Seljuk and Byzantine

NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

SECTION OF BYZANTINE RESEARCH
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 22
Byzantium, 1180–1204:
‘The Sad Quarter of a Century’ ?
Edited by
A licia S i m p son
ATHENS 2015

This book forms part of the research project «The Reign of Isaac II Angelos (1185–95):
Politics and Society in the Late Twelfth Century», implemented within the framework of the
Action «Supporting Postdoctoral Researchers» of the Operational Program «Education and
Lifelong Learning» (Action’s Beneficiary: General Secretariat for Research and Technology),
and is co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Greek State.
Edited by: Alicia Simpson
Word processing-layout: Constantina Simonetatou
Distribution: The National Hellenic Research Foundation

48, Vassileos Konstantinou, 116 35 Athens
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e-mail: bookstore@eie.gr
© The National Hellenic Research Foundation

Institute of Historical Research
48, Vassileos Konstantinou, 116 35 Athens
ISSN 1106-1448
ISBN 978-960-9538-37-4
Contents
Prologue Taxiarchis G. Kolias, Director of the Institute

of Historical Research 9
Abbreviations 11–12
Alicia Simpson, Perceptions and Interpretations of the Late

Twelfth Century in Modern Historiography 13–34
Vlada Stanković, Stronger than it Appears? Byzantium and
its European Hinterland after the Death of Manuel I
Komnenos 35–48
Dimitri Korobeinikov, The Byzantine-Seljuk Border in Times
of Trouble: Laodikeia in 1174–1204 49–81
Telemachos Lounghis, The Fate of the German-Byzantine
Alliance in the Late Twelfth Century 83–95
Demetrios Kyritses, Political and Constitutional Crisis at the
End of the Twelfth Century 97–111
Michael Angold, The Anatomy of a Failed Coup: The
Abortive Uprising of John the Fat (31 July 1200) 113–34
Ilias Anagnostakis, ‘From Tempe to Sparta’: Power and
Contestation prior to the Latin Conquest of 1204 135–57
Kostis Smyrlis, Sybaris on the Bosphoros: Luxury, Corruption
and the Byzantine State under the Angeloi (1185–1203) 159–78
Pagona Papadopoulou, Coinage and the Economy at the End
of the Twelfth Century: Αn Assessment 179–94
Paul Magdalino, Money and the Αristocracy (1180–1204) 195–204
8
Maria Gerolymatou, Private Investment in Trade in the Final

Years of the Twelfth Century 205–20
Gerasimos Merianos, Literary Allusions to Trade and
Merchants: The ‘Great Merchant’ in Late Twelfth-Century
Byzantium 221–43
Kallirroe Linardou, A Resting Place for ‘the First of the
Angels’: The Michaelion at Sosthenion 245–59
Nektarios Zarras, A Gem of Artistic Ekphrasis: Nicholas
Mesarites’ Description of the Mosaics in the Church
of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople 261–82
Dimitri Korobeinikov
the byzantine-seljuk border in times of trouble:

laodikeia in 1174–1204
The coming to power of the Angeloi opened ‘Pandora’s box’ for the Byzantine
political system. Though they belonged to the extended Comnenian family
via Theodora Komnene, daughter of Alexios I (1081–1118) and wife of
Constantine Angelos, the very thought that the imperial throne was no
longer limited to its primogenital line was probably intoxicating for the
Byzantine aristocracy. Later events, and in particular the dethronement of
Isaac II (1185–1195) by his elder brother Alexios III Angelos (1195–1203),
only made the situation more complicated. The period in question was
marked by appearance of local ‘emperors’, such as Theodore Mangaphas in
Philadelphia (Alaşehir) (1188–9, 1204–5) and Isaac Komnenos in Cyprus
(1184–1191).
Traditionally, the crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204 has
served as a ‘looking glass’ through which scholars have observed the preceding
years.1 However, the period 1185–1204, which comprised the reigns of the
three ‘inglorious’ Angeloi—Isaac II, Alexios III, and Alexios IV (1203–
1204)—had its own repercussions, which were not necessarily connected
with the events of 1204. Actually, the ‘1204-centric’ and ‘Constantinople-
dominated’ view should in due course be abandoned for the same reasons
that the history of England cannot be ultimately reduced to the history
of London. The turmoil in Constantinople did not necessarily substitute,
influence, or even coincide with, other political and social processes taking
place outside its walls. Suggesting other possible outcomes, however,
1. Cf. the contribution of Alicia Simpson to this volume.

50 Dimitri Korobeinikov
presupposes that we first change our viewpoint. My own ‘looking glass’ is,
therefore, placed on the Byzantine-Seljuk boundary zone in Anatolia.
The process of transformation from Byzantium to Turkey via conquest,
nomadization, and islamization of the Greek population, if we are to
follow the scheme of Speros Vryonis,2 had exceptions. The first exception,
the Empire of Trebizond, which outlived Byzantium itself, was brilliantly
described by Anthony Bryer in his seminal study, ‘Greeks and Türkmens: the
Pontic Exception’.3 The second was the ‘state’ of Philadelphia that survived
as a Byzantine possession until 1390. Philadelphia, called un émirat grec by
Michel Balivet,4 was the subject of a detailed investigation by a team of the
French scholars.5 It is easy to see that both exceptions were rooted in the
period of political instability before 1204: the foundation of the Empire of
Trebizond was laid not only in 1203, when Alexios and David, the ‘Grand’
Komnenoi, began their march from Georgia to Trebizond,6 but also in that
gruesome day in September 1185, when their grandfather Andronikos I
Komnenos (1183–5) was murdered by the Constantinopolitan mob, and his
son, the sebastokrator Manuel, father of Alexios and David, was blinded.7
Likewise, the special position of Philadelphia cannot be understood without
reference to the ephemeral ‘state’ of Theodore Mangaphas. However, there
was another ‘state’, the one established by Manuel Mavrozomes, the father-
in-law of the sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I (1192–6, 1205–11),
2. S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process
of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Berkeley 1971; idem,
‘Nomadization and Islamization in Asia Minor’, DOP 29 (1975), 42–71.
3. A. M. Bryer, ‘Greeks and Türkmens: The Pontic Exception’, DOP 29 (1975), 113–48.
4. M. Balivet, Romanie byzantine et Pays de Rûm Turc. Histoire d’un espace
d’imbrication gréco-turque, Istanbul 1994, 1039.
5. H. Ahrweiler (ed.), Philadelphie et autres etudes, Paris 1984.
6. S. P. Karpov, Istoriia Trapezundskoi imperii, St Petersburg 2007, 80–97.
7. Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J.-L van Dieten, 2 vols., CFHB 11, Berlin–New
York 1975, I, 348.73–351.55, 356.42–6; trans. H. Magoulias, O City of Byzantium. Annals of
Niketas Choniates, Detroit 1984, 192–3, 198; M. Jeffreys et al., Prosopography of the Byzantine
World (2011), Andronikos 1: http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/pbw2011/entity/person/106266; Manuel
20121: http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/pbw2011/entity/person/154421; K. Varzos, Ἡ γενεαλογία τῶν
Κομνηνῶν, 2 vols., Thessaloniki 1984, I, 493–638; II, 511–28. According to Varzos, the execution
of Andronikos I took place 19 September 1185; his son Manuel was blinded simultaneously or
shortly afterwards.
The Byzantine-Seljuk Border in times of trouble 51
which existed in 1205/6–7, and included Laodikeia, Chonai, and the lands
of the upper Maeander. Laodikeia should be listed among the Greek rump
states, as Manuel Mavrozomes laid claim not only to the imperial title, but
also appointed as his co-ruler his son, the amīr Kumninūs Mafruzūm, who
had married a daughter of Kay-Khusraw I.8 Niketas Choniates referred to
Manuel Mavrozomes, together with Theodore I Laskaris (1205–21) and
David Grand Komnenos, as the three most powerful rulers, ‘the three-headed
monster’ (θηρίον τρικάρηνον) of Byzantine Anatolia, and criticized them
for failing to come to the rescue of the unhappy Greeks in the Balkans, who
were hemmed between the Latins and the Bulgarians in 1205.9 Moreover,
Ibn al-Athīr and Bar Hebraeus mentioned Laodikeia on par with Nicaea,
when describing the Byzantine lands in Anatolia just after the fall of
Constantinople in 1204.10 But why and how did this boundary outpost
become significant enough to be mentioned as the second capital city of
Byzantine Anatolia at the end of the twelfth century? In what follows, I
will explore the third exception, Laodikeia. Like the other two, Philadelphia
and Trebizond, its political significance was rooted in the events of the last
quarter of the twelfth century, though these cannot be properly understood
without investigating what had taken place before.
laodikeia: location
Laodikeia was an important stronghold at the crossroads, surrounded by

mountains and hills: the range of Baba Dağı and Eşeler Dağı to the south,
(Büyük) Çökelez Dağı to the north, and Beşparmak Dağı to the northeast.11
8. D. A. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century, Oxford

