[115] There is no way of establishing the date of the fall of Nicomedia. The Ottoman historians report that it was added to the dominions of Orkhan in 1326, the year of his accession and of the fall of Brusa. It is best here to follow the unanimous testimony of the Byzantine sources, which is in accord with the natural inference that Nicomedia fell some time after Nicaea: Greg., XI. 6, p. 545; Phr., I. 8, p. 38. Hammer cannot disregard the testimony of Gregoras here. He ingenuously suggests that the city might have been lost by the Osmanlis, and recaptured. Cantacuzenos (II. 24, p. 446, and 26, p. 459) says that Andronicus III went twice to the aid of Nicomedia in 1331, but he does not record the loss of either Brusa or Nicomedia. In the collection of Feridun, Bibl. Nat., Paris, MS. anc. fonds turc 79, there is a diploma appointing Soleiman governor of Nicomedia in 1332, but the authenticity of the earlier pieces in this collection is open to grave suspicion (cf. Bibliography). [116] Howorth, iii. 613. [117] Canale, i. 215. [118] Not an actual defensive alliance against Orkhan, as Schlumberger, _Numismatique de l’Orient latin_, p. 480, supposes. See Cant., II. 13, pp. 388-90; Phr., I. 8, p. 37. [119] Cant., II. 28, pp. 470-3. [120] Ibid., 22, p. 435. [121] Ibid., 25, pp. 455-6. [122] Cant. II., 29-30, pp. 480-4; Greg., XI. 2, p. 530. [123] Hammer, quoting Ashikpashazadé, i. 150-1. [124] Mordtmann, in _ZDMG_. (1911), lxv. 105, basing his statement, like Hammer, on Ashikpashazadé, Vatican MS., fol. 33, gives A.H. 735, 737, or 740. The earliest of these dates is precluded by the testimony of Ibn Batutah, who found these places still independent about A.H. 735. A.H. 737 might be possible, if we decide that Orkhan accomplished everything during the one expedition against Pergama. Mordtmann, still quoting Ashikpashazadé, says that these three cities were held by relatives of the Palaeologi. If this be true, it goes to prove that there must have existed all along in the reigns of Osman and Orkhan quasi-friendly relations between Moslem and Christian. There was certainly no religious fanaticism during this period of Ottoman history.