Marcus Milwright and Evanthia Baboula - Bayezid's Cage A Re-Examination of A Venerable Academic Controversy

Bayezids Cage: A Re-examination of a Venerable
Academic Controversy
1
MARCUS MILWRIGHT AND EVANTHIA BABOULA
Abstract
This article discusses a story that has enjoyed a long life in scholarly literature, drama, and the visual
arts: the alleged caging of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I Yildirim (r. 13891402) by the Central
Asian conqueror, Tem ur (r. 13701405). Attention is focused on the evolution of scholarly discourse on
the existence (or otherwise) of the cage. The period from the late seventeenth to the rst half of the
twentieth century is looked at in particular detail. The debate around the captivity of Bayezid is only
fully understood when it is located within a larger historical framework, namely the changing political
relationships between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire from the fall of Constantinople in
1453 until the nineteenth century.
The sixth-century version of the Liber Ponticalis contains a reference to a request made by a
certain Lucius, a second-century king of Britanio, to pope Eleutherius (r. c.17489). In his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People Bede (d. 735) identies this event as the rst evidence
for the conversion of the British to Christianity. He writes: This pious request was quickly
granted, and the Britons received the Faith and held it peacefully in all its purity and fullness
until the time of the emperor Diocletian. Bedes narrative was later embellished by Geoffrey
of Monmouth (d. c.1155) and became a central plank of English theological debates during
the Reformation.
2
The historicity of Lucius was nally demolished in the mid nineteenth
century, but it was not until 1904 that the origins of the legend were established. A. von
Harnack discovered that one of the sources for the Liber mentions Britium, the name of the
fortress of Edessa ruled in the second century by Lucius Aelius Septimus Megas Abgar IX.
He concluded that a later scribe of the Liber had mistakenly rendered Britio in the source
1
The authors would like to thank Dimitris Kastritsis for sharing his expertise in early Ottoman historiography
and for translating a passage from the chronicle of Ashikpashazade. Robert Irwin kindly commented upon a draft
of this article and also permitted us to read the typescript of a lecture concerning European views on Oriental
despotism. We are also indebted to Filiz T ut unc u C a glar for making a summary translation of an article by the
Turkish scholar, Fuad K opr ul u.
2
On the story of Lucius, and his importance in English theology, see Felicity Heal, What can King Lucius
do for you? The Reformation and the Early British Church, English Historical Review, CXX.487 (June, 2005),
pp. 593614. The quote from Bede appears on p. 595 (Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People I.4).
JRAS, Series 3, 21, 3 (2011), pp. 239260
C
The Royal Asiatic Society 2011
doi:10.1017/S1356186311000204
240 Marcus Milwright and Evanthia Baboula
text as Britanio.
3
This example illustrates the fragile foundations on which remarkably
tenacious legends can be built. Most of all, stories and legends persist because they remain
meaningful for later audiences.
In this article we discuss another story that has enjoyed a long life in scholarly literature,
drama, and the visual arts: the alleged caging of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, Yildirim
(r. 13891402 and d. 1403) by the Central Asian conqueror, Tem ur (r. 13701405, and
otherwise known as Timur-i Lang, or in European sources as Tamerlane). A full analysis of
the range of primary sources on this event Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Greek, Latin, Italian,
German, and Spanish to name just some of the languages employed by the relevant authors
of the fteenth and sixteenth centuries is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, our
attention is devoted to the evolution of scholarly discourse on the existence (or otherwise)
of the cage, with a particular focus on the period from the late seventeenth to the rst half
of the twentieth century. Signicant are the sources available to the scholars who wrote on
this subject and the ways in which they exploited them. Like the example of King Lucius,
scholarly debate around the captivity of Bayezid must be located within a larger historical
framework, particularly the changing relations between the polities of Christian Europe and
the Ottoman Empire between the second half of the fteenth century (following the fall of
Constantinople in 1453) and the nineteenth century.
Historical Events and Later Representations
On 28 July 1402 (19 Dhu al-Hijja 804) the armies of sultan Bayezid and Tem ur met on the
eld of C ubuk Ovasi near to Ankara. Marking the culmination of a long-standing dispute
over the control of the former territories of the Rumi Saljuqs, the battle of Ankara had
been preceded by Tem urs conquest of the Anatolian city of Sivas in 1400 and Bayezids
retaliatory strike against Erzincan. Relations between the two men had not been improved
by a bitter exchange of embassies in the previous years and by Bayezids support of the Black
Sheep Turkomen. True to his epithet, Yildirim (the thunderbolt), Bayezid appears to have
rushed to battle without proper preparation of his forces. Arriving at C ubuk Ovasi he found
Tem urs engineers had dammed off the available water and had built substantial ramparts
around their own positions. Desertions further weakened Bayezids position, and the nal
result of the battle was a decisive defeat for the Ottoman army with many thousands of
soldiers left dead on the battleeld.
4
The battle of Ankara is one of the most important conicts of the late Medieval period;
the impact of the battle can be detected in the political history of the region in the decades
after 1402. Some of the more immediate effects of the battle can be briey summarised:
rst, sultan Bayezid was captured following the battle and died in captivity in 1403; second,
the removal of the sultan sparked off a civil war between his sons that was only resolved with
the accession of Mehmed I in 1413; third, the Ottoman empire itself was for several decades
3
Heal, King Lucius, p. 614. Citing A. Von Harnack, Der Brief des britischen K onigs Lucius an den Papst
Eleutherus, Sitzungsberichte der K oniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, I (1904), pp. 909916.
4
For a description of this battle, see Herbert Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire: A History of the
Osmanlis up to the Death of Bayezid I (13001403) (Oxford, 1916), pp. 249254. On this conict and the wider
military engagement between Bayezid and Tem ur, see Marie-Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca, La campagne de Timur
en Anatolie, Publicatiunile Institutului de Turcologie 1 (Bucharest, 1942).
Re-examination of a Venerable Academic Controversy 241
greatly reduced in the extent of its territories and its political inuence; and fourth, the
defeat of the Ottoman army relieved the siege of Constantinople and ensured the survival
of the diminutive Byzantine empire for another half a century.
5
Despite the existence of a wide array of primary textual sources in Persian, Arabic,
Ottoman Turkish and European languages, there remains considerable uncertainty
concerning what actually transpired when the defeated sultan was brought to the camp
of Tem ur in the evening after the battle. Persian, Turkish and Greek sources concur that the
sultan was bound in some manner, and it seems likely that Tem ur ordered that these bonds
be removed while he conducted an interview with his captive. Another recurrent theme
is that Bayezid, heedless of his precarious situation, answered the questions posed to him
in a haughty manner that displeased Tem ur. While it had been the latters practice to seek
oaths of submission and re-establish vanquished princes as Timurid vassals in their former
territories, it is clear that Bayezid was not released from captivity. He died some months later
in 1403 and, at the request of his sons, his body was transported to a mausoleum in Bursa.
We will return to the accounts of Bayezids captivity written by Arabic, Persian, Turkish,
and Greek authors later in the article, but rst it is necessary to examine the ways in which
this event was represented in Western Europe during the fteenth and sixteenth centuries.
6
The earliest European accounts, which include those of Johannes Schiltberger (d. after 1429)
who was captured by Tem urs army before being allowed to return to his native Germany
and Jean Boucicault (d. 1421), governor of Genoa in the early years of the fteenth century,
provide little detail concerning the treatment of the Ottoman sultan beyond the facts of his
captivity and death. Neither mentions the employment of a cage to imprison Bayezid.
7
The
ambassador of Henry of Castille, Ruy Gonz alez de Clavijo (d. 1412), who visited Tem ur in
Samarqand in September-November 1404, has nothing to add on the existence or otherwise
of a cage. Clavijo was in Constantinople soon after the return of Manuel II Palaeologos
(r. 13911425) from his European trip in July 1403. Clavijo met both the emperor and
members of the Byzantine court during this visit.
8
Had reports of the caging of Bayezid
reached Constantinople by the time of Clavijos visit, one might have expected him to have
mentioned it. Notably, none of the Greek primary sources written in the rst decade of the
fteenth century contains a reference to the captivity of the Ottoman sultan.
9
5
On the Ottoman civil war, see Dimitris Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in
the Ottoman Civil War of 14021413, The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage 38 (Leiden and Boston, 2007). On the
immediate aftermath of the battle of Ankara, see pp. 4478.
6
For an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources dealing with the life of Tem ur, see: Michele
Bernardini, The historiography concerning Timur-i Lang. A bibliographical survey, in Italo-Uzbek Scientic
Cooperation in Archaeology and Islamic Studies: An Overview, (ed.) Samuela Pagani (Rome, 2003), pp. 137196.
7
Johannes Schiltberger, The Bondage and Travels of Johannes Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and
Africa, 13961427, trans. J. Buchan Telfer with notes by P. Bruun (London, 1879), pp. 2021 (cap. 1213); Boucicault,
Histoire du Mar eschal de Boucicault, (ed.) Guillaume de Voys (La Haye, 1711), pp. 107109; J. Delaville Le Roulx, La
France en Orient au XIVe Si` ecle: Exp editions du Mar echal Boucicaut (Paris, 1886), p. 394.
8
Ruy Gonz alez di Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 14031406, trans. Guy Le Strange (London, 1928), pp. 24,
129137. On the last years of Bayezids siege of Constantinople, see: Dionysios Hadjopoulos, Le premier si` ege de
Constantinople par les Ottomans de 1394 ` a 1402 (PhD dissertation, University of Montreal, 1980), pp. 184207.
9
This material has been analysed in a paper by Evanthia Baboula entitled Greek sources on the life of
Tamerlane, delivered at the Byzantine Studies conference at the University of Toronto in 2007. This paper is being
prepared for publication.
It is clear, however, that more graphic stories were circulating in Europe in the rst half
of the fteenth century because they appear in sources such as the Chronicon Tarvisinum and
the letters of the Italian humanist, Poggio Bracciolini (d. 1459), in his De Varietate Fortunae.
