Abstract
The paper examines the akıncıs’ actions and hence the motivation for their raids as essential constituents within the process of Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late Middle Ages. Focusing on the raiders and their plundering activities, it asserts that the akıncıs played a crucial key role in the early Ottoman slave economy, as slave hunting was arguably the main economic driving force behind the Ottoman conquest. It hence argues that an analysis of the akıncıs allows for new insights into the nature of the early Ottoman Empire, but also advances the idea that their actions fall within a particular phase of the conquest period. To that end, the authors re-periodize the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase, which spanned eight to thirteen decades, depending on the region, and was characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction of economic infrastructure, and the phase of administrative integration into the Ottoman Empire, which latter process was pursued by other actors, namely imperial elites from the center, and is usually characterized by at least partial repopulation of demographically weakened areas.
Introduction
The akıncıs have experienced a peculiar fate in historical research. As “racers and burners” (German: “Renner und Brenner”) and “plunderers” (German: “Sackmann”) they are ubiquitous in Occidental sources from the fifteenth century to the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna (1683), embodying the horror of Ottoman wars of expansion fought against Venice, Hungary, and the southeast of the Holy Roman Empire.1 As a symbol of the “Turkish danger,” they remain however in western sources a threatening, anonymous mass—the Other, about whom the pamphlets circulating in the Occident in particular spread reports of terror yet provided very few details.2 In recent decades, when discourse-analytical approaches to historical research were in full bloom, this very fact led researchers to focus primarily on the image of the akıncıs rather than on their actual military actions. The impression sometimes arose that contemporaries of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had invented stories of atrocities to construct an image of the enemy, the Muslim Ottomans, and that their descriptions were thus to be understood as mere discourses that had little or nothing to do with historical reality, and were simply a tool of the Western propaganda.3
The history of research on the akıncıs is mainly characterized by disciplinary barriers and mutually isolated reading canons that Ottomanists, Byzantinists, Balkan historians, and specialists of the Holy Roman Empire have rarely overcome.4 Ottomanists, who use predominantly or exclusively Ottoman sources, paint a different picture of the akıncıs than, say, historians of the Habsburg lands.5 The former are well informed about the akıncıs’ organization and troop strength; from Ottoman chronicles they know rough outlines of the akıncıs’ actions.6 Since most of the studies rely mainly on administrative records, however, they adopt a structuralist approach and paint a rather technical and sometimes static picture of the akıncıs, focusing mainly on the organization of the corps as an indispensable part of the Ottoman military system.7 The relative sparseness of contemporary Ottoman literary sources, meanwhile, explains, at least in part, why Ottoman studies have not dealt with the akıncıs in more detail and why the best available analyses by Ottomanists rely predominantly on Ottoman documentary evidence and on a limited selection of Occidental sources.8 Other reasons also come into play: central elements of the Ottoman army, namely the janissaries and sipahi, are not only better attested in sources, but also underline the image of a tightly organized and centralized empire far better than the akıncıs, who appear to have been a much more informal military formation. Together with the uç beyis (frontier lords), they represent those elements that contradict the image of a homogeneous system of sultanic power and that have only recently attracted the attention of Ottoman studies. Perhaps more pointedly, it could be argued that uç beyis and the akıncıs stand for the rather informal part of the Ottoman military apparatus, whereas the kuls (palace slaves) and the sultans stand for its explicitly formal part. The great uç beyi dynasties (İshakoğulları, Evrenosoğulları, Mihaloğulları, Turahanoğulları, and Malkoçoğulları, along with such individuals as Minnetoğlu Mehmet Bey, who led major campaigns against Serbia and Bosnia around 1460) spearheaded many of the akıncı raids and were the main protagonists of the Ottoman conquest. Yet the intimate link between the uç beyis and their numerous akıncı retinues is mentioned only in passing, while their joint military actions, the character of their incursions, and the specific features of the troops are neglected far too often by current research, partially due to the general withdrawal of modern scholarship from the field of military studies to research oriented towards socio-economic, cultural, and intellectual history.9
In recent scholarship, the akıncıs appear primarily in three research debates.First, they are referred to in military historical studies within the framework of structural approaches to administrative history. This strand of research presents the akıncıs as an integral part of the Ottoman army and a distinct military body of border warriors, albeit with a certain degree of disintegration, owing mainly to their informal warfare and attachment to the powerful Balkan marcher lords’ families. Partially due to their source base (mostly Ottoman administrative material), these studies emphasize the raiders’ structure of command, formal conscription, and types of equipment. Although the raiders’ zeal for taking booty and capturing slaves is always part of the narrative of these studies, they equate these activities to mere harassing of the enemy territory in advance of the regular sultanic army.10 This structuralist approach essentially downplays the raiders’ actual role and obscures the essence of their plundering expeditions. Second, they are part of that famous debate about the character of the early Ottoman Empire, which revolves around the importance of holy war and an economy based on plunder. One could formulate, again pointedly, that gaza and akın mark opposing positions in this debate, which is associated with the names of Paul Wittek and his critics. Scholars such as Colin Imber see the gazi as nothing more than the akıncı as reconceptualized according to Ottoman court ideology, especially in the later fıfteenth century. To that end, the Ottoman historiography has reinterpreted the bands of looters as Islamic religious fighters.11 Largely in agreement with Imber, Heath Lowry has further emphasized that the early Ottoman Empire was based on an ever-expanding warrior community whose goal was to capture as much booty as possible.12 Lowry speaks of a “giant amoeba, subsuming all that was useful and reshaping it as necessary in light of changing needs,” and that the akıncıs occupy an important position in this conglomerate of booty-seeking warriors.13 Although Lowry’s thesis has found appeal, it is rather surprising that the akıncıs have not been analyzed within the larger framework as a core element of this “looting amoeba.” Third, and finally, the akıncıs feature in studies about the uç beyis that have flourished for some time and have greatly changed our understanding of the early Ottoman Empire: no longer does the notion of a centralized empire characterize Ottoman history up to the reign of Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446 and 1451–1481).14 This research has challenged the concept of the patrimonial character of the Ottoman political establishment and has shown that besides the sultanic household we must assume a multiplicity of actors, some of them acting independently, and powerful regional dynasties, with their own households and retinues, and their own regional foreign relations and interests.15 Yet, as much as these actors, namely the uç beyi dynasties, are associated with the numerous incursions in the Balkans, heading large contingents of plunderers, they are rarely studied in conjunction with the plundering expeditions and the akıncıs in particular.
1 The Akıncıs and a New Periodization of the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans
This article focuses particularly on the military practices of the akıncıs, their position in the Ottoman economy of the conquest era (fourteenth–fifteenth century), their importance in the conquest process especially in weakening the demographic and economic foundations of the target areas, and finally their function in securing Ottoman power in recently conquered regions. The analysis draws on extensive preliminary work on the uç beyis; however, although their dynasties are important to their activities as leaders of the raids, they are not the central topic of our research. Instead, the present study lays emphasis on the actions of the raiding parties under their command, and aims to highlight that slave hunting by the raiders was an independent stage in the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and that the akıncıs were much more than an auxiliary force alongside the sultan’s regular army, a role that is attributed to them by most modern historians. While the connection between gaza warriors and akıncıs, for example, has already been discussed in the literature, the link between akıncıs and slave hunting as the main economic motivation for the Ottoman conquest campaigns has been overlooked by prior research.16 Adrian Gheorghe is quite right when he states: “the biggest shortcoming of all these studies is that they do not consider the akıncıs as an institution or phenomenon.”17 Highlighting the structural peculiarities of the akıncı troops and hence disregarding their importance as a distinct phenomenon, most recent research indeed ignores their crucial role in hunting slaves, whereas in recent surveys of slavery in the Ottoman Empire they go largely unnoticed and unaccounted for.18 As much as the present essay aspires to overcome these constraints of modern scholarship and will constantly refer to the phenomenon of Ottoman slavery, it will not engage in thorough analysis of the larger framework of slavery and its role in the formation of pre-modern empires, including that of the Ottomans—this will be a subject of a separate study. The aim of this paper will instead be simply to examine the akıncıs’ actions and hence the motivation for their raids as essential constituents within the process of Ottoman conquest. Focusing on the raiders and their plundering activities, we will assert that the akıncıs played a crucial role in the early Ottoman slave economy, as slave hunting was arguably the main economic driving force behind the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late Middle Ages.19
The present essay thus not only aims to reconstruct the organization and war practices of the akıncıs but also argues that an analysis of the akıncıs allows for new insights into the nature of the early Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. It further maintains that the akıncıs were a central element in the actual economic motivation of the conquest, namely the hunting of slaves, and that this slave hunting falls within a very specific phase of the Ottoman conquest.
Hitherto, Ottoman studies have periodized the Ottoman conquest according to the form of rule imposed and subsequent arrangement of the military and provincial administration of the conquered lands. In his classic and still influential study devoted to the Ottoman methods of conquest, Halil İnalcık defined two distinct phases within the “conservative” Ottoman policy of “gradual incorporation” of the subjugated territories. First, he noted, the Ottomans sought to establish a relationship of dependency (vassalage) with the rulers of the neighboring states; it was only in a second stage that they pursued direct governance and incorporation of the conquered lands within the Ottoman centralized administration. The latter stage was realized via the application of the timar system, which involved securing fiscal control over the people and resources of the acquired territories. İnalcık also emphasized that even after the establishment of direct rule, the Ottomans continued to follow a policy of gradual incorporation well into the sixteenth century, notable for the preservation of various Christian elements (employment of the indigenous population as auxiliary military forces and the adoption of a conciliatory policy toward pre-conquest aristocratic groups) at all levels of the military, administrative, and bureaucratic Ottoman apparatus, both in the provinces and in the capital.20 İnalcık’s view was adopted and enforced by subsequent research, which placed even stronger emphasis on the conciliatory, accommodationist, and flexible policy of the early Ottomans in their employment of a centralized military-fiscal system in the subjugated areas. This emphasis was further extended to define the Ottoman conquest strategy within the framework of pragmatism and flexibility in administering these lands, especially along the borders.21 Hence it is principally the second phase of the Ottoman conquest that lies at the center of current scholarship. This tendency, as much as it is valid and instrumental for transcending the stereotype of the “terrible” Turks who subdued large parts of the Christian world, largely obscures the violent character that accompanied any military invasion, as it essentially obfuscates the process of the Ottoman conquest and its immediate consequences. It also downplays the military activities and the economic motivation of the conquest period, seeing them only as a prelude to the extension of Ottoman taxation and diminishing them to the status of “minor skirmishes and raids”22 and “opportunistic attacks”23 that were executed by “volunteers (opportunists) pursuing their own agendas.”24
By focusing on the first period of the Ottoman conquest and the military actions of its protagonists, this article proposes a different model: in a first phase, Ottoman actors were not concerned with land, but with people. This was the akıncı period, which could last between 80 and 130 years, depending on the target region, thus almost constituting an epoch of its own. It was only after the demographic exhaustion—or, if you will: after the end of the slave harvest by the akıncıs—that the control over the land followed as a second phase that was dominated by different actors, namely the sultans and the timar-holding sipahi cavalry (although the frontier lords also took part in it, administering the conquered lands and allotting fiefs to their own retinue). It should be emphasized that it is not the type of domination that characterizes our model, but control over people and control over land as two stages separated in time.
This latter point requires brief illustration. Several decades usually lay between the first appearance of the akıncıs in a region and the final conquest of a territory (i.e., incorporation into the Ottoman administrative system): in Albania, this process extends from ca. 1385 to 1479, in Bosnia from around the same time to 1463 (for central and eastern Bosnia) or to 1537 (for northwestern Bosnia), in Morava-Serbia from 1389 to 1459, and in the southern Greek Morea from the early 1380s to 1460. Southern Hungary faced Ottoman incursions from the early 1390s to 1526.25 Other areas that the Ottomans could not conquer were also the target of akıncı raids for decades: Dalmatia and Inner Austria from 1469, for instance, and Friuli from 1471, while Transylvania was hit much earlier—from 1420.26 There is less evidence of raids in the regions that already formed the core of the Ottoman Empire around 1400, i.e. Thrace, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly—which does not mean that these regions, like Bithynia before them, were not worn down and depopulated by years of raids before they were finally conquered by the Ottomans.27
The akıncı phase of Ottoman expansion can be characterized as follows: in these decades, Ottoman actors (raiders and their leaders) did not pursue a conquest of territory; rather, they were concerned with looting. And this booty consisted primarily of people. The akıncı phase of the conquest can therefore also be described as a decades-long slave hunt that led to the demographic and thus military exhaustion of the raids’ target areas. This was also the akıncıs’ main contribution to the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans: they strengthened the slave economy in the Ottoman Empire and made the target areas of the conquest ripe for storming. The sphere of action was always in motion, as the looters kept advancing the border space in which they carried out their raids. On the Ottoman side, during this phase, the actors were not so much sultan and kul troops as uç beyis and akıncıs. The slave economy and at times very independent Ottoman actors characterize this stage, in contrast to the second phase of Ottoman expansion. The latter is marked by the integration of an area into the Ottoman administration and the elimination of the political and legal grey areas that had prevailed in the akıncı phase. This is because the Balkan target areas of the raids were dominated by nobles who collaborated with uç beyis at certain points in time, either to fight regional enemies or to divert raids to other areas.28
In this essay, we speak of Ottoman actors and not of Ottomans in order to emphasize the pluricentric and composite character of that amalgam, which was composed both of followers directly subordinate to the sultan and, at times, protagonists acting largely independently of the ruler but, in the broadest sense, belonging to the Ottomans’ dynastically-based power system.
2 The Akıncıs—a Structuralist Approach
The ways in which the akıncıs are conceptualized in the sources and how the relevant sources are to be evaluated are questions that are the subject of some scholarly dispute. In a recent survey, Adrian Gheorghe has argued that Ottoman administrative sources should be given preference over other, primarily non-Ottoman, material. In fact, for the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there is sufficient Ottoman administrative material, the analysis of which is still pending, which sheds light on the structural organization of the raiders. For the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, which form the focus of the present study, research can hardly be advanced with Ottoman administrative texts alone. Moreover, even if the Ottoman documentary evidence is abundant, it offers a rather one-sided and quite static view of the akıncıs, representing them from the bureaucratic centralistic standpoint, and hence obscuring certain characteristics—and, above all, the purpose—of their military incursions.
Relying mainly on these sources, modern studies describe the akıncıs largely as auxiliary troops to the Ottoman military formation, serving as the vanguard of the core sultanic army. Their task was to lay waste to enemy territory, harass and destroy the logistics of the rivaling army, and gather reconnaissance information from the prisoners they caught. They were also tasked with ensuring safe passage for the sultanic army, building and repairing bridges, and keeping passages safe from enemy forces.29 There were certain requirements for those opting to become akıncıs: they had to be young, strong, and brave, possess a good horse, and wear the appropriate garb.30 Preference was given to the descendants of deceased or superannuated raiders, who had to be conscripted and recorded in special registers with clear reference to their place of residence, their fathers’ names, and the names of the guarantors who warranted the individual akıncı’s going to war. At the time of a raid, they had to present themselves in suitable clothing, wearing red headgear and equipped with a sword and a beflagged lance.31 Sometimes the orders specified that they had to appear in the campaign with a light coat of mail and appropriate garment, and every ten akıncıs had to bring one tent.32 The Ottoman authorities were particularly attentive not to allow the conscription of men from other militarized groups, such as the yürüks, to the ranks of the akıncıs and of their officers, the toviças.33 In peacetime, the raiders, settled mostly in the villages, but also in the towns and cities of the Balkan provinces, were either agriculturalists or craftsmen.34 The akıncıs were exempt from levies, whether these were regular (öşr), customary (rusum-i örfiye), or extraordinary war taxes (avarız-i divaniye). Each raider instead paid a total of 100 akçe per annum to the central treasury. No one was allowed to use the raiders and their horses for any other service besides the one required from them.35 In Rumeli, they were divided into right and left wings, bearing the family names of the marcher lords who led them (Mihallu and Turhanlu respectively).36 The raiders were commanded by the marcher lords from the Mihaloğulları, İshakoğulları, Evrenosoğulları, Turahanoğulları, Malkoçoğulları, and other less prominent dynasties, and by military commanders, the afore-mentioned toviças. The latter term was of Mongolian origin and referred to sub-leaders of the akıncıs.37 They were responsible for informing the akıncıs of the forthcoming expedition as soon as a sultanic order was issued. As it was determined in the Ottoman legal codes, in times of war their obligation was also to gather the akıncıs and to guide them to the place where the army was summoned. For their service, the toviças were granted timars.38 Their land holdings were of the so-called arpalık type, meaning they were granted in return for rendering this specific service: if a certain toviça was replaced by another one, the latter received the military prebend. The toviças were recruited in the same manner as the akıncıs. To replace the already dead, crippled or elderly toviças, preference was given to their sons, but if their number was not sufficient, they were chosen from among other valiant young men.39 When they were recruited, besides the appropriate attire and a good horse, they were also required to have a certain amount of wealth, unlike ordinary raiders.40 Internally, the akıncı troops were divided into regiments of tens, hundreds, and thousands, headed by their own officers—onbaşı, subaşı, and binbaşı respectively.41
In an order issued in mid–1493 concerning the collection of the sultanic share of the war booty (pençik, i.e. one-fifth) acquired during the akıncı raids,42 Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) defined three types of raids. If a marcher lord led the incursion and participated personally in the campaign, it was called akın. If there was a large raid (by more than 100 warriors) led by a proxy from among the uç beyi’s own men,43 it was called haramilik. And if fewer than 100 plunderers took part in a raid and it was not led by an uç beyi, it was categorized as çete. The sultan’s pençik was collected only from the loot acquired during the incursions of the first two categories. The treasury collected its portion from all kinds of war booty, mostly animals, but it placed the highest value on male captives between ten and seventeen years old. All slave boys taken during the raids (akın and haramilik) had to be gathered in the places through which the raiders passed on their return and registered accordingly in defters by the pençik emini. The uç beyis, the pençikçis, and the toviças were rewarded with a certain number of boy prisoners whom they themselves had enslaved: an uç beyi was entitled to receive twenty boys, a pençikçi five, and a renowned toviça one, whereas those of lesser rank were rewarded with one male slave per two toviças. The ordinary akıncıs received the prisoners whom they had personally enslaved. The Ottoman ruler had prerogative possession of all boys aged between ten and seventeen. If, however, eighteen-year-old male slaves were found to be suited to serving the sultan, they were also collected for the central authority, but their owners had to be compensated by the treasury at 300 akçe per captive. The boys who were to be taken were not to have been crippled or maimed, and were not to be bearded. The uç beyis and the toviças were obliged to assist the collection of the pençik oğlanları on pain of punishment. The frontier lord also had to assist the pençik collector in summoning the sultan’s appropriate share of the boys, as they both had to compile separate registers enlisting them properly and had to send these defters to the capital along with the captive slave. The il-beyi and the toviças were to summon and accompany the pençik boys to the designated places.44
As becomes apparent, the portrayal of the akıncıs in these selected Ottoman administrative records with particular regard to the raiders—repeatedly examined in modern scholarship—is rather structural in character and static in essence, allowing little interpretation in terms of the evolution and quintessence of military actions.45 If one does not limit oneself to Ottoman administrative sources only (or to Ottoman administrative material and arbitrary selection of Christian literary sources) and if one draws on other available late medieval material (narrative accounts, diplomatic reports, correspondence, etc.), a very different and, above all, much more nuanced picture of the akıncıs emerges. In fact, a wealth of contemporary sources are available, but they are scattered among many languages and often published in disparate locations.
The akıncıs, therefore, are a good example of how disciplinary boundaries complicate and marginalize the treatment of an important phenomenon since it can only be partially grasped in the respective disciplinary context. As will be shown below, however, the organization, tactics, military practice, and economic significance of the raiders can be extracted in almost all desirable detail from contemporary narrative non-Ottoman and Ottoman sources. The sources used in this process are well known in their respective disciplinary contexts, i.e., Ottoman, Byzantine, Balkan, Venetian and crusader studies, but in the relevant adjacent disciplines they often seem exotic or are ignored altogether. Cross-reading of sources is repeatedly demanded as a methodological imperative, but rarely implemented in research practice.
Researchers of the uç beyis and the akıncıs usually fail to use these source, although they may, for example, draw valuable information from the post-Byzantine historian Chalkokondyles (d. ca. 1490) and see how a contemporary made the connection between uninterrupted Ottoman raids and the Ottoman Empire’s slave economy.46 In the same vein, key sources such as Georgius de Hungaria (d. 1502), an author of one of the most important early descriptions of the Ottoman Empire, who was carried off from the Transylvanian town of Mühlbach/Szászsebes/Sebeş by the Ottomans in 1438, are still known only to a few Ottomanists.47 The fifteenth-century Carinthian chronicler Jakob Unrest (d. 1500), who describes the akıncı raids in Carniola and Carinthia in detail and is therefore one of the most important narrative sources of all, has probably not been consulted by Ottomanists since Josef von Hammer-Purgstall’s History of the Ottoman Empire.48 Only specialists on the history of Venetian–Ottoman relations know the primarily Milanese envoy reports as first-class sources on the akıncı raids in Friuli.49 Even more unknown are Hungarian and Croatian editions of imperial (Habsburg) documents from the early sixteenth century, published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.50 Likewise, Ottoman narrative sources are largely ignored altogether in studies dealing with the akıncıs and the frontier lords’ families. Preference is given instead to specific administrative material, which is rarely juxtaposed with information from other administrative records beyond those strictly connected to the structural specifics of the raiders’ corps. Yet contemporary Ottoman authors present highly valuable evidence that not only enriches the structural specifics of these troops, but also ascribes a rather different connotation to their military and economic essence from the one suggested by administrative documents.
Modern research is also fragmented, with an interest only in particular sections of the Ottoman uç, which in the final phase of Mehmed II’s reign bordered a space that spans a wide geographical area, stretching from Friuli through Inner Austria and Croatia to Dalmatia, and further along the vast Hungarian–Ottoman border to the Transylvanian Carpathian arc. However, it is precisely this vast border area that must be considered if the akıncıs are to be understood in their great period between the reigns of Murad I (r. 1362–1389) and Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566).
3 Categorizing and Analyzing the Akıncıs: a Survey of Major Contemporary Descriptions in Narrative Sources
With the first Ottoman fighters and warrior groups cooperating with them, the akıncıs emerged as a distinct phenomenon in the Balkans, certainly before 1400, although their war tactics and organizational methods had already been used in the first decades of the fourteenth century, against the Byzantine territories in northwestern Anatolia.51 The war technique of the “racers and burners” did not change significantly from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century, but for the fifteenth century many more sources are available describing explicitly and in detail the akıncıs as a specific phenomenon.
Contemporary Occidental narratives, be it historiographers or authors of treatises on the Ottoman Empire, dealt intensively with the akıncıs. In doing so, they mainly focused on their presence and rarely considered the origins of the plundering forces. Yet they present valuable details about these troops’ actions that cannot be grasped from administrative documents. The same applies to the Ottoman narrative texts, which, despite being less systematic in describing the raiders than their Christian contemporaries, also offer invaluable insights from an Ottoman inside perspective, but are likewise undeservedly neglected by modern historians. In what follows, we will try to sketch a more coherent picture of the akıncıs as it emerges from the most important Christian and Muslim narrative evidence. An attempt to analyze the individual sources in detail and to answer structural questions will be made only in a second step. This is to avoid a hasty synthesizing of the quite different texts and to make their polyphony clearer.
3.1 Christian Views on the Raiders
The term akıncı is derived from the Turkish verb akmak, to flow. It refers, then, to men who attack their opponents like an unstoppable torrent. Christian contemporaries were well aware of the meaning of the Turkish word, and they refer to it repeatedly: the post-Byzantine historian Dukas (d. after 1462) writes that the akıncıs “rush to arms like a flood.” Dukas also uses the Turkish term
The Genoese Iacopo Promontorio de Campis, author of one of the most precious descriptions of the Ottoman state apparatus, gave a concise definition of the raiders around 1475, a period when the akıncıs successfully raided Inner Austria and Friuli and constituted a serious threat to core lands of Catholic Europe. According to Promontorio, the sultan had at his disposal in Rumeli about 8,000 men, all of whom fought on horseback. These akıncıs had the privilege of farming on sultanic land, which they could plough with two or three pairs of oxen, without paying taxes. As “actual corsairs on land,” they lived in villages inhabited by Christian majorities and had to ride out at their own expense whenever they were mustered by the Ottoman ruler. According to Promontorio, the akıncıs were very capable and excellent horsemen, and dangerous and crafty warriors. They usually fought with bows and arrows, swords, short spears and wooden clubs, and protected themselves with shields. Of the 8,000 or so men, 6,000 usually rode out, while the rest guarded the borders.59 It is striking that Promontorio begins his description by highlighting the economic basis of the akıncıs, namely the allocation of land by the sultan in Christian villages in the Balkans. In Promontorio’s account, the akıncıs are presented as an integral part of the Ottoman military apparatus. In exchange for tax exemptions on their allotted land, they are obliged to perform military service whenever the sultan mobilizes them. Another important aspect is the spatial concentration of the phenomenon in Rumeli—akıncıs are thus used against Christian opponents. In military terms, they are lightly armed horsemen.
