456 THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

of free passage for Turkish armies through Serbia. Milicha made personal obeisance to Bayazid, and sent
her sister Olivera to his harem. The last independent Serb leader, Vuk Brankovich, fought on until 1392, but then
he too made his submission.l°2
The road to Hungary was now open to the Turks. Hungary's King Sigismund-who had secured his position
there with great difficulty, as we have seen-promptly set to work reviving the crusade in Europe: not to regain
Jerusalem, but to save Christendom. Determined to set an example rather than just proclaiming and preaching the
crusade, Sigismund was marching south to fight the Turks himself in June 1392, just as Vuk Brankovich was
giving way, when Jadwiga of Poland came to Hungary to ask her sister Mary how she and her kingdom could
help.'o3 The next year the Ottoman Turks totally subjugated Bulgaria. In the winter of 1394 Ottoman Sultan
Bayazid summoned all Christian rulers under Turkish overlordship to the north Greek city of Serres where he was
holding court. Virtually all of them came, including Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. Bayazid first
threatened them, then announced they were all to be executed, then that he had decided to spare their lives. Most
of them came back from Serres terrified, with a sense of utter helplessness. In June 1394 Bayazid laid siege to
Constantinople, determined this time to take it and make it the capital of his new empire. On the third of that
same month, Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a crusade in Eastern Europe against the Ottoman Turks.l°4
Both English and French leaders had been discussing the possibility of a crusade against the Turks since
1393, when a small force from both nations had been sent to help Sigismund. The crusade proved to be a cause
transcending the Schism. Its main support (other than from Sigismund of Hungary) came from France,
particularly from Duke Philip of Burgundy. The ever-changing situation in France with the periodic insanity of
the King, and Philip's longdrawn-out and difficult attempt to create a kingdom for himself and his descendants in
the Low Countries, caused him to decide not to lead the crusade himself; but he entrusted its leadership to his son
John, known as the Fearless.
Fine, Late Medieval Balkans, pp. 408-414; Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 (New
York, 1972), pp. 300-301; John W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (1391-1425); a Study in Late Byzantine
Statesmanship (New Brunswick NJ, 1969, pp. 66-67.
1
Halecki, Jadwiga, pp. 195-196. One of the few scholarly studies of Sigismund, G. Beckmann, Der Kampf
Kaiser Sigismund gegen dei werdende Weltmacht der Osmana 1392-1437 (Gotha, 1902), maintains that crusading
against the Ottoman Turks was the most important policy of his whole long reign in the eyes of King and later
Emperor Sigismund.
1°°
Fine, Late Medieval Balkans, pp. 412-413; Nicol, Last Centuries of Byzantium, pp. 314-316; Barker, Manuel II
Palaeologus, pp. 116-119, 123, 481; Palmer, England, France, and Christendom, p. 202; Aziz S. Atiya, The Crusade
of Nicopolis (London, 1934), pp. 33-34.
 THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM 457

In February 1396 Sigismund of Hungary concluded a formal alliance with Byzantine Emperor Manuel II
Palaeologus, now the committed enemy of the Ottoman Turks, and Ottoman Sultan Bayazid declared war on him.
In March a 28-year truce in the Hundred Years War between England and France was at last signed, after years of
inconclusive negotiations. Both kings, Richard II and Charles VI respectively, at once announced that they would
encourage their fighting men to join the crusade now that they were no longer needed against each other.los
By May 1396 the crusaders were marching east along the Danube, joined in Bavaria by a considerable
number of German volunteers. By late July they were at Sigismund's Hungarian capital of Buda; in August they
entered Ottoman-ruled territory in Bulgaria, ravaging as they went. Bayazid brought up his Turkish army from the
siege of Constantinople. He was a far more experienced commander than young John of Burgundy, only 25, who
had never before led a large army in battle. On September 10 the crusaders laid siege to Nicopolis on the
Bulgarian south shore of the Danube, with a strong Turkish garrison on an almost impregnable site. Refusing to
heed reports of the approach of Bayazid's army, the crusading host was essentially unprepared when it struck. No
English longbowmen were in that host, which consisted mostly of ill-disciplined cavalry. Bayazid successfully
concealed his 40,000 excellent cavalry and planted sharp-pointed stakes to keep the Christian mounted knights
off his infantry; they had to dismount to attack them, and as they struggled through the stakes on foot in their
armor in intense summer heat, Bayazid launched his massive cavalry force against them. They defended
themselves bravely but hopelessly; four of the principal French leaders were slain on the field and John of
Burgundy was captured. Sigismund barely escaped on a Venetian ship down the Danube."
The Christian disaster was complete, the Ottoman Turks triumphant. For more than five hundred years, in
consequence, Greece and the Balkans belonged to them. Their conquest, at least up to the borders of Hungary
which Sigismund still strongly held, would have been completed almost immediately, including the reduction of
long impregnable Constantinople, had it not been for the sudden appearance of the mighty Asiatic conqueror
Timur (often called Tamerlane), who in forty bloody and savage years of conquest had extended his rule from
Turkish Central Asia to the heart of India, the borders of China, the

ios
Palmer, England, France, and Christendom, pp. 172-174,199-203, 205; Vaughan, Philip the Bold, pp. 62-63;
Atiya, Crusade of Nicopolu, p. 56; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, p. 131; McKisack, Fourteenth Century, p. 475;
Hutchison, Richard II, pp. 161-163.
1°6
Atiya, Crusade of Nicopolis, pp. 53-56,63-68, 86-97; Vaughan, Philip the Bold, pp. 69-71; Palmer, England,
France, and Christendom, pp. 203-205; Nicol, Last Centuries of Byzantium, pp. 318-319.