Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480 to 1820 9781463230050

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Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480 to 1820

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

18

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480 to 1820

Suraiya Faroqhi

The Isis Press, Istanbul

preSS 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 1995 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

ISBN 978-1-61143-133-9

Reprinted from the 1995 Istanbul edition.

Printed in the United States of America

Born in 1941, Suraiya Haroqhi studied at the universities of Hamburg, Istanbul and Bloomington/lndiana. In 1971, she began to teach at Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She received the 'Üniversite Doçentligi' in 1980 and completed her 'Habilitation' at Ruhr-Universität, Bochum in 1982. In 1986 she became a professor at Middle East Technical University, and in 1988, she accepted a professorship at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. Her books include Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien (Vienna, Oriental Studies Institute, 1981). Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, publ. in Turkish as Osmanli'da Kentler ve Kentliler. Istanbul, Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, 1993, tr. by Neyyir Kalaycioglus Men of Modest Substance, House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth Century Ankara and Kayseri (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), Pilgrims and Sultans, the Hajj under the Ottomans (London, Tauris Press, 1994 to be published in Turkish by the Ekonomik ve Sosyal Tarih Vakfi, Istanbul, 1995, tr. by Giil Çagah Giiven) and Kultur und Alltag im Osmanischen Reich (Munich, C. H. Beck, scheduled for Sept. 1995). A selection of her articles came out as Peasants, Dervishes and Traders in the Ottoman Empire (London, Variorum, 1986) and apart from the present volume, a further selection of her articles has been published by the Isis Press under the title Coping with the State. Political Conflict and Crime in the Ottoman Empire (Istanbul, 1995).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.

Introduction

2.

"The Anatolian Town and its Place within the Administrative Structure of the Ottoman State (1500-1590)" in From Mantzikert to Lepanto, The Byzantine World and the Turks ¡071-1571, ed. Anthony Bryer and Michael Ursinus, Byzantinische Forschungen, XVI (1991), 209-244

25

"Towns, Agriculture and the State in Sixteenth Century Ottoman Anatolia", Jl. of the Economic and Social History of the Orient XXXII, 2 (1990), 125-156

53

"The Fieldglass and the Magnifying Lens: Ottoman studies of Crafts and Craftsmen", The Journal of European Economic History 20, 1 (1991), 29-57

77

"Ottoman Guilds in the late Eighteenth Century: The Bursa Case" (unpubl., 1995)

99

"Bursa at the Crossroads: Iranian Silk, European Competition and the Local Economy 1470-1700" in: Political Economies of the Ottoman, Safawid and Mughal Empires, vol. 2, ed. Tosun Aricanli, Ashraf Ghani and David Ludden (in preparation)

119

"Long-Term Change and the Ottoman Construction Site: A Study of Builders' Wages and Iron Prices," in Raiyyet Riisumu, Essays presented to Halil Inalcik on his Seventieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students, ed. Bernard Lewis, §inasi Tekin et alii, Journal of Turkish Studies, 10(1986), 111 -126.

155

8.

"Merchant Networks and Ottoman Craft Production (16-17th Centuries)" in The Proceedings of International Conference on Urbanism in Islam (ICUIT), 3 vols. (Tokyo, 1989), vol. 1, 85-132

175

9.

"The Business of Trade: Bursa Merchants in the 1480s". (unpubl., 1994)

199

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

7

6 10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

"Trade and Traders in 1660s iskenderun", New Perspectives on Turkey, 5-6 (19911, special issue on Ottoman trade, guest editor: S.Faroqhi, 107-123

223

"Red Sea Trade anil Communications as Observed by Evliya gelebi (1671 -72)". ibidem, 87-106

237

"Seventeenth Century Agricultural Crisis and the Art of Flute Playing" Turcica, XX (1988), 43-70

255

"A Great Foundation in Difficulties: Or some Evidence on Economic Contraction in the Ottoman Empire of the MidSeventeenth Century" in: Melanges Professeur Robert Mantran, ed. Abdelgelil Temimi (Zaghouan, C E R O M D I , 1988), 109-121

281

"Wealth and Power in the Land of Olives: the Economic and Political Activities of Muridoglu Haci Mehmed Aga, Notable of Edremit (died in or before 1823)", in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East ed. Qaglar Keyder and FarukTabak, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991 ),77-96

297

INTRODUCTION

Studies of O t t o m a n provincials, even t h o s e of the c o m p a r a t i v e l y neglected Anatolian regions, have quite a lengthy past in historiography*. A m o n g m a n y others, Inalcik's work on the activities of Ottoman merchants in Bursa and the Black Sea region, Barkan's study of the government's servitors active in and around Edirne, Akdag's monograph on the Celali rebellions and, in more recent years, the work of Donald Quataert, all share a concern with the provinces as opposed to the capital 1 . T h e men and women studied by Barkan were for the most part but moderately wealthy, on the fringes of the Ottoman elite properly speaking. M a n y of them could have been classed with the 'intermediate groups' studied in the present volume. A similar statement can be m a d e about the northern Anatolian merchants so prominently visible in inalcik's studies, w h o traded the textiles produced in their h o m e towns against hides, skins and butterfat from the regions to the north of the Black Sea. In this sense, the articles in the present volume f o r m part of an ongoing tradition of Ottoman provincial history. Y e t for an earlier generation of scholars, the study of n o n - p e a s a n t provincials usually w a s but a means to an end. Their primary concern might be with the f u n c t i o n i n g of the Ottoman state, the strength or w e a k n e s s of Ottoman merchants vis a vis their European counterparts, or the challenges inherent in the late sixteenth century 'price revolution'. In the perspective of these scholars, merchants might be regarded through the special lenses of the customs collector, w h o f u r n i s h e d most of the e v i d e n c e w e possess about them, and their contribution to the fisc seen as their m a i n justification for existence. T h e involvement of Ottoman officials in trade, or else the lack of such involvement, might constitute evidence for the 'commercially oriented 1 or

*

Many thanks to Christl C a t a n z a ' o for her help in preparing the index. While the articles in this volume have been entirely reset, and certain mistakes and inconsistencies of spelling etc. ironed out in the process, it has not been possible to adjust the f o r m a t in all cases. T h u s in most articles the references are given in full the first time they occur in the notes, and later in abbreviated versions. In a few texts however, variant f o r m a t s have been used. 1 beg the reader to cxcuse these inconsistencies. ' H a l i l Inalcik, "Bursa and the C o m m e r c e of the Levant," Journal of the Economic and Social History o] the Orient, III, 2 ( I 9 6 0 ) , 131-147. Halil Inalcik, "The Question of he Closing of the Black Sea under the O t t o m a n s " , Archeion Pontou, 35 (1979), 74-110. O m e r Lutfi Barkan, "Edirne Askeri Kassamj'na ait Tereke Defterleri (1545-1659), Beleeler III (1966), 1-479. Mustafa A k d a g , Celali Isyanlan 1550-1603 (Ankara, 1963). Donald Quataert, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change in the Ottoman Empire 1730-1914 (Istanbul, 1993).

8

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

alternatively the 'military-agrarian' character of the Ottoman state. 1 In certain instances, records concerning merchants and notables have been studied as 'indirect' evidence for broader historical change. Non-peasant provincials often possessed a degree of political leverage denied to mere villagers, even though m e m b e r s of the O t t o m a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n m i g h t be less than e a g e r to acknowledge the fact. A s a result of their intermediate position, merchants and minor notables often have provided us with valuable evidence concerning the socio-economic history of the Ottoman rural world. Such a concern with 'macro' developments also features in some of the articles here submitted to the reader, but it forms part of a somewhat different problématique. W e certainly will attempt to figure out what the behaviour of a minor notable f r o m the small rural town of Edremit can tell us about broader 'conjunctural' changes. But in addition, w e will try to d e t e r m i n e how this notable, or else a merchant or foundation administrator, reacted to the price increases, labour shortages or tax demands which made his life difficult. D u e to this manner of posing the question, several articles f o c u s on one, five or thirty individuals, w h o under the pressures of everyday life, added to or depleted a foundation, bought slaves or else changed over to free workers. Given the inclination of Ottoman historians to import paradigms f r o m m o r e established fields, this concern with 'the individual acting within a structure' is p r e s u m a b l y connected with recent c h a n g e s in early m o d e r n European historiography. Since the end of World War II, social and economic historians have concentrated on the interaction of slowly-changing, and where the rural world was concerned, near-immobile structures on the one hand, and fast-moving conjunctures or the other. 2 T o mention one well-studied example, the late sixteenth-century French wars of religion caused a drastic decline in the e c o n o m i c activity of Lyon. Structural advantages such as Lyon's location at the juncture of Rhone, Saone and a much frequented portage road to the Loire basin were nullified by warfare in the countryside and occupations by Calvinist and Catholic forces. W h e n a masterful historian such as Richard Gascon dealt with the history of this city, his concern with 'macro' developments did not exclude attention to the 'micro' history of individual merchants, craftsmen or nobles. 3 But the linkage between structure and conjuncture often was so strong as to hold people within an iron cage: n o matter what any merchant or alderman might try to d o about it, the late sixteenth-century decline of Lyon was irreversible. ' T h i s issue has recently been discussed by Palmira Brummett, Ottoman Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany NY, 1994).

