[Chronicle of the Ottoman Dynasty]

This volume contains a chronicle of the Ottoman dynasty from its origins to 956 AH (1549-50 CE) and is slightly imperfect at both the beginning and end. The author's name does not appear in either this copy or in the printed versions; nor is it mentioned in catalogues of other copies elsewhere. It is found in Haj. Khal., however, under the title Tarih-i Âl-Osman (vol. II, p. 112), where the author is called Muhyiddin Mehmet İbn-i Ali el-Cemali, and is stated to have died in 957 AH (1550 CE), after having been deposed from the Kadılık of Edirne. He is also mentioned in the Tac ut-Tevarih (Add MS 19628, f 493) as the son of the Muftü Ali el-Cemali. The work is written in popular style and in very plain Ottoman Turkish, without any pretention to elegance, but with great attention to dates. The text in this manuscript breaks off in the middle of the account of the siege of Buda by Perenyi Péter and the relief of the place by Süleyman in 948 AH (1541 CE). The chronicle comes down to 956 AH (1547 CE). The text runs on in the present manuscript from beginning to end without any division. The following are the points in the text where various notables are first mentioned: Osman (f 3v); Orhan (f 6v); Murat Han Gazi (f 10v); Yıldırım Bayezit (f 15r); Emir Süleyman (f 23r); Musa Çelebi (f 24v); Mehmet I (f 26r); Murat II (f 28v); Mehmet II (f 38r); Bayezit II (f 67r); Selim I (f 77v); Süleyman (f 85r). The author takes the occasion of the Conquest of İstanbul to launch into a digression (ff 38v-62r) that is not found in the 16th-century German translation. It is a fabulous history of İstanbul, beginning with a legend about King Soloman, his favourite wife Şemse, daughter of Ankur, king of Frengistan, and the palace built for her by the Jinns on the site of Aydıncık. It deals mostly with the deeds of a legendary king called Yanku İbn-i Madiyan, the founder of Byzantium, and with the talismans he constructed there. It ends with a sketch of the Hulufa and their enterprises against Constantinople. There is a lacuna following f 71 as noticed in comparison with other texts. Two leaves have been added to the manuscript, one at the beginning and another at the end, to give an appearance of completeness. The first contains the beginning of Hemdemi's versified list of Ottoman Sultans. The second contains part of a terciibent by Yazıcı Mustafa on the taking of Buda. This manuscript was likely copied in the 17th century CE.

Unrestricted

Acquired from Hilgrove Turner.

See Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 46-47.

Extracts from this text can be found at Add MS 7870 text 6. More information on the text can be found in Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches I, p. xxxvi, where it is described as one of the earliest and most useful chronicles of the Ottoman Empire. An abridged version of the tale found in ff 38v-62r can be found in the Tac ut-tevarih, Add MS 19628, ff 243-45.

Lewenklaw, Hans and Hans Gaudier, Neuwe Chronica Türckischer Nation von Türcken selbs bescrieben (Frankfurt am Main: [publisher not identified], 1595), pp. 1-53.