And, strange to say, just as the Mohammedan Turks of our day ascribe the decline and downfall of their power to the many innovations introduced into their religious and social life, and discover the main source of their ruin in the assimilation to the West, precisely so spoke and argued the Hungarians of that day. They laid particular stress upon the fact that the nation, whilst adhering to the religion and customs of its ancestors, had been independent, strong, and mighty, and had even made the whole of Europe tremble; but that now, since it had adopted the religion and customs of the West, the nation was weakened by internal dissensions, strangers had become her masters, foreign armies had penetrated into the very heart of the country—nay, Hungary had lost her independence and had become the vassal of a foreign power. Such representations could not fail to produce their effect. It was easy to convince the uncultivated Hungarians, who were not yet confirmed in the Christian religion and but ill brooked its severe discipline, that all those troubles and misfortunes which had visited the country were the consequences of the introduction of Christianity, and that to achieve a splendid future for the nation, in harmony with its glorious past, this must be done upon the ruins of Christianity and of the institutions introduced by Stephen.
This great change, however repugnant it may have seemed to the Hungarians, was, nevertheless, unavoidable. As previously stated, the foreign elements which flooded the country, owing to the very large number of captives the Hungarians brought with them from every part of Europe, had wrought that change in the manners and habits of life in spite of all the reluctance of the former Asiatic nomads. These captives greatly outnumbering their masters, were mostly used for agricultural purposes, but their close contact with the ruling class unavoidably produced a mitigation of the rude military habits of the latter. The Hungarians eagerly listened to the Christian chants and prayers of their subjects. They imitated them in their food and dress, and, although nearly two centuries had to pass before the former wanderers on the Central-Asian steppes could get accustomed to permanent habitations, and, despite the aversion the proud warrior felt to the plow, the ice, nevertheless, began to break. The Asiatic mode of thinking had to be given up, and with the tenets of Christian tradition habits of Christian life were gradually introduced.