Fehérvár

Székesfehérvár grew among the marshes of the Sárvíz in Transdanubia, a town that the Mongols could not reach in the spring of 1242 because the thaw flooded the ground around it. Its Basilica of the Virgin Mary, founded by King Stephen, was where Hungary's kings were crowned from the year 1000 until 1526, more than thirty in all; Stephen and his son Emeric lay buried inside, and fifteen kings were buried here. From the canonization of both in 1083 it was the sacred centre of the kingdom, and its provost kept the royal treasury and charters. Palaces, houses of the great and a walled town grew around the basilica from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.

The decline began in November 1490, when Maximilian's German and Austrian troops took the town after King Matthias died, plundered it, the basilica included; Vladislaus II won it back by July 1491. The town sided with Zápolya after Mohács, and in 1543 the Ottomans took it after a long siege. Under Ottoman rule, which lasted until 1688, it was Istolni Belgrad, seat of a sanjak, and looked like a Muslim town as most Hungarians left. Its great church was blown up in 1702, and in 1703 the town regained free royal status.