Entangled Charters of Anatolia (1200-1300)

In the late Middle Ages, between 1200 and 1300 CE, the states of Anatolia (roughly what is now Turkey) experienced a series of severe crises. In 1204, the army of the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), which for 900 years had been the capital of the (Eastern) Roman Empire (also known as the "Byzantine Empire"). Some members of the Byzantine elite escaped this catastrophe and founded new states in exile, including the empires of Nicaea (modern-day Iznik in north-western Turkey) and Trebizond (modern-day Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast of Turkey). The Empire of the Turkish Seljuks with the capital Konya, which had existed alongside the Byzantine Empire in Central Anatolia since 1100, was initially able to benefit from the weakening of the neighbouring empire. However, from the 1220s, the advance of the Mongols from Central Asia troubled the neighbourhood of Anatolia. In 1243, the Mongols also defeated the Seljuks and caused great destruction. On the other hand, the kingdom of the Armenians in Cilicia (in today`s south-eastern Turkey on the Mediterranean coast) was hoping for help from the Mongols. The Armenians were also in close contact with merchants from Venice, Genoa and other European cities. In addition to works by historians, charters are our most important source of information about this time. With such documents, the rulers of these empires tried to secure their power by concluding various treaties with neighbouring states or by winning domestic supporters, e.g. by granting privileges to powerful landowners, including monasteries or other pious foundations. The ENCHANT project will collect for the first time all these documents, which were written in different languages (including Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Latin and Persian) in a digital database and make them accessible in English for researchers and all interested parties. In addition, the project will examine how the rulers in these texts reacted to the severe crises of the time and how the various neighbouring states influenced each other across linguist ic, political and religious borders in the design of these documents. In addition, we want to use this research to better understand how states adapted to such major challenges, also in comparison to today.