Crusade against Mahdia
The crusade against Mahdia (also known as the Barbarian Crusade ) of 1390 was a French - Genoese campaign against the North African fortress Mahdia as a pirate base. The company was headed by Duke Ludwig II of Bourbon .
background
This crusade was a response to the prevailing Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean and the accompanying human trafficking , which was a major problem at the time. The robberies of the North African corsairs not only fell victim to crew members and passengers of hijacked ships, but also the southern European coastal regions for the purpose of human trafficking and their inhabitants were abducted. The prisoners were mostly sold in the slave markets or delivered to harems. Slavery was an integral part of the economy of Islamic society well into the 19th century.
Last but not least, Genoa was affected by the piracy. At the end of 1389 the trade republic sent a delegation to the French King Charles VI. to Toulouse with the request for a joint armed conflict against the port city of Mahdia on the North African coast in what is now Tunisia , which was considered a corsair base. Last but not least, Genoa was also interested in setting up a trading base on the North African coast.
course
The king's uncle, Duke Louis II of Bourbon, a veteran of the Hundred Years' War , was entrusted with carrying out the undertaking, which both the Roman Pope Boniface VIII and the Avignon antipope Clement VII declared as a crusade . Genoa provided the fleet with around 100 galleys, which set sail in early July 1390 under the command of Giovanni Centurione . After arriving in late July, the siege of Mahdia began. After a Saracen relief army was deployed, a grueling positional war developed . Epidemics broke out in the crusader camp, and morale sank to a low point.
In view of the approaching autumn, Ludwig II finally entered into peace talks with the Saracens in mid-September. An armistice was agreed for ten years, the city of Mahdia was to pay its taxes to Genoa instead of the Hafsid caliphs in Tunis for fifteen years , and Ludwig II was to be compensated for his expenses.
The crusaders left North Africa in late September. On the way back, some ports in Sardinia that had served as a supply base for the pirates were attacked. Among other things, Cagliari was conquered for Genoa.
Reception and aftermath
Because of the ceasefire, the crusade was received as a success, and the French participants were celebrated as heroes on their return home. The enthusiasm contributed to the fact that many French responded to King Sigismund's call to the Nicopolis crusade in 1396 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Rainer Lanz, Ritterideal und Kriegsrealität im Late Middle Ages , p. 178.
literature
- Aziz S. Atiya : The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages . London 1938.
- Joseph Delaville Le Roulx: La France en Orient au XIVe siècle. Expéditions du maréchal Boucicaut . Paris 1886.
- Harry W. Hazard: Muslim North Africa, 1049-1394 . In: Kenneth M. Setton et al. (Ed.): A History of the Crusades . 2nd ed., University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1969-1989. Volume 3, pp. 457-485
- Rainer Lanz: The ideal of knights and the reality of war in the late Middle Ages. The Duchy of Burgundy and France. Diss. University of Zurich, 2006, pp. 171–187, ISBN 0-306-80304-6 , here online (pdf, 2.7 MB).
- Léon Mirot: Une expédition française en Tunisie au XIVe siècle. Le siège de Mahdia (1390). In: Revue des études historiques 97 , 1931, pp. 357-406
- Jonathan Riley-Smith: The Crusades: A History. 2nd ed., Yale University Press, New Haven 2005, pp. 272 ff.