Mongol incursions in the Holy Roman Empire took place in the spring of 1241 and again in the winter of 1241–42. They were part of the firstMongol invasion of Europe.
TheMongols did not advance far into theHoly Roman Empire and there was no major clash of arms on its territory. Rather, the army that hadinvaded Poland, after harassing the eastern borders of theKingdom of Germany, crossed theMarch of Moravia in April–May 1241 to rejoin the army that hadinvaded Hungary. During their transit, they laid waste the Moravian countryside but avoided strongholds. KingWenceslaus I of Bohemia was joined by some German princes, but he monitored the Mongols in Moravia without seeking battle. There were more significant skirmishes in the north of theDuchy of Austria a month later that left several hundred dead, but there was no cooperation between the Austrians and Hungarians.
In response to the Mongol threat, theimperial church and theimperial princes held assemblies to organize a military response.Pope Gregory IX ordered thepreaching of a crusade and from ItalyEmperor Frederick II issued an encyclical to that end. A crusading army under the command of KingConrad IV of Germany mustered on 1 July 1241, but was disbanded a few weeks after setting out because the danger had passed.
Although there was no major military action in the Empire, rumours that the Mongols had been checked there spread far beyond the Empire's borders. There are records in several languages from Spain to Armenia of the Bohemian or German king defeating the Mongols and forcing their retreat. In Moravia, a supposed victory over the Mongols took on legendary proportions. In Germany, some contemporary writers attributed the Mongols' general retreat from Europe to the intimidating crusading army. In reality, the Mongols likely spared most of Germany because their primary objective was to punish the Hungarian king for supporting theCumans.
The Mongols raided eastern Austria and southern Moravia again in December 1241 and January 1242. A century later in 1340 they raided theMarch of Brandenburg. Anti-Mongol crusades were preached within the Empire's borders several times between these two raids, and even as late as 1351.
The general view in western Europe, since at least 1236, was that the Mongols' ultimate goal was the Holy Roman Empire. This was based partially on intelligence, but mainly on prevailing interpretations of apocalyptic literature.[1] The arrival of the Mongols on the eastern border of the Empire presented the first serious external threat it had faced since theHungarian invasions in the 10th century.[2] The Empire was not well positioned to meet it. The emperor had been excommunicated since 1239 and the pope was arranginga political crusade against him in Italy.[3]
In 1237, KingBéla IV of Hungary received a Mongol ultimatum demanding his submission. According toAubry of Trois-Fontaines, a similar ultimatum was received at the court of Emperor Frederick II in 1238, although this is not recorded by anyone else and no such document has survived.[4][5] Frederick supposedly responded that he would gladly resign his crown if he could become the khan's falconer.[6] TheAnnales Sancrucenses record that the Mongols also sent ambassadors to DukeFrederick II of Austria demanding his submission.[7]
In hisChronica majora,Matthew of Paris records that rumours about the Mongols had spread into the empire by 1238, for which reason the fishmongers ofFrisia were unwilling to go to England.[5] He is also the source for the rumour that the Mongols were theLost Tribes of Israel and were assisted byJews smuggling arms out of Germany in wine barrels.[8] The Jewish merchants were said to claim that the barrels were filled with poisoned wine for the invaders. Owing to these rumours, Jews were killed at several customs posts.[9]
News of theMongol invasion of Georgia reached the papal court in late 1239 or early 1240. QueenRusudan and her son, the future KingDavid VI, requested the preaching of a crusade, but PopeGregory IX rejected the request on the grounds that the church was already overcommitted with crusades in Spain and the Levant as well as against heresy and apostasy in Occitania and Bosnia.[10]