Other sources confirm and refine this finding. Martinus Segonus emphasizes that the akıncıs fought without pay at their own expense and that they marched ahead of the regular army during marches. He estimates their number to be ten times higher than Promontorio’s assessment, namely 60,000 men. During war campaigns, they devastated everything with fire and flame.60 A more detailed report is provided by Giovanni Maria Angiolello (d. ca. 1525), defterdar of Mehmed II, and, like Promontorio, an excellent connoisseur of the Ottoman army and finances. He provides important financial details: the akıncıs fought without pay and lived on plunder and ransoms. They had to pay 10% of this as tribute to the sultan, who had the loot closely inspected. The sultan also had registers drawn up in which the akıncıs were listed. The akıncıs’ place of residence and origin were recorded in these registers so that the sultan could easily and quickly mobilize the looters. Angiolello apparently saw the register that was compiled in 1472 for the campaign against Uzun Hasan.61 He reports that around 30,000 akıncıs were mobilized for this war against a Muslim enemy. Angiolello also mentions that the akıncıs were commanded by outstanding Ottoman generals and that there were comparable Christian units, the martolos, “great and cruel robbers” (gran ladri e crudeli), 5,000 to 6,000 such men having been deployed against the Aq-Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan. This reference is significant: the plundering campaigns involved not only akıncıs but also other paramilitary groups, including those composed purely of Christians.62
Of particular value are accounts by men who experienced the Ottoman military system from within. Georgius de Hungaria’s account is therefore not only one of the earliest, but also one of the most informative texts. According to him, the akıncıs were a special force of 20,000 to 30,000 men besides the regular sultanic army, who were clever and knowledgable fighters. He emphasizes that the raiders operated under experienced leaders and always at night. They undertook at least one raid a year, but often two or even three. Crucial for their speedy and surprise operations, he says, was their treatment of horses: they took special care of them and trained them for hard use. Georgius also knows an important detail: the akıncıs demanded everything from themselves and their animals during fast marches. In order that the horses could go without much feed when necessary, they reduced their portions about a week before a mission. They prepared for these operations very carefully: they had excellent scouts and spread rumors in the target areas to unsettle the enemy before setting out with great purpose and enormous speed: with their specially trained horses, the akıncıs covered distances in one night that would usually have required three to four days’ marching. These lightning actions were only possible because the raiders carried hardly any baggage. The fighters were extraordinarily hardened against both heat and cold; they and their horses also mastered steep and barely passable mountain paths. Their raids thus usually took their opponents completely by surprise. The akıncıs were not concerned about conquering places. They were only interested in slaves and hostages for whom they could extort a ransom. They were therefore eager to capture their enemies alive and avoid killing them if possible, and were usually accompanied by professional slave traders who brought chains on which the slaves were taken to the slave markets, usually tying between ten and twelve people to one chain. The akıncıs sold the slaves while they were still in the plunder areas, as they had no means of providing for captives for a longer period of time. According to Georgius de Hungaria, the slave traders were excellent judges of character. They often bought at low prices because the supply was so great after successful plundering campaigns. They also bought elderly people and even infants, whom they would pack into sacks and sell to Ottomans, who would then raise the children as slaves.63
Georgius de Hungaria, himself a former slave, offers probably the best description of the akıncıs, weaving together economic and military tactical aspects. It is to him we owe the insight that the akıncıs were the first link in the chain of the Ottoman slave trade and that slave hunting was the real driving force of the raids and thus also of the akıncıs. Against this background, the equipment and tactics of the akıncıs also become understandable: their goal was to capture as large a number of people as possible by exploiting the effect of surprise, if possible without fighting, and to sell them immediately to slave traders who had accompanied them. The akıncıs themselves had no means of or interest in returning the slaves and other loot to the trading centers of the Ottoman Empire. There was, then, a division of labor, further business being left to professional slave traders.
Konstantin Mihailović, another former (military) slave, completes the picture with details he knew as a member of the Ottoman military apparatus. First, he elaborates on the tactics of the akıncıs: they did not stay for long at all, but robbed everything that fell into their hands. Unlike Georgius de Hungaria, he stresses that the akıncıs also killed ruthlessly. Like Georgius, he emphasizes the breeding of particularly tough horses. His remarks on military organization are important: the akıncıs were volunteers, whom he calls čoban (herdsmen), thus referring to their ability as horse breeders. The call for the plundering campaign came from the sultan, and those who could not march had to send a substitute with whom they shared the spoils. The akıncı commanders were called dovıçalar. The akıncıs usually fought under the supreme command of the uç beyis, whom the sultan, then Mehmed II, assigned to the most important border castles or fortresses: Smederevo and Kruševac in Serbia, Nikopol and Vidin on the Danube, on the Sitnica in Kosovo, in Bosnia, but also in Gallipoli and the Morea. These marcher lords requested the sultan’s permission to go on raids into Christian territory to hunt down men. Once permission was granted, they issued a call and promised a rich booty of men and women. This caused general rejoicing among the akıncıs. The marcher lords then determined a rallying point in which they also provided weapons and, if needed, ships to cross rivers. At this rallying point, the akıncıs changed horses. Mihailović clarifies Georgius de Hungaria’s statement: the akıncıs used two types of horses—one for the march to the gathering point, a second faster type for the actual raids. Each raider therefore carried two horses. The slower ones were left behind at the rallying point. This place of assembly is of special importance: it was there that the akıncıs received their instructions from the marcher lord, and there that they left their marching horses, which were taken care of by very well-paid grooms. The frontier lord set a day for the looters to return to the rallying point. He gave the signal for departure by beating drums. According to Mihailović, this caused such excitement among the warriors, who were hungry for booty, that in the turmoil of setting out, men were repeatedly killed when they fell from their horses and were trampled to death. The horsemen then split into task forces and carried out their plundering mission. This, according to Mihailović, whose treatise also seeks to offer instructions on how to fight the Ottomans, is the most opportune moment to attack the akıncıs: the marcher lord and the horse servants are largely unprotected when the raiders are on the move. The akıncıs are also vulnerable when they have to cross rivers and swamps, when they are stopped by mountains, or even when fighting in villages. Mihailović also points to a particularly cruel practice of the akıncıs when they are under pressure: they do not turn loose prisoners who slow down their march, but kill them.64
The two post-Byzantine authors Dukas and Chalkokondyles essentially confirm the accounts of their Occidental and Balkan contemporaries. An important element for both is the moment of departure, which was triggered by the sign given by the marcher lord. Usually, the akıncıs could hardly wait to strike out. Dukas writes that many raiders did not even have spears or swords. They rolled along in massive groups and were often armed only with sticks. Chalkokondyles mentions the two-horse system and the akıncıs’ tactic of splitting into several groups in the target area. He is one of the few contemporary observers to also refer to the beginnings of the akıncıs: under Murad I, the son of Orhan, those warriors who had come over to Europe from Anatolia are said to have hunted people in small groups.65 Dukas relates that the akıncıs rounded up the Christian captives like sheep. His comments on the origin of the raiders are also noteworthy: they came not only from the Balkans (he mentions Thrace, Greece, the Bulgarian Balkan Mountains and the areas bordering Serbia), but also from Anatolia. Dukas uses the ancient regional terms, and the regions he indicates include eastern, central, southern, southwestern, and northern Asia Minor (Phrygia, Asia, Lycaonia, Armenia, Amasya, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Lycia, and Caria). The akıncıs from Rumeli and Anadolu would march up to the Danube on foot, numbering many thousands. Dukas states that their constant raids had largely depopulated a vast zone from Dalmatia to Thrace, with the result that the once numerous Albanians could now be counted easily, the same being true of the Wallachians, while Serbs and Byzantines were completely exhausted demographically as a result of the raids.66
While Dukas clearly elaborates on the demographic consequences of the raids, Chalkokondyles considers another important aspect: he names the leaders of the akıncıs, the great marcher lords, and provides details about their politics. He reports that the leaders of the plundering armies had become very rich from slave hunting and had settled in different places in the Balkans—in Skopje, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Thessaly. He particularly singles out the most prominent uç beyis as leaders of akıncı raids, especially Evrenos, who successfully commanded his akıncı-riders and made his followers rich. Chalkokondyles emphasizes the rapid rise of the raiders due to the wealth they had acquired in a very short time through slave hunting. His account clearly shows how Evrenos, as uç beyi, pursued his own settlement policy, established his own residence in Yannitsa/Giannitsa/Yenice-i Vardar and, with his sons İsa, Barak and Ali, established his own regional dynasty, whose power was derived from plundering, catching slaves and the management of goods by slaves. According to Chalkokondyles, Turahan, another prominent leader of the akıncıs, behaved like Evrenos and was allowed by Mehmed I to conduct raids from the Danube port of Vidin. Evrenos’s grandson İshakoğlu İsa (sic! İshakoğlu İsa Bey was the successor to Paşa Yiğit) operated from Skopje and undertook numerous raids into Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main booty consisting of slaves and hostages; the latter were also taken to Anatolia. Another great leader was Zaganos, who led numerous slaves from the Morea to Thessaly, where the agriculture of the new Ottoman masters was based on the slave labor, which was augmented by the constant raids by the akıncıs. The akıncıs themselves, however, also contributed significantly to the change to the settlement structure in the Balkans. Chalkokondyles reports that Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) had the leaders of regional and local akıncı groups liquidated in Rumeli to avoid unrest; many of these akıncıs had originally been brought to the Balkans by Murad I and settled in the Vardar and Plovdiv regions.67 No other non-Ottoman historian was as familiar with the connection between akıncıs and the great uç beyi dynasties as Chalkokondyles, who also had a deep understanding of the economic connections between slave hunting, the settlement policies of the uç beyis, and the management of their latifundia.
3.2 Muslim Views on the Raiders
Ottoman narrative sources generally confirm, but also complement the information presented by their Christian contemporaries. Most of the Ottoman sources, even if they do not omit the names of the frontier lords, simply register that the successful raids ended with a lot of booty (ganimet) taken from the target areas. There are, however, mentions in some of the Ottoman narratives, which relate in more details the raiding expeditions of the akıncıs and the famous marcher lords, especially in the texts authored by followers of the raider commanders and other participants, and in those that relied heavily on the first-hand accounts of their informants. These accounts, although limited in quantity, present an opportunity to gain a more thorough and vibrant sense of the actual activities of the raiders, their movements and tactical organization beyond the static view usually presented by the official Ottoman administrative records, but above all they provide detailed insights into the akıncı attacks’ purpose and about the kinds of resources that were particularly targeted as loot. It is true that these sources are limited in their general assessment of the akıncı raiders as a distinct and effective force—partially owing to the lack of general concern to describe the activities of actors and groups outside the sultanic dynasty and its household troops, but perhaps also due to the fact that they simply did not deem it necessary to detail a phenomenon that was so widespread and known to contemporaries. Nevertheless, these narrative texts produced within the Ottoman realm allow us to grasp some of the specific characteristics of this phenomenon.
Rather an exception to the historiographical trend is the account of İdris Bitlisi (d. 1520), who devoted a distinct section of his history to the peculiarities of the akıncı troops in their own right. A former scholar, bureaucrat and literary stylist at the Aq-Qoyunlu court, İdris entered the service of Bayezid II, who commissioned the writing of his famous history of the Ottoman dynasty Haşt bihişt (Eight Paradises) in Persian. Well acquainted with the previous Ottoman, Persian, and Byzantine historiographical traditions and in close contact with the Ottoman court literary and bureaucratic circles, from whom he acquired information for his history, İdris also made use of a number of gazavatnames (books of holy wars) that were dedicated to several distinguished Balkan frontier lords.68 His account is hence highly revealing and combines both an outsider’s observations and a well-informed insider’s assessment. In the part specially dedicated to the fast akıncı riders, İdris offers a synoptic account of the raiders’ specific characteristics and way of warfare. İdris recounts that they were responsible for the plunder and damage of the lands of the “unbelievers” in sudden attacks, and describes their ability to cover long distances in a short time as supernatural. They raided the enemy territories with lightning speed like a “dawn wind,” and invaded the land of the “infidels” “at night like the stars.” The members of this group, the elite of their time, rode with two horses during the expeditions. One of these horses could travel long distances without getting tired, while the other had the ability to run fast. The akıncıs were skillful in destroying and setting fire to the palaces and residences of the enemy, and one of their well-known customs during the sudden and speedy raids was to plunder the latter’s property and children. Attacking at dawn, at an unexpected hour, they plucked the “heavenly beautiful” and “noble young concubines and young boys” “like flowers from their own homes and homeland” and carried them away. İdris also specifies the numbers of the raiders. In his estimation, there were more than 40,000 akıncıs in Rumelia alone, but that there were numerous raiders from Anatolia too. He also comments on their social status, writing that these troops were not considered reaya, and that they paid their agricultural and extraordinary war taxes from their own funds.69
İdris’s explicit description of the raiders leaves little doubt as to why their name alluded to fast flowing waters or to the objective of their speedy plundering campaigns. What it fails to indicate, however, is the devastating consequences that were caused to the target areas and the actual extent of the human spoils who were carried away during these lightening operations. Although his history abounds in examples of akıncı raids called by a number of famous frontier lords and accounts for the great booty with which these incursions were crowned, deeper insights can be gleaned by the accounts of some of the actual participants in the raids themselves.
One of the most relevant to this particular topic, and therefore one of the oft-cited Ottoman historians of the fifteenth century in scholarly discussions of Ottoman war captives, is Aşıkpaşazade (d. after 1484), who participated in the frontier lords’ looting expeditions in the Balkans and who hence presents a valuable eyewitness account of these raids. He provides inside information for one of the largest manhunts by the akıncıs in 1438 in Hungary, where political chaos reigned after the death of Emperor and King Sigismund of Luxemburg (r. 1387–1437) and a peasant uprising in Transylvania (1437). During this raid, the derviş-warrior recalls, there were more captives than raiders, the supply of slaves being so great that a beautiful slave girl fetched the equivalent of a mere pair of boots. The chronicler himself bought a six- or seven-year-old boy for the price of 100 akçe, while a slave capable of taking care of a horse was sold for 150 akçe. During the same raid, Aşıkpaşazade boasted, he received seven male and female slaves from the akıncıs, as well as one from the sultan himself, for whose transportation the ruler graciously gave him two additional horses and 5,000 akçe. Having acquired nine slaves and four horses altogether, Aşıkpaşazade returned to Edirne/Adrianople/Odrin, where he sold some of his slaves for 300 and others for 200 akçe apiece, making good money from this single raiding expedition.70 Shortly afterwards, Aşıkpaşazade went on a hacc pilgrimage to Mekka, where he met Paşa Yiğit’s successor İshak Bey before traveling with him all the way to İshak Bey’s powerbase in Üsküb/Skopje, whence he took part in a number of akıncı raids into Serbia during 1439. In his words, these territories yielded such rich spoils that a four-year-old boy was sold for only twenty akçe at the Skopje slave market. In depicting one of the raids, led by İshak Bey’s son Paşa Bey and his sword maker (kılıççı) Togan, Aşıkpaşazade relates a telling story. A squad of Christian soldiers confronted the akıncıs and a bloody battle took place between them, the raiders slaughtering so many enemies that Paşa Yiğit Bey himself intervened by saying: “Hey, gazis! You have killed enough, from now on it is time to take slaves!” Besides the countless murdered enemies in this particular raid, Aşıkpaşazade was able to enslave five prisoners, whom he sold in Skopje at a price of 900 akçe in total.71 He describes other successful slave hunts by the akıncıs, such as the invasion of the Morea (1446), when countless captives were taken and beautiful women were sold for only 300 akçe. The booty is said to have become so large that the akıncıs spurned cheap cloth.72 In the conquest of parts of Bosnia (1463), no one returned without slaves and loot.73 In another operation, the massive campaign led by the sultan against Moldavia (1476), the chronicler enthusiastically describes how “infidels” were taken as slaves and women were raped; the plunderers drove huge herds of horses and sheep out of the country and built mountains of skulls with the severed heads of their victims.74
Another first-hand account of the raiders’ incursions during the second half of the fifteenth century is provided by Tursun Bey (d. 1491?). The historian was well acquainted with the military expeditions during the grand vizierate of Mahmud Pasha (1456–1468; 1472–1473), whose service he entered in the capacity of a Divan katibi (secretary in the imperial council) and whom he accompanied on most of the campaigns that he led personally.75 Some of the military troops in these campaigns were also the akıncı contingents, who were usually sent ahead of the main army, and details of whose actions and tactics Tursun Bey vividly narrates. For example, during the Serbian campaign of Mahmud Pasha in 1458, the historian describes how the akıncı contingent under the leadership of Minnetoğlu Mehmed Bey was divided into seven smaller regiments that were sent to ravage the area between the Sava and Danube rivers. One day, the akıncıs received the news that an enemy contingent led by twelve Christian commanders was coming after them. The raiders held a war council in front of the castle Dimitrofça/Szávaszentdemeter/Sremska Mitrovica to decide how to proceed with the pursuers. Some opted for open confrontation, while others from among the toviças expressed the opinion that they should not engage with the enemy, but continue looting, which was the purpose of their incursion. Tursun Bey further provides an interesting observation—pençikçis (officials responsible for the collection of the sultanic share of the booty) and armağancıs (officials taking care of the distribution of the reward booty among the participants in the raid) were sent along with the raiders to supervise the collection and recompense of the booty, while Tursun Bey himself was appointed as an emin (agent in charge), more specifically a pençik emini, charged with compiling a register of that portion of the loot that was reserved for the Ottoman ruler.76 In his own account, Tursun Bey does not specify the amount of the booty that was taken on that particular campaign, confining himself to the observation that it was excellent loot. At some point, however, he evidently revealed the details to İdris Bitlisi, who specifies the quantity, which, as he acknowledges, was communicated to him by the very person who compiled the inventory of the one-fifth of the booty (zabıt-ı humsu). The sultan’s share of the loot was registered and classified under different categories: captive slaves, animals, other spoils in cash or valuables, and pack animals that were to be used for the transportation of the plunder. The spoils were so great that the sultan’s own portion of the slaves (20%) amounted to 5,000 beautiful girls and boys, which would mean that no less than a total of 25,000 prisoners were carried away by the raiders.77
Similarly, another expedition in 1460 at which Tursun Bey was present, this time into the Morea, brought the troops rich spoils. In his words, the booty was so abundant that one sheep was sold for only two akçe and a calf for five, while the captives were so numerous that the crowding slave girls and boys in front of each soldier’s tent resembled a slave market.78 Another operation from two years later (1462) also serves as a prime example of the akıncıs’ actions. In Mehmed II’s revenge campaign against the prince of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler (r. 1448; 1456–1462; 1476–1477), the commander of the raiders appears to have been Ali Beyoğlu Evrenos Bey. While the akıncıs were raiding, a battle took place between the Wallachians and the main army of the Ottomans, on whose right flank were other well-known akıncı commanders such as Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, Ali Beyoğlu Ahmed Bey, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey and Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, while among those fighting on its left flank were Nasuh Bey, Develüoğlu Umur Bey, and Mihaloğlu İskender Bey. Seeing the crushing numerical superiority of the Ottoman army, the Wallachians began to flee. Some of their regiments were encountered by Evrenos Bey and his akıncıs, who, although loaded with slave booty and other spoils, were still able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Impaler’s troops, while only 700 out of 7,000 men were reported to have escaped with their lives. Even after they had loaded their pack animals with the severed heads of the enemy army, there were enough remaining soldiers to enslave as well—more than a thousand were taken prisoner in chains of 100 and taken to the sultan’s camp. After a month of looting in Wallachia, the Ottoman troops were laden with rich booty and female and male captives.79
The Ottoman historian Oruç of Edirne (d. after 1503), whose narrative is often informed by the eye witness accounts of actual participants in various military incursions, also unanimously attests to the ravages inflicted on the Christian lands by the akıncı contingents and to the rich loot—money, goods, food, animals, and slaves. Like many of his contemporaries, he too was most impressed by the size of the human booty that the raiders seized and by which the success of the plundering campaign was ultimately judged. In this vein, narrating the looting expedition by Mihaloğlu Ali Bey in the fall of 1473 deep into Hungarian-held territories, reaching as far as Várad/Nagyvárad/Großwardein/Oradea, Oruç Bey recounts the riches of the loot taken from the plundered city and its environs, unable to refrain from admiring the quantity of the slaves. In his words, besides the goods, the liquid cash and the woven material, the raiders had taken so many slaves that it was said there were no fewer than 32,000 captives taxed at the crossing point on the Danube.80 Oruç also offers an interesting detail concerning the start of the same campaign: Ali Bey convened his akıncıs and his Rumelian toviças, who numbered 6,000–7,000 soldiers, but he summoned an additional 3,000 Christians from the Braničevo district before crossing the Danube at Pojejen/Požeženo castle, which they probably used on their way back too. Oruç also provides one of the most detailed Ottoman descriptions of a raid that took place at the very end of the fifteenth century. He describes the great plundering campaign jointly organized by Stephen the Great (Ştefan cel Mare) (r. 1457–1504), the Ottoman frontier lords and the Crimean Tatars against the Kingdom of Poland, which was launched in April 1498. Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, the then sancak beyi (district governor) of Akkerman/Bilhorod Dnistrov’skij/Cetatea Albǎ, received permission from the sultan to launch a campaign. To summon a larger army, he proclaimed in Rumeli and Anatolia, “I am going out on a great campaign [gaza]—whoever has courage should come with me, and Allah willing, I will satisfy them all.” According to Oruç, this call was answered by beys’ servants, bold voyvodas and toviças and experienced, brave gazis, the soldiers who joined from Anatolia and Rumeli and from among the household troops of the beys (kapu halkı) being so numerous that they could not be counted. The leaders were mainly from the most illustrious Rumelian uç beyleri dynasties of the Malkoçoğulları, Yahya Paşaoğulları, Karlıoğulları, and Mihaloğulları, but also from among the lesser known raider commanders in the Balkan provinces and their voyvodas,81 who allegedly led 30,000–40,000 men across the Danube into Moldavia.82 Oruç attributes to Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey a speech that corresponds to the ideology of the late fifteenth century, according to which the raids are presented as an Islamic religious war: “You champions and fighters, you gazis and heroes, know and remember: I have consecrated myself to the fight of faith with the intension to wage gaza and fight with the enemy, and I will certainly not die until I have fought with the foe […] If Allah Most High grants us success and we have fought with the enemy—so much the better! And if there is no enemy to be found, then may you, if Allah the Almighty allows, enrich yourselves with booty and captives!”83 Enthusiastically invoking Allah, the looters then went as far as Kamienec/Kam’yanets’-Podil’s’kyi. Divided into smaller regiments of 1,000 soldiers, each under the leadership of its own commander, the raiders laid waste to the region, burning and devastating cities, villages, gardens and orchards on their way.84 Oruç emphasizes that the region had never experienced such incursions: “This is a fertile land and resource-abundant country whose people do not know what a Turk is, they have never seen one; they have not experienced enemy trouble and do not even know what it means.” It is said that the akıncıs took immeasurable amounts of booty and more than 50,000 people into slavery, whom they drove away like herds of sheep.85 At İsakça/Isaccea on the Danube, the pençik was collected, then the men who had become rich returned to their quarters. The manhunt in weakly defended southeastern Poland was celebrated as a “campaign of satiety,” for the akıncıs had hardly encountered any resistance, but the loot of people and money was all the greater.86
The examples cited above are by no means exhaustive, but are representative enough in portraying the akıncı incursions, the raiders’ fast and destructive actions, and the abundance of the spoils, particularly the human booty that was acquired and carried back to the Ottoman territories. It is worth referring, however, to another Ottoman source, namely the gazavatname of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey—the only epic poem celebrating the holy wars of a Balkan frontier lord that is hitherto known to have been preserved, albeit not in its entirety. Authored by the very scribe (katib) of Ali Bey—Mehmed b. Mahmud b. Abdullah from Prizren, under the pen-name Suzi (d. 1524)87 —this source is of particular value, since it offers a glimpse from directly within the akıncı milieu as experienced by an inside observer and as intended for the very same audience. In the preserved parts of Ali Bey’s heroic epic, Suzi Çelebi details several of his first major incursions across the Danube that occurred in the course of the years 1459–1460 and which earned him his reputation as a courageous and skillful leader in his own right and elevated him to the rank of a sancak beyi at the frontier. Suzi Çelebi presents these events as an initiation process in which the experienced uç beyi and district governor of Vidin at that time Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey took Ali Bey under his wing and assigned him to a military raid into Transylvania while he himself was leading the larger incursions into Hungarian lands.88 The task of the joint enterprise, as explained by İsa Bey, was to stand up to the enemy’s attacks, spill their blood, loot their property and enslave their dependents.89 Ali Bey assembled his private troops (has erenler), with whom he crossed the Danube on boats and ships (zevrak ü keşti); they camped for a short while until they acquired reliable information from the captured “tongues” as to the exact situation of the target area. Swelling like a “fast-flowing torrent,” his warriors then spread out like “a bright light” throughout the lands of Erdel (Transylvania). They raided everywhere, leaving no city, village, or castle unravaged. The akıncıs of Ali Bey also attacked a large Christian gathering of people dressed in fine clothing, drinking wine and conversing while holding a feast to celebrate their holyday. Many of the assembled were slaughtered, many were taken alive and chained, and lots of their leaders were also enslaved with chains around their necks. Thousands of “rosy-cheeked,” “white-skinned,” “idol-like beauties” were also captured. The raiders plundered the enemies’ houses too, taking all their valuables as booty: gold, silver, pearls, rubies, corals, embroidered dresses, and robes with gold brocade.90 Crowned with their accomplishments, the warriors retreated to their quarters only to prepare for their next operation shortly afterwards. They hit again and plundered a country full of castles and villages with rich and beautiful houses. Its people were dispersed all around—some were working on their vineyards and gardens, not knowing that their labor would be in vain; some were selling cloth, not knowing that soldiers would loot; some had gathered to feast, not knowing that their houses would be destroyed; beautiful women were roaming around not suspecting that the soldiers were coming to hunt them like hawks. The raiders spread all over the country, attacking with lightning speed and looting. Failing to specify the other human booty that was taken away, Suzi emphasizes once again—in great admiration of their beauty and physical qualities—that thousands of women were carried away in chains. The raiders looted the houses too, finding and unearthing the hidden treasures, taking pearls, rubies and corals.91 Withdrawing to their camps after each incursion, the akıncıs continued their manhunting expeditions at dawn. Suzi also details how the people were captured during one such a raid—the raiders were skillful in throwing their lasso ropes (kemend) around the necks of the fleeing enemies fling after fling, binding them in shackles and chains. They were also experienced archers and their arrows could penetrate the foe’s armor “like water through a sieve.”92
Since Suzi’s poem was conceived as an epic celebrating the heroic deeds of a gazi warrior, the author does not concern himself with the earthly fate of the riches acquired during these holy wars. He admits, however, that the looted treasures enriched the warriors everlastingly. Most certainly, the akıncıs sold their share of the booty at the fairs and slave markets within the Ottoman territories, as witnessed by Aşıkpaşazade, or conceivably sold their captives immediately to the slave dealers, who accompanied the raiders, as Georgius de Hungaria mentions. It is nevertheless possible to apprehend from Suzi’s poem that the raiders valued their booty and sought to sell it for a good profit and were therefore not content to hand over the sultan’s share easily. The raiders’ discontent is vividly conveyed by Suzi Çelebi, who relates the following incident. One day, while constructing a pier on the Danube in preparation for the next raid across the river, Ali Bey received the news that a man by the name of Sinan Bey,93 a pençikçi responsible for the collection of the sultan’s share of the booty, had come to the akıncıs’ camp, which caused great unrest amongst the soldiers. Furious at his presence, Ali Bey attacked his lodgings, looted his possessions, including his riding equipment, and, disgracing him in this way, chased away the poor man, who, in fear for his life and deprived of all his belongings, headed to the capital with lightning speed.94 There he demanded from the sultan that justice be restored and Ali Bey be punished for his actions. Accordingly, an order was issued for Ali Bey to be made obedient and bend to the sultanic order.95 He was only able to retain his dignity and evade punishment because he made a decision to launch a daring attack on the numerically superior and well-mounted army of Ban Michael Szilágyi, Matthias Corvinus’s uncle, the former regent and a distinguished defender on the then Danubian frontier. Ali Bey dispatched his main army, headed by his brother İskender Bey and one of his most distinguished voyvodas, Kara Halil, to confront the Hungarians in open combat, while he himself lay in ambush with 1,000 of his warriors. He succeeded in defeating the regiment of Michael Szilágyi and in taking him alive, again by throwing a lasso around his neck, along with sixteen other Hungarian noble bans. A thousand more Hungarian captives were enslaved and the rest of the 20,000-strong army killed. Not only was Ali Bey forgiven his wrongdoing and disgraceful attitude toward the pençikçi, but he was graciously rewarded by Mehmed II, who bestowed upon him, besides rich presents and robes of honor, the governorship of Vidin, which elevated him to the position of a sancak beyi who could lead raids in his own right and under his own banner.96
Suzi Çelebi’s poem, which is either unfinished or only partially preserved, does not offer further details of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’s raids across the Danube.97 However, they can be successfully traced through another Ottoman source, namely the history by Kemalpaşazade, known also as İbn Kemal (d. 1534), who apparently relied heavily both on Suzi’s text and on other gazavatnames by several prominent frontier lords to write his lengthy descriptions of the Ottoman campaigns against Hungary and Venice.98 Without going into details, here it suffices to cite Kemalpaşazade’s notes as to the destruction that the akıncı raids caused and the extent of the spoils with which they were crowned. Narrating the joint expedition of Davud Paşa and Mihaloğlu Ali Bey that began in late 1468 or early 1469, İbn Kemal celebrates the riches of the booty that they carried away from Hungarian-held territories. While the akıncıs were still looting across the Danube, Hungarian forces from Szörény/Severin/Drobeta-Turnu Severin attacked Vidin. Receiving the news, the two commanders ended the raid and returned to Vidin, where they attacked the encamped Hungarians and routed their troops, killing many, enslaving those who could not flee, and enriching themselves with even more spoils.99 In 1473, a large pillaging campaign was organized under the leadership of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, who was sent by Mehmed II to plunder the Hungarian lands. Ali Bey sent his toviças to summon the akıncıs from the land of Zağra, with whom he crossed the Danube, as Oruç also mentions, at Pojejen castle (probably on the site of today’s Požeženo). From there, the akıncıs ravaged the Hungarian lands and led a surprise dawn assault on the city of Várad/Nagyvárad/Großwardein/Oradea. Kemalpaşazade testifies to the rich spoils taken on that raid too, offering an increased version of the numbers presented by Oruç, and says that the one-fifth share of the slaves alone amounted to 32,000 prisoners.100 On another joint raid in 1475, this time led by Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey and Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey, the akıncıs crossed the Danube at Semendire/Vég-Szendrő/Smederevo and ravaged the region of Srijem/ Srem/Szerémség (between the Sava and Danube rivers). They plundered the land, burning and razing to the ground towns and villages alike. They left neither women nor boys, enslaving them all. No one was interested in livestock—the raiders herded droves of prisoners instead of sheep and cows. The lord of Srem, Vuk Grgurević Branković (the then Serbian despot of Srem in Hungarian service), assembled his troops and blocked the raiders’ retreat route. After initial success, however, his troops were decisively defeated by Bali Bey, who sent to the sultan the severed heads of the enemy.101 Kemalpaşazade provides an extremely detailed account of one of the largest raiding expedition into Hungarian Transylvania in 1479, which was likewise jointly organized by Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey and Mihaloğlu Ali Bey. Passing through Wallachia, their troops reached Erdel, whence the raiders drove herds of cattle and people alike. They enslaved many thousands of women and men, young and old, and took valuable belongings and costly textiles.102 In 1481/82, the akıncıs raided Kara Boğdan (Moldavia) under the command of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey. They plundered the country and enslaved the boys and the women, returning victoriously with lots of goods and human booty.103 Even during the strategic campaign of Bayezid II in Moldavia from 1484, that aimed at capturing the cities of Kilia and Akkerman, the raiders plundered the countryside, ravaging the towns and villages and taking many of their inhabitants prisoner—women and children alike. Many of the famous frontier lords—such as Evrenosoğlu Hüseyin Bey, Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey and Mihaloğlu Ali Bey—took part in these incursions, leading their own troops in devastating different parts of Moldavia and also gathering intelligence. The human booty from this campaign, along with the prisoners from the two seized fortresses, is said to have amounted to 40,000 people.104 Devastation and plunder was brought to Hungary too in the course of subsequent raids during the 1490s, orchestrated by Mihaloğlu Ali Bey.105 In 1491 he hit Hungarian territories during the winter, which was so severe that many Ottoman soldiers died from the cold. The troops crossed the Danube at Pojejen/Požeženo castle. Despite the hard weather conditions, Ali Bey sent ahead Atluoğlu Mustafa Bey with 2,000 raiders, who left no city or fortress unravaged, taking away their women and boys in enslavement.106 The following year, Ali Bey entered Hungarian territory again, this time crossing the Danube at Semendire/Vég-Szendrő/Smederevo. Yet again, the raiders burned and pillaged the lands, taking plenty of booty. The akıncıs retreated through Wallachia, where they encountered Hungarian forces who came after them. Emerging victorious from the battle, they crossed the Danube and dispersed to their own territories.107 In 1494, Ali Bey once more led his raiders to Hungary (again crossing the Danube at Semendire), where they pillaged for one whole month. This raid was remembered as “tolaşma akını” (the roaming raid). They raided every settlement, burned many on their way and took inestimable booty.108
3.3 Assessing the Thrust of the Narrative Sources with the Help of Selected Documentary Evidence
Even on the basis of the extracts from the selected sources sketched above—which are by no means exhaustive—we are able to acquire a fairly good idea about the organization and the actions of the akıncıs.109 As becomes evident, Christian- and Muslim-authored narratives do not contradict, but rather complement each other. Moreover, when we juxtapose the information from these texts, a more vivid picture emerges of the implementation of the plundering expeditions and the raiders’ purpose and the loot they targeted.