2014, 120–47. In reality, the state of Mavrozomes has so far received limited scholarly
attention.
9. Choniates, Historia, 625.28– 46; trans. Magoulias, 342–3.
10. Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil fī’l-ta’rīkh, 13 vols., Beirut 1965–67, XII, 192; trans. D. S.
Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fī’l-ta’rīkh.
Part 3: The Years 589–629/1193–1231: The Ayyūbids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace,
Crusade Texts in Translation 17, Farnham 2008, 77; Gregorius Barhebræus, Chronicon
syriacum: e codd. mss. emendatum ac punctis vocalibus adnotationibusque locupletatum, ed.
P. Bedjan, Paris 1890, 416; Gregory Abû’l Faraj, commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, The
Chronography, ed. and trans. E. A. W. Budge, 2 vols., London 1932, I, 359.
11. K. Belke and N. Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 7,
The Baba Dağı protected Laodikeia from the south, though the pass of
Kazıkbeli Geçidi (1250 m), between Karcı Dağı and Eşeler Dağı, the Honaz
Dağ or Mt Kadmos of old,12 allowed a traveler to go further south to Lycia.
The mountains, however, offered no such protection from the east and the
north. Laodikeia could easily be attacked from the east, along the famous
caravan route that connected eastern Anatolia (Kaisareia/Kayseri and the
cities on the Euphrates) with the port of Ephesos.13 The Seljuks recognized
the route’s importance by building a network of caravan-sarays between
Laodikeia and Konya, their capital city.14 West and north of Laodikeia were
the sources of the river Maeander (Büyük Menderes), and then the fertile
Maeander valley, an excellent track to Ephesos or Miletos.
However, the strategic importance of Laodikeia, the gateway to the
water resources of the Maeander, was not reduced to one particular route.
The mountains to the north allowed the passage to Kotyaeion (Kütahya),
Dorylaion (Eskişehir), and Amorion (Amūriyya, Hisarköy near Afyon
Karahisar).15 Likewise, to the northwest, the sources of the Maeander came
close to the sources of the Hermus (Gediz) connecting Laodikeia with
Philadelphia, Sardis (Sartmahmut), and the extensive network of roads in
Byzantine Anatolia.16
The location of Laodikeia was remarkable: on the one hand, it gave the city
a sense of independence, as the fertile plains surrounding it were ‘filled with
Vienna 1990, 155, 162, 195, 258, 273, 275, 285, 407–8; C. Şimşek, Laodikeia (Laodicea
ad Lycum), Istanbul 2013, 38; T. C. Denizli Valiliği, http://www.denizli.gov.tr/index.php/
denizli/genel-bilgiler/cografi-konum.
12. On the location of Mt Kadmos, the Honaz Dağı of nowadays, see: Belke and
Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, 222, 285, 291; P. Thonemann, The Maeander Valley: A
Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium, Cambridge 2011, 204, 239–41; Şimşek,
Laodikeia, 37.
13. Belke and Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, 140, 149–52, 155.
14. For the caravan-sarays in question, see Anadolu Selçuklu dönemi kervansarayları,
ed. H. Acun, Ankara 2007, 161–73, 287–303, 477, 485. For the network of Seljuk caravan-
sarays, see ibidem, 13–17; An Historical Atlas of Islam. Atlas historique de l’Islam, ed. H.
Kennedy, Leiden 2002, 47a.
15. C. Lightfoot and M. Lightfoot, Amorium. A Byzantine City in Anatolia, Istanbul
2006, 10–11.
16. Belke and Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, 323; Şimşek, Laodikeia, 35–45.
liquorices, cardamom, myrtle, figs and other plants’,17 which could provide
the city with all necessary food supplies. But the paths via the mountain
ranges were often treacherous and narrow. King Louis VII of France (1137–
80) mentioned the slopes of the mountains near Laodikeia where the French
crusaders, disorganized and dispersed, fell victim to the Turks in 1148.18 On
the other hand, the crossroads from Philadelphia to Attaleia (Antalya), and
from Ephesos to Konya, connected Laodikeia with other cities in Anatolia.
Should the city have served as a gateway to the Byzantine expansion east and
southward, like Calais for the English kings during the Hundred Years War,
it would have been of greater importance. However, two factors diminished
Laodikeia’s significance: Byzantium’s defensive strategy and the system of
the imperial strongholds along the Maeander valley and near Philadelphia.
From the point of view of security, Laodikeia was never a key fortress: to
the north, the fortifications of Philadelphia undermined its importance; to
the west, Antioch-on-the-Maeander could have taken Laodikeia’s role as a
gateway to the Maeander. The loss of Laodikeia therefore did not constitute
a decisive blow to the Byzantine defences in western Anatolia. But it would
have made the situation more difficult.19 Alhough Laodikeia could have been
‘substituted’ by other cities, towns or fortresses, one particular reason for
keeping it in Byzantine hands remained vital throughout the twelfth and
the beginning of the thirteenth century: Laodikeia and Chonai were the
fortresses that kept at bay any Turkish migration from Lycia to Phrygia via
the road in the vicinity of Mt Kadmos. Further south, the highlands of Lycia
had been lost to the Byzantines since the end of the eleventh century.20
17. Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris, ed. A. Chroust, Quellen zur

Geschichte des Kreuzzuges Kaiser Friedrichs I., MGH SRG n.s. 5, Berlin 1928, 75; trans. G. A.
Loud, The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa. The History of the Expedition of the Emperor
Frederick and Related Texts, Crusade Texts in Translation 19, Farnham 2010, 99.
18. Epistolae Sugerii, abbatis S. Dionysii. Epistola xxxix: Ludovici Regis ad Sugerium,
PL 186, 1365.
19. On the importance of Laodikeia and Chonai as chief strongholds of the territory
along the river Lykos, see M. Whittow, Social and Political Structures in the Maeander Region
of Western Asia Minor on the Eve of the Turkish Invasion, 3 vols. (DPhil Dissertation,
Oxford University 1987), I, 182–92; II, 246 n. 5.
20. P. Amstrong, ‘Seljuqs before the Seljuqs: Nomads and Frontiers Inside Byzantium’,
in A. Eastmond (ed.), Eastern Approaches to Byzantium, Aldershot 2001, 277–80.
According to Şimşek, who excavated ancient Laodikeia north of

modern Denizli, on the Lykos (Çürük Su) plain,21 the population of the
city moved southward to the sites of Denizli-Kaleiçi (the ancient fortress
of modern Denizli) and Bereketli Hisarköy (now in the Hisar Mahalle of
the agglomeration of Denizli, closest to the Karcı Dağı outskirts) sometime
shortly after the seventh century.22 It seems that when the Turks conquered
the area at the end of the eleventh century, the ancient city of Laodikeia on
the Lykos plain was no longer inhabited. We thus have two possible locations
for middle Byzantine Laodikeia: in Denizli-Kaleiçi,23 six km south of the site
of the ancient Laodikeia; and Hisarköy,24 fifteen km south of Laodikeia and
twelve km southwest of Denizli.
from a fortress to a fortress: 1098–1174
As metropolis of Phrygia Kapatiane (the Greek form of ‘Phrygia Pacatiana’,

also called Phrygia Minor), Laodikeia was an important ecclesiastical
centre with a numerous Greek Orthodox community. Despite the fact that
Laodikeia was retaken from the Turks by Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118)
in 1098,25 and again by John II Komnenos (1118–43) in 1119,26 during the
Second Crusade (1147–8) the city and its adjacent territory was an isolated
area, surrounded by Turks and administered by a Byzantine doux.
The sources show that Laodikeia changed its location during the
course of the twelfth century at least once. In 1119 John II built a fortress
and presumably appointed a governor. This fortress and its doux caused
much trouble to the French during the Second Crusade. In 1148 Louis VII
entered Laodikeia, only to discover that the doux had ‘emptied the city
of every commodity’ and that its inhabitants had fled to the mountains.27
21. Belke and Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, 323–6.

22. Şimşek, Laodikeia, 32, 58–62, 509–13.
23. Plan of the fortress in Şimşek, Laodikeia, 59.
24. Plan of the fortress in ibidem, 61.
25. Anna Komnene, Alexias, eds. D. R. Reinsch and A. Kambylis, 2 vols., CFHB 40,
Berlin 2001, I, 337.83–338.20.
26. John Kinnamos, Epitome, ed. A. Meineke, CSHB 26, Bonn 1836, 5; trans. C. M.
Brand, The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, New York 1976, 14–15; Choniates,
Historia, 12; trans. Magoulias, 9.
27. Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII in orientem, ed. and trans. V. G. Berry,
Odo of Deuil’s description of Laodikeia (called urbs) fits a small fortress

on the mountain slopes rather than the ancient Laodikeia (a deserted city
at the time).28 From Laodikeia, the French king ordered a further advance
in order to pitch camp at the foot of the ‘accursed mountain’, where his
army was to suffer heavy losses at the hands of the Turks and the Greeks.
The crusaders left the city and arrived at the mountain pass, undoubtedly
the Kazıkbeli Geçidi, the next day.29 The slowness of the French advance
suggests difficult mountainous terrain (in the vicinity of the enemy) rather
than the comfortable plain of ancient Laodikeia.
In 1160–1, during the war between Manuel I Komnenos (1143–80)
and the Seljuk sultan Kılıç Arslān II (1156–92), Laodikeia suffered a
sudden attack from the Seljuks, who damaged the city and took captive
‘a great and innumerable multitude’ of its inhabitants.30 Byzantine control
was re-established at the end of 1161,31 but Manuel I apparently had no
opportunity to restore Laodikeia’s fortifications.32 Between 1172 and 1174
the professional Seljuk army, the ‘select troops’ (φάλαγγας ἐπιλέκτους) of
Kılıç Arslān II, attacked Laodikeia.33 When the generals Basil Tsikandelēs
New York 1948, 112–15; cf. William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea,
trans. E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, 2 vols., New York 1943, II, 174–5.
28. Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII, 110–12; X. De Planhol, ‘Le cadre
géographique: le pays de Laodicée-Denizli’, in J. des Gagniers et al., Laodicée dy Lycos: le
nymphée, campagnes 1961–1963: avec des études de L. Robert, X. de Planhol, Quebec–
Paris, 407.
29. Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII, 114–17.
30. Kinnamos, Epitome, 198–9; trans. Brand, 150–1.
31. On the treaty of 1161, see Kinnamos, Epitome, 204–8; Choniates, Historia, 117–
18; Matt‘ēos Uṙhayets‘i, Zhamanakgrut‘iwn, Vałarshapat 1898, 425–6, 428; Gregory the
Priest, ‘Continuation’, in Matthew of Edessa, The Chronicle, trans. A. E. Dostourian,
Lanham–New York–London 1993, 277, 279; F. Chalandon, Les Comnène, 2 vols., II: Jean
II Comnène (1118–1143) et Manuel I Comnène (1143–1180), Paris 1912; repr. New York
1971, 462.
32. Kinnamos, Epitome, 198.19–199.2; trans. Brand, 150–1.
33. Choniates, Historia, 124–5. Choniates mentioned the Seljuk campaign against
Laodikeia in the list of events that took place after the peace treaty of 1161 and eventually
led to the new Byzantine-Seljuk war, which ended in the battle at Myriokephalon in
1176: ibidem, 121–5. On Choniates’ chronology of Byzantine-Seljuk relations in 1161–76,
see D. A. Korobeinikov, Severnaia Anatoliia v XI-XV vv.: naslediie Vizantii v epokhu
tiurkskikh zavoevanii (PhD Dissertation, Moscow University 1997), 140–3; idem, ‘Raiders
and Michael Angelos, managed to restore Byzantine control over the region,
they discovered that the city of Laodikeia, which had just been pillaged
by Kılıç Arslān II, ‘was not as thickly peopled as it is now, nor was it
fortified by well-fenced walls, but spread out in villages near the foot of
the mountains there’.34 Despite the lack of a fortress, Laodikeia still served
as the residence of its metropolitan (ἀρχιερεύς)35 Solomon, who was killed
on the orders of the sultan. As Xavier de Planhol suggested, by 1189 a new
fortress of Laodikeia had been built on a new site closer to the hills, probably
at Hisarköy, that is, in a different location from both old Laodikeia and
modern Denizli.36 I will come back to this conclusion below.
It seems that in 1160 the sultan damaged the walls of Laodikeia that
had been built on the orders of John II in 1119.37 The ὑπώρεια (foot of
a mountain; skirts of a mountain range) obviously meant the foot of the
mountains south of Denizli, or more precisely Mt Salbakos. This suggests
that between 1160 and 1172, the city-dwellers of Laodikeia, no longer
protected by their fortress, attempted to find a safer place near the range
of Mt Salbakos. When the German crusaders under Frederick I Barbarossa
(1152–90) arrived at Laodikeia in 1190, they discovered that the city
(civitas) ‘was located at the foot of a very high mountain beyond which lies
Ephesos’, close to the place of Louis VII’s disaster.38 Both directions point to
the slopes of Mt Salbakos, located on the road from Laodikeia to Ephesos.
In a medieval context, the term civitas suggested a fortress, which seems to
have been erected by the Byzantines after 1172/4. Choniates and Kinnamos
mentioned Laodikeia among other cities which the army of Manuel I passed
on its way to Myriokephalon in 1176.39
and Neighbours: the Turks (1040–1304)’, in J. Shepard (ed.), The Cambridge History of the
Byzantine Empire, c. 500–1492, Cambridge 2008, 715–16.
34. Choniates, Historia, 124.12–16; my trans. adapted from Magoulias, 70.
35. On the term ἀρχιερεύς, see E. Roussos, Λεξιλόγιον Ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ Δικαίου,
2 vols., Athens 1948–49, I, 84. It usually delineated a bishop, but in this case the bishop of
Laodikeia was a metropolitan.
36. De Planhol, ‘Le cadre géographique’, 406–8; Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 5 n. 13.
37. On the walls of Laodikeia in 1119, see Choniates, Historia, 12.1–5.
38. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 75; trans. Loud, 99.
39. Choniates, Historia, 178; Kinnamos, Epitome, 299.
Thus there were two Laodikeias in the twelfth century: the one existing
in 1119–60, built by John II and destroyed by Kılıç Arslān II; and the
seemingly more formidable fortress erected after 1172/4 and attested by
the German crusaders in 1190. As I mentioned earlier, Xavier de Planhol
suggested that by 1189 a new fortress of Laodikeia had been built on a
site closer to the hills, and that this new fortress was most likely the one at
Hisarköy. His conclusions, based on older archaeological surveys in the area,
did not specify when the new Seljuk city of Lâdik/Denizli was established.
We are therefore faced with an enigma: Laodikeia was called by the Turks
Lâdik, and this was used as a synonym for the name ‘Ṭunghuzlū’. For the
modern ‘Denizli’ (pronounced as [deŋizlü], later as [denizli]), which means
‘sea, large lake’, with no sea or lake nearby, was derived from Ṭonguzlu
(pronounced as [toŋuzlu, doŋuzlu], later [donuzlu], then domuzlu, from
toŋuz, ‘wild boar’). ‘Tonguzlu’ meant a place where boars dwell. Nonetheless,
the two names were different in their meanings, as ‘Lâdik’, a Turkish
adaptation of the Greek name Laodikeia, delineated a city, the descendant
of the Byzantine Laodikeia, while ‘Tonguzlu’, of pure Turkish origin, first
appeared as a territorial name, the dwelling place of the boars. The difference
can be attested even in modern toponymy: for example, one of the streams
south of Laodikeia was called ‘Domuz yolu deresi’, ‘a rivulet on the way of
the wild boars’.40 But there were no ‘Lâdik’ rivulets.
The difference between Lâdik (Lādhīq) and Denizli can be seen in the
Seljuk sources. It was the Byzantine city of Lâdik, and not Denizli, which
Kay-Khusraw I captured in 1206–7.41 The Mukhtaṣar, or popular adaptation
of Ibn Bībī’s work, al-Awāmir al-‛alā’īyya fī’l-umūr al-‛Alā’īyya, mentioned
only Lâdik (with no differentiation between the Byzantine and the Seljuk
40. De Planhol, ‘Le cadre géographique’, 411–12; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the
Turks, 223 n. 43.
41. İstanbul’un fethinden önce yazılmış Tarihî Takvimler, ed. O. Turan, Ankara 1954,
76–7; Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq dar Ānāṭūlī, ed. N. Jalālī, Tehran 1999, 85; Anadolu Selçukluları
Devleti Tarihi III. Histoire des Seldjoukides d’Asie Mineure par un anonyme, depuis
l’origine de la dynastie jusqu’à la fin du regne de Sultan Alâ-el-Din Keikoubad IV (?) fils
de Soleimanshah 765/1364. Texte persan publié d’après le MS. de Paris, ed. F. N. Uzluk,
Ankara 1952, 42; Aksaraylı Mehmed oğlu Kerîmüddin Mahmud, Müsâmeret ül-ahbâr.
Moğollar zamanında Türkiye Selçukluları Tarihi, ed. O. Turan, Ankara 1944, 32.
city).42 The historian Āqsarāyī (Āqsarā’ī, Aksaraylı), likewise wrote about

the Byzantine ‘Lādhīq’, conquered by Kay-Khusraw I, but his second mention
of the city in 1279 suggested the province of ‘Burghulū and Ṭughurlū’.43
The ‘Ṭughurlū’, which Osman Turan, the editor of Āqsarāyī, corrected to
‘Ṭughuzlū’, was indeed Denizli, but the original wording of Āqsarāyī was
more elegant. As both extant manuscripts of his work mentioned the name
‘Ṭughurlū’ with no variants, and as ‘Ṭughurlū’ rhythmically corresponds to
‘Burghulū’ in Āqsarāyī’s sophisticated rhyming prose, one should guess that
his original form was indeed ‘Ṭughurlū’, with an allusion to both ‘Ṭu(n)
ghuzlū’ (Denizli) and the Arabic term al-thughūr (the plural form of al-
thaghr, ‘front tooth’, ‘mouth’, ‘border’), a designation of a boundary zone
and a synonym to the Turkic term uc (uj). ‘Ṭughurlū’ doubtlessly meant the
boundary province of Denizli. The wording was based on the language of
Seljuk official documents, in which Lādhīq’s ünvan, or honorific name, was
dār al-thaghr, ‘the capital city of the border zone’ (the same ünvans were
used for Samsun and Antalya).44 A similar play-on-words can be found in the
geographic treatise of Ibn Sa‛īd, whose information is related to the 1280s.
There, the ‘mountains of Ṭughūrla’ and the city located there, also called
Ṭughūrla, with the variant manuscript reading Ṭughūzla (id est ‘Ṭunghuzlū-
Denizli), had the same allusions Ṭughūrla-thughūr as in Āqsarāyī’s.45 The
‘land of Ṭunghuzlū’ was listed among the provinces occupied by the horde
of Meḥmed-bey of Denizli, leader of the Turkmen of the area.46 But when,
42. Histoire des Seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure, d’après l’abrégé du Seldjouknāmeh d’Ibn-
Bībī: texte persan, ed. M. T. Houtsma, Leiden 1902, 26, 288, 308, 333; Die Seltschukengeschichte
des Ibn Bībī, German trans. H. W. Duda, Copenhagen 1959, 38, 274, 295, 321, 345.
43. Aksarayi, 32, 132; El-Aksarayi, Kerîmüddin Mahmud b. Muhammed, Tezkire fi’t-
Tarih, MS Aya Sofya 3143, fols. 83, 132 (42a, 66v); idem (mentioned in the catalogue as el-
Kifti), Tarih-i al-i Selçuk, MS Yeni Cami 827, fols. 88, 182.
44. O. Turan, Türkiye Selçukluları hakkında resmî vesikalar, Ankara 1958, N XVII ۲۶;
idem, Selçuklular zamanında Türkiye. Siyasî Tarih Alp Arslan’dan Osman Gâzi’ye (1071–
1318), Ankara–Istanbul 2010, 697–8.

45. Abū al-Ḥasan Nūr al-Dīn ibn Mūsa ibn Sa‛īd al-Maghribī, Kitāb al-Jughrāfīyā, Beirut
1970, 185; idem, Basṭ al-arṭ fī ṭūliha wa al-‛arṭ, MS Bodleian Library, Seld. superius 76, fol. 61a,
copied by John Gagnierius in MS Bodleian Library Bodl. Or. 304, fol. 23v; C. Cahen, ‘Ibn Sa‛īd
sur l’Asie Mineure Seldjuqide’, (= Turcobyzantina et Oriens Christianus, London 1974, XI), 42–3.
46. Baybars al-Mansūrī al-Dawādār, Zubdat al-Fikra fī ta’rīkh al-Hijra. History of
the Early Mamluk Period, ed. D. S. Richards, Beirut 1998, 73.
between 1291 and 1292, the Īlkhān Geikhatu (1291–5) undertook his
punitive expedition against the rebel Turks, it was the city of Lādhīq (shahr-i
Lādhīq) that was captured by the Mongol army.47 However, the Christian
sources describing the same campaign mentioned the ‘city of Lādhīq’ as the
city of ‘Thonghouzalo’,48 or even more precisely as the ‘famous citadel of
Tunguzlū’ (hesnā tbibā d-Tunguzlū).49 Henceforth, the names Denizli and
Lâdik were interchangeable.50 When the Mamluk historian Rukn al-Dīn
Baybars al-Manṣūrī listed the most important cities of the Seljuk sultanate,
he mentioned Ṭunghuzlū-Denizli rather than Laodikeia.51
So it seems that there was continuity: Byzantine Laodikeia was the same
city as Seljuk Lādhīq, and only later its ‘boar-dwelling’ rocky hinterland
changed Laodikeia’s name to Ṭonguzlu, which in turn was transformed
to the more pious Denizli by the sixteenth century. However, this means
that the notion of continuity should be applied to the city’s location. The
‘famous citadel of Tunguzlū’ of 1291, the shahr-i Lādhīq of the same time,
was doubtlessly Denizli-Kaleiçi. But the name of Ṭonguzlu first appeared as
a name of a land, whose centre was Lâdik. There was originally no fortress
called Ṭonguzlu—there was the fortress of Lâdik, the civitas of Laodikeia
of 1190, called hesnā tbibā d-Tunguzlū a century later. If my suggestions
are correct, then Denizli-Kaleiçi was a direct descendant of the Byzantine
fortress built after 1172/4 and seen by the German crusaders in 1190. Its
‘predecessor’, the fortress of John II that existed in 1119–60, was seemingly
in another location. Archaeological excavations are still desiderata; until
then the castle of Hisarköy is the most likely candidate for Laodikeia in
1119–60.
47. Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq, 127; Histoire des Seldjoukides, ed. Uzluk, 87–8.
48. Histoire de la Géorgie depuis l’antiquité jusqu’au XIXe siècle, ed. and trans. M. F.
Brosset, 2 vols., St Petersburg 1849–58, I: Histoire ancienne, jusqu’en 1469 de J.-C., part 1:
trans. I, 611.
49. My transliteration ‘Tunguzlū’ is different from Bedjan’s (and Budge’s) ‘Tangāzlū’.
Gregorios Bar ‛Ebrāyā, Ktābā d-maktbānut zabnē, MS Bodleian Library, Hunt 1, fol. 552;
idem, MS Bodleain Library, Hunt 52, fol. 182; Barhebræus, 577; ed. and trans. Budge, I, 492.
50. Cf. De Planhol, ‘Le cadre géographique’, 398–9, 403–11.

51. Baybars al-Mansūrī al-Dawādār, Zubdat al-Fikra, 31, where also mentioned is
the son of the bey of Menteşe (d. 1295). His list therefore should be dated to the 1290s at the
earliest.
The description of Laodikeia in Odo of Deuil, Kinnamos, Choniates,

and especially in the later Seljuk sources, point to the constant presence of
nomadic Turks in the vicinity of the city. The overall picture was brilliantly
described by Michael Hendy, who interpreted the evidence of Odo of
Deuil concerning the Second Crusade in terms of the seasonal migrations
of the Turks, whose summer pastures (yaylak) were in the mountainous
territories of the Seljuk sultanate while their winter pastures (kışlak) were
in the lowlands of the Byzantine Anatolia.52 Despite this, the Laodikeians
managed to establish a modus vivendi with the nomad Turks, which included
common pastures. In 1160, after breaching the walls of the city, the sultan
‘enslaved a great and innumerable multitude’ of Laodikeians.53 In 1172–4,
when Laodikeia was still defenceless, the sultan pillaged the city, carrying
off ‘great booty [consisting of] of an innumerable multitude of people and
countless animals’.54 I do not think that the cattle which Kılıç Arslān II
took in 1172–4 were those of the nomad Turkmen; rather, it belonged to
the Greeks in the ‘villages near the foot’ of Mt Salbakos. Therefore the chief
enemy threatening the Laodikeians was the sultan’s professional army.
The nomads may have caused only a modest decline of the city. The church
sources, however, fail to mention the decline, and Choniates, a native of the
region, stated that in 1172–4 the city was not as thickly peopled as it is
‘now’, i.e. in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century when Choniates was
writing his History.55
We are thus faced with an enigma. It seems that after 1172–4—certainly
by the end of the twelfth century—Laodikeia, now located in Denizli-
Kaleiçi and possessing a greater population, restored its position as an
important boundary stronghold. Still an isolated, though formidable fortress
surrounded by the Turks at the time of the Third Crusade, it apparently
regained control over its adjacent territory. It was during the period of the
Angeloi when Laodikeia emerged as a powerful local centre. But what was
behind its growth despite frequent location changes and the Turkish menace?
52. M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450, Cambridge

1985, 116. Cf. Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 8–9.
53. Kinnamos, Epitome, 198.15–19.
55. Choniates, Historia, 124.13–14; trans. Magoulias, 70. Cf. A. Simpson, ‘Before and
After 1204: the Versions of Niketas Choniates’ Historia’, DOP 60 (2006), 196–201.
The sources of the Third Crusade describe Laodikeia as a ‘city’ (civitas)

where the German crusaders enjoyed a local market and the hospitality of
the inhabitants before entering the ‘wilderness of Turkish woodlands’.56 In
fact, Laodikeia was the last Byzantine stronghold along their route and ‘the
boundary of the land under Greek rule’.57 According to Clive Foss, Laodikeia
may have been the centre of the ephemeral theme of the Maeander referred
to in the sources in 1198 and 1203.58 The theme was mentioned in Byzantine
charters from (supposedly) 1073 until 1242 (if the expression τὰ κ(α)τὰ
τὸν Μαίανδρον μέρη meant the theme of the Maeander);59 but the sources
never specified the capital city of the theme. The ‘province of the Maeander’
(prouincia Meandri, ἐπαρχία Μαιάνδρου) was listed in 1198 among those
provinces in which Alexios III Angelos allowed the Venetians to enjoy tax-
free trade.60 However, another document, the Partitio terrarum Imperii
Romanie, which was composed in 1204 and, like the list of 1198, was based
on a Byzantine cadastral survey, mentioned the theme of Laodikeia and the
Maeander (provintia Laodikie et Meandri).61 Does this mean that Laodikeia
became the centre of the theme of the Maeander, as Clive Foss and Peter
Thonemann, thought? I can offer no answer since the statement concerning
56. Historia peregrinorum, in Chroust (ed.), Quellen, 155; Historia de expeditione

Friderici, 75–6; trans. Loud, 99–100; Choniates, Historia, 412.17–29.
58. ODB II, 1177; cf. Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 4–5.
59. N. Wilson and J. Darrouzès, ‘Restes du cartulaire de Hiéra-Xérochoraphion’, REB
26 (1968), 13, 14, 19, 21, 28 (nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8). The document of 1073 was verified by the
protospatharios Niketas Chalkoutzes, the episkeptites of the Maeander. The episkeptitai were
administrators of imperial domains; their seals show a wide variety of place names, from
cities and towns, to administrative units (usually themes), where they exercised their control.
The expression ἐπισκεπτίτης [Μαι]άνδρου fits a theme rather than a theme’s subdivision, as
the geographical notion of the Maeander (with its tributaries and the lands along the course
of the river) suggests a vast territory. On the episkeptitai, see ODB I, 717; J.-C. Cheynet,
‘Épiskeptitai et autres gestionnaires des biens publics (d’après les sceaux de l’IFEB)’, Studies
in Byzantine Sigilography 7 (2002), 87–117 (= La société byzantine: l’apport des sceaux, 2
vols., Paris 2008, I, IX). On Niketas Chalkoutzes and his seal, see Jeffreys et al., PBW,
Niketas 20198: http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/155115; Boulloterion 2646: http://db.pbw.
kcl.ac.uk/id/boulloterion/2646.
60. TT I, 271, 280.
61. A. Carile, ‘Partitio terrarum Imperii Romanie’, Studi Veneziani 7 (1965), 218.23, 245.
Laodikeia in the variant readings of the Partitio is ambiguous: ‘the province

of Laodikeia and the Maeander, with the episkepseis of Sampson and
Samachium, and with [the estates of the] Kontostephanoi, the Kamytzai and
others, and also [the island of] Chios’.62 This could mean that Laodikeia was
the capital city of the theme of the Maeander (according to Foss); or that the
expression τὸ θέμα Λαοδικείας καὶ Μαιάνδρου suggests two themes—one
of Laodikeia and the other of the Maeander—that were united. I can point
to the similar case of the theme of Mylasa and Melanoudion, the Provintia
Mylasi et Melanudi, also in the Partitio.63 The theme obviously comprised
two important strongholds in western Karia, the cities of Mylasa (Milas) and
Melanoudion (Bafa) with their adjacent territories. The expression τὸ θέμα
Μυλάσ(σ)ης καὶ Μελανουδίου was common in Byzantine documents from
1175 to 1262.64 But some documents of the thirteenth century mention only
one city (either Mylasa65 or Melanoudion66) as a theme. The theme of Mylasa
and Melanoudion was therefore two united themes from 1175 onwards.
The expression τὸ θέμα Λαοδικείας καὶ Μαιάνδρου should be treated in
the same way, that is, as a union of two themes: Laodikeia and Maeander,
whose capital city was Antioch-on-the-Maeander (Başaran/Azizabat), or
Magnesia-on-the-Maeander (Tekke), or Miletos (Milet, Palatia/Balat).67
The doux of the theme could easily have exercised control from any
of these cities over the rich estates in the Maeander estuary mentioned in
62. Carile, ‘Partitio’, 218.23–5: Provintia Laodikie (Laudikie, Laudochie) et Meandri,

cum pertinentia Sampson (Sapson, Sanpson) et [T]ama<la>chii (Samachii, Samakii, τοῦ
Σαμαχίου), cum Contostephanatis (Contostefanatis, Contostephenatis), cum Camiçatis
et ceteris atque Chio. On Sampson and Samakhion/Samakion, see Thonemann, Maeander
Valley, 275, 304.
63. Carile, ‘Partitio’, 218.22.
64. MM IV, 291, 317–22, 324, 325, 327–8; Βυζαντινὰ ἔγγραφα τῆς μονῆς Πάτμου, I,
Αὐτοκρατορικά, ed. E. Vranousi, Athens 1980 (hereafter Patmos I), 226.
65. MM IV, 291, 294; cf. ibidem, 329. On the themes of Mylasa and Melanoudion before
1175, see H. Ahrweiler, ‘L’histoire et la géographie de la région de Smyrne entre les deux
occupations turques (1081–1317), particulièrement au XIIIe siècle’, Travaux et Mémoires 1
(1965), 128–9.
66. MM IV, 201; Patmos I, 260; Βυζαντινὰ ἔγραφα Πάτμου, II, Δημοσίων λειτουργῶν,
ed. M. Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, Athens 1980, 177: Melanoudion was referred to as a chora
(land or sub-province), but still retained its own doux.
67. Carile, ‘Partitio’, 245–6.
the Partitio.68 But such control was virtually impossible from the remote
location of Laodikeia. Juxtaposition of the lowlands of the Maeander and
Laodikeia can be observed in sources from the beginning of the thirteenth
century. Choniates refers to the ‘statelet’ of Manuel Mavrozomes, whose
lands included ‘Chonai, my, Niketas the historian’s, homeland, and the
neighbouring Phrygian Laodikeia, as far as [the lands where the river]
Maeander flows, belching forth its running waters into the sea’.69 He thus
provided the reader with the impression that Mavrozomes ruled the theme
of Laodikeia and the Maeander, as they are described in the Partitio. The
Seljuk historian Ibn Bībī wrote that ‘Chonai (Khūnās), Laodikeia (Lādīq),
and other [places] on the lowlands (biqā‛)’, were contested between Theodore
I Laskaris and Kay-Khusraw I in the summer of 1204.70 The biqā‛ (lowlands),
or, more precisely the ‘low places where water stagnates’,71 were most likely
the lowlands of the Maeander rather than the hills of the Lykos in the
environs of Laodikeia.
If my interpretation is correct, this means that between 1198 and
1203 Alexios III made Laodikeia a separate theme. Like Foss, I suggest the
increasing importance of Laodikeia since 1172–4; but unlike him, I notice
the simultaneous isolation of the city from Byzantine lands in Anatolia—a
situation which may have necessitated the creation of a new theme.
growing isolation: 1174–1204
The remote location of Laodikeia made difficult any effective control on

the part of the central government. When in 1098 the general John Doukas
reached Laodikeia: ‘all [the city-dwellers] at once came forth to him. He
treated them as those [who surrender] without bidding and permitted them
to rule confidently and freely over their own [land] (τὰ σφέτερα); he did
not appoint a governor’.72 In 1147–8, the Byzantine doux in Laodikeia,
fearing plundering by the crusaders, preferred to align himself with the
neighbouring Turks even though the crusaders were, at least in theory,
68. On the estates, see Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 5 n. 14.

69. Choniates, Historia, 638; my trans. adapted from Magoulias, 350.
70. Ibn Bibi, 26; trans. Duda, 38.
71. F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, New Delhi 2006, 193.
72. Anna Komnene, Alexias, 338.12–15.
Byzantine allies.73 The history of Laodikeia in the twelfth century gives us

a clue as to how the Byzantine lands began to transform after the death of
Manuel I, and later turned into a Turkish polity. The slow formation of a
single, self-sufficient unit, the nucleus of the future Turkish beylik, began long
before the Seljuk conquest in the thirteenth century. Laodikeia experienced
de facto isolation from the rest of the Byzantine lands in western Anatolia
for the first time under Andronikos I, then under Isaac II. The separation
only increased during the troublesome reign of Alexios III. In 1182, the
theme of Thrakesion with its capital in Philadelphia, and probably also
the theme of Mylasa and Melanoudion in Ionia and Karia, served as bases
for the revolt of the doux of the Thrakesion, John Vatatzes.74 Though the
revolt was soon suppressed, several years later, probably in 1188, Theodore
Mangaphas, a native aristocrat from Philadelphia, rebelled. Mangaphas
assumed the imperial title and minted his own coinage.75 Isaac II besieged
him in Philadelphia in June 1189, but the advance of the German crusaders
forced a compromise: Mangaphas gave up his imperial title, but returned
to his previous (unknown) post. Perhaps he was the dux civitatis et regionis
mentioned in the crusader sources, who, despite uneasy relations between the
local inhabitants and the crusaders, concluded an agreement with Frederick
I and allowed his army to purchase foodstuffs in April 1190.76
Though the sources for the Third Crusade fail to mention the name
of the dux, the titles they applied to him fit Theodore Mangaphas. The
73. Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII, 112–14.

74. Choniates, Historia, 245, 262–5; George of Pelagonia, ‘Βίος τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου
βασιλέως τοῦ Ἐλεήμονος’, in A. Heisenberg (ed.), ‘Kaiser Johannes Batatzes der Barmherzige.
Eine mittelgriechische Legende’, BZ 14 (1905), 203–5; J.-C. Cheynet, ‘Philadelphie, un quart
de siècle de dissidence, 1182–1206’, in Ahrweiler (ed.), Philadelphie, 39–44 (= The Byzantine
Aristocracy and its Military Function, Aldershot 2006, IX); idem, Pouvoir et contestations à
Byzance (963–1210), Paris 1990, 113 (no. 154), 424.
75. M. F. Hendy, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection
and Whittemore Collection, IV/1, Washington DC 1999, 392–5.
76. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 73–4; trans. Loud, 98; Historia peregrinorum, 154;
Annales Reicherspergenses, ed. W. Wattenbach, in MGH SS 17, Hanover 1861, 513; Gesta
Federici I. Imperatoris in expeditione sacra, in Gesta Federici I. Imperatoris in Lombardia,
auct. Cive Mediolanensi (Annales Mediolanensis Maiores), ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH
SRG 27, Hanover 1892, 84, 86; James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, in Holder-
Egger (ed.), Gesta Federici, 85, 87.
dux of Philadelphia was called princeps civitatis, ‘the prince of the city’, in
the Annales Colonsiensis.77 Though this expression usually delineated a
bishop,78 such a translation would go against the wording of the Annales,
where the more common term episcopus is used.79 The princeps civitatis of
Philadelphia, the real master of the city, is said to have ordered the Greeks
to go to battle against the crusaders. Other sources mention the dux and
ascribe the same actions to him. One can suggest that the ‘prince’ in the
Annales was the doux of Philadelphia. The title princeps usually meant
king and represented the Greek terms ἄρχων (archon, governor), ἔξαρχος
(exarch, plenipotentiary) or βασιλεύς (emperor).80 It thus best suited
Theodore Mangaphas. The Historia de expeditione Friderici, the main
source for the Third Crusade, used the term principes in relation to Isaac
II’s retainers (imperatore Constantinopolitano eiusque principibus), whose
sons were sent as hostages to Frederick I. How close these individuals were
to the emperor’s family can be seen in that one of them was Andronikos
Angelos, son of Isaac II’s brother John. Another hostage was Isaac’s cousin,
Michael Angelos, the future ruler of Epiros. The Historia de expeditione
Friderici calls these hostages ‘carefully selected of royal blood and of the
rank of duke’ (obsides lectissimos de sanguine regio graduque ducatus),
which suggests that their fathers held high-ranking positions, obviously
similar to those of western princes.81 By mentioning Theodore Mangaphas
as prince of Philadelphia, the author of the Annales placed him in a higher
position than that of any Byzantine doux, who was a regional official, the
head of the theme.
77. Annales Colonienses Maximi, ed. K. Pertz, MGH SRG 17, Havover 1892, 799.
78. J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, 2 vols., Leiden–Boston 2002,
II, 1107, s.v. princeps (8).
79. See, for example, Annales Colonienses Maximi, 756, 841, 846.
80. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, II, 1107; A. Souter, A Glossary of
Later Latin to 600 A.D., Oxford 1949, 322, s.v. princeps.
81. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 65, 75; trans. Loud, 90–1, 98. On John Angelos
and his son Andronikos, see Varzos, Γενεαλογία, II, no. 179, 723–6; Jeffreys et al., PBW,
Ioannes 20465: http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/153469. On Michael Angelos of Epiros, see
Varzos, Γενεαλογία, I, no. 90, 641–9; D. Polemis, The Doukai: A Contribution to Byzantine
Prosopography, London 1968, no. 40, 87–8; Jeffreys et al., PBW, Michael 20563: http://
db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/160214.
Probably by 1191, Mangaphas was forced into exile by Basil Vatazes

and fled to the court of Kay-Khusraw I. With Turkish military support, he
entered Byzantine territory, plundered the environs of Laodikeia and burned
Chonai.82 It is likely that Mangaphas already had contacts with the sultan as
the lands around Philadelphia bordered Seljuk territory. Later, in 1193–4,
while handing Mangaphas over to Byzantium at the emperor’s request, Kay-
Khusraw I insisted that his former ally should suffer no physical harm.83
‘Separatism’, however, is not a correct word in the case of Laodikeia.
The city’s long separation from the rest of the Byzantine lands in Anatolia
was accelerated by two factors that affected the Laodikeians regardless of,
or even against, their will. The first was the political crisis in Byzantium in
1180–1208,84 worsened by the frequent rebellions of Byzantine aristocrats,
who either aimed for the throne or proclaimed themselves independent
rulers in the provinces. Some of the rebels enjoyed Seljuk support. When
Mangaphas ‘marched along, inducing the Lydians to rebel […] and tried to
win over the neighbouring provinces’ in 1188–9,85 Laodikeia was almost
certainly under attack by pseudo-Alexios (II),86 who enjoyed the support of
Kılıç Arslān II, and who damaged the famous cathedral of the Archangel
Michael at Chonai either in the autumn of 1189 or 1192.87 The threat that
Mangaphas posed north of Laodikeia ceased to exist in 1193–4, but one
year later, in 1195, during the war between Alexios III and Kay-Khusraw
I, the Seljuks ravaged Byzantine territories along the river Maeander as far
as Antioch-on-the Maeander.88 In the renewed conflict, this time between
Alexios III and Rukn al-Dīn Süleymānshāh II (1196–1204),89 in 1200, the
82. Choniates, Historia, 399–400. Cf. ODB II, 1286–7; Cheynet, ‘Philadelphie’, 45–7;
A. Beihammer, ‘Defection Across the Border of Islam and Christianity: Apostasy and Cross-
Cultural Interaction in Byzantine-Seljuk Relations’, Speculum 86/3 (2011), 605–6, 631–2.
83. Choniates, Historia, 401.
84. From the death of Manuel I in 1180 to the coronation of Theodore I Laskaris in
1208.
86. A pretender, second in a sequence of four, who assumed the identity of Alexios II
(1180–3), killed on the orders of his uncle Andronikos I.
87. Choniates, Historia, 422.81–90; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 142.
88. Choniates, Historia, 493.68–496.53; Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 124–6.
89. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I was forced to cede Konya to Rukn al-Dīn
Süleymānshāh II in 1196; he went into exile and spent four years in Constantinople (1200–4).
sultan supported the revolt of Michael Angelos, the doux of the theme of
Mylasa and Melanoudion. The rebel yet again ravaged the cities along the
Maeander with the help of Turkish troops.90 Thus the chief road along the
Maeander, which connected Laodikeia with the other Byzantine lands, was
attacked almost every two years.
The tragic events of 1204 only accelerated the tendency towards
isolation which finally resulted in the Seljuk conquest. Mangaphas’ ‘statelet’
re-emerged in 1204 but was conquered by Theodore I in the following year.91
Laodikeia, still listed by Bar Hebraeus and Ibn al-Athīr as a Byzantine
possession on 13 April 1204,92 was captured by the Seljuks by 6 July 1204.93
Though Theodore I re-conquered the city at the end of 1205, he did not
manage to keep it. In March 1206, he was forced, under Seljuk pressure,
to hand Laodikeia over to Manuel Mavrozomes. The latter had earlier, in
1203, married his daughter to Kay-Khusraw I, then the sultan in exile. When
Kay-Khusraw I returned together with his father-in-law to the sultanate
of Rūm in March 1205, Mavrozomes continued the abominable practice
of ravaging the Byzantine lands along the Maeander: it is indicative that
between May and October 1205 these lands were overran twice. Despite his
defeat at the hands of Theodore Laskaris, Mavrozomes became master of
Laodikeia by special agreement between the emperor and Kay-Khusraw I in
1206. Mavrozomes’ ‘statelet’, which embraced the territory of the theme of
Laodikeia and the Maeander,94 was short-lived, as he was soon captured and
imprisoned by Theodore I. Nevertheless, Laodikeia ceased to be Byzantine;
by 27 July 1207 the city had been conquered by the Seljuks.95
Another factor of Laodikeia’s ‘drift’ from Byzantium was the pressure
of the nomadic Turks and their slow infiltration into Byzantine territory.
Though the sultan ‛Izz al-Dīn Kay-Kāwūs II (1246–56, 1257–61) returned
Laodikeia to Theodore II Laskaris (1254–8) in 1257, the city ‘remained
90. Choniates, Historia, 528.81–529.24.

91. George Akropolites, Opera, ed. A. Heisenberg, 2 vols., Leipzig 1903; rev. edn. P.
Wirth, Stuttgart 1978, I, 11.5–9, 12.17–21.
92. Ibn al-Athīr, XII, 192; trans. Richards, Part 3, 77; Barhebræus, 416; ed. and trans.
Budge, I, 359.
93. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 130–1.
94. Choniates, Historia, 638.65–9.
[Roman] only a short time and [then] came again under the Muslims, for
it could not be guarded by the Romans’.96 It was Laodikeia-Denizli that
became the centre of the first nomadic ‘emirate’ of Meḥmed-bey of Denizli
in 1261.97
through the looking glass:

the environs of laodikeia in 1190 and beyond
What precisely was the situation in Laodikeia after 1172–4, when a new
fortress, this time at Denizli-Kaleiçi, was built? The Latin sources of the
Third Crusade vividly describe the circumstances of Laodikeia, emphasizing
factors such as separation and nomadization. They also testify to the
presence of both Greek and Armenian populations in the vicinity of the
city and the great nomadic confederations to its east.
The attitude of the Philadelphians and the Laodikeians towards the
army of Frederick I was markedly different. The assumption has been that
the former were not so heavily pressed by the Turks despite the statement
from the duke of Philadelphia that ‘all Christians should be moved to mercy
for the said city, which of old and alone defended the cult and honour of
the Christian faith by resisting so far the neighbouring Turks and other
nations’.98 In truth, the Philadelphians were very hostile to the crusaders.
According to the Historia de expeditione, when the crusaders arrived at the
city (21 April 119099):
We hoped for good merchandise from the duke and citizens of Philadelphia
as was promised by the emperor of Constantinople and his princes, but
those citizens from their reckless haughtiness not only did not supply
the provisions and merchandise suggested [by the treaty] but some of
the more impudent even ventured to challenge our men with arrogant
words.100
96. Akropolites, Opera, 144.10–15; trans. R. Macrides, George Akropolites: The

