THE EMIRATES OF ASIA MINOR IN THE 14THCENTURY[Largest view.]
THE EMIRATES OF ASIA MINOR IN THE 14THCENTURY
THE EMIRATES OF ASIA MINOR IN THE 14THCENTURY
[Largest view.]
[Largest view.]
is the first attempt to compare the Asiatic possessions of Osman, Orkhan, Murad, and Bayezid with those of their Turkish rivals for the purpose of illustrating the slow growth of the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor, and the first time that contemporary sources have been drawn upon for this purpose.
From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, we are able to reconstruct the political status of Asia Minor, in a general way, from the narratives of pilgrims and the experiences of the Crusaders. From the beginning of the fifteenth century on to the present day, we have a wealth of sources for the history of Asia Minor in the writings of European travellers, which are valuable not only for their geographical indications and their observations on the life of the people, but also for their testimony in corroborating or disproving the statements of Oriental historians, who are so often lacking in precision and verisimilitude. For the fourteenth century, however, reliable European sources are lacking.
This lacuna is filled by the travel records of two Moslems of more than ordinary intelligence and powers of observation.
The long-lost manuscript of the travels of Ibn Batutah was one of those important finds that made the French occupation of Algeria so memorable an event in the annals of the advancement of learning. Its translation into French in 1843 made accessible for the first time a contemporary source of the highest value for the political and social life of the whole Moslem world during the first half of the fourteenth century. For Ibn Batutah travelled from his home in Morocco to the confines of China. He lived a while in each country that he visited, and wrote from the sympathetic and understanding point of view of a member of the Moslem clergy. Ibn Batutah visited Asia Minor between 1330 and 1340.[734]
Shehabeddin was an Arabic writer from Damascus,[735]who died in 1349. He wrote a voluminous work of twenty volumes, calledFootpaths of the Eyes in the Kingdoms of Different Countries.[736]He was a contemporary of Ibn Batutah. Shehabeddin did not enjoy the advantage of visiting personally the many emirates of western Asia Minor, as did Ibn Batutah; but he states that he has based his record of these countries upon the eye-witness information furnished to him by word of mouth by Sheik Haïdar of Sir Hissar.[737]The agreement between Ibn Batutah and Shehabeddin on the state of affairs in Asia Minor during the first half of the fourteenth century is so general that one can claim for their statements, which are, in large part, the basis of this appendix, most substantial grounding.
The other sources are the Byzantine historians, the chronicler of the Catalans, the Catalan Map of 1375,[738]the annalist of Trebizond, the points of contact with the Cypriotes, the chevaliers of Rhodes, the Italian traders, the Osmanlis and the Mongols and Tartars. For a few of the emirates there are coins extant. Inscriptions on public edifices, such as mosques, pious foundations, baths and fountains, are unfortunately lacking, not only for the history of the Turkish emirates but for the Osmanlis as well.[739]
In the list that follows, twenty-six of the emirates existed during the reign of Orkhan, between the years 1330 and 1350. They are mentioned either by Ibn Batutah or by Shehabeddin, in most cases byboth, as independent in their day. The others are either earlier or later than Orkhan’s reign, and comprise a portion of earlier emirates, from which they had become detached. After the Turkish emirates, given alphabetically, are placed the non-Turkish independent states in Asia Minor.
The material that can be gathered about these Turkish emirates, the two independent Christian states, and the spheres of influence of outside Christian and Moslem states in Asia Minor in the fourteenth century, would make a book in itself. In this appendix I desire to give only enough to indicate the relative strength and vitality of each state. It must be borne in mind that my object is not to write the history of these emirates, or of Asia Minor as a whole, during the fourteenth century, butto demonstrate how little of Asia Minor was really incorporated in the Ottoman possessions at the time that, and during the thirty years after, the capital of the new empire was established in Adrianople.
In the Taurus Mountains, on the northern limits of Lesser Armenia, and to the south-east of Karamania, the Turcoman tribes through whom Marco Polo passed seemed to him to enjoy an independent existence. Up to the time of Murad I, they formed no state, but between 1373 and 1375 the family of Ramazan took the chieftainship. When the Mamelukes destroyed the Armenian kingdom (1375), the Ben-Ramazan dynasty established itself at Adana, on the Sarus, in the fertile Cilician plain.[740]The Ben-Ramazan emirs managed to keep from being absorbed either by the Karamanians or the Egyptians. After the complete subjugation of Karamania by the Osmanlis, they submitted to Selim I about 1510, under the stipulation, however, that the emir, Piri pasha, should hold office for life as vali of Adana and Sis. Sis was frequently coupled with Adana in the title of the Ben-Ramazan.
