In the meanwhile Pope Eugene was preparing an international crusade against the Turks, and he also sent a brief to Ragusa, requesting that a contingent of two galleys should be provided by the Republic, as well as the loan of three more, to be paid for by himself, to escort his legate, the Bishop of Corona, which request was granted.[388] Shortly afterwards the Senate informed the King of Hungary that nineteen galleys had touched at Ragusa, viz. eight Papal ships, two Ragusans, five Venetians, and four Burgundians, and that they were now collected at Corfu, while some more Burgundian vessels, and seven from Aragon, were expected at Modone. The land war in the Balkans began badly for the Christians. On November 11 the Hungarians were utterly routed at Varna, in Bulgaria, and King Ladislas was killed. The young Ladislas Posthumus was then elected King of Hungary. One of the Sultan’s first acts after this fight was to raise the Ragusan tribute as a punishment for sending galleys to join the Christian fleet.[389] George, Despot of Servia, with characteristic treachery, had arrested and imprisoned Hunyadi after the Hungarian defeat. The Ragusan envoy, Damiano Giorgi, who had come to Belgrad to return the Despot’s treasure, made every effort to obtain Hunyadi’s release, but as George would not hear reason, he induced the Serbs to liberate him without the Despot’s consent. Giorgi and his family were afterwards taken into the Hungarian service by the new king, Matthew Corvinus, as a reward, and given high emoluments. But they never ceased to work in the interests of their native city by means of their influence at Court. The efforts of Ragusan citizens in foreign countries were among the chief causes by which the Republic attained to and maintained its international position.
In 1447 war between Hungary and the Turks broke out anew, and Hunyadi led an expedition across the Danube, but the following year he was defeated on the ill-omened field of Kossovo. On this, as on other occasions, Ragusa sent a number of boats to Albania to pick up the fugitives who had escaped across country from the fury of the invaders, and sent them back to Hungary or gave them asylum in the town. Peace was concluded, but fighting continued in Albania, and we now find the name of Skanderbeg, the great Albanian hero, mentioned for the first time in the Ragusan annals.
The Senate informed the Hungarian king that the Turks were besieging Kroia, Skanderbeg’s stronghold, with two large guns, one of which could throw balls weighing 400 lbs.; the town, however, was well defended by 1500 men, and Skanderbeg was not far off, ever ready to fall upon the Turks and cut off small detachments and convoys.[390] Ragusa had furnished him both with money and provisions, and he frequently came to the city to refit. He was now successful, raised the siege of Kroia, and expelled the Turks from a large part of the country.
CLOISTER OF THE DOMINICAN MONASTERY
We must now return to Stephen Kosača, Duke of St. Sava, and his relations with Ragusa. Like so many other Servian princes he was a Bogomil by religion, and when Stephen Thomas, King of Bosnia, abjured that heresy and became a Catholic, many of his Bogomil subjects fled into the Duchy to escape persecution, and others into Turkish territory, while his Orthodox subjects took refuge in Servia. This caused further discords between Bosnia and Servia, and John Hunyadi cannot be exempted from the blame of having induced Stephen Thomas to ill-treat the heretics;[391] in fact he actually quarrelled with the King because the latter relented from his persecutions. The King’s daughter had married Stephen Kosača, who nominally was a vassal of Bosnia, but he hardly recognised his allegiance at all, and styled himself “by the Grace of God Duke of St. Sava, Lord of Hlum and the Littoral, Grand Vojvod of the Bosnian kingdom, Count of the Drina,” &c.[392] Like his predecessor Sandalj Hranić, he was one of the fatal men of the Balkans; although he tried to resist them later, his attitude contributed not a little to the Turkish conquest of the South Slavonic lands. His aim was simply to consolidate and extend his own dominions at the expense of his neighbours, and he availed himself for this purpose of the assistance which the Turks were always only too ready to give. He also proved Ragusa’s most inveterate enemy. In July 1450 he was still on good terms with the Republic,[393] but in 1451 the first dispute arose. The cause, according to Chalcocondylas, and repeated by Razzi, Gondola, and others, was that he had taken to himself a Florentine mistress brought into the country by some Italian merchants, and drove his wife Helen from the Court. She repaired with her son to Ragusa, and the Duke demanded that they should be given up. The Republic refused, and