Besides the distinctive features of the akıncı raiders and the organizational implementation of their incursions, which are described in detail with regard to the chains of command, tactical enactment, and performance during raiding expeditions, Ottoman and non-Ottoman sources alike also attest to the intended targets of the akıncı raids. All sources are unanimous concerning the akıncıs’ actions: they devastated the regions they hit, plundering the land, burning and razing to the ground many towns and villages on their way, leaving no city, village or castle unravaged; they stole everything they could get their hands on. The most valuable loot, as singled out by all narrative sources, however, was the human booty. The raiders took the dependents, wives, and children of the nobles prisoner, later holding them to ransom.110 During their plundering expeditions they enslaved people en masse, nobles and peasants alike, young and old, women and boys, and led them away shackled with chains around their necks.111
The portion of the loot that each akıncı acquired brought him a good profit and, if the campaign was successful, could enrich him for the rest of his life. The raider could sell the human booty either immediately to the slave dealers or, in the hope of securing a higher price, he could transport it to the bigger slave markets (Skopje and Edirne being the only ones singled out in our selection of narratives). The same applied for the animal loot, the goods and the other valuables. The raiders took the chained slaves to the bigger cities on their own, but had to provide for their sustenance on the way in order to ensure they arrived at the market fit for a cost-effective sale. In 1433, on his way to Filibe/Plovdiv/Philippoupolis, the Burgundian Bertrandon de la Broquière (d. 1459) came across two Turks who were heading to Edirne to sell their newly acquired captives from a recent campaign in Bosnia in which they had taken part. The captives, chained by their necks, numbered fifteen men and ten women.112
All of the examined narrative sources are also in agreement as to the abundance of the human booty acquired during the raids. Christian and Muslim narratives alike attest to the great quantities of slaves that were driven away from the target areas. After a particularly successful manhunt, the prisoners surpassed the raiders in number, flocking in front of the akıncıs’ tents, and were transported back to the Ottoman territories herded like cattle, driving down the market prices and hence reducing the raiders’ profit. The examined sources attest to the great numbers of slaves taken away during the raids, sometimes reaching as high as 25,000, 32,000 or even 50,000. These numbers, however, should be taken with a grain of salt, as they were certainly vastly exaggerated by the respective authors, either to celebrate the triumphant victory over the “infidels” or to bewail the Christian misfortunes brought about by their Muslim oppressors.113 Nevertheless, the war captives taken away by the raiders must have inflicted discernible damage on the demography of the border regions. It is yet plausible to suggest that the plundering akıncı troops carried away masses of slaves, in any case amounting to thousands.
A number of Ottoman documents from the early sixteenth century also support this suggestion. As a case in point, we will cite only two ledgers that were issued at the port city of Kili/Kiliya/Chilia on the Danube. They specify the number of the slaves and the value of the rest of the booty designated for the sultan that was assembled for a certain period of time. They also specify the names of all officials involved in the collection of the pençik: besides the main responsible pençik emini, they also identify the other pençikçis who delivered the respective parts of the taxed booty (mentioned by Tursun Bey and possibly the very same slave traders envisaged by Georgius de Hungaria), as well as the scribes and judges involved in the process.114 Without going into the details of these fascinating sources, which deserve to be examined separately, we will briefly mention the numbers they record. One of the documents, presenting the collected pençik for the period between July and December 1506, reveals that a certain Ahmed bin Kasım (doubtless the pençik başı) supplied 442 slaves in total, and unspecified goods valued at 75,910 akçe.115 If these numbers represented no less than 20% of the entire booty, which was charged with the pençik tax, this would mean that the assessed slaves and goods at that particular point in space and time amounted to 2,210 people and 379,550 akçe’s worth of valuables. The other register was issued on 15 July 1512 and listed the number of pençik slaves obtained by Cafer bin Turna Hacı from June 1511 to June 1512.116 For that period, the supply of the slaves dropped to 215 people, as the collected goods were valued at only 39,850, which would account for a total booty of 1,075 captives and 199,250 akçe’s worth of goods. Evidently this particular year was not very profitable for either the akıncıs or the treasury, but one should keep in mind that this was the exact time of the succession struggle between the Ottoman princes, who strived to succeed their father Bayezid II. It was at precisely this moment, in 1511, that the ultimate victor in this conflict—Prince Selim (the future Selim I)—was assembling the Balkan frontier lords at Akkerman/Bilhorod Dnistrov’skij/Cetatea Albǎ and Kefe/Theodosia/Caffa/Feodosia in order to march on the Ottoman capital to seize the throne.117 It is highly probable, therefore, that the plundering expeditions largely came to a standstill in that particular year. Unfortunately, we have been unable to find other pençik collection documents compiled in Kili for the subsequent years and cannot, therefore, judge to what extent the raids resumed and whether they resulted in increased flow of booty. Even from the presented examples, however, it is apparent that the yearly raids brought in a substantial number of slaves to the Ottoman state. Keeping in mind that the presented documentary data is relevant for only one particular collection point and that raids were performed simultaneously on other sections of the Muslim—Christian border, it is conceivable that the scale of the slave supply was much larger and could indeed have totaled several thousand people a year—something that is reflected, although possibly much exaggerated, in the narrative sources too. It is also conceivable that it was precisely the rich booty acquired by the raiders during the intensified plundering expeditions in the 1490s that incited the promulgation of a sultanic order in July 1493, with which Bayezid II enforced stricter regulations concerning the collection of the pençik tax.118 Besides stating the exact procedures to be followed during the collection and specifying what booty was subject to taxation, the order also stipulated that the sancak beyis and the toviças had to assist in collecting the pençik tax or face severe punishment. This specific clause of the sultanic decree alludes to the unwillingness of the raider commanders to hand over part of their booty voluntarily. The reluctance was vividly portrayed by Suzi Çelebi, who described the tensions that arose between his master, Ali Bey, and the pençik collector. Moreover, if one recalls Chalkokondyles’s insightful remarks about the actual wealth and power of the marcher lords, accumulated mainly through the acquisition of slaves captured during their plundering expeditions, it is not surprising that the sultanic administration faced difficulties in appropriating its share of the loot and especially the human booty.
Slaves were certainly instrumental in sustaining the power of the frontier lords. Non-elite captive slaves were used to populate and revive previously desolate settlements within their landed estates (in the form of pious endowments, vakıf), much like those of the Ottoman sultans too.119 Whole villages emerged as a result of deportations of slaves from the target areas of the plundering expeditions to the estates of the marcher lords from the Evrenosoğlu, Mihaloğlu, Turahanoğlu, Timurtaşoğlu, İshakoğlu and Minnetoğlu families, to name but a few.120 Entire families of captives were settled within the domains of these frontier lords, cultivating their land and paying their taxes to their landlords, hence increasing the incomes derived from the lordships thus formed and essentially contributing to the sustenance of the regional authority of these landed magnates and to the growth of their wealth. More importantly, however, the slaves—as in the case of the sultanic household—formed the backbone of the marcher lords’ extended households too. Initially acquired during the raids, they were further trained and educated by the raider commanders to acculturate to the new milieu and to become loyal servitors of their new masters. Thereafter, some of them acquired administrative and bureaucratic positions in the domains of the uç beyis (the scribe Suzi Çelebi being one illustrative example), but others staffed the frontier lords’ own standing armies of elite and obedient slaves, on whom the akıncı leaders could count to perform successful raids in Christian territories, but also to interfere in the Ottoman succession struggles and enthrone the pretender of their own choice.121
The marcher lords could certainly also count on the support of the toviças and the rank and file raiders, whose livelihood and prosperity depended on the raids organized under their lead. Regarding the toviças, their association with a particular uç beyi is occasionally recorded in the Ottoman taxation records. Such was the case, for instance, for the community (cema‘at) of Hasan toviça, who was a dependent (mensub) of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey.122 Possibly, each raider commander had his own dependent akıncıs, recruited for his expeditions from a specific territory, in addition to those that joined the larger incursions for which a general call was widely announced. A noteworthy remark in this respect is made by Kemalpaşazade, who stated that before Mihaloğlu Ali Bey made his 1473 raid against Hungary, he summoned the akıncıs from the land of Zağra. This information is corroborated by the only known akıncı register from the fifteenth century, which was compiled with the sole purpose of recruiting raiders for Mehmed II’s large campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 and which was certainly known by Angiolello.123 What is interesting to note here is that the recorded akıncıs had to participate in the sultanic campaign under the leadership of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, as specified in the defter itself. The other significant particular is that the territory the conscripts were drawn from could essentially be labeled the region of Zağra. The akıncıs were thus recorded in the Ottoman districts of Zağra Yenicesi/Nova Zagora, Akça Kazanlık/Kazanlǎk, Eski Hisar/Stara Zagora, Filibe/Plovdiv, Hasköy/Haskovo, and Çirmen/Ormenion, encompassing a large part of the Thracian plain that presently lies within the borders of modern Bulgaria. The fact that the raiders under the command of Ali Bey took part in the Anatolian campaign of 1473 and Kemalpaşazade’s mentioning that he summoned his raiders from the same area to attack Hungary immediately after the defeat of Uzun Hasan earlier that year invite the inference that the frontier lords were associated with a particular group of raiders—akıncıs from a particular region.
The close link between the frontier lords and their plundering retinue is also evident from another detail, provided by Oruç Bey in regard to the same Hungarian campaign of Ali Bey. Besides the Rumelian toviças and akıncıs, Oruç added that Ali Bey summoned an additional 3,000 Christians from Braničevo district, with whom he crossed the Danube. As a matter of fact, Ottoman fiscal registers from the second half of the fifteenth century attest that Mihaloğlu Ali Bey was closely associated with the Braničevo region and its inhabitants.124 In 1467/68 he supervised the compilation of the district’s detailed survey (mufassal tahrir defteri), while he was a governor-general (mir-i liva) of the sancak of Vidin, to which Braničevo was administratively attached at the time.125 Besides the sultanic hasses and the timars, the register listed the revenue-raising lands of Ali Bey in his capacity of sancak beyi (i.e. hasses), as well as his own farm (çiftlik). Interestingly, the population that lived in both of his revenue-raising estates consisted exclusively of regular tax-paying Christians and militarized Christian groups of Vlachs and voynuks.126 It is also noteworthy that some of the latter were newly settled in depopulated areas, especially on the territory of Ali Bey’s çiftlik, in which six out of the ten villages were virtually inhabited anew by Vlach soldiers.127 As becomes apparent from the next census of the region from only ten years later, a number of voynuks were assigned to personally serve the sancak beyi Ali Bey,128 while the voynuks in the locality of Izvižd were all transported and settled there by him to avoid enemy attacks in their previous lands.129 It is hence natural to conceive that these Christian soldiers took part in Ali Bey’s plundering incursions across the Danube and were the ones envisaged by Oruç. Plausibly, Konstantin Mihailović’s note that the raiders were sending substitutes to march on a campaign and that they were predominantly herdsmen might also be related to the origins and the organization of these Christian troops. Both the Vlachs and the voynuks were horse breeders and only one in a group of three to five people went to war, while the others provisioned him and remained on their small tax-exempted farmsteads.130 Both the voynuks and the Vlachs were active soldiers who participated in the Ottoman military expeditions and, being concentrated in the border regions, certainly joined the akıncı raids as well.131 This was even stipulated in the legislation from the same time period concerning the Vlachs in active military service. It is precisely with reference to the Vlachs of the Semendire/Vég-Szendrő/Smederevo region that the regulations from 1477 specified that each of their households had to provide one soldier to take part in the organized raids (akın).132 Similarly, the voynuks also participated in the raids across the border. As late as 1545, the mounted and well-armed voynuks from the Ottoman border district of Požega had to participate in military campaigns under the leadership of their sancak beyis and voyvodas, to catch “tongues” and obtain the necessary intelligence information, to perform other services and to fight heroically.133
It would appear, then, that the akıncıs proper were not the only raiders who took part in the plundering expeditions. There were other militarized groups among the ranks of the plunderers, including the Christian Vlachs and voynuks, who served under the direct command of the frontier lords at the time of the raids. As a matter of fact, the regions from which the akıncıs were recruited were also territories with a large concentration of the voynuk population.134 Hence it should not come as a surprise that the imperial order at the beginning of the afore-mentioned akıncı register of 1472 specified that conscription of raiders was to prioritize Christians; it was only if suitable Christian candidates could not be found that Muslim akıncıs were to be registered.135 Although in this particular case not one single Christian features among the registered active raiders, the stipulation that non-Muslims should be included in their ranks is an eloquent testimony to the fact that the plunderers were not an ethnically and religiously homogeneous group. Indeed, if we take as an example the territorial spread of the raiders as presented by the akıncı register of 1472, it is apparent that these were lands densely inhabited by voynuks, yürüks, Tatars, and mendicant dervishes, who would have also joined the raids by the frontier lords.136 Although not explicitly mentioned in the narrative sources in regard to the plundering expeditions, all these groups should be counted among the ranks of the raiders.
Finally, one further point of which the narrative sources make specific mention when speaking of the akıncıs must be addressed. As explicitly indicated by Dukas and İdris Bitlisi, they attracted followers not only from specific parts of the Balkans, but from as far as Anatolia too. Yet again, the veracity of these statements is corroborated by the available contemporary documentary evidence. In the fifteenth-century akıncı register, references abound to the places of origin of the people who had to provide for the sustenance of the chosen raiders and to the Anatolian origin of a number of settlements in the region from which they were recruited. Hence one finds names of both people and settlements, indicating that the settlers, and thus prospective akıncı recruits, came from several Anatolian beyliks: Aydın, Saruhan, Hamid, Menteşe, Karaman, and Danişmend.137 These references indicate that warriors from Anatolia, driven by the prospect of partaking in the profit-yielding plundering expeditions in the Balkans, had already settled in akıncı-dominated areas in the European provinces of the Ottoman state. It is conceivable that this process was still underway and that many soldiers were still joining the expeditions from their original places of residence in Anatolia. It is not unthinkable, for instance, that members of other militarized groups, such as the yaya (footmen) or müsellem (cavalrymen) troops in Anatolia, also participated in the akıncı raids in Europe. Indeed, in 1466/67 two yaya regiments in the region of Harmankaya in Ottoman Bithynia were under the direct leadership of two members of the Mihaloğlu family—Mihaloğlu Ali Bey and his cousin Bali Bey of İhtiman.138 As was the case with the akıncıs and the voynuks under their command, the Bithynian footmen must have also participated actively in their raids across the Danube—something that is also implied by Dukas’s comment that many akıncıs march to the rallying points on the river on foot from as far as Anatolia.
As becomes clear from the examples above, the akıncıs could and should be examined through the contemporary narrative sources. Not only were both Muslim and Christian authors well acquainted with these particular Ottoman raiding troops, but they also present a far richer portrayal of their peculiarities, the specific ways of warfare and the tactics they employed while waging expeditions, and above all the purpose and target of these plundering incursions than could possibly be gleaned from examining Ottoman administrative documents alone. Moreover, the information provided by the narrative sources appears highly reliable, especially when it is juxtaposed with the available contemporaneous documentary evidence. It also suggest new directions for research and possible connections with other militarized groups who were part of the phenomenon that otherwise cannot be apprehended if research remains confined within the structural constraints of the study of the akıncıs proper. In addition, as we have attempted to show above, transcending disciplinary and linguistic boundaries is essential in studying the akıncı phenomenon and opens up new vistas for further research that would ultimately highlight the nature of the Ottoman conquest and the role of the slave economy in the process. In order to underline this particular link, in the following section we will divert the focus from the organizational peculiarities of the akıncıs and provide a closer examination of their military incursions from the perspective of the affected regions in a more consistent and chronological order.
4 Akıncıs in Action: Case Studies from Inner Austria, Friuli, Croatia, and Transylvania
As outlined above, the Ottoman narrative sources abound in details about the raids into neighboring Christian territories and allow for a detailed reconstruction of their actual implementation. However, they largely ignore the viewpoint of the victims of these plundering incursions. How the affected regions experienced the raids emerges from a wealth of sources which are examined in more detail below. In what follows, we will deal more closely with the perception of the raiders as recorded by their victims. Moreover, the specific political constellations in the affected regions that largely made the raiders’ successes possible will also be taken into account. Lastly, emphasis will be placed on the particular precautions and military-organisational measures that were undertaken in the areas attacked by the raiders in an attempt to defend these territories.
Due to the general sparsity of the source material originating from the target areas that characterizes most parts of the late medieval Balkans, however, those who wish to study the perspective of the regions affected by the raiders need to look more closely at the extreme northwestern periphery of their activity, for which more administrative texts and contemporary chronicles have survived. This area, stretching from the Kingdom of Croatia, through the Habsburg lands of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, to Habsburg and Venetian Istria and to Friuli, which had been Venetian since 1420, was characterized by extreme fragmentation of political rule and competition between Hungary, Venice and the Habsburgs, who struggled for influence in the northern Adriatic and the extreme southeast of the Alpine region.139
The heavy incursions by the akıncıs into these poorly defended regions began after the conquest of Bosnia in 1463. The Ottoman part of Bosnia and the adjacent parts of the former Serbian Despotate, which was organized into the sancaks of Hersek (Hercegovina), Bosna (Bosnia), Semendire (Smederevo) and İzvornik (Zvornik), protruded far into the politically fragmented Christian territory, and from Bosnia the akıncıs could strike southern Hungary, Croatia, Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, northern and central Dalmatia or even Friuli in a short time and quickly withdraw after successfully plundering.140 The Christian states and dominions, hardly coordinated among themselves, were located on an extensive border, while the akıncıs had the advantage of the inner line. The raids were aimed at different enemies. On the one hand, the akıncıs were to strike Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, Istria and Friuli from Bosnia. These attacks took place in the context of the Venetian—Ottoman war, which had been waged since 1463. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, was not officially at war with Emperor Frederick III (r. 1452–1493), while a constant conflict smoldered between Hungary and the sultan, manifested in reciprocal raids. Although the Zagreb region had already been hit by Ottoman raids in 1414, a series of heavy incursions into Carniola began in 1469, soon affecting the entire region between Trieste and the Kingdom of Croatia. Conditions were conducive to akıncı missions, as Emperor Frederick III was in serious conflict with the regional nobility of his southeastern lands (Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola). Although he had made peace with the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490) in 1463, Frederick stood by his claims to the Hungarian crown. The distrust between Hungary and the House of Austria therefore remained deep, and a joint war against the Ottomans, as had been envisaged in 1463, remained out of reach. From 1467 on, the emperor faced a noble opposition that had seized Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. In 1468 he traveled to Rome, and his absence, combined with the support of the Hungarian king, saw the rise of Andreas Baumkircher, whom the emperor was not able to eliminate until April 1471; a follower of Baumkircher, however, continued the feud in southern Styria—that is, in an area prone to raids by the akıncıs. Venice did try to unite the regional powers against the raids in 1468/69, but without success. While Emperor Frederick III possessed little military power, the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus slowly extended his sphere of influence southward to the Neretva river in Herzegovina between 1458 and the early 1480s; he thus also came into competition with Venice, which dominated the Dalmatian coast. In 1469, the Hungarian king seized Zengg/Senj/Segna, one of the most important northern Adriatic ports, angering Emperor Frederick III, who was on good terms with the local counts of the Frankopan family, as well as Venice, which had always been Hungary’s main rival on the Adriatic and which had taken the Frankopans under its protection in 1465 to prevent its castle at Modruš being used by the Ottoman raiders as a rallying point for their campaigns.141
Citation: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 65, 4 (2022) ; 10.1163/15685209-12341575
Citation: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 65, 4 (2022) ; 10.1163/15685209-12341575
Citation: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 65, 4 (2022) ; 10.1163/15685209-12341575
When the akıncıs invaded Carniola in May 1469, they encountered a region in which the emperor had strained relations with his neighbors and was embroiled in a bitter petty war with this noble opposition, a war in which Bohemian mercenaries also participated as an additional destabilizing factor.142 The Ottomans will have been informed about this through spies, as demonstrated for later cases. Conditions for successful raids against divided and disorganized opponents were almost ideal, then. Jakob Unrest, who describes the incursion, confirms many observations contained in the narrative sources evaluated above. The akıncıs advanced against Möttling/Metlika, where they established their assembly point and then split into two groups. According to Unrest’s account, they proceeded with extreme brutality, killing men who resisted, but also the elderly and some children, and abducting whomever they could. Churches were burned down after the altars had been desecrated, and numerous women were raped. The akıncıs stayed in Carniola for only a fortnight and are said to have driven 20,000 slaves back to Bosnia, according to Unrest. The Carinthian militia arrived in Carniola too late, but tried to pursue the akıncıs. Indeed, they reached the departing raiders at the Kupa river, which was in flood. The akıncıs massacred about 1,000 prisoners whom they could not get across the river in time.143 A Milanese diplomatic report provides further valuable details:144 the starting point of the raid was the Croatian fortress of Modruš, later also a popular rallying point for the akıncıs operating from Bosnia.145 Particularly valuable information is provided on the composition of the looters: 14,000 “Turchi” (i.e. Muslim akıncıs), 200 Balkan Roma and “other Bosnians.” This confirms the conjecture voiced by quite a few researchers who suggested that there was a connection between the akıncıs and Orthodox Balkan Christians, primarily Vlachs. The “other Bosnians” were most likely Vlachs who had been active as slave hunters for decades—first selling their wares in Dubrovnik, but now joining forces with the Muslim slave hunters of the akıncıs. The fact that Balkan Roma were involved rounds out the picture of a regional raiding party that was confessionally and ethnically mixed and corresponds to Heath Lowry’s “looting amoeba.”146 From another report we learn that besides “Turks,” Germans, Hungarians and Slavs are also said to have participated in the raid; the Frankopans, counts of Zengg, are explicitly accused of complicity with the akıncıs.147 A third report speaks generally of “peasants” who participated in the raid.148 The ruthless murder of non-marching prisoners is confirmed by Italian reports.149
The reports describe further features of a typical raid: the commander was a prominent uç beyi, in this instance İshakoğlu İsa Bey (Exibeg). One aspect in his favor was the fact that the most important regional Croatian noble family, the counts of Zengg/Senj/Segna, cleared the way for him and even gave him gifts; moreover, when the akıncıs appeared, the Kupa was at low water, which also facilitated the advance of the raiders, estimated to have numbered 10,000 men. The plundering hordes reached the Laibach/Ljubljana region at great speed, advanced into the Karst/Kras/Carso (as far as Kästenholz/Kostanjevica na Krasu) and came within about 40 km of Trieste, which fell within the jurisdiction of the emperor. The county of Görz/Gorizia/Gorica, which belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, was hit particularly hard. In the heartland of Carniola, they even tried to storm the fortified town of Laibach, whose defenders repelled three vigorous attacks. The akıncıs turned away there, having overstretched their lines. An Italian report emphasizes that the booty of men and cattle was so great that the akıncıs were severely restricted on the march.150 The population had fled in panic to the mountains or castles. Allegedly 30,000 people were displaced, along with much livestock, and the entire country was set on fire.
