Romania and the Turks c.1300 - c.1500 (Variorum Reprint, Cs211)

Elizabeth A. Zachariadou /1/

1

Romania and the Turks

"-

(c. 1300-c. 1500)

Dr. Elizabeth A. Zachariadou

VARIORUM REPRINTS London 1985

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Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. Romania and the Turks (c. 1300 - c. 1500)(Collected studies series; CS211) 1. Turkey - History - Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918 1. Title 956 DR486 ISBN 0-86078-159-3

CONTENTS

Variorum Reprints

Preface

ix-x Observations on Sorne Turcica of Pachyrneres

261-267

Revue des Etudes Byzantines 36. Paris, 1978

II

Pachyrneres on the 'Arnourioi' of Kastarnonu

57-70

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 3. Oxford, 1977

III

Trebizond and the Turks (1352-1402)

333-358

"ApXefov IIôvTov35. Birmingham Symposium "Black Sean March1978. Athens, 1979

IV

Manuel II Palaeologus on the Strife Between Bâyezïd and I):âçlï Burhân al-Din Al).rnad

471-481

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies XVIII. London, 1980 Published in Great Britain by Printed in Great Britain by

Variorum Reprints 20 Pern bridge Mews London W11 3EQ Butler & Tanner Ltd Frorne, Sornerset VARIORUM REPRINT CS211

V

The Catalans of Athens and the Beginning of the Turkish Expansion in the Aegean Area Studi Medievali, 3a Serie, XXI. Spoleto, 1980

821-838

u

III ghazi of the marches. Just before the Bapheus battle, he was at peace with the Byzantine Emperor; but when he saw Osman's army including also many Turks from the Meander region he could not restrain himself any longer and he joined the forces of the Ottomans.'s Three years later when relations between the Mongols and the Byzantines became closer, he appeared willing to pass into Byzantine service, asking for the area near the Sangarios from Andronikos II.'9 One word about Ali's brother. According to the oriental sources Yavlak Arslan had a son Mahmud whose laqab was either Husam ed-din or Nasir ed-din. 40 I think that it can be established now that his laqab was Nasir ed-din, as this person can be identified with the Nasir ed-din of Pachymeres who was a hostage for several years in Constantinople. Presumably he survived because he did not participate in the fatal family visit to Mansur, being lucky enough to be absent from Kastamonu and kept as a hostage by the Emperor. 41 Nasir ed-din and Ali, the descendants of ,rdashir, a protege of Kadi Burhaneddin, who gives valuable information about central Anatolia since he himself was interested in events resulting from the policy of Sivas 2. Therefore our two sources complement one another up to a point. Up until the middle of the Xlyth century the Trapezuntine emperors seem to have confronted any menace coming from the Turks with arms. But in the second half of that century they seem to ha ve initiated a new policy, based on family alliances. In this 1. On the Eastern frontier of Trebizond see M. K u r san ski s l'empire de Trebizonde et In Geortrie, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 35 (19--) 237- 256 (especially p. 247 - 256 ). " • 2. Ibn:A.rdashir wrote his work in Persian: Aziz ibn A.rda~ I r A.s tar a bad t,. Bezm u Rezm, Turkiyat EnstitUsu, Istanbul 1928. I used the extensl."e summary In German made by G i e sec k e. On ibn _A d h. see Giesecke, p. 6. 12. r as Ir

338

TREBIZOND AND THE TURKS (1352 - 1402)

