Another Mirror for Princes
Another Mirror for Princes
Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies
104
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Another Mirror for Princes
Another Mirror for Princes
Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies
104
The Public Image of the Ottoman Sultans and Its Reception
Suraiya Faroqhi
Collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies are brought together in Analecta Isisiana.
These
scholarly
throughout Turkish
volumes
history,
address
offering in
important
issues
a single volume the
accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.
The Isis Press 2009
Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
Suraiya Faroqhi has taught English (1971-72) and history at Middle East Technical University, Ankara (1972-87) and served as a professor of Ottoman Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians Universitat in Munich, Federal Republic of Germany (l988-
www.gorgiaspress.com
Copyright © 2009 by The Isis Press
2oo7). After retirement she now teaches at the Department of History, Bilgi University in Istanbul. Pri ncipa l
publications
Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien (vom spiiten fiinfzehnten Jahrhundert his 1826, in Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgen/andes, Sonderband II (Wien: Verlag des Institutes fur Orientalistik der Universitat Wien, 1981); Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia, Trade, Crafts and Food Production in an Urban Setting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Men of Modest Substance, House
Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Ankara and Kayseri (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Pilgrims and Sultans, The Haj
under the Ottomans (London: LB. Tauris, 1994); Kultur und Alltag im Osmanischen Reich, (Munchen: C. H.Beck, 1995), English translation by Martin Bott Subjects of the Sultans, Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire (London: I. B. Tauris,
2000); Approaching Ottoman History, an Introduction to the Sources (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-60724-089-1
1999); Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches
(Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag, series Beck-Wissen, 2000); The Ottoman Empire and
the Outside World, 1540s to 1774 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004). Several volumes of collected articles: Peasants, Dervishes and Traders in the
Ottoman Empire (London: Variorum Reprints, 1986); Coping with the State, Political Conflict and Crime in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul: The Isis Press,
1995); Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480-1820 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1995); Stories of Ottoman Men and Women, Establishing Status, Establishing Control (Istanbul: Eren, 2002). She has edited vol. 3 The Later Ottoman Empire of The Cambridge History of
Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). A
note on spelling and style
As the articles in this volume are for the most part reprints, the style of the footnotes in the originals has been retained and so have certain peculiarities of spelling. However in the bibliography all titles follow the same format. With rare exceptions Ottoman words have been spelled according to the rules of modern Turkish. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the publishers that have permitted me to reprint the articles in this volume and to Mrs Elif �im§ek who has prepared the index.
Printed in the United States of America
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1.
"The Ottoman Empire in world history: What the Archives Can tell us" unpublished
.
...... .. . .. ........... ........ ..... .. .. .... .. ... .. ...
35
Legitimizing the sultan and his empire 2.
"Presenting the sultans' power, glory and piety: a comparative perspective," in
Prof Dr. Miibahat Kiitiikoglu'na Armagan, ed.
by Zeynep Tanm Ertug (Istanbul: Istanbul Oniversitesi Edebiyat Faki.iltesi Tarih Bohimi.i, 2006): 169-206.
3.
........................
"Exotic animals at the sultans' court," unpublished
53 87
Relating to the outside world 4.
"Ottoman views on corsairs and piracy in the Adriatic," in
Kapudan Pasha. His Office and his Domain,
The
ed. by Elizabeth
Zachariadou (Rethymnon: University of Crete Press, 2002):
357-371. 5.
. . .....................................................................
before 1600,"
6.
Turcica, 35 (2002): 69-104.
..........................
119
"ibrahim Pa§a and the marquis de Bonnac," in Essays in honour of Ekmeleddin ihsanoglu, Volume I: Societies, cultures, sciences: a collection of articles, compiled by Mustafa Ka9ar and Zeynep Durukal (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2006): 279-294. ........
7.
103
"Ottoman attitudes towards merchants from Latin Christendom
149
"An Ottoman ambassador in Iran: Di.ini Ahmed Efendi and the
Wahrnehmung des Fremden, Di.fferenzerfahrungen von Diplomaten in Europa collapse of the Safavid Empire in 1720-21," in
(1500-1648) ed. by Michael Rohrschneider and Arne Strohmeyer (Munster/Germany: Aschendorff, 2007): 375-398. Revised and translated for this volume by the author
......
.
...................
.
.....
165
ANOTHER
6
MIRROR FOR PRINCES
Outsiders on Ottoman territory and Ottomans abroad: prisoners, slaves and merchants 8.
"A prisoner of war reports: The camp and household of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pa�a in an eyewitness account," in Unfreie Arbeits-und Lebensverhiiltnisse von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart, ed. Elisabeth Herrmann-Otto (Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2005): 206-234. Translated for .................................... this volume by the author "Trying to avoid enslavement: the adventures of an Iranian subject in eighteenth-century Anatolia," in Unfreie Arbeit, Okonomische und kulturgeschichtliche Perspektiven ed. by
.
9.
10.
INTRODUCI'ION
M. Erdem Kabaday1 and Tobias Reichardt (Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2007): 133-146. Translated for this volume by the author ............................................ "Bosnian merchants in the Adriatic," in Ottoman Bosnia. A History in Peril has also appeared as The International Journal of Turkish Studies, 10, 1-2, ed. by Markus Koller and Kemal Karpat (Madison/Wise.: Center of Turkish Studies, 2004): 225-239. .. .. . . "The Ottomans and the trade routes of the Adriatic," in a collective volume edited by Oliver Jens Schmidt (to be published in 2009) Translated for this volume by the author ...
Legitimizing discourses and the people to whom they were addressed 189
.
219
.. .
233
-
.................
11.
................
.................
249
Bibliography .......................................................................
..
267
Index
.................... . . . . . . . ..................................................... . .
291
In recent years Ottoman historians have tried to explicate the manner in which sultanic rule was legitimized; and the debate concerning this question has branched out until it has involved many if not most areas of current history-writing. Such an emphasis is not arbitrary: to some extent at least it certainly is connected to the conservative temper of the times and the resultant tendency to stress consensus over social conflict However political concerns do not exclude scholarly considerations: with good reason Ottomanist historians have been at pains to show that the sultans' rule was not a simple military occupation that 'enslaved peoples' were intent on throwing off at the first opportunity. After all it is remarkable that even in seemingly terminal crises such as the war with Russia (1768-74) or the rebellion that brought down Selim III (r. 1789-1807), the continued rule of the Ottoman dynasty, as opposed to that of an individual sultan was not really at issue. Biologically speaking the dynasty enjoyed exceptional good fortune as it never died out, although several times there remained only a single male representative. Even in the 1830s, when the armies of Mehmed Ali �a's son ibrahim �had reached Kiitahya in western Anatolia apparently the two magnates only planned to depose Mahmud II (r. 1808-39) in favour of his young son Abdiilmecid.1 This continuity of dynastic rule is in itself remarkable: if as has sometimes been claimed the Empire had only been a product of war and started to go from crisis to crisis once these wars no longer brought in major booty, then it surely would have collapsed on one of these occasions. Yet no such thing ever happened, even though in certain situations the Ottoman soldiery proved as much a liability as an asset - as happened during the war of 1768-74 when many army corps were not fed and brutally exploited the civilian population, thereby intensifying the food crisis and causing the disaffection of previously loyal subjects.2 Therefore it is worth paying closer attention to the mechanisms of legitimization devised by the sultan's viziers and other administrators. After all it was by means of legitimizing activities, 1 Afaf Lutfi ai-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad University Press, 1984), pp. 224-25.
2 Virginia Aksan, Ottoman pp. 148, 149, 176.
Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge
Wars 1700-1870 (London, New York: Longman Pearson,
2007),
8
A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I NC E S
images and discourses surrounding the Ottoman ruler that numerous inhabitants of the sultans' realm, both Muslims and non-Muslims were convinced that the continued rule of the dynasty of Osman was to their benefit, and perhaps even fanned part of a divine plan. Studying mechanisms of legitimization involves an analysis of the manner in which the sultan's power was projected, and how these images were received by ordinary subjects, office-holders in the capital and grandees in the provinces, but also by foreign rulers. These different audiences need to be evaluated separately: for it is surely unrealistic to assume that a villager from the province of Crete or Karaman had the same perceptions of what made a sultan a legitimate ruler as a courtier or judge depending on the goodwill of the sovereign for his career.1 Among ordinary subjects Muslims and non-Muslims might express widely divergent views; and the same thing applied to ordinary subjects on the one hand and members of the elite on the other. Thus the seventeenth-century priest Papa Synadinos of Serres, who wrote as a contemporary about the brutal repression undertaken by Murad IV (r. 1623-40) approved of these acts of violence because 'the Turks' in other words the local Muslims with whom the writer's relations presumably were often tense, were terrified by numerous executions 'out of the blue' .2 Evidently Papa Synadinos did not think that his own community might come under threat. On the other hand Evliya Celebi (1611after 1683), a former page of Murad IV whom we might call a politically inactive member of the Ottoman elite, did not deny or criticize the violence of some of the sultan's measures. But Evliya also wrote a lengthy account of the jokes and horseplay in which Murad IV engaged with his intimates - perhaps because he thought that he needed to show that the reign of his hero had not all been blood and gore.3 At the same time, foreign rulers also might be the addressees of messages that legitimized the sultan as a powerful Muslim ruler whose views his neighbours disregarded at their own peril. Such messages were sent out in a variety of ways, depending on the political conjuncture of the times and the views of the sultans and viziers in question. A conquest was celebrated by sending out literary texts describing the sultan's recent achievement: these I
The recent Ph D dissertation of
Annemarike Stremmelaar, Justice and Revenge in the 2�) de�s with the question of how Mustafa II lost
Ottoman Rebellion of 1703 (Leiden: n.p.,
legitimacy in the eyes of his Istanbul and Edtme subJects.
2 [Papa Synadinos of Serres), Conseils et memoires de Synadinos pretre de Serr�s en Odorico, :'ith S. Asdrachas, Macedoine (XVII' si�cle), ed., translated and co!llmented. b� T. Karanastassis, K. Kostis and S. Petm�zas (Paris: Assoctabon Pierre Beton , 1996), p. 95. 3 Evliya �elebi b Oervi§ Mehemmed Ztlli, Evliya �elebi Sey si, opkapt Sarayt Baldat okyay and YUcel Da#h 304 Yazmasmm Transkrips yonu -Dizini, vol. 1, ed. by Orban �ruk G (Ista.nbul: Yap1 Kredi Yaymlan, 199 5), pp. 99-104.
Pa_?? l � !
9
I NT R O D U C T I O N
jetihnames might be literary creations to be appreciated by cognoscenti in
foreign chanceries, and thus stress that the Ottoman court had fully assimilated the classical culture of Iranian-style belles lettres. But on a more down-to earth level, thefetihnames stressed the power of the sultan who was projected as a ruler supported by God in his endeavours to expand the realm of Islam.1 Implicitly fetihnames promulgated the message that a ruler who wanted to avoid his own downfall and the destruction of his realm was well advised to yield before it came to a military confrontation. Legitimization and what may be regarded as the opposite, namely intimidation by the threat of force might thus be served by one and the same set of texts. In the realms of European rulers the printing press had a significant role in 'placing the sultan on the map by force of arms': for already in the sixteenth century, a large number of ephemeral newssheets were printed that spread more or less fictionalized accounts of Ottoman conquests, complete with real, semi-real and completely imaginary 'atrocity stories'.2 While a denizen of central Europe would not agree with the view expounded in the fetihnames, namely that the expansion of the realm of Islam was a cause for rejoicing, he might hear in church-and take quite seriously-the argument that the triumphs of the sultans were a punishment for the sins of the Christians. Divine punishment, however unpleasant certainly was part of the manner in which God organized the affairs of humankind; and viewing Ottoman successes in this light was a legitimization of sorts. We are thus confronted with a paradox; while the ephemeral newssheets known as the 'Turcica' were meant to encourage resistance against the sultan, solidarity with his victims and subjection to local princes as the only possible 'defenders' of their subjects, they also spread abroad the notion that the advance of the Ottomans was part of God's mysterious ways. Certainly this form of legitimization had not been foreseen and much less planned by either the sultans or their opponents.
Images of Ottoman rule: sultanic munificence and charity
Increasing contacts between 'straight' historians dealing with the Ottoman world and their colleagues concerned with artistic activities have made for a clearer understanding of the fact that the sultans did not just rule1
Claire Norton is preparing a study of these documents.
2 �I Golloer,
Die europ(iischen Tii_r�endr�.cke des
XVI.
Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Bucarest,
Berho, Baden-Baden: Editura Academte• et alu, 1961-71). see for example
vol. I, pp. 138-39.
10
ANOTHER
MIRROR
FOR
PRINCES
INTRODUCTION
or in later periods, preside over a governing apparatus dominated by others. In addition it was important to present a certain image, and viziers and heads of chancery took a hand in producing it or else commissioned artists and writers to do so in their stead. In other words in spite of its exponential growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 'imperial propaganda' through texts and visual means was not.unknown in the early modem period; and the Ottoman sultans engaged in it as did their counterparts in other cultures. If this state of affairs has only been understood quite recently, one reason is surely that few historians of the Ottoman world have attempted to link ethnology to the study of politics. Another reason why public ceremonial has long been neglected is much more trivial: the Istanbul archives of the Prime Minister, always our principal resource, are not very rich in documents
concerning sultanic receptions, festivities and parades. Presumably the relevant sources are still hidden away in the palace archives, which have been catalogued and made accessible only to a very limited extent. As a result Ottomanists have tended to concentrate on questions of imperial management, finances and most recently warfare, as well as the economic activities that underwrite state formation. By contrast they have taken a long time understanding the importance of public imagery. Even so over the last few years some relevant points have been made. Now that scholarly interest in narrative sources - long regarded as secondary in comparison to the archives - has resumed, historians have shown how chronicles, accounts of individual campaigns and also poetry could serve as vehicles for sultanic legitimization. In this enterprise the key feature was patronage. As there was no copyright, authors and poets depended on the munificence of a patron and the most desirable of all protectors was the ruler himself. One author even went so far as to say that it was the worth of the patron that determined the value of the literary work dedicated to him.1 Thus when highly esteemed poetry was recited or collected in special volumes (divans) it was rare to not hear or read at least a couple of texts that praised the current sultan. Even if a vizier was the actual patron the latter owed his position to the sovereign and the Ottoman ruler was thus indirectly glorified. Quite a few sultans moreover wrote respectable verses and had their works inscribed on the monuments they sponsored: a fine example still extant is the fountain of Ahmed III (r. 1703-30) in front of the entrance to the Topkapt
II
Chronicles were another means of legitimizing the Ottoman ruler. It was a convention to begin such works with the praise of God and the Prophet
Muhammad, and to conclude the introductory section with a laudation of the reigning sultan. When campaigns were described the ruler might be accorded
the title of 'warrior for the faith'
(gazi)
although he had not necessarily
participated in person, much less directed the campaign; the histories written in the reign of Murad III (r. 1574-95) may be cited as a case in point. Even if
an incident was discussed that was highly detrimental to the prestige of the
dynasty, such as the murder of Osman II (r. 1618-22) it was possible to focus on the evil advisors of the inexperienced ruler that could be declared responsible for this distressing event. I Both poets and chronicle writers were rewarded, sometimes with sums of money and sometimes with appointment to an office that might- or might not- provide the holder with a respectable livelihood.2 It has bee n suggested that in the mid-sixteenth century, there was a crisis of patronage; for we find a sizeable number of complaints to the effect that literary efforts no longer obtained the accustomed rewards. However that may well have been an illusion; for while the salaries that Murad II (r. 1421-51 with some interruptions) had assigned to literary figures without public office were in fact discontinued by the grand vizier Riistem Pa§a, the ruler's 'privy purse' and surpluses in the budgets of pious foundations (valajs) continued to be used for these purposes.3 However there were probably more literary men awaiting preferment than even the expanding bureaucracy could accommodate and such people might be vocal in expressing their disappointment The story of Mustafa Ali (1541-1600) whose strategic errors prevented him from achieving
his cherished goal of becoming the head of the sultan's chancery (ni§ancl) may serve as a dramatic example: his tales of 'Ottoman decline' reverberate down to the present day.4 In the sixteenth century it was common practice to reward writers by appointing them as scribes to pious foundations, or giving them what amounted to sinecures funded by surpluses in the budgets of such foundations
(zevaid-hor).
A remarkable example of 'creative accounting' in the great
Istanbul foundation of Sultan Siileyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66) that has recently been brought to light and took place in the late 1500s, may well have
palace.2 G briel Pi terberg, An Ottoman Tragedy, History and Historiography at Play (Berkeley, Los �1 ngeles: University of California Press, 2003) p. 121. a
I Halil lnalctk, Sair ile POlron. Patrimonyal Devlet ve Sanat Ozerinde bir lnceleme (Istanbul: OoJu-Batt, 2003), p. 48. 2 Hatice Aynur and Hakan Karateke eds., Besmeleyle is.- Suyu .!ff!'l E_yle pua. Ill. Ahmed Devri /stMbul �eimeleri (1703-1730) (Istanbul: istanbul Buyilqehu Beled1yes•. 199 5).
Af
A�med 'e
lnalctk, $air ile Patron, p. 47. 3 fnalctk, Sair ile Patron, p. 50. 4
Cornell H. Aeischer Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, The Historian ) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 202-08.
600
Musta/fi Ali (1541-1
ANOTHER MIRROR
12
FOR PRINCES
been intended to cover up a deficit and thereby protect the salaries of people who were receiving grants of this type.1 But when all was said and done, the appointments of zevaid-hor were a marginal function of pious foundations; other aspects were far more significant. Such foundations were supposed not only to facilitate the entry of a dead ruler into paradise but also during his life-time, demonstrate his virtues, especially his piety and charity; on this issue present-day historians concerned with legitimization and many members of the Ottoman elite probably were in agreement. Moreover Stileyman the Magnificent was sufficiently devoted to the spiritual welfare of his wife Hiirrem/Roxelana that he allowed her to establish major charitable foundations in her own name; in return the author
I NTRODUCTION
13
generically as Hatuniye (belonging to 'the Lady') while the charities of those
ro yal women whose sons actually became sultans were called 'of the Valide Sultan' or queen mother. We may therefore regard these pious foundations almost as extensions of those sponsored by the rulers themselves. Princesses by contrast usually had their charitable foundations called after their personal names and not their titles. Yet sometimes their activities in the field of charity may well have been subsumed under the names of their vizier husbands. Thus in one way or the other the charities of royal women extended the scope of the sultan's concern for the well-being of his subjects, particularly the Muslims among them.
of Hiirrem Sultan's foundation document lavished fulsome praise on the ruler for his munificence. 2 Nor did the practice of building mosques, schools, libraries, aqueducts
Images of Ottoman rule: the sultans as upholders ofjustice and Islamic law
and other public utilities cease in the eighteenth century, when the Empire was under pressure and disposable income became smaller. It is worth noting that after 1703, when Ahmed III had been obliged to return to Istanbul after the court mainly had resided in Edirne for about half a century, most sultans who lived long enough each built a sizeable mosque complex, and some of their viziers at least ordered the construction of libraries and theological
schools. When a destructive earthquake brought down the Fatih mosque and
the mausoleum of this ruler, beginning in 1767 the buildings were replaced in the style of the times. 3 The study of Ottoman legitimization by feminist scholars also has focused o n
vakljs.
Ottoman princesses and other royal women had been
responsible for such charities from the inception of the principality in the fourteenth century; but
only
from
the mid- I 500s is there enough
documentation available for comprehensive studies.4 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries apparently royal women could acquire at least symbolic
visibility through pious foundations only after having passed the child-bearing stage. Even then the foundations of the mothers of princes were often known
An important element in the conglomerate of motifs that made up the royal image was that of a just ruler accessible to the complaints of his subjects, even and especially if the damage had been caused by his own
officials. I Numerous office-holders lost their positions after accusations of having oppressed 'the poo r' had been accepted as justified; admittedly other such oppressors remained in position, and there always was a certain distance between claims and reality. Perhaps the most dramatic case of a sultan assuming the role of 'protector of the poor' was that of Murad lll: when
complaints accumulated that local office-holders used their inspection cum tax collecting
(devir) tours
to extract large sums of money from hapless villagers
the sultan permitted local peasant militias to chase these officials away and summarily prohibited the devir.2 This measure proved such an impediment to tax collection that it was soon abrogated, although aggrieved villagers continued to invoke it for a while longer. Who knows, perhaps the sultan when issuing his command already was more or less aware of the fact that it would be difficult to enforce; if that was the case we may view his order as part of an image-making campaign, an attempt to reinforce the stay-at-home sultan's shaken legitimacy by showing him to be a just ruler who protected
an�
the Grocer," I Kayhan Orbay, "The Magnificent Siileymaniye Owed a Debt �o th� Butc�er unpublished manuscript. Iam most grateful to the author for shanng h1s findmgs wtth me.
his subjects from the unreasonable demands of his own office-holders.
2 Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2002 ), p. 66. TUiay Artan, "Art and archi.tecture," i� The Ca'!'bridge His�ory of'f!.lrke • vol. 3, The Later 1 Ottoman Empire ed. by Suratya Faroqh1 (Cambndge: Cambndge Untverstty Press, 2006), p.
3
476. 4 OlkU Bates, "Women as Patrons of Architecture in Turke:r• in . Women in the Muslim World, ed. by Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie (Ham�rd: �arvard Unrvers1ty Press, 1978), pp. 245-��;
Les lie Peirce, "Gender and Sexual Propnety tn Ottoman Royal Women's Patronage, • m Women, Patronage and Self-representation in Islamic ed. D. Fairchild Ruggles (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000) , pp. 53-68.
Societies,
1
Mustafa
Akdag, Celdlf isyanlart (1550-/603) (Ankara: Ankara Oniversitesi Oil ve Tarih fo#rafya FakUlt esi, 1963), p. 150ff. . Suraiya Faroqhi, "Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultantc Legitimation (1570-1650)" Journal of the Eco mic and Social History of the Orient, XXXIV
0992), 1-39.
no
14
ANOTHER
MIRROR
FOR
PRINCES
I NTRODUCT I O N
In a broader perspective a formula that frequently recurs in Ottoman documents fits into the same pattern:
the officials receiving these
communications were warned that delays due to sloth and neglect, but more particularly because of corruption would result in exemplary punishment. In certain cases however office-holders also were given notice that over zealousness would be counted against them as well, namely when supposedly executing official commands, they made innocent people suffer. We are thus once again confronted with a legitimizing discourse in which the sultan rhetorically distanced himself from his officials who were not assumed to be virtuous men but at least potentially both corrupt and unjust.
Of course a sceptical contemporary observer might ask why the sultan
did not find himself servitors of a higher moral calibre; and an independent mind such as Mustafa All faulted Sultan Murad III for this reason among others.' But then Mustafa Ali was an exceptional person; and in everyday practice this legitimizing stance seems to have served its purpose quite well. Justice and good government did not depend on the religion of the sovereign; and educated Ottomans knew that the wise kings of ancient Iran or the Mongol rulers of this latter country during the thirteenth century were no adherents of Islam: yet the former had become exemplars of virtue and the latter had managed to defeat the Muslim Seljuks of Anatolia and build an empire that endured for several generations. Authors writing on statecraft were thus prepared to admit that the justice of an infidel ruler might preserve his reign while an unjust Muslim sultan might lose his throne.2 But in practical terms in the Ottoman context just rule meant the
owner of the arable lands in his realm, a view that had not been held by early 1 Islamic jurists.
A similar ambiguity was apparent in the behaviour of eighteenth-
century sultans towards the religious cum legal establishment of their time.
On the one hand sultans convened meetings of learned men and listened to their discussions with respect and perhaps comprehension. A historian that has studied these meetings has described them as a theological school or medrese whose sessions were held in the palace.2 But as the same historian tells us, in
the 1700s the possibilities for members of all but a few families and their hangers-on to make high-level careers as judges and teachers in theological colleges were substantially reduced; and the reason for this scaling-down of career possibilities was the concern of the sultans that jurists cum religious scholars not under direct palace control might make common cause with rebels, as had happened in 1703.3 Furthermore in the eighteenth century the sultans seriously interfered with the revenues of pious foundations, as they had begun to do already in the 1600s, although these institutions were sacrosanct if viewed from the standpoint of Islamic law.4 Thus the establishment of state control over vakifrevenues by Mahmud II was by no means an unprecedented move, but rather part of the hunt for extra revenues begun by the highly �eriat-conscious sultans of the eighteenth century.
Images of Ottoman rule: the life cycle of the dynasty
promotion of Islamic law, which gained ascendancy over sultanic commands and local customs in the long run. This development began in the 1500s but gained momentum in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Admittedly the sultans never abandoned their right to command according to the rules of expediency and the traditions of Ottoman statesmanship. Perhaps the relationship between Siileyman the Magnificent and the head of his religious cum legal establishment �eyhiilislam Ebusuud Efendi was emblematic in this respect: Siileyman ordered his foremost legal expert to ensure that Ottoman land-holding patterns conformed to Islamic religious law
(�eriat)
and
promulgated an edict that enshrined Ebusuud's findings. Yet at the same time this pronouncement was based on notions that the sultan was the ultimate
15
A sultan ruled only - at most - for as long as he lived; and thus the soldiers, especially the janissaries demanded to regularly be assured of the fact that their sovereign was alive and in good health. Until Stileyman the Magnificent managed to more or less abolish this custom in his later years, for a century between 1453 and the 1550s the sultan regularly dined in full view of the soldiery. At the same time by his withdrawal into the harem during his later years, Siileyman continued a tendency that had been noticeable from the times of Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 145 1-81): following a tradition well known from Abbasid but also Byzantine palace life, the ruler emphasized his grandeur by retreating from his servitors and subjects and becoming all but 1
Colin Imber, Ebu's-su'ud, the Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1997), pp. 122-28.
I Fleischer, Bureaucrat
and Intellectual, p. 296. 2 Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, p. 289.
Madeline Zilfi, • A Medrese for the Palace: Ottoman Dynastic Legitimation in the Eighteenth Century," Journal of the American Oriental Society, CXIII. 2 (1993). 184-91. 3 Madeline Zilfi The Politics of Piety, Ottoman Ulema in the Classical Age (Minneapolis: ibliotheca Isl�ca. 1988), p . 212.
:
The
Engin Akarh, "Gedik: Implements, Mastership, Shop Usufruct and Monopoly among Istanbul
Artisans, 1750-1850" Wissenschaftskolleg-Jahrbuch (1985-86), 223-32.
16
A N O THE R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C ES
inaccessible. At official venues he was served in silence to a large extent, and at such occasions, he himself spoke but rarely.1 Evidently this ritualized remoteness from everyday affairs if carried to extremes, might make effective governing difficult, so that we can view this phenomenon as the corollary of late sixteenth-century vicarious rule by palace and state officials and seventeenth-century domination of households. 2
the Ottoman
polity by grandee
Another issue connected with the sultans' image among subjects and foreigners, but also with the actual, practical conduct of government was the fate of Ottoman princes. It has long been known but a recent study has shown in hitherto unsuspected detail that the adoption of the seniority criterion during the 1600s , in other words the succession of the oldest member of the ruling dynasty, really changed the manner in which the Ottoman Empire was govemed.3 But real life was one thing and imagery quite another. Certainly a
I N T R O D U CTI O N
17
ceremonial in this particular instance was connected to the unusual fact that the sultan had died while far away from his capital, on campaign in Hungary; at the same time hi� successor Selim II (r. 1 566-74) wished to have the body
buried in Istanbul. This decision necessitated a long and quite exceptional
funerary procession that crossed the entire Balkans and finally ended in Istanbul, where a mausoleum was constructed in the precinct of Stileyman's great mosque.
Nor were the accessions of Ottoman sultans marked by a great deal of
publicly visible ceremonial. At the time when princes were still being educated in the provinces and the succession at least in principle was open to all surviving sons of the deceased ruler, the heir raced to Istanbul to be enthroned and receive the allegiance of the principal office-holders; this ceremony was held in the palace court and thus not visible to the subjects. 1
sultan who came to the throne by the late 1600s no longer killed his brothers
Furthermore it was considered appropriate to hide the death of the previous
as part of the 'ritual' of succession; yet long afterwards and as late as the
sultan until the new one had ascended the throne, in order to prevent a rampage
I720s , we find a Safavid ruler who entertained an Ottoman ambassador
'needling' his visitor by pointedly asking about the current princes. Thus even at this late date, killing off the brothers of a newly enthroned sultan was still part of the image of Ottoman rule at a major foreign Muslim court.
Contrary to the practice current in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, the
of the janissaries and other disorders. However once he had been recognized as the sultan, Selim II did enter his capital in state, an event that has been described in detail by the Jewish writer Moysen Almosnino who formed part of the new sultan's entourage.2
funerals of Ottoman sultans by the 1600s were rather sober affairs, in keeping
with the view that a dead ruler's situation was the same as that of any deceased
Muslim.4 However practices had been different in the fifteenth century, when
Displaying the sultan's person: portraits, hunts and parades
the interment of Mehmed the Conqueror was accompanied by many dramatic
signs of public grief that Islamic theologians strongly disapprove of.5 Even at
the funeral of Siileyman the Magnificent, who in his later years had been known for his strict Muslim piety, there were still signs of mourning that were to disappear in later periods, including the donning of dark-coloured clothing. As a well-known miniature demonstrates, on this occasion it was for instance considered appropriate to depict the grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pa�a weeping in his tent at the death of his sovereign.6 But much of the
In the absence of the 'real' sultan, an image might fill the gap; but there were some difficulties involved. It has often been remarked that compared to the Safavid and Moghul courts the prohibition to depict people and animals was taken rather seriously in the Ottoman context. As the only major
exception we might point to the arts of the book, meaning both miniatures in
bound volumes and individual sheets that might be included in albums.3 In
these miniatures however showing the sultan and his principal dignitaries was fairly common practice. Even so the interest in individualized depictions of
1 GUiru Necipogl u, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power, The Topkap1 Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge MA: The Architectural History Foundation and MIT Press,
1991), p. 102. 2 Rifa'at A. Abou-EI-Haj, Formation of the Ottoman State, The Ottoman Empire Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1991), pp. 3 5-40. 3 Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, Le serai/ ebranle (Paris: Fayard, 2003), pp. 206-07 4 Vatin and Veinstein, Le sera l ebranle, p. 441. 5 Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, "La mort de Mehmed II (1481)," in Les ottomans ella mort ed. by Gilles Veinstein (Leiden: E. J. B rill , 1996), pp. 187-206, seep. 201. 6 Serpil Bagct, "Islam Toplumlannda Matemi Simgeleyen R�nkler: Mavi, Mor ve Siyah," in
i
Cimeti�res et traditions funeraires dans le monde islamique, Islam Diinyasmda Mel.tlrltklar ve Defin Gelenekleri, ed. by Jean·Louis Bacque-Grammont and Aksel Tibet, 2 vols. (Ankara: TUrk Tarih Kurumu, 1996), vol. 2, pp. 163-68.
persons and animals was limited if compared for instance to the imagery produced for the contemporary Moghul palaces.
1 Zeynep Tanm
Ertug, XVI. Yiizyll Osman/1 Devletinde Ciilus ve Cenaze Tiirenleri
f Kiil�tir Bakanhgt, 1999), pp. 35-78.
(Ankara: T.
. . Rab1 Moysen Almosnin o, Extremos y grande1;as de Constantmopla, tr by lacob Cansrno written �Madrid: Francisco Martinez, 1638), pp. 117-19. The original, which I cannot read was
l.adioo. 3 .se!min Kangal et alii eds., The Sultan's Portrait, Picturing the House of Osman (Istanbul: TUrkiye I � Bankast, 2000), passim. •n
18
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PRINCES
19
I N T R O D U CT I O N
Portraits resembling the sultans that they depicted were prized by certain patrons such as Sokollu Mehmed Pa�a. who obtained a painting of Murad III from a Venetian artist and complimented the painter on having achieved a good likeness. 1 But in Ottoman miniatures the courtiers and military men who attended the sultan at official ceremonies were differentiated only by their clothes and insignia, while in an image showing a similar event at the Moghul court, the facial features of the attendants were markedly
in the mid-l 500s, he had put together for his home town of Como. This collection included images of the sultans among those of other potentates that Giovio knew of, and sometimes knew in person. 1 Some of the works shown in Como, or images inspired by them, had been produced by followers of Titian and Veronese. These artists had never been in Istanbul and thus could only imagine what the people they painted might have looked like; but this situation apparently was not considered a
individual.2 In Ottoman miniatures by contrast even a person clearly of
drawback at the Ottoman court, where anyhow it was known that no
African descent such as the Chief Black Eunuch differed from his fellow
contemporary portraits existed of any sultans preceding Mehmed the
officials merely by the plumpness of his face, a slightly flattened nose and the
Conqueror. But in addition there were the portraits of Stileyman the
dark colour of his skin.3
Magnificent by the Danish artist Melchior Lorichs. Familiar with the work of
Sultans' portraits have recently been studied
and interest
Albrecht Durer Lorich had attended the sultan's court and thus actually seen the
continues. Doubtless a major reason for such a prolonged concern is the
subject whom he depicted. Certain Ottoman miniatures showing Sultan
intercultural character of these works. Due to invitations issued by Sultan
Siileyman and created in the second half of the sixteenth century seem to have
Mehmed II Fatih to Costanzo da Ferrara and more famously, the Venetian
been based on Lorichs' work.
in extenso;
artist Gentile Bellini the first surviving images of a sultan were produced by
Another way of displaying and enhancing the image of the sultan was
foreign artists, who actually had seen the person they depicted. Most of the
the hunt; and a recent study has shown the importance of this activity in
work that these people undertook for the Ottoman ruler has not survived, but
palace ceremonial.2 Of course this particular element of royal iconography was
in spite of multiple restorations that probably have much altered the quality of
not an Ottoman invention. In ancient Iran and throughout the Near East the
the image, Bellini's portrait of Mehmed II is still extant in the National
ruler had often been depicted as the hunter par
Gallery (London). Moreover Bellini seems to have had followers in Istanbul
had been taken over by many Islamic rulers. In the Middle Ages faience and
excellence,
and this tradition
who took their lead from his work although it is also possible that at least
metalwork often bore images of a king on the hunt, and this emphasis was
one of the paintings in question was not produced in Istanbul at all, but in
even more pronounced in the courtly context of the miniatures sponsored by
western Iran.4
While Fatih's son Bayezid II (r. 1 48 1 - 1 5 1 2 ) did not continue to sponsor Italian artists, in the sixteenth century sultans' portraits were again produced, this time by Ottoman painters. They often form series that adorn
rulers and high officials in Iran and India. Hunting was often justified as a preparation for war: the hunters rode for hours on end, went without food for long stretches of time, practiced marksmanship and sometimes confronted dangerous animals. These
courtly verse chronicles celebrating the rulers' conquests and also universal
justifications needed to be developed as certain Islamic men of religion were
histories with a strongly Ottoman slant. These volumes were commissioned
less than enthusiastic about the practice: detractors of the hunt pointed out that
during the reigns of Sultan Siileyman and his successors. In the preparation of
in the excitement, the hours of prayer were easily forgotten, apart from the
the 'portrait' miniatures to be included in these works, Venetian paintings also
fact that it was difficult to ensure that the prey was killed in such a fashion
were employed, especially copies of items from the picture gallery showing
that its consumption was permitted to a Muslim.
notable persons that Paolo Giovio had commissioned for the museum that
There was however yet another aspect that must have recommended hunting parties to certain sultans: the camaraderie of the chase made it
I Julian Roby, "From Europe to Istanbul," in The Sultan's Portrait, pp. 136-63, see p. 151. 2 Compare the Ottoman court scenes in The Sultan's Portrait, pp. 129-30 to a scene at the Moghul court depicted in the same volume p. 55. 3 Esin Aul. Levni and the Surname. The Story of an Eighteenth-century Ottoman Festival stanbul: K�bank, 1999), p . 225. This question was debated between Giilru Necipoglu and John Michael Rogers at a conference held in London in the spring of 2006. See also Caroline Campbell and Alan Chong, Bellini and the East (London, Boston: The National Gallery and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2005).
�
possible to relax the rigidities of palace ritual . While hunting it was not possible to always be silent in the ruler's presence, as was
de rigeur
in the
1 Julian Raby, "From Europe to Istanbul," in The Sultan's Portrait, pp.136-63. �or the beg�nnings . of this unique institution see Price Zimmennann, Paolo Giovio (Princeton: Princeton Uruvers1ty e ss, 1995), pp. 158-62. . . I thank TUJay Artan for showing me her work on the Ottoman sultans as hunters, forthcommg IR the "Festschrift Oleg Grabar."
�
20
ANOTHER
M I R ROR
FOR
P R I NC ES
Topkapt Sarayt; and when the game had been killed, presumably the hunters found ways of feasting and enjoying themselves. Moreover riding in the woods must have been a pleasant experience even if little game was actually killed; and thus we find Sultan Murad Ill, not known to be an enthusiastic hunter, visiting the royal game preserves with his courtiers probably just to enjoy the open air. 1 While pleasure and relaxation could not be so easily accepted as justifications for organizing a hunt as was true of the preparation for war, we may suspect that some sultans, who after all were mostly young people, did appreciate the informal gaiety that these occasions permitted. Within his capital the sultan could present himself prominently by parading on horseback: this was done in a minor way on every Friday, when he attended prayers at one of the great mosques. But as Aya Sofya is located just outside the palace gates and the Sultan Ahmed mosque a short walk away, not many people had the chance of viewing their sovereign on such occasions. More inhabitants of the capital might see him when he visited the sanctuary of Eyup, a few kilometres outside the city walls. However this visit became 'traditional' only in the 1600s, when princes who had been raised in an inaccessible comer of the palace needed to take possession of their city and be
introduced to its inhabitants at the same time.2 Moreover most sultans performed this rite only once, namely after their accession to the throne; and only a particularly 'image-conscious' ruler like Murad IV undertook it on other occasions as well, for instance after a successful campaign. From a greater distance the inhabitants of Istanbul might watch their sultan when he attended
celebrations such as the circumcisions of his sons and the weddings of princesses. But all these events were not really frequent and therefore the rare appearances of the sultan in public must have been carefully orchestrated in advance.
in some detail by foreign ambassadors or members of the staff accompanying the latter. Already in the sixteenth century the Ottoman capital was visited by many Venetian, French, Habsburg, Polish and other envoys, some resident for a number of years and others sent by their sovereigns for a short time and a specific purpose, such as negotiating a peace treaty or presenting congratulations on the accession of a new sultan. Much information on the public presentation of the Ottoman ruler can be derived from Venetian
�
diplomatic accounts to the Signoria, as the la ter's resid nt am assadors � � known as the baili were expected to regularly tnform thetr supenors both while resident and after their return to Venice. 1 In the late sixteenth century certain Habsburg ambassadors as well as their clerks also have provided glimpses of sultanic ceremonial as they observed and interpreted it.2 As for the Ottomans before the late seventeenth century their envoys to foreign courts were relatively low-level officials whose reports, if indeed they ever were presented in writing have not so far been located. But once the sultans began to send higher-level personages as ambassadors and expected them to submit written reports, the question of ceremonial again was dominant: for whether or not the envoy was treated with respect, or else kept waiting and otherwise neglected by the court to which he had been sent, directly reflected on the prestige of the sultan. Thus ZiilfiUr A�a. who between 1688 and 1692 attended the Habsburg ruler in the hope of ending the war that had begun in 1683, and who was at one time even imprisoned in a fortress, had plenty of reasons to complain about the shabby treatment that he had received at the hands of the officials of Leopold l.3 In brief ceremonial and/or its absence thus served as a means of communication between royal courts even if they belonged to different cultural environments· and if the ambassador did not have the necessary background information u
Ottoman diplomacy Sultanic ceremonial could be interpreted by an experienced observer and provide indications of the relative standing of foreign powers in the eyes of the ruler's entourage. As a result, quite a few ceremonies taking place in the sultans' reception room (arz odast) and on the streets of Istanbul were recorded I This scene was observed by Michael Heberer of Bretten, a nephew of Luther's close associate Philip Melanchton and a liberated former galley slave: Johann Michael Heberer von Bretten, Aegyptiaca Servitus, intr. by Karl Teply (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, reprint 1 967), pp. 351-52. 2 Cemal Kafadar, "EyUp'te Kilt� K�nma Torenleri," in TOlay Artan ed., Eyiip: Diin/ Bugiin, 11·12 Araltk / 993 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfa Yurt Yaymlan, 1994), pp. 50-61; Nicolas Vatin, "Aux origines du �lerinage A EyUp des sultans ottomans," Turcica, XXVIl ( 1 995), pp. 91-100.
21
INTRODUCTION
�n arrival, there were always plenty of officials, translators and
hangers-on who could provide it. In this respect there was no great difference between Ottoman envoys visiting France or Iran and their European or Moroccan counterparts in Istanbul; and as the informational value of court
I Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In nome del Gran �ignore. lnv_iati otto�i a Venezia �1/a �tuiuta d� Costantinopoli alia guerra di Candia (Venezaa: Deputacaone Edatnce, .1994); Mana .P•� �edana . . veneti a/ Senato, vol. XIV Cost Fabris ed., Relaz;ioni dt wl:lnopoll, Re/az;tom .medt e � (/512-1780) (Padua: Aldo Ausilio-Bottega �i Eras�o, 1996); Enc Dursteler, Venetlans m . Constantinople. Nation, Identity and CoexiStence m the Early Modern Mediterranean
ambasciatori
�Baltimore: The
Joh ns Hoplcins Press, 2006). Stephan Gerlach, Turldye Giinliigii, ed. Kemal Beydilli, tr. Tiirkis Noyan , 2 vols (Istanbul. Kitap Yaymevi, 2006). 3 [Ziilfikir P 8§8J Ziilfik!Jr P�a'nm Viyana Sefdreti ve Estlreti, Cerfde·i Takrirdt-i Ziilfik!Jr Efen.di [1099-1 / 3 1/688- 1692J, ed. by Mustafa GUier (Istanbul: �amhca, 200?)! PP· XXIX XXX; idem, Viyana'da Osrnan/1 Diplomasisi (Ziilfik!Jr P�a'mn Miiklileme Takrm 1688-/692) ed. by SongUI �olak (Istanbul: Yeditepe Yayanevi, 2007), p. 30. .
0
22
A N O T HE R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S
ceremonial was so well understood by all the parties concerned it often was described in great detail, much to the frustration of modem historians who would prefer to hear about other matters.
The sultan as the 'protector of the world': where merchants and exiles might find refuge In today's understanding, ambassadors have a special claim on the protection of the state to which they are accredited; in case of war or if their actions have gravely displeased the government that hosts them, they merely will be 'issued their passports' in other words sent home. However as apparent from the misfortunes of ZiJifikar Ag�a in late-seventeenth century Vienna, this rule did not necessarily apply in the early modem period. Nor did the Ottoman authorities regard envoys as sacrosanct; thus even around 1800, when Napoleon had occupied Egypt, members of the French embassy were imprisoned in the Yedikule fortress. Closer to Ziilfikar Aga/Pa�a in time, when Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pa�a began his 1683 campaign against Vienna, the Emperor Leopold's Internuntius Caprara along with the 'Kayserliche Resident' Baron Kunitz was arrested and made to accompany the
Ottoman army all the way from Istanbul into Lower Austria. 1
Yet one of the major titles used by the Ottoman ruler was that of 'world-protecting sovereign' (padi§ah-z alempeiUlh), and since the granting of security was indeed a major part of the sultan's super-royal image, it is worth pausing for a moment to determine whether this title had concrete implications and who might benefit from the ruler's protection and support. Literary figures apart, Islamic men of religion were the most notable potential proteges; and this applied to specialists in law and divinity as well as to dervishes. In the sixteenth century, pilgrims to Mecca from Central Asia, who because of the enormous difficulty of reaching the Hijaz in spite of Safavid hostility were often in one way or another permanently committed to the religious life, enjoyed the patronage of the Ottoman sultans. Learned figures of renown even if they came from a fairly remote province could have the good fortune to attract the ruler's attention and make a career in the palace: the §eyhiilislam and writer of memoirs Feyzullah Efendi has left a description of how he came to Istanbul from the town of Van on the Iranian border and
1 rose to become the teacher of a prinee that later ascended the throne. Dervishes also might gain the favour of a sultan; and among the many weaknesses that Mustafa All attributed to Murad III, he mentioned the ruler's 2 penchant for 'holy men' of dubious spirituality. Moreover at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ottoman
subjects of whatever religion that traded in Venice and ran into trouble with robbers and pirates could count on the support of their sovereign. Petitions in this sense were submitted to the administration, and the latter routinely sent out relatively low-level envoys who might be simple messengers (favu§) or interpreters serving the sultan's council; occasionally the latter were of Italian
background and might even take the opportunity to revisit the scenes of their youth.3 Letters issued in the sultan's name demanded that the Signoria must make all possible efforts to recuperate the goods that had been stolen. After all with the peace of 1573 the Ottoman authorities had accepted the view, long held by the Venetians that security in the Adriatic was the responsibility of Venice alone. Sometimes these letters indicated that if the attacks on merchants and their properties did not cease, the sultan might have to send his
own ships; and that was an eventuality that the Signoria wanted to avoid at all costs. Not all incidents on the road however needed
Tiirkischen f!off und hernach beim Gro.ft-Vezier in der Wienerischen Belaeger�ng gewestl!n Kayser�. Re�rdent Herr Baron .ftfti h r lrcher Relatron der Wrenerrschen Belagerung Kunitz eigenhtindig beschrieben... nebst au (Vienna: no publisher, no pagination, 1684). am
to
be solved through
diplomatic channels. In certain cases low-level local administrators to say nothing of the merchants themselves, managed to convey the goods of Ottoman traders who had lost their lives on the road to/from Venice to the legal heirs living in the lands of the sultans. In such cases, the central government only issued a command to confirm the arrangements i n question so as to make sure that nobody ran into trouble with the sultan's border guards.4 We thus must regard the enterprise of ensuring the security of Ottoman merchants on the road to Venice as a common venture between the traders themselves, the Venetian authorities and the sultan's government. But without the machinery set up by sultans and viziers, the hundreds of traders from Bosnia, Istanbul and even Anatolia that in the late 1500s and early 1600s visited Venice every year would have found it much more difficult to secure the necessary protection.
1 Fahri Derin, "Seyhtilislam Feyzullah Efendi'nin Nesebi 14 (1959). pp. 97-103 . 2 p. 296, Aeischer, Bureaucrat
l [Georg Christoph] Baron Kunitz, Diarium Welches Der
23
I N T R O D UCT I O N
Haldunda bir Risale". Tarih Dergisi, X,
and Intellectual,
del Gran Signore, p. 82; eadem, "B.etwc:en Diplomacy �d Trade: Ottoman Merchants in Venice," to be published in "Merchants tn the Ott?man Emptre." ed. by Suraiya Faroqhi and Gilles Veinstein (Leuven: Editions Peeters, hopefully 10 2008).
3 Pedani Fabris, In
4 Such
nome
an incident has been discussed in my "Ottoman tutiles in published in a volume edited by Claire Norton.
European markets", to be
24
ANOTHER
M I RROR
FOR
P R I NC ES
INTRODUCTION
In addition there were people who arrived in the Ottoman Empire as fugitives from religious and political conflicts. What happened to such refugees depended on the calculations of sultans and viziers, and thus was difficult to foresee; of course mutatis mutandis this statement applied - and applies - to governments of any description. Cases concerning refugees of greater or lesser prominence thus do not lend themselves to generalization and must be analyzed individually. To mention but a few examples: in the mid sixteenth century the Safawid Prince Alqas/Eikas Mirza found that once he had shown himself incapable of assuring Ottoman conquests in Iran, he was given to understand that he should return home - where he soon met his death.1 Others were more fortunate; thus people who had fallen from favour at the Moghul court of Akbar might 'graciously' be granted permission by their sovereign to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca; they were expected to remain in the Hijaz until formally allowed to return. The Ottoman authorities, while probably less than enthusiastic, tolerated the exiles' presence.2
25
The fates of these personages were decided in Istanbul for a variety of
political reasons: presumably the sultan's advisors felt that sending ThOkoly
to his death in Vienna was an additional humiliation after the series of
disasters that had marked the Hungarian campaign. For a while the presence of King Charles XII was probably regarded as an asset because he was such a committed opponent of Tsar Peter I, with who the Ottomans were also at war. But after a while it became clear that the government in Istanbul wanted to end
the conflict with the Russian ruler, while Charles XII by contrast was eager to prolong it. This conflict of interests resulted in a series of moves calculated to induce the Swedish king to finally leave Ottoman territory. Yet beyond all this manoeuvring the protection of refugees could also be viewed on a more general plane as a sign of the sultans' magnanimity: at the court in Istanbul the attribute of 'world protector' so often used when referring to the sultan was not a totally meaningless formula.
Others were permitted to establish themselves closer to the seat of government. Thus the French Huguenot Aubry de
La Motraye generally
had
very positive impressions of the Ottoman Empire where in the late 1600s and early 1700s he spent fourteen years. De La Motraye while in Istanbul
befriended his Hungarian fellow Protestant Imre Thokoly who had tried - and failed - to coordinate his anti-Habsburg uprising with Kara Mustafa P�a's
plans for conquest in Austria and Hungary.3 The sultan refused to hand over
ThOkoly to the Habsburgs in spite of the insistent demands of the latter, but assigned him a residence in the little town of izmit, spatially close to Istanbul yet far away from any place where he might have become politically involved. Aubry de La Motraye visited both Thokoly and his wife and attempted to console the refugees. A more famous exile was the Swedish IGng Charles XII after the battle of Poltava ( 1709), who managed to monumentally overstay his welcome on Ottoman territory and leave sizeable debts besides. De La Motraye had contacts with the soldier-king as well. As for the debts, their repayment was still being negotiated several decades later.4
Here come the articles... Asserting sultanic legitimacy How do the articles in this volume relate to the research on sultanic legitimization whose principal directions we have outlined here? It is often claimed that books have their own fates once they go out into the world. But it is just as true, though less often said that they can take a hand in determining the fates of their authors. After having produced a given book , quite often the writer will be asked to contribute to various collective projects
linked to the topics he/she has previously worked on. Something of the kind happened to me after
The Ottoman Empire and the World around it
had
appeared on the market. When thinking about the shapes that my participation
in these projected enterprises might take, I soon discovered that quite a few of
the sources that I previously had used deserved a much more thorough treatment than was possible in a work of synthesis with a relatively strict 'word count•. 1 I thus began to hunt for documents that might tell us more about the
1 Article "Alqas Mirza" in Encyclopedia lranica, vol l , by Cornell Fleischer. 2 Nairn R. Farooqi, "Moguls. Ottomans and Pilgrims: Protecting the Routes to Mecca in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," The International History Review. X, 2 (1988), 198-220; Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans (London: Tauris Press, 1994), p. 1 3 1 . 3 As the original is hard to find I have used a recent Turkish translation: Aubry de La Motraye, .
La Motraye Seyahatnamesl, tr. by Nedim Demi�. introduction by Erkan Ser�e (Istanbul: lstiklal Kitabevi, 2007), pp. 129 32 and elsewhere.
fates of people like the Austrian prisoner of war Claudio Angelo de Martelli, one of the few outsiders ever to write about the time he had spent in the household of an Ottoman grand vizier, albeit a deceased one. Or else when looking for something quite unrelated in the Istanbul archives I came across a few documents concerning the travels of an Ottoman ambassador to early
-
4 Fatma MOge G�k. FAst Encounters West. France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (New York, Oxford, Washington: Oxford University Press and The Institute of Turkish Studies, 1987), pp. 86-87.
1 Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the Tauris, 2004).
World Around it, 1540s to 1774 (London: I. B.
A N O T H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I NC E S eighteenth-century Iran, who has left a thoughtful account of his visit; definitely the journey of Diirri Ahmed Efendi to Teheran merited a closer look. As I had started out with a project that covered the mid-sixteenth to late eighteenth centuries, the present collection also focuses on this period. I am conscious of the fact that some colleagues feel that a study of relations between the Ottomans and their neighbours should begin at an earlier point in time. But it remains true that people write best - and most - about periods on which they previously have accumulated some information. Be that as it may,
I have greatly enjoyed the experience of hunting down documents. I do hope
that some of my colleagues and students will share the pleasures of the chase and apologize for the overlaps that are hard to avoid in a collection of articles on related topics. To a considerable extent, the present volume is based upon archival research. Thus we will begin with a bird's eye view of work that has been done in the Prime Minister's Archives of Istanbul and also in collections of original Ottoman documents located in other places. I Our focus is on 'world history' and therefore on researchers concerned either with former Ottoman
I N T R O D UC T I O N
27
that mosques, schools and dervish lodges made a considerable impression on people confronted with structures that in terms of sheer scale, often were unlike anything they might ever have seen before. Yet this claim is no more than a hypothesis which needs to be tested. As for the public appearances of the sultans our knowledge of their reception is even more limited as this topic has attracted much less interest among researchers. Now the 'orientalism' debate has made us aware of the mindset with which many European observers approached Ottoman artefacts. Some historians have dwelt on the religious conflicts between Christians and Muslims, and the prejudices that the loss of the Holy Land to Saladin and later to the Mamluks generated in the consciousness of late mediaeval and early modem European travellers. 1 A mindset of this type often induced the writer to dwell not upon buildings but rather upon ruins, an effective way of de legitimizing the current Muslim regime. Other historians have shown how humanistic concern with Greek and Roman texts/artefacts often became a way of drawing boundaries between 'us the learned' and 'them the uncivilized', or to
provinces that long since have become independent, or else on historians
cite the title of a recent study, of "creating East and West".2 Thus
domiciled in states whose historiographies consider that this or that neighbour
paradoxically the pious and the learned had more trouble if they tried to be fair
to the sultans' territory was an early modern 'predecessor' of their own
minded observers of the Ottoman world.
present-day polity. Hungarian historiography has been given pride of place because many of its representatives have developed good connections to neighbouring disciplines especially archaeology. Moreover due to the linguistic versatility of many Hungarian scholars, i t is of comparatively easy access even to historians unable to read Hungarian. On the other hand Greek historiography based on Ottoman documents has been highlighted for very different reasons: it is as yet very new, and its scholars seem to focus on international rather than national traditions of history-writing. Among the 'neighbours' of the sultans we will take a closer look at historical work undertaken in Poland and Venice during the twentieth and twenty-first
In this context i t is interesting to compare descriptions of the same monuments and/or parades written by Ottoman Muslims, non-Muslim subjects of the sultan and outsiders from the Islamic and the Christian worlds.3 Remarkably enough such a comparison at least if limited to texts written before and around the 1650s does not show great differences between the cultures involved; to the contrary the similarities are much more obvious. A Moroccan ambassador and his colleagues from Christian Europe offer comparable comments about the incomparable grandeur of the Aya Sofya; who knows perhaps these people have reproduced comments picked up from
centuries. If this article makes a few readers aware of the possibilities of the
their tour guides, who in their turns participated in the same laudatory
Ottoman archives for international and inter-cultural studies, it will have
discourse regardless of religion. Whatever the situation, when visitors of
served its purpose.
whatever background came to early modem Istanbul, they were likely to be
A tout seigneur tout honneur:
as the Ottomans were known for their
respect for hierarchies we will follow their example and begin with the sultan himself, or to be precise, with the manner in which the sultan's image was presented through processions and public buildings. Historians of art and
impressed by the public buildings and the majestic image of the Ottoman ruler; thus these means of sultanic legitimization had some effect even upon outsiders.
architecture have provided us with rather extensive discussions of the Ottoman rulers' great foundations; they have also studied the conditions under which royal women might establish their charities. However we know much less about the effects of such buildings on the spectators. A priori we can assume
1 "The Ottoman Empire in world history: what the archives can tell us."
1 St6phane Y6rasimos, Les voyageurs dans /'Empire ottoman (XIV!-XV/e siecles), Bibliographie, itineraires et inventaire des lieux habites (Ankara: Tilrk Tarih Kurumu, 991),
1 �P· 4, 20 and elsewhere. Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and '!_Vest. Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks �Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvama Press, 2006). "Presenting the Sultans' power, glory and piety: a comparative perspective."
28
A N O T H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C ES Owning wild and exotic animals was yet another manner of confirming
the power of the sultan in the eyes of his subjects - and thereby, of rendering his domination legitimate. By his formidable might the ruler forced wild creatures to do obeisance; but on a different level he was aJso so highly
esteemed by remote Indian or Iranian potentates that they courted his favour by presenting him with costly gifts including elephants. Like many other rulers before and after them Ottoman sultans entertained a menagerie and permitted outsiders to view it; thus by the later 1500s the former Byzantine church where the animals were housed was so often visited by European travellers that it must be regarded as a kind of tourist site. In sixteenth-century Istanbul lions could be paraded in processions, loaded with chains and thereby generate both fear and respect for the power of the ruler who alone could keep them in check. As for the years around 1800 when this game was apparently considered too risky, the presence of securely caged lions still was considered a significant attribute of the Ottoman sultan: money was spent on housing and feeding them even at a time of extreme financiaJ stringency.1
Here come the articles... Relating to the outside world Questions concerning the relations of the Ottomans with their Christian neighbours were for a long time the very stuff of Ottomanist historiography in Europe and the United States. While many European and American scholars today prefer to work on Ottoman 'domestic' issues such as urban history, a certain interest in questions concerning the Empire and its neighbours recently has emerged within the Turkish scholarly community. This development is connected with what is happening in the world outside of Ottoman historiography including globalization in the economic realm, the expansion of tourism not only by foreigners in Turkey but also by Turks in Europe and the US, and on a more scholarly plane, the recent focus on empires among historians of the ancient world, India, China and Britain. Relations with the kingdoms and principaJities of Christendom often involved border zones both on the Ottoman and the 'other' side of the frontier. One of these borderlands that long had remained in the shadow and has now begun to interest researchers is the Adriatic, where Ottoman Bosnia was neighbour to Venetian Dalmatia and Habsburg-ruled Croatia.2 Research on the Adriatic and its denizens has become easier now that the Ottoman documents 1 "Exotic animals at the: sultans' court". 2 Drago Roksandi� ed., Microhistory ofthe Triplex Confinium. lnterootionaJ Project Conference
Papers (Budapest, March 21-22. 1997), (Budapest: Institute: on Southeastern Europe:, Central European University, 1999).
I NT R O D U C T I O N
29
in the Venetian archives have become accessible through an excellent
catalogue.1 In this region Ottoman merchants of whatever religion often were robbed and even killed by the pirates known as the Uskok, loosely subordinated to the commanders of the Habsburg border defences but in actuaJ
fact often acting on their own initiative.2 However for some considerable time, historians were not much interested in the attitude taken by the sultans towards the damages suffered by their subjects, perhaps because of the long outmoded but tenacious idee fixe that the problems of merchants on a remote frontier were not taken very seriously in Istanbul. However in reaJity in the years before and after 1600, sultans and viziers often intervened in such matters. In quite a few cases they put considerable pressure on the Signoria of Venice to ensure that the aggrieved merchants got at least part of their property back; and the present study discusses how solutions to these thorny
problems were worked out 'on the ground'.3
While Ottoman subjects and especially Muslims that did business in Venice have entered the scholarly agenda only during the last twenty years, the situation of foreign traders on Ottoman soil once again is one of the well established sub-fields of Ottomanist scholarship. The bibliography is enormous, even that which has appeared since HaJil Inalcik's seminaJ article on "Imtiyazat" ( 1 986) in the
Encyclopedia of Islam;
in European
historiography these grants of privilege were known as the 'capitulations'. During the last few decades, a mass of previously unknown materia] has been brought to light and interpreted by scholars such as Hans Theunissen who has worked on the privileges/capitulations issued to Venice and Dariusz Kolodziejczyk who has dedicated a massive work to comparable documents concerning Poland. More recently the work of Mauritz van den Boogert includes studies on the capitulations and their beneficiaries, with an emphasis on how these privileges were enforced - or sometimes ignored.4 Differently furthermore from much of the older work whose authors focused on French, English or Dutch traders and were not much interested in Ottoman attitudes, these more recent studies have a good deal to say on problems of reciprocity.5 1 Maria Pia Pedan.i Fabris, I "Documenti turchi" deii'Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Roma: Ministc:ro pc:r i bc:ni culturali c: ambientali, Ufficio centrale peri beni archivistici, 994).
1 2 Catherine Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj. Piracy, Banditry and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1 992). 3 "Ottoman Views on Corsairs and Piracy in the Adriatic". 4 Kate Aeet and Maurits H. van dc:n Boogert eds., The Ottoman Capitulations. Text and context, Naples/Cambridge:: Istituto Nallino and Skilliter Centre, 2003).
�
Hans Thc:unissen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The: ahidnames. The: Historical Background and the: Dc:velopmc:nt of a Category of Political-Diplomatic l!JSltum�nts together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents." Ph D d1ssertatton, Utrecht, 1991. (Only available: on the: lntc:rnc:t); Dariusz Kofodzic:jczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic
Relations (15th-18th Century). An Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames and Other Documents (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000).
30
ANOTHER
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P R I N C ES
Once again it seems that the ti me has come to 'pull together' the results of this research, at least where the seventeenth century is concerned: where do we stand and where do we go?I In a way, projecting the image of the sultans as 'world protectors', border warfare and 'international' trade are all forms of interaction between the Ottomans and their neighbours. Any interaction presupposes that some people 'put themselves on the line' to make such contacts possible: they may undertake the attendant risks either for private profit as merchants do, or because they expect career opportunities in the service of their respective sovereigns, as is typical of diplomats. Here we will deal with two such envoys, both active at the beginning of the eighteenth century: one of them, a Frenchman posted in Istanbul and the other, an Ottoman active in Teheran.2 The French ambassador marquis de Bonnac has left a large number of documents, both published and unpublished.3 He was on good terms with the Grand Vizier Damad Ibrahim Pa�a and convinced that the abysmally bad relations that had prevailed under his seventeenth-century predecessors were not a necessary and inevitable outcome of the fact that during the Ottoman Habsburg war of the 1660 s and the long drawn-out struggle with the Venetians over Crete, the young Louis XIV had given informal support to the enemies of the sultan. To the contrary in the teeth of official disapproval, the marquis de Bonnac wrote a lengthy memorandum that must be read as an indictment of the un-diplomatic behaviour of his predecessor Monsieur de Ferriol , better known for his patronage of a large album of Ottoman costumes. At one point in his career this unfortunate diplomat apparently
suffered from some form of insanity. De Bonnac gave a lengthy description
not only of the behaviour of his predecessor while in the middle of a nervous
crisis; he also explained why the latter had not even been received at the Ottoman court. This unfortunate state of affairs was due to De Ferriol's cavalier disregard for Ottoman court etiquette.4 Nobody was admitted to the sultan's
I NTRODUCTION
31
presumably such an item could have been officially regarded as an ornament.
But De Ferriol's appearance with an
epee de bretteur,
that is a weapon
suitable for actual fighting, made all compromise impossible. Nor were un diplomatic diplomats the only reason for the crises of the past years: De Bonnac was highly critical of the various churchmen patronized by the king of France that in his perspective, tended to ruin relations with the Ottomans by
their misplaced zeal. If in recent years the sultan had given permission for
repairs to be made to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, this was due to De Bonnac's own efforts, and no thanks to the priests. The marquis de Bonnac thus proposed that 'diplomatic' behaviour and a
degree of understanding of the Empire's difficulties would serve the interests of the French crown better than the blustering insistence on 'honour' characteristic of the recent past. He thus found a common language with the grand vizier, who also apparently believed that the sultans might recuperate some of the losses of bygone years by means of diplomacy. For this purpose Ibrahim Pa�a sent envoys not only to the French but also the Safavid court:
and while the report of Durri Ahmed Efendi has attracted less attention than Yinnisekiz Mehmed Efendi's mission to Paris and Versailles, this is mainly
due to the as yet very limited number of studies on Ottoman-Iranian relations. It was Durri Ahmed Efendi 's job to persuade the Iranian court that even in the face of a visibly disintegrating Safavid Empire the Ottoman rulers had no aggressive intentions. We do not know to what extent the envoy himself believed this official stance. But as his report stressed the continuing wealth of the country, the poor condition of its military and the disaffection of the local Sunnis, we may suspect that he did not, and maybe even advised the grand vizier in favour of intervention as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Be that as it may, Diirri Ahmed with his knowledge of Iranian literature seems to have been impressed by the late Safavid court: decadent though it may have been it was still a centre of high culture.
presence in arms, yet on the other hand, certain French gentlemen felt it to be an affront to their dignity to take off their swords even on such an occasion. In the opinion of the marquis de Bonnac, a compromise could have been patched up if the previous ambassador had appeared with a small decorative weapon; I "Ottoman Attitudes towards Merchants from Latin Christendom before 1600". 2 "(brahim Pqa and the Marquis de Bonnac" and "An Ottoman ambassador in Iran: DUrri Ahmed Efendi and the collapse of the Safavid Empire in 1720-21". 3 Jean-Louis Dusson, marquis de Bonnac, Memoir!! historique sur I'Ambassade de France a
Constantinople, ed. and intr. by Charles Schefer (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894).
4 For Ferriol's own account compar e Alan Servantie ed., Le voyage a Istanbul, Byzance, Constantinople. Istanbul du Moyen Age au XXC siecle (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 2003), pp. 313-21.
Here come the articles... Outsiders on Ottoman territory and Ottomans abroad: prisoners, slaves and merchants While envoys placed themselves in a mediator's position more or less voluntarily, prisoners of war and other foreign slaves had no choice in the matter. Yet in some instances they might come away with unique observations. An adventure of this kind as we have seen, happened to Claudio
Angelo de Martelli, a military officer in the Habsburg army, who published an account of his captivity while the war was still continuing and that should
32
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PRI NCES
therefore be regarded as a piece of Habsburg propaganda. But the text also has more to offer. Captured when the Ottomans marched upon Vienna in 1683 De Martelli was assigned as prisoner to Kara Mustafa Pa§a in person. 1 However to his great dismay, the author became a slave of the sultan when the grand vizier was executed in late 1683 and his possessions confiscated: for as De Martelli soon learned, slaves of the ruler were not eligible for ransom or prisoner exchanges. However within short order the young sons of the executed dignitary were given back part of their father's property on condition that they pay back the enormous debts owed by the latter. A scramble thus ensued as the senior members of the household sold off various possessions including De Martelli who because of his physical weakness was not exactly attractive as a future slave. He was then freed by means of a diplomatic negotiation in which the ambassador of the king of England, a neutral ruler, took a hand. So did an English nobleman who was one of the ambassador's associates; and in the end, the Habsburg officer left the Ottoman lands as a tutor to the children of the English envoy. In our present perspective De Martelli's story is valuable particularly for the insider's view of the deceased grand vizier's household in Istanbul, where he spent several months while his ransom was being negotiated. Apparently Kara Mustafa Pa�a. often described as harsh and overbearing by foreign diplomats, had succeeded in gaining the devotion of his household, some of whose members even were prepared to defend him arms in hand when the order for his execution arrived in Belgrade. These men dfd not search for new patrons, but remained to take care of the interests of the �a's sons; and if one of them under the nickname of Maktulzade (son of the executed person) later built a career in the sultan's service it may well have been due to the efforts that his father's household dignitaries had expended on his behalf. At the same time many of Kara Mustafa Pa�a·s household servitors were of European background, and we are left to wonder whether if the conquest of Vienna had succeeded, these people would not have become the new administrators, knowledgeable in local laws and customs and at the same time completely loyal to their patron the grand vizier. Thus although De Martelli was not a very high-ranking officer, his capture, enslavement and sale all were part and parcel of 'high politics'. Our next chapter by contrast is concerned with a man who had very limited access to the higher reaches of Ottoman society, living in the provincial town of Kastamonu in northern Anatolia. He applied to the central government 1 "A prisoner of war reports: The camp and household of grand vizier Kara Mustafa �a in an eyewitness account".
33
I NT R O D U C T I O N
because he was in danger of being sold as a slave along with his adult chi ldren. I Of Iranian background and perhaps at one time an 'illegal immigrant' this man risked becoming victim to a crime about which we have frequent complaints, namely the enslavement of free persons. Unfortunately only a single document survives, and we thus have no way of determining the outcome of this case. Apart from the activities of envoys, prisoners and refugees, there were the 'inter-cultural' - to use the modem word - contacts established through commerce in Izmir, Istanbul or Venice. Important though the attitudes of Ottoman sultans and viziers to the conduct of trade may have been, what counted most were the views of the merchants 'on site'. In addition to business concerns properly speaking there were problems in relating to strangers encountered for instance in Venice. Further complications might arise from the Ottoman context from which these travelling merchants had come and to which they eventually returned. A specialist on the money lending pious foundations that flourished in the Turkish-speaking towns of the Ottoman Empire between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries has concluded that at least in Bursa, these institutions mainly provided credit for consumption purposes. Only a few wealthy and privileged businessmen seized the opportunity of borrowing from pious foundations and then lending money at the higher rates of interest that prevailed in the Istanbul capital market.2 However practices were different in Sarajevo where apparently it was common enough for merchants to borrow from pious foundations or else from funds belonging to orphans that were being administered by guardians. These funds were often invested in trade, even foreign trade conducted in Venice and elsewhere. But in such cases lenders and local qadis enforced special safeguards: no matter whether the merchant profited or lost, he had to return the capital i n its entirety. Thus the safeguards of the
mudarabalcommenda
commercial
contract that protected the travelling trader from the dangers he might encounter en route were not applicable when the funds belonging to orphans and pious foundations were at issue. As a result Bosnian merchants who had been robbed on the Adriatic made particular efforts to get the Signoria to help
them retrieve at least part of their goods.3 Moreover just in case a document from the qadi of Sarajevo increased their credibility the merchants might submit an official record that confirmed the amounts they would have to pay back upon returning home. I "Trying to avoid enslavement: the adventures of an Iranian subject in eighteenth-century Anatolia". 2 Murat c;izak�. "Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 1 555-1823," Journal of the &onomic and Social History of the Orient 3813 (1995), 313-54.
3 "Bosnian merchants in the Adriatic"·
34
ANOTH ER
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Help from the authorities probably was most effective if the Ottoman and Venetian governments were willing to cooperate in the protection of merchants. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this was often the case. For while the Long War with the Habsburgs dragged on (until 1606), Canbuladoglu Ali Pa�a rebelled in Aleppo and certain groups of mercenaries
THE OTIOMAN EMPIRE I N WORLD HISTORY: WHAT THE ARCHIVES CAN TELL US
known as the Celalis even went over to Shah cAbbas of Iran, sultans and viziers were in fact concerned about maintaining good relations with Venice. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century certain officials of the sultan even put about a story that would have shocked both their predecessors and their successors; for now the Serenissima was considered a faithful ally of the Ottoman rulers from the beginnings of the Ottoman principality. Ottoman and Venetian traders benefited from this temporary entente cordiale; and the last article in our collection shows how even serious acts of piracy by highly placed personages might be smoothed over if considerations of war and peace demanded it.1
The Ottoman Empire forms part of a select but still sizeable group of polities that claimed to govern if not the whole world, then at least that part of it which could claim right belief and/or the advantages of civilization. As such it can be classed with the Roman, Chinese, Moghul, Spanish, Russian and British empires both in their formal and informal versions - quite apart from other varieties still with us today. After a long hiatus, empires are once again a 'hot topic', and the polity established by the sultans now is receiving some attention on the part of historians interested in comparative studies. This inclusion of Ottoman history into a broader world historical context from which traditionally it had been excluded is quite novel, and at least in part due to the large amount of archival documentation that has become accessible in recent years. Very diverse topics including the present-day Middle East, global labour migrations, the world-wide problem of censorship or the history of women and the family all can be studied more successfully if the Ottoman archives are taken into account. Given recent reorganization we must briefly explain what is meant by the term 'Ottoman archives'. The Archives of the Prime Minister (B�bakanltk A�ivi) in Istanbul are a comprehensive organization, the basis being the Grand Vizier's archives that were separated out from the Topkapt palace archive in the late eighteenth century, and further reorganized in the nineteenth.1 The Topkapt archives continue to be located on the grounds of the palace, now a museum. But administratively speaking they have become part of the Ba�bakanltk Ar�ivi. In addition the Administration of Pious Foundations and the General Directorate of the Cadastre, both in Ankara for our purposes will be considered part of the Ottoman archives although administratively speaking they are separate from the Archives of the Prime Minister. For the sake of convenience we will also consider major holdings of Ottoman documents abroad, particularly those in Venice as a special variety of Ottoman archive.
1 "The Ottomans and the trade routes of the Adriatic".
1 Collective work, BQ§bakanltk Osman/1 Ar�ivi Rehberi (Ankara: Bll§bakanhk, Devlet Gene! MUdUrlUgll, 2000), pp. XL-XLI.
A�ivleri
36
A N O T HE R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S As for the qadi registers (sicil), a major source for urban and provincial
history, in the past they were kept in the district centres where they once had been compiled. They have thus wound up in l ibraries or archives depending on the practice of the country in question - if indeed they were not lost or destroyed during the wars of the 1 900s, as seems to have happened quite often in Balkan countries and also in Anatolia. A sixteenth-century register of Sofia was published before it disappeared in the maelstrom of World War II and other items perished when the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo was bombed during the wars that accompanied the recent dissolution of Yugoslavia.'
T H E OTTO M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
37
world. In the first section of this paper we will discuss two examples that show how the Ottoman archives have been used - or can be used in the future - if the country in question or at least a large section of it formed part
of the Ottoman Empire for an appreciable period of time. As examples we will discuss work by historians dealing with Hungary and Greece. To be more precise, we will highlight works produced by people of Hungarian and Greek descent, no matter in which countries they operate or have operated, although it is of course impossible to even dream of completeness. As for the second section, here we will discuss the resources of the Ottoman archives in terms of the information they can provide on states such as Poland or Venice that -
A major resource not only for Turkish history As the Archives of the Prime Minister are the archives of the Turkish Prime Minister, the uninitiated may assume that the content is mainly relevant to Turkey. But that is an over-simplification: after all the specification 'Ottoman archives' added on to the over-arching official title already indicates that much more is at stake. Exactly how many of today's countries can be regarded as 'successor states' to the Ottoman Empire is a matter of definition; for the sultans' rule in some cases lasted for many centuries and in others just for a few decades. In addition sometimes only part of the territory of a present-day state was once a province, sub-province or district of the Ottoman Empire; and in such cases there is room for disagreement as to whether the relevant polity should be considered a 'successor state'. To cite an example: does it make sense to claim that Poland was once 'part of the Ottoman empire' because the region of Kamieniec Podolsk today in Ukraine, was an Ottoman province for about twenty-five years in the late seventeenth century, and the territory in question before the Ottoman conquest had been part of Poland-Lithuania?2 Or to exaggerate even more: do we really want to declare Italy as a successor state to the Ottoman Empire because after 1517, the Signoria of Venice paid tribute to the sultans for its colony of Cyprus, before the island finally was conquered by Ottoman forces in 1570-73? I think we can safely leave such discussions to those that enjoy them. But i n any event we can expect the archives in Istanbul to produce
despite the Ottoman conquest of some of their territories - basically remained outside the sultans' domains. During the last twenty years or so, we have come to understand that the Ottoman sultans were involved in European history often in rather unexpected ways, and a careful search of the archives produced by their bureaucrats confirms these observations. 1 Admittedly the hunt for sources in the Ottoman archives is often arduous in spite of the help that is now given to the historian by the search facilities of the internet as instituted by the Prime Minister's Archives during the last few years. Unfortunately there are difficulties for which no easy remedy has as yet been discovered: often the internet helps
us
to get access to
the summaries of documents that archivists have produced over time, and not to the Ottoman texts themselves. However especially for the period before the nineteenth century most information is found not in individual documents or files but in bound registers, which especially if made during the 1700s often encompass over a thousand documents apiece. No archivist could produce a satisfactory summary of these mammoth collections; the descriptions therefore usually refer to a few documents located near the beginning and end of the register in question. To deal with this kind of source it is still necessary to view the register - or a computerized copy, depending on what the archivists will let us see - and search the documents one by one. Fortunately Ottoman officials normally introduced a sultanic command by a more or less detailed account of the events and correspondences that had preceded it. Thus by reading the first lines, we will often be able to figure out quite soon whether the document is relevant or not.
documentation, more or Jess ample according to the circumstances, that sheds light on the history of some twenty to forty countries of the present-day 1 Herbert Duda, Galab Galabov, Die Protokollbiicher des Kadiamtes Sofia (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1960). 2 Darusz Kotodziejczyk, Ottoman·Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th·l8th Century), An i Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames and Other Documents (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000), pp. 145-57.
1 Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997), p. 246 mentions a letter from the sultan to the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa, dated to the 1740s that criticized the expulsion of the Jews from Prague.
38
ANOTHER M I R R O R FOR P R I NCES
T HE O TT O M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
Historians exploring aforeign archive: the Hungarian example1
Denominational identities were involved as well. Catholics recognized
Why is the Hungarian example a good choice when we try to explicate the world historical relevance of the Ottoman archives? Scholars from some countries have been more alert in using this resource than others, and I would claim that the most assiduous work is due to our colleagues of Budapest. In fact it was the Hungarian scholar Lajos Fekete that introduced into the Ottoman archives the principle of cataloguing documents according to the bureaus that had produced them, known as 'organizing by provenience'. In addition the same personage also wrote a magnificent two-volume introduction to the documents written in
39
siyakat, a highly specialized form of the Arabic
script used in the Ottoman financial administration.2 Hungarian scholars first became interested in the Ottoman archives in the late nineteenth century, at a time when they were still subjects of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Apparently this concern was politicall y motivated and quite intense; there even was a short-lived Hungarian research institute in Istanbul. Many of these scholars were nationalists, as indeed were their colleagues in other European countries. In our present-day perspective therefore, some of these researchers approached the Ottoman archives with rather a peculiar agenda; namely they asked themselves whether an 'Ottoman option' such as had been sought by certain Hungarian noblemen like Imre Thokoly or Ferenc Rakoszi during the 1600s and 1700s, could have been a viable alternative to the Habsburg adherence.3 In other words they asked themselves whether more of Hungarian identity would have been preserved if the country as whole had become a vassal kingdom of the sultans, always assuming that the latter would have been willing to forgo direct administration in spite of the menacing proximity of the Habsburg armies. Thus these nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars were engaged in a project of exploring 'paths that had not been taken' i n Hungarian history. Sultan Abdtilharnid I I (r. 1876-1909) by the way was well aware of these sentiments and gained a good many sympathies among educated Hungarians by returning some books from the library of King Matthias Corvinus that had arrived in Istanbul as booty after the sixteenth-century Ottoman conquest.
that without Habsburg involvement, nineteenth-century Hungary would have been a largely Protestant country; therefore historians who identified with the Catholic cause tended to claim that retaining even a small strip of the country - the so-called Royal Hungary - within Christendom was so important that submission to the Habsburgs should be regarded as the lesser evil. After all in the areas of direct Ottoman domination there was no Catholic hierarchy; on
the other hand Hungarian Calvinist churches were more decentralized and
therefore better adapted to life under the sultans' administration. 1
Especially after the First World War yet another political concern encouraged some Hungarian historians to explore the Ottoman archives. As a former participant in the Great War on the losing side, the Habsburg Empire was dismantled. Territorial losses concerned not only the 'Austrian half'; the 'Hungarian section' governed by the Magyars but inhabited partly by Southern Slavs was also affected, as the government had to cede territory to the newly formed state of Yugoslavia. As a result Hungary as it came into being after World War I was much smaller than the historical kingdom of the same name; and in part this contraction was due to the fact that under Ottoman rule there had been important migrations, with Slav soldiers and peasants settling in the southern sections of the mediaeval kingdom that had largely been abandoned by their previous inhabitants. Thus Hungarian historians now believed that they would better understand what they viewed as a historical calamity by
familiarizing themselves with the Ottoman period.2
For us who are interested in scholarship and but tangentially i n
nationalism, this information is important because i t helps us situate the Hungarian concern with Ottoman archives. But if that had been the whole story, it would not have been worth recounting here. At least in my view what is noteworthy about many Hungarian Ottomanists is their ability to transcend their nationalist concerns. As far as I can see they have made a significant section of the educated public both in Hungary and abroad accept the notion that after the fall of the independent ki ngdom in the battle of Mohacz ( 1 526), there were ti mes and sections of the country where the Ottomans were the dominant power: yet these periods and venues did not therefore 'drop out of history' . This latter point is worth making because in Greece or Bulgaria a similar understanding for a long time was officially
1 G�za [)ivid and Plil Fodor, •Hungarian Studies i Ottoman _Hist?ry" in The C?ttomans aruJ ':' : Southeastern Europe, cd. by F1ltrct Adamr and Sunuya Far oqh 1 (Lc1dcn: E. J. Bnll, 2002), pp. 205-50. As 1 do not read Hungarian, Greek or Polish� I have had to confine mrself �o
publications in English, German, French, Italian and Turk1sh; fortunately they substantial numbers.
arc
ava1lablc 1n
2 Lajos Fekete, Die Siyaqatschrift in der tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1 955). 3 Dl1vid and Fodor, "Hungarian Studies," p. 316.
unacceptable and even today is probably considered somewhat avant-garde. I For a brief summary of church history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see lstvlin Bitskcy, "Spiritual Life in the Early Modern Age,• in A Cultural History of Hungary.from the Beginnings to the Eighteenth Century, ed. by Laszl6 K6sa (Budapest: Corvma, 1999), pp.
242-49. 2 Dlivid and Fodor, "Hungarian Studies," PP· 317-18.
40
A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I NC ES
T H E OTT O M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
Work in the archives of course is contingent upon physical access; and Hungarian scholars working on the Ottoman period of their national history were fortunate in the sense that when the Prime Minister's Archives became accessible to a wider circle of researchers in the 1960s and 1970s, some of them were able to take advantage of the new situation. In this sense they were better off than for instance Bulgarian researchers who by the vicissitudes of the time were obliged to limit themselves to Ottoman documents available in their own country. Moreover even though the Cold War and the uprising of
Monographs on the basis purely of
tahrirs
41
after a while get to be
limited and limiting. However Hungarian scholars have been adept at finding sources that allow more broadly based work. Sometimes the supplementary sources have been located in the Ottoman archives: thus the registers of appointment to public office, the so-called
ru'us defterleri
have made it
possible to write short but interesting biographies of various governors, particularly those who commanded the capital and fortress of Budin!Buda.