The raid, which was disastrous for Carniola, was organized and executed according to the principles described above: a multiethnic, multiconfessional raiding party with a regional base (in Bosnia) under the command of a marcher lord, with a rallying point (Modruš) and a base for operations in enemy territory (Möttling), carried out a massive raid within a few days and massacred those prisoners who might have been liberated by approaching regional militias. It was also typical that the akıncıs struck a second time in Carniola in 1469, in the Gurkfeld/Krško region.151 At least as important for the success of the raid, however, was the constellation of factors on the opposite side: surprise, helplessness, defensive measures that were too slow, and mutual suspicions stand out here. In Venice, people wondered whether Matthias Corvinus, who supported the opposition under Baumkircher against the powerless emperor, was in league with the akıncıs. Finally, the ambiguity concerning the number of victims was typical—the Milanese diplomats tried to compare reports that sometimes spoke of 15,000, sometimes 6,000 to 8,000 enslaved people.152 In the fall of 1470, the akıncıs broke into central Dalmatia (Zadar/Zara, Nin/Nona, and Vrana/Laurana) and, according to Venetian reports, abducted some 7,000 people.153 In the following years, the region from the southeastern slopes of the Alps to the Adriatic was hit almost annually (and often several times a year) by devastating raids by the akıncıs.
In 1471, the emperor had convoked an imperial diet at Regensburg to prepare a major campaign against the Ottomans.154 In June of the same year, according to Unrest, the raiders marched along the valleys of Kanker/Kokra and Sann/Savinja into the region of Cilli/Celje and carried off about 30,000 people. Again, the Carinthian militia, which had been alerted by the Carniolans, arrived too late, as the akıncıs were already on the march back to Bosnia. In the summer of 1471, the akıncıs devastated the region of Agram/Zagreb in a second campaign. A third attack hit Carinthia, which was completely unprepared, on September 25, again via the valley of the Kanker/Kokra. Overcoming local resistance, for example in Eisenkappel, the akıncıs then broke into Lower Carinthia, where they surprised and captured numerous people at markets; many people fell into slavery while working in the fields. The akıncıs gathered the prisoners in predetermined places: these prison camps in a field, lit at night by large fires, were operational for a week. During this week, the akıncıs devastated large swaths of Carinthia. “They killed the people and captured them; they burned down the churches. They desecrated hosts, destroyed the holy images, and captured and killed many priests. Many children were found alive or dead on the roads.” About 8,000 slaves were driven from Carinthia in the direction of Cilli and from there on to Bosnia.155 Two monasteries, 24 churches and about 200 villages were devastated in this raid. The Carinthian defense had failed, and the diet in Regensburg reacted much too late.156 In the same year, Dalmatia was again the target of a destructive raid. A contemporary report states that “a mighty force of the Turkish dog and many other renegades” swarmed from the sea to the mountains; oxen, cows, sheep and pigs were driven away; many men, women and children were captured, many wounded or killed. The peasants were robbed of tools and farming implements. The survivors were afraid to return to their homes; the fields and especially the vineyards remained uncultivated.157 For the first time, in November 1471, Friuli was also hit; numerous inhabitants fled as far as Venice and crowded into the arcades of the Doge’s Palace. The Venetian Senate hastily provided food and shelter for the refugees.158
In September 1472, 6,000 akıncıs under an unidentified Albanian and a certain Hasan Bey (perhaps an Evrenosoğlu) invaded Carniola again and advanced for the first time in Friuli as far as the Isonzo, plundering the region between Cividale and Udine. In the Cividale region, the looters advanced as far as mountain villages. The historian Marc’Antonio Sabellico (d. 1506) vividly describes the panic of the people, many of whom fled to the fortified Udine; women escaped with their children to churches; rising smoke indicated where villages were on fire. The Venetian troops had avoided direct confrontation and retreated to fixed positions; fearing being cut off, the plunderers did not venture too far west. Their booty was correspondingly modest—600 slaves; but, as in Inner Austria in 1469, it was a deep shock to a population taken completely by surprise. In the Venetian lands, as in Carniola and Carinthia, national defense had failed. In 1473, Carinthia and Friuli were hit again.159 In 1474, when Ottoman troops besieged the Venetian fortress of Shkodra/Scutari in northern Albania, the akıncıs attacked with force in the north: in June the raiders hit Venetian territory in Italy, reaching the environs of Monfalcone.160 In July 1474, first Carniola and then Lower Styria were the targets of a raid. Unrest reports that the looters were led by a traitor named Zwitar; in only fourteen days, 14,000 people fell victim to the looters in Croatian Zagorje. In the fall, 16,000 looters invaded Zagorje again, devastating the Sava valley and the Möttling region, and abducting 3,000 people.161 Between 1475 and 1480, the raids then reached their destructive climax: on August 24, 1475, the akıncıs defeated a contingent of Carinthians, Carniolans, and Styrians under the command of Sigmund von Polheim in an open field battle at Kaisersberg/Cesargrad; while surviving nobles were carried off as hostages, the akıncıs cut down all the foot soldiers. The debacle was caused by the separate operation of foot soldiers and horsemen on the Inner Austrian side, but also by the distraction of the defense by the feud with a regional nobleman who had allied himself with Hungary against the emperor.162
In 1477, the Venetian field army suffered a similar disaster: in November of that year, the army commanded by Girolamo Novello and Giacomo Badoer had allowed itself to be lured out of its fortified positions by the raiders under the command of Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey; they fell victim to a classic trap, the feigned retreat. They were crushed, and the Venetian commanders were killed. In just thirteen days, the akıncıs then plundered Friuli to the river Tagliamento and wreaked havoc on this fertile and wealthy region.163 The akıncıs had proven that they were now no longer evading regional armies, but sought to destroy them before they began the actual raid. This signaled a change, then, in military strategy. Between the two battles, the raiders had undertaken objectives in Carniola, Lower Styria, and Carinthia in June, July, August and October of 1476.164 The attacks, which in 1477 hit not only Friuli but also, in July, Carniola, where the akıncıs plundered for a month, were facilitated by the resumption of war between the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus and Emperor Frederick III. In Inner Austria, the disaster reached its peak between 1478 and 1479: on July 25, 1478, the akıncıs under the command of the leading uç beyis Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey and İskender, sancak beyi of Bosnia, annihilated a small army of Carinthian peasants. The akıncıs had gathered in Bosnia and had broken into Friuli at great speed, but there the flooded Isonzo halted their advance. On April 4, the raiders, reportedly about 30,000 men, divided into two detachments, one attacking Monfalcone, the other Trieste. In Istria, however, the grass was still low, making it difficult to feed the horses and thereby reducing their range, and the floods also proved an obstacle to the raiders. In addition, there was resistance from locals; nine Franciscan friars allegedly killed 100 Ottomans before they themselves all fell in battle.165 The akıncıs soon found that the Venetian troops were avoiding a field battle. The looters set up a collection camp on the plain, which became a place of remembrance for the population as the “Turks’ Camp” (Ciamp dai Turcs). With the population entrenched in fortified positions, the raiders gave up and moved across the Predil Pass to Villach, pulling their horses with ropes over the rocky paths—the Carinthians had taken refuge behind the mountains and were taken completely by surprise. Italian sources report the enormous booty that the looters made in the space of a few days.166
On August 13, 1479, some 30,000 akıncıs invaded Croatian Zagorje and advanced into Styria, which was devastated between the Mur and Drau/Drava rivers. Since the empire did not send help, the akıncıs returned in the fall and plundered again in Styria. The disaster came after Venice made peace with the Ottomans in 1479. In August 1480, the akıncıs broke into Carinthia, moved on to Styria, set up a collection camp near Judenburg, and from there continued to advance west, north, and northeast. In the north they reached Rottenmann; up the wide Mur Valley they moved to Bruck, where another collection camp for slaves was established. Then they marched southward down the Mur Valley toward the Styrian capital of Graz, whose surrounding countryside was devastated. From there, having devastated almost all of Styria in three divisions, the raiders marched southeast toward Croatia. The akıncıs had proceeded with the utmost brutality, their preferred targets being churches and clergy, as in previous years: priests were drowned or burned, and some 500 clergy were reportedly killed or enslaved; masses had to be held on mobile altars, as the church infrastructure had been shaken. The book of the Brotherhood of Mary’s Sacrifice in the Temple reports the invasion of the parish of St. Marein near Seckau by looters on August 7, 1480: “the evil, cursed, infidel people, the Turks (came) to the church of Seckau. And they devastated everything here far and wide with about 16,000 men and burned most of the houses. Most of the people, men, women and children were carried off, many were slain when they left.”167 After the akıncıs departed, the plague broke out in the devastated country. The locals found that there was no protection even in the high mountains, the raiders burning down about a dozen mountain farms. As in previous years, the akıncıs simply killed prisoners who were not fit to march. Demographic historians estimate that Styria lost about a third of its population between 1469 and 1480 due to Ottoman invasions, epidemics, and locusts that devastated the region in 1477 and 1478.168
While 1480 was a year that brought havoc to Inner Austria, at the other end of the world in which the akıncıs were active, a Christian army managed to crush the marauders: in Transylvania, which, as shown by the example of Georgius de Hungaria, had been ravaged by the akıncıs for decades, an important victory was achieved by Pál Kinizsi, since 1479 captain of the Lower Parts with a base in Temesvár/Temeschwar/Timişoara, and István Bátori, the voivode of Transylvania, together with the Serbian prince in exile Vuk Grgurević Branković and the Wallachian prince Basarab Laiotǎ. At Kenyérmező/Brodfeld/Câmpul Pâinii on October 13, 1479, they defeated a large army of akıncıs under the command of several prominent uç beyis, namely Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey and Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, who were accompanied by vassal troops from Wallachia; the latter were cut down to the last man by the victorious Hungarians. Again, Orthodox Christians had participated in an akıncı raid but, unlike in Bosnia, not as part of a poorly defined marauding amoeba, but as an official contingent of an Ottoman vassal principality. The invasion had followed the classic pattern: the akıncıs divided into several groups and began pillaging the villages, with the detachments striking out from the rallying point in staggered fashion over three days. However, many people had already fled to Transylvanian voivode István Bátori, who systematically had the roads blocked with felled trees. Hungarian and Serbian troops, alerted by Bátori, appeared as early as the fourth day of the Ottoman invasion. An anonymous Transylvanian Saxon witness tells a story illustrating the relationship between Ottoman and Hungarian marcher lords: an akıncı rode up to the Hungarian army and spat in the face of Pál Kinizsi, then taunted the second Hungarian commander István Bátori, and finally the Serbian despot Vuk Grgurević Branković and the troops of the Hungarian king. A Hungarian knight (referred to in the source as “crist” (Christian) as opposed to a “Türrgken” (Turk) accepted the challenge, but the raiders cut his lance in two; the Hungarian knight, however, defeated the akıncı, cutting off his head. A spirit of heroic masculinity prevailed on the border, as expressed in legends that soon surrounded Kinizsi and began with heroic songs as early as the post-battle celebration. The challenge to fight and duel in the face of armies forms an important part of this contested border region.169 Again, the akıncıs had provoked an open field battle; again, as before in Friuli, they had tried to feign flight. Unlike the Italian mercenaries of Venice, the Hungarian marcher lords knew the Ottoman way of fighting and were not fooled.170 Kemalpaşazade relates that the contingent of Pál Kinizsi/Knez Pavli engaged in battle with that of Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, István Bátori/Bedroş Ban fought against Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey, while Basarab Laiotǎ/ Basaraba’s forces engaged with Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey. The Transylvanian forces killed İsa Bey, wreaking havoc among his troops, who fled the battlefield. Outnumbered by the joint Christian army, the akıncıs retreated, but large parts of their contingents (one- or two-thousand men) were killed or enslaved.171
The raids, however, did not cease; on the contrary, in the course of 1479 and 1480 the former Rumelian beylerbeyi and newly appointed sancak beyi of Bosnia Davud Pasha used Sarajevo as an akıncı outpost and launched multiple raids to the north of the Drau.172 The looters devastated the area between the Drau and Mur rivers, laid waste to the countryside, trampled the crops, burned houses, killed animals and took numerous slaves.173 A wooden fort near Nedelišće was also taken by an assault, albeit with numerous casualties for the invaders, as the akıncıs killed its imprisoned inhabitants, and finally burned it. From there, they continued raiding in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, capturing many more people, whom they sold in Bosnia.174 Another raid followed shortly after, targeting the lands of Emperor Frederick III. Gathering a large akıncı force from as far as Thessaly and Thrace near Sarajevo, Davud Pasha led the raid, crossing the Drau and following the course of the Mur. Yet again, the akıncıs met no resistance, except for a small contingent that was slaughtered in a mountain pass by Davud Pasha’s son Süleyman Bey. Yet again, the raiders devastated the region and returned to Bosnia loaded with much plunder and slaves.175 Immediately after his return, Davud Pasha dispatched a looting contingent of 500–600 under the leadership of one of his own men, Yunus Voyvoda, and a mighty hero named Gürz İlyas to again launch raids towards Croatia. This time, however, the looters were confronted by a Hungarian force of 3,000 soldiers, who attacked the akıncıs in their camp at night. Receiving the news of the attack, Gürz İlyas, then already heading to Bosnian territory to deliver the captured slaves, turned back and gathered the retreating akıncıs to fight with the enemy forces. They cut the path of the Hungarians and after laying an ambush, succeeded in defeating them, killing many and imprisoning others.176 It must be as a result of these intensified incursions that King Matthias Corvinus took the initiative himself: in November 1480, an army of Hungarians and Serbs under Pál Kinizsi attacked the Morava Valley, challenged Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey to a battle, defeated him, and then advanced as far as Kruševac/Alacahisar, while a second army, personally commanded by the king, but joined by many distinguished commanders such as Vuk Grgurević Branković and the bans of Jajce, Blagaj, and Zrin,177 set its sights on Sarajevo, the military center of the slave hunters, which the Hungarians were smoking out.178 Davud Pasha escaped the city and rode to safety in the mountains, while the Hungarians looted Sarajevo for three days before burning it down. Meanwhile, the pasha succeeded in summoning an army and confronted the retreating Hungarians, cutting off their return route at a mountain pass. After a fierce battle, the akıncıs managed to retrieve the loot from Sarajevo.179
In contrast to the Austrians and Venetians, the Hungarians were not only more familiar with the akıncıs’ way of combat, but a century of defensive fighting had also created a frontier society that was a match for the akıncıs. Marcher lords had their own retinues, light cavalry, border castles, but also their own mentality of fighting the looters. This included attacking the bases of the uç beyis themselves. The Kingdom of Hungary also attempted to reorganize its border defenses centered on the new captaincy of Lower Hungary in Temesvár (1479), which later comprised eleven counties. The banships of Dalmatia-Croatia and Slavonia had been merged in 1476; the third pillar of border defense existed in the east in the office of the voivode of Transylvania. The commanders of these military districts worked together closely and were able to provide each other with rapid assistance, as evidenced by the battle of 1479.180 The Hungarian marcher society was also multi-ethnic, as in addition to Hungarians, Saxons and Romanians, numerous Serbian nobles who had fled to Hungary also fought. Without strong leadership, however, the Hungarian marcher lords were unable to inflict lasting damage on the akıncı infrastructure, and King Matthias Corvinus soon returned to his plans for conquest in the west and confined himself to a defensive policy on his southern border. When Mehmed II died in 1481, the Hungarian marcher lords and their allies, such as Stephen the Great of Moldavia, attacked on all fronts (Wallachia, Serbia, Herzegovina). They devastated especially the Morava Valley, the area of akıncı deployment in the southern Pannonian Plain, and forced about 1,000 Muslims and 50,000 others to migrate to southern Hungary, which had been depopulated by the raiders. However, by 1482, the akıncıs were again able to launch attacks on the kingdom.181
At the other end of the akıncıs’ operation zone, it was only after the death of Mehmed II that the pressure on Inner Austria eased somewhat. In 1482, at the river Una, an army of Carniolans, Croats and Serbs defeated the raiders, who were retreating to the southeast with their booty. However, the small-scale war did not stop. What is often overlooked in connection with the akıncıs is the fact that in 1480 they devastated not only Styria but also southeastern Apulia: the conquest of Otranto (July 1480) created an akıncı base on the Apennine peninsula for a few months. It is particularly noteworthy that the raids in Apulia were carried out not only on land, but also by corsairs at sea, operating as far north as the Gargano. İbn Kemal compared the akıncıs to “greedy crocodiles” who went on daily raids.182
In 1493, the Bosnian akıncıs achieved a decisive victory over the Croatian nobility on the river Krbava. The prehistory of this encounter reveals a dimension of frontier society that must always be taken into account: many leading actors knew each other, even if they were intertwined in antagonism. For decades, Orthodox princes of the Balkans had called on uç beyis as allies to help in internal conflicts.183 Catholic nobles in the northern Adriatic hardly behaved differently. In the complicated reorganization of Hungary after Matthias Corvinus’ death, Hans (Anž) Frankopan saw an opportunity to regain his family castle in Zengg; he allied himself with another regional nobleman, Count Karlo of Krbava, who was also dissatisfied with the king. In response, the new Hungarian king Wladislas II (r. 1490–1516) sent the newly appointed bans of Croatia Imre Derencsényi and János Both of Bajna to oppose the two rebels. Hans Frankopan then called on the help of the Ottoman governor of Bosnia, Yakub Pasha, who was planning attacks on Hungarian territory in Bosnia anyway. However, Ban Derencsényi also negotiated with the pasha and offered him free passage to Inner Austria to keep the akıncıs away from Croatia. When the akıncıs returned from Inner Austria with numerous prisoners, the ban demanded the surrender of Christian slaves, but the pasha refused. Despite the obvious numerical superiority of the akıncıs, the Croatian nobles agreed to fight and suffered enormous losses.184 Imre Derencsényi/Direncil Ban himself was imprisoned along with quite a few other bans, 10,000 soldiers were slaughtered and many others were taken captive.185
The middle section of the Hungarian-Ottoman border zone (which roughly corresponds to the present-day Croatian-Bosnian border area) was also massively affected by decades of Ottoman raids. The Hungarian medievalist Pál Engel quantitatively investigated the demographic consequences of the Ottoman slave hunt for the county of Valkó/Vukovar in Slavonia (today Croatia). In 1332/35, i.e. about six decades before the beginning of the Ottoman raids, 122 parishes were counted in the county. Around the mid-sixteenth century, 25 years after the Battle of Mohács (1526), which was fatal for Hungary, and around 160 years after the beginning of the Ottoman raids, there were only 74 parishes left. Within the county, there were differences between the northern and southern parts: by 1550, 70% of the villages had been abandoned and 80% of the population of the southern part had disappeared and been replaced by immigrants from Serbia. In the north of the county, the devastation was even greater, as around 90% of the population had fallen victim to decades of Ottoman human abduction. Even in relatively protected regions such as around the fortress of Eszék/Osijek/Esseg, the population declined by 16% during the age of the Ottoman raids. The depopulation in the central part of the Ottoman-Hungarian border area quite decisively weakened the defensive strength of the Hungarian kingdom before the final conquest. In the south of the county, it can be observed that most of the population losses took place in the fifteen years between the Battle of Mohács and the final incorporation of central Hungary into the Ottoman administrative system. The akıncıs thus contributed significantly to the demographic and military collapse of the Christian supremacy in the northern Balkans.186
The Hungarian border remained under constant pressure, but major campaigns ceased after 1483. The death of Matthias Corvinus in 1490, however, ushered in a period of dynastic instability, which immediately led the uç beyis to launch massive attacks as far north as Nagyvárad and Temesvár in 1491. As at Otranto, the akıncıs combined land and sea operations; with Venice’s acquiescence, artillery and supplies for the akıncıs operating in Bosnia were unloaded via the port city of Skradin/Scardona in Dalmatia.187
The last major incursion into northeastern Italy occurred at the beginning of the Venetian–Ottoman War of 1499–1503, when on September 28, 1499, raiders under the command of the Bosnian sancak beyi İskender Pasha, who had set out from Sarajevo with 7,000 men in late September, launched a flash invasion of Friuli, burning 132 villages and displacing or killing between 10,000 and 15,000 people by October 5. The Venetian provveditore Andrea Zancani, entrenched in Gradisca fortress, had not ventured outside its walls. In the case of this campaign, the names of those Christians who provided the akıncıs with the necessary local knowledge are known: the Triestine nobleman Antonio Burlo and a Friulian named Ermacora Ungaro.188
It is clear that the akıncıs benefitted considerably from the weaknesses of their opponents. What can be established for Inner Austria and Friuli will hardly have been structurally different in the Balkans in previous decades: distrust between Christian neighbors, local feuds, and social unrest facilitated the akıncıs’ rapid advance. In Inner Austria, but also in Friuli, the akıncı raids had, at least temporarily, a socially disruptive effect.189 For the peasants of Inner Austria saw that the emperor and the nobility were failing in their most important task, which was to protect their subjects; the same was true for the Venetian failure to fend off raids in Friuli. Emperor Frederick III was challenged by the nobility in his hereditary lands and threatened by the Hungarian king, who allied himself with the noble opposition. The nobility, for its part, lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the peasants, especially in Carinthia. It is an irony of history that those Carinthian peasants who wanted a system like that of the Swiss Confederation were annihilated by the very akıncıs in 1478. Thus, the peasants’ claim to be able to protect the land better than the nobles had become invalid. The raids of the akıncıs, however, also ruthlessly exposed the institutional weakness of both the empire and the Inner Austrian lands. The imperial diets dealt with the raids by the akıncıs, but effective military assistance was not provided. Although the emperor had summoned the estates of the three Inner Austrian lands in Marburg an der Drau/Maribor in 1475, the noble army was defeated by the akıncıs that year. The raiders attacked when the regional noble forces were in decline and mercenary armies on a large scale were neither prepared nor could be paid; the peasants were defenseless against the raids. At Marburg, however, the first attempt was made to establish a common command structure for Inner Austria, to organize the financing of mercenaries and to set up a scouting service; this was the first nucleus for the Habsburg military frontier, which was to be fully developed in organizational terms a century later. When it came to mercenaries, it proved important to recruit mainly local nobles, who had greater loyalty to the country than foreign troops; moreover, the taxes collected for the defensive measures remained in the country.190
In contrast to its northern and eastern neighbors, Venice had neither unruly estates to consider nor the cumbersome administrative system of the empire. It took vigorous measures in Friuli at an early stage. In 1477, an attempt was made to build a huge redoubt protected by a double moat running from Gorizia to the lagoon of Aquileia, and Gradisca and Foglianica were turned into fortresses. The disaster of the Venetian field army showed that conventional warfare against the akıncıs did not promise success. Venice then changed its strategy and relied entirely on fortified positions to which the population and troops retreated. The akıncıs were simply left to run into the void. The Venetian troops operated in guerrilla fashion in small units that attacked the akıncıs when they split up.191 In 1478, they succeeded in pushing the raiders into Carinthia. Both Venice and the nobility of Inner Austria had to accept that the akıncıs had evolved from mere raiding troops into units led by experienced uç beyis capable of defeating Italian mercenaries in open field battles or beating the Habsburgs’ outdated noble troops. They also had to recognize that without scouting and improved communications, the raids could not be repelled. Cannon shots and fire signals (Kreidfeuer) were long part of the everyday life of the people in the wider border region with the Ottoman Empire from the late fifteenth century onwards. The cooperation of all neighboring states was important; if the alarm signals were not triggered, this immediately aroused suspicion, as in 1478, when Venice suspected that the Hungarians had deliberately failed to employ their cannons and fire signals. Reports by local Venetian scouts show how much the population was oriented around these signals and knew where the cannon fire came from.192
5 The Akıncıs: Remarks on their Social and Economic History
A close reading of those sources that not only mention the akıncıs but also attempt to describe them as a category in their own right offers rich evidence for the ideas that have been addressed at the beginning of this article. Let us summarize by bringing together the various strands of this account.