The Mongolsentered Hungary on 12 March 1241. Béla IV immediately sent a letter requesting assistance to Duke Frederick. The duke arrived inPest in the last weeks of March or the first week of April with a small contingent of poorly armed men. Frederick quickly won a small victory, killing two spies attached to the contingent underShiban. Soon after theCuman leaderKöten was killed. Although the role of Frederick in this is uncertain, he left Pest not long after on bad terms with the Hungarian king.[11]
Following theBattle of Mohi on 11 April 1241, the defeated king of Hungary fled to Austria, crossing the border atPressburg.[12][13] Initially welcomed by his erstwhile ally, Duke Frederick lured the king into the castle ofHainburg and extorted the repayment of an indemnity he had been forced to pay the king six years earlier.[12][13][14] Béla handed over all the wealth he had with him, including the crown jewels, and was still forced to pawn threecounties to the duke. These were probably the three westernmost counties ofMoson,Sopron andVas, which had large German populations. After he was freed, Béla headed forCroatia.[12][13] At the same time, Béla sent a letter to KingLouis IX of France requesting help and another to the Emperor Frederick offering to submit Hungary to the Empire in exchange for military support.[15] The emperor responded in a letter that he could not assist until his quarrel with the pope was resolved and directed the Hungarian king to request aid from Conrad IV, who had formally been ruling Germany since 1237.[16] The king, however, was a child of thirteen and power was exercised by ArchbishopSiegfried of Mainz asReichsgubernator [de].[17]
As early as 10 March 1241,Henry Raspe,Landgrave of Thuringia, wrote to DukeHenry II of Brabant[a] detailing the Mongols' movements across the border in Poland.[19] An early form of theantemurale christianitatis ('bulwark of Christianity') metaphor is found in this letter, where Henry refers to Poland as his "wall".[20] After theBattle of Chmielnik on 18 March 1241, the Polish dukeBolesław V fled to Moravia.[21]
Following their victory over DukeHenry of Silesia in theBattle of Legnica on 9 April 1241, Mongol detachments entered the marches ofMeissen andLusatia in eastern Germany, advancing as far as theElbe.[21][22][23] Their attacks are recorded in theAnnales sancti Pantaleonis, which states that "during their march they also crossed into the diocese of Meissen and slew many people there."[24] According to a letter fromBartholomew of Trent to BishopEgino of Brixen, the Mongols "attacked the borders of Bohemia and Saxony".[25]
King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, who had raised an army of 40,000, retreated into Germany to join his forces with Thuringian andSaxon reinforcements.[22][23] He avoided giving battle,[23] although his cavalry may have beaten off the Mongol vanguard nearKladsko.[26] He had earlier ordered the fortification of his major cities, includingPrague,[23] possibly in response to the report of thefall of Kiev in 1240.[27] The fortification work is recorded in theChronicle of Dalimil.[27]
The Mongols did not continue their westward advance into Germany, but turned back east.[22] They did not invade Bohemia. This has been attributed to their losses at Legnica being too heavy for them to confront the Bohemian army;[26] to Wenceslaus' proximity from Legnica—he was only a day's march away—deterring the Mongols from pressing their luck;[22] or to the mountains of theBohemian Massif, which formed the natural northern boundary of Bohemia.[23] According to Wenceslaus, who wrote letters to the princes of Germany informing them of the Mongols' progress, they were moving at a pace of 40 miles (64 km) per day away from the Bohemian border.[28] At theMoravian Gate, they turned south and passed between the ranges of theSudetes andCarpathians, entering Moravia nearOpava.[23][29]
The Mongol army at Legnica had been under the command ofOrda,Baidar andQadan.[30] It has been estimated at 8,000 strong. The army as it entered Moravia must have been somewhat smaller.[29]Uriyangkhadai, the son ofSubutai, was also at Legnica. According to the ChineseHistory of Yuan, the official history of the MongolYuan dynasty, Uriyangkhadai took part in the invasion of Poland and the land of theNie-mi-sz', which word is derived from aname for Germans.[31]
