[160] St Macaire,—on the Garonne, nine leagues from Bordeaux.
[161] Langon,—one league from Cadillac from Bordeaux.
[162] Camus,—or Cameise. See Dugdale.
CHAP. LVI.
THE GRAND TURK BESIEGES CONSTANTINOPLE, AND BATTERS THE CITY WITH HEAVY ARTILLERY.—IT IS TAKEN BY STORM.—THE CRUELTIES COMMITTED THERE.—A REMEDY PROPOSED TO RESIST THE TURK[163].
On the 4th of April, after Easter, in this same year 1453, Morbesan[164], son of Orestes, great lords in Achaia, advanced near to Constantinople, and, on the 5th day of this month, besieged that city all round with two hundred thousand men,—sixty thousand of whom were archers, and from thirty to forty thousand cavalry. About a fourth part of them were armed with haubergeons and coats of mail, others after the french manner,—some in the bulgarian manner, and in different fashions. Many had helmets of iron, and others were armed with bows and cross-bows. The greater part, however, of the sixty thousand were without any other armour than targets and turkish blades. The remaining hundred were composed of merchants, artisans, followers of the army, pillagers, and destroyers of the country.
There were very many bombards and culverins made use of at this siege,—and one particularly large bombard, that shot stones twelve spans and four fingers in circumference, weighing eighteen hundred pounds. These bombards shot daily from one hundred to six score times,—and this thundering lasted for fifty-five days, expending a thousand weight of powder each day, which was necessary for the numerous culverins that were employed.
The Turk had likewise a fleet of sixteen or eighteen galleys, and from sixty to eighty galiots, having each eighteen or twenty oars, and from sixteen to twenty small barks, called Palendrins[165], to transport horses in, and plenty of gun-carriages. When the siege had been regularly formed, Sangombassa[166] principal minister to the Turk, and who had the greatest credit and authority with him, had transported over land, the distance of two or three miles, from sixty to eighty galleys, and other armed vessels, into the Melse Mondagarin[167], near to Pera, and between the two cities. The Turks could not by any other means enter the harbour of Constantinople, as the Bosphorus and the straits of the Dardanelles were strongly guarded by the Christians, who were so posted that they could relieve each other when attacked.
The commander of this expedition was a Turk called Albitangoth[168], who broke through four of the genoese ships. The Turk appointed another commander to surround the city by sea and land. Constantinople is a very strong city, of a triangular form, twenty miles in circuit on the land side, and five miles wide from the land boundary to the harbour and gulf. The walls on the land side are very strong and high, having barbicans and loop holes on the top, well fortified without by the ditches and ramparts. The principal walls are from fifteen to twenty-two fathoms high: in some places six, and in others eight fathoms wide: the outworks are twenty fathoms high and three in thickness, and the ditches ten deep. The city contained from twenty-five to thirty thousand persons, and six thousand combatants. In the harbour were thirty ships and nine galleys, to defend the chain that had been thrown across it: of this number were two armed vessels, and three merchant ships, from the Venetians; three belonging to the emperor,—and one to sir John Justinian, a Genoese in the pay of the emperor.
Constantinople, although besieged by sea and land, and strongly battered by bombards and cannon, held out for fifty days, during which a captain of one of the galleys, in conjunction with others ordered on this service, attempted to set fire to the turkish fleet; but the galley was sunk by a heavy stone from a bombard, and the others ran on the sharp stakes with which the Turks had fortified the van division of their fleet.