The Sons of Bayezid The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage Politics, Society and Economy Edited by Suraiya Faroqhi and Halil Inalcik Associate Board Firket Adanir · Idris Bostan · Amnon Cohen · Cornell Fleischer Barbara Flemming · Alexander de Groot · Klaus Kreiser Hans Georg Majer · Irène Mélikoff · Ahmet Ya¸sarOcak Abdeljelil Temimi · Gilles Veinstein · Elizabeth Zachariadou VOLUME 38 The Sons of Bayezid Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–1413 By Dimitris J. Kastritsis LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007 On the cover: Lokman, Hünername (1584–1588), detail of miniature showing Mehmed Çelebi’s 1403 enthronement in Bursa. Topkapı Palace Library, MS. Hazine 1523, folio 112b. Reprinted by permission. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISSN 1380-6076 ISBN 978 90 04 15836 8 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in aretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands To the memory of my parents By force of armes stout Mahomet his father’s kingdome gaines, And doth the broken state thereof repaire with restlesse paines. What so the force of Tamerlane had from his father tane, He by his fortune and his force restor’d the fame againe. The Dacians he vanquished, and Servians in field, And forc’d the people neere to thee faire Ister, for to yeeld. So once againe the Turkish state (by him rais’d up on hie) Hath to thine empire, Romulus, brought great calamitie. Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603) CONTENTS Preface ................................................................. xi ListofAbbreviations................................................... xv TransliterationandUsage............................................. xvii Maps ................................................................... xix Introduction: The Battle of Ankara and its Consequences ................. 1 InternationalrelationsintheOttomanCivilWar................. 5 TheCivilWarandOttomanSociety.............................. 9 PaulWittek’sThesisanditsCritics ................................ 12 TheSources......................................................... 22 Documentary, Numismatic, and Epigraphic Sources .......... 24 ShortChroniclesandTravelAccounts ......................... 27 Long Chronicles and Literary Sources: the Ahval .............. 28 OtherOttomanChroniclesandLiterarySources.............. 33 Non-OttomanChroniclesandLiterarySources ............... 37 Chapter One. The Political Landscape after Ankara (28 July 1402 – Spring 1403) ............................................................. 41 Timur’sPolicytowardtheOttomanPrinces ...................... 44 Emir Süleyman in Rumeli and the Treaty of 1403 ................ 50 TheInternationalSituationintheBalkans........................ 59 MehmedÇelebi’sStrugglesinRum ............................... 63 Chapter Two. Anatolia between Isa˙ and Mehmed Çelebi (Spring 1403 – September 1403) .......................................................... 79 The Buildup to Ulubad: Mehmed Çelebi’s Alliance with Germiyan......................................................... 81 The Battle of Ulubad (9 March – 18 May 1403)................... 89 Were IsaandSüleymanAllies?.....................................˙ 92 Mehmed Çelebi’s Enthronement in Bursa and the Burial of BayezidI ......................................................... 97 The Later Battles of IsaandMehmedÇelebi.....................˙ 100 viii contents Chapter Three. Anatolia between Emir Süleyman and Mehmed Çelebi (before March 1403 – 14 June 1410) ...................................... 111 EmirSüleyman’sConquestofBursaandAnkara................. 112 TheStalemateandSüleyman’sActivitiesinAnatolia ............ 118 The Situation in Rumeli (1403–1410) .............................. 123 Musa Çelebi in Kastamonu and Karaman........................ 129 Chapter Four. Rumeli between Emir Süleyman and Musa Çelebi (1409?–17 February 1411) ............................................... 135 Musa’s First Supporters in Rumeli: Mircea, Byzantium, and the Akıncı.......................................................... 137 Musa’s First Actions in Rumeli: The Siege of Mesembria and the Battle of Yambol ............................................. 142 Süleyman’s Return to Rumeli and the International Situation ... 144 The Battles of Kosmidion (15 June 1410) and Edirne (11 July 1410)...................................................... 149 The Death of Süleyman (17 February 1411)........................ 153 Chapter Five. The Reign of Musa Çelebi and the End of the Civil War (17 February 1411 – 5 July 1413) ......................................... 159 Musa’s Administration and the Uc Begleri.......................... 161 The Resumption of Raiding and Musa’s Attacks against Serbia andByzantium................................................... 166 Musa and Venice: The Treaty of Selymbria (3 September 1411) . 172 The Battle of Ince˙ giz˘ (Late Winter – Early Spring 1412?)......... 179 Stefan Lazarevic,´ George Brankovic,andtheSonofSavcı´ ...... 180 Mehmed’s Second Campaign against Musa and Activities before the Battle of Çamurlu .................................... 182 Musa’s 1411–1412 Serbian Campaigns and the Challenge of Orhan,SonofSüleyman........................................ 184 The Battle of Çamurlu and Reunification of the Ottoman Realm (5 July 1413)............................................... 188 Chapter Six. Narrative and Legitimation in the Ottoman Civil War ........ 195 PoliticalLegitimationintheOttomanCivilWar.................. 197 TheProblemofDynasticSuccession.............................. 200 MehmedÇelebi’sCorrespondencewithShahrukh............... 203 The Ahval’sIdeasonDynasticSuccession......................... 206 Hal¯ıln¯ame Further Evidence from Abdülvasi Çelebi’s ˘ ............. 217 contents ix Appendix: Translation Of Abdülvasi Çelebi, Hal¯ılname,¯ “The Battle of ˘ Sultan Mehmed with Musa and the Defeat of Musa” ....................... 221 Bibliography ........................................................... 233 Index................................................................... 245 PREFACE As is often the case with first books, the present study began its life as the author’s doctoral dissertation. In the two years separating the disser- tation from the book, little has changed in my view of the Ottoman civil war of 1402–1413 and its significance for Ottoman history. If anything, I am now even more keenly aware of the need to bring this period out of the darkness and into the limelight of history, so that it may become the subject of serious historical study. Since the present work is the first of its kind, while writing it I was often frustrated by the lack of an already existing narrative on which to rely for the basic sequence of events. Under the circumstances, I had little choice but to construct such a narrative myself, making use of primary sources and the little existing literature, most of which was in the form of journal and encyclopedia articles. Although I am sometimes critical of the work of the few col- leagues who had the courage to tackle this complex period of Ottoman history, I appreciate that without their work my task would have been even more difficult. Needless to say, the present book is not a defini- tive study, but only the first of its kind, and certainly far from perfect. I hope that it will become the cause for further investigation, since it is my belief that the ideas tentatively set forth in its covers deserve more attention than they have so far received. The most obvious difference between my presentation of the period 1402–1413 and that of other historians before me is the very name by which I have chosen to call it, namely “the Ottoman civil war.” In Ottoman history, this period is usually (but not always) known as “the interregnum,” the corresponding Turkish term being fetret devri.Inthe original dissertation I had chosen to accept that name, simply point- ing out that it was not of Ottoman origin, but apparently coined by the nineteenth century Austrian historian Josef von Hammer-Purgstall (fetret devri being but a translation that gained currency in the mid-twentieth century). Now I find myself no longer satisfied with the term inter- regnum, as I feel that it detracts from the importance of the years in question, reducing them to a dark interlude between the reigns of Bayezid I (1389–1402) and Mehmed I (1413–1421). While it is true that xii preface during the years 1402–1413 there was never an undisputed claimant to the Ottoman throne, the habit of seeing those years as an inter- lude between more stable reigns has created the impression that they were a time of chaos, devoid of any coherent politics or culture. In fact, exactly the opposite was true: during that period the Ottoman realm was divided between rival