MEDITERRANEAN HISTORICAL REVIEW VOLUME 9 NUMBER 1 JUNE 1994 TELAVIV UNIVERSITY FRANKCASS·LONDON TREBIZOND AND THE PONTIC TURKISH PERIPHERY 21 they recognized the overIordship of the Seljuks of Rum or of the Ilk­ hanid Mongols of Persia. When the sultanate of Rum disappeared at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the independence of the local Turcoman principalities was further enhanced. The spectacular rise of Between Peace and Hostility: the Ottomans was still ahead, and their conquest of Anatolia even more distant. The military and political situation was, therefore, highly Trebizond and the Pontic Thrkish unstable. Periphery in the Fourteenth Century The early development of what was destined to become the Ottoman Empire has been subjected to a still ongoing historiographical debate. However, the contemporary developments in north-eastern An­ Rustam Shukurov atolia, in which Trebizond, the splinter state of Byzantium ruled by the Grand Komnenoi, and the various Turcoman principalities were in­ volved, have attracted less attention. This paper aims to re-examine the Eastern Anatolia was characterized by great political fragmentation fragmentary pieces of evidence related to this chapter of Anatolian during the fourteenth century. After the re-establishment of the Byzan­ history. tine empire in 1261, the Byzantines were unable to reconquer the lands lost to the Seljuks during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. On the Subh al- 'ashii' fi kitabat ai-ins ha , (Enlightenment of the blind in other hand, the Seljuk sultanate of Rum was incapable of withstanding writing a letter), a vast book on the art of composing official letters of the Mongol pressure from the east; and the Mongol state of the Ilkhans the court of Cairo, written by the Mamluk scribe Abu al-' Abbas Ahmad was unable to build a long-lasting political structure in this western­ Qalqashandi (d. 1418), contains examples of sultans' letters to most area of its expansion. As a result of this political vacuum, a new Christian sovereigns, and in particular to a certain 'Ruler (SalJib) of wave of migration, which included Turcoman tribes escaping from Sinope that lies on the shore of the country of Rum'.1 In his historical Central Asia and northern Iran under Mongol pressure, flooded commentary on the above example, Abu al-' Abbas wrote that the king Anatolia. The new principalities established by the Turcoman settlers (malik) of Sinope was 'Rumi [Byzantine Greek] from an ancient royal were virtually independent already in the thirteenth century, even if house, a relative of the ruler of Constantinople', and 'his father, due to his forefathers, was deeply rooted in imperial dignity'. Without doubt, This article was originally published in S.P. Karpov (ed.), The Block Sea in the these words relate to the Grand Komnenoi, emperors of Trebizond.2 Middle Ages (Moscow, J 99 J) in Russian, and was translated by Genadi Pa::.etchnik. The editors of the MHR are indebted to Dr. Moshe Gammer for his Abu al-' Abbas borrowed this information from AI-Ta 'rif bi-I-mustalah extensive help with the preparation of the final version. al-sharif, the book compiled in 1340 by Ibn Fadl-allilh al-'Uman (1301-48);3 it seems, however, that both the letter form and the Transliteration-author'S note: Turkish republican spelling is based on the phonological system of modern Anatolian Turkish, and hardly represents the true linguistic pattern of medieval eastern Anatolia. I have therefore chosen to I. Ahmad Abu al-' Abbas al-Qalqashandi, Kitiib subh al- 'ashii 'ft kitiibat al-inshii' transliterate Arabic and Persian proper names and other words according to the (Cairo, 1915), VoI.VIII, pp. 48-9. For an abridged French translation, see H. system used in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, with some accepted modifications (e.g., Lammens, 'Correspondances diplomatiques entre les sultans mamlouks j instead of dj, q instead of k, and without underlined letters, e.g., kh and not kh. ). d'Egypte et les puissances chretiennes', Revue de I 'Orient chretien, 9/2 (1904), For all Turkish words related to eastern Anatolia and Iran the system used today 179-80. by European publications in the field has been followed. Ottoman-Turkish spelling 2. See also N. Oikonomides, 'The Chancery of the Grand Komnenoi: Imperial has been preserved almost exclusively for geographical names. In cases of words Tradition and Political Reality', Archeion Pontou (hereafter AP), 35 (1979), with a commonly accepted 'Anglicized'spelling (emir, caliph, Seljuk, etc.), this 322,n. 2; 326,n. 2. form has been used. 3. AI-'Umari is the author of a well-known work on geography, Masiilik al-absiir (see n. 13 below). The book al-Ta'rlfwas published in Cairo in 1312 (1894-95); 22 MEDITERRANEAN HISTORICAL REVIEW TREBIZOND AND THE PONTIC TURKISH PERIPHERY 23 commentary go back to an earlier date, to