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Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary

Today we will talk a lot about Matthias Corvinus, the legendary renaissance king of Hungary whose library outshone that of the Medici in Florence and whose standing army was one of the greatest – and most expensive – military forces in 15th century Europe.

Why are we talking about a Hungarian ruler in a series about the Habsburgs? Trust me, there is a good reason beyond it being a fascinating life story.

Ep. 212: Matthias Corvinus (1443-1490) – The Library of the Raven King – History of the Germans

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 212 – The Library of the Raven King, also Episode 10 of Season 11: The Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg.

Today we will talk a lot about Matthias Corvinus, the legendary renaissance king of Hungary whose library outshone that of the Medici in Florence and whose standing army was one of the greatest – and most expensive – military forces in 15th century Europe.

Why are we talking about a Hungarian ruler in a series about the Habsburgs? Trust me, there is a good reason beyond it being a fascinating life story.

But before we start, it is just me in my saffron robes holding out my begging bowl. I cannot offer the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha nor can I explain the principles that help you live a fulfilling life. All I can offer in return is the absence of ever more hyperbolic praise for humdrum consumer products, let alone promotion of sports betting sites, which is today the #2 podcast advertiser. If that is enough for you and you want to drop your grains of rice into my bowl, you can do so at historyofthegermans.com/support. And there you can join the immensely generous: Kliment M., Michael N., Sofia G., Tobias P., Ben H., Paul-James V. and Scott P.

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And with that, back to the show.

Last week we ended on a cliffhanger. Emperor Friedrich III and his young family were huddling together in the cellars of the Hofburg as cannon pounded the ancient fortress. Walls and towers were crumbling and one errant projectile, one falling piece of masonry or the simple lack of food could have wiped out the dynasty that was destined to rule half of Europe.

The siege of the Hofburg in 1462

How did they get out? Was it the citizens of Vienna realizing they had gone too far? Or the emperor’s brother, the archduke Albrecht VI putting family ahead of personal ambition?

No, help came from one of the least probable corners, from Georg of Podiebrad, the king of Bohemia. Georg, you may remember, had put his name forward as King of the Romans in an attempt to fill the vacuum the 15 year absence of the emperor from the Reich had created. And in this attempt to rise to the title, Georg had allied with Friedrich’s arch enemies, the Wittelsbachs, namely Ludwig the Rich of Bayern-Landshut and Friedrich the Victorious, Count Palatine on the Rhine, and – who would believe it – the emperor’s brother and besieger.

Still, in December 1462 Georg or more precisely his Victorin showed up outside Vienna with of a force of his dreaded Bohemian fighters and demanded that Friederich and Albrecht made peace. Under the watchful eye of the Bohemians, the brothers signed an agreement whereby Albrecht was given control of the whole of the duchy Austria including the city of Vienna for eight years in exchange for a substantial annual payment to Friedrich.

And so the emperor Friedrich III, his wife Eleanor and his son Maximilian were allowed to leave the smoldering ruins of the Hofburg. Teeth clenched and full of anger and hatred, they had to walk the gauntlet of the citizens of Vienna who hissed at them, saying, go back to Graz, seemingly a place so barbarous, no upstanding Viennese felt was fit for human habitation.

Eleanor and Maximilian

Friedrich immediately swore revenge and the war of the brothers continued for another 12 months. In these 12 months Friedrich made some progress, as usual not  through action, but through the actions of his enemies. Albrecht VI managed to irritate the Viennese in record time, so that the mayor, Wolfgang Holzer opened secret negotiations inviting Friedrich III to return. Albrecht got wind of that and had Holzer and two of his colleagues torn limb from limb. A move that was not universally popular in the capital. Before the Viennese could gather their spikes and pitchforks to take revenge on their ungraceful lord, Albrecht VI died, of an infection, the bubonic plague or poison, whatever – he was dead.

Archduke Albrecht VI

By 1464 Friedrich III was back in Vienna, as if nothing had happened, well, he did not go back to Vienna obviously since the Hofburg was still in ruins and memories were fresh, but metaphorically and politically, yes, he was back.

But that does not answer the more fundamental question, why did Georg of Podiebrad help Friedrich III? Why did he not just let the stubborn emperor get buried under the rubble of his superannuated castle?

Episode 210 – Ladislaus PostumusThat gets us back to the circumstances that had brought Georg of Podiebrad to the throne of Bohemia. Georg, as we have heard, had not an ounce of royal blood in his veins. He had been elevated to the title because he had exercised de facto control of Bohemia for more than a decade already. When the nominal king of Bohemia, Ladislaus Postumus, died, the estates of Bohemia preferred the devil they knew to some hereditary claimant like Friedrich III, Kasimir of Poland or the duke of Saxony they didn’t.

Podiebrad had managed to walk a thin tightrope between the two main political factions, the moderate Hussites, known as the Utraquists, and the old school Catholics. The Utraquists had emerged from the heretical Hussite movement that had taken control of the kingdom in 1420 and that no catholic army could overthrow. In 1436 the council of Basel had agreed the Compacta with the Hussites, an agreement that readmitted them into the church, and allowed them certain Hussite practices, such as the eucharist in the form of bread and wine. Hence the name Utraquists, which translates as “under both kinds”.

Map of Bohemia showing the religious affiliaions of different places between Catholics and Utraquists (showing a chalice)

Georg had been the leader of the Utraquists but through a sequence of military successes and subsequent compromises had gained acceptance by the Catholics in Bohemia as well.  By 1462, when Podiebrad appeared before Vienna, this political construct had come under ever increasing pressure, not from the emperor or any of the other frustrated candidates, or from within, but from the papacy.

Ever since Friedrich had signed the concordat of Vienna, the papacy had gained the upper hand over the conciliar movement. The Roman Curia began to systematically dismantle the reforms that had been agreed at Basel. One of the decisions the popes, in particular pope Pius II, aka Silvio Piccolomini, wanted to reverse was the compacta that allowed Hussitism to exist, even in its massively watered down form.

Before his coronation, the papal nuncio had made Georg of Podiebrad swear a secret oath that he would suppress the Hussite religion. Georg did swear the oath but crossed his fingers behind his back, since executing the wish of the Roman pontiff would have been obvious political suicide.

George of Poděbrady, “King of Two Peoples”: Treaties Are to Be Observed. (1923) A painting by Alfons Mucha, part of his monumental cycle The Slav Epic, depicts papal nuncio Fantinus de Valle reminding to king his coronation promise to bring Bohemia “back to the womb of the true Church” and exterminate “heretics” 

Georg needed to find a way to legitimize his rule without suppressing his own people, the Utraquists. Which is why he became keen to be elected King of the Romans. If that had worked out, he would have been largely immune from papal excommunication. I have not done the numbers, but by my estimate, more than half of the rulers of the empire since Henry IV had been excommunicated at one point or another, and all of them had held on to their crowns, except for Otto IV.

The other way he hoped to inveigle  his way into the hearts of the Roman prelates was by promising to fight against the Turks. Bohemia had at the time the most effective war machine in western europe making this a valuable offer.

Hussite Wagenburg

And then there was another player who could provide Georg with his much needed air cover, and that was the emperor Friedrich III himself. For one, Friedrich III was the emperor and Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire. As long as Friedrich recognized Georg as king, Georg was the legitimate king. Moreover, in 1462 the pope was Pius II, aka the former chief secretary of the emperor, Silvio Piccolomini. Doing the emperor a big favour might keep the pope from going all guns blazing after the Hussites and after himself.

And the other question is, what happened if Friedrich managed to get out of Vienna under his own steam? If he found Georg on the side of his enemies, he would almost certainly ban him and encourage the pope to excommunicate him and depose him. And that could easily lead to an uprising of the Catholics inside Bohemia, plus an invasion by his rapacious catholic neighbors.

