Siege of Novo Brdo (1440–41)

The Siege of Novo Brdo was a military blockade of Novo Brdo, an important fortified mining town in the Serbian Despotate, by the forces of the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1440 and lasting until the capture of the fortress on 27 June 1441. During the siege, the Serbian garrison was supported by the local community of citizens of the Republic of Ragusa.

Fall of Smederevo and siege of Belgrade
In 1439 the Ottoman forces led by the sultan Murad II attacked Serbian Despotate. Serbian despot Đurađ Branković fled to Hungary to seek support for the defense of his realm, organized by his son Grgur. Smederevo was the capital and the most important city of the Serbian Despotate.

During the siege of Smederevo in 1439, Sultan Murad II ordered the marcher-lord Ishak-Beg, who was on his return from Mecca, to join forces of Hadım Şehabeddin and besiege Novo Brdo. On 6 August 1439 the Ottoman forces under Ishak-Beg defeated forces of Serbian Despotate in a battle fought near Novo Brdo. The Ottomans captured Smederevo on 18 August 1439 which reduced the territory of the Serbian Despotate under Đurađ Branković to Zeta and a region around Novo Brdo. The forces under Murad II joined Ishak-Beg to attack Novo Brdo, but its garrison successfully repelled their attacks. The Ottomans realized that it would be difficult for them to capture well-defended Novo Brdo, so Murad II order Ottoman forces to retreat and stay in Skopje during the winter. Before they did so, they robbed caravans of Ragusan merchants, while Murad went to Adrianople. The Ottomans allowed Grgur Branković to govern his father's former estates in southern Serbia, as Ottoman vassal. When Ottomans captured Smederevo on 18 August 1439, the only remaining territory under suzerainty of the Serbian Despotate consisted of Zeta and the region around the fortified mining town Novo Brdo, because Branković ceded Belgrade to Hungary in 1427. During Spring and Summer of 1440 the Ottomans again besieged Belgrade, but without success, although they used cannons cast in Smederevo, captured a year before.

Siege of Novo Brdo (1439)
Novo Brdo was one of the largest cities in the Balkans. Because of its rich gold and silver mines Novo Brdo was the most important non-coastal city in the Balkans in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Ottomans unsuccessfully besieged it in 1412 and in 1427 when they used canons constructed for the 1422 siege of Constantinople. In 1439 the Ottomans again unsuccessfully besieged Novo Brdo.

Siege of Novo Brdo (1440)


In 1440, after their defeat during the siege of Belgrade, the Ottoman forces commanded by Hadım Şehabeddin, a beylerbey of the Rumelia Eyalet again besieged Novo Brdo. The garrison in Novo Brdo was under the command of Voivode Prijezda.

Ragusan citizens were to be found all over the Serbian Despotate while in Novo Brdo they had a flourishing merchant community. The Republic of Ragusa instructed its citizens in Novo Brdo to participate in the resistance of the besieged town. Therefore the garrisoned forces of Serbian Despotate were also supported by the citizens of the Republic of Ragusa which had important role in the defense of Novo Brdo. Ragusans, who were predominantly merchants, were practically forced to resist the Ottomans because otherwise their property in Novo Brdo would be confiscated, like it was in the case of Ragusan merchants who happened to be outside of the town when the siege began and refused to return to it.

Despot Đurađ Branković and his wife traveled from Hungary to Zeta, accompanied with several hundred cavalry and voivode Peter Spani of the Spani family. They first went to Zagreb, to Đurađ's sister Katarina who was the wife of Ulrich II, Count of Celje. Then Branković arrived to Dubrovnik at the end of July 1440 and after several days he continued his journey toward his coastal towns of Budva and Bar which became the new capital of the remaining part of his despotate. In the period between 1 July 1440 and Despots' arrival to Bar, the Ottoman forces defeated some military units from Novo Brdo in a battle near Makreš (a village near modern-day Gnjilane).

In August 1440 Branković arrived to Bar where he stayed until the end of the winter 1440/1441. There he tried to mobilize forces to recapture the territory of the Serbian Despotate he lost to the Ottomans. At the same time, Branković maintained communication with the garrison in Novo Brdo and his son Grgur, who at the time was an Ottoman governor. That was one of the main reasons why the Ottomans, probably justifiably, accused Grgur for treason and dismissed him from his governorship in April 1441. On 8 May 1441, both Grgur and his brother Stefan were blinded, based on the order of Sultan Murad II. Branković faced another disappointment in Zeta where he found out that the Crnojevići rebelled against Duke Komnen (Војвода Комнен), the governor of Zeta. Branković left Zeta in April 1441 and resided in Dubrovnik for a while. This angered Ottomans who requested, through their envoy Agub, that Dubrovnik should hand over Branković. Ragusans refused this request and explained in a letter to Ishak-Beg and Hadım Şehabeddin that Dubrovnik has not accepted Branković because he was an enemy of the sultan but because Dubrovnik is a free city that accepts anybody who seeks shelter in it. They also emphasized that Branković being in Dubrovnik is the best guarantee that he would not undertake any action against the Ottomans. Ragusans wanted to send their diplomats to Hadım Şehabeddin and requested his written guarantee for their safe conduct. On 13 June 1441 Hadım Şehabeddin, who was in Vučitrn at the time, issued the requested guarantee to the Ragusans. During the siege of Novo Brdo its population suffered heavy casualties. On 27 June 1441 Novo Brdo surrendered to the Ottoman forces, who then robbed and burned the captured town.

Aftermath
Đurađ Branković received the news about the fall of Novo Brdo when he was in Zeta. Stephen Vukčić, who was an Ottoman vassal at that time, used weak position of the Serbian Despot and tried to capture Zeta. After he successfully penetrated into Zeta highlands, Venetian Republic captured Zeta's coastal cities and regions based on agreement with despot Branković that they will protect his possessions from falling under Ottoman control. Branković realized that he lost all of his territory and power base which supplied him with troops necessary to secure his suzerainty, so he moved to his estates in Hungary. Eventually, Zeta fell under control of the local tribes, with the Crnojevići noble family trying to assert their dominance. The Ottomans made significant efforts to again raise Novo Brdo and gave substantial privileges to people who settled in it and worked in its mines while its Serb citizens were awarded with trading privileges. Within next three years the Ottomans re-established the mint in Novo Brdo which began to strike akçe for the first time.

In 1444, during the Long Campaign of Crusaders, Novo Brdo was recaptured from the Ottomans and again became a part of the reestablished Serbian Despotate until it finally fell to the Ottoman control on 1 June 1455. Among the survivors of the siege was Dimitrije Kantakouzenos. In 1455, the Ottomans forced the besieged to surrender because they used heavy artillery. All men of any distinguished rank or importance were decapitated under orders of sultan Mehmed II. An estimated 320 boys were taken to become janissaries (devşirme). Approximately 700 girls and young women were given to Ottoman soldiers and their commanders. The siege and its aftermath were described in Memoirs of a janissary, written in 1490—1501 by Novo Brdo resident Konstantin Mihailović, who was one of the boys taken.