Magyars

views updated May 29 2018

Magyars People who founded the kingdom of Hungary in the late 9th century. From their homeland in ne Europe, they moved gradually south over the centuries and occupied the Carpathian basin in 895. Excellent horsemen, they raided the German lands to the west until checked by Otto I in 955. They adopted Christianity, and established a powerful state that included much of the n Balkans, but lost territory to the Ottoman Turks after the battle of Mohács (1526). The remainder of the kingdom subsequently fell to the Habsburg Empire.