Békés

Békés lies in the lowlands of the Körös rivers, where an early castle gave its name to the county. The Maróthy family built a fortified residence here in the fifteenth century. Ottoman forces took Békés in 1566 and raised a palisaded fort; they burned and abandoned it in 1595 as an opposing army approached. A Tatar attack followed in 1596. Resettlement after the wars gathered pace under the landowner János György Harruckern in the eighteenth century.