Appendices
Appendix I — The Second Book of the Affairs of the Turks
Written in 1534, supposedly by Benedetto Ramberti
Translated from the Italian
[From Libri Tre delle Cose de Turchi, as printed in Viaggi... alla tana, Venice, 1543, pp. 131-146.]
As from a laborious and very dangerous sea into a safe and very quiet port, one enters the city of Constantinople, after the great trouble and inconvenience of the ride which he has endured over the long road.713 This city (to continue until I have here made an end of particular description) was anciently called Byzantium, and afterwards was called New Rome, and then Constantinople from the first Constantine. Byzantium, as it is reported, was in the region where Pera is now, and was so named from the river Byzantium, which afterward, by reason of an earthquake such as are frequent in that region, changed its course elsewhere. But I do not believe this, nor does it seem to me to agree with the description of Polybius and other writers, who call those here Chalcedonians; these, when they might themselves in ancient times have built upon this site, did not care for it, but built in Asia, not having discerned the convenience and beauty they were leaving to others; who might deprive them even of their own site, as indeed happened.
The city is 18 miles in circuit. It has seven little hills, not very high. It is surrounded by wretched walls, and is full of houses, not many of which are good, being made of clay and wood and only a few of stone. It is full of groves, that is, of places wild and uninhabited, where cypresses grow, and other such trees.714 In Constantinople, then, is the palace of the Turkish Signor, which is a singular structure and very large, as will be told later.
There is the palace of the ladies of the Signor, the palace of the Janissaries, the Patriarcate, the palace of the Emperor Constantine, which is in part ruined, the church of St. Sophia, which is a structure most beautiful and divine; this was built by the Emperor Justinian from the oldest and finest columns and marbles, as one can see now; in part of it the Turkish Signor has made stalls for his horses. There is the mosque of Sultan Mohammed, which has an Imaret attached to it that is like a hostel; in which they lodge any one, of any nation or law, who may wish to enter, and they give him food for three days,—honey, rice, meat, bread, and water, and a room in which to sleep. They say that from day to day there are more than a thousand guests from various nations. Near this they have baths and some fountains, most beautiful and delightful to behold. There are the mosques of Sultan Bayezid, Sultan Selim, and other Signors, which are very beautiful and exceedingly well-built. This makes it clear that, when they wish, they know also how to build houses and palaces that are magnificent and sumptuous.
There is the Hippodrome, that is, the place where in ancient times horses were made to run as in a theater and circus: in the center of this Hippodrome there stands a needle, which is a column made in the form of a needle, very beautiful and wrought very well and without mortar, made of living rocks joined together in such a manner that they rise through more than fifty cubits, tapering in the shape of a needle, which rests on four marble balls.715 There is a column of bronze in the shape of a serpent with three heads.716 There is a bronze Hercules brought from Hungary,717 and in the center there is a colossal structure made of different beautiful marbles, in which is engraved the history of all the above-mentioned objects, and of other things which used to stand in the Theater and Hippodrome. There are throughout the city many vestiges of antiquities, such as aqueducts, arches, porphyry columns, fountains brought from the Danube and other near-by rivers.718 Many gardens about the houses of the great. Many mosques of private lords, and baths which are attached to the mosques of private men and of public magistrates.
On the other side of the sea from the Seraglio Point are the hills of Asia, and the journey is of a little more or less than two miles; this Asia is today called by a single name Anatolia; and there are on the shore there some fortresses called Scutari. Then Kadikeui, situated on a bay of the Hellespont,719 where one can see many vestiges of antiquities; and I, when I went there, saw underground where men were working, a well of the finest marble with an aqueduct which came to the center of the well, and a canopy of fine marble supported by four beautiful columns. And in other places there appear many vestiges of old churches, both of Christians and of heathen, places indeed most beautiful, most pleasant, most fruitful. The situation of Constantinople is such that not only can it not be described adequately, but it can hardly be grasped in thought because of its loveliness. Certainly it is rather to be considered divine than otherwise. Nor is there any one who has seen it who has not judged it worthy to be ranked above all other situations in the world.
There are in the city besides the Turks, countless Jews, or Marrani expelled from Spain;720 these are they who have taught and who are teaching every useful art to the Turks;721 and the greater part of the shops and arts are kept and exercised by these Marrani. There is a place which is called Bezestan, where they sell and buy all sorts of cloth and Turkish wares, silks, stuffs, linens, silver, wrought gold, bows, slaves, and horses; and in short all the things that are to be found in Constantinople are brought there to market: this, except for Friday, is open every day.
Constantinople is in Thrace: this has as its boundaries on the east the Propontis and the mouths of the greater sea, on the west part of Bulgaria and part of Macedonia, on the north Bosnia, on the south the Aegean Sea with part of Macedonia which lies toward the river Nishava, called in ancient times the Nesus.722
This most noble city is inhabited by Turks: these as the more reliable authors have written, and as many of the Turks themselves have confirmed to me, had their origin in Scythia, which now is a part of Tartary, a northern region divided into two parts by the river Don: one of these parts is in Europe, and one in Asia.723 The European part is bounded on one side by Pontus, and on the other by the Riphean Mountains, and at the back by Asia proper and the river Taspus. In Ptolemy these two Scythias are called the one intra Imaum montem, and the other extra Imaum. They departed then from Scythia (as is said above) and began to make invasions and raids into their present confines: then proceeding farther, in a short time they became lords of a good part of Asia, but because they did not know how to keep only one chief among them, they had no foundation or firmness. This circumstance having been considered by one who was called Othman, a man of low rank among them, but of lofty and valorous mind, he thought that, by having the arm and the favor of some men of intelligence and authority, he could easily rule all this people and the conquered territory, and increase it further upon good opportunity: then having revealed this his thought to three persons, who seemed more suitable than others for this business, he promised that those by means of whom he might acquire the dominion to which he aspired, he would always maintain, both themselves and their descendants, in great state and dignity, and suitably to the great benefit which he had received from them: besides this that he would never harm their blood nor that of their posterity through laws that would lay hands upon them even if they should transgress grievously.724 They accepted the condition and conspired together for the sovereignty; which they obtained by astuteness, artfulness, threats, and the slaughter of many. These three were called, the one Michael, a Greek who had turned Turk; from him the Marcalogli725 are descended; one of them is now Sanjak in Bosnia. The second was Malco, a Greek renegade; from him have come the Malcozogli, and there is now only one, who is Sanjak in Greece. The third was Aurami, a native Turk; his descendants were called the Eurcasli; it is not now known that any of these remain. In case the Ottoman family should fail, these would pretend to the sovereignty, and therefore they are highly respected.
This Othman came to power about the year 1300, and lived in lordship twenty-eight years:726 Orchan succeeded him and lived twenty-two years in the kingship. Then Murad who reigned twenty-three years. Then Bayezid. Then Chiris Celeby, or, as others wish, Calepino, who lived about six years. Then Mohammed, who reigned fourteen years.727 Then Murad II who reigned 31 years. Then Mohammed II who reigned 32 years and was the first Emperor of Constantinople. Then Bayezid II who reigned 31 years. Then Selim eight years: to him succeeded Sultan Suleiman, his only son, who reigns at present. Of this succession it is written otherwise in some histories, where they treat of wars and peaces, which have been made by our republic in times past with this family: but since I have recounted these in other places, it now suffices to have noticed the common opinion of those who have written of the affairs of the Turks up to this time. And so I will go on to describe the court of this Signor: it is arranged in the following manner.728
Sultan Suleiman has a palace in the angle of Constantinople by the two seas:729 this is in circuit about three miles: and in it are his residence and his court, which is called the PORTE. This palace, because it was begun to be built by Sultan Mohammed, he willed when dying that it should be rent-paying property of his mosque, and that it should pay a thousand aspers a day, which are twenty ducats; and this has been observed to the present.730
He has in the aforesaid palace countless highly ornamented chambers, but one among the others is set apart for himself: in this he sleeps, and he has there six youths who serve his person.731 Of these six, two are deputed for the service of the chamber and the Signor during the day, and then in the night the same ones come to keep guard when he sleeps: these stand ever vigilant, the one at his head and the other at his feet, with two lighted torches in their hands: these two then in the morning when they clothe the aforesaid Signor, put into one of the pocket-purses of his caftan a thousand aspers, and into the other twenty golden ducats; whatever of this money is not given away by the Signor during the day, remains to those who undress him at night; they never find much in the garments, according to report. And always when he goes forth to enjoy the chase or for some other purpose, besides the aforesaid money which he carries, he is accustomed always to have behind him the Khazinehdar-bashi, or chief treasurer; this man carries with him a great sum of money to be given away.
The duty of the aforesaid six youths, who are changed according to the will of the Signor, is: of one to be Papuji,732 or him who bears the shoes, of another Silihdar, who bears the bow and arrows, of another Chokadar, who bears the garments, of another Sharabdar, who bears the pitcher of water, of another Iskemleji, who carries the stool, and then of the sixth to be Oda-bashi, or chief of the Chamber. These have a fixed salary of 15 to 20, and the Oda-bashi of 30 aspers per day.
Next comes
The eunuch Kapu Aghasi,734 or chief of the gate, who has 60 aspers per day.
The Khazinehdar-bashi, a eunuch, chief treasurer, 60 aspers.733
The Kilerji-bashi, chief of the butlers, 40 aspers.
The Seraidar-bashi,734 a eunuch, chief of the palace when the Signor is away; he has 50 aspers. Twelve eunuchs subject to the aforesaid, with 10 to 15 aspers each.
There are next about five hundred youths aged from eight to twenty years, who reside in the palace and are the delight of the Signor: they have each from ten to twelve aspers per day; they are instructed in various arts according to their genius, but especially in reading, writing, and in the doctrine of their laws, and in riding. The masters are old Danishmends,735 called Hojas, or doctors of the laws. These boys at the season of Bairam, which is like our Easter day, are clothed by the Signor, some with silk and some with cloth, without any uniformity; and each has a golden bonnet, a scimitar, and a bow: they never leave the aforesaid palace until they have reached the age when the Signor thinks them fit for offices: and then he makes them Spahi-oghlans, or Silihdars, or of higher degrees according to their worth and the favor which they have gained with the Signor. Each ten of them are guarded by a eunuch called Kapu-oghlan, or chief of youths,736 and each has a slave’s frock, in which he sleeps rolled up in such a manner that he does not touch another who may be near him. They reside in a large hall, full of great lights and spacious, and their eunuchs sleep in the middle of this hall. They have a garden in the palace, which extends more than a mile, in which reside about thirty-five gardeners, called Bostanjis, who are Ajem-oghlans:737 these gardeners have from three to five aspers each per day; they are clothed in blue cloth, and given a shirt. Then when they leave the palace, they become Janissaries, or Solaks, or Kapujis, or something else according to their quality.
The Bostanji-bashi, or chief gardener, has fifty aspers a day and many perquisites.
The Kiaya,738 who is, as it were, a lieutenant for the gardeners, has 20 aspers per day; and each ten [gardeners] have a chief called Boluk-bashi. From this garden, which is very large and well-tended, full of excellent fruit-trees of every sort, they obtain so much every year that from the product of it alone they make the living expenses of the Signor, and also get something more. Near the garden are always stationed two small galleys; these are rowed by the gardeners when the Signor goes on a pleasure-trip, and the Boluk-bashi holds the helm.739
The Ashji-bashi, chief cook, with fifty cooks under him. He has 40 aspers per day, the cooks under him four, six, or eight aspers each.
The Helvaji-bashi, or chief confectioner, with 40 aspers, and he has thirty companions with five to six aspers per day each.
The Chasnijir-bashi,740 chief of the cupboards, with eighty aspers: morning and evening he brings with his own hand the dish of the Signor, and he has under him a hundred Chasnijirs with from three to seventy aspers each.741
The Mutbakh-emini,742 or steward, with 40 aspers. He has a secretary with 20 aspers a day.
A hundred Ajem-oghlans, who transport on carts the wood of the palace. They have three to five aspers, and are provided with clothing.
Ten Sakkas, who carry water on horseback in leathern sacks, with three to five aspers each.
The expenses for the table of the Signor, and of the youths with their eunuchs and others to about a thousand, amount to five thousand aspers a day.
Three Kapuji-bashis, or captains of the gate, who have a hundred aspers a day and are clothed every year: and they have under them two hundred and fifty Kapujis, who have five to six aspers each; and each Kapuji-bashi with a third of the Kapujis is obliged to keep guard at the gate of the Signor, changing from day to day. And when any ambassador or other person goes to kiss the hand of the Grand Signor, all these are given presents of clothes or of money according to the degree of him who is introduced.
A Kapuji-kiaya, who is, as it were, a lieutenant of the Kapujis, has forty aspers a day.
Four Vizier Pashas, or chief counsellors: the greatest has ordinarily twenty-four thousand ducats a year and the others sixteen to eighteen thousand; but they have also so much feudal income that they receive three times as much as the provision in money.743 To this should be added the garments which the Signor gives them, the presents of ambassadors and of others, the perquisites of the office they hold, which are unlimited. At present they are only three. The first is Ibrahim, born a Christian at Parga. The second Aias of Khimara. The third Kassim of Croatia, a kidnapped Christian. To these there is added a fourth at present,744 who is Khaireddin Bey Barbarossa of the Albanian nation, formerly a corsair and now king of Algiers in Barbary. These Pashas live and dress very superbly. They have: Ibrahim six thousand and more slaves, Aias two thousand, Kassim fifteen hundred, and Barbarossa about four thousand. To all these slaves they give pay, horses, garments, golden bonnets and silver chains,745 according to their offices and degrees. And these serve their Pashas under the same arrangements by which the Signor is served by his [slaves]. They have also twenty-five or thirty chancery secretaries to the Signor, men of great repute, with twenty-five to thirty aspers per day each: they keep more or fewer slaves as they can. These Pashas have entry to the Signor for affairs of state; and it is in fact they who govern the whole after their own fashion.
There is next the Mufti, or the interpreter and chief of the laws; they do not trouble him about anything except the affairs of religion and their faith, and he has the position which our Pope had in ancient times.746
Two Kaziasker Danishmends, or doctors of the laws for the army, one for Greece, the other for Anatolia. Their position is of great importance. They sit at the Porte and have precedence of the Vizier Pashas: on this account they are much esteemed. They are executors of the laws, and with the consent of the Pashas they appoint and remove the Kazis, who are like podestas for the whole country. They have feudal income of about six thousand ducats a year each. They keep two hundred to three hundred slaves each, and they are accompanied by ten secretaries appointed by the Signor and two Mochtur-bashis, who hold the office of ushers:747 these live from perquisites, of which they have a great many.
Two Defterdars, or treasurers, or rather, as we would say, governors of the revenues. One of these has the receipt and the care of those revenues which come from a third of Greece, or from that part which is toward the Danube, and besides, from Asia, from Syria, and from Egypt, with feudal income of ten thousand ducats a year, although with the perquisites he gets twice as much. The other has the care of the other two-thirds of Greece: but when the Signor takes the field this man remains in Constantinople as his vicar and lieutenant; and he has six thousand ducats of feudal income, but gets three times as much; and their position is of great dignity. They have under them fifty clerks with many helpers: these keep the accounts of the Khazineh, or treasury of the Signor; and these clerks are appointed by the Signor with pay of fifteen to fifty aspers per day each. The Defterdars have, the first a thousand slaves and the second five hundred, and the clerks from two to twenty slaves each.748
Two Rusnamehjis, chief clerks, who receive the money and disburse it as needed, with twenty-five companions besides themselves.
The two have forty aspers each, and the twenty-five have eight to ten aspers a day.
Two Veznedars, or weighers of aspers and ducats, with twenty-five to thirty aspers each.
Six Sarrafs, or bankers, who know gold and silver [coins], and they have ten to fifteen aspers each.
One Nishanji-bashi, who signs the ordinances and public writings with the monogram of the Signor. His position is like that of grand chancellor and is of great repute. He sits at the Porte below the Beylerbeys. He has eight thousand ducats of feudal income, and travels in great honor with more than three hundred slaves.
An outside Khazinehdar-bashi, or household treasurer, with ten Khazinehdars under him. He has fifty aspers, and they ten to fifteen per day.
A Defter-emini, who has charge of the feudal grants: he keeps the register of those who receive feudal grants. He has forty aspers a day, and under him are ten clerks with ten to fifteen aspers per day each.
Eighty Muteferrika, or lancers of the body-guard749 of the Signor, these always carry lances when he takes the field; they recognize no other head than the Signor himself. And when by artifice or merit they acquire favor, they are made Aghas, or generals. The least has ten, the greatest eighty, aspers per day.
A Chaush-bashi, or chief sergeant of the army. He is of so great credit with every one, that when he is sent by the Signor to some Pasha, Sanjak, or Kazi, with the order to have the head of such and such a one cut off, he is obeyed without their requiring a letter from him, or a command in writing; not otherwise than if the Signor himself were there, and gave command. He has a hundred aspers a day, and under him he keeps a hundred slaves,750 with twenty-five to forty aspers each.
The Mihter-bashi, or chief of those who pitch the tents and spread the rugs, who sweep the court-yards and attend to other similar duties; he has forty aspers, a Kiaya with twenty-five aspers, sixty Mihters with five to eight aspers each; and they are clothed every year by the Signor.
An Agha, or general of the Janissaries. He has for pay a thousand aspers and over per day, and six thousand ducats of feudal grant per year. When this Agha holds court, which is two or three times per week, he is obliged to give the Janissaries to eat, a meal of bread, rice, mutton, honey, and water. He has under him a Kiaya or Secretary of the Janissaries, who is, as it were, a vicegerent; he has two hundred aspers per day of pay in cash, and thirty thousand of feudal grant per year.751 And there is a clerk of these Janissaries, called the Yaziji of the Janissaries,752 with a hundred aspers a day.
A Seymen-bashi, chief of the harriers.753 He has a hundred aspers and has from the number of the Janissaries about two thousand under him.
A Zagarji-bashi, head of the hounds.754 He has fifty aspers a day, and has under him about seven hundred of the Janissaries.
The Janissaries number about twelve thousand: they have each from three to eight aspers of pay per day. Each ten has its Oda-bashi, and each hundred has its Boluk-bashi. And these heads of ten or of a hundred go on horseback. And the Oda-bashis have forty, and the Boluk-bashis sixty aspers a day. The remainder of the Janissaries go on foot. They are clothed once a year by the Signor with coarse blue cloth. They have their residence in two barracks in Constantinople given by the Signor. Those who have no wives reside in these. Those who are married reside at various places in the city. For their living expenses each contributes so much a day, and they have a steward and a cook, who provide their necessary living: and those who have less pay than the others are obliged to serve those who have more pay than they. Every hundred of them when they take the field transport a tent. They go on foot, and part of them are musketeers, and part halbardiers, and part use the scimetar alone. Every three lead a horse which carries their clothing. And when they come to old age, or when for some other reason the service of one of them does not please the Signor, they are stricken from the book of the Janissaries, and are sent as Hissarlis755 or castle guards; and those of their officers who are deposed for such a reason, are sent as castellans with a feudal grant equivalent to the pay which they had previously, in such a way that none of them suffers hardship. Such of them as succeed in war are made Voivodes,756 and raised to high positions. They come as boys to this soldiery and are taught by the experienced ones. They choose healthy ones, well-built, but nimble and dextrous, lively above all, and more often cruel than compassionate. In them rests the force and all the firmness of the army of the Turk; they, because they are always exercising and living together, all become as it were a single body, and of a truth they are terrible.757
From the Janissaries are chosen a hundred and fifty Solaks, who are footmen of the Signor, with fifteen to twenty aspers a day each: they march surrounding the person of the Signor every time he goes forth.
Two Solak-bashis, chief officers of the Solaks, who go on horseback, with thirty aspers per day. And these and the Solaks are in obedience to the Agha of the Janissaries.
An Agha of the Spahi-oghlans, an office of great honor. He has from feudal grant and pay ten ducats a day, and he has a large number of slaves, with a Kiaya under him, or lieutenant: this man has from feudal grant and pay a hundred aspers a day. And also a Yaziji, or secretary, with thirty aspers, and with large perquisites.
The Spahi-oghlans, or youths on horseback, who may be called Spahi-oghlan, are more than three thousand; and they have twenty to forty aspers each; and every twenty have a Boluk-bashi. These serve on horseback, each with five or six slaves and a like number of horses. And they always journey, and also encamp, at the right hand of the Signor. They are great people. From them the Signor is wont to choose his chief men. They are first put as boys into the palace, and when they grow up they succeed well if they attain this grade: it is like a ladder to mount to higher positions.
An Agha of the Silihdars, who has thirty thousand aspers a day,758 and under him a lieutenant, a secretary, a Kiaya,759 with thirty aspers and more each.
There are three thousand Silihdars. They moreover ride and encamp at the left hand of the Signor. They have twenty to twenty-five aspers per day each, and they have four or five slaves and a like number of horses, with feudal income for their living. They are trained by the same education with which the Spahis are brought up: nor is there any difference between them, except that the Spahis go on the right, and these on the left, of the Signor.
Two Ulufaji-bashis, or chief officers of soldiers, with two thousand Ulufajis, who go on the right hand and the left of the Signor. The chief officers have a hundred and twenty aspers, and the others eight to sixteen aspers; then under them760 they have a Kiaya, a secretary, and a lieutenant,761 with slaves and with horses, some more and some fewer.
Two Aghas, chief officers of the Ghureba-oghlans, or poor youths762 with eighty aspers each. Kiayas, thirty aspers. Secretaries, twenty-five. And they have under them about two thousand Ghureba-oghlans with seven to fourteen aspers per day: these have slaves and horses.
Two Emir-al-Akhors,763 or masters of the stable, a greater and a lesser. The greater has five hundred aspers, the lesser two hundred, with lieutenant and Kiaya764 and others, who have thirty to forty aspers each.
Sixteen thousand altogether of Serraj, who have charge of bridles765 and saddles; Ceyssi, or stable servants; Carmandari, who take care of the mules; Deveji, who take care of the camels, and Cavriliji, who herd the cattle and horses in various places. These have two to twenty aspers per day each.
Thirty to forty Peiks, or runners on foot, men who when boys have had their spleens removed:766 and they run post on foot with great speed. These when the Signor goes forth remain continually near, so that he may employ them according to his needs.
Select horses about four thousand for the person of the Signor; on these the pages of the palace and the eunuchs ride for exercise in their turns.
A Chakirji-bashi, chief Vulturer, and a Shahinji-bashi, chief Falconer. The first has a hundred and fifty aspers, and the other has eighty; with Kiayas, lieutenants,767 and others, with ten to twenty-five aspers each per day. Under these are about two hundred Zanijiler,768 only a hundred of whom have ten aspers a day, and the others have feudal income, or exemption from taxation. And they take the field when the Signor has need.
A Jebeji-bashi, chief armorer. He has sixty aspers, a Kiaya and a secretary with twenty aspers each. He has under him about one thousand five hundred jebejis, with seven to twelve aspers. These all go on foot when the Signor takes the field.
A Topji-bashi, chief of artillery. He has seventy aspers, a Kiaya [and] secretary with twenty aspers: and under him are two thousand Topjis with six to ten aspers, and they go on foot.
An Arabaji-bashi, chief wagoner. He has forty aspers, a Kiaya [and] secretary with twenty aspers: and under him three thousand Arabajis with three to six aspers each.
A Mihter-bashi, or chief of trumpeters and drummers. He has thirty [aspers] per day, and under him two hundred Mihters, part of them on foot and part on horseback with three to five aspers per day.
An Emir-Alem Agha, who carries the standard of the Signor. He has two hundred aspers a day, and is captain of all the musicians.
An Arpa-emini, who is Provider of the grain, with a Lieutenant and a Chancellor.769 He has sixty aspers, the Lieutenant thirty and the Chancellor twenty: this Arpa-emini has under him twenty persons who receive among them all about eight hundred aspers.
A Shehr-emini,770 or Commissioner of public works, who takes care of the streets of Constantinople, and also of the road when the Signor goes forth to war: and he has charge also of public buildings, fountains, and aqueducts. He has fifty aspers, and keeps under him four hundred men: among all of these is given a thousand aspers. He has also a Kiaya and secretary with about thirty-eight aspers each.771
A Berat-emini, who is deputed to distribute the ordinances of the Signor in writing and who receives the fees; and he has forty aspers, with two secretaries, and two superintendents with twenty aspers each.
A Terjuman,772 or interpreter of all the languages. This position is highly reputed in proportion to the worth and intelligence of him who holds it. He has five hundred ducats of fixed income each year, and has also a like sum from feudal grant, and more than four times as much of extraordinary income; and he is wont to be highly respected.
Proceeding now further as I have begun, I shall leave it for another time and eye to reduce this Porte to better order and put everything in its proper place. I find that to all the above-mentioned things should be added a Palace of the ladies of the Signor.773 This is very large, with a circuit of about a mile and a half; and it is provided with different chambers and other rooms, where the sons of the Signor reside separately with their mothers, and with a great number of eunuchs for their guard and service. There also reside the Sultanas, that is the mothers and the wives of the Signors; and there are three hundred damsels, placed there virgins, and given to the government of many matrons. To all of these damsels the Signor has it taught to embroider different designs, to each he gives pay of ten to twenty aspers per day; and twice every year at the two Bairams he has them clothed in stuffs of silk. And when one of these pleases him he does what he wishes with her, and when he has lain with her he gives her a golden bonnet and ten thousand aspers, and has her placed in a separate apartment from the others, increasing her ordinary pay.774 In the aforesaid Palace there is an Agha of the Eunuchs: to these are given a hundred and twenty aspers for all. Three Kapuji-bashis, and with them a hundred Kapujis and Janissaries at the gate: among all these is given six hundred aspers a day. Ten Sakkas, who carry water, forty aspers in all. And the damsels are served and educated up to the age of twenty-five years. The teachers are the matrons, the servants are the youngest among them; and when they have arrived at twenty-five years, if it does not please the Signor to keep them for his own use, he marries them to Spahi-oghlans, and to others of the slaves of the Porte according to the degree and condition of both parties; and in their place he substitutes others.
There is also a palace near Pera for about four hundred boys, who have pay of six to ten aspers, and are clothed with silk twice a year. These have an Agha and eunuchs, as have those in the great palace, [and] Kapujis, Ajem-oghlans and a hundred teachers of various arts. Among all these is distributed eight hundred aspers a day. They are not so noble, or of so beautiful appearance or show of intelligence as are those who reside with the Signor; but from these also many become great, and some of them are taken into the great palace. And similarly in Adrianople there is a palace of three hundred boys under pay, an Agha, eunuchs, Kapujis, Janissaries, and teachers, about two hundred in all, who have all together two thousand eight hundred aspers a day. These are of third grade, but they are carefully taught and well kept like all the others, and from them according to the spirit and worth which they show promotions are made. There is also in that region another palace, recently built, with a large and beautiful garden: this is located on the river Maritza, and in it reside about three hundred Ajem-oghlans; on these [palaces] they spend every year two hundred thousand aspers for each, and they have an Agha with forty aspers and a lieutenant and secretaries with thirty aspers each per day. In various other places in Adrianople there are gardens: in these reside continually as on deposit one thousand five hundred Ajem-oghlans with Agha and secretaries, and on these they spend six thousand aspers a year775 or a little more.
There is also an Agha of the Ajem-oghlans, or Janissary recruits, who resides in Constantinople; he has sixty aspers per day, and under him are about five thousand Ajem-oghlans: these they clothe twice a year, and on their teachers and chiefs they spend ten thousand aspers776 a year. They put them on ships and buildings to carry wood and perform other tasks. They become cooks or servants of the Janissaries, and finally they become Janissaries.
And every four years the Turkish Signor sends into Greece and into Anatolia to seize boys, sons of Christians, ten or twelve thousand each time: these he sends into Anatolia in the region of Brusa or Caramania to dig the earth, so that they will become accustomed to hard labor, and so that there they may learn the Turkish language. These boys remain in such a place and occupation three or four years: then they are ordered to be gathered again, and are given to the government and discipline of the Agha of the Ajem-oghlans. For these the Signor does not have any expenses so long as they reside in Anatolia, because they are clothed and have their living from those whom they serve by plowing the ground and doing other work for them.
It seemed best to me to make mention in this place of all the palaces, because they are as it were of the same body as that of the Signor, and all the expenses of these are computed in the book of the expense of the great palace, or that of the Signor. To these expenses are added those, which are incurred in clothing twice each year the Pashas, the Kaziaskers, the Defterdars, the Beylerbeys, and the Nishanji, and the expenses which are incurred for the extraordinary presents of the Signor. These in all amount to and go beyond a million aspers a year.
There is also an Arsenal in the region of Pera, small and of short circuit: this has on the sea-front ninety-two vaults, and so little area and ground within that not merely no galleys but not even materials and timbers can be contained there. In it usually work each day about two hundred men; although there are under pay two hundred patrons with two thousand aspers per day for all.777 A thousand Azabs, who have among them four thousand aspers. Foremen, or masters fifty in number, who have in leisure, that is, when not working, six aspers, and when working, twelve aspers each. An Intendant, forty aspers. A Secretary, twenty-five aspers, with ten clerks under him, who have a hundred aspers. All these fulfil their duties when there is great need; but they understand ill the trade and art of building galleys. For this reason they do not turn out good and ready ones like ours; and what few there are are overseen by Christians, who are well paid.
Over this Arsenal and all these persons, there is one who is called the Beylerbey of the sea; that is to say, Lord of lords, an office created at the time when I was in Constantinople; since in the past he who was Sanjak of Gallipoli was wont to be called Captain of the Sea. And Khaireddin Bey called Barbarossa was the first who had this title; he was then made fourth Pasha. To him is given the government of all the fleets, and he has for income every year a feudal grant of fourteen thousand ducats, besides that from Rhodes, Euboea, and Mytilene; so that he receives twice as much more.
I find nothing else that pertains to arrangements for the rule and watch of the sea which are worthy of note: wherefore I will now come to those of the land; these are in truth well and usefully ordered.
There is first one called the Beylerbey of Greece: in this are included all the lands which the Turkish Signor possesses in Europe: this Beylerbey is greater than all the others. He has from feudal grant sixteen thousand ducats a year, and gets more than double this. He sits at the Porte after the Pashas,778 and is of great repute with everybody. He has under him besides his slaves, who number more than a thousand, a Defterdar with feudal income of three thousand ducats a year; a hundred clerks who keep the books and accounts of the feudal grants assigned to Subashis, Kazis, Spahis, and others; among all of whom are distributed ten thousand ducats a year.
Thirty-six Sanjaks: these are in obedience to him, and have for feudal income from five to twelve thousand ducats a year each. They are distributed through the provinces: in these they reside only so long as pleases the Signor: he changes them, as seems best to him, from one province to another. Their duty is to rule the Spahis, and to have them trained in arms, and to keep them in obedience.
Four hundred Subashis, who have among them all from feudal income four hundred thousand ducats, and have about five hundred slaves each.779
Thirty thousand Spahis: these are horse soldiery set apart some to the service of the Beylerbey, and some to that of all the Sanjaks of Greece. They have from feudal grant two hundred ducats each, and each of them, for every hundred ducats of feudal income, is obliged to maintain an armed man, with horse and lance. And then they have besides the armed man two or four or five servants and horses. These Spahis are all slaves of the Signor, and sons of slaves, and of Spahis.
Twenty thousand Timarjis who have ten to forty ducats of feudal income each year, and because they do not reach a hundred ducats, they are not called Spahis. These have each a horse and two or three servants, and they serve distributed through all the Sanjaks of Greece. The feudal grants are by assignment of land; the income of this assignment they get partly from rent, but the greater part from the tithes of all the income, which Turks as well as Christians pay, and from the poll-tax, which is twenty-five aspers per head from Christians alone, and from the imposts laid on animals, fruit-trees, and other things. These imposts, moreover, are in addition to those which they pay ordinarily to the Signor.
Sixty thousand Akinji, or mounted adventurers, inscribed for the lands of Greece and obliged to go to war without payment. But they are exempt from any burden, and cities and villages are bound to give them, when they pass through, living expenses only.
There are in all Greece, that is, in all the countries which the Turkish Signor possesses in Europe, sixty-eight thousand villages of Turkish and Christian people, subject to public burdens.780
There follow next six Beylerbeys of Asia, and a separate one of Egypt. The first of these is called the Beylerbey of Anatolia which was anciently Asia Minor: he has from feudal income fourteen thousand ducats, but gets a great deal more. This man has under him and in his government Pontus, Bithynia, Asia proper, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia: these provinces under a single name are called at present Anatolia. This man’s place at the Porte is after the Beylerbey of Greece. And he has under him, besides his own slaves, who are more than a thousand, twelve Sanjaks with feudal income of from four to six thousand ducats each. Ten thousand Spahis, with five to ten aspers a day, and also more or less feudal income according to their degree. Next after these follows
The Beylerbey of Caramania, which was anciently Cilicia and Pamphylia, with feudal income of ten thousand ducats. This man has under him seven Sanjaks with four to six thousand ducats of feudal income each, and five thousand Spahis, with five to ten aspers a day each and feudal income besides.
The Beylerbey of Amasia and Tokat, which was Cappadocia and Galatia, with feudal income of eight thousand ducats. Four Sanjaks with four to six thousand ducats of feudal income each. Four thousand Spahis with five to ten aspers a day each and feudal income.
The Beylerbey of Anadole, which is a region between Syria, Caramania, and Tokat, which was anciently Paphlagonia, and is the half of Armenia Minor. He has ten thousand ducats of feudal income, and under him seven Sanjaks with four to five thousand ducats of feudal income. Seven thousand Spahis, with five to ten aspers per day and feudal income. In this province of Anadole, they say that when the Signor is there, besides the paid troops thirty thousand persons are obliged to ride without any pay, but only with expenses from the villages.
The Beylerbey of Mesopotamia, under whom is the remainder of Armenia Minor and part of the Major, the other parts belonging to the Persians and the Kurds. This borders with Bagdad, or Baldach, which was anciently Babylonia. He has of feudal income thirty thousand ducats: and besides his own slaves, who number two thousand, he has under him twelve Sanjaks with feudal income of four to six thousand ducats a year, and ten781 Spahis with ten to fifteen aspers per day each, and with large feudal income because of being at the confines of the Persians: with these they are continually in conflict.
A Beylerbey of Damascus and Syria and Judea, with feudal income of twenty-four thousand ducats; he has more than two thousand slaves, and under him twelve Sanjaks with feudal income of five to seven thousand ducats, and twenty thousand Spahis with ten to fifteen aspers per day each and with good feudal income.
A Beylerbey of Cairo: he holds jurisdiction as far as Mecca, or as far as into Arabia: this Arabia is possessed by the Turkish Signor in the way in which he possesses Albania, where he is not yielded such obedience as he is accustomed to receive from all his other states and countries. But [Arabia] Felix stands in somewhat greater obedience than the rest. He has for feudal income thirty thousand ducats, with numerous slaves: these amount to more than four thousand; sixteen Sanjaks with feudal income of six to eight thousand ducats each; and sixteen thousand Spahis with fifteen to twenty aspers each per day.
Near Mecca, and the countries of the Persians, are some Arabic lords who do not obey any one. The rest782 then borders the Persians as far as Mesopotamia, in which is Bagdad.783 Passing Mesopotamia it borders the Persians again to the plain of Naximan, then touches Erzinjan784 and Erzerum, which are the chief places of Armenia Major. This Armenia borders with the Iberians and Georgians. In these Armenias, Major and Minor, are many Kurds, people of the mountains and warlike, those of [Armenia] Major obedient partly to the Turkish Signor, and partly to the Persian; those of [Armenia] Minor to no one. Next Trebizond borders with the Georgians and Mingrelians, and with part of the Iberians, which people were anciently called Colchians. And Ajemia,785 which anciently was Assyria, belongs to the Persian: he is absolute master of it.
There are in all Anatolia, or in all the countries which the Turkish Signor possesses in Asia, villages of Turks and Christians to the number of more than seventy-two thousand, not counting those which are in Egypt, which are many.
