14 July 1420, afternoon
The works on the ridge
On the afternoon of 14 July several thousand crusader horse cross the Vltava to the Spital field, while Sigismund waits on the far bank with three large bodies of horse to see the outcome. The men of Meissen and the Austrians under Heinrich of Isenburg, captain of Meissen, ride up onto the hill and along the ridge towards the works.
The view north from Vítkov over Karlín, the Spital field of 1420Wikimedia Commons, author named on the file page, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Praha, Vítkov, pohled na Karlín.JPG)
In front of the works the ridge narrows to a neck a few metres wide, and its north side falls steeply to the Spital field. Only a few horsemen fit side by side on the neck, and three ditches and a wall of earth and stones cross it one behind the other. Inside are 26 men, two women and a girl, by Laurence of Březová.
Sources
- Laurence of Březová, Hussite Chronicle, Czech edition Husitská kronika (1979).
- Old Czech Annals, in Ze starých letopisů českých (1980).
- Jan Durdík, Husitské vojenství (1953).
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