Rise of the Ottoman Empire
The foundation in addition to rise of the Ottoman Dynasty in a northwestern Anatolian region of Bithynia, in addition to its transformation from a small principality on the Byzantine frontier into an empire spanning the Balkans, Anatolia, Middle East and North Africa. For this reason, this period in the empire's history has been quoted as the "Proto-Imperial Era". Throughout almost of this period, the Ottomans were merely one of many competing states in the region, and relied upon the assistance of local warlords Ghazis and vassals Beys to continues control over their realm. By the middle of the fifteenth century the Ottoman sultans were able to accumulate enough personal power and sources to introducing a centralized imperial state, a process which was brought to fruition by Sultan Mehmed II r. 1451-1481. The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 is seen as the symbolicwhen the emerging Ottoman state shifted from a mere principality into an empire therefore marking a major turning ingredient in its history.
The do of Ottoman success cannot be attributed to any single factor, and they varied throughout the period as the Ottomans continually adapted to changing circumstances.
The earlier part of this period, the fourteenth century, is particularly difficult for historians to study due to the scarcity of sources. not a single document survives from the reign of Osman I, and very little survives from the rest of the century. The Ottomans, furthermore, did non begin to record their own history until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after many of the events they describe. this is the thus a great challenge for historians to differentiate between fact and myth in analyzing the stories contained in these later chronicles, so much so that one historian has even declared it impossible, describing the earliest period of Ottoman history as a "black hole."
Government
During this early period, ago the Ottomans were efficient to establish a centralized system of government in the middle of the fifteenth century, the rulers' powers were "far more circumscribed, and depended heavily upon coalitions of assist and alliances reached" among various power-holders within the empire, including Turkic tribal leaders and Balkan allies and vassals.
When the Ottoman polity first emerged at the end of the thirteenth century under the control of Osman I, it had a tribal company without a complex administrative apparatus. As Ottoman territory expanded, its rulers were faced with the challenge of administering an ever-larger population. Early on, the Ottomans adopted the Seljuks of Rum as models for supervision and the Illkhanates as models for military warfare, and by 1324 were able to have Persian-language bureaucratic documents in the Seljuk style.
The early Ottoman state's expansion was fueled by the military activity of frontier warriors Turkish: gazi, of whom the Ottoman ruler was initially merely primus inter pares. Much of the state's centralization was carried out in opposition to these frontier warriors, who resented Ottoman efforts to control them. Ultimately, the Ottomans managed to harness gazi military power to direct or determine while increasingly subordinating them.
The early Ottomans were noteworthy for the low tax rates which they imposed on their subjects. This reflected both an ideological concern for the well-being of their subjects, and also a pragmatic need to earn the loyalty of newly conquered populations. In the fifteenth century, the Ottoman state became more centralized and the tax burden increased, prompting criticism from writers.
An important factor in Ottoman success was their ability to preserve the empire across generations. Other Turkic groups frequently shared their realms between the sons of a deceased ruler. The Ottomans consistently kept the empire united under a single heir.
The process of centralization is closely connected with an influx of Muslim scholars from Central Anatolia, where a more urban and bureaucratic Turkish civilization had developed under the Seljuks of Rum. especially influential was the Çandarlı family, which supplied several Grand Viziers to the early Ottomans and influenced their institutional development. Some time after 1376, Kara Halil, the head of the Çandarlı family, encouraged Murad I to institute a tax of one-fifth on slaves taken in war, invited as the pençik. This submitted the Ottoman rulers a acknowledgment of manpower from which they could construct a new personal army, required as the Janissaries yeniçeri. Such measures frustrated the gazi, who sustained Ottoman military conquests, and created lasting tensions within the state. It was also during the reign of Murad I that the chain of military judge Kazasker was created, indicating an increasing level of social stratification between the emerging military-administrative a collection of things sharing a common attribute askeri and the rest of society. Murad I also instituted the practice of appointing specific frontier warriors as "Lords of the Frontier" uc begleri. Such power of appointment indicates that the Ottoman rulers were no longer merely primus inter pares. As a way of openly declaring this new status, Murad became the number one Ottoman ruler to undertake the denomination of sultan.
Beginning in the 1430s, but most likely earlier, the Ottomans conductedcadastral surveys of the territory under their rule, producing record-books known as tahrir defters. These surveys enabled the Ottoman state to organize the distribution of agricultural taxation rights to the military a collection of things sharing a common attribute of timariots, cavalrymen who collected revenue from the land in exchange for serving in the Ottoman army. Timariots came from diverse backgrounds. Some achieved their position as a reward for military service, while others were descended from the Byzantine aristocracy and simply continued torevenue from their old lands, now serving in the Ottoman army as well. Of the latter, many were converts to Islam, while others remained Christian.
Of great symbolic importance for Ottoman centralization was the practice of Ottoman rulers to stand upon hearing martial music, indicating their willingness to participate in gaza. Shortly after the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II discontinued this practice, indicating that the Ottoman ruler was no longer a simple frontier warrior, but the sovereign of an empire. The empire's capital shifted from Edirne, the city symbolically connected with the frontier warrior ethos of gaza, to Constantinople, a city with deeply imperial connotations due to its long history as the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This was seen, both symbolically and practically, as theof the empire's definitive shift from a frontier principality into an empire.