Eastern Southeast Europe (1480–1491 CE): Vassalage, Ottoman Consolidation, and Internal Challenges

Settlement and Migration Patterns

Moldavian and Wallachian Vassalage

Between 1480 and 1491 CE, regional autonomy diminished as principalities increasingly fell under external control. Moldavia, under its prince, accepted vassalage to the Polish king, aligning itself politically with Poland-Lithuania. Concurrently, Wallachia became a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan, significantly altering the geopolitical landscape and solidifying Ottoman dominance in the region.

Economic and Technological Developments

Consolidation of Ottoman Economic Influence

Under Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), the Ottoman Empire intensified its economic integration of conquered territories. Infrastructure improvements, including road maintenance and fortification upgrades, reinforced economic stability and facilitated greater resource extraction from vassal states like Wallachia, further fueling Ottoman imperial ambitions.

Cultural and Artistic Developments

Continuity Amidst Political Change

Despite political subordination, both Moldavia and Wallachia maintained distinctive cultural identities, preserving local traditions and Orthodox Christian practices. The arts and religious institutions within these principalities continued to flourish, albeit under increasingly complex external political constraints.

Social and Religious Developments

Religious and Social Autonomy

While formally becoming vassals, Moldavia and Wallachia preserved significant religious autonomy, maintaining Orthodox Christianity and local ecclesiastical structures. Social organization within these principalities continued largely undisturbed at local levels, sustaining internal community cohesion despite external political pressures.

Political Dynamics and Regional Rivalries

Bayezid II’s Consolidation and Cem’s Revolt

Sultan Bayezid II, succeeding his father Mehmed II in 1481, prioritized consolidating his inherited territories, laying groundwork for further expansion into the Arab world and Central Europe. However, his early reign was significantly challenged by internal strife, particularly the revolt led by his younger brother, Cem (Jem Sultan). Cem allied himself strategically with external powers, notably the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria and the papacy, seeking to undermine Bayezid’s authority. This internal conflict temporarily diverted Ottoman resources and attention from external conquests, affecting regional stability and imperial strategy.

Long-Term Consequences and Historical Significance

The period 1480–1491 CE marked critical adjustments in regional power dynamics within Eastern Southeast Europe, notably through formal vassalage of Moldavia and Wallachia, enhancing Ottoman and Polish influence respectively. Sultan Bayezid II’s consolidation efforts amidst internal dynastic struggles laid crucial foundations for later Ottoman expansions and influenced subsequent regional political and cultural trajectories.

Ottoman sultan Bayezid II, a son of Mehmed II, consolidates the conquests of his father and lays the bases for new expansion into the Arab world and central Europe.

He is, however, preoccupied from the beginning of his reign in 1481 by the revolt of his younger brother Cem in alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria and the papacy.

A dispute arises in 1485 over a Turkmen territory ruled by the Mamluk-supported Duldakir dynasty in Cappadocia.

The Mamluks—against whom the military leaders of Ottoman sultan Bayezid I press for revenge in retaliation for Mamluk support of his rebellious brother in the recent civil war—interfere in Cappadocia by stirring up eastern Turkmen nomads and asserting authority over Lesser Armenia.

The Ottomans initiate a series of six annual campaigns against the Mamluks, five of which end indecisively and one of which ends, in 1488, in a small victory by the Mamluks.

Peace negotiations in 1491 gain the Mamluks territorial concessions and suspend fighting.

Ivan Crnojević disembarks near Dubrovnik in June 1481 following the death in May of Sultan Mehmed II.

Using the civil war that erupts between Mehmed's heirs, Bayezid and Cem, he restores control over Zeta and Žabljak with the help of people that welcome him as a liberator and supported by forces under Skanderbeg's son Gjon Kastrioti II.

The new Ottoman sultan Bayezid accepts Ivan as his vassal.

In order to guarantee his loyalty to the Sultan, Ivan sends his youngest son Staniša and several of his friends to the sultan's court in 1382.

The center of his renewed realm is at Obod above the Crnojević River.

Wishing to preserve the realm of Zeta and its independence from the Ottomans because he doesn’t feel safe close to their common border, Ivan abandons the capital at Zabljak, as well as all of Zeta’s territory around Lake Scutari, and moves its capital deeper into the hills to …

…a less hospitable but more easily defended location in the field of Cetinje at the foot of Mount Lovćen.

