Characteristic Features of Medieval Geopolitical Considerations: An Analysis of 12th-Century Hungarian-German Diplomatic Relations

The objective of this research project is to present a significant time period in the system of diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century. My intention has been to focus on the effects of the rule of the Hohenstaufen dynasty on Hungarian foreign policy. I have examined this issue as embedded in a broad international system of relations, including Hungarian-Polish, Hungarian-Czech, German-Polish, German-Czech, and German-Hungarian connections. I have also investigated the Hungarian foreign policy relevance of the conflict between the Hohenstaufen and Welf dynasties. My purpose through this is to call the attention of experts in this field of study to the less often highlighted peculiarities of medieval diplomatic and geopolitical thinking. Beside a chronological presentation of the events in the diplomatic system of contacts, I regularly refer to the differences between Hungarian and German historiography, as regards the interpretations of the sources quoted. Through utilizing the most recent and not so recent findings in Hungarian and German historical research, the reinterpretation of the sources might be used for the proper handling of these anomalies, for finding a consensus between the oftentimes entirely contradictory viewpoints in historical scholarship and, consequently, for providing a more precise description of the events occurring in the diplomacy of the given historical time period.


Introduction
The conquest of the Carpathian Basin by the Hungarian people in the 9th century and the foundation of their Christian state therein at the dawn of the 11th century constitute a fairly familiar chapter within the history of Europe. The circumstances of the conversion of Hungarians to the Christian faith, the ensuing change of lifestyle, the settlement in the Carpathian Basin, the adoption of West European political, economic, and social patterns, and the establishment of contacts with the neighboring states (such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and Poland) are all periods of Hungarian history which have been thoroughly investigated and explored even by historians in Europe (see, e.g. Berend [38]). This is much less true about the events of diplomatic history in the 12th century. This is the time period when the consolidating Hungarian state really became part and parcel of and a significant factor in, Central European political life. The objective of my research is to expand the range of information available about the system of relations between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century, together with a critical examination of the sources of this information. In my study, I offer a brief analysis of the effects of the rule of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the Holy Roman Empire on Hungarian foreign policy, highlighting how the Hungarian state became a decisive actor on the stage of European diplomatic life.

Materials and Methods
During the course of my research, priority has been granted to the examination of the situation, possibilities, and actual role of foreign policy for the Hungarian state in the 12th century beside the exploration of events of purely diplomatic historical significance. Thus, in addition to the analysis of German-Hungarian relations, the highlighting of pan-European parallels as well as the issue of the position of Hungary on the international political scene in Europe is also given special emphasis. Apart from the works of Hungarian historians, there are also studies written by German historiographers used for my investigations. As a rather significant portion of the medieval historical sources in Hungary were destroyed due to the devastation by the Turks in the 16th and 17th centuries, the relevant sources and archival documents available in Germany today also had to be used during the research process. Thus, I repeatedly refer to and quote from several sources, less frequently cited in Hungary, including the volumes of Monumenta Germaniae Historica as well as Annales Erfesfurtenses, Herbordi Dialogus, Royal Chronicles of Cologne, Historia Welforum Weingartensium, and Reinhardsbrunner, Admonter, and Salzburger Briefsammlungs. Beside a chronological presentation of the events in the diplomatic system of contacts, I regularly discuss the differences between Hungarian and German historiography as regards the interpretations of the sources quoted. Through utilizing the most recent and not so recent findings in Hungarian and German historical research, the reinterpretation of the sources might be used for handling these anomalies, for finding a consensus between the oftentimes entirely contradictory viewpoints in historical scholarship and, consequently, for providing a more precise description of the events occurring in the diplomacy of the given historical time period. This seems to be the most necessary in the historical evaluation of the Byzantine-German rivalry and cooperation concerning (threatening?). Hungary in the 12th century as well as about the relevance and calling into question of the world-dominating orientation of German foreign policy under Conrad III and Frederick I (Barbarossa).

