Early Ottoman History

a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m a s h g a t e . c o m © Copyrighted Material © Copyrighted Material 177 From Power and Subversion in Byzantium, ed. Dimiter Angelov and Michael Saxby.

„There are few theoretical approaches to which historian respond so negatively as to the explanation of historical processes by such theories“, the German historian Rainer Waltz states most accurately in his study on „Theories of Social Evolution and History“; there he also presents two main causes for this rejection: a moral one, the perversion of evolutionary thinking in so-called Social Darwinist theories in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a scientific one, the fear of a biologistic interpretation of human history by adopting evolutionary models (Walz, 2004). This distinguishes historical studies from other social sciences and humanities such as anthropology or sociology and even other historical disciplines such as archaeology, where evolutionary models have become part of the methodological toolkit (Renfrew & Bahn, 2008; for a rare example from the field of history of literature cf. Moretti, 2009).
Although most historians are reluctant to adopt evolutionary models (yet alone in their mathematized or sociobiologist form) for the interpretation of human past (respectively the larger or smaller period of time they are specialised in), terms such as “evolution” and concepts of evolutionary thinking such as “adaption” or “selection” are used in numerous descriptions of historical events and processes, albeit often in a metaphorical way (Walz, 2004). At the same time it is evident that major developments in human history such as the emergence of the human kind itself, of human culture and of complex social structures such as states as well as phenomena of long duration (up to the scale of “Big History” from the Big Bang until present times as it has been attempted in the last decades, Spier 2010) cannot be explained without the help of evolutionary concepts (cf. Blute, 2010; Voland, 2009); but again, these subjects refer mainly to the fields of evolutionary biologists and psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists or (prehistoric) archaeologists (cf. Yoffee, 2004). Some specialists from these disciplines have also tried to adapt such concepts for the entire human history beyond its “beginnings”, but have equally found mixed reception among historians, especially if they try to demonstrate some kind of progress in the development of humanity as for instance Steven Pinker has done most recently in his study on “Why Violence has declined” (Pinker, 2011; see also Atran, 2002; Boyd & Richerson, 2005; Morris, 2010).
In contrast to this (non)-use of evolutionary concepts for historical studies, we intend to demonstrate the benefit of a complex evolutionary approach for the analysis of a specific period of late medieval/early modern history between 1200 and 1500 CE, which has been attributed central importance for the so-called “Rise of the West”, since it saw the beginning of European overseas expansion at its end (cf. Goldstone, 2009; Morris, 2010).
In the “calamitous” 14th century, as Barbara Tuchman called it (1978), the medieval world entered a period of severe crisis in demography, economy, politics and religion. This crisis took hold in all regions, ranging from China in the East to England in the West. Even before the catastrophic pandemic of the Black Death (1346-1352), deteriorating climatic conditions had ended the period of demographic and economic expansion that began in the 10th century (Behringer, 2007; Atwell, 2001; Benedictow, 2004; Brook, 2010).
The local and regional impacts and consequences of these general crisis-laden conditions may have differed; outcomes ranged from actual societal collapse to the emergence of powerful new polities. But these conditions provide a framework for global perspective on this period and allow us to use the 14th century-crisis as a field of “natural experiments of history”, as Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson have called them (Diamond & Robinson, 2011); accordingly, we analyse how similar crisis phenomena influenced the development of societies with different (or similar) traditions, religions, institutions, geographies or ecologies (cf. also Borsch, 2005). In particular, we will analyse and compare five polities in the “Old World”, England, Hungary, Byzantium, Egypt and China, of which three disappeared around the end of this period due to the expansion of the most successful newly emerged Ottoman Empire (Byzantium in 1453, Mamluk Egypt in 1517, Hungary in 1526/1541; cf. also Preiser-Kapeller, 2011).
In order to be able to capture variations and complexities within this sample, we adopt concepts and tools provided by the field of complexity science. We understand complex systems as large networks of individual components, whose interactions at the microscopic level produce “complex” changing patterns of behaviour of the whole system on the macroscopic level. In the last decades, historians and social scientists also tried to use concepts of complexity theory for the description of phenomena in their own fields, but again often only in a “metaphoric” way (Gaddis, 2002; Hatcher & Bailey, 2001). Less frequently, though, historians have tried to make use of the mathematical foundations of complexity theory or of quantitative tools provided by this field (Kiel & Elliott, 1997; Preiser-Kapeller, 2012). Recent scholarship has implemented some of these tools especially for the construction of macro-models of socio-economic development (Goldstone, 1991; Turchin, 2003; Turchin & Nefedov, 2009).
In addition, we combine complexity theory with the analytical framework of “systems theory” developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) in order to capture the interdependencies between politics, economy and religion within a polity and with the political, economic and ecological environment (Luhmann, 1997; Becker & Reinhardt-Becker, 2001; Becker, 2004). Luhmann´s theory is valuable for our analysis in various aspects; it makes us aware of the reduction of environmental and social complexity which is reflected in our historical sources, and it provides a framework to approach complex mechanisms within and the dependencies between various social spheres and their environment. Its evolutionary aspects have also been analysed by Walz (2004). In addition, we employ methods and tools of network analysis, which allow us to capture, analyse and model linkages and cause-effect correlations in society, economy, politics and religion on the macro- and micro-level down to groups and individuals (Gould, 2003; Lemercier, 2005).
Overall, our analytical approach allows us to capture the “diversité véritable” without losing track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”, as Victor Liebermann has called them, 2009) with regard to the transformation of polities and societies and their adaption to this “first world crisis”. Thereby, the value of a framework of evolutionary dynamics for the exploration of human history will be demonstrated

