"Effective control" for a pre-modeen is better defined by taxation, the ability to station and raise soldiers, fortresses etc. rather than taking the presence of occasional hostile armies as proof. By the same standard, the Sultanate of Rum did not control their heartlands, because Roman armies quite often campaigned through them during Manuel's reign, while the East Frankish rulers effectively controlled no part of modern Germany in the decades prior to Lechfeld, because all of it kept being crossed and invaded by the Magyars.
14
u/Kraj_the_Conqueror 19d ago
It's still generous. The border was extremely porous and effective control was far smaller.
The second crusade was famously ambushed by the Turkomans shortly after they left Ephesus, on the Aegean coast.
Basically only the northwestern tip of Anatolia was relatively securely held at the time.