He has his court built in 1482 and the monastery of the Mother of Christ in Cetinje as a personal endowment to the Orthodox Church in 1484, thus founding Cetinje as a town.

Once called Upper Zeta, this reduced territorial base, from which Ivan succeeds in resisting further Ottoman encroachment, comes to be known as Montenegro (Crna Gora—the Black Mountain).

His court and the monastery are the first recorded Renaissance buildings in Montenegro.

He also moves the seat of the Metropolitanate of Zeta to the Old Cetinje Monastery, where, upon his death in 1490, he is buried.

The Knights of St. John, with their headquarters at Rhodes, hold the island as a bar to Ottoman expansion in the Aegean.

Pierre d'Aubusson, a son of French nobility who joined the Knights around 1453, had become grand master of the order in 1476.

The island of Tilos (located between Rhodes and another island, Kos) had been evacuated to Rhodes in 1470 because they were susceptible to attacks from the Ottoman Empire.

The island of Chalki (six kilometers west of Rhodes, the smallest inhabited island of the Dodecanese) had also been evacuated to Rhodes in 1475 for the same reason.

An Ottoman fleet of one hundred and sixty ships appears on May 23, 1480, before Rhodes, at the gulf of Trianda, along with an army of seventy thousand men under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha or Mesih Pasha.The Knights Hospitaller garrison is led by d'Aubusson.

The Knights are reinforced from France by five hundred knights and two thousand soldiers under d'Aubusson's brother Antoine.

The Ottomans' first strategic goal is to capture the Tower of St Nicholas, which is the knights' key point in the defense of the two harbors: the commercial, Mandraki, and the one to the east bay of Akandia.

The Turkish artillery keeps up an unbroken bombardment and on June 9 the infantry makes a series of attacks.

Grand Master d'Aubusson himself speeds to the aid of the garrison and after a fierce struggle the enemy is repelled.

Shortly after comes a second attack on the tower, this time on the eastern sector of the wall towards the bay of Akandia, which is the battle station of the "tongue" of Italy and is quite weak.

During the bombardment from the Turkish artillery, the Knights and the people meanwhile dig a new moat on the inside of the wall at this point and construct a new internal fortification.

Once again the Knights react valiantly and decisively and after a bitter battle with many casualties on both sides, the danger is once more averted.

The Turks at dawn on July 27, launch a vigorous offensive on the Jewish quarter of the city, and their vanguard of around twenty-five hundred Janissaries manages to take the tower of Italy and enter the city.

A frenzied struggle ensues.

The grand master, wounded in five places, directs the battle and fights with lance in hand.

After three hours of fighting the enemy are decimated and the exhausted survivors begin to withdraw.

The Knights’ counterattack causes the Turks to beat a disorderly retreat, dragging along with them the Vizier and commander-in-chief.

The Hospitallers reach as far as his tent and take, along with other booty, the holy standard of Islam.

On this day between three and four thousand Turks are slain.

The Ottoman fleet on August 17, 1480, abandon their attempt to capture Rhodes.

Sultan Mehmed II is furious and would have attacked the island again, but his death in 1481 will put a stop to the attempt.

The French knight Guillaume Caoursin, vice-chancellor of the Knights Hospitaller, fought in the siege of Rhodes and writes its description in his Obsidionis Rhodiae Urbis Descriptio (an English translation exists as a part of Edward Gibbon's Crusades).

D'Aubusson's own report on the siege can be found in John Taaffe's history of the Holy, military, sovereign order of st. John of Jerusalem.

D'Aubusson gains widespread fame in Europe for his successful defense of the island.

Bayezid II's younger brother Cem captures the city of Inegöl with an army of four thousand, only six days after the installation of as his brother as Ottoman Sultan.

Bayezid sends his army under the command of vizier Ayas Pasha to kill his brother.

Cem defeats Bayezid's army and on May 28 declares himself Sultan of Anatolia, establishing his capital at Bursa to avoid the Janissaries.

He proposes dividing the empire amicably between them, leaving Bayezid only Europe.