So, much better to gain eternal imperial gratitude as the white knight who had come to the rescue. And that is why Friedrich III did not end up dead under a pile of rubble.

Georg’s search for legitimacy of his kingship stayed within the established legal and cultural frameworks of the Late Middle Ages. As far as he could make out, it was the Popes and emperors who ultimately decided what was right in the eyes of god, and hence what was right in the eyes of men.

But we are in the year 1462, the year when Piero della Francesco painted his Madonna della Misericordia,  Mantegna began work on the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua, Botticelli was apprenticed to Filippo Lippi and Leon Battista Alberti had published his book on architecture. The Humanists had learned Greek from the envoys of the emperor of Constantinople and were compiling the definitive versions of the works of the great philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus and all the others. And these definitive versions were coming off the printing presses that had been running for a decade now. The world was changing. The Renaissance was not just coming, it was here.

Andrea Mantegna: Camera Degli Sposi, Mantua

Which gets us to Georg’s colleague, Matthias Hunyadi, the 15 year-old who had been made king of Hungary about the same time as Georg had become king of Bohemia.

Matthias Hunyadi as a young man

And when Georg had an issue with legitimacy, young Hunyadi had the same problem, but tenfold.

When Georg became king he had ruled Bohemia already for a decade. Matthias on the other hand was a boy of 15 with no experience or track record. His only claim to fame was descent from Janos Hunyadi, the hero of Belgrade. It was his uncle, the commander of the Belgrade garrison, who used his substantial influence to get the magnates to elect him. This uncle may have believed he would be rewarded with at lest a few years of regency on behalf of his nephew, but found himself instead confronted with the harshness of Matthias character. The young king sent him off to defend the border in Serbia where the Ottomans promptly captured and decapitated him.

In light of these events, several senior magnates became unsure about young Matthias, left Buda and elected of all people, Friedrich III as king of Hungary. What made this an even more serious challenge to the son of Janos Hunyadi was that Friedrich had the crown of St. Steven. You may remember that 28 years earlier the mother of the boy king Ladislaus Postumus got her lady in waiting to steal the crown of St. Steven to prevent the coronation of the Polish king as king of Hungary. That particular part of the plot failed, but the crown of St. Steven had remained in Vienna all that time. Friedrich III now had it and used it to get crowned as king of Hungary.

As usual, this was the maximum extent of Friedrich’s activity as king of Hungary. He fortified the castles he already held in the west of the country and went home to Wiener Neustadt for more gardening.

That allowed Matthias and his advisers to stabilize the situation and regain the confidence of several of the magnates who had rebelled.  But the issue of the crown remained.

These crowns were not just decorative objects, but spiritual ones as well. They contained relics, they were linked to saints, in this case Saint Steven of Hungary, and over the long period that Hungary was ruled by foreign families, had become the symbol of the state itself.

We have already seen that Karl IV had quite deliberately made the Crown of St. Wenceslaus the object that the Kingdom of Bohemia rallied around, rather than the person of the king. In Hungary that process had not been that deliberate, but the result was similar. Only a king who walked under the crown of St. Steven was the real king.

And that applied even more to a king who had no royal blood. Matthias needed the crown of St. Steven if he wanted to make sure his kingdom and his dynasty would endure.

And in 1463 he got it back. Matthias had been negotiating with Friedrich III for years over his claim to be king of Hungary and the crown. And as always, Friedrich had blocked and insisted on his rights, even when he had no chance at all of turning them into tangible power. But when Friedrich returned from his ordeal in the Hofburg he was ready to trade. For the right sum, a sum large enough to muster an army against his hated brother, he would hand over the saintly headgear. 80,000 gulden was the price, and some minor small print. Friedrich was allowed to retain a few Hungarian counties and castles, places he had held since 1440 anyway. And just one minor thing – Friedrich was allowed to retain the title of a king of Hungary and if Matthias would die without heir, Friedrich would inherit Hungary.

That should have been one of those completely out of the money options that were practically worthless. Matthias was 20 years old, Friedrich was 48. Matthias had just got engaged to Catherine, the daughter of Georg of Podiebrad, 14 years old and ready to produce heirs. What were the chances that Friedrich would outlive Matthias and that Matthias would have no legitimate children. Yeah, what were the chances indeed?

The crown of St. Stephen did help Matthias to establish his right to rule Hungary, but that was by no means enough.

The Magnates of Hungary, the 60 families that controlled this enormous kingdom that at the time comprised not just modern day Hungary, but also Slovakia, Croatia and Transylvania, they did not regard the Hunyadis as equals. Matthias had not been born in a massive castle in the Hungarian plain, but in the house of a well-to-do wine grower in a city that is now in Romania where it is called Cluj-Napoco, but is known to Hungarians as Kolozsvár and to Germans as Klausenburg. This was and is one of these regions of Europe that are heavily contested between various ethnic groups, including the Siebenbürger Sachsen who had come there in the 13th century. There is no way I can get through this story as a sidebar in this episode, so we just leave it at that.

Matthias Hunyadi was born in Transsylvania. His father, though a great hero, had come from a family of lower nobility who had risen to prominence and enormous wealth under Sigismund’s reign as king of Hungary. A hero, sure, but still, not exactly the right sort of chap. Even if his son now carried the most holy crown of St. Stephen on his head underneath it he was still the same old chav.

The house where Matthias Corvinus was born in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

What Matthias needed was a way to bend the magnates to his will. And not just one way, but preferably a whole set of tools. And since Matthias was a very smart guy, educated by one of Hungary’s most learned and most astute churchmen, he came up with several.

The first one was to style himself as Europe’s bulwark against the infidels. In 1456 Hungary had – again – stood alone against the Ottomans coming up the Balkans. And since the empire was unable to get its act together and neither Bohemia nor Poland really helped, Matthias could quite credibly claim that he, and only he, was the shield of Christendom. And that was a claim that resonated very strongly in Italy.

We tend to forget how close the Ottoman empire was to Italy, in particular southern Italy. The Straight of Otranto is the narrowest point of the Adriatic where just 45 miles separate the coast of Italy from Albania. I have been to Otranto and you can actually see the mountains of Albania from there. For now Skanderbeg, the most successful Albanian leader of the period was winning his battles against Mehmed II, but he died in 1468 and from then onwards an Ottoman invasion into Italy became a possibility, a possibility that  materialised in 1480, when Ottoman troops took the city of Otranto in Puglia.

Portrait of Giorgio Castriota Scanderberg.

Long story short, the Italians were a lot more concerned about an Ottoman invasion than the rest of Western Europe. Byzantine exiles from Constantinople had been stirring up fear of the alleged barbaric turks for decades. Their pupils, the Italian humanists would write long elegies about the Hunyadis and their valiant defence of Christendom against these vicious fiends. The popes in particular bought into that sentiment and supported a united and powerful Hungary. And as long as Matthias was the most likely person to keep Hungary together and ready to fight, the popes held their hand over the young king, come what may.

The second pillar of his regime was the army. And what an army it was. Matthias had inherited his father’s mercenary force of 6,000 to 8,000 men, kept under arms at all times. Over his 32 year reign he wil expand this force to its peak of 28,000 men, making it the by far largest standing army in christian europe, twice as large as the standing army of Louis XII of France. This army consisted of four main forces, the heavy cavalry, infantry and the light cavalry, the famous hussars and finally regiments of field artillery, used in the early stages of battle and during sieges.

Jörg Kölderer: A big caliber siege cannon from the “Elephant” series of Matthias Corvinus.

