CRUSADES
554
CRUSADES
and the Christian states in the Balkans. Having be-
come master of Servia at the battle of Kosovo in 1.389,
the Sultan Bajazet imposed his sovereignty upon John
V and secured possession of Philadelphia, the last
Greek city in Asia Minor. Sigismvind, King of Hun-
gary, alarmed at the progress of the Turks, sent an
embassy to Charles VI, and a large number of French
lords, among them the Count of Nevers, son of the
Duke of Burgundy, enlisted under the standard of the
cross and, in July, 1396, were joined at Buda by Eng-
lish and German knights. The crusaders invaded
Servia, but despite their prodigies of valour Bajazet
completely routed them before Nicopolis, 25 Septem-
ber, 1.396. The Count of Nevers and a great many
lords became Bajazet's prisoners and were released
only on condition of enormous ransoms. Notwith-
standing this defeat, due to the misguided ardour of
the crusaders, a new expedition left Aiguesmortes in
June, 1399, under the command of the Marshal Bouei-
cault and succeeded in breaking the blockade which
the Turks had established aroimd Constantinople.
Moreover, between 1400 and 1402, John Palipologus
made another voyage to the West in quest of rein-
forcements.
IX. The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century. — An unlooked-for event, the invasion by Timur and the Mongols, saved Constantinople for the time being. They annihilated Bajazet's army at Ancyra, 20 July, 1402, and, dividing the Ottoman Empire among sev- eral princes, reduced it to a state of vassalage. The Western rulers, Henry III, King of Castile, and Charles VI, King of France, sent ambassadors to Timur (see the account by Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Madrid, 1779), but the circumstances were not fa- vourable, as they had been in the thirteenth centurj'. The national revolt of the Chinese that overthrew the Mongol dynasty in 1368 had resulted in the destruc- tion of the Christian missions in Farther Asia; in Cen- tral Asia the Mongols had been converted to Moham- medanism, and Timur showed his hostility to the Christians by taking Smyrna from the Hospitallers. Marshal Boucicault took advantage of the de- jection into which the Mongol invasion had thrown the Mohammedan powers to sack the ports of Syria, Tripoli, Beirut, and Sidon in 1403, but he was unable to retain his conquests; while Timur, on the other hand, thought only of obtaining possession of China and returned to Samarkand, where he died in 1405. The civil wars that broke out among the Ottoman princes gave the Byzantine emperors a few years' re- spite, but Murad II, having re-established the Turkish power, besieged Constantinople from June to Septem- ber in 1422, and John VIII, Palaeologus, was compelled to pay him tril^ute. In 1430 Murad took Thessalon- ica from the Venetians, forced the wall of the Hexa- inilion, which had been erected by Manuel to protect the Peloponnesus, and subdued Servia. The idea of the crusade was always popular in the \^'est, and, on his death-bed, Henry V of England regretted that lie had not taken Jerusalem. In her letters to Bedford, the regent, and to the Duke of Burgimdy, Joan of Arc alluded to the union of Christendom against the Sara- cens, and the popular belief expressed in the poetry of Cliristine de Pisan was that, after having delivered France, the Maid of Orleans would lead Charles VII to the Holy Land. But this was only a dream, and the civil wars in France, the crusade against the Hussites, and the Council of Constance, preventeil any action from being taken against the Turks. However, in 1421 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, .sent Gilbert de Lannoy, and in 1432, Bertrand de la Brocquiere, to the East as secret emissaries to gather information that might be of value for a future crusade. At the same tiiiK' negotiations for tlie religious union which would f:nilil:itc the crus^nlr were resumed between the Byzantini- ciuik rors anii the popes. Emperor John VIII came in person to attend the council convoked
by Pope Eugene IV at Ferrara, in 1438. Thanks to
the good will of Bessarion and of Isidore of Kiev, the
two Greek prelates whom the pope had elevated to
the cardinalate, the council, which was transferred to
Florence, established harmony on all points, and on
6 July, 1439, the reconciliation was solemnly pro-
claimed. The reunion was received in bad part by
the CJreeks and did not induce the Western princes to
take the cross. Adventurers of all nationalities en-
rolled themselves under the command of Cardinal
Giuliano Cesarini and went to Hungaiy to join the
armies of Jdnos Himyady, Waywode of Transylvania,
who had just repulsed the Turks at Hermanstadt, of
Wladislaus Jagello, King of Poland, and of George
Brankovitch, Prince of Servia. Having defeated the
Turks at Nish, 3 November, 1443, the allies were enf
abled to conquer Servia, owing to the defectioi
of the Albanians under George Castriota (Scanderl
beg), their national commander. Murad signed a ten
years' truce and abdicated the throne, 15 July;
1444, but Giuliano Cesarini, the papal legate, did
not favour peace and wished to push forward to
Constantinople. At his instigation the crusaders
broke the truce and invaded Bulgaria, whereupon
Murad again took command, crossed the Bosporus
on Genoese galleys, and destroyed the Christian
army at Varna, 10 November, 1444. This defeat
left Constantinople defenceless. In 1446 Murad sue
ceeded in conquering Morea, and when, two years
later, Jiinos Hunyady tried to go to the assistance oi
Constantinople he was beaten at Kosovo. Scander
beg alone managed to maintain his independence ir
Epirus and, in 1449, repelled a Turkish invasion
Mohammed II, who succeeded Murad in 1451, was
preparing to besiege Constantinople when, 12 Decem-
ber, 14.52, Emperor Constantino XII decided to pro
claim the union of the Churches in the presence of thi
papal legates. The expected crusade, however, die
not take place; and when, in March, 1453, the armet
forces of Mohammed II, numbering 160,000, com
pletely surrounded Constantinople, the Greeks hat
only 5000 soldiers and 2000 Western knights, com
manded by Giustiniani of Genoa. Notwithstandinj
this serious disadvantage, the city held out against th^
enemy for two months, but on the night of 28 May
1453, Jlohammcd II ordered a general assault, am
after a desperate conflict, in which Emperor Constan
tine XII perished, the Turks entered the city fron
all sides and perpetrated a frightful slaughter. Mo
hammed II rode over heaps of corpses to the church o
St. Sophia, entered it on horseback, and turned it iut'
a mosque.
The capture of "New Rome" was the most appall ing calamity sustained by Christendom since the tak ing of Saint-Jean d'Acre. However, the agitatio which the news of this event caused in Europe wa more apparent than genuine. Philip the Good, Diik of Burgundy, gave an allegorical entertainment a Lille in which Holy Church solicited the help knights who jironounced the most extravagant vow before GotI and a pheasant (sur le /disun). ^neas Sy vius. Bishop of Siena, and St. John Capistran, tb Franciscan, preached the crusade in Germany an Hungary; the Diets of Ratisbon and Frankfort pron ised assistance, and a league was formed between Ver ice, Florence, and the Duke of Milan, but nothin came of it. Pope Callistus III succeeded in coUectin a fleet of sixte(-n galleys, which, under the comman of the Patriarch of Aquileia, guarded the .\rchipelag( However, the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade i 1457, due to the bravery of Jriiios Hunyady, and tl bloody conquest of the Peloponnesus in 1460 seeme finally to revive Christendom from its torpor, .^ne; Svlvius, now pope under the name of Pius II, mult plied his exhortations, declaring that he himsc would conduct the crusade, and towards the close i 1463 bands of crusaders began to assemble at Ancon
