Beylik from Aydın
The Beylik of the Aydınoğlu or von Aydın ( Turkish Aydınoğulları Beyliği ) was a Turkish Beylik in what is now western Turkey and one of the border principalities of the Oghuz after the fall of the Rumeljuk Empire . In German-language literature, the name Emirate of the Aydinids appears frequently . It was founded in 1308. The capital was initially Birgi , later Ayasoluk near ancient Ephesus , today's Selçuk .
The rulers were members of the Oghuz tribe, Afshar . The emirate of Aydın was named after its founder Aydınoğlu Mehmed . Today's Aydın also bears the name of his dynasty. The emirate temporarily included the important port city of Smyrna , today's Izmir . Aydın was considered a major naval power, especially during the reign of Umur Bey .
history
Foundation (1308) and conquest of Smyrna (1317/1329)
Apparently Mubarizeddin Gazi Mehmed Aydınoğlu (son of Aydın) made his first campaigns together with Saga Bey von Mentesche . On October 24, 1304 they conquered Ephesus, the population was partly killed and partly deported. Mehmed was in Germiyan's service at this time . In 1308 he succeeded in conquering Birgi, which became his capital. Saga was killed in an argument and Mehmed declared himself independent. In 1317 his troops captured the castle of Smyrna ( Pagos , the Hellenistic acropolis, today called Kadifekale ) from the Byzantines . The lower town with the port initially remained Genoese and was not conquered by his son Umur until 1329.
Seafaring: trade and piracy
Aydın now became an important center for Turkish seafaring and piracy, but also for trade with Venice and Genoa . Smyrna and Ephesus made competition. On July 23, 1319, his fleet of 10 galleys and 19 other ships with a total of 2600 crew attacked Chios , but was defeated by the Knights of Rhodes (see history of the Order of St. John ).
Around 1325 Mehmet Bey (1308-1334) divided his rule among his five sons, whereby he reserved the supremacy until 1334. Hızır received Ephesus and had to submit to his father's successor and younger brother Umur. In 1332 the port of Smyrna was brought under control and the pirate ships of the Aydınoğulları advanced to the Venetian island of Negroponte . They also appeared off the Greek mainland. In 1335 the Genoese, supported by the Hospitallers, occupied the island of Lesbos and tried to retake Chios .
Crusade, cooperation with Byzantium (until 1348)
The subsequent crusade plans in turn drove Byzantium into an alliance policy with the Turks. Umur (1334-1348) met at Kara Burun across from Chios in 1335 with Byzantine negotiators, with whom a contract was concluded. He lent the emperor ships so that he could retake Lesbos and received a large sum of money in return. The treaty brought peace to this region for a number of years and guaranteed Byzantium a constant supply of soldiers. Umur even moved in 1342 with 6000 soldiers before Thessaloniki to support his friend Johannes Kantakuzenos . The Serbs under Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan wrested Macedonia from the Byzantines , and in 1346 Dušan was crowned emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. However, since October 1344 Umur was preoccupied with himself because the Western League of Christian Powers had started a crusade and conquered Smyrna. Umur was killed in an attempted reconquest in 1348.
Already in 1341 a Senate decision of Venice stated that the "power at sea was multiplied so that it [the fleet] destroyed all cities and islands of Romania". When Umur died before Smyrna in 1348 , Hızır became the overlord of Aydın. He continued to reside in Ayasoluk , which shifted the focus from the previous capital Birgi to Ephesus. In 1333 Ibn Battuta visited the city, who reported how the St. John's Church had been converted into the main mosque of the city and that the city had fifteen gates. Wilhelm von Boldensele visited the city in 1335, Ludolf von Suchem in 1336 or 1341. Ludolf copied his predecessor's description of the church, as was customary at the time.
The Italians, who called the capital Altoluogo , traded with the local population, for example in alum , grain or wax. The port was now 6 km west of Ephesus, in Panormos . Lombards who had fled Italy lived there , who often joined forces with the Turks on pirate trips, as Ludolf von Suchem reports. In order to promote this trade, especially in grain, Ephesus even issued its own coins for the first time in a millennium.