Probably composed around the time of the death of pope Martin V (r. 141731), Bracciolinis
text makes the following comment about the treatment of Bayezid: caveaque in modum fere
inclusum per omnem Asiam circumtulit.
10
More inuential than either of these, however,
was the account of the fate of the Ottoman sultan in Aeneas Silvius Piccolominis (Pope
Pius II, r. 145864), Asiae Europaeque elegantissima descriptio, composed in the late 1450s
and early 1460s and rst published in Paris in 1509.
11
Piccolomini brought together the key
elements that were to remain fundamental to the European narrative for some two centuries:
rst, the sultan (often known in European writings as Bajazet) was placed in an iron cage;
second, he was forced, like a dog, to eat scraps from under the table of Tem ur; and, third,
Bayezid was employed as the Scythian rulers mounting block when the latter got onto
his horse.
12
Further elaborations can be found in later histories such as the history of the
Turks composed by Theodore Spandounes (Spandugino, d. after 1538). The rst version of
his history was written in Italian and completed in 1509. A French translation by Balarin de
Raconis was published in 1519. In this version Spandounes alleges the use of chains of gold
and that the sultan was employed as Tem urs mounting block.
13
It is only in later revisions of
the text that Spandounes adds the reference to the cage.
14
He also includes a lurid description
of the public humiliation of Bayezids wives and concubines by Tem ur (Sachatai):
When Sachatai got back to Scytia he staged a magnicent triumph for his victory over Bayezid
and a great assembly attended by almost all of the lords and princes of Scytia; and the cage
containing Bayezid was brought in. Then [Sachatai] did something very out of keeping with his
grandeur and noble character. He had Ildrims wife, who was also his prisoner brought in and he
10
Chronicon Tarvisinum = Chronica composita ab eloquentissimo viro ser Andrea de Redusiis de Quero cancellario
communis Tarvisii, cols. 741866 in: Ludovico Muratori (ed.), Rerum Italicarum scriptores, vol. 19 (Milan, 1731),
see cols. 800801; Poggio Bracciolini, De varietate fortunae (ed.) and commentary by Outi Merisalo, Suomalaisen
Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia. Annales Academicae Scientiarum Fennicae. Series B, no. 265 (Helsinki, 1993), book 1,
ll.643644 (p. 108). The Vitae Ponticum of Bartolomeo Platini (Sacchi), rst published in Venice in 1479, mentions
that Bayezid was led in chains but does not refer to a cage. See The Lives of the Popes from the Time of Our Saviour
Jesus Christ to the Reign of Sixtus IV, trans. Paul Rycaut (London, 1685), p. 335. Another early source detailing
the captivity and mistreatment of the Ottoman sultan (but without mention of the cage) is: Annales estenses =
Chronica nova illustris et magnici Domini Nicolai Marchionis Estensis & c., cols. 9051096 in Muratori, (ed.) Rerum
Italicarum scriptores XVIII (Milan, 1731). See col. 974.
11
Cosmographie Pii Papae in Asiae et Europae eleganti descriptione (Paris, 1509).
12
The two relevant sections appear in Asia cap. 30 (Regem omnium potentissimum Pazaitem [Bayezid]
Turcorum dominum cum pari equitum numero et magnis peditum copiis neis suos tutantem apud Armenos prelio
superatum ducentis millibus hominum interfectis vivum caepit, caueque in modum fere inclusum per omnem Asiam
circumtulit egregium et admirandum humanarum rerum spectaculum) and Europe cap. 4 (Pazaitem cathena
vinctum prandens quasi canem sub mensa sua comedere iussit, ascensurus equum eo tanquam scabello usus est).
See: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Opera quae extant omnia (Basel, 1571), pp. 313, 394396. The readings given above
diverge somewhat from the 1571 edition. See Merisalo, Introduzione: Il De varietate fortunae, in Bracciolini,
Fortunae, p. 194.
13
Theodore Spandouginos, La genealogie du grant Turc a present regnant (Paris, 1519), chapter 5 (unpaginated
text). He writes: et tint cestuy Aldrin tout le temps de sa Vie enchaisne de chaisnes dor: & a chascune fois quil
vouloit monter a cheval ou en son chariot le faisoit conduyre devant luy / & en duy mettant le pied sur lespaulle
sailloit.
14
On the history of the text, see: Donald Nicols introduction in Theodore Spandounes, On the Origins of the
Ottoman Empire, trans. Donald Nicol (Cambridge, 1997), pp. xvii-xviii. His two revisions were completed in 1531
and 1538. Printed editions of the 1538 recension were published in Lucca (1550) and Florence (1551).
caused her clothes to be ripped down to her navel so that she showed all her pudenda; and he
made her wait upon and serve food to his guests. Ildrim, seeing his wife thus shamed, bewailed
his fortune and wanted to kill himself at once. But he had no knife or other means. So he banged
his head against the iron bars of his cage so hard that he dispatched himself miserably.
15
Constantine Mikhailovi c of Ostrovica (d. after 1563), who had served in the Ottoman army
and spoke Turkish, also alleges that Despina was forced to serve drinks to the guests of
Tem ur as a means to humiliate sultan Bayezid. Mikhailovi c claims that the sultan poisoned
himself using his own nger ring. No reference is made to the use of a cage and, in common
with the Persian sources, Mikhailovi cs account indicates that Tem ur was upset by Bayezids
suicide.
16
It is worth emphasising that, aside from early primary sources such as Schiltberger, Clavijo,
Boucicault, Jean of Sultaniyya (. late 14th to early 15th century), and Stefan Lazarevi c,
Despot of Serbia (r. 140227), the European authors mentioned above can hardly be viewed
as reliable sources on Timurid or Ottoman history.
17
The last generation of Byzantine
historians Laonicus Chalcocondyles (d. 1490), Michael Ducas (d. c.1470), and George
Phrantzes (also Sphrantzes, d. c.1478) appear to have been better informed about Turkish
history than their contemporaries in the Catholic West, probably as the result of direct or
indirect access to primary sources in Turkish, Persian or perhaps Arabic.
18
By contrast, only
one Western European scholar of the sixteenth century, Johannes Leunclavius (d. 1593),
is known to have consulted Turkish chronicles (see below). A few scholars of Ottoman
history most notably Paolo Giovio (d. 1552) tried to remedy their lack of knowledge
of Middle Eastern written sources by seeking out oral testimony of those who had travelled
to the Middle East and visual sources (such as the painted portraits of sultans produced
in Turkey).
19
Where these (often highly inaccurate) European histories are more valuable,
15
According to Donald Nicols translation in: Spandounes, On the Origins of the Ottoman Empire, pp. 2324.
16
The Czech text was rst published in Litomyasl in 1565 under the title, Historya neb Kronyka Turecka od
Michala Konstantina z Ostrowicze. For an English translation, see Konstantin Mikhailovi c (Constantine of Ostrovica),
Memoirs of a Janissary, trans. Benjamin Stolz with historical notes by Svat Soucek, Michigan Slavic Translations 3
(Ann Arbor, 1975). The relevant passage appears on p. 53. Tem urs reaction to the sultans suicide is recorded thus:
The Great Khan, seeing such an evil deed as this, that he had poisoned himself, said in their language: Yaban kaltil
gendizina kimisstur, which means A crazy man, that he should take his own life. I meant to let him go back home
honorably, and I am sorry that he put an end to himself so vilely. Then the Great Khan let all his men go, and
having respectfully dispatched Despina, had her accompanied all the way back to Brusa, to her land. Thus ended
the Turkish war with the Tartars.
17
For the account of Jean of Sultaniyya, see H. Moranvill e, M emoire sur Tamerlan et sa cour, par un
Dominicain, en 1403, Biblioth` eque de lEcole des Chartes LV.5 (September-October 1894), pp. 433464 (esp. pp. 458
459). On Stefan Lazarevi c, see: Lebensbeschreibung des Despoten Stefan Lazarevic con Konstantin dem Philosophen, (ed.)
Maximilian Braun, Slavo-Orientalia. Monographienreihe uber die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen der slavischen
und orientalischen Welt 1 (Wiesbaden and S-Gravenhage: Otto Harrassowitz and Mouton and Co., 1956),
pp. 1621.
18
For a brief summary of the writings on Turkish history by the last generation of Byzantine historians, see Sir
Steven Runciman, Byzantine historians and the Ottoman Turks, in Historians of the Middle East, (eds.) Bernard
Lewis and Peter Holt (London and New York, 1962), pp. 271276. On the discussion of Tem ur with a particular
emphasis on the writings of Chalcocondylas, see Nicolaos Nicoloudis, Byzantine historians on the wars of Timur
(Tamerlane) in Central Asia and the Middle East, Journal of Oriental and African Studies VIII (Athens, 1996),
pp. 8394.
19
On the study of Islamic history in fteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, see Vernon Parry, Renaissance
historical literature in relation to the Near and Middle East (with special reference to Paolo Giovio), in Lewis and
Holt, (eds.), Historians of the Middle East, pp. 277289; Linda Klinger, The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio,
2 vols. (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1991); Margaret Meserve, From Samarkand to Scythia:
however, is in gauging the perceptions of the Islamic world among the literate elite of Europe
during the period of the great military successes of the Ottoman empire. Clearly, from its
rst appearance in the second quarter of the fteenth century the idea that Bayezid had been
conned in a cage proved highly attractive to Europeans as they looked anxiously toward
the seemingly inexorable expansion of the Turkish polity.
The sufferings of Bayezid also found expression in Europe in the visual and dramatic arts
from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. While most printed books on Turkish
history were not illustrated, woodcut prints showing the fate of the Ottoman sultan appear
in works such as Philip Lonicers Chronicon Turcicorum (1578). Depictions of the capture and
caging of Bayezid were painted for the Neues Palais in Potsdam (by Andrea Celesti) and
Schloss Ambras in Graz (by Carl Franz Caspar or Andreas Raemblmayer). Tapestries were
also produced on these themes in Antwerp during the seventeenth century.
