[468] Schiltberger, Neumann ed., p. 65. On this question cf. Jireček, op. cit., pp. 350-2; Miller, p. 189; and illuminating note of Rambaud, in Hist. générale, iii. 832 n. Also p. 143 of this book and accompanying foot-note.
[469] Schiltberger, op. et loc. cit.
[470] These cities, or rather, their fortresses, were captured and evacuated several times by the Osmanlis, especially Widin.
[471] Hammer, at the beginning of the reign of Bayezid, i. 295-7, relates the history of the quarrel between Andronicus and his father and Manuel, the rescue from the Tower of Anemas, &c., as if these events happened in 1389 and 1390, and gives the capture of Philadelphia for 1391. He has been led astray here by the story of Ducas, and by the fact that the Byzantine historians speak of Bayezid instead of Murad in connexion with the negotiations for restoration. By the internal evidence in the Byzantine historians themselves, the chronology of this period cannot be decided. But, by reading Phrantzes and Chalcocondylas in the light of Quirino, the continuation of Dandolo, and the archives of the colony of Pera, and also by piecing out the length of time of these events and matching them with Bayezid’s occupations during the first two years of his reign, it is not difficult to decide to place the Andronicus versus John and Manuel struggles just before the Chioggia war. At any rate, Andronicus died ten years before the date Hammer gives to these events!
[472] Poem cited by Muralt, ii. 738, No. 1.
[473] MS. Bibl. Nat., Paris, fonds grec, No. 1253, fol. 198 vº.
[474] John V Palaeologos was of those who, in the words of Bernino (p. 9), ‘consumavasi vanamente il tempo più in dolersi delle calamità che in repararle’.
[475] Ducas, 13, pp. 25-49 passim; Chalc., II, pp. 66, 81-2.
[476] Evliya effendi, i. 29-30; ii. 21, who repeats the persistent Ottoman tradition of his day, that is also found in Hadji Khalfa and Nazmi Zadé. Cf. the Genoese accounts of Pera in Jorga’s scholarly Notes à servir, &c. i. 42. According to Schéfer, in his edition of Bertrandon de la Broquière, p. 165, there was a provision that slaves escaping to Constantinople should be given back, but we cannot be sure that this stipulation was made under Bayezid I. The date of the installation of the cadi, &c., is open to question. Some authorities place it after Nicopolis.
[477] Shehabeddin, fol. 72 rº, writes Istanbul; Sherefeddin, iv. 37, is transcribed by Petits de la Croix Istanbol; Arabshah, p. 124, transcribed by Vattier Estanbol. Wylie, i. 156, n. 2, gives the time-worn popular derivation from εἰς τὴν πόλιν; also Telfer, in his edition of Schiltberger, p. 119. Why go so far afield? Istambul is a natural contraction of Constantinople. As the Greeks pronounced this long word, the syllables stan and pol bore the stress, and were naturally put together for a shortened form. As for the initial I, which has troubled the philologists, its explanation is easy to one who knows the Osmanlis. They cannot to this day pronounce an initial St without putting I before it.