The regular use of artillery was not the only innovation. A quarter of Matthias’ infantry men was equipped with an arquebuse, a type of early musket, more than any other army at the time. Their fighting tactics took some inspiration from Jan Zizka’s Hussite wagenburgs. Though instead of bringing along carts, his infantry used pikemen to form defensive squares allowing the arquebusiers and crossbowmen to shoot at the enemy from inside this square, very much like Zizka’s fighters shot from inside their wagenburgs. Light cavalry too was an innovation, likely inspired by Ottoman warfare. These forces were highly mobile, brilliant at raids and surprise attacks.

Top: Black Army knights fought with Ottoman cavalry. Bottom: training of knights. Engraving from the Thuróczy chronicle (1488)

What made this force the most powerful fighting force in europe though was that key ingredient of modern warfare, discipline. The soldiers in the Black Army were professional soldiers who fought for money. Matthias paid them well. His heavy cavalry men were paid five florins a month, well above the usual 3 florins, light cavalry revceived 3 florins a month, again sustantially more than normal. Within the infantry pay varied between simple pikemen and the crssbowmen and arquebusiers and the most specialised, the gunners, operating the field cannon. But all were paid a lot more than anyone else would. And in return they had to follow orders, train, work together across cavalry and infantry and accept that their officers were chosen on merit, not on who their dad was. Compare that to the battle of Nicopol 70 years earlier where the arrogance and stupidity of the Burgundian and French high aristicrats led to the annihilation of the Christian forces by the Ottomans.

Saint George and Saint Florian, depicted in the armour suits of Black Army knights. Fresco of the Roman Catholic church of Pónik 

When Matthias army reached its maximum size of 28,000, the cost of keeping it in the field is estimated at 300,000 to 350,000 florins per quarter. To put that in context, Matthias paid Friedrich III 80,000 ducats for the crown of St. Stephen, basically a month’s wages. When Albrecht II paid up for the privilege to marry the daughter of emperor Sigismund and with her the right to the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns, he paid 400,000 florins, again, the equivalent of four months of Matthias’ army.

And this was not the only standing army in Hungary at the time. Apart from the mobile Black Army, Matthias furnished the fortresses along the southern border with permanent garrisons, equipped with cannon and trained in defensive siege warfare. These fortresses covered an unbroken line stretching 500km from the Adriatic see to Wallachia, almost five times the length of Hadrain’s wall.

Military movements of Matthias Corvinus and the Black Army

Bottom line, we are talking an absolutely unprecedented expenditure here. Now where did the money for all that come from?

Certainly not from the royal purse. The magnates controlled 2/3rds of the land directly and another quarter through the church. The king himself owned only about 5%. Nowhere near enough revenue to cover even a week of the army’s cost.

Then we have the Hunyadi’s personal fortune. Matthias Hunyadi had inherited 2.3 million hectares, 28 castles, 57 towns and 1,000 villages from his father. Now we are talking. But again, how long would that last?

Then there were the mines in what is now Slovakia. These were famous for their silver and copper and one of them, Neusohl, provided the Fugger’s with a virtual monopoly in copper after Matthias was dead. But as we have heard in the epsiodes about Nurnberg, in the 15th century the Hungarians never saw the true benefit of their copper. The copper seams in Slovakia were heavily mixed with silver, but it was the Nurnberger smelters who had the technique to extract the silver from the copper ore, making them immensely rich, whilst the king of Hungary and the local mining operators saw only a fraction of the value.

Sorting of Coppr ore in Neusohl
Engraving from De re metallica di Georg Agricola, Basilea, 1556

Now what? There is a reason we associate the appearance of standing armies with the establishment of modern states. General taxation was the only way such forces could be built, equipped and maintained. And the ability to set and collect general taxes required a large and  powerful bureaucracy, the kind of bureaucracy normally assocoiated with a modern state.

Matthias stablished a bureacracy across Hungary, though it is doubtful it had the same breadth and depth as a modern state. The true reason his people were prepared to pay his general tax of 1 gold florin for each household, was his army. These soldiers were not just permanently under arms, but they were also utterly loyal to the king. In particular in the beginning, the vast majority of them weren’t Hungarins, but Bohemians, Germans, Croats and Poles. They didn’t have any links to the peasants and minor nobles who they made to pay. Faced with a professional army even the great Hungarian magnates coughed up their due.

The Black Army and the line of fortresses along the border turned Matthias’ Hungary into a major European power, a power that could defend itself and the lands behind it against an Otttoman invasion. But it wasn’t powerful enough to take the offense to sultan Mehmet’s 60,000 cavalry and 10,000 Janissaries. Which explains Matthias’ rather lacklustre attempts to join the crusades the popes kept calling for. In fact he only pursued one major campaign, in 1464 in Bosnia where he recaptured an important fortress. But that was as far as it went.

When his ally, Vlad III, Voivode of Vallachia stood up against the Ottoman sultan and raided across Ottoman Bulgaria, Matthias not only left him hanging out to dry, but took him prisoner. We know Vlad III by his epithet Vlad the Impaler, or even better by his other nckname, Dracula, the little dragon. I am not going to discuss the contested question whether or not he was indeed a monster who had 10s of thousands of men, women and children, even babies impaled. What matters here is that Matthias used these stories to paint Vlad as a psychpath, which justified his decision to not support his crusade, to lock him up and thereby appease the Sultan.

Portrait of Vlad III (c. 1560), reputedly a copy of an original made during his lifetime

Which gets us to the third leg of his power, a tremendous public relations machine. Matthias had enjoyed a very thorough education. His tutor was Janos Vitez, one of the early Humanists in Hungary. Vitez had studied in Vienna and had risen to prominece in the service of emperor Sigismund. In 1445 he became the bishop of Oradea where he built one of the earliest Renaissance palaces in central Europe. That palace held a great library that contained the latest editions of the Latin and Greek classics, to be perused by his circle of Humanist friends, many of them Italians, but also Germans, Poles and obviously locals. He sponsored many young Hunagrians to study in Italy, including his nephew, Janos Pannonius, who became the best known Hungarian writer of this period.

Portrait of Janos Vitez, Plautus-kódex, Ferrara, c.1465. (Bécs, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 111.

Matthias, who had grown up in this environment was naturally drawn to the new ideas about architecture and culture that came over from Italy. It is again important to understand that Hungary at the time had access to the Adriatic and connections to Italy were close and well established. After all, the dynasty that ruled Hungary before Sigismund had been the Anjou of Naples. It is therefore not at all surprising that Italian Humanists, architects and artists were attracted by offers from Hungarian courts.

But there was also a political dimension to these cultural exchanges that Matthias sought to benefit from. Let’s take a look at who was in charge of the major Italian states in 1460/1470. Florence was ruled by the Medici, a family of bankers, Venice by an oligarchy of traders, Mantua, Bologna, Rimini, Perugia by local strongmen who had risen as condottiere, and then most of Northern Italy was under the control of Francesco Sforza, the greatest mercenary captain of his age. Very few of these were held by ancient aristocratic families, and even those like for instance Naples were held by rulers of dubious legality.

And one way in which these commoners justified their rule was through art and architecture. Brunelleschi’s cupola of the duomo in Florence was not just an engineering marvel, it was also a symbol of the effectiveness of the Medici rule. Leonardo’s last supper was not just a masterpiece, but also a sign that the Sforza were ruling with god’s blessing. But the biggest propaganda value lay in the references back to the ancient Romans. The great Roman consuls and emperors, Scipio, Marius, Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Marcus, Aurelius, Constantine did not inherit absolute power but had earned it, whilst those who just inherited power, the Caligulas, Neros, Commodus and Heligobalus squandered it.