Aïdin comprised the greater part of Ionia, with a portion of Lydia, if we take its boundaries to be those of the present vilayet of the same name. It comprised, at the time of its greatest extent, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Tralles. Smyrna was captured by the crusaders in 1344. Ephesus was at times independent under the name of Ayasoluk. Tralles, called Guzel Hissar, and sometimes also Birgui or Berki, was the capital of Aïdin in the time of Orkhan. Later, Ayasoluk, and, last of all, Tira, were the successive capitals.
The emirate was founded by Aïdin, a contemporary of Osman, who was succeeded by his son Mohammed about 1330. Ibn Batutah regarded Mohammed as a very powerful prince, who was especially strong on the sea. His eldest son, Omar, who succeeded him in 1341, met death in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Smyrna in 1348. His relations with Cantacuzenos are given in the chapter on Orkhan. Isaac, fourth of the line, reigned from 1348, until he was dispossessed by Bayezid in 1390. He died in exile at Nicaea. His sons, Isaac II and Omar II, were placed again on the throne in 1403. The line of Aïdin became extinct soon after. A usurper, Djuneïd, Ottoman governor of Smyrna, managed to keep the power until he was assassinated in 1425. It was not until then that Aïdin definitely passed into the hands of the Osmanlis.
After the death of Aïdin, the founder of the dynasty, the territory of the emirate seems to have suffered some diminution, aside from the loss of Smyrna. One of the sons, Soleiman, married a daughter of Orkhan, while another, Khidr, ruled independently at Ayasoluk, which was lost for a time to Rhodes twenty years later. Under Omar, the Turks of Aïdin were very active in the Aegaean Sea, and made large invasions of Thrace and Macedonia in 1333 and 1334. They co-operated with the Genoese of Phocaea against the Greeks and the Osmanlis, and were at times allied with the emirates of Sarukhan and Menteshe, with whom they are frequently mixed by the Byzantine historians. The western historians almost invariably gave credit to the Osmanlis for the maritime exploits of these emirates during the fourteenth century.[741]
At some time before 1340, a certain Demir Khan, son of Karasai, emir of Pergama, ruled in Akbara, whose location is given by Shehabeddin as ‘south of Brusa and Sinope, and north of Mount Kasis’. This emirate was probably destroyed by Orkhan in the expedition of 1339-40. It was a region along the borders of Mysia and Phrygia, which had been able to resist the encroachments of Kermian owing to the mountainous character of the country.[742]
This city was at the south end of the lake of the same name (to-day called Egherdir), and was within the limits of the emirate of Hamid. But, like Nazlu, it had frequently a wholly independent existence, and both Shehabeddin and Ibn Batutah, as well as other writers, mention its emirs as if independent of the emir of Hamid, and these rulers are given from the families of Tekke and Hamid. The Osmanlis first reached the northern end of Lake Egherdir in 1379, and incorporated Akridur about 1390.[743]
This is the ancient Archelaïs, and is three days north-east of Konia on the road to Kaïsariya (Caesarea). In the time of Ibn Batutah, it was one of the most beautiful and most solidly built cities of Asia Minor, and was ruled by the emir Artin, possibly an Armenian, who was vassal of the Mongol ruler of Persia. Later, Ak Seraï was incorporated in Karamania, to which it belonged at the time that the Osmanlis, under Bayezid, first entered it.[744]
Aksheïr, between Kutayia and Konia, belonged alternately to Kermian and Karamania—perhaps at times it recognized the suzerainty of the emir of Hamid. Its position made it a bordercity, prey to the changing fortunes of the Osmanlis and Karamanlis for thirty years. In 1377, when Murad compelled the emir of Hamid to sell a portion of his dominions, he regarded Aksheïr as having been in Hamid. It was, however, at that time practically independent, using the rival pretensions of the emirs to the east, west, and south as a means of preserving a precarious autonomy.[745]
This city was sometimes called Kandelore, a corruption of its ancient name Coracesium. Its fortunate position at the east side of the Gulf of Adalia enabled it to play an important part in the commercial history of the eastern Mediterranean for a century and a half. In the time of Ibn Batutah and Shehabeddin, Yussuf, brother of the emir of Karamania, was its ruler. During the fourteenth century Alaïa was more or less dependent upon Karamania, but sometimes upon Tekke. For many years it paid tribute to Cyprus, and negotiated its affairs independently of both Karamania and Tekke. In 1444 its prince, Latif, meditated a raid upon Cyprus, from which he was deterred only by the defeat of the Egyptians before Rhodes. In 1450 Latif concluded a treaty of peace with the Cypriotes through the medium of Rhodes. His successor, Arslan bey, got help from Cyprus against Mohammed II. Alaïa was subdued by the Osmanlis only in 1472.[746]
