Revenue-raising and legitimacy: tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660 9789004102897

Citation preview

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND [TS HERITAGE Politics, Society and Economy EDITED BY

SURAIYA FAROQHI AND HAuiL INALCIK Aduisory Board

Fikret Adanir : Idris Bostan - Amnon Cohen : Cornell Fleischer Barbara Flemming - Alexander de Groot « Klaus Kreiser Hans Georg Majer : Irene Mébkoff - Ahmet Yasar Ocak Abdeljelil ‘Temimi - Gilles Veinstein * Elizabeth Zachariadou

VOLUME 6

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire

1560-1660 BY

LINDA T. DARLING

EJ. BRILL LEIDEN - NEW YORK -: KOLN 1996

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Darling, Linda T., 1945 Revenue-raising and legitimacy : tax collection and finance administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660 / by Linda T. Darling.

p. cm.— (The Ottoman Empire and its heritage. ISSN 1380-6076 ; v. 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004102892 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Taxation—Turkey—History. 2. Tax collection —Turkey—History. 3. Tax administration and procedure—Turkey—History. 4. Turkey—

~Economic conditions—History. I. Title. II. Series.

HJ2906.5.D37 1995

336.2’00956 1—dc20 95-24727 CIP Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Darling, Linda T.: Revenue-raising and legitimacy: tax collection and finance

administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660 / by Linda T. Darling. — Leiden ; New York ; Koln : Brill, 1996 (The Ottoman empire and its heritage ; Vol. 6) ISBN 90-04-10289-2

NE: GT

ISSN 1380-6076 ISBN 90 04 10289 2

© Copynght 1996 by EF. Brill, Laden, The Netherlands All nghts reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmutted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Authonzation to photocopy items for internal or personal use 1s granted by E.F. Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, Rosewood Drive 222, Suite 910

Danvers MA 01923, USA Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

To my mother

Blank page

CONTENTS

List Of Tables oc... eecsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssessssseseeeeeeee IX Preface .....ccececccccccccececccececececececsesesessesssesssssssssssssssssscssssssssssssscsesceee Xi

List of Abbreviations ...............cccsssscscccccceceeesssssssserssccceeseessssssssees Xili

Transliteration and the Turkish Alphabet ........ eens XIV Identification of Archival Sources .............ccccsssssssssscccecceeeeteceeeeee, XV

Introduction: The Myth of Decline .....ccsccccccsssscccsssststcesssssreee 1

The Myth of Ottoman Decline 0. eeeeeteeeeeeeeee 2 Crisis and the Ottoman State ou... eessssssserttctrttttetteeeeee 8

Sources for the Study of the Post-Classical Age ............. 16 I. Classical Ottoman Finance .....ccsscssscccccccccsscsssssssssccccceccsessseee 22 Ottoman Taxation ............cccesssssscccccsssssssssscccesssssssssccessssessssees 22

Revenue Assessment by Survey (TQATiIr) ......cceeeeeeeseeeeeeeee 29

The Monetary System and the Price Revolution ............... 35 Population and Economic Change... eeeeeeeereeeeeeee AL Il. The Ottoman Central Finance Department ......ccccccccccccceeeee 49

Early Finance Department Organization... eee OL Reorganizations in the Finance Structure oe OT The Seventeenth Century and Beyond... ecesseereeees 67 Ill. Revenue Assessment by the Central

Finance Department: Cizye And AVATPIZ ou... Sl Revenue Surveying by the Finance Bureaus ...........0..... 82 Registration of Taxpayers and Population Estimation ...... 100 Amounts of Money Taken in Tax oe eeeeeeeeesereeseeeeee 108 IV. Taxation Without Assessment? Tax Farming ([ltizam) ccscccccsssessssesssssessssessssessssessseeseneeeee 119

Mukataa Revenues and Records ...........ccsccsscesseeseeesreeereee 123

Bidding and Revenue AMOUNIS 00... eesceetereteees 136 Bidders’ Conditions and Personnel Recruitment ................. 146 []tizarn Supervision .......cccescsesesssesescesesessesssseteteteteteteteteteteteee 152

Vill CONTENTS V. Tax Collection Personnel .......cccccccccccccssssssccsssssssserssessseeeess 161

Appointment of Revenue Collectors oo... eeereeees LOL The Military in Cizye and Avariz Collection. ................... 169 The Military in Tax Farming ou... eccsssstreeeeessereee 178

VI. Tax Collection, Remittance, and Reporting ................. 186

Collection Procedures: Cizye and AV@PiZ ou... 187 [1tizam Collection vicccsccccssscscscsscssscscscsssssscscssssssssssssescseee 194

Remittance and Reporting .....eeeseeeeceessssstteteeeeeeees 203 VII. Arrears, Accounting, and Balance-Sheets ...........ss00000000008 213 Collectors’ Accounts (Muhasebe) ...cc.ccccccccccccccssssssssssssseeee 213

Arrears and their Collection oo... ceeccccccssssststeeeesessse 222 Central Accounting Procedures uu... eeececsssssssssssssseneee QOL Balance-Sheets and Budgets ou... eccssscssessssssssssssssnee DOT VIII. Complaints And COrruption ........ccsssssssscccccccsssssssssssssscceeeeee, 246 The Petition Process ou..........ccecssssssssscscerccceceessssssssssssetteeces, 240 Changing the ASSESSMENL ........... eee cseeeeceeesesssteteeceeseesssse DOO

Corruption in Tax Collection 0... cccsssssetteccesessssee LOT IX. Revenue-Raising And Legitimacy .......cccssssscccsssssteesessssseeee QOL

Revenue and Legitimacy: The Circle of Justice ............. 283 Revenue-Raising and Decline o....... i ececeessesesesseeeeees 299 G]OSSATY .oeeeeeeeeccccccesssessssssssssstcceccccccceteccessecesssscsccssssscesessssescssssesss, GOT

Bibliography ou... eee seecccessssseeeccesssssseeceessssssesccsssssstsecssessttsesess SDD TeX oon. eeesecccsesssccessssccccssssseccessssecseceesseesccsesseseeessssesesessssessssseses GOO

TABLES

1. Price Inflation in the Ottoman Empire, 1555-1655 oo... = 36 2. Total Numbers of Salaried Scribes ................ccccccsssssssssssssssssessssesenee OD

3. The Structure of the Maliye in the Mid-Sixteenth Century ........... 63 4. Number of Scribes in Finance Bureaus _ ..............ccccccccccssssessseseeeeeeee 68

5. Cizye Rates in Text, 1560-1660 oo... eececteeeseeteetesrseeee 110 6. Seventeenth-Century CizZye .......cccecccssceeeseesteeeseeceseeesseeeseetstsesseeeseee L12

7. Avariz Rates in Text, 1500-1660 ou... ecceeesescscsscsssseeeseeeee L114 8. Avariz Assessed around 1640 ou... ceeseseeeeeetssesseseteseseeseees 116

Blank page

PREFACE

When I first began to study the Ottoman Empire, its history was explained in terms of rise and decline. After reaching a peak of greatness

in the reign of Siileyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), the empire entered an era of decline which was thought to have lasted until its end in 1923. The pivotal century from 1560 to 1660, between the regime of Siileyman and that of the KO6priilii grand viziers, who controlled the empire in its final moment of strength, was portrayed as an era of social and economic disorder and governmental corruption leading to military defeat and imperial disintegration. Although trends similar to the internal difficulties of the Ottoman Empire also appeared in seventeenth-century Europe, they were heralded there not as signs of decline but as forces of growth and progress, precursors of a coming “European miracle;” or at worst they were dismissed as negligible stumbles on the road to greatness, a “crisis” from which

at least some European states emerged with renewed health and strength. In focusing my research on this century, I thought I would find the turning point in Ottoman fortunes, would discover what it was that set the Ottomans off on an opposite course from western Europe. Like others who have researched this period, however, I found no such thing. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place, but I thought, and still think, that such a turning point would be reflected in the fiscal system even if it did not originate there. What my research uncovered contradicts the stereotype of decline and negates the idea of a defini-

tive downturn in Ottoman history. The century after Siileyman is revealed as a period of continuity in changing times, exhibiting strength in unexpected places to balance weakness in others. With other scholars

of the post-Siileymanic era, I have had to abandon decline as an explanatory paradigm and work toward concepts that better accord with the Ottoman experience. I trust that this book will lay a foundation for others to continue investigation of the many unanswered questions that remain. The account in these chapters is by no means a complete exposition of the Ottoman fiscal system. Expenditures, government procurement, provincial finance, and many other issues remain to be studied; this book provides only an introduction. In view of its primary purpose,

Xil PREFACE the encouragement of further research, Ottoman terms have generally

been employed for Ottoman institutions and documents. For nonspecialist readers and comparative historians, a glossary is provided in the back of the book, and Ottoman terms are alternated with English

equivalents. Transliteration and document numbering are explained below.

