Journal The Medieval History

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The Medieval History

DOI: 10.1177/097194580300600203

2003; 6; 217

The Medieval History Journal

I. Metin Kunt

Institutions in the Sixteenth Century

Suftan, Dynasty and State in the Ottoman Empire: Political

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Suftan,

_Dynasty

in

the

Ottoman

_Empire:

Political

Institutions

in

the

Sixteenth

_Century

I.

Metin

Kunt*

* _Graduate

Programme in _{History, Faculty} of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci

Uni-versity, Tuzla, Istanbul, Turkey. Email: mkunt@sabanciuniv.edu

From its

_inception

around _1300, ’the House

_of

Osman’ maintained the ancient Eurasian _steppe tradition which

kept

the _system

_of

suc-cession _open. At a sultan’s death, the throne went to the best candidate

to emerge in a contest. _By the end

_{of sixteenth}

_century,

_dynastic

strug-gles,

amounting to civil war and the

killing of

all the brothers

of

a

successful

prince,

had caused

disquiet

in Ottoman

_polity.

Subse-quently,

rules

_{of succession}

_favoured

seniority due to circumstances

of

the age and

lifespan

of sultans.

Also in the sixteenth century, the

grand

vezir established a

_personal

administration.

_By

the end

_{of the}

century, the sultan,

though

himself no longer

a charismatic

_military

leader, curtailed the emergence

of a

minister in

_charge

_{of policy.}

Ot-toman

_polity

remained

_{a dynastic empire}

to its end which

_deliberately

curtailed the emergence

of

independent

political

institutions.

In the sixteenth

_century,

the Ottoman

_Empire

faced two

_major

prob-lems in terms of its

_political

institutional

_{arrangements.}

Its endemic

dynastic

problems

flared up at the

_beginning,

and

_again

around the

middle of the _century,

_culminating

in civil war in each case. Relations

area of friction. There was no

_political

will to deal with either of

these

_problem

areas _{in any} deliberate or

_planned

_{way, yet}

circum-stances

_nudged

the situation

_along,

and

_by

the end of the

_century,

dynastic

affairs moved on to a new

_{arrangement. However,}

the

pol-itical

_conception

of a

_dynastic

_empire

was too _strong to allow other

political

institutions to

_develop

_fully.

Sultanic

_authority

versus

minis-terial and bureaucratic action remained an unresolved issue even

into the constitutional reform

_period

in the nineteenth

_century.

Even

at the _very end of the

_empire

in

1922,

the

_{personal interplay}

between

sultans and their ministers still

_largely

determined

_political

_action;

forceful

_{personalities}

_weighed

more than any ancient custom or

written constitution. The fact that there was no

resolution, however,

should not

_keep

us from

_{acknowledging}

and

_addressing

the

problems.

That the Ottoman

Empire

was a

_dynastic

_empire

is a truism worth

repeating.

This means, for one

_thing,

that its realm was not a unit

immediately recognisable

in historical

_geography

like

_China,

India

or Iran. It

_certainly

was

_{not ’Turkey’:}

this term was used

_by

_Europeans

to refer to Ottoman lands but it would have been

_baffling

to Ottomans

themselves. The Ottoman term for their

_empire

was

_simply

the

’domains of the House

of Osman’(mem,41ik-i

til-i

Osmân).

Disparate

lands in

_Europe,

_Asia,

and

_Africa,

wherever Ottoman _{power reached}

and

_conquered,

were included in this realm. Its extent was in fact

very similar to that of the

_Byzantine

Roman

_Empire.

Whereas the

Byzantine Empire

can be defined as the vast hinterland of the

_capital,

where

_dynasties

came and went but the

_political

_system

_endured,

in

the Ottoman case,

empire

remained synonymous with the

_dynasty.

During

its six

_centuries,

it was

suggested

only

_once, that too

half-heartedly,

that a new

_political

order could be established without

the House

_{of Osman,}

an elective sultanate and rule

by

committee of

grand

officers,

in the manner of the old Mamluk

_sultanate,

and as it

then

_applied

in the semi-autonomous north African territories of the

_empire.

This

_suggestion

was made in 1703 in the context of a

coupd’etat

by

the sultan’s own

_{janissaries supported by}

the

leading

ulema,

the

_religious

bureaucratic

_elite;

it was not taken

_seriously

and the leaders of the coup decided that

they

would

_change

the

sultan,

as

_they

had done on earlier

_occasions,

but not the

_dynasty

for

it was needed to

_{provide continuity.’}

1

1 _Mustafa

Naî’mâ, History, 6 volumes, 3rd edn, Istanbul, 1864-66, ends in 1660.

