and also encouraged the work of scholars
and manuscript copyists. The reign of
Louis’s son-in-law, Sigismund, turned out
badly for the kingdom, however.
Sigismund was opposed by many Hungar-
ian nobles, who were angered by the king’s
arbitrary cruelty, his heavy taxes, his costly
foreign wars, and his many absences from
the kingdom after he was elected as the
Holy Roman Emperor in 1410 and king of
Bohemia in 1419.
In the meantime, Hungary was threat-
ened from the east by the expansion of
the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks
had conquered Bulgaria and Serbia in the
late fourteenth century. Determined to
stop their advance, Sigismund led an army
against them and was routed at the Battle
of Nicopolis, barely escaping the field with
his life. The two kings who followed
Sigismund, Albrecht V and Vladislav III,
both died while campaigning in the Bal-
kans. The nobles then elected Laszlo V, an
infant, and selected Janos Hunyadi to rule
the kingdom as regent. A brilliant military
leader, Hunyadi defeated the Turks in Ser-
bia and in 1456 lifted the siege of Belgrade,
but soon died of the plague. Hunyadi’s
son, Matthias Corvinus, succeeded as the
king in 1458. Seeking the title of Holy Ro-
man Emperor, Matthias campaigned in
Bohemia and Austria, and proclaimed his
intention to forge a Christian alliance to
oppose the Turks.
Matthias was a capable and enlight-
ened ruler who reformed the old legal sys-
tem of Hungary and established one of
Europe’s finest libraries, known as the Cor-
vina, for which he hired a small army of
copyists and illuminators to create original
manuscripts. He promoted scholarship and
book publishing, and established
Hungary’s second university. Latin transla-
tions of Hungarian writings circulated, and
Latin remained an important language of
administration, law courts, and education.
Matthias hired an Italian architect, Chi-
menti de Leonardo Camicia, to rebuild the
royal palace of Buda.
The reign of Matthias represented a
brief golden age in Hungary’s turbulent
Renaissance history. His successor,
Vladislav II, was a Polish heir who was in-
capable of standing up to the demands of
the Hungarian nobles. Abolishing the taxes
opposed by the nobles, Vladislav also dis-
banded Hungary’s large mercenary army
as the Ottoman Empire was threatening.
His son Louis II succeeded to the throne
in 1516, at a time when the treasury was
empty and border defenses abandoned,
with the king unable to maintain fortresses
or pay his soldiers. At the Battle of Mo-
hacs in 1526 the Hungarians were defeated
by an Ottoman army and Louis himself
died after being thrown from his horse.
After several years of conflict over the suc-
cession, the Turks seized the capital of
Buda and occupied much of the kingdom.
Hungary’s political turmoil and mili-
tary conquest by the Turks limited the
spread of Renaissance art and ideas. The
library of the Corvina was closed, and its
books sent to his own capital by the Otto-
man sultan Suleiman. Many Hungarian
scholars fled the occupied provinces, while
others joined the courts of the Habsburg
dynasty, which under Ferdinand I came to
control the parts of Hungary free of Turk-
ish control. Hungarian writers began cre-
ating a new national literature in the ver-
nacular language, and translating the
works of ancient authors. Balint Balassi
was renowned for his poetry, and Faustus
Verantius, an author and inventor, created
a dictionary of eleven languages.SEEALSO: Corvinus, Matthias; Habsburg
dynasty; Ottoman EmpireHungary