ilated
completely. The long reign of Sigismund (1387-1437) was occupied
almost wholly in resistance to the Ottoman advance. So urgent did this
sovereign deem the pushing of military preparations that he fell into
the custom of summoning the Diet once, and not infrequently twice, a
year, and this body acquired rapidly a bulk of legislative and fiscal
authority which never before had been accorded it. Persons entitled to
membership were regularly the nobles and higher clergy. But in 1397
the free and royal towns were invited to send deputies, and this
privilege seems to have been given statutory confirmation. By the
ripening of the Hungarian feudal system, however, and the (p. 448)
struggles for the throne which followed the death of King Albert V.
(1439), much that was accomplished by Sigismund and his diets was
undone. Ultimately, measures of vigilance were renewed under John
Hunyadi,--by voice of the Diet "governor" of Hungary, 1446-1456,--and,
under his son King Matthias I. (1458-1490). During the last-mentioned
reign fifteen diets are known to have been held, and no fewer than 450
statutes to have been enacted. The Hungarian common law was codified
afresh and the entire governmental system overhauled. But again
succeeded a period, from the accession of Wladislaus II. to the battle
of Mohacs, during which turbulence reigned supreme and national spirit
all but disappeared.

*496. The Establishment of Austrian Dominion.*--In 1526 the long
expected blow fell. Under the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent the
Turks invaded the Hungarian kingdom and at the battle of Mohacs,
August 28, put to rout the entire Hungarian army. The invading hosts
chose to return almost instantly to Constantinople, but when they
withdrew they left one-quarter of the Hungarian dominion in utter
desolation. It was at this point, as has been stated, that the
Hapsburg rulers of Austria first acquired the throne of Hungary. The
death of King Louis at Mohacs was followed by the election of John
Zapolya as king. But the archduke Ferdinand, whose wife, Anne, was a
sister of Louis, laid claim to the throne and, in November, 1527,
contrived to procure an election thereto at the hand of the Diet. In
1529 the deposed Zapolya was reinstated at Buda by the Sultan. The
upshot was civil war, which was terminated in 1538 by a treaty under
whose terms the kingdom was divided between the two claimants. Zapolya
retained approximately two-thirds of the country