The second

_aspect

of the tradition of

_{dynastic empire}

in its inner Asian roots was that male members of the

dynasty

assisted the

ruling

sultan in _government, and _{any one} of them could succeed to the

throne. In the Ottoman case, this

conception

was modified in

_practice

early

on, both to limit the autonomous

_authority

of

_princes

and also

to

_keep

succession in a

straight

descent from father to son, not

allowing

uncles and

_nephews

to be

_considered;

in

_fact,

Ottoman

practice

sanctioned the

_killing

of brothers and

_nephews

of the

suc-ceeding

prince.

During

the lifetime of a

_{reigning sultan, however,}

all

his sons, and their sons if of _age, were

_given

_provincial

commands.

There was no

_{heir-apparent,}

neither

_by

_seniority

nor

_by

designa-tion. The

_{understanding}

was that when the sultan

died,

his sons

would engage in a

_political

contest until the most

_{worthy prince}

emerged

victorious. The

_struggle

between the

_princes

often went

b,eyond

mere mobilisation of

_supporters

and _{troops for} a show of force and

_progressed

to armed

clash,

though

the

_hope

was to avoid

a full-blown civil war.

_Beyond

civil _war, a further

_danger

was that a

defeated

_prince

could take

_refuge

with a

_neighbouring

_{power and}

become an international pawn. The most famous case of this kind

was that of Prince

_Jem,

son of Mehmed II the

_Conqueror

(of

Constan-tinople),

but in its

time,

Byzantium,

and later

_European

_powers as

well as Safavi

_Iran,

all had an occasion to benefit

_{diplomatically}

and

financially

from such an Ottoman embarrassment.-’ 2

Perhaps

the most extreme case of a

_struggle

for the throne occurred

towards the end of the

_reign

of

_Bayezid

II in the first decade of the sixteenth

_century.

_Bayezid

II had succeeded in 1481 after

_defeating

his brother

_Jem,

but was then

_hampered

in the conduct of his

European

affairs and was forced to _pay vast ’sums of money first to

the

_{Knights Hospitaller}

at Rhodes and later to _{the papacy.}

_During

his third decade on the

_throne,

when he was in his

_fifties,

his five sons,

all of them

_serving

as _governors in various

_parts

of

_Anatolia,

started

to become restive

_sensing

that the

_elderly

sultan

_might

die

_anytime

2

On Ottoman rule and _dynasty in the sixteenth century, the most _important work is _by Halil Inalcik, ’Osmanlilar’da Saltanat Verâset Usûlü ve Turk _Hakimiyet

Telakkisiyle ligisi’, SiyasalBilgiler Fakültesi _Dergisi, XIV, 1959; and ’Comments on

"Sultanism": Max Weber’s Typification of Ottoman Polity’, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies, 1, 1992; Leslie Peirce, The _Imperial Harem, Oxford, 1993; and most

recently, Colin Imber, The Ottoman _Empire: The Structure of Power, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002: _chapter 2. For the travails of Prince Jem, see Nicolas Vatin, Sultan

soon. When a

_{governor-prince}

had sons of _age, these too were

_given

district commands. The

_daughters

of

_{governor-princes}

were often

married to other _{district governors.} It was considered

_quite

normal

that a

_{governor-prince}

had his sons and sons-in-law

_serving

in districts

adjacent

to his own seat. In the

_{circumstances,}

_Bayezid’s

sons

con-trolled

_large

sections of

_Anatolia,

_{where several governors had their}

primary

allegiance

to a

_particular

_prince.

It was

_plain

to see that

when the sultan

died,

the

_{resulting struggle}

would

_eclipse

any that

had _gone before. Distance of a

_prince

from the

_capital

at the death of

a sultan could be the decisive factor: he who reached the

_capital

first

had an enormous

advantage

in

_gaining

the

allegiance

of the father’s

household and government. In the _event, it was Prince Selim who

succeeded even

_though

he in fact was

_serving

at

Trebizond,

the

farthest from

_Istanbul

_{of any of the}

_brothers,

and he

_pre-empted

the

looming

struggle

between the

_{princes by}

_{moving against}

his father.

From

_Trebizond,

he was able to cross the Black

_Sea,

_avoiding

his

brothers in

_Anatolia,

and

_rally

_support

in the Balkans. He

_fought

his

father’s

_troops

twice in

_Thrace,

dethroned

_him,

then

_spent

two _years

fighting

his brothers. In two _years,

_only

Sultan Selim I and his son

Suleyman

remained of the House of Osman and the

_imperial

_cemetery in the old

_capital

Bursa was filled with the fresh _graves of the new

sultan’s

_brothers,

_nephews,

and their

_supporters.

Circumstances

_again

forced

_{dynastic struggles}

in

_mid-century.