Béla II, King of Hungary, and the Hohenstaufen Takeover in the Holy Roman Empire
The beginning of the reign of Béla II (1131-1141) was characterized by the struggle against Boris, the bastard son of the former king, Kálmán (1095-1116). The most important consequence of this was that the Polish king, Boleslaw III, became an ardent supporter of the pretender to the throne, providing the basis through this for the breaking out of the The establishment of the anti-Norman coalition was largely dependent on the German interior political situation, i.e., on the opposition between Lothar III, of Saxon descent, and the Hohenstaufen dynasty. The King of Hungary resolutely took the side of Lothar (and Pope Innocent II, at the same time), not acknowledging the validity of the power of Conrad III of the House of Hohenstaufen, who had been elected anti-king in 1127. This could be due to the fact that Lothar's position in the 1130-as started to gradually become stronger as opposed to that of the Hohenstaufens (Varga 2003 [34 p175]), and Hungary apparently did not wish to take risks. Beside this, it was also obvious that one of the most important reasons for joining the Greek-German-Venetian coalition was to ensure Hungarian rule in Dalmatia, launched by the Hungarian king Kálmán at the beginning of the 12th century (Deér 1928  Thus, Béla II managed to develop a fairly stable relationship with the Holy Roman Empire, and the act of joining the international coalition provided such a solid foundation for the traditional friendly relations with Germany, so characteristic of this dynasty, that even the ascent of Lothar's enemy, the Hohenstaufen dynasty, to power could not affect it (the conclusion being that the Hungarian ruler had not been anti-Hohenstaufen before either, for which reason his partner in alliance was not identified as any of the dynasties but as the Hungarian-German Diplomatic Relations though that the party looking for amity in this relationship at that time was not Hungary any longer (Deér 1928 [6 p120]). Following the death of Lothar III in 1137, the duke with the largest landed property in the Empire was the Welf duke Henry the Proud. Beside the Bavarian Duchy, he also owned Saxony through his wife and, in addition, he possessed Tuscany, too. He could have had a good chance of getting elected German king, except, just like way back in 1125, the other German dukes did not wish to put someone into a ruler's position above them with such a huge size of family holdings. For similar reasons (mainly because of the possession of Tuscany), the Welf duke was not supported by Pope Innocent II either. Accordingly, the dukes decided to legitimize in 1138 the rule of the Hohenstaufen anti-king, Conrad III. ( . As a consequence of the Hohenstaufen accession to the throne then, the Hohenstaufen-Welf interior war was resumed in the Holy Roman Empire.
From the aspect of Hungarian-German relations, the important part of this development was that the Bavarian Duchy across the border from Hungary was in the hands of the arch enemies of the new dynasty. Thus, the German king elect could be legitimately concerned about a potential Welf-Hungarian alliance (Deér 1928 [6 p120]; Varga 2003 [34 p175-178]), as such instances of cooperation had been traditional in the second half of the 11th century between Hungary and the German pretender to the throne. As a result, Conrad III tried to do his best to make sure Hungary was on his side in order to thwart the implementation of a potential cooperation between the Hungarian state and the heads of the Welf territorial complex bordering Hungary. An example of his efforts was the betrothal of his four-year-old son, Henry, to Béla's even younger daughter, Sophia, in 1139, followed by Sophia's relocation to Germany (Kristó, Makk 1988 [22 p181]). Conrad III also used measures of internal political nature to restrict the power and authority of the Welfs. Reaching back to the ancient traditions of the empire, he announced that no duke was allowed to own and control simultaneously more than one tribal duchy, for which reason he called upon Henry the Proud to waive his right of ownership of either Bavaria or Saxony (Görich 2008  The untimely death of Duke Henry on October 20, 1139, resulted in a radical change in Hungarian-German relations. As we already know, the Welf Duke had already lost Bavaria the previous year anyways, but his death eventually determined the question of the Duchy for good. Although the Welf resistance did not come to an end in Saxony, the fate of Princess Sophia was doomed, as the possibility of a Hungarian-Welf coalition with the dropout of Bavaria as an independent duchy was rather faint. What is more, King Béla also died on February 13, 1141.