The Sanjaks truly [set forth]: these (as I said above) have under government the provinces entrusted to the Beylerbeys; they are men of much and very great reputation and esteem, especially in the affairs of war; they are named as below by the names of the places which are given to their government. And first the Beylerbey of Greece holds as his sanjakate the places about Salonika. Then follow the others of Kaffa, Silistria, Nicopolis, Vidin, Semendria, Servia and Belgrade,786 Zvornick, Bosnia, Hersek, which is the Servia called the Duchy,787 Scutari, Avlona, Yanina, Karli Ili, Lepanto, Morea, Negropont, Trikkala, Gallipoli, Kirk-Kilisse or Forty Churches, Viza, Chirmen, Kostendil, Vishidrina, Prisrend, Okhrida, Alaja Hissar, Elbassan, Voinuch, Chiuchene, Zaiza. These are usually counted thirty-five, but five are regions united to neighboring places, namely Philippopolis, Sofia, Durazzo, Albania, and Uskup.
Anatolia, or Asia Minor: Pontus, Bithynia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is at Kutaia. And the others are in Hoja-ili, Boli, Kastamuni, Angora, Kanghri,788 Tekke-ili, Menteshe-ili, Aidin-ili, Alayeh,789 Bigha, and Manissa,790 which is that of Sultan Mustapha, the oldest son of the Signor. This place is opposite the middle of Chios near the sea.
Amasia, and Tokat, which is Paphlagonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Amasia, of the others in Chorum, Janik, Kara-hissar, Samsun, Trebizond.
Caramania, which is Cilicia opposite Cyprus and Pamphylia. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Konia. The others have theirs in Naranda, Hissar, Eski-hissar, Versag-ili, Sivri-hissar.
Anadole, or Armenia Minor. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Marash. Those of the others in Sarmussacli, Albistan-ovassi,791 Adana, Tarsus.
Diarbekir, or Mesopotamia, and part of Armenia Major, of which the remainder belongs to the Persians and the Kurds. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Diarbekir. And the others have theirs in Kara Amid, Arghana, Toljik, Hassan-Kief, Mardin, Kharput, Mosul, Erzerum, Baiburt, Bitlis, and Naximan-ovassi.
Syria, and Judea. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Damascus. Of the others in Malatia, Divirigi, Aintab, Antioch, Aleppo, Tripoli, Hama, Homs, Safita, Jerusalem, Gaza.
Egypt, with part of Arabia Deserta as far as Jeddah;792 Mecca, with all of Arabia Felix, where are many Arab lordlings, who are partly in devotion to the Turkish Signor, partly to no one. The sanjakate of the Beylerbey is in Cairo, and of the others....793
All the aforesaid Sanjaks, Beylerbeys, Pashas, and other officials have salary or feudal income, as I have said above, by fixed arrangement, that is, regularly: but they obtain from extraordinary sources about as much more. And they live with very great expenses for slaves: these they are accustomed to clothe and they give them also wages besides, so that they will not steal.
How great the revenues of this Signor are, may be estimated from the expenses. These revenues are obtained from the Kharâj, which is paid by the non-Turkish subjects; this gives a million and a half ducats: from the tax on animals, which gives eight hundred thousand ducats: from mines, which give six hundred thousand ducats: from countless other duties, salt-taxes, commendations, inheritances, gifts, the revenues of Egypt over and above the expenses, rents, and tributes. And they are so great that they not only meet the expenses, which amount besides the feudal income in ready money drawn from the Treasury to more than twelve thousand ducats a day;794 but there remains over a great sum of money from the surplus of each year. And it is believed that all the revenues amount to fifteen millions in gold: five of which enter the Treasury, and the other ten remain for the servants of war.795
Appendix II — Pamphlet of Junis Bey and Alvise Gritti
OPERA NOUA LA QUALE DECHIARA
tutto il gouerno del gran Turcho & tutta
la Spesa che il gran Turcho ha sotto
di lui cosi in pace como in guerra
& il numero de le Persone & nome
& gouerno de le sue Donne
& Garzoni che lui tene
nel Serraglio serrati &
de tutta la Entrata che
lui ha a lanno & nomina
tutti li Signori
de le sue
prouincie:
E il nome de tutte le sue terre chelha
sotto se: & la ordināza del suo Campo
quādo ua ala guerra como
ua in ordinanza tutte le
persone a sorte per
sorte & come
uanno e
che arme portano. Nouamente stampata
nel M D X X X V I I.
Il Signor grāde cioe il grā Turcho ha uno serraglio principale doue tene la sua sedia, & ha una camera deputada per lui doue dorme, & al gouerno dessa ha 8. gioueni ch’ lo uestano e suestano doi al giorno deputati ala guardia, & seruitii suoi, & la notte li fanno la guardia uno da capo, laltro da piede con due torce accese: & q̄lli doi che li hāno fatto la guardia la notte lo uestano la mattina, & li mettano ne la Scarsella del dulimano cioe de la casacha sua aspri Mille uno aspro ual soldi do di Milano, & in laltra duchati 20 doro: questi dinari sel Signor nō li dona uia quel giorno restano a colori ch’ lo spogliano la sera, & q̄sti giouani hāno uno capo ch’ si domāda Oddabassi cioe capo de li camarieri uno Papugi che li porta le scarpe, laltro Selictare che porta larco & frezze, laltro Ciochadar ch’ li porta le ueste, laltro Seracter che li porta il mastrapā zoe il ramī da lacq̄, laltro schēni ch’ porta la sedia questi sono li nomi che hanno li otto gioueni, & il capo de questi cioe Oddabassi ha aspri 30. al di di soldo, & li altri 8. gioueni hano chi 15. chi 20. aspri per uno secondo il loro grado.
El Capagasi e monuco cioe castrato & e portinaro de la porta del gran Turco ha aspri 60. di soldo.
El Capiagabasi cioe il capo del Serraglio doue sta il Turcho quādo il Signor e fora de Cōstantinopoli ha aspri 50. & ha sotto lui 12 mōuchi cioe castrati che hāno aspri 16. al di per uno di soldo & spesa.
El Casnādarbasi e monucho, cioe Tesorero de la Saluaroba del Signor ha aspri 60. al di di soldo.
Ha in el serraglio il Signor gioueni de anni 8. fino in 20. numero 700. che hāno di soldo al giorno chi 10. chi 14. secondo il suo grado & sono uestiti dal Signor q̄sti hàno maestri che li insegnano a legere e scriuere & la lege loro, & como escano del serraglio hanno nella porta cioe ne la sua corte officii chi Spacoglài chi Selictari chi Solachi & altri stipēdii secondo gratia e ualore loro.
Spacoglani sono gétilhomini che cortigiano il Signor quādo caualca: & li Selictari sono q̄lli che uano alla mā sinistra del Signor q̄ndo ua in campo: & li Solachi sono stafferi del Signor, & li suoi maestri sono Talasimāi uecchi detti Cogia dotti nella lege loro, cioe sacerdoti & questi putti sono ogni 10. in gouerno d’uno monucho detto Capogliano, ognuno ha uno schiauinotto nel qual dormino détro la notte de sorte che non si toccano insiemo & stanno in uno salotto & li Monuchi dormeno in mezo desso salotto & stanno le lume accese tutta la notte.
Ha uno giardino nel serraglio che uolge circa doi miglia doue stanno circa 400. putti giardineri detti Bustāgi sono Ianicerotti, & hanno uno capo che si domanda Bustāgibassi che e sopra tutti li giardini del Signor ch’ sono molti e lui ha aspri 40. il di di soldo & altre molte regalie & a li giardineri chi 3. chi 5. aspri al di & sono ognuno uestiti del Signor di pāno azuro turchesco & una gamisa e uno paro di braghe do uolte a lanno & quādo escano del serraglio che sono grādi diuentano Ianizari cioe guardiani del Signor, Solachi cioe staffieri & Capigi cioe Portinari: & il ditto Bonstāgibassi e q̄llo ch’e timonero quādo il Signor ua in Fusta hāno uno p̄toiro cioe loco tenente che ha aspri 20. al di & ogni 10 de detti hāno uno capo ditto Balucasi che ha aspri 20. il di & questi putti uāno per tutto dentro del Serraglio & mai escano fino che non sono homeni.
El Signor ha due Fuste che li nauegano li sopraditti giardineri, & lo capo loro sta al timone con le quale il Signor ua a spasso assai per canale & a li giardini lor.
El calualgibasi capo de le cōfettioni ha aspri 40. il di con 30. homini sotto di lui & hanno chi 5. chi 6. aspri al di.
El Vechilargibasi capo deli despésieri ha aspri 40. il di cō uno scriuano cō aspri 20 il di di soldo.
El Cessignirbassi capo de li cardēceri ha aspri 80. il di & questo porta la sera & mattina il piato al Signore & ha sotto di lui homini 100. che hanno chi 5. chi 6. aspri al di di soldo.
Vno Asgibassi capo de li coghi ha aspri 40. al di & ha da circa 80. coghi sotto di lui che hāno chi 5. chi 6. chi 8. aspri il di, & ha da 80. Ianicerotti da 10. in 20. anni ditti baltagi cioe taglia legne che tagliano le legne per la cucina del signore & per tutto il serraglio che hanno da 3. in 5. aspri il di per uno & sono uestiti dal Signore.
Ha circa 20. garzoni Ianicerotti carretteri che portano con li carri le legne nel serraglio & hanno aspri 3. in 5. al di & sono uestiti dal Signore.
Sacha 10. cioe acquaroli che portano lacqua con li caualli nel serraglio hanno 3. in 5. aspri il di & uestiti dal Signore.
Vna stalla con 200. caualli per la ꝑsona del Signore con 100. homini al gouerno suo che hanno aspri 5. in 8. al di di soldo per uno. Vnaltra stalla con 4000. caualli per li schiaui soi con 2000. homini al suo gouerno che hāno da 3 in 5 aspri al di di soldo & spesa.
Il gran Turcho ha molti giardini & si uendano li frutti & del tratto di essi si fa le spese a lui per essere entrate licite, & il suo serraglio paga di liuello aspri 1000. al giorno a la moschea cioe a la gesia del padre de suo padre Soltan memet.
Spesa nel piato del Signor aspri 5000. & per li garzoni soi aspri 2500. ogni giorno.
Vno Capigilarchi caiasi idest gouernator & capo de tutti li capigi cioe di portineri de la porta ha aspri 500. il di: & 3 capigibassi de la porta del signore hanno aspri 100. il di & uestiti, sotto q̄sti sono Capigi cioe Portinari numero 250. che hanno aspri 57. il di per uno, & questi fanno la guardia a la porta del Signor di 24. in 24. hore, & quando qualche Ambasciator ua a basciare la mano al Signor bisogna chel presenta tutti costori. Vno Capigi la che chi si Protoiro idest locotenente di Capigi ha aspri 40. il giorno.
El Ciausbasi capo de li ciausi cō 100. ciausi sotto lui q̄sti sono homini grādi & quādo uāno ꝑ fare morire alcuno sia dassai quāto si uoglia sono obediti senza altra cōmissione in scritto, & q̄ndo il Signor caualca uāno semp’ ináci a lui faciādo fare largo, hāno di soldi da aspri 25. sino in 40. al di secūdo lor grado & il ciaubasi ha aspri 200.
El Mecterbasi capo de quelli che destendano li padiglioni & tapedi & spazzan la porta & altre simile cose ha aspri 40. il di con il suo Protoiro che ha aspri 20. il di con 60. homini sotto di lui che si domandano Mecteri che hanno aspri 5. in 6. il di per uno & sono uestiti.
Sono ordinatamēte 4. Bascia soi cāzelleri e cōseieri el primo ha duchati 24000 di entrata a lanno: li altri tre hāno chi 16000. chi 18000. duchati a lanno & li sono date entrate doue cauano il tutto, & hāno molte altre regalie & p̄senti.
Abrain ch’era de la pargha albaneso e morto, hora li e Aiisbassa de la sinita ch’e il prícipale Albāeso uno altro mostafa bascia ch’e mamalucho di Alchayro & uno Casin bascia ch’e Crouato & Cayradibeii cioe Barbarossa ch’era greco di metelí Isola & niuno puo essere bascia se non Christiani renegati. Ayas ha numero 600. schiaui. Mostafa ne ha numero 200: Casin crouato ne ha numero 150. Barbarossa ne ha da numero 100. A liquali danno soldo caualli scufie doro & spade fornite dargento & di questi essi Bascia fanno la corte loro & sono uestiti da essi Bascia.
Doi Cadilescher talasimani uno de la Grecia laltro de la natolia cioe Asia, & ha di entrata ducati 6 in 7 milia a lanno per uno: q̄sti sono executori de la lege loro & hano 10. homini executori per uno dati dal Signor sono q̄lli che metteno li Cadi cioe podesta per tutto il paese del Signor & quādo uanno dal Signor entrano auanti deli Bascia hanno per uno mocturbasi cioe cursor, & como cauallieri de li executori & questi tutti uiuano di regalie, hāno lo Cadilescheri 200. in 300. schiaui per uno che se ne fanno la lor corte.
Doi Defterderi cioe thesoreri uno di Asia laltro di Europa che scodano tutte le entrade del Signor & gouernano quasi il tutto hanno di entrada ducati sie in sette milia a lanno per uno, & hanno 200. schiaui per uno & ne fanno la lor corte.
Hanno q̄sti Defterderi 50. scriuani per uno con li cogitori quali tengano conto del thesoro del Signor, questi scriuani sono posti dal Signor con soldo di 15. in 50. aspri al di per uno secondo il grado loro & hāno 15. in 20. schiaui per uno.
Secretarii 25. posti dal Signor che hanno 25. in 30. aspri il di & suoi schiaui sono doi Rosanamagi idest capi de li scriuani che reuedano li cōti & ch’ receuano dāno fora con 20. cōpagni sotto loro doi, hanno aspri 40. il di & li 25. compagni hāno aspri 8. in 10. al di per uno di soldo.
Cinque Seraferi idest Bancheri che uedano tutti li danari che si scodano hanno aspri 10. in 15. al di di soldo.
Vno Tescheregibassi che segna tutti li commandamenti del Signor ha di entrata ducati 7000. & 300. in 400. schiaui.
Vno Casmandarbassi di fora con 10. Casandari il capo ha aspri 50. il di & ha aspri 10. in 15. al di di soldo sintéde sopra la saluaroba del Signore di fuora del serraglio.
Vno Defterdaro emino cioe douanero sopra le intrade & tene il libro de li timarati ha aspri 40. il di con lo scriuano che ha aspri 10. in 15. al di.
Vno Agha de Ianiceri cioe Capitano de tutti li Ianiceri che ha intrata duch. 7000. lāno, & ha aspri 10000. per far pasto a li Ianizari quādo el da audiétia in casa sua che 2. o 3. uolte la settimana la da & ha 400. schiaui sotto se questi Ianizari sono la guardia del Signor tutti schiopetteri & uanno a piede.
Vno Gachaia de Ianizari cioe locotenéte ha 200 aspri al di & ducati 300. di timaro cioe entrata a lanno con 25. schiaui suoi.
Vno Scriuan di Ianizari che tien conto de loro Ianizari ha aspri 100. al di & circa a 200 schiaui.
Secmébassi capo di brachi da caza ha aspri 100. il di & ha del numero di Iāizari 200 sotto di lui.
Il Zarcagibassi capo de li liureri da cazza ha aspri 50 il di & ha del numero di Ianizari 700. sotto di se che menano li cani a spasso quādo bisogna.
Sono li Ianizari numero 12000. li quali hanno da 3. sino in 8. aspri il di di soldo & ogni 10. hanno il suo Odabassi cioe capo de numero dece & ogni cento hanno il suo capo che si domanda Bolucbassi, & li capi loro quando uanno in cāpo uāno a cauallo & hāno aspri 40. in 60. al796 di per vno secondo il grado loro.
De li Ianizari si caua da 150 solachi che sono staferi dil Signor & 2 solachibassi capi de q̄lli & tutti sono sotto lagha de Ianizeri, & sono vestiti vna volta alanno dil Signor di pāno azuro, & hāno le stantie loro in 2 lochi in Constantinopoli fatto fabricare dil Signor & li stano q̄lli che non hāno moglie li maritati stano fora cō le dōne loro, & nel vitto ogniuno mette tāto al di & hano dispēsieri choghi & q̄lli che hāno pocho salario seruan al altri, & ogni 100 di loro quādo vano in cāpo portano vno padiglione, & sono soldati apedi schopeteri & alabarderi e simitarre. Quādo li ditti venghano in desgratia dil Signor o in veghieza si mādan a sario zoe castelli che sono guardiani & si cassano del libro de Ianizari & hāno entrate equalmente al suo primo soldo & li capi loro similmente vano castellani con timaro vtsupra.
Vno agha di Spachoglani capo cioe di destri giouene gentilhomo che a tra timaro e soldo ducat 10 il di con reghalie & 400 schiaui.
Vno Iaxagi scriuano de questi spachoglani ha aspri 30 il di con reghalie & 30 schiaui.
Vno Cacaia de ditti zoe protoiro a tra timaro e soldo aspri 100 al di.
Sono li Spachoglani 3000 che hano aspri 20 in 40 il di secondo il grado loro & ogni 20 hano vno capo domandato Bolucbassi & questi seruano a cauallo con 5 o 6 schiaui & altri tanti caualli per vno questi vano sempre ala man destra dil Signor, & alogiano appresso a lui in campo.
Vno Agha deto Selicterbassi capo de li sinistri che sono ala mā sinistra dil Signor ha aspri 250 il di & vno Protoiro cioe loco tenēte & vno scriuano cō aspri 30 il di per vno questo Aga e capo di 3000 Selictari a cauallo che stano a la man sinistra dil Signore & hano aspri 20 in 25 al di ꝑ vno & hano 4. o 5. schiaui & altri tanti caualli & lui capo a 200 schiaui soi.
Doi Holofagibassi da la man destra & sinistra uno per banda capi de li soldati a aspri 120 al di & hano 200 Holofagi sotto se cō aspri 16 il di pervno il suo logo tenente cō aspri 20 e vno scriuano cō aspri 20 & vano a cauallo con 2. o 3. caualli & tanti schiaui.
Doi Aga capo de li carippoglani zoe poueri gioueni che hano aspri 30 il di per vno cō il suo protoiro & scriuano con aspri 15 in 30 al di & sono li Carippoglani numero 2000 che hano da 7 sino in 14 aspri al di per vno li capi hano 25 schiaui per vno.
Doi Bracorbassi zoe maestri di stalla vno grande vno picolo il grāde a aspri 500 il di, & il picolo ne a 200 al di di soldo con protoiro & scriuano con 30 sino in 40 aspri il di per vno.
Sedici milia Sarachi zoe famigli che cōzano brene & selle Caysli zoe fanti di stalla Carmādari zoe mulateri deuegi zoe gābeleri che vano dreto a gambeli circirgli zoe mandreri che pascolano le mādre de li caualli in varii lochi hano di soldo da 2 sino ī 20 aspri il di pervno secōdo il grado loro chi piu chi meno.
Caualli da caualcare per il Signor & soi puti & monuchi zoe castrati numero 4000.
Vno Zarchigibassi capo de li astori che a di soldo aspri 150 il di & schiaui & vno Zarchigibassi capo di falconeri che a aspri 80 il di & schiaui con il suo protoiro & scriuano con aspri 25 per vno al di.
Vintimilia zainogiler homini a cauallo di lāza & mili soli de questi hāno soldo aspri 10 il di & resto hāno timari o vero exemption di angarie per essere homeni dil Signor & vano in campo.
Vno hebegibassi capo de le armature a aspri 60 il di con il suo protoiro & scriuan con aspri 20 per vno di soldo & à da 160 Ebegi zoe famigli sotto se con 7 fino in 10 aspri il di per vno, & vano a pede.
Vno Topgibassi capo de li bombarderi che ha aspri 60 il di con protoiro & scriuan con aspri 20 pervno & a 2000 Topgi sotto se zoe bombarderi cō 6 sino in 10 aspri il di di soldo per vno e vano a pede.
Vno Arabagibassi capo de li careteri a aspri 40 il di con protoiro & scriuano con aspri 20 per vno & a 1000 Arabagi zoe careteri sotto se con 3 sino in 6 aspri il di per vno.
Vno Mecterbassi capo de li trombeteri & tamburini a aspri 30 il di con protoiro & scriuan con aspri 12 ꝑ vno di soldo al di & a 12 millia compagni sotto se che hano di soldo 3 sino in 5 aspri il di per vno parti vano a piedi & parti a cauallo & altre regalie.
Imralem aga Capitanio che porta il stendardo dil Signor a di soldo aspri 200 al di & e sopra tutti li mecteri zoe trombetti & tamburini & banderali.
Vno Arpaemin prouiditore de le biaue per il campo con vno protoiro & vno cursor lemin a aspri 60 il di di protoiro a aspri 30 il cursor aspri 20 al di di soldo & a 20 persone sotto di lui con aspri 800 al di fra tutti quelli 20 persone.
Vno Saremin prouiditore de comun a cōzare le strade & fabricare in Constantinopli a aspri 50 il di, & a sotto di lui 400 homeni cō aspri 1000 al di fra tutti cō protoiro & scriuano cō aspri 57 il di per vno.
Vno Baratemin che dispensa tutti li comandamēti & che scode li denari de li ditti a aspri 40 il di & a 2 scriuani & doi soprastanti con aspri 60 il di per vno di soldo.
Vno Seraglio di donne in Constantinopli che circōda vno miglio e mezo cō stantie & camere doue stano li figlioli separati luno da laltro cō loro madre & monuchi, & soltane zoe molier dil Signor & li sono da 200 in 300 dōzelle sotto la custodia di molte matrone veghie alequa il Signor fa insegnare a ricamar diuersi lauori & a cadauna li da di soldo asp 10 fino in 20 per vna secondo il grado loro & ogni anno doi volte a li bairami zoe a le sue pasque li veste tutte di setta, & lequal donzelle quādo piace alcuna desse al Signore lui sta con lei & fa il fatto suo, & como la hauta li dona vna schufia doro che val duc. 200 & aspri 10 millia di cōtadi & la fa stare in vna camera separata da le altre & li cresse il soldo suo & q̄lla che fa prima fioli quella e la sua moglie prima.
In ditto seraglio & de tutti li altri monuchi zoe castrati che sono in detto seraglio a aspri 60 il di di soldo & stano in questo seraglio 20 monuchi & hano aspri 120 il di tra capigibassi zoe portinari & Ianizari nu. 100 a le porte ꝑ guardia hāno aspri 500 al di fra tutti & numero 10 Sacha che portano laqua dētro zoe aquaroli & hāno aspri 40 al di fra tutti di soldo.
Quando le donzelle sono in eta de anni 25 il Signor le maritta a li schiaui di la porta zoe di la sua corte & in loco loro ne mete de le altre & le piu giouane seruano a le altre.
A vno seraglio appresso a pera a de garzoni nu. 400. in circa che hano di soldo da 6 fin in 10 aspri il di ꝑ vno & li veste dói volte alanno di panno di seda si como fa a le dōne & vno Agha zoe capo del seraglio & 20 monuchi como nel altro seraglio & capigi & Ianizeri & maestri che imparano voltegiare a cauallo & īparano a sonare in tutto numero 100 homeni che hāno aspri 600 al di di soldo tra tutti & laga a aspri 60 il di di soldo & 10 sacha con aspri 40 il di di soldo fra tutti li aquaroli.
Vno Seraglio in Andranopoli nouo con vno bel giardino appresso a la mariza fiumera nel qual stano Ianizerotti numero 300 & hāno aspri 12 al di per vno Andranopoli e 5 zornate lōtan da Constantinopoli.
Vno capo de detti zardineri a aspri 40 il di con vno protoiro & vno scriuano che tengono cōto de ditto zardino con aspri 30 per vno al di.
In diuersi lochi il Signor ha piu giardini in liquali son assai Ianizerotti garzoni & soi capi hāno di soldo aspri 6000 al di fra tutti questi giardini.
Vno aga de agiamoglani Capitanio zoe gioueni greci in Cōstātinopoli a aspri 60 il di & a 4 in 5000 Ianizerotti sotto lui & li da di soldo tra tutti alāno ne a di spesa aspri 100 millia & liveste due fiate alanno & hano li loro capi como li altri & questi se metano sopra fabriche & condutte legne cō nauigli in Constantinopoli per il Signor & altre stente poi si fano coghi & famegli di Ianizeri & in fino si fano Ianizeri.
Ogni 4 anni il Signor manda a tore di gretia & di Natolia piu figlioli de christiani per il paxe zoe ꝑ leville & doue vno padre ha 2 fioli li piglian vno fiol ꝑ forza & lo fano turco & cosi a ognuno christiani ꝑ il suo paese fano zoe soi subditi & ne piglia 10 ī 12000 a la volta liquali puti li fano stare in la Natolia zoe in asia a zapare la terra acio imparano la lingua turcha & cosi stentano 3. o vero 4. anni & poi li manda a scriuere sotto laga di agiamoglani ditto vtsupra & di questi il Signor non ne a spesa alcuna per che sono vestiti & fatto le spese da quelli a che seruano per che li mete a stare cō altri sino chano imparato la lingua & poi quando sono scritti li da soldo per la prima 2. in 3 aspri per vno & secōdo li mete in altri officii li cresce il salario.
Ha di spesa in li altri seragli di viuere aspri 5000 il di ditto di sopra.
Veste due fiate alanno li Bassa zoe confieri defterderi zoe texoreri beglerbeii zoe Signor de Signori nesangibei zoe quello che sopra di frutti dil Signor & presenti di spexa aspri 5000 per volte.
Vna Arsenale doue ten le sue galere che a volti 100 zoe 30 di galere grosse che si domandano maone ꝑ portare caualli & il resto sono galere futile.
Tene continuamenti numero 200 patroni de galere pagati che hāno soldo fra tutti aspri 200000 alanno di spexa.
Tene continuo mille homeni axapi zoe marinero di galeri & ne a di spexa alāno fra tutti aspri 400000.
Maistri ouero proti numero 50 che sono sopra a far lauorare le galere zoe farle che in ocio hanno soldo aspri 6 il di & quando lauorano hāno aspri 12 il di.
Emino zoe capo de questi a aspri 40 il di vno scriuan che ten conto ha aspri 28 al di con 10 scriuani sotto lui con aspri 80 al di fra tutti.
El Zustiniano zoe vno zentilomo Venetiano che serue il Turcho & e sopra a far fare galere ancora lui spexe straordinaria ha di soldo aspri 50 il di.
Vno Beglerbei dil mar zoe Signor de Signori capo sopra le terre maritime che a di entrata duc. 14000 & traze piu dil duplo sopra rodi metelino negropōte & il tributo di sio isole in mar.
Il Beglerbei di la gretia zoe capo di tutto il paese di la gretia magior de tutti li altri a di entrada ducati 260 millia a lanno & traze il duplo & a schiaui 1000.
Vno protoiro zoe loco tenente di la gretia a ducati 4000 di entrada a lanno & a schiaui 300.
Vno Deftero zoe texorero de le entrate di la gretia che loro domandano timari a ducati 3000 de entrada a lanno & ha 900 schiaui soi seruitori.
Cento scriuani che tengono li libri & cōti dil Signor a di entrada fra tutti a lanno ducati 10000.
Trentasette Sanzachibei zoe contadi Signori per il paese che han di entrada di 5 in 12 millia ducati a lanno secondo il grado loro chi piu chi meno & hāno vno per laltro in tutto duca. 260 millia a lanno & 300 schiaui per vno.
Quatrocento Subasi per il paxe dil Signor zoe Capitanio di Iustitia che hāno duc. 100 alanno per vno di entrada & hāno 50 schiaui per vno soi famigli.
Trenta millia Spachi che hanno di entrada luno per laltro ducati 200 per vno alanno & ciaschaduno de ditti per ogni ducati 100 che hāno di entrada deue tener vno homo armato di lanza a cauallo & oltra le lanze hanno tre o 4 famigli per vno & altri tanti caualli zoe li Spachi.
Vintimillia Trimarati zoe q̄lli che scodano le entrate per il paese hano duc. 40 di entrata alanno ꝑ vno & per che non ariuano a li 100 ducati dintrada nō si chiamano spachi & sono homeni a cauallo & vano in campo.
Li Spacoglani li sopradetti timari cioe entrade de le decime de tutte le entrade cosi de christiani como di turchi splenza aspri 25 per testa da li christiani & da langaria de li animali & altra quanto pagano dil Signor zoe piu o meno secondo diuersi paesi.
Sesantamillia Iaching zoe ventureri scritti per il paese obligadi andare in campo quando piace al Signor senza soldo & quando vano a la guerra le ville & cita li dano il modo dil viuere.
Tutti li spachi sono schiaui & figli de schiaui del Sig.
Sette Beglerbei zoe Signor de signori sopra bassavno che se chiama di la natolia ilquale era antichamēte in assia minore il qual a di entrata ducati 24000 & ne traze assai piu & a sotto se il ponte labitinia azia ꝑpia Lidia carian, licia prouincie & a schiaui 1000 soi seruitori & a sanzachi 12 sotto lui zoe Signoroti cō entrada da 4 in 6000 ducati alanno per vno & schiaui 500 pervno & Spachi 1000 sotto se cō soldo da 5 in 10 aspri al di pervno secōdo la cōdition loro & q̄sto Beglerbei e di piu authorita de li altri & e forte nominato per il paese questi Spachi nō hano tanta entrata como vtsupra per essere piu abondantia la.
Beglerbei de caramania chera silicia & pamfilia prouincie ha di entrata ducati 10 millia & a 7 sanzachi sotto se con soldo ditto & spachi numero 500 sotto cō soldo como laltro beglerbei & schiaui mille.
Beglerbei di anādoule che e tra la soria & Caramania & tocat ch’era gia Pamphlagonia che e la mita di larmenia minore ha di entrada ducati 10 millia alanno & sette sanzachi che hano di entrada da 4 in 5000 ducati alāno & a schiaui 100 & Spachi 700 sotto lui quando il Signor hera fora si dice questo Beglerbei faceua persone da caualcare senza soldo numero 30 millia.
Beglerbei di la mexopotania sotto ilqual e il resto di larmenia minor & parte di la magiore che laltra parte e dil Sophi & de cordi a di entrata ducati trenta millia & schiaui due millia & sanzachi 12 con entrada vt supra & spachi diece millia cō soldo vtsupra & confina con baldach zoe la babilonia vera.
Beglerbei di Damascho & Soria & Giudea a di entrada ducati 24 millia & schiaui due millia & sanzachi 12 con entrada vtsupra & a Spachi numero vintimillia sotto di lui.
Beghlerbei di Alcario ha di entrada ducati trentamillia & schiaui quatro millia Sāzachi 16 con entrada vt supra pervno & Spachi sedeci millia sotto lui & Ianizeri tre millia & va fina alamecha cioe fina a la arabia liquali ello possede como si fa deli albanesi per forza benche la arabia felize stia in magior obedientia.
Tra lamecha & Sophi sono alcuni Signori arabi poi il resto confina con il Sophi fina in la mexopotania in laqual e baldach zoe Babilonia poi passato la mexopotania cōfina il Suphi ne la pianura di nassimō poi exdrun & extum che sono in la armenia mazore laqual cōfina con Zorgiani & hiberi & ne larmenia mazor & minor sono assai cordi obedienti quelli de la mazor parte al Signor Turcho & parte al Sophi Re di persia & trabixonda lucho de Imperio in mar magior cōfina con mengreli zoe mengrelia doue non si spende danari & ancora confina cō giorgiani che antichamente si dimandauano colchi azamia chera asiria e dil Sophi.
Armenia magior e minor sono christiani assai di quelli di san Thomaso trabixonda sono greci & mengreli sono christiani & giorgiani sono christiani.
Ottomā hebe in sua cōpagnia ad acꝗstare il dominio vno michali greco fatto turco dal qual son dissexi li mazalogli zoe mamaluchi de laqual stirpe n’e vno hora sanzaco in bosina zoe Conte devna prouincia.
Malco greco renegato alqual sono nasiuti li malcozogli, & di quella stirpe n’e vno & e Sanzaco in gretia. Aurami che si chiamano Eurcassi de laqual stirpe non si sa che ne sia alcun hora.
Tutti questi generatione promisse ottoman di nō mettere mai mane nel sangue loro ne mancharli mai di magistrato & ancora si conserua la promessa fatali & questi furono quelli che aiutorno la caxa ottomana.
Intrada dil gran Turcho de caragi zoe tributarii caua ducati 1300000 da la Natolia & grecia caua ducati 1600000 di Egipto caua duc. 700000 de Soria caua ducati 150000 de mexopotania ducati 250000 questi danari caua si non di terra ferma senza le Isole che sotto lui & li douane di Constantinopli e pera.
Le entrate che se dice disse il Signor Aluise Gritti che sono piu presto piu che meno & la spexa di la porta zoe di la corte dil Signor penso che cōsuma tutta la entrada o poco meno.
Li Beglerbei di egitto stano sotto il beglerbei di Alcairo per la magior parte & li sono Sanzachi sino in lamecha doue sta larcha de macomet Zingil Ghebur Iurcan & Tibris fiumi dil Paradiso Terestro.
Li Beglerbei & li Sanzachi a chi piu chi meno secōdo la autorità sua & son pagati de li territori doue stano escetto quelli che pigliano soldo dil gran Turcho la entrada de li ditti non si po sapere a ponto bisogna per arbitrio pensarla zoe de quelli di egitto.
QVI SI DICHIARA TVTTI LI SANZACHI zoe contadi che sono sotto li Beglerbei & si nomina li paexi doue sono & Prouincie doue stano e prima.
Li Sanzachi zoe Contadi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di la Gretia prima.
1 Gretia.
2 Cafa.
3 Silistria.
4 Nicopoli.
5 Vidin.
6 Suornich.
7 Bossina.
8 Ersech del Ducato.
9 Samandria belgrado.
10 Seruia.
11 Belgrado.
12 Schutari.
13 Valona.
14 Carlali.
15 Negroponte.
16 Lepanto.
17 Morea.
18 Trighala.
19 Galipoli.
20 Quaranta Giexie.
21 Vissa.
22 Crimen.
23 Ochria.
24 Giostaudil.
25 Vlzitrin.
26 Pisdren.
27 Alzasar.
28 Albasan.
29 Voinuch.
30 Ciuchene.
31 Zaiza.
Filipopoli.
Sofia.
Durazo.
Albania.
Schopia.
Li Sanzachi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di la Natolia zoe Asia minor.
1 Giotachie.
2 Cogia olli.
3 Bolli.
4 Castamoni.
5 Anghori.
6 Caugri.
7 Tescheli.
8 Metesseli.
9 Haeid neli.
10 Allaye.
11 Buga.
12 Manguixa il statto.
Li Sanzachi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di Cappadocia.
1 Amassia.
2 Cioriun.
3 Giauich.
4 Caraister.
5 Sauisum.
6 Trapixonda.
Li Sanzachi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di Caramania.
1 Siogna.
2 Naranda.
3 Assar.
4 Eschi assar.
Li Sanzachi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di Auandoule.
1 Maras.
2 Sarmus Sachi.
3 Albistanouasi.
4 Adaria.
5 Tersis.
Li Sāzachi che sono sotto il beglerbei di mesopotāia.
1 Dierbech.
2 Carachmit.
3 Argni.
4 Solgich.
5 Casangieph.
6 Meridim.
7 Carput.
8 Mussul.
9 Exrun.
10 Haiburth.
Dittilis. Nassim nouasi.
Li Sanzachi che sono sotto il Beglerbei di Soria.
Damasco.
Malatia.
Dirmighi.
Antep.
Antiocha.
Aleppo.
Tripoli.
Cama ama.
Cams.
Sefetto.
Ieroxalem.
Gazara.
Questi sono i lochi che ha sotto il Turco.
Questa sia la ordenanza dil Cāpo dil Signore zoe dil gran Turcho quādo va a la guerra primamente vna quātita di spacoglani gētilomini con lanza & spada.