History, Oxford 2007, 326–7.
99. E. Eickhoff, Friedrich Barbarossa im Orient. Kreuzzug und Tod Friedrichs I.,
Tübingen 1977, 94-5.
100. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 73.
The conflicts nearly escalated to full-scale war between the crusaders

and the Greeks of Philadelphia. The author of the Gesta Federici blamed
the duke, who did not want to supply food and instead prepared for war.
An uneasy peace was established at the last moment. The duke, together
with the leading citizens, swore that ‘some foolish youngsters’ (stultos
quosdam iuvenes) provoked the conflicts, but his true intentions became
manifest when the Philadelphians attacked the departing crusaders.101 The
clash between Theodore Mangaphas and Frederick I was witnessed by the
Byzantine hostages, members of the imperial family, who, according to the
terms of the treaty, followed the German army so as to ensure the good
behaviour of the Byzantine officials in Anatolia. Theodore Mangaphas was,
therefore, a de facto independent ruler who did not obey the orders of Isaac
II and submitted himself only to the superior military power of the German
emperor.
According to the treaty between Isaac II and Frederick I, the hostages
followed the German army only as far as Philadelphia.102 This suggests that
Laodikeia, though nominally Byzantine, was outside the sway of the empire.
The duke of Philadelphia gave Frederick I a special guide to lead the army
through the mountains and forests that separated the city from Laodikeia.
The march from Philadelphia lasted three days: the crusaders arrived at the
campus Laodiciae via Tripolis (Yenicekent) and Hierapolis (Pamukkale)
on 25 April 1190.103 The Turks attacked them en route. Hierapolis had been
destroyed by the Turks, but after the crusaders passed it they entered a
pleasant valley full of licorice, cardamom, myrtle and small figs. Then they
reached Laodikeia.104
101. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 73-74; Historia peregrinorum, 154–5; Gesta

Federici, 84, 86; James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, 85, 87; Choniates, Historia, 412.
102. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 65; Historia peregrinorum, 154.
103. On the dates, see: Eickhoff, Friedrich Barbarossa, 97–101.
104. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 74–5; Historia peregrinorum, 154–5; Annales
Reicherspergenses, 513; Gesta Federici, 86; James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, 87.
Cf. E. N. Johnson, ‘The Crusades of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI’, in K. M. Setton
(ed.), The History of the Crusades, 6 vols., 2nd edn. Madison 1969–89), II, 110. The dates of
Frederick I’s movements in Anatolia in the critical apparatus of Choniates, Historia, 412 are
wrong: the dates of departure are listed as the dates of arrival to a particular city or town.
Unlike the citizens of Philadelphia, the Laodikeians welcomed the

army of Frederick I. Their attitude towards the crusaders was singled out
by Choniates:
There [the crusaders] were hospitably received with kinder treatment than
they had met earlier. They all, especially the king, would have invoked
(ἐπηύξαντο: lit. enlarged) all Godly blessings upon the Laodikeians. The
king raised his hands to the sky, looked upwards and knelt, beseeching the
Lord, Father and Protector of the universe, [to give] them as far as possible
everything necessary for life and the salvation of their souls. He added that
if the land of the Romans had abounded in such Christians and welcomed
in the same way the warriors of Christ, the latter would gladly have given
them the money that they had brought, and in peace would have supplied
themselves with provisions; and they would long before have passed the
boundaries of the Romans, keeping their lances in their sheaths, without
shedding Christian blood.105
The Latin sources were more sombre. Most noticed ‘good merchandise’
(bonum forum) in Laodikeia. Although the Gesta Federici and the Cronica
Ymaginis Mundi do not mention the city, they allow us to make some
suggestions concerning Laodikeia by employing the crusaders’ itinerary.
The crusaders spent two days (23 and 24 April) in the forests between
Philadelphia and Laodikeia; then (on 25 April) they came to the dwellings
of the Greeks and the Armenians who ‘lived like animals’ and who gave them
‘small and most expensive supplies’ (victualia carissima et pauca) as they
had nothing else to offer.106 We know from Choniates and the Historia de
expeditione that the army of Frederick I passed Aetos (Asar, near Sarıgöl)
on 23 April and the ruins of Tripoli on 24 April.107 This indicates that the
‘Greeks and the Armenians’ in the Gesta Federici were the inhabitants of
Laodikeia and its environs.
The difference of attitude towards the crusaders between the
Philadelphians and the Laodikeians cannot be explained solely by the
Turkish factor. The suggestion that the Philadelphians suffered less from the

106. Gesta Federici, 86; James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, 87.
107. Choniates, Historia, 412.17–18; Historia de expeditione Friderici, 74–5. Cf.
Eickhoff, Friedrich Barbarossa, 97–9.
Turkish incursions and were therefore more hostile towards the crusaders,
their potential allies against the Turks, is an oversimplification. Unlike
Louis VII of France, Frederick I had been careful enough to conclude an
agreement with Kılıç Arslān II in 1188/9. The agreement was confirmed
in Adrianople in February 1190 when Frederick’s ambassador, Gotfried of
Wiesenbach, returned from Konya together with the sultan’s envoy, Tokili.
The sultan promised to Frederick ‘all sorts of advice, comfort and assistance
against all his enemies, as well as excellent markets throughout the land
under his rule’. His ambassadors accompanied Frederick I as honourable
hostages from Adrianople to the environs of Philomelion (Akşehir) where
they deserted the crusader army. They passed through both Philadelphia
and Laodikeia with the German army.108 The hostility of the wealthy
Philadelphians was not directed against the sultan or the nomadic Turks,
but rather against Isaac II and Frederick I, since the German emperor was
bound to Isaac by the treaty of 1190. Mangaphas’ actions put at risk the
lives of the Byzantine hostages. To these considerations, one should add the
understandable unwillingness to provide the crusaders with provisions at
the time of the first harvest. Despite Mangaphas’ claim, that Philadelphia
had defended Christianity from the neighbouring Turks, his policy was more
pro-Seljuk and less pro-Byzantine. What is more, Mangaphas’ family name
was Turkic, and this means that we cannot exclude pre-existing Turkish
sympathies on his part.109
The Laodikeians were connected with the rest of the Byzantine territories
only via the Maeander valley; but this route was unsafe because of nomadic
migrations during the winter season. The road leading to Philadelphia, on
the other hand, was constantly occupied by the Turks. The Laodikeians thus
depended on the emperor’s goodwill and avoided the risk of any large-scale
conflict, either with the German crusaders or with the Seljuks. At that time,
the sultanate itself was on the edge of civil war. Probably in the year 1187,
Kılıç Arslān II decided to divide his realm between his nine sons, a brother,
108. Annales Colonienses Maximi, 799; Historia de expeditione Friderici, 15, 67, 78;
trans. Loud, 45, 92–3, 103.
109. His family name was derived from the Turkic mankafa (stupid, blockhead, dunce):
E. V. Sevortian, et al. Etimologicheskii slovar’ tiurkskikh yazykov, 7 vols., Moscow 1974–
2003, VII, 38–40.
and a nephew.110 His elder son Quṭb al-Dīn Malikshāh received Sivas (Sīwās,
Sebasteia) and Aksaray (Āqsarā, Colonia Archelais, Garsaura). Kılıç Arslān
II’s favourite son and later heir apparent, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I,
became master of Uluborlu (Burlū, Burghulū, Apollonia, Sozopolis) and thus
the closest neighbour of the Laodikeians.111 Konya remained the residence of
Kılıç Arslān II. Soon after the division, the old sultan decided to hand the
whole realm over to his elder son Quṭb al-Dīn Malikshāh. His other sons,
except Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I, ceased to recognize his authority.
Quṭb al-Dīn, who wanted undisputed power, even arrested his father.112 The
Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq recounts that Quṭb al-Dīn entered Konya on 17 Ramaḍān
AH 585 (29 October 1189), thus providing us with the terminus ad quem
for the division of the sultanate.113 The Latin sources confirm this date by
the statement that on 16 February 1190 a separate embassy (to that of Kılıç
Arslān II) sent by Quṭb al-Dīn reached Frederick I in Adrianople. As ruler
of the sultanate, the regnum soldani, Quṭb al-Dīn ‘steadfastly pledged his
regard for, and faithful service to, Frederick I in future’. He had obviously
just become master of Konya. His envoys were also kept as honourable
hostages by the German emperor.114 But the divisions in the sultanate meant
instability for the Laodikeians.
Frederick I remained in Laodikeia one day (26 April) and on 27 April
the German army moved eastward to the sources of the Maeander river and
thence to lake Anaua (Acıgöl), the ‘salt lake’ (lacus salinarum) of the Latin
sources.115 These sources describe the lands east of Laodikeia, which they
call ‘the horror land of salinity’ (terra horroris et salsuginis),116 as being full
110. See Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 115–16.

111. Ibn al-Athīr, XII, 76–7, 87–90; trans. Richards, Part 3, 395, 403-4; Ibn Bibi, 5;
trans. Duda, 19. Cf. C. Cahen, The Formation of Turkey. The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm:
Eleventh to Fourteenth Century, Harlow 2001, 39.
112. Ibn al-Athīr, XII, 76–7, 87–90; trans. Richards, Part 3, 395, 403–4; Imād al-Dīn
al-Iṣfahānī, Conquête de la Syrie et de la Palestine par Salâh ed-dîn, ed. C. de Landberg, 2
vols., Leiden 1888, I, 452.

113. Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq, 83; Histoire des Seldjoukides, ed. Uzluk, 39.
114. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 67; trans. Loud, 92–3; Historia peregrinorum, 151–2.
115. Choniates, Historia, 412–13; Historia de expeditione Friderici, 76; Historia peregri-
norum, 154–5; Annales Reicherspergenses, 513; Epistola de morte Friderici imperatoris, in
Chroust (ed.), Quellen, 174.
116. Job 39:6: cui dedi in solitudine domum et tabernacula eius in terra salsuginis:
of nomadic Turks: ‘we found there flocks of sheep, goats and lambs, and
herds of cattle, horses, camel and asses, numbering about five thousand,
which belonged to wild Turks (agrestium Turcorum) who on our arrival
abandoned their tents of felt and fled, climbing up to the mountains’.117 The
Historia peregrinorum adds: ‘It is the custom of the inhabitants of that land
who are called ‘wild Turks’ or Bedouins (silvestres Turci sive Bedewini), to
have no houses and to live all the time in tents moving with their flocks and
herds from pasture to pasture. They are always equipped in arms and ready
to go to war. An innumerable multitude of these now appeared from all sides
to fight the pilgrims’.118
The term ‘wild Turks’ meant nomadic Turks whom the crusaders called
in Arabic fashion Bedeweni (from badawī, ‘Bedouin, nomadic, a Bedouin’).
The most intriguing details can be found in the Gesta Federici and the
Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, whose texts are almost identical. I translate the
Cronica adding the variants of the Gesta:
Afterwards we met countless wild Turks and Greeks, rough and mighty,
who are under no sway [add. Gesta: and they possess no lands]. These
Turks are called Bariani [Gesta: Turkmens of Baria]. They have no cities,
but remain in fields; they also have a chief who dominates them; they have
herds and fruits; and they wage war using bows, clubs, and stones. The
greatest host of them, both men and women, came against us. During
four days and nights they did not let us, who suffered from hunger, go in
peace […]. Nevertheless we destroyed a great multitude of them; and they
slew many of us. And again their duke called Restagnus came with the
greatest host against us to a large narrow pass, and there we were told by
them that they would not allow us to cross it peacefully. They demanded
that we provide them with a hundred horses burdened with gold [Gesta:
a hundred beasts of burden with gold and silver] to which the emperor
derisively replied that he would give them a golden menolat.119 We passed
‘to whom (i.e. to the wild ass) I made its home in wilderness and its covers in the land of
salinity’.
117. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 76; trans. Loud. Cf. Annales Reicherspergenses, 513.
118. Historia peregrinorum, 155; trans. Loud, 100 n. 272.
119. Here I follow the Gesta which reads menolatum. The manlat, from the (stauro)
mauellatus of the Latin sources, was the Byzantine electrum coin, the trachy, with the image
of Manuel I. Cf. Loud, 108 n. 311; Hendy, Catalogue, 276–82.
through repeatedly under the protection afforded by the pact120 until we