Kosača, out of revenge, raised duties on Ragusan trade, opened salt-markets in the Narenta, reoccupied part of Canali, and laid waste the Republic’s territory. A more likely reason is probably to be found in Kosača’s overmastering ambition. The Republic at once demanded help of the Christian Powers, especially of Hungary, against the heretical Duke, and an envoy was sent to the Pope to complain that many Italians were in his service. His Holiness replied by forbidding all good Catholics from having anything to do with him. Fortunately for Ragusa the King of Bosnia was hostile to Kosača on account of the indignities to which the latter had subjected his wife (the King’s daughter). For the same reason his son Vladislav left Ragusa and raised a rebellion against his father, allying himself with the Republic, to whom he promised to give back Canali as soon as he was master of the Duchy.[394] In December 1451 Ragusa contracted an alliance with Stephen Thomas, who undertook “to declare war without delay and carry it on without interruption against the Duke Stephen Vukčić (Kosača), his government, his cities, and his servants, with all the glorious strength of Our kingdom, with Our servants, and Our friends in open warfare, as is suitable to Our lordship and Our kingdom, provided that no obstacle impede us and no Turkish army attack us.”[395] The Despot of Servia and other minor potentates joined the league against “this perfidious heretic and Patarene.”[396] Ragusa also sent an envoy to Hungary to urge the King to intervene, stating that Kosača was intriguing with the Venetians, the Turks, and the King of Aragon. It was suggested that this was a good moment for Hungarian action, as the Turks were in a state of anarchy in consequence of the death of the Sultan, and that a Hungarian army might now occupy Kodiviet and thus prevent them from ever entering Bosnia again.[397] Hostilities commenced in 1452, and at first Kosača was unlucky, for a number of his barons rose against him and joined Ragusa, and the commander of the league’s forces was his own son. But soon after a civil war broke out in Bosnia. The Herzegovinian nobles fought against the Duke while Kosača was devastating Ragusan territory. At Ragusa’s instance a legate was sent by Pope Nicholas V. to Kosača, who received him amiably, promising to make peace with the Republic and become a Catholic. But this was only to gain time, and as soon as the Turks once more appeared on the frontier and assisted him he again made war on Ragusa, and a Turkish force approached the city, which was now in grave danger. In July 1453 Vladislav expressed a wish to make peace with his father, and the Duke, thus strengthened, again invaded Canali, took Ragusavecchia, and captured a body of Ragusans under Marino Cerva near Bergato. Further details of these operations are wanting, but peace was made at last through the intervention of the Papal legate and of a Turkish Vizir, and signed at Novi, April 10, 1454, confirming the status quo. Kosača promised the Ragusans that he would never attack them again “save by order of the Grand Signior, the Sultan of Turkey, Mehmet Beg” (Mohammed II.).[398] It is thus clear that already the Sultan’s influence in this part of the world was predominant. In 1453 the whole of Europe was shaken to its foundations by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. This event, however, did not have much direct effect on Bosnia and Hlum, as the Turkish conquest there had already begun. Every month some fresh raid was made, dealing death and destruction, and yet everywhere the invaders found Slavonic princes ready to help them against others who still held out.[399] The first consequence which the fall of Constantinople had on Ragusa was the raising of her tribute to the Sultan to 5000 ducats. The city again became a haven of refuge for fugitives from the territories invaded by the Turks, and many Greeks from Constantinople, including members of the most distinguished families, fled to Ragusa, and remained there for a while. Thus we find some of the Palæologi, Comneni, Lascaris, and Cantaconzeni, and learned men like John Lascaris, Chalcocondylas, Emmanuel Marulus, Theodore Spandukinos, author of a history of the Turks, Paul Tarchaniotes, father of the historian John, and many others. No doubt these men contributed to the revival of learning in Dalmatia, as they did in the Italian towns. The refugees were provided with food, shelter, and money, and were afterwards sent on board Ragusan galleys free of charge to Ancona.[400] The citizens would have been willing that they should settle permanently at Ragusa, but the Senate feared that as many of them were such distinguished men the Sultan might use this as a pretext for aggression. A certain number, however, did remain.