The history of Angora during the first half of the fourteenth century is obscure. It depended upon none of the emirates which arose after the break-up of the Seljuk Empire of Konia. Throughout Phrygia there were small village chieftains, such as Osman had been at Sugut. Angora may have acknowledged Kermian for a short period, but the proprietors of that region resisted the efforts of Karamania to incorporate them. The fortress of Angora was captured at the beginning of the reign of Murad, but it was not until Bayezid broke the power of Kermianand Karamania that the country round about the city became ottomanized.[747]
This is the Ottoman corruption of Altoluogo, the Genoese name for the Byzantine Theologos (ἅγιος θεολόγος—St. John) which occupied nearly the same site as the ancient Ephesus. This city has caused much confusion to writers. It was captured from the Greeks by Sasan, who ruled there as its first Turkish emir in 1308.[748]Later it seems to have fallen into the hands of Aïdin, and became the principal commercial city of his flourishing emirate. The emir’s coins were for a time struck there, but later when Guzel Hissar (Tralles) was capital of Aïdin, Ayasoluk was practically independent under a younger brother of Mohammed, and uncle of Omar. In 1365 the chevaliers of Rhodes had evidently made a serious attempt to cut into the hinterland of Aïdin from Smyrna, for they struck coins at Ayasoluk. Its later history is that of Aïdin and Palatchia. Timur directed the operations against Smyrna from Ephesus in December 1402.[749]
This city is to the south-west of Brusa, on the road to Pergama. It would naturally be included in the emirate of Karasi, but had an independent sovereign, Demir-Khan, when Ibn Batutah visited it. It was annexed by the Osmanlis after the deposition of the emir of Balikesri. The exact date of this acquisition cannot be determined.[750]
An inland district south-west of Kastemuni and north of Angora, possibly the same as Boli, where Ali, a son of Soleiman padishah,of Kastemuni and Sinope, ruled as independent sovereign between 1330 and 1340.[751]
The descriptions of Orkhan’s realm, which to Ibn Batutah and Shehabeddin was the emirate of Brusa, as it was seen through the eyes of his contemporaries, have been cited in the text of this book. Until the end of the reign of Murad, the Ottoman possessions were small enough to be distinguished under the name of Brusa, where the Osmanlis established an emirate at the death of Osman.
This important city, in the east of Asia Minor, on the confines of Armenia, was during the first half of the fourteenth century under the control of the Mongols, and, for a very few years, acknowledged the overlordship of Karamania. But, for the thirty years coincident with the reign of Murad, it had emirs of its own, as had Tokat and Sivas. For we know that Burhaneddin, through whose misfortunes Bayezid became involved with Timur, had been kadi of the emir of Caesarea, on whose death he divided ‘with two other emirs’ his dominions. Caesarea fell into the power of the Osmanlis between 1392 and 1398.[752]
This emirate was on the site of Laodicea on the Lycus, and was called Ladik by the Arabs, and Denizli, or Denizlu, by the Turks. Mount Cadmus and Hieropolis were also within its limits. It was at the upper end of the Maeander Valley, bounded on the west and north by Aïdin, and on the south by Menteshe and Tawas. In the fourteenth century, the city of its emir was probably on the Maeander and not on the Lycus. Shehabeddin compared the gardens of Ladik, or Denizli, to those of Damascus. No higher praise could have come from his lips. We know nothing of its later history. About 1350 it was probably absorbed by Aïdin or Menteshe.[753]
Erzindjian, like Erzerum, was subject to the Mongols in the early part of the reign of Orkhan. There was a prince named Aïnabey ruling there in 1348, however, who, with two generals of Hamid, attacked Trebizond.[754]Coins were struck in the name of Alaeddin of Karamania in Erzindjian in the decade following 1350. But coins of Mohammed Artin, emir of Erzindjian, were struck there about 1360.[755]Bayezid pushed his conquests a day beyond Erzindjian to the castle of Kemath. He did not, however, conquer Erzindjian; for we have its emir, a vassal of Timur, appealing to his overlord for aid, when Bayezid summoned him to appear at Angora, bringing the treasures of his dependencies with him. His authority extended to and included Erzerum about 1400.[756]
