two and three-field system, the regular preparation of the soil, improvements in the quality of seeds, and the purchase of breeding stocks (mainly Merino sheep) contributed to better results, side by side with the introduction of hired labour. On many estates, the new methods of cultivation produced palpable results by 1780: the yield of grain rose to seven and eight times the seed sown, compared with a maximum yield of five times on peasant farms and on the demesnes worked by peasant hands.

The development of Hungarian agriculture became the main feature in the Vienna government’s programme, and the government actively contributed to the popularization of modern methods of cultivation. Specialized books on agriculture and stock breeding by Hungarian and foreign authors were published with the help of state subsidies. In 1763, the Collegium Oeconomicum was founded at Szempc for agricultural studies, and the university, which moved from Nagy- szombat to Pest in 1777, established a chair of agriculture. In the counties, economic societies started their activities. Throughout the country the regulation of rivers produced new land for agriculture and contributed to the improvement of transportation.

Nevertheless, the modernization of agriculture did not produce changes in the structure of feudal society in Hungary. Owing to un¬ developed internal market conditions, the agrarian revolution affected only part of the large estates. The nobility of small and medium means, together with the peasantry, continued to use obsolete methods of farming.

It was Samuel Tessedik, the Lutheran minister of a borough in the Great Plain, who first attempted to raise the level of the illiterate, land-bound, backward peasant masses. He introduced the rotation of crops, tried to stabilize the sandy soil by planting acacia trees, and sought to make salty land fertile. In 1780, he established the first school of practical agriculture in the world for peasant youths. In his book about peasant life in Hungary, he emphasized the need for better treatment and more freedom of movement for the peasants. It was not only this poor preacher, living close to the life of the people, who was concerned with the fate of the peasantry, but also Andrds Hadik, the great general, the recipient of royal favours, who suggested ending the system of ‘perpetual serfdom’. In 1769, he introduced a proposal to that effect at the court of Vienna, but it was refused.

Economic changes had greatly affected the system of towns in Hun¬ gary, as borne out by the census held between 1785 and 1787. The most important change was in the western and northern frontier towns which had flourished before Moh&cs, and continued to thrive during the Turkish era, but declined rapidly afterwards. Only Pozsony, Sopron and Selmecbanya had a population between 10,000 and 30,000; Kassa, Locse, Bdrtfa and Eperjes had degenerated into small towns. Among the royal towns, only Buda, Debrecen, Szeged, Pest, Gyor and Szekesfehervar belonged to the category with a population over 10,000, along with many boroughs such as Kecskemet, Komarom, Eger, Hodmezovasarhely, Miskolc, J£szber6ny, IJjvidek, Szabadka and Zombor. Leaving aside Transylvania, which preserved its in¬ dependence even during the Habsburg rule, the greatest concentrations came into being in the central and southern parts of the country, mainly along the Danube. Changes are also clearly obvious from the concentration of trade. In 1777, there were over a thousand craftsmen in Pozsony, Debrecen, Pest, Buda, Komarom, Gyor, Sopron, Szekes- feh£rvar, Besztercebdnya, Szeged, Eger and P6cs, mainly in the central parts of the country and along the Danube. The distribution of merchants was most typical of the new pattern of towns: the greatest number of merchants in 1777 was in Pest, Buda, Debrecen, Pozsony, Gyor, Komarom, Ujvidek, Sopron, Szabadka, Szeged and Eger.

The conclusion will be obvious that the development of towns during the second half of the eighteenth century depended to a large extent on trade with Austria, mainly the grain trade along the Danube. The largest towns were those which had become the centres of the grain trade, collecting the crops of the neighbouring districts, and directing grain arriving from many parts towards Austria. Besides wheat, other agricultural produce (wine, leather, cattle and wool) followed the same course. The development of handicrafts comple¬ mented this commercial activity, expanding to cater to the population concentrated in the towns. The grain merchant began to emerge as foremost among the bourgeoisie of Hungary, developing within the next hundred years into the typical Hungarian capitalist.

The expansion of agricultural production and the growth of the export trade not only encouraged the humble guild handicrafts, but also stimulated capitalist industrial production. In the 1760s there was a spate of new factories. Apart from the aristocracy, bourgeois capital also established some of these. The new enterprises employed hired labour, together with skilled workers from abroad, and were organized as joint stock companies. Textile mills, ceramics and leather factories and larger iron works were set up. Iron foundries belonging to the treasury, later to be among the biggest in the land, were establish¬ ed at Gyor and Resica. Their up-to-date technical equipment opened new possibilities for Hungarian heavy industry. Gold and silver mining, also under the management of the treasury, achieved a high technical level. Explosives were first used in mining at Selmecbanya at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in the 1750s the two Hells (father and son) perfected the pump worked by compressed air. Outside England, steam engines were first used in Hungary for pump¬ ing water. In the middle of the eighteenth century, gold production reached a yearly average of 500 kilogrammes; silver production had doubled since the sixteenth century to reach 13,000 kilogrammes a year; and the yearly output of copper was up to 20,000 tons. The first coal mines were opened in Hungary in 1759 at Brennberg, near Sopron.

The first, modest flourishing of Hungarian capitalist industry only marginally affected the country’s industrial backwardness. In a country of eight million inhabitants, the aggregate number of all industrial workers, including the guild craftsmen, together with the managers and workers of the manufactures, did not add up to one per cent. The towns were hostile to capitalist production because they wanted to protect guild handicrafts and so they opposed the establishment of manufactures. The nobility were indifferent to the efforts of the industrialists, many of whom failed as a result of foreign competition, poor market organization, the shortage of skilled labour, inadequate transport facilities and the lack of credit. The economic policy of Vienna was only one factor among the causes of the frequent failures; the root of the trouble was the massive feudal structure of Hungarian society.

Cultural Enlightenment

Economic measures in themselves were not sufficient to introduce far- reaching changes in this situation; it seemed equally important to obliterate the conservative attitude which was the enemy of change in all spheres. The intellectual movement of the Enlightenment reached the upper strata of the Hungarian ruling class and some members of the ecclesiastical intelligentsia in the 1760s. The new ideas penetrated directly from French literature, indirectly through the teaching of German universities. Scientific understanding of the world began to develop earlier with the introduction of Newton’s physics to replace the scholastic philosophy taught in Jesuit and Piarist schools, and the Cartesianism of the Protestant ones. In the schools of miners establish¬ ed in Selmecbanya in 1755, and at the university of Nagyszombat (later moved to the capital), modern, up-to-date physical and chemical instruction was available. Jdnos Molnar discussed Newton’s teachings in Hungarian in 1777, thus taking the first steps towards making Hun¬ garian a language of science. In 1782, an institute of the training of engineers was established alongside the university.

The ideas of the Enlightenment were coupled with national aspira¬ tions by young Hungarian guards officers in Vienna, who showed a keen interest in literature. Gyorgy Bessenyei, a guards officer, was the first to write Hungarian literary works in the spirit of the Enlighten¬ ment. He considered it his duty to serve both the interests of cultural progress and the cult of the national tongue, for, as he said, ‘no nation could believe itself to have adopted wisdom without making the sciences speak in its own language’. From the seventies onwards, a host of gifted writers enlisted their services in the cult of the mother tongue. With their translations and original works they acquired a public for this renascent Hungarian literature among the nobility and the new intelligentsia.

Official cultural policies followed, somewhat belatedly, in the footsteps of the pioneers of the Hungarian Enlightenment. The queen was not enthusiastic about the broadening of culture. Nevertheless, after the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773, the reorganization of public education could no longer be postponed. The attitude of the enlightened circles of the court, that education should be a state affair, prevailed, and the state accepted responsibility for the spirit and substance of instruction. In 1777, the Ratio Educationis was published; it laid down the organization and curricula of schools in Hungary, giving added emphasis to the sciences, but leaving the schools them¬ selves to be administered by the Churches, under the supervision of the state authorities.

Joseph II and His System

Maria Theresa’s successor, Joseph II (1780-1790), was a more con¬ scious representative of enlightened absolutism. His aim was the political unity of the Habsburg Empire. He considered the privileges of the Hungarian Estates as its main obstacle. Joseph refused, there¬ fore, to be crowned king of Hungary and he did not call any diet. His decrees aimed at inflicting blow after blow on the Hungarian feudal system. The Catholic Church came under state control and lost its right of censorship. Most of the religious orders were dissolved, and their fortunes were confiscated to form an educational fund. With his policy of toleration, Protestants and the Greek Orthodox could become civil servants. He won the sympathy of the Protestant nobility and the peasantry who had suffered much from the intolerant Counter- Reformation. The people were thankful for the Patent of 1785, which granted free movement to the peasant, liberty to choose his employ¬ ment and an enforceable right not to be driven away from his land. This meant the end of the institution of‘perpetual serfdom’, although the landlord’s property rights and feudal obligations continued. The nobility tried to resist, but the peasant uprising of 1786 under the Rumanian Horia in Transylvania frightened them into accepting the provisions of the patent.

The logical conclusion of Joseph II’s ideas about government would have been the termination of Hungary’s colonial dependence, the abolition of the customs barrier between Austria and Hungary and a new economic policy to end the differences between the industries of the two countries. The emperor had approvingly considered such measures, and did not hinder the development of manufactures in Hungary. This new attitude facilitated the establishment of several new factories, which came into being on the basis of bourgeois capital in the towns, mainly in Pest, which had developed into the economic centre of the country. Progress was seen not only in the number of new factories, but also in technical innovations in every field. The new textile machines of the English industrial revolution were installed a few years after their invention in textile mills in Hungary, and an attempt was made to produce textile machines inside the country.

The tariff policies, however, which prevented real progress inside Hungary, were not lifted. Joseph II, like Maria Theresa before him, insisted that it was impossible to reduce tariffs, because owing to the tax privileges of the Hungarian ruling class, Hungary provided only a small share of the financial support of the empire, and the dis¬ crepancy had to be covered through customs revenues. There is no doubt that both the tax privileges and other feudal institutions pre¬ vented Joseph II from carrying out his reform programme, which in turn hindered the development of the bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the economic policy of the Habsburgs largely depended on the interests of Austrian capitalists. This seems to be borne out by a statement of Joseph II, that the treasury could not give financial aid to manufactures in Hungary because foodstuffs there were cheaper than in Austria. This could mean that the emperor was afraid that industrialization in Hungary would interfere with food supplies to Austria. But another interpretation of the emperor’s words seems to be more adequate: that Austrian capitalists were afraid of competition from factories in Hungary, where labour was cheap.

Thus Joseph II neither suppressed nor promoted the development of Hungarian industry. It would be impossible to say whether, if he had been able to end the tax exemptions of the Hungarian nobility, he would have been persuaded to change his tariff policies, because his measures against the privileges of the Hungarian ruling class became ineffective owing to their resistance. The abolition of the autonomy of the counties vis-4-vis the central power, the registration of land prior to the introduction of the taxation of the nobility, and, finally, the introduction of German as an official language instead of Latin, turned the whole Hungarian aristocracy and nobility against him. Even the Protestant elements who had whole-heartedly supported his earlier reform measures turned against him. With the outbreak of the French Revolution, the secession of Belgium became imminent, in the war against the Turks the imperial army was beaten, and Joseph II was forced to be more lenient. In 1790, a few weeks before his death, all his reform plans for Hungary' were withdrawn with the exception of his decrees for toleration and for the suppression of per¬ petual serfdom.

On the Eve of National Development

The clash between Joseph II and the Hungarian nobility, marking the end of the compromise between the monarchy and the Hungarian ruling class, was more than a mere fight between an enlightened re¬ former and feudal conservatism. The reform measures of the emperor had not contributed to the end of the colonial exploitation of Hungary. In the given circumstances the resistance of the nobility was not only an attempt to save its feudal privileges but, also, to defend the pos¬ sibility of the economic independence of the country. There were many, in those days, who regarded the latter as more important. Neither the retarding forces of the class interests of the nobility nor the absolutist ruler could prevent any longer the development of the bourgeoisie in Hungary. An economic and cultural development had begun. The ideas of the Enlightenment penetrated into the midst of Hungarian society, taking root outside the aristocracy and well-to-do nobility in the secular intelligentsia. Priests and schoolmasters, most of them descended from the peasantry, townsmen and small nobility, doctors, engineers and lawy ers introduced by Joseph’s administrative reforms into county administration, the officials of the modernized large estate, and some state officials till contributed to the development of Hungarian learning. They laid the groundwork for scientific col¬ lections and for the creation of a domestic press, and worked out a programme for the technical development of the country, all in keeping with a future independent Hungary. Reviving Hungarian nationalism not only started an offensive against feudal backwardness and Austrian oppression, but also led to a plan for the Magyarization of the non- Hungarian population of the country.

Hungarian hegemony was exercised over a population of 8 million, with Slovak, Rumanian, Croatian, Serbian, Ruthenian and German nationalities together forming an absolute majority. This hegemony was due to the Hungarian tongue of the majority of the feudal ruling class. Only the Croatian people had a feudal ruling class and a feudal autonomy of their own. In Hungary and Transylvania, the majority of the town population were German and Hungarian, in Croatia German and Croatian. Among the Serbians, the immigrant Balkan merchants, among the Slovaks the lower-middle-class elements of the towns represented the future national bourgeoisie. There were only a few Rumanian and Ruthenian elements in the Hungarian and German populations of the towns. The bourgeoisie, however, of whatever tongue, represented only a minor economic and political force. The 90 per cent peasant population, most of them serfs, represented a force in the emerging national struggles between the Hungarian and non- Hungarian bourgeois elements in the country, only because of their numbers and their linguistic and religious conservatism.

In Rakoczi’s war of independence, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Germans and Hungarians had fought side by side against Habsburg oppression. The Habsburgs themselves could only rely on the Croatians, and, after the expulsion of the Turks, on the Serbians invited to settle in Hungary. It was not language, but religious and social antagonisms which had turned them against the Hungarian nobility. In feudal Hun¬ gary, only the members of the ruling class possessed a national con¬ sciousness; the deprived peasantry were excluded from the idea of feudal nationhood; the non-Hungarian privileged classes, however, were included. The more democratic interpretation of the nation of the kuruc outlaws had long been forgotten after the compromise between the monarchy and the Hungarian nobility. The official language of the country was Latin (with the exception of Transylvania where Hun¬ garian was used from the sixteenth century onwards), and, as a matter of course, the citizens of the German towns declared themselves Hungarians and so did the Rumanian and Slovak nobility.

The significance of language became more pronounced in the course of anti-Habsburg struggles, especially when the bourgeoisie and the peasantry became more involved in the struggle. The Enlightenment further developed, both among Hungarians and non-Hungarians, the respect for the native tongue, which became the inspiration and weapon of national movements in the hands of the secular intelligentsia. The latter grew in numbers, both among the non-Hungarian peoples and among the Hungarians, and became more cultured during the eight¬ eenth century. The Toleration Act of Joseph II opened public insti¬ tutions to the non-Catholics, which contributed to the development of the Greek Orthodox Rumanian and Serbian and the Protestant Slovak intelligentsia. This new intelligentsia defined the ideology of the emerging bourgeoisie and the national aspirations of the non-Hun¬ garian peoples. The controversial and confused conditions after the death of Joseph II provided it with its first opportunities.

Towards Bourgeois Transformation, Revolution and War of Independence (1790–1849)

National Resistance and the Republican Movement. The Anti-Revolutionary Compromise and Open Absolutism

The Diet of 1790–91

The death of Joseph II on 20 February 1790 left Hungary in a state of absolute turmoil. The crisis in which the tremendous endeavours of the deceased despot had involved the whole structure of Habsburg absolutism, was deepened by the revolutionary mood of the whole of Europe. The revolution of the French people offered an example to other suppressed peoples in Europe, and the wars of Frederick William II, King of Prussia, threatened the international political prestige of Austria. The court of Prussia had already established relations in the lifetime of Joseph II with the Hungarian opposition; these relations were strengthened with the death of Joseph II and were aimed at depriving the Habsburgs of the throne of Hungary and offering it to Charles Augustus, Duke of Weimar.

Joseph II was succeeded on the throne by his brother, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Widespread movements in the counties attempted to make use of the formalities of accession to restrict the new ruler’s powers on a feudal basis. The court called the diet early in July to arrange the coronation. In the preceding months there were feverish preparations throughout the country. The radical elements among the nobility even contested the Habsburgs’ right to the throne. They repeated the ideas propounded in the literature of the Enlighten¬ ment, especially the principles of Rousseau’s Social Contract, ac¬ cording to which Joseph II, by not observing his contract with the Hungarian people, had forfeited his rights, and the nation was entitled to disregard the Habsburgs and dispose freely of the throne. Strangely enough, the ‘nation’ only comprised the nobility and the privileged classes, and Rousseau’s revolutionary principles were in fact being applied to strengthen the feudal constitution; in just the same way, the conclusions drawn from the first years of the French revolution were that the people, meaning the nobility, were entitled to restrict the ruler’s power as they liked.

The influence of the flood of ideas brought by the Enlightenment was visible elsewhere, too. In the decade of Joseph ll’s rule there had been no censorship, books could be freely imported from abroad and the humane ideas of the Enlightenment had every opportunity to take root, especially among those of the intelligentsia who, sympathizing with the efforts of Joseph, had broken with the spell of the feudal constitution. Several such intellectuals, including Gergely Berzeviczy, Igndc Martinovics and in particular the commoner Jozsef Hajnoczy, wrote tracts demanding political rights for the non-privileged classes, too, and proposed as the first steps towards freeing the serfs the in¬ troduction of hereditary tenure, the liberalization of office-holding irrespective of birth, the general and proportional sharing of taxation, and equality before the law. These proposals naturally found little response in the society of the time; the crisis of feudalism had not sunk so deep in Hungary as to allow bourgeois principles of change, backed by the force of national needs, to form the spearhead of progress.

The diet began the session at Buda in a state of ferment. Before the coronation, the Estates stipulated that Leopold make far-reaching concessions which would have restricted his power. They wanted to have the independence of the country almost completely restored, with the government being entrusted to an annual feudal diet representing the Estates. Leopold tried to extricate himself from this difficult situation, using every political device possible. He made an agreement with the court, of Prussia, encouraged the Serbian-Illyrian nationalist movement for independence, supported the anti-aristocratic demands of the Hungarian cities, and employed agents to fan the anti-feudal feeling of the discontented peasantry. The independence movement of the nobility was thus deprived of the outside support of Prussia, while inside the country it had to beware of the movements of the different nationalities, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. In these circumstances it became safer to agree. The king was on the winning side and in the autumn of 1790 he removed the seat of the diet to Pozsony, nearer to the Austrian capital. Soon after, he was crowned there and his son Alexander Leopold elected palatine. During the sessions of the diet, the Estates constantly gave way before the king and court; Leopold, on the other hand, was not averse to making con¬ cessions. Left-wing developments in France warned both parties of the need to come closer, and Leopold promised far-reaching legal reforms to safeguard the feudal constitution. The often-quoted cardinal Act X of 1791 declared that Hungary as an independent state could only be governed according to its own laws, unlike the other provinces. In Act XII the king recognized that the right to create, abolish and interpret laws belonged jointly to the king and the diet. A special Act provided for the right of the diet to levy taxes and recruit the army; another specified the legal functions and independence of the highest governing body, the Lieutenancy Council. In the spirit of Joseph II and his decrees of toleration, the freedom of Protestants and members of the Orthodox Church to observe their rituals was codified. An Act of the Diet provided for the free movement of the peasantry, and until the diet revised the provisions for the relationship between landlords and serfs, Maria Theresa’s urbarial regulation was tem¬ porarily codified.

In the light of later developments another innovation of the diet is noteworthy: commissions were set up to prepare for ‘regular activ¬ ities’. Altogether eight such commissions were sent out to work out proposals for reform in various fields in the life of the state and society, preparatory to acts of the diet that would remedy the grave backward¬ ness of the country. The following diet of 1792 was to have dealt with the matter. Under the chairmanship of the palatine at Buda, the dis¬ cussions dragged on for years. The commissions’ activities aroused nation-wide interest, and many private individuals sent in suggestions to them. These proposals bear witness to endeavours to turn the wheels of progress, so far stuck in the mud of feudalism, towards bourgeois development. The final proposals, which were ready by 1793, aimed at remedying only the most glaring deficiencies, and had they become law would have been merely conservative reforms bringing the feudal state up to date. Leopold died in March 1792. His eldest son, Francis, who succeeded him, did not dare to put before the diet the mild motions which had been prepared, fearing that the nobility might turn the discussions towards a further restriction of royal power. The court declined year after year to bring the proposals before the diet. When at long last, after four decades, the revised drafts were dis¬ cussed, they were based on the initial work of the commissions, and on this basis the Hungarian bourgeois national reform movement was launched.

The stability brought about by the diet of 1790-1 did not last. The new intelligentsia, nurtured on the ideas of the Enlightenment, was disappointed at the achievements of the diet. They despised the nobility, who after all the struggles were content with merely safe¬ guarding their privileges. They were disappointed with the work of the drafting commissions and soon after became disillusioned with the king, too, because under Francis the government became openly reactionary. The nobility itself was also disillusioned, for the more and more blatantly absolutist tendencies at court and the postponement of the new legislation led to great dissatisfaction among its ranks. The enlightened intelligentsia regretted that the modernizing reforms had been put off, while the patriotic noblemen grumbled because the foreign ruler had reassumed absolute methods of government. It was an opportunity for the several factions of discontent to join in a com¬ mon cause.

The Hungarian Jacobins

The rule of Francis 1 was overshadowed from its very beginning by fear of the ideas of the French revolution proving contagious: the September Constitution of the French National Assembly of 1791, which deprived royal power of its substance and strength, seemed an example to be followed not only for the radical intellectual but also for the patriotic nobleman. The best elements of the intelligentsia moved to the left, inspired by the example of the French Revolution, and when the Jacobins assumed power after the execution of the king in Paris, and the revolutionary army fought its successful battles against the combined forces of the European powers, Hajnoczy, Szentmarjay, Pal Oz and other moderate reformers turned into re¬ publicans and proclaimed far-reaching social reform. The republicans deeply impressed even the fundamentally anti-revolutionary nobility, and by the spring of 1794 their opposition movement had spread over almost the whole country. Police reports recorded increasing unrest and revolutionary activities throughout the country.

The movement soon took the shape of an organization, which was connected with the name of Tgnac Martinovics. Martinovics started as a Franciscan friar and army chaplain, and became a professor of natural history in the university of Lemberg. He approved of the re¬ forms of Joseph II and in 1790 addressed a pamphlet to the diet urging it to shake off the power of the aristocracy and the clergy. He later entered the service of Leopold as a police agent and produced reports about the situation in Hungary. After the death of Leopold, he came into contact through Hajnoczy with the clubs of the in¬ telligentsia of Pest-Buda, and seeing rising discontent in Hungary, and approving of its aims, decided to take matters in hand. He sub¬ sequently wrote his most impressive pamphlet, an open letter ad¬ dressed to King Francis, defending the French revolution against reactionary vituperation. He began to build up the organization of the Hungarian movement in the spring of 1794. Corresponding to the two forms of discontent, two organizations were set up: the Society of Reformers, which embraced the discontented elements of the nobility on the basis of independence and mild reforms; and the Society of Liberty and Equality, which rallied the radical intellectuals for the realization of a Jacobin programme.

Martinovics published the aims of the two societies in two mani¬ festos. In the reform manifesto Martinovics suggested in outline changes to satisfy the nobility and the radicals alike. The aim was to break with the Habsburgs and found an independent republic, with its own national army, independent foreign policy and foreign trade, a free press, a federal system allowing a certain self-government to the various nationalities, and a parliament of two chambers, one for the aristocracy and nobility, another for the representatives of the non¬ noble elements of the country. In the draft, land-ownership remained the right of the nobility, with the peasants becoming free tenants. In the radical manifesto there were vague general suggestions about an alliance with the peasantry and the suggestion that the question of ownership should be settled by revolutionary means. This manifesto suggested no definite procedure, as in the general backwardness of Hungarian society of that time it would have been extremely difficult even to imagine what direct steps could be taken towards a democratic development.

After the drafting of the programme in the summer of 1794, the leaders, Hajnoczy, Laczkovics, Szentmarjay and Count Sigray, began to organize the movement. It was divided into cells. The first to join the movement were the members of the Pest radical club, but it soon spread to intellectual circles in the provincial towns, the county nobil¬ ity, and even Transylvania and Croatia. Within a few months, there were 200-300 regular members in the two organizations, most of them from the nobility and only a few bourgeois members.

The organization remained unknown to the authorities until at the end of July the police in Vienna captured the leaders of a similar Jacobin organization there. During the arrests, Martinovics was also captured and during interrogation revealed to the police the details of the Hungarian organization, and on 16 August, the leaders were arrested in Buda. The country was shocked, and the counties handed m appeals over the illegal nature of the arrests. Nevertheless, the rounding-up of the members involved in the organization continued, and by the end of the year, more than fifty arrests had been made. During the arrests and during further proceedings all legal procedures were ignored by the government. The trials were conducted in ab¬ solute secrecy, and the defendants were scarcely given the chance to act in their own defence. The government was not interested in the truth, but in terrifying those who wanted to change the status quo. The verdict was correspondingly ruthless: out of the 53 defendants, 18 were condemned to death, others received sentences of imprison¬ ment of various length, and only 6 were acquitted. Several death sen¬ tences were carried out on 20 May 1795. On this day Martinovics and four other leaders were beheaded; two young members of the move¬ ment were executed on 4 June. The other death sentences were com¬ muted by the king to long imprisonment. The measures used to stifle the movement terrified the intellectuals, and the nobility, taken in by the government’s propaganda that the country was on the brink of a Jacobin revolution, turned its back on ideas of progress, and, abandon¬ ing even the defence of its own independence, offered its services to the monarch. The country suffered from a mounting police terror.

The Period of the Napoleonic Wars

For two decades after the crushing of the Jacobin movement, there were no serious incidents to disturb the relationship between the court, representing Austrian interests, and the Hungarian ruling classes. Napoleon, the representative of the haute bourgeoisie, no longer brandished the banners of revolution on the European continent, but those of a conquering great power. The Hungarian nobility bore the burden of the twenty-five-year war without grumbling, the brunt falling on the common people of the country. The frequent diets voted without demur for new recruits and more and more war taxes, and even to levy an extra war subsidy on the nobility, although the court consistently refused any of their wishes, particularly with regard to foreign trade. On four occasions the militia of the nobility were called up, in 1797, in 1800, in 1805 and in 1809; only once, in 1809, did they actually fight with the French, at Gyor, where the badly equipped, untrained, undisciplined county gentry’s forces were ignominiously routed. The memory of this defeat remained shameful for years to come to the nobility, who liked to justify their rights to a tax-free existence by feats of arms. The Hungarian nobility proved equally loyal when Napoleon after the occupation of Vienna in 1809 ad¬ dressed an appeal to the Hungarians, promising them independence if the Hungarians would break away from the Habsburgs in an open rebellion. The Hungarian nobility saw in Napoleon a propagator of revolutionary ideas, and his appeal was disregarded. Only a few intellectuals who had been involved in the movements of the nine¬ ties saw the possibilities of the historic occasion; Gergely Berzeviczy addressed the draft of a constitution to Napoleon, insisting on in¬ dependence and a break with feudal conditions. When after the Russian campaign of 1812 the star of Napoleon began to decline, the nobility redoubled its support of the anti-Napoleonic coalition. At the Con¬ gress of Vienna in 1815 the shape of the new Europe was moulded, and the powers of the newly formed Holy Alliance (Austria, Prussia and Russia) solemnly vowed to keep the spirit of revolution per¬ manently away from the peoples of the Continent.

Deterioration in the Relations between the Court and the Estates

The understanding between the court and the Estates suffered a mortal blow in the last years of the war, and its survival until the end of the war was merely a formality. Affairs came to a head at the diet of 1811-2, over financial matters. By that time the deterioration of the imperial currency and the increase in the state deficit had assumed tremendous proportions: in 1790, only 28 million gulden worth of bank-notes had been in circulation, whereas by 1811, the amount had increased to 1,060 million. To avoid bankruptcy, a royal decree devalued the bank-notes in circulation to a fifth of their nominal value. The court placed proposals for reform before the diet, according to which Hungary would supply a considerable portion of the funds in gold for a new currency. The diet objected to the king’s having proposed the reform of the currency without the prior agreement of its representatives, refused to recognize the amount of the deficit allotted to Hungary, and to supply the funds for the new currency. During the parliamentary discussions it proved impossible to reach agreement on the controversial issues. The court of Vienna planned to take revenge for Hungary’s action by abolishing its constitution and making Hungary unconditionally part of the Austrian Empire. Owing to the new wars the idea was temporarily postponed: the financial reform, on the other hand, was introduced in Hungary without the diet’s consent, and in 1816 another 60 per cent devaluation was carried out.

Triumph at Napoleon’s defeat produced the last convergence of in¬ terests between the court and the Hungarian ruling classes. From then onwards the absolutist measures of the court always produced massive resistance from the majority of the counties. The situation finally became critical when the court sent military forces against the re¬ volutionary movement which broke out in several provinces of Italy in 1820. Money and men were wanted for the action. Without parlia¬ mentary consent, the king requested the recruitment of soldiers and the renewal of the former war tax, but the 1820 tax was levied without taking into consideration the devaluation of 1816. which meant that the tax was two and a half times as great. Most of the counties objected to these measures, and declined to comply, addressing innumerable petitions to the government. In reply, royal commissioners were sent out, and military force applied. After a long struggle, the counties were compelled to give in to brute force. The government, on the other hand, seeing the force of resistance even after 13 years of ab¬ solute rule, suggested that the diet be called again.

The movement of resistance in the counties was still entirely based on the Estates. In the same way, the absolutism which prevailed in neighbouring Austria and which now attempted to abolish the Hun¬ garian constitution, was of an entirely feudal character. The clash occurred in circumstances where development in most parts of Europe had outgrown feudalism, and in many countries the discarding of feudalism had produced revolutionary movements. Seeing the flame of revolution spreading in Europe, the court decided to renew its former anti-revolutionary alliance with Hungary. This policy, however, did not produce lasting results, because during the quarter century of the Napoleonic wars, the means of production had substantially developed, bringing about considerable changes in the economic life of the country, which called for more and more energetic changes in social and political policies.

Economic Conditions

During the war period, economic progress in Hungary was consider¬ able. The great armies needed much food, their wheat requirements were enormous, prices soared, and the produce of territories pre¬ viously off the beaten track also found customers. Under the influence of the boom created by the war, agricultural production flourished, not only on the large estates which had always sold their produce on the market, but on the middle-sized estates of the gentry and small farms as well. The hope of profit encouraged the owners to produce more and more, and the simplest way to step up production was to en¬ large the area put to the plough. The enlargement of the manorial estates of the great landlords was somewhat hampered in Hungary by the fact that the urbarial tenure in the possession of the serf was under the protection of the law, and, moreover, was a basic unit for war taxes and consequently untouchable, at least in principle, by the landlord. The landowners therefore coveted first of all the non- urbarial land. There were also means of getting hold of the peasant tenure: at least some of the tenures could be obtained under such excuses as boundary regulations and the portioning out of the common grazing land.

Work on the landlord’s estate was mainly done in the form of labour services; hired labour was only employed on the most advanced large estates, but even there on a small scale in comparison with the use of unpaid forced labour. The labour service to be rendered in return for the tenure was fixed by statute (urbarium), but the boom meant that more labour was needed, and the landlords applied varied measures to obtain it. The techniques of agricultural production could not keep pace with the requirements of the market. The serf cultivated his own land and the manor of the landlord according to old, obsolete methods. The peasant tenure yielded 2-4 times the amount of the seed sown, the landlord’s land 3-5 times; the difference was only partly due to more developed methods of cultivation and harvesting, more often arising from the fact that the landlord’s estate comprised land of better quality, increased demand also created favourable con¬ ditions for peasant production. The food requirements of the towns encouraged the surrounding villages to produce fruit and vegetables such as grapes, cabbages and melons, and in certain parts tobacco was grown. In the large market towns of the Great Plain, the members of the city corporation and the wealthy farmers extended their land at the expense of the poorer people by expropriating the common land for grazing, and took more and more grain, cattle and wool to market. The increase in agricultural production accelerated the dif¬ ferentiation process among the peasantry, creating side by side with the fundamental distinction between landlord and peasant a virtually capitalist distinction between the wealthy and the poor sections of the peasantry.

The boom created by the war, in enlarging agricultural production, also contributed to the crisis of feudalism. Production was raised to meet increased demand but any attempts to increase yield or im¬ prove techniques were baulked by the backwardness of agriculture. The primitive conditions prevented the accumulation of capital, essential for the transition to capitalist agricultural production.

War conditions also favoured the development of industry. The need to equip the army with clothing, weapons and war materials in¬ creased demand in most important branches of trade, while at the same time the wartime boom led to a growing demand from con¬ sumers for more and better commodities. The guilds and non-guild industries could not satisfy the increased demand, as the conservative production methods and equipment used in Hungary were not adequate. Army orders encouraged enterprising masters in certain trades to enlarge their workshops, and they began to develop into capitalist businessmen. This process also precipitated a crisis in craft industry which was not really brought about in Hungary by internal causes of competition from local capitalist enterprises, but from the circumstance that it was still the Austrian capitalists, enjoying favour¬ able customs benefits, who catered to the Hungarian consumer. The developed linen handicraft industry of the towns of the Szepesseg (Zips) and Slovakia were ruined by the cheap production of the Silesian textile industry. Developments proved that feudal industrial production could no longer satisfy the increased demands of society. In spite of resistance from the guilds, capital gradually penetrated into production and industry. After the feeble and impotent attempts in the eighteenth century, the establishment of factories started again.

Capitalist industrial development was promoted by the continental blockade, and by the circumstance that in the adverse periods of the war, the Austrian government needed to compensate for the industrial settlements and arsenals which had been lost, and so established a few factories in Hungary. The textile and iron industries were the chief to benefit, the technology of the latter improving considerably in the war period. The development of the glass, paper, leather, pottery and carriage-making industries was also considerable, though far behind the first two. The forerunners of the first joint stock companies also appeared in the same period. Capitalist industrial production in Hun¬ gary, on the other hand, was held back by numerous factors deriving from the feudal and dependent nature of the country. One of these was the guild system; among the others was the fact that land suitable for industrial development was owned by the landlords, that the feudal relationship of the tradesman with the landlord persisted, that those without noble status were forbidden to acquire land, and prohibited, either wholly or in part, to export and import commodities and raw materials, and, last but not least, that there was a shortage of skilled labour.

In the course of this development, there emerged, though still in a restricted form, a more modern division of labour. The percentage of the total population engaged in trade and industry rose considerably. The country’s population increased between 1787 and 1828 from nine and a quarter million to eleven and a half million; the number of workers in trade or industry from 34,000 to 95,000; and the number of merchants from 4,000 to 9,000. During the boom many towns devel¬ oped into economic centres, first among them Pest, Debrecen, Pozsony and Szeged; their populations increased rapidly, and developed a wider market for agricultural and industrial commodities. The great centres began to link up with the small local markets to form a unitar}' national market.

With the end of the Napoleonic wars the upward economic trend soon came to an end. The army was largely disbanded, and its require¬ ments diminished. Russian grain again appeared on world markets, English industrial goods flooded the continent, providing deadly com¬ petition to the industries of the European countries which had devel¬ oped during the wars. The most catastrophic effect of the changes was felt in Hungarian agriculture. The small home market could only absorb part of the Hungarian agricultural production which had increased so greatly during the war. The armies no longer needed sup¬ plies. Hungarian wheat, on the other hand, was not competitive on foreign markets, owing to its low quality, the consequence of poor methods, not to speak of the high cost of transportation due to the poor condition of the roads of the country. Whatever market pos¬ sibilities existed in the hereditary Austrian provinces could easily be exploited only by the estates near the border. Owing to the miserable state of the market, some landowners stopped farming and rented their demesne land to merchants, or in small portions, to cottagers. The majority, however, continued to farm, but tried to improve the quality of their products and thereby make them more competitive. This would have required for success investment, the replacement of forced labour by hired labour, modern tools and implements, and most of all money and credit. After the two devaluations, at the time of the economic slump in Hungary, it was almost impossible to borrow money even with ample security. The feudal legal system placed the feudal estate under entail, making it almost impossible for an indebted landlord to sell his land by auction, and, on the whole, generally preventing the payment of debts. The only thing left for the landowner was to raise money at an exorbitant rate of interest.

The estates of the nobility became so overcharged with debt that a boom in the wool trade about the middle of the 1820s, lasting for a few years, hardly helped at all. The quick switch to sheep farming and the enclosure of the common grazing land only heightened the already strained relations between the landowners and the serfs without solving the economic troubles of the landowners. Because of the primitive methods of sheep farming, Hungarian wool was poor in quality, and this, along with the tariffs discriminating in favour of the Austrian producers, pushed it out of the European markets. The crisis in the production and sale of agricultural produce was the most obvious sign of the profound crisis of feudalism. The majority of the ruling class suffering from the crisis were only conscious of the symptoms and wanted to cure the evil by changing the tariffs which prevented the sale of their products. There were others, however, who recognized the core of the crisis, and suggested that the remedy was far-reaching changes in the social structure.

In the decades after the bloody suppression of the Jacobin move¬ ment, all endeavours to support Hungarian independence or social progress were driven underground. In the Habsburg Empire sense and reason suffered the chains of censorship and the secret police, as the Austrian bureaucracy established itself. Reaction and conservatism found a worthy representative in the feudal and absolutist regime of Francis I and his foreign minister and chancellor. Prince Metternich. It was a government that with relentless consistency persecuted all progressive thought, and in such circumstances any attempts in that direction had to be confined to activities less exposed to state control. In effect, this meant the development of the national language and culture.

National Language and Culture

The question of language was important in the development of every nation during the transition period from feudalism to bourgeois con¬ ditions, because the bourgeois idea of the nation comprises not only a politically unified territory and a unified market but also a common language. As Hungary was a multi-national state, when the first signs of a bourgeois, national movement appeared within its confines, the question of language gained in importance. The nobility first brought forward the cause of the language only as a counter to Joseph II’s aspirations; the bourgeois intelligentsia, on the other hand, used the cult of the national language as a means for the better understanding and dissemination of the elements of bourgeois development. The cult of the language as a whole was carried forward by progressive forces, although potentially the spread of Hungarian meant that it would be forced on non-Hungarians, too. As a result of the language renewal movement fostered by the writers, by the end of the first quarter of the century, there was a common literary medium available in a standard, undialectal Hungarian. It was a potential weapon for the spread of the new ideas in poetry and in scholarly and political literature. In the initial stages of national revival, the creation of the Hungarian national theatre meant a significant step forward. There were theatre com¬ panies in Pest and Transylvania, and also itinerant groups which, un- mindful of hardship roved around the country, propagating culture, patriotism and love of the Hungarian language. In architecture, the Hungarian version of Classicism gained ground, and on the initiative of Ferenc Szech6nyi, the Hungarian National Museum came into being. In natural sciences, statistics and economics Western achieve¬ ments were taken over and extended. History also appeared in the national language, exuberant in feeling, at times full of romantic exaggerations, yet sincere in fostering patriotism. It was a literature and a culture which started to express a nationalism that penetrated into various other fields of life, stressing in various ways the necessity of social changes.

The Development of the Bourgeois National Reform Movement and Subsequent Impasse (1825–1847)

The Diet of 1825–27

The session of the diet opening in September 1825, after the years of absolutism, was still held mainly under the control of the Estates: the counties insisted that all Hungarians who had participated in the absolutist regime should be punished; after some wrangles decrees were issued to reinsure the independence of the country and for the cancelling of tax arrears accumulated in the period of illegal rule. Long and barren disputes went on with the government about the reform of the discriminatory tariff system, and no agreement was reached between the representatives and the government in the matter of financial reform either. There were, however, moments in the life of this diet, composed as it was of representatives of the nobility, which could justify its being recorded in history not merely as the closing episode of the period dominated by feudalism and the Estates, but as the first scenes of an unfolding new age. One of these moments was the introduction in principle of the taxation of any nobleman living on a peasant tenure. This was the first wedge driven in the fundamental principle of the immunity of the nobility. A similar provision was a legal census of the taxable population, with reference to their financial situation. This measure was meant to foreshadow a more equitable partitioning of the burden of taxation. The law dealing with language, providing for a restricted use of Latin, was a great step forward in the struggle for the use of the vernacular language, a struggle which included all the features of bourgeois nationalism, both negative and progressive. Both from a national and a bourgeois point of view, Istvdn Szechenyi’s initiative in founding the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was a decisive step: the new institution was to be the workshop of a standard language, and through it of a unified Hungarian culture, and in fact it became a prime promoter of the idea of the new nationhood. Yet the most decisive moment in the life of the diet was the discussion on the proposals for reform which had been relegated to a pigeon-hole ever since the diet of 1791. Provision was made to revise these proposals and it was decided that the next diet should discuss them. Public opinion expected much from the revised proposals for reform. Before they were submitted to the diet, they were discussed in the county sessions, arousing unprecedented political interest, in the course of which for the first time the ideas of the reform were explicitly defined, and the first germs of the progressive opposition movement developed.

After the sessions of the diet closed, two questions were kept alive in the public opinion of the country: the question of the census and that of the plans for reform. A commission under the palatine busily set to preparing the census, which actually took place in 1828-9, the evaluation of the figures taking several more years. Expectations were, however, not fulfilled, since—in some counties realistically, in others erroneously, owing to the census-takers’ mistakes—the estimates as to the tax-paying capacity of the peasants were so impossibly low that the figures, in spite of several revisions, could not be used to readjust the taxation structure. The committee entrusted with drafting the re¬ form plans started its sessions early in 1828, and its work continued, with small interruptions, until the summer of 1830. The government was suspicious even of this most moderate committee. There were spies inside the committee, who sent detailed reports about the de¬ bates which particularly emphasized matters relating to Hungary’s dependence on Austria and the feudal system. The result of the com¬ mittee’s work, nine revised drafts, gave the government nothing to worry about, being thoroughly conservative in nature: disregarding developments over four decades, they simply demanded a certain modernization of feudalism, and not its termination. The debates in¬ side the committee, however, were less conservative. In some of the sub-committees there were some advocates (admittedly a minority) of progressive views, who demanded the abolition of entailment, the end¬ ing of the guild system, the liberty of the press, and the introduction of French weights and measures. These proposals were turned down as a matter of course by the conservative majority. The proposals which finally reached the diet would have served not the idea of progress, but the wilful continuation of feudalism, in its last stages of disintegration.

Before the proposals were submitted to the next diet, there were serious developments in Hungary, whereby it became obvious that the maintenance of the status quo was impossible and the necessity for a radical change inevitable. In 1832, the counties chose as their delegates members of a reform party, which, on more than one basic question of bourgeois reform, succeeded in achieving at least a temporary victory.

István Széchenyi

The publication of Istvan Szechenyi’s Credit (Hitel) was a momentous event for the reform movement. Its author was the descendant of an ancient, wealthy, and traditionally loyal aristocratic family, the son of the founder of the National Museum, Count Ferenc Szechenyi. He spent his youth in military service and foreign travel, but after sowing his wild oats, a reaction set in and he subjected himself to severe self-criticism, until he came to realize his duty towards his country. In November 1825, he donated a full year’s income to estab¬ lish the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. After painstakingly taking stock of the situation at home, he applied himself to getting at the roots of the crisis and to working out how foreign examples might be followed. He diagnosed the disease of his country as feudalism, and in the course of his foreign travels he came to the conclusion that the knowledge gained by western countries during their revolutionary transitions could be adapted to Hungarian conditions, and would greatly help the bourgeois development of Hungary.

Most of Szechenyi’s trips abroad were to England, and later he regarded conditions in England as model, adapted of course to the situation in Hungary. He often emphasized his sympathies towards the English in his way of dressing. He was a great admirer of Byron. In his economic activities in later years, on more than one occasion he employed the assistance of English experts.

Szdchenyi’s Credit started from a thorough analysis of the crisis and stated that the failure in agriculture was mainly due to old-fashioned farming methods and reliance on forced labour. The difficulty of introducing hired labour he ascribed to the lack of credit; and he was the first to express publicly the need to abolish entailment. He urged the introduction of credit laws which would entitle the creditor without further ado to sell the debtor’s property by auction to recover his loan. Szechenyi criticized other feudal institutions, too: the common use ol grazing land and woods, the indivisible nature of hereditary property, the guild and pricing system, and he pointed out most emphatically that the ninth was preventing normal development. With regard to the backwardness of trade, he stressed chiefly internal social condi¬ tions, at a time when everybody else among the nobility claimed that the Austrian tariff laws were solely responsible. As a long-term prospect, Szechenyi was already advocating in Credit the peasant’s right to the free possession of land, the abolition of the nobility’s im¬ munity from taxation, and the equal participation of the non-noble population in civil rights.

Credit caused a tremendous stir in public opinion, but the reception was not unanimous. The aristocracy and landed nobility were largely antagonistic, abusing most passionately the ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘unpatriotic’ views of the author; an enlightened minority, mainly the intelligentsia of noble, bourgeois or plebeian origin alike, and the younger generation, were enthusiastic, and Sz£chenyi’s teachings, through the village notaries, occasionally reached even the peasantry. In the name of the heavily indebted nobility, Count Jozsef Dessewffy replied in his An Analysis of Credit, refuting most bitterly Sz&henyi’s arguments, insisting that the main reasons for the economic backward¬ ness of the country were the tariff laws imposed by Vienna. Szechenyi remained unimpressed by the personal attacks, but thought it best to reply in a book to the ideas of the influential Dessewffy. In this new work, entitled Light (Vildg), which appeared in June 1831, he gave an even clearer definition of his views, emphasizing that the privileges of the nobility and the existence of serfdom were the main impediments to economic development. He again demanded the free possession of land and equal treatment before the law for the peasantry, warning other¬ wise of the possibility of peasant revolts. He was furthermore the first in Hungarian political literature to speak about a union of interests, the abolition by mutual consent of the barriers between the privileged and non-privileged classes. ‘Hungary will be neither happy nor in¬ fluential unless the common people are taken into the national ranks, unless out of the province perpetually disrupted by conflicting interests and privileges a free country is formed perpetually united by common interests.’

European Revolutions and Hungarian Movements

The July revolution in France, the rising of the people of Belgium, the Polish war of independence, and the emerging Italian and German national movements combined to produce a powerful revolutionary wave whose effect was perceptible in Hungary also. Their anti- monarchical and democratic trends awoke fear and rebuffs among the ruling classes, but encouraged by their examples those sectors which keenly desired the gradual disappearance of feudalism. But movements like the Belgian, the Italian and especially the Polish, which aimed to end national oppression and called for the introduction of national independence, met with almost universal approval. Uneas¬ iness permeated the sessions of the diet sitting in the autumn of 1830: the court had to fight strenuously against an opposition which con- stantly propounded the national demands, and the government’s final success on the question of recruits can be attributed only to the majority’s fear of revolution.

The progressive representatives formed an alliance and agreed that the diet of the following October, scheduled to hold the postponed debate on the reform proposals, should be used to bring up the modernization of the Hungarian constitution and measures for the introduction of bourgeois institutions like those of Western Europe. Unrest and the spirit of revolt gripped the lower sections of society, causing grave anxiety in government circles. There were reports from Paris, early in 1831, that revolutionary agents had started out for Hungary, and there was nothing to prevent the outbreak of revolution there and in Italy. The reports of both the palatine and the Lord Chief Justice described the situation in Hungary as grave, public opinion being such, especially among the peasantry, that revolution might break out any day. The atmosphere was especially tense in Pest, the capital of Hungary. Nationally Pest had the largest population, the number of industrial workers was the highest, and there were numerous university students and intellectuals without property living in the city. Pamphlets inciting revolutionary activity were found in the town and in the spring of 1831 there were constant demonstrations by young people in sympathy with the Polish struggle for independence. Such were the circumstances when Hungary was struck by an outbreak of cholera in the summer of 1831, and large-scale anti-feudal revolts among the peasantry in the north-east of the country.

The cholera, coming from India, arrived in Hungary early in July 1831. The obsolete administrative and hygienic institutions in the country could not control the spread of the disease and a quarter of a million people, about half of those taken ill, died of the plague. Un¬ reasonable restrictive measures by the authorities brought life to a standstill, starvation threatened, and the common people were made to believe that the landlords deliberately wished to exterminate the poor. Dissatisfaction soon broke out into revolutionary movements. In Pest, on 17 July, students and industrial workers together rose against the stopping of public transport, in the first joint demonstra¬ tion of the political forces of intellectual radicalism and urban workers in Hungary. At the end of July, in the eastern counties of the country, the peasantry broke out in large-scale demonstrations, in the region where for centuries poverty had been the greatest and dissatisfaction was now most intense. The epidemic gave the impetus to the outbreak of long-latent feelings of despair. The rising was stifled within a few weeks by rapidly concentrated military forces, and the county authorities inflicted cruelly rigorous penalties in revenge for the peasants’ revolt: 119 death sentences were carried out within a short time, and the number of long terms of imprisonment was large.

The bloody events of the revolt were quoted to advantage by the supporters of reform in the course of their propaganda speeches, to lend conviction to the argument that the revolutionary energies of the discontented peasantry could be diverted without clashes only by a radical reform of the serf system. Anybody with common sense reacted to the peasant risings in this way, as did Szechenyi himself, who set aside his former idea of serving public opinion, his proposals for re¬ form only in cautious doses, and wrote his new work Stadium. Here he argued that it would be impossible to proceed ‘with an old ram¬ shackle feudal vehicle’ in the speedily developing world, and he set down in 12 articles the most important steps for a transition to bourgeois conditions. The articles included the necessity for abol¬ ishing entailment, the free holding of land by the peasantry, equality before the law and equal taxation—all the demands which furnished the essence of liberalism. His book could not be published in Hungary and was printed abroad, and smuggled copy by copy into the country in the autumn of 1833.

The European revolutionary movements, Szechenyi’s books, and the lessons of the peasants’ risings, furnished a common platform on which all reform movements could join forces and work out the practical details of change. The drafting of the initial procedures for a bourgeois transformation was carried out by the progressive groups of the county nobility most interested in commodity production, in the course of county meetings to discuss the reform proposals. Discussion of the palatine’s official proposals began in the spring of 1831, and lasted until autumn 1832, interrupted only by the cholera epidemic. The diet planned for October 1831 was indefinitely adjourned by the court on account of the epidemic. Discussions continued in the coun¬ ties amid lively public interest, and the proposals of the delegated committees were officially approved. This gave the delegates an accepted text to refer to when the proposals for reform came up for debate before the diet. The ideas the progressive counties brought forward to radically change the previous, basically conservative pro¬ posals were those which had first found voice in Szechenyi’s works, especially Stadium; most counties added further provisions to safe¬ guard the nation’s autonomy. The nobility leading the county move¬ ments, the propagators of a progressive liberal ideology, surpassed Szechenyi in this question, rightly pointing out that bourgeois transfor¬ mation could open wide the gates of development for the whole nation, but only if it could independently dispose of its fate. This claim was put forward in the clause dealing with constitutional changes, in which the representatives of the nobility tried to restrict the influence of the king on legislation and the administration, and later in the trade debate, where the representatives wanted the diet to control foreign trade and tariff matters, instead of their being within the sphere of the royal prerogative. National independence was the most important feature of the county proposals in matters of education, religion and mining; in these fields the king had assumed absolute control and the county proposals endeavoured to restrict it.

On the question of national autonomy most counties substantially- agreed; operative principles had been decided upon at the meetings of the previous diet’s opposition. Similar lobbying originated from the most progressive counties on the question of a change-over to bour¬ geois conditions, but with considerably less success. It was a tremen¬ dous achievement that in the question of the urbarial regulation, more than half of the counties agreed upon the redemption of feudal services by voluntary agreement. Many counties even insisted as well on the abolition of forced labour, the landowner’s jurisdiction and the ninth. The most important questions with regard to the liberation of the serfs, however, were dealt with in the debate on legal changes as proposed in the relevant chapters of the draft of a civil code. Many counties insisted on the peasant’s right to freehold property, safeguarding his person and property from any abuse. There were other liberal pro¬ posals such as the liberty of the press, the abolition of the fidei com¬ mission, the discontinuance of the guild system, etc. Szechenyi’s basic demand, however, the abolition of entailment, met with the sympathy of only seven counties.

The relatively favourable outcome of the debates on the reform proposals, however, did not mean that the majority of the nobility 7 agreed on a programme for bourgeois transformation, nor, moreover, that they were ready to carry it out. Even on the eve of the 1848 revolution, the majority of the landed nobility had still to reach that stage. There were only small groups led by outstanding men, who tried to adapt their propaganda to local conditions, singling out the benefit to the landowners, and especially the danger of repeated peasant risings, in order to achieve success in the committees and general assemblies.

Baron Miklos Wesselenyi had no small share of the credit for seeing that Szechenyi’s ideas were introduced into the proposals, together with an additional emphasis on national autonomy. As a Transyl¬ vanian landowner he felt the crisis of feudalism more keenly because Transylvania was more exposed to the absolutism of the Habsburgs, and he himself was susceptible to the idea of independence. In the diet of 1830 he was the leader of the opposition; it was he who organized the sessions where the counties discussed their tactics. As an ‘itinerant patriot’ he visited many counties, indefatigably arguing for the accept¬ ance of the opposition proposals. In contrast to Sz6chenyi, who could only imagine the transformation taking place with the agreement of the Habsburgs, Wesselenyi was ready to fight for the nation’s in¬ dependence to the extent of fully breaking with Vienna. The liberal opposition by then regarded Wesselenyi as its leader, and Wesselenyi, although a member of the upper house, filled that role in the first period of the diet.

The Reform Diet, 1832–36

The long-expected diet was called by the king for 16 December 1832. The aims of the opposition in the diet were summarized by the rep¬ resentative of Szatm£r County, Ferenc Kolcsey, in his diary: ‘The constitution must make room for the people, so that ten million of them will regard it as their own and not merely the affair of seven hundred thousand privileged individuals.’ The government proposals for the agenda put the representatives in a difficult dilemma: instead of the trade proposals which the nobility wanted as the first item the reforms concerning the urbarial regulation were put forward by the government, in the hope that the representatives of the nobility would throw them out, thereby compromising themselves in the eyes of the peasants eagerly awaiting the reform of statute labour. The opposition, on the other hand, saw through the strategy, and after some discussions and much untiring effort by Wesselenyi accepted the government’s agenda.

The preliminary skirmishes brought no success to the opposition. A motion calling for a free, uncensored newspaper to report on the parliamentary debates did not win a majority vote even in the lower house; and another attempt to ensure the publication of the minutes of the district sessions was equally unsuccessful. Another motion for more religious freedom for the Protestants also failed. Members of the upper house, after six months’ debate, obstinately refused to send it for approval to the king. This motion was raised not merely to revive old political grievances, but because the opposition, by proposing the remedying of religious wrongs, hoped to contribute to the bourgeois idea of a united nation.

The debate on the urbarial regulation started at the end of January 1833 and continued with many interruptions to the end of November when the new urbarial law could be sent up to the king for approval. The majority of the lower house supported the free sale of the usufruct of the tenure. The motion for the redemption of feudal services also received majority support. Many counties were willing to agree to the free possession of land by the peasants. Legal matters between landlord and serf were removed from the landlord’s jurisdiction and were referred to the law courts of the county. A special article was added providing for the security of the serf’s person and property against any abuse. In long debates the opposition managed to break the tenacious resistance of the upper house and on 19 November 1833, eight bills dealing with urbarial matters were submitted to the king. The king, however, refused to sign the most important items, such as the bills on voluntary redemption and the transfer of jurisdiction and the bill providing for the security of the serf. He suggested many other modifications, too, and the whole package was returned to the diet for new discussion and revision. The representatives tried to relieve the serf of the burden of his legal fetters and open before him the way to rise socially and economically, but treated more stringently the pro¬ posals from which the peasants would have derived immediate benefit. The government, however, did not want the nobility to get closer to the peasantry by its steps towards the legal liberation of the serf and to win itself the support of the peasantry by its policy of union of interest. The proposals concerning the urbarial regulation thus went back to the lower house, and since meanwhile the government had succeeded in winning over many counties to a more reactionary view, effectively demolishing the earlier liberal majority, at the end of 1834 all three progressive proposals were voted down.

It was in the same year that a nobleman from Transylvania, Sandor Boloni Farkas, published a travel book about his visit to England and the United States in 1831. The book discussed the liberal policies obtaining there and this had a great impact on the reform movement. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences was quick to admit Boloni among its members.

The first reform diet did not fulfil earlier expectations in other respects either. During its long life of three years and a half, in addition to the urbarial motions, only preliminary discussions on some legal proposals took place. Towards the end of the parliamentary sessions, the representatives came to the conclusion that the thorough dis¬ cussion of the nine reform proposals would take decades, and volun¬ tarily gave up the idea of proceeding with the debates.

In spite of its many failures, this diet made some important changes for the better. It was a definite achievement that the usufruct of the tenure could be offered for sale, that the serfs were relieved of some minor burdens and that the nobleman using the peasant tenure was de facto obliged to pay tax. The enclosure of hitherto common pasture was facilitated and the dues on second crop and barren land were lifted. Each of these was significant, but the last two especially fa¬ vourably influenced the expansion of peasant production and the development of capitalist conditions. The nobility took over from the peasantry the responsibility of defraying the costs of the diet. The law concerning a permanent bridge in Pest obliged the nobility to pay toll charges, thus driving another wedge into their immunity. Another law provided for the formation of limited companies to build the main railway line of the country, and again the expropriation of the required territory meant the infringement of feudal property rights in the in¬ terests of bourgeois development. New measures were passed to enforce the repayment of debts. A law providing for the annexation to Hun¬ gary of the so-called Partium, an area neighbouring Transylvania, was a further realization of the bourgeois idea of a united nation.

