cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. Dr. Grünhagen states that at the lowest valuation the army must have consisted of 80,000 men. This figure is probably too low. Lawrence of Březova states that the troops of Sigismund, including all the German and other crusaders, amounted to 150,000 men, and Æneas Sylvius writes—undoubtedly exaggerating—that the cavalry alone numbered 70,000 men. Among the crusaders, according to the account of Březova, who writes with justifiable national pride, were Bohemians (of the Roman party), Moravians, Hungarians and Croatians, Dalmatians and Bulgarians, Wallachians and Szeklers, Cini (sic) and Jasi (sic), Slavonians, Servians and Ruthenians, Styrians, men of Meissen, Bavarians, Saxons, Austrians, Franconians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, men of Brabant and Westphalia, Dutchmen, Switzers, Lusatians, Suabians, Carinthians, men of Aragon, Spaniards, Poles, Germans from the Rhine-lands and many others.[1] The princes and Church dignitaries who had now joined Sigismund were also very numerous; among the names which the chroniclers record we find Albert, Duke of Saxony, Frederick and William, margraves of Meissen, Albert, Archduke of Austria, many of the Silesian princes, Louis, patriarch of Aquileia, many archbishops, and numerous princes and counts of the empire. The army was one of the largest which ever at that period assembled for battle. Palacký, with his usual sagacity, greatly deplores that we find very little mention of the siege of Prague in the writings of the contemporary German chroniclers, who perhaps did not care to give a detailed account of events in which their countrymen had not played a very glorious part. We are, therefore, reduced to conjectures, even as regards many important events.[2] Of the
- ↑ Lawrence of Březova, p. 384.
- ↑ The German contemporary chroniclers are almost entirely silent as regards the events of the first crusade. Monstrelet gives a brief account of the siege, which is interesting also as evidence of the fanatical hatred of the Bohemians that had already sprung up in all parts of Europe. It is this hatred which induced the people to give credence to any, even the most absurd, accusations against the Bohemian nation. Monstrelet writes (Vol. IV. chap. cclix),