the period between 1254 and During the fourteenth century, the international position of the 1265. This is shown by the subheading of the excerpt 'Letters to the Empire of Trebizond changed considerably. It improved step by step ruler of Sinope . before it was conquered by the Turcomans'. This with the decentralization of the Ilkhanid empire and the decline of the specific mention of the Turcomans and not of the Seljuks who captured power of its successors in Sivas and Kayseri. The Turcomans on the Sinope from the Trapezuntines in 1214 and probably in 1228, leads one borders of the empire, deprived of the support of their mighty suzerain to assume that it refers to the conquest of Sinope by Mu'In ai-DIn in the central parts of Anatolia, lessened their pressure on the empire's Parvona in 1265, when the Turcoman element in Anatolia was already borders and finally found themselves among Trebizond's allies. in evidence.4 Thus the expression 'the ruler of Sinope' probably refers The relationship between the Empire of Trebizond and the Turks in to Andronikos 11 (1263-66), the emperor of Trebizond; it was during his the fourteenth century form the subject of two recently published reign that Trebizond ruled Sinope, which it later lost. comprehensive papers by A.A.M. Bryer and E. Zachariadou.7 Together Abli al-'Abbos, referring to the same 'AI-Ta'rIf', wrote that the they provide an excellent basis for further research in this problem, emperor of Trebizond should be addressed in correspondence in the having collected almost all the European sources and a series of same way as 'the ruler of Sis' (Cilician Armenia), that is as a Christian oriental sources in translation and summaries. However, as I shall try to sovereign of lesser significance not only than the emperor of prove, both the Greek and the oriental sources contain much that could Constantinople, the highest in rank, but even less than that of Georgian deepen our understanding of the Trapezuntine-Turkish relationship in sovereigns, rulers of a lower rank.s the fourteenth century. Thus, in the eyes of Cairo, the Empire of Trebizond in the second My main interest in the present article is in the immediate half of the thirteenth century was a third-rate power. This view was, neighbours of the Empire of Trebizond, their relationships with each apparently, not far from the truth. The powerful state of the Ilkhans, other and with the Greek state: the emirates of Canik (Taceddin­ whose supremacy had been recognized by Trebizond as early as 1246, ogullan) Hacimir-ogullan, the Aq Quyunlu Turcomans, the emirates of actively intervened in the internal affairs of the empire. This situation Bayburt, Erzincan, and Karahisar, as well as in the fate of Sivas, whose is illustrated by the fate of George, the Grand Komnenos (1266-80), by rulers determined the political climate in the neighbouring lands the cessation of the minting of silver coins with the names of reigning throughout the fourteenth century. 8 emperors by the end of the thirteenth century, and by many other facts, each of which alone could form the subject of a separate study.6 SIVAS I was not able to find a copy. See also K. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur (Weimar, 1898), Vol. 2, p. 141; Suppl. Vol. 2 (Leiden, The fall of the centralized power of the Ilkhans was quick and 1938), pp. 175-6; Lammens, 'Correspondances diplomatiques', 154. 4. Cl. Cahen, 'Quelques textes negliges concemant les Turcomans de ROm au unexpected. Already during the reign of the last great ruler of that moment de I'invasion mongole', Byzantion, 14 (1939), 136-8; M. dynasty, Khan Abli Sa'Id (1317-35), centrifugal trends began to mani­ Nystazopoulou, 'La derniere reconquete de Sinope par les Grecs de fest themselves in the state. This was especially true in the province of Trebizonde', Revue des etudes byzantines (hereafter REB), 22 (1964), 241-9; M. Kursanskis, 'L'Empire de Trebizonde et les Turcs au 13e siec1e', REB, 46 (1988), 111-13, 118-19, 122. 5. Qalqashandi, Subh al- 'ashii', p. 44; Lammens, 'Correspondances diplo­ 7. A.A.M. Bryer, 'Greeks and Tiirkmens: The Pontic Exception', Dumbarton matiques', 172-4. Oaks Papers (hereafter DOP), 29 (1975), 113-49; E. Zachariadou, 'Trebizond 6. A.A.M. Bryer, 'The Grand Komnenos and the Great Khan at Karakorum in and the Turks (1352-1402)', AP, 35 (1979),333-58. For a further development 1246', in ltineraires d'Orient. Hommages a Claude Cahen (Res Orientales, VI) of Bryer's ideas, see A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and (Paris, 1994), pp. 257-61; id., 'The Fate of George Komnenos, Ruler of Topography of the Pantos (Washington, 1985) (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, No. Trebizond (1266-1280), Byzantinische Zeitschrift (hereafter BZ), 66 (1973), 20), Vols. 1-2 (hereafter BMTP). 332-50; M. Kursanskis, 'The Coinage of the Grand Komnenos Manuel 1', AP, 8.