[352] So Phrantzes thinks, I. 12, p. 51: ταύτην ὠμότητα καὶ ἀπανθρωπίαν ὁ ’Αμουράτης ἐποίησεν ἀεὶ εἰς τὰ πάντα καλῶς πολιτευόμενος. [353] Chalc., I, pp. 46-7; Phr., I. 11, pp. 47-9. [354] Romanin, iii. 255. This project, according to Cicogna, _Istoria di Venezia_, vi. 95, was first broached to John at the time of his visit to Venice in 1370. [355] Raynaldus, ann. 1376, XXIII. [356] _Epp. secr._, vi. 236. [357] Ducas, 12, p. 45. [358] Caresino, in Muratori, xii. [359] Ducas, 12, p. 45; Chalc., II, p. 63; and Phr., I. 13, p. 54, say that Bayezid had given him 1,000 men, and had often advised him to have his father and brothers assassinated. Cf. Muralt, ii. 706. [360] Sauli, ii. 57. [361] Quirino, _Vita di Zeno_, cited by Muralt, ii. 707, Nos. 6-9. [362] Ducas, 12, p. 45. [363] The fortunes of Salonika at this period are obscure. See p. 231, below. [364] Chalc., II, p. 63; Phr., I. 13, pp. 55-6. [365] Chalc., II, p. 64. But Ducas, 4, p. 19, says that Bayezid captured this city. [366] Bonlinius, II. 10; Sanudo, _Vite de’ Duchi_, in Muratori, xxii, col. 680. [367] An excellent brief account of this war is found in Wiel’s _Story of Venice_, pp. 227-37. [368] The Genoese forced John V to make peace with Andronicus in November 1382: Sauli, ii. 260. [369] Cicogna, op. cit., vi. 97; Romanin, iii. 301. [370] Hadji Khalfa, _Djihannuma_, fol. 1852; Evliya effendi, ii. 229. [371] The testimony of Ibn Batutah, who travelled extensively among the Turks in Anatolia, southern Russia, and elsewhere between 1325 and 1340, is conclusive on this point. ‘Whenever we stopped in a house of this country (Anatolia), our neighbours of both sexes took care of us: _the women were not veiled_ ...’: ii. 256. ‘I was witness of a remarkable thing, that is, of the consideration which the women enjoy among the Turks: they hold, in fact, a rank more elevated than that of the men.... As for the women of the lower classes, I have seen them also. One of them will be, for example, in a cart drawn by horses. Near her will be three or four young girls.... The windows of the cart will be open and you can see the women’s faces: _for the women of the Turks are not veiled_.... Often the woman is accompanied by her husband, whom whoever sees him takes for one of her servants’: ii. 377-9. No student can have any doubt whatever upon the position of Turkish women during the fourteenth century. As among all vigorous peoples, the women of the Osmanlis held a high place, and were never secluded. It was not until Murad II that even the sovereign had a harem. The Moslem conception of the inferiority of women was not prevalent among the Osmanlis until after the reign of Soleiman the Magnificent. Immediately it became prevalent, the race began its decline.