Bayezid, adhering to the doctrine of indivisibility of rule formulated by their father, and reinforced by religious arguments and personal ambition, furiously rejects the proposal.

Declaring "between rulers there is no kinship," he marches on Bursa.

The decisive battle between the two rivals to the Ottoman throne takes place near the town of Yenişehir.

Cem loses and flees with his family to Mamluk Cairo.

Mehmed's financial measures had resulted  in widespread discontent throughout the country toward the end of his reign, especially when he distributed as military fiefs about twenty thousand villages and farms that had previously belonged to pious foundations or the landed gentry.

The economic stringencies imposed to finance Mehmed's campaigns had led during the last year of his reign to a virtual civil war between the major factions in Istanbul, the devsirme party and the Turkish aristocracy.

After the conquest of Constantinople and the execution of grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha, Mehmed had preferred to appoint grand viziers of devsirme origin instead of ethnic Turks to avoid possible crises caused by over-powerful grand viziers.

Having executing his last Turkish grand vizier, his next four grand viziers have been of devsirme origin.

Karamani Mehmet's appointment as grand vizier in 1476 therefore marks a notable exception, for he is a Turk from the recently conquered Karamanid territory in Anatolia.

In his short term in the office, Karamani Mehmet has tried to reform the Ottoman administration.

Born in Karaman, he had traveled to Constantinople to study in the medrese founded by Mahmud Pasha Angelovic.

Later on, he had worked as a teacher in the medrese.

Being a man of letters, in various occasions he had acted as a consultant to sultan.

He had been appointed as the court calligrapher and he has contributed to the kanunname of Mehmed II, a series of laws regularizing the Ottoman Empire.

He had also helped the sultan in writing letters of high literary value to Ak Koyunlu sultan Uzun Hasan.

At the death of Mehmed on May 3, 1481, his son Bayezid is the governor of Sivas, Tokat and Amasya, and his son Cem rules the provinces of Karaman and Konya as governor.

During Mehmed's last years, his relations with his eldest son Bayezid had become very strained, as Bayezid, who holds the governorship of Amasya, did not always obey his orders.

Contrary to Islamic law, which prohibits any unnecessary delay in burial, Mehmed II's body is transported to Constantinople, where it lies three days.

The grand vizier—believing himself to be fulfilling the wishes of the recently deceased Sultan—attempts to arrange a situation whereby the younger son Cem, whose governing seat at Konya is closer than his brother Bayezid's seat at Amasya, will arrive in Constantinople prior to his older sibling and be able to claim the throne.

In spite of Karamanlı Mehmet Pasha's attempts at secrecy, the Sultan's death and the grand vizier's plan are discovered by the Janissary corps, who support Bayezid over Cem and had been kept out of the capital after the Sultan's death.

As a result, the Janissary corps rebels, harassing Christians and Jews, entering the capital and lynching the grand vizier.

After the death of Karamanlı Mehmet Pasha, there is widespread rioting among the janissaries in Constantinople as there is neither a sultan nor a grand vizier to control the developments.

Understanding the danger of the situation, former grand vizier Ishak Pasha takes the initiative of beseeching Bayezid to arrive with all due haste.

In the meantime, Ishak Pasha takes the cautionary measure of proclaiming the latter's eleven-year-old son, Sehzade (prince) Korkut, as regent until the arrival of his father.

Prince Bayezid arrives at Constantinople on May 21 and, after promising amnesty and increased salary to the janissaries, is declared Sultan, initiating a reaction against Mehmed's policies.

In the meantime, however, the threat that Cem might lead a foreign attack has compelled Bayezid to concentrate on internal consolidation.

Most of the property confiscated by his father for military campaigns is restored to its original owners.

Equal taxes are established around the empire so that all subjects can fulfill their obligations to the government without the kind of disruption and dissatisfaction that had characterized the previous regime.

Particularly important is the establishment of the avâriz-i divaniye (“war chest”) tax, which provides for the extraordinary expenditures of war without special confiscations or heavy levies.

Though Bayezid prefers to maintain peace-in order to have the time and resources to concentrate on internal development-he is forced into a number of campaigns by the exigencies of the period and the demands of his more militant devsirme followers.