June – December 1395
Nikopol and the Vardar, 1395
On his way back Bayezid takes Nikopol from the north and has Ivan Shishman put to death on 3 June 1395, by the Anonymous Bulgarian Chronicle. A Byzantine chronicle gives 29 October, and some accounts have Shishman die in prison. His lands are annexed, and of the Bulgarian rulers only Ivan Sratsimir of Vidin remains, as Bayezid’s vassal.
The lands of Marko and Konstantin Dragaš pass under direct Ottoman rule and form a province around Konstantin’s seat at Velbužd, which the Ottomans name Köstendil after him. Marko’s town of Prilep becomes part of it.
The ruins of Marko’s fortress above PrilepWikimedia Commons, Risto Rolevski, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Markovi---Kuli.JPG)
In July 1395 Sigismund leads an army from Brașov into Wallachia with Mircea to restore him. He takes Little Nicopolis (Turnu), across the Danube from Nikopol, and leaves a Hungarian garrison there. In the Morea, Evrenos joins the Navarrese of Achaea in a raid against Theodore and takes the castle of Akova.
The reverse of the first double seal of Sigismund as King of Hungary, used from 1387 to 1405, with the double cross of HungaryWikimedia Commons, OrionNimrod, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Luxemburgi Zsigmond király (1387-1437) első kettős felségpecsétjének hátlapja (1384-1405).jpg)
Sources
- Anonymous Bulgarian Chronicle (15th century).
- John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans (1987), 424–425.
- Pál Engel, The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 (2001).
- Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481 (1990).
- Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453 (2nd ed., 1993).
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