Today most historians accept that history flows in a stream and that no single event can be heralded as a barrier between two periods of development, or ages of civilization. As a consequence, the fall of Constantinople is no longer held as the end of the Middle Ages. The processes of modernization can be recognized long before 1453, for example, in the dynamics of the Italian Renaissance. Likewise, the influence of medieval ideas remained valid in northern Europe long after 1453. Despite the global significance attributed to the Ottoman victory in 1453, the fall of Constantinople produced no immediate reaction in the Christian West, with the exception of the Papacy, which soon had problems closer to home. In reality, the fall of Constantinople only vitally affected two peoples: the Byzantine Greeks and the Ottoman Turks.1
For the Byzantine Greeks the fall of Constantinople heralded the end of their once great empire. Many had long recognized the precarious situation the Byzantine Empire faced. In fact, as early as the turn of the fifteenth century, Byzantine scholars began deserting Constantinople for the more prosperous and comfortable professorial positions in Italy. Likewise, various travelers and adventurers remarked on the desolation of “The City.” The large number of ruins in the city astounded Gonzalez de Clavijo, the Castilian ambassador who arrived in 1403. In 1433, Bertrandon de la Broquiere remarked on the vast emptiness of Constantinople. In 1437, Pero Tafur commented on the sparse and poverty-stricken population of the city. “In many districts you would have thought that you were in open countryside….”2 Despite all of these indications of imminent doom, Constantinople was not dead, and so long as a Byzantine Emperor held the imperial city, every Greek, regardless of his status, could believe that he belonged to the one true, orthodox Christian community, and he could hope against hope that it might one day regain its former glory. After the fall of Constantinople, the chance to fulfill this hope, however cherished, no longer existed in any real sense.
If the fall of Constantinople was an ending for the Byzantine Greeks, it was a beginning, of sorts, for the Ottoman Turks. As early as the reign of Bayezid I (1389-1402), the Ottomans recognized the importance of conquering the imperial city. The capture of Constantinople would provide the Ottoman possessions in Europe with a stamp of legitimacy. Likewise, possession of the city would end the threat of a possible grand Christian alliance forming around Constantinople. Also, the city could no longer be used as a haven for would-be Ottoman sultans. So long as Constantinople, situated as it was between the Ottoman territories in Asia and Europe, remained independent of the Sultan’s rule, the Ottoman Empire could not be entirely secure.3
After Bayezid’s defeat at Ankara in 1402, the Ottoman state could have disappeared into obscurity. However, between 1402 and 1453, the empire managed to reassert its control over Anatolia and the Balkans, and to conquer imperial Constantinople. How did the Ottoman Empire make this amazing recovery in a period when civil wars, crusader invasions and various other internal crises confronted them? Part of their success can be attributed to the victory of the kapikullari (slaves of the gate) over the Anatolian ayans (notables) in the struggle for dominance within the Ottoman governmental infrastructure. To understand how the struggle between these two opposing factions reached such a state of crisis it is necessary to give some background information on the development of Ottoman statecraft and the role of first, the Turkish ayans and then the kapikullari in that process.4
From their eastern roots, the Ottoman Empire gained their language, their geographical origins, their ideas about sharia (law) and the legitimization of the state, as well as pursuit of the ghazi ideal, the tradition of the nomadic warrior fighting the infidel. In their initial period of expansion, the Ottomans led the Turkish ghazis against the shrinking Byzantine domains. These ghazis fought against the Byzantines and the Mongols who invaded Anatolia after the formation of the Il-Khanid Empire. The states that emerged as a result of these activities lasted only a brief period, some less than three generations. The administration of these states tended to be extended clan networks with each governor acting independent of the central rule of the bey. As a leader of a nomadic group, the bey carried the paraphernalia of state around with him. His military-administrative establishment came, for the most part, from the Anatolian ayan families and their nomadic followers, as well as a few Christian converts. When these Ottoman nomads held council, individual commanders retained control over their followers and could withdraw their support from the bey whenever they found his leadership inadequate, or unacceptable. The only real advantage the Ottoman bey possessed, beyond acting as the mediator among the clans, was his right to collect pençik, one-fifth of the booty captured in battle. The bey acquired pençik in addition to his personal share of the booty and combined both quantities to form the state treasury.5
