BAYAZID I., surnamed ILDIRIM,
or ' the Lightning,' in allusion to the rapidity of his
military achievements, was the son of the sultan of the
Ottoman, Murad I. He was born A.H. 748 (A. D. 1317), and
came to the throne in A.H. 792 (A. D. 1389), after his
father had been killed in an engagement with the Serbians
near Kosovo. The Ottoman dominions at this epoch extended
from the Danube to the Euphrates; and Bayazid at the head
of his army was almost incessantly moving from one
extremity of his empire to the other, to reduce his
Mohammedan neighbors to obedience, or to add to his
possessions by conquests from the Christian powers of Europe.
Bursa and Adrianople were respectively the Asiatic and
European capitals of his dominions, and the erection of a
magnificent mosque in each of them is one of the earliest
acts of his reign that we find recorded. This seemingly
pious act forms a strong contrast with his behavior to
Yakoub his only brother, whom he put to death almost
immediately on ascending the throne, from no other motive
than an apprehension that the example of other Eastern
princes might encourage him to rebel, and dispute
Bayazid's right to the throne.
The conquests
of the Ottoman had, in the beginning of the eighth
century of the Mohammedan era (the fourteenth after
Christ), put an end to the Seljuk dominion in western
Asia, and on its ruins several small dynasties had sprung
up, the principal of which were that of Sinope and
Castemuni on the northern coast of Asia Minor, and those
of Aidin, Zarukhan, and Kermiyan. These dynasties Bayazid
determined to destroy, and to embody their territories in
his empire. Within the first year after his ascending the
throne he had conquered Zarukhan, Aidin, and part of the
northern coast of Anatolia: nor did his previous marriage
(in A.D. 1381) with a daughter of the prince of Kermiyan
prevent him from leading an expedition against his
father-in-law, whom he took prisoner and deprived of his
territory. Bayazid had to encounter greater difficulties
in subduing the principality of Caramania. Timurlash, his
general, had conquered part of the country .when Ala-nidi1;
the reigning sovereign, defeated him in a battle and took
him prisoner. When this happened, Bayazid was on the
banks of the Danube engaged in a war with Stephan, the
prince of Moldavia, who been instigated by Koeturum
Bayazid (i. e. 'Bayazid the Lame'), a Moslem chief on the
borders of the Black Sea, to invade Wallachia and Bessarabia.
On receiving the news of Timurtash's defeat. Bayazid hastened from
Europe into Asia, and within a very short time subdued
the whole of Caramania, besides which he now added to his
empire the towns of Konya, Aksehir. Akserai, Larenda,
Sivas (Sebaste),
Tokat, and Kayseri.
Soon after he took away the dominions of Kotureous
Bayazid on the Black Sea ; and when Kœeturum Bayazid
allowed his son, Isfendiar, to retain possession of
Sinope.
The year 1391
is remarkable also for the capture of Philadelphia, or
Alashehr (i. e. ' The Variegated City) the last Greek
town in Asia Minor that continued faithful to the Byzantine
Empire. Its Greek commander made a vigorous resistance to
the besieging forces of Bayazid, and rejected his
invitation to surrender the fortress: while the Emperor
Joannes and his son Manuel, then the confederates of the
sultan, were actually assisting in the siege.
In 1393 Bayazid
undertook another expedition into Europe, in which he
took possession of the towns of Salonika and Yenishehr
(Larissa), and for the first time besieged Constantinople.
He compelled the emperor to give up ? plan of adding to
the strength of the capital by new fortifications, and to
assign a separate suburb to the Turks with a mosque and a
kadhi, or judge, of their own. Bayazid at the same
time built the fort of Guzeljc, or Anatoli hissar.i n the
eastern side of the Bosporus, which secured to him tic
command of that channel.
In 1396 Bayazid
gained an important victory near Nicopolis on the Danube
over an army of a hundred thousand Christians, including
many of the bravest knights of France and Germany, who
had assembled under the standard of Sigismond, the king
of Hungary, to check the further progress of the
Mohammedan power in Europe. The greater part of the
Christian forces were slain or driven into the Danube.
Sigismond escaped to Constantinople, sixty thousand
Turks are stated to have fallen in the same battle. and
when Bayazid became aware of the extent of his loss, he
gave orders to put to death all the prisoners with the
exception of twenty-four nobles, who were subsequently
ransomed. This great victory was soon followed by further
conquests in Greece. The Morea was taken, and in 1347
(according to the oriental authorities quoted by M.
von Hammer, Gesch. dts Osman-Reichs, i. 252) Athens
fell into the power of the Ottoman.
The dominions
of Bayazid and
those of the Tartar conqueror Timur now touched each
other in the
neighborhood of Erzurum and on the banks of the Euphrates.
With doubtful limits between the two empires, which had
never been defined by treaty, a cause for war between two
jealous sovereigns could not long be wanting. Timur had taken
possession of Sivas(the ancient Sebaste), on the Halys,
then one of the strongest and most flourishing cities of Western
Asia, and had treated its inhabitants with great cruelty.
