About 1345
Karesi, 1345
Karesi, the beylik of Mysia south of the Sea of Marmara, divides after the death of its founder Karasi Bey into two lands, one ruled from Balıkesir and one from Pergamon (Bergama). In the 1340s two heirs fight over it, and one of them, called Dursun in the Ottoman chronicles, goes over to Orhan and offers him its towns.
The tomb of Karasi Bey in BalıkesirWikimedia Commons, Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Balikesir Karesi Bey Mausoleum 1732.jpg)
Orhan marches west, takes Balıkesir and drives the other heir into the citadel of Pergamon. At Pergamon one of the two heirs is killed, and the other surrenders and is taken to Bursa, where he dies two years later. Aşıkpaşazade dates these events to 1335 and an Ottoman list of 1421 to 1348 or 1349. Most modern accounts give 1345 or 1346, some 1336.
The acropolis of Pergamon above BergamaWikimedia Commons, Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Acropolis - Bergama (Pergamon) - Turkey - 10 (5747249729).jpg)
Karesi gives Orhan the Asian shore of the Dardanelles and the ports facing Gallipoli. Its beys and their men, used to raiding Thrace by sea, enter Ottoman service, among them Hacı İlbey and, by some accounts, Evrenos. Orhan gives the land to his son Süleyman.
Sources
- Aşıkpaşazade, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (late 15th century).
- Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, “The Emirate of Karasi and That of the Ottomans: Two Rival States”, in The Ottoman Emirate (1300–1389) (1993).
- Clive Foss, The Beginnings of the Ottoman Empire (2022).
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