History of some other insignificant beyliks included and not included in game:
Resource:
The Cambridge History of Turkey
Karesi (not included in game)
The beylik immediately to the south-west of the Ottomans was Karasi, in Mysia, whose history begins in earnest after the Catalan expedition of the early fourteenth century. Bordering on the Marmara, the Dardanelles and the Aegean, this beylik had some naval pretensions and may have benefited from the immigration of Turks from the Dobrudja. The power, however, of the beylik was insufficient to wrest Mytilene (Lesbos) from Christian hands. Soldiers from this beylik played a role, along with Ottoman volunteers, in the Thracian adventures before the definitive Turkish installation across the Dardanelles. There is very sparse coinage remaining from Karasi, and it appears reasonable to suggest that the beylik, which fell definitively to the Ottomans after various earlier partitions at the end of Orhan's reign, was hampered by its inability to control the sea routes and by its more powerful neighbour to the east, Germiyan . 17
Saruhan (included in game)
The beylik of Saruhan was centred on Lydia and lasted from the early fourteenth century to 1410, when it finally fell to the Ottomans. The capital of the enterprise was at Manisa, but members of the family of the Saruhanogullan had subsidiary and perhaps partly autonomous residences elsewhere. From an early date the rulers of Saruhan involved themselves in campaigns at sea, where they were associated with the forces of Aydin. They were also enmeshed in politics and warfare involving the Genoese
at Chios and Phocaea. On the one hand, Manisa prospered: there was a slave market and some significant building in the 1360s and 1370s. On the other, the forces of the emirate seem to have been unable to establish complete independence from the currents of war and diplomacy fostered by the Ottomans after 1360, Byzantium after the 1340s and the more powerful rulers of Aydın.
Aydın (included in game)
Aydin appears to have been the most influential of the coastal beyliks, and it is, with the exception of the Ottomans, the sole western beylik from which we have a narrative source of some scope, the Destan of Umur Pa§a. The dynasty, formerly allied with the beys of the Phrygian emirate of Germiyan, established itself around 1308 and shortly thereafter ruled from Birgi, although much of the Smyrna (Izmir) district, and the city itself, became part of the principality. Once again, although the head of the family claimed supreme authority, other members had their own separate residences with more or less autonomous power.
Smyrna /Izmir was then, as now, an economic centre of the Aegean basin, and the dynasty became involved in warfare with the Genoese, trade arrangements and diplomacy with the Byzantines: it even issued imitations of Italian coins. Umur Bey (1334-48), hero of the Destan, allied himself with the Byzantine claimant John Kantakouzenos, and forces from Aydin became involved in the Byzantine civil wars of the early 1340s. It proved impossible, however, to deal both with possibilities in the Balkans and with threats from the sea caused by crusaders called forth by the pope and including a number of European naval powers. Ultimately, Umur Bey died in battle at Izmir. After his death, his successors reached an agreement with the European powers in 1348, one that crippled the naval power of the beylik and threatened to lower its trade revenues substantially. The beylik continued to be influential but without offering the same naval threats as before: it is probable that its wealth for the next few generations depended more on trade and internal growth than on the opportunistic raids of Umur Bey’s career.
There are significant architectural monuments of the era: mosques, medreses and tombs. Perhaps the most significant of the monuments is the Isa Bey mosque in Ephesus (1374). There are also important works translated from Persian into Turkish from the Aydmogullan period, an indication of the development of Turkish as a written language of high culture.
