August 17, 1456 (Slankamen)
By mid-August of 1456, reports of the events of Belgrade (the texts in the next section among them) had begun to make their way back to Western Europe. In those same days, after weighing many accounts of the battle for himself, John of Capistrano authored his last and most detailed letter regarding the events.
Source: Trans J. Mixson, from Luke Wadding, ed., Annales minorum, 3rd ed. (Quaracchi, 1932), 12: 430–2.
Most blessed father, kisses for sacred feet, humble and devout obedience unto the death of the cross,1 and its savage torture. Since wherever something is lacking, it ought rightly to be provided, and since I am now in fact able, given more reliable news, to say more about what I could not comprehend at first sight on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’s glorious victory (granted to us by the authority of Your Serenity and by the ministry of those few, signed by the character of the true, living cross), even though the machines, instruments, and terrible devices that the enemy had prepared are indescribable – carriages to transport the cannons, iron and wooden casters to transport ships and skiffs over the mountains and hills to move the troops that would despoil the kingdom of Hungary (which in the end God would not allow them to do) – nevertheless I will write about those things which can be described turn by turn, not wasting time with adornments, but in simple truth.
For when I said before that many thousands of the enemy had been killed, the illustrious lord despot [George Branković] (who even if he does not accord with our faith, nevertheless according to Your Serenity’s designs is with us in coming together against the faithless Turks) reported yesterday to the most reverend lord legate [Carvajal] and to me that more than twenty-four thousand were killed on the day of the battle. He has asserted that the same number and more had died as they fled, as in the time of Gideon.2 And it was not without divine judgment that the prince of the Turks himself, along with his most trusted warriors, had thereafter found their way, in stunned flight, to Sofia. And intending to prevent his remaining ministers from fleeing any further, he killed many of them, both by his own hand and by those of his executioners. The same despot said furthermore that the principal voivode of the most damned Great Turk Muhammad, who ruled in Scythia (where there is a gold mine that belonged, and by right belongs, to the despot) was beheaded by the sword, as was his wife, by those who are said by right to be subject to the despot.3 But [the sultan’s] castellans still hold five fortresses which, with God’s help, [the despot] hopes to recapture, with the favor and assistance of Your Serenity and the reverend lord your apostolic legate. Moreover, the despot also says that he had sent forty scouts to ascertain what had happened to the most monstrous Turk, that a quarter of them have returned, and that all have said that even though they had applied themselves with all diligence, they were not able to learn anything certain about his status – all of which firmly convinced the despot that he was dead. If only it were so.
I had written, blessed father, that in our first battle I had counted forty-four ships, and so it was; but thereafter, having learned the truth by way of better information, we counted sixty-four, of which we now command some twenty-seven in total, counting the small and the large together. Concerning the size of the army, however, though many say that there were 120,000 soldiers, nevertheless the most reverend lord your legate, after a walk with me over the better part of the space in which the army of the enemy had been located, judged that they could have numbered as many as 150,000 given the evidence of so many camps. In my second letter I had written of thirty-two cannons, because at the time I had not seen more. But thereafter, having counted all of them, great and small, we found over three hundred. And of the small firearms that are set off by hand (called, in our parts, scopettae), we have no number for all that were found, because so many have been hidden.4
Blessed father, since Justinian’s law5 says that “nothing is done while there is still something left to do,” therefore, behold, “now is the accepted time”! Behold, “now is the day of salvation” for the Christian people!6 Now is the time to fulfill the desire of Your Serenity, that we proceed not only to recover Greece and Europe, but to recover the Holy Land of Jerusalem, which almighty God will grant us easily, if Your Serenity will not let go of the holy desire that you have embraced. May Your Serenity, most pious and most zealous in the faith, kindly grant this one most pious thing to the reverend lord your legate [Carvajal]: only send from Italy twelve thousand cavalry, or at least ten, armed in the Italian manner and supported by your wages. If they can persevere with us in the field for six months straight, along with your devoted crusader sons as well as these illustrious princes, prelates, and barons of the kingdom of Hungary, we hope to gain so much from the goods of the pagans that we can sustain ourselves abundantly for a further three straight years without any expense, satisfying the needs of our entire army by means of their spoils. Indeed, the same lord despot strongly affirms that we would be more able to expand the Christian faith and to drive back the pagans with ten thousand soldiers at the present time than with thirty thousand at some other time.
Note also that all those who have, for the name of Christ and out of obedience and devout reverence for Your Serenity, taken the sign of the living cross, burningly share this desire of the reverend lord legate. And although it has pleased the Almighty to take from us that unconquered warrior of most illustrious memory, a defender so frightening to enemies of the holy Catholic faith, the Lord John Hunyadi, who lost his life to pestilence on the eleventh of this month, he has nevertheless given us a man who is not unequal: Nicholas of Ilok, under whose strong and powerful leadership John himself established his militia, with only five or six horses. For this same Nicholas is an illustrious prince, excellent in magnificence, wise in counsel, prudent in action, virile in spirit, fervent in faith, in obedience to Your Serenity a humble emulator of your honor and great zeal; in word and deed, one who is thought to be a leader among other princes, prelates, and barons of this kingdom; one whom they hold in high esteem, and to whom all attribute praiseworthy fame – and who accordingly possesses a hereditary title in this kingdom, in the banate.
Now, therefore, most blessed father, let the Christian princes and kings be roused anew! While the furnace burns, the gold thickens; while the enemy is weak, and while the fervor burns in the Christian people, let warfare’s arms be raised against the shameless infidels. Let Your Holiness therefore command, as it pleases you, what is to be done. And may it please the Almighty to preserve his holy church forever.
From Slankamen, August 17, 1456.
1 This may reference the possibility of Capistrano’s martyrdom.
2 Cf. Judges 7.
3 A vice-regent, in this case perhaps a confused reference to Karaca Bey, who was killed at Belgrade. See document 33.
4 The term translated here is pixidibus, one of many terms for various kinds of hand-held gunpowder weapons. See document 16.1, n. 5, and document 25, n. 15.
5 Capistrano, a jurist by training before his conversion to Franciscan life, here references the Corpus iuris civilis of the Roman emperor Justinian, a sixth-century text that had by his day become foundational for European law.
6 Cf. 2 Corinthians 6:2.