2 - A New Enemy: The Emergence of the Turks as a ‘Target’ of Crusade

Summary

Christianity endures the greatest danger in the remotest parts where Christians dwell: obviously the parts where they are neighbours with the Tartars, also in parts where they are neighbours with the Spanish Moors, and also where Christians have borders by the sea in the eastern region with the Turks, the most evil Saracens who rule almost all of Asia Minor.

Marino Sanudo Torsello, letter to Cardinal Bertrand du Pouget, 10 April 1330.

Marino Sanudo's words are characteristic of a Venetian writing in the early 1330s – a period of intense Turkish raids on the Republic's possessions in the Aegean, which eventually led to the formation of the first naval league in 1333. But Sanudo's words do not characterize all western views of the Turkish beyliks for the whole time-span of this study. Unsurprisingly, no single source can provide such a thing, as no uniform view ever existed. Instead the perception of the Turks in the eyes of western Christendom gradually evolved over time, from one of ambivalence and ambiguity to one of fear and aversion, as the beyliks emerged as the sole target of a crusade mid-way through the century. Still, even during this process of growing animosity, not all views of the Turks were necessarily negative; instead they remained complex and multifaceted, being constantly influenced by a plethora of external factors. It is these inconsistencies as well as the overlying trend of rising hostility that this chapter aims to map out.

The Emergence of the Turkish Beyliks in Anatolia

The expansion of Latin trade in the Aegean and Black Seas during the second half of the thirteenth century coincided with the emergence of Turkish warrior-nomads on the old Seljuk-Byzantine frontier. A pivotal point in this demographic transformation was the Mongol victory at the battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, which resulted in the reduction and submission of the Seljuk Sultanate to the Mongols in Anatolia. The gradual weakening of Mongol authority in the following decades led to the creation of numerous autonomous tribal domains in the area. These gradually evolved into a patchwork of Turkish principalities, known as emirates in Arabic, or beyliks in Turkish, centred around the ruling house of a head Turkish chieftain from which they often took their name.