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.
John V Palaiologos
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John V Palaiologos or Palaeologus was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341 at age eight. John V was the son of Emperor Andronikos III and his wife Anna and his long reign was marked by the gradual dissolution of imperial power amid numerous civil wars and the continuing ascendancy of the Ottoman Turks. John V came to the throne at age eight, during this civil war in 1343 Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels for 30,000 Venetian ducats. From 1346 to 1349, the Black Plague devastated Constantinople, victorious in 1347, John Kantakouzenos ruled as co-emperor until his son Matthew was attacked by John V in 1352, leading to a second civil war. John V asked the ruler of Serbia, Stefan Dušan for help, the Ottoman Empire thus acquired its first European territory, at Çimpe and Gallipoli. Able to retake Constantinople in 1354, John V removed and tonsured John VI, by 1357, he had deposed Matthew as well, the Ottomans, who had been allied with the Kantakouzenoi, continued to press John. Suleyman Paşa, the son of the Ottoman sultan, led their forces in Europe and was able to take Adrianople and Philippopolis and to exact tribute from the emperor. John V appealed to the West for help, proposing to end the schism between the Byzantine and Latin churches by submitting the patriarchate to the supremacy of Rome. In 1366, John V reached the Hungarian Kingdom, arriving at the Royal city of Buda to meet King Louis I of Hungary, however, the Byzantine emperor offended the king by staying on his horse, while Louis descended and approached him on foot. The Hungarian monarch then offered him help on the condition that John change his confession to the catholic, the Emperor left the court of Buda with empty hands and continued his trip throughout Europe searching for assistance against the Ottomans. Impoverished by war, he was detained as a debtor when he visited Venice in 1369 and was captured on his way back in Bulgarian territories. In 1371, he recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan Murad I, Murad later assisted him against his son Andronikos when the latter deposed him in 1376. In 1390, his grandson John VII briefly usurped the throne, the same year, John ordered the strengthening of the Golden Gate in Constantinople, utilizing marble from the decayed churches in and around the city. Upon completion of construction, Bayezid I demanded that John raze these new works, threatening war and the blinding of his son Manuel. John V filled the Sultans order but is said to have suffered from this humiliation, John V was finally succeeded to the imperial throne by his son Manuel. His younger son Theodore had already acceded to the Despotate of Morea in 1383, John V married Helena Kantakouzene, daughter of his co-emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and Irene Asanina, on 28 May 1347. They had at least six children -- four sons and at least two daughters and their known children include, Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Irene Palaiologina, who married her first cousin Prince Halil of Ottoman Empire, son of Orhan I and Helenas sister Theodora Kantakouzene. The couple had two sons, Princes Gunduz and Omer, list of Byzantine emperors Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium
3.
John VIII Palaiologos
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John VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus was the penultimate reigning Byzantine Emperor, ruling from 1425 to 1448. John VIII Palaiologos was the eldest son of Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš and he was associated as co-emperor with his father before 1416 and became sole emperor in 1425. To secure protection against the Ottomans, he visited Pope Eugene IV and consented to the union of the Greek, the Union failed due to opposition in Constantinople, but through his prudent conduct towards the Ottoman Empire he succeeded in holding possession of the city. John VIII Palaiologos named his brother Constantine XI, who had served as regent in Constantinople in 1437–1439, despite the machinations of his younger brother Demetrios Palaiologos his mother Helena was able to secure Constantine XIs succession in 1448. John VIII died at Constantinople in 1448, John VIII Palaiologos was married three times. His first marriage was in 1414 to Anna of Moscow, daughter of Grand Prince Basil I of Moscow and she died in August 1417 of plague. The second marriage, arranged by his father Manuel II and Pope Martin V, was to Sophia of Montferrat in 1421 and she was a daughter of Theodore II, Marquess of Montferrat, and his second wife Joanna of Bar. Joanna was a daughter of Robert I, Duke of Bar and her maternal grandparents were John II of France and Bonne of Bohemia. His third marriage, arranged by the cardinal, Bessarion, was to Maria of Trebizond in 1427. She was a daughter of Alexios IV of Trebizond and Theodora Kantakouzene and she died in the winter of 1439, also from plague. None of the marriages produced any children, John VIII Palaiologos was famously depicted by several painters on the occasion of his visit to Italy. Perhaps the most famous of his portraits is the one by Benozzo Gozzoli, on the wall of the Magi Chapel, at the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. According to some interpretations, John VIII would be portrayed in Piero della Francescas Flagellation. A portrait of John appears in a manuscript at the Saint Catherines Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, list of Byzantine emperors Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium,1991. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium, new Haven and London, Yale University Press,2010. ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8 Kolditz, Sebastian, Johannes VIII, Palaiologos und das Konzil von Ferrara-Florenz. 2 Vol. Stuttgart, Anton Hiersemann Verlag 2013-2014, ISBN 978-3-7772-1319-4, lazaris, Stavros, L’empereur Jean VIII Paléologue vu par Pisanello lors du concile de Ferrare – Florence, Byzantinische Forschungen,29,2007, p. 293-324 Nicol, Donald M
4.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
5.
Theodore II Palaiologos
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Theodore II Palaiologos or Palaeologus was Despot in the Morea from 1407 to 1443 and in Selymbria from then until his death. Theodore II Palaiologos was a son of the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and his maternal grandfather was the Serb prince Constantine Dragaš. When Theodore was a little over ten years old, his father proclaimed him a despot, the nobleman Nicholas Eudaimonoioannes was appointed as his tutor and regent until he came of age. The first period of his rule was a time of war against the Latin states in Greece for the unification of Morea, Theodore IIs enemies in that period included the Republic of Venice, which sent troops to impede his attempt to conquer Patras. During Theodores minority, his father Emperor Manuel II stayed in Morea and supervised its administration and defense, rebuilding the Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. A moment of change in policy was his marriage to the Latin noblewoman Cleofa Malatesta, arranged with the help of her uncle Pope Martin V. In a letter from around the time of Manuel IIs death, Pope Martin V called Theodore II emperor of Constantinople but the crown actually passed to his older brother John VIII. The war in Morea had started to go against the Byzantines and, under pressure from Carlo I Tocco, the Count of Kefalonia and ruler of Epirus, the Despot demanded help from his brother John VIII. That help came in the form of reinforcements led by their brother Constantine, the united efforts of the brothers contributed to the naval victory at the Echinades in 1427 and the conquest of Patras in 1430. The next several years were marred by disputes with Constantine over the succession to the childless John VIII, by his marriage to Cleofa Malatesta, an Italian aristocrat, Theodore II Palaiologos had at least one daughter, Helena Palaiologina. She married King John II of Cyprus, by a wet nurse, Theodore II Palaiologos had at least one illegitimate and protect son, Thomas Emanuele Pietro Palaiologos, migrated with his sister Helena Palaiologina to Cyprus. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press,1991, joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire George Sphrantzes, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire
6.
Andronikos Palaiologos (son of Manuel II)
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Andronikos Palaiologos or Andronicus Palaeologus was a Byzantine prince and the last Byzantine governor of Thessalonica with the title of despot, from 1408 to 1423. Andronikos Palaiologos was a son of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and his maternal grandfather was the Serb prince Constantine Dragaš. His brothers included emperors John VIII Palaiologos and Constantine XI Palaiologos, as well as Theodore II Palaiologos, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos, in childhood Andronikos survived the sickness which killed his older brother Constantine and two sisters. He never recovered in full, remaining in poor health for the rest of his life, when he was only eight years old his father made him a despot and appointed him imperial representative in Thessalonica, where he succeeded his deceased cousin John VII Palaiologos. As he was still a minor, for the first years of his rule there, 1415/1416, he was under the tutorship of the general Demetrios Laskaris Leontares. After John VIII assumed control of the government in 1421. Constantinople was attacked by the Ottomans in 1422, and Thessalonica was subject to a blockade in 1422–1423. Under siege, and increasingly unwell, Andronikos began diplomatic initiatives for the surrender of the city to the Republic of Venice and these negotiations resulted, in a Venetian force entering the city in 1423. The handing over of Thessalonica to Venice contributed to the outbreak of the first in a series of wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans conquered Thessalonica in 1430. His fate after the surrender of Thessalonica is obscure, with conflicting accounts in the sources, the contemporary Venetian Morosini Codex mentions a conspiracy led by Andronikos to surrender Thessalonica to the Turks. The plot was discovered in November 1423, and Andronikos and his supporters were exiled, with the Despot sent to Nauplia in the Morea, and his supporters to Siteia in Crete, Andros, and other places. The four men were exiled, first to Crete, and then to Venice itself, byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins, Politics and Society in the Late Empire. The Papacy and the Levant, Volume II, The Fifteenth Century
7.
