. The likelihood that Angelina and Mary belonged to the Hunga-
rian royal family is not very high. The analysis of the Angevin fa-
mily tree and academic sources on the Crusade of Nicopolis do not
mention Duke John (Ivan), the son of the Hungarian king and the
father of two daughters, who were kept as captives by the Turks or
captured by the Ottomans after the Battle of Nicopolis.
2. Maybe the princesses were members of a noble Hungarian family,
and, as such, following the Castilian tradition, were referred to as
princesses. Unfortunately, we have no sources regarding Hungar -
ian nobility who were captured by the Ottomans after the Battle of
Nicopolis.
3. It is also probable that Angelina and Mary, who belonged to one
of noble Hungarian families, were captured by the Ottoman Turks
during one of their raids on the border areas, but tradition changed
it into the Battle of Nicopolis. This version is quite probable, al-
though, of course, not certain, given the lack of evidence for either
option.
4. The French chronicle Chronique du religieux de Saint‑Denys, con‑
tenant le règne de Charles VI de 1380 à 1422, written by an anony-
mous monk from the Basilica of Saint Denis in Saint Denis (now
a suburb of Paris), reports that King Sigismund of Luxemburg al-
lowed the crusaders to take with them a large number of women,
which was supposed to contribute to slackening of morals in Chris-
tian troops
79
. This might also serve as a clue in our considerations.
76 Clavijo, ed. G. Le Strange, p. 5; S. de Sacy, Mémoire, p. 502; Clavijo, p. 4.
77 Clavijo, ed. G. Le Strange, pp. 179 sqq.
78 Clavijo, ed. G. Le Strange, p. 200.
79 Chronique du Religieux de Saint Denys contenant le regne de Charles VI de 1380 a 1422, publiée en
latin et traduite par M.L. Bellaguet, t. 2, Paris 1840, pp. 482-485, 495-498.
Łukasz Burkiewicz – Two Christian princesses offered as Timur’s present for King Henry III of Castile
175
5. The hypothesis of Angelina and Mary’s Greek roots cannot be re-
jected, not only because of the middle name Griega, which might in-
dicate a Greek mother (according the the Catalan tradition), but be-
cause it is possible that the girls were members of the Angelos family.
6. Also, the words of the poet, Francis Imperial, that Angelina could be
Tuerta, that is Tarta, coming from the country of Tatars, should be
taken into consideration. Maybe she came from Asia, and her facial
features, resembling European ones, allowed her contemporaries to
assume she came from Hungary or Greece. In the face of scientific
evidence on the girls’ origins available to us, this hypothesis seems
probable.
The above considerations do not provide the answer to the question of
the origins of Angelina and Mary, two women who were Timur’s gift for
King Henry III of Castile, yet they indicate a direction of further research.
The answer may be found in the analysis of the Hungarian and Byzantine
nobility.
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