Komotiní

Komotiní lies on the Thracian plain below the Rhodope Mountains, along the old Via Egnatia. A late Roman fortress formed the nucleus of the town, which became known under Ottoman rule as Gümülcine. Beyond its walls, the buildings endowed by the frontier commander Gazi Evrenos helped shape an expanding settlement on the road westwards.

During the Byzantine civil war of the 1340s, Komotiní and several neighbouring forts supported John Kantakouzenos. The Ottoman conquest followed in the second half of the fourteenth century. Evrenos used the town as a frontier base before transferring his headquarters to Serres in 1383. He endowed a mosque, bathhouse and imaret, a charitable institution that offered food and shelter. In the sixteenth century the growth of its foundation accompanied the physical expansion of Gümülcine.