Inanze al primo bassa li va numero 15 caualli ornati ꝑ la sua persona con vno Ianizero per banda.
E poi tre garzoni vestiti doro con schufie doro rosse vno li porta larcho vno li porta le veste & vno li porta il ramin da laqua.
E poi vno Aga con schufia doro zoe Capitanio.
E poi doi garzoni senza milza arente al bassa.
E poi mille Ianizeri schopeteri a piedi.
E poi da 60 Sanzachi zoe stendardi a cauallo.
E poi trombetti e tamburin insiema a cauallo.
E poi il campo a refuso de diuersi generationi e de diuersi lanze tutti a cauallo.
E poi gambelli muli bagaie del campo.
E poi Gentilomeni Spachi a cauallo con spada & archo e frize solle.
E poi li cari de lartelaria.
E poi caualli numero 30 con briglie doro per la persona dil Signor.
E poi tutti li capi de li Ianizari zoe Boluchbassi Odabassi a cauallo con barete doro aguze con vno penagio di garzette bianche in zima con lanze & con le banderolle zalle.
E poi 12 milia Ianizeri con schiopetti alabarde apedi.
E poi li solachi apedi staferi dil Signor cō archi e frize.
E poi il gran Turcho sollo in mezo di Solachi.
E poi 3 garzoni con schufie doro vestiti di pāno doro che li portano archo e frize e laqua & veste.
E poi 2 monuchi sēza coioni a cauallo dreto al signor.
E poi Imralemaga ch’ porta il stēdardo dil Signor tutto verde sollo.
E poi 6 Sanzachi zoe bandere vna rossa vna biācha vna verde due diuixa vna rossa e bianca & vna verde e rosso a cauallo.
E poi trombeteri & tamburi a cauallo.
E poi il campo a refuxo con li dulipante a cauallo cō lanze e spada con le banderole rosse.
A la banda destra dil Signor Spacoglani a cauallo cō lanze con banderole zalle.
A la banda sinistra dil Signor Selictari a cauallo con lanze con banderolle rosse e bianche.
E poi gambelli & mulli e bagaie dil campo e pagi.
E poi Spachi con lanze a cauallo con dulipāti biāchi.
E poi vno bassa solo con soi Stafeti.
E poi 22 Sanzachi zoe stendardi a cauallo.
E poi trombeteri tamburi a cauallo.
E poi il campo a refuso de diuerse sorte con dulipant & barette rosse de piu sorte generatione.
E poi gambelli e muli e bagaie dil campo insema.
E poi tutti li Iachingi zoe ventureri.
Questo libro e stato cauato da Ionus bei il qual era greco & hora e turcho & e interpetro grande dil Signor & dal Signor Aluise gritti fiol dil Duxo di Venetia & tutto e vero.
Translated From the Turkish
APPENDIX III
INCOMPLETE TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE KANUN-NAMEH, OR COLLECTION OF EDICTS, OF SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT AS ARRANGED BY THE MUFTI EBU SU’UD
Translated from the Turkish
[From folios 69-70 of the Turkish MS. Fluegel No. 1816, Imperial Library, Vienna: “Fundamental Laws of Sultan Suleiman, according to the arrangement of the Mufti Ebu-Su’ud.” The table does not begin till folio 27 of the manuscript. The page references are to Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, where a translation of the paragraphs may be found.]
| FOLIO | ||
|---|---|---|
| 27. | Law concerning mortgage and loan contracts. | p. 396 |
| 28. | Law concerning fallow fields. | p. 397 |
| 29. | Law concerning uncultivated lands. | p. 398 |
| 29. | Law concerning absent and missing [tenants]. | p. 398 |
| 30. | Law concerning the hereditary tenancy of land (tapu), and regulations determining what sort of lands are given in hereditary tenancy. | p. 399 |
| 31. | Regulations for the case when a Spahi of either a large or a small fief possesses his fief in common ownership. | p. 401 |
| 32. | Regulations for the case when a Spahi dies or is dispossessed before the delivery of the hereditary lease. (In Hammer the heading is different and is not logically placed.) | p. 403 |
| 33. | Regulations for the case when the tenant dies before the expiration of the hereditary lease. | p. 404 |
| 33. | Law concerning the giving out of the winter and summer pastures and concerning the legal relationships of meadow lands. | p. 199 |
| 34. | Law concerning the ground tax, concerning the taxes upon state-lands, sandy fields, peasants’ houses, etc. | p. 406 |
| 35. | Law concerning the tenth, the tax upon vineyards, leased vineyards, the bushel, and the bushel-tax. | p. 407 |
| 36. | Law concerning the tenth, the fifth, and the fodder tenth (salariyeh). | p. 407 |
| 37. | Regulations for the case of joint ownership when more than the tenth of the crop, namely, the half or the fifth, is demanded from the Spahi. (Not found in Hammer.) | |
| 38. | Special regulations regarding the tenths of the Spahis. (Not found in Hammer.) | |
| 39. | Law concerning the taxes on mills and green produce. | p. 408 |
| 39. | Law concerning the landlord’s share, the tenths and the fruits. | p. 408 |
| 40. | Law concerning the tenths [of honey, the tax on] bees, other taxes, etc. | p. 409 |
| 41. | Law concerning the sheep-tax and the fold-tax. | p. 410 |
| 42. | Law concerning the obligations of subjects and the tax on prisoners. (Hammer, the slave-tax.) | p. 410 |
| 42. | Law concerning the half-hide-tax. (Hammer, the bride-tax.) | p. 411 |
| 43. | Law concerning the hide-tax and the taxes on abandoned lands. | p. 411 |
| 44. | Law concerning fleeing the country. | p. 412 |
| 45. | Law concerning the wandering hordes. | p. 413 |
| 46. | Law concerning the wagoners. | p. 413 |
| 47. | Law concerning the irregular cavalry. (Hammer, fiefs for public service.) | p. 414 |
| 48. | Law concerning the Yayas and Mosellems (free foot-soldiers). | p. 415 |
| 49. | Law concerning the imperial foundations and the vakfs. | p. 416 |
| 49. | Regulations concerning lawsuits over land. | p. 417 |
| 51. | Law concerning the time of the harvest. | p. 418 |
| 52. | Law concerning the harvest and the designation of those persons who receive their income out of landed property but not at the time of harvest. (Not a separate heading in Hammer.) | p. 419 |
| 53. | Special regulations concerning fiefs in regard to dating, registering, etc. (Not found in Hammer.) | |
| 54. | Law concerning the intendants of the fiscus, the receivers of taxes, and regulations concerning the revenues of the court. | p. 419 |
| 55. | Law concerning the holders of great and small fiefs, and concerning the freedom of some military persons from certain occasional taxes. | p. 421 |
| 56. | Law concerning the Beylerbeys, the Sanjak Beys, and the Kapuji-bashis. | p. 422 |
| 57. | Law concerning the fees of judges. | p. 423 |
| 57. | Law concerning the contents of the berats of the judges (their diplomas of appointment). (Omitted in Hammer.) | |
| 58. | Regulations concerning lawsuits between Spahis and non-Mohammedans or between two Spahis. | p. 424 |
| 60. | Law concerning taxes which are demanded from leased land when the tenth alone is insufficient. (Not found in Hammer.) |
Appendix IV — The Government of the Mogul Empire in India797
“The uncommon abilities of most of the princes, with the mild and humane character of all, rendered Hindostan the most flourishing empire in the world during two complete centuries.”
—Dow.
General Comparison of Ottoman and Indian Conditions
When Baber first rode down through the grim gates of India’s northwest mountain-wall, the accession of Suleiman lay but a year in the future; the Mogul won the battle of Panipat but four months before the Turk was victorious at Mohacs. Thus the founding of the Mogul Empire nearly coincided with the meridian splendor of the Ottoman power, and its decisive battle of establishment with the victory which led to the last great extension of Ottoman authority into Europe. Not Baber or even Akbar, Suleiman’s contemporaries, but Aurangzeb, whose reign began a century after Suleiman’s death, affords the closest comparison with the Turkish monarch; yet the third battle of Panipat in 1761 marked the virtual destruction of the Mogul Empire, whereas the second battle of Mohacs in 1687 meant but the first noteworthy step of the Ottoman retreat. The house of Timur has disappeared from history, while the house of Osman still reigns over wide territories; less than two and a half centuries of genuine sovereign rule were enjoyed by the Moguls, while six centuries have not sufficed to measure the independent existence of the Ottomans.
The Mogul emperors perhaps never ruled so large a territory as the Ottoman sultans, but their lands were far more productive; moreover, having from five to ten times as many subjects as their Western cousins and an income in proportion, they could surpass even the Magnificent Suleiman in display and largesse. The inferior persistence of their dominion, therefore, suggests inferior strength and stability in their institutions, a suggestion to which even a limited investigation lends much support.
The Moguls shared with the Ottomans their relation to the ideas of the Mongol and Turkish Tatars of the steppe lands, and to those of the Persians and the Arabs. They were more directly and vitally influenced by the Tatars and Persians, and less directly by the Arabs. Farther than this their relations were not to the comparatively organized and energetic civilization of the Mediterranean but to the more speculative and passive culture of India. Over the lands into which they entered as conquerors lay the shadow not of sternly practical Roman legalism, but of Hindu and Buddhist contempt for things mundane.
They founded a despotism, but one that was never, even under Aurangzeb, so closely related to the Sacred Law of Mohammed as was the government of Suleiman. They ruled a variety of lands in a variety of relationships, but never with the stern control exercised by the Kaisar-i-Rûm (Roman emperor), the name which they gave to the Turkish ruler at Constantinople. They enforced the obedience of many peoples, who spoke many languages and practised many forms of religion; yet they never held these peoples under any such iron system of subjection as that which dominated the Christian subjects of the sultan, even to the seizure of their children for tribute.
Since the passing of those prehistoric times when all human ideas were solidified together into a single “crust of custom,” every nation has probably had two leading institutions, more or less closely connected,—the one of religion and the other of government. The foregoing pages have shown how powerful and pervasive were the Ottoman Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution in the Ottoman Empire. In the parallel organizations of the empire of the Moguls, however, it is not possible to discern comparable unique individuality, systematic structure, and ordered efficiency. Some allowance must be made for a comparative lack of information, since not many Western observers have described the more distant empire; but this fact can hardly alter the conclusion materially. The institutional structure of the Mogul Empire was decidedly inferior to that of the Ottoman Empire in solidity, system, and persistent energy.
The Personnel of the Mogul Government
Baber’s following consisted of the comrades of his many years of fighting, an army of cavalry, artillery, and musketry composed in ancient Turkish fashion of high-spirited men attached to their chief by impressive leadership and open-handed generosity. Courage, military prowess, and the nominal profession of Islam were the necessary qualifications; differences of race, education, and Moslem doctrine were disregarded. Warriors of Turki stock, Persians of Shiite leanings, hardy Afghans, “Roman” artillery engineers from Stambul, were equals in the rough brotherhood of Baber’s camp. The principle of subordination, at least among persons of consequence, was not that of slaves to their master, but of tribesmen to their chief, of vassals to their honored suzerain.
When Turks had first invaded India, five centuries before, slavery as a means of recruiting and training soldiers and governors was in full swing. Mahmûd of Ghazni was the son of a father who had risen through slavery. The thirteenth century saw enthroned at Delhi a dynasty of slave kings which antedated by several decades the Mamelukes of Egypt. Late in the fourteenth century Firoz III owned 180,000 slaves, of whom 40,000 constituted his household. The Mameluke government endured for more than two and a half centuries, until overthrown by the more centralized and efficient slave system of the Ottomans; but in Central Asia and ultimately in India a new force speedily rendered the slave method, save for some survivals, antiquated and impossible.
The dominance of the Mongols was based on the discipline of an army of freemen who were intelligent enough willingly to render absolute obedience to their officers as the well-tested condition of certain success. With the break-up of the vast Mongol Empire, the lands now in Russian Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Persia lapsed toward the horde organization of nomad Tatars, but became more and more modified by Moslem feudalism. Under such conditions, Timur, high-born and adventurous, chivalrous and literary, fanatical and cruel, achieved an empire that was large and splendid, but personal to himself, and destined to vanish almost with its founder. Yet he presaged a time when in Asia and Europe alike there should come, after the disintegrating individualism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a period of the gathering together of lands and peoples into large units under strong personal governments.
Baber, descendant of Timur in the sixth generation, descendant also of Genghis Khan, came at the beginning of the new era. Less ruthless than either of his great ancestors, less legal than the “Inflexible One,” less Moslem than the “Scourge of Asia,” but possessed of much of the leadership and military genius of both, he stands forth, by reason of his memoirs, as one of the best known conquerors of history. His love of carousing, his family affection, his literary bent, his toleration of heretics and infidels, his bold leadership, his liberality in dividing spoil, presented qualities and suggested modes of activity which were to characterize all his descendants down to the puritanical Aurangzeb.
Thus the family life of the house of Baber was far more normal than that of the house of Osman. In contrast with an almost unbroken line of Ottoman slave mothers and wives, whose names with those of their daughters have hardly survived, many of the Mogul imperial ladies are well known. Witness the princess Gul-Badan, daughter of Baber, who like her father wrote memoirs; the empress Nur-Jehan, who ruled India for a time; and the empress Mumtaz-Mahal, for whom her devoted husband built the fairest of all mausoleums. Turki princesses, ladies of high Persian descent, and daughters of Hindu Rajahs, were taken into the imperial harem, where, though women and eunuchs were present “from Russia, Circassia, Mingrelia, Georgia, and Ethiopia,” no emperors sprang from slave mothers during the period of greatness. With such a policy in the family which constituted a chief element in the unity of the Mogul Empire, it was but natural that officers and soldiers, statesmen and public servants, should be accepted with a like catholicity. The best fighters, of course, continued to be those who came down newly from the high country beyond the northwest passes; and since such of these as met success were apt to send for relatives and friends, there was continual recruiting from among Tatars, Persians, Afghans, and Arabs,—all Moslems, but of various sects. “Rûmis” from the Ottoman Empire were especially useful in the artillery service. Some of them were doubtless European renegades, but “Firinjis” or Franks were likely to come more directly from Portugal and other European countries. Yet by no means all the brave were from foreign lands. Many Rajputs under their own Rajahs served the Mogul emperors most acceptably, and when treated without prejudice they were faithful. The high officers of government were usually Persians; but Akbar was nobly served by the great Todar Mal, and appointed Rajahs to govern the Punjab and Bengal. About one in eight of his paid cavalry chiefs was a Hindu; and of the lesser civil-service positions the mere necessity for numbers, apart from superior skill and training, required that many should be held by Hindus.
It is not that slavery had disappeared from the Mogul system. Traces of the old method can be discerned as late as the eighteenth century. In fact, Muhammad Khan, a Bangash Nawab of Farrukhabad, maintained what was practically a replica in miniature of the Ottoman system. Hindu boys between the ages of seven and thirteen, some of them sons of Rajputs and Brahmins, were seized, bought, or accepted as chelas or slaves to the number of one or two hundred a year. They were taught to read and write, and were specially rewarded when the task was completed. Five hundred chelas from eighteen to twenty years of age were trained as a regiment of musketeers. From among the older chelas were chosen the officers of the household, generals of the army, and deputy governors of provinces. The Nawab arranged marriages between chelas and the daughters of chelas. He encouraged them to acquire personal property, which he could claim in time of need; but he forbade them to found towns or build masonry structures, lest occupying these they might tend toward independence. Muhammad Khan did not, however, depend exclusively on his Hindu slaves; he sent money to his own Bangash tribe, and thus obtained a colony of Afghans to whom he gave high military positions and upon some of whom he bestowed his daughters in marriage. Other vassals of the emperor made use of a similar slave system; and it is not unlikely that the emperor himself recruited his permanent infantry with the help of slavery, and that he promoted some slaves to high positions. But the absence of definite information in this direction is in most striking contrast to its abundant presence in the records which deal with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.
In theory the officers of government were so far the servants of the emperor that their accumulated personal property belonged to him at their death; but in practice the opulence and the generosity of the sovereign led him often to leave such wealth in the hands of the officers’ children. When this was not done, employment in the public service was assigned to sons and pensions were granted to widows.
Titles of nobility were awarded for life to distinguished officials; the chief officers of the central government and governors of great provinces were called Emirs (Omrahs in many Western writings, probably a plural of majesty), generals of the army were Khans, and distinguished soldiers of lesser rank were Bahadurs or knights. Khondamir says that Humayun organized a system of twelve orders or arrows, according to which the entire imperial household was graded. “The twelfth arrow, which was made of the purest gold, was put in the auspicious quiver of this powerful king, and nobody could dare to touch it. The eleventh arrow belonged to His Majesty’s relations and brethren, and all the sultans who were in the government employ. Tenth, to the great mushaikhs, saiyids, and the learned and religious men. Ninth, to the great nobles. Eighth, to the courtiers and some of the king’s personal attendants. Seventh, to the attendants in general. Sixth, to the harems and to the well-behaved female attendants. Fifth, to young maid-servants. Fourth, to the treasurers and stewards. Third, to the soldiers. Second, to the menial servants. First, to the palace guards, camel-drivers, and the like. Each of these arrows or orders had three grades; the highest, the middle, and the lowest.” Appointments and promotions were, as at Constantinople, based upon valor and manifest ability. Through all the period of greatness the ladder of advancement was kept so clear that vigor, courage, and prowess could mount from the lowest ranks to the steps of the throne.
Relation of Government to Religious Propagation
When the Ottoman Turks conquered their European territories, as well as parts of their Asiatic dominions, they for the first time introduced the Moslem religion. This was not the case with the Mogul advance into India. Beginning with Mohammed ben Kasim’s invasion of Sind in 712 A.D., and starting afresh with Mahmûd of Ghazni in 1000 A.D., the Moslem political control, accompanied by the conversion of a portion of the native population, had spread step by step until, when Baber came after eight centuries, there remained little of India that was not actually or had not at some time been under Moslem rule. No data appear to exist for determining the actual proportion of the total population that was Moslem during the Mogul period. Guesses have been made ranging from a possible one in four to Bernier’s estimate of one in hundreds. The only basis of any value would perhaps be that obtained by working backward from the British censuses. In 1911 the Mohammedans constituted about twenty-one per cent of the population of India, and their number was increasing at a slightly more rapid rate than the average. It may be supposed that the increase of the Moslem proportion was greater during the days of the Mogul Empire, when it was especially profitable to change, and when there was a strong inward flow at the northwest; but since the Mogul decline the rate of relative progress has probably always been slow. Perhaps the proportion about 1761 was somewhat less than one in five, and in 1526 it may have been not more than one in from ten to twenty. Bernier’s guess would certainly seem to have been wild, for it is inconceivable that so small progress would have been made in a thousand years and so great in the next two hundred. No doubt the Moslem contingent was then, as it is now, unevenly distributed, being in high proportion in the northwest and diminishing gradually with the distance from the mountain passes. At points on the seacoast where trade had been active, the Moslem influence had come early by way of the sea; hence there also the percentage was greater. In Suleiman’s empire, comprising as it did a large amount of old Moslem territory and including even the Holy Cities, the proportion of Moslems was, of course, much higher; but it diminished rapidly from south to north, until in Hungary it must have been extremely attenuated.
In the absence of an elaborate slave system in India, there was not the steady public machinery of conversion which operated powerfully in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it would seem that before the reign of Aurangzeb no emperor cared to promote conversion to Islam by financial or political rewards. Akbar, in fact, removed the jizyeh, or poll-tax, which had previously, as in all other truly Moslem lands until recent times, laid special burdens upon unbelievers, and the tax was not reimposed until the time of Aurangzeb. Akbar also forbade the enslavement of captives and of their wives and children. For a century, therefore, the government lent little encouragement to change of faith. Down to the accession of Aurangzeb there was a clear contrast between Ottoman and Mogul policy in the attitude toward the Moslem religion: the Moguls held far less than the Ottomans to the idea of the conquest of the world for Islam, or to the conversion of unbelievers, as an object of governmental endeavor. Aurangzeb alone had such zeal as characterizes the average descendant of Osman; he desired no infidels in his service, and regarded the Deccan as the Dar-ul-harb which he wished to make part of the Dar-ul-Islam. There can be no doubt, however, that under all the Mogul emperors the social pressure usual in Moslem lands continued to encourage conversion privately, while the slavery which Islam normally sanctions was also contributing to the increase of the faithful. Moreover, it is not likely that all the officers of the liberal emperors were as tolerant and as indifferent to Moslem progress as were their superiors.
The Army
At Delhi, as at Constantinople, no sharp line could be drawn separating government and army. The Mogul conquest was achieved by an army, and the army became a government. Amalgamation with older systems of course introduced groups of under-officials who had no military duties; but those who would be great had to be capable of military command, men who might be familiar with the pen but who must know how to wield the sword.
The Mogul army organization seems, in the midst of confused testimonies, to have borne a considerable resemblance to that of the Ottomans. The emperor was commander-in-chief, and as late as Aurangzeb regularly commanded in person in great campaigns. He had a personal army of 12,000 to 15,000 paid infantry and 12,000 to 40,000 paid cavalry. These corresponded in number and function, but not at all in political importance, to the Janissaries and Spahis of the Porte among the Ottomans. In great campaigns the standing army was supported by the feudal cavalry, estimated at from 200,000 to 400,000, and by indefinite numbers of irregular infantry, drawn from a mass estimated at four millions. The army was strong in artillery, and possessed in trained elephants a force of which the Ottomans could not make use.
The emperor’s infantry were, at least from Akbar’s time, matchlockmen; they seem to have been the only trustworthy and efficient foot-soldiers. It would appear that their clumsy weapons, improved by Akbar himself, were not changed up to the time of Aurangzeb; for Bernier reports that in his day the muskets were rested on forks and fired by men who squatted on the ground, and who feared that the flash might damage their eyebrows and beards. On account of the method of payment it is not possible to estimate closely the number of the emperor’s cavalry, or Mansabdars. Men who agreed to furnish from five to five thousand troopers were taken into his service, and pay (mansab) was assigned for the stipulated number; but even in Akbar’s time, according to Badauni, it was possible to present followers hired only for the occasion, and yet to draw life-long pay for their services. In later years there ceased to be even approximate correspondence between the amount of pay and the number of troops furnished. The mansab was then regarded as a salary, or even as a pension.
The more numerous feudal cavalry consisted of the holders (with their followers) of jagirs, or grants, of the revenue of districts of larger or smaller size, in return for which they served without other pay, except in case of unduly prolonged campaigns. Holders of large areas were accustomed to administer them in person, whereas those who held smaller sections would often leave the administration to the governors of provinces, who in time tended to appropriate the revenues. Aurangzeb, however, pursued the policy of assigning service in regions remote from the appointee’s jagir, and of retaining wives and children at the court as pledges of fidelity. Hindu Rajahs were easily brought into the system by being invested with analogous rights in their hereditary territories. Apart from these cases, the appointments, as in Turkey, were not regarded as hereditary, but were apt to be given to fresh recruits of ability from beyond the mountains. It was customary to make small assignments to sons of dead Jagirdars, and to increase their allowances upon proof of merit. Jagirdars and Rajahs, like Timariotes and Zaims, had jurisdiction and other governmental duties in the areas assigned to them, and thus carried a large part of the task of local government. Ultimately many of the higher positions became hereditary in families which worked toward independence in the days of decline.
The artillery seems to have been surprisingly strong under Baber and Humayun, and to have declined later. Baber is said to have had seven hundred guns at Panipat, which he chained together after the method employed by Selim I at Kaldiran. Humayun is reported to have had at Kanauj seven hundred guns discharging stone balls of five pounds weight, and twenty-one guns discharging brass balls ten times as heavy. Aurangzeb, it is said, transported seventy pieces of heavy artillery and two or three hundred swivel guns, mounted on the backs of camels. For fortress defence and siege operations the Moguls had a few enormous guns, some of which are said to have required for transport two hundred and fifty and even five hundred oxen! In addition to these resources, it appears, if testimonies can be trusted, that Akbar kept five thousand war elephants, each of which was accounted equal in time of battle to five hundred horsemen; and Hawkins says that Jehangir had twelve thousand elephants of all descriptions. Aurangzeb is reported to have maintained in the palace stables the more modest number of eight hundred elephants.
The early Mogul armies were efficient and successful. Aurangzeb, however, conducted about the Deccan in his twenty-four years’ war of conquest a horde that resembled a migration rather than an army. For each fighting man there were at least two camp-followers; the march was without discipline and order, like the movement of a herd of animals; and the camp was a city five miles long, or, as others say, seven and a half miles, or twenty miles in circumference. One European observer even reported that the encampment was thirty miles about, and contained five million souls! Among these he counted seven hundred thousand soldiers, of whom three hundred thousand were cavalry. With all due allowance for exaggeration, the Mogul army clearly tended to become exceedingly numerous, but of increasing weakness and inefficiency. A battle in 1526 between Baber and Suleiman would have been a worthy contest, but the army of Aurangzeb would probably have been defeated easily by the Ottoman troops which bit the dust before Prince Eugene.
The Court
Splendid as was the display of Suleiman’s entourage, it lacked the financial basis which the Moguls possessed from Akbar to Aurangzeb. Gold and silver, gems, silks and muslins, were far more abundant in the eastern land. A more highly developed architecture, showing far greater richness of detailed ornamentation, served in India to construct not only temples of religion and tombs of great personages, but also marvellous palaces and pleasure-houses for the emperors. Many thousands of attendants supplied every possible luxury and rendered every conceivable service.
No systematic description of the organization of the imperial household has come to hand. Scattered allusions reveal the presence of very numerous groups of officials, agents, and servants of all grades. Teachers, physicians, scholars, valets, chamberlains, butlers, cooks, kitchen servants, musicians, poets, generals, captains, guards, equerries, hostlers, herdsmen, elephant-drivers, and stablemen, ministers of state, judges, treasurers, secretaries, swarmed about the great halls and myriad chambers of the palaces at Agra, Delhi, and Fatehpur-Sikri. These, with the tradespeople who made their living by supplying the household but who were less directly attached to the emperor, constituted a migratory city of large size, which followed the emperor from residence to residence and in time of campaign swelled almost unbelievably the following of his enormous army.
As for the court life which went on at the center of this vast and multi-colored setting, this was necessarily twofold, by that custom of all Moslem lands according to which the sexes must be segregated. Daily assemblages, gatherings at the mosques on Fridays, great ceremonies for special occasions, and the imperial hunts contained none but men as participants. If women saw any part of such festivities, it was from a distance and through thick veils or close-wrought lattices. Khondamir says that Humayun divided his attendants into three great classes, concerned respectively with government and war, with learning and literature, and with music and personal grace and beauty. The latter were called “people of pleasure... because most people take great delight in the company of such young-looking men, of rosy cheeks and sweet voices, and are pleased by hearing their songs, and the pleasing sound of the musical instruments, such as the harp, the sackbut, and the lute.” Humayun devoted Sundays and Tuesdays to dealings with the first class, holding audience and attending to government duties on those days. Saturdays and Thursdays were days when “the tree of the hope” of literary and religious persons “produced the fruit of prosperity by their obtaining audience in the paradise-resembling court.” Mondays and Wednesdays were devoted to pleasure parties, when old companions and chosen friends were entertained by musicians and singers. On Fridays were convened “all the assemblies,” whatever this may mean; and the emperor sat with them as long as he could.
The splendor of the court may be illustrated by two or three extracts. Nizam-uddin Ahmad relates that Akbar, journeying in the fifteenth year of his reign, accepted an invitation to rest at Dipalpur. “For some days feasting went on, and upon the last day splendid offerings were presented to him. Arab and Persian horses, with saddles of silver; huge elephants, with chains of gold and silver, and housings of velvet and brocade; and gold and silver, and pearls and jewels, and rubies and garnets of great price; chairs of gold, and silver vases, and vessels of gold and silver; stuffs of Europe, Turkey, and China, and other precious things beyond all conception. Presents of similar kind also were presented for the young princes and the emperor’s wives. All the ministers and attendants and dignitaries received presents, and every soldier of the army also participated in the bounty.”
Sir Thomas Roe describes a curious annual ceremony of the Mogul emperors as carried through by Jehangir. “The first of September was the King’s Birth-day, and the solemnitie of his weighing, to which I went, and was carryed into a very large and beautiful Garden, the square within all water, on the sides flowers and trees, in the midst a Pinacle, where was prepared the scales, being hung in large tressels, and a crosse beame plated on with Gold thinne: the scales of massie Gold, the borders set with small stones, Rubies and Turkeys, the Chaines of Gold large and massie, but strengthened with silke Cords. Here attended the Nobilitie, all sitting about it on Carpets until the King came; who at last appeared clothed or rather loden with Diamonds, Rubies, Pearles, and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious; his Sword, Target, Throne to rest on, correspondent; his head, necke, breast, armes, above the elbows, at the wrists, his fingers every one, with at least two or three Rings; fettered with chaines, or dyalled Diamonds; Rubies as great as Wal-nuts, some greater; and Pearles such as mine eyes were amazed at. Suddenly he entered into the scales, sate like a woman on his legges, and there was put in against him many bagges to fit his weight, which were changed six times, and they say was silver, and that I understood his weight to be nine thousand rupias, which are almost one thousand pounds sterling: after with Gold and Jewels, and precious stones, but I saw none, it being in bagges might be Pibles; then against Cloth of Gold, Silk, Stuffes, Linen, Spices, and all sorts of goods, but I must believe for they were in sardles. Lastly against Meale, Butter, Corne, which is said to be given to the Banian.” The extract neglects to state that the ceremony was followed by the distribution as largesse of all the valuables weighed against the royal person with its heavy adornments.
Bernier describes an audience of Aurangzeb. “The king appeared seated upon his throne at the end of the great hall in the most magnificent attire. His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin, with a silk and gold embroidery of the finest texture. The turban of gold cloth had an aigrette whose base was composed of diamonds of an extraordinary size and value, besides an oriental topaz which may be pronounced unparalleled, exhibiting a lustre like the sun. A necklace of immense pearls suspended from his neck reached to the stomach. The throne was supported by six massy feet, said to be of solid gold, sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It was constructed by Shah-Jehan for the purpose of displaying the immense quantity of precious stones accumulated successively in the Treasury from the spoils of ancient Rajahs and Pathans, and the annual presents to the monarch which every Omrah is bound to make on certain festivals. At the foot of the throne were assembled all the Omrahs, in splendid apparel, upon a platform surrounded by a silver railing and covered by a spacious canopy of brocade with deep fringes of gold. The pillars of the hall were hung with brocades of a gold ground, and flowered satin canopies were raised over the whole expanse of the extensive apartment, fastened with red silken cords from which were suspended large tassels of silk and gold. The floor was covered entirely with carpets of the richest silk, of immense length and breadth.”
As regards the female side of the court, although this had almost a separate organization and was, in keeping with Moslem and Indian tradition, to a large extent secluded, yet the imperial ladies possessed a measure of freedom through two centuries which allowed several of them to stand forth as distinct individuals, and a few to influence affairs profoundly. Jehangir assigned to the women of the household the sixth and fifth orders, or arrows, of rank. Akbar is said to have kept five thousand women in his harem. As usual, however, only a few of these were wives or votaries of the imperial pleasure; most of them constituted an elaborate organization for the housekeeping and entertainment of the few great ladies, the mother, aunts, sisters, wives, and favorites of the emperor. As already indicated, these women were of all kinds,—free-born and slave, Moslem, Christian, and pagan, Turki, Afghan, Persian, Hindu, Armenian, Slavic, Circassian, Georgian, and Ethiopian. Their communication with the outside world was kept up through their relatives and through eunuchs.
A few of the imperial ladies may be mentioned. The princess Gul-Badan, third daughter of Baber and Dil-Dar, wrote a history of the deeds of her half-brother, Humayun. In her later life she went with other great ladies on pilgrimage to Mecca, taking seven years for the journey; one-half of this time she spent in Arabia, where she performed the rites of the pilgrimage four times. After twenty more years filled with works of piety and charity she died at the age of eighty. Her nephew, Akbar, with his own hand helped bear her to the tomb.
Most powerful of all the Mogul imperial ladies was the Persian Nur-Jehan, or Nur-Mahal, wife of Jehangir. Born in poverty and actually cast away by her parents, she rose to the throne of command. Mohammad Hadi says that “by degrees she became, in all but name, undisputed sovereign of the empire, and the king himself became a tool in her hands. He used to say that Nur-Jehan Begam has been selected, and is wise enough, to conduct the matters of state, and that he wanted only a bottle of wine and a piece of meat to keep himself merry. Nur-Jehan won golden opinions from all people. She was liberal and just to all who begged her support. She was an asylum for all sufferers, and helpless girls were married at the expense of her private purse. She must have portioned above five hundred girls in her lifetime, and thousands were grateful for her generosity.” Not only could she rule the empire effectively, if not always wisely and impartially, but she could lead armies. Defeated at last by Shah-Jehan, she put on perpetual robes of mourning for her dead husband and spent her last eighteen years in devoted seclusion.
Mumtaz-Mahal, niece of Nur-Jehan and wife of Shah-Jehan, did not aspire to political control. She held fast the heart of her imperial husband and became the mother of his fourteen children. The incomparable Taj Mahal, built by the emperor after her untimely death, bears eternal witness to great love followed by great grief.
Last may be mentioned two of the daughters of Mumtaz-Mahal, Jehan-Ara and Raushan-Ara. These ladies, like Charlemagne’s daughters too great for matrimony, stirred up much trouble in the imperial household. Jehan-Ara was her father’s favorite in his decadent old age, and an active partisan of her brother Dara. Of vast influence for many years, she was at length overshadowed by Raushan-Ara, who supported Aurangzeb and rose to greatness with his advancing fortunes. Bernier was well-nigh overcome by a distant view of this lady’s majesty. “I cannot avoid dwelling on this pompous procession of the Seraglio. Stretch imagination to its utmost limits, and you can imagine no exhibition more grand and imposing than when Raushan-Ara Begam, mounted on a stupendous Pegu elephant, and seated in a meghdambhar blazing with gold and azure, is followed by five or six elephants with meghdambhars nearly as resplendent as her own, and filled with ladies attached to her household (and succeeded by the most distinguished ladies of the court) until fifteen or sixteen females of quality pass with a grandeur of appearance, equipage, and retinue, more or less proportionate to their rank, pay, and office. There is something very impressive of state and royalty in the march of these sixty or more elephants; in their solemn and as it were measured steps, in the splendour of the meghdambhars, and the brilliant and innumerable followers in attendance; and if I had not regarded this display of magnificence with a sort of philosophical indifference, I should have been apt to be carried away by such flights of imagination as inspire most of the Indian poets, when they represent the elephants as conveying so many goddesses concealed from the vulgar gaze.”
The Government Proper
“The authority of the Great Mogul was despotic by all its origins: by the fact of the conquest, by the Turkish tradition, by the tradition of the old royalties of the country”;798 and also, it may be added, by the practice of Islamic governments since the abandonment of Medina as the seat of the caliphs. The conquering chief owned all the conquered land, and the wealth and labor and lives of its inhabitants were at his disposal. As for the restriction of despotism by the Sacred Law, the house of Baber did not feel this strongly until late. On the other hand, even a drunkard like Jehangir had a keen sense of the responsibility of his high position. The emperor considered it his duty to maintain order, reward faithful service, and sit daily on the bench of justice to redress the wrongs of his people. Aurangzeb is reported by Bernier to have expressed his feeling of responsibility by saying: “Being born the son of a king and placed on the throne, I was sent into the world by Providence to live and labour, not for myself, but for others;... it is my duty not to think of my own happiness, except so far as it is inseparably connected with the happiness of my people. It is the repose and prosperity of my subjects that it behoves me to consult; nor are these to be sacrificed to anything besides the demands of justice, the maintenance of the royal authority, and the security of the State.” One of his letters to his imprisoned father contains these words: “Almighty God bestows his trusts upon him who discharges the duty of cherishing his subjects and protecting the people. It is manifest and clear to the wise that a wolf is no fit shepherd, neither can a faint-hearted man carry out the great duty of government. Sovereignty is the guardianship of the people, not self-indulgence and profligacy. The Almighty will deliver your humble servant from all feeling of remorse as regards your Majesty.” The sole fountain of legislation, the emperor observed economy in the issuance of it, making use, so far as possible, of established Islamic practice and immemorial custom. Yet from time to time, by administrative regulations, ordinances, and decrees, he sought to improve the methods of government. Aurangzeb, so much like Suleiman in many other respects, like him also ordered and financed the compilation of a code of the Sacred Law. It does not appear, however, that any such quantity of personal legislation was issued by him or by any other Mogul emperor as by the great Ottoman.
