Matyas regularly convenes the Diet and expands the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, but he exercises absolute rule over Hungary by means of a secular bureaucracy.

He enlists thirty thousand foreign mercenaries in his standing army and builds a network of fortresses along Hungary's southern frontier, but he does not pursue his father's aggressive anti-Turkish policy.

Instead, Matyas launches unpopular attacks on Bohemia, Poland, and Austria, pursuing an ambition to become Holy Roman Emperor and arguing that he is trying to forge a unified Western alliance strong enough to expel the Turks from Europe.

He eliminates tax exemptions and raises the serfs' obligations to the crown to fund his court and the military.

The magnates complain that these measures reduce their incomes, but despite the stiffer obligations, the serfs consider Matyas a just ruler because he protects them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates.

He also reforms Hungary's legal system and promotes the growth of Hungary's towns.

Matyas is a true renaissance man and makes his court a center of humanist culture; under his rule, Hungary's first books are printed and its second university is established.

Matyas's library, the Corvina, is famous throughout Europe.

In his quest for the imperial throne, Matyas eventually moves to Vienna, where he dies in 1490.