The Ottoman Empire,
1300-1650
The Structure of Power
Colin Imber
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650
The Ottoman
Empire,
1300–1650
The Structure of Power
Colin Imber
© Colin Imber 2002
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Imber, Colin.
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: the structure of power/Colin
Imber.
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Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0–333–61386–4
1. Turkey—History—1288–1453. 2. Turkey—History—1453–1683.
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham
Contents
Map 1:
Anatolia, c. 1340
viii
Map 2: The expansion of the Ottoman Empire
ix
Map 3: The borders of the Ottoman Empire,
sixteenth/seventeenth centuries
x
Map 4:
xi
The Ottoman–Habsburg frontier, 1600
Map 5: Ottoman Provinces, sixteenth century
xii
Introduction
xiii
1
2
1
1
4
Chronology
The Ottoman Empire in 1650
Before the Ottomans
The Ottoman Emirate: from triumph to disaster,
1300–1402
The Ottoman Emirate: civil war and recovery, 1402–51
The Ottoman Empire: conquest and consolidation,
1451–1512
The apogee of Empire, 1512–90
The Ottoman times of trouble, 1590–1650
27
44
66
The Dynasty
Reproduction and family structure
Succession
Legitimisation
87
87
96
115
v
8
17
vi
Contents
3
Recruitment
128
4
The Palace
143
Palaces
The household
The Imperial Council
143
148
154
The Provinces
Provinces
177
177
Sanjaks
Fiefs
The provinces transformed
184
193
206
The Law
Legal communities
216
216
The sacred law
Colleges, muftis and judges
The secular law
217
225
244
7
The Army
The fourteenth century
1400–1590: troops
1400–1590: weapons
1400–1590: tactics
After 1590: the military revolution
252
252
257
267
275
281
8
The Fleet
The Ottomans and the sea
Ships
Shipbuilding
287
287
288
292
5
6
Contents
vii
Admirals
Captains and crews
297
302
Troops
Tactics
308
311
Some Conclusions
318
Notes
326
Glossary
350
Sources Quoted
356
Bibliography
362
Index
377
Iznik R. Sakarya
Bursa
RHODES
MENTESHE
AYDIN
PR
CY
US
Adana
KARAMAN
R.
Eu
ph
es
rat
Er zincan
MAMLUKS
Aleppo
DULGADIR
Kayseri
Sivas
Bayburt
Amid
ris
Anatolia, c. 1340
Adapted from Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, London: Sidgwick & Jackson (1968), map IV
Antalya
HAMID
Konya
ERETNA
Ankara
TREBIZOND
R
ig
.T
Mediterranean Sea
Agean
Sinop
Kastamonu
ISFENDYAR
Amasaya
OTTOMANS
SARUHAN Kütahya
GERMIYAN
Manisa
KARESI
Constantinople
Gallipoli
BYZANTINE
EMPIRE
Black Sea
viii
Tripoli
Malta
Mediterranean Sea
Koroni
Cairo
Suez
Red
Sea
Damascus
Aleppo
Kars
Erzurum
Basra
Caspian
Sea
Gulf
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire
Adapted from Robert Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris: Fayard (1989), frontispiece
Tunis
Otranto
Istanbul
Black Sea
Durrës Edirne
Ankara
Kütahya
Vlorë
Sofia
Mohács
Belgrade
Buda
Conquests
under Murad III
(1578–90)
The conquests
of Süleyman I
and Selim II
(1520–74)
The conquests
of Selim I
(1514–18)
The Ottoman
Empire c. 1500
The Ottoman
Empire c. 1380
ix
Rhodes
Tripoli
Cairo
Mediterranean Sea Alexandria
Athens
Belgrade
Malta
Tbilisi
Suez
Damascus
Katif
Massawa
Red
Sea
Jeddah
Mecca
Basra
Aden
Mocha
Gulf
Border
in 1590
Hamadan
Tabriz
Caspian
Sea
Derbent
Baghdad
Black Sea
Istanbul Amasya Erivan
Van
Edirne
Sivas
Thessaloniki
Ankara
Border
Bursa
in 1555
Buda
Azov
Indian
Ocean
Strait of
Hormuz
The borders of the Ottoman Empire, sixteenth/seventeenth centuries
Adapted from Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of
Discovery, New York: SUNY Press (1994), map 1
Oran
Tunis
Algiers
Venice
Vienna
x
The Ottoman–Hapsburg frontier, 1600
Adapted from Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 1500–1700, London: UCL Press
(1999), map 5
xi
TRIPOLI
Tripoli
MOREA
EGYPT
RUM
SYRIA
TH
E
HE
JA
Z
AL-HASA
Trabzon
Erzurum
ERZURUM VAN
Ankara
DIYARBEKIR
R
DI
Amid
KARAMAN
GA
L
MOSUL
U
D
SHEHRIZOR
ALEPPO
Konya
Aleppo
BAGHDAD
Basra
Baghdad
CYPRUS Damascus
BASRA
Istanbul
GO
LA
PE
I
H
Ottoman provinces, sixteenth century
Adapted from Robert Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris: Fayard (1989), frontispiece
Algiers
ALGIERS
RUMELIA
C
NI
S
AR
TU
Sofia
LU
BOSNIA
AN
AD
O
BUDA
xii
Introduction
To write a general history of the Ottoman Empire is a foolhardy
undertaking, and one that needs justification. A general history
requires a solid foundation of books and articles that cover all aspects
of the subject, and a tradition of debate that gives it a shape and a
direction. These are things whose existence the historian of western
Europe can take for granted. For an Ottomanist, however, the scene
is different. It is not that books and articles on the Ottoman Empire
