The Crusade of Varna, 1443-45 (Crusade Texts in Translation)

CRUSADE TEXTS IN TRANSLATION About the volume:

The Crusade. of Varita of 1443-45 was one of the decisive events of the late Middle Ages: it was Murad's victory at Varna that secured Ottoman domination of the Balkan Peninsula. This book presents the first English translation of three important works which provide eyewitness accounts of the dramatic events of 1443-45 from the Christian and the Muslim side: an anonymous Ottoman text on 'The Holy Wars of Sultan Murad'; a section of the 'Anciennes Chroniques d'Angleterre' by the Bugundian, J ehan de Wavrin, and a German ballad on the Crusade by Michel Beheim. These are· supplemented by a series of shorter contemporary texts relating to the events of the crusade, an introduction and annotation.

About the series:

The crusading movement bequeathed to its future historians a legacy of sources unrivalled in their range and variety. Crusades Texts in Translation presents these sources document in fascinating detail as well as the motivations and viewpoints, military efforts and spiritual lives, of the participants in the crusades. They narrate the internal histories of the states and societies which crusaders established or supported in the many regions where they fought. Some sources have been translated in the past but the vast majority have been available only in their original language. Crusades Texts in Translation provides a wide ranging corpus of texts, most of them translated for the first time, which illuminate the history of the crusades and the crusader-states from every angle, including that of their principal adversaries, the Muslim powers of the Middle East. About the translator:

Colin Imber was Reader in Turkish at the University of Manchester, UK.

THE CRUSADE OF VARNA, 1443-45

Crusade Texts in Translation

Editorial Board Malcolm Barber (Reading), Peter Edbury (Cardiff), Bemard Hamilton (Nottingham), Norman Housley (Leicester), Peter Jackson (Keele)

Titles in the series include: Paul Crawford The 'Templar of Tyre , Part III of the 'Deeds of the Cypriots' D.S. Richards The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin or al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya wa'l-Mahasin al-Yusufiyya by Baha' aI-Din Ibn Shaddad Janet Shirley and Peter W Edbury Guillaume de Machaut The Capture of Alexandria Damian Smith and Helena Buffery The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon A Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre dels Fets Carol Sweetenham Robert the Monk's History of the First Crusade Historia Iherosolimitana Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen A History of the Normans on the First Crusade D.S. Richards The Chronicle ofIbn al-Athir for The Crusading Period from al-Kamilfi'l-Ta'rikh. Part 1 The Years 491-54111097-1146: The Coming of the Franks and the Muslim Response

The Crusade ofVama, 1443--45

COLINIMBER University of Manchester, UK

ASHGATE

© Colin Imber 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Colin Imber has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited GowerHouse Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GUll 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

IAshgate website: http://www.ashgate.com I British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Imber, Colin The Crusade ofVarna, 1443-45. - (Crusade Texts in Translation; no. 14) I.Varna, Battle of, Varna, Bulgaria, 1444 - Sources. 2.Crusades, Later, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries - Sources. 1.Title 949.9'4015 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Imber, Colin. The Crusade ofVarna, 1443-45 / Colin Imber. p. cm. - (Crusade Texts in Translation; 14) Documents translated into English from French, German, Old Turkish, and various other languages. 1. Crusades - Later, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries - Sources. 2. Varna, Battle of, Varna, Bulgaria, 1444 - Sources. 1. Title. H. Series. D172.I632006 959.9'015-dc22 2005036420

ISBN-I0: 0-7546-0144-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-0144-9 This book is printed on acid-free paper Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd., Bodmin, Cornwall

Contents

List of Maps Acknowledgements

vii ix

Introduction Translations: I

11

ill

IV

V

Anonymous, The Holy Wars of Sultan Murad Son of Sultan Mehmed Khan

41

Jehan de Wavrin, Extract from the Anciennes Chroniques d' Angleterre

107

Michel Beheim, This Poem Tells ofKing Pladislavo, King ofHungary, and How he Fought with the Turks

167

Miscellaneous Texts 1. From the Decree of the Council of Florence, 1439 2. From the Chronicle ofUru~ b. 'Adil el-Kazzaz 3. From Ne~ri's History of the Ottomans 4. From an Ottoman Chronological List of 1445 5. From the Chronicle of A~lkpa~azade 6. From a Greek Short Chronicle, c1470 7. From the Venetian Chronicle of Gasparo Zancaruolo 8. A Note on the Flyleaf of a Manuscript of the Kanz al-Daqa Jiq of al-Nasafi 9. From a Greek Short Chronicle, c1520 10. From the Mamluk Chronicle ofAI-SakhawI 11. From an Ottoman Tax Register of the District of Nicopolis, c1450 12. Part of Murad II's Persian Victory Proclamation

189 189

The Treaties, Oaths and Declarations of 1444 1. From Ne~ri's History of the Ottomans 2. From the Correspondence of Ciriaco of Ancona 3. From the Correspondence of Ciriaco of Ahcona 4. Letter from King Vladislav to the Senate of Florence

197 197 198 199

181 181 182 183 183 186 186 186 187 187

The Crusade ofVarna, 1443-45

vi

5. King Vladislav's Oath at Szeged 6. From a letter of the Venetian Senate to Admiral Alvise Loredan 7. From the Serbian Annals 8. The Sworn Statement ofIbrahim ofKaraman 9. From a Letter of King Vladislav to the Polish State Council

201 202 202 203 204

Glossary

205

Bibliography

209

Index

213

List of Maps

1. The Kingdom of Hungary 2. Greece and Albania

Xl XlI

3. Anatolia

X111

4. The Crusade of 1443

XIV

5. The Crusade of 1444

xv

6. The Crusade of 1445

xvi

Acknow ledgements

My interest in the Crusade of Vama can be traced very precisely to a seminar on the development of Ottoman artillery given many years ago by Colin Heywood. Dr Heywood was the first to recognise the significance of this crusade in the evolution of Ottoman warfare, and pointed in particular to the importance of Jehan de Wavrin's Anciennes Chroniques d'Angleterre - a work which historians of the crusade had tended to overlook - not simply as a source for the events of the campaign, but very specifically for the detailed evidence which it provides of fifteenth-century warfare and of the transfer of military technology and tactics. This book, and in particular the translation ofthe Anciennes Chroniques, is a very belated but, I hope, positive result of the seminar which provided its inspiration. Translating mediaeval texts is not an exact science, and I have not solved all of the numerous problems which this selection presents. However, I could not have got even as far as I have without the expert help ofFikret Turan, David Blamires, Adrian Armstrong and John Briscoe, who all put their time and linguistic expertise at my disposal and saved me from a catalogue of errors. I am grateful too to Kelly DeVries for his very prompt and informative replies to my unsolicited questions about the technicalities of Burgundian artillery, and to Sohayalla Wilson for reading the translations and putting a red pencil through the less fortunate passages. However, all remaining mistakes and infelicities of style are entirely my responsibility.

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