Editing Burgenland (section)

===Habsburg administration===
[[File:Habsburg mortgages between 15th and 17th centuries.jpg|left|350px|thumb|Habsburg mortgages in Burgenland between the 15th and 17th centuries]]
In 1440 the territory of present-day Burgenland was controlled by the Habsburgs of Austria, and in 1463 the northern part of it (with the town of [[Kőszeg]]) became a mortgage-territory according to the peace treaty of [[Wiener Neustadt]]. In 1477 King [[Matthias Corvinus]] of Hungary had retaken the area, but in 1491 it was mortgaged again by King [[Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary]] to Emperor [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]]. In 1647 Emperor [[Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand II]] returned it to the Kingdom of Hungary (which itself was a Habsburg possession in this time).

In the 16th century, the medieval [[Kingdom of Hungary (1526–1867)|Kingdom of Hungary]] lost its independence and its northwestern part that was not conquered by the Ottoman Empire was included in the Habsburg Empire. This Habsburg possession was known as [[Royal Hungary]] and it included territory of present-day Burgenland and western Hungary. [[Royal Hungary]] still had counties. What is today Burgenland was in those times the Moson, Sopron and Vas counties of Hungary.
[[File:Central europe 1572.png|thumb|The Kingdom of Hungary as divided into 3 parts]]

In the 16th and 17th centuries German [[Protestant]] refugees arrived in Western Royal Hungary to shelter from [[European wars of religion|the religious wars]] of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], particularly from the suppression of the Reformation in Austrian territories, then ruled by the staunchly Roman Catholic Habsburgs. After the Habsburg military victory against the Ottomans at the end of the 17th century, the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary was enlarged to include much of the territory of the former medieval Kingdom of Hungary. In the 17th and 18th centuries the region of Western Hungary was dominated by the wealthy Catholic landowning families, for example the [[House of Esterházy|Esterházys]] and [[Batthyány]]s. In 1867, the Habsburg Empire was transformed into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.