Following the Mongol defeat of the Seljuk Army at Kose Dagh in 1243, Osman I emerged as amir (prince) of the principality of Bithynia, in northwest Anatolia. By 1300, he ruled an area from Dorylaeum to Iznik. However, the Ottomans were as yet not strong enough to make an effective siege against any major Byzantine city, nor were they in a position to overcome their increasingly powerful neighbors in Aydin and Kara?i. Instead Osman I, and his immediate successors, concentrated their military activities in the Byzantine lands bordering the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. Starting with Osman I, and continuing under Orhan I (1324-60), and Murad I (1360-89), the Ottomans began to take over Byzantine territories in western Anatolia and southeastern Europe.6
The rapid territorial expansion of the Ottoman domains forced the Ottoman beys to abandon their traditional institutions. Increasingly, the Ottomans began concentrating power in a highly centralized and institutionalized government with the sultan delegating much of his authority to executive ministers, or vezirs. Orhan I, the first to do this, appointed Alauddin Pa?a as his vezir, endowing him with considerable administrative powers. Eventually, the Ottoman beys appointed certain commanders to vezirships and placed them in charged of the financial and administrative affairs of the state. These vezirs met to discuss and determine Ottoman state policy in the Imperial Council, the Divan-I-Humayum, which later came to be headed by the grand vezir. As the chief executive officer of a ghazi state, founded upon the principle of expansion of Islamic territory (Dar ul-Islam), the primary concerns of the grand vezir were military in nature. Ottoman beys and sultans were always in search of new territories upon which to vent the considerable energies of their ghazi warriors.7
Ottoman methods of conquest came in two stages, or phases: 1) establishing suzerainty over desired areas and 2) assuming direct control of territories via the timar, or vassal system. In the initial phase, Ottomans subdued territories in the path of their expansion, reducing them to the status of tributary vassalage. These vassal states preserved their independence so long as they provided troops for Ottoman campaigns. In the Balkans, Serbs, Bosnians and Bulgarians welcomed their status as Ottoman vassals because it provided support against their Hungarian enemies. In return for its support, the Ottoman state received financial and military benefits from these vassal territories.8
During the second phase, Ottomans removed the local ruling lords and assumed direct authority over vassal territories. Before the Ottoman army of conquest withdrew, the state placed small garrisons in strategic fortresses throughout conquered regions. Implementation of the timar system began immediately after annexation. It involved surveying the inhabitants to discover the quantity and quality of the revenue producing property within an area. The surveyors recorded this information in cadastral registers that the sultan used to grant timars (holdings) to his supporters. In theory, individuals could not inherit timars; they could only be assigned for a definite period of time after which they reverted to the state.9
As the Ottomans moved into Anatolia, and then Europe, their leaders began to call themselves sultans. Acceptance of this title by their followers gave the Ottoman beys full secular and legislative authority over their domains in all areas not specifically covered the Islamic sharia. In the Ottoman state proximity to the sultan determined the significance of lands and persons. The Ottomans considered the provinces of the state to be the “well-protected realms” of the sultan, and the city of his residence was the “foot of his throne.” The Ottoman sultan stood at the pinnacle of a society divided into two classes: the reâyâ (subjects) and the áskerî (military). The reâyâ, the productive element within the society consisted of both Muslim and non-Muslim peasants, under dwellers and nomadic Bedouin. Membership within the áskerî included the military-administrative establishment and the members of their immediate households. The áskerî came not only from Turkish sources, but also from the Pre-Ottoman local nobility and the kapikullari, who served in the Sultan’s household and within the army. From the palace, the sultan conducted the affairs of state and all power originated from within its walls. According to Turkish tradition, no sultan could reign as a legitimate ruler unless he controlled the imperial palace.10
