In 1243, a Trapezuntine army is recorded as assisting the Seljuk Turks, along with a detachment from the Nicaean Empire, against the Mongols of Persia at the Battle of Köse Dağ. Despite this, the Seljuk forces were shattered, and both the Seljuks and their allies had to settle their own submission to the victorious Mongols. Manuel visited in person the court of the Great Khan Güyük as early as 1246; this was an important act, as Rustam Shukurov notes, for the personal visit of a vassal ruler to the Khan’s camp was regarded as an indispensable ceremony; it brought these persons into the "family" of the Great Khan. "Seljuk Anatolia was under tight Mongol control," Shukurov writes. "Any serious change in social and political life (including appointments to key offices) required Mongol approval and sanction, which was embodied, in particular, in "yarlighs"."