The Franciscan vice-minister in Bohemia,Jordan of Giano,[b] who wrote letters from Prague while the Mongols were in Moravia, indicates that they had passed through the Moravian Gate before 9 May. Other sources place Orda in Hungary by late April, so the transit of Moravia seems to have lasted less than a month.[c] The speed of the transit is mentioned by two other sources:Roger of Torre Maggiore remarks on it and theAnnales sancti Pantaleonis note with hyperbole that, whereas it should have taken four days, the Mongols crossed Moravia in one day and night.[29][35] The Mongols probably exited Moravia through theHrozenkov pass, what Roger of Torre Maggiore calls the Hungarian Gate. The path they took through Moravia is unknown. They rejoined the main force underBatu Khan outsideTrenčín in Hungary.[29]
During their transit, the Mongols devastated all of Moravia "except for the castles and fortified places", according to theAnnales sancti Pantaleonis.[36] The only evidence relating to a specific place is a charter of 1247 in which MargraveOttokar gave the city of Opava some privileges because of the damage the Mongols had caused in the region.[29] All the other charters relating to the destruction of towns and monasteries were forged in the 19th century.[d]
No archaeological evidence of the brief Mongol presence in Moravia has yet come to light, nor is Moravia mentioned explicitly in any eastern sources.[29] According toSiegfried of Ballhausen, many Moravian refugees appeared in Meissen and Thuringia.[36] Many others fled into the hills, woods and marshes and hid in caves.[21][39] In a letter of 25 May, BishopHenry of Constance urged theFranciscans to preach the crusade in his diocese because the Mongols had "attacked the borders of the Diocese of Mainz", referring to the dioceses ofPrague andOlomouc, which were subject to Mainz.[40]
The Mongol raiding parties entered Austria in late May or early June, either from Hungary[34] or from Moravia on their way to rejoin the main Mongol army in Hungary.[22] They did not cross theDanube in Austria, but they sackedKorneuburg to its north.[22] The Mongols were probably in Austria as late as July,[41] although already in that month Duke Frederick II was occupying the Hungarian counties that Béla IV had pawned him.[e]
Duke Frederick detailed the situation in Austria in letters to the pope and the emperor.[14] In a letter to Conrad IV dated 13 June 1241, he reports on the damage the Mongols inflicted on Austria and estimates that he killed 300 of them on the banks of theMorava.[42][43] A week later, in a letter to Henry of Constance dated 22 or 23 June 1241, Frederick revises his estimate of casualties upwards to 700 and puts his own dead at 100.[42][43][44] This incursion into Austria is also mentioned in theAnnales Garstenses,Annales Zwetlenses andAnnales Sancrucenses.[42][45] The first two annals record that the Mongols left Austria unscathed, while theSancrucenses assign them many dead.[42]
Matthew of Paris quotes a letter from a certainIvo of Narbonne, an eyewitness, who credits King Wenceslaus, Duke Frederick, PatriarchBerthold of Aquileia, DukeBernard of Carinthia, MargraveHerman V of Baden and the "prince of Dalmatia" with the relief ofNeustat from a besieging Mongol army that came from Hungary.[44][46][47]Neustat is usually identified withWiener-Neustadt.[44][46] Such an attack is implausible but not impossible.[44][48] The Mongols are not otherwise known to have crossed the Danube before the winter of 1241/42.[46] It has been suggested that the enemy at Wiener-Neustadt was in fact a band of unruly Cumans who had left Hungary following the death of Köten.[49][50]Neustat, however, may be the aforementioned Korneuburg.[51]
