The Angevins (1301 - 1382)

Karol Robert (1301 - 1342)   Although nominated as a child as King of Hungary by the pope, Karol Robert did not enter Hungary to the accept the throne until the death of the last Arpad king, Andrew III in 1301.  His partisans quickly crowned his king, but many nobles supported his rival, Wenceslas III of Bohemia.  The candidacy of Wenceslas III to the Hungarian throne was the working of his father, Wenceslas II.  At the death of his father in 1305, seeing Hungary as unruly and ungovernable, Wenceslas III renounces his claim to the Hungarian throne and his engagement to the daughter of Andrew III, in favor of Otto, prince of Bavaria.  Shortly after his coronation, however, Otto was captured by Laslo Kan, prince of Transylvania.  Otto later escaped to Bavaria, and never returned to Hungary.  Thus, his rivals gone, Karol Robert was crowned King of Hungary in 1309 with a makeshift crown.  He was again coronated, for the third and last time, on August 27, 1310, with the Crown of St. Stephen by Cardinal Gentilis, papal legate to Hungary. 

After his coronation, Karol Robert set out to unite Hungary under the new dynasty by eliminating the oligarchs and barons who had been the primary cause of the fall of the Arpad dynasty.  He began with the Aba brothers, who controlled northeastern Hungary (Kosice?) who were assisted by Mate Csak who ruled the Vah valley.  These allied forces were defeated on June 15, 1312 at the Battle of Rozgony (Rozhanovce), the first Angevin victory.  Subsequent conquests include:  Visegrad (1315), Transdanubia (1316), Debrecen and Komarom (Komarno) (1317), Transylvania (1318 - 1321), Slavonia (1322), Slovakia and Pozsony (Bratislava) (1323).  With the surrender of Bratislava, all of Hungary except the provinces of the southern Balkans were in Karol Robert's hands.  He did establish the Banate of Macso (Maco) in nothern Serbia (1319).  An unsuccessful campaign into Wallachia occurred in 1330.

After gaining control of Hungary, Karol Robert retired to Visegrad and lived the most of the rest of his life in peace.  In 1320, he married the sister of Casimir, king of Poland, establishing a claim for his son, Louis to the Polish throne.  In 1335, he concluded an anti-German alliance with Bohemia and Poland.  He died at Visegrad in 1342, having established a stable and prosperous country under his rule.  He was succeeded by his son, Louis I, called the Great.

Louis I the Great  (1342 - 1382)  Used the financial and political stability created by his father to extend the power and influence of Hungary into Europe.  He also brought many ideas and influences from western Europe into Hungary.  Although know as a warrior-king, many of his conquests were unsuccessful or short-lived.  His first attempt in foreign affairs was to establish his brother, Andrew, as King of Naples.  After the death of Andrew, Louis occupied Naples (1347 - 1352), but was forced to withdraw by the Italian resistance.  He also conquered and occupied the Bulgarian province of Vidim (1365 - 1369), but again, withdrew in the face of Bulgarian resistance.  It is estimated that he invaded Serbia five times, Bosnia three, Wallachia four, and Moldavia seven, all with no lasting result. 

Louis <>I was successful, however, in conquering southern Croatia (1345) and restoring Hungarian rule there.  He also fought the Venetians for control of Dalmatia and the Dalmatian ports.  In the treaty of Zara (1357) Venice recognized Hungarian control of the Dalmation ports as far south as Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and guaranteed free access to the Adriatic Sea to the Dalmation merchants.  Hungarian control of Dalmatia was finalized in the treaty of Turin (1381), in which Venice agreed to pay Hungary an annual "tax" of 7000 golden florins.  Louis's greatest acquisition, however, did not come by force of arms.  In 1370, at the death of Casimir in 1370, Louis was crowned King of Poland.  This Hungaro-Polish union only lasted until Louis's death in 1382.

Louis I died without any sons, so his daughters' husbands vied for the right to succeed him.  After a five-year struggle, Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Margrave of Brandenberg, and husband, to Louis' second daughter Maria, was crowned King of Hungary in 1387.