Maria (Hungary)

Mary of Hungary, depiction around 1488

Maria, Queen of Hungary etc. Lithograph by Josef Kriehuber after a drawing by Moritz von Schwind ; circa 1828

Maria , in Hungarian Mária , in Croatian Marija (* 1371 ; † May 17, 1395 near Ofen ) from the Anjou family was Queen of Hungary and Croatia from 1382 until her death . After the death of her father Ludwig I , she was crowned queen in September 1382; the reign was led by her mother Elisabeth of Bosnia . In order to strengthen her position, she married the emperor's son Sigismund of Luxembourg in October 1385, as her father had requested . Nevertheless, an opposition aristocratic group invited the Neapolitan King Karl von Durazzo to take power in Hungary. Karl seized the power of government in December 1385, but was murdered after only two months of rule at the instigation of the disempowered Queen Mother Elisabeth. In a subsequent uprising in Croatia, Maria and Elisabeth were captured by their opponents, who had Elisabeth strangled. In June 1387, a Venetian force freed the captured queen. Maria and her husband had a childless and not very harmonious marriage for eight years. She had little influence on Sigismund's government. In May 1395 she died at the age of 24 as a result of a riding accident.

Life

Youth until the death of Ludwig I of Hungary

Maria was the second daughter of King Ludwig I and his second wife Elisabeth of Bosnia , who came from the house of Kotromanić . One of the main goals of Ludwig I's policy, who had no male heir, was to secure female succession to the throne in his empire, which consisted of Hungary and Poland . Before Maria's first birthday, her father promised her as the bride for Sigismund von Luxemburg , a son of Emperor Charles IV. In June 1373, Ludwig I confirmed that Maria would be Sigismund's fiancée. In December 1374 Pope Gregory XI. the dispensation necessary because the future spouses are too closely related . The marriage contract for Maria and Sigismund was signed on April 14, 1375 in Brno .

After the death of Maria's older sister Katharina (May 1378), Ludwig I met in June 1379 in Altsohl with Sigismund's eldest brother Wenzel , who had become Sigismund's guardian after the death of Charles IV. Here Ludwig I reaffirmed his promise to marry Mary to Sigismund. But many Polish nobles had strong reservations about Sigismund because of his German origins. Ludwig I summoned the Polish magnates and prelates to Košice in August 1379 and induced them to recognize Mary's right to succession to the throne in Poland and to pay homage to her as their future queen. Allegedly, he only achieved his demand after he had prevented the Poles from leaving by blocking the city gates. In the next month Ludwig I celebrated the formal engagement of his daughter to the emperor's son in Tyrnau . Sigismund then came to the Hungarian court to be educated for his future position. In the summer of 1381 he traveled to Poland to make himself at home there too. According to some scholars, Ludwig I intended that his youngest daughter Hedwig (Jadwiga) would succeed him in Hungary, while Maria would only succeed him in Poland, but other scholars believe that Maria and Sigismund would succeed him in Hungary and Poland should.

queen

First years of government

Maria had been influenced negatively by her mother towards her destined husband Sigismund. After Ludwig I died on September 10, 1382, the Hungarians immediately recognized Maria, who was only 11 years old, as the new ruler. Cardinal Demetrius , Archbishop of Esztergom, crowned her seven days later in Stuhlweissenburg as "King" ( rex Hungariae ). The absence of her fiancé at the ceremony suggests that her mother Elisabeth, who was regent for her underage daughter, might want to prevent Sigismund's coronation.

The Palatine Nicholas (Miklós I) Garai and Cardinal Demetrios were the two most important advisors to the regent. Although the royal documents issued by Maria's government during the first six months emphasize her legal succession, numerous Hungarian magnates refused to allow women to exercise power. Many regarded Karl von Durazzo , King of Naples, as the legitimate successor of Louis I, as he was the last male descendant of the House of Anjou , a branch of the Capetian family . At several meetings in November / December 1382, the Polish nobles demanded that their future queen - who could either be Maria or her sister Hedwig - have to live permanently in Poland with her husband. Sigismund has meanwhile returned from Poland to Hungary. Envoys from the regent Elisabeth finally released the Polish greats from their oath of allegiance to Maria in March 1383 and announced that Hedwig would come to Poland instead.