Ivo describes the siege ofNeustat and the ravaging of the countryside by the Mongols. He records that the garrison amounted to "no more than fifty knights along with twenty crossbowmen".[52] The letter attributes cannibalism to the Mongols,[53] although this appears to be an addition by Matthew of Paris,[54] who is known to have added material of his own fabrication to his letters.[55] They are said to have tortured and eaten civilians regardless of their age, sex, fortune or class. They ate deformed and old women right away, but beautiful women "they suffocated ... under a mass of rapists as they cried out and wailed." They cut the breasts off of virgins, reserving them for their leaders before eating the rest of their bodies.[52] Ivo credits the prince of Dalmatia—possibly DukeOtto II of Merania—with capturing eight of the enemy, including an Englishman who had served the Mongols for years and under interrogation revealed much that was not previously known in the West.[46]
TheTewkesbury Annals and theChronique rimée ofPhilippe Mouskès report a victory over the Mongols by DukeOtto II of Bavaria, which nonetheless probably involved no more than a Mongol raiding party.[44] In May 1241, with the Mongol still threat on his doorstep, Duke Otto of Bavaria expelled the Papal legateAlbert von Behaim from Bavaria in an act of solidarity with Conrad IV and Frederick II amidst their conflict with the Papacy.[56][57] In late May, BishopConrad of Freising wrote to Henry of Constance about the Mongol threat in the Danube valley. He reported that Wenceslaus was avoiding battle with the Mongols because he had been advised to do so by the king of Hungary.[58]
A Mongol army entered western Hungary, eastern Austria and southern Moravia again in late December 1241, as recorded in a letter dated 4 January 1242 from a Benedictine abbot in Vienna, quoted by Matthew of Paris.[29]
A letter from the master of the FrenchTemplars to the French king at about this time noted that if the armies of Bohemia and Hungary "should be defeated, these Tartars will find no one to stand against them as far as" France.[59]Baldwin of Ninove records that the Mongols caused panic inFlanders. The historianPeter Jackson agrees with the Templar master that had the Mongols launched a serious invasion of the Empire in the spring of 1241, "it is unlikely that they would have encountered coordinated opposition."[12]
In response to the Mongol threat, German church leaders held several councils in April 1241, issuing calls for a crusade against the Mongols and enjoining fasting and processions for the defence of Germany and Bohemia.[60] A princely assembly was held atMerseburg on 22 April to raise troops and coordinate efforts, according to theSächsische Weltchronik and theAnnales breves Wormatienses.[f] There is no record of who attended,[g] but DukeAlbert of Saxony and BishopConrad of Meissen had mustered an army and joined Wenceslaus atKönigstein by 7 May.[61] In late April, another assembly was held atHerford (or perhapsErfurt) under the presidency of the acting regent in Germany, Archbishop Siegfried, but it did not lead to the formation of an army.[61]
The ongoing quarrel between the excommunicated emperor and the pope hampered the imperial response to the arrival of the Mongols on the empire's eastern border. In May 1241, representatives of the emperor and the pope met to negotiate an end to their dispute in order to sustain a common front against the Mongols. The talks came to nothing.[62] In Italy,Filippo da Pistoia, thebishop of Ferrara, circulated a letter he claimed to have received showing that the Emperor Frederick II had sent envoys to the Mongols and was in league with them. The pope's agents spread similar rumours in Germany.[59] TheEpistola prudenti viro, a false letter purportedly addressed to Frederick's astrologerTheodore of Antioch, was circulated in opposition to such claims.[63]
The emperor remained in Italy throughout the crisis. From there, in either May or June, he sent a short list of seven instructions for countering the Mongol threat to Germany. He specifically ordered the use of crossbows, which were regarded as sparking terror in the Mongols, who did not possess the technology. The same advice was repeated a few years later in theTartar Relation.[28]
