A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

ephemeral principalities for themselves in the interstices between Mongol-ruled Rum

and the Byzantine Empire. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Othman

(d.1324/1326), after whom the Ottomans were named, took the lead. (See the list of

Ottoman Emirs and Sultans on p. 343.) About 150 years later the chronicler

Ashikpashazade, looking back on Othman’s achievements, stressed his wisdom, his

cunning, and, above all, his legitimacy by right of jihad: “What does the sultan [the

last Seljuk ruler of Rum] have to do with it?” the chronicler has Othman ask those

who want the sultan’s permission before appointing a religious leader. “It is true that

the sultan endowed me with this banner. But it is I who carried the banner into battle

with the infidels!”^4

Map 8.1: The Ottoman Empire, c.1500

Attracting other Turkish princes to fight alongside him, Othman carved out a

principality in Byzantium’s backyard. But rather than unite in the face of these

developments, rival factions within the Byzantine state tried to make use of the

Ottomans. It was as ally to one claimant for the Byzantine throne that Ottoman

troops arrived in Gallipoli in 1354. They remained long after their welcome had run

out. In the 1360s they took Thrace, and then, under the energetic leadership of