When Ivan (Johannes) von Paližna , prior of Vrana , who had already rejected the centralization policy of Ludwig I, rebelled against Elisabeth's regiment in the spring of 1383, their army besieged Vrana. Ivan of Paližna had to flee to Bosnia , while the defenders of the city surrendered in November 1383 to Maria, who had attended the siege together with her mother. To strengthen Maria's position against Karl von Durazzo, Elisabeth sent envoys to France to start negotiations for Maria's marriage to Ludwig von Orléans , son of King Charles V and former fiancé of Maria's sister Katharina. At the beginning of 1384 Elisabeth and Maria left Croatia again.

Many Hungarian magnates were annoyed because Elisabeth seemed to leave almost all of the governmental power to the palatine Miklós Garai, who was allegedly also her lover. To treat the signs of the Nobles Elisabeth convened in June 1384 a Reichstag , and Maria confirmed the privileges of high-ranking men. Meanwhile, a part of the Hungarian aristocracy, such as the Lackfi family , Miklós Zámbó and Miklós Szécsi , rejected the marriage of Mary to Louis of Orléans and continued to advocate the marriage of the queen to Sigismund. Therefore, Elisabeth replaced her in August 1384 with followers of Miklós Garai. But the clergy were also opposed to the French candidate for marriage. Finally, the Queen Mother sent her youngest daughter Hedwig to Poland, where she was crowned in October 1384.

Usurpation of the Hungarian throne by Karl von Durazzo

Karl von Durazzo was able to consolidate his position of power in southern Italy after the death of Louis I of Anjou (September 1384), who had challenged his rule over Naples. An insurgent group of oligarchs based in the south of the empire under the leadership of János Horváti , Ban von Macsó, and his brother Pál Horváti , Bishop of Zagreb, now supported Charles's claims to the Hungarian throne. Sigismund of Luxemburg tried in vain to get the regent Elisabeth's consent to marry Maria and left Hungary in early 1385.

At a meeting in Požega in the spring of 1385, negotiations between Elizabeth's representatives and her opponents remained unsuccessful. After the arrival of a French delegation in Hungary in May 1385, Maria was betrothed to Louis of Orléans. At the same time, Elisabeth accused Stefan Lackfi of high treason and forbade the residents of Zagreb and other cities to support Lackfi, Pál Horváti and their relatives. But János and Pál Horváti officially wore the crown to Karl von Durazzo in August 1385 and invited him to Hungary. The pretender to the throne then landed in Dalmatia with a mercenary army in September and moved to Zagreb. In this distress, Elisabeth had to give her consent to a quick marriage between Mary and Sigismund, who appeared in the oven; and the couple's marriage was celebrated in October 1385. However, Sigismund was not crowned and received no real power; in addition, Elisabeth prevented the consummation of the marriage. Sigismund suffered a lot of displeasure when he pledged parts of Hungarian territory to raise funds to raise an army to fight Charles of Durazzo.

While Sigismund hurried to Bohemia to gather his new armed forces, the Neapolitan king advancing against Hungary, who pretended to want to support Maria, was able to move into furnace at the beginning of December 1385 without resistance. Both queens accompanied him on this. Karl compelled Maria to renounce the throne and she soon had to approve his appointment as regent of the country. At a Reichstag he was elected King as Karl II and was crowned on December 31, 1385 in the cathedral of Stuhlweissenburg, which ceremony Maria and her mother had to watch. The weeping Elisabeth is said to have sworn vengeance at the grave of her deceased husband.