do not exist, but rather that they are fewer and their quality more
variable. Furthermore, as relatively few people work in the field,
research results tend to exist in isolation, with the consequence that
the subject as a whole lacks coherence. It is, for the same reason, difficult to talk of debates in Ottoman history, or to perceive an overall
direction in which the field is moving. Historians of the Ottoman
Empire quickly find that not only have the major questions not been
answered, but that more often than not they have never been
asked.The sensible thing, therefore, would probably be to wait until
the subject has developed before attempting to write a general synthesis.
Nonetheless, there is, I believe, a justification for a general book.
The history of the Ottoman Empire is important and, as recent events
in the Balkans have shown, sometimes even necessary for understanding contemporary problems. It is, however, difficult for nonspecialists to gain an entry into the field. Most of what is easily
available is unsatisfactory, while much of the best work is too specialised or too technical for most readers. A general history can
therefore serve to introduce the non-specialist to the field, and to
provide a context which makes it possible to read the specialist
works. I hope too that it might prove useful to Ottomanists, in giving
the straightforward chronology of events which has hitherto been
xiii
xiv
Introduction
lacking – however unfashionable chronologcal narrative might be, it
remains fundamental to historical understanding – and in providing
a tentative account of the development of Ottoman institutions.
My approach to the subject is narrow, and arose from a tendency
among Ottoman historians no longer to refer to the Ottoman
‘Empire’, but rather to the Ottoman ‘State’. Initially, this term gained
currency from its use by nationalist historians in the Republic of
Turkey who have popularised the theory that the Turks have a genius
for state-creation, and that the Ottoman Empire was one of a number of Turkish states established throughout history. The theory is
nonsense, but it does raise a question: what kind of a ‘state’ was the
Ottoman Empire? I have tried to answer the question – or to begin to
answer it – by describing those institutions through which the
Ottoman Sultan projected his power: the dynasty and the means of
recruitment to dynastic service; the palace, court and central government; provincial government; the law; the army and the fleet. There
should have been a chapter on taxation, but I leave this important
topic to someone who, unlike me, understands figures. I have tried to
show how these institutions developed and changed over three-anda-half centuries. The study ends in the mid-seventeenth century, at
the close of a period of crisis which brought to an end the Empire’s
expansion and brought changes to the structure of its institutions.
The successive crises in the half century from about 1600 mark the
end of the period in Ottoman history that it was once customary to
designate as ‘the rise of the Ottoman Empire’. It seemed, for this reason, to be an appropriate place to conclude this study.
It is detail and an awareness of primary sources that bring the
study of history to life. A general history, however, necessarily omits
details and must rely mainly on secondary materials. I have tried,
nevertheless, to include some historical details, either to illustrate
generalities, or to use them as evidence for assertions. I have tried, at
the same time, to keep the reader in touch with the primary sources.
COLIN IMBER
1 Chronology
The Ottoman Empire in 1650
In 1650, the Ottoman Empire occupied lands in Europe, Asia and
Africa. In Europe, Ottoman territory encompassed most of the
Balkan Peninsula south of the rivers Danube and Sava, and the lands
of central Hungary to the north. The Principalities of Transylvania,
Wallachia, Moldavia and the Crimea which lay between Hungary and
the Black Sea were tributaries of the Ottoman Sultan. In Asia, the
Empire extended eastwards from the Bosphorus to the mountainous
border with Iran, and southwards to the headwaters of the Gulf, and
to Yemen in the south-west of the Arabian Peninsula. In Africa, the
lands of the Empire comprised part of the western littoral of the Red
Sea, the wealthy province of Egypt, and the semi-autonomous outposts of Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers. In the Mediterranean, Cyprus and
most of the islands of the Aegean Archipelago were Ottoman possessions. By 1669, so too was Crete.