The succession to the Mogul throne never became regular, since neither by Mongol nor by Moslem custom was any one method prescribed. Nor did the more kindly disposition of the house of Baber ever permit the publication of such a decree as that of Mohammed II for the execution of brothers upon the accession of a sovereign. Accordingly the resources of the empire were apt to be wasted in civil wars between father and son, and between older and younger brothers. Even the sons of Baber engaged in civil war: Kamran, aided by Askari and Hindal, fought against Humayun. Akbar’s brothers were so young that he had no rival at the time of his accession. His two elder sons drank themselves to death; but this did not prevent Selim, who became the emperor Jehangir, from rebelling against his father and hastening the latter’s death. Jehangir’s two sons rebelled against him in turn. Shah-Jehan’s four sons, Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb, fought together until the last encompassed the death of the others, besides keeping his father a prisoner during the last seven years of life. The mournful story need not be carried beyond the fierce civil war which followed the death of Aurangzeb, in which two of his sons were slain. Clearly, the Ottoman method was more practical if less humane. So unstable was the personal situation of the emperor that, if he failed to show his face in public daily, the empire fell into commotion and civil war became imminent. From the uncertainty of the succession the state, at least, derived this benefit, that the fittest of the candidates for power was likely to obtain the throne. Nevertheless, as Dow says, “to be born a prince” of the Mogul Empire was “a misfortune of the worst and most embarrassing kind. He must die by clemency, or wade through the blood of his family to safety and empire.”
As the army was the defence and prop of the Mogul government, so finance was its sustenance. Here again the regulations of the Sacred Law were but scantily observed. Akbar, aided by Todar Mal and extending the methods of the Afghan Sher Shah, reduced to order and regularity the existing revenue system, which in the course of centuries of varying rule had become much confused. By ancient custom of India, the sovereign as primary owner of the land was entitled to one-third of the crops in kind. It was Akbar’s task to change the system to a more modern money régime, a step in progress which the Ottomans have not been able to take even to the present day. In classical times as in late years, India, importing less of other commodities than she exported, steadily absorbed gold and silver. It is likely that a large share of the wealth of the newly-discovered Americas had already by Akbar’s day made its way to India through the increasing Portuguese trade, and that Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro thus unwittingly gave him the means of modernizing his land revenue. Several great tasks were involved in the change. All the cultivated land of India had to be measured, its quality judged, its average annual produce for the first nineteen years of Akbar’s reign calculated, and the amount of the government’s share for each tract reduced to current money. At first, it was attempted to renew the settlement annually; but, since this proved very difficult in a large and conservative land, a ten-year basis was eventually adopted. When the British came to power they found the revenue in a state of confusion which indicated that at some time during the Mogul period the evaluation had ceased to be made regularly, modifications of the last assessment having then been introduced successively, until all system had disappeared.
The imperial revenue was collected by a separate hierarchy of officials. The great provinces were divided into districts, or sirkars, in each of which a Diwan was chief financial agent. His office was the Defter ali, and his clerks were Mutasidis. In lesser districts the collectors were Amils or Karoris, the treasurers Fotadars. Karkums were appointed to settle disputes and audit accounts. The crown revenue might be farmed out, in areas of a size comparable to the jagirs, to officials known as Zamindars or Talukdars, who in the days of decline strove to make their position hereditary. In the local unit, or pargana, the government was represented by a Kanungo, who kept the records of assessments and payments. Akbar took measures also to bring under cultivation waste and abandoned lands, and appointed for this purpose Karoris, whose efforts were attended with much success. In the best days the imperial financial officers acted as a check upon the civil and military officials, upholding alike the interests of emperor and common people. Evidence exists, however, that even in the time of Akbar there was financial corruption, and that revenue officials were not lacking who plundered the people and defrauded the emperor.
The granting of jagirs to officers and Rajahs, of pensions to learned men and others, and of land in full title, free from revenue, for religious foundations seems to have diverted from the royal treasury about two-thirds of the possible land revenue. On the other hand, it has been estimated that the emperor received from customs, tolls, miscellaneous taxes, and presents an amount equal to what he got from the land. Careful calculations have resulted in ascribing to Akbar a revenue of over two hundred million dollars annually, and to Aurangzeb as much as four hundred and fifty million dollars. Suleiman’s revenue would then have been not the tenth part of Akbar’s and Louis XIV’s not the tenth part of Aurangzeb’s.
This revenue was expended upon the standing army, the court, the support of learned and religious persons, a series of building operations which were perhaps costly beyond parallel, bountiful gifts at certain seasons, and regular charities. It would appear, farther, that the expenses of the provincial governments were deducted from the imperial land revenue after it had been estimated but before it was paid into the treasury. In spite of the lavish outflow, however, an enormous treasure seems to have been accumulated. By Mandelslo it was estimated in 1638 at the incredible sum of one and a half billion crowns, equivalent to about the same number of dollars!
It was probably because of the greatly increased revenue which Akbar obtained by his new method that he found it possible to remit the jizyeh or capitation tax on non-Moslems, and also the tax on pilgrims, which had made the earlier Moslem rule obnoxious to the Hindu population. On the other hand, it may have been not merely religious zeal, but also financial stress caused by the civil wars preceding his accession, by the Rajput revolt, by the long struggle in the Deccan, and by the pious remission of many taxes not authorized by the Sacred Law, including the tax on Hindu temple lands, that influenced Aurangzeb to reimpose the capitation tax, and thus open wide the rifts in his disintegrating empire.
In the days of its greatness, the budget of the Mogul Empire, alike in income and expenditure, reached a height which had rarely if ever been attained before. That of the East Roman Empire under the Macedonian dynasty, and of the Saracen Empire in the days of Harun Al-Rashid, may have rivalled it; but it is probable that only the great Western powers, enriched by the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have ever reached a financial magnitude beyond that of the empire of Aurangzeb.
Humayun divided the responsibilities of government among four ministers, and a fourfold division persisted at least as late as Aurangzeb. By a curious form of logic the classification of duties and the names of the four departments were based, not on convenience, but on relation to the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The Khaki department had the care of agriculture, buildings, and domain lands; the Hawai, of the wardrobe, the kitchen, the stables, and the like; the Ateshi, of the artillery and the making of war material and other things in which fire was employed; and the Abi, of the emperor’s drinks, and canals, rivers, and water-works. When Khondamir wrote, about 1534, one man had oversight of all four departments; but the development of a regular supreme official of great power, like the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, seems never to have taken place, no doubt because the imperial house did not abandon the tradition of personal government.
Humayun set aside two days of the week for business of state. Drums were beaten to summon officials and give notice that the hall of audience was open. Any subject might appear and ask for justice. Suits of fine apparel and purses of money were at hand to reward the worthy, and executioners stood by with drawn swords to punish the guilty. Guns were fired at the close of the audience to notify officials that they might retire. Aurangzeb held general court in the great hall of audience for two hours on regular days. Persons who had petitions to present held them up, and these were taken by the emperor, read by him, and often granted on the spot. On at least one day in the week he sat with the two Kazis of the city, and on another day he heard privately ten cases of persons of low rank. In the evening the chief officers were commanded to be present in a smaller hall, where Aurangzeb sat to “grant private audiences to his officers, receive their reports, and deliberate on important matters of state.” This gathering resembled the Divan of Suleiman, but it lacked most of the latter’s judicial work; in India such work was done by the chief judges sitting separately, or by the emperor in the great audiences. Furthermore, it was the sovereign and not a grand vizier who presided in this council. The assembly was deliberative in matters of policy and general administration, and judicial in that it had jurisdiction of cases which involved officers of high rank.
For purposes of local government the empire was divided into subahs, or provinces, each under a Nawab (a plural of majesty, from naib, often called “nabob” by Westerners), or governor. Under Akbar the number of subahs varied from fifteen to eighteen. Like the Beylerbeys of the Ottoman Empire, the Nawabs tended to increase in number, the size of their provinces diminishing accordingly. The Nawab was almost a little emperor in his province. He held audiences, commanded the army, conferred lesser titles, appointed and dismissed most officials, and was the highest judicial authority. His power was limited, however, by the emperor’s right to recall him, by the right of appeal in judicial cases from him to the emperor, and by the fact that the financial and judicial officers were separately appointed and were responsible only to the throne. The Nawab and his court were supported by lands granted in jagir. He might suspend the jagirs of officers pending imperial decision. He was responsible for the security and order of his province, and had Faujdars under him in the several districts, who exercised military command and the powers of chief of police and police judge, their position resembling somewhat that of the Sanjak Beys of the Ottoman system. The chief financial officers in each province were the Diwans, who, as explained above, collected the imperial revenue and had oversight of all lesser revenue officers. They and their deputies possessed judicial powers in cases concerning finance and land titles. The chief judge of the province, subject however to appeals to the governor, was the Nizam. He heard the serious criminal cases, and his deputy, the Daroga Adaulat al Aulea, attended to most of the important civil ones. Local Kazis, aided by Muftis, Mohtesibs, and Kutwals or mayors, kept order in the smaller cities and districts. Rajahs who had made terms with the emperor exercised powers very similar to those of the Nawabs. Their positions were secured by heredity, however, and in their provinces the imperial financial and judicial officers had no jurisdiction. They simply owed military service and a certain amount of tribute, failing in which they might be reduced by force of arms. The Ottoman system contained no subjects who were at once so secure of their positions, so nearly independent, and so powerful as the Rajahs. Kurdish, Albanian, and Arabian chieftains were perhaps as secure and as independent, but they were of very small wealth and might; while the Voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were not so secure or so independent.
The condition of the common people under this government is to be known mainly by inference. Various documents and acts show the benevolent intentions of emperors and high officials toward the masses. Whether from wise prevision or from genuine charitable feeling, there appears to have been much solicitude lest the cultivators of the soil should be reduced to utter penury or driven from their lands. Akbar, for instance, issued strict orders that on military expeditions nothing should be taken from the people without careful assessment and immediate or subsequent payment. Nevertheless, at the best the result of the general policy was to leave the cultivator little more than a bare living. The whole system drained away wealth to a few great cities and a comparatively few persons. If but few complaints rose from the masses, it was because their lot was no worse than that of their forefathers had been for many generations. Aside from the periods of civil war, the Moguls gave peace and order. Akbar removed internal tolls two centuries before such a thing was accomplished in France, and thus made of the land a single economic unit, with the result that in his reign India as a whole enjoyed such prosperity as she has known at very few other periods in her history.
Before the time of Aurangzeb special care was taken to conciliate the Hindus. Akbar adopted definitely the policy of equal treatment for all, a degree of toleration not to be found in the contemporary Europe of William the Silent and Henry of Navarre. The government strove to abolish or mitigate such Hindu practices as were abhorrent to Mohammedanism, and at least one Moslem practice which offended the Hindus. Child-marriage, the ordeal, and animal sacrifice were forbidden. Widows were to be burned on the funeral pyres of their husbands only with their own full consent, and those who preferred to live might marry again. In the Rajput tributary states Hindu law of course prevailed. Probably in the regions under direct Mogul rule Hindus were judged by their own law when Moslems were not concerned and perhaps even by their own judges. It is true that the Hindus had to wait until Akbar came to be released from the personal disabilities imposed by earlier Moslem conquerors, that their temple lands were taxed until the time of Aurangzeb, and that Brahmans, pundits, and fakirs were perhaps only in Akbar’s presence treated with respect equal to that accorded Sheiks, Seids, and Ulema. But the emperors and their officers gave like justice to all; they permitted every man to worship according to the rites of his forefathers, and apparently never had a thought, as had Selim the Cruel, of giving to all non-Moslem subjects the choice between Islam and death. There was little ground for discontent until Aurangzeb began to apply a harsher policy.
The Moslems and the Moslem Church
In comparison with conditions in the Ottoman Empire, Moslems and non-Moslems in the India of the early Moguls were far more nearly on a level. This was due not merely to the toleration and indifference of the emperors, but even more to the circumstances of the conquest, under which both groups were treated alike, since Baber at Panipat in 1526 subdued the Moslem Lodi Sultans of Delhi, and at Kanwaha in 1527 the Hindu Rajput confederacy. Indian-born worshippers of Allah and of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva were mingled in the same vast mass of conquered subjects, equally separated from the victorious invaders. There was also, in all probability, a much greater difference of race between Baber’s highlanders and the Moslems that he found in India than between the latter and the Hindus; for many inter-marriages had taken place, and many natives of India had joined the followers of the Prophet. Time, of course, diminished this distinction.
Suleiman was distinctly the head of the Moslems of his empire. Through his appointee the Sheik-ul-Islam, through his Hoja, the Kaziaskers, the Nakib-ol-Eshraf, and other learned and saintly personages, he kept in close touch with the religious chiefs of the Mohammedan population. All who prayed toward Mecca, at least from the older portions of the Ottoman Empire, were attached by many ancient ties to the house of Osman. Their ancestors had perhaps been converts through its activities, had certainly fought for it, and had seen its gradual and vigorous rise to greatness. No such vital bonds joined to the Moguls the great mass of their Moslem subjects. These remembered the glories and favors of lost dynasties, and were indebted to the new sovereigns only for defeats and humiliations which depressed them toward the level of the Hindus, whom they had for centuries held to be far inferior to themselves. They had no Sheik-ul-Islam, honored by the sovereign with a seat above his own, whose decisions might determine the fate of the ruler or of the empire. Almost as much to them as to the Hindus the emperor was a stranger and a foreigner, to whom should be rendered, because of his power, full submission and instant obedience, but not loyal affection and whole-hearted devotion. There was ever an absence of solidarity between the house of Timur and those Moslem subjects who had not come into India in the service of that house, and this was not least among the elements of weakness that shortened the life of the empire. When Rajputs had been stirred to revolt, when Mahrattas had grown great, when bronzed and capable Moguls had been supplanted by “pale persons in petticoats,” who were left to rally about the tottering throne? More than two and a half centuries have elapsed since the Ottomans ceased to draw systematically from the strength of the Christian population, and yet the fighting stock of their Moslem subjects has never failed or grown weak or faltered in its loyalty; but Aurangzeb’s successors found few upon whom to rely, and of this few a very small proportion who would sacrifice their own fortunes freely, who would be faithful unto death.
The Moguls found in India Sheiks, Dervishes, Seids, and Ulema, mosques, schools, and pious foundations in abundance. In fact, the developed system of Mohammedanism had extended itself over India with visible results very much like those in all other Moslem lands, among them the Ottoman Empire. From the ranks of those educated in Moslem lore were taken teachers, judges, and counselors-at-law.
There must have existed for the children of the Moslem population mektebs, ordinary medressehs, and law schools, in which the Arabic language and the sciences built upon the Koran, as well as the Persian language and literature were taught. No doubt, also, the imperial household contained systems of education, arranged for the two sexes separately and prepared to train imperial and noble children and young attendants, servants, and slaves in the knowledge which was thought best adapted to fit them for life. It is interesting to notice what impression the teaching regularly given to a young prince made (if Bernier can be trusted) upon the keen intellect of Aurangzeb. When the latter became emperor, his old teacher, it appears, confidently presented himself at Delhi for reward. What, then, must have been his surprise to receive such a deliverance as this from the lips of majesty!
“Was it not incumbent upon my preceptor to make me acquainted with the distinguishing features of every nation of the earth; its resources and strength; its mode of warfare, its manners, religion, form of government, and wherein its interests principally consist, and, by a regular course of historical reading, to render me familiar with the origin of States; their progress and decline; the events, accidents, or errors, owing to which such great changes and mighty revolutions have been effected?... A familiarity with the language of surrounding nations may be indispensable in a king; but you would teach me to read and write Arabic; doubtless conceiving that you placed me under an everlasting obligation for sacrificing so large a portion of time to the study of a language wherein no one can hope to become proficient without ten or twelve years of close application. Forgetting how many important subjects ought to be embraced in the education of a prince, you acted as if it were chiefly necessary that he should possess great skill in grammar, and such knowledge as belongs to a Doctor of Law; and thus did you waste the precious hours of my youth in the dry, unprofitable, and never-ending task of learning words!... Ought you not to have instructed me on one point at least, so essential to be known by a king, namely, on the reciprocal duties between the sovereign and his subjects? Ought you not also to have foreseen that I might at some future period be compelled to contend with my brothers, sword in hand, for the crown, and for my very existence? Such, as you must well know, has been the fate of the children of almost every king of Hindustan. Did you ever instruct me in the art of war, how to besiege a town, or draw up an army in battle array? Happy for me that I consulted wiser heads than thine on these subjects! Go! withdraw to thy village. Henceforth let no person know either who thou art or what is become of thee.”
In this rebuke, whether it comes chiefly from Bernier or from Aurangzeb, is excellent criticism upon the stereotyped Moslem education, and material enough to cheer the hearts of modern advocates of a closer relation between subjects of instruction and the business of life.
The lack of solidarity between the mass of the Moslems of India and the Mogul government, together with the religious indifference of several emperors, prevented the Moslem church there from reaching the full measure of the dignity, influence, and authority of the Moslem Institution in the Ottoman Empire. Humayun’s division of the household into three classes shows that he gave highest rank not to the clergy but to princes of the blood, with nobles and ministers of state and military men. “The holy persons, the great Musheiks (religious men), the respectable Seids, the literati, the law officers, the scientific persons, poets, besides other great and respectable men formed the second class.” The orders, or arrows, of nobility show a little more definitely the place of the Moslem learned men, since they are assigned to the tenth order, after the monarch and the princes of the blood and the Rajahs.
In the palace-city of Fatehpur-Sikri, Akbar built a great hall, the Ibadat-Khana, to which he repaired on holy nights with Sheiks, Seids, Ulema, and nobles. Finding that his followers could not keep the peace when mingled indiscriminately, he assigned one of the four sides of the hall to each group. Here he was accustomed to listen to theological discussions; and it appears that what he heard tended to destroy his respect for the faith of the Prophet, and to predispose his mind toward the eclectic religion which he instituted later. Says Badauni: “The learned doctors used to exercise the sword of their tongues upon each other, and showed great pugnacity and animosity, till the various sects took to calling each other infidels and perverts.” In course of time Akbar obtained a document signed by the principal Ulema, to the effect that a just ruler is higher in the eyes of God than a doctor of the law (Mujtahid), that Akbar was a just ruler, and that therefore his decrees in matters of religion were binding upon the world. This declaration placed Akbar distinctly above the Moslem church and at least on a level with the prophet Mohammed; and he seems even to have played with the idea that he was himself God. Certainly he hoped to unify all creeds by his “divine faith.” His son and grandson were not much interested in religion, and not at all inclined to assume actively the religious headship of the empire; under them, the Moslem church had to take care of itself. Religious interest appeared again in Aurangzeb, not in any spirit of free inquiry, but in a rigid conformity to the rules of the Sacred Law. From those youthful days when he preferred the meagre life of a saint to the splendors of princely state, down to the long-deferred close of his troubled career, Islam knew no more faithful observer of its rites and prescriptions. In Aurangzeb’s reign and in his alone did the Moslem religion take such a place in India as in the Turkey of Suleiman’s time.
The learned Moslems of the Mogul Empire never had as the head of their hierarchy a personage of such dignity and power as the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople. The Sadr Jehan appears to have been concerned chiefly with the granting of land from the treasury to learned and religious persons in lieu of pensions. The hierarchy of judges seems to have been complete, at least in territory that was directly administered, with two officials at court who corresponded to the Kaziaskers of Suleiman, and with Kazis of high rank in the chief city of each province and of lesser rank in other cities; but the functions of these officers appear to have been more closely restricted than in the Ottoman Empire, by reason of the superior jurisdictions of the emperor and the governors, and of the criminal and financial jurisdictions of the Nizams and Diwans and their deputies. As there is little mention of the muftis, it would seem that their rôle was not very important.
The Moslem church in India was not of the very fabric of empire. The imperial family and most of their associates in government adhered to it; but it had no thorough control of education and justice, and no power to sanction war or pronounce the deposition of an emperor. It did not curb the spirit of the nation or lay a heavy hand upon progress; but, as it was relatively unable to hinder by its weaknesses, so it could not contribute its abiding strength. The Mogul Empire is but a memory. The Moslem church of India thrives and grows under the rule of aliens of another faith.
Books Consulted in the Preparation of Appendix IV
Baden-Powell, B. H. A short account of the land revenue and its administration in British India. 2d edition. Oxford, 1907.
Bayley, Sir E. C. The local Muhammadan dynasties. Gujarát. London, 1886.—A sequel to Elliot’s History of India.
Bernier, François. Travels in the Mogul empire, A.D. 1656-1663. Westminster, 1891.—[As quoted by Lane-Poole and others.]
Crichton, A. S. The Mohammedans as rulers of India. In The Moslem World, i. 99-116. London, 1911.
Dow, Alexander. The history of Hindostan. 3 vols. London, 1770-1772.
Elliot, Sir H. M., and Dowson, John. The history of India, as told by its own historians. 8 vols. London, 1867-1877.—Vol. v (1873) contains extracts from Khondamir, Badáúní, Nizam uddin Ahmad, etc.
Gul-badan Begam. The history of Humāyūn (Humāyūn-nāma). Translated by Annette S. Beveridge. London, 1902.
Holden, E. S. The Mogul emperors of Hindustan. New York, 1895.
Hunter, Sir W. W. A brief history of the Indian peoples. 23d edition. [Oxford, 1903.]
Irvine, William. The army of the Indian Moghuls; its organization and administration. London, 1903.
—— The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad. J. R. A. S., Bengal, 1878, 340 ff.
Keene, H. G. The fall of the Moghul empire of Hindustan. New edition. London, 1887.
—— The Turks in India. London, 1879.
Lane-Poole, Stanley. Aurangzíb. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1893.
Lane-Poole, Stanley. Bábar. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1899.
—— Mediæval India under Mohammedan rule (A.D. 712-1764). New York, 1903.
Lyall, Sir A. C. The Moghul empire. In Cambridge Modern History, vi. 506-529. New York, 1909.
Malleson, G. B. Akbar. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1908.
Rambaud, Alfred. Organisation de l’empire mongol. In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vi. 878-883. Paris, 1895.
Ritchie, Leitch. A history of the oriental nations. 2 vols. London, 1848.
Roe, Sir Thomas. Journal of his embassy to the court of the Great Mogul. 1615-1619. In Hakluyt Society’s publications, 2d series, vols. i-ii. London, 1899.—[As quoted by Lane-Poole and others.]
Appendix V — Bibliographical Notes
I. Sources of Ottoman Governmental Ideas
Three traceable lines of influence can be followed from the earliest times until their appearance in the Ottoman government of the sixteenth century. The oldest began in Egypt, and continued down through various dynasties until the Roman conquest, after which it began to enter the Roman imperial government. From this it passed to the Byzantine and thence to the Ottoman system. Locally again it followed a more direct course through the Fatimides and Mamelukes until the time of Selim I’s conquest of Egypt. The slave government of the Mamelukes offers an interesting subject for comparison with the Ottoman Ruling Institution. It would be superfluous to give references for this line of development, except perhaps to mention Sir William Muir’s book, The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt (London, 1896), and Stanley Lane-Poole’s Egypt in the Middle Ages (London, 1901).
The second line, which seems to have contributed a greater number of elements, came down in the Bagdad-Euphrates valley through various governments to the Saracen and Seljuk empires, from which it passed to the Ottomans. Here again no general references need be given. Perhaps the most useful book in connection with the subject is D. B. McDonald’s Moslem Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory (New York, 1903).
The third and most direct line of influence is through the Tatars of the steppe lands. In A. H. Keane’s Man, Past and Present (Cambridge, England, 1899) there is a full and clear discussion of the anthropological relationships of the Turks. E. H. Parker’s A Thousand Years of the Tartars (London, 1895) gives an account which is based closely upon the Chinese sources, but which would be helped by the addition of as many of the two or three thousand notes which he did not print as would show the sources of his information. The Chinese story of the great Tatar empire of the sixth century A.D. may be found in Stanislas Julien’s Documents Historiques sur les Tou-Kioue (Paris, 1877). W. Radloff’s Alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei (Leipsic, 1894-95) discusses the earliest known Turkish monuments, which date from the eighth century. Emil Bretschneider’s Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (2 vols., London, 1888, new edition, 1910) gives an account of the Uigurs, whose greatness came in the eighth and ninth centuries and whose name persisted until at least the twelfth century, as is shown by the oldest known Turkish book, which is in their dialect.
This old book has been printed, with original Syriac text, transliteration into Roman characters, and German translation, by Arminius (Hermann) Vambéry, under the title Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik (Innsbruck, 1870). The Kudatku Bilik, the “Wisdom that Blesses,” written at Kashgar in 1068 by Yusuf Khass Hajil, is really an “Art of Government,” composed for the instruction of a Turkish prince. It contains in rhymed couplets, arranged in chapters, a large amount of advice on governmental matters, much of it being in the form of proverbs. The book throws a great deal of light on the fundamental Ottoman character. Vambéry has also made a study, on a philological basis, of the civilization of the Tatars, entitled Die Primitive Cultur des Türko-tatarischen Volkes (Leipsic, 1879).
A book equally remarkable with the Kudatku Bilik is the Siasset Namèh, written in 1092 for the Seljuk sultan Melek Shah by the great vizier Abu ’Ali al Hasan b. Ishaq (known better by his title, the Nizam al-Mulk), and printed in the original Persian, with a French translation, by Charles Schéfer, Paris, 1893. This “Book of Government” reveals to some extent three things,—the methods of government of Sassanian times, the actual government under Melek Shah, and the Seljuk government as the Nizam al-Mulk would have it. It also sheds much light upon Ottoman institutions.
The best general book on the Turks in Central Asia and their activities down to the occupation of Asia Minor is undoubtedly Léon Cahun’s Introduction à l’Histoire de l’Asie: Turcs et Mongols (Paris, 1896). The same ground is covered briefly by Cahun in Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vol. ii. ch. xvi. There is a great deal of information about the Persians and the Seljuk Turks in E. G. Browne’s Literary History of Persia (2 vols., London, 1902-1906). Maximilian Bittner has made a valuable study of the Turkish language, entitled Der Einfluss des Arabischen und Persischen auf das Türkische (Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe, vol. cxlii. pt. iii. Vienna, 1900). Sir W. M. Ramsay’s books are valuable for a study of the settlement of the Turks in Asia Minor, particularly his Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890), The Geographical Conditions determining History and Religion in Asia Minor (with comments by D. G. Hogarth, H. H. Howorth, and others, Geographical Journal, September, 1902, xx. 257-282), and Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire (Aberdeen, 1906). Volume v of H. F. Helmolt’s Weltgeschichte (Leipsic, etc., 1905) is useful for its attempt to trace the elements of Ottoman culture which were derived from Byzantine and other sources. William Miller’s The Latins in the Levant (New York, 1908) gives a clear picture of the confused and divided state of affairs to which the Ottomans put an end in their rough way.
II. The Ottoman Government in the Sixteenth Century
Abundant material for a study of the sixteenth-century Ottoman government has been provided and preserved; for the great place which the expanding empire held in the world developed an immense interest in its affairs on the part of the West, and made it worth the while of many of its Western residents to prepare descriptions of its outstanding features, among which its peculiar government was treated with special fulness. The writings of these men of various Western nationalities are in a way more helpful than a similar number of books from native writers would be, because the foreigners could usually take nothing for granted, but were compelled to draw a complete picture. They could not, on the other hand, get at the inner springs of the Ottoman activity as well as natives could; nor do any of them, with the exception of Menavino, seem actually to have read and known the Ottoman laws. Fortunately, Ottoman historians began to write abundantly shortly before the reign of Suleiman. For Suleiman’s own time, the collections of his Kanuns (since he was noted as a legislator) contain much material which helps toward an understanding of his government; moreover, writers of a later date have been drawn with special interest toward his reign, as the climax of Ottoman greatness. At the same time, no one but Zinkeisen has attempted to give an extended account of the Ottoman government as it was in the sixteenth century.
No reasonably complete bibliography of books relating to Turkey has been made. The following lists are worthy of mention as giving information in regard to the material for a study of Turkish history and institutions before the year 1600:—
Richard Knolles gives a bare list of his authorities, to the number of about twenty-five, at the beginning of his Generall Historie of the Turkes, London, 1603.
J. H. Boecler published at Bautzen in 1717 a Commentarius Historico-Politicus de Rebus Turcicis, in which he gives, at pp. 14-41, a list of 317 works on Turkish history and affairs, including 45 folio volumes, 128 quartos, 98 octavos, and 45 duodecimos.
Joseph von Hammer discusses his authorities in the preface to volume i of his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (Pest, 1827); and in volume x, pp. 57-336 (1835), he prints a list containing 3,025 titles of works relating to Ottoman history which were to be found in Europe outside of Constantinople.
Amat di San Filippo, in his Biografia dei Viaggiatori Italiani, etc. (2 vols., Rome, 1882), gives accounts of many of the early Italian writers on Turkish affairs.
Henri Hauser, in his edition of Du Fresne-Canaye, described below (p. 319), prints as Appendix II an Essai d’une Bibliographie des Ouvrages du XVIe Siècle relatifs au Levant. The list, which does not pretend to completeness, contains about 60 different titles.
The catalogue of the library of Count Paul Riant, published in two parts at Paris in 1899, also contains the titles of a great number of books and pamphlets which relate to the subject under discussion. Most of this material has been transferred to the Ottoman collection of the Library of Harvard University, through the generosity of Messrs. J. R. Coolidge and A. C. Coolidge,—a gift, it may be added, that has made the preparation of the present treatise possible. There are also many titles on early Ottoman history in the catalogue of Charles Schéfer’s Oriental library (published at Paris in 1899), from which the same donors have contributed 445 volumes to the Harvard Ottoman collection.
The list given in the Cambridge Modern History, i. 700-705, in connection with Professor J. B. Bury’s chapter on “The Ottoman Conquest,” is fuller than most of those just mentioned. It omits some valuable authorities, however, such as Schiltberger, Menavino, Ramberti, and Busbecq.
It is possible to get contemporaneous views of the Ottoman Empire at a date earlier than the beginning of the sixteenth century, though they are all incomplete. The first accounts go back to the battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Froissart (Chroniques, ed. Lettenhove, xv. 319 ff., Brussels, 1871), in a description of the battle and succeeding events which was based on accounts given by Jacques du Fay and Jacques de Helly, gives some idea of the Turkish army and the sultan. A better account for the present purpose is that by Johann Schiltberger (translated into English by J. B. Telfer, and published by the Hakluyt Society as The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, London, 1879). Schiltberger, then a youth of sixteen, was taken prisoner at Nicopolis, and after serving as slave to Bayezid I for six years, was captured by Timur at the battle of Angora, 1402. He was retained as captive, not without important responsibilities and wide journeys, for twenty-five years longer, when he succeeded in escaping. It is a matter for regret that he says very little of his life at the sultan’s court, since he held a position which corresponded to that of page in later times.
Another general account of the Turkish polity comes from the pen of Bertrandon de la Broquière, first gentleman-carver (écuyer tranchant), councillor, and chamberlain of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. In the course of a trip through the Levant he met Murad II in Rumelia in 1433. His observations show that many features of the Turkish system were then already in operation,—as the four pashas, the slave system, the pages, the imperial harem, the Janissaries (Jehanicéres), the feudal army, the Divan, etc. La Broquière’s memoirs are edited by Charles Schéfer, under the title Le Voyage d’Outremer, as volume xii of Recueil de Voyages et de Documents pour servir à l’Histoire de la Géographie depuis le XIIIe jusqu’à la fin du XVIe Siècle (Paris, 1892). The same volume contains an opinion in regard to the military power of the Turks by Jehan Torzelo, dating from the year 1439.
Still another report was written by a Transylvanian whose name remains unknown, but who was a slave in Ottoman private families from 1436 to 1453. Evidently he had before his capture been a theological student who held some of the ideas that preceded the Reformation movement. His book had a great vogue after the year 1509, under various titles, such as: Ricoldus, De Vita et Moribus Turcarum, Paris, 1509 (the attachment to the name of Ricoldus is purely accidental); Libellus de Ritu et Moribus Turcarum, Wittenberg, 1530 (with a preface by Martin Luther); S. Frank, Cronica-Abconterfayung, etc., Augsburg, 1531; Tractatus de Moribus, etc. The Wittenberg edition has been used in this treatise, and is referred to as Tractatus. Although most of the book is theological and argumentative, it affords a great deal of information. Among other things, it contains what is probably the earliest mention of the tribute children as the regular means of recruiting the Janissaries (Ginnitscheri).
The next good contemporary account of the Ottoman system is given in the history of Chal(co)condyles (written in Greek), of which there are many editions and translations. The one used here is the French translation, Histoire de la Décadence de l’Empire Grec et Établissement de celui des Turcs, Rouen, 1670. This writer, whose story comes down to 1465, speaks out of his own observation in describing the Ottoman camp and government.
The oldest authentic Kanuns are in the Kanun-nameh of Mohammed II, which is translated by Hammer in his Staatsverfassung (Vienna, 1815), 87-101.
The earliest book that was devoted to a description of Ottoman manners, religion, and government is by Teodoro Spandugino Cantacusino. Born of an Italian father and a Greek mother, he spent his life alternately in the East and the West. His book describes the empire as it was under Bayezid II, who died in 1512, his information about the government being obtained from two very high renegade officials, probably Messih Pasha and Hersek-Zadeh Ahmed Pasha. The earliest edition was printed in French at Paris in 1519 under the title Petit Traicté de l’Origine des Turcqz; later editions, with and without his name, or under the name of B. Gycaud, bear the title La Généalogie du Grant Turc à Présent Regnant, etc. The edition used here is a reprint of the first French issue, edited with notes by C. Schéfer, Paris, 1896. This writer is sometimes quoted as Spandugino, and sometimes as Cantacusino. The first form is used in the present treatise.
A book that is even more valuable in some ways is Giovanni Antonio Menavino’s Trattato de Costumi et Vita de Turchi. The edition used here was printed in Florence in 1548. Menavino came of a wealthy Genoese family. About the year 1505, when he was twelve years of age, handsome, bright, and well educated for his years, he was captured near Corsica by corsairs, and set aside as a gift suitable for the sultan. Taken to Bayezid II, he pleased the old sultan greatly, and was placed at once in the school of pages, where, as his book shows throughout, he must have profited greatly by the teaching that he received. He describes the religion, customs, and government of the Ottomans in much detail. In 1514 he was taken by Selim I on the expedition against Persia; but he managed to escape to Trebizond, whence he made his way to Adrianople, Salonika, and thence home to Genoa.
A group of excellent sources for studies of both the government and the history of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century is found in the reports which the Venetian Bailos and orators extraordinary presented to their Senate.
Venice, says Ranke, “frequently sent her most experienced and able citizens to foreign courts. Not content with the despatches on current affairs regularly sent home every fourteen days, she further required of her ambassadors, when they returned after an absence of two or three years, that they should give a circumstantial account of the court and the country they had been visiting.”799 Since Constantinople was in the sixteenth century the station of first importance in the Venetian diplomatic service, it is safe to assume that the sons whom she sent there were her most intelligent.
A number of these Venetian reports, which do not, however, reach far into Suleiman’s reign, are summarized by Marini Sanuto the Younger in his voluminous Diarii, 1496-1533 (58 vols. in 59, Venice, 1879-1903). The reports of Alvise Sagudino in 1496, and of Andrea Gritti in 1503, are quoted by Schéfer in the introduction to his edition of Spandugino’s work, noticed above. Rinaldo Fulin, in his Diarii e Diaristi Veneziani (Venice, 1881) reprints Sanuto’s abstract of the Itinerary of Pietro Zeno, orator at Constantinople in 1523.
