1.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
2.
Didymoteicho
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Didymóteicho is a town located on the eastern edge of the Evros regional unit of East Macedonia and Thrace, in northeastern Greece. It is the seat of the municipality of the same name. The town sits on a plain and located south east of Svilengrad, south of Edirne, Turkey and Orestiada, west of Uzunköprü, Turkey, about 20 km north of Soufli and about 90 km north of Alexandroupoli. The municipality of Didymóteicho has an area of 565.4 km². Didymoteicho is just 2 kilometers away from the Greek-Turkish border, and as a result it is home to many Greek military units, hundreds of thousands of Greek men had to either receive military training or spend part of their military service here. The city was known in Katharevousa as Διδυμότειχον, Didymóteichon, from δίδυμος, dídymos, twin and τεῖχος, teîchos. Other relevant names of Didymoteicho include Dimotika and Dimetoka, forests dominate the banks and parts of the plain. Much of the area is used for farming, the main produce is cattle, fruits and vegetables and some flowers. Near the area lies the great forest of Dadia, Didymoteicho is located around 12 km from Turkey and the western banks of the Evros. It is the easternmost municipality on the mainland of Greece, in the west, much of the land is mountainous and forested, while farmlands are located in the central and the northern part. It is on the railway line Thessaloniki–Istanbul and the Greek road 51.372 km2, the province of Didymoteicho was one of the provinces of the Evros Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipality Didymoteicho and the municipal unit Orfeas, the area around the town was inhabited in Neolithic times. It was later an important Thracian and Hellenistic town, sacked by the Romans in 204 BC, the city would later be one of the most important towns in Thrace, having its own assembly, and an episcopal see. The ruins of the ancient city are now known as the Kale, a solid gold bust of Emperor Septimius Severus found on the site of Plotinopolis in 1965 is now in the museum at Komotini. According to F. A. Giannopoulos, Didymoteicho was probably built in the 6th century by Justinian I to replace Plotinopolis and it seems that already in the 7th century, Plotinopolis had been abandoned in favour of the new site. The fortress was captured by Krum of Bulgaria in 813, but in 879 it was a bishopric whose incumbent, Nikephoros, a century later, it served as a place of exile for the general and rebel Bardas Skleros, who unsuccessfully tried to oust Byzantine Emperor Basil II. Didymoteicho briefly became the seat of a lordship within the Latin Empire after the Fourth Crusade. In the early 13th century, the town was fought over by Latin crusaders, members of the Angelos family, finally the Empire of Nicaea returned Didymoteicho to Byzantine Greek control by capturing it around 1243 during the reign of John III Doukas Vatatzes
3.
Ottoman dynasty
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The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans also claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II also took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states. Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
4.
Ducat
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The ducat /ˈdʌkət/ was a gold or silver coin used as a trade coin in Europe from the later medieval centuries until as late as the 20th century. Many types of ducats had various metallic content and purchasing power throughout the period, the gold ducat of Venice gained wide international acceptance, like the medieval Byzantine hyperpyron and the Florentine florin, or the modern British pound sterling and the United States dollar. The word ducat is from Medieval Latin ducatus = relating to a duke, Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice, whose title means duke, introduced a silver ducat whose types are related to the ducats of Roger II. Later gold ducats of Venice, however, became so important that the name ducat was associated exclusively with them, the Venetian business model of the 13th century was importing goods from the East and selling them at a profit north of the Alps. They paid for goods with Byzantine gold coins but when the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos backed a rebellion called the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. This was just one more in a series of debasements of the hyperpyron, both Florence and Genoa had introduced gold coins in 1252 and the florin of Florence had become the standard European gold coin. Venice modeled the size and weight of their ducat on the florin, the Venetian ducat contained 3.545 grams of 99. 47% fine gold, the highest purity medieval metallurgy could produce. Gold ducat types derive from silver ducat types, which were ultimately Byzantine, the obverse shows the Doge of Venice kneeling before St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice. Saint Mark holds the gospel, which is his usual attribute, the legend on the left identifies the saint as S M VENET, i. e. Saint Mark of Venice, and the legend on the right identifies the doge, with his title DVX in the field. On the reverse, Christ stands among a field of stars in an oval frame, the reverse legend is the same as on Roger II’s ducats. Succeeding doges of Venice continued striking ducats, changing only their name on the obverse, during the 15th century, the value of the ducat in terms of silver money was stable at 124 Venetian soldi, i. e. schillings. The term ducat became identified with this amount of money as well as the gold coin. Conflict between England and Spain in 1567, however, increased the price of gold and upset this equivalence, at this point, the coin was called the ducato de zecca, i. e. ducat of the mint, which was shortened to zecchino and corrupted to sequin. Leonardo Loredan extended the coinage with a half ducat and subsequent doges added a quarter, all of these coins continued to use the designs and weight standards of the original 1284 ducat. Even after dates became a feature of western coinage, Venice struck ducats without them until Napoleon ended the Venetian Republic in 1797. Instead, the Roman coin showed a senator kneeling before St. Peter on the obverse, the Popes subsequently changed these designs, but continued to strike ducats of the same weight and size into the 16th century. Most imitations of the Venetian ducat were made in the Levant, the Knights of Saint John struck ducats with grand master Dieudonné de Gozon, 1346-1353, kneeling before Saint John on the obverse and an angel seated on the Sepulcher of Christ on the reverse. Subsequent Grand masters, however, found it expedient to copy the Venetian types more exactly, first at Rhodes and they struck ducats at Chios that could be distinguished from the Venetian originals only by their workmanship
5.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
6.