20
In Tamburlaine
the Great, rst performed in 1587, the dramatist, Christopher Marlowe (d. 1593), made his
Bayezid function as the footstool to the Scythian rulers throne. The confrontation between
Tem ur and Bayezid was explored by later playwrights, most successfully by Nicholas Rowe
(d. 1718) in his Tamerlane, a Tragedy (rst performed in 1701). Robert Irwin notes that Rowes
Tamerlane was performed annually on 5 November (the date of William of Oranges landing
in England) until 1815. Thus, for Protestant English audiences the glorious Tamerlane stood
for William III (r. 16881702) while Bayezid represented Catholic monarchy the French
ruler, Louis XIV (r. 16431715), and presumably also the deposed Stuart King James II
(r. 168588).
21
Several operas and even a ballet were also composed on the life of Tem ur
and his conict with Bayezid.
22
Clearly most of this literary and visual material is pure invention, and careful examination
can reveal the initial points of reference. For instance, in about 260 CE the Roman emperor
Valerian (r. 25360) suffered the indignity of becoming the mounting block of the Persian
shah Shapur (r. 24072). The event can be seen on a monumental rock relief at Tang-i
Chogan near Bishapur in Iran, while both Valerian and Philip the Arab (r. 24449) appear
in submissive poses before Shapur on a relief at Naqsh-i Rustam. More relevant for the
present purposes is the fact that the fate of Valerian became, for Christian moralists from
Lactantius (d. c.325) in the fourth century through to Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375) in his
De Casibus virorum illustrium (135574), a symbol of both the transience of earthly power and
Reinventions of Asia in Renaissance geography and political thought, in Pius II, el-pi` u expeditivo pontice:
Selected Studies on Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (14051464), (eds.) Zweder von Martels and Arjo Vanderjagt (Leiden
and Boston, 2003), pp. 1339; Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks
(Philadelphia, 2004).
20
For references to these works, see: Walter Denny, Images of Turks in the European imagination, in Walter
Denny et al., Court and Conquest: Ottoman Origins and the Design of Handels Tamerlano at the Glimmerglass Opera
(Kent, OH., 1999), pp. 318 (esp. pp. 69); Marcus Milwright, So despicable a vessel: Representations of Tamerlane
in printed books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Muqarnas, XXIII (2006), pp. 337338 n. 3.
21
Robert Irwin, Oriental despotism in eighteenth-century European literature (unpublished typescript). On
this theme, see also: Michael Curtis, Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East
and India (Cambridge and New York, 2009). On Rowes play, see: Donald Clark, The source and characterization
of Nicholas Rowes Tamerlane, Modern Language Notes LXV.3 (March 1950), pp. 145152.
22
Milwright, So despicable a vessel, p. 317.
divine retribution for the Roman emperors treatment of Christians.
23
This event is recorded
in visual form in illustrated manuscripts and printed versions of Boccaccios text (and the
popular translation by John Lydgate entitled, The Fall of Princes, completed in 143839).
24
Marlowes vision of Bayezid as the footstool to the throne appears earlier in the woodcut
frontispiece to the 1570 edition of John Foxes (d. 1587) Actes and Monuments of these Latter
and Perillous Days (also known as Foxes Book of Martyrs) in which Henry VIII (r. 150947)
makes similar use of pope Clement VII (r. 152334).
25
While it is possible to strip away much of the extraneous detail from these European
accounts, three accusations that the sultan was imprisoned in an iron cage, that his harem
was subjected to public indignities in his presence, and that his humiliations caused him to
commit suicide are not easily explained away simply as literary references to earlier events.
The rst of these, Bayezids imprisonment in a cage, has stimulated the greatest amount of
academic controversy from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The next
section of this article establishes the scholarly dramatis personae and how the debate over
the existence of the cage has evolved over this long period. The nal section re-examines
some of the oft-quoted primary sources in Greek and Arabic. We state from the outset that,
despite the condent assertions made by numerous scholars, we do not believe that the
sources allow for a denitive resolution concerning the existence or otherwise of the cage.
Of greater interest is the issue of the precise sources and methods employed by the many
historians who concerned themselves with the fate of the Ottoman sultan.
From dHerbelot to K opr ul u: Changing Academic Viewpoints
on Bayezids Cage
Modern studies of Ottoman and Timurid history exhibit little interest in the alleged caging
of Bayezid I by Tem ur. Passing over the question in silence, they tend to record simply
that the sultan died in captivity.
26
There are good reasons for this lack of elaboration;
it is the fact that Bayezids capture resulted in a debilitating civil war that is of primary
signicance in the historical record. Today it is left to more journalistic books such as Justin
Marozzis Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004) to revive the question of
the cage.
27
The point here is not to denigrate a readable and competent piece of popular
history, but to establish that the sources carefully marshalled by Marozzi in support of his
23
Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, edited and translated J. L. Creed (Oxford, 1984), 5.24; Giovanni
Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustribus 8.2. For an illustration of the relief at Naqsh-i Rustam, see: Peter Brown,
The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurielius to Muhammad (London, 1971), p. 19 no.11.
24
For Lydgates discussion of the fate of Emperor Valerian, see Lydgates Fall of Princes, (ed.) H. Bergen, 4
volumes (Washington, DC., 192327), iii, pp. 835837. The visual representations of the humiliations of both
Valerian and Bayezid will be presented by MM in a forthcoming paper.
25
Illustrated in Michael Hattaway (ed.), A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture (Oxford, 2002),
p. 369 pl.2.
26
For example, see Stanford Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Volume 1: Empire of the Gazis.
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire, 12801808 (London and New York, 1976), p. 35; Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire,
13001481 (Istanbul, 1990), pp. 5455; idem, The Ottoman Empire, 13001650: The Structure of Power (Basingstoke,
2002), p. 17; Beatrice Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge
and New York, 1989), p. 73.
27
Justin Marozzi, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (Cambridge, MA. and New York, 2004),
pp. 335337. The question of the cage is also dealt with in Patrick John Balfour (Lord Kinross), The Ottoman
Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (London, 1977), p. 76.
interpretation (he concludes that the cage was a ction) are largely the same as those employed
by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (d. 1856) in the rst volume of Geschichte des osmanischen
Reiches (1827). Many of these arguments are advanced earlier by Edward Gibbon (d. 1794)
in the nal volume of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1778). In turn, both relied
upon the collation of written sources presented in Barth elemy dHerbelot de Molainvilles
(d. 1695) Biblioth` eque orientale, ou dictionaire universel (published in 1697 after having been
completed by Antoine Galland [d. 1715], the famous translator of the Thousand and One
Nights).
DHerbelots Biblioth` eque orientale makes a good starting point for an analysis of the scholarly
debate over the caging of Bayezid.
28
The scope of dHerbelots reading of Arabic, Persian,
and Turkish sources far exceeded that of any previous reference work on Islamic history.
In the introductory section to his encyclopaedia he claims to have consulted the writings
of four key authors on the life of Tem ur: Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Arabshah (d. 1450),
Muhammad ibn Khavand Shah (Mirkhvand, d. 1498), Ghiyath al-Din Khvandamir (d. 1534
or 37), and Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi (d. 1454). Of these, only Ibn Arabshahs Kit ab al-
aj aib al-maqd ur f akhb ar Tm ur was available in printed form (both in Arabic and French
translation).
29
It is also evident that he is aware of some of the Turkish histories of the
fteenth and sixteenth centuries, although he does not name them in the list of authors he
had consulted. DHerbelot mentions the captivity of Bayezid briey in the entry devoted
to Tem ur (Timour), but the bulk of his comments on this question appear in the entry
entitled, Baiazid, ou Abu Iezid Ben Morad Gazi.
30
Without giving specic citations to
his sources, dHerbelot assembles a reconstruction of the encounter between Bayezid and
Tem ur in which the latter treats his captive with respect, offering him a meal in his tent.
They have a conversation that encompasses such issues as the government of empires and the
vissicitudes of fate. The discourse nishes with Tem ur posing a question; dHerbelot writes:
But having nished the conversation with a request as to what would have been the treatment
he would have received had he fallen into the same disgrace; this Sultan, who was naturally shy,
replied that he would have locked him [Tem ur] in an iron cage, and carried him about in this
state among all the provinces of his empire.
The victor, surprised by the brutality of his prisoners response, took at the same time the
resolution to treat him as he [Tem ur] would have been treated had he fallen into his [Bayezids
hands] . . .
31
28
Edward Pococke (d. 1691) should perhaps be credited as the rst true Orientalist to concern himself with
the caging of Bayezid, though his comments in the supplement to his history of Barhebraeus are not extensive.
See: Edward Pococke (ed.), Supplementum historiae dynastiarum in quo historiae orientalis series a Gregorii Abul-Faragii
(Oxford, 1663), p. 45 no.4. On the history of European and North American Orientalist scholarship, see Robert
Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies (London, 2006, reprinted 2007).
29
The two editions of Ahmad b. Muhammad ibn Arabshahs text are Ahmedis Arabsiadae: Vitae et rerum gestarum
Timuri, qui vulgo Tamerlaini dicitur historia, (ed.) Jacobus Golius (Leiden, 1636); Lhistoire du grand Tamerlan, trans.
Pierre Vattier (Paris, 1658).
30
Barth elemy dHerbelot, Biblioth` eque orientale ou dictionaire universel (Paris, 1697), pp. 175176 (Baiazid),
pp. 877888 (Timour).
31
DHerbelot, Biblioth` eque orientale, p. 176: . . . mais ayant termin e la conversation par une demande quil lui
t sur le traitement quil auroit recu de lui en cas quil f ut tomb e dans la m eme disgrace; ce Sultan, qui etoit dun
naturel farouche, lui r epondit quil auroit enferm e dans la cage de fer, et fait porter en cet etat dans toutes les
provinces de son Empire.
According to dHerbelots account, Tem ur was unable to take Bayezid all the way to
Samarqand because of the latters death in 804 (this should be 805). DHerbelot concludes by
noting that some Turkish historians claim the sultan died by his own hand. As already
noted, Leunclavius was able to exploit these sources with the aid of a translator, one
Johannes Gaudier (known as Spiegel) in his Annales sultanorum Othmanidarum (1588).