Another step forward was made towards bourgeois nationhood by the passing of the language law providing for the first or exclusive use of Hungarian in legislation, the courts and the Church. This measure must be called progressive in that it broke the dominance of the dead Latin tongue, and also ended distinctions among the ranks of the nobility themselves. On the other hand, the practical application of the provision restricted the development of the nationalities speaking other languages.

Lajos Kossuth and the Opposition Breakthrough

From the point of view of future developments, the diet of 1832-6 was characterized by the momentous event of Lajos Kossuth’s first political appearance. Kossuth came from a poor gentry family and practised the profession of a lawyer, distinguishing himself as an opposition reformer in the political struggles of Zemplen County. Having encoun¬ tered the displeasure of the county dignitaries, he went to the diet of Pozsony, and, outwitting the censorship, edited a paper in manuscript entitled Dietal Reports (Orszaggyulesi Tuddsitasok ). The paper soon became popular in the whole country, as it took the place of the non¬ existent free press. By fighting on the side of the most distinguished members of the opposition, Kossuth made himself into an outstanding bourgeois reformer, and his reports contributed to the active engage¬ ment of public opinion behind the reform activities of the parliamen¬ tary opposition. The government made several attempts to silence Kossuth, but they were frustrated by the consistency of Kossuth and the opposition. At the instigation of the leaders of the opposition, Kossuth continued his activities after the closing of the session of the diet on 2 May 1836, and started a new manuscript paper under the title of Municipal Reports (Tdrvenyhatosdgi Tudositasok ). It en¬ deavoured to unite the activities of the progressive groups in the coun¬ ties by bringing them information and coordinating their efforts. The paper, however, was short-lived, owing to the now successfully renewed intervention of the authorities.

During the parliamentary sessions, Vienna suddenly changed its attitude towards Hungary. The reasons for the change were the Euro¬ pean revolutions and the growth of many progressive movements throughout the continent. The monarchs of the three great reactionary powers met in the autumn of 1833 at Miinchengratz and in Berlin to restore the prestige of the declining Holy Alliance, and decided to wage ruthless war against any progressive movement. Francis I died early in 1835, and was succeeded by his feeble-minded son Ferdinand V. The inner court clique (camarilla) ruled in his stead, headed by Metternich and the pro-Slav Count Kolowrat, who enjoyed the sympathy of the Austrian bourgeoisie. The new policy was not intro¬ duced until after the end of the diet. The loyalist chancellor Adam Reviczky, who as a member of the lesser gentry had been moderate in his governing methods, was succeeded by Count Fidel Palffy, who was destined to deal harshly with the progressive movements in Hun¬ gary.

The first blow was inflicted on the leader of the opposition, Baron Wesselenyi. It was not only his activities in Hungary that were held against him. He had also organized opposition against the arbitrary Habsburg rule in Transylvania, and was the leader of the small, but always growing camp demanding social changes there. Political oppression and social backwardness were greater there than in Hun¬ gary. Since 1811, Vienna had not called any diets, and as the leader of the opposition, Wesselenyi succeeded by constantly harassing the central power in getting a diet called in May 1834. The opposition insisted that the country’s old grievances should be discussed, but the royal commissioner insisted that the royal proposals be given first priority. Wesselenyi organized the opposition, and he set up a press to produce a lithoprint free dietal paper. The diet, however, was dissolved in February 1835, and punitive measures were applied to the leaders of the opposition. Legal action was started against Wesselenyi in Transylvania, and when, in order to avoid the consequences, he left for Hungary, he was summoned there. He was charged with treason and sedition on the grounds of an earlier speech made in favour of the peasantry, and early in 1839 he started a three-year term of imprisonment. It was later suspended, because in prison he very nearly lost his eyesight.

Simultaneously the government applied repressive measures against the younger radical group in the diet. During the diets a young audience in the visitors’ section had exercised a strong influence on the course of the debates. On the advice of Kolcsey, Wesselenyi and Ferenc De&k their prominent members formed a Debating Union and trained themselves in debating political questions, and drew up plans for democratic reforms. During the sessions the government did not dare move against them, but after the closing of the diet the leaders were arrested and charged with treason. The sentence came in March 1837; their leader, L&szI6 Lovassy, was given ten years imprisonment in the dungeons, and others were sentenced to shorter terms of impris¬ onment.

Kossuth used his new paper to give scope to the protests of the counties and discuss the charges against Wesselenyi and the young men; he thus developed the local protests against the government’s arbitrary actions into a national movement. His paper was several times banned by order of the palatine, and Kossuth appealed to the counties for help; the counties stated that his paper was a form of private correspondence and extended their protection to him. The government was again finally compelled to use force. On 5 May 1837, Kossuth was arrested, charged with disloyalty and sedition. His case brought back memories of the illegal circumstances of the Jacobin trials. Sentence was passed in February 1839, and Kossuth was condemned to four years imprisonment, in addition to the time already spent in prison. Similar cases were opened against other leaders of the county opposition.

The severe measures of the government overreached themselves. Protest continued in the counties, and the county opposition gained in force. The bourgeois and independence movements became more powerful, and the influence of the radical intelligentsia became con¬ siderable in the increasingly important city of Pest. The policy of alliance adopted by the progressive landed nobility began to show results among the peasantry. In these circumstances, and as a result of the acute Balkan situation, Vienna came to the conclusion that it was necessary to abandon the use of force, and come to terms with the nobility. Fidel Palffy was dismissed and Count Antal Majlath elected chancellor, with other dismissals from important positions. This was the background to the new diet that opened its sessions in June 1839.

The government made different preparations for this diet. Instead of trying to defend itself against the reformers with the obsolete weapons of feudalism, it adapted itself to the requirements of the period and followed the tactic of supporting some fragments of the reform proposals. The new ‘cautiously progressive’ government programme was presented by a new party of young aristocrats who were called to life at the diet’s sessions by Count Aurel Dessewlfy. This time the opposition was also represented in the upper house of the diet by several aristocrats; they considered as their leader Count Lajos Batthy&ny, who was a supporter of capitalist agrarian development. The opposition started its attack in the first days after the opening: it refused to discuss the royal proposals before the government had remedied the constitutional infringements resulting from the illegal trials. The debates continued for ten months, ending finally with the victory of the opposition under Deck’s leadership; and the prisoners were released. There was nothing to prevent the diet’s decisions made in the meantime from becoming law. Voluntary redemption of feudal services was accepted without any significant opposition by the diet; so was the principle of the abolition of entailment, and the principle that those not of noble birth should be eligible to hold offices and property, the practical effectuation of the laws being put off till later. A modern law of exchange and finance and new laws concerning commerce, factories, limited companies and the economic rights of the Jews thoroughly breached the economic restrictions of the feudal system.

Agriculture

The conditions for these results and for further development were brought about by far-reaching changes in the economy. In agriculture, during the long years of peace, the principles of the Austrian tariff policy remained unchanged, which meant that the main task for landowners was improving the quality, rather than the quantity, of their produce. This seemed the only chance for success for the Hun¬ garian producer on the increasingly competitive international agrarian markets. Difficulties in selling their produce gradually brought home to the landowner class that there was a crisis involving their methods of cultivation and organization. There were more and more among them who seemed ready to break away from traditional methods of production in order to master the crisis. To transform completely an estate based on labour services performed on demesne land into a capitalist agricultural unit was hardly possible on any estate in Hun¬ gary owing to the conditions restricting the accumulation of capital. The number of estates, however, where hired labour was employed side by side with statute labour increased considerably and there were even agricultural estates where less work was done by labour service than by hired labour. Modern production methods required the rounding-off and consolidation of domanial land, the separate en¬ closure of the landlord’s land and that of the serf, the enclosure of common pastures, the return of rented tenures, the draining of water¬ logged land and regular fertilization. Stock breeding became more important, together with the production of fodder and the stabling of animals. Qualified agricultural experts were offered good salaries and a share in the profits. Modern agricultural implements as used in Western countries were bought. On the estates working with these methods, yields were double the country’s average, the quality of wheat improved, and so did that of cattle and wool. The highly devel¬ oped estates established mills, distilleries, sugar and tobacco factories. Output from these industrial plants increased, especially that of tobacco. In these works mostly hired labour was employed. According to contemporary estimates the productivity of hired labour was about three times higher than that of labour service. Though the latter con¬ tinued to be the prevailing form until 1848, the slowly increasing use of hired labour heralded the development of capitalist agriculture.

In the decades following the war period, peasant production also increased considerably. Peasant farmers increased the production of potatoes and sugar-beet to supply the distilleries and sugar factories of the large estates. Villages combined their efforts for the large-scale production of tobacco. The peasant’s animal husbandry improved, and the output of traditional commodities such as wine, wheat and wool increased. Well-to-do farmers producing for the market also employed hired labour and manured their land regularly. The relatively freer sections of the peasantry, such as village officials partly exempted from labour dues and the peasants of privileged districts and market towns, were foremost in improving their production, especially where it was carried on on domanial land taken on lease, barren land or enclosed portions. These circumstances brought it home to the peasant that there was an intimate relationship between liberty and prosperity, yet the separation of the poor and well-to-do peasant increased social tensions.

Industry

During the quarter century preceding the 1848 revolution, industry and trade in Hungary were influenced by the fact that after the wars and the industrial revolution, keen competition had forced the well- developed Austrian industry to remain within the confines of the Habsburg Empire, and, consequently, the Hungarian market became a question of life or death to it. To restrict the development of in¬ dustry in Hungary became highly important for the Austrian bour¬ geoisie, and the government did its utmost to ensure that the more developed Austrian industries were able successfully to exploit the Hungarian market. In consequence of the competition from Austrian industry the crisis among the Hungarian handicraftsmen, who used obsolete methods and produced at high cost, became keener and the mass of artisans more impoverished. But the competition of the Austrian industry also ruined a number of the capitalist enterprises established during the war, and many textile mills especially went bankrupt. The decline of industry was followed in the thirties by some improvement, when the impetus of the Austrian industrial revolution swept over into Hungary too. New factories were founded and the old ones renewed their technical equipment. The textile mills were gradually mechanized; the flour industry also began to develop, and a number of sugar factories were established. In the forties development gathered speed. The Hungarian market widened its range and there was increased demand for Hungarian commodities in other provinces of the empire. The iron, machine, instrument and machine-repair industries developed considerably. The construction of railway lines, the growth of shipping on the Danube, and the establishment of shipyards and repair yards favourably influenced the development of the iron industry, leading to the establishment of many iron foundries and workshops for implements and tools. The tool industry developed in keeping with the demands of agriculture. Heavy industry began to produce more complicated machinery and implements. The develop¬ ment of the food industry was also considerable in the forties, though it ranked only second to iron among developing industries.

The in itself rapid development of Hungarian industry still lagged far behind the industry of the hereditary provinces: out of the aggre¬ gate number of capitalist enterprises in the empire only 10 per cent worked in Hungary in the forties and there were fifteen times more steam engines in Austria than in Hungary. Austrian capital had a large share in the establishment of capitalist enterprises, and some enterprises were established by big landowners. The bourgeoisie were greatly interested in the foundation of limited companies; other enterprises were founded jointly by Hungarian and Austrian capitalists. The development of industry also contributed to a rise in the number of those employed in industry: in 1847, there were about 150,000 in¬ dustrial workmen in Hungary. This led to a considerable rise in the town population, the increase being especially great in Pest, which was in the van of industriahzation. The widening of markets also contributed to some individuals achieving a tremendous capital accumulation, but the larger part of this capital was ploughed back into commerce and the money market, and was not employed in industry. The credit law of 1840 increased the amount of credit avail¬ able; savings banks were established, and by 1848 altogether 35 had been opened. In 1841, the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest was established, the first important credit bank in the country. These institutions were, however, only to a small extent able to satisfy the landowning classes’ need of credit.

The Crisis and Its Effects

Markets and credit were most easily available to the big landowners, and it was they who could go over to capitalist production first of all. And since political power was concentrated in their hands, every direct interest tied them to the feudal ownership of land and to the Habsburg dynasty. Very few of them went as far as to follow the teachings of Sz^chenyi and try to preserve the leadership of their class by promoting a moderate transformation. The high dignitaries of the Catholic Church were also the staunch supporters of the existing order and the Habsburgs. As big landowners and as ecclesiastical dignitaries they exercised their influence to preserve the status quo.

The landed nobility, on the other hand, had great difficulties both in selling their produce and in obtaining credit, and consequently fell deeper and deeper into debt. By personal experience they became convinced that it was impossible to go on as before. This section of the ruling class was inclined to take up the fight against feudal conditions, and for ending the country’s state of dependence. But at the same time they belonged to the privileged classes, they were the exclusive owners of land, lords over the serfs and beneficiaries of their services, and their interest in keeping the dissatisfied peasants in check tied them to the government and the Habsburgs. In this situation, the various groups of the landed nobility took up opposing positions. Their majority rather favoured the existing feudal conditions, with possible modernization by means of conservative reforms. There were others who

would have liked to solve their troubles by recourse to capitalist methods of cultivation, and in order to achieve it, they were ready to change some of the fundamental institutions of feudalism, and loosen the constitutional ties with Vienna. As there was no strong bour¬ geoisie, these men became the protagonists of the ensuing struggles; prominent individuals adapted the ideology of the bourgeois trans¬ formation to the situation in Hungary, and were passionately eager to recruit more and more of the nobility among their numbers. A con¬ troversial development indeed: a change to bourgeois conditions under the leadership of the nobility! The landowning nobility could only devote itself to the task hesitatingly, often halting and producing half-measures. Their leaders badly needed auxiliary troops as well. They came forward from the intellectual elements of the nobility; this stratum was most interested in creating bourgeois conditions promising free opportunities for all, and hated the Habsburg power holding back national development. This stratum furnished the most energetic, radical section of the reform movement, and their role was of importance in every instance when a decisive battle was fought for reform either in the county or the diet sessions. The behaviour of the elements on the fringe of the nobility was less positive. Most of the individuals in this section were extremely poor, noble in status but living like peasants, mostly on tenures, and only differed from the peasantry in their privileges. Consequently, they could easily be mobilized against any attempt to curtail these privileges. Yet again, on other occasions, they could just as easily be mobilized under proper slogans for the cause of progress; their votes in the county sessions could easily be bought by the highest bidder.

The majority of the peasantry suffered equally from the boom and the post-war economic slump. Both factors contributed to the dwin¬ dling of the small portion of land owned by the peasant, and added new burdens to the existing ones. Within the peasantry, the number who held tenures decreased, as the number of the landless peasants increased proportionately; in the two decades following the 1828 census, the percentage of landless peasants rose from 56 to 60 per cent. On top of the landlord’s dues, state and county taxes inflicted additional bur¬ dens on the peasantry, without mentioning the cost involved in the quartering of soldiers. Peasant society was divided into different strata. On top were the well-to-do farmers. These peasants had profited from the opportunities to market their produce and had increased their wealth, being able even to purchase land from the impoverished peasants. Such differentiation within the peasantry and the exploitation of peasant by peasant prevailed especially in those regions where relations with the landlord were loose, or did not exist at all, i.e. in the free Cuman and heyduck districts, in the market towns, and in localities which had redeemed themselves. The primary difference be¬ tween landowner and peasant nonetheless always proved stronger than that between different sections of the peasantry whenever there were anti-feudal demonstrations (and there were a good many in the thirties and forties). At the time of the enforcement of the urbarial laws of 1836, especially in connection with the enclosure of pastures and consolidation of land, demonstrations were the order of the day, the peasantry taking recourse to all the traditional forms of resistance, from sending petitions to refusing their services and actual resistance in defence of their land. The Lieutenancy Council, whenever it suited the policy of the court, extended protection to the peasant against his landlord. It was a shrewd means of fostering in the heart of the peasant¬ ry the old legend about ‘the good king’, and reminding the nobility that understanding between the court and the peasantry was an unpleasant possibility. This threat significantly contributed to pushing the pro-bourgeois nobility into a policy of union of interests to extri¬ cate themselves from the bondage of feudalism and set foot on the road to national independence.

It is one of the anomalies of Hungarian social development that the change to bourgeois conditions depended little on the class which should have been responsible for the ideological transformation and for the practical realization of the actual development, that is to say, the bourgeoisie itself. It was the result of grave historical circumstances that when the time came for the actual change to bourgeois conditions, there was no bourgeois force capable of carrying out the task. The bourgeoisie of the royal towns in fact fought on the side of the court, defending feudalism against national independence as represented by the liberal nobility. In the thirties and early forties, the bourgeoisie gave only faint signs of its existence by demanding from the diets of the nobility the rights of which it had been defrauded. The progressive nobility was willing to return their political rights, provided the back¬ ward, mainly foreign, bourgeoisie of the royal towns extricated themselves from the influence of the anti-Hungarian court and made the internal organization of the cities more democratic. The rich citizens of the city corporations and the masters of the guilds were staunch defenders of feudalism and obstinately opposed the democra¬ tization of the city administration and attempts to loosen the rigid ties of the guild system. But the accumulation of capital in trade and commerce had called to life new elements in the cities whose interests demanded the ending of feudal restrictions and economic dependence. Their number, however, was too small to exercise much influence. They preferred their interests to be represented by the pro-bourgeois nobility and were content to supply financial backing for the struggles.

Among the growing number of industrial workers, the small group of mainly foreign, skilled workers had no special grievances, and re¬ mained indifferent to any attempt to change the social system, in contrast, the great number of guild apprentices, and landless peasants working in the city as unskilled workers and labourers, suffered from misery and penury, overwork and exploitation, and though their political awareness was generally not developed enough to see the relationship between their own lot and the economic position of the country, they gave expression to their dissatisfaction in haphazard demonstrations. They later became more conscious, however, of the relationship between the backwardness and economic dependence of Hungary-. Thus they were destined to become the plebeian basis of the fermenting revolution.

National Culture

During the quarter century preceding the 1848 bourgeois revolution, the trend of economic, social and political conditions towards reform was favourably supported by successful aspirations towards the devel¬ opment of a national culture. Step by step the new generation turned its back on the traditional way of life of the nobility; it established a centre for its hitherto dispersed literary life in Pest, which had also become an economic centre, and prepared for the triumph ot the progressive trend of Romanticism after the rule of Classicism. The new generation of writers initially saw only the troubles deriving from the dependent situation of the country, so that their poetry chiefly praised the exemplary aspects of the glorious events of the past, and tried to inspire a desire for liberty and national independence.

From the early thirties, however, the situation changed: the concepts of nation and progress received reciprocal meaning, and national and popular trends penetrated into literature, paving the way for the revolutionary populism of S&ndor Petofi and J&nos Arany. New periodicals mushroomed, creating the professional writer, the new type of intellectual who could provide for his livelihood from his writings. Prominent literary figures began to enjoy nation-wide esteem, and a new reading public developed from the widening range of the progressive nobility and bourgeoisie. Pest began to flourish as a literary centre. The prominent figures of literature served the bourgeois na¬ tional aspirations not only in their writings, but also by direct participa¬ tion in the political struggles of the day.

Side by side with the flourishing of national literature, there was a favourable upswing in other fields of cultural life. The establishment of the first permanent Hungarian theatre, later the National Theatre (1837), gave a tremendous stimulus to acting. The activity of Ferenc Erkel defines the flourishing period of Hungarian Romantic music, while public buildings in the Classical style bear witness to a new era in architecture; in painting, the pictures of Miklos Barabas inaugurate the beginnings of a national school. The influence of the reform move¬ ments encouraged the sciences also to begin their independent develop¬ ment, while under the auspices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences organized research began in the fields of linguistics, ethnic studies and economics.

The Next Phase of Reform

The development of the forces of production, the growing inner contradictions of society, and the gradual emergence of the national idea gave the supporters of reform the chance, after the diet of 1839-40, to open a new phase in the struggles for bourgeois reform and national autonomy. The autocratic government of the monarchy was shaken from within by the fermentation started by the industrial revolution, and its prestige in foreign affairs was also rapidly declining. At the last diet it had been obliged to retreat before the Hungarian movement and realign its tactics by introducing its own imposed mild reform policy. The opposition, on the other hand, was not to be frustrated by the government’s suggestions. After its parliamentary victory, and a brief transitional setback, the reform movement spread all over the country, gaining ground even in the counties where previously there was a conservative majority. There was nobody, however, to coordi¬ nate these sporadic aspirations and organize them in the service of a definite political programme. This need was soon filled by Kossuth who, on 2 January 1841, started the Pesti Hirlap (Pest Journal).

Kossuth, released from prison as a martyr to liberty, was regarded by the government as a dangerous opponent. He was given the editor¬ ship of the paper with the idea that his activities could thus be super¬ vised by means of the censorship. This was no more than wishful thinking. Kossuth, with masterly dexterity, evaded any politically delicate question: in his articles he deliberately avoided the problems of the Austro-Hungarian relationship and of constitutional grievances, which might give food to the censor, but instead confined himself in his leading articles to clear-cut suggestions for bourgeois reform. After the plan of voluntary redemption of feudal services was agreed upon by the diet, he set to work to popularize the idea of mandatory redemption, and demanded that the urbarial conditions should be done away with at once, with state support and subsidies. Another way of alleviating the peasants’ problems was suggested by the idea of general taxation. Kossuth devoted space in his paper to the demand that entailment should be ended and the question of parliamentary representation for the liberated serfs and the urban bourgeoisie, and took up any question, openly or in a disguised manner, relating to the idea of social transformation, as far as he could without the censor’s intervention. Most of his demands tried to lessen the clash of interests between the nobility, the peasantry and the bourgeoisie. Out of the numerous problems with regard to national independence, Pesti Hirlap could dwell only on the questions of economic self-sufficiency in a more or less open form. Kossuth passed through several stages, from the insistence on a wholly free trade system through a common tariff structure to the idea of a protective tariff system promoting the devel¬ opment of an entirely independent industry. The struggle for independ¬ ence in the economic field was supported by the establishment of several societies, such as the Industrial Union, the Protectionist Society and the Commercial Society.

The Pesti Hirlap, as the first modern political newspaper in Hungary, achieved unparalleled popularity within a short time. The opposition regarded it as its official organ. Kossuth’s leading articles almost without exception provoked debates, replies and commentaries, which appeared both in Pesti Hirlap and as separate leaflets. They solicited comments as well in the columns of the conservative newspapers established under government auspices, such as the Vilag (The World) and Nemzeti tjjsdg (National Journal). The influence of these papers was, however, nowhere near that of the Pesti Hirlap. Kossuth had no trouble in rebutting the arguments of the conservative reactionaries or the resistance of the ‘cautious progressives’. He was deeply hurt however, when Szechenyi, formerly a pioneer of progress, attacked him.

After the publication of Stadium, Szechenyi continued to serve the cause of the national revival with a whole series of practical schemes. His first achievements, the establishment of the Academy, the Casino, and horse-racing, were followed by others: navigation on the Danube, the Chain Bridge in Pest designed by an Englishman, William Tierney Clark, and built by Adam Clark (no relation of the former), the regula¬ tion of the Lower Danube, the flour mill of Pest, the Hungarian theatre and improvements in viticulture and sericulture. His popularity reached its peak at the end of the thirties, in spite of the fact that the differences between his reform plans and the aims and political practice of the opposition were becoming more and more obvious. Right from the first, Szechenyi’s reforms contained some fundamental weaknesses. He hoped to change the feudal relationship between landlord and peasant with measures from above, by gradual stages, leaving un¬ touched the economic power and political leadership of the ruling classes, and true to his class situation and family traditions, wanted the reforms not to interfere with the relations between the Habsburgs and Hungary. After the apparent changes in the government’s policy in 1840, Szechenyi believed that the government itself wished to be responsible for the moves for a transformation. The Pesti Hirlap and Kossuth’s propaganda activities put the opposition movement far in advance of Sz&henyi’s schemes, and the elements associated with the Pesti Hirlap who were given decisive roles in the opposition movement were those Szechenyi would have preferred not to be involved in the leadership of change. He became more and more suspicious of Kos¬ suth’s activities, and more and more convinced that Kossuth and the Pesti Hirlap were generating public excitement which would compro¬ mise the peaceful work on the reform plans of the government and the nation. In June 1841, he published his pamphlet entitled People of the East (Kelet nepe) attacking Kossuth in passionate terms. He reproached him for widening the gap in his articles between the court and the nation and heightening the existing differences between the social classes, so driving the country towards a clash with Vienna and an inevitable internal revolution. Kossuth refuted the charges in a moderate reply, and almost the whole camp of progressives sided with him. Public opinion rightly reminded Szechenyi that Kossuth was merely continuing the work started by him a decade earlier. This clash ended the collaboration of Szechenyi with the opposition movement led by Kossuth.

The propaganda of the Pesti Hirlap was already preparing for action in the next diet, which would be decisive from the point of view of reform. Kossuth’s paper devoted much space to drafting various schemes, and also supplied public opinion with information con¬ cerning the state of political debate in the counties.

The question of taxation was the top priority for those preparing for the coming diet: in the proposals to the representatives, the opposi¬ tion attempted to send the first salvo to shatter the crumbling edifice of the nobility’s privilege. The result proved how very weak the mass basis for the progressive movement was in the counties: the conserva¬ tives mobilized the masses of the poor nobility, who were frightened of losing their tax immunity. There were violent skirmishes between the two camps, and the motion for the introduction of a dwelling tax was outvoted in the majority of the counties.

The Diet of 1843–4. The Language Act

Such was the background to the diet that opened in May 1843. The government had also prepared its new tactics adequately: the royal agenda included some seemingly progressive motions. The numbers of the opposition were stronger than in the previous diet; unfortunately Ferenc Deak was not among them because he had declined his office owing to the degeneration of the political struggles in Zala County. It was a serious loss to the opposition.

The opposition vigorously opened its assault in the fields of bour¬ geois reform and national autonomy, and scored little success. Of the internal reforms, the principle of a general tax-paying liability was accepted, but measures to put it into practice were outvoted. The prin¬ ciple of the redemption of church tithes, the abolition of entailment, and compulsory redemption of services were also accepted, but again measures to put them into practice were referred to the next diet. Moral satisfaction alone was also afforded by a declaration that non¬ noble individuals could own land and hold public office, but no prac¬ tical steps were taken to put this into effect before the revolution. The question of tariffs and customs was in the centre of the struggle for national autonomy. The demands of the progressive party were summarized by Kossuth in a memorandum on behalf of the Industrial Union, written in collaboration with the merchant corporations, in¬ dividual industrialists and merchants. It was this memorandum which furnished grounds for the opposition to demand the introduction of a protective tariff system, that customs and tariffs should be the diet’s responsibility, and that Hungary should have the right to make autonomous foreign trade agreements. These demands were accepted in spite of the compromise proposals of the moderates, but were re¬ jected by the king. The refusal encouraged the opposition to start its protective tariff movement at the end of the diet, and to try to secure the protection of Hungarian industry by means of a social movement, in want of a protective tariff system. The motion for the effective an¬ nexation of the Partium and the principle of union with Transylvania also failed to be accepted. In religious matters the results were more encouraging, and equal rights to Protestant denominations, the old demand of the liberals, were at last granted.

The language law was one of the outstanding achievements of this diet. After the gradual steps by previous diets, the language law made Hungarian the official language in almost every aspect of national life, making it the language of legislation, state administration, educa¬ tion and religion. By this law Hungarian was to assume its role as the strongest link in the concept of the united, bourgeois state. To this extent, the new law was the fulfilment of just and necessary demands, but at the same time by extending the use of Hungarian over the non- Hungarian territories too, it became the means for oppressing the non- Hungarian population of the country, contributing to further differ¬ ences with the nationalities.

The commodity producing section of the nobility leading the Hun¬ garian bourgeois transformation movement was conforming to the laws of social development by trying to produce the economic, pol¬ itical and linguistic unity of the bourgeois state. The process was strong¬ ly influenced by the fact that the country where the new state was to be created was multinational, and less than half of the total population was Hungarian. The Hungarian liberals intended to get over the diffi¬ culty by forcing the Hungarian language on all the other nationalities by administrative means, not taking into account the fact that the other nationalities of the country had also started on the way towards bourgeois national development, though somewhat behind the Hun¬ garians. In the forties, matters reached a stage where some of the nation¬ alities turned in open conflict against the Hungarian nationalists.

