LÁSZLÓ BOTOS

THE HOMELAND RECLAIMED

I dedicate this book to my son, Gregory

Zoltán Botos, trusting that he will continue

my research. May ISTEN, the God of the Magyars, grant him wisdom.

"In the course of the struggle for existence, there comes a period when it becomes very important for a nation to be aware of her own origin, her past, her accomplishments and her mission. What others know of her is also of vital importance because they may be in the position to form the future of this nation. If a power intends to intervene in the life of another nation, for the purpose of exploitation and territorial gain, it first ruins its image and then is able to enslave it."

Ida Bobula, Kutyabőr

CONTENTS

PART I. The Homeland Reclaimed - 1

1.      Magyars - Barbarians?

2.      The Campaigns of the Magyars

3. The "Annihilated" Avars

4. The Huns

5.  Scythian / Hun / Avar / Magyar Cultural Connections

6. The Magyars and the Ancient Populace of the Carpathian Basin

7. Early Man in the Carpathian Basin

8. The Discovery of Writing

9. The Sumerian / Hungarian Identity

10. Dentumagyaria

PART II. Hungary under Foreign Occupation

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    A thousand thanks to my dear wife, Margaret. Without her daily perseverance and support., this book would never have been written. Her belief and trust in me as I was writing this complicated history of the Magyars gave me the necessary encouragement to continue to research.

    Thanks are also due to Bishop Tibor Dömötör for his valuable advice, which I applied wherever possible and to Michael J. Finn for his constructive criticism and grammatical corrections. I also wish to thank Professor Andor Paposi-Jobb, Géza Radics and Zsuzsa Tomory for their suggestions, Péter Andrékovics for his enthusiasm, Professor Ferenc Badiny-Jós for his encouragement and for allowing me to use some of his research, and John Dayton for granting me permission to use some of his maps.

Emese Cuth deserves a special mention for her cover illustration.

László Botos

FOREWORD

    Carbon 14, still largely ignored by Middle Eastern archeologists, has shown that Europe in the third millennium B.C. was no primitive land of barbarians. The megaliths spread all over Western Europe are now dated fifteen hundred years earlier than they were thirty years ago. The megaliths, in the writer's opinion, were closely associated with the spread of metallurgy.

    Recorded history provides us with no record of a Mediterranean people coming out of that area. The movement has always been into it and into Mesopotamia likewise. Gordon Childe saw the connections between Europe and Mesopotamia but in his great, and now derided work, "The Danube", blinded by the chronology of his time, he got the direction wrong and postulated the activities of Sumerian prospectors in Central Europe. We have records of the Amorites, Hittites, Hurrians, Luwians, Mitannians and even Myceneans, together with the great Sea Peoples at about 1200 B.C. into Palestine and Egypt, an event which ended the Bronze Age and should be linked to the end of Troy and the Kassites' long rule in Iraq. At this time the Hittites were pushed south into northern Syria by the same group of invaders, who were armed with long swords and socketed axes or palstaves. These invaders obviously came from an area where advanced metallurgy flourished and copper and tin were abundant.

    In the light of the above evidence, it is quite possible that the Sumerians came from the Carpathian Basin and the Balkans in a similar manner. The linguistic parallels cited by Mr. Botos are impressive. The Tartarian tablets have sadly been ignored by archeologists in the West. The evidence for the horse and for wheeled vehicles and for this movement was quoted by this writer in 1971 (in World Archeology). Since that time, the importance of the Iberian Peninsula as a source of copper, tin and silver, together with Sardinia with the same minerals, has occupied his studies.

     Metallurgy was never practiced extensively in the Near East, and bronze is notoriously late in reaching Egypt.  The true tin bronzes in the Royal Cemetery at Úr are anachronistic and the complex is dated six hundred years too high, an idea that is anathema to Mesopotamian archeologists.  A similar situation exists in Egyptology where the archeologists, in Sir Alan Gardiner’s words have never been able to escape from the spurious shackles of Manetho’s King Lists.  Herodotus, whose description of Babylon which he visited was remarkably accurate, and who visited Egypt before the time of Manetho and the Ptolemies, is derided and ignored.

     This brings us to the question, postulated by this writer in 1978, of "Who was Sesostris I?" (Sesostris I was most probably not an Egyptian.) Herodotus describes this ruler of Egypt of the new 12th Dynasty (after a period of general upheaval throughout Egypt, the Near East, Anatolia and Mesopotamia) as ruling an Empire extending as far as Scythia and Colchis and across Anato-

lia. Scythia extended beyond the Lower Danube and was certainly in touch with the metal rich peoples of the Carpathian Basin. It is exactly at this time, circa 2000 B.C., that the "Porteurs des Torques", copper and tin-bronze in quantity, European type pins, axes, silver and money rings appear in the Levant. Hurrians and horses appear in North Syria.

    In the Danube Basin, the Bodrogkeresztúr people are smelting Carpathian native copper, and socketed cast axes of the Tiszapolgár and late Lengyel peoples are being produced with a C.14 date of 2695 B.C. It is from these areas that the socketed cast axes and silver of the Royal Tombs of Ur derived, dated to 2201, 2160 and 2088 B.C. by C.14 and, of course, the Royal Burials contain also four-wheeled "chariots" of an Anatolian or for that matter a Balkan type.

    Mr. Botos' painstaking research indicates that the Hungarians (Magyars) were not late arriving barbarians into the Carpathian Basin but were possessed of a cultured civilization. This is contrary to the accepted view that has been propagated in the West.

    In conclusion, Mr. Botos has written a stimulating book that should make historians and archeologists think again and reject the hackneyed view that civilization spread from the Fertile Crescent to Barbarian Europe. He has refocused our eyes on the important cultures of the Carpathian Basin and the Balkans which had so much influence on the city of Troy and Anatolia.

John E. Dayton, London University Institute of Archeology

PREFACE

    The purpose of this book is to incorporate the often conflicting research of Hungarian and foreign linguists and historians into a comprehensive study. I have read hundreds of studies which all demonstrate outstanding research into many different aspects of Hungarian History, covering many different time-periods. But how do these mosaic pieces fit into a unified whole? Drawing from the research of many historians in anthropology, archeology, ethnography and other auxiliary sciences, I shall attempt to present the overall picture of Hungarian history. This work will not be complete because newer and newer facts are coming forth daily and the already existing data are so many that a single researcher cannot make a really comprehensive study. This book is only a pointer in that direction. It is hoped that the new Hungarian historians will research along these lines. Historical science demands the truth. Otherwise history writing is just a political weapon.

