1391 – 1392
Kastamonu and Kırkdilim, 1391–1392
Bayezid orders John V to pull down the new towers he has built at the Golden Gate of Constantinople, and threatens to blind Manuel, who is at the sultan’s court. John V obeys and dies on 16 February 1391. Manuel slips away from Bursa and reaches the city before John VII can claim the throne. In February 1392 he marries Helena, the daughter of Konstantin Dragaš, and the two are crowned together.
In 1391 Bayezid marches on Süleyman Bey of Candar, the son of Kötürüm Bayezid, who has taken in men fleeing the Ottomans and allied himself with Kadı Burhaneddin. Manuel joins the campaign with Byzantine troops. Kastamonu falls and Süleyman is killed, in 1391 or, by other accounts, 1392. İsfendiyar of the Candar family keeps Sinop and becomes Bayezid’s vassal.
The castle of Kastamonu above the townWikimedia Commons, Acar54, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Kastamonu Kalesi.jpg)
Bayezid takes Osmancık on the Kızılırmak, which Kadı Burhaneddin claims as his own, and the castle of Kırkdilim on the road to Çorum. Burhaneddin marches from Sivas and attacks the Ottoman army camped in the pass at Kırkdilim. By the account of his court historian Aziz Astarabadi the Ottomans retreat after three days of fighting, while Manuel’s letters from the campaign suggest otherwise. Burhaneddin raids as far as Ankara and Sivrihisar, and Ahmed, the emir of Amasya, whom he besieges, hands his fortress to the Ottomans in 1392, or 1393 by other accounts.
The gravestone of İsfendiyar Bey in his tomb beside the Alaeddin Mosque of SinopWikimedia Commons, Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Sinop Alaaddin Camii İsfendiyar Bey gravestone in İsfendiyar Bey Türbesi in 2005 9451.jpg)
Sources
- Aziz ibn Ardashir Astarabadi, Bazm u Razm (c. 1398).
- Manuel II Palaiologos, Letters, ed. George T. Dennis (1977).
- Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Manuel II Palaeologos on the strife between Bayezid I and Kadi Burhan al-Din Ahmad (1980).
- John W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (1391–1425) (1969).
- Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481 (1990).
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