On 20 June inFaenza, the emperor issued theEncyclica contra Tartaros, an encyclical letter announcing thefall of Kiev, the invasion of Hungary and the threat to Germany, and requesting each Christian nation to devote its proper quota of men and arms to the defence of Christendom.[64][41][65][66] According to Matthew of Paris's copy of the encyclical, it was addressed to the Catholic nations—France,Spain,Wales,Ireland,England,Swabia,Denmark,Italy,Burgundy,Apulia,Crete,Cyprus,Sicily,Scotland andNorway—each addressed according to its own national stereotype.[67][68]Richard of San Germano states that copies were sent to all the princes of the West and quotes the start of the letter to the French king.[69] In the encyclical, Frederick indicated he had accepted Hungarian submission.[h]
On 3 July, Frederick II addressed a letter to his brother-in-law, KingHenry III of England, informing him of the Mongol threat. The emperor had seemingly just received letters from Conrad IV, the kings of Hungary and Bohemia and the dukes of Austria and Bavaria informing him of the Mongols' progress. Béla IV's letter was delivered by BishopStephen of Vác, who carried another letter to Pope Gregory IX.[71]
On the advice of the secular princes, Archbishop Siegfried promulgated instructions for theDominicans andFranciscans to preach a crusade against the Mongols on 25 April, after the assembly in Herford.[61][72] This was an unprecedent usurpation of what was by then a papal prerogative.[72] Little seems to have come of it immediately.[61] Preaching did take place in the archdioceses ofMainz,Cologne andTrier; the diocese ofConstance and that ofAugsburg, where BishopSiboto commissioned the friars to preach; and the city ofStrasbourg.[65] According to theAnnales sancti Pantaleonis, the crusade was preached throughout all of Germany by the Dominicans and Franciscans: "many friars Preachers and Minors ... have armed clergy and laity throughout almost all Germany against the aforesaid barbarians with the sign of the cross."[73]
On 19 May, with the assistance of Siegfried, the 13-year-old Conrad IV held an assembly atEsslingen, where he took thevow of a crusader.[74][75] His vow committed him only until 11 November 1241,[65] although Béla IV warned him that the Mongols planned to invade Germany at the beginning of winter in 1241–42.[1] At Esslingen, Conrad proclaimed aLandfrieden (territorial peace) for all of Germany so that forces could be concentrated against the Mongols.[60] Bishops solicited donations for the cause throughout Germany.[75]
Conrad IV set 1 July as the date for the army to assemble atNuremberg.[12] In June, Pope Gregory IX wrote to several bishops in Germany promoting the preaching of the crusade, retroactively authorizing what local authorities and the king had already begun.[12][72] The abbot ofHeiligenkreuz and the prior of the Dominicans in Vienna were also ordered to preach the crusade in their provinces.[76] The Dominicans and Franciscans preached throughout Germany.[77] According to theAnnals of Stade, Gregory had received appeals for the fullcrusade indulgence from the dukes of Austria and Carinthia.[76] On 19 June, referring to the letter he had received from Duke Frederick, he issued a formal indulgence for the defence of Germany and Bohemia, as he had three days earlier for Hungary.[12][14][74]
Among those known to have taken a crusader's vow and joined the imperial army are DukeOtto of Brunswick, ArchbishopConrad of Cologne, CountAlbert IV of Tyrol, CountUlrich of Ulten and Count Louis ofHelfenstein.[58] The geographical spread of these names suggests that the call for a crusade was widely heeded across Germany.[i] In his letter of 13 June, Duke Frederick explained that he would not join the crusade because he was already engaged with the Mongols, whom he described as a "hurricane".[43] He asked Conrad IV to havecrossbows brought to Germany.[28] He also advised him to bring knights from Swabia, Franconia, Bavaria and the Rhineland to Austria and direct the knights of Saxony, Meissen and Thuringia to Bohemia.[79]
The crusader army assembled as planned at Nuremberg and had advanced as far asWeiden by 16 July. It is unclear if Conrad was marching toward Bohemia or Austria.[79] By this time the Mongols were no longer threatening Germany and consequently the crusade broke up. It did not make contact with the Mongols.[12][80] The latest indication that the crusade was ongoing is a charter issued by the count of Tyrol on 20 July.[77]