    In this book I shall attempt to correct some of the errors, exaggerations and false data, which have been propagated in the writing of Hungarian history. Every nation deserves a true history from which, in case of need, it can draw strength and learn from the mistakes of the past. The future of every nation depends on its knowledge of the past and on whether that knowledge is the truth.

    I shall attempt to prove that the Carpathian Basin was not populated by Slavs at the time of the Magyar Conquest, that the Magyars found there a people related to them, and that their "conquest" was in truth a "homecoming". In fact, the people who inhabited the Carpathian Basin were autochthonous to the territory and had lived there for millennia. Some of them migrated from the area when conditions forced them out, and they returned when the time was right.

     The Carpathian Basin is geographically ideal for settlement. It is a large plain surrounded by mountains and well watered by mountain streams and rivers. It is a territory with natural defenses, accessed through only a few mountain passes. In my discussions of this territory, when recording archeological excavations and settlements, I continue to use the term Carpathian Basin rather than the names of individual countries in this area, unless it is absolutely necessary, because their boundaries are artificial. They were established in 1920, at the Treaty of Trianon, and are continually undergoing change.

     The history of Hungary was written by the West. History is usually written by the victors. Hungary has been occupied by various nations in the past, the Austrians, the Turks and, most recently, the Soviets. The version of Hungarian history written by western historians has been reproduced for centuries and is even taught in Hungarian schools as "Hungarian history". At the time that these historians were writing, they did not have the knowledge available to us today through the auxiliary sciences of archeology, anthropology and linguistics.

    This is not a chronological history of the Magyars. It is rather an attempt to see them in a new light, in their relationship to the Scythians, Huns, Avars, and even the Sumerians. With the aid of archeology, anthropology and linguistics, we shall see the Magyars with a different perspective. It is time to change the old concept of the "barbarian" Magyars. It is time for Hungarians to look back with pride.

Chapter 1.

Magyars - Barbarians?

    "The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other tongues will be found of exceedingly little use towards its right understanding. It is moulded in a form essentially its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no influence on the Hungarian region.

    "Originating in an age too remote to be defined or even discovered, and receiving from time to time infusions-from the various tribes and tongues who have visited or been visited by the Magyar race, it has yet retained all its essential peculiarities, and offers to the inquirer some of the most curious topics of research.

    "The roots of the Magyar are for the most part exceedingly simple and monosyllabic, but their ramifications are numerous, consistent, and beautiful. I know of no language which presents such a variety of elementary stamina, and none which lends itself so easily and gracefully to all the modifications growing out of its simple principles."[1]

     This was written by Sir John Bowring (1792-1872), an English philologist who spoke many languages, one of them Hungarian. He translated many Hungarian poems into English and issued a literary chrestomathy. R. Nisbet Bain, a linguist from the British Museum, noted that the Hungarian language is "a miracle of word formation". Ebersberg, an Austrian linguist, says that the Hungarian language is so perfect that it is as if it were created by a congress of linguists to serve conciseness, smoothness, harmony and clarity of expression. Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, an Italian writer and linguist, (1774-1849), who spoke fifty-eight languages fluently and was familiar with one hundred, stated: "After Latin and Greek, Hungarian is the most musical language and the language most suited to poetry." Jakob L.K.Grimm, a German linguist, (1785-1863), recommended that Hungarian be adopted as an international language.[2]

     Why can we no longer hear about the beauty and antiquity of the Magyar (Hungarian) language? The modern history books and encyclopedia describe the Magyars as "wild, barbarian horsemen" whose language belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group. "This group also includes the Finns, and the Voguls and Ostyaks of Siberia." (World Book Encyclopedia) The Encyclopedia Americana states: "The history of the Hungarian State began suddenly in 895 or 896 A.D. "It also tells us that the Magyars were of Finno-Ugric stock. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, we read: "The proto-Hungarians were apparently an ethnic blend of Ugric and Turkish peoples living in Western Siberia." "By the late 9^th century, the Hungarians had entered their present location, subjugating the resident Slavs and Huns." Linguists who promote the Finno-Ugric theory of the origin of the Magyars state that the Magyars were so primitive that they had no words to express even the most simple elements and they picked up their vocabulary from the peoples they met on their travels throughout Europe. This is how they explain the large number of foreign words and expressions in the Magyar language. Hungarian students are taught that their ancestors were primitive tribes related to the Voguls and Ostyaks and that they originated in the snowy wind-swept steppes of Siberia. If the Magyar people were as primitive as the Finno-Ugric theorists state, their language would not be as well developed as the aforementioned European linguists found it to be.

    Karin Mark, an Estonian anthropologist has stated that the Magyar origins cannot be found among the Voguls and Ostyaks because there are unbridgeable differences between them and the Magyars. The most famous Finno-Ugric linguist who has been called "the apostle of Finno-Ugric linguistics", Björn Collinder, writes: "The Finno-Ugric phonetic system lacks the Magyar phonemes - á, é, cs, gy, í, ly, ny, ó, ö, sz, ty, ú, ü, zs, - fourteen phonemes, and the Finno-Ugric languages also lack the verbal prefix.” [3]  Miklós Gábori writes that, at the time of the Sumerians, the territory of the Urals and Siberia was unpopulated. According to the Finno-Ugric hypothesis, the ancestors of the Hungarians lived on these aforementioned territories with their relatives, the Voguls and Ostyaks in 6000 B.C. Gyula Lász1ó states that such territory which the linguistic science declares to be the "Ural-Finno-Ugric territory" never existed.[4] He also mentions that there is no Finno-Ugric archeology, folk art, or anthropology that prove connections with the Magyars.[5]  Doctor Badiny asks on what the Finno-Ugric relationship is based if the Finno-Ugric languages lack fourteen Magyar phonemes and there is no Finno-Ugric archeology, anthropology and folk-art to prove a relationship with the Magyars.[6]

     Hungarian history, as the West knows it, was written by the enemies of the Hungarians, by those who conquered them and who wished to keep them under their dominance. In 1526, the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand, of the Hapsburg house of Austria, became King of Hungary. The Hapsburgs ruled Hungary from that time until 1867 when the dual-monarchy was established. The Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted from 1867 to 1918.

