AHC: Byzantine Emperor as Khan of the Turks?

I was thinking, if Mehmet II Fatih could call himself Kaiser i Rum, why couldn't a Byzantine Emperor become the Khan or the Sultan of a newly incorporated Turkic population in Anatolia?

Bonus if the Byzantine Empire adopted some successful systems of the OTL Ottoman Empire, such as the millet system, or the Janissary, etc.
 
I was thinking, if Mehmet II Fatih could call himself Kaiser i Rum, why couldn't a Byzantine Emperor become the Khan or the Sultan of a newly incorporated Turkic population in Anatolia?

Bonus if the Byzantine Empire adopted some successful systems of the OTL Ottoman Empire, such as the millet system, or the Janissary, etc.
Maybe a wanked out ERE expands into Central Asia and is ceremonially crowned Khan of the gokturks for political legitimacy.
 
That would be a cool timeline, to be honest. Make the romans focus much more on the east, being successful in reconquering anatolia and conquering the caucasus, tatars, mesopotamia, persia, and even parts of india. If the objective is to gather exotic titles, we could end up with a Roman emperor that happens to be Shah, Rajaamd Khan of a lot of places.
 
How about making Ertuğrul Gazi joining the Byzantines, and having his descendants eventually taking the throne for themselves? I believe there is a timeline using this in AH.com.
 
If this is after the conquest of Chengiz Khan then Byzantine Emperor becoming Khan is technically impossible, as this title could be held by his bloodline only.
For example Ottoman sultans never claimed the title of Khan, not being of Chengiz Khan bloodline.

title of sultan... What for?
The Roman emperors were never known for title collecting. By that time the title of the Roman emperor was one of the most ancient and known in the world, you didn't need a string of other petty titles following it. By origin the title of the Roman emperor had connotations of ruling the world; the ruler of the world doesn't need other titles, I guess...
The title of Khan was not exclusive to Genghis Khan's bloodline.It's only so when you actually acknowledge you are part of the Mongol Empire.A lot of people don't give a fuck about the Genghisids(I have no idea why Timur bothered with the charade).The Oirats for one dispensed with the pretension that they were still vassals of the Mongol Khan and broke free--proclaiming their leader as Khan eventually.There were also a good number of Khanates in Central Asia not of Genghisid origin.The Manchus also declared themselves Khans prior to conquering China.I think it's entirely possible that if an emperor managed to reduce a number of Turkic states as vassals,they might have him declared Khagan just like with the Tang Dynasty.The Turkic and Mongol tribes declared the Tang emperors Heavenly Khagan after they submitted to them.
 
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What I said was meant for the period and region in question actually, as usual.

I did not mean that since Chengizz Khan, the title of khan belonged to his bloodline forever and ever.
You perfectly know that, for example, you can proclaim yourself khan freely nowdays, no problem; so it's obvious this rule was definitely broken at some time somewhere.
If I remember correctly it was Oirats, who were one of the first to break this rule (thank you for the effort to search).


That's quite natural actually - I mean your having no idea.
What was important for Tamerlane and his subjects is of no importance for you. You and Timur live in different times and different regions, so no wonder. For the places where Tamerlane was from, being descendant from Chengizz Khan is important even today - family pride and things like that, you know.

Chengizz Khan bloodline holding power was not linear process, it had it's ups and downs, going in waves. For example after the death of Tamerlane, in his core territories in the Central Asia Timur's descendants were pushed away by the Chengizzids, who were no longer puppets and hold real power; and of course unlike Timurids they proudly held title of khan.


That depends on what you mean by 'Central Asia'.
From all I know specifically about 'Russian' Central Asia and nearby territories, all the Khans were strictly of Chengizz Khan bloodline till the Russian conquest.


As I said, in this part of the World this rule had already been broken by Oirats, so no wonder if they did.
But I've never heard of the Manchu leaders proclaiming khans; from what I know since the very beginning they aimed at the title of the Chinese emperor.
And why would the Turks of Anatolia or the emperor of the ERE in particular care about the Genghisids?If they want the title of Khan,they go with it.Thing is that most tribes and Turkish states by this point were Islamised--that's the true reason why nobody went with the title of Khan.