Bayazid was then engaged in his European dominions, which
prevented him from resenting this violation. of
his territory. About the same
time two Moslem princes, Ahmed Jelair and Kara Yusuf,
whom Timur had deprived of their possessions, (led
for protection first t: Seifeddin Barkuk, the Sultan of
Egypt, and subsequent!* to Bayazid, who received them
with kindness, and married: his son, Mustafa Chelebi, to
a sister of Ahmed Jelair. Timur sent two embassies for
the purpose of demanding the surrender of the princes:
but Bayazid refused to comply, and, instigated by the
advice of the princes, took possession of Erzurum,
a town situated on the Euphrates within the dominions
of Timur.
Timur, who
now determined to commence an open war against Bayazid,
begun the campaign by taking Haleb, Antakya, and other
Syrian towns that were subject to the Ottoman. He was at Sivas
when he received information of the approach of Bayazid
from the west. The two sovereigns at the heart of their
armies met in the plains of Angora, the capital of the
antatoli Galatia. A decisive battle took place (according
to M. von Hammer's calculations on the 19th of Zulhaj.
A.H. 804, i. e. the 20th of July, A.d. 1401), in which
the Ottoman were totally defeated, and Bayazid became a
prisoner in the hands of Timor. The conqueror, according
to his Persian biographer, Sherif-eddin, received Bayazid
with great kindness, assigned him suitable
accommodations, and continued to treat him with
distinction till he died, A. Heg. 806 (a.d. 1403).
D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orient., art. Timour,
.p. 876, edit. 1776) and M. Von Hammer express
themselves satisfied with this account, and reject the
common report which would charge Timur with ujreat
cruelty towards his prisoner. But Sir William Jones (Works,
vol. v. p. 547) draws our attention to a passage in
another contemporary historian, Ibn Arahshah's life of
Timur, which had been overlooked by D'Herbelot, and in
which the Arabian author expressly affirms that Timur did
enclose his captive, Ilderim Bayazid, in a cage of iron,
in order to retaliate the insult offered to the Persians
by a sovereign of Lower Asia, who had treated Shapor,
king of Persia, in the same manner ; that he intended to
carry him in this confinement into Tartary, but that the
miserable prince died in Syria, at a place called
Akshehr.' (See Ahmedis Arabsiadae, Vita Timuri, ed.
Manger, torn. ii. pp. 225, 276, &c.)
We will not
venture to decide a question on which there is such
conflicting evidence; but we must notice a curious
passage of Busbequius, who visited Constantinopleas
ambassador from the German emperor about the middle of
the sixteenth century, as it seems to have escaped the
notice of M. von Hammer. The passage is to the following
effect: that Bayazid, after his defeat, became a prisoner
in the hands of Timur, who treated him with great
cruelty; that his wife, who was also made a prisoner, was
grossly insulted before his face; and that from this time
till the age of Suleiman I., who reigned from A.d. 1520
to 1566, the Ottoman sultans have never married, for fear
that the reverses of fortune might expose them to similar
insults. (Aug. Gislenii Busbequii Legationis Turciate
Epístola Prima, pp. 26, 27, ed. London 1660, 16
months.)
Bayazid was
succeeded upon the throne of the Ottoman empire by his
son Mohammed I. (Joseph von Hammer, Geschichte des
Omanischen Reichs, vol. i. p. 216, &c. ;
Sherif-eddin's Life of Timur, translated by P. De
La Croix.)
THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA OF THE
SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
VOLUME IV. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET
MDCCCXXXV.
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Sale: L02309 | Location: London, New Bond
Street
Auction Dates: Session 3: Wed, 29 May 02 10:00 AM
LOT 1172
[Tatikian, B., attributed to] Chronologie des
empereurs ottomans. [Smyrna: 1852]
3,500—5,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium:
11,950 GBP
MEASUREMENTS
N/A
DESCRIPTION
FIRST EDITION, folio (312 x 228mm.), lithographed
title with text in French and Turkish, 2
lithographed tables (one in French, one in
Turkish), 31 HAND-COLOURED PLATES OF THE SULTANS,
30 HEIGHTENED WITH GOLD, numbered 1-30 and with
captions in French and Turkish, 1 unnumbered and
with caption in French, the title and Turkish
table printed in gold, contemporary cloth-backed
boards, some spotting, fly-leaf detached, binding
rubbed
A RARE PRODUCTION, possibly from the press of
Tatikian. The thirty numbered plates differ in
style from the bulk of his work and only the
unnumbered plate bears his imprint, but the work
has been attributed to him by the Gennadius
Library (see Atabey, note).
References: Atabey 1198; Blackmer 1886
Provenance: bookplate of Bernhard Cremer; book
label of Henry BlackmerSeen on www.Sothebys.com
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