The Venetian reports for the reign of Suleiman are all, so far as preserved and known, collected in the invaluable work of Eugenio Alberi, Relazione degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (15 vols., Florence, 1839-1863). The three volumes of the third series (published 1840, 1844, 1855, respectively), as well as a portion of the fifteenth volume or Appendix, are devoted to Turkish reports. Volume i of this series is also separately printed as Documenti di Storia Ottomana del Secolo XVI (Florence, 1842). A few writings are included in these volumes which were not reports to the Venetian senate.
In all, thirty-nine documents are thus presented, of which sixteen fall within the reign of Suleiman. Unfortunately there is a gap between the years 1534 and 1553, a period for which there should be eight or ten documents of great value bearing on the Ottoman dealings with France, Austria, Spain, and Persia.
These volumes contain much helpful apparatus, such as a glossary of Turkish words (vol. i); notes on the Venetian embassies to the Porte in the sixteenth century, with a list of the Venetian representatives (vol. ii); biographical notes concerning the writers (all three volumes); chronological tables, genealogies, etc. (Appendix). The Venetians were particularly interested in the financial side of the Ottoman government, its mechanism, its army, and its fleet. Many character descriptions of great personages enliven the pages. The last pages of the Appendix contain a chronological index of the Relazione and the other writings included; also an alphabetical list of them by authors, and chronological lists by countries. The subjoined list of reports from Constantinople is taken from page 435, and will serve as a means of locating many references in the foregoing pages. The more valuable reports are distinguished by asterisks.
Venetian Reports from Constantinople as given in Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, 3 vols. and Appendix (Florence, 1840-1863)
| Writer | Date | Volume | Page | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gritti, Andrea | 1503 | iii | 1 | |
| Giustiniani, Antonio | 1514 | ″ | 45 | |
| Mocenigo, Alvise | 1518 | ″ | 53 | |
| Contarini, Bartolomeo | 1519 | ″ | 56 | |
| Minio, Marco | 1522 | ″ | 69 | |
| Zen, Pietro | 1524 | ″ | 93 | |
| Bragadino, Pietro | 1526 | ″ | 99 | |
| Minio, Marco | 1527 | ″ | 113 | |
| Zen, Pietro | 1530 | ″ | 119 | |
| *Ludovisi, Daniello | 1534 | i | 1 | |
| *Navagero, Bernardo | 1553 | ″ | 33 | |
| Anonimo | ″ | ″ | 193 | |
| *Trevisano, Domenico | 1554 | ″ | 111 | |
| *Erizzo, Antonio | 1557 | iii | 123 | |
| *Barbarigo, Antonio | 1558 | ″ | 145 | |
| Cavalli, Marino | 1560 | i | 271 | |
| Dandolo, Andrea | 1562 | iii | 161 | |
| Donini, Marcantonio | ″ | ″ | 173 | |
| *Barbarigo, Daniele | 1564 | ii | 1 | |
| Bonrizzo, Luigi | 1565 | ″ | 61 | |
| Ragazzoni, Jacopo | 1571 | ″ | 77 | |
| *Barbaro, Marcantonio | 1573 | i | 299 | |
| Barbaro, Marcantonio | ″ | Append. | 387 | |
| Badoaro, Andrea | ″ | i | 347 | |
| *Garzoni, Costantino | ″ | ″ | 369 | |
| Alessandri, Vincenzo | 1574 | ii | 103 | |
| Anonimo | 1575 | ″ | 309 | |
| *Tiepolo, Antonio | 1576 | ″ | 129 | |
| *Soranzo, Giacomo | ″ | ″ | 193 | |
| Venier, Maffeo | 1579 | i | 437 | |
| Anonimo | 1582 | ii | 209 | 800 |
| Anonimo | ″ | ″ | 427 | |
| Contarini, Paolo | 1583 | iii | 209 | |
| *Morosini, Gianfrancesco | 1585 | ″ | 251 | |
| Michiel, Giovanni | 1587 | ii | 255 | |
| Venier, Maffeo | ″ | ″ | 295 | |
| *Moro, Giovanni | 1590 | iii | 323 | |
| *Bernardo, Lorenzo | 1592 | ii | 321 | |
| *Zane, Matteo | 1594 | iii | 381 |
An interesting small pamphlet is the Auszug eines Briefes... das Türckich Regiment unn Wesen sey, which was printed in a South-German dialect in 1526. It purports to be a letter from a German settled at Adrianople to his cousin in Germany, telling of his life as subject Christian under the sultan. The literary arrangement is so good, and the statements diverge so uniformly toward the dark side, that this would seem to be a pamphlet written in Germany for the purpose of arousing alarm and activity after the battle of Mohacs.
Hieronymus Balbus, bishop of Gurk, published at Rome in 1526 a little book of two essays addressed to Clement VII. The second part, “continens Turcarum Originem, Mores, Imperium,” etc., was also commended to the Archduke Ferdinand. The work makes up for a conspicuous lack of definite and accurate information by means of abundant scriptural and classical quotations and allusions, vituperation of the Turks, and assertion of their military ineffectiveness. It is chiefly valuable as an evidence of the “Turkish fear.”
A book that had a wide influence is Turcicarum Rerum Commentarius addressed by Paolo Giovio, or Paulus Jovius, bishop of Nocera, to Emperor Charles the Fifth, and dedicated at Rome in 1531. It was published in several languages; the edition used here is the Latin one, Paris, 1539. The book is historical except for the last ten pages, which contain a description of the Ottoman government with particular reference to its military resources. Giovio published also in two volumes at Florence, in 1550-1552, Historiarum sui Temporis Tomus Primus [et Secundus].
V. D. Tanco, or Clavedan del Estanco, a Spanish gentleman, wrote in his native tongue a book that was translated into Italian and published at Venice in 1558 under the title Libro dell’ Origine et Successione dell’ Imperio de’ Turchi. The basis of the work is the Commentarius of Jovius, just noticed; but this has been intelligently combined with information from Froissart, Aeneas Sylvius, and others. The latest date mentioned is 1537, and the death of Ibrahim in 1536 is not known.
A very valuable and interesting work is the Libri Tre delle Cose de Turchi, etc., published by Aldus in Venice in 1539, and reprinted often thereafter. It appears also as one of the component parts of the work published by Aldus in 1543, Viaggi fatti da Vinetia, alla tana... in Costantinopoli, known sometimes simply as Viaggi alla tana, or “Travels to the Don.” The book appeared anonymously, but it has been attributed with much confidence to Benedetto Ramberti (see Alberi, Relazione, 3d series, iii. 8; Archiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, 1897, lxxxiii. 9; Revue Critique, 1896, i. 20-21). Ramberti accompanied Ludovisi to and from Constantinople during the first six months of 1534. The book was written in the same year; for it shows that Barbarossa was made pasha while it was in process of composition (see above, Appendix I, p. 246, and, for the fact that Barbarossa was back in Algiers, May 9, 1534, see Ursu, La Politique Orientale de François I, Paris, 1908, p. 79), and in a long characterization at the close of the third book it represents Luigi (Alvise) Gritti, who was assassinated in Hungary late in 1534, as still living.
The first book of the three describes the journey overland from Ragusa to Constantinople; the third book contains observations of no great value on the power and policies of the Turks. The second book is the pièce de résistance. It opens with a brief description of Constantinople and a rapid sketch of the origin and history of the Ottoman Turks. An account of the Turkish government follows, beginning with the inside service of the household of the sultan, proceeding to the outside service, then taking up the chief officers of government, the Janissaries, the Spahis of the Porte and the auxiliary branches of the army. The harem, the palaces of the pages, the Ajem-oghlans, and the arsenal are next described; then the feudal army is explained as it was constituted in Europe and in Asia; and, finally, a list of the sanjakates of the empire is given. The Italian used is fairly good, and the style is very simple, often degenerating to the mere cataloguing of officers. Throughout the book the financial aspect of the government is emphasized strongly, the incomes of all persons mentioned being carefully stated. This second book of Ramberti is of so great importance to the present treatise that it is given in translation as Appendix I. The text used is that of the Viaggi... alla tana (Venice, 1543).
Standing in exceedingly close relationship to the second book of Ramberti is a twenty-two page pamphlet bearing the name of Junis Bey (Ionus Bei). Written in broad Venetian dialect and printed on coarse paper in type of a poor quality, not kept clean, it is in two portions, respectively of eight and fourteen pages, which are distinguished by the use of larger and smaller type. The title-page bears the inscription “reprinted in 1537.” The sixth page begins the list of pashas with the statement that “Ibrahim of Parga is dead,” and then gives the name of his successor in the office of grand vizier. On the seventeenth page it is said that the territories of the Beylerbey of Mesopotamia “border” those of Bagdad which belong to Persia (Bagdad was taken by Suleiman in the winter of 1535 and 1536); on the eighteenth occurs the remark that Alvise Gritti “says” such and such a thing; and at the close the book is attributed to “Ionus bei” and “Signor Aluise gritti.” Now, Junis Bey was in Venice from December 6, 1532, to January 9, 1533 (thesis of Theodore F. Jones, p. 168, Harvard College Library); Gritti was assassinated in 1534; Junis Bey was again in Venice from January 15 to February 17, 1537 (Jones, 209). It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the first edition of the pamphlet was printed at Venice in 1533 at the time of Junis Bey’s first visit, and that at the time of his second visit in 1537 the first eight pages were recast with a few changes, and in certain unsold copies substituted for the older pages, the remainder being left as it stood originally, despite the erroneous reference to Gritti.
It is very clear that Ramberti had before him while preparing his “second book” a document almost identical with this pamphlet. Beginning with his description of the sultan’s household service, the order of treatment is practically the same, and even the words and phrases are often the same, except for differences of dialect. His language frequently suggests that he is expanding on some material before him. It is worthy of note, however, that not only Ramberti’s use of Italian, but also his use of Turkish, is frequently better than that of Junis Bey. Moreover, in his list of officials he includes the Mufti and the chief dragoman (Terjuman), whom Junis Bey leaves out, the latter omission being the more remarkable in that Junis Bey held that office himself. On the other hand, where there are differences in numbers, Junis Bey is more apt to be correct than Ramberti. It seems not unlikely that both works were derived from a manuscript, more nearly complete and correct than either, in the possession of Alvise Gritti, which the latter allowed the two writers to use, Junis Bey probably in 1532 and Ramberti in 1534. Alvise Gritti was well known to both. Natural son of the doge Andrea Gritti, he had won high favor with Ibrahim, who entrusted him with great responsibilities. In fact, it may not be too bold a conjecture to suggest that some of the information contained in his manuscript came from the celebrated Grand Vizier himself. Aside from this possibility, a minute survey of the Ottoman government, prepared by Gritti himself or with his collaboration, either for his own use or for the information of his kinsfolk the Venetians, possesses a presumption in favor of its accuracy and truthfulness. Accordingly the closing words, “all is true,” may be accepted with little reserve.
These two works, by Ramberti and Junis Bey, were much used by other writers on Turkish affairs. Postel shows a close acquaintance with them, and Geuffroy frequently does little more than present a translation. Ramberti was incorporated into a number of the collected works in regard to the Turks which appeared in various languages after the middle of the sixteenth century and thus entered into systematic histories. Since the pamphlet of Junis Bey is very rare, its text is presented in Appendix II, above. Besides matter very similar to that of Ramberti, it contains near the end an account of the order of march of the sultan’s army when he went to war.
Guillaume Postel is perhaps the broadest-minded of the sixteenth-century observers. He gives evidence of having had a legal training, and of having reflected along political and constitutional lines. Nicolay, in his preface, informs us that Postel knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as the principal Western languages. He was sent by Francis I with the momentous embassy of La Forêt, and was therefore in Constantinople about the year 1535. He seems to have made a later visit for the purpose of acquiring manuscripts; but the substance of his book, as appears from numerous references, dates from the first visit. The volume was printed at Poitiers in 1560, but was not published till 1570. It contains three parts, separately paged:—
I. De la République des Turcs; II. Histoire et Considération de l’Origine, Loy, et Coustume des Tartares... Turcs, etc.; III. La Tierce Partie des Orientales Histoires, où est exposée la Condition, Puissance, & Revenue de l’Empire Turquesque, etc. The first part gives, among other things, an excellent account of the page system and of Ottoman law and justice. The third part is built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey; it describes the page system further, and adds a good account of the Ajem-oghlans and the Janissaries. By a reference it shows acquaintance with Giovio.
Antoine Geuffroy, knight of St. John, issued in 1542 his Briefve Description de la Court du Grand Turc. Four years later this was published in English by R. Grafton under the title The Order of the Great Turcks Court of Hye Menne of War; and from thirty to fifty years later it appeared, combined with other material, in large volumes in the Latin and German tongues under the name of N. Honigerus or Haeniger, with a Latin translation by G. Godelevæus, entitled Aulae Turcicae, Othomannicique Imperii Descriptio, etc. The work of Geuffroy thus had a great vogue. It was a sound, intelligent description of the empire, built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey. By references and allusions it shows acquaintance with Froissart, Spandugino, and Giovio. The references to Geuffroy in the foregoing pages are to the reprint in Schéfer’s edition of Jean Chesneau, described below.
Bartholomew Georgevitz, pilgrim to Jerusalem, issued a small book, De Turcarum Moribus Epitome, which passed through many editions in two or three languages, the first dating not later than 1544, and the latest not earlier than 1629. The chapters are on various topics and from various sources. The first, on the rites and ceremonies of the Turks, is abridged from Spandugino. The second, on the Turkish soldiery, is by Georgevitz himself; it is perhaps the most valuable, and shows by the age assigned to Prince Mustapha that it was written about 1537. The fourth chapter gives useful Turkish phrases, and is interesting as showing how Turkish words were pronounced in the sixteenth century. The fifth chapter gives a full account of the treatment of slaves of private citizens, written by one who had been a slave, apparently Georgevitz himself. The edition referred to in this treatise was printed at Paris in 1566.
Jérome Maurand accompanied Captain Pinon on his mission to Constantinople in 1544. A few years later he wrote, in Italian, an account of his journey, which was translated by Léon Dorez as Itinéraire de Jérome Maurand d’Antibes à Constantinople, and published at Paris in 1901 as vol. xvii of Recueil de Voyages, etc.
Before 1549, Ibrahim Halebi, the jurist, prepared by command of Suleiman the codification of the Sacred Law which bears the name of Multeka ol-ebhar, and which formed the foundation of D’Ohsson’s great work.
Jean Chesneau went to Constantinople with D’Aramont, ambassador of Henry II of France, and accompanied him on Suleiman’s campaign against Persia in 1549. His narrative, which is not very illuminating or accurate, was edited by Charles Schéfer and published at Paris in 1887, under the title, Le Voyage de Monsieur d’Aramon, as vol. viii of Recueil de Voyages, etc. Bound in the same volume are five letters in the Italian language, written from Constantinople in 1547 by the ambassador Veltwyck to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria; there is also (at pp. 227-248) a reprint in French of the first edition of Geuffroy.
Nicolas de Nicolay of Dauphiné, royal geographer and extensive traveler, who wrote a book called Discours et l’Histoire Véritable des Navigations, Pérégrinations et Voyages faicts en la Turquie, is not the least interesting of sixteenth-century authorities on Turkey. His account of his voyage from Marseilles to Constantinople in the year 1551 in the train of the Seigneur d’Aramont, ambassador of Henry II, and the drawings from life with which he embellishes his book, show his capacity for exact observation. In his descriptions of the customs and government of the Ottoman Empire, however, he does not reveal the possession of much first-hand information. Menavino is here his principal source of knowledge. The first edition of his book appeared at Lyons in 1567; it was translated into several languages and reproduced often. An enlarged edition, published at Antwerp in 1586, is the one referred to in the foregoing pages. The plates in the book, about sixty in number, have been said to be the work of Titian; but this is apparently incorrect, for the preface merely states that Nicolay drew from life on the spot and afterwards had the drawings reproduced “avec fraiz & labeur incroyable.”
From a literary point of view, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq is by all odds the most interesting of sixteenth-century sources for the study of Ottoman history and government. The charm of his style should not obscure the facts that he was a keen and exact observer possessed of a true scientific spirit, and that he reflected carefully on what he saw. He wrote on Turkey during his period of service as ambassador from Charles V to Suleiman between 1555 and 1562. One of his four Turkish letters was printed in Antwerp in 1581, and since that time at least twenty-seven editions and reprints have appeared in seven languages. The edition of his Life and Letters, in two volumes, translated from the original Latin by C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniell (London, 1881), has been used in this treatise, as has also his De Re Militari contra Turcam instituenda Consilium, as printed in a complete edition of his writings published at Pest in 1758, pp. 234-277.
Philippe Du Fresne-Canaye, a young Huguenot gentleman, was sent by his family to Venice for safety in the troubled days after the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and he took advantage of his nearness to the Levant to visit Constantinople in 1573. He had prepared himself for his visit by reading Ramberti, Postel, Nicolay, and others, but he does not seem to have learned much that was not in those authorities. His Voyage du Levant was edited for publication in Paris in 1897 by Henri Hauser, as vol. xvi of Recueil de Voyages, etc. Hauser’s Appendix II contains the bibliography of sixteenth-century works relating to the Levant which is mentioned above (p. 308).
The Kanun-nameh of Suleiman, collected by the Mufti Ebu su’ud, who died in 1574, contained a number of the Sultan’s Kanuns relating mainly to financial and feudal matters. A translation of the incomplete table of contents of the Turkish manuscript copy of this Kanun-nameh (which is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, Fluegel No. 1816) is given above as Appendix III. Many of the Kanuns are translated in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, pp. 396-424, where they are erroneously attributed to Achmet I.
A little anonymous book, The Policy of the Turkish Empire, published at London in 1597, contains an interesting preface. The remainder of the book deals only with the Turkish religion, and is drawn mainly from Menavino, with some incorporation from Spandugino and Georgevitz.
At the conclusion of Richard Knolles’s Generall Historie of the Turkes (London, 1603), is to be found “A Briefe Discourse of the Greatnesse of the Turkish Empire,” written probably in the year of publication, since the story comes down to the accession of Achmet I in 1603. The lands of the empire, “of all others now upon earth farre the greatest,” are described, its revenues are set forth, the Timariotes, the Janissaries, the chief officers of state, and the fleet receive notice, and the Turkish power is compared with that of all states which touch its frontiers. It is to this part of Knolles’s work (as printed in the 6th edition of his History, with Ricaut’s continuation, London, 1687, ii. 981-990) that most of the references in the foregoing pages are made.
Pietro Della Valle, known as Il Pellegrino, or The Pilgrim, wrote Viaggi... in la Turchia, la Persia, e l’India, which was published in two volumes (four parts) at Rome in 1658-1663. He was in Constantinople in 1614 and 1615, and took advantage of every opportunity to witness a ceremony. Observant of costumes and jewels, he could not esteem the Turkish officials highly, because they were all slaves. The references in this treatise are to the second edition of the first part, published in 1662.
Many collections based on the above-mentioned writings and on others were issued after the middle of the sixteenth century, and many surveys of the Ottoman Empire were prepared as time went on. Of the latter, three stand forth as of sufficient importance to throw light on sixteenth-century conditions:—
Sir Paul Ricaut, a resident of Turkey for many years, issued late in the seventeenth century The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire. He explains that he obtained his information from Turkish records from high officials, from members of the Ulema, and from a Pole who had passed through the school of pages and had spent nineteen years in all at the Ottoman court. Ricaut was evidently a student of political philosophy; he seems to have relied especially upon Tacitus, the civil law, Machiavelli, and Lord Bacon. His book was printed in several languages, has been much quoted since, and deserves the fame it received. The sixth English edition, published in London in 1686, is used here. The book is also printed at the end of the second volume of his edition of Knolles’s Turkish History, London, 1687.
Ignatius Mouradgea D’Ohsson, born in Turkey and long a resident there, prepared between 1788 and 1818 his great Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman. He based his work on the Multeka ol-ebhar (see above, p. 318) which with its comments he rearranged and translated, adding to it a great many observations of his own. The book appeared in two forms, the huge folio edition being a magnificent example of the bookmaker’s art. The smaller edition of the book (7 vols., Paris, 1788-1824) has been used here. The last three volumes were published under the supervision of his son after his death. Six of the seven volumes are based on the Multeka; the seventh contains a full description of the government, including the court, the ministers, the bureaus, the army, etc.
Joseph von Hammer published at Vienna, in 1815, Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, in two volumes. The former is very largely a collection of documents, such as Kanuns, fetvas, and extracts from the Multeka. A large amount of valuable material is presented; but it is only partly digested, and the author often does not indicate clearly whence he drew his extracts. The second volume goes over much the same ground as D’Ohsson’s seventh volume. Another work of Hammer’s, his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (10 vols., Pest, 1827-1835), has furnished the historical background for this treatise. This work is extremely valuable from the fact that it is based upon numerous inaccessible Turkish sources; but it is largely uncritical, and it does not make sufficient use of Western authorities.
Leopold Ranke published at Hamburg in 1827 the first volume of his excellent work, Fürsten und Völker von Sud-Europa. He was the first to discern the value of the Venetian reports, and by their aid he reached far greater accuracy than had yet been attained in attempts to describe these great South-European empires when at the height of their power. The English translation by W. K. Kelly, entitled The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1843), has been used in the present treatise.
The third volume of J. W. Zinkeisen’s Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa (Gotha, 1855) has been used for its discussion of the Ottoman government in the sixteenth century. It is based too exclusively on the Venetian reports, which Zinkeisen seems to have regarded as always trustworthy, and it makes little or no use of Turkish sources.
Stanley Lane-Poole, in his Story of Turkey, London, 1886, chapters xiv and xvi, gives a very good summary of the structure of the Ottoman household and administration, condensed from D’Ohsson’s seventh volume.
In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, iv. 747 ff., there is a brief account, by Rambaud, of the organization of the Ottoman Empire in general. Though not accurate in every respect, it gives, on the whole, an excellent picture.
A. Heidborn published at Vienna and Leipsic in 1909 a careful, well-planned, and extremely valuable work entitled Manuel de Droit Public et Administratif de l’Empire Ottoman. Although the principal purpose of the book is to explain present-day conditions, the historical background is outlined at many points. Unfortunately there is neither table of contents nor index; but perhaps these will be supplied when the work is extended farther. The chapters of the present volume deal with the territory of the state, the sources and fundamental principles of the legislation in force in the Ottoman Empire, the head of the state, nationality, the administrative organization, and justice. The chapter on justice occupies more than half the book, and treats fully the judicial organization, civil and criminal law, and procedure.
In addition to the works described above, the appended alphabetical list contains the names of a few authors whose works, though occasionally quoted in this treatise, call for no special comment; and also the names of a number of writers who have dealt with the government of Turkey, but who have not been quoted because their information either is of secondary importance or derivation, or deals with a later time, when conditions had been changed.
III. Alphabetical List of Works Cited
Achmet I. See Kanun-nameh of Achmet I.
Alberi, Eugenio. Relazione degli ambasciatori Veneti al senato. 15 vols. (in 3 series). Florence, 1839-1863.—See pp. 311-313.
Alessandri, Vincenzo. Relazione, 1574. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, ii. 103-127. Florence, 1844.
Angiolello. Mss. in Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Italien, No. 1238.
Auszug eines briefes... das türckich Regiment und Wesen sey. n. p. 1526.—See p. 313.
[Aventinus, Johannes.] Türckische Historien, oder Warhaftige Beschreibunge aller Türcken Ankunfft, Regierung, u. s. w. Translated from the Italian by Heinrich Müller. Frankfort, 1570.—Earlier edition, with slightly different title, 1563-[1565].
Badoaro, Andrea. Relazione, 1573. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i. 347-368. Florence, 1840.
Balbus, Hieronymus. H... B... ad Clementem VII... de civili & bellica fortitudine liber... cui additus est alter continens Turcarum originem, mores, imperium, etc. Rome, 1526.—See p. 313.
Barbarigo, Antonio. Sommario della relazione, 1558. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 145-160. Florence, 1855.
Barbarigo, Daniele. Relazione, 1564. Ibid. ii. 1-59. Florence, 1844.
Barbaro, Marcantonio. Relazione, 1573. Ibid. i. 299-346. Florence, 1840.
—— Relazione, 1573. Ibid. Appendix vol., 387-415. Florence, 1863.
Bassano, Luigi. See Du Zare.
Baudier, Michel. Histoire généralle du serrail, et de la cour du grand seigneur empereur des turcs. Paris, 1626.
Belin, A[lphonse]. Du régime des fiefs militaires dans l’Islamisme, et principalement en Turquie. Journal Asiatique. 6th series, xv. 187-301. Paris, 1870.
—— Étude sur la propriété foncière en pays musulman, et spécialement en Turquie. Paris, 1862.
Bérard, Victor. La révolution turque. Paris, 1909.
Bernardo, Lorenzo. Relazione, 1592. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, ii. 321-426. Florence, 1844.
Bittner, Maximilian. Der Einfluss des Arabischen und Persischen auf das Türkische. Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe, vol. cxlii. pt. iii. Vienna, 1900.—See p. 306.
Boecler, J. H. Commentarius historico-politicus de rebus Turcicis. Bautzen, 1717.—See p. 308.
Bon, Ottaviano. Il serraglio del gransignore (1608). [Edited by Guglielmo Berchet.] Venice, 1865.
Bonrizzo, Luigi. Relazione, 1565. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, ii. 61-76. Florence, 1844.
Bragadino, Pietro. Sommario della relazione, 1526. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 99-112. Florence, 1855.
Bretschneider, E[mil]. Medieval researches from Eastern Asiatic sources. 2 vols. London, 1888; another edition, 1910.—See p. 306.
Brosch, Moritz. The height of the Ottoman power. Cambridge Modern History. Vol. iii. ch. iv. London, 1904.
Browne, E. G. A literary history of Persia. [2 vols.] London, 1902-1906.—See p. 306.
Bury, J. B. The Ottoman conquest. Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. ch. iii. London, 1902.
Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin De. Exclamatio: sive De re militari contra Turcam instituenda consilium, etc. In Augerii Gislenii Busbequii Omnia quae extant, 234-277. Pest, [1758].—See p. 319.
—— Life and Letters. Translated by C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniell. 2 vols. London, 1881.—See p. 318.
Cahun, Léon. Introduction à l’histoire de l’Asie: Turcs et Mongols. Paris, 1896.—See p. 306.
—— Les révolutions de l’Asie. In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vol. ii. ch. xvi. Paris, 1893.—Formation territoriale de l’Asie. Ibid., vol. iii. ch. xix. Paris, 1894.
Cambridge medieval history (The). Planned by J. B. Bury; edited by H. M. Gwatkin and J. P. Whitney. Vol. i. Cambridge, England, 1911.—See Peisker.
Cambridge modern history (The). Edited by A. W. Ward, G. W. Prothero, and Stanley Leathes. 12 vols. and Index. London, 1902-1911.—See Brosch, Bury.
Cantacusino. See Spandugino.
Cavalli, Marino. Relazione, 1560. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i. 271-298. Florence, 1840.
Chal(co)condyles, L[aonicus]. Histoire de la décadence de l’empire grec et éstablissement de celui des Turcs. Translated from the Greek by B[laise] de Vigenere. Rouen, 1670.—See p. 310.
Chardin, Sir John. Travels into Persia and the East-Indies. London, 1686.
Charrière, E[rnest]. Négociations de la France dans le Levant. 4 vols. Paris, 1848-1860.
Chesneau, Jean. Le voyage de Monsieur d’Aramon (1549). Edited by Charles Schéfer, in Recueil de Voyages, etc., vol. viii. Paris, 1887.—See p. 318.
Contarini, Bartolomeo. Sommario della relazione, 1519. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 56-68. Florence, 1855.
Contarini, Paolo. Relazione, 1583. Ibid. 209-250. Florence, 1855.
Cronica—Abconterfayung, etc. Augsburg, 1531.—The same as Tractatus, q. v.
Dandolo, Andrea. Relazione, 1562. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 161-172. Florence, 1855.
Day, Clive. A history of commerce. New York, 1907.
Della Valle, Pietro (Il Pellegrino). Viaggi... in... la Turchia, la Persia, e l’India. 4 pts. in 2 vols. Rome, 1658-1663 (pt. i, La Turchia, 1662, is 2d edition). — See p. 320.
Djevad Bey, Ahmed. État militaire ottoman. Vol. i. bk. i. Le corps des Janissaires. Translated from the Turkish by Georges Macridès. Paris, etc., 1882.
Documenti di storia ottomana del secolo XVI. Vol. i. Florence, 1842.—The same as Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i (1840). See p. 311.
D’Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea. Tableau général de l’empire othoman. 7 vols. Paris, 1788-1824.—See p. 320.
Donini, Marcantonio. Relazione, 1562. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 173-208. Florence, 1855.
Dorez, Léon. See Maurand.
Du Fresne-Canaye, Philippe. Le voyage du Levant (1573). Edited by Henri Hauser in Recueil de Voyages, etc., vol. xvi. Paris, 1897.—See p. 319.
Du Zare, Luigi Bassano. Consuetudines & ratio vitae Turcorum. Rome, 1545.
Ebu su’ud. See Kanun-nameh of Suleiman.
Eliot, Sir Charles. Turks. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, xxvii. 468-473. Cambridge, 1911.
Erizzo, Antonio. Relazione, 1557. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 123-144. Florence, 1855.
Estanco. See Tanco.
Febure, Michele. L’état présent de la Turquie. Paris, 1675.
Froissart, Sir John. Œuvres (chroniques). Edited by Kervyn de Lettenhove. 25 vols. (in 26). Brussels, 1867-1877. — See p. 309.
Fulin, Rinaldo. Diarii e diaristi veneziani. Venice, 1881.—See p. 311.
Garzoni, Costantino. Relazione, 1573. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i. 369-436. Florence, 1840.
Georgevitz, Bartholomew. De Turcarum moribus Epitome. Paris, 1566.—See p. 317.
Gerlach, Stephan. Tage-buch (1674). Quoted in Zinkeisen’s Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, iii. 222 ff. Gotha, 1855.
Geuffroy, Antoine. Briefve description de la court du grand Turc (1542). Edited by Charles Schéfer in Recueil de Voyages, etc., viii. 227-248. Paris, 1887.—See p. 317.
Gibbon, Edward. The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Edited by J. B. Bury. 7 vols. London, 1906.
Giovio, Paolo (Jovius, Paulus). Historiarum sui temporis tomus primus [et secundus]. 2 vols. Florence, 1550-1552.—See p. 314.
—— Turcicarum rerum commentarius. Paris, 1539.—See p. 313.
Giustiniani, Antonio. Sommario della relazione, 1514. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 45-50. Florence, 1855.
Godelevæus, G. [translator of Geuffroy, q. v.]. Aulæ Turcicæ, Othomannicique imperii descriptio. Basel, 1569.—See p. 317.
Goldziher, Ign[atius]. Muhammedanisches Recht in Theorie und Wirklichkeit. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, viii. 406-423. Stuttgart, 1889.
—— The progress of Islamic science in the last three decades. Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, 1904 (ed. H. J. Rogers), ii. 497-517. Boston, etc., 1906.
Grafton, R. [translator of Geuffroy, q. v.]. The order of the great Turcks court of hye menne of war. London, 1546.—See p. 317.
Grassi, Alfio. Charte turque, ou organisation religieuse, civil et militaire, de l’empire ottoman. 2 vols. Paris, 1825.
Gritti, Alvise (or Luigi). See Junis Bey.
Gritti, Andrea. Relazione, 1503. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 1-43. Florence, 1855.
Gycaud, B. La généalogie du grant Turc á present regnant.—The same as Spandugino, q. v.
Halil Ganem. Les sultans ottomans. (Études d’Histoire Orientale.) 2 vols. Paris, 1901-1902.
Hammer, Joseph Von. Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. 10 vols. Pest, 1827-1835.—See p. 321.
—— Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung. 2 vols. (vol. i, Staatsverfassung; vol. ii, Staatsverwaltung). Vienna, 1815.—See p. 321.
Hauser, Henri. Essai d’une bibliographic des ouvrages de XVIe siècle relatifs au Levant. In Recueil de Voyages, etc., xvi. 316-320. Paris, 1897.—See p. 308. See also Du Fresne-Canaye.
Heidborn, A. Manuel de droit public et administratif de l’empire ottoman. Vienna, etc., 1909.—See pp. 321, 322.
Helmolt, H. F. Weltgeschichte. 9 vols. Leipsic, etc., 1899-1907.—See p. 307.
Holdich, T. H. Asia. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, ii. 748-749. Cambridge, 1910.
Honigerus (or Haeniger), Nicolaus [German translator of Geuffroy, q. v.].
Huntington, Ellsworth. The fringe of verdure around Asia Minor. National Geographic Magazine, xxi. 761-775. Washington, 1910.
Ibrahim Halebi. Multeka ol-ebhar. See Multeka.
Idris, Turkish poet-historian. Quoted in Hammer’s Geschichte, i. 91. Pest, 1827.
Ionus Bei. See Junis Bey.
Johnson, Mrs. [Susannah Willard]. Narrative of... captivity. Springfield, 1907.—Reprinted from the 3d edition, Windsor, Vt., 1814; 1st edition, Walpole, N. H., 1796.
Jones, Theodore F. Venice and the Porte, 1520-1542. Thesis in the Library of Harvard University.
Jorga, N[icolae]. Geschichte der Türkei. Vols. i-iv. Gotha, 1908-1912.
Jovius, Paulus. See Giovio.
Julien, Stanislas. Documents historiques sur les Tou-Kioue (Turcs), traduite du chinois. Paris, 1877.—See p. 305.
Junis Bey (Ionus Bei), and Alvise Gritti. Opera noua la quale dechiara, etc. Venice, 1537.—See pp. 315, 316, and Appendix II.
Juynboll, T. W. Handleiding tot de Kennis van de mohammedanasche Wet. Leyden, 1903.
Kanun-Nameh, of Achmet I. In Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, pp. xvii-xix. Vienna, 1815.
—— of Mohammed II. Translated ibid. 87-101. Vienna, 1815.—See p. 310.
—— of Suleiman. Collected by the Mufti Ebu su’ud, 1574; translated in part, ibid. 384-427. Vienna, 1815.—See p. 319 and Appendix III.
Keane, A. H. Man, past and present. Cambridge, England, 1899.—See p. 305.
Keene, H. G. The Turks in India. London, 1879.
Knolles, Richard. Generall historie of the Turkes. London, 1603.—See p. 319.
—— The same, entitled “Turkish History,” with continuation by Paul Ricaut. 3 vols. London, 1687-1700.—Knolles’s work runs, with continuous pagination, a little way into vol. ii (pp. 837-990).—See p. 320.
Kochi Bey. Turkish historian. Quoted in Hammer’s Geschichte, iii. 490, etc. Pest, 1835.
Kohler, J. Die Wirklichkeit und Unwirklichkeit des islamitischen Rechts. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, viii. 424-432. Stuttgart, 1889.
Kudatku Bilik (Art of Government). By Yusuf Khass Hajil, 1068. See Vambéry, Uigurische Sprachmonumente, etc.
La Broquière, Bertrandon De. Le voyage d’outremer (1433). Edited by Charles Schéfer, in Recueil de Voyages, etc., vol. xii. Paris, 1892.—See p. 309.
Lane-Poole, Stanley. A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages. London, 1901. See p. 305.
—— The story of Turkey. London, 1886.—See p. 321.
Lavisse, Ernest, and Rambaud, Alfred. Histoire générale du IVe siècle à nos jours. 12 vols. Paris, 1893-1901.—See Cahun, Rambaud.
Lefèvre, M. See Febure.
Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcarum. Wittenberg, 1530.—The same as Tractatus, etc., q. v.
Lodge, Richard. The Close of the Middle Ages, 1273-1494. London, 1906.
Lonicerus, Philippus. Chronicorum Turcicorum. 2 vols. (in one). Frankfort, 1584.
Ludovisi, Daniello. Relazione, 1534. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i. 1-32. Florence, 1840.
