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Azeb
Azebs, azabs, or azaps (, from Arabic, literally ''unmarried'', meaning ''bachelor''), also known as Asappes or Asappi, were irregular soldiers, originally made up of unmarried youths. They were conscripted among reayas and served in various roles in the early Ottoman army. The word azeb either often indicates a light infantry soldier which was called ''yaya'' azeb or a marine soldier which was called ''bahriye'' (navy) and ''deniz'' (sea) azeb. The term was used in the sense of "pirate" or "buccaneer" in Byzantine, Latin, and Italian sources from the 14th to 16th centuries. History Azebs were originally an auxiliary infantry unit harkening back to Anatolian beyliks that became independent from the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate. In the maritime beyliks, they also served as naval units. For instance, in the 13th century, sources address existence of troops called azebs in the Beylik of Aydın. According to Stein (2007), by the 14th century azebs garrisoned in strongholds were c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe, between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a Anatolian beyliks, ''beylik'', or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in by the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors Ottoman wars in Europe, conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the Fall of Constantinople, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II. With its capital at History of Istanbul#Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mace (bludgeon)
A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of Club (weapon), club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful Strike (attack), strikes. A mace typically consists of a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, often reinforced with metal, featuring a head made of stone, bone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel. The head of a mace can be shaped with flanges or knobs to increase the pressure of an impact by focusing the force on a small point. They would bind on metal instead of sliding around it, allowing them to deliver more force to an armored opponent than a traditional mace. This effect increased the potential for the mace to injure an armored opponent through weak spots in the armor, and even damage plate armor by denting it, potentially binding overlapping plates and impeding the wearer's range of motion. Medieval historian and re-enactor Todd Todeschini (AKA Todd Cutler) demonstrated this effect with period accurate equipment in a series of tests on video. Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bardiche
A bardiche , berdiche, bardische, bardeche, or berdish is a type of polearm used from the 14th to 17th centuries in Europe. Ultimately a descendant of the medieval sparth axe or Dane axe, the bardiche proper appears around 1400, but there are numerous medieval manuscripts that depict very similar weapons beginning c. 1250. The bardiche differs from the halberd in having neither a hook at the back nor a spear point at the top. The use of bardiches started in early 14th-century Austria. In the 16th century the bardiche was associated with the streltsy, arquebusiers of Imperial Russia established by Ivan the Terrible. Description The blade varied greatly in shape, but was most often a long, cleaver-type blade. The distinction was in how the blade was attached to the pole. The bardiche blade was attached to the pole either via two sockets (one at the top of the pole and one lower, at the base of the blade) or one socket at the top and one surface mount at the base, effectively m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Scythe
A war scythe or military scythe is a form of polearm with a curving single-edged blade with the cutting edge on the concave side of the blade. Its blade bears a superficial resemblance to that of an agricultural scythe from which it is likely to have evolved, but the war scythe is otherwise unrelated to agricultural tools and is a purpose-built infantry melee weapon. The blade of a war scythe has regularly proportioned flats, a thickness comparable to that of a spear or sword blade, and slightly curves along its edge as it tapers to its point. This is different from farming scythes, which have very thin and irregularly curved blades, specialised for mowing grass and wheat only, unsuitable as blades for improvised spears or polearms. Compared to a fauchard (which is believed to have evolved from the war scythe), the blade of the war scythe has the cutting edge on the concave side like the agricultural tool whereas the fauchard has the edge along the convex side. As an infantry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rumelia
Rumelia (; ; ) was a historical region in Southeastern Europe that was administered by the Ottoman Empire, roughly corresponding to the Balkans. In its wider sense, it was used to refer to all Ottoman possessions and Vassal state, vassals in Europe. These would later be geopolitically classified as "the Balkans", although Hungary and Moldova are sometimes excluded. In contemporary English sources, Rumelia was known as Turkey in Europe. Etymology ''Rûm'' in this context means 'Roman' and ''ėli'' means 'land', and thus ''Rumelia'' (, ''Rūm-ėli''; Turkish language, Turkish: ''Rumeli'') means 'Land of the Romans' in Ottoman Turkish language, Ottoman Turkish. It refers to the lands conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, most of which formerly belonged to the Byzantine Empire, known by its contemporaries as the Eastern Roman Empire, Roman Empire. Although the term ''Byzantine Empire'' is used by modern historians, the empire's citizens and emperors called themselves Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe. During the Neolithic, Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent. Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Neolithic Europe, Europe, with their descendants coming to dominate the continent a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kadi (Ottoman Empire)
A kadi (, ) was an official in the Ottoman Empire. In Arabic, the term () typically refers to judges who preside over matters in accordance with sharia Islamic law; under Ottoman rule, however, the kadi also became a crucial part of the imperial administration. After Mehmed II codified his '' Kanun'', kadis relied on this dynastic secular law, local customs, and sharia to guide their rulings. Along with adjudicating over criminal and civil matters, the kadi oversaw the administration of religious endowments and was the legal guardian of orphans and others without a guardian. Although Muslims, in particular Muslim men, possessed a higher status in the kadi's court, non-Muslims and foreigners also had access to the judicial system. Under the Ottomans' initial system of feudal land grants, the ''timar'' system, the kadi served as an important check on the power of the local and regional military lords. Despite the unquestioned authority of the sultan, kadis possessed a certain degree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suleiman The Magnificent
Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 and his death in 1566. Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people. After succeeding his father Selim I on 30 September 1520, Suleiman began his reign by launching military campaigns against the Christendom, Christian powers of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean; Siege of Belgrade (1521), Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and Siege of Rhodes (1522), Rhodes in 1522–1523, and at Battle of Mohács, Mohács in 1526, Suleiman broke the strength of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, Kingdom of Hungary. Presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military, and political strength, Suleiman rose to become a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, as he personally led Arm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Law
The Ottoman Empire was governed by different sets of laws during its existence. The '' Qanun'', sultanic law, co-existed with religious law (mainly the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence). Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority (see Legal pluralism). Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority develop the needs of the local millet. The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups. Legal system The Ottoman system had three court systems: one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims, involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the "trade court". The codified administrative law was known as '' kanun'' and the ''ulema'' were permitted to invalidate secular provisions that contradicted the religious la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janissary
A janissary (, , ) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted during the reign of Murad II (r. 1421–1444, 1446–1451). The corps was established under either Orhan or Murad I, and dismantled by Mahmud II in 1826. Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the ''devşirme'' system of Ghilman, child levy enslavement, by which Ethnic groups in Europe, indigenous European Christians, Christian boys, chiefly from the Balkans, were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and Forced conversion#Islam, forced conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army in the 15th–19th centuries, Ottoman army. They became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical History of slavery in the Muslim world, slaves, they were paid regular salaries. Forbidden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
