Vladislav II

King of Bohemia (r. 1471-1516) and king of Hungary (r. 1490-1516)

• Born: March 1, 1456
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: March 13, 1516
• Place of death: Buda, Hungary (now Budapest, Hungary)

Vladislav II allowed the Hungarian nobility to undermine the monarchy, strengthen the nobility’s hold over their own serfs, weaken the armed forces, and exempt the nobility from military service. His reign combined the Hungarian and Bohemian national territories.

Early Life

The early life of Vladislav (VLAHJ-ihs-lahv) II was one of a future ruler preparing for his turn at the throne. His mother was a member of the Habsburg family, which made Vladislav a potential heir to the vast Habsburg lands throughout Europe. His father was Polish king Casimir IV. Vladislav was also a member of Poland’s ruling Jagiellonian Dynasty, and he sought to expand its influence throughout Eastern Europe.

The dynasty, however, would be continued not by Vladislav but rather by his three brothers, all of whom would reign over their Polish homeland. John I Albert was king from 1492 to 1501, Alexander ruled from 1501 to 1506, and Sigismund I the Old ruled from 1506 to 1548. Vladislav, though, would not rule his homeland. Instead, he would extend Jagiellonian control to central Europe, as he was chosen at the age of fifteen, after Bohemian king Jirí’s (George’s) death in 1471, to assume the monarchy of the neighboring state of Bohemia. The death of Jirí left a power vacuum in the Bohemian state. The nobility took control and held an assembly in Kutna Hora in May of that year. Vladislav was chosen by the Bohemian nobility to serve as a figurehead king who would allow Bohemia to regain the power it had lost during the reign of his predecessors.

Life’s Work

Vladislav remained docile as the nobility used two institutions, the royal council and the diet, to shift authority to the nobles. The royal council was an advisory body filled with the king’s handpicked advisers. Vladislav, however, allowed the nobility to pack it with their supporters, who in turn advised the young king to surrender his power. The nobility also seized control of the Bohemian legislature, with the king acting only as a rubber stamp to approve the fundamental changes to the government passed by the nobles.

Vladislav was also weak when it came to foreign affairs. Bohemia was being threatened by its Hungarian neighbor to the south. The Hungarian king Matthias I Corvinus was bent on conquering much of central Europe using his large army of mercenaries. Matthias attacked Bohemia in 1469 and for the next decade was successful at conquering many of the provinces surrounding Bohemia, including Silesia to the north and Moravia to the east.

Matthias’s death saved Bohemia from years of further war and likely defeat at the hands of the Hungarian army. Also, his death left a political vacuum in Hungary. Fearful of an activist king such as Matthias, who would challenge their authority, the nobles decided that Vladislav would be the type of monarch they could use to regain their authority. Vladislav obtained his name on ascending the Hungarian throne. His dual role as king of Bohemia and king of Hungary placed the much-valued province of Bohemia within Hungarian borders.

Vladislav proved to be the type of pliable ruler desired by the Hungarian nobility. He inherited a large, well-trained, and well-financed army of mercenaries from Matthias. Instead of continuing Matthias’s aggressive policies against his neighbors, however, Vladislav allowed the nobility to eliminate the army and the monarch’s ability to construct a new one.

The Hungarian legislature, or diet, had been weak under Matthias, who preferred ruling on his own. Vladislav, however, allowed the nobility to pass laws, and he signed them without much discussion. The new laws exempted the nobility from the taxes Matthias had used to build his army. In addition, the nobility was exempted from military service. Vladislav also signed a law eliminating much of the labor that the nobles’ serfs were required to perform for the monarch. Under Matthias, serfs would perform tasks for the monarch three days per week, but under Vladislav, serfs would be limited to working for the nobility.

Vladislav spent much of his reign grooming his son Louis to be his successor. In 1515, Vladislav met with the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I . The two leaders signed an agreement in which the Austrian king agreed that Vladislav’s son, Louis II, would succeed him as king. On Louis’s death, the Hungarian and Bohemian lands would become part of the Habsburg empire. This ensured that the Jagiellonian Dynasty would be extended beyond Vladislav’s reign.