References
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Atwell, W. S. (2001). Volcanism and Short-Term Climatic Change in East Asian and World History, c. 1200–1699. Journal of World History 12/1, 29-98.
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Becker, F. (Ed.). (2004). Geschichte und Systemtheorie. Exemplarische Fallstudien. Frankfurt, New York: Campus Verlag.
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Preiser-Kapeller...

The capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II in 1453 was a cataclysmic event that reverberated throughout Renaissance Europe. This event intensified the exodus of Byzantines to Italy and beyond and they brought along with them the heritage of Greek antiquity. Laonikos Chalkokondyles contributed to the Renaissance with his detailed application of Herodotos to the fifteenth century, Apodeixis Historion, and made sense of the rise of the Ottomans with the lens of ancient history. The Apodeixis was printed in Latin, French, and Greek and was widely successful. The historian restored Herodotean categories of ethnicity, political rule, language, and geography to make sense of contemporary events and peoples. This was a thorough study of ancient historiography and Laonikos thus parted ways with previous Byzantine historians. I refer to Laonikos’ method as “revolutionary classicizing”, to describe the ways in which he abandoned the ideal of lawful imperium and restored the model of oriental tyranny when he described the nascent Ottoman state. What appears to be emulation of the ancient classics was radical revival of political concepts such as city-states as ethnic units, freedom defined as independence from foreign rule, law-giving as fundamental aspect of Hellenic tradition which did not encompass the Christian period.

Laonikos has often been studied in the context of proto-nationalist historiography as he had composed a universal history, wherein he had related extensive information on various ethnic and political units in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, such proto-nationalist application does not fully capture Laonikos’classicizing interests. Laonikos referred to his contemporaries as Hellenes, not because he was a nationalist who defined political identity only by recourse to language and common history. Rather, Laonikos believed that Hellenic identity, both referring to paganism as well as ethnicity, was relevant and not bankrupt. Importantly, we introduce manuscripts that have not yet been utilized to argue that Hellenism as paganism was living reality for Laonikos, his Platonist teacher Plethon, and their circle of intellectuals in the fifteenth century.

This article will attempt to offer the first literary analysis of the Dialogue with a Persian of Manuel II Palaiologos. Despite its rich theological and literary material, this work has largely been neglected by the scholars. However, the Dialogue deserves to be studied for its literary merit, and not merely as a historical source. After a brief overview of the contents and background of the Dialogue, this present study will focus on its literary features, especially on the vivid character portrayal of the Ottomans and the emperor himself.

Keywords: Manuel II Palaiologos, dialogue, Byzantine literature, Byzantine anti-Islamic treatises, Bayezid I.