Nationality Movements in Hungary

The language and cultural movements of the other nationalities had started at the beginning of the century, first as an attempt to create a medium for literature. In the first quarter of the century, owing to the weakness of the bourgeois elements, and the pressure of absolutism, development mostly did not go beyond cultural matters. The intensity of the movement on the other hand kept increasing, and contacts were established between nationalities speaking the same language both in¬ side and outside the country. Only in the thirties was the struggle for language extended to the political level, mainly encouraged by the energetic language propagation of the Hungarian liberal nobility. The Croatian movement was the first to set itself fiercely against the endeavours to force Hungarian on them. The Croatian nobility and emerging bourgeoisie were mobilized by a cultural movement with political aspirations called to life by Ljudevit Gaj, and called ‘Illyrianism’. Its aim was to create from the South Slav peoples a common Illyrian empire. The Illyrian movement had a tremendous influence on the development of Croatian culture and learning, but its leaders made a fatal mistake by appealing for support to the ab¬ solute powers of Vienna against the Hungarian movement. Within the Illyrian movement the influence of bourgeois elements became more and more pronounced.

The wave of Magyarization had not yet reached the Serbs, and the majority of the Serbian merchants approved of the Hungarian liberals, and supported their attack on the Austrian tariff system. The Ruman¬ ian movement hardly existed in the thirties, except for the semi-polit¬ ical petitions of Rumanian Orthodox bishops, which contained very few progressive elements indeed. A Rumanian political newspaper, however, the Gazeta de Trcmsilvania, was started in 1838; it undertook the leadership of the national movement according to the aspirations of the Rumanian bourgeois intellectuals. The Slovak movement was even weaker, because there was hardly any nobility among the Slovaks and the Magyarization process appeared with the greatest force among them. The Slovak bourgeoisie too was powerless, and the Slovak na¬ tional movement relied mainly on the Czech liberal bourgeoisie. The tendency, best seen in the activities of Jan Kollar and Pavel Jozef Safdrik, was characterized by the emphasis on the common interests of all Slavs, the deepening of linguistic and cultural relations, and a conscious awareness of the necessity of close alliance for the common cause. There was, too, a certain sympathy with the Russian people and admiration for the power of the czar. The intellectual leaders of the Czech and Slovak national movements looked hopefully toward Czarist Russia, which had defeated Napoleon and the Turkish Empire, the oppressor of the Slav peoples, failing to see its fundamentally re¬ actionary nature. It was this which precipitated an ever-growing hys¬ terical fear of Pan-Slavism in Hungarian public opinion.

The progressive Hungarian nobility assumed an entirely negative attitude towards the movements of the other nationalities. They claim¬ ed that the extension of civil liberties would solve the nationality question at once. Kossuth himself professed the same view in the columns of the Pesti Hirlap. Szechenyi raised his voice against this chauvinistic nationalism. In November 1842, he addressed the Hun¬ garian Academy of Sciences, warning against the Pesti Hirlap circle and condemning forceful Magyarization tendencies. He insisted that instead of empty jingoism material and intellectual superiority should be the force which through voluntary assimilation could gain new members for the Hungarian community. The nationalist public in¬ dignantly rejected Sz6chenyi’s views, his former friends turned their backs on him, and the press reactions to his speech only added to his isolation. Yet Szechenyi was no less in favour of winning the other nationalities for the Hungarian community than the opposition, but he believed that it needed time, where the opposition imagined that it could be achieved in a day. In this phase of the struggle, the Austrian government took recourse to its later so useful formula of ‘divide and rule’, by supporting the weaker national movement against the strong¬ er, and playing off one against the other.

In the forties the nationality movements became more and more hostile to Hungarian liberal aspirations. In Croatia this hostility led to open clashes: the Illyrian party, counting on the support of Vienna, after a number of bloody skirmishes ousted the pro-Hungarian group of gentry from the county and provincial assemblies, and made des¬ perate efforts to secure independence for Croatia. The conservative, feudal Illyrian party had a small bourgeois opposition, whose demands went so far as to include agrarian reform, but without mass backing the demands could not be effective. The Serbian movement was greatly hampered by the fact that its national aspirations were tied up with the interests of the Orthodox Church, and the leadership of the move¬ ment drifted into the hands of the feudal church dignitaries.

With the language laws of the forties, the differences of the Serbian and Hungarian national movements became more pronounced. The influence of the neighbouring Serbian Principality and the idea of a South Slav empire added to the importance of the Serbian national movement, which was complemented, especially among young intel¬ lectuals, by bourgeois aspirations. The Slovak movement also revived. Its paper, the Slovenske Narodne Novini, was started in 1845. Led by L’udovit Stur, a progressive circle gathered around it, professing the aspirations of independent Slovak bourgeois development, in separa¬ tion from the Czechs. In the peasant question they adopted the aims of the Hungarian liberals. Owing to the language situation, no ap¬ proach was possible between the two movements, and Stur and his associates continued to rely on Vienna. In Transylvania, the imposi¬ tion of Hungarian as the official language met with the disapproval of the Saxon and Rumanian national movements, even turning the two movements against each other. In the early forties the Rumanian movement produced from within an opposition to the church leader-

ship, and a secular left-wing party gathered under Siraion Barnupu around the Gazeta. This party was more progressive than the conserva¬ tives under Bishop Lemony, but in keeping with the interests of its alliance with Vienna, it did not raise the peasant question. The Ru¬ manian movement was also hampered by fear of Pan-Slavism, and of Russian power; this fear prevented serious deterioration in Ruma- nian-Hungarian relations. The Rumanian movement did not yet aspire to establish an independent state, fighting only for the political equality of the Rumanian people inside Transylvania.

The movement for the propagation of the Hungarian language and Magyarization was largely successful only among the urban German bourgeoisie and the Jewish population engaged in trade and commerce. The Magyarization tendencies, however, did not reach into the larger areas of the nationalities; only voluntary assimilation with the people exercising political power and leading the movement for bourgeois development caused certain changes. This, however, did not dampen the chauvinistic features of Hungarian nationalism and its responsi¬ bility for the deterioration in the relationship of the Hungarian and the other nationalities within the country. Even if the development of capitalist means of production and a desire for an independent national state inevitably led to differences between the Hungarian and non- Hungarian nationalities, it was not inevitable that these differences should develop into open hostilities when their common anti-feudal and anti-absolutist interests could have easily diminished those dif¬ ferences. Owing to these mistakes, the progressive Hungarian opposi¬ tion movement passed into its decisive phase in the second half of the forties, encumbered with the burden of the nationality question.

The Formation of a United Opposition Party

The moderate results of the 1843-4 diet encouraged the opposition to try to make use of other methods of mass propaganda beside the press to spread its ideas. Kossuth had anyway lost the editorship of Pesti Hirlap through government intrigue in the summer of 1844 and was confined to organizational activity only. Through the Industrial Union he could appeal to the bourgeoisie of Pest to convince them of the necessity of an independent Hungarian industrial development, and through the extensive network of the Protectionist Society throughout the country the teachings of the opposition began to influence the peasantry. The Protectionist Society, established to boost Hungarian industry, did not fill its mission as intended, but its role in shaping the political opinions of the great masses was tremendously important. Kossuth was responsible for the establishment of two more societies, the Society for the Founding of Factories and the Commercial So¬ ciety; the idea of the Fiume railway was vigorously propagated, to establish a direct approach to the sea, an important item in the econom¬ ic development and autonomy of the country.

The government, seeing the strengthening of the opposition, pre¬ pared counter-measures. The supporters of the conservative sham re¬ forms gathered; the passive Count Antal MajUth was replaced in the Chancery by the energetic, young loyalist Count Gyorgy Apponyi. The government, on the plea of improving the county administration, sent administrators instead of the lord lieutenants into a good many counties with secret instructions to break the strength of the opposi¬ tion with all the weapons at their disposal. At the same time, Szechenyi was instructed to take measures for the regulation of the Tisza river and articles appeared in government newspapers propagating the con¬ cept of a common Austro-Hungarian customs area, in the hope that the Hungarian landowners interested in agricultural exports would be won over.

Active preparations in both camps indicated that the decisive battle was near. The international situation sharpened the conflict. In the second half of the forties, bad harvests and economic crises contributed to the strengthening of progressive movements throughout Europe and by 1847 the situation was generally ripe for revolution. The signs of an imminent crisis were to increase in the provinces of the Habsburg Empire as well. The bourgeoisie were less and less inclined to put up with the restrictions feudalism presented to the development of in¬ dustry, while the nobility was demanding more political rights and in¬ fluence in governing bodies. In the provinces of the empire national independence movements flared up, the workers were organizing them¬ selves, the intelligentsia were restlessly agitating against absolutism, and the peasantry was in ferment in every part of the empire because it was supposed to bear directly the burden caused by the crisis. The rising of the peasants of Galicia in February 1846 was a bloody warn¬ ing to the ruling class of the empire.

The strengthening of the progressive movement and the develop¬ ment of ideological struggles went hand in hand even within the op¬ position itself with the emergence of both moderate and radical prin¬ ciples and factions. The left wing under Kossuth represented most dis¬ tinctly the liberal reform policy: every question of the bourgeois reform was regularly propagated by them, from the general sharing of taxa¬ tion and the compulsory redemption of services to the parliamentary representation of the masses. They were not afraid of eventually mo¬ bilizing the masses if necessary, and their national struggle against a system based on the rule of administrators amounted to a demand for the establishment of an independent government. The more moderate branch of the opposition looked for guidance to Deak: in their demand they more or less agreed with Kossuth, but they were slower and more cautious in their methods, insisting on constitutional measures. The centralist group was another distinct branch of the opposition. Its members were the highly educated intellectuals: Jozsef Eotvos, L&szlo Szalay, Antal Csengery, Agost Trefort and others, who were associated with the Pesti Hirlap, now no longer under Kossuth’s management. (One of the first really competent bourgeois historians in Hungary, Szalay hoped to introduce in this country some of the methods and views of contemporary English historical writing.) Their ideal was a democratic state of bourgeois intellectuals. Their system was entirely utopian, without expressing the aspirations of any class. The main weakness of their concept was that they ignored the dependent state of the country, and wanted to introduce centralized government in¬ stead of the county system at a time when the counties were the bastions of liberty against a foreign government and the promoters of progress.

The differences of opinion between the various sections of the op¬ position camp hampered united action. During repeated conferences in the winter of 1845-6, Kossuth and his friends endeavoured to im¬ prove matters by uniting the various sections of the opposition both organizationally and ideologically. A central committee of the opposi¬ tion was formed under the chairmanship of Lajos Batthy&ny. The centralists agreed to stop attacking the system of county administra¬ tion, but De&k was against the publication of a united programme, afraid that by openly debating disputed questions the differences within the opposition would come to light. During 1846, however, certain events contributed towards the union of the opposition. The rising of the Polish nobility was stifled by the government by inciting the op¬ pressed peasantry to rise against their masters. The news of what had happened contributed to the restlessness of the peasants in Hungary, too. As a result of the repeated bad harvests, for two years there was penury in the country. The shortage of wheat was made more serious by the speculation of both merchants and landowners. Many people starved to death, the public roads and the streets in the cities were full of paupers and the destitute, to whom oflicial measures brought little help. The mass misery screwed up the political tension to the extreme. Both these events strongly affected the policy of the opposition. Kos¬

suth made use of the example of the Polish government’s joining forces with the peasants in Galicia to rally his countrymen with a graphic description of what could happen at any time in Hungary.

In the debates on what policy to adopt many radical views were voiced, including even the liberation of the serfs without any compensa¬ tion. The emergence of radicalism encouraged the hesitant and moder¬ ate elements to take a more Kossuth-like view. The opposition con¬ ference held in June 1846 accepted most of Kossuth’s proposals, but the drafting of an official programme was again adjourned.

The decisive push for the realization of a united opposition party came with the launching of the conservative party in November 1846. With the relative success of the government’s policy in mind, the con¬ servatives declared themselves an official party. Borrowing a number of the opposition demands, they professed themselves the supporters of a transformation launched and directed by the government. The basic requirements for any change were naturally missing from the programme, and from the obscure wording of the text it was obvious that its real intention was to maintain feudalism. Nevertheless, it could not be denied that it would attract the hesitating elements of the op¬ position. This danger persuaded De4k at last to agree to the opposition party’s programme being drafted. After heated press debates and dis¬ cussions the national conference of the opposition was convened on 15 March 1847 in Pest, with 1,200 participants. The conference dis¬ cussed various proposals for inclusion in the programme, and on most items Kossuth’s views were accepted. Finally, under the leadership of Kossuth and De3k, a committee of six was set up to draft a statement containing the opposition manifesto. The conference declared the op¬ position an official party. The Statement of the Opposition, a most important document of the bourgeois reform movement of Hungary, was discussed by the party conference in June, for tactical reasons under Deck’s name, although it was Kossuth who was mainly re¬ sponsible for it. Tactical considerations had, anyway, interfered too much with the Statement: compulsory redemption of services and general taxation were indeed included, but other important items of reform in Hungary were introduced only with the most obscure word¬ ing. The question of national independence, in contrast, was empha¬ tically stressed, because on this the various factions of the opposition were fully agreed.

The Plebeian, Democratic Left Wing

The programme nevertheless denoted a compromise with the non¬ militant elements. The circumstances which produced it clearly showed that the reform party of the nobility, struggling to solve its inner contradictions, was not fitted to represent consistently the interests of a change to bourgeois conditions. This deficiency was responsible for the formation of a radical left wing, which, at the beginning, whole¬ heartedly supported Kossuth’s policy, but soon went beyond the ideol¬ ogy of the nobility’s liberalism, to represent the principles of true democracy. They were ready to take a stand for the benefit of the people, to fight for a change with them, even at the risk of revolution¬ ary violence. The protagonists of this democratic trend were young writers, meeting in the Cafe Pilvax, with Sandor Petofi at their head.

The young writers of the eighteen-forties, such as Petdfi, M6r Jokai, Jinos Arany, J&nos Vajda, Mihaly Tompa and Pal Vasvari, identified themselves completely with the cause of the people in their writings, and fought for them in the arena of daily politics. Petofi, himself of plebeian descent, became their leader. Like his associates he became a revolutionary from the study of the French Revolution, and was not satisfied with the cautious objectives of the reform movement of the nobility. He hoped for the liberation of the people by revolutionary means, served this cause with his poetry, and worked for it by political agitation. The young history master, Vasvari, the son of a country parson, was a companion worthy of him, who collected the best ele¬ ments of the university students of Pest in the Pilvax group. He also conveyed the teachings of radicalism to the petty bourgeois masses and a growing number of workers. The third great figure of the plebeian democratic movement, Mihaly Tancsics, came from the peasantry. He had received many hard knocks during his life, and was fully familiar with the misery of the workers; in the political field, he was a most uncompromising fighter for the interests of the peasantry. In his books, which were printed abroad, he laid down a most radical prog¬ ramme of change, going far beyond the plans of the liberal reformers: his demands included the annulment of the nobility’s privileges, and the abolition of serfdom without any compensation. His books were banned and Tdncsics himself was thrown into prison and kept there until he was released by the revolutionary forces in March 1848.

Government and Reform. The Last Diet of the Estates

In November 1847, the diet was convened by the government. There were disputes in the counties over the appointment of the representa¬ tives and the instructions to be given to them. The counties held by the opposition regarded the instructions of Pest County as a model to be followed. This—mainly Kossuth’s work—contained far-reaching objectives for securing the independence of the country, and, in a somewhat milder form, the much discussed main demands of the change to bourgeois conditions—namely the final redemption of ser¬ vices, general taxation and the abolition of entailment. The position of the opposition was weakened because, owing to the activity of the administrators, the government party gained the upper hand in several counties which formerly belonged to opposition territory, and con¬ sequently many outstanding opposition representatives, such as Deak, Eotvos, Bezeredy, Klauzal, Beothy and Pulszky, lost their seats. But Kossuth’s presence was a tremendous asset. In spite of the extraordi¬ nary efforts made by the government party in Pest County, Kossuth and Moric Szentkiralyi were successfully elected as the county’s rep¬ resentatives on 18 October. Success was due to the fact that the opposition, for the first time in the political life of the country, had mobilized the non-noble intellectuals on Kossuth’s side, and their votes had decided Kossuth’s election at the county session. The op¬ position became stronger in the upper house of the diet as well; Lajos Batthyany, the leader of the aristocratic opposition, collaborated with notable men like Count Laszlo Teleki, Count Kazmer Batthy&ny, Baron Zsigmond Pefenyi, Count Gedeon Raday and others.

The diet opened on 11 November, and in its early sessions the ques¬ tions of national autonomy were discussed. As in the previous diet, the government took over a number of the opposition’s demands, and the terms of the motion on the royal agenda sought to ensure its ac¬ ceptance on the government’s terms. The opposition, however, instead of accepting the motion, opened its attack. It demanded as the basis for further discussions an end to the illegal governing methods. The opposition had to fight hard for the acceptance of its demands in the lower house of the diet, and the upper house returned them several times, at which the lower house decided, at Kossuth’s suggestion, to break with the old parliamentary procedure and send the king no answer on the royal agenda.

The first victory was followed by further success: the opposition won on the Croatian question, and in the matter concerning the an- nexation of the Partium. Side by side with constitutional questions, the opposition continued its demands for bourgeois reform. In the debate on taxation, Kossuth declared that “the nobility could no long¬ er entertain proprietary rights over the nation, yet it could be its leader”; for the price of resigning its immunity in taxation, it could “assume the rights of first among equals for its class”; in the matter of feudal redemption Kossuth stated his ideas about state subsidies for compulsory commutation. Both principles received a majority vote in a slightly modified version, so steering committees were appointed to deal with its provisions. The motion for the abolition of entailment and other motions met with a similar reception.

The first victories encouraged Kossuth to proceed to the subject of constitutional grievances, hoping that by tabling the motion on the administrator question, he could inflict a heavy blow on the govern¬ ment. In this question public opinion stood almost undivided behind the opposition, and Kossuth expected that this question would bring about the fall of Apponyi’s system of government. But it soon became evident that since the opening of the diet the unity' of the opposition had been greatly undermined by government propaganda. Part of the party had been ready to follow Kossuth only reluctantly, and with reservations. By the end of January 1848, Sz£chenyi’s middle-of-the- road policy had gained ground to the extent that the unexpected hap¬ pened: the lower house of the diet rejected by one vote Kossuth’s motion, in favour of a compromise motion. The government’s success did not prove lasting, as Kossuth and the leaders of the left-wing op¬ position won back part of the renegades in a few days and achieved so much that a motion was tabled again to deal with grievances over the administrators’ activities. But the crisis was a good indication that the reform party itself was able to deal neither with the momentous task of social transformation nor with the struggle for national auton¬ omy.

It became obvious that the majority of the nobility were averse to the more radical reform measures. Those who under Kossuth’s leader¬ ship were ready to carry out far-reaching measures to effectuate the necessary changes could expect support from only two quarters: from the masses of the people, and from the European revolutionary move¬ ments, the first distant rumblings of which were audible even to the participants of the diet of Pozsony in February 1848. Kossuth, a poli¬ tician of the nobility, and with him the left wing of his party, were ready to rely on these two forces to drag the reform movement out of its inertia and onto the road of advance.

The Bourgeois Revolution and War of Independence (1848–1849)

March 1848

The European revolutionary situation erupted first in France, early in 1848. The victory of the February revolution in Paris increased the tension in Vienna, while in Pozsony Kossuth, who eagerly awaited the news in order to link up the Hungarian reform movement with the success of the European movements, acted at once. Overcoming the resistance of Szechenyi and the hesitant elements in the reform party, he succeeded in getting the lower house of the diet to vote, on 3 March, for a motion on the address to the king. It demanded constitutional rule for the peoples of the empire, independent government for Hun¬ gary, and the instant acceptance of the bourgeois reform measures already accepted by the lower house of the diet. Most of the representa¬ tives. frightened of a revolution, became convinced that the measures were inevitable, and Kossuth himself endeavoured to establish the leadership of the nobility for the revolutionary changes in order to prevent a violent popular outbreak like that in Paris. The court or¬ dered the upper house of the diet to prevent the forwarding of the address to the king, intending to dissolve the diet and place the country under martial law.

These were the antecedents to the popular uprising in Vienna on 13 March. Mettemich escaped, and the helpless emperor was obliged to promise constitutional rule to the peoples of the empire. The revolu¬ tion of the people of Vienna propelled forward the cause of change in Hungary. On the morning of 14 March, Kossuth appealed to the diet to be responsible for the course of the movement, and suggested that the address of 3 March be submitted to the king by means of a depu¬ tation. Pozsony at that time was loud with rumour about supposed peasant risings. The city itself was in a turmoil, particularly the young people, and in this atmosphere the diet was willing to agree to any of Kossuth’s demands, including that handed over to the delegation to Vienna before its departure early on 15 March, which completed the address of 3 March by the addition of two items on general taxation and redemption of feudal services by the state.

While the parliamentary delegation was setting out for Vienna, mo¬ mentous events were happening in Pest, the heart of the country. Here the young intellectuals had been in a state of turmoil ever since the news of the revolution in Paris. The Pilvax group was preparing for action and was finding a way to carry it out. Through the Opposition Circle Kossuth requested the public of Pest to collect signatures in support of the demands of the parliamentary opposition. Petofi, Vas- vari, Jozsef Irinyi, Jokai and Gyula Bulyovszky had prepared the cir¬ culars by 11 March, containing the 12 points of the radical young in¬ tellectuals, stipulating the liberty of the press, independent government, the annual convening of diets with full representation, equality in re¬ ligion and before the law, general taxation, the abolition of urbarial relations, the release of political prisoners, the establishment of na¬ tional militia, union with Transylvania, and an army sworn to respect the constitution of Hungary. These were radical terms, far surpassing the aims of the reform policy of the nobility. The gentry leaders of the Opposition Circle were somewhat taken aback, and tried to persuade the youthful leaders to greater moderation.

The news of the Vienna revolution, however, decided the argument. In the early morning hours of 15 March, Petofi and his companions read out the 12 points in the Pilvax, followed by Petofi’s recital of his poem ‘National Song’, written for the mass meeting to be held on 19 March, and the procession started off to mobilize the university stu¬ dents. From the university the ever-growing procession went to the Landerer printing press to occupy it, and by printing the song without the censor’s permission, gave factual proof of the liberty of the press. From there they continued marching along the streets, urging the popu¬ lation, workers and bourgeois alike, to join in, along with the peas¬ ants who had just arrived for the national fair. In the early afternoon a meeting was held in front of the National Museum, in the presence of tens of thousands of people. There the delegation to take the 12 points before the city council was duly elected. Two members of the nobility opposition then in Pest, Gabor Klauzal and Pal Nydry, be¬ came members of the delegation. From the Museum the crowd moved to the Town Hall. The demands of the revolution were handed over to the city council then in session; the demands were accepted without resistance. The members of the revolutionary committee were elected, including Petofi, Vasv&ri, Daniel Mnyi, Jozsef Irinyi, Klauzdl and Nyary, as well as seven members of the bourgeoisie and Lipot Rotten- biller, the deputy mayor and chairman of the committee. The radicals formed a minority in the committee, but they gained confidence from the fact that the people were on their side and followed them. From

the Town Hall, the procession, now twenty thousand strong, proceeded to Buda, to demand from the Lieutenancy Council the abolition of censorship, the release of Tancsics and the prohibition of military in¬ tervention. The Lieutenancy Council, which had just been considering the arrest of the young leaders and the military suppression of their movement, seeing the tremendous crowd, consented to the demands. Tdncsics was carried over to Pest in a triumphal procession and the day ended in the National Theatre, celebrating with a gala perform¬ ance the first day of the bourgeois revolution.

In Pest, on 15 March, the resistance of the ruling circles was broken by the people’s revolution, enabling the liberal nobility in the succeed¬ ing weeks to bring about the transition to a bourgeois state, national independence, the reforms stipulated in their earlier plans, and a good deal more. The group of radicals and the people of Pest were not yet strong enough to assume the leadership of the revolutionary change. This had to be left in the hands of the liberal reform party of the nobility, yet it was strong enough to exercise decisive power in the vital stages of the revolution on the weak and compromising leader¬ ship.

The First Independent Hungarian Government and the April Laws

While the revolutionary committee in Pest was introducing its first measures for the realization of the aspirations of the revolution, thus encouraging the whole country to form their own revolutionary com¬ mittees, Vienna was also the scene of decisive events. The people of Vienna received the delegation of the Hungarian diet with unprece¬ dented enthusiasm. Kossuth, on the other hand, had great difficulties in dealing with the court. To be sure, the range of the demands had widened considerably: on board of the ship taking the delegation to Vienna, it was decided to demand that Lajos Batthyany should be prime minister of Hungary; further, that the bills submitted to the king should be approved immediately, and Archduke Stephen, who had succeeded his father as palatine in 1847, should be appointed as governor-general. The reactionary archdukes in the king’s entourage opposed the acceptance of these demands, but the support of revolu¬ tionary Vienna and the arriving news of revolutionary movements in Hungary had their effect: on 17 March, the king consented to the demands, and appointed Batthyany as Hungary’s first independent prime minister. With these historic achievements the delegation re- turned on the same night to Pozsony and, on the balcony of the ‘Zold- fa’ restaurant, Kossuth presented to a waving crowd of many thou¬ sands Hungary’s first prime minister, Count Batthydny.

The following day, on 18 March, the diet began the first reading of the new bills. But first it issued a proclamation to the population, giving an account of what had happened, the outline of the ensuing changes, and stating that the Estates’ diet would deal only with the most urgent issues, leaving the detailed provisions to be dealt with by the next diet, which would represent all sections of the population. Next it was proclaimed that all members of the diet, including the rep¬ resentatives of the towns and chapters, had equal personal votes. Earlier, already accepted proposals for general taxation and the aboli¬ tion of the urbarial relations were drawn up in detail, and a new bill brought in on the abolition of tithes. On 19 March, the diet received the delegation of the youth of Pest, who handed over the 12 points and other demands. In his reply to the delegation Kossuth recognized the importance of the movement of the capital, yet stressed emphati¬ cally the precedence of the diet and its noble leadership. On the fol¬ lowing days new bills were drafted one after the other concerning an¬ nual diets, credit banks, the liberty of the press, independent govern¬ ment, compensation to landowners and the abolition of entailment.

The work of the diet was interrupted at the end of March by the first attack of the reactionary forces.

Among the representatives of the ruling classes at that diet, the eccle¬ siastical and great secular landowners were hostile to the changes. Owing to the decline of the power of the Habsburgs, they dared not risk a frontal attack, and had given their reluctant agreement to the demands of the lower house of the diet. Szechenyi was a notable ex¬ ception: he participated in the fight for the Vienna agreements, ac¬ cepting and supporting whole-heartedly the changes, seeing in them the realization of his ideas much sooner than he had expected. By sup¬ porting Kossuth, he hoped to forestall the possible outbreak of a violent peasant rising. The liberal nobility was united in welcoming national independence, which attracted new recruits for Kossuth from the camp of the moderates. The complete and immediate abolition of manorial relations, however, was more difficult for the nobility to accept, and even those progressives who were fully conscious of the restrictive effect of feudal conditions might have held back but for their fear of peasant uprisings. Only Kossuth and the left wing of the reform party were pleased with the more radical realization of their former hopes. On the whole, the nobility approved of the general out¬ lines of the changes, seeing in the liberated sections of society a further pledge of lasting independence. There were many, however, who would gladly have restricted for their own ends the range of the liberation of the serfs. The court was counting on them and on the big landowners, when on 28 March it refused the royal signature to the bill liberating the serfs and the bill for the establishment of an independent govern¬ ment. In connection with the former they wished to maintain labour services until compensation had been voted by the diet; as to the latter, they wished to restrict the sphere of an independent Hungarian govern¬ ment and keep the country at least partially dependent. The diet im¬ mediately recognized the provocative nature of the two provisions, and rejected the amendments with disgust. It was again the people of Pest who rushed to the rescue of the diet: on 30 March, there was a sweep¬ ing demonstration against the attempted counter-revolution. A part of the demonstrators urged the necessity of an armed rising and the declaration of a republican state, calling upon other towns of the country and the people of the provinces to organize similar demonstra¬ tions. The appeal was not without effect. The court, its position very precarious owing to revolts flaring up in Italy and Germany, was compelled finally to accept both bills in their original text. The diet could go on with its work, the bill providing for a parliament with full representation being the most urgent among the remaining motions before it. Batthyany’s cabinet was appointed on 7 April; on 11 April the Acts were passed by the diet and its sessions ceremoniously ad¬ journed.

After a difficult beginning under the menace of its disruption, the last diet of the Estates thus ended with the passing of acts providing for the change-over to bourgeois conditions and for institutions pro¬ viding for national independence. The European revolutionary move¬ ments had greatly contributed to this outcome, and even more the constant efforts of the revolutionary movement in Hungary. With the provisions of the acts about parliament, independent government, a national militia, the annexation of the Partium and union with Tran¬ sylvania, the foundations of independence were laid, while the libera¬ tion of the serfs, the abolition of tithes, the proclamation of equality of tax, religion and before the law, popular representation in national, county and town sessions and the removal of censorship, guaranteed freedom of thought, speech and writing. This diet, however, was not without its legislative shortcomings in respect of both national in¬ dependence and the establishment of bourgeois conditions: the libera¬ tion of the peasantry applied only to urbarial lands; a high property qualification excluded the poor from voting, starting a newspaper or entering the new militia; and the non-Hungarian nationalities could only enjoy general bourgeois liberties, without their national demands being taken into account. Nevertheless, the people of Hungary had made the decisive step from feudalism to capitalism by securing the prerequisites of their national independence.

