On the history of the dynastic policy of King Béla IV of Hungary

Piotr Stefaniak

Kraków

Abstract

Living in the times in incredibly threatening to Hungary from the Tatars, who chose the Hungarian plain as their potential seat, King Béla IV decided not only to protect his fatherland, but also to rebuild it after the 1241–1242 invasion and thus to become the second founder of the state. Also wishing to strengthen its position in the international arena he decided to follow a rather successful dynastic policy. Especially, thanks to the marrying off of his daughters, the Hungarian king managed to put together a political alliance which included nearly all his neighbors, namely, two Polish princes, two Ruthenian princes, one duke of Bavaria and one of Brandenburg as well as a Kuman khan. He married off his daughter Kinga (Cunegund) to Bolesław the Chaste, a Duke of Sandomierz, the king’s younger brother’s brother-in-law, in 1239. Similarly, marrying off his daughter Anna to Rostislav Mikhailovich, a prince of Chernigov, in 1243, was aimed at securing support against the Tatars. Mainly, King Béla IV expected to receive information about Mongol troop movements and military support from his sons-in-law. Further dynastic decisions were influenced by the idea of building up a political alliance encompassing Central Europe, from the Baltic to Bavaria, the Kingdom of Ruthenia and Serbia. In 1250 princess Elisabeth was married off to Henry XIII Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria and Palatinate, and a year later princess Constance was sent to Chełm to marry the younger prince of Halych, Lev. In 1256 the youngest royal daughter, Yolanda, became the wife of Boleslaw the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland and Pomerania. In 1264 the son of Béla IV, named after him, married a princess of Brandenburg, Cunegund. Incidentally it is worth noting that the marriages of Béla and Elisabeth additionally thwarted the increasing power of Austria, which was taken over by the Habsburgs. Also the marriages of Kinga, Constance and Yolanda had an anti-Bohemian character about them. To secure his influence on the integration between the Hungarians and the nomad tribe of Cumans, who arrived on their territory, King Béla IV decided to marry off his successor to the throne, Stephen V, to a daughter of a chieftain of the Cumans. The relevance of the king’s decisions needs to be emphasized, because the dynastic policy of King Béla IV bore the fruits to which the next three generations of the Hungarian throne reaped untill the beginning of the fourteenth century.