Reconfiguring the

Fifteenth-Century
Crusade
Edited by
Norman Housley
 Norman Housley
Editor

Reconfiguring the
Fifteenth-Century
Crusade
 Contents

1 Introduction1
Norman Housley

2 Toward aGlobal Crusade? ThePapacy andtheNon-Latin

World intheFifteenth Century11
Benjamin Weber

3 Crusade andReform, 14141449: Allies orRivals?45

Norman Housley

4 Crusading against Christians intheFifteenth

Century: Doubts andDebates85
Pavel Soukup

5 The Military Orders andCrusading intheFifteenth

Century: Perception andInfluence123
Jrgen Sarnowsky

6 Venice andtheOttoman Threat, 13811453161

Stefan Stantchev

vii
viii Contents

7 Bessarions Orations against theTurks and

Crusade Propaganda at theGroe Christentag of
Regensburg (1471)207
Dan Ioan Muresan

8 Hunyadis Campaign of1448 andtheSecond Battle

ofKosovo Polje (October 1720)245
Emanuel Constantin Antoche

9 Reactions totheFall ofConstantinople andtheConcept

ofHuman Rights285
Nancy Bisaha

10 Conclusion: TheFuture Study ofCrusading inthe

Fifteenth Century325
Norman Housley

Index333
 CHAPTER 8

Hunyadis Campaign of1448

andtheSecond Battle ofKosovo Polje
(October 1720)

EmanuelConstantinAntoche

An article recently published in the Slavonic and East European Review

looks set to stimulate discussion about Hunyadis campaign against the
Turks in 1448 and its culminating event, the Second Battle of Kosovo
Polje (Campus Merularum, Rigmez, Cmpia Mierlei, Amselfeld).1 The
author gives an English translation of the report which Pascal de Sorgo
composed in Hunyadis camp at Subotica on 11 September 1448. First
brought to light by the Serbian researcher Mita Kostic, the report was ana-
lyzed by Nicolae Iorga and the Ottomanist Aurel Decei.2 Have historians
appreciated the text to the full? This new account by a British researcher
opens up a number of aspects which must be taken into consideration3 if
we are to evaluate to the fullest extent the range of sources relating to this
campaign and the bibliography which it has generated.
Pascal de Sorgo was a privileged witness and he provides invaluable
information about the ethnic composition, organization and equipment of
the crusading force. It is clear that works which fail to take it into account,
following the publications of Mita Kostic and Nicolae Iorgathe latter

E.C. Antoche (*)

Centre dtudes Turques (CNRS), Paris, France

The Author(s) 2017 245

N. Housley (ed.), Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade,
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-46281-7_8
284 E.C. ANTOCHE

147. Franz Babinger, Von Amurath zu Amurath. Vor-und Nachspiel

der Schlacht bei Varna (1444), Oriens 3 (1950): 229265.
148. Francisc Pall, Byzance veille de sa chute et Janco de Hunedoara
(Hunyadi), Romanoslavica 1 (1969): 119126.
149. On this subject, see the remarkable study by Dan I.Muresan, La
croisade en projets. Plans prsents au Grand Quartier Gnral de
la croisade, le Collge des cardinaux, in Les projets de croisade:
Gostratgie et diplomatie europenne du XIVe au XVIIe sicle, ed.
Jacques Paviot (Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2014),
247286.