The akıncıs were concerned with the abduction of men, women and children from Christian territories. These slaves essentially underpinned the Ottoman economy in the Balkans or, more precisely, the economic activities of the new Ottoman elites. These marcher lords made large-scale use of slaves captured by the akıncıs in the Balkans, northern Italy, and central Europe (mainly Hungary) on their estates and the farmland assigned to them.193 The akıncıs thus engaged in a mature system of slave trading. However, in their homelands they also had an agrarian and artisanal base in their own right. Thus at least the core groups of the akıncıs were warriors who, while serving without pay, were very much socially anchored in the rural society of the conquered Balkans, while others were entrenched in the cities, where they practiced their crafts and were engaged in trade activities. They were therefore not free-floating elements. In addition to the agricultural basis, horse breeding was of particular importance. The akıncıs, not for nothing called “shepherds,” were experts at handling horses. Angiolello can be cited in addition to the aforementioned sources: he mentions that some raiders owned as many as ten horses and that not all akıncıs took the same number of them into battle.194
The slave hunt particularly benefited the leaders of the plundering troops, the uç beyis. New studies on the marcher lords show how they exploited their own latifundia with slaves from their raids and how the marchers pursued their own settlement policy in the Balkans, which was only possible with a constant supply of new slaves. The Mihaloğulları, for example, thus established a de facto territorial rule in Central Northern Bulgaria, where they settled both haymane (semi-nomads not registered by the treasury) and slaves; Timurtaş Bey, İshak Bey of Skopje and Evrenos Bey in Greece, and later their heirs, acted in a similar manner. (Semi)nomadic yürüks, Vlachs, voynuks, martoloses, and akıncıs also lived on the estates of the Mihaloğulları. The social and ethnic mix of the “plundering amoeba” can also be traced in the core territories of the marcher lords in the Balkans: a mobile warrior community focused entirely on prey. Fully entrenched into their large domains and enriching themselves constantly by the spoils of their raids, these frontier lords’ dynasties formed virtual mini-states within the confines of the Ottoman Empire, where they could import population, encourage migration, grant lands to their closest entourage, and hence exercise complete control over their subjects and generate an extended household similar to that of an independent ruler.195
The akıncıs and their officers, the toviças, represented Ottoman rule in the villages, albeit certainly to a much lesser extent than the beneficiaries of timars. But they also constituted a factor of unrest in Ottoman domestic politics, as Chalkokondyles in particular points out. By providing the new Ottoman elites in the Balkans with urgently needed labor, however, in turn they bolstered the Ottoman power system. The akıncıs themselves lived essentially off their booty as well as off the yields of the small arable estates that they cultivated. They were engaged in horse breeding and raiding, which also determined the rhythm of their lives. The core of the akıncıs consisted of Muslims, but it becomes clear that Lowry’s theory of a “plundering amoeba” in both an ethnic and a social sense finds its confirmation in the sources. The particularly well-documented example of Bosnia shows that almost all sections of Ottoman Bosnian society of various confessional, ethnic and social backgrounds marched with the akıncıs: Muslim raiders, militarized Christian Vlachs, semi-nomadic Roma, and ordinary peasants. Bosnia, itself the target of massive raids for decades, had been transformed from a slave supplier into a base for slave hunters, comprising those sections of Bosnian society that had survived decades of akıncı raids, mainly of immigrants, primarily Vlachs and Roma, who had arrived in the country in the wake of demographic disruption. Sarajevo was their most important base and thus also the center not only of the frontier zone that had advanced to the northwest, but also of the slave trade.
In terms of the history of mentalities, the enormous emotionality of the plundering campaigns becomes clear: the akıncıs feverishly awaited the raids and could hardly wait for the signal to mobilize; their excitement was so great that they even killed each other as they set out. They purposefully used elements of psychological warfare: they spread false rumors, took advantage of the element of surprise, and created panic and confusion. The brutality of the akıncıs is hardly an invention of authors of Islamophobic tracts. The killing of captives who were unfit to sustain the marches back to the Ottoman slave markets is well documented and was clearly part of the slave hunters’ methods.
The examples of Friuli, Dalmatia, Inner Austria, southern Hungary and Transylvania also allow more detailed study of the effects of the akıncıs’ warfare than the inner Balkans, where there are fewer sources: decades of targeted devastation of settlements and agriculture with permanent displacement of the population created actual wastelands. The observation by Dukas quoted above, according to which the akıncıs in the border zones had shaken the demographic structure to its foundations, is thus hardly an exaggeration.196
The akıncıs’ tactics are significant from the point of view of informal warfare along the borders. The two-horse system, the care taken to raise remarkably enduring and undemanding horses; and the hardening of the warriors themselves, who carried hardly any provisions, operated without a troop, negotiated the most challenging terrain and braved the heat and cold, all testify for the well-planned incursions of the akıncıs that required careful preparation and are hence in sharp contrast with the spontaneity that historians often ascribe to their actions. The akıncıs were able to conduct raids several times a year. In each raid, the raiders designated a rallying point from which they attacked the target area in separate detachments and where they rounded up their loot, that is, people, livestock, and goods. Swarming and re-gathering were two of the akıncıs’ basic maneuvers. The decisive factor was the speed of their campaigns, which often lasted only a few days: shock and awe were the basic principle of their tactics, which were not to give the enemy an opportunity for coordinated response.
The position of the akıncıs in the Ottoman military system has also been elucidated. They are closely interwoven with the marcher lords, under whose command they usually operate. The sultan had the fundamental right to decide whether a raid should take place and against which territory it should be conducted. The initiative could come from the sultan, but marcher lords could also ask the sultan for permission. The actual campaigns then took place in cooperation between the marcher lords and the akıncıs without the participation of the sultan and the sultanic kul troops. However, the akıncıs also participated in regular campaigns led by the sultan himself or by his dignitaries. The military tactics of rapid raids and the devastation of areas bypassing fortified places remained the same regardless of whether the akıncıs were fighting on their own or campaigning alongside the sultan. However, the uç beyis were also able to provoke larger regional troop formations in Transylvania, Croatia, Inner Austria and Veneto into open field battles that they were also able to win. Large raids thus aimed to eliminate the enemy in a field battle, thus making it all the easier to plunder.
The power of the marcher lords was largely based on their ability to undertake raiding expeditions into Christian territory with their own regional armies. The looters who could be mobilized regionally came predominantly from the ranks of the akıncıs, who procured the labor force that cultivated the latifundia of the marcher lords. At the same time, slaves were an important source of money for marcher lords and ordinary akıncıs as well as for participants in raiding parties of the likes of Aşıkpaşazade. The (relative) political independence of the marcher lords vis-à-vis the sultan was based precisely on their control over the plundering troops and the economic resources derived from the booty. Even though akıncıs already acted on behalf of the sultan under Bayezid I and took part in major campaigns under Murad II (r. 1421–1444 and 1446–1451), they were still on the fringes of the official sultanic army apparatus, as can be seen from the fact that they rarely appear in administrative texts. Their involvement in sultanic campaigns or their independent actions (often, but not always, led by uç beyis) depended on the political context.
As much as they advanced Ottoman expansion on the periphery, in the border areas with Christian neighbors, and prepared the ground for the final conquest by regular Ottoman armies, they represented a factor of unrest and destabilization in times of crisis within the empire: in the struggles for the throne after 1402, the akıncıs repeatedly intervened massively in the fate of the dynasty. Prince Musa, for example, relied heavily on the akıncıs for his power. The latter resolutely pursued their own interests and supported those parts of the dynasty that advocated an aggressive policy of conquest within the framework of which the akıncıs could carry out their raids. This cost Süleyman, who was eager to strike a balance with his Christian neighbors, the throne in 1411. During this phase of the empire’s development, a sultan could not formulate a policy against or without the uç beyis and the akıncıs.197
So far, our analysis has not covered the temporal dynamics, which are particularly important for understanding the relationship between the akıncıs and the sultan’s power apparatus. The question is to what extent the akıncıs acted alongside or even within the military apparatus controlled by the sultan. The sources evaluated in detail above are predominantly from the time of Mehmed II—Promontorio and Angiolello in particular offer insights into the gears of an increasingly centralized apparatus. On the other hand, Georgius de Hungaria, Chalkokondyles, and the Ottoman chronicles cited also offer a retrospective: the barely suppressible memory of the multiplicity of actors outside the Ottoman dynasty becomes clear. However, it is difficult to answer the question as to the exact circumstances of the organization of the akıncıs beyond the above-mentioned thesis that it was a form of violence and plunder economy transplanted from Anatolia to the Balkans. Against this background, Georgius de Hungaria is a particularly valuable source, since he conveys impressions from the time of Murad II—that is, he is the missing link between the tradition from the era of Mehmed II and the vague news about the akıncıs in the early period of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.
The akıncıs were thus much more than lightly armed auxiliaries of the regular army. They marked an entire era of Ottoman conquest, the preparation for the definitive conquest of a territory by the sultan’s regular army. The akıncıs formed an integral part of that marcher society, which was in constant movement, advancing further and further to the north and northwest. They were essential to the marcher lords’ system of rule: as military retainers and as captors of those slaves on whom the marcher lords’ economy and rule depended. In the same vein, they were also crucial for the central Ottoman establishment, for the sustenance of a slave-based sultanic army in particular, and a slave-based Ottoman economy and society in general. It is, therefore, plausible to suggest that the marcher lords and the akıncıs were essential for the growth of the sultanic authority on the one hand and for the lucrative slave trade of the state on the other. It would appear more productive, then, that the frontier lords and the Ottoman rulers are regarded not as two opposing sides in a constant fight for authority, in which the Ottoman dynastic establishment sought to diminish the power of the former and subsume them to the central army apparatus. On the contrary, it seems that an emerging mutually dependent relationship developed over time with the growing supplies of slaves—beneficial for the statist enterprise—that could be secured only by the successful raiding expeditions of the marcher lords and their retinues. Similarly, the Ottoman dynastic establishment, which within a century grew from a tiny border principality in Bithynia to a well-established state with its central institutions and accumulated the prestige of Muslim power that directed and secured the wars against the “infidels,” was favorable to the needs and aspirations of the raiders and their leaders. Consequently, under the Ottoman dynastic banner, the latter not only continued their profit-yielding looting expeditions, but increased their military numbers, substantially enlarged the perimeter of their operations, hence augmenting their gain, and arguably became part of a more extensive trading network in which the Ottoman state and its agents took a prominent role.
In the affected areas, the akıncıs and their leaders shaped the image of the Ottomans as ruthless and militarily superior plunderers for centuries. Their success was due to the weakness of their opponents: many regional Balkan nobles had collaborated with Ottoman marcher lords on a selective basis. Venice, Hungary, regional Croatian nobles and the emperor suspected each other, with at least some justification, of allowing the akıncıs to pass in order to spare their own territories and harm their neighbors. Christian marcher lords maintained contacts with their Ottoman counterparts—along the ever-moving Ottoman border, an entangled conflict society of Christian and Muslim actors emerged.198
The small Balkan noble armies were far inferior to the akıncıs in terms of numbers and tactics. This was also true of regional militias and mercenaries in Friuli and the obsolete aristocratic formations in Inner Austria. In Hungary, decades of military conflict had given rise to a marcher society that, like the akıncıs, operated with light cavalry and relied on a system of castles. The raids of the akıncıs accelerated a consolidation of state administration and organization in a wide area from Transylvania to Friuli. In Venetian Friuli, a system of massive border fortresses emerged; in Inner Austria, the Habsburg military frontier formed over many decades, organizing Orthodox refugees from the Balkans as border warriors and building a new system of financing and military logistics, for which financial resources were mobilized not only from the three Inner Austrian lands but from the entire Holy Roman Empire.199 In contrast, Hungary, weakened domestically in the early sixteenth century by repeated crises and social unrest, was no longer able to protect its extensive borders in the long term; its marcher lords had to cease their offensive actions and confine themselves to defense. Only those states that were able to mobilize their financial and military resources in a centralized manner were able to withstand the raids in the long term.
Just like the uç beyis, whose importance for early Ottoman history has been so clearly elaborated by research in recent years, the akıncıs represent an integral part of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Therefore, it seems justified to re-periodize the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase, which spanned eight to thirteen decades, depending on the region, and was characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction of economic infrastructure, and the phase of administrative integration into the Ottoman Empire, which was pursued by other actors, namely imperial elites from the center, and can be characterized by at least partial repopulation of demographically weakened areas.200 This new periodisation does better justice to the dynamics of the Ottoman conquest than a division into a phase of vassalage under regional rulers and a subsequent complete conquest and integration into the Ottoman administrative system. This is because the periodisation we propose focuses on the actors and objects of the conquest—the raiders, and the population of the areas affected by the raids. The new periodisation also takes into account the dynamics and motivation of the conquest process: the raiders’ constantly shifting zones of action, demographically depleted over decades by the hunt for slaves, which was the actual goal of the akıncı phase of the conquest. In the target areas, the akıncı phase corresponded to a continual theft of human beings, while in the settlement areas of the raiders in the Balkans administered by the uç beyis, it corresponded to a new economic and settlement structure: de facto regional dominions of the great uç beyi dynasties, which were settled with slaves from the plunder areas of the Balkans, east-central Europe, and north-eastern Italy. The akıncı phase of the Ottoman conquest is thus characterised not only by military criteria, but by structural-historical, social, demographic, and power-political ones, as these criteria concern both the initial areas of the raids in the Ottoman Balkans and the target areas of the raids. Both underwent strong, sometimes massive, demographic change whose main actors were the akıncıs and their commanders, the uç beyis.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Markus Koller and Grigor Boykov for reading drafts of this paper and sharing their helpful feedback. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their insightful comments, corrections, and valuable suggestions.
Bibliography
Published Narrative Sources
Babinger, Franz. 1957. Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen Iacopo Promontorio de Campis über den Osmanenstaat um 1475. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Bertrandon de La Brocquière. 1892. Le voyage d’outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquière, premier écuyer tranchant et conseiller de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (1432–1433), ed. Ch. Schefer. Paris: Ernest Leroux.
Darkó, Eugenius, ed. 1922. Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes. Vol. 1. Budapest: Academia Litterarum Hungariae.
Darkó, Eugenius, ed. 1923. Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes. Vol. 2. Budapest: Academia Litterarum Hungariae.
Grossmann, Karl, ed. 1957. Jakob Unrest, Österreichische Chronik. Weimar: Böhlau.
İnalcık, Halil and Rhoads Murphey, ed. 1978. The History of Mehmed the Conqueror by Tursun Beg: Text Published in Facsimile with English Translation. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica.
Karataş, Mehmet, Selim Kaya, and Yaşar Baş, ed. 2008. İdris-i Bitlisî. Heşt Bihişt. Vol. 1. Ankara: Bitlis Eğitim ve Tanıtma Vakfı Yayınları.
Klockow, Reinhard, trans. 1994. Georgius de Hungaria, Tractatus de moribus, condictionibus et nequicia turcorum. Traktat über die Sitten, die Lebensverhältnisse und die Arglist der Türken. Vienna: Böhlau.
Lachmann, Renate, ed. 2010. Konstantin Mihailović. Memoiren eines Janitscharen oder türkische Chronik. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Le Historie vinitiane di Marco Antonio Sabellico, divise in tre deche con tre libri della quarta deca, novamente da messer Lodovico Dolce in volgare tradotte. Venice: Per Curtio Troiano di Navo, 1594.
Levend, Agâh Sırrı. 2000. Ġazavāt-Nāmeler ve Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nâāmesi. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Malipiero, Domenico. 1843. Annali. Archivio storico italiano 7: 114–117.
Öztürk, Necdet, ed. 2014. Oruç b. ʿAdil. Oruç Beğ Tarihi [Osmanlı Tarihi—1288–1508]. Istanbul: Çamlıca.
Pertusi, Agostino. 1985. Martino Segono di Novo Brdo vescovo di Dulcigno: un umanista serbo-dalmata del tardo quattrocento. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo.
Reinsch, Dieter Roderich. 2020. Dukas. Chronographia—Byzantiner und Osmanen im Kampf um die Macht und das Überleben (1341–1462). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Tulum, Mertol, ed. 1977. Tursun Bey. Târih-i Ebü’l-Feth. Istanbul: Baha Matbaası.
Turan, Şerafettin, ed. 1991. İbn Kemâl. Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. VII. Defter (Tenkidli Transkripsiyon). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Uğur, Ahmet, ed. 1997. İbn Kemâl. Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. VIII. Defter (Transkripsiyon). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Ursu, Ioan, ed. 1909. Donado da Lezze, Historia Turchesca (1300–1514). Bucharest: Carol Göbl, 1909.
Yavuz, Kemal and M. A. Yekta Saraç, ed. 2003. Aşık Paşazade. Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi. Istanbul: Koç Kültür Sanat Tanıtım.
Yıldırım, Muhammed İbrahim, ed. 2013. İdris-i Bitlisî. Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: Fatih Sultan Mehmed Devri (1451–1481). Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Published Archival Sources
Akgündüz, Ahmed. 1991. Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, III. Kitap: Yavuz Sultan Selim Devri Kanunnâmeleri. Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları.
Akgündüz, Ahmed. 1992. Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, IV. Kitap: Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Devri Kanunnâmeleri. I. Kısım: Merkezî ve Umumî Kanunâmeleri. Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları.
Akgündüz, Ahmed. 1993. Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, VI. Kitap: I. Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Devri Kanunnâmeleri. II. Kısım: Kanunî Devrı Eyâlet Kanunâmeleri II. Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları.
Barkan, Ömer Lûtfi. 1943. XV ve XVI ıncı Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Ziraî Ekonomisinin Hukuki ve Malî Esaslar. Kanunlar. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi.
Beldiceanu, Nicoară, and Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr. 1964. Quatre actes de Mehmed II concernant les Valaques des Balkans slaves. Südost-Forschungen 24: 103–118.
Cusin, Fabio. 1936. Documenti per la storia del Confine Orientale d’Italia nei secoli XIV e XV. Archeografo triestino III serie 21: 1–131.
Dinić, Mihailo. 1967. Iz dubravačkog arhiva. Vol. 3. Belgrade: SANU i Naučno delo.
Erdoğan Özünlü, Emine, and Ayşe Kayapınar. 2017. 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
İnalcık, Halil, Evgeni Radushev, and Uğur Altuğ. 2018. Fatih Sultan Mehmed Döneminde Tuna Boyunda Osmanlı Düzeni. Niğbolu, Vidin ve Braniçeva Tahrir Defterleri. Metin ve İndeks. Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Katić, Tatjana. 2020. Vojnučki defter iz 1455. godine za sandžake Kruševac, Vučitrn, Prizren i vilajete Zvečan, Jeleč, Ras, Senice i Hodided. 1455 Tarihli Alacahisâr, Vılçitrn ve Prizrin Livâları ve İzveçen, Yeleç, Ras, Seniçe ve Hodidede Vilâyetleri Voynuk Defteri, Tıpkıbasım, Transkripsyon, MCE 36–03 Defterinin Kişi Adları ve Yer Adları İndeksi. Belgrade: Istorijski Institut.
Kayapınar, Ayşe, and Emine Erdoğan Özünlü. 2015. Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Macuscev, Vicentio. 1882. Monumenta historica Slavorum meridionalium vicinorumque populorum deprompta e tabulariis et bibliothecis italicis. Vol. 2. Belgrade: Typographia Regni Serbiae.
Nedkov, Boris. 1972. Osmanoturska Diplomatika i Paleografija. II: Dokumenti i Rečnik. Vol. 2. Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo.
Radushev, Evgeni, and Göksel Baş. 2020. Early Ottoman Military and Administrative Order in the Balkans: A Muster Roll of the Voynuk Corps (Defter-i Esâmî-i Voynugân) in the Western Balkans from 1487. Text and Index. Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities.
Sertoğlu, Midhat, ed. 1992. Sofyalı Ali Çavuş Kanunnâmesi: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Toprak Tasarruf Sistemi’nin Hukukî ve Mâlî Müeyyede ve Mükellefiyetleri. Istanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi Yayınları.
Stojaković, Momčilo. 1987. Braničevski tefter. Poimenični popis pokrajine Braničevo iz 1467. godine. Belgrade: Istorijski Institut.
Thallóczy, Lajos, and Antal Áldásy. 1907. Magyarország melléktartományainak oklevéltára: A Magyarország és Szerbia közti összeköttetések oklevéltára 1198–1526. Budapest: Kiadja a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia.
Unpublished Archival Sources
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA) Bab-ı Defteri, Başmuhasebe Kalemi, defter no. 2 (D. BŞM. Def. 2) Bab-ı Defteri, Başmuhasebe Kalemi, defter no. 40814 (D. BŞM. Def. 40814) İbnülemin, Maliye, dosya 1, gömlek 5 (İE.ML 1/5) İbnülemin, Maliye, dosya 1, gömlek 6 (İE.ML 1/6) İbnülemin, Maliye, dosya 1, gömlek 7 (İE.ML 1/7) Tapu Tahrir Defter no. 7 (TT 7) Tapu Tahrir Defter no. 16 (TT 16)
Archivio di Stato di Milano Archivio visconteo-sforzesco, file 353 (report from 11th July 1469)
Secondary Sources
Ágoston, Gábor. 2003. A Flexible Empire: Authority and Its Limits on the Ottoman Frontiers. International Journal of Turkish Studies 9, no. 1–2: 15–31.
Ágoston, Gábor. 2009. Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ágoston, Gábor. 2015. The Ottoman Empire and Europe. In The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350–1750, vol. 2: Cultures and Power, ed. Hamish Scott. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press: 612–637.
Ágoston, Gábor. 2020. Ottoman Expansion and Military Power, 1300–1453. In The Cambridge History of War, vol. 2: War and the Medieval World, ed. Anne Curry and David A. Graff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 449–469.
Ágoston, Gábor. 2021. The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Aleksić, Vladimir. 2011. Medieval Vlach Soldiers and the Beginnings of Ottoman Voynuks. Beogradski istorijski glasnik 2: 105–128.
Altunan, Sema. 2002. XVI. Yüzyılda Balkanlar’da Naldöken Yürükleri: İdari Yapıları, Nüfusları, Askeri Görevleri ve Sosyal Statüleri. In Balkanlar’da İslâm Medeniyeti Milletlerarası Sempozyumu Tebliğleri: Sofya, 21–23 Nisan 2000, ed. Ali Çaksu. Istanbul: İslâm Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi: 11–34.
Altunan, Sema. 2005. XVI. ve XVII. Yüzyıllarda Rumeli’de Tanrıdağı Yürüklerinin Askeri Organizasyonu. In Osmanlı ve Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk-Bulgar İlişkileri Sempozyumu, ed. Meral Bayrak. Eskişehir: Osmangazi Üniversitesi: 189–200.
Amedoski, Dragana. 2010. Demografske promene u nahiji Boban kao primer depopulacije Rumelije u 16. veku. Istorijski časopis 59: 225–242.
Antov, Nikolay. 2013. The Ottoman State and Semi-Nomadic Groups along the Ottoman Danubian Serhad (Frontier Zone) in the Late 15th and the First Half of the 16th Centuries: Challenges and Policies. Hungarian Studies 27, no. 2: 219–235.
Arslan, H. Çetin. 2001. Türk Akıncı Beyleri ve Balkanların İmarına Katkıları (1300–1451). Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı.
Atanasovski, Veljan. 1979. Pad Hercegovine. Belgrade: Narodna knjiga.
Ayalon, Yaron. 2014. Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Babinger, Franz. 1962. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Geschlechtes der Malqoc-oghlus. In Franz Babinger, Aufsätze und Abhandlungen zur Geschichte Südosteuropas und der Levante. Munich: Trofenik, Südosteuropa Verlagsgesellschaft: 355–375.
Barbarics, Zsuzsa. 2001. »Türck ist Mein Nahm in Allen Landen …« Kunst, Propaganda und die Wandlung des Türkenbildes im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54, no. 2–3: 257–317.
Barkan, Ömer Lûtfi. 1939. “XV ve XVI ıncı Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Toprak İşçiliğinin Organizasyonu Şekilleri. I. Kulluklar ve Ortakçı Kullar. İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 1: 29–74.
Barkan, Ömer Lütfi. 1942. Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Bir İskân ve Kolonizasyon Metodu Olarak Vakıflar ve Temlikler. İstilâ Devirlerinin Kolonizatör Türk Dervişleri ve Zâviyeler. Vakıflar Dergisi 2: 279–386.
Barkey, Karen. 2008. Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Irène. 1969. En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı. Revue des études islamiques 37, no. 1: 21–47.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Irène. 2000. Pachymère et les sources orientales. Turcica 32: 425–434.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Irène. 2003. L’installation des Ottomans. In La Bithynie au Moyen Age, ed. Bernard Geyer and Jacques Lefort. Paris: P. Lethielleux: 351–374.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Irène, and Raúl Estangüi Gómez. 2014. Autour du document de 1386 en faveur de Radoslav Sabljia (Ṣabya/Sampias): du beylicat au sultanat, étape méconnue de l’État ottoman. Turcica 45: 159–186.
Birin, Ante, ed. 2013. Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–1463.). Slom srednjovjekovnog Bosanskog Kraljevstva. Zbornik radova sa Znanstvenog skupa održanog 11. i 12. studenog 2011. godine u Jajcu. Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest—Katolički bogoslovni fakultet u Sarajevu.
Bisaha, Nancy. 2004. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Boykov, Grigor. 2010. In Search of Vanished Ottoman Monuments in the Balkans: Minnetoğlu Mehmed Beg’s Complex in Konuş Hisarı. In Monuments, Patrons, Contexts: Papers on Ottoman Europe Presented to Machiel Kiel, ed. Maximilian Hartmuth and Ayşe Dilsiz. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2010: 47–68.
Boykov, Grigor. 2016. The Human Cost of Warfare: Population Loss during the Ottoman Conquest and the Demographic History of Bulgaria in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era. In The Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans: Interpretations and Research Debates, ed. Oliver Jens Schmitt. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: 103–166.
Boykov, Grigor. 2020. Abdāl-Affiliated Convents and “Sunnitizing” Halveti Dervishes in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Rumeli. In Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750, ed. Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu. Leiden: Brill: 308–340.
Bracewell, Catherine Wendy. 1992. The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Brunner, Walter. 2018. Siedlungshöhepunkt und Verödung im ländlichen Raum. In Die Steiermark im Spätmittelalter, ed. Gerhard Pferschy. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau: 167–192.
Buc, Philippe. 2020. One among Many Renegades: The Serb Janissary Konstantin Mihailović and the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans. Journal of Medieval History 46, no. 2: 217–230.
Cassetta, Ilenia Romana, and Elettra Ercolino. 2002. La prise d’Otranto (1480–1481), entre sources chrétiennes et turques. Turcica 34: 253–273.
Csukovits, Enikő. 2007. Miraculous Escapes from Ottoman Captivity. In Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth-Early Eighteenth Centuries), ed. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 1–18.
Cusin, Fabio. 1977. Il confine orientale d’Italia nella politica europea del XIV e XV secolo. Trieste: Lint.
Çıpa, H. Erdem. 2017. The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Darling, Linda. 2011. Reformulating the Gazi Narrative: When Was the Ottoman State a Gazi State? Turcica 43: 13–53.
Dávid, Géza. 2007. Die Bevölkerung Ungarns im 16.–17. Jahrhundert. In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. Gyula Kristó, Pál Engel, and András Kubinyi. Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag: 135–180.
Dávid, Géza. 2013. Towns, Villages, Depopulated Settlements—Population Movements in Ottoman Hungary. Hungarian Studies 27, no. 2: 251–261.
Dávid, Géza, and Pál Fodor. 2019. I. Bayezid Döneminde Osmanlı—Macar Mücadelesi ve Bunun Macaristan’daki Etkileri. In Uluslararası Yıldırım Bayezid Sempozyumu, 27–29 Kasım 2015, Bursa. Bildiriler, ed. Hasan Basri Öcalan and Yusuf Ziya Karaaslan. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu: 129–148.
