12 vº, is a picture of the cage. It is mentioned by Guazzo, fol. 275 vº; Donato da Lezze, p. 10; Paolo Giovio; Geuffry, p. 283; Campana, fol. 8 vº; Egnatius, p. 30; Rabbi Joseph, i. 256; Sanuto, in Muratori, xxii. 791; Bonincontrius, col. 88; Formanti; and Timur’s early western biographer, Perondino, p. 31, who, fifty years before Seadeddin, wrote that Timur compelled Bayezid’s wife Despina to wait nude upon him and his guests at table. The story is also found in Ducas, chapter 26. [636] Perondino, p. 31; Sagredo, p. 26; Campana, fol. 8 vº; Raynaldus and Spandugino; _Lettres d’un Solitaire turc_, i. 106-7. Exposure of women was a common symbol of conquest among the Mongols. It was a formal ceremony at the sack of Pekin and Djenghiz Khan’s sack of Samarkand. [637] Many authorities declare that Bayezid committed suicide by striking his head against the bars of his cage, being unable to support the sight of his wife’s disgrace. The humiliation to which Despina was subjected was often given in later times by the Osmanlis themselves as a reason why the house of Osman does not contract marriages. See above, p. 183, and note. [638] Sherefeddin, iv. 65-7; Chalc., III, pp. 162-5; Duc., 17, pp. 77-8; Phr., 1. 26, p. 85; and the Ottoman historians. [639] The Dominican Friar says that the Jews of Brusa sent a delegation of rabbis to inform Mohammed-Sultan that their religion was the same as his. He answered that their law was a good one, and that they should assemble all their people in the chief synagogue. He promised that no harm would come to them. When the Tartars entered the city, they sealed fast the doors of this synagogue, and set fire to it. [640] Sherefeddin, iv. 37-48; Duc., 16, pp. 66-7. [641] Seadeddin, i. 235. [642] Sherefeddin, iv. 47, 52. [643] Accounts of the capture of Smyrna: Sherefeddin, iv. 47-53; Chalc., III, p. 161; Duc., 18, p. 78; Hadji Khalfa, _Djihannuma_, fol. 1949; Arabshah, ii. 24. For date, _see_ M. de Ste. Croix, in _Acad. des Inscriptions_, 2e série, ii. 566, 569. [644] Ali Muhieddin, Leuncl. trans., in Migne, _Patr. Graec._, clix., 596. Schiltberger, p. 27, relates a similar massacre of children after the capture of Ispahan. [645] Ducas, 18, p. 79. [646] ‘Would that the day might dawn in which your Highness would profess the religion of Christ, and stand up in power as the champion of the Christian Church against the enemies of the cross.’ In the London archives, however, this passage, while legible, is cancelled. So it may not have gone in the copy of the letter sent to Timur. Cf. Wylie’s _Henry IV_, i. 316 and _n._ 4. [647] _Misti_, xlvi. 47. [648] Ducas, 18, p. 78; Phr., I, 15, p. 62. [649] Phr., loc. cit.; Innocent VII, _Epp._, i. 212-13.