Leunclavius also claims considerable familiarity with Medieval Greek histories.
32
He records
the conversation between Tem ur and Bayezid in similar terms to dHerbelot, and his version
was then repeated in Jean-Jacques Boissards (d. 1602), Vitae et icones sultanorum (1596) and
Richard Knolles (d. 1610) The generall Historie of the Turkes (1603).
33
The rst of the major Persian historians of this period to be made widely available to
European scholars was Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi. His panegyric biography of Tem ur, the
Z
.
afarn ama, was translated into French by Alexandre P etis de la Croix (d. 1751) and published
under the title Histoire de Timur-bec in 1722. An English translation of this edition appeared
in the following year.
34
According to Yazdi, Bayezid was brought as a prisoner with his
hands tied into the presence of Tem ur. The latter was touched by pity and compassion, and
ordered the sultans hands to be freed before they started their conversation. Tem urs gracious
manner leads Bayezid to admit the fault of his actions, and the remainder of Yazdis account
emphasises the good treatment of Bayezid prior to his death from apoplexy (an event that
apparently much affected Tem ur as he had intended to replace the Turkish sultan on his
throne).
35
P etis de la Croix was well aware of the stories regarding the caging of Bayezid.
Adopting a more critical stance to the available Islamic sources than one sees in DHerbelots
entry on Bayezid and the works of other earlier writers, P etis de la Croix remarks in the
introduction to his translation:
As Timur-Bec had defeated the Turks and Arabs from Syria, and he had taken even the Sultan
Bajazet, it is small wonder he was mistreated by the Historians of these Nations, who in deance
of truth, and against the dignity of history, have fallen into [treating] this subject with great
excess. We see by the lecture of Condemir, and of many other historians, that everything they
have written of the origin and adventures of Timur-Bec, are fables and that their animosity
against the Prince made them invent [these]. So to destroy completely the fable, we will attach
[to him] the name of Timur-Bec, and lose that of Tamerlane which has been adopted.
36
Le vainqueur surpris dune r eponse si brutale de son prisonnier, prit m eme temps la resolution de lui faire le
m eme traitement quil auroit recu de lui, sil etoit tomb e entre ses mains . . .
32
Johannes Leuclavius, Annales sultanorum Othmanidarum (Frankfurt, 1588), pp. 2425. His Greek sources are
listed in the last page of the index (unpaginated). He gives the following list: Chronica diuersa manuscripta,
Graeca, Latina, Germanica, Emanuel Musicius Atheniensis, Georgius Hustius Illyricus, Georgius Pachymerius,
Nicephorus Gregoras, Nicetas Choniates, Nicolaus Nicolaides Delphinas, Nicolaus Sophianus, Origines vrbis
Constantinopolitanae liber m.s., Petrus Bizarus, Philippus Callimachus, Praetor Graeciae, manuscr., Thomas
Spanduginus Cantacuzenus, Zonaras, Zosimus Comes, Zygomalas Protonotarius Graecus.
33
Jean-Jacques Boissard, Vitae et icones sultanorum Turcicorum (Frankfurt, 1596), f. 13r; Richard Knolles, The
Generall Historie of the Turkes (London, 1603), pp. 220221.
34
Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi, Histoire de Timur-bec, connu sous le nom du grand Tamerlan, empereur des Mogols et
Tartares, trans. Alexandre P etis de la Croix, 4 vols. (Paris, 1722). The English translation of the French edition was
made by John Darby under the title, The History of Timur-Bec, known by the Name of Tamerlain the Great, Emperor of
the Moguls and Tartars (London, 1723).
35
Yazdi, Histoire de Timur-bec, iv, p. 65 (chapter LX).
36
P etis de la Croixs introduction in Yazdi, Histoire de Timur-bec, i, pp. xvii-xviii. Comme Timur-Bec avoit
vaincu des Turcs & les Arabes de Syrie, quil avoit pris m eme le Sultan Bajazet, il ne faut pas s etonner quil ait et e
maltrait e par les Historiens de ces Nations, lesquels au m epris de la verit e, & contre la dignit e de lhistoire, sont
The person identied as Condemir in this passage is Demetrie Cantemir, Voivode of
Moldavia (d. 1723), whose inuential The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman
Empire was translated into English in 173435. Cantemir followed the prevalent view that
Bayezid had been conned in a cage.
37
In the footnote to the paragraph quoted above P etis
de la Croixs offers further thoughts on the cage:
These are passionate historians who invented the fable of the iron cage, in which they say the
victor had placed Bajazet. And it was followed by several Europeans, but we see the fallacy in [the
writing of] our author (Yazdi), who is contemporary, and reports to the contrary, that Timur-Bec
always treated Bajazet as his equal, and that he restored to him all the honours due to the most
important kings.
38
Additional support for P etis de la Croixs positive assessment of Tem urs conduct was provided
later in David Prices (d. 1835), Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the principal Events
of Mahommedan History (181121), a three-volume work largely based on translations of
Mirkhvands vast history, T arkh-i rawz
.
at al-S
.
af a.
39
Differing only in relatively minor details
(such as the cause of sultans death from asthma and inammation of the throat) from Yazdis
version of events, Prices collation of Mirkhwand and other Persian authors appears to have
been little noted by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars who have dealt with
Bayezids cage. This oversight may have been because Yazdis biography was so entrenched
in European scholarship by this time, and was perhaps also due to the fact that in the
Chronological Retrospect it is very difcult to prise apart the original translations from the
translators commentary. Mirkhvand is now regarded as an important source on the life
of Tem ur because of his use of rst-hand testimony. In this respect, his assertions based
on the testimony of an eye-witness, Sayyid Ahmad Tarkhan, brother-in-law of Shahrukh
(r. 140547)
40
that Bayezid was brought bound into Tem urs presence, but that he was
subsequently unmanacled and never conned in a cage, carry considerable weight.
41
An
tombez sur ce sujet dans de grand exc es. On voit par la lecture de Condemir, & de quantit e dautres Historiens,
que tout ce quils ont ecrit de lorigine & des avantures de Timur-Bec, sont des fables, que leur animosit e contre ce
Prince leur a fait inventer. Ainsi pour d etruire entierement la fable, nous nous attacherons au nom de Timur-Bec,
& laisserons celui de Tamerlan quelle avoit adopt e.
37
Demetrie Cantemir (Kantemir), The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire. Part One: Containing
the Growth of the Ottoman Empire from the Reign of Othman the Founder, to the Reign of Mahomet IV. That is, from the
year 1300, to the Siege of Vienna, in 1683, trans. N. Tindall (London, 173435). On the reign of Bayezid, see Part
One, pp. 4657. Cantemirs discussion of the cage appears on p. 55.
38
P etis de la Croixs introduction in Yazdi, Histoire de Timur-bec, i, p. xvii note (a). Ce sont ces Historiens
passionez qui ont invent e la Fable de la cage de fer, dans laquelle ils disent que le Vainqueur t mettre Bajazet
& il ont et e suivis par plusieurs Europ eens: mais on en voit la fausset e dans notre auteur, qui est contemporain,
& qui rapporte au contraire, que Timur-Bec traita toujours Bajazet comme son egal, & quil lui t rendre tous
les honneurs qui sont d us aux plus grands Rois. Elsewhere P etis de la Croix notes his awareness of the French
translation (by Pierre Vattier) of Ibn Arabshah. He also remarks that he became aware of Clavijos work only after
he had completed his translation.
39
Muhammad b. Khvand Shah b. Mahmud (Mirkhvand), Chronological Retrospect or Memoirs of the principal
Events of Mahommedan History, from the Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of the Emperor Akbar, and the
Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustaun, trans. David Price, 3 vols. (London, 181121). The relevant events
appear in vol.iii.1, pp. 393423.
40
Mirkhvand, Chronological Retrospect, iii.1, p. 394. Shahrukh granted land to Sayyid Ahmad Tarkhan in
810/140708. See Manz, Rise and Rule, p. 140.
41
For the relevant events in a modern edition, see Mirkhvand, T arkh-i rawz
.
at al-S
.
af a (ed.) Riza Quli Khan
Hidayat and Jamshid Kiyanfar (Tehran, 2001), ix, pp. 50265039.
edition of Khvandamirs chronicle, Habb al-siyar, was published in 1857, but it had no
noticeable impact upon the debate.
42
The increasingly critical evaluation of source material is a feature of later scholarly
contributions in the second half of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Voltaire
(Francois-Marie Arouet, d. 1778) turned his attention to the question of the treatment of
Bayezid in Chapter 75 of his Essai sur lhistoire g en erale (1756 and translated into English in
1782). Without citing specic primary sources, he asserts that the cage is not mentioned by
Persian or Arab authors, and appears in the Turkish chronicles perhaps in order to render
Tamerlane odious; or rather because they copied it from the Greek historians. His Tem ur
is very much the magnanimous ruler drawn by Yazdi, and this characterisation leads Voltaire
to conclude that it is difcult to reconcile the iron cage, and the base affront done to
Bajazets wife, with the generosity which the Turks attribute to Tamerlane. He extends his
scepticism to all Islamic sources noting that Oriental historians often put grandiose words
into the mouths of their subjects.
43
Voltaires assessment of the problems inherent in the interpretation of Islamic histories is
noted approvingly by Edward Gibbon in the nal volume of the Decline and Fall.
44
Straying
well beyond his remit of writing the history of the Roman empire through to the fall of
Constantinople in 1453, Gibbon devotes considerable attention to aspects of Islamic and
Asian history. His fascination with the Mongols has been discussed by David Morgan,
45
and
it is little surprise that he should also have been intrigued by the personality and achievements
of Tem ur. Unable to read Arabic or Persian, Gibbon went to considerable effort to consult
all of the published translations of Middle Eastern histories, supplementing this with an
extensive knowledge of primary sources in Greek and Latin. His treatment of the caging of
Bayezid represented the most comprehensive examination yet of the primary sources, and
was undertaken with his characteristic acuity. He notes that the story of the iron cage was
employed in past times as a moral lesson, and that it is now rejected as a fable by modern
writers, who smile on vulgar credulity.
