#anyway thanks to wikipedia for giving me answers when i asked it about the fratricide | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nostalgia-tblr · 2 years ago

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So anyway i looked up the succession of the Sultanate in the Ottoman Empire turns out (most of) the fratricide is after someone's got the title. it changes over time but for about 200-ish years the method of succession was that the Sultan sent his sons (and their mothers, which is An Important Detail) off to govern provinces in the empire and then when he dies the new Sultan is whichever son is the first to fight his way to Constantinople and convince the imperial court to obey him. (so as you can imagine it helps if you - or your mother - can convince dad you should be governing somewhere that's not too far from the capital.) except not all the losing sons always agreed to give up at that point, which is where the fratricide comes in. so once you've acceeeded you get all your brothers/half-brothers killed. (in later years this was changed to just putting them under house arrest forever in somewhere called The Cage.)

#of course now it's istanbul not constantinople #(why did constantinople get the works? that's nobody's business but the Turks').#history stuff #the Sultan's mother was v important in the Empire. think of the most Dowager Queen you know and then add a bit more Intrigue.#there's about a hundred years called The Sultanate Of Women where they pretty much run everything #anyway thanks to wikipedia for giving me answers when i asked it about the fratricide #also i learned that Emperor Constantine actually had *two* holy visions from two different (and incompatible) gods. what a popular guy!#and he was NOT named after John Constantine as you may have understandably assumed #it alarms me that i might actually find a 'fratricide' tag useful at this point

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