     The Hapsburgs forbade the publication of Magyar (Hungarian) writings dealing with the subject of self-pride, patriotism, pride in the historical greatness of Magyarország (Hungary) or dealing with internal or foreign policy. At the same time, they supported and propagated publications which spread the concept of national self-depreciation, emphasizing that the present-day Hungarians originated from a primitive people, from "the lowest branch of mankind's family tree" and portraying the Magyars as "pagan, barbarian hordes" whose diet consisted of raw meat. This description of the Magyars is widely accepted even today. Edouard Harriot, a former French minister, called them cannibals who did not belong in the European community. [7]

    This derogation was encouraged in order to break the national spirit of the Hungarians and bring them under the yoke of the Hapsburgs who knew that a nation which loses its national pride, which turns away from its ancestors and despises them, has no future but one of servitude and slavery. In pursuing their relentless disparagement, the Hapsburgs represented the Magyars, who reclaimed the Carpathian Basin in A.D. 896, under the leadership of Árpád, as merciless barbarians. Emperor Joseph II, (1780-1790), who was also King of Hungary would not allow the ancient Hungarian history to be taught in Hungary.

    In 1848, the Hungarians began a freedom fight against the Austrian occupation, and defeated the Austrian army in 1849. At that time, the Austrian Empire was in alliance with the Russian Empire, and the Austrians naturally asked for the Russians' help. The Russians proved to be good allies and sent powerful armed forces against Hungary. These superior forces defeated the Hungarian regiments and thus enabled the Hapsburgs to restore their rule over Hungary. Under such circumstances it was not possible for the Hungarian scholars to work freely and objectively in the research of the Magyar origins. The Austrians appointed professors to the Hungarian Academy of Science who did not even speak Hungarian. Joseph Budenz, a German from Rasdorf, Germany, did not speak Hungarian, yet he was appointed Professor of Hungarian Linguistic Science. He introduced the hypothesis of the Finno-Ugric origins of the Magyars, which was supposedly originated by Aeneas Silvius Picolinimi, Pope Pius II (1448-1464). According to this theory, the Magyars were descended from the primitive Ostyak and Vogul tribes of Siberia and also related to the Finns. From this time on, the Magyars were called a Finno-Ugric people. In his efforts to advocate the Finno-Ugric theory, Budenz was aided by the Germans, Hundorfer, Schedel, Munk and Ferber. Hundorfer changed his name to the Hungarian Hunfalvy, Schedel to Toldi, Munk to Munkácsi, and Ferber to Szinnyei.

     In the sixteenth century, Adam Kolart was the first writer serving the Hapsburg interest to produce anti-Hungarian texts. He flooded the universities with anti-Hungarian writings. At the Hungarian nation's strong objections, the Hapsburgs removed Adam Kolart from his position but, in private, he continued to spread anti-Hungarian propaganda. He stated that, at the time of Árpád, Magyarország (Hungary) did not exist as a country because there were no Magyars living there, only Slavs.[8]  This information is propagated even today. (see the aforementioned encyclopedia).

     It has been documented that, at least from the time of the Roman occupation, this territory has been inhabited by a people speaking the Magyar language. The Roman historian, Ammianus Marcellinus recorded that the Roman legions, the most modern and largest army at that time, fought for 44 years to conquer Pannonia, from 35 B.C. to A. D. 9. Pannonia was the name the Romans used for the area which we call Hungary. He told a story about the Pannonians (early Hungarians) which is quoted by Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (Chapter 19, section 48)[9]  In A.D. 359, during the reign of Emperor Constantine II, the people of Pannonia revolted because they could no longer bear the weight of the increasing taxes. The Emperor tried to mitigate the people's dissatisfaction and called a meeting at. Szerém (in Latin Sirmium), where he wanted to persuade the people to pay their taxes. When he declared that the taxes had to be paid, one of the desperate listeners took off his boot and threw it at the Emperor, shouting: "Marha! Marha!" At that point, the revolt erupted. The Pannonians tore off his golden robe and broke his golden throne. He escaped on horseback wearing a soldier's uniform and helmet. It is notable that this interjection "marha!" is presently in use by the Hungarians when they are angry or indignant. Its meaning is "cattle" but used in this way it means "beast" or "brute". Luitprand, writing in A.D. 910, stated that the northern neighbors of the Byzantine Empire were the Magyars. The border between Byzantium and the Magyars was the Lower Danube.[10]

     The Hungarian legend of the Enchanted Stag (which in the original legend was a doe) is the story of the sons of Nimrud, Hunor and Magor, who followed the white stag to the land of King Dul of the Alans where they found and married two of the king's daughters and established the people of the Huns and the Magyars. They migrated to the Carpathian Basin where they found a people speaking a language similar to their own. This would cause us to question the theory that the Carpathian Basin was populated by Slavs when the Magyars arrived there with their leader, Árpád. It also allows us to answer a question that has puzzled the Finno-Ugric linguists for so long -why the people Of Árpád, who were small in number, were able to impose their language on a "larger Slav populace" in the Carpathian Basin. The simple explanation is that they did not need to force anyone to speak their language because the language of the ancient populace was the Magyar language. We still do not know for sure whether all the people who came with Árpád spoke the Magyar language. According to some sources, some of them spoke a Turkic language although the Megyer "nation",[11] the leading group, spoke Magyar. If that were so, then they gave up their Turkish language and adopted the language of the ancient populace, which we now call Magyar.

     According to the Finno-Ugric linguists, the Hungarian word "csizma" (boot) is a Slav word. They cannot imagine that the "nomadic" Magyars of the ninth century could possess the skill to make boots. The above-mentioned story indicates that the Magyar-speaking people, who lived in the Carpathian Basin before the Roman occupation, wore boots and not sandals, as did the Slavs.

     Pannonia, in the first three centuries after Christ, until the Huns arrived in the Carpathian basin, in A.D. 375, was the name given by the Romans to Transdanubia, (the part of Hungary which lies between the Danube, the Dráva and the western border of the country) and the territory between the Dráva and Száva rivers. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Huns occupied the territory, which the Romans called Pannonia but they no longer called it Pannonia. The Avars occupied it after the Huns and this territory received the name of Avaria. From the beginning of the eighth century to the end of the ninth century, the western sources mention the name Pannonia but when they use this name, they do not apply it to the territory of Transdanubia, as the Romans did, but to two different territories. The territory that is now called Austria was called Upper Pannonia, and the territory between the Dráva and Száva rivers, close to the Adriatic Sea was called Lower Pannonia. The chronicles of the monastery of Altha, in the ninth century, state: "The land of the Avars or Huns, after eight years of continuous war, was occupied by Charlemagne who chased out the Avars, and Avaria, that is upper Pannonia, which now receives the name of Austria, up to the country of Bavaria, was divided among the churches."[12]

     The Finno-Ugric historians also state that the Magyars lived in Etelköz, between the Szeret and Prut rivers, before returning to the Carpathian Basin and that, while the Magyar men were away on campaigns, the Pechenegs attacked their wives, children and old people who were left at home, totally annihilating them. (Constantine Porphyrogenitus records that the Pechenegs attacked the Magyars, but he does not say that it was a fatal attack.) They explain that the returning Magyar men were forced to flee from the Pechenegs toward the Carpathian Basin and, after they had conquered the Slavs who were living there, they married Slav women. The modern Hungarians are supposedly originated from these Slav mothers.

