Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

in transplanting gazi activity across the Dardanelles, which was initially made
possible by the invitation of Kantakouzenos, who needed the Turkish warriors
against his foes.
Having incorporated those mighty warriors, however, the Ottomans also took on a
serious potential challenge to their control over gaza activity. It is
impossible to date several important "internal" political developments ha the
Ottoman principality with precision ha the four-
― 139 ―
teenth century, but that potential challenge seems to have turned into a real
one in the 1360s and 1370s, possibly related to the loss of Gelibolu to Amadeo
of Savoy. For a decade when one of the major links between the two peninsulas
(Anatolia and Thrace) was severed, some of the gazis of Thrace apparently
entertained notions of independence from Ottoman control even if they were
originally commissioned by the Ottomans. This was part of the rules of the game
after all; the House of Aydin, too, had established itself as an autonomous
principality in a region where they had originally been sent in the name of the
House of Germiyan.
The most prominent among these independent-minded warriors was a certain Haci
Ilbegi , one of the former Karasi warriors. Perhaps he was the conqueror who was
later identified as Seyyid `Ali Sultan , the protagonist of the hagiography
analyzed in the last chapter.[50] It seems highly likely that the central figure
of that (later) Bektasi cult was built around, or conflated with, a warrior who
had strong claims to taking the credit for moving gazi activity into Thrace.
Even if that is not the case, it is obvious on the basis of Ottoman sources that
Haci Ilbegi was credited by some with the crucial victory over Serbian forces in
1371. And it is also stated in those chronicles, though some prefer to omit the
relevant passage, that Haci Ilbegi was killed by a commander loyal to Murad I,
Orhan's son. Maybe none of this is true; still, these reports indicate that
there were some who questioned Ottoman claims to being in charge of the
frontiers. Namely, the centrifugal tendencies had risen to the fore in the
1370s, and the Ottomans were facing the kind of crisis that had led in many
other states in the region to the emergence of splinter polities headed by
successful warlords.
The Ottomans withstood that challenge, however, partly by coopting other
warlords and by taking swift and violent measures, none of which could be
effectively carried out had they not been developing a sophisticated ruling
apparatus. And it is certainly not coincidental that the Ottomans invented the
cornerstone of their centralizing political technology in that conjuncture,
during or right after the crisis of the 1370s. Observing the loosening of the
bonds that had held the warriors together when the head of the House of Osman
was one of them, now that the Ottoman beg was turning into a sultan, the budding
state created a new army, yeñi çeri , that consisted of youths from slave
backgrounds so that their sole loyalty would be to the sultan.
We have already seen that the institutional complexity of Osman's principality
emerged quite early. Or, to state it more cautiously, those elements that
eventually provided it with institutional complexity were
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