János Hunyadi

Hungarian military leader

• Born: c. 1407
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: August 11, 1456
• Place of death: Zimony, Hungary (now Zemun, Serbia)

By organizing, financing, and leading Hungarian and Central European military forces, Hunyadi halted the Ottoman Empire’s advance at the Balkan Mountains, postponing for some seventy years the Turkish conquest of central Hungary.

Early Life

Popularly believed to be the son of Sigismund, king of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, János Hunyadi (JAHN-ohs HOON-yood-ee) was in fact the eldest child of Vojk, a noble of Walachian origin who had moved to Hungary around 1395 and then had married into a Hungarian noble family. Besides János, the marriage produced two sons, as well as at least one daughter. János’s father became a royal soldier and counselor, and in 1409 he received for his services an estate in Transylvania called Vajdahunyad from which the family took its name.

Little is known of Hunyadi’s youth, since few extant records of the period mention him. Nevertheless, since he was for the most part a resident at the court of Sigismund, he presumably received early military training. This is all the more likely since soldierly prowess was generously rewarded with sizable grants of land, which in turn meant wealth and power.

Said to have been a born soldier, Hunyadi cut an impressive figure. He was of medium height and had a thick neck, long chestnut-brown hair, a well-proportioned body, and large, penetrating eyes. He began his military career in the 1420’s under Pipo of Ozora. Around 1428 he married Erzsébet Szilágyi, herself a daughter of a noble family. Their marriage produced two sons, László and Mátyás, the latter destined to become perhaps Hungary’s most illustrious king as Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458-1490).

In 1430, Hunyadi entered the service of the king, accompanying Sigismund to Italy. There the young soldier served Fillippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan (1412-1447), for a time. In 1433, Hunyadi was reunited with Sigismund and accompanied him on many trips, including one to Bohemia in 1437. By then expertly trained in mercenary warfare, well acquainted with the most up-to-date Italian and Hussite military tactics and procedures, and experienced in the methods of the Turkish armies, Hunyadi dedicated himself to the struggle against the Ottomans.

Life’s Work

In the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was still dedicated to expansion and military conquest. This awesome momentum, created by economic need and religious fervor, had by Sigismund’s time already carried the Turks deep into the Balkan Peninsula. The Ottoman wave would soon sweep over Hungary, whose own southern frontier reached into the Balkans.

Unfortunately, the Hungarian distribution of land and wealth, favoring the aristocrats at the expense of the crown, did not seem a likely source for the centralized, unified effort that would be required to hold the great Turkish empire in check. Nevertheless, the single most powerful aristocrat in the country was a man both eminently qualified and highly motivated to stem the Ottoman advance: János Hunyadi.

According to the chronicler Thuróczy , Hunyadi’s military virtues were great; the account cites his strength and courage as a soldier as well as his strategical and tactical acumen. Though an accurate portrayal of him, Thuróczy’s account fails nevertheless to consider certain other necessary aspects of Hunyadi’s character. He was also a crafty politician who, though disliked by his fellow aristocrats, managed to create important if short-lived alliances with his peers. Moreover, able to count on neither the king, whose own landholdings had seriously dwindled, nor the barons, who were reluctant to dip into their vast resources, Hunyadi organized and financed his armies himself, drawing on the revenue of his approximately six million acres of property.

Under Albert II of Habsburg (r. 1438-1439), Sigismund’s son-in-law and successor, Hunyadi and his brother served as joint military governors of Szörény (Severin). Hunyadi continued as bán of Severin until 1446, protecting that area from the Ottoman menace. It was, from all accounts, these experiences that hastened his assimilation. To Hunyadi, himself an immigrant without a Magyar pedigree, the patria encompassed not merely the nobility but the people as a whole.

In 1440, a few months after Albert’s death, the Polish king Władysław III was elected king of Hungary by the diet. Władysław, who saw Hunyadi as the real leader against the Turks, put him in charge of the key fortress in Belgrade and of the southern border region as a whole. In 1441, he appointed Hunyadi both voivode of Transylvania and ispán of Temesvár (Timişoara), offices he would hold until 1446. Hunyadi organized and equipped an army composed mainly of Bohemian Hussite mercenaries, but he rounded it out with his own adherents, relatives, noble vassals, and even peasants. He enjoyed his first victory over the Ottomans in 1442, driving the invading army out of Transylvania. This was the first such defeat ever suffered by the Ottomans in Europe, and news of it quickly spread, reviving hopes that the Balkans would indeed be liberated from the Turkish yoke.

Doubting that a passive defense would be adequate to deal with the Turkish menace, Hunyadi decided to take the offensive. Pressing toward the heart of the Ottoman Empire, he led his forces to one victory after another, occupying as he went the towns of Nish and Sofia. Though his long march was stalled not long after, his victories persuaded Ottoman Sultan Murad II (r. 1421-1451) to negotiate for peace. Unfortunately, the treaty had no sooner been signed with the sultan’s emissaries in Szeged than, at the behest of the papal legate, Władysław broke his word and launched a new attack. The foreign support that had been promised failed to materialize, and Hunyadi’s forces were routed at Varna in 1444. The king fell in battle, while Hunyadi managed a narrow escape.

Although the diet of 1445 recognized the succession of Albert’s son László, Emperor Frederick III (r. 1440-1493), who had custody of the young Habsburg, refused to surrender him. The problem of the succession was given a temporary but happy solution the following year: Hunyadi was acclaimed the Hungarian regent, a result largely of the vigorous campaign of János Vitéz, bishop of Várad (Oradea).

