PART FIVE
c. 1463
Thomas Ebendorfer was an Austrian theologian trained at the University of Vienna, where he rose through the ranks to become a renowned professor and dean. He was active as a priest and church administrator in Vienna as well, and in the era of the Council of Basel became a trusted counselor and diplomat in the service of Frederick III. As a scholar, Ebendorfer authored a series of tracts, sermons, and commentaries, as well as a number of historical works, including an account of the Council of Basel, histories of the popes, the German emperors, and the bishops of Passau, as well as a work on the early crusades. His most famous work, however, is his chronicle of Austrian history, which he completed shortly before his death in 1464. Its treatment of the battle for Belgrade offers a concise, vividly dramatized account of the events.
Source: Trans. J. Mixson, from Thomas Ebendorfer, Chronica Austriae, ed. Alphons Lhotsky, MGH Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, N.S. 13 (Berlin-Zürich: Weidmann, 1967), 432–6.
When he had done these things Mehmed, the wicked persecutor of the name of Christ and most fierce tyrant of the Turks, puffed up with pride after the capture of Constantinople, climbed into his chariot. He aspired to the destruction of all the Christian people and labored to erase the holy name of Christ from the earth. He sought to spread the damned blasphemy of the wicked dog Muhammad, and to claim for himself rule over all the West, with an endless number of Tartars, Saracens, and Teucri1 as partakers in his wickedness. Along with a fleet of ships and galleys, hostile and armed, he came into the region of Serbia, crushing all under his feet. There he first encountered the fortress of Smederevo, but the right hand of God protected it; the sultan lost many of his stronger troops and was forced to withdraw in defeat. And because the Lord struck his entire army with hunger and disease, he turned his forces against the fortress of Belgrade (called Kryechsweissenburg in the vernacular tongue), confident that if he gave an effort commensurate with his strength, and obtained it, he could advance farther [into Hungary]. He brought his wives and children along with the army, and also firmly commanded his subjects to bring their wives and children on the expedition as well. And so that none might be tempted by any desire to return to their homes, he commanded that all be set on fire, promising that in Christendom they would, as payment, exchange their cottages for fortresses, their villages for opulent cities fortified with bars and gates. Trusting in this empty confidence and puffed up by his swollen pride, this Mehmed, public enemy of the Christian name – as he, first among tyrants of the faith, presumed to style himself in his inscriptions – turned against the fortress of Belgrade with all of his machinery of war.
With his large cannons (certain ones of which, they say, were some thirty hands in length, or more accurately seventeen feet, as those who saw them report) he so destroyed the towers and cast down the walls of the city that it more resembled a plain in the countryside or a field, rather than a fortress or a town.2 And when the impious one saw that this had been accomplished, on July 21, 1456 (which is the evening of the feast of the blessed Mary Magdalene), around the hour of vespers, he made an assault on the city so cruel, terrible, inhuman, and fierce, with cannons never before seen in those regions, crammed full as much with violence as with trickery, continually, as days joined incessantly to nights, such that no writing has ever recorded, nor any age ever learned from the tales of forbears and ancients, nor indeed (as they say) has any mortal eye ever seen or observed anything like it. Indeed,3 the wicked [Mehmed] ordered this fiercest of attacks and the bombardment with cannons to continue without any pause, for all of the remainder of the day and continuing on into the following night, and indeed – which seems impossible for human strength to bear – for all of the day of the blessed Magdalene, all the way to twilight, until the Christ-following Hungarians, with a few others unarmed in body but armed in faith, left behind the houses and fortresses from which they fought and – with the help of the favoring right hand of God – once and then again powerfully drove out the wicked from the city (which they had partly entered). With the strong John Hunyadi, Count of Beszterce, as their captain, they began to fight them on foot. And though the outcome, in the hands of Mars,4 was very much in doubt, they fought manfully and struggled strongly in the faith of Christ, until (beyond human hope!) victory was granted from heaven to these soldiers of Christ (forever to be crowned in all glory!). And it was granted not only without much Christian blood, but [by] incomparably [more blood shed] by even the more powerful Turks, and even [the blood] of their leaders.
In any event, heaven happily granted victory to the Christians, and for that reason every person in the Christian world, whatever their age, sex, and rank, should rise to give thanks to almighty Christ, to the all-blessed Trinity, and to all the heavenly court of the saints, by whose merits and prayers, no doubt, holy mother church has given birth to this victory, even though in this regard our sins (both in a church filled with so many who boast of their festivals, and with so many dissimulating nobles) would have demanded something else.
Indeed, if I may, I would rightly sing out this mournful song from the depths of my soul:
Where is the Roman empire, that once so thoroughly tamed the barbarian nations?
Where are its electors, those fearsome princes?
