242 Chapter 13
Roman Empire and Hungary was not. Both were elec-
tive monarchies whose powerful Diets or representative
assemblies were dominated by the landed aristocracy.
Rich mineral deposits provided a source of revenues
for both crowns. Once elected, a capable monarch
could use this wealth as the basis for administrative and
military reforms, but his achievements were unlikely to
survive him. By the late fifteenth century Diets custom-
arily demanded concessions as the price of election,
and as Diets were dominated by the great magnates,
their demands invariably tended to weaken the author-
ity of the crown and threaten the rights of common
people.
Bohemia, though wealthy and cultured, was con-
vulsed throughout the fifteenth century by the Hussite
wars and their aftermath. The Czechs, deeply resentful
of a powerful German minority, launched what was
probably the first national movement in European his-
tory. It was anti-German, anti-empire, and under the
leadership of Jan Hus, increasingly associated with de-
mands for religious reform. Hus was burned as a heretic
in 1415. After many years of civil war, the Czechs suc-
ceeded in placing the Hussite noble George of Pode-
brady (ruled 1458–71) on the throne. The king’s ability
and popularity were eventually seen as a threat to the
great Bohemian landholders. When he died, the Diet
elected Vladislav II (ruled 1471–1516), a member of
the Polish Jagiello dynasty, on the promise that he
would support their interests. Under Vladislav, the Bo-
hemian nobles gained virtual control over the state, ex-
pelled the towns from the Diet, and introduced
serfdom. The towns eventually achieved readmission,
but the Bohemian peasantry did not recover its freedom
until the eighteenth century.
The policies of Vladislav could only recommend
him to the Hungarian nobility. During the long and
brilliant reign of Matthias Corvinus (ruled 1458–90),
the crown acquired unprecedented authority and sup-
ported a court that was admired even in Renaissance
Italy. When Matthias died, the Hungarian Diet elected
the more controllable Vladislav to succeed him.
Vladislav and his son, Louis II, who was in turn elected
king of both Hungary and Bohemia, reversed the
achievements of Matthias and left the Diet free to pro-
mote repressive legislation. Driven to desperation, the
peasants rebelled in 1514 only to be soundly defeated.
After bloody reprisals, the Diet imposed “real and per-
petual servitude” on the entire Hungarian peasant class.
By this time Hungary was on the edge of an abyss.
The Turkish Empire, under the formidable Süleyman
the Magnificent (reigned 1520–66), was preparing an
invasion, and Louis was crippled by the aristocratic in-
dependence he had done so much to encourage.
Though king of Bohemia as well as Hungary, he was
unable to gain the support of the Bohemians. The Hun-
garians were divided not only by rivalries among the
leading clans, but also by an increasingly bitter feud be-
tween the magnates and the lesser nobility. Süleyman
had little difficulty in annihilating a weak, divided, and
badly led Hungarian army at Mohács in 1526. Louis,
along with many great nobles and churchmen, was
killed, and Hungary was partitioned into three sections.
The center of the country would thereafter be ruled di-
rectly by the Turks. In the east, Transylvania became a
Turkish client and tributary, while a narrow strip of ter-
ritory in the west fell under Hapsburg rule.
After their union in 1386, Poland and Lithuania oc-
cupied an immense territory stretching from the bor-
ders of Baltic Prussia to the Black Sea. In spite of its
ethnic and religious diversity and a substantial number
of prosperous towns, it was primarily a land of great es-
tates whose titled owners profited during this period
from a rapidly expanding grain trade with the west. At
the same time, the vast spaces of the north European
plain and the Ukrainian steppe preserved the impor-
tance of cavalry and with it the military dominance of
the knightly class.
The great magnates of both Poland and Lithuania
negotiated their union after the death of Casimir the
Great, and they continued to increase their power
throughout the fifteenth century. The Jagiello dynasty
survived mainly through capitulations. By 1500 Poland-
Lithuania could be described as two aristocratic com-
monwealths joined by a largely ceremonial monarchy,
not as a dynastic state. Serfdom was imposed in a series
of edicts passed by the Polish Sejmor parliament be-
tween 1492 and 1501, and the crown, already elective
in practice, became so in theory by 1572.
As in the case of Hungary, these aristocratic tri-
umphs unfolded in the growing shadow of a menace to
the east. Autocratic Russia, not the Polish-Lithuanian
commonwealth, was destined to become the dominant
power in eastern Europe, and by 1505 the borders of
Lithuania were already shrinking. The process of trans-
forming the grand duchy of Moscow into the Russian
Empire began in earnest during the reign of Ivan III
from 1462 to 1505. In the first thirteen years of his
reign, Ivan was able to annex most of the independent
Russian principalities and the city-states of Vyatka and
Novgorod. In 1480 he refused to pay tribute to the
Mongol khans and began to style himself “tsar of all
Russia.” Finally, in 1492, he invaded Lithuania and, in