preface
The period of King Matthias was Hungary's last attempt to build a centralized state, and despite such an opportunity, Hungary could not shake off the inertia generated by centuries of political history, and ultimately failed to avoid the fate of the country's failure to break up. The powerful aristocracy was an obstacle to the king's reforms and the main culprit in the fragmentation of Hungary.
Face the threat of a formidable enemy
Hungary has long faced threats from the Ottoman Empire. It was the first enemy Hungary had faced since the Mongol invasion that the gap between friend and foe was so large and terrifying.
Beginning in the 14th century, the Ottoman Empire gradually became a formidable enemy across Eurasia, and it was always much more advanced in state development than Hungary at the same time, and even compared to the European Winter Kingdom. Unlike Mongolia, the Ottoman Empire was not a predatory nomadic state. It has a well-established military system and various state systems including taxation, legal system (Islamic religious legal system), etc.
If the Mongols were nothing more than a barbaric bandit, the Ottoman Empire was much more than that. Its state system was so effective that Hungary's demise seemed preordained, and once it conquered Hungary, it would not and would never have left spontaneously after a plunder, as the Mongols did.
Instead, it would have taken root here and enslaved Hungary with great force. From this point of view, this enemy is more terrifying than the Mongolian Tartar Target. Because it coveted not only the wealth, gold and silver and female slaves in the Kingdom of Hungary, but what it wanted was permanent slavery here, making it a province of Istanbul. In fact, that's how history plays out.
The Ottoman Empire adopted military slavery, which allowed the country to escape the shadow of the hereditary aristocracy. Here, there was never a situation where local governance was monopolized by the family aristocracy, as in Hungary. State bureaucrats and officers were filled by slaves who were cut off from their families from an early age and taught to remain forever loyal to the ruler and the state.
This system originated in the Mamluk system in Egypt, Syria and other places, and the Ottoman Empire borrowed and transformed it. "Because of its high degree of detachment from blood politics, the state tends to be more bureaucratized in this sense. The impersonal selection system ensures that the recruitment of state personnel is detached from localization and familyization. The ruler was not subject to the constraints of the large landowners in every way like the Hungarian king.
The Sudan's ability to remove provincial governors at will is unthinkable and impossible in Hungary. As an agent of the central government, the irregular replacement of provincial governors ensures that it cannot derive its own power at the local level, thus preventing the original intention of the agent from deteriorating.
It is no accident that the Ottoman Empire existed for centuries and continued to threaten the countries of Central Europe. Effective local management and effective control of its agents by the central government were able to free the peasants at the bottom from the "banditry" plunder of the aristocracy.
The key is the huge state power brought about by the strength of the central power. The Ottoman Empire was more of a national cohesion than Hungary. Once the war broke out on the frontier, the Sultan was able to gather countless soldiers to fight for him. Needless to say, these knights received fiefs directly from the sultan to work for them. In Hungary, on the other hand, the local nobility was so closely linked to its people.
The origin of their power has always depended on their high status since ancient times and the love of the people at the bottom. Now it is almost impossible for them to fight for the king, or for the whole country.
The reason is that not only is it not good for you, but it is more likely to give your competitors an opportunity. In medieval Europe, the great lords faced the threat of their own kind.
Once its own strength is weakened, the family's strength will be lost. You fought bloodily for the king today, but tomorrow the king will turn his finger on yourself to please the more powerful nobles. In this case, "fighting for the country" is naturally an unwise choice.
The weakness of blood politics
In such a country, the bond between people is blood, territory, and endless generations of allegiance and allegiance. The king of Hungary was nothing more than a puppet and doll of the nobility of all classes, and he had no place to survive unless he compromised with the great nobility.
And the nobles each have ghosts in their hearts, and even do not hesitate to betray the country for their own interests. Joint division with foreign enemies is not an uncommon thing in Hungary. To maximize their own interests, the nobles weakened the power of the state, which would have disastrous consequences. They have joined forces inside and out, almost exhausting the country's foundations
In this way, Hungary is full of typical medieval responsive state characteristics. The state does not have a philosophy or ideal, let alone a policy guide. The people do not have any cohesion, and they live on the land like a piece of scattered sand. The problem is also that bureaucratic construction cannot be carried out.
The gatekeepers control the lifeblood of the country, and the consequences of these families, who continue to rule one side, are unimaginable. Relying on the stable alternation of power brought about by inheritance and fiefdom, the network genealogy of power has become denser and denser, and even the power system of the family system has permeated all aspects of society, and finally perished in the cocoon
However, a state in which the aristocratic elite holds power also has a huge advantage. That is, there are always a few nobles who can see the future of national development beyond their own interests. Because they are one of the few people in society who are educated and have no food and clothing. Thinking about the future and destiny of the country becomes possible, or in other words, it becomes a mission for them.
In the second half of the 15th century, Hunyati led the Hungarian people in a huge wave of struggle against Turkey. Born into a noble family, he served as city defense chief in several border cities in Hungary. Because of his long experience in foreign struggles, he made the war for Turkey his lifelong faith.
Unlike other nobles, he gave all his fortune to finance the war, winning the trust of soldiers and the people. (In stark contrast to the treacherous behavior of the great nobility) Later, in the Battle of Southern Dauphir, he led the Hungarian army to break through the Turkish offensive line and defeated Mehmed's 200,000 army (Turkey almost devoted its entire army to Europe to fight this battle) and achieved a great victory. Thus preserving the fortress of the struggle against the Ottoman front.
Through this world-famous battle, Huntian also won decades of peace for Hungary, which gave Hungary one last chance to form a centralized state in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
Due to the long leadership of the war, and finally achieved great victories. Xiongya Ti gathered popular support in the country. He was embraced by the peasants because the success of resisting the Turks saved them from foreign captivity.
In all times, peasants were always the greatest bearers of social suffering, and once the land was captured by the Sultan, they were inevitably robbed of their belongings and even slaughtered. The small nobles and cities also supported the Hunyati, whose power was already consolidated by the king, and they were always unscrupulous supporters of powerful royal powers.
Only the great nobles opposed the leadership of Hunyati, fearing that if Hunyati became king, their privileges would be weakened and their lands confiscated. When fighting against Turkey, they not only cowered, but even invited foreign powers to enter Hungary. They were afraid to rely on the power of peasants and petty nobles, fearing that if they became powerful, they would in turn devour themselves. Therefore, it is better to rely on the strength of allies abroad than on the people at home.
Unfortunately, this great patriot soon fell ill and died in the barracks. After Hunyati's eldest son László was murdered by the great nobility, his younger brother Matthias became king of Hungary with the support of the petty nobles, the urban bourgeoisie, and the peasants.
Matthias's reforms and failures
Matthias was one of the greatest Hungarian kings in history, and his coronation led to a series of victories that laid the foundation for stability in the country. After that, Matthias focused on domestic reforms to strengthen the central monarchy and establish Hungary as a centralized powerhouse
The military has always been the most direct and obvious cause of social change. The first feature of Hungary's strong royal power was the presence of an invincible army of the king's own. The move was intended to break away from the loose, ill-disciplined semi-private aristocratic army.
King Matthias's ultimate goal was to build the country into a bureaucratic state, excluding political kinship and establishing a system of impersonal appointments in the field of selection and employment. A major feature of modernization is the triumph of bureaucracy that Max Weber spoke of. Under the reforms of King Matthias, Hungary in the late 15th century was struggling to achieve this.
Reforms in the military sphere have directly contributed to changes in other areas. In order to spend huge military expenditures, the state changed its tax policy and implemented a direct tax system. and change the original tax per plot to a per capitation. In addition, national customs duties are levied. Changes in the area of taxation contributed to the strengthening of national capacities, and Hungary quickly grew to become one of the major powers in Europe. At this time, Hungary was able to compete with the Habsburgs in the northwest, and was strong enough to resist Turkey under the strong enemy Muhammad II in the south.
Matthias died in 1490, and the nobility regained most of the rights that the central state had won in the first half century. They are resentful of the loss of their privileges and yearn for a return to the old situation. Therefore, the barons put a weak foreign monarch on the throne, cut the funding of the black army, and sent it to the battlefield in Turkey, only to be annihilated.
Hungary returned to the balance of power of the nobility and soon suffered the consequences. The undisciplined noble forces were defeated by Suleiman I at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, and the Hungarian king was killed. The barons who quarreled with each other were only opposed to the state and did not care about the defense of the state, a scene that had occurred during the Mongol invasion and is now repeated. Hungary lost its independent status and was divided into three parts, under the control of the Austrian Habsburgs, the Ottoman states, and the Turkish vassal state of Transylvania.
The failure of the state was not accidental, and Matthiash's efforts were destined to be unsustainable under a strong aristocracy. As soon as the king died, the new system was abolished on a large scale. This shows that Hungarian constitutionalism is not a constitutionalism of checks and balances.
It embodies the uniqueness of Hungary, a puppet-like king for thousands of years, unable to form a division of power with a fully developed unified aristocracy. Constitutionalism in this state is actually in order to maintain the family system and hereditary system of the nobility. It went to one extreme of constitutionalism, it inhibited the process of decentralization and democracy, it went to oligarchy. This oligarchy ignores the interests of the whole and betrays the country, which is the fundamental reason for the failure of the state.