Diplomatic Relations between Géza II and the Hohenstaufen Rulers up until the End of the 1150s
In 1141, the throne of the Kingdom of Hungary was ascended by Géza II (1141-1162) of the House of Árpád, who was only 11 years old at that time. During the first half of the 1140s, the Hungarian-German relations deteriorated parallel with the strengthening of the power of the Hohenstaufens. The position of Conrad III continued to improve gradually as of the ascension of Géza II to the throne. The first stage of this process was when the Babenbergs came into power in Bavaria. By 1142, the Hohenstaufens-Welf conflict had become more or less balanced, which resulted in a compromise. Conrad III returned Saxony to Henry the Lion (the son of Henry the Proud, who had died in 1139), as a consequence of which the Welfs gave up their claim to the ownership of Bavaria in favor of the Babenbergs. Leopold IV died in 1141, and was followed on the throne by his brother, Henry (Jasomirgott) Babenberg. He, in turn, married the widow of Henry the Proud, called Gertrude, who was the mother of the Saxon Duke Henry the Lion (Bockmann 1987 [4 p59]; Görich 2008 [10 p32]). The Babenbergs had been related to the Hohenstaufens even before, but the dynastic connection between the Hohenstaufens and the Welfs was crowned by Gertrude through this marriage. Naturally, all this made it virtually impossible for Hungary to interfere in the internal affairs of the empire (Deér 1928 [6 p122]). At the same time, it also meant that there was no acceptable justification any longer for maintaining the engagement between Duke Henry and Sophia, which had been initiated back in 1139. The rude termination of the diplomatic relations could be best illustrated by the extraordinary and insulting case of the decision that there would be no marriage between Duke Henry and the daughter of the Hungarian king, Sophia. According to the sources consulted, the daughter of the Hungarian king was treated in the German court in such an unacceptable fashion that, around 1145 -or, perhaps, at the beginning of 1146 (Zimmermann 2005  In addition to the case above, the deterioration of Hungarian-German relations was also indicated by the interference of the German side into Hungarian internal affairs. In order to implement his hegemonistic plans in Europe, Conrad III had pursued a more and more aggressive course in foreign policy since the middle of the 1140s, for which he needed a partnership with the states around the borders of his empire (Varga 2003 [34 p130]). However, King Géza II was not exactly in a position to afford such a partnership and the accompanying unconditional conformity (Makk 1986 [25 p120], as he was intent on strengthening the leading role of the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe. For this token, the German king tried to intervene in the Hungarian rivalry for the throne in an indirect fashion (by supporting the claim of Boris to the Hungarian throne, which has been mentioned above and, if successful, could have resulted in making the pretender a vassal king dependent on his German lord and ruler) ( According to the not completely consistent report issued by Bishop Otto of Freising, who was in the service of the Bavarian duke and was also of Babenberg descent on his father's side, following the re-conquest of Pozsony, Géza declared war on the "duke of Noricum" and led a huge army against him (Ottonis Gesta I. 31. [29 p48]). This meant that the Hungarian army entered the territory of Bavaria, i.e., the territory of the Holy Roman Empire (Pauler 1899 [31 p261]). In addition, Géza II immediately contacted the inner opposition of Conrad III, and issued monetary aid to Welf VI, the Bavarian duke who had been driven away beforehand, in order to assist the latter in taking his lands back. (As Gertrude died in 1143, her son, Henry the Lion issued a claim for Bavaria on the basis of maternal heritage. As a consequence of this step, the war between the Hohenstaufens and the Welfs broke out again) (Makk 1986  The events described above may be considered to have been consecutive and logical consequences of differing viewpoints and conflicts working at the regional level; however, they were also closely connected to a higher-level, almost continental, sequence of events, which embedded them in a much deeper context. The actual story had begun way back in 1143 when, following the death of Gertrude of Supplingenburg, her son Henry the Lion announced his claim on Bavaria of the Babenbergs, through which act the war between the Hohenstaufens and the Welfs was resumed. At this point, Conrad III decided to reaffirm his connection with Byzantium, the ruler of which, Emperor Manuel I, he was in a familial relationship (Ostrogorsky 2003 [28 p332]; Bockmann 1987 [4 p75]). Incidentally, the mother of Manuel was Piroska of the House of Árpád, which meant that the Emperor of Byzantium was also the grandson of (Saint) László I of Hungary. Henry Jasomirgott, upon returning from the Holy Land, brought along the Byzantine princess Theodora Komnena for his wife. As a result, it was not only the Hohenstaufens who were in close relationship with the Byzantine dynasty, but also Hohenstaufen-related Babenbergs as well. Thus, the Bavarian dynasty had very serious political connections which, on the one hand, could help them in their efforts of making Austria an independent political unit (and, as a consequence, separate from Bavaria) (Bockmann 1987 [4 p78]), while on the other