Dzungar rulers who controlled vast regions of Central Asia called themselves Khans.
As for the Manchus,Nurachi started calling himself the Khagan of the Jin Empire.It wasn't until later under his son that they proclaimed themselves Huangdi.

EDIT:

By the way,I just discovered something interesting--one of the titles of the Ottoman Sultan was in fact Khan of Khans.

"Sultan (given name) Han, Sovereign of The Sublime House of Osman, Sultan es Selatin(Sultan of Sultans), Khakhan (Khan of the Khans), Commander of the faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the lord of the Universe, Custodian of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Kouds (Jerusalem), Kayser-i Rum (Caesar of Rome), Padishah of The Three Cities of Istanbul (Constantinople), Edirne (Adrianople) and Bursa, and of the Cities of Châm (Damascus) and Cairo (Egypt), of all Azerbaijan, of the Magreb, of Barkah, of Kairouan, of Alep, of the Arab and Persian Iraq, of Basra, of El Hasa strip, of Raqqa, of Mosul, of Parthia, of Diyâr-ı Bekr, of Cilicia, of the provinces of Erzurum, of Sivas, of Adana, of Karaman, of Van, of Barbaria, of Habech (Abyssinia), of Tunisia, of Tripoli, of Châm (Syria), of Cyprus, of Rhodes, of Crete, of the province of Morea (Peloponnese), of Bahr-i Sefid (Mediterranean Sea), of Bahr-i Siyah (Black Sea), of Anatolia, of Rumelia (the European part of the Empire), of Bagdad, of Kurdistan, of Greece, of Turkestan, of Tartary, of Circassia, of the two regions of Kabarda, of Gorjestan (Georgia), of the steppe of Kipchaks, of the whole country of the Tatars, of Kefa (Feodosiya) and of all the neighbouring regions, of Bosnia, of the City and Fort of Belgrade, of the province of Sirbistan (Serbia), with all the castles and cities, of all Arnaut, of all Eflak (Wallachia) and Bogdania (Moldavia), as well as all the dependencies and borders, and many others countries and cities."

Basically,nobody really gave a fuck about the Genghisids if they are powerful enough.
 
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You're right, that is interesting.
No title of Caliph... or is it the lousy translation - 'Successor of the Prophet of the lord of the Universe'?

Where did you get it? Care for the link?
What time period is this string of titles from? When was it used and what's the source?
I hope you realize that the Ottoman polity had a very long life and my hunch is during those long centuries the titles changed.


Nobody?
You know, Tamerlane did.
And actually everybody on the territory of the Golden Horde (even long after it's fall) did.

But you might be right, I mean, the Ottoman sultans proclaimed themselves caliphs, thus breaking almost millennium old Muslim tradition.
If they did not give a fuck about the Muslim tradition; why would they give a fuck about the steppe tradition? They were known for breaking the rules in holding titles.

It'd be no surprise for me if for diplomatic purposes they called themselves Mighty Inca or something...
Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe are titles the Caliph uses.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ottoman_titles_and_appellations

http://www.nationalpubliclibrary.com/articles/eng/Ottoman_Sultans

Honestly,Timur wasn't the most gifted in the field of administration and politics.Regimes that relies upon acting like some sort of Shogun for another power tends not to be that stable and are generally heavily hampered.
 
You're right, that is interesting.
No title of Caliph... or is it the lousy translation - 'Successor of the Prophet of the lord of the Universe'?

Where did you get it? Care for the link?
What time period is this string of titles from? When was it used and what's the source?
I hope you realize that the Ottoman polity had a very long life and my hunch is during those long centuries the titles changed.


Nobody?
You know, Tamerlane did.
And actually everybody on the territory of the Golden Horde (even long after it's fall) did.

But you might be right, I mean, the Ottoman sultans proclaimed themselves caliphs, thus breaking almost millennium old Muslim tradition.
If they did not give a fuck about the Muslim tradition; why would they give a fuck about the steppe tradition? They were known for breaking the rules in holding titles.

It'd be no surprise for me if for diplomatic purposes they called themselves Mighty Inca or something...

Please stop being such a jerk instead of simply debating the point or pointing out where you think they're wrong. I'm of the opinion it detracts from your arguments.

