The story of Hungary 16
Culture was not confined to the court; it
spread to the nation itself, for we find that the university, recently
established in Paris, was attended by a number of Hungarian youths.
All the acts of Béla indicate that he had selected for his model in
government one of his most distinguished ancestors, Ladislaus, for
whom, as an __EXPRESSION__ of his own and the nation’s piety, he had also,
in 1192, secured a place on the list of saints recognized by the Church
of Rome.
Béla, while thus advancing the interests of the kingdom and the nation,
did not lose sight of the claims of the age upon kings and rulers
to support the holy wars waged by Christendom against the infidels.
He followed with sympathy the movements of the crusaders, and upon
Jerusalem’s falling into the hands of the infidels in 1187, he planned
himself to lead an army for the purpose of reconquering the holy city.
The third crusade was begun in 1189, and the German forces, under
the lead of the emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, passed on their way to
the Holy Land through Hungary. Béla received his distinguished guest
with royal pomp, abundantly provided the German troops with every
thing necessary, but he himself did not join the crusaders. What the
circumstances were that prevented the king from taking part in the
crusades it would be difficult now to determine, but that they must
have been weighty ones is amply proved by the fact that he had been
long preparing for a crusading campaign, and had for that purpose
collected a great deal of treasure. The idea was present before his
mind at the time of his death, for he directed that his elder son,
Emeric, should succeed him on the throne, and the younger, Duke Andrew,
should inherit the treasure collected for the pious object, and employ
it in the carrying out of the paternal intentions. Béla’s fate had that
in common with the fate of the most conspicuous kings of Hungary—that
posterity praised his grand achievements, while his own children failed
to respect and preserve the inheritance left to them by a distinguished
sire.
The feud between the two brothers broke out immediately after the
death of Béla III. Andrew collected troops for the pretended purpose
of executing the last will of his father, but in reality to employ
them against his own brother. He succeeded in defeating the army of
King Emeric, who was taken unawares, and was, besides, vacillating
and incapable, and, after occupying Croatia and Dalmatia, to which he
added fresh territory, he proclaimed himself, in 1198, Duke of Croatia,
Dalmatia, Rama, and Chulmia (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Emeric vainly
urged Innocent III., the most powerful pope since Gregory VII., to
compel the rebellious duke to carry out the pious vows of his father.
Andrew did not stir one step towards the Holy Land, but, persevering
in his sinful perverseness, continued to repeat his attacks against the
lawful king. At last, during one of his outbreaks, he was overtaken by
an avenging Nemesis.
The armies of the two brothers confronted each other on the banks of
the Drave. The camp of Andrew was stirring with a strong and numerous
army which, in anticipation of a certain victory, was loudly revelling
and making merry. King Emeric’s eyes sadly surveyed his own scant
following, whose devotion and determination, great as they were, did
not seem sufficient to make up for the deficiency in numbers. The
collision between the opposing armies was inevitable, and the king felt
that his utter discomfiture would be the result of the battle. His
desperate condition inspired him with a sudden resolution, and, without
communicating his intention to any one, he went into the enemy’s camp,
dressed in kingly state, and, sceptre in hand, made straight for his
brother’s tent. The revelling warriors, in surprise, were struck with
awe at the marvellous spectacle suddenly bursting in upon their dazed
eyes. “I wish to see the man who will dare to raise a sinful arm
against his king and master,” were the magic words which opened him the
way through the gaping multitude. Upon arriving in his brother’s tent
he seized the rebellious duke’s hands and led him captive to his own
camp. The above narrative of the event, as gleaned from the chronicles,
may not agree in every particular with the actual occurrence, but Duke
Andrew became the king’s prisoner, and remained captive until the
latter called him to his deathbed, generously confiding to his care
his infant son, Ladislaus, who had already been crowned king.
Andrew proved as faithless a guardian as he had been a false brother.
He could not restrain his ambition, but deprived Ladislaus of his
crown, and drove him and his mother from the court. Shortly afterwards,
the unhappy youth died, and Andrew could, at last, in 1205, ascend the
throne he had so long coveted, and whose possession he had attempted
to achieve by means in the choice of which he never consulted his
conscience.
The reign of Andrew II. (1205-1235) deserves a conspicuous place in
the history of Hungary, not for its beneficence, but for its weakness
and shortcomings. The never-ending civil wars of the last century,
especially the internecine struggle between the two brothers, had
the effect of weakening the kingdom, lowering the royal power and
authority, and, as a consequence of the decay of the latter, of
increasing the overbearing spirit of the oligarchs. Andrew II. could
not escape the condign punishment brought upon himself by his own acts.
His whole reign was a series of feeble attempts to free himself from
the entangling web caused by his own faults and the licentiousness of
the oligarchy. He presented the spectacle of a man whose ambition was
greater than his abilities, and whose levity equalled his ambition.
In the beginning of his reign he was completely under the influence
of his wife, Gertrude, who was of Tyrolese descent, and who suffered
the country to become a prey to her foreign relations and favorites.
Yet when the great and powerful lords rose against the plundering
foreigners, the licentious court, and the tyrannical and wicked queen,
killing the latter in her own palace, Andrew had neither the courage
nor the power to exert his royal authority against the rebels, but was
rather glad that the storm had passed over his head and had not singled
him out for its victim. Instead of resenting the injury done to him, he
conciliated his enemies by presents and gifts, and indulged in schemes
of a new matrimonial alliance. He was fond of pomp, splendor, generous
expenditure, and the ostentatious display of the court, but the royal
revenues soon proved inadequate to pay the sums thus squandered,
reduced as the royal domains had been by grants of entire counties. The
king, in order to raise the revenues, mortgaged the imposts and tolls,
and, by debasing the coinage, dishonestly added to his resources.
The din of the revels of the court prevented the loud complaints of
the people, who were oppressed and worried in a thousand ways by the
oligarchs and the tax-and toll-gatherers, from reaching the ears of
the king. At times his restlessness and ambition still involved him in
adventurous enterprises. Thus he wished to elevate his son, Duke Béla,
to the throne of Galicia, but lacked the strength to accomplish his
scheme. The campaign against Galicia only added to the expenditures
of the country, and, indeed, it happened that the king with his son
and the whole army were in the most imminent danger of destruction.
His mind was also disturbed by his failure to carry out the wishes of
his father, and, at last, he determined, in 1217, to march an army to
the Holy Land. In order to raise the money necessary for the campaign
he plundered the churches and monasteries, and sold to Venice the
city of Zara, the bulwark of the Dalmatian seashore. He finally left
the country with the army thus collected, but while he was roaming
about in the Holy Land without aim or purpose, the orphaned country
was reduced to the brink of misery. “When we returned home from our
expedition,” complained the king himself, in a letter addressed to the
holy see, “we found that both the clergy and the laymen had been guilty
of wickedness such as surpasses all imagination. All the treasure of
the country we found squandered, and fifteen years will not suffice
to restore our land to her former better condition.” The condition of
the country must have been sad, indeed, if the state the king had left
her in might be called good in comparison with it, and however heavily
the responsibility of the fresh calamities rested upon the king, his
truthfulness in this instance cannot be doubted.
The gloomy rule of Andrew II. was relieved by one cheering event which
contained the germ of a better future. The gentry, comprising in its
ranks the largest part of the freeholders of the country, unable to
bear longer the weak government of the king, the violence of the
oligarchy, and the scourge of the army of extortionate gatherers of
taxes and tolls, at last lifted their heads and asked the throne to
listen to their complaints and to remedy their wrongs. Béla himself,
the king’s son, whom Andrew II. had caused to be crowned before going
to the Holy Land, was the leader and spokesman of the nobility, who
had stood up in defence of the sacredness of the constitution, and who
now urged the return to the rule of law in the land.
Their wrongs, and the remedies exacted by the gentry were set forth
in the following strain: The king should not, at the expense of
the patriots, bestow favors upon foreigners, nor elevate them to
dignities, and distribute among them the domains of the country; entire
counties or dignities of state should not, as a practice, be granted
in perpetuity, and he should not suffer avaricious nobles to grasp
a greater number of offices than they could efficiently administer.
He should guard the ancient immunities of the nobles, so that they
might freely dispose of their property, and not be molested in their
persons without lawful judgment, and should not be burdened with taxes
or extortionate exactions of any kind. He should take care that the
tax-and toll-gatherers and other officials be taken from the ranks of
the gentry, and should remove from his service the Ishmaelites and
the Jews. Every thing opposed to these requirements he should at once
bring to an end. The county estates, granted away to the injury of the
land or dishonestly obtained, should be taken back by the king, and he
should, in pursuance of the ancient custom of the country, every year,
on St. Stephen’s day, convoke the diet, whose duty it was to act upon
the complaints of the nation and to defend her liberty when attacked.
The king, however, moved neither by the voice of truth, nor by the
misery of his people, refused to accede to these requests. In the
breast of Andrew II., who, during his whole reign, had utterly
neglected the duties coupled with his exalted station, awoke on the
present occasion a feeling of injured royal dignity. But the gentry
were determined to enforce their demands, and, gathering around the
heir to the throne, they took up arms in order to obtain by force the
concessions they deemed necessary for the good of the country. Father
and son with their armies were already confronting each other, when the
chief prelates interfered, and prevailed upon Andrew to listen to the
wishes of the gentry. The concessions were drawn up in form of a royal
letter and the king bound himself and his successors by oath to observe
the stipulations contained in it. Posterity has given this royal letter
the name of the _Golden Bull_, owing to the fact that the seal appended
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기