[Sidenote: Conversion of Hungary.]
The Hungarians or Magyars were descended from a Tartar or Finnish
tribe, who settled in Pannonia towards the close of the ninth century,
and thence made fierce inroads on Italy and Germany. In A.D. 948, two
Hungarian chiefs were baptized at Constantinople, and the daughter of
one of them afterwards marrying Geisa, Duke of {132} Hungary (A.D.
972-A.D. 997), Christian influences were, by degrees, brought to bear
upon the Hungarian people. About the same time German missionaries
began to labour in Hungary, but it was not until the reign of St.
Stephen, the first King of Hungary (A.D. 997-A.D. 1038), that the
country was completely evangelized. [Sidenote: Hungary Latinized.]
Stephen did all in his power to aid the work of the German
missionaries; Hungary was divided into dioceses, and the originally
eastern origin of the Hungarian Church, as well as the Sclavonic origin
of the people, forgotten under the desire felt by the king to keep on a
friendly footing with the German emperors and the Popes.
[Sidenote: Attacks of the Turks.]
The Church of Hungary suffered severely from the invasion of the Mongul
Tartars, A.D. 1241, and when, about a century later, some of these
Tartars returned from Asia and settled in Europe under the name of
Turks, Hungary, owing to its frontier situation, was constantly liable
to their attacks. During the fifteenth century, Hungarian bravery was
the great barrier that opposed the spread of Mahometanism over Western
Europe. Even after the fall of Constantinople, the Turks vainly
endeavoured to make themselves masters of their Christian neighbours,
and found themselves obliged to retreat discomfited from the siege of
Belgrade, A.D. 1456.