hand, they could also be part and parcel of the strategy which intended to force Hungary into an uneasy position between the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium (Zöllner 1998 (Deér 1928 [6 p124]), which was promptly recognized by Géza II, and which also determined the foreign policy orientation of Hungary for the years after 1146 (or, perhaps, even from as early as 1145). The development of the Hungarian-Byzantine war fitted the operational mechanism of the alliance system presented above, as the Hungarian attacks against our southern neighbor, Byzantium, made it impossible for the Byzantine emperor to focus on raiding the Normans in Southern Italy (Ostrogorsky 2003 [28 p332-333]). Along the other channel of this coalition policy, Géza II supported Duke Welf IV by issuing financial aid to him as of the summer of 1146 to the beginning of the 1150s in order to help him access the Bavarian throne. Through the financial support provided for maintaining the German internal conflict, the Hungarian king tried to prevent a potential German campaign against Hungary in response to the 1146 events (i.e., the battle at the River Fischa) (Kristó, Makk 1996 [23 p184]). This political effort proved to be successful, as the armed revolts of both Duke Welf IV and of his nephew, Henry the Lion, made it impossible for Conrad III to carry out any raid between 1149 and 1151 against Hungary (or against the Normans, for that matter) (Varga 2003 [34 p185]).
Basically, from the 1150s onwards, King Géza's efforts to attract the German dukes and provincial lords to take his side or at least take a neutral position in the conflict were pretty much obvious, and he managed to do his best in this respect to obstruct their participation in a potential empirical expansion conducted at the expense of Hungary among others. The same must have been the purpose of the negotiations started in 1151 either by high-ranking envoys (or Géza II, himself) with Duke Henry of Bavaria (Deér 1928 [6 p127]; Makk 1986 [25 p137]). Reconciliation seemed to be an essential precondition for the establishment of peaceful relations with the western neighbors, and this also proves that Géza II must have obtained fairly accurate information concerning the interior affairs of the empire. A proof of this could be that the Hungarian king switched sides from Welf IV to Henry Jasomirgott exactly when the former gave up his resistance after his defeat at the beginning of 1150 and tried to come to terms with Conrad III through the mediation of Frederick, who was still the Duke of Swabia at that time (Varga 2003 [34 p186] Thus, Hungarian-German relations essentially became strained and fragile as of 1152, with Frederick I (Barbarossa) ascending the throne, which was even more aggravated by the fact that the ancestry of the new king substantially brought about the reconciliation of the Hohenstaufen and the Welf camps. In addition, Frederick was even more inclined towards an anti-Hungarian policy in the east than his uncle had been before, which also had a favorable effect on the Central European plans of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel, too (Deér 1928 [29 p107]). Beside this latter argument, it may also be assumed that the diplomatic efforts of Géza II did indeed work after all (Deér 1928 [6 p127]). Among the major German dukes and princes, it was not only the Welfs who did not support the idea of attacking Hungary, but there was also some rapprochement starting between Géza II and Henry Jasomirgott due to the negotiations held in the previous year. This was made even more evident and palpable by the fact that the Babenbergs did not support Frederick's election, as it represented a risk for their rule in Bavaria (Varga 2003 [34 p186]). It is in the light of this that we should judge and evaluate the rejection of Barbarossa's plan put forward at the imperial diet. The explanation is that, as long as the conflict about Bavaria, i.e., the Welf-Babenberg rivalry was not settled, the military campaign against Hungary could not be implemented, for the simple reason that an essentially important basis and deployment preparatory area for that would be the region of Bavaria.
As a result of the above, it seems quite clear that a turn was required in the inimical relationship between Frederick and Géza II, which Frederick did indeed take at last. In addition, it should also be noted that, apart from the resistance of the dukes and princes, the international political situation was also less than favorable for conducting a military campaign against Hungary at that point in time, since Frederick also wished to fight against Sicily in an alliance with the Byzantine Emperor, following the path that Conrad III had set up for him (Varga 2003 [34 p189]), although the Byzantine-German alliance (1149) did not prove to be long lasting either. As a result of the dissolution of the alliance between the two emperors, the danger of their joint action against Hungary was also gone and, although the Despite the fact that Frederick continued to keep the plan for attacking Hungary on the agenda, there was still no pretext in his hands that would have provided substantial legal basis for it. What is more, the issue of Bavaria still remained a problem to be solved. It seems obvious that, in order to stabilize the position of the empire, and not necessarily for the purpose of launching a military campaign against Hungary, it was crucial for him to settle this matter for good.