I would like to thank the individuals and organizations who have contributed in various ways to the completion of this work. In defiance of convention, I will list first my parents, Dorothy M. and Richard

J. Darling, to whom I owe my interest in history and in the Middle East (and even, indirectly, in Ottoman taxation) and from whom I received unfailing moral and financial support. My advisor, Halil Inalcik, formed my approach and gave me tools with which to pursue it; | have drawn extensively on his knowledge. Influential among my

teachers have been Richard L. Chambers, R. Stephen Humphreys, Donald Lach, Abdul-Kerim Rafeq, and John E. Woods, and among my critics Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj. Editorial help has been provided by Peri Bearman and Suraiya Faroghi, copy editing by Christina Jarvis, and computer assistance by Patricia Foreman. Financial support for research and writing was provided at various stages by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the University of Arizona’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, the U.S. Depart-

ment of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Institute of Turkish Studies, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies

of The University of Chicago. I am grateful to the Government of

Turkey for granting research permission and to the staffs of the Basbakanlik Arsivi, Topkapi Saray1 Arsivi, and Siileymaniye Kiitiiphanesi in Istanbul, the Joseph Regenstein Library at The University of Chicago and the University of Arizona Library for their patient

help. The Department of History at the University of Arizona has supported this work in a number of ways, both intellectual and practical.

Finally, I would like to thank friends and colleagues who have given generously of their criticism and support for the book at various stages: Peter Alter, Richard Beal, Cornell H. Fleischer, Elizabeth J. Gottschalk,

Sally A. Hastings, Kate Lang, Leslie Peet, Hermann Rebel, JoAnn Scurlock, Laura Tabili, and the students in my Ottoman history course over the years. Needless to say, the remaining errors and infelicities

are my own.

ABBREVIATIONS

AE Ali Emiri Tasnifi, Bagsbakanlik Arsivi. AUDTCFD Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakiiltesi Dergisi.

BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

FI Encyclopaedia of Islam.

EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition. IJMES [International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

IA Islam Ansiklopedisi.

IUIFM Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi. JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.

JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. KK Kamil Kepeci Tasnifi, Basbakanlik Arsivi. MM Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi, Basbakanlik Arsivi. MTM Milli Tetebbw’lar Mecmuasi.

POF Prilozi za Orijentalnu Filologiyu i Istorija Jugoslovenskih Naroda pod Turskom Vladavinom.

THITM Tiirk Hukuk ve Iktisat Tarihi Mecmuas1.

TKSA Topkapi Saray1 Miizesi Arsivi.

TOEM Tarih-i Osmani Encitimeni Mecmuasi. WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes. ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.

TRANSLITERATION AND THE TURKISH ALPHABET

For ease of reading, Ottoman words in the text have been transcribed

into their modern Turkish equivalents, spelled as they appear in Redhouse Yeni Tiirkce-Ingilizce Sézliik! New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary (Istanbul: Redhouse Press, 1968), where the spelling

in Ottoman script is given for each entry. If there is a choice of modern spellings, the more traditional one has usually been preferred.

Turkish words are underlined only the first time they appear (with the exception of the word has, to distinguish it from the English verb has). They are explained in the text and also in the glossary, where they have been transliterated, for more accurate reference, according to the system used by the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Place names have

been spelled as in modern Turkish, with the exception of major cities and provinces and the empire itself, for which the English terms are used. The modern Turkish alphabet is pronounced approximately like that of English, with the following exceptions: Vowels:

a = far e = bend i = keep 1 = again, women

o = coke 6 = fur, oeuvre u = boot or book ti = French u (chute) Consonants:

C=] ¢ =ch _ § = gh, or simply lengthens previous vowel h = never silent

j = zh r = flipped $s = sh

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

Archival documents are identified by the abbreviation for the archive

(except for the Basbakanlik Arsivi; see List of Abbreviations), the name of the collection (tasnif) to which they belong, their number, and their date. Most documents only have one number, but documents from the Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi (MM) have two—the catalogue

number and the shelf number of the document. It is traditional to identify documents from this collection by shelf number alone, but

unless the researcher knows the date of the document, it may be impossible to find it in the catalogue, which is organized in chronological order rather than by shelf number. I hope to inaugurate a new tradition in which the catalogue number as well as the shelf number will be used. In my references, the catalogue number is given first, followed by the shelf number in parentheses or brackets, and frequently by the date as well: first the hicri date of the Islamic calendar, taken from the document itself or from the catalogue entry, and then the translation into the Gregorian calendar. For example, the reference MM 122 (559) 942/1535-36 is to a register dated 942 hicri (running from 2 July 1535 to 19 June 1536) whose number in the Maliyeden Miidevver catalogue is 122 and whose shelf number is 559. In most registers, page numbers had been added; in one or two cases the pagination was incorrect, and this is noted in the footnotes to those registers. Some registers were not paginated; references to unpaginated registers are made by folio number.

Blank page

INTRODUCTION

THE MYTH OF DECLINE

“The sick man of Europe’”—everyone has heard of him. The Ottoman

Empire, once invincible, was no longer able to fend off the armies of Europe. Weak sultans allowed power to pass into the hands of slaves, eunuchs, and women. Corruption rotted the bureaucracy, with devastating effects on administration, tax collection, and military effectiveness. Inflation and chaos in the monetary system created suffering throughout society and havoc in the government budget. Banditry, rebellion, and Celali revolts disrupted revenue collection and provincial governance, causing whole villages to disappear. European explorations reduced the empire to an economic backwater, while European military might chipped off ever larger pieces of Ottoman territory.

Through all this, the Ottomans’ smug sense of superiority and the heavy hand of religion prevented them from imitating European technological and scientific achievements until it was too late. Modernizing reforms were unable to strengthen the “sick man” sufficiently to resist the “impact of the west.” The Ottomans stagnated and declined,

falling in the end to western imperialism. The “sick man,” however, is a straw man. In view of the fact that Europe long derived its self-definition by contrasting itself with empires

to the east, the concept of Ottoman decline reflects the self-image of western Europe more than actual conditions in the Ottoman Empire.! It interprets the nineteenth-century west’s overwhelming growth in economic power as normal and the Ottomans’ continuing to change at the old rate as stagnation and decay.” For western historians, the idea of Ottoman decline both describes and justifies the military and political domination of west over east: if the Ottomans lost the ability to innovate and to organize and were unable to keep up with the west ' Norman Daniel, [slam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960; rpt. ed. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, Ltd., 1993); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1978); M.E. Yapp, “Europe in the Turkish Mirror,” Past & Present 137 (1992): 134-S5. * Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 1: 38-39.

2 INTRODUCTION militarily, economically, or intellectually, then colonization by an expanding Europe was not only inevitable but beneficial. For historians in the post-Ottoman states of Turkey, the Balkans, and the Arab world, countries whose national identities depend on no longer being Ottoman, a declining Ottoman Empire can safely be blamed for presentday political and socioeconomic difficulties.* The search for meaning

in the wake of fragmentation in the Soviet Union and social decay in America and Britain has generated renewed interest in the concept

of decline and in the Ottoman Empire as a state in decline.* But decline is an explanation that does not explain; the most prominent writer on Ottoman decline confessed himself unable to “disentangle the web of cause, symptom, and effect.” Indeed, decline is less an explanation than a myth, a “story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold the world view of a people,” as the dictionary definition has it.

The Myth of Ottoman Decline

The image of the rise and decline of empires has a long history in both east and west, and books on this theme achieve wide popularity.° > Suraiya Faroghi summed up recent Turkish historiography of the Ottoman Empire in her introduction to Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroghi, eds., New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 3-17; idem, “Crisis and Change, 1590-1699,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 13001914, ed. Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 469. * See, for instance, Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Michael Mann, ed., The Rise and Decline of the Nation State (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). > Bernard Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire,” Studia Islamica 1 (1958): 111. ® Probably the most famous European embodiments of the concept of decline are Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2 vols. (London: J.S. Virtue, n.d.), and Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vols. (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1926— 29). The decline of Spain was once as proverbial as that of the Ottoman Empire has become; for controversy over this concept see J.H. Elliott, “The Decline of Spain,” Past & Present 20 (1961): 52-75; Henry Kamen, “The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?” Past & Present 81 (1978): 24-50; Jonathan I. Israel, “Debate: The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?” Past & Present 91 (1981): 170-80; and Henry Kamen, “The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth? A Rejoinder,” Past & Present 91 (1981): 181-85. For the Islamic world the best-known work on decline is Ibn Khaldun, The Mugaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, ed. and abridged by N.J. Dawood, Bollinger

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 3 This literature, however, employs “decline” in two distinct senses, one internal to the Ottomans and one external. In western historiography

on the Ottoman Empire, decline was originally used in the external sense, referring not to Ottoman institutional and moral decay but to a decrease in the empire’s military threat to the Christian states of Europe.’ Formerly considered invincible, the Ottomans in 1699 were

forced to relinquish territory inhabited by Muslims as a result of European victories, and in subsequent decades their military potential began to be seen as declining. The word “decline” was not applied to the internal workings of the empire until the early nineteenth century

in the histories of Mouradgea d’Ohsson and Joseph von HammerPurgstall.? As translators, these men had access to Turkish sources, where the theme of decline was already under consideration. Ottoman writers of the seventeenth century, authors of a genre of advice literature (nasihatnameler), believed themselves to be living in an era of decline from former greatness, a decline that had set in during the

later sixteenth century.’ This understanding of decline had little or nothing to do with defeats by the west; rather, it was these thinkers’ judgment on administrative, economic, and social turmoil within the empire during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Ottoman concept of decline dovetailed so neatly with the need of European historiography to find a reason for the Ottomans’ reversal Series (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Martin Secker & Woodbury Ltd., 1967; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969). For the Ottoman Empire, see Leopold von Ranke, The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. Walter K. Kelly (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845); and more recently Alan Palmer, The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (London: John Murray, 1992). 7 See, for instance, Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: John Starkey and Henry Brome, 1668; rpt. Westmead, Eng.: Gregg International Publishers, 1972). Likewise, the decline of Spain, which has been called “the most significant international phenomenon of the seventeenth century,” is defined as “the struggle and failure of Spain to maintain a position of hegemony” (R.A. Stradling, Europe and the Decline of Spain: A Study of the Spanish System, 1580-1720, Early Modern Europe Today [Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981], 2-3). 8 Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7 vols. (Paris: F. Didot, 1788-1824), 7: 261-73; on d’Ohsson himself see Kemal Beydilli, “Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson (Muradcan Tosunyan),” Tarih Dergisi 34 (1983-84): 247-314; Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 10 vols. (Budapest: Ca. H. Hartleben, 1827-35). * Pal Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform, in 15th-17th Century Ottoman Mirrors for Princes,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 60 (1986): 217-40; Douglas A. Howard, “Ottoman Historiography and the Literature of ‘Decline’ of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Asian History 22 (1988): 74-77. The advice literature began to be translated into western languages in the eighteenth century.

