Csanád

Csanád stood beside the Maros River as the seat of a Hungarian bishopric founded in the early eleventh century. The cathedral chapter held the town as its landlord, limiting the autonomy of its citizens. Its churches and monasteries made it an ecclesiastical centre for the surrounding lands, and the bishopric bore its name long after the old medieval town had disappeared.

In 1514 the peasant rising led by György Dózsa devastated Csanád, and its bishop Nicholas Csáky was killed. Ottoman conquest in the middle of the sixteenth century brought the medieval town's destruction and forced the bishops to reside elsewhere. The old episcopal seat was not rebuilt after Ottoman rule ended; the diocese had to be reorganized around a different centre.