Registers of the tax assignments to military men that are known as
timars and
1956 resulted in a separation between those scholars who migrated to western
zeamets are
countries and their colleagues who remained in Hungary, connections between
they have been mined by Hungarian colleagues for biographical data and
certain individuals forming part of these two groups remained relatively close; and scholarly exchanges among Ottomanists benefited as a result. Once again this is significantly different from what occurred in other countries where 'bureaucratic socialism' was established at the time: scholars of the two Germanies for instance mostly behaved in quite a different fashion. To the Ottomanist community of the 1960s and 1970s, the great tax registers
(tahrir or tapu tahrir)
of the sixteenth century were a favourite
source. At least for the Ottoman Balkans (Rumeli, Rumelia), most of Anatolia and parts of the Fertile Crescent, these registers list provinces
(vilayet),
sub-provinces
(liva, sancak)
and districts
(kaza, nahiye),
enumerating the local taxpayers according to their places of residence. Hungarian scholars set about editing and annotating those registers that were relevant to Hungary, sometimes publishing their work in Turkey. Not only Hungarians domiciled in the US or other western countries but even those living i n Hungary sometimes availed themselves of this opportunity.1 For some scholars dealing with these registers became a life's labour and almost an aim in itself: I remember the late Tibor Halasi-Kun who towards the end of his life once said that before all relevant documents had been edited and discussed, it made no sense to embark on more encompassing projects.2 In focusing on
tahrirs
Hungarian scholars were in line with contemporary
researchers in other countries and especiall y in Turkey; and Geza David's work on the sub-province of Simontornya even was translated into Turkish.3
1 Gyula Kaldy-Nagy e . • Kanuni D evr� B"4in Tahrir Defter/eri (/546-1562) (Ankara: Ankara � . killtes1, 1971). Oniversitesi Oil ve Tanh-Cografya Fa 2 Tibor Halasi-Kun, "Haram County, and the Ottoman Modava Nahiyesi," Archivum Ottomanicum, IX (1984), pp. 27-90. Further articles on Hungarian counties have appeared in other issues of Archivum Ottomanicum. 3 G�za Dllvid Osmanl1 Macaristan'mda Toplum. Ekonomi ve Yonetim. 16. Yiizy1lda �imantornya &mcag1 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf1, 1999).
probably not the most attractive of archival sources: but even so
promotion patterns. I
But if the truth be told, what makes Hungarian historiography about
the Ottoman period especiaHy interesting is the skill with which materials from the Istanbul archives have been combined with non-Ottoman sources of information including archival documents from the Habsburg realm. Some of the latter items date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the sultans' administration was firmly in place. Others were compiled in the early 1700s, when after the peace of Karlowitz ( 1 699), the officials of Leopold I held inquests to determine population figures as well as future taxes; much of this information was after all based on what peasants chose to remember and report about conditions in the Ottoman period. In addition the archaeology of the late mediaeval and early modern periods is more developed in Hungary than in any other former Ottoman province.2 Thus admittedly rather scanty records from the sultans' archives concerning the major and minor fortresses dotting the frontier regions have been 'brought to life' by excavation: modest necessities of daily existence including potsherds and remnants of cooking implements have been dated and classified by origin, while elaborate installations that provided water and carried off waste also have been studied in some detaiJ.3 All this moreover occurred at a time when many archaeologists working for instance in Anatolia were not much concerned with Ottoman finds unless they happened to be of artistic interest.
I G�za Dllvid, "Die Bege von Szigetvllr im 16. Jahrhundert," in idem, Studies in the Demographic and Administrative History ofOttoman Hungary (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1997), 1 19-42.
�P·
G�za D:ivid and Jpolya Gerelyes, "Ottoman Social and Economic Life Unearthed. An Assessment of Ottoman Archaeological Finds in Hungary," in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic Life, ed. Raoul Motika, Christoph Herzog and Michael Ursinus (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1999), pp. 43-79. 3 Jpolya Gerelyes ed., Archaeology of the Ottoman Period in Hungary (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2003); Ipolya �erelyes ed., Turkish Flowers, Studies on Ottoman Art in Hungary (Budapest: Hungarian Nattonal Museum, 2005).
42
ANOTHER MIRROR FOR PRINCES
Another manner of dealing with the limits of Ottoman documents on Hungary was tried only from the 1990s onward, and then only by a few people, namely the study of topics that were relevant to the Empire as a whole, but had only a tenuous connection, or even no connection at all with events in Hungary. Thus Glibor Agoston has built his reputation through his work on warfare and armaments; certainly war-making was ubiquitous in Ottoman Hungary, but his recent book deals with border provinces only in a limited sense. I Similarly Plil Fodor has done a good deal of work on Istanbul politics i n the late sixteenth century including naval matters, so that studies of 'the Hungarian connection' form only part of his oeuvre.2 In my view this development is highly positive, as it means that the history of an Ottoman border province is being opened up to the wider world. To put it in a nutshell: by the late 1970s many historians of the Ottoman Empire all over the world had concluded that social and economic history, or for that matter any kind of history could not be based on tahrirs alone. But the Hungarians had a head start in coping with this problem. Given a historical establishment that considered the early modem - and thereby the Ottoman - period an integral part of national history, and furthermore an impressive inclination to devote time and money to research, Hungarian historians were able to initiate cooperation with neighbouring disciplines in a manner that other sub-fields of Ottoman history only achieved at a much later date - if at all. It was probably difficult to convince university deans and promotion committees that the Istanbul archives should be used to answer questions about Ottoman history as a whole and not just about Hungary when ruled by the sultans - but within limits, even that has been achieved. In Hungary historiography on the basis of Ottoman archival material by now has a venerable tradition stretching over a century; and new approaches are being tested exactly because some of the older ones seem to have reached the end of their useful lives.
T H E O TT O M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
43
limited. Presumably the conflicts of the twentieth century are mainly to blame: the Turkish War of Independence was fought mainly between Greeks and Turks, the population exchange of 1923 disrupted the lives of many people and in addition the Cyprus conflict, which still has not been solved . after more than fifty years, has left a legacy of lasting bitterness on both stdes. Scholarly exchanges are now more frequent than they used to be, but much more could be done in this field. In consequence the scholars that pioneered the use of Ottoman documents in Greece are for the most part still alive today: Vassilis Dimitriadis, Elizabeth Zachariadou, John Alexander, and of a younger generation, Evangelia Balta. As for the doyenne of Ottoman studies in Greece, Elizabeth Zachariadou has concentrated on the Byzantine-Ottoman 'transition period' of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and this project has made it necessary for the author to study Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman materials side by side. For the period in question however the most relevant Ottoman archival documents are usually not found in Istanbul , but rather in Greek monastic archives. Located on the Athos but also for instance in the monastery of Saint John the Theologian on the island of Patmos, Ottoman archival material of considerable antiquity is thus available to Greek scholars practically 'on their doorstep•.! These Ottoman document hoards in Greece are especially valuable as for the most part the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul only become substantial in the sixteenth century. These treasures are due to the early contacts of Byzantine monks with the Ottoman sultans. For during the calamities of the 1300s the former soon came to understand that the emperors in Constantinople were no longer able and willing to protect them. As a result quite a few monastic communities submitted to the sultans and were issued documents that assured them of protection in return for the payment of certain taxes. Many of these monastic archives have now been - or are in the process of being - catalogued and edited: a significant advantage as female scholars are not admitted to the Holy
Greek historians and their use of Ottoman archives For Hungarian scholars using the Ottoman archives has become more or less part of the historian's routine. But the situation is rather different in Greece where the number of people reading Ottoman Turkish is still quite 1 Gcibor Agoston, Gunsfor the Sultan, Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman
�ire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre.ss, 2005).
2 Pcil Fodor, "Sultan, Imperial Council, Grand Vizier: Changes in the Ottoman Ruling Elite and the Formation of the Grand Vizieral telhJs," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricae, 47,
1-2 (1994), 67-85.
Mountain. When it came to finding protection, other monasteries were not slow to discover the strategies that had benefited the Athos communities: thus the foundation known by the name of Margarid in the town of Serres/
I Elizabeth Za charia d ou "Historical Memory in an Aegean Monastery: St John of Patrnos and the Emirate of Mentesh '" in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe, Festschriftfor Anthony Luttrell. ed. by Karl Borcha.rdt, Nicholas Jaspert and Hel�n J. Nic�ols�n . . (Aidershot!Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007). pp. 13 1-37. While Theohans Stavnd�s �nd Otmt�ns Kastrizis, both young scholars working on th� �fteenth century have so far had: hmtted occaston to deal with the Ottoman archives, their prorrusma work should at lea:'t be me�tlooed: T� Sultan . of Vezirs (Leiden: E. J. Brill �001) and The Son� of Bayezu!. Emp�re Butldmg and ! RepresentaJion in the Ottoman CIVIl War of 1402-J3 (Letden: E. J. Bnll, 2007).
e'
44
A N O T H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C ES
T H E O TT O M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
Serrai was issued a sultanic command already by Murad I (r. 1362-89). 1 John
Salonika and the town of Verroia (Ottoman Karaferye); scattered volumes are
Alexander has concentrated on other Ottoman document holdings in Greek monastery archives including the Meteora but also Jess well-known places such as Voulkanou in Messenia, while Sophia Laiou has studied the archives of a monastery on the island of Lesbos/Midi11i.2 Furthermore while the Manchester dissertation of Eugenia Kermeli on the confiscation of monastic properties by Selim II (r. 1566-74) remains unpublished, she has recently studied the Ottoman archives of Patmos that have also attracted the attention of Elizabeth Zachariadou.3 As we are concerned with the use of Ottoman archives, among Evangelia Balta's many projects it is her work on the
tahrir registers covering
Greece that is most relevant; she is also one of a small number of Greek scholars to have spent long weeks and months working in Istanbul. One of her major studies concerns the island of Euboa, which before the Ottoman
45
available for a few further places in northern Greece as well. In addition a batch of registers from Crete recently have re-emerged in Istanbul and apparently are now
in
the hands of the Administration of Pious
Foundations/Vaktflar idaresi, although there is no telling when they will be made accessible to scholars. 1
A major monograph based on the qadi registers, on the Jines of what
has been done for Bursa, Jerusalem or Ankara has not to my knowledge been written on any town in Greece, at least not in any of the languages that I can
read. Even so there is a good deal to report as the scholars who work on these court registers have published quite a bit of their work in English: Antonis
Anastasopoulos has focused on local elites in northern Greece on the basis of the Verroia registers of the 1700s, while Eleni Gara has studied these same registers i n their seventeenth-century incarnations, with special attention to
conquest was a Venetian possession. In line with the preoccupations of
the debt nexus and the migration of artisans.2 From her work there emerges a
historians working on this material worldwide, she has tried to answer
provincial society dominated by wealthy Muslim elite figures, quite consonant
questions concerning the relationship between population and food supplies.4
with the setup i n Serrai as reflected in the unique town chronicle of Papa
A later publication of hers deals with the Muslim and Christian pious
Synadinos; these members of the Ottoman elite were often moneylenders and
foundations of Serres/Serrai - again as they appear in Ottoman records - and their role in the formation of urban quarters.5
local villages were indebted to them on a permanent, quasi-institutional basis.
As for the younger generation of Greek scholars they have 'moved with the times' and given special attention to the registers compiled by the scribes of Ottoman qadis. After all work on the basis of these records, concerning urban history and including micro-historical studies of social relations have been undertaken from Cairo to Sarajevo, wherever Ottoman qadis once officiated. Due to historical vicissitudes often impossible to reconstruct, qadi registers survive in Greek deposits mainly for the island of Crete, the city of 1 Evangelia Balta, Les vakifs de Serres et de sa region (XVe et XVIe s.) {Athens: Centre de . Recherches N6o-Helleniques, 1995), pp 185-203.
2 The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek l..a"4s, St�ies in Hon ur ofl£!hn C. Alexander, �
ed. by Elias Kolovos, Phokion Kotzageorges, Soph1a La10u and Mannos Sanyannes (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2007), pp. 9-10; Sophia Laiou, "Alliances and Disputes in the Ottoman 1h Periphery: The Monastery of Leimon (Mytilene) and .its Social Environment in t�e 1_7 . 2002 Kongreye Sunulan Btldirtler ongresi Ankara: 9-13 Eylul Century," XIV. Tiirk Tarih K (Ankara: Tilrk Tarih Kurumu, 2005), vol. 2, pp. 139 1-1401
3 Eugenia Kermeli, "Vakifs Consisting of Shares in S.hips: hiiccets fC?m the S�int John Thc:<>logos
Monastery on Patmos," in The Kapudan Pasha. Hts Office and hts Dommn, ed. by �hza�th Zachariadou (Rethymnon: University of Crete Press, 2002), pp. 213-20: The French h1stonans Gilles Veinstein and Nicolas Valin also have worked on the Patmos arch1ve. On the policies of Selim II with respect to church possessions see: John Aluander (Alexandropoulos), "The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away: Athos and the Confiscation Affair of 1568-1569," Athonika Symmeikta, 4 Mount Athos in the 14'"-16'" Centuries (1997),
1 49-200. 4 Evangelia Balta, L'Eubee d Ia fin du X¥ siecle. Economie et population. Les registres de l'annee 1474 (Athens: Society of the Study of Euboa, 1989). 5 Balta, Les vaJcift de Serres.
But Gara also has brought together Ottoman and Greek sources to highlight the capacity for self-organization shown by many villagers, most famously on the islands but on the mainland as well. 3 Marinos Sariyannis on the other hand has tried to find out something about the 'lower depths' of Istanbul society including the underworld and drug-addicts. Focusing on a city outside Greece but that in the past was home to a sizeable Greek populati on, Sariyannis' project has made it necessary to use an ingenious combination of narrative and archival documentation.4
1
NUkhet and Nuri Ad1yeke, "Newly Discovered in Turkish Archives: Kadi Registers and Other Documents on Crete," Turcica 32 (2000), 447-63. While Elena Frangak.is-Syrett does not work on Ottoman documents, her studies of trade and entrepreneurship in lzmir are so important that one of them must at least be mentioned: Elena Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce ofSmyrna in the Eighteenth Century (1700-1820) (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1992).
2 Antonis Anastasopoulos, "The Mixed Elite of a Balka.n Town: Karaferye in the Second Half
of the Eighteenth Century," in Provincial Elites in the Ouoman Empire, ed. by Antonis Anastasopoulos (Rethymnon: University of Crete Press, 2005), pp. 259-68; Eleni Gara, "f;uha for the Janissaries - Velen�e for the Poor. Competition for Raw Material and Workforce between Salonica and Verria 1600-1650," in Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East, Fashioning the Individual in the Muslim Mediterranean, ed. by Suraiya Faroqhi and Randi Deguilhem (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 121-52.
3 Paolo Odorico et alii (eds. and translators), Conseils et memoires de Synadinos pretre de Serres en Macedoine (XVIr siecle) (Paris: Association Pierre Belon, 1996); Eleni Gara, "In Search of Communities in Seventeenth-century Ottoman Sources: The Case of the Kara Ferye District." Turcica, 30 (1998), 135-62. . 4 Marinos Sariyannis, "'Neglected Trades': Glimpses into the 17th Century Istanbul Underworld." Turcica, 38 (2006), pp. 155-79.
46
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PRINCES In emphasizing social history Greek researchers working on Ottoman
archival documents fit i n very well with the trends of historical research current in other parts of the world. While the localities studied are mostly in Greece, there is limited interest in what might be called 'Greek peculiarities'; and as a group, scholars who work on Ottoman documents seem to distance themselves from nationalist discourse. The records used are Ottoman at least for the most part; but the methodology is international.
T H E 0 T T 0 M A N E M P I R E I N W0 R L D H 1 S T 0 R y
47
because it goes back to the mid-fifteenth century, a time for which few records survive in Istanbul.
I
But at least where studies intended for an international public were concerned, the real breakthrough came with the work of Dariusz KoJodziejczyk.2 This author wrote a detailed monograph on relations between the Ottoman Empire and Poland, which were conflictual for a variety of reasons. First of all until the mid-fifteenth century there was competition with the Ottomans over access to the Black Sea and domination over the
What a few people can achieve: the use of the Onoman archives by Polish scholars We will now discuss some of the 'neighbours' of the Ottoman Empire whose historiography has benefited or could benefit from the study of Ottoman archival documents. Compared to Hungary Ottoman studies in Poland have long been something of a poor relation; and once again political factors provide at least a partial explanation. After all the Nazi occupation was both long and extremely destructive. In addition when everything was said and done, the short-lived Ottoman province of Podolia was probably a minor preoccupation for Polish historians, and Kamieniec Podolsk a town of the second order. As a result Polish scholars perhaps did not feel as pressing a need to include Ottoman documents in their discussions of national history. However there were some people who thought otherwise: i n spite of the extremely difficult conditions of the 1950s, Jan Reychman and Ananiasz Zajaczkowski came up with a comprehensive study of Ottoman diplomatics that once it had been translated into English, until the appearance of Mi.ibahat Kiiti.ikoglu's work in 1994 remained the standard work on the subject. Many students preparing for their encounter with Ottoman archival documents in the 1970s and 1980s must have worked their way through it. Furthermore in recent years as Crimean documents have become accessible in sizeable numbers, this work has taken on a new lease of life, as Crimean archival material happened to be the authors' specialty. I During those same years, Zygmunt Abrahamowicz also published a catalogue of the Ottoman documents surviving in Polish archives; this collection is so impressive
principality of Moldavia, a struggle which the sultans won and the kings of Poland lost. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries moreover, the constant border incidents between Cossacks and Tatars often strained Ottoman-Polish relations to the breaking point. At the same time by the late 1500s the Ottoman sultans were in a position to declare which candidates for the Pol ish throne they would or would not accept. It is widely known that Prince Henri
of Valois, brother to Charles lX of France allowed himself to be elected king of Poland and then fled the country
stante pede
when the news of Charles'
death reached him: he was enthroned as Henri III, famous from the novels of Alexandre Dumas. Yet it is less well known that this election was due to the fact that the Ottoman side previously had declared that a candidate from the Habsburg dynasty or close to the latter would not receive the sultan's recognition} As the Ottoman chancery registers (Mi.ihimme) make abundantly clear, Selim II or more likely his viziers would have preferred a local nobleman. But as they realized that none of the Polish nobles might be able to secure a majority at the Diet, they were willing to settle for a prince from the House of Valois. This is one of the classical examples of the Ottoman archives shedding light on a political conflict in a European country. Dariusz KoJodziejczyk has discussed the difficult history of Polish Ottoman relations with a strong emphasis on the structure and genesis of the documents in which they have been recorded; in addition he has done detailed work on the Ottoman tax register of Podolia which was one of the few fully fledged records of this type to be produced during the seventeenth century.4 For the most part by this period the decline of military tax assignments
(timar)
and the rise of tax farming had made the preparation of elaborate taxpayer 1 Z gmunt Abrahamowicz. Katalog Dokument6w Tureckich. Dokumenti do Dr.iejow Polski i
. fra;.ro': Osc1ennyc � ': I.Atach 1455-1672 �Warsaw: Polska Akadcmia Nauk, 1959).
1 J n Reychman and Ananiasz Zajaczkowski, Handbook of Ottoman-Turkish Diplomatics, tr., � . rev1sed, m�exed and ed. by Andr,ew S. Ehrcnkreutz, Fanny Davis and Tibor Halasi-Kun (The ns: Mouton, 1968);. M�bahat S.KUtUkoglu, Osmanll Belgelerinin Dili (Diplomatik) Hague, Pa (Istanbul: Kubbealll AkademiSI KilltUr ve Sanat Valcf1, 1994).
Danusz K�?dZICJCZyk, Ottoma.n-PoliSh Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century). An Annotated &Jwon of 'AJuinames and Other Documents (Leidcn: E. J. Brill, 2000). 3 Kcmal Beydilli, Die polnischen K onigswahlen und lnterregnen von 1572 und 1576 im Lichte o.rmanischer Archivalien. Ein Beitrag r.ur Oeschichte der osmanischen Machtpolitik (Munich·· Dr Dr Rudolf Trofenik, 1974). -i Eyalet-i Kamanice. The Ottoman survey register u � Kolodziejczyk, Defter-i M s ariu l a ass f 4D a (ca. 1681) Text, translation, and commentary 2 vols, (Cambridge MA: Harvard of ('od o_ll Umvers1ty Press, 2004).
A NOTHER M I R R O R F O R P R I NC E S
48
T H E OTT O M A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S T O R Y
registers in the established provinces of the Empire into an unnecessary expense. But where new conquests were involved, for example in the Ukraine such records still were being compiled, probably to provide a reliable basis for future tax-farming contracts. Ottoman officialdom thus has left us relatively abundant data on the historical
geography of the province: and as
Kolodziejczyk's edition includes a translation, it is not even necessary to know either Polish or Ottoman to make use of his work.
49
Furthermore four recent studies on the conquests of Cyprus ( 1 570-73) and Crete ( 1645-69) both 'crown jewels' of the Venetian colonial empire, have shown that it is a mistake to underestimate the Ottoman archives and neglect the perspectives of sultans and viziers.l Vera Costantini's study of the Cyprus conflict is noteworthy for its attempt to coordinate the sources produced by Ottomans and Venetians. Remarkably enough, although the Venetian archives are otherwise so comprehensive, the conqueror Lata Mustafa P�a and his officials seem to have searched in vain for taxation-relevant documents left by
Rival empires in a common world: the Venetian reflections in Ottoman documents
stato da mar
and its
Scholars working on Venice are normally so fascinated by the richness of the Archivio di Stato that they will rarely search for outside sources in
their predecessors. Maybe such records had never been prepared; for the Venetians in their colonies did not produce general surveys akin for instance to the Aorentine Catasto of the 1400s. Or else the relevant registers had been lost during the sieges of Nicosia and Famagusta, or even carried away by one or the other escapee. However Vera Costantini has analyzed a register of
Istanbul or elsewhere. More profound reasons may be involved as well: for
prisoners in the Ottoman archives relevant to the conquest of Nicosia and
twentieth-century Venetian historians, the loss of Cyprus to Sultan Selim II
listing over ten thousand captives.2 She also has located documents that
demonstrates the unpalatable fact that in the later 1500s, Venice definitely had become a second-rate power. Ottoman historians will sympathize: after all we are also still struggling against the use of 'Ottoman decline' as an explanatory device for whatever a given historian thinks needful of explaining. As for non specialists particularly in the Turkish context, one of the first questions they will ask an early modernist inevitably concerns 'the beginnings of decline in the Ottoman Empire'. Ironically as far the historiography is concerned the Ottoman polity and Venice seem to have suffered a common fate. A fascination with the 'decline theme' can be an impediment to research: at least I sometimes wonder whether historians' concern with 'the decline of Venice' has not been the reason why i n spite of the rich documentation on the Ottomans that we find in the Venetian archives,
demonstrate that the Venetians did not totally disappear from the island once the conquest was completed: certainly the governing cadres were either killed in the fighting or else fled if they had a chance. But individual merchants returned once the war was over and the sultan's administration continued to employ some of them as tax farmers and especially administrators of saltpans. Presumably these men were expected to provide some continuity in methods of taxation. Costantini's statements concerning the "vocazione marittima e commerciale" of Cyprus confirm the findings of Molly Greene's work on post-conquest Crete. Both authors have studied their respective topics from an overarching Mediterranean perspective and concluded that in spite of their
thalassocratia and
Ottoman history for a long time has been such a stepchild of historians
conflicts, the Venetian
working out of Italy. At present this situation may be changing, but even
both were part of a shared early modem world. From the late 1600s onward if
now the works by Italian scholars on Ottoman themes are very l imited in number. As we are here concerned with the use of archival sources prepared by
the sultans' officials, some of the pioneer work done by Maria Pia Pedani Fabris unfortunately remains outside our purview: for quite often she has focused on Venetian records that shed light on Ottoman affairs.1 Even so her
work on the Ottoman documents in the Venetian archives has greatly added to
the land-based Ottoman Empire
we follow Greene's account - and beginning in the late 1500s if we adopt Costantini's perspective - this 'ancien regime' lost ground against more 'modem' polities: the French who bought olive oil in the ports of Crete and the English who competed with the Venetians in the late sixteenth-century eastern Mediterranean, deaJing in valuable cloth but also in everyday goods
our understanding of the long and complicated relationship between the two polities.2
1 Molly Greene, A Shared World. Christians a "4 Muslims in the Early Modern Medi�erranean (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000); Erstn GUisoy, Girit'in Fethi ve Osmanll ldaresinin Kuru/mast (Istanbul: Tarih ve Tab1at a •· 2004). A. Nilkhet Adtyeke, Nifr! Ad1yeke, ltUr YaymcJhgJ, 2006). Vera Costantm1's study of h Kil Fethinden Kaybma Girit (Istanbul: Bab1a the conquest of Cyprus is forthcoming. 2 Vera Costantini, "Destini di guerra. L' inventario ottomano dei prigionieri di Nicosia (settembre 1570)," Studi Vener.iani, N.S. XLV (2003), pp. 22941 . •.
1
Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In IWTN! del Gran Signore, lnviati otwmani a Vener.ia dalla caduta di Costantinopoli alta guerra di Candia (Venezia: Dcputacione Editrice, 1994). 2 Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, I "Documenti turchi" dell'Archivio di Stato di Vener.ia (Roma: Ministero pe r i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1994).
_Y!'f
50
ANOTHER
M I RROR
FOR
P R I NCES
such as raisins, of major importance as a sweetener at a time when sugar was sti l l very expensive. I For Ersin Giilsoy by contrast the Ottomans are the major topic: his work is concerned with the events and logistics of the Cretan campaigns and the manner in which the island was governed once the rule of the sultan had been established; the Ad1yekes in addition have paid special attention to the psychological impact of this 'late' conquest upon the self-image of the Ottoman elite. Interestingly 'campaign studies' are not very common in Turkish historiography in spite of the popular interest in the Ottomans as conquerors. In addition both Giilsoy and his Greek colleague Elias Kolovos from the University of Crete have studied the Cretan tahrir of 1 670-71 . This enterprise took the place of an earlier registration dated to the year 1650, which had been much closer to the 'classical' Ottoman practice of estimating the productivity of peasants who held - or often did not hold - a full or half farmstead. 2 By contrast the tahrir of 1670-7 1 was concerned with the productivity of individual pieces of land and no longer with its cultivators; it was moreover based on the assumption that local peasants and other private persons - but not the Ottoman state - were the owners of the island's arable. This novel departure was justified by the argument that the new arrangement conformed more closely to the tenets of Islamic jurists. All these matters are of course 'purely domestic' to the Ottoman Empire and the element of contact with the outside world - Venetian or other - is completely absent here. However Ottoman-Venetian relationships and more particularly, the conditions under which subjects of the Signoria could do business on Ottoman territory are once agai n i n focus when we study the ahidnames (in European parlance: capitulations) issued by Ottoman sultans. In the same way inter empire relations are fore-grounded in the ecnebi defterleri; these registers consist of the responses that the sultans' officials made to requests by the Venetian ambassador or balyoz as he was often called in Ottoman documents.3 The ecnebi defterleri survive for the 1600s ; whether earlier examples were ever compiled remains unknown. For the historian concerned with the position of Venice on the 'international' scene the latter registers are particularly precious: for as Costantini has noted Ottoman documents addressed to the Doge or the resident ambassador closely reflected the political I
Maria Fusaro,
Uva passa, una guerra commerciale tra Venezia e l'lnghilterra (1540-1640)
(Venice: II Cardo,
2
1996).
Elias Kolovos, "Beyond 'Classical' Ottoman Defterology: A Preliminary Assessment of the Tahrir Registers of 1670-71 concerning Crete and the Aegean Islands." in The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek lAnds, pp. 201-236.
T H E OTTOM A N E M P I R E I N W O R L D H I S TO R Y
51
'climate' of the time. Depending upon circumstances the Venetians might be described as 'perfidious' or alternatively as faithful allies of the sultans.1 If we keep in mind how central the relationship with the Ottoman sultan was for Venetian trade and indeed for the survival of the Republic, it does not make sense to limit ourselves to what the Signoria had to say on the matter. Even if the Ottoman documentation often is silent on issues that most interest the present-day historian, what i t does say is frequently remarkable and must be taken into account.
In conclusion What has this discussion shown us? To begin with a few obvious points: at least where the early modern period is concerned, the Ottoman archives do not reflect relations with China, Japan or Moghul India, to say nothing of the Americas. However they do have a great deal to tell us on Ottoman provinces that later became independent states, and in this paper we have only given a very rough sketch of the studies undertaken in this domain and by implication the possibilities that can be explored in the future. Moreover where Venice, Poland, Portugal and other empires of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries are involved, Ottoman archival records also make a substantive contribution to historical knowledge; most of this material is located in Istanbul, but rich deposits of Ottoman documents in Venetian, Habsburg, French or Polish archives and sometimes libraries also have a good deal to offer. Whether historians have made use of these sources, and if so to what extent certainly always has depended on political conj unctures; even physical access to the archives often was only possible when the relevant states maintained reasonably good relations. But now that nationalism and the national state are regarded with a degree of scepticism at least among intellectuals, and students can learn to read Ottoman documents at major American universities, there is some reason for guarded optimism. In this paper we have argued that researchers whose focus is not Turkey should take cognizance of the Ottoman archives. However this statement does not stand on its own but is part of a broader discourse: Salih Ozbaran the major connoisseur of Portuguese archives in Turkey has recently made a forceful point that Turkish scholars need to get interested in the history of Basra, today in located in Iraq, but also should follow developments in early
3
Hans Theunissen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The ahidnames. The Historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Diplomatic Instruments together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents," Ph D dissertation, Utrecht, 1991. (Only available on the Internet); compare also Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
1 Vera Costantini "Contemptible unbelievers" or "loyal friends"? Notes on the many ways the Ottomans named Venetians in the 16th century," in Matthias Kappler ed., "In and around Turkic Literatures," forthcoming.
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modem Yemen and India. Of course in the case of Turkish researchers, such an interest will be sparked by the Ottoman-Portuguese rivalry in the Indian Ocean during the early sixteenth century. Yet it is Ozbaran's main point that this
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIEfY: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
cannot be the whole story. After all, the world is wider than even the Ottoman Empire at the time of its greatest expansion; and this fact should be taken into account by Ottomanist historians as well. I
Historical work always is connected to present concerns and doubtless
current trends in the world, such as the presence of Turkish firms on Russian or German markets form the backdrop against which this re-orientation of historical research on the Ottomans is taking place. As Turkish firms become players in the world market, the horizons of Ottomanist historians have also expanded. But just as religious scholars of the past were warned to keep their distances from sultans and viziers lest they be corrupted by the temptations of power, we also need to tread warily when asked to draw connections of Ottoman situations with present-day problems - although publishers like us to do just that when they try to sell our books. An examination of eighteenth century documents in Istanbul archives on Mosul, Baghdad or Basra has a great deal to offer historians, but in most cases it is doubtful whether these records can shed much light on the present-day problems of that ancient and unfortunate country. Ottomanists now are invited to discover the wider world, with special emphasis on non-western countries, while historians dealing with Russia or Greece will be well advised to consult the Ottoman archives. All this needs to be done calmly, deliberately and not in haste, and with respect for the peculiarities of each type of document - yet without falling into the trap of 'document fetichism'.2 Rather a tall order. . .
In the Ottoman context, certain personages, buildings and events may be regarded as emblematic of sultanic power and legitimacy, and the manner in which these were viewed by contemporaries will occupy us in the present paper. We will discuss, in a comparative perspective, a number of accounts that Ottoman Muslims and non-Muslims, but also non-Ottoman authors have given of these people, structures and ceremonies. The period to be covered begins in the mid-sixteenth century, when the mature Sultan Stileyman was on the throne, and ends with the deposition of Ahmed III in 1730. By means of comparison we hope to bring out those features of sultanic self-assertion and legitimization that authors from different political and cultural environments have regarded in divergent ways, but also those personages and manifestations that were viewed by otherwise very different authors in rather a similar light. We will thus be concerned with the divides instituted by religion, and also by the struggles of rival empires and kingdoms. But that is by no means the whole story: we will also try to understand how across these
barriers, the Ottoman ruling elites managed to establish certain lines of
communication. At least indirectly such a comparative approach will permit us to determine whether, and if applicable to what extent, the image that the sultans projected, largely with their own officials and - perhaps - their subjects in mind, managed to cross the Ottoman borders. To what extent was it diffused, in France and elsewhere, and what features were most amenable to 'exportation'? In the long run we will have to ask ourselves to what extent contrary types of discourse, current in the European context or perhaps also among Ottoman non-Muslims, impeded the reception of the 'signals' that the sultans and their entourages sent out to convey to the world at large the message of sultanic power, glory and piety. But the study of these impediments will have to be part of a future project. Our undertaking is beset with quite a few complications. A major difficulty is connected to the fact that we need to pose the question, which frequently remains unanswered, to what extent the writings we wish to analyze
1 Salih Ozbaran, Yemen'den Basra'ya SmmJal
2 This tenn has been coined by Halil Berktay, of Sabanc1 University, Istanbul.
represent the reasoned opinions of their authors. Both among Ottoman and among non-Ottoman writers of the early modem period, it was acceptable practice to take over passages written by one's predecessors, and it was not
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PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND P I ETY
always considered necessary to acknowledge this fact. 1 Convenience apart, there were several reasons for doing so: as change of all kinds was often valued negatively, associated with 'corruption' of one sort or another, certain authors might decide to highlight what they considered the most permanent and enduring features of any given empire or province. As these would have been noted already by their predecessors, it would have acceptable to copy the writings of the latter.2 In addition there was the prestige attached to the 'great
�
names' of the past; thus we may assume that a Moroccan traveller visitin
Istanbul thought that such quotations added lustre to his own account. Unfortunately the motivations that in the Ottoman worl� induced a given author to copy from his predecessors in one instance and to refrain from doing so in another have rarely been studied. Even worse, as there are relatively few critical editions available, the unwary reader may be unable to recognize the 'borrowings' in the text that he/she is studying. When it comes to the reasons that prompted European writers to copy from their respective predecessors our information is not much better. Once again very few among the travellers and embassy personnel who have written about the early modem Middle East are accessible in critical editions, and we are often hard put to figure out which texts have been copied from where.4 Sometimes quotations from the Bible, ancient authors and scholarly predecessors were added to a manuscript during the final editing process in order to establish the author's credentials and help him steer his work through the bureaus of mistrustful censors. In other cases it may have been quite difficult for people with a humanistic training to admit that a famed author of antiquity might be wrong. They might thus copy from their predecessors not because they were totally convinced, but simply because they could not bring themselves to make a statement that, empirically true though it might be, yet
I On Evliya Qelebi's practi��s in this respect see MC§kOre Eren, E�liy a 9elebi Seya'!atrujmesi
Birinci Cildinin Kaynaklarr Ur. erinde bir Ara§tmntl (Istanbul: no pubhsher,
1960), passtm.
2 Gottfried Hagen, "Oberzeitlichkeit und Geschichte in Katib Celebis (Hhanniima," Archivum OttoniiJnicum,
14 (1995-96}, 133-60.
3 Abou-1-Hasan Ali ben Mohammed Et-Tamgrouti, [Al-Tam.&hrtltf], En·nafhat el-miskiya .fi-s
sifarat et-Tourkiya, Relation d'une ambassade f71tlrocaine en Turquie I589·I591, tr. and notes
by Henry de Castries (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1929), p. VIII. 4 Where such editions are lacking an article or monograph may be helpful. Compare Annemieke Versteeg, '"Zich te bedienen van den arbeid van anderen' . Bronnen voor de beschrijving van Turkije," in "lk hadde de f!ieusgierigheid", De r�hen door het Nabije Oosten van Cornelis de Bruijn (ca. 1652-1727) (Le1den, Leeuwen; Ex One�te Lux and �eeters, pp. 71 -82. Versteeg has established lhat the well-known �st .Comeh� de Bruyn 1s only ongm al 1ary. Wtlhout acknowledgment of when it comes to his imagery and the data taken from h1s d any kind lhe artist had copied all other information from his predecessors.
1.9?7) .
55
might lower their own credibility among their fellow scholars. 1 Moreover then as now, copying must have been the easiest manner of producing a text, and one must never underestimate the force of sheer laziness. Given these difficulties it is our only consolation that sorting out the unacknowledged quotations may not really be all that indispensable to our project: in a good many though certainly not in all cases, the authors who did the copying will have agreed with the statements that they copied. So much for the intentions of the writers, but how were these embassy reports, travel accounts and chronicles received by their respective reading publics? After all since we are here concerned with the effects of written texts upon communication among sultanic and royal courts, the problem of reception is key. However in several of the cases studied, our knowledge about readers and listeners is non-existent or at the least, decidedly unsatisfactory. We know for instance that Evliya Celebi was little read before the Tanzimat period, when all at once, the interest and originality of his work was recognized, and with time he even became something of a culture hero. As to the other Ottoman authors used here, observations concerning their readership are for the most part completely
lacking.
Nor is the situation a great deal better with respect to the European sources we are planning to investigate. But at least we can say that the relazioni to be discussed were not among the best-known of their kind, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were not diffused by copying into manuscripts and distribution to li braries. In consequence they were inaccessible to the scholars who during the second half of the nineteenth century, published only those texts that survived in book form.2 However in their time all rekzzioni were read before the highest Venetian authorities, so that they had an impact collectively even if not much can be said about the readership of a particular report. In the present context, it is not possible to discuss the reception even of key sources; but it is still worth keeping in mind that we will need to deal with this issue in the future. Yet i n spite of this and other problems there is a good reason for undertaking the present project none the less. For anybody who has read embassy reports surely has noted that in spite of religious, linguistic and cultural differences, Ottoman courtiers and European diplomats i n most instances were quite capable of mutually understanding the meaning of I Frc!dc!ric Tinguely L 'ecriture du Levant a Ia Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, 2000), pp. 73-88 shows how Pierre B�lon du Mans went through all sorts of intellectual and stylistic contortions when he found himself in lhis position. 2 On lhe manner in which t.hese texts we�e composed and distributed. compare Donald E. Queller, >Pfhe Development of Ambassadonal Relazioni", in Renaissance Venice, ed. by J. R. Hale (London: Faber & Faber, 1973). PP· 174-96.
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diplomatic gestures. 1 In these matters, comprehension seems to have been the norm and misunderstanding the exception: and quite often, what was declared a misunderstanding in reality was nothing but a diplomatic ploy. It is therefore necessary to figure out whether there existed common assumptions that made it possible to communicate across political, religious and linguistic dividing lines. Our study will proceed in three stages. In the first, we will compare the characterizations of Sultans Siileyman the Magnificent, Murad IV and Ahmed III by some of their Ottoman, Venetian and French contemporaries. Among the Ottomans, Evliya c;etebi , Abdi and �em'daru-zade Siileyman Efendi will be accorded pride of place: they have been chosen mainly because they are relatively prolix when it comes to personal comments, which is not necessarily true of all Ottoman authors.2 As to the Europeans, we will concentrate on some of the less well-known
relazioni
by Venetian
ambassadors and for Ahmed III, focus on the extensive comments by the French ambassador the marquis de Bonnac.3 In the second section we will be concerned with a building that has attracted much attention among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and that under the name 'the Blue Mosque' is still a favourite with tourists, namely the great complex constructed by Sultan Ahmed I. Here we will discuss an account by Ca'fer Efendi, a member of the household of the Chief Architect who designed this complex, and also a description by Evliya. For the testimony of a scholarly Ottoman non-Muslim concerning this last example of the 'classical ' sultans' foundations, we will include the late eighteenth
57
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND P I ETY
European author who has commented on the very same building, we will highlight the description by the French traveller Jean Thevenot.l In the third section of our study, we will discuss the processions that
formed part of Ottoman court life, be they the visits of sultans to the mosque
on Fridays, or parades on the occasion of other, less frequent ceremonies such
as the circumcisions of princes. Of course these solemn progresses were only
a small part of the entire circumcision festivities, as the latter involved rejoicings both on specially chosen festival sites and, away from the public gaze, within the palace itself. Yet we will focus on processions as opposed to
other events, as they have been described by many people, local Muslims and non-Muslims as well as foreigners.2 As a result our sources on these ceremonies are truly multifarious: as a particularly well-studied example, there is the text in which a writer known only by his pen-name of Intizami has described the parade celebrating the circumcision of Prince Mehmed, later Mehmed 111.3 Among eighteenth-century chroniclers, Mehmed Ra�id has
included an account of an equally elaborate and luxurious event, namely one of the processions celebrating the simultaneous circumcisions of the four sons of Ahmediii.4 Among non-Muslim writers on Ottoman processions Rabi Moysen Almosnino, who apparently was close to the court of Selim II, has authored a most interesting text, describing the entry of this ruler into his capitaJ.5 From a slightly later period, namely the reign of Murad III, the diary of the Konigsberg (today: Kaliningrad) apothecary Reinhold Lubenau is full of
century text by P. (Jugas (or (Jugios) inciciyan. As a seventeenth-century 1
1 For some good examples compare Christian Windler, "Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis: Muslim-Christian Relations in Tunis, 17()().1840," The Historical Journal,
44,1 (2001), 79-106. 2 For a general discussion of Evliya's life and work, that includes the evidence found after
Cavit Baysun's pioneering work, compare Evliya <;::elebi, Evliya f;elebi in Diyarbekir, ed. and tr. by Martin van Bruinessen et alii (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988), pp. 3-12. Evliya had not encountered SUieyman in person, even though he claimed that his father had attended the last campaign of this ruler (died in Szigetvar in 1566) and was respectfully listened to by Murad IV: Evliya <;::elebi b Dervi� Mehemmed Z11li, Evliya f;elebi Seyahatndmesi, Topkap1 Saray1 Bagdat 304 Yazmasmm Transkripsyonu -Dizini, vol. I . ed. by Orban �aik Gokyay and YUcel Dagh (Istanbul: Yap1 Kredi Yaymlan, 1995), p. 98. See also Abdi, 1730 Patrona Halil ihtiltili halckmda bir Eser. Abdi Tarihi, ed. by Faik Re�at Unat (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1943) and dlklll1 Siileyman Efendi Tdrihi � �e�:��nf-z4d � Fmd1khh. SUieyman Efendi, $em'dO.ni:zclde Fu Mur 1 t- tevdnh ed. MUmr Aktepe, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Istanbul Oniversitesi Edebiyat FakUitesi, 1976, 1978), vol. I. 3 Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, ed., Relalioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato, vol. XIV Co�tan po!i, Re/azion! inedite (1512-1780) (Padua: AIdo Ausilio-Bottega di Erasmo, 1996). o tin Th 1s book bemg rather d1fficull to fin�. I am very grate�ul to Professor Pedani Fabris for Jetting a . rqws de Bonnac, Me11J()ire historique sur ?e have a copy. See also Jean-Lou1s Dusson, m £I'Amba.s ad s e de France a Constantinople, ed. and mtroduced. by Charles Schefer (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894).
See LCa'fer Efendi], annotation and tr. by Howard Crane, Risdle-i mi'mariyye, an Early seventeenth-century Ottoman Treatise on Architecture (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987) and Jean Th�venot, Voyag� du Levant! ed. and introduced by Sttphane Y�rasimos (Paris: Masptro,
0), pp. 6-9. It 1s rather a p1ty that �e .seventeenth-century Armenian writer Eremya <;::elebi 19� KomUrcUyan, who also �rote a descnpt1o� of Istanbul, barely mentions the Sultan Ahmed mosque: Eremya <;::eleb1 KomUrcUyan, Istanbul Tarihi, XVII. Astrda istanbul, tr. and commentary by Hrand And.reasyan (Istanbul: Istanbul Oniversitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi, 1952), p. 4. Thus we have to resort to a much later text: P. Clugasl fnciciyan, XVIII. Asmia istanbul, t.r. and commentary by Hrand Andreasyan (Istanbul: Istanbul Fethi Demegi istanbul Enstiiisii t 1956), p. 39. •
2 For �e proces�ions co�nected wit� the accessions and funerals of rulers, the major study is .
now N1�olas Va�m and : � hiles Vemstem, Le serail ebran/e (Paris: Fayard, 2003), passim. On the processiOns of gtft- a nng ambassadors � cong�tulate a sultan upon his accession see Zeynep Tanm Ertug, XVI. Y zy1l Osmanll Devlell nde Culus ve Cenaze Ttirenleri (Ankara: T. C. KUltUr u Bakanhg1, 1999), pp. 86-87. 3 Several ersions survive, one o_f w�ich, toda� in Vienna, has been published by Gisela � . Prohazka-E1sl, ed., Das Surname-1 Humayun, D1e W1ener Handschrift in Transkription mit Kommentar und Indices versehen (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1995). 4 Mebmed �id, Tarih-i Rasid. 5 v?ls. (Istanbul: Matba'a-y1 amire, 128211865-66) vol. s, pp. . Efend1. For relevant Ottoman miniatures see Esin Atll Le 214-72; vol. 6 1s by 9e1eb1zade ni and v � Su�name, The Story o an EighJeenth-century Ottoman Festival (Istanbul: K�ban , 1999). he Rab! Moyse� Almosn!no, Extre11J()S Y grandezas de Constantinopla, tr by lacob Cansino (Madnd: Franc1sco Martinez, 1638), PP· 55-64. Not knowing Ladino, I am dependent on this partial translation into Spanish.
�
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k
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worthwhile details; the author evidently had the leisure to enjoy the sights of
Istanbul, including festivities of all kinds. 1 As a seventeenth-century example, we will discuss the impressions of sultanic processions recorded in his diary by Antoine Galland, the first translator of the mediaeval tales which became known to later generations as the Arabian nights.2 From the eighteenth century moreover there survives an account by a Venetian ambassador in
Istanbul, who witnessed a procession of the court of Ahmed III in honour of the Prophet's birthday and another parade forming part of the wedding festivities of three princesses
( 1724).3
At the end of our analysis we will
examine how the perception of emblematic rulers, buildings and events might give rise to a common language of gestures, and how, admittedly within limits, lines of communication between courts and elites were kept open across religious, linguistic and political boundaries.
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
59
Vizier Pargall Ibrahim Pa§a ordered for his ruler in Venice, and which was
paraded on sultanic campaigns. After all, the resemblance to the papal tiara is too close to be entirely fortuitous.1 But as Stileyman the Magnificent grew older, and no further conquests i n central Europe had materialized, the notion of the 'Lawgiver as Messiah' was given up. Now there emerged the more sober view of the sultan as the
protector of Sunni 'right belief' against Shiite 'heretics' .2 Moreover in spite
of the veneration accorded to Sultan Stileyman, Ottoman authors even of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were by no �eans uncritical of certain goings-on at his court, including the prominent role allotted to his wife Hiirrem Sultan.3 If there is any basis to Evliya's claim that his father, the court goldsmith Dervi § Mehmed Ztllf, had known the Siileymanic age, it would have been this set of images, mainly laudatory but not entirely uncritical, to which Evliya was introduced in his youth.
Heroic or sedentary: Siileyman the Magnificent, Murad IV and Ahmed Ill in Ottoman testimonies In Ottoman bureaucratic tradition, the figure that most vividly symbolized Ottoman rule was doubtless Siileyman the Magnificent. Conditions prevailing under this ruler were regarded as standing for all that was best in the Ottoman state only a short time after his death in 1566, and to some extent, even within Siileyman's lifetime. During the early years of his reign, after the conquest of Rhodes and then of the kingdom of Hungary within the span of a few years, some authors close to the Ottoman court voiced the belief that Siileyman might well be the eschatological ruler destined to conquer the whole world for Islam.4 Even to those who did not totally share these high hopes, it probably seemed that at least the addition of Vienna
and/or parts of Italy to the Ottoman lands could be expected in the near future.
Into this context also belongs the well-known golden helmet that the Grand
I [Reinhold Lubenau,], Beschreibung der Reisen des Reinhold Lubenau, ed. and introduced by W. Sahm (Konigsberg/ Kaliningrad: Ferdinand Beyers Buchhandlung, 1912 and 1915). Further interesting details can be derived from the description sent to Venice by the special ambassador who came to express the Signoria's congratulations at the 1582 circumcision of Prince Mehmed, later Mehmed III: Pedani Fabris ed., Relazioni, pp. 266-68. 2 Antoine Galland, Voyage a Constantinople (1672-1673), ed. by Charles Schefer, new preface by Frtdt!ric Bauden (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, reprint 2002}, pp. 117-20.
3 Pedani Fabris ed., Re/azioni, pp. 864-70. 4 On the writings of Mevlana Isa, an important source for such views, see Barbara Hemming,
"Sahib-knan und Mahdi: Tilrkische Endzeiterwartungen im ersten Jahrzehnt der Regierung Siileymans," in Gyorgy Kara ed., Between the Danube and the Caucasus (Budapest: The Academy of Sciences, 1987), pp. 43-62 and Cornell H. Aeischer, "The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial 1mage in the Reign of Silleyman", in Gilles Veinstein ed., Soliman
le Magnifique et son temps, Acres du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 710 mars /990 (Paris: La Documentation Fran�aise, 1992), pp. 159-78.
Murad IV was so important to Evliya because of his success in war. In recent years there have been acrimonious disputes about the extent to which Ottoman rulers of the fourteenth century and their soldiers viewed themselves
as
gazis,
that is, as warriors doing battle for the expansion of the Muslim
faith.4 Whatever the outcome of this discussion, there is no doubt at all that from the later fifteenth century onwards, the quality of gazi was an essential ingredient of the image that Ottoman writers projected. Moreover almost two centuries later, Evliya <;elebi cordially agreed with them. Thus Sultan Murad is depicted as having gained major victories over the 'heretic' Ktztlba§,
although from Evliya's account, it is clear that by the seventeenth century the religious differences between Sunnis and Shiites were less important than the political rivalry between the two rulers involved. In this respect, Evliya's stories thus reflect the ideals, rather than the realities, of his time. However our author does seem to have had some qualms over the absence of any visible commitment on the part of Murad IV to war against the 'infidels'. This explains why he has added a chapter on a projected campaign against Malta, for which the author claims a mighty armada had already been 1 Otto Kurz, "A Gold Helmet Made in Venice for Sulayman the Magnificent," in idem, The Decorative Arts of Europe and the Middle East (London: The Dorian Press, 1977), pp. 249-58;
also GUlru Necipoglu, "Siileyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg-Papal Rivalry," The Art Bulletin, LXXI, 3 (1989), 401-27. 2 The expression 'The Lawgiver as Messiah' comes from Aeischer, "The Lawgiver as Messiah"; on the Silleymaniye mosque as a monument to victory over Shiite 'heretics', see Gillru Necipoglu-Kafadar, "The Siileymaniye Complex in Istanbul: an Interpretation," see
Muqarnas, III (1986), 92-117.
3 Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1 993), pp. 84-86.
in the Ottoman Empire (New
4 Cerna! Kafadar, Between Two Worlds. The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1 995), pp. 10-11 and elsewhere.
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constructed. In all probability a parallel was here to be established with Sultan Siileyman, one of whose last undertakings was a campaign against the Knights of St John that had come quite close to succeeding. 1 On this supposed project of Murad IV's, there seems to be little other evidence, but
according to Evliya, the Spanish and the Maltese, with fear in their hearts, had
already offered important concessions. However as the author himself put it, the sultan's death preventing the campaign, by God's inscrutable will there was not much to show for the enormous amount of money and effort spent on a great campaign of shipbuilding.
But as our traveller had the opportunity to observe Murad IV at close quarters, he also stressed some less political features that marked this ruler out
�
as a special personage. One of them was he sultan' s skill as � marksman. . phys1cal strength, Even more unusual was the young padi�ah s extraordmary which he demonstrated by his prowess in various sports including wrestling. In this context of royal self-assertion and without any transition, Evliya also
mentioned the fact that Murad IV had a large number of people executed.2 But although the sultan was probably long dead by the time of writing, Evliya refrained from any adverse comments on what he himself called the ruler's being 'thirsty for blood' (hunhar). Although he did not explain the reasons for his attitude, it may well be that after the disorders of the previous decades, the re-establishment of the ruler's authority was paramount in his eyes, and the means employed to this end a secondary issue.3 In addition Evliya has also left us a description of Murad IV in the circle of his courtiers, including, apart from the former Safavid commander Emirgune-oglu Yusuf Pa�a. the author himself as a young man. Here we encounter the otherwise fearsome ruler not only listening to jokes and witticisms, in which even personal innuendo was not taboo.4 All this was taken in good part by the sultan, who according to Evliya once smiled at an obvious allusion to his bloodthirstiness.5 If these stories have even a slight basis in fact, it would seem that the aloofness and immobility of the sultan during his public appearances were not necessarily observed on less formal occasions.
I According to the article 'Malta' in the Encyclopedia of Islam (E!), nd edition, there was a 2 second siege in 1614 and several plans to repeat the att�mpt 10 the second hal� of the seventeenth century. However Enore Rossi, the author of th1s artJcle, makes no menuon of a project ed siege in the late 1630s. 2 Evliya Celebi, Evliya (:elebi Seyahatn/imesi, vol. I , ed. G6kyay, 1995, p. 105. 3 This positive opinion was shared by at least one Christian subject of the sultan. Com� ar e [Papa Synadinos of Serres!. Conseils et memoires de Synadinos pretre de Serres en Ma ce4 ome (XVI!' s·ecle) ed. tr. and commented by Paolo Odorico, with S. Asdrachas, T. Karanastass1s, K. Kostis a d s. 'Petm�zas (Paris: Association "Pierre Belon". 1996). pp. 94-95. 4 Evliya Celebi, Evliya (:elebl Seyaham/Jmesi, vol I, ed. Gokyay, p. 103. 5 Evliya Celebi, Evliya (:elebi Seyahaln/Jmesi, vol. I , ed. Gokyay. 1995, p. I OS. .
�
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PRESENTING THE SULTANS ' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
61
Stileyman and Murad IV were both active politicians and military commanders; the same was not however true of Ahmed III (r. 1703-1 730), who is remembered rather because of changes in palace culture due to an increased interest in the decorative arts of France and Italy. 1 Therefore we will here concentrate not on the ruler by himself, but rather upon the interaction between him and his grand vizier Nev�ehirli Damad Ibrahim Pa�a. who held the grand vizierate for over a decade and dominated the political and diplomatic life of the 1720s. In 1730 however, this association between sultan and vizier came to an end. A band of soldiers rebelled, found support among certain men of religion and also among a large part of the Istanbul populace, exasperated by the costly festivals of the court and the non-occurrence of a long-projected campaign against Iran, prepared at great cost to the local artisans.2 Ibrahim P�a along with his two sons-in-law was executed when the sultan, ultimately in vain, attempted to protect his throne; Ahmed III himself was forced to abdicate a short while later. One of the texts to concern us here is a speech in which the ruler before retiring to a remote part of the palace, supposedly gave topical advice to his successor Mahmud I (r. 1730-1 754). Whether such a speech was ever pronounced or not is a minor issue in the present context. Recorded in two primary sources, one of them authored by a person who was probably an eyewitness to at least some of the confused events of 1730, it was not a more or less timeless piece of advice of the kind so often found in Ottoman political writing. To the contrary, Abdi listed the mistakes which in his way of thinking, had brought the sultan to his present predicament.3 A further evaluation of the merits and demerits of Sultan Ahmed and Ibrahim �a can be found in the chronicle of �em'danl-zade Siileyman Efendi from the Istanbul quarter of Fmd•kh, whose father was, in a minor way, involved in the events of 1730.4 The first piece of advice given to Sultan Mahmud according to Abdi concerned the necessity that the ruler retain firm control of his grand vizier. For this reason he was to avoid keeping one and the same person in office for ten or fifteen years. Of course this was being wise after the event, as Ibrahim �a, recently killed under more than usually distressing circumstances, had been maintained in office for more than a decade. �em'dfull-zade concurred with this assessment; as he put it, Mehmed the Conqueror and Stileyman the Magnificent had both been served by grand viziers whom they kept in office I For a monograph on the troubles marking the end of Ahmed Ill's reign, see MUnir Aktepe, Patrona /syam (Istanbul: Istanbul Oniversitesi Edebiyat FakUitesi, 1958).
2 Aktepe, Patrona lsyam, pp. 95-102. . 3 Abdi, /730, p. 42; compare also Aktepe. Patrona lsyam, p. 156. 4 $em'dtnf-z.Ade, Sem'dbni-z&ie FrndlJcltlr Siileyman Efendi Tiirihi, vol. I, pp. 1 1-13. 44.
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for lengthy periods of time, but both had ended up executing their former favourites. Never at a loss for a telling phrase the author reminded his readers
that even water, the source of all life, rapidly spoiled if not kept flowing. I The new sultan was urged to take the reins of government into his own hands, and "not trust other people".2 However this did not mean that he should not accept advice; to the contrary, he was to consort with old and experienced men, always praying to God for protection from unworthy servitors. In what may have been a bit of self-promotion on the part of the author, Sultan Mahmud was also told to keep in mind that the historians of former reigns could teach him useful lessons.
PRESENTING THE S ULTANS' POW ER, GLORY AND PIETY
63
a sword in the other''.1 In the perspective of both �em'danl-zade and Abdi, the reign of Ahmed III thus had come to a bad end because the proper balances had
not been established: on the personal level, this applied to the relationship
between the ruler and his grand vizier, and on the level of policy, to the balance between generosity and the need to fill the treasury. Finally Ahmed lli
and Ibrahim Pa§a had made the mistake of not listening to the complaints of soldiers and artisans in good time. From a different perspective, they also had
neglected to use the power at their disposal in order to nip rebellion in the bud.
Both Abdi and �em'dani'-zade had things to say on the ri ght balance between generosity and severity. Generosity and the related act of amply supplying the markets with commodities were considered major virtues. Although �em'd§nl-zade was highly critical of Ibrahim Pa§a, particularly on account of the 'immorality' the grand vizier had supposedly permitted, he did concede that the deceased's pious foundations were a significant point in his favour. Moreover when attempting an overall evaluation of Ahmed Ill's reign on the occasion of the latter's death, several years after his deposition, the same author commented on the low prices that had prevailed in the reign of the deceased sultan, whose place was hopefully now in paradise: "in the time of his caliphate, the people did not see the face of scarcity") Ahmed III's parting advice to Mahmud I also included a recommendation to be munificent.
In the same breath however, the incoming sultan was admonished to
keep the treasury well filled; this advice may well have been actually rendered, as the historical Ahmed III was very much concerned with the accumulation of treasure. However when at the beginning of the new regime, cash was
urgentJy needed to pacify the troops, it was not the state treasury but rather the
stocks of gold and silver in the storehouses of Ibrahim Pa�a·s sons-in-law that supplied the wherewithal!. The former grand vizier's own funds were limited,
Sultans Siileyrrum, Murad IV and Ahmed Ill in ambassadors
the eyes of foreign
Many Venetian, French, Habsburg, English and Dutch envoys have left impressions of their receptions in the Topkap1 palace. However an ambassador would encounter the sultan only at the solemn audience accorded upon arrival, and once more when about to depart. Moreover, from the later sixteenth century onwards, it was customary for the sultan to remain in all but immobile majesty during these receptions. In spite of the presence of a dragoman, it was thus all but impossible to gain a personal impression of the ruler's character.2 In consequence the descriptions of the different sultans' personalities as relayed by European ambassadors to their sovereigns were of necessity based on hearsay. Quite often the sources of these tales were Venetian, as the
baili
had long been established in Istanbul and were
considered especially well versed in Ottoman affairs. But as the baili had no personal contacts to the rulers either, their descriptions were based on the relationships with Ottoman courtiers that they had built up over the years.3 Accuracy must have been a frequent casuality.
due to the generosity that in this context, was depicted as wastefulness.4 �em'dani'-zade also felt that Ibrahim Pa�a. and by implication the sultan, had not been strict enough: the vizier was supposed to hold "gold in one hand, and
1 Sem:dinf-z!de. $em 'dfinf.z(ide Ftndtkltlt Siileyman Efendi Tdrihi, vol. I, pp. 13-14. The author has po1nted �ut why long tenure� of grand viziers c�uld be dangerous: as this dignitary normally promoted h1s own followers, h1s prolonged retention of office would entice candidates who could .not expect prererment under the current regime to plot a rebellion. Of the latter SUJeyman appr oved, even though he felt that the sultan and his grand vizier bore a Efend1 very much dts share of responsibility f or the events of 1 730. 2 Abdi, 1730, p. 42. 3 �m'dini'-zAde, $em'dlinf-z{ide Ftndtkltlt Siileyman Efendi Tllrihi, vol. I, p. 44. 4 Sem'dinr-z!de, $em'd4nf-z&le Ftndrkltlt Siileyman Efendi Tllrihi, vol. I. p. 13.
1 �em'dini-z!de, Sem'dlinf-z&Je Fmdtkltlt SiJieyman Efendi Tdrihi, vol. I, p. 13. However the author does not tell us how this policy was to be combined with the necessity of "listening to the words of the people" (p. 7). 2 Gulru NecipogJu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power, The Topkapt Palace in the Fifteenth
and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge MA: The Architectural History Foundation and MIT Press, 1991), pp. 96-1 10.
3 Especially at the end of the sixteenth century, there were a few dignitaries of Italian
background active in the palace, compare Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, "Safiye's Household and Venetian Diplomacy," Turcica, 32 (2000), 9-�2. On the numerous �avu� that showed up in Venice during this period, not all of them genume, see Benjamin Arbel, "NQr BanQ (C. 15301583): A Venetian Sultana?" Turcica, 24 �1992). 241-59 and Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In nome del Gran Signore, lnviati otUJmani a Veneua dalla cadura di Costantinopoli alia guerra di Candia (Venezia: Deputacione Editrice, 1994).
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baili wrote their accounts of the Ottoman governmental
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND P I ETY
apparatus
according to established literary formats, but the latter were flexible enough to permit the incorporation of practically useful details. In the present context, we will begin with the character sketch of Sultan Siileyman (r. provided by the bailo Alvise Renier and dated
1520-66)
1550. This diplomat described a
personage of about sixty-five years, tall, of pleasant countenance, active and in
good physical condition, who sat his horse well. 1 Renier pointed out that for the reasons outlined above, he could not make an assessment of Siileyman's personality through direct experience. But from the answers to his petitions he
had received through the grand vizier, he felt that the sultan's reputation for justice was well merited:
giustissimo
is the term that he did not hesitate to
employ, and in the same breath, he also spoke of Siileyman's "goodness" and "worthiness to rule". When in council, the sultan was however considered somewhat headstrong. Thus when the Persian prince Elkas Mirza, in rebellion against his brother the reigning shah, had been recommended to him, Siileyman immediately decided to de-stabilize the state of Iran through the agency of this prince, although all his advisers suggested that the war against the Habsburg emperor, or further expansion in Hungary, should have priority. At the time Renier wrote, the sultan had four living sons of adult or adolescent age, and the
thought that this could not but lead to a major
bailo
succession crisis in the near future. He also commented on the attachment of Sultan Siileyman to
La rossa,
meaning Hiirrem Sultan; as the ambassador
knew, the Ottoman ruler had made her his legitimate wife. The Venetian thought that this affection of the sultan for his consort would jeopardize the chances of Prince Mustafa, at the time governor in Amasya and at age thirty six, in the prime of life. The
bailo
had heard reports, which he must have
considered credible, of the military prowess of this handsome prince, who presided over a grand court and was open-handed especially with the janissaries, among whom he was very popular. Among the sons of Hurrem Sultan, Renier had only negative things to say about Selim, later Selim 11.
But he felt that exactly because of the weakness of this prince, the grand vizier Riistem Pa�a favoured him, for the pasha hoped to increase his pol itical influence under an indolent sultan. Bayezid was barely mentioned, probably because the
bailo had
not been able to procure any information on him. On
the other hand, Cihangir was present in Istanbul, where Renier probably had occasion to see him: in spite of a physical handicap, this youngest among the princes was regarded as very intelligent and a favourite of his father's, who
65
Renier thus seems to have shared the positive impressions which members of the Ottoman ruling group had of Stileyman, after a thirty-year successful reign. Moreover in
1550, the sultan
had not yet forfeited many of
these sympathies by his part in the elimination of Princes Mustafa and Bayezid, and was not yet considered responsible for placing his least competent son on the throne. I This positive and even enthusiastic evaluation is worth noting, given the fact that only ten years previously, in
1539-40,
Venice had fought a full-scale war against Sultan Siileyman. Moreover the Ottoman ruler was highlighted as active in family politics, particularly as the current grand vizier was the husband of Suleyman's and Hiirrem Sultan's only daughter. This perspective has recently been emphasized in historical scholarship as well, so that one might say that from a present-day perspective, Renier had developed a not unrealistic assessment of Istanbul court politics in the later Siileymanic age.2 As the second example we will analyze a character sketch of the young Sultan Murad IV (r. to
1627,
1623-40).
Bailo Giorgio Giustinian's
relazione is dated
when the young ruler was not as yet the autocrat he was to become
in later times.3 Giustinian considered that Murad IV had learned from the failures of his two predecessors: the fall of Osman II had taught him to not try to concentrate power in his own hands exclusively, while the equally dismal fate of Mustafa I had made it clear that leaving too much power in the hands of others would also lead to disaster. Throughout the young ruler had l imited the various financial gratifications that under his predecessors, the various
grandi (powerful men) had been able to obtain. This policy of moderation was all the more necessary as in the opinion of Giustinian, the entire economy and society of the Ottoman Empire was at the time constrained by a great lack of cash. While Murad IV was accustomed to decide matters according to the recommendations of his grand viziers, the latter still attended audiences with the ruler in fear and trepidation. For it was always possible that among the petitions the latter had received, there might be some which presented the current grand vizier in an unfavourable light, and the ruler might react by punishing him severely.4 In Giustinian's perspective, this was part of a conscious policy: for the young ruler did not want to be completely dependent on his grand viziers, but wished to give weight to the opinions of other members of his council as well.5 It is also of interest that in the late
1620s,
1
Vak'as1
kept him in his company on account of Cihangir's conversational gifts.
On these events, compare �erafettin. Turan, Kanuni'nin. O!lu $ehztide Bayezid �Ankara: Ankara Oniversitesi Dil ve Tanh-Cografya Fakllltest, 1961).
1 Pedani Fabris, Relazioni, pp. 75-77.
3 Pedani Fabris ed., RelaVoni, pp. 538-41. 4 Pedani Fabris ed., Relazioni, pp. 544-45.
Compare Peirce, The Imperial Harem.
5 Pedani Fabris ed., RelaVoni, p. 56 . 3
66
A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
the bonhomie that Evliya ascribed to his favourite sultan was recorded by an experienced Venetian diplomat as well. For Guistinian was positively enthusiastic when it came to the personality of the young ruler. Sultan Murad was described as very handsome and of affable countenance, especially when compared with the grimness of Osman II. It is worth noting that the expeditions
incognito
into the capital,
with the aim of repressing the use of alcohol and tobacco, that were to become a hallmark of Murad IV's later years, here are attributed to his predecessor.1 By
contrast Murad IV was depicted as inclined more to mildness than to severity, and where he had used the latter, it was more on account of the recommendations of his mother (that Guistinian incidentally described as 'wise') than by his own inclination.2 The
bailo
considered especially
praiseworthy the young ruler's modesty, so far removed from the "pride" of Osman II. Obviously Giustinian's account reflected the hopes that his informants placed in what promised would be a regime of moderation and financial recovery. As our third example, we will use the character sketch of Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703-1730), written by the French ambassador Jean-Louis Dusson, marquis de Bonnac ( 1 672-1738). The latter being on fairly easy terms
67
The French ambassador, who incidentally was praised by the contemporary chronicler Celebizade for his skilful mediation between the Ottoman sultan and Tsar Peter I, was no longer in Istanbul by the time of Ibrahim Pa�a's fall in 1730. Therefore his papers contain no overall assessment of the cooperation between Ahmed III and his long-time grand vizier. I However similarly to the Ottoman authors writing on this issue, the Marquis also dwelt upon the need to practice generosity as a royal attribute, a consideration that in his opinion, Ahmed III was liable to forget. We have seen that De Bonnac was a partisan of Ibrahi m Pa�a's, while Abdi and �em'dani-zade tended to sympathize more with the sultan. We do not know anything about the reasons for this difference in assessment. It is possible that the Ottoman authors wished to uphold the legitimacy of the dynasty by placing whatever blame was due squarely upon the shoulders of the grand vizier. As to De Bonnac he also had a personal axe to grind: among other things, he was out to prove to the French foreign ministry that he had a better grasp of Istanbul politics than his less successful predecessors. Yet it is worth
noting that the ri ght balance between generosity and filling the treasury was central to Ottoman and non-Ottoman authors.
with the grand vizier Nev�ehirli Damad Ibrahim Pa�a, we can assume that some of the information relayed came from this very source. The marquis de Bonnac was especially interested in the relationship between the sultan and his
Public construction and sultanic legitimacy
grand vizier; presumably he sometimes stressed the latter's qualities and merits
Apparently Evliya <;elebi did not disapprove of Murad IV's omitting to
at the expense of the former. Ibrahim Pa�a appeared as a man capable of
build a great mosque complex, while almost all of the latter's ancestors had
exercising a moderating influence, even when Ahmed III's preoccupation with
done so. By contrast i n the sixteenth century Mustafa
the accumulation of treasure was at issue, an activity that De Bonnac depicted as the dominant passion of this sultan. Moreover the grand vizier felt that the Ottoman Empire needed a period of recuperation from war; therefore he had been instrumental in concluding the treaty of Passarowitz/ Pasarof9a in 1718, in spite of the losses it entailed.3 While normally French diplomacy aimed at keeping the Habsburgs occupied on their eastern front by Ottoman wars, in this case, De Bonnac felt obliged to agree with Ibrahim �a's assessment.4
'Ali had
emphasized
construction projects as being of major significance when it came to establishing the status of a ruler.2 Not that construction projects and repairs to public buildings, especially in the Holy Cities of the Hijaz, were insignificant in Evliya's eyes. In the case of his favourite ruler Murad IV, the restoration of the Giil Camii i n Istanbul was therefore made to stand in for the missing complex of pious foundations.3 Moreover when Evliya visited the Hijaz as a pilgrim in 1671, he went out of his way to mention a couple of inscriptions in the name of the current sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648-87) that commemorated the latter's - probably not very important - repair projects.4
1 Pedani Fabris ed., Re/azioni, p. 551. Papa Synadinos, Conseils et memoires, pp. 94-95 discusses at some length the expeditions of Murad IV into Istanbul as well as the pumshments meted out to drinkers and smokers. 2 Pedani Fabris ed., Relazioni, p. 563. 3 For a biography of Ibrahim P�a.compare the r�levant entries in t �e. El, 2"d ed. and the islam . Ansiklopedisi pubhshed by the M1mstry of Educat1on; both are by Milmr Aktepe.
4
See Monsieur de Chateauneuf's comments who felt that after the defeat of Zenta, the Ottomans were no longer enthusiastic about war against the Habsburgs, even though he !Umself was in favour of continuing: De Bonnac, Memoire historique, p. 91. On the contrary v1ews of De Bonnac, see Memoire historique, p. 139; here he describes the peace of Pasarof�a as "shameful but necessary".
Qelebizade Efendi, published as vol. 6 of the Ta_rih-i RO§id, pp. 223-24. over the contents of 'All's chronicle see Jan Schmidt, Pure Wa1erfor iinhii 1-ahbar (Leiden: no publisher, n. Thirsty Muslims A Study of Mustafa 'Ali of Gallipoli's K d., probably lm), pp. 284-3�2. 'All d�voted consider�ble attention to .the Ott?man rulers' . 'charities', the category in wh1ch. �c�m1�t places �ultan1c p1ous foundations; th1s shows the value of such activities in the leg1tlmlzat1on of a SIXteenth-century ruler. I am grateful to Jan Schmidt for providing me with a copy of his thesis. 3 Evliya Qelebi, Evliya Celebi SeyahalnLlmesi, vol. 1 , ed. Gokyay, p. 91. 4 Evliya Qelebi, Seyahatnamesi, 10 vols. (Istanbul, Ankara: Ikdam and others): vol. 9 was published in 1935: vol. 9, p. 752. 1
2 For a synoptic overview
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Evliya's notions about appropriate sultanic practice seem to have conformed quite closely to what was really the custom in his own time. In the mid-seventeenth century great public foundation complexes were rarely built, even though smaller charities were still being established. Mustafa 'All had certainly been very critical of Murad III under whose rule he had lived for twenty years; yet among Ottoman authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he was rather exceptional i n this respect. Open criticism of the persons and politics of sultans both living and deceased was usually avoided. Evliya �elebi, otherwise outspoken in his criticisms, also conformed to this
custom. 1 When he found nothing to praise, he usually preferred to remain silent, and this applied to charities and public construction as well as to other matters. Yet earlier on, when Evliya was a child at the beginning of the seventeenth century, an important sultanic mosque had in fact been built, and its praises were even sung i n literature. In the twentieth century, it became fashionable to joke about the 'elephant's feet' , i n other words the great piers holding up the dome of the Sultan Ahmed mosque. Yet at the time of construction, this building was hailed as being of superb beauty, a veritable foretaste of the garden of paradise, and also as a monument of victory over the Shiites of Iran. A certain Ca'fer Efendi, a member of the household of the chief architect Mimar Mehmed Aga, wrote an entire book designed to publicize, in addition to the other merits and achievements of his patron, the sublime qualities of this building.2 Another extensive description of the Sultan Ahmed mosque was authored by Evliya �elebi . Once again this account picked up the paradise motif - however what was referred to here was not a symbol but 'the real
thing', namely a garden located in the outer courtyard of the mosque, whose pleasant smells wafted into the building on a fine summer's day. 3 More pertinent to our purpose of assessing the trans-cultural impact of this building is Evliya's repeated claim, which does not feature in Ca'fer Efendi's work, that numerous foreign kings sent gifts to the mosque, presumably as a form of 1 On Mustafa 'Ali's criticism of Murad Ill, compare Cornell H. Aeischer, Bureaucrat and /n�e/lectual !n the Ottoman Empire, The Historian Mui!afa 'Ali (1541-1600) (Princeton: . Press, 986), pp. 294-307. Princeton Umvers1ty 1
2 [Ca'fer Efendi], Ris/ile-i mi'm/Jriyye. an Early-seventeenth-century Ottoman Treati se on
1rclri�ecture, �- and.annotate� by Howard C�ne, (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1987), pp. 64-76. y ahatnd'!!es1 , vol. �· �d. G�kyay, pp. 86-88. Evliya claims that Evhya <;:eleb1, Evllya fe�ebl Se
the dome was h�ld up w!thout column s , a descnphon d1�cult to accept given the notable , presence of the elephants feet . He seems to have used th 1s phrase as a cliche. Therefore 1 am not sure �hether on. the st�en�th .of his description, we should accept that the original t e late eighteenth century, really had a dome restin �osque of Eyup, before 1ts rebu1ldmg ·� h d1rectly on h t� wall�. For �.contrary op1mon, see Aptullah Kuran, "EyUp KUIIiyesi," in TUia Artan ed E y ii p: Dun/ Bugun. J/-12 Aral1k 1993 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakf1 Yun Yaymlan• 1 994)• pp. 1 29-35. .
.•
�
69
congratulation. Evliya himself had trouble documenting his statement, the only concrete example concerning a vizier and governor of Habe� (Abyssinia). This dignitary supposedly sent highly decorated candlesticks that were linked together with chains and hung up to form a chandelier, in Evliya's eyes one of the most spectacular aspects of the building. How did the Sultan Ahmed mosque appear to an educated non-Muslim inhabitant of Istanbul? For this purpose, we can analyze the description given by P.
towards the end of the eighteenth century. 1 Born in Istanbul, inciciyan had
trained with the Mechitarists in Venice, and later become a priest in this order of Catholic monks. As a polyglot scholar, who mostly divided his time between Istanbul and Venice, inciciyan was conversant with the 'modern-style' sciences current in Europe during this period. Among numerous works he co authored an eleven-volume survey of world geography. The description of the Ottoman capital, in which the Sultan Ahmed mosque figures along with other sultanic foundations, formed part of this work. After giving the dates of construction
( l 018/1609 to 1026/ 1 617) inciciyan recorded the measurements
of the great columns, which thus differently from Evliya, he regarded as a major feature of the building. He then went on to discuss the minarets, referring to an unnamed Ottoman source, which claimed that the sixteen balconies adorning the minarets contained an allusion to the fact that Sultan Ahmed I was the sixteenth Ottoman ruler.2 inciciyan went on to describe the architectural features of the courtyard and provided a list of all the ancillary institutions forming part of the foundation complex. He also recorded that this
institution possessed a revenue of about 300 purses (of administrator
(voyvoda) of Galata
ak�e ) ,
the
being in charge of running the different
charities. When discussing the appearance of the mosque, tnciciyan referred to the admiring comments of foreign travellers, unfortunately without telling us whose reports he had read. According to this scholarly geographer, the Sultan Ahmed mosque was often used by the sultan and his court, with the denizens of the palace wearing their costliest robes for the occasion. Thus this particular mosque appeared as a place where the sultan could be viewed by his 1 fn�iciyan, Jf.Vlll. AsmJ.a Istanbul, p. 39. As I do not read Armenian, 1 have to limit myself to
. amu�.ciy.a�, who do not tell us when exactly jhe. 1�for�at10n g_tv�n by Andreasyan and �
nct�tyan s . d.escnptJOn was composed. (antcle lnctc1yan' in Dunden BugiJne Istanbul Ans,�lopediSI b>: �evork Pamu�ctyan) But as an earthquake which took place in 1766 is mentiOned .bY lnctcJyan (p. 9), this date can serve as a terminus post quem, while the terminus ante quem IS 1804. 2 In his commentary, Andreasyan. noted that this result was arrived at by counting Princes ully fledged Ottoman rulers. For a similar statement SUleyman a�d Musa, s �ns �f BayeZ!,d I, � f co��e Ca fer Efend1, RJSt e-1 nu m/Jnyye. 1 987, p. 74. Perhaps this was the Ottoman source !il 1 nctctyan had read?
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subjects, and in inciciyan's eyes, it must have supplanted the Aya Sofya in this role. For while the author included an extensive description of the latter sanctuary as well, in this case there was no mention of the courtiers in their colourful array, whose regular gatherings made the Sultan Ahmed mosque so special. With the foreign travellers he had read inciciyan concurred in a final superlative: "nowhere in the world has there occurred a ceremony of similar brilliance and magnificence". 1
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWE R , GLORY AND P I ETY
71
more "elegant, agreeable and spacious". AI-Tamihruti' noted that the plan of the latter had been inspired by the former, yet almost in the same breath, he
exclaimed that even though there had been numerous attempts to imitate the 1 Aya Sofya, these had all been in vain. Coming from an educated Muslim
observer, this is an interesting testimony to the supreme prestige of the older building.2 Otherwise AI-Tamib_ruti' simply relayed the story of the four columns that Siileyman the Magnificent supposedly had shipped from Alexandria, of which two were lost in a shipwreck.3 More interesting is his discussion of the mosque of Eyiib, which was
Sultanicfoundations and the reports offoreign visitors
assiduously visited by the sultan as well as by ordinary folk. AI-Tamihruti'
Descriptions of Ottoman buildings by Ottoman observers, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, do not survive in large numbers, but the writings of non-Ottoman Muslim visitors and their perceptions of sultanic public buildings before the nineteenth century are even scantier. Certainly some Indian and Iranian princesses and princes visited Mecca and Medina, and sometimes even went to live there.2 Moreover in 1547-48, the rebel Safavid prince Alkas Mirza, brother to the current shah Tahmasp I, visited Istanbul, to say nothing of the relatively numerous Iranian embassies appearing in the Ottoman capital during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Arriving from the borderlands of the Empire certain Kurdish princes also resided i n the capital, and even held office at the Ottoman court.3 But very few of these visitors seem to have left any account of their experiences, and even fewer were those who commented on the sultans' mosques and
medreses.
However we do possess a description of Istanbul by the Moroccan
ambassador Abu '!-Hasan 'Ali' ai-Tamib_ruti', who arrived in Istanbul in
November 1589. Like other distinguished visitors, AI-Tarnihruti' toured the sights of the city, including the Eyiib Sultan, Aya Sofya and Siileymaniye mosques; regrettably for our purposes, the Sultan Ahmed mosque had not as yet been built.4 The ambassador admired all three structures; he felt that the Aya Sofya was more "massive and grandiose", while the Siileymaniye was 1 inciciyan, XVlll. Asmla Istanbul, p. 39. 2 . Nairn R. Farooqi, "Moguls, O�tomans and Pilgrims: Protecting the Routes to Mecca in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centunes," The International History Review, X, 2 (1988), 198-220 3 ismet Parmak.slzoglu, "Kuzey lrak'ta Osmanh HAkimiyetinin Kurulu§U ve Memun Beyin H�ttralan," Bellete'! XXXV�I. 146 (197�). 191-230; Memun Bey was a contemporary of . .
Suleyman the �agmficent. H1s d�m1nant mtere_st lay m showing how, by their loyalty to the uler h1s father and he h1mself had gamed the right to the governorship of �ehrizor. Ottoman r . The beautes of Istanbul were not his concern, which is all the more regrettable as the author was fully 1n command of Ottoman and must have known his way around the capital.
..
4 A�-Tamghruti, En:najhat, pp. 47-61. For a discussion in recent secondary literature, see
Xav1er de Planhol, L Islam et Ia "!f!T, La mosquee et le matelot, Vlle-XXe siecle (Paris: Perrin, pp. 231-246. For the penod from 1550 to 1730, I have not been able to find any descnpllons of the Sultan Ahmed mosque by non-Ottoman Muslims.
2000�,
mentioned the small but luxurious boats that Sultan Murad III (r. 1574-1 595) used for his frequent visits to this shrine, the richness of the pious foundations
supporting it, the numerous Korans stocked in a special shelf for the use of
visitors, and the fact that many people, especially prominent Ottomans, made considerable financial sacrifices in order to be buried in this place. Piety, a strong sense of hierarchy and decorum in addition to an abundance of material goods were the qualities the Moroccan ambassador most appreciated about Istanbul upper-class culture. As less positive features, he noted a strong concern with money-making. Where European authors are concerned, the description of Istanbul's major mosques, which might or might not include discussions of the aesthetic merits of these structures, has formed a standard part of travel accounts ever since the sixteenth century. The study of these texts has become a major concern of Anglophone and especiall y Francophone researchers, who have shown how texts from Greco-Roman antiquity, to say nothing of the Bible, have been used in shaping travellers' accounts, even when it was the authors' avowed aim to produce an 'eyewitness account' .4 By contrast, reports by Venetian diplomats were meant for presentation to the Signoria only, so that literary conceits should have been less in evidence. This however is far from clear, as some of these reports were soon copied and their authors may well have anticipated this type of diffusion and given a ' literary' form to their writings. Quite a few
relazioni contain relatively standardized descriptions of
Istanbul as 'background information', and thus the borders between these texts
�
Al-Tamghruti, En-najhat, p. 54. While the author did pick up some Turk!sh words and elements of grammar, he probably did . . . ormallon must have come from people with whom not know th1s language very well, and h1s m f he could converse in classical Arabic.
