FROM THE HUNGARIAN CONQUERORS TO THE HUSSARS

Light Cavalry in Mediaeval Hungary

Summary

Despite its wide popularity amongst the readers, military historiography within the frame
ofhistorical science has been in a passably peripheral status in these days. The "new way of
military historiography" imported from the Anglo-Saxon perception has somewhat
changed this situation in Hungary. Nevertheless, this was not always the case: in the
second half of the 19th century, when sciences progressed in the Hungarian language,
a massive number of the pre-eminent Hungarian scholars oriented their interest toward
this study, which was not at ali considered as an exclusive specialized military scru-
tiny due to the cogent prominence of "national" views. These decades stíll bear relevant
historicalness, on account of the fact that as regards mediaeval times the enquiries and
answers ofthose days still dominate the orientation of the examinations in many aspects.
However, this area lost vast majority of its relevance in the 20th century not only within
military historiography, but a shifting of ac cent to the benefit of archaeological modus
operandi could have been observed in the past decades. Therefore, this compilation that
intends to review the disputed issues arisen in concern to the history of the Hungarian
light cavalry in the period between the 10th and 16th centuries can be viewed as the first
attempt of reviving this neglected relevance after a long period of time.
Subsequent to the philologicai and archaeological perspectives considered as conven-
tional, today it seems worth examining these disputes from another outlook, to be specific
the frequently applied historic analogies, because many researchers, either mani fested
frankly or withheld unuttered, agree on that the military tactics of many other nations
might have been similar to that of the Hungarians.
First, one must enquire whether light cavalry in mediaeval Hungary expounded in this
volume can collectively be defined as light cavalry at alI. For instance, the definition
of a Hungarian researcher, András Borosy, namely that vast majority of the Hungarian
cavalry in the 11th to 14th centuries can be classified rather into some sort of a "transfor-
mation" category, which is widely accepted in the Hungarian scholars' midst, has been of
common knowledge. Additionally, many novel hypotheses were propagated in the past
decade to redefine the conceptual frame.
Inexorably conformist and rigorous notions, i.e. the regime of "Eastern" and "Western"
systems, in respect to the comb at techniques of the variegated cavalry corps on the other
hand have been proven wrong in many aspects, which historic researches have mirrored.
Contrary to the comb at principles of the standing armies in the New Age, lightly armed
horsemen that were capable of long range combating were either deployed in formations
shared with heavily armed cavalry, or as combat cavalry, or even as infantry in mediaeval
times, hence in the Hungarian army from time to time, ifit was necessary. In unison with
this, Western European cavalries frequently defined as heavy cavalries were also capable
of carrying out the most various duties from raiding behind enemy lines to having been

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 engaged as infantrymen in castle sieges in the 10th to 14th centuries. Of course, not every
warrior had expensive and heavy weaponry in the Western European armies.
Therefore, having been divided by weaponry should perhaps be considered in lieu of
the differences in tactics, which aspect seems to obscure at some point. The former, as
long as it can be extrapolated from the sources of avail, served as the model of dua1 divi-
sion for centuries: Hungarian cava1ry was divided into he av ily armored staff (armatus)
and 1ightly armed hussars at the end of the 15th century (as defined by Matthias Corvinus:
equites levis armaturae. quos husarones apellamus), and into staff and mounted archers
(pharetrorius) in the 13th_15th century. Regretfully, we do not have sources dat ing to the
preceding epochs, which wou1d describe any parallel type of the cavalry: simply unar-
mored cavalrymen were recorded in the laws of Co10man 1 the Book-lover in addition
to the loricatus, to say the armored cava1rymen. Since the definition of saggitarius also
appeared in addition to that of loricatus and of panceratus in the primordia1 sources, it
might be assumed that the former definition that can be trans1ated as lövo (shooter) in
the Hungarian language might have been used in case of the armored cavalrymen in the
Árpádian Age. To sum up, 1 believe that we still do not have a more adequate definition
to specify the diyisions, shooters, mounted archers, and hussars collectively than that of
light cavalry.
The proportion of the heavy and light cavalry, as well as their ethnic content within
the body of Hungarian cavalry is, nonetheless, still the subject of steady disputes. Zoltán
Tóth, a researcher triggering the "hussar dispute" in the 1930s, discoursed it in his promi-
nent theses that the traditional Hungarian light cavalry of mounted archers had already
ceased to exist in the 11th century, and they were subsequently replaced by a sort of West-
ern type heavy cavalry, from which point oftime the light cavalrymen that kept appearing
in the army of the Kingdom of Hungary were only the ancillary units of alien people:
initially of the Pechenegs, then of the Cumans, and eventually of the Southern Slavs
f1eeing from the Osman1i Empire in the 15th century. Tóth's undisputab1e merit is that he
successfully identified the Serbian army in the age of Matthias Corvinus with the hus-
sars that started emerging more frequently in the sources of the corresponding period.
Nevertheless, András Borosy's oeuvre elucidated that the radicai shift dated by Tóth to
the 11th century had taken place neither in the Árpádian nor in the Anjou Age. Moreover,
Pál Enge1 clarified that special contingents equipped as light cava1ry of mounted archers
were required to have been organized under Sigismund's reign not because the number
of cavalrymen necessitated to resist the Turkish invaders efficiently was far too low in
total, but because the population subject to state recruitment generally dwindled owing to
social changes. Another fascinating matter is the time period when the Hungarian cavalry
evo1ved bipolar. Did Hungarians have appropriate defense equipment and hand-to-hand
comb at weapons in the 9th to 10th centuries within a cavalry that was "heavier" than that
of the mounted archers, which 1acked such arms according to the current notions? The
archaeological excavations conducted in a large number in the past decades, to wit, have
not recovered any armors except for one helmet, and furthermore, a relatively low amount
of hand-to-hand combat weapons was found contrary to the quantity craved for. Moreo-
ver, only two descriptions can be compared to the archaeological artifacts, and these, akin
to other dispersed references, contradrct the archaeological finds at many points.
The analogical concept of written records might bring new results in research. This

