Baltazar attacks Antioch (Croyland Chronicle)
After these times, about the year of the Word made Incar-
nate, 1463, the great chieftain of the Turks, Balthasar,®^ also
called Mahomet, that enemy to the Cross of Christ, jjist like a
fresh Antiochus raised up against the Jewish people, and sur-
rounded by forces innumerable of Saracens and Agarenes,” be-
gan, most tyrannically, to lay waste the borders of the Chris-
tians. By the Divine permission he wreaked his vengeance to
such a degree in persecuting the faithful ones of Christ, as even
to attack Constantinople, that famous and celebrated city of
Christendom ; and after having slaughtered the worshippers of
the true faith, rendered it subject to his own barbarous laws.
He also ordered the emperor of the Greeks to be beheaded,
and his head to be fixed on a lance, and carried through the
midst of the camp. No one can possibly recount the Xkobles,
*> Known as Bajazet.
* A common name of the Sanusens among the mcdisval writers^
418 covrnroAuov of Tfis histobt of cbotlani). a.d. 1453.
no one the priests, that were hurried off to slaughter ; nor yet
the numhers, both old and young, that were most inliumaiily
murdered in the streets. On every side was to be seen the
gore of the slain, on every side were heard the groans of the
dying. Ko regard was shown to maidens, no respect to
matrons. The temple, too, of Saint Sophia, the work of
Justinian, and famed throughout the whole world, was
reserved to be the scene of the abominations of Mahomet:
while the other holy places were either levelled to the ground
or defiled, the altars overthrown or beaten to pieces, and the
images of the Saints defaced or polluted with mud. ‘No statue
was there of Christ our Saviour, nor yet of His glorious
Mother, that was permitted to escape without some singular
mark of disgrace. The very image of Him crucified was, in
derision, borne through the camp, disfigured with stones and
the mud of their feet, and at last left in the dirt. “Woe imto
us Christians, in that we have sinned ! Why, Lord, were we
bom thus to behold the desolation of our people, and, with tear-
ful eyes, to witness the disasters of our holy Eeligion ? Those
patriarchal sees, most worthy of all veneration, of Constanti-
nople, of Antioch, of Alexandria, and of Jerusalem, are op-
pressed by the yoke of slavery, and are held either by the
Saracens or by the Turks : as though in a comer of the globe
is Christianity pent up! Thus much for the present; but
more of these matters hereafter.
From the Croyland (Crowland) Chronicle