Interior of Teatro Olimpico (Vicenza)

By going back to the ancients, these strongmen could justify their rule, claiming their merit superseded the herditary rights of the Visconti or the Anjou. So when the Malatesta of Rimini comissioned Lean Battista Alberti to turn the old gothic cathedral into a mausoleum for his family in the style of a roman temple, it wasn’t a fashion statement, but a political one.

Art and Architecture was one component of this large public relations effort to legitimise the power of these nouveau riches, the other was science, knowledge, literature, and also libraries. The great Italian princes competed hard over who had the most dazzling court of intellectuals and the largest and best library in the land. Cosimo de Medici and his grandson Lorenzo were avid collectors, bringing together a thousand or so manuscripts covering both religious and secular topics, now in Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library. Frederico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino and quintessential Renaissance prince had a similar number of books, most of them in Latin, but also 168 were in Greek, 82 in Hebrew and even 2 in Arabic.

Laurentian Library: Vestibule

And that is where Matthias, a new man like all of these, superseded them all. In the magnificent renaissance palace his Italian architects erected for him in Buda, his library comprised roughly 3,000 volumes, three times as many as the Medici and almost as many as the largest library in Christendom, the Vatican library. To amass such a number of books was at a minimum a huge logistical challenge. Travelling from Florence, where the best booksellers of the age operated, to Buda could easily take months. The roads were not always safe and these books were not only incredibly valuable, but also easy to conceal and sell, a bit like 19th century imperial jewellery.  Some of these books Matthias took from other Hungarian libraries whose owners had either passed away or fallen into disgrace. Others he had produced in the workshop he established in his palace at Buda, but the majority he ordered from Italy.

Castle of Buda in the 15th century

Hardly anything that Matthias built or collected survived the vagaries of time. His palaces in Buda and Visegrad have been entirely destroyed, so that just one of the many fountains that once adored his gardens survived. Of his famed library only 200 books can still be attributed.

Visegrad palace in the time of Matthias Corvinus

But as a political tool it did work. He had placed the library right behind the throne room. Foreign dignitaries and local magnates could see the rows and rows of books behind the king, making clear that his power wasn’t just built on brawn but also brain.

And whilst the Italian princes competed over books, painters and writers amngst each other, Matthias’ message had another, wider audience. In the 15th century most of Europe saw the Hungarians as fierce, but rustic and uneducated warriors. Meanwhile despite what the Greek refugees in Italy said about the Turks, thoe who travelled there knew that Constantinople had benefitted enormously from being again the capital of a huge empire. Wonderous new mosques and palaces were comissioned, old trade routes that had been disrupted reopened and Venetian and Genoese merchants resumed their activities. Italian artists like Gentile Bellini came to paint the sultan and Mehmet II’s library could easily rival thos eof teh Italian princes.

Hence Matthias needed to show Hungary not just as a military, but also as a cultural bulwark of Western Europe. His library, his buildings and the humanists at his court were there as the intellectual force that held back the alleged barbarism of the Turks.

We know him today as Matthias Corvinus, after his heraldic symbol, the raven, corvus in Latin. In the 15th century the raven was not yet a symbol of darkness and witchcraft. It appeared in Genesis when Noah sent a raven to find out whether the waters have receded, ravens fed the prophet Elias during a drought, and in Luke 12,24 it says: „Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them”. Ravens were birds sent by God for a specific purpose, and hence most suitable for a king tasked with the defence of Christendom.

Raven of Matthias Corvinus, carrying a golden ring

Some Italian humanists then concocted the idea that the Hunyadis were descendant of Marcus Valerius Corvus, a roman senator elected consul six times and dictator twice. Matthias never formally endorsed the theory, but also did not deny it, again adding to the reasons he was the rightful ruler of Hungary.

Not just Hungary. As we already mentioned, Matthias Corvinus did not use his great army and broad support at home and abroad to regain lost territory from the Ottomans. In fact, he largely left the Ottomans alone after 1464.

Instead, he turned his gaze north, to Bohemia and Austria. It was these lands he used his army to conquer. First, he went for Bohemia, the kingdom of his erstwhile father in law, Georg of Podiebrad. By now pope Paul II had revoked the Compacta and Georg of Podiebrad had been excommunicated and declared a heretic. This gave Matthias the justification he needed. As the shield of Christendom, he was not only tasked with defence against the Muslims, but also with eradicating heresies. Or so he claimed. In 1471 he had succeeded in a manner of speaking. Georg of Podiebrad had given up the hope of creating a dynasty and had made Kasimir IV of Poland the heir to the kingdom of Bohemia, and he had given up the outer territories of Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia and Lusatia to Matthias.

After this success, Matthias turned on Austria and on Friedrich III. This war, that lasted until his death in 1490 could not be justified as a crusade against a heretic or a war against the Turks.

If there was to be a justification for his ambition, it went as follows. The Ottoman armies are far stronger than those of Hungary alone, even his Black Army. If Europe was to be defended successfully, all of the forces of central Europe, Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, the Holy Roman Empire and Poland have to act in unison. And guess how one can ensure that these diverse places act in unison…

Now, you ask, what has that to do with the Habsburgs?

States and empires stick together for a reason, often these reasons are cultural or linguistic. But sometimes they are not, sometimes they are driven by a shared belief in institutions – like in Switzerland – sometime they are a function of geography, like Britain, and sometimes they are a function of geopolitical circumstances.

If one wonders why three so culturally different nations like the Hungarians, the Czechs and the Austrians, plus a large number of others stuck together from the 15th to the early 20th century, it wasn’t just the iron will of the Habsburg dynasty. As we have seen at the top of the episode, the Habsburgs could have easily disappeared from history in 1462. If they had disappeared, I am fairly convinced that a multinational state in central europe would have emerged anyway, be it under the Hunyadis or the Jagiellons or someone else. Because only a combination of these forces and support from Poland and the Empire was strong enough to halt the Ottoman progress.

Habsburgs versus Ottomans – map

This objective was what gave legitimacy to the state and the campaigns of Matthias Corvinus and will give justification for the existence of the Habsburg empire. And the Habsburgs adopted some of the other elements of Matthias Hunyadi’s concept; the Landsknechte were the Maximilan’s version of the Black Army, general taxation, which in turn required the bureaucracy of a modern, absolutist state were introduced in the hereditary lands and in the empire. The sponsorship of art, architecture and literature as a counterpoint to the alleged barbarity of the Ottomans embellished Vienna. And last but definitely not least, the ferocious persecution of anyone who wasn’t Catholic became a key Habsburg feature.

That is not to say the Habsburgs slavishly copied Matthias Hunyadi. Friedrich III was no fan of the renaissance and his architectural taste remained rooted in the Gothic style; his right to rule was not based merit, but on his unshakeable belief that his family was divinely ordained . His son Maximilian was the first Habsburg to be a true Renaissance prince, but he left neither much architecture nor did he create a library. But he understood the importance of public relations in a way no emperor had before, using painting, engraving and the printing press to achieve what the Biblioteca Corvina did for Matthias.

But that is for next week when we will take a look at how Friedrich III responded to the emergence of the Black Army and the great Corvinian Library on his doorstep and how he finally, finally got out of his apathy, and went off to talk first marriage and and then war with Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, getting a ball rolling that will drop into the net that we call the Habsburg empire.

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Henry III, Tyrant or consolidator of power?

In 1046 Henry III reached the zenith of his rule. He deposed three unworthy popes and replaced them with serious churchmen who will bring the necessary reforms about. Domestically he is in control of the three Eastern European lands, Poland, Bohemia and Hungary and the restless Lotharingians seem settled.
How did it come about that by 1056 the chronicler writes that “both the foremost men and the lesser men of the kingdom began more and more to murmur against the emperor. They complained he had long since departed from his original conduct of justice, peace, piety, fear of god and manifold virtues in which he ought to have made progress”
Find out in Episode 29 of the History of the Germans Podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts or here: https://history-of-the-germans.captivate.fm/listen

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans – Episode 29 The last years of Henry III.