46
In order to come to his own conclusion, however,
Gibbon sifts through the information in the primary sources at his disposal.
Gibbons assesses the potential veracity of those writers who claim the good treatment
of Bayezid and of those who assert that Tem ur conned him in a cage. Emphasis is
given to Yazdis positive portrayal of Tem urs behaviour, particularly in view of its early
composition (in the 1420s) and the consistencies evident between the Z
.
afarn ama and other
Persian accounts cited by dHerbelot. Gibbon is, however, wary of the attery that, in his
42
Ghiyath al-Din ibn Humam al-Din Khvandamir, The Habeeb-os-seear: Being the History of the World from the
earliest Times to the Year of the Hejira 930 A.D. (Bombay, 1857).
43
According to translation in Voltaire, An Essay on universal History and the Manners and Spirit of Nations from the
Reign of Charlemagne, to the Age of Lewis XIV, trans. Mr Nugent (Edinburgh, 1782), pp. 8788. For the French text,
see Essai sur les moeurs et lesprit des nations et sur les principaux faits de lhistoire depuis Charlemagne jusqu` a Louis XIII,
tome 1, (ed.) Ren e Pomeau (Paris, 1963), pp. 805806.
44
Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (ed.) J. B. Bury, second edition
(London, 1902), vii, pp. 6065.
45
David Morgan, Edward Gibbon and the East, Iran, XXXIII (1995), pp. 8592. Also Rolando Minuti,
Gibbon and the Asiatic barbarians: Notes on the French sources of The Decline and Fall, in Edward Gibbon,
Bicentenary Essays, (ed.) David Womersley, Studies on Voltaire in the Eighteenth Century CCCLV (Oxford, 1997),
pp. 2144.
46
Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vii, p. 60.
opinion, pervades such sources, and turns his attention to evidence in favour of the cage. In
addition to the quotes of Poggius Bracciolini, Gibbon adduces other references to the cage
in European writings of the rst three decades of the fteenth century. He then addresses
the important Arabic source, Ibn Arabshah, whose history of Tem ur is characterised by
Gibbon as orid and malevolent. That said, he is struck by the correspondence between
the broadly contemporaneous testimonies of Europeans like Bracciolini and Ibn Arabshah
in the matter of the cage. Ibn Arabshah also adds details concerning the humiliation of the
concubines and wives of Bayezid. Of the Greek historians Gibbon singles out Phrantzes,
partly on chronological grounds, but mainly because he was sent in 1429 as an ambassador to
Murad II (r. 142144, 144651) and, therefore, may have conversed with elderly janissaries
who had also been imprisoned by Tem ur. According to Gibbon (and many later scholars),
Phrantzes is the one fteenth-century Greek historian to refer to the employment of a cage
to conne sultan Bayezid. Lastly, referring to the Turkish historians who write about the
cage, Gibbon remarks, . . . some credit may be allowed to national historians, who cannot
stigmatise the Tartar without uncovering the shame of their king and country.
47
Faced
with two conicting bodies of evidence Gibbon seeks for a fair and moderate conclusion.
He writes:
I am satised that Sherefeddin Ali [Yazdi] has faithfully described the rst ostentatious interview,
in which the conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected the character of
generosity. But his mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; the
complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just and vehement; and Timour betrayed
a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape,
by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul [sic] emperor to impose a harsher restraint;
and, in his perpetual marches, an iron cage or waggon might be invented, not as a wanton insult,
but as a rigorous precaution.
48
The severity of this treatment leads Gibbon to conclude that Tem ur could be held
responsible for the Ottoman sultans untimely death.
49
Both Voltaire and Gibbon portray
the actions and character of Tem ur in a relatively positive light. Their comments should be
seen in the wider context of the debate concerning Oriental despotism in eighteenth-
century Europe. In their favourable assessment of some Muslim rulers Voltaire and
Gibbon can be grouped with such Orientalists as Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron
(d. 1805) and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (d. 1838) on the opposite side of the European
view of despotism from Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (d. 1755).
50
Further
conrmation of the statesmanlike character of Tem ur was provided by the publication of
A Specimen of the civil and military Institutes of Timour, or Tamerlane (1780), translated from
a Persian manuscript by Joseph White. Although it is now recognised as a work of the
Mughal court in the seventeenth century, the Institutes of Timour exerted some inuence
over scholarly views of Tem ur in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
51
Notably,
47
Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vii, p. 64.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid.
50
Irwin, Oriental despotism; Curtis, Orientalism and Islam, pp. 72102.
51
John White (trans.), A Specimen of the civil and military Institutes of Timour, or Tamerlane (Oxford, 1780). An
improved English translation was made by Major William Davy (1783) and a French translation was completed by
Gibbon had also written admiringly of the law code (yasa) attributed to Chinggiz Khan
(Genghis Khan, d. 1227), even comparing it to the Constitutions of Carolina (1669) by John
Locke (d. 1704) and Anthony Ashley-Cooper, rst earl of Shaftesbury (d. 1683).
52
An inuential contribution to the study of the primary sources dealing with Bayezids cage
was made by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall in the rst volume of his Geschichte des osmanischen
Reiches (1827).
53
Aside from his examination of the Turkish historians, Ashikpashazade
(d. 1481), Mehmed Neshri (d. c.1520), and Hoca Sad al-Din Efendi (d. 1599), the key
element of his argument is philological. He focuses his attention on the meaning of the
Turkish word, qafes, that was commonly understood to mean simply cage. Relevant too
is the Arabic term qafas used by Ibn Arabshah in his life of Tem ur. Crucially, Von Hammer
points out that qafes (he transcribes the word as kafes) does not simply have to be read as
cage (K ach), but can also be understood as a barred room (ein vergittertes Zimmer) or a
barred litter (S anfte). He argues that this misunderstanding has led to the perpetuation of
the fairytale (M ahrchen) of the iron cage in the writings of Ibn Arabshah, Phrantzes and
numerous Western European historians.
54
Von Hammer points to a passage in the chronicle
of Neshri that is translated in Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches as, Timur liess eine S anfte
machen, in der man ihn (Bajesid) wie in einem Kafes zwischen zwey Pferden trug.
55
Thus,
Neshris account appears to be specifying a litter held between two horses. In addition, this
term was often applied to the litters used to carry women of the harem, and could even be
applied to the residence (Wohnung) of the princes in the palace of Constantinople. In this
last context, qafes implies also the ritual seclusion that was established around the sultan and
the princes of the Ottoman dynasty. According to Von Hammers interpretation qafes loses
most of its negative connotations. Thus, Tem urs actions were, as is implied in the Persian
accounts, consistent with the necessary respect for the dignity of this royal captive.
While Von Hammer-Purgstalls analysis of the Turkish word qafes was widely accepted
throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a note of dissent was offered by
Gustav Weil in Volume 5 of his Geschichte der Chalifen (1862).
56
Weil pointed to the fact that
the Arabic termqafas lacks the secondary meanings found in Ottoman Turkish. He concluded
that Ibn Arabshah, an author conversant with Turkish source material, would have been
able to substitute a suitable Arabic term for litter (or, at least, some further clarication in
the text) if that were what he actually wanted to indicate. Weils scepticism concerning Von
Hammers approach is echoed by Herbert Gibbons (d. 1934) in The Foundation of the Ottoman
Louis Langl` es (1787). For a critical assessment of the Institutes, see Gergely Csiky, The Tuzukat-i Timuri as a source
for military history, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungarium, LIX.4 (2006), pp. 439491.
52
Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vii, p. 4 n. 8.
53
Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. Erster Band: Von der Gr undung des osmanischen
Reiches bis zur Eroberung Constantinopels, 13001453 (Pest, 1827), pp. 317323. Von Hammer also later translated parts
of the Sey ahatn ame of Evliya C elebi (d. 1682), including the section in which the author repeats the story of the
conversation that led to the caging of Bayezid by Tem ur. See Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa in the
seventeenth Century by Evliya Efendi, trans. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (London, 1846), i, p. 29.
54
Writing earlier in the century the Marquis de Salaberry dIrumberry put forward the claim that the reference
to the cage in Ibn Arabshahs text was an interpolation by his Turkish editor and translator, Nazmi-zade. See
Histoire de lempire Ottoman, depuis sa fondation jusqu` a la paix de Yassi, en 1792, 4 vols. (Paris, 1813), iv, pp. 200201.
Cited in Gibbons, Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, p. 255 n. 1.
55
Von Hammer, Geschichte, p. 320.
56
Gustav Weil, Geschichte des Abbasidenchalifats in Egypten, Vol. II ( = Geschichte der Chalifen Vol. V) (Stuttgart,
1862), p. 96.
Empire (1916). Gibbons also suggests that for Bayezid the humiliation of being placed in a
harem litter like a woman would have been no less than being placed in a cage meant for
a wild beast.
57
Two points may be offered in support of Weils viewpoint. The rst relates to the semantic
range of qafas in Medieval Arabic sources. For scholars of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century there existed two readily accessible reference works Edward Lanes
(d. 1876) Arabic-English Lexicon (186393) and Reinhart Dozys (d. 1883), Suppl ement aux
dictionnaires arabes (1881) that offered denitions for qafas as well as examples of primary
texts in which the word appears.
58
Curiously, we have found no evidence that these works
were consulted by any scholar writing about the caging of Bayezid. Lanes Lexicon does
record a meaning of a thing composed of two curved pieces of wood between which is a
net, but this does not appear to be something sufciently substantial to carry or enclose a
man. Furthermore, the rst denitions offered in this entry in the Lexicon indicate relatively
small objects such as a cage or coop (made of wood or reeds) for conning birds or animals.
Lane also notes that the word can refer to the the cage-formed structure of the bones of
the thorax. The second point is that had Ibn Arabshah intended his use of qafas to bear the
meanings it carries in Turkish, one might have expected the word to have been repeated in
subsequent retellings of the captivity of Bayezid by other Arab historians. No mention of a
qafas is found in Ibn Taghribirdis (d. 1470) account of these events in al-Nuj um al-z ahira f
mul uk misr wal-q ahira, even though he was personally acquainted with Ibn Arabshah.
