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Miraculous Escapes from Turkish Captivity

Summary/Abstract: It was in 1390, after the battle of Kosovo Polje (Rigómező) that Ottoman invasion against Hungary started, first in the region of Srem (Szerémség) and Temesköz. At the beginning of the 15th century, marauders appeared in Croatia and Slavonia, and in the 1420s they led attacks against Wallachia and Transylvania. The Ottoman armies started their conquests on Hungarian territory in the 1520s only, but by that time they had already inflicted heavy losses on the people. The so called miracle records provide details about the prisoners taken by the Turks, the hardships they suffered and the chances of escape they had. From among the most significant sites of pilgrimage in late medieval Hungary miracle records were preserved in two, at Újlak and Budaszentlőrinc. The former contains stories from the years 1458–1461, while the latter, compiled by Bálint Hadnagy, covers the years 1422– 1505. John Capistrano helped escapes from captivity in 4,6 percent (or 23 cases) of his recorded miracles. St. Paul the Hermit liberated those asking for his help in 18 cases (20 percent of his miracles). Almost half of the liberated prisoners escaped from Ottoman captivity, which is a clear sign of who was the most dangerous enemy at the time. The majority of the stories describe in detail the circumstances how the prisoners were captured, the hardships they had to bear and the way they escaped. We can only find one person among the prisoners who fell into captivity as a soldier. The rest, later asking for the help of St. Paul or John Capistrano, were dragged away from their homes. All those who testified were captured (or almost captured) in the most endangered regions of the country: four in Temesköz, four in Valkó county, three in Srem county, three in Csanád county, one in Baranya, one in Somogy and one in Bács, north of the lower Danube. [....]

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