     Raising children was the duty of the mother, because for many months the father was away from the family while he was campaigning. According to Slav historians, the Magyars conquered Slav territory and married Slav women, but why and how would these Slav mothers have taught their children the Magyar language, when the Magyars were considered to be enemies? Logically, the Magyar children would have learned the Slav language and the Hungarians of today would not speak the Magyar language.

     According to Slav historians, the territory of Szvatopluk, the ruler of the Slav tribes, was in the Carpathian Basin. The Képes Krónika (1358), and the Óbudai Chronicles, also written in the fourteenth century, both state that Árpád bought the Carpathian Basin from Szvatopluk for a white horse, a saddle ornamented with gold and a golden bit. This information must have been written into the Chronicles by someone who was not Hungarian but who was working against the Hungarians. Who was Szvatopluk? The original sources write his name as Zwentibold. This name was originally of German origin but was slavicized to Szvatopluk or Sventopolk. The western Chronicles write: "Zwentibold and Rastez had a camp north of the territory of the Margrave of Moravia and they attacked the German territories in Pannonia."[13]  This Pannonia, (Upper Pannonia, presently Austria), and not the Pannonia in Transdanubia, was the territory which Charlemagne destroyed completely. As the Avars were killed, Charlemagne settled in their place Slavs and Germans. After the dissolution of the Avar Empire, Zwentibold managed to create a temporary Slav rule in that area. In A.D. 860, Zwentibold and his uncle Rastez made an alliance with the slaves of the salt-mines and they started to harass the German states in Upper Pannonia. King Ludwig II sent his son Ludwig to settle one of these conflicts and he, himself attacked Zwentibold. When he was captured, Zwentibold negotiated with Ludwig and betrayed his uncle, Rastez. Ludwig II then called an assembly of the Franks, Bavarians, Saxons and Slavs who unanimously decreed that Zwentibold should be blinded and lose all his power. This happened in A.D. 870 and after that Zwentibold disappeared from the history books. He died in A.D. 894.[14]  How then was it possible for Árpád to buy the Carpathian Basin from Szvatopluk (Zwentibold) in A.D. 896? The Slavs also claim Pannonia as the land of Szvatopluk (Zwentibold), but the Pannonia that they claim is the territory of Transdanubia, in the Carpathian Basin, not Upper Pannonia in Austria, which was originally the land of Zwentibold. Why do they claim that Zwentibold's territory was in Transdanubia? They want to establish that they were present in the Carpathian Basin when the Magyars arrived there. Today they are excavating large numbers of Avar graves and claiming the artifacts as a "Slav" inheritance. The Hungarians could easily disprove that these artifacts are of Slavic origin. They would only need to present the many thousands of Avar artifacts that have been excavated in Hungarian territory which are identical to the so-called "Slav" inheritance.

     The hypothesis of the Finno-Ugric origins of the Magyars has been accepted for over a hundred years and no other theory has been allowed to be proposed in Hungary. However, in 1978, Gyula Lász1ó published the results of his archeological research and cast doubts on the validity of the Finno-Ugric hypothesis.[15]

Gyula Lász1ó states that if one area of craftsmanship reaches a high level, we can safely assume that all areas of craftsmanship have attained relatively the same level. The craftsmen of the Árpád era, the blacksmiths, silver and goldsmiths, saddlers, fletchers, carpenters, wheelwrights, potters, furriers, and metallurgists were all highly advanced, so the rest of the craftsmen must also have been on a similar level. With the aid of Gyula Lász1ó, we can examine the Hungarian words relating to the household: ház (house), ajtó (door), ajtófélfa (doorpost), küszöb (threshold), fal (wall), fedel (roof), which are all Magyar words from before the time of Árpád. Dr. Lász1ó concludes that, in the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars were living in houses and not in mud huts as has been widely taught. This has been proven by the archeological findings at Felgyő, where large houses were uncovered, built of rammed-earth walls, wood and bricks. These houses were in every respect much closer to a modern structure than to a mud hut.[16]

       István Bona, at Dunapentele, unearthed large numbers of mud huts.  "On the maps which indicate where the mud huts are, it is more likely that we are looking at Slav settlements, than at Avar or Magyar settlements."[17] Those territories, where mud huts were found in larger numbers, were definitely not the territories of the settlement places of the later Avars or Árpád's Magyars, but Slav settlements.[18]

    The Slav tribes were located in the territories surrounding the Avar and Magyar territory. In large numbers, the Avars settled the Slavs in these territories as a people of serfs. In spite of the fact that most historical works state that the Slavs were in the majority in the Carpathian Basin, and that Árpád's people destroyed their empire, we shall see that, in the time of Árpád, there was not an organized Slav state in the Carpathian Basin, just scattered Slav settlements. All the words that had connection with the house existed in the vocabulary of the Árpád Magyars before they entered the Carpathian Basin. It is obvious that the Slavs did not teach the Magyars how to build houses but, on the contrary, they learned from the Avars or the Magyars.

     The Magyar laws and documents bear witness to the fact that the houses were constructed above ground. In these documents we find phrases such as: "they burned them (the houses) down"; "they took them apart and carried them away"; "they rebuilt them". All these phrases refer to houses rather than mud huts.[19] The Magyar Chronicles write about the laws of King István from the eleventh century, which are addressed to a settled populace (villa).[20]

     Before the time of Prince Géza (970-997) there is no mention of settlements. However, thirty to forty years later, in the time of King István, the documents mention settled villages. This would seem to indicate that the Magyars who entered the Carpathian Basin in A.D. 896 were not a nomadic people as is commonly believed. They had simply migrated from Etelköz to the Carpathian Basin.