Seapower

and

Levantine

^Gilles Veinstein, "'Ayân' de la region d'lzmir et le c o m m e r c e du Levant (deuxième moitié du X V I I I e siècle" and "Le patrimoine foncier de Panayote Benakis, K o c a b a f i de Kalamata" both reprinted in État et société dans l'Empire Ottoman, XVl'-XVlll' siècle, La terre, la guerre, les communautés (London, 1994) as Nos. 1. and III. 3 Richard G a s c o n , Grand commerce (1520-1580), 2 vols (Paris, 1972!.

et vie urbaine

au XVIe

siècle:

Lyon

et ses

marchands

] N T R O D U C T I O

N

9

The Lyon example is so appropriate for our purposes not only because of certain similarities to Bursa, but because other scholars w o r k i n g on the s a m e city have approached it in quite a different manner. For Natalie Z e m o n Davis, Lyon was the city of printers' j o u r n e y m e n and w a g e struggles, which were conducted in a f r a m e w o r k of medieval-style group solidarities and yet at times remind us of nineteenth-century strikes. 1 She has also shown how the 'geography of the sacred' changed when Catholics replaced Protestants or viceversa. 2 And last not least, Natalie Davis' Lyon is a city of w o m e n ; sometimes acquiescent, they w e r e obstreperous at other times and d e v e l o p e d g r o u p solidarities of their own.-' Natalie Davis' work certainly does not invalidate the studies of Richard Gascon or Jean-François Bergier, nor was it intended to do s o . 4 H o w e v e r by investigating what we might call 'fine structures', such as the 'geography of the sacred' or the solidarities of women, she has inaugurated lines of research which lead us away f r o m the 'grand design' of e c o n o m i c history. M a n y of her studies are irrelevant to the overarching problématique of merchant capitalism, namely why capital was invested in certain regions and branches of activity, only to desert them after some time. Admittedly, Natalie Davis' work on the Lyon j o u r n e y m e n still is concerned with the location of a m a j o r industry, and thereby linked to the typical concerns of e c o n o m i c historians. B u t other researchers have gone further in what may be regarded as a separation of social f r o m e c o n o m i c history. A strong interest in 'marginals', w h o by definition have but a minor e c o n o m i c role to play, may also indicate a bifurcation of social and economic history, even though the concern with beggars, criminals, faith healers and 'street people' of course has other, more c o m p l e x reasons as well. 5

P E O P L E

W I T H I N

S T R U C T U R E S

Ottoman historians have not on the whole, gone so far as to separate economic f r o m social history. For practical purposes, this would

not have

' N a t a l i e Z e m o n Davis, "Grève et salut à L y o n " , transi, by M a r i e - N o e l l e B o u r g u e t in Les cultures du peuple, rituels, savoirs et résistances au 16e siècle (Paris, 1979), 15-39. ^ N a t a l i e Z e m o n Davis, "Das Heilige und der gesellschaftliche Körper, w i e widerstreitende Glaubensformen den städtischen Raum im Lyon des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts prägten," transi, by W o l f g a n g Kaiser, in Frauen und Gesellschaft am Beginn der Neuzeit (Berlin, 1986), 64-92. Davis. Frauen und Gesellschaß, passim. ^ J e a n - F r a n ç o i s Bergier, Genève et l'économie européenne de la Renaissance (Paris, 1963) contains a good account of how Lyon c a m e to supersede G e n e v a as a commercial centre. •'Concern with h u m a n beings — as opposed to the states and sociétés which exclude them — may also constitute a reason for the study of marginals. In this sense 1 would understand the books of Bronislaw Geremek:, Les marginaux parisiens aux XlVe et XVe siècles, transi, by Daniel Beauvois (Paris 1976) and La potence ou la pitié. L'Europe et les pauvres du Moyen Ai>e à nos jours, transi, by Joanna Arnold-Moricet (Paris, 1987).

10

VIAKING

A

L I V I N G

made much sense, since historians of Ottoman Anatolia and modern Turkey cannot simply brush aside the question why capitalism developed late, or if we use Wallersteinian terminology, the Ottoman economy entered the capitalist world system as part of the 'periphery' and not of the 'semi-periphery'. 1 Thus recent concern with social relations on the micro-level has encouraged historians to study, for example, the linkages between craftsmen, merchants and ulema. While at first glance such studies highlight social strategies such as marriage alliances, they also have demonstrated the economic consequences of social relationships. 2 At a more abstract level, Huri islamoglu-lnan has adapted Ester Boserup's model of economic change induced by population growth. 3 In the perspective of these two economists, peasants confronted wih population increase may respond in more creative ways than by cultivating ever more marginal soils. In many cases they may have the possibility of adopting more labour-intensive forms of cultivation, and of developing rural industries which only become profitable if labour is abundant. Since women often play an important role in rural industries such as the manufacture of reeled silk or angora thread, this economic model has the additional advantage of rescuing one half of the population from 'marginality'. At the same time, this model reflects a concern with the manner in which individuals coped with social, political and economic structures from which they could hardly escape. This concern has been quite notable in recent historiography, and should probably be related to the sea change in early modern European historiography outlined above. All the articles assembled in this volume share a common concern with the problems of survival in a harsh world, where droughts, food scarcities and the demands of campaigning armies and mutinous irregulars were everyday occurrences. The 'heroes' arc provincials, not necessarily poor people; but even a relatively well-to-do merchant who died in a Bursa khan far away from his family and friends, and with no more than the most essential clothes and implements in his baggage, also confronted the hardships of existence in a manner which it is difficult for us to visualize today. Small town notables had to cope with high tax demands on the part of the state and its servitors, which they tried to ward off by means of the kadi's court, and occasionally by running an importunate official out of town. Pilgrims to Mecca proceeded along insecure roads, while foundation administrators trying to maintain a ' Immanuel Wallerstein, Hale Decdeli and Re§at Kasaba, "The incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy" in Huri Islamoglu-lnan (ed.), The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy (Cambridge, Paris. 1987), 88-100. ^Amnon Cohen, Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1989), 11-60. % u r i Islamoglu-lnan, State and Peasant in the Ottoman Empire, Agrarian Power Relations and Regional Economic Development in Ottoman Anatolia during the Sixteenth Century (Leiden, 1994), 19-20.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

soup kitchen had to deal with harvest shortfalls. Craftsmen might be put out of a j o b because a change of trade routes transformed a lively t o w n into an economic backwater. Even for people of moderate wealth, life in early moder n Anatolia was full of difficulties. Our main concern will be with the 'intermediate groups' of town and c o u n t r y s i d e . T h e s e e n c o m p a s s m e r c h a n t s , low-level a d m i n i s t r a t o r s and occasional craftsmen, particularly those economically successful artisans w h o were able to provide credit to their customers, involve themselves in regional t r a d e , and

ultimately

establish

themselves

as m e r c h a n t s .

Low-level

administrators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were no strangers l.o the world of c o m m e r c e either. T h e recognized manner of becoming an ayan, a well-to-do personage w h o m the Ottoman government in the second half of the eighteenth century recognized as the spokesman of his district, was to secure an office as tax collector. Marketing the grains or cottons they had collected as taxes, the most successful of these dignitaries were able to establish dynasties which held on to power for several generations. 1 T h e p r e s e n t book rarely deals with p e a s a n t s , w h o are so poorly d o c u m e n t e d that m a n y aspects of their lives only can be a p p r o a c h e d in an oblique m a n n e r . Peasants d o occur occasionally, when they paid d u e s or attempted to c i r c u m v e n t i h e m , visited the kadi's court or alienated their holdings. But they appear more as the indispensible backdrop to the activities we will discuss here, than as the central figures of our analysis. Even if they escaped the hardships of peasant life, m e m b e r s of the 'intermediate groups' were directly affected by what happened at the empire's rural base. W e will encounter pious f o u n d a t i o n s unable to function because their rural holdings no longer provided sufficient revenues. Provincial towns will concern us not merely because they had roles to play in regional or even interregional trade, but because they served as collecting points for the grains levied as taxes upon the surrounding countryside. Harvest shortfalls thus had serious effects upon the urban population. Villagers spun and w o v e on behalf of merchants, and in consequence, the flight of peasants disrupted markets. Therefore the activities of tnese 'intermediate groups' provide a mirror, which, albeit with some distortion, reflects the fate of the local peasantry as well. T h e present volume brings together articles written or published during the last ten years, s p a n n i n g a period of three and a half centuries. T h e sixteenth and seventeenth centuries receive special e m p h a s i s , ten out of thirteen articles dealing with this period. But f r o m this base, which possibly

'Halil Inalcik, "Military and fiscal transformation in the Ottoman Empire 1600-1700" reprinted in H. Inalcik, Studies in Ottoman Vociai and Economic History (London, 1985), No. V.

12

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

due to an exaggerated self-confidence, I have come to regard as relatively secure territory, two forays into less studied periods have been undertaken. O n e article deals with merchant networks in late fifteenth-century Bursa, the survival of a body of kadi registers and estate inventories f r o m this period permitting modest attempts at quantification. T w o other studies concern themselves with the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. T h e s e decades one might regard as the last years of the Ottoman Ancien Régime, before incorporation into the capitalist world e c o n o m y with its political, social and cultural corrollaries profoundly changed the lives of Ottoman subjects.

