The Black Army (, pronounced , Latin: Legio Nigra), also called the Black Legion/Regiment – were the military forces serving under the reign of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The ancestor and core of this early standing mercenary army appeared in the era of his father John Hunyadi in the early 1440s. The idea of the professional standing mercenary army came from Matthias' juvenile readings about the life of Julius Caesar.Valery Rees: Hungary's Philosopher King: Matthias Corvinus 1458–90 (Published 1994) The multinational army, drawing on the earlier Hussite battle tactics, helped to pioneer the concept of a standing mercenary army that would soon be adopted across Europe.

Hungary's Black Army traditionally encompasses the years from 1458 to 1494. The men of the Black Army fought as well-paid, full-time mercenaries and were purely devoted to the arts of warfare. It was a standing mercenary army that conquered large parts of Austria (including the capital Vienna in 1485) and more than half of the Crown of Bohemia (Moravia, Silesia and both Lusatias); the other important victory of the army was won against the Ottomans at the Battle of Breadfield in 1479.

Matthias recognized the importance and key role of early firearms in the infantry, which greatly contributed to his victories. Every fourth soldier in the Black Army had an arquebus, which was an unusual ratio at the time. The high price of medieval gunpowder prevented them from raising it any further. Even a decade after the disbandment of the Black Army, by the turn of the 16th century, only around 10% of the soldiers of Western European armies used firearms.Vajna-Naday, Warhistory. p. 40.Courtlandt Canby: A History of Weaponry. Recontre and Edito Service, London. p. 62. The main troops of the army were the infantry, artillery and light and heavy cavalry. The function of the heavy cavalry was to protect the light armoured infantry and artillery, while the other corps delivered sporadic, surprise assaults on the enemy.

In the beginning, the core of the army consisted of 6,000–8,000 mercenaries. In the 1480s, the number was between 15,000 and 20,000, but the figures in the great Viennese military parade reached 28,000 men (20,000 horsemen, 8,000 infantry) in 1485. Thus the Black Army was far larger than the army of Louis XI of France, the only other existing permanent professional European army in the era. The soldiers were mainly Czechs, Germans, Serbs, Poles and, from 1480, Hungarians.

The Black Army was not the only large standing mercenary army of Matthias Corvinus. The border castles of the north, west and east were guarded mostly by the retinues of the local nobility, financed by the nobles' own revenues; however the Ottoman frontier zone of southern Hungary had a large professional standing army which was paid by the king. Unlike the soldiers of the Black Army, these large mercenary garrisons were trained for castle defence. No other contemporary European realm would have been able to maintain two large parallel permanent forces for so long.

The death of Matthias Corvinus meant the end of the Black Army. The noble estate of the parliament succeeded in reducing the tax burden by 70–80 percent, at the expense of the country's ability to defend itself, thus the newly elected king Vladislaus II was unable to cover the cost of the army. King Vladislaus II donated most of the royal estates, régales and royalties to the nobility. After the dissolution of the Black Army, the Hungarian magnates also dismantled the national administration systems and bureaucracy throughout the country. The country's defenses sagged as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled.

Etymology

Several theories exist about the army's name. The first recorded accounts using "black" description appear in written memoranda immediately after Corvinus' death, when the rest of the army was pillaging Hungarian, and later Austrian, villages when they were receiving no pay. One idea is that they adopted the adjective from a captain, "Black" John Haugwitz, whose nickname already earned him enough recognition to be identified with the army as a whole.

Reforms of the draft of traditional feudal and levy armies

In the first years of Matthias' rule, the structure of enlisting troops was built on the legacy of his ancestor Sigismund of Luxembourg. The majority of his army consisted of noble banners and the soldiers provided and regulated by the militia portalis (manor militia), which outlined that for every twenty serf-lots (portae, literally "gates"), a noble was ordered to raise and lend one archer to the king. Later, that obligation was reconsidered, and the limit was shifted to one archer per 33 manors and three mounted archers per 100 manors. Those who did not have serfs but owned manors as a noble had to join a regional count in state of war. No significant number of mercenaries were present in the Hungarian Army during Matthias' early years. (In the 1463 Janus Pannonius' report of the siege of Jajce Castle, there is no mention of them.)

In case of emergency, a last chance existed for the actual king in power to mobilize the population suddenly. Every noble, no matter his social class, had to participate in person with his weaponry and all of his personal guards made available. These were the estate armies. Whenever they were called upon, they were not allowed to fight for longer than 15 days, and their field of operations was restricted to within the borders of Hungary. The so-called insurrectio (noble "insurrection") was nothing more than an obsolete form of drafting, but it was valid until the Battle of Raab in 1809, mainly because it relieved the participating nobles of paying their taxes; but generally, these enlisted armada played a minor role in the Black Army, since Matthias decreased their participation gradually and called them up in large numbers early in his reign.