     In the present, there are large numbers of Slavs living in the Carpathian Basin so the reader might ask how it was possible that Árpád's people found a Magyar speaking people when they arrived and the Magyar Chronicles do not mention the Slavs. About four thousand years ago, the Proto-Slavs settled in the Sarmatian desert where they became connected with the Scythians. According to Herodotus, the Slavs lived in the territory of the Valda hills and along the river Volga. The equestrian peoples all brought servants with them from the Sarmatian desert into the Carpathian Basin. Later on, these servants received the name "sclavus" in Latin, meaning "slave, servant" which is the origin of the name of the Slavs. The Serbs and Croats were settled on the northern borderline of the Byzantine Empire by Emperor Heraclius to defend his borders against the Avars. After the fall of the Avars, the Slavic Serbs and Croats slowly infiltrated into Transdanubia. At the time that Árpád's Magyars settled in the counties of Szerém and Veröce, they found no Serbs or Croats in those counties, because at that time, the Serb and Croat people lived as shepherds in the valleys of the Morava, Ibar, Lim and Zéta rivers. Only in the twelfth century A.D. did they begin to spread to the northwest. Until 1459, Serbia was a subsidiary state of Hungary and the Serbs were able to migrate freely into the territory that they had earlier devastated as allies of the Turks. The Hungarian kings supported the settlement of foreigners in Hungary because they needed workers. The aristocrats were very willing to employ them for lower wages. At the beginning, they were very modest and satisfied with very little. Because the kings favored them, in 1495, the government gave them an exemption from taxes. In 1597, in Bács and Bodrog, which were formerly 100% Hungarian counties, there were 35 Serbian villages. In the counties of Temes and Torontál, the populace became almost entirely Serbian. The Serbs pledged their allegiance to Emperor Leopold, King of Hungary. At the Belgrade Assembly, June 18, 1690, 36,000 families about 180-200,000 people, had to leave Serbia. They were allowed to resettle on the left bank of the river Száva in Hungary. They came to this territory with the understanding that after the liberation of Serbia, they would return to their land. In 1691, the land of the Serbs was free again but they found their life more prosperous in Hungary so they remained. The Serbs did not want to accept taxation in Hungary, so many disputes emerged. Because they gave so much opposition to the government, the army advised the government to give a separate territory to the Serbs in 1694. They received the eastern part of Slavonia and the county of Bács. In this way the Serbs took a large part of the Hungarian territory.

     The distorted historical writings of Adam Kolart, Berzeviczy and others became the sources from which modern historians took their information. These lies and derogatory statements were used as a basis for the Peace treaty at the end of World War I, the Treaty of Trianon, 1920, which accorded not only considerable areas of Hungarian territory but also large numbers of Hungarian population to the neighboring states, where they have lived, since 1920, as an oppressed minority. The people of Hungary, although they begged that their right to self-determination be respected, were ignored and were not even given a plebiscite, except for the citizens of Sopron, who voted to remain within the Hungarian borders. Nobody sympathized with the descendants of "uncivilized, uncultured barbarians".

    The Serbs had no right to the territories on the left banks of the rivers Száva and Danube, either historically or by dint of numbers of populace, yet they received the Voivodina with 564,000 Hungarians, at the Treaty of Trianon. In 1941, the Hungarian and the Serbian governments agreed that the Serbs would return Zombor, Ujvidék, Kikinda, Versec, the Baranyai triangle and the territory of Muraköz to Hungary, but, a few days after this announcement, with the financial support of the Americans and the English, a coup overthrew the Yugoslav government and nullified the agreement. This Slavic influence, by dint of the numbers, became a threat not only to Hungary but also to the whole of Europe.[21]

    If the history written by the enemies of the Hungarians is inaccurate, where then can we find the true Hungarian history? Modern Hungarian historians, archeologists and writers such as János Hetényi, Mihály Horváth, Lász1ó Szalay, Gyula Illyes, Ferenc Eckhart, György Györffy, Gyula Lász1ó, Bálint Hóman, and József Eotvös, have all done extensive research and document the true historical facts. Ferenc Kunszabó in his work És Ég az Oltár, (Budapest, 1992) presents information taken from these historians.

     The Magyars of Árpád who lived in the Kazar Empire were merchants well-known to Byzantium. They taught the whole of Europe the process of working fur and the waterproofing of leather. It is also a known fact that the Magyars of Árpád entered many well-known cities in the Carpathian Basin which were mercantile centers of the Avars or of the ancient populace: Munkács, Pozsony, Esztergom, Nyitra, Pest, Buda, Ungvár, Tolna, Pécs, Vasvár, Eger, Bihár, Gyulafehérvár, Győr, Veszprém, etc. If the homecoming Magyars were barbarians, they would have destroyed these cities. They did not destroy them but built even more cities such as Komárom, Himesudvár, Borsód, Szabolcs, Feketevár, Tasvár.  Árpád built a castle for himself on the island of Csepel in the Danube. The priests and bishops of Pannonia, at the time of the arrival of Árpád, all fled in panic from Pannonia but shortly after, they wrote in letters to Rome that, instead of harm and harassment from the Magyars, they were offered a welcome to return.

     Imre Stammler, school principal and amateur archeologist, has researched the evidence of an iron industry and the production of tools and weapons in the tenth century. The results of his research were published by the Pedagogical Institute at Kaposvár, in the Somogy County Archives (1989). His paper was acknowledged by Gyula Lászó and János Gömöri, both well-known archeologists. Imre Stammler tells us that he started to research the names of the settlements originating from the names of leaders of the pre-Christian Magyars. He felt that in these places he would find evidence of the level of civilization of the tenth century Magyars. He reported his first findings to the leaders of the Archeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science but, instead of support and encouragement, he experienced rejection because he was not an acknowledged archeologist. In spite of this, he continued his research and excavated many more remains than he had anticipated. Modern dating technology can accurately determine the age of these findings and, if it were applied, we could learn much more about the Magyars of the tenth century.

    Until now it has been generally accepted that the Magyar people began their class system at the time of King István I (A.D. 1000-1038) and that before that time, all Magyars were free nomads. However, according to the most recent information, they had already developed a class system before they entered the Carpathian Basin. They had a well-developed social structure and their military hierarchy was based on units of ten. The majority of the Avar people survived the conquest of Charlemagne and many of their industrial sites remained. The Magyars were able to learn the techniques practiced at these sites.

    In the ninth and tenth centuries, the use of metal weapons and tools was widespread. Iron was needed to make swords, arrowheads, bits, stirrups, carriages and agricultural implements. In Asia and in Central Europe, there were many peoples, all part of the same ethnic group. This large ethnic group has been known under many different names. The "nation" which was in ascendance at any given time gave its name to the Empire. It was important for a leader to have knowledge of metallurgy because knowledge was power. In the tenth century, the Magyars were in power and they have left evidence of their metalworking industry.

      In the county of Somogy, which was originally an autonomous state at the time of Árpád but was annexed by the leader of the Magyars, we find many smelting-works around the settlements that were called by the names of Magyar leaders.  In the same county, archeologists have also excavated settlements with names that reflect the working of iron – Vasas (ironworker), Ötvös (gold or silversmith), Kovácsi (smith), Vértes (armour), Csatár (soldier), Tömörd, Tömörke, Tarkány (smith -- ancient term), Vaskert (ironyard), Vaskalap (iron hat). We can be sure that they date to the time before King István because the kings of the Árpád Dynasty unified the nation and raised it to statehood. In Zamárd, János Gömöri, an archeologist from the Hungarian Academy of Science, excavated the foundation of a smelting-work with blast-pipes and cinders, which he determined to be from the Age of the Avars.

