Murad I . Ottoman Sultan from 1362 to 1389 . He captured the Greeks Thrace , Gallipoli and Adrianople, establishing at this last point the capital of his empire. He subdued the Serbs and Bulgarians, and was the creator of the body of the Janissaries . He died in 1389 in the Battle of Kosovo , after winning thirty-seven fights.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Reign
- 2 Death
- 2 Sources
Biographical synthesis
He was born in the city of Bursa, Turkey in 1326 ; second son of Sultan Orhan I and Nilüfer, daughter of the Byzantine lord of Yarhisar.
His policy was to use his subjects for the advancement of the Ottoman state. Christian peoples were never disturbed by this monarch: they could keep their religion and customs as long as they paid taxes. As for the Christians who converted to Islam and entered the service of the state , they were well received in the Turkish community and made a brilliant career.
Reign
He acceded to the throne in 1362 , at the end of a civil war against his younger brothers. In 1365 , he created the infantry corps called Janissaries , made up of young Christian slaves. He also instituted a new class of officials, the devshirme, in which numerous ethnic groups were represented and whose influence was predominant. His role was to maintain Ottoman unity and to put Turkish principles into practice.
In 1366 , Amadeus of Savoy, cousin of the Byzantine Emperor John V, took Gallipoli on the European shore of the Dardanelles, a conquest that would have allowed the Byzantines to block the way from the Turks through the strait. Later, in 1369 , the emperor traveled to Rome to enlist the help of the Pope. However, Byzantine success was temporary, and in 1377 Emperor Andronicus IV ceded Gallipoli to Murad in exchange for his help in a civil war against his father and brothers.
By the end of the 1360s , he had established his sovereignty in Anatolia and Europe , and his dominions began to expand rapidly. In the east, he peacefully annexed the Turkish principalities, comprised in an arc between his own lands in northwestern Anatolia and Antalya on the Mediterranean coast. The dominion of Germiyan, Hamid and the territories located to the south, gave Murad control of a trade route that went from his capital, Bursa, to Antalya. This contributed to both filling their coffers and expanding their holdings.
The city of Edirne, occupied a strategic position at the confluence of the Maritza and Tundsa rivers, giving access to central and eastern Bulgaria and western Thrace. This motivated two Serbian lords from Macedonia to form an alliance against Murad and attacked his forces on the Maritza River in 1371 . Both men lost their lives in the battle.
Tsar Shishman of Bulgaria , became Murad’s vassal after his bond with his sister Thamara. However, the conquest of Thrace and Macedonia was by arms. The Turkish raids under his command began immediately after the Battle of the Maritza River and Thessaloniki suffered its first attack in 1372 . In that same year Pope Gregory XI tried in vain to form an anti-Turkish alliance, suggesting that the Latin colonies in central and southern Greece were at risk of being attacked in their turn.
In the 1380s , the Ottomans also raided southwest to Epic and south to the Peloponnese . In 1383 , an Ottoman army under the Vizier Hayreddin Candarli captured Serrai and laid siege to Thessalonica. Four years later, the city fell. However, the blockade of Thessalonica kept only a part of Murad’s forces occupied. Verroia fell between 1385 and 1386 , and Bitola soon after, leaving all of southern Macedonia under Ottoman control.
In 1385 , he subdued Sofia and the following year Nis, which allowed him to enter the territory of the Lord of Serbia , Prince Lazarus. This invasion was a failure: Lazarus contained Murad’s advance at Plocnik in 1386 and forced his retreat. For three years the sultan did not return to Serbia. The eastward expansion brought Murad into contact with Karamania, the most powerful of the Anatolian emirates, and that encounter led to war, subduing their lord, Aladdin Ali, in 1387 . During the same year, the Bulgarian Tsar Shishman renounced his allegiance to the Sultan and launched a campaign against the vizier Ali Candarli to subdue him; but finally, in 1388, Shishman accepted the absolute dominion of Murad.
The vassal Jorge Stracimirovic Balsic, lord of Zeta, southern Bosnia , asked Murad for troops to attack Tvrtko, king of Bosnia and the Sultan sent Sahin. In August 1388 , Bosnian troops defeated Sahin’s men at Bileca, near the Adriatic , and with the idea of finding King Tvrtko, Murad marched west in 1389 . His advance took him to Serbia.
Death of Murad I in the Battle of Kosovo
Death
The 28 of June of 1389 , he faced the army of the Prince Lazar in the Battle of Kosovo . He was assassinated on 29 of June of 1389 by the Serbian knight Miloš Obilić, during the battle when it came to the Ottoman camp and entered the tent of the Sultan faking his defection. Once there, he stabbed him in the neck and heart. Obilić was immediately killed by the Sultan’s bodyguards.
His son Bayezid I , also present in the combat, succeeded him there.
