The History Of Medieval Asia Minor ( Finkel ) - 920 Words

Ertuğrul, the father of Osman I, arrived in Asia Minor from Merv, located in modern day Turkmenistan, lead 400 horsemen to aid the Seljuks of Rum against the Byzantines. After the dissolution of the Turkish Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in the 14th century, Asia Minor was divided into a patchwork of independent, mostly Turkish states, the so-called Ghazi emirates. Leader of one of these emirates was Osman I. In 1299, under Osman, his emirate extended the frontiers of Turkish settlement toward the edge of the Byzantine Empire. How the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors unknown because there is little known about the history of Medieval Asia Minor (Finkel). The following century after Osman’s death in 1326, Ottoman rule began extending over the Eastern Mediterranean and into the Balkans. In 1326, just after Osman died, his son, Orhan succeeded him, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa and named it the new capital of the Ottoman state. The conquests of Orhan ended Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The sultans that followed expanded into Europe via the Hellespont and into the Balkans. The Venetians lost the city of Thessaloniki to the Ottomans in 1387 and Serbian power in the region ended after the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389. With the Balkans under their rule, the strategic conquest of Constantinople became a central objective for the Ottomans. The Turks succeeded in controlling nearly all prior Byzantine lands surrounding the city.