Conflicts and trade with Venice
In 1348 Hızır (1348-1360) negotiated with the European powers, but by 1350 his emirate had recovered so much that pirate fleets were again exporting from Ephesus. From 1352 onwards, relations with Venice relaxed a little and Francesco da Fermo, the emir's negotiator, succeeded in acquiring almost 700 tons of wheat and barley in 1353 and shipping them to Candia , the capital of Crete .
From 1359 onwards, the Venetian island of Crete had to constantly man and finance two galleys due to a feared invasion by the Turks of Aydın. Hızır came to an agreement with Venice in 1358, so that around 1360 he was able to hand over rule based on flourishing trade to his successor Isa Bey I (Sultan from 1360 to 1390). However, this did not prevent Isa from circulating counterfeit Venetian ducats or from continuing to hijack Italian ships, while at the same time supplying grain to the Venetians, who suppressed an uprising of the colonists in Crete from 1363 to 1366. After the end of the uprising, the Venetian fleet forced him to stop minting in 1370. Nevertheless, the area remained of great importance as a grain supplier, for example for Rhodes . In 1379 Pope Clement VII had to allow the local knights to buy grain from the Turks because hunger forced them to do so.
Conquest by the Ottomans (1390)
Although the following decades saw considerable prosperity, the emirate soon fell into the shadow of the emerging Ottoman Empire , which they supported in Kosovo in 1389 . The Ottomans subjugated the Emirates of the west coast of Asia Minor in a large-scale campaign in 1390, Isa had to submit.
Timur (1402-1403)
But in 1402 the sultan was defeated in the battle of Ankara against Timur . He moved to Ephesus in the autumn to destroy Smyrna in December. After that, his huge army returned to Ephesus, from where they sacked the surrounding areas. Only in the spring of 1403 did she leave the area again.
Changing coalitions, dynastic conflicts, Ottoman occupation (until 1425)
Musa, a son of the late Isa, ruled Aydın for a short time, followed in 1403 by his brother Umur. Junayd , in Turkish Cüneyd, a nephew of Isa, rebelled against Umur with a small force and occupied Ephesus. He allied himself with Süleyman, one of the sons of the Ottoman who died near Ankara. Umur, however, did not accept this and besieged Ephesus, whose four quarters went up in flames. Now Cüneyd plundered the surrounding area. Umur found himself ready to compensate. Cüneyd had him murdered, however. In 1407 he faced a siege against the Ottoman pretender Süleyman Çelebi , with whom he had broken the alliance. He had to submit to him. The city had to support the army for four months. After Süleyman's death in 1410, Cüneyd returned and once again seized the rule, which he was able to hold until 1425, when the Ottomans finally subjugated the remains of Aydın.
literature
- Paul Lemerle : L'Emirat d'Aydin, Byzance et l'Occident. Research on “La geste d'Umur Pacha” , Paris 1957.
- Elizabeth A. Zachariadou : Trade and Crusade. Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin (1300-1415) , Venice 1983.
- Clive Foss: Ephesus after Antiquity: A Late antique, Byzantine and Turkish City , Cambridge University Press 1979.
Remarks
- ↑ Mike Carr, Nikolaos G. Chrissis (Ed.): Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204-1453: Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks , Ashgate Publishing, 2014, p. 131
- ↑ Quoted from Hans-Jürgen Hübner: Quia bonum sit anticipare tempus. The municipal supply of Venice with bread and grain from the late 12th to the 15th century , Peter Lang 1998, or Freddy Thiriet (ed.): Délibérations des assemblées vénitiennes concernant la Romanie , vol. 1, Paris 1966, n.480 , Jan. 14, 1341.
- ↑ Clive Foss: Ephesus after Antiquity. A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City , Cambridge University Press 2010, p. 147.
- ↑ Hans-Jürgen Hübner: Quia bonum sit anticipare tempus. The municipal supply of Venice with bread and grain from the late 12th to the 15th century , Peter Lang: Frankfurt / M. - Berlin - Bern - New York - Paris - Vienna 1998, p. 237.
- ↑ Hans-Jürgen Hübner: Quia bonum sit anticipare tempus. The municipal supply of Venice with bread and grain from the late 12th to the 15th century , Peter Lang 1998, p. 234.
- ↑ Ernst Werner : The Birth of a Great Power - the Ottomans (1300 - 1481) , Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1985, p. 151.