Matyas's reforms do not survive the turbulent decades that follow his reign.

An oligarchy of quarrelsome magnates gains control of Hungary.

They crown a docile king, Vladislav Jagiello (the Jagiellonian king of Bohemia, who is known in Hungary as Ulaszlo II, 1490-1516), only on condition that he abolish the taxes that had supported Matyas's mercenary army.

As a result, the king's army disperses just as the Turks are threatening Hungary.

The magnates also dismantle Matyas's administration and antagonizes the lesser nobles.

In 1492 the Diet limits the serfs' freedom of movement and expands their obligations.

Rural discontent boils over in 1514 when well-armed peasants under Gyorgy Dozsa rise up and attack estates across Hungary.

United by a common threat, the magnates and lesser nobles eventually crush the rebels.

Dozsa and other rebel leaders are executed in a most brutal manner.

The Diet of 1514, shocked by the peasant revolt, passes laws that condemn the serfs to eternal bondage and increase  their work obligations.

Corporal punishment becomes widespread, and one noble even brands his serfs like livestock.

The legal scholar Stephen Werboczy includes the new laws in his Tripartitum of 1514, which will make make up Hungary's legal corpus until the revolution of 1848.

The Tripartitum give Hungary's king and nobles, or magnates, equal shares of power: the nobles recognize the king as superior, but in turn the nobles have the power to elect the king.

The Tripartitum also frees the nobles from taxation, obligates them to serve in the military only in a defensive war, and makes them immune from arbitrary arrest.

The new laws weaken Hungary by deepening the rift between the nobles and the peasantry just as the Turks prepare to invade the country.

Royal power has declined during the reign of King Vladislas II, king of Bohemia and Hungary (Ulászló II in Hungarian history), in favor of the magnates, who use their power to curtail the peasants' freedom.

In Transylvania, the nobles have gradually imposed even tougher terms on their serfs.

In 1437, for example, each serf had had to work for his lord one day per year at harvest time without compensation; by 1514, serfs must work for their lord one day per week using their own animals and tools.

The papal legate of eastern Europe, Archbishop Tamás Bakócz, calls on April 16, 1514, for volunteers to go on a crusade against the Turks, and about one hundred thousand discontented peasants join the army.

The Szekler soldier György Dózsa, after having won a reputation for valor in the Turkish wars, is appointed leader, and the ill-planned crusade moves on the southern border.

The rebellious, antilandlord sentiment of these “crusaders” becomes apparent during their march across the Great Alfold, and Bakócz abruptly cancels the campaign.

The peasant leaders, without food or clothing, begin to voice grievances against landlords, and refuse to disperse or reap the fields at harvest time.

The peasant army announces its intention to overthrow the nobility and end oppression of the lower classes.

The rebellious peasants, now well armed, attack their landlords, ravage Hungary, burning hundreds of manor houses and castles and murdering thousands of nobles and their families.

They capture the fortresses of ‘Arad, …

…Lipova, and …

...Világos, ...

…threaten Buda, and lay siege to Temesvár.

Here, however, despite strength of numbers, the disorganized peasants suffer a decisive defeat by János Zápolya, or Szápolyai, voivode (governor) of Transylvania from 1511, who had become the leader of the so-called national party of the Hungarian nobility in the chaos after the death of King Matthias Corvinus in 1490.

Dózsa and his chief lieutenants are captured and tortured, and on July 20 Dózsa is roasted alive.

János Zápolyai, who had become the leader of the so-called national party of the Hungarian nobility in the chaos after the death of Matthias Corvinus in 1490, has been the governor of Transylvania from 1511.

Zápolya brutally suppresses the uprising of 1514, crushing the remnants of the rebel army by October and hereby increases his popularity with the gentry.

Consequently, the second Diet of Rákos appoints him governor of the infant king Louis II.

After the revolt, the Hungarian nobles enact laws that condemn the serfs to eternal bondage and increase their work obligations.

The Diet of 1514 condemns the entire peasant class to “real and perpetual servitude” and binds it permanently to the soil.

It also increases the number of days the peasants have to work for their lords, imposes heavy taxes on them, and orders them to pay for the damage caused by the rebellion.

With the serfs and nobles deeply alienated from each other and jealous magnates challenging the king's power, Hungary is vulnerable to outside aggression.

Greedy nobles and an ill-planned crusade spark a widespread peasant revolt in Hungary and Transylvania in 1514.

Well-armed peasants under György Dózsa sack estates across the country.

Despite strength of numbers, however, the peasants are disorganized and suffer a decisive defeat at Timisoara.

Dózsa and the other rebel leaders are tortured and executed.

After the revolt, the Hungarian nobles enact laws that condemn the serfs to eternal bondage and increase their work obligations.

With the serfs and nobles deeply alienated from each other and jealous magnates challenging the king's power, Hungary is vulnerable to outside aggression.

The Ottomans storm Belgrade in 1521, rout a feeble Hungarian army at Mohacs in 1526, and will conquer Buda in 1541.

They install a pasha to rule over central Hungary; Transylvania becomes an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty; and the Habsburgs assume control over fragments of northern and western Hungary.

Transylvania, though a vassal state of the Subime Porte (as the Ottoman government is called), enters a period of broad autonomy after Buda's fall.

As a vassal, Transylvania pays the Porte an annual tribute and provides military assistance; in return, the Ottomans pledge to protect Transylvania from external threat.

Native princes govern Transylvania from 1540 to 1690.

Transylvania's powerful, mostly Hungarian, ruling families, whose position ironically strengthens with Hungary's fall, normally choose the prince, subject to the Porte's confirmation; in some cases, however, the Turks appoint the prince outright.

The Transylvanian Diet becomes a parliament, and the nobles revive the Union of Three Nations, which still excludes the Romanians from political power.

Princes take pains to separate Transylvania's Romanians from those in Walachia and Moldavia and forbid Eastern Orthodox priests to enter Transylvania from Walachia.