4 INTRODUCTION of military fortunes that it was unhesitatingly accepted and incorporated into the western historical narrative.'° The observed change in the strength of the Ottoman Empire thus appeared to be corroborated and explained by the Ottomans themselves: the Ottomans declined externally because they had first declined internally. In this version of Ottoman history the importance of the internal decay of institutions still lay in its effect on Ottoman military capability; the institutions themselves, their basis of operation, and their underlying rationale were not investigated for their own sake. When twentieth-century historians initiated the study of Ottoman internal

institutions, however, they employed the same chronology as the Ottoman advice writers, enhancing the persuasiveness of the decline paradigm. In this view, the “classical age” of the Ottoman Empire came to an end in the late sixteenth century with the transformation of the timar system (a military-administrative system in which a cavalry

army was supported by temporary grants of rights over revenues awarded by the sultan according to surveys performed by a centralized bureaucracy).'! The turning point in Ottoman history is set around 1600, the time of the empire’s greatest chaos and distress: population explosion, price revolution, treasury deficits, military upheaval, internal rebellion, external defeat, sultanic incompetence, rule by women, popular disaffection, all crowned by the inability of the Ottomans to

deal with these problems in any effective way. Decline is construed as the decay of central power and sultanic authority, and its consequences as disorder, chaos, and corruption. Specialists have become skeptical of this decline paradigm, feeling that it fails to explain Ottoman tranformation and change. It is teleological: because we know that eventually the Ottomans became a '© See, for example, Sir Hamilton A.R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West: A Study of the Impact of Western Civilization on Moslem Culture in the Near East, Vol. 1: Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century, 2 pts. (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), hereafter Gibb & Bowen; Bernard Lewis, “Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline,” Islamic Studies 1 (1962): 71-87; Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, The History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Erik J. Ziircher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 1993).

'! The most influential expressions of this view are Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600, trans. Norman Itzkowitz (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973; rpt. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1989); idem, ““The Heyday and Decline

of the Ottoman Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Islam, ed. P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, vol. 1A: The Central Islamic Lands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 324—53.

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 5 weaker power and finally disappeared, every earlier difficulty they experienced becomes a “seed of decline,” and Ottoman successes and sources of strength vanish from the record. Furthermore, during the time when Ottoman relations with the west were in a process of reversal,

the west was undergoing its own transformation: the scientific and industrial revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dramatically altered the pace of change. The Ottomans’ lack of military success in this period may be attributable to European advance rather

than Ottoman decline. This “relative decline,” as it is called, decline

by virtue of slower progress, may even conceal improvements in Ottoman internal organization and strength that simply did not go far enough and remain invisible in this model. Moreover, the writers of

advice literature, who furnish our analysis of internal decay, were scarcely disinterested observers; their tales of domestic woe were intended to stimulate governmental responses from which they as individuals and as a group often expected to benefit.'* Their attention was focused on what they thought was wrong with their society, and

they wasted no words on what ran well. Only now are scholars attempting to evaluate the accuracy of the picture they painted, either of their own time or of the preceding “golden age.”’ One approach being taken is a detailed analysis of the genre of advice memoranda

and their conventions, in order to understand the Ottomans’ use of the image of fall from a golden age.’’ Another method is to work from different sources to uncover the historical realities of the period.'* Was the age of Siileyman really as orderly and smooth-running as the advice writers believed? Were there actually more revolts in the '* Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600), Princeton Studies on the Near East (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1986); Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, “Fitnah, Huruc ala al-Sultan, and Nasihat: Political Struggle and Social Conflict in Ottoman Society, 1560’s—1700’s,” Actes du Vle symposium du Comité international d’études pre-ottomanes et ottomanes, ed. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Emeri van Donzel, Varia Turcica, 4 (Istanbul: Divit Yayincilik, 1987), 185-91. 13 Rhoads Murphey, “The Veliyuddin Telhis: Notes on the Sources and Interrelations Between Koci Bey and Contemporary Writers of Advice to Kings,” Belleten 43 (1979): 547-61; Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, “The Ottoman Nasihatname as a Discourse over ‘Morality’,” Revue d’histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 15-30; Howard, “Ottoman Histori-

ography and the Literature of ‘Decline’.” |

'4 See, for example, Haim Gerber, State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). On the slowness of paradigm shift in Ottoman studies see Suraiya Faroqhi, “Recent Work in the Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire (1450-1800),” Trends in History 2, No. 3 (1982): 15-34.

6 INTRODUCTION early seventeenth century than in the early sixteenth—or the early fifteenth, for that matter? If some seventeenth-century rulers were incompetent, could leadership and control be provided in other ways? Was the military weakness of the eighteenth century indeed connected to the loss of the spice trade? Was there more corruption and extortion in the later period of the empire than before? If so, how much more? How impoverished were the peasants and how heavy were the taxes? How many people actually left the land, and how many remained? Does the fact that the Ottomans did not imitate western ways mean their empire was in decline? The Ottomans lost battles in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but they lost some in earlier periods as well—around 1400, they lost their whole empire. Was that decline? The empire, after all, survived for 350 years after the death of Siileyman the Magnificent. If it was declining all that time, why didn’t it fall?»

This book takes an initial step toward answering some of these questions, particularly those on socioeconomic conditions, by examining the empire’s financial records. Extensive research has been done on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century conditions since the opening of the

Ottoman archives earlier in this century: research on population increase, landholding and agriculture, urban settlement and growth, trade and trade routes, government and taxation. This work has revised

our view of the earlier empire from an inexorable military machine enslaving all in its path to a complex civilization that successfully managed a polyglot empire and made it secure, wealthy, and powerful, allowing us to call this period the empire’s “classical age.”

Revising the myth of decline demands the same kind of detailed research into the events and trends of the post-classical age. Until recently, however, the dominance of the decline paradigm discouraged scholarship on what was defined in advance as a period of failure and loss. Removing Ottoman history from the ghetto of dead empires

requires a new paradigm that will remove the stigma of decline and introduce some dynamism into the analysis. In the last few decades, Ottomanists have experimented with a number of models, derived mainly from European history, for analyzing the empire in terms that would permit comparison with other ' Palmer (Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, 2) tries to explain decline by the qualities of the sultans themselves and by “the way in which an astonishingly narrow ruling class imposed government on lands extending from the Danubian plains to the

no tone?” of the Caucasus,” but he is still left with the question, “How did it survive

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 7 early modern states. Modernization, decentralization, world systems theory, and Marxist notions of class conflict and the Asiatic Mode of Production have all been applied to the Ottoman case.'® None, however, has caught on outside specialist circles, perhaps because none has escaped the decline paradigm’s greatest flaw, its limitation to a single question: What went wrong with the Ottoman Empire? Economic crisis and Celali unrest, transformations in the nature of the sultanate and in the political power of those close to the throne, military defeats against the European powers, and the eventual reduction of the Middle East to third-world status are considered manifestations of a single underlying process. A corollary assumption is that weakness is the norm during the whole post-classical period and signs of strength are an aberration. In the end, these alternative paradigms turn out to be euphemisms for decline, at best disguising its more unwelcome implications in the neutrality of scientific terminology.

Replacing the decline paradigm demands more than a revision of terminology; it also requires revision of the underlying conceptions. Escape from the trap of teleology begins with separating the events of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries from what happened afterward and examining them in their own right, not just as

precursors. If it is wrong to believe, as the west once did, that the Ottoman Empire was purely a military machine and that ceasing to '6 For modernization see William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers, eds., Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century, Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); for decentralization see Thomas Naff and Robert Owen, eds., Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, Papers on Islamic History (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977);

for world systems theory see Huri Islamoglu-Inan, ed., The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, Studies in Modern Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Resat Kasaba, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century, SUNY Series in Middle Eastern Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988). For a Marxist class analysis see Vera P. Mutafcieva, Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th Centuries, East European Monographs, 251 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); and Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, “Power and Social Order: The Uses of the Kanun,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. Irene A. Bierman, Rifa‘at ‘Ali. Abou-El-Haj, and Donald Preziosi, Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3 (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991), 7799; idem, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991); and for the Asiatic Mode of Production see Caglar Keyder, “The Ottoman Social Formation,” in The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics, ed. Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 301-24; and Halil Berktay, “The Feudalism Debate: The Turkish End—Is ‘Tax-vs.-Rent’ Necessarily the Product and Sign of a Modal Difference?” Journal of Peasant Studies 14, no. 3 (1986/87): 291-333.

