[657] The dates given under the Latin columns in Chalcocondylas are almost invariably wrong and are responsible for much of the confusion of European historians in the matter of chronology. Chalcocondylas himself is full of mistakes, and knew very little about the history of Byzantium and the Osmanlis in the fourteenth century. But he is not as bad as his Latin translator, whom the historians have followed. In order to trace some of the errors, I collated the Greek text of Chalcocondylas with the Latin translation through the first two books of his history, which cover the period 1300-1403. The glosses and the inexact translations are many. For example of glosses, in I. c. 4 B, ‘quos Tartaros nominant’ after Scythis; I. c. 7 C, ‘Orthogulus adhibitus in colloquium’, at beginning of third sentence; I. c. 10 C, ‘ex tribus, Orchanes nomine’, after ‘filius eius natu minimus’; I. c. 12 C, ‘circiter viginti duo’ in the sentence ‘Orchanes cum regnasset annos mortem obiit’. For a very unfaithful translation compare Latin with Greek original in I. c. 27, the end of A and beginning of B. In I. c. 28 C ἓξ καὶ τριάκοντα is translated ‘triginta septem’! The letters cited refer to column position in Migne edition.
[658] Chalcocondylas (in Migne), I. 6, p. 22.
[659] Trans. Petits de la Croix, ii. 287-9.
[660] Annales Turcici, in Migne, Patr. Graec., clix. 579.
[661] Bratutti trans., i. 4.
[662] Chronological Tables, Italian trans. of Carli Rinaldo.
[663] Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, xiii. 188-9.
[664] For editions, translators and dates of publication, see Bibliography.
[665] Egnatius, cited by Cuspianus, 12, says: ‘Ottomannus obscuro loco et parentibus agrariis natus’. Nicolaus Euboicus, Saguntinus Episcopus, Sylvius Aeneas, and Andreas a Lacuna say that Osman, of obscure beginnings, arose through oppressing neighbours, Moslem as well as Christian. Ab. Ortellius says, ‘Tam Graecis quam Turcis repugnantibus cited by Leunclavius, Pandectes, 99. Bosio, ii. 37, declares, ‘Osman first came out of Persia’. Similar vagueness in Haeniger; Geuffroi, 266; Sagredo; Manutio, 3; Cuspianus, 11, 42; Barletius, in Lonicerus, iii. folios 231-2; Vanell, 356; Cervarius; Richer, 11.
[666] De Sacy, in Notices et Extraits, xi. 56, foot-note 1, in his discussion of the text of a treaty between Genoese of Kaffa and Janko, Lord of Solkat, where this word also occurs, suggests that it is an altered form of ‘sheik’.