Last episode we left Henry III at the height of his power.  He had deposed 3 popes and put a new set of popes in place who responded to the great desire of Christendom, the reform of the church. The popes would fight the corruption of simony, the licentiousness of priests and the renew discipline in monasteries. In 1046 Henry III was not just master of the spiritual world, he also believed he had absolute dominion over his realm.

Oh Henry, cherish the moment, because this is not to last.

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We already heard that the Saxons were chafing under the rule of a Southern overlord. Henry’s policy of expanding the crown domain into Saxony and his support to the bishops of Hildesheim, Halberstadt and most of all Hamburg-Bremen irritated the dukes of Saxony and its major nobles. In 1046 Margrave Ekkehard of Meissen, one of Saxony’s wealthiest and most powerful magnates died childless. When he bestowed all his possessions to Henry III, the Saxons saw the encroachment tightening further.

At the same time the Slavs to the east of the duchy resumed hostilities. The defending nobles did not receive any support from the emperor, and even the bishoprics in Saxony failed to contribute to the defence of the realm. In 1056 a major Saxon army was defeated near the mouth of the Havel River, a defeat blamed on the absent emperor and his hostile policy towards the ancient heartland of the empire. Miraculously Saxony does not rebel yet.

That is something that cannot be said about the recently subjugated Hungarians. In 1044 Henry III had fought the successful battle of Ménfő and put king Peter Orseolo back on the throne. This improbable king of the Hungarian whose father had been the doge of Venice had stubbornly continued the policies that had already lost him the throne once. As before he relied of foreigners to govern the kingdom, mainly Germans and Italians who received all the plum jobs, rich heiresses and splendid fiefs. Last time the enraged Hungarians took only his crown and sceptre and sent him on his merry way. This time round they hoped to accelerate the learning process by taking his eyesight. It remains unclear whether the treatment worked since king Peter either passed shortly afterwards or ended his days in relative obscurity in Bohemia.

The new king of Hungary was Andreas, son of Vazul who was so brutally executed by Saint Stephen. Despite all possible grudges Andreas might have had against the emperor he did sent envoys with humble entreaties, offered subjugation to imperial rule and restitution for the treatment of Peter. Admittedly Andreas had not many options since a pagan uprising was still raging across Hungary and he needed calm frontiers to sort that out.

Henry III was given the choice between accepting Andreas as his new unruly vassal or fighting to avenge the feckless Peter. He chose, not to choose, which is probably the worst of all available options. Admittedly he was distracted by events in Lothringia we will talk about in a second. Doing nothing was particularly bad because it allowed Andreas to sort out his domestic issues without ending up in an obligation to the emperor. And when Henry III finally got round to attacking Hungary Andreas had built a string of border defences and renewed his army.

Between 1050 and 1053 Henry attacked Hungary every year without much success. Sometimes his troops are being lured deep into the Great Hungarian Plain until the supply lines become overstretched making the starved soldiers on their emaciated steeds an easy prey for the fearsome horse archers. On other occasions the Hungarians held out in their re-enforced defensive structures like the castle of Pressburg/Bratislava until the emperor had to turn back home. Counterattacks into Bavaria followed that will become costly as you will see later.

In between these military campaigns the Hungarians would regularly offer peace and submission provided the emperor accepts Andreas as king. Even pope Leo IX intervenes on Andreas’ behalf. But Henry III remains stubborn.

The inability of Henry III to bring the Hungarians to heel affects the whole of his eastern European policy. The Polish duke Kasimir, who -after all- owes his throne to Henry III is contemplating rebellion, aka refusal to pay tribute. Equally the new duke of Bohemia links up with Hungary in 1055. Andreas marries the daughter of Jaroslav, Grand Prince of Kiev who had created a veritable network of allies surrounding Henry III. Jaroslav had married one of his daughters to the king of Norway and another to the king of France after Henry III had refused that self-same daughter.

Henry III’s Eastern European policy has not yet collapsed but is under severe threat.

What stopped Henry III to go  immediately after King Andreas of Hungary was another, ultimately unnecessary fight. You remember that in 1046, just before going down to Rome, Henry III had released Godfrey the Bearded from his jailcell and re-instated him as duke of Upper Lothringia.

While in Rome, Henry issued another one of his peace proclamations where he forgave all his enemies and in turn expected everyone else to forgive those who had trespassed against them. Godfrey the bearded was explicitly excluded from this act of mercy, a terrible affront that is hard to explain given Henry III had just received Godfrey back into his grace.

Despite this rudeness Godfrey still towed the line and remained a faithful servant. That only changed when the Dietrich, count of Holland continued his attempts to expand his territory at the expense of the empire and the bishop of Utrecht. Rumours were going around that the King of France had offered Dietrich support. Henry’s attempt to bring Dietrich to heel fell short as he struggled with the waterlogged conditions. On his return the locals were chasing the imperial troops with small ships like pirates killing many.

Seeing the mighty emperor flailing about, Godfrey saw a way to restore his honour. He joined Dietrich of Holland who had gathered another set of magnates in his quest, Baldwin, the count of Flanders and Hermann, count of Hainault. Now pretty much all of the Netherlands, Belgium plus what is today Lorraine are in open revolt. They devastate the imperial Pfalz in Nijmegen, one of the great residences inherited from Carolingian times where Theophano died and Henry III had got married in 1036. Godfrey burns the  city of Verdun to the ground and many imperial castles fell to the conspirators. This is now a serious threat to the Imperial rule.

What does Henry III do? He raises a previously unknown count, Adalbert of Longwy to be the new duke of upper Lothringia. That does not last long since Godfrey killed Adalbert in an ambush within a year. Henry III now appoints his brother, Gerard of Chatenois to be the new duke. Just as an aside, his family would rule Lorraine until the 18th century and with Francis I marriage to Maria Theresia become the ancestors of the Habsburgs in the male line. Not bad for a second rate count. But apart from this great optionality the count of Chatenois gets very little in terms of help from the emperor.

The picture turned in Henry’s favour after 1049, first because the bishops of Utrecht, Liege and Metz gang up on Dietrich of Holland and lure him into trap where he gets killed. Godfrey tries to take over Holland after Dietrich’s demise but get expelled by the bishops. These three bishops are clearly not to be messed with. The other military support came when henry could mobilise Danish and English ships against the count of Flanders whose expansion had raised concerns with the other states along the North Sea coast.

The final blow came when Henry III took advantage of having a pet pope in the form of Leo IX. He excommunicated both Baldwin of Flanders and Godfrey the Bearded. Godfrey succumbed and surrendered to the imperial mercy in Aachen in 1049. Baldwin of Flanders held out a bit longer but finally had to give up and sign a peace agreement with Henry III.

This may all look like a great outcome for Henry III. But by breaking the ducal authority in Lothringia he also created a political vacuum. As it happened the empire was either unwilling or unable to step into this vacuum which ultimately led to a fragmentation of power in Lothringia that weakened the realm’s western frontier. 

It did not take long for the problem to materialise, not even 12 months to be precise. The ink on the agreement between Baldwin of Flanders and the empire was barely dry when the cunning count concocted his next move. He married his son and heir to the heiress of the county of Hainault, or Hennegau in German. This brought Flanders a major dominion inside the Empire, to which Hainault belonged. Under feudal law the marriage would have required Henry III’s consent. Marrying without it was a breach of the law. So war returns. In 1053 the Baldwin and his son mount an aggressive attack into imperial territory, burning down the lands of the bishop of Liege. Henry III retaliated in 1054 with a large army but failed to dislodge the enemy from Hennegau.