3 For oth�r accol!nts of the provenance of these columns, see Orner Liitfi Barkan Siileymaniy
fami ve lmareti ITJ§aatl, 2 vols. (Ankara: �Urk Tarih Kurumu, 1972, 1979), vol. 1 ,'pp. 336-44. e As examples compare Stephane Yeras1mos, Les voyageurs dans l'Empire ottoman (XI� _ TUrk Tarih Kurumu, 1991) and Tinguely, L 'ecriture du Levant.
XVI• siecles). Bibliographie, itinlraires et inventaire des lieux habites (Ankara:
72
ANOTHER M IRROR FOR P RINCES
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
and ordinary published travelogues are less marked than appears at first glance.
73
younger contemporary of Evliya's, and visited the city in 1655-56, when the
However these diplomats are important to us as they were concerned with the
Sultan Ahmed mosque had been part of the Istanbul skyline for about forty
political effects of sultanic building projects, and exactly these effects, in other
years. Thevenot has been described as the epitome of the 'average' traveller,
words the 'politics of piety', are our main concern here. We will therefore begin with an evaluation of sultanic charities by a Venetian envoy. I Giacomo Soranzo had represented the Signoria at the circumcision of
Mehmed III in 1582; but due to prolonged i llness en route it was only in 1584 that he returned to Venice and presented his report. His text included a discussion of the Valide mosque in Oskiidar, recently built by Nurbanu Sultan the mother of Murad Ill, who according to rumours current in Istanbul, was born a member of a Venetian noble family.2 Nurbanu Sultan had chosen a site
cautious, prudent, inclined to copy his predecessors whenever he found something appropriate, but at the same time, a well-informed and conscientious observer of everyday life. 1 Our French visitor agreed with his Ottoman contemporaries that the Sultan Ahmed mosque was one of the most handsome i n the city, and then described the sequence of outer courtyard, portico and rectangular inner courtyard with its domes supported by marble columns. The garden praised by Evliya Celebi did not figure in his account, either because it had disappeared or because Thevenot had visited the mosque during the cold season. Our author admired the fine fountain and also the
on the Anatolian shore. Her complex was thus somewhat remote from the city
central dome. But what most struck him were the ornaments of glass and other
surmised that this site was chosen because she wanted her son to be constantly
Evliya considered the gifts of foreign kings? Among other pieces, Thevenot
centre, but located in full view of the Topkapt palace across the sea.3 Soranzo
aware of her pious generosity. As Soranzo described the mosque as
bellisima,
her project seems to have been a full success in worldly terms. After stressing, in the manner that had become customary, that the
valide sultan was
very money-minded and could only be won over by rich
presents, Soranzo conceded that here was one project on which the sultana had spent lavishly. He emphasized that she had taken care of the future as well, by assigning sufficient productive revenue sources to guarantee the smooth functioning of the mosque complex. While some of the shops and khans assigned to the foundation had been purchased 'ready-made', others had been built expressly to serve the mosque and its dependencies. Moreover the founder spent additional large sums in order to construct ordinary dwellings in the vicinity of the mosque, so that she might feel the satisfaction of having founded an entire town. Apparently Soranzo himself did not disagree with this opinion. When discussing Ottoman accounts of sultanic building projects, we have focused on descriptions of the Sultan Ahmed mosque. Therefore it would be inexcusable if we were to miss the opportunity of comparing these Ottoman Turkish and Armenian texts with a description of the same building by a seventeenth-century European traveller. Jean Thevenot (1633-67) was a 1 The expression 'the politics of piety' has been coined by Madeline Zilfi, The Politics ofPiety, The Onoman Ulema in the Classical Age (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988). 2 Pedani Fabris, Relazioni, p. 271. The entry 'Nur Banu' in the El. 2•d edition makes her an
illegitimate daughter of Violante Baffo and Nicolo Venier, the one-but-last ruler of Paros. However Arbel, "NOr BanO" has shown that this conjecture is not based on reliable sources. Other sources of the time make her into a member of a well-to-do Greek family from Venetian-held Corfu, but this is also doubtful. 3 Whether and if applicable how the of mosques founded by different members of the Ottoman dynasty reflected internal hierarchies has often been discussed by modern scholars, compare Peirce, The Imperial Harem, pp. 198-2 12.
locations
materials hung up throughout the interior - were these perhaps the items that mentioned the wooden model of a galley fully outfitted and another such item showing the mosque itself. We are left to wonder whether these decorations were attached to the chandeliers that Evliya had so admired. Unfortunately neither Ottoman nor foreign observers inform us who had decided to hang the models of these particular items and what purposes they were meant to serve.2 As we have seen, Evliya Celebi and Ca'fer Efendi highlighted the religious motivations for building the Sultan Ahmed mosque, even though at least in Ca'fer's account, the political feature of victory over the 'heretical' Safawids was an important concern as well. Soranzo stressed the political considerations that had prompted Nurbanu Sultan to found a whole new town, or town quarter to be more exact, of Oskiidar. But he also made his readers aware of the religious moment, at least in an oblique fashion: after all, the prominent location of the complex was to constantly remind the sultan of his mother's generous piety. On the other hand, P. Gugas inciciyan was not at all
concerned with religious aspects, but the political meaning of the mosque was very much i n the forefront of his thinking. As evidence there is his comment on the number of balconies corresponding to the number of sultans who had ruled down to 1617, and his emphasis upon the brilliant, unique ceremony on the occasion of the sultan's Friday prayers. 1 Th6venot, Voyage, pp. 6-9. I do not know whether in describing the 'Blue Mosque' Thevenot
had found himself a model to copy. As in the mid-l71b century this building was not as yet very old (Th6venot explicitly calls it the 'new mosque') possibilities for copying should have been more limited than in the case of old standbys like the Aya Sofya. 2 The mosque model mentioned here forms part of a small number of known three-dimensional models of major public buildings; compare Gillru Necipoglu-Kafadar, "Plans and Models in Journal of the Society ofArchitectural 15th and 16th Century Ottoman Architectural Historians, XLX, 3 (1 986), 224-43. Models of ships were often hung as votive gifts in Orthodox churches, for instance if the ship had escaped a major accident, but we do not not know whether the models in the Sultan Ahmed mosque, if indeed they were present in Thevenot's time, served a similar purpose. Compare Angelos Delivorrias, A Guide to the Benaki Museum (Athens: Benaki Museum, 2000), pp. 162-66.
�ctice",
74
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PRI NCES
By contrast, neither imperial self-assertion nor piety played a major role in TMvenot's description of the Sultan Ahmed mosque, apart from a brief reference to the man who prayed for the dead ruler's soul in the adjacent mausoleum. Considerations of piety did however figure more prominently in the same author's immediately preceding description of the Siileymaniye, where Korans as well as mementoes of Mecca and Medina were prominently displayed near the sultan's sarcophagus. IfThevenot thus showed a tendency to link religious motifs to the mausoleums rather than to the mosques themselves, this may be due to the occasions at which he visited the buildings in question: he probably saw the mosque at a time when no religious services were in progress, while prayers for the soul of the deceased ruler were a permanent feature. Thus it appears that on the whole Muslims were more aware of the religious aspects of sultanic mosques, while non-Muslims emphasized political and aesthetic considerations, but the opposition was by no means absolute.
Processions with and without the sultans Pious foundations apart, public ceremonies were another means of making the glory of the sultans visible to their own subjects as well as to foreigners. Much of Evliya's famous first volume, dedicated to Istanbul, is taken up by a procession of artisans and state officials that marked Sultan Murad IV's departure on one of his campaigns. For Evliya this parade was the occas ion, or perhaps rather the pretext, for a commented enumeration of the office-holders and guildsmen present i n Istanbul i n the mid-seventeenth century.1 Such processions had been common enough already in the 1500s, and thus enumerating the participants had become an accepted part of the 'festival books' (surname) that were being composed with increasing frequency at this time.2 Ottoman sultans did not in most cases participate in these events in person, but watched them from a tent, loggia or pavilion. Whether the grand vizier was granted a similar distinction depended on circumstances; in the famous miniatures depicting the circumcision festivities of 1720, we see Nev§ehirli Ibrahim P�a observing the proceedings from his own tent. There I For a discussion of Evliya's description compare Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans Ia seconde moitie du XVII! sUcle, Essai d'histoire institutione/le, economique et sociale (Paris, Istanbul:
Institut Fran98is d'Arch�ologie d'lstanbul and Adrien Maisonneuve, 1962), pp. 352-57. For rhymed festival books and their place in Ottoman literature, see Mehmet Arslan, Surnamekr (Osmanil Saray Diiliinleri ve Senlikleri) (Ankara: TUrk Tarih Kurumu, 1999). The same author has announced a companion volume on festival books in prose.
2
PRESENTING THE
S U LTANS' P OW E R ,
GLORY
AND
PIETY
75
were some cases however, when the sultan also took part in the parade. As an example we might mention the solemn entry into Istanbul that Selim II celebrated after succeeding to the throne of his father Siileyman the Magnificent ( 1566). ' Selim II's son Mehmed III repeated the performance after · his victorious return from the battle of Hacova (Mesokeresztes).2 Following the same tradition, Murad IV also performed a solemn entry into his capital, namely after the conquest of Revan.3 Among the people of Istanbul, the turnout was numerous, in Evliya's opinion partly due to the fact that the inhabitants of the capital had reason to complain of the vizier Bayram Pa�·s rule during the sultan's absence and in this festive atmosphere, hoped to find the ruler responsive to their grievances. Entering the city amidst martial music, the ships in the harbour firing in salute, Murad IV wore the iron accoutrements of battle and so did his horse. Almost reminiscent of the triumphal marches celebrated in the Near East of antiquity, the most prominent Iranian captives were marched in front of the sultan; this included Emirgune-oglu, who had surrendered voluntarily and was later to become one of the sultan's favourites. Valuable fabrics were stretched between poles to mark the processional way; they were later handed over to the soldiery. A day later, this basically military and political celebration was completed by a religious procession, when the sultan paid a solemn visit to the mausoleum of Eyiib Ansari. Moreover from the seventeenth century onwards, it became customary to 'introduce' the newly enthroned ruler to his capital, and vice versa, by a formal pilgrimage to the shrine of Eyiib, where he was girded with a sword deemed to have belonged a variety of ancient heroes, including his ancestor Osman 1.4 It has been suggested that parades in which the sultan took centre stage were instituted after Ottoman princes stopped going to the provinces as governors, and spent their youths and adolescences in the seclusion of a Topkap1 palace apartment. For under these circumstances, ascending the throne meant 'appearing in public' for the first time, and this event was marked by a major procession.5 As the prominence that Evliya gave to a single such event amply demonstrates, these parades impressed Ottoman subjects. 1 Almosnino, Grandezas, pp. 55-64; for comments see Yatin and Yeinstein, Le serail ebranli, p. 308. 2 Nicolas Yatin, "Aux origines du pelerinage il Eyllp des sultans ottomans," Turcica, XXYll 91-100. Evliya <;elebi, Evliya r;elebi Seyahatnllmesi, vol. 1, cd. Golcyay, p. 98. 4 For an interesting discussion, compare Cemal Kafadar, "EyUp'te Kilt� KU§anma Torenleri," in TUJay Artan ed.• Eyiip: Diinl Bugiin, 11-12 Aral1k 1_9�3 (Istanb�l: T�rih Yalcft Yurt Yaymlan, pp. 50-61; thanks to Christoph Neumann for pomtmg out thts arttcle. 5 Yatin, "Aux origines". According to Evliya <;elebi, �urad IV gi�ed not o0:e but �o swords r : namely that of Selim I and that of the Prophet htmself (Evhya <;elebt, Evl1ya Celeb1 Seyalullfrlimesi, vol. I , ed. Gokyay, P· 92).
�1995), 1994),
76
A N O T H E R M I R RO R F O R P R I NC ES
Religious elements in the sultans ' processions: elements of a common language? But at the same time, these festive events were carefully observed by foreigners as well. As Frenchmen, Englishmen or subjects of the Habsburgs and the various Italian and German principalities, these people were familiar with the procession as a singularly effective means of depicting social hierarchy and also of keeping the royal image present in the minds especially of town-dwelling subjects.1 Moreover such foreign observers would also have known that parades usually had some religious significance. In Catholic countries, priests and bishops, often carrying the Eucharist and thus making the presence of the divinity apparent to the viewers, participated in many processions. Beyond confessional boundaries this imagery must have awakened powerful resonances. After all, even in post-Reformation England, where we would expect references to the old church to have been taboo, certain saints continued to figure throughout the reign of Elizabeth 1.2 Moreover while seventeenth- or eighteenth-century European courtiers certainly did not believe in the gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon in any religious sense of the word, it is still remarkable how closely the apotheoses of rulers in the antique style that decorated so many palaces of the time, resembled the imagery which in a rococo church, was used to render visible the ascension of Christ or the assumption of the Virgin Mary. Even for the most Voltairean viewers of the 1770s, visualizing the glory of the ruler in a courtly assembly or procession thus must have evoked strong religious reminiscences. Of course Islam knows neither priests nor symbols of the divine comparable to the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. Yet Evliya knew very well that a religious component was present in many Ottoman processions. As an indicator, we may take his consistent references to the heavenly protectors of the different craft guilds participating in Murad IV's pre campaign parade.3 In the case of an army marching out to do battle with the infidel, the banner of the Prophet was often carried along, and dervishes participated in order to encourage the soldiery. Thus the artisans who paraded before Murad IV before they accompanied the Ottoman army they were to serve on campaign, must have shared i n the religious aura that surrounded such an undertaking.
1 The literature on processions undertaken in European Renaissance states is too extensive for even a brief review; but as examples, see Frances Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1975) and Roy Strong, Art and Power Woodbridge/Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2nd ed. 1984).
�
Roy Strong, "Queen and City: The Elizabethan Lord Mayor's Pageant" in itkm. The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy. Pageantry, Painting, Iconography, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, reprint 1995), vol. 2: 17-32. 3 On Evliya's sources compare Mantran, Istanbul, pp. 352-353.
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
77
Last but not least, religious references were especially prominent in the processions linked to the Mecca pilgrimage, which were celebrated with particular elaboration in Cairo, but existed also in Istanbul, Damascus and of course the two Holy Cities themselves. Among the most famous items invested with religious significance and guarded in the Topkap1 palace, there were the locks, usually of gilt bronze, that closed the doors of the Kaaba, along with their attendant keys. These were exchanged with some frequency, and the items no longer in use conveyed to Istanbul.1 In addition every year the Kaaba was covered with a precious fabric, bordered with inscriptions from the Koran that was manufactured in Cairo and formed one of the visual foci of the Egyptian pilgrimage caravan. Some European travellers wrote about having to be discreet and unobtrusive when they wished to view these processions; this obviously was linked to the aura of sanctity that they possessed in the eyes of Ottoman Muslims.2 Ottoman sultans made relatively moderate claims to linkages with the sphere of the divine. Yet sacred deposits such as the banner of the Prophet were in their special care, while their armies were depicted as doing battle against 'unbelievers' and 'heretics'. Furthermore, the rulers were surrounded by religious scholars and holy men whom they patronized, and who with their characteristic headgear, also were prominent participants i n public parades. Thus the religious elements i n Ottoman processions must, i n the eyes of Muslim viewers, have conveyed the idea that as long as he occupied the throne, the sultan was not a purely secular personage.3 Here was a meeting point between Ottoman and European notions of rule.
European observers of Ottoman processions This rather lengthy discussion will hopefully make it easier to explain how Ottoman processions could be understood by outsiders. Descriptions of parades and processions abound in European travel accounts of the time; indeed due to their great numbers, only a tiny selection can be discussed here. 1 Janine Sourdel-Thomime, Clefs et serrures de Ia Ka'ba, Notes d'epigraphie arabe (Paris: Revue des Etudes Islamiques, hors s6rie 3, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1971). Remarkably enough, a sizeable number of Kaaba keys in the Topkap1 Museum go back to the Mamluk and even Abbasid periods.
2 For a late 17th-century testimony �ompare Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to
Jerusalem in 1697, introduced by Dav1d Howell (Beirut: Khayats, reprint 1963), p. 171.
3 This special status of the sultan is also apparent fom the fact that while at official parades, � the solemn religious element was balanced by all kinds of jokes and buffooneries, the sultan himself was never the butt of such amusements. Of course this is merely the image conveyed by written sources; what people said o� suc.h occ��ons may have been a different matter. Compare Derin Terzioglu, "The lmpenal CucumcJsJon Festival of 1582: An Interpretation", Muqarnas, 12(1995), 84-100.
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PR I NCES
78
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POWER, GLORY AND PIETY
Reinhold Lubenau visited Istanbul as the sixteenth-century equivalent
local non-Muslims, who were free to dress in whatever way they pleased, and
of a tourist; that is, he accepted employment as a pharmacist to the embassy
especially the Armenians seem to have used the occasion for a bit of
of Bartholomaus Pezzen, the Habsburg ambassador, because he wanted to see
boisterous amusement.
something of the world before settling down to the life of a local notable in a Baltic town
( 1587-89).
The Venetian envoy Girolamo Vignola, who visited Istanbul in
His diary was later ornamented with citations from
his stay. These included a parade of the ruler and his four sons to solemn
writer's personal predilections shine through. As we have seen, he thoroughly
prayers in the mosque of Sultan Ahmed, in which janissaries featured as well
enjoyed festivities of all kinds, and as an unofficial visitor, there was nothing
as palace officials. Vignola recorded that the sultan was watched not only by
to prevent him from attending whatever games and processions took his fancy.
the male population of the capital , but also by Turkish, Greek and Armenian
Lubenau is thus one of the very few writers to describe in detail the
women. In the Venetian diplomat's understanding, the populace regarded the
equestrian games through which Ottoman cavalrymen trained for 'serious'
young princes with special admiration, and he noted the affectionate concern of
warfare, or else the entertainments on Istanbul fairgrounds, which had quite a
their father as well. Vignola interpreted the event as a demonstration that the
few features in common with the amusements accompanying official the
1582
succession, and therefore the future of the dynasty, was assured. This
I He has also produced one of the most detailed descriptions of
circumcision celebrations available today; it is however at second
hand, as Lubenau only arrived in Istanbul five years after the event. The Baltic
1724,
has left short accounts of the most remarkable ceremonies witnessed during
classical authors in the approved style of the times. But even so, some of the
processions.
79
consideration was all the more important as Ahmed III seemed about fifty-five years old, a respectable age for that time. I
traveller was not greatly impressed by Ottoman war games. After all, they were by definition lost by the party representing the Christians, and he wryly
Gifts, tributes and the sultans' honour
commented on the Jot of certain poor men who had lost their lives in the commotion of the festival. Yet all in all he seems to have had a good bit of fun.2
sultan were sometimes displayed, and occasionally the relevant lists have
1672
come down to us. Evliya even claimed that the presents submitted to Murad
marked the departure of an Ottoman army. Remarkably enough, not only
IV at his triumphal entry made it possible to refill the treasury, which must have been much depleted during years of warfare.2 Foreign ambassadors
While in Edirne, Antoine Galland observed the parade that in May
martial virtues were highlighted i n this brilliant event, but with at least equal force, the basic fact that no campaign is possible unless the soldiers are properly fed. Thus the show involved a peasant producer of grain, along with
In major public processions, gifts given by the participants to the
arriving at the court also bore gifts. Moreover not only the sultan, but also the grand viziers and other high-ranking dignitaries expected presents. Rustem
his oxen and plough, followed by bakers showing off cakes and bread, and
�. grand vizier to SUleyman the Magnificent was known for his demands in
dressed up in semi-martial, highly decorated costumes. Next in line were the
this respect, as attested not only by the snide remarks of the Habsburg
butchers, whose apprentices were armed with muskets; they guarded highly
ambassador Ogier Ghislin de Busbecq (Busbecquius), but also by the
decorated sheep and cows with gilt horns. Galland was particularly impressed
complaint of the Kurdish prince Memun Bey of �ehrizor, a subject of Sultan
by the manufacturers of fruit preserves, who were represented by a man dressed
Stileyman.3
in a toga made of strings of fruit candy, and by the makers of mats who
Particularly impressive were the gifts brought by Iranian ambassadors;
showed off a man with an enormous turban made out of this refractory
these might include valuable manuscripts, which have survived relatively well
materiaJ.3 Even though Galland was an outsider to Ottoman society, he quite
because differently from objects made of gold and silver, they could not be
readily understood that this latter image was a burlesque, and that participants
melted down. More exotic were the elephants that the Safavids occasionally
and spectators were enjoying a joke at the expense of officials to whom they normally owed respect. Particularly this was a day of festive licence for the 1 Lubenau, Beschreibung der Reisen, vol. I, pp. 181-85. 2 Lubenau, Beschreibung der Reisen, vol. 2. pp. 49-57. 3 However, he thought that the soldiers were badly trained
in using their muskets.
1
2
Pedani Fabris ed., Re/azioni, pp. 825-81, especially p . 859ff.
Evliya c;etebi, Evliya 9elebi Seyahatnflmesi, vol. I, ed. Gtskyay, p. 99.
3 Augerius Gislenius Busbequius, [Ogier Ghislin de Busbecqj, Legationis turcicae epistolae quatuor, ed. by Zweder von Martels, tr. into Dutch by Michel Goldsteen (Hilversum: Verloren 1994), p. 51. ParmaksJZotlu, "Memun Beyin Hat.tralan," p. 222. For Mustafa 'Air's commen� about ROstem �·s profit-mindedness. and the advantages of this quality to the sultan's treasury, compare Schmidt, Pure WaJer, p. 322.
80
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acquired from India and passed on to the Ottoman court. 1 To these gifts the sultans responded by means of the tayin, that is the food and firewood granted to any foreign embassy once it had crossed the Ottoman frontier. Ambassadors sent to foreign courts also carried presents to be handed over on behalf of the sultan, and semi-independent princes such as Memun Bey, when formally appointed to office, received gifts in the ruler's name as we11.2 The bey reported that the messenger who brought the joyful news of his appointment and the attendant presents was honoured by various festivities.3 These ritual exchanges were the subject of much negotiation, as it was not always easy to draw the line between gifts and tribute. Thus the Austrian Habsburgs during the later sixteenth century preserved their self-respect by calling the tribute that they paid for their Hungarian possessions 'Ttirckenverehrung', or gift to the Turks. In the early seventeenth century, the situation remained unclear. According to the Habsburg understanding at the conclusion of the peace of Zsitva Torok ( 1 606), a substantial lump sum paid over on this occasion was to form a kind of 'capitalization' of future annual tributes. In consequence after I 606 there were to be merely gift exchanges between sovereign rulers.4 But this claim did not find favour at the Ottoman court: however, both sides were exhausted by the fighting; and therefore two versions of the peace treaty were made out, which contained contrary statements on this contentious issue. Whether payment was in money or in goods seems to have been negotiable. Thus it was customary in the sixteenth century, when the silversmiths of Augsburg and Nuremberg enjoyed a good reputation all over Europe, to pay part of the 'Tiirckenverehrung' i n the shape of silver tableware and the decorative items, sometimes powered by clockwork, that were then popular in wealthy European families. We hear of Ferdinand I's envoy Busbecq presenting a silver elephant, which was well received by Siileyman the Magnificent.S In the long run, most of these valuables were sent to the mint, but at the time of receiving them, the Ottoman court seems to have been interested in at least some of these objects in and by themselves, and not 1 I van Stchoukine, La peinture turque d'apres les manuscrits illustres, 2 vols. (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1966, 1971), vol. 1 , 1966, plate CXI. 2 Parmakstzoglu, "Memun Beyin Hat.tralan," p. 221. 3 Parmakstzoglu, "Memun Beyin Hat.tralart," p. 221. 4 Karl Nehring, Adam Freiherr tu Herbersteins Gesandtschaftsreise nach Konstantinopel, in ts Beitrag zum Frieden von Zsitvatorf!k (1606) (Munich: Ol�enbourg! 19�3), p. 27. On the gtf themselves, see Gottfried Mraz, "Dte Rolle der Uhrwerke tn der k8Jserhchen TUrkenverehrung im 16. Jahrhundert," in Die Welt als Uhr, deutsche Uhren und Automaren 1550-1650, ed. by Klaus Maurice and Otto Mayr (MUnchen: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1980), pp. 39-54. 5 Busbecquius, Legationis turcicae epistolae quatuor, p. 51. Compare also Otto Kurz•.Eur pean
�
81
merely in their monetary value. In the case of Venice, better known to Ottoman dignitaries than any other city of Europe, specific wishes were often expressed that the Signoria fulfilled within the limits set by the money allotted for such occasions. I In other cases, the ruler making the present would select items that hopefully would conform to Ottoman taste. Thus in the 1590s, the then Grand Vizier Sinan �a was to have received a suit of armour with precious metal inlays i n a design inspired by Ottoman motifs.2 European ambassadors often claimed to regard Ottoman complaints concerning insufficiently costly presents as indicative of an avarice peculiar to the sultan's court. But this evaluation is one-sided: doubtless officials in the
Ottoman state apparatus expected presents, but in this they acted no differently from their colleagues in most other states, France included, where the purchase of office was an accepted form of promotion.3 Certainly it would be unrealistic to rule out a concern with monetary values, but this was by no means the whole story. Ambassadorial gifts that were not valuable enough seem to have been regarded as an insult to the majesty of the Ottoman ruler, and mutatis mutandis this consideration applied also to presents given to state
dignitaries. The dynamics of this situation were well analyzed by Ottaviano Bon, Venetian ambassador at the court of Ahmed I, who pointed out that rich Ottoman dignitaries expected gifts appropriate to their high rank and abundant resources.4 If viewed from the ambassador's angle, different concerns were at issue. By negotiating the gifts to be given (or not given) at a specific occasion, the diplomat in question tried not only to keep the expenses of his embassy as low as possible, but also to avoid the impression that the ruler he represented was in any way especiaJiy beholden - or even subordinate - to the Ottoman sultan. By the eighteenth century, the gifts to be submitted on the accession of a new sultan by the various ambassadors established in Istanbul had become more or less fixed by tradition. Occasions calling for negotiation were less routine events, for example a particularly brilliant celebration of a princely circumcision, such as the famous feast of 1720. On this occasion, evidence survives of the negotiations conducted by the French ambassador the marquis de Bonnac with the grand vizier Ibrahim P�a. Discussion revolved around the question whether the circumcision was a state occasion or rather a domestic festivity, the French position being that gifts were only called for in the former and not i n the latter instance. Ibrahim Pa�a by contrast does not seem 1 Pedani Fabris, Re/azioni, p. 93. 2 This item was never sent due to the beginninf! of �he 'Long War' in 159 and today is pan or 3
the collections of the Kunsthistorische Museum tn Ytenna. 3 Pedani Fabris ed., Re/azioni, p. 510. 4 Pedani Fabris ed., Re/azioni, p. 510.
82
ANOTHER
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PRINCES
to have regarded this distinction between 'state' and 'domestic' as particularly relevant to his concerns. Rather, he offered an inducement on a different, honorific level. If the French ambassador was willing to make the expected gifts, he would be invited on particularly honourable terms, while the great respect in which 'tradition' was held at the Ottoman court would ensure that De Bonnac's successors would enjoy the same distinction. On the other hand, the marquis de Bonnac felt that it was imperative to enhance the status of the French embassy, for he himself had written extensively on the discredit into which some of his predecessors had fallen.1 It thus made sense to accept a financial sacrifice that would wipe the slate clean. After all it was not only the status of the ambassador vis a vis the sultan's court that was at stake. The humiliations that certain of De Bonnac's predecessors had suffered had been noted by other European envoys as well, and must have resulted in a 'loss of face'. In fact, this competition among European ambassadors was of interest also to Ottoman diplomacy.2 With these considerations in mind, De Bonnac therefore suggested to his government that Ibrahim Pa�a's demands be accepted, and contrary to other ambassadors who preferred to stay away, the French king, along with the Russian emperor Peter the Great, was prominently represented at the festivities of
1720.3
PRESENTING THE S ULTANS' POW ER, GLORY A N D P I ETY
83
sparsely inhabited.1 While Thevenot's understanding seems to have been less politically astute than that of the Venetian envoys, the architectural beauty of the Sultan Ahmed mosque played a prominent role in his description, and this was also a major feature of Ca'fer Efendi's account. Thus the legitimizing function of major sultanic foundations could be effective even across religious and cultural divides. Muslims, Jews and Christians, subjects of the sultan and foreigners, all could concur in regarding these foundations as emblematic of sultanic good taste, piety and power. Something rather similar applies to the accounts of public processions. The Ottoman courtier and traveller Evliya Celebi, a pharmacist from the Baltic such as Lubenau, a French bibliophile and philologist such as Galland, as well as the Venetian diplomat Soranzo, all came up with interpretations of Ottoman public processions that were not all that remote from one another. Moreover these observations all accord quite well with our own work on Ottoman sources. That artisans' processions contained an element of carnival and provided an opportunity for relaxation from everyday constraints has been highlighted by Lubenau and is also recognized by present-day historical scholarship.2 That the sultan could be viewed as a source of nourishment by his soldiers and subjects was well understood by Galland, and has recently been taken up in a number of novel studies on palace gift-giving.3 Dynastic continuity as a major motif of festivals, and as a reason for organizing them at
In conclusion: buildings, parades, receptions and gift-giving as elements ofa mutually intelligible 'sign language ' To sum it ail up: when analyzing the effects of the major sultanic pious foundations it emerges that Giacomo Soranzo's understanding of the complex founded by the Valide Sultan i n Dsktidar was not so very much at variance with what we learn from Ottoman descriptions of the Sultan Ahmed mosque. According to Soranzo, the Valide Nurbanu experienced the satisfaction of having founded an entire town, while Sultan Ahmed I was praised by Ca'fer Efendi because he had founded his mosque in a place that did not need to be emptied of its occupants because hitherto it had been but 1 This opinion did not exactly please De �onnac'.s superiors in. Pa�s. who would have pr eferr �d
him not to write the history of French d1ploma1.1c representation 10 lst_anb�l fo�nd among h1s papers and ultimately published by Charles Schefer: De Bonnac, Mbn01re hutortque, 1894, pp.
l-65.
2 De Bonnac, Memoire historique,
1894. p. 102.
amb assa d�rs
3 Atd, Levni and the Surname, p. 9� i_dentifies one of the �achi�g the 1720 � procession as Russian. The rel�van� m1mature shows several �uropean d1gm�es m somewhat _ _ old-fashioned forrnal attne whtch ts not spec1fic to any parucul� place; thts makes sense, as Tsar Peter had just forced the Russian nobility to shave thetr beards and adopt western European court dress.
all, has also been well studied.4 As to the religious features of Ottoman public processions, they have not as yet attracted the attention they deserve, but hopefully that will change in the future. In connection with these commonalities we can approach the manner in which communication with foreigners was rendered possible at the Ottoman court. Evidently linguistic communication with diplomats was gravely impeded by language barriers. Only with Iranian envoys and the
rare
visitor
from India or Central Asia could Ottoman dignitaries converse face-to-face, as Persian was studied by every Istanbul schoolboy with hopes of one day being considered a gentleman. But sultanic pious foundations and particularly courtly ceremonial including public parades played a much more effective role in enabling royal courts of different cultural backgrounds to communicate with one another than has been understood so far. To return once more to the I [Ca'fer Efendi], Risdle-i mi'mariyye, P· 66. 2 Tenioglu, "The Imperial Circumcision."
and
Power, p. 72; Hedda Reindl-IGel, '1'he Chickens of 3 Necipogu Architecture Ceremonial J Paradis e o fficial Meals i� the mid-Seventeenth-century Ottoman Palace," in The Illuminated She ter in
he
are
and
f
84
A N OT H E R
M I R R OR
FOR
PRI NCES
negotiations between Damad Ibrahim Pa§a and the French ambassador: although on the face of it, hard cash was being exchanged against a purely ceremonial advantage, the marquis de Bonnac regarded the offer made to him as
PRESENTING THE SULTANS' POW ER, GLORY A N D P I ETY
85
potentates. All this has long been known to students of European history.1 But the point to be made here is that the 'sign language' of diplomatic gestures was just as well understood and 'spoken' at the Ottoman court. In
a welcome opportunity to repair the diplomatic disasters of the past decades.
part, this was certainly due to the fact that certa.in elements of ceremonial as
Without a common understanding of the meaning of ceremonial gestures, such
current in the seventeenth century ultimately were derived from late antique
a transaction would not have made any sense.
models, that had been reworked by Umayyads, Abbasids, Byzantines and
Another example of communication through the sign language of
mediaeval western princes alike.2 But in addition, mutual understanding was
ceremonial is linked to the thorny problem of who got to sit at the most
enhanced due to the activities of mediators, for example the much maligned
'honourable' place - if indeed, the visitor was permitted to sit at all. Similarly
dragomans; but long-resident and experienced diplomats, including for instance
to the practice of European absolutist courts, seating at public festivities and
De Bonnac, might also play this role. Thus Ottoman and European court
ceremonies was an effective means for the sultan's officials to express the
societies possessed a range of gestures designed to express honour, rank or else
relative esteem, or lack of it, that they felt should be shown towards a given foreign ruler. In principle, the representatives of non-Muslim potentates were expected to defer to those of Muslims. Diplomatic exchanges between Indian
the lack of these two qualities. The sign language of protocol was either
common to both sides, or at the very least, mutually intelligible.
rulers and the Ottoman court not being very frequent, the ambassador of the shah of Iran was likely to claim precedence due to his quality as a Muslim. To what extent this claim was honoured depended on the political conjuncture of the times. 1 When the representative of the French ruler attended a ceremony in which he demanded a particularly honourable place in competition with the ambassador of an Indian prince, a shrewd compromise was found by the Ottoman court. For its officials had been informed that in India the left hand side was considered especially respectable, so that both ambassadors' claims might be satisfied at the same time.2 All this might lead to a lot of petty bickering; at least much of the manoeuvring for precedence appears as such to an observer of the early twentieth-first century. But for the purposes of this study, the main point is that most of the time, foreign envoys and high Ottoman officials disputed such matters because both sides understood very well what was at stake, namely the 'reputation' of the relevant ruler within a group of other
1 However, at least in the sixteenth century, the Ottoman court had at least as much trouble in accepting the shahs of Iran as Muslims as the kings of Spain had in admitting that Queen Elizabeth I of England or William of Orange were indeed Christians. Thus at the great circumcision feast of 1582, the Iranian representative was publicly insulted by having to watch the conversion, with all the pomp and ceremony imaginable, of a Shiite to Sunni Islam. He was thus in no better case than the European ambassadors who on such occasions, were expected to attend the war games in which the Ottomans bested their fellow Christians. Compare Nurhan Atasoy, 1582 Surname·i Hlimayun, An Imperial Celebration (Istanbul: K�bank, 1997), pp. I l l 123. 2 This story was relayed by the marquis de Bonnac in one of his unpublished papers: Archives and
diplomatiques de Nantes, Ambassade de France a Constantinople, S�rie A, Fonds St Priest, Correspondance politique 9, M�moires et pikes divers du marquis de Bonnac 1716-1724, fol. 83a (new pagination). I do not know whether such a case ever occurred, or whether it was invented by the author for his own purposes.
1 William Roosen, "Early Modern Diplomatic Ceremonial: A Systems Approach," The Journal
<JjModem History, 52,3 (1980), 452-476, see p. 459ff.
Oleg Grabar, The Formation of s/mnic Art (New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
1973), pp. 1 41-78 discusses the � hnk s between Romano-Byzantine and Sasanian building
practices and ceremonial on the one hand, and Umayyad palace architecture on the other.
EXOTIC ANIMALS AT THE SULTANS' COURT
Throughout the Eurasian continent, power over wild animals since ancient times has been considered a major attribute of the ruler. This issue has been well studied for many cultures, including ancient Mesopotamia, or, closer to the Ottomans in time, Moghul India.1 A variety of meanings have been suggested for this inclination to exhibit wild animals at the king's or emperor's court: thus in the early seventeenth century, Moghul rulers apparently borrowed the biblical motif of the lion lying next to the lamb/cow as a symbol of the ruler's power, who could command even lions to do his will.2 However while in the Ottoman case, issues such as palace architecture, pious foundations or the display of precious cloths and furs have been intensively studied with an eye towards elucidating their respective roles in sultanic legitimization, the power of the ruler to control wild animals has not attracted much attention. This is all the more surprising as recent work on seventeenth-century
French gardens should have alerted us to the possibilities of making imperial
claims visible by the display of exotica.3 As is well known, the region of Istanbul even in the seventeenth century was not exactly full of wild and dangerous beasts. The Ottoman sultans were thus in the same position as the majority of European potentates, that is, they had to procure most of the animals they wished to display from far a-field, as it was usually impossible to have these creatures caught by their own subjects or servitors. But then, the
trouble and expense necessary to bring a wild beast to Istanbul could in itself be considered a source of prestige, as this meant that the Ottoman ruler either possessed vassals in remote places whom he could command to do his bidding, or else he was rich enough to foot the bill himself.
1 Due to the attention paid to animals in Moghul texts and miniatures, the topic is certainly easier to study in the northern Indian context.
2 Ebba Koch, Shah Jahan and Orpheus: The_ Pierre_ Dure Decoration and the Programme of Shah Jahan's Throne in the Hall of Publ1c Aud1ences at the Red Fort of Delhi (Graz:
Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1988). 3 Chandra Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997). It is noteworthy th.at the author is much concerned with the trade in plants, but gives only the most cursory attention to the animals that also had some role to play in the self-assertion of Louis XIV (see PP· 177-78).
88
ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR PRI NCES
EXOT I C A N I M A L S AT T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
A prologue: Ottoman sultans and the hunt Hunting is the royal sport
par excellence,
89
However this paper is not about hunting, but about wild animals and in this respect, the
caught alive that were transported to Istanbul and kept at the sultans' court. Thus we have introduced the hunt only because certain wild beasts might be
Ottoman sultans followed the precedents established in Near Eastern empires
captured, tamed and used to track down whatever creatures were to be the final
both pre-Islamic and Islamic. Sasanid art had highlighted the rulers' enjoyment
objects of the sultanic chase. In this context, we will focus on wild cats,
(pars)
of the chase, and this example was i mitated in early Islamic art.1 Thus it
namely the leopards
life as
similarly to dogs or falcons. But in addition, we will also deal with felines
well, rulers could claim special privileges connected with the hunt: the wilder
kept purely for display, such as lions. Outside the hunt, we will discuss the
and rarer a given animal, the greater was the tendency to reserve its ritualized
elephants that probably produced the most dramatic effect in the sultan's
became a widespread pictorial
topos to depict the king hunting. In real
killing for the prince or sultan. Thus in seventeenth-century northern India, lions could still be found, although the numbers were doubtless limited. As a result, lion-hunting was reserved for the Moghul emperor and his sons, unless a less highly placed mortal enjoying the royal favor had been granted special permission.2 Presumably the meaning of this privilege was to emphasize both
acquired by the court to be used in hunting,
processions, as they were highly exotic, large enough to be seen from afar and
tame enough to not require a cage. I
Ottoman sources on lions and leopards
the ruler's physical prowess and his power to control the rare, strange and Ottoman sources on wild animals in a courtly context are not very
exotic. But it was not necessary to kill rare and fierce animals for hunting to
abundant. After a good deal of searching, I have been able to track down a few
feature as a sport suitable for a sultan. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
official documents from the eighteenth and very early nineteenth centuries. For
centuries, the Ottoman court frequently visited Edirne, where the supply of
the most part, these texts deal with matters only partially relevant to the
game was supposed to be especially good, and occasionally the rulers hunted on the Ke�i�dag1 near Bursa, the present-day Uludag. Here presumably hares,
animals themselves. Thus we are informed about the pay and food assigned to the guardians, and only in passing, the texts may also make brief references to
deer and perhaps foxes, wild boars or wolves were available, but no exotic
the nourishment assigned to the beasts. More relevant to our purposes, other
game.3 Hunting trips also might be undertaken in the immediate vicinity of
documents will discuss the conditions under which the sultan's lions were to
the Ottoman capita l. In 1588, the former galley slave Michael Heberer was able to watch Sultan Murad III while hunting in Hasbah�e, on the shores of the
Bosporus.4 This trip seems to have been undertaken more as a
be kept, special emphasis being placed on solid carts suitable for transporting
the dangerous creatures.2
animals. For Heberer describes the display of silks and brocades as well as the
Further information on the keeping of lions survives from 1231/181516; the document in question was written out during the early years of Mahmud II's reign (r. 1808-39). At this time, the administration was
fine horse trimmings paraded on this occasion, while he also notes that the
expecting a gift lion from Algiers, a province which but a few years later was
demonstration of the ruler's power and magnificence, than for actually killing
booty amounted to no more than 'one to six' hares. Apparently a large pile of
to be lost to the French. In preparation for the arrival of this animal, the
dead creatures at the end of the day was not what Murad III expected as the
ancient lion house in the former palace of Fazh Pa§a, near the AtmeydanJ, was
outcome of a sultanic hunt.
thoroughly overhauled, and there survives a detailed budget of the work to be
1 See Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven, London: Yale University Press,
1973), pp. 156-157, where hunting is mentioned among the pleasures that the ruler might enjoy in a rather demonstrative fashion. .
2 Thus Jahangir reported that while participating in a hunt, one of his courtiers was attacked by
a lion, and he himself fell down in the fray and was even trodden upon by his terrified servitors. Ultimately the courtier was saved by his companions. Compare Jahangir, The Jahangirnama. Memoirs ofJahangir, Emperor ofIndia, tr. by Wheeler M. Thackston (Washington, New York and Oxford ...: Freer Art Gallery, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 117-18.
3 For a miniature of Sultan SUieyman hunting deer, see Ivan Stchoukine, La peinture turque d'apr�s les manuscripts illustris, 2 parts (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1966 and 1971), part I, Ill. XXII (from the "SOieyman-name"); Ill. LXVI shows the same ruler killing a wild buffalo and Ill. LXIX, hunting a bear (both from Lokman's "Hiiner-name"). 4 Johann Michael Heberer von Bretten, Aegyptiaca Servitus, intr. by Karl Teply (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, reprint 1 967), pp. 352-53.
done and the expected costs (ke�i/).3
All these matters are very mundane. No Ottoman ruler unfortunately
has written memoirs resembling those of the Moghul emperors Babur and Jahangir, in which the authors expressed their interest in exotic animals and
l Apart from lions and leopards, the Ottoman palace owned hunting dogs and falcons, and also gazelles or deer, at least if an illustration of the �econd court of the Topkap1 Saray1, dating from 992/1584, is at all realistic. Compare Stchouktne, La peinture turque, part I, Ill. LXIII. This miniature forms part of the "Hiiner-n§me" of Seyyid Lokman. 2 See for example Bll§bakanhk AJlivi-Osmanh AJliVi, section Cevdet Saray 4301 (1 159/1746) and 6460 (1217/1802-03). 3 Cevdet Saray 6712 (12 1/1815-16). 3
90
ANOTHER
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their reactions when a particularly rare creature arrived in Delhi or Agra.l No official source hitherto has been found that explains why the presence of captive wild creatures was considered so desirable at the Ottoman court. But as so often, the gaps in our documentation have partly been filled by Evliya <;elebi's travelogue, in this particular instance the first volume, devoted to mid-seventeenth-century IstanbuJ.2 For in the context of a great parade that marked the beginning of a campaign undertaken by Sultan Murad IV, Evliya has a good deal to say about the exhibitors of trained animals, including those in the service of the ruler, and also about the wild creatures that they paraded before the Istanbul populace.
However many more details concerning the sultans' menagerie can be gleaned from the accounts of European travelers. On these writings in general, quite a few critical studies have been undertaken during the thirty;ears that have passed since the appearance of Edward Said's Orienta/ism. Frederic Tinguely has pointed out that in the sixteenth century, the sultans' menagerie formed part of the 'tourist itinerary' of European gentlemen visiting IstanbuJ.5 Thus the accounts that we find in many travelogues of the time may not be based on personal observation at all, but on the remarks found in the writings of the relevant author's predecessors.6
1 fZahiruddin Muhammad Babur], The Baburnama, Memoirs ofBabur, Prince and Emperor, tr.,
annotated and edited by Wheeler M. Thackston (Washington, New York and Oxford: Freer Art Gallery, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 334-42 contains a veritable description of the fauna of India, including elephants and the different uses to which they were put. On the less systematic observations of Jahangir, see The Jahangirnama. pp. 1 3334.
2 Evliya 9elebi Seyahatnamesi, 1. Kitap Istanbul, Topkap1 Saray1 Bagdat 30 Yazmasmm Transkripsyonu-Dizini, ed. by Orhan �aik Gokyay (Istanbul: Yap1 ve Kredi Bankas1, 1995). 3 Antoine Galland, Voyage a Constantinople (1672-1673), ed. by Charles Schefer, preface by
Frederic Baudin (Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, coli. Dedale, 2002). This is a reprint of the 1881 edition. Reinhold Lubenau, Beschreibung der Reisen des Reinhold Lubenau, ed. by W. Sahm, 2. vols. (Konigsberg/Kaliningrad: Ferd. Beyers Buchhandlung, 1912, 1915).
Frederic Tinguely, L'ecriture du Levant a Ia Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, and elsewhere.
5
91
However the lively and curious young pharmacist Reinhold Lubenau, who spent a year in Istanbul in 1588 in the service of the Habsburg ambassador Bartholomaus Pezzen, was interested in animals as a result of his professional training. Thus he has left a much more detailed account than other travelers of his visits to the main sultanic menagerie near the Atmeydam and its secondary branch, which has only been documented for the sixteenth century. The latter was located near a Byzantine palace that at the time was known as that of Constantine, out on the road to Eyiip.' In addition, an instructive description of the leopard keepers who participated in a sultanic procession has been authored by Antoine Galland. Galland spent about a year in Istanbul in 1672-73, and was greatly impressed by the splendor of Ottoman state ceremonial. His account thus forms a welcome complement to Evliya's
Two European diaristsl
4 Edward W. Said, Orienta/ism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
E X O T I C A N I M A L S A T T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
description of a festive parade that must have been happened about a generation earlier, but appears to have been of rather a similar type. Both Lubenau and Galland have left diaries covering their stays in the Ottoman capital that were not published during their own life-times. In the case of Lubenau, the author did however presumably rework his diary to conform to the standards of contemporary scholarly writing. This must have happened long after the author's return to his native city of Konigsberg, today Kaliningrad. It is probably due to this latter-day revision that the manuscript contains numerous references, especially to authors of antiquity; these were after all considered essential in any work claiming scholarly merit.2 However, for reasons that remain unknown the diary was published only several centuries later, namely in 1912-15. Lubenau liked a good story and even though he knew no Ottoman, apparently had no trouble mixing with people. But he was not very critical in outlook, and as a result, he has relayed a good bit of folklore which he himself took for gospel truth. Thus he gives us figures and descriptions reminiscent of Evliya <;elebi at his most exuberant, not only about the many hundreds of thousands of dead counted in Istanbul during a recent plague epidemic, but also about the anatomical and physiological characteristics of some of the animals he had seen.
2000), pp. 73-88
6 Lubenau made some cutting remarks about gentlemen who visited Istanbul, but were quite incapable of relating to the locals or making sense of what they saw. He also mentions little lists of 'sights to be seen' (exemp/aria) that he copied and sold to some gentlemen of his acquaintance. If he had not done so, was Lubenau's conclusion, after their return to Christendom these people would have been quite incapable of saying anything coherent about their visit. The existence of such leaflets, which probably did not survive because of their insubstantial character, helps to explain some of the similarities between the sixteenth-<:entury travelers' accounts as commented upon by Tinguely, passim. For comparable observations concerning pilgrimage ac,counts, see Stephane Yerasimos, Les voyageurs dans /'Empire ottoman (X!ve-XVr siecles). Bibliographie, itineraires et inventaire des lie�a habitls (Ankara: Ttlrk Tarih Kurumu, 1991). pp. 17-18.
1 Petrus Gyllius, who was in Istanbul for most of the time between 1544 and 550, also mentions 1 that the sultan's elephants were kept in a ruin called the palace of Constantine, on the 'seventh hill' and close to the suburb he calls the Hebdomum; compare Pierre Gilles, The Antiquities of Constantinople, tr. by John Ball and ed. by Ronald G. Musto (New York: Italica Press, 1988), p. 190. In an as yet unpublished paper read at a symposium on the Safavids (London
2
2002), Sonia Brentjes has demonstrated that Pietro della V�le, the famous seventeenth-century visitor to Iraq �n. He first wrote a fairly informal diary which and Iran, proceeded in exactly the sa�e fash J< after his return to Italy he interlaced w1th cl�s•c:al quotations, with the specific aim of proving the scholarly quality of his work and estabhshmg his credentials, above all with the Roman Inquisition.
92
A NOTHER
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By contrast, Antoine Galland
FOR
(1646-1715)
P R I N C ES
a student of Near Eastern
languages was a more sophisticated personage. Apparently he never meant to publish his diary, but used it in order to compose the more formal writings that he submitted to his patrons. For the most part, these latter 'official' accounts of Galland's travels were not published and do not seem to have survived. But we have the good fortune to possess a rather informal text, in
which the author 'spoke to himself' and possibly was less concerned about being 'politically correct' than he would have been in the case of a manuscript meant to be printed: over many pages, Galland waxes enthusiastic about the visual qualities of Ottoman sultanic parades. By contrast, his contemporary the French ambassador De Nointel, who witnessed much the same scenes, was much cooler in his report. After all for a diplomat reporting to Versailles, it would not have been appropriate to belittle, if only tacitly and by comparison, the brilliance of the court festivals organized on behalf of Louis XIV.
E X O T I C A N I M A L S A T T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
93
This is all the more regrettable as Lubenau seems to have found means of communicating with the men in charge of the Arslanhane, and to my knowledge, he is the only author to relay stories derived from this source. However the author was much less interested in the leopards and lions than in a hyena
'czirtlan'
(Turkish:
szrtlan),
which he considered to be extremely
ferocious and courageous. Lubenau gave a detailed description of the creature, only marred by the tall tale that the hyena had no teeth, and instead did its biting with a solid bone. In addition to the factual description, the author also included a good bit of folklore: apart from a belief in the aphrodisiac qualities of hyena's meat, the author also relayed some stories about the creature's supposed ability to understand human language. As later accounts do not mention the presence of hyenas among the animals displayed in the sultan's menagerie, it is possible that its very rarity gave rise to these fantastic inventions.1 Or maybe the keepers and/or the translators were just having a bit of fun at the expense of a curious stranger? If so, they succeeded brilliantly,
Oflions, leopards and
-
less gloriously - hyenas
Leopards, or other wild cats closely resembling them, were quite frequently used in the sultan's hunt. These creatures that Galland describes as 'une espece de tigre' were apparently very tame and could be taken along on
horseback by their keepers. 1 Galland says that the onlookers felt both
astonishment and fear when seeing the leopards: astonishment because of their peaceful attitude, and the rich cloths with which they were covered, and fear because of their ferocious looks. Yet we are left to wonder whether Galland was really a good judge of the feelings of his Ottoman fellow viewers; for Evliya, who also listed the pars�ls i n his well-known procession account, cites a ditty which seems to consist of the excuses made by a leopard keeper when the animal in his charge had failed to catch anything at all.2 However at least in Lubenau' s view, the leopards took second place to the lions, of which the Arslanhane housed eight at the time of his visit. These were also extremely tame, for Lubenau reported that not only did the keepers play with them 'as if they were large dogs', but they were also sometimes led through the city so that members of the public could amuse themselves with them, 'as with a sheep'. Unfortunately there is no information on the trainers, nor do we find any information on the methods they used in domesticating their charges.
I Galland, Voyage, p. 135.
2 Evliya t;elebi Seyahatnamesi, 1. Kitap. p. 283.
because even after more than four hundred years, we are still left guessing.
The Arslanhane: from Byzantine church to Fazll PQ.$a Sarayl When Lubenau visited Istanbul, the leopards were housed in the main building of the sultanic menagerie, which the young pharmacist described as a former Byzantine church.2 Art historians have identified this building with the church of Christ constructed, in the tenth century, over the Chalke gate of the original palace of the Byzantine emperors.3 Twenty years after Lubenau, the Arslanhane was once again described by the Polish Armenian Simeon, who in
1608-09
visited Istanbul on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Simeon saw a
variety of felines including lions, and noted that in the fairly high-rise building, images of saints could still be recognized; these must have been remnants of frescoes or mosaics.4 In the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the building was once again described by the Armenian Mecharist 1 According to the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1963, the species of hyena found i n Iran and Anatolia is striped, while the spotted variety lives in Africa, "from Abyssinia to the Cape." Lubenau describes a spotted animal, although his comparison to a tiger casts some doubts on the a ct of the African variety, its rarity ac_curacy of. his description. If the hyena he saw was i� � �ght explam why the keepers of the Arslanhane were w1lhng to feed it.
Lubenau, Beschreibung, vol. 1, p. 152-53. 3 Cyril Mango, The Brazen House, A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Kopenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959) and the article "Arslanhane" i n Diinden Bugiine Istanbul Ansiklopedisi, 8 vols. (Istanbul: KiJIUlr Bakanhg1 and Tarih Vakf1, 1993-1995)
by _Semavi. Eyice, who has discovered t �e most dramatic
ngraving depleting the Arslanhane,
� work Of 0. lnciciyan. r IllUStratiOn that forms part Of the m�lti-VO�Ume geographiC . Hrand Andreasyan tr., Oniversitesi, 1964), p. 7.
Polonyalt Stmeon un SeyahatntJmesi /608-1619
(Istanbul: Istanbul
94
ANOTHER M I R R O R FOR P R I NCES
E X O T I C A N I M A L S A T T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
monk and highly productive geographer G. inciciyan. This author reported that
the Arslanhane, which in an upper floor also contained a workshop of
draftsmen and designers
(nakka�hane)
was destroyed in a fire and shortly
afterwards torn down in order to make room for the extension of the sultan's
(cebehane). 1 Now the nakka�hane
armory
was not the only workshop i n
this
neighborhood; quite to the contrary, the Fazh Pasa Sarayt, as the location where the sultan's lions were kept in the eighteenth century was often called, was filled with a variety of workplaces, including a dye-house whose revenues helped to finance the library that Ahmed Ill had founded in the Palace.2 Concrete information is hard to come by, but it is quite possible that a disused palace had been turned into a set of utilitarian buildings, as had also happened in the Byzantine structure known as the Tekfur Sarayt, where in the eighteenth century a manufacture of fine faience had established itself.3 But it seems that the fire mentioned by inciciyan did not mean that the
sultan's menagerie disappeared from the area. For from the
t23l/l815-16, we
ke�if report of
learn that the sultan had personally ordered the refurbishing
of an old stone or brick construction close to the Hippodrome, inside the compound known as Fazlt
Pa�a ("At meydanmda kain Fazlt
Pa�a derununda
mevcud kargirler derununa").4 This included renewal of the iron bars, which were to close off the arches
(kemerler) under which the lions had
previously
been kept. Thus while the building of Mahmud ll's time is not called Arslanhane, it does seem to have had some past history as a place where the ruler's lions had been housed. The arches mentioned in our text must either correspond to those of the former church that Lubenau had visited and described i n some detail, or to some other similar structure, possibly the former St John's church on the Dihippion.5 In addition to iron grates and bars, the repair project included a refurbishing of the eaves, insertion of window glass, new floors and also a new door. Total expenses amounted to
3330.5
95
guru�.l Thus the sultanic menagerie survived the fire of
I 802 and at the present state of our information, we cannot tell when it finally disappeared.2 Apparently the lion expected from Algiers was not a tame creature of
the type that had thrilled sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Istanbullus; as a result, it was necessary to make arrangements to get him safely off the ship and through the city. Around
1800, the
Palace apparently kept about six carts
solid enough for this purpose, and when these were no longer serviceable, the parlous state of the Ottoman finances during those years did not prevent the administration from assigning money for replacement and repair. Admittedly, these carts were not very expensive; and a new one could be had for the
relatively modest sum of 300 guru�.
As to the men in charge of lions and other felines, they were grouped
into two corps. Evliya <;elebi briefly mentions the parsftS or leopard keepers.
In Murad IV's parade as described by this author, the men, supposedly fifty five in number, carried valuable leopard skins and staffs with which they controlled the sultan's hunting leopards, which were covered in costly fabrics. As an organized body, the leopard keepers seem to have existed until the very end of the seventeenth century. Then, in
1098/1 686-87,
the corps was
abolished, probably to save money during the disastrous war with Austria and possibly also as a measure designed to reestablish the dynasty's prestige: after all in
1687, Mehmed IV was deposed as
unfit to rule exactly because he
had spent so much time and energy on the hunt. In the early eighteenth century, there was an effort to once again found such a corps, but we do not know whether this attempt was at all successful}
However Evliya's most valuable information involves the Arslanhane
as a going concern, supposedly with one hundred employees. These men venerated as their patron the Imam Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, one of whose titles is that of 'lion of God' .4 It appears that differently from the leopard-keepers, this institution survived all seventeenth- and eighteenth
century attempts to save money by streamlining the sultans' court. In fact, throughout the later eighteenth century, there existed regular positions to be filled whenever the current incumbent died or retired. Thus in 1 17111757-58, when Mustafa III had just ascended the throne, a certain ismail asked and
1 See the article "Arslanhane" in Diinden Bugiine Istanbul Ansiklopedisi by Semavi Eyice. 2 This dye-house later was transferred to Bursa. Compa Suraiya Faroqhi, "Ortak l§l!kler�e � r _ Ozel Evler Arasmda XVIII. Yuzytl Bursa'smda f�yerlen" translated by Rtta Urgan m B1r Masaldz Bursa... ed. Engin Venal (Istanbul: Yapt ve Kredi Bankast, 1996), pp. 97-1 04. 3 Wolfgang MUller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie /stanbuls, Byr.antion Konstantinopolis Istanbul (fUbingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1977), pp. 24 47. 4 4 Cevdet Saray 6712 (123111815- 1 6). 5 MUller-Wiener, Bildluikon, p. 81; however on p. 441 the same author surmises that this church was tom down already before or around 1512 to malce room for the Firuz A«a mosque. lA question reste ouverte. •
•
received confirmation of his appointment as arslanct, which he had already
l Cevdet Saray 6712. Identification is made difficult by the fact that there were many former Byzantine churches in the area. 2 There is apparently no link to the present-day Istanbul zoo, which for a few decades was situated in Gulhane Park, adjacent to the Topkapa Palace. The zoo was only founded in the middle 1950s when a previous animal refuge on the site was reorganized; compare the anicle "Hayvanat bahyesi" in Diinden Bugiine Istanbul Ansiklopedisi.
3 Cevdet Saray 61 5 1 (1 113/1701-02). 4 Evliya (:elebi Seyahalnamesi, 1. Kitap, P· 245.
%
ANOTHER M IR ROR
FOR
P R I N C ES
held under Osman III (1754-57) and Mahmud I ( 1730-54). Admittedly the
position carried the purely symbolic pay of just
2 ak�e a day.l
Moreover the
corps of lion-keepers still existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. From this period there survives a petition, in fairly colloquial Turkish, signed
by the chief lion keeper (arslanczba§l).2 Thus while other personnel in charge
of wild animals were apparently hired and fired according to need, this was not true of the lion-keepers. Rather, the latter seem to have shown considerable institutional permanence. I wonder whether this meant that above all other creatures, lions
were considered an
important vehicle of sultanic
representation, almost a kind of necessity.
E X O T I C A N I M A L S A T T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
97
hidden in their wide legs. We may assume that some if not all of these
elephants were creatures of art rather than of nature as one miniature shows an elephant spouting fireworks from his nostrils, and real animals do not take
�
kindly o that sort of treatment. I In fact the artificers from the corps of the
cannomers and armorers (top�u.
cebeci) did construct an elephant in order to 1720,
set off their mock fortress to better advantage, so that quite possibly in there were no real elephants present at alJ.2
On the other hand, Indian miniatures show that life-size three dimensional statues of elephants did figure in certain palace contexts, and the idea of displaying such artwork may thus have come to Istanbul from the Moghul empire, along with the living elephants that both Indian rulers and Ottoman sultans were proud to display. For throughout their existence,
Elephants in pictorial sources
Moghul rulers continued to favor the elephant, for festive as for warlike
Lions could be procured from North Africa, and certain felines probably came from the mountain forests of the Balkans. However elephants were in a different category as they had to be imported from India or tropical Africa (probably the former in most instances) and thus must have been even rarer and more precious.3 Their existence at the court of the sultans is documented in writing mainly for the second half of the eighteenth century. 4 For the older period, miniatures form almost our only source: thus an elephant figures among the gifts brought to the Ottoman court by a Safawid embassy depicted in the early seventeenth century; the animal had probably transited through Iran on its way from India.5 A set of miniatures by the painter Levni, commemorating the famous circumcision festival organized in
1720 for the sons of Ahmed III, shows several elephants with
pursuits. From the very last years of the dynasty (1815) there survives a sketch of an elephant image decked out with fireworks, meant to be paraded through the streets at some public festivaJ.3 As an alternative source of inspiration, the Ottoman palace often must
�
trtbute and later as diplomatic gifts.4 A late example of this type of decoration still survives i n the treasury of the Topkap1 palace. These pieces may well
have contributed towards familiarizing Palace artists with the decorative potential of the elephant. Reproducing these creatures in different sizes thus formed part of what may be considered a common Eurasian festive culture.
highly decorated
howdahs participating in the processions that were organized in this context.6 However the miniatures by themselves do not allow us to determine whether
Sultans and elephants in official records
the elephants in question were authentic, or else imitations propelled by men 1 Bll§bakanhk A�ivi-Osmanh A�ivi, section Maliyeden miidevver 9989 (1 171/1757-58), p. 45. 2 Cevdet Saray 6460 (1217/1802-03). 3 A.lmost not�ing is known about the political context in which certain Indian or Safawid rulers
dec1ded to d1�patch elepha�ts to the Ottoman co�rt; particularly, we have no idea whether Istanbul. offic1als had previOusly expressed a desue to receive these animals. However the . sup�ly h�es from India t?. th� Portugue�e, Papal and Habsburg courts have been studied in some . and Western Eurasia in the Sixteenth detail: M1chael Gorgas, Ammal Tradmg between Ind1a Century -- the Role of the Fuggers i� Animal Trading," in K. S. Mathew, Indo-Portuguese T�tu!e and the_ t:uggers o!Cfermany, Szxteenth Century (Delhi: Manohar, 1997), pp. 195-225 and llVIO A. Bed1m, Pope s Elephant (Nashville: J. S. Sanders and Company, 1998). . Evhya has nothm� to say about elephants, so presumably in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Palace d1d not own any. 5 Stchoukine, La peinture turque, part I, Ill. CXI. This is an illustration of a "Sh!Ut-nime" executed for Sultan Osman II. 6 Esin Atll, Levni and the Surname. The Story of an Eighteenth-century Ottoman Festival (Istanbul: K�bank, 1999)
�
�he
�
have receiv d the table-sized silver elephants that were popular in Europe . d nng the SIXteenth and seventeenth centuries, first as part of the Habsburg
Less ambiguous are the official documents surviving from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, reflecting the physical presence of an
� Atll, Levni and the Surname, p. 164.
3 Atll, Levni and the Surname, p. 204.
Co�pare I (?) 4596.• fol. 15, belonging to th� s��liche Museen ZU Berlin, Museum filr e we see a Jive elephant' wh'l · tur Islarmsche Kunst, Berhn. In the foreground of th1s rmma 1 e 10 the backgrou�d. � statue of the same animal guards the entran�e to the Palace. the �mbmation of eleph � nts �d fireworks in a Moghul context see Georg Kohler with Ahce .YIIlon-Lechn�r eds., D�e scMne Kunst der Verschwendung. Fest und Feuerwerk m · der . �uropaiSchen Geschtchte (Zunch: Mumch: Artemis, 1988), p. 207. The standard work on this subject is Otto Kurz, European Clocks and Watche n the N, East (London, Leiden: Tbe Warburg Institute, University of London and E. J. Bri�l 1975)·. 1 · the reference to Busbecq, see pp. 28-2 own text' an ed'1t1·0n of the ongma' . 9. As.to Busbecq's . . . Ghiselin van Boesbeck Dutch 1s .. along w1th a transIation mto ,ound m 0g1er . ' y1·er br·e 1 ven over . ep1stulae het gezansc · l)e, Legatto_m quatuor tr. by Michel Goldsteen and -r k" · ·s 71urc1cae t hap naar .ur annotated by Zweder von Martels (HIIversum: Verloren, 1994), see pp. 268-69.
0�
�
·
•
���
98
ANOTHER M I R R OR FOR P R I NCES
E X O T I C A N I M A L S AT T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
elephant in the sultanic menagerie. In a sequence of documents dated
1 1 52/1739-40,
we are told that expenditure on both the elephant(s) and
its/their keepers amounted to 5 1 0
121.5 guru�
ak�e (4 guru�
and
30 a.k�e)
per day and
per month. I In a further petition dated Rebi' II 1 1 54/June-July
1741, Hact Isa, bearing the title of ser-.filiyan-t
hassa
(chief elephant keeper)
confirmed having received the monthly allowance assigned to the animal; it amounted to
15,300 akfe or slightly over 127 guru�. There
99
1 a lance to goad it. With due allowance for error, miniatures showing Ottoman elephant riders in their howdah with the mahout up front do not seem to occur in the surviving manuscripts. 2 Our next piece of evidence comes from the later eighteenth century, when the ruler of the Indian principality of Djalbar had sent a single elephant A document dated
1 197/1782-83
tells us that the sultan had ordered the transfer
is no explanation
of the animal to Edirne; this may indicate that Abdiilhamid I, who spent most
for the discrepancy between the two figures, which may have been due to
of his time i n Istanbul, considered the elephant of only marginal significance.
higher food prices or else special needs of the animal and its keepers. This
This impression is confirmed by the fact that a minor local official, the kt�lak
money was taken out of the customs accounts (probably of Istanbul) and was
emini, was expected to find
spent among other things, on 1 of butterfat and
.ktyye ( 1.2828 kg) of sugar, the same quantity
14 ktyye of bread,
which the elephant consumed every single
'a suitable place' for the animal and see to its food
and drink. Apparently the sultan did not think that either he or any members
day.2 Some time during the mid-forties, the Palace moreover acquired a second
of his household would ever enjoy seeing the elephant paraded in the streets of the capitaJ.3 A further bit of evidence survives from the early nineteenth
animal; but nothing is known about the circumstances of its arrival.
century, those difficult years when the young sultan Mahmud II was still
Hact Isa, who was paid 7.5
guru�
per month, in
helpers at his disposal, each of whom received no more
1 1 55/1742 had 1 3 than four guru�. It
does not seem that there were any specific guidelines concerning the number of men needed to care for an elephant; for in the occasional 'orders of payment'
consolidating his position. In
1233/1815-16,
the year in which, as we have
seen, the lion cages were repaired in the expectation of new inmates, the Palace also had acquired an unspecified number of elephants by way of Iran, 30 guru� per month.4 Quite possibly this
for which keepers were hired at
that are all we possess as evidence, varying numbers of people are mentioned
regain of activity in the sultanic menagerie had something to do with the fact
even when there was apparently no change in the animals kept. But in all
that Mahmud II was still quite young, and thus interested in matters of display
likelihood, the real attraction of the job consisted of the 'perks': for the men
that had seemed irrelevant to Abdtilhamid I, who was already middle-aged when
received a variety of everyday necessities i n kind. In certain accounts, salt, chickpeas, onions and wax were mentioned.3 In another instance, we hear of
he ascended the throne. Once again, we do not know when the Palace received
firewood, bread, meat, butterfat and half a ktyye of rice a day, delivered by the
elephants for the last time.
storeroom of the sultanic kitchen. Paying the elephant keepers' money wages was part of the responsibility of the Palace marshal
(mirahor aga).
There is no indication where the elephant keepers had learned how to
And whaJ did it all mean?
take care of the animal; but quite possibly at least the senior man had
Interested foreign observers have provided many details unavailable in
accompanied the elephant from its homeland, and undertaken the pilgrimage en
the Ottoman sources, but precisely because of their position as foreigners,
route. While visitors to India often have referred to the close relationship the
they have not been able to say much about the meaning of the events they had
keeper (mahout) established with his animal, there is no indication in our
witnessed. Given the silence of Ottoman official sources, so far I have only
sources that anything of the kind was attempted in Istanbul. Thus it seems
found a single clue concerning the role of wild animals in sultanic ceremonial;
that at the Ottoman court, the art of elephant riding was not really mastered:
once again we owe it to Evliya Celebi . When describing the famous parade
the animals, or at times their mechanical images, simply were made to pull
of artisans and officials held in honor of Murad IV's campaign, Evliya claims
wagons. Or else in a miniature from the earlier surviving illustrated festival book, that of
1582, two men are awkwardly perched on top of the animal
with
1 Cevdet Saray 7256 (1152/1739-40). In the documents of the time, the gurul is considered
e quiv al ent to 120 alcfe. Compare Cevdet Saray 6852 (1155/1742-43).
2 Cevdet Saray kitchen.
430 (1 159/1746). The foodstuffs were delivered from the stores of the sultan's
3 Cevdet Saray 2274 (1 155/1742-43), 3635 (1 158/1745) and 6410 {1 154/1741-42).
I Metin And, Osmanlt $enliklerinde Ill. No 61.
Turk Sanatlart (Ankara: KUitUr ve Turizm Bakanhg1, 1982),
2 However member of the Iranian embassy s.hown in a miniature of the Sbah-n§me of Sultan s Osman II ride a richly caparisoned elephant •n exactly this fashion: Stchoultine, La peimure . turque, part I, lll. CXI
3 Cevdet Saray 6016 (1 1921 1782-83). 4 Cevdet Saray 6718 (1233/1815-16).
A N OT H E R M I R R O R
100
FOR PRINCES
that ten lions, five leopards and twelve tigers, in addition to foxes, wolves, jackals and hyenas were marched in the procession by attendants. 1 Particularly the lions were loaded with chains; but just in case one of them broke loose, their keepers carried gazelle meat which had been treated with opium and other somniferous drugs. In case of an accident, the lion, so it was hoped, could be pacified by this food. That the lions were not kept i n cages mounted on carts, as seems to have been the case in the early nineteenth century, may be taken to indicate that the sight was intended to strike terror in the hearts of the populace. The viewers were not meant to feel a moderate and vicarious titillation, but the grip of real fear. Moreover even if Evliya had invented this detail, the story would still be of interest, for he was a well-informed observer familiar with Ottoman court practice, and should have known very well what effects the designers of the procession had intended with their display. However this was a time of festivity, and the feeling of terror should not have been allowed to get out of hand. Thus Evliya also told us that the furriers participating in the parade dressed up as wild animals, and scared the spectators 'for the mere fun of it. •2 Thus there was a gentle transition between the 'real' and the 'theatrical ', and the real fear aroused by the chained lions should have been dissipated by the tame bears and other creatures which
amused the spectators at this and other sultanic processions.3 Apparently it
was an essential part of Ottoman festivals to highlight people on the point of
coming to grievous bodily harm, but stopping just short of this eventuality.4 If a bit of speculation is permitted: this mixture of fear of the lion or other
wild beast, and trust in the joyous outcome of the festive encounter with such
a creature, may well have enhanced popular trust in the protective powers of the padi�ah-t
alempenah,
'the refuge of the world' to whom even wild beasts
did obeisance. Matters are somewhat different in the case of the elephants. If their
depiction in eighteenth-century miniatures is any guide, they were shown not as wild beasts, denizens of the jungle, but as animals specially trained to serve their owners, similarly to the horses that formed the principal responsibility
of the mirahor. While the Ottomans never took elephants along to war, they
E X O T I C A N I M A L S AT T H E S U LT A N S ' C O U R T
101
by the accoutrements the (artificial) elephants were made to pull in their processions. For in Levni's artwork depicting the celebrations of 1720, we see these animals carrying turrets equipped with mock cannons, to say nothing of the images of armed men ornamenting the turrets and the living soldiers manning the mock fortifications. I At least in the make-believe world of the festival, the Ottoman sultan had thus augmented his army by the formidable force of a few war elephants. Moreover India with its numerous wonders both man-made and natural enjoyed a certain prestige in the Ottoman world while on the other hand at least around 1600 there was more or less explicit competition between the Moghul rulers and the Ottoman sultans. Given this state of affairs, we can surmise that elephants demonstrated sultanic power and access to exotic creatures. Perhaps the latter were paraded in the streets of Istanbul to show that the sultans could rival their Indian counterparts in every conceivable way.2 If we carry speculation yet a step further, we can also suppose that considerations of this kind moti vated the Ottoman officials who designed the
1720 procession. By showing to the Istanbul populace an image of an elephant pulling a symbol of massed firepower, namely towers and castles manned by gunners, they were out to show that the sultan was not merely the equal of any Indian ruler but in fact the most powerful figure i n the Islamic world. After all in India the Ottomans, here known as Rumis had long enjoyed the reputation of being superior fighters due to their employment of guns and now at least for the duration of a procession, the sultan's soldiers possessed elephants as welJ.3 Perhaps the idea was to say that the elephant
served to
bring the fortress into position, and thus ceded first place to the
skill and strength of Ottoman soldiers. Or else the organizers may have thought that really superior power could be obtained by combining the martial virtues of Ottomans and Moghul Indians. This question, and others like it, will need further investigation.
I At!l, Levni and the Surname, p. 204. A different version of the same arrangement is found in And, OsmlJIIli Senlilclerinde T iirk Sanallart, lll. No 60.
2 Possibly the elephants also were meant to refer to the war elephants of King Poru�,
I Evliya 9elebi Seyahatnamesi, 1. Kitap. p. 245. 2 Evliya 9elebi Seyahatnamesi, 1. Kitap, p. 282. 3 Aul, Levni and the Surname. p. 186 shows a scene from the Surname of 1720: here the
. Alexander/lskender's defeated Indian rival; but to date I have not been able to substantiate th1s hypothesis. . There is no doubt that the Moghul ruler Jahangir did see the Ottoman sultan as a nval to be disparaged. In The Jahangirnama, p. 95 he discussed the visit of a Transoxanian who described himself as an Ottoman ambassador; only the Moghul court did not believe this claim. In this ncest or) Timur had acted magnanimously .tow.ards the context Jahangir explained that (his � defeated Bayezid Ylldmm, and 1mphed that the Ottoman sultans had been am1ss !n never sending any envoys to the Moghuls who should have been honored as descendants ofT1mur.
4Thus certain people were in the habit of sticking knives into their bodies and thus showing off
centrale
emulated this widespread Indian practice, often depicted in Moghul miniatures,
t ors are entertained by a mock. attack on the part of tame bean>. specta
their endurance at parades. But when one of them died, the festival organizers, on behalf of Sultan Murad Ill, prohibited this practice on pain of death. Compare Lubenau, Beschreibung, vol. 2, p. 51.
3 Seyyidl 'All Re'fs, Le miroir des pays� Une anabase ottomane
� travers 1'/nd.e e� l'Asie
and comments by Jean-Lou1s Bacqu�-Grammont (IAix-e-Provence]: Smdbad Actes S�d 1999) pp. 66-67 referred to the many job offers his men received from Indian potenta te s 'Although the reasons were not made explicit the soldiers and sailors were probably considered ex.pert in the use of firearms. tr.
.
OTTOMAN VIEWS ON CORSAIRS AND PIRACY IN THE ADRIATIC
The political setting It has long been known that between 1500 and 1800 the Mediterranean was filled with officially licensed corsairs whenever the area was a theatre of war, quite apart from the freebooters who,
sit venia verbo,
used the occasion
to fish in troubled waters.l Moreover, when there was no major war, unlicensed pirates were not lacking, and some of them might be commercial competitors of the people they attacked. This applied, to cite only the best known case, to the English merchants of the late 16th century who, by dint of piracy, tried to eliminate Venetian shippers by driving up the insurance rates which the latter had to pay.2 In a grey zone between corsairs and pirates moved those captains who considered themselves to be perpetually at war with the 'other side', regardless of truces and even peace treaties between Venice and the
Ottomans, or the Habsburg King of Spain and the Ottoman sultan. In their own understanding, such captains were corsairs and not pirates, even though the government whom they allegedly served might take a different view. According to a story from the 17th century, an Ottoman freebooter and his crew were at least as wary of the Sultan's provincial governor as they were of unidentified sails suddenly appearing on the horizon.3 But then of course all this activity was rendered possible by the fact that the major states were ambiguous about captains claiming allegiance to themselves who robbed and enslaved people considered as the 'infidel ', whoever that might be in a particular case. The Venetian Signoria quite often found itself in the position of sheltering freebooters. Usually it was only fear of a major war with the Ottoman sultan which induced the courts of the Serenissima to punish captured pirates who had attacked traders from Istanbul or Sarajevo, and sometimes Ottoman pashas - or indeed, to catch the robbers
1 Fernand Braude!, lA Mediterranee et le nwnde mediterraneen a l'epoque de Philippe JJ, 2 vols. (Paris Librarie Armand Colin, 1966). v . II, p. 190-212. 2 Alberto Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). 3A. Tietze, Die Geschichte vom Kerkermeister-Kapitan, Ein tUrkischer Seerliuberroman aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, Acta Orientalia, 19 (1942) 152-210.
104
ANOTHER M I RR O R FOR P R I NC E S
at att.l In 1645 the war which, twenty-five years later, led to the Ottoman conquest of Crete, began with a case of piracy.2 Moreover, we have to distinguish between the Signoria itself and its local governors in Dalmatia and elsewhere, who might condone acts of piracy the authorities in Venice considered highly undesirable. Questions of material gain were much to the forefront. While apart from a few major port towns, the Dalmatian coasts did not produce a great deal of revenue, to accord protection to a pirate or self styled corsair might entail a share of the booty, a tempting opportunity for an impecunious Venetian commander. Something rather similar applies to the Ottoman side. To begin with, there were the North African provinces of Algiers, Tunis and Tripolis, whose militias and sea captains, even though they recognised the Sultan as overlord, did not regard themselves as bound by the treaties which a European state might conclude with the Ottoman central government.3 But even in the eastern Mediterranean, there were frequent complaints about provincial governors who accorded marauders the protection of their fortifications, despite numerous sultanic commands to the contrary. Apparently day-to-day relations with foreign merchants were not the province of the central gove:-:tment at all, but constituted the responsibility of local authorities, often rather junior ones. Some of these officials felt inspired by the ghazi ethos, and therefore protected raiders against the infidel even if it meant violating the terms of a privilege granted by their own Sultan.4 Moreover, material gain was of course no Jess important in the Ottoman case than in the Venetian. Certain governors, expecting a share of the loot, provided Algerian or Tunisian corsairs with protection, victuals and a place to market their captives. Other office-holders, for the very same reason, might react in the opposite fashion. This was the case particularly if the Ottoman governors or fortress commanders in question had established mutually profitable relations with Venetian or other foreign merchants active in the area they happened to govern. How the central Ottoman authorities would react to a raid undertaken
by captains owing allegiance to the Sultan thus was determined by ever-shif ting political considerations. Not merely the central administration, but also
1A. Fabris, Un caso di pirateria veneziana: Ia cattura della galea del bey di Gerba (21 ottobre 1584), Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 8 (1990) 91-112. This article discusses a well documented attack by a Venetian pirate on an Ottoman galley carrying the young son of the governor of Tripolis/Africa, along with his mother. Both these personages were murdered with great brutality and much further loss of life. Under significant pressure from Istanbul, the Signoria finally executed the pirate captain. 2F.G. Lane, Venice, a Maritime Republic, (Baltimore 1973) p. 408. 3According to Lane, Venice, p. 408, Venice long refused to negotiate with the three 'Regencies' directly, and Venetian ships accordingly were regarded as legitimate prizes. By contrast, France and especially Holland were pragmatic in these matters ; cf. D. Panzac, Les corsaires barbaresques. La fin d'une lpopee 1800-1820 (Paris 1999). 4suraiya Faroqhi, The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire, The Journal of European &onomic History (Rome), 15 (1986) 345-384.
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local governors and tax collectors were guided by the interests of the fisc on the one hand, but often enough, by more particularistic concerns on the other. A further complication arose from the presence of Austrian Habsburgs close to the northern edge of the Adriatic Sea. Admittedly in the years around 1600, this dynasty was not yet in the business of encouraging trade through Trieste. This was to happen only from the 18th century onwards, when the Habsburgs encouraged immigration into this port town, which, as a result, became a serious competitor of Venice for the regional trade of northern Italy. But in the context of Habsburg-Ottoman rivalry, refugees from the Ottoman Balkans and sometimes also from Venetian territories were made welcome at
the impregnable coastal fortress of Senj/Segna. 1 Known as Uskoks, these men commanded almost no resources except piracy and/or corsair activity, two
ways of life which, however distinct they might be in theory, often were difficult to distinguish in practice. The Uskoks' depredations were directed not
only against Muslim merchants; quite to the contrary, Uskok captains attacked
Ottoman Christians with equal relish. If a justification was needed, their spokesmen often claimed that by recognising the overlordship of the Sultan,
Greek, Anatolian or Syrian merchants had placed themselves outside the pale of Christianity, to say nothing of the fact that they were Orthodox 'schismatics'.2 Venetian merchants frequently risked becoming the victims of the Uskoks as well, since they owed allegiance to a hostile state. Considerable research has been done on the bind in which the Uskoks' depredations placed the Signoria3. According to the agreement with the Ottoman Sultans, the Venetians had the right and duty to attack and pursue pirates active in the Adriatic. Where Christians were involved, this posed no problems from the Sultans' point of view - proceedings against Muslims, however, could lead to complications if they were on a large enough scale. Whenever the Venetians did not act speedily or decisively enough, the Ottoman side indicated that the Sultan's naval commanders might take the matter into their own hands, and this was something the Signoria tried to avoid at all costs. For quite apart from the danger that the presence of the Sultan's men-of-war might entail for Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, Venice's standing within Christendom was also at issue. In the troubled years around 1600, an admission that the Signoria was unable to police the Adriatic could easily lead to an intervention on the part of Spanish governors based in Milan or Naples, with serious dangers for Venetian sovereignty.
1 Ca!herine Wendy Bracewell, The Uslwks of Senj, (Ithaca, London 1992). 2Bracewell, Us/wks, p. 155-174. 3 Bracewell, Us/wks, p. 257. Sixteenth-century Adriatic,
Piracy, Banditry and Holy War in the
1 06
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P
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OTTO M A N V I EW S ON C O R S A I R S A N D P I R A C Y
As to the Uskoks, more difficult to discuss because they have left fewer records, the political climate of our times has been more favourable to small non-state communities than that prevailing down to about 19701. Within this trend, a recent monograph on the Uskoks attempts, as far as the sources permit, to show them 'from the inside', allotting much space to the arguments with which these notorious raiders justified their activities. However, while this book is built upon a wide range of Venetian and
�absburg documents, the extant Ottoman materials have been completely 1gnored. This omission is worth noting, as the relevant materials are, for the
most part, to be found within the very Venetian archives whose other sections have been so competently exploited.