Karl let Maria continue to live freely in the royal palace of Ofen. Elisabeth and Miklós Garai nevertheless decided to remove the usurper. When Karl appeared in her apartments on February 7, 1386 at Elisabeth's request, he was attacked by her followers there, severely injured in the head by the cupbearer Balazs Forgach with a battle ax and, after he was brought to Visegrád , killed in the dungeon on February 24th .

Mary's Reinstatement as Queen, Capture and Liberation

Maria came back to the Hungarian throne under the tutelage of her mother. But the Horváti brothers and other magnates who had supported Karl instigated a revolt in Croatia in favor of Ladislaus , the son of the murdered king. They allied themselves with King Tvrtko I of Bosnia, a cousin of Elizabeth. The Roman-German King Wenzel and his brother, Maria's consort Sigismund, appeared with army power in Hungary in April 1386 and forced Elisabeth in May in Raab from a treaty in which Sigismund was recognized as the prince consort. In addition, Elisabeth Sigismund confirmed the pledge of the lands west of the Waag to Jobst and Prokop of Moravia . Nevertheless, Sigismund was dissatisfied with the treaty and left Hungary again.

Then Elisabeth and Maria, accompanied by Miklós Garai and a small retinue, traveled to the rebellious Croatia to personally pacify the country. They were attacked by the followers of Ivan von Paližna and János Horváti on July 25, 1386 near Đakovo , their entourage was killed despite strong resistance and Miklós Garai beheaded. According to the Hungarian historian Johannes von Thurocz , who lived in the 15th century , Elisabeth asked the attackers to spare Maria's life because she was the only one to be guilty. The two queens were interned first in Gomnec Castle, then in Novigrad Castle on the Adriatic coast. However, they could not be handed over to Margarethe von Durazzo , the widow of the murdered Karl thirsting for revenge, as the Venetian ships under the command of Giovanni Barbarigo blocked Novigrad. The henchmen of János Horváti strangled Elisabeth in early January 1387 in the presence of Mary and threw her body over the walls of the fortress. A strong league of Hungarian magnates helped Sigismund to be crowned king on March 31, 1387 in Stuhlweissenburg. Now he walked slowly to help his wife. Mainly through the efforts of the Venetians, Maria was liberated on June 4, 1387. She then made Barbarigo a knight and granted him an annual pension of 600 gold guilders.

Joint rule of Mary and Sigismund

After a 15-month separation, Maria met her husband again on July 4, 1387 in Zagreb. Officially she was Sigismund's co-gentleman, but her influence on the government remained small. In the first year of their joint government, she confirmed all of her husband's land concessions with her own great seal, but later the grant recipients rarely sought confirmation from Maria. In royal documents, her reign was not counted after her accession to the throne, but after her husband's coronation. After all, she represented her husband during his stays abroad and, with the support of Archbishop Kaniszai, who also acted as her chancellor, exercised her own sovereign rights. She still had to overcome old prejudices, inner rejection and strangeness towards Sigismund and should never have had an intimate relationship with him. She stoically accepted the love life of her husband, who was very fond of the fair sex.

Although Maria had promised not to take revenge on her former hostage-takers, she was sitting before a criminal court to determine their guilt. In July 1394 János Horváti was captured and executed at Mary's request the following August, although Sigismund would have been willing to let him live.

The Hungarian and Polish monarchs met in 1395, and Maria and her sister Hedwig saw each other again with warm affection after a long separation. Hedwig gave her sister a padded, gold-decorated horse saddle, which was covered with yellow velvet. On May 17 of the same year, the pregnant 24-year-old Maria went on a hunting trip alone in the woods of Ofen, fell from her horse, suffered a miscarriage and died of her injuries, cut off from any help. She had left no children from her marriage to Sigismund and was buried in the cathedral of Großwardein .

ancestors

Charles II of Anjou-Naples

Karl Martell of Hungary

Mary of Hungary

Charles I of Hungary

Rudolf I. (HRR)

