SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The history of the Crusade of Nicopolis is the final chapter of a larger work on the Fourteenth Century Crusade. Neither of these subjects has been treated fully as a separate study. Owing, however, to limitations of time and space, it has been decided to write the history of the first and prepare the bibliography of the second. An exhaustive inquiry into the sources, manuscript and printed, has resulted in a complete narrative of the Crusade of Nicopolis, with previous errors rectified and many problems of general interest settled. The crusading propaganda, the routes towards Nicopolis, the elements of the conflicting hosts, the character and the tactics of the leaders, the use of the arrow and the horse, the Janissaries in the fourteenth century, the battle and its aftermath, the effect of the Christian defeat on the western mind and on the Muhammadan world, the chronology of the Crusade, the origin of the title of Sultan in Turkey - all these and other problems have received careful consideration, and transcriptions and translations form Western and Eastern manuscripts have been provided to illustrate the various aspects of the Crusade. Moreover, much light has been thrown on this study by a visit to the battlerfield and its approaches, and a special map of the Nicopolis district has been prepared for this purpose by the Royal Geographical Institute of Bulgaria at Sofia. Finally, in addition to the printed sources, the Bibliography of the Fourteenth Century Crusade includes a list of Several hundreds of manuscript volumes, Eastern and Western, actually examined in many archives and libraries in England, France, Italy, Spain and Catalunya, Austria, Turkey, Egypt and Algeris.