     In 1989, at the place named after Faisz, one of the leaders of the Magyars, Imre Stammler found an area where there were many iron smelting-works. It was excavated by János Gömöri, who found an almost perfect blast furnace and eighteen almost perfect blast-pipes, many iron balls weighing approximately 6 pounds and many cinders, ceramics and wood charcoal. The excavations should continue here because it is certain that the workers' residences would be found. At that time, workers who obtained that rare knowledge were given special privileges. They lived close to the workplace under the protection of the leader. I will name a few of the settlement names which reflect the names of "nations" or their leaders, locations in which blast furnaces were found: Árpád, Tetény, KáI, Horka, Bogát, Faisz, Bulcsu, Megyer, Nyék, Keszi, Örs, Kürt, Jenő, Tarján, Tarhány, Usubu, Jutás. With this superior knowledge of working iron and producing weapons, the Magyars could not have been barbarians, and this explains their superiority over the West in weaponry for the period of several hundred years.

    Already in the reign of King István I, (1000-1038) (Saint Stephen), there was taxation throughout the whole country and we know that taxation is the basis of every well-founded society. Only in this way was it possible to build and maintain roads and bridges and ensure public safety. At this time new cities came to the level of international fame - Székesfehérvár, Zalavár, Vác, Sopron, Buda, Kalócsa, Zimony, Nagyvárad, Kolozsvár, Brassó and, in Northern Hungary, mining and mercantile cities such as Selmec, Kormóc, Eperjes, Löcse, Szepes, Kassa, Zolyom, Késmark, Újbánya, Bélabánya. The coins at the time of King István I contained 93% silver and became one of the most favored currencies of Europe.

    At the end of the eleventh century, the merchants of Hungary became so rich that King Kálmán (Könyves Kálmán) (1095-1116) raised their taxes 100%. He also bestowed full citizenship on the Jewish people living in the country. The National Assembly in 1114 was obliged to regulate the number of youths who wanted to enter industrial apprenticeships because they were depleting the agricultural workforce.

     In the reign of King Béla III (1172-1196), there were more than one hundred mining cities in Hungary. At that time, most of the national income came from the mines, from industry and from trade. The extent of the nation's wealth is shown by the work of the gold and silversmiths and by the fact that Princess Elizabeth (Saint Elizabeth) took with her as a wedding gift to Thuringia a complete silver cradle, a silver bathtub, chains and other gold and silver treasures, the like of which had never before been seen in Thuringia. According to Bálint Homán, in the Middle Ages, half of the silver products and two-thirds of the gold products of the known world at that time were produced by Hungary. Abu Hamid al Garnati, an Arab traveler who spent three years in Hungary, between 1150 and 1153, wrote in his journal that the Magyars had seventy-eight cities and villages surrounded by walls and gardens.[22] The National Assembly of 1405 gave the citizens of the chartered cities the same rights as the aristocracy and the church hierarchy. This law remained in force until the Hapsburgs appeared in Hungary. King Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490) forbade the export of armaments and regulated the movements of the foreign merchants in the country. His writings state that, in the county of Somogy, the populace neglected the agricultural work because of their interest in trading. According to Ferenc Eckhart, there were circa eight hundred chartered cities and centers in the country whose population numbered about one thousand in each, making about eight hundred thousand merchants and industrial workers, approximately twenty percent of the entire population of Hungary. In 1627, in the Selmec Mine, for the first time in the world, an explosion was used to loosen the coal for harvesting. A record of this event can be found in the mining log, which is presently kept in the Museum at Sopron.

    Only two decades after the Magyars had reclaimed their homeland in A.D.896, the "barbaric, pagan, boorish Magyars" were able to make high connections, receive honored titles such as Patrician and make royal marriages. The Byzantine emperors were extremely particular about whom they honored as a guest or a friend, into which royal house they married and which royal princess they accepted in marriage. Whoever was so honored by the Emperor must have been of a similar rank to him. Viktor Padányi tells us that the Roman title of Patrician came into use in the sixth century and that the Popes of Rome, Byzantium and Ravenna bestowed this honor on foreign personages of royal rank such as Alaric, Theodoric, Clodwig and Charlemagne. "The Magyar leader, Bulcsu Horka,[23] the greatest European military leader of the tenth century was also awarded the title of Patrician and he was baptized a Christian in A.D. 948 at Viddin." The Emperor was his godfather.[24]

    Many marriages took place between the Magyar and foreign royal houses. Bulcsu Horka's aunt was married to Arnulf, Prince of Bavaria. King Kálmán of Hungary (1095-1116) was widowed. The Byzantines offered him the Lady Nikeforosz as his wife. The father of Nikeforosz, Botongejatesz, became Emperor of Byzantium. Piroska, the only daughter of King Lász1ó (who became Saint Lász1ó) also married a Byzantine Prince who later became Emperor. Margit, the daughter of King Béla III, and Anna, daughter of King István V, also married Byzantine Emperors. Perhaps the Magyars were not so barbaric after all. If they really were so in 896, and they climbed to such high positions in Europe in such a short time, then they were a very talented people, blessed with great intellect.

     When the Magyars entered the Carpathian Basin to reclaim their ancient homeland, they were a civilized equestrian people unlike the westerners who were primarily urban dwellers. Each society, the urban and the equestrian, had its own characteristics. The urban dwellers accepted the structure of city living, decorating their houses and their surroundings and constructing large edifices that were meant to last. They placed great value on tolerance and peaceful coexistence. These factors contributed to the development of this society.

     The highly mobile equestrian civilization, on the other hand, valued its freedom, and speed was the basis of its lifestyle. More than anything else the people cherished their independence. Instead of the stability so important to the city-dweller, the horseman's life depended on his mobility.

    Both societies had to overcome problems of distance. The one used water as a means of transportation, the other used the horse and carriage. They differed greatly from each other in the development of their society, especially in the beginning, but both societies contributed equally to modern civilization. Instead of permanent constructions, the equestrians needed to create products which were light, easy to assemble and disassemble, and easy to carry. They developed a much higher standard in clothing because life on horseback demanded tight garments and boots. In the course of history, when the Hapsburg Emperors wished to dress up, they wore the costume of the "boorish, barbaric Magyars", which later developed into the military uniform of the Magyar Huszars. In the eighteenth century, this uniform was adopted by the West, together with its name. It became known in German as "hussar", in English as "hussar" and in French as "houssar". The American military dress uniform was adapted from the uniform of the hussars, which was introduced into America by Colonel Kovats de Fabriczy, who served under General George Washington.

