Late Middle Ages · Middle East · Religion

1396

Ottomans plant the Ghazi warrior ethos at Nicopolis

1396

Bayezid's victory over the crusaders was celebrated in the Ottoman court as a decisive proof that the ghazi, the frontier holy warrior, had outmatched the knight of the cross. The story, retold in chronicles and heroic poems, fed Ottoman imperial self-identification for generations after Bayezid's own catastrophic fall to Timur at Ankara six years later.