As

Sultan

_Suleyman

went into his fourth decade on the throne and was

ailing,

he became

_suspicious

that his eldest son, Prince

Mustafa,

might

be

_plotting

to dethrone

_him,

and so had the

_prince

strangled

in 1553.

Five _years

later,

rivalry

between his two

_surviving

sons flared up.

The younger, Prince

Bayezid,

uneasy that his elder brother

might

be

favoured,

forced the issue

_{by conscripting}

_troops

and

_marching

against

Prince Selim.

_Bayezid

thus

_being

_{in open}

_rebellion,

the father had no choice but to aid Prince Selim

_{by lending}

him

_imperial

_troops.

The defeated

_{Bayezid sought refuge}

with the Safavi Shah Tahmdsb

but with enormous amounts

_paid

to the shah

_by

both Sultan

_Suleyman

and Prince

_Selim,

as well as to _preserve the

_fragile

_peace between

the two

_empires,

the shah allowed Selim’s envoys to murder

_Bayezid.

In

_1566,

when Sultan

_Suleyman

died while on

_campaign

in

Hun-gary, Prince Selim was the

_only

_surviving

son and therefore succeeded

unopposed (though

his accession was not without

_problems,

as we

shall see

below).

His son, Prince

_Murad,

and

_grandson,

Prince

1595

_{respectively,}

had been the

_only

_princes

to be

_given

_provincial

governorships,

both at

_Manisa,

a favoured

_princely

seat in west

Anatolia. Their successions could not be assumed but were

neverthe-less

_expected.

Each had numerous

_brothers,

all

_under-age

and still

living

in the

_{imperial palace,}

at his

accession;

each had all brothers

strangled

and buried with their fathers.

_Thus,

_by

the end of the

six-teenth

_century,

there seemed to _emerge a ’Prince of

Manisa’,

so to

speak,

an Ottoman Prince of Wales. This was not a deliberate

_change

of

_practice,

_simply

a result of circumstances

involving

the fathers’

age at accession to the

throne,

their tenure as

sultans,

and number

and age of sons. As it

_happened,

Prince Mehmed who succeeded in

1595,

was the last Ottoman

_prince

ever to be sent forth to a

_provincial

command and

_{apprenticeship}

for rule. He had a _son, Prince

_Mahmud,

who was _eager to hold a

_{governorship.}

He was also heard to _{say that}

if

_given

the

chance,

he would

_gladly

lead his father’s armies

_against

the Anatolian rebels. Sultan Mehmed III feared that such talk indicated

too much ambition and so had Mahmud

_strangled

in

_1603.

_When,

a

few months later he himself

_died,

his other son, Prince Ahmed was

not _{yet of age} to hold a

_provincial

command.

Thereafter,

the ancient

custom, as the Ottomans

_said,

of

_{princes serving}

in

_provinces

was

abandoned,

not

_by

deliberate

_policy

but

_by

disuse due to

circum-stances. A ’Prince of

_Manisa’,

an

_{heir-apparent,}

was never formalised.

Yet,

any

prince

remained a

_potential

_sultan,

_{inexperienced}

in

govern-mental affairs

_though

_{he may}

_be,

even-as it

_happened

from time to

time-utterly

uneducated.3 3

The accession of a new sultan was an occasion for renewal.

Inter-national treaties or

_agreements,

commercial

_{privileges granted}

to

foreigners,

major-and

even

_relatively

_{minor-appointments}

were

renewed;

there

_might

be a new census taken of

_population

and

pro-duction in

_preparation

for a new distribution of revenues; new sets

of laws and

_{regulations might}

be

_promulgated.

In this sense, each

sultan was a

_unique

ruler. The

_practice

of

_renewing

_{treaties and}

ap-pointment

certificates continued in later

_centuries,

_yet in the six eenth

century,

there was a

_palpable

sense of

_dynastic

continuity:

renewals

came to be done as a matter of

_routine;

_existing

laws and

_regulations

3_{I have written}

on this issue at _{greater length} in ’A Prince Goes Forth (Perchance

to Return)’ to be published in a collection of essays in honour of my mentor, Norman Itzkowitz, Karl Barbir and Baki Tezcan (eds), Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman Balkans and Middle East.

would be reaffirmed

_unchanged

unless there was a

_specific

need for

change.

Sultan

_Suleyman

_may have been ’the

_{magnificent’}

to

Euro-peans but Ottomans called him

’Kdnfini’,

usually

translated as

’law-giver’ ;

the term _may

_properly

be understood as ’law-abider’ for it was

during

his

_long

_reign

(1520-66)

that the sense of ancient Ottoman

law or

_practice,

kânûn-i kadfm-i

_Osmdni,

was

fully

established. The

sultan made and

_promulgated

kânûn

_law;

he also

_obeyed

the laws

and

_precedent

of his ancestors. The law was then

_truly

above the

legislator.