TOWNS

AND

THH

STATE

Given the constant presence of Ottoman state power on the horizon of its subjects' lives, it makes sense to begin with the political f r a m e w o r k into which towns and villages were integrated. Settlements predating the Ottoman c o n q u e s t b e c a m e part of administrative divisions such as s u b - p r o v i n c e s (sancak),

judicial districts ( k a z a ) or sub-districts ( n a h i y e , the latter o f t e n

imperfectly differentiated f r o m the district in the sixteenth century). In a sparsely inhabited environment, any settlement of s o m e i m p o r t a n c e would probably be made at least a district centre. In the first t w o articles, w e will e x p l o r e the i m p a c t of O t t o m a n administrators upon town d e v e l o p m e n t . Quite a few parameters g o v e r n i n g t o w n life were determined by rulers and o f f i c i a l s . A p a r t f r o m d e c i s i o n s concerning central places and the limits of provinces and districts, Sultans, p r i n c e s a n d high-level o f f i c i a l s o r d e r e d t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of

mosques,

theological schools, or soup kitchens. Less elevated personages, with power on the local level only, might content t h e m s e l v e s with the f o u n d a t i o n of dervish convents, some of which were of rather modest size and income. T h a t these establishments

made possible the reconstruction

of

abandoned

settlements and the growth of villages into towns, has been well studied by scholars of a previous generation and does not need to be repeated here. 1 But the issue is broader than the mere construction of administrative hierarchies, provincial boundaries and public buildings. If the latter institutions can be regarded as the anatomy of a region, it is also important, if the reader will pardon the biologistic metaphor, to study the physiology as well. In the two articles

presented

in this

section,

w e will

try to d e t e r m i n e

which

administrative activities led to the growth of markets and marketing, even t h o u g h in the a b s e n c e of policy s t a t e m e n t s on t h e part of sixteentli or seventeenth-century administrators, our c o n c l u s i o n s are a l w a y s s o m e w h a t hypothetical.

' ó m e r Lütfi Barkan, "§ehirlcrin Te§ekkül ve Ínki§afi Tarihi B a k i m i n d a n O s m a n h Imparatorlugunda Imaret Sitelerinin Kurulu§ ve l§leyi§ Tarzina ait Ara§tirmalar", Istanbul Üniversitesi Iktisat FakUltesi Mermuasi, 23, 1-2 (1962-63), 239-296.

INTRODUCTION

13

S o m e district centres might start out as villages, and turn into small t o w n s as the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a p p a r a t u s present in such a place, h o w e v e r rudimentary, generated marketing and artisan activities. Timar-ho\ders

received

significant shares of their allotments in grain, and needed to sell part of their wheat and barley to pay for textiles, weapons and horses. Administrators of crown lands and pious foundations were even more dependent on the market, as their employers were often located in the capital and required money, not loads of grain m a d e impossibly e x p e n s i v e d u e to overland transport. But customers could only e m e r g e if the settlement could generate a d e m a n d for part-time or even full-time artisans' services; after all, the latter did not grow all of their own f o o d and had access to small amounts of cash. On the other hand, administrators, due to their links with the more highly monetized upper levels of Ottoman e c o n o m y and society, might be in a position to inject a crucial supply of cash into the local economy, which allowed the emergence of an embryonic urban life.

ARTISANS'

WORLDS

Provincial t o w n s m e n lived on a c o m b i n a t i o n of c r a f t s , trade arid agriculture, and the outline of this collection of articles has been set out accordingly. Four articles deal with the lives of artisans and craft guilds. 'The fieldglass and the m a g n i f y i n g lens' is a s u m m a r y of research on O t t o m a n c r a f t s p u b l i s h e d d o w n to the year 1990, w h i c h e m p h a s i z e s the need to supplement 'macro' studies on the fate of the Bursa silk m a n u f a c t u r e or the woollen industry of Salonica, by research into the behaviour of individual craftsmen or craft guilds. A s accounts of individual businesses are very rare b e f o r e the beginning of the nineteenth century, this micro-level approach forces the researcher to concentrate on social mechanisms, which on the whole are better d o c u m e n t e d than the e c o n o m i c side of c r a f t activity. H o w did g u i l d s m e n respond to financial pressures on the part of the f o u n d a t i o n administrators w h o so often constituted their landlords? Did guilds survive only in small-scale, declining industries without access to an interregional market, or did successful producers gain control of certain guilds, turning them into something resembling employers' organisations? 1 Is there any evidence of a p p r e n t i c e s and w o r k m e n reacting to their s u b j e c t i o n by the m a s t e r s ? Responses to these questions often remain tentative, but at least, research into them has begun.

' N i k o l a y T o d o r o v , " 1 9 u n c u Yiizyilin Ilk Y a r i s m d a B u l g a r i s t a n Esnaf T e § k i l a t i n d a Bazi Karakter Degi§meleri", Istanbul Oniversitesi íktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi, 27, 1-2 (1967-68),

14

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

M e c h a n i s m s of internal s e l f - r e g u l a t i o n on the part of

Ottoman

guildsmen have attracted the attention of O t t o m a n i s t historians, partly in response to the fact that state regulation has been falling f r o m f a v o u r in the contemporary world. Thus Miibahat Kutukoglu, in an article which I w a s able to locate only after 'The fieldglass and the m a g n i f y i n g lens' had first been published, has provided a c o m p r e h e n s i v e overview over the behaviour of guildsmen in mid-eighteenth-century Istanbul. 1 Her article emphasizes above all the continuity of behaviour patterns f r o m the sixteenth or seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century Guildsmen attempted to limit competition a m o n g their m e m b e r s and o f t e n determined the n u m b e r of looms a master m i g h t operate. They also regulated the conditions of apprenticeship and access to raw materials, and enforced decisions in a manner which changed little over the centuries. At first, persuasion of an errant colleague was attempted, and where it succeeded, w e h a v e no further information about the matter. B u t if the artisan in question refused to listen to the admonitions of his colleagues, the latter complained to the kadi, though it is hard to say how effective some of these complaints were. But within this pattern of regulation and conflict resolution, familiar to readers of inalcik's study of sixteenth-century Bursa c r a f t s m e n , s o m e novel features also can be discerned. 2 They particularly concern the gedik. This term covered the implements and raw material stocks needed to pursue a given craft, and which, as Engin Akarli has shown, in the course of the eighteenth century increasingly became attached to a given shop. 3 Without such a gedik, even a fully trained master craftsman w a s not permitted to start his o w n business. T h u s there must have been a n u m b e r of artisans who, due to their poverty and lack of the requisite f a m i l y connections, w e r e unable to attain e c o n o m i c independence. T h e s e men needed to work for other masters, even if they had fulfilled all the technical requirements for mastership. W e d o not know whether the solution to the frustrations of d e p e n d e n t artisans which inalcik has observed in sixteenth-century Bursa w a s open to eighteenth-century Istanbullus as well. In sixteenth-century Bursa, c r a f t s m e n unable to set up shop in the city centre had migrated to hitherto undeveloped sites on the outskirts of the city. 4 On the f a c e of it, the Istanbul region should have offered opportunities of this kind as well. For in the eighteenth century, the periodic migration of the Sultan's court to Be§ikta§, and the construction ' M i i b a h a t K u t u k o g l u , " O s m a n l i H s n a f i n d a O t o - K o n t r o l Miiessesesi" in Ahilik ve Esnaf, Konferansiar ve Seminer, Melinh'i Tartqmalar (Istanbul, 1986), pp. 55-86. ^Halil Inalcik, "Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire", The Journal of Economic History, X I X (1969), 97-140. ^ E n g i n Deniz Akarli, "Gedik'. Implements, Mastership, S h o p U s u f r u c t and M o n o p o l y a m o n g Istanbul Artisans, 1750-1850", Wissenschaftskolleg Jahrbuch (1985-86, publ. Berlin 1987), 223232. 4 i n a l c i k , "Capital Formation", p 117.

INTRODUCTION

5

of palaces for imperial princesses and high-level dignitaries on the waterfront led to the partial urbanization of settlements both on the European and the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. 1 These newly developing townships should have provided opportunities for those craftsmen unable to acquire a gedik in the older parts of the city. Maybe the relative quiescence of Istanbul workmen can be explained in this manner. The study of eighteenth-century Bursa guilds presented here completes the work of Akarh and Kiitiikoglu, While Akarli has concentrated on the d e v e l o p m e n t of the gedik concept and Kiitiikoglu has surveyed the autoregulative mechanisms at the disposal of Istanbul guildsmen, I have focused on a relatively unknown aspect of artisan organization, namely the guild-sponsored foundation. In the 1920s, the existence of such foundations in Istanbul had been pointed out by Osman Nuri Ergin, and forty years later, Robert Mantran assumed, on the basis of Ergin's data and without citing additional evidence, that similar f o u n d a t i o n s must have existed in the seventeenth century as well. 2 From the foundation registers of eighteenthcentury Bursa, we find that guild sponsored-foundations were quite widespread in the latter city als well; about forty guilds had established such foundations by this time. Given the paucity of references to these institutions in the foundation registers of the seventeenth century, it is not very likely that they had existed as long as there were guilds. It is more probable that this type of foundation was developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in response to the multiple economic and fiscal crises of those times. Moreover they strongly resembled the foundations which, in Istanbul and in major Anatolian cities, were set up in the seventeenth century to help the inhabitants of certain town quarters pay their taxes. Guild f o u n d a t i o n s presumably imitated this well-established model. It is a useful hypothesis to assume that the guild foundations, with their loan funds and the financial aid they supplied to beleaguered taxpayers, were intended as defensive mechanisms similar to the gedik. Only with their emphasis upon solidarity and communally eaten food, guild-sponsored foundations provided a positive counterpart to the generally negative and restrictive functions of the gedik. Moreover, with their provision of loans even to townspeople outside the guild, the guild foundations served as a means of integrating the craftsmen into the wider urban context. While O t t o m a n guilds might a t t e m p t to cushion their m e m b e r s f r o m the shocks of conjunctural fluctuations, recent comparative studies of European guilds make it seem likely that the effectiveness of artisan

