Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

Pest, on the left bank of the Danube, and, across the river, Buda (today’s Óbuda or Old Buda) were important settlements as early as the 11th century, but they were almost completely wiped out by the Mongol invasion of 1241. Fearing another onslaught after the Mongols withdrew from the country, King Béla IV had a fortress built at the southern end of Castle Hill. Adjoining this was the burghers’ town proper, surrounded by walls studded with strong bastions and decorative turrets. Turning towards the four points of the compass, its gates invited well-intentioned strangers, merchants and travellers, but protected those living inside the walls—Hungarians who had settled down around the Church of St. Mary Magdalene and Germans whose houses stood by the Church of Our Lady. Via the Szombat, or Sabbath (from 1541 Bécsi, i.e. Vienna) Gate on the north, the traveller would get to the square where markets were held on Saturdays. In the southwest stood the Fehérvár Gate (this way went the street—today’s Palota út, that is to say, Palace Street—running towards Krisztinaváros, or Christina Town), while at the southern end was the Kelenföld Gate, which today lies buried beneath the ground (towering above its spot is a battlement, the great south Round Bastion, raised in the 15th or 16th century), and to the southeast was the Water Gate, sometimes known as St. John’s.

The Mongol invasion represented in the Augsburg edition OF THE ThURÓCZY CHRONICLE (1488)

5