The first excerpt from Schiltberger’s account describes the battle of Nicopolis (1396) up to his own enslavement. Special attention is paid to the fate of those captured on the battlefield, although Schiltberger also mentions those who escaped on boats or by foot. Following the battle, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I ordered most of the captives to be killed, but as Schiltberger was under twenty years old, his life was spared. This excerpt illustrates the practice, common at the time, of enslaving the younger survivors of wars and raids. It is unusual only because it offers a first-person account from the perspective of the person being enslaved.  

The second excerpt from Schiltberger’s account centers on the siege and capture of Isfahan, a city located in present-day Iran, by Timur (Tamerlane) in 1387. Following the siege, Timur ordered that the male inhabitants of the city over fourteen years old be killed. He also ordered that the women and children be taken to a field outside the city walls. Here, Timur declared that all children under seven years of age were be run over and crushed by horses. According to Schiltberger, seven thousand children were killed in this way. The remaining adult women and girls above the age of seven, along with boys between the ages of seven and fourteen, were then enslaved. Although Schiltberger does not explain the decision to keep and enslave these particular age and gender cohorts, it was probably based on the types of labor they were most likely to be forced to perform. Women and girls were likely to be used for household work and as concubines. Boys between the ages of seven and fourteen were likely to be trained and used as military slaves by Timur; younger boys would not be ready for training and older men would be more likely to resist it. Schiltberger’s perspective is informative as both a victim of and a participant in this type of warfare.

Translated from the German by Kathryn Greenberg and Hannah Barker. Published in Hans Schiltbergers Reisebuch, ed. Valentin Langmantel (Tübingen: Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1885), sections 1-2 and 18, pages 2-7 and 30-31. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Excerpt 1

  1. From the great army of King Sigismund in Turkey and hereafter enslaved

In the year 1394 King Sigismund of Hungary sent off to Christendom for help when the heathens made a great invasion into the land of Hungary. So a large army came to help him from all of the nations. He took the army, comprised of those from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Wallachia, with him over the Donau in Bulgaria and followed it to a city called Pudein, that is the capital of Bulgaria. And so the lord of the lands and the city[1] came and revealed himself in the king’s presence, and the king occupied the city with three hundred men, good foot and riding soldiers. And so he left for another city where there were many Turks and so he stayed there for five more days; and in the city were many Turks that did not want to surrender the city. So, we attacked the Turkish cityfolk under the control of the king and many of the Turkish cityfolk were slain; the others were captured. The same city was captured under the king with two hundred men. So marched the king for another city named Schiltau that is called Nicopolis in the heathen language. To reach the city, he traveled for sixteen days by water and land. So the Turkish king named Bayezid I came with 200,000 men of the state to help. King Sigismund heard of this and marched in opposition to him with his army. It is estimated that 60,000 men traveled a mile from the city. So came the duke from Wallachia that was named Merceymeywood and asked the king if he might look at the wind; this was allowed. He took with him one thousand men from his ranks and looked at the wind. After that, he came to the king and reported to him how he saw the wind. He observed twenty banners, and under each banner was 10,000 men. Each banner was laid separate with its own men.  Once the king heard of this, he arranged how the men were to be ordered and how they were to fight. The Duke of Wallachia asked to be the first to attack, and the king consented. When the Duke of Burgundy heard this, he declared that he would not fall behind any other men because he had come with six thousand men and contributed a great amount of money; therefore, he asked the king to be the first to attack. The king asked him to allow the Hungarians to attack first, because they had fought the Turks before in the West and knew better how they were armed. The Duke of Burgundy would not allow this, and he took his men and fought his way through two corps. When the third came, he turned around wishing to retreat. However, he was surrounded and half of his men were without horses, as the Turks aimed to wound only the horses so that they could not retreat. They were taken prisoner.

When the king heard that the Duke of Burgundy had been captured, he took the remaining men with him and defeated twelve thousand Turkish foot soldiers that had been sent to attack him. They were all trampled and slain. In this fight, my lord Linhart Reychharttinger’s horse was shot, and when I saw this, I, Hans Schiltberger, his runner, rode to his side in the fight and gave him my horse. I took the horse of a Turk and rode back to the other runners. When the foot soldiers were slain, the king called upon another corps which was on horse and they rode. When the Turkish king saw that the king was coming, he wished to flee. When the Duke of Sirifey[2], known as the Despot, heard this, he went to the Turkish king with fifteen thousand good men and many other banners with speed. The Despot fought,with his men, the king’s banner and overturned the banner for the king. When the king saw that his banner had been overturned and that he could not remain, he fled. Then came the man of Cily[3] and Hanns Burgraff of Nuremberg. He took the king by horse and rode to a galley on which he went to Constantinople. When the knights and foot soldiers saw that the king had fled, they fled as well. Many fled to the Donau and escaped on a boat. The boats became so full that they could not stay, and when men attempted to board, they were hit on the hand and left to drown in the water. Many also died on the mountains as they escaped to the Donau. My lord, Linhart Reychharttinger, and Werner Pintzenauer, Ulrich Kuchler, and Klammenstein, the four Bavarian lords, were slain in the fight as well as other good knights and foot soldiers. Of those who were not allowed aboard the ships, some drowned in the water, but the majority were captured and made prisoner. I was one of the captured as well as the Duke of Burgundy, Lord Hans Putzkards[4], and a lord named Centumaranto.[5] These were two lords from France and the great lord from Hungary. Other mighty lords, knights, and soldiers were also taken prisoner.

