July 23, 1456 (Belgrade)
and
July 24, 1456 (Belgrade)
In the days after the battle for Belgrade, John Hunyadi sent two essentially identical letters to two different recipients. The first letter, sent on July 23, was addressed to Denis Szécsi, archbishop of Esztergom and cardinal. The second was sent to Ladislaus Garai, palatine of Hungary. Both were strong supporters of Ladislaus V, and central figures in the circles around him: Szécsi was among the most important church prelates in Hungary, and Garai among the kingdom’s most important barons. These two letters are significant because they, like those of Capistrano, are among the earliest accounts of the battle. And here again the rambling diction of a hurriedly composed communication captures the urgency of a moment. These letters also enjoyed (with minor variations) a wide circulation in subsequent decades, offering their copyists and readers a succinct, if partial, account of the events of July 22, 1456.
Sources: Hunyadi’s letter to Szécsi is printed in Gelasius Dobner, Monumenta Historica Boemiae (Prague, 1768), 2: 417–18. His letter to Garai is printed in L. Thallóczy and A. Antal, eds., Codex diplomaticus partium regno Hungariae adnexarum, Monumenta Hungariae Historica 33 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1907), 2: 208–9. Both letters, with a discussion of their German translations, are also printed in A. Bernoulli, ed., Basler Chroniken (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1890), 4: 391–2. The following is my translation of the core text, which is common to both letters.
Magnificent lord, to be honored by us! We are able to write of this news to Your Lordship: that the emperor of the Turks had come with his mighty power, and with many machines, to lay siege to the fortress of Belgrade. Indeed, he came with such power and skill as no human eye has ever seen, nor mind could comprehend, and in fact he so destroyed the fortress through the blows of his cannons such that it is no longer a fortress, but a field;1 indeed the walls have been torn down to the ground. On the most recent Wednesday, after the hour of vespers,2 they stormed the fortress in a marvelous way, such that it lasted all through the night and into the next day up to midday, such that we engaged them twice in the middle of the fortress, as if in an open field. Then at last we charged against them beyond the fortress and fought with them into the evening. With God’s help we drove the emperor of the Turks himself from the aforesaid fortress. We captured all of his cannons and engines. And on this last Friday he took to flight with those who were left, alone, in the middle of the night, confused and defeated.
It is clear that if anyone should at present move militarily against that emperor, he would never be able to capture his kingdom more easily than at the present, since the princes and leaders of his people, and especially his foot soldiers, were utterly defeated before that fortress, and since the aforesaid soldiers of that emperor (who are normally a superior force among his people) have been utterly annihilated. And we were in the fortress, with our own leader,3 at the time of the victory, and from that day on which the siege of the fortress began, we were there. Indeed, many of our household and our men have been wounded, and some have died. But with God’s help, the emperor of the Turks never turned himself to flight from a battle with greater shame than now, as one totally defeated. For we first had a fight against them on the water, during which we captured many of their galleys. Of those ships that remained, when on the aforesaid Thursday we sought to move against them, they soon turned themselves in flight; their men rushed out from them and set the ships on fire. But for now, we do not know what we are to do with the aforesaid fortress, since it cannot be called a fortress, but an open field, because it is so broken apart and totally destroyed.
Given in the aforesaid place on the Friday before the feast of Saint James the Apostle, in the year 1456. John Hunyadi, Count of Transylvania.
1 Here and elsewhere, the letter offers a clever play on words in Latin: non castrum sed campum.
2 These events take place from the evening of July 21, through the night, and all through the day of July 22.
3 A somewhat obscure phrase, though perhaps a reference to the castellan Szilágyi.