The Position of the Government. The Peasant Question

Peaceful development was threatened right from the early days of national independence by menaces from within and without. The court was preparing to counteract the concessions it had been obliged to make in a difficult moment, and it could safely rely on those elements who had always been hostile to the changes, mainly the aristocracy and the clergy. In this situation the independent Hungarian govern¬ ment would have acted correctly if it had widened the camp of its adherents by continuing to develop the achievements of the revolution, and, while taking active steps against its enemies, had formed alliances with the progressive movements of Europe. But Batthyany’s cabinet was not able to cope with problems requiring so much courage and political acumen if only because of its social background. The members of the government besides Batthyany were Bertalan Szemere, minister of interior, Ferenc De£k, minister of justice, Jozsef Eotvos, minister of religion and public education, G&bor Klauzal, minister of agri¬ culture, trade and commerce, L&z&r Meszaros, minister of war, Istvan Szechenyi, minister of labour and transport, Prince P&l Esterh&zy, liaison minister with the king, and Kossuth, minister of finance. It was thus more or less a coalition of wealthy, commodity-producing nobles and big landowners who approved or were reconciled to the changes. They may have approved or accepted what had happened, but their plan for the future was not to extend further the revolutionary changes, but rather to consider the revolution as completed. This, indeed, co¬ incided with the interests of the classes they were representing; and then they imagined that by loyally adhering to the pact made with Vienna, they could prevent the court from changing its attitude to the new situation. It was only the left wing, Petofi and his circle, the radical paper Mdrciiis Tizenotodike (The Fifteenth of March) and Munkdsok Ujsdga (The Workers’ Paper), edited by T&ncsics, which warned of a possible counter-revolutionary menace, and ceaselessly urged the gov¬ ernment to make armed preparations.

Apart from the question of principle, the government was hampered by practical considerations from showing strength in this complicated situation. The treasury was almost empty when it was taken over, the army continued to be under Vienna’s command, and the masses of the nobility were reluctant to make further sacrifices at a time when they were suffering from the loss of dues and statute labour. As a result the government faced a financial crisis. The majority of the workers, mostly guild apprentices, appealed to the authorities with strikes and petitions, demanding an improvement of their pay and working conditions and an end to the guild system. The government checked the trend by mod¬ ifying guild regulations, and fixing their working hours, and in the same way strikes by miners in Upper Hungary were stopped by the promise of better living conditions for the miners. The two gravest problems before the government were still the peasant question and the nationality situation.

The gravity of the peasant problem was due to the fact that the peas¬ ants had not gained anything else besides their personal freedom. As only the urbarial lands were transferred to peasant ownership, only two-fifths of the peasants benefited, and only 20 per cent of the cul¬ tivated territory of the country was involved. Peasants living on do¬ manial land and small-holdings, small vineyards and market-gardens were not relieved of their obligations, and the grievances of the peas¬ ants over enclosures were not remedied by the legislation either. The peasant masses were bitterly disappointed, and revenged themselves throughout the land by refusing forced labour services and the tithe on vineyards, by selling wine and meat without licence, and by oc¬ cupying the landlord’s grazing land. In other places the landless peas¬ ants divided up the land without consulting anybody. The nobility resisted and even contested the status of the urbarial land in order to deprive the peasant of his rightful ownership. In these questions the government acted as the defender of the interests of the nobility. It first tried to deal with the situation by peaceful measures, then by sending out royal commissioners and troops, and ended early in June by pro¬ claiming martial law to repress the movement, referring the problem of the feudal survivals of the non-urbarial land to the next parliament.

The Nationalities

The other nationalities, excepting the Transylvanian Saxons, were mostly pleased with the achievements of the diet and with the new liberties of the bourgeoisie, and expressed satisfaction with the changes. Nevertheless, they stressed from the very first (the Slovaks in their petition of 28 March, Barnupu in his appeal of 25 March, the Serbs of Pest and Ujvidek in their statements) the special rights of the non-Hungarian nationalities, including their right to use their own lan¬ guage, and hinted at possible claims for autonomy. The diet and gov¬ ernment of Hungary refused their requests point blank, because the ruling classes showed no inclination to resign their right to be sole rulers of the whole country and over all its people. This attitude paved the way for the representatives of the counter-revolution to try to win the other nationalities for their own ends. The national movements themselves, under the leadership of clerical, bourgeois and intellectual elements, were soon to receive strong and enthusiastic support from the peasants of the respective national minorities. In Hungary the shortcomings of the urbarial regulation discussed above furnished en¬ couragement; while in Transylvania, where after a long period of chaos the 1846 diet had produced a worthless urbarial law, the long delay in the liberation of the serfs had the same effect, for the Transyl¬ vanian diet did not liberate the peasants until May. The unyielding attitude of the Hungarian ruling classes coincided with the issuing, on 25 April, of a new draft constitution by the court, promising equal rights to all the peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy. Consequently, the national movements of the non-Hungarians were ready to join forces with the court.

The situation was soon to deteriorate. The leaders of the Slovak movement, at their meeting at Liptoszentmiklos on 10 May, issued a mass petition: it demanded that in addition to the parliament of Hun¬ gary, there should be separate national assemblies for each nationality, a separate Slovak militia, unrestricted freedom of assembly and of the press, the use of the Slovak language in county life, and the use of the Slovak national colours beside the Hungarian ones. At the instigation of the left wing, the petition was extended to include a demand for the release of cleared woodlands and tenures. The petition was stamped as seditious by the government of Hungary, and government com¬ missioners were sent into the Slovak counties compelling the leaders of the movement, Hodza, Hurban and Stur, to leave the country to escape persecution. The Serbian movement, with the support of the frontier districts, the Serbian Church, the Croatian movement and the neighbouring Serbian Principality, made energetic strides forward towards national independence, and, owing to traditionally good re¬ lations with the court, joined forces first with the counter-revolution. The conference of the Serbs met in Karloca on 13 May; it enjoyed the support of a comparatively developed Serbian bourgeoisie and peas¬ antry, but was under the control of the Serbian clergy and frontier- guard officers. The establishment of a Serbian province was proposed, consisting of the southern counties of Hungary with their mixed popula¬ tion, to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Emperor of Austria, and in alliance with the Kingdom of Croatia. In its programme, in which rightful demands were mixed with excessively nationalistic aspi¬ rations, the conference refused its allegiance to the government of Hungary. After the conference the Hungarian authorities in the coun¬ ties inhabited by Serbs became powerless, as power more and more shifted into the hands of the local authorities, the odbors.

The attitude of the Slavic population of Hungary was to be seriously influenced by the Pan-Slav Congress, which opened in Prague on 2 June. At the meeting, convened by the Slavic peoples of the Habsburg Empire, the representatives of the Austro-Slav movement formed a majority against the anti-Habsburg left wing: they aimed at Slavic unity within the Habsburg Empire. The Slovak leaders at the con¬ ference accepted this guiding principle, and subsequently their move¬ ment sought separation from Hungary, and looked for support for their endeavours to Vienna. The Prague Congress had to break off its sessions, when on 12 June the people of Prague revolted against the imperial army, and Prince Windischgraetz used the defeat of the up¬ rising to crush the left wing of the Slavic movement.

The Rumanian movement in Transylvania was much influenced by the fact that the court had broken its promise to convene a parliament to decide on the union with Transylvania and the extension of the March laws to that principality. The peasantry, restless about the delay of their liberation, came more and more under the influence of the Rumanian intellectuals agitating with patriotic slogans. At the con¬ ference of Bal&zsfalva on 15 May the pro-Hungarian movement of Bishop Lemeny was driven into the background by Barnupu and the Rumanian clergy under Bishop Saguna and the democratic group of Avram Iancu. The decisions of the conference contained mostly bour¬ geois demands such as the abolition of statute labour services and dues, the abolition of the guild system, the freedom of the press and assembly, trial by jury, the rights of the Rumanian church, and a constituent assembly representing all the nationalities of Transylva¬ nia. The conference provided for the formation of the central organ of the movement, the Rumanian National Committee. Outside the official work of the conference there was violent agitation against the union, and in favour of alliance with the neighbouring Rumanian principalities. The peasants showed their impatience by refusing their statute labour and illegally occupying land. The counties sent out troops to deal with the peasant risings and the clashes only heightened the differences between the nationalities, especially after the govern- ment of Transylvania had dissolved the Committee, and began to per¬ secute the leaders of the movement. The Committee fled to Nagy- szeben and continued its activity under the protection of the Saxons. As the Hungarian government continued to decline any move to dis¬ cuss the rightful national demands of the Rumanians, the movement moved closer into the clutches of the court.

The Organization of Defence

Thus the first independent Hungarian government had a great number of problems to struggle with from the first day of its existence. The classes it represented were satisfied with its achievements and wanted to see them safeguarded. Its policy seemed to be adequate in the first weeks, but later, when the signs of counter-revolutionary attack be¬ came evident, it was obvious that the measures taken were too in¬ effective even to safeguard its minimum achievements. For this reason the left wing, which had initially supported the government, assumed a critical attitude, and tried to compel the government to prepare for a coming onslaught. Within the government, it was Kossuth above all who supported the demands of the left wing. Kossuth himself would have liked to avoid an open clash with Vienna, but unlike his col¬ leagues, he was not convinced that a loyal attitude alone was enough to prevent it. As minister of finance he made great efforts to procure funds for the organization of military defence, and, at the same time, he tried, beyond his own sphere, to prepare the country against any attack. With the support of the left wing he made provisions for mili¬ tary equipment to be produced at home, and the first Hungarian in¬ fantry units were organized. He had fierce debates with Vienna de¬ manding that General Jelacic, appointed in March as ban (viceroy) of Croatia, should be removed. JelaSic, whose appointment was the first move in the camarilla’s plans, had broken every connection with the Hungarian government. He wanted Croatia to break away from Hun¬ gary, and attach itself directly to the Habsburgs, and he began to prepare for a military attack on Hungary. At Kossuth’s insistence the government persuaded the king to remove Jela5ic, but be took no notice, and continued with his military preparations. At Kossuth’s instigation, the government appointed a veteran of the opposition L&szlo Csanyi of Zala County, as commissioner to organize the de¬ fence of the Drave river line, and brought the Transdanubian forces under his command. In a few weeks Csdnyi organized a considerable army from the military and national militia, and this, for the time being, deterred Jela£ic from launching an overt attack. Hostilities started however on another front: at the beginning of June, acting on Jeladic’s advice, the Serbs broke out in an armed rising, and the Hun¬ garian government, with its hurriedly mobilized army and national militia, could not localize the fighting.

On the home front momentous political events were also taking place. Against the wishes of the court, the diet of Transylvania met at the end of May and proclaimed union with Hungary and the validity of the revolutionary laws of Hungary in Transylvania. Early in June elections were held in Hungary for the first democratic parliament. Four hundred and twenty-six members were returned, mainly from the ranks of the old opposition and the liberal landed nobility. Not more than 30-40 of the new members belonged to the left wing. The left’s electoral defeat was due chiefly to the fact that a high property qualification deprived the majority of the radical voters of their polling rights; a further reason was the inconsistency that the radicals had shown throughout on the peasant question, failing to insist that further steps be taken in the liberation of the serfs. At the beginning of the new parliament they tried to atone by insisting, at the instigation of Tancsics, that the tithe on vineyards be abolished and the serfs working on demesne land also be liberated.

Parliament opened on 5 July, and from the very beginning its de¬ bates centred around the defence question. On 11 July, parliament un¬ animously voted 200,000 soldiers and 42 million forints as demanded by Kossuth, proving that in the defence of national independence they were above bargaining. The ensuing debates, however, also proved that the majority did not recognize that the real enemy was the court, and that in spite of the violent struggles in the south and the behaviour of Jelacic, they had not seen the truth. The court asked parliament for 40,000 recruits against the Italian revolutionaries. The government, on the grounds of the Pragmatic Sanction, wanted to vote the recruits; even Kossuth consented, only demanding that before this was done Vienna should restrain Jelacic and that the recruits should not be sent to Italy. Parliament voted the required recruits on this understanding. Only the radicals fought desperately against the motion, rightly re¬ cognizing that in the new climate of international relations, Hungarian foreign policy should be based on solidarity with revolutionary move¬ ments. Batthydny in his foreign policy, on the other hand, strove to solidify the achievements of the revolution by securing the recognition of the Western powers, first of all that of England, and for that reason in particular he rejected radicalism in any shape or form. A policy of this kind, however, was entirely futile: England, as before, rejected any approach from the revolutionary Hungarian government. At¬ tempts to secure diplomatic ties with France met with similar failure. It was only with the German unification movement, developing after the March revolution in Germany, that the Batthyany government could temporarily enter into diplomatic relations. As early as May, representatives were sent to the parliament of Frankfurt, then engaged in drafting the constitution of the united Germany, and, at the end of August, Laszlo Szalay was recognized as Hungary’s official representa¬ tive; some time later, the recognition was suspended due to Austrian intervention.

The August debates of parliament were characterized by the hope that if Austria became part of the united Germany, all that would remain of the relationship of Austria and Hungary would be a common ruler. The questions pertaining to the defence forces to be set uo were therefore postponed, although circumstances urged quick action. But it was eventually no longer possible to postpone a decision: should the new recruits join the imperial forces or the independent, Hungarian army? After long delays and heated arguments, in the course of which Kossuth fought side by side with the left wing for the establishment of an independent, Hungarian army, at last a decision was reached: it was agreed that the new recruits should only fill gaps in the existing imperial regiments, and the others should be used for the establishment of new Hungarian battalions. The motion was voted for only by the governing party, with the radicals and their supporters, 117 members in all, voting against it and for an entirely independent Hungarian army. There was a considerable shift to the left in the ranks of the liberal majority, which increased when at the end of August and beginning of September it became clear that an attack was inevitable.

Failure of the Policy of Appeasement

After the extensive revolutionary turmoil in the first half of 1848, conditions in Europe had again consolidated. In the West, an econom¬ ic boom was on the way. Chartism in England and the proletarian rising in Paris had failed bloodily, and the bourgeois revolutions in the West, including Vienna, were forced to compromise. The Austrian armies were victorious against the revolutionary forces both in Prague and Italy. As a result, the court believed that the time had come to oppose openly the Hungarian revolution. At the end of August, JelaCic received new encouragement, and hurried up his prep¬ arations. His opposite number. General Ottinger, commanding the Transdanubian forces, went over to the enemy. General Bechtold, who had fought half-heartedly and ineffectively against the Serbs in the southern part of the country, resigned. The Hungarian government knew about the preparations of the court, yet it was only Kossuth who prepared for war; the majority of the government looked for means of peaceful settlement. Batthyany and Deak went to Vienna on 29 August, and were prepared to make concessions even at the expense of independence to avert war. But the prime minister of Hungary was refused an audience, and instead a royal ordinance was sent to Palatine Stephen on the 31st. This, and the enclosed memorandum of the Austrian cabinet, accused the Hungarian government of infringing the Pragmatic Sanction by its financial and military measures. They were instructed to modify the April laws and stop military preparations against Jelacic. The provocative nature of these instructions was obvious; should they be refused, Hungary could be made responsible for future events.

Owing to delay on the part of the palatine, the royal ordinance did not reach the council of ministers until 4 September. The court’s intentions were obvious to all members of the government and parlia¬ ment alike, but instead of terrifying them into cancelling the achieve¬ ments of the revolution, the reaction was just the opposite. Kossuth described to parliament in dramatic words the failure of the policy of appeasement, and demanded special measures to deal with the pre¬ carious situation. The members voted almost unanimously for measures to provide for national defence: conscription, the recruiting of extra troops and the dispatch of government commissioners, and voted the funds to pay for the preparations. In order to expose the aims of the reactionaries, Kossuth thought it best to comply with one item of the royal ordinance, i.e. that the government of Hungary should send a committee to Vienna to discuss various disputed questions. At his suggestion, a parliamentary committee numbering a hundred members was sent out, but they were not invited to discussions. At that point it was clear that agreement could only be reached by giving up entirely any vestige of independence. The policy of preserving peace at any price had completely failed, and it became evident that the achieve¬ ments of March could only be defended by the measures of Kossuth and the left wing. The return of the committee on 10 September was followed by the cabinet’s recognition of the failure of its policy, and their resignation, except for Szemere and Meszaros. The following day, the palatine tried to assume power in parliament, but the house pro¬ tested, demanding that until a new government was formed, the ministers should go on as before. Batthyany was not willing, whereupon Kossuth, in the midst of feverish applause from the gallery and the people outside, alone among the ministers, resumed his seat. He was welcomed by most of the members, and Kossuth made use of this solemn moment by rising and demanding that the house give its approbation to conscription and to the new bank-notes, although according to the law these should have first been sanctioned by the king. The majority’s shift to the left continued, the majority of the members no longer demanding the ritual of legality.

Jelačić's Attack and Defeat

After this fateful session, Batthydny was again designated by the pala¬ tine to form a government. While Batthyany was engaged in trying to form a right-wing cabinet excluding Kossuth, events succeeded each other with dramatic speed. On 12 September, a desperate report from Csdnyi, the government commissioner, arrived in the capital: Jelacic and his army had crossed the Drave the previous day, and as the new commander, Adam Teleki, was not engaging him in action, his way was open to Szekesfeh<£rv&r. Batthyany ordered a general levy of the masses, but it was very questionable whether the peasants, who had so many accounts unsettled with their former masters, would feel inclined to fight side by side with the nobility against the intruders. As an incentive the house voted the abolition of vineyard dues on 15 Sep¬ tember, and simultaneously decreed the compensation of landowners with state bonds. Kossuth put it shrewdly when he said that the latter was to give the gentry, also, an inclination to defend the fatherland. The house proceeded to discuss another bill to relieve the peasants of a series of non-urbarial obligations.

The Transdanubian peasantry attacked the scattered troops of Jelacid, destroying the stragglers and capturing the carts carrying supplies. Within a short time the invaders were cut off entirely from Croatia. The peasants acted then, and later on, too, as the defenders of national independence, seeing more hope for the realization of their demands in an independent country than under foreign rule. The threat from abroad contributed to the formation of a united front, combining the adherents of the revolution from the liberal land¬ ed gentry to the radicals, from the petty-bourgeois and plebeian masses to the peasantry, and from Kossuth and the Madarasz brothers to Petofi and Tancsics.

Another important event happened at the parliament session of 15 September: at Kossuth’s suggestion a committee was appointed to advise Batthyany in the organization of defence. The committee, con¬ taining mainly radical members, formed the nucleus of the later Defence Commission which organized the whole structure of the War of Independence. During the succeeding days the situation deteriorated further: the palatine, who was ready to assume the military leadership, had volunteered a meeting with Jeladic, but fled to Vienna after its failure; Vienna, on the other hand, deliberately hesitated to recognize Batthy£ny’s very moderate government; from Transylvania new hostilities were reported; and Jelacic was advancing on Szdkesfehervar. Growing danger multiplied determination to meet it: the government commissioners continued their recruiting efforts, and more and more troops filled the camp of the defence, with the people of the capital making feverish preparations. Kossuth went in person to recruit volunteers in the Great Plain. His enthusiastic speeches moved many thousands to meet the enemy.

Kossuth, however, had to interrupt his journey. He was recalled because a royal decree of 25 September appointed Count Franz Lamberg, a general, as the commander-in-chief of all forces in Hun¬ gary and the Lord Chief Justice, Count Gyorgy Majlath, as viceroy. Parliament declared the decree illegal and void because it had come out without the counter-signature of the prime minister, and would have constituted the end of Hungarian independence. The arrival of Lamberg on 28 September to take over the high command in Pest caused an uprising among the excited masses which led to his death. The following day, on 29 September, the new commander-in-chief. General Moga, at the express command of parliament engaged in combat the forces of Jeladic on the shore of Lake Velence. The people’s army of the War of Independence, made up of new recruits, the national militia, volunteers and regular troops, inflicted a heavy defeat on the enemy’s superior forces at Pakozd. The following day, Jelacic, breaking the terms of the armistice, fled to Vienna; the rear of his army was captured at Szekesfehervar, and his reserve forces at Ozora a few days later. M6r Perczel’s army corps cleared the whole of Trans- danubia of the enemy within a few weeks.

The new front of national unity won because all classes and strata engaged in it were equally interested in its success, regarding the return of absolutism as harmful, although not in an equal measure. The victory denoted the climax in the shift to the left of the forces engaged. A new balance resulted in the redistribution of power between the various factions. The government formed in April and the supremacy of the liberal, landed nobility were entirely upset by the September crisis. After the Lamberg affair Batthyany resigned, Szechenyi retired to a mental home with a complete breakdown, early in the month, Esterhazy sided openly with the court, Klauzal withdrew, Eotvos went abroad and De£k continued to serve as a member of parliament only for a short time—of the former ministers only Kossuth, Szemere and M6sz&ros remained on the scene.

The Defence Commission

After Batthyany’s resignation, parliament now formally entrusted the Defence Commission with power; as, however, four of its six members, Laszlo Madarasz, Pal Ny&ry, Jozsef Patay and Imre Zsembery, belonged to the left wing, Meszaros and Szemere from the right and four liberal members of the upper house were added to their number. Nevertheless, the left wing had the upper hand in the Commission, mainly owing to the influence of its chairman, Kossuth, who worked hand in glove with the left, and the situation did not change while the immediate danger lasted. The danger in fact became more and more acute. After Lamberg’s death, the imperial court issued decrees for the dissolution of parliament and declared the laws passed by it void. JelaCic was vested with full power and the country brought under martial law. On 8 October, parliament declared the court decrees void, and the Defence Commission was vested with full power to organize the defence of the country.

The forces of the counter-revolution were attacking in several places along the frontier of the country, but were assuming the defensive on the main battlefield. Jelacic’s army withdrew towards Vienna, and as Moga’s Hungarian forces delayed their pursuit, succeeded in crossing the frontier and joining Windischgraetz’s army. The Hungarian army stopped on the frontier, though it had a historic chance to expand the revolution to European dimensions. On 6 October, the people of Vienna rose again, preventing reinforcements being sent to Jelacic, and after hanging the reactionary minister of war, Latour, on a lamp post, occupied the city. The imperial court fled to Olmiitz; and it took Windischgraetz a long time to organize his forces against the revolu¬ tionaries. The road to Vienna was open to the Hungarian army. Both common sense and solidarity with the Austrian revolutionaries dictated immediate attack, but the army command dared not cross the frontier without instructions from Pest. Both the Defence Commission and Kossuth were undecided, and sent uncertain, contradictory in¬ struction, so that by the time Kossuth made a decision, going himself to the camp, it was too late to attack. It was on the same day that Windischgraetz defeated the Viennese that the Hungarian army set out, and Windischgraetz repulsed them at Schwechat, outside Vienna, on 30 October. It could have been a fatal defeat for the Hungarians, but with revolutionary Vienna at his back, Windischgraetz dared not pursue the retreating Hungarian army. At the headquarters in Pozsony, Kossuth relieved the incompetent M6ga, and appointed Arthur Gor- gey as commander-in-chief in his stead, as he had shown more spirit during the attack.

It took Windischgraetz a month and a half to restore order in Vienna, and prepare for an attack against Hungary. The Defence Commission lost no time in preparing for defensive warfare. A new army was equipped practically out of nothing; by the middle of De¬ cember, 64 infantry battalions, 10 hussar regiments and 32 artillery units had been set up, including roughly 100,000 men and 233 cannons. Weapons and munitions production began, and industry was mobilized entirely for war equipment. The expenses were covered by issuing unsecured notes, without a large devaluation of the currency. Kossuth took over the lion’s share of the work of the Commission, working day and night to carry out his responsibilities. He was deservedly called a revolutionary character by Marx and Engels, taking on his shoulders the life and death struggle of his people, a Danton and Carnot in one for his own nation. But other members of the Commission, such as Madarasz, Szemere, Nyary and others, also had their share in the work. The members of the literary world had a large share, too, in mobilizing society. Petofi, Arany, Mihaly Vdrosmarty and Gergely Czuczor wrote revolutionary poems, others served the revolutionary cause as newspaper editors and journalists; Tdncsics’s paper, the Mimkasok tfjsdga, contributed to raising the readiness of the peasantry for war.

In the apparently united front of the defence, however, gaps and cracks were appearing. There were many in parliament who feared the courageous policy of the Commission, and would have liked to leave the door open for negotiations. This group, the nucleus of the later peace party, first came forward when the camarilla in Vienna forced the abdication of Ferdinand V, who had made a vow to keep the con¬ stitution, and raised his nephew, Francis Joseph, to the throne on 2 December. Parliament declared this step illegal, and labelled Francis Joseph a usurper. In the meetings prior to this, however, Denes Paz- mdndy had tried to win over the majority, in the name of the peace party, to recognize Francis Joseph. The peasantry also came forward with repeated demands, but the government stifled their movements with too much energy, stating that claims could only be considered after the war. As a result the peasantry became indifferent to the cause of defence, and the united front was considerably weakened. But at this time the greatest danger came from the behaviour of the nationali¬ ties. On the southern front, the war against the other nationalities continued with varied success but in ever greater dimensions; Transyl¬ vania was occupied by imperial forces with the support of Rumanian insurgents, and only the Slovaks remained not entirely won over to the counter-revolution.

The Imperial Forces Attack

Battles in the Serbian, Rumanian and Slovak territories formed organic parts of a united strategy which tried to break the resistance of Hungary by centralized attack from nine different directions. About the middle of December the main offensive of the imperial forces started from the west. Both the Defence Commission and public opin¬ ion at large were badly disappointed from the very start. Gorgey, who enjoyed full responsibility owing to Kossuth’s confidence, did not engage the enemy: the army of the Upper Danube, which had been equipped during the past six weeks with unsparing sacrifice by the government, began to retreat without seeking engagement. Gorgey was the undoubt¬ ed representative of the class of landed nobility which deliberated most anxiously as to the possible outcome of the war, and not the revolutionary commander that Kossuth had taken him to be. While organizing the army he endeavoured to keep any manifestation of the revolutionary spirit away from the units, and when the offensive began, he retreated so quickly, in spite of Kossuth’s orders and Government Commissioner Csanyi’s entreaties, that within a fortnight the imperial army was before Pest. On the last day of the year parliament decided in a dramatic session that it would not give up, but would transfer the seat of the government to Debrecen. This decision was made possible by the fact that the newly elected commander of the Hungarian forces in Transylvania, General J6zef Bern, the hero of the Polish war of independence, had just liberated most of Transylvania from the im¬ perial forces. The people of Pest received the decision with fierce demonstrations, demanding the punishment of the traitors. At the request of the moderate elements a peace delegation in the persons ofDedk and Batthyany was despatched to the headquarters of Win- dischgraetz, but they were not received by the haughty commander, who instead ordered the arrest of Batthydny. The evacuation of Pest started on New Year’s Eve and was completed within three days.

On 4 January, Gorgey also moved out of Pest, in the direction of Vac, to proceed further towards the northern mountains. On the 5th, at Vac, he issued a declaration which in fact offered terms to the enemy, thus openly breaking allegiance with the Defence Commission. The defence of Debrecen fell to Perczel’s army corps, stationed alongside the Tisza river.

The situation of cabinet and parliament was equally desperate in Debrecen, and the collapse of the War of Independence was only avert¬ ed by Windischgraetz, who, flushed with victory, believed that the war had been decided, and did not want to expose his troops to the vicissitudes of further advance in the Great Plain before the spring. Kossuth and his associates thus gained two months, and made good use of the delay. The real greatness of Kossuth, the patriotic fervour of the left wing and the patriotism of the people of the Great Plain was shown to advantage in those weeks of hardship. The Commission established new bases to supply war equipment in the Great Plain and surrounding country, and filled the units with new recruits and volunteers, organiz¬ ing new infantry and hussar regiments and artillery units, commis¬ sioning irregular troops and supplying the material resources.

The military situation justified optimism in some measure: the victories of Bern had made the situation in Transylvania secure, the forces of Klapka had stopped and repelled Schlick’s army corps break¬ ing into the Miskolc area from the north-east, while Perczel stopped the advance of the enemy towards Szolnok with successful counter¬ attacks. Early in February, Gorgey also turned up in the Szepes region after his dubious activities, and won a marked success at Branyiszko. The most risky step was taken by calling back the experienced southern army under the joint command of General Damjanich and General Vecsey. The line of the Maros river thus remained defenceless against the Serbs, yet the small rearguard, with the help of the Hungarian inhabitants, was able to put up successful resistance. By the middle of February, the new concentration had been achieved, and in the middle region of the Tisza a 50,000-man army was ready to attack. The question of general command was solved by Kossuth, who deposed all the mutually jealous army commandants, and picked the general of the Polish war of independence of 1831, a member of the emigre Polish high command in Paris, General Dembinski, to become commander-in-chief. Yet the choice did not prove a lucky one. While preparing for action Dembinski was not able to come to grips with the difficulties that a foreign land and circumstances presented, and at the end of February was compelled to retreat against the surprise attack of the imperial forces at K£polna. The generals, offended because of the appointment of a foreign commander-in-chief, were equally re¬ sponsible for the failure, especially Gorgey, who after the battle persuaded the division commanders to refuse to obey Dembinski. In this critical situation Kossuth yielded and appointed General Antal Vetter to relieve Dembinski. Gorgey was not satisfied with the solution, and owing to a tactical mistake that Vetter made after the victory of Damjanich on 5 March at Szolnok, he began to intrigue against him, until Vetter, on the plea of illness, retired. Kossuth was obliged on 30 March to appoint Gorgey acting commander-in-chief and head of the main army, ready to launch a new attack.