Kingdom of Hungary
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The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed from the Middle Ages into the twentieth century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen I at Esztergom in about the year 1000, by the 12th century, the kingdom became a European middle power within the Western world. The House of Habsburg held the Hungarian throne after the Battle of Mohács until 1918, from 1867 territories connected to the Hungarian crown were incorporated into Austria-Hungary under the name of Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. The monarchy ended with the deposition of the last king Charles IV in 1918, the kingdom was nominally restored during the Regency of 1920–46, ending with the Soviet occupation in 1946. From 1102 it also included Croatia, being in union with it. Today, the feast day of the first king Stephen I is a holiday in Hungary. The Latin forms Regnum Hungariae or Ungarie, Regnum Marianum, or simply Hungaria, were the used in official documents in Latin from the beginning of the kingdom to the 1840s. The German name Königreich Ungarn was used officially from 1784 to 1790, the Hungarian name was used in the 1840s, and then again from the 1860s to 1946. The non-official Hungarian name of the kingdom was Magyarország, which is still the colloquial, in Austria-Hungary, the unofficial name Transleithania was sometimes used to denote the regions of the Kingdom of Hungary. Officially, the term Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen was included for the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, the Hungarians led by Árpád settled the Carpathian Basin in 895, established Principality of Hungary. The Hungarians led several successful incursions to Western Europe, until they were stopped by Otto I, the principality was succeeded by the Christian Kingdom of Hungary with the coronation of St Stephen I at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. The first kings of the kingdom were from the Árpád dynasty and he fought against Koppány and in 998, with Bavarian help, defeated him near Veszprém. The Catholic Church received powerful support from Stephen I, who with Christian Hungarians, Stephen I of Hungary was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1083 and an Orthodox saint in 2000. After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles, in 1051 armies of the Holy Roman Empire tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountain. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire continued to suffer defeats, before 1052 Peter Orseolo, a supporter of the Holy Roman Empire, was overthrown by king Samuel Aba of Hungary. This period of revolts ended during the reign of Béla I, Hungarian chroniclers praised Béla I for introducing new currency, such as the silver denarius, and for his benevolence to the former followers of his nephew, Solomon. The second greatest Hungarian king, also from the dynasty, was Ladislaus I of Hungary. He was also canonized as a saint, however, kingship over all of Croatia would not be achieved until the reign of his successor Coloman
7.
