There are no Ottoman sources to which the historian may go for the origin of the Ottoman people and royal house, or for their history during the fourteenth century. They have no written records of the period before the capture of Constantinople.[7] Their earliest historians date from the end of the fifteenth century, and the two writers to whom they give greatest weight wrote at the end of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth century.[8] From the point of view, then, of recording historical facts, one hesitates in our day to follow the example of von Hammer, by setting forth at length, after a scientific collation, the legends which the simple-minded Osmanlis have always accepted without question. The Byzantines give us nothing worthy of credence about the origin of the Osmanlis, for the reason that they had no means of getting authoritative information. As for the early European writers, their testimony is valuable only as a reflection of the idea which Christendom had of the Osmanlis when they were becoming a menace to European civilization.[9] On the other hand, these legends are not to be ignored, as they have been by the latest authoritative writer on Ottoman history.[10] Where authenticated facts are lacking, traditions must be examined and carefully weighed. This is essential when we are considering the origins of a people. For no race has ever recorded its birth. The beginnings of a people are so insignificant that they remain unnoticed in general history until the attention of others is attracted to them by their own achievements. Who were the people that took upon themselves the name of Osman, their chief, and whom we must, from the moment of their very first encounters with the Byzantines, clearly distinguish from the other groups of Anatolian Turks that had gathered around other leaders? Did they, at the beginning of Osman’s career, have any distinct national consciousness? Did they have any past? Did they start the foundation of a state with a definite goal before them? Was there any other cause for their amazing growth and success than the mere fact that they had the most fortunate geographical position, on the confines of a decaying empire? With the purpose, then, of suggesting an answer to some of these questions, and paving the way for an answer to the others later on, what the Osmanlis accept concerning their origin and their history before 1300 must be set forth and examined.[11]