1355–1357
Süleyman in Thrace, 1355–1357
From Gallipoli Süleyman’s raiders ride up the Maritsa into the Bulgarian lands around Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and Stara Zagora. In 1355 Michael Asen, son and heir of Tsar Ivan Alexander, meets them on the road to Sofia and is killed. The battle is named after Ihtiman, but its exact place is not known. A Bulgarian chronicle records the defeat, but the Ottomans turn back and do not reach Sofia.
Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria with his wife Theodora and their sons, in his Gospels of 1355–1356Wikimedia Commons, unknown illuminator, Public domain (Ivan ALexander and his family Tetraevangelia.jpg)
Stefan Dušan dies on 20 December 1355. His son Uroš V cannot hold the great lords together, and the Serbian Empire breaks up into separate lands.
In 1356 or 1357 Genoese pirates seize Orhan’s young son Halil in the Gulf of Nicomedia and take him to Phocaea. John V pays the ransom and brings him back. In 1357 Süleyman dies after a fall from his horse while hunting near Bolayır, and he is buried there.
The tomb of Süleyman Pasha, son of Orhan, at BolayırWikimedia Commons, Mkadioglu2020, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Süleyman Pasha (son of Orhan) turbe.jpg)
Sources
- Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History.
- John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans (1987).
- Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481 (1990).
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