Ibn Batutah calls this country Milas. There were in fact two cities, Fukeh and Milas, under one sovereign at the time of Ibn Batutah and Shehabeddin. As Milas was near the site of Halicarnassus, or on that site, and was sometimes called Halik, the geographical position of this emirate, on the coast opposite Cos, is immediately grasped. It was dependent, in a certain sense, upon Menteshe, and was later absorbed by Menteshe. Orkhan was the emir about 1330. Some years later, Shehabeddin estimated that the emir of Fukeh had fifty cities and ten thousand horsemen. The last vestige of the independence of Fukeh was destroyed by the Rhodians with whom they were continually in conflict, and who got a foothold on the mainland and built a castle at Halik in 1399.[757]
At the time of Ibn Batutah, Mohammed Tchelebi, brother of the emir of Akridur, was established here on the border of Pamphylia and Caria, between Satalia and the Maeander River.[758]The fact that in such a position an independent prince could maintain himself as late as 1330—perhaps later—demonstrates that the emirates of Tekke, Menteshe, and Hamid must have been of very slow growth, like that of Brusa, and that these Turkish emirs who were rivals of the house of Osman evolved slowly, just as the Osmanlis did. The fiction of a tenfold division of the Seljuk dominions becomes very apparent when we consider the position of Gul Hissar (often called Kul Hissar), Alaïa, Tawas, and Fukeh—to cite instances only from the south-western corner of Asia Minor.
This emirate, of very late development in comparison with those of Sarukhan and Aïdin, was formed by the absorption of a number of little states—each hardly more than a village. The emir of Hamid started by incorporating Akridur and Nazlu. During the last decade of the reign of Orkhan, Hamid grew rapidly, until it extended from Aksheïr to the western end of the Taurus. It was entirely an inland emirate, and had little chance of resisting the Osmanlis under Murad. The last emir willed his dominions to Murad in 1381, but the country had to be conquered step by step. Bayezid made it an Ottoman province in 1391.[759]
A small emirate north-west of Sarukhan, on the sea-coast opposite Mitylene. It is mentioned only by Shehabeddin, and for the purpose of fixing the boundaries of Sarukhan.[760]
This is the modern Djanik, on the Black Sea between Samsun and Sinope. It had an independent line of four emirs, and probably maintained its independence until after the Ottoman conquest of Kastemuni.[761]
Until after the campaign of 1386, Karamania was a far more powerful emirate in Asia Minor than that of the Osmanlis. TheKaramanlis were the actual successors of the Seljuks, and maintained themselves in Konia. While the Osmanlis were confined to a very small corner of Anatolia, the Karamanian dominions extended from the Euphrates and the Amanus to the Gulf of Adalia, on both slopes of the Taurus. Except in the maritime emirates of the Aegaean Sea, the Karamanlis and their emir were the great power in the peninsula of Asia Minor. Their independence was not broken by Bayezid, for they recovered their former glory after the intervention of Timur, and successfully withstood Mohammed I, Murad II, and Mohammed II. As in the latter half of the fourteenth century, the Karamanian emirs of the first half of the fifteenth century were allied by marriage with the house of Osman, but refused to do homage to the Ottoman sovereigns.[762]
Limits of space prevent mentioning here the many grounds upon which the Karamanians were able to and did keep their independence in the face of both Constantinople and Cairo. It was only at the end of the fifteenth century that we find the fiction of the Karamanian vassalage to the Osmanlis and of the connexion between the Seljuks and the Osmanlis appearing in the Ottoman chronicles, which on this count are, as I have pointed out elsewhere, wholly unreliable. It is astonishing that their version of the rise of the Osmanlis in Asia Minor has been accepted for so many centuries by western historians.[763]
An abbreviation of Kara Hissar. This is probably the modern Afion Kara Hissar, a picturesque town between Eski Sheïr and Konia on southern limit of the emirate of Kermian, of which itsprince was a vassal. Its importance was in its location at the junction point of the roads from the north-west and west into Karamania.