Palace Service provided direction and leadership for the áskerî. It educated and maintained the sultans, as well as operated the entire Ottoman administrative system. The building itself provided the structure for the Palace Service. There were two parts: the Enderun (Inner Service) and the Birun (Outer Service). The Enderun included six departments of descending importance: the Privy Council – which was responsible for performing general services for the sultan and caring for the holy relics of the state; the Treasury Chamber and its inner and outer sections; the Larder, the Campaign Chamber (created in the seventeenth century), the Falconry (abolished in the seventeenth century) and the Large and Small Chambers organized to train the royal pages. The Birun included five groups of servants to the sultan: the members of the ulama (religious scholars); the sehrimini who were responsible for constructing and maintaining the royal palaces; the commissioner of the imperial kitchen; the commissioner of the mint; and the commissioner of grains who cared for the animals of the government as well as visiting foreign ambassadors.11
The success of the Palace Service owed much to the uniqueness of the Ottoman palace school. No other state in existence in the same period had a similar institution for the systematic training of government officials. The nearest prototype to the Turkish palace school can be found in the practice of some Seljuk sultans attaching secular colleges to certain medreses (religious schools). These secular colleges taught science, Greek philosophy and the “art of government.” The Nizamiya Medrese founded between 1065-67 taught Shafii canon law, the Ashari system of scholastic theology and instruction of individuals in public administration. The Nizamiya type school had a political character not found in other medreses. Various sultans often undertook the creation of these types of medreses as personal projects. For example, Murad II (1421-1451) created the Çelebi Medrese or school for princes, during his reign to educate the royal pages that received training with Çelebi Mehmed at the court in Edirne (Adrianople).12
The áskerî not only served within the Palace Service at the central administrative level, they also served in provincial, district and local government. The basic unit of Ottoman government consisted of province governed by a bey with the same rank as a vezir. This provincial or sançak bey served as the Sultan’s primary military commander, controlling the timarli (timar-holders) within his territory. His main responsibilities involved maintaining public order, executing the legal and administrative decisions of the state and leading the timarli in battle. The sançak bey possessed a large retinue of kuls (slaves), timarli cavalry and akinçis (raiders) to assist him with his duties.13
Through the timar system the Ottoman ayans were, in theory, dependent upon and loyal to the sultan. However, in the provinces where some beys and timarlis possessed vast retinues of military-administrative kuls to serve them, control by the central government remained tenuous and problematic. In the Balkans, powerful beys acted more or less independently of the central government and in some instances played a major role in the struggle between various factions for the Ottoman throne. Bayezid I the Thunderbolt (1389-1403) was one of the first sultans to offer serious challenge to the power of the Anatolian ayans. His radical efforts to replace the local ayans with his personal kuls brought stern opposition and criticism from the ulama. His policies regarding the Anatolian ayans and the timar system is one of the underlying causes of his defeat at the hands of Timar Lenk at Ankara in 1402. Timur’s forces captured Bayezid I and the Ottoman Sultan committed suicide the following year.14 After Bayezid’s disaster, the Ottoman state chiefly concerned itself with restoring a united leadership and regaining control of Anatolia. During this period of Interregnum, the kapikullari and the ayans struggled to gain control of the Ottoman state.
The Ottoman sultans formed alliances with first one group and then another, while trying to maintain control of their throne. The Anatolian ayans, under the leadership of the Candarli family, raised Suleyman to the throne in Edirne. Unfortunately, he soon began to favor the kapikullari. Eventually, the Candarli and their supporters abandoned Suleyman and brought Mehmed to the throne. Under Mehmed I (1413-1420), the new Grand Vezir, Candarli Ibrahim repressed the kapikullari, depriving them of their timars and their government positions. With the kapikullari neutralized, Mehmed I increasingly fell under the control of the Anatolian ayans and their leaders the Candarli family. When Murad II (1421-1451) succeeded his father to the throne, the struggle between the two factions began again. Determined to make his throne secure in the face of the power of the Anatolian ayans, Murad II began to restore the kapikullari. Whenever possible he used the pençik to build up the financial and political power of the kapikullari, granting them rich timars in the Balkans and appointing them to key military positions. Despite his efforts, the Anatolian ayans remained predominant in his palace service. Led by the Candarli, the ayans opposed large-scale conquests in Europe and Anatolia because success with these efforts would shift power to the kapikullari.
