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Bayezid I (; ), also known as Bayezid the Thunderbolt (; ; – 8 March 1403), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1389 to 1402. He adopted the title of Sultan-i Rûm, Rûm being the Arabic name for the Eastern Roman Empire. In 1394, Bayezid unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople. Bayezid vanquished all the Beyliks and proceeded to conquer and vassalize the entirety of Anatolia. In 1402, he once more besieged Constantinople, appearing to find success, but he ultimately withdrew due to the invasion of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur.Mango, Cyril. The Oxford History of Byzantium. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. pp. 273–274 He defeated the crusaders at the Battle of Nicopolis in what is now Bulgaria in 1396. He was later defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity in March 1403, which triggered the Ottoman Interregnum.
Bayezid ascended to the throne following the death of his father, Murad I, who was killed by Serbian knight Miloš Obilić during (15 June), or immediately after (16 June), the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, soon after which Serbia became a vassal of the Ottoman Sultanate. Immediately after obtaining the throne, he had his younger brother strangled to avoid a plot. In 1390, Bayezid took as a wife Princess Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia,Halil Inalcik, "Bayezid I", The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. I, Ed. H.A.R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, E. Levi-Provencal and J. Schacht, (Brill, 1986), 1118. who also lost his life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader - later despot - with considerable autonomy.
]] Upper Serbia resisted the Ottomans until Bayezid captured Skopje in 1391, converting the city into an important base of operations.
In a single campaign over the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beyliks of Aydin, Sarukhanids and Menteshe. His major rival Sulayman, the emir of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the ruler of Sivas, Kadi Burhan al-Din and the remaining Turkish beyliks. Nevertheless, Bayezid pushed on and overwhelmed the remaining beyliks (Hamidids, Teke, and Germiyan), as well as taking the cities of Akşehir and Niğde, as well as their capital Konya from the Karaman. At this point, Bayezid accepted peace proposals from Karaman (1391), concerned that further advances would antagonize his Turkoman followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. Once peace had been made with Karaman, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu which had given refuge to many fleeing from his forces, and conquered both that city as well as Sinop.Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1 pp. 30f However, his subsequent campaign was stopped by Burhan al-Din at the Battle of Kırkdilim.
From 1389 to 1395 he conquered Bulgaria and Northern Greece. In 1394 Bayezid crossed the River Danube to attack Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder. The Ottomans were superior in number, but on 10 October 1394 (or 17 May 1395), in the Battle of Rovine, on forested and swampy terrain, the won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid's army from advancing beyond the Danube.John V.A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans, (The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 424.
In 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Anadoluhisarı fortress was built between 1393 and 1394 as part of preparations for the second Ottoman siege of Constantinople, which took place in 1395. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, a new crusade was organized to defeat him. This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christianity allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor (in 1433) Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Cami in Bursa, to celebrate this victory.
Thus the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1402.Nancy Bisaha, Creating East And West: Renaissance Humanists And the Ottoman Turks, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 98. The beleaguered had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid dynasty in the east.Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–13, (Brill, 2007), 5. At this time, the empire of Bayezid included Thrace (except Constantinople), Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia in Europe. In Asia, his domains extended to the Taurus Mountains. His army was considered one of the best in the Islamic world.
In 1400, Timur succeeded in rousing the local Turkic beyliks who had been vassals of the Ottomans to join him in his attack on Bayezid, who was also considered one of the most powerful rulers in the Muslim world during that period. Years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and Bayezid. Both rulers insulted each other in their own way while Timur preferred to undermine Bayezid's position as a ruler and play down the significance of his military successes.
This is the excerpt from one of Timur's letters addressed to the Ottoman sultan:
In the fateful Battle of Ankara, on 20 July 1402, the Ottoman army was defeated. Bayazid tried to escape, but was captured and taken to Timur.Kinross, B.P; "Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire". 1999. pp. 86–88; Historians describe their first meeting as follows:
Many writers claim that Bayezid was mistreated by the Timurids. However, writers and historians from Timur's own court reported that Bayezid was treated well, and that Timur even mourned his death. One of Bayezid's sons, Mustafa Çelebi, was captured with him and held captive in Samarkand until 1405.
Four of Bayezid's sons, specifically Süleyman Çelebi, İsa Çelebi, Mehmed Çelebi, and Musa Çelebi, however, escaped from the battlefield and later started a civil war for the Ottoman throne known as the Ottoman Interregnum.Dimitris J. Kastritsis, 1–3. After Mehmed's victory, his coronation as Mehmed I, and the deaths of the other three, Bayezid's other son Mustafa Çelebi emerged from hiding and began two failed rebellions against his brother Mehmed and, after Mehmed's death, his nephew Murad II.
Different versions on Bayezid's death existed, too. One of them mentioned the suicide of Bayezid.Akgunduz A.; Ozturk S. Ottoman History – Misperceptions and Truths. Rotterdam: IUR Press, 2011. p. 75. Allegedly, the Sultan committed suicide through hitting his head against the bars of his cell or taking poison. The version was promoted by Ottoman historians: Lutfi Pasha, Ashik Pasha-Zade.Akgunduz A.; Ozturk S. Ottoman History – Misperceptions and Truths. Rotterdam: IUR Press, 2011. p. 74. There was also a version where Bayezid was supposedly poisoned on Timur's order. This is considered unlikely, because there is evidence that the Turco-Mongol ruler entrusted the care of Bayezid to his personal doctors.
In the descriptions of contemporaries and witnesses of the events, neither a cell nor humiliation is mentioned.
