Whether under Ottoman control or as independent ghazi or akinji warrior bands, the Turks seized Demotika (Didymoteicho) in 1360 or 1361 and Filibe (Philippopolis) in 1363.
[1][2] Despite the recovery of Gallipoli for Byzantium by the Savoyard Crusade in 1366,[3] an increasing number of Turcoman warriors crossed over from Anatolia into Europe, gradually acquiring control of the plains of Thrace and pushing to the Rhodope Mountains in the west and the Bulgarian principalities in the north.
[4] The date of Adrianople's fall to the Turks has been disputed among scholars due to the differing accounts in the source material, with the years 1361 to 1362, 1367 and 1371 variously proposed.
[8] Based on Elisabeth Zachariadou's examination of previously unregarded Byzantine sources, most modern scholars have moved to the view that the city was captured in 1369.
[6][5] In addition, modern scholars opine that the capture of Adrianople may not have been carried out by Ottoman Turks, but by others among the many independently operating akinji groups in the region.