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The Black Army ((ハンガリー語:Fekete sereg), pronounced (:ˈfɛkɛtɛ ˈʃɛrɛɡ)), also called the Black Legion/Regiment – possibly after their black armor panoply – is a common name given to 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) ()〕 Hungary's Black Army traditionally encompasses the years from 1458 to 1494.〔 The mercenary soldiers of other countries in the era were conscripted from the general population at times of crisis, and soldiers worked as bakers, farmers, brick-makers, etc. for most of the year. In contrast, 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). 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 in the infantry, 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 beginnings, the core of the army consisted of 6–8 thousand mercenaries. Later, in the 1480s, the number was between 15,000 and 20,000,〔(Magyar Katolikus Lexikon ) (Hungarian Catholic Lexicon)〕 however the figures reached to 28,000 men (20,000 horsemen, 8,000 infantry) in 1487.〔 The soldiers were mainly Bohemians, Germans, Serbs, Poles and, from 1480, Hungarians. 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.〔Jean Berenger: A History of the Habsburg Empire 1273-1700 -PAGE: 108 (Routledge, 2014 ISBN 1317895703)〕 One important victory of the Black Army of Hungary was at the Battle of Breadfield, where the Hungarians defeated the Ottomans. The death of Matthias Corvinus meant the end of the Black Army, because 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,〔Francis Fukuyama: Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution〕 thus the newly elected king Vladislaus II was not able to cover the cost of the army.〔 ==Etymology== Several speculations arose about the army's cognomen. The first recorded accounts using the "black" attribute appear in written memoranda immediately after his death, when the rest of the army was pillaging the Hungarian and later Austrian villages when they received no pay. An 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.〔 Another noteworthy general was Pál Kinizsi, who helped Corvinus' successor, Vladislaus II of Hungary, to dissolve what remained of the discontent Black Army.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Black Army of Hungary」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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