The emirate which lay between the possessions of Orkhan and Sarukhan was called, after the founder of its dynasty, Karasi. Its capital was Pergama. There is a discrepancy between the accounts of Shehabeddin and Ibn Batutah, the forming making Pergama subject to Balikesri, and the latter giving Balikesri as independent. Ottoman historians make Balikesri the northernmost city of the emirate of Karasi. The limits of Karasi, outside of the immediate vicinity of Pergama, cannot be determined. There were several small independent emirates in the hinterland of the lower end of the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles. The emir of Karasi was an ally of Aïdin and Sarukhan in the first coalition formed to combat the growing power of the Osmanlis. Karasi was the first emirate to be destroyed by the Osmanlis, and the only one of importance incorporated under Orkhan. This was because it lay nearest to the Ottoman emirate.[764]
This emirate, at its zenith, comprised practically all of the ancient Roman province of Paphlagonia. It was formed by Ali Omar bey, who started as lord of the inland city of Kastemuni, and whose son Abdullah, in the lifetime of Osman, drove Ghazi Tchelebi from Sinope. The emirate had many vicissitudes and changes in dynasty. In the time of Ibn Batutah, Soleiman padishah was the sovereign, and had extended his rule from Heraclea on the Black Sea coast almost to Trebizond. His son Ali ruled at Borlu, and another son Ibrahim Shah, who succeeded Soleiman, contested Samsun with the emperor of Trebizond. Ibrahim was the younger son, and was designated as his successor by Soleiman. Under the third dynasty of Kastemuni, the ben-Isfendiar, the emirate was at the height of its power. Its fleets swept the Black Sea, and did much harm to the Greeks of Trebizond and the Genoese of Kaffa. Kaouïa was absorbed, and its eastern boundaries included Osmandjik. The emirs of Menteshe and Aïdin took refuge here, and the refusal of the emir of Kastemuni,Bayezid, to give them up, led to the invasion of 1392. Bayezid and the fugitive princes fled to Timur, who restored them after the battle of Angora. Isfendiar, son of Bayezid, managed to retain Sinope, and a large portion of the interior, for thirty years. He was father-in-law of the Ottoman sultan, Murad II. When Clavijo visited Sinope in 1404 Isfendiar had forty thousand men to put in the field against the Osmanlis. It was not until after the fall of Constantinople that Kastemuni finally lost its independence.[765]As the history of this emirate is involved with that of Sinope, see also below under Sinope.
This was a small emirate, sometimes called also Kerdeleh, between Kastemuni and Boli, which was absorbed by the Osmanlis in the latter part of the reign of Orkhan. It was already in danger of Ottoman aggression when Ibn Batutah visited it on his way from Brusa to Kastemuni.[766]
On the Adranos River, one day south of Mikhalitch, and two days west of Brusa, this city was conquered by Orkhan in his first campaign after the fall of Nicomedia.[767]
Kermian, or Guermian, took its name from a Turcoman chief who held Kutayia about 1300. It was the earliest definite emirate which arose in western Asia Minor after the dissolution of the Seljuk Empire. Shehabeddin wrote: ‘Turkish tribes seized the greater part of the Seljuk possessions. The Turks recognized the pre-eminence of the emir of Kermian.’ The great fortress which still crowns the hill of Kutayia is supposed to have been erected by Kermian.[768]Kermian’s son Ali became master of all of Phrygia, possibly at one time including Angora in his emirate. Orkhan wrote to Ali as equal to equal, and gave himthe title of ‘emir of Anatolia’.[769]Ali had forty thousand horsemen and seven hundred castles and villages. He was the equal of the emir of Karamania and more powerful than Orkhan.