8 INTRODUCTION expand was a perversion of its raison d’etre,'’ then seventeenth-century changes in the Ottomans’ military and fiscal organizations cannot be equated with the decline of the empire but must be considered as part of a process of imperial consolidation. As the age of the empire’s expansion gave way to an era of consolidation, the forms of estab-

lished institutions perforce had to be altered and old patterns of organization gave way to new arrangements. Stabilization of the frontiers in the sixteenth century and the consequent inability of the timar system to expand necessitated a more selective military force and thus an expansion of the janissary corps. Fixed borders also meant

that state revenues were no longer expanded by conquest, and the empire needed to develop new methods of revenue extraction to tap the surplus within society; thus, revenue farming and the regularization of extraordinary taxation were natural consequences. These new methods of financing the state did not keep up with military expenses, and price inflation resulting from devaluation exacerbated the fiscal

problem. Financial instability coincided with population growth, urbanization, two draining wars, and a possible climatic reversal to create conditions of economic crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Crisis and the Ottoman State The “general crisis of the seventeenth century,” a widely-used model in European history, sought to draw connections among a revolution

in prices and the value of money caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World, an economic downturn after the prosperity of the sixteenth century, the financial demands of an expanding bureaucracy and military force, a large number of mostly unsuccessful revolts occurring almost simultaneously in the 1640s and 1650s, and a significant intellectual or ideological shift.'* This paradigm placed

'’ For the concept of the Ottoman Empire as a giant war machine dependent on expansion

see von Ranke, The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires, 5-27. '§ The originators of the “general crisis” debate were Eric J. Hobsbawm, “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” Past & Present 5-6 (1954): 33-53, 44-65; and Hugh TrevorRoper, “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” Past & Present 16 (1959): 3164, both articles rpt. in Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660, ed. Trevor Aston (New York: Anchor Books, 1967) 5-62, 63-102. On the intellectual repercussions of the crisis see J.H. Elliott, “Self-Perception and Decline in Early Seventeenth-Century Spain,” Past & Present 74

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 9 the economic and political trends of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in their international context and allowed distinctions between what was universal and what was unique to particular situations without reference to later outcomes. Economic distress and political upheavals were seen to have occurred simultaneously all over Europe,

in countries that declined and in those that did not, in countries that became part of the west European core and in countries that were later peripheralized.'’ Spain, France, England, Milan, Venice, and many

other areas saw population growth, urbanization, influx of precious

metals, rapid inflation of prices and lagging wages, followed by worsening climate conditions (the “Little Ice Age’’), subsistence crises, population decrease, social unrest, and destructive war. Another kind of climate change, one of intellectual unease, resulted from rapid economic and social change, the Reformation’s challenge to authority and established world views, and the breakdown of boundaries and identities by discoveries and explorations in new worlds. The French wars of religion, the Thirty Years’ War, the English Civil War, and other conflicts broadened the scale of warfare, and changes in weaponry, tactics, and organization great enough to be called a military revolution took place with the adoption of firearms, the development

of infantry tactics, and the social and economic dislocations that followed. To finance expansion of their military forces, kings struggled

to control the economic resources of their countries, to expand and improve their administrative apparatus, and to eliminate obstacles to the centralization of finances and manpower recruitment.”” Increased taxation weighed heavily on people undergoing economic distress, setting off peasant rebellion and popular unrest. The need to control (1977): 41-61. The best recent summary of the debate is Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, “Germany and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis,” Historical Journal 35 (1992): 417-41. '9 P.J. Coveney, “An Early Modern European Crisis?” Renaissance and Modern Studies 20 (1982): 1-26. Comprehensive discussions of the period using the general crisis as a framework include Henry Kamen, The Iron Century: Social Change in Europe, 15501660, History of Civilisation (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971); Charles Henry Wilson, The Transformation of Europe, 1558-1648 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); Raymond Birn, Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe, 1648—1789/91 (Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1977); Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648, Fontana History of Europe, 9 (Brighton, England: The Harvester Press, 1980). 0 Niels Steensgaard, “The Seventeenth Century Crisis,” in The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 26-56. Ogilvie makes the point that centralization permitted new and strongly contested encroachments by the state into the economic, social, and (in Europe) religious life of its subjects (“Germany and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis,” 434).

10 INTRODUCTION the flow of resources encouraged rulers to violate traditions and liberties, sometimes motivating members of the upper classes to join forces with or coopt the rebellious peasantry and engage in revolts against the centralizing state. For the Ottoman Empire, the upheavals of the late sixteenth century were first analyzed in terms of population growth and price inflation. Barkan’s researches in these areas showed how the Ottomans were affected by European global exploration and the changes in Europe’s economic base.”! The military revolution, the widespread employment of infantry with handguns, was brought into the analysis by Inalcik, who also investigated the impact of change in patterns of commerce with the west as well as the silver influx and the resulting problems of counterfeiting and coinage devaluation.” Faroqhi, for whom “the Ottoman state of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries belongs in the same category as the centralised, late feudal states of contemporary Europe,” used the seventeenth-century crisis model to generate research

questions about Ottoman population, land use, agricultural production, urbanization, manufacturing, trade, markets, prices and wages.” 21 Omer Liitfi Barkan, “XV. Asrin Sonunda Bazi Biiyiik Sehirlerde Esya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarinin Tesbit ve Teftisi Hususlarin. Tanzim Eden Kanunlar,” Tarih Vesikalari 1, no. 5 (1942): 323-40, 2, no. 7 (1942): 15-40, and 2, no. 9 (1942): 168-77; idem, “The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire,” JJMES 6 (1975): 3-28. The main influence on Barkan was that of Fernand Braudel (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip IT, trans. Sian Reynolds, 2 vols. [New York: Harper and Row, 1971}). 22 Halil Inalcik, “The Socio-Political Effects of the Diffusion of Fire-Arms in the Middle East,” in War, Technology and Society in the Middle East, ed. V.J. Parry and M.E. Yapp (London: Oxford University Press, 1975; rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, XIV), 195-217; idem, “Osmanlhi Imparatorlugunun Kurulus ve Inkisaf

Devrinde Tiirkiyenin Iktisadi Vaziyeti tizerinde bir Tetkik Miinasebetiyle,” Belleten 15 (1951): 629-84; trans. as “Notes on a Study of the Turkish Economy during the Establishment and Rise of the Ottoman Empire,” in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9 (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993), 205-63; idem, “Impact of the Annales School on Ottoman Studies and New Findings,” Review 1 (1978): 69-96; rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Collected Studies Series, 214 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), Selection IV; idem, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700,” Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283-337 rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Collected Studies Series, 214 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), Selection V. 3 Suraiya Faroghi, Introduction to New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History, 13. The subjects of many of her articles correlate with the themes of the crisis paradigm: on population, see Suraiya Faroqhi and Leila Erder, “Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia, 1550-1620,” Middle Eastern Studies 15 (1979): 322-45; idem, “The Development of the Anatolian Urban Network during the Sixteenth Century,” JESHO 23 (1980): 265-303; on agriculture, Suraiya Faroqhi and Huri Islamoglu-Inan, “Crop Patterns and Agricultural Production Trends in Sixteenth Century Anatolia,” Review 1 (1978/79):

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 11 The most influential summary of these trends was made by Bernard

Lewis, who added seventeenth-century crisis to the framework of Ottoman decline. Lewis did not explore the implications of this move for the decline paradigm; for him, the manifestations of the crisis were self-evidently related to decline.” In his analysis, the monetary upheaval consequent on the influx of New World silver functions simultaneously as an aspect of financial and economic decline, a symptom

of the Ottomans’ inability to comprehend and control the modern world, and a cause of further decline having dire effects on Ottoman military capability in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Celali rebellions resulting from military transformation are both symptoms of the Ottoman state’s declining control and causes of decline

in military efficacy and social order. Thus, in his work the concept of seventeenth-century crisis does not alter the existing paradigm but becomes one more cause of decline. In western European historiography, however, historians’ introduction of the crisis model had enabled

them to abandon the concept of decline in view of the recovery and growth experienced by most of Europe. If the phenomena described by the “general crisis” model were not necessarily linked to decline in western Europe, then monetary devaluation and Celali unrest may 401-36; Suraiya Faroghi, “The Peasants of Saideli in the Late Sixteenth Century,” Archivum

Ottomanicum 8 (1983): 215-50; on urbanization, idem, “Taxation and Urban Activities in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia,” /nternational Journal of Turkish Studies 1 (1979-80): 1953; idem, “Towns, Agriculture and the State in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Anatolia,” JESHO 33 (1990): 125-56; on manufacturing and trade, idem, “Notes on the Production of Cotton and Cotton Cloth in 16th and 17th Century Anatolia,” Journal of European Economic History 8 (1979): 405-17; idem, “Alum Production and Alum Trade in the Ottoman Empire (about 1560—1830),” WZKM 76 (1979): 153-75; idem, “Textile Production in Rumeli and the Arab Provinces: Geographical Distribution and Internal Trade,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 1 (1980): 61-83; idem, “The Early History of the Balkan Fairs,” Stidost-Forschungen 37 (1978): 50-69; idem, “Sixteenth-Century Periodic Markets in Various Anatolian Sancaks: Icel, Hamid, Karahisar-i Sahib, Kiitahya, Aydin, and Mentese,” JESHO 22 (1979): 32-80; and on prices and wages, idem, “Long-Term Change and the Ottoman Construction Site: A Study of Builders’ Wages and Iron Prices,” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 111-26. 4 Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire.” As Sanjay Subrahmanyam has noted, most historians of the “price revolution” in Asia have taken the price revolution to signal the beginning of decline (“Precious Metal Flows and Prices in Western and Southern Asia, 1500-1750: Some Comparative and Conjunctural Aspects,” Studies in History n.s. 7, no. 1 [1991]: 104). Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, however, raised the issue of the seventeenth-century crisis for the Ottoman Empire only to dismiss it (“The Nature of the Ottoman State in the Latter Part of the XVIIth Century,” Habsburgisch-osmanische Beziehungen, ed. Andreas Tietze, Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 13 [Vienna: Verlag des Verbandes der Wisseschaftlichen Gesellschaften Osterreichs, 1985], 172).

