Note 635 — Chapter IV · BAYEZID THE OSMANLIS INHERIT THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE (continued 2)

I am unable to agree with Alberi, Rel. Ven. Ambasc., 3rd ser., vol. i, preface viii., ‘Secondo migliori testimonianze deve rigettarsi per falsa la tradizione’, and Bruun, Notes to Hakluyt ed. of Schiltberger, p. 21 n., ‘We are forced to conclude, after Hammer’s searching inquiries, that there is no truth whatever in the story of Bayezid having been confined by Timur in an iron cage’. Hammer’s arguments, ii. 96-101, do not seem to me at all convincing. From the philological point of view, they have been refuted by Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, ii. 92. From the historical point of view, there is just as strong evidence for as against the litter with bars, which could hardly have been any different from a cage. If one argues that Timur did not subject his prisoner to this indignity, and advances that the cage was really nothing more than a closed litter, such as was used for ladies of the imperial harem, he is merely substituting one indignity for another. From the character of Bayezid, one would infer that the humiliation of being shut up like a lion in a cage would have been less than that of being put into a harem litter like a woman, for whom the conqueror had contempt rather than fear. There is no mention of the iron cage in Schiltberger, Clavijo, and the Dominican Friar. But their silence signifies nothing. They are excellent witnesses for the battle of Angora itself, but knew little or nothing of what happened in Asia Minor after Angora. One might just as well argue from Schiltberger’s silence that Timur did not capture Smyrna! Nor does Sherefeddin mention the humiliation of Bayezid, and the iron cage. But the story is given in Arabshah, p. 210, who must be reckoned with as a contemporary source. If, as de Salaberry, iv. 200-1, claims, the iron cage story was inserted in Arabshah by his Ottoman editor and translator, Nazmi-zadé, it only goes to show that the careful Ottoman students of his time believed the story. The Ottoman historians, who are without exception too late to be regarded as sources, and who had reasons for making the degradation of the Ottoman sovereign as slight as possible, show their knowledge of the early and contemporary character of this record by trying to controvert it, and prove that Bayezid was carried on a litter rather than in a cage, e. g. Seaddedin, i. 230. That the common tradition among the Osmanlis, outside of the court chroniclers who were compelled to uphold at all costs the dignity of the house of Osman, was in favour of the cage story is proved conclusively by Ali Muhieddin, Migne ed., col. 597, who is earlier than Seadeddin, and by Evliya effendi, i. 29-30; ii. 21-22, who gives the story just as we find it in Arabshah and the western writers. Sagredo, who follows Spandugino, vigorously defends the cage story as opposed to the litter of the Ottoman court chroniclers, and says that Bayezid died from striking his head against the bars of his cage, pp. 25-6. In Lonicerus, fol. 12 vº, is a picture of the cage. It is mentioned by Guazzo, fol. 275 vº; Donato da Lezze, p. 10; Paolo Giovio; Geuffry, p. 283; Campana, fol. 8 vº; Egnatius, p. 30; Rabbi Joseph, i. 256; Sanuto, in Muratori, xxii. 791; Bonincontrius, col. 88; Formanti; and Timur’s early western biographer, Perondino, p. 31, who, fifty years before Seadeddin, wrote that Timur compelled Bayezid’s wife Despina to wait nude upon him and his guests at table. The story is also found in Ducas, chapter 26.