Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

Feeling his death near, the king had to choose between two brothers. Which one should inherit his throne? The younger of the two princes was an athletic, valiant knight - a born fighter to whom soldiering was the zest of life. His older brother was just the opposite, an unattractive fellow with a limp, uneven shoulders, and a slight speech defect, who preferred the library to the battlefield. It was obvious to the king's court who would make the better king. But the monarch, stunning them all, picked the "ugly duckling" over the handsome prince.

Does this seem like a fairy tale with an improbable beginning? Perhaps. But by selecting as his successor the studious Prince Kálmán over valiant Álmos, King László made one of the wisest decisions of his life.

His Début an Impressive Success

King Kálmán's first act on the international scene proved to be a "smash hit." At the time of his ascension to the throne, all of Europe was humming with preparations for a crusade to liberate the Holy Land. One army, led by the adventurer knight Eniko von Leiningen, was an ill-prepared and undisciplined force, which took to raiding the areas of their march for supplies and booty.

Learning of their behavior, Kálmán ordered Hungary "off limits" to Eniko's army. This "unheard-of act of defiance against Christian soldiers" stupefied the "crusaders," who then tried to force their way through the kingdom. But as soon as they crossed the border at Moson, the Hungarian army smashed and dispersed them. This was the end of Eniko's "crusade." However, when the well-disciplined main body of the Crusaders, led by Godefroy de Bouillon arrived at the Hungarian border, King Kálmán not only allowed it to pass through Hungary but personally gave it a royal escort and provided plentifully for its needs, all the while making sure that the Hungarian peasants were properly paid for their goods.

Kálmán's bold but wise leadership made a deep impression on other European rulers and enhanced his position.

After these episodes, King Kálmán was occupied for many years with consolidating the situation in Croatia, where the chief authority lay in the hands of Prince Álmos. Álmos' mismanagement of Croatia had caused the Croatians to rebel against him in 1097, proving - as King László had wisely foreseen - that he was not fit to wear a crown. King Kálmán finally recalled his brother. This decision and other corrective measures restored peace to that province.

Subsequently, the King acquired Hungarian supremacy over Dalmatia, providing Hungary with a free outlet to the sea. The Venetian Republic, however, considered the Hungarian presence there a menace to its own naval supremacy and commercial interests. From this time on, the two countries fought bitterly for the possession of Dalmatia, but the province proved more of a headache for Hungary than an asset. Only at the end of the 14th century did Venice accept a settlement in Hungary's favor.

A King Ahead of his Time

Conducting wars was basically alien to Kálmán's character. He preferred peace to war, and introduced a series of new laws that proved him to be far in advance of his contemporary counterparts.

"Extreme strictness must not be applied where it is unwarranted" was one of the basic tenets of his lawmaking, reflecting benevolence and fair-mindedness. King Kálmán made the testimony of witnesses the basis of all evidence, restricting the ordeals by fire and water, which were a widespread practice in Europe at the time.

His punishments differentiated between crimes against property and crimes against life. The arm of a petty thief was no longer cut off for stealing a hen, and the theft of an ox did not warrant the death penalty, as it did before.

The most important of his reforms, however, was the banning of witch trials, which in Kálmán's time had attained epidemic proportions in other European countries and continued to claim thousands of victims until the 18th century. On a single day in 1589, for instance, 113 persons were burned at the stake at Quedlingburg in Germany. Elsewhere, 360 people suffered the same death in the six years from 1587 to 1593, and a French judge openly admitted to having sent several thousand "sorceresses" to the stake.

King Kálmán's decree forbidding witch hunts be-

cause "witches do not exist" was an act of enlightenment of the first magnitude. Due to his wisdom, the persecution of witches in Hungary claimed relatively few victims over the course of centuries.

Wise as a King, Unhappy as a Man

The laws Kálmán conceived were drafted by Albericus, a noted legal expert of his time. His thinking, akin to the King's, is revealed by a single sentence of his: "Those military men not accustomed to peace are a menace to themselves and to the country as well." These words were aimed, above all, at Kálmán's brother Prince Álmos, who never accepted Saint László's decision to deny him the throne.

In an age when valiant knights in shining armor like Álmos were idolized, Kálmán's physical appearance proved to be a liability hard to bear. He was a wise king, but an unhappy man in his family affairs. He had many admirers and many enemies, but few, if any, friends at Court. His marriages were marked by unhappiness. His first wife, a Norman-French Princess, died early, leaving him a son, István. His second wife, the Russian Eufemia, he banished for adultery. After her expulsion, she gave birth to a son called Borics in Russia. Although the King did not recognize Borics as his own, the boy would later spend his entire life in claiming the Hungarian throne, causing trouble for Kálmán's successors.

Kálmán escaped from his unhappiness by busying himself with the affairs of state. He concentrated his efforts on developing and organizing his country in an era when the successors of the Magyar conquerors and the tribes they vanquished began merging into one. settled nation. He promoted the building of houses to gradually replace the time-honored tent. The draining of marshlands also began on the great plain between the Danube and the Tisza (Alföld).

Apart from his great achievements as a ruler, Kálmán was certainly the most knowledgeable Magyar of his time, and the first Hungarian king since Saint István who could read and write. Most probably, he was the only European king of the age who did not need a scrivener or a lector to consult the holy books or codes. His fondness for reading earned him the nickname Könyves Kálmán (Kálmán the Book Lover). Enlightened legislative reforms were the chief hallmarks of Kálmán's rule and made him one of the great kings in Hungarian history.

During his reign, which lasted for 19 years, King Kálmán attained most of his goals, leaving a brilliant record, except for his failure to achieve genuine reconciliation with his brother. Álmos' latent hostility never abated, and sometimes erupted into open hatred. In mutual distrust, each brother feared violence at the hands of the other. In the end, Álmos' fears were justified.

With uncharacteristic cruelty, and as a means of ensuring that his son István would succeed him, King Kálmán, from his sick bed. ordered Álmos and his ten-year-old son Béla to be blinded, to make them both unfit to rule.

But fate decreed otherwise. When Kálmán's son, István II, was approaching death without an heir, he made Álmos' blind son, Béla (Vak Béla - Béla the Blind) his successor after all, and the descendants of Álmos ruled Hungary for the next two hundred years.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary