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The Ottoman conquest of Adrianople (Edirne) by the Ottomans occurred sometime in the 1360s, and eventually became the Ottoman capital afterwards, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Background

Following the capture of Gallipoli by the Ottomans in 1354, Turkish expansion in the southern Balkans was rapid. Although they had to halt their advance during the Kidnapping of Şehzade Halil between 1357–59, after Halil's rescue they resumed their advance. The main target of the advance was Adrianople, which was the third most important Byzantine city (after Constantinople and Thessalonica). Whether under Ottoman control or as independent ghazi or akinji warrior bands, the Turks seized Demotika (Didymoteicho) in 1360 or 1361 and Filibe (Philippopolis) in 1363. Despite the recovery of Gallipoli for Byzantium by the Savoyard Crusade in 1366, an increasing number of Turcoman warriors crossed over from Anatolia into Europe, gradually acquiring control of the plains of Thrace and pushing to the Rhodope Mountains in the west and the Bulgarian principalities in the north.

Capture of Adrianople

The date of Adrianople's fall to the Turks has been disputed among scholars due to the differing accounts in the source material, with the years 1361 to 1362, 1367 and 1371 variously proposed. Following sources dating from long after the events, earlier scholarship generally placed the conquest between 1361 and 1363, in accordance with the report in Ottoman sources that a solar eclipse occurred in the year of Adrianople's fall. Thus later Turkish sources report that Lala Shahin Pasha defeated the Byzantine ruler (tekfur) of the city at a battle in Sazlıdere southeast of the city, forcing him to flee secretly by boat. The inhabitants, left to their fate, agreed to surrender the city in July 1362 in exchange for a guarantee of freedom to continue to live in the city as before.

Based on Elisabeth Zachariadou's examination of previously unregarded Byzantine sources, most modern scholars have moved to the view that the city was captured in 1369. Thus a poem from the city's metropolitan bishop to Emperor John V Palaiologos shows Adrianople to have still been in Byzantine hands in Christmas 1366, while a series of Byzantine short chronicles place the date of its capture in 1369. In addition, modern scholars opine that the capture of Adrianople may not have been carried out by Ottoman Turks, but by others among the many independently operating akinji groups in the region.

Aftermath

The city, now renamed Edirne, was taken over and continued for some time to be administered by Lala Shahin Pasha, while Sultan Murad I held court at the old capital at Bursa and only entered the city in the winter of 1376/7, when Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos ceded Gallipoli to Murad in exchange for his help in a dynastic civil war.

Edirne did not immediately become the Ottomans' capital; Murad's court continued to reside in Bursa and in nearby Demotika, as well as Edirne. Nevertheless, the city quickly became the main Ottoman military centre in the Balkans, and it was there that Süleyman Çelebi, one of the contenders for the Ottoman throne during the Ottoman Interregnum of 1402–13, moved the state treasury.

References

1. İnalcık 1994, pp. 69–71.
2. Fine 1994, pp. 377–378.
3. Fine 1994, p. 368.
4. Fine 1994, pp. 377–378, 406.
5. ^ Zachariadou 1970, pp. 211–217.
6. ^ Fine 1994, p. 406.
7. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Irène, La conquête d'Andrinople par les Turcs: la pénétration turque en Thrace et la valeur des chroniques ottomanes in Travaux et Mémoires du Centre de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance vol. 1 (1965) p. 439ff.
8. ^ Tayyib Gökbilgin 1965, p. 683.
9. ^ Imber 2002, p. 11.
10. ^ Gregory & Ševčenko 1991, p. 23.
11. Tayyib Gökbilgin 1965, pp. 683–684.