Menteşe (included in game)
South and south-east of Aydın was the beylik of Menteşe, based in Caria. The founders of this beylik had at one time been tributary, at least in principle, to the Seljuks, since there are extant coins struck at Milas in 1291 in the name of the Sultan Mesud II. Both Ilkhanid and Byzantine campaigns entered the region in the last decades of the thirteenth century, but there was no long-term opposition to the infiltration of nomads from the hinterland and Turks from the sea (from Antalya). After 1308, the major naval opponent of the beylik was Rhodes, which remained stubbornly independent throughout the fourteenth century. Once again, family rule prevailed in the beylik, and once again, much of the wealth came through trade, some of which involved products exported from the interior of the peninsula to the Aegean through the beylik’ s ports. The dynasty fostered the translation of works from Persian into Turkish, and there are important Menteşeogullan buildings at the centres of family rule, in particular the Haci ilyas mosque at Milas (1330). This was yet another of the beyliks that fell to Bayezid I, was reconstituted by Timur, but failed to withstand the Ottomans after their resurgence.
Teke (not included in game)
The beylik of Teke was centred on the southern port of Antalya, and included parts of Lycia and Pamphylia. Antalya had been in Seljuk hands since 1207, and the hinterland was connected with the important port through a network of caravansarys by the middle of the thirteenth century. After Seljuk rule in the south-west part of the peninsula faded away around 1307, a part of the family of Hamid, in Pisidia, established itself as the beylik of Teke; again, members of the family ruled in different towns. Antalya had been a prosperous trade centre, facing Cyprus, and there was, in the middle years of the fourteenth century, both warfare and trade between the two. Whereas there is a fair amount of Seljuk material remaining in the area, from the Tekeogullan little survives (there is a tiirbe dated 1377 in Antalya, reminiscent of Seljuk architecture). 18
Details for these western coastal Beyliks: Reviewing the status of the coastal beyliks curving west of the Ottomans around the Marmara basin and the Aegean, as far as the lands opposite Cyprus, there are a few interesting points that rise above the minutiae of their separate and in many ways still confusing year-to-year history. First, their attentions seem fixed more on the sea than on the hinterland. Second, as sea powers their emphasis was on trading and raiding rather than conquest; or, at least, their power was insufficient to wrest control of significant islands from the more distant European naval powers. Third, a few of them were able to provide troops for service in the Balkans, but they were unable to establish and retain a constant presence for their enterprises across the sea. They could assist in Balkan actions, but they were unable to direct them or to set up a permanent base. In the end, during the reign of Murad I, the Ottomans encapsulated the Balkan adventurers from the coastal beyliks. Fourth, they appear to have benefited substantially from a transit trade linking merchants from the interior with European middlemen. This trade appears to have consisted of both primary goods, including slaves, and partially finished goods. Finally, although most of them issued coins, the output appears to have been far less, and of far lower quality, than that of the Seljuks or Ilkhanids, and on the basis of scanty evidence it seems that the output of copper was greater than the output of silver, which might, if true, imply that the beylik coinage was destined for small transactions, while the extant currencies from the hinterland (and, presumably, from Venice and Genoa) served the long-distance trade. Much more will be secure once scholars have fully evaluated al-‘Umari’s materials on price levels and measures, which must be considered in terms of the Mamluk models he had in mind.
Germiyan (included in game)
Germiyan, Hamid and Karaman. The name of the first of these is the first to appear in the sources. By our period, Germiyan was centred on Phrygia, although the ruling family had been associated with the Seljuks initially in south-east Anatolia and then later in the west. 19 In the last quarter of the thirteenth century they were sometimes nominally loyal to the Seljuks and sometimes acted independently; at one time they were subservient to the Ilkhanids, although just what that meant in practice is unclear. At the end of the thirteenth century,
from their centre at Kiitahya, their influence appears to have reached as far as Ankara, at least briefly. Yakub b. Ali§ir, about whom al-‘Umari wrote, was an impressive ruler, some of whose lieutenants founded beyliks along the coast. The Ottoman chronicle of Aşikpaşazade claims that the forces of Germiyan threatened the Ottomans’ southern flanks during the first few decades of the fourteenth century. The economic resources of the beylik appear to have been well developed: sources discuss the manufacture and marketing of high-quality
weaving, a trade in horses (the beylik contained both land suitable for intensive agriculture and areas ideal for steppe animal husbandry) and trade in such raw materials as alum. In the second half of the fourteenth century the beylik no longer had free access to seaports, and became dependent upon the Ottomans for support against the beylik of Karaman. Bayezid I annexed the beylik in 1390, and although Timur re-established the family, and in the early fifteenth century the Ottomans made no attempt to extinguish it by force, it became part of the neighbouring enterprise in 1429. The Germiyanogullan erected a number of mosques and imarets, and established a number of vakifs, and they were also patrons of literature and of translations of works from Persian into Turkish. In the fifteenth century, at the end of the dynasty, a number of poets writing in Turkish worked at the court. The quality of fourteenth-
century Germiyanid coinage is notably superior to that of many of the other beyliks.