Europeans in the seventeenth century, as they still do, normally
referred to the Empire as the ‘Turkish Empire’, and to its people – or
at least its Muslim people – as ‘Turks’. These designations are, however, only partially correct. The population of the Empire was heterogenous in religion, language and social structure. As the Faith of
the sultans and of the ruling élite, Islam was the dominant religion,
but the Greek and Armenian Orthodox Churches retained an important place within the political structure of the Empire, and ministered
to large Christian populations which, in many areas, outnumbered
Muslims. There was also a substantial population of Ottoman Jews.
Following the settlement there of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492,
Thessaloniki had become the city with the largest Jewish population
anywhere in the world.1 Outside these main groups, there were
1
2
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650
numerous other Christian and non-Christian communities, such as
the Maronites and Druzes of Lebanon. Linguistic groups were as varied and overlapping as religious communities. In the Balkan
Peninsula, Slavonic, Greek and Albanian speakers were undoubtedly
in the majority, but besides these, there were substantial minorities of
Turks and romance-speaking Vlachs. In Anatolia, Turkish was the
majority language, but this was also an area of Greek and Armenian
speech and, in the east and south-east, Kurdish. In Syria, Iraq, Arabia,
Egypt and north Africa, most of the population spoke dialects of
Arabic with, above them, a Turkish-speaking élite. However, in no
province of the Empire was there a unique language. The social structure of the Empire was also varied. The economy of the Ottoman
Empire was overwhelmingly agricultural, and the glory of the sultans, as political writers frequently emphasise, rested on the labour of
the peasantry. However, the types of agriculture and livestock rearing, as well as the social structure of villages and peasant households,
varied with different traditions and with the variations in terrain and
climate. In contrast with the peasantry, a part of the Empire’s population led a semi-nomadic, pastoral existence, often at odds with the
settled peoples and government. Among these groups were the
Bedouin on the desert margins of Arabia, Syria and Egypt, the Vlachs
of the Balkan Peninsula and the Turkish-speaking tribesmen of
Anatolia, northern Syria and south-eastern Europe.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the political and military élite
tended to be of Albanian or Caucasian – that is, typically, Georgian,
Abkhazian or Circassian – descent.2 The legal and religious figures
who staffed the religious colleges, law courts and mosques were
more likely to be Turks, in the western Balkans, Bosnians or, in the
Arabic-speaking provinces, Arabs. The Ottoman Empire was, in
short, multinational. Certain groups certainly enjoyed an advantage
in the competition for political office, and rivalry between ethnic factions was an important element in Ottoman politics. In principle,
however, discrimination existed only on grounds of religion.
Muslims alone could achieve political office or pursue careers in the
scribal service, but even here, Muslim descent was not necessary.
Many, if not most, political office holders were first or second generation converts from Christianity. It was the judicial offices that were
Chronology
3
the preserve of old Muslim families. One vital organ of government,
however, remained open to non-Muslims. Many of the men who
engaged in the risky if potentially profitable activity of tax farming
were Christians or Jews.
The Ottoman Empire was not, therefore, exclusively Islamic; nor
was it exclusively Turkish. Rather, it was a dynastic Empire in which
the only loyalty demanded of all its multifarious inhabitants was allegiance to the sultan. The loyalty demanded of those who did not hold
office consisted in no more than not rebelling and paying taxes in
cash, kind or services. Even these were often negotiable. It was in the
end the person of the sultan and not religious, ethnic or other identity that held the Empire together.