Sources

• Fine, John V. A. Jr. (1994) . The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
• Gregory, Timothy E.; Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson (1991). "Adrianople". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
• Imber, Colin (2002). The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-3336-1386-3.
• İnalcık, Halil (1994). Kuruluş Dönemi Osmanlı Sultanları (in Turkish). İSAM. ISBN 978-605-5586-06-5.
• Tayyib Gökbilgin, M. (1965). "Edirne". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C–G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 495469475.
• Vogiatzis, Georgios (1987). Die Anfänge der Türkenherrschaft in Thrakien und die ersten Niederlassungen (Ph.D.) (in German). Vienna.
• Zachariadou, Elizabeth (1970). "The Conquest of Adrianople by the Turks". Studii Veneziani. 12: 211–217.

v t e Major sieges involving the Ottoman Empire by century
13th-14th	1285 Kulaca Hisar 1326 Bursa 1328–1331 Nicaea 1333–1337 Nicomedia 1360s Adrianople 1385 Sofia 1393 Tarnovo 1394–1402 Constantinople
15th	1411 Constantinople 1422 Constantinople 1422–1430 Thessalonica 1428 Golubac 1440 Belgrade 1440–41 Novo Brdo 1448 Svetigrad 1450 Krujë 1453 Constantinople 1455 Berat 1456 Belgrade 1461 Trebizond 1462 Mytilene 1463 Jajce 1464 Jajce 1466–67 Krujë 1467 Krujë 1470 Negroponte 1474 Scutari 1477–78 Krujë 1478–79 Scutari 1480 Rhodes 1481 Otranto 1484 Chilia
16th	1500 Cephalonia 1517 Cairo 1521 Belgrade 1522 Knin 1522 Rhodes 1529 Peñón of Algiers 1529 Vienna 1531 Diu 1532 Güns (Kőszeg) 1532 Maribor 1533–34 Coron 1534 Tunis 1534 Baghdad 1537 Klis 1537 Corfu 1538 Diu 1539 Castelnuovo 1541 Buda 1543 Nice 1543 Esztergom 1548 Aden 1548 Van 1551 Tripoli 1552 Muscat 1552 Hormuz 1552 Temesvár 1552 Eger 1556 Oran 1559 Bahrain 1563 Oran 1565 Malta 1566 Szigetvar 1570–71 Famagusta 1574 Tunis 1578 Gvozdansko 1592 Bihać 1593 Sisak 1596 Eger
17th	1601 Nagykanizsa 1621 Khotyn 1638 Baghdad 1663 Uyvar 1664 Novi Zrin 1648–1669 Candia 1672 Kamenets 1683 Vienna 1684 Buda 1684 Santa Maura 1685 Érsekújvár 1686 Buda 1686 Pécs 1688 Negroponte 1688 Belgrade 1690 Belgrade 1695 Azov 1696 Azov
18th	1711 Brăila 1715 Nauplia 1716 Corfu 1716 Temeşvar 1717 Belgrade 1733 Baghdad 1734–35 Ganja 1737 Ochakov 1739 Belgrade 1788 Ochakov 1788 Khotin 1789 Belgrade 1789–90 Izmail 1799 El Arish 1799 Jaffa 1799 Acre
19th	1801 Cairo 1806 Belgrade 1821 Patras 1821–22 Acropolis 1821 Tripolitsa 1822 Missolonghi 1823 Missolonghi 1825–26 Missolonghi 1826–27 Acropolis 1828 Kars 1828 Varna 1854 Calafat 1854 Silistra 1854–55 Sevastopol 1855 Kars 1877 Plevna
20th	1912–13 Scutari 1912–13 Adrianople 1915 Van 1915–16 Kut 1916–1919 Medina
Ottoman defeats shown in italics.

41°40′00″N 26°34′00″E / 41.6667°N 26.5667°E / 41.6667; 26.5667

• 1360s conflicts
• Battles of the Byzantine–Ottoman wars
• Sieges involving the Ottoman Empire
• Sieges involving the Byzantine Empire
• Sieges of Adrianople
• Ottoman Thrace
• 1360s in Europe
• 1360s in the Byzantine Empire
• 1360s in the Ottoman Empire