Constantine XI Palaiologos
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Following his death, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the Marble Emperor who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Ottomans. His death marked the end of the Roman Empire, which had continued in the East for 977 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Constantine was born in Constantinople, as the eighth of ten children to Manuel II Palaiologos and Helena Dragaš and he was extremely fond of his mother and added her surname next to his own dynastic one when he ascended the imperial throne. He spent most of his childhood in Constantinople under the supervision of his parents and he was governor of Selymbria for a time, until surrendering the role to his brother Theodore in 1443. During the absence of his older brother John at the Council of Florence in Italy, Constantine became the Despotes of the Morea in October 1443. He ruled from the fortress and palace in Mistra, a town also called Sparta or Lacedaemon due to its proximity to the ancient city. Mistra was a center of arts and culture rivalling Constantinople, in summer 1444, Constantine marched out of the Morea, invading the Latin Duchy of Athens. He swiftly conquered Thebes and Athens, forcing its Florentine duke, Nerio II Acciaioli, a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan, to pay him tribute. Two years later, the Sultan Murad II, who had out of retirement, led an army of 50. His purpose was not to conquer Morea but rather to teach the Greeks, the Ottoman army reached the Hexamilion on 27 November 1446. Constantine and his brother Thomas braced for the attack at the Hexamilion, while the wall could hold against medieval attacks, Sultan Murad used bombards to supplement the usual siege engines and scaling ladders, the bombards breached the wall on 10 December 1446. Murads janissaries poured through the opening, and the panicked and fled. Constantine and Thomas attempted to rally their soldiers, and failing, Murad split his forces, giving one part to his advisor Turahan while leading the other part along the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, plundering and destroying as his troops advanced. While neither Patras or Mistra fell to the Ottoman troops, the province was devastated, Constantine and his brother Thomas were forced to make themselves vassals of the Ottoman sultan and pay tribute. The first time was on 1 July 1428 to Theodora Tocco and she died while giving birth to a stillborn daughter in November 1429. His second marriage was on 27 July 1441 to Caterina Gattilusio, daughter of Dorino of Lesbos and he had no children by either marriage. By then Mara was the widow of Murad II, she had allowed to return to her parents in Serbia after the death of Murad. Accordingly, the failed and Sphrantzes took steps to arrange for a marriage with a princess either from the Empire of Trebizond or the Kingdom of Georgia
8.
Demetrios Palaiologos
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Demetrios Palaiologos or Demetrius Palaeologus was a Byzantine prince and Despot. He ruled over Mesembria and Lemnos, before becoming Despot in the Morea in 1449 and he remained co-ruler of the Morea along with his brother Thomas Palaiologos until he surrendered Mistras to the Ottomans in 1460. He was given lands in Thrace as an appanage by Sultan Mehmed II, shortly after he was allowed to retire to Adrianople with his wife. He became a monk with the monastic name David after the death of his daughter Helena Palaiologina in 1469, Demetrios Palaiologos was born in ca.1407 as the fifth son of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and his wife Helena Dragaš. His maternal grandfather was Constantine Dragaš, as a younger son Demetrios was not expected to rule, but was granted the court title of despot in accordance with standard practice. His ambition apparently led to conflict in the imperial family and he returned to Constantinople by 1427. He returned to Constantinople in January 1440, via Venice, forced to surrender Lemnos as penalty for returning home without the Emperors consent, Demetrios was compensated with a more distant appanage at Mesembria on the Black Sea in 1441. On 23 April 1442 he launched an attack on Constantinople with the support of the Ottomans, but it failed, the appanage of Selymbria, which he had sought, was turned over first to Constantine Palaiologos and then to Theodore II Palaiologos. On 31 October 1448 John VIII died, while his designated heir Constantine was in the Morea, exploiting his location nearer Constantinople, Demetrios tried to stage a coup détat and secure the throne for himself. His attempt failed, mostly due to the intervention of their mother, in 1449, the new emperor, Constantine XI, gave Demetrios half of the Morea in order to remove him from the vicinity of Constantinople. The following year the forces of the Palaiologos brothers, with Ottoman aid, not long after this victory, civil war erupted between Demetrios and his younger brother Thomas, who had ruled in the Morea alongside Constantine from 1428. As Thomas was threatening to dislodge Demetrios, the latter called on the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II for support, irritated by the brothers antics, in mid-May 1460, Mehmed arrived at Corinth and demanded that Demetrios, his vassal, come and meet him. The latter was afraid, and sent his brother-in-law Matthew Palaiologos Asen instead, the Sultan was known to respect Matthew, but Demetrios failure to appear enraged him, and he was not mollified by the sumptuous gifts that Matthew brought with him. Matthew was placed under arrest, and Mehmed marched against Mistras, Demetrios surrendered the city on 29 May. On the Sultans demand, he brought his wife and daughter from their refuge in Monemvasia, in recompense, Demetrios was given the town of Ainos in Thrace, as well as parts of the islands of Thasos and Samothrace, as an appanage. Along with his wife and her brother, Demetrios spent the seven years at Ainos. At that point, they fell from the Sultans favour and were dispossessed. According to Sphrantzes, admittedly a hostile source, that was because Matthew, Demetrios, Theodora, and Matthew left Ainos for Didymoteicho, where they lived in great poverty, and where Matthew died
9.
Thomas Palaiologos
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Thomas Palaiologos or Palaeologus was Despot in Morea from 1428 until the Ottoman conquest in 1460. After the desertion of his brother to the Turks in 1460, Thomas Palaiologos became the legitimate claimant to the Byzantine throne. Thomas Palaiologos was the youngest surviving son of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and his maternal grandfather was Constantine Dragaš. As youngest son, Thomas was never expected to reign, like other imperial sons, Thomas Palaiologos was made a Despot, and from 1428 joined his brothers Theodore and Constantine in the Morea. After the retirement of Theodore during 1443, he governed together with Constantine, Thomas remained Despot of the Morea, but was forced to share the rule with his older brother Demetrios beginning 1449. The Byzantine possessions in Morea had expanded considerably at the expense of the Latin Principality of Achaea, after this period of success, the fortunes of Byzantine Morea decreased, as the collegiate government by several brothers caused increasing confusion. This became especially serious after the arrival of Demetrios, who had a policy as opposed to Thomas pro-western orientation. From 1447 the Despots had become vassals of the Ottoman Sultan, at the beginning of the siege of Constantinople by Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire, an Ottoman army was sent with orders to raid in the Morea, preventing help from being sent to Constantinople. After the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II on 29 May 1453, to maintain the status quo and this order had been accepted for the first two years because of the Kantakouzenos familys revolt which started during the siege of Constantinople by Demetrius I Kantakouzenos grandchild Manuel. Only during the year did the forces of the Palaiologos brothers destroy the rebel forces. In these circumstances, and without Constantine XI to maintain peace in the family and he allied with Republic of Genoa and the Pope and defeated Demetrios, who fled seeking help from the Ottomans during 1460. The Ottoman army duly attacked Morea and quickly breached the Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth, Thomas escaped with his family to Italy, where he had already been recognized as the legitimate heir to the Byzantine Empire by the Pope. The commanders of the garrisons of the cities in Morea, deserted by their rulers, chose individually whether to fight or surrender, depending on their own will. During the next year Graitzas received an offer to become general of the Republic of Venice, after the conquest of Morea, Thomas lived in Rome, recognized throughout Christian Europe as the rightful Emperor of the East. To create greater support for his situation Thomas changed his religion to Roman Catholicism from Greek Orthodoxy during his last years of life, after his death in 1465, the position of rightful Byzantine emperor was inherited by his older son Andreas Palaiologos, born in Mistra around 1453. Mehmed II conquered the Empire of Trebizond, de facto the last free territory of the ancient Roman state, nevertheless, Mehmed had already proclaimed himself Roman Emperor upon capturing Constantinople. This attempt to unite churches failed, nonetheless, because of this marriage, Moscow began in the next century its imperial policy of third Rome. Moreover, Thomas great-grandson was Ivan IV of Russia, the first emperor of Russia to be crowned as such, the last known descendant of Zoe/Sophia was Maria of Staritsa, wife of Livonias king Magnus
10.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
11.
Palaiologos
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Founded by the 11th-century general Nikephoros Palaiologos and his son George, the family rose to the highest aristocratic circles through its marriage into the Doukas and Komnenos dynasties. A branch of the Palaiologos became the lords of Montferrat. This inheritance was eventually incorporated by marriage to the Gonzaga family, rulers of the Duchy of Mantua, the origins of the Palaiologoi are unknown. Later traditions sometimes tied them to the Italian city of Viterbo or to the Romans who immigrated east with Constantine the Great during the founding of his new capital, both were probably fabrications created to help legitimize the dynasty. The family are first attested as local lords in Asia Minor, particularly Anatolikon and he supported the revolt of Nikephoros Botaneiates, while his son George married Anna Doukaina and therefore supported his sister-in-laws husband Alexios Komnenos during his rise to power. As commander of Dyrrhachium, George faced the Norman Duke Robert Guiscard in battle, the Palaiologoi held military offices and further united their family to the Doukai and Komnenoi during the 12th century. They followed Theodore Laskaris to Nicaea and began to assume high-ranking political offices as well, Alexios Palaiologos, whose wife was a granddaughter of Zoe Doukaina and her husband Adrianos Komnenos. Another Alexios Palaiologos married Irene Angelina, eldest daughter of Alexios III Angelos, the latter couples daughter Theodora Palaiologina married her cousin Andronikos Palaiologos, who was descended from Zoe. The couple were the progenitors of the imperial dynasty and their son was Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. Michael VIIIs son Andronikos II Palaiologos married Anne of Hungary and fathered Michael Palaiologos, Michael IX married Rita of Armenia. Their son, the grandson of Andronikos II, was Andronikos III Palaiologos, Andronikos III married Anna of Savoy. Their son was John V Palaiologos, John V married Helena Kantakouzene, a daughter of his co-ruler John VI Kantakuzenos. Their sons included Andronikos IV Palaiologos and Manuel II Palaiologos and they were the parents of John VIII Palaiologos and Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, as well as the despots of Morea Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos. Demetrios, after giving Mehmed II a pretext to invade Morea, was kept from his throne and his daughter Helen was a member of the sultans harem for a time. Thomas, in exile in Venice, sold the title to Charles VIII of France. Thomas daughter Zoe married Ivan III of Russia and, on rejoining the Orthodox faith and her influence on the court curtailed the power of the boyars and eventually led to the proclamation of the Grand Prince of Muscovy as the Tsar of all the Russias. Though Thomass male-line descendants soon became extinct, his descent lives on through a daughter, one such female descendant, Princess dArenberg, married at the beginning of the 19th century a Pfalzgraf of Zweibrücken, whereby the Dukes of Bavaria descend from Byzantine emperors. Also Queen Anne, consort of former king Michael of Romania descends from these Arenbergs, reportedly Herina, the first wife of Emperor Isaac II Angelos who reigned from 1185 to 1195, was of the Palaiologos family
12.