' l ü i a y Artan, "Bogaziçi'nin Çehresini Degiçtiren Soylu Kadmlar v e Sultanefendi Sara-jlar,", Istanbul, 3 (1992), 109-118. 2

R o b e r t M a n t r a n , Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe institutionnelle, économique et sociale (Paris, Istanbul, 1962), p. 380.

siècle,

Essai

d'histoire

16

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

organizations in this respect was often quite limited. 1 Early modern European c r a f t s m e n w e r e at a d i s a d v a n t a g e c o m p a r e d to princes and p u t t i n g - o u t merchants, to say nothing of conjunctural crises due to wars or c h a n g e s in trade routes, O t t o m a n guildsmen also had f e w m e a n s of recourse against increases in the prices of raw materials, the competition of c h e a p imported goods and changes in fashion which limited their markets. A f a m o u s case in point is the decline of the Bursa silk m a n u f a c t u r e at the end of the sixteenth century and its reappearance in the course of the seventeenth. Q z a k s a has provided a convincing explanation for the difficulties of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. A profit s q u e e z e resulted f r o m the f a c t that European competitors and, to a lesser extent, Ottoman-Safavid wars drove up the prices of Iranian raw silk. At the s a m e time the financial crisis of those years pushed down the purchasing power of Ottoman officials w h o constituted the industry's principal customers. Manufacturers lost out because they were unable to pass on increasing costs, and a decline of the industry w a s the result. 2 However, H a i m Gerber has shown that in the seventeenth century the Bursa silk manufacture was again very much in evidence, and the same applies to the 1730s. 3 However, the artistic quality of the fabrics produced was now often lower, while the raw material employed n o longer c a m e f r o m Iran, but had been produced in the immediate surroundings of the city. In addition, the Bursa labour force now consisted of local poor people, and no longer largely of slaves, freedmen and f r e e d w o m e n as had been true in the past. I would argue that all these p h e n o m e n a are related. Slaves w h o had to be trained b e f o r e they could be of any use were not very e c o n o m i c as a workforce. This arrangement made sense only when population was small and profit margins high. Increasing population and decreasing profits led to a r e p l a c e m e n t of the slaves a n d - f r e e d p e o p l e w o r k f o r c e . This transition also explains why at the end of the sixteenth century, when silk m a n u f a c t u r e w a s in the throes of a m a j o r crisis, we also have evidence of labour shortages, a phenomenon which is otherwise inexplicable. For the most part, the i n c o m e s of O t t o m a n c r a f t s m e n and their fluctuations over time remain a c o m p l e t e mystery, a gap in our k n o w l e d g e that vitiates our understanding of the guildsmen's economic behaviour. I know of only o n e exception to this rule, n a m e l y the w a g e s paid to c r a f t s m e n e m p l o y e d on official building sites, such as m o s q u e s , theological schools or fortifications. Admittedl) the wages recorded in the accounts of such state-

'This is the upshot of a seminar on European guilds at the end of the eighteenth century, held in Halle/Saale in May 1995. (organizer: Heinz-Gerhard Haupt) ^Murat Cizak9a, "Price History and the Bursa Silk Industry: a Study in Ottoman Industrial Decline 1550-1650", The Journal of Economic History, XL, 3 (1980), 533-550. 3 Haim Gerber, Economy and Sot iety in an Ottoman City: Bursa 1600-1700 (Jerusalem, 1988), pp. 63ff„ 70.

I N T R O D

U C

17

H O N

sponsored projects were generally lower than even the wages promulgated by the local kadis, to say nothing of what especially skilled builders might receive, if they made an unofficial agreement with an important personage anxious to further a particular building project. But on the other hand, statesponsored projects were common enough that a significant number of construction artisans must have received these administratively imposed wages for at least a certain period of their lives. From the late sixteenth-century accounts, we can read off construction workers' attempts to get their wages adjusted to currency devaluation and resultant inflation. Similar to other such situations the world over, builders were not overly successful; and in spite of refusals to work and other attempts to put pressure on the authorities, wages tended to limp behind prices. Only in outlying areas such as the city of Mosul building craftsmen may have possessed somewhat more room for manoevre; for in 1635, the central government did not know what the locally current wage rates were, and authorized administrators on the spot to pay building craftsmen according to the going rates. 1

T R A D E

D I A S P O R A S ,

L E A D I N G

E M P O R I A

A N D

T H E

R O U T E S

T H E R E

It is typical of preiridustrial settings that the historian knows far more about commerce than about crafts, and Ottoman society was no exception to this rule. At least we have by now succeeded in finding out more about local and interregional trade, and do not any more believe that the only commerce that counted was the trade conducted by European merchants. However we still know far more about Ottoman trade relations with the West than about the equally significant importation of fine cottons, dyestuffs and other Indian products that made eighteenth-century Cairo into a major emporium. 2 In the first article of this section, the terms 'merchant diaspora' and 'emporium' have been introduced into the field of Ottoman history in order to make sense of what we know about sixteenth and seventeenth-century trade. The first of these terms has been derived from the work of Philip Curtin, who in turn has been inspired by anthropological work on trade in non-state societies, particularly Africa and Latin America. 3 Merchants forming part of

' R h o a d s M u r p h e y , "The C o n s t i u c t i o n of a Fortress at Mosul in 1631: A C a s e Study of an Important Facet of O t t o m a n Military Expenditure" in Tiirkiye'nin Sosyal ve Ekonomik Tarihi ¡071-1920)... eds. O s m a n Okyar and Halil Inalcik (Ankara,' 1980), 163-177. Halil Inalcik, "Osmanli P a m u k l u P a z a n , Hindistan ve Ingiltere: Pazar R e k a b e t i n d e E m e k Maliyetinin Rolii", ODTÜ Gelqme Dergisi (1979-1980 özei sayisi), 1-67. 3

P h i l i p Curtin, Cross-cultural

Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984).

18

MAKING

A

LIVING

merchant diasporas are typically strangers to the society in which they operate, profit f r o m the social cohesion which their shared religious or ethnic background gives them, and contribute to the e v e n i n g - o u t of cultural differences between the host society and their society of origin. In the end, the most successful mediators will work themselves out of a job, and the relevant diasporas disappear, either by assimilation into the host society or by emigration. Such networks also operate in state-dominated societies, both preindustrial and industrial. In the Ottoman Empire, we observe the activities of several merchant diasporas originating outside the Sultan's territories. A m o n g these, one might name the New Julfan Armenians who, often in the service of the Shah, imported silk into Aleppo. Other significant merchant diasporas consisted of the Indian merchants occasionally recorded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Venetian, French and English traders backed up by the power of relatively strong early modern states 1 . But certain merchant diasporas originated within the Ottoman state as well, such as the Istanbullus and B o s n i a n s w h o did business in V e n i c e a r o u n d 1600, and their contemporaries, the Ottoman-based Jewish traders active in Italy and e l s e w h e r e 2 . Thus it seems worthwhile to explore the functioning of these commercial networks. By comparing them with the merchant diasporas studied by Curtin, I hope to contribute toward an incipient dialogue between Ottomanists and historians in other fields. The term 'emporium' has been first developed by Karl Polanyi and his school, but for our purposes, the use of the term by K.N. Chaudhuri is even more relevant. 3 Chaudhuri has studied the Indian Ocean as an economic entity, and regards the impact of Islam as a cultural system as one of the m a j o r factors in the region's history. He therefore focuses particularly on the activities of Muslim merchants. In the context of Chaudhuri's work emporia are commercial settlements usually but not always port cities, through which imported goods are distributed over a wide hinterland; very often members of merchant diasporas will seUle in these localities. Now the Ottoman Empire arrived in the Indian Ocean world at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and staked hegemonic claims in this region for about a hundred years. But even after the Yemen had regained its independence in the 1630s, and Ottoman

' O n the merchants of New D j u l l a compare the as yet unpublished O x f o r d doctoral thesis by E d m u n d Herzig, "The A r m e n i a n M e r c h a n t s of new Julfa, I s f a h a n : A Study in P r e - m o d e r n Asian Trade" (Oxford, 1991). On the Indian merchants, compare Inalcik, "Pamuklu Pazari", on the European merchants in Istanbul: Mantran, Istanbul, pp. 515-584. ^ C e m a l K a f a d a r , "A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian M u s l i m M e r c h a n t s T r a d i n g in the Serenissima", in Raiyyet Rüsünut, 'issavs presented to Haiti Inalcik lournal of Turkish Studies, 1 0 ( 1 9 8 6 ) , 191-219. 3

K . N . C h a u d h u r i , Trade and Civilization Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge. 1985).