The sultan became more of a link in a

dynastic chain,

rather

than a distinct ruler.

Soon after Sultan

_Suleyman

set out for his last

_campaign

in

_1566,

news reached him from Manisa that his

_grandson,

Prince

_Murad,

had

had a son. As

_patriarch

of the House of

Osman,

he was asked to name the newborn

_baby.

’Let him be called

&dquo;Mehmed&dquo;’,

he

said,

’for

in our

_family

it has been the case that Mehmed has followed Murad’.

This anecdote is

_reported

in a

_history

written three decades later

_by

a

_{bureaucrat-historian,}

Selânikî

Mustafa,

who was

_present

at the

cam-paign

as a

_bright

_young man.4 Whether his account is accurate or

not, not that there is _{any obvious need} to doubt his

_veracity,

it reflects

a _strong sense of

_family

_{tradition. The supremacy} of the

_dynasty

over an individual sultan is also underlined

_by

the

_flourishing

of albums

of

_dynastic

_portraits

from the second half of the

_century

In matters

of state, too, proper

procedure

and

_precedent,

subsumed under the

term kdnan-i kadim-i

Osmdyai,

became the most

_important

con-siderations. Ottomans

_{sought guidance}

from the

_precedent

when

organising major

celebrations or

_political

events.

_They

consulted

his-tories and bureaucratic

_registers

to find out how

_previous

events had

been

_organised,

how much

_expenditure

was

allowed,

what the order

of

_precedence

was before

_preparing

for

_weddings

of

_royal

women,

circumcision ceremonies of

_princes,

or

_sending

_princes

out of the

palace

to _{take up}

_provincial

_government.

Some events were too

fre-quent

for books to _{be consulted: the army}

_departing

Istanbul or the

imperial

navy

sailing

away were events that did not

_require

book

knowledge,

the ceremonies and routines associated with

_military

campaigns

were well known and

_repeated

each time with

_great

atten-tion to detail.

_Weddings,

circumcision feasts and

_princes

_leaving

the

4

I have used Mehmet _Ipsirli’s transcribed edition of Selânikî’s Tarih, 2 volumes,

Istanbul, 1989: 18.

5

palace,

were not

_{simply dynastic}

or

_family

affairs but state

occasions,

with the

_grand

vezirs and all state

_{dignitaries leading royal}

_princesses

at their

_weddings,

_supervising

_arrangements for

_{feasts, accompanying}

princes

on _{their way} out of the

_palace

and

_through

the

_{capital. Family,}

dynasty

and

_polity

were

fully

intertwined.6 6

The search for

_precedent

became an

_urgent

matter at Sultan

Suleyman’s

death.

_{Although only}

Prince Selim survived of his five

sons, and there was no

_question

but that he would

succeed,

how he was to accede to the throne was still a

_question.

The

_problem

was

that

_Suleyman

died on

_campaign,

his armies

_besieging

the

_Habsburg

stronghold

Szigetvar

in south-western

_Hungary.

For fear of masterless

household

_troops

_rioting

and

_looting,

as

happened

at the death of

Mehmed II in

1481,

royal

deaths would be

_kept

secret until a smooth

succession could be assured. In this

_particular

_case, the fear was

much _greater since the household

_troops

were _{part of} the _{army in}

what was still _enemy

_territory

_although

_Szigetvar

itself was soon

captured.

The

_grand

vezir,

Sokollu Mehmed

_Pasha,

sent a secret

message to Prince Selim at his seat in

_{Kutahya asking}

him to come to

the army camp as soon as

_possible

to take over his father’s

household,

and the command of the army. The

prince’s

own advisors counselled

otherwise: the

_prince

should

_{simply proceed}

to the

_capital

and sit on

his throne at the

_palace.

_’True’,

_they

_said,

’it is an old

_saying

that &dquo;No Ottoman ascends the throne without first

_passing

under the swords of his household

_troops&dquo;

but that is for contested

_right

of succession

and does not

_apply

in _your case’. The advisors also

_thought

that the

grand

vezir had an ulterior motive to make the

_prince

come to him

and _{the army, rather} than

_bringing

_{the army back} to the

_prince

at the

capital,

thereby establishing

his own

_political

influence.