The Spring Campaign

By the end of March the military conditions of a successful counter¬ attack seemed to have been achieved, especially after Bern had cleared the whole of Transylvania of the enemy, and Perczel began operations with a newly organized army corps on the southern front with promising results. On the home front the situation was less reassuring. The peasantry had noticeably withdrawn their support because their rightful demands had remained unanswered. During the enemy’s winter campaign it was not possible to arouse great masses to join the army, as in September: both the number of recruits and volunteers had diminished, and recourse had to be made to con¬ scription. Kossuth and the Commission continued to stick to the well- established policy of the united front, expecting the continued support of the landed nobility for the War of Independence if the March laws were rigorously adhered to, and the peasants’ demands for further legislation consistently refused. This policy undoubtedly overreached itself, because the peasants were dissatisfied; nor were the hesitant elements of the nobility happy either. Among the members of parlia¬ ment the peace party made great gains: its leaders openly declared themselves adherents of a policy of compromise, ready to negotiate at any moment if Vienna gave up its demand for unconditional sur¬ render. The left wing declared war against the peace party, but with little success. The lack of the enthusiastic support of the revolutionary masses of Pest was also acutely felt.

On 4 March, Francis Joseph dissolved the Austrian constituent assembly and submitted a constitution which made Hungary an integral part of the empire, and which organized separate provinces subject to the empire out of Croatia, the southern territories and Tran¬ sylvania. This development, and the misfiring of the army’s first operations, encouraged the peace party in its endeavours to start negotiations with Vienna, and so, for the sake of the interests of the landed nobility, hamper the further development of the revolution. Their first objective was to undo the existing alliance between Kossuth and the left wing. They attacked the most left-wing member of the Defence Commission, Ldszlo Madar&sz, Kossuth’s staunchest col¬ laborator, with false charges. The left wing counter-attacked: on 24 March, an appeal reached Kossuth to dissolve parliament and seize power himself. Bern was to be appointed commander-in-chief, and Gorgey, the hope of the peace party, court-martialled. But Kos¬ suth, not daring to take the risk, left Madarasz in the lurch, and went himself to join the army, hoping that his presence would contribute to the success of the great event in store.

Following a plan conceived on 30 March, one corps of the Hun¬ garian army concentrated around Eger began to move forward along the Gyongyos-Pest road, three divisions prepared to encircle the enemy along the line Jaszbereny-Isaszeg, and afterwards join forces at a point around Godollo to annihilate the army of Windischgraetz. On 2 April, Gaspar’s army corps on the right wing defeated the Aus¬ trian forces with the help of Damjanich at Hatvan; the main forces, on the other hand, engaged Jelacic’s corps at Tapiobicske on 4 April, and after varied success, managed to force a victory. This victory, however, revealed to Windischgraetz the disposition of the Hungarian forces and enabled him to reorganize his troops to prevent encircle¬ ment. Thus, in spite of the brilliant victory of the Hungarian forces at Isaszeg on 6 April, the annihilation of the enemy did not take place mainly due to mistakes made by the high command, and Windisch¬ graetz succeeded in pulling back his forces on the open Godollo road towards Pest. Gorgey did not attempt to smash the enemy completely, but rather to achieve tactical victories in order to force Vienna to come to terms. At that time Gorgey was not yet in direct touch with the peace party, but the similarity between their attitudes and aims made it possible for them to synchronize their actions.

The Independence Manifesto

After the first victories of the Hungarian army, Kossuth believed that the time had come to stop the peace party from trying to come to terms with Vienna. He wanted parliament to announce that Hungary had broken away from the House of Habsburg, and planned to form a new independent government, dissolve parliament and by new elections bring about a new parliament with a substantial majority who supported the policy of independence. From the army head¬ quarters at Godollo, he hurried back to Debrecen, but could only partially carry out his plans. In spite of the open and later concealed opposition of the peace party, under the pressure of the demonstrating masses he was able on 14 April to persuade parliament to declare the Habsburgs deposed from the Hungarian throne. His other plans, however, remained unrealized in the form he wished. The historic act of the Habsburgs’ dethronement, and the subsequent Independence Manifesto, enumerating the centuries-old offences of the dynasty, was well received by most of the public, yet under the influence of Gorgey few officers of the army approved, and the bourgeois powers of Europe were certainly even more deterred from supporting re¬ volutionary Hungary. Laszlo Teleki in Paris and Ferenc Pulszky in London tried in vain to arrange the recognition of an independent Hungary, because the interests of the great powers demanded the maintenance of Austria and the end of the revolutionary movements. It was the same in Italy, with the great powers watching peacefully while Austrian arms extinguished the smouldering embers of the revolution. England regarded a strong Austria as indispensable to the balance of power in Europe, and so opposed Hungary’s efforts to break away from Austria. By that time flungary was fighting alone and the sympathy of the other revolutionary movements was rep¬ resented only by a few thousand Poles, a few hundred German and Italian volunteers, and a few Englishmen (such as General Richard Guyon), of more moral than effective significance.

Kossuth, as governor of an independent Hungary, desired to form a non-party government; setting aside the participants of the political struggles of Debrecen, he appointed as minister of finance Ferenc Duschek, who was regarded as an expert, but in point of fact was a mere traitor, and the historian, Bishop Mihaly Horv&th, as minister of education, and invited the former government commissioners of the army divisions into his cabinet. Bertalan Szemere became prime minis¬ ter, Sebo Vukovics minister of justice, L&szlo Csdnyi minister of trans¬ port and Count Kazm^r BatthyAny minister of foreign affairs. The cab¬ inet, though mostly loyal to the principle of independence, did not fulfil Kossuth’s expectations, and owing to Prime Minister Szemere’s jealousy of Kossuth soon came under the influence of the peace party. As the first move of the peace party, parliament restricted consider¬ ably Kossuth’s powers as governor: he could no longer issue decrees without the counter-signature of the appropriate minister, and the right to dissolve parliament was also taken out of his hands.

The Success of the Peace Party

In the meantime the Hungarian army was advancing victoriously. The objective of the second phase of the campaign was to liberate Kom&rom after a successful advance on the left bank of the Danube, and to cut the retreat route of the enemy from Pest. A division of the Hungarian army under General Aulich’s command surrounded Pest, while three other divisions turned northwards, and after a victory at V&c on 10 April, and another at Nagysallo on the 19th, on 22 April they liberated Kom&rom, which had been besieged since the end of December. However, owing to delay in crossing over to the right bank, the strategic objective of the campaign could not be realized. Pest was evacuated by Marshal Welden, who had succeeded Windisch- graetz as commander-in-chief of the imperial army, and Aulich’s division, taking possession of the town on 24 April, was enthusiasti¬ cally welcomed. But the imperial army on its retreat towards Vienna was only attacked by the Hungarians, who had great difficulties in crossing the Danube, when most of their numbers had already reached Gyor. The attack of 26 April was indecisive, and the following morning the enemy proceeded without serious losses. The attempt to cut the enemy forces and annihilate them had thus failed again, and the failure at Komdrom was followed by other mishaps. Nevertheless, the military situation at that time was extremely favourable for the Hun¬ garian army. The main body of the Austrian army fled towards the frontier in complete disarray; Perczel reoccupicd the Bdcska region; in addition to Transylvania, General Bern cleared the south Tisza region of the enemy; and in the northern counties and in Trans- danubia voluntary units and reservists liquidated the remaining forces of the enemy. The road to Vienna was open to the victorious Hun¬ garian forces. Gorgey, however, who was in secret alliance with the peace party, did not move against Vienna, but led his army towards Buda. Kossuth approved of this step, because he believed that the recapture of Buda would have beneficial effects both at home and abroad. The siege, on the other hand, dragged on, panic no longer seized the enemy camp, and the reorganization of their forces began. The Hungarian flag was hoisted on the ramparts of Buda after a suc¬ cessful assault by the Hungarians on 21 May but by then it was no longer a secret throughout Europe that Czar Nicholas I had announced his intention of intervening in the war on the side of Austria.

This would have been a fatal development in the War of Independ¬ ence even if the declaration of independence had been followed, as Kossuth and the left wing desired, by a revolutionary dictatorship.

As it was, affairs on the political front took just the opposite trend. The government, according to the intentions of the peace party, con¬ tinued to isolate Kossuth, whose sympathies rested with the left wing, and to paralyse the organs of the revolution: the police were cleared of radical elements, most commissioners were recalled, the revolution¬ ary courts suspended, and the left-wing paper, Mdrcius Tizenotodike critical of government measures, banned. A decision of the council of ministers passed at the suggestion of General Klapka also proved fatal: it stated that the Hungarians should dispense with offensive warfare, and limit the aim of the campaign beginning early in May to a defensive war, and preparations were made accordingly.

Gorgey was appointed minister of war by Kossuth, who imagined that by this means he could save the army from his influence. But Kossuth miscalculated. Damjanich, picked as Gorgey’s successor, the staunchest adherent of Kossuth, loyal to independence, and the best general of the army, met with a serious accident. Thus Gorgey could retain the general command, using also the short spell of his ministry in Debrecen for negotiations with the peace party, and for hatching plans to prepare the overthrow' of Kossuth. The peace party’s plans to rescind the dethronement of the Habsburgs was frustrated by Kossuth through the adjournment of parliament at the beginning of June for an indefinite period. Gorgey advised a military coup, but the peace party, fearing the masses, declined it. In these circumstances no effort to strengthen the country’s defences could be completely suc¬ cessful. Parliament had voted the 50,000 recruits demanded by Kos¬ suth, but recruiting did not go according to plan, as the poor peasants, who had furnished most of the recruits for the army, were frustrated in their hopes and lost their interest. They were little impressed by a decree of the ministry of justice, which, at Kossuth’s suggestion, prom¬ ised to safeguard the peasants’ interests against the landlords by stating that only those lands could be regarded as demesne land which could be authentically proved to be such by the landlord, and any contested land was to remain in the peasants’ hands, pending a legal decision. This was undoubtedly an important measure, but it did not concern the peasantry as a whole, and could not give them encourage¬ ment—the less so, because Szemere as minister of the interior had at the same time severely suppressed all peasant movements which flared up in the course of the liberating warfare.

Czarist Intervention

Politically isolated and unfavourably situated militarily, revolutionary Hungary awaited the joint intervention of the two great powers. It came about the middle of June, when a czarist army numbering 200,000 men broke into the country from diverse directions. By then the imperial army was stationed alongside the western border in reorganized formations of 170,000 men. Opposing the two armies, the Hungarian army contained about 150,000 men, but a considerable portion of the forces were scattered over various stations in the country. Gorgey intended to attack the Austrian army separately, but suffered defeats at Zsig&rd on 16 June and at Pered on 21 June, and was forced to retreat to Komarom. The government, which had moved from Debrecen back to Pest early in June, decided at Kossuth’s suggestion on 29 June that owing to the critical situation, all the forces should be concentrated in the southern part of the country, along the Maros river, and there try to beat first the Russian and subsequently the Austrian forces. Gorgey declined to comply and remained in Komd- rom, where he succeeded on 2 July in repelling the attack of the main force of the Austrian army. He disregarded the cabinet’s decision to remove him from the high command, continued to stay in Komarom, and only consented to move on when the Hungarian army suffered another defeat on 11 July. By that time, however, the chances of con¬ centrating the forces in the south were much worse than two weeks earlier. The enemy was deep inside the country, and by the time Gorgey, after leaving Klapka’s army corps behind in Komarom, started out on the left bank of the Danube with most of his army, he found Russians near V&c. He finally turned north towards Losonc, and making a tremendous detour he tried, in by-passing the czarist army, to reach the spot fixed for concentration via Miskolc and Debrecen.

Early in July, in the middle of the campaign, the government decided again to evacuate the capital and move to Szeged, continuing there its desperate efforts to mobilize the resources of the country. These efforts did not produce the expected results. Appeals for a general rising of the people met with little response from the peasants. Other appeals for the formation of volunteer units were only successful in certain parts of the country. Reports reaching the government spoke about complete indifference on the part of the peasants. Action was needed to regain the confidence of the peasantry, and at the suggestion of Vukovics the government produced a bill in June on the liberation of peasants working on demesne land, the release of cleared woodlands and garden land with the aid of state compensation, and the abolition of other feudal vestiges. The bill could have been made valid by order, but the government held back, and decided to discuss it in parliament; but in the deteriorating situation, with parliament moving to and fro, it could not be achieved: the plan foundered on the collapse of the War of Independence.

Yet even a partial fulfilment of the rightful claims of the peasantry would have helped the solution of another grave problem, that of the non-Hungarian nationalities. They were dissatisfied with the March constitution which had been forced on them, and, tired of the war, supported Austria with far less enthusiasm than previously. To come to terms with them should have been possible by satisfying the demands of their peasant masses and by meeting their most important national aspirations. Discussions went on in March with the Serbs, and in May with certain democratic leaders of the Rumanians; the former were renewed in June, the latter ended in a bloody skirmish owing to a tragic misunderstanding, causing the death of J&nos Dragos and Vasv&ri, who had been responsible for the discussions. Negoti¬ ations with the Rumanians were resumed under the great Rumanian revolutionary, Balcescu, and the Hungarian government agreed on a draft resolution, deciding on 14 July, beside political questions, the release of demesne laud and compensation for illegally occupied land. This draft, without the demands of the peasants which comprised part of the peasants’ law then in preparation, served as a pattern for the Nationality Bill accepted by the rump parliament at Szeged in its last session, on 28 July. The bill, the only nationality law in Europe at the time, though preserving Hungarian as the language of diplo¬ macy, permitted a wide scope for the various nationalities’ languages in administration, legal life and the Church, pronounced an amnesty and authorized the government to grant other rights also to the nationalities. The law, born at the last minute, remained a symbol of mutual goodwill, but could not exercise the beneficial influence it could have done in earlier, more favourable circumstances.

The Failure of the War of Independence

By the time the bill was passed, the Hungarian revolution was nearing the last act of its tragic denouement. To escape the imperial forces, the Hungarian government moved to Arad, after quarrels and dissensions in the cabinet and parliament between the peace party demanding negotiations and a military dictatorship to be exercised by Gorgey, and Kossuth and his faction. After a hazardous journey, Gorgey reached the Great Plain, having inspired in his officers the hope of a favourable armistice with his uncompleted attempts at agreement with the enemy. Meanwhile a considerable, but not very belligerent army was concentrated at Szeged, under the supreme command of Dembinski, who being compelled to give up the Tisza line against Haynau, moved towards Temesvar instead of Arad, which had been determined by Kossuth as the assembly point. He hoped to join Bern’s army, but the latter had left Transylvania after six weeks’ heroic fighting and the memorable defeat of Scgesvar, where Petofi had lost his fife on 31 July. Kossuth then relieved Dembinski of his post and appointed Bern as the new commander-in-chief. The latter engaged Haynau’s forces at Temesvar on 9 August. Owing to a number of tragic circumstances, Bern lost the battle, and the beaten army fell to pieces, everyone fleeing wherever he could.

Gorgey’s army reached Arad on 10 August, at the same time as the emissaries of the government, Szemere and Kazmer Batthy&ny, coming from the Russian high command with the reply of the czarist commander-in-chief, Prince Paskievich. His message was that he had come to Hungary to fight, and the Hungarians should discuss the terms of surrender with the imperial commander-in-chief. Gorgey an¬ nounced at the cabinet meeting that he was willing to fight the imperial forces, but not the Russians. Kossuth met Gorgey in person to per¬ suade him to continue fighting. His effort, however, proved futile, especially after General Poltenberg had brought Paskievich’s message, in the evening of 10 August, that he was willing to deal with Gorgey about the terms of the armistice. A final decision was reached the following morning, when General Guyon’s report arrived about the defeat at Temesvar. After that Gorgey, as the commander of the only fighting army corps, became master of the situation. From then on¬ wards he no longer discussed anything but commanded: Kossuth was expected to hand over full military and civilian command. Kossuth, at the advice of his ministers, Csanyi, Vukovics and Aulich, signed his appointment at 2 p.m. of the same day. They were convinced that full power would enable Gorgey to negotiate the best possible terms for the Hungarian nation from the Russian commander-in-chief. They were badly deceived, as was the army and the whole nation. From his position of power, Gorgey informed General Rudiger, com¬ mandant of the third cavalry division of the czarist army, that he was willing to surrender unconditionally. The mournful act took place two days later, on 13 August, near Arad on the field of Vilagos. The Russian commander exercised pardon exclusively for Gorgey: the soldiers and politicians alike were handed over to the bloodthirsty Austrian General Haynau. Kossuth with other military and civilian leaders escaped through Orsova to Turkey.

The heroic struggle of a year and a half was over, an instructive chapter in Hungarian history, inspiring even in defeat. The war was lost, and an unfavourable international situation was almost as much to blame for the defeat as the superior force of the enemy. The many weaknesses of the revolutionary camp also contributed to the defeat: the contradictory attitudes of the class conducting the struggle, the failure to solve the basic problems of the peasantry and of the national¬ ities in a progressive manner, and the counter-revolutionary leadership of the armed forces of the revolution. Quite a few of the achievements of the revolution were lost; for a long time to come there was no hope of independence, nor did the bourgeois achievements of the revolution survive in any but a twisted, mutilated form, serving the interests of a foreign power. With the failure of the War of Independence, the hope of extending the liberation of the serfs over and above the framework of the law of 1848 and of allotting more land to the peasants, was lost. The liberation of the serfs remained, however, the achievement which raised Hungary in March 1848 from its former feudal backwardness, and opened the way for capitalist development.

The Period of Neo-Absolutism (1849–1867)

Hungary's Incorporation in the Unitary and Centralized Monarchy

What had seemed impossible in the spring of 1848 became an ac¬ complished fact in the autumn of 1849: the power of the Habsburg dynasty was restored. Venice surrendered in August, and Hungary, ‘the rebellious province’, lay prostrate at the emperor’s feet. The empire had survived the revolutionary upheaval. Victory, however, was gained only by armed force, including foreign armies, and by divisions among the peoples of the empire. Victors have always been liable, short-sightedly, to forget about the circumstances which pro¬ duced their victory. So too, within a short time, the Habsburg govern¬ ment considered pacification of the people by force of arms as a solid basis for political reorganization. Forgetful of the humiliating circum¬ stances of the recent past, they aspired further than a simple restora¬ tion of the old system; they aimed at the realization of the imperial idea of Joseph II: a unitary and centralized Gesamtstaat.

The government of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg introduced a strictly centralized system of absolutism, and after the death of the prime minister in 1852, it was brought to perfection by his minister of the interior, Alexander Bach, an ex-revolutionary of bourgeois extraction. Contemporaries came to associate the whole system with the name of Bach. After the military victory the government had no qualms about breaking its promises concerning a constitution, nor did it care about public opinion. The constitution forced on the empire in the spring of 1849 was soon disregarded. A decree issued at the end of 1851 (Sylvester Patent) suspended the constitution and promulgated measures to strengthen the emperor’s absolutistic power.

The renunciation of the liberalism of 1848 did not mean, however, a return to the pre-1848 Estates constitution. The government did not re-establish the old offices, nor the provincial and local autonomy of the former privileged Estates. The new system did not recognize any particularism, national autonomy, or constitutional control. Countries were reduced to provinces, nations became ethnic groups, and in place of the constitution a powerless, nine-member Imperial Council (Reichsrat) was established: this was the administrative scheme of ‘supra-national’ neo-absolutism. Francis Joseph, who ascended the throne in December 1848 without having been crowned, disposed of greater power and ruled with greater authority than any of his predecessors, or any of his contemporaries.

The Schwarzenberg-Bach government took over certain of the achievements of 1848 which it could not abolish, or which were suitable to the new system. The greatest achievement of the revolution, the abolition of serfdom, remained, equality before the law was recognized, and the semi-liberal Austrian penal code and judicial system were introduced throughout the empire. Education was modernized and a uniform system of taxation was adopted. Tariff and credit regulations became uniform throughout the common imperial customs area created in 1850. Thus the new system, both in the mode of government and in its content, was not simply a restoration or continuation of the old absolutism of Francis and Metternich. It can justly be called neo¬ absolutism.

At the same time neo-absolutism was neither the consummation of the work of Joseph II nor the model of modern progress which contemporary and subsequent adherents of the Gesamtstaat tried to represent it as. AH the reforms aiming at modernization of the empire were intertwined with the defence of feudal remnants and of the aristocracy, with the suppression of the national and democratic ideas, with the fostering of a rootless dynastic ‘patriotism’ and with German- ization. The liberation of the serfs proceeded in a more restricted form than during the revolution, with more consideration given to the interests of the landowners. Many of the liberal reforms of 1848 were disregarded; in the administration of justice inequality before the law, a remnant of feudal procedure, partially survived, and strict censorship was reintroduced. The difference between Josephinism and neo¬ absolutism became especially evident in the government’s attitude towards the Catholic Church. Whereas the enlightened Joseph II had done much to limit the power of the Church, Francis Joseph did much to increase it. He permitted the return of the Jesuits, allowed unlimited contact between the Austrian hierarchy and the Holy See, and resigned the ius placetum regis, the Hungarian monarch’s century- old, jealously guarded right. In the Concordat of 1855 he ceded near absolute power to the Church in matters of marriage and education and gave substantial material advantages to ecclesiastical institutions and the higher clergy.

On the other hand, the neo-absolutist government was quite moderate in introducing the most urgently needed reforms. After the defeat of the War of Independence and the suppression of the re¬ volution of 1848 the Ilabsburgs desired to preserve and consolidate the power of their loyal aristocracy and bureaucracy through the most conservative methods. The system relied on a quite narrow social basis, for the government paid little attention either to ‘Old Con¬ servatives’ with federal leanings, or to constitutional liberals, thus pushing into opposition even the moderate elements of the national¬ ities. This strongly centralized absolutism was dependent on aristocrat administrators, on an army trained to place its first loyalty in the dynasty, on the Catholic clergy, and on the civil service. Certain items of its programme, and its foreign policy, were in the interests of the Austro-German bourgeoisie. Austrian leadership in the German Confederation, the so-called grossdeutsche orientation in foreign policy, seemed a sure way of maintaining the supremacy of the Austro- German ruling classes and their influence in German affairs.

The centralized Gesamtstaat and German supremacy were the illusory aims for the sake of which Hungary was forcibly incorporated in the unitary empire created and sustained by military power.

The defeat of the War of Independence was followed by the military occupation of Hungary and by General Haynau’s overt dictatorship. Haynau thirsted for revenge, for the punishment of the defeated rebels, and viewed as his primary task the teaching of a memorable and bloody lesson. After the surrender at Vilagos (13 August) and the capture of Komarom Castle, which held out till the beginning of October, the captured leaders of the War of Independence were executed, while the rank and file were imprisoned or forcibly con¬ scripted into the Austrian army. The crowning gesture of these blood¬ thirsty reprisals came on 6 October, on the first anniversary of the Viennese revolution: 13 heroic generals of the War of Independence were executed at Arad; and in Pest, in the yard of the New Building (Neugebaude), called ‘the Hungarian Bastille’, Count Lajos Batthyany, the first independent Hungarian prime minister, was brutally shot. He had always been a sincere adherent of the Habsburg dynasty and worked for the agreement with Vienna. But this was not yet the end of Haynau’s work: government commissioners, officers and simple insurgents suffered the same fate. Haynau’s reign of terror was re¬ membered for its military tribunals, executions, mass imprisonments and persecutions.

The unrestrained bloodthirstiness of absolutism transgressed the possible limits of any acquiescence. If the War of Independence created heroes, the reprisals produced martyrs and filled the bleak pages of national history with mournful episodes that were to evoke anti-Austrian feelings among the public for a century to come. Retaliation and humiliation created a wider breach between the nation and the dynasty than the memory of wounded national pride could ever have done. Savage reprisals make it hard to reconcile a nation and in the long run prove to be extremely short-sighted. In Hungary these dubious methods were supplemented by the no less short-sighted Verwirkungstheorie. According to Schwarzenberg’s and Bach’s doubtful legal theory, Hungary had forfeited its constitutional rights with the uprising and the deposition of the Habsburgs and should therefore be treated as a conquered province. In the spirit of this unfortunate theory, and in the wake of the gallows and dungeons, Baron Geringer, the new governor-general of Hungary, who was directly under the Austrian ministry of interior, began to organize the civil administration in the autumn of 1849.

Hungary proper was divided into five districts, with Sopron, Pozsony, Kassa, Nagyvarad and Pest-Buda as centres, the latter city also becoming the scat of the governor-general’s office. Transylvania became detached from Hungary again, and new provinces were formed, under the names of Serbian Voivodina and the Banat of Temes. All forms of constitutional life ceased, including the diet and the former county administration. Pro-Habsburg lord lieutenants were appointed to head the districts. Although Hungarians, too, volunteered for the higher posts of the civil service, the rank and file officials had to be imported from the reliable source of the Austrian bureaucracy. The country was practically inundated by a flood of foreign clerks who—in order to win confidence—were put in braided tunics, decorated by the double-headed eagle, and hats with cocked feathers and swords—a kind of Hungarian uniform a la Victimise. The term ‘Bach hussar’ aptly stuck to them. These officials were sup¬ ported by a gendarmerie, organized in 1849, and by the city police forces. The police controlled an extensive system of spies and agents- provocateurs. The hated gendarmerie, eager to discover a new con¬ spiracy at every turn, brutally harassed the people, on the plea of security. Their attention was concentrated on keeping the inhabitants of the puszta and scattered farmsteads in order; bandits were regarded not only as the public enemies of order and security, but also as dangerous and suspect to the foreign oppressor. In spite of the criminal charges levied against them, these ‘Robin Hoods’ enjoyed at that time the sympathy of the people. The famous bandit-leader, Sandor Rozsa, became the hero of legend for his bravery in the War of Independence and for his exploits in robbing the landlords and outwitting the gendarmes. The romantic figure of the famous outlaw and guerrilla continued to live on in popular legends long after his capture in 1857.

This government based on informers, the gendarmerie, the military and the ‘Bach hussars’ continued to harass the nation for a full decade. In the summer of 1850 the arrogant Haynau, who had become an embarrassment to the dynasty before the eyes of the world, was dis¬ missed, and within another year Geringer also had to go. The sole significant change was that the new governor-general, Archduke Albrecht, was at the same time chief of the military command. Absolute power was maintained, and the nervous, suspicious police pursued with bureaucratic narrow-mindedness the last vestiges of national feeling, making oppression their main concern. By the mid¬ fifties, the regime appeared to be firmly established. It seemed as if ‘the conquered province’ had been successfully integrated into the centralized Gesamtstaat. The bulk of the nation, though hostile and resentful, seemed, apart from isolated instances of resistance, to be resigned to the new system.

Economic and Social Conditions under Neo-Absolutism

Capitalist development in Eastern Europe was in large measure de¬ termined by the social and economic relations of late feudalism and by the conditions of a division of labour with the West. Within the general conditions, however, different variations were possible, de¬ pendent on the course and results of the bourgeois revolution. In com¬ parison with the rest of Eastern Europe, the Hungarian revolution of 1848 laid the foundations for a relatively more liberal and smoother tradition towards capitalism. The neo-absolutist government did not touch these foundations, but in accordance with the conservative nature of the regime, it expanded on the anti-democratic features of the 1848 arrangement. The urbarial patent issued in March 1853 ac¬ knowledged only the basic law of 1848, which had transformed only the urbarial tenures in the possession of the serfs into free peasant property. During the revolution, as a result of the stubborn efforts of the peasants, dues on vineyards were abolished, and the emanci¬ pation of the serfs on domanial land by state compensation was considered. The decree of 1853, on the other hand, provided for the restoration of part of the non-urbarial land to the landowners, and prescribed, together with restoration of the tithe on vineyards, com¬ pulsory compensation, paid by the peasants. Other important feudal privileges of former landlords were left untouched.

