The Crusade of 1456: Texts and Documentation in Translation

Illuminating the many complexities of late medieval military, diplomatic, and cultural history, The Crusade of 1456 provides access to one of the most interesting yet neglected stories in the history of the crusades.

In July 1456, a massive Turkish army settled in before Belgrade, an ancient city at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. The army's leader was the 21-year-old Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, "the Conqueror," who had captured Constantinople only three years before. He now sought to take one of the most strategically important fortifications in all of southeastern Europe. Three weeks later, Mehmed's army was in full retreat, driven from Belgrade by a seasoned Hungarian warlord and his army, along with a ragtag force of ill-equipped crusaders.

In The Crusade of 1456, James D. Mixson gathers together the key primary sources for understanding both the events that led to the siege of the city of Belgrade, and how those events lived on in European narrative and memory. Collectively, these sources nearly all of them translated here for the first time challenge readers with their variety: papal decrees, letters, liturgies, and chronicles from Latin, Byzantine, and Ottoman perspectives. They also confront readers with the difficulties of interpretation: the production and resonance of crusade propaganda, the complex nature of "eyewitness" sources, and the long-term process that transforms narrative and text into cultural memory. The book also includes an accessible introduction, timelines, and maps.

Introduction

Historical Frames: Political and Military Developments
Sources in Scholarly Context: The Middle Ages, the Crusades, and the Problem of "Lateness"
Framing the Sources: Selection, Structure, and Significance

Part One: Preparations for Crusade, 1453–1456

1. Pope Nicholas V, Etsi Ecclesia Christi
2. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Constantinopolitana Clades
3. Correspondence of 1455–1456
4. Liturgy for Taking the Cross
5. A Pope’s Call to Prayer
6. Pope Callixtus III, Omnipotentis dei misericordia

Part Two: The Earliest Accounts

7. John of Capistrano to Pope Callixtus III
8. John of Capistrano to Pope Callixtus III
9. John Hunyadi to Denis Szécsi, Archbishop of Esztergom
10. John Hunyadi to Ladislaus Garai, Palatine of Hungary
11. John Hunyadi to King Ladislaus Posthumous
12. John of Tagliacozzo to James of the Marches
13. John of Capistrano to Pope Callixtus III

Part Three: News and Propaganda

14. Ambassador of the Bishop of Šibenik to Callixtus III
15. Cardinal Juan Carvajal to Francesco Sforza
16. Letters of John Goldener
17. Ladislaus Posthumous to Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan
18. The City of Nuremberg to the City of Weissenburg
19. Pope Callixtus III to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan
20. Letters of Bernard of Kraiburg
21. Callixtus III, Letter to Juan Soler
22. Anonymous (Pseudo-John of Capistrano), to all Christians
23. Anonymous, Letter to Henry of Eckenfelt
24. Liturgical Commemorations of Belgrade

Part Four: John of Tagliacozzo’s The Story of the Victory of Belgrade

25. John of Tagliacozzo, The Story of the Victory of Belgrade

Part Five: Memoir and Chronicle

26. Thomas Ebendorfer, Chronica Austriae
27. Laonikos Chalkokondyles, The Histories
28. Michael Kritopuoulos (Kritovulos), History of Mehmed the Conqueror
29. Jacopo da Promontorio, Recollecta
30. Âşıkpaşazade, Memories and Chronicles of the House of Osman
31. John Thurocz, Chronicle of the Hungarians
32. Tursun Beg, History of the Conqueror
33. The Oxford Anonymous Chronicle
34. Konstantin Mihailović, Memoirs

Timelines:

General Timeline
The Crusade of 1456

Maps:

Central and Southeastern Europe, c. 1450
The Siege and Relief of Belgrade, 1456
The City and Fortress of Belgrade, c. 1450

James D. Mixson is an associate professor of History at the University of Alabama.

"A description of Belgrade in 1456 is to be found in many a book on the Medieval Balkans, on the Papacy and the Levant, or on Hungarian history but never with such specificity and depth. It is as if long lost voices are heard again for the first time after the sleep of ages, with startling freshness and power."