German traveller and writer Johann Schiltberger did not write anything about the cell, bars or violent death. Another contemporary, Jean II Le Maingre, who witnessed Bayezid's captivity, wrote nothing about the cell or poisoning either. Clavijo, who came to Timur's court in 1404 as part of the embassy and visited Constantinople on his return trip, also did not mention the cell. All Greek sources of the first decade of the 15th century are equally silent about the cell.Milwright M., Baboula E. Bayezid's Cage: A Re-examination of a Venerable Academic Controversy. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 2011. Vol. 21, iss. 3. p. 242 Sharafaddin Yazdi () in Zafar-nama wrote that Bayezid was treated with respect, and at his request, Turco-Mongols found his son among the captives and brought him to his father. Regarding Bayezid's wife, Sharafaddin wrote that Timur sent her and his daughters to her husband. Olivera allegedly became a Muslim under the influence of Timur.Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi. Zafar-name. Tashkent: SAN'AT, 2008 . p. 519.
First references to a disrespectful attitude towards Bayazid appear in the works of ibn Arabshah (1389–1450) and Constantine of Ostrovica. Ibn Arabshah wrote that "Bayezid's heart was broken to pieces" when he saw that his wives and concubines were serving at a banquet.Ibn Arabshah. History of Amir Temur. Translated by Bababekova, H. N. Tashkent: Makhpirat Institute of the History of the Peoples of Central Asia, 2007. p. 188
Ibn Arabshah wrote the following about the captivity of Bayezid:
However, this is just a "flowery style", and not a real cell. According to literary historian H.A.R. Gibb, "the flowery elegance of style has also affected historiography. Most of the authors of the Timurid era succumbed to its influence ."Gibb H. A. R. Muslim historiography. translated by Gryaznevich P. A. Arabic literature. Classical period. ed. Belyaev, V. I. Publishing house of Eastern Literature, 1960. pp. 117–156, 188
Constantine of Ostrovica wrote neither about the cell, nor about the nudity of Bayezid's wife; though he did write that Bayezid committed suicide. In the story of Constantine, just like in that of ibn Arabshah, the sultan was so struck by the fact that his wife carried wine to a feast that he poisoned himself with a poison from his ring.Constantine from Ostrovitsa. Notes of the Janissary. Written by Constantine Mikhailovich of Ostrovica. Introduction. Translation and comm. by Rogova, A. I. published by Nauka, 1978. p. 136 (Monuments of the Medieval history of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe)
Ottoman historian Mehmed Neshri (1450–1520) described Bayezid's imprisonment and mentioned the cell twice. According to him, Timur asked Bayezid what he would do in Timur's place with regard to the captive. "I would have planted him in an iron cage," Bayezid answered. To which Timur replied: "This is a bad answer." He ordered to prepare the cage and the Sultan was put into it.Mehmed Neshri. Bogged down into the light: History on the Ottoman court. ed: Maria Kalitsin. Sofia: Fatherland Front, 1984. p. 420
The complete set of legends may perhaps be found in the work of Pope Pius II Asiae Europaeque elegantissima descriptio, written in 1450–1460 (published in 1509): Bayezid is kept in a cage, fed with garbage under the table, Timur uses Bayezid as a support to get on or off a horse. Further development can be found in later authors, such as Theodore Spandounes. The first version of his story was written in Italian and completed in 1509, and a French translation was published in 1519. In these versions of the text, Spandounes wrote only about the golden chains and that the sultan was used as a stand. Spandounes added the cell only in later versions of the text. Later versions of the text also include a description of the public humiliation of Bayezid's wife:
At the same time, the sultan was a talented commander. Despite his lust for earthly pleasures, Bayezid was a religious man and used to spend hours in his personal mosque in Bursa. He also kept Islamic theologians in his circle.Kinross, B.P; "Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire". 1999. p. 73;
In the words of the contemporary Greek historian Doukas:
In 1648, the play Le Gran Tamerlan et Bejezet by Jean Magnon appeared in London, and in 1725, Handel's Tamerlano was first performed and published in London;London: Printed & sold by J. Cluer, 1725 Antonio Vivaldi's version of the story, Bajazet, was written in 1735. Magnon had given Bayezid an intriguing wife and daughter; the Handel and Vivaldi renditions included, as well as Tamerlane and Bayezid and his daughter, a prince of Byzantium and a princess of Trabzon (Trabzon) in a passionate love story. A cycle of paintings in Schloss Eggenberg, near Graz in Austria, translated the theme to a different medium; this was completed in the 1670s shortly before the Ottoman army attacked the Habsburgs in central Europe.Finkel, C. (2006) The History of the Ottoman Empire: Osman's Dream. New York: Basic Books; p. 30
The historical novel The Grand Cham (1921) by Harold Lamb focuses on the quest of its European hero to gain the assistance of Tamerlane in defeating Bayezid.Lamb, Harold. Swords from the West. Lincoln; University of Nebraska Press, 2009 (p. 603) Bayezid (spelled Bayazid) is a central character in the Robert E. Howard story Lord of Samarcand,Howard, Robert E. (1973) Sowers of the Thunder, Ace Science Fiction where he commits suicide at Tamerlane's victory banquet. Bayazid is a main character in the novel The Walls of Byzantium (2013) by James Heneage." The Walls of Byzantium...where The Armies of the Ottoman Emperor Bayazid threaten Constantinople and the few remaining outposts of its empire". Cited in "Three More Tales of the Byzantine Empire". BBC History Magazine, 10 September 2015 (p. 74).
In the 29th Degree of the Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, Bayezid appears as a central figure in a drama that is historical fiction.
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