Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
through the country, attacked the city from every direction. By January 1242 Pest and
Óbuda had been burned to the ground and some 100,000 people killed. The Árpád line died
out in 1301 with the death of Andrew III, who left no heir.
THE CROWN OF ST STEPHEN
Legend has it that a bishop called Asztrik presented a crown to Stephen as a gift from
Pope Sylvester II around AD 1000. In fact, the two-part crown, with its characteristic
bent cross, pendants hanging on either side and enamelled plaques of the Apostles,
dates from the 12th century. It is the very symbol of the Hungarian nation and is on
display in the Parliament. After WWII American forces in Europe transferred the crown
to Fort Knox in Kentucky for safekeeping; it was returned in 1978 to the nation's great
relief. Because legal judgments in Hungary had always been handed down 'in the
name of St Stephen's Crown', it was considered a living symbol and had thus been
'kidnapped'.
In 1046 a Venice-born bishop named Gerard (Gellért), who had been brought to Hungary
by King Stephen himself, was hurled to his death from a Buda hilltop in a spiked barrel by
pagan Magyars resisting conversion. Gellért Hill now bears the bishop's name.
Medieval Budapest
The struggle for the Hungarian throne after the fall of the House of Árpád involved several
European dynasties, with the crown first going to Charles Robert (Károly Róbert) of the
French House of Anjou in 1307.
In the following century an alliance between Poland and Hungary gave the former the
Hungarian crown. When Vladislav I (Úlászló), son of the Polish Jagiellonian king, was
killed fighting the Ottoman Turks at Varna (in today's Bulgaria) in 1444, János Hunyadi, a
Transylvanian general, was made regent. His decisive victory over the Turks at Belgrade
(Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) in 1456 checked the Ottoman advance into Hungary for 70
years and assured the coronation of his son Matthias (Mátyás), the greatest ruler of medieval
Hungary.
Through his daring military exploits Matthias (r 1458-90), nicknamed 'the Raven'
(Corvinus) from his coat of arms, made Hungary one of central Europe's leading powers.
Under his rule Buda enjoyed a golden age and for the first time became the true focus of the
nation. His wife, Queen Beatrix, the daughter of the king of Naples, brought artisans from
