War, Religion, and Ritual

The inhabitants of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary were proud of their reputation as a courageous, warlike, and almost invincible nation. They had built their pride on their long history of successful military campaigns dating back to the age of the Magyar conquest in the tenth century. In addition, by acquiring the fictional inheritance of the Scythians and the Huns, they were also boosted by the famous victories of those warlike peoples. Moreover, after settling into their new homeland in Pannonia at the turn of the ninth century, and especially after the foundation of the Christianized monarchy during the reign of Prince Géza (r. ca. 970–997) and his son, first Hungarian king, Saint Stephen (r. 997–1038), the Hungarians remained warriors that their contemporaries feared. Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, they expanded into new territories and acquired new lands from their neighbours in the Carpathian Basin and beyond.

The rule and power of the Árpád kings had been closely linked with Christianity since the conversion of the country under Saint Stephen. The first king of Hungary expressed this ideological programme in his Admonitions, a “mirror of princes”-like treatise written around 1015 for his heir-to-be Prince Emeric (d. 1031). Throughout the work, military rhetoric was used to stress the main ideas and to depict the features of 142 a truly Christian ruler. Stephen, who spent a considerable part of his rule on horseback, granted his admonitions to his young son as to someone who had not yet experienced the fatigues of military campaigns and faced the incursions of diverse nations. After formulating that the Catholic belief is the most important virtue of royal dignity, Stephen encouraged Emeric with biblical words (Ephesians 6:16–17): “If you raise the shield of belief, you have the helmet of salvation too.” These two spiritual weapons were supposed to help Emeric against both visible and invisible enemies. As a true Christian ruler, he was also supposed to imitate the habits of the old kings and pray to God to protect him and his realm from all enemies, and so to attain the status of an invincible king (invictissimus rex).