respect they followed an already established Byzantine tradition 1 with one difference: the Trapezuntines gave real princesses to the Turks, while the Constantinopolitans - with the exception of John VI Kantakouzenos 2_ gave only illegitimate daughters, presumably because the Constantinopolitans considered such daughters as bonnes pour ['Orient. In order to explain this difference one must perhaps keep in mind that the Byzantines considered the Trapezunti. nes themselves as barbarians. Pachymeres qualifies the emperor of Trebizond as a «barbarian»s, a term with a well known pejorative meaning. On another occasion Pachymeres, mentioning the Patriarch of Constantinople Germanos III (1265 - 1266), a member of the Gabras family 4, remarks that the Patriarch's enemies used to call him by a Turkish nickname and to say that he originated from the same place as the Turks. They did all this because the Patriarch was a Lazian which in Pachymeres' terminology means a Trapezuntine 5. Apart from Pachymeres, Gregoras, when relating some events of the history of Trebizond, introduces them by remarking that he is going to write about events which took place in other nations: EV aAAol~ E{}VEcrl 6. As is known, the Byzantines used the term E{}VO~ to designate peoples considered by them as barbarians. Finally it is perhaps worth remarking that the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III sent his illegitimate daughter as a wife to Basil, the

1. See the marriages of Byzantine princesses with the Mongol khans: St. Run c i man, The Ladies of the Mongols. El. 'W~'U1V K. I. . AI"'vtov. Athens '960, p. 46· 53· 2. D. M. N i col. The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantaeuzenu,) c. 1100· 1460, A Genealogical and Pro,opographieal Study, Washington 1; an addition - not altogether successful - to i b Ii - A r d ash i r' s text: I express my thanks to Prof. W. Millward, who checked ibn·Ardashir's text for me. Therefore the emirate of Had emir is not accurately located in B rye r, Turkmens, passim and map; the alternative place he proposes, 1. e. Golkoy Kilise Kale seems more probable. 3. Giesecke, p. 110. 4. C I a v i j 0, p. 73: Ca~amir, ca~amia; B rye r, Turkmens. p. 129' 130, misled by Le Strange's translation, mentions, with a question mark, this lord as Altamur and as the successor of Taceddin; on Taceddin's successors see p. 351, U. 4. 5. The first place was called Leona, C 1 a v i j 0, p.73, i e. Bow" today Vona; see on this locality B rye r, Maps, p. 104; cf. ide 01, TiJrkm,ns. p. 131; ct. also the description of the place in A. Del a t t e, Leo Portulans Croc., IT, Complements, Bruxelles 1958. p. 33. The second place waS Stoma (Greek l;t0l'a: mouth), situated according to C I a vi j 0, p. 73. near to a ,bocca de un Rio,; the river is apparently the Bazar-su. Stoma is most pro: bably the locality of San Thomas to be found on the map of Vescoo te . B rye T, Map•• p. 105; and in A. Del a t t e, Les Portulan. Crees 1, Bru·

xelles 1947. p. 238. B rye r, Maps, p. 104, misled by Le Strange's translation of C I a v i j 0, mentions a locality Santo Nicio not to be found in any other source. 1. C I a v i j 0, p. 74. B rye r, Tiirkmens, p. 131, hesitates to accept CIa· vijo's data because it took the latter almost three days to travel from Kerasunt to Trebizond; however C I a v i j o' s journey was long because of bad weather (cfizo tienpo contrario. , eel viento era contrario. fue contrario- etc. ,.

1

ce el viento

2. On Taceddin see U z U n c; a T§ Ill, Anadolu beylikleri. 5upra p. 341, n. 3, p. 153 - 15t; mainly a g u z, Taeeddin ogulla". . 3· Pan are to s, p. 74 and 78: , «oii Tnt~la. nv~ t~la,(",~,; Kutlu beg and Had emir have only the title UIl'lQa, in Panaretos, 1'.70,72,74,76; on ~elebi see P. \Vittek, Der ,Beiname. d.. O.m:-nuehen Sultans Mehemmed f, Eretz - Israel v. 7 (1963), L. A. Mayer Memo,,"l Volume, p. 144 - 157. 4.. heOn Q Iskefser see F r . T a e s c h n e r, D as anatohsehe . II Wegenetz naeh osmanlle n ue en Leipzig 1924 v II f J Tskefse t ' . . ,p. 54; c. a so the place names d' . r ura~ and ~skefser Flndicak in the same region: Tiirkiye Ansiklo. pe lSI, s. v. Re~ad,ye' cf supra P 344 n S (d as a possession of Ta;eddin' G" 'k' I. onus a to ay Ta~ova) appears ibn-Battuta p 43 6 ' f' RleHsec e, p.64. T heplace is mentioned by , . ,c. . art man n Zu E I" T. 10 1 b • ober.,. Euphrat- und Tigru. Cebiet Der I I ' W va se e e i $ Reiun im gin, 15. ve 16. astrlarda eyalet.; R" s ~~9f~1919) 18~ ..188; also T. G 5 k b i I· · k um. a I ar DerglSI 6 (1965) 51 - ,4. S. G lesec e, p.88. ' Ii. MiQo; Exovaa toii Gonou to . ne s, Cambridge Mass. 1954 v V ~Q"HGtOV, S t r abo n, ed. H. L. J 0I I' . , . , p. 394 - 395· 7. sam Anslklopedisi, s. v. Nik.ar (article by II D k . a r - 0 t).