It was not until 1448 that Hunyadi built up sufficient strength for a new offensive. Leading his army deep into the Balkans, he engaged the Turkish army at Kosovo. Betrayed, however, by the Serbian despot George Brankovich, Hunyadi was not only defeated but taken captive temporarily as well. In 1450, Hunyadi concluded an agreement with Frederick III that recognized the legitimacy of László. In 1453, the once-vacant throne now occupied, Hunyadi dutifully resigned as regent but was appointed by László his commander in chief and royal treasurer.

Unfortunately, the king fell under the influence of Austrian noble Ulrich II von Cilli, a longtime rival of Hunyadi. Cilli now became allied with several aristocrats against Hunyadi. In addition, Hunyadi’s old friend and ally János Vitéz, always a staunch foe of baronial power, put forward a plan for centralization that would have seriously weakened Hunyadi’s position. When the Hungarians learned that Constantinople had fallen (in 1453) and that Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481) was gathering his forces to attack Hungary, Vitéz’s plan was prudently withdrawn from consideration.

In 1456, the Ottomans besieged Belgrade, sending forth an army 100,000 strong. Neither the king, who fled the country, nor the barons came to the aid of Hunyadi’s hopelessly outnumbered army. Eventually, however, help came. Franciscan friar John of Capistrano (1386-1456), sent by the pope to organize a Crusade, managed to recruit into Hunyadi’s army some twenty thousand soldiers. On July 21, the city’s walls already penetrated, the Turks launched an all-out attack but were defeated and withdrew en masse.

Not for another seventy years would a major battle be fought between Hungarian and Ottoman forces. Hunyadi, who had saved Hungary from Turkish conquest, died of the plague not long thereafter.

Significance

Hungary in the fifteenth century was poised between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was also the meeting place of Western and Eastern Europe. Themselves the scourge of the West some five centuries earlier, the Hungarians, now Christian and in possession of one of the most powerful states in Europe, hoped to bar the way of the new terror of Europe, the Ottoman Turks. It was mainly through Hunyadi’s efforts that Hungary survived and Western Europe was spared the Turkish scourge. Yet and this cast a dark shadow over Hungary virtually all the border fortresses had fallen to the Turks.

When Hunyadi died, his first son, László, was killed by anti-Hunyadi conspirators, while his other son, Mátyás, was imprisoned. On King László’s unexpected death in 1457, however, the diet elected Mátyás king. Exploiting the peace created by his father, Mátyás, called Matthias Corvinus, inaugurated a glorious era for Hungary. Not only did it grow stronger both militarily and economically, but it became the center of Renaissance culture in East Central Europe as well. That this era would not last, indeed would pass into a century-and-a-half-long nightmare beginning with the Battle of Mohács in 1526, was the result at least in part of Mátyás’s almost total neglect of the slumbering, but by no means extinct, Ottoman threat.

Kings of Hungary, 1290-1490

Reign

• Ruler

1290-1301

• Andrew III (end of the Árpád line)

1301-1304

• Wenceslaus (Václav) II

1304-1308

• Otto I of Bavaria

1305-1306

• Wenceslaus (Václav) III

1306

• End of the Premlysid line

1306-1310

• Instability

1310-1342

• Károly (Charles Robert) I

1342-1382

• Lajos (Louis) I

1382-1395

• Maria

1387-1437

• Sigismund

1438-1439

• Albert II of Habsburg

1440-1444

• Ulaslo I (Władysław III, Poland)

1444-1457

• László V

1458-1490

• Matthias (Matyas) Corvinus

Bibliography

Bideleux, Robert, and Ian Jeffries. A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. New York: Routledge, 1998. Although no chapter deals solely with Hunyadi, this comprehensive work explores, among other topics, the history between the Ottomans and the Hungarians before, during, and after Hunyadi’s time. Maps, bibliography, index.

Held, Joseph. Hunyadi: Legend and Reality. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1985. A detailed work on Hunyadi’s life and leadership. Includes a bibliography, an index, a list of place names, maps, illustrations, and a brief note on primary sources.

Macartney, C. A. Hungary: A Short History. 1962. Reprint. Chicago: Aldine, 1968. An excellent overview of Hungarian history by an eminent British historian. Though it gives only a brief account of Hunyadi, it is stylishly written and includes an index, maps, photographs, tables, a comparative chronology, biographies, and a bibliography.

Muresanu, Camil. John Hunyadi: Defender of Christendom. Translated by Laura Treptow. Iaşi, Romania: Center for Romanian Studies, 2001. Considers Hunyadi as soldier and statesman. Although this work might be difficult to locate and obtain, it is one of only a few sources in English on Hunyadi. Bibliography, index.

Sinor, Denis. History of Hungary. 1959. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. A crossover effort, this entertaining treatment of Hungarian history was written by an Inner-Asian specialist and it includes an account of Hunyadi. Chronology of events, index.

Vámbéry, Armin. Hungary in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Times. 1886. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1972. In this still-useful survey, a full chapter is devoted to the career of Hunyadi. Illustrations, index.

Zarek, Otto. History of Hungary. Translated by Peter P. Wolkowsky. London: Selwyn and Blount, 1939. The sixth chapter of this work is mainly devoted to Hunyadi. Features an index, a map, and an aid to pronunciation.