Either because of this counsel or

_simply

to avoid the

_hardships

of

fast travel to the

_{Hungarian frontier,}

Selim

_proceeded

to Istanbul

where he was

_surprised

that there was no official welcome which

shows that he

_obviously

did not believe that the

_grand

vezir had

truly kept Suleyman’s

death secret. But in

fact,

the

_pasha

left in

_charge

of the

_capital

had no word from the army camp

_and,

mindful of

’ancient Ottoman custom’ that no

_{governor-prince}

should be allowed

in the

_capital

without the

_permission

of the sultan

(otherwise

he

_might

attempt

to dethrone the

_father),

remonstrated at first with the

_prince’s

6

The bureaucrat-historian Selânikî served at times in his career in the _protocol

messenger that ’such

unseemly

behaviour never benefited

anybody’

but was convinced

_only

when he was shown the

_grand

vezir’s letter

to Prince Selim. Selim then

_proceeded

to the

_palace

but still with no

ceremony, ascended the

throne,

and

accepted

the submission of the

reduced

_personnel

of the

_palace.

_Thus,

he

_thought,

he became sultan.

Yet,

he must have had his

_suspicions,

_despite

the

_{encouragement}

of his

_princely

advisors,

that he was not

_properly

the

sultan,

for rather r

than

_breaking

his father’s seal at the

_treasury

door,

he borrowed funds from his

_extremely

rich sister to _pay the

_customary

accession

_gratuity

to

_{palace people.}

At

_Szigetvar,

the sultan’s

_{preserved body}

was

_put

in a coffin and

his _{inner organs buried under the}

_imperial

tent.

_Only

the chief

min-isters and a few of the sultan’s

personal

attendants knew of his death.

An

_elderly

courtier who resembled the late sultan was dressed in the

sultan’s kaftans and

_appeared

_every once in a while to

_greet

his vic-torious _{troops from} a distance.

_Everyday,

the

_grand

vezir went into

the

_imperial

tent

_ostensibly

to receive the sultan’s instructions and

announced these orders to the officers. In _any case, all the army

knew the sultan was

_ailing

and did not

_expect

to see him

_riding

through

the _camp. The _troops were

_{busy rebuilding}

_{Szigetvar’s}

for-midable walls

_{destroyed during}

the

_siege;

commanders and

_troops

were

_given

awards for valiant service. While the routines of a vic-torious _army were

_kept

_{up, the}

_grand

vezir

_expected

Prince Selim to

arrive soon.

_Instead,

he received the message that the

_prince

was in

the

_palace,

_awaiting

the return _{of the army. Further messages} from

the

_grand

vezir

_beseeching

Selim to come to _{the army camp acted}

on Selim’s own doubts and so he

_finally

decided to _{make his way}

towards

_Hungary.

_Many

weeks had

_passed

since

_Saleyman’s

_death;

the army had finished work on

_{Szigetvar’s}

fortifications;

frontier

security

was left to

_regional

_commanders;

_{the army started} its

_stately

march back.

_Although

the courtier who acted as the sultan’s double

appeared

now and

_again

_through

the curtains of his

_carriage

and waved at the

_troops,

_suspicion

_grew in _{the camp that}

_something

was

amiss. Rumours of the sultan’s demise _grew in

_{intensity and,}

back in

Ottoman

_territory

_{proper, the}

_grand

vezir

_publicly

announced what

everyone

suspected.

Mourning

robes of sombre colours were

_donned;

household _troops as well as the rest of the _army wailed the

_passing

of the _great

_Süleyman.

_{Selim reached the army}

_just

west of

_Belgrade;

it was

_there,

in front of the

_imperial

tent that he sat on his father’s

to avoid the _appearance of a

_hiatus,

start Selim’s

_reign

with his

acces-sion in

_Istanbul,

this was the real

_beginning

of his rule when he took over the

_imperial

household,

the _army, and the whole _government

apparatus from the

grand

vezir to all the ministers and the lowliest

scribes.

Selim’s accession deserves

_scrutiny

for it

_brings

out different

pol-itical

_conceptions

current at the time. In a sense, Selim was

_justified

in

_thinking

that

_going

to the

_capital

was sufficient to become sultan

since

_Istanbul,

as much as Rome or

_{Byzantine Constantinople,}

was

the _supreme

_city

of the

_empire.

Yet,

his

_Kutahya

advisors failed to

grasp both the proper

significance

of the

imperial

household,

its

people

not the

_palace,

and the

_relatively

recent evolution of

institu-tions of _government.

_Continuity

in

_dynastic

rule and government

had become

_paramount

over the new

dispensation

of the

_succeeding

sultan;

the

_dynastic

chain was much more

_important

than a new

sultanic era. Unlike the case in the Mamluk

_sultanate,

in Ottoman

tradition,

there was no

_question

of the household of the successor

replacing

the

_imperial

household. Until Selim’s

_accession,

_princely

households had been of limited

_size,

not more than

500-600

retainers.