were outside their boundaries with few casualties on our part.121
The Cronica and the Gesta used the term ‘wild Turks’ mentioned in
the Historia de expeditione. In the Cronica Ymaginis Mundi we have also
the presence of Greek populations in the boundary zone beyond Byzantine
borders. The territory of the ‘wild Turks’ was called Baria, from the Arabic
Barriyya (open country, steppe, desert); and their inhabitants were known
as the ‘wild Turks’, the Bariani, the people of Baria. The Bariyya was a
common name for steppes suitable to a nomadic economy. In the sixteenth
century, the winter pasturelands (kışlak, qīshlāq) of the Boz-ulus, the tribal
confederation that formed the backbone of the Ak-koyunlu, were called
Beriyye: the territories between Mardin, Diyarbakır, and Siverek.122 The
name Bariani was obviously invented by the crusaders, who also coined
Bedewini from badawī.
But how powerful were the nomad Turks east of Laodikeia? According
to the Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, the German army struggled against these
Bariani Turks for four days and nights, that is, until 30 April 1190.123 The
Epistola de morte Friderici imperatoris stated that the crusader army
(which was at lake Acıgöl on 28 April) reached the sources of the Maeander,
modern Menderes Kaynağı near Dinar, ‘on the following Sunday’ (29 April)
where they were met by a new embassy from Kılıç Arslān II and Quṭb al-
120. According to the Historia peregrinorum (159) the episode concerning the Turks,
who demanded much gold and silver and to whom Frederick I mockingly offered a silver coin
instead, took place later, in the battle between the crusaders and the Turks at Philomelion
on 7 May 1190. But the Cronica Ymaginis Mundi shows that the ‘one golden or silver coin
payment’ episode occurred several times: for example, later near Konya (Arnoldus, Chronica
Slavorum, ed. J. M. Lappenberg, MGH SRG 14, Hanover 1868, 136). The ‘coin episode’,
therefore, cannot be used as evidence for the supposed unreliable chronology and data in the
Cronica Ymaginis Mundi.
121. James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, 87; Gesta Federici, 86.
122. Ö. L. Barkan, XV.ve XVI. Asırlarda Osmanlı Imparatorluğu’nda Zirai
Ekonominin Hukuku ve Mali Esasları, Istanbul 1943, 140–2; F. Demirtaş, ‘Bozulus
hakkında’, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 7 (1949), 39; S. M.
Mustafaev, Vostochnaya Anatolia: ot Ak-koyunlu k Osmanskoi imperii, Moscow 1994,
119.
123. James of Aachen, Cronica Ymaginis Mundi, 87.
Dīn Malikshāh. The next day, 30 April, they fought the Turks and slew
many of them.124 According to the Historia de expeditione:
At daybreak on 30 April the aforesaid Turks entered our camp after
we had left, hoping to capture those people who had failed to march on
because of their exhaustion. The emperor ordered smoke to be made,
quite deliberately, and they were blinded; they were suddenly attacked by
our men, and nearly three hundred of them were slain, either in the camp
itself or in the steep mountain nearby. Those who were left followed us
on the very difficult road towards Sozopolis and kept a watch upon us.125
‘That same day’ the crusaders ‘passed through the extremely narrow
defiles of the mountains on the way to Sozopolis’,126 the latter being the
centre of the possessions of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I. Therefore the
Bariyya was the territory along the long road of some 135 km from Laodikeia
to Uluborlu, with its ‘centre’ at lake Acıgöl. In reality, however, the power
of the nomads stretched further, since the ‘wild Turks’, supported by the
‘dukes’ of Philomelion, Firmin (Ilgin), and Gradra, attacked the crusaders
at Philomelion on 7 May 1190.127 According to Ekkehard Eickhoff, who
established the daily itinerary of the German army, Philomelion was located
in the territories controlled by the sultan.128
All the data suggests that east of Laodikeia there was the powerful
nomadic tribe of Baria, which the Seljuk sultan hardly controlled. During
the course of the battle at Sozopolis (30 April) the ambassadors of the
sultan, who were hostages in Frederick I’s camp, exclaimed: ‘O how glad
would be the heart of the sultan if he knew that these Turks had suffered this
reverse! For these robbers (predones), the hateful race (gens odiosa) of wild
Turks devastated the lands of the sultan himself and waged wars against
124. Epistola de morte Friderici imperatoris, 174; trans. Loud, 170; Eickhoff, Friedrich
Barbarossa, 105–12.
125. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 77; trans. Loud, 101. Cf. Historia peregrinorum,
156–7; Annales Reicherspergenses, 513.
126. Epistola de morte Friderici imperatoris, 174; trans. Loud, 170; Eickhoff, Friedrich
Barbarossa, 113–15.
127. Gesta Federici, 88, 90; cf. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 77–9; Historia
peregrinorum, 157–9; Annales Reicherspergenses, 513; Epistola de morte Friderici imperatoris,
174–5; trans. Loud, 104, 158, 170–1.
128. Eickhoff, Friedrich Barbarossa, 119–22.
him’.129 Sozopolis, however, was outside the sultan’s control: there the same
ambassadors told the German emperor that he would soon be in the land
of the sultan where ‘this race [of wild Turks] would no longer be able to do
harm’ to the crusaders.130 The promise was false, but it shows the limits
of the sultan’s power in Rūm. It also lends support to my suggestion that
the Seljuk frontier zone, the uc, occupied large territories and encompassed
Seljuk cities.131
Were the Bariani Turks a confederation? In the MS Mediolanensi Brerae
A.F. 9.30 of the Gesta Federici, the form Baria was written as Berza.132 This
resembles the compound word ‘bar-zeh’, certainly non-Turkish, which meant
a ‘charge of a bow-string’ in Persian. The MS Mediolanensi Brerae A.F.
9.30 was written in the seventeenth century though it contains forms of the
thirteenth and fourteenth century, and is a descendant of the most reliable
MS from the beginning of the thirteenth century.133 As I cannot explain the
form Berza on the basis of a scribal error, I suggest that though the extant
manuscripts of the Gesta have the form Baria in the archetype, the form
Berza could have been an archetype emendation or an early addition of a
copyist.
We find the tribe of the same name, written as Barza/Berza in the
vilayet of Menteşe, southwest of Laodikeia, under the Ottomans in the
sixteenth and seventeenth century.134 The Barza were probably the Kurdish
tribe of Barāzī, now the tribe confederation of Barizanlı) mentioned in the
Sharaf-nāme of Sharaf-Khān Bidlīsī (who ended his work in 1596–7) as an
important part of the confederation of the Süleymānī Kurdish tribes.135
129. Historia peregrinorum, 156; trans. Loud, 101 n. 278.

130. Gesta Federici, 88.
131. D. Korobeinikov, ‘How ‘Byzantine’ were the Early Ottomans? Bithynia in ca.
1290-1450’, in I. V. Zaitsev and S. F. Oreshkova (eds.), Osmanskii mir i osmanistika.
Sbornik statei k 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia A. S. Tveritinovoi (1910–1973), Moscow
2010, 224–7.
132. Gesta Federici, 86 n. ‘w’.
133. Gesta Federici, 7–12.
134. F. Sümer, Oğuzlar (Türkmenler): tarihleri, boy teşkilatı, destanları, Istanbul 1992, 148.
135. Sharaf-Khān ibn Shams al-Dīn Bidlīsī, Sharaf-nāme, MS Bodleian Library,
Elliott 332, fols. 92b-93a; idem, Sharaf-nāme, MS Bodleian Library, Elliott 331, fols.
111a-113a; idem, Scheref-nameh ou Histoire des Kourdes par Scheref, prince de Bidlis,
texte persan, ed. V. Veliaminof-Zernof, 2 vols., St Petersburg 1860–62, I, 263–4; trans.
Can we therefore suggest the existence of a Turkish tribal confederation

headed by, or at least having received its name from, a Kurdish tribe east
of Laodikeia in the twelfth century? Confederations of Turks and Kurds
were not unknown: there was, for example, the powerful confederation of
the Germiyanoğulları, a mixture of Kurdish and Turkish tribes mentioned
for the first time near Malatya and Mayyāfāriqīn (Silvan) in 1240–1,136
and from 1277 near Kütahya.137 The chief consonants, which comprised
the root b-r-z in the name Barza-Bāraza-Barāzī-Barūzī-Bīrāzī, were the
same in Sümer’s source, the Sharaf-nāme and the MS Mediolanensi Brerae
A.F. 9.30. What is more, the name of the Bariani Turks’ ‘duke’, Restagnus,
resembles the famous Persian name Rustam, which was popular among the
Kurds. If part of the Kurdish tribe of Barāzī/Bīrāzī, originally from the
territory between Diyarbakır and Mayyāfāriqīn, came to western Anatolia
in the twelfth century, this means that the Bariani Turks were a powerful
heterogeneous tribal confederation.
It was Ibn al-Athīr who spoke about these ‘Turkmen of uc’ as if they
were a single military unit: ‘[The Germans] traversed the Constantinople
straits and found themselves on Muslim territory, the kingdom of Prince
Qilij Arslān ibn Mas‛ūd ibn Sulaymān ibn Qutalmish ibn Saljuk. When
they arrived at the beginning of his lands, the uc Turkomans harassed then,
continuing to shadow them, kill anyone who became isolated and steal what
they could. It was wintertime and the cold in those lands can be intense and
the snow deep. The cold, hunger and the Turkomans destroyed them and their
numbers dwindled’.138 Despite some mistakes (the Germans traversed Seljuk
E. I. Vasil’eva, 2 vols., Moscow 1967, I, 314–15, 526; Mullā Maḥmūd Bāyazīdī, Tawārīkh-i
qadīm-i Kūrdistān (“Drevniaia istoria Kurdistana”). Perevod “Sharaf-nāme” Sharaf-Khāna
Bidlīsī s persidskogo na kurdskii iazyk (kurmanji), ed. K. K. Kurdoev and Zh. S. Musaelyan,
Moscow 1986, 139; Mustafaev, Vostochnaya Anatolia, 20.
136. Ibn Bibi, 229–32; trans. Duda, 218–21.
137. Ibn Bibi, 326, 332; trans. Duda, 314, 319–20; Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq, 112–16,
119; Histoire de Sedjoukides, ed. Uzluk, 69–73, 77; F. Sümer, ‘Anadolu’da Moğollar’,
Selçuklu Araştırmaları Dergisi 1 (1970), 46-7; I. Mélikoff-Sayar, ‘Germiyān-oghullarī’, in
Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, 11 vols., Leiden–London 1960–2002, II, 989.
138. Ibn al-Athīr, XII, 48; trans. D. S. Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for
the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fī’l-ta’rīkh. Part 2: The Years 541–589/1146–1193:
The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin, Crusade Texts in Translation 15, Aldershot 2008, 375.
Richards incorrectly transliterated al-uj as the Ivaj.
lands at spring time, though snow could have indeed posed a problem in the
mountain passes), Ibn al-Athīr’s information is accurate, as he describes
the Bariani/Berza Turks as boundary Turkomans. Interestingly enough, the
sources attest to the possessions of the Byzantine aristocracy in the vicinity
of, if not inside, the territory controlled by these savage Turks.
Uluborlu (Burghulū, Apollonia/Sozopolis), surrounded by Turkmen
lands, was the capital city of the ‘state’ of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw
I from 1187 onwards. By 1195, Kay-Khusraw I had managed to conquer
Konya as well as Lykaonia, Pamphylia, and Kotyaeion.139 The sultan, a friend
of Alexios III, Theodore Mangaphas, and other Byzantine aristocrats,140 was
hardly a boundary Turkmen leader. His mother was Christian, most likely of
Byzantine origin. When, in 1196, Rukn al-Dīn Süleymānshāh attacked Kay-
Khusraw I, he used the latter’s ancestry, and in particular his mother’s faith,
in the ‘information war’ he waged against him.141 South of Uluborlu was
the city of Burdūl (Burdūr, Burdur), also in the uc lands.142 In that place,
there emerged another powerful Christian family, which belonged to the
Byzantine aristocracy. The mother of the sultan ‛Izz al-Dīn Kay-Kāwūs II
(1246–56, 1257–61), probably a relative of John III Vatatzes (1221–54)
or Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259–82),143 was Greek Orthodox, a priest’s
daughter.144 Ibn Bibi called her mukhaddara-i Burdūliyya, ‘the secluded
[woman] of Burdūl’.145 I think a more correct translation is ‘the Lady of
Burduliyya’, where Burdūliyya means a province with the fortress of Burdūl

140. D. Korobeinikov, ‘A Sultan in Constantinople: The Feasts of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay
Khusraw I’, in L. Brubaker and K. Linardou (eds.), Eat, Drink and Be Merry (Luke 12:19):
Food and Wine in Byzantium, Aldershot 2007, 93–108; idem, Byzantium and the Turks,
115–24.
141. Choniates, Historia, 521.87–95; trans. Magoulias, 286.
142. Aksarayi, 40.
144. Simon de Saint-Quentin, Histoire des Tartares, ed. J. Richard, Paris 1965,
82; George Pachymeres, Relations historiques, ed. A. Failler, trans. A. Failler and V.
Laurent, 2 vols. in 5 parts, Paris 1984–2000, I, 183.20–9; R. M. Shukurov, ‘Semeistvo ‘Izz
al-Dina Kai-Kawusa v Vizantii’, VV 67 (2008), 90–6.
145. İbn-i Bībī, El-Evāmirü’l-‛Alā’iyye fī’l-umūri’l-‛Alā’iyye, ed. A. S. Erzi, Ankara
1956, 472; Yazıcızâde Ali, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Selçuk (Oğuznâme-Selçuklu Tarihi), ed. A. Bakır,
Istanbul 2009, 625, 773; cf. Ibn Bibi, 213; trans. Duda, 204 and n. a.
(Burdūr, on Lake Burdur) as its centre, probably given to her as an appanage

by her husband, the sultan.146 Her two brothers, Kir Khāya and Kir Kedīd,
also Orthodox, were among the chief courtiers of Rūm.147 It seems that they
controlled Burghulū, where ‛Izz al-Dīn Kay-Kāwūs II had imprisoned his
rebel brother, Rukn al-Dīn Kılıç Arslān IV, in 1254–5, having appointed Kir
Khāya as his jailer.148
A similar picture can be observed on the Byzantine side of the border.
There is an extant testament of a certain monk named Maximos for the
Monastery of the Mother of God at Skoteine near Philadelphia. Though
the testament is dated to 1247, the monastery’s foundation, or at least its
first landed possessions are dated to the reign of Isaac II.149 Though the
exact location of the monastery is unknown, we know that it held the
dependency of St. Prokopios at Aulax, which suggests some proximity to
the boundary zone with the Seljuks. We have seen from the descriptions of
the Third Crusade how these lands could be easily attacked by the Turks.150
The proximity of the Seljuk border is also witnessed in the number of Turkic
family names mentioned in the testament.151 This proximity, however,
did not inhibit Byzantine families such as the Mangaphades or even the
imperial family of the Komnenoi from enjoying their prosperous lands in
the environs of the city.152
146. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 186-7.

147. O. S. Apanovich, ‘K voprosu o dolzhnosti kundastabla u Sel’djukidov Ruma v XIII
v.: kundastabl Rumi i Michail Paleolog’, VV 66 (2007), 187–91; Shukurov, ‘Semeistvo ‘Izz
al-Dina Kai-Kawusa v Vizantii’, 96–105; idem, ‘Harem Christianity: The Byzantine Identity
of the Seljuk Princes’, in A. C. S. Peacock and S. Nur Yıldız (eds.), The Seljuks of Anatolia:
Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East, London 2013, 116–20.
148. Ibn Bibi, 277–83; trans. Duda, 264–9; Tārīkh-i āl-i Saljūq, 97; Histoire des
Seldjoukides, ed. Uzluk, 53. Aksarayi, 40, believed that Rukn al-Dīn Kılıç Arslān IV was
confined in Burdūl.
149. P. S. Năsturel, ‘Recherches sur le testament de Maxime de Skoteinè (1247)’, in
Ahrweiler (ed.), Philadelphie, 86.
150. On the location of Aulax, between Philadelphia and Sardis, see: Pachymeres,
Relations historiques, II, 469.15–30; Năsturel, ‘Recherches’, 78 n. 36.
151. Năsturel, ‘Recherches’, 94–8.
152. Manuel Gedeon, ‘Διαθήκη Μαξίμου μοναχού κτίτορος τῆς ἐν Λυδία μονής
Κοτινής’, Mikrasiatika Chronika 2 (1939), 276, 285–8; ‘Testament for the Monastery of the
Mother of God at Skoteine near Philadelphia’, trans. G. Dennis, in J. Thomas and A. C. Hero
At the end of the twelfth century, Laodikeia faced a confederation of

nomad Turks on its eastern borders, which resembled the confederations of
the thirteenth century;153 to the north, the road to Philadelphia was cut off
by the Turks. The road along the course of the Maeander river remained the
only major route that connected the city with other Byzantine possessions in
Anatolia. Perhaps from 1174, and certainly after death of Manuel I in 1180,
one can attest to growing prosperity, alongside with increasing political
importance, of the Byzantine border cities of Laodikeia and Philadelphia.
The possessions of the Greek aristocracy were not swept aside by the influx
of the nomads. On the contrary, they continued to exist and prosper at
least until the middle of the thirteenth century. This suggests cooperation
between the aristocratic families on both sides of the border with the
nomadic confederations, not to mention with the Seljuk court at Konya.
In the case of Laodikeia, I cannot envisage a profitable modus vivendi
existing before 1174, as the changes of the city’s locations testify. Of course,
the ecological symbiosis between the Turks and the Greeks can be attested
throughout the twelfth century as a combination of Greek settlements and
Turkic seasonal migrations: winter in the Maeander pasturelands on Greek
territory, summer in the mountains in the Seljuk lands.154 But this status
quo was too fragile to provide long-term safety and prosperity for the local
Greek population.
After the death of Manuel I, when Byzantine policy in the east became
defensive, cooperation between the local Greek aristocracy and the Turks
increased. The states of Mangaphas and Mavrozomes could not have survived
without Seljuk support. This close cooperation, which rendered local centres
immune to the power of Constantinople, developed during the reign of the
Angelos dynasty, though it can hardly have been intentional. But the idea
that emerged after the deposition of Andronikos I, i.e. that the imperial title
was no longer confined to members of the imperial family, allowed local
Byzantine lords to proclaim themselves emperors in situ. Paradoxically, this
made the Byzantine-Seljuk border stable despite of the political crisis in
(eds.), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents. A Complete Translation of the Surviving

Founders’ Typika and Testaments, 5 vols., Washington DC 2000, IV, 1182, 1188–90.
153. Korobeinikov, ‘How ‘Byzantine’ were the Early Ottomans? ’, 230–1.
154. Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 8–9.
Constantinople. In any case, one has to consider also that during the reign of
the ‘weak’ Angeloi, Byzantium did not suffer significant territorial losses in
Anatolia. What is more, this new balance of power between Byzantium and
the Seljuks, along with the support that individual Byzantine aristocrats
received from the Seljuks, were vital for the survival of the future state of
Nicaea, particularly in the formative years between 1204 and 1211.

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NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION

INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Edited by: Alicia Simpson

Word processing-layout: Constantina Simonetatou

Distribution: The National Hellenic Research Foundation

© The National Hellenic Research Foundation

Prologue Taxiarchis G. Kolias, Director of the Institute

Alicia Simpson, Perceptions and Interpretations of the Late

Maria Gerolymatou, Private Investment in Trade in the Final

the byzantine-seljuk border in times of trouble:

1. Cf. the contribution of Alicia Simpson to this volume.

Laodikeia was an important stronghold at the crossroads, surrounded by

8. D. A. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century, Oxford

17. Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris, ed. A. Chroust, Quellen zur

According to Şimşek, who excavated ancient Laodikeia north of

from a fortress to a fortress: 1098–1174

As metropolis of Phrygia Kapatiane (the Greek form of ‘Phrygia Pacatiana’,

21. Belke and Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, 323–6.

Odo of Deuil’s description of Laodikeia (called urbs) fits a small fortress

city).42 The historian Āqsarāyī (Āqsarā’ī, Aksaraylı), likewise wrote about

1318), Ankara–Istanbul 2010, 697–8.

50. Cf. De Planhol, ‘Le cadre géographique’, 398–9, 403–11.

The description of Laodikeia in Odo of Deuil, Kinnamos, Choniates,

52. M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450, Cambridge

The sources of the Third Crusade describe Laodikeia as a ‘city’ (civitas)

56. Historia peregrinorum, in Chroust (ed.), Quellen, 155; Historia de expeditione

Laodikeia in the variant readings of the Partitio is ambiguous: ‘the province

62. Carile, ‘Partitio’, 218.23–5: Provintia Laodikie (Laudikie, Laudochie) et Meandri,

growing isolation: 1174–1204

The remote location of Laodikeia made difficult any effective control on

68. On the estates, see Thonemann, Maeander Valley, 5 n. 14.

Byzantine allies.73 The history of Laodikeia in the twelfth century gives us

73. Odo of Deuil, De profectione Ludovici VII, 112–14.

Probably by 1191, Mangaphas was forced into exile by Basil Vatazes

90. Choniates, Historia, 528.81–529.24.

through the looking glass:

96. Akropolites, Opera, 144.10–15; trans. R. Macrides, George Akropolites: The

The conflicts nearly escalated to full-scale war between the crusaders

101. Historia de expeditione Friderici, 73-74; Historia peregrinorum, 154–5; Gesta

Unlike the citizens of Philadelphia, the Laodikeians welcomed the

105. Choniates, Historia, 412.18–29.

110. See Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 115–16.

vols., Leiden 1888, I, 452.

through repeatedly under the protection afforded by the pact120 until we

129. Historia peregrinorum, 156; trans. Loud, 101 n. 278.

Can we therefore suggest the existence of a Turkish tribal confederation

139. Choniates, Historia, 521.78–9.

(Burdūr, on Lake Burdur) as its centre, probably given to her as an appanage

146. Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks, 186-7.

At the end of the twelfth century, Laodikeia faced a confederation of

(eds.), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents. A Complete Translation of the Surviving

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