The Carpathian Basin in the Carolingian age and in the period of the Hungarian Conquest by Gergely Katalin, Ritoók Ágnes / Guide to the Archaeological exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum / Paperback 2014

Paperback 2014

ISBN: 9786155209208  /  978-6155209208

ISBN-10: 6155209200

PAGES: 36

PUBLISHER: Hungarian National Museum

LANGUAGE: English

English Description:

In the autumn of 791, the monastic writer of the Imperial Yearbook notes that King Charles (747-814) was gathering Frankish, Alemannic, Saxon, Frisian, Thiiringen, Bavarian, and Slavic warriors at his camp in Regensburg “because of the great and intolerable crimes committed by the Avars against the Holy Church and the Christian people.” However, the army which marches in two columns along the banks of the Danube is forced to turn back, without significant military success, in the region of the mouth of the Raba, when nine tenths of its horse stock perishes.

The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, also Hungarian conquest or Hungarian land-taking (Hungarian: honfoglalás: "conquest of the homeland"), was a series of historical events ending with the settlement of the Hungarians in Central Europe at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Before the arrival of the Hungarians, three early medieval powers, the First Bulgarian Empire, East Francia and Moravia, had fought each other for control of the Carpathian Basin. They occasionally hired Hungarian horsemen as soldiers. Therefore, the Hungarians who dwelt on the Pontic steppes east of the Carpathians were familiar with their future homeland when their "land-taking" started.

The Hungarian conquest started in the context of a "late or 'small' migration of peoples". Contemporary sources attest that the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Mountains following a joint attack in 894 or 895 by the Pechenegs and Bulgarians against them. They first took control over the lowlands east of the river Danube and attacked and occupied Pannonia (the region to the west of the river) in 900. They exploited internal conflicts in Moravia and annihilated this state sometime between 902 and 906.

The Hungarians strengthened their control over the Carpathian Basin by defeating a Bavarian army in a battle fought at Brezalauspurc on 4 July 907. They launched a series of plundering raids between 899 and 955 and also targeted the Byzantine Empire between 943 and 971. However, they gradually settled in the Basin and established a Christian monarchy, the Kingdom of Hungary, around 1000.