[121] Though the Turks were a branch of the Tartar race, the Greek authors by this time had acquired the habit of calling the nation which Othman had formed Turks, and all others from Central Asia Tartars, and it is convenient to follow this nomenclature.
[122] Von Hammer has shown conclusively that the story of an iron cage is a mistake. It arises from the misinterpretation of the Turkish word Kafés, which has the two significations given above. Two contemporary authors made the blunder, Phrantzes and Arab Schah. A Bavarian, who was made prisoner at the battle of Nicopolis, named Schildberger, and who was present at the battle of Angora, has given a detailed account of the massacre of the Christians, but he does not mention the cage. (His travels between 1394 and 1427 have been translated and published by the Hakluyt Society, 1879.) Neither do Ducas, Chalcondylas, or Boucicaut, though they state that Bajazed died in irons, which he had to wear every night after his attempt at escape. Six Persian authors who wrote the history of Timour are silent about the cage. The oldest Turkish historian recounts, upon the evidence of an eye-witness, that Bajazed was carried about in a palanquin ‘like a Kafés,’ or in the usual kind of grilled palanquin in which ladies of the harem travelled. Sad-ud-din, one of the most exact of Turkish historians, states that the story of the iron cage given by many Turkish writers is a pure invention.
[123] I have relied for the account of the battle of Angora and the subsequent progress of Timour, mainly upon Von Hammer (vol. ii.), who is at his best in describing this period of Turkish history. The authorities are carefully given by him. Zinkeisen, in his History of the Turks, calls attention to the deterioration of the Ottoman armies during the reign of Bajazed, and attributes it to the profligacy of the sultan.
[124] Chalc. iv. p. 170. Ducas says he disappeared in Caramania; Phr. p. 86, that he was bowstrung. There was, according to Chalcondylas, another son of Bajazed, the youngest, also named Isa, who was baptised and died in Constantinople in 1417. This was probably the son given over as hostage to Manuel.
[125] Ducas, xix.
[126] Chalc. iv.; Phr. i. 29; Ducas, 19.
[127] Official Tour in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by J. de Asboth.
[128] i. 37.
[129] Ducas, xxiv.
[130] Phr. i. 38.