According to theChronicon Wormatiense and theGesta Treverorum, most of the bishops and princes divided the money collected for the crusade between themselves.[81] The exception was BishopLandolf of Worms, who, according to theChronicon, returned the donations after the crusade was called off.[77] The rebellion of Conrad's regent in Germany, Siegfried of Mainz, who defected to the papal party, was probably the immediate cause of Conrad's decision to end the crusade.[80] Although the crusade had not met the Mongols in battle, theAnnales sancti Trudperti, followed by theAnnales Zwifaltenses, attributes the Mongols' subsequent retreat from Europe to the intimidating German army.[12] Nationalist modern historians in Germany or Austria have also fallen on such explanations.[1] In reality, the Mongols probably did not invade Germany in force because their objective was merely to punish the Hungarian king for giving protection to the Cumans.[j]
Despite the lack of contemporary evidence for a major German victory over the Mongols, the rumour that they had received such a check spread as far as Egypt, Armenia and Muslim Spain. It is recorded in theHistory of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and theChronological History ofMekhitar of Ayrivank. TheFlor des estoires de la terre d'Orient ofHayton of Corycus states that the duke of Austria and the king of Bohemia defeated the Mongols on the Danube and Batu drowned. TheLiber secretorum fidelium crucis ofMarino Sanudo the Elder also alludes to an Austrian victory on the Danube. TheKitāb al-jughrāfiyya ofIbn Saʿīd al-Maghribī records that a joint German–Hungarian army defeated the Mongols nearŠibenik.[83] Matthew of Paris claims that Conrad IV and his brother, KingEnzo of Sardinia, defeated a Mongol army on the banks of the river Delpheos (possibly theDnieper).[44]
In later Moravian historiography, the Mongol invasion of 1241 was conflated with the Hungarian invasion of 1253, which was part of theWar of the Babenberg Succession. On the latter occasion, the Hungarian army included pagan Cumans, who were confused with Mongols. The Hungarians besiegedOlomouc. They defeated a relief army before lifting the siege.[84] In theCzech Chronicle ofVáclav Hájek (1541), the Hungarian victory before Olomouc is transformed into a defeat and the leader of the Moravians isJaroslav of Sternberg [cz]. The actual lord ofSternberg Castle at the time wasZdeslav, whose son Jaroslav was probably too young to participate in military action. In theHistory of the Kingdom of Bohemia ofJohannes Dubravius (1552), the siege of Olomouc is moved to 1241 and attributed to the Mongols. Jaroslav of Sternberg was transformed into a national hero who defeated the Mongols before Olomouc and killed Baidar in theDvůr Králové manuscript literary hoax in the 19th century.[32][85] In fact, Baidar was still alive in 1246.[32]
PopeInnocent IV called for a crusade against the Mongols to be preached in Germany in August 1243 and throughout Bohemia and Moravia in the spring of 1253. In June 1258, PopeAlexander IV called for another crusade to be preached in Germany, Bohemia and Moravia.[86] In June 1265,Clement IV, in response to a report he received from Béla IV, ordered the preaching of a new crusade against the Mongols in Austria, Bohemia, Brandenburg,Carinthia andStyria within the Holy Roman Empire.[87]
The crusade against the Mongols was rarely promoted thereafter. In 1288,Nicholas IV ordered it preached in Bohemia.[87]John of Winterthur reports attacks on the March of Brandenburg during theMongol invasion of Poland in 1340.[88] It was also rumoured at that time that the Mongols intended to attack Bohemia, according to theHistoria Parmensis ofJohn of Cornazzano.[89] According toFrancis of Prague, the EmperorLouis IV refused to aid Poland,[90] butGalvano Fiamma says that "numerous Germans" joined the defence of Poland, as did the king of Bohemia,John the Blind.[91]Benedict XII, responding to a request from KingCasimir III of Poland, ordered the crusade preached in Bohemia in 1340. In March 1351,Clement VI authorised Polish clergy to preach the crusade against the Mongols in Bohemia for the defence of Poland.[87]
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