in the Indian

Ocean,

An Economic

History from

the

19

1 N T R O D U C T I O N

political involvement had largely receded f r o m the coastal regions of the Indian Ocean, the Sultans continued to control emporia such as Cairo, .Jiddah and B a s r a . In spite of their rather eccentric locations, these cities w e r e frequently visited by Indian Ocean merchants of the seventeenth century. T h e f o l l o w i n g three articles all deal in o n e w a y or a n o t h e r with emporia. This topic includes the roads leading to A l e p p o or Jiddah, as well as the l a n d i n g stages f r o m w h i c h g o o d s w e r e transported to these m a j o r commercial cities. Roads and landing stages were indispensable to the trader, though often very modest in physical appearance, and must be regarded as important preconditions foi the functioning of even the grandest emporia. W e will begin with Bursa, a city that in the late f i f t e e n t h and early sixteenth centuries served as an e m p o r i u m for both Istanbul and western Anatolia. ' T h e business of trade', which deals with this period, follows in the footsteps of Halil Inalcik and Halil Sahillioglu, w h o both h a v e brought the ' e m p o r i u m ' phase of B u r s a ' s history to our attention. 1 Probate

inventories

constitute the basis of the present study, fascinating snapshots of personal fortunes at the m o m e n t in which these accumulations of wealth were frozen due to the deaths of their owners. With the aid of this material, it is possible to tentatively reconstruct the use certain wealthy merchants m a d e of their fortunes. This involves the extent to which they invested in the inventories of their shops, in slaves or in m o n e y lent out to business partners. In s o m e cases, debts were owed because the purchaser needed to sell at least part of the consignment j u s t acquired before he was able to pay his suppliers. But the most astute and successful traders may ultimately have been able to transform some of the debts o w e d to them into political advantage. Here the sources permit us to reconstruct certain decisions of individual traders, tentative though this reconstruction is bound to be. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of the m a j o r emporia of the O t t o m a n E m p i r e w a s A l e p p o . T h i s city had already played a m a j o r commercial role b e f o r e 1516, when Selim I. conquered the city f r o m the M a m l u k s . B u t the integration into a vast e m p i r e probably b r o u g h t new opportunities to Aleppine traders 2 . A l e p p o was visited by Indian merchants arriving overland f r o m Basra. W e k n o w that the city f u n c t i o n e d as an e m p o r i u m distributing Indian textiles to Anatolia, as by the eighteenth century, the country north of A l e p p o was manufacturing very creditable

'Halil ¡nalcik, "Bursa and the Commerce of the Levant", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, III, 2 ( N 6 0 ) , 131-147. Halil Sahillioglu, "Slaves in the Social and Economic Life of Bursa in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries", Turcica, XVII (1985), 43112.

2

André Raymond, "La conquêti; ottomane et le développement des grandes villes arabes", Revue de "Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, XXVII (1979), 115-134.

20

MAKING

A L I V I N (Ï

imitations of Indian printed c o t t o n s ' . A l e p p o also constituted one ouf the centres of the Iranian silk trade, with raw silk sold to European purchasers and doubtless to some Syrian traders as well. In addition Antoine Abdel Nour has drawn our attention to the thriving local and regional trade concentrated in the c i t y 2 . Even though these latter activities are not usually considered to f o r m part of Aleppo's role as an e m p o r i u m , they underwrote the prosperity of the city down to the beginning of the eighteenth century. But as A l e p p o was located at a considerable distance f r o m the sea, the city needed the services of port towns. O n e of them w a s iskenderun, today a flourishing city in its own right, but in the seventeenth century hampered by the insecurity of the inland roads and its own unhealthy climate. Chance has provided us with a register of ships arriving in the port in 1660-61, which, over a period of twelve months, lists the names of all ship captains who were subjects of the Sultan. In the case of foreigners, the scribe seems to h a v e capitulated before the problem of spelling, a n d they a r e listed merely by nationality. W e also f i n d a list of the goods f o r which the merchants paid dues; but due to the effects of civil war in France, and the Ottoman-Venetian war over Candia still in progress, c o m m e r c e in 1660-61 was much reduced. Even so w e gain an idea of the trade in raw silk, cotton thread and oak bark for tanning purposes which w a s conducted in iskenderun. M o r e o v e r we catch a f e w g l i m p s e s of the petty t r a d e r s w h o s c o u r e d villages and n o m a d e n c a m p m e n t s for beeswax and other products. A n d as an additional bonus, there is a detailed description of the buildings then existing on the site of i s k e n d e r u n ; since the few permanent inhabitants at this time were all nonMuslims, cabarets were of special prominence. A n o t h e r e m p o r i u m of the s e v e n t e e n t h century w a s J i d d a h . Indian dyestuffs, spices and cottons were distributed through this port, in addition to Yemeni c o f f e e . Ottoman merchants often visited Jiddah in conjunction with the pilgrimage to Mecca, where the fair of M i n a may be regarded as a shortterm e m p o r i u m as well. But the pilgrimage w a s not only a religious duty, a source of spiritual growth and an opportunity f o r trade. It also provided an opportunity to see the Red Sea region, strange and exotic in the eyes of an educated Istanbullu. However, f e w a m o n g the numerous Ottoman pilgrimage guides have attempted to describe this world, except Evliya (Jelebi, the everc u r i o u s . C o n f r o n t e d with this n e w a n d d i f f e r e n t e n v i r o n m e n t , E v l i y a attempted things he had not often tried in other parts of his book, such as the description of landscape as opposed to cityscape. Coral reefs, ramshackle local boats and gigantic Indian ships transporting more than a thousand passengers are joined together into a half realistic, half phantastic picture.

^Katsumi Fukasavva, Toilerie w commerce du Levant, d'Alep à Marseille (Paris, Marseille, 1987). Antoine Abdel Nour, Introduction à l'histoire urbaine de la Syrie ottomane (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Beirut, 1982). 2

INTRODUCTION AGRICULTURAL

21

CRISIS

M e c c a w a s an unusual city f o r m a n y d i f f e r e n t reasons, and the e c o n o m i c historian will note a b o v e all that the city possessed a l m o s t no agricultural hinterland. But most Ottoman towns and cities, similar to their counterparts in other regions of the pre-industrial world, depended directly on the agricultural productivity of their hinterlands. T h e latter plummeted in the early seventeenth century, due to e n d e m i c banditry, and possibly climatic change as well. Foundation accounts provide evidence of what happened in individual

villages. Their testimony

is of special v a l u e s i n c e

pious

f o u n d a t i o n s possessed agricultural lands in perpetuity, and the historian t h e r e f o r e is not c o n f r o n t e d with the s h i f t i n g c o m b i n a t i o n s of individual r e v e n u e - p r o d u c i n g items (customs duties, agricultural taxes and the like) which make many taxfarming records so difficult to use. Both the foundation of M e v l a n a C e l a l e d d i n Rumi in K o n y a and the m o s q u e of M e h m e d the C o n q u e r o r ' s Grand Vizier M a h m u d Pa§a, reputed a saint after his execution, were major complexes with widespread holdings in various districts and even provinces. A drastic decline in their agricultural revenues therefore must be regarded as evidence of widespread crisis in Anatolian villages during the first fifty years of the seventeen :h century. F o u n d a t i o n - o w n e d villages produced f o r the market, but only to a limited extent; presumably the amount of taxes levied in cash determined the quantities of grain and other produce which peasants decided to sell. However, the accounts of Miiridoglu Haci M e h m e d A g a , a minor notable of Edremit (d. around 1823) show a more market-oriented economy: Mehmed A g a engaged in moneylending, and a b o v e all, produced olives and olive oil, presumably for the Istanbul market. There >s no evidence that he was also an exporter of olive oil at the time of his death, but it is quite possible that he had been involved in the export trade in earlier years. For when the wars between revolutionary France and the princes of Europe, and later the Napoleonic conflagrations, d r o v e u p the prices of f o o d s t u f f s t h r o u g h o u t the M e d i t e r r a n e a n

basin,

landholders within m a n a g e a b l e distance f r o m the sea exported grain and probably other comestibles as well.

THE

VICISSITUDES

OF

EXISTENCE

W e have c o m e to the end of our survey. It has us shown us some of the ways in which an Ottoman, and more particularly an Anatolian townsman might succeed in making a living. ' E k m e k aslan agzinda', as the saying goes (bread is in the mouth of a lion, that is, d i f f i c u l t to obtain). S o m e of the m o n o g r a p h s p r e s e n t e d here a l l o w us to i m a g i n e the m a n n e r in w h i c h large-scale economic crisis might affect the livelihoods of 'ordinary' people.

