After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the sultans of the Ottoman Empire laid claim to represent the legitimate Roman emperors. This claim was based on the right of conquest and mainly rested on possession of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire for over a millennium. The sultans could also claim to be rulers of the Romans since they ruled over the former Byzantine populace, which continued to identify as such. Various titles were used by the sultans to stress their claim, including kayser-i rûm ("Caesar of Rome") and basileus (the Byzantine ruling title).
The early sultans after the conquest of Constantinople of the Classical Age—Mehmed II, Bayezid II, Selim I and Suleiman I—staunchly maintained that they were Roman emperors and went to great lengths to legitimize themselves as such. Constantinople was maintained as the imperial capital, Greek aristocrats (descendants of Byzantine nobility) were promoted to senior administrative positions, and architecture and culture experienced profound Byzantine influence. The claim of succession to the Roman Empire was also used to justify campaigns of conquest against Western Europe, including attempts to conquer Italy.
The Ottomans never formally dropped their claim to Roman imperial succession and never formally abandoned their Roman imperial titles, though the claim gradually faded and ceased to be stressed by the sultans. This development was a result of the Ottoman Empire increasingly claiming Islamic political legitimacy from the sixteenth century onwards, a result of Ottoman conquests in the Levant, Arabia, and North Africa having turned the empire from a multi-religious state to a state with a clear Muslim majority population. In turn, this necessitated a claim to legitimate political power rooted in Islamic rather than Roman tradition. Kayser-i Rûm was last used officially in the eighteenth century and sultans ceased to be referred to as basileus in Greek-language documents in the nineteenth century.
Recognition of the Ottoman claim to be Roman emperors was variable, both outside and within the Ottoman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Ottoman sultans were widely recognized as Roman emperors. The majority of the empire's Christian populace also recognized the sultans as their new emperors, though views were more variable among the cultural elite. From at least 1474 onwards, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognized the sultans by the title basileus. The Christian populace of the empire generally did not see the Ottoman Empire as a seamless continuation of the Byzantine Empire, but rather as an heir or successor of sorts, inheriting the former empire's legitimacy and right to universal rule. In Western Europe, the sultans were generally recognized as emperors, but not Roman emperors, an approach similar to how Western Europeans had treated the Byzantine emperors. The Ottoman claim to Roman emperorship and universal rule was challenged for centuries by the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and the Russian Empire, both of whom claimed this dignity for themselves.
Background
Political context
The Eastern Roman Empire, also referred to as the Byzantine Empire by historians, traced its origin to the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD. Constantinople was established by Emperor Constantine I (306–337) as the new capital of the Roman Empire and had by 450 eclipsed the original Rome in both size and status. While the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, the Byzantine Empire survived more or less intact. Throughout its history, the populace of the Byzantine Empire continuously maintained that they were Romaioi (Romans) and not Hellenes (Greeks), even as the imperial borders gradually reduced to mostly encompass Greek-speaking lands.
By the fifteenth century, the Byzantine emperors ruled a disintegrating and dwindling empire, weakened by centuries of conflicts. Over the course of the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Empire—originally a minor Anatolian Turkish beylik—conquered vast territories and by the early fifteenth century, the Ottoman sultans ruled much of Anatolia, Bulgaria, central Greece, Serbia, Macedonia and Thessaly. The Ottoman expansion reduced the Byzantine Empire to the imperial capital of Constantinople itself, the Peloponnese, and a handful of islands in the Aegean Sea. The emperors were furthermore forced to pay tribute to the Ottomans.
In 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II laid siege to and conquered Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople is often regarded to have marked the definitive end of the Roman Empire, as well as the final and decisive step in the Ottoman conquest of its core lands and subjects. The conquest also marked the true birth of the Ottoman Empire, which would go on to dominate much of the eastern Mediterranean until its fall in 1922. The conquest of Constantinople had been a goal and dream of Islamic armies since the eighth century.
Through possession of Constantinople, which had served as the Roman capital for more than a millennium, Mehmed II and his successors were able to claim to be the heirs of the Roman emperors. Mehmed had a great interest in Roman and classical Greek history. The sultan emulated himself on Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, and is known to at one point have visited the city of Troy to see the graves of the mythological Greek heroes Achilles and Ajax.
Ottoman conception of Rome In Western Europe, recognition of the Byzantine Empire as the Roman Empire gradually faded away after the ninth century, in favor of the papally supported Holy Roman Empire. In contrast, Muslim sources in the Middle Ages continued to refer to the Byzantine Empire and its inhabitants as Roman. In early Muslim sources, Christians as a whole are generally referred to as Rūmī ("Romans"), though the term later became restricted to just refer to the Byzantines.
