Johann (Hans)Schiltberger (1380 – c. 1440) was aGerman traveller and writer. He was born of a noble family, probably atHollern nearLohhof halfway betweenMunich andFreising.
Schiltberger joined the suite of Lienhart Richartinger in 1394, and he then went to fight underSigismund, King of Hungary (afterwards emperor), against theOttoman Empire on the Hungarian frontier. At theBattle of Nicopolis on 28 September 1396, he was wounded and taken prisoner; when Schiltberger had recovered the use of his feet,Sultan Bayezid I (Yıldırım) took him into his service as a runner (1396–1402). He was factually a military slave for over twenty years.[1] During this time of enslavement he seems to have accompanied Ottoman troops to certain parts ofAsia Minor and toEgypt.[2]
On Bayezid's overthrow at theBattle of Ankara (20 July 1402), Schiltberger passed into the service of Bayezid's conquerorTimur: he now appears to have followed Timur toSamarkand,Armenia andGeorgia.[3] After Timur's death (17 February 1405) his German runner first became a slave ofShah Rukh, the ablest of Timur's sons; then ofMiran Shah, a brother of Shah Rukh; then of Abu Bekr, a son of Miran Shah, whose camp roamed up and down Armenia.[2]
Schiltberger next accompanied Chekre, a Tatar prince living in Abu Bekr's horde, on an excursion toSiberia, of which name Schiltberger gives us the first clear mention in west European literature. He also probably followed his new master in his attack on the Old Bulgaria of the middleVolga, answering to the modernKazan and its neighborhood. Wanderings in the steppe lands of south-east Russia; visits toSarai, the old capital of theKipchak Khanate on the lower Volga and to Azov or Tana, still a trading centre for Venetian and Genoese merchants; a fresh change of servitude on Chekre's ruin; travels in theCrimea,Circassia,Abkhazia andMingrelia; and finally escape (from the neighborhood ofBatum) followed.[2]
Arriving atConstantinople, Schiltberger stayed in hiding there for a time; he then returned to hisBavarian home (1427) by way ofKilia,Akkerman,Lemberg,Kraków,Breslau andMeissen. After his return he became a chamberlain ofDuke Albert III, probably receiving this appointment in the first instance before the duke's accession in 1438.[2] The date of his death is unknown, but sources give tentatively suggest he died around 1440.[2]
Schiltberger'sReisebuch contains not only a record of his own experiences and a sketch of various chapters of contemporary Eastern history, but also an account of countries and their manners and customs, especially of those countries which he had himself visited. First come the lands "this side" of the Danube, where he had travelled; next follow those between theDanube and the sea, which had now fallen under the Turk; after this, the Ottoman dominions in Asia; last come the more distant regions of Schiltberger's world, from Trebizond to Russia and from Egypt to India. In this regional geography the descriptions of Brusa; of various westCaucasian and Armenian regions; of the regions around theCaspian, and the habits of their peoples (especially the Red Tatars); of Siberia; of the Crimea with its greatGenoese colony atKaffa (where he once spent five months); and of Egypt and Arabia, are particularly worth notice. His allusions to the Catholic missions still persisting in Armenia and in other regions beyond theBlack Sea, and to (non-Roman ?) Christian communities even in the Great Tatary of thesteppes are also remarkable.[2]
Schiltberger is perhaps the first writer of WesternChristendom to give the true burial place ofMuhammad atMedina: his sketches ofIslam and of Eastern Christendom, with all their shortcomings, are of remarkable merit for their time: and he may fairly be reckoned among the authors who contributed to fixPrester John, at the close of theMiddle Ages, inAbyssinia. Schiltberger also recorded one of the first European sightings ofPrzewalski horses. (Manuscript in theMunich Municipal Library, Sign. 1603, Bl. 210). His work, however, contains many inaccuracies; thus in reckoning the years of his service both with Bayezid and with Timur he is off unaccountably in multiples of two.[2]
His account of Timur and his campaigns is misty, often incorrect, and sometimes fabulous: nor can von Hammer's parallel betweenMarco Polo and Schiltberger be sustained without large reservations.[clarification needed] Four manuscripts of theReisebuch exist: (i) at Donaueschingen in the Fürstenberg Library, No. 481; (2) at Heidelberg, University Library, 216; (3) at Nuremberg, City Library, 34; (4) at St Gall, Monast. Library, 628 (all of fifteenth century, the last fragmentary).[2]
The work was first edited at Augsburg, about 1460; four other editions appeared in the 15th century, and six in the 16th; in the 19th the best wereK. F. Neumann's (Munich, 1859),P. Bruun's (Odessa, 1866, with Russian commentary, in the Records of the Imperial University of New Russia, vol. i.), andV. Langmantel's (Tübingen, 1885); "Hans Schiltbergers Reisebuch," in the 172nd volume of theBibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart. See also the English (Hakluyt Society) version,The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger ..., trans. byBuchan Telfer with notes by P. Bruun (London, 1879);Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, "Berechtigung d. orientalischen Namen Schiltbergers," inDenkschriften d. Konigl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften (vol. ix., Munich, 1823–1824);R. Röhricht,Bibliotheca geographica Palaestinae (Berlin, 1890, pp. 103–104);C. R. Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 356–378, 550, 555.[2]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Schiltberger, Johann". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 326.