page_title: Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin
section_title: Consolidation (902–907)
hierarchical_section_title: Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin / The Hungarian conquest / Consolidation (902–907)
caption_attribution_description: English: Kostolec hillfort in Ducové, Slovakia, detail
context_page_description: The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, also Hungarian conquest or Hungarian land-taking, was a series of historical events ending with the settlement of the Hungarians in Central Europe at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Before the arrival of the Hungarians, three early medieval powers, the First Bulgarian Empire, East Francia and Moravia, had fought each other for control of the Carpathian Basin. They occasionally hired Hungarian horsemen as soldiers. Therefore, the Hungarians who dwelt on the Pontic steppes east of the Carpathians were familiar with their future homeland when their "land-taking" started.
  The Hungarian conquest started in the context of a "late or 'small' migration of peoples". Contemporary sources attest that the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Mountains following a joint attack in 894 or 895 by the Pechenegs and Bulgarians against them. They first took control over the lowlands east of the river Danube and attacked and occupied Pannonia in 900. They exploited internal conflicts in Moravia and annihilated this state sometime between 902 and 906.
context_section_description: The date when Moravia ceased to exist is uncertain, because there is no clear evidence either on the "existence of Moravia as a state" after 902 (Spinei) or on its fall. A short note in the Annales Alamannici refers to a "war with the Hungarians in Moravia" in 902, during which the "land (patria) succumbed", but this text is ambiguous. Alternatively, the so-called Raffelstetten Customs Regulations mentions the "markets of the Moravians" around 905. The Life of Saint Naum relates that the Hungarians occupied Moravia, adding that the Moravians who "were not captured by the Hungarians, ran to the Bulgars". Constantine Porphyrogenitus also connects the fall of Moravia to its occupation by the Hungarians. The destruction of the early medieval urban centers and fortresses at Szepestamásfalva (Spišské Tomášovce), Dévény and other places in modern Slovakia is dated to the period around 900.
  After the death of (...) [Svatopluk I, his sons] remained at peace for a year and then strife and rebellion fell upon them and they made a civil war against one another and the [Hungarians] came and utterly ruined them and possessed their country, in which even now [the Hungarians] live. And those of the folk who were left were scattered and fled for refuge to the adjacent nations, to the Bulgarians and [Hungarians] and Croats and to the rest of the nations.
  — Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio
  According to Anonymous, who does not write of Moravia, the Hungarians invaded the region of Nyitra (Nitra, Slovakia) and defeated and killed Zobor, the local Czech ruler, on Mount Zobor near his seat. Thereafter, as Anonymous continues, the Hungarians first occupied Pannonia from the "Romans" and next battled with Glad and his army composed of Bulgarians, Romanians and Pechenegs from Banat. Glad ceded few towns from his duchy. Finally, Anonymous writes of a treaty between the Hungarians and Menumorut, stipulating that the local ruler's daughter was to be given in marriage to Árpád's son, Zolta. Macartney argues that Anonymous's narration of both Menumorut and of Glad is basically a transcription of a much later report of the early 11th-century Achtum, Glad's alleged descendant. In contrast, for instance, Madgearu maintains that Galad, Kladova, Gladeš and other place names recorded in Banat in the 14th century and 16th century attest to the memory of a local ruler named Glad.
  [The Hungarians] reached the region of Bega and stayed there for two weeks while they conquered all the inhabitants of that land from the Mures to the Timis River and they received their sons as hostages. Then, moving the army on, they came to the Timis River and encamped beside the ford of Foeni and when they sought to cross the Timis's flow, there came to oppose them Glad, (...) the prince of that country, with a great army of horsemen and foot soldiers, supported by Cumans, Bulgarians and Vlachs. (...) God with His grace went before the Hungarians, He gave them a great victory and their enemies fell before them as bundles of hay before reapers. In that battle two dukes of the Cumans and three kneses of the Bulgarians were slain and Glad, their duke escaped in flight but all his army, melting like wax before flame, was destroyed at the point of the sword. (...) Prince Glad, having fled, as we said above, for fear of the Hungarians, entered the castle of Kovin. (...) [He] sent to seek peace with [the Hungarians] and of his own will delivered up the castle with diverse gifts.
  — Anonymous: Gesta Hungarorum
  An important event following the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, the Bavarians' murder of Kurszán, was recorded by the longer version of the Annals of Saint Gall, the Annales Alamannici and the Annals of Einsiedeln. The first places the event in 902, while the others date it to 904. The three chronicles unanimously state that the Bavarians invited the Hungarian leader to a dinner on the pretext of negotiating a peace treaty and treacherously assassinated him. Kristó and other Hungarian historians argue that the dual leadership over the Hungarians ended with Ku
caption: Ruins of the Moravian fortress at Ducové (Slovakia)
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