Charles I of Hungary

Charles I of Hungary

Charles I of Hungary (Hungarian: Károly Róbert, Croatian: Karlo Robert or Karlo I, Romanian: Carol Robert de Anjou.) (Naples Italy 1288–Visegrád, Hungary July 16, 1342), also called Charles Robert, Carobert, Charles I Robert and Charles Robert I, was the king of Hungary from August 27, 1310. He was the grandson of King Charles II of Naples and Maria of Hungary, son of Charles Martel d'Anjou and Clemencia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph I.

Life

Known as Charles Robert prior to his enthronement as King of Hungary in 1309, Charles claimed the Hungarian crown as the great-grandson of King Stephen V of Hungary and under the banner of the Pope. Travelling in August 1300 from Naples to Dalmatia, he was crowned at Esztergom after the death in 1301 of the last Árpád king Andrew III of Hungary but was forced in the same year to surrender the crown to Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.

His failure only made Pope Boniface VIII still more zealous on his behalf, and support from his Hungarian adherents was observed at the Diet of Bratislava in 1304. In the meantime Wenceslaus transferred his rights to Duke Otto III of Bavaria in 1305, who in his turn was taken prisoner by the Hungarian rebels. He was enthroned at Buda on June 15, 1309. His installation was not regarded as valid until he was crowned at Székesfehérvár on August 27, 1310 with the sacred crown, which was at last recovered from the rebellious barons. For the next three years Charles had to contend with rebellion after rebellion, and it was only after his great victory in the Battle of Rozhanovce on June 15, 1312 that he was the real master of his own land.

Charles married three times. His first wife was Maria, daughter of Duke Casimir of Bytom, whom he married in 1306. She died in 1317. They had a daughter:

• Catherine (d. c. 1355), married in 1338 Henry II, Duke of Świdnica

On June 24, 1318, he married Beatrice, daughter of the Emperor Henry VII. Beatrice and her only child died at its birth on October 11, 1319.

On July 6, 1320 he married Elisabeth of Poland, daughter of king Wladyslaw I Lokietek of Poland. They had five sons:

• Charles (1321)
• Ladislaus (Belgrade, November 1, 1324–February 24, 1329)
• Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382)
• Andrew, Duke of Calabria (1327–1345)
• Stephen, Duke of Slavonia (1332–1354)

Charles died on July 16, 1342, and was laid beside the high altar at Székesfehérvár, the ancient burial place of the Árpáds.

Reign

Coats of Arms of Charles I of Anjou, King of Hungary

Charles restored order by absolute rule. The Diet was still summoned occasionally at very irregular intervals, but the real business of the state was transacted in the royal council. To impose limitations on the barons, the lesser gentry were protected against the tyranny of the magnates, encouraged to appear at court and taxed for military service by the royal treasury so as to draw them closer to the crown. The court was famous throughout Europe as a school of chivalry.

Charles also carried out numerous important political and economical reforms. He established the so called honour system. Instead of large donations faithful servants of the king were given an office (in Latin honour in old Hungarian becsü). Powerful officials of the kingdom like the count palatine were appointed count (Lat. comes, Hung. ispán) to several counties. They became the keeper of royal property (including castles) in their counties and the representative of the king. The barons administered these possessions by their own men (familiares, roughly: vassals). Honour ensured real power. While most of the aristocrats had only two or three castles (even the exceptionally powerful Lackfi family had only seven castles) the possession of a greater honour ensured power over ten or twenty castles. These offices were not given for eternity. The king could deprive the baron of his honour any time. Most powerful honours often rotated among the members of aristocracy.

Charles successfully curbed inflation, introducing new coins with a constantly high purity of gold. Florins minted in a newly established mint in Kremnica became soon the popular international means of payment thorough Europe. The reform of the currency and of the whole fiscal system greatly contributed to enrich both the merchant class and the treasury. Towns grew and crime reduced owing to Charles's fiscal care. He encouraged trade and imposed taxes to support his army, which he used to expand his territory, making Hungary into a major European power. His achievements were continued by his son King Louis the Great.

Charles's foreign policy largely stemmed from dynastic alliances. His most successful achievement was the mutual defense union with Poland against the Habsburgs and Bohemians, accomplished by the convention of Trenčín in 1335, confirmed the same year at the brilliant two-month congress of Visegrad. Not only did all the princes of central Europe compose their differences and enjoy splendid entertainment during the months of October and November: the immediate result of the congress was a combined attack by the Hungarians and Poles upon the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV and his ally the Habsburg Duke Albert II of Austria, which resulted in favour of Charles in 1337.

Charles's desire to unite the kingdoms of Hungary and Naples under his eldest son Louis was dashed by Venice and by the Pope, who both feared Hungary might become the dominant Adriatic power. Nevertheless he was more than compensated for this disappointment by his compact in 1339 with his ally and brother-in-law, Casimir III of Poland, whereby it was agreed that Louis should succeed to the Polish throne on the death of the childless Casimir. Finally his younger son, Andrew was promised the crown of Naples.

Deterioration of the southern frontier

The Árpád kings had succeeded in encircling their whole southern frontier with six military colonies or banates, comprising, roughly speaking, Little Wallachia (southern part of present-day Romania) and the northern parts of present-day Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia. Charles redistributed these territories and proselytized the residents of the region to consolidate his reign.

Although he managed to expand his kingdom, the adverse effect was converting most of the old banates into semi-independent and violently anti-Hungarian principalities. The predominant religion of the area was Greek-Orthodox, and forceful proselytization to Catholicism provoked rebellion. Natural dynastic competition with the Orthodox Serbian and Bulgarian tsars and the emergence of a new Wallachia also contributed to the upraising.

Prior to 1320, Western Wallachia (Oltenia) was regarded by the Hungarians as part of the banate of Szörény (Severin). When the Wallachian ruler, Basarab I showed signs of disobedience, Charles lead his army into Wallachia and defeated Basarab's poorly armed forces, but on his return November 9, 1330, the Hungarian amry got lost between the mountains. The Wallachians and Hungarians signed a peace treaty and Basarab vowed to show them out of the mountain pass, but in fact the Wallachians trapped the Hungarians in an ambush at Posada. In the Battle of Posada, King Charles barely escaped, by exchanging clothes with one of his knights. This incident marked the beginning of Wallachia as an independent voivodeship.

Posada Battle

Unknown to Charles, the Ottoman Turks had already secured Asia Minor under the sultans Osman I and Orhan I and planned to invade south-eastern Europe to consolidate their realm. The south-eastern European sovereignties were keener on securing their regimes than on co-ordinating their defences. Their diversity helped the Ottomans expand their dominion into the region.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Other names

• Croatian: Karlo Robert,
• Hungarian: I. Károly / Károly Róbert,
• Slovak: Karol Róbert,
• Romanian: Carol Robert
• Latin: Karolus / Carolus

External links

• His picture on the Hungarian 200 forint banknote
• Template:Fr Armorial of the House Anjou-Sicily
• Template:Fr House of Anjou-Sicily