page_title: Hungary
section_title: Age of Árpádian kings
hierarchical_section_title: Hungary / History / Medieval Hungary 895–1526 / Age of Árpádian kings
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: A Szent Korona elölről. Summary Description Magyar: A Szent Korona elölről. A korona homlokoldalán a Pantokrátor Krisztus képe helyezkedik el, amely alatt a korona peremén jobbra és balra Mihály és Gábriel arkangyalok, majd György és Demeter, valamint Kozma és Damián mártírok képmásai találhatók. English: The Holy Crown of Hungary, front view Date30 January 2006Sourcehu:Fájl:SzentKorona elol.jpgAuthorhu:Szerkesztő:Tolfavi (a kép szerzője; feltöltő a magyar nyelvű Wikipédiában) Magyar: A Szent Korona elölről. A korona homlokoldalán a Pantokrátor Krisztus képe helyezkedik el, amely alatt a korona peremén jobbra és balra Mihály és Gábriel arkangyalok, majd György és Demeter, valamint Kozma és Damián mártírok képmásai találhatók. English: The Holy Crown of Hungary, front view
context_page_description: Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres in the Carpathian Basin, it borders Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken Uralic language in the world, and among the few non-Indo-European languages to be widely spoken in Europe. Hungary's capital and largest city is Budapest; other major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs, and Győr.
  The territory of present Hungary was for centuries inhabited by a succession of peoples, including Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, Huns, West Slavs and the Avars. The foundations of the Hungarian state were established in the late ninth century AD by the Hungarian grand prince Árpád following the conquest of the Carpathian Basin. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000, converting his realm to a Christian kingdom.
context_section_description: The year 972 marked the date when the ruling prince (Hungarian: fejedelem) Géza of the Árpád dynasty officially started to integrate Hungary into the Christian Western Europe. His first-born son, Saint Stephen I, became the first King of Hungary after defeating his pagan uncle Koppány, who also claimed the throne. Under Stephen, Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom. Applying to Pope Sylvester II, Stephen received the insignia of royalty (including probably a part of the Holy Crown of Hungary, currently kept in the Hungarian Parliament) from the papacy.
  By 1006, Stephen consolidated his power, and started sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a Western feudal state. The country switched to using the Latin language, and until as late as 1844, Latin remained the official language of Hungary. Around this time, Hungary began to become a powerful kingdom. Ladislaus I extended Hungary's frontier in Transylvania and invaded Croatia in 1091. The Croatian campaign culminated in the Battle of Gvozd Mountain in 1097 and a personal union of Croatia and Hungary in 1102, ruled by Coloman i.e. Könyves Kálmán.
  The most powerful and wealthiest king of the Árpád dynasty was Béla III, who disposed of the equivalent of 23 tonnes of pure silver a year. This exceeded the income of the French king (estimated at 17 tonnes) and was double the receipts of the English Crown.
  Andrew II issued the Diploma Andreanum which secured the special privileges of the Transylvanian Saxons and is considered the first Autonomy law in the world. He led the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217, setting up the largest royal army in the history of Crusades. His Golden Bull of 1222 was the first constitution in Continental Europe. The lesser nobles also began to present Andrew with grievances, a practice that evolved into the institution of the parliament (parlamentum publicum).
  In 1241–1242, the kingdom received a major blow with the Mongol (Tatar) invasion. Up to half of Hungary's then population of 2,000,000 were victims of the invasion. King Béla IV let Cumans and Jassic people into the country, who were fleeing the Mongols. Over the centuries, they were fully assimilated into the Hungarian population.
  As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications, to defend against a possible second Mongol invasion. The Mongols returned to Hungary in 1285, but the newly built stone-castle systems and new tactics (using a higher proportion of heavily armed knights) stopped them. The invading Mongol force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV of Hungary. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force.
caption: The Holy Crown (Szent Korona), one of the key symbols of Hungary
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2014:06:04 13:00:46", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5143", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1750"}