22

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

Guildsmen struggling to make ends meet in the market of eighteenth-century Bursa responded by obtaining monopolies w h e n e v e r they could get them, excluding fellow guildsmen against w h o m they bore grudges, and intensified social control over their colleagues. Others, and w e have seen that they were also represented in the business life of Bursa, attempted to cut costs by producing cheaper fabrics for a wider market, using locally-produced raw materials and a local labour force. From the w i s d o m of hindsight, this latter reaction appears much more productive. But it was feasible only under special circumstances, namely if an expanding market was in fact available for a somewhat cheaper product. It is unlikely that this road was open to m a n y of the artisans w h o f r o m the eighteenth century o n w a r d , felt the pressure of European competition, and in addition had to satisfy the revenue demands of a state periodically involved in long and destructive wars. Apart from the study on Bursa merchants of the 1490s, the trade-related articles in the present v o l u m e c o n c e n t r a t e on the later sixteenth and the seventeenth century. T h e s e were not, by any means, ' e a s y ' periods for an O t t o m a n b u s i n e s s m a n . But even so, c o m m e r c i a l n e t w o r k s a p p e a r m o r e e f f e c t i v e , and also m o r e resilient, than t h o s e upon w h i c h most artisans depended for their survival. To put it differently, most merchants seem to have been less vulnerable than most artisans. Certainly, some Ottoman merchants suffered seriously, such as the eighteenth-century Aleppines did when regional c o m m e r c e in the c i t y ' s hinterland and long-distance silk trade with Iran collapsed at almost the same time. But as the recent work of Daniel Panzac has shown, even during the already quite difficult years of the mid-eighteenth c e n t u r y , certain M u s l i m

Egyptian m e r c h a n t s m a n a g e d to c o n t i n u e in

business. 1 T r a d e r s could c h o o s e f r o m a greater n u m b e r of options than most artisans. T h e y could f r e i g h t c o m p e t i n g French, Italian or G r e e k - O t t o m a n ships according to circumstances, could invest in the putting-out business or purchase f r o m guildsmen. Some of them might even secure preferential access to raw materials. Certain traders could also establish business and familial links to servitors of the central administration, even though after 1695, the limitation of life-term tax f a r m i n g contracts to m e m b e r s of the O t t o m a n political class must have obstructed their business activities. 2 On the other hand, certain provincial administrators used the opportunities provided by their position for commercial gain. As yet relatively little is known about most of

'Daniel Panzac, "Affréteurs ottomans et capitaines français à Alexandrie: La caravane maritime en Méditerranée au milieu du XVIII e siècle", Revue de l'Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée, 34, 2 (1982), 23-38 ^Mehmet Genç, "Osmanli Maliyesinde Malikâne Sistemi", Turkiye Iktisat Tarihi Semineri Metinler/Tartiçmalar... ed. Osman Okyar, Unal Nalbantoglu (Ankara, 1975), p. 239.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

23

these state-related business activities 1 . But the survival of numerous personal account books in the Ottoman central archives, and the increasing interest in business deals connected with the Ottoman state apparatus should change this situation in the next few years. On the other hand, he villagers of Ottoman Anatolia appear to have found themselves in a most precarious situation. It is risky to m a k e overall j u d g e m e n t s at the present stage, as d o c u m e n a t i o n on the rural world is so much sparser than that concerning the towns. Particularly when the age of the sixteenth century tax registers is left behind, w e rarely find corpora of data for rural districts 2 . Eighteenth-century kadi registers and Vilayet A h k a m records for certain areas d o in principle allow the constitution of such corpora. But hundreds of d o c u m e n t s — and m a y b e over a thousand — h a v e to be sifted through b e f o r e a body of about a hundred usable d o c u m e n t s can be put together. A s in addition the potential of the Vilayet A h k a m registers is as yet little k n o w n , it is not surprising that scholars have shied a w a y f r o m the prodigious a m o u n t of work involved in putting together such collections of rural documentation for themselves. A s a result, present research into 'postclassical' rural society focuses on the activities of m a g n a t e s , the latters' exploitation of land and peasants and these p o w e r h o l d e r s ' o f t e n d i f f i c u l t relationships to the Ottoman central administration. Such an investigation has also been attempted in one of the contributions to the present v o l u m e . Or else, some historians have embarked on globalizing studies of the rural world, which are stimulating in terms of the conceptional f r a m e w o r k , but still need to be checked against findings on the micro-level. Where the vast majority of the Ottoman population is concerned, it has only occasionally been possible to realize my original ambition, namely to a n a l y z e the b e h a v i o u r of ' p e o p l e within s t r u c t u r e s ' . Certain

long-term

developments have been made visible enough: the pious foundations, which often constituted a potent mechanism for the siphoning off of rural wealth, the long-term crisis in the agriculture of central Anatolia triggered off by the Celali rebellions, and the constant reproduction of rural indebtedness. But peasant responses to these crises of the most part remain hypothetical. H o w did a family or a group of young men m a k e the decision to try their luck in Istanbul? What kind of support did family m e m b e r s and f o r m e r co-villagers already established in the Ottoman capital provide, and what were the 'success stories' that might stimulate migration? In the s a m e way, our understanding

' Metin Kunt, "Dervi§ M e h m e t Pa§a, Vezir and Entrepreneur: A Study in O t t o m a n PoliticalEconomic Theory and Practice", Turcica, IX, 1 (1977), 197-214. See also Brummett, Ottoman S e a p w e r , p. 175 i f .

^ S o m e t i m e s the kadi registers can be used. See Bruce M c Govvan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe, Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land lfi(X)-1800 (Cambridge, Paris, 1981), pp. 4'i79, 121-170.

24

MAKING

A

LIVING

of decision-making processes in agriculture is more or less non-existent, to say nothing o f the role of rural women. S o m e o f these questions may prove unanswerable, even with the added documentation now at our disposal. But rural, and even peasant society of the post-classical period during the next few years will hopefully turn into one o f the more fertile 'growth a r e a s ' o f Ottoman history.

THE ANATOLIAN TOWN AND ITS PLACE WITHIN THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF THE OTTOMAN STATE (1550-1590)*

Recent research concerning town life in different parts of the world has tended to show that towns cannot be studied outside of the social and political context of which they form a part. Thus researchers have mostly abandoned the idea that pre-industrial towns constituted largely autonomous entities, whose leading cadres came from a milieu that differed substantially from the local political elite regarded as a whole. Originally, assumptions concerning the gulf between city and countryside in the pre-industrial period had been formulated mainly by scholars whose principal field of study was northwestern Europe during the early Middle Ages. In this region, there existed a society whose mercantile towns did in fact differ substantially from a countryside in which rion-commercial relations predominated. 1 Even so, urban and rural sectors of society in Flanders or Germany are at present being described as pairt of one and the same social system, rather than as two separate and potentially hostile entities. However, when studying societies in which the contrasts are less obvious, the model of towns constituting separate enclaves within society as a whole appears even less applicable than in the case of medieval Europe. Opposition to the view of a distinctly urban society has been formulated in an extreme fashion by certain scholars who would altogether deny that the town is a valid unit of study 2 . One may choose not to go that far. Yet the study of societies in which towns were closely subordinate to the political elite dominating society at large, does demand a new approach. This approach is bound to differ from the concepts which, in spite of the objections that have been raised, do seem to have a certain limited validity for medieval Flanders or Germany. A system of categories relating to town-state relations, that distinguishes between autonomous, semi-dependent and dependent towns, was suggested a number of years ago by Traian Stoianovich. In this framework, Ottoman towns are classified as dependent or semi-dependent according to the period studied, and contrasted with the 'autonomous' entities that existed at *My thanks go to Mr. Rauf Onay and Mr. Haluk Cangok9e for drawing the maps. Philip Abrams, "Towns and Economic Growth: Some Theories and Problems," in Towns in Societies, ed. Ph. Abrams, E. A. Wrigley (Cambridge etc. 1978), 9-35. 1

2

Abrams, "Towns", 27 and eisewiere.

26

M A K I N G

A

LIVING

certain times and in certain regions of medieval Europe. The attraction of a tripartite scheme has always been very strong. Stoianovich's approach is useful because he takes cognizance of the fact that the Ottoman city evolved, and that both European and Ottoman towns may under certain circumstances be described as 'dependent'. In the same sense, he dwells upon the importance of the centralized state, which, both in sixteenth-century Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, reduced the towns to dependence. Stoianovich's descriptive s c h e m e thus is closely related to that proposed several years later by Fernand Braudel 1 . However, the latter dwells in more detail upon towns undifferentiated from the surrounding countryside, such as existed in ancient Greece or R o m e . In so doing he sacrifices Stoianovich's 'semi-dependent' category. For the researcher dealing with O t t o m a n towns, the loss of this category is regrettable, b e c a u s e a classification scheme with only two classes obliges him or her to place all Ottoman towns in one and the same category. Yet experience has shown that approaches based upon a contrast between 'Europe' and 'the world at large' are beset with dangerous pitfalls. When using approaches of this type, the unique quality of European developments is easily exaggerated, and what is more, a dichotomous system prevents the researcher from analyzing the differences between various non-European societies. As a result, the specialist dealing with Ottoman urban development does not at present have a satisfying model of this particular process at his or her disposal. While the present article does not propose to construct such a model, it does attempt to clarify the meaning of 'dependence' and 'semi-dependence', when relating to sixteenth-century Anatolian towns and the Ottoman state. In an attempt to gauge the degree of urban dependence, one might recall the town-founding activities of the more important dynasties during the postSeljuk ( b e y l i k ) period, including the impact of the Ottoman dynasty itself. Such newly established tow ns were generally intended to function as state or regional capitals, and the pious foundations to w h o m the principal public buildings belonged were controlled by administrators appointed by the ruler and his family. Under such conditions, control by the ruling dynasty over its principal towns was bound to be fairly close. At the same time, certain other Ottoman towns, of which Ankara might constitute a noteworthy example, were conparatively remote from the central power throughout the fifteenth and even the sixteenth century. In such places, local initiative in projects such as building a city wall might be comparatively significant, and the weak

' T r a i a n Stoianovich, "Model and Mirror of the pre-modern Balkan City," in La ville XVe-XIXe ss (Sofia, 1970), 83-110: Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life (London, 1973), 401 ff.

