Barbarians or Infidels?

Abstract

After the fall of Constantinople, Pope Nicholas V initiated a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. While several major conferences were assembled to provide backing for the great endeavor, the military campaign was never launched. During these negotiations, the Hungarian standpoint was represented by John Vitez of Zredna, chancellor of King Ladislas V and bishop of Oradea, first to papal legate Giovanni Castiglione, then at the diet of Wiener Neustadt. The present paper examines the stereotypes John of Zredna employed in his depiction of the Turks in the speeches he composed for these events. Careful analysis of the texts shows that the chancellor used the standard ideas about the Ottomans that were immensely popular at the time when the orations were produced. By connecting his message to the newly spread topoi of the alleged limitless bloodshed and cruelty during the Turkish siege of the Byzantine capital and by considering the Ottomans as greedy barbarians, he connected to the cultural attitudes that became truly influential in Western literature just after the fall of Constantinople, while by portraying European–Ottoman relations as a characteristically religious conflict he made connections to the older, but still prominent ideas of the crusading literature.