On the outskirts of the Ilkhanate: the Mongols’ relationship with the province of Kastamonu in the second half of the 13th century

The impact of the Mongol invasions of the Middle East has been the subject of extensive research, especially in the last few decades. Scholars have evaluated the damage and the benefits brought by the Mongols to the Islamic world in different fields such as the military, religion, politics, economy and culture. Despite this, in the case of Anatolia, the Mongol period is still under-studied when compared with, for example, the history of the Mongols in Iran or China. This is due to a variety of reasons: on the one hand, Anatolia was a frontier land away from the center of Ilkhanid power, which was based in Tabriz, and consequently it occupies a marginal place in the principal Ilkhanid sources; on the other hand, Turkish historiography has traditionally overlooked the period, seeing it as transitional between the golden age of the Seljuqs of Rūm in the initial decades of 13th century and the rise of the Ottomans in the 14th century (Melville, 2009). If Anatolia was a distant land in the eyes of the Ilkhanid rulers, the western areas of the peninsula were even more so, areas where different local dynasties emerged in the second half of the 13th century in a complex political scenario that combined Mongol overlordship, proximity to a decadent but prestigious Byzantium, and the presence of Turkmen tribes.