Klementia of Habsburg

Gertrud von Hohenberg

Ludwig I of Hungary

Casimir I of Kuyavia

Ladislaus I of Poland

Agathe of Halych-Volhynia

Elisabeth of Poland

Bolesław the Pious

Hedwig von Kalisch

Jolenta Helena of Hungary

Maria I of Hungary

Uban Prijezda of Bosnia

Stephan I of Bosnia

Stephen II of Bosnia

Stefan Dragutin of Serbia

Elisabeth of Serbia

Katalin of Hungary

Elisabeth of Bosnia

Siemomysław of Kuyavia

Casimir III from Kuyavia

Constance of Silesia

Elizabeth of Kuyavia

literature

• Thomas von Bogyay: Maria . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 95
• Sándor Márki: Mária Magyarország királynéja 1370-1395. A Magyar fools. társulat kiadása, Budapest 1885, OCLC 19688714 . (Hungarian)
• M. Kintzinger: Maria 11 . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 6, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-7608-8906-9 , Sp. 278.
• Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents: Women Rulers of Europe, AD 1328-1989 , pp. 14-17.
• Jaroslav Perniš: Posledná anjouovská královná Mária Uhorská (1371-1395). [ The last queen of the Anjou Marie family of Hungary (1371–1395). ] In: Historicky casopis. Vol. 47, 1999, ISSN  0018-2575 , pp. 3-15. (Slovak)

Web links

Commons : Maria von Anjou  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry about Maria (Hungary) in the Hungarian Biographical Lexicon (MEK) of the National Széchényi Library (Hungarian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. Kintzinger: Maria 11 . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 6, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-7608-8906-9 , Sp. 278.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Thomas von Bogyay: Maria . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 95
3. ↑ Sonja Lessacher: Ludwig I of Hungary and his Dalmatia policy. (PDF, pp. 10–11 and 116.) at othes.univie.ac.at
4. ^ ^{A b} Theodor Lindner :  Sigmund . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, p. 267.
5. ^ Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents: Women Rulers of Europe, AD 1328-1989 , p. 14 f.
6. ↑ So z. B. Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents , p. 14.
7. ↑ So z. B. Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, p. 170.
8. ↑ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, p. 195.
9. ^ Oskar Halecki : Jadwiga of Anjou and the Rise of Eastern Central Europe , 1991, pp. 99 and 101.
10. ↑ László Solymosi, Adrienne Körmendi: Magyarország történeti kronológiája, I: a kezdetektől 1526-ig , 1981, p. 226.
11. ↑ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, pp. 195 f.
12. ↑ ^{a b c d} Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents , p. 15.
13. ↑ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, p. 196 f.
14. ↑ ^{a b} Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895-1526 , 2001, p. 197.
15. ^ Oskar Halecki: Jadwiga of Anjou and the Rise of Eastern Central Europe , 1991, p. 125.
16. ↑ Szilárd Süttő: Mária , in: Gyula Kristó (ed.): Magyarország vegyes házi királyai , 2002, p. 70 f.
17. ↑ Erik Fügedi: Könyörülj, bánom, Könyörülj ... , 1986, pp. 62 and 68.
18. ↑ Erik Fügedi: Könyörülj, bánom, Könyörülj ... , 1986, p. 103 f.
19. ^ Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents , p. 15 f.
20. ^ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, p. 198.
21. ^ Theodor Lindner:  Sigmund . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, p. 268.
22. ^ Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents , p. 16 f.
23. ↑ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 , 2001, p. 201.
24. ↑ Szilárd Süttő: Mária , in: Gyula Kristó (Ed.) Magyarország vegyes házi királyai , 2002, p. 73.
25. ↑ ^{a b c} Maria of Hungary, 1382-1395 , in: Olga S. Opfell: Queens, Empresses, Grand Duchesses, and Regents , p. 17.
26. ↑ Pál Engel: The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895-1526 , 2001, p. 202.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ludwig I.	Queen of Hungary (and Croatia) 1382–1395	Charles II of Durazzo Sigismund (de iure uxoris)