Louis I of Hungary
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Louis I, also Louis the Great or Louis the Hungarian, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370. He was the first child of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland, a 1338 treaty between his father and Casimir III of Poland, Louiss maternal uncle, confirmed Louiss right to inherit the Kingdom of Poland if his uncle died without a son. In exchange, Louis was obliged to assist his uncle to reoccupy the lands that Poland had lost in previous decades and he bore the title of Duke of Transylvania between 1339 and 1342 but did not administer the province. Louis was of age when succeeded his father in 1342, and he inherited a centralized kingdom and a rich treasury from his father. He launched two campaigns to the Kingdom of Naples between 1347 and 1350 and his troops occupied large territories on both occasions, and Louis adopted the styles of Neapolitan sovereigns, but the Holy See never recognized his claim. Louiss arbitrary acts and atrocities committed by his mercenaries made his rule unpopular in Southern Italy and he withdrew all his troops from the Kingdom of Naples in 1351. Like his father, Louis administered Hungary with absolute power and used royal prerogatives to grant privileges to his courtiers, however, he also confirmed the liberties of the Hungarian nobility at the Diet of 1351, emphasizing the equal status of all noblemen. At the same Diet, he introduced a system and a uniform rent payable by the peasants to the landowners. He forced the Republic of Venice to renounce the Dalmatian towns in 1358 and he also made several attempts to expand his suzerainty over the rulers of Bosnia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and parts of Bulgaria and Serbia. His attempts to convert his pagan or Orthodox subjects to Catholicism made him unpopular in the Balkan states, Louis established a university in Pécs in 1367, but it was closed within two decades because he did not arrange for sufficient revenues to maintain it. Louis inherited Poland after his uncles death in 1370, since he had no sons, he wanted his subjects to acknowledge the right of his daughters to succeed him in both Hungary and Poland. For this purpose, he issued the Privilege of Koszyce in 1374 spelling out the liberties of Polish noblemen, however, his rule remained unpopular in Poland. In Hungary, he authorized the free cities to delegate jurors to the high court hearing their cases. Suffering from a disease, Louis became even more religious during the last years of his life. At the beginning of the Western Schism, he acknowledged Urban VI as the legitimate pope, after the pope dethroned Joanna I of Naples and made Louiss distant cousin, Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples, Louis helped Charles occupy the kingdom. In Hungarian historiography, Louis was regarded for centuries as the most powerful Hungarian monarch who ruled over an empire whose shores were washed by three seas, born on 5 March 1326, Louis was the third son of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland. He was named for his fathers uncle, Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, the first-born son of his parents, Charles, died before Louis was born. Louis became his fathers heir after the death of his brother Ladislaus in 1329 and he had a liberal education by the standards of his age and learned French, German and Latin
8.
Edirne
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Edirne served as the third capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1363 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empires fourth and final capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of Edirne Province in Turkish Thrace, the citys estimated population in 2014 was 165,979. The city was founded as Hadrianopolis, named for the Roman Emperor Hadrian and this name is still used in the Modern Greek. The name Adrianople was used in English, until the Turkish adoption of Latin alphabet in 1928 made Edirne the internationally recognized name. The Turkish, Edirne, Bulgarian, Одрин, Albanian, Edrêne, Slovene, Одрин and Serbian, Једрене / Jedrene are adapted forms of the name Hadrianopolis or of its Turkish version, see also its other names. The area around Edirne has been the site of no fewer than 16 major battles or sieges, military historian John Keegan identifies it as the most contested spot on the globe and attributes this to its geographical location. According to Greek mythology, Orestes, son of king Agamemnon, built this city as Orestias, at the confluence of the Tonsus and the Ardiscus with the Hebrus. The city was founded eponymously by the Roman Emperor Hadrian on the site of a previous Thracian settlement known as Uskadama, Uskudama, Uskodama or Uscudama and it was the capital of the Bessi, or of the Odrysians. Hadrian developed it, adorned it with monuments, changed its name to Hadrianopolis after himself, licinius was defeated there by Constantine I in 323, and Emperor Valens was killed by the Goths in 378 during the Battle of Adrianople. In 813, the city was seized by Khan Krum of Bulgaria who moved its inhabitants to the Bulgarian lands towards the north of the Danube. During the existence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Crusaders were decisively defeated by the Bulgarian Emperor Kaloyan in the Battle of Adrianople. Later Theodore Komnenos, Despot of Epirus, took possession of it in 1227, in 1369, the city was conquered by the Ottoman sultan Murad I. The city remained the Ottoman capital for 90 years until 1453, Edirne is famed for its many mosques, domes, minarets, and palaces from the Ottoman period. Under Ottoman rule, Edirne was the city of the administrative unit, the eponymous Eyalet of Edirne, and after land reforms in 1867. Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, was born in Edirne, Sultan Mehmed IV left the palace in Constantinople and died in Edirne in 1693. During his exile in the Ottoman Empire, the Swedish king Charles XII stayed in the city during most of 1713, baháulláh, the founder of the Baháí Faith, lived in Edirne from 1863 to 1868. He was exiled there by the Ottoman Empire before being banished further to the Ottoman penal colony in Akka and he referred to Edirne in his writings as the Land of Mystery. Edirne was briefly occupied by imperial Russian troops in 1829 during the Greek War of Independence, the city suffered a fire in 1905