12 INTRODUCTION not be equivalent to decline in the Ottoman case either. The general crisis model offers a means of seeing them as parts of a global process rather than simply the product of Ottoman weakness. The crisis model functions primarily as a description of circumstances; a deeper analysis of the way states responded to crisis has been made by theorists of state formation. The state formation paradigm examines the processes by which states attempted to gain control over rebellious and resource-controlling elements in the society; it acknowledges the state’s agency as it seeks to learn its goals and the means by which it pursued them.” Important issues in state formation are the relationship between resources—money, goods, and manpower—and needs, the means by which government income is obtained, and through whose hands that income passes. Ideologies of cooperation and resistance become central to the mobilization of society.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to this model, the demands of Europe-wide war heightened the desire of early modern

States to expand their control of resources. The form and degree of opposition to the state’s demands was affected by the relationship of

upper classes to other strata of society and to the state, the ideas of merchants and bankers about resource investment, and the capacity of peasants to organize and rebel. The eventual domination of nationally-organized states over more loosely organized empires was related to their superior ability to harness the resources of warmaking through control of capital and of local administration, recruitment,

and taxation.” Ottoman history gained a prominent place in the seventeenth-century crisis and state formation paradigms in the work of Goldstone.’ *° Research on this model has concentrated on countries where the state’s efforts at control failed most spectacularly, producing the major revolutions of modern times: Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

*° Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990). *7 Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). An earlier summary of his argument was presented in “East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988): 103-42. See also V.G. Kiernan, State and Society in Europe, 1550-1650 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), 255.

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 13 He linked events in the Ottoman Empire and the Far East to those in early modern Europe, relating differing outcomes to variations in internal state structures and ideologies. Revolution and rebellion, in the Ottoman Empire and China as well as in Europe, resulted from the demographic and economic crises of the period and generated widespread state breakdown. Goldstone’s analysis of the crisis revolved around the impact of population growth on three levels of Ottoman society: the central government, where budget deficits resulting from taxation and monetary policies adopted to meet the fiscal

needs of warfare in the late sixteenth century led to inability to pay its soldiers, causing them to rebel; the Ottoman elite, which experi-

enced a loss of cohesion and loyalty due to competition to enter government service and tax farming, both of which offered more security and greater financial rewards than the traditional military career; and the popular level, where urban artisans engaged in wage protests and demonstrations and landless peasants committed vagrancy,

banditry, and rebellion or joined the military forces of officials and provincial magnates, contributing to factionalism and provincial autonomy. The coinciding of unrest on all three levels threatened the empire with a collapse that was only averted by the action of the strong dynasty of K6priilti grand viziers, who took control in 1656,

restored order, and presided over a hardening of conservatism. Goldstone’s explanation makes it possible to investigate the causes

and effects of these events without having to assume ubiquitous corruption or inevitable decline. Unfortunately, it does not break free

from the orientalism associated with the decline paradigm: in this analysis, the same trends ihat generated a successful transition in Europe

somehow led to ossification in the Ottoman Empire and China, although the only discernible difference in the eastern empires was the lack of an ideology of dynamism. Criticism of Goldstone’s work has also come from theorists of state formation who see no state breakdown in the Ottoman case.” For these theorists, the Ottoman seventeenth century was a period not of state formation or breakdown but of consolidation; peasant rebellion and provincial autonomy were nonexistent and the state’s 28 Rhoads Murphey, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century,” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 424; Karen Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Peculiar Route of Ottoman State Centralization

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994). I am grateful to Karen Barkey for the Opportunity to see parts of her manuscript prior to publication.

14 INTRODUCTION main problem was banditry (not genuine rebellion) on the part of exsoldiers. Branded as Celalis (rebels), discharged soldiers with gunpowder weapons preyed on the countryside, disrupting cultivation and revenue collection. The process by which the Ottoman state success-

fully managed these disruptive elements through bargaining and cooptation to its service has been analyzed by Barkey.” The absence

of local ties on the part of the military elite prevented elites and peasants from combining effectively to resist imperial demands. The strategies of incorporation by which the state consolidated its control made rebellion by elites unprofitable even under unfavorable demographic and economic conditions, and the bargaining tactics employed

by the state became the standard means of harnessing peripheral energies to the purposes of the center. The turmoil of the period contributed to state consolidation by increasing the demand for control and multiplying the loci where control could be exercised. A similar

concept of control through negotiation of privileges was applied by Salzmann to the distribution of revenue farming rights among central and local elites.” This approach problematizes the relationship between seventeenth-century crisis and decline, disconnecting phenomena formerly written off as “signs of decline” from subsequent military defeats in order to look for sources of strength as well as weakness.

This book takes a similar approach to the study of the Ottoman finance department and its taxation policies and procedures.*! Extortionate taxation has always played a role in theories of Ottoman decline as a primary cause of misery among the peasantry, flight from the land, decline of cultivation, loss of prosperity, lowered resistance to European encroachment, elite demands for autonomy, and finally

the rise of nationalism by oppressed minorities. Seen as parts of a *” Karen Barkey, “Rebellious Alliances: The State and Peasant Unrest in Early Seventeenth-Century France and the Ottoman Empire,” American Sociological Review 56 (1991):

699-715. On state bargaining in general see Margaret Levi, “The Predatory Theory of Rule,” Politics and Society 10 (1980/81): 431-65. Faroghi interprets the entire Celali movement as motivated by the desire of Anatolian Muslim peasants to join the elite (“Crisis and Change,” 437). *® Ariel Salzmann, “An Ancien Régime Revisited: ‘Privatization’ and Political Economy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” Politics & Society 21 (1993): 393-423. A European example of rule by negotiation is provided by the Habsburg monarchy of sixteenth-

century Spain and its relationship with the towns: Helen Nader, Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Habsburg Sale of Towns, 1516-1700, The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 109th Series (1990), 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 4—S. *" Gerber also sees the traditional “signs of decline” as perennial features of imperial administration rather than indications of breakdown (Srate, Society, and Law, 132-36).

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 15 single process, the causes, symptoms, and effects of these phenomena cannot be disentangled, and the fiscal history of this period is incomprehensible: the finance department appears bent on its own destruc-

tion. The incredible tenacity of the decline myth may well rest on its dependence on and reinforcement of another myth, an orientalist one of eastern mysteriousness and irrationality which ostensibly explains such inexplicable behavior. In contrast, here taxation is considered not as a cause of decline but as a tool in the hands of government, one whose impact is not yet well known. Clarifying the finance department’s contribution to the fate of the empire involves placing it in its seventeenth-century context, seeking to understand its purposes and how it carried them out. As Faroghi has said, “We are

at present concerned not so much with the fact that the Ottoman Empire ultimately lost its cohesion and disappeared from the political arena, as with the mechanisms which allowed Ottoman state and society to survive the first major crisis by over three hundred years.””?

The economic and demographic conditions of the empire were fundamental to its post-classical history and basic to the problems that confronted the Ottoman leadership. If we are to understand the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire in the same terms as other countries undergoing similar crises and transformations, we need better infor-

mation on its economy and population, production and trade, the conditions of the peasantry and ruling class, and the government’s efforts to deal with the situation it faced. Although survey registers for the timar system, the documents from which our statistics are derived for the period before 1600, are not found after that date, that does not mean there is no evidence on later conditions; it means we must find other kinds of evidence. From the advice writers we have only alarmist generalizations designed to rouse the government to action. Fortunately for researchers, just at the time when survey registers

ceased to be made regularly, there was a vast increase in other types of documents. Two major groups of documents are especially impor-

tant for research on Ottoman state and society in the seventeenth century: court records and finance documents. Court records (including inheritance records), particularly useful for social history, are now beginning to be more widely exploited.** Finance documents, of which 32 Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 414; in this chapter Faroghi summarizes and reinterprets a quarter-century of research on the seventeenth century. 33 For a description of court records and a bibliography of recent work see Yvonne J. Seng, “The Ser’iye Sicilleri of the Istanbul Miiftiiliigii as a Source for the Study of Everyday Life,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 307-25.

16 INTRODUCTION new kinds were developed in the seventeenth century, form our principle

source of economic data for this period, from which our detailed knowledge of Ottoman society and economy will be extended beyond the classical age. Through these documents we can also obtain a sense of the purposes of Ottoman administration and the ideological context in which it took place, as they record interactions between the government and its people.