balkanique 1400-1800

THE

A N A T O L I A N

T O W N

27

development of specifically urban institutions did not preclude a considerable amount of city-wide cooperation 1 . On the other hand, the position of R u m e l i a n or A n a t o l i a n t o w n s within the Ottoman realm can be approached not only f r o m the side of the town, but f r o m the side of the Ottoman state as well. Obviously, most records are directly or indirectly related to the affairs of the central administration in Istanbul. Therefore a study of these d o c u m e n t s leads us to analyze the ways and m e a n s by which, considering the technical conditions of the time, an astonishing degree of central control was achieved. However, contrary trends were not absent, most notably during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but visible in earlier periods as well. Under these conditions, orie hesitates to interpret all ev idence of 'decentralization' purely and simply as symptons of 'decline', as has sometimes been done. Rather, it appears that we need to draw a more differentiated picture of the Ottoman state apparatus. Seen f r o m the point of view of local administrators or merchants, being a part of the Ottoman social system involved clear subordination to the centre in certain respects, but a considerable freedom of action in others. In fact, it is probably this flexibility which kept the Ottoman state functioning until well into the twentieth century 2 . T o locate e v i d e n c e of this flexibility, even for a period c o m m o n l y singled out because of its high level of central control, is one of the aims of the present study. That such evidence should be available at all is all the more remarkable as most of the source material which w e possess for the sixteenth century c o n c e n t r a t e s upon the centralizing aspects of the O t t o m a n state apparatus. This applies particularly to the tax registers (tahrir

defterlerij3,

w h i c h w e r e p r e p a r e d to facilitate both the collection of t a x e s and the assignment of state revenues to Ottoman officials. If even f r o m this material, conclusions c o n c e r n i n g the flexibility of the Ottoman state vis-à-vis local conditions can be d r a w n , it becomes o b v i o u s that we need to m o d i f y our conceptions of the Ottoman state's functioning. The present study is intended to contribute toward this kind of rethinking.

' O n Ankara compare Özer Ergenç: "Osmanli Çehirlerindeki Yönetim Kurumlarinin Niteligi Üzerinde Bazi Dirçiinceler," in Vlll Türk Tarih Kongresi, Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, (Ankara j1980) vol. 2, 1265-1274. ^ C o m p a r e on this subject the present author's "The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire (1600-1630)," The Journal of European Economic History, 15 (1986), 345-384. C o n c e r n i n g the tahrir defterleri c o m p a r e O m e r Liitfi B a r k a n , "Essai sur les d o n n é e s statistiques des registres de recensement dans l'Empire Ottoman aux X V e et X V I e siècles," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 1 (1958), 9 - 3 6 ( f r o m now on: JESHO), Halil Inalcik, Hicri 835 Tarihli Suret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (Ankara, 1954).

28 THE

MAKING SMALLNESS

OF

A

LIVING

A SMALL

TOWN

Before discussing the relationship between towns, particularly small towns, and the Ottoman state, we have to explain what is meant by the term 'small town'. In Turkish demographic literature of recent years, the definition of a small town is straightforward: the term is used to describe settlements of 2.000-10.000 inhabitants'. However, for periods before 1800, and well after this date, in a good many cases the definition of a 'small town' can never be based on just one criterion. Fernand Braudel has stressed how in the society of medieval or early modern Kurope, a town of minuscule size might constitute the locus of administrative and commercial functions which today devolve upon much larger settlements. On the other hand, the same author has pointed out how in Sicily, settlements that were all but villages from a functional point of view might contain thousands of inhabitants 2 . In such a context, si/e cannot be used as the only criterion in defining a town; the existence of a market place or shop-lined street, the level of a given town in the administrative hierarchy, the presence of cultural and educational institutions, all contribute toward making a certain settlement a town, or a 'small town', as the case may be. At the same time, the use of multiple criteria complicates the definition. For it is quite possible that a town was more important economically than its place in the administrative hierarchy would lead one to expect. Or even though quite small, a certain town may have possessed cultural institutions, such as a university or a medrese, which normally were found onl\ in much larger places. But even at the price of increasing the number of doubtful instances, the use of multiple criteria leads to a more appropriate definition of the 'small town'. Braudel's observations concerning pre-industrial towns apply, mutatis mutandis, to Ottoman towns as well 3 . Particularly in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, administrative functions of some significance were frequently assigned to very small settlements. As an example one might mention the town of Kiire, which constituted the centre of a kaza, but was inhabited by only 628 taxpaying adult males (1486-87) 4 . Or to cite another instance, in spite of its importance during the Seljuk period, Sivas in the year 8 5 9 / 1 4 5 4 - 5 5 a c c o r d i n g to o f f i c i a l r e c o r d s h o u s e d only 5 6 0 taxpayers 5 . Population grow th in the course of the sixteenth century led to the ' C o m p a r e T e v f i k f a v d a r and others Turkiye Aile Yapisi ve Ntifus Sorunlari Toplama Teknikleri (Ankara, 1971). 6. ^Braudel, Capitalism, 374.

Ara^tirmasinin

Veri

•'For a general discussion of Ottoman population and city size, c o m p a r e O m e r Liitfi B a l k a n , "Tarihi Demografi Ara§tirmalan u : Osmanli Tarihi," Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi, 10 (1951-53), 1-26. ^ C o m p a r e Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia. Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting 11 >20-1650) (Cambridge, Engl. 1984), 172-180. 5 Ba§bakanlik Ar§ivi. Istanbul, I'apu Tahrir (TT) 2, 4 6 6 ff.

T H E

A N A T O L I A N

T O W N

29

urbanization of Anatolia, and the administrative importance of very small towns diminished. But even at the end of the sixteenth century a place like Silifke, with a resident prcvincial governor, a kadi, a castle, a market place, shops, and probably public hostelries ( h a n ) was inhabited by only about a hundred taxpayers'. This state of affairs leads us to look somewhat more closely at the distinction between large and small towns. While the functional differences between villages and small towns are usually quite clear, the same cannot be said with respect to large and small towns. At the same time, although Bursa and §ebinkarahisar were both towns, the contrast between the two is obvious even to the casual observer. Ottoman officials in charge of compiling tax registers (tahrir defterleri), were also aware of the difference, and refer to two categories of towns, namely ]$ehir' (in the expression 'nefs' or 'nefs-i §ehir') and 'kasaba'. Only what criteria were used for differentiation between the two categories is never made very clear, and one cannot escape the conclusion that the officials in question used their intuition more than any standard criteria. As a result, the categories employed in the tax registers are of no particular help in determining the characteristics of the Anatolian small town 2 .

OTTOMAN

URBAN

INSTITUTIONS

Under these circumstances, the researcher is obliged to search for characteristic urban institutions, which enable him or her to recognize a town in the Anatolian setting, and also to differentiate between regional and interregional centrcs on one side, and places of purely local impact on the other. This undertaking is 'ess difficult than one might at first expect, as the seventeenth-century traveller Evliya f e l e b i constitutes (even though he wrote about a century after the close of the period studied here) a very useful source on Ottoman urban institutions 3 . For Evliya the world consisted almost completely of towns and cities, and the prototype of all cities was of course Istanbul. Once beyond the city limits, the author recorded only the usual travel incidents, among which the crossing of difficult mountain passes, as well as encounters with Celalis and robbers were described with particular gusto. With only slight exaggeration, one might claim that for Evliya the Ottoman territories, and by amplification the inhabited parts of the world, consisted of a network of urban settlements, with linear connections linking them.

'Suraiya Faroqhi, "Sixteenth Cen .ury Periodic Markets in Various Anatolian Sancaks," 22, 1 (1979), 53; Turkish version in Gelqme Dergisi, 1978 ozel sayisi, 39-85. ^Faroqhi, ' Markets," 47. ^Evliya f e l e b i , Seyahatname,

10 vols (Istanbul, 1314/1896-97 to 1938).

JESHO,

30

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

Evliya also possessed a clear picture in his mind of the institutions to be expected in a town: mosques, medreses,

covered markets, a kadi's court, to

n a m e but the most significant. When starting his description, he often wrote out these categories, leaving a blank space after each, which later he filled out or not, according to the information he w a s able to gather. If the traveller f o u n d that one of the expected institutions was missing, he stressed the fact and sometimes attempted an explanation. T h u s he might remark that a certain town had an active commercial centre, even though it possessed no covered market, or that some other place contained no manned citadel, because it was located far f r o m the frontiers 1 . A m o n g the characteristics of the town, Evliya often mentioned the number of houses, generally many more than one would expect after an evaluation of the sixteenth-century tax registers. This shows that he w a s aware of population as a quantitative measure for the importance of a t o w n ; but at the s a m e time, the size of the urban population w a s obviously not a dominant feature in his mental image of the Ottoman town or city. T h u s Evliya, in spile of his delight in n u m b e r s and e n u m e r a t i o n s , seems to be less quantitatively minded than the Ottoman bureaucrats who drew up the tax registers of the sixteenth century, or even their successors of the mid-seventeenth, w h o were Evliya's contemporaries. This fact is of interest, since Evliya used Ottoman official records whenever he had a chance to do so 2 . T h e r e f o r e the differences in outlook between the officials preparing the tax registers and Evliya £ e l e b i might be regarded as the difference between the professional outlook of officials and the world view of the educated layman. A t the same time, parallels in outlook between Evliya and Ottoman financial officials, where the typical institutions of an Ottoman town are concerned, indicate the consensus of educated opinion within the Empire. In every sixteenth or seventeenth-century town, however small, we find a Friday mosque. On the other hand, village mosques in which Friday prayers could be performed were comparatively rare, and peasants frequently attended Friday noon services after a visit to the town market. Apart f r o m the Friday m o s q u e (more than one mosque of this type w a s generally characteristic only of larger towns), there might be several mahalle mescidis, which could not be used for formal Friday s e n ices, and a number of dervish hospices or zaviyes. T h e s e latter institutions were not typically urban, since they might be f o u n d in villages as well. But their n u m b e r s d e m o n s t r a t e d the c o n c e n t r a t i o n of population to be expected in a town. T h e s a m e can be said of public baths (hamam) which were generally set up, o f t e n under the auspices of a pious foundation, as soon as the number of residents warranted the expense.