While securing the future of his son, Vladislav allowed the Hungarian army to deteriorate, making the king vulnerable to internal and external enemies. One of those internal threats was the peasant revolt that Vladislav was forced to crush during the last years of his reign.

The changes in the legal status of serfs during Vladislav II’s reign ran counter to the economic and political changes sweeping Europe at that time. Hungary’s nobility asserted greater control over the serfs, removing some of the protections and freedoms offered by Matthias. Throughout Europe, feudalism had been disintegrating, as more people sought prosperity in the cities and towns. In Hungary, the nobility limited the movement of serfs, which limited the available workforce for urban areas and the new middle class. Hungarian laborers could not leave the land and work in the towns and cities.

The revolt began as a call for another crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Gathering angry, disaffected peasants and arming them for war was a miscalculation by the nobility. The religious crusade quickly transformed into a political revolt against the Hungarian nobles. Under the leadership of György Dózsa, the peasant army went on a rampage through Hungary, beginning in May of 1514. It targeted the very nobles who had kept them tied to the land. Vladislav, prompted by the horrified nobility, formed an army to quash the revolt. The turning point in the rebellion occurred when the peasant army attempted to storm the Castle Temasvár, where several nobles had dug in for defense. The nobles’ army attacked the peasants, defeated them, captured Dózsa, and executed him.

To prevent any further revolts, the diet rewrote the laws into a system known as the Tripartitum (1514). One of Hungary’s greatest judicial authorities, István Werboczi, composed a law code that prevented serfs from moving from estate to estate and that increased taxes and the overall burden on the common people. The code remained the basis of Hungarian law into the nineteenth century and maintained feudalism in Hungary longer than in any other country in western Europe. Vladislav II signed the Tripartitum, seemingly unaware that it had reduced even further the authority of the monarchy.

Vladislav was successful at continuing the Jagiellonian Dynasty, even if for a short time. On his death, the throne was taken by his son Louis. Louis’s reign, however, was shortened by the threat of the Ottoman Turks to the south and by the lack of an effective military. When the Ottomans attacked, Louis led the Hungarian army, and in the Battle of Mohács (1526), the Hungarians were crushed and Louis was killed.

Significance

Vladislav II’s reign in Bohemia and Hungary followed the reigns of powerful kings who had seized power from their countries’ nobility. In Bohemia, Vladislav was limited by the country’s religious divisions after the Hussite (Protestant) revolt, which began in the early fifteenth century, and the desire of the nobility to divert power from the king and give it to the newly forming cities.

In Hungary, the nobility imposed an even stricter feudal system on the country, exempting all nobles from taxes and military service. Vladislav agreed to these changes, tempering his rule in order to extend the Jagiellonian Dynasty to his son. The result of his passivity was a weakening of the Hungarian state, just as military pressure from the south in the forms of the Ottomans was beginning to build. Vladislav left Hungary in a state of unpreparedness that led to the demise of the kingdom and the death of his son.

Bibliography

Lendvai, Paul. The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. This work examines the key role played by Hungary in eastern Europe through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and into modern times. The book details the wars between the Hungarians and the Ottomans and the eventual combination of the Hungarian kingdom with the Habsburg empire.

Molnar, Miklos. A Concise History of Hungary. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. This book discusses the history of Hungary from medieval to modern times. It examines the various rulers of the independent Hungarian kingdom and how they handled their Ottoman and Austrian neighbors.

Sayer, Derek. The Coasts of Bohemia. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. The book looks at Bohemia as an independent kingdom and as a province within other empires. It discusses the political and religious turmoil that affected Bohemia after the Hussite rebellion and the kingdom’s wars with Hungary.

Teich, Mikulas, ed. Bohemia in History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. This detailed work describes Bohemia during its independence and the rulers and people of the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. The book focuses on the religious problems of the region, including the Hussite movement, and the monarchs who ruled over the region in central Europe.