At the accession of a new

_sultan,

all members of the

_imperial

house-hold would be

_promoted,

some to

_higher

chambers or offices in the

palace,

some to outside offices with

_independent

sources of income

in the form of a revenue _{grant rather than the per diem}

_given

in

palace

service. This would open up sufficient space in the

_palace

for

the

_prince

to

_bring

in some of his

_princely

retinue.

_{Selim, however,}

had recruited thousands of

_troops

_during

the

_fight

_against

his brother

Bayezid

in 1558 who were still on his

_payroll.

At Selim’s

accession,

Suleyman’s palace people

and officials around the realm were worried

that the

_plum

_{posts would go} to

_advisors,

officials and _troops who

came from the

_prince’s

seat at

_Kutahya.

Friction between Selim’s

entourage

and members of the

_imperial

household escalated to

outright

clashes as the army returned to Istanbul from

_Belgrade.

Once in his

_capital,

the new sultan secured the

_loyalty

of the

_imperial

house-hold

_by

_{announcing appropriate}

accession

_gratuities

_{and proper}

pro-motions. His

_princely

household members were allowed lesser ranks

and pay increases?

7

This pattern was _{repeated eight years} later, at the accession of Selim’s son Murad III. I follow Selânikî and Feridun _Bey (Nüzhet ül-esrâr, Topkapi Palace _Library, MS

As for the more

_important

offices of the

_empire,

by

then, promotion

patterns

had

_long

been

established,

certainly

during

Sultan

_Suleyman’s

’law-abiding’

years. In the

imperial

council

(divan-i

/ZM~M~M~),

there

were seven

_ministers,

ranked in order of

_promotion

to the council.

The first minister was the

_grand

vezir

(vezir-i a’zdm),

the others were

simply styled

second-to-seventh vezirs. The new sultan

might

dismiss

the

_grand

_vezir,

but then each of the others would be

_{promoted by}

one

_step

so that the second vezir

_automaticaly

became the

_grand

vezir. Wholesale

_change

of ministers was not

_done,

nor did Selim

attempt

such a

change.

_Despite

the

original

_misgivings

of his

Kitahya

advisors,

he

_kept

Sokollu Mehmed Pasha as his

grand

vezir not

_only

at his

accession

but for the rest of his

_{eight-year reign.}

At Selim’s

death,

Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was such a

respected

figure,

and his men so well-entrenched in the

_highest

_offices,

that Murad

_III,

too, retained him in office. The old

_grand

vezir was

_{assassinated,}

_by

a

’madman’ it was

said,

five years

_later,

still in office. Ottoman commen-tators felt that Murad III resented his

_grand

vezir’s power and

influence; speculation

grew that the ’mad’ assassin

might

have been

acting

for ’higher

circles’.

_{Certainly, during}

the rest of his

_reign,

Murad

III

_{deliberately changed}

his

_grand

vezirs much more

_rapidly

_and,

breaking

with ’ancient Ottoman

custom’,

switched the office among

two or three candidates.

_Quite

_obviously,

he did not want another

Sokollu Mehmed

_Pasha,

in office for 15 years and the effective ruler

of the realm. Murad III was not interested in active

_rule;

the role of exalted and distant ruler above

_daily

affairs

_quite

suited

_him,

but he

certainly

wanted to

_keep

his ministers on a short leash. What

seemed,

in the course of the sixteenth century, to be a

_full-fledged

develop-ment of the office of first minister was thus reversed.

Such a

_policy

of reassertion of sultanic _power was in

_keeping

with

the

_original

_conception

and institutions of

_dynastic

_empire.

A

sixteenth-century

Ottoman

_compilation

of sultanic laws and

regulations

has a most curious article on bride-tax

( resm-i ’arûsâne).8

This was a medieval

relic,

a fee

_peasants

paid

their landlords

(revenue-grant

holders).

Usually,

Ottoman

_regional

_{codes of}

regu-lations mention the rates to be

_{paid, distinguishing}

between first

are documented in a _{register detailing} members of his _princely retinue and the

positions given to them (Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, MAD 1324). 8_{Selâmi Pulaha and}

Yasar Yücel (eds), Le code de Selim Ier et certaines autres lois de la deuxième moitié du XVIe siècle, Ankara, 1988: 29.

marriages

(about

a

ducat)

and

_marriages

of widows or divorcees

(half

ducat),

specifying

that a

_virgin

bride’s fee was

_paid

to her father’s landlord whereas in a later

_marriage,

the fee was

payable

wherever

the

_marriage

took

_place.