Nevertheless, it is not wholly misguided to refer to the sultan’s – in
their Ottoman designation – ‘Well-Protected Realms’ as the ‘Turkish
Empire’. By the seventeenth century, literate circles in Istanbul would
not identify themselves as Turks, and often, in phrases such as
‘Turkish mischief makers’ or ‘senseless Turks’, used the word as a
term of abuse. Nonetheless, Turkish in a refined form was the language of government and the lingua franca of the élite. A vizier
might, by origin, be an Albanian, a Croat or an Abkhaz, but for all
official and most literary purposes he would use Turkish and not his
native tongue. As the language of power, Turkish had prestige
throughout the Empire. Furthermore, despite their abuse, the
Ottoman élite seems always to have thought of Muslim Turks as the
most reliable of the sultan’s subjects. The settlement of Turkish
colonies in the Balkans had accompanied the Ottoman conquest in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and again, the years after the
conquest of Cyprus in 1573 had witnessed the forcible removal to the
island of Turks from Anatolia. The deportees were sometimes troublemakers at home, but the intention was that with their removal to
a distant territory they would form a nucleus of loyal Ottoman subjects. It should be noted, however, that the sultans also resettled nonTurkish groups, such as the Jewish community implanted on Cyprus
after 1573 in order to stimulate the commercial life of the island. The
Jews, like the Turks, had a reputation for loyal endeavour.
The reason for the dominance in the Empire of the Turkish language and the important, although unprivileged position of the
4
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650
Turks lies in the Empire’s origins and in the history of Anatolia in the
two and a half centuries before its foundation.
Before the Ottomans
The Ottoman Empire came into being in about 1300 in north-western Anatolia to the east of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. It
was only one of numerous small principalities which had emerged in
Anatolia in the last two decades of the thirteenth century on territory which had previously formed part of the Byzantine Empire. The
lords of these territories and their followers were Muslim Turks, and
their presence in Anatolia indicates not only a change in sovereignty,
but also a change in ethnicity and religion. From being primarily
Greek and Christian in the eleventh century, by 1300 Anatolia had
become primarily Turkish and Muslim.
The origins of this change lie in the eleventh century. In the midcentury a confederation of Turkish tribes from Transoxania conquered Iran, and in 1055, occupied Baghdad, establishing it as the
capital of the Great Seljuk dynasty. The consequence of these events
was not simply to establish a new ruler in Baghdad, but also, with the
influx of Turks from Central Asia, to alter the ethnic balance of the
Middle East. Many of these Turkish incomers were to colonise
Anatolia.
A convenient date for marking the beginning of this phenomenon
is 1071. In this year the Great Seljuk Sultan defeated the Byzantine
Emperor at Manzikert in eastern Anatolia. The battle heralded the
rapid collapse of Byzantine rule in eastern and central Anatolia, and
the establishment in the following decades of the rule of a branch of
the Seljuk dynasty. The area of Byzantine sovereignty shrank to the
territory in western Anatolia between the Aegean and the central
plateau. The collapse of Byzantine defences and the appearance of a
Muslim dynasty undoubtedly encouraged the immigration of Turks.
So too did geography. It seems that the Turks who had migrated
from Transoxania to the Middle East were, in the main, seminomadic pastoralists, and Anatolia was well suited to this way of life.
The Mediterranean coastlands and the plain of northern Syria provided them with a warm winter climate, while in the summer they
Chronology
5
and their flocks could follow the retreating snowline to the upland
pastures of the Taurus mountains and the Anatolian plateau. It was
perhaps these factors more than the collapse of Byzantine rule that
encouraged the first Turkish immigrants into Anatolia. Many, one
may presume, were to abandon pastoralism and settle in villages.3
The Turks undoubtedly made up an important element in the
realms of the Anatolian Seljuks. They did not, however, form a ruling
class. The language of government in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was Persian, and there was clearly a sharp divide between the
Persian speaking élite of the cities and the Turks in the countryside. It
was events in the thirteenth century that were to raise the political
status of Turkish speakers in Anatolia. The same events were also to
bring about the political fragmentation in Anatolia and the Balkan
Peninsula that was to make possible the establishment of the principality that was to become the Ottoman Empire, and also to favour its
rapid expansion.
The first of these crises affected the Balkan Peninsula rather than
Anatolia. In 1204, the army of the Fourth Crusade conquered
Constantinople and established a Latin Emperor in the city. With the
capital in their possession the leaders of the Crusade divided
Byzantine territory in Greece and the Aegean Archipelago among
themselves, forcing the Byzantine government into exile at Nikaia
(Iznik) and confining its territories to western Anatolia. During the
course of the century, the Byzantine emperor recovered some lands
in mainland Greece and the Peloponnesos, but the area still remained
a patchwork of small principalities. The most lasting benefit of the
Crusade came to Venice, which acquired strongholds in the
Pelponnesos and islands in the Aegean, the most important of which
was Negroponte (Evvoia) off the eastern coast of the Greek mainland.
