III. The Beginnings of Transformation

BEGINNINGS OF TRANSFORMATION
These nomads took up their abode in deserted or semideserted rural
areas. As Byzantine power declined and the Turkmens pushed into new
border regions, the population must often have fled the countryside to
towns such as Sozopolis, Ghonae, and Laodiceia, or to other more secure
regions in the highlands. Thus many of the border towns were isolated by
Turks who had occupied the plains and rural areas. With the destruction
of Dorylaeum, they occupied the plains of Bathys with their tents and
livestock, and no urban center existed on the spot ofDorylaeum for about
one hundred years. Cotyaeum must have undergone a similar experience
when the sultan sacked it after Manuel's death, and the Turkmens moved
in. 326
Choma and the towns of the Pentapolis suffered the same fate.
Hierapolis and Tripolis were both destroyed and deserted, and the
nomads came into these regions also. Only Laodiceia and Chonae
survived as Byzantine urban outposts, but they were isolated by the
heavy nomadic settlements around them. It is as a result ofthis process of
nomadization that Byzantine place names have virtually disappeared in
the region between Ushak on the north, Isparta and Uluburlu in the
southeast, and Chonae in the southwest. 327
The conquest of this area by the
Turks was a long and destructive process that lasted for a century.
The conquest involved a gradual settling down of the Turkmen bands and
the withdrawal of the Byzantine populations. With the retreat of the latter
and the settlement of the conquerors, new Turkish names replaced older
Byzantine place names. The prolonged hostile relations of Byzantines and
Turks in this part of Anatolia resulted in the destruction of Byzantine
society 328
and in the nomadization of large areas. This process was
repeated in parts of the northwest corner of the plateau about Cotyaeum-
Dorylaeum, and in the Pamphylian plain. 329
The appearance of the nomads on the borders is also connected with
the fact that the sultans sent them there to carry on the djihad with the
Christians. The role of these Udj Turkmens (Turkmens of the border as
the contemporary Arab sources term them) 330
in the holy war is quite
tabernaculis de pascuis ad pascua se transferre cum gregibus et armentis." And, p. 156,
"gens ista, gens odiosa silvestris indomita et effrena nullius est subdita ditioni; hii sunt
predones qui soliti devastare terras finitimas ipsum eciam soldanum inquietare non
verentur bellis frequentibus et rapinis." Gesta Federici, p. 86, "Sunt enim agrestes
Turchi, qui nullo detinentur imperio et nulla loca possident, sed morantur in agris."
And, p. 87, "Non habent civitates, sed morantur in agris; habent etiam caput unum, qui
illos precedit, habent animalia, fructus et pugnant cum arcubus, lignis et lapidibus."
Also, 95, "qui sunt homines agrestes et sine lege et ratione." See Brosset, Georgie, I,
passim, especially pp. 358-359, on their habits.
3 2 6
3 2 7
Nicetas Choniates, 340.
Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford, 1897), II, 373.
3 2 9
On this latter see de Planhol, Nomadisme, pp. 102-103. Ramsay, Phrygia, 1, 301, as
to why the process was not as disruptive to the Byzantine populations of Pisidia.
3 3 0
BarHebraeus,I,360,notes,"...IUG, a greatcountry of the Turkomans which was
on the border of the Greeks."
192