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 is obvious, because the writers of two compilations, name ly Leo VI the Wise (Byzantine
emperor) and Abbot Regino of Prüm, that is to say the contemporaries of the Hungarian
conquerors, compiled their own records by using older sources narrating other eastern
folks, which flawlessly suited the frame of historic discourses having taken place con-
cerning the peoples of the steppe for many centuries. The emperor's description is nearly
the accurate replica of specific parts originally chronicling the Avars and Turks in the
Strategikon of Maurice dat ing to the 7th century, and he scarcely commented on the Hun-
garians and the Bulgars at some po ints in his composition. The fact that there was no sign
of parti cui ar pieces of the weaponry listed by the Byzantine emperor, which were sup-
posed to have been recovered in the burials, might be explained by several other reasons
in addition to that these objects were not used from the outset. We might not automati-
caIly assume that the concise abstract batting the Turks' weapons around would have had
a general prominence in case of the Avars and Turks of the 7th century, or even of the
Bulgars and Hungarians of the 9th to 10th centuries. We must scan the composition of Leo
VI the Wise in knowledge of the foregoing. In the era when his work was finished, the
armored cavalry equipped with arches and spears according to the written references rep-
resented the elite amid the armies in the steppe region, which was just as frequent among
the Central Asian Turks as among the Khazars, even though the re are no many signs
of the aforementioned in the archaeological assemblage.
In this sense, the hackneyed sentiment that the utilization of armor would have had
a magnitude only in aspect of hand-to-hand combats, and that these armors would have
only "vexed" the mobile cavalry of the steppe population as suggested by antediluvian
reports on the combat method of the Hungarians and on the tactics of their foes must also
be revolved around. Notwithstanding, armors could have been made not only of metal,
but of miscellaneous textiles and even leather, yet when it comes to any sort of armor, it
can unequivocally be concluded that the protection of the body against the arrows of the
rivals was necessary, ergo this need must be taken into account even in concern to the
mobile "nomadic mounted archers" as weil.
Concurrently with the anterior facts, another vital contemporary source of Abbot
Regino of Prüm keeps the protective equipment of the Hungarians as "secret", although
he used a piece of ancient description of the heavily armored Parthians to recite the Hungar-
ians. Anonymus, a mediaeval Hungarian chronicler, who completed writings in the wake
of Abbot Regino's reports, mentioned only the helmets of the Hungarians' ancestors that
tallied with the successive delineations. We consequently should envisage that even if the
Hungarian mounted archers of the 1Qth century had had armors made of miscellaneous raw
materials in addition to the helmets composing their protective equipment, metal armors
might not have been in a remarkable quantity among these items.
Of Regino's succinct comments, the section uttering the importance of the Hungar-
ians' "corneous" bows has been accentuated. The tangible remains ofthese weapons have
been recovered by archaeologists on many excavation sites. At the same time, foreign
viewpoints on the enemies of the Hungarians in the 9'h and 10th centuries show a lot more
complicated picture compared to the terse conclusions made on the basis of archaeologi-
cai finds in ,the Hungarian realm of science. Of these armies, sci licet, the poorly equipped
infantry and light cavalry having had spears and more frequently bows were very cruci al
on certain sites. In light of this, further statements that assess the efficaciousness of par-