Dávid, Géza, and Pál Fodor, eds. 2000. Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill.
Dávid, Géza, and Pál Fodor, eds. 2007. Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth–Early Eighteenth Centuries). Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Decei, Aurel. 2021. Akındjı. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs, n.d. Accessed June 30, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573–3912_islam_SIM_0481.
Đurđev, Branislav. 1951. Ispisi iz deftera za Braničevo iz XV veka. Istorijski glasnik 3–4 .
Doğru, Halime. 1990. Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Yaya-Müsellem-Taycı Teşkilatı (XV. ve XVI. Yüzyılda Sultanönü Sancağı). Istanbul: Eren Yayınevi.
Döring, Karoline. 2013. Türkenkrieg und Medienwandel im 15. Jahrhundert mit einem Katalog der europäischen Türkendrucke bis 1500. Husum: Matthiesen.
Draskóczy, István. 2007. Die demographische Lage des Sachsenlandes zu Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts. In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. Gyula Kristó, Pál Engel, and András Kubinyi. Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag: 94–134.
Engel, Pál. 1998. A török-magyar háborúk első évei 1389–1392. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 111, no. 3: 561–577.
Engel, Pál. 2000. A török dúlások hatása a népességre: Valkó megye példája. Századok 134, no. 2: 267–321.
Ercan, Yavuz. 1986. Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Bulgarlar ve Voynuklar. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1986.
Erdoğan Özünlü, Emine. 2015. Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak: 625 Numaralı Akıncı Defteri Üzerine Bazı Düşünceler. Belleten 79: 473–500.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. 2017. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire. A Literature Survey. Berlin: EBVerlag.
Filipović, Emir O. 2019. Bosansko kraljevstvo i Osmansko carstvo (1386–1463). Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut Univerziteta u Sarajevu.
Filipović, Emir O. 2017. The Ottoman Conquest and the Depopulation of Bosnia in the Fifteenth Century. In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. Srđan Rudić and Selim Aslantaş. Belgrade: The Institute of History—Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü—Belgrade: 79–101.
Finkel, Caroline. 2006. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923. New York: Basic Books.
Fodor, Pál. 2009. Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453. In The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071–1453, ed. Kate Fleet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 192–226.
Fodor, Pál. 2016. The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe—a Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Fodor, Pál. 2021. Akıncı. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, ed. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson, n.d. Accessed June 30, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573–3912_ei3_COM_24939.
Gheorghe, Adrian. 2018. Gewaltmonopolisierung und Konkurrenz im Osmanischen Reich. Systematisierung und Kontextualisierung der Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar. Probleme und Perspektiven. Muzeul naţional 30: 17–46.
Gliwa, Andrzej. 2021. How Captives Were Taken: The Making of Tatar Slaving Raids in the Early Modern Period. In Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam, ed. Felicia Roșu. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 187–249.
Gökbilgin, M. Tayyib. 1952. XV.–XVI. Asırlarda Edirne ve Paşa Livâsı: Vakıflar, Mülkler, Mukataalar. Istanbul: Üçler Basımevi.
Gökbilgin, M. Tayyib. 1957. Rumeli’de Yürükler, Tatarlar ve Evlâd-i Fâtihân. Istanbul: Osman Yalçın Matbaası.
Gorovei, Ștefan S., and Maria-Magdalena Székely. 2005. Princeps omni laude maior: O istorie a lui Ștefan cel Mare. Suceava: Sfanta Mănăstire Putna.
Grgin, Borislav. 2009. Modruš između knezeva Frankapana, Osmanlija i kraljevskih vlast, 1458–1526. Modruški zbornik 3: 41–51.
Gündisch, Gustav. 1937. Die Türkeneinfälle in Siebenbürgen bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 2, no. 3: 393–412.
Gürkan, Emrah Safa. 2018. Sultanın Korsanları: Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500–1700. Istanbul: Kronik.
Höfert, Almut. 2004. Den Feind beschreiben: “Türkengefahr” und europäisches Wissen über das Osmanische Reich 1450–1600. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.
Houben, Hubert. 2008. La conquista turca di Otranto (1480) tra storia e mito. 2 vols. Galatina: Congedo.
Imber, Colin. 1990. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481. Istanbul: Isis Press.
Imber, Colin. 1996. The Legend of Osman Gazi. In Colin Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law. Istanbul: Isis Press: 323–331.
Imber, Colin. 2000. What Does Ghazi Actually Mean? In The Balance of Truth. Essays in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Lewis, ed. Çiğdem Balım-Harding and Colin Imber. Istanbul: Isis: 165–178.
Imber, Colin. 2002. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
İnalcık, Halil. 1954. Ottoman Methods of Conquest. Studia Islamica 2: 103–129.
İnalcık, Halil. 1985. Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire. In Halil İnalcık, Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History. London: Variorum Reprints: 25–52.
İnalcık, Halil. 1995. Tursun Beg, Historian of Mehmed the Conqueror’s Time. In Halil İnalcık, The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire. Essays on Economy and Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture: 417–431.
Ĭordanov, Krŭst’o. 2018. Za rannata istorii͡a na voĭnushkata institut͡sia v Severozapadna Trakii͡a spored osmanski dokumenti ot XV–XVI v. i prevod na edin voĭnushki registŭr za regiona na Plovdiv i Pazardzhik (kazite Filibe i Tatar Pazardzhik) prez 1528–1529 g. Istoricheski pregled 3: 5–75.
Ĭordanov, Krŭst’o. 2020. Voĭnushki i derventdzhiĭski selishta v T͡sentralnii͡a i Iztochnii͡a di͡al na Gornotrakiĭskata nizina prez XVI v. (kazite Filibe, Stara Zagora, Haskovo i I͡ambol). In Trakii͡a prez Srednovekovieto i osmanskata epokha: Kharakter i dinamika na selishtnii͡a zhivot (XII–XVIII vek). Sbornik statii ot nauchna konferent͡sii͡a, provedena na 27–28 noemvri 2014 g. v Sofii͡a, ed. Daniela Stoi͡anova and Chavdar Kirilov. Sofia: Universitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Okhridski”: 111–143.
Isailović, Neven. 2017. Legislation Concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans Before and After Ottoman Conquest: An Overview. In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. Srđan Rudić and Selim Aslantaş. Belgrade: The Institute of History—Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü—Belgrade: 25–42.
İsen, Mustafa. 2001. Rumeli’de Türk Kültür ve Sanatını Besleyen Bir Kaynak Olarak Akıncılık. In Balkanlar’da Kültürel Etkileşim ve Türk Mimarisi Uluslararası Sempozyumu Bildirileri (17–19 Mayıs, 2000, Şumnu—Bulgaristan), vol. 1, ed. Azize Aktaş Yasa and Zeynep Zafer. Ankara: Atatürk Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı: 391–397.
Kafadar, Cemal. 1995. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kafadar, Cemal. 2007. A Rome of One’s Own: Reflections on Cultural Geography and Identity in the Lands of Rum. Muqarnas 24: 7–25.
Káldy-Nagy, Gyula. 1977. The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31, no. 2: 147–183.
Kaldellis, Anthony. 2014. A New Herodotos: Laonikos Chalkokondyles on the Ottoman Empire, the Fall of Byzantium, and the Emergence of the West. Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
Karadeniz, Hasan Basri. 2015. Osmanlılar ve Rumeli Uç Beyleri: Merkez ve Uç. Istanbul: Yeditepe Yayınları.
Kastritsis, Dimitris. 2007. The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–1413. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Kayapınar, Ayşe. 2005. Kuzey Bulgaristan’da Gazi Mihaloğulları Vakıfları (XV.–XVI. Yüzyıl). Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 10: 169–181.
Kayapınar, Levent. 2004. Osmanlı Uç Beyi Evrenos Bey Ailesinin Menşei, Yünanistan Coğrafyasındaki Faaliyetleri ve Eserleri. Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 8: 133–142.
Kayapınar, Levent. 2005. Teselya Bölgesinin Fatihi Turahan Bey Ailesi ve XV.–XVI. Yüzyıllardaki Hayır Kurumları. Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 10: 183–195.
Kiel, Machiel. 1996. Das türkische Thessalien: etabliertes Geschichtsbild versus osmanische Quellen. Ein Beitrag zur Entmythologisierung der Geschichte Griechenlands. In Die Kultur Griechenlands in Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Bericht über das Kolloquium der Südosteuropa-Kommission, 28.–31. Oktober 1992, ed. Reinhard Lauer and Peter Schreiner. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 109–196.
Kiel, Machiel. 2009. The Incorporation of the Balkans into the Ottoman Empire, 1353–1453. In The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071–1453, ed. Kate Fleet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 138–191.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2004. The Military Organization of the Akıncıs in Ottoman Rumelia. Unpublished MA thesis. Ankara: Bilkent University. Accessed June 20, 2021 http://repository.bilkent.edu.tr/handle/11693/17136.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2008. The Mihaloğlu Family: Gazi Warriors and Patrons of Dervish Hospices. Osmanlı Araştırmaları 32: 173–202.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2013. Byzantine Renegade and Holy Warrior: Reassessing the Character of Köse Mihal, a Hero of the Byzantino-Ottoman Borderland. Journal of Turkish Studies (Special Issue: Defterology: Festschrift in Honor of Heath Lowry, ed. Selim Kuru and Baki Tezcan) 40: 245–269.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2015. Shaping the Ottoman Borderland: The Architectural Patronage of the Frontier Lords from the Mihaloğlu Family. In Bordering Early Modern Europe, ed. Maria Baramova, Grigor Boykov, and Ivan Parvev. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag: 185–220.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2017. Power and Society in Pleven on the Verge of Two Epochs: The Fate of the Mihaloğlu Family and Its Pious Foundations (vakf) during the Transitional Period from Imperial to National Governance. Bulgarian Historical Review 1–2: 172–204.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2018. Plunder and Appropriation at the Borderland: Representation, Legitimacy, and Ideological Use of Spolia by Members of the Ottoman Frontier Nobility. In Spolia Reincarnated: Afterlives of Objects, Materials, and Spaces in Anatolia from Antiquity to the Ottoman Era, ed. Ivana Jevtić and Suzan Yalman. Istanbul: Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları: 51–69.
Kiprovska, Mariya. 2021. Agents of Conquest: Frontier Lords’ Extended Households as Actors in the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans. Revue des études sud-est européennes 59: 79–104.
Kizilov, Mikhail. 2021. “It Was the Poles That Gave Me Most Pain”: Polish Slaves and Captives in the Crimea, 1475–1774. In Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam, ed. Felicia Roșu. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 145–186.
Kılıç, Ayşegül. 2014. Bir Osmanlı Akıncı Beyi: Gazi Evrenos Bey. Istanbul: İthaki.
Kołodziejczyk, Dariusz. 2006. Slave Hunting and Slave Redemption as a Business Enterprise: The Northern Black Sea Region in the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Oriente Moderno 86, no. 1: 149–159.
Kołodziejczyk, Dariusz. 2021. Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic and the Black Sea: A Comparative View. In Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam, ed. Felicia Roșu. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 418–442.
Köhbach, Markus. 1978. Gellérthegy-Gerz Ilyas Tepesi. Ein Berg und sein Heiliger. Südost-Forschungen 37: 130–144.
Kravets, Maryna, and Victor Ostapchuk. 2021. Cossacks as Captive-Takers in the Ottoman Black Sea Region and Unfreedom in the Northern Countries. In Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam, ed. Felicia Roșu. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 250–335.
Krešić, Milenko. 2011. Depopulacija jugoistočne Hercegovine izazvana turskim osvajanjem. In Hum i Hercegovina kroz povijest. Zbornik radova s Međunarodnoga znanstvenog skupa održanog u Mostaru 5. i 6. studenoga 2009, vol. 1, ed. Ivica Lučić. Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest and Biblioteka hrvatska povjesnica: 757–776.
Krstić, Aleksandar. 2002. Čitluk Ali-bega Mihaloglua u Ždrelu. Braničevski glasnik 1, no. 1: 39–56.
Kubinyi, András. 2007. Die Bevölkerung des Königreichs Ungarn am Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts. In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. Gyula Kristó, Pál Engel, and András Kubinyi. Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag: 66–93.
Kurtović, Esad. 2011. Iz istorije Vlaha Predojevića. Godišnjak. Centar za balkanološka ispitivanja 40: 243–254.
Kurtović, Esad. 2012. Vlasi Bobani. Sarajevo: Društvo za proučavanje srednjovjekovne bosanske historije.
Levec, Franz. 1891. Die Einfälle der Türken in Krain und Istrien. In Jahresbericht der k.k.Staats-Oberrealschule in Laibach für das Schuljahr 1890/91. Laibach: Verlag der k. k. Staats-Oberrealschule: 1–58.
Lowry, Heath W. 2003. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Lowry, Heath W. 2006. Some Thoughts on the Meaning of Gaza and Akın in Early Ottoman Usage. In The Ottoman Empire: Myths, Realities and “Black Holes.” Contributions in Honour of Colin Imber, ed. Eugenia Kermeli and Oktay Özel. Istanbul: The Isis Press: 47–50.
Lowry, Heath W. 2008. The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350–1550: The Conquest, Settlement & Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece. Istanbul: Bahçeşehir University Publications, 2008.
Lowry, Heath W. 2012. Early Ottoman Period. In The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey, ed. Metin Heper and Sabri Sayarı. Abingdon, New York: Routledge: 5–14.
Lowry, Heath W., and İsmail E. Erünsal. 2010. The Evrenos Dynasty of Yenice-i Vardar: Notes & Documents. Istanbul: Bahçeşehir University Press.
Magina, Adrian. 2017. In the Hands of the Turks. Captives from Southern Hungary in the Ottoman Empire (14–16th Centuries). In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. Srđan Rudić and Selim Aslantaş. Belgrade: The Institute of History—Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü—Belgrade: 65–77.
Magno, Alessandro Marzo. 2019. La splendida. Venezia 1499–1509. Bari: Laterza.
Majer, Hans Georg. 1982. Ein osmanisches Budget aus der Zeit Mehmeds des Eroberers. Der Islam 59: 40–63.
Malcolm, Noel. 2019. Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Malkoç, Nami. 1936. Akınlar, Akıncılar ve Büyük Akınlar. Süvari Mecmuası 97: 68–89.
Matschke, Klaus-Peter. 2002. Research Problems Concerning the Transition to Tourkokratia: The Byzantinist Standpoint. In The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi and Fikret Adanır. Leiden: Brill: 79–113.
Meserve, Margaret. 2008. Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miljan, Suzana, and Hrvoje Kekez. 2015. The Memory of the Battle of Krbava (1493) and the Collective Identity of the Croats. Hungarian Historical Review 4, no. 2: 283–313.
Miljković-Bojanić, Ema. 2004. Smederevski sandžak 1476–1560: zemlja, naselja, stanovništvo. Belgrade: Istorijski institut.
Moustakas, Konstantinos. 2015. Slave Labour in the Early Ottoman Rural Economy: Regional Variations in the Balkans during the 15th Century. In Frontiers of the Ottoman Imagination: Studies in Honour of Rhoads Murphey, ed. Marios Hadjianastasis. Leiden: Brill: 29–43.
Murphey, Rhoads. 1999. Ottoman Warfare 1500–1700. London: UCL Press.
Musoni, Francesco. 1890. Sulle incursioni dei Turchi in Friuli. 2 vols. Udine: Cromotipografia Patronato.
Necipoğlu, Nevra. 2009. Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norman, York Allan. 2005. An Islamic City? Sarajevo’s Islamization and Economic Development, 1461–1604. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Washington: Georgetown University.
Orlando, Ermanno. 2019. Strutture e pratiche di una comunità urbana. Spalato, 1420–1479. Venice, Vienna: Istituto veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti—Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Özcan, Abdülkadir. 1989. Akıncı. In Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2. Istanbul: TDV İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi: 249–250.
Özer, Mustafa. 2004. Mihaloğulları’nın Anadolu ve Balkanlar’daki İmar Faaliyetleri. In Doğu—Batı Bağlamında Uluslararası Türk Dili ve Kültürü Kongresi Bildirileri (Konstantin Preslavski Üniversitesi, 26–29 Ekim 2002 Şumnu—Bulgaristan). Şumen: 344–364.
Özer, Mustafa. 2006. Turhanoğulları’nın Balkanlar’daki İmar Faaliyetleri. In Balkanlar’da İslâm Medeniyeti II. Milletlerarası Sempozyumu Tebliğleri, Tiran, Arnavudluk, 4–7 Aralık 2003. Istanbul: IRCICA: 247–279.
Özkoray, Hayri Gökşin. 2017. L’Esclavage dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIIe siècle). Fondements juridiques, réalités socio-économiques, représentations. Unpublished PhD thesis. Paris: École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVe section. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel–02106829v2.
Öztürk, Necdet. 2008. Osmanlı Akıncı Teşkilâtında Toycalar. Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi 19: 77–87.
Pálosfalvi, Tamás. 2018. From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Pedani Fabris, Maria Pia. 1994. I Turchi e il Friuli alla fine del Quattrocento. Memorie storiche forogiuliesi 74: 203–224.
Pedani, Maria Pia. 1999. Turkish Raids in Friuli at the End of the Fifteenth Century. In Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, ed. Markus Köhbach, Gisela Prochaska-Eisl, and Claudia Römer. Vienna: Selbstverlag des Instituts für Orientalistik: 287–291.
Peirce, Leslie. 2021. A Spectrum of Unfreedom: Captives and Slaves in the Ottoman Empire. The Nathalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series at Central European University, Budapest. Budapest, New York: Central European University Press.
Pilat, Liviu, and Ovidiu Cristea. 2017. The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern Border of Christendom during the 15th Century. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Reissermayer, Jakob. 1888. Der grosse Christentag zu Regensburg 1471. II. Teil. Programm zum Jahresberichte über das K. neue Gymnasium zu Regensburg für das Studienjahr 1887/88. Regensburg: Demmlersche Buchdruckerei.
Roșu, Felicia, ed. 2021. Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Sabev, Orlin. 2013. Osmanlıların Balkanları Fethi ve İdaresinde Mihaloğulları Ailesi (XIV.–XIX. Yüzyıllar): Mülkler, Vakıflar, Hizmetler. OTAM (Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi) 33: 229–244.
Salihović, Davor. 2021. Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier toward the Ottoman Empire in the Reign of King Matthias Corvinus, 1458–1490. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Schäffer, Roland. 2018. Die Zeit Friedrichs III. In Die Steiermark im Spätmittelalter, ed. Gerhard Pferschy. Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau: 43–74.
Schmitt, Oliver Jens. 2001. Das venezianische Albanien (1392–1479). Munich: Oldenbourg.
Schmitt, Oliver Jens. 2009. Skanderbeg. Der neue Alexander auf dem Balkan. Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet.
Schmitt, Oliver Jens. In print. Traîtres ou champions de survie ? Les seigneurs de tendance ottomane dans les Balkans à l´époque de la conquête ottomane. Travaux et mémoires.
Schulze, Winfried. 1978. Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert: Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äußeren Bedrohung. Munich: C.H.Beck.
Seng, Yvonne J. 1996. Fugitives and Factotums: Slaves in Early Sixteenth-Century Istanbul. JESHO 39, no. 2: 136–167.
Simoniti, Vasko. 1995. Die Wüstungen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der slowenischen Gebiete. Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 103: 44–55.
Šišić, Ferdo. 1934. Rukovet spomenika o hercegu Ivanišu Korvinu i o borbama Hrvata s Turcima (1473–1496). Starine Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 37: 189–344.
Sobers-Khan, Nur. 2014. Slaves Without Shackles: Forced Labour and Manumission in the Galata Court Registers, 1560–1572. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag.
Spremić, Momčilo, ed. 2011. Pad Srpske despotovine 1459. godine: Zbornik radova sa naučnog skupa održanog 12–14. novembra 2009. godine. Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti.
Stavrides, Theoharis. 2011. Alternative Dynasties: The Turahanids and the Ottomans in the Fifteenth Century. Journal of Turkish Studies 36: 145–171.
Stello, Annika. 2017. Caffa and the Slave Trade during the First Half of the Fifteenth Century. In Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1000–1500 CE), ed. Reuven Amitai and Christoph Cluse. Turnhout: Brepols: 375–398.
Szakály, Ferenc. 1979. Phases of Turco-Hungarian Warfare before the Battle of Mohács (1365–1526). Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33: 65–111.
Szakály, Ferenc, and Pál Fodor. 1998. A kenyérmezei csata (1479. október 13.). Hadtörtenélmi Közlemények 111, no. 2: 309–349.
Tacan, Necati. 1936. Akıncılar ve Mehmed II., Bayazit II. Zamanlarında Akınlar. Istanbul: Askeri Matbaa.
Toifl, Leopold, and Hildegard Leibgeb. 1991. Die Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten vom 15. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert. Vienna: Bundesverlag.
Toledano, Ehud R. 2014. Shifting Patterns of Ottoman Enslavement in the Early Modern Period. In The Ottoman Middle East: Studies in Honor of Amnon Cohen, ed. Eyal Ginio and Elie Podeh. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 201–220.
Toledano, Ehud R. 2018. Shifting Patterns of Ottoman Enslavement in the Early Modern Period. In Critical Readings on Global Slavery, vol. 3, ed. Damian Alan Pargas and Roşu Felicia. Leiden, Boston: Brill: 895–914.
Turgut, Vedat. 2015. Vakıf Belgelerinde Osmanlı Devleti’nin Kuruluş Dönemi Aileleri: Malkoçoğulları ve Mihallüler. Yeni Türkiye 66: 573–583.
Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. 1940. Akıncı. In İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1: 239–240.
Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı. 1943. Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, I: Acemi Ocağı ve Yeniçeri Ocağı. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Varlık, Nükhet. 2015. Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vasić, Milan. 1964. Die Martolosen im Osmanischen Reich. Zeitschrift für Balkanologie 2: 172–189.
Veinstein, Gilles. 2020. Les Esclaves du Sultan chez les Ottomans: Des mamelouks aux janissaires (XIVe–XVIIe siècles), ed. Elisabetta Borromeo. Paris: Les Belles lettres.
Wagner, Ernst. 1978. Wüstungen in den Sieben Stühlen als Folge der Türkeneinfälle des 15. Jahrhunderts. Forschungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde 21, no. 1: 40–48.
White, Joshua M. 2017. Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Yurttaş, Fatih. 2020. Balkanlarda Bir Uç Beyi Ailesi Mihaloğulları (1300–1600). Istanbul: Bilgeoğuz Yayınları.
Zakythinos, Denis A. 1932. Le Despotat grec de Morée (1262–1460). Vol. 1. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Zirojević, Olga. 1971. Smederevski sandžakbeg Ali-beg Mihaloglu. Zbornik za istoriju Maticе Srpskе 3: 9–27.
G. Dávid and P. Fodor, eds., Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest (Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, 2000); the most comprehensive classic study remains I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı.” Revue des études islamiques 37:1 (1969): 21–47.
N. Malcolm, Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought 1450–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); K. Döring, Türkenkrieg und Medienwandel im 15. Jahrhundert mit einem Katalog der europäischen Türkendrucke bis 1500 (Husum: Matthiesen, 2013); M. Meserve, Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008); N. Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
A. Höfert, Den Feind beschreiben: “Türkengefahr” und europäisches Wissen über das Osmanische Reich 1450–1600 (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2004); Zs. Barbarics, “ »Türck ist Mein Nahm in Allen Landen …« Kunst, Propaganda und die Wandlung des Türkenbildes im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54, no. 2–3 (2001): 257–317.
An exception is A. Gheorghe, “Gewaltmonopolisierung und Konkurrenz im Osmanischen Reich. Systematisierung und Kontextualisierung der Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar. Probleme und Perspektiven.” Muzeul naţional 30 (2018): 17–46, with a detailed discussion of the historiography on p. 21–30. Gheorghe convincingly deconstructs the idea that the akıncıs are particularly well researched (p. 21–22), a notion that is widespread in the literature but substantively inaccurate.
C. Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002): 260–65; P. Fodor, “Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453.” In The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071–1453, ed. Kate Fleet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 192–226, here 204–5.
N. Tacan, Akıncılar ve Mehmed II., Bayazit II. Zamanlarında Akınlar (Istanbul: Askeri Matbaa, 1936) (with 29 maps of the major campaigns); C. Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990).
G. Káldy-Nagy, “The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31, no. 2 (1977): 170–71, 178; A. Özcan, “Akıncı.” In Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2 (Istanbul: TDV İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi, 1989): 249–50; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 260–65; Fodor, “Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453”: 204–5; E. Erdoğan Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak: 625 Numaralı Akıncı Defteri Üzerine Bazı Düşünceler.” Belleten 79 (2015): 473–500; A. Kayapınar and E. Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2015): 1–49; E. Erdoğan Özünlü and A. Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2017): 1–40.
For a discussion of Ottoman administrative sources, cf. Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak”: 475–77; Gheorghe, “Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar”: 30–33.
