On the wikipedia page for King Bela IV of Hungary, it says that the Cumans adopted Christianity when they entered Hungary. However, the page of one of his successors, Ladislaus IV claims that the Cumans were pagan during Ladislaus IV`s reign. Can anyone help clear this up for me?
Hello,
the wiki page is false, the Cumans did not adopt christianity, think of them like Gothic troops among the legions of Rome. Bela IV wanted to rely on 20 thousand cumanic warriors when the Tatars would invade. The problems of this was: -the cumans did not know agriculture -the cumans were pagans -the cumans were mostly loyal to their own tribal chiefs rather their hungarian lords -the hungarians fully converted to an agricultural society and did not react well to Cumans moving their camps through their fields, stealing livestock -the hungarians were christians and local priests often depicted the cumans as devil worshippers and cannibals -the hungarian nobles killed the Cumans reigning Chief
The above caused the Cumans to turn on the Hungarians, the Cumans leaving a trail of destruction in the southern territories of the Kingdom. Just as they were leaving the Tatars/Mongols arrived and killed everyone before they could care about the Cumans.
Then Bela invited them back, but they remained pagan, then were slowly (very slowly) christianized, their culture remaining only in traces by the late 1800's.