Macdonald, D. B. Moslem theology, jurisprudence, and constitutional theory. New York, 1903.—See p. 305.
Marsh, H. A new survey of the Turkish empire. London, 1664.
Maurand, Jérome. Itinéraire d’Antibes à Constantinople (1544). Edited and translated by Léon Dorez, in Recueil de Voyages, etc., vol. xvii. Paris, 1901.—See p. 317.
Maurer, Caspar. Türckishe chronica, oder historische Beschreibung von der Türcken Ursprung. Nuremberg, 1660.
Menavino, Giovanni Antonio. Trattato de costumi et vita de Turchi. Florence, 1548.—See p. 310.
Merriman, R. B. Gomara’s annals of Charles V. Oxford, 1912.
Meyer, Eduard. Geschichte des Altertums. 2d edition. Vol. i (in 2 pts.). Stuttgart, etc., 1907-1909.
—— Persia. Encyclopedia Britannica. 11th edition, xxi. 202-224. Cambridge, 1911.
Micheli, Giovanni. Relazione, 1587. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, ii. 255-294. Florence, 1844.
Miller, William. The Latins in the Levant. New York, 1908. See p. 307.
Minio, Marco. Relazione, 1522, 1527. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 69-91, 113-118. Florence, 1855.
Mocenigo, Alvise. Sommario delle relazioni, 1518. Ibid. 51-55. Florence, 1855.
Mohammed II. See Kanun-nameh of Mohammed II.
Montesquieu, Baron de. Esprit des lois.
Moro, Giovanni. Relazione, 1590. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, iii. 323-380. Florence, 1855.
Morosini, Gianfrancesco. Relazione, 1585. Ibid. 251-322. Florence, 1855.
Muir, Sir William. The Mameluke or slave dynasty of Egypt, 1260-1517. London, 1896.—See p. 305.
Müller, Heinrich. See Aventinus.
Multeka ol-ebhar. By Ibrahim Halebi, 1459.—See p. 318.
Myers, P. V. N. Medieval and modern history. Revised edition. Boston, [1905].
Navagero, Bernardo. Relazione, 1553. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, i. 33-110. Florence, 1855.
Nicolay, Nicolas De. Discours et histoire véritable des navigations, pérégrinations, et voyages faicts en la Turquie. Antwerp, 1586.—See p. 318.
Nizam Al-Mulk. See Siasset Namèh.
Parker, E. H. A thousand years of the Tartars. London, 1895.—See p. 305.
Peisker, T. The Asiatic background. Cambridge Medieval History, i. 323-359. Cambridge, 1911.
Pélissié Du Rausas, G. Le régime des capitulations dans l’empire ottoman. 2 vols. Paris, 1902-1905.
Peschel, Oscar. The races of man and their geographical distribution. New York, 1882.
Policy (The) of the Turkish empire. [Anonymous.] London, 1597.—See p. 319.
Postel, Guillaume. [Pt. i] De la république des Turcs; [pt. ii] Histoire et considération de l’origine, loy, et coustume des Tartares... Turcs, etc.; [pt. iii] La tierce partie des orientales histoires, etc. 3 pts. in 1 vol. Poitiers, 1560.—See pp. 316, 317.
Radloff, Wilhelm. Die alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei. Leipsic, 1894-1895.—See p. 305.
Ragazzoni, Jacopo. Relazione, 1571. In Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, ii. 77-102. Florence, 1844.
Rambaud, Alfred. L’empire ottoman (1481-1566). In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vol. iv. ch. xix. Paris, 1894.—See p. 321.
[Ramberti, Benedetto.] Libri tre delle cose de Turchi. Venice, 1539.—See pp. 314-316, and Appendix I.
Ramsay, Sir W. M. Geographical conditions determining history and religion in Asia Minor. Geographical Journal, xx. 257-282. London, 1902. See p. 307.
—— Historical geography of Asia Minor. London, 1890.
—— Studies in the history and art of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire. Aberdeen, 1906.
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Footnotes
1 Cahun, Introduction à l’Histoire de l’Asie, 90.
2 The West was much concerned in the sixteenth century with the problem of ascertaining the origin of the Turks. Balbus gives an idea how difficult it was to reach a definite opinion: “Some count the Turks among the Asiatic Sarmatians, and say that they were expelled by their neighbors from the Caspian mountains into Persia, and descended into Asia Minor. Others, following the name, perhaps, think that this people had its beginning in Turce, a great and opulent city of the Persians. Others consider them the progeny of the Parthians. Some think the Turks had their origin in Arabia, and some in Syria. But it is more likely that they were Scythians by origin, and (as we said above) from the foot of Mount Caucasus, and that they formerly inhabited vast deserts.” See also Knolles, 1-2.
3 Keane, Man, Past and Present, 268, 314-315. Holdich (in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., ii. 749 b) says, “As ethnographical inquiry advances the Turk appears to recede from his Mongolian affinities and to approach the Caucasian.” Keene (Turks in India, 1 ff.) is inclined to consider the Turks a mere mixture of Mongols with Caucasians. So bald a theory does not account for the group of Turkish languages.
4 Keane, 267.
5 Ibid. 317.
6 Ibid. 322; Hammer, Geschichte, i. 3.
7 Keane, 322; Hammer, Geschichte, i. 2; etc.
8 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 1. This fact, known to Knolles (p. 2), seems to have escaped the attention of Sir Charles Eliot (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., xxvii. 470 d).
9 The older view, that Iran represented peoples of Indo-European stock, and Turan peoples of Ural-Altaic stock, though once so generally adopted as to sanction the bestowal of the names Iranian and Turanian upon these groups of peoples, has been abandoned as regards the original legends, in which Turan seems to have represented ruder tribes of Indo-European lineage (Meyer, Geschichte, i. pt. ii. 814-815). But the Greeks from their first acquaintance with the name identified Turan with the Scythians, and at about the same time the Persians began to apply it to the Northern peoples of alien stock. The conditions of frontier contact between Turks and Persians during many centuries were undoubtedly as described in the legends.
10 Rawlinson, Parthia, 33-35; Keane, 319. Meyer (in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., xxi. 214 c) regards the Parni or Aparni, who became the conquering tribe in Parthia, as Iranian nomads; but Peisker (in Cambridge Medieval History, i. 332) asserts that the nomads of the Asiatic background all belong to the Altaian branch of the Ural-Altaian race. The fact that the Parthian army was a slave army (see Meyer, as above, 217 a) is perhaps the strongest piece of evidence that the original Parthians were Turks.
11 Keane, 327. Asia Minor is here used in the larger sense, as denoting in general the Asian territory which lies west of a line drawn from the eastern end of the Black Sea to the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
12 Quoted in Keane, 328, from Gibbon (ed. Bury), vi. 250.
13 Vambéry, Die Primitive Cultur, 47; Keane, 328; Cahun, Introduction, 169 ff.; Ramsay, Studies in Eastern Roman Provinces, 295.
14 Ramsay, Studies in Eastern Roman Provinces, 297. This statement has been confirmed by conversation with other persons well acquainted with conditions in Asia Minor. See also E. Huntington, in National Geographic Magazine, September, 1910, p. 767.
15 Vambéry (Die Primitive Cultur, 47) expresses the opinion that the Ottomans never received, all told, more than 25,000 men of Turkish blood.
16 Ottoman is an attempt to pronounce Othman by those who pronounce th like t; Osman a similar attempt by those who pronounce th (as in “thin”) like s.
17 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 42-43.
18 Keane, 268, 316. Peschel, 380, says, “The Turks of the west have so much Aryan and Semitic blood in them that the last vestiges of their original physical characters have been lost, and their language alone indicates their previous descent.” On the other hand, E. Huntington (in National Geographic Magazine, September, 1910, p. 767) expresses the opinion that the inhabitants of the central part of the plateau of Asia Minor are “almost purely Turkish in race.” He does not say, however, that this opinion is based on observation of physical appearances.
19 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 59.
20 Keene, 2, makes the interesting suggestion that this custom, followed mutatis mutandis by the Moguls of India, was a survival of exogamous conditions among the ancestors of the Turks.
21 The twentieth power of 1/2 is 1/1,148,576. The description given of Orchan, furthermore, shows scarcely a discernible trace of Mongolian ancestry. Compare Hammer, Geschichte, i. 158: “Mit demselben [Osman] waren ihm zwar die Bocksnase und die schön gewölbten schwarzen Augenbrauen gemein; aber er hatte blonde Haare und lichte Augen, die Statur und die Stirne hoch, die Brust breit, die Faust kräftig wie die Klaue des Löwen, das Gesicht rund und die Farbe desselben weiss und roth; der Körperbau stark, der Bart und Knebelbart dicht und wohlgenährt.” Murad II showed a little more evidence of Tatar descent. He “is,” says La Broquière, 181, “a man of stout build and short body, and he has something of the broad face of a Tatar’s physiognomy, and he has a rather large hooked nose and rather small eyes, and he is very brown in the face, and he has plump cheeks and a round beard.”
22 Keane, 266.
23 Compare the election of Sebuktegin, in Schéfer’s edition of the Siasset Namèh, 158.
24 Cahun, Introduction, 79.
25 Vambéry, Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik, 118. This passage closely resembles the words attributed to Artaxerxes I, first king of the Sassanian Persian line: “There can be no power without an army, no army without money, no money without agriculture, and no agriculture without justice” (Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, i. 61).
26 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 36-45.
27 Ibid. 36.
28 Quoted by Cahun, in Lavisse and Rambaud, iii. 964.
29 Schéfer, Siasset Namèh, 139.
30 Bérard, 4 ff.
31 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 30; D’Ohsson, v. 7; Heidborn, 111.
32 D’Ohsson, i. 291; Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 32.
33 D’Ohsson, vi. 253.
34 Ibid. v. 53.
35 Ibid. 109.
36 Ibid. iv. 280; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 331; Erizzo, 137.
37 This was based upon a passage of the Koran, “Sedition is worse than execution” (Sura 2: 187): Hammer, Geschichte, i. 216. Professor G. F. Moore points out that in this passage (and in Sura 2: 214, which is substantially identical) the text refers to Mohammed’s war with the Meccans, or to fighting in the sacred months. The word fitnah, here translated “sedition,” has various meanings: first of all, “trial,” as gold and silver, for example, are tried by smelting; then, “successful temptation, leading or turning a man astray, error, discord, dissension, sedition, etc.” The context indicates clearly that Mohammed had in mind the leading or turning of people from the true religion as that which is “worse than killing.” The other meanings would, however, allow some accommodating jurist or theologian to make this a plausible proof-text for authorizing the killing of the sultan’s brothers, who might become seditious or furnish cause for dissension.
38 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 31.
39 Ibid. 32; D’Ohsson, vii. 150.
40 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 478, and Staatsverfassung, 340.
41 For the Tartar method of raiding in the seventeenth century, see Ricaut, book i. ch. xiii. This may be compared with Turkish methods in the fifteenth century, as described by the author of the Tractatus, ch. v.
42 D’Ohsson, v. 50. Orthodoxy in the Moslem religion was by no means an insuperable obstacle to attempts at conquest. The Mamelukes whom Selim I overthrew were Sunnites, and Malekite Morocco was long a land coveted by the Ottomans. A desire for the unification of orthodox Islam came into play here.
43 D’Ohsson, v. 86.
44 The Turks laid claim also to Morocco, but they never exercised abiding authority there: Knolles (ed. 1687), 987.
45 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 520-521.
46 These are given in detail in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, 219-327.
47 Ibid. 251 (Kanun-nameh of the sanjak of Kurdistan).
48 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 478, and Staatsverfassung, 343 ff.; Heidborn, 320 ff.
49 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 344.
50 D’Ohsson, vii. 372 ff.; Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 475 ff., and Staatsverfassung, 337 ff.
51 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 345.
52 Ibid. 347.
53 Ibid. 344.
54 D’Ohsson, v. 96.
55 Ibid.
56 Belin, La Propriété Foncière, 88 ff.
57 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 476; D’Ohsson, vii. 374.
58 D’Ohsson, ii. 523 ff., especially 552-557.
59 Belin, La Propriété Foncière, 104 ff.
60 Ricaut, 112.
61 Bernardo, 387 (“like a mine of slaves for the service of the Turks”); Ricaut, 123; Chardin, 85, 90 (“sometimes they will sell their own children”), 94, 114, 192. It is said that the practice of raising Circassian girls for sale is still carried on in Asia Minor (Heidborn, 81).
62 Ricaut, 138; Postel, iii. 71; Nicolay, 10 (“The most of those who are called Turks in Algiers, whether in the king’s household, or on the galleys, are Christians of all nations who have denied their faith and turned Mohammedan—sont Chrestiens reniez et Mahumetizez de toutes nations”); Lavisse and Rambaud, iv. 816, 820.
63 Nicolay, 83. Jorga, iii. 167-189, has taken note of the ancestry of many of the high Turkish officials of the sixteenth century; he finds no Roumanian among them.
64 In regard to the Armenians, see Schiltberger, 73; Chalcocondyles, 53. As to both Armenians and Jews, see Navagero, 42; Postel, i. 34. Morosini, 294, makes mention of an Armenian who was in 1585 the Beylerbey of Greece by special favor of the Sultan.
65 Pélissié du Rausas, i. 21-22.
66 D’Ohsson, v. 104. Visiting foreigners (muste emin) who might remain more than one year became tributary subjects (zimmi): Belin, La Propriété Foncière, 57.
67 For the times when these different “communities” were formed within the Ottoman state, see Steen de Jehay, passim. In brief, the Greek community was organized in 1453 and the Armenian in 1461. The latter was at first supposed to include all subjects who were not Moslem or Greek Orthodox; those who were not Gregorian Armenians were gradually separated off by a process of differentiation which may be said to be active still. With the growth of the spirit of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the Greek Orthodox community has also been divided.
68 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 237.
69 See Jorga, iii. 167 ff., especially 174, 188.
70 Gritti, 24-25.
71 A. Barbarigo, 149-150 (from a summary of his Relazione).
72 Barbaro, 315-329, passim.
73 Morosini, 263-267, passim.
74 Bernardo, 358-364, passim.
75 Zane, 389.
76 Ibid., 414.
77 Knolles (ed. 1687), 982.
78 Ricaut, 14-15.
79 These Spahis of the Porte are to be distinguished from the body of feudal Spahis. See below, pp. 98-105.
80 This is illustrated by the quotations in the last section of Chapter i, above. See also Menavino, 138 (referring to the pages, he says “Tutti sono suoi schiaui & figlioli Christiani”); Ricaut, 14 (all who receive pay or office from the sultan are called kul); D’Ohsson, vii. 203 (“Les employés civils de même que les militaires, suivant l’antique usage de l’Orient, sont assimilés aux esclaves du Souverain, et qualifiés de ce nom—coul—dans toutes les pièces publiques”). In D’Ohsson’s time the term had acquired such a general usage as in the English phrase “your obedient servant.” Della Valle, i. 44, speaking of the entry to the Divan, says, “Tutti sono schiavi;” and Ranke, 9, says, “All were slaves.”
81 D’Ohsson, vii. 149, 207.
82 For example, Lodge, The Close of the Middle Ages (1906), 500; Myers, Medieval and Modern History (1905), 165.
83 The Tractatus, ch. viii, says simply 20 years and under; Zeno, 128, says above 10 years. Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 244, 263) mention pages from 8 to 20 years old; Navagero, 49, says between 12 and 15 years, Trevisano, 229, says that they were taken not at the age of 6 or 7 years as formerly, but at 10 or 12 years. Postel, iii. 23, sets between 12 and 14 as the lower limit, and 18 and 20 as the upper limit. Nicolay, 62, says that the pages were from 8 to 20 years of age; Garzoni, 396, says that they ranged from the tenth to the thirteenth year; Ricaut, 74, fixes the age at 10 or 12 years. Too much reliance should not be placed on Trevisano’s statement as to former times, since hearsay evidence as to Turkish affairs is unreliable. Considering the rougher life in earlier times, it is likely that levies would then have been made of older, rather than younger, boys. The presence of young boys among the pages was due to the selection of unusually promising captives.
84 Myers (as above) mentions the two methods of capture and tribute as successive.
85 Djevad Bey, i. 26: “Ces prisonniers ou esclaves étaient d’ailleurs incorporés dans l’armée des Janissaires, et alors l’effectif qui manquait était complété par la voie de la levée de troupes parmi les sujets chrétiens.”
86 Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 254, 270) say that 10,000, or 12,000 were taken every 4 years. Geuffroy, 242, and Postel, iii. 23, give the same estimate. Ricaut, 74, says he is “given to understand” that about 2000 were collected yearly in the middle of the seventeenth century. The exigencies of war probably increased the number greatly at times. Bérard, 12, naming no authority, says that in some years Suleiman took 40,000 boys.
87 20,000 Ajem-oghlans, 12,000 to 14,000 Janissaries, 10,000 of the auxiliary corps, grooms, etc., 40,000 Spahis of the Porte (including the 12,000 members of the four corps and the followers they were obliged to bring), 2000 pages and high officials. Suleiman took with him on his last campaign 48,316 men under pay (Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 181). Morosini, 259, says that in 1585 the sultan had under pay 80,000 men. This is exclusive of about one-half of the Ajem-oghlans.
88 Postel, i. 20.
89 See below, p. 69, note 3.
90 Postel, iii. 36.
91 See below, p. 99, note 1.
92 For example, Piri Mohammed, a descendant of the thirteenth-century poet, Jelal ad-din Rumi. Cf. Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 18.
93 Notably Junis Bey, who says (below, p. 265), “None can be a pasha except a Christian renegade.” This custom is said to have been established by Bayezid II (Angiolello, 74, quoted by Jorga, ii. 306, note 2). For further instances, see the last section of Chapter i, above.
94 See above, p. 33.
95 D’Ohsson, v. 91.
96 Schiltberger, 5, gives an early example. See also Tractatus, ch. viii.
97 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 167.
98 Zeno, 127.
99 Zeno is strongly impressed by these two sources.
100 Postel, iii. 17-18. It was in this way that Menavino entered the system (see his Trattato, 10).
101 Cf. Postel, iii. 23.
102 A study of the nationality of the high officials of the sixteenth century gives evidence of this. For example, Ibrahim was an Albanian (Junis Bey, below, p. 265); Rustem Pasha was a Croat (Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 268); Ferhad was a Hungarian (ibid. 365); the grand vizier Ali, whom Busbecq (Life and Letters, i. 157) calls “a thorough gentleman,” was a Dalmatian; Ayas was an Albanian, and Kassim a Croat (Junis Bey, p. 265); etc. For many other examples, see Jorga, iii. 167-189.
103 The Tractatus, ch. viii, says every 5 years; Spandugino, 102, says once in 5 years or oftener; Zeno, 128, says each year; Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 254, 270) say every 4 years; Postel, iii. 22, says every 3 or 4 years.
104 Tractatus, ch. vi.
105 Giovio, Commentarius, 75; Zeno, 128; Nicolay, 83. Jorga, iii. 188, finds no Roumanian among the high Turkish officials of the sixteenth century. Roumania, being a vassal state, was not exposed to the devshurmeh. Knolles (ed. 1687, pp. 984-985) says that the tribute boys from Asia were not advanced to become Janissaries, because they were not of sufficiently high quality. They are not found in positions of prominence.
106 Navagero, 48.
107 Menavino’s translator says quasi decimatione (Lonicerus, i. 140). Postel, iii. 22-23, says expressly that the children were not tithed; Nicolay, 83, however, states that one in three were taken, as does J. Soranzo, 245. Morosini, 264, speaks of a tithe (decima). Gibbon (ed. Bury), vii. 79, says that a fifth of the boys were taken; see also Lavisse and Rambaud, iv. 758. The latter statements seem to be based theoretically on the fifth of the captives to which the sultan was entitled. The differences among those who profess to fix a proportion are evidence that there was none.
108 Spandugino, 103.
109 Postel, iii. 22. Navagero, 49, says that the officers summoned the heads of families and commanded them to present their sons.
110 Navagero, 49.
111 Postel, iii. 23.
112 Navagero, 49.
113 Postel, iii. 23.
114 Geuffroy, 240. Bragadin (1526), 103, says: “Ibrahim has his mother and two brothers in the palace. He does much good to Christians. His father is Sanjak in Parga.” And again, 104: “Ayas has three brothers. His mother at Avlona is a Christian, and he sends her 100 ducats annually.” Nicolay, 86, says, on the contrary, that the tribute boys are never afterwards willing to recognize father, mother, or relatives. He cites the case of an uncle and nephews of Rustem Pasha, who begged in Adrianople, but received no aid from him. Cf. Zane, 438.
115 Spandugino, 144, 145.
116 Trevisano, 130.
117 Ibid.
118 Bernardo, 332, says in 1592, after the system had been dislocated, that the greater part of the recruits were then sons of Turks.
119 Erizzo, 131; Morosini, 267; Ricaut, 14.
120 Spandugino, 180.
121 Ibid. 183; J. Soranzo, 250.
122 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 144, 156, 162.
123 Postel, iii. 68.
124 Ibid. G. Soranzo (1576), 197, says that the Grand Signor is heir of all the pashas.
125 D’Ohsson, vii. 147. In the seventeenth century the sultan allowed the children of pashas only what pleased him (Ricaut, 131). Morosini, 274, refers to a similar practice in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
126 Ricaut, 16, calls the Turkish court “a prison of slaves.”
127 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 379.
128 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 159.
129 D’Ohsson, vii. 61 ff.
130 Spandugino, 77; Ramberti, below, p. 253; Junis Bey below, p. 268; Nicolay, 64.
131 Spandugino, 78, is probably wrong in his statement that the girls of the harem were recruited from gifts, tithes, and tribute. The small number of women in the harem would make the elaborate process of tribute-taking unnecessary.
132 Postel, i. 34.
133 Navagero, 75; Jovius, Historiarum, ii. 371. But Bragadin, 101, calls her a Montenegrin, and Ludovisi, 29, an Albanian; while Busbecq (Life and Letters, i. 178) says that she came from the Crimea. Gomara indicates that her Turkish name was Gul-behar, the Rose of Spring (Merriman, Gomara’s Annals of Charles V, 141). This confusion of knowledge in regard to so important a personage gives evidence of the secrecy which surrounded the sultan’s harem.
134 See below, p. 79, note 2.
135 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 232. Spandugino, 69, says that many were made such. Menavino, who was himself a page, says that very few were so treated, and only for punishment (Trattato, 138).
136 Spandugino, 69; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 237.
137 Menavino, 143; “Schaiui chiamati Bascia [pasha].”
138 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 112. Selim I, married a princess, daughter of the Khan of the Crimean Tartars. This appears to have been the last of such alliances, of which there were a number in earlier times.
139 D’Ohsson, vi. 9.
140 Ibid. vii. 177. In 1537, Junis Bey (below, p. 265) says that Ayas had 600 slaves, Mustapha 200, Kassim 150, Barbarossa 100. But this account must contain misprints or errors; for Ramberti (below, p. 246) says that in 1534, Ibrahim had more than 6000 slaves, Ayas 2000, Kassim 1500, and Barbarossa about 4000. Bragadin, 103, said in 1526, that Ibrahim had 1500 slaves, Mustapha 700, Ayas 600. Junis Bey (256-258) says further that the Beylerbeys of Rumelia and Anatolia and Caramania had 1000 slaves each, the Beylerbey of Syria 2000, the Beylerbey of Cairo 4000, etc. Iskender Chelebi had 6000 slaves (Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 144). Geuffroy, 240, says of the viziers: “Tous ont saray de femmes et d’enfans comme ledict grant Turc.” See also Menavino, 143; and Ramberti’s description of Alvise Gritti’s household at the close of his third book.
141 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 157. Seven of his slaves became viziers and grand viziers, among them Mohammed Sokolli.
142 Iskender Chelebi was followed to war by 1200 horsemen (Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 144). Rustem trained 200 carbineers as part of his household (Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 242).
143 Garzoni, 413, says that 1000 Spahis were assigned to the retinue of the grand vizier, and 500 to those of each of the other pashas.
144 Tractatus, ch. vii.
145 D’Ohsson, i. 49.
146 In the early days non-Arab converts held a position of clientage, but they had never been slaves. In the Ottoman Empire new converts were particularly honored, so that this distinction was lost. A partial enfranchisement was possible, and might sometimes resemble the condition of a Roman freedman. Cf. D’Ohsson, vi. 28 ff.
147 According to D’Ohsson, v. 86, no free-born Moslem could ever lawfully become a slave.
148 D’Ohsson, vi. 24.
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid. iv. 300 ff.
151 Spandugino, 180. It may be observed that Ottoman slavery bore no slight resemblance to the method of bondage which brought from Europe many ancestors of present-day Americans. “In the year 1730,” says Mrs. Susannah Willard Johnson (in her Narrative of Captivity reprinted Springfield, 1907, pp. 5-6) “my great-uncle, Colonel Josiah Willard, while at Boston, was invited to take a walk on the long-wharf, to view some transports who had just landed from Ireland; a number of gentlemen present were viewing the exercise of some lads who were placed on shore to exhibit their activity to those who wished to purchase. My uncle spied a boy of some vivacity, of about ten years of age, and who was the only one in the crew who spoke English: he bargained for him. I have never been able to learn the price; but as he was afterwards my husband, I am willing to suppose it a considerable sum.... He lived with Colonel Willard until he was twenty years of age, and then bought the other year of his time.” In this account a number of the characteristics of the Ottoman system can be observed. Young boys of Caucasian blood are taken from their native land; they are bought and sold; they are judged like young animals by appearance and physical activity; no taint attaches to their bondage; they may marry into the master’s family. The one noteworthy difference is that the bondage terminates at a definite age.
152 Tractatus, “Orario Testimonialis”: “Denique domino meo ita carus eram, ut saepius in collocutione plurium, plusquam filium suum, quem unicum habebat, me diligere assereret,” etc.
153 Postel, iii. 20, says that all the pages were considered children of the sultan, and were truly his adopted sons.
154 Ricaut, 14.
155 Postel, iii. 21.
156 Ricaut, 16.
157 Postel, iii. 21.
158 Ibid. 71-72; Ramberti, below, p. 255.
159 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 12.
160 According to Sale’s translation, the Koran says (Sura 2: 257), “Let there be no violence in religion.” Palmer translates, “There is no compulsion in religion.” See D’Ohsson, vi. 59; Schiltberger, 73.
161 Idris, fol. 107, quoted in Hammer’s Geschichte, i. 91.
162 Quoted ibid. ii. 117.
163 Ricaut, 147-148: “No people in the World have ever been more open to receive all sorts of Nations to them, than they, nor have used more arts to encrease the number of those that are called Turks.”
164 Tractatus, ch. viii.
165 Ricaut, 46.
166 Bernardo, 369-370, and see also 359.
167 Postel, iii. 21.
168 Ibid. 20.
169 Ricaut, 128 ff.
170 The general Ottoman attitude on this point is shown by Schiltberger, 73: Mohammed “has also ordered, that when they overcome Christians, they should not kill them; but they should pervert them, and should thus spread and strengthen their own faith.” Tractatus, ch. xi, says, “Turci neminem cogunt Fidem suam negare, nec multum instant de hoc alicui persuadendo, nec magnam aestimationem faciunt de his qui negant.” The last clause of this testimony, however, is contrary to practically all other sources. Conversion seems sometimes to have been forced as an alternative to death when a Christian had offended greatly against the Mohammedan faith (Lonicerus, i. 123; see also D’Ohsson, vii. 327). Some writers, however, assert that circumcision, the outward mark of acceptance of Islam, was regularly enforced upon the tribute boys (Chesneau, 41; J. Soranzo, 245; Morosini, as quoted above, p. 41). Heidborn, 128, says that conversion was not anciently enforced on a large scale, except for the recruiting of Janissaries.
171 Ricaut, 46 ff.
172 Schiltberger, 74; La Broquière, 219; Spandugino, 249. Ricaut, 152, says that great inducement was offered the common people to become Turks; they obtained honor and the privilege to domineer and injure with impunity, and they became in the fashion.
173 Tractatus, ch. xi, quoted above.
174 D’Ohsson, vi. 59; Ricaut, 148.
175 Tractatus, ch. v; Nicolay, 86.
176 Ricaut, 284.
177 Bernardo, 367; Zane, as quoted above, p. 42. See also Jorga, iii. 188.
178 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 235.
179 Nicolay, 160-161.
180 Menavino, 244.
181 Tractatus, ch. xxi.
182 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 351.
183 Georgevitz (before 1552), 40, “De Ordine Peditum”; Ranke, 19-20; Barbaro (1573), 305. 317. Selim II, on his accession granted to the Janissaries the formal privilege of entering their sons in the corps; for the Persian war of 1594 the corps was opened to other Turks and all Moslems. By 1592, the majority of the Janissaries were said to be sons of Turks; Bernardo, 332. See also Knolles (ed. 1687), 985.
184 Postel, iii. 20.
185 Kanun-namch of Mohammed II, printed in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, 94.
186 Hammer’s Geschichte, i. 94.
187 See p. 49.
188 Spandugino (1517), 108, says that the Janissaries are not allowed to marry. He was probably wrong. Certainly some were married soon after his time: Ramberti (1534), below, p. 249; Junis Bey (1537), below, p. 267; Nicolay (1551), 92.
189 Ricaut, 366.
190 The resemblance of the Janissaries to monks is noticed by Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 88, and Tavernier, 12.
191 Ricaut, 151.
192 One careful observer thought that this might be true of the whole Ottoman nation. Ibid., but in the middle of the fifteenth century contrary testimony was given (Tractatus, ch. xi).
193 See the calculation above, p. 49.
194 Navagero, 50; Barbaro, 316; Nicolay, 84. J. Soranzo, 245, states that the tribute boys were all brought to Constantinople, circumcised, and brought before the Agha of the Janissaries. Record was made of the name of each, of his father’s name, and of his native place. Soranzo’s accuracy is questionable, as when he says that the greater part were put into palaces in Constantinople.
195 Postel, iii. 17; Ricaut, 46.
196 Ricaut, 74: “In whom appearing more strength of body than of mind, they are set apart for labor and menial services.”
197 Busbecq, De Re Militari, 260.
198 Spandugino, 104: the emperor chooses a few and sends the rest to the towns of the Turks of Anatolia to live with the lords and gentlemen.
199 Spandugino speaks of 900; Junis Bey and Ramberti, 1400; Geuffroy, 1200; Postel, 1300 to 1500.
200 Junis Bey and Ramberti, 300; Geuffroy, 300.
201 Junis Bey and Ramberti, 400; Geuffroy, 400; Postel (iii. 20), 600 or 700.
202 Junis Bey and Ramberti, 700; Geuffroy, 500; Postel (iii. 3), 700 or 800.
203 Navagero, 42. See also Tanco, 205.
204 Menavino, 13. Postel, iii. 17, says that, when presented, they were clothed in silk and cloth of gold or silver; but Ricaut, 49, says that their clothing and diet were simple.
205 Menavino, 11 ff.
206 Busbecq, De Re Militari, 262-263.
207 Postel, iii. 2.
208 Menavino, 126.
209 Ricaut, chs. v-vi.
210 Spandugino, 63. See also Nicolay, 84; and the quotations in the last section of Chapter i, above.
211 D’Ohsson, vii. 34.
212 Hammer (Geschichte, i. 232), by a singular perversion of the truth, asserts that the page system had its origin and primary purpose in the satisfaction of the unnatural lusts of Bayezid I and his successors. Not only does the whole structure and organization of the system disprove this, but the absence of reference to such a purpose in all contemporary writers is sufficient to settle the matter. The vice which takes its name from Sodom was very prevalent among the Ottomans, especially among those in high position (Spandugino, 186; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 232; Ricaut, 151, 211; D’Ohsson, iv. 473). The pages were apt to be afflicted by it, and were carefully watched to prevent it, and terribly punished if discovered (Ricaut, 60). Occasionally a sultan became enamored of a page (Ricaut, 61); but Suleiman seems to have been free from this vice (Busbecq, i. 159; Marini Sanuto, Diarii, December 6, 1523).
213 Menavino, 126-128. He was a page from about 1505 to 1514 (ibid. 243-245).
214 Ricaut, “To the Reader,” 45-62. This describes the system as it was about 1650.
215 Postel, iii. 11.
216 Ibid. 19; Ricaut, 50.
217 Postel, iii. 10; Ricaut, 50.
218 Ricaut, 51. The same custom was observed in the education of the princes and of all children of great officials (Spandugino, 179). Tanco, 197-198, says he has heard that Suleiman himself labored daily at a trade, so that even the Prince should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; see also Jorga, ii. 343.
219 Menavino, 126, 127.
220 Postel, iii. 10.
221 Ricaut, 59.
222 Navagero, 43.
223 Ricaut, 48, says that in the three colleges of education the eunuchs exercised very severe discipline beyond that of monks.
224 Menavino, 127.
225 Ramberti, below, pp. 244, 245; Junis Bey, below, p. 263; Ricaut, 49.
226 Ricaut, 49: “Their first Lessons are silence, reverence, humble and modest behaviour, holding their heads downwards, and their hands across before them.”
227 Ibid. 48.
228 D’Ohsson, vii. 47.
229 Ricaut, 51; D’Ohsson, vii. 34 ff. These chambers were the Kiler-odassi, or Pantry; the Khazineh-odassi, or Treasure Chamber; the Khas-odassi, or Inner Chamber. See below, pp. 126-128.
230 Ricaut, 52.
231 Postel, iii. 11.
232 Spandugino, 62.
233 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 32.
234 Ibid. 490.
235 Ramberti (below, p. 244) says that they became Spahi-oghlans, Silihdars, and officials of higher degree according to their worth and to the favor which they had gained with the sultan; Junis Bey, below, p. 263.
236 Menavino, 138.
237 Ricaut, 71; Postel, i. 33; Nicolay, 64; D’Ohsson, vii. 64.
238 Ramberti, below, p. 254 (“he marries them to Spahi-oghlans, or to others of the slaves of the Porte according to the degree and condition of both parties”); Junis Bey, below, p. 269; Geuffroy, 244; Chesneau, 40; Nicolay, 64.
239 Trevisano, 130, speaks of 16,400; but this number does not seem sufficient to account for all.
240 Chalcocondyles, 97; Spandugino, 103; Ramberti, 255; Junis Bey, 270; (they are sent “to dig earth in order to learn Turkish”); Zeno, 127; Geuffroy, 243; Navagero, 50. Chesneau, 44, states that those Ajem-oghlans who were levied in Anatolia were sent to gentlemen in Rumelia.
241 Ramberti, below, p. 255; Junis Bey, below, p. 270; Nicolay, 86.
242 Giovio, Commentarius, 78; Junis Bey, as above.
243 Ramberti and Junis Bey, as above, say after three or four years; Geuffroy, 243, after four years. Navagero, 50, says that every two or three years, as the service demands, an officer takes those who are ready; some have served two or three, some four or five years. Trevisano, 130, says that they are left six or seven years.
244 Ricaut, 77.
245 Chalcocondyles, 97; Spandugino, 104; Navagero, 52.
246 Navagero, 52; Postel, iii. 22, 25.
247 Spandugino, 76.
248 Ramberti, 254, says 5000; Junis Bey, 269, says 4000 or 5000; Geuffroy, 242, says 5000 or 6000; Trevisano, 129, says 6800; Garzoni, 415, says 6000; Postel, iii. 25, says 5000 to 7000; D. Barbarigo, 33, says 7600.
249 Junis Bey, 269; Navagero, 51; Trevisano, 129; Postel, iii. 25.
250 Trevisano, 129.
251 Giovio, Commentarius, 77.
252 Ramberti, below, p. 254; Junis Bey, below, p. 269; D’Ohsson, vii. 28.
253 Postel, iii. 25.
254 Postel, iii. 22, says that only those who had special privilege from the sultan were allowed to learn letters. Ricaut, 76, says that some of those in the palace service were taught to read and write. In D’Ohsson’s time (vii. 327), each oda had a hoja to teach reading and writing to those who wished.