107
correspondence still in situ. While special registers of sultanic names exist in the Istanbul archives, they only begin in the closing years of the 1 7th century.1 Moreover, register copies have preserved only the abridged form and lack the titles and polite phrases which, even though formulaic, often indicate the current state of relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Serenissima. Additionally, the Venetian archives contain sources which do not survive in Istanbul at all. Sultanic rescripts were often accompanied by letters written in the Grand Vizier's name, which to my knowledge are not to be found in any of the correspondance registers surviving in Istanbul today, at least not for the 16th or 17th century. Presumably they went into a special archive which no longer exists, or so far has escaped the attention of the cataloguers. This gap is all the more regrettable as the Grand Vizier's letters allow
Approaching the Ottoman point ofview: the negotiating process
us a glimpse of the actual course of negotiations between the Ottoman and
I n the present paper, we will attempt to fill this gap, at least by a few modest case studies. Our entreprise is based upon some official Ottoman documents from the late 16th and early 1 7th centuries. These permit us to
u:uct, at least to some extent, what policy-makers in Istanbul
recons
thought
about p1rates and corsairs active in the Adriatic, how the latter's activities should be repressed, and the damage caused by these freebooters compensated
for. Addressed to the doges and their advisors, these letters have recently been made accessible through often quite extensive summaries in Italian. Even so
�
the originals are still worth consulting, as a good deal of importan information remains unpublished.2
Most of these texts were issued in the name of the Ottoman Sultan. According to a familiar format, they are authenticated by the characteristic tugra which contains the name of the ruler along with that of his father. Appended to some of these rescripts are contemporary Italian translations; in the case of the late 16th century, quite a few were prepared by Michele Membre, an experienced interpreter.3 This Venetian set of original sultanic letters (name) is of particular interest, for it is rare to find such an extensive
Venetian governments. In many cases, the language is quite informal: thus a Grand Vizier may point out that a given course of action would be in the best interests of the Signoria, or he may make less than respectful remarks about third parties. In a negotiation concerning a dispute between Venice and Dubrovnik, the Grand Vizier thus urged the Signoria to make peace.2 After all, so he informed his Venetian interlocutor, what was Dubrovnik but an infertile bit of rocky coast, which the Sultan had not deigned to conquer because it did not seem worth the trouble. Moreover, given the fact that Dubrovnik was under the Sultans' protection, a continuation of hostilities might give certain Albanians 'devoid of understanding' or soldiers garrisoning Ottoman border forts the wrong idea, namely that the Sultan and Venice were at war - the iron fist is palpable within the velvet glove of negotiation
among 'serious states'.31nterchanges of this kind must have formed part of any negotiating process; but it is gratifying to see Ottoman documents in which such political bargaining is actually reflected.
Approaching the Ottoman point of view: victimised merchants
1 For a study of the Cossacks in a similar perspective compare Linda Gordon Cossack RebellioiiS, Social Turmoil in the Sixteenth·century Ulcrai,;, (Albany 1983). '
2Maria Pia Pedani-Fabri�, / "Documenti turchi" d�ll'Archivio di Suuo di Venezia. (Roma 1994). . One � f the most cnterestmg aspects of the Ven�oan coll.ection is the large amount of archival . �te� a l gomg �ack to the late 15th century. Whcle the Prime Minister's archives in Istanbul, the pnnc!pal reposctory of Ottoma.n documents, also contain some material from this period' their real nches date from the years following 1550. 3rn some instances, the V�netian arc�ives also contain copies of Ottoman texts written by . mamfestl .y non-Ottoman sc:nbes. On �cchele Membr�. of Circassian background but with links t� Venetc�n �Y.Prus and tJme spen� 1n Iran, see Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In no� del Gran -
a' Scgnor�. cnvcatc ollomonc. a Venetca da/1 caduta di Constantinopoli alia guerra di Candi
(Venezta 1994) p. 29 and 44.
Of course it cannot be ruled out that somewhere in the vast territories of the former Ottoman Empire, a cache of petitions written by 16th-century
�
TTU?�� I• �r#vi Rf!hberi, (Ankara 1 992) p. 96. For C�mp re lsmet Binark et al., Ba§bakcmlck Os ealing wcth Vencce, have found their way into the earher c tmes, some names, not many of.them d 'registers of important affairs', the mam chancery records located today in the Istanbul Prime Minister's archives. Cn addition, the ecnebi defterleri are also of value, but where Venice is concerned, they all date from the 17th and 1 8th centuries (Binark et al., op. cit.• p. 144). 1
2Pedani-Fabris, Documenli turchi. p. 320, Busta II, no 1218. , 3Pedani-Fabris, Docu�nti turchi. p. 320-321 Busta II, no 1218.
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Ottoman subjects will be located some day. But as things stand at present, very few such records survive, at least from the 16th century. Moreover, we cannot expect the Istanbul archives to yield the actual petitions of individual Ottoman subjects whose goods had been plundered and whose relatives or servants captured. For in many cases, these petitions, would have been addressed to the Signoria, without any reference to Istanbul. In consequence, the Ottoman documents extant in Venice constitute a most valuable complement to the archives kept by the Ottomans themselves. On the basis of this material, we can reconstruct the manner in which subjects of the Sultan who had become victims of pirate/corsair attacks mobilised political support in their attempts to obtain even partial restitution. Moreover, when dealing with Istanbul archival material we normally have to reconstruct the 'voice' of the petitioners, as the only surviving text is the rescript responding to their complaints. Mercifully for us, Ottoman officials recounted the salient points of the petitions received, but we cannot tell to what degree they manipulated the texts in order to bring them in line with their own notions of stylistically pleasing, or else 'political correct' petitioning.• Obviously the materials surviving in the Venetian archives cannot be regarded as spontaneous accounts by Ottoman subjects either. Presumably there were rules of decorum to be adhered to when addressing the
OTTOMAN VI EWS ON C O R S A I R S A N D PI RACY
109
Seyyid Ali's thirty-six loads of mohair - thus the merchant either must have been from Ankara himself, or else traded with this city - were travelling on the ship owned by the mohair broker 'Djoyta Fonta', a Venetian subject. One of Seyyid Ali's two servitors perished; the other, who was captured, must have been the same Piyale who had spent time in Senj. According to the plaintiff, the captain and his crew actuall y made common cause with the pirates, and took their share of the plunder. To these occurrences, Seyyid Abdi could invoke a large number of witnesses. To begin with, his servants had been travelling with a company of Christians; judging from their names, some of the latter were Armenians, and the others possibly belonged to the Turkish-speaking Orthodox of central
Anatolia known as the Karamanlis. 1 These men had travelled to Istanbul,
where they had made their depositions; although Seyyid Abdi does not tell us so, presumably the witnesses also had been despoiled by the Uskoks. In addition there were some Christians, subjects of Venice in this instance, who had been in Gabela at the time of the attacks. Last but not least, there were the captain and crew of the Venetian ship, who would have been relatively easy to locate for the Signoria. However, if these men really were accomplices, it is not likely that they would have been very eager to talk about their roles in the
Venetian authorities, albeit in the Ottoman-Turkish language, and translators
affair.
were available to guide the steps of the novice petitioner. But at least the texts with which we are concerned here do constitute original petitions.2 As such,
life; but we do gain the impression of a man with considerable self-confidence
they are one step closer to the 'voice' of aggrieved Ottoman merchants than
the more or less extensive petition summaries on which we normally must
depend.
and material resources. For unlike the other petitioners, he does not attempt to arouse pity. On the contrary, his petition emphasises the responsibility of the Doge in recovering the stolen property. After all, the plaintiff claims to have
assiduously frequented the Dogana, and by implication, losing his business will not be to the advantage of the Venetian authorities. Moreover, Seyyid
The facts of the case(s)
Abdi takes the high moral ground: if the Doge wishes to be 'tranquil at heart',
Of the three cases we will subject to closer analysis, the first is documented only by a single petition, submitted by the merchant Seyyid Abdi, and dated Safer 994/January-February 1586.3 However, the incident at issue must have occurred about two and a half years earlier, as Seyyid Abdi's servant Piyale spent this period in Segna/Senj, as a prisoner of the Uskoks.
1Suraiya Faroqhi, Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570)- 1650), Jourmal ofthe £coMmie and Social Hi story ofthe Orient, 34 (1992) 1-39; G. Veinstein, L'oralit� dans les documents d'archives ottomans: paroles rapport�es ou imagin�es ? Oral et ecrit dans le monde turco-ottoman, ed. N. Vatin, Revue du Monde Musulman et de Ia Mediterranee, 75-76 (1996) 133-142. 2c. Kafadar, A death in Venice ( 1575): Anatolian Muslim merchants trading in the
Serenissima, Raiyyet Riisumu, Essays Presented to Halil lnalcik, eds Turkish Studies, 10 (1980) 191-218. 3 Pedani-Fabris, DocutMnti turchi, p. 246, Busta 8, no 963.
Unfortunately, Seyyid Abdi tells us very little about his station in
B. Lewis et al., Jou:YUJI of
he had better see to it that justice is done to the petitioner.
Our second case concerns four Bosnian merchants named Muruvvet,
Ibrahim, Hact �ahman and Ali, whose goods similarly had been stolen by the Uskoks, probably in 1589.2 Presumably pressure from Istanbul started off an examination in Venice; the Venetian authorities declared that the captain had done battle with the Uskoks and had recovered the ship and part of the stolen
n a f!le.
! Remarkably enough, none of thes� individual� !s referred �o by �is first but only by that _ of his father, possibly the scribe wnting the petitiOn was trymg to mvent f a mily names. The �ons of Hac1 Kirkor - or Kirkor pilgrim to Jerusalem - and Hacatur Dursun were defimtely d the 'son of H1zu Bali Beg' calls to mind a Muslim, except that Armenians. On the other han our text specifies that all the our witnesses were Christians. Probably this man as well as his fellow merchants 'the son of the priest/monk Karagoz' and 'the son of Aydm Arslan' were turcophone Orthodox. well attested for this period in Ankara; but turcophone Annenians also are a possibility. 2 Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 253-254, Busta 8, no 996.
f
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property. In response, the Bosnian merchants and a number of other Muslims as witnesses (�uhud ul-hal) confirmed that they had received the retrieved goods and had no more claims against the Venetians, since the capitulations did not require the latter to retrieve captives and property from foreign territory.
As to the third incident, one among numerous others occurring during those troubled years, it took place before July 1617, the date of the first document covering the affair. It involves a group of Ottoman merchants on their way to Venice from the Dalmatian coast.1 Given the insecure conditions of the time, they had been accorded a Venetian convoy, whose captains in Ottoman terminology were known as kapudanlar. Warnings had been received concerning the presence of Spanish ships in the area. In consequence, the merchants asked the Venetian captains responsible for their security to get out of the danger area as soon as possible, and not put in at a spot which had been designated as especially dangerous. However, the captains would not listen to their passengers. At night the merchants were i n fact attacked, and lost all their property. As they hoped for help from the Venetian authorities, they wasted several months in a port belonging to the Serenissima, without
obtaining any concrete results. This was all the more aggravating as originally
the merchants had resolved to cancel their trip to Venice when they heard that the Spanish fleet was cruising off Curzola. However, the Venetian governor of Spalato/Split had assured them that no risk was involved, and that they should
proceed as planned. Evidently this move was linked to the Venetian attempt, initiated by the Jewish merchant Daniele Rodriga, to develop Spalato as a
OTTOM A N V I E W S ON C O R S A I R S A N D PI R A C Y
111
On 16 March 1618, the Senate responded to the Bosnian merchants' complaints by disclaiming all responsibility.' Nobody, not even the Sultan, so the reply ran, could guarantee absolute security at sea - this was seemingly meant as an allusion to some incident which recently had happened in Ottoman waters. No Venetian official was allowed to give the guarantees the governor of Spalato had allegedly given, apart from the fact that he would not have had the means to enforce them. Implicit, but not spelled out, is the difference between pirates or corsairs on the one hand, and a fully fledged enemy fleet on the other. Quite obviously the Venetians did not want to get embroiled with the powerful Spanish governors in Italy. If the Signoria had hoped that the newly enthroned Sultan Osman II would not take up the matter, its members were soon to be disappointed. In Ramazan 1027/September I 6 1 8 , the young Ottoman ruler assured the Signoria that he was concerned about maintaining good relations, but something would have to be done about satisfying the merchants who had lost their goods.2 It would just not do merely to claim that a governor had overstepped the boundaries of his powers; the government of Venice needed to take responsibility for the acts of its officials. Moreover, the Venetians' own interests equally were invoked; if merchants were to find the sea routes too insecure, they would cease visiting Venice and go somewhere else. This would hurt Venetian customs revenues, but would not benefit those of the Ottomans either.3 Moreover, the Sultan's letter pointed out that the Signoria should
major port and rival of Dubrovnik.2
consider the difficult position of its own appointees in Spalato, who now were
the traders decided to take their grievance to Istanbul, where they must have interested a high official in their complaint, for a certain Miimin �avu� was
who would be left in peace once this matter was settled.
When their expectations of speedy redress had thus been disappointed,
constantly confronted with the insistent demands of Ottoman merchants, and
appointed to deal with the affair; the latter's signature appears at the end of one
A further rescript informed the Venetians that the Chief Jurisconsult, whose opinion (fetva) had been demanded by the aggrieved merchants, had
so as to indicate his prominence. Moreover, this was not enough, for the
traders had suffered. Now the governor of the sub-provice of Clissa had been
of the relevant documents heading a long chain of signatories, larger in size Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasha wrote to the Doge confirming the merchants'
story. This was apparently just part of a round of negotiations, for in a second
letter referring to the damage suffered by the Bosnians, the Grand Vizier
affirmed that he would take into positive consideration Venetian proposals presented to him by the current bailo. 3
lPedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 317 318, Busta 1 1 , no 1210. The original is undated, the date having been established by the archivists. 2J. Tadic, Le commerce en Dalmatie et l\ Raguse et Ia decadence economique de Venise au xvue si�cle", Aspetti e cause della decadencia economica veneziana nel seculo XVII, Venice, Rome 1961) p. 237-274. Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 322, Busta II, no 1222. The Grand Vizier in question was Kara Mehmed Pap, who in 1024/1615 led a campaign against Iran; his siege of Revan/Erivan was unsuccessful, and he was deposed in Zilka'de 1025/December 1616; cf. Ismail Hami Dani§mend, h_ahi, Osman/1 Tarihi KroMiojisi, 4 vols. (Istanbul: Tilrkiye Yaymevi, 1947) v. Ul, p. 262-264. -
�
decided that the Venetian count of Spalato was responsible for the damage the made personally responsible for the execution of this decision.4 It seems, however, that the whole affair was finally solved, in a manner acceptable to the Venetians, by the ambassador Francesco Contarini. In the winter of 1618-1619, the latter came to Istanbul in order to congratulate
l Pedani-Fabris Documenti turchi, p. 324, Busta 1 1 , no 1227. This text survives in Italian, but carries a note i� Ottoman that the response was 'worthless' because Sultan Mustafa had died in the meantime. Had the text been sent to Istanbul and then returned, with the comments of a dragoman in the service of the bailo? 2Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 25, Busta II, no 1231. 3 3-rrus argument would have appealed to Fernand Braude!, who has postulated the increasing popularity of land routes due to the insecurity of the late 16th-century Mediterranean; see Braude!, Mlditerranee, v. 1, p. 260-262. 4Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 326. Busta 11, no 1235.
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Osman II upon his accession, obtain a renewal of the capitulations and solve
disputed matters still pending. I In the rescript granted to the ambassador upon
his return, Osman II promised to uphold the privileges granted by his father to Venetians trading in Bosnia. The new Sultan also stated that - contrary to previous claims, but that was not dwelt upon - he did not accept the demands of Ottoman traders who held the bailo, and thereby the Signoria, responsible for their losses. However, Osman II still recommended that the Venetians retrieve the goods in question and return them to their rightful owners.
OTT O M A N V I E W S O N C O R S A I R S A N D P I R A C Y
1 13
accusations against the Venetian commanders. So the merchants probably took what they could get, and in February 1589 Bali Silahdar, who had been sent from Istanbul to deal with the affair, remitted a letter to the Grand Vizier
Sinan Pasha reporting the incident closed. 1 Possibly the petition of the 'assiduous visitor to the Dogana' Seyyid Abdi, whose outcome unfortunately remains unknown, constitutes an early step in a comparable negotiation. Linked to the question of responsibility was the problem of obtaining redress. According to the
ahidnames, Venetian
governments were obliged to
punish pirates active in the Adriatic and recuperate the stolen goods. As we have seen, this occasionally happened, though probably in only a minority of
Seeking redress: complicities and responsibilities One of the questions at issue in all three cases was the degree of responsibility to be assigned to Venetians, particularly the captains and crews acting as official escorts to Ottoman merchants. When the latter abandoned their charges, this might have been due to cowardice or misjudgement, but also to force
majeure,
for the Venetian galleys. Frequently, and apparently not without some reason, league with the pirates. When in 1589/90, the Ottoman administration insisted on having this matter cleared up, the captains in question were in fact tried in Venice.2 Predictably, the court decided that there was no evidence of collusion with the pirates - was this an attempt at damage control? More remarkable is the declaration of the Ottoman merchants after some of their property had been recuperated and returned to them : they
emin
who represented Ottoman interests in Dubrovnik,
stating that the Venetians had killed the Uskok robbers and returned the stolen goods.3 Possibly an agreement had been reached: when getting (part of) their goods back, the merchants exonerated the Venetian galley commander so as to eliminate a pretext for future Ottoman intervention. As to the traders, their main concern must have been with their own goods; after all, the Ottoman administration was not likely to pay them even if they persisted in their 1 P�
�
�i- abris, Documenti tu�chi, p. 3�8. Bus� 11, no 1243. The success of this mission is, mdJr e ctly, reflected m a sul�mc rescnpt, a copy of which is to be found in Istanbul's . B�bakanhk Ar�JVJ-
a lbe 1t
�s�
the Venetians were not obliged to hand over their own subjects for punishment. That remained an internal matter, for the Signoria to handle, although, as we have seen, political pressure from Istanbul was often a condition for positive results.
namely, if the opposing men-of-war were too strong
the Ottoman victims of spoliation believed that the defecting captains were in
appeared before the
cases; many Uskoks doubtless rapidly carried their booty to Senj and other places, where the Venetian warships could not follow them. At the same time,
Seeking common ground: rulers' responsibilities, fiscal advantages and safeguarding the goods oforphans andpiousfoundations In every negotiation, it is customary to legitimise one's own claims by referring to people, moral concerns or institutions, whom or which one's interlocutors hopefully will also consider as worthy of respect and/or protection. Moreover, reference to such persons or institutions will appeal to the sympathy of outsiders who may come to hear of the affair. In part, this procedure can be described as a search for common ground, which should facilitate the negotiation. But in part this reference to a supposedly common ground also intends to put the interlocutor in a bad position if the negotiations
do not produce the desired results. For he has then failed to adhere to principle which 'all human beings' should accept. In our present-day world, the Helsinki agreements and the protection of human rights enshrined in them often will provide such a frame of reference. Or when the issue in question concerns present and future European Community members, the future of the common 'European house' may serve the same purpose.
1 Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 255, Busta 8, no 1002. The Sinan Pll§a referred to here was Grand Vizier five times in the second half of the 16th cent�ry; cf. F. �abi�ger and�· Dl{vid EP, s.v. "Sin�n Pasha". Sinan Pll§a earned the undying man Mustafa Ah, who painted a very black picture of hi enmity of the h1stonan and h erary t character.
s
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When Ottomans and Venetians negotiated, the search for common ground was not easy, because so many legitimising discourses, on both the Christian and the Muslim side, were based on religion. One could of course try to circumvent this barrier by referring to the common Abrahamic tradition.
OTTO M A N V I EWS ON C O R S A I R S A N D P I R A C Y
1 15
styling themselves the 'poor merchants' rather as if they had been addressing their own ruler. "If you ask how we are doing, nobody but God knows our condition". "What can we do? This is what God has written on our heads.
But this was rarely attempted, apart from occasional Protestants highlighting
Obviously, what can we do rabout it]?" I Or else, if important enough,
the pure monotheism which they themselves and the Muslims supposedly shared, in contrast with the idolatrous Catholics. I
their business was large enough to make a difference to the revenues of the
More common were references to peace and amity, and the ahidnames
Ottoman traders could take a leaf from the Sultan's book and emphasise that Venetian state. More unexpected is the frequent claim in Ottoman documents of the
which Venice had enjoyed almost throughout Ottoman history; this motif would crop up both in Ottoman and in Venetian diplomatic parlance. Ottoman official negotiators also sometimes referred to the protection of tax-paying subjects, who should not be exposed to the ravages of war and piracy without good cause. This was probably what Seyyid Abdi was thinking of when he claimed that the Doge could only achieve tranquillity of mind if the latter saw to it that the petitioner obtained redress. Such statements made sense in the context of Middle Eastern 'mirrors of princes', which enjoined the ruler to protect his subjects.2 It was probably assumed that the Venetian Doge and his
begler would see matters in the same light.
In addition there was the fiscal-economic argument, related to the previous one and yet distinct. We have seen that the Venetians were to compensate merchants who had been robbed so that Ottoman traders would continue to frequent Venice, and thus augment the Signoria's revenues. Moreover, the Ottoman interlocutors pointed out that these revenues were important to their own state as well, thus confessing to the 'fiscalism' which has been described as a major feature of 'Ottoman economic policy' .3 If we are not 'overinterpreting' our texts, it seems that around
1600,
the authors of
Ottoman sultanic rescripts were aware of the fact that both states depended on commerce-based revenues. Moreover, the Ottoman sovereign, in whose name they wrote, apparently had no 'lordly' scruples in spelling out this fact of life. At least in peacetime, Ottomans and Venetians shared a concern with the
1 6th and
17th centuries that the merchants who had been
robbed, and whom
the Signoria should aid in recovering their goods, had borrowed money from funds belonging to orphans and pious foundations. Even if their goods had been lost, so the argument runs, the traders in question would be obliged to pay back the money. So it was presumably an act of elementary fairness to help the merchants recover their property. Possibly the Venetians' Ottoman interlocutors also assumed that the former were aware of the inviolability of pious foundations; thus the Signoria presumably would appreciate that for religious reasons, the Ottoman side had no option but to press the claims of the merchants. Albeit obliquely, these statements refer to the fact, by now well known, that Ottoman pious foundations lent out money at interest.2 It is unlikely that commercial partnership, for instance a mudaraba, was involved, in which an investor provided capital to a travelling merchant and expected a large share of the profits. For the mudaraba contract stipulated that a loss for which the travelling merchant as the active partner bore no responsibility, as was true in the case of most spoliations by pirates or robbers, was not reimbursed to the investor.3 Thus a pious foundation as a tacit mudaraba partner would have to accept the loss of its capital in such case. By contrast, Ottoman merchants borrowing money from pious foundations were apparently
protection of trade routes and the security of customs revenues. When aggrieved Ottoman merchants appealed to the Doge directly, their argumentation obviously was somewhat different from that of state officials. Some of them chose to appeal to the charity and compassion of the Signoria,
1Trus was a min r theme i� EngJish R naissance and 17th-century writing: for the claim of one ? � ight wm the support and ultimately even the conversion of the �uthor �hat fig�tJ�g �athohcs '!l ab 1l Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age ofDiscovery' N Moors to Chnst1an1ty cf. . . New Yo�k 1999 p. 155. � . H. Inalc1k, Cap1tal Formation m the Ottoman Empue• The Journal of Economic History• 2911
�
�1969) 97-103.
.
.
M. Ge�y. Ottoman Industry m. the Eighteenth Century: General Framework, Characte�istics
and Mam Trends, Manufactunng Quataert, (Albany 1994) p. 59-86.
.
m
the Ottoman Empire and Turkey 1500·1950' ed· D·
1
These phrases occur at the beginning
and the end of the petition of 1617·' see Pedani-Fabris
Documenti turchi, p. 317, Busta II, no. 1210.
'
2on th� debate �mon� Ottoman religious figures conc�rning this practice compare J on E. Mandavllle, Usunous Piety: The Cash waq{Controversy m the Ottoman Empire, International Journal ofM iddle East Studies, 10/3 (1979) 289-308.
3M. <:izakya, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships, The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives, (Leiden, New York 1996) p. 4.
1 16
A N0TH ER
MI RR0R
F0R
P R I NC ES
required to pay back their loans no matter what had happened to their ventures. I
OT T O M A N V I E W S ON C O R S A I R S A N D P I R A C Y
1 17
involved in the case of the Muslims ; Osman II claimed that it was at the insistence of his merchant subjects that he wrote to the Doge on their behalf. I Practically no document has been found in which an Ottoman official advised Muslim Bosnians or istanbullus to say at home and let unbelievers take care of any commercial concerns they might possess in Venice.
Conclusion These negotiations, with their twists and turns, demonstrate that the
Less clear are the Ottoman authorities' motivations in the non commercial realm. It is by no means certain that in the tatters' pespective,
old story about the Ottoman government's lack of interest in the foreign trade of its Muslim subjects is just not tenable. As we have seen, Ottoman Muslim
only fiscal concerns were at issue. Quite possibly, it was also a question of
as ambassadors of a sort, it is readily apparent that the Ottoman central
ruler if the interests of Ottoman subjects, even when active abroad, were
government did not regard the problems of its subjects trading abroad as minor.2 Through the work of Benjamin Arbel and others, we have learned that
incumbent upon the Sultan to promote the interests of pious foundations, in
merchants were able to obtain the intervention of an official messenger (favu�). If we keep in mind that favu� in this period were quite often sent out
the Ottoman central government of the 16th and 17th centuries was at times willing to support its Jewish subjects in their Adriatic commercial ventures, presumably with fiscal concerns in mind.J Obviously something similar was
the Sultan's prestige in Venice and elsewhere. One might surmise that Ottoman officials considered it a disrespectful gesture towards their revered treated in a cavalier fashion. Moreover, as an Islamic ruler, it was also Sarajevo and elsewhere. After all, official pressure well might be exerted on merchants in order to make them pay back their debts, no matter whether their investments had been profitable or not. But in real life, not much could be obtained from a bankrupt trader. Moreover, the very status of piracy and robbery in Islamic law and sultanic kanun also must have induced the Ottoman authorities to take such attacks on their subjects very seriously indeed. For highway robbery was a
1 While we here are concerned with references to loans as a legitimising device and thus with policy-making, the point in question is also of interest to the historian of comme�. M. t;izalc�. Cash Waqfs of Bu�, Journal of the Economic and Social History ofthe Orient, 38/3 (1995) 351, has found that tn 18th century, the numerous funds held by Bursa pious foundations did not often provide commercial credit, but rather consumer loans. However, references to the debts of me�hants victi!f1ised by pirate attacks would have lost their legitimising quality if such debts were tn fact a !'ll"ty. In consequence, we can assume that contrary to what happened in 18th century Bursa, tn the 16th and 17th-century Balkans, pious foundations were a known source of commercial credit. Individual loans were often modest, but since merchants typically borrowed from more than �ne foundation might add up to substantial sums in the hands of a particular partnership. Thus tn 1589 a certatn Hact Uruc had borrowed 13,156 akfe from the Hiisrev Beg foundation, and about !he same amount fom the. lesser-known foundation of Hact Mustafa both of Sarajevo. But somehmes real fo�unes were tnvotved: thus Miiriivvet b. Timur, along with his partners Mehmed, the latter's wtfe, Korkud and Oruc had borrowed over a quater million akfe from eight different foundations; almost 200,000 ak�e came from the mosque of Hact Turhan. Such cumulation did not often occur .in 18th;century Bursa (t;tzak�. Cash Waqfs, p. 337). Thus it is all the more remarkable that thts practtce was common enough among Bosnian traders around 1600. Among the merchants concerned, several are described as tanners, who must have been exporting leather to Venice, even though this item often enough figured among the goods whose exportation was prohibited: Suraiya Faroqhi, Die osmanische Handelspolitik des frUhen 17. Jahrhunderts zwischen Dobrovnik und Venedig, Wiener Beitri:ige fiir die Geschichte der Neuzeit, 10 (1983) 207-222. 2Pedani-Fabris, In nome, p. 36-40. 3 B. Arbel, Trading Nations, Je s and �en e:rians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean, w_ . {�t�e_n 1995) p. 164-165, has mterestmg m f ormation on David Passi, who apart from other be�ween the
crime whose punishment was incumbent on the ruler, while in the case of other types of homicide, the victim's family had a decisive role to play, and state intervention remained secondary.2 Any perusal of the Ottoman chancery registers, however casual, shows that robbery exercised the Ottoman authorities almost to the exclusion of any other crime.J It is also worth noting that the term e�kiya could denote both robbers and rebels; thus other considerations apart, the spoliation of travellers was also an act of defiance vis-a-vis the Sultan.4 And a crime that demanded a strong response when it happened on Ottoman territory, must have been equally if not more reprehensible when it occurred abroad.
1 Pedani-Fabris, Documenti turchi, p. 325. Busta I t , no 1213. 2 "[T)he Koran, and after it Islamic law, punishes the crime of highway robbery ... "; see J. Schacht, An lntro®ction to Islamic Law, (Oxford 1964) p. 9. J on these problems, see Suraiya Faroqhi, Coping with the State, Political Conflict and Crime in the Onoman Empire, {Istanbul 1995) passim. "This ambiguity has caused C· Ulu�y to link 'robbery' and 'popular movements' in two well known editions ofdocuments from the Manisa k.adi registers: XVII. Asmla Saruhan'da qkiyal1.k ve Halk Harelcetleri, (Istanbul 1944) and Idem, 18. ve 19. Yiizytllarda Saruhan'da qkiyal!k ve Ha/Jc Harelcetleri, (Istanbul 1955).
BEFORE 1600: OTTOMAN ATTITUDES TOWARDS MERCHANTS FROM LATIN CHRISTENDOM
Ottoman trade has long been a favourite among historians, so that even following the monumental recent synthesis by Halil Inalcik, first published in
1994 our field
has been enriched by quite a few text editions and secondary 1 studies. Yet for the most part, stress has been laid on what we might call 'objective trends', even though we are probably less convinced of the virtues of quantification on the basis of often insufficient evidence, than was true twenty or twenty-five years ago. However in the present historiography of Europe but also of India, a strong emphasis generally is placed on the 'subjective' factor.2 For the sake of dialogue between different historical subfields, if for no other reason, it thus would seem useful to summarize what we know about Ottoman official attitudes at least where the Turkish-speaking provinces are concerned; the ideas and perceptions of ordinary merchants largely continue to remain a closed book.3
This study is intended as part of the effort at communication with other historical subfields which I consider to be a major task of Ottomanists in the 4 present and foreseeable future. Concentrating on the period before 1 600 was originally imposed by the organizers of a congress which brought together literary scholars and historians of what Europeanists would call the medieval
and Renaissance periods.s But this time limit makes sense at least to me, beyond the practical necessity which originally dictated it. Present research certainly has placed the late sixteenth-century 'price revol ution' in its historical context, so that it appears as less of a crucial turning point than it did to scholars working twenty to thirty years ago. However the subjective 1Halil lnalcik, "The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1 00-1600," in An Economic and 3 Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 ed. by Halil lnalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) (paperback version published in 1997; here Inalcik's work appears as vol. I). The most recent contribution: Suraiya Faroqhi and Gilles Veinstein eds., "Merchants in the Ottoman Empire" (Leuven: Peeters, scheduled for 2008). 2Thus Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam are currently engaged in studying the manner in which early modern visitors from the Iranian world perceived I ndia, and Indian travellers reacted to Iran. 3ln a superb monograph, Nelly Hanna recently has shown that things were rather different in Cairo: Making Big Money in 1600, the Life and Times of /sma'il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998). 4Here would like to pay tribute to the work of Rifa'at A. Abou-El-Haj, who has made me I aware of this necessity: Formation of the Modern State, The Ouoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1991). S'Between Empires: Orientalism before .1600', organized by Alfred Hiatt, Ananya Kabir and John Serjeantson (Trinity College, Cambndge Engl., July 2001).
120
A NOTHER M I R R O R FOR
PRI NCES
importance of this 'ime t of troubles' for the consciousness of the Ottoman ruling group should not be underestimated, and
121
B EFORE 1 60 0
1600 therefore seems a valid
'period limit' for studies concerned with economic and social life.1
on early Ottoman history, were not markedly successful.' One of them was so embarrassed about being unable to locate any documents written in the reigns of Sultans Osman and Orban, that he proceeded to fake them. This has marred his credibility, ever since he was 'found out' a century ago.2 Moreover economic/commercial history was even less a concern of
Primary sources, both surviving and missing
early Ottoman officials than the conquests and derring-do of warrior sultans. It
The Ottoman Empire began its existence in the first half of the fourteenth century, and by the
1390s,
was already a formidable force both i n
South-eastern Europe and i n western and central Anatolia. However the archives of that early period have not been preserved. Presumably they were destroyed during or after the battle of Ankara (1402), when Timur defeated Sultan Bayezid I, nicknamed Y1ldmm ('lightning').2 Nor can the early
fifteenth-century succession wars between Bayezid's four sons, which continued for about a decade, have been conducive to the preservation of official documents. 3 In addition, at least compared to the highly developed bureaucratic apparatus of the sixteenth and
a fortiori
the eighteenth century, the early
Ottoman state probably possessed but a skeleton administration, whose members had generated a limited number of files, or rather bags of documents, to begin with. Historical writings also were not a high priority until the last quarter of the fifteenth century.4 While it is always dangerous to argue
negativo, particularly
ex
when dealing with a period of frequent wars, a limited
amount of activity on the part of the earliest Ottoman chanceries still seems a probable assumption. After all, high-level Ottoman officials and religious
cum
legal scholars
(ulema),
who beginning in the years around
1500
and
continuing throughout the sixteenth century, attempted to collect information
is not by chance that the two classical studies by Halil Inalcik, which between them, have introduced Ottoman commercial and economic history to English speaking readers, discuss merchants and commerce mainly for the period beginning with the mid-fifteenth century.3 In consequence, I will focus on the period between
1450
and
1 600,
the years which we associate with the
Ottoman Empire's apogee in politics, but also in poetry and courtly art.4 To some extent this period also was characterized by economic florescence; certainly the period before the great devaluations of 1585-86 was less difficult for urban producers than the decades that followed.s As we are dealing with foreign merchants, sources produced by these people or the ambassadors of their rulers back home occasionally can be useful for our purposes. However since our concern is with the attitudes of the Ottoman governing classes, non-Ottoman sources must be regarded with a good deal of scepticism. For after all, the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a period in which the Ottoman sultans viewed themselves as expanding the realm of Islam against the 'unbelievers'. On the other hand, i n the eyes of western Europeans, Ottomans were 'infidels', which many of the less informed authors were still unable to distinguish from the pagans of antiquity.6 Given ' This is apparent, for instance, from the. collection of ulema �iographi�s put tol!ether by the scholar Tqkopriiluzade in the early SIXteenth century. While for h1s own ume and the immediate past, TqkopriJluzade carefully differentiates between · ?lid data' !""� ���endary material this is not true for the fourteenth century: Es-saqa 1q en-No maniJJe von Tas/Wprlizode..., tr and with commentary by 0. Rescher Ostanbul: n.p 1927), passim. 2 compare the article 'Feridun Beg' in The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (from now onwards El) by J.H. Mordtrnann, updated by Victor M�nage. Feridun Beg's fake was discovered by MUkrimin Halil Yinan�. "Ferfdiln Beg MOn§eitJ," Tarih-i 'Osmani Encumeni Mecmu'ast, 77: 161-1 68; 78: 37-46; 79: 95-104; 81: 216-26. 3 Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, The Classical Age, 130f!-1600 (London; Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1973), idem, "The Ottoman State: Economy and Soc1ety, 1300-1600. 4 For a general overview compare Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan SiJleyman the Magnificent Washington DC, New York: The National Gallery and Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1987).
� .•
1 omer Ultfi Barkan, "The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East," International Journal ofMiddle East Studies, VI ( 1975): 328. Barkan's findings recently have been placed in perspective by �evket Pamuk, "The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire Reconsidered," International Journal ofMiddle East Studies, 33 (2001): 69-89. On the 'subjective' aspects see Cemal Kafadar, "Les troubles mon�taires de Ia fin du XVIe si�cle et Ia prise de conscience ottomane du d�clin," Annales Economies Societes
Civilisations (1986): 381-400.
2 on this campaign compare Marie Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca, La campagne de Timur en Anatolie (1402), 2nd ed. (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977). 3 Dimitris J., Kastritsis, The Sons ofBayezid. Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402-13 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2007). 4 colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire 1300-1481 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1990) has insisted most forcefully on the gaps in our knowledge due to these circumstances. Compare Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, The Construction ofthe Ottoman State (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995) for a recent sophisticated discussion of the history and historiography of the early Ottoman Empire.
�
Pamuk, "The Price Revolution". 6well-informed people had known �tter e�er since the �igb middle ages, but might re at � such blatantly false opinions even agamst thetr own �tter JUdgment. Compare Norman_ �el, allons, Islam and the West. The Ma/cing ofan Image, 2nd rev1sed ed. (Oxford: Oneworld Pubhc
1993): 338-43. . . . . .. . . ma iJ
s dans /'empire Levant a kl Renaissance, Enqulte sur les voyageurs fran�ai Magnifique (Geneva: Droz, 2000).
de Soliman le
122
ANOTHER
MI RROR
FOR
P R I NC ES
B EFORE
this state of confrontation, in the realm of 'ideology' and often enough on the battlefield as well, distortions of the adversary's motivations are a likely possibility. Therefore apart from some very exceptional situations, only Ottoman sources should be used as a basis for describing Ottoman attitudes.
Of course the situation is different when we are concerned with bilateral inter
state relations, but that topic, for our purposes, is no more than a sideline.
Thus our most important sources consist on the one hand, of the treaties and privileges granted by Ottoman sultans to foreign rulers on behalf of the latters' subjects (ahidname). On the other hand, these texts are completed by a sizeable number of sultanic commands which, in one way or another, regulated the activities of foreign merchants on Ottoman territory.
These edicts, copied out into large volumes known as the 'Registers of Important Affairs' were normally addressed to the governors and kadis of the localities in which the foreigners traded, and some of the relevant registers have been published. 1 Sometimes the sultanic commands in question responded to queries and complaints originally relayed by kadis, governors or tax farmers. In other instances, a consul or ambassador of a foreign power might have solicited the sultanic rescript on behalf of the latter's subjects.2 While for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we sometimes possess more or less extensive fragments of the Ottoman correspondences which
preceded the actual sultanic edicts, this is quite rare for the period before 1600.
Occasionally foreign merchants also will crop up in the registers of local kadis.3 But cases of this kind unfortunately are not too frequent.4
1 600
123
It is a major drawback that for our period, almost all the surviving sources are official or semi-official in character. Archival documents written by private persons, subjects of the sultan, and at the same time, relevant to foreign traders, almost never survive. In addition most of the chronicles were written by high officials either still on active service or else in retirement. This limitation is rather regrettable. For presumably Ottoman merchants who did business with foreign traders, for instance selling cotton in defiance of sultanic prohibitions, may well have held opinions which differed from those held by the Ottoman authorities, at least where their particular commercial partners were involved. I But this aspect of the problem unfortunately remains quite inaccessible to the historian of the twenty-first century.
Things are further complicated by the fact that Ottoman officials had
totally different priorities from the present-day historian. In Ottoman bureaucratic circles, it was customary to discuss the details of a given project at considerable length.2 Whether enough money was available, whether the material and/or political returns on the money spent were satisfactory, what countermeasures should be taken in case of resistance to the project in question, all these and other matters quite often were debated in the surviving Ottoman documents. By contrast, why a certain measure might be considered desirable from an 'ideological' point of view is but rarely discussed. It would appear that a high degree of consensus on major issues prevailed among Ottoman officials, or in any case, it was 'politically correct' to pretend that such a consensus existed.3 As a result, it is quite rare that official documents discuss what we might see as fundamental considerations of policy, such as
!Compare the series of MUI\imme �flerleri, located in Istanbul's B�� anla� A�i�i �m�a Ar'§ivi (Registers of lmportant_Affaars, fro� now onw�: MD) pubhsl\ed ��- f�cs 1 m1le . transcriptions in modern Turkish: lsmet Bm ark et a/11 (eds.) 3 Numarala Muh1mme Deften i et 9731/565, 3 vols. (Ankara: B�bakanhk Devlet �ivleri Gene! MUdtiriUtU. 1993)_and dem alii (eds.) 5 Numarala Mii himme Defteri (97311565-66), 2 vols (Ankara: same publisher, 1994); idem et alii (eds.), 6 Numara/1 Miihimme Defteri (9721/564-1565), 3 vols (Ankara: same publisher, 1995); dem i et alii (eds.). 7 !ofumarall ii himme Defteri (975-�!�11567-1569�. 5 vols (Ankara: same publisher, 1997-1998). idem et alu (eds.), J2 Numaral1 Muh1mme De_fter�, 3 vol� (Ankara: same publisher, 1996); Mehmet Ali Onal (ed), Miihimme Defteri 44 (lzm1r: Akadem1 Kitabevi, 1995); Mertol Tulum et alii, Miihimme Defteri 90 (Istanbul: TUrk DUnyas1 A�tumalan Vakf1, 1993). For texts relevant to forei gn merchants compare for example MD 10, p. 223, No 341 (97911571 -72); 23, p.270, No 571 (98111573-74); 74, p. 247, No 560 (100411595-96).
WI�
t:f
2 Examples have survived in the Dubrovnik arcl\ives and have been publisl\ed in translation by N. H. Siegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship, According to the F_irmans ofMurad Ill (1574a ns: Mouton, 1967). See for 1595) Extant in the State Archives of Dubrovnik (Tile Hague, P example Acta Turcarum A2-26, translation on p. 141.
.
3For an example see the summary published in Halit Ongan ed, Ankara'mn lki Numarall Ser'iye
Sicili (Ankara: TUrk Tarih Kurum,
1974): 124, No 1640.
. A checklist of the kadi registers surviving in Turkey, as well as a selectton of sample documents, is found in Ahmet AkgUndiJz, et alii (eds.) Seriye Sicil/eri, 2 vols. (Istanbul: TUrk DUnyas1 A�llrmalart Vakfa, 1988-89). .. 4For an example concerning foreign merchants in Ankara, see Ozer Ergen�. Osman/1 K�asik Donemi Kent Tarihfillfine Katk1, XVI. YiJzy1/da Ankara ve Konya (Ankara: Ankara EnstJttlsU Vakfa,
1995): 113.
the legitimacy and reputation of the ruler, the conformity or otherwise of certain practices to Islamic religious law, or the mutual obligations of subjects and sultan.4 Such matters usually remain implicit, and have been deduced by modern researchers from indications which are often ambiguous. Our understanding of Ottoman views of foreign 'infidel' merchants equally is marred by these silences.
IMD 36, p. 195, No 524 (987/1579-80). On sucl\ busi�ess connections in general comp �re Suraiya Faroqhi Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolla, Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting 1520-1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984): 128-29.
2Especially in wartime this sometimes meant that even minor matters were decided in Istanbul: compare MD 10, p. i23, No 341 (979/ 1571-72), which _ discu�ses the _fate of a ship ��m ed to purchase cotton 10 lzmar. As th1s was n?t an a Dubrovnik, whose captain bad att c �v1t y � mpt 1p was to be confiscated and used for transporting offic1ally covered by the ahidname, the sh . required supplies 3TI\at this was not true in 'real life' is a different matter altogether: for debates within the sixteenth-century Ottoman elite compare Co".!ell H. Aeischer, Bureaucrat and lmellectual In
the Ottoman Empire. The Hi storian Mustafa Ali (1541-/600) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), passim. 4suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and SultanS (London: Tauris Press. 1994).
124
A NOTHER
MI RROR
FOR
P R I NCES
Guarantees given to the subjects offoreign rulers As we have seen, the oldest documents in which the Ottoman sultans,
B EFORE
1 600
125
with Ottoman power still growing and its Venetian counterpart now noticeably on the wane. Particularly after 1540, all ahidnames issued to Venice, and also the new ones granted to western European rulers, can be
after a fashion, indicate their views of foreign trade and traders are known as the ahidnames. 1 In European parlance, these grants were known as the
characterized as unilateral grants of privilege.1 Where western and southern
capitulations, from the
fifteenth century as an exception which confirms the rule of unilateralism.
capitula
or paragraphs of which they invariably
consisted. Modern scholars also call them
imtiyazat,
meaning privileges.
They were granted by many Muslim rulers, including the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, but also by some of the Turkish-speaking princes whose territories, located i n South-western Anatolia the Ottoman sultans were to take over in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.2 The treaty instruments concerning minor rulers, such as the princes of Aydm and Mente�e, all constitute "unilateral instruments used for the conclusion of peace and the concession of (commercial) privileges. "3
Ahidnames can be viewed as a special
case of the
aman, the protection
which any Muslim, man or woman, could grant to an outsider; the beneficiaries of such protection being called
miiste'min.
Such grants of
protection are always unilateral. Yet there has been some debate over the question whether
ahidnames
at all times should be regarded as unilateral
grants by the Ottoman sultans, or whether in certain instances, they should not rather be considered reciprocal agreements between the sultan and a foreign ruler. In the Venetian instance, it would appear that the earliest ahidnames, of
1403
and 1411, were unilateral grants. But already in 1419, the ahidname had
been converted into a reciprocal treaty, which demanded the confirmation of both sides, loosely in imitation of Byzantine custom. Practice changed again quite rapidly, beginning in 1482, as now Ottoman
ahidnames
granted to Venice increasingly came to resemble the
unilateral grants of privilege
(ni�an),
also used for affairs internal to the
Ottoman Empire. This process continued throughout the sixteenth century, 1The fundamental study on this issue is the article 'lmtiyazat' in El by Halil lnalcik. In addition there are monographs concerning individual states. On Dubrovnik, see Siegman, The Turco Ragusan Relationship. The important study by Hans Theunissen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: The ahidnames. The Historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Diplomatic Instruments together with an annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents" Ph D dissertation, Utrecht 1991 is only available on the internet. I am most grateful to the author for supplying me with a copy. Dariusz Kotodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th century) (Leiden, 2000), with a large body of original douments included, now constitutes the basic study on Poland-Lithuania. 2on the treaties with Venice concluded by the Aydm and MentC§e princes, whose territories were located in western and southwestern Anatolia, compare Elizabeth Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade. Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydm (1300-1415) (Venice: The Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies, 1983): 187-242. 3Theunissen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics", vol 1: 82. 'Unilateral' means that the i�suing prince appears as having made the grant upon his own initiative, without requiring confirmation on the part of the recipient.
Europe are concerned we can thus regard the Venetian treaties of the mid However in the case of Poland, the norm was confirmation by the king.2
Similarly to all other privileges,
ahidnames
were valid only for the reign of
the issuing sultan, and had to be confirmed by his successor. the
In Ottoman practice, the foreign visitors were granted exemption from
cizye,
the head tax which Islamic religious Jaw required all non-Muslim
subjects of a Muslim ruler to pay.3 Religious law also limited the duration of
the
miiste 'min's
stay to a single year, after which the foreigner would be
regarded as a non-Muslim subject of the Muslim ruler on whose territory cizye according
he/she was residing. The new subject would then have to pay
to his means. But Ottoman governmental practice tended to ignore this particular limitation, and foreign Christian or Jewish merchants normally were
exempt from the cizye regardless of the duration of their stay.
Capitulations were addressed to the ruler and not to his subjects, and the number of paragraphs directly relevant to traders and trade was often quite limited. But of course the merchants would benefit from the clauses which protected the subjects of a given prince or S ignoria in general. A major privilege absolved foreigners of the responsibility for debts contracted by their countrymen, if they themselves had not stood surety for the debtor i n
question.4 This also included
bailos
and ambassadors, who were not to be
made responsible for the debts of merchants from the state which they represented.5 1Theunissen, "Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics." vol l: 238-39. 2Kotodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Relations: 68-74. 3This privilege was derived from the recognition of the visitors as temporary sojourners, regardless of the 'real' duration of their stay; compare Sk.illiter, William Harborne: 88. Matters were different when 'recognized' permanent residents were involved. Thus after the conquest of Constantinople/ Istanbul the Genoese of Galata were exempted from all taxes except the harac, a term often used as a synonym of cizye. After all the Genoese of Galata were permanent inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire and not merchants spending a few months or even years on the territories of the sultans: compare Kate Aeet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State. The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): 129. On the willingness of the Ottoman administration of the early seventeenth century to accept even long-term residents as foreign subjects, compare Suraiya Faroqhi, "The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire", The Journal of European Economic History (Rome), 15 1986): 345-84. Susan Sk.illiter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey (London: The British Academy and Oxford University Press, 1977): 88. 5 For a sixteenth-century case in which this issue was of some importance. compare Benjamin Arbel, Trading Nations, Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995): 1 13-32. On the situation of Jewish merchants see further Minna Rozen, "Strangers in a Strange Land:. The Extraterritorial Status of Jews in Italy and the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth to E1ghteenth Centuries" in Ottoman and Turkish Jewry.
�
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR PRINCES
126
BEFORE 1 600
Even more directly relevant to commercial cases was the requirement that a local trader who did business with a merchant protected by, for instance, the English capitulations must register the contract with the kadi . Normally such registration was optional, as Islamic religious law values the testimony of actual living witnesses over written texts.1 But where merchants covered by the capitulations formed one of the contracting parties, Ottoman subjects who had not secured such written evidence at the time of the original transaction were, by sultanic fiat, unable to pursue their claims. This was an important protection for the foreign party to the contract, as a non-Muslim could not bear witness against a Muslim in a kadi's court: without written evidence, the miiste'min often would have been at a severe disadvantage.2 On
non-Muslim
the other hand, if the agreement was recorded in the kadi's registers, or a separate document issued by a kadi was in the hands of the foreign merchant, all that was needed was a Muslim's testimony to the effect that written evidence had in fact been presented. Thus the testimony of the foreign non Muslim became irrelevant, and the two sides were more or less equal in front of the kadi.
127
to inclement weather as much as to the armies of Charles V, this was surely a
minor point. Moreover this same Charles V had also inherited the kingdom of
Spain, which under his grandparents the Catholic Kings, in 1492 had conquered the last remnants of ai-Andalus. The Habsburg-ruled Spanish kingdom also was attempting expansion in North Africa, and thus by the early sixteenth century, placing in jeopardy the Muslim principalities of the Mediterranean coastlands.l In addition there was the well-known Ottoman rivalry with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, and Portugal became part of the Spanish domain in 1580.2 Given this situation, sixteenth-century Ottoman rulers were in constant search of possible anti-Habsburg allies. This situation did not change significantly when Charles V in 1 556 divided his empire between his son Philip II, king of Spain, and his brother Ferdinand I who ruled in Austria as the 'king of Be�· (Vienna), as Ottoman official parlance usually called him. Seen from the viewpoint of Istanbul, the 'official' Ottoman fleet operated in the western Mediterranean only intermittently, and the corsairs of North Africa, in spite of their allegiance to the Sultans, were not necessarily docile i n following the directives of the latter. Therefore it must have seemed reasonable to establish good relations with all rulers who could muster
The uses ofahidnames: alliances against the Habsburgs What was the motivation for issuing
ahidnames
significant naval power against Spanish might in the Atlantic. This was in the first place,
apart from the fact that this practice had been current among pre-Ottoman Muslim rulers? Significant motivations were doubtless the political advantages which would hopefully ensue from such grants. 3 Thus it is certainly not due to chance that one of the earliest surviving
ahidnames
was
issued by a prince hoping for Venetian support against his rivals, in the early stages of what was to become a ferocious war for the succession of the defeated sultan Bayezid.4 As to the sixteenth century, i t was doubtless the Ottoman sultans' dominant motivation to gain allies against their Habsburg rivals. For from the early sixteenth century onwards, the sultans confronted Habsburg power both on land and sea. In the western borderlands of the former kingdom of Hungary, conquered in 1526, it was the Habsburgs who prevented further Ottoman expansion. And if the failure of the 1529 siege of Vienna may have been due
1Yet particularly in Cairo, some merchants did use the kadi's court in the same fashion as their _ Italian counterparts used the offices of a notary public, namely to record current transactiOns. This is the reason why Nelly Hanna was able to write an entire monograph on such a trader:
Making Big Money.
2aiegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship: 71; Skilliter, Harborne: 88. 3 For a discussion of these matters, see the article "Imtiyazat" in El by Halil Inalcik. 4 For a discussion of this war compare Imber, The Ottoman Empire: 55-74.
certainly true of England which had escaped the 1588 Armada in part because of weather conditions in the northern Atlantic and partly because of the 1 Andrew Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-Afri an � Frontier (Chicago and London: The University of C:hicago Press, 1978). Hess' work remams . _ valuable because he is one of the very few Ottoman histonans to have used Spamsh sources. Hess has directed a good deal of polemics against the work of Fernand �rau�el L a . . Mediterranee et le monde mediterraneen a l'epoque de Philippe 1/, 2 vols. (Pans: L t brame Armand Colin, 1 . ed. in one volume, 1949, 2nd ed., 1966). In Hess' view, the cultural divide between the Muslim and Christian Mediterraneans is taken all too lightly in Braudel's geographic and economic perspective. However it wou�d appear that comm_onalitic:s in geography and economies do not, unfortunately for humankmd, preclude adversanal re�attons. _ _ In addition, the third section of Braudel's book is devoted entJrely to the Ottomano-Htspamc confrontation of the second half of the sixteenth century. For a reprise of the B�udelian project, which ho�ever gives trade rathe� short shrif�, see Peregrine Horden and Ntcholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, A Study ofMediterranean H IStory (Oxfor d: Blackwell, 2000).
2Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: 99. MD 6, p. 166, No 355 (972/1564-65 is addressed to t�e king st not tmpe�e of Portugal Don Sebastian, and explains that if the latter really wants peace, he �� u hi� Defter�). the movements of Muslim pilgrims and merchants (compa re also 6 Numara/1 M On Ottoman concern with the Portuguese threat to the hnks between Yemen and fndta, see MD 35, p. 293, No 743 (986/1578-79). . . .. . . Ottoman-Portuguese conflict has been exammed by Sahh Ozbaran, compare the artu;:les tn his The Ottoman Response to European Expansion. Studies on Ottoman-Portuguese Relations in the Indian Ocean and Ottoman Administration in the Arab lands during the Sixteenth Century (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1994). Palmira Brummett Ottoman Sea Power and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age ofDiscovery ' (Albany: SUNY Press. 1994) has argued in favour of a commercial i�t�n� be�ind the uts or. expansion into the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, due to the lack of exphctt pohcy stateme the part of sixteenth-century Ottoman dignitaries, it is almost impossible to separate commercial from political motives.
Otto�an
128
A NOTHER
MI RROR
FOR
P R I N C ES
strategic mistakes made by Philip II and his admirals.1 But the losses English captains had inflicted on Philip II were substantial nonetheless. As to the kings of Poland, when kingship became elective in 1572, the minimal Ottoman demand with respect to the personage to be chosen was his hostility to Habsburg designs.2 Thus Sultan Selim II in 1573 acquiesced, not without misgivings, in the election of the Valois prince Henri, the second son of Henri II and himself the future French king Henri III. When the latter rapidly resigned the throne, the next king was Stephan Bathory, prince of Transylvania and an Ottoman vassal for the latter principality.3 In the closing years of the sixteenth century, when the 'Long War' between the sultans and the Habsburgs was in progress, Ottoman diplomacy attempted several times to forge an Ottoman-Polish alliance.4 To reward present and future support against the Habsburgs with the grant of an ahidname thus made sense in the overall context of Ottoman policy in central Europe.
States benefitingfrom ahidnames Early capitulations, in other words those granted before 1600, were limited to a relatively small number of states. As we have seen, the oldest surviving Ottoman privilege granted to the Venetians dates from the year 1403, that is, it was issued in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic battle of Ankara. Genoa concluded a treaty with Murad I in 1387, and again, together with Venetians and others, with a son of Bayezid's in 1403. During the siege of Constantinople, Genoese policy was highly ambiguous, for much of it was determined by influential merchants 'on the spot'. Thus the Genoese simultaneously were supplying the Ottoman armies, maintaining their settlement of Galata in a state of precarious neutrality and asking for aid to the Byzantine Emperor from Latin Christendom.5 Starting from 1442 the status of Dubrovnik/Ragusa, a city state which had paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire since 1439, also was confirmed by capitulations. After the Ottoman conquest of the Hungarian kingdom (1526), 1 For a discussion of this much-studied campaign, see Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998): 257-67. 2Kotodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Relations: 123-27. Compare also Kemal Beydilli, Die polnischen Konigswahlen und lnterregnen von 1572 und 1576 im Lichte osmanischer Archivalien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der os17Ulnischen Machtpolitik (Munich: Dr Dr Rudolf Trofenik, 1976). 3Beydilli, Konigswahlen: 140. 4Kotodziejczyk, Otto17Uln-Polish Relations: 127. 5Fleet, European and Islamic Trade: 128. On Genoese interests in the eastern Mediterr&nean, see Michel Balard, La Ro17Ulnie genoise, (XIIe-dibut du XVe siecle), 2 vols (Rome: bc:ole Fran�isc de Rome, 1978).
B EFORE
1 6 0 0
129
the city became a client state of the Empire, whose tribute (harac) payment, 12,500 gold pieces in the years around 1500, was regarded as the collectively paid equivalent of the head tax due from non-Muslims. Yet the city government also managed to insert into the ahidnames paragraphs which emphasized that Dubrovnik was not a simple province of the Empire.l Ottoman officials were not supposed to enter the city, which also maintained consuls on the sultans' territory to protect the interests of Dubrovnik merchants, as was practiced by other Christian states. Just after 1600, when it became Ottoman practice to collect, state by state, the sultanic edicts made out in favour of foreigners in special registers (ecnebi defterleri), the documents relevant to Ragusa were joined to those of Venice.2 This connection, ironic though it appears given the frequent conflicts between the two states, may have been motivated by the fact that Ottoman scribes quite often wrote Dubrovnik 'Dobra-venedik', 'Venedik' being the standard Ottoman version of 'Venice'.3 From the 1530s onwards, the French king, as the staunch opponent of Habsburg encirclement policies, was the only European potentate to enter into both an offensive and a defensive alliance with the Ottoman sultan.4 Yet endless controversy surrounds the first ahidname issued, or supposedly issued, to the king of France. It had been made out in 1536, when the anti-Habsburg alliance of Fran�ois I and Siileyman the Magnificent was still in its honeymoon. However the surviving document was issued by the Grand Vizier 'Makbul ve Maktul' Ibrahim Pa�a ('the favourite who was killed'); this dignitary fell from power and lost his life on Suleyman's orders shortly 1 However this did not prevent the Ottoman authorities from addressing the head of the Dubrovnik council as 'Dubrovnik beglerbegisi': MD 6, p. 193, No 416 (972/1564-65), for a himme transcription into the modern Turkish script and a facsimile compare 6 Nu17Ulrall Mii
Defteri. 2
B�bakanhk Allivi- Osmanh Allivi (Istanbul), Maliyeden Miidevver (from now on: MAD)
6004.
3Biegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship: 38-45; Faroqhi, "The Venetian Presence". 4rhis can be claimed given the Franco-Ottoman siege of Nice, even though Tinguely, L'icriture du Levant: 17-18 warns us that the French kings were more concerned about impressing European courts with this alliance than in common military operations. For a letter of Sultan Siileyman to Fran�ois I, concerning combined military action, see Tayyib Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Allivindeki Vesikalar Killliyatmda Kanuni Sultan Siileyman Devri Belgeleri," Belgeler, Tiirk Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi, 1,2 (1964): 1 1 9-20, continued as "Venedik Devlet Allivindeki Tiirk�e Belgeler Kolleksyonu ve Bizimle flgili Diger Belgeler." Belgeler, V-VIII, 9-12 (1968-71): 1-152 (from now on both articles will appear as: "Venedik Devlet Ar�ivindeki Belge1er"). The document in question, based on an original in the Biblioth�ue Nationale in Paris, has been published in the Arabic script: Belgeler, V-Vlll: 11619. As for the documents included in Gokbilgin's edition, the user must keep in mind that these pieces have since been recatalogued, and call numbers may have changed. For recent studies concerning these matters, compare Gc!raud Poumar�de, "Justifier l'injustifiable: !'alliance turque au miroir de Ia chr�tient� (XVIe-XVIIe si�cles)," Revue d'histoire diplo17Ultique, 3 (1997): 217-46 and idem, "N�gocier aupres de Ia Sublime Porte. Jalons pour une nouvelle histoire des capitulations franco-ottomanes" in L'invention de Ia diplo17Ultie ed. by L. B�ly (Paris, 1998): 71-85. For a wide-ranging discussion see idem, Pour en
finir avec Ia croisade. Mythes et rialitis de Ia lutte contre les Turcs aux xvr et XVIr siecles (Paris: PUF, 2004].
130
ANOTHER M I RROR FOR P R INCES
B EFORE
afterwards. Whether or not the surviving document was ever 'ratified' by Sultan Stileyman was debated for a considerable time. Finally a consensus apparently was reached, which relegated these capitulations to the never-never land of might-have-been. ! But recently the question has been reopened, with what final results remains to be seen. However without any doubt, capitulations were issued to the French king in before the end of the period studied here.2
1 569,
in other words well
fact issued in
1580,
131
1 600
and an English ambassador, acting in the name of Queen
Elizabeth but paid by the Levant Company, unofficially had been present in Istanbul since
1579. 1
On the Ottoman land frontier, intensive diplomatic relations had existed, ever since the first half of the fifteenth century, between the Ottoman Empire and the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. An 'eternal peace' first
Merchants of states to which capitulations had not been granted needed
had been concluded in
1553.
1533, and the first privilege known as an ahidname was
to come to an agreement with sea captains and consuls from Venice or France.
issued in
This regulation constituted a matter of prestige as well as of material gain for
Magnificent's heir apparent, while his father was still alive, namely in
the two states concerned, as the merchants in question paid a due known as the consulage. In consequence, the diplomatic initiatives of English merchants, founding members of the newly formed Levant Company, to establish an ambassador at the Ottoman court, and then to obtain capitulations of their own, aroused considerable hostility in French diplomatic circles.3 However, capitulations were granted to the English in spite of this opposition, largely because the subjects of Queen Elizabeth I appeared as formidable opponents of the Spanish crown. This was due especially to the defeat of the 'Invincible Armada' in
1588,
but even in the decade preceding this
naval campaign, English 'Luteran's were regarded with interest by the Ottoman court.4 Capitulations 'recognizing' the English ruler and her subjects were in
1Gaston Zeller, "Une h!gende qui a Ia vie dure: Les capitulations de 1535," Revue d'Histoire In his article on "Imtiyazat" in El, Halil Inalcik
This was confirmed by Prince Selim, Slileyman the
1564.
These were important agreements, although the strongly 'western European' slant of twentieth-century historiography, in Europe and the US as well as in Turkey, has tended to push them into the background of historical consciousness.2 Moreover when in
1 572, after the end of the JagieUo dynasty,
Poland-
Lithuania became an elective kingdom, the Ottoman sultans began to promote their own candidates for the Polish throne.3 These were normally local noblemen, preferably those whose possessions were situated close to the frontier with territories under the sultans' control . For these men would be concerned about the damage which Ottoman and Tatar raiders could inflict on their lands and peasants, and thus
nolens volens
frequently formed a pro-
Ottoman faction in the Polish diet. Only when the election of these local figures proved impossible, which as we have seen was often the case, did
Moderne et Contemporaine, 2 (1955): 127-32. has adopted Zeller's arguments.
For a recent bibliography concerning this debate, see Merlijn Olnon, "Towards Classifying Study of Two Cases Involving the English and Dutch Nations in Seventeenth Century Izmir,'' in Alastair Hamilton, Alexander H. de Groot, Maurits van den Boogert eds,
Ottoman rulers and viziers resign themselves to a foreign prince of firmly
Avanias: A
anti-Habsburg credentials.
2Even before the formal issuance of an ahidname, good relations were apparently considered important by the sultan. Compare MD 5, p. 39, No 93 (973/1565-66), of which a facsimile has been published in 5 Numarail Miihimme Defteri. This official letter (name) is addressed to the 'Fran�e padi§ah1'; it expresses Sultan Siileyman's satisfaction that the recent Anglo French conflict has been settled. On the protection of French traders against interference by local powerholders on the island of Djerba, also before the grant of the 1569 ahidname, see MD 6, p. 617, No 1359 (972/1564565), compare also 6 Numarall Miihimme Defteri. �Skillitl?r, William Harborne: 38. On the issue in its entirety see Miibahat KUtiikoglu, Osmanll lngi/iz lktisadf Miinasebetleri (Ankara: TUrk KiiltiiriinU Ara§Urma EnstitUsii, 1974) and Victor Menage, "The English Capitulation of 1580, A Review Article" International Journal ofMiddle
'Western' foreigners on Ottoman territories
Friends and Rivals in the East, Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant in the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000): 160-61.
-
East Studies, 12 (1980): 373-83.
Many clauses in the
ahidnames
did not formally refer to traders,
although of course apart from diplomats, merchants would have been the
likeliest visitors from western and southern Europe to frequent the Ottoman realm. Furthermore after the destruction of the Mamluk sultanate in
15 16-17,
there were the numerous pilgrims to Jerusalem, who also might visit a few Christian holy sites outside of the town itself.4 While these pious visitors
4 Christine
lsom-Verhaaren, "An Ottoman Report about Martin Luther and the Emperor: New Evidence of the Ottoman Interest in the Protestant Challenge to the Power of Charles V," Turcica, 28 (1996): 299-318 shows that in the early 1530s, the Ottoman court received information about the Protestant movement from an Albanian mohair merchant. However this report was marred by numerous inaccuracies, not the least of which was the notion that Luther was a lord with an army under his command. Just after the end of the period concerning us here, in 1614, the Protestant Dutch were granted capitulations because they opposed the Spanish kings, and it was a considerable disappointment to Ottoman viziers that the Dutch soon turned out to be more interested in trade than in fighting. Compare Alexander H. de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic, A History pjthe Earliest Diplomatic Relations 1610-1630 (Leiden, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch Archaeologisch Instituut, 1978).
l skilliter, William Harborne: 40. 2Kolodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations: 1 17-19. 3MD 21, p. 168, No 406 (980/1572-73). This text has been published, in facsimile and German translation, by Beydilli in Konigswahlen: 30-31; for the facsimile, see the Appendix of his book, without page numbers. 4A major restoration of the aedicula in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre took place in the middle of the sixteenth century. Compare Martin Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (Thrupp Stroud/Gioucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999): 100.
132
ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR PRI NCES
did not stay very long and for the most part, had only limited contacts with the local population, they did spend a few days, weeks or months on Ottoman territory, and needed to be escorted to their destinations. I
B EFORE 1 6 0 0
133
1 from distant parts between adjacent major states. Dubrovnik paid tribute to the sultans without ever having been conquered.2 For as an Ottoman text dated
1617 rather graphically put it, this was an 'infertile rock' which was not worth
In addition there were the spies; a recent study has demonstrated that the
the trouble and expense of a sultanic campaign.3 However in real life this was
way to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Istanbul.2 But remarkably enough,
significant than what could have been collected from an Ottoman provincial
long arm of the Venetian Signoria's secret services certainly reached all the
while the Ottoman authorities were quite concerned about the activities, or even just the possible actions of Iranian spies, they do not seem to have paid all that much attention to the Venetian secret service at least in peacetime.3 We can only speculate about the reasons. But given the numerous comings and goings between the Empire and Venice, and the existence of an Ottoman
not quite accurate to say the least; for Dubrovnik's tribute was much more town on a remote and rocky coast close to the western frontier. As Catholics, the traders of Dubrovnik moved easily in Italy and other parts of Catholic Europe, and even did business with merchants living in states with whose rulers the sultans might be at war.4 In their identity as Ottoman subjects on the other hand, they were able to trade freely throughout the sultan's domains.5
'colony' in this latter city sultans and viziers may well have surmised that they had the situation 'under control'.4 In some cases political information
A comparable role as intermediaries fell to the Sephardic Jews who i n the sixteenth century straddled the Ottoman-Venetian border.6 Many of them
for Ottoman tolerance of Venetian secret service activities.
city's trade, the Venetian authorities granted a
concerning European courts may have been provided by the bailos in exchange
had arrived in Venice after a long tour through Europe, and for the sake of the
de facto
tolerance to those
people who had been baptized i n Spain or Portugal, but had chosen to revert to their old faith before moving to Venice.? In many cases, some members of
Intermediaries
a given family or business partnership might be subjects of the Ottoman ruler
Up to this point we have assumed that it was always clear and simple to distinguish between the subjects of the Ottoman sultan and those of foreign
and others of the Signoria. As a result, the bankruptcy of a merchant such as Hayyi m Saruq, who really or purportedly had marketed a consignment of alum
Christian rulers; and on the juridical level, this is of course true enough. However in practical everyday terms, the distinction was not always equally clear-cut. To mention one example, there was the city state of Dubrovnik, which
may be termed
a typical 'emporium' distributing goods arriving
1 Stephane Yerasimos, Les voyageurs dans /'Empire ottoman (XIVe - XV/e siecles), . Bibliographie, itineraires et inventaire des lieux habites (Ankara: Tiirk Tanh Kurumu, 1991): 17-18.
2 Paolo Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, Spionaggio e controspionaggio al tempo della Serenissima: cifrari, intercettazioni, delazioni, tra mito e realta (Milano: EST, 1999). On the reverse phenomenon see N. H. Biegman, "Ragusan Spying for the Ottoman Empire," Belleten, XXVII (1963): 237-55. 3Things were of course quite different in wartime. Compare the janissary arrested under suspicious conditions near Dubrovnik, a putative Venetian spy: MD 12, p. 132, No 291 (978/1570-71 ). See 12 Numarall Miihimme Defteri. 4For a report to the young Sultan Siileyman, to the effect that the French and Genoese were preparing ships to aid the Knights of Rhodes (1522), see Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Alltvindeki Belgeler," Belgeler, V-VIII: 140-41. This message apparently reached the Ottoman court through the Venetians; it contains a brief account of a Franco-English war, which the English won, and a Franco-Spanish war, in which the French King came out on top. From the very end of Siileyman the Magnificent's long reign dates a letter to the Doge of Venice, in which the latter is ordered, in no uncertain terms, to pass on a letter addressed to Mustafa Pqa, at that time besieging the island of Malta -- the contents cannot have been very confidential. The Venetians are also expected to furnish intelligence: MD 6, p. 647, No 1424 (972/15), for a facsimile and a transcription in modem Turkish characters, see 6 Numaralt
Mii himme Defteri.
IMD 23, p. 85, No 612 (981/1573-74) lists the goods in which during the Cyprus war and its 2 immediate aftermath, Dubrovnik merchants were allowed and forbidden to trade. Certain varieties of leather, raw wool and sheepskins were permitted, while the list of prohibited goods was much longer: grain, arms, gunpowder, horses, cotton, lead, beeswax, chagrin leather and the fat of slaughtered animals, used in soap and candle manufacture. 2on the role of emporia compare K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An Economic Historyfrom the Rise ofIslam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985): 56,63, 98-99. 3Archivio di Stato, Venice, Documenti turchi, Busta 1 1 , No 1222 (1617).
For an Italian summary of this document, a little too late for our purposes but instructive concerning Veneto-Ragusan relations of the period around 1600, compare Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, I •Documenti turchi" dell'Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Roma: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1994): 322; similar sentiments have been expressed, not quite as drastically, in Documenti turchi, Busta 1 1 , No 1218. The relevant summaries in the catalogue, much older than the volume itself, had been prepared by Alessio Bombaci shortly after World War II.
4Biegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship: 44. As a result, during the Cyprus war (15701573), the Ottoman authorities were much concerned that goods purportedly sent to Dubrovnik were really destined for Venice: MD 12, pp. 545-546, No 1038 (1071-72); see also /2 Numarall Miihimme Defteri.
5For Dubrovnik traders corning to grief in the Aegean see MD 12, p. 561, No 1071 (979/157172); compare also 12 Numarall Miihimme Defteri. On a Dubrovnik trader who had a fortune of 122,000 ak�e taken away from him, probably by a customs official see MD 6, p. 193, No 416 (972/1564-65). Compare also Francis Carter, Dubrovnik (Ragusa), A Classic City State (New York: Academic Press, 1972): passim. 6Arbel, Trading Nations, passim. ?Brian Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice 1550-1670 (London: I. B: Tauris, 1997): 145-67.
134
ANOTHER
MIRROR
FOR
PRINCES
B EFORE
belonging to the Ottoman ruler, came to constitute a source of lengthy
disputes between the two states. I
Nor was this type of ambiguity limited to Veneto-Ottoman Jews, similar cases also occurring among certain families of Venice's staunchly
1 600
135
exceptionally well documented, did in fact use Jewish intermediaries for buying and selling in Venice, while certain other traders of Cairo mandated Venetian merchants visiting the Egyptian metropolis. I
bailo before being elected doge,
Yet that is by no means the whole story. In sixteenth-century Ancona, Muslim merchants possessed a fondaco (residence cum storehouse) of their
Andrea Gritti had fathered a son by a woman who was an Ottoman subject.
own, and just after the end of 'our' period, in the beginning years of the
Catholic patriciate. Stationed in Istanbul as
Ludovico/Aivise Gritti refused to return to Venice when his father ordered him to do so, even when the two states were at war. He may well have continued to enjoy some favour at the Ottoman court because he was viewed both as a source of information and a potential negotiator.2 Furthermore, as Kate Aeet has suggested, it is quite possible that Genoese customs farmers were active in early Ottoman ports, thus once again combining a role in the sultans' financial administration with citizenship in an Italian city state.3 In this instance as in the cases of Ludovico Gritti and certain influential Jewish businessmen, individuals on the one hand might possess the overlapping identities of diplomat, customs farmer and trader, and on the other, the conflicting allegiances of an Italian city state and the Ottoman Empire.4
seventeenth century, a sizeable palazzo on Venice's prestigious Canal Grande
was converted into an establishment of the same type.2 In the years just before and after
1600,
Venice was in trouble economically, and we can be fairly
certain that the Signoria would not have paid out the substantial sums of money needed for this undertaking had the number of Ottoman Muslims been insignificant. As an example, one might mention a record in Venice's Archivio di Stato concerning the story of a very ordinary Muslim trader killed in a brawl. In the course of settling the inheritance, his goods were bought by other Ottoman Muslims who happened to be present in Venice at the time,
and the number of potential buyers was not negligible.3
In fact, we know of merchants who came all the way from Ankara in order to sell mohair and mohair fabrics, which constituted almost the only source of ready money for certain villages to the west of this Anatolian town.4 Others, who came mainly from Bosnia, probably sold raw wool to the manufacturers of woollen cloth active in Venice at this time. Apparently the
A marginal note: Ottoman Muslims in Italy
Ottoman rulers of the period around
For a fairly long time it was assumed that Ottoman Muslims, when they traded at all, preferred the highly regulated commerce supplying Istanbul, avoiding involvement with 'infidels' and
a fortiori,
travel to Christian
countries. After all, Muslim religious scholars did not regard their coreligionists who maintained close contacts with 'unbelievers' with any
1600
did not believe that the Muslim
traders frequenting Venice or Ancona did anything particularly strange or reprehensible. For when Ottoman Muslim merchants were robbed
en route
not a rare occurrence in these years of Uskok piracy, they were often able to obtain letters to the Doge, written in the name of the sultan and/or the grand vizier, who energetically asked the Venetian authorities for redress.5
particular favour. Moreover commercial undertakings in the lands of the 'infidel' could easily be left to Ottoman non-Muslims who possessed much better political and social contacts i n Christian territories. A prominent Cairo merchant of the late sixteenth century, whose business activities are
1 Arbel, Trading Nations: 104-05. Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet A!'§ivindeki Belgeler," Belgeler, V-VIII: 131 has published a sultanic letter addressed to the Venetians, which concerns the alum a certain Haron, a relative of the famous Josef Nassi, proposed to sell in Venice. On the importance of the �ebinkarahisar alum mines during this period, see MAD 5454 (985/1577); for an interpretation compare Suraiya Faroqhi, "Alum Production and Alum Trade in the Ottoman Empire (about 1560-1830)", Wiener Zeitschriftfiir die Kunde des Morgen/andes, 71 (1979): 161-62. 2Ferenc Szakaly. Ludovico Gritti in Hungary, 1529-1534, A Historical Insight (sic) into the Beginnings of Turco-Habsburgian Rivalry (Budapest: Akad�miai Kiad6, 1995). My thanks to G�za David for supplying me with a copy of this study! An Ottoman document in the Venetian archives confirms the role of the 'Beyoglu' Ludovico Gritti as a negotiator: Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet A!'§ivindeki Belgeler," Belgeler: 1,2: 144-145. 3 Aeet, European and Islamic Trade: 13 ff. 4 4Arbel, Trading Nations: 36-37. ·
I Hanna, Making Big Money: 64-65. 2 �erafettin Turan, "Venedik'te Tilrk Ticaret Merkezi," Belleten, 32, 126 (1968): 247-83; Ennio Concina, Fondaci, Architettura, arte e mercatura tra Levante, Venezia e Alemagna (Venezia: Marsilio Editori, 1997): 219-46. I am grateful to Giampietro Bellingeri for providing me with a copy of this book. 3Cemal Kafadar, "A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima•, Journal of Turkish Studies, 10 (1986), Raiyyet Riisumu, Essays presented to Halil lnalcik ..: 191-218. 4Documenti turchi Busta 8, No 960, see also Pedani Fabris, 1 documenti turchi: 245-46; in Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Al'§ivindeki Belgeler," Belgeler, V-VIII: 122-24, we find a rescript concerning Jewish merchants bringing mohair fabrics to Venice. See also MD 24, p. 231, No 614 (982/1574-75), for an interpretation compare Faroqhi, Towns: 143. 5 suraiya Faroqhi, "Ottoman Views on Corsairs and Piracy in the Adriatic," in The Kapudan Pasha. His Office and his Domain, ed. by Elizabeth Zachariadou (Rethymnon: University of Crete Press, 2002): 357-371 and reprinted in this volume. For an example of the sultan's government putting pressure on the Venetians in order to secure the repression of the Uskoks, see MD 5, p. 445, No 1 194 (973/1565-66), see 5 Numaral1 Miihimme Defteri. This text is an official letter to the doge of Venice, warning him that if the Venetians do not deal with the Uskoks and their helpers, the sultan will be obliged to send out galleys of his own. .
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Customs revenues and ready money Moving from the discussion of persons to that of goods and money, it must not be forgotten that the control of trade routes, and the revenues to be derived from customs payments, constituted important sources of Ottoman
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137
always an expensive business. I A customs farmer also could instigate searches
for contraband goods, and these actions were especially troublesome when, as sometimes happened, the personage in question maintained links to the commercial rivals of the European traders with whom he had to deaJ.2 But at the same time, enlightened self-interest also might work in the
economic power. Apparently Mehmed I I the Conqueror (Fatih) had a good
opposite direction. The farmer of the customs dues or - if the latter had found
understanding of the importance of the international trade in spices - which
no takers willing to shoulder the risks of collection - a temporary salaried official (emin), at times might defend the merchants' interests vis a vis the
incidentally, were just as popular among Ottoman consumers of the times as they were among western Europeans.1 In the second half of the fifteenth century, the Mediterranean marts for spices lay on Mamluk territory in Aleppo and Cairo. But the Ottoman sultans of the ti me appear to have made an effort to turn this trade toward Bursa, an undertaking which, due to the great distances involved, did not succeed in the long run.2 However with the conquest of the Mamluk sultanate in 1516-17 and of Iraq in the 1 530s, the Red Sea and Basra routes, which remained important in European trade until about 1600 and into the mid-eighteenth century where intra-Ottoman trade was concerned, in any case came under the control of the sultans.
Ottoman administration. However this kind of cooperation, not to say
collusion, did not necessarily find its way into the official records, be they Ottoman or European.3 Official Ottoman views of foreign trade and traders are all but inseparable from the attitudes of the relevant officials towards the problems of precious metal and coinage.4 Silver was mined in limited quantities on Ottoman territory, both in the Balkans and Anatolia. But costs were high; in consequence, tribute and trade constituted the most important sources of the silver and gold so urgently needed for coinage. However at the same time, the Empire was located astride some of the major routes to South-east Asia, and
Paying customs duties was the major obligation of foreign merchants
in consequence, there was an appreciable outflow of specie eastward. In spite
according to the ahidnames, and normally subjects of the sultan paid less than
of attempts to stem the export of silver and even copper to Iran and India, the
aliens. Muslims always were favoured over non-Muslims. However given the
lure of Indian spices and fabrics continued to be very strong.5 By contrast, the
small number of Muslim subjects living under Christian rulers during the period concerned, the clauses favouring Muslim traders only applied in the case of Poland-Lithuania, and even that but occasionally. Customs dues were often farmed out, and customs farmers depended on the payments of both foreign and Ottoman merchants. As a result these temporary officials and foreign merchants might establish complex and sometimes conflict-laden relationships in order to maximize profits. On the one hand, already fifteenth-century documents indicate that a tax farmer if he so wished, might cause any amount of difficulty to the merchants under his
jurisdiction. He could demand supplementary dues, obliging the foreigners and their consuls to take the matter to the kadi or even to the central government,
gold and silver brought in by western Europeans must have contributed to the official tolerance which they were shown. However while in the late sixteenth century, debasement of the currency was regarded as a sign of political decline by quite a few Ottoman authors, price increases possibly due to a greater abundance of silver were not laid at the door of French, English or Italian merchants.6 Overall it does not appear that the role of foreign merchants as suppliers of silver and gold was considered as important by the Ottoman administrations of the time as their attempts to export prohibited wares.7
1An instructive text has been published by Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet Af§ivindeki Belgeler."
Belgeler, V-VIII: 109. Here we learn about Alexandrian merchants who did business with the
Venetians on credit, and when the time came to pay, they produced a document stating that they were indebted to the exchequer. Since the tax collector could claim precedence over private creditors, this was apparently an easy way of avoiding payment. In Istanbul it was assumed that the whole business was fraudulent, and in all likelihood local officials against a suitable reward. made out the relevant documents. 2Arbel, Trading Nations: 41; Fleet, European and Islamic Trade:
3Arbel, Trading Nations: 42-45. !This is evident from the large quantities of pepper and other spices often found in the larders of Ottoman pious foundations. Compare for instance MAD 4706, p. 14 (1001-1009/1592-1601); these accounts concern the pious foundation of Sultan Selim II in Konya. Other evidence comes from the complaints of Yemeni merchants concerning the manner in which tax collectors abused them when collecting - in kind - the spices due to the Ottoman state: compare for example MD 47, p. 122, No 308 (990/1582). .