When discussing Byzantine emperors, early Ottoman historians mainly used three different terms: tekfur, fasiliyus and kayser. This is despite the Ottomans most commonly equating the title of "emperor" with the term padişah. The most common title applied to the Byzantine emperors by the Ottomans was tekfur, which might derive from the Armenian taghavor ("crown-bearer"), perhaps ultimately originating as a misspelling of the name of Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. In pre-1453 sources, the Ottomans used tekfur for Byzantine government servants of all ranks, thus giving it a demeaning connotation when applied to the emperor. The titles fasiliyus and kayser are derived from the Byzantine imperial titles basileus and Caesar, respectively. Some Ottoman historians used the more elaborate kayser-i Rûm ("Caesar of Rome") for the Byzantine emperors.
Even before the conquest of Constantinople, some Ottoman rulers made steps towards Roman legitimacy. The fourth Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I (1389–1402) styled himself as the ("sultan of Rome"), a claim that was accepted at least in Timurid sources, wherein Bayezid is referred to as . Unlike the Roman aspirations of Mehmed II and his successors, Bayezid's assumption of the title was an attempt to claim the legacy of the Sultanate of Rum (1077–1308) and thus challenge the other beyliks in Anatolia, not to claim succession to the Roman Empire.
History
Mehmed II (1453–1481)
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultans embraced the heritage and legacy of the Byzantine emperors and began fashioning themselves as their heirs and intended to establish a state somewhat akin to the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman claim to Roman succession was based on the fact that the sultan now ruled what had just earlier been the Eastern Roman Empire and its populace, and possessed the imperial capital of Constantinople. In the immediate aftermath of the conquest, Mehmed proclaimed himself as , the Roman emperor. As emperors, Mehmed and his heirs further viewed themselves as inheriting the Roman claim to universal power.
Despite assuming the title, Mehmed rarely used kayser or basileus in his official documents, neither those in Greek nor those in other languages and his official titles were instead closely modelled on those of his father, Murad II. Mehmed's most common Greek-language title was ("great ruler, great emir and sultan, Mehmed"). It is possible that he did not wish to be seen merely as an imitation of the former emperors. One title that saw common usage, with clear Roman connotations, was "ruler of the two seas and the two continents". This title referred to Mehmed's claim to rule both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, as well as both Europe and Asia. In Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, Mehmed and later sultans commonly used the titles and (, ).
Mehmed took many steps to legitimize his rule as Roman emperor. The Ottoman capital was moved to Constantinople due to its imperial history and strategic location and the city was repopulated and thrived under Mehmed and his successors. Many Greek aristocrats were promoted to elite government positions, including that of grand vizier. Similar to the Byzantine emperors, Mehmed also appointed a new Patriarch of Constantinople, Gennadios II Scholarios, which garnered the sultan further legitimacy in the eyes of his Christian subjects as well as a certain level of control over the Eastern Orthodox Church. Mehmed took steps to assimilate Greco-Roman traditions of philosophy, theology, and history, and also appropriated some Western (Roman) traditions of portrait paintings and medals. Mehmed commissioned histories of Rome and Alexander the Great, implicitly identifying the ancient rulers with his own dynasty. Byzantine political, diplomatic, and administrative practices, as well as court ceremonies, were revived and appropriated under Mehmed and his heirs. Ottoman architecture, especially imperial mosques, were heavily inspired by preceding Byzantine architecture. In 1480, Mehmed used his claim to be Roman emperor to justify an unsuccessful invasion of Italy, the intended first step in a campaign to eventually capture Rome itself. After his death, Mehmed was buried in Constantinople in 1481—in contrast to earlier sultans having been buried in Bursa—and his burial ceremony was modelled on that of Emperor Constantine I.
Bayezid II, Selim I, and Suleiman I (1481–1566)
The Byzantine-oriented political identity of the Ottoman Empire increased in the reigns of Mehmed II's three immediate successors Bayezid II (), Selim I (), and Suleiman I (). Protocols, court ceremonies, architecture, and symbols were increasingly borrowed from Byzantium. In terms of titulature, became an integral part of the Ottoman imperial title, tsar and basileus entered official usage, becoming the primary title used by the sultans in Serbian- and Greek-language documents respectively.
Prior to 1453, it was common for Western Europeans to refer to Byzantine emperors as "emperors of Constantinople". This title was also assumed by both Selim I and Suleiman I, rendered as () in Turkish, and was sometimes extended to "Emperor of Constantinople and Trebizond". The version "Emperor of the Romans" () is also attested for the sultans. In Latin documents issued for diplomatic correspondence with Western European rulers, the sultans frequently used the title imperator.