Sources for the Study of the Post-Classical Age One of the most sophisticated bureaucracies of its time, the Ottoman finance administration left abundant records from which better data on the post-classical era can be obtained. As an initial study, this book cannot attempt to solve the many complex problems raised above; its aim is more modest. It introduces sources which can improve our picture of seventeenth-century conditions, opens up avenues of inquiry, draws comparisons with fiscal administration in contemporary States, and suggests revisions in the way we conceptualize the Ottoman experience. A necessary preliminary to further research is an understanding of the nature of the sources. These sources consist of a mass of finance department registers and documents stored mainly in the Basbakanlik Arsivi (the Prime Minister’s Archive) in Istanbul; some are also located in the Topkapi Palace Archive.** They exist in enormous number and baffling variety, some in good condition and some torn and wormeaten. No catalogue has yet been published, and only a few of the many kinds of documents have been described so

as to be useful to scholars. As a step toward wider use of these documents, certain questions need to be addressed. How did these documents come into existence? Who compiled them and for what purposes? How are they organized and what are the sources of the information they contain? What is the nature of the administrative structure within which they were employed? Does a particular register * Most of the finance registers are in the Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi, for which no detailed catalogue is published; see Aktas, Necati, and Ismet Binark, Arshif al-‘Uthmani: Fihris Shamil li-Watha’iq al-Dawlah al-‘Uthmaniyah al-Tabi‘ah li-Ri?asat al-Wuzara’ biIstanbul, trans. Salih Sa‘dawi (Istanbul: Markaz al-Abhath lil-Ta’rikh wa-al-Funtn waal-Thaqafah al-Islamiyah, 1986); Atilla Cetin, Basbakanhk Arsivi Kilavuzu (Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1979), 28-35; Midhat Sertoglu, Muhteva Bakimindan Basvekdlet Arsivi, Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakiiltesi Yayinlan, 103 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1955).

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 17 show taxes as assessed or revenue actually collected? Was the accuracy of tax collectors’ accounts ever checked? Did the composition of the revenue-collecting group alter over time? What were the problems inherent in the fiscal system and how were they solved? How did people participate in the documentation process and what did they

think they were accomplishing by doing so?* This study attempts to answer such questions for documents connected with the three largest sources of Ottoman central government revenue in the seventeenth century: the cizye, a poll tax on non-Muslims, the avariz-i divaniye ve tekalif-i Orfiye, a large group of extraordinary

levies and dues, and the iltizam system, or tax farming. The records of these revenues, besides containing information on the income of

the central government, shed light on tax collection practices and personnel, population and population movements, local societies and economies, and the organization and activities of governmental officials. The most important sources for this study are the registers and papers of the finance department itself. Ottoman finance officials did not write treatises on their procedures, nor did they compile collections of sample documents (miinseat), like those compiled by scribes of the divan.** The model they used for the format of a register was the previous register, and procedural instructions were published not in handbooks but as imperial orders to those required to carry them

out. Hence, the conclusions in the following chapters are based on registers actually created by the finance scribes and orders written on fiscal matters. Certain of these documents, mainly survey (tahrir) and accounting

(muhasebe) registers, have previously been published as isolated ** For a study with similar aims focusing on legal documents and the legal system in twentieth-century Yemen see Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies, 16 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Closer to our period, though pursuing somewhat different goals, is a study by Joel Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century: The Central and Naval Administrations” (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1971), which analyzes the documentation of the naval administrative bureaus and the flow of paperwork between them and the central finance bureaus in the second half of the seventeenth century. © For a general discussion of insa see H.R. Roemer, “Insha’,” E/2 3: 1241-44; for the Ottoman Empire see Josef Matuz, “Uber die Epistolographie und Insa’-Literatur der Osmanen,” Deutscher Orientalistentag, 1968, ZDMG, Supplementa I, 2 (1970): 574-94, which includes a bibliography of Ottoman insa works. The best-known example is Ahmed Feridun Bey, Mecmu‘a-i Miinse‘Gt ’iis-Seldtin, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Dar et-Tiba‘a el-‘Amire, 1848-49; Istanbul, n.p., 1274-75/1858).

18 INTRODUCTION examples.*” Here, the documents are treated instead as parts of a procedural whole, artifacts of a process of governance. This method shifts the focus of study from the specific information contained in a single document to relationships among groups of documents, making

it possible to draw conclusions about their compilation and use and about the procedural and administrative context in which they were drawn up. Of course, the examination could not include every register, of which there are many thousands, but the various types of registers

are examined and placed within the process. The aim was to obtain representative coverage broad enough in space (with examples from all parts of the Ottoman Empire) and in time (with examples from the beginning, middle, and end of the period under investigation) to permit generalizations about common features and about changes and differences. Unfortunately for a full understanding of scribal procedures, all but a few of the individual accounts, notes, and papers from which the registers must have been compiled are either uncatalogued or destroyed; a small number, however, is examined here. A final and most valuable type of record is registers of outgoing orders of the finance department (maliye ahkam defterleri). These registers contain copies of instructions to tax assessors and collectors and responses to complaints regarding errors or injustices in the assessment and collection processes, all of which prove extremely helpful in understanding both normal procedure and deviations from it. Once again, complete coverage is impossible, but examples of orders addressed to many parts of the empire and dating from the beginning, middle,

and end of the period are used. One of these registers, chosen at random, is examined in its entirety to understand the overall scope of a single bureau’s activities. After describing the Ottoman revenue and monetary systems in the period examined, this book examines the finance department and its bureaus, the administrative organs by which taxes were assessed and collected and in which the finance records forming our sources were 7 A detailed cizye tahriri register for Istolni Belgrad: Josef Matuz, ed., with the cooperation of Istvan Hunyadi Die Steuerkonskription des Sandschaks Stuhlweissenburg aus den Jahren 1563 bis 1565, Islamwissenschaftliche Quellen und Texte aus deutschen Bibliotheken, 3 (Bamberg: Verlag Aku, 1986); an avariz tahriri register: Miinir Aktepe, “XVII. Asra ait Istanbul Kazasi Avariz Defteri,” /stanbul Enstitiisi Dergisi 3 (1957): 10939; and a cizye accounting register: Omer Liitfi Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina ait Muhasebe Bilancolan,” Belgeler 1 (1964): 1-117; customs and provincial account registers: Lajos Fekete and Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, Rechnungsbiicher Tiirkischer Finanzstellen in Buda (Ofen), 1550-1580 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1962).

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 19 produced. Salary registers of finance department personnel permit reconstruction of the department’s organizational structure and its changes over time. Besides assisting in the critical use of finance documents, this information corrects misconceptions about the department’s inefficiency and corruption arising from the decline stereotype.

Neither a static monolith nor an overblown warren, the finance department of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries emerges as a developing organism, altering over time to conform to change in the empire’s structure and needs. The succeeding chapters have a dual purpose: they describe in detail

the documents by which taxes were assessed and collected, and conversely, they piece together the processes of tax assessment and collection as they appear in the documents. One goal of this detailed examination is to make tax documents more accessible to researchers. Another is to show how change in procedure reflected changing needs and conditions rather than mere bureaucratic corruption. Although the

prevalence of any particular procedure or problem cannot yet be determined, by examining the range of possibilities we can construct

a picture of normal fiscal procedure to replace the lurid tales of oppression that now comprise our image of Ottoman tax collection. Chapter Three examines the process of tax assessment by survey (tahrir,

used for the cizye and avariz taxes) and attempts to evaluate the figures found in survey registers. Chapter Four describes tax farming,

tax farming personnel, and how tax farming revenues were determined. Chapter Five analyzes the holders of tax assessment, collection, and farming positions in the first half of the seventeenth century and discusses the employment of military personnel in these positions.

Chapter Six deals with the collection process itself, while Chapter Seven describes how tax revenues were delivered to the central treasury and accounted for, and how revenue totals were compiled at the central level. This chapter also relates the income figures for the period 1560-1660 to the economic crisis of the early seventeenth century. Chapter Eight examines petitions submitted by taxpayers and officials, not only to catalogue problems that arose in the course of revenue assessment and collection, but also to understand the petition process as an instrument of governance. Finally, Chapter Nine relates taxpay-

ers’ complaint petitions to other forms of protest taking place concurrently that challenged the ruler’s decisions and disturbed the order of the state. The finance department’s policy in crisis is linked to a search for governmental legitimacy in the face of new and ominous

20 INTRODUCTION challenges that arose in this period of turmoil. Orders issued in response to petitions illuminate the political relationship between the ruler and

the ruled in the Ottoman system. The Ottoman sultanate has given its name to the most extreme form of despotism,** but taxation proce-

dures and responses to petitions display the Ottoman sultans of the seventeenth century in quite a different light. Although revenue-raising was of critical importance, their continued legitimacy rested in part on the provision of economic as well as legal justice to their subjects. This study takes on only one segment of the larger task of rethinking the Ottoman seventeenth century. In its focus on exploring finance

department documents and their interconnections, it bears the mark of the dissertation from which it evolved. Even within the field of finance administration, numerous questions remain about the prevalence of various practices, the total amounts of money involved, and the relationship between revenue collection and spending. I hope this work will serve as a stepping-stone for researchers who will use finance

department records in conjunction with other sources to examine specific problems in Ottoman history and to make detailed comparisons between periods and between provinces of the empire. European

state-making theory offers a vehicle for questioning, rather than assuming, the connection between seventeenth-century fiscal admin-

istration and later military reversal, but comparison between the Ottoman Empire and the contemporary states of Europe is still at a preliminary stage. I have limited myself here to pointing out some intriguing similarities and differences on the level of specific institutions and to raising questions already asked in the European context but not in the Ottoman. Even with those limitations, however, it has been possible to explore ways in which our framework might be revised

and our understanding of the post-classical era in Ottoman history 8 Weber’s designation for the ultimate form of patrimonialism was “sultanism”; for Weberian analyses of the Ottoman Empire as a patrimonial state, see Serif Mardin, “Power,

Civil Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 11 (1969): 258-81; Metin Heper, “Patrimonialism in the Ottoman Turkish Public Bureaucracy,” Asian and African Studies 13 (1979): 3-21. Conversely, the Ottoman Empire was designated as one of the historic bureaucratic empires by S.N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (New York: Macmillan Co., Free Press of Glencoe, 1963). Halil Inalcik discusses the tension between patrimonial and bureaucratic tendencies in the Ottoman state in “Comments on ‘Sultanism’: Max Weber’s Typification of the Ottoman Polity,”

Princeton Papers on Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992): 49-72; and “Decision Making in the Ottoman State,” in Decision Making in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Caesar Farah (Kirksville,

MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993), 9-18.