By the time of the Ottoman invasion of the Balkan Pensinsula in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the lands to the north had become
similarly fragmented. For a while during the fourteenth century they
found political unity under the Serbian Tsar, Stephen Dushan (d.
1355), whose lands comprised Serbia itself, as well as much of
Macedonia, Thessaly, Epiros and Albania. On Stephen’s death, however, his successors divided the territory into small principalities. The
same thing happened in Bulgaria. On the death of Tsar Alexander in
6
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650
1371, his lands between the Danube and the Balkan mountains divided into three separate principalities. This fragmentation of the Balkan
Peninsula, which had begun with the Fourth Crusade, was something
which the Ottoman conquerors were later to exploit.
The Fourth Crusade did not, however, upset the equilibrium in
Anatolia. The Byzantine Emperor retained control of western
Anatolia and remained at peace with the Seljuk Sultan to the east. In
the mid-thirteenth century, however, the Seljuk sultanate suffered a
catastrophe. In 1243, a Mongol army – part of an invading force
which, by 1258, had conquered Iran, Anatolia and Iraq – defeated a
Seljuk army at Kösedağ and reduced the Sultan to the status of vassal.
Henceforth, his overlord was the Ilkhan, the Mongol ruler of Iran.
The Mongol conquest did not at once affect Byzantine lands in
western Anatolia. It was, however, a factor in the collapse of
Byzantine rule in this area. The Mongols were a pastoral people, and
needed the grasslands of the newly conquered Seljuk territory not
only for their flocks, but especially for the horses that were essential
for their military success. It seems very likely, therefore, that competition from the Mongols forced many Turkish pastoralists to seek
new lands in the west. They found these in Byzantine Anatolia, where
the river valleys lead down from the high plateau to the warmer climate on the shores of the Aegean, a feature of the landscape that was
well suited to their summer and winter migration. The Turkish
migration to the west became easier after 1261.
In this year, the Byzantine Emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos,
reconquered Constantinople. It was, as it turned out, a victory with
some unhappy consequences. Once established in Constantinople,
the Emperor used his resources against enemies in the west, ignoring
his apparently secure eastern frontier. As Byzantine fortresses and
military organisation fell into disrepair, invasion from the east
became easier, and there was a Turkish migration, through the crumbled defences, to the sea. Thus, in the last decade of the thirteenth
century, western Anatolia experienced the same transformation in
its ethnic composition as central and eastern Anatolia had experienced in the last decade of the eleventh. As in the eleventh century,
this change in ethnicity from primarily Greek to primarily Turkish
had important political consequences.
Chronology
7
These to a large extent mirrored the political changes in the former
Seljuk realms. After 1243, the Seljuk sultans lost their power to
Mongol governors, their formerly sovereign territory becoming the
western outpost of the lands of the Ilkhans of Iran. In 1302, the last
Seljuk sultan died. His death coincided with a period of weakening
Ilkhanid control over Anatolia, making it possible for local governors, lords and bandits to establish themselves as independent rulers.
Thus, in the early fourteenth century, what had been Seljuk and
Ilkhanid Anatolia broke up into a kaleidoscope of principalities. Of
these, the largest, the longest lived and the most fearsome rival of the
Ottoman Empire was the emirate of Karaman in south-central
Anatolia, with the old Seljuk capital of Konya as a principal city.
The same phenomenon occurred in the former Byzantine lands in
western Anatolia. Byzantine rule did not survive the Turkish immigration of the late thirteenth century, and by 1300 Turkish rule had
replaced Greek, with a series of Turkish principalities on the former
territory of the Emperor. On the south coast, around Antalya, lay the
principality of Teke. To the north of Teke and lying inland were the
territories of Hamid, around Isparta, and Germiyan, with its capital at
Kütahya. At the southernmost tip of the Aegean coast lay the principality of Menteshe. To the north of Menteshe were Aydın and
Saruhan, with Tire and Manisa as their respective capitals. To the
north of Saruhan, with part of its shoreline along the Dardanelles, lay
the emirate of Karesi. North-west of Karesi, in the former Byzantine
province of Bythinia, was the emirate of Osman, the founder of the
Ottoman dynasty. His lands were to form the nucleus of the
Ottoman Empire.4
One feature in particular distinguished the principalities that had
emerged on former Byantine and Seljuk territories from the polities
which they had replaced. Now the rulers and their followers, and not
simply the subject people, were Turks. They were also Muslims. The
mosques which they built during the course of the fourteenth century bear witness to their Faith, while the grandiose titles which they
adopted for their mosque inscriptions show their wish to emulate
the Seljuk sultans and the rulers in the old Islamic world.