59
Ibn
Taghribirdi records only that the sultan appeared before Tem ur hobbling in shackles (qayd
pl. quy d) and that he was held in this manner at the time of his death in prison in the
month of Dhu al-Hijja 805 (June 1403).
60
Between the 1860s and the 1940s most of the signicant contributions to the debate over
the caging of Bayezid focused upon the information in the earliest Turkish histories.
61
The
relevant sections of Neshris account of the Ottoman dynasty were edited with a German
translation by Theodor N oldeke (d. 1930) in 1861.
62
Franz Babinger (d. 1967) produced
an edition of the chronicle by Uruj b. Adil (. late fteenth century) in 1925 which
was exploited by Nicholas Martinovitch in a short article published in the Journal Asiatique
57
Gibbons, Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, p. 255 n. 1.
58
Edward Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, derived from the best and most copious Eastern sources (London, 186393,
reprinted Cambridge, 1984), book 1, p. 2551; Reinhart Dozy, Suppl ement aux dictionnaires arabes (Leiden, 1881), ii,
p. 391. Lanes Lexicon made extensive use of the monumental eighteenth-century dictionary of classical Arabic, T aj
al-Ar us, rst published in Cairo in 1888/8990.
59
For the biography of Ibn Arabshah and his relations with other fteenth-century scholars, see McChesney,
Robert, A note on the life and works of Ibn Arabshah, in Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh Quinn (eds.), History and
Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Wiesbaden, 2006),
pp. 205249. Also J. Pedersen, Ibn Arabshah, Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition (Leiden, 19602002), ii, p. 711.
60
Abu al-Mahasin ibn Taghribirdi, Ab u l-Mah asin ibn Taghr Birds Annals entitled, al-Nuj um az-Z ahira f Mul uk
Misr wal-K ahira (Vol. VI, part I, No. 1) , (ed.) William Popper, University of California Publications in Semitic
Philology VI.1 (Berkeley, 1915), pp. 8384. Translated by William Popper as History of Egypt, 13821469. Part II,
13991411 A.D. Translated from the Arabic Annals of Ab u l-Mah asin ibn Taghr Bird, University of California Publications
in Semitic Philology XIV (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954), pp. 6162.
61
Discussions of the cage also appear in histories of the Ottoman sultanate and of the Byzantine empire during
this period, but none advances new primary source material. For example, see: Edwin Pears, The Destruction of
the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks (London, 1903), pp. 144145; Gibbons,
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, pp. 254256 and notes.
62
For the reference to the qafes made for Bayezid, see: Theodor N oldeke, Ausz uge aus Nes ris Geschichte des
osm anischen Hauses, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl andischen Gesellschaft, XV (1861), p. 367.
in 1927.
63
Uruj b. Adil records the alleged conversation in which Bayezid, in answer
to Tem urs question of what would have happened if their situations had been reversed,
carelessly responded that he would have imprisoned his captive in an iron cage (qafes). This
remark seals his fate as Tem ur immediately orders a cage to be made in order to conne the
Ottoman sultan. Martinovitch condently asserts that this relatively early account (in fact,
written several decades after the earliest European references to the cage) denitively solves
the question of the cage. He appears to have been unaware that European scholars including
Leunclavius in the late sixteenth and dHerbelot in the late seventeenth century were already
aware of Turkish sources recording this supposed conversation. In his article Martinovitch
also surveys the Russian publications that discuss Bayezids cage.
The last major salvo in this scholarly controversy was penned by the Turkish scholar,
Mehmet Fuad K opr ul u (d. 1966) for the journal, Belleten. Entitled, Yildirim Beyazdn
esareti ve nthari hakkinda (On the story of Bayezid Yildirims captivity and suicide),
K opr ul us article represents the most sustained Quellenkritik of the Turkish, Persian, and
Arabic sources that discuss the treatment of Bayezid from his initial capture through to his
death. A second article by the author revisiting the question of Bayezids alleged suicide
appeared in the 1942 issue of Belleten.
64
Split into two halves (the rst dealing with the
cage and the second with the allegation that the Ottoman sultan killed himself), the 1937
article starts with a brief summary of the major primary sources and of the interpretations
offered by earlier scholars. K opr ul u disagrees with Von Hammers conclusion that the cage
was no more than a legend. He also questions Martinovitchs assertions and the reliability
of Babingers edition of Uruj b. Adil as a tool for the study of the period. In common
with Herbert Gibbons he believes that the question of the historicity of the cage is yet far
from being resolved.
65
Notable too is the praise he has for Edward Gibbons undogmatic
methodology and conclusions regarding the cage.
K opr ul us analysis of the Turkish sources is of great importance.
66
He divides the accounts
into those that make no mention of the cage or seek to discount its existence from those that
write of it as an historical event. The rst group includes the very earliest Ottoman chronicles,
Sukrullahs Behcat-ul Tevarikh and the history of Muhammad b. Haci Halil Koneviim, and
other later works by Idris Bitlisi, Ibn Kemal (Kemalpashazade), and Sad al-Din Hoca.
What holds this rst group together is that they were either court historians (who had
a vested interest in expunging evidence of the humiliation of a sultan of the dynasty) or
simply writers aiming to praise the Ottoman rulers. Sad al-Din, considered by K opr ul u
as an ofcial historian of the Ottoman state, went to particular lengths to try to show the
cage to be a rumour (including consulting Yazdis Zafarn ama), and his scepticism probably
63
Franz Babinger (ed.), Die fr uhosmanischen Jahrb ucher des Urudsch, Quellenwerke des islamischen Schrifttums
2 (Hannover, 1925), pp. 3536; N. Martinovitch, La cage du Sultan Bayazid, Journal Asiatique CCXI.1 (July-
September 1927), pp. 135137. He translates the relevant section of Urujs chronicle on p. 137. A version of the
same story appears (without an attribution to a specic author) in Henry Keene and Thomas Beale, An Oriental
Biographical Dictionary (London, 1894, reprinted New York, 1965), p. 99 (Baiazid I).
64
Mehmet Fuad K opr ul u, Yildirim Beyazdn esareti ve nthari hakkinda, Belleten. T urk Tarh Kurumu, I.2
(1937), pp. 591603 (on the cage, see pp. 591598); idem, Yildirim Bayezdn nthari meseles, Belleten. T urk
Tarh Kurumu, VII (1943), pp. 591599.
65
K opr ul u, Yildirim Beyazdn esareti, p. 592.
66
Ibid,. pp. 592595.
inuenced the approach taken by Von Hammer. Among this rst group K opr ul u identies
one exception: Sehnameci Lokman who in the late sixteenth century wrote that Timur
had a cage made out of iron that looked like a throne (taht) and put Yildirim in it. As
K opr ul u notes, although the account claims the object looked like a throne, it is clearly a type
of cage (qafes).
The second group is composed of independent historians from among the Anatolian Turks
who felt no need to praise the Ottoman sultans. These include the anonymous, Tevarikh-i
Al-i Osman, the histories of Uruj, Ashikpashazade, Muhyiddin, Lut Pasha, Neshri, and the
verse history of Hadidi. Ashikpashazades account is interesting in that he claims it to have
been based on the testimony of a left-handed individual who was in the service of Bayezid
from the battle of Ankara through to his death in captivity. While Von Hammer inferred it
was a palanquin not a cage that was made for the Ottoman sultan, K opr ul u draws attention
to Ashikpashazades actual statement: the cage was not a palanquin (taht-i revan) that was
merely aimed for the transportation of the captive sultan, but a vessel that would prevent
him from escaping.
67
From these sources K opr ul u concludes that the rumour about the
cage was circulating in Anatolia in the early fteenth century. According to K opr ul u further
conrmation of this comes from the chronicle of Phrantzes, who had visited the Ottoman
court in 1429 and Ibn Arabshah, who had also spent time in Anatolia and was conversant
in Turkish. Another Arabic historian, Ibn Iyas (d. after 1521), also records the story of the
cage in his chronicle, perhaps drawing on Ibn Arabshah or traditions circulating among
the Ottoman conquerors of Egypt. K opr ul u mentions the Greek historian, Spandounes, as
another who had been in Turkey and had close relations with Ottoman court circles (though
K opr ul u was unaware that the earliest published editions of Spandounes history lack any
reference to the cage see above).
On the basis of his analysis of the sources K opr ul u concludes that the cage was most
probably an historical fact. He favours the reconstruction offered by Edward Gibbon.
That the Persian sources he cites Yazdi, Nizam al-Din Shami (. 1404) and Haz Abru
(d. 1430) make no mention of can be explained by their desire to show Tem ur in the
best possible light. The omission of the cage from many of the Byzantine and Western
European accounts is not seen by K opr ul u as sufcient reason to deny its existence. Finally,
he identies examples from Arabic and Persian chronicles of the caging or placing in chains
of captured princes and sultans. In addition, K opr ul u cites an example of similar treatment
of Christian merchants from the writings of Jean de Joinville (d. 1317), companion of Louis
67
K opr ul u, Yildirim Beyazdn esareti, p. 593. Dimitris Kastritsis kindly provided a translation of the relevant
passage in Ashikpashazades chronicle. Signicantly, the Turkish author claims to derive his information from a rst-
hand source, a soldier in Bayezids elite guards. It reads: Question: Oh dervish, since you yourself were not at that
battle [i.e. Ankara] from whom are you transmitting this story? Answer: There was a naib in Bursa named Koca
Naib, who was one of Bayezid Khans solaks [elite guards] and was with him when he was taken prisoner. He was
also with him in Aksehir when he passed away. I asked him how did Timur keep Bayezid? and he answered, he
had a litter [taht-i revan)] constructed, like a cage [qafes] suspended between two horses. Whenever they travelled,
[Timur] had [Bayezid] transported [in the litter] in front of him, and when they camped he had him placed in
front of his own tent. This Koja Naib I am talking about went to Sultan Mehmed, who gave him the command
of the castle of Amasya, and when he got old Sultan Murad brought him to Bursa and gave him a naibship. I have
not transmitted most of his story, for that would make my account too long. For the original Ottoman Turkish,
see Friedrich Giese (ed.), Die altosmanische Chronik des Asikpasazade auf Grund mehrerer neuentdeckter Handschriften
(Leipzig, 1929), p. 71.