As it has been mentioned above, Conrad III awarded Bavaria to the Babenberg family. Barbarossa was related to the Hohenstaufens on his father's side and to the Welfs on his mother's side (Görich 2008 [10 p36]; Váczy 1936 [35 p549]), which meant that, upon his ascendance to the throne, the key to reconciliation between the two dynasties was represented by Bavaria. For this reason, Frederick I returned this duchy to the Welfs (in 1155) instead of granting it to the Babenbergs' Henry (Jasomirgott). For the same token, the Babenbergs had to be compensated with "another" duchy (Görich 2008  . However, since the document called Privilegium minus mentions the neighboring states only in general, i.e., without specifically naming Hungary, the anti-Hungarian aspect of it is questioned in most recent German historiography, while the significance of the deed is emphasized as part of the process the result of which was the relocation of the questions related to the Hungarian issue into the jurisdiction of the principalities (i.e., under the authority of the Czech, Austrian, Bavarian, and Styrian dukes) (Varga 2003 [34 p192]). Nevertheless, a very important detail must not be overlooked in this case. I have already mentioned above that Conrad III was still very much concerned about a potential Hungarian-Bavarian (Welf) alliance, partly because of the geopolitical position of Bavaria. This concern might have played a part in giving Bavaria to the Babenbergs. When Frederick I decided to grant Bavaria to the Welfs again, and did not take Saxony back from them, the same situation could have occurred anew. I believe that, in the strategy of elevating Austria to an independent duchy, the effort of breaking the Hungarian-Bavarian geopolitical unity could also have been a consideration, as there was a new, unconditionally pro-Hohenstaufens duchy wedged between the two territories. In addition, the fact that the Babenbergs ceased to be the vassals of the Bavarian duke after the establishment of the independent Austrian duchy also needs to be noted here (Görich 2008 [10 p40]; Bockmann 1987 [4 p84]). At the same time, the transformation of Austria into a duchy was part and parcel of the new "eastern policy" that was first attempted to be implemented by Frederick Barbarossa. The essence of this was that he intended to grant a more significant role to the local factors, i.e., the local powers, in the eastern policy of the empire (Deér 1928 [6 p128]). The plan did not work out exactly as Frederick had intended it to. The new local factors; namely, Austria in this case, turned out to dispose of enough power to pursue independent diplomatic policies that occasionally were in opposition to that of the emperor.

Results
In my work, I have made an attempt at describing and analyzing the structure of German-Hungarian diplomatic contacts between 1131 and 1156, which seems to be a time period when a definite, pioneering, and internationally active and successful Hungarian foreign policy was established. Although there are still a lot of questions left unanswered concerning several events in this time interval, there is still a clearly discernible direction in Hungarian-German contacts that can be identified: It was roughly in the middle of the reign of Béla II (1131-1141), a member of the Árpád Dynasty, that the diplomatic system of relations was formed the consequences of which I have monitored in my study up until the year 1156. The direct point of departure for this was the Hungarian-Polish relationship, which had been hostile since 1126 and also burdened with a war later on ( (Varga 2003 [34 p177]), its possibility cannot be denied as an antecedent to joining the anti-Norman coalition of 1135. This latter event provided the dynasty's traditional German partiality with such a solid basis that even thinking and strategy, the consideration of geopolitical aspects was of outstanding importance, despite the fact that the specific term itself did not even exist at that time. The situation of the Kingdom of Hungary, geographically located between the two imperial powers (covering a fairly large area, including the whole of the Carpathian Basin), was fundamentally determined by the current, and oftentimes changing, relationship of the two empires. At the same time, the question of rule and authority over Bavaria, the duchy adjacent to the Kingdom of Hungary, was equally important to any of the Holy Roman emperors for basically similar reasons. There can be no doubt about the fact that a potential Hungarian-Bavarian (Welf) alliance, which would have represented a serious threat to any Holy Roman ruler, must have played a part in inserting Austria, elevated to the status of a duchy, between the Hungarian and Bavarian borderlines.