Hans Schiltberger (1380-1440) was a sixteen-year-old youth from Bavaria serving in the army of King Sigismund of Hungary (1368-1437) during a crusade against the Ottomans. He was there as a page under his immediate lord, Linhart Reychharttinger. At the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, King Sigismund’s army was defeated by that of Sultan Bayezid I (1360-1403). Schiltberger and over ten thousand others were taken captive (the exact number varies across accounts). As Schiltberger was under twenty years old, his life was spared, he was forced to convert to Islam, and he was made a military slave of the Ottoman sultan. At first, Schiltberger worked as a runner or a page and delivered correspondence for the Ottoman nobility. He remained enslaved for the next thirty years and was moved from court to court around the Middle East as the political fortunes of his various masters rose and fell. Eventually, Schiltberger and several of his companions escaped with help from a ship captain in Black Sea. Upon his return to Bavaria, his religious and political loyalties were called into question because of his thirty years spent living as a Muslim in the Muslim world. To combat this stigma, Schiltberger wrote an account meant both to inform readers about his experiences and to persuade them of his loyalty to Christendom. It offers a detailed and fascinating first-person perspective on the enslavement of war captives, including Schiltberger’s own enslavement and the enslavement of captives after the conquest of the city of Isfahan by Timur (Tamerlane).

Section 1 – Entering Slavery

Section 2 – Schiltberger in Slavery

Section 3 – Exiting Slavery

Related Primary Sources

Themes

Agency, Captives, Captive Narrative, Elite Slaves, Flight, Men, Religion