2Halil lnalcik, "Bursa and the Commerce of the Levant," Journal of the Economic and Social
History ofthe Levant, 3 (1960): 131-47.
134-41.
4�evket Pamuk, A Monetary History ofthe Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
5Pamuk, A Monetary History: 134.
6Kafadar, "Les troubles mon6taires."
7Jn addition, foreign trade was a source of shipping space for Ottoman private merchants
as
well as for the state. Certainly in the sixtc:enth century there was as yet no predominance of foreign shipping in Ottoman waters, but 1t :was still a frequent practice to hire ships from Christian lands. For a case involving a VenetJan.shipper, see MD 5, p. 72, No 168 (973/156566); for a facsimile compare 5 Numara/1 Mfihimme Defteri.
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Imported goods However, political, fiscal and monetary concerns apart, there were also commercial considerations, in the narrow sense of the term, involved in the granting of capitulations to certain European rulers. However, it is easy to exaggerate the i mportance of late fifteenth or even sixteenth-century trade with Europe in the general economic balance of the Ottoman Empire. A spate of recent studies have taught us that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ottomans traded with both east and west.1 In addition there was the sizeable commerce between different provinces of the Empire itself, although, given the deficiencies of our sources, the volume of these exchanges cannot be measured. Thus commerce with states of western and southern Europe, while
B EFORE
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139
on whose writings we must depend for most of our information. I Thus in addition to silk cloth manufactured in Istanbul or Bursa, the Palace imported valuable textiles from Venice, where certain workshops seem to have oriented their production specifically towards the Ottoman market.2 Fine glassware was also exported to Istanbul from Venice, to say nothing of the cheese known as
grana padano, which
was well liked at the late sixteenth-century Ottoman
court.3 Moreover, once printing had become an important industry, Ottoman
readers of Greek normally procured their reading matter from Venice; certain publishers in this city catered for readers of the vernacular, as opposed to the classical language. Religious texts held pride of place, but a certain number of secular works also were marketed.4
forming the 'window' through which European and American historians traditionally have regarded Ottoman economic history, merely forms a small
The 'Ottoman economic mind'
part of a much wider picture. However there were certain items which Ottoman customers, and more
It is now over thirty years ago that Halil Inalcik has given us an
particularly the ruling group, did procure from European states. For
account of the reactions of Ottoman officialdom with respect to trade in
armaments, English tin was of some significance, while especially in the
general, of which the business of foreign merchants merely constituted a
second half of the sixteenth century, Ottoman urbanites of the 'middling sort'
special case. In the intervening period, the work of Metin Kunt, Mehmet
purchased the woollen cloths which the English could sell at relatively cheap
Genet. Bruce Masters, Murat Cizakcta, Edhem Eidem, Daniel Panzac, �evket
prices.2 For the latter derived major profits from Mediterranean trade by reselling Iranian raw silk to the developing silk industries of western and central Europe; on the other hand selling woollen fabrics cheaply was preferable to sending the ships out empty. When Venice developed a woollen industry from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, the products of these manufactures also found some customers in Ottoman ports.3 Yet none of these imports was in any way crucial to the functioning of the different regional economies which made up the Ottoman realm. While by definition the volume of luxury trade was minor, it did possess a disproportionate significance for the Palace and governmental circles
I see for example: Dina Rizk Khoury, "Merchants and Trade in Early Modern Iraq," New 53-86; lnalcik, "The Ottoman State: Economy and Society;"
Perspectives on Turkey, 5-6 (1991): Hanna, Making Big Money.
2senjamin Braude, "International Competition and Domestic Cloth in the Ottoman Empire: A Study in Undevelopment," Review, II, 3 (1979): 437-54. 3 Domenico Sella, "The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Woollen Industry," in Brian Pullan ed, Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Si xteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1968): 106-26 analyzes the fortunes of the industry, but does not discuss the sources of raw wool. One of these Ottoman customers was the governor of Bosnia Mustafa Pll§a. a relative of the powerful Sokollu, compare Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet AF§ivindeki Belgeler," Belgeler, V VIII: 1 24-25.
1 Compare Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet A!"§ivindeki Belgeler," Be/ge/er, 1,2: 200-01 for an Ottoman pasha buying 30,000 akfe's worth ofjewelry from Venice (938/153 1-32). Luxury goods moreover travelled both ways, Polish noblemen being particularly avid consumers; compare Andrzej Dziubinski, "Polish-Turkish Trade in the 16th to 18th Centuries," in War and Peace, Ottoman-Polish Relations in the 15th - 19th Centuries (Istanbul: Turkish Ministry of Culture and Polish Ministry of Culture and Art, 1999): 38-45. While Dziubinski has worked on materials located in Poland and the Ukraine, some information also can be found in Ottoman sources. Thus in 972/1564-65, permission was accorded to the ambassador of the king of Poland to buy velvet in Bursa for his sovereign: MD 6, p.93, No 194; compare also 6 Numarall Mii himme Defteri. For a study based upon Ottoman sources, compare Gilles Veinstein, "Marchands ottomans en Pologne-Lituanie et en Moscovie sous le regne de Soliman le Magnifique," Cahiers du monde russe, 35, 4 (1994): 713-38. A more unexpected luxury arriving in Renaissance Europe from the Ottoman Empire consisted of antique marbles from the region of Athens; their exportation was prohibited by MD 33, p. 181. No 357 (985/1577-78). 2 Louise Mackie, "Ottoman Kaftans with an Italian Identity," in Suraiya Faroqhi, Christoph Neumann eds., Ottoman Costumesfrom Textile to Identity (Istanbul: Eren, 2004): 219-29. 3Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In nome del Gran Signore, lnviati ottomani a Venezia dalla caduta di
nopoli alta guerra di Candia (Venice: Di(JUtazione Editrice, 1994): 92-93 discusses the Costanti diplomatic gifts received by Ottoman envoys_, whtch were often selected after the preferences of the personage in question had been ascertamed.
4Evro Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Boofc in Italy, Printers and Publ�shersjor the Greek World (Venice: The Hellenic Institute of Byzantme and Post-Byzantine Studtes, 1994).
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Pamuk and others has further refined these concepts.1 From the Ottoman administration's point of view, the crucial consideration was the supplying of local markets. For only in this way could prices be kept low, and a moderate. level of prices i n tum was considered a prerequisite for keeping the costs of war and administration within acceptable l i mits. Official concern with the interests of local craftsmen was not totally absent. But when Ottoman rulers intervened i n order to protect the artisans' supplies of raw material from purchase by foreign traders, this was not because the export of finished goods, as opposed to raw materials, might be
141
1 600
Muslim world. 1 But the most significant of all Ottoman prohibitions concerned the exportation of grain, at least from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards.2 Earlier the sultans in good years had issued special permits to export, of which Venice was a major beneficiary.3 But as the sixteenth century population expansion made itself felt, and 1 590s harvests were miserable throughout the Mediterranean, wheat became
the
principal
contraband article and foreign merchants almost by definition potential grain smugglers.4
expected to enrich the sultans' realm. Rather official solicitude was prompted by political and moral considerations: the ruler was,
noblesse oblige, expected
to provide his 'poor subjects' with the means of making a livelihood. Viewed
Foreign merchants between central and local forces
from a different angle, only craftsmen who could support themselves and their families could be counted upon to provide the sails, anchors, weaponry and other goods required for war, to say nothing of the needs of the Palace. With only slight exaggeration, we may conclude that the Ottoman administration became concerned with the fate of craftsmen only if the latter complained, and if the needs of the state were visibly in jeopardy. In consequence merchants from Latin Christendom were viewed as a problem only in specific contexts, especially if from the Ottoman realm they removed raw materials needed by the state and/or domestic producers. Given these attitudes, importation was generally viewed with a more favourable eye than exports. Quite a few goods, including leather and cotton (used in the manufacture of sails) were considered of military value and labelled as contraband
per se.2
Once again, this way of thinking was not
uniquely Ottoman, but also prevailed in late mediaeval Europe, where
However the capitulations provided no more than a framework. While ambassadors negotiated the first-time grant and the renewal of existing capitulations at the court in Istanbul, the process of implementation was basically a local one.5 This meant that provincial governors, kadis and, above all, customs farmers were the principal authorities to which the foreign merchants needed to tum.6 However it would be naive to assume that these local figures necessarily had the same agenda as the central power. We have already encountered the most extreme case, namely the North African militias cum owners of corsair ships, who refused to recognize the treaties concluded by the sultans with foreign Christian powers, and demanded that European potentates treat with them directly. Local commanders of frontier garrisons might be moved by the ethos of Holy War against the 'unbelievers', and protect corsairs who attacked 'infidel' ships, to say nothing of the financial
the popes frequently issued stringent prohibitions against trading with the I Halil Inalcik "The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy," in Studies of the Econo'mic History of the Middle East, ed. Michael Cook (London, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1970): 207-18. . . See also: Metin Kunt, "Dervi§ Mehmed P8§8, Vezu and Entrepreneur: A Study 10 Ottoman Political-economic Theory and Practice", Turcica, 9, 1 (1.977):. 197-2 �4; Br�c� Masters, ,"The Sultan's Entrepreneurs: The Avrupa tticcan and the Haynye tuccans 10 Syna, lnterna�10nal Journal of Middle East Studies, 24 (1992): 579-97; Mehmet Gen�. ·�ttoman In1u.stry 10 the Eighteenth Century: General Framework, Characteristics and Mam Trends, tn Donald Quataert ed, Manufacturing in the Ottoman .Empire and Turkey 1500:1950, (Albany: SUNY Press 1994) 59-86· Daniel Panzac, Les corsatres barbaresques, Ia fin d une epopee 1800-1820 (Pari;: CNRS Editions, 1999); Edhem Eidem, French Trade in Istanbul n i the Eighteenth Centu!Y (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999); Edhem Eidem, Daniel Goffman, .Bruce Maste.rs, The.Otto� C1ty between East and West, Aleppo, lvnir and Istanbul (Cambndge: Cambndge �ntvers1ty Press, 1999); Parnuk, A Monetary History. J:lowever with few exceptions, these stud1es focus on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centunes. .
2 MD 7, p. 403, No 1696 (976/1568-69) ordered increased �igilanc� t the checkpo10t of �
Geli bolu to prevent French and Venetia!! mer�hants from exportJ.ng proh1b1�.g<>?ds, see �lso 7 Numaral1 Miihimme Defteri. For a dJscussJon c�mpare Sura1ya . Faroqh1, D1e. o!ma�sche Handelspolitik des frilhen 17. Jahrhunderts zw1schen Dubrovmk und Vened1g W1ener Beitrligefiir die Geschichte der Neuzeit, 10 (1983): 207-22. •
Ion the prohibition against selling slaves to the Mamluks compare: Balard, La Romanie genoise,
vol t: 298.
2
Preventing the exportation of grain presumably was one of the �ajor reasons why from the . late sixteenth century onwards, non-Ottoman merchants were forbidden to enter the Black Se_a Compare Halil Inalcik, "The Question of the Closing of the Black Sea under the Ottomans," m
Archeion Pontou, 35 (1979): 74- 110.
However exceptional pe�issio_ns wer e. �om��imes granted: see MAD .6004. .P· 42 for a il and K a 1h (Kiha) for the purpose of buymg wh1te sturgeon Venetian trader allowed to visJt Ism
(1032-1033/1623-2 4 ). 3
For an Ottoman permit issued to Venetians hoping to buy grain in the vicinity of Athens, dated
948/ 1541, see Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devle� AT§ivindeki Bel�eler," Belgeler, V-VIII: 78-79. For
the Venetian perspective, compare .Maunce.Aymard, Vemse, Raguse er ie commerce du bte pendant Ia seconde moitii du XV/e s1ecle (Pans: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1966): 135-40. 'JPeter Clark ed, The European Crisis of the 1590s, Essays in Comparative History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985): 232. 5Faroqhi, "The Venetian Presence".
6 rbel, Trading Nations: 31-54. A
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advantages to be gained from such protection. 1 Incidentally, matters were no different on the Venetian side of the border, where Ottoman Muslim merchants who had been despoiled by the Uskoks or other freebooters, surely not without some justification used to claim that Venetian fortress commanders were in league with the pirates.2 Apparently the Ottoman authorities were inclined to think that the problems of foreign (and domestic) merchants should be solved by officials stationed in the locality where the traders were active, with the kadis taking on
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143
leathers, whose role in smuggled trade we also have had occasion to witness,
were daily necessities, and moreover belonged to those little-rewarded branches
of production which world systems theory views as a mark of 'peripheral' regions. The real difficulty is that we usually have no way of measuring smuggling, and thus cannot really judge the quantities of wheat or cotton involved. One might thus consider that even in the late sixteenth century, the Ottoman economy was not as yet 'incorporated' into the expanding 'world
a prominent role. Of course these officials were expected to report to Istanbul,
economy' of capitalist Europe, even though the process of incorporation
and abide by the directives given by the central government But delegation of
showed some signs of beginning, at least in a few places. In other words, the
authority meant that the foreign state also could set up a local organization,
Ottoman realm still constituted a 'world economy' in its own right. This issue
and in the English
ahidname
we find the clause that consuls could be
appointed in the cities of Alexandria, Cairo, Tripolis in Syria, Tripoli in Africa, Tunis, Algiers and other places.3
has however been a matter of considerable dispute, with one school of thought in favour of an early 'incorporation' and a concomitant disruption of Ottoman manufactures from the late sixteenth century onwards. 1 More recently however, another school of thought has gained in importance. As we have seen, historians have come to better appreciate the
World systems theory and the Ottomans
relatively limited volume of European imports in comparison to the large quantities of goods circulating in Ottoman domestic markets. Even more
If trade in luxury goods between two polities or regions prevails over
inaccessible to the eye of the researcher are the yet larger quantities of goods
other kinds of exchange, scholars who work within the framework of world
which must have changed hands between villagers, or between villagers and
systems theory consider that the two economies i n question are integrated only
nomads, in the context of more or less ritualized gift exchanges. European
to a minimal extent.4 To what extent is this judgement applicable to the
merchants of the sixteenth century therefore are today viewed by some
Ottoman case? Doubtless silken and woollen fabrics as well as glassware of
historians myself among them, as relatively marginal to the Ottoman
better quality, which as we have seen, all played an important role in
economy.
Ottoman-European trade before 1600, were at least semi-luxuries. As to the Iranian raw silk which was marketed by way of Bursa or Aleppo, it would seem that it also should be rated among luxury products, even though raw silk
In addition, it has been observed in several instances that industries which went through a 'bad patch' in the years around 1600 later revived to a greater or lesser extent2 These observations cast doubt on the assumption that
was of course a semi-manufactured item. However raw cotton, grain and most
already from the late sixteenth century onwards, the Ottoman Empire
1 For a Venetian complaint on such an issue see Documenti turchi, Busta 6, No 785; for a summary compare Pedani Fabris, ! docu_mef!ti turchi: 196. �n this particu1� insta ��· SUieyma '? the Magnificent ordered a second mvestJgabon. For accordmg to the Vene1an t pellbon, the k a d1 of Arnavud Belgrad1 (Berat), who had been in charge of the first, had not taken any particular interest in solving the dispute. Gokbilgin, "Venedik Devlet A�ivinde�i Belgeler": Belgeler V-VIII: 88 has publishe� a sultanic command, dated 943/1536, concernmg robbers who had attacked a group of Venet1an traders; these merchants had attended a fair in the Morea. While the attackers were found, they were let go by the official in charge of handling the case. Now Sultan SUieyman ordered a court investigation which was to determine the responsibility of local officials. As to the Ottoman side of the matter, a tine example is MD 3, p. 436, No 1306 (967/1559-60); for a facsimile and modern Turkish transcription of this text, see 3 Numaralt Miihimme Defteri. 2For one example among many see Documenti turchi, Busta 9, No 1 053; compare Pedani Fabris, I document/ turchi: 269. 3Skilliter, Willam i Harborne: 88. 41mmanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System. 3 vols. (New York etc: Academic Press, 1974, 1980, 1989). vol l: 302.
of cheap raw materials. According to historians who agree with the view
functioned merely as a market for European manufactured goods and a source outlined here, 'incorporation' was a matter of the late eighteenth or even the early nineteenth century, and not of the years preceding 1600.3 However this 1 6mer LUtfi Barkan, "The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East," International Journal ofMiddle East Studies, VI (1975): 328; Murat <;izak�a. "Price History and the Bursa Silk Industry: A Study in Ottoman Industrial Decline 1550-1650"' in The Ottoman Empire and the World Ecorwmy. ed. Huri Islamoglu-inan (reprint: Cambridge, Paris: Cambridge University Press and Ma.ison des Sciences de I'Homme,
1987): 247-61.
2 Murat <;izak�a. "Incorporation of the Middle East into the European World Economy," Review, VIII, 3 (1985): 353-78. 3Moreover even in the nineteenth century, �rtain Ottoman producers handled the challenge of western competition more actively and creatively than had previously been assumed. Compare Donald Quataert, Orroman Manufacturing in the Age ofthe Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
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FOR PRINCES
global evaluation does not exclude the possibility that in certain regions close to the sea, where grain or cotton smugglers were most active, a degree of integration prevailed even in the late sixteenth century. Now that we possess many more regional studies than was true thirty years ago, we have come to better appreciate that what was true for one town did not necessarily apply to
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145
frequent were members of the Ottoman upper class who participated in urban economic life in an indirect fashion, namely by establishing pious foundations which rented out urban real estate. For these elite men (and occasionally women) constructed khans and covered markets, in which both domestic and foreign merchants rented space. Admittedly, the founders themselves profited
another, even if the two places only were situated at a distance of a few
only to a limited extent once their pious foundation had been established. Yet
kilometres from one another.
they must still have been interested in the commercial activities of the cities in which they had financed construction, if only to protect the symbols of
The Onoman upper cltzsses, 'provisionism' and preparation for war1 Both adherents of world systems theory and their opponents, who emphasize the importance of local Ottoman reactions to the intrusion of European goods and merchants, agree in viewing Ottoman craftsmen and traders as bonafide actors in the economic field.2 In addition, there has been some debate over the role of the Ottoman upper class. Ever since Halil
their own piety. As long as 'infidel' merchants paid their rents, they were perfectly acceptable tenants of such foundation-owned buildings, and neither
founders nor administrators expressed any particular objections against them. 1
However another set of assumptions has it that the Ottoman state was willing to subordinate all 'economic' interests to warfare, and that in this context, the commercial concerns of its own subjects, and even those of the Ottoman elite, counted for relatively little. Where foreign merchants were involved, this attitude could have a variety of repercussions. As the preceding
Inalcik's seminal works, it has been well understood that a laissez-faire
discussions have shown, under certain circumstances alien traders were regarded
approach towards the importation of European goods did not prevent the
as possible threats to the Empire's war-making capacities, namely when they
Ottoman ruling group of the fifteenth or sixteenth century from viewing the
tried to export goods considered to be of military value. But these foreigners
commercial interests of its subjects, both Muslims and non-Muslims, as
could also be considered as welcome additions to the Ottoman marketplace, as
worthy of sultanic protection.3
the goods they brought into the Empire directly or indirectly facilitated the
in commercial activities. For 'our' period, the most famous example probably
period was favourable to the Ottomans, European merchants were significant
In addition, members of the Ottoman upper class could and did take part
concerns Rustem Pa�a. Stileyman the Magnificent's grand vizier and son-in-law showed an uncanny sense for money-making investments, a character trait which European observers also commented upon.4 More
1 on
'provisionism', e. g. the concern with provisioning as opposed to producing, see Geny, "Ottoman Industry.• 2For a sophisticated discussion of this dispute, compare Huri tslamoglu-lnan, "Oriental Despotism in World System Perspective," in eadem ed. The 0Noman Empire and the World Economy, (Cambridge, Paris: Cambridge University Press and Maison des Sciences de !'Homme, 1987): 1-26. 3 Halil lnalcik, "Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire", The Journal of Economic History, XXIX, I (1969): 97-140. For a recent amplification of this view where piracy is concerned compare Faroqhi, "Ottoman Views on Corsairs and Piracy", reproduced in this volume. By contrast, Traian Stoianovich had suggested that at least the eighteenth-century Ottoman state was not much interested in protecting the enterprises of its subjects: "The Conquering Balkan Orthodoll Merchant." The Journal ofEconomic Hi story, 20 (1960): 257. The background of these varying attitudes definitely needs further investigation. 4 0gier Ghiselin van Boesbeck, Vier brieven over het gezantshap naar Turkije, ed. by Zweder von Martels, tr. by Michel Goldsteen (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994): 50-51 discusses Rilstem �·s talent for putting in order the finances of Siileyman the Magnificent. For some references to this grand vizier's pious foundations an.d thus, indirectly, to his properties, compare the relevant articles in lslllm Ansiklopedisi, lslllm Aleminin Cografya, by �inasi Altundag and �erafettin Turan, as well as in EJ; 2nd
Etrwgrafya ve Biyografya Lugat1
ed. by Christine Woodhead. For ROstem �·s previous ownership of the fairgrounds of Dolyan compare MD 85, p. 112 (104111631-32).
provisioning of court and armies. Moreover as the balance of trade in this providers of gold and silver, the very sinews of war. Thus from the viewpoint of those scholars who regard the Ottoman ruling group as geared mainly to warfare, the 'provisionist' mentality of sultans and viziers presented foreign merchants with a wedge which opened the door permitting the latter to intrude into the Ottoman polity.2 This was to become a major issue mainly i n the centuries following 1600 . But certain exposed industries, such as the cost intensive silk manufacture of Bursa, experienced the rough winds of European competition already in the late sixteenth century.3 This debate hinges around the problem to what extent the Ottoman ruling group understood the changes in commercial structures that were being brought about by the 'new' economic actors of the late sixteenth century, lin Aleppo khans belonging to pious foundations established by Ottoman dignitaries even could be leased t merchants and consu.ls on a long-term basis. Thus the French had rented such a khan: see Paul Masson, Histoire du commerce franyais dans le Levant au XVlle siecle (Paris: Hachette, 1896): 378. 2A historian of Ottoman warfare has concluded that these difficulties did not prevent the Ottoman 'war machine' from functioning satisfactorily, and this well into the seventeenth century: Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 1500- 1700 (London: UCL Press, 1999). 3 <;:izakya. "Price History and the Bursa Silk Industry•.
�
146
ANOTHER
M I RROR
FOR
PRINCES
B E� O R E
particularly the English. I Many Ottomanist scholars probably would consider today that this issue is only marginally relevant to 'our' period. Put differently, between 1550 and 1600 there were perhaps fewer changes due to European traders active on Ottoman territory that would have demanded the immediate attention of a responsible official of the sultan's than had been assumed about thirty years ago. Certainly Venice, the Ottomans' old enemy and trading partner, was in considerable difficulty.2 But then Venice's obvious and well-documented economic problems would not have made a contemporary observer from Istanbul's political elite worry overmuch about the fate of the Ottoman polity. After all, the trade routes to India through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean remained open to merchants from Cairo and elsewhere.3 Only historians of our own time - and not contemporaries - have come to see the affinities between the Venetian and Ottoman politico-economic systems; and in some instances, they even have proposed that the two polities stood and fell together.4 All this is far removed from the perspectives of an elite Ottoman living in the age of Murad III or Mehmed Ill.
1 This revision is linked to the understanding that the Asian land routes remained well.travelled long after 1600, in spite of all the advantages possessed by the chartered companies of England and Holland. For a 'classic' statement of the older view compare Niels Steensgaard, The Asi an
Trade Rt!Volution of the Seventeenth C.entury. 7'!'e �t India Companies and the Decline ofthe Caravan Trade (Chtcago, Lo�don: Chtcag� Umverstty Press, 1973). A significant challenge has
come from Stephen Fredenc Date, lnd1an Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600·1 750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Rudolph Mathee, Politi cs of Trade in Safavid Iran. S�lkfor silver 1600·1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): 53·55 and Ina Bag dt�U·Mc abe, The Shah'� Silk for Europe's Silver. The Eurasian of the Ju a A�memans m S a f av.rd Iran and lndra (1530-/750), (Atlanta/Georgia: Scholars Press and Umverstty of Pennsylvama, 1999): 31. All these recent works stress the continuing importance of caravan routes.
The
Trade
2This was a favourite research topic in the 1960s and 1970s, compare Brian Pullan ed., Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London: Methuen & Co, 1968) and Richard Tilden Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline in Seventeenth·Century Venice (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1976). For a more recent study of this kind see Maria Fusaro. Uva passa, Una guerra commerciale tra Vener.ia e lnghilterra (1540·1640) (Venezia: II Cardo, 1996). 3 Hanna, Making Big Money: 77·84.
4w�en it came to controlling the grain trade, this similarity between Ottomans and Venetians is
partcularly apparent; compare Liltfi GO�er, "Osmanh Imparatorlutunda Hububat Ticaretinin ! Tabt Oldugu Kayttlar," istanbul Oniversitesi iktisat Falciiltesi Mecmuasr, 13 (1951-52): 79-98 and Aymard, Venise, Raguse et le commerce du b/e. Amon� historians who have commented on this similarity in a more general fashion, see Renz? P act, La ·�ala" �� Spa�ato e i� commercia veneziano nei Balcanifra Cinque e Seicento (Vemce Deputaz1one d1 Stona P�tna per le Ve�ezie 1971): 20 and more recently .Molly : . Greene, A Shared World, ChriStians and Muslrms rn the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press; 2000): 205.
:
the exportation of forbidden goods. Furthermore much of the surviving
evidence dates from the period after 1600,
because
it was only then that
Ottoman officials began to document their reactions to the presence of western and central Europeans in separate registers
(ecnebi defterleri) devoted purely
to the affairs of foreigners.
Ahidnames
have been extensively studied; indeed it is not an
exaggeration to say that questions linked with these grants of priv ilege figure among the best-known issues in Ottoman history. This clearly is due - to name only work undertaken during the last thirty years - to the efforts of Inalcik with respect to the ahidname issue in its entirety, Zachariadou for pre-
But when i t comes to discussing the attitudes of the sultans'
of the changing situation in international commerce during the closing years
�
with western European rulers, sultanic edicts issued upon the requests of foreign ambassadors and intra-Empire official correspondence aimed at curbing
and proto-Ottoman South-western Anatolia, Poumarede for France, Skilliter
Scholars attempting to gain a sense of what the Ottoman elite thought
l{
of the sixteenth century are not having an easy time, due to the limitations of our ources. 1 As we have seen, whatever notions we do possess have � . labonously been p1eced together from ahidnames, political correspondences
and Menage for England, de Groot, Butut and van den Boogert for Holland' Theunissen for Venice and Kolodziejczyk for Poland.2
In conclusion: avenues ofpossible research
C:
147
1 6 0 0
administrators in a less 'document-oriented' mode, the Ottoman perspective on 'infidel' merchants is still sorely neglected, if only because advance in this field depends so much on 'chance' finds of documents.3 That foreign merchants but exceptionally occur in the kadis' registers has not facilitated the historian's task either. Moreover Ottomanists have tended to place special emphasis on matters internal to the Empire, not only because the sources orient us that way, but also
because we have come to understand
that in the years before
1600, foreign trade was important but certainly not decisive for the functioning of the Ottoman economy. Historians of the 1970s and 1980s have focused on smuggling and particularly the exportation of war-related goods, because they were concerned with the implied threat that foreign merchants 1 This problem has plagued Daniel Goffman when writing Britons in the Ottoman Empire' /642· 1660 (Washington University Press. 1998): 1 1 .
�
!
achariadou, Trade and Crusade; Pouma Me, "Justifier l nalc k, "h�tiyaz�t" in El; nd r em, .Negoc;,•er aupres de Ia Sublime Porte"; Skilliter, William Harborne, Menage, Capttulatton of 1580 ; de Groot, The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic M�hmet Bulut. Ottornan·Dutch Economic Relations in the Early Modern Period, 1571-1699 (Htl �ersu�: Verloren, 2001): Kate Fleet and Maarten van den Boogert eds, The Ottoman . Capuu!a ttons Text Contex_t (Na�les/Ca�br dge: Istit�t� Nallino and Skilliter Centre, 2003); � D•plomaucs ; KolodzteJczyk, Ottoman·Polish Diplomatic Theuussen, Ottoman·VenetJan � Relations. . tJfia le I l.nJus �
!l
�
and
�
r
!
3 Literary.texts su�h as captivity reports and othe travel accounts also may yield snatches of ; Self and Others: the Diary of a Dervish in f orrnatJon. Compare Cern valuable m � Kafadar, st· person Narratives in Ottoman Literature'" Studia Seventeenth·century Istanbul and Ftr lslamica, LXIX (1989): 121 ·50.
148
AN0T H ER M I R R 0R F0R P R I NCES
posed to the Empire's economic equilibrium. But by now it is hard to say anything very novel on this issue, given the limitations of our source material. The publication of original documents, which due to the efforts of both Venetian and Turkish scholars has proceeded apace during the last seven years has made much relevant evidence more accessible than it used to be even
NEGOTIATING A FESTIVITY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: iBRAHiM PA�A AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC, 1720
a few years ago. I
Given this situation, it is certainly not by chance that during the
1990s, scholars interested in pre-Tanzimat Ottoman relations with western and
central Europe have increasingly concentrated upon the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century, where documentation both Ottoman and
French or English is so much more ample. Moreover we have come to understand that regional identities in the economic field continued to exist even when imperial centralization was at its height; but of course this issue is much more easily studied with respect to the 1700s. We thus observe a certain decline of interest in the 'classical' period, and a corresponding increase of concern with the previously much maligned period of 'decline'. But if we wish to advance our understanding of sixteenth-century Ottoman attitudes, what can we do? In my view the time has come to pay more attention to Ottoman documents surviving in European archives, especially those of Venice. For here we often find evidence of the political bargaining undertaken not in the names of the sultans themselves, but in that of grand viziers and provincial governors. These less official texts are often more instructive than edicts issued under the rulers'
tugra,
for in the last
named, it was customary to emphasize claims to world domination and downplay anything as sordid as the balancing of mutual interests. Yet channels for 'give and take' did exist. A recent study has made it clear that quite a few more or less 'subterranean' links between the Ottoman world and Venice were formed during the sixteenth century; and from our viewpoint these will repay further exploration.2 It would also appear that in spite of intensive research, the archives of Dubrovnik have not as yet yielded up all their treasures.3 To a degree, the Ottoman materials surviving in these and other archives may help us understand the complicated negotiations, subterfuges and tergiversations which form the stuff of real political and commercial relations, and which go beyond the rather general, stereotyped provisions of the
ahidnames.
1compare Pedani Fabris, I documenti turchi and the publications of MUhimme registers mentioned on p. I22. 2Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, "Safiye's Household and Venetian Diplomacy." Turcica, 32 (2000): 932. 3For a relatively recent contribution see Bo�ko I. Bojovic, Raguse et /'Empire ottoman (14301520) (Paris: Association Pierre Belon, 1998).
In the present paper, we will analyze certain aspects of the relationship between Nev�ehirli Damad ibrahim P�a (about 1662-1730), grand vizier to Sultan Ahmed III, and the French ambassador Jean-Louis Dusson marquis de Bonnac ( 1 676- 1738). Our focus will be a major Ottoman festivity, namely the princely circumcision of 1720, in which one of these two men played a central, and the other a supporting role. We will attempt to understand why certain issues formed the subject of intensive negotiations, not to say haggling, between the highest Ottoman official and the ambassador of one of the major European states. This is mainly reflected in the published and unpublished writings of the French ambassador the marquis de Bonnac, which will form the main primary source for the present paper1• For background information, our major source will be the chronicle of the religious scholar and diplomat Mehmed �id (died in 1735), who was close to the grand vizier Damad ibrahim � and a contemporary of the event he described2. Debates and disputes concerning ceremonies, in which seventeenth and eighteenth-century diplomats were so often involved typically constitute the bane of archival researchers. When squabbles about precedence but also about material prestations degenerate into more serious quarrels, reams of paper tend
to get filled. Historians wading through this ocean of correspondence in search
of political or economic data therefore are likely to suffer a great deal of frustration. Whether a French ambassador was allowed to appear in the presence of an Ottoman sultan girded with a sword, and if so, of what type this sword might be, is not a problem whose significance we readily appreciate. Therefore it is easy for the modern researcher to fall into a moralistic trap, assuming that the members of seventeenth or eighteenth century ruling groups were inclined to waste their time - and ours - on futilities. 1
Jean Louis Dusson, marquis de Bonnac, Memoire historique sur l'Ambassade de France a Constantinople ... publie avec un precis de ses negotiations a Ia Porte ottomane, ed. by Charles
Schefer (Paris, 1894), 40 (when discussing the embassy of Girardin). 2For a biography, see the relevant article in The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, by Christine Woodhead. Mehmed �id, Tarih-i R�id (Istanbul, 1282/1865-66), vol. 2 14-72. For a summary in German, see Joseph von Hammer (Purgstall], Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches ... (Pest, 1831), vol. 7, 264-76.
150
A N 0T H E R M I R R 0 R
F0R PR I NC ES
However during the last twenty-five years or so, the search for political ideology in the pre-Tanzimat Ottoman Empire has changed our perceptions. Particularly the more open-minded representatives of our discipline have become interested in the social anthropologist's perspective on political history, and this has affected the views of some Ottomanists concerning the 'externals' of diplomatic relations1 . If political power is linked not only to the material, but also to the 'symbolic' capital of a given sultan, king or head of state, 'holding one's rank' no longer seems a totally futile exercise. Moreover the officials, military men and palace servitors who make up any court constitute a small, tightly knit community, comparable to a village, although of course the stakes of the game played by the participants are much higher than they could ever be in a peasant community. Thus the interactions of the members of a sultanic or royal court may be investigated on a 'micro' level, as a social anthropologist would study any small town or village. To take an example from eighteenth-century France, the writings of the due de St Simon and others have allowed modem researchers to study competition among courtly families for material resources, links established through marriages or the role of status assertion through the patronage of artists and writers2. A perspective informed by social anthropology characterizes much of this work, and GUiru Necipoglu, Leslie Peirce and Ttilay Artan have pointed out how similar approaches may be taken when analyzing the Ottoman court3. But as yet much remains to be done.
t B R A H t M PA�A AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC
151
communities 'as if they were alone in the world'. 'Micro' studies of courtly society only gain their full meaning if linked to the larger societal context. Moreover i n exercising domination, soldiers and officials certainly play a crucial role; yet much of the ruler's power is based on consensus. This can take a variety of forms, and at least in part is manufactured by the ruler and his entourage, through ceremonial both religious and courtly'. As an Ottoman example of this technique of government, widespread the world over, one might adduce the sultans' control of the pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina. Here there were few if any troops. By contrast imperial largesse, highly visible gestures of piety and (usually) well-managed diplomatic relations with the Sharifs, who ruled the area under Ottoman suzerainty, constituted key legitimizing factors2. Or to use an example from the centre of Ottoman government, eighteenth-century sultans often emphasized their piety by organizing lectures and disputations by and among well-known religious scholars, which they attended in person. While these rulers may well have viewed themselves as being in need of religious instruction, it can be assumed that such gestures also served to legitimize their ruJe3. In Ottoman history, anthropologically inspired studies of politics and diplomaticy are still in their beginnings, and they have not really 'separated out' from the more conventional work on diplomatic history. Yet a start has been made. Thus for instance Selim Deringil in his work on the Hamidian
Obviously the momentous impact of certain decisions taken at a royal
period has shown that the Ottoman diplomacy of that time maintained links
or sultanic court does not allow us to study this institution in isolation from
with Muslims in various British or Dutch colonial territories4. Typicall y
the society it governed. Quite to the contrary, courtly society depended for its
Ottoman representatives tried to persuade the leaders of such Muslim groups
very survival on the resources furnished by peasants, artisans and merchants.
to have the sultan-caliph mentioned in the Friday sermon. While this is a
After all no courtly society can exist without revenues or religious and
traditional mark of sovereignty throughout the Islamic world, Ottoman
political legitimization. In consequence, the new-style diplomatic historian
diplomats did not of course assume that such a mention really placed the
cannot but endorse the criticisms which in the fairly recent past, certain social
Ottoman sultan in control of African or Southeast Asian territories. Yet this
anthropologists have directed at their confreres and consoeurs studying small
1 William Roosen, "Early Modem Diplomatic Ceremonial: A Systems Approach," The Journal of Modern History, 52,3 (1980), 452-76 and for an Ottoman context: Christian Windler, Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis: Muslim-Christian Relations in Tunis, 17001840," The HistoricalJournal44, 1 (2001), 79-106. 2For an excellent example see Pierre Chaunu. "L'Etat," in Histoire iconomique et sociale de Ia France, general editors Fernand Braude! and Ernest Labrousse, vol. 1,1, 90,128. On an collecting as a means of accumulating 'symbolic capital'. that is social prestige, see Pierre Bourdieu. Die feinen Unterschiede, Kritik der gesellsclwftlichen Urteilskrajt. tr. by Bernd Schwibs and Achim Russer (Frankfurt/Main, 1987), 440-41. 3Tillay Artan, "From Charismatic Leadership to Collective Rule: Introducing Materials on the Wealth and Power of Ott?man Princesses in the Eighteenth Century," Toplum ve Elwnomi. IV (1993�. 53-94; GUir� Nectpoflu, A�chitecture Cerei1J()nial and Power. The Top/capt Palace in the Fifteenth and SJJCteenth Cent�rtes (Cambndge MA., 1991); Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial . Harem. Women and Soveretgnty m the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, New York, 1993). • .
gesture did imply that in his quality as caliph, Sultan Abdtilhamid possessed a moral authority over the Muslims in question. This could become politically relevant in case the partition of the Ottomans' Muslim core lands was placed on the immediate political agenda. Especially in India, the reactions of Muslims toward such a possibility were in no way indifferent to the representatives of British colonial powerS. 1 For a pointed formulation of the things courtly ritual is expected to achieve, see Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed. Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago. 1971)' 36-38. 2Suraiya Faroqbi , Pilgrims and Sultans (London, 1994). 3Madeline Zilfi, The Politics of Piety (Minneapolis, 1988), 227-32. 4Selim Deringil, "Legitimacy Structures in the Ottoman Empire: Abdillhamid II, 876- 909 • ' 1 1 International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 23 ( 1991), 345-59. 5Azmi Ozcan, Indian Muslims, the Ouomans and Britain (1877-1924) (Lcidco, 1997).
152
A NOTHER M I RROR FOR P R I NCES
Establishing rank and the 'language ofceremony' In the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman ruler doubtless was more powerful on the international scene than was to be true in the time of Sultan Abdiilhamid II. However maintaining and increasing 'symbolic capital' was not a negligible consideration even in this earl ier period. Unfortunately the considerations underlying Ottoman diplomatic behavior during the pre Tanzimat period often are difficult to discern, due to the penury of sources. The eighteenth-century deliberations of grand viziers and reisiilkiittabs concerning the honors to be ganted or refused to different foreign envoys rarely have come down to us. Such written communications as survive, especially the official correspondance (names) are often strongly formulaic and thus difficult to interpret. Yet from the reactions of the foreign personages present at the Ottoman court, it is evident that the sultans' high officials were well aware that by certain types of behavior, they might honor or else disparage a foreign ruler through his envoy. Not rarely, the representatives of Christian rulers thought their ceremonial standing at the sultan's court to be so significant that they were willing to sacrifice opportunities for concrete negotiations if they felt they were not being treated according to their rank1 • Considerations of this kind were relayed by ambassadors stationed in Istanbul to the French or Swedish king, the Habsburg ruler or the Staten General in Den Haag. Impractical though such behavior may seem when viewed through present-day eyes, ranking played an important rule in the competition among seventeenth and eighteenth-century European rulers, with the Ottoman court as a sometimes aloof and sometimes rather interested spectator. After all , in seventeenth century France, England, Italy, or the Germanies, the stage formed one of the most potent symbols of courtly and indeed of human existence; and people were expected to act according to their respective stations in life2 . But considerations of rank were also of significance where Iranian or Mughul ambassadors were concerned, even if the underlying ideology was substantially different3.
IBRAHIM PASA AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC
153
We may thus think of precedence, gestures of humility and diplomatic gifts - the latter of which might shade off into tribute - as a kind of language which on the whole was 'interculturally' understood. Certainly the comprehension of a foreign diplomatic ritual required some intellectual effort, for even within the Islamic world, court ceremonials differed considerably from one another. Thus the customs of Shah 'Abbas' court in Isfahan were in certain respects quite unlike those of its Ottoman contemporary ! . Moreover, given the different religious and cultural backgrounds, diplomatic customs differed substantially between the Ottoman court and those of the principal European rulers as well. But these differences did not prevent certain gestures from being universally understood. Thus for instance certain presents were selected precisely because it already was known to the gift-giving court that they would be highly valued by the receiver. An Iranian embassy might bring an elephant to Istanbul; and this gesture was appreciated by the Ottoman court, as evident from the fact that it was eternalized in a miniature from the Topkap1 palace workshops2. Nor did the language of ceremonial gift-giving become unintelligible when the border between the Muslim and Christian worlds was crossed. Where gifts from the Habsburg court or the Venetian doge to Ottoman sultans and grand viziers were concerned, we even know that certain
types of presents were actively solicited by members of the receiving court3.
Understanding courtly ritual was complicated by the fact that even
though it changed slowly, ceremonial did tend to differ over time: in the Ottoman case, it is well known that the basic features of court ceremonial were laid down in the time of Mehmed the Conqueror. However significant changes occurred in the reign of Siileyman the Magnificent and later as well, especially in the eighteenth century4. Even so, information about the meaning of certain gestures seems to have been readily available to foreign envoys, even when due to wars or other circumstances, a lengthy break i n diplomatic relations had intervened. A translator of the sultan's council, as well as the embassy dragomans, must have relayed such information when needed, and the
I However the marquis de Bonnac observed that diplomatic negotiations could perfectly well begin without the ceremonial preliminaries. In his view it was therefore unnecessary to make concessions with respect to the modalities of an ambassadorial reception: de Bonnac:
L'ambassade de France,
38.
2Richard Alewyn, Das grosse WelttheaJer. Die Epoche der hii fischen Feste (Munich, 1989). 3 From his seventeenth-century predecessors. the marquis de Bonnac had learned that at sultanic circumcisions, the ambassador of the Mughul emperor walked to the left and the French ambassador to the right. According to the same source, the left was considered more honorable at the Mughul court, while the opposite obviously was true of the French. The French ambassador in Istanbul claimed to be of the same rank as the Mughul representative. But given the fact that the Mughul dynasty was Sunni Muslim, it is highly doubtful that the Ottoman te�rifatfl saw the matter in the same light (Archives diplomatiques de Nantes, Ambassade de France a Constantinople, Serie A, fonds St. Priest, Correspondance politique 9, M�moires et pi�ces divers du marquis de Bonnac 1716-1724, fol. 83a (new pagination).
1 on the reception of the 'ambassador' Sir Anthony Shirley at the court of Shah 'Abbas, compare Lucien-Luc Bellan, Shah 'Abbas I, sa vie, son h.istoire (Paris, 1932), 88-89. At least if Shirley's embassy report is to be believed, his reception was profoundly different from the reception of foreign ambassadors at the Ottoman court, if only because Shah 'Abbas insisted on conducting diplomatic negotiations in person. 2I van Stchoukine, La peinture turque d'apres les manuscrits illustres (Paris, 1966), plate CXI. 3 Gottfried Mraz, Die Rolle der Uhrwerke in der kaiserlichen Tiirkenverehrung im 16. Jahrhundert" in Die Welt als Uhr, Deutsche Uhren und Automaten 1550-1650 ed. Klaus Maurice (Munich, 1 980), 39-54 ; Maria Pia Pedani, /n nome del Gran Signore, Invi�ti Ottomani a Venezia dal/a caduta di Constantinopo/i alia guerra di Candia (Venezia, 1994). 4Necipoglu, Architecture. Ceremonial and fower. 15-30; Artan, "Bogazi�i Cehresini Degi§tiren Soylu Kadmlar ve Sultanefendi Saraylar1," Istanbul Dergisi, lll (1992), 109-18.
154
ANOTHER M I R R O R FOR P R I NC E S
gossip exchanged between embassies filled whatever gaps might remain. This is valid even though at times, an inexperienced or poorly counseled diplomat might misunderstand the meaning of a given gesture - to say nothing of cases in which the 'misunderstanding' was deliberate.
155
the Balkansl . Presumably Louis XIV had tolerated such activites on the part
of his subjects in order to make his 'special relationship' with the Ottomans more palatable to other Christian rulers. For throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the French kings had suffered a notorious propagandistic disadvantage due to their alliance with the 'infidel" against a fellow Catholic power2. In consequence, Franco�Ottoman diplomatic relations, though never
The political context
broken off, had cooled down considerably. One of the marquis de Bonnac's
The political circumstances in which the Ottoman Empire found itelf at the beginning of the eighteenth century are not without importance for our study. In 1718 the Peace of Pasarof�Passarowitz had been signed after an
attempt at mediation on the part of the British ambassador. The treaty was
concluded on the basis of
I B R A H i M PA$A AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC
uti possidetis:
by its terms the Venetians lost the
Morea, which the Ottoman administration decided to treat as a newly conquered province. On the other hand, the Habsburg ruler acquired both the fortress of Belgrade and the Banate of Teme�var 1 . Thus the Habsburg Empire had become an even more serious threat to Ottoman control of the Balkans than it had been at the end of the seventeenth century, when the treaty of Karlof�lowitz was concluded2. This situation must have encouraged Ottoman diplomats to strengthen ties with France. However this was easier said than done. Immediately after Pasarof�a. the Ottoman court wanted to avoid getting embroiled with the Habsburgs for some time3. Yet by entering into closer relations with the French ki ng, such a result was difficult to avoid, if only because where the French side was concerned, creating difficulties for the Habsburgs was one of the most significant reasons for sending ambassadors to Istanbul at all. This had been the major concern even in the first half of the sixteenth century, when Siileyman the Magnificent and Fran�ois I allied in opposition to the Habsburg ruler Charles V. However more recently, these relations had suffered an eclipse: during the Ottoman-Venetian war for Crete ( 1 645-1 669), French noblemen, including an illegitimate son of the deceased King Henri IV, had fought on the side of the Venetians, and the same thing had occurred during certain late seventeenth-century Habsburg-Ottoman confrontations in ILavender Cassels, The Struggle for the Ottoman Empire. 1717·1740 (London, 1 966), 1-28. 2Rifa'at Ali Abou-EI-Haj, "Ottoman Attitudes toward Peace-making: The Karlowitz Case". De1 Islam (1974), 1 3 1-37. . 3This is probably the reason why {brahim Beg, the Ottoman ambassador se�t to Vtenna for the . signing of the t.reaty (not to be confused with the homonym�us grand �tzter) sta>:ed on to witness the wedding of the Habsburg Erzherzogin Maria Antorua to the hetr presumptive to the throne of Poland and duchy of Saxony, the later king Augu�t Ill (1719). August 1�. the bridegroom's father, was inspired by this encounter to laun�h 10 the same year, a .ser es . of � 'ottomanizing' feasts at his Dresden court. In one of them he htmself figured as the sulta n . Eme gute Figiir machen. Kostiim und Fest am Dresdner Hof(Dresden, 2000), 68-70.
predecessors reported that when in 1665, he asked to be received by the grand vizier, he was given very rude treatment. This was due to the fact that in the early years of Louis XIV's personal rule, Frenchmen constituted a notable presence among the Ottoman Empire's enemies, the Knights of Malta not
excluded3 .
Moreover on the eastern borders, the collapse of Safawid rule in Iran
formed a further source of international tension4• In 1719-20, Mir Mahmud, the leader of the Ghalzai tribal unit in what is today Afghanistan, was
recognized by the Safawid Shah Sultan Husayn as governor-general. In later years, this position allowed Mir Mahmud to make a bid for the control of futher provinces. Also in 1719, the Lezgis, who were Sunni inhabitants of a section of the Caucasus and hitherto had been subjects of the Safawid state, revolted against the latter. This rebellion constituted a reaction against the Safawid governing class, which at that time was attempting to convert all its subjects to Shi'ism. Unwilling to submit to this treatment, the Lezgis sought out the Ottoman sultan and placed themselves under his protection. In
addition, the Russian Czar Peter I attempted to use this state of turmoil for the
conquest of the Caspian coast ( 1 722), where the Russian Empire already
controlled the port of Astrahan. By 1723, a military confrontation of the two empires over the Iranian spoils thus seemed a likely eventuality. From an Ottoman viewpoint, the international scene was worrisome enough for the grand vizier Nev§ehirli Damad ibrahim Pa§a to set aside the grievances against French policy which had accumulated in the course of the later seventeenth century. In 1720 the first high-ranking Ottoman official to visit Versailles, a full-scale ambassador rather than a simple envoy, embarked upon his journey5. At the French court, reviving the Franco-Ottoman alliance I Ekkebard Eickhoff Venedig, Wien und die Osmanen, Umbruch in Siidosteuropa 1645-1700 (Stuttga rt. 2. ed. 1988). 241-64. 2Gerard PoumarMe, "Justifier l'injustifiable: !'alliance turque au miroir de Ia chretiente (XVI0XVW si�cles)." Revue d'histoire diplomatique. 3 (1997), 217-46. 3De Bonnac, L'Ambassade de France, 70 (report of the ambassador De Ia Haye Vantelay). 4Hans Robert Roemer, "The Safav�d Period" in The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 6 The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambndge, 1986), 3 10-24. 5Fatma MUge G09<:k, East Encounters West, France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, Washington, 1987). ,
A NOTHER M I R R O R F O R P R I NCES
156
also was viewed as a matter of some importance, as evident from the large scale paintings documenting the Ottoman visit, one of which still survives in the Versailles Palace museum 1 •
This attention on the part of the ministers of Louis XV largely was due
to the fact that the latter still hoped to prevent Ottoman entanglements in Iran, and if that proved impossible, to at least avert a war between Ahmed III and Peter I. For given recent defeats in southeastern Europe, it seemed obvious that an Ottoman Empire fully occupied on its eastern and northern frontiers could not form a counterweight to Habsburg power. Lengthy attempts at mediation by the French ambassador to Istanbul, the marquis de Bonnac, must be viewed in this context2. The treaty which was concluded between the two rulers in 1724 divided Iran into two 'spheres of influence', while attempting to ensure that the Russian and Ottoman empires did not acquire a common frontier.
I B R A H I M PA�A AND THE MARQUIS D E BONNAC
157
Moreover the marquis de Bonnac was quite critical of certain types of behavior in which, as he felt, his predecessors had all too often indulged, to the detriment of their missions. On reading de Bonnac's reports, one gai ns the impression that he was opposed to excessive demands for ceremonial 'special
treatment' on the part of French ambassadors. Thus the marquis' account of the
dispute initiated by one of his predecessors, who according to French usage wished to be received at the Ottoman court while wearing his sword, was roundly disapproving of this provocative conduct1 • At the same time the author seemed to think that the criticisms which in France were directed against French ambassadors who adopted Ottoman dress were rather exaggerated. If this was really considered important, the marquis felt that it would have been sufficient to order the ambassador to resume French costume without taking other, more drastic measures against him. De Bonnac reported without comment the difficulties caused to an Ottoman official by a Frenchman who stepped with his shoes on his host's carpet, and thereby made
Ibrahim P�a and the marquis de Bonnac ibrahim p� has not left any memoirs; but the marquis de Bonnac has
produced not only extensive diplomatic correspondence, but also a treatise, explicating Franco-Ottoman diplomatic relations for the instruction of his successors. From these texts it appears that although conversation was only possible through interpreters, the marquis de Bonnac developed considerable respect and even liking for his Ottoman interlocutor3. In part this must have been due to the fact that while Ali P�a. ibrahim P�a's predecessor as grand vizier never had bothered to hide his loathing for Christians, !brahim P�a's
it unsuitable for use in prayer. But one does sense that up to a point, the marquis appreciated the Ottoman official's point of view. More outspoken was de Bonnac's criticism of one of his predecessors, who had insisted on acquiring a boat ornamented in a fashion which according to Ottoman protocol, was the exclusive privilege of the sultan. After having caused a great deal of bad blood, the ambassador had to remove his boat from the capital. According to de Bonnac, he would have done better if he had conformed to the custom of the country from the outset2. Throughout, one gains the impression that the marquis favored a pragmatic approach, which may well have facilitated relations with the equally matter-of-fact grand vizier.
d
attitu e was less emotional. We get the impression that in spite of having held a succession of courtly and bureaucratic appointments, the grand vizier really was a diplomat by inclination, and where the highly professional marquis de Bonnac was concerned, this probably made for some mutual understanding. ibrahim Pa�a had opposed the 'war party' during the Peterwardein campaign, and had become grand vizier after this confrontation had ended badly for the Ottomans. He favored a period of recuperation and reconstruction, and while French diplomacy normally preferred to see the Ottomans embroiled with the Habsburgs, de Bonnac seems to have been realistic enough to appreciate ibrahim �a's point of view. I For the picture showing the solemn
of the Ottoman ambassado�, see T
entrie
Versailles, trisors de Ia cour ottomane, 324. 2De Bonnac, L'Ambassade de France, 216-80. 3De Bonnac. L'Amba.ssade de France. 1 6 1 .
Festival politics In the present paper, we will deal with a Franco-Ottoman negotiation, to which many of the considerations outlined above apply in one fashion or another. As we have seen, in September
1720, Sultan Ahmed m had his sons
circumcised, and married off one of his nieces, a daughter of his deceased predecessor Mustafa II. The sultan decided to celebrate the occasion by a feast distinguished by its lavish magnificence. In terms of the empire-wide and even international interest this celebration aroused, it is conparable to the 1 524 festivities on the occasion of the wedding of the then grand vizier
1De Bonnac, L'Ambassade de France. 51. 2De BonnK, L'Ambassade de France, 51.
Pargalt
158
A NOTHER
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FOR
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ibrahim Pa�a, to whom SUieyman the Magnificent had given his sister in marriage. Other remarkable festivities followed; in
1582, it was the
circumcision of the later Sultan Mehmed Ill, while the great festival of the seventeenth century was celebrated in 1675, to honor the circumcisions of the future Sultans Mustafa II and Ahmed III. The festivities of 1720, to which foreign ambassadors were invited, lasted for two weeks1. Not every princely circumcision was celebrated in an equally lavish fashion, and thus we need to ask for the reason why Sultan Ahmed III and Nev�ehirli ibrahim �a decided on September 1720 as a suitable time for such a major enterprise. Doubtless there were personal reasons; apparently an earlier date once had been envisaged, but the celebration had been put off due to sickness in the sultan's family. But if viewed i n a broader context, it is likely that the political situation also had been taken into consideration: on the one hand, a major war recently had been ended by the Ottoman ruler, successfully as far as the Venetians were concerned, while the opposite was true of the conflict with the Habsburgs. On the other hand, it was not at all impossible that the sultan would in the near future again go to war in Iran. Given these circumstances, a great festivity may have been an occasion to enhance the sultan's prestige and gather support for the campaigns to come. Moreover Sultan Ahmed III among his contemporaries possessed a reputation for being mainly concerned with the contents of his treasury. By contrast, ibrahim Pa�a attempted to ensure a balance between 'taking' and 'giving'. The marquis de Bonnac recounts that the grand vizier once tried to
persuade his sultan that while securing revenues and amassing cash was a
necessary function of government, a ruler could retain the loyalty of his subjects only if he visibly distributed largesse2. In the anecdote relayed by de Bonnac, ibrahi m P�a in fact suggested that Ahmed I l l should concentrate either on securing revenues or else on distributing gifts. The grand vizier himself undertook to fulfil l whatever the ruler considered the less congenial task, and the reader is left to conclude that gift-giving and largesse probably fell to the lot of tbrahim Pa�a.
If this story has any validity at all, we may surmise that it was the
grand vizier who convinced the Sultan that a peaceful interval, which well
might be of short duration, was a good time to strengthen social and political
ties by distributing the appropriate largesse. Some of these gifts went to the members of the sultan's household. In fact the chronicler Mehmed Ra�id, in 1 A n official 'festival book' documenting this event was copiously illustrated by the painter Levni: Esin AtJl, Levni and the Surname. The Story ofan Eighteenth-century Ottoman Festival (Istanbul, 1999). According to marquis de Bonnac, L'ambassade de France, .142, the foreign envoys only were asked to attend after ten days, during the last stage of the fesuval. 2Marquis de Bonnac, L'Ambassade de France, 153-154.
i B R A H t M PA�A AND T H E MARQUIS DE BONNAC
159
his lengthy description of the 1720 festival, emphasized the attendance and at times active service of Ottoman officeholders at the celebrations, in particular, at the wedding of the Princess Emetullah, which in other accounts is often eclipsed by the circumcisions themselves 1 • Most i m portant to this sophisticated bureaucrat at one time ambassador to Iran were obviously the offices held by the men who attended the wedding celebrations (apart from a brief mention of the princess being received by her spouse at her arrival in the marital home, there is no reference to the female participants)2. The prestige of these courtly and state offices was symbolized by the clothes and turbans worn by the participants. In addition, Ra�id reported that the visitors and those
who took a more active role in organizing the wedding festivities all received
robes of honor, while some attention was also paid to the gifts given to the
sultan at this happy occasion3. This emphasis on gift exchanges makes it seem probable that apart from making visible official hierarchies by a series of processions, an exchange of presents did in fact constitute the central function of a courtly feast. But sultanic bounty was not limited to members of the court. To the contrary, lavish public banquets offered to dignitaries who were not courtiers and even to private soldiers also formed an important aspect of the festiva14.
Moreover five thousand poor boys were circumcised at the same time as the princes, several hundred every day, and included in the festivities5. In addition there were the numerous people employed temporarily in adding luster to the festival, such as acrobats, dancers and tulumbacts in charge of policing the streets. All these people must have received money and gifts6. In any event, by this sequence of banquets, Sultan Ahmed III could strengthen his ties to broad sections of the Istanbul population. What was the role of ambassadors in such a context? Several miniatures in the official festival book, by the famous miniaturist Levni and his school, record the foreigners' presence as spectators of the processions which formed such an essential part of both Ottoman and early modern European celebrations7. We find the French and - a real novum - the Russian ambassador attending one of these parades together; since we are dealing with Petrine Russia, the newcomer is attired in the French fashion and I Ra§id, Tarih, vol. 5, 220-221. 2 R3§id, Tarih, vol. 5, 225. 3 Ra§id, Tarih, vol. 221-222. 4Ra§id, Tarih, vol. 5, 236 and elsewhere.
5 Ra§id, Tarih, vol 5, 237 and elsewhere. 6 Although 1 have made a diligent searc�. I have to date fo':'nd very little evidence of di�content .
among the subject population concernmg the eltpenses l�n�ed to the festival. But g1ven the overwbelmingly official character of our sources, that fact m 1tself does not mean every much. 7Atd, Levni, 9 -95. 4
A N0THER M I R R 0R F0R P R I NCES
160
thus indisguishable from other prominent Europeans. All these personages are dressed the same way, namely in a tight-waisted long embroidered coat, puffy knee-breeches and black stockings. They are invariably clean-shaven and the hair is worn open, reaching down to the shoulders. In most cases it probably would have been a wig, while the hats are black and of the type frequently found in seventeenth-century Dutch portraits. One wonders whether this garb, in which overcoats do not figure, may have constituted what Ottoman officials concerned with protocol regarded as the proper attire for 'Franks', rather than clothes actually worn in 1720. However, the noblemen's swords, which had caused so much trouble in an earlier period, are nowhere in evidence in Levni's miniature, although some of the visitors do sport canes.
According to the same source, the foreign guests had been assigned seats in tents, admittedly rather modest structures, but located in the immediate vicinity of sultan and grand vizier. This is remarkable because Ra§id, when listing the tents flanking that of the sultan, did not mention a structure specifically assigned to the ambassadors I. On Levni's miniature, the more prominent among the European visitors were seated on decorated chairs. A surviving account of the Habsburg ambassador, which described one of the festival processions, presumably is based on the notes which one of his attendants had taken while attending a function of the type shown in Levni's . . . mtmatures2. At another occas10n, we find European visitors embarked i n a
small boat, in order to get a better view of some of the festivities taking place
on the waters of the Golden Hom. However, since in this picture the figures are shown only down to the waist, it is less evocative than the other one3. In addition to their attendance at the procession, the ambassadors apparently were assigned a certain day at which they could visit the festival site out at Okmeydam. This becomes apparent from a remark by the marquis de Bonnac, who says that a special courtesy was extended to him. The day on which he was to have visited Okmeydan1 being very rainy, he was given another time, so that he could visit in more pleasant circumstances4. However
the Dutch ambassador chose to not attend at all; this is rather a pity, in so far
as the latter had retained the services of J.B. Vanmour, a professional French painter who produced canvasses showing his patron at several official functions. While rather unsatisfactory
as a documentarist, Vanmour still
1 R�i�. Tarih, vol. 5, P: 226 �· De �onnac reports having been received in the tent of the reis efel!flt: Ce':ltre des Archives D1plomatJques de Nantes, Serie A Fonds St Priest, vol. 8, Mimoires _ de Bonnac. et p1eces d1verses du marqu1s
;Haus-Hof
und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, Turcica I, f 89, 9 October
Abl, Lewli, 94-95.
4Marquis de Bonnac, L'Ambassade de France, 142.
1720.
I B RAHiM PA�A AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC
161
might have left us an interesting version of the proceedings l . As to the English representative, he attended, but did not find the festival site very remarkable; with its numerous acrobatic shows, Okmeydam en jete merely reminded him of London's St Bartholomew's fair. One of the major reasons for pre-festival contestation was the question of the gifts to be proffered. Ra§id's account has made it clear that Ahmed III expected major gifts from his dignitaries, who in some cases were specifically invited from the provinces, presumably with such an aim in mind. Moreover the artisans' guilds participating in the procession not only had to foot the bill for the floats in which their crafts were exhibited, but also make the ruler expensive presents. Thus it is in no way surprising that the foreign ambassadors also were expected to contribute. However the marquis de Bonnac claimed that in the course of time, a set of rules had developed concerning the occasions at which the sultan was or
was not to be offered presents in the name of the French ruler. This involved a distinction between 'public' and 'private'; thus the accession of a sultan or the
first visit of an incoming ambassador were to be considered state occasions, at which presents were due. But the same was not true of weddings or circumcisions in the sultan's family, which the French ambassador claimed to consider private events. Given the public importance of royal weddings in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century France, it is rather difficult to accept thjs claim at face value. A clever diplomat, the grand vizier may have sensed this incortsistency, but he did not engage in a discussion concerning the limits of 'public' and 'private' at the French and Ottoman courts - from our point of view, this reticence is of course highly regrettable. Rather, ibrahim Pa�a laid a bait which de Bonnac found hard to resist. As the grand vizier put it, participation in the festival on Ottoman terms would, given the sultan's strict adherence to precedent, ensure that French ambassadors would receive honorable invitations to sultanic festivals in the future. Special care was taken
to demonstrate that the 'three hundred' years of amity between the two emperors, namely the French and the Ottoman, had not been forgotten. As a result, the marquis de Bonnac wrote home that given these circumstances, there was no good reason for refusing to give the desired presents2.
1 R. van Luuervelt, De Turk.se" schild �rijen van J.B. Vanmour en zijn school. De verzamelin . Ca l en, ��adeur. b l) de Hoge Porte. 1725-1743 (Istanbul, 1958). For the us van Corneits . ma�e.o! Vanmour s pamun�s Jn Vemce see Guardi, Cuadri turcheschi. Fondazione Giorgio Cini �Xh1b1taon catalogue (Vemce, 1993). My thanks go to Gianpietro Bellingeri for malting th"18 Important publication available to me. 2 Archives Nationales, Paris, Jetter of the marquis de Bonnac to the King, 28 September 1720, K 344 No. 50.
*f
�
162
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In conclusion
163
Gift exchanges were a significant means of making this hierarchy
Certainly the minor points of ceremony over which ibrahim P�a and the marquis de Bonnac argued with such perseverance do not form a substitute for physical power, such as an army or navy. Yet the very fact that at a critical point in Mediterranean history, diplomatic gifts and ceremonial ranking were considered to be of such importance by two sober and experienced personages, should give us cause to think. It would appear that 'baroque' intellectuals of western, southern and central Europe were not alone in seeing the world as a theater. A glance at Levni's miniatures tells us that for the duration of the festival, Ahmed Ill and Ibrahim Pa�a also were 'on stage', the play in which they acted being concerned with the centrality of the Ottoman Empire within the state system of its day. And just as in a Shakespearean play, the cast of serious actors was supported by those whose specialty was comedy, including young artisans with ambitions to cut a fine figure, acrobats and clowns, as such people turned out at the Ottoman festival as well. By their capers, and also by the handsomeness of the participating young apprentices, these representatives of Ottoman city life set off the various dignitaries, when the latter, according to both Mehmed Ra�id and the miniaturist Levni, solemnly arrived at the festival site to do obeisance to the sultan!. It would seem that in this ordered and hierarchical system which the Ottoman court projected, the foreign ambassadors had a role to play. They took their places among the Ottoman officials who waited to kiss the robes of the ruler, although the ceremonial applicable in their particular cases was different. How the
lefrifatfl and other officials in charge of organizing the
1720 festival 'placed' the representatives of foreign rulers is surrounded by some ambiguity, as the Ottoman sources I have seen do not explicitly discuss the issue. Apparently the foreign visitors, who after all were not present every day, simply were assigned whatever tent was available at the time of their visit. Or else the
i BRAH i M PA�A AND THE MARQUIS DE BONNAC
reis efendi, in his capacity as the interlocutor of foreign
envoys, made provision for them. From the marquis de Bonnac's account, it would appear that the grand vizier had promised the representative of the French king an honorable place among the visitors, and this promise, if we believe Levni's version of events, was fulfilled. But in the end, the exact position of the ambassadors constituted a matter of detail. What counted was principally that i n the setting of the festival, out in the open in Okmeydam, the sultan presented himself as the apex of a hierarchy of dignitaires encompassing a large section of the Ancient World, all the way from India to Great Britain by way of Russia. 1Ra§id, Tarih, vol. 5. 230 ff.
visible and at the same time, cementi ng it. The sultan bestowed robes of honor on his dignitaries, and set a silver ewer filled with coins as a prize for acrobatic skill. As to the pashas and other officials, they responded by gifts of money, precious cloth, valuable horse gear and jewelry, while the guildsmen also made gifts which must have badly unbalanced their budgets. By accepting to present gifts in the name of his sovereign, the French ambassador took his place in this hierarchy, thereby demonstrating that the French king continued
to value Ottoman support. But even the Russian czar, who within a few years,
was once more to come close to war with the Ottoman Empire, still
considered himself bound by the treaty of 'eternal' peace concluded only a few years earlier. For two festive weeks, the position of the sultan remained uncontested.
AN OITOMAN AMBASSADOR IN IRAN: DORRI AHMED EFENDI AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SAFAVID EMPIRE IN 1720-21
A novel approach in foreign relations Quite a few Ottoman ambassadors or at least envoys before the eighteenth century have visited European, Iranian or even Indian courts. But most of them have not left reports, or perhaps they have done so but we have not as yet found them. Quite possibly some of these documents still lie in the storerooms of the Topkapt palace archives, un-catalogued and unknown to historians. I For the period before 1700 two reports of Ottoman ambassadors to Vienna have been published: the earliest is rather short and was written by Mehmed Pa§a, who after the battle of St Gotthard on the Raab ( 1 664) concluded a twenty-year peace in Vienna. A better known participant in this embassy was Evliya <;elebi whose report on the Habsburg court was both lively and unofficiaJ.2 However we have no way of knowing whether any of the dignitaries serving under Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648-87) ever had a chance to read this work and if they did what they thought of it. Most recently reports and official documents concerning the visit of Ziilfikar Pa§a also have become available; this personage attended the Habsburg court in 1688-92 in an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate an end to the war of 1683-99, and for a
while he was imprisoned in a fortress for his trouble.3
For those Ottoman envoys, who came to foreign courts before the
1660s the documentation produced in the places that they visited typically is our main source of information. Thus the Venetian archives contain a considerable amount of data about the
�avu� or kapucu who as not very
high
ranking officials typically were dispatched to the Signoria with a single clearly 1 For an exception see Giancarlo Casale, "His Majesty's servant L!itfi, the career of a
�reviously unknown sixteenth-century Ottoman envoy to Sumatra ." Turcica, 37 (2005): 43-82. Im
..
Reiche des Goldenen Apfels, des tiirkischen Weltenbummlers Evliya Celebi denkwiirdige Reise in das Giaurenland und in die Stadt und Festung Wien anno 1665,
[Evliya <:elebi],
translated and commented by Richard F. Kreutel, Erich Prokosch and Karl Teply (Wien: Verlag Styria, 2. edition, 1987), for the report of Kara Mehmed see: 255-63. 3 Mustafa GUier, Ziilfikiir Pa$a'nm Viyana Sefareti ve Esareti, Cerfde-i Takrirllt-i Ziilfikll.r Efendi (Istanbul: <:amhca, 2007). Unfortunately t�e book is marred by many printing errors, but . it does contain a facsimile of one of the ongmal manuscripts. See also [Ziilfik�r Pll§a), Viyana'da Osmanll Diplomasisi (Ziilfik1Jr PCI§a'mn MiikLUeme Takrfri /688-1692) ed. by Songiil �olak (Istanbul: Yeditepe Yaymevi, 2007).
166
ANOTHER
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AN
defined responsibility.! These office-holders carried letters written in the name
OT T O M A N
AMBASSADOR
I N
IRAN
167
explain their own policies at foreign courts and also collect political
of the sultans from which the unwary reader might conclude that the doge of
intell igence. After all it is possible to argue that if in 1683 the Ottoman
Venice was something like an Ottoman provincial governor. In addition they
government had been better informed about what had happened at the Polish
frequently also carried less formal texts issued by the chancery of the grand
court, the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pa�a would have taken precautions
vizier that must have served as the 'real ' basis for negotiations and in which greater at.tention was paid to political realities.2
against the approach of the allied armies of the Holy League and not been taken unawares, leaving the rear of the besieging army unprotected.
Perhaps the young Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I. (r. 1603-17) did send a
In this context the embassy of Yirmisekiz Mehmed Efendi to Paris and
letter to the court of the Mughals in Delhi and Agra; but if so, the carrier was
Versailles (1720), which was meant to 'put the Ottomans on the mental map'
not an envoy but rather a t.raveller from Transoxania, who had passed through
of French court circles, in the Istanbul governing milieu seems to have been
Istanbul possibly when on the halj. However this letter was not accepted as
considered as quite significant. Among other matters this ambassador was
genuine by its recipient the emperor Djahanglr (1569-1627), who recounted
supposed to bring back information about novelties in courtly culture; and
this visit in his memoirs when narrating the events of 1608. As a reason for
this assignment he fulfilled to the full satisfaction of Sultan Ahmed III (r.
his scepticism Djahangir pointed out that hitherto no Ottoman envoy had been
1703-30). The sultan even had his ambassador's report translated into French;
and it was sent to the court of the young Louis XV as a polite gesture. 1
seen in Delhi or Agra, and moreover it had not been possible to check whether the letters presented by the Transoxanian visitor were genuine or not.3
Yirmisekiz Mehmed Efendi 's mission has also attracted considerable interest
In fact one of the very few Ottoman office-holders to turn up at the
among modem historians.2
Mughal court was Seyyidi 'Ali Rei's, who was not an ambassador at all but a
Much less attention however has been paid to the fact that in 1720
mid-sixteenth century admiral who had lost his ships and happened to be in
Ahmed III also sent an ambassador' named Diirri Ahmed Efendi to Iran. While
attendance at the Mughal court when the emperor Humayun died and Akbar
shorter than the account of Yirmisekiz Mehmed the report written by the
ascended the throne. However it is most unlikely that had Seyyidi 'Ali Rei's
envoy to Iran is also very instructive. It will form the topic of the present
appeared in Delhi in DjaMngir's time, this naval commander and would-be
study.3
diplomat would have been regarded as a 'proper' ambassador.4 Official exchanges of envoys between the Ottomans and the Mughals thus seem to have been quit.e minimal; and while many pages of Seyyidi 'Ali Rei's'
An ambassador travels
fascinating report appear as if an ambassador were speaking, in reality the book is no more than an unofficial t.ravelogue.
We do not know very much about the life of Diirri Ahmed Efendi: he
However around 1700 the Ottoman court developed a new interest in diplomacy:
after
the
treaties
of
Karlowitz/Karlof�a
( 1 699)
came from a family that resided in the eastern Anatolian town of Van, close to
and
the Iranian border; supposedly he had lost the use of one eye. Educated as a
Passarowitz/Pasarof�a ( 1718) that both involved serious territorial losses
scri be in the Ottoman chancery he was able to expand his knowledge of
the authorities in Istanbul seem to have concluded that it would be useful to
Persian, the rudiments of which he had perhaps already teamed in his home
1 Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In nome del Gran Sigrwre, Inviati ottomani a Venezia dalla caduta di Costantinopoli alia guerra di Candia (Venezia: Deputacione Editrice, 1994).
town; he became proficient in both language and literature. Apart from his
2 Suraiya Faroqhi "Ottoman Views on Corsairs and Piracy in the Adriatic." in
Pasha. His Offtce'and his Domain,
The Kapudan
ed. by Elizabeth Zachariadou (Rethymnon: University of Crete Press, 2002): 357-71 and "Bosnian Merchants in the Adriatic," in Ottoman Bosnia, A History in Peril The /nternat�onal Journal of Tu�kish Stu_dies, 10, 1-2, ed. by Markus Koller and Kemal Karpat (Madison/Wtsc.: Center of Turktsh Studtes, 2004): 225-39, both reproduced in this volume. 3 [Jahangir), The Jahangirnama, Memoi�s of Jahangir, Emperor of India, translated and commented by Thackston Wheeler (Washtngton, New York, Oxford: Freer Gallery of Art et alii, 1999): 95. 4 Seyyidi 'Aif Re'fs, Le miroir des pays, Une anabase ottomane a travers_ l'lnde et I'Asie centrale, translated and annotated by Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont ([Atx-en-Provencej: Sindbad-Actes Sud, 1999); Mehmet Kiremit ed., Seydi Ali Reis, Mir'litii'I-Mem41ik, lnceleme, Metin, Index (Ankara: TUrk Oil Kurumu, 1999). ••
·
1 Mehmed efendi, Le paradis des in.fid�les, Un ambassadeur ottoman en France sous Ia Regence, introduced by Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fran9ois Masptro, 1981). 2 Fatma M!ige G�ek, East Encounters West. France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (New York, Oxford, Washington: Oxford University Press and The Institute of Turkish Studies, 1987); compare also the exhib�tion catalogue Topkapi a Versailles, Tr�sl?rs de Ia cour ottomane (Paris: Editions de Ia Reumon des Musees Nat10naux und Assoctallon Fran9aise d'Action Artistique, 1999).
�id, Tarih-i R�id. 6 vols. (Istanbul: Matba'a-yt 3 Ahmed Oiirri Efendi, published in Mehmed R amire, 1282/1865-66), vol. 5: 382-? 8; Dourry Efendy, Relation de Dourry Ef.en.dy ambassadeur de Ia Porte ottomane aupr�s du ro1 de Perse ··· translated by De Fiennes (Pans: Ferra, 1810): J.
72.
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ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR PRINCES
A N OTTOM AN A M B A S S A DOR I N I R A N
embassy report he has left a collection (divan) of poetry. I Presumably his
169
have had to pay the expenses of a sizable suite. 1 In addition the envoy was
literary skill was a starting point for Durri Ahmed Efendi's career; Iranians
allowed to collect some barley and straw for his camels. Tax farmers situated
apart after aJl between Istanbul and Delhi Persian was known to all men - and
along his route were instructed to deliver these items upon demand and
a few women - who whatever their native languages might be, thought of
according to a well-established Ottoman practice, were to reimburse
themselves as belonging to polite society. Before being sent to Iran the author
themselves at the end of the year by subtracting the relevant sums of money
had held various offices in the Ottoman bureaucracy; while on this official mission he ranked as a finance director of the second order and was appointed
from the dues that they owed. Thus the central administration took up an
Presumably Grand Vizier ibrahim P�a and his advisors had been at
Probably these assignments turned out to be insufficient. In any event
interest-free loan for the benefit of its envoy.2
chief accountant after his return.2
plenty of complaints came in, detailing how the ambassador had collected far
pains to locate personalities suitable for the embassies they were to undertake.
more than was his due. Possibly Durri Ahmed Efendi when passing through
Even though Yirmisekiz Mehmed Efendi knew no French, he rapidly formed a
the regions of Malatya und Diyarbakn had figured that the central
circle of acquaintances in Paris and Versailles, while Durri Ahmed Efendi at
administration was far too distant to control his each and every move. In
the Safavid court could present himself as an educated gentleman of rank and
Malatya he had obtained 200 Dutch
make observations and collect information that would have remained
guru� beyond what he had been assigned,
and in Diyarbalm as well the envoy owed money to local people.3 But Durri
inaccessible to a person without his accomplishments.
Ahmed was a creditor as well as a debtor; and the garrison of his hometown of
The chronicler Mehmed Ra�id informs us that Durri Ahmed returned to
Van was ordered to pay him back what its members owed him, so that he
the Ottoman capital in Safer 1 1 34/December 1 72 1 ; the envoy claimed to have
would be in a position to finance his trip.4 Apparently his family was
spent a little over six months in Iran, but according to the documents analyzed
involved in local tax-fanning: a brother of Ourri Ahmed's was expected to take
by Munir Aktepe, he should have left Ottoman territory in the late autumn of
care of the latter's interests while the ambassador was in Iran.5 However it is
1720. He had departed from Istanbul a good deal earlier as before crossing the
hard to determine exactly what kinds of transactions were involved, as the
border he spent some time in eastern Anatolia.3 Gi ven the new interest of
money was demanded in the name of the ambassador by the Ottoman financial
Ahmed III and his grand vizier in diplomatic contacts, several official
administration and not by the creditor directly.
documents concerning this trip have come down to us. These records are also
In one way or another Durri Ahmed Efendi upon his return had to deal
emblematic of the increasing bureaucratization of the Ottoman Empire in the
with a number of financial complications. He referred to this situation i n his
1700s: in earlier times Ottoman scribes at the very most copied into their
report, declaring that in the course of his six and a half months in Iran he had
registers the laissez-passers issued to departing envoys. However the three
received 53 purses. Unfortunately the purse being a variable unit of money it
documents dealing with the embassy to Iran are more specific: thus we learn
is hard to say how much he really had collected in terms of ak�e or guru§. Of
that before leaving Ourri Ahmed Efendi was told that for every day of actual
this amount 15 purses remained when Durri Ahmed finally returned to Van. If
travel, at certain pre-determined stops he had the right to collect 2000 ak�e of
his account can be believed the author used some of this money to repair
good quality, in other words in non-debased coin.4 This sum of money
certain pious foundations established by his family. Durri Ahmed thought that
corresponded to about 5.5 Venetian ducats, rather a paltry sum as he must
this act also redounded to the glory of sultan and grand vizier; perhaps he felt that he deserved some financial compensation for his gesture.6
1
Mllnir Aktepe,"Dilrri Ahmet
Efendi'nin iran Sefareti," Belgelerle Turk Tarih Dergisi 1
' �196?) 1: 56-60; 2: 60-63; 3: 64-66; 4: 60-62; 5: 53-56; 6: 82-84. Fwk R�ar Unar, Osmaf!ll Sejirlert ve Sefaretnameleri, completed and edited by Bekir S1tlu raykal (Ankara: TUrk Ta h �urumu, _ I 968): 59-61 ; Aktepe,"Oilrri Ahmet," 1: 60; 5: 56. n
_ Accordmg to Franz Babmger, D1e Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1927): 326 the embassy took place in 1720; this statement is based on the date given by De Fiennes in the heading ofhis translation. It also agrees with the archival documents concerning OUrri Ahmed's embassy. For a detailed discussion of travel dates compare Aktepe, "D!lrriAhmet" 1: 61 and 5: 55-56. 4 Bqbakanhk A11ivi-Osmanh A11ivi, Istanbul, Section Maliyeden mildevver (from now ' onwards: MAD) 9906 p. 300 (1 13211719-20). .
'
1 According to �evket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2�): 144 in 1725 I ducat was wonh 375 akfe; five years earlier the akfe may have been worth a httle more. 2 MAD 9906 p. 581-2 (1 13211719-20). 3 MAD 9908. p. 8 ( 1 1 33/1720-21). 26 4 MAD 9906 p. 4 12 (1 13211719-20). 5 Aktepe, "Oilrrf Ahmet,• 2:61. 6 These paragraphs are missing in Mehmed Rqid's version, but they are extant in De Fiennes' lranSiation: Douny Efendy, Relalion de Dourry Ejendy: 56. ,
,
170
ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR PRI NCES
A N O TT O M A N A M B A S S A D O R I N I R A N
The report and how it was received
171
At the time of writing Dlirri Ahmed Efendi's report must have been a
According to the requirements of protocol Diirri Ahmed addressed his report to Sultan Ahmed III; but in the conclusion we find him complimenting the Grand Vizier ibrahim Pa�a, son-in-law (damad) to the sultan; thus he acknowledged the role of this highest Ottoman official in his appointment.
state secret. But as Safavid rule collapsed so fast, already in 1722 according to the opinion of many historians, the text evidently was made accessible 'to the public' quite soon.1 Apart from several libraries in Istanbul, copies are available in Paris and Vienna.2 In 1745 the text was translated into French by
De Fiennes, a student in the French training program for interpreters of Middle
Most of the account covers the ambassador's trip, according pride of place to
Eastern languages
grand vizier in the Safavid administration, known as the
Krusinski, who had spent considerable time in Iran produced a translation into
the author's encounters with Shah Soltan Husayn and the equivalent of the
'itimdd al-davla. The
shah at this point had left his capital of Isfahan and undertaken a campaign
(jeunes de langue).
Moreover the Jesuit priest Juda
Latin.3 The French translation only appeared in print in 1810, in a volume
against Kandahar; after a lengthy detour the court had ended up in Teheran.
mainly containing the writings of the scholar Fran�ois Petis de Ia Croix
Here the ruler possessed a substantial palace; but otherwise the later capital of
Junior, who had travelled in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century.
Iran appeared to Ahmed Durri as rather a small place (kasaba).