The situation is so dire that Henry III calls Godfrey the Bearded back. Not that he makes him duke again, but he gets some of his lands back. He even gets a role in the war against Baldwin of Flanders. This gradual reconciliation may have been brought about by pope Leo IX. Leo IX had been bishop of Toul and had been close to the family of Godfrey the Bearded. Godfrey’s brother, Frederick was Leo IX’s chancellor.

But that improvement to the relationship did not last. For once it was not Henry III’s behaviour that led to the breakdown, but Godfrey himself. In 1054 he married Beatrix, widow of the count Boniface of Canossa and Tuscany.

Boniface was the most powerful secular lord in Northern Italy. He was a creature of the imperial rule in Italy through and through. His family owed its rise from obscurity to Empress Adelheid who awarded them with Mantua and other counties in the 960s and Konrad II had awarded Boniface the mighty county of Tuscany in 1027. His relationship with the imperial house was further strengthened when he married Beatrix, a wealthy niece of Konrad II. His lands comprised a band of cities and fortresses going east to west across Italy including Mantua, Parma, Reggio, Modena, Pisa, Lucca, Florence, Brescia and Verona. Imperial rule in Italy was simply unimaginable without Boniface’ support. Boniface stopped French ambitions on the Italian crown after Henry II’s death and fought Odo of Blois for Konrad II

The relationship between Boniface and Henry III must have become fraught after the two men met in Florence in 1046. By 1047 when Boniface opposed the emperor and supported a futile attempt by the ex-pope Boniface IX to return to Rome. When Boniface died in a hunting accident/ambush in 1052, rumours spread that Henry III had his hand in the game. There were other people who held a grudge against Boniface who had conquered and burned many a city in Italy, so the rumour is likely unfounded. After all, it might have been the angry boar.

But do you notice something here? A lot of Henry III’s problems after 1046 stem from his stubbornness. Why did he insist on fighting king Andreas of Hungary who was constantly trying to become his vassal? What is it Godfrey the bearded had done to be excluded from the indulgence of 1046? And now he is clearly falling out with his most powerful vassal in Italy. Historians have two explanations. One is that henry III had a notion of imperial dignity that did not allow the slightest compromise or challenge to his rule. Hence King Peter, incompetent as he was, needed to be avenged, Godfrey and Boniface were simply too powerful to be tolerated. The other theory is that the change in behaviour came about after his illness in 1045. During that illness the magnates feared for the emperor’s life and -since he had no son at the time – lined up a Count Palatinate as his successor, just in case. It seems something in this period had changed Henry’s personality and outlook that contributed to the tensions with his magnates.

No bonus points for guessing Henry’s reaction when he realises his archenemy Godfrey has just got hold of a big chunk of Northern Italy by marrying the widow of Boniface.  Imagine Godfrey teams up with the Normans who had just won the battle of Civitate. Suddenly Godfrey would be the master of Rome and hence of the Papacy.

Godfrey tried to assure Henry of his unwavering loyalty, but there was nothing going. Henry mobilised all his supporters in Italy to oust Godfrey, which they managed even before the year 1054 was out. In 1055 when Henry came down to Rome for a second time, he had the dowager countess Beatrix and her daughter Matilda arrested and sent to Germany. Frederick, the heir to the lands of Boniface died around that time under mysterious circumstances, making Matilda the heiress to one of the largest territorial lordships in Southern Europe. That makes her the Matilda of Tuscany, who will play such an important role in our narrative going forward.

You would think that with Saxony grumbling, Hungary resisting, Lothringia in perennial revolt and a key ally in Northern Italy lost, this would be the full compliment of later rule issues for an emperor.

But no. You may remember that two episodes ago I said we would get back to the awarding of the Southern duchies to major magnates. Now is the time.

Henry III started his reign being Duke of Bavaria, Swabia and Carinthia as well as king of Burgundy. By 1050 all these duchies have been granted to other magnates, the only title he keeps is King of Burgundy. According to Egon Boshof the political logic was that the empire needed these mid-layers between the counts and lords on the one hand and the emperor on the other to function. Since Henry the Fowler only one duchy has ever been dissolved, Franconia after the rebellion against Otto the Great. But that did not last since the Salians established a power-base within the old duchy of Franconia that effectively replaced it. Given the fact duchies are necessary, Henry III decided to hand them to magnates whose main possessions lay outside the duchy. That way the new duke would be dependent upon the emperor. Or so he thought.

By 1052 the duke of Bavaria is Konrad, member of the powerful Ezzonian family. The Ezzonians’ main territories lay along the Rhine north of Cologne. By now they were no longer nouveau riche but highest nobility, tracing their line back to Otto the Great. Konrad of Bavaria like his predecessors, had been appointed directly by the emperor without regard to ancient Bavarian traditions that allowed for an election of their duke. All that should have made sure he had little support amongst the Bavarian nobility.

What happens next is a bit unclear. Some sources talk about a personal clash between Konrad and Henry over a marriage proposal. And there is also the question of what to do with regards to Hungary. Bavaria was the main battlefield of the Hungarian war which caused a lot of damage. It seems Konrad could not quite see the point of perennial, un-winnable conflict for the sake of revenge for an inept and now long dead former king. On this point he clashed with the Gebhard, bishop of Regensburg who took a hard line. The feud between Gebhard and Konrad escalated into full on revolt by the duke, who found support amongst the Bavarian nobles tired of having their lands raided.

Henry III deposes Konrad who flees to Hungary. He then awards the duchy successively to his 2-year-old son Henry, then Henry’s little brother and finally his wife, Agnes of Poitou. When Gebhard of Regensburg did not get the regency over Bavaria, he joined the rebels as well, as did duke Welf of Carinthia. This is now a major, major problem. The conspirators are putting plans together to have Henry murdered and Konrad to be made king. This plan would have had a good chance of succeeding given the issues in Saxony and Lothringia and the fact that henry III’s heir was a child of 4 or five at the time.

Luckily for Henry the rebellion collapsed when the main instigators, Konrad of Bavaria and Welf of Carinthia died in 1055. Gebhard of Regensburg is put in jail but returns to his bishopric after a year. Another conspirator ends up as duke of Carinthia in 1056.

This highlights the big difference between the way the emperors managed their realm and the way the French kings go about it. No French king in the 11th to 13th century would ever, in his wildest dreams, hand over a vacant duchy or county to another magnate, unless forced. Because the French nobles are constantly at war with the king, the logic for the king is to grab hold of any plot of land he can get his hands on and build an infrastructure that allows him to administrate this land without having to enfeoff it to someone else. When Phillippe Auguste in the 13th century rebuilds the French monarchy, he takes over Normandy and the County of Toulouse amongst others and incorporates them into the crown lands.

Compared to France, the empire is largely at peace. The prevailing ideology is that the empire is run through a consensus between the emperor and his major vassals who give him support in war and advice in peacetime. Yes, the emperors did try to build a territorial structure in the crown lands of Saxony around Goslar and in Franconia around Speyer. But that is small fry compared with whole duchies they often held in their hands. They did not create a bureaucracy that could manage a whole duchy directly on their behalf. It seems that ducal positions had to be granted to members of the highest nobility to maintain that semblance of consensual rule. The emperors increasingly relied on the church to provide administration, military support and a counterbalance to the dukes..