    The equestrians developed better weaponry, shields and arrows; more beautiful jewelry and a greater variety of folk arts than did the city-dwellers. They used leather, wood, bone and precious metals. They produced carpets, textiles and metalwork. The abundance of their folk-songs, dances and instruments by far surpassed that of the western urban societies. They also used a runic script which they carved on rods. "These folk arts were adopted by the Goths who settled in the Meotis Moor from A.D. 180-370. The Goths carried these folk arts with them to the West as Gothic arts." [25] This equestrian culture was just as valuable in influencing the development of modern civilization, as was the urban culture. It was responsible for introducing a higher level of hygiene to Europe. The Turanian or Ural-Altaic peoples used baths - the Turkish bath, the Finnish sauna and the Chinese bath. None of these is of Indo-European origin. The art of the goldsmiths and silversmiths was absent from the early river civilizations of the West. It was taken to China by the Huns and adopted by the Persians and Byzantines who had close connections with the equestrian civilizations. The Persians and Byzantines developed this gold and silverwork to a higher degree of sophistication and later brought it to the West and back to the Magyars with more refined techniques.

     The "barbaric” Magyars made many valuable contributions to the progress of mankind one of which was the use of the carriage which made it possible for people to settle in the fertile inland territories. The use of the carriage was transmitted to the West by the Magyars. It was adopted together with its Magyar name "kocsi" (kotshi) e.g. German "kutsche" (kootshe), French "coche" (kosh), English "coach" and Italian "coccio" (kotshio).[26]

     The famous English archeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, states: "the most convenient and easily recognizable criterion of civilization is the knowledge of the art of writing." [27]  At a time when none of the European peoples, not even the Greeks or Romans, had a writing system that they could call their own, the early Magyars had their own alphabet and numerical system. The Greeks took their letters from the Phoenicians, and the Romans developed their alphabet from the Greeks and the Etruscans. Adorján Magyar, a Hungarian linguist and ethnographer, points out the similarity between the Magyar and Etruscan writing but discounts the theory that the Magyars copied the Latin alphabet that the Romans took from the Etruscans. He states that the Magyar runic numerals show a greater similarity to the Etruscan than to the Roman numerals. How is this possible if the Magyars appeared in Western history only a thousand years ago, as is commonly believed? According to Adorján Magyar, the only explanation is that the Etruscans and the Magyars had the same primeval origin, or that the Magyars were living in Europe at the time of the Etruscans. "Either the Hungarians received their numerical figures from the Etruscans or the Etruscans from the Hungarians."[28]

    Sándor Forrai, a Hungarian linguist who specializes in the study of runic scripts, states that the modern system of Hungarian shorthand writing developed from the methods used by the Magyars at the time of Árpád in the ninth century. This conclusion is based on an analysis of a stick calendar carved in the Szekler runic script and other sources of the runic script.[29]

     Professor Badiny, of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, talks about the destruction of the runic script in Hungary:

     "During the reign of István I, it became a duty of the Church to destroy any relics of the 'pagan' past, just as the Conquistadores destroyed the culture of the Incas in South America and the Mayan and Aztec cultural wonders in Central America under the pretext of spreading Christianity." [30]

     There were several reasons for this purposeful destruction. One was to remove all traces of the ancient "pagan" past. In the yearbook of the Jósa András Museum at Nyiregyháza (1969 and 1971 editions), we can read that András Vitéz, the Canon of Rozsnyó and Judge of the County of Gomor and Kishont, in 1816 found a document in the archives of the Szilássy family, entitled: "Vatican, 1000, C.A.L. Oct. Diefesto L.A.C. AP" which he translated into Hungarian. The text described how King István I. had all his advisors sign a law which Domonkos, the Archbishop of Esztergom had the responsibility of enforcing through the Christian Church. This law was proposed by Pope Sylvester and adopted by King István and his Council of ministers. The law ordered the destruction of anything written in the Magyar, Szekler or Cumanian (Kun) runic script, which was written from right to left and used by the Hungarian Christian priests. The Latin letters were to be used in place of the runic script. It was further ordered that the Christian priests received benefits if they learned the Latin letters but, if they used the runic script, "the pagan writing", they would lose the right to be teachers and priests. Any priest discovered using the runic script was to be fined 20 gold "pensas". Furthermore, the pagan writings were to be erased from Church buildings, and prayer-books written in the runic script were to be destroyed and replaced by Latin books. There was a reward of one to ten dinars for anyone submitting ancient runic documents. The documents and carvings were ordered to be burned "so that the desire to return to the ancient pagan religion will be quenched."[31]

    In the Hapsburg era, it was the intention of the imperial regime to crush the national pride and present the Magyars as a wild, uncivilized people, thereby creating a justification for its plan to "germanize" or annihilate the Magyars. The Austrians found it very disturbing that the Magyars had developed their own writing system before the Europeans and therefore they sent a special commission to Hungary to destroy everything that proved a link to the ancient culture.[32]

    Egyed Rudnay writes that the Hapsburg House and the Catholic Church both had an interest in blackening the name of the Magyars so that they could conquer them because they could not conquer them by military means.[33]  From the podium and from the pulpit, they propagated the false information that the Magyars learned their civilization from the West, that they adopted Christianity from the West and that they learned statehood from the West. But if we look more closely at Europe in A.D. 896, we will see how this information could not possibly be true. Historians call the period between the 7^th and 10^th centuries in Europe "the Dark Ages". The Magyars in the 9^th century found in Western Europe an uncultured and disorganized system. The blood-union, which unified the Magyars into a confederacy, took place about 500 years before the formation of most of the European states. The Kingdom of France was unified under Louis XI (1461 1483). Bismarck (1815-1896) unified the German states. Italy was unified by Garibaldi (1807-1882). Ernst Sackur, a Jesuit priest, writes about the situation in Europe in the tenth century in his book "Die Cluniacenser Halle" in 1894. He states that the aristocrats robbed and killed each other and among them, the princes were the worst robbers. If a wandering knight gathered a few rocks on top of a mountain, it was declared to be a castle. Europe was prey to wild animals but people were in greater danger from robbers. Everyone was a fugitive and a nomad with no permanent residence. They did not build walls, but lived in caves and lean-to shelters.