In this

_{particular compilation,}

the scribe

went much further. After the usual formulae on

_peasant

_brides,

fee rates, and which

authority

collected the

_fee,

he _goes on to _say:

when a _{revenue-grant}

(timar)

holder’s

daughter

is

_married,

the

fee is

_payable

either to a commander

(subashi)

or to the district-governor

(sancak.beyi), depending

on who the

_superior

officer

_is;

when a

_{district-governor’s}

_daughter

is married the fee is

_payable

to the

_{governor-general}

_{( beylerbeyi);}

when a

_{governor-general’s}

daughter

is married the fee _goes to the

_imperial

_treasury.

The curious

_thing

about this article is that it

_gives

a false

_impression

of a hierarchical

_society

and

_polity.

The amount of the bride-tax would be a considerable sum for a _peasant

_family:

about the same as the

annual

_ground-tax

that all

_peasants

_paid

and the

_equivalent

of the

annual per

capita

tax levied on adult non-Muslim males. For the

re-cipients,

it would not have amounted to much. What is

_significant

about the article is the

_implied

chain of

_authority

which is not at all

an accurate

_picture

of Ottoman

_{political reality. Regional}

or district

codes of

_regulations

would

_normally

include a section on bride-tax

but

_only

for

_peasants

and the _{revenue-grant} holders authorised to

collect it.

_Why

did the author of this

_particular

code feel the need to

include this

_imagined

_hierarchy?

_Perhaps

he wanted this to

_flourish,

this

_flight

of

_{fancy, precisely}

because he was

_drawing

_up a

_general

code and he wanted to

_distinguish

it from district

_{regulations by}

pro-viding

this

_generalised

_picture,

however fanciful.

In

_effect,

the Ottoman

_polity

was

_composed

of the ruler and all

the

_{revenue-grant}

holders from the

_{highest grandee}

to the lowliest

cavalryman.

All _{revenue-grant} holders

_(apart

from those at a minimum

level)

were

_required

to

_keep

official retinues commensurate with their income. The

_{sultan, princes,}

vezirs were no different in this

re-spect than other _{revenue-grant} holders. The

_imperial

household

_might

have thousands of

_retainers;

vezirs and

_princes,

a few

_thousand;

governors-general

and district _governors, a few hundred. Town

com-manders and

_{village-dwelling}

timar-holders

_might

have retinues of

several dozen or

_just

a few

_people.

Each of these _{revenue-grant}

governor

might

have

supervisory

authority

over the

_{timar-holders,}

and the

_{governor-general}

was the leader of all the district governors

in his

_province,

but none of these

_{relationships}

was hierarchical.

The sultan alone had the

_right

to

_appoint

and dismiss all

revenue-grant

holders,

sometimes on the

_proposal

of

_higher

officers

_and,

to

be sure,

according

to established rules and

_procedures.

As Sultan

Suleyman

put

it once in a

promulgation,

’all officials are _my servitors’.~

The

_beylerbeyi

may have collected the bride-tax from the

sancakbeyi

in his

_province

and so on down the

line,

as the code of

_regulations

stated,

but he was not their

_overlord;

the

_only

_overlord,

of all office

holders,

was the sultan.

The Ottoman terms for

_{property (miilk)}

and realm

(memalik)

are

from the same root,

implying

the ruler’s

_proprietory

_position

in his realm. Ministers and officers served at his

_will;

_{revenue-grants} could be

_bestowed,

_{changed, augmented}

or taken away. In the sixteenth

century,

a third of all taxes,

_duties,

fees

_payable

to

_{political authority}

were allowed

_by

_specific

_permission

of the sultan to be

_put

in

endow-ments for

_pious,

_educational,

or social purposes; a third was

_given

as _{revenue-grants} to

_princes,

_pashas,

_commanders,

and

_cavalrymen;

the last third was

_kept

for the ruler’s own

_income,

as

_imperial

reserves

(havass-i

humâyûn).

In one sense, Ottoman government as a

_concept

was a collective

responsibility

of all the

higher

revenue

_holders,

but

in a real sense and as a

_phenomenon,

_Ottoman

_government

_grew

out of the sultan’s

household,

supported by

his income. In Ottomanist

discourse,

’Ottoman

_{budgets’ really}

means the income and

expend-iture statements of

_imperial

household accounts;

equally

the

’bureaucracy’

is

_composed

of household scribes. Matters of state or

public policy

were funded out of havass-i

_humayun

accounts. The

Ottoman

_{’gunpowder empire’}

was

_literally

located in the

_imperial

household with the

_{musket-bearing janissaries}

and the

_artillery

_corps.

Most of the

_grand

_{navy, too,} was constructed with

imperial

funds.