Kermian was the first of the larger emirates to feel the change which the successes in the Balkan peninsula had made in the fortune of the Osmanlis. A granddaughter of the older Ali, and great-granddaughter of Kermian, was married to Bayezid, and Murad compelled the emir of Kermian to cede the north-western portion of his estates as his daughter’sdot. When Bayezid made his first campaign against Karamania he annexed the remainder of Kermian. The emir, his brother-in-law Yakub, fled to Timur, and was restored. The Osmanlis definitely incorporated Kermian in their empire in the second decade of the fifteenth century.[770]
A small emirate in the mountains between Trebizond and Erzindjian, whose emir, Tasheddin, married the daughter of the emperor of Trebizond in 1379. In 1386, Tasheddin could put an army of twelve thousand men into the field. There were several other very small Turkish emirates around Trebizond. Not enough, however, is known of them to make it worth while to mention them.[771]
An independent emirate was established here after the fall of the Lusignans in Cilicia, which was also known by the name of the founder of the dynasty, Sulkadir. It maintained its independence against the Karamanians, Egyptians, and Osmanlis until 1515, when its last prince fell in a battle with Selim.[772]
An emirate on the borders of the Sea of Marmora, between Cyzicus and the Dardanelles, which had struggles and allianceswith the Catalans, Byzantines, and Turks of Balikesri. It became a vassal state of Karasi, and was ruled from Pergama. After the destruction of Karasi, its territory was shared by the Catalans of Bigha and by Orkhan.[773]
Like Hamid, Menteshe was of late formation. The chief who gave his name to this emirate was a contemporary of Orkhan, and was sometimes known by the same name. He was allied by marriage to Soleiman, son of Aïdin, through whom he gained the former possessions of Aïdin south of the Maeander River. The emirate probably started at Mughla, and did not have much importance until it had absorbed Tawas and most of Fukeh. The emir of Menteshe possessed great influence during the latter part of Orkhan’s reign and the reign of Murad, and, like Aïdin and Sarukhan, the Turks of Menteshe, through their trading, were more in contact with the outside world than were the Osmanlis. Their port, known to the Venetians as Palatchia, was the ancient Miletus. The emirate of Menteshe suffered decline in the latter days of Murad’s reign through the Venetian usurpation at Palatchia. At the time of Bayezid’s invasion, the emir fled to Sinope and then to Timur. The emirate was restored by Timur, and was not definitely incorporated in the Ottoman empire until the reign of Murad II.[774](SeeFukeh, Palatchia, and Tawas.)
This was one day west of Brusa and a day south of Mudania. After the fall of Brusa, Turkish or Byzantine rulers maintained themselves in Mikhalitch until the expedition of Orkhan against Karasi. After that it became Ottoman.[775]Some of the prisoners held for ransom after Nicopolis were detained in Mikhalitch, and one of the most illustrious of them died there.[776]
This was a small emirate east of Denizli, which was absorbed by Hamid about 1350.[777]
Shehabeddin says that Nicaea was the centre of an emirate whose ruler possessed eight cities, thirty fortresses and an army of eight thousand horsemen. The emir was Ali, a brother and neighbour of Sarukhan. I have been unable to identify this place.[778]
Like Ayasoluk in relation to Aïdin, Palatchia, the ancient Miletus, in relation to Menteshe was at times independent, and at times the capital and seaport of the emirate. Clavijo confused Palatchia with Ayasoluk, and claimed that Timur summered (he means wintered) there. In another place he speaks of having travelled with a brother of Alamanoglu, brother of the emir of AltoluogoandPalatchia.[779]When Menteshe had his capital at Mughla, there was undoubtedly another emir at Palatchia, who might also have been the man spoken of above as emir of Fukeh. But there can be no certainty on this point. Venice, from 1345 to 1405—and later—was interested in Palatchia, and had a consul and large commercial interests there. Different negotiations and treaties, in which the Osmanlis do not figure, attest the interest of Venice, and the independence—at least from the Osmanlis—of Palatchia throughout the fourteenth century.[780]Cyprus and Rhodes at times tried to get the supremacy of Palatchia.[781]
Sarukhan was throughout the fourteenth century an emirate of far more importance than its rather restricted territory would seem to indicate. This was largely on account of the high qualities of its rulers and the daring of its sailors. It extended from the Gulf of Smyrna on the south to the Aegaean coastopposite Mitylene on the north, and was wedged in between Aïdin and Karasi. The hinterland was indefinite, and did not matter much as the Turks of Sarukhan were first and last mariners. They were the most important factor in the triple alliance against Orkhan in 1329 and 1336. After the Ottoman occupation of Pergama, and the disappearance of Karasi, they held the Osmanlis back for a hundred years (with the exception of the few years of Bayezid’s invasion). They were frequently in alliance with the Genoese of Phocaea and the Byzantines, and hired out as mercenaries and for transporting troops and food to Christian and Moslem alike. The long lease of life which Philadelphia enjoyed as a city of the Byzantine Empire is witness of their friendly relations with the Greeks throughout the reigns of Osman, Orkhan, and Murad.[782]Magnesia was capital of this emirate. It was not destroyed until Smyrna fell into the hands of the Osmanlis in 1425.[783]
Satalia is listed as an emirate separately from Tekke for the same reason that Ayasoluk is given separately from Aïdin, Palatchia separately from Menteshe, and Sinope separately from Kastemuni. It began and ended as a separate and independent emirate, with its own lord. Its history is treated below under Tekke. The modern name of Satalia is Adalia, fromAttaleia, and gives its name to the gulf on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Nicolay has confused Satalia with Ayas, the ancient Issos.[784]
An emirate was founded about 1307 in Sinope by the last descendant of the Seljuks of Rum, who was known as GhaziTchelebi[785]who in 1313, in co-operation with the Greeks of Trebizond, attacked Kaffa. But in 1318 we find the Turks of Sinope burning almost all of the city of Trebizond, and in 1323 massacring the Genoese colony in their own city. Soon after this the emir of Kastemuni conquered Sinope.[786]The Turks of Sinope were to the Black Sea what those of Sarukhan were to the Aegaean. In 1361 they nearly captured Kaffa.[787]Their later history is that of Kastemuni.