In the last years of Murad’s reign, the kapikullari and the ruling beys in the Balkans united to advocate the succession of Çelebi Mehmed who shared their martial aspirations. In 1441 Murad II abdicated in favor of Mehmed. Murad placed his twelve-year-old son on the throne to govern under the tutelage of Grand Vezir Candarli Halil Pa?a and Husrev Molla, a prominent member of the ulama. With the guidance of his tutors, Mehmed became proficient in literary Turkish, as well as Arabic, Farsi (Persian) and Greek. He kept himself informed about the artistic and intellectual movements in the Muslim World, corresponding with various rulers and placed a premium on scholars, students and men of letters, making them high-ranking officials in his governmental system. Mehmed was nevertheless a very young ruler and his elevation to the throne encouraged the formation of a new crusade. King Ladislav of Hungary’s Commander Janos Hunyadi organized an army and captured Nis and most of southern Serbia. The threat of a large-scale Crusader campaign, and the fear that Mehmed was not mature enough to deal with it, encouraged Candarli Halil Pa?a to pressure Murad II into returning to the throne. During the next eight years, periodic military skirmishes compelled Murad II to assume leadership of the Ottoman state on three separate occasions in 1443, 1444 and 1446.15
When Murad II died in 1451, Çelebi Mehmed assumed the throne as Mehmed II. With his ascension to the throne, ending the conflict between the kapikullari and the ayans became a personal struggle for Mehmed. He held Candarli Halil Pa?a responsible for his forced retirements. As a consequence, Mehmed came to the throne with a three-point plan to solidify his control over the Ottoman state:
1) He planned to rid his sultanate of the powerful influence of the Candarlis and their ayan supporters.
2) He wanted to reorganize the Janissary Corps to eliminate the divisive elements within their ranks.
3) He wanted to make pursuit of the jihad (holy war) a guiding principle of the Ottoman state.
To accomplish these three goals Mehmed II needed a spectacular military victory. The conquest of Constantinople, the last significant pocket of Byzantine resistance within Ottoman territory became crucial to his success.16
Mehmed II had certain problems to deal with before he implemented his plans to conquer Constantinople. He found it necessary to pacify his neighbors. He therefore arranged treaties with Serbia and Wallachia and formed a marriage alliance with the Karaman. He also removed the Janissaries from the control of Candarli Halil Pa?a and his men and placed them under the authority of the kapikullari. He then ordered a fort, the Rumeli Hisari, constructed on the European side of the Bosphorus, just ten miles north of Constantinople. As soon as the workmen completed the new fort, Mehmed demanded the surrender of the city. When the Byzantine Empire refused, Mehmed besieged Constantinople. The campaign lasted fifty-four days and the outcome was almost a foregone conclusion.
At dawn on Tuesday, 29 May 1453 the besieging Ottoman hosts launched their final assault by sea and land upon the walls of Constantinople. They attacked in wave after wave, over the bodies of friend and foe alike. The Ottomans moved up the outer terrace, up the third and highest wall and through the great breach in the Roman Gate by the Lycus River. In the final onslaught Emperor Constantine XI was killed fighting among his Greek, Venetian and Genoese supporters. Two days after the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed II dismissed Candarli Halil Pa?a and imprisoned him on charges of accepting Byzantine bribes. The Sultan confiscated his property and imprisoned most of the Candarli family. He then elevated Zaganos Pa?a to the position of Grand Vezir. From this date, most of the key government positions are filled by the kapikullari and not the ayans. With the Candarlis removed from power and the Janissaries reorganized, Mehmed moved to fulfill the third point in his plan: renewing the jihad. Through pursuit of the jihad, Mehmed II consolidated and extended the Ottoman Empire.17
Footnotes
1. S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453, p. xii
2. S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453, pp. 9-10
3. S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453, p. xii
4. Halil Inalçik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600, p. 5 (hereafter referred to as Inalçik, Classical Age)
5. Halil Inalçik, “Emergence of the Ottomans,” Cambridge History of Islam I, pp. 262-77; Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey I, Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 22-24 (hereafter referred to as Shaw, Turkey); Norman Itkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition, pp. 38-39 (hereafter referred to as Itkowitz, Islamic Tradition)
6. Shaw, Turkey, pp. 23-24.
7. Shaw, Turkey, pp. 23-24.
8. Itkowitz, Islamic Tradition, pp. 11-13
9. Itkowitz, Islamic Tradition, p. 12
10. Itkowitz, Islamic Tradition, pp. 12-14
11. Shaw, Turkey, p. 27
12. Inalçik, Classical Age, pp. 9-16
13. Inalçik, Classical Age, pp. 19-34
14. Shaw, Turkey, pp 46-51; Kinross, John Patrick Douglas Balfour, Baron, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1977, pp. 60-78 (hereafter referred to as Kinross, Ottoman Centuries)
15. Kinross, Ottoman Centuries, pp. 46-54
16. Goodwin, Jason, Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998, pp. 31-34 (hereafter referred to as Goodwin, Lords of the Horizons)
17. Goodwin, Lords of the Horizons, pp. 34-40; Shaw, Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808, pp. 56-57