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 ticular elements of the Hungarians' weaponry dating to the 9'h to I O'h centuries exclusively
in comparison with other fo es equipped with heavy arms, as if the soldiers in the Carol-
ingian Empire and in its successor states had only been weaponed with such arms, must
be the subject of diligent reconsideration. Albeit the Kingdom of Hungary must have had
a massive Western type heavy cavalry until the 12th century, it seems that the Hungarian
armed forces considerably preserved their light cavalry character. (In addition to the two
main corps, the existence of the so-called "transformation" type cavalry can be ascer-
tained neither on the basis of artifacts, nor by written sources. Having taken advantage
of the benign properties of both corps, the Hungarian chiefs deployed diverse strategies
and tactics against their heterogeneous adversaries. Documentations place the activities
of units equipped with different weaponry in the foreground from time to time probably
owing to the previously stated. The argument that the tactics weapons of the steppe com-
bat method must have surely vanished during the centuries subsequent to the Hungarian
Conquest cannot be regarded as well-grounded. On the contrary, plenty of momentous
details, which refer to that the converse is true, can be identitied in the sources.
According to the records preserved to date, we can assume a more delicate and color-
fui concept of the tactical repertoire of the steppe peoples in Eastern Europe in the Early
Middie Age, and hence of the deployment options of the toxophilite light cavalry on the
battle tields until the period of the Mongolian Conquer, as opposed to the general hide-
bound view reflected to date by the double method of "hit and run tactics incorporating
feigned retreats and showering the enemy with arrows discharged backward", which has
been cemented in the ground of domestic science. The fact that neither the foregoing
double method, nor the Egyptian mameluk or Byzantine examples listed as analogies
contradict the fragmentary information on the battles fought in the era of incursions and
raids or the more extensive reports on the comb ats of the already Christianized Hungarian
Kingdom in the Árpádian Age provides exhilarating prospects with subsequent research.
This opus als o points out that contrary to specitic preceding opinions, the presence
of the traditionallight cavalry of mounted archers detined as mounted archers (or phare-
trariuses) in late mediaeval times must be considered unti! the beginning of the 16th cen-
tury. Simultaneously, the existence of the hussars "inherited" from the Byzantine military
machinery of the 10th century intermediated through the Balkan can likely be detected in
the southern border regions of Hungary in the 14th century. In other words, not only the
ancestors of the succeeding Hungarian hussars should be traced among the Southern Slav
warriors fleeing from the Ottoman Empire, but als o the Southern Slav or Vlach population
that served in the royal army of the Southern Banat regions might have belonged to them.
After that experimentation might have been initiated for the purpose of reconstruct-
ing the particularities of the hussar weaponry through collecting the poor documentation
available at the tum of the 15th and 16th centuries and by interpreting them with analogies
in a new contex!. This revealed that compared to the Hungarian light cavalry of mounted
archers in that age, particular light cavalry to have combated expressly with spears and
shields and mostly without any protective equipment was understood under the defini-
tion ofhussars - and not light or semi-heavy armored cavalry as Tóth imagined the early
hussars later in the wake of the incorrectly percei ved analogies of the consequent Polish
hussars and Osmanli spahis.
The history of arms outlined by Zoltán Tóth must have been corrected in many as-

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pects, because he reckoned in the wake ofhis historian ancestors that the light cavalry of
the Balkan people had imitated that of the Osmanli, ergo the weaponry and equipment
of the Hungarian hu ssars must have foIlowed Osmanli patterns. The rapid advance of the
Ottoman conquest did not leave much time for such acculturation in the Balkan, and it
has be en known of the Osmanli arriving from Asia Minor that they were light cavalrymen
akin to Hungarians. Numerous objects and habits that can be linked to the ensuing hussars
had already appeared in early times, for which reason the early hussars must be consid-
ered as a body oflight cavalry, which, as regards their ethnicaIly apt weaponry, resembled
much of a "Balkan type" light cavalry rather than one with "Turkish features".
The root cause of the preceding misinterpretations might have been constituted by the
fact that vast majority of the arrned men of the Balkan folks assimilated int o the military
machinery of the Ottoman Empire in a moderately uninterrupted and nearly unaltered
way. Therefore, "Turkish" and "Hungarians" speaking chiefly the same language and de-
ploying identical military tactics and equipment defied each other at the southern Hungar-
ian borderlines. (These "European Turkish", based on their customs and weaponry, could
have been weIl distinguished from the Asian combat folks of the empire.)
The military machinery of the Balkan peoples of the 15th century originated in the
traditions of the Byzantine Empire, ergo it is not surprising to add that when linguist László
Gáldi joined "the debate on hussars" in 1939, he suggested that lightly armed troops
caIled "khosari" (khószáriosz) or "khonsari" (khonszáriosz) had already served in the
Byzantine arrny in the 10th century. Their primal duties had encompassed reconnaissance,
ambush, and piIlaging as was the case in concern to their Hungarian successors later on.
The career of the hussars was very brisk in Hungary at the end of the 15th century:
the cheap weaponry and efficient comb at method of the ancillary units composed of alien
ethnicities short ly outperforrned the tactics of the traditional Hungarian light cavalry of
mounted archers, and additionaIly the Western type heavy cavalry was condemned to with-
draw as weil. Hussars matured into such a domineering peculiarity of the Hungarian light
cavalry du ring JageIlonian reign, which could have been deployed noticeably efficiently
at the southern borderlines in the so-call ed "minor war" against the Ottoman Empire. Ow-
ing to dynastic relations, the first Southern Slav hussars were sent to Poland in those days,
where they rendered excellent military services in the battles against the Tatars of Crimea.
Hungarian light cavalry as combat cavalry, nonetheless, was supposed to be competent
in the battle of Mohács in 1526 that was the decisive battle of the war fought against the
Ottoman Empire. Since two arrnies equipped with highly identical weaponry faced each
other on the battle field, the knowledge of tactics based on the combination of a lightly
arrned assault cavalry and a defense infantry of archers and arquebusiers above alI cannot
in the least be attributed to the Osmanli only. Conversely, who was capable of reinforcing
their will upon the other party and who was capable of taking advantage of this tactics
was ofutmost importance by virtue ofthese parallels. The analysis of the Hungarian bat-
tIe array allows us to conclude that Hungarians were primarily prepared for defending the
Osmanli attack in hope oftaking military actions against the advance guard of the enemy
in the first place. The commander of the Osmanli advance guard did not want to rush to
combat, because the escarpment surrounding the bottomland of Mohács provided excel-
lent cOIJlbatpositions with them, and perchance the behavior of the Hungarians, as weIl as
their conspicuous battle array, did not suggest that conflict was inevitable that day.

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 Hungarian comrnanders decided to attack around four in the afternoon this way, when
they were ascertained that their foe had refused the battle offered. Having reviewed the
series of events taking place there, it can unequivocally be deduced that the relatively
quick defeat of the Hungarian forces was not caused by the differences in tactics, but
rather by the multitudinous Osmanli overpower. Contrary to the public dogma, the grav-
ity of the frequently mentioned Osmanli firearms was not generated by their firepower
only: for instance, the fire of Osmanli cannons in large number would not have been able
to inflict a serious psychological impact on the light cavalry of the Hungarian right flank
in the beginning without the inexperienced troops of Louis II.
The positive elements of the Hungarian light cavalry's comb at performance must be
pinpointed in unison, because it took the lead over the Osmanli cavalry in overpower,
and its speed allowed the Hungarian right flank to conduct an awesome assault upon the
cavalry of the Rumelian army defended by the Janissaries and the cannons. The Osmanli
army could not quickly exploit the potential of their military supremacy partly on account
of the initial Hungarian military actions.
Polish cavalry, which had evolved under prevailing Hungarian control ali the way
from the 16th century, succeeded in the 17th century that happened to demonstrate that
any attack carried 'out by an ardent and disciplined cavalry, which was also able to endure
losses, in an open battle field could impose severe jeopardy even on any infantry that was
weIl equipped with firearms and was in full professional knowledge of their application.
This experience affected the evolution of the Western European cavalries until the 17'h
century to boot.

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