Matthias Corvinus
Matthias Corvinus ruled Hungary for thirty-two years, built a Renaissance court and a standing army, and both died with him. Born in 1443, he was the son of János Hunyadi, the regent who had beaten the Ottomans at Belgrade in 1456. His elder brother was executed by the king in 1457 and Matthias was held prisoner in Prague. He was elected king in 1458 at fifteen, by a diet of lesser nobles assembled on the frozen Danube, and had to be bought back from his captor. He broke the magnates who expected to control him. He taxed systematically, and with the revenue built the Black Army — a permanent professional force of some 20,000 mercenaries, one of the first standing armies in Europe, which did not depend on noble levies and therefore did not depend on noble consent. He used it against Bohemia and Austria rather than against the Ottomans, taking Vienna in 1485 and holding it as his capital for five years, on the reasoning that a war with the Ottomans could not be won without a European coalition that would never form. His court at Buda was among the first north of the Alps to take Italian humanism seriously. The Bibliotheca Corviniana held some two thousand volumes, second only to the Vatican, and was dispersed after the Ottoman conquest. He was called Matthias the Just in folk tradition for travelling in disguise to hear complaints. He died childless in 1490. The nobles elected a king they chose for his weakness, disbanded the Black Army, and lost the kingdom at Mohács in 1526.
- Lived: 1443 CE – 1490 CE
- Nationality: Hungarian
- Roles: king, ruler, head_of_state, patron
