[617] Clavijo, fol. 26 v°-27 r°; Arabshah, p. 125; Sherefeddin, iii. 267-9; Dominican Friar, p. 264; Schiltberger, p. 18. Schiltberger says 21 days, and 5,000 horsemen buried, and 9,000 virgins carried off by the Tartars.
[618] It is impossible to understand why Muralt, with all the authorities he had at hand, places the taking of Sivas in 1395: Chronographie Byzantine, ii. 753, No. 26. The contemporary authorities cited above establish the date. Cf. also letter from Crete, in Jorga, Notes à servir, &c., i. 106, n. 3. There is a full discussion of the proper dating of the Ottoman aggression against Sivas, Caesarea, and Erzindjian, and the probability of two Ottoman campaigns, one before and one after Nicopolis, in Bruun’s note to the Hakluyt edition of Schiltberger, pp. 121-2.
[619] The letters exchanged between Charles VI and Timur are preserved in the French archives. The Turkish text of these letters, with Latin translation, is published by Charrière, introd., i. 118-19.
[620] Stella, in Muratori, xvii. 1194.
[621] ‘En la qual batalla se acaescieron Payo de Soto Mayor e Hernan Sanchez de Palaçuelos Embaxadores’: Clavijo, fol. 1 r°, col. 2.
[622] Letters of Timur and Bayezid in Arabic and Persian in Feridun collection, MS. Bibl. Nat., Paris, ancien fonds turc, pp. 65-91. Cf. Langlès, in Notices et Extraits, iv. 674, for list and dates of these. Sherefeddin, iii. 396-416.
[623] Sherefeddin, iv. 1-6. For description of route from Sivas to Angora, Hadji Khalfa, Djihannuma, ii. fols. 1803-4. Timur’s own account of his march and the battle of Angora is very brief: ‘Je pris moi-même le chemin d’Ancouriah. Bayezid, suivi de 400,000 hommes, tant cavaliers que fantassins, vint à ma rencontre; on livra la bataille, et je la gagnai. Ce Prince vaincu fut pris par mes troupes, et amené en ma présence. Enfin ... je retournai victorieux à Samarcande’: Langlès trans., p. 264.
[624] A great deal has been written about the date of Angora, but all authorities agree in putting it between July 20 and July 28, 1402. Cf. Art de vérifier les Dates, i. 193; Silvestre de Sacy, in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, vi. 488-95; Moranvillé, in Bibl. de l’École des Chartes, lv. 437-8. A few early western writers have given 1397 and 1403, while Petits de la Croix, in his French translation of Sherefeddin, is a decade too late in all his dates. The latter part of July 1402 is fixed by all contemporary authorities on this battle. Abu’l-Mahasin, in his history of the reign of the Egyptian sultan Barkok, states that the greater part of Bayezid’s army perished by thirst before his capture.
[625] On the nationality of the Tartars who betrayed Bayezid at Angora, see the latter part of the note of Bruun on the ‘White Tartars’ in the Hakluyt ed. of Schiltberger, pp. 114-17.
[626] From the account of the Dominican Friar, pp. 458-9, it seems clear that Bayezid was the aggressor until after Soleiman’s command had been cut to pieces.