Besides, the OC is asking for possible alternate histories where it Roman Emperor's might get the title of Kahn or Sultan. Rather than rehashing actual history, do you have any ideas about how history might have been changed to make it possible, given that it specifically didn't happen OTL?
 
If this is after the conquest of Chengiz Khan then Byzantine Emperor becoming Khan is technically impossible, as this title could be held by his bloodline only.
For example Ottoman sultans never claimed the title of Khan, not being of Chengiz Khan bloodline.
Not Abdulhamid Sultan, but Abdulhamid Han

title of sultan... What for?
Loyalty of Turks or other nomads who switched their allegiance to New Rome.
Chinese Emperor Li Shiming adopted the title "Tengri Qaghan" when dealing with nomads.
 
Ok, ok, no problemo... please consider me no jerk any longer.


No, I don't have any ideas to make it possible, sorry, pal.

On a less ironic note I think I owe an apology to @darthfanta and to @Green Painting for being wrong about the Ottoman sultans. They did claim the title khan in OTL.
Being a jerk is something a person does, not who they are: I don't think it's really that strange to call out someone's (unnecessary, inflammatory, unilateral, ad nauseum) sniping in an attempt to keep a thread interesting and getting new posts.

Glad we're pals, friend ;), still genuinely confused as to why you enjoy the alternate history forums if you're so resistant to brainstorming around the (admittedly!) excellent points and roadblocks you've synthesized for the non-historical circumstance posited by the OP, but to each their own.

As to
Bonus if the Byzantine Empire adopted some successful systems of the OTL Ottoman Empire, such as the millet system, or the Janissary, etc.
Does anyone have any thoughts on that? I'm wondering what kinds of census-taking the Byzantines were into, if any at all. Ultimately, taxes and records seem like a good place for something like the MIllet system to start up in the Byzatine Empire if they're home growing it. Some scholars use "Millet" to refer to old Sassanid systems of classification: could Byzantine bureaucratic scholars or leader import from historical texts or other modern states that had similar classifications for their confessional communities?
 
I think you'd need to spread the Byzantine Emperor's rule to Crimea and parts of the Pontic Steppe before this becomes somewhat viable - Anatolia itself wouldn't be enough.
Another thing would be to limit the importance of the Emperor's main title. In other words, that Byzantium somehow makes as little inroads into the Balkans as possible, while prancing around the Pontic Steppe.

The Russian Emperor was sometimes called Khan by his non-Russian subjects and neighbors, but he never acknowledged or adopted this title.
 
I think a family tie or claim to the Ghengizid line would be almost required for a title to Khan to used. Perhaps the Golden Horde goes for Orthodox Christianity and sends a heir south for polishing.
 
I think a family tie or claim to the Ghengizid line would be almost required for a title to Khan to used. Perhaps the Golden Horde goes for Orthodox Christianity and sends a heir south for polishing.
The title of Khan is an ancient Turkic/Mongol title which precedes Genghis Khan.Plenty of people had the title before Gengghis Khan.The claim that only someone related to the Ghengizid line could use the title of khan is true only when you acknowledge the authority of the Mongol Empire.When you completely independent from it,you simply won't acknowledge such a rule.Otherwise,you are acknowledging you are some kind of dependency of the Mongols.It's like the age of the Tujue Khaganates.Nobody except an Ashina would use the title of Khan--if you used it,other tribes would attack you.When Ashina authority was finally shattered however,the tribes offered the title of Khagan to the Tang ruler,who in turn bestowed the title of khan on a number of chieftains.
 
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How about a Ghenghisid dynasty takes the Byzantine throne??

1. a younger son of the Golden Horde's ruling family has a falling out with his brothers, is forced into exile.

2. he goes to Constantinople, converts to Christianity, pledges his service to the Byzantine Emperor. He and his followers become an elite cavalry unit of the Byzantine army.

3. His Hellenized grandson or great-grandson becomes a great general and eventually usurps the Byzantine throne from a weak Emperor.

4. This Genghisid Emperor's cousins euling the Golden Horde are expelled from tbeir lands by expanding Russia: they call on their distant cousin for support. In exchange, the Emperor is granted the title of Khan over the newly-reconquered Steppe lands.
 
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