IX (r. 122670) on the Seventh Crusade, and the popular Su verse that the physical body
is an iron cage that imprisons the spirit.
68
While no major advances have been made in the analysis of Islamic primary sources
surrounding the captivity of Bayezid since K opr ul us 1937 article, mention should be made
of the collation of European and Middle Eastern primary sources offered in Marie-Mathilde
Alexandrescu-Derscas 1942 publication, La Campagne de Timur en Anatolie (1402).
69
Michele
Bernardini has conducted the most detailed analysis of the primary and secondary sources on
the cage in recent years, also making numerous important observations about the portrayal of
the conict between Tem ur in European dramatic traditions.
70
Most of the signicant Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish sources are now available in critical editions. An English translation of
Ibn Arabshahs life of Tem ur by John Sanders was published in 1936, and modern popular
biographies of Tem ur were written by Harold Lamb (1928) and Hilda Hookham (1962).
71
Adam Knobler has brought to light additional European primary sources dating from the
last years of Tem urs rule.
72
Lastly, the question of Bayezids cage has also been explored by
scholars of Christopher Marlowe. The most thorough examination of the sources consulted
by Marlowe is provided by Una Ellis-Fermor (d. 1958) in the introduction to her edition
of Tamburlaine the Great (1930).
73
Although she incorrectly identies the chronicle of the
Armenian, Hetum (d. c.1311), as a primary source for the life of Tem ur (this nal section of
the early printed versions of Les ors des histoires is, in fact, a later addition
74
), her discussion
of the sources is, nevertheless, intriguing as a guide to what an educated reader of the late
sixteenth century would have been able to learn about the lives of Tem ur and Bayezid
through consultation of European printed books.
Re-evaluating the Greek and Arabic Sources
It is beyond the scope of this article to present a critical analysis of all the primary sources
dealing with the treatment of Bayezid during this captivity. A detailed examination of the
pertinent material in the earliest Turkish histories is certainly required, and the Arabic,
68
K opr ul u, Yildirim Beyazdn esareti, pp. 597598.
69
See Appendice IV: La cage de fer, in Alexandrescu-Dersca, Campagne de Timur, pp. 120122.
70
Michele Bernardini, Tamerlano e Bayezid in gabbia. Fortuna di un tema storico orientale nellarte e nel
teatro del Settecento, in La Conoscenza dellAsia e dellAfrica in Italia nei secoli XVII e XIX, a c, vol. III.2 , (eds.)
U. Marazzi and A. Gallotta (Naples, 1989), pp. 729760. See also idem, Tamerlano protagonista orientale del
Settocento europeo, in Mappe della Letteratura Europea e Mediterranea, (ed.) Gian Mario Anselmi, Dal Barrocco
allOttocento 2 (Milan, 2000), pp. 227248; idem, Tamerlano, i Genovesi e il favoloso Axalla, in Europa e Islam tra
i Secoli XIV e XVI, (eds.) M. Bernadini, E. Garcia, A. Cerbo and C. Borrelli, Collana Matteo Ripa 17 (Naples,
2002), pp. 391426.
71
Ibn Arabshah, Tamerlane, or Timur the great Amir, trans. John Sanders (London, 1936, reprinted Lahore, 1976);
Harold Lamb, Tamerlane, the Earth Shaker (New York, 1928); Hilda Hookham, Tamburlaine the Conqueror (London,
1964).
72
Adam Knobler, Timur the (Terrible/Tartar) trope: A case of repositioning in popular literature and history,
Medieval Encounters VII.1 (2001), pp. 101112 (esp. pp. 101104).
73
Una Ellis-Fermor, Sources of the play, in Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, in two Parts, (ed.)
Una Ellis-Fermor (London, 1930), pp. 1761. Other investigations of the sources employed by Marlowe in the
writing of Tamburlaine the Great include Ethel Seaton, Fresh sources for Marlowe, The Review of English Studies,
V.20 (October 1929), pp. 385401; Samuel Chew, The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England during the Renaissance
(Oxford, 1937), pp. 469470.
74
Beatrice Manz, Tamerlanes career and its uses, Journal of World History, XIII.1 (2002), p. 12 n. 26; Milwright,
So despicable a vessel, p. 338 n. 15.
Persian, and Eastern European primary accounts also warrant further attention. What will
be offered in this section is a re-evaluation of the Greek and Arabic sources that have most
frequently been employed by Orientalists in their discussions of the alleged caging of the
Ottoman sultan.
The major Greek historians of the last phases of the Byzantine empire have often been
cited in the debate over the existence of Bayezids cage. While the Greek sources of the early
fteenth century and the biography of Mehmed II (r. 144446, 145181) by Critovoulos
of Imbros (d. c.1470) have nothing to add to what is known elsewhere,
75
the histories of
Ducas, Chalcocondyles, and Phrantzes deserve more attention than they have previously
been given. In his chronicle Ducas provides a relatively detailed account of the battle of
Ankara and its aftermath. He makes the following remarks about the capture of Bayezid by
the troops of Tem ur (he calls them Scythians):
And Bayezids misfortunes became so great that the Scythians approached him and told him
Descend from the horse, lord Bayezid, and come. Temir-chan is calling you. Then, even
though he did not want to for the horse was Arabian and very valuable, he descended from the
horse. They laid [a saddle] on a small pony (ttpicv ouispcv), sat him on it and took him away
to Temir-chan.
When he (i.e. Tem ur) was informed that Bayezid had been captured, he ordered the setting up
of a tent, and sat in the tent playing chess with his son, declaring that I do not care at all about
Bayezids capture since through my immeasurable force I [already] had him like a small sparrow
in a trap (c, o:pcuicv tv tc,ioi).
76
Ducas continues with an account of the rst meeting between Tem ur and Bayezid in which
the former treats his captive graciously. Tem ur places him in tents and orders the digging of a
ditch around them, with soldiers stationed both inside and outside this boundary. Following
an attempt to mine under the tent and release the Ottoman sultan, Tem ur takes further
measures. Most pertinently, Ducas claims, Since then a large prison was made for him and
iron collars and handcuffs (oionpci scici sci yipcttoci) for the night.
77
It was in this
condition that Bayezid nally died, possibly poisoning himself. Ducas concludes his account
noting that Tem ur had intended to take Bayezid back to Persia in order to exhibit to his
people the sort of beast he had gained power over.
78
Chalcocondyles offers less of interest,
though he does mention that, following his capture and rst interview with Tem ur, Bayezid
was paraded on a mule (tti nuicvcu) around the Timurid army camp. He also conrms the
detail that Despina (called by him Lazars daughter) was paraded with him in the camp,
and they had her pour wine opposite her husband. Like Ducas he records the digging of a
tunnel under the tent of the Ottoman sultan.
79
75
For the Byzantine perspectives on the life of Tem ur, see Nicoloudis, Byzantine historians; Baboula, Greek
sources. For Critovoulos, see History of Mehmed the Conqueror by Kritovoulos, trans. Charles Riggs (Princeton, NJ.,
1954). On the battle of Ankara and the capture of Bayezid, see Part I.78 (pp. 3031).
76
Michael Ducas, Istoria = Ducas. Istoria Turco-Bizantina (13411462), (ed.) Vasile Grecu. Scriptores Byzantini
1 (Bucharest, 1958), pp. 29435 (the quoted passage is 16.89). For an English translation, see: Decline and Fall of
Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, trans. Harry Magoulias (Detroit, 1975), pp. 9596.
77
Ducas, Istoria, 16.12.
78
Ibid., 17.7
79
Laonicus Chalcocondylas, Laonici Chalcocondylae. Historiarum demonstrationes, (ed.) E. Dark o, vol. I (Budapest,
1922), pp. 149150. For the Greek text with parallel English translation, see: A Translation and Commentary of the
Phrantzes has the least to say. In the Chronicon minus he merely records that the amir
Bayezid was killed by Temir on 28 July.
80
The content and brevity of Phrantzes treatment
of this theme accords well with one of the earliest Turkish sources to deal with events in the
rst decade of the fteenth century, the anonymous work entitled Ah
.
v al- Sult an Mehemmed
bin B ayezd H
an (translated recently under the title, The Tales of Sultan Mehmed, Son of
Bayezid Khan). Completed soon after the termination of the civil war in 1413, this semi-
mythic biographical text differs in character from conventional chronicles. It perhaps reects,
however, the sort of retelling of events that Phrantzes may have encountered when he sent
as ambassador to sultan Murad II in 1429. In common with the chronicle of Phrantzes, the
Tales of Sultan Mehmed deals with the fate of sultan Bayezid in the rst few lines. The
rst paragraph deals with the victory of Tem ur at the battle of Ankara, and the scattering of
the Turkish forces. Mehmed had found his way back to Rum, and from there he received
news that his father had been taken captive and that the whereabouts of his brothers were
unknown. The author continues by quoting the words apparently uttered by Mehmed in
which he laments the collapse of the empire of Osman, and concludes with the following
statement: My father the sultan has been captured by the enemy. Past pleasures have turned
to pain, and joy has been replaced by grief.
81
The more extensive account of events can be found in another Greek work, based
on Phrantzes original history, known as the Chronicon maius. As has been recognised by
scholars of Byzantine history since the 1930s (but was unknown to the authors surveyed in
the previous section), the Chronicon maius is an expansion of Phrantzes text by Makarios
Melissenos (or Melissourgos, d. 1585), metropolitan of Monemvasia. The Chronicon maius
was written in Naples where Makarios and his brother Theodoros had ed after leading
an unsuccessful insurrection against Ottoman rule in the Peloponnese in the aftermath of
the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Makarios Melissenos may also have travelled to Spain.
82
Like the history of Spandounes, another emigr e Greek, Melissenos Chronicon maius betrays
an awareness of sixteenth-century Italian writing on Turkish history.