III

III

3-!S

wedding, the Sivas people mounted an expedition against Niksar because Taceddin had declared himself independent through refusing to pay his annual tribut · The cam~~ign f~ile~, a~d the Sivas 7 arm v withdrew after plundenng Taceddlll s terntones . Therefore in 1379 when the wedding took place, T~ebizond and Niksar had a common enemy: Sivas. Moreover Taceddlll had proven that he was able to maintain his independence. The Sivas group openly showed their disapproval for the family alliance between Trebizond and Niksar. Panaretos reports that when the emperor and his daughter arrived at Kerasunt to join his future son-in-law, a message came from the capital: K\lI~ Arslan was about to march down against Trebizond. The emperor left the bride in Kerasunt and returned to Trebizond with his nobles. He fortified the castle and set the country in read.!ness. Then he returned to Kerasunt and led his daughter to Unye where the wedding took place 2. Panaretos reports that the emperor took Limnia at that time without clarifying from whom he took it 3. Perhaps Limnia was temporarily occupied by Taceddin in order to excercise pressure upon the Trapezuntine emperor. A fourth wedding took place in the second half of the XIVth century: a Trapezuntine princess - most probably a daughter of Alexios III - was given in matrimony to Mutahharten, the lord of Erzincan and Bayburt and of some other important places. This marriage is reported by Clavijo who visited Erzincan in 1404 when Mutahharten was already dead 4. The wedding most probably took place after the year 1379 when Mutahharten became the lord of Erzincan. The match was certainly most profitable for the Grand Komnenoi, and a review of the relations between the empire of Trebizond and the lords of the two caravan cities of Bayburt and Erzincan is not out of place. As we saw, the emirs of those two cities attacked Trebizond in 1348; and I expressed the opinion that this event led to the marriage of the emperor's sister to the Akkoyunly Kutlu beg who was thus won over to the Trapezuntine side. In the years that

1. 2.

349

TRIlBIZOND AND THE TURKS (1352. 1402)

Y u eel, BurluIneddin, p. 38 - .19· Panaretos, P.79-

3· Pan are t 0 s, p. 79see Y ii eel, Ara§wmalar 1, 4. C I a vii 0, p. 86·87; on Mutahharten p. 67\.67 2 •

followed, Panaretos does not report incidents with the emirs of Bayburt and Erzincan. However, the situation changed in 1360 and 1361. Trebizond was attacked by Hoca Latif of Bayburt and later by Eyne beg of Erzincan. The former was killed by the Trapezuntines in q6r " and the latter died the next year 2. Immediately afterwards a young man, Pir Hiiseyn, son of an emir, appeared on the scene. After a civil war, he became master of Erzincan, and within two months he conquered the city of Bayburt as well. It is not known who exactly the opponents of Pir Hiiseyn were nor who helped him to accomplish the conquest of those two most important caravan cities 3. Only one fact is certain: that throughout his rule, for about r6 years, there are no recorded hostilities between his domains and Trebizond. I. XOt~lQA("('I'~