More important than the decree itself were the measures by which it was enforced. For the peasants it was vitally important who should judge in the entangled legal situation concerning the ownership of land. Since the law of 1848 there had been innumerable disputes, which had frequently degenerated into savage fights, concerning the nature of the land owned by the peasant, whether it was urbarial or domanial. The urbarial courts of the late 1850s on the whole protected the in¬ terests of the nobility. They did not take into account long-standing practices, but only rights which could be proved by documents, espe¬ cially those fixed by the urbarial regulation of Maria Theresa. These often did not reflect the real state of affairs in the villages, but the courts decided in the majority of cases in favour of the landlord. The pro¬ cedure established by the government was thus far more conservative than that of 1848, and the new settlement was less favourable to the peasants. The development of capitalist agriculture in Hungary followed a pattern similar to that in Prussia: the dominance of the large estates and the economic and political rule of their owners was established, while the remnants of feudal rights over the peasantry were preserved.

The end of serfdom, despite the many drawbacks of the settlement, made possible the fairly rapid development of capitalist production. A railway was built, linking Pest with Vienna and with the corn¬ growing areas of the Great Plain and the region beyond the Tisza respectively. Other lines linked Croatia and Transdanubia with Austria and the Adriatic coast. The total length of railway lines in 1867 was more than 2,000 kilometres. The speedy growth of trade was en¬ couraged by a quarter-century-long boom in agriculture, providing favourable conditions for the sale of Hungarian agricultural products in the empire and in Western Europe. Loans and new businesses coming into the country contributed to an abundance of capital, stimulating economic life on a large scale.

The development of capitalism affected the Hungarian landowners in conflicting ways. On the one hand, they were deprived of free labour and other services of the former serfs and of a great number of privileges, but, on the other hand, they were offered favourable mar¬ kets and transport facilities and the possibility of more efficient pro¬ duction. The big landowners, especially in the western part of the country, in the Great Plain and the fertile southern parts, soon re¬ covered from their losses by making the most of the new situation.

In the first years of the transition they, too, were dependent on the labour of their former serfs, who continued to ‘work off’ the rent for their plots in the traditional way; but then, through the redistribution and consolidation of their lands, by leasing out some of their estates, and with the aid of loans, which w'ere now made more easily available to them, most of the landowners were able to make the change to modern farming. More advanced methods were applied on the large estates, steam threshing machines ousting hand threshing and treading- out procedures. Many big landowners also became businessmen, participating in the founding of railway companies and other capitalist enterprises.

In contrast with the aristocracy, only a thin upper layer of the numerous gentry made the transition to capitalist farming successfully. Those few who did succeed were those who had extensive demesne land in their possession, and considerable fortunes. The position of the landed gentry was seriously impaired by the transition to capital¬ ism. The loss of urbarial land and of labour services, and the abolition of entailment suddenly revealed the differentiation which had been taking place, the century-long process of impoverishment. Most of the gentry did not possess more than a couple of hundred hold* of land, often no more than the equivalent of one or two peasant tenures, and they were saddled with debts, outmoded farming methods and in¬ adequate sources of income. The transition completely ruined the lesser gentry, many being obliged to sell their mortgaged land, which was hardly sufficient to provide for a man of poor peasant status. Even the more capable struggled with heavy burdens, the lack of capital and labour, and the unaccustomed load of taxation. They tried to improve their lot by borrowing money, by selling part of their land, and leasing out other portions. The remaining land was cultivated with obsolete equipment, a small number of hired labourers and peasant service. In the first decades, a steady boom in corn helped to a certain extent those better-off gentry who were capable of producing for the market to maintain the standard of living appropriate to country gentlemen.

The peasants, three-quarters of the total population, were occupied for decades after their liberation with the struggle to acquire land. At the time of the urbarial regulation only one-third of them had tenures; the other peasants were released from serfdom as cotters or mere landless labourers. For them the acquisition of small plots of land left out of the urbarial registers, cleared woodlands, or success¬ fully contested portions of domanial estates, or from the former common grazing land and forest-land, was a question of life and death. The settlement of the tangled heritage of feudalism rarely ended in amicable agreements. The landowners expected compensation at the expense of the peasantry for the ‘sacrifice’ they had made in their favour. Lawsuits were legion; every inch of ground was contested, sometimes before official forums, sometimes out on the land, with the local landowner, the surveyor, the imperial police officiating. The urbarial settlement was protracted for two decades, in some areas even longer; and during this period it became the main issue of the intensified class struggle between the landowners and the imperial authorities on the one hand, and the peasants on the other. In certain places, for example, in the market-towns of the Great Plain, it even led to conflicts between different strata within the peasantry.

The peasantry eventually succeeded in obtaining nearly 40 per cent of the cultivated land of the country. About three-quarters of the peasantry acquired some plot of land, and only one-quarter remained a landless, agrarian proletariat. The great bulk of the new ‘land- owners’ consisted of those poor peasants who owned 1-5 hectaros of land. The liberated serfs cultivated their scattered plots with obsolete implements and mainly in the traditional three-field system of cultiva¬ tion. Nevertheless the end of feudal obligations and the possibility to work in one’s own interest resulted in substantial progress. The small¬ ness of their plots and the boom in corn encouraged the peasants to break up the former grazing land. Throughout the country extensive field production, especially one-sided corn production, rapidly gained ground at the expense of the pasture or the traditional, extensive ani¬ mal husbandry. Labourers were in great demand; even some of the landless peasants received share-farms, the rent for which they worked off with their labour, or else they hired themselves out to landlords who were badly in need of labour. The two decades after the liberation of the serfs gave the peasantry a start and led to a slight improvement in their condition.

Modernization in agriculture, within the limitations of Eastern European economic and social conditions, was the most important development of the time, but the modernization of industry took its first strides also, though not as a whole but only in certain branches. There are many historians who believe that the backwardness of Hungarian industry and the failure of ‘independent capitalist develop¬ ment’ was due mainly to the political and economic dependence of the country. The fact that Hungary was absorbed into an empire dominat¬ ed by the more highly developed industry of Austria certainly affected the development of a good many branches of Hungarian industry, especially that of light industry. It is a matter of fact that the course of development of Hungarian industry was dependent on the economic interests of Austrian capitalists and Hungarian landowners. It is very unlikely, on the other hand, that independence alone would have pro¬ duced the indispensable prerequisites for an industrial revolution in backward, agrarian Hungary, particularly in the midst of the European free-trade system. These basic prerequisites were, namely, the modern¬ ization of agriculture, a wide railway network, the rapid expansion of primary materials production, and a capitalist system of credit. In any case, it was the common market of the empire that created con¬ ditions favourable to agricultural commodity production and trade, to railway building and the development of the extractive industries.

The most thriving branch of the Hungarian economy after 1848, owing to the steady boom, was the com trade. This became the main source for the accumulation of capital, in the hands of mainly Jewish corn merchants. From the 1850s, commercial capital was attracted to the food industry, which was developing well owing to a number of favourable circumstances. This led to the building of Europe’s most important flour-mill centre, and the flourishing of the manufacture of beer and spirits. The sugar industry, on the other hand, owed its development to Austrian capital.

Austrian industrialization and the building of an extensive railway system attracted foreign capitalists to exploit the rich resources of raw materials in the country. Subsequently new coal mines were opened, and new iron foundries established. Austrian companies replaced or took over the primitive enterprises of Hungarian aristo¬ crats. The country, however, only offered raw materials, at most crude iron. Refinement and manufacture were carried on in Austria. Under these circumstances Hungarian iron and machinery production lagged far behind that of raw materials. In the former area mainly small workshops (Ganz, Vidats, Rock) worked their way up to the level of medium-sized factories in those industries best adapted to the country’s difficult conditions. These included the manufacture of railway wagons and the manufacture and repair of agricultural and milling machinery.

Humble undertakings emerged also in the leather, chemical and wood-working industries, but the other branches of light industry, and above all that gold mine of early capitalism, the textile industry, atrophied owing to strong competition in the market. The credit system showed no signs of developing. There was insufficient capital in the country owing to unstable conditions, and because Vienna jealously guarded its credit monopoly. Apart from thriving corn production, trade in agricultural produce and the flour industry, other branches of the economy were able to make but little progress during the period of neo-absolutism.

The bulk of the small masters, the guild bourgeoisie of the cities and market-towns, were unable to assimilate to big industry or to increase in numbers and fortunes as did the mercantile bourgeoisie. Modern industry and commerce pushed aside and ruined this class still mired in feudal conditions. In the free competition of capitalism not only village handicrafts but many branches of guild industry steadily declined. As a consequence of industrialization, on the other hand, the number of workers increased. During the period of absolutism, their number doubled to reach 300,000. Most of these workers, owing to the industrial structure of the country, were employed still in handi¬ crafts, because the flour industry, the most highly developed branch of industry, did not require skilled labour, and the skilled workers employed in mining, iron foundries and the machine industry were recruited from other countries.

National Movements. 'Passive Resistance'

The great majority of Hungarian society was opposed to the oppressive system of neo-absolutism, but sharp class conflicts had disintegrated by this time the temporary national unity which had existed during the revolution. That important section of the aristocracy which had opposed revolutionary developments in 1848 continued to support the crown. It saw in the events justification for its anti-revolutionary con¬ servatism. Many accepted high offices, either in Vienna or at home, in the service of the autocracy. But the standard-bearers and politically influential members of the aristocracy were discontented with the bureaucratic centralism of Vienna, particularly as they were not wanted in the government. This group, called the ‘Old Conservatives’, formed the opposition to the government. They petitioned the court with unflagging zeal to persuade the emperor to accept their programme of restoration of the pre-1848 arrangements.

The political attitude of the gentry was divided. There were some, and not even rare exceptions, who, turning their backs on the national cause, accepted office and served the autocracy. The Bach system had no shortage of officials recruited from the members of well-known noble families. There were others, bold patriots, who were preparing for another uprising. In the early 1850s, at Kossuth’s instigation and with his support, secret organizations started in Pest, in the Sz6kely (Sekel) country of Transylvania, in the M6tra mountains to the north, and in the western part of Hungary (Transdanubia). The organizers, former officers of the Hungarian national army or revolutionary in¬ tellectuals, believed that with the aid of well-equipped, armed groups they could spark a national uprising when the given moment arrived. These organizations, which made little effort at concealment, were soon detected by Austrian agents. In 1851 the Sekel organization, and in the following year the other organizations, were discovered. Among the leaders Jozsef Mack, artillery commander in Kom£rom, and Colonel Sandor Gal succeeded in escaping; Gaspar Noszlopy, a for¬ mer government commissioner of 1848, and the famous guerrilla leader, Karoly Jubal, as well as J&nos Tdrok, Jozsef Gal, M£rk Gasparich and many others were executed.

The majority of the nobility had inclined towards compromise in 1849, and even more so after the defeat. This is reflected in the pam¬ phlets of the most significant political journalist of the time, Zsigmond Kemeny, who formulated the arguments of the disenchantment with the defeated revolution. Kemeny, Pal Somssich and Jozsef Eotvos recommended in their writings a reasonable compromise between dynastic power, the unitary empire and the constitutional rights of Plungary. Victorious Habsburg absolutism, however, showed no inclination to make concessions. Absolute power enabled the govern¬ ment to inflict punishment and dictate its will without heeding the suggestions of either conservatives or liberals. Thus, the autocracy itself drove into opposition the bulk of the gentry, which, steering a middle course between the extremes of submission or conspiracy, entrenched itself in passive resistance. These noblemen withdrew from public life, accepted no offices, and wherever they could, evaded the directives of absolutism and boycotted its representatives. They spent their time managing their estates, filing lawsuits, and awaiting a better future. Passive resistance was the political course most suited to the majority of the gentry who did not accept the abolition of constitutional independence and rejected centralized absolutism, but, on the other hand, did not wish to assume the leadership of a new national struggle. At the same time, passive resistance reflected a duality springing from the vital economic requirements of the middle and lower sections of the nobility, the need for a nationalist but anti¬ democratic solution of the difficulties arising from the bourgeois transformation.

Until the end of the 1850s, passive resistance seemed a realistic attitude, so long as the whole of Europe was in the grip of reaction and the autocracy was relatively stable. The policy of the gentry was supported by the majority of the small landowners, the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie. The wealthier elements of the Hungarian bour¬ geoisie, the well-to-do merchants and financiers, had become reconciled to the unitary empire, which suited their interests, but they, too, objected to the lack of constitutional life and political security. It was the declining, downtrodden guild-bourgeois or petty-noble elements of the petty bourgeoisie who formed the active basis of national resistance, along with the patriotic plebeian masses of the towns who rebelled against autocracy.

The arts also fostered the spirit of national resistance. Although many writers and artists had been killed, or were suffering in exile, prison and despair, the age nevertheless produced its masterpieces. J&nos Arany paid tribute to the revolution in his bitter satire full of sarcasm and self-abuse. The Gipsies of Nagyida, and in his narrative poems and ballads. Conceived in the tragic misery of a disjointed age, his works fostered the popular-national trend. The allegorical poems of Mih&ly Tompa and the last visions of Mihaly Vorosmarty ex¬ pressed the misery of humiliation and faith in resistance, and fostered the hope of a better future. Imre Madach’s great verse drama, The Tragedy of Man, belongs to the family of ‘questing heroes’ and is akin to Faust, Peer Gynt and other philosophical dramas. Following the suppression of the revolution, Mad&ch, tom by the conflict between the individual and the community, between an idealism striving for the improvement of mankind and a scepticism disenchanted with abstract ideals, posed the ultimate questions of human history and existence: ‘Will the human race ever progress?’, or ‘Can it not break out of the circle of existence?’ The conclusion of cool reason is dis¬ heartening, but the reply of the spirit is a confidence which transcends reason. There were other writers W'ho tried to relieve the pain with romantic pictures of hope and by fostering national pride: Mor Jokai’s novels revived the glory of the country’s past. The pictures of Viktor Madar&sz and Bertalan Szekely helped to keep the national spirit alive, as did the sculpture of Miklos lzso. Ferenc Erkel’s Bank ban is the masterpiece of national-romantic opera. The works of artists, scientists, writers and historians were devoted to the same spirit.

The spirit and hopes of resistance at home were also sustained by the great number of patriots who w'ent into exile abroad. Ferenc Pulszky, the representative of the revolutionary government, stayed on in London after the defeat of the War of Independence. He maintained a wide range of contacts with influential British politicians and writers and did his utmost to popularize the Hungarian fight for freedom in the press. His activities were not without success: there was a noticeable sense of sympathy in British public opinion towards the oppressed Hungarians.

A sizable group of exiles, including Kossuth, went to Turkey. There, however, the ‘hospitality’ they received proved less friendly, when they were quickly interned and kept for most of their stay in Kiitahia in Asia Minor.

Thus the overwhelming majority of the nation opposed the degrad¬ ing system of neo-absolutism. Even the peasantry, which was fully occupied at that time with the struggle to obtain land and with the lawsuits against former landlords, detested foreign rule. Most of them understood that the 1848 revolution had given them their liberation and land. The memory of the fight for independence was alloyed in their minds with a certain amount of peasant democracy, just as the struggles of the age of absolutism were linked with national motives, too. A radical national and at the same time democratic agrarian policy would have united both aspirations. But it was problematic whether the political leadership was willing to continue or capable of continuing the 1848 policy of ‘union of interests.’ It was the critical period of neo-absolutism that provided the answer to this question.

The Critical Years of Neo-Absolutism. The Activities of the Hungarian Emigration

In the mid-nineteenth century the ‘supra-national’ empire, achieved by forcible centralization and mainly concerned with germanizing the whole of the Habsburg domains, was the main obstacle to the national independence and the process of national unification of the peoples within and beyond its confines. During this period three important historical processes—the national unification of Italy and of Germany, and the restoration of Hungarian independence—rip¬ ened and exploded with such elemental force that the very existence of the Monarchy seemed to be hanging in the balance.

The complications first manifested themselves in foreign policy. During the Crimean War (1853-6), in which England, France, Piedmont (with a view to securing the union of Italy) and Turkey fought against Russia, Austria tried to remain neutral. For this ingratitude Austria lost the support of her protector, Czarist Russia, without securing the goodwill of the other powers. Piedmont made good use of Austria’s isolation. Her prime minister, Cavour, signed an anti-Austrian alliance with Napoleon Ill. After a short period of preparations war broke out between the two sides in April 1859. Austria’s involvement gave hope, and a new impetus, to the disorganiz¬ ed emigration, and roused the slumbering public at home.

On the energetic intervention of the government of the United States—supported by the British government—in the autumn of 1851 Kossuth had been released from internment in Turkey. He left Turkey on board the Mississippi, an American steamship, and in late October and early November he made a veritably triumphal tour of Britain, from Southampton to London and Manchester. Afterwards, at the invitation of the American government, he visited the United States, where he stayed for more than six months. This trip too was of historic note. States, cities and organizations vied with each other to have him as speaker and to be able to celebrate him as a champion of freedom and a ‘Hungarian George Washington’. In January 1852 he was ceremoniously received by the two houses of Congress and President Fillmore, though the latter retained a certain degree of reserve towards him. No matter how spectacular the innumerable expressions of sympathy shown towards him and the cause he represented, Kossuth failed to achieve the main—although wholly unrealistic—aim of his trip, securing the United States’ diplomatic and military support against Habsburg and czarist absolutism. Leading American circles could hardly seriously contemplate such an intervention in Europe; they were, moreover, tied down by domestic struggles over the slave question in which—although inadvertently- Kossuth himself became involved. In the end Kossuth had to content himself with his successes as a speaker and the not insignificant financial support which he used for the preparation of a new uprising in Hungary.

Kossuth’s memory has been kept alive by the streets named after him, and by those exiles who stayed on in the New World and estab¬ lished the first Hungarian settlements in the United States. Hungarians played a noteworthy role in the American Civil War, of the some 4,000 exiles no less than a thousand taking part in the struggles on the side of the North. Exceptionally meritorious services were rendered by General Sandor Asboth, Colonel Fiilop Figyelmessy, Colonel G6za Mihaloczy and Colonel Gyorgy Utassy. President Lincoln sent Laszlo TJjh&zy, one of the leading Hungarian exiles in the United States, on a diplomatic mission to Italy; he was the first of a great many Hungari¬ ans, who served in the American diplomatic corps.

In June 1852, Kossuth returned to Britain and settled down there for a longer period. He was again esteemed and feted as on his pre¬ vious visit. No less than 110 books and several thousand articles were written about him, and exactly 153 poems dedicated to him. Kossuth himself indulged in large-scale literary and propaganda activity and won countless friends and adherents. As a measure of the esteem he enjoyed, we may quote the words of Cobden: “Kossuth is certainly a phenomenon; he is not only the first orator of the age, but he unites the qualities of a great administrator with a high morality and in¬ defatigable courage. This is more than could be said either of De¬ mosthenes or of Cicero.” Notwithstanding this, official Britain held aloof from Kossuth’s revolutionary schemes and operations, not wish¬ ing to poison its relations with Austria on account of him.

While in London, Kossuth was in close co-operation with the revolu¬ tionary organizations of the Italian, Russian and French emigres and at the same time directed the clandestine movements in Hungary. At first he supported Mazzini’s conspiratorial activities, but after the failure of the Milan uprising in 1853 he pursued a more cautious policy both in his relations with other foreign exiles and in encouraging secret organizations at home. He became aware that a favourable constellation of international relations was needed before he could engage the interest of Europe in the Hungarian national movement. The opportunity for this came in 1859.

During the fifties there were few links between the Hungarian exiles who were scattered all over Europe. New political developments, however, encouraged them to co-operate more closely, and work with more skill and determination. It was the energetic Gyorgy Klapka and the influential and perspicacious Laszlo Teleki who first became involved with the Franco-Ttalian preparations for war. Napoleon III was not averse to the idea of stirring up the still-glowing fire of nationalism in Hungary. In April 1859 he had discussions with Kos¬ suth concerning an anti-Austrian alliance.

Kossuth had little confidence in the French dictator; on the other hand, he did not want to miss the chance of retrieving Hungary’s in¬ dependence. He entered into the alliance on condition that the uprising might only be started with his permission and after the arrival of French and Italian troops on Hungarian soil. Kossuth’s intention was, through the French-Italian alliance,to win over the Serbian and Rumanian principalities and at the same time assure military support for a new war of independence. He was also anxious to prevent a premature, isolated Hungarian uprising.

After the outbreak of the war, Kossuth, Teleki and Klapka formed a Hungarian government in exile, the Hungarian National Direc¬ torate, and began recruiting a Hungarian legion. Leaders at home were warned to use the utmost caution in their preparations, to reach ag¬ reement with the different nationalities, and beware of hasty action. As it turned out, there was little danger from overhasty action, even if the willingness had been present, as the war ended with unprecedent¬ ed speed. The French and Italian troops inflicted heavy losses on the enemy at Magenta on 4 June, and later at Solferino, on 24 June, where the Austrian army was under the personal command of Francis Joseph. Catastrophe for the Habsburg Empire was prevented by the same man who was responsible for the war: Napoleon III. The two emperors signed an armistice at Villafranca on 11 July 1859. Napoleon was content with the prize of Nice and Savoy, extorted from Victor Emmanuel in return for the annexation of Lombardy. Francis Joseph, on the other hand, was pleased that, at the price of losing Lombardy, he could stave off impending disaster. Hungary was not even mention¬ ed in the settlement.

The peace which soon followed deflated but did not dissolve all hopes; it upset but did not frustrate the plans of the exiles, because the crisis of neo-absolutist rule was only eased temporarily, but still remained. The Austrian defeat had revealed the financial and political weaknesses of the system, its impotence and hopelessness. The court was again obliged to make concessions. A few days after Villafranca, Bach, the embodiment of the system, was dismissed, and the govern¬ ment was reshuffled. A change of this small scale, however, could not appease renewed resistance. There were protests throughout the country against the imperial decree of 1859 curbing the free worship of Protestants. The demonstrations had political implications too, as did a series of commemorations of national historical figures like Kazinczy, Zrinyi, Kisfaludy and Vorosmarty. Balls, lectures and banquets, held at frequent intervals, were also used for political purposes.

This lighthearted form of resistance, however, was soon dampened by tragic events. On 15 March 1860, young people of Pest, peacefully demonstrating, were attacked by armed troops. One young man died, and his funeral provoked stormy demonstrations. Emotions had hardly subsided when Istvan Sz6chenyi’s death stunned the whole country. Szdchenyi, retired to an internal exile in the mental asylum of Dobling, had begun to take an active part in politics again. He was harassed by the police above all because of his scathing critical pam¬ phlet Ein Blick auf den cmonymen Ruckblick issued in reply to Bach’s boastful memoirs. At the same time he was also deeply distressed by the tragic events of 15 March in Pest. The tragedy of his private life again became identified with that of the nation. He could see no way out: on 8 April he ended his life with his own hands. The deep mourn¬ ing throughout the country strengthened national self-consciousness, even though there were not a few eulogies of Szechenyi’s anti-revolu¬ tionary attitudes as well.

Early in May, good news arrived from Southern Italy. Garibaldi with his thousand ‘red shirts’ had landed in Sicily. Among them were such prominent Hungarian soldiers as Istvan Tiirr, who was raised to the rank of general, and Lajos Tiikory, who lost his life in the siege of Palermo. Garibaldi’s army liberated the island in a few weeks and moved victoriously on to end the reactionary rule of the king of Naples. New waves of resistance followed in the wake of the war of liberation. During the summer of 1860, there followed in quick succession violent demonstrations for Kossuth and Garibaldi in Pest, in various provincial cities, at the St. Stephen’s Day celebrations (20 August), at country fairs and at vintage festivals. Secret organizations were formed to prepare a worthy reception for Garibaldi. For not only the lesser nobility polishing their rusty swords, or the newsmongering in¬ telligentsia, or the young people planning the formation of guerrilla bands but even the Austrian authorities assumed that after the capture of Naples, Garibaldi would march on Venice and in the ensuing war would send an expeditionary force to Hungary, too. The people were awaiting him as a liberator. Folk songs were composed about his coming, and on the walls of backwoods farmhouses his picture was placed beside that of Kossuth. The fertile folk imagination already saw its desires fulfilled; it pictured Garibaldi watering his horse at the banks of the Tisza, Kossuth distributing new shirts and Klapka rifles to the poor Hungarians. In fact Hungarian exiles both in Paris and Turin kept up the pressure in an attempt to revive the war against Austria. In 1860, even the highest French political circles maintained contacts with Hungarian emigre leaders and went so far as to conduct negotiations with delegates of the Hungarian revolutionary committee on their secret trips to France. For a time feverish preparations were still being made in Paris. Apparently serious agreements were arrived at, including detailed plans for an armed uprising to be launched in Hungary. In actual fact, in the autumn of 1860, Kossuth concluded a military pact with Cavour, who was reckoning with the possibility of a new war. The weapons destined for the Hungarians were actually dispatched by boat to Rumania. Even the Austrian government did not exclude the possibility of a war, although it did everything not to provoke one. Of course it could not afford to. As for Europe—and especially Her Majesty’s Government—it showed no inclination to interfere in ‘the internal affairs of the Italian people’.

Constitutional Interlude and National Movement

Internal and external difficulties forced Vienna to make fresh con¬ cessions. In the spring of 1860, the Reichsrat established in 1851 was enlarged by the representation of the Old Conservative aristocracy. Archduke Albrecht was relieved of his post as governor-general in Hungary. In the autumn of 1860, more comprehensive reforms, based on the counsel and programme of the ‘Old Conservatives’, were decided upon; and on 20 October the emperor presented his peoples with a constitution.

The latter, called the October Diploma, reintroduced the provincial assemblies and the other offices which had existed before 1848. In Hungary, the parliament, the chancery, the governor-general’s council and the county system were restored. The functions of the provincial assemblies were, however, much more restricted than before. The discussion of vital economic, financial and military questions was made the competence of a new Reichsrat, consisting of a fixed number of deputies from the provincial assemblies, while the power of decision was reserved to the monarch. Thus, the October Diploma tempered the existing centralization with a measure of federalism, and absolu¬ tism was tempered by the semblance of constitutionalism. On the whole, the political system of the empire was very frugally ‘reformed’. As a result, the October Diploma never lived up to the hopes attached to it by the court. Hungarian public opinion refused to accept measures contrary to the constitution of 1848 and far below the minimum demands of the nation. There were fierce demonstrations in the streets of Pest, and pretests were made in the revived county assemblies. Owing to its federal nature, the Diploma was adversely received by the centralist bureaucracy and the constitutionalist Austrian bour¬ geoisie. Neither Viennese nor foreign capitalists had much confidence in the constitutional consolidation of the Monarchy.

Soon, however, new winds were blowing in Vienna. Anton Schmer- ling, known to be a constitutional centralist, was appointed minister of state, and the banker Baron Rothschild was brought into the con¬ stitutional supervision of finances. The change of direction was made official by the imperial decree of 26 February 1861. The February Patent, in the spirit of centralism, increased the powers of the Reichsrat at the expense of the provincial assemblies. The provincial statutes appended to the Patent, furthermore, introduced a peculiar system of their own; voters selected in accordance with a high property qualifica¬ tion were divided into four electoral curias based on social rank and place of residence. The Schmerling electoral system secured the parlia- mentary hegemony of the big landowners and big bourgeoisie, and of the Austro-Germans, for the next half century.

The new arrangement produced even greater dissatisfaction among the Hungarian public, which had been keyed up by the parliamentary elections. Electoral meetings and newly-elected deputies declared the February Patent illegal, and the majority of them stood firm by the constitution of 1848. In the spring of 1861, the Hungarian ruling classes arrived at a crossroads with regard to future policy.

The great majority of liberal politicians were well aware that there was an organic link between the solution of the agrarian and nationa¬ lity questions and the regaining of constitutional independence. Many of them were inclined to back the proposal to abolish the ‘conditions akin to statute labour’ through fair and equitable compensation financed partly by the state and partly by the peasants, and they ac¬ cordingly endeavoured to soothe and win over the peasants. When it came to putting the proposal into practice, however, most landowners found themselves face to face with the concrete demands of the peas¬ ants. At several places actual clashes occurred between peasants who seized land by force and landowners who enjoyed the support of the imperial authorities. A conference, held in February 1861, recognized the Decree of 1853 as the legal basis for the solution of the urbarial question. The majority of the counties adhered to this and rejected the petitions of peasants who asked for the injurious measures and deci¬ sions to be revoked. The divergence between the interests of the landowners and peasants in the land question hindered the acceptance of a new ‘union of interests’ as a programme of principle, and even more its realization in practice.

With the failure of the War of Independence and with the introduc¬ tion of absolutism, Hungarian liberal politicians realized that in the nationality question the constitution of 1848 was both outdated and illiberal. During the period of neo-absolutism they showed readiness to look for ways of reconciling rather than repressing the non-Hun¬ garian population of the country.