Frontier

_strongholds

and their armaments were

_supplied

by

_imperial

accounts;

increasingly,

the sultan’s own

_janissaries

were stationed in

garrisons

throughout

the realm. All this increased

_expenditure

was

made

_{possible by}

increased cash revenues in the course of the

sixteenth

_century,

_especially

with the

_conquest

of

_Egypt

and southern

ports

and commercial centres from

_Aleppo

to Aden. The Mamluk

9_The

text of this ferman is in _{Tayyib Gökbilgin,} ’Kanunî Sultan _{Süleyman’in} Timar

loss of the Red Sea

_spice

trade was soon

_recovered;

the

_Mesopotamian

and Persian Gulf alternative of intercontinental trade too was wrested

from the

_emerging

Safavi

_{Empire. Conquest}

of trade routes and

en-couragement of trade increased

receipts

of the

_imperial

_treasury,

brought

a

_greater

_proportion

both of revenue and

_expenditure

under

imperial

household accounts, and further

_augmented

_{sultanic power}

in his realm.

Endowments and

_{revenue-grant}

holders collected their own

revenues

_through

their own officers and _agents or tax-farmers.

Im-perial

revenues, too, were collected

through

tax-farms

equally

as

by

imperial superintendents.’°

Large

cash revenue sources, such as customs revenues of

_important

trade centres

_might

be left to

_specialists

in international trade as tax-farmers or _agents; but the havass-i

humâyûn

also included _many smaller revenue sources scattered

throughout

the

realm,

some

rural/agrarian,

some commercial and

industrial. Household

_cavalry

members

_increasingly

came to be

em-ployed

as collectors at such smaller sources,

though

some of them

increasingly

built up their

operations

to bid for

_larger

sources,

sometimes in

_partnership

with merchants. This

_development,

_mixing

essential

_military

duties with fiscal

_enterprise,

_might

seem

_surprising

but the elite

_{imperial cavalrymen}

were considered

_loyal

and

trust-worthy

servants of the

_sultan,

and

_allowing

them to _{make money} out

of revenue

_collection,

either as _agents or as

_tax-farmers,

made it

pos-sible to

_keep

their

_regular

_{per diem low.}

_By

this

method,

the

house-hold could be

_expanded

at no extra cost.

The

_privileged

_position

of the household

_cavalry

caused resentment

among the sultan’s

janissary

infantry.

Their

daily

pay in silver

_akches,

too, was

_kept

low but with the severe inflation at the end of the

cen-tury,

caused

mainly

by

the decline of silver in relation to

_gold.

The

janissaries

felt their

_position

as the elite force in the

_imperial

house-hold was

_eroding

rapidly.

The friction and clashes between the

house-hold

_cavalry

and

_infantry

remained constant in Ottoman

_politics

for

the next half _century. Because of their _greater

_numbers,

the

_janissaries

eventually

got the upper hand and reached the

height

of _{their power}

in the mid-seventeenth

_century

when

_only

candidates

_{approved by}

the

_janissary

_{corps could be}

_{appointed grand}

vezir. The old Ottoman

10_Linda

Darling, Revenue-Raising and _Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660, Leiden, 1996. Despite the title,

political

adage

’the

_soldiery

should be on

_campaign’,

that

_is,

con-cerned with their

_primary

_military

function and not

_dabbling

in

pol-itical

affairs,

failed until an astute and forceful

_grand

vezir,

Kopriilii

Mehmed Pasha

_managed

to

_discipline

the two main branches of the

imperial

household in the

1650s.

Even

_{he, however,}

was forced to

concede that the

_janissaries

too, had to _{find ways} to

_supplement

their

daily

pay, in their case

_{by going}

into trades and crafts in the

_capital.

The

_imperial

_household,

their numbers

_approaching

_100,000

in the

seventeenth

_century,

with both the

_cavalry

and the

_{infantry intimately}

involved in the business of

_empire

both in the

_capital

and in the

pro-vinces,

gradually

lost its formidable

_military

_{prowess. The} further

civilianisation of Ottoman

_politics

and administration in the

_eighteenth

century

is a

_fascinating

_topic

which needs to be

_explored

in other

studies.

After a _century of

political

evolution, dynastic

affairs

changed

almost

beyond

recognition.

Instead of

_princes

seasoned in

_provincial

gov-ernment

_fighting

it out _{among themselves} for the

_right

to

_rule,

a literal case of the ’survival of the

fittest’, king-makers

of the

_palace,

officials

in coalition with troops, chose one from _among

_princes

_languishing

in

_ignorant,

indolent

_palace

life.

Yet,

no institutionalised alternative

to _{sultanic power}

_emerged,

not in the form of government under

grand

vezirs nor even

through parliaments

in the constitutional

monarchy

at _{the very end of}

_empire.

The sultanate

_disappeared

with the

_empire

in the aftermath of the Great War. Even then it took the

victorious

_republicans

a full _year from the abolition of the sultanate

in late 1922 before

_they

could

_finally

declare the nature of the new