  1. The Turks left a part of the prisoners dead and the rest went to Gallipoli

When King Bayezid I had finished the battle, he traveled near the city where King Sigismund had stayed with his army and left the city to go see where his men were slain. Here he saw so many of his men slain in the slaughter that he was overcome by great grief and swore to himself that the blood would not be unavenged. So he ordered his men to bring him every prisoner the next day by good or vile means. Afterwards, on the next day, each of the men brought him however many men he had captured in battle. Every prisoner was brought before the king bound by a cord. I was one of three bound by the same cord, led by he who had captured us. The man processed us for the king, and the king took the Duke of Burgundy because [the Duke of Burgundy] would understand his rage due to his men being killed in the battle. When the Duke of Burgundy saw his rage, he asked him to spare the lives of those he named; this was granted by the King. He took twelve men from his lands including Lord Stephan Schmiechen and Lord Hansen von Bodman. He ordered that each man kill his own prisoners, and those who refused were replaced by a man of the king’s choice that would. Then they took my companions and beheaded them, but when it came to my turn, the king’s son ordered that I should be left alive. I was taken to the other boys, as no man under twenty years was killed. I was barely sixteen years old. Then I saw Lord Hannsen Greyffen[6], a noble of Bavaria, and four others linked with the same cord. When he saw the violence that was taking place, he screamed loudly to the knights and servants who were standing there to die and said “Stand firm, all knights and soldiers. When our blood has spilled for our Christian faith, we will, if it be God’s will, become the children of heaven.” When he said this, he knelt near his companions, and they were beheaded together. The spilling of blood lasted from morning until vespers, and when the king’s advisors saw how much blood had been spilled and how it did not stop, they stood and knelt for the king and begged that he would stop through God’s will and not draw upon himself God’s rage, as enough blood has already been spilled. The king agreed and ordered the spilling of blood to stop. The remaining prisoners were to be brought together. The king took a portion of the prisoners and left the remaining prisoners to those who took them captive. I was among those the king took for himself. The men killed by the Turkish king that day were believed to number ten thousand. We, the king’s prisoners, were taken to the Greek capital called Adrianople where we stayed for fifteen days. After that, we were led to the sea in a city called Gallipoli, the Turkish port.

[1] Johannes Stracimir.

[2] Stefan Lazarević, Despot of Serbia.

[3] Hermann II of Celje.

[4] Jean Boucicaut, the French marshall.

[5] Possibly Chateau-Morand.

[6] From Greifenberg.

Excerpt 2

18. Timur Conquered Isfahan, 1387

After what is written above, [Timur] marched through a kingdom called Isfahan, named for its capital that is also named Isfahan, and commanded the kingdom to surrender. They surrendered themselves and came out to him with their wives and children, which he took graciously. Then he took six thousand men from his army and occupied the city with them. They took the lord of the city who was called Schachisster[1], to him, and then they left the land. As soon as the city heard that Timur had left the land, the citizens closed the city and slaughtered the six thousand men that Timur left. When Timur heard of this, he turned around for the city and lay before the city for fifteen days, during which he could not win. Then he made peace with them, but in such a way that they sent him all the archers that were in the city and he wanted to take them with him to ‘Ayn Rays and send them back afterwards. The city sent twelve thousand archers, and when the archers came to him, he cut off their thumbs, sent them back into the city, and then on the next day entered it himself and took the city with one force.  He brought the people of the city together and ordered that boys over the age of fourteen be beheaded and a tower be built with their heads in the middle of the city. Then he ordered that the women and children who were in the city be taken out to a field. When they had been brought to the field, he then ordered that every child under seven years of age be placed specially on the field, and when they did that, he ordered that his people ride over the children that had been specially placed. When his advisors and the childrens’ mothers saw this, many of them begged Timur to not kill the children. He would not listen, but no one wished to be the first to run over the children. When he saw this, he was angry and said to his people “Now I would like to see who will not ride after me?” And when he said this, all of his men had to ride over the children after him, and so he rode with his people over the children and crushed them all. There were seven thousand children. He then ordered the city to be burnt, and the other women and children he took with him to his land and to his capital, which is called Samarkand, where he had not been for twelve years.

[1] The defender of the city during this siege was Zain al-Abidin. His father, Shah Shoja, had already passed away.

Discussion Questions

  1. Rulers and their soldiers could profit in two ways from the people that they took captive in warfare. One way was to keep them as slaves; the other way was to allow them to be ransomed by their families or communities. Why do you think Bayezid I decided not to accept ransoms for the captives that he took at the Battle of Nicopolis?
  2. How did age, gender, and combatant or non-combatant status affect the experiences of people taken captive in war?
  3. Timur’s order to execute the children of Isfahan was unusual. How would you know that it was unusual based on the excerpt given here? Why do you think he made this unusual decision?

Related Primary Sources