The most important scenes of this report have been rendered in the shape of dialogues; moreover the author has inserted a number of poems in Persian and Turkish, as was common in elegant prose. Occasional quotations appear in their original Persian shape; but on the whole the text has been
written in a language reasonably close to educated speech and not in formal
Ottoman with its many Arabic and Persian elements. At the end of Ahmed Diirri's report we find a short systematic account of the late Safavid court and its dignitaries as well as a brief description of the local political geography. No instructions survive; thus we do not know what results the Ottoman court expected from Diirri Ahmed Efendi's embassy and what matters
Apparently Ahmed III was not as much interested in the report of Diirri Ahmed as in the almost contemporary text by Yirmisekiz Mehmed Efendi; and later generations have tended to agree with the sultan. Certainly Diirri Ahmed's work was soon included in the influential chronicle of Mehmed Ra§id (died in
1735). Ra�id's interest may have been motivated by the fact that in the late 1720s, shortly after Diirri Ahmed's trip he also went to in Iran as an envoy. Yet apart from Mtinir Aktepe's seminal article only cursory attention has been paid to this work.4 This neglect is especially regrettable as it has promoted the notion that Ahmed III and his advisors were only interested in the principal
capitals of Europe. In consequence modern historians have connected the
that he was to highlight in his report. In all probability the ambassador had
Ottoman interest in diplomacy in rather too one-sided a fashion with the recent
these concerns from the text itself. Evidently the Ottoman authorities wanted
Even if high officials in the service of Ahmed III had come to realize that
received oral instructions on the issues he was to discuss.1 We only can deduce their envoy to present the strengths and good qualities of their own
administration in the face of the shah and his most important dignitaries. But the ambassador also tried to analyze the reasons why Safavid rule over an
defeats of the sultans' commanders by the armies of Prince Eugene of Savoy. military victories were no longer a foregone conclusion, at the Ottoman court of the 1720ies the possibilities of diplomacy were being explored with wider concerns in mind.
empire that at least in his own opinion, was quite wealthy had now come
close to collapse. In this context presumably ibrahim Pa§a wanted to find out
whether a campaign against the Safavid domains at this point was likely to
succeed. At the Iranian court an attack on the part of the Ottoman sultan was greatly feared and the author attempted to dispel these concerns with words that sounded plausible but in the end turned out to be untrue. Although Dtirri Ahmed Efendi did not disclose his own opinions about war and peace, most likely after his return he spoke in favour of an Iranian campaign, which did in
fact come about a few years later, ending with the conquest of Tabriz.2
1
�
Di er en� views on th� end of the dyn�sty are possible: it all depends on whether certain f Safav1d pnnces, who bnefly held court 10 one or another province of Iran' are considered retenders or legitimate rulers.
�
3
Babinger, Geschichtsschreiber: 326; Unat and Baykal, Osmanll Sefirleri: 61.
I have: not seen the manuscripts or the translation by Krusinski; however Aktepe, "Dlirri Ahmet" IS based on the former.
1 Aktepe, "Dlirrf Ahmet" 1: 58. 2 Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, "Tabriz under Ottoman Rule (1725-1730)," unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, The University of Chicago, 1991. .
4 Aktepe, "DUrrl Ahmet" is of special interest as the author has found and partly published the correspondence between the Ottoman and Safavid courts that was \inked in one way or another to the embassy of Dilrri Ahmed Efendi. These documents are found in the Miihimme and Na�e-i Hurnayun series of the �ll§bakanh AJ'§ivi-Osmanh A!'§ivi. Thus the present author has co�tmued the work of her one-time hoca 10 extending the search to the Maliyeden miidevver senes.
�
172
ANOTHER M I R R O R FOR P R I NCES
The weakness of the Sajavid Empire: 'foreign policy' and military affairs In my perspective the report of Ahmed Durri is mainly a discussion of the factors accounting for the weakness of the Safavid Empire i n the years before it finally went down.' As at the same time the author focuses on the continuing wealth available in this territory, it is likely that as we have seen he wanted to entice the Ottoman court to begin a campaign against the ri val dynasty. Ahmed Durri has given a far more coherent account of the current political and military crises than of the sources of Iranian prosperity; after all, the author had been educated as an Ottoman gentleman and official and thus was well versed in literature including chronicles. On the other hand he had no background as a merchant and his financial experience probably was limited as well. To begin with Iran had extended frontiers that were difficult to defend; this situation was especially apparent in the South-east, i n present-day Afghanistan. Already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there had been numerous clashes between the Safavids and their Mughal neighbours in this region. 2 In the early 1700s Prince Mlr Ovays had established himself in Kandahar as an independent ruler. His son MahmGd, who was not a Shiite like
A N OT T O M A N A M B A S S A D O R
I N
IRAN
173
on what in a later age would have been called a goodwill-mission to the court in Teheran. He also included but a very few comments on the policies of the
Sunnite Uzbeks on Iran's north-eastern border and on the Russian Empire of Peter the Great even though the latter was highly active in the Caucasus during just those years. While he did encounter the ambassadors of both these polities he only said that the Iranian court treated them with much less consideration than was shown to his own person. Perhaps Diirri Ahmed was so flattered by this attention that he omitted to comment on the obvious limitations of the Safavid worldview; or else he emphasized his own prominence because it was considered a reflection of the importance that the court in Teheran accorded to the Ottoman sultan. Thus we may hypothesize that the report of Durri Ahmed was somewhat anachronistic, whether knowingly or not must remain an open question: for in the early seventeenth century in other words about a hundred years earlier, the Ottomans and Safavids really had been the only great powers active in this region.l But on the other hand the government in Istanbul was quite aware of Russian policies in the area; in
1724,
about three years after
Durri Ahmed's return Ahmed III came to a formal agreement with Tsar Peter concerning the division of western Iran into Russian and Ottoman 'spheres of
the Safavids, but rather a Sunnite, extended his campaigns all the way into Central Iran.3 To compound the problems facing the ruling dynasty, the
interest'. Conceivably our author had been sent on a simple goodwill cum
Afghan tribe known as the Bahad1rlu had conquered the city of Herat, today
fact-finding mission and it was only the collapse of Safavid rule in
also located in Afghanistan, which had been joined to the Safavid realm in the sixteenth century. Further to the north the Bahad1rlu also seemed poised to occupy the city of Mashhad, situated close to the north-eastern frontier of today's Iran, famed for its sanctuary and a major pilgrimage site. Additional crises were brewing in the Caucasus, where traditionally the Safavids were pre eminent but where Sunnites were numerous; thus the Lesgians who were one of the more important Sunnite groups of the region seemed inclined to accept the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultans.
1722 that
awakened Ottoman interest in territorial acquisitions.2 At the present state of our information it is impossible to be sure. One of Oiirri Ahmed Efendi's favourite topics was the lack of military preparedness in the late Safavid Empire. Thus he commented that firearms were not being produced and especially noted the lack of cannon manufactures. In Istanbul by contrast, firearms were taken much more seriously; already in
the mid-fifteenth century, shortly after the conquest of Constantinople, the
It is noteworthy that our author has so little to report about the other
Ottoman sultan had instituted a cannon foundry, which was refurbished by
nothing about the ambitions of his own government because he had been sent
out for Teheran the buildings had been destroyed by a fire and were replaced
powerful neighbours of the Safavid polity. Probably Durri Ahmed Efendi said
�
1 We possess two studies that analyze the weaknesses o the late S�avid E'"!lpir e, both _ of emphasizing international trade: Rudolph P. Matthee, The Pol1t1cs Trade m Iran. Silk for Silver 1600-1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): 22 4-30 und Ina
a VId Sa/
Baghdiancz McCabe, The Shah's Silk for Europe's Silver. The Eurasan i Trade of the Julja _ Scholars Press and Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530-1750) (Atlanta I Georg1a: University of Pennsylvania, 1999): 354-62. 2 [Jabangir], The Jahangirnama, passim contains an enumeration of the many cas:npai�ns �t _ this ruler undertook or ordered to be undertaken in what is today Afghamstan, dunng h1s re1gn
of about twenty years.
3 Hans Robert Roemer, ''The Safavid Period," in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 6 ed. by Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986): see especially 31 0-31.
Stileyman the Magnificent (r.
1520-66).
In
1719, just before Ahmed Diirri set
during the following years.3
I When diplomatic relations were involved such anachronisms were not rare. Thus Jahangir, The Jahangirnama: 95 penned a lengthy comment on the battle of Ankara (1402) in which the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I Ylldmm had been defeated by his own ancestor Amlr Timur. From this event over two hundred years old at the time of writing, Jahangir deduced that the Ottoman sultans ha a moral obligation to send envoys to his own court.
d
2 Roemer ''The Safavid Period": 327. 3 Ahmet Aran ''Tophane-i Amire," in Diinden Bugiine Istanbul Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: o."nik ve Toptumsal Tarih Valcf1, 1993-94), vol 7; Gll.bor Agoston, Guns for the TUrkiye Ekon '
.
Sultans, Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
2005).
174
ANOTHER M I RR O R FOR PRINCES In addition the ambassador remarked that in the entire Safavid Empire
there were only three cities with significant fortifications namely Kandahar, Erivan und Derbend; however the first-named had already been lost. These remarks too must be viewed against the backdrop of Ottoman military practice: on both the Habsburg and Venetian frontiers sieges with their paraphernalia of mining, sapping and artillery fire were the very stuff of war. As three examples among many, we may refer to the conquest of Candia
( 1 669) and the two sieges of Vienna, of which the second from June to September 1683, came quite close to succeeding.1 Even in their Iranian wars the Ottomans tended to focus on the conquest of fortresses: thus Sultan Murad
IV in 1635 had conquered Erivan, one of the three key fortified towns of the Safavids according to Diirri Ahmed, although he had been unable to hold it. In
1638-9 after a long siege the same ruler had retaken Baghdad, a city that in the
early part of the seventeenth century had been in Safavid hands for some time. In addition Diirri Ahmed Efendi's hometown of Van was a major border fortress.2 We can thus assume that in the eyes of the envoy, Ottoman military men were good at handling fortresses both when in the offensive and when defending their own territory; in comparison their counterparts in the service of the Safavids cut a rather poor figure.
A N OTT O M A N A M B A S S ADOR I N I R A N
1 75
Ottoman lands. Probably Safavid interest in cannons and gunpowder was not exactly promoted by such considerations. 1 The comments of the Ottoman envoy on Iranian soldiers also are quite
remarkable. In Dtirri Ahmed Efendi's estimation they were good sharpshooters,
expert in the use of bows and arrows as well as of firearms. But leadership was
poor and the envoy went so far as to claim that in the Safavid ruling group of his own time reasonable men were few and far between. Moreover the ruler
and his circle had lost the will to maintain themselves in power; and
everywhere one could hear people say that the dynasty of the 'Cheykh-Oghlou' was about to go down.2 In this latter judgement the Ottoman observer agreed with many European authors of the time, who disapproved particularly of the obvious lack of interest that the reigning Shah Soltan Husayn took in matters of state.3
The weakness of the Safavid Empire: the exaggerated self-confidence of courtly society and its lack ofpolitical realism Three hundred years after the events, it is impossible to say to what
Diirri Ahmed Efendi's comments on military affairs in certain respects
extent Dtirri Ahmed Efendi's account of Shah Soltfut Husayn was fair; but in
century.3 Certainly guns and artillery were known and used by military men in
friendship of Ahmed III and the latter's envoy because he hoped that this
correspond to what has been said by certain historians of the late twentieth
the service of the shahs. But this use was sporadic rather than systematic, and firearms did not lead to the restructuring of annies as happened in early modem Europe and according to recent research, in the Ottoman Empire as well.4 Probably the relative lack of interest in firearms and the paucity of fortified places were interrelated. As Ottoman armies tended to focus on fortresses, rulers such as Shah 'Abbas I pursued a strategy of creating empty spaces in which the enemy was expected to lose himself; at ti mes this strategy might even involve the destruction by Iranians of Safavid fortifications. Moreover field artillery was relatively useless in battles with nomads, who in the Iranian context were a much more serious threat to settled government than in the
our text the last Safavid ruler appears as a weak person who only sought the
connection would protect him from his enemies. However the shah, who in
Durri Ahmed Efendi's account was always referred to with expressions of respect was perfectly capable of asking questions in a most friendly tone of
voice, which put the Ottoman envoy in an awkward position.
oblige: Diirri Ahmed took such behaviour in good part. We
Noblesse
will now attempt
to analyze the reasoning that motivated the ambassador's criticisms of Shah Soltan Husayn.
In Diirri Ahmed Efendi's perspective it was strange that the Safavid
court believed or at least claimed to believe that the different rebellions challenging the rule of the shah were due to petty disputes and intrigues, while quite obviously the crisis was much more serious and profound. Implicitly the
l John Stoye, The Siege of Vienna (Edinburgh: Birlinn, reprint 2000). 2 Jean-Louis Bacqu4!-Grammont, "Un plan intdit de Van au XVIle si�cle," Osman/1 Ara§tlrmalaTI, II (1981): 97-122. 3 Rudi Matthee, "Unwalled Cities and Restless Nomads: Firearms and Artillery in Safavid . 1996): 89-4 6. Iran," in Charles Melville (ed.), Safavid Persia (London: I. B. Tauns, 1 3
4
Halil
Inalcik, "Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman E'!'pire, 1600- 1700," Archivum Ottomanicum, VI (1980): 283-337; Gabor Agoston, "Ottoman Artillery and European Military Technology in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries", Acta Orientalia Hungarfca, 47 (1994): 15-48 and "Ottoman Warfare in Europe 1453-1826" in Jeremy Black (ed.), European Warfare, 1453-1815 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 999): 118-44 and 262-63.
1
Ottoman envoy thus was critical of the tendency to explain all political conflicts by the routine tensions between persons and factions that were and 1 Matthee, "Unwalled Cities": 395-405. 2 Dourry Efendy, Relation de Dourry Efendy: 55; the transc�ption was the creation of De
name because 1ts ancestor was - correctly Fiennes, who added that the dynas!f bore. hiS t supposed to have been a famous derv1sh she1k. 3 For an impressive example see �urence Loc�art, T_he F�ll of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation ofPersia (Cambndge: Carnbndge Umvers1ty Press. 1958): 42.
176
A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S
are everyday occurrences at any seat of government In certain cases the author noted the 'reality underlying the rhetoric'. While Safavid dignitaries claimed that certain people from Daghestan appeared at court to express their devotion to the shah and were rewarded by gifts "out of compassion and because of their poverty" Dtirri Ahmed observed that these gifts compensated the Daghestanls for leaving the Iranian-controlled sections of the Caucasus in peace; otherwise they were sure to raid these areas for slaves. Policies of this type certainly were not unknown in the Ottoman realm even though the author preferred to not mention the relevant parallels: thus for two centuries already the Ottoman sultans had been sending money, grain and other valuables to the Bedouins living close to the pilgrimage route to Mecca. In this instance as well the tribes were given grants-in-aid so that they would leave the pilgrims in peace.• This situation must have been well-known to most of Dtirri Ahmed's readers i n Istanbul; therefore the author perhaps also intended to admonish his public to avoid self-satisfaction and judge political situations on their merits.
A N OT T O M A N A M B A S S A D O R I N I R A N
177
imposed a paragraph that expressly forbade the ritual cursing of "companions
of the Prophet." l
Towards the late seventeenth century religious policy became a serious
weakness of the late Safavid Empire; and Dtirri Ahmed Efendi addressed this issue at some length. During those years the shahs attempted to make Iran into a country where apart from a few foreigners the entire population was Shiite. Certainly the persecution of Sunnites in Iran and Shiites in the Ottoman lands had been common in the sixteenth century as well. Sultan Siileyman had put great pressure on the Shiite-inspired minority today known as Alevis and there had been considerable emigration from Anatolia to Iran that was at least partly caused by religious persecution.2 As for Iranian Sunnites who wished to pursue a career in government service they often enough found out that their only chance lay in emigration. But where the Ottomans were concerned attempts to secure religious uniformity among Muslims by the year 1600 had largely ended. Only after 1880 do we encounter renewed attempts to convert the Shiite subjects of the sultan in Iraq and
A potential 'fifth column': the Sunnites ofIran In Dtirri Ahmed Efendi's account the religious tensions between Sunnites and Shiites living in Iran were a major topic; the author also was
elsewhere, now with relatively modern tactics inspired by those of Christian missionaries. 3 Matters were rather different in Iran during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians were exposed to
interested in the consequences of these tensions for the political relations
considerable pressures and often emigrated, moving to places as different as
between sultan and shah. Ever since the early sixteenth century the sultans had
India and Venice. Life was also made difficult for Sunnites both in the
projected an image as defenders of Sunnite right belief; in so doing they had
spiritual and material sense; sometimes they were targeted for special dues that
claimed superiority not only over the unbelievers of Europe but also over the
they only could escape by converting.4 Durri Ahmed did not discuss the
Shiites of Anatolia and Iran. As the latter were concentrated in the Safavid
problems that this policy implied for Jews and Christians; however
realm that was governed by the shahs, Iran came to be viewed as a land of misbelievers.2 At the same time the politically relevant elite of Iran adhered to the Shi'a of the Twelve Imams. At least in the sixteenth century, ritual cursing of the first three caliphs that i n Shiite perspective had deprived the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad of their birthright the caliphate, was part and parcel of Safavid self-definition while causing much official indignation in Istanbul. In the Ottoman-Iranian peace treaty of 1590, and
considerable attention has been paid to the situation of non-Muslims residing in Safavid Iran in the secondary literature of the late twentieth century.5 The Ottoman ambassador by contrast focused on those regions which in his opinion were principally inhabited by Sunnites. From his account it appears as if these Sunnites who supposedly made up thirty percent of the population of the Safavid Empire only waited for a ruler of their own religious convictions who would liberate them from their present oppressors. This
already in its predecessor the peace of Amasya ( 1555) the sultans had therefore
1 Bekir K�tiikoRiu,. Osmanlt-iran Siydsf Mandsebelleri vol. I, 1578-1590 (no more published)
�Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat FakUitesi, 1962): 195.
Community and 1992) : 123-66.
Leadership, ed. by Aron Rodrigue (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
l Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans (London: Tauris Press, 1994): 65-69. On. Sultan SUiey f1lll!I 'S using hi.� major mosque in orde_r to express the sixteenth-c.:ntury confltct �tween Sunmtes and Sh�ttes compare GuJru NectpogJu-Kafadar, "The S!Jieymaniye Complex m Istanbul: an Interpretation," Muqarnas, [II (1986): 92-117. 2
Ahmet Refik [Ait.mayj, Onaltmct asmJa Raftzflik ve Bekta§flik. Onalltnct astrda Tiirkiye'de Raftzflik ve Be�flige dair Hazinei evralc vesilcalarmt havidir (Istanbul: Muallim Ahmet Halit 1932); Colin Imber, "The Persecution of the Ottoman Shiites Accord.ing to the Miihimm� Defterleri 1565-1585." Der Islam, 56 (1979): 245-73. 3 Selim Deringil, "The Struggle against Shi'ism in Hamidian Iraq: A Study in Ottoman Counter Propaganda," Die Welt des /slams, XXX (1990): 45-62. 4 Roemer, "The Safavid Period": 313. 5 Lockhart, The Fall ofthe Sofavi Dynasty: 10-9.
178
A NOTHER M I R R O R F O R P R I NC E S
disaffection of Iranian Sunnites came out with particular clarity when the author described the reception he was given by the inhabitants of the town of J).iazlre: the entire population turned out to meet him and he claimed to have been profoundly moved.l Thus the long-term attempts on the part of Ottoman sultans and grand viziers to conquer western Iran could be legitimized by the sufferings of the Sunnites under Iranian rule.
A N OTTOMA N A M B A S S ADOR I N I R A N
179
In fact Ahmed Diirri 's interest in commercial matters was linked to his official mission: for the peace of Passarowit:z/Pasarof�a stipulated that Iranian
traders, for the most parts Armenians called acem tiiccan in Ottoman parlance
should be permitted to pass through the Ottoman realm and bring their goods to Habsburg territories. I During the previous decades of almost continuous warfare the transit of these traders had been forbidden and as a result, Iranian goods were sold at unusually high prices in Vienna and elsewhere in the Habsburg domain. But now that peace had been concluded this transit trade
The prosperity of the country
was considered to be of mutual advantage, as after all the traders paid
Di.irri Ahmed Efendi reported that at least in the towns, the Iranian economy was prosperous. As peasants were not numerous foodstuffs apparently were twice as expensive as on Ottoman territory, but the townspeople were doing well; the author did not explain how this was supposed to have worked in a pre-industrial economy. In this context Durri
substantial customs duties that helped fill the sultans' treasury. A paragraph in the treaty of Passarowit:z/Pasarof� thus specifically allowed the passage of these merchants and specified the duties they were expected to pay. It was part of Ahmed Durri's mission to inform the Safavid court of this change in Ottoman policy.
Ahmed mentioned that the population was dense and large and small towns were numerous; when passing through he claimed to have encountered but few poor people. By contrast villages were rare and those that did exist seemed to Diirri Ahmed to rather resemble towns. Such a settlement might hold between three hundred and one thousand houses and possess a public bath. However the
tribal societies of Iran did not make any impression upon the Ottoman visitor.
Textile manufactures both urban and rural appeared to be major sources
of wealth; and in this respect as well the envoy's impressions have been confirmed by recent research.2 Both silk and cotton fabrics were manufactured; and it was also common to mix the two fibres. The products of a few large cities were traded on the interregional level; presumably this remark of the author's implied that many other textiles were manufactured for local use only. Ahmed Di.irri stressed that Iranians did not import fabrics from abroad, apart from a few Kashmir shawls and some rough French woollens. Once again although the author did not say so, this situation differed from that of the contemporary Ottoman Empire where both Indian and French fabrics found an extensive clientele. Perhaps the relevant remark was meant as a comment upon the Ottoman situation, for the consumption of Indian luxuries certainly was not unknown among the Iranian upper class as well.3
Self-presentation, Ottoman style, or how the ambassador was received at the Safavid court Apart from bringing back information about the difficulties of the ruling dynasty and the wealth of Iran, Di.irri Ahmed Efendi evidently intended to convince the court in Teheran that in spite of recent defeats on European fronts the Ottoman sultan was still a force to be reckoned with. Presumably it was hoped that the shah in his difficult position would be overawed to the point of conceding whatever demands Ahmed III and his grand vizier might make in the future. Put differently 'propaganda' in favour of the sultan might was one of the major duties of the envoy. In writing his account the latter fulfilled the probable exigencies of his superiors by including a relatively detailed summary of his conversations with the shah and his grand vizier. Unfortunately I do not know of any Iranian source that would permit us to check the claims of Di.irri Ahmed Efendi. A particularly effective way of documenting the prestige enjoyed by the Ottoman sultan at the court in Teheran was the description of the ceremonies with which Diirri Ahmed was received and sent on his way. The language of ceremonial being intelligible at both courts, our author paid close attention to this aspect. He thus reported that upon his arrival, one of the
1 Ahmed DUrri Efendi in Tarih-i R�id. vol. 5: 396-97, in the version given by section has been considerably abridged. 2 Willem Aoor, L'Harmattan,
The 1999).
De Fiennes this
Persian Textile Industry in Historical Perspective 1500-1925 (Paris:
3 Aoor, The Persian Textile Industry: 30 1 .
Iranian viziers travelled twenty-two miles too meet him; great pomp was deployed, and the vizier's suite numbered about three thousand persons. Even in smaller towns receptions were quite elaborate. In this context the Ottoman
1 Aktepe,
•ounf Ahmct" 1: 58-60.
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ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR P R I NCES
envoy listed the victuals and other items which the shah sent in order to ensure his support and that of his suite; presumably the value of these necessities and their prompt arrival also could be construed as marks of respect. But the most important event was certainly the reception by the shah and his
itmdd i al-davla. To give but one example: when the official letter of
'
the Ottoman Grand Vizier Damad ibrahim Pa§a was handed over to the latter's opposite number, the Iranian dignitary supposedly kissed the document with as much respect as Dtirri Ahmed himself had done. In this courtly environment the ambassador could creatively employ his special talents; in other words Dtirri Ahmed Efendi was not confined to a purely reactive role. Both Persian and Ottoman poems were recited with relative frequency, and the author participated in these literary sessions. Supposedly the Iranian courtiers complimented the envoy on his knowledge of Persian; and he must have enjoyed emphasizing this fact when addressing the sultan and grand vizier.
AN OTTOM A N A M B AS S ADOR I N I R A N
181
Praising the person of Ahmed III was another important element i n Ottoman self-presentation; but as this sultan had not won any major victories
and could not boast any remarkable physical achievements, the envoy chose to depict him as a wise ruler. Dtirri Ahmed Efendi explicitly declared that his
sultan did not enjoy hunting, although the shah certainly thought that this
activity was particularly appropriate for a ruler. 1 Shooting exercises
supposedly were the only sport in which Ahmed III occasionally showed an interest although even here, he was more a spectator than an active participant. On the other hand Dtirri Ahmed stressed that his ruler took the duties of his office very seriously; he regularly listened to the meetings of his high officials and by regularly attending Friday prayers in one of Istanbul's great mosques, he not only fulfilled a religious obligation but also ensured that the people of the capital had a chance to encounter their ruler. The envoy also reported that Ahmed III invited scholars of Islamic law and religion into the palace in order to profit from their knowledge. Lectures of this kind were sponsored by several sultans of the eighteenth century, but it is noteworthy that this
Self-presentation, Ottoman style: the beauties of Istanbul and the wisdom of Ahmed III
activity could also serve to legitimize an Ottoman sultan in front of other Muslim rulers.2 In addition Ahmed III was presented as a lover of books, who
The Ottoman ambassador also attempted to impress the Iranian court
reserved one day a week for their study in the palace library that he had himself founded and richly endowed.3
by emphasizing those points that the Ottoman elite considered its own major strengths. The beauty of Istanbul had a role to play in this competitive courtly game. Otirri Ahmed Efendi reported that he had provided the shah with an extensive description of the mosques and other pious foundations of the Ottoman capital; he highlighted the handsome and elegant appearance of the Topkap1 Saray1, and even evoked the view of the Bosporus. 1 In 1703 when Ahmed III ascended the throne he had had to promise that henceforth he would reside in Istanbul and not in Edime as his predecessors had done; and perhaps this praise of the old-new capital was meant to counter gossip about Sultan Ahmed's enforced move. In addition this description may have been a concealed attempt to score a point against the Iranian ruler, who had just left his capital Isfahan to better resist his enemies. At least that is my interpretation of Durri Ahmed's remark that 'not only' the rulers of India and Uzbekistan envied Sultan Ahmed on account of his superb capital city. As the third important ruler of the Muslim world was the shah of Iran, the reader of Dtirri Ahmed's lines was likely to complete them by adding the latter's name to the list of rulers who would have liked to reside in Istanbul. 1 In the version relayed by Mehmed R�id this paragraph is briefer than in De Fiennes' translation: Ahmed Diirri Efendi in Tarih-i Ra§id, vol. 5: 383; Dourry Efendy, Relation de
Dourry Efendy:
28-9.
A coherent policy of reconstruction But surely the most interesting feature of Dtirri Ahmed's story is his account of the political program that he attributed to his ruler: for this was rather different from the sets of measures generally recommended in the 'books of advice' that from the later sixteenth century onwards were so often written by intellectually minded Ottoman bureaucrats.4 After all these texts mainly recommended that the sultan limit the size of his standing army, restore the
military tax assignments
(timars) to the status they had possessed
in the reign
1 Dourry Efendy Relation de Dourry Efendy: 22; Ahmed Diirri Efendi in Tarih-i Ra§id, vol. 5:
�
380. This comm nt is all the more remarkable as otherwise the shah refused to countenance the
killing of animals: Lockhart, The Fall ofthe Safavi Dynasty: 41. 2 Madeline C. Zilfi, "A Medrese for the Palace: Ottoman Dynastic Legitimation in the Eighteenth Century." Journal ofthe American Oriental Society, CXIII, 2 ( 1 993): 1 84-91. 3 This handsome building still adorns the third court of the_ Topkap1 palace. In a note_De Fiennes
_ claims that Ahmed III was not considered to be a connOisseur of Arab1c and Pers1an; Dourry Efendy, Relation de Dourry Efendy:l6, note. 31. But as the poetry com.�s�d by_ this sultan �as considered far from insignificant and Ottoman poetry presupposed farruhanty w1th the class1cal Persian authors, this claim can be discounted. 4 On the difficulty of correctly interpreting these texts see Rifa'at A. Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, The Ottoman Empire Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991): 53-60.
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of Stileyman the Magnificent, weed out corrupt officials and - if possible or necessary - defeat rebels, conquer new provinces and afterwards thank God for victory by endowing a mosque or two.
A N OTTO M A N A M B A S S A D O R I N I R A N
183
The Ottoman also had their problems: the fate of non-enthroned princes and the relationship to non-Muslimforeign powers
provinces in his empire to restore all existing mosques, theological colleges,
By contrast Dtirri Ahmed stressed that the sultan had sent orders to all
In the seventeenth century the Ottoman dynasty had come to regard its oldest male member as the legitimate successor of the reigning sultan.
caravansaries and other pious foundations. He also had ordered to pay their
Thereafter the well-known and much criticized custom of killing off the
stipends and gratuities to the students enrolled in these colleges, as well as to
brothers of a newly enthroned ruler was almost completely abandoned.1 From
other persons engaged in religiously meritorious activities. Presumably these
the seventeenth century onwards these princes were more or less imprisoned in
payments mostly had been discontinued during the decades of warfare that had preceded the peace of Passarowitz/Pasarof�. Evidently their resumption presupposed that the necessary means could be made available; unfortunately Dtirri Ahmed did not specify where these sums of money were supposed to come from. Doubtless these restorative measures were intended to enhance the reputation of the sultan and the Ottoman house in general: the ruler presented himself in the role of facilitator, who made it possible for his subjects to Jive a pious life by re-vitalizing the necessary institutions. But Ahmed III also restored buildings of a military nature; and in 1720 at the very same time
a special section of the palace and rarely were visible to the public, a precaution common to both Safavid and Ottoman rulers. Even so Diirri Ahmed was visibly uncomfortable when the shah questioned him about the fate of the Ottoman princes. This reticence is all the more noteworthy as Sultan Ahmed III did not hide away his sons and on festive occasions showed them off to the population of his capital.2 But we can assume that at the Iranian court the hecatombs of young Ottoman princes buried shortly after the accessions of their royal brothers in the late 1500s were not forgotten; and after all even in the seventeenth century certain sultans including Murad IV (r.
1623-40) had had their brothers killed, if not at their accessions then at some
when Dtirri Ahmed was in Iran, this ruler also ordered major repairs to the
later time. Quite obviously these were not matters which an educated Ottoman
fortifications of the Balkan town of Nish; construction workers even were
of the early eighteenth century liked to remember.
recruited from distant Crete. This policy of reconstruction was real and by no means a propagandistic invention of the Ottoman envoy. Some forty years ago Cengiz Orhonlu was able to show that after the peace of Passarowitz/Pasarof� in
1718, the Ottoman authorities made a major effort to re-ensure the security of the caravan routes compromised during decades of warfare. Fortified khans were constructed, several of which became the crystallization points of small towns. At the same time the villagers responsible for the security of certain stretches of road in exchange for tax exemptions, i n this period were given a more formal organization than had been true in earlier years, for instance in the sixteenth century.1 At least in some provinces tax collection was reformed
and detailed bureaucratic rules, not always very realistic, were issued to limit corruption and waste. Such measures had become necessary because during the wars of 1683-99 and 1715-18 all expenditures outside the combat zones had been scaled down to the point of non-existence: even many fortresses of the hinterland were very poorly supplied. But it is significant that not only we
modem historians discern a 'policy of reconstruction', but that a well-informed
It is interesting to see that Diirri Ahmed retorted by j,ointing out a case in which the shah himself had not acted in accordance with the traditions of his house. Presumably he meant to imply that if previous Ottoman rulers had had their brothers killed, at least they had the excuse of having obeyed the traditions of their dynasty. Somehow the ambassador had found out that Soltan Husayn had permitted the Safavid princes imprisoned i n his harem access to slave girls; and this was the issue that now was supposed to cause embarrassment to the shah even though, as the envoy was happy to concede the Iranian ruler had acted out of compassion. In this discussion the representatives of the two rival dynasties evidently were caught between the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand it was important to demonstrate that the princes of the relevant dynasty were not exposed to the undignified conditions accompanying imprisonment. But on the other hand, both Ottomans and Safavids since the seventeenth century had developed dynastic laws that demanded that potential claimants to the throne be detained and prevented from having children.3 As these two alternatives were mutually exclusive it was
always possible to fault 'the other side' whenever that became politically convenient.
contemporary made the same point when praising his sovereign.
I Nicolas Valin and Gilles Veinstein, Le Strait ebrante (Paris: Fayard, 00 ): 204- . 17 2 3
1 Cengiz Orhonlu, Osman/1 lmparatorlutunda Derbend Tqlcilah (Istanbul: fstanbul Oniversitesi Edebiyat FaJcUJtesi, 1967): 59-94.
2 Maria Pia Pedani Fabris
ed., Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al Senato, vol. XIV Costantinopoli. Re/azioni inedite (1512-1780) (Padua: AJdo Ausilio-Bottega di Erasmo, 1996):
864-70.
3 Roemer, "The Safavid Period": 366.
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PRI NCES
A N 0T T 0 M A N A M 8 A S S A D 0 R
The second troublesome point concerned the peace treaties of Karlowitz/Karlof�
(1699) and Passarowitz/Pasarof� (1718)
that the sultans
had concluded with the rulers involved in the so-called Holy League, namely the Habsburg Empire, Poland, Venice and Russia. After all, these treaties had sanctioned the loss of Hungary as well as the principality of Transylvania, hitherto an Ottoman dependency. In the long run, both Mehmed IV (r.
164887) and Mustafa II (r. 1692-1703) were dethroned because of these defeats. Yet by the treaty of Passarowitz/Pasarof� that had been signed in 1718 in other
words in the time of the ruling sultan Ahmed III, even the important fortress city of Belgrade had been lost. ' We have no way of knowing whether these events really were discussed in the polite and detached terms that the ambassador's report suggests. It is quite possible that the shah and his courtiers highlighted recent Ottoman defeats, but that the envoy preferred to not share the details with his readers. If Diirri Ahmed Efendi is to be believed Shah Soltan Husayn only wished to be informed about the recent peace treaties - or truces as they were regarded within the framework of Islamic law. The Safavid ruler wanted to know whether the agreements applied to short or to lengthy periods and whether in all cases a written text had been agreed upon. Diirri Ahmed replied that some of the treaties were valid for twenty-five and others for thirty-five years: originally the sultan had been unwilling to grant them but as the Christian rulers had insistently sued for peace, he ultimately had agreed. As for the latter they had promised that every year, merchants and ambassadors personally would attend the sultan's court and present their gifts. Thus the author postulated a resemblance to the tributary embassies whose attendance at the
Safavid court Diirri Ahmed previously had noted. However the Ottoman envoy
did not speak of tribute but rather of gifts; and thus in a way he responded to the changing political situation.
I
N
lRAN
185
he did not hesitate to interrupt the speeches of Iranian dignitaries and
emphatically complain to the shah concerning the misdeeds of the latter's
governors stationed along the Ottoman-Iranian borders. In the same vein, Diirri Ahmed Efendi reported that whenever he had received gifts and polite attentions from Iranian grandees, he immediately had reciprocated in kind. The Ottoman ambassador and therefore the ruler that had sent him were not to be outdone at any foreign court. But almost i n the same breath the author also explained how he managed to gain acceptance on the part of the shah's entourage by acting in a manner becoming to a diplomat. Thus when the Iranian grand vizier indicated by a gesture that a certain issue was not to be broached in the presence of his ruler Diirri Ahmed claimed that he immediately took the hint. For as he told his readers he understood straight away that by insisting, he might have gotten his interlocutor into trouble with the latter's own sovereign. All this diplomatic manoeuvring however only was possible because the author was fluent in Persian and fully conversant with Iranian classical literature. If his account is at all reliable, his literary knowledge and skills surpassed the expectations of the Teheran court where even well-educated non-Iranians were concerned. Perhaps Diirri Ahmed Efendi wished to indicate that he was available if another embassy were to be sent into this crisis area. But whatever his plans, they were nullified by the author's untimely death shortly after his
return to the Ottoman lands. I As we have seen Diirri Ahmed felt that the late Safavid court was deplorably amiss when it came to military preparedness and political prudence. But there were compensations: literature, apparel and also musical performance
were strikingly elegant. We may even suspect that Diirri Ahmed feared that in
comparison the Ottoman sultan would cut a less impressive figure: for at one
point he recorded quite indignantly that of course Ahmed III was more majestic in appearance that his Iranian counterpart. On one occasion literary men were sent to the lodgings of the envoy to both entertain and impress him; and
The ambassador as a negotiator
whenever he was received at court a concert was given. While the author did
Apart from the oral guidelines that Diirri Ahmed Efendi had received in Istanbul, he also had his own agenda. Quite obviously he wanted to impress the powers that be by his skills as a negotiator. Thus he emphasized how he studiously avoided 'capture' by Iranian courtly ritual; and to any perceived slights he reacted immediately.2 Several times the author told his readers that 1 Rifa'at A. Abou El-Haj, "Ottoman Attitudes toward Peace-Making: the Karlowitz Case •• Der
Islam Ll (1974): 131-7.
2 See Aktepe, "Dilrrf Ahmet" 2: 61-63 for one ellample among several.
not record the quality of these performances it still is worth noting that he never said anything negative about them; yet when it came to Iranian personalities
and
policies
he certainly
did
not
hesitate to
make
uncomplimentary remarks. Therefore it is likely that singers and musicians usually were highly skilled. Perhaps Durri Ahmed Efendi was more impressed by the culture of the late Safavid court than one might think at first reading.
•
I Compare Aktepe. "DUrrf Abmet" 5: 56 on the dates given in the sources for DUrri Ahmed's death.
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A N 0T H E R M
I
RR0R
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PRINCES
In conclusion In a relatively brief text the Ottoman ambassador has succeeded in conveying a graphic account of his aims and the means that he used to achieve them. It was his primary concern to impress the Safavid shah with the power of Sultan Ahmed III and the latter's concern with good government. In this context Durri Ahmed Efendi descri bed a program of reconstruction that probably had been designed in the entourage of Grand Vizier ibrahim P�a and that he attributed to the sultan personally. With hindsight Ahmed Ill may thus appear as a predecessor of the reforming Sultan Selim III (r. 1789-1807). However around 1720 military problems were not as evident as they were to be about seventy years later. Therefore the sultan and his grand vizier could afford to focus on restoring pious foundations, thus legitimizing Ottoman rule by the services rendered to the cause of the Muslim religion and by implication to education as well. Throughout Sultan Ahmed III and his grand vizier seem to have demanded first-hand political information. At least this is what we may conclude after reading the brief but sometimes quite apposite remarks of their ambassador concerning the products of Iranian artisans and the political crisis that was to end with the demise of the Safavid Empire a few years later. Given the scarcity of sources it is hard to decide whether Durri Ahmed Efendi was . right in considering the Sunnite population of Iran as an at least potential fifth column; a certain amount of wishful thinking probably was involved. Yet
A N O TT O M A N A M B A S S A D O R I N I R A N
187
they were talking about.1 Certainly invasion projects only became acute when the collapse of Safavid rule resulted in a power vacuum in Iran, and that happened only after the conquest of Isfahan by the Afghans in 1722. But some 'contingency planning' on the Ottoman side is likely to have occurred earlier
on, and the reports of the khan of Erivan about invasion plans that Oiirri Ahmed Efendi was at pains to discredit may well have contained a core of truth. We will need to locate further sources before we can be sure.
While Damad ibrahim Pa�a was not a diplomat by his early training he evidently had talents in this field and was able to appreciate the value of contacts between royal courts. In the years following the peace of Passarowitz/Pasarof�a this grand vizier evidently tried to establish contacts both to western and to eastern rulers. If diplomacy was to be of use to the Ottoman government after a series of less than successful wars, the relevant policy did in fact imply the collection of information and the projection of 'sultanic propaganda' in all major kingdoms and empires. European rulers were part of this setup but they did not monopolize Ottoman attention. In this context Diirri Ahmed Efendi should have been a most valuable servant of the Ottoman grand vizier, as he was one of a probably limited circle of men who possessed the ' intercultural flair' needed for Ahmed III's new style diplomacy. We are left to wonder what might have happened if both Durri Ahmed and the Safavid Empire had survived longer.
whatever the situation i n practical terms, the author's comments on this issue are of interest, as
they show that well-informed Ottomans continued to believe
that they could use the conflict between Sunnites and Shiites to destabilize the
Safavids and thus further the political aims of their rulers. In addition we can guess at the impression that the court of the last Safavid shah made upon an educated Ottoman gentleman such as Durri Ahmed Efendi: certainly it seemed weak and even decadent, but at the same time it was highly cultivated; in some visitors it even might cause a secret inferiority complex. Concerning the diplomatic activities of the author, i t is evident that just like i n contemporary Europe, an envoy was expected to 'lie abroad for the good of his country'. For presumably Durri Ahmed Efendi knew - or at least could guess - that there was a distinct possibility that Sultan Ahmed III and his entourage might decide to attack western Iran. But it was his brief to persuade the shah of the contrary. Therefore we find him indignantly rejecting a suggestion that Ottoman intentions were not altogether peaceful: people that put about such rumours - or so Diirri Ahmed claimed - did not know what 1 Ahmed DUrri Efendi, in Mehmed RB§id, Tarih-i Ra§id: 374; Dourry Efendy, Relation de
Dourry Eferuiy: 7-38.
A PRISONER OF WAR REPORTS: THE CAMP AND HOUSEHOLD OF GRAND VIZIER KARA MUSTAFA IN AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
A considerable amount of work has been done on the fates of prisoners of war, but most studies concern the post-1850s. Interest has focused on the American War of Secession, British actions against the Boers in South Africa, most prominently the two World Wars and in addition the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. In the near future we surely can expect a number of studies on prisoners of war taken in the Anglo-American wars i n Kuwait and Iraq. Yet the early modern period to a large extent remains a terra incognita. What is more, researchers who do deal with this period have concentrated on the Thirty Years War or the unending armed conflicts of the eighteenth century between the five 'great powers' of contemporary Europe. As for the campaigns by Ottoman sultans against the Habsburg rulers in Vienna, the kings of Poland and the Signoria of Venice, the problems connected to prisoners of war have received but cursory attention. This remains true even when the prisoner in question is reasonably prominent: thus an extensive biography of the well-known geographer and writer on military matters Luigi Fernando de Marsigli devotes but a very few pages to the period that this author spent on Ottoman territory as a prisoner of war. 1 Probably historians have not shown much interest in the stories of soldiers captured in wars involving the Ottomans because it is often assumed that between Muslim and Christian rulers, there simply were no common frames of reference. Although in Christian Europe the treatment of captured soldiers often was brutal enough, historians will posit that there existed a shared set of Christian values or at least some common ground between fellow Catholics or Protestants. This was not true however when the opposing parties were of different religions. Therefore in Habsburg-Ottoman wars for instance it was not feasible to conclude formal arrangements for the exchange of captured soldiers and especially officers, of the kind that in eighteenth century Europe might be made before the rival armies even encountered one another in the field.2 Given this lack of common norms between the Ottomans and their Christian opponents, prisoners of war were not protected by any written or unwritten law. Whether they were captured by soldiers of the sultans or those of the Habsburg emperors, what happened to these men 1 John Stoye, Marsigli's Europe (New Haven. London: Yale University Press, 1994): 20-23. 2Daniel Hohrath, "'ln Cartellen wird der Werth eines Gefangenen bes\\mme\'
Kriegsgefangenschaft als Teil der Kriegspraxis im Ancien Rtgime," in In der Hand des Feindes. Geschichtsschreibung zur Kriegsgefangenschaft von der Antike bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. by RUdiger Overmans and the Arbeitskreis Militiirgeschichte (KOin, Weimar, Wien: Bohlau Verlag, 1999): 141-70.
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ANOTHER M I R ROR FOR PRI NCES
therefore depended exclusively on the characters and intentions of their captors. Probably this situation has discouraged quite a few historians; for they must have worried about encountering a mass of disparate bits of information in
widely scattered primary sources, from which it might be all but impossible to produce an overall picture. 1 At least until the end of the seventeenth century i t is in fact true that prisoners of war taken in the Ottoman-Habsburg borderlands enjoyed few guarantees, apart from the fact that captors who had taken prisoners whose families were of some wealth and standing expected substantial ransom payments and therefore had an interest in the survival of their captives.2 Shortly after a battle it was common practice for both Ottoman and Habsburg soldiers to kill their captives. Those prisoners who survived the traumatic hours and days following such an encounter most often were enslaved, and a return became increasingly unlikely once the military corps to which the captor belonged had removed itself from the battlefront. That such was the fate of most Christian captives in Ottoman hands is relatively well known because ransoming such people was part of the ordinary business of ambassadors. It is less often realized that the Habsburgs also enslaved their captives, and this was still common practice during the conquest of Ottoman Hungary in the 1680s.3 In southern Italy enslaved Muslim prisoners of war could be encountered even in the beginning of the nineteenth century.4
All this is correct; but it is not the whole story, as will become apparent from our discussion of a little known captivity report from the late seventeenth century. In reality ransoming and exchanges of prisoners between Ottomans and Habsburgs did occur even if no formal agreements had preceded the wars in which these men had been captured. Such a procedure from the war of 1683-99 will be the subject of the present study. Our source was published for the first time in 1689 and reprinted a few years later: no full-scale modem edition is available. The author was Claudio Angelo de Martelli, who in spite of his Italian name seems to have spoken German as his native language and published his book in German. When captured near Vienna in the summer of
1683 De Martell i was serving his as a 'Rittmeister', in a regiment of 'Kiirassier's, whose commander was Count Diinewald. Thus he was a an older
I These difficulties are reflected in Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around it, 1540s to 1774 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004): 1 1 9-36. 2 Geza David and Pal Fodor eds., Ransom Slavery (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 3 Osman Aga, Der Gefangene der Giauren. Die abenteuerlichen Schicksale des Dolmetschers Osman Aga aus Temeschwar, von ihm selbst erztihlt, tr. and commented by Richard Kreutel and Otto Spies (Cologne, Graz, Vienna: Styria, 1962). For an edition of the original see Osman Aga, Die Autobiographie des Dolmetschers 'Osman Aga aus Temeschwar, ed. by Richard Kreutel (Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust, 1980). For a French translation see: Prisonnier des infideles. Un soldat ottoman dans /'empire des Habsbourg, tr. by Frederic Hitzel (Aix-en-Provence: Sindbad-Actes Sud, 1998). For the context compare Frederic Hitzel, "Osman Aga, captif ottoman dans !'empire des Habsbourg a Ia fin du XVIIe sitcle," Turcica, 33 (2001): 191-2!6. 4 Salvatore Bono, Schiavi musulmani nell' Italia moderna, Galeotti, vu' cumpra, dcmestici (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche ltaliane. 1999).
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191
contemporary of Osman Aga, who fell into Habsburg hands as a very young officer during this same war. I De Martelli was an Ottoman prisoner for about two years, during which time-span he experienced the household of the
recently executed grand vizier Kara Mustafa P� (1634-83) at first hand. Under
circumstances that we will discuss De Martelli was able to return to Habsburg territory long before the peace of Karlowitz and continue his military career.2 By 1689 as the title page of his book indicated he had been promoted to the
position of "General Adjutant: und Obrist Leutenand".3
I Claudio Angelo de Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti, das ist warhafft: und eigentliche Beschreibung der Anno 1683 ...au.Pgestandenen Gejaengnu.P (Vienna: Matthias Sischowitz, 1689). A copy of this book is in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbiittel. I gained access
to this rare work due to the help of Gesine Bottomley and her team, librarians in that paradise of scholars known as the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. Long may they flourish!
Apart from what De Martelli and a few of his contemporaries report, not much seems to be known about this officer's biography. Unfortunately I was unable to consult his file in the 6sterreichisches MiliUirarchiv (Vienna). A cousin of De Martelli's was the dean of the cathedral chapter of Augsburg whom the author called "Freiherr von Schonstain" (De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 96). According to Joachim Seiler, Das Augsburger Domkapitel vom DreijJigjahrigen Krieg bis zur Siiku/arisation (1648-1802) (St. Ottilien: Eos-Verlag, 1989): 375ff. the person referred to was Leonhard Frey vom Schonstein, licentiatus utriusque iuris (1624-93). Frey vom Schonstein came from a patrician family domiciled near Lake Constance and in Vorarlberg on Habsburg territory. The family had acquired its noble status only in 1669, when the emperor Leopold I had granted them the title "vom SchOnstein". This personage apparently was De Martelli's closest male relative; I am obliged to the archivists of the cathedral archive in Augsburg for their aid in tracking him down. In another section of his book De Martelli declared that he was unmarried and had no close relatives (De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: I l l). However this claim may be untrue; for he seems to have had a wife or female companion whose name he did not mention (ibid.: 151, 152). My reasons for doubting his statement are the following: when referring to the wives of other people he often used the term "Liebste" ('beloved'). Therefore it is possible that when he wrote about his own "Liebste" he meant 'Eheliebste', a common term for spouse at this time. Or else the union may not have received official sanction. His partner apparently lived in Innsbruck. I have not been able to explain why the author did not mention any attempts to inform his "Liebste" of his whereabouts. Otherwise he quite often gave the names of the people to whom he sent mail. While De Martelli never spoke about children either legitimate or illegitimate, his "Schwager" (brother-in law) Freiherr Pienner von Pixenhausen did make a brief appearance in his memoirs. This person was apparently a canon, probably in the little Bavarian town of Milhldorf. But when De Martelli returned from Istanbul, Pienner von Pixenhausen had been dead for some time. De Martelli claimed that he had been a soldier for sixteen years; however possibly he was thinking not of the date of his capture in 1683 but rather of the time at which he wrote his book (1685-89). Thus probably at the time of his capture he was in his middle thirties. De Martelli also remarked that before his Ottoman adventure he had served in the Netherlands, the German territories and Hungary. He had been taken prisoner once before, namely in the Hungarian wars and had spent part of his captivity in the house of a local nobleman. Apparently the author was dissatisfied with the progress of his career and took the opportunity offered by his report to point out this fact (ibid.: 71). It is worth noting that the relevant passage was not deleted by the censor. 2 For a biography see the article "Mustafa P3§a, Merzifonlu, Kara" by Miinir Aktepe in islam Ansiklopedisi (published by the Turkish Ministry of Education), vol. VIII: 736-38. 3 De Martelli wrote many German verses, of execrable quality. In addition he apparently spoke Latin well and at least understood Hungarian, Italian and Polish. At one point he remarked that an acquaintance had addressed him i n "Teutsch/Waelsch/und Franzosisch" (German, ltalian and French). I do not know whether we should conclude that he also understood French (De Martelli, Re/atio captivo-redempti: 60). At one point he had to pass up a chance to flee because as he told his readers, he knew no Serbian or Croatian (ibid.: 92). De Martelli's knowledge of Polish was to prove a veritable survival skill.
192
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War propaganda, late seventeenth century-style: asserting piety and loyalty When De Martelli's book was published in 1689 the Habsburg Ottoman war over Hungary was still raging. The peace of KarlowitzJKarlof�a only was concluded ten years later: when the book appeared the armies of Leopold I had occupied Belgrade (1688). De Martelli profited materially from this latter event as Be§ir Aga the former Ottoman commander of the fortress along with the latter's family, was assigned to the author "as my slaves".1 Thus De Martelli's memoirs should be regarded as a piece of war propaganda, intended to justify the actions of the imperial army and even to legitimize them in religious terms. Quite often the author mentions his loyalty towards Leopold I and his devotion to the Catholic Church in one and the same breath. But perhaps most remarkable is his confession that taken by themselves, his religious convictions might not have been strong enough to ensure his survival in Ottoman captivity - meaning presumably a survival without conversion to Islam. Only his loyalty to his ruler and to his commander Charles of Lorraine as he puts it, allowed him to hold out in spite of all pressures.2 This combination of Catholic piety and loyalty towards the ruler is clearly expressed already on the title page. In the last lines of the long text that filled this page according to the custom of the times, religious catchwords abound: the author's release from captivity is described as miraculous, God's intervention is invoked and there is a reference to salvation as well. In the dedicatory prologue the author dwells at length upon his steadfast adherence to his Catholic faith. Remarkably enough the book is dedicated not to some military figure or even to the emperor Leopold himself, but to a canon regular by the name of Franziskus from the Premonstratensian monastery of Pernegg, who was a member of the estate of Habsburg prelates.3 As yet another example of the religious discourse favoured by De Martelli there is an episode that the author described as having happened shortly after he had been wounded
A PRISONER OF WAR
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and captured. A dish containing meat was offered to him, which he was unable to eat; and while De Martelli was well aware of the fact that shock and loss of blood had made it impossible for him to consume anything much, he did not omit to mention that these events had taken place on a Friday when his religion forbade him to touch meat. In the same vein he reports that after his return to his homeland he visited the pilgrimage church of Altotting to thank God and the Virgin Mary for his fortunate escape; De Martelli undertook this pilgrimage even before reporting to his commander in Vienna. Another example of the religious discourse so much favoured by De Martelli concerns his emphatic refusal to convert. The barber who treated the author's wounds immediately after his capture apparently suggested such a move, while warning the prisoner that by refusing he risked execution. If De Martelli's story can be believed, he responded by stressing his willingness to die a martyr's death. However such claims do appear somewhat formulaic. Thus we find a similar statement in the report of Giovanni Benaglia about the embassy of the Habsburg Internuntius Caprara; in 1683 Kara Mustafa Pa§a had taken this diplomat from Istanbul all the way to the gates of Vienna. Once
Caprara sent a messenger to the emperor although the grand vizier had expressly forbidden him to do, supposedly remarking "oh how fortunate would we be if they soon were to send us off to paradise"
("0 wie waren wir aile so
gliickselig/ wann sie uns aufs baldiste ins ParadiS schickten.") 1
As is well known the wars between Habsburgs and Ottomans were viewed by both sides not only as secular power struggles but also as religious wars. De Martelli also makes this point by giving his readers a lengthy
account of how crosses and communion were mocked by the opposing side.2
However it is not so clear how many of these acts - in so far as they really had occurred - had been committed by Muslims. After all religious imagery was just as objectionable to the Hungarian Calvinists who so often were Ottoman allies and who certainly were no great respecters of Catholic ritual objects, including the bread and wine used in the mass. In addition stories about the desecration of churches always made 'good copy' and should therefore
I De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 154. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 70. 3 In his prologue the author refers to the kindness that Franziskus von Pemegg - as an individual - had shown towards himself. He also had reason to be grateful to the order of the
Premonstratensians collectively, of which Franziskus was a member; but he does not tell us what this kindness involved in concrete terms. As I was informed by Prior Benedikt Felsinger and the archivist of the monastery Pater Johannes Mikel (Kloster Geras/Pemegg), Franziskus von Pemegg is identical with Franz von SchOilingen. In the late seventeenth century the latter's family had recently been ennobled and when in 1700 the priory was ra!se� to the.status of an abbey, Von Sch61lingen became its first abbot. I am most ul fo! th1s p1ece of lnfOf!118llO�; 1 �nshtp yet it is a pity that the archives of the monastery contaJ� .no e�1dence of the relat . between De Martelli and Franz von Sch611ingen Howev�r 1t of .mte�st. that once a�a1n, �e l find churchmen from recently ennobled families of the rrunor nob1hty Within the authors soc1a circle.
g!"l'tef IS
be treated with circumspection.
I De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 23; Johanne Benaglia, Au.Pftihrliche ReijJ-Beschreibung von Wien nach Constantinopel und wieder VAriick in Teutschland... deft Hochgebohren Grafen und Herrn Herrn Albrecht Capraro etc. welche Er als /hro Romisch-Keyserl. Maj. Extraordinari-Gesandter... den Stillstand mit der Ottonu:���is Pjorten VA verltingernl verrichtet, translator not mentioned (Frankfurt/Main: Matth. Wagner,
2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 33-34.
1687): 100.
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Explaining capture - or what happens if a soldier is overwhelmed by a powerful opponent Unless completely incapacitated by their wounds prisoners of war have sometimes had to defend themselves against accusations of disloyalty - Soviet soldiers who had the great misfortune of being captured by the Nazi armies during World War II form a particularly harrowing example. 1 Presumably De Martelli stressed his loyalty at every step because he had similar potential challenges in mind. Being overpowered however formed a plausible excuse; and De Martelli already in the title of the first chapter of his book stressed the enormous size of the Ottoman army when it first appeared before Vienna. Supposedly two to three hundred thousand soldiers of the sultan were accompanied by about a hundred thousand Tatars. In reality it must have been difficult to form an accurate idea of the size of the Ottoman army, and the author's aim in reporting these figures probably was meant to demonstrate that he and his fellow soldiers had been powerless to resist such a multitude.2 De Martelli gives his readers a detailed account of the circumstances under which he was taken prisoner; and this information also should be viewed as part of a tactic that permitted the author to justify his behaviour. When on
30 June 1683 the advance guard of the Ottoman army reached the river Raab,
De Martelli went out to reconnoitre; and this move resulted in a skirmish with
Ottoman troops that had reached the other side of the river. The next day Duke Charles of Lorraine ordered a larger-scale exploratory move to figure out the strength of his opponent; but this was interrupted by an attack on the part of 1 Thus the military career of Luigi Femand Ma igl� ended �ith a dishonourable discharge ? !S
. from the imperial army because the authonlles m _Y•enna �heved that as a second to the . . commander of the fortress of Breisach he had too rap1dly subm1tted to the arm1es of Lou1s XIV. The commander himself was executed: Stoye, Marsigli's Europe: 246-47.
2 [Georg Christoph] Baron Kunitz, Diarium Welches Der am Tiirkischen !!off und hernach
beim Groj)-Vezier in der Wienerischen Be/ae�er�ng gewest�n Kayser!. Re�1dent Herr Baron Kunitz eigenhlindig beschrieben ... nebst au j)foh rllc her Relation der W1enenschen Belagerung
(Vienna: no page numbers, no publisher, 1684) begins by estimating t�at the C?ttoman army consisted of 170,000-180,000 men including the Walachian and Moldav•an contmgents. Later . on the author revised this figure, suggesting that many troops were occupied elsewhere and that thus only 90,000 men were available for the siege .of Vienna. . . . However in the appendix ofthis little book we find a text claurung to be a !rJinslatJon of an Ottoman document recording a review of troops du�ng the la�r sta�es of the s1ege. As far as I can tell the original has not yet surfaced. Accordmg to Kumtz th1s document was dated 18 Rarnazan/7 September 1683 (according to present-day conv�rsion tables 18 Ramazan that y� a r corresponded to 20 August). At this muster 168,000 sold1ers allegedly �ere c�unted �h1le losses amounted to 48,544 men. Both Kunitz' and Benaglia's books are available m the W1ener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek located in the Vienna city hall. The pre-publication story of the Kunitz diary is rather interesting: �e editorlprinter claimed . that the text was found in Kunitz' tent after the Ottoman army had humedly evacuated Jts camp before Vienna. If this claim is more or less correct we can. �ume th�t the author �hen �en away by the withdrawing Ottoman army intentionally left his d1ary beh�n�: after all 1t cont.med . military intelligence. Moreover once the Ottoman arm1es had lef!, Kum z t work was usable for propaganda purposes; and probably for this very reason it was pnnted the next year.
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the Tatars who in the meantime had crossed the Raab. Thereupon the author was personally ordered by the commander-in-chief to reconnoitre the
possibilities of crossing the Raab and Raabnitz rivers; and in the course of
this undertaking he was captured on 2 July. This information is confirmed by the Ottoman Divan interpreter Alexander Maurocordato, who briefly recorded in his diary that Claudio Mart[ell]i had been captured along with 60 men.l De Martelli reported that unexpectedly he was confronted by a troop of 300 Tatars and tried to extricate his troops. But from the beginning this attempt did not have many chances of success and after being wounded, the author could not avoid capture.2 De Martelli also demonstrated his continued loyalty to the Habsburg cause by highlighting his frequent attempts from prison to contact his commander. Apart from transmitting information about his whereabouts that might prove to be of military value, these letters presumably were meant to encourage the officers in charge to arrange for an exchange of prisoners involving De Martelli. In fact after his letters had been received the author was sent clothing and l O guilders: however he does not tell us whether this was a private gesture on the part of one of his correspondents or whether the money came from an official army fund. As a further token of his devotion to the imperial cause De Martelli included a detailed discussion of the projects for flight that he supposedly had elaborated before being taken from Belgrade to Istanbul and later on, during his stay in the Ottoman capital; however none of these plans even came close to
realization. Once again presumably the author stated his intentions in order to make it clear that in real life flight was impossible. At the same time looking out from a window of the Belgrade fortress he supposedly counted the army units that the Ottoman commanders sent out to strengthen the defences of Buda. He did in fact manage to pass on this intelligence to his commander Charles of Lorraine: at other occasions he also established contact with the margrave Hermann of Baden and with the Habsburg diplomat Georg von
Kunitz who as we have seen was a prisoner in the camp of the grand vizier.3
I Richard F. Kreutel, Karl Teply eds. and translators, Kara Mustafa vor Wien, lf5!33 aus der Sicht tiirkischer Que/len (Verlag Styri�: Graz, Yi.enn�, Cologne, 1982): 81. For a b1ography of
this Ottoman dignitary who had stud.•ed med1cme m Padua and had done research on the circulation of blood' see Nestor Camar1ano, Alexandre Mavrocordato, le Grand Drogman, son activite diplomatique (1673-1709) (Salonica: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1970). Richard Kreutel is one of the very few modern historians to have taken notice of Claudio An�elo de Martelli and his book; see Kreutel and Teply eds. and translators, Kara Mustafa vor W1en: 23 and elsewhere. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 13-15. 3 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 41-42, 94, ?6· Kunitz, Diarium: no pagination, p. 1 . according to my count only mentions De Martelli a smgl«: time, namely when he ecord�� the Rittmeister's capture. Kunitz also had learned that the pnsoner whom he called [Claud1 had been assigned to the grand vizier.
196
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Giving information to the other side - or refusing to cooperate Soon after his capture the author was questioned on the part of the Tatar khan and the grand vizier. From the very beginning he tried to keep his rank and decorations secret, even though a level officer.
de camp:
Rittmeister was not a very high More significant was the author's position as an imperial aide
presumably De Martelli wanted to avoid detailed questions
concerning Habsburg tactics and strategy. We may assume that at this early stage the Ottomans had not yet laid hands on many captives of any prominence in the imperial forces; and it was probably for that reason that
Rittmeister
De Martelli was confronted several times with the highest
commanders in the sultan's army. The author claims to have even kept his family name secret as far as possible: when talking to the Tatar khan and to Alexander Maurocordato he supposedly identified himself simply as a soldier. However the success of these tactics should not be overestimated. I Thus for instance the Ottoman chief interpreter knew De Martelli's family name perfectly well and at their very first encounter, used it to address the self-styled 'Claudio the soldier'. Mavrocordato had probably received this information from the Hungarian nobleman Ferenc Horvath, who knew the author of our text from earlier military confrontations.2 Certainly during his stay i n the Ottoman camp De Martelli usually went by the name of Claudi; but as the Ottomans normally used given names in preference to family names it does not seem likely that the chief interpreter was the only person to know
De
Martelli's true identity.
However in this respect at least the latter was quite optimistic; and when imprisoned in the fortress of Belgrade he continued to hope that there were only two people that knew his family name. He therefore became rather upset when the Polish diplomat Samuel Prosky a newcomer to the local dungeon, called De Martelli by his full name.3 As to the situation of Prosky it is necessary to put his situation into perspective. While it has long been known that the Ottomans of the time imprisoned foreign ambassadors when at war with their rulers, Ottoman ambassadors on Habsburg territory might suffer the same fate. Thus when his
1
Herr von Quarient, a cousin of the Habsburg envoy at th� Ot_to�a� court who was �S? in f!!e camp of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pap asked De Martelli qu1te Insistently to ke�p h•s tde�tJty . secret. Evident\y Von Quarient had not yet grasped that the Ottomans had long smce Jd�ntJfled _ . their prisoner; see De Martelli, Re/atio captivo-redempti: 24. On the office and responsibilities of an imperial aide de camp: ibid.: 71. . . 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 20-21. The auth�r had spent e1ghtee � mon�hs m Eperies as a prisoner of Prince ThOkoly who was firmly committed to the Ottoman s1de.
3 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 71.
A
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1 97
peace mission initiated in 1688 had failed the Ottoman envoy Ziilfikar Pa§a also was imprisoned in a fortress. 1
In Ottoman-Habsburg confrontations an officer who provided the enemy with data beyond name, rank and serial number apparently was not regarded as a traitor; for even though
De Martelli
made much of his loyalty to
the imperial cause he admits to having given Kara Mustafa Pa�a some information about Habsburg fortresses and their commanders, even if the author asserted that the relevant statements were vague, ambiguous or even downright false. In this context De Martelli made brief references to the materials that Ottoman officers used in order to make sense of the information he had provided and to plan their undertakings. Apart from the ubiquitous rulers and compasses, the author observed maps covering among other localities Vienna and Gyor/Raab. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether the map that the author saw was identical to the one and only Ottoman map showing the besieged town that has come down to us.2 De Martelli had a good deal to say about his encounter with Alexander Maurocordato; as we have seen the latter by contrast only mentioned the event in a single line. The high position of the interpreter who was dressed in the Ottoman style was clearly apparent from his appearance on horseback and the size of his suite. At this occasion Mavrocordato seems to have taken some trouble to establish a dialogue with the imprisoned Habsburg officer.3 According to De Martelli Maurocordato immediately emphasized that he was a Christian and thus by implication not a 'renegade'. This opening gambit confronted the author with the undeniable though unpalatable truth that there were Christians that wholeheartedly espoused Ottoman expansion. Maurocordato suggested that the conversation be held in Latin, which as we are told several times,
De Martelli not only read and understood but also
spoke. Presumably by choosing this language unknown to the Ottomans and also to most soldiers on the Habsburg side, Maurocordato wished to suggest that certain parts of the negotiation at least would remain confidential. In all likelihood the Divan interpreter sub rosa offered the prisoner that he could 1 Giiler, Ziilfik/ir P�a: XXX. 2 Richard Kreutel und Karl Teply, ""Abbildung der Festung Wien, getreulich wiedergegeben"
Der gro8e tiirkische Plan zur Belagerung Wiens" in Richard F. Kreutel, Karl Teply �ds. and translators Kara Mustafa vor Wien, 1683 aus der Sc i ht iirkischer t Que/len (Verlag Styna: Graz, Wien Kol�. 1982): 257-88. See also De Martelli, Re/atio captivo-redempti: 20.
3 De Martelli saw Maurocordato riding a horse in the Ottoman military camp. This privilege indeed showed that the interpreter was highly valued by the grand viz!er; travel apart non � Muslims were often forbidden to appear on horseback: Matthew Elliot, Dress Codes m the Ottoman Empire: The Case of the Franks,'' in Ottoman Costumes, From Textile to �denlil)>, �d. by Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (Istanbul: �ren 2004): 103-23 . In certam cases the : . grand vizier seems to have taken Maurocordato's adv1ce; !n fact De Mart�lli tho�ght tha� he owed his very life to the interpreter's powers of persuasiOn: De Martelli, Re/atto captiVO·
!::>r
redempti: 25.
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ANOTHER
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secure the latter's release if only 600
or perhaps only 300
-
-
FOR
P R I N C ES
A
De Martelli could guarantee repayment of the Thaler that this move would cost him. In
WAR
199
REPORTS
told us that in order to get information on buried treasure three former Habsburg subjects now converted to Islam mistreated him rather badly. In all
defences. However the author claimed that he refused to be tempted and gave
likelihood high-level Ottoman commanders were not directly involved in this
away no details; but in order to not make an enemy of Maurocordato, De
affair. Certainly booty-making in a conquered city could make the fortunes of
Martelli excused himself on account of his miserable physical condition due to
Ottoman generals as of their opposite numbers anywhere else. Indeed after the
the wounds he had recently sustained. Possibly the Habsburg officer thought
failed siege of Vienna the grand vizier was accused of having waited too long
or wished his readers to think that the data he provided to the Ottoman side
in storming the city; as a motive for this unexpected caution, he supposedly
were known anyhow; in this case his account was meant to convince his
had wanted to secure a capitulation because in this case he would not have
audience that he had not given away any really sensitive information.1 If we
De
OF
chances of booty once the Ottoman army had stormed Vienna. Thus the author
addition Maurocordato wanted information about the state of Vienna's
can believe
PRISONER
been obliged to permit his soldiers several days of plunder and thereby lose a
Martelli's claims the latter even refused an explicit offer of
large share of the riches that the Ottomans assumed were stored in the
release in exchange for information that he considered treasonous.2
Habsburg capital. But treasure hunts in the narrow sense of the term probably
It is likely that the 'good cop, bad cop' interrogation technique was as
were more often undertaken on the private initiative of ordinary soldiers.1
familiar to Ottoman investigators as it was to their opposite numbers of later
Among the places where
periods. In this case Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pa§a took on the role of the
De
Martelli suffered his captivity he singled
out the fortress of Belgrade for special opprobrium; and to make life worse he
threatening 'bad cop.' By contrast Maurocordato tried to persuade the author by
was imprisoned in this castle for almost a year. To describe his ordeal the
offering inducements as an alternative to the big stick brandished by the
author turned to scriptural models namely the psalms and even the passion of
Ottoman commander. Thus the author was first included in a line of prisoners
Christ; at least in the prose sections of his story the author did not otherwise
and loaded with chains; after he had had time to reflect on his difficult
use literary devices of this type very often, preferring to account for concrete
situation the chains were taken off and he was conducted to the interpreter.
situations in concrete terms. Apart from dirt and hunger De Martelli emphasized the cold, the airlessness of the dungeons and the lack of water. However he did not view the Ottoman high command as responsible for this
The sufferings ofa prisoner
situation, imputing his and companions' misery rather to the behaviour of the fortress commander
To portray himself as a faithful servitor of his ruler and a true-believing Catholic besides, De Martelli did not omit a detailed description of his
famished. When
self-interest the tribulations suffered by this prisoner and many others on both
De Martelli
loss of social status and mortal peril; it therefore makes sense to view these Martelli's report resembles that of Osman Aga to say nothing of
reports written by people who suffered the same fate in other epochs.3
. Life for the prisoner was made especially difficult by the fact that m
addition to militarily relevant information demanded by the high command certain soldiers hoped to use I
De
Martelli's presence to increase their own
De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 19-20.
2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 28.
3 For a rather dramatic instance compare De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 39-4{).
Martelli was about to leave Belgrade the commander by
she had previously been sending alms to the prisoners in secret. Unfortunately
wars we possess any number of reports concerning hunger, beatings, sickness,
De
De
contrast showed him somewhat more consideration; as for the dizdar's wife,
sides of the Habsburg-Ottoman frontier were real enough. From this and other
respect
It is worth noting in this context that the
winters of 1683-85 all but collapsed, so that the Belgrade garrison also was
sufferings as a prisoner. But even if these descriptions contained an element of
afflictions as constitutive of the experiences of prisoners of war. In this
(dizdar).2
Ottoman supply system which otherwise worked reasonably well, in the
does not tell us whether he felt any obligation to reciprocate when
the couple, now themselves prisoners were assigned to him as slaves after the ·
Habsburg capture of Belgrade. Aside from the material deprivation that at least in part had been caused by the severe winter cold the captives in the fortress of Belgrade were exposed to what we might call the psychological warfare of the Ottomans. Every once in a while rumours were circulated to the effect that the Polish or Habsburg armies had suffered major defeats. Supposedly 60,000 Poles had lost their l
De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 32. According to Thomas M. Barker Doppeladler und Halbmond, Entscheidungsjahr 1683, translated and ed. by Peter and Gertraud Broucek (Graz, Wien Koln: Styria, 1982): 81. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 50-Sl, ffl. ,
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lives and King Jan Sobieski was a prisoner i n the Istanbul fortress of Yedikule. Similar psychological warfare through the spreading of rumours also was used on the Habsburg side; and when in 1688-92 Ziilfikar P�a was sent to Vienna to find out whether peace could be concluded, he also had great difficulty in verifying rumours that his Viennese interlocutors put about. 1 In the Ottoman case probably these stories were meant to strengthen morale among the sultan's soldiers and their effect upon the Christian prisoners was incidental though probably not altogether unwelcome to high level Ottoman officers. De Martelli struggled against the onset of depression for instance by repeating to himself that major military forces were not usually fielded in mid-winter. Therefore in his perspective there was good reason to doubt the veracity of rumours reporting the supposed defeat of large Habsburg annies. Yet De Martelli also wrote that his one-time fellow prisoner i n the fortress of Belgrade, the Polish lnternuntius Samuel Prosky, considered some of the details perfectly convincing and became quite worried as a result2 Up to this point we have analyzed our text as a piece of war propaganda and as an attempt of the author's to salvage his military career by justifying his behaviour in Ottoman captivity. But there are other more individualistic facets to his book as well: for it is quite remarkable how often the author refers to his desperation, a major defect if viewed from the standpoint of a believing Christian. Thus he does not hesitate to note that during the first
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201
Support networks To survive in extreme situations victims need to locate people able and willing to provide help, in a material but also in a moral sense. Until the Polish Internuntius Samuel Prosky appeared in the fortress of Belgrade, De Martelli's sources of support were l imited to a few gifts from Habsburg officers and occasional help from people on the Ottoman side, like Maurocordato or the wife of the
dizdar of Belgrade. Matters improved with
Prosky's arrival because the Ottomans still regarded him as a diplomat accredited to the Porte and thus continued to supply him with food and fuel. In addition the personality of Prosky was of some significance: for as we can conclude from De Martelli's account and as the latter explicitly recognized, the Polish diplomat in spite of his unfortunate situation was very generous. The latter's survival skills even included cookery; and he was also much better than De Martelli at establishing contact to people outside the fortress. Catholic priests and merchants Jiving in Belgrade were part of Prosky's circle of acquaintances; and they sent food parcels to the prisoners. These people also forwarded letters so that King Jan Sobieski and the Habsburg high command
were informed of the plight of Prosky and De Martelli.
These two men were able to mobilize support because of the social
weeks of his ordeal when the interrogations were over and he realized the full extent of his predicament during the long marches through Hungary, he acted
positions that they enjoyed in their respective home countries; and at least De
in a fashion that only can be described as suicidal. At one point he asked the irregulars (segmen) of the guard to finish him off; and when they did not
explain to his readers that the aid received from certain residents of Belgrade
comply, he consciously started a fight with the guardsmen hoping that they would kill him.3 In later months as well, as a prisoner in Belgrade and in the following year when waiting for his ransom in the Istanbul household of the executed Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pa�a De Martelli evidently suffered from nervous exhaustion and depression. When in this state of mind he was capable of cooking up poorly thought-out plans for escape, of which in one case certain European diplomats residing in Istanbul particularly needed to dissuade him.4 By narrating these episodes De Martelli stops describing himself as a model prisoner with limitless capacities for resistance and appears as an individual with his obvious weaknesses and limitations.
1 Mustafa Giller, Ziilfi/Wr P�a'mn Viyana Sefdreti ve Esareti, Cerlde·i Takrirdt-1 Ziilji/Wr
E j endi (Istanbul: Camhca, 2007): XXIX. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 80. 3 Perhaps the guards e r �used to �II the author t;>ecause the Ottoman_command still viewed him
f ormatlon. At one pomt when De !-fartelh was n'? longer cap�ble of as a possible source of m walking the guards even carried �im part of the way Yet �� man� other ms�ces pmoners ; unable to march were summarily killed off: De Martelh, Relat1o capllvo-redempll: 30-31.
4 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 70-71, 80. 120.
Martelli had a well-developed sense of entitlement. Thus he did not omit to was meant for Prosky and himself alone; in the Rittmeister's view of things it was only because of the Polish diplomat's personal generosity that other prisoners also received a share of this bounty. But from the context it is perfectly clear that this opinion was by no means shared by the other captives. In the end Prosky was sent to the sultan's court in Edirne, and De Martelli had to make do without the
savoir vivre of his companion. But
shortly after Prosky had been taken away De Martelli did manage to get pennission to attend Easter services in the church of the Catholics at Belgrade. On this occasion and on later ones as well, alms were collected on behalf of the prisoner; and Francesco Calogero, a rich merchant from Dubrovnik, made a special effort on De Martelli's behalf. As the alms given by the Belgrade Catholics were quite substantial the author was able to make appropriate gifts to the commander of the fortress and thus gain the latter's goodwill. Moreover i n the following days and weeks the presents that the
Rittmeister received
were so ample that he was able to share some of his money with the other captives. I l De Martelli. Re/atio captivo-redempti: 83-85.
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Once arrived in Istanbul, De Martelli had to establish new support networks. This time it was not a question of food and fuel as he lived in the household of the sons of Kara Mustafa Pa§a and thus was provided for, but rather of his ransom that was still in the process of being negotiated. Although he was not permitted to leave the house, De Martelli with the help of a fellow prisoner who had attached himself to the Habsburg
Rittmeister as
his servant, succeeded in sending a letter to Johann Ernst von Steyer, resident factor of the trading company known as the 'Orientalische Kompagnie.' Apparently this man had been living in Istanbul throughout the war and was not even confined to his home. Probably Von Steyer and a certain Herr von Quarient a relative of the Habsburg diplomat Baron von Kunitz, managed to interest the British ambassador Chandos in the fate of De Martelli; our author had been in contact with Von Quarient while still in the grand vizier's camp and later on, this personage resided for a while in Galata. On De Martelli's behalf the two Habsburg gentlemen also contacted Montagu North, an English diplomat present in Istanbul at that time. Both these latter personages were members of the English nobility, and this fact probably explains why their sympathies only went out to a fellow gentleman. As for the other prisoners, unable to provide 150
Thalers per person as ransom money, one by one they
were sold off to the galleys1; De Martelli's former servant Max wound up in the household of an Annenian. In addition to this intervention by Christian noblemen, the author also received help from certain Muslims; and while it may not have come easily to
admit this fact in writing, De Martelli does tell us that the young sons of Kara Mustafa Pa§a once seem to have interceded on his behalf. This help came at a
decisive moment; negotiations concerning De Martelli's ransom had reached an impasse and he risked being transferred to the fortress of Yedikule or even onto the galleys. Just as significant was the support of the treasurer of the deceased grand vizier, whom the author introduced as Mehmed Aga This personage
even offered to contribute the substantial sum of 500 Thalers to De Martelli's
ransom, as a loan if possible but as a gift if necessary. The reader comes away with the impression that the author's poor health and probably his modest
demeanour while in the household of Kara Mustafa Pa§a's heirs elicited both
pity and sympathy. But in addition while in Istanbul De Martelli seems to
have made more friends, among Christians but also among Muslims was later willing to admit.2
than
he
PRISONER
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203
Tensions among Christians: Habsburg-Hungarian conflicts When discussing the disputes between Ottoman Muslims and Catholic Habsburgs, it is easy to forget that the Ottoman advance increased pre-existing tensions among Christians and caused formerly latent conflicts to become apparent. Thus it is worth noting that when De Martelli recounted the attempted flight of a Hungarian from Ottoman captivity he found it necessary to stress that the fugitive was betrayed to the authorities by a Protestant shoemaker. Apparently the author thought that religious conflict was at the bottom of this event. Possible other reasons for the shoemaker's behaviour were not mentioned: they could have included purely secular motives such as identification with the stronger side, personal enmity or the hope of alleviating his own difficult condition. But De Martelli did not acknowledge these possibilities. Almost in the same breath the author bitterly complained about the fact that only a very few Hungarian peasants were willing to give him and his fellow prisoners in Ottoman hands any kind of support. In this case enmity between Catholics and Protestants could well have had a part to play. The forcible re-establishment of Catholicism on the part of the Habsburgs probably was intensely unpopular among Hungarian Calvinists; and if the magnates whose uprisings had recently been suppressed by the emperor had any followers among the peasantry this situation could have contributed to the atmosphere of hostility described by De Martelli. t Viewed from the author's
standpoint Teutsche' (Germans) and 'Ungam' (Hungarians) were two distinct groups bound together by ties of solidarity; as for his own person in spite of his Italian name he regarded himself as one of the Teutsche' and was viewed as such by his acquaintances. De Martelli was well aware that these terms had meanings beyond ethnicity; for he once commented that all soldiers of the emperor were regarded as Teutsche' no matter what their ethnic backgrounds may have been. Being identified as a Teutsche' and soldier in the imperial army meant that the 'Ungam' regarded De Martelli as an enemy. Thus he tells us that when he was a prisoner in the town of Ustolni Belgrad/ Szekesfehervlir/ StuhlweiBenburg his Hungarian fellow prisoners decided that he was supposed to clean the toilets - such as they were; the author's poor health evidently did not count as an excuse. However some members of the 'teutsche Nation
•
decided to themselves do the job in order to prevent further unrest ("zur Yerhiitung ferrerer Unruhe"); perhaps the dispute also involved a disagreement 1 De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 1 14- 16. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 133.
over the question whether 'an officer and a gentleman' should be obliged to 1 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 35.
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undertake this menial task. Firmly taking sides in this factional dispute, De Martelli also maintained that the 'Teutsche' had been mistreated by the 'Ungaro' when the two groups of prisoners were being transported together from Buda to Belgrade by boat. Apparently the 'Ungam' had access to food that they were unwilling to share with their rivals.l However from today's perspective the whole conflict seems to be of a kind that has been witnessed in numerous camps of the twentieth century, when groups might be artificially created by the administration and hierarchies established, due to the differential access of their members to scarce food supplies. Upon arrival in Belgrade the prisoners were shown to the Ottoman fortress commander and his entourage; this event was accompanied by a good deal of mistreatment that according to De Martelli was carried out by two 'Hungarians'.2 Supposedly these men justified their behaviour by claiming that earlier on, the 'Teutsche' had been priv ileged; but currently the Ottoman soldiers were very angry at the latter due to the defeat before Vienna and now it was the tum of their own countrymen to gain the upper hand.3 Unfortunately we are not told whether the two men perhaps were partisans of Imre Thokoly's. Given the unstable military situation apparently Ottoman officers in charge of the Belgrade fortress deliberately incited 'Hungarians' and
A
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REPORTS
205
French embassy. Possibly his contacts were more significant than stated in
his book; after all the author was still on active service and had to consider his military career. After a long stay in Belgrade, De Martelli finally was removed to Edime and later sent on to Istanbul. Once in Edime he was accorded a certain liberty of movement: after all flight from this inland city was all but
impossible. Here he was contacted by a Jesuit priest acting on behalf of the
French ambassador. The two men visited a mosque together and on this outing they had a lively discussion concerning the pol itical positions of their respective sovereigns; unfortunately we are not told in which language the debate was conducted. Otherwise the author gave detailed information on this encounter in which of course he claimed to have emphatically defended the Habsburg position. However i t is evident that De Martelli was at pains to not lose the goodwill of the Jesuit. After all the latter's mediation might have been important if the comte de Guilleragues had decided to intervene on behalf of the prisoner. But as we will see once in Istanbul, the author was able to mobilize support from other neutral diplomats whose intervention was less risky.