THE MYTH OF DECLINE 21 improved. Critics will undoubtedly detect a bias toward the Ottoman

state, a bias which it is currently fashionable to decry. Such an orientation results naturally from the focus on the state’s own records

and procedures, but it is also the product of reluctance to reach a premature judgment on a system whose functioning we do not understand well. Thus, there has been no attempt to cast the Ottoman state as the villain in a morality play or a scapegoat for modern problems; the state appears here as problem-solver, as an agent faced

with difficulties it is required to address. If the study permits later scholars to use these records to uncover the lives of Ottoman peasants

and workingmen in the early modern period, it will also have made a contribution to the history of the voiceless majority, the ordinary people.

CHAPTER ONE

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE

Through its vast and detailed records, the Ottoman fiscal system provides an entrée into the economic and social life of the empire. One need only look at studies of the classical age, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to see how many kinds of information. can be obtained from Ottoman tax records.' Population figures and distribution, land use, agriculture, urban history, commercial trends, building construction and financing, religious movements and their economic basis, local disturbances, changes in the composition of the ruling class—all have been investigated through the study of revenue surveys. Records for the post-classical age can likewise be used to address questions about population and population movements, production, trade, taxation, monetary history, and the efforts of the central government to control economic resources. These later records, produced

in a context of political and economic crisis, grew out of systems already established for the recording of fiscal data. An overview of the revenue and monetary systems of the Ottoman Empire will provide an introduction to the logic and vocabulary of tax documents and will introduce the fiscal difficulties faced by the Ottoman state in the late sixteenth century. Ottoman Taxation

By the time the finance department (maliye) came into being during the fourteenth century, the classical revenue system was essentially in place. Ottoman history is generally considered to have begun with ' The work of Halil Inalcik illustrates the variety of documentary sources available: survey registers, Hicri 835 Tarihli Stret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1954); estate records, “15. Asir Tiirkiye Iktisadi ve Ictimai Tarihi Kaynaklar,” IUIFM 15 (1953-54): 51-75; military court records, “The Ruznamce Registers of the Kadiasker of Rumeli as Preserved in the Istanbul Miiftiiliik Archives,” Turcica 20 (1988): 251-75; civilian court records, “Osmanli Tarihi Hakkinda Mithim bir Kaynak,” AUDTCFD

1 (1943): 89-96; petitions, “Osmanli Birokrasisinde Aklam ve Mudmelat,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 1 (1980): 1-14 and “Sikayet Hakki: ‘Arz-i Hal ve ‘Arz-i Mahzar’lar,” Osmanli

Arastirmalari 7/8 (1988): 33-54; and a number of sources for economic history, “XV.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 23 Osman I (1280—1324), the eponymous founder of the Ottoman dynasty, followed by Orhan (1324-1362) and Murad I (1362-1389). Those early Ottoman conquerors cannot be seen as primitive warriors unfamiliar with the sophisticated governmental practices of their more civilized Anatolian neighbors. Elements of the classical revenue system

are visible in documents dated as early as the reign of Orhan. Documents surviving from the fourteenth century in apparently un-

altered form reveal that the first Ottoman rulers utilized a welldeveloped chancery style whose closest resemblances were to contemporary Ilkhanid practice.” Early Ottoman financial administration was also influenced by the Seljuks and Byzantines, whose taxation practices were modified in accordance with Islamic norms and adopted into law by Ottoman rulers.’ However, evidence for the existence of a separate bureaucratic organization for the scribal and administrative tasks associated with revenue collection is lacking for this early period.’

Asir Osmanli Maliyesine Dair Kaynaklar,” Tarih Vesikalari n.s. 1 (1955): 128-34. For a detailed examination of Ottoman economic and social history to the mid-sixteenth century see Mustafa Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi ve I¢timai Tarihi, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Cem Yayinlari, 1959). 2 Tréne Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches sur les actes des régnes des sultans Osman, Orkhan et Murad I, Acta Historica, 7 (n.p.: Societas Academica Dacoromana, 1967). Some

of the documents collected here are apparently not authentically early and have been considered forgeries. According to Inalcik, these are probably not forgeries but copies of early documents which were altered by later scribes to conform to sixteenth and seventeenth century scribal practices. However, sufficient evidence for our purpose is provided by documents 5, 7, and 40, which are accepted as early. For early Ottoman scribal practice see Inalcik, “Reis-iil-kiittab,” JA 9: 671-83. For the Ilkhanid revenue system see Paul Wittek, “Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, I,” WZKM 53 (1957): 300-313; Walther Hinz, “Das Rechnungswesen orientalischer Reichsfinanzamter im Mittelalter,” Der [slam 29 (1949/50): 1-29, 113-41; Philip Remler, “New Light on Economic History from Ilkhanid

Accounting Manuals,” Iranian Studies 13 (1980): 157-77. 3 For Seljukid scribal and taxation practices see the numerous works of Adnan Sadik Erzi, Claude Cahen, and Osman Turan; for the Byzantine system of revenue allocation see George Ostrogorsky, Pour I’ histoire de la féodalité byzantine, trans. Henri Grégoire, Corpus Bruxellense Historiae Byzantinae, Subsidia 1 (Brussels: Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves, 1954). Contrasting views on the nature of Byzantine influence have been offered by Mehmed Fuad K6priilii, “Bizans Miiesseselerinin Osmanh Miiesseselerine Te’siri Hakkinda Bazi Miilahazalar,” THITM 1 (1931): 165-313; Speros Vryonis, Jr., “The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23— 24 (1969-70): 251-308; and Bistra A. Cvetkova, “Influence exercée par certaines institutions de Byzance et des Balkans du moyen ge sur le systéme féodal ottoman,” ByzantinoBulgarica 1 (1962): 237-57. On early Ottoman taxation see Halil Inalcik, “The Problem of the Relationship between Byzantine and Ottoman Taxation,” Akten des X. Internationalen Byzantinisten-Kongresses 1958, rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980), II; idem, “Orf,” [A 9: 480. 4 Some authorities assert that the development of the first elements of bureaucratic financial administration should be placed as early as the latter part of the reign of Murad

24 CHAPTER ONE The reign of Bayezid I (1389-1402) is thought to have seen the inception of a system of land registration and the introduction of centralized bureaucratic administration. Evidence from records of the early fifteenth century indicates that major land registrations or fiscal surveys called tahrirs were made in the 1390s in the newly conquered territories of southern Albania and the area around Ankara.’ Land had formerly been granted in private ownership (milk), but from this point on, private ownership grants were seldom made. The implementation of land registration facilitated the reestablishment of Ottoman domination after the invasion of Timur in 1402, despite the frequency with which territories in the region changed hands during the warfare of the early fifteenth century. Ottoman chroniclers such as Asikpasazade, however, censured the land registration policy as evidence of oppres-

sion and a step in the direction of increased central control of the perquisites of conquest, as it was based on a theory of state ownership of land and implied demands of service from those to whom the state allotted revenue.®

The revenues surveyed and registered by the tahrir were either awarded as a living (dirlik) to members of the Ottoman military class in lieu of salary or other recompense, or retained in the central treas-

ury to pay for the expenses of government, mainly the palace, bureaucracy, and standing army of slave soldiers. The Ottoman social

system, an artifact of a conquest state, divided the population into two main groups: the askeri (“military”), which included military personnel, administrators and judges, and members of the Ottoman ruling house and was recompensed in untaxed wages or revenue grants;

and the reaya (“flock’’), the producers—peasant cultivators, pastoral

nomads, urban artisans and traders—who paid taxes in return for protection and justice provided by the askeri. There was limited mobility

between these two groups.’ Reaya who cultivated agricultural lands I; Mehmed Zeki Pakalin, Osmanli Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sézliigii, 3 vols. (Istanbul:

Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1946), 1: 413-14; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, 1: 25. > Halil Inalcik, “Arnavutluk’ta Osmanh Hakimiyetinin ve Iskender Be’ Isyaninin Mensei,”

Fatih ve Istanbul 1, no. 2 (1953): 154; idem, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest,” Studia [slamica 2 (1954), rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection I, Collected Studies Series, CS87 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1978), 104-6; Paul Wittek, “Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, II,” WZKM 54 (1957): 240-55. ° Halil Inalcik, “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. Bernard Lewis and P.M. Holt, Historical writing on the Peoples of Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 155-65; Joel Shinder, “Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness,” JJMES 9 (1978): 504-5. ’ For political and social structures of conquest states, see John Kautsky, The Politics of Aristocratic Empires (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962).

