High Middle Ages · Middle East · Politics

1243

Seljuk Anatolia becomes a Mongol vassal

1243

After the rout at Kose Dag, the Seljuk sultans of Rum accepted Mongol overlordship and agreed to pay heavy tribute. The once-proud sultanate fractured into competing Turkish beyliks, small frontier states whose warriors would one day coalesce under the banner of a certain Osman. Among these fragments, the embryonic Ottoman state began its quiet expansion along the Byzantine frontier in northwestern Anatolia.