Tonsure
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Tonsure /ˈtɒnʃər/ is the practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp, as a sign of religious devotion or humility. The term originates from the Latin word tōnsūra and referred to a practice in medieval Catholicism. Current usage more generally refers to cutting or shaving for monks, devotees, or mystics of any religion as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem. Tonsure also refers to the practice of shaving all or part of the scalp to show support or sympathy. Tonsure is still a practice in Catholicism by specific religious orders. It is also used in the Eastern Orthodox Church for newly baptized members and is frequently used for Buddhist novices. It exists as a practice in Islam after completion of the hajj and is also practiced by a number of Hindu religious orders. Tonsure is usually the part of three rites of passages in the life of the individual in Hinduism, the first is called Chudakarana, also known as choulam, caula, chudakarma, or mundana marks the childs first haircut, typically the shaving of the head. The mother dresses up, sometimes in her wedding sari, and with the father present, sometimes, a tuft of hair is left to cover the soft spot near the top of babys head. Both boys and girls go through this ceremony, sometimes near a temple or a river. The significance of Chudakarana rite of passage is the babys cyclical step to hygiene, the ritual is typically done about the first birthday, but some texts recommend that it be completed before the third or the seventh year. Sometimes, this ritual is combined with the rite of passage of Upanayana, the second rite of passage in Hinduism that sometimes involves tonsure is at the Upanayana, the sanskara marking a childs entry into school. Another rite of passage where tonsure is practiced by Hindus is after the death and completing the last rites of a family member. This ritual is found in India among male mourners, who shave their heads as a sign of bereavement. According to Jamanadas, tonsure was originally a Buddhist custom and was adopted by Hinduism, however, Pandey and others trace the practice to Sanskrit texts dated to have been composed before the birth of Buddha, which mention tonsure as a rite of passage. In Buddhism, tonsure is a part of the rite of pabbajja and this involves shaving head and face. This tonsure is renewed as often as required to keep the head cleanly shaven, the purification process of the metzora involved the ritual shaving on the metzorahs entire body except for the afflicted locations. Tonsure was not widely known in antiquity, tradition states that it originated with the disciples of Jesus, who observed the Torah command not to shave the hair around the sides of ones head
13.
John VI Kantakouzenos
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John VI Kantakouzenos, Cantacuzenus, or Cantacuzene was a Greek nobleman, statesman, and general. He served as Grand Domestic under Andronikos III Palaiologos and regent for John V Palaiologos before reigning as Byzantine emperor in his own right from 1347 to 1354. Usurped by his ward, he retired to a monastery under the name Joasaph Christodoulos and spent the remainder of his life as a monk. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was related to the house of Palaiologos. He was also related to the dynasty through his wife Eirene Asanina. Kantakouzenos became a friend to Andronikos III and was one of his principal supporters in Andronikoss struggle against his grandfather. On the accession of Andronikos III in 1328, he was entrusted with the administration of affairs. He was named regent to Andronikoss successor, the 9-year-old John V, Kantakouzenos apparently began with no imperial ambitions of his own, having refused several times to be crowned co-emperor by Andronikos III. Whether he would have remained loyal is unknowable but, despite his devotion to John V and his mother Anna. He attempted to negotiate with the usurpers, but this was rebuffed, further, his relatives in Constantinople were driven into exile or imprisoned, with their property confiscated by the new regents. His mother Theodora died owing to the mistreatment she suffered while under house arrest and his army ignored the new regents orders and proclaimed Kantakouzenos emperor at Didymoteichon in Thrace as John VI. He accepted this, while continuing to style himself as the ruler to John V. The ensuing civil war lasted six years, calling in foreign allies and mercenaries of every description, at first, John VI was obliged to flee to Serbia, where Stefan Dušan protected his men and helped them secure areas of the Balkans. The Greco-Turkish force prevailed and John VI entered Constantinople in triumph in 1346 or 1347 and his opponents—including the patriarch—were deposed from their positions and his status as co-emperor was legitimized. During Johns reign, the fragmented, impoverished, and weakened—continued to be assailed on every side. The Genovese, disregarding the terms of the treaty which permitted their colony at Galata and their customs dues undercut the Byzantines and meant that as much as 87% of the revenue from control of the Bosphorus went to them instead of the empire. John VI attempted to rebuild the shattered Byzantine navy in preparation for the war he expected to follow a reduction of Constantinoples own customs dues. He was able to borrow enough to construct 9 fair-sized ships and about 100 smaller ones before he lowered the rates, when they did declare war, however, they were able to sink or capture his fleet by early 1349
14.
Despot (court title)
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Despot was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent. From Byzantium it spread throughout the late medieval Balkans, and was granted in the states under Byzantine influence, such as the Latin Empire, Bulgaria, Serbia. In English, the form of the title is despotess, which denoted the spouse of a despot. The term must not be confused with its usage, which refers to despotism. In colloquial Modern Greek, the word is used to refer to a bishop. The original Greek term δεσπότης meant simply lord and was synonymous with κύριος, as the Greek equivalent to the Latin dominus, despotēs was initially used as a form of address indicating respect. According to the contemporary Byzantine historian John Kinnamos, the title of despot was analogous to Belas Hungarian title of urum, or heir-apparent. From this time and until the end of the Byzantine Empire, the title of despot became the highest Byzantine dignity, in a similar manner, the holders of the two immediately junior titles of sebastokrator and Caesar could be addressed as despota. The despot shared with the Caesar another appelatory epithet, eutychestatos or paneutychestatos, during the last centuries of Byzantiums existence, the title was awarded to the younger sons of emperors as well as to the emperors sons-in-law. Like the junior titles of sebastokrator and Caesar however, the title of despot was strictly a courtly dignity, women could not hold a noble title, but bore the titles of their husbands. Thus the spouse of a despot, the despotissa, had the right to bear the insignia as he. Among the women of the court, the despotissai likewise took the first place after the empress, the use of the title spread also to the other countries of the Balkans. The Latin Empire used it to honour the Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo, after ca.1219 it was regularly borne by the Venetian podestàs in Constantinople, as the Venetian support became crucial to the Empires survival. In 1279/80, it was introduced in Bulgaria to placate the powerful magnate George Terter in 1279/80, in the 15th century, the Venetian governors of Corfu were also styled as despots. Only John II of Trebizond and his son Alexios II, however, accepted the title, with the death of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI on May 29,1453, the creation of a despot became irregular. The title was granted by Pope Paul II to Andreas Palaiologos, heir to the Byzantine throne in 1465, and by the king of Hungary to the heirs of the Serbian Despotate. It is important to stress that the term despotate is technically inaccurate, even in the so-called despotates, a son of a despot might succeed to his fathers territory but could not hold the title unless it was conferred anew by the emperor. In normal Byzantine usage, a distinction was drawn between the personal dignity of despot and any other offices or attributes of its holder
15.
Thessaloniki
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Its nickname is η Συμπρωτεύουσα, literally the co-capital, a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα or co-reigning city of the Eastern Roman Empire, alongside Constantinople. The city is renowned for its festivals, events and vibrant cultural life in general, Thessaloniki was the 2014 European Youth Capital. The city of Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, an important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and passed from the Ottoman Empire to modern Greece on November 8,1912, the citys main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans. Thessaloniki is a popular tourist destination in Greece, among street photographers, the center of Thessaloniki is also considered the most popular destination for street photography in Greece. All variations of the name derive from the original appellation in Ancient Greek, i. e. Θεσσαλονίκη. The alternative name Salonica derives from the variant form Σαλονίκη in colloquial Greek speech, in local speech, the citys name is typically pronounced with a dark and deep L characteristic of Macedonian Greek accent. The name often appears in writing in the abbreviated form Θεσ/νίκη, the city was founded around 315 BC by the King Cassander of Macedon, on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and 26 other local villages. He named it after his wife Thessalonike, a half-sister of Alexander the Great, under the kingdom of Macedon the city retained its own autonomy and parliament and evolved to become the most important city in Macedon. After the fall of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC, the city later became the capital of one of the four Roman districts of Macedonia. Later it became the capital of all the Greek provinces of the Roman Empire because of the importance in the Balkan peninsula. At the time of the Roman Empire, about 50 A. D. Later, Paul wrote two letters to the new church at Thessaloniki, preserved in the Biblical canon as First and Second Thessalonians. Some scholars hold that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is the first written book of the New Testament, in 306 AD, Thessaloniki acquired a patron saint, St. Demetrius, a native of Thessalonica whom Galerius put to death. A basilical church was first built in the 5th century AD dedicated to St. Demetrius, in 379, when the Roman Prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the East and West Roman Empires, Thessaloniki became the capital of the new Prefecture of Illyricum. In 390, Gothic troops under the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, led a massacre against the inhabitants of Thessalonica, by the time of the Fall of Rome in 476, Thessaloniki was the second-largest city of the Eastern Roman Empire. From the first years of the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki was considered the city in the Empire after Constantinople. With a population of 150,000 in the mid-12th century, the city held this status until its transfer to Venetian control in 1423. In the 14th century, the population exceeded 100,000 to 150,000
16.