Talking about the church, Henry III even managed to weaken that pillar of his realm. The first incidence involved the bishop of Cambrai. The bishop’s lands had been subject to raids by the rebels in the endless Lothringian wars. One of his particular scourges was his neighbour, John of Arras. At some point in the fighting Henry III needed the support of John of Arras. He offered John the role of count of Cambrai if he would switch sides. Henry may well have thought that the bishop of Cambrai would accept this tactical decision. But he did not. Henry, caught between his promise to John and his obligation to the loyal bishop took the wrong decision. He forced the bishop to accept John using force. That caused no end of concern amongst the bishops of Lothringia who had been the main combatant on the imperial side. Equally bishop Wazo of Liege found himself exposed to imperial displeasure when he signed a truce with Godfrey the Bearded after a long siege and the emperor had failed to send relief.

These may be minor issues caused by a lack of understanding of the political situation in Lower Lothringia. But there is a broader context that causes the churchmen to question their position. We have no data on how severe the imperial demands for military assistance from the bishops and abbots were in 1050. If already by 982 the majority of imperial troops had been raised by bishops and abbots, it is likely that after a further 70 years of Imperial Church policy the army was predominantly provided by the church. We did hear about the abbot of Fulda’s complaint to send even more soldiers  after the previous contingent had been all but wiped out.

Polemic against the burden of military service on the churches is circulating and at a Synod in Rheims, presided over by pope Leo IX the bishops reiterate the ancient ban on military service for the clergy.

Equally churchmen begin to question the level of involvement of the emperor in the management of the church. Wazo of Liege wonders in 1046 on what grounds Henry III can remove the correctly ordained archbishop of Ravenna? And equally, is it really the emperor’s job to depose three popes in Sutri before appointing another? Aren’t the spiritual and the secular realm separate, one ruled by the pope and the other by the emperor. Wazo, who is otherwise a staunchly loyal supporter of the emperor even questions the anointment of the king. It is, he argues, not the same as the anointment of a bishop, whose aim is to give life, whilst the kings anointment gives him the right to condemn people to death.

Anonymous treatises start to circulate which condemn Henry III for his uncanonical marriage to Agnes of Poitou who was too closely related. This incestuous marriage makes him an infamus, a man without honour, who cannot even sit in judgement over laymen, let alone judge clerics or even popes.

When the abbot Halinard is elevated to archbishop of Lyon in 1046, he refuses to swear the customary oath of fealty. Halinard argues that his obligation is to first and foremost to god and the diocese, so swearing fealty would be perjury. Henry III had to accept Halinard’s refusal and invests him without oath.

The fact that the marriage to Agnes of Poitou was uncanonical is a recurring issue in the relationship with the church and undermines Henry’s position as leader of the church reform. The abbot of the important reform monastery of Gorze publicly and private criticised the marriage and the whole atmosphere at court and Henry’s choice of advisers.

And even in Rome Pope Leo IX was disappointed in the lacklustre support he received for his plans to fight the Normans. Henry III offered a small number of troops and allowed ambitious men to follow the papal flag, which attracted rogues and adventurers rather than proper fighting men who ran for cover at Civitate.

Towards the end of his reign Hermann of Reichenau, our most reliable chronicler writes: quote “At this time both the foremost men and the lesser men of the kingdom began more and more to murmur against the emperor. They complained he had long since departed from his original conduct of justice, peace, piety, fear of god and manifold virtues in which he ought to have made progress from day to day; that he was gradually turning towards acquisitiveness and a certain negligence and that he would become much worse than he was before”.

Henry III died on October 5th at his palace in Bodfeld in the Harz mountains aged just 39. He leaves behind his eldest son, Henry IV who is just 6 years old when his father succumbs.

Henry III had tried for a son for a very long time. His first wife Gunhild only provided him with a daughter and Agnes of Poitou bore him three daughters before the long-desired son arrived on November 11th, 1050 in Goslar. Henry III must have already known that he had not much time left. He made his nobles swear fealty to the newborn and again at his christening a year later. In July 1054 the now 4-year old was anointed and crowned by the archbishop of Cologne in Aachen, making him king alongside his father after having been elected in Tribur 1053.

All this looks smooth, though the election of henry IV had an unusual quirk. The nobles elected him and swore to serve him for as long as he reigned as a “just king”. In other words, they reserved the right to refuse suit in case young Henry IV does not turn out a good king who respects the rights of the nobility.

Well, we will find out in the next few episodes whether Henry IV is going to live up to these standards, whether the foremost and the lower men of the kingdom will give him suit as the just king when it is most crucial.

But before we go there, I have something special for you. As you know the History of the Germans Podcast has no advertising and I have no intention to go down that route in the future. However, what I am happy to do is help promote other podcasters whose work I respect and admire. Hence next week you will find Episode 1 of the Thugs and Miracle podcast by Benjamin Bernier in your feed. Benjamin is an exceptional storyteller who has taken it upon himself to bring you the story of France from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Guillotine. In his more than 50 episodes to date he brings the ancient kingdom of the Franks to life. As you may know, I am not a huge fan of the so-called dark ages and have skipped over them somewhat casually. Listening to Benjamin I am wondering whether that was such a good idea. There are some truly fabulous stories there I missed. But only because I missed out does not mean you have to miss out. So listen in to Thugs and Miracles next week. I will be back on air on September 9th. See you then

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On this day, August 10, 955 the Magyars (=Hungarians) are comprehensively defeated by Otto the Great (936-972). The defeat brings Otto the imperial crown of Charlemagne and domination of Western Europe. It ends the annual Hungarian raids and ushers in a period of Christianisation of the East as gradually Hungary, Bohemia and Poland join the catholic faith.

The devastation of the civil war of 954 lures in the largest Hungarian army anyone had ever seen anywhere. Enticed by the disinherited sons of former Bavarian dukes, the mighty host makes for Augsburg, a city whose walls are as weak as their defender is steadfast. This time they are here to conquer not just to plunder. Otto has to run hell for leather south gathering an army from wherever he can get his hands on to face the most amazing military of the times on a battlefield of their choosing.

That means apart from his personal bodyguard of Saxons, Otto’s army consisted of 3 contingents of Bavarians under Otto’s brother Henry, 2 contingents of Swabians, led by their new duke Burchard, 1 contingent of Franconians led by, surprise, surprise, Konrad the Red and, even more surprising a large contingent of Bohemians, led by our old fratricidal friend Boleslaus. Given Otto’s army was made up of in total 8 contingents, one of which consisted of allegedly “1,000” Bohemians, it gives us a high estimate of 8’000 men, though it is likely that the number was considerably lower. If we work of the assumption that total Magyar population in Hungary was 60,000 of which 20,000 were fighters, and they would not have sent all of them suggests a high estimate of 10,000 Hungarians. They may have had camp followers and slaves along to operate the siege engines, which suggests the overall army may have been larger. In any event, the Hungarians outnumbered Ottos troops by a margin.

Practically everything that I will say about how the battle unfolded is heavily debated, given that we have only 2 sources close to events and another three written many years later and all five give different accounts. There are also Hungarian chronicles written hundreds of years later.

The battle begins two days earlier on August 8th, with the siege of the city of Augsburg. The city nearly fell on their first attempt when they pressed on the eastern gate in large numbers. However, armoured knights stationed in Augsburg scored a success when they killed one of the Hungarian leaders. Shaken by this loss, the Hungarians retreated. With the Hungarians back in their camp, the citizens of Augsburg worked through the night strengthening their weak defences, building palisades and digging trenches.

On the morning of the 9th the Hungarians come back, now fully equipped with ladders and siege engines. I guess moral in the city was severely dampened when they saw the great host arriving.

