Note 381 — Chapter III · MURAD THE OSMANLIS LAY THE FOUNDATIONS OF AN EMPIRE IN EUROPE

Nish, from its geographical position, could not have fallen in 1375, as Chalcocondylas says. Hammer, i. 241, and Zinkeisen, i. 230, show an amazing nonchalance in transporting the Osmanlis from Kavalla, Drama, and Serres in the course of this one year, 1375. Engel, Geschichte von Serbien, p. 341, who, according to Hammer, ‘deceives himself by thirteen years in placing the capture of Nish in 1388’, is eleven years nearer the truth than Hammer! Strumnitza, from a diploma delivered in the name of the Serbian empress Eudoxia (Müller, Acta Serbica, CXXXI), was independent in 1379. Sofia did not fall before 1382. How, then, could Nish have been an Ottoman fortress from 1375?