Transylvania

Nothing left at Alba but bones and broken walls

Editorial contextAfter escaping as the Tartars withdrew, Roger and a companion walked for eight days through empty country, guided by the bell towers of churches, and reached the cathedral town of Alba (Alba Iulia in Transylvania). There they found only the bones and heads of the dead and the broken, undermined walls of churches and palaces, the stones still stained red. It is a rare eyewitness description of a town just ruined by the Mongols.

At last, hardly on the eighth day after leaving the forest, we came to the city of Alba, in which nothing could be found but the bones and heads of the slain, and the walls of churches and palaces broken and undermined, which the great outpouring of Christian blood had stained. And although the earth, drunk with the innocent blood it had soaked up, did not show it, the stones still showed themselves dyed rose red with gore

Working translation

Original wording

Tamdem vix octauo die a siluae recessu ad Albam venimus ciuitatem, in qua nihil potuit reperiri praeterquam ossa et capita occisorum, basilicarum et palatiorum muros diruptos et suffossos, quos nimia Christiani cruoris effusio macularat. Et licet terra innoxium sanguinem quem inebriata suxerat non monstraret, ostendebant se lapides adhuc cruore roseo purpurati

About Ruins left by the Mongol army