regarding the siege which have recently become known, but he would be the first to admit that there is ample room for a fuller history of the siege than that given in the 'Decline and Fall' even with the aid of his valuable notes.[1] Gibbon himself regretted the poverty of his materials and especially that he had not been able to obtain any Turkish accounts of the siege.[2] The only eye-witnesses whose narratives were before him were Phrantzes, Archbishop Leonard, and Cardinal Isidore. If we add to their narratives the accounts given by Ducas and Chalcondylas together with what Gibbon himself calls 'short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius,' we have substantially all the sources of information which were available when the 'Decline and Fall' was written.
The new sources of information regarding the siege brought to light since Gibbon's day enable us to gain a much more complete view of that event and of the character of its principal actors than was possible at the time when he wrote. Several Continental writers have taken advantage of some at least of the new stores of information to rewrite its story,[3] but I may be allowed to claim the good fortune of being the first Englishman who has even attempted to write a narrative of that event with the whole or even with any considerable portion of the new material before him.
- ↑ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury, M.A. Whenever Gibbon is quoted in the text of this volume it is from Professor Bury's edition.
- ↑ Vol. vii. p. 163, Gibbon's note.
- ↑ The principal of these works are:
1. Belagerung und Eroberung Constantinopels im Jahre 1453.' Von Dr. A. D. Mordtmann (Stuttgart, 1858).2. 'Die Eroberungen von Constantinopel im dreizehnten und fünfzehnten Jahrhundert.' Von Dr. Johann Heinrich Krause (Halle, 1870).3. 'Les Derniers Jours de Constantinople.' Par E. A. Vlasto (Paris, 1883).4. Πολιορκία καὶ Ἅλλωσις τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως. By A. G. Paspates (Athens, 1890).5. 'Constantine, the last Emperor of the Greeks.' By Chedomil Mijatovich, formerly Servian Minister at the Court of St. James (London, 1892).6. Two valuable papers by Dr. A. Mordtmann (the son of Dr. A. D. Mordtmann) entitled Die letzten Tage von Byzanz, in the 'Mitteilungen des deutschen Exkursions-Klubs in Konstantinopel,' 1895.
