Note 115 — Chapter II · ORKHAN A NEW NATION IS FORMED AND COMES INTO CONTACT WITH THE WESTERN WORLD

There is no way of establishing the date of the fall of Nicomedia. The Ottoman historians report that it was added to the dominions of Orkhan in 1326, the year of his accession and of the fall of Brusa. It is best here to follow the unanimous testimony of the Byzantine sources, which is in accord with the natural inference that Nicomedia fell some time after Nicaea: Greg., XI. 6, p. 545; Phr., I. 8, p. 38. Hammer cannot disregard the testimony of Gregoras here. He ingenuously suggests that the city might have been lost by the Osmanlis, and recaptured. Cantacuzenos (II. 24, p. 446, and 26, p. 459) says that Andronicus III went twice to the aid of Nicomedia in 1331, but he does not record the loss of either Brusa or Nicomedia. In the collection of Feridun, Bibl. Nat., Paris, MS. anc. fonds turc 79, there is a diploma appointing Soleiman governor of Nicomedia in 1332, but the authenticity of the earlier pieces in this collection is open to grave suspicion (cf. Bibliography).