255 Junis Bey, 269, 270, says that they had 2 or 3 aspers per day at first, and more as they advanced, and that their chief was allowed 100,000 aspers a year for their food and clothing. Postel, iii. 23, says that their chief was allowed 10,000 aspers a day to keep them and pay them, and other money for their clothing.
256 Ramberti, 254; Junis Bey, 270; Postel, iii. 25.
257 Spandugino, 104. Trevisano, 130, says that they became such at from 20 to 25 years old, according to their mind, value, or favor.
258 Ricaut, 76. But those of the principal palace in Constantinople had greater opportunities; they might become Janissaries, Solaks, Kapujis, etc. (Ramberti, below, p. 245.)
259 Chalcocondyles, 97.
260 Trevisano, 130; Barbaro, 316; Garzoni, 397.
261 Zinkeisen, iii. 228.
262 Ricaut, 53; D’Ohsson, vii. 34-39.
263 Ramberti, below, p. 244; Junis Bey, below, p. 263; Ricaut, 53.
264 Junis Bey, as quoted above, p. 81, note 4.
265 Chalcocondyles, 171; Barbaro, 305; Nicolay, 89 (“the wages of each are increased, according to the merit of their military valor”).
266 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 160.
267 Tractatus, ch. viii.
268 Postel, i. 121.
269 Ibid. iii. 19.
270 Tanco, 197, 206.
271 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 105.
272 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 154-155.
273 Ricaut, 77.
274 Spandugino, 185; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 108.
275 Spandugino, 132.
276 The grand vizier Rustem’s wealth is summed up in detail in Hammer’s Geschichte, iii. 386: “He himself left at his death an immense fortune; no grand vizier before him had amassed so much wealth. His estate consisted of 815 farms in Rumelia and Anatolia, 476 water mills, 1700 slaves, 2900 war horses, 1106 camels, 5000 richly embroidered coats and robes of honor, 8000 turbans, 1100 caps of cloth of gold, 2900 coats of mail, 2000 cuirasses, 600 saddles finished in silver, 500 others adorned with gold and precious stones, 1500 helmets plated with silver, 130 pairs of golden stirrups, 760 sabres adorned with precious stones, 1000 lances trimmed with silver, 800 Korans, 130 of which were set with diamonds, 5000 volumes of various works, 78,000 ducats, 32 precious stones representing a value of 112 donkey-loads (that is to say, 11,200,000 aspers); the ready money which was found in his house was estimated at 1000 loads (100,000,000 aspers, or 2,000,000 ducats.)”
277 D. Barbarigo, 30-33.
278 Menavino, 128.
279 The cause of the execution of Junis Pasha by Selim I. Cf. Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 524.
280 Halil Ganem, i. 169.
281 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 322.
282 Cahun, Introduction, p. vii: “Les Turcs et les Mongols... nées de la guerre et organisées pour la conquête.”
283 This was true even in D’Ohsson’s time (vii. 399).
284 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 181.
285 Curiously enough, the oldest sense in which the Turkish word kul was used as a term denoting relation to a prince, was in reference to soldiers (Vambéry, Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudalku Bilik, 113, stanza 12b). At that time the word was applied to the foot-soldiers as distinguished from the cavalry, who were then volunteer knights. This usage survived in the Ottoman system to the extent that the regular infantry, including the Janissaries, artillerymen, and other lesser permanent corps, were regarded as in a particular and special sense the sultan’s kullar (D’Ohsson, vii. 328; Djevad Bey, i. 15-18).
286 The Bostanjis, or gardeners, and other Ajem-oghlans of the palace service were not left behind: D’Ohsson, vii. 326; Djevad Bey, i. 7.
287 Extended accounts of the Janissaries may be found in D’Ohsson, vii. 310 ff.; Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 192 ff.; Zinkeisen, iii. 201 ff.; Djevad Bey, vol. i, book i.
288 For an example of the persistence of this idea, see Bérard (1909), 12-13: “La Turquie désormais subsiste par le janissaire et doit vivre pour le janissaire d’abord... depuis la prise de Rhodes (1522) jusqu’à l’apparition de la flotte russe aux Dardanelles (1770), tant vaut le janissaire et tant vaut l’empire.” Professor A. C. Coolidge suggests that the hold which this remarkable organization had upon the imagination of fellow-countrymen as well as of foreigners was in part “due to the fact that in almost all Oriental history good infantrymen have been extremely rare, and the Janissaries were the only good infantrymen in the Ottoman Empire.” It is also true that the Janissaries were that group within the Moslem fold which came least under the taming and subordinating influence of the system; they were a frontier province of Islamic society. When in the seventeenth century they ceased to be drawn directly from the Christian population and became a variety of military aristocracy, not only did they remain in part a fighting infantry, but their original freedom of spirit and action was by no means abandoned.
289 D’Ohsson, vii. 359-360; Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 251, 361, iii. 45; Nicolay, 89.
290 Rhodes was pillaged after capitulation (1521), and so were Ofen (1529), and Wychegrad (1544): Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 28, 83, 263.
291 Ibid. ii. 252. Hence the death of a sultan was kept concealed until his successor had assumed power (ibid. 535; iii. 449).
292 Mohammed II gave them ten purses of gold (1451), ibid. i. 504; Bayezid II gave them 2000 aspers each (1481), ibid. ii. 252; Selim I gave them 3000 aspers each (1512), ibid. 382; from Suleiman they asked 5000 aspers each, which he compounded by giving them one-third in cash and increased pay (1520), ibid. iii. 6.
293 Before Vienna (1529), ibid. 88; on march toward Persia (1534), ibid. 148; at Tabriz (1535), ibid. 158.
294 This usage dates from Suleiman; D’Ohsson, vii. 354.
295 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 86: the Janissaries “are scattered through every part of the empire, either to garrison the forts against the enemy, or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong.” Janissaries might be detailed to attend on foreign ambassadors, or to escort foreign travelers within the empire (Knolles, ed. 1687, p. 985).
296 Nicolay, 89, was perhaps the first to point out the likeness of the Janissaries to the Roman Pretorian Guard, and to see in them a great danger to the Ottoman Empire.
297 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 420, 520.
298 Ibid. iii. 88.
299 Trevisano, 129, says that they had sufficient authority on the death of a sultan to give the empire to which of his sons they pleased. Cf. J. Soranzo, 248; Morosini, 255; Garzoni, 432; Knolles (ed. 1687), 985 (“neither can any of the Turks Sultans account themselves fully invested in the Imperial Dignity, or assured of their Estate, until they be by them approved and proclaimed”).
300 D’Ohsson, i. 278-284; Heidborn, 120.
301 D’Ohsson, i. 284. This rule is sometimes stated erroneously as an old Turkish custom, a provision of Mohammedan law, or an old Ottoman law or custom.
302 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 98: “Kanun of the Security of the Throne: The majority of Legists (Ulema) have declared it allowable, that whoever among my illustrious children and grandchildren may come to the throne, should, for securing the peace of the world, order his brothers to be executed. Let them hereafter act accordingly.”
303 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 352 ff.
304 Menavino, 219; Trevisano, 129; Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 365.
305 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 314.
306 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 185-189.
307 Postel, iii. 87, says, about 1537: Suleiman “has among others a son named Mustapha, marvelously well educated and prudent and of the age to reign; for he is 23 or 24 years old; and God grant that so great an atrocity may not come so near us (Dieu ne permette qu’une Barbarie si grande vienne si pres de nous).”
308 10,000 is the number according to Bragadino, 106. 12,000 is given by almost all contemporaries: Ramberti, below, p. 249; Junis Bey, below, p. 266; Giovio, Commentarius, 76; Geuffroy, 234; Navagero, 53; Trevisano, 128; Barbaro, 305; Postel, iii. 30; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 86; Nicolay, 88; Erizzo, 127. Navagero, 56, says some think that 15,500 or 16,000 were inscribed; and Garzoni, 416, says that there were 13,000 or 14,000. Djevad Bey, i. 90, gives 12,000 in 1523, and 13,599 in 1574. In 1564 D. Barbarigo, 33, gives a precise number, 13,502. D’Ohsson, vii. 330, says, without stating any authority and against the above contemporary evidence, that Suleiman raised the number to 40,000. Hammer (Geschichte, i. 95, and iii. 473) says, referring to D’Ohsson, that Suleiman had 20,000; but in his Staatsverwaltung, 195, he states that Suleiman had only 12,000 before Szigets. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 990) says, about 1603, that the Janissaries numbered not over 12,000 to 14,000.
309 Junis Bey, 272, and Ludovisi, 17, give the number of this garrison as 3000. Postel, 38, gives the number as 30,000; this must include the Mamelukes.
310 Giovio, Commentarius, 77: about 6000 of the older of them stay about the Prince. Navagero, 55: 8000 to 10,000 are always ready.
311 Ramberti, 249; Junis Bey, 267.
312 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 194; Ricaut, 365 (mentions 162 odalar); Djevad Bey, i. 28. In Chalcocondyles’s time (1465), 97, the strength of each oda seems to have been of 50 men. In Suleiman’s time it was less than 100. Later it became much larger.
313 Nicolay, 96-97; D’Ohsson, vii. 313-320; Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 201 ff.; Djevad Bey, i. 35, 45.
314 D’Ohsson, vii. 314; Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 428. This was the case only from 1515 to 1582.
315 Kiaya is a word which offered infinite difficulties of pronunciation and spelling; for example, gachaia, cacaia, checaya, quaia, queaya, caia, cahaia, chiccaia, chechessi. Some authors employ a different spelling each time they use the word. Trevisano, 118, gives chietcudasci. Kiaya represents the popular pronunciation. The more nearly correct form of the word, following the Turkish spelling, is ketkhuda.
316 D’Ohsson, vii. 353.
317 Djevad Bey, i. 35.
318 Ramberti, below, p. 250; Junis Bey, below, p. 266.
319 Ludovisi (1534), 9, gives a pessimistic account of them; according to him, they had not the order or the discipline or the astuteness which was found in the Christian infantry. Postel, iii. 30, praises them greatly for order, frugality, and temperance. Djevad Bey, i. 56-64, gives a favorable description; he says (p. 56) that the first of their fundamental laws enjoined absolute obedience.
320 Postel, iii. 31; D’Ohsson, vii. 353; Djevad Bey, i. 66, 69.
321 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 296.
322 D’Ohsson, vii. 351; Djevad Bey, i. 56-59.
323 Ramberti, below, p. 249; Junis Bey, below, p. 267; D’Ohsson, vii. 352.
324 Djevad Bey, i. 289.
325 This name for the sultan’s paid cavalry is that regularly employed by the Venetian writers of the sixteenth century: for example, Moro, 337; Bernardo, 330.
326 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 95.
327 D’Ohsson, vii. 353.
328 For the great disturbance which they raised in 1593, see Zinkeisen, iii. 79.
329 All of these names are spelled with an ingenious variety in contemporary writings:—
Spahi: spai, spachi, sipahi, sipah, spacoillain (spahi-oghlan).
Silihdar: selicter, sillictar, sulastrus, suluphtar.
Ulufagi: holofagi, allophase.
Ghureba: caripy, caripicus, ciarcagi, caripp (oglan), gharib (oglan), capi (oglan)
The word Spahi is of identical derivation with Sepoy.
330 Ramberti, below, p. 250; Junis Bey, below, p. 267; Postel, iii. 34. Giovio (Commentarius, 75) says that some Spahis brought as many as ten horsemen.
331 Giovio, 75; Postel, iii. 35.
332 They were called “poor youth” by Menavino, 152; Junis Bey, 267; Ramberti, 251; Trevisano, 126; Postel, iii. 36. Spandugino, 97, says that they were strangers from Asia, Egypt, and Africa. Giovio, 76, says that they were all Moslems from Persia, Turcomania, Syria, Africa, Arabia, Scythia, and even India; but he is wrong in confining them to Moslems in the sixteenth century. Trevisano, 126, asserts that they were renegades from every nation; and on this authority Zinkeisen falls into the opposite error of confining them to Christian renegades. Postel, iii. 36, says that they were chosen from the Akinji, Kurds, and Azabs. Menavino, 152, declares that they were not slaves of the great Turk, but that part were Turks, part Christian renegades, and part Arabs (Mori).
333 The Spahis of the Porte are discussed at length in D’Ohsson, vii. 364 ff.; Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 237 ff.; Zinkeisen, iii. 168 ff.
334 Giovio (Commentarius, 75) mentions 2000 in each of the first two corps, and 1000 in each of the second two. Junis Bey (below, p. 267) puts 3000 in each of the first two corps, 2000 in each of the second two. Ramberti (below, p. 250) gives more than 3000 Spahi-oghlans, 3000 Silihdars, and 2000 in each of the other corps. Ludovisi, 15, puts 3000 in each of the first two, 2500 in the third, and 2000 in the fourth. Trevisano, 125, puts 2000 in each but the fourth, which contained 1500. D. Barbarigo, 33, mentions 7095 Spahis. Barbaro, 304, says that there were 15,000 Spahis of the Porte. There were under pay in 1660, after serious changes, 7203 Spahis, 6254 Silihdars, 976 Ulufajis, and 722 Ghurebas: Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 175.
335 A calculation based on Junis Bey’s statements gives a total of between 41,000 and 49,000. Garzoni, 413, says distinctly that there were 40,000 Spahis of the Porte paid out of the sultan’s treasury; that among these were 3000 Spahi-oghlans, 3000 Silihdars, 3000 Ulufajis, and 2000 Ghurebas (ciarcagi); and that the grand vizier had 1000 Spahis assigned to his retinue, and the other viziers each 500. D’Ohsson, vii. 364-365, states that the Spahis proper in the time of Mohammed II, numbered 10,000, and that Achmet III, raised their strength to 12,000; like figures for the Silihdars were 8000 and 12,000. This estimate must include the additional horsemen.
336 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 57; Menavano, 148, 151.
337 See above, pp. 47 (note 1), 91. The Ottoman feudal system is discussed at length in Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 337 ff.; D’Ohsson, vii. 372 ff.; Zinkeisen, iii. 145 ff.; Belin, Du Régime des Fiefs Militaires en Turquie; Tischendorf, Moslemisches Lehnswesen.
338 Junis Bey (below, p. 271) says, shortly after describing the feudal Spahis of Europe, that “all the Spahis are slaves and sons of slaves of the Seigneur (Tutti li spachi sono schiaui & figli de schiaui del Sig[nor]);” but this statement is incomplete. Ramberti (below, p. 256) adds, “and sons of Spahis.” The latter group undoubtedly contained the great majority of the feudal Spahis. Geuffroy 246, enlarges on the statement by saying that the 30,000 feudal Spahis of Europe were all Ajem-oghlans and slaves of the great Turk. No other writer terms them kullar. Garzoni, 412, calls them Turkish soldiers. The whole theory of the Ottoman feudal system made them such; the smaller fiefs were hereditary from of old, and gaps were filled from volunteers with the army, who must have been Moslems, since Christians were not allowed to bear arms: Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 349 ff. (“Kanun-nameh of the granting of Timars and Ziamets”).
339 Junis Bey, p. 271 (they collect the income from the Christians, etc.); Moro, 339 (they are appointed by the king to administer justice); Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 478; D’Ohsson, vii. 373. Heidborn, 157, discusses their duties in some detail.
340 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 275; Heidborn, 145.
341 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 476.
342 Spandugino, 146, states that under Mohammed II, each fief-holder who had 5000 aspers of income was obliged to bring another with him to war; but in his time (under Bayezid II) this obligation was imposed upon those who had 3000 aspers, unless retired on account of age. Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 256-271) say that for each 100 ducats a Spahi must keep an armed horseman, and three or four servants, and a like number of horses; see also D’Ohsson, vii. 373. Heidborn, 145, states that holders of timars brought an additional warrior for each 3000 aspers of income, and holders of ziamets an additional one for each 5000 aspers; but in any case the first 3000 aspers was exempt.
343 D’Ohsson, vii. 374.
344 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 352.
345 Ibid. 94.
346 Hammer (ibid. 143 ff.) describes Suleiman’s legislation, giving translations of much of it.
347 Ricaut, 343.
348 D’Ohsson, vii. 374; Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 352 ff.
349 The limit differed according to region. In Rumelia a teskereh was required for all timars of 6000 aspers and over, and for all ziamets: Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 275.
350 Ramberti (below, p. 256) gives this limit as 100 ducats, or 5000 aspers.
351 Garzoni, 413; Tanco, 209.
352 Bernardo, 329; Knolles (ed. 1687), 983.
353 Spandugino, 211; Zinkeisen, iii. 129. The feudal Spahis had lower officers who were not sent out from the capital, such as the Cheribashis.
354 The name means “ensign bey,” and was translated flambole: for example, Geuffroy, 246.
355 Postel, iii. 44; Tiepolo, 138.
356 Heidborn, 140, says that the Subashis had ziamets, the Alai Beys had small khasses, the Sanjak Beys had khasses of a million aspers or more, and the Beylerbeys much more. The amount which he assigns to the Sanjak Beys is too large for Suleiman’s time. Ramberti (below, pp. 256-258) gives their income at from 4000 to 12,000 ducats, which would amount to from 200,000 to 600,000 aspers.
357 Ramberti, below, p. 256; Junis Bey, below, p. 271.
358 Menavino, 186, 190, says that in his time the Beylerbey of Anatolia resided at Kutaia (Custage). Ramberti, 259, mentions the same place (Chiothachie) as the seat of his sanjakate. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 986) says that all the Beylerbeys except the Beylerbey of Rumelia were supposed to reside within their dominions.
359 Tractatus, ch. xi.
360 Trevisano, 132.
361 In Europe 30,000 Spahis and 20,000 Timarjis; in Anatolia 12,000 Spahis; in Karamania 7000, Amasia 4000, and Avandole 7000. This is the estimate of Junis Bey and Ramberti, which Geuffroy, 247, follows, and which Postel, iii. 37 ff., changes a little (Karamania 5000 instead of 7000, Amasia omitted). Ludovisi, 16, gives practically the same figures. Navagero, 41, gives 40,000 in Europe and 80,000 to 100,000 in Asia, the latter figure probably including the troops of Syria and Mesopotamia, and of Egypt, which was not provided with fiefs in the same way. Barbaro, 304, and Garzoni, 412, mention 80,000 in Europe and 50,000 in Asia. D. Barbarigo (1558), 33, speaks of a sum total of 160,000 feudal Spahis. Tiepolo (1576), 140, speaks of 60,000 timars in Europe which sent 80,000 Spahis, and 50,000 Spahis from Asia. The number may have increased about one-half during Suleiman’s reign, but it is more likely that all the groups of figures are only estimates. Ricaut, 341, after careful inquiry, gives the number of Zaims in his time as 10,948, and of Timarjis as 72,436, for the whole empire except Egypt. He thinks that this estimate should be increased to 100,000. The total feudal contingent in the time of Achmet I, was by Turkish authority about the same (Tischendorf, 57 ff.). D’Ohsson, vii. 375, estimates the feudal troops at 200,000 in Suleiman’s time; on p. 381, however, he speaks of more than 150,000 men. See below, p. 107, n. 1.
362 Postel, iii. 38 (“triple pour le moins”).
363 Chesneau, 46; D’Ohsson, vii. 381. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 990) says that not over one-third could safely be called to arms.
364 After the year 1541: Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 232.
365 After the year 1552: Trevisano, 124. The number of the Beylerbeys was greatly increased in the last third of the sixteenth century. Knolles, 986-988, mentions five in Europe, 30 in Asia, and 4 in Africa, besides the Beylerbey of the Sea, whose office was created by Suleiman, but who is not mentioned above as having no part in the army.
366 Spandugino, 153; Nicolay, 160.
367 The name akinji is variously spelled: yachinji, alcanzi, alcangi, aconiziae, alengi, aquangi, achiar, aghiar. Spandugino, 150, says that the sultan can collect 200,000 of these for the war; Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 257, 271) mention 60,000 as inscribed; Giovio (Commentarius, 81) names 30,000; Garzoni, 414, says 25,000 or 30,000; Postel, iii. 26, says 50,000 or 60,000. Ramberti, 271, tells us that when in arms they were entitled to living expenses from the villages near which they passed.
368 Zinkeisen, iii. 203.
369 Spandugino, 152. Junis Bey, 270, mentions 1000 with the fleet, and Postel, iii. 71, mentions 10,000.
370 Postel, iii. 26.
371 Chalcocondyles, 135; Giovio, Commentarius, 81, etc.
372 Spandugino, 151.
373 See above, p. 98.
374 Junis Bey, below, p. 268. In addition were several thousand saddlers, etc., who were not reckoned as regular troops: the Bostanjis, older pages, body-guards, etc.
375 Knolles (ed. 1687), 984.
376 Several contemporary estimates of the complete army may be compared: Marini Sanuto, under date of October 26, 1529, gives an estimate of the Turkish army then before Vienna as containing 305,200 men. The same writer (Diarii, lvi) gives three or four estimates from the year 1532, when Suleiman went forth on the Güns campaign: on p. 768, Suleiman’s army is said to contain 500,000 men; on p. 870 is found an account of Suleiman’s entry into Belgrade, in which 170,300 men are mentioned, besides “adventurers” and “many others”; on the same page is estimated the number with which the Sultan was to leave Belgrade, which sums up 284,500, and does not seem to account fully for the territorial armies; on p. 894 he summarizes a despatch from Ratisbon, dated August 23, 1532, which relates the testimony of three Turkish prisoners to the effect that the Turkish army numbers over 300,000 persons, but that not over 80,000 are good fighting men. Postel, iii. 38, estimates the enrolled army at 218,000, and the whole at 500,000. He states elsewhere that Suleiman took 500,000 men with him on the Persian expedition of 1534-35. Chesneau’s impression (pp. 106-108) of Suleiman’s army, when he saw it near Aleppo in the spring of 1549, was that it occupied 80,000 to 100,000 tents, on a plain eight to ten miles long; that it contained 300,000 to 400,000 fighting men, of whom all but 10,000 or 12,000 Janissaries were on horseback; and that the total number of persons assembled was about a million. Chesneau’s chief, the ambassador D’Aramont, writing concerning the same expedition from Esdron (Erzerum?) a few weeks later, speaks of “the mass of his (Suleiman’s) army, which is by common estimate of 300,000 men, as may be judged from the extent of the camp, which extends ten or twelve miles in length, and contains at least 60,000 tents or more, with such order and obedience that, considering the great multitude, it is almost unbelievable” (Charrière, ii. 68). In the year 1558, A. Barbarigo, 150-151, estimated the cavalry alone at more than 300,000. Twenty-six years after Suleiman’s death Bernardo, 331, says that the paid troops, in which he includes the sultan’s household and the feudal army, amounted to 250,000 men. Zinkeisen, iii. 199, estimates the extreme total of the sultan’s cavalry alone at 565,000. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 984), writing about 1603, says that the sultan could always gather 150,000 Timariotes for a great expedition. He says that the Timariotes numbered in all 719,000 fighting men, of whom 257,000 were in Europe and 426,000 in Asia. The last two estimates are incredibly large.
377 Tractatus, ch. xi, marginal summary.
378 La Broquière, 273.
379 Chalcocondyles, 135.
380 Giovio, Commentarius, 83 (condensed).
381 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 293; on p. 221 he compares Turkish and Western soldiers most unfavorably for the latter.
382 Postel, i. 126; see also Dandolo, 166. Georgevitz, 45, says that he accompanied the Turkish army on an expedition against Persia (probably 1533 to 1536): “I saw a Spahi decapitated together with his horse and servant, because the horse, having been left loose, entered some one’s field.”
383 Postel, iii. 31, speaking particularly of the Janissaries.
384 Morosini, 261.
385 The Policy of the Turkish Empire, “To the Reader.”
386 Junis Bey (below, pp. 274, 275) gives the order of march; Postel, 29 ff., describes the encampment.
387 Chalcocondyles, 135, says that the Turks lodged more grandly in the field than in peace at home.
388 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 79.
389 Ibid. 160.
390 Other reasons have been advanced to account for the fall of Ibrahim (cf. Postel, iii. 48 ff.). The fact that he had became a danger to the throne is sufficient.
391 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 438.
392 Halil Ganem, i. 206.
393 Ranke, 11.
394 The Spahis of the Porte, and the Janissaries were not as a body put under a Seraskier’s command until the time of Murad III: D’Ohsson, vii. 368; Djevad Bey, i. 16.
395 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 141.
396 Final audience was given to the Austrian ambassadors on June 23 (ibid. 138), and Ibrahim marched about September 21 (ibid. 143).
397 Ibid. 277.
398 Postel, iii. 54, speaking of Charles V in 1535-36, says: “The Emperor had and lost during the war against the Sofi the fairest opportunity that ever Prince had in this world, to recover Constantinople: for at every shaking of a leaf, all the people trembled, and there was no guard in the city except the inhabitants and ten thousand Ajem-oghlans” [these from the time of Mohammed II had been commissioned to guard the capital during the army’s absence: D’Ohsson, vii. 348]. Erizzo, 131, also discusses this danger, emphasizing the valor of the Persians and the readiness of Asia Minor to revolt. The Turks in Constantinople in 1535 feared that the expedition which Charles V was preparing against Tunis was intended for an attack upon their city (Revue Africaine, xix. 352).
399 Suleiman in his letter to Ferdinand, November 27, 1562, says, “I, Lord of the Orient from the land of Tsin to the extremity of Africa”: Busbecq, De Re Militari, 272.
400 Ibrahim said, “I, if I now wished it, could place Luther on one side and the Pope on the other, and compel them to hold a council; what Charles ought to have done, the Sultan and I will now do”: Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 134.
401 Gerlach, 257, quoted in Zinkeisen, iii. 222.
402 Postel, iii. 19.
403 Spandugino, 218; Postel, i. 126.
404 D’Ohsson, vii. 202.
405 Suleiman permitted this because of the increase it produced in his income: Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 114; Halil Ganem, i. 197.
406 D’Ohsson, vii. 182, 202.
407 Ricaut, 140; D’Ohsson, vii. 287.
408 Montesquieu, livre v, ch. xix.
409 Postel, i. 126: “les gents de la court, qui ont leurs chefs Aga & Bassi pour Iuges,” etc.
410 Spandugino, 214 ff., relates how this came about, and says (p. 218), “No Cadi can have power and authority over the slaves who receive pay from the Seigneur.”
411 Zane, 407; Robertson, i. 249.
412 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 176, 684; ii. 674.
413 Ibid. i. 96. The descendants of Michael have been among the very few families who were constituted landed nobles in the Ottoman Empire. Seven “endowments of the Conquerors” still exist, one of which benefits his line: Heidborn, 314.
414 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 96.
415 Ibid. iii. 18.
416 Spandugino, 13; Ramberti, below, p. 242; Junis Bey, below, p. 273. D. Barbarigo, 19, names eight great families among whom the succession might fall (he says that some thought it should pass through the female line): in Rumelia four,—Micali, Ersecli, Eurenesli, Egiachiali; in Anatolia, four,—Cheselamath, Diercauli, Durcadurli, Ramadanli, formerly called Spendial. Ricaut, 107, says that in his time there existed an “ancient compact” by which, in default of heirs male in the Ottoman line, the empire was to descend to the Crimean Tartars.
417 Ricaut, 211.
418 Ibid. 129: “A Turk is never reverenced but for his Office, that is made the sole measure and rule of his greatness and honour, without other considerations of Vertue or Nobility.”
420 Above, ch. iii, under heads “Other Motives for Incorporating Christians,” “Advancement Based on Merit.”
421 Ricaut, 129.
422 About the year 1800, when the two institutions, and particularly the Ruling Institution, had reached an extreme state of decay, and before new institutions after Western models had yet been introduced, the Ottoman Empire was to come very near to such a breaking-up. It seems actually to have been saved by the lingering of the tradition against heredity in office; for, though life-tenure of purchased governorships had become regular, no Pasha except the North African corsairs of the seventeenth century, and Ibrahim in Egypt in the early nineteenth century, succeeded in founding a dynasty upon Ottoman soil. For the disorders about 1800, see Heidborn, 144.
423 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 490-491, quoting Kochi Bey.
424 See above, p. 69, note 3.
425 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 278.
426 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 6.
427 Postel, i. 31, says that Suleiman occasionally sent for one of his women to visit him in the principal palace. Nicolay, 62, reports that about 1551 Roxelana was residing within the palace grounds. By 1585 the principal ladies of the harem had been transferred to the new palace, leaving the old palace to the function of a training-school for recruits. These steps illustrate the rapid increase of the importance of the harem in the Ottoman scheme.
428 Exceptions were made in case of the old Hojas, or teachers of the young princes, the religious advisers of the queen mother, and physicians. See Postel, i. 35; Ricaut, 68; D’Ohsson, vii. 11; Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 73.
429 Siasset Namèh, 121, 123, 163.
430 “Kanun of the Imperial Table,” printed in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, 98: “It is not my Kanun that any one should dine with my Imperial Majesty; it might be some one not of Imperial blood.” Suleiman did not always observe this Kanun (cf. Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 99).
431 Erizzo, 138; Morosini, 281.
432 Extended descriptions of the household are found in D’Ohsson, vii and Hammer’s Staatsverwaltung. Lane-Poole, in his Story of Turkey, ch. xiv, gives a good, clear summary of D’Ohsson. References to these authorities are here omitted except in a few instances of special interest.
433 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 71; Menavino, 179. The Eski Serai of the sixteenth century stood where the Seraskierat, or War Office, now stands.
434 D’Ohsson, v. 52.
435 Postel, i. 32.
436 See above, pp. 56, 57, 78, 79.
437 Junis Bey (below, p. 269) says twenty, a number scarcely sufficient. Twenty years earlier Menavino, 180, speaks of about forty.
438 Ricaut, 67-68, mentions several of these.
439 Postel, i. 35.
440 Ricaut, 73.
441 Hammer (Geschichte, ii. 222) says that the custom of accomplishing the death of sons of daughters of sultans (by neglecting to tie the navel cord) dates from Mohammed II; but no contemporary authority appears to mention such a custom. D’Ohsson, vii. 93, says that it was instituted in the time of Achmet I. The son of a sister of Selim I was Beylerbey of Aleppo about 1550 (Alberi, Anonimo of 1553, 228).
442 Ludovisi, 29; Postel, i. 31. See p. 141, note 2.
443 Postel, i. 31.
444 Spandugino, 64.
445 Menavino, 137.
446 D’Ohsson, vii. 34. Whether this number was fixed in Suleiman’s time does not appear from the records. Mohammed II had 32 officers of the Khas Oda (Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 96). Menavino, 121-123, names three special officers, 15 of second grade, and 35 of third grade, before mentioning the treasury. Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 243, 263) name 6 principal officers, but do not distinguish the odalar further. Chesneau, 39, says that 25 of the pages were Suleiman’s personal servants, and that 5 served him specially. Navagero, 45, speaks of 25 or 30 in the Khas Oda. Ricaut, 52, speaks of 40.
447 Ramberti and Junis Bey, as above; Postel, iii. 4; Navagero, 45.
448 Navagero, 44.
449 The number of pages in the Kiler Odassi is given by Menavino, 125, as 25, all between 20 and 22 years of age. Navagero, 44, says that they numbered 300 or 400; but this is incredible. He gives no numbers for the purely educational odalar, and evidently has counted them all in the Kiler Odassi.
450 Hammer (Staatsverwaltung, 30) erroneously says that the pages of these odalar attended to the lowest duties of the palace, and were recruited from three palace schools outside. Navagero, 44, disproves this.
451 An additional chamber, the Seferli Odassi, or Chamber of Campaign, was instituted by Murad IV to attend to his laundry work and other special duties in time of war. The membership was chosen out of the educational odalar, and it ranked next after the Kiler Odassi. See Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 28.
452 Ricaut, 47.
453 Ramberti, below, p. 255.
454 Ramberti and Junis Bey, below, pp. 245, 264.
455 Menavino, 160 ff.
456 Zinkeisen, iii. 181, states erroneously on the authority of Trevisano, 125 (meaning p. 128), that these were all Turks and of noble blood. The fact that Menavino, 146, calls them “schiaui” is sufficient disproof. Zinkeisen also quotes Spandugino, 114, to the effect that the Muteferrika were all lords, or sons of princes or of lords; but Spandugino, 62, says that pages pass to the office of Muteferrika from the highest four offices at least. Trevisano, 127, says, “Li quali sono giovani nati Turchi, e figliuoli d’uomini di autorità” (italics not in original); but “men of authority” were practically all renegades. Moro, 341, calls them, in 1590, sons of the principal Turks. The fact seems to be that most of the Muteferrika were Ottomans of the second generation (i. e., sons of renegades) and that the rest were regarded as ennobled by passage through the high offices of the Khas Oda.
457 Menavino, 155 (he says they were Persians); Nicolay, 98; Ramberti, below, p. 251.
458 Spandugino, 116, gives the number 300, and says that they became Janissaries. Menavino, 140, mentions 500. Ramberti (pp. 246, 253) mentions 250 at the principal palace and 100 at the palace of the harem; the latter he calls Janissaries.
459 Junis Bey, below, p. 265.
460 Spandugino, 125.
461 Postel, iii. 9.
462 Ricaut, 373. In his time they numbered 500 or 600.
463 Junis Bey, 263. Ramberti, 245, speaks of 35, which is clearly too few.
464 Postel, iii. 11.
465 Menavino, 129. In D’Ohsson’s time (vii. 15) this official was also the jailer and presiding executioner of the palace, inspector of the water supply and forests near the capital, and overseer of hunting and fishing and of the trade in wine and lime. How many of these functions he exercised under Suleiman seems not to have been recorded. In Spandugino’s time (p. 118) the chief Kapuji was presiding executioner.
466 Ramberti, 251; Junis Bey, 268.
467 Menavino, 150. They were not kullar. Cf. the Zainogiler, below, pp. 252, 268.
468 Shortened in use to Miri-akhor, Imrakhor, Imbrahor, Imbroor, Imror, etc.
469 D’Ohsson, vii. 17; Menavino, 148-150.
470 A short form of Emir-Alem.
471 Menavino, 145.
472 D’Ohsson, vii. 21. In his time these were under the “Chief of the Black Eunuchs.” It does not appear who controlled them under Suleiman.
473 Postel, iii. 12; Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 44.
474 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 37.
475 Spandugino, 127-128, describes the hunting organization under Bayezid II. Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 249, 266) state that 2700 or 900 Janissaries served under the Segban-bashi and Zagarji-bashi in the care of the dogs.
476 D’Ohsson, iv. 98 ff.
477 Siasset Namèh, 161.
478 Tractatus, ch. ix.
479 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 88 ff.
480 Ibid., 434 ff.
481 The statements of this paragraph are based upon the Kanuni Teshrifat as given in Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 434 ff. See Della Valle, i. 45: “Tutti gli uffici, e tutti gli ordini, tanto della militia, quanto della Corte, e d’ogni altra sorte di persone, hanno qui il loro habito proprio, and in particolare al portamento della testa, si cognosce ciascuno che cosa è.”
482 Postel, iii. 13; Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 18.
483 Ricaut, 156.
484 The festival of the Birth of the Prophet was not instituted until the reign of Murad III (Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 469). The sultan’s annual visit to the relics of the Prophet also became a great ceremony.
485 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 96-101. Only less splendid was the marriage of Ibrahim to Suleiman’s sister in 1524 (ibid. 38).
486 Compare Gritti, 27: the Janissaries at the reception of ambassadors “stand in such quiet and order as for war that it is a marvellous thing and not to be believed by those who have not seen it with their own eyes.”
487 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 152 ff.
488 A name for Cairo, used much from the time of the crusades onward.
489 Nicolay, 88-89, explains that the wearing of ostrich plumes, attached in a tube of jeweled gold to the front of the turban, and curving over the head and down the back, was a highly-valued privilege accorded only to such Janissaries as had distinguished themselves in action.
490 The Solaks.
491 The Sharabdar, the Chokadar, and the Silihdar.
492 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 283 ff.