Where is the king of France, who wanted to be called “most Christian”?
Where are the kings of England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Bohemia?
Where are all the powers of Germany and the East?
Behold the unarmed farmers, the blacksmiths, fullers, tailors, and shoemakers, artisans and scholars, inspired by God, so it is believed, to their distinguished and strong acts in defense of the faith, and who in this way prove their worth as soldiers!
And no wonder that [God] should forever condemn these powers if they do not put up a fight, and [cast into] infamy especially those who, passing with a deaf ear over insults to the faith, think of no other business from day to day than styling their hair with the craft of the barber; washing their hair like girls; and, when washing, taking good care and experimenting with new colors; and after dying their hair turning to curling it; and in this way find their way to crying out in adulterous beds, in betrayal of their neighbor’s trust!
And when this victory had been won as a gift from heaven, on Friday evening, the enemy of God and the faith, in his arrogance shamefully humiliated by the humble of Christ, left behind all of his machinery of war and began his headlong flight, leaving behind four of the tents he had erected – and for this may all praise and glory be to God forever! And after this, Christ’s humble ones turned to killing the infidels and carrying away their spoils – starting first (as it is said by those who saw it happen) with eleven large cannons, with three cannons suited for assault and called “quarters” – with which he attacked the walls of the city so fiercely and cruelly. These they collected, along with the small cannons without number, and the gold, silver, vessels, and clothing that they found in the galleys and ships. All of this they calculated to be of no small value – and they set it all on fire. Then, returning to the fortress, they offered up hymns to God, whose tone was “For his mercy endureth forever.”5
The enemies, therefore, who wanted along with their tyrant to avoid the punishment of the sword of God, fled from the river Danube, running (so it was said) for some fourteen miles under a hail of arrows, spears, and cannon fire. But first they set fire to their own ships and cast what they could not carry with them into the churning Danube. These things were done first, and then slowly there followed an infection of the air because of the stench of the human corpses. Then, in the fortress on the morning of Saint Lawrence,6 the abovementioned captain, John Hunyadi, received all of the sacraments of the church, finalized his will, and met his fate. A few days after, the most reverend father and lord [bishop Raphael Herczég] of Kalocsa also succumbed to the illness that he contracted from the foul air. But the tyrant of the Turks, who now doubted himself because of all that had happened, fled to more remote lands so that those who were looking for him nearby could not discover his location or movements. It was then that he saw he had lost all of his leaders, along with all of his confidants, guardians, and bravest fighters, all of them the anchor of his trust, and with whose aid he had boldly prepared to destroy the church. Indeed, he had unarmed Christians slain by the sword in his sight, leaving them unburied and thus offered as food to wild animals and dogs and birds of the air. Indeed, by God’s will, it was a fully prepared meal, as experience teaches, since the rotting of dead bodies drives away the one who would bury them. In this fight for the faith against the Turks the opinion of all, even our enemies, bore witness to the virtue of the clerics and other learned men from Poland and elsewhere who came running to the defense of the faith, and who (so it is said), when the front of our line faltered because of the strength of the enemy, with great spirit, willingly and steadfastly took the place of the fallen in the fight. The greater part of their number died for Christ. But they first charged like lions against the enemy that stood before them, and by death and wounds incapacitated four times and more of their enemy. Then they rested in glorious victory in Christ.
[The word of salutation of Brother John of Capistrano at the time of the death of John Hunyadi, governor of the kingdom of Hungary, in the year 1456 in Belgrade. “Farewell, heaven’s halo! You have fallen, kingdom’s crown! You have been extinguished, light of the world! You have been tarnished, mirror, in which we and others hoped to gaze! Now that the enemy has been safely defeated, you stand in triumph before God and the angels, oh you good John!”7]
1 Ebendorfer here uses classicizing names to denote the ethnic diversity of Mehmed II’s forces.
2 See documents 9–10, n. 1. Ebendorfer may well have had a copy of one of those letters as a source for his account.
3 This passage is one very long sentence, deliberately crafted to capture the drama of the events. The translation here is an attempt to recreate the energy of the sentence, and it at times takes small liberties for the sake of rendering it readable in modern English.
4 Ebendorfer is again deliberately clothing the account in classicizing language.
5 Psalm 135 (136):17.
6 August 11.
7 This brief but famous passage, a dramatization of Capistrano’s reaction to Hunyadi’s death, survives in only one manuscript of Ebendorfer’s chronicle. It is attributed there to the churchman Paul of Vezsprém, though the editor of Ebendorfer’s chronicle suggests it may have been Paul of Székesfehérvár, who had traveled with John of Capistrano as one of his interpreters (Thomas Ebendorfer, Chronica Austriae, ed. Lhotsky, 436n3). See the citation on p. 217 above in the introduction to this document.