Béla IV of Hungary

Béla IV (1206–1270), eldest son of Andrew II, governed Slavonia and Transylvania before succeeding as king in 1235. In 1241 the Mongols destroyed his army at Mohi and chased him to the Adriatic coast; Hungary was devastated before withdrawing in 1242.

Béla encouraged stone fortresses and fortified towns, and settled thousands of colonists on depopulated lands, earning the name second founder of Hungary. He occupied Styria in 1254 but lost it in 1260, fought civil war against his son Stephen, and died in 1270 as a Franciscan tertiary.