An exception to this general trend is the classic study of Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 28–32, who contextualized the akıncıs within the framework of the eminence of the famous frontier lords’ families and their relationship to the Ottoman central power in the face of the sultan. Cf. H. Ç. Arslan, Türk Akıncı Beyleri ve Balkanların İmarına Katkıları (1300–1451) (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı, 2001); M. Kiel, “Das türkische Thessalien: etabliertes Geschichtsbild versus osmanische Quellen. Ein Beitrag zur Entmythologisierung der Geschichte Griechenlands.” In Die Kultur Griechenlands in Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Bericht über das Kolloquium der Südosteuropa-Kommission, 28.–31. Oktober 1992, ed. R. Lauer and P. Schreiner (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996): 109–96; idem, “The Incorporation of the Balkans into the Ottoman Empire, 1353–1453.” In The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey 1071–1453, ed. Kate Fleet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 138–91; F. Babinger, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des Geschlechtes der Malqoc-oghlus.” In F. Babinger, Aufsätze und Abhandlungen zur Geschichte Südosteuropas und der Levante, vol. 1 (Munich: Trofenik, Südosteuropa Verlagsgesellschaft, 1962): 355–75; H. W. Lowry, The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350–1550: The Conquest, Settlement & Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece (Istanbul: Bahçeşehir University Publications, 2008); H. W. Lowry and İ. E. Erünsal, The Evrenos Dynasty of Yenice-i Vardar: Notes & Documents (Istanbul: Bahçeşehir University Press, 2010); A. Kılıç, Bir Osmanlı Akıncı Beyi: Gazi Evrenos Bey (Istanbul: İthaki, 2014); L. Kayapınar, “Osmanlı Uç Beyi Evrenos Bey Ailesinin Menşei, Yünanistan Coğrafyasındaki Faaliyetleri ve Eserleri.” Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 8 (2004): 133–42; idem, “Teselya Bölgesinin Fatihi Turahan Bey Ailesi ve XV.–XVI. Yüzyıllardaki Hayır Kurumları.” Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 10 (2005): 183–95; Th. Stavrides, “Alternative Dynasties: The Turahanids and the Ottomans in the Fifteenth Century.” Journal of Turkish Studies 36 (2011): 145–71; M. Özer, “Turhanoğulları’nın Balkanlar’daki İmar Faaliyetleri.” In Balkanlar’da İslâm Medeniyeti II. Milletlerarası Sempozyumu Tebliğleri, Tiran, Arnavudluk, 4–7 Aralık 2003 (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2006): 247–79; idem, “Mihaloğulları’nın Anadolu ve Balkanlar’daki İmar Faaliyetleri.” In Doğu—Batı Bağlamında Uluslararası Türk Dili ve Kültürü Kongresi Bildirileri (Konstantin Preslavski Üniversitesi, 26–29 Ekim 2002 Şumnu—Bulgaristan) (Şumen, 2004): 344–64; A. Kayapınar, “Kuzey Bulgaristan’da Gazi Mihaloğulları Vakıfları (XV.–XVI. Yüzyıl).” Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 1, no. 10 (2005): 169–81; O. Sabev, “Osmanlıların Balkanları Fethi ve İdaresinde Mihaloğulları Ailesi (XIV.–XIX. Yüzyıllar): Mülkler, Vakıflar, Hizmetler.” OTAM (Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi) 33 (2013): 229–44; M. Kiprovska, “Shaping the Ottoman Borderland: The Architectural Patronage of the Frontier Lords from the Mihaloğlu Family.” In Bordering Early Modern Europe, ed. M. Baramova, G. Boykov, and I. Parvev (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), 185–220; F. Yurttaş, Balkanlarda Bir Uç Beyi Ailesi Mihaloğulları (1300–1600) (Istanbul: Bilgeoğuz Yayınları, 2020); G. Boykov, “In Search of Vanished Ottoman Monuments in the Balkans: Minnetoğlu Mehmed Beg’s Complex in Konuş Hisarı.” In Monuments, Patrons, Contexts: Papers on Ottoman Europe Presented to Machiel Kiel, ed. M. Hartmuth and A. Dilsiz (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2010); M. İsen, “Rumeli’de Türk Kültür ve Sanatını Besleyen Bir Kaynak Olarak Akıncılık.” In Balkanlar’da Kültürel Etkileşim ve Türk Mimarisi Uluslararası Sempozyumu Bildirileri (17–19 Mayıs, 2000, Şumnu—Bulgaristan), ed. A. Aktaş Yasa and Z. Zafer, vol. 1 (Ankara: Atatürk Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı, 2001): 391–97.
Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 260–65; Fodor, “Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453”: 204–5.
C. Imber, “The Legend of Osman Gazi.” In idem, Studies in Ottoman History and Law (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1996): 323–31; idem, “What Does Ghazi Actually Mean?” In The Balance of Truth. Essays in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Lewis, ed. Ç. Balım-Harding and C. Imber (Istanbul: Isis, 2000): 165–78. Cf. Gheorghe, “Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar”: 22–23.
H. W. Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003): 45–54; idem, “Some Thoughts on the Meaning of Gaza and Akın in Early Ottoman Usage.” In The Ottoman Empire: Myths, Realities and “Black Holes.” Contributions in Honour of Colin Imber, ed. E. Kermeli and O. Özel (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2006): 47–50.
Lowry, The Nature: 95; Linda Darling, “Reformulating the Gazi Narrative: When Was the Ottoman State a Gazi State?” Turcica 43 (2011): 13–53.
C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995): 141–54; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 318–25; Lowry, The Nature: 55–94; idem, The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans, 1350–1550: 16–58; Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923 (New York: Basic Books, 2006): 1–21; K. Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 67–108; I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr and R. Estangüi Gómez, “Autour du document de 1386 en faveur de Radoslav Sabljia (Ṣabya/Sampias): du beylicat au sultanat, étape méconnue de l’État ottoman.” Turcica 45 (2014): 159–86; H. B. Karadeniz, Osmanlılar ve Rumeli Uç Beyleri: Merkez ve Uç (Istanbul: Yeditepe Yayınları, 2015).
Besides the titles cited in fn. 9 above, see also H. W. Lowry, “Early Ottoman Period.” In The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey, ed. M. Heper and S. Sayarı (Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2012): 5–14; M. Kiprovska, “Plunder and Appropriation at the Borderland: Representation, Legitimacy, and Ideological Use of Spolia by Members of the Ottoman
Frontier Nobility.” In Spolia Reincarnated: Afterlives of Objects, Materials, and Spaces in Anatolia from Antiquity to the Ottoman Era, ed. I. Jevtić and S. Yalman (Istanbul: Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2018): 51–69; eadem, “Power and Society in Pleven on the Verge of Two Epochs: The Fate of the Mihaloğlu Family and Its Pious Foundations (vakf) during the Transitional Period from Imperial to National Governance.” Bulgarian Historical Review 1–2 (2017): 172–204; eadem, “Agents of Conquest: Frontier Lords’ Extended Households as Actors in the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans.” Revue des études sud-est européennes 59 (2021): 79–104.
S. Faroqhi, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire. A Literature Survey (Berlin: EBVerlag, 2017). Pál Fodor clearly elaborates the context for this in his The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe—a Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566) (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2016): 35–37. Fodor refers inter alia to Cemal Kafadar’s article “A Rome of One’s Own: Reflections on Cultural Geography and Identity in the Lands of Rum.” Muqarnas 24 (2007): 7–25, where on 13–14 he mentions a medical treatise dating from 1429 that was presented to Sultan Murad II (r. 1421–1444 and 1446–1451). According to this treatise, 50,000 Christian men and women were brought annually as slaves to the Ottoman Empire. (Muhammed b. Mahmûd-ı Širvânî, Tuhfe-i Murâdî, ed. Mustafa Argunşah (Ankara: Türk Dil Kurumu,
1999): 73). Cf. G. Dávid and P. Fodor, eds., Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth—Early Eighteenth Centuries) (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007).
Gheorghe, “Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar”: 28.
Whenever noted, enslavement via warfare and plundering expeditions is simply acknowledged as one of the possible pools of agricultural, domestic, concubine, military, and elite slaves who were used in different spheres of life in the Ottoman Empire, but above all as a source of recruits to the sultan’s service and the Janissary corps. G. Veinstein, Les Esclaves du Sultan chez les Ottomans: Des mamelouks aux janissaires (XIVe–XVIIe siècles), ed. Elisabetta Borromeo (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 2020): 165–175. E. R. Toledano, “Shifting Patterns of Ottoman Enslavement in the Early Modern Period.” In The Ottoman Middle East: Studies in Honor of Amnon Cohen, ed. E. Ginio and E. Podeh (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014): 201–20 (reprinted in Critical Readings on Global Slavery, vol. 3, ed. D. A. Pargas and R. Felicia (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018): 895–914.); Y. J. Seng, “Fugitives and Factotums: Slaves in Early Sixteenth-Century Istanbul.” JESHO 39, no. 2 (1996): 136–67; N. Sobers-Khan, Slaves Without Shackles: Forced Labour and Manumission in the Galata Court Registers, 1560–1572 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2014); Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 131–34. Military enslavement is currently emphasized most prominently within the context of maritime violence, piracy, and corsair activities. Cf. J. M. White, Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2017); E. S. Gürkan, Sultanın Korsanları: Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500–1700 (Istanbul: Kronik, 2018). It also features prominently with regard to the Tatar and cossack raiding in the Northern Black Sea region. See the most recent contribution of F. Roșu, ed., Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c. 900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection between Christianity and Islam (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021), and especially the essays of M. Kizilov, ““It Was the Poles That Gave Me Most Pain”: Polish Slaves and Captives in the Crimea, 1475–1774”: 145–86; A. Gliwa, “How Captives Were Taken: The Making of Tatar Slaving Raids in the Early Modern Period”: 187–249; M. Kravets and V. Ostapchuk, “Cossacks as Captive-Takers in the Ottoman Black Sea Region and Unfreedom in the Northern Countries”: 250–335; and D. Kołodziejczyk, “Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic and the Black Sea: A Comparative View”: 418–42.
Recent studies see a direct connection between the fast Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. They emphasize that Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted (both demographically and militarily) due to the plague outbreaks, which facilitated the Ottoman expansion. Cf. Y. Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 21–60, esp. 48–53; N. Varlık, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015): 107–127. For Byzantine demographic loss resulting from the Black Death, see K.-P. Matschke, “Research Problems Concerning the Transition to Tourkokratia: The Byzantinist Standpoint.” In The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography, ed. S. Faroqhi and F. Adanır (Leiden: Brill, 2002): 79–113. While the plague played a role in reducing the population of the lands that the Ottoman contingents attacked, it remains an open question whether the diminished slave supplies for the Eurasian markets caused by the Black Death and the growing need for new deliveries were one of the primary reasons behind the rise and the rapid westward expansion of the Ottoman principality.
H. İnalcık, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest.” Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 103–29.
G. Ágoston, “A Flexible Empire: Authority and Its Limits on the Ottoman Frontiers.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 9, no. 1–2 (2003): 15–31; idem, “The Ottoman Empire and Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350–1750, vol. 2: Cultures and Power, ed. H. Scott (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015): 612–37. In his recent studies, Ágoston ascribes a more central role to the marcher lords and the akıncıs while evaluating the Ottoman strategies of conquest and incorporation. Yet the focus is on their gradual incorporation into the Ottoman military and provincial administration, which went in line with the centralizing policy of the Ottoman dynasty and within the framework of the evolution of the Ottoman military. G. Ágoston, “Ottoman Expansion and Military Power, 1300–1453.” In The Cambridge History of War, vol. 2: War and the Medieval World, ed. A. Curry and D. A. Graff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020): 449–69; idem, The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe (Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2021): 19–23, 88–90.
G. Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 91.
Rh. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare 1500–1700 (London: UCL Press, 1999): 150.
Ibidem.
O. J. Schmitt, Das venezianische Albanien (1392–1479) (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001); idem, Skanderbeg. Der neue Alexander auf dem Balkan (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2009); D. A. Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée (1262–1460), vol. 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1932) (revised edition by Ch. A. Maltézou, London: Variorum, 1975); N. Necipoğlu, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); M. Spremić, ed., Pad Srpske despotovine 1459. godine: Zbornik radova sa naučnog skupa održanog 12–14. novembra 2009. godine (Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 2011); E. O. Filipović, Bosansko kraljevstvo i Osmansko carstvo (1386–1463) (Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut Univerziteta u Sarajevu, 2019); A. Birin, ed., Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–1463.). Slom srednjovjekovnog Bosanskog Kraljevstva. Zbornik radova sa Znanstvenog skupa održanog 11. i 12. studenog 2011. godine u Jajcu (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest—Katolički bogoslovni fakultet u Sarajevu, 2013); F. Szakály, “Phases of Turco-Hungarian Warfare before the Battle of Mohács (1365–1526).” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33 (1979): 65–111; P. Engel, “A török-magyar háborúk első évei 1389–1392.” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 111, no. 3 (1998): 561–77; G. Dávid and P. Fodor, “I. Bayezid Döneminde Osmanlı—Macar Mücadelesi ve Bunun Macaristan’daki Etkileri.” In Uluslararası Yıldırım Bayezid Sempozyumu, 27–29. Kasım 2015, Bursa. Bildiriler, ed. H. B. Öcalan and Y. Z. Karaaslan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2019): 129–48; V. Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1979).
G. Gündisch, “Die Türkeneinfälle in Siebenbürgen bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 2, no. 3 (1937): 393–412; M. P. Pedani Fabris, “I Turchi e il Friuli alla fine del Quattrocento.” Memorie storiche forogiuliesi 74 (1994): 203–24; M. P. Pedani, “Turkish Raids in Friuli at the End of the Fifteenth Century.” In Acta Viennensia Ottomanica, ed. M. Köhbach, G. Prochaska-Eisl, and C. Römer (Vienna: Selbstverlag des Instituts für Orientalistik, 1999): 287–91; F. Levec, “Die Einfälle der
Türken in Krain und Istrien.” In Jahresbericht der k.k.Staats-Oberrealschule in Laibach für das Schuljahr 1890/91. (Laibach: Verlag der k. k. Staats-Oberrealschule, 1891): 1–58; L. Toifl and H. Leibgeb, Die Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten vom 15. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Bundesverlag, 1991); V. Simoniti, “Die Wüstungen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der slowenischen Gebiete.” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 103 (1995): 44–55.
I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “L’installation des Ottomans.” In La Bithynie au Moyen Age, ed. B. Geyer and J. Lefort (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 2003): 351–74; I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Pachymère et les sources orientales.” Turcica 32 (2000): 425–34.
O. J. Schmitt, “Traîtres ou champions de survie? Les seigneurs de tendance ottomane dans les Balkans à l’époque de la conquête ottomane.” Travaux et mémoires (in print).
N. Malkoç, “Akınlar, Akıncılar ve Büyük Akınlar.” Süvari Mecmuası 97 (1936): 68–89; İ. H. Uzunçarşılı, “Akıncı.” In İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1 (1940): 239–40; A. Decei, “Akındjı.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al. Consulted online on 30 June 2021
that they were not suitable for formal warfare, but only for plunder. See his The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 260–61, 262–65. The latter view is also expressed by Fodor, “Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453”: 205.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 27.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 27; Káldy-Nagy, “The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization”: 170–71; A. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, VI. Kitap: I. Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Devri Kanunnâmeleri. II. Kısım: Kanunî Devrı Eyâlet Kanunâmeleri II (Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları, 1993): 391–92.
Lowry, The Nature: 53–54; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 13–14, 82.
Different spellings of this specific word are used in modern literature (taviçe, tovice, toyca, etc.). Based on the most commonly used Ottoman orthography and on the vocalized version proposed by the Christian author Konstantin Mihailović, we prefered the present spelling, which will be used throughout the article. A law-code of the Kocacık yürükleri from 1584 stipulated that its members were not to leave their own group and be enlisted in other specialized groups, such as the doğancı, müsellem, çeltükçi, tuzcu, yağcı, küreci, toviça, or akıncı. They were to be prevented from leaving the yürük ranks and could be conscripted only as yürüks. Ö. L. Barkan, XV ve XVIıncı Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Ziraî Ekonomisinin Hukuki ve Malî Esaslar. Kanunlar (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1943): 262–64, esp. 263. These stipulations were incorrectly interpreted by Beldiceanu-Steinherr, who maintains that the akıncıs were recruited from among the abovementioned groups. As much as the cited law-code indeed alludes to the fact that members of the Kocacık yürük group were enrolled as akıncıs and toviças, the regulations actually stated that such enrolments were unlawful and were to be prevented. Cf. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 27. Beldiceanu-Steinherr’s interpretation is reiterated by Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri: 3; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 17–18.
Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri: 42–46; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 34–37; Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak”: 491–95.
Barkan, Kanunlar: 397–98; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 27; A. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, III. Kitap: Yavuz Sultan Selim Devri Kanunnâmeleri (Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları, 1991): 378.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 28; Káldy-Nagy, “The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization”: 178; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 264; Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 32; N. Öztürk, “Osmanlı Akıncı Teşkilâtında Toycalar.” Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi 19 (2008): 77–87, making extensive use of both narrative and archival sources to assess the role and functions of these akıncı commanders.
Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri: 18–20, 487–89; Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak”: 484–86.
A. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, IV. Kitap: Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Devri Kanunnâmeleri. I. Kısım: Merkezî ve Umumî Kanunâmeleri (Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları, 1992): 478–79; M. Sertoğlu, ed., Sofyalı Ali Çavuş Kanunnâmesi: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Toprak Tasarruf Sistemi’nin Hukukî ve Mâlî Müeyyede ve Mükellefiyetleri (Istanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1992): 65; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 33.
Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 33–34.
Uzunçarşılı, “Akıncı”: 239; Özcan, “Akıncı”: 249; Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri: 20; Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak”: 486–87.
İ. H. Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, I: Acemi Ocağı ve Yeniçeri Ocağı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1943): 86–89; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı.”
The kethüdas (stewards) of the frontier lords’ households may well have been one of their substitutes. Cf. Özünlü, “Akıncı Ocağına Dair Önemli Bir Kaynak”: 486–87; Kayapınar and Erdoğan Özünlü, Mihaloğulları’na Ait 1586 Tarihli Akıncı Defteri: 20.
Uzunçarşılı, Kapukulu Ocakları: 86–89; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”; 35–38, 45–47.
Exceptions in this regard are the studies of Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı” and Gheorghe, “Militärinstitution der Aḳıncılar,” who opt for an evolutionary approach while historisizing the akıncıs in terms of specific periods.
Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, ed. E. Darkó, 2 vols. (Budapest: Academia Litterarum Hungariae, 1922–1923); Anthony Kaldellis, A New Herodotos: Laonikos Chalkokondyles on the Ottoman Empire, the Fall of Byzantium, and the Emergence of the West (Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2014).
R. Klockow, trans., Georgius de Hungaria, Tractatus de moribus, condictionibus et nequicia turcorum. Traktat über die Sitten, die Lebensverhältnisse und die Arglist der Türken (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994).
Jakob Unrest, Österreichische Chronik, ed. Karl Grossmann (Weimar: Böhlau, 1957).
V. Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum meridionalium vicinorumque populorum deprompta e tabulariis et bibliothecis italicis, vol. 2 (Belgrade: Typographia Regni Serbiae, 1882); F. Cusin, “Documenti per la storia del Confine Orientale d´Italia nei secoli XIV e XV.” Archeografo triestino III serie, no. 21 (1936): 1–131.
L. Thallóczy and A. Áldásy, Magyarország melléktartományainak oklevéltára: A Magyarország és Szerbia közti összeköttetések oklevéltára 1198–1526 (Budapest: Kiadja a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1907); F. Šišić, “Rukovet spomenika o hercegu Ivanišu Korvinu i o borbama Hrvata s Turcima (1473–1496).” Starine Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 37 (1934): 189–344.
Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: 260–62.
Dukas, Chronographia—Byzantiner und Osmanen im Kampf um die Macht und das Überleben (1341–1462), ed. D. R. Reinsch (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020): 254, 340. This passage in Dukas is discussed in conjunction with Ottoman narrative and administrative sources by Lowry, The Nature: 45–54.
Konstantin Mihailović, Memoiren eines Janitscharen oder türkische Chronik, ed. Renate Lachmann (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010): 139; lately on this source see Ph. Buc, “One among Many Renegades: The Serb Janissary Konstantin Mihailović and the Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans.” Journal of Medieval History 46, no. 2 (2020): 217–30.
F. Babinger, Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen Iacopo Promontorio de Campis über den Osmanenstaat um 1475 (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1957): 54; H. G. Majer, “Ein osmanisches Budget aus der Zeit Mehmeds des Eroberers.” Der Islam 59 (1982): 40–63.
A. Pertusi, Martino Segono di Novo Brdo vescovo di Dulcigno: un umanista serbo-dalmata del tardo quattrocento (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1985): 82.
Chalkokondyles, Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, vol. 1: 92–93.
Unrest, Österreichische Chronik: “darnach taylt sich der sackman” (p. 26); describing the raid on Carniola of 1471 (p. 37) and the invasion of Carinthia in 1473 (p. 40), he speaks of “Turckhen” from “Wossen” (Bosnia); As a Carinthian, i.e. coming from the German-Slavic language border, Unrest was particularly interested in an Ottoman spy in the Venetian fortress of Negroponte, who was caught and executed (p. 35–36). Unrest calls him a “Windisch”, i.e. a Slovene (p. 35). There follows another digression, especially important for the history of Moldavia (p. 42–46). He also notes the case of Kaffa (1475) (p. 49).
Cusin, “Documenti per la storia del Confine Orientale d´Italia”: 106–17 (for the period 1472–1478).
Babinger, Iacopo Promontorio de Campis: 54–55. The kanunname of Bosnia of 1516 stipulates that half of the 1,000 akıncıs in the region had to defend the border. Cf. Barkan, Kanunlar: 395–99, esp. 397–98.
Pertusi, Martino Segono di Novo Brdo: 82.
Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri.
I. Ursu, ed., Donado da Lezze, Historia Turchesca (1300–1514) (Bucharest: Carol Göbl, 1909): 150–51; cf. M. Vasić, “Die Martolosen im Osmanischen Reich.” Zeitschrift für Balkanologie 2 (1964): 172–89.
Klockow, Georgius de Hungaria: 186–200.
Konstantin Mihailović, Memoiren eines Janitscharen, 139–40.
Chalkokondyles, Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, vol. 1: 92–93.
Dukas, Chronographia: 254–56.
Chalkokondyles, Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes: vol. 1: 92–94; Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Laonici Chalcocondylae Historiarum Demonstrationes, ed. E. Darkó, vol. 2 (Budapest: Academia Litterarum Hungariae, 1923): 236–238, 280.
İdris-i Bitlisî, Heşt Bihişt, ed. M. Karataş, S. Kaya, and Y. Baş, vol. 1 (Ankara: Bitlis Eğitim ve Tanıtma Vakfı Yayınları, 2008): 11–55; İdris-i Bitlisî, Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: Fatih Sultan Mehmed Devri (1451–1481), ed. M. İ. Yıldırım (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2013), xxi–cviii. With respect to his sources, the author specifies that he benefited inter alia from the gazavatnames of İsa Bey, İshak Bey and his son İsa Bey, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, and Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, whose drafts—as he himself admits—he has unfortunately lost during his travels out of absentmindedness. İdris-i Bitlisî, Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: 95.
İdris-i Bitlisî, Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: 51.
Aşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi: 466–67.
Aşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi: 468–69.
Aşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi: 469–70.
Aşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi: 518.
Aşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları’nın Tarihi: 541–42.
The History of Mehmed the Conqueror by Tursun Beg: Text Published in Facsimile with English Translation, ed. H. İnalcık and Rh. Murphey (Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1978): 11–24; H. İnalcık, “Tursun Beg, Historian of Mehmed the Conqueror’s Time.” In idem, The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture, 1995): 417–31.
Tursun Bey, Târih-i Ebü’l-Feth, ed. M. Tulum (Istanbul: Baha Matbaası, 1977): 98–99.
İdris-i Bitlisî, Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: 147–48.
Tursun Bey, Târih-i Ebü’l-Feth: 101–4.
Tursun Bey, Târih-i Ebü’l-Feth: 113–15; Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, ed. A. Gheorghe and A. Weber (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013): 126–29.
Oruç Beğ Tarihi [Osmanlı Tarihi—1288–1508], ed. N. Öztürk (Istanbul: Çamlıca, 2014): 125–26. The same amount of pençik is also recorded by Kemalpaşazade, who seems to rely on the same source as Oruç for this particular campaign. İbn Kemâl, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. VII. Defter (Tenkidli Transkripsiyon), ed. Ş. Turan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1991): 370–74.
When referring to the akıncı commanders we prefer here the spelling “voyvoda” instead of “voivode” to distinguish them from the Christian rulers of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and from the Hungarian governors of Transylvania.
Kemalpaşazade, who likewise describes this particular campaign at length, does not give credit to the other akıncı commanders, but ascribes it only to Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey, whose army he says was also joined by both sultanic slave troops and timariots. İbn Kemal’s account also diverges from that of Oruç Bey with respect to the appeal by Bali Bey. Kemalpaşazade asserts that this invasion was not for seeking booty, collecting slaves, or looting herds, but to engage in open battle with the enemy and die heroically if destined. He thus places even stronger emphasis on cihad-inspired warfare. İbn Kemâl, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. VIII. Defter (Transkripsiyon), ed. A. Uğur (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1997): 163–69.
Oruç Beğ Tarihi: 179.
Oruç Beğ Tarihi: 180–81.
Non-Ottoman sources speak of 100,000 slaves that were taken away from Poland during this campaign, as they “replenished both Asia and Greece.” This number possibly refers to all prisoners taken from the Ottoman, Moldavian, and Tatar troops. See Ș. S. Gorovei and M.-M. Székely, Princeps omni laude maior: O istorie a lui Ștefan cel Mare (Suceava: Sfanta Mănăstire Putna, 2005): 346–47; L. Pilat and O. Cristea, The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern Border of Christendom during the 15th Century (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017): 252.
Oruç Beğ Tarihi: 182.
A. S. Levend, Ġazavāt-Nāmeler ve Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2000): 197–207.
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 263–65 (verses 460–490).
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 268 (vv. 538–540).
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 272, 275–77 (vv. 583, 626–658).
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 284–86 (vv. 749–778). The houses from which the treasures were collected were evidently city dwellings of well-to-do notables. Although Suzi Çelebi does not specify the particular cities that were looted during Ali Bey’s incursions, it is highly likely that one of them was Szörény/Severin/Drobeta-Turnu Severin, identified in Kemalpaşazade’s rendering of the same campaigns, information for which he apparently draws largely on as yet undiscovered or now lost gazavatnames of other frontier lords who were then active on the Danubian border, possibly Hasanbeyoğlu İsa Bey or Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey. İbn Kemal was certainly aware of Suzi Çelebi’s epic poem, as he uses some specific details from it—the clash between Ali Bey and the collector of the pençik tax for example. İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 167–72.
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 291 (vv. 850–852).
Pençikçi Sinan Bey was a real historical person. He possessed tracts of land in the district of Çirmen. M. T. Gökbilgin, XV.–XVI. Asırlarda Edirne ve Paşa Livâsı: Vakıflar, Mülkler, Mukataalar (Istanbul: Üçler Basımevi, 1952): 16; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 42.
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 292–94 (vv. 868–899).
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 298–99 (vv. 951–962).
Levend, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Ġazavāt-Nāmesi: 299–313 (vv. 963–1160).
The life and exploits of Ali Bey are masterfully reconstructed by Olga Zirojević, who combined the relevant information from a variety of narrative sources (Muslim and Christian) and administrative Ottoman documents. O. Zirojević, “Smederevski sandžakbeg Ali-beg Mihaloglu.” Zbornik za istoriju Maticе Srpskе 3 (1971): 9–27.
The richly detailed account by Kemalpaşazade describing the campaigns against Hungarian- and Venetian-held territories stands out within the whole Ottoman narrative tradition. It has already been suggested that İbn Kemal either relied on an informant who participated in these campaigns or used a presently unidentifiable text. Judging from the details and the specific rhetoric, which is also used in Suzi Çelebi’s epic poem, as well as from the main protagonists of these events, it is conceivable to suggest that he actually used the gazavatnames of these protagonists, which are now lost, but were evidently in circulation among Ottoman literati, as plainly stated by İdris, who explicitly refers to the gazavatnames of İsa Bey, İshak Bey and his son İsa Bey, Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, and Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey. İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: lxxxiii–lxxxiv; Bitlisî, Heşt Behişt. VII. Ketîbe: 95.
İbn Kemâl, VII. Defter: 281–83.
İbn Kemâl, VII. Defter: 370–74.
İbn Kemâl, VII. Defter: 399–403.