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 25 held hereditary tenure (tapu) on those lands; their taxes, fines, and fees constituted the revenue to be granted as dirliks. Revenue grants or dirliks, according to their size, were called timar (valued at 119,999 akce), zeamet (20,000-99,999 akce), or has (pl. havas, over 100,000 akce), and the whole complex of military, fiscal, administrative, and personal relationships engendered by these grants is now referred to by scholars as the timar system.’ At the beginning of the sixteenth century, about half the revenue of the empire was allocated under the timar system; the rest was retained by the central treasury as havass-i hiimayun, “royal domains” or “crown lands.” A complex recording system composed of several types of documents and defters (registers, record books) enabled the government to assess revenue and distribute grants.? Through a diploma of privilege called a berat,

the sultan or his delegate bestowed on a particular person the right to collect the revenues of a particular area. A single cavalryman (sipahi)

could be supported on a small timar, while holders of larger dirliks had to pay a retinue of men-at-arms out of their income. A promotion was accompanied by an addition (terakki) to the dirlik; increased income

meant responsibility for more men. The reaya on timar lands paid their taxes, often in kind, to the holder of the dirlik. In the case of the havass-1 hiimayun, the royal domains, taxes were paid to agents of the central treasury. Tax rates were specified by regulatory codes * Information on the timar system provided here is oriented around the tax system. For

more detail see the general works on the classical timar system: Omer Liitfi Barkan, Tiirkiye’de Toprak Meselesi: Toplu Eserler, I (Istanbul: Gdzlem Yayinlar, 1980), a collection

of many of his important articles; idem, “Timar,” JA 12: 186-333; Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age; Nicoara Beldiceanu, Le Timar dans l'état ottoman (début XIV*-début XVI° siécle) (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1980). For a succinct explanation

of the Ottoman land system see Halil Inalcik, “Koy, Kéylii ve Imparatorluk,” in V. Milletlerarasi Tiirkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi, Tebligler (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1990), 1-11; rpt. with notes in Osmanli Imparatorlugu Toplum ve Ekonomi uizerinde Arsiv Caligsmalari, Incelemeler (Istanbul: Eren, 1993), 1-14; trans. as “Village, Peasant and Empire,” in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9 (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993), 13760; and for a detailed description see Halil Inalcik, “The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300-1600,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 13001914, ed. Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 103-78. Was the timar system feudal? After much debate, the answer seems to be juridically no, economically yes. ? For the documentary steps involved in the grant of a timar see Inalcik, “Osmanli Biirokrasisinde Aklam ve Muamelat,” 1-14. For a history and description of defters see Bernard Lewis, “Daftar,” E/J2 2: 77-81. For the timar bestowal process see Douglas A. Howard, “The Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation, 1563—1656” (PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1987).

26 CHAPTER ONE (kKanun) promulgated by the rulers and adhered to in the making of the tahrirs; the kanuns were often copied into the front of the registers. The revenue of the Ottoman Empire consisted of a multitude of separate taxes, dues, fees, and levies on production, trade, and the activities of daily life. These taxes varied from place to place and sometimes from group to group within the empire; some were prescribed by Islamic law (ser‘?), while others were customary or pre-

conquest practices given the force of law by sultanic edict (6rfi). Scholars have usually categorized Ottoman revenues according to their source: tithes on agricultural and pastoral production, customs dues, sales and market taxes, fines, commutation of feudal services, bride taxes, revenues from mines, salt pans, fisheries, and so on. Numerous

studies have described in detail these varied taxes, their levels and amounts, and the laws applied to them.’® For a study of finance procedures, however, it is more useful to classify Ottoman revenues according to the recipient of the income. This approach divides taxes into two groups cutting across the many sources of revenue: revenues alienated from the central treasury and collected directly by their final recipients, and those entering the central government’s coffers (and its books) before being spent.'! Alienated revenues included revenues allocated to members of the military and governing class through the

timar system, revenues held by provincial governors to pay local expenses, and revenues tied up in pious foundations (evkaf, sing. vakif, revenue devoted in perpetuity to charitable purposes). Although alien-

ated revenues came from the same sources as central treasury revenues—agriculture, stockraising, production and trade—the structures

and personnel by which they were collected differed considerably. Under the timar system, the timar holder lived on his timar and was responsible for maintenance of security and general oversight of peasant life as well as for revenue collection during his tenure, and the holders

of the larger dirliks and of pious foundations had agents or retainers to collect their revenues. On the other hand, the havass-i humayun, '° Neset Cagatay, “Osman Imparatorlugunda Reayadan Alinan Vergi ve Resimler,” AUDTCFD 5 (1947): 483-511; Halil Inalcik, “Osmanlilarda Raiyyet Riisumu,” Belleten 23 (1959): 575-610. '' For a Marxist version of this classification, see Mutafcieva, Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 169-89. Revenue sources can also be classified according to the type of possession rights by which they were held: tapulu yer were lands held by hereditary right of usufruct, maintained by the payment of a fee called tapu resmi, while mukataalu yer were lands that could be rented by anyone (Inalcik, “The Ottoman State: Economy and Society,” 108-10).

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 27 the “crown” revenues, comprising unallocated land revenues and most of the income from urban and commercial taxes and monopolies, were

either farmed or collected by government employees. Revenue also came directly to the central treasury from a variety of other sources. Throughout the sixteenth century, the largest of these sources was the cizye, the traditional Islamic poll tax on non-Muslims,

usually paid as a flat fee per household. In the seventeenth century the largest single source of central government income became the avariz-1 divaniye ve tekalif-i Orfiye (extraordinary impositions and customary levies, also called simply avariz). This was a blanket term for a large number of different types of levies in cash, in kind, or in service: providing chickens or onions for the imperial kitchens; supporting post horses; maintaining roads, bridges, and watercourses; guarding mountain passes; providing grain for the horses of the army on the march; sending oarsmen to the naval galleys; or giving cash for paying soldiers or purchasing provisions in time of war. Also coming into the central treasury were revenues for the evkaf assigned to the support of imperial and vezirial foundations and of the Two Holy Places, Mecca and Medina. These funds were administered by the treasury but were earmarked for religious and charitable purposes and did not add to the government’s disposable income. A number of smaller revenue sources included confiscated funds, the estates of people dying without heirs (beytiilmal), and various kinds of fees and fines. Finally, the central treasury received annual remittances from provincial treasuries, balances remaining after the deduction of local expenses. Three main systems of tax assessment and collection were applied to the income of the central treasury. In vassal states or tribes and in provinces where the timar system was not applied (salyane provinces), revenues were collected by local officials and forwarded in a lump sum to the capital.'? Tax farming (iltizam) was employed from an early period for revenues which were occasional or whose amount varied according to circumstance, such as the revenues from mines, mints, salt works, mills, dyeing establishments, customs dues and market taxes. Other taxes, such as agricultural has revenues, or cizye

12 Salih Ozbaran, “The Saly4ne System in the Ottoman Empire as Organized in Arabia in the Sixteenth Century,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 6 (1986): 39-45; Stanford J. Shaw, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 15171798, Princeton Oriental Studies, 19 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961).

28 CHAPTER ONE and avariz, could also be farmed; over time tax farming was used more and more for such revenues.'* The finance department’s role in tax farming was an indirect one and involved awarding bids, keeping records, receiving money, and adjudicating conflicts. The final method

of tax assessment was the tahrir or revenue survey, performed by government officials to estimate most agricultural and urban revenues.

The tahrir was employed both for revenues alienated by the timar system (or by other means) and for central treasury revenues collected

by salaried imperial agents. Survey registers produced by the tahrir are our main source of information on Ottoman society and economy in the classical age. They tell us the number of taxpayers, their settlement patterns, ethnic and religious origins, ages, family structures, agricultural and artisanal production, animal ownership, and movement across the landscape.

They also supply information on land-holding and land use, the composition and distribution of the ruling class, and policies of reward

and recompense for government servants.’* Studies of the registers and of codes regulating taxation practices, however, show that behind

their apparent uniformity lay a bewildering variety of tax rates, assessment and collection arrangements, exceptions to the rules, and so forth; the same is true with respect to registers for other kinds of taxes, such as the cizye or avariz. Register-making can thus be interpreted as spreading a gloss of conformity over a base of extreme

'° For early records of tax farming, see M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, XV.—XVI. Asurlarda Edirne

ve Pasa Livast: Vakiflar-Miilkler-Mukataalar, Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlari, 508 (Istanbul: Ucgler Basimevi, 1952); for mines see Robert Anhegger, Beitrdge zur Geschichte des Bergbaus im Osmanischen Reich, Istanbuler Schriften, 2 (Istanbul: Maarmara Basimevi, 1943). In France, revenues such as commercial and production taxes and state monopolies were also farmed during the sixteenth century; in the latter part of the century these tended to be consolidated into large “general farms.” In the seventeenth century these farms were granted for long periods of time to groups of people formed into companies (Julian Dent, Crