Matthias corvinus biography of william

King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490

Matthias Corvinus (Hungarian: Hunyadi Mátyás; Romanian: Matia/Matei Corvin; Croatian: Matija/Matijaš Korvin; Slovak: Matej Korvín; Czech: Matyáš Korvín; 23 February 1443 – 6 April 1490) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490, as Matthias I. He is often given the epithet "the Just". After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and adopted the title Duke of Austria in 1487. He was the son of John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary, who died in 1456. In 1457, Matthias was imprisoned along with his older brother, Ladislaus Hunyadi, on the orders of King Ladislaus the Posthumous. Ladislaus Hunyadi was executed, causing a rebellion that forced King Ladislaus to flee Hungary. After the King died unexpectedly, Matthias's uncle Michael Szilágyi persuaded the Estates to unanimously proclaim the 14-year-old Matthias as king on 24 January 1458. He began his rule under his uncle's guardianship, but he took effective control of government within two weeks.

As king, Matthias waged wars against the Czech mercenaries who dominated Upper Hungary (today parts of Slovakia and Northern Hungary) and against Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed Hungary for himself. In this period, the Ottoman Empire conquered Serbia and Bosnia, terminating the zone of buffer states along the southern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary. Matthias signed a peace treaty with Frederick III in 1463, acknowledging the Emperor's right to style himself King of Hungary. The Emperor returned the Holy Crown of Hungary with which Matthias was crowned on 29 April 1464. In this year, Matthias invaded the territories that had recently been occupied by the Ottomans and seized fortresses in Bosnia. He soon realized he could expect no substantial aid from the Christian powers and gave up his anti-Ottoman policy.

Matthias introduced new taxes and regularly set

Hungarian armies became the main shield of Christian Europe against the Turks, a task for which their combination of plate-armoured nobles with light horse archers made them eminently suitable. The period from 1441 AD is that of the great Janos Hunyadi, his son Matthias Corvinus and the famous “Black Army” of mercenaries. Matthias’s successor Laszlo VI (Vladislav II of Bohemia) was unable to finance this, and it was largely replaced by paid feudal troops who may or may not deserve regular status. A late 15th century writer describes the Hungarian “scorpion” formation in which war wagons supported by cavalry moved against the enemy wings while the infantry in square formation held the centre in front of the camp, which was fortified with ordinary wagons.

The death of Ladislaus V left the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary vacant. There were two legitimate heirs: Casimir IV, king of Poland, and William, duke of Saxony, both of whom were brothers-in-law of the late ruler. But the duke laid no claim to the inheritance, while the king of Poland was prevented from entering the lists by his war with the Teutonic Order. Ladislaus’s closest relative in the male line was the emperor, Frederick III, who immediately took possession of Austria, but had no acceptable title to any of the deceased king’s other domains, even though he still retained the Holy Crown.

ACCESSION AND CONSOLIDATION

Finding a new king was the responsibility of the diet. Practically the only candidate was Matthias Hunyadi, who was at that time staying in Prague. Designating anyone else would have caused an immediate relapse into a state of civil war. Matthias was supported not only by the legate of Pope Calixtus III, Cardinal Carvajal, who was then sojourning in Hungary, but also by Archbishop Szécsi himself. Even Palatine Garai promised to accept young Matthias as king, though on the condition that he would marry Garai’s daughter.

At the diet that assembled

By William E. Welsh

Encased in mail and armor, the soldiers of the Kingdom of Hungary’s Black Army stood rigidly at attention on a warm summer day in late August 1487 at Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria. Their capture of the town came at the end of a long conflict between archrivals King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria.

Astride his imposing war horse, the Hungarian monarch rode slowly past the troops, stopping occasionally to bestow rewards on units that had shown great valor fighting Frederick’s Imperial forces. The Black Army assembled that day consisted of 20,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry, according to Antonio Bonfini, who was Matthias’s royal historian. In addition to native Hungarians, the army included Czechs, Moravians, Silesians, and South Slavs, all of whom belonged to a Hungarian empire that Matthias had carved out through conquest over a quarter century following his election to the throne by the Hungarian Diet in 1462.

After the inspection was over, the units performed a variety of maneuvers for the Hungarian aristocrats and foreign dignitaries in attendance. They reorganized themselves crisply and seamlessly into a number of Matthias’s favorite battle formations, such as the circle, triangle, square, and wedge. They also fashioned themselves into a unique formation known as the scorpion, The shape of which resembled the predatory arachnid. Heavy and light cavalry formed the pincer claws, while heavy and light infantry made up its abdomen.

The reign of Matthias Corvinus, son of the famous Hungarian generalissimo Janos Hunyadi, marked the apex of power for medieval Hungary. Matthias is noted not only for holding back the Ottoman hordes from overrunning Hungary, but also for campaigns of conquest in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Archduchy of Austria. When Matthias died in 1490, his Hungarian empire stretched from Brandenberg in the north to Serbia in the south. It was