Transylvania was conquered and colonized with — besides Székely people — German Saxons in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In 1241-42 the Mongols reduced Hungary's towns and villages to ashes and slaughtered half the population. Béla IV of Hungary repopulated the country with a wave of immigrants, transforming royal castles into towns and populating them with Germans, Italians, and Jews. Hungarian kings were keen to settle Germans in the country's uninhabited territories.