'Germans' against one another so as to better control the masses of prisoners
in their charge.
Conflicts among Christians: M. de Guil/eragues and his Jesuit priest In the closing years of the seventeenth century the Austrian Habsburgs had two main opponents, namely the Ottoman sultan and Louis XIV. In the wars of 1683-99 however the king of France was more or less neutral, and as a result the French ambassador in Istanbul comte de Guilleragues could sometimes act as a mediator.4 Apparently the ambassador expressed some interest i n intervening on behalf of Claudio de Martelli. But as relations between Louis XIV and Leopold I remained quite tense the author had to tread very cautiously when it came to entertaining relations with members of the
Kara Mustafa Pa§a in life and death De Martelli reported that he was brought into the grand vizier's presence a number of times, but mostly he did not record details of the interrogation. Only on the encounter that took place just a few days before Kara Mustafa P�a's execution did the author provide a certain amount of information. In this case the initiative came from De Martelli: he had submitted a petition and thereupon was called in once again to face the grand vizier. In his book the author has included both the Latin original of his petition and a German translation. The terrible living conditions in the fortress of Belgrade formed the main topic. According to the author by the end of 1683 there were only twenty-two survivors among the one hundred and thirty-eight men who had been incarcerated i n the local dungeons. However the letter
1 De Martelli. Relatio captivo-redempti: 38 and 47. 2 De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 70-71 calls the commander Petscbir Aga/Be§ir AJa. After the death of Kara Mustafa � De Martelli addressed a petition to the fDV��'· ask.ing for firewood and supplies. The petition was acted upon and as a result certain prisoners were nnitted to work in the city where they also received alms from the Orthodox population. De Martelli, Relatio captivo·redempti: 51-55. 4 Jean-Louis Bacqu6 Grammont, Sinan Kuneralp, Frederic Hitzel, Representants permanents de Ia France en Turquie (1536-1991) et de Ia Turquie en France (1797-1991) (Istanbul, Paris: Editions Isis. 1991): 24-25.
�
relayed in De Martelli's work was worded so sharply that it is hard to believe that it was submitted to the grand vizier 'as is'. More likely Alexander Maurocordato, who in any case would have seen all writings in Latin addressed
to Kara Mustafa Pa�a edited the petition before submitting it. After all an
angry outburst of the grand vizier's could not have helped the cause of the prisoners and in addition Maurocordato had his own position to consider:
De
206
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F OR
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Martelli himself observed that the position of the latter at this time was seriously compromised. I Whatever the ins and outs of the case, the petition
brought results: the vizier ordered to remove De Martelli's chains, although
this privilege was not extended to his fellow prisoners. He also received new clothes and money to purchase food and firewood. In the following days the condition of the other prisoners also improved. But this bounty did not last long; for already on 25 December the grand vizier was executed upon the sultan's command, and all orders issued by the deceased were abrogated as a result.
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207
movement was rendered extremely difficult. De Martelli also met Muslims that had been imprisoned in the fortress; they were janissaries awaiting judgement and apparently their situation was not any better than that of the prisoners of war. During this new spell of incarceration De Martelli seems to
have lost contact with the deceased vizier's household for the time being; he was much depressed by the information that now he had become the sultan's
property, and people in this position were not eligible for ransoming or exchange.1
Certainly De Martelli did not personally witness the execution of Kara
Mustafa Pa�. But he was close enough to the events; for in late December the
author belonged to the contingent of captives that had been assigned to the
grand vizier in person, and negotiations had begun for his ransoming or exchange. For the time being the author had been removed to the house of Mustafa the
anahtar-dar,
the person in charge of the grand vizier's keys, so
that he was in a position to discuss the situation with people who had witnessed at least some of the events connected with the execution: after all certain prisoners were ordered to dig the grave of the dead dignitary. Further
details i n De Martelli's account confirm our impression that he saw and heard
quite a bit: thus he refers to a son of Kara Mustafa Pasa's by the name of Yusuf Be�. who shed bitter tears over his father's death. Both Yusuf and his
brother Mehmed seem to have died young, as the biography of Kara Mustafa
Pa§a by Munir Aktepe only mentioned a son named Ali. This latter young man also made an appearance in De Martelli's account; later on he was to have
a career as Maktulzade Ali
Pa§a. The author also remarked that when the order
for execution arrived the members of the grand vizier's household prepared to defend their patron. But Kara Mustafa Pa§a accepted his death stoically and without any kind of resistance; in this respect De Martelli provided
independent confirmation of the Ottoman sources covering the events, of which surely he knew nothing. Moreover where the confiscation of the executed grand vizier's possessions was concerned De Martelli really was an eyewitness; or to be exact he himself formed part of Kara Mustafa Pa§a's estate. The confiscation procedure included an examination of the local archives. Certain prisoners were able to flee in the confusion surrounding the death of the vizier; as for the remainder they were ordered to come to the former dwelling of Kara Mustafa Pa�a where they were counted. Shortly afterwards they were sent back to the dungeons and had their feet shackled in such a manner that any kind of 1 De Martelli Relatio captivo-redempti: 56-64, 1 33; for the complaints of needy Muslims against the ex� cuted grand vizier compare p. 87.
The household of the deceased grand vizier Already for the mid-sixteenth century cases have become known of Ottoman dignitaries who i n their households educated young slaves and
servitors that later might be taken over into the service of the sultan.2 But from the late 1500s onwards and especially in the seventeenth century this
arrangement became increasingly
significant as a manner of recruitment into
the Ottoman central elite. In this period moreover factions crystallized within
the state apparatus whose members consisted of people from the same or adjacent regions. Thus there was a certain degree of cohesion among dignitaries from the Balkans who were opposed by groups of officials from the Caucasus; a number of influential commanders and administrators were of Abchasian (Abaza) backgrounds.3 This situation was in tum exploited by the Ottoman sultans: quite a few expenditures that earlier on had been undertaken
by the central administration now were considered to be the responsibility of viziers and provincial governors.
Thus a household well supplied with competent members and supplies
(miikemmel kapt)
in the seventeenth century came to be a pre-condition for a
successful career in the Ottoman administration. On the other hand a dignitary
already in office had more opportunities for acquiring such a household than did other less highly placed persons. After all, the royal road to success firstly
1 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 64, 84-85. 2 Meti n Kunt, "Kullann Kullan," Bogazifi Universilesi Humaniter Bilimler Dergisi Ill (1975): 27-42. 3 Rifa'at A. Abou-El-Haj, "The Ottoman Vezir and P sha Households 1683-1703: ('
� _ Soctet y, XCIV(I974): 438�7; Met•n Preliminary Survey," Journal of t�e �e�ican Onental Kunt, "Ethnic-Regional (Cins) Sohdanty m the Seventeenth-Century Ottom�n Establishment., International Journal ofMiddle East Studies 5 (1974): 233-39; Com_llll H. Fleischer, Bu�eaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, The Historian Mu stafti Ali (1541-1600) (Pnnceton: Princeton University Press, 1986): 209. . . . . In the 1 700s and early 1800s the 'political household' was a key mstJtutJOn m many �ttoman provinces as well: Jane Hathaway, The Politics ofHouselwlds in Ottoman Egypt, The RISe of.the Qazda§IIS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and more recently Thomas Lter, Haushalte und Haushaltspolitik in Bagdad 1704-1831 (WUnburg FRG: Ergon Verlag, 2004).
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involved ties of marriage between actually or potentially influential people and secondly the education of young slaves that once launched in their careers, hopefully would remain loyal to the patron who had raised them. Marriage ties were considered so important that they were formed even in the households of eunuchs: thus in the late 1500s the influential
palace eunuch Gazanfer Aga
invited his sister from Venice to Istanbul to strengthen his position by her marriage to an influential personage.1 While De Martelli did not record any observations on this matter he did have quite a few things to say about the recruitment of young slaves. In brief, as the functioning of 'pol itical
Thaler. 1
PRISONER
OF
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209
REPORTS
De Martelli formed part of the possessions thus returned, so that
once again he became 'disposable'. Members of the Belgrade garrison made guesses concerning the future fate of De Martelli and his fellow prisoners. One suggestion was that they would be sold to the naval arsenal to serve as rowers on galleys, or else they might be set to work the agricultural properties
(�iftlik)
that the family of Kara Mustafa Pa§a had been able to retain.
Liberation upon payment of a ransom also was once again an option.2 We do not know how and why i t was decided that De Martelli should be offered this
households' very rarely has been described 'from the inside', the casual remarks
chance of freedom; but as this option was taken, the author was kept within
the significance of what he saw have considerable historical interest.2
it at some length.
of this Habsburg prisoner of war, who for the most part did not comprehend
the Istanbul household of the former grand vizier and thus enabled to describe
Overall the founders of 'political households' in the Ottoman realm were able to secure the loyalty of their slaves and freedmen. Where former prisoners from Central and Western Europe were concerned, probably the
Household dignitaries
narrow limits on social mobility in their homelands had a role to play in these remarkably successful changeovers. Non-nobles in many parts of Europe found the doors of advancement firmly closed to them, while faithful service in an Ottoman grandee's household might well open the gates of power. Moreover many prisoners from Central Europe must have been serfs in their home villages; and they may well have preferred a lack of personal freedom in their new environment combined with the chance of upward mobility to a similar deficiency in their homelands that was unlikely to be ever remedied in
this world. Of course there were exceptions; thus Alexander Maurocordato
recorded in his diary that after the lost battle before Vienna ( 1 2 September
1683),
when Kara Mustafa Pa�a had to leave his tent behind "the escaped
slaves of the grand vizier" stole the latter's jewels. Only a small part could later be recuperated by those pages - in other words presumably by young slaves - that had remained loyal to their patron.3 A few months after the death of Kara Mustafa Pa�a news arrived in Belgrade that the three young sons of the former grand vizier had been accorded part of their father's property. As a condition they were required to pay back the latter's debts, which amounted to the hefty sum of 800,000
Thaler.
A
major sales campaign was the result: thus a khan i n Izmir that had belonged to
Kara Mustafa Pa§a's former household contained people of the most
diverse ethnic backgrounds. We may surmise that the grand vizier had hoped
for significant conquests i n Central Europe that would have justified the formation of one or even several provinces. In this case administrators from the regions concerned, who knew the languages, laws and customs of the new territories and who were above all completely loyal to his own person would have been invaluable to the grand vizier in maintaining himself at the pinnacle of power. Presumably the more prominent members of his household had had hopes of becoming grandees in their own right; and without knowing it our author seems have met them at a moment when they needed to seriously reconsider their options after their patron's execution and the confiscation of his property. At the very beginning of his captivity De Martelli encountered an interpreter by the name of Mustafa who originally came from Tyrol and had reached the trusted position of 'keeper of the keys'
(anahtar-dar).3
Once in
Belgrade De Martelli was received by this man with formal politeness;
Mustafa enquired about the health of his interlocutor and as we have seen at the end of
1683,
when Mustafa Pa�a met his end, the author was staying at
Kara Mustafa � changed hands for 500 kese equivalent to 25,000 imperial
! �ari -
a Pia Pedani Fabris, "Safiye's Household and Venetian Diplomacy,"
2 Another
rare
1
Turcica, 32 (2000):
example of such a story told 'from the inside can be found in: Robert Dankoff
The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-1662) As Portrayed � � Ev/iya t;elebi's Book of Travels, introduced by Rhoads Murphey (Albany NY·. SUNY Press 1991). 3 Kreutel and Teply ed. and translated, Kara Mustafa vor Wien: 89.
•
Mlinir Aktepe, "iZ;mir Hanlan ve Car§Jian hakkmda On
Bilgi," Tarih Dergisi, 25 (1971):
54; Bozkurt Ersoy, /zmir Hanlar1 (Ankara: AtatUrk KUitUr Merkezi, 1991): 119.
105-
De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 90. 134. 3 Fo� a brief overview over the office-holders employed in the household of a grand vizier see lsm a ll HaiOO Uzun�J/1, Osmanil Dev/etinin Merker. ve Bahriye Te�kil011 (Ankara: 1ua 1ari h 2
Kurumu, 1948): 168-71. How�ver the sources used by Uzun�1h do not refer to a keeper of the keys. Compare De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: the latter also had beard rumours that the commander of Belgrade had taken most of the foodstuffs assigned to the imprisoned Polish diplomat Samuel Prosky: see ibidem: 73.
1 8;
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the house of the
MIRROR
anahtar-dar.
FOR
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A
The latter also wanted to find out from De
Martelli why overall the captives were in such a terrible state. In the subsequent conversation Mustafa the anahtar-dar claimed that the grand vizier had set aside money for the needs of his captives. Presumably he wanted to indicate that it was not his patron who was responsible for the misery of the prisoners, but rather lower-level officials who had misappropriated the relevant funds. Seen from a different perspective however these Ottoman officers may well have considered that at a time of acute food shortages the needs of their own soldiers were more i mportant than those of 'enemy aliens'. We do not hear anything about Mustafa's Tyrolean background, which
probably was quite modest. By contrast Mehmed Aga the treasurer (hazinedar)
of Kara Mustafa Pa§a had been born as a Polish nobleman. Apparently this personage was on bad terms with Maurocordato; for in his diary the latter acidly commented that the luggage and tents of the grand vizier had been abandoned before Vienna because the treasurer had lost control of the situation. Apart from his role as chief interpreter Maurocordato was also Mustafa Pa§a's physician, so that perhaps his remarks indicate rivalries within the household.
According to De Martelli the hazinedar's father had once offered 6000 ducats
for the release of his son. But the treasurer evidently was comfortably
established i n the former grand vizier' suite where he had attained a position of authority. l He therefore did not show much inclination to return to Poland.
However the key position in this household - and others like it -
was in the hands of the
kahyalkethiida.2 A
grand vizier's
grand vizier could order his
lieutenant known as the
kdhya to deputize for
him i n
any affair he wished to delegate. B y the eighteenth century this office had come to be integrated into the state bureaucracy, but apparently i n Kara Mustafa Pa§a's time it was still a household position. But even so the
kdhya
Hasan Aga was not always present in his office, as he possessed a house in the capital with pages of his own. As for these young men they were apparently as cosmopolitan a company as those of the grand vizier had been in the latter's own lifetime. Quite possibly Hasan Aga had taken over responsibility for some of these
P R I S ON E R
OF
WAR
Abdullah, who had been captured near Sevilla and had reached the Ottoman capital by way of Algiers.' De Martelli described quite a few encounters with
converts to Islam; in most cases he did not mention their Christian names and probably did not even know them. But he made an exception in the case of the page Abdullah, recording his original name as Domenico Gonzalez de Cascavalez. This unusual form of identification may have been motivated by Abdullah's attitude: contrary to many of his fellows, the latter apparently refused to identify with his new situation in life. In the course of his captivity De Martelli was as we have seen interrogated several times i n the presence of the grand vizier; much more frequently however was he called in by the
kdhya
Hasan Aga. Probably the
latter had been promoted to his high office rather recently as his predecessor Ahmed Aga had been killed before Vienna.2 After arriving in Istanbul in the autumn of 1684 the author was again taken to see Hasan Aga, and i t is worth noting that this was one of the few Ottomans of whom De Martelli painted a positive picture. The dignified behaviour of this personage visibly had a role to play and also the fact that Hasan Aga treated the prisoner rather well. After the execution of the grand vizier it was this personage who very energetically defended the interests of the family of his former patron. Less highly placed dignitaries from within the household such as <;avu§ Hiiseyin Aga, treated the kdhya with a great deal of respect.3 In the debates concerning De Martelli's ransom Hasan Aga also had a key role to play. In this context
the author was explicitly warned to watch his step as the kdhya was regarded a
very capable negotiator versed in all the refinements of diplomacy. As a proof
of his skills we might view one of the gambits used by Hasan Aga: at one point he declared that if negotiations concerning De Martelli's ransom were to continue much longer, the status of the prisoner as an imperial military officer was sure to become public knowledge. In such an eventuality however he would not be in a position to help De Martelli in any way.4
1 Kreutel und Teply ed. and translated, Kara Mustafa vor Wien: 89; De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 110, 1 1 2. Mehmed Agas predecessor Hilseyin Aga, promoted kap1C1lar kiihyas1 in the camp before Vienna supposedly was a French convert to Islam. This man called Hofmarschall according to Habsburg terminology seems to have been particularly close to his patron. According to Benaglia, when Kara Mustafa P3§a was invited to marry an Ottoman
2 Uzunya�JIJ, Merkez ve Bahriye Te$kiMh : 168.
211
mentioned a Hungarian and also a Spaniard from Gran Canaria, now named
rather youthful pages after the death of his patron. De Martelli specifically
princess he complied most unwillingly as he had to divorce his wife of many years standing. According to the rumours related by Benaglia the grand vizier then arranged a marriage of his ex-spouse to one of his trusted servitors a Frenchman converted to Islam. If the story was true at least in part, it probably concerned Hilseyin Aga (Benaglia, AujJftihrliche ReijJ-Beschreibung: 65 and 168).
R E P O RT S
1 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 109.
2 Benaglia, AujJftihrliche ReijJ-Beschreibung:
166. 3 De Martelli, RelaJio captivo-redempti: 95-6, 109. 4 De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 115.
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Liberation in sight
the early modern age, he/she understands from the very structure of the account that the story, from the author's viewpoint at least had a 'happy end'. As the title page of his book indicates, De Martell i viewed himself as one of the few fortunate people who returned home after having spent time as a prisoner of war. The author was very conscious of his good fortune and often referred to his acquaintances that died in captivity or were sold off as galley slaves. At the same time De Martelli apparently wished to make it clear that he was only willing to accept liberation if his status as a Habsburg officer was not jeopardized. Let us turn back for a moment to the beginning of his captivity, when he refused Mavrocordato's offer of release against payment of 300-600
10 ducats when his captivity
became known in the Habsburg camp it is hard to take at face value his assertion to the chief interpreter that he had no way of paying the ransom demanded. As previously outlined De Martell i was probably worried about the kind of information he might have to give in exchange for his freedom. Nor was this the only case i n which the author claimed to have paid close attention to the circumstances under which he would accept liberation. At a later point in time when he had had ample opportunity to familiarize himself with all the hardships of life in prison, De Martelli refused the offer of some cavalrymen
(sipahi) to buy him from the grand vizier and then collect
his ransom for themselves. I As a reason for his refusal the author mentioned his concern that he would suffer even worse mistreatment from these 'private entrepreneurs' than he had already undergone in the official dungeons. But at the same time he recognized very well how risky it was for him to be taken ever deeper into Ottoman lands as a captive of the grand vizier. Given these circumstances it seems reasonable to highlight De Martelli's statement that he expected help from the Habsburg authorities established in the fortress of Komorn; if my interpretation is correct i t was important for De Martelli to be officially ransomed or exchanged. In any case the whole project came to nothing apparently because Kara Mustafa Pa�a refused to sell his captive to the cavalrymen. An official exchange did however seem possible during November December 1683, when an Ottoman officer by the name of Mustafa wrote to the commander of Ustolni Belgrad to the effect that he was a prisoner i n Komorn and asked for his exchange against a certain Claudi. This project was apparently supported by the imperial side, for with the same mail 'CI�udi' I
De Martelli, RelaJio captivo-redempti: 43.
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213
received a letter concerning his possible exchange written by a Habsburg
When the reader opens the memoirs of former prisoners who lived in
gold pieces. As De Martelli immediately received
A
official named Leonhard Hartl. I But while Hartl's letter was dated October
1683, it only arrived on the Ottoman side towards the end of the year. But at just this time Kara Mustafa Pa�a was executed, so that this project also came to nothing. Discussions about De Martelli's ransoming were only revived after he
had arrived in Istanbul; after all, the debts of Kara Mustafa Pa� still had not been paid and the household administrators were in dire need of cash. At first negotiations were conducted by an "Unter-Chihaia", or subordinate of the
Jmhya, in the presence of a wealthy Jew. De Martelli was requested to induce his family to pay up; otherwise he would be transferred to the prison of the naval arsenal
(beylik) and lose all hope of repatriation. At least unofficially
the Spanish page Abdullah had a share in these deliberations; the author reported that the young man had become a good friend who gave him important information on how to conduct himself during the negotiations. At a later stage the central figure was a Jewish mediator known as David Ogli Rosales, who discussed with the kAhya whether the offer of l 000
Reichsthaler that De Martelli finally accepted as a feasible ransom could be taken up in the name of Kara Mustafa Pasa's sons without making Hasan A�a took bad. Rosales also negotiated with a 'Turk' whose name De Martelli did not mention. This man was one of the numerous creditors of the deceased
grand vizier: as a partial payment, he was offered the weakly captive who
irony of ironies now was officially declared a Hungarian. Not that this offer was very tempting to the creditor; but Rosales induced him to accept by explaining that given the large number of competitors for a limited supply of money, he risked getting nothing at all if he did not settle for this capti ve . ktihya wtth
right away. In addition Rosales had to ply a subordinate of the
gifts and fine words, for this man threatened to ruin the negotiations at the very last minute. All these parlays involved a substantial risk for the mediator who at one point was even threatened with the galleys. Unfortunately De Martelli had nothing to say about the motives of Rosales. In the end the deal was concluded and the representative of the currently absent grand vizier
(kaymakam pa§a) had a legal document issued (hiiccet)
that made it all official. After leaving the room the so-called Hungarian was sold by his new owner in front of four Muslim witnesses. His purchaser was the English diplomat Montagu North who had De Martelli taken to the British embassy. Thus in the spring of 1685 De Martelli ceased to be an
I De Martelli, 46. De Martelli reported that he had seen the letter . written in Ottoman Turkish and that 1ts contents had been relayed to h1m by a Greek - who knows, perhaps somebody from the entourage of Maurocordato.
Relatio captivo-redempti:
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Ottoman slave, although apparently the kaymakam later regretted the deal and had the author searched for without finding him. Although De Martelli did not say so this may well have been another diplomatic ploy; it is after all perfectly possible if not probable that the
kaymakam knew quite well that the
former slave was now domiciled in the Biiyiikdere summer quarters of the
British ambassador.I Probably we will never recover the exact details. But De Martelli was issued an English passport and left the Ottoman Empire on an
English ship. On passing through the Dardanelles in the summer of 1685 the vessel was inspected and the Habsburg officer appeared as the instructor
(Hofmeister) of the boys
forming part of the ambassador's household: once
again his knowledge of Latin had stood him in good stead.2 Thus De Martelli's captivity had lasted somewhat less than two years.
Impressions fromforeign parts Mter describing his departure from Belgrade the author for the first time made a few remarks showing that at least occasionally he had an interest in the people and places that he encountered while in the Ottoman lands. Presumably this change in tone was due to the fact that he was now feeling better, although he continued to be quite weak. It was a piece of good fortune that he did not need to turn over the money received from the Belgrade Catholic congregation to his guards; thus he was able to afford a few extras i n the course of his travels, including visits to the public baths. In this context the author learned if he had not done so earlier, that even relations between prisoners of war and their owners were not always and everywhere adversarial. To De Martelli's great disapproval some captive young girls had already begun to live with their captors "like married couples." As we have seen De Martelli apparently went sightseeing in the mosque of Edime without getting himself or the Jesuit accompanying him into trouble; and when he had to wait for a while in the customs-house of Tekirdag/Rodoscuk, some high-ranking Turkish gentlemen treated him to a cup of coffee. The author thus came to realize that his status as a captive notwithstanding, normal human relations to certain Ottoman Muslims were not impossible.
l De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 140; the author thought that this was the result of an intrigue by a dragoman in the service of the French embassy.
2 Ex-prisoners returned from the Ottoman lands were su�ject to. a _number ?f IX Iitical and ? religious rituals, which De Martelli described in some de�l. 0!' �tmtlar P':'CtJces tn n
(Bologna: II Mulino, 2002).
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215
De Martelli also was impressed by certain things that h e saw in Istanbul. On the domestic level he wrote quite enthusiasticall y about the large and handsome room in the house of Hasan Aga where he was quartered awaiting the result of his ransom negotiations. The author also briefly commented on the impressive sight which then as today, Istanbul offers when viewed from the seaside. When after his liberation he was able to go sightseeing in the vicinity of the Ottoman capital he admired both Byzantine and Ottoman water conduits. I However De Martelli's comments on such matters were never more than brief asides: the author remained as he once had
defined himself, a pious and perhaps somewhat bigoted Catholic and a devout
adherent of the imperial cause.
In conclusion De Martelli's account is fascinating for a variety of reasons, one of them concerning an absence rather than a presence. Although the author knew Latin well, we find no citations from the literature of antiquity with which quite a few of his contemporaries tended to ornament their texts. This 'straightforwardness' can be easily explained if the interpretation given here is at all reasonable, namely that De Martelli was an officer on active duty who wrote because his experiences were regarded as useful 'war propaganda' on the 'home front', but also in order to justify his behaviour while in captivity. In this context, citations from the Bible or the literature of classical antiquity would not have served any useful purpose.2 At the same time this purpose of the author's explains why we find so many bits of military i nformation that must have been obsolete even in the autumn of 1685 when the author returned to Vienna, to say nothing of the time when the book appeared in print in 1689. Viewed as propaganda in the war against the Ottomans which after all was still conti nuing at that time, discussing military details obsolete or not, had a certain utility. Information about troop strengths and other such issues created a martial atmosphere and thus emphasized the characteristic quality of the book: it was in every way the work of a serving military officer. If viewed as part of the author's strategy l De Martelli, Relatio captivo-redempti: 10�. 105, 107, 108. Beschreibung: 78 also praised the water condutts.
Benaglia,
Auj)ftihrliche Reij)
2 As 1 learn from an as yet unpublished paper by Sonja Brentjes, the �oman nobleman Pietro
della Valle, before giving his travel impressions on the Ottoman Emptre �f the 1 � o the � printer apparently did legitimize his work before the papal censor by addmg on thts lond of schola ;ly apparatus. 1 have come to my present suppositions and interpre�tions after readi�g the book of Gudrun Jancke, Autobiographie als soziale Prax�s. Bez1ehungs�onzep�e m Selbstzeugnissen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts im deutschsprach 1gen Raum (KOin, Wetmar, Wien: Bohlau, 2002). My heartfelt thanks to both colleagues!
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of self-justification, it also made sense to show that he had collected and relayed this infonnation when he was himself in acute danger; for the resulting message would have been that the author did not neglect the interests of his sovereign even when he was at death's door. However in the present study we view De Martelli's account i n a perspective that is rather different from that which author, publisher and last but not least the Habsburg censors promoted during the closing years of the seventeenth century. As a starting point we have looked at the relationships that a Habsburg military officer had to establish and/or activate in order to survive as a prisoner of war. In De Martelli's case, quite a few of his life chances were l i nked to the cosmopolitan composition of Kara Mustafa Pa�a's household which the latter had probably set up so as to have a faithful and competent staff available to take over the new province(s) that he hoped to conquer. Certainly Kara Mustafa Pa�·s physician, treasurer and keeper of the keys were profoundly loyal to their patron but this connection did not necessarily prevent feelings of solidarity with De Martelli. Thus Maurocordato presented himself to the author as a Christian, though not of the Catholic but
A
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217
If we keep in mind that the author's attempts to justify his behaviour to the home authorities made it difficult for him to acknowledge his friendship with a Muslim, the backhanded admissions concerning his relationship to the treasurer take on special importance. From all this we can conclude that in the late seventeenth century there
existed something like an elite culture that encompassed the subjects of
different rulers, and at least some members of the Ottoman elite fonned part of this charmed circle. Where the Ottoman realm was concerned this broadly inclusive culture became possible due to the emergence of 'political households' whose members saw themselves as part of an elite group, albeit without the legally established privileges of European nobilities. 'Aristocrats' themselves, these people could relate to the elites of other countries. The English aristocrat Lady Mary Montagu, who visited Edirne and Istanbul about a generation after De Martelli, probably had this situation in mind when she pointed out that only a personage of high status in his/her own society could expect to find acceptance among members of the Ottoman elite. I
the Orthodox variety. As for the Spaniard Abdullah, if the Habsburg officer judged his fonner friend correctly, he sympathized with the outsider because in a certain sense, he continued to regard himself as a Christian. In addition in spite of the numerous conflicts between Christian kings, in a Muslim context the staffs of European embassies sometimes might build solidarities on the basis of religion or denomination. Diplomatic considerations apart such sentiments may have motivated the French ambassador to send a Jesuit to contact De Martelli in Edirne. Probably the intervention of the English ambassador and Montagu North at least in part was motivated by the wish to help a fellow Christian; and once De Martelli had been liberated the diplomatic representative of the Netherlands also helped out. In these two instances however i t is difficult to separate solidarity with a fellow Christian from the political aim of mediating in the Habsburg-Ottoman conflict, as this issue was important for both English and Dutch diplomats. I Fellowship between nobles or gentlemen was another source of solidarity that probably benefited De Martelli. Kara Mustafa �a's treasurer Mehmed Aga, married to three wives if our author got the story right and thus well integrated into the Ottoman elite was prepared to make a substantial financial sacrifice to faci litate the ransoming of his friend. It i s likely that Mehmed Aga's memories of the society of Polish noblemen in which he had grown up made it possible for him to develop the personal sympathies without which he would not have offered to pay part of De Martelli's ransom. 1 GUier, ZiJijilc4r P�: 25.
1 Lldy Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters' ed. and introduced by Anita Desai and IV..a!colm Jack (London: Pickering. 1993): 60.
TRYING TO AVOID ENSLAVEMENT: THE ADVENTURES OF AN IRANIAN SUBJECT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ANATOLIA
The story The events upon which this study is based have been taken from a petition dated 1 174/1760-1; however the text that we possess is not what the petitioner himself wrote,
but merely the response of the Ottoman
administration. This situation is typical for Ottoman practice: the original letters reaching the central government but rarely were preserved in the archives. l In this particular instance we only know the petitioner's given name; it was Himmet. While it was customary to identify people by name and patronym, the latter is missing in our text. Himmet was a Muslim Iranian, who according to his own statement had been living for a long time in the town of Kastamonu in northern Anatolia, where he served a local man. The latter's patronym also is missing; but his given name was Mustafa. All we can say is that Mustafa probably was not one of the local notables, for these people from the seventeenth century onwards not only always declared their patronyms, but also favoured the use of family names. Now Himmet, who did not say anything about his line of work according to his own statement wanted to strike out on his own, in other words leave the service of Mustafa. However his employer was not ready to consent and threatened Himmet that he would sell him into slavery along with his children who had been married for quite some time. Apparently this threat needed to be taken seriously, as Mustafa had secured the support of certain notables of Kastamonu in this matter. Even a sultanic order commanding him to desist had not had the desired effect. Now Himmet asked for a second official document to forbid Mustafa further aggressions of this kind. But the Ottoman central government acted as it frequently did in such cases, namely transferred the case to the qadi of Kastamonu, who was to make a decision on the rights and wrongs of the dispute. In addition the governor and a colleague of the qadi of Kastamonu officiating in a nearby town were both informed of the affair.
1 Bll§bakanhk Al'§ivi-Osmanh Al'§ivi, Anadolu Ahk§m Defterleri (AAD), 35, p. 250, No. 753.
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Unfortunately nothing is known about how the case was finally decided. Historians who have worked with Ottoman registers will know that this is a common problem: in this case as in many others only a single entry survives infonning us of the trouble between Himmet and Mustafa. However and that is a piece of good luck for the historian, the extant record concerns a relatively late state of the dispute: much had already happened. With the help of the available research literature we will now attempt to place this complaint in its historical context. In so doing we will risk some speculation about the background of the affair and with all due caution, about its possible ending. Fortunatel y an excellent monograph concerning the court of Kastamonu has appeared a few years ago, which covers the period down to 1744; without this study, our task would have been all but impossible. 1 We will focus on problems connected with the legal enslavement of people from without the Ottoman realm and the illegal enslavement of the sultans' subjects; in addition there is the 'grey area' concerning the treatment of Iranian prisoners of war. In so doing we will try to find out something about the practices and reactions of enslavers and enslaved, but also about the measures through which Ottoman officialdom tried to deal with the situation.
T R Y I NG
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221
least, did manage to get ransomed or exchanged, either while hostilities
continued or following a peace agreement. 1
As Islamic religious Jaw prohibits the enslavement of subjects of
Muslim rulers, the presence of Iranian prisoners after any campaign against the Safavids posed serious legal problems.2 Matters were complicated by the fact that in their centuries-long confrontation with the Safavids, the Ottoman sultans refused to recognize the shahs of this dynasty as legitimate Islamic rulers.3 In the mid-sixteenth century �eyhlilislam Ebussuud Efendi, the supreme Ottoman juris-consult even decreed that the Iranians were such malignant heretics that they could no longer be regarded as Muslims.4 Yet even Ebussuud forbade the enslavement of 'children of the KlZIIba§', as Iranian Shiites were often called by Ottoman authors.5 Moreover in the seventeenth century the Iranian court distanced itself from the 'extremist' notions of the adherents of Shah Ismacil I (r. 1501-1 524), who had regarded their ruler as divine and instead accepted the 'nonnal' views of the Shiites that recognize the existence of twelve Imams. But even so certain Ottoman religious scholars as late as the eighteenth century refused to regard Iranians as Muslims. If this view was accepted in all its consequences - but only then - the enslavement of Iranian prisoners became licit in tenns of Islamic law.6
Enslaving prisoners of war Our first question will be: how could Mustafa claim Himmet as his slave? The first possibility that comes to mind is that the latter had entered Ottoman territories as a prisoner of war. When Muslims and non-Muslims were at war, Islamic religious Jaw considered the enslavement of prisoners as perfectly licit; down to the early eighteenth century not only the Ottoman but also the Habsburg authorities acted according to this rule. A prisoner of war could only avoid enslavement if he was either exchanged or else a ransom was paid. Ransoms were a significant source of income for troops stationed in border areas; they were usually higher, and often considerably higher than the price of the same person when sold as a slave. Thus the life chances of a
prisoner of war depended to a significant extent upon the financial resources of his/her family and the latter's willingness to spend them on his/her behalf. In
the Ottoman lands or in Iran, there were no organizations such as the Trinitarian monks in Christendom that devoted themselves to the liberation of prisoners. But even so Ottoman soldiers captured on the western frontiers at 1 Bog� A. Ergene, Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the OltO tnaf! Empirf'. Leg_al Practice and Dispute Resolution in (:ankm and Kastamonu (1652-1744) (Letden: E. J. Bnll,
2003).
Our text contains a claim of the plaintiff Himmet, which the Ottoman authorities did not contradict and thus probably accepted as true, to the effect that throughout the realm, it was forbidden to buy and sell 'such real Muslim Iranians'. In fact we do not know how many Iranian prisoners of war really served as slaves in the Ottoman lands for any length of time. As one of the very few relevant documents that have been studied in detail we can put forward, in spite of its early date, a list of artists and artisans who served the I Suraiya Faroqhi, "Als Kriegsge�ang�ner bei den Osmanen: M�!it�rlager u�d HaushaJt des GroBwesirs Kara Mustafa PS§a 10 emem Augenzeugenbencht 10. Unjre1e Arbelts· und Lebensverhiiltnisse von der Antike his in die Gegenwart, ed. by Ehsabeth Herrmann-Otto (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2005): 206-34 deals with he fate .of �n A�strian officer who at one point, was about to be exchanged for an Ottoman; Enghsh � vers1on m th1s volume. 2 Ertugrul Oiizdag, Seyhiilislam Ebusuud Efendi Fetvalart f$1gmda 16. As1r Tiirk Hayat1 �Istanbul: Enderun, 1 972): 101. This view explains the treatment of Taclu Hatun, one of the wives of Shah lsmac1l: captured in the battle of <;aldtran (1514). She was not held for �ns
4 Diizdag, $eyhiilislam Ebusuud Efendi Fervalart: 1 10-1 I . 5
Diizdag, $eyhiils i lam Ebusuud Efendi Fetvalart: 1 1 I. On Abdullah �endi an �arly eighteenth century scholar with views similar to those of Ebu�suud compa�e Htlmar Kr�ger, Fetwa und
�
}
Siyar. Zur internationalrechtlichen Gutachtenprax1s der os msch en eyh iil:�fldm. vom 17. wm 19. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Behcet ui-Fetdva (W1esbaden:
Otto Harrraso s witz, 1978): 125-33. 6 Y. Hakan Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise 1800-1909 (Houndmills Basingstoke: Macmillan and St Antony's: 1996): 21.
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sultan's court in the year 9321 1526. This text relays the names of certain people who had been brought to Amasya and later to Istanbul by Sultan Selim I. (r. 1512-1520) after his Tabriz campaign. 1 In most cases there is no way of telling what the legal status of the new arrivals may have been. But whenever this information has been given we learn that the men i n question had been
TRYING
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E N S L A V E M ENT
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What exactly is meant by 'real' Muslim Iranians? I would assume that
the expression denoted people that had been Muslims before crossing the Ottoman borders. After all, the Ottoman armies must have captured subjects
of the shah of Iran who were non-Muslim inhabitants of the Caucasus. For
in other words they had been ordered by Sultan Selim to
down to the eighteenth century the latter region was mostly an Iranian sphere
settle in another province of his realm. While not permitted to leave the place
of influence; only during major Ottoman campaigns was the power of the sultan paramount at least for limited periods of time. 1 It is unclear what
banished
(siirgiin):
to which they had been assigned, in all other respects they had the rights of free persons.2
members of the Ottoman judicial apparatus thought about such non-Muslim
Probably the artists whose names appear in the register or else their
captives. If the shah was accepted as a bona fide Muslim ruler, they also
fathers had at one point been prisoners of war. But as apparently the pay of
should have been protected due to their status as subjects of such a sovereign.
skilful artists/artisans in the Ottoman realm was satisfactory, some of these men may well have come to Istanbul voluntarily. This document thus does not provide any indication that in the time of Selim I, any Iranian prisoners were enslaved. But as so little information is available about the status of early sixteenth-century palace artisans, we cannot be absolutely sure that no former slaves have found their way into the register. Overall, we do not know how Iranian prisoners of war were treated throughout the period that began with the death of Selim I in 1520. Possibly a formally accepted principle that 'real' Muslim Iranians could not be enslaved
But if the shah was not regarded as a Muslim, they may well have been enslaved. If this set of assumptions is more or less correct, prisoners made in wars with the Iranians who had only accepted Islam after capture would have not been protected from enslavement. Such a practice did in fact conform to Islamic religious law. Moreover it is well known that while slaves typically were liberated only after having become Muslims, manumission was in no
way an automatic consequence of conversion.2 In peace treaties with Christian
by the middle of the eighteenth century was still something of a novelty.
rulers it was often stipulated that non-Muslim ex-captives were to be sent
Perhaps the relevant decision had only been made after the fall of the Safavids,
home. The fate of those that had accepted Islam by contrast was regarded as a
when the new ruler of Iran Nadir Shah (r. 1736-47) declared that he was going
purely domestic affair: thus the 'capitulations'
to abolish Shiism as the state religion of his realm and have the Shia included as the fifth accepted interpretation of Islamic law
(mezheb)
within Sunnite
Islam, on a par with Shafiism, Hanbalism, Malikism and the Hanefi school of law that was favoured by the Ottoman sultans. This ambitious undertaking was even the subject of an Ottoman-Iranian treaty ( 1 736). But by the time 'our' document was written, the enterprise had failed; for in 1743 Sultan Mahmud I (r. 1730-54) explicitly revoked the admission of the Shiites into the community of Sunnite lslam.3 Yet it seems possible that in the course of the negotiations the Ottoman side had denounced the enslavement of 'real'
(ahidname) granted to the ki ng
of Poland Michal in 1 672 stated unambiguously that there was to be no change in the condition of slaves who had already become Muslims. However whether Muslim prisoners in Christian hands or the non Muslim subjects of Christian rulers who had been captured by Ottoman soldiers really got to go home at the conclusion of a peace treaty always depended on a variety of conditions. For obvious reasons the people who had acquired such prisoners might claim that the latter had converted, or even use their power as slave holders ensure that the prisoners actually did convert.
Muslim Iranians and not revoked this principle even after the negotiations had
Other pretexts for retaining the captives surely were not lacking. Seeking the
failed; at least that is how I would interpret the tacit acceptance of Himmet's
release of such prisoners thus was often a source of great frustration to the envoys that had been given these thankless tasks.3
declaration by the Ottoman authorities. If so, Iranian prisoners who had fallen
into Ottoman hands during the numerous wars against Nadir Shah should have
benefited from the arrangement.
1 fsmail Haklu Uzun�JIJ, "Osrnanh Saraymda Ehl-i hiref "Sanatkarlar" Defteri," Belgeler
XV (1986): 23-76.
2 Orner LUtfj Barkan.• "Osmanh fl_llparatorlu#unda Bir fsUn ve Kolonizasyon Metodu Olarak Silrgil.nler," Istanbul O niversitesi lktisat Faki.iltesi Mecmuas1, XI, 1-4 (1949-50): 524-69; XIII, 1-4 (1951-52): 56-78; XV, 1-4 (1953-54): 209-37. . 3 On the continuing hostility of certain Ottoman religious scholars against Shiism see Kruger, Fetwa und Siyar: 134.
1 Since the reign of Peter the Great the empire of the Tsars was the third great player in the region. On the conflicts between Ottomans and Safavids in the sixteenth cen tu r y see Bekir Kiltiikoglu, Osmanll-iran Siydsf Mi.indsebetleri, I. 1578-1590 (Istanbul: istanbul U nive rsitesi Edebiyat Fakilltesi Yaymlan, 1962), passim (no more published). 2 Dariusz Kotodziejczyk, Olloman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century), An Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames and Other Documents (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000): 505, 512. On the liberation of a slave that had not converted see Erdem, Slavery: 3 1 . 3 Mehmed Emnl as Ottoman envoy to Russia experienced many difficulties in this context· compare: Mehmed Emnf Beyefendi (P�a)'mn Rusya Sefareti ve Sefaret-nlimesi, ed. by MUni; Aktepe (Ankara: TUrk Tari Kurumu, 1974).
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TRYING
In the case of the non-Muslim populations, Georgians and others that inhabit the Caucasus and its immediate vicinity the situation was complicated by the fact that in the eighteenth-century Ottoman provinces of Egypt, Iraq and even Tunis
there was always a need for military slaves, the so-called
Mamluks. It is thus quite possible that many non-Muslim boys and young men captured in the wars between Ottomans and Iranians ended up in the service of the Ottoman grandees controlling these southern provinces; and some of the captives may even have been sold to viziers and pashas who hoped to enlarge their households in view of rising in the Ottoman administration. Quite possibly this state of affairs explains why only 'real' Muslim Iranians, and not the shah's non-Muslim subjects, were explicitly protected from enslavement On the other hand Ottoman soldiers did not have a general license to enslave the non-Muslim subjects of the shah. Even �eyhiilislam Ebusuud, who as we have seen was a bitter enemy of the Iranian Shiites, had decided that Armenian prisoners made during the sultans' campaigns against the shah should not be enslaved as there was no good reason for assuming that they had fought against the Ottoman armies. 1 As further sources are discovered these observations and interpretations may yet coalesce into a more coherent picture;
at present all we can do is to assemble the scattered data.
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even in the early nineteenth century. I But none of these activities provides a really plausible reason why an Iranian trader should have chosen to settle in
this place.
For the most part Iranian merchants visited the Ottoman lands in order
to sell the raw silk that was produced in the realm of the shahs.2 However aJready since the sixteenth century, when the silk trade was resumed after the wars between Selim I and Shah Ismacil I many though certainly not all merchants engaged in this trade were Armenians. This pre-eminent role of the Armenians had preceded the monopolization of the Iranian silk crop by Shah cAbbas I (r. 1587- 1 629). As in the sixteenth century political and religious controversy between Ottomans and Safavids continued even when the two empires were not actuaJJy at war, the Armenians being Christians may have given the sultans' officials less cause for suspicion. After all Iranian Muslims so often were denounced as secret representatives of the dervish order of the Safavids, which had its adherents in Anatolia as well.3 In the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century Shah 'Abbas I moreover had forced the Armenians to migrate to his capital of Isfahan, where they were settled in a suburb of their own and the most prominent merchants of the community were given the task of marketing the shah's silk as his
official agents.4 In the Ottoman Empire the Armenian merchants dealt with
local businessmen supplying the workshops of Istanbul or Bursa, but also with English or French exporters. From Ottoman archival documents of the
Tradersfrom Iran on Ottoman territory
eighteenth century we learn that these Iranian subjects, known as
If Himmet had not been a prisoner of war he could have come to the Ottoman Empire for purposes of trade, and settled i n Kastamonu. However commercial opportunities in this provincial town of northern Anatolia were probably limited, as it lay at a considerable distance from the great caravan route that connected Istanbul to Erzurum and Tabriz by way of Amasya and Tokat. But in the seventeenth century the place had possessed a certain reputation on account of its cottons
(bogast) probably of medium
quaJity; at
tiiccart
acem
were well organized. In the Empire's larger cities they possessed
special representatives or consuls known as consuls would have intervened
iehbender. Probably these if an acem tiiccart was enslaved. But Himmet
as a Muslim would not have had easy access to these networks: and if a bit of fantasizing is permitted, we may imagine him as a former
acem
tiicrt ca , who
had become a Muslim at some point and therefore could no longer rely on the support of his former colleagues in his hour of need.
this time cushion covers with printed designs from Kastamonu were on offer in the bazaar of Istanbul. Furthermore different kinds of nails from the same town aJso found customers in the Ottoman capital. More important was the manufacture of copperware from ore mined i n nearby Ki.ire. However we can assume that the decline of the Kiire mines since the later seventeenth century had a negative effect on Kastamonu's role i n manufacturing and thereby also on its role in interregionaJ trade; however some local coppersmiths were active
I Dtlzdag, Seyhiilislam Ebusuud Ejendi Fetvalan:
1 1 1-12.
1
Miibahat Kiitiiko�lu Osmanlllarda Narh MiJessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 19S3): 129, 176, 194. 195, 298; Su�aiya Faroqhi, Towns a_nd Townsrrn;n of . an Urban Settzng (Cambndge: Ottoman Anatolia. Trade, Crafts and Food Production tn
Cambridge University Press, 1984): 181. 2 Ne§e Erim, "Trade, Traders and the State in Eighteenth Century Erzurum", New Perspectives on Turkey, 5-6 (1991): 123-50. 3 Halil lnalcak "Bursa XV. Asar Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihine Dair Vesikalar," Bel/eten, XXIV (1960): 45-102; Coli� Imber, "The Persecution of the Ottoman Shiites According to the Milhimme Defterleri 1565-1585," Der Islam, 56 (1979): 245-73. 4 Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, The Shah's Silkfor Europe's Silver. the Eur ian Trade of the Julfa � Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530·1750) (Atlanta I Georg1a: Scholars Press and University of Pennsylvania, 1999): 1 15-40.
226
A N 0T H E R
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TRYING
For the sake of argument we may assume that Himmet had found himself on Ottoman territory, perhaps as a merchant or servitor to a trader when once again war broke out between the sultan and the shah. If at al possible the subjects of a prince at war with the sultan left the country as soon as possible.1 Thus the Nuremberg trader Wolffgang Aigen during the Ottoman-Venetian war over Crete ( 1654-69) represented a Venetian merchant in Aleppo, who evidently felt that the risks of a continued presence on Ottoman territory were too great. As a citizen of the imperial city of Nuremberg, Aigen was a subject of the Habsburg emperor, who was a neutral in this particular conflict When the latter in his tum was embroiled with the sultan i n the 1660s however, Aigen himself felt that it was best to leave Aleppo in a hurry. Iranian traders must have arrived at the same conclusion a good deal earlier: for when Sultan Selim I was at war with the first Safavid ruler he had arrested and banished the Iranian merchants on Ottoman territory and confiscated their goods.2 However not all experts in religious law considered this act justifiable; and when Selim's son Siileyman the Magnificent came to the throne he soon abrogated it. Given this problematic situation we may assume that Himmel had opted to stay in Kastamonu during the Ottoman-Iranian wars of 1733-36 or 174346, perhaps because he had married a local woman. We have good reason to connect our story to events which by the lime the petition was written were already some ten to twenty years old. For as we have seen Himmet referred to married children of his that were accessible to Mustafa, in other words they probably lived in or near Kastamonu. All these remarks point to Himmet's prolonged residence in this town. Furthermore the complaint to which our sultanic command responded was by no means the first document issued i n the course of the affair. As a result it is safe to assume that months or perhaps even years had passed since Mustafa had first threatened Himmet and his
i
family.
How a servant could become a slave Himmel did not deny that he was a servant of Mustafa; but we do not know whether he was part of his employer's household or lived on his own. I n 1 Wolffgang Aigen, Sieben Jahre in Aleppo (1656-/663), ein Abschnitt aus den "Rei.ft Beschreibungen" des Wolffgang Aigen, ed. Andreas Tietze (Vienna: Verlag des Verbandes der
O sterreichs,
1 980): 7, 120. wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften 2 Fahri Dalsar, Tiirk Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihinde Bursa'da Oniversitesi lktisat FakOitesi, 1960): 1 3 1 -33.
lpd.fililc
(Istanbul·· Istanbul
TO
AV O I D
E N S LA V E M ENT
227
legal terms a free person provided his/her services on the basis of a contract that he/she had concluded with his/her employer; in the case of children a �ent or guardian concluded the contract on their behalf. Such contracts might mvolve the completion of a single specific task; thus a courier might obligate himself to transmit a letter or message. I When extra workmen were needed, artisans might employ labourers who were neither their apprentices nor their journeymen; in most cases we do not know whether such people were hired for a specific time or to complete a stipulated task. In large cities such as Bursa we occasionally hear of places where people looking for work waited for masters who might need them; probably people that entered workshops in this manner often were but casually employed.2 We also may find contracts whose duration was not fixed, nor was a specific task stipulated. People entering into engagements of this type often stmply declared that they hired themselves out (nefsini icare etmek). Moreover when the contracting parties were illiterate or like Himmet perhaps at the beginning of his stay, did not speak Ottoman Turkish, such contracts may have been completely informal. Arrangements of this kind only came to the notice of the qadi when there was a conflict; and only then did they enter into the register. Obviously under such circumstances if the servant was unlucky he/she might find him/herself working without pay. Occasionally documents to that effect have come down to us: thus the duration of an apprenticeship was often not formally established, and some masters continued to employ without pay young men who long since had acquired a good command of their respective crafts. Perhaps in some cases people hired themselves out for unspecified services in order to work off their debts; but to date I do not know any examples of this practice. Overall it must sometimes have been difficult for free people to find service jobs, because many wealthy households felt that their privacy was better protected by employing slaves; the latter practice was common enough within the Ottoman upper classes even in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the slave trade already had been outlawed. Given this difficulty of finding employment, employers often must have had the whip hand.3 Or else Himmet may well have known too much about Mustafa's commercial or private business, so that the latter did not want his former servant out of his control and maybe even as a competitor.
�
Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen: 5 I. 3 Dalsar, Bursa'da lpelcfilik: 316.
.h
E ud Toledano, The Ottoman Slave . Princeton Umversity Press, 1982): 78-79.
Trade and its Suppression: /840-1890
(Princeton··
228
A NOTHER
M I RROR
FOR
PRI NCES
Dealing with Ottoman officials As we have seen the administration in Istanbul did not re-issue the earlier ineffective sultanic command, but ordered the qadi of Kastamonu to try the case. We do not know whether the dispute had previously come to court. On the face of it, it seems likely, for a man of limited income such as Himmet would have started out by seeking a solution on the locaJ level. But perhaps the qadi of the time had good contacts to influential people living in Kastamonu; he may have even been one of the people that according to Himmet, Mustafa had mobilized to enslave an outsider from a strange land. At the same time the decisions of a qadi did not bind his colleagues.' Therefore it was not unknown for plaintiffs dissatisfied with the outcomes of their cases to bring them to court a second time. They only needed to wait until the qadi had changed, and that might happen i n very short order. Moreover it is worth noting that in the eighteenth century, an exponentially increasing number of plaintiffs preferred to take their problems to Istanbul. All they obtained from the central administration was normally a command issued in the name of the sultan, in which the local qadi was instructed to try the case. Yet to do so was only the judge's normal professional obligation. Probably plaintiffs were willing to spend time and money on obtaining such a command because in this manner the qadi was informed of the interest that the central administration took in the case. Thus this official would be sure to understand that he needed to watch his step and that it would not do to decide according to the purely Ioca.l considerations that otherwise might affect his judgment. Moreover in this particular case Himmet may well have hoped that as a result of his request the administration would reiterate the previous command with added emphasis. Regarded in a wider context problems connected with i llegal enslavement constantly occupied both the qadis and the Ottoman central administration.2 It often happened that subjects of the sultans were abducted by robbers or pirates and sold into slavery. In some cases one and the same person even was enslaved several times: thus Ottoman traders purchased blact slaves from Africa, but might lose the latter on the seas around Italy. Fo at Italian princely courts it was often considered the height of elegance to be
TR Y I NG
T0
AV0 I 0
ENS LAV EM EN T
229
served by little African boys; these had often been captured on Ottoman ships by pirates who had wealthy Italian purchasers in mind.' Moreover the Habsburg aristocracy also acquired little black boys as pages, and in their opera 'The Cavalier of the Rose' , written in the early twentieth century Hugo von Hoffmannsthal and Richard Strauss have included a memento to these youngsters in the shape of the page Muhammad. But in quite a few cases it probably sufficed to send the kidnapped boy or girl to a distant region where he/she would then have all the trouble in the world trying to prove his/her free status. For where could such boys or girls, stranded among strangers, find witnesses who would testify to their status as free people? Or if the men or women in question had been already been manumitted but were now threatened with a second enslavement, they would need someone to confirm that they were freedmen and freedwomen. In these cases a rule inherent in Islamic law which placed the onus of proof on the plaintiff might work to the disadvantage of people who had been kidnapped and illegally sold as slaves. If the victims had no manumission documents they were helplessly exposed to the men who claimed to be their owners. After all in many cases the latter did not need to prove that they had acquired their supposed slaves in a legal fashion. At least manumission documents
(hiiccets)
issued by one qadi were
accepted by his colleagues all over the Empire. This was the practice, although as we have seen in principle no qadi had the power to force his fellow judges in any way. Cases of manumission documents being declared invalid by a qadi on the grounds that he was not obliged to accept the decision of another judge have not been found to the present day; and there is a fai r chance that they do not exist. Even though in Hanefi law witnesses are stronger proof than documents, in case of manumission the possession of the relevant paper was crucial. Certain Habsburg subjects even regarded their
hiiccets as so important that they had them translated and included them in the books in which they later narrated their captivities.2 In the mid-eighteenth century the time of Himmet's tribulations, it was apparently quite common for free people to be abducted, probably because the kidnappers wanted to use or sell the victims as slaves. Thus we possess the complaint of a descendant of the Prophet
(seyyid),
who with his wife
had travelled to the little town of Burdur in south-western Anatolia, where the Halil Sahillioglu, "Bursa Kadt Sicillerinde I� ve Dt§ Odemeler Aract Olarak "KitJbii'I-Kadt" . lar, 8-10 Haziran 1973, a rt 1�nuJ eri. Metinler, T ve "SUfteceler," in Tiirkiye ktisat / Tarihi Semin Hacettepe Universitesi, 1975), 103-44, ed. by Osman Okyar and Onal Nalbantoflu (Ankara: . compare p. 115.
1
Nicolas Vatin, "Une affaire interne: le sort et Ia liberation de personnes de condition Jibre illegalement retenues en esclavage," Turcica, 33 (2001): 149-90.
2
1 Giovanni Ricci, Ossessione turca, In una retrovia cristiana dell'Europa mcderna (Bologna· · . Mohno, 2002): 50-54.
11
� As an example compare: Johann Michael Heberer von Bretten, Aegypliaca Serviau3 �uced by �I Teply (Graz:. Akade�sche Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, reprint 1967): 332:
tn
33 Johann Wild, Reysbesch�e1bung e1'!es Gefangenen Christen Anno 1604 (Stuttgart: StemgrUben, 1964): 228-30 gtves a deatled account of how he received his manumission t •
.
document.
230
AN0TH E
M
R
I RR0R
F0R
PR
I NCES
woman had some claims, presumably to property. • According to the husband 's petition his wife had been abducted; but in this case we do not
TRYING
was clear enough: another
seyyid
had lodged a complaint that his little
daughter had been kidnapped; and an inhabitant of Izmir by the name of Kara Ali had sold her into slavery.2
In another case taken from the same register, a customer expressed his indignation at having been cheated. Supposedly without suspecting any trickery he had purchased a young slave that later was able to prove his free status. Now in accordance with Islamic law, the buyer demanded the return of his money; in such cases the slave was to be liberated forthwith and the seller had to indemnify the buyer. But here as in other cases it was difficult to transform law into practice; for the seller, whose nickname 'the associate of Ali the bastard' perhaps indicated his less than respectable frequentations had disappeared and could not be found.3 In this case the victim of the trickery declared that the man who had sold him a free person as a slave was i n the habit of engaging in such illegal deals, in other words was a hardened criminal. The Ottoman administration was well aware that slave dealers were likely to flout both religious law and the commands of the ruler; and at least i n Istanbul these traders were kept under fairly strict control.4 We are left to wonder whether i f Himmet's complaint was justified, Mustafa and his allies among the notables of Kastamonu also were in the business of routinely selling free people into slavery. Normally children and juveniles who could not easily defend themselves in court were the preferred victims of such illegal manipulations. But as the subject of a foreign ruler with whom the sultan often was at war Himmet also may have seemed an easy prey.
AVOID
ENS LAVEMENT
231
In conclusion
know whether it was in order to prevent her from making good her claim, or for some other reason. In another case however the intention of enslavement
TO
Whatever the situation in this particular case it is clear that the presence of slaves in elite or simply well-to-do Ottoman households could threaten the freedom of ordinary subjects of the sultans. If there had not been any potential purchasers for Himmet and especially for his children, Mustafa would not have tried to enslave the family. Estate inventories of the eighteenth century indicate that by this time even well-to-do urbanites that were part of the subject population found it more difficult to acquire slaves than had been true for instance in the time of dramatic Ottoman expansion during the sixteenth century. 1 However such servants still were very much in demand even in the 1700s. Presumably this state of affairs encouraged some people to threaten and even kidnap young men and especially women in order to sell them as slaves to wealthy households. For after 1700 the principal reason for sixteenth-century slave hunts, namely the need for rowers to man
the galleys largely disappeared as navies now consisted only of sailing ships.
When it comes to speculating about the outcome of the affair: it does not seem very probable that after all the noise and upset that the case must have aroused Mustafa really had a chance to sell Himmel and his family into slavery. Such events were more likely to occur when the prospective slave holder did not have to worry about possible witnesses. I would surmise that some kind of compromise was reached, with the mediators who in the tribunals of Ottoman qadis so often helped the parties settle out of court suggesting the necessary arrangements. In the worst of cases perhaps Himmet was not able to leave Mustafa's employment after all; or else Himmet paid over a sum of money for the privilege. Perhaps one day we will find a document shedding further light upon this case.
During the past twenty years or so, Ottoman petitions and the court
cases of which they formed an indispensable part have been discussed at length by a number of historians. Most of these studies have fore-grounded the qadi
registers; but all scholars that have dealt with these collections of documents know very well that men and women who felt that they had been unfairly treated and possessed some means might take the trouble of carrying their
1
Suraiya Faroqbi, "Opfer der Gewalt: Einige F:tlle von Mord, Raub uod Bedrohung in Nordwestanatolic:n um 1160," in Gewa/t in derfriihen Neuzeit, ed. by Claudia Ulbrich, Claudia Jan.ebowski and Michaela Hobkamp (Berlin: Duocker & Humblot, 2005): 275-90.
2
AA!J 3_5, p. 177, No. 541 (1 17411760-61). This case also was passed on the qadi for judicial
complaints to lstanbul.2 In all likelihood most of the plaintiffs had sufficient knowledge of their rights and of legal procedure in general to successfully present their cases; within certain limits Himmet also possessed these skills.
exammatton.
3 AAD 35, S. en, No. 283 (1 17411760-61). 4 Suntiya Faroqhi, "Quis Custodiet Custodes? Controlling Slave Identities and Slave Traders in
d �
Eighteenth Century Istanbul " in Fr_onti�rs of Faith, ed. by Eszter AndN and Seventeenth y6rg1 T6th (Budapest: Central European Uruvers1ty and European Science Foundation• lstvlfn G
2001): 1 19-34.
1
0!1 the large number of slaves in Bursa around 1500 compare Halil Sahillioglu "Slaves in the Soc1al and Economic Life of Bursa in the late 15th and early 16th Centu;ies'• Turcica' XVU(l985): 43-1 12. 2 Ergene, Local Court: 142-88.
232
A N 0T H E R
M I R R 0R
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NC ES
Our present discussion certainly has shown that the eighteenth-century
Istanbul registers of sultanic commands have a good deal to teach us about the
long-standing problem of illegal enslavement.1 However it is hard to deny that
BOSNIAN MERCHANTS IN THE ADRIATIC
many questions remain unanswered; and assumptions and hypotheses play a
much larger role in our discussion than we would expect to find in a study of eighteenth-century developments. Only further discussion of these sources and their connections to documents contained in the qadi registers will allow us a better understanding of these matters.
The present author being a historian of crafts and commerce and not a historian of Bosnia, this modest contribution is concerned with a problem of trade in general, and Ottoman trade in particular. We will deal with the manner in which provincial merchants, usually without access to 'politically' generated funds, financed their various undertakings. Its relevance to Bosnia derives from the fact that some rather interesting evidence pertaining to this question happens to come from Sarajevo. I However it is not in a local archive in which the relevant text has survived, but rather in that great repository of Ottoman materials known as the 'Documenti Turchi' section of the Venetian state archives. Here texts made out in the name of Sultan Siileyman the Magnificent and his successors and grand viziers are found along with letter drafts and petitions of sometimes very modest merchants, based in Bosnia but also in Istanbul and Anatolia.2 How the document to be studied here came to be located in Venice is not the least interesting part of our story. Any study of trade must include the problem of capital fonnation and commercial financing, for almost never did an individual merchant have at his disposal an amount of capital large enough to allow him to 'go it alone' .3 Moreover even if he did possess extensive resources, it was always more prudent to divide the risks among several participants. However in the Ottoman case, studies of commercial financing are difficult to undertake
because of a notorious lack of primary sources. To this date, only in Cairo has
a pre-eighteenth-century merchant been discovered who made a habit of recording his business dealings in the kadi's court, thus providing us with precious evidence concerning the numerous partnerships in which a wealthy trader such as Ismail Abu Takiyya came to engage during his reasonably long career.4 As a result, studies by Ottoman historians dealing with the pooling 1
There exists a large scholarly literature in Bosnian, which I am unable to read, and as a result, my options are quite limited. I am grateful to Markus Koller for summarizing certain essential ublications.
�
Pedani Fabris, Maria Pia, I "Documenti turchi" dell'Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Roma:
Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici). The document to be discussed is recorded under Busta 8, No 990 (p. 252 in the catalogue).
3 Inalcik, Halil, "Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire", The Journal ofEconomic History, XXIX, 1 (1969), pp. 97-140.
I Due to technical reasons it was unfortunately not possible to consult the qadi registers of Kastamonu that have now been moved from the National Library to the National Archives in Ankara.
4 Hanna, Nelly, Making Big Money in 1600. The Life and Times of lsma'il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant (Syracuse, 1998). Modern Turkish spelling will be used throughout; as a
result, certain names will appear in the text in a form which slightly differs from that found in the secondary literature.
234
A N 0T H E R
M I R R0R
F0R
PR I NC ES
of commercial capital usually have emphasized the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After all for this later period, commercial accounts penned by Ottoman merchants of whatever religion or ethnicity, while by no means abundant, are at least occasionally extant.1
For the sixteenth or seventeenth century, other source materials have to
be used. Registers of the kadis' courts will
occasionally contain
references to
disputes between members of commercial partnerships, usually focusing on the division of profits when the association came to be dissolved. But at least outside of Istanbul, their number is usually too small for coherent discussion. Or else the accounts of pious foundations
(vaklj)
have been studied, for at
least in the Turkish-speaking provinces of the Empire and especially in Istanbul, such establishments often lent out money at interest, at what was considered a moderate rate, namely ten to fifteen percent.2 Unfortunately such accounts normally contain only the names of the borrowers and not the lines of work in which the latter were engaged, which makes it difficult to separate the takers of commercial credit from the crowd of other borrowers. However a
B 0S N I A N
M ER C HANTS
I N
235
T H E AD R I ATI C
are not told in what goods these people traded; we only know that a few men were identified as tanners (debbag). These latter entries may mean that in Sarajevo, there were tanners who had branched out into the wholesale leather trade, as is known to have happened in other places and later periods as wel1. 1 Moreover the men mentioned in our text as principals mostly had junior partners who, on their behalf, traveled to 'Frengistan' , that is Catholic and Protestant Europe. On the other hand, the senior partners seem to have been sedentary, and managed their businesses from premises in Sarajevo. At the end of the list, there is a confirmation of authenticity made out by the kadi Hasan, along with the latter's seal. Unfortunately there is no date, and the name 'Hasan', with no patronym attached, does not provide much of a clue either.
However the Venetian archivists assign this register to the year 997/1589.2
In the second section of our document, introduced by the phrase 'register of traders' properties', we once again find a list of debtors, but this time, the status of the creditor institution is harder to determine. Apparently
specialist of this question has recorded his impression that at least in the
declarations to the effect that these creditors were also pious foundations had
eighteenth century, most loans given out by the pious foundations of Bursa were of rather moderate size.3 All these difficulties in locating appropriate
difficult to accept, as the interested parties were not able to show any
source material explain why so few attempts have been made to find out how Ottoman merchants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries obtained their working capital.
been received by the kadi 's office. But the officials in charge found that claim documents demonstrating that the pious foundations at issue had been properly established. This reticence would seem to imply that when foundation administrators turned to the kadi asking for any kind of legal procedure, they needed to show their written documentation first Apparently the testimony of witnesses, in spite of its paramount value in Hanefi interpretations of Islamic law, in this particular context was not
A register of merchant debtors
considered very helpful; or else the supposed founders of the However, the document from the Venetian archives which will concern us here, a short register to be more specific, conveys an unusual amount of information on commercial credit. The text is a simple listing of borrowers owing money to certain pious foundations of Sarajevo; but it does tell us
vakifs at
issue
were unable to provide satisfactory testimonials. This perceived deficiency was expressed, in the second section of the register, through formulations of the following type: "owed by Kastm b Mahmud, rthe money lent being the]
explicitly that all the people so involved were merchants. Unfortunately we 1 <;:izak�a. Murat, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships. The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives (Leiden, New York, 1996).
Especially relevant to our purposes is Gedikli, Fethi, Osman/1 Sirket Kiiltiirii. XVI.-XVII. Yiizy1llarda Mud/Jrebe Uygulamas1 (Istanbul, 1998); among other sources, the author has used the kadi registers of Galata, one of the most highly commercialized among all the wards of Is��bul. ln t.his pl�ce, references to the partnership known as mudarebe, very probably the ongtn of the medteval European commenda, are much more frequent than in other kadi registers. Gedikli focuses on legal development.
2 Barkan, vmer A Lutfi' and Ekrem Haklu Ayverdi (eds.), Istanbul Vakljlan Tahrfr Defteri' 953
�1546) TtJrthli (Istanbul, 1 970), pp. XXX-XXXVIII.
·
<;:izak�. Murat, "Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 1555- 1823," Journal of the Economic and Social History ofthe Orient, 38,3 (1995), pp. 313-54. See particularly p. 337, where the author points out that only a minute share of all borrowers were able to augment their resources by pooling capital secured from a variety of foundations.
1
Faroqhi, Suraiya, "How to Prosper in Eighteenth·century Bursa: the Fortune of Hact Ibrahim Tanner" in Stories of Ottoman Men and Women: Establishing Status, Establishing Control stanbul, 2 �), pp. 1 13-30. � . . The descnptron tells us that the reg1ster IS relevant to an attack upon Bosnian merchants that took place near the church of Skurje, a Venetian possession. According to Pedani Fabris' "Documenti turchi", p. 252 there is a document relevant to this issue in the section known as 'Lettere e scritture turchesche, filza 4, c. 147' which I have not seen. In this latter text Murad III complains to the Doge concerning the aggression suffered by the Bosnian merchants Moreover Pedani Fabris, I "Documenti turchi", pp. 243-44, No 953 also records a hiiccet of complaint concerning an Uskok attack against Bosnian merchants near the church of Skurje t�e pirates ha�ing taken their captives to Lesina. While the microfilm that I have used does not gtve any particulars about the attack, and does not specify where it took place, it is not v�ry �robable that two such events occurred close to the church of Skurje at approximately the same lime. lf this reasoning is co�ect, t en I "Documenti turchi", pp. 243-44, No 953 should refer to the same events as the regtster dtscussed here. But given the numerous pirate attacks of that time, this is no more than a supposition.
:
�
1
:
�
236
ANOTHER
MI R ROR
FOR
PRI NCES
B 0S N I A N
property of Hact Stileyman, who declares 'I have made it into a pious foundation' ". This section also was certified as correct by the kadi Hasan. As to the third list, which is also the shortest, it is composite and may have been put together after the second one had already been confirmed by the kadi. For as the heading records, supposed foundation property for which no
M E R C H A NT S
I N T H E
A0R I ATI C
237
because they had a general interest in the outcome of the case, and probably in the functioning of the local court as well. Such personages routinely had their names affixed to the protocols of court cases in the kadi registers, as well as to any certificates (hiiccet) issued by the judge. 1 Given this situation, it makes
documentation could be shown, and which thus should have been recorded in
sense to regard our register as just such a certificate, even though it is never e.xpressis verbis described as a hiiccet.
the second section, was here lumped together with property belonging to
While we do not know why certain people were selected to act as §Uhud
orphans and yet a further category, described as is/a.s-1 vusaya. I would assume
that these latter sums of money had been willed by deceased inhabitants of
Sarajevo to people of their choice, as they were entitled to do with one third of
their property only
(islds
meaning division into thirds). Presumably because
the legatees were absent or minors, the legacies were being administered on their behalf by executors/ guardians
(vasi,
pl.
vusaya),
who invested the
money by entrusting it to merchants.1 Once again, the list bears the signature of Hasan the kadi of Sarajevo.
ul-hal in any individual case, it was common enough to ask people of some social status to affix their names, in this capacity, to a newly issued document. By the standards of central Anatolia, the number of witnesses appearing in the Sarajevo court was very high. In seventeenth-century Kayseri, it was normal to call in between four and seven people as
§Uhud ul-hal, and
twelve constituted an upper limit that was rarely reached, let alone surpassed. Yet in Sarajevo, groups of about twenty witnesses were no exception, and rarely was the number lower than eight or ten. However toward the end of the
While our register records the amounts of money owed by Sarajevo
first section of our register, a whole series of entries concerning debtors to
merchants to persons and pious foundations, it does not specify the unit of
different pious foundations all were confirmed by the same group of §uhud ul
money involved. However from the context we can gather that
ak�e
were
hal. References to these people were abridged by using, several times over, the
probably intended, the only problem deriving from the fact that while Istanbul
term 'the aforementioned 1 individuals I'. This must have meant that these
foundations of the mid-sixteenth century normally held or at least recorded their cash in the shape of ak�e. in Sarajevo - and sometimes in Bursa as well - it was customary to use the
dirhem.
However as there were no dirhems in
circulation in the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century, we can assume that this latter unit was employed as a money of account only, and 'reaJ' transactions were in
ak�e.2
particular entries were compiled in a single session of the court. However we have no way of knowing whether, whenever the
§Uhud ul-hal listed differed
from one case to the next - a circumstance that was also quite common -
these entries had always resulted from separate court sessions.
It has often been noted that whoever selected the §Uhud ul-hal preferred
to involve local dignitaries that is people with some title or other.2 But in the Sarajevo case, bearing a title was apparently not considered very important.
Clouds of witness When compiling the register, extreme care had been taken to document all the debts in question by the testimony of a large number of witnesses. To begin with, the debt of any individual or partnership to a given pious foundation or orphan's fund was confirmed by two witnesses. But in addition, once the debts owed by any one individual to a greater or smaller number of pious foundations had been enumerated, there was a long list of so-called
§Uhud ul-hal.
We find an occasional teacher in a theological-legal college just as rarely, a preacher of Friday sermons
(hatib).
(medrese) and,
But otherwise, the
witnesses were ordinary Muslims, whose only title was, in a relatively large number of instances, that of a pilgrim to Mecca (hact). We may interpret this as an indication that the
§Uhud ul-hal concerned by this register were normally
merchants, who would have had more opportunities to perform the pilgrimage
than other more sedentary townsmen. But on this issue, as unfortunately on quite a few others, certainty is impossible to achieve.
These were witnesses who seem to have been called in not
because they had necessarily seen the completion of the transaction itself, but 1 Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), pp. 173-174. 2 Pamuk, �vket, A Monetary History of the �no� Empire (Cambridge, 2000) pp. 99 and �02 refers to coins called dirhem by modem numismatists, but not to any means of payment wb1cb sixteenth-century Ottomans called by this name.
I Jennings, Ronald, "Kadi, Court and Legal Procedure in 17th C. Ottoman Kayseri,"
Islamica, XLVIIl (1978),
142-48. 2 Jennings, "Kadi, Court and Legal Procedure," p. 143-44.
Srudia
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Pious foundations as moneylenders. or how to make optimum use of limited assets Pious foundations profiting from money-lending certainly appear contrary to Islamic religious law, which strictly prohibits the taking of interest. However as the 1546 register of pious foundations edited by Orner Liitfi Barkan and Ekrem Hakkt Ayverdi demonstrates, this practice was quite
popular in Istanbul by the middle of the sixteenth century. 1 It also spread to the larger towns of Anatolia and Rumelia, including of course Sarajevo, although it was never adopted in the Arab provinces of the Empire. In part, this relative popularity of cash-based pious foundations in Istanbul was probably due to the fact that about one hundred years after the Ottoman conquest, within the walls of the capital city there was no longer much real estate available that pious donors could assign to their future foundations. On
M E R C H A NTS
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239
that the Istanbul model in itself was prestigious enough to invite imitation; and we might propose a similar explanation for the spread of cash-based pious foundations to the larger towns of Anatolia, where we find them with some frequency in the seventeenth century. Remarkably enough, the early discussion concerning the acceptability or otherwise of money-lending pious foundations did not focus upon the taking of interest, but upon the durability, or else the perishable character, of coins. For Islamic legal scholars demanded that the things assigned to a pious foundation, as sources of revenue or else for current use, should not be too perishable. I Real estate was of course viewed as imperishable and therefore preferable even though only the rights to the land itself were durable. For as all administrators of pious foundations knew, or else found out to their cost, buildings were quite impermanent, as they were easily destroyed by earthquakes and, particularly in Istanbul, by periodic fires.2
the other hand, trade had taken a notable upswing, ever since the construction
By comparison, gold and silver coins appear relatively permanent, as
boom of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had provided Istanbul
these two metals are not easily destroyed by chemical processes. However it
with shops and covered markets from which trade could be conducted, while the return of (relative) peace permitted both Ottomans and resident foreigners to expand their commercial activities.2 We can therefore surmise that at the seat of the sultans, by the
was well known to religious scholars, and also to ordinary people that coins could be demonetized; in fact that happened quite often, namely whenever the sultans attempted to gain extra revenues by reducing the weight of the ak�e or
guru§. There also might be attempts to restore confidence in the coinage by
to
increasing its weight, although that happened much less frequently. And of course a pious foundation that needed to function on the basis of a quantity of ak�e or guru§ on the point of being demonetized might well sustain
unable to acquire houses, shops or gardens in sufficient numbers. Moreover i t
substantial losses when trying to convert this now all but useless money into current coin. After all, a major reason for re-minting was the profit that
sixteenth century cash was more abundant than real estate. We may also assume that there were quite a few people of some means who wished
devote some of their resources to pious and charitable ends, but who were i s worth keeping i n mind that i n mid-sixteenth century Istanbul, women formed a sizeable percentage of the people establishing pious foundations, but their share among the owners of real estate was probably much more limited.3 Yet females were likely to possess jewelry and ready money, and the spread of cash-based pious foundations thus must have made it easier for women to institute charities that might remind future generations of the donors' religious merits and worldly reputations. However, many of these considerations did not apply to provincial towns; thus i n Sarajevo presumably there was no great scarcity of land suitable for pious foundations. However money that donors were willing to
accrued to the treasury in the course of such proceedings, and by contrast, the gain of the sultan's treasury was the loss of the pious foundation. It was only after cash-based pious foundations had become part of the social setup that a more fundamental critique was formulated, particularly by the scholar Mehmed Birgevi. This pious jurist put his finger on the most serious problem, namely that the prohibition of interest taking was being subverted by the very institutions designed to net their authors religious merit. However even though the teachings of Birgevi were quite influential among the 'fundamentalist' Kadtzadeliler of the seventeenth century, and also among later generations, this did not by any means lead to the abolition of pious
invest in pious foundations was made available, at least partly through a flourishing trade with Venice and Dubrovnik. In addition it is quite possible 1 For one example among a multitude, compare Barkan and Ayverdi (eds.), istanbul Vakiflan, p. 23, No 153. 2 Inalctk, Halil, "The Hub of the City: The Bedestan of Istanbul.'' International Journal of Turkish Studies (Madison, Wisc.), l, 1 (1979-80), pp. l-17. 3 Baer, Gabriel, "Women and Waqf. An Analysis of the Istanbul Tahrlr of 1546", Asian and African Studies, 17 (1983), pp. 9-27.
1
Mandaville, Jon E. "Usurious Piety: The Cash Waqf Controversy in the Ottoman Empire",
International Journal of Middle East Studies, X, 3 (1979), pp. 289-308. See also �izak�. "Cash
Waqfs,", pp. 316-17. On money-lending pious foundations in mid-sixteenth century Sarajevo see Norman, York, "lmarets, Islamization and Urban Development in Sarajevo 1461-1604," in Feeding People, Feedng i Power, lmarets in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Nina Ergin, Amy Singer. Christoph Neumann, (Istanbul, 2007), pp. 81-94, see p. 91.
2
�izak�a, "Cash Waqfs,", pp. 316-20. Books, which were often donated to a mosque or dervish lodge, presented a problem because they were even more impermanent; yet perhaps due to self-interest, scholarly opinion was willing to accept them.
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foundations based on cash holdings.1 Quite to the contrary, the latter continued to flourish throughout the seventeenth and - in part-eighteenth centuries. A pragmatic justification had been provided by Ebusuud Efendi, the influential head of the religious establishment under Siileyman the Lawgiver.2
MERC HANTS
I N
THE
ADRIATIC
241
disciples, nor the specific problems attached to the management of cash-based foundations prevented public-spirited personages from establishing and administering them.
For this eminent scholar had pointed out that if cash-based pious foundations were abolished, many mosques and public charities would have to cease operations, which could only be to the disadvantage of the Muslim community.3
Money-lending pious foundations in Sarajevo and - perhaps - elsewhere in Bosnia
In the 1600s charitable persons who wanted to help their neighbors
avarlZ taxes,
In our text, the debtors enumerated the pious foundations and orphans'
not rarely instituted cash-based foundations devoted especially to this purpose.4 Other funds were intended to provide for the upkeep of mosques, and
funds to which they owed money.' Almost sixty such foundations were
defray the often unforeseeable and therefore potentially ruinous
thus the
imam of a
well-endowed religious institution might be responsible
for the administration of three or four such cash-donations, for which he needed to find solvent borrowers. He would also be required to collect the interest that was to be expended according to the stipulations of the donor, for instance on purchasing oil for the mosque lamps or providing clean mats when required. As to conditions obtaining in the eighteenth century, especially the pious foundations now often established by ar:tisans' guilds in Istanbul and Bursa held most of their assets in the form of cash. As the accounts were audited with some frequency, we know something about the borrowers and
named; the exact number remained unclear, as usually no particulars were given beyond the names of the founders in question. Thus quite possibly several bearers of fairly frequent names, such as for instance Hact Mustafa, were in fact two persons instead of one, and had accordingly established more than one pious foundation. But as the register did not provide any particulars allowing us to distinguish between them, these possible homonyms appear to us as one and the same person. Moreover the locations of the lending
foundations also remaining unclear, some of the merchants may have borrowed from
vakifs located not in the town of Sarajevo itself but elsewhere,
also about the manner of administering foundation-owned capitaLS However as
probably within Bosnia itself, but in a few instances, who knows, perhaps
throughout the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century, the currency
even outside of the province.
was constantly being devalued, cash-based foundations would have had a very short life-span had the administrators not made special efforts to raise additional capitat.6 Thus neither the opposition of Mehmed Birgevi and his I Zilfi, Madeline, "Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul", The Journal of
Near Eastern Studies,
45,4 (1986) pp. 251-269.
2 Diizdag, Ertugrul, $eyhiilislam Ebusuud Efendi Fetvalan Ts1gmda 16. Am Tiirk Hayat1
�Istanbul, 1972).
Imber, Colin, Ebu's-su'ud, the Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 193-95. Compare also Mandaville, "Usurious Piety." 4 Compare the �rticle "avanz" in the islam Ansiklopedisi published by the Turkish Ministry of Education, by Orner Liitfi Barkan. 5 Faroqhi Suraiya, "Ottoman Guilds in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Bursa Case", in Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands 1480-1820 (Istanbul, 1995), pp. 93-ll2. 6 Many of them succeeded, at least for a while. Thus in the records produced by the auditors of the Bursa cash-based and craft-guild-sponsored foundations at the end of the eighteenth century, we encounter many supplements, probably made after the foundation under discussion had been in operation for some time. These additional funds were recorded in the name not of the guild itself, but in the name of the individual who had provided the money. Presumably whenever the foundation funds became dangerously depleted, the administrators must have found some well-to-do merchant or even guild member who was willing to help the foundation raise supplementary capital. Maybe the administrators even encouraged donations by promising prospective donors that their names would be entered into the foundation's records and thus remembered 'in perpetuity'; after all, similar privileged treatment is accorded to the 'sponsors', 'benefactors' etc. whose names adorn many museums and libraries today. See also <;izak�. "Cash Waqfs,", pp. 317-320. Whether such measures were already required in seventeenth-century Sarajevo unfortunately remains unk.nown. On currency devaluation, compare Pamuk, A Monetary History, p. 40ff. ,
·
Women were comparatively rare among the founders of cash-based
vakljs
that had lent money to the Bosnian merchants whose complaint
concerns us here. Our register records the foundations of Melek-sima, Mihri, Ommi, Zahide, Ay�e and Devlethan; all these women were given the title
hatun, which
in the sixteenth century still indicated respect. In all likelihood,
the foundation of Ommi hatun is identical to that recorded in the kadi register
(sicil) of Sarajevo dated 973/1566, which possessed a capital of 9600 or 9900 dirhem; here the interest collected by the foundation has been politely disguised as baha-l savb or 'money for cloth', one of the conventional ways of recording such matters.2 Given the much greater frequency of women patrons in Istanbul, it may be worth finding out why only Melek-sima, 1 The major source for this information is Avdo Suceska, "Vakufski krediti u Sarajevu prema podacima iz sid!ila Sarajevskog kadije iz godine 973, 974 I 975/ 1564, 65 I 66," Prilozi za Orientallnu Filologiju, 44-45 (1994-96), pp. 99-131. Once again, my thanks go to Markus Koller for making me aware of this article and translating the relevant sections. 2 Suceska, "Vakufski krediti," p. 121. The Arabic text and the trans.l.ation into Bosnian give divergent figures. However on p. I04, the author mentions a vak1j of Ummi hatun which had a much larger amount at its disposal. Possibly the foundation had received donations at different times, which were subject to separate accounting. Opsirni popis Bosanskog sandfaka iz 1604. godine, ed. by Adem Hand!ic (Sarajevo, 2000), vol. 1/l, p. 76 conta!ns a reference to a small foundation established by Devlete (in Turkish: Devlet) hatun; but smce Devlet and Devlethan are not the same name, I would hesitate to identify the two foundations.