     In the Chronicles of Charlemagne we see that "their buildings were built of mud and wood."[34] The French bishops ordered the monks to build stone walls around their monasteries as a defense against the Norman invaders. The monks asked how they could do that because they had no knowledge of masonry and nobody to teach them. "What they built in the daytime fell down at night." [35]

    Widukind, the chronicler of Henry the Fowler, (926-936) called the towers built for defense against the Magyars "cities" because they were built of stone, yet they could accommodate only nine soldiers. Widukind noted that, besides these "cities", there were no other stone walls in the German states.[36]  In Belgium, all the old houses were made of wood, in spite of the fact that this territory had very few trees but was rich in stone as a resource. The stone castles of Holland were built after the fourteenth century. Cellini, the famous Italian gold and silversmith, who spent two years in the service of King François I of France (1515-1547), complained that, whenever he traveled in France, he was accommodated in a tent because there were no buildings.

    The kings of Hungary who were of foreign origin did not like the fact that the Hungarians were more advanced culturally at an earlier date than they were, and therefore, whenever they could, they destroyed any evidence of cultural superiority in Hungary. For example, The Holy Roman Emperor who became Ferdinand III of Hungary (1537-1567), robbed the castle of Buda and the royal graves in Székesfehérvár.[37] Leopold Hapsburg who became King Leopold I of Hungary (1657 1705) destroyed the castle of Visegrád because of its elegant beauty. The French castle of Blois, built in the sixteenth century, was beautiful but had no toilets. The corridors were used for that purpose. In the old houses of Belgium, inside toilets were added only recently. The ruins of the tower of Visegrád in Hungary, built in the thirteenth century and destroyed by King Leopold I, retain traces of its water-flushing system. The castles of Maté Csák, built in the thirteenth century and taken over by King Charles Robert early in the fourteenth century, were all equipped with flush toilets. The French became acquainted with bodily hygiene and the custom of wearing underwear at the time of the crusades. So Árpád's Magyars, who already practiced the custom of washing themselves and wearing undergarments, found a very primitive Europe

     The Pope, the Bishop of Rome, had no more power than any other bishop. Pope Sylvester II was brought up in the Benedictine monastery at Cluny in France. This monastery was established in A.D. 910 and became very influential in the spreading of Christianity. The Cluny program was designed to increase the power of the Papacy. The Cluny monks were missionaries who converted many people to the Roman Catholic Church by teaching them agriculture.[38] That this action was used as a means to gather converts is proof that the Western peoples had no knowledge of agriculture. That the Cluny monks did not attempt to convert the Magyars by this method, is one proof that the Magyars already practiced agriculture. In fact, the only place from which the monks could have learned about agricultural methods at that time was Hungary, which was the only territory in Central Europe where agriculture was established. The Magyars had already used agricultural methods in Levédia, (in Turkestan) where they were settled before they migrated to Etelköz and the Carpathian Basin.[39] Aurel Stein, a Hungarian traveler in Turkestan, found traces of an irrigation system, dating back to the ninth century, in the territory that was called Levédia.[40]  It is obvious that the Magyars of Árpád, before they came into the Carpathian Basin, were already a civilized group, since they had developed a system of irrigation to improve on their methods of agriculture. The Slavs who were counted among the "civilized" western peoples, were at that same time, grazing their sheep in a nomadic fashion. As time passed, they learned plowing and seeding from the Avars but, since they had no horses, they harnessed their women to the plough.[41] The situation was the opposite of what has been propagated. The Magyars did not learn their civilization from the West, rather the West learned from the Magyars.

    In A.D. 961, the Pope crowned Otto I. Emperor, but he was greatly disappointed with him. Otto demanded obedience from the Pope himself. So the Pope asked Taksony, the Magyar Kagan, to support Rome. This is another proof that the Magyars of Árpád were a cultured people. It is unimaginable that the "barbarian", defeated at Lechfeld in A.D. 955 would have been asked to provide this service. Taksony's heir, Géza, gave his support to the Pope. To show his appreciation, Pope Sylvester II sent a beautiful crown to Vajk, the son of Géza, and crowned him King of Hungary. Vajk was converted to Western Christianity and became known as King István I (Steven), and later became Saint Steven. The Pope gave the Hungarians the authority to elect their own King, who did not need to go to Rome to be crowned but needed only the blessing of one of the Hungarian cardinals to become King. It is obvious that the Vatican trusted the Hungarians. At the same time, the German Emperor had to have the blessing of the Pope at his coronation. The Hungarian crown also possessed the apostolic right. The Archbishop of Esztergom was named as Primate not only of Hungary but of all the Christian nations. He was second only to the Pope. Could the "pagan, boorish, barbarian" Magyars have been able to receive such high ranking positions?

     The Magyars had to be converted to Christianity by fire and sword. They were Christians of the Eastern rite and were not under the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor. In A.D. 910, Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona, wrote: "The people of Hungary are obviously Christian." [42] Although they were Christians, the Magyars were branded as "pagans" so that they could be "converted" to Christianity of the Western Rite and swear allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor. Anyone who was not a Christian of the Western Rite was called "pagan".

     The spreading of Western Christianity in Hungary was mainly due to the efforts of the German missionaries. The bronze artifacts of Kettlach, which are well known among archeologists, are all decorated with Avar Christian motifs. (Fettich Nándor) German monks sold those bronze artifacts to the Magyars. If the Magyars were interested in buying these artifacts of the Christian religion, they must already have been Christian. They were converted to Christianity of the Eastern rite after Bulcsu Horka was baptized in the Eastern rite in Byzantium. Bulcsu brought back a monk with him to Hungary, made him bishop of Visegrád and established a Greek Orthodox monastery at Visegrád. The fact that many Greek Orthodox devotional objects can be found in Hungary, that the Bishopric of Visegrád was Greek Orthodox and that the foundation document of the Pannonhalma Abbey is written in Greek is evidence that the Magyars were already Christian.[43]

    Many recent Hungarian historians state that the conversion of the Magyars to Western Christianity was necessary because otherwise Hungary would have been erased by the attacks of the Christian West. This is simply not true. Until their conversion, the Magyars were in a position of superiority. The attacks from the West did not cease with the conversion of the Magyars. Hungary was forced to defend herself and a short time later lost her power and almost lost her language. Latin and German became the official languages of Hungary for almost a thousand years. Only the common people continued to use the Magyar language. The Magyar people, who were used to freedom and independence, were suddenly thrown into serfdom. It was in the interest of the Holy Roman Emperor to convert the Magyars to Western Christianity because, by doing so, he could obtain the political rule over Hungary, which he was unable to accomplish by military means. The military superiority of the Magyars, which lasted for more than a century, was obvious from their successful campaigns.