In the laws of 1459 of Szeged, he restored the basis of 20 serfs to induct an archer (this time it was based on the number of persons). The barons' militia portalis no longer counted in the local noble's banner but into the army of the country (led by a captain appointed by the king) and could have been sent abroad as well. He also increased the insurrectio's time of service from 15 days to three months.

From mercenaries to regularly paid soldiers Though these efforts were sound, the way they were carried out was not in any way supervised. In 1458, Matthias borrowed as many as 500 heavy cavalry from the Bohemian king, George of Poděbrady, to strengthen his situation at home against his rival landlords. This marks the turning point away from obsolete noble banners to skilled soldiers of fortune (in this case, they were remnants of the Hussites, whose battle tactics were later adapted by the Black Army). He needed more seasoned veterans, so he chose to settle a group of rogue Czech Army deserters led by John Jiskra who were already plundering the northern countryside seeking daily loot. Jiskra was promised a royal pardon and two castles, Solymos and Lippa (now Şoimuş and Lipova), in the Peace Treaty of Wiener Neustadt of 1463, and his soldiers received a payment of 25,000 ducats. He was stationed in Bosnia to fight the Ottomans the next year. Previously, in 1462, the King sent word to his equerry that he should hire 8,000 cavalry to start a holy war against the Ottoman Empire only if the Venetians – according to their promise – covered the expenses (unfortunately for the Hungarians, this financial aid was postponed from time to time). The first major and mass conscription of mercenaries appeared during the Bohemian Wars (1468–1478), whereas the core of his royal infantry, a force of 6,000–8,000 armed men, were incorporated into the Black Army (the origins of the moniker could also come from this era).

Funding

After Matthias's income increased periodically, simultaneously, the number of mercenaries increased as well. Historical records vary when it comes to numbers, mainly because it changed from battle to battle and most soldiers were only employed for the duration of combat or a longer conflict. Reckoning the nobility's banners, the mercenaries, the soldiers of conquered Moravia and Silesia, and the troops of allied Moldavia and Wallachia, the King could have gathered an army of 90,000 men. The nobility's participation in the battlefield was ignored by the time their support could have been redeemed in gold later on. The cities were also relieved of paying war levies if they supplied the craftsmanship and weapon production to equip the military.

King Matthias increased the serfs' taxes; he switched the basis of taxing from the portae to the households, and occasionally, they collected the royal dues twice a year during wartime. Counting the vassals' tribute, the western contributions, the local nobility's war payment, the tithes, and the urban taxes, Matthias's annual income reached 650,000 florins; for comparison, the Ottoman Empire had 1,800,000 per year. In contrast to popular belief, historians have speculated for decades that the actual sum altogether could circle around 800,000 florins in a good year at the peak of Matthias's reign, but never surpassed the financial threshold of one million florins, a previously commonly accepted number. In 1467, Matthias Corvinus reformed the coin system for easier accumulation of taxes and manageable disbursements and introduced an improved dinar, which had a finer silver content (500‰) and weighed half a gram. He also re-established its ratio, where one florin of gold equaled 100 dinars of silver, which was so stable that it remained in place until the mid-16th century.

The army was divided into three parts: the cavalry, paid three florins per horse; the pavisors, who received double the money; and the archers, light infantry and arquebusiers, with the latter consisting of mostly Czechs, Germans and Poles (all paid differently). Medieval gunpowder was quite expensive, so the King preferred adapting Hussite tactics to mounted warfare (based on defense, placing infantry behind wagon blockades or tall pavises, while the cavalry constantly harassed the enemy and guarded the "middle") and preferred archery to fusiliers, with the latter being engaged at the very start of the battle. With firearm production being made available by local marksmen in Transylvania, especially in Braşov, this type of ranged infantry became cheaper to handle for the Hungarians.

Improving the river fleet The river fleet ( or ) was composed of wooden galleys, rowboats (later upgraded to gunboats), and smaller ships, which were capable of sailing up the rivers Danube, Tisza and Sava. The victory at the Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár) in 1456, where the fleet played a significant role in breaking through the Turkish river blockade to bring relief to the besieged city, showed its importance and signaled the beginning of a recognition of its significance. It also encouraged King Matthias to build a larger and better-equipped navy. Since they were manned by South Slavs, mainly Serbs and Croats, the two major ports of operations were Belgrade and Szabács (Šabac). In 1475, concomitantly with the introduction of field guns, he ordered the installation of artillery onto the river barges as well as bombards able to shoot cannonballs ranging from . In 1479, he had a mixed fleet of 360 vessels, a crew of 2600 sailors, and a capacity of 10,000 soldiers on board. Matthias also secured an exit to the Adriatic Sea: the city-port of Zengg from which Matthias Balázs could embark for his maritime campaigns. King Matthias could also monitor the trade going through the Danube Delta to the Black Sea from the city of Kilia, but during his reign, it was seized by the Moldavian army supported by the Ottoman fleet.

Branches, tactics, equipment

Tactics

Heavy cavalry