Bu çalışmada Bursa Kent Müzesi’ndeki Osmanlı kuruluş devrine ait sikkeler kataloglanmış ve siyasî, iktisadî ve nümismatik açıdan değerlendirilmiştir. Ele alınan devirde arşiv vesikalarının noksanlığı sikkelerin önemini arttırmaktadır. Yayınlanacak her sikke kaynak niteliği taşıdığından gerek müze envanterlerinin gerekse şahsî koleksiyonların yayınlanması yeni tarihî verilerin ortaya çıkarılması açısından önem arz etmektedir. Bu çalışma ile hem yeni sikkelerin yayınlanması hem de eksikliklerin tamamlanması hedeflenmiştir. Sonuç olarak bazı eski bilgiler yenilenmiş veya düzeltilmiş, çalışılan devrin ana para birimi olan akçenin ağırlığı uzun bir süreden sonra tekrar ele alınmış ve katalogda yeni bir atıf yöntemi kullanılmıştır.

In this study, the coins of the early Ottoman era in Bursa City Museum were cataloged and evaluated politically, economically and numismatically. The deficiency of archive documents increases the importance of coins in the period handled. Since every coin to be published is a resource, the publication of both museum and private collections is important for the emergence of new historical data. With this study, both the publishing of new coins and the completion of the deficiencies are aimed. As a result, some old information has been renewed or corrected, the weight of the akche, the main currency of the period, was handled again after a long time, and at the catalog a new citation method was used.

For half a millennium much of Southeast Europe was an integral part of the Islamic world and shared fully in its political economic and cultural life.  Balkan cities were among the largest of the Muslim Empire, and some of the most important owe their very existence to the active urbanization policy of that state: the Empire of the Ottoman.  Ottoman architecture came into being in a land with no tradition of Islamic culture, therefore the contribution of Ottoman Empire in Balkan Islamic Built environment is vital. Most of mosques in Balkan area are demolished due to several factors such as natural earthquakes, ideological or political reasons and are not reconstructed back. Some others have changed the function several times through the history and some others have remain in their original function. The aim of this study is to identify the selected mosques architectural features built in Balkan during the early Period of Ottoman Empire and to analyse their current architectural state after restorations took place. This study includes a total of 10 mosques located in 5 countries (Albania, Bosna, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Hungary) built between the years 1400-1500. These mosques vary in the degree of preservation. Some of them have had several restorations and still function as mosques, some are left abounded, and some others are turned into churches.  For understanding the early Ottoman architectural language and how the preservation work took place, this research employs a historical and analytical approach analysis.  At the end of this paper, recommendations are highlighted in order to increase the awareness of Ottoman Heritage in Balkans and its preservation for future use.

Keywords: Ottoman Early period, Balkan mosques, Ottoman Architecture, preservation, Architectural Features

Ottomans came up stage of history as a frontier polity. They were nomadic Turcomans located in Bithynia. This region had religiously syncretistic feature as it was frontier.  Christians, Tatars, Turcoman tribes and other different subjects were living together in there. After the Mongol invasion in Anatolia, several nomadic Turcoman tribes migrated to Western Anatolia. Seljuk sultan sent them into frontier region nearby Byzantines. One of them was Ottomans. In their chronicles, Ottomans are introduced as ghazis which were sort of soldiers of Islam in “holy war” against Byzantines. However, the main conflicts in Bithynia were resulted from economic and political reasons such as secure pasturelands, security of trade roads or ideological conflicts rather than religious concerns because they were nomads and living in heterodox society.

The present paper deals with the issue of defining functional tools able to help modern historians understand the genesis and evolution of historiography in 14th-century Anatolia. It emphasises the indistinct lines between hagiographies and sagas and between leader-centred and popular texts, while making a strong case for the key role played by the necessity of creating entertainment. Having become bestsellers exponentially raised the chances of these creations to survive across centuries. Most of the texts we use today as historical sources were designed to entertain their consumers. Moralis-ing or ideologically manipulating them came only in the second or third place.

Osman I. or Osman Bay was the leader of the Kayı Turkic clan, one of the border governors for the Sultanate of Rûm, and the founder of the Ottoman dynasty that ruled over the Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant, and North Africa for 600 years until it expired with the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1922. This Article talks about his life, time, and probable origins.