Nonetheless, the literary fragments which survive in Turkish from
fourteenth-century Anatolia suggest that these new Turkish lords
8
The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650
were ‘a rude, unlettered folk’, largely ignorant of the tenets of the
orthodox Islam which they outwardly professed.
This was the world into which the future Ottoman Empire5
emerged: strongly Turkish and tentatively Islamic. As the Empire
expanded it became increasingly multinational, both in its subject
populations and in its body politic. At the same time, the Islam of the
rulers, which expressed itself through the adoption of Islamic law
and the imposition of formal Islamic ritual, became increasingly
orthodox. Nonetheless, the use of Turkish as the language of government and the Turkish element in the population – both a reflection
of the Empire’s origins – gave the state a Turkish character.
The Ottoman Emirate: from triumph to disaster, 1300–1402
Ottoman tradition names Osman son of Ertughrul as the founder6 of
the Ottoman Empire, and relates how he declared himself a sovereign ruler at Karajahisar, a place which probably corresponds with
Byzantine Malagina7 in the lower Sakarya valley. This much of the
tradition appears to be true. How Osman and his followers came to
settle in this area is a matter for speculation, since later Ottoman
accounts are almost certainly myths. It is possible, however, that a
natural disaster provided the first impetus. The Sakarya valley was a
strategically important area, since it controlled the approach to
Constantinople from the east. Despite his preoccupations in the
west, the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII reorganised this frontier
and, by 1280, had completed a new series of fortifications along the
river bank. However, in the spring of 1302 the Sakarya flooded and, as
a result of the indundations, changed its course, rendering the new
defences useless. It was possibly this event that allowed Osman’s men
to cross the river and settle in the Byzantine province of Bythinia.8
Within a very short time, Turkish raiders had reached the Sea of
Marmara. The contemporary Byzantine chronicler Pachymeres
describes how news of Osman’s victories spread and attracted Turks
from other areas of western Anatolia to join his following, and how
his force was strong enough to defeat a Byzantine army near
Nikomedia (Izmit), exposing all Bithynia to his raids. From their base
in the Sakarya valley, where Osman had occupied the old Byzantine
Chronology
9
fortified places, his men plundered the countryside to the west, forcing the inhabitants into the walled towns. These remained secure,
since Osman obviously lacked the military skills to undertake formal
sieges: his assault on Nikaia failed. At the time of his death in the mid1320s, Nikaia, Prousas (Bursa), Nikomedia (Izmit) and Pegai had still
not fallen.
It was Osman who was the founder of the Ottoman Empire, and
who was to give his name to the Ottoman – or Osmanlı – dynasty,
but it was under his son Orhan (1324?–62) that the little principality
began to acquire a more settled aspect. Osman’s territory had contained no large towns. In 1326, however, the city of Bursa succumbed
to starvation and became, from this date, the first capital of the
Ottomans. In the next year, following an earthquake which damaged
its fortifications, Orhan’s men occupied the Byzantine town of
Lopadion (Ulubat), towards the Dardanelles. These disasters persuaded the Emperor Andronikos III to lead an army to Bithynia in
1328, but he turned back when Orhan checked his advance at
Pelekanon, two days’ march from Constantinople. With the land
route between the city and Bythinia now impassable, the fall of the
remaining Byzantine cities was inevitable. Nikaia was the first to succumb, in 1331. Nikomedia followed in 1337, confining Byzantine territory in Asia to a few miles to the east of Constantinople. Ottoman
expansion, however, was not only at the expense of Byzantium. In
1345–6, Orhan annexed the Turkish emirate of Karesi, whose lands
along the Dardanelles provided a crossing point from Asia into
Europe. Less than ten years later, in 1354, Orhan’s son Süleyman
Pasha occupied Ankara to the east of his father’s territory but such is
the obscurity of this period, that it is not clear from whom he took
the city.9
It was Orhan, too, who first established an Ottoman bridgehead in
Europe. He achieved this by exploiting a civil war in Byzantium
between the rival Emperors John [VI] Kantakouzenos and John [V]
Palaiologos. Kantakouzenos sought allies among the Turkish rulers
of western Anatolia and, in 1346 formed a pact with Orhan by marrying him to his daughter Theodora. The strategy was successful and,
in 1347, Kantakouzenos entered Constantinople and proclaimed
himself Emperor, with John V as his co-regent. It was, however,