The history of Sivas between the time of the Mongol withdrawal and the aggression of the Osmanlis is not known. But that it must have had independent princes can be inferred from the story of how Kadi Burhaneddin came to rule there (cf. above under Caesarea). Its disastrous conquest by the Osmanlis, and then by Timur, has been told in the chapter on Bayezid’s reign.
This was a maritime emirate extending east into Lycia and west as far as the mainland opposite Rhodes. It was the only one of the early emirates to possess islands. Its pirates were true descendants of those whom Pompey opposed, and were continually in conflict with the Rhodians and Cypriotes. Tawas was absorbed by Tekke and Menteshe, but not before 1340.[788]
Tekke grew up into a powerful emirate in Pamphylia and Lycia. Its expansion to the north was stopped by the Taurus, and to the west by Alaïa and Karamania. Tawas, which it later absorbed, Menteshe, Rhodes, and Cyprus were its other great rivals. Its history is centred around the city of Adalia, thencalled Satalia, in which there were merchants of the larger Italian cities. Adalia was taken from the emirs of Tekke in 1361, but they regained it when the Genoese were threatening Famagusta in 1373. The Osmanlis, under Murad, crossed the Taurus by way of Sparta, into Tekke, but failed to capture Adalia. It remained independent until 1450.[789]
This city was either under the Mongols or independent throughout the fourteenth century. Its fortunes were similar to those of Caesarea and Sivas.
This city, between Bithynia and Mysia, was conquered by Osman, and then lost. It came again into the power of the Osmanlis in Orkhan’s campaign of 1339. A relative or ally of Andronicus III lived there.[790]
There were two Christian states in Asia Minor during the fourteenth century.
Little Armenia(44), so called to distinguish it from the classical Armenia of the upper Euphrates valley and the mountains between Asia Minor and the Azerbaïdjan, was a portion of Cilicia in the south-eastern corner of Anatolia, south of the Taurus mountains. A dynasty of Armenian kings, who had successfully held off the Seljuks of Konia, and had maintained its position in the fourteenth century by siding with the Mongols and Tartars against the Egyptians, was overthrown between 1360 and 1374 in three invasions by the Egyptians, who made Tarsus their frontier fortress.[791]Ahmed ben Ramazan, however, in1379 established a Turkish emirate at Adana, which survived throughout the fifteenth century. The Osmanlis were masters of a portion of Hungary before their power was felt in Cilicia.
Trebizond(45), in the north-eastern corner of the peninsula, in the country where Mithridates in his kingdom of Pontus had defied the Romans, came into no contact with the Osmanlis during the century. Nor was it the object of aggression on the part of Timur.[792]It resisted successfully, with its Greek and Laze population, on land and sea, the attacks of the Turks of its hinterland and of Sinope.
At the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna, on the northern promontory, was the Genoese self-governing colony ofPhocaea(46), of which much has been said in the chapter on the reign of Orkhan. Phocaea had many vicissitudes, but maintained its independence as a Latin colony throughout the fourteenth century, and knew how to turn aside the possible aggression of Timur. It was never even temporarily dependent upon the Osmanlis.[793]
Smyrna(47) was wrested from the emir of Aïdin by the crusaders of 1344, and, for the rest of the fourteenth century was a Christian city, independent of the Osmanlis and the Turkish emirs alike. It was Timur who brought it again under Moslem control. But it did not pass to the Osmanlis for many years after this reconquest.
The Byzantines, after they had been driven out of Bithynia and Mysia, managed to maintainPhiladelphia(48), through their friendship with Sarukhan, until the end of Murad’s reign.
TheCypriotes(49) exercised a powerful influence in the southern portions of Asia Minor throughout the fourteenth century. As we have seen, they held Adalia for some years. In 1360, the emirs of southern Anatolia were so divided and opposed to each other, and needed so greatly the help of Cyprus againstthe Karamanians, whom they feared much more than the Osmanlis, that they became for many years tributary to Cyprus.[794]The Cypriotes were also interested in Cilicia.