İbn Kemâl, VII. Defter: 423–28.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 45–47.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 61–75.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 95–98.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 123–25.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 129–30.
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 140–43.
Some of the later Ottoman sources, for instance, that disclose details about the human booty of the raiders are discussed by L. Peirce, A Spectrum of Unfreedom: Captives and Slaves in the Ottoman Empire, The Nathalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series at Central European University, Budapest (Budapest, New York: Central European University Press, 2021): 77–112.
On the ransoming along the Ottoman–Habsburg borders, see Dávid and Fodor, Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders; A. Magina, “In the Hands of the Turks. Captives from Southern Hungary in the Ottoman Empire (14–16th Centuries).” In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. S. Rudić and S. Aslantaş (Belgrade: The Institute of History—Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü—Belgrade, 2017): 65–77.
The so-called registers of miracles at the shrines in medieval Hungary contain detailed accounts of numerous escape stories of Hungarian captives taken by the Ottomans. They testify to the personal experience of these captives, who later deposited the shackles and ropes with which their hands, legs, and necks had been tied during captivity as a votive offering in the shrines. E. Csukovits, “Miraculous Escapes from Ottoman Captivity.” In Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth-Early Eighteenth Centuries), ed. G. Dávid and P. Fodor (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007), 1–18.
Bertrandon de La Brocquière, Le voyage d’outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquière, premier écuyer tranchant et conseiller de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (1432–1433), ed. Ch. Schefer (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1892): 199–200.
For similarly high numbers of abducted slaves and the demographic losses caused by the Tatar raids in the regions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, see D. Kołodziejczyk, “Slave Hunting and Slave Redemption as a Business Enterprise: The Northern Black Sea Region in the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries.” Oriente Moderno 86, no. 1 (2006): 149–59; idem, “Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic and the Black Sea”; Gliwa, “How Captives Were Taken: The Making of Tatar Slaving Raids.” Compare also the numbers of captives taken by cossacks provided by Kravets and Ostapchuk, “Cossacks as Captive-Takers in the Ottoman Black Sea Region.”.
The documents, which refer to the pençik collected at the port of Kili/Kiliya/Chilia, are housed in the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi [hereafter: BOA]). Additional documents from the same time and of the same type, muhasebe-i mahsulat-i pençik, refer to the pençik collection at the Ottoman ports of Samastris/Amasri/Amasra and Ionopolis/İnebolu on the southern shores of the Black Sea in Asia Minor. Cf. BOA, İbnülemin, Maliye [hereafter: İE.ML], dosya 1, gömlek 5 (İnebolu); İE. ML. dosya 1, gömlek 6 (Amasra); İE. ML., dosya 1, gömlek 7 (Amasra). The last three registers were mentioned in passing within the larger framework of slave trade network by H. G. Özkoray, “L’Esclavage dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIIe siècle). Fondements juridiques, réalités socio-économiques, representations.” Unpublished PhD thesis (Paris: École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVe section, 2017): 285, accessed November 26, 2021
Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1000–1500 CE), ed. R. Amitai and Ch. Cluse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017): 375–98.
BOA, Bab-ı Defteri, Başmuhasebe Kalemi [hereafter: D. BŞM.], defter no. 2: 2.
BOA, D. BŞM., defter no. 40814: 2.
The Balkan raider commanders’ siding with Prince Selim is discussed by H. E. Çıpa, The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017): 91–101.
A copy of the document was first published by Uzunçarşılı. Another one was later published by Beldiceanu-Steinherr, who analyzed it in great detail and advanced the idea that its endorsement was closely connected to the frequent raids of the 1490s. Uzunçarşılı, Kapukulu Ocakları: 89–90; Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “En marge d’un acte concernant le penğyek et les aqınğı”: 24–25, 45–47.
Ö. L. Barkan, “XV VE XVI ıncı Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Toprak İşçiliğinin Organizasyonu Şekilleri. I. Kulluklar ve Ortakçı Kullar.” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 1 (1939): 29–74; H. İnalcık, “Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire.” In idem, Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985): 25–52. It has been suggested that wealthy Muslim farmers and peasants, who founded new villages in the regions of Thessaly and southeastern (Drama and Serres) and south-central (Avret-Hisar) Macedonia, also used slaves for agricultural labor. These owners, however, should be regarded not as common or wealthy peasants, but as members of the extended households of the Ottoman frontier lords and high-ranking military and bureaucratic officials, i.e.—by extension—as the elite retinue of influential individuals in the provinces who accumulated slaves from the military expeditions in which they took part and who in turn created their own smaller households in which both military and agricultural slaves played an essential role, much as in the case of the bigger sultanic or frontier lords’ households. See K. Moustakas, “Slave Labour in the Early Ottoman Rural Economy: Regional Variations in the Balkans during the 15th Century.” In Frontiers of the Ottoman Imagination: Studies in Honour of Rhoads Murphey, ed. M. Hadjianastasis (Leiden: Brill, 2015): 29–43.
Barkan, “Kulluklar ve Ortakçı Kullar”; Ö. L. Barkan, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Bir İskân ve Kolonizasyon Metodu Olarak Vakıflar ve Temlikler. İstilâ Devirlerinin Kolonizatör Türk Dervişleri ve Zâviyeler.” Vakıflar Dergisi 2 (1942): 279–386; Y. A. Norman, “An Islamic City? Sarajevo’s Islamization and Economic Development, 1461–1604.” Unpublished PhD dissertation (Washington: Georgetown University, 2005): 72–80; Sabev, “Osmanlıların Balkanları Fethi ve İdaresinde Mihaloğulları Ailesi”: 236; Kayapınar, “Kuzey Bulgaristan’da Gazi Mihaloğulları Vakıfları”: 174; Kayapınar, “Teselya Bölgesinin Turahan Bey Ailesi”; Boykov, “Minnetoğlu Mehmed Beg’s Complex in Konuş Hisarı”; V. Turgut, “Vakıf Belgelerinde Osmanlı Devleti’nin Kuruluş Dönemi Aileleri: Malkoçoğulları ve Mihallüler.” Yeni Türkiye 66 (2015): 573–83; Kiprovska, “Shaping the Ottoman Borderland”: 207–11.
Kiprovska, “Agents of Conquest: Frontier Lords’ Extended Households”; D. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–1413 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007); Çıpa, The Making of Selim: 91–107.
The cema‘at of Hasan toviça was recorded immediately after the Muslim village of Baraklar (mod. Valtero) in the vicinity of Timur Hisar (mod. Sidirokastro), hence forming an independent group of individuals: “cema‘at-i Hasan toviça, mezkür Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’e mensub imiş”. See BOA, Tapu Tahrir Defter [hereafter TT] no. 7 (dated 1478/79), p. 434. This small group was headed by Hasan himself and comprised five more Muslim men, including his own brother.
The register in question is not unknown to the academic public. The sultanic order with which it opens, specifying its purpose and the exact manner of recording, was first published by B. Nedkov, Osmanoturska Diplomatika i Paleografija. II: Dokumenti i Rečnik (Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1972): 175–77. The sultanic decree was later analyzed by Lowry, The Nature: 51–54. The content of the entire register was first analyzed in its entirety by Mariya Kiprovska, “The Military Organization of the Akıncıs in Ottoman Rumelia.” Unpublished MA thesis (Ankara: Bilkent University, 2004): 42–83. Accessed June 20, 2021
Zirojević, “Smederevski sandžakbeg Ali-beg Mihaloglu.”
B. Đurđev, “Ispisi iz deftera za Braničevo iz XV veka.” Istorijski glasnik 3–4 (1951): 93–99; M. Stojaković, Braničevski tefter. Poimenični popis pokrajine Braničevo iz 1467. godine (Belgrade: Istorijski Institut, 1987); H. İnalcık, E. Radushev, and U. Altuğ, Fatih Sultan Mehmed Döneminde Tuna Boyunda Osmanlı Düzeni. Niğbolu, Vidin ve Braniçeva Tahrir Defterleri. Metin ve İndeks (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2018): 165–374.
İnalcık, Radushev, and Altuğ, Braniçeva Tahrir Defterleri: 172–210, 210–14.
İnalcık, Radushev, and Altuğ, Braniçeva Tahrir Defterleri: 175, 209–10, 213–14; A. Krstić, “Čitluk Ali-bega Mihaloglua u Ždrelu.” Braničevski glasnik 1, no. 1 (2002): 39–56.
The soldiers assigned to the sancak beyi numbered 28 voynuks and 107 yamaks. BOA, TT 16 (dated 1477): 572–576.
BOA, TT 16: 739–740.
The similarities between the two corps led to the assumption that some of the voynuk regiments may well have originated from the medieval Vlach population, adopting their organization and preserving the medieval legislation regarding the privileges and tax exemptions enjoyed by these groups. V. Aleksić, “Medieval Vlach Soldiers and the Beginnings of Ottoman Voynuks.” Beogradski istorijski glasnik 2 (2011): 105–28; N. Isailović, “Legislation Concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans Before and After Ottoman Conquest: An Overview.” In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. S. Rudić and S. Aslantaş (Belgrade: The Institute of History—Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü—Belgrade, 2017): 25–42; T. Katić, Vojnučki defter iz 1455. godine za sandžake Kruševac, Vučitrn, Prizren i vilajete Zvečan, Jeleč, Ras, Senice i Hodided 1455 Tarihli Alacahisâr, Vılçitrn ve Prizrin Livâları ve İzveçen, Yeleç, Ras, Seniçe ve Hodidede Vilâyetleri Voynuk Defteri, Tıpkıbasım, Transkripsyon, MCE 36–03 Defterinin Kişi Adları ve Yer Adları İndeksi (Belgrade: Istorijski Institut, 2020): 11–15.
The concentration of militarized and semi-nomadic groups along the Ottoman borders, among which the Vlachs and the voynuks were particularly numerous, is a thoroughly studied topic. See for example E. Miljković-Bojanić, Smederevski sandžak 1476–1560: zemlja, naselja, stanovništvo (Belgrade: Istorijski institut, 2004); N. Antov, “The Ottoman State and Semi-Nomadic Groups along the Ottoman Danubian Serhad (Frontier Zone) in the Late 15th and the First Half of the 16th Centuries: Challenges and Policies.” Hungarian Studies 27, no. 2 (2013): 219–35; E. Radushev and G. Baş, Early Ottoman Military and Administrative Order in the Balkans: A Muster Roll of the Voynuk Corps (Defter-i Esâmî-i Voynugân) in the Western Balkans from 1487. Text and Index (Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, 2020): 9–25; T. Katić, Vojnučki defter iz 1455. godine: 9–23 and the literature cited therein.
N. Beldiceanu and I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Quatre actes de Mehmed II concernant les Valaques des Balkans slaves.” Südost-Forschungen 24 (1964): 116.
Barkan, Kanunlar: 303–306, esp. 306. For an English translation of this particular passage, see Radushev and Baş, A Muster Roll of the Voynuk Corps: 11.
Kiprovska, “The Military Organization of the Akıncıs in Ottoman Rumelia”: 52–66. For the territorial spread of the voynuks in this particular territory, see K. Ĭordanov, “Za rannata istorii͡a na voĭnushkata institut͡sia v Severozapadna Trakii͡a spored osmanski dokumenti ot XV–XVI v. i prevod na edin voĭnushki registŭr za regiona na Plovdiv i Pazardzhik (kazite Filibe i Tatar Pazardzhik) prez 1528–1529 g.,” Istoricheski pregled 3 (2018): 5–75; idem, “Voĭnushki i derventdzhiĭski selishta v T͡sentralnii͡a i Iztochnii͡a di͡al na Gornotrakiĭskata nizina prez XVI v. (kazite Filibe, Stara Zagora, Haskovo i I͡ambol),” in Trakii͡a prez Srednovekovieto i osmanskata epokha: Kharakter i dinamika na selishtnii͡a zhivot (XI–XVIII vek). Sbornik statii ot nauchna konferent͡sii͡a, provedena na 27–28 noemvri 2014 g. v Sofii͡a, ed. Daniela Stoi͡anova and Chavdar Kirilov (Sofia: Universitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Okhridski”, 2020), 111–43, map no. 1 on 143; Y. Ercan, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Bulgarlar ve Voynuklar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1986): 43–50 and the appended map.
Lowry, The Nature: 51–54; Kiprovska, “The Military Organization of the Akıncıs in Ottoman Rumelia”: 97; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 82.
Kiprovska, “The Military Organization of the Akıncıs in Ottoman Rumelia”: 52–66; eadem, “The Mihaloğlu Family: Gazi Warriors and Patrons of Dervish Hospices.” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 32 (2008): 173–202; Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 8–10. The yürük and Tatar spread in the Balkans and in the areas of akıncı recruitment can be gleaned from the thorough study by M. T. Gökbilgin, Rumeli’de Yürükler, Tatarlar ve Evlâd-i Fâtihân (Istanbul: Osman Yalçın Matbaası, 1957), especially the maps appended at the end of the book. See also S. Altunan, “XVI. Yüzyılda Balkanlar’da Naldöken Yürükleri: İdari Yapıları, Nüfusları, Askeri Görevleri ve Sosyal Statüleri.” In Balkanlar’da İslâm Medeniyeti Milletlerarası Sempozyumu Tebliğleri: Sofya, 21–23 Nisan 2000, ed. A. Çaksu (Istanbul: İslâm Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi, 2002): 11–34; eadem, “XVI. ve XVII. Yüzyıllarda Rumeli’de Tanrıdağı Yürüklerinin Askeri Organizasyonu.” In Osmanlı ve Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türk-Bulgar İlişkileri Sempozyumu, ed. M. Bayrak (Eskişehir: Osmangazi Üniversitesi, 2005): 189–200. A number of dervish brotherhoods, which were closely associated with the frontier lords, were also located together with their shrines (tekke) in the areas of akıncı residence. See G. Boykov, “Abdāl-Affiliated Convents and “Sunnitizing” Halveti Dervishes in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Rumeli.” In Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450–c. 1750, ed. T. Krstić and D. Terzioğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2020): 308–40 and the map on 312.
Erdoğan Özünlü and Kayapınar, 1472 ve 1560 Tarihli Akıncı Defterleri: 21–22, 31–32.
H. Doğru, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Yaya–Müsellem–Taycı Teşkilatı (XV. ve XVI. Yüzyılda Sultanönü Sancağı) (Istanbul: Eren Yayınevi, 1990): 55–58, 73–95, esp. 88–91; M. Kiprovska, “Byzantine Renegade and Holy Warrior: Reassessing the Character of Köse Mihal, a Hero of the Byzantino-Ottoman Borderland.” Journal of Turkish Studies (Special Issue: Defterology: Festschrift in Honor of Heath Lowry, ed. S. Kuru and B. Tezcan) 40 (2013): 257–58.
F. Cusin, Il confine orientale d’Italia nella politica europea del XIV e XV secolo (Trieste: Lint, 1977).
D. Salihović, “Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier toward the Ottoman Empire in the Reign of King Matthias Corvinus, 1458–1490.” Unpublished PhD thesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2021): 78, 86–117.
Salihović, “Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier”: 122–23, 132–33, 148–49.
R. Schäffer, “Die Zeit Friedrichs III.” In Die Steiermark im Spätmittelalter, ed. G. Pferschy (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau, 2018): 43–74, esp. 54–58.
Unrest, Österreichische Chronik: 26–29.
Archivio di Stato di Milano. Archivio visconteo-sforzesco file 353 report from 11th July 1469.
B. Grgin, “Modruš između knezeva Frankapana, Osmanlija i kraljevskih vlast, 1458–1526.” Modruški zbornik 3 (2009): 41–51, who discusses on 45–46 the urbar (register of fief ownership) of the Modruš region from 1486, which comprised 32 settlements. The urbar demonstrates the effects of Ottoman raids on the population structure of a region that was particularly exposed to slave hunting actions from nearby Bosnia. While 28% of the settlements were devastated, there was also an influx of new settlers.
E. Kurtović, Vlasi Bobani (Sarajevo: Društvo za proučavanje srednjovjekovne bosanske historije, 2012): 89; E. Kurtović, “Iz istorije Vlaha Predojevića.” Godišnjak. Centar za balkanološka ispitivanja 40 (2011): 243–54, here 49; M. Dinić, Iz dubravačkog arhiva, vol. 3 (Belgrade: SANU i Naučno delo, 1967) offers extremely rich source evidence on Vlah “ropci” (slave hunters).
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 209–10; Salihović, “Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier”: 21.
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 170.
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 170 “et quelli non podeano caminare a loro modo, tuto li ferirno da morte, lasandoli per camino; le done erano conosciuti in presentia de loro mariti, fratelli e padre, da quella turba granda per camino sono restati morti circha 200, et alcuni feriti lassati per morte sono retornati a casa et examinati” (“those who could not march like them were killed and left on the road; women were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers and fathers; of the large crowd on the road about 200 perished; some who had been left to die from their wounds returned home and were questioned there”).
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 173.
Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 6.
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 173.
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 211–12.
J. Reissermayer, Der grosse Christentag zu Regensburg 1471. II. Teil. Programm zum Jahresberichte über das K. neue Gymnasium zu Regensburg für das Studienjahr 1887/88 (Regensburg: Demmlersche Buchdruckerei, 1888).
Unrest, Österreichische Chronik: 40–41.
Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 6.
E. Orlando, Strutture e pratiche di una comunità urbana. Spalato, 1420–1479 (Venice, Vienna: Istituto veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti–Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2019): 352–53.
Pedani Fabris, “I Turchi e il Friuli”: 205.
Pedani, “Turkish Raids in Friuli”: 287; Pedani Fabris, “I Turchi e il Friuli”: 206; Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 34; F. Musoni, Sulle incursioni dei Turchi in Friuli, 2 vols. (Udine: Cromotipografia Patronato, 1890–1892) provides valuable data from local archives on the first defence measures taken in 1469. In June/July 1469 taxes were raised for the fortifications of the city walls of Udine (vol. 1: 14–15). In 1470 a spy was sent to the region of Laibach to gather intelligence on the movements of the akıncıs (vol. 1: 19). In 1471, Venice decided to send to Friuli and Istria 3,000 mercenaries who had been stationed in the region of Vicenza and Padua (vol. 1: 25). In June 1471, the regional parliament of the Patria of Friuli sent troops to Cormons in order to block a possible raid by akıncıs, who had devastated the area of Laibach. Musoni deals with the 1472 incursion on p. 31–39; he reproduces on p. 33 a letter of the Venetian lieutenant of Friuli of 21 September 1472 in which he mobilized the regional militiamen “quia certificati sumus impios Theucros super Carsium non longe a Monte Falcone exercitum suum constituisse.” Sabellico reports as an eyewitness, “Fatto il giorno, i Vinitiani apparendo i nimici con prestezza passando il fiume n’andarono con furia ne i campi spatiosi de Forlani. Onde tutti gli habitatori fuggirono nelle terre, nelle quali fu molta paura: perche il fumo delle uille, che ardeuano da lontano, mise gran terrore a i Cittadini. Mai i uillani, che fuggiuano con loro figliuoli, bestiame, et robbe iscontrando quelli su le porte accresceuano maggior paura … essendo i Turchi caualcati appresso tre miglia, in tanto terrore di subito si misero, che quasi stimando il nimico essere nella Città, le donne timide con li lor figliuoli s’erano poste attorno gli altari.” Le Historie vinitiane di Marco Antonio Sabellico, divise in tre deche con tre libri della quarta deca, novamente da messer Lodovico Dolce in volgare tradotte (Venice: Per Curtio Troiano di Navo, 1594): 256.
Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481: 220.
Unrest, Österreichische Chronik: 42–44.
Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 7; Schäffer, “Die Zeit Friedrichs III.”: 59–60.
Pedani, “Turkish Raids in Friuli”: 287; Pedani Fabris, “I Turchi e il Friuli”: 209–210; D. Malipiero, “Annali.” Archivio storico italiano 7 (1843): 114–17.
Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 7.
Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 174–176.
Pedani, “Turkish Raids in Friuli”: 288; Macuscev, Monumenta historica Slavorum, vol. 2: 179.
Toifl and Leibgeb, Türkeneinfälle in der Steiermark und in Kärnten: 8–9; Schäffer, “Die Zeit Friedrichs III.”: 61; W. Brunner, “Siedlungshöhepunkt und Verödung im ländlichen Raum.” In Die Steiermark im Spätmittelalter, ed. G. Pferschy (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau, 2018): 167–92, esp. 186 (quotation).
Brunner, “Siedlungshöhepunkt und Verödung”: 186–87.
M. Köhbach, “Gellérthegy-Gerz Ilyas Tepesi. Ein Berg und sein Heiliger.” Südost-Forschungen 37 (1978): 130–44, dealing with the figure of Gerz Ilyas, an Ottoman frontier fighter of the late 15th century who fought against Hungarian and Croatian marcher lords.
T. Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018): 263–71; for a detailed discussion of the battle, see F. Szakály and P. Fodor, “A kenyérmezei csata (1479. október 13.).” Hadtörtenélmi Közlemények 111, no. 2 (1998): 309–49, with the edition of the relevant sections of Kemalpaşazade’s history (339–343) and a contemporary report by a Transylvanian Saxon (344–348), which largely
overlap. The Saxon eyewitness mentions as commanders (“öbristen Nawbttläwtt”) the “wäschn” (Pasha) named “Eschenpeck” (İsa Bey), an “Albeck” (Ali Bey) and a “Scwenden beg” (İskender Bey) who led 45,000 “Turgken vnd Wallachen.”
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 423–28; F. Szakály and P. Fodor, “A kenyérmezei csata”.
For these raids see Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481: 244–47.
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 473–78.
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 478–80.
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 480–84.
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 484–88.
These commanders were named by Kemalpaşazade. İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 490.
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 274–75.
İbn Kemal, VII. Defter: 488–500.
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 265.
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 275–77.
I. R. Cassetta and E. Ercolino, “La prise d’Otranto (1480–81), entre sources chrétiennes et turques.” Turcica 34 (2002): 253–73, esp. 260–61, quotation from İbn Kemal on 265; Hubert Houben, La conquista turca di Otranto (1480) tra storia e mito, 2 vols. (Galatina: Congedo, 2008).
Schmitt, “Traîtres ou champions de survie?”
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 293–94; S. Miljan and H. Kekez, “The Memory of the Battle of Krbava (1493) and the Collective Identity of the Croats.” Hungarian Historical Review 4, no. 2 (2015): 283–313; for the sources cf. Šišić, “Rukovet spomenika o hercegu Ivanišu Korvinu.”
İbn Kemâl, VIII. Defter: 130–40.
P. Engel, “A török dúlások hatása a népességre: Valkó megye példája.” Századok 134, no. 2 (2000): 267–321, esp. 282.
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 288–89; Salihović, “Definition, Extent, and Administration of the Hungarian Frontier”: 79.
A. M. Magno, La splendida. Venezia 1499–1509 (Bari: Laterza, 2019), chapter “I turcs tal Friúl”; Pedani, “Turkish Raids in Friuli”: 289.
Malipiero, “Annali”: 116 “le sue corarie ha messo tanto terror ne i animi de popoli vicini, che i ha lassà le possession, i gregi, le case et le facultà, e son vegnudi in questa Terra; e tassano quei che i governa, digando che i ha poca cura de loro.”
Schäffer, “Die Zeit Friedrichs III.”: 59.
Cusin, “Confine orientale”: 118–19.
Cusin, “Confine orientale”: 111–113.
Kiprovska, “Agents of Conquest: Frontier Lords’ Extended Households,” discussing the Mihaloğlu household in Pleven and the district of Niğbolu/Nikopol, where the sancak beyi Mehmed Bey controlled a truly multicultural household that mirrored the main target areas of the akıncı raids, which is clearly evident from the geographical epithets attached to the names of some of its members, namely Bosna (33 people), Arnavud (23), Hersek (12), Eflâk (4), Belgrad (2), Macar (1), and Rus (1).
Historia turchesca: 151.
Kiprovska, “Shaping the Ottoman Borderland”: 208–210.
The demographic consequences cannot be described in detail here; for regional studies cf. G. Boykov, “The Human Cost of Warfare: Population Loss during the Ottoman Conquest and the Demographic History of Bulgaria in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era.” In The Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans: Interpretations and Research Debates, ed. O. J. Schmitt (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2016): 103–66; in central Albania, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the population had disappeared after decades of warfare, cf. Schmitt, Skanderbeg. Der neue Alexander auf dem Balkan, 102; E. O. Filipović, “The Ottoman Conquest and the Depopulation of Bosnia in the Fifteenth Century.” In State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule, ed. S. Rudić and S. Aslantaş (Belgrade: The Institute of History – Belgrade, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü – Belgrade, 2017): 79–101; M. Krešić, “Depopulacija jugoistočne Hercegovine izazvana turskim osvajanjem.” In Hum i Hercegovina kroz povijest. Zbornik radova s Međunarodnoga znanstvenog skupa održanog u Mostaru 5. i 6. studenoga 2009, vol. 1, ed. I. Lučić (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest and Biblioteka hrvatska povjesnica, 2011): 757–76; on Hungary, cf. G. Dávid, “Towns, Villages, Depopulated Settlements—Population Movements in Ottoman Hungary.” Hungarian Studies 27, no. 2 (2013): 251–61; A. Kubinyi, “Die Bevölkerung des Königreichs Ungarn am Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts.” In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. G. Kristó, P. Engel, and A. Kubinyi (Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag, 2007): 66–93, esp. 85–87; I. Draskóczy, “Die demographische Lage des Sachsenlandes zu Beginn des 16. Jahrhunderts.” In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. G. Kristó, P. Engel, and A. Kubinyi (Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag, 2007): 94–134, esp. 121; G. Dávid, “Die Bevölkerung Ungarns im 16.–17. Jahrhundert.” In Historische Demographie Ungarns (896–1996), ed. G. Kristó, P. Engel, and A. Kubinyi (Herne: Gabriele Schäfer Verlag, 2007): 135–80; E. Wagner, “Wüstungen in den Sieben Stühlen als Folge der Türkeneinfälle des 15. Jahrhunderts.” Forschungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde 21, no. 1 (1978): 40–48; Simoniti, “Die Wüstungen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert.”
Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: 9, 18, 114, 133, 136–42.
Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: 261–263.
W. Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert: Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äußeren Bedrohung (Munich: C.H.Beck, 1978). An eloquent example of this marcher society are the uskoks of Senj. Drawn from the refugee border warriors in Ottoman marcher regions and largely from among the ranks of the martoloses and the Vlachs, they came under the protection of the Habsburg Empire and, continuing their previous plundering activities, now served under the Christian banner against the Ottomans. Cf. C. W. Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992).
For the mass migration of Orthodox Balkan population to Central Hungary after its final conquest by the Ottomans in 1541 cf. D. Amedoski, “Demografske promene u nahiji Boban kao primer depopulacije Rumelije u 16. veku.” Istorijski časopis 59 (2010): 225–42.