Pasquale de Sorgo and the Second Battle of Kosovo (1448): A Translation

Abstract

Slavonic and East European Review, 94, 1, 2016 DOCUMENT Pasquale de Sorgo and the Second Battle of Kosovo (1448): A Translation MARK WHELAN Introduction Writing in 1502, the Croatian humanist Felix Petancius (Feliks Petančić) referred to the Second Battle of Kosovo in 1448 as ‘that unfortunate, unforgettable and abominable disaster’ (illa infausta et omnibus saeculis execranda clades).1 His choice of words is understandable, for the Second Battle of Kosovo, taking place on the plain of the same name over the course of three days (17–19 October), was one of the bloodiest Christian defeats suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. Despite its significance, however, the campaign features only lightly in the secondary literature. This article will help address this neglect by reproducing and translating a letter of a certain Pasquale de Sorgo, a Ragusan in the service of George Branković, Despot of Serbia (1427–56), who was an eyewitness to the march of the Christian force into Serbia. De Sorgo’s letter has never been translated into a modern language, and his account provides noteworthy information on the state Mark Whelan is a teaching fellow in the Department of History at Royal Holloway. I would like to express my thanks to the anonymous reviewers of the Slavonic and East European Review for their helpful comments, suggestions and bibliographic references. 1 Felix Petancius, Dissertatio de itineribus aggrediendi Turcam ad Vladislaum Hungariae, et Bohemiae regem, printed in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum veteres ac genuini, ed. György Schwandtner, 3 vols, Vienna, 1746–48, 1, pp. 867–73 (for the quotation, see p. 869). On Felix’s Dissertatio to King Wladislaus II of Hungary (1490–1516), see Norman Housley, Crusading and the Ottoman Threat, 1453–1505, Oxford and New York, 2012, pp. 62–63. On Felix in general, see Agostino Pertusi, ‘Premières études en Occident sur l’origine et la puissance des Turcs’, in Bisanzio e i Turchi nella cultura del Rinascimentio e del Barocco: Tre saggi di Agostino Pertusi, ed. Carlo Maria Mazzucchi, Milan, 2004, pp. 144–47. PASQUALE DE SORGO & THE SECOND BATTLE OF KOSOVO 127 of the Christian force, shedding light on the deployment of Hussite style fighting techniques on the Danube frontier and the military structures of the Kingdom of Hungary, as well as on the religious motivations of many of the participants in the campaign. Although the letter was first published in 1925, it has seldom been used by those working on the later medieval crusades, and as such forms a valuable source for the study of the conflict between the Ottoman Turks and the Christians in the fifteenth century. De Sorgo’s description of the Christian force, led by John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary (1446–53), has barely been used by historians because the events of 1448 themselves have been neglected in historical scholarship. Perhaps this is because they fall between the more significant events of the Battle of Varna (1444), where King Władysław III of Poland and Hungary (1434/1440–44) disappeared in battle under disputed circumstances, and the Fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Siege of Belgrade (1456). Recent works in this field, such as those by John Jefferson, Colin Imber and Emanuel Antoche, have generally focused on the lead up to and the Battle of Varna, stopping in the mid 1440s.2 Other historians, such as Norman Housley, have begun their studies in 1453.3 This has meant that the events of 1448 have not been studied as intensely as they deserve.4 Admittedly, this perception of the Second Battle of Kosovo as being less worthy of mention is one that we find in some of our main sources. The Greek historian Doukas, writing perhaps in the early 1460s, narrates the events leading up to the events of 1444 and the Battle of Varna in relative detail, but passes over the battle at Kosovo in 1448 in less than a paragraph.5 In fact, the battle seems so unimportant to Doukas that he was not even sure whether Hunyadi met Sultan Murad II (1421–44, 1446–51) in battle at Niš or Kosovo (πρòϚ τò Nῆσιν, ἢ πρòϚ τòν Kόσοβαν).6 Similarly, the account of 2 John Jefferson, The Holy...