493 Ibid., 302 ff. These quotations may profitably be compared with those from the Tractatus in regard to the simplicity of Murad II (above, p. 134). Not a few descriptions of court and camp ceremonies in the century following the accession of Suleiman have been handed down. For example: Suleiman’s entry into Belgrade in 1532 (Marini Sanuto, lvi. 870); Suleiman’s entry into Aleppo, 1548 (anonymous report, in Alberi, 3d series, i. 224 ff.); Suleiman’s reception of Captain Pinon in 1544 (Maurand, 207-225); Selim II’s reception of De Noailles in 1573 (Du Fresne-Canaye, 59-72); Ahmed I’s going to mosque, 1614 (Della Valle, 68-71); Ahmed I’s reception of the Venetian Bailo, 1615 (ibid. 98 ff.).
494 Postel, i. 31, speaks of the mother of Mustapha as having superior authority about 1537, though residing much at Magnesia; and he does not speak of Roxelana. But Ludovisi, 29, shows that Roxelana was in 1534 the wife of Suleiman, and that the mother of Mustapha then resided with her son at Magnesia. For the decisive quarrel between Roxelana and the mother of Mustapha, see Navagero, 75.
495 Navagero, 79.
496 Described above, pp. 93-95.
497 Navagero, 76-77.
498 The unfortunate Jehangir also was thought to have come to his death from shock at the death of Mustapha and fear of a similar fate for himself. See Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 178; Navagero, 77. But see Alberi, Anonimo of 1553, 216, for another and more credible account.
499 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 425.
500 See above, pp. 78, 120.
501 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 331; Halil Ganem, i. 199.
502 Spandugino, 185. A generation earlier still La Broquière, 186, said: “No one speaks to them [the pashas] unless he brings them a present, as well as one for each of the slaves who guard their gate.”
503 Spandugino, 145, relates how in his time the peasants were eaten, as it were, all the year by tithes, compulsory presents, land-tax, and extortion. The earlier sixteenth-century writers seem not to have observed that the sultan’s subjects were especially miserable. Morosini (1585), 272, remarks vigorously upon the tyranny and oppression which were causing depopulation and destroying the incentive of the farm-dwellers to produce more than a bare sustenance. Zane (1595), 395, 415, writes in a similar vein. Gerlach, 52 (quoted in Zinkeisen, iii. 361), found those who lived at a distance from Constantinople in a wretched state of oppression. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 982), writing about 1603, speaks of the desolate condition of the empire, especially in those regions through which the army was accustomed to pass. In Ricaut’s time (pp. 124, 145, 323) agricultural decline, accompanied by misery and depopulation, was apparent.
504 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 438.
505 D’Ohsson, i. 268; Heidborn, 112, note 11. Heidborn, 106-121, treats fully the constitutional position of the sultan.
506 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 226.
507 D’Ohsson, iv. 482 ff.
508 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 1-3.
509 Ibid. i. 557, iii. 159, etc.
510 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 29. This use of the word Urf in Turkish is not the same as that of its Arabic original (see Redhouse, 1294; Youssouf Fehmi, 237). Heidborn, 37 ff., discusses the sources of Ottoman law, giving an especially thorough and excellent treatment to the Sacred Law.
511 Macdonald, 71; D’Ohsson, i. 5 ff.
512 Macdonald, 94, 115; Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 4; D’Ohsson, i. 11 ff.
513 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 9.
514 D’Ohsson, 21.
515 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 10; D’Ohsson, i. 22-24. The Multeka is the basis of D’Ohsson’s excellent work, which consists of a translation of the code with its comments, to which he has added observations of great value based on historical studies and on his own investigations during many years’ residence in Turkey. Heidborn, 44-69, gives a detailed account of the development of the Sacred Law. He also (pp. 85-89) describes the Multeka and gives a table of its contents.
516 Heidborn, 40-41. This writer uses the form fykyh.
517 Snouck Hurgronje, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, xxvii. 1 ff., 74 ff.
518 Goldziher, in Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, viii. 406 ff.; Kohler, ibid. 424 ff.; Juynboll, 8, 310.
519 In Turkey at the present day the courts of the Sacred Law (Sheriyeh) have sole cognizance of the following classes of cases: “in civil law, questions concerning marriage, alimony, education of children, liberty, slavery, inheritance, wills, absence, and disappearance; in criminal law, suits concerning retaliation, the price of blood, the price of laming a limb, the price of causing an abortion, damages for disfigurements, the division of the price of blood” (Heidborn, 255). The Nizamiyeh, or secular courts, have sole cognizance of commercial and penal cases, and a few other groups. All other causes are taken before the Sheriyeh courts if the parties agree; otherwise before the Nizamiyeh courts. Thus the courts of the Sacred Law still retain a great deal of importance in Turkey.
520 See, in particular, above, pp. 40, 41, 42. See also Postel, i. 116 ff., 124 ff.; Ricaut, 200 ff. Heidborn, 43, comments on this state of affairs, and explains the comparatively recent further legal developments in Turkey as follows:—
“Durant de longs siècles le fykyh, tout pétrifié qu’il était, put suffire aux besoins de la société islamique et son manque de souplesse fut d’autant moins ressenti, que l’évolution de cette société elle-mème a été à peu près nulle. Assoupie dans une léthargie profonde, elle semble se recueillir de son immense effort de jeunesse et contempler en spectatrice indifférente ou dédaigneuse les progrès réalisés, depuis, par l’Occident. En Turquie seulement, à mesure que se resserraient ses liens avec l’Europe, fut comprise l’impérieuse nécessité de sortir de cet isolement et d’emprunter à la culture occidentale certaines méthodes susceptibles de rajeunir le corps vielli de l’empire. Par suite de cette orientation récente, le fykyh a subi, en Turquie, d’importantes abrogations de fait sinon de droit, qui atteignent cependant plutôt le domaine du droit public que celui du droit privé. Celui-ci subsiste, dans une large mesure, malgré ses imperfections et son absence de plan et de clarté. On s’est contenté de combler ses lacunes les plus apparentes par des lois empruntées à la législation occidentale, sans se soucier de la complète disparate créée par la réunion d’éléments aussi hétérogènes.”
521 D’Ohsson, i. 261, v. 11.
522 Macdonald, 66; Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 12.
523 Heidborn, 69.
524 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 14; Heidborn, 71.
525 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 32; D’Ohsson, i. 291.
526 Ricaut, 202; Steen de Jehay, 13 ff.
527 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 31.
528 In the course of time the development of civil courts in the Ottoman Empire has relegated the former judicial system to the position of ecclesiastical courts with jurisdiction similar to that of Christian church courts of the Middle Ages. See Macdonald, 113; and above, p. 154, note 2.
529 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 30.
530 Ibid. 31.
531 For an example of this practice, see ibid. 343.
532 Ibid. 2.
533 Ibid. 29.
534 Heidborn, 90.
535 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 31; in pages 219-327 are found the Kanun-namehs of all the sanjaks.
536 Ibid. 87-101.
537 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 480.
538 Hammer, Staatsverfassung: 101-143, the Kanun-nameh Misr; 143-162, police and market laws of Suleiman; 187-211, Kanuni Rayah; 337-434, Kanuni Timar. Hammer does not make it clear where he found particular Kanuns, or how completely he has presented the originals; nor has he attempted to distinguish Kanuns of Suleiman from those of earlier and later sultans. The Kanuni Rayah was not made into a formal Kanun-nameh till 1614 (ibid. 211). See Heidborn, 91-92.
539 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 142.
540 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 39.
541 A translation of a portion of the table of contents of this collection, as found in the manuscript Fluegel No. 1816, in the Imperial Library at Vienna, is given in Appendix III, below. This shows by comparison with the headings in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, 396-424, that Hammer has there translated at least one-half of the manuscript, though he appears to attribute these sections to the Kanun-nameh of Achmet I (ibid. 384). The table of contents of the latter collection of laws is very different (see next note).
542 The Kanun-nameh of Achmet I, issued in 1619, contained collections of (1) feudal laws; (2) laws of the army, the navy, the outer and the inner service; (3) laws of police, finance, and fiefs. See Hammer, Staatsverfassung, pp. xviii, xix.
543 This statement is based on information obtained from a gentleman long resident in Turkey.
544 Zinkeisen, iii. 161 ff.
545 Macdonald, 10.
546 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 96.
547 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 32.
548 D’Ohsson, i. 258 ff.
549 “The dignity of the Imâmate does not absolutely demand that the Imâm be just, virtuous, or irreproachable, or that he be the most eminent and the most excellent of the human beings of his time” (from the Multeka, quoted by D’Ohsson, i. 271); “Vices or tyranny in an Imâm do not demand his deposition” (ibid. 288). This is the doctrine of orthodox Islam, as the outcome of the early Kharijite schisms. The Shiites are more critical as regards their sovereigns, who are not regarded as Imâms.
550 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 32; D’Ohsson, i. 291.
551 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 331-333; D’Ohsson, iv. 50 ff.
552 Busbecq, i. 331; D’Ohsson, iv. 103, 280.
553 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 71, 486.
554 Ibid. ii. 216-217, 223.
555 Ibid. i. 565, ii. 223.
556 See above, pp. 58, 59.
557 A. Barbarigo, 155; D. Barbarigo, 26; Bernardo, 326; Erizzo, 136. See also Chesneau, 41.
558 Barbaro, 319.
559 Postel, iii. passim, gives various glimpses of his life.
560 Siasset Namèh, 163.
561 The position and duties of the grand vizier at a later date are described at length by Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 79-101, and by D’Ohsson, vii. 177-189.
562 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 226; taken from the Turkish historian Aali and referring to the time of Mohammed II.
563 Postel, i. 123.
564 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 5.
565 Ibid. iii. 793.
566 The position of the Defterdars about the year 1800 is discussed in D’Ohsson, vii. 261 ff., and in Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 137 ff. Contemporary accounts are found in Menavino, 168; Ramberti, below, p. 247; Junis Bey, below, p. 265; Postel, iii. 66-70.
567 The word means primarily “book-keeper.” It is derived either from the Greek word διφθέρα or from a similar Persian word (Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 228). Ramberti (below, p. 247) mentions but two Defterdars, one who took care of the revenue from all the Asiatic provinces, Egypt, and the Danubian countries, and received ten thousand ducats a year, and perquisites, the other who took care of the revenue from the rest of the European dominions, received six thousand ducats and perquisites, and was governor of Constantinople in the sultan’s absence.
568 Spandugino, 98.
569 Junis Bey (below, p. 265) says that the Defterdars had 200 slaves each for their courts. Then he speaks of 50 scribes, each with 15 or 20 slaves, and of 25 secretaries who must have been the heads of the bureaus, and who had slaves. Next he mentions the two Rusnamehjis, who had 20 or 25 companions under them. Ramberti, 247, says that the first Defterdar had 1000 slaves in his household, and the second 500. Postel, iii. 69, mentions only one Rusnamehji, but clearly states that he is over the chiefs of the twenty-five bureaus.
570 D’Ohsson, vii. 264-273; Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 145-170.
571 It certainly was in 1660. Cf. Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 170.
572 D’Ohsson, vii. 265, omits the intendants of buildings and forage.
573 D’Ohsson, vii. 236.
574 Charges for the right to plant and transport tobacco were later assigned to the care of this bureau. See Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 156.
575 At a later date, when the expenses of the harem became greater, the customs duties of certain regions, the tobacco revenue from Syria and Arabia, and the tax on wool and yarn were also assigned to this bureau (ibid. 158).
576 Junis Bey (below, p. 266) and Postel, iii. 70, call this official Defterdar-emini. His department, in three bureaus, became a record office of land titles (D’Ohsson, vii. 193). It may have had this wider function in the sixteenth century.
577 Spandugino, 65, 119; Ramberti, below, pp. 244, 248.
578 Menavino, 182; Postel, iii. 70.
579 Ricaut, 103, Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 256, 271) say that the Beylerbey of Rumelia had 100 scribes.
580 Spandugino, 148; Postel, iii. 63.
581 This subject is treated in Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 478-483, and Staatsverfassung, 180-337; D’Ohsson, v. 15-37; and, as concerns the legal taxes, in Belin, La Propriété Foncière.
582 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 37 ff.
583 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 523, iii. 65.
584 Ibid. iii. 266. According to Heidborn, 339, the registering of the lands of the different regions of the Ottoman Empire, begun in 1548 by Suleiman’s order and completed after some 55 years, remains to the present time the basis of land titles in Turkey.
585 D’Ohsson, vii. 242.
586 Spandugino, 144. Postel, iii. 65, says that the tithes (apparently those revenues not sold in the lump or left for individual collection) were collected by Christian receivers (tous Chrestiens), who delivered them to the Kadis, and these to the Sanjak, he to the Beylerbey, and the Beylerbey to the Defterdars.
587 D’Ohsson, vii. 258.
588 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 471. It was a poll-tax of 15 aspers on each male inhabitant.
589 Spandugino, 57.
590 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 167, 592.
591 By Kanun of Mohammed II: Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 99.
592 Postel, iii. 68.
593 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 472.
594 Postel, iii. 70.
595 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 234.
596 Ibid. iii. 471.
597 La Broquière, 182; Ricaut, 404.
598 Ricaut, 404.
599 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 472.
600 See above, pp. 115, 116.
601 Postel, iii. 49.
602 Below, p. 273.
603 La Broquière, 182, estimated the sultan’s revenue in 1433 at 2,500,000 ducats. Chalcocondyles, 171, overestimated it at 8,000,000 ducats about the year 1465. Alvise Sagudino (quoted in Schéfer’s edition of Spandugino, p. lv) reckoned it in 1496 at 3,300,000 ducats; Andrea Gritti, father of Alvise, made it 5,000,000 in 1503 (ibid. lviii); Spandugino’s estimate, under Bayezid, was 3,600,000 (ibid. 132). Mocenigo, 54, set Selim I’s income at 3,130,000, besides 800,000 from the Persian conquests, all spent in Persia. Minio (1522), 71, estimated the revenue as 3,000,000. Zeno (1524), 95, called it 4,500,000, and the expenses 3,000,000. Bragadin (1526), 106, says that the treasury had an income of 12,000,000, of which the sultan took 4,500,000 (the larger amount would no doubt include the feudal income). Minio (1527), 115, states the income as 7,000,000. Zeno (1530), 121, gives 6,000,000 or more for the income, 4,000,000 for the expenses. Giovio (Commentaries, 73) sets the revenue at 6,000,000, and the expenses at 4,000,000 or 5,000,000. Postel, iii. 68, gives 4,000,000 on Alvise Gritti’s authority, though he apportions it differently from Junis Bey. D’Ohsson, vii. 258, says that Suleiman’s revenues rose to 26,000,000 piasters. At 40 aspers to the piaster and 50 aspers to the ducat, this gives about 20,000,000 ducats, which is far too much.
604 Navagero (1553), 37-39, estimates 7,166,000 ducats; Trevisano (1554), 149-150, says 8,196,000 ducats. Navagero seems to overestimate the mines (1,500,000 ducats) and the duties (1,200,000); Trevisano’s estimate of 2,000,000 from the animal tax seems unwarranted. Erizzo (1557), 130, claims to give an authentic statement of the sultan’s income and expenditure; the former he sets at 4,600,000 ducats and the latter at 3,600,000. A. Barbarigo (1558), 150, gives 7,740,000 ducats as income and 4,100,000 as expenditure. Donini, 190, says that after great efforts he knows most certainly that the income of the treasury for 1561 was 216,519,826 aspers, or 4,330,396 ducats and 26 soldi, and the expenditure 206,581,957 aspers, or 4,131,639 ducats and 7 soldi. He states that this income is less by 400,000 ducats than usual, because of the prohibition of wine. Erizzo does not include the tax on mines and salt works, and the income from Mesopotamia and the domain lands, in his list of sources of revenue; and Donini does not specify the sources. Bernardo, 347, says that the income in his time of service (1584-87) was 9,000,000 ducats, and that by 1592 it was 10,000,000. Knolles (ed. 1687, p. 982) estimates the sultan’s ordinary revenues about 1603 as 8,000,000. This does not, however, include confiscations, fines, tribute, customs, booty, etc., which Knolles (p. 983) believed to exceed the ordinary revenue. Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 170, gives official figures for a hundred years later (1660): the income of the treasury then was 600,000,000 aspers, or 11,000,000 to 12,000,000 ducats at sixteenth-century valuations; capitation was nearly 2,000,000, land tax about as much, mines 1,000,000, etc.
605 The extensive notes given above show clearly that from 1433 to 1660 there was a progressive increase in the sultan’s income, as measured in aspers or ducats. Brosch (in Cambridge Modern History, iii. 130) accuses Suleiman of raising by taxation double the amount exacted by Mohammed II, and thus bringing undue pressure to bear. This statement fails to take account of the fact that Suleiman’s empire was about double that of Mohammed II’s in area, population, and wealth. Also it seems to have been the case that the value of gold and silver fell greatly after the discovery of the American mines (Day, 135). If these effects were felt promptly in the Levant, Suleiman’s income in the last years of his life may have had little more purchasing power than Mohammed II’s. Distributed over a wider area, the pressure of taxation in his time may easily have been lighter than it was three generations before.
606 Postel, iii. 67, says that it does not include the timars. He says (iii. 168) that some call the total revenue 12,000,000 ducats, in which they must include the income of the fief-holders. Bragadin, 106, says that the income is 12,000,000. Ramberti (below, p. 261) estimates it at 15,000,000, of which 5,000,000 goes into the treasury and 10,000,000 remains for the “servants of war.”
607 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 472; and see above, p. 144 and note 2.
608 Accounts are given in D’Ohsson, vii. 159-172, and in Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 101-137. References to the Nishanji are found in Spandugino, 99; Menavino, 168; Ramberti, below, p. 248; Ludovisi, 14; Navagero, 94; Trevisano, 118; Garzoni, 430; Junis Bey (below, p. 266) and Postel, iii. 63, speak of a Teskereji-bashi, giving a description which applies exactly to the Nishanji as represented by contemporaries. Since the word means merely “chief of document-writers,” it refers without doubt to the Nishanji.
609 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 133.
610 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 54.
611 Postel, iii. 63. See also Ramberti, below, p. 248.
612 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 229, iii. 796. The first Reis Effendi whose name is known was Haider Effendi, executed in 1525 on the charge of promoting an uprising of the Janissaries. The office is mentioned in the Kanun-nameh of Mohammed II (Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 90).
613 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 126 ff.; Busbecq, Life and Letters, passim.
614 Ricaut, 57.
615 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 90.
616 Trevisano (1554), 118. Morosini (1585), 266, says that the employees of the chancery were then native Turks.
617 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 35.
618 Cahun, Introduction, 82, speaking of Turks of the steppe lands: “Dès qu’ils descendaient de cheval, c’étaient des barbares bureaucrates et paperassiers.”
619 Spandugino, 185.
620 The Divan, as it was about 1800, is described in D’Ohsson, vii. 211-232; and in Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 412-436. Contemporary references are Menavino, 169; Postel, i. 122; Navagero, 93; Trevisano, 117; Garzoni, 430. Zinkeisen, iii. 117-125, has pictured the Divan in the sixteenth century.
621 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 489. This is the first of the reasons given by Kochi Bey for the decline of the empire after Suleiman.
622 Postel, i. 123; Trevisano, 119; Garzoni, 431. D. Barbarigo, 32, gives an instance in which Suleiman made use of this means of information, and in consequence ordered the execution of the grand vizier Achmet.
623 Hammer (Staatsverwaltung, 412-436) gives them with great exactness.
624 In the time of Mohammed II a procession was formed by the members of the Divan, the men of the lowest rank in front, and the grand vizier last. On reaching the door of the hall, the lesser officials stopped and separated into two lines, between which the grand vizier advanced. The greater officials followed, so that the hall was entered in the order of rank. See Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 225.
625 From the Kanun of Mohammed II: Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 89. Aali (used by Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 225) gives a different arrangement, which can hardly have been correct.
626 Postel, i. 123.
627 Garzoni, 431.
628 Postel, i. 123.
629 Garzoni, 431.
630 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 89; Trevisano, 118-119.
631 Navagero, 98; D. Barbarigo, 26. See also above, p. 164 and note 3.
632 Postel, i. 123.
633 Trevisano, 120. See above, p. 164.
634 Zinkeisen, iii. 125; Tiepolo, 164.
635 Heidborn, 141: “Le divan était à la fois une sorte de Conseil d’État, où se discutaient les affaires politiques importantes, et une Cour suprême autorisée à évoquer tout litige devant elle et à connaître notamment des procès entre Ottomans et étrangers qui dépassaient la valeur de 3000 aspres.”
636 Although this and other features of the Moslem Institution will be spoken of throughout this chapter in the past tense, much that is mentioned remains in existence in Turkey at the present time. The vakfs are discussed at length in D’Ohsson, ii. 437-567; and more briefly in Belin, La Propriété Foncière, 74-104. Heidborn, 306 ff., gives a well-analyzed account; and on p. 306, note 245, he mentions additional authorities.
637 Ricaut, 213.
638 D’Ohsson, ii. 540.
639 Ricaut, 217. D’Ohsson, ii. 532, expresses a different opinion.
640 Interest was allowable on the funds belonging to mosques, though otherwise forbidden: Ricaut, 218; D’Ohsson, ii. 550.
641 See below, p. 234, note 1.
642 Ramberti, below, p. 243; Ricaut, 215.
643 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 237.
644 Ricaut, 215. In D’Ohsson’s time (ii. 538) it was estimated at 1,000,000 aspers. Nicolay, 68, says that it had been 300,000 ducats before the conquest.
645 Morosini, 267; Zane, 406; Heidborn, 309.
646 Mohammed II fixed these fees: for example, 7 aspers for sealing a document, 12 for a signature, 32 for the marriage contract of a virgin, 15 for that of a widow, etc. See Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 100.
647 D’Ohsson, iv. 599.
648 The Ulema and other members of the Moslem Institution are described in D’Ohsson, iv. 482-686. Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 372-412, gives a summary of D’Ohsson’s treatment. Heidborn, 208-210, describes the educational system summarily.
649 The ten studies were grammar, syntax, logic, metaphysics, philology, tropics, stylistics, rhetoric, geometry, and astronomy: Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 238.
650 Among these studies were advanced rhetoric and metaphysics, dogmatics, civil law, exegesis, jurisprudence, oral tradition, and written documents (Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 239). All schools above the mektebs came under the name medresseh. Heidborn distinguishes eight classes to which Suleiman added four colleges of yet higher degree. His implication (p. 210, note 5) that the student who aimed at the highest judgeships must study through eight or more medressehs, and then teach through a like series, can hardly be correct, since the ordinary human life would be too short for such a double round. Probably the steps of progress were not so precisely regulated or so numerous.
651 D’Ohsson, ii. 464.
652 Hammer (Geschichte, ix. 145-163) found 275 in Constantinople alone, of which 50 had been founded before the death of Suleiman.
653 Chalcocondyles, 53; Ramberti, below, p. 244; Junis Bey, below, p. 265; etc.
654 D’Ohsson, ii. 477; Heidborn, 213.
655 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 236: “The priesthood proper... is perhaps in no other state of less influence, but the teaching body is in no other kingdom (except China) of greater weight and political importance.”
656 Ricaut, 211.
657 Spandugino, 219; Menavino, 72 ff.; Nicolay, 121. Ricaut, 261 ff., knew eight or ten orders, which he describes at some length.
658 Hammer, Geschichte, i. 154, ii. 357, iii. 67; Postel, i. 112.
659 Heidborn, 269-274.
660 Ricaut, 201.
661 In Ricaut’s time (p. 204) one of the Kaziaskers was regularly chosen for this position.
662 D’Ohsson, iv. 500. Heidborn, 215, says that the title Sheik ul-Islam was first bestowed by Murad II upon the mufti of Adrianople, who was removed to Constantinople by Mohammed II after the capture; that Mohammed assigned the title Reis ul-ulema, or chief of the Ulema, to this officer, but that he reached great dignity only under Suleiman.
663 Spandugino, 113.
664 Postel, i. 118.
665 Spandugino, 112.
666 La Broquière, 181; Ramberti, below, p. 247; Geuffroy, 241; Trevisano, 122; Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 116; Bernardo, 364.
667 Heidborn, 216.
668 Ricaut, 200-202.
669 Hammer, Geschichte, ii. 401.
670 Ibid. 536 ff.; Heidborn, 215, note 16.
671 D’Ohsson, v. 104 ff.
672 See Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 278 ff.; and Appendix III below. Heidborn, 215, contributes further details as to the great Mufti’s advance in the cursus honorum of the Moslem Institution. He shows that he began his legal studies at 27 years of age, continued them until his 45th year, was made Kazi of Brusa, then of Constantinople, and in his 50th year (944 A.H.) Mufti. The last statement seems to be erroneous; for Hammer (as above) says that he became Mufti in 952 (1545 A. D.), after eight years’ service as Kaziasker. Probably, then, he was made Kaziasker in 944 and Mufti in 952. After thirty years in that eminent position, he died in 982 (1574).
673 Busbecq, Life and Letters, i. 116-117.
674 Ricaut, 202.
675 This description, based on D’Ohsson’s account, may represent at some points a development later than the time of Suleiman. No sixteenth-century writer seems to have gone into the organization of the system in detail. Heidborn, 220 ff., treats with fulness the past and present judicial system of the Ottoman Empire.
676 Hammer, Staatsverwaltung, 380.
677 Postel, i. 117.
678 The Subashis in particular were closely connected with the administration of justice. Postel, i. 120, says loosely that Pasha, Kazi, and Subashi all mean the same thing. Chesneau, 47, says that the sultan had two judges in every city, a Kazi for civil cases and a Subashi for criminal cases. This is certainly incorrect, for the Sacred Law provided for many criminal cases, while Kanuns dealt with many civil cases. The Sanjak Beys and Beylerbeys held Divans, or councils, resembling on a lesser scale the sultan’s Divan (Heidborn, 143, note 17); following the analogy of the Kaziaskers, the Kazi of the city in which each such officer resided would sit in his Divan and decide the cases that came up touching the Sacred Law, and would also hold independent court at other times. In cities of lesser importance, the Kazis appear to have been the heads of the restricted municipal governments (ibid., note 16).
679 A scheme of the higher offices in the judicial system in the early nineteenth century is given in Hammer’s Geschichte, ix. 1-10.
680 Kazi is the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic word kadi, judge; Molla is the Turkish form of the Arabic word maulā, lord.
681 Junis Bey (below, p. 265) and Postel, i. 119, state that the Kaziaskers nominated all Kazis. Junis Bey says: “Two Cadilescher talismans, one of Greece and the other of Natolia or Asia, and they each have revenues of 6 or 7 thousand ducats a year: who are executors of their law... it is they who appoint the Kadis or podestas of all the lands of the Seigneur.” Ramberti (below, p. 247) and Nicolay, 119, say that the consent of the pashas was necessary also.
682 Ricaut, 205.
683 Hammer (as above, p. 216, note 4) gives a list of 39 judges of rank above the Kazis proper, and 243 Kazis of Rumelia, 280 of Anatolia, and 34 of Egypt. The total is thus 557 Kazis proper, and 596 judges in all. In the subsequent list of 247 positions in Rumelia as rearranged under Mahmûd II, five places in the Crimea are mentioned as seats of Kazis in partibus, but neither list appears to mention any in North Africa.
684 Spandugino, 188; Postel, i. 127.
685 Spandugino, 213; D’Ohsson, vi. 333.
686 Postel, i. 126. This officer is called by Postel Mortasi.
687 Menavino, 66; Spandugino, 211.
688 Postel, i. 120, 124; Nicolay, 119. There was no regular organization of the procedure of appeal; nevertheless it was allowed (Heidborn, 389).
689 Hammer, Staatsverfassung, 100. See above, p. 203, note 1.
690 See above, p. 116.
691 Spandugino, 211.
692 Ibid.
693 The Arabic words kadi al asker signify judge of the army. In the sixteenth century the pronunciation seems to have been kadi l’esker; nowadays it is kazi asker. The burdensome duty of holding court continually is mentioned in Spandugino, 96; D’Ohsson, iv. 581.
694 Postel, i. 123. Heidborn, 141-143, note 15, quotes from Ypsilanti an interesting description of a session of the grand vizier’s court.
695 Postel, i. 127, iii. 8.
696 Ibid. iii. 9.
697 Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 11.
698 Ibid. 61.
699 Ricaut, 3.
700 Garzoni, 430. See also Morosini, 273.
701 Postel, i. 124. Matters were distinctly worse in Ricaut’s time (pp. 140-141).
702 Spandugino, 114.
703 It has been suggested (Morosini, 273) that the promptness of justice had a connection with the early military character of the Moslems.
704 Spandugino, 211, 255.
705 Postel, i. 127, iii. 87.
706 Ibid. i. 117.
707 Ibid.
708 The use of cannon is perhaps the most conspicuous example.
709 Halil Ganem, i. 201.
710 Spandugino, 207: “And the Turkish lords generally, as well great as small, study only to build churches and hospitals and to enrich and make hostelries for lodging travelers, to improve the roads, to build bridges, to construct baths, and several other charitable works which they do in such a way that I suppose the Turkish lords are beyond comparison greater alms-givers than our Christian lords; and in proportion as they have good zeal, they use great hospitality. They voluntarily lodge Christian, Turk, and Jew alike.” See also Morosini, 270.
711 He built seven mosques (Hammer, Geschichte, iii. 456), four colleges at Mecca (ibid. 459), four colleges around the Suleimanieh Mosque (ibid. 470), and endowed them all, etc.
712 See above, p. 150.
713 Ramberti came overland from Ragusa on his journey from Venice to Constantinople.
714 The writer seems not to have observed that these groves were cemeteries.
715 The writer evidently did not know that this Egyptian obelisk consists of a single stone. It actually rests on four bronze cubes.
716 This was the support of the tripod of the priestess at Delphi. The heads have been broken off, and are now in the treasury of the Old Seraglio at Constantinople.
717 This was overthrown at the downfall of Ibrahim in 1536.
718 This remarkable statement is probably the source of Nicolay’s similar idea (p. 77). The Danube is more than two hundred miles distant from Constantinople.
719 Rather, of the Sea of Marmora.
720 Marrani: Jews and Moors of Spain, baptized, but remaining true to their own religion.
721 This statement and the following one are certainly exaggerations.
722 Either the writer’s geographical knowledge or the text is in confusion. The description here, as well as that which follows, cannot be made to fit the map.
723 The boundary between Europe and Asia is now, of course, placed far to the east of the Don.
724 Compare Junis Bey, below, pp. 272, 273.
725 Michaloghli.
726 More accurately, Othman, beginning in 1299, ruled 27 years; Orchan, 33 years; Murad I, 30 years; Bayezid I, 13 years; Mohammed I (Chelebi) in undisputed rule 8 years, after 11 years of civil war; Murad II, 30 years; Mohammed II, 30 years; Bayezid II, 31 years; Selim, 8 years, until his death in 1520, when Suleiman came to the throne.
727 Celeby and Calepino are forms of Chelebi, the Gentleman, which was an appellation of Mohammed I; these three names, therefore, refer to the same person.
728 At this point the writer begins to follow the pamphlet of Junis Bey.
729 Seraglio Point is thrust out into the Bosphorus just before it meets the Sea of Marmora.
730 The land on which Mohammed’s palace was built had belonged to the church of St. Sophia under the Byzantine Empire. See above, p. 202.
731 Junis Bey speaks of eight youths, but names six, as below.
732 After Junis Bey. The word here is “Chiuchter.”
733 There were two treasurers of the household, bearing the same name. One labored within the palace, and one without. See above, p. 127.
734 There is confusion here. The Kapu Aghasi and the Seraidar-bashi were the same person. The chief of the gate is rightly called the Kapuji-bashi. Junis Bey shows similar confusion (below, p. 263). See above, p. 126; and Redhouse, 1435.
735 “Talismani.” See above, p. 205.
736 “Capoglano.” The derivation is faulty; the literal meaning is “gate-youth.”
737 “Gianizzerotti.” Junis Bey, below, p. 263, speaks of 400 gardeners, which is probably more nearly correct.
738 “Protogero.” Kiaya, or by transliteration Ketkhuda, is the Turkish word. See above, p. 96, note 4.
739 This should read “the Bostanji-bashi”: Junis Bey, 263.
740 The chief taster.
741 Junis Bey, 264, says five to six aspers each.
742 Intendant or steward of the kitchen.
743 The word translated “feudal income,” or “feudal grant,” is “timar.” See above, p. 100 ff.
744 This sentence was evidently inserted after the previous part of the paragraph had been written. See below, p. 255.
745 “Centola.”
746 This remark seems to contain a comparison between the relation of the pope to the Roman emperor and that of the Mufti to the sultan. Such a comparison would, however, be inexact. See above, p. 209.
747 “Cavalleria.” Junis Bey, below, p. 265, calls them cursori.
748 Junis Bey, 266, says 15 to 20 slaves each.
749 “Spezzate.”
750 That the other Chaushes were slaves not of the Chaush-bashi, but of the sultan, is shown by the amount of their pay. See Junis Bey’s testimony below, p. 265.
751 Junis Bey, below, p. 266, says that the Kiaya of the Janissaries has 300 ducats of feudal grant per year, which would equal about 15,000 aspers.
752 “Giannizzeriasis.”
753 “Livreri.”
754 “Bracchi.”
755 “Assareri.”
756 This Slavonic word seems to be used here simply in the sense of “army officers.”
757 “Immensi.”
758 This is an error. Probably the number intended is three hundred. Junis Bey, below, p. 267, gives two hundred and fifty.
759 Only two officers should be named here. The lieutenant (Protogero) and the Kiaya were the same. Junis Bey gives this correctly.
760 Under each Agha, or chief officer.
761 The Kiaya and the lieutenant are the same.
762 This derivation is from a secondary meaning; the primary meaning is “foreign youth.” See above, pp. 98, 99, note 1.
763 “Bracor-bashi.”
764 This should read “Kiaya and secretary.”
765 “Brene.”
766 This is the common report in Western writers as regards the Peiks. See Menavino, 155; Nicolay, 100.
767 Kiayas and secretaries.
768 This refers to those whom Junis Bey, below, p. 268, calls Zainogiler, a body of lancers, who are here erroneously classed with the falconers. Junis Bey’s figures are 20,000 in all, 1000 receiving pay in money. Are they the Voinaks (above, p. 131)?
769 Junis Bey, “cursor,” a messenger or porter.
770 Literally, “intendant of the town.”
771 Junis Bey says 57.
772 Usually called by Western writers “Dragoman.”
773 This was the “Old Palace” of Mohammed the Conqueror, and stood where the Seraskierat, or War Office now stands.
774 Suleiman is said to have been faithful to Roxelana after he had made her his wife. See above, p. 56.
775 This should read “per day.” Junis Bey, below, p. 269.
776 This should read 100,000: ibid.
777 Junis Bey, below, p. 270, says 200,000 per year.
778 At the meetings of the Divan.
779 This should read fifty each: Junis Bey, below, p. 271.
780 “Che fanno fattione.”
781 This should read “ten thousand”: Junis Bey, below, p. 272.
782 Of the Turkish possessions in Asia.
783 “Maldac.”
784 “Esdum.” Junis Bey, below, p. 272, has “exdrun.”
785 More correctly, Irak Ajam, north-central Persia.
786 Junis Bey, 273, counts these as two, and the whole number as thirty-six.
787 Herzegovina.
788 “Cangri.”
789 “Hallayce” or “Allaye.”
790 The ancient Magnesia.
791 The plain of Albistan.
792 “Alziden.”
793 Evidently the writer intended to fill these in, but failed to secure the names.
794 This amounts to about four million ducats a year.
795 The reference is, of course, to the feudal Spahis and their officers, who then received according to this estimate two-thirds of the revenues of the empire.
796 At this point the smaller type begins. See below, p. 315.
797 The object of this appendix is to set forth in outline the features of the Mogul government, in order to suggest comparison with that of the Ottoman Empire. Completeness neither of research nor of exposition has been attempted. A list of the authorities consulted, most of which are secondary, will be found at the end of the appendix.
798 Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Générale, vi. 879.
799 Leopold Ranke, The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires, Preface, 1.
800 The report at this page, though ascribed to Jacopo Soranzo, 1581, and so referred to in the foregoing footnotes, was really written in 1582 by some one in his suite.