Hamit (included in game)
The base of the beylik of Hamid was Pisidia, and from the highlands and lakes the power of this dynasty spread south to the area discussed under Teke. Rule was divided between two branches of the family, but the area included a major trade route from the Mediterranean up country to the pastures and lakes. There is little information about this beylik, although it is clear that at a time when the other beyliks were flourishing, that is, when the central Mongol power in Iran was waning andbefore the spread of Ottoman claims, the Mongol governor Timurta§ ravaged the territories and crippled the government of Hamid, as well as bringing to an end the lesser beylik of the E§refogullan (whose temporary wealth and influence appears reflected in the building programme at Bey§ehir at the turn of the fourteenth century). Hamid is an example of a beylik attempting to balance itself between the Mongols on the one hand and the expansion of trade from the Antalya coast on the other.
Karaman (included in game)
The beylik of Karaman is the great exception, or perhaps better, it is the beylik which in some ways seemed best able to pick up the pieces after the Mongols disestablished the Seljuks. Already in 1277, when the family first took aim at rule in Konya, their declared policy was to replace Persian with Turkish as the court language. However, in many ways the dynasty looked to the past and relied on technologies that did not succeed in the long run, foremost of which was reliance upon a nomad military arm.
The Karamanids first came to notice in the area around Ermenek, which harbours routes to the south-east and Cilicia as well as over the Taurus and the great central plains east and north of Konya. Many of the family’s supporters were pastoralists, although they do not seem to have been the military equal of Mongol mounted archers in contests from 1277 on: the Karamanids were able to raid and occupy towns but not to defeat the Mongols. It was not until the departure of Timurta§ in 1327 that the Karamanids were able to effect a decisive occupation of Konya, and even then, for the next generation they had to counter the threats of the Eretnids, who had originally acted as lieutenants of the Mongols. By the end of the third quarter of the fourteenth century, the dynasty controlled most of the Lycaonian plain as well as the lands running south beyond Ermenek to the coast.
The early contacts between the rulers of Karaman and the Ottomans were diplomatic, ending in a marriage alliance, which did not prevent warfare from breaking out over the legacy of the beylik of Hamid. Bayezid I annexed the beylik, and the Ottomans found themselves facing future confrontations with the Karamanids’ sometime allies, the Mamluks. The final conquest of the beylik of Karaman after its reconstitution by Timur goes beyond the bounds of this chapter, but it is useful to note that supporters of members of the dynasty were always able to seek refuge in the rough hill country from which the pastoralists had first set forth in the thirteenth century. The last eruption from Karaman enthusiasts occurred in 1500-1.