In 1327, the year after Osman’s death, the power of theMongols(50) reached for a few years the Mediterranean. After Bahadur Khan’s death, in 1335, the Mongol Empire was divided up. Suzerainty in Asia Minor fell to the Sultan of Irak (Persia), who, until Timur’s coming, fought with the Karamanians for some of the most important cities of eastern Anatolia. When Ibn Batutah went through the peninsula, Erzerum, Erzindjian, Sivas, Caesarea, Amassia, Nigdeh, and Ak Seraï were ‘cities of the Sultan’.[795]
The chevaliers ofRhodes(51) did not come into Asia Minor until 1310, when they won from the Turks and Greeks the island which was to give them their most commonly used name. They were continually in conflict with Tawas, Alaïa, Adalia, Tekke, Menteshe, Fukeh, and Aïdin. But they never came into contact with the Osmanlis until after the fall of Constantinople. On the mainland, the chevaliers helped to take Smyrna in 1344, and defended it against the Turks for sixty years. They wrested Ayasoluk from Aïdin for a while about 1365. Several times they gained a foothold in Fukeh and Menteshe, and in the last year of the century established a fortress at Halik (Halicarnassus).[796]
The Mamelukes ofEgypt(52) were not only interested in Cilicia, and held that country from 1360 to 1379, and at other times, but also invaded Karamania on different occasions. They reached Konia at the end of the thirteenth century, the beginning of the fifteenth century, and again, under Ibrahim pasha, twice in the third decade of the nineteenth century. During the reign of Murad I, the Egyptians called Cilicia up to the TaurusBab-el-Mulk, the Royal Gateway. Konia was enteredby an Egyptian Sultan in 1418. The Karamanians of that day, who, according to the Ottoman historians, were vassals of the Osmanlis, had no interest in or fear of Mohammed I. They were engaged in a civil war which led to Egyptian intervention.[797]If Konia and the rest of Karamania was under the Osmanlis, why was there not Ottoman intervention in the quarrel between Mohammed and Ali for the Karamanian throne?
Last of all, theCatalans(53), whose history is given in the chapter on Osman, did not all leave Asia Minor with the ‘Grand Company’. Throughout the reign of Orkhan the principality established at Cyzicus left its traces in the Marmora and Dardanelles coast and hinterland. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the lack of Ottoman activity in Asia Minor during Orkhan’s day, even at the very threshold of Bithynia, than the fact that he left the Catalans in possession of Bigha at his death. Murad, in 1363, although his presence was urgently needed on the Maritza to defend his new conquest of Adrianople against a Serbian invasion, was compelled to delay for months to eject the Catalans from Bigha.[798]
Orkhan’s emirate, then, was but one of more than thirty independent states which existed in Asia Minor during the decade from 1330 to 1340.During his lifetime, and the lifetime of his father Osman, the other better-known emirates had been slowly forming by the absorption of small independent villages and cities. Although several of the emirates that have been given above were ephemeral, and some of them duplicated practically the same territory at different periods in the fourteenth century, others, such as Aïdin, Kermian, Karamania, Sarukhan, and Tekke, were far more powerful in Asia Minor than Orkhan or than Murad. That Bayezid had not crushed the life out of the larger emirates is proved by the ease with which they were revived by Timur, and by their survival during the first half of the fifteenth century.
Karamania, for one, remained powerful and flourishing long after the political life of the Balkan states had become extinct. Karamania demanded one hundred years of strenuous effort on the part of the conquerors of the Byzantine Empire before itcould be subjugated.The Osmanlis crossed the Balkans more than a century before they crossed the Taurus.
This exposé was written in order to show:
1. That Osman fell heir to no part of the Seljuk dominions;
2. That the Seljuks had many more heirs than the traditional ten;
3. That Osman and Orkhan carved their state out of the remnants of the Byzantine possessions along the upper end of the Sea of Marmora and in the Valley of the Sangarius—a very small portion indeed of Asia Minor;
4. That Murad, the wonderful conqueror of the Balkan peninsula, was only one of several rulers in Asia Minor, and not the most powerful of these, and that there were large portions of Asia Minor with which neither he nor his successor Bayezid came into contact at all;
5. That neither Bayezid, with his tremendous prestige in Europe, nor his brilliant successors of the fifteenth century, gained undisputed possession of Asia Minor. The Osmanlis were not masters of Asia Minor until long after their inheritance of the Byzantine Empire was regarded in Europe as afait accompli.