the black death in early ottoman territories - Bilkent University

hamams, which were deprived of customers. 256 But here again, we do not know
whether the various populations displayed a different response.
It is also not clear from the sources what response, if any, the earliest
Ottoman rulers showed to the pandemic during the first decades after it made its
appearance in the region. Did they, accustomed as they were to a less sedentary
lifestyle, already adopt the policy of leaving their capitals in times of plague as
their successors did during the fifteenth century ? It seems most likely. Moreover,
if their travelling around formed part of an old tradition, their would be no reason
for the earliest chronicles to mention them specifically. After all, the recordings in
the Tarihi Takvimler are a mirror of what were considered to be extraordinary
events, which did not include the run-of-the mill annual transhumance movements.
For their successors, there is no doubt that they indeed left plague-infested areas
for healthier surroundings. The first indication of flight coincides with the terrible
outbreak in Bursa in the first half of the fifteenth century that killed three brothers
of Murad II, namely Yusuf, Mahmud and Ahmed. Their cousin Orhan Bey, the son
of Emir Süleyman, also succombed to the disease during the same outbreak as did
many other notables.
The Kemal Selâtîn-nâme described the death of the princes poetically:
Ki sultânın beş oglı olmışdı
Hudâ emrine üçi varmışdı
Biri Ahmed bir Mahmûd Yusuf Han
Ta'ûndan gitdi bunlar bilgil iy can 257
Neşri also described the outbreak which caused the death of so many notables, but
omits to mention the brother Ahmed as plague victim 258 :
256 Jennings, Studies on Ottoman Social History in the 16th and 17th Century, 669 et passim.
257 Öztürk, Necdet. XV. yüzyıl tarihçilerinden Kemal Selâtîn-nâme (1299-1490), 2001.
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