Castles in the “Hungaries”: in Royal Hungary, Transylvania and in the Ottoman Occupied Lands
We have a difficult task when we try to organize the castles and the fortified places in the area because of the Ottoman conquest. As the enemy was advancing, more castles were taken and garrisoned by the Ottoman Empire. You can see the Ottoman campaign in this map below:
The 1,200-mile-long Borderland consisted of hundreds of castles and sometimes we have to consider the castles in the hinterland as borderland castles as well. The Turks and Tatars were able to lead their raiding parties far behind the defense lines and literally all castles were exposed to assaults in each corner of the land. It is good to know the geography of the Carpathian Basin in English:
…and it is quite useful to know the names of the regions in the Hungarian language as well:
We should keep in mind that there were at least two kinds of castles: the castles owned by the landlords and the castles owned by the King of Hungary or by the Prince of Transylvania. Also, let us be not confused about the Borderland itself: the first frontier was protecting the kingdom until the 1520s:
After the fall of Buda in 1541, a new chain of castles had to be created, though:
I tried to organize the castles and other fortified places and churches into three groups, dividing them more or less according to the situation in the 1580s. Please, visit the sub-pages called “The Kingdom of Hungary”, “Transylvania”, and “Ottoman Occupied Lands”.
Let us not forget that there were certain regions outside Transylvania which belonged to the Principality. Now, I have more than 349 castles on this page… (January, 2024). My ultimate goal is to give you a history of more than 3,000 castles in the English language.
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