After the capture of Constantinople it was hoped that Mohammed would content himself with being overlord of the remaining Balkan lands not under his direct sway. But he soon evinced more dangerous intentions, and proceeded to establish his complete ascendency, destroying all the independent or semi-independent States. Of these the first to be attacked was Servia, which the Sultan claimed through his stepmother, a Servian princess. The miserable remnant of the great Tsar Dušan’s Empire was reduced to a small part of the present kingdom of Servia. Mohammed’s object was to prepare for the struggle with Hungary, the only Power which he seriously feared, for Genoa was now weak, and Venice’s first thought was “not to recover the bulwark of Christendom from the hands of the Muslim, but to preserve her own commercial privileges under the Infidel ruler.”[401] In 1454 the Turks invaded Servia, captured Ostrovica, and besieged Smederevo (Semendria); but John Hunyadi led an army against them, relieved that stronghold, defeated them at Kruševac, and burnt the fortress of Vidin on the Danube. But the following year Mohammed advanced in person and captured Novobrdo,[402] with its valuable mines, “Totam religionem Christianam libidinoso ambiciosoque animo dicioni suæ ascripsit, flagratque cupidine mundi,” as the Ragusan reports informed the Hungarian king. The Republic suffered ill-effects from this capture, because the Ragusan merchants who had a flourishing trade there were driven out. In July 1456 Mohammed besieged Belgrad, but was defeated by the courage of the defenders aided by the brilliant strategy of Hunyadi. Unfortunately this great leader died soon afterwards, and Hungary was crippled by internal troubles. In 1457 Fra Marino da Siena travelled through Dalmatia to preach a crusade against the Turks and collect money for that purpose. He raised 4000 ducats at Ragusa alone,[403] and the King of Hungary requested the Senate to use its influence to induce him to devote the money to a land crusade, as the danger on that side was more pressing, rather than to a naval expedition. By the end of the year the whole of Servia was subjugated except Belgrad and the Danubian provinces. On the death of Ladislas, Matthew Corvinus, Hunyadi’s son, was elected by the Diet to succeed him (January 1458).
Ragusa, which had been described by King Ladislas as the “scutum confiniorum regni nostri Dalmatiæ,” had been threatened by the Turks in 1455, but not seriously, as they were occupied elsewhere. In 1458 Mohammed again menaced the Republic, and sent Isak Beg into Bosnia to order the vassal princes to capture the city if she did not immediately make submission to him and increase her tribute.[404] Hungarian aid was solicited, and the citizens prepared to defend themselves; but once more the danger was averted, as the Turks had other more pressing matters to attend to.
In 1459 the final conquest of Bosnia was begun. King Stephen Thomas had paid tribute to the Sultan since 1449, and after the fall of Constantinople he had sent envoys to do homage to the victor,[405] but at the same time he was imploring the help of the Pope; this caused much discontent among his Bogomil subjects, who had already shown themselves not unfriendly to the Turks. But after Hunyadi’s victory at Belgrad Stephen was encouraged to further resistance; he refused to pay the tribute, and actually intended to lead a crusade in person.[406] The Pope ordered his legate in Dalmatia to raise funds for him, and enjoined Kosača to help him.[407] Stephen began to attack the Turkish garrisons in Servia, but after taking a few towns he came to terms with the Sultan early in 1458, and paid him a tribute of 9000 ducats. On the death of Lazar, the Despot of Servia, the King of Hungary conferred the despotate on Stephen the Younger, or Tomašević, the Bosnian king’s son, who had married Lazar’s daughter, Helena. Thus Bosnia acquired the Danubian region of Servia, including Semendria. But Mohammed determined to conquer even these districts once for all, and to punish Stephen Thomas for his audacity. The Servians themselves were dissatisfied with their new ruler, because he was a devout Catholic, and they regarded him simply as a Hungarian viceroy. When in June 1459 Mohammed approached Semendria the inhabitants opened their gates to him. Owing to its position at the confluence of the Morava and the Danube it was the key to the whole country, and its fall, which spelt the end of Bosnian rule in Servia, caused consternation throughout Europe. It was attributed by Matthew Corvinus to Stephen Thomas and his son. While this quarrel was going on and the Hungarian king was at war with Germany, the Turkish general, Hassan Pasha, had obliged the King of Bosnia to let him pass through the country with a large army. The next year hostilities broke out between Paul Sperančić, Banus of Croatia, and Stephen Thomas, in the course of which the latter was killed. His son, Stephen Tomašević, succeeded to him, and was the last King of Bosnia (1461).