ABSTRACT
The presence of 'foreign experts' – knights and clerks – is recorded from the very beginning of the Christian kingdom of Hungary. That the christianisation of a 'new people' would be undertaken by foreign missionaries is self-evident and a well-known feature of all European history. We know about these knights, because their descendants rose into aristocracy of the kingdom, intermarried with the older local elite, and thus their origin became relevant for future generations. However, during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries a great number of guests' came to Hungary, not only knights and clerks, but also peasants and miners, but little has been recorded about them. Whatever their estate at home may have been, they were all knights well equipped with armour and possessing the skills of Western-style heavy cavalry; and young. It was an ongoing concern of the kings of Hungary to increase their armed force with up-to-date armoured knights, thus welcoming newcomers from that category.
