Kapuvár

Kapuvar stood where the marshy Hansag country met the Rabakoz, controlling an east-west route across western Hungary. Its castle and neighbouring villages passed to the Kanizsai family in 1387. In the sixteenth century marriage brought the estate into Nadasdy hands, placing this local stronghold within the possessions of one of Hungary's leading aristocratic families.

Ottoman expansion made defence increasingly important. The settlement gained market-town status in 1558, sheltered by a strengthened castle, but Ottoman forces briefly occupied it in 1594. After Ferenc Nadasdy was executed for involvement in the magnate conspiracy against the Habsburg court, the estate passed to the Esterhazy family in 1681. Fighting returned during Rakoczi's war of independence, when the kuruc forces eventually destroyed the castle. The Esterhazys subsequently transformed the building into a country residence. Kapuvar's early modern landscape thus changed from a defended crossing and estate centre to an aristocratic seat whose fabric retained the consequences of frontier warfare.