To some extent, the beys of Karaman, once they ruled in confidence from Konya, inherited some of the advantages that the Seljuks had enjoyed in the 1220s and 1230s. They did not control the north coast of the peninsula, but they did have access to the Mediterranean, and a network of trade routes converged on and diverged from Konya. They shared control over the Taurus passes with Armenian lords, and they were able to extract duty from Italian merchants at a number of south coast ports. The Lycaonian plain was rich in horses and sheep, which allowed the export of animals, raised by tribes known as horse drovers (At Qeken), and quality woven goods (textiles from Aksaray). The wealth so obtained went in part to continue the traditions of Seljuk art and architecture. 20
The sizeable interior beyliks differed from their coastal neighbours in a number of ways. Each had much less of a Byzantine legacy and rather more of a Seljuk and Mongol imprint. Although Karaman had a long coastline, it did not build a fleet of raiding vessels as did the beyliks facing the Aegean. They had a larger pastoral element to their economies and populations. One institution that they all shared, however, was urban adherents to the ahi brotherhoods, and if we understand Ibn Battuta correctly, it was these brotherhoods that provided certain social and also economic links that crossed the frontiers between the beyliks. Further, the opportunities for a sudden enhancement of their position, such as a successful raid or alliance with a European power might bring, really did not exist: aside from attacking a neighbour, the opportunity to increase one’s power grew only as the post-Mongol enterprise of the Eretnids lessened in importance. Karaman was the big winner here. However, none of the interior beyliks had the power to withstand the growth of the Ottomans, and it is worthwhile considering why this was the case. It may rest in part on the conservative nature of the military forces of the beyliks, or on the lack of a pragmatic administrative structure (it is typical in the scholarly literature to see the beyliks as carrying on the Seljuk traditions), or perhaps on contingent events about which we are presently ignorant.
Candar (included in game)
The Candarogullan or isfendiyarogullan, east and north of the Ottomans, form one of two interesting beyliks on the north coast of the peninsula. The dynasty established itself in the last decade of the thirteenth century under murky circumstances involving the Seljuks and Ilkhanids. The dynasty minted coins under Ilkhanid suzerainty in the early fourteenth century, and its two centres were Kastamonu and the port of Sinop. There are reports of a large nomad population in the area at the end of the thirteenth century, and some evidence that certain of the groups responsible for revolts against the Seljuks in 1238 had relocated there, but the sources tell us relatively little about nomadic activity. Rule was usually divided between the members of the family ruling in Kastamonu and Sinop, and the bases of power were probably different in kind, since Sinop was a great entrepot. Once again, Bayezid I subdued the beylik and Timur saw to its reconstitution; the beylik lasted until 1461. Trade, exports of raw materials (copper, iron) from the Pontic mountains and a competent navy preserved the beylik for some time. In some ways this beylik is similar to its neighbour to the east, the Byzantine ‘beylik' of Trebizond (Trabzon), which enjoyed prosperous agriculture in the valleys of the Pontic alps, had control of the coastal end of a major route to Iran and also held out until the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror. These two northern polities were influenced by the Mongols on the one hand and by the European trading cities on the other; the coinage of Kastamonu betrays Mongol influence, while the Trebizondine issues bear a relation to the Venetian issues.
Details:
How different were the beyliks from the Seljuk sultanate of Rum? Most obviously, they were smaller and more compact. They had fewer resources but at the same time fewer obligations. A number of the beyliks existed on land which had not known Muslim rule before, and these faced both a Byzantine past and a maritime legacy. While some were founded by former officials familiar with the scribal traditions of the Seljuks, others grew from Turkish nomad tribes. All of them reflected greater or lesser Mongol influence, sometimes only in linguistic usage, occasionally in institutional practice, often in military orientation, and certainly to some extent in the source of their population, for of the Mongol tumans that entered Anatolia in the 1250s, not all returned to the east. When the new immigrants settled the coastal cities in the fourteenth century, they built up new areas: the new mosques are often outside the older Byzantine settlement. In the cities and the courts, Turkish became more and more the language of choice, and there was a considerable amount of translation, along with new literary production in poetry and prose. Some of the beyliks were modest centres of patronage for this literature, and most experimented with the construction of a Friday mosque, occasionally departing from Seljuk models. 22 There was probably less trans-peninsular trade, but there was more trade from the plateau to the Aegean coast, as well as the development of pastoral production (animals, textiles) in the lowlands newly settled by Turks.
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