' f o r one example among many, compare Evliya Çelebi, Seyahalname, IX, 38. ^ C o n c e r n i n g Evliya's use of official records, c o m p a r e Robert Mantran, Istanbul seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle ( Paris, 1962), 353-357.

dans

la

THE

A N A T O L I A N

31

T O W N

E v e n in m a n y very small p l a c e s , a c o u r t m i g h t o f f i c i a t e . In s o m e instances a f u l l - f l e d g e d kadi w a s a p p o i n t e d , in others a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of the nearest kadi ( n a i p ) m i g h t p e r f o r m the f u n c t i o n s of the court. F o r t i f i c a t i o n s of o n e sort o r a n o t h e r w e r e c o m m o n ; b u t b e f o r e t h e Celali r e b e l l i o n s a n d the e n s u i n g unrest, they w e r e quite f r e q u e n t l y a l l o w e d t o fall in ruins. T o t a l l y unfortified small t o w n s could also be f o u n d ; unlike w h a t has been observed f o r medieval

E u r o p e o r e a r l y m o d e r n C h i n a 1 , w a l l s a n d c i t a d e l s w e r e not

indispensable attributes of every t o w n or city. O n c e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e and cultural f u n c t i o n s had b e e n e s t a b l i s h e d in a given locality, c o m m e r c i a l f u n c t i o n s rapidly d e v e l o p e d . A t t h e very least, a m a r k e t a n d a f e w s h o p s p r o v i d e d f o r t h e n e e d s of n e w l y

established

f u n c t i o n a r i e s , w h o could not easily e n g a g e in agriculture o n a f u l l - t i m e basis. T h u s a m a r k e t p l a c e w a s an i n d i s p e n s a b l e characteristic of a small t o w n , and in t h e late f i f t e e n t h o r e a r l y s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r i e s , a typical d i s t r i c t ( k a z a ) p o s s e s s e d but o n e m a r k e t . O n the o t h e r hand, s h o p s of s o m e sort w e r e by no m e a n s a specifically urban privilege, and m a n y rural markets boasted m o r e or less stable installations, w h i c h o f t e n p r o v i d e d r e v e n u e s for a pious f o u n d a t i o n . E v e n small t o w n s e s t a b l i s h e d n e a r a m a j o r r o u t e m i g h t in a d d i t i o n p o s s e s s o n e or t w o b u s i n e s s - o r i e n t e d structures k n o w n as han, w h i c h s e r v e d both as e n t r e p o t s a n d as hostelries f o r visiting m e r c h a n t s 2 . O n l y in t h e bigger centres, h o w e v e r , m i g h t o n e r e g u l a r l y f i n d a c o v e r e d m a r k e t or bedestan3;

such

installations w e r e built in small t o w n s only if the latter constituted the c e n t r e of an exceptionally active c o m m e r c i a l hinterland. G i v e n the d i m i n u i t i v e scale of administrative, cultural, a n d c o m m e r c i a l a c t i v i t i e s in a small t o w n , the i m p o r t a n c e of a g r i c u l t u r e w a s b o u n d to be h i g h . M a n y c r a f t s m e n and r e t a i l e r s c o m p e n s a t e d f o r l i m i t e d c o m m e r c i a l d e m a n d by cultivating gardens and vineyards. T h u s m o s t t o w n s

were

surrounded by a belt of orchards and garden-plots. T h e t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of fields located n e a r a t o w n into gardens and v i n e y a r d s can generally b e regarded as a sign of u r b a n g r o w t h . In certain i n s t a n c e s ( D e n i z l i , Kir§ehir) g a r d e n s a n d inhabited t o w n q u a r t e r s m i g h t i n t e r m i n g l e ; t h e result w a s a very l o o s e urban t i s s u e 4 . M o r e o v e r the inhabitants of certain s i x t e e n t h - c e n t u r y t o w n s w e r e in the habit of s p e n d i n g t h e s u m m e r in g a r d e n s or o n s u m m e r pastures. All these f e a t u r e s stress the semi-agricultural c h a r a c t e r of not only the s m a l l e s t t o w n s , but also of m e d i u m - s i z e d and larger urban settlements. 'Gilbert Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan (Princeton, 1973), 5253,98. j Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen, Table 2. •'Klaus Kreiser, "Bedesten-Bauter im Osmanischen Reich, ein vorläufiger Überblick auf Grund der SchäftqucUen," Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 29 (1979), 367-400. ^Compare in this context Xavier de Planhol, "Le cadre géographique, le pays de LaodicéeDenizli," in Laodicée du Lycos, L.e Nymphée, Campagnes 1961-63, ed. Jean des Gagniers ard others (Quebec, Paris, 1969), 391 419.

32

M A K I N G

A

L I V I N G

Taking these features into account, one might propose the following definition for the sixteenth-century Anatolian small town ( k a s a b a ) : a settlement of more than 4 0 0 and less than 2500 taxpayers, that is, inhabited by about 1500 to 10,000 people. These limits are arbitrary, and have been selected for the sake of convenience 1 . In addition, the settlement in question should have been provided with a market or shoplined street, so as to ensure the p e r f o r m a n c e of a minimal commercial role. Institutions, whether sponsored by the O t t o m a n state (fortifications) or pious f o u n d a t i o n s (medreses) obviously contributed to the urban life of a town. However, since it is this contribution which is to be investigated in the present study, to include administrative rank, or the existence of certain institutions, into the definition of the Ottoman Anatolian town must result in a tautology. Only when the contribution of administrative structure, and of institutions such as fortifications or medreses. has been assessed in detail, will the time for a richer description and more appropriate definition of the Anatolian town have arrived.

S ANCA

K

C B N T R H S

AS

T O W N S

AND

C I T I E S

When examining the impact of the Ottoman administrative structure upon the life and development of Ottoman towns, the first step is to ascertain how provincial centres performed as urban entities. By provincial centres, both sancak and eyalet centres are meant, for eyalet centres such as Ktitahya (Anadolu) and Sivas (Rum) were in no way unusual among provincial centres, and certainly did not dominate the urban hierarchy in any respect. Before embarking on such a venture, however, we need to know which places were regarded as sancak centres. W h e r e the eyalet of Anadolu is concerned, Katip £elebi, in most cases, 2 provides this information. In other instances, Katip £elebi's or Evliya f e l e b i ' s mentioning the official residence of a sancakbeyi among the notable buildings of a given town may provide useful information for our purposes. Moreover, when a town had given its name to a sancak, it probably served as sancak c e n t r e 3 . Under these circumstances, the sancak centre is doubtful only in a small number of cases. More problematic is the fact that Katip £elebi and Evliya C^elebi refer to the seventeenth century, while evidence for the preceding period is lacking. But

'Compare Leila Erder, Suraiya haroqhi. "The Development of the Anatolian Urban Network During the Sixteenth Century," JZSHO. 23, 3 (1980), 265-303. See also Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen Table 1. 2

Katip (Jelebi, Cihan-numa (Istanbul. 1145/1732), 595-673. •i For a map showing the sancaks of Anatolia during the 16th- 17th centuries, compare Donald Edgar Pitcher, An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire from the earliest times to the end of the sixteenth century (Leiden, 1972), Map 25.

T H E

A N A T O L I A N

since the seat of the sancakbeyi

T O W N

probably was moved around but rarely, the

margin of error thus introduced is probably not too great. When comparing a list of probable sancak centres with the list of the most populous towns existing in Anatolia at the end of the sixteenth century, we find that the entries generally correspond until we arrive at Bor, the eighteenth-largest place in the urban hierarchy. (In this context, the Anatolian urban hierarchy consists of all towns to the west of the Euphrates and inhabited by more than a thousand taxpaying adult males) 1 . All towns larger than Bor were also sancak centres, apart from Tokat and Bergama, while Izmir had not yet begun its seventeenth-century growth spurt, and therefore does not occur on our list. However, in the middle and lower reaches of the hierarchy, discrepancies become increasingly frequent. Places ranking lower than twentyeighth in size among the towns and cities of western and central Anatolia were almost never sancak centres in the sense described above. At the same time, insignificant settlements of much less than a thousand taxpayers had quite often been granted this dignity. Thus one may conclude that apart from a very few exceptions, the Ottoman administration promoted large cities to the rank of sancak centres. If the sancak lacked a really sizeable city, however, other criteria came into their own. Former capitals of pre-Ottoman principalities were often retained as sancak capitals irrespective of size. Moreover, in certain areas in which communications were difficult, the Ottoman administration may have wished to avoid overly large administrative units, a desire which might explain the many eyalets established