Matthias Corvinus - Early Life

Early Life

Matthias was born in Kolozsvár (Kingdom of Hungary, now Cluj-Napoca, Romania) in a house now known as the Matthias Corvinus House. He was second son of John Hunyadi, a successful general of the Kingdom of Hungary, and had risen through the ranks of the nobility to become regent of Hungary. Matthias' mother was Erzsébet Szilágyi, from a Hungarian noble family.

His tutors were the learned János Vitéz, bishop of Nagyvárad (now: Oradea), whom he subsequently raised to the primacy, and the Polish humanist Gregory of Sanok. Besides the learned languages, he was acquainted with most of the living tongues of Europe of the time. His military training proceeded under the eye of his father, whom he began to follow on his campaigns when only twelve years of age. In 1453 he was created count of Beszterce, and was knighted at the Siege of Belgrade in 1456.

The same care for his welfare led his father to choose him a bride from the powerful family of the Counts of Cilli. Matthias was married to Elizabeth of Celje. She was the only known daughter of Ulrich II of Celje and Catherine Cantakuzina. Her maternal grandparents were Đurađ Branković and Eirene Kantakouzene. But Elizabeth died at the age of fifteen on 6 November 1455, before the marriage was consummated, leaving Matthias a widower at the age of twelve.

After the death of Matthias's father, there was a two-year struggle between Hungary's various barons and its Habsburg king, Ladislaus the Posthumous (also king of Bohemia), with treachery from all sides. Matthias's older brother Ladislaus Hunyadi was one party attempting to gain control. Matthias was inveigled to Buda by the enemies of his house, and, on the pretext of being concerned in a purely imaginary conspiracy against Ladislaus, was condemned to decapitation, but was spared on account of his youth. In 1457, Ladislaus Hunyadi was captured with a trick and beheaded, while the king died suddenly in November that year; rumors of poisoning were dispelled by research in 1985 which gave acute leukemia as the cause of death. Matthias was taken hostage by George of Poděbrady, governor of Bohemia, a friend of the Hunyadis who aimed to raise a national king to the Hungarian throne. Poděbrady treated Matthias hospitably and affianced him with his daughter Kunhuta (later known as Catherine), but still detained him, for safety's sake, in Prague, even after a Hungarian deputation had hastened thither to offer the youth the crown. Matthias took advantage of the memory left by his father's deed, and by the general population's dislike of foreign candidates; most the barons, furthermore, considered that the young scholar would be a weak monarch in their hands. The Diet met in Buda to elect a new king. The people of Buda and Pest also came to the streets of Buda to support the election of the young Matthias Hunyadi as King of Hungary. The townsfolk favoured Hunyadi's son, however the majority of the nobles were largely opposed. An influential section of the magnates, headed by the Palatine Ladislaus Garai and by Nicholas of Ilok, voivode of Transylvania, who had been concerned in the judicial murder of Matthias's brother Ladislaus, and hated the Hunyadis as semi-foreign upstarts, were fiercely opposed to Matthias's election. Meanwhile Matthias's uncle count Mihály Szilágyi and his 15,000 veterans unexpectedly arrived in Buda, thus the opponent party (which consisted of the members of the higher aristocracy) was not enough strong to resist. On 20 January 1458, Matthias was elected king by the Parliament. On the 24th of January 1458, 40,000 Hungarian noblemen, assembled on the ice of the frozen Danube, unanimously elected Matthias Hunyadi King of Hungary. Thus, on the 14th of February the new king made his state entry into Buda.