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A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S
Mihri, Ommi, Zahide, Ay�e and Devlethan had been able to enter the illustrious company of
vakzf founders. Were there perhaps customary
impediments to female property holding that did not exist in the capital? In but a few instances, our list describes the institutions in question in such a manner that one can at least hope to find out something about them, however vaguely. This applies to the mosque of Hact Durahan b Nasuh, with which a school and a buka'a were associated. 1 For in 1614, when the pious foundations of Bosnia were systematically recorded, there was in fact an institution named Hact Durahan/ Turban; however this establishment did not contain a mosque or other buildings, but merely provided money for the upkeep of street pavements and gave out money for the celebration of nights that were festive according to the Muslim calendar.2 As the name of the founder, while not unusual, is not of the 'Ahmed b Mehmed' type, we may surmise that the two
vakzjs had some connection; perhaps the buildings had
been destroyed in a fire, and the founder had decided to rededicate the remaining capital? A little less vague is the reference to the foundation of Yakub P�a.
for a mescid of this name did in fact exist in Sarajevo in 1614.3 Unfortunately I have not been able to find out anything about the foundations known by the names of Bali Be� and Sinan Be�; this is all the more regrettable as both seem to have been rich in capital, with no less than six debtors recorded in each
case.
A major lender to Bosnian merchants was the complex of mosque,
theological school and other pious and charitable institutions established by the famous Gazi Htisrev beg, still extant i n downtown Sarajevo.4 According to the foundation document of 1537, this institution owned 300,000 dirhems to be lent out in such a fashion that every 10 produced an annual income of l dirhem. Thus the interest had been set at 10 percent; these figures
BOSNIAN MERCHANTS IN THE
A D R I AT I C
243
On the other hand, servitors of the Ottoman administration were considered bad credit risks by the authors of the 1537 foundation document, and were thus to be avoided: this applied not only to the officers associated with the governors and locally stationed military men
(ehl-i or/), timar-
holders not excluded, but also to judges and teachers in theological schools. All these dignitaries were mentioned in the same breath as people that were publicly known as liars and cheats; while the ehl-i orf had bad reputations throughout the empire, the inclusion of judges and teachers of law and divinity is rather more surprising. I It has been suggested that servitors of the sultans were considered poor credit risks because they were moved at short intervals, and could thus avoid their creditors; this was certainly part of the problem.2 But at times we find a similar stipulation even where foundations based in Istanbul were concerned. Yet as higher functionaries normally lived in the capital while lobbying for new appointments, the problems caused by functionaries' mobility should have been less urgent here than in a border province, where officials did not normally remain once their terms of office were over. We may assume however, that high-level officials could - and did use their political contacts to avoid payment, and that this possibility caused. the donors supplying pious foundations with capital to view them with considerable mistrust. And on a more general level, it is worth recalling that in the late sixteenth century, the governors sent to the provinces along with their retinues were often viewed as people with whom the locals only associated if they planned to cause trouble to their neighbors. Thus it would seem that reprobation went beyond the simple issue of credit-worthiness and touched upon matters of overall morality; for it was common enough, and the
corresponded to a capital of 1 ,200,000 akfe, or an annual income of 12,000.5
foundation document associated with Gazi Hi.isrev forms a graphic example of
The foundation administrators were enjoined to lend the money out 'according to the leriat, avoiding interest'; given the previous specifications, this
trustworthy in their communities.
this trend, to demand that borrowers be of good reputation and regarded as
probably should be understood as an admonition to not go beyond the rate specified in the document. Furthermore the administrators were to lend only to solvent and honest merchants, craftsmen and peasants.
I
James W., A Turkish and English Lexicon (Istanbul, 1921 ) tells us that this �ord was often used for structures of the religious character whose exact purpose remamed unspecified. 2 Opsirni, ed. Hand!ic, vol. Ill, p. 34. 3 Opsirni, ed. Hand!ic, vol. 1/1, p. 484. 4 For a translation of the relevant foundation documents into Bosnian compare "Vakufnam� Gazi Husrev-bega iz 1537", t.rs. by Fehim Spaho in Anonymous, V ak u _fnam e iz Bosne I Hercegovine (XV.· XVI. vij_ek) (Sarajevo, 1985), pp. 61-68, compare p articularly p. 64, once again consulted due to the kindness of Markus Koller.
Redhouse
,
5 Suceska, "Vakufski krediti;" p.
103.
Why compile a list of borrowers in serious trouble? Against this backdrop, we will try to determine why our register of merchant debtors was compiled, and this will allow us to explain how it finally came to rest in the Venetian archives. In all three sections of the register, the lists of debtors are introduced by notes to the effect that the 1 Faroqhi, Suraiya, "Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570-1650)" Journal ofthe Economic and Social History ofthe Orient, XXXIV (1 992), pp. 1-39. 2 Sueeska, "Vakufski k:redili;" p. 109.
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traveling members of certain commercial partnerships had, on the return trip from 'Frengistan', been attacked by robbers, or as our text put it, by 'unbelievers whose faces bite the dust'. Some of these unfortunates had been killed, while others had been carried off. We are also told that information concerning the fates of the prisoners and murdered men had reached Sarajevo by means of their more fortunate travel companions who had managed to escape. Moreover when mentioning the names of certain individual debtors, the text sometimes specifically stated that this or that person was either dead or had been imprisoned. Thus our register was no routine product of an auditor attempting to ensure that foundation administrators did not make off with the money entrusted to them, but rather the outcome of a special emergency. Now the fact that this register is located i n the Venetian archives makes i t seem probable that it was originally addressed to the Signoria, even though the covering letter which originally must have accompanied it, seems to have been lost. However from other documents in the Venetian archives, i t is possible to reconstruct at least part of the context. I
We have seen that in their complaint, the Bosnian merchants placed
special emphasis upon the fact that they were in debt to pious foundations or
B0SN IA N
M ERC H A NT
S
I N
TH
E A DR I A
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C
245
invested capital would return to them, an arrangement that was not possible in the standard types of commercial partnership.1
As the next step, we may ask ourselves why the Ottoman authorities felt that the Doge and his advisors should be informed of the especially difficult situation of the Sarajevo traders. Such a gesture seems intended to appeal to feelings of fairness and compassion. But if we focus on the world views reflected in the official parlance of both Ottomans and Venetians, it does not seem to make much sense to assume that the authors wished to appeal to the finer sentiments. After all in the view of a sixteenth-century sultan or vizier, Venice was located outside of the Islamic world, and with the ruling group of such a state, no community of values was imaginable. And as any historian of early modem Europe is well aware, similar assumptions were made in 'official Venice' as well. Therefore what was the point of describing in detail the plight of Bosnian or other Ottoman merchants who owed debts that due to the losses suffered, they could scarcely repay? However when we read the numerous letters written by Ottomans who were not sultans to the Venetian authorities, it is not rare to find remarks which show that some people were willing to go beyond this binary
else to funds held in trust for orphans. For apparently the debtors were required
opposition of the Muslim and Christian worlds. When on a personal level, an
to repay the money borrowed even if their trading ventures had ended in disaster through no fault of their own. This would not have been the case had the trustees in question entered into a partnership (mudarebe) with merchants
might for instance allude to the fact that as rulers of 'serious' states, both the
planning to travel, for in such instances, the loss would have been borne by whoever had provided the capital.2 From this state of affairs, we can conclude that lending money at interest was conceived as a means of protecting the sums of money owned by pious foundations, as well as those held in trust on behalf of orphans, from dilapidation. No matter what happened to the venture in which the funds were invested, the beneficiaries were guaranteed that the
Ottoman dignitary maintained reasonably good relations with Venice, he Sultan and the Signoria knew how to handle political problems and prevent them from getting out of hand. Examples of economically-based pragmatism could also be encountered. Thus the Doge and his advisors were sometimes reminded that if they failed to protect traders, the latter would find other routes - for instance through the territory of the Venetians' hated rival, the Ottoman dependency of Dubrovnik. This of course could only be of great disadvantage to Venice, whose position in international commerce, as was probably well known in Istanbul, in the seventeenth century was being challenged by powerful competitors.2 By implication, merchants ruined because of their
debts back home would cease to trade, and that would mean a further reduction 1
Faroqhi, Suraiya, "Ottoman Views on Corsairs and Piracy in the Adriatic," in The Kapudan Pasha. His Office and his Domain, ed. by Elizabeth Zachariadou (Rethymnon, 2002), pp. 357-
71 and reproduced in the present volume. 2 In his study of eighteenth-century cash-based
Bursa foundations, Murat (,;izak�a has shown that these institutions did in fact receive interest ((,;izak�a, "Foundations", pp. 330-33). After all, the sums of money the administrators derived from the funds placed at the disposal of the foundation in their charge always constituted a set percentage of the original fund, ten, twelve or fifteen percent according to the case at hand. This regularity would have been impossible to achieve had these foundations entered into commercial partnerships. If further proof were required (which, in my view, is not the case), then the evidence disc-ussed here also could be taken to show that the pious foundations of late sixteenth-century Sarajevo did not participate in mudOrebes.
of turnover for their Venetian business partners. Given these circumstances, it made sense to encourage the Signoria to do everything in its power to help the traders recoup their losses.
1 Compare Gedikli, Osman/1 $irket Kiiltiirii, pp. 213-36. The same author also has some very valuable �evelopments on what h�ppened if the muddraba capital was lost through no fault of _ the latter was in fact netd responsible·. pp. the traveling merchant, and also m cases _m wh1ch
237-55. 2 Sell�, Domenico, :crisis a !'d Transformation in Venetian Trade," in Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy 1968), pp. 88-105.
m
the Su:teenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. by Brian Pullan (London,
246
A N OT H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I N C E S On the other hand, such claims apparently were only convincing to the
Venetian authorities if they had been authenticated by the proper authorities. Complaints from traders who had been robbed certainly were frequent in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. After all, this was the time in which the aggressions of the Uskoks, pirates subject nominally to the Habsburgs but inclined to rob Christians and Muslims with equal relish, occurred with maximum frequency} Moreover Ottoman merchants who had
B O S N I A N M ER C H A NTS I N T H E A D R I A T I C
247
the suppliers of capital in a mudaraba were to be taken just as seriously as
those sustained by debtors to pious foundations and orphans' funds. Thus from the Venetian point of view, there should have been no difference between the two categories. But perhaps after all it was assumed in the court of Sarajevo
that these debtors were in such a parlous position that anybody involved in
international trade, even if an 'unbeliever', would sympathize with their plight? The problem needs further investigation.
been robbed tended to complain, often certainly with some justification, that the Venetian captains responsible for the safety of travelers in the northern Adriatic had made common cause with the pirates.2 On the other hand, it was at this time regular practice on the part of the Sultans to demand restitution of the losses sustained by their subjects from the Signoria. Or else, so it was occasionally threatened, a naval detachment would have to be sent from some Ottoman port in order to deal with the piracy problem. In order to prevent such an occurrence, the Venetians therefore had to go to some trouble and expense to recover goods robbed by the Uskoks and other pirates. It is likely that before beginning such difficult procedures, they demanded authenticated documents
(hiiccet)
from the Ottoman plaintiffs applying to them.
Understanding the meaning of such documents should not have presented much of a problem to the Venetian authorities, for there were quite a few translators who were familiar with Ottoman, and also knew the relevant bureaucratic procedure.3 However one question must for the time being remain unanswered: did the Venetian authorities in fact accord priority to merchants who had borrowed money from pious foundations and/ or orphans, or was this simply an assumption of the kadis and merchants back in Sarajevo? For there does not seem to be any doubt that at least the kadi Hasan had this matter much at heart. Or less he would not have compiled separate lists of people who had borrowed money from authentic pious foundations, and of those who were indebted but could not prove that their creditors really possessed vakifstatus. For if the Venetians' concern was principally with the fact that bankrupt Ottoman merchants could not continue to trade, then the damages suffered by
I Bracewell, Catherine
Wendy, The Uskoks of Senj, Piracy, Banditry and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca, London, 1992).
Conclusion We may thus conclude that 'our' register was meant to authenticate the claims of a sizeable group of Bosnian merchants who had been robbed, presumably by Uskok pirates. These claims were directed not against the robbers themselves, who remained inaccessible in their mountain fastness of Senj, but against the Venetian state. For the Signoria claimed the right to police the Adriatic, and this claim was accepted as convenient by the Ottoman Sultans. Of course the effectiveness of such complaints must not be over
estimated. In the best of cases, the Venetians were only able to retrieve part of the goods stolen, and sometimes the ship itself, which was difficult to hide
and for which the pirates themselves might not have had much use. On the other hand kidnapped merchants and easily transportable wares might be harder to retrieve. After all the Veneto-Ottoman understanding in these matters specified that the Venetians could not be expected to enter a foreign state in order to retrieve prisoners or stolen goods.1 However there were pirates who were Venetian subjects, and in those cases, the Signoria was expected to
proceed against them directly.2
From a present-day viewpoint, the reaction of a prudent merchant
would have been to seek maritime insurance, especially since in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ottoman owners of ships did sometimes avail themselves of the insurance facilities existing in Venice. After all at about this time, a famous case was fought out in Istanbul which involved a ship that was lost while insured in Venice; the question the Ottoman authorities
had to decide was whether the
bailo,
as the representative of the Venetian
state, could be held responsible for the debts of Venetian insurers - after a great many arguments back and forth, it was decided that he could not.3 But
2 Pedani Fabris, / "Documenti turchi", p. 276, Busta 9, No 1078. 3 Many of the Ottoman documents recorded in Pedani Fabris, I "Documenti turchi" have
contemporary translations into Italian attached to them. On the world in which such intermediaries lived, compare Kafadar, Cerna!, "A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima", Journal of Turkish Studies. 10, (1986), Raiyyet Riisumu, Essays presented to Ha/il lnalcik ..,pp. 191-218. On arguably the most sophisticated translator in the si�teent�-centu� Y_enetian service, who was also sent to Iran as an ambassador, compare Pedam Fabns, Mana P1a, In nome det 'Gran Signore. Inviati ottomani a Venezi a da/la caduta di Costantinopoli alia guerra di Candia
(Venezia,
I994),
pp. 29 and 44.
1 Senj formed part of the Habsburg border territories.
2 Compare Fabris, Antonio, "Un caso di pirateria veneziana: Ia cattura della galea del bey di Gerba (21 ottobre 1584)" Quaderni di studi arabi, 8 (1990), pp. 91- t l2. 3 Compare Tomaso Berte!�. ll palazzo degli ambasciatori di Venezia a Costantinopoli e le anriche menwrie (Bologna, 1932), p. 139, note 97. I owe this reference to Benjamin Arbel, to whom I am profoundly grateful. There is another study on this subject, but in this respect, I can
do no more than to quote Fernand Braude!: reference egaree.
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A N O T H E R M I R R O R F O R P R I NCES
then the Ottoman ship owners who purchased insurance in Venice may have been larger i nvestors than the comparatively modest businessmen operating out of Sarajevo. From the
hficcet examined
here, it is apparent that in late sixteenth
THE OTTOMANS AND THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
century Bosnia, cash-based pious foundations were frequently used by merchants to finance their business acti vities. While we cannot identify most of these institutions i n official registers of pious foundations, it is worth noting that some large and very well established institutions, such as the vakifof Hiisrev Beg, had acquired cash funds that were lent out to merchants. We may hypothesize that most private owners of capital avoided relatively high-risk operati ons, such as crossing the Adriatic in an age of piracy. Therefore Sarajevo traders doing business in Venice seem to have had trouble finding people willing to enter into muddrabas, for the latter would have had
A discussion of relations between early modern kingdoms and empires: the Ottoman viewpoint Complications in the Adriatic region between Venice, the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman sultans have been studied quite frequently; but while many of these studies are very thorough and detailed, the Ottoman perspective
to sustain the loss in case the capital came to grief through no fault of the
all too often is missing. At the very most, this or that reaction of a sultan or
traveling partner. Thus traders were reduced to finding the necessary cash under
vizier will be studied on the basis of European sources reporting the
conditions relati vely disadvantageous to themselves, and borrow from pious
impressions of a Venetian, Habsburg or French envoy. Thus it is easy to
foundations and orphans' funds: for as we have seen, whatever happened to
their business ventures, the hapless merchants still were obliged to pay back their debts to these especially privileged creditors.
come away with the impression that the Ottoman power elite had little to say on the subject of the Adriatic, perhaps because the Empire was mainly land based and therefore problems concerning maritime traffic were not taken very seriously. Yet such an interpretation seems to be quite mistaken; and in this article we will attempt to present a more appropriate evaluation of Ottoman views and intentions concerning maritime trade in the Adriatic region. Quite recently however a number of studies have been published that do include the Ottoman perspecti ve; with respect to Venice, Maria Pia Pedani Fabris and Daniel Goffman have made especially important contributions. 1 But as Goffman has explained in a convincing fashion, it is often very hard to 'synchronize' the statements of Ottoman sources and their counterparts written by authors from Western or Central Europe; for sultans and viziers had their own agendas that often were quite different from those of European potentates. Opportunities for dialogue on the official level were therefore limited; and certain questions concerning the Ottoman-Venetian relationship for instance, are treated in Ottoman sources either cursorily or not at all. Furthermore at least where the early modem period is concerned, more documents concerning Adriatic - and for that matter Mediterranean - navigation survive in Venice than in Istanbul. Therefore even if historians make a concerted effort to 'take both sides into account' they may find themselves emphasizing the Venetian standpoint to the disadvantage of its Ottoman counterpart. To balance this all but unavoidable defect we can only try to analyze all source materials produced by the sultans' officials with particular thoroughness. I Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, In nome del Gran Signore. lnviati ottomani a Venezia dalla caduta di Costantinopoli alia guerra di Candia, Venice, 1994; eadem, Dalla frontiera al confine, Rome. 2002; Daniel Goffman. Britons in the OttOIIUJn Empire 1642-1660, Seattle and London. 1998; idem, The Otloman Empire and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2002.
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THE OTTOMANS AND THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
Certainly in the years just before and after 1600 the Ottoman central government took a close interest i n the fate of its traders travelling to Venice. All merchants who were Ottoman subjects, whether they were Muslims, Jews or Christians, might tum to the sultans' court when they needed protection from robbers on land and pirates on the high seas. To some extent the Ottoman court was concerned with the customs revenues that could be collected from successful traders after their return; this consideration was voiced quite often and thus must have been part of the principles of good government in the Ottoman lands as well as in Christendom. But in addition the
�ultans' concern with
the fates of their merchants also was politically
motivated: after all an attack by foreign subjects against Ottoman traders at least symbolically also involved a challenge to the power and legitimacy of their rulers in Istanbul.
251
and some fifteen years ago has been made accessible by a very full and detailed catalogue.1 The petitions of such traders typically have been written in a simple form of Ottoman Turkish. Mistakes are not rare and both style and handwriting make it clear that the authors were literate but only on an elementary level. Most of these petitioners were Muslims: this fact is worth noting because many Christian and Jewish subjects of the sultans were robbed in the Adriatic under exactly the same conditions; at least some of these men must have been literate in Ottoman as well. But presumably non-Muslim Ottoman subjects mostly wrote their petitions in languages such as Greek, Slavonic or even Italian. However, at least some Muslim Bosnian merchants that were not native speakers of Turkish also preferred to write their petitions in this official language of the Ottoman administration.2
These petitions cum complaints throw an unfortunately rather meagre
The sources
ray of light on the manner in which traders from the sultan's lands that otherwise have left few written records, presented themselves to the
Subjects of the sultans who were attacked by robbers and/or pirates could procure themselves official letters written in the names of the sultan
authorities: even fairly well-to-do merchants often thought it politic to approach both sultan and doge in the guise of humble petitioners. Furthermore
and/or grand vizier of the time, which put pressure on the Signoria of Venice
these accounts allow us to pinpoint some of the danger spots on the way from
to compensate the victims of crimes that might or might not have been
Istanbul to Venice. Upon occasion our texts also show the arangements that
committed by Venetian subjects. But whatever the rights and wrongs of the case at issue, the attacks had occurred in waters which the government of
(faVu§)
Ottoman travellers might make in order to protect their persons and goods.
But apart from to these records in Turkish that were preserved in
to the
Venice, we possess a further collection of relevant source materials located in
Serenissima, the Ottoman authorities stressed the importance of the robbery,
the archives of Istanbul, known as the 'Foreigners registers' (Ecnebi defterleri)
demanding the recovery of the stolen goods and/or the punishment of the
or more precisely as the 'Registers concerning foreign states' (Oilvel-i ecnebiye
robbers. 1 These envoys had to be housed and entertained at the Signoria's
defterleri). Unfortunately many of these registers seem to have been lost; and
Venice claimed to control. By sending a special messenger
expense; thus the latter had good financial reasons for solving the affair in
those concerning Venice while among the oldest to survive, begin only in the
question as quickly as possible. In consequence the Venetian archives contain
early seventeenth century. In these document collections we find the replies
a good deal of information about these Ottoman messengers and their
issued in the name of the sultan to the requests and petitions of the
business.2
ambassadors of foreign rulers. The original petitions were never copied out;
Apart from turning to the sultans, Ottoman merchants who had been robbed on Venetian territory, or else on the Adriatic itself also might petition the doge for help in recovering at least part of their goods. As a result of both these procedures a considerable amount of correspondence concerning the
but it was customary to preface the actual command by a summary of the correspondence that had occasioned it. In the Venetian case most of the letters asking for the sultans' intervention and thus setting into motion the bureaucratic process were written by the scribes of the permanently resident
problems of Ottoman traders in the Adriatic lies in the Venetian state archives,
1 Suraiya Faroqhi, "Ott o� Vie�s on Corsairs and Piracy in the Adriatic," in The Kapudan . f!ffic� and hi Pasha. Hs z sD o mazn, ed. by Elizabeth Zachariadou, Rethymnon, 002: 357-71 2 ·� th1s volume).
�reprod�
abns, /n IWme del Gran SigMre, passim. mF a d e P
1 Maria Pia Pedani Fabris, / "Documenti turchi" deli'Archivio di Stato di Venezia; Roma, 1994. This archival catalogue is made accessible to the non-Ottomanist by its long summaries in Jta.lian of many of the most important documents: they mostly have been prepared by Alessio
Bombaci. 2 Suraiya Faroqhi, "Bosnian merchants in the Adriatic," in Ottoman Bosnia, A History in Peril this publication has also appeared as The International Journal ofTurkish Studies, 10, 1 2 ed. by Markus Koller and Kemal Karpat (2004): 225-39 (reprinted in this volume). -
,
252
ANOTHER
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representative of the Signoria known as the
PRI NCES
bailo
(often spelled
THE OTTOMANS A N D THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
balyos
in
Turkish). Most of the sultanic commands deal with Istanbul and the city's immediate environment; but as the Venetians possessed a well-developped consular network in many places that their traders might visit. the ambassador might intervene in favour of merchants and consuls situated in fairly remote provinces as well. Moreover for reasons that are not always clear, the interests
of certain Christians subject to the sultans, particularly the Maronites living
in Mount Lebanon, also were occasionally defended by the bailo, and therefore the relevant sultans' commands found their way into the 'Registers concerning foreign states' covering the affairs of Venice. 1 Strangely enough Ottoman chancery officials were in the habit of copying edicts concerning Venice and Dubrovnik/Ragusa into the same volumes, even though the two polities were bitter rivals and the tiny city-state of Dubrovnik was a tributary of the sultans. Possibly this custom dated back to the ti me before
1570 when Venice
also paid tribute to the Ottomans for its
local
253
administration. In this perspective the western Balkans and the Adriatic
coastlands doubtless were less important than the Aegean region. Given natural conditions it could not well have been otherwise: both in the eastern Balkans and in western Anatolia agricultural resources were and are much greater than i n the Adriatic coastlands. For in Dalmatia the strips of land with a Mediterranean climate are quite narrow and the adjacent mountains rough and infertile. Furthermore the Aegean is much closer to Istanbul, and to reach the eastern Mediterranean from the Adriatic it was necessary to circumnavigate the Peloponnesus, a difficult and sometimes dangerous undertaking under seventeenth-century conditions. As a result Ottoman archival documents have much Jess to say about the region that concerns us here than about Macedonia or Thessaly with their cottons, raisins and woollens so often delivered to the Ottoman capital. Even so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were quite a few Ottoman merchants in the Adriatic region if only because traders on their
possession of Cyprus, so that from the Istanbul perspective, the legal status if
way from Istanbul to Venice could not avoid passing through. Moreover
not the physical power of the two republics was comparable. Moreover the
Muslim, Christian and Jewish subjects of the sultans lived in the city of the
spelling of the names of the two cities in the Arabic script must have helped
doges over lengthier or shorter periods of time, trading over long distances not
to perpetuate the custom: when only the consonants are written the terms of 'Venedik' and 'Dobra-Venedik' (Dubrovnik) look rather similar, especially if we take into account that in this script. 'd' and 'v' are easily confused if written by a careless scribe. In the present article we will concentrate on one of the earliest among these 'Registers concerning foreign states'. Found in the series 'Diiveli ecnebiye' it dates to the early seventeenth century and mainly covers Venetian affairs.
only with the Ottoman capital but even with far-off Ankara. It is thus a mistake to assume that the initiative in this trade was always on the Venetian side. I A broad selection of goods arrived from Istanbul; Ankara was a source
of mohair fabrics and yam. Ottoman documents only begin to cover this trade from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards. But for this latter period, relatively 'late' by the standards of the Venetian historian. they have a good deal to tell us. Thus around
1 574-75 the inhabitants of a
number of villages and small
towns in the vicinity of Ankara responded to the complaints of a tax collector about the poor quality of the silver coins in which they had paid their taxes,
Commerce in context
pointing out in their defense that the only coin they had at their disposal was that received from middlemen as payment for their deliveries of mohair to
Viewed from Istanbul it was the principal role of the provinces to supply the sultans' court, the armies, the navies and last but not least, the population of the capital. Demands in money, food, raw materials and human labour were quite high, and securing them formed one of the major tasks of I B�bakanhk AJlivi-Osmanh AJlivi, Sektion Maliyeden mildevver (from now BA-OA, MM) No. 6004 and 17901; these two registers have been miscatalogued and actually belong into the series DUveli ecnebiye. Both of them cover the period from 1618 to 1628. Sultans' commands dated to these very same years are also fou.nd in BA-OA, Series DUveli ecnebiye 13/1. l still have not been able to detennine the criteria by which these rather similar documents have been distributed over the three surviving registers. When writing "The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire•, The Journal of European Economic His ory (Rome), 15 (1986): 345-84, repri nt in The Ottoman Emp re and the World Economy, ed. by. Huri fslamoglu lnan, Cambridge, 1987: 31 1-44 I only knew MM 6004 und 17901. My acqaintance with O!lveli ecnebiye 13/1 is still quite recent.
i
t
Venice.2 Certainly explanations given to the tax collector always should be taken with a grain of salt, yet the Ottoman office-holders involved must have known the economic activities of the region reasonably well and even if not strictly truthful, the excuse that no better-quality coins were available at least must have sounded believable. From this story we can conclude that by the
1570s
exporting mohair to Venice was a significant source of income to
certain villages of the Ankara region.
1 Cemal Kafadar "A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima• Jou �nal of Turkish Studies, 10 (1986), also published as Raiyyet Riisumu, Essays
�
presented to Ha lil lnalcik ...: 191-218; Benj n Arbel, Trading Nations, Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean, Le1d en, 1995. 2 BA-OA, Milhimme Defteri 24, p. 231, No. 614 (98211574-75).
254
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THE OTTOMANS AND THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
How were these products carried to the Adriatic, and from there to Venice? As even in the second half of the twentieth century Ankara's road connections to the Black Sea coast were mostly quite poor, we may assume that many traders preferred the caravan route to Istanbul. As an alternative, it was possible to travel through Izmir, especially when after about
1650
this
town had developed into a major port.1 But the complaints of merchants that
255
As for the Venetian authorities they were willing to invest in the new route because in this way they hoped to diminish the trade of their eternal rival Dubrovnik. Around
1620 the latter town
did in fact suffer major commercial
losses. 1 Moreover given the expanse of water to be patrolled and the multitude
of corsairs and pirates it made sense to concentrate all efforts on the security of
had been attacked by pirates were so frequent that in spite of the higher costs
a single route. At the same time during the early years of the seventeenth
involved, i n all probability many traders preferred to traverse the Balkans,
century the Ottoman government also was willing to make a major effort in
reaching an Adriatic port by an overland route. This assumption fits in well with the observations of Fernand Braude!, who now over forty years ago noted that in the second half of the sixteenth century, Mediterranean maritime routes
order to enhance security on the routes connecting the different urban centres of the Balkans to Spalato.2
had become so insecure that many merchants re-discovered overland transportation.2 As a result the ancient Roman road known as the Via Egnatia was used not only by soldiers but also by traders, although Ottoman documents usually were concerned with its military functions. In these records we find the expression
sol kol or left
arm; this term applied to the south-western route
that led into the Balkans from Istanbul; for when the traveller's back was
turned towards the Ottoman capital, the
sol
kol lay on his left-hand side.
Among the Adriatic ports which could be reached on the Via Egnatia the most important was Dubrovnik; just like Venice this town was without antecedents in antiquity, having come to prominence only in the middle ages.3 In
1573
the peace treaty between Sultan Selim II (r.
1566-74)
and the
Signoria that ended the Cyprus war had stipulated that the coasts of the Adriatic should be patrolled by Venetian captains, to protect Ottoman and other traders from attacks by the numerous corsairs and pirates infesting these waters.4 At some point in time the two sides also agreed that Gabela, a port originally preferred by Ottoman subjects as the starting point for their crossings of the Adriatic should be given up i n favour of Spalato/Split, a
A policy of neighbourly relations, Ottoman style During this period, until the war over Crete ( 1645-69) ruined what was
left of Ottoman-Venetian commerce, the sultans seem to have been seriously concerned about maintaining friendly or at least reasonably good relations with the Signoria. The political problems that beset the Ottoman Empire at this time have frequently been discussed and therefore can be referred to here only in passing. On the one hand the so-called Long War with the Habsburgs in Hungary continued until the peace ofTsitva-Torok in 1606, while the navy of Naples, at that time a province of the Spanish Empire governed by ambitious viceroys, was an additional threat to the western Balkans.3 On the eastern
1623 when the Ottoman ruler 1623-40) was only a boy, Shah 'Abbas I of Iran conquered Only in 1638, towards the end of his reign was Murad IV able to
border the situation was yet more serious: in Murad IV (r. Baghdad.
invade Iraq and regain the city. Furthermore in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries all of Anatolia was badly shaken by a series of mercenary rebellions, und even large cities like Bursa or Ankara were
place located on Venetian territory. The Ottoman side agreed to this change as
temporarily occupied and sacked by the mutineers. Control of the situation
the powerful Jewish merchant Daniele Rodriga had persuaded the Venetian
was not made any easier by the fact that several sultans of the time were of
authorities to institute a closely supervised connection between Spalato and Venice that was considered more secure than any other Adriatic route.
unstable mind or else were enthroned as children. When it came to the legitimacy of the Ottoman dynasty the reconquest of Baghdad, the ancient seat of the caliphate evidently was given special importance. Presumably considerations of this type explain why Murad IV for all his posturing as a
; Daniel Goff
man,
lzmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650, Seattle/London, 1990: 50-51.
Feman� Braude!, La Mlditerranee et le monde miditerraneen a l'epoque de Philippe 11, 2 vols., Paris 1966, vol. 1: 261.
3 Elizabeth Zacbariadou (ed.), The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule, Rethymnon, 1997. 4 Acc rding to European customs of the time, the captain of a ship might receive a commission � from h1s sovereign to attack the ships belonging to the subjects of another ruler with whom the forme� �as_at war. �uch captains were called corsairs. They temporarily became part of the C?r ru russ10rung rulers navy; and once peace was concluded their commissions were abrogated. Pir a tes by contrast attacked whatever ships they could find; they were not considered belli�erents and legitimately could be hanged by those who captured them. While clea.r in law, . the d1fference between corsai rs and pirates was often blurred in practice.
victorious conqueror preferred to concentrate all his forces on reconquering Iraq and avoided any conflicts on the Habsburg or Venetian frontiers.
1 Renzo Paci, "La Scala, di Spa/ato e il commercia veneziano nei Balcani fra Cinque e Seicento, Venice, 1971: 81-82.
2 Paci, "La Scala.,: 105 and 110. 3 Caroline Finlcel, The Administration of Warfare: the Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606, 2 vols. Vienna 1988; Jan Paul Niederkom, Die europiiischen Machte und der ,Lange Tiirlcenkrieg" Kaiser Rudolfs II (1593-1606), Vienna, 1993, passim; BA-OA, Diiveli Ecnebiye 13/1, p. 153, No. 720.
256
ANOTHER
M I R R OR
FOR
P R I NCES
THE OTTOMAN S A N D THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
Ottoman officials were not in the habit of arguing about issues of foreign policy, at least not in the documents that have come down to us. As a result many concerns of sultans and viziers need to be deduced from the relatively bland texts available; and our deductions are never totally certain. Therefore it is especially interesting to find a few documents that discuss the manner in which Ottoman diplomats conceptualized long-term good relations with a non-Muslim polity. Thus a sultanic command dated Ramazan 1027/August-September
1618 and addressed
to the Islamic judges (qadis) of
iskenderiye/Shkodra, Bar and Olgun claimed that the Venetian government 'since ancient times', had been linked to the Ottoman throne in good faith, peace and amity. In reaJity, peaceful relations such as they were, were of a
257
trouble Venetian merchants trading with Ottoman subjects might have mmercial collecting the sums of money owed to them; problems relating to c credit and only debts were especially frequent as many local traders bought on of the �oods t part could pay their suppliers when they had sold at lea . hke n previously purchased. In such situations a Venetian creditor m•.ght act sultamc a obtaimng Ottoman merchant who had been robbed by pirates,
?
�
�
command that supported his claims. Only in this case the officials supposed and to intervene were not the Venetian authorities but the sultans' governors
qadis, and the sultan's writ was supposed to document the good faith of the
Venetians seeking official intervention.
�
As a graphic example we have a letter that in the early sevent enth
much more recent vintage, having been instituted by the peace treaty of 1573.
century was addressed to Osman Pa�a. who had been sent to Yanya/Janmna to
continuing over forty years and more were inherently dubious; but our texts
collect taxes; as so often happened, the second recipient of this sultanic order
According to Islamic law peaceful relations with a non-Muslim power
carefully avoided any reference to any legally motivated need to resume 'holy war against the infidel.' As is well known, the Ottomans established long term treaty relations not only with the Venetians but with other Christian polities as well; and by the early seventeenth century, documents that set out the
conditions
of
such
'peaceful
coexistence',
the
so-called
was the local qadi.' A Christian trader from this town named Boyo (?) Marko
had been active in Venice and incurred debts to the tune of 278 guru� (probably in Spanish coin): the creditor was a certain Covan Badran (?) In addition other goods remained unpaid that Marko had acquired from other
� or �o the
trading partners whose names were not mentioned. By some tric
� tthout
ahidnames/capitulations had been granted to Venice, France, England and the
aggrieved Covan put it, Boyo (?) Marko had managed to leave Vemce
Netherlands. I In quite a few texts contained in the Duveli ecnebiye register we
satisfying his creditors; and at the time of writing, for a considerable time he
even find the claim that good relations with the Venetians went back all the way to the times of Sultan Orban (r.
1326-62),
thus writing the campaigns
and conquests of Mehmed II, Suleyman the Magnificent and others right out of history. Presumably at least some Ottoman officials knew very well that such statements were historically false. But the factual truth of these claims is of limited importance. It is much more significant that in the early seventeenth century, some high-level Ottoman officials thought it desirable to invent a long and peaceful tradition of neighbourly relations pour les besoins de la
cause.
had once again been established in his home town of Jannina. At some point in the past Covan had sent a representative to Marko's residence, who had
�n
unable to collect the money; to make a bad matter worse the contumactous debtor had made sure that Covan's representative suffered financial losses. A number of sultanic commands to examine the matter in court had not elicited any positive response either; and therefore the Ottoman ruler now reiterated his order. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether Covan had better luck this time.
This story was by no means unique; and we possess documents
lskenderiye/Shkodra, Bar and Olgun that we previously have had occasion to
concerning a similar conflict but involving more important people. In Ju e � . July 1605 the authorities in Istanbul responded to a complamt fro the bat�o, . dealing with 2863 Venetian silver coins owed to the nobile Alotstus/Aivtse
specifically the Ottoman central authorities forbade any attacks on Venetian
Contarini. 2 His debtor also was a Venetian subject; but as the latter had
In the text of August-September
1618
addressed to the qadis of
discuss, the addressees were admonished to maintain the peace. More territories, ships and even individual subjects. Provincial administrators were told to maintain good relations with their Venetian counterparts including the sea captains in charge of maritime security on the Adriatic routes. As we will see this passage was of special significance; and other sultanic commands in our register help us figure out to what concrete issues it might apply. 1 Compare the article "lmtlyazat" in The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, by Halil Inalcik and BA-OA, DUveli ecnebiye 13/1, p. 153, No. 720.
�
farmed a saltpan situated on Ottoman territory he probably lived somewhere in
the lands of the sultan. As was customary in such cases Contarini had sent a
representative to collect the debt; but he must have been anxious to avoid the kinds of trouble that had occurred in Boyo (?) Marko's case. Therefore preliminary measures were taken in Istanbul: the governor of Bosnia, as well 1 DUveli ecnebiye 13/1, S. 54, No 235. 2 DUveli ecnebiye 13/1. p. 23, No 80.
258
A NOTHER
MIR ROR
FOR
PR I NCES
as the qadi of an unspecified town, was to make sure that the case came to court. Apparently this case was taken more seriously by the authorities than the Jannina dispute: either the Contarini demands were better documented or else the social position of the creditor was taken into consideration. For our text specified that if the debtor continued to refuse payment after the court had decided against him, he was to be arrested and sent to IstanbuL
THE OTTOM ANS AND THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
259
?
would have to send a naval detachment of his own if the attacks did not st P· . But such a move would have been a major loss of presttge for t e Venettan
�
:vemment especially in the eyes of the Spanish governors of Mtlan, whose
�rritory had a common border with the Venetian terrafer�. As a result the
Venetians finally went to war with the archidukes of Styna and after a short
confrontation obtained the relocation of the Uskoks away from the sea.
�
However in some conflicts of this type the Ottoman gover ment clearly made common cause with the Venetians. Thus there survtves a . command of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) addressed to the governor of Bosma
Dangers along the coast Unpaid bills and contumacious debtors caused numerous annoyances; but much more serious were the attacks of pirates and corsairs. Ottoman subjects of whatever religion were particularly threatened by the so-called Uskoks. These men defined themselves as refugees from the sixteenth-century Ottoman advance in the Balkans. But quite a few of them had joined the Uskok community without any direct involvement in the Ottoman-Hungarian Habsburg confrontation, and thus were not refugees in any ordinary sense of the term. Uskok headquarters were located in the fortress of Senj/Segna, perched on top of a mountain; appropriately and amusingly the Ottomans called this place Seng, which is Persian for 'rock'. In principle the Uskoks were supervised by the Habsburg archidukes of Styria and were counted as militiamen serving on the imperial military frontier. However control by the Habsburgs was often nominal and by the standards of early modem European custom, the corsair status of the Uskoks was highly doubtful as well. After aH they were in the habit of re-defining Venetian and other merchants who traded with Muslims as 'bad Christians' whom they might legitimately attack. But as the Venetians for the most part were at peace with the Austrian Habsburgs, the latter could not have commissioned Uskok captains to attack Venetian ships.
However
considerations of this type do not seem to have had much impact on the war making of the Uskoks, particularly as the pay owed to them by the imperial authorities often was greatly in arrears.
I
For the Venetian authorities the Uskoks were a major threat: every time Ottoman merchants were pillaged, kidnapped and even murdered by the latter, the claims of the former that they were able to ensure the security of goods and persons i n the Adriatic lost credibility.2 Thus letters from the administration in Istanbul made it quite clear to the Signoria that the sultan 1 Catherine Wendy Bracewell, The Us/coles of Sixteenth-Century Adriatic Ithaca NY, London, Sen}. Piracy, Banditry and Holy War in the 1992: 139-54. 2 Paci, La "Scala": 69-70.
(October 1609), dealing with an attack on the part of the Uskoks
�
?n t�e
Ottoman fortress of iskardin.l Mter this event some people ad complamed tn . . I tanbul that men from the Venetian castle of �tbentk/Sebemco had
;ru
cipated in the attack. By contrast the bailo had affi rmed that the Uskoks . . caught these certainly were no subjects of Venice. If ever the S1gnona miscreants they were sure to be exemplarily punished. As our text tells us,
�
�
these assurances had been accepted by the sultan's court, and ow th governor
�
of iskardin was enjoined to forbid slanders against the Venet1ans w1th respe t . . . to th IS affair. The prohibition was intended to protect the Seremss1ma s
�
subjects; for if significant numbers of Ottoman soldiers and/ r mlTtttamen · . carne to believe in Venetian complicity, any subjects of the S1gnona could become the victims of reprisal actions.
Life in and around the Adriatic was made even more difficult by the fact
� r:amattc case of this type occurred in 1584, when Venice and the Ottoman Em�tre had long been at peace. Near the island stronghold of Corfu, whtch �he
that certain Venetian captains, whose job it was to protect Ottoman and oth r
merchants sometimes engaged in piracy themselves. A particularly d
Serenissima managed to defend throughout its existence, the Venettan
commanders Gabriele and Giovanni Emo attacked and robbed a galley belonging to the Bey of Djerba, which was to bring the widow of the governor Ramazan P�a to Istanbul. This Ottoman lady had entreated the
�
pirates to save the life of her son; but she was murdered in the m st brutal and sadistic fashion along with her serving women.2 Moreover surv1vors among
�
the men were cruelly killed even after they had surrendered, probably becau e the robbers were afraid of leaving any witnesses. All valuables on the shtp were plundered by Gabriele and Giovanni Emo and their crew and
�uld.not be
retn·eved·, the Venetian treasury had to compensate the owners he1rs for · the goods lost. At first the Signoria hesitated to publicly proceed agamst the 1
Diiveli ecnebiye
2 Antomo · Fabn·5 ottobre
1311, p. 73, No 3!1.
"Un caso di pirateria veneziana: Ia cattura della galea del bey dt· Gerba (21
1584)," Quaderni di Studl. Arabi,. 8 (1990)·. 92 1 12. •
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ANOTHER
260
MIRROR
FOR
PRINCES
THE OTTOMAN S AND THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC
culprits; this complacent attitude was not rare and quite often such robbers were punished leniently if at all. But soon it became clear that due to this appalling crime, the Serenissima had been pushed to the brink of war with the sultan at a time when the authorities regarded such a confrontation as absolutely undesirable. As a result the government finally decided to publicly execute at least one of the two commanders.
This case certainly was extreme; but the everyday risks of travel in the
Adriatic are clearly apparent from the complaints of Ottoman merchants who might have lost a servitor or two through pirate action, to say nothing of material losses. These men often claimed that the Venetian captains responsible for conveying merchantmen safely to Venice i n fact had made common cause with the attackers. Surely in many cases this complaint was justified.' However in some instances tactical considerations may have played
261
� �ts
Matters were complicated by the fact that the governor of t e Peloponnesus (in Ottoman: Mora) recently had been dismi ssed and
�
successor had not yet arrived. Therefore at the time of writing, he Venett n � slaves still had not been liberated; and to top it all off the Engltsh consul tn . Balyabadral Palaiopatras had profited from the situation and acqUired some items taken from the Liona for himself. Now in the years around
.
1 600 nvalry
between English and Venetian merchants was bitter; and the latter must have feared that once the English consul had gotten involved, no possibility would remain of retrieving even part of the goods that had been robbed from the Liona. In the tong run we will need to find out whether this thorny affair has also been treated in documents surviving in the Venetian archives. A rather unique case in our register concerns a man who was probably a
Venetian subject and who acted as middleman in the ransoming of Muslim
a part as well: for in all likelihood the authorities in Venice felt a greater need
captives. These people had been enslaved somewhere in Christian Europe;
i n these crimes.
more specific. I Our text only tells us that this middleman was an experienced
to intervene if their own servitors and/or officials stood accused of complicity
Our register also documents certain cases in which Venetian traders had
been robbed by Ottoman subjects. A series of sultanic commands covered the misfortunes of the ship Liona that had been taken by pirates when returning from Istanbul to Venice. While the attack took place when the Liona was trying to round the Peloponnesus, the case also concerned the Adriatic as several of the robbers came from the Ottoman island of Aya Mavra, which is located at the entrance to the latter sea.2 As for the remaining pirates, they came from the Peloponnesus itself. According to Venetian claims the value of the ship's cargo amounted to
300,000
gold pieces; whether this estimate was at all realistic of course is
impossible to determine. In this <:_ase as well some of the sailors were murdered; and as the pirates apparently did not possess any official backing, they hurriedly disposed of the loot. Just like Ottoman traders in the same position, the Venetians demanded that their property be returned and those survivors that had been enslaved should be set free. As usual it could not be realistically expected that the new owners of these slaves and trade goods, who might have purchased them in good faith or else been accomplices of the pirates, would be willing to return their acquisitions without further ado.
Therefore the sultan ordered that even the excuse "this item has been acquired
on behalf of the [Ottoman) treasury" was not to be considered as valid where the goods robbed from the Liona were at issue. 1 Arcllivio di Stato, Venezia, Documenti turchi, Busta 8, No 963; Pedani Fabris, I
turchi". p. 240 has a detailed summary of this teJtt by Alessio Bombaci.
"Documenti
2 DUveli ecnebiye 13/1, p. 41, No 170 (�evval 1015/January-february 1607), p. 49, No 2 1 1 (Cem.l 1016/August-Septcmber 1607) and others.
unfortunately the Ottoman term of 'Frengistan' is so vague that we cannot be traveller by the name of Odoardo; it does not even state whether he was a subject of Venice or else of Oubrovnik. Apparently Odoardo had eceived a � laissez-passer from the authorities in Istanbul that stated that 1ts holder wished to travel to the province of Algiers and from there to 'Frengistan.' After arrival he planned to visit his home town, purchase Muslim slaves with his own funds and bring them to the Ottoman capital. Presumably the families of the former captives would then reimburse him; but of this aspect of the deal, our text says nothing. All Ottoman office-holders along the entire Mediterranean coast were to assure Odoardo's safe passage; they also were enjoined to permit him to buy supplies at the prices current in l�al markets. Odoardo thus had received a typical Ottoman lai ssez-passer, no dtfferent from those also issued to Muslim travellers. Unfortunately our document has nothing to say about the details of the transaction. Thus we do not know whether Odoardo when he previously had
�
spent time in Istanbul already had contacted the families of t e people that he . planned to ransom, and perhaps in some way had been commtss•oned to d so. � It is also conceivable that when Odoardo was in 'Frengistan' he had come mto contact with enslaved Muslims who had asked him to arrange for their ransoming.2 In the Venetian state archives we find a few letters by Muslim prisoners to their families that for one reason or another never reached their
1 DUvcli ecnebiye 13/1, p. 63. No 287 (Safer 1018/May-June 1609). . 2 Salvatore Bono, Schiavi musulmani nell' ltalia maderna. Galeotti. vu' cumpra, domesnc1, Naples, 1999. .
262
A NOTHER
M I RROR FOR PRINCES
THE OTTOMAN S AND THE TRA DE ROUTES OF THE ADRIATIC 263
destinations; they contain requests to relatives for speedy ransoming.1 Slaves
know much more about the period after 1550 than about preceding centuries.
from Christian Europe who wound up in the Ottoman lands were ransomed by
It is therefore all too easy to take at face value the claims of certain Ottoman
a variety of organizations that mediated between captives, their families and
authors who wrote that in the past, everything had been different and much
the people who now held them; these arrangements are often reasonably well
better: there is simply no way of checking their claims.1
documented and have been studied in detaii.2 As so little is known about Ottoman efforts in this direction the laconic account of Odoardo's activities in his laissez-passer is especially frustrating.
In concrete terms the commanders of fortresses on the shores of the Adriatic, already long before
1600 were able to protect Algerian corsairs even
when forbidden to do so by the central government; they collected a share of ·the booty in return for their tolerance. During the second half of the sixteenth
Enforcing the policies of the Ottoman central government in remote provinces
century, an experienced observer such as the bureaucrat and literary man
Mustafa All (1541-1 600) regretfully concluded that the sultans' writ might be
unenforceable in outlying border provinces.2 Nor was it only a matter of
As our discussion concerning the Liona case has demonstrated, in a remote province a command of the sultan might be highly respected but was not necessarily enforced. There were several reasons for this state of affairs: certainly on the one hand provincial governors and qadis operated within the framework of what we would today call a political ideology that enjoined the strictest possible obedience to any command of the ruler. But at the same time in spite of significant growth i n the course of the sixteenth century, the bureaucratic apparatus was relatively small and the geographical distances enormous. Therefore in practice local officials were free to interpret their orders; and such interpretations were compatible with the operation of the sultans' governmental system, as all office-holders shared a commitment to the expansion of the Islamic domain and the repression of infidel rulers.
derring-do and financial gain: the commander of such a fortress on the shores
of the Adriatic might reason that he defended a major source of Islamic sea ·
power at a time when political constraints prevented the sultan from doing so
himself. In its turn the council of the sultan might consider such initiatives
deplorable at least under certain circumstances. But if in spite of numerous
crises the Ottoman Empire survived for many centuries, one of the reasons surely was the fact that local officials could exercise a degree of initiative
within the framework of Islamic law and the regulations issued by the sultans (kanun-z osmani). On the other hand this latitude to decide local issues locally did not mean that the central government might not demote and otherwise punish office-holders that it considered recalcitrant: the contra.ry was obviously true.
Certainly overall policies were determined in Istanbul, but the details which were so often decisive were subject to local negotiation. As a result local power-holders possessed considerable room for manoeuvre. In the past it has often been claimed that this state of affairs was due to corruption and decline of the state apparatus, which supposedly began at some point during the later years of Siileyman the Magnificent (r.
1520-66).
But as
our information about the workings of the Ottoman government increases it
becomes more and more obvious that a certain oscillation between centralizing and decentralizing tendencies was part of the Empire's structure from the very
beginning. It is well known but cannot be repeated too often that our notions about Ottoman history are conditioned by the state of preservation of the Ottoman archives, and also by the fact that as the state bureaucracy expanded, more and more issues came to be transacted i n writing. In consequence we I Pedani Fabris,! "Docwnenti turchi": 555, No. 013. 2
2 Most recently compare: G6za I>.fvid and Pal Fodor (c:ds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2007).
In conclusion As the sources introduced here amply demonstrate, i n the years before
and after 1600 the Ottoman central government was quite concerned with the
security of its subjects that travelled the Adriatic, usually for purposes of trade. The texts contained in the 'Registers concerning foreign states' are responses to issues the bailo relayed to the grand vizier and ultimately to the sultan himself; by contrast the documents in the Venetian state archives show that Ottoman subjects particularly merchants, were able to mobilize the sultan's officials when their own interests were at stake. Moreover when soliciting official intervention, Ottoman and Venetian traders who had been robbed by corsairs or pirates used comP'arable strategies: only the Venetians 1 Cemal Kafadar, "Lc:s troubles mon6taires de Ia fin du XVIe si�le et Ia conscience ottomane du declin" Annales ESC, 43 (1991): 381-400. 2 Cornell H. Aeischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire. The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600), Princeton, 1986: 66.
264
A NOTHER
M I R ROR
FOR
had the advantage of being able to tum to the
P R I NC E S
bailo,
who was already well
established, while traders from the sultans' realm had to start 'from scratch' when mobilizing support both in Istanbul and in Venice. But even so we can hardly claim that the Ottoman elite of the years around
1600 had no interest in
the problems of traders and trade. Certainly such protection did not imply that exportation in general and the export of manufactured goods in particular were in any way promoted by the sultans' officials; it has been known for decades that the contrary was true.! As Ottoman office-holders were above all concerned with the provisioning of the Empire's mil itary and administrative apparatus and secondarily with the needs of local populations, imports for the most part were viewed in a positive light, while exports seemed to be the prelude to future bottlenecks. Thus in the early modem period the one concern shared by Ottoman and Western European administrators was the preservation of 'treasure' in other words of gold and silver. Both sides agreed that wars could not be fought without bullion and that metals suitable for minting should be kept within the realm. But in the early seventeenth century the Ottoman balance -of trade with the Christian countries of Western and Southern Europe was for the most part positive and thus produced an inflow of silver. Concerns about the supply of bullion therefore remained i n the background when Ottoman administrators for instance judged Venetian trade.2 Apparently sultans and grand viziers regarded the protection of their subjects, in the dangerous Adriatic region or wherever else they might be as first and foremost a matter of prestige and legitimacy. After all, one of the most frequently used titles of the sultans was that of 'world protector'
(padi�ah-t alempenah). And if the Ottoman ruler claimed to protect mankind as a whole, then evidently his own subjects had the most obvious claim to shelter under his mantle. Furthermore in the years before and after 1600 the sultans were concerned to maintain good relations with Venice; even a very serious case of piracy such as the murder of Ramazan �a's widow and the sailors manning the Djerba galley was not permitted to ruin this relationship, at least not in the long run.3 There is no need to repeat the day-to-day political concerns that informed this choice; yet it is interesting to see that the Ottoman viziers and their aides attempted to find an 'ideological' reason for this policy, even if they l rn spite of its age the following article is still most relevant Halil lnalcilc, "Capilal Formation in the Ottoman Empire", The Journal ofEconomic History, XXIX. 1(1969): 97-140.
2 Mehmet Gen�. "Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth Century: General Framework, Characteristics and Main Trends,• in Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turlrey 1500-
1950, ed. by Donald Quataert, Albany NY, 1994: 59-86. Mutatis mutandis the points made in this article are also valid for the seventeenth century. 3 Fabris, "Un caso di pirateria veneziana": 106.
THE OTTOMANS AND THE TRADE ROUTES O F THE ADRIATIC
265
did not make a great effort to produce an intellectually convincing argument. In this perspective officials dwelt upon the long-tenn adherence and loyalty of the Venetians to the Ottoman ruler. This 'invented history' also can serve to show that even though religious law was constantly exalted and efforts were made to fonn a polity that was consistent with Islamic tenets, the government in Istanbul did not become the prisoner of its own ideology. In practical terms the ideology of holy war was not an impediment when it came to the implementation of neighbourly relations with individual Christian states over . several decades. As for the sultans' councillors when addressmg both the Venetian and the Empire's own provincial governors, they were prepared to justify their policies by a legitimizing intellectual construction.
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Abbas, shah of Iran 34, 153, 174, 225, 255 Abchasian/ Abaza 207 Abdi 56, 6 1-63, 67 Abdullah, Spanish page, formerly Domenico Gonzalez de Cascavelez 2 l l , 213, 216 AbdUlhamid I, sultan 99, 151 Abdi.ilhamid II, sultan 38 Abdi.ilmecid, sultan 7 Abrahamowicz. Zygmunt 46 Abu Takiyya, Ismail 233 Acem tiiccart 179, 225 Adriatic Sea 23, 28, 33, 105-106, 1 1 3. 1 16, 233, 246-249, 253254, 256, 259-260, 263-264 Agoston, Gabor 42 ahidnames 50, 1 13-1 14, 122, 124126, 128- 129, 1 3 1 , 136, 142, 147-148, 223, 256 (see also Capitulations)
Ahmed A�a. kfihya/ kethiida of grand vizier 2 1 1 Ahmed Efendi, Durri 26, 3 1 , 165, 167-169. 171- 172, 174- 1 87 Ahmed 1. sultan 56, 69. 8 1 -82, 166. 259 Ahmed III, sultan 10. 12, 53. 5658. 6 1-63, 66-67, 79, 94, 96, 149, 156-159, 161 - 162, 167168. 170- 171, 175, 179- 186 Aigen, Wolffgang 226 ak�e 169, 236, 239, 242 Aktepe, Monir 168, 171, 206 AI-Andalus 127 Albania, Albanian 107 Aleppo 34, 136, 142, 226 Alexander, John 43-44 Alexandria 71. 142 Algeria, Algiers, Algerian 89, 95, 1 04. 142, 2 1 1 , 261-262
Ali Beg, son of Kara Mustafa Pa§a (later, Maktulzade Ali Pa§a) 32, 206 Ali Pa§a, Canbuladoglu 34 Ali, Bosnian merchant 109 Ali, Kara, inhabitant of lzmir 230 Almosnino. Rabi Moysen 17, 57 Alqas/ Elkas Mirza, Safavid prince 24, 64. 70 AJ-Tamghruti Abu '!-Hasan 'Ali 7071 Amasya 64. 222, 224 Amasya, peace of 176 anahtar-dar 206, 209-2 10 Anatolia, Anatolian 14, 23, 32, 36, 40-41, 72, 105. 120, 137, 176177, 2 1 9 , 229, 233, 237-239, 253, 255 Ankara 120, 128, 135, 253-255 Arbel, Benjamin 1 1 6 Archives of the Prime Minister I 0. 26, 36-37, 40, 43 (see also ,
Ba�bakanltk Ar�ivi)
Archivio di Stato, Venice 48 Armada, Invincible 127, 130 Armenian 93, 109, 224-225 arslanc1 95 arslanc1ba�1 96 Arslanhane 92-95 Artan, Ttilay 150 An odast, in the Topkapt palace 20 Astrahan 155 Atmeydam 89, 91 (see also Hippodrome)
Austria, Austrian 22, 24-25, 39, 80, 95, 105, 127, 204, 258 avanz taxes 240 Aya Mavra 260 Aya Sofya/ Hagia Sophia 20, 27, 7071 Aydm 124
292
ANOTHER
MIR ROR
P R I NCES
FOR
Ay�e hatun, of Sarajevo 241-242
Bulgaria, Bulgarian 39-40
Ayverdi, Ekrem HaJOO 238
Bulut, Mehrnet 147
Bahadulu 172
baha-1 savb 241 bailo, bai/i 2 1 , 63-66, 1 10, 1 12, 125, 132, 247, 257, 259, 263-264 (see also balyos/ balyoz)
Bursa 33, 88, 136, 139, 142, 145, 225, 227, 234, 236, 240, 255 Busbecq/ Busbecquius, Ogier Ghislin de 79-80
Cairo 44, 77, 134, 136, 142, 146,
Bali Silahdar 1 1 3 Balta, Evangelia 43-44
233
Balyabadra/ Palaiopatras 261
Calogero, Francesco 201
balyos/ balyoz 50, 252 (See also bailo, baili)
Calvinism, Calvinist
Banate of Teme�var 154
capitulations
Barkan, Orner LiJtfi 238
193, 203
also ahidnames)
Caprara, Habsburg lntemuntius 22,
Basra 136
193, 200-201
Ba�bakanhk Ar�ivi 35
(see also
Archives of the Prime Minister) Bathory, Stephan, prince of Transylvania
Catholicism, Catholic
39, 76, 127,
133-134 , 1 89, 192-193, 198, 201, 203, 214-216, 235
128
cebeci
97
Bayezid 1/ Yddmm, sultan 120, 126
Cebehane 94
Bayezid II, sultan 18
Celali 34
Bayezid, prince 64-65
Chalke gate, of the Byzantine palace
Belgrade
32, 154, 184, 192, 195-196,
199-201, 203-205, 208-209, 214 Bellini, Gentile
18
93 Chandos, British ambassador 202 Charles of Lorraine
Be�ir Aga 192
192, 194-195
Charles V, Habsburg emperor 127,
beylik 213
154
Birgevi, Mehmed 239-240
Charles XII, king of Sweden 24-25
Black Sea 47, 254
Cheykh-Oghlou
Bon, Ottaviano 8 1
Chief Black Eunuch 18
Bonnac, Jean-Louis Dusson marquis de
Chief Elephant Keeper/
30, 3 1 , 56, 66-67, 8 1 -82, 84-85, 149, 155-158, 161 Boogert, Maurits van den 29, Bosnia, Bosnian
hassa
98
Cihangir, prince 147
23, 28, 33, 1 10-1 I 2,
cizye 125
175
64
1 17, 135, 233, 241-242, 244-245,
Constantine, palace of 9 1
247-248, 251' 257, 259
Contarini, Aloisius/ Alvise Contarini, Francesco
Braude!, Femand 254
Corfu 259
Britain, British
35, 1 5 1 , 154, 2 1 3
British ambassador 202, 2 1 4 Budin/ Buda 41, 204
buka'a 242
Emo, Gabriele 259 Emo, Giovanni 259
faVU§ 23, 1 10, J J6, 165, 250
England, English 103,
127-128,
fiftlik 209
146,
148,
�izak�a. Murat
111
Cossacks 47 Costantini, Vera 49-50 Costanzo de Ferrara 1 8
152,
137,
142,
1 6 1 , 202,
213-
130,
214, 216, 225, 256, 261
139
(see also Revan)
Erivan 174, 187
176 104-105, 1 10,
Dalmatia, Dalmatian
Erzurum 224
e#iya 1 17
253 D�vid, Geza 40
Euboa 44
debbag 235
Evliya �elebi
derbend 174
8, 55-56, 59, 66-69,
73-76, 79, 83, 90-92, 95, 99-100,
Deringil, Selim
165
151
devir 13
Eytib/ Eytip Sultan
20, 70, 75, 9 1 ;
mosque of 7 1
Devlethan hatun 241-242 Dimitriadis, Vassilis 43
Fabris, Maria Pia Pedan i 48, 249
dirhem 236, 241-242
Fazh
Diyarbalor 169
Fekete, Lajos 38 89,
Djahangir, Moghul emperor
Ferriol, monsieur de, French
Djerba 264 Beg of 259
ambassador 30-3 I
109, 1 13
Dubrovnikl Ragusa 128-129,
107, 1 10, 1 12,
132-133,
148,
201,
Diiveli ecnebiye defterleri 251-252,
12, 78, 88, 99, 180, 201,
Egypt, Egyptian
22, 224
Eidem, Ethem 139
Fodor, PaJ 42 France, French
14,
Ecnebi defterleri 50, 129, 147, 251
ehl-i (jrf 243
Aeet, Kate 134
fondaco 135
also Registers concerning foreign states)
256 (see
205, 214, 2 1 6-217
fetihname 9 fetva I l l Feyzullah Efendi 22
238, 245, 252, 254-255, 261
Edime
parlance king of Be� (Vienna) 80, 127
166 Dogana
Pa�. palace of 89, 93-94
Ferdinand I, emperor, in Ottoman
dizdar 199, 201
221' 224, 240
257-258
29, 32, 49, 63, 76,
�elebizade, chronicler 67
Ebusuud Efendi, $eyhi11islam
Clissa, sub-provice of 1 1 1
Boyo (?) Marko, merchant 257
Curzola 1 10 Cyprus 36, 48-49, 252, 254
Durahan/ Turban b Nasuh, HacJ 242
ser-jiliyan-1
131
emin 1 12, 137
104, 154, 182, 226, 255
Daghestan
124-126, 128, 130,
223, 256 (see
30, 44-45, 49-50,
Crete, Cretan
Ca'fer Efendi 56, 68, 73, 82-83
Bali Beg 242
Elizabeth I, queen of England 76, 130-
Covan Badran (?) 257
Burdur 229
293
I N DEX
2 1 -22, 24, 29-30, 49,
5 1 , 53, 56. 6 1 . 63, 66-67, 73, 76, 8 1-84,
89,
129-130,
137,
148-
150, 152, 154-156, 160-163, 168, 171, 178, 204-205, 225, 249, 256 ambassador
157, 159
Fran�ois I , king of France 129, 154
Frengistan 235, 261
294
ANOTHER
Gabela
M I R ROR
FOR
Henri III, French king 128
109, 254
Galata 69, 128
Galland, Antoine 58, 78, 83, 91 -92
Ibrahim Pa�a. Nev�ehirli Damad 30,
Henri IV, French king 154
Henmann of Baden, prince 195
Gara, Eleni 45
Hijaz 24, 67
Gazanfer Aga 208
Himmet, of Kastamonu formerly of Iran
gazi
1 1 , 59, 242
2 19-222, 224-231 Hippodrome 94 (see also
Genoa, Genoese
Holland, the Netherlands, Dutch 29,
Giovio, Paolo
Atmeydan1)
63, 1 5 1 , 160, 169, 216, 256;
18-19
Giustinian, Giorgio 65-66
Dutch guru� 169
Goffman, Daniel 249
Hungary, Hungarian
grand vizier l l , 16, 22, 25, 30, 35, 58-59, 64-66, 79, 8 1 , 107, 1 10,
17, 24-26, 37-42,
46, 58, 64, 80, 126, 128, 184, 192-193, 203, 2 1 1 ' 213, 258
248
129, 144, 148, 152-153, 156-159,
huccet 229, 237, 246,
161, 169-170, 178-180, 185-187,
HUrrem Sultan/ Roxelana 12, 59, 64-
189, 191, 193, 195, 198-200,
65
202, 205-206, 209-213, 264
HUsrev Beg, Gazi 242-243,
Greece, Greek 26, 37, 39, 42-43, 4546, 52, 105, 139, 251
Inalcik, Halil
248
29, 1 19, 121, 139, 144 19, 28, 5 1-52, 70, 80,
lndia, Indian
Greene, Molly 49
83-84, 87-88, 96-98, 100-101,
Gritti, Andrea 134
1 1 9, 137, 146, 1 5 1 , 165, 177-
Gritti, Ludovico/ Alvise
134
178, 180
Groot. Alex.ander de 147
Indian Ocean 127, 146
Guilleragues, comte de, French
Iran, Iranian
ambassador 204-205
19, 2 1-22, 24, 28, 3 1 ,
33, 64. 70, 79, 83, 96, 99, 132,
guru� 169, 239
137-138, 142, 152-153, 155-156,
Gill CamH 67
158-159, 165, 167, 170, 172-174,
Gillsoy, Ersin 50
176-180, 182-186, 220-226; shah
Habsburg Empire 2 1 , 24, 28-32, 34,
of Iran 84
38-39, 41, 47, 5 1 , 63-64, 66, 76,
Iraq 255
78-80, 91, 97, 103, 105-106. 126,
Isfahan
153, 187, 225
128-1 29, 1 3 1 , 152-154, 156, 158,
Ismail, shah 221, 225
160, 165, 174, 179, 184, 189,
Istanbul
1 0 - 1 1 , 17-18, 20, 22-29, 32-
190-192, 195-201. 203-205, 208,
33, 36, 38, 42-45, 48, 51-52, 54,
212-213, 216, 220, 226, 229,
67, 73, 75, 77-79, 8 1 , 83, 87, 89-
246, 249, 255, 258
31.61-63. 66, 67, 74, 8 1 -82. 84,
Kastamonu 230
ibrahim
Pa�. son of Mehmed Ali
Pa� 7
ibrahim, Bosnian merchant
I 09
imtiyazat 124 (see also ahidnames and capitulations) fnciciyan, P. Gugas/ Gugios 56, 69, 70, 73, 94 tntizami, pen-name of surname author 57 isa, Hact Chief Elephant Keeper 98 iskardin 259 iskenderiye/ Shkodra 256
is/&-1 vusaya 236 ismail, arslanc1 95 itinu2d al-davla
170, 180
izmit 24 Jan Sobieski, king of Poland 200201 janissary
17, 64, 79, 207
Jerusalem 3 1 , 93, 1 3 1 jeunes de langue 1 7 1 Jews, Jewish
17, 83, 1 1 0 , 1 1 6, 133-
135, 177, 213. 250-25 1, 253254 Kaaba 77 Kadlzadeliler 239 kadi registers 147, 231-232, 234, 237, 241 kadi, kadis/ qadi, qadis 122, 126, 136, 147, 219, 227-229, 231, 235,
Halasi-Kun, Tibor
153, 156, 159, 176, 180-181,
Hasan A�a. k.ahya/ kethiida of the grand vizier
210-21 1 , 213, 2 1 5
Hasan, k.adi o f Sarajevo 235-236,
Hasbah�e 88 hatib 237 Hatuniye 13
Hayyim Saruq 133 Heberer, Michael 88
246
246, 256-258, 262
Mhya/ kethuda 210-2 1 1 , 213
193, 195, 200, 202, 204-205,
Kamieniec Podolsk 36, 46
208, 213, 215, 217, 222, 224-
Kandahar
225, 230-234, 238-24 1 ' 243, 245,
kanun
247, 249-254, 257-262, 264-265 Italy, Italian
61, 105-106, 134, 137,
152, 228, 251 Izmir 208, 230; 254
32, 219, 224, 226, 228,
kaymakam pa�a 213-214 Kayseri 237 Kermeli, Eugenia 44 kl�lak emini 99 Ktztlba� 221 Knights of St John 60
29, 47-48,
Ko lodzicjczyk, Dariusz 1 47 Kolovos, Elias 50 Komom, fortress of 212 Krusinski, Juda 171
Kunitz, Georg Baron von 22, 195, 202 Kunt, Metin
139
KUre 224 Ki.itahya 7 KUtUkoglu, MUbahat 46 Laiou, Sophia 44 Leopold I, Habsburg emperor
170, 172, 174
1 1 7, 263
kanun-1 osmani 263 kapucu 165 kapudanlar 1 10 Karaferye 45 Karaman, Karamanlis 1 09
2 1 -22,
4 1 , 192, 204 Lesgians, Lezgians, Lezgis Levant Company
155, 172
130-131
Levni, painter of miniatures
96, 101,
159-160, 162 Liona, Venetian ship 260-262 Lorichs, Melchior
19
Louis XIV, king of France
117, 1 3 1 - 132, 134, 139, 142,
222, 229, 235
4 1 , 154, 166, 184, 191-192
168, 170, 180, 186. 187 tbrahim Pa�a, Pargah, Makbul ve
Hacoval Mesokeresztes, battle of 75 Hanefi
Karlowitz/ Karlof�a, peace treaty of Kastm b Mahmud, of Sarajevo 235
9 1 , 93, 97-99, 101, 103, 108-1 1 1 .
40
295
149, 155-156, 158, 161- 162,
Maktul 59, 129, 157
Gen�. Mehmet 139 128, 134
I N DEX
PRI NCES
30, 155,
204 Louis XV, king of France 156, 167 Lubenau, Reinhold 57, 78, 83, 91-94 Mac.edonia, Macedonian 253 Mahmud I, sultan 6 1-62, 96, 222 Mahmud II, sultan 7, 15, 89, 94, 99 Malatya
169
Malta, Maltese 59-60 Mamluk 27, 124, 136, 224 Maronites 252 Marsigli, Luigi Fernando de 189 Martelli, Claudio Angelo de 25, 3 1 -32, 190-197, 199-200, 202-204, Masters, Bruce 139 Maurocordato, Alexander
195-198,
205. 208, 210, 216
296
ANOTHER
M I RROR
FOR
P R I NCES
Mecca 22, 24, 70, 74, 77, 1 5 1 , 176
TTIUdfirabal mudarebel commenda 33,
medrese 15, 70, 237
Murad I, sultan 44, 128
Medina 70, 74, 1 5 1
Mehmed Aga, hazinedar of Kara Mustafa Pa� 210, 216
Mehmed Aga, Mimar 68 Mehmed Ali � 7 Mehmed Beg, son of Kara Mustafa Pa� 206 Mehmed Efendi, Yinnisekiz 3 1 , 167168, 171 Mehmed II, sultan, the Conqueror (Fatih)
15-16, 18-19, 61, 136,
153, 256 Mehmed III, sultan 72, 75, 146, 158 Mehmed IV, sultan 67, 95, 165, 184 Mehmed Pa§a, grand vizier 1 10, 165 Mehmed Pa�. Sokollu, grand vizier 16, 1 8 Mehmed Ra§id 57, 149, 158-162, 168, 171 Mehmed Zdli, Dervi§ 59 Mehmed, prince (later Mehmed Ill) 57 Melek-sima hatun 241 Membre, Michele, Venetian interpreter and diplomat
106
Memun Bey, prince of �ehrizor 79-80 Menage, Victor Mente�e
147
124
mescid 242 mezheb 222 Michal, king of Poland 223 Mihri hatun 241-242 Milan 259 Mir MahmOd 155, 172 MiT Ovays, Prince 172
mirahor ala 98, 100 Moghul
17-18, 24, 35, 5 1
Moldavia 47 Montagu, Lady Mary 217 Morea/ Mora 154, 261 (See also
Peloponnesus) Morocco, Moroccan 21, 27, 54, 70-71 mosque complex, of Valide Sultan in OskUdar 72, 82 Motraye, Aubry de Ia 24
1 1 5 , 244, 247-248
23, 57, 68, 7 1 , 88, 146
Murad IV, sultan 8, 20, 56, 59-61 , 6567, 74-76, 79, 90, 95, 99, 174, 183, 255 1 1 , 14, 23, 67-68, 262
Mustafa I, sultan 65 157-158, 184
Mustafa III, sultan 95 Mustafa Pa�. Kara 24, 32, 167 , 189, 1 9 1 , 193, 197-198, 200, 202, 205-206, 208-209, 212-213, 2 1 6 Mustafa Pa�. Lata 49
Mustafa, anahtar-dar of Kara Mustafa Pa�a 206, 209-210
Mustafa, of Kastamonu 219-220, 226228, 230-23 1 Mustafa, Ottoman officer and Habsburg captive 212
I 09
miiste'min 124-126 Nadir, shah of Iran 222 N�hane 94 106-107, 152
Necipoglu, Giilru 150
ni�an 124
Ozbaran. Salib 5 1 , 52
padi§ah-1
alempenahl the sultan
refuge of the world 100, 264 Pamuk, �evket 139 Panzac, Daniel Paris
139
pars 89 parsp 92, 95 Passarowitz/ Pasarof�a. peace treaty of 66, 154, 166. 179, 182, 184, 187 Patmos 43-44 Peirce, Leslie 150 Peloponnesus
253, 260-26 1 (see
also Morea/ Mora) Peter l, tsar and emperor 25, 67, 82, 155-156, 173
ambassador 78, 91
Philip n, king of Spain
127-128
Podolia 46-47
Poland, Polish 51,
93,
26, 36-37, 46-47,
125,
Nointe1 monsieur de, French ambassador 92
North, Montagu, English diplomat 202, 213, 216 Nurbanu Sultan 72-73, 82 Nuremberg 226 Odoardo, involved in ransoming negotiations
261-262
128,
184,
1 96,
199-201, 210, 216, 223 Poland-Lithuania, Commonwealth
160-162
Orban, Sultan 256 Orhonlu, Cengiz
182
Orientalische Kompagnie 202
Poltava, battle of 24 Portugal, Portuguese
127, 133
Poumarede, Geraud 147 Prosky, Samuel, Polish diplomat 196, 200-201 Protestantism, Protestant
189, 203,
235 Raab, river
reis efendi 162 reistilkiittab 152 relazionel relazioni, Venetian
5556, 65, 71 Renier, Alvise 64 Revan 75 (see also Erivan) Reychman, Jan 46 Rodriga, Daniele, Jewish merchant 1 10. 254 Rome, Roman 35 Rosales, David Ogli 213 Roxelana (see Hiirrem Sultan) ru'us defterleri 41
167-168, 171
of 1 3 1 , 136
ni§anc1 1 1
Okmeydaru
Osman � 257
Pezzen, Bartho1omaeus, Habsburg
Miimin Cavu§ 1 1 0
name
Osman Ill, sultan 96
Peterwardein, campaign of 156
Mustafa, prince 64-65 Miiriivvet, Bosnian merchant
I I, 65-66, 1 1 1 -
1 1 2 , t l7
Murad III, sultan 1 1 , 13-14, 18, 20,
Mustafa II, sultan
Osman Aga 190, 198 Osman II, sultan
Murad II, sultan 1 1
Mustafa Ali
297
I N DEX
194-195
Rakoszi, Ferenc 38
159 RUstem Pa§a 1 1 , 64, 79, 144 Safavid Empire 165, 172, 174, 177, 187 Safavid, Safavids 16-17, 22, 24, 3 1 60. 70, 73, 79, % . 155, 168, 170171, 175-176, 179, 183-187 , 221222, 225-226 Said, Edward 90
Salonika 45 Sarajevo 33, 36, 44, 103, 1 17, 233238, 241-242, 244-246, 248 Sariyannis, Marinos 45
Selim [, sultan 222. 224, 226 Selim l l , sultan 44, 47-48, 57, 64, 75• 128, 254 Selim Ill, sultan 7 Se1im, prince 1 3 1 3, 247• Senj/ Segna 105, 108-109, l l 258 Serrai/ Serres 43-45 seyyid 229-230 Seyyid Abdi, merchant
Sharif 1 5 1 Shia, Shiism, Shiites 186, 221-222. 224 Simeon , of Poland 93 Sinan Beg 242 Sinan Pa� 8 1 , I 1 3
sipahi 2 1 2
Ramazan Pa� 259, 264
siyakat 38
Red Sea 136, 146
s eign state . · Registers concemmg for ' l ' Dave 252, 263 (See also ·
ecnebiye defterleri)
Rumcli 40 Russia, Russian 7, 25, 35, 52, 155IS6, 163, 173, 184 ambassador
.
Registers of Important Affatrs
122
Skilliter, Susan Sofia 36
Sol kol 254
147
108, 1 13-1 14 59. 176-177.
A NOTHER
298
M I RROR
Soltan Husayn, Safavid shah
155,
170, 175. 184
FOR
P R I NC ES
te�rifatp 162
Versailles
Theunissen, Hans 29, 147
Spain, Spaniard, Spanish
Thevenot, Jean 57, 72-74, 83
1 1 1 , 127, 130, 133, 2 1 1 , 255,
ThOkoly, Imre 24-25, 38, 204
259
timar 4 1 , 47, 243
Spalato/ Split Sultan Ahmed
Mosque 20, 68-69, 72-
10, 20, 35, 63, 142,
56,
Transylvania
SUieyman the Magnificent
1 1- 1 2 , 14-
184
Tripoli, in Africa 142
19, 53, 56, 58-61, 64-65, 7 1 , 75,
Tripolis, in Syria
79-80,
tugra 106, 148
129- 1 3 1 ,
158, 173,
177,
240, 256, 262
144,
153-154,
182, 226, 233,
SUJeyman, Hac1 236
104, 142, 224
TUrckenverehrung 80
48
SUJeymaniye mosque 70, 74
Ukraine
siirgiin 222
ulema 120
Sweden, Swedish 24-25, 152
Uskok
Synadinos of Serres, Papa 8, 45 Syria, Syrian
Uzbekistan, Uzbek 173, 180
105, 142
O 109
�ehbender 225 �em'dani-zade
29, 105-106, 108-109, 1 12-
1 1 3, 135, 142, 246-247, 258-259
Szekesfehervar 203 �ahman, Hact Bosnian merchant
104
tulumbac1 159 Tunis
(see Siileyman Efendi,
Sem'dani-zade) �eriat 15, 242
lgUn 256
Ommi hatun, from Sarajevo 241-242 OskUdar 72-73 vaklf
l l - 12, 15, 234-235, 241-242,
246, 248 VaJide Sultan 13,
72
�eyhiilislam 22, 221, 224
Van 22, 167, 169, 174
$ibenikf Sebenico 259
Vanmour, J. B. 160
�uhud ul-hal 236-237
Venice, Venetian
170, 222, 224
Tahmasp I , Safavid shah of Iran 70
21, 23, 26, 28-30,
33-37, 43-44, 48-51, 55-56, 5859, 63, 65, 69, 71-72, 79, 8 1 , 83,
tahrirl tapu tahrir 40-42, 44, 50
103- 1 15, 1 17, 124-126, 128-1 30,
Tatar 47, 194-196
132-133, 135, 138-139, 141- 142,
tayin 80
146,
148,
Teheran 26, 30, 170, 173, 179, 185
174,
177,
193- 194, 210-2 1 1 ,
voyvoda, of Galata 69
Yakub Pa§a 242 Yanyal Jannina
257-258
Yedikule, fortress 22, 200, 202
Trieste 105
61-63, 67
Tabriz
153, 165,
180
SUieyman Efendi, �em'dani-zade
190,
204, 208,
Vignola, Girolamo 79
72, 75, 77, 97,
Surname 74
179,
174,
215
top�u 97
59, 176-178, 186, 222
Yusuf Pa§a, Emirgune-oglu 60, 75
22, 25, 32, 58, 126, 165,
197-200,
Topkap1 palace/ sarayt
74, 79, 82-83 Sunnites
171,
Tokat 224
Staten General in Den Haag 152
206
155, 167-168
Via Egnatia 254 Vienna
Tinguely, Frederic 90
1 10- 1 1 1 , 254-255
Yusuf Beg, son of Kara Mustafa P�a
Vcrroia 45
ThessaJy 253
Soranzo, Giacomo 72-73, 82-83 103, 1 1 0-
153- 154,
299
I NDEX
158,
165,
184, 208, 226, 233-
Tek:fur Sarayt 94
234, 238, 243-257, 259-261 , 263-
Tekirdag/ Rodoscuk 214
265; doge of Venice 166; Venetian
Terraferma 259
ducats 168
Zachariadou, Elizabeth 43-44, 147 Zahide hatun, from Sarajevo 241
Zajaczkowski, Ananiasz 46 zeamet 4 1 zevaid-hor 1 1- 1 2
Zsitva Torok, peace of (1606) 80, 255 ZUifikar Agal Pa�a 200
21 -22, 165, 197,
