III. The Beginnings of Transformation

BEGINNINGS OF TRANSFORMATION
Because the conquerors were a minority, their position was often
difficult. Anatolia was a vast territorial expanse, and with the appearance
of the Crusaders and the Byzantine reconquest, the Turks were hard put
to defend the conquest that as yet they had been unable to digest. For this
reason they were forced to resort to a number of measures in an effort to
safeguard their political supremacy in a land where their subjects far
outnumbered them. In some regions they simply disarmed the Christians
and kept them from positions of power in the government. In Tarsus,
Marash, and Antioch, where the population was for the most part Christian,
the latter were strictly forbidden to carry arms or to participate in
government and were restricted to the exercise of agriculture and trade. 272
In other regions the Turks were often forced to make use of Christian
troops and militia. There were Armenian contingents in the army of the
Turkish emir Buzan, and the Armenian troops of Tutuch of Damascus
played a particularly important role. 273 The Turkish garrison of Edessa at
one point was largely Armenian. The mixovarvaroi came to play a
significant role as a further source of military manpower for the ruling
minority, 274 and so did the converts. 275 The Turks resorted to taking
Christian children and converting them, acts specifically mentioned in
Antioch, around Samosata, and in western Asia Minor. 276
There are other indications that the Christian population of Asia
Minor was still quite extensive in the twelfth century and even in the
thirteenth century. 277 The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria asserts
that the majority of the subjects of the sultan Mas'ud I (1116-56) were
Greeks, and there is the testimony of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-
century travelers. Marco Polo noted that Anatolia possessed a considerable
Christian population.
In Turcomania there are three classes ofpeople. First there are the Turcomans;
these are worshippers of Mahommet, a rude people with an uncouth language of
their own. They dwell among mountains and downs where they find good pasture
for their occupation is cattlekeeping. Excellent horses, known as Turquans, are
reared in their country, and also very valuable mules. The other two classes are the
Armenians and Greeks, who live mixt with the former in the towns and villages,
occupying themselves with trade and handicrafts. They weave the finest and
Comnena, III, 26. Tyriaeum, though in a region of warfare and within Turkish domains,
had no Turkish garrison or commander. Laodiceia, when it was reconquered by John II
in the beginning of his reign had only 800 Turks, and this was considered to be a large
number of Turks, Cinnamus, 6.
272 William of Tyre, III, xix; IV, і; V, xi.
273 Matthew of Edessa, pp. 199, 205-206, 209-210. Danishmend himselfwas possibly an
Armenian. Matthew of Edessa, p. 256.
274
Anna Comnena, III, 205; II, 66.
275
As reflected in the Danishmendname.
276
Raymund of Aguilers, R.H.C., H.O., III, 250-251. Tudebodus, R.H.C., H.O., III,
29. Gesta Francorum, 55. William of Tyre, IV, iv.
277 O. Turan, "Les souverains seldjoukides et leurs sujets non-musulmans," S.I., I
(1953), 76 (hereafter cited as Turan, "Sujets non-musulmans.").
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