barbarians who lived north of the Danube river attacked the settlement, nearly completely destroying it. The Romans reconquered the area around the 3rd century, and the town once again prospered, likely with a population of three or four thousand people. After the Emperor Valentinianus died in 375, Hunnic invasions drove the populace away. After the Honfoglalás, King Stephen ordered the building of a castle at Moson to defend the border. Settlers flocked around the wooden and then stone castle, and by the 11th century it was described as a strong fortress and bustling merchant town; by this time, it was also the county seat of Moson. However, in 1030, the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II was able to conquer the castle on his way to the Rába. During the Crusades, Kálmán, King of Győr and Moson, was able to defeat a Swabian-Bavarian army of 15,000 men from the castle. There was significant industrial and urban development during the 13th century, when Moson once again found itself along a trade route. Mills and churches were built during this time. All advances were destroyed, however, by Ottokar II, a Czech king, when he leveled the castle at Moson in 1271. Béla IV, King of Hungary at the time, did not consider it worthwhile to try and rebuild the castle at Moson, and thus turned to Óvár as a promising site for a future fortress. The King gave a man named Conrad, who was of the Győr tribe, lands in Moson and funds to be able to accomplish this task. Though he made significant improvements to the castle, he defected to Ottokar II and Duke Albert of Austria. For this impunity, he was deprived of his lands, and from then on Óvár was an estate of the Hungarian queens. The first settlers to Óvár were refugees from the destroyed Moson, and in the 14th century it became a bustling city with new industry and urbanization. Mills along the Lajta became a source of employment and attention, as many were owned by the royal house. In 1354, Queen Elisabeth gave Óvár the title of "queen's town". This gave the townspeople the right to elect their own parish priest, have their own jurisdiction, inherit possessions, and pay no customs in all of Hungary. Later kings recognized these rights, but the townspeople still had to struggle to maintain them. After Louis II's marriage to Mary of