Attila Bárány University of Debrecen King Sigismund and the „passagium generale” (1391-96) The paper examines King Sigismund’s efforts to organize a grand scheme, a great crusading enterprise against the Ottomans in the first half of the 1390s, leading up to the battle of Nicopolis. It was the negotium of prime importance for Sigismund in the first decade of his rule in Hungary, and it was a major achievement in the period of the „Later Crusades” to arouse the spirit of the cruciata in the West against the advance of the Turks in the Balkans. The paper investigates Sigismund’s work of several years to negotiate over the participation of most of the European powers, through numerous Hungarian embassies to France, Venice, Burgundy and the court of the Duke of Lancaster in Bordeaux. In the organization of the new crusade Sigismund welcomed in Hungary most illustrious figures of the European chivalrous society and received several envoys from the court of Charles VI of France and Philippe the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. It also gives insight into the smaller crusading enterprises organized by Sigismund preceding Nicopolis. I am focusing on Sigismund’s work in the defence of the frontier and launching counter-attacks from the year 1390-91, in a way preparing the basis for the grand enterprise of 1396. One of Sigismund’s major achievements lies in the fact that he consciously strove to gain all the apostles of the crusading spirit – from Manuel II Palaeologus, Emperor of Byzantium through King Leo VI of Lesser Armenia to Robert the Hermit and Eustache Deschamps – for the passagium against the Ottomans in the Balkans and deliberately organized a wide intellectual front. The major advocate of the Crusade against the Ottomans was Philippe de Mézières, Sigismund’s chief compatriot whom the king wished to cooperate in the prime negotium on earth. Both personages came to the understanding that an Anglo- French peace was the essential precondition for restoring the unity of the Catholic church. In his work, Letter to King Richard II Mézières found that the only remedy would be the cooperation of Western and Eastern in the organization of a crusade. 1 The rulers of France, England, Hungary should stand side-by-side in a brotherhood-in-arms established by a new Order of Knighthood, Militia Passionis Jhesu Christi called forth in his piece Nova Religio Passionis. 2 One of the major advocates of the crusade not only for the recuperatio Terrae Sanctae but to halt the advance of the Ottomans was Philippe de Mézières. He was one of the first Westerners to realize the role of the Hungary as antemuralis Christianitatis. He was a partner of Sigismund in calling for the Anglo-French peace as the essential precondition for restoring the unity of the Catholic church. That is why he dedicated his treatise to the King of England, and found the help of the Hungarians inevitable in the organization of a crusade. Mézières served as a link between Hungary and the West: he was the first one to call forth the cooperation of King Louis the Great and the Western European kingdoms. That is why he chose to give all assistance to Sigismund as well. Mézières was the prophet of the crusade and spiritual ’father’ of the Peter de Lusignan, King of Cyprus’s venture in 1365. 3 He found the most appropriate person in King Louis to lead the grand campaign of all the Christian 1 Philippe de Mézières, Une poure et simple epistre dun vieil solitaire des celestins de paris adressant a tresexcellent, &c. Richardt par la grace de dieu Roy dangleterre. Original: British Library Manuscripts, Royal MSS, 20 B. VI. Published: Philippe de Mézières, Letter to King Richard II, transl. G. W. Coopland, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1975. 2 Philippe de Mézières, Nova Religio Passionis. Oxford: Bodleain Manuscripts, Ashmole MSS 813; 865. A new ‘religion’ of knighthood is called forth in his La Sustance de la Chevalerie de la Passion de Jhesu Crist. Oxford: Bodleain Library, Ashmole MSS 813. fol. 4. Published A. H. Hamdy, ‘Philippe de Mézières and the New Order of the Passion’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts (of Alexandria University) 18 (1964) 45-54. 3 A. S. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, London: Methuen, 1938. Ch 7.