page_title: Bulgarian–Hungarian wars
section_title: Conflicts in 10th century
hierarchical_section_title: Bulgarian–Hungarian wars / Conflicts in 10th century
caption_attribution_description: English: "Gesta Hungarorum", de Anonymous, ~1200 Magyar: Béla király Névtelen Jegyzője krónikájának első lapja A GESTA HUNGARORUM egyetlen kéziratos példánya, a tiroli Ambras várának gyűjteményéből került a bécsi udvari könyvtárba 1665-ben, a hol jelenleg is van. Ezen, elején és végén csonka kézirat, negyedrét alaku 24 levélből áll, gót betűkkel van irva és 57 fejezetben beszéli el a honfoglalás történetét. A krónika a legnagyobb valószínűség szerint III. Béla királyunk korában keletkezett és egyetlen példánya, egy, a XIII. század második felében irt másolatban maradt ránk. A mű szerzője, a ki magát a kézirat első soraiban "néhai jó emlékezetű Béla király" jegyzőjének mondja, ismeretlen. Legujabban Sebestyén Gyula, III. Bélának Adorján nevű jegyzőjét, későbbi erdélyi püspököt véli a mű irójának.
context_page_description: The Bulgarian–Hungarian wars were a series of conflicts that occurred during the 9th–14th centuries between the Bulgarian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The nearly 500-year conflict encompassed the northern and western Balkans, or what is known today as north-western Serbia, Romania and northern Bulgaria.
  The first clashes occurred in the late 9th century, in which the Hungarians were pushed west. Later, during the 10th century, the Hungarians overran the Bulgarian dukes in what is now Transylvania and conquered the eastern parts of the Pannonian Plain. Their raids against Bulgaria continued until the middle of the century when peace was restored. Both countries sustained friendly relations until 1003 when another war broke out, further diminishing Bulgarian power in Eastern Europe.
  In 1185, after the re-establishment of the Bulgarian Empire, both states fought numerous conflicts for control over the provinces of Belgrade, Branicevo, Vidin and Severin Banat.
context_section_description: With the emergence of the Árpád dynasty after Kurszán's death, a new clan ruled over the Hungarians. There is no indication of the time when the ruling gyulas transferred their headquarters and residence to the middle Maros valley. The gyula must have been in charge of eastern and southern affairs, for he directed the raids against Byzantium and Bulgaria in April 934 and April 943.
  The blows suffered at the hands of the Pechenegs and Bulgarians in 895–896 induced great caution in the Hungarians. Constantine Porphyrogenetos repeatedly noted that the Hungarians feared the Pechenegs, who were used by the Bulgarians to keep the Hungarians in check. When, early in the 10th century, Byzantine envoys urged the Hungarian leaders to attack the Pechenegs, their proposal was rejected on the grounds that it carried too many risks; in any case, the Hungarians had no intention of reoccupying the Etelköz, now held by the Pechenegs as far as the Danube delta. They tried to preserve peaceful relations with the Pechenegs so that they would be free to concentrate on more westerly targets. The Pechenegs, for their part, preferred to raid the richer lands of the Bulgarians and Byzantines rather than the poorer Carpathian Basin, which was in a state of some turmoil due to the Hungarian conquest. Thus the anti-Hungarian alliance of the Bulgarians and the Byzantine empire gradually fell apart, and the two old enemies, the Hungarians and the Pechenegs, pursued a rapprochement in the face of growing Bulgarian might.
  In 913, Simeon launched the first in a series of military campaigns by which he seized from the Byzantines most of the Balkan Peninsula; six years later, he exchanged his title of Great Khan for that of Czar. He was not a man to let the salt mines and gold deposits of southern Transylvania pass into Hungarian hands without a fight. In order to conquer the rest of Transylvania as well as the region between the Maros, Tisza, and Danube rivers ('Glad's domain according to Anonymus, but most likely under Bulgarian rule), the Hungarians would need to ally themselves with the Pechenegs against the Bulgarians. The painful consequences of the alliance of Bulgarians and Pechenegs in 895 were still fresh in the Hungarians' memory. As long as the Pechenegs remained hostile, the Hungarians would not dare to provoke Simeon by seizing his lands north of the Carpathians and the Danube.
  The opportunity came with the formation (ca. 932) of a Pecheneg–Hungarian alliance. It is possible that the gyula Bogát had acted earlier, but if not, he must have seized this chance to occupy southern Transylvania. In breaking the Bulgars' resistance, the Hungarians were helped not only by their Pecheneg allies but also by the internal struggle — exacerbated by Byzantine meddling — over the succession to Czar Simeon, who died in 927. This may have presented Bogát's successor, the gyula Zombor, with the opportunity to occupy the land lying between the Maros, Tisza, and Danube rivers.
  Having seized southern Transylvania from the Bulgarians, Bogát's warriors and their servants settled down in Slavic villages along the lower reaches of the Küküllő rivers.
  The region between the Mureș, Tisa, and Danube rivers must have come under the rule of a Hungarian gyula by 948, for that was when Emperor Constantine recorded that the Bulgarian cities Orșova, Belgrade, and Sirmium lay near Hungary's borders.
  It was a sign of the gyulas' enhanced power that they launched the first Hungarian campaigns against Byzantium, cutting through the weakening defenses of the Bulgarians. According to Byzantine chronicles, the first campaign occurred in 934; it ended in a peace treaty between Emperor Peter I of Bulgaria and the Hungarians. Another campaign, in 943, was terminated in similar fashion, and the Byzantines probably had to pay tribute.
  In 948, a sudden turn of events compelled Transylvania's gyula to adopt a policy divergent from that of the ruling prince who had dispatched his nephew, and the harka Bulcsú to Constantinople, to renew the peace treaty; the envoys attached so much importan
caption: The first page of Gesta Hungarorum – a medieval Hungarian manuscript which is one of the main sources for the Hungarian conquest. However, it mixes ascertainably correct facts, inaccuracies and information that cannot be confirmed from other sources. Some parts are considered by most modern authors as simply inventions (by the author or by his predecessors) to contradict Frankish and other chronicles.
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