There were favourable signs in the situation of the day. Reactionary measures were equally injurious to the Hungarians and to the other peoples of the empire. Ferenc Pulszky’s witty sarcasm hit home when he pointed out that the government was offering the national minorities as a reward the same thing that had been meted out as punishment to the Hungarians. At that time there were many signs indicating that a rapprochement between the Hungarians and the nationalities was on the way, a desire for co-operation based on recent experiences. The leaders of the emigration laid great stress on a peaceful, democratic

solution of the nationality question. As early as 1849 Laszlo Telcki insisted on an agreement based on broad autonomy. Discussions based on his progressive ideas were held with the exiled leaders of the neighbouring peoples, and contact was established with the Serbian and Rumanian princes. Kossuth’s draft constitution of his Kutahia exile, taking as the basis the nationality law of July 1849, guaranteed autonomy in the counties with non-Hungarian majorities and a sepa¬ rate government and independent parliament to Croatia. In the course of the discussions of 1859 it was agreed that should independ¬ ence be given to Hungary, the status of Transylvania would be decided by plebiscite. The leaders of the emigration encouraged their followers at home, through their programme, advice and material support, to substantiate their solidarity with concrete agreements and not just empty catch-phrases of fraternity.

Most of the leaders of the national minorities were not averse to the idea of an agreement. They were on the side of the Hungarians in boycotting absolutist rule, and they took part in the newly organized life of the counties. They expected the Hungarian ruling classes to recognize the rights of the other nationalities and to grant adequate autonomy within the frame of the Hungarian state. The Croatian parliament refused to be represented in the Reichsrat, and in the event of the union of Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Fiume and the Mura region into an autonomous Croation territory they would have been willing to form a close alliance with Hungary. The Rumanians and Saxons of Transylvania, in addition to a guarantee of national equality, desired to settle the question of Transylvania’s union with Hungary in a parliament to be convened under a new election law. The Serbs and Slovaks demanded national autonomy while recognizing the subjection of their autonomous bodies to the sovereignty of the Hungarian par¬ liament and government.

The rapprochement between the Hungarian exiles and the leaders of the various national movements furnished a suitable basis on which to negotiate an agreement based on a compromise between conflicting national interests. Kossuth’s programme, however, had no popular support at home. The Hungarian ruling class—although quite a few of its liberal representatives recognized the necessity for a reasonable settlement and were willing to make certain concessions—rigidly reject¬ ed the idea of autonomy for the nationalities. They insisted on ‘terri¬ torial and political integrity’ and the principle of ‘a unitary Hungarian political nation’, and were ready to accept the linguistic and political rights of the nationalities only on such a basis, meaning the use of the national languages only in the lower grades of public administra- tion and education and in church life. In practice, especially in the non-Hungarian regions, impatient nationalism flared up once again. The divergence between the principle of ‘territorial and political in¬ tegrity’, expressing the demand for Hungarian supremacy, and auton¬ omy, guaranteeing national equality, hindered any settlement.

The Hungarian ruling class seemed to be unified and intransigent only in one respect, its determination to regain the independence it had been robbed of. The uncurtailed restitution of the 1848 consti¬ tution, the restitutio in integrum, and ‘1848 without concessions’ be¬ came the generally accepted popular slogans of Hungarian public opinion. This national intransigence, however, suffered from severe anaemia: by the 1848 constitution was meant the enforcement of the laws codified in the spring of 1848—without the social basis and pro¬ gramme that had achieved constitutional independence.

Even in 1848 the concept of modern transformation was not limited to setting up an independent Hungarian government and declaring the personal union with Austria, but further included social progress and the liberation of the serfs. This would have necessarily entailed na¬ tional equality and the settlement of the nationality question. After a lapse of twelve years it was precisely the democratic development of the ideas of 1848 and a new ‘union of interests’ with the people and the nationalities that could have recreated the progressive spirit of 1848.

Their position as landowners and their nationalist aspirations pre¬ cluded the possibility of the Hungarian ruling class establishing com¬ mon cause in 1860-61 with both Hungarian and non-Hungarian forces in Hungary. Thus the programme for the re-establishment of the 1848 constitution was limited to achieving Hungarian independence and securing the national and class rule of the nobility; in other words, the spirit of 1848 was narrowed down to a programme of strict con¬ stitutionalism. And this platform of strict constitutionalism was not large enough for a successful struggle against absolutism, not even for a compromise on the basis of the 1848 constitution.

This attitude was rendered rather dubious by the international situ¬ ation as well. The first great phase in the unification of Italy was over. In February 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in Turin. Only Rome and Venice still lay outside its confines. No military action was to be expected in Italy. The emperor of the French, owing to ‘subversive’ plots, had angrily turned his back on the Italian national movement, and indirectly on the Hungarian, too. The liberal-minded British government, as soon as its ‘favourite’ Austria was involved, stated with strict conservatism that the Habsburg Empire was indis¬ pensable from the point of view of the balance of power in Europe. The great hopes of 1859-60 dwindled away. Kossuth could send no¬ thing but encouraging messages. Klapka’s rifles were confiscated in Rumania, Garibaldi had retired to Caprera, planning an expedition not to Hungary but to Rome. The cause of Hungary was abandoned, and the country could only fall back upon its own resources.

The Parliament of 1861

It was in this situation that parliament opened its session on 2 April 1861. Eighty per cent of the new members came from the ranks of the landed nobility and the intelligentsia of noble origin, the partisans of 1848. The first weeks were spent on formalities connected with the agenda, and in the course of private discussions two opposing trends emerged. The liberal aristocrats supporting Deak and the right wing of the nobility held the opinion that Francis Joseph, if not legally, was de facto ruler of the country. Consequently, the royal message sent to the parliament was to be reciprocated by the customary address of parliament listing the demands of the nation. They formed the so- called ‘Address Party’. The other faction, comprising all the varied left-wing members of the nobility, did not recognize Francis Joseph as ruler and consequently wished to state its views only in the form of a parliamentary resolution. The acknowledged leader of this fac¬ tion—known as the ‘Resolution Party’—was Ldszlo Teleki.

How did one of the leaders of the emigration, a member of the Hun¬ garian National Directorate, come into the forefront of political life in Hungary at this juncture? The careless Teleki had been captured by the Saxon police in Dresden in December 1860 and handed over to Austria. After he had served a short term of imprisonment, Francis Joseph, who preferred to conciliate rather than provoke Hungarian public opinion, released him, on condition that he should keep aloof from politics. Teleki, returned home, enjoyed immense popularity. As a member of the Upper House he received an invitation to attend par¬ liament, and thinking himself no longer obliged to keep his promise, he stood for election.

Teleki remained true to his conceptions of 1848; and he professed the necessity of enlarging the democratic basis of 1848. He soon came to realize, however, that his growing party did not represent increasing resistance, because the bulk of the ruling nobility had abandoned the conceptions of 1848, paying only lip-service at most to the policy of the emigration, but rejecting its essence, waiting only for a favourable wind to carry their ship into the harbour of peaceful settlement. Teleki himself was conscious of the fact that conditions for a new revolution and armed uprising did not exist. But he continued to profess that by augmenting the accomplishments of 1848, by joining forces with the people and the national minorities, the nation would overcome ab¬ solutist rule and liberate itself from every form of oppression. His fellow leaders and supporters, nevertheless, did not share these views. Teleki was faced by the dreadful dilemma of having to choose between isolation and compromise. This was presumably why he took his own life at dawn of 8 May, a few hours before the opening of the parlia¬ mentary debate.

Teleki’s death plunged the nation into mourning, and the parlia¬ ment began debate on Deck’s draft address to the monarch only after the days of mourning had passed. De&k’s proposal recognized the Pragmatic Sanction as the legal basis of Habsburg rule and of the de¬ fence community formed by the lands belonging to the House of Habsburg, but it stressed at the same time Hungary’s independence, which, after many antecedents, had been confirmed by the legislation of 1848. With splendid reasoning De&k showed that both the October Diploma and the February Patent were at variance with the consti¬ tution of the country, contradictory in themselves and unacceptable to Hungary. He pointed out that Hungary’s independence did not run counter to the security and great-power status of the empire. But re¬ stitution of the 1848 constitution was the precondition of any agree¬ ment. During a debate lasting for several weeks, the ‘Resolution Party’ stuck to its earlier viewpoint, to be sure, but it did not strive very energetically to carry it into effect. The new leadership (Kalm&n Tisza, Kalm&n Ghyczy, Baron Frigyes Podmaniczky), as well as the majority of the party, was unwilling to accept either the responsibility for an open breach or the unpopularity of a compromise and was, therefore, not very eager for the victory of its own viewpoint. When the division came, Deck’s motion was carried by a narrow majority. The address was twice returned by the ruler on the grounds that the legislation of 1848 did not ensure adequate harmony between the interests of the empire and the Hungarian constitution, but that the October Diploma and the February Patent were meant to provide this. With hypocritical liberality he also adduced in his defence the need for a better under¬ standing of the rights of the nationalities. This was a blow at the most vulnerable point of Hungarian politics. Parliament did, in fact, appoint a committee with a Hungarian majority to prepare the draft of a na¬ tionality law, but this committee did not accept the demands for na¬ tional autonomy. In keeping with the views of De6k and Eotvos, the

committee took up its position on the basic principles of ‘the unitary Hungarian political nation’ and ‘the unitary state’ within which, how¬ ever, extensive language and civil rights were to be granted to the nationalities.

With the rejection of the addresses of parliament, the possibility of further discussions was also aborted. There was no other solution for either side but to dissolve parliament, which followed on 22 August. The leaders of the nobility had not succeeded in finding a way out, because they were shut off from below by their own will and from above by the will of Vienna. There was nothing else left to them but solemn protest, the self-righteous halo of sticking to their legal posi¬ tion, and the weapon dictated by their isolation: renewed passive re¬ sistance. De£k wound up the debate with the following classical pero¬ ration: ‘The nation will suffer if it has to... It will endure without de¬ spair, as its ancestors patiently endured and suffered, to defend their rights; for whatever is lost through force may be retrieved through patience and good fortune, but what we surrender ourselves... it is difficult and ever doubtful whether it can be regained.’

New Forms of Absolutism: the Provisorium

The parliament took note of its dissolution with a feeble ‘remon¬ strance’, and most of the counties satisfied themselves with lodging a formal protest. Only the more radical counties dared to oppose the government actively by refusing to collect taxes, conscript recruits or heed its decrees. Within a short time the government again liquidated the self-government of the counties and towns. The administrative scheme of this new version of absolutism was established by a pro¬ visional regulation or provisorium (hence the name of the ensuing four- year period). The country was once more ruled by a governor-general, the counties by royal commissioners or an appointed lord lieutenant. A strict censorship and martial law were re-introduced, and a host of gendarmes and police agents descended on the country. Nevertheless, neither side believed that this absolutism, again resting solely on force, could last; and as the term itself indicates, it was regarded as more or less a provisional state of affairs.

Most of the leading core of the nobility settled down to wait. There was no longer any question of serious resistance. Only in 1863-4 were there two isolated, secret movements, disavowed even by their leaders. The outcome of passive resistance was already clear in 1860-1. At this crossroads it was brought home to the leading strata, even to the bulk of those who still believed in the illusion of 1848, that passive resistance in the long run was not practical: it became obvious that in the chronic crisis of absolutism, sooner or later, a situation would present itself when they would have to put aside passivity and light or give up resistance and come to an agreement. The majority pre¬ ferred the latter course. They were prompted by the economic situation, both those who were benefiting from the capitalist boom and yearning for political stability, and those who desired to share in the proceeds of the boom. This choice was made preferable by the Austrian bank loans which were now more accessible to the big landowners and, equally as much, by the lack of credit pressing the great mass who were deeply in debt, crowned by the famines of a few years of catastrophic harvests. They were induced to make this choice by the recurrent peasant movements and by the persistent claims of the nationalities, which threatened the noble-national hegemony. They were cautioned by the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863-4, by the menacing spectre of the expansion of Czarist Russia and the new proof of her brutal methods of oppression. And they were pushed towards this choice also by the democratic policies of the much-reduced emigra¬ tion.

Kossuth, his confidence in the aid of foreign powers shattered, pro¬ duced a new conception of how to gain independence. He turned his attention to the nationality question and to the existing bad relations between Hungary and her neighbours. Summing up the ideas of fellow exiles, he outlined in 1862 his plan for a Danubian Confederation. Kossuth saw the pledge of the future in an anti-Habsburg federation of Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Rumania (and possibly, depending on a plebiscite, independent Transylvania). In this federation foreign affairs, war and commerce would be of common concern, while in all other matters each country would retain its internal autonomy, based on democratic principles. A federal council, filling the role of common parliament, would meet every year in another capital to decide com¬ mon affairs.

The external and internal political preconditions for a federation of this kind were non-existent in the 1860s. The leaders and the public opinion of the respective countries were averse to the idea of federa¬ tion. This in itself progressive plan was entirely utopian in that period. It was not, however, the concrete blueprint for federation that was the essence of the scheme but the recognition of the common national interests and of the need for solidarity of the Hungarians and the neighbouring peoples. If the plan was disregarded, Kossuth warned the nation, ‘a long line of future generations, either in German bondage or torn asunder by the assaults of the awakening nationalities, will keep in belated and helpless grief over the squandered opportunity for the rebirth of the Hungarian nation’.

Both Kossuth’s prophetic warnings and his plan for confederation were rejected by the leading sections of the nobility, not because of their utopian nature, but because of their conciliatoriness, which came near to renouncing Hungarian supremacy and the territorial integrity of the country. According to their reasoning, if even Kossuth believed that an independent Hungary could not survive on her own, then the best thing to do was to come to terms with the Habsburgs, much rather than with the nationalities. They would rather go to Vienna than to ‘the Balkans’. The landed nobility and the majority of the intelligentsia regarded a bargain with Vienna as the lesser evil. Thus even Kossuth’s conception of a democratic nationality policy led them rather towards compromise with Vienna than towards resistance based on an as¬ sociation with the neighbouring countries.

And last but not least the necessity for a compromise was supported by the turn of international events. The unification of Italy had for all practical purposes been completed, and Napoleon III was no longer cast as the liberator of the oppressed peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. Ever since the early 1860s, Britain, under both the Palmerston and the Russell governments, had repeatedly and emphatically advised Austria to come to peaceful terms with the Italians externally and the Hungarians internally, at the same time pointing out on each occasion that it regarded the existence of Austria as indispensable for peace and the balance of power in Europe.

In the mid-1860s, the focus of international—and Hungarian—in¬ terest moved from the unification of Italy to the matter of German unity. Here the effect on Hungary was completely different: in the German question Hungarian liberal politicians expected and desired Austria’s victory and continued existence. The great majority of the Hungarian ruling class—in spite of what has been said in Hungarian and German historiography in the past—did not sympathize with Prussia and the programme of unification conceived by Bismarck. They disapproved of Bismarck’s conservatism and absolutist methods of government and were afraid of his suspected plans for annexation and especially his collaboration with Russia. Ever since the Reform Era the foreign policy of the Hungarian ruling classes had been de¬ termined by the fear of ‘Pan-Slavism’ and the expansion of Czarist Russia; the intervention of 1849 was still fresh in their minds, and the brutal suppression of the 1863 Polish insurrection served as a timely reminder of it.

A German unification brought about under Austrian leadership pro¬ duced a glimmer of hope for a personal union, whereas one resulting from Prussian-Russian collaboration caused the liberal politicians of the Hungarian ruling class serious apprehension and a sense of danger, conjuring up the possibility of annihilation between the two reaction¬ ary- empires. De&k questioned whether an independent Hungary could survive ‘wedged as it is between the mighty Russian and German em¬ pires’. It seemed safer to stay within the framework of the Monarchy and to work out a compromise between the empire’s vital interests and the demands of its great-power status on the one hand, and the need for a return to the 1848 constitution on the other.

Preparations for the Compromise

These external and internal developments also made the other side, i.e. the imperial court and the leaders of the German liberal move¬ ment, readier to come to terms. A further incentive was the series of failures suffered by the Schmerling government in inaugurating an era of constitutional government. The government failed to win over the Hungarians for the constitution of the empire and was unable to force it upon them from above. In 1863 the Czechs, and later on the Poles, too, went into opposition. The Great-German foreign policy also met with failure. At the Furstentag held in 1863 in Frankfurt, Austria could not establish its predominance in Germany. In the Schleswig-Holstein war the following year the supremacy of Prussia was clearly demon¬ strated. The Schmerling government was furthermore beset by financial troubles, and as a result of absolutist methods of government, by the hostility of the leading German liberal personalities as well. The view that constitutionalism could not develop in Austria as long as absolut¬ ism ruled in Hungary was gaining ground. A growing number of people came out for a compromise with the Hungarians. In the au¬ tumn of 1864 the Verfassungspartei (the Austro-German liberal con¬ stitution party) turned against the government, whereupon Schmer- ling’s position became extremely precarious.

Alarmed by difficulties, which instead of lessening became more and more insurmountable, Francis Joseph once again turned towards Pest-Buda. Through intermediaries he made contact with Deak at the end of 1864. Informatory talks started in a semi-official form, through private channels. Early in 1865 the government lessened its absolutist rule and made significant concessions, among other things deciding to convene the Hungarian parliament. Thus it was not without ante¬ cedents that Deak’s ‘Easter article’ was written, which, without going into details, merely recorded the turn of events and stressed its mu¬ tuality.

Deak voiced his views at the most opportune moment. His famous ‘Easter article’ appeared in Pesti Naplo (Pest Journal) on 16 April 1865. Although it seemed to repeat the 1861 viewpoint, those who could read between the lines noticed some differences and a certain flexibility. Deak insisted that no one desired to undermine the solid foundations of the empire, but within its framework ‘the basic laws of the Hungarian constitution should be given adequate scope’. From Hungary’s constitutional laws ‘it would be neither just nor expedient to take away more than absolutely necessary to ensure the firm con¬ tinuation of the empire’. Words like ‘expedient’ and ‘take away’ in¬ dicated a readiness to bargain. The subsequent ‘May letters’ soon re¬ vealed to the public the essence of Deck’s concessions: the recognition of so-called ‘common affairs’. This had been missing in the consti¬ tution of 1848.

Vienna gave a favourable reception to the proposals. Schmerling, outvoted in the Reichsral, was forced to resign, and Count Bclcredi, who had conservative federalist leanings, was appointed prime min¬ ister. The February Patent was repealed. In Hungary constitutional life was in due course partially re-established, and at the end of the year a new parliament was convened. The great majority of the mem¬ bers professed to follow Deak, meaning loyalty to the idea of com¬ promise. Even the left-centre (the former ‘Resolution Party’), under Kdlman Tisza, recognized the necessity of compromise and disagreed with the Deak party only over the handling of common affairs. Only the small group headed by the radical Ldszlo Boszormenyi (the ex¬ treme left) insisted on the inviolability of the 1848 constitution and fought for it.

In the spring of 1866 parliament appointed a committee of 67 mem¬ bers which delegated from its ranks a sub-committee of 15 to work out, under the chairmanship of Gyula Andrdssy, a proposal for the manage¬ ment of common affairs, the basic issue of the Compromise. The de¬ bates dragged on until June, when they were temporarily suspended because of the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war.

The War of 1866. New Crisis of the Monarchy

Bismarck had for years been deliberately edging the struggle for suprem¬ acy in Germany towards an armed conflict. In the end it was Austria that declared war in order to prevent her exclusion from the German Confederation. The war did not last long. The Prussian troops which occupied Saxony invaded the empire, by way of Bohemia, at the end of June. On 3 July, at Koniggratz (Sadova) a decisive blow was in¬ flicted on the incompetently commanded Austrian army. An episode of the war worth mentioning from the Hungarian angle was the at¬ tempt of the emigration, which had allied with Bismarck, to deploy- in Hungary an exile legion organized by Klapka. The legion advanced as far as the western Carpathians but found no support there, and the German ‘ally’ soon dropped the diversionary manoeuvre, planned only for tactical reasons. After Koniggratz, Austria was obliged to make peace, achieved at the expense of resigning all her claims and rights in Germany, ceding Venice to Italy, and the payment of several million florins in war damages.

It was not only the war and the question of supremacy in Germany which was decided at Koniggratz, but also the fate of the Monarchy. The defeat brought the ruling circles of the empire into such straits that they could extricate themselves with the least sacrifice only by- compromise with the Hungarians, and the renunciation of absolutist government in a unitary and centralized empire. Francis Joseph only came to this decision after much trial and error; it was not easy for him to entrust the transformation of his empire to his enemies of 1848, the Austro-German liberals and the unreliable Hungarian ‘rebels’, against the conservative aristocracy and the Austro-Slavs who were closer to his heart. He only accepted the agreement, so contrary to the traditions of the dynasty and its principles, because he had come to the conclusion that only by relying on the Germans and Hungarians could he preserve the might of his dynasty and the great-power status of the empire, and only through this could he have a chance to re¬ venge himself on the Prussians.

This involuntary insight was founded on considerations of Real- politik. It is an indisputable fact that at this stage of bourgeois trans¬ formation the Slavic peoples were materially, militarily and politically weak. Their leaders belonged to or supported mostly conservative movements. Even their democratic movements awaited the recognition of their national rights from above, from the aristocracy and the Habsburg dynasty. The Germans and Hungarians, on the other hand,

despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that they had actively fought for their programmes in 1848, and despite the fact that they were liberals or because of it proved strong enough to maintain and re¬ new the Monarchy, and within its confines their own rule. The na¬ tional aspirations and federative schemes of the Slavs and other op¬ pressed peoples, and likewise Kossuth’s idea of independence and his confederation plan, despite the truth of their principles and the later vindication of these—or perhaps just because of this—were still un¬ realistic or utopian in the 1860s.

The preservation of the disposition of power was of great importance for the Austro-German ruling classes as well. The Austro-German lib¬ erals were inclined to come to terms with the Hungarians during the crisis at the beginning of the 1860s, and some of their left-wing poli¬ ticians were in contact with the members of the Deak party ^How¬ ever, by themselves they were unable to resolve the inner conflict of the German-liberal movement between Reichseinheit (unity of the Habs¬ burg Empire) and liberal equality. The year 1866 was a turning-point in this respect, too; having been squeezed out of Germany they had to find the guarantee of power within the Monarchy alone. This is why they accepted in 1866-7 the basic principles of the Compromise, which replaced the loss of Reichseinheit and the leading role in Ger¬ many with the gain of constitutionalism, and which offered guarantees against ‘the dangers of federalism and Slavism’.

The Compromise of 1867

The change in the views of the ruling circles was reflected in the ap¬ pointment of Baron Ferdinand Beust, former prime minister of Sax¬ ony, as minister of foreign affairs. Beust weighed the balance of foices in a realistic manner. He regarded the Compromise as indispens¬ able to the Monarchy’s great-power status and a successful foreign policy and acted as a successful mediator between the monarch, the Verfassungspartei and the leaders of the Deak party.

The Hungarian parliament continued the negotiations on the same basis even after the defeat at Koniggratz. At the outbreak of the war it was Deak himself who put forward a motion for the adjournment of parliament. Deak and his followers, although they were probably aware that a Prussian victory would remove otherwise insurmountable obstacles hindering agreement, inevitably kept considerations of for¬ eign policy uppermost in their minds and followed the Prussian ad¬ vance with alarm and anxiety. They hoped for an Austrian victory or at least that Austria would remain intact. Their loyalty met with ap¬ preciation during the negotiation, which progressed slowly after the end of the war. At the end of 1866 and early in 1867, after protracted wrangles, the Hungarian leaders made an agreement with Beust and then with the ruler as to the basic principles for the reorganization of the Monarchy, and later the details of the new constitutional and economic relations between Austria and Hungary. On 17 February 1867, Francis Joseph appointed the government responsible for Hun¬ gary, which, since Deak refused to accept either rank or office, was headed by Gyula Andrassy. On 29 May the Hungarian parliament ratified the Act of Compromise.

Act XII of 1867, taking the Pragmatic Sanction as its point of de¬ parture, on the one hand made clear the independence of Hungary in internal affairs, on the other hand recognized her indissoluble com¬ munity with the other lands of the ruling house and, in consequence of this, the joint character of foreign affairs, defence and the finances serving to defray the expenses of these. Ministers-in-common were to be responsible to a committee consisting of 60 delegates from each parliament. The delegations appointed to discuss parliamentary mat¬ ters in common met separately and only came together to bridge differences of opinion, which were resolved by simple voting. Two special parliamentary committees decided from time to time on the ratio (or quota) in which Austria and Hungary were to share the ex¬ penses of common affairs. In the first decade the ratio was 70:30 re¬ spectively. A separate act dealt with the economic relations between the two parts of the empire. Hungary entered into a customs union with Austria, renewable every ten years, and agreed on bank-notes to be issued in common and on common commodity and currency re¬ gulations.

With the Compromise the former Austrian Empire became the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, consisting of two formally independent countries, each with a government responsible to its own parliament and with its own state apparatus, but having the same ruler, joint armed forces and representation abroad. In foreign affairs the Dual Monarchy counted as a unitary state. This complicated, cumbersome state apparatus was bom from a compromise of the many divergent and conflicting interests which formed the basis of the system.

The Compromise did not mean merely the re-arrangement of the constitutional relationship between Austria and Hungary, but was at the same time a closing act in the period of bourgeois revolutions. It provided, after the revolutionary impetus of 1848 and the failure of neo-absolutism, for an anti-democratic solution to the questions of bourgeois transformation. The emperor, in order to retain his empire, gave his consent to moderate constitutional limitations on his unlimit¬ ed power. The Austrian ruling circles abandoned the idea of the uni¬ tary state in order to keep hold of the entire state, in order to preserve centralization at least in the Cisleithanian * half of the empire. The Hungarian landowning class turned their backs on the revolutionary achievements of 1848 in order to retain their leading role, economically and politically, in the face of the rising middle class, and their rule over the Hungarian people and the other nationalities. The new system did not alter, indeed reinforced, national oppression, even if this was now divided ‘more fairly’ between the Austrians and the Hungarians. The system of big estates was not weakened but consolidated, and the remnants of feudalism were preserved within the framework of capital¬ ism, the remnants of absolutism, wrapped in the forms of constitution¬ alism. Thus, at the favourable historical juncture the Compromise merely closed an era without really having accomplished the bourgeois revolution or solved its basic problems.

In the given historical circumstances this denouement was logical, and the Compromise realistic. Both internal and external conditions were unfavourable in the 1860s for the successful termination of the revolution, for the democratic extension of the abolition of serfdom and a democratic solution of the nationality question. The international conflicts immediately threatening the existence of the Habsburg Em¬ pire were solved (at a cost to the Monarchy but without destroying it) with the methods of conservative great-power politics. The Powers, especially Britain, France and Bismarck’s Prussia, supported the main¬ tenance of the Monarchy. And, objectively, the Dual Monarchy of¬ fered to the peoples living within its framework better opportunities for economic and political progress under the conditions of East Cen¬ tral Europe than did the autocratic Czarist Russia, whose expansion was, not without reason, feared by the liberal and democratic public opinion of the period.

It was in vain, therefore, that Kossuth laid before the Hungarian political leadership the dangers latent in the Compromise, which, he wrote, ‘makes enemies both of our eastern and western neighbours, makes impossible the solution of the internal nationality question and the chances of understanding with Croatia, and, in the obviously ap¬ proaching European conflicts, makes Hungary the target of rival am¬ bitions’. It was in vain that he warned them that Hungary should offer itself as the pyre on which ‘history will burn the Austrian eagle’. It was in vain that he implored Deak not to carry the nation to the point where ‘it could no longer be master of its future’ if objective historical circumstances had made the revolutionary struggle hopeless and pas¬ sive resistance futile. The majority of the ruling class desired, not to secede but to integrate itself, within a constitutional framework, into the Monarchy, the great power which offered them protection.

Deak expressed his point of view quite clearly—as if carrying on a polemic with Kossuth—during his defence of the Act of Compromise. After 1849, under the autocracy, he said, three courses had been open to us: either to obtain our rights by armed struggle, or wait for good fortune, or come to terms. Arms and revolution are dubious means even when there is a prospect of success; to rely for future progress on uncertain events, and in the meantime let the strength, welfare, faith and hope of the nation wither away: this would have been wrong and harmful. So only the third course remained, to convince the ruler and impartial public opinion that the restoration of the Hungarian con¬ stitution could be consistent with the security and maintenance of the empire. The deeper the crisis of the empire became, the more the Hun¬ garian ruling classes wished to reach an agreement. For they believed that ‘disintegration would not benefit us’; on the contrary, ‘we would be considered raw material, to be used in the erection of other build¬ ings’.

If the opportunity and the readiness alike were lacking for secession, then a compromise had to be reached. To achieve a compromise, nevertheless, concession had to be made, even at the expense of com¬ plete sovereignty.

Following the suppression of the revolution, the ruling classes no longer had need of 1848 or the dethroner Kossuth; they wanted 1867 and a Francis Joseph now become amenable to constitutional rule. Thus it came about on 8 June 1867 that, regardless of the past and heedless of the future, amidst dazzling splendour, the traditional rites and prayers of thanksgiving, Francis Joseph, showing off in a Hun¬ garian general’s uniform, and his popular consort Elizabeth, were crowned king and queen of Hungary.

The Dual Monarchy (1867–1918)

Revolution in Hungary (1918–1919)

The Horthy Regime

People's Democracy in Hungary