83
The rst printed
edition of Melissenos history (credited to Phrantzes) appeared in Venice in 1604. A critical
edition containing both the Chronicon minus and Chronicon maius was prepared by Vasile
Grecu (d. 1972) and published in 1966. Melissenos places the alleged caging of Bayezid after
Demonstrations of Histories (Books I-III), translated and edited by Nicolaos Nicoloudis, Historical Monographs
XVI (Athens, 1996). The conict between Bayezid and Tem ur appears in Book III (pp. 319327).
80
Georgios Phrantzes, Chronicon minus = Georgios Sphrantzes. Memorii, 140177, (ed.) Vasile Grecu. Scriptores
Byzantini 5 (Bucharest, 1966), pp. 2146 (the quoted passage is in cap. 1). For an English translation, see The
Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle of George Sphrantzes, 140177, trans. Marios Philippides (Amherst, 1980),
pp. 12.
81
Dimitris Kastritsis, trans., The Tales of Sultan Mehmed, Son of Bayezid Khan [Ah
.
v al- Sult an Mehemmed bin
B ayezd H
an], Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures 78 (Cambridge, MA., 2007), p. 1. On the date of
the text, see also idem, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 14021413
(Leiden, 2007), pp. 2833.
82
On the biography of Makarios Melissenos, see: Philippides, Introduction, in Phrantzes, The Fall of the
Byzantine Empire, pp. 810.
83
For another example of a Greek chronicle conspicuously inuenced by Italian historical writing, see Marios
Philippides (translated and edited), Byzantium, Europe, and the early Ottoman Sultans, 13731513. An anonymous Greek
Chronicle of the seventeenth Century (Codex Barberinus Graecus 111), Late Byzantine and Ottoman Studies IV (New
Rochelle, NY., 1990). For Bayezids capture, humiliation, and death in captivity, see II.3136 (pp. 3132). While
the text includes the European inventions of Bayezid being bound in golden chains and that he was forced to be
Tem urs footstool, no mention is made of a cage.
his rst interview with Tem ur (Demiris). The Ottoman sultans haughty responses seal his
fate: When Demiris heard Bayezids arrogant words he was angered and made an iron cell
(scuc usicv ts oionpcu), put him inside and after a while killed him.
84
One of the most powerful pieces of evidence in favour of the caging of Bayezid is the
testimony of Ibn Arabshah. Although the evident hostility to Tem ur in the Kit ab al-aj aib al-
maqd ur f akhb ar Tm ur means that it cannot be viewed as an unbiased text on the subject, the
relatively early date of composition (in the 1430s) and Ibn Arabshahs knowledge of Persian
and Turkish sources give his account considerable credibility. What is curious, however, is
how little attention has been paid to what Ibn Arabshah actually writes in his description of
the capture and subsequent humiliations of Bayezid. The crucial passage in this respect relates
to the moment in the aftermath of the battle of Ankara when the sultan was apprehended.
Before reviewing the words Ibn Arabshah uses, it is also worth noting that, unlike the
Persian and Turkish histories, he does not discuss the rst time that the Ottoman sultan
is brought into the presence of Tem ur. Instead, the brief mention of Bayezids capture is
followed by two short chapters discussing the ensuing chaos within the Ottoman territories
and the feuding of the sultans surviving sons. Following this, Ibn Arabshah records Tem urs
practice of daily bringing the shackled Bayezid into his presence. According to his account
Tem ur received him with kind and cheerful speech and marks of pity, then derided and
mocked him.
85
It is on the occasion of a public banquet that Bayezid endured the added
indignity of witnessing his wives and concubines serving as cupbearers to Tem urs guests.
Much of this detail is recorded in abbreviated form by Ibn Taghribirdi.
86
Therefore, in Ibn Arabshahs version of events the reference to the cage (qafas
.
) appears
before the rst recorded meeting between Bayezid and Tem ur and not after they have already
conversed (as is suggested in the Turkish accounts). Equally signicant is the precise context
in which the term qafas
.
is employed. The relevant passage reads (according to the Sanders
translation):
Then their arms being exhausted and the front line and reserves alike decimated, even the most
distant of the enemy advanced upon them at will and strangers crushed them with swords and
spears and lled pools with their blood and marshes with their limbs and Ibn Othman (Bayezid)
was taken and bound with fetters (muqayyad) like a bird in a cage (kal-t
.
ayr l-qafas
.
).
87
In order to render the last clause into idiomatic English, Sanders changed the expression
from the denite article (as it appears in the Arabic) to the indenite article. If one examines
this clause in both the modern Arabic edition and the English translation, the most natural
interpretation would be that like (ka) refers not simply to a bird but to a bird in a cage.
In order to transform it to mean that Bayezid was indeed placed within a cage, one might
expect l-qafas
.
to be placed before kal-t
.
ayr, and not after. In any case, what this clause
is being compared to (using ka) is the present situation of Bayezid following his capture: that
84
Makarios Melissenos (Pseudo-Phrantzes) Chronicon maius =Georgios Sphrantzes. Memorii, 140177, (ed.) Vasile
Grecu, Scriptores Byzantini 5 (Bucharest, 1966), pp. 150448 (the quoted section is on p. 224).
85
Ibn Arabshah, Tamerlane, p. 188 (chapter 26).
86
Ibn Taghribiri, al-Nuj um, vi, pp. 8384.
87
Ibn Arabshah, Tamerlane, pp. 183184 (with additions from the Arabic). For the Arabic text, see: Ibn
Arabshah, Aj aib al-maqd ur f naw aib Tm ur, (ed.)Ali Muhammad Amr (Cairo, 1399/1989), p. 200.
he is bound or shackled (muqayyad). There is no verb in the sentence that would indicate
the sense of being placed or conned within something. In other words, Ibn Arabshah is
evoking the image of a caged bird as a simile for the reduced state of the captured sultan.
In this context it is also worth repeating that a common meaning attributed to the word,
qafas
.
, in Medieval Arabic is that of a cage or coop for birds (but not a large structure meant
to imprison a man).
88
If one looks elsewhere in Ibn Arabshahs text, it is apparent that
he frequently employed similes and metaphors as a means to heighten dramatic pitch. By
contrast, the more sober historian, Ibn Taghribirdi, retained the content of Ibn Arabshahs
account, including the humiliating encounters between Bayezid and his captor, but omitted
the more literary ourishes such as the likening of the Ottoman sultan to a bird in a cage. It
is intriguing that Ducas also employs the motif of an ensnared bird in his report of Tem urs
reaction to the capture of Bayezid. Ducas metaphor also appears in the narrative before the
Ottoman sultan is brought into the presence of Tem ur (though the context in which it is
used is rather different from Ibn Arabshahs).
Why then have scholars persisted with this misinterpretation of Ibn Arabshahs text?
The answer appears to lie in the overwhelming reliance (even by Orientalists conversant in
Arabic
89
) upon the earliest European translation, Pierre Vattiers (d. 1667), Lhistoire du grand
Tamerlan, published in Paris in 1658 rather than the Arabic edition produced by Jacob Golius
(or Gool, d. 1667) and published under the Latin title, Vitae et rerum gestarum Timuri, in
1636.
90
In his translation Vattier introduces punctuation a feature not found in Arabic texts
prior to the twentieth century which in this case signicantly revises the original meaning.
He translates the relevant passage rather freely as: Le ls dOthoman tomba dans le pi` ege, et
se trouva enferm e, comme loyseau, dans la cage.
91
One may reasonably conclude that the
simple addition of two commas has affected more than three hundred years of scholarship;
this punctuation led many readers to assume Ibn Arabshah believed that Bayezid was, like a
bird, locked in a cage!
92
In conclusion, it should be emphasised that the precise details of the captivity of Bayezid
are of little importance to an understanding of the early evolution of the Ottoman empire.
Furthermore, it will only be with a complete analysis of the available primary sources
particularly those in Turkish that we may be able to form more accurate conclusions
concerning the ultimate origins of the story of the cage as well as its historical veracity.
One might ask, therefore, whether there is any value in pursuing what might seem like
such a recherch e topic. Perhaps the main reason for focusing upon this issue is the light that
it sheds on European Orientalist historiography in the earlymodern and modern periods.
Although scholars such as dHerbelot, Voltaire, Gibbon, and Von Hammer had unburdened
themselves of the baggage of Christian moral philosophy that conditioned the interpretation
of Asian history in the fteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were not immune to other
88
See note 58.
89
In this context it is relevant to note that Golius edition of the Kit ab al-aj aib al-maqd ur f akhb ar Tm ur must
have been fairly well known among Arabists as it was commonly employed as a text for the teaching of Arabic. See
Irwin, Lust of Knowing, p. 103.
90
See note 29.
91
Vattier, LHistoire, vi, p. 196.
92
The transformative role of punctuation in this case brings to mind the examples discussed by Lynne Truss in
Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to English Punctuation (London, 2003).
prejudices. In particular this can be seen in the changing evaluation of the personality of
Tem ur. During the Renaissance he had functioned both as the Machiavellian prince and the
scourge of God,
93
while in the eighteenth century it was not uncommon for scholars to
view him in some respects as an embodiment of Enlightenment values. The coarse barbarity
of parading a captured ruler in a cage tted uncomfortably into this vision, and was either
suppressed on linguistic grounds or justied as a somewhat reluctant response to the haughty
behaviour of Bayezid. Finally, another recurrent phenomenon uncovered in this research
is the willingness of scholars to cite one another rather than the original sources, forming
chains of transmission not unlike the isn ads found in the works of Islamic historians. Of
course, it would be dangerous to assume that any of us are immune to the same aws.
Marcus Milwright
University of Victoria
Evanthia Baboula
University of Victoria
93
On these themes, see Roy Battenhouse, Marlowes Tamburlaine: A Study in Renaissance moral Philosophy
(Nashville, 1941). Also Milwright, So despicable a vessel, pp. 333335.

Marcus Milwright and Evanthia Baboula - Bayezid's Cage A Re-Examination of A Venerable Academic Controversy

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