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
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Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379. Andronikos IV Palaiologos was the eldest son of Emperor John V Palaiologos by his wife Helena Kantakouzene and his maternal grandparents were John VI Kantakouzenos and Irene Asanina. Although associated as co-emperor with his father since the early 1350s, Andronikos IV had allied with Murads son Savcı Bey, who was rebelling against his own father, but both rebellions failed. Murad I blinded and executed his son and demanded that John V have Andronikos IV blinded as well, in July 1376, the Genoese helped Andronikos to escape from prison, whence he went straight to sultan Murad I, and agreed to return Gallipoli in return for his support. Gallipoli had been retaken by the Byzantines ten years before, with the assistance of Amadeus VI, the sultan duly provided a mixed force of cavalry and infantry and with these, Andronikos was able to take control of Constantinople. Here he was able to capture and imprison both John V and his son Manuel, however, he made the mistake of favouring the Genoese too highly by awarding it Tenedos. The governor there refused to hand it over, and passed it on to Venice, in the same year,1377, he crowned his young son John VII as co-emperor. However, in 1379 John and Manuel escaped to sultan Murad, the Venetians restored John V to the throne, and Manuel II. Andronikos fled to Galata, staying there until 1381, when he was again made co-emperor. Andronikos IV was also given the city of Selymbria as his personal domain, however, he predeceased his father there in 1385, never to rule as legitimate emperor. List of Byzantine emperors Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium, cambridge University Press,1993, 2nd edition. ISBN 0-521-43991-4 Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
17.
Republic of Venice
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It was based in the lagoon communities of the historically prosperous city of Venice. It was a leading European economic and trading power during the Middle Ages, the Venetian city state was founded as a safe haven for people escaping persecution in mainland Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In its early years, it prospered on the salt trade, in subsequent centuries, the city state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. Venice achieved territorial conquests along the Adriatic Sea, the city became home to an extremely wealthy merchant class, who patronized renowned art and architecture along the citys lagoons. Venetian merchants were influential financiers in Europe, the city was also the birthplace of great European explorers, including Marco Polo, as well as the classical music composer Vivaldi. The republic was ruled by the Doge, who was elected by members of the Great Council of Venice, the ruling class was an oligarchy of merchants and aristocrats. Venice and other Italian maritime republics played a key role in fostering capitalism, Venetian citizens generally supported the system of governance. The city-state enforced strict laws and employed ruthless tactics in its prisons, the opening of new trade routes to the Americas and the East Indies via the Atlantic Ocean marked the beginning of Venices decline as a maritime republic. The city state suffered defeats from the navy of the Ottoman Empire, in 1797, the country was colonized by Austria and France, following an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. Venice became a part of a unified Italy in the 19th century and it was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in reference to its title as one of the Most Serene Republics. He was the first historical Doge of Venice, whichever the case, the first doges had their power base in Heraclea. Ursuss successor, Deusdedit, moved his seat from Heraclea to Malamocco in the 740s and he was the son of Ursus and represented the attempt of his father to establish a dynasty. Such attempts were more commonplace among the doges of the first few centuries of Venetian history. They desired to remain well-connected to the Empire, another faction, republican in nature, believed in continuing along a course towards practical independence. The other main faction was pro-Frankish, supported mostly by clergy, they looked towards the new Carolingian king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, as the best provider of defence against the Lombards. A minor, pro-Lombard faction was opposed to close ties with any of these further-off powers, the successors of Obelerio inherited a united Venice. By the Pax Nicephori, the two emperors had recognised that Venice belonged to the Byzantine sphere of influence, many centuries later, the Venetians claimed that the treaty had recognised Venetian de facto independence, but the truth of this claim is doubted by modern scholars
18.
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
19.
Bayezid I
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Bayezid I was the Ottoman Sultan from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Gülçiçek Hatun and he built one of the largest armies in the known world at the time and unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople. He was defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, the first major role of Bayezid was as governor of Kütahya, a city that was conquered from the Germiyanids. He was a soldier, earning the nickname of Lightning in a battle against the Karamanids. Immediately after obtaining the throne, he had his younger brother strangled to avoid a plot, in 1390, Bayezid took as a wife Princess Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, who also lost his life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader, the upper Serbia resisted the Ottomans until general Pashayigit captured the city of Skopje in 1391, converting the city to an important base of operations. Meanwhile, the sultan began unifying Anatolia under his rule, forcible expansion into Muslim territories could endanger the Ottoman relationship with the gazis, who were an important source of warriors for this ruling house on the European frontier. So Bayezid began the practice to first secure fatwas, or legal rulings from Islamic scholars, however he suspected the loyalty of his Muslim Turkoman followers, for Bayezid relied heavily on his Serbian and Byzantine vassal troops to perform these conquests. In a single campaign over the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beyliks of Aydin, Saruhan and his major rival Sulayman, the emir of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the ruler of Sivas, Kadi Burhan al-Din and the remaining Turkish beyliks. At this point, Bayezid accepted peace proposals from Karaman, concerned that further advances would antagonize his Turkoman followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. Once peace had been made with Karaman, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu which had given refuge to many fleeing from his forces, from 1389 to 1395 he conquered Bulgaria and northern Greece. In 1394 Bayezid crossed the River Danube to attack Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder, in 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Anadoluhisarı fortress was built between 1393 and 1394 as part of preparations for the Second Ottoman Siege of Constantinople, which place in 1395. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus a new crusade was organized to defeat him and this proved unsuccessful, in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Cami in Bursa, to celebrate this victory, thus the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1402. The beleaguered Byzantines had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid Empire in the East, at this time, the empire of Bayezid included Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia in Europe. In Asia, his domains extended to the Taurus Mountains and his army was considered one of the best in the Islamic world. In 1397, Bayezid defeated the emir of Karaman in Akçay, killing him, in 1398, the sultan conquered the Djanik emirate and the territory of Burhan al-Din, violating the accord with Timur
20.
Bursa
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Bursa is a large city in Turkey, located in northwestern Anatolia, within the Marmara Region. It is the fourth most populous city in Turkey and one of the most industrialized metropolitan centres in the country, the city is also the administrative centre of Bursa Province. Bursa was the first major and second overall capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1363, the ski resort of Mount Uludağ towers over it. The mountain was called the Mysian Olympus by the Romans who lived there before, Bursa has rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, Bursa also has thermal baths and several museums, including a museum of archaeology. The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa, Bursa is also home to some of the most famous Turkish dishes such as İskender kebap, specially candied marron glacés, peaches and Turkish Delight. Bursa houses the Uludağ University, and its population can claim one of the highest overall levels of education in Turkey, the historic towns of İznik, Mudanya and Zeytinbağı are all situated in Bursa Province. In 2015, Bursa had a population of 2,340,000, the earliest known human settlement near Bursas current location was at Ilıpınar Höyüğü around 5200 BC. It was followed by the ancient Greek city of Cius, which Philip V of Macedon granted to Prusias I, Prusias rebuilt the city and renamed it Prusa. After 128 years of Bithynian rule, Nicomedes IV, the last King of Bithynia, an early Roman Treasure was found in the vicinity of Bursa in the early 20th century. Composed of a womans silver toilet articles, it is now in the British Museum, Bursa became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. As a result, the city witnessed a considerable amount of growth throughout the 14th century. After conquering Edirne in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new city in 1363. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid Külliyesi in Bursa between 1390 and 1395 and the Ulu Cami between 1396 and 1400, Bursa remained to be the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa was 45,000 in 1487, during the Ottoman period, Bursa continued to be the source of most royal silk products. Following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Bursa became one of the centres of the country. The economic development of the city was followed by population growth, the most recent arrival of Balkan Turks took place in the 1940s until the 1990s, when the communist regime in Bulgaria expelled approximately 150,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. About one-third of these 150,000 Bulgarian Turkish refugees eventually settled in Bursa, Bursa is settled on the northwestern slopes of Mount Uludağ in the southern Marmara Region
21.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
22.
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
23.
Henry IV of England
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Henry IV, also known as Henry of Bolingbroke, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413, and asserted the claim of his grandfather, Edward III, to the Kingdom of France. Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, one of Henrys elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married John I of Portugal, and the other, Elizabeth, was the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter. His younger half-sister Catherine, the daughter of his fathers second wife and he also had four half-siblings by Katherine Swynford, originally his sisters governess, then his fathers longstanding mistress, and later his third wife. These four children were given the surname Beaufort after a castle their father held in Champagne, Henrys relationship with his stepmother, Katherine Swynford, was a positive one, but his relationship with the Beauforts varied. In youth he seems to have close to all of them. His brother-in-law Ralph Neville remained one of his strongest supporters, and so did his eldest half-brother John Beaufort, Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherines first marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford, was another loyal companion. Thomas was Constable of Pontefract Castle, where King Richard II is said to have died, Henrys half-sister Joan Beaufort through his fathers relationship with Katherine Swynford was the grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III. Joan had married Ralph Neville, the 1st Earl of Westmorland, when their daughter Cecily married Richard Plantagenet, the 3rd Duke of York, and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, Joan became the grandmother of two York kings of England. Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II than his father had, first cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry participated in the Lords Appellants rebellion against the king in 1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry, although he did execute or exile many of the rebellious barons. In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford, Henry spent the full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius by Teutonic Knights with his 300 fellow knights. During this campaign he bought 300 captured Lithuanian princes and then took them back to England. Henrys second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the benefits to the Order of these guest crusaders. His small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, despite the efforts of Henry and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless. In 1392–93 Henry undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he made offerings at the Holy Sepulchre, later he vowed to lead a crusade to free Jerusalem from the infidel, but he died before this could be accomplished. The relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and the king met with a second crisis, in 1398, a remark by Bolingbroke regarding Richard IIs rule was interpreted as treason by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk. The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbrays home in Coventry, yet before the duel could take place, Richard II decided to banish Henry from the kingdom to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray himself was exiled for life, John of Gaunt died in 1399
24.
Kingdom of England
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In the early 11th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united by Æthelstan, became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the control of the English crown, from the accession of James I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty ruled England in personal union with Scotland and Ireland. Under the Stuarts, the kingdom plunged into war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649. The monarchy returned in 1660, but the Civil War had established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament and this concept became legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. From this time the kingdom of England, as well as its state the United Kingdom. On 1 May 1707, under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the Anglo-Saxons referred to themselves as the Engle or the Angelcynn, originally names of the Angles. They called their land Engla land, meaning land of the English, by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the name Engla land became England by haplology during the Middle English period. The Latin name was Anglia or Anglorum terra, the Old French, by the 14th century, England was also used in reference to the entire island of Great Britain. The standard title for all monarchs from Æthelstan until the time of King John was Rex Anglorum, Canute the Great, a Dane, was the first king to call himself King of England. In the Norman period Rex Anglorum remained standard, with use of Rex Anglie. The Empress Matilda styled herself Domina Anglorum, from the time of King John onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of Rex or Regina Anglie. In 1604 James VI and I, who had inherited the English throne the previous year, the English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707. The kingdom of England emerged from the unification of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex. The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general, the English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by King Æthelstan in 927 CE. During the Heptarchy, the most powerful king among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms might become acknowledged as Bretwalda, the decline of Mercia allowed Wessex to become more powerful. It absorbed the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex in 825, the kings of Wessex became increasingly dominant over the other kingdoms of England during the 9th century. In 827, Northumbria submitted to Egbert of Wessex at Dore, in 886, Alfred the Great retook London, which he apparently regarded as a turning point in his reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that all of the English people not subject to the Danes submitted themselves to King Alfred, asser added that Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, restored the city of London splendidly
25.
Eltham Palace
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Eltham Palace is a large house in Eltham, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, in south-east London, England. It is a royal residence and owned by the Crown Estate. In 1995 its management was handed over to English Heritage which restored the building in 1999 and it has been said the internally Art Deco house is a masterpiece of modern design. The original palace was given to Edward II in 1305 by the Bishop of Durham, Anthony Bek, according to one account the incident which inspired Edward IIIs foundation of the Order of the Garter took place here. There is still a jousting tilt yard, for there all the royal children were being educated, Arthur alone excepted, the eldest son. When we came to the hall, all the retinue was assembled, not only that of the palace, in the midst stood Henry, aged nine, already with certain royal demeanour, I mean a dignity of mind combined with a remarkable courtesy…. More with his companion Arnold saluted Henry and presented to him something in writing, I, who was expecting nothing of the sort, had nothing to offer, but I promised that somehow, at some other time, I would show my duty towards him. At the time I was slightly indignant with More for having given me no warning, especially because the boy, during dinner, sent me a note inviting something from my pen. I went home, and though the Muses, from whom I had lived apart so long, were unwilling, tudor courts often used the palace for their Christmas celebrations. The deer remained plentiful in the Great Park, of 596 acres, the Little, or Middle Park, of 333 acres, and the Home Park, or Lee Park, of 336 acres. In the 1630s, by time the palace was no longer used by the royal family. During the English Civil War, the parks were denuded of trees, john Evelyn saw it 22 April 1656, Went to see his Majestys house at Eltham, both the palace and chapel in miserable ruins, the noble wood and park destroyed by Rich the rebel. The current house was built in the 1930s on the site of the original, and incorporates its Great Hall, fragments of the walls of other buildings remain visible around the gardens, and the 15th-century bridge still crosses the moat. In 1933, Stephen Courtauld and his wife Virginia Courtauld acquired the lease of the site and restored the Great Hall while building an elaborate home. The dramatic Entrance Hall was created by the Swedish designer Rolf Engströmer, light floods in from a spectacular glazed dome, highlighting blackbean veneer and figurative marquetry. Keen gardeners, the Courtaulds also substantially modified and improved the grounds, Stephen was a younger brother of Samuel Courtauld, an industrialist, art collector and founder of the Courtauld Institute of Art. The Courtaulds pet lemur, Mah-Jongg, had a room on the upper floor of the house which had a hatch to the downstairs flower room. The Courtaulds remained at Eltham until 1944, during the earlier part of the war, Stephen Courtauld was a member of the local Civil Defence service
26.
Jousting
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Jousting is a martial game or hastilude between two horsemen wielding lances with blunted tips, often as part of a tournament. The joust became a characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The participants experience close to three and a quarter times their weight in G-forces when the lances collide with their armor. The term is derived from Old French joster, ultimately from Latin iuxtare to approach, the word was loaned into Middle English around 1300, when jousting was a very popular sport among the Anglo-Norman knighthood. Jousting is based on the use of the lance by heavy cavalry. It transformed into a sport during the Late Middle Ages. In England, jousting was the highlight of the Accession Day tilts of Elizabeth I and James I, Jousting was discontinued in favour of other equestrian sports in the 17th century, although non-contact forms of equestrian skill-at-arms disciplines survived. There has been a revival of theatrical jousting re-enactment since the 1970s. The medieval joust has its origins in the tactics of heavy cavalry during the High Middle Ages. From the 11th to 14th centuries when medieval jousting was still practised in connection to the use of the lance in warfare, by 1400, knights wore full suits of plate armour, called a harness. Combatants would begin riding on one another with the lance, Tournaments in the High Medieval period were much rougher and less gentlemanly affairs than in the late medieval era of chivalry. The rival parties would fight in groups, with the aim of incapacitating their adversaries for the sake of gaining their horses, with the development of the courtly ideals of chivalry in the late medieval period, the joust became more regulated. This tendency is reflected in the pas darmes in general. This romanticised chivalric revival was based on the romances of the high medieval period. The development of the term dates to this period. Before the 12th century, cniht was a term for a servant, in the 12th century, it became used of a military follower in particular. Also in the 12th century, a class of noblemen serving in cavalry developed. By the end of the 13th century, chivalry was used not just in the sense of cavalry
27.
Charles VI of France
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Charles VI, called the Beloved and the Mad, was King of France from 1380 to his death. He was a member of the House of Valois, Charles VI was only 11 when he inherited the throne in the midst of the Hundred Years War. The government was entrusted to his four uncles, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, John, Duke of Berry, Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and Louis II, Duke of Bourbon. Although the royal age of majority was fixed at 14, the dukes maintained their grip on Charles until he took power at the age of 21, as royal funds drained, new taxes had to be raised, which caused several revolts. In 1388 Charles VI dismissed his uncles and brought back to power his fathers former advisers, political and economic conditions in the kingdom improved significantly, and Charles earned the epithet the Beloved. But in August 1392 en route to Brittany with his army in the forest of Le Mans, Charles suddenly went mad and slew four knights and almost killed his brother, from then on, Charles bouts of insanity became more frequent and of longer duration. During these attacks, he had delusions, believing he was made of glass or denying he had a wife and he could also attack servants or run until exhaustion, wailing that he was threatened by his enemies. Between crises, there were intervals of months during which Charles was relatively sane, however, unable to concentrate or make decisions, political power was taken away from him by the princes of the blood, which would cause much chaos and conflict in France. A fierce struggle for power developed between Louis of Orléans, the brother, and John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. When John instigated the murder of Louis in November 1407, the conflict degenerated into a war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. John offered large parts of France to King Henry V of England, when Charles VI died, he was succeeded by his son Charles VII, who found the Valois cause in a desperate situation. Charles was born in Paris, in the residence of the Hôtel Saint-Pol, on 3 December 1368, the son of the king of France Charles V, of the House of Valois. As heir to the French throne, his brothers having died before he was born. At his fathers death on 16 September 1380, he inherited the throne of France and his coronation took place on 4 November 1380, at Reims Cathedral. Although the royal age of majority was 14, Charles did not terminate the regency and he married Isabeau of Bavaria on 17 July 1385, when he was 17 and she was 14. Isabeau had 12 children, most of whom died young, isabeaus first child, named Charles, was born in 1386, and was Dauphin of Viennois, but survived only 3 months. Her second child, Joan, was born on 14 June 1388 and her third child, Isabella, was born in 1389. She was married to Richard II, King of England in 1396, at the age of 6, Richard died in 1400 and they had no children
28.
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
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Sigismund von Luxembourg was the leader of the last West European Crusade - the Crusade of Nicopolis of 1396. Afterwards he founded the Dragon Order to fight the Turks and he was regarded as highly educated, spoke several languages and was an outgoing person who also took pleasure in the tournament. He was named after Saint Sigismund of Burgundy, the saint of Sigismunds father. From Sigismunds childhood he was nicknamed the fox in the Crown of Bohemia. King Louis named him as his heir and appointed him his successor as King of Hungary, King Wenceslaus also gave him Neumark to facilitate communication between Brandenburg and Poland. Instead, the landlords of Lesser Poland gave it to Marys younger sister Jadwiga I of Poland, on the death of her father in 1382, his betrothed, Mary, became queen of Hungary and Sigismund married her in 1385 in Zólyom. The next year, he was accepted as Marys future co-ruler by the Treaty of Győr, Sigismunds mother-in-law was strangled, while Mary was liberated. Having secured the support of the nobility, Sigismund was crowned King of Hungary at Székesfehérvár on 31 March 1387. Having raised money by pledging Brandenburg to his cousin Jobst, margrave of Moravia, the central power was finally weakened to such an extent that only Sigismunds alliance with the powerful Czillei-Garai League could ensure his position on the throne. The restoration of the authority of the administration took decades of work. Not until 1395 did Nicholas II Garay succeed in suppressing them, Mary died heavily pregnant in 1395. To ease the pressure from Hungarian nobles, Sigismud tried to employ foreign advisors, which was not popular, however, this was not applied to Stibor of Stiboricz, who was Sigismunds closest friend and advisor. On a number of occasions, Sigismund was imprisoned by nobles, in 1396 Sigismund led the combined armies of Christendom against the Turks, who had taken advantage of the temporary helplessness of Hungary to extend their dominion to the banks of the Danube. This crusade, preached by Pope Boniface IX, was popular in Hungary. Sigismund set out with 90,000 men and a flotilla of 70 galleys, after capturing Vidin, he camped with his Hungarian armies before the fortress of Nicopolis. Sultan Bayezid I raised the siege of Constantinople and, at the head of 140,000 men, the disaster in Nicopolis angered several Hungarian lords, leading to instability in the kingdom. However, he was unable to support Wenceslaus when he was deposed in 1400, on his return to Hungary in 1401, Sigismund was imprisoned once and deposed twice. In 1401 Sigismund helped an uprising against Wenceslaus, during the course of which the Bohemian king was taken prisoner, and Sigismund ruled Bohemia for nineteen months
29.
Holy Roman Emperor
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The Holy Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. From an autocracy in Carolingian times the title evolved into an elected monarchy chosen by the Prince-electors, until the Reformation the Emperor elect was required to be crowned by the Pope before assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the rule of the Kingdom of Germany, in theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares among the other Catholic monarchs, in practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances made him. Various royal houses of Europe, at different times, effectively became hereditary holders of the title, after the Reformation many of the subject states and most of those in Germany were Protestant while the Emperor continued to be Catholic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by the last Emperor as a result of the collapse of the polity during the Napoleonic wars, from the time of Constantine I the Roman emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. In the west, the title of Emperor was revived in 800, as the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. The best-known and most bitter conflict was known as the Investiture Controversy. After Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III, no pope appointed an emperor again until the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. Under Otto and his successors, much of the former Carolingian kingdom of Eastern Francia fell within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. After Charles Vs coronation, all succeeding emperors were called elected Emperor due to the lack of papal coronation, the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was first used in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa. Charles V was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope, the final Holy Roman Emperor-elect, Francis II, abdicated in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Empires final dissolution. The standard designation of the Holy Roman Emperor was August Emperor of the Romans, the word Holy had never been used as part of that title in official documents. In German-language historiography, the term Römisch-deutscher Kaiser is used to distinguish the title from that of Roman Emperor on one hand, the English term Holy Roman Emperor is a modern shorthand for emperor of the Holy Roman Empire not corresponding to the historical style or title. Successions to the kingship were controlled by a variety of complicated factors, elections meant the kingship of Germany was only partially hereditary, unlike the kingship of France, although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty until there were no more male successors. The Electoral council was set at seven princes by the Golden Bull of 1356, another elector was added in 1690, and the whole college was reshuffled in 1803, a mere three years before the dissolution of the Empire. After 1438, the Kings remained in the house of Habsburg and Habsburg-Lorraine, with the exception of Charles VII. Maximilian I and his successors no longer travelled to Rome to be crowned as Emperor by the Pope, Maximilian therefore named himself Elected Roman Emperor in 1508 with papal approval. This title was in use by all his uncrowned successors, of his successors only Charles V, the immediate one, received a papal coronation
30.
Margaret I of Denmark
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Margaret I, was ruler and for a brief time monarch of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, though there are ambiguities regarding her specific titles. She was the founder of the Kalmar Union, which spanned Scandinavia for over a century, Margaret was known as a wise, energetic and capable leader, earning the nickname Semiramis of the North, or the Lady King. Though the latter was a nickname invented by her rival Albert of Mecklenburg. The youngest daughter of King Valdermar Atterdag, Margaret was born at the Søborg Castle and she did not leave any biological heirs, with the early demise of her only son, though some historians suggest she had an illegitimate daughter with Abraham Brodersson. Margaret was ultimately succeeded by a string of incompetent monarchs, despite her efforts to raise and educate her heir Eric of Pomerania, Philippa in particular was an excellent pupil, but died young. Ultimately, the Union into which she put so much effort, some historians have criticized Margaret for favouring Denmark and being too autocratic, though she is generally thought to have been highly regarded in Norway and respected in Denmark and Sweden. She was painted in a light in contemporary religious chronicles. Margaret is known in Denmark as Margrethe I to distinguish her from the current queen, Margaret was born in March 1353 as the sixth and youngest child of Valdemar IV of Denmark and Helvig of Schleswig. She was born in the prison of Søborg Castle, where her father had already confined her mother. She was baptised in Roskilde and in 1359, at the age of six, engaged to the 18-year-old King Haakon VI of Norway, Margarets marriage was thus a part of the Nordic power struggle. There was dissatisfaction with this in some circles, and the political activist Bridget of Sweden described the agreement in a letter to the Pope as children playing with dolls, the goal of the marriage for King Valdemar was regaining Scania, which since 1332 had been mortgaged to Sweden. The attack was ostensibly to support Magnus against Erik, but in June 1359, as a result, the balance of power changed, and all agreements between Magnus and Valdemar were terminated, including the marriage contract between Margaret and Haakon. This did not result in the withdrawal of Valdemar from Scania, Visby, which was populated by Germans, was the main town on the island and was the key to domination of the Baltic Sea. On 27 July 1361 a battle was fought between a well-equipped Danish army and an array of local Gotland peasants, the Danes won the battle and took Visby, while the Germans did not take part. King Magnus and the Hanseatic League could not disregard this provocation, at the same time, negotiations opened between King Magnus and Henry of Holstein about a marriage between Haakon and the latters sister Elizabeth. On 17 December 1362, a ship left with Elizabeth bound for Sweden, a storm, however, diverted her to the Danish island Bornholm, where the archbishop of Lund declared the wedding a violation of church law because Haakon had already been engaged to Margaret. The Swedish and Hanseatic armies also ultimately withdrew from their siege of Helsingborg, following this, a truce was concluded with the Hanseatic States and King Magnus abandoning the war, meaning the marriage of the now 10-year-old Margaret and King Haakon was again relevant. The wedding was held in Copenhagen on 9 April 1363, Merete Ulvsdatter was a distinguished noblewoman and daughter of Bridget of Sweden, as well as the wife of Knut Algotsson, who was one of King Magnuss faithful followers
31.
Martin of Aragon
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Martin the Humane, also called the Elder and the Ecclesiastic, was King of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia and Corsica and Count of Barcelona from 1396 and King of Sicily from 1409. He failed to secure the accession of his grandson, Frederic, Count of Luna. Martin was born in 1356, in either Girona or Perpignan and he was the second son of King Peter IV of Aragon and Eleanor of Sicily, princess of the Sicilian branch of the House of Aragon. As a cadet prince of the Aragonese royal family, Martin was given the Duchy of Montblanch. In 1380 his father appointed him lord and regent of the island of Sicily, then also as Trinacria, since its queen Maria of Sicily. As a son of Eleanor of Sicily, Martin was himself an heir to the island, in 1396, Martin succeeded his elder brother John I, who had died sonless, on the throne of Aragon. However, Sicilian nobles were causing unrest and so Martin was kept in Sicily, meanwhile, Martins wife, María López de Luna, claimed the throne on his behalf of and acted as his representative until he arrived in 1397. Still, the delay opened the way for more problems and quarrels to surface in Aragon and his right to the throne was contested, first by Count Matthew of Foix on behalf of his wife Joanna, elder daughter of John I. However, Martin succeeded in quashing an invasion by troops of the count, after the death of the childless Joanna, John Is younger daughter Yolande of Aragon, who had married the Angevin King Louis II of Naples, continued the claim, as did her sons. Martin launched crusades against the Moors in North Africa in 1398 and 1399, Aragon had been trying to subjugate Sardinia since the reign of James II, and gradually the Aragonese had conquered most of the island. King Martin sent his son Martin the Younger, by king of Sicily through his marriage to Queen Maria. The son won the Battle of Sanluri in 1409, drove away the Genoese allies of the Sardinians and this soon caused Arboreas total loss of independence. Soon after the battle, however, Martin the Younger died suddenly, Martin of Aragon then succeeded his son as King of Sicily, taking the title of Martin II. Overall, the Kingdom of Aragon enjoyed external peace during Martins reign and he worked to quell internal strife caused by nobles, factions and he supported the Avignon line of Popes and Pope Benedict XIII, who was Aragonese, held the seat throughout Martins reign. Martins military intervention rescued the imprisoned Benedict in 1403 from the clutches of his rivals, Martin had four legitimate children by Queen Maria, Martin the Younger, James, John, and Margaret. Martin still married secondly on 17 September 1409 to his cousin Margaret of Prades, daughter of Peter of Aragon, Baron of Entenza, Martin died, in the monastery of Valldonzella, extramuros of Barcelona the 31st May 1410. While the reason unclear, it is supposed that either plague, uremic coma or the possibility of having been poisoned. The story of the kings associated with laughter has no historical evidence in any form whatsoever
32.
Jean Le Maingre
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Jean II Le Maingre, called Boucicaut was marshal of France and a knight renowned for his military skill. He was the son of marshal Jean I Le Maingre, also called Boucicaut and he became a page at the court of Charles VI of France, and at the age of 12 he accompanied Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, in a campaign against Normandy. At age 16 he was knighted by Louis on the eve of the Battle of Roosebeke, in 1383 he began the first of his journeys that would take up more than twenty years of his life. In 1384 he undertook his first journey to Prussia, in order to assist the Teutonic Order in their war against the pagan Lithuanians, who would convert to Roman Catholicism in 1386. From there he travelled for two years through the Balkans, the Near East, and the Holy Land, in the company of his friend Renaud of Roye and later with Philip of Artois, the next year he travelled to Prussia for a third time. Because of his service in the war against the heathens in Livonia and Prussia, he was named Marshal of France on December 25,1391. In 1396 he took part in the joint French-Hungarian crusade against the Ottoman Empire and he was taken hostage by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, but, unlike many of his companions, escaped execution and was eventually ransomed. In the same year, he was sent with six ships carrying 1,200 men to assist Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus against the Ottomans. In 1401, due to his accomplishments and his knowledge of the east, he was appointed French governor of Genoa. He successfully repelled an attack from King Janus of Cyprus, who tried to back the city of Famagusta on Cyprus. On his return, he was defeated by the Venetians at the Battle of Modon on 7 October 1403, after some struggles in the Mediterranean the Genoese freed themselves from French rule by 1409. Boucicaut returned to France and became involved in the rivalry between Burgundy and Orléans, in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 he commanded the French vanguard, but was captured by the English and died six years later in Yorkshire. He was buried in the cathedral of Tours, in his familys chapel, with the epitaph Grand Constable of the Emperor, anonymous, Le Livre des faits du bon messire Jehan le Maingre, dit Boucicaut. Maréschal de France et gouverneur de Jennes Lalande, Denis, Jean II le Meingre, dit Boucicaut, - étude dune biographie héroïque, Genève 1988. Châtelet, Albert, L âge dor du manuscrit à peintures en France au temps de Charles VI et les heures du Maréchal Boucicaut, Dijon 2000
33.
Aigues-Mortes
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Aigues-Mortes is a French commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of southern France. The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved, the inhabitants of the commune are known as Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortaises. Aigues-Mortes is located in the Petite Camargue some 90 km northwest of Marseilles, by road, Aigues-Mortes is about 33 km southwest of Nîmes, and 20 km east of Montpellier in a direct line. Access to the commune is by route D979 coming south from Saint-Laurent-dAigouze to Aigues-Mortes town, route D979 continues southwest through the commune to Le Grau-du-Roi. Route D62 also starts from Aigues-Mortes heading southwest parallel to D979 before turning eastwards, route D62A continues to Plan dEau du Vidourie. The commune is composed of a portion of the wet plains and it is separated from the Gulf of Lions by the town of Le Grau-du-Roi, however Aigues-Mortes is connected to the sea through the Canal du Rhône à Sète. There is only one other hamlet in the commune called Mas de Jarras Listel on the western border, a rail branch line from Nîmes passes through Aigues-Mortes from north-east to south-west, with a station in the town of Aigues-Mortes, to its terminus on the coast at Le-Grau-du-Roi. This line also transports sea salt, the communes of Saint-Laurent-dAigouze and Le Grau-du-Roi are adjacent to the town of Aigues-Mortes. Its inhabitants are called Aigues-Mortais or Aigues-Mortise, in Occitan they are aigamortencs, Aigues-Mortes is one of 79 member communes of the Schéma de cohérence territoriale of South Gard and is also one of 34 communes in the Pays Vidourle-Camargue. Aigues-Mortes is one of the four communes of the Loi littoral of SCoT in the South of Gard, attested in the Latinized form Aquae Mortuae in 1248. The name comes from the Occitan Aigas Mortas meaning dead water, or stagnant water equivalent to toponymic types in the Morteau Oil dialect cf. Morteau, mortua Aqua and Morteaue, mortua Aqua. The name comes from the Aigues-Mortes marshes and ponds that stretch around the village, Grau comes from the Occitan grau meaning pond with extension. Grau du Roy in French means pond of the King, the foundation of the city is said to have been by Gaius Marius, around 102BC but there is no documentary evidence to support this. A Roman by the name of Peccius fitted out the first salt marsh, salt mining started from the Neolithic period and was continued in the Hellenistic period, but the ancient uses of saline have not resulted in any major archaeological discovery. It is likely any remains were destroyed by modern saline facilities. In 791, Charlemagne erected the Matafère tower amid the swamps for the safety of fishermen and salt workers. Some argue that the signaling and transmission of news was not foreign to the building of tower which was designed to give warning in case of arrival of a fleet. This monastery still existed in 812, as confirmed by an act of endowment made by the Badila from Nîmes at the abbey
34.
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
35.
Battle of Nicopolis
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It is often referred to as the Crusade of Nicopolis as it was one of the last large-scale Crusades of the Middle Ages, together with the Crusade of Varna in 1443–1444. There were many minor crusades in the 14th century, undertaken by individual kings or knights, most recently there had been a failed crusade against Tunisia in 1390, and there was ongoing warfare in northern Europe along the Baltic coast. In 1393 the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman had lost Nicopolis — his temporary capital — to the Ottomans, while his brother, Ivan Stratsimir, still held Vidin but had been reduced to an Ottoman vassal. In the eyes of the Bulgarian boyars, despots and other independent Balkan rulers, in addition, the frontline between Islam and Christianity had been moving slowly towards the Kingdom of Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary was now the frontier between the two religions in Eastern Europe, and the Hungarians were in danger of being attacked themselves. The Genoese also owned the citadel of Galata, located at the north of the Golden Horn in Constantinople, to which Bayezid had laid siege in 1395. The two decisive factors in the formation of the last crusade were the ongoing Hundred Years War between Richard IIs England and Charles VIs France and the support of Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, in 1389, the war had ground to one of its periodic truces. The support of Burgundy, among the most powerful of the French nobles was also vital, in 1391, Burgundy, trying to decide between sending a crusade to either Prussia or Hungary, sent his envoy Guy de La Trémoille to Venice and Hungary to evaluate the situation. Burgundy originally envisioned a crusade led by himself and the Dukes of Orléans and Lancaster and it was very unlikely that defense against the Turks was considered a particularly important goal of the crusade. Charles VI, having secured a peace with England through the marriage of his daughter, was able to reply that it was his responsibility to protect Christianity, the number of combatants is heavily contested in historical accounts. The oft-given figure of 100,000 crusaders is dismissed by Tuchman, next in importance were the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, who were the standard bearers of Christianity in the Levant since the decline of Constantinople and Cyprus. Venice supplied a fleet for supporting action, while Hungarian envoys encouraged German princes of the Rhineland, Bavaria, Saxony. French heralds had proclaimed the crusade in Poland, Bohemia, Navarre and Spain, the Italian city-states were too much engaged in their customary violent rivalries to participate, and the widely reported and acclaimed English participation never actually occurred. The report of 1,000 English knights comes from contemporary Antonio Fiorentino, a thousand knights would have actually amounted to four to six thousand men and at least twice as many horses, counting foot-soldiers and other retainers. However, there are no records of financial arrangements being made in England to send a force abroad, nor of any royal preparation needed to organize and dispatch such a force. Atiya also thought that the invocation of St. Furthermore, there was no collection of money in England to pay for captives. Nevertheless, obviously inflated figures continue to be repeated, the strength of the Ottoman forces is also estimated at about 20-25,000, but inflated figures continue to be repeated. The Ottoman force also included 1,500 Serbian heavy cavalry knights under the command of Prince Stefan Lazarević, however, Burgundy retained control of the enterprise he was funding by naming 24-year-old John, Count of Nevers, the Dukes eldest son, for nominal command
36.
Timur
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Timur, historically known as Amir Timur and Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty, born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly after his death, according to John Joseph Saunders, Timurs background was Iranized and not steppe nomad. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, in his formal correspondence Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers, to legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as the Sword of Islam and patronized educational and religious institutions. He converted nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime, Temur, a non-Chinggisid, tried to build a double legitimacy based on his role as both guardian and restorer of the Mongol Empire. Timur also decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at Smyrna, styling himself a ghazi, by the end of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde and even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty. Timurs armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and were feared throughout Asia, Africa, scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population. Timur is also recognized as a patron of art and architecture, as he interacted with Muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun. Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh some 80 kilometres south of Samarkand and his father, Taraqai, was a minor noble of the Barlas, a Mongolian tribe that had been turkified in many aspects. According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim, and he saw himself as Genghis Khans heir, though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan, he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khans conquests during his lifetime. His name Temur means Iron in the Chaghatay language, Timurs mother-tongue, later Timurid dynastic histories claim that he was born on April 8,1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. At the age of eight or nine, Timur and his mother, in his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle. In around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries crippled him for life, some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timurs injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame, Timur was a Muslim, possibly belonging to the Naqshbandi school of Sufism, which was influential in Transoxiana. However, his official religious counsellor and adviser was the Hanafi scholar Abdu l-Jabbar Khwarazmi. In Tirmidh, he had come under the influence of his spiritual mentor Sayyid Baraka, Timur was known to hold Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his pro-Alid stance
37.
Battle of Ankara
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The Battle of Ankara was fought on 20 July 1402 at the Çubuk plain near Ankara between the forces of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I and Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire. The battle was a victory for Timur, and it led to a period of crisis for the Ottoman Empire. Timur, a Turco-Mongol from Transoxiana, had built an empire in Central Asia over the years and he sought to rebuild the once great Mongol Empire. In the 1380s and 1390s, he invaded and conquered parts of Persia, ravaged southern Russia and Ukraine, in 1400–01 Timur took Sivas from the Ottomans, parts of Syria from the Mamluks, and next directed towards Anatolia. Meanwhile, in 1402, the Ottomans had been campaigning in Europe, Bayezid broke off the blockade of Constantinople and marched to Ankara after Timur again moved his army to the southeast in the summer of 1402. It is estimated that the Timurid army counted 140,000, mostly cavalry, historical sources exaggerated the number of troops, Ahmad ibn Arabshah claimed 800,000 Timurid troops, while a German witness claimed 1,6 million, for instance. The Ottoman force included contingents under his sons, Ghazis, Janissaries, Anatolian Muslim vassals, among Serbian vassals participating were Stefan Lazarević and Đurađ Branković, and among Albanian were Koja Zakarija, Demetrius Jonima, Gjon Kastrioti, and probably Tanush Major Dukagjin. Christian vassals that did not participate were Wallachian Mircea and Zetan Konstantin Balšić, a quarter of the Ottoman troops were recently conquered Tatars. Bayezid reluctantly withdrew his forces from the blockade of Constantinople and marched them through the midsummer heat, when they arrived, they were tired and thirsty, but were allowed no time to rest or recuperate. Bayezid instead chose to take a stance and marched eastward. Advancing Ottoman scouts found no traces of the Timurids, who secretly marched southwest, rested, the Timurids encamped in the same locations that the Ottomans had previously occupied, making use of abandoned tents and water sources. In the Timurid army, Timur commanded the centre, his sons Miran and Rukh the right and left, respectively, the battle began with a large-scale attack from the Ottomans, countered by swarms of arrows from the Timurid horse archers. Several thousands were killed and many surrendered to Timur, Stefan Lazarević and his knights together with Wallachian forces successfully fought off the Timurid assaults and cut through the Mongol ranks three times. Each time Stefan advised Bayezid to break out with him, Bayezid declined to do so, but the Serbians managed to save one of Bayezids sons and the treasury from the Mongols and made their way to Constantinople. The Serbian troops wore heavy black plate armour which was effective against the Timurid arrows. Timur admired the Serbian troops who according to him fight like lions, during the battle the main water supply of both armies, Çubuk creek, was diverted to an off-stream reservoir near the town of Çubuk by Timur, which left the Ottoman army with no water. The final battle took place at Catal hill, dominating the Çubuk valley, the Ottoman army, both thirsty and tired, was defeated, though Bayezid managed to escape to the nearby mountains with a few hundred horsemen. However, Timur had the mountains surrounded and, heavily outnumbering Bayezid and he died in captivity three months later
38.
Ottoman Interregnum
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The Interregnum lasted for 11 years until the Battle of Çamurlu on 5 July 1413, when Mehmed Çelebi emerged as victor in the strife, crowned himself sultan Mehmed I, and restored the empire. Civil war broke out among the sons of Sultan Bayezid I upon his death in 1403 and his oldest son, Süleyman, with his capital at Edirne, ruled northern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Thrace. The second son, İsa Çelebi, established himself as an independent ruler at Bursa, War broke out between Mehmed and İsa, and following the battles of Ermeni-beli and Ulubad, Isa fled to Constantinople and Mehmed occupied Bursa. The subsequent battle at Karasi between Mehmed and Isa resulted in a victory for Mehmed and Isa fleeing to Karaman, Isa was later killed in a bath by agents of Mehmed. Following Isas death, Süleyman crossed the straits with a large army and he invaded Anatolia, capturing Bursa and Ankara later that year. During the stalemate in Anatolia, which lasted from 1405-1410, Mehmed sent Musa across the Black Sea to Thrace with a force to attack Suleymans territories in south-eastern Europe. This maneuver soon recalled Suleyman to Thrace, where a short, at first Suleyman had the advantage, winning the battle of Kosmidion in 1410, but in 1411 his army defected to Mûsa at Edirne and Suleyman was executed on the orders of Musa. Mûsa was now the ruler of the Ottoman dominions in Thrace, manuel II Palaiologos, the Byzantine emperor, had been the ally of Suleyman, Mûsa therefore besieged Constantinople. Manuel called on Mehmed to protect him, and Mehmeds Ottomans now garrisoned Constantinople against Musas Ottomans of Thrace, Mehmed made several unsuccessful sallies against his brothers troops, and was obliged to re-cross the Bosporus to quell a revolt that had broken out in his own territories. Mûsa now pressed the siege of Constantinople, Mehmed returned to Thrace, and obtained the assistance of Stefan Lazarevic, the Serbian Despot. The armies of the rival Ottoman brothers met on the plain of Chamurli, Hassan, the Agha of the Janissaries of Mehmed, stepped out before the ranks and tried to get the troops to change sides. Mûsa rushed towards Hassan and killed him, but was wounded by an officer who had accompanied Hassan. Mûsas Ottomans fought well, but the battle was won by Mehmed, Mûsa fled, was later captured and strangled. With Mûsa dead, Mehmed was the surviving son of the late Sultan Bayezid I. The Interregnum was a example of the fratricide that would become common in Ottoman successions. During the Interregnum, only Mehmed Celebi minted coins titling himself Sultan and his brother Suleymans coins called himself, Emir Suleyman b. Bayezid, while Musas coins stated, Musa b, no coins of Isas have survived. The Late Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press
39.
Sea of Marmara
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The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black Sea and the Dardanelles strait to the Aegean Sea. The former also separates Istanbul into its Asian and European sides, the sea has an area of 11,350 km² with the greatest depth reaching 1,370 m. The sea takes its name from the island of Marmara, which is rich in sources of marble, from the Greek μάρμαρον, marble. The seas ancient Greek name Propontis derives from pro- and pontos, deriving from the fact that the Greeks sailed through it to reach the Black Sea, Pontos. The surface salinity of the sea averages about 22 parts per thousand, which is greater than that of the Black Sea. The water is more saline at the sea bottom, averaging salinities of around 38 parts per thousand. This high-density saline water, like that of the Black Sea, water from the Susurluk, Biga and Gonen Rivers also reduces the salinity of the sea, though with less influence than on the Black Sea. With little land in Thrace draining southward, almost all of these rivers flow from Anatolia, the sea contains the archipelago of the Prince Islands and Marmara Island, Avşa and Paşalimanı. The south coast of the sea is heavily indented, and includes the Gulf of İzmit, the Gulf of Gemlik Gulf of Bandırma and the Gulf of Erdek. During a storm on December 29,1999, the Russian oil tanker Volgoneft broke in two in the Sea of Marmara, and more than 1,500 tonnes of oil were spilled into the water. The North Anatolian Fault, which has triggered many major earthquakes in recent years, such as the August and November 1999 earthquakes in Izmit and Düzce, respectively, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Marmara as follows, On the West. The Dardanelles limit of the Aegean Sea, a line joining Cape Rumili with Cape Anatoli
40.
Nesebar
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Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality. Often referred to as the Pearl of the Black Sea, Nesebar is a rich city-museum defined by more than three millennia of ever-changing history. Nesebar has on several occasions found itself on the frontier of a threatened empire and its abundance of historic buildings prompted UNESCO to include Nesebar in its list of World Heritage Sites in 1983. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 11,626 inhabitants, the settlement was known in Greek as Mesembria, sometimes mentioned as Mesambria or Melsembria, the latter meaning the city of Melsas. According to a reconstruction the name derive from Thracian Melsambria. Nevertheless, the Thracian origin of name seems to be doubtful. Moreover, the tradition pertaining to Melsas, as founder of the city is tenuous and it also appears that the story of Melsas was a latter reconstruction of the Hellenistic era, when Mesembria was an important coastal city. Her work led to the identification of five periods of urbanization on the peninsula surrounding Nesebar through the end of the second millennium B. C. It remained the only Dorian colony along the Black Sea coast, at 425-424 BC the town joined the Delian League, under the leadership of Athens. Remains from the Hellenistic period include the acropolis, a temple of Apollo, a wall which formed part of the fortifications can still be seen on the north side of the peninsula. Bronze and silver coins were minted in the city since the 5th century BC, the town fell under Roman rule in 71 BC, yet continued to enjoy privileges such as the right to mint its own coinage. The Bulgarian version of the name, Nesebar or Mesebar, has been attested since the 11th century, in the 13th and 14th century a remarkable series of churches were built, St Theodore, St Paraskeva, St Michael St Gabriel, and St John Aliturgetos. Nesebar was a centre in İslimye sanjak of Edirne Province before 1878. Around the end of the 19th century Nesebar was a town of Greek fishermen. In the early 20th century, the population increased to 1,870. It developed as a key Bulgarian seaside resort since the beginning of the 20th century, after 1925 a new town part was built and the historic Old Town was restored. Nesebar is sometimes said to be the town with the highest number of churches per capita, today, a total of forty churches survive, wholly or partly, in the vicinity of the town
41.
Varna
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Varna is the third largest city in Bulgaria and the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. Situated strategically in the Gulf of Varna, the city has been a major economic, Varna, historically known as Odessos, grew from a Thracian seaside settlement to a major seaport on the Black Sea. Varna is an important centre for business, transportation, education, tourism, entertainment, the city is referred to as the maritime capital of Bulgaria and headquarters the Bulgarian Navy and merchant marine. In 2008, Varna was designated seat of the Black Sea Euro-Region by the Council of Europe, in 2014, Varna was awarded the title of European Youth Capital 2017. The oldest gold jewelry in the world, belonging to the Varna culture, was discovered in the Varna Necropolis, theophanes the Confessor first mentioned the name Varna, as the city came to be known with the Slavic conquest of the Balkans in the 6th to 7th century. The name could be of Varangian origin, as Varangians had been crossing the Black Sea for many years, in Swedish, the meaning of värn is shield, defense – hence Varna could mean defended, fortified place. Perhaps the new name applied initially to an adjacent river or lake, a Roman military camp, or an inland area, the latter is often said to be of Carian origin, though no modern scholarship supports this. Varna Peninsula on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Varna, Varna, Illinois, a small town of 400 people, was named in this citys honour. The War of Varna was going on at the time, the settlement and district centre of Varna in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia is named in commemoration of the taking of Varna by the Russian army during the 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War. Varna Drive, in Toronto, Canada, is named after Varna, since late Bronze Age the area around Odessos had been populated with Thracians. BC local Thracians had active commercial and cultural contacts with people from Anatolia, Thessaly, Caucasus and these links were reflected in some local productions, for example, forms of bronze fibula of the age, either imported or locally made. There is no doubt that interactions occurred mostly by sea and the bay of Odessos is one of the places where the took place. Some scholars consider that during the 1st millennium BC, the region was settled by the half-mythical Cimmerians. An example of their, probably accidental, presence, is the tumulus dated VIII-VII c, BC found near Belogradets, Varna Province. The region around Odessos was densely populated with Thracians long before the coming of the Greeks on the west seashore of the Black Sea. Pseudo-Scymnus writes, “. Around the city lives the Thracian tribe named Crobises. ”This is also evidenced by various ceramic pottery, made by hand or by a Potters wheel, bronze ornaments for horse-fittings and iron weapons, all found in Thracian necropolises dated VI-IV c. BC near the villages of Dobrina, Kipra, Brestak and other, the Thracians in the region were ruled by kings, who entered into unions with the Odrysian kingdom, Getae or Sapaeans - large Thracian states existing between V-I c. Between 336-280 BC these Thracian states along with Odessos were conquered by Alexander the Great, archaeological findings in the past years have indicated that the population of North-East Thrace was very diverse, including the region around Odessos