But no major attack takes place. What had happened? One of the last surviving members of the rebellious former Bavarian ducal family had come to the Hungarian camp and told them that Otto’s army had arrived. The Hungarians sat down for a war council and decided that if they beat the field army first, the city would fall immediately thereafter – so no need to continue the siege. In the afternoon the Hungarian army moved off onto the Lechfeld, a large floodplain of flat gravel near Augsburg to offer battle. The terrain suited them and their fighting style plus they had won a battle there before in 910. Their horses could move rapidly over the full range of the plain. Otto had no choice but to accept the battlefield. If he had tried to lure them into a more suitable terrain for his army, the Hungarians would have simply ridden away and evaded battle.

Next morning, the 10th of August 955, the feast day of Saint Lawrence, Otto took his troops down to the Lechfeld. He had lined up his eight detachments as follows. The first three battlegroups of Bavarians were in the front. Then came Konrad the Red’s Franconians, followed by Otto himself with his bodyguard. Then the 2 divisions of Swabians and finally the Bohemians with the baggage train. During the march down he kept his troops within the cover of a wooden area to avoid being pelted by Hungarian arrows.

Whilst Otto’s soldiers snuck through the bushes to avoid being shot at, they did not see that the Hungarians had gone behind his army and attacked the rear guard. That was very successful. The Hungarians captured the baggage train, dispersed the Bohemians and caused heavy damage to the two Swabian columns that had marched just ahead of the train. But once they had captured the baggage, their discipline broke down. That allowed Konrad the Red to bring down his Franconians, fall on the plundering Hungarians, beat them back and free their prisoners. When Konrad and the Swabians re-joined the army, it nevertheless became clear that the Hungarians had inflicted major damage with three out of his 8 columns seriously weakened. Otto then addressed his troops. He said: “As we all know they fight almost without any armour and, what is our greatest relief, without the help of the lord. Their only shield is their bravery, whilst we can hope for the protection of the lord. We, as masters of all Europe, would have to be ashamed were we to surrender now. We rather want to die in glory than being beaten by our enemies, taken away in servitude or even be strung up like feral animals” Basically he says – we have the better armour, we have the help of the lord and guys, if you do not get yourself in gear, we will all be strung up like rabid dogs. That seems to have worked. Though the first item on the list was probably the most important. The fighting style of the Magyars was horse-based archery. The riders would attack and then feign retreat. With their fast horses they would create a gap over the pursuers until they are at perfect shooting distance for their composite bows.

The maximum impact was achieved by shooting volleys of arrows into the sky that would come down on the attackers like hail. The ideal distance to achieve that was somewhere between 200 and 500 metres. Had the enemy come closer the Hungarians had to shift to individual point-blank shots, which were less efficient and if the enemy got even closer it was down to hand to hand combat.

Henry the Fowler had proven that an army of heavy armoured riders could break a Hungarian force. The way to do that is to get through the death zone of 200 to 500m from the Hungarian lines without getting killed and crash into the lightly armoured horsemen at full tilt. Once amongst them, the knights with their strong armour and huge swords could easily slaughter the lightly armoured Hungarians.

And that is likely what happened at the Lechfeld. The Hungarians feigned retreat, but Otto’s highly trained personal troops and the battle-hardened Bavarians pushed through the death zone at speed, crashing into the Hungarian lines. There might have also been a flank attack by the armoured riders who were defending Augsburg. These knights had left the city the night before to join up with Otto but had not found him in the dark. When they saw Otto’s troops attacking the Hungarians dead ahead, they joined the melee from the sides causing more chaos in the Hungarian lines.

There are other theories, one of which is that after the raid on the train, the remaining Bohemians crossed the river Lech and attacked the Hungarian camp. The Hungarians than raced to the ford at Augsburg to protect their plunder. When they got stuck on the river crossing, Otto and the Bohemians fell on them from both sides. In later Hungarian chronicles the defeat is blamed on sudden rainfall. German chroniclers mention excessive heat so that there may have been a summer thunderstorm later in the day. What makes the difference between the battle on the Lechfeld and the battle of Ried in 933 is that this time the Hungarians did not escape. At Ried, the Hungarians could just turn their horses around and run back to Hungary. This time their route had been blocked. Bridges were either taken down or well defended and fords guarded. After the battle, the Hungarians split up into smaller groups which were picked off one by one, probably mostly by the Bohemian troops of Boleslav, though the Saxon chroniclers prefer to credit the Bavarians. Most were captured and their leaders were hanged. That ended the Magyar threat for good.

The victorious army hails Otto the Great as emperor on the field of battle like the Romans of antiquity have done. The actual coronation will take place 7 years later in Rome. This and what happens next is in Episode 6 of the History of the Germans Podcast available on this website as well as on Apple Podcasts, SPotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.

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The relationship between Hungary and the Empire had soured over the last years of the long reign of King (Saint) Stephen (997-1038) of Hungary. Claims for the duchy of Bavaria and a harsh policy towards Venice increased tensions. Under pressure of emperor Konrad II (1024-1039) the Venetian Doge Otto Orseolo had to flee to his brother-in-law, the king of Hungary.

In 1028 Bavarian incursions escalated into all-out war that the Hungarians did quite well at. Fighting was suspended after a peace agreement in 1031. Things calmed down after the death of Saint Stephen’s son Imre (Emmerich).

Saint Stephen was unwilling to name his closest relative Vazul as his heir due to the latter’s pagan leanings. The unexpected result was that he named his nephew, Peter Orseolo, the son of the Doge of Venice as his successor. Vazul was understandably unhappy. According to legend he was silenced by having molten lead pored into his ears – a sort of discount version of the execution of Crassus (or Viserys Targaryan).

Peter resented the Salian family including the new emperor Henry III (1039-1056) since they had driven his father into exile. As soon as Peter had taken over, he seized any opportunity to attack the empire. At the same time he tried to consolidate his power at home which got him deposed. Peter fled …amazingly…to the imperial court of Henry III.

Peter’s successor was another nephew of Stephen, Samuel Aba. Samuel Aba who had no particular beef with the empire was trying to agree some sort of lasting peace. However, negotiations failed, probably because Henry III insisted on full submission to his suzerainty and return of the lands Hungary had seized in 1031.

War was now inevitable. Samuel Aba attacked Bavaria and Austria in 1042. The army sent against Austria was destroyed by Margrave Adalbert whilst the army sent against Bavaria caused much damage. It took Henry until the autumn to raise troops and push the Hungarians back. Henry, or more likely his Margrave Adalbert sacked Bratislava, then a Hungarian fortress and took most of what is now Slovakia.

The two sides agreed a peace treaty in 1043 whereby Samuel Aba returned the lands seized in 1031.

But by 1044 the king of Hungary was back at it. Henry III mustered a comparatively small army and invaded. Samuel Aba whose army was much larger let Henry progress fairly deep into Hungarian territory, presumably hoping to cut Henry off from supplies and capture the king himself.

However, Henry mounted a surprise attack by his armoured riders having shipped his army across the river Raab. The large Hungarian army turned to flight or surrendered right there and then. King Peter was reinstated as king and Samuel Aba was captured and killed shortly afterwards.

With this battle of Ménfő Henry III had achieved a clean sweep of the eastern frontier. The rulers of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary are now all vassals of the empire. This completes his father’s policy that started with breaking the empire of Bolelsav the Brave.

Savour the moment, because only 2 years later king Peter is deposed again and presumably killed. His successor, Andrew, a son of Vazul who had been so cruelly killed by the saintly King Stephen will take over.

He and his successors will no longer make the mistake of letting an imperial army loose inside their kingdom. Despite all their internal squabbles the Hungarians will strengthen and man their border defences making all subsequent attempts to invade futile.

The story continues next Thursday with Episode 27 of the History of the Germans Podcast. I hope you are going to tune in, either on my website historyofthegermans.com or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other provider of fine audio entertainment.