page_title: Stephen V of Hungary
section_title: Conflicts and civil war (1260–1270)
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen V of Hungary / Junior king / Conflicts and civil war (1260–1270)
caption_attribution_description: English: Baba Vida is a medieval fortress in Vidin in northwestern Bulgaria and the town's primary landmark. It consists of two fundamental walls and four towers and is said to be the only entirely preserved medieval castle in the country.
context_page_description: Stephen V was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1270 and 1272, and Duke of Styria from 1258 to 1260. He was the oldest son of King Béla IV and Maria Laskarina. King Béla had his son crowned king at the age of six and appointed him Duke of Slavonia. Still a child, Stephen married Elizabeth, a daughter of a chieftain of the Cumans whom his father settled in the Great Hungarian Plain.
  King Béla appointed Stephen Duke of Transylvania in 1257 and Duke of Styria in 1258. The local noblemen in Styria, which had been annexed four years before, opposed his rule. Assisted by King Ottokar II of Bohemia, they rebelled and expelled Stephen's troops from most parts of Styria. After Ottokar II routed the united army of Stephen and his father in the Battle of Kressenbrunn on 12 July 1260, Stephen left Styria and returned to Transylvania.
  Stephen forced his father to cede all the lands of the Kingdom of Hungary to the east of the Danube to him and adopted the title of junior king in 1262. In two years, a civil war broke out between father and son, because Stephen accused Béla of planning to disinherit him. They concluded a peace treaty in 1266, but confidence was never restored between them.
context_section_description: Stephen returned to Transylvania and started to rule it for the second time after 20 August 1260. He and his father jointly invaded Bulgaria and seized Vidin in 1261. His father returned to Hungary, but Stephen continued the campaign alone. He laid siege to Lom on the Danube and advanced as far as Tirnovo in pursuit of Tsar Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria. However, the Tsar succeeded in avoiding any clashes with the invaders and Stephen withdrew his troops from Bulgaria by the end of the year.
  Stephen's relationship with Béla IV deteriorated in the early 1260s. Stephen's charters reveal his fear of being disinherited and expelled by his father. He also accused some unnamed barons of inciting the old monarch against him. On the other hand, Stephen's charters prove that he made land grants in Bihar, Szatmár, Ugocsa, and other counties which were situated outside Transylvania.
  Archbishops Philip of Esztergom and Smaragd of Kalocsa undertook to mediate after some clashes occurred between the two kings' partisans in the autumn. According to the Peace of Pressburg, which was concluded around 25 November, Béla IV and his son divided the country and Stephen received the lands to the east of the Danube. When confirming the treaty on 5 December, Stephen also promised that he would not invade Slavonia which had been granted to his younger brother, Béla, by their father. On this occasion, Stephen styled himself "Junior King, Duke of Transylvania and Lord of the Cumans".
  A Bulgarian nobleman, Despot Jacob Svetoslav sought assistance from Stephen after his domains, which were situated in the regions south of Vidin, were overrun by Byzantine troops in the second half of 1263. Stephen sent reinforcements under the command of Ladislaus II Kán, Voivode of Transylvania to Bulgaria. The Voivode routed the Byzantines and drove them out of Bulgaria. Stephen granted Vidin to Jacob Svetoslav who accepted his suzerainty.
  The reconciliation of Stephen and his father was only temporary. Stephen confiscated the domains of his mother and sister, Anna—including Beszterce (present-day Bistrița, Romania) and Füzér—which were located in the lands under his rule. Béla IV's army crossed the Danube under Anna's command after 1 August 1264. She besieged and took Sárospatak and seized Stephen's wife and children. Voivode Ladislaus Kán turned against Stephen and led an army, which consisted of Cuman warriors, to Transylvania. Stephen routed him at the fort of Déva (now Deva, Romania). King Béla's Judge royal, Lawrence arrived at the head of a new army and forced Stephen to retreat to Feketehalom (now Codlea, Romania). The Judge royal lay siege to the fortress, but Stephen's partisans relieved it. Stephen launched a counter-offensive and forced his father's army to retreat. He gained a decisive victory over his father's army in the Battle of Isaszeg in March 1265. The two archbishops mediated a new consolidation between father and son, which confirmed the 1262 division of the country. Béla and Stephen signed the peace treaty in the Convent of the Blessed Virgin on the Rabbits' Island (now Margaret Island in Budapest) on 23 March 1266.
  During the civil war in Hungary, Stephen's vassal, Despot Jacob Svetoslav submitted himself to Tsar Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria. In the summer of 1266, Stephen invaded Bulgaria, seized Vidin, Pleven and other forts and routed the Bulgarians in five battles. Jacob Svetoslav again accepted Stephen's suzerainty and was reinstalled in Vidin. From then on, Stephen used the title "King of Bulgaria" in his charters.
  Béla and Stephen together confirmed the liberties of the "royal servants", from then on known as noblemen, in 1267. A double marriage alliance between Stephen and King Charles I of Sicily—Stephen's son, Ladislaus married Charles's daughter, Elisabeth, and Charles's namesake son married Stephen's daughter, Mary—strengthened Stephen's international position in 1269. Confidence was never restored between Béla and Stephen. On his deathbed, the old King requested King Ottokar II of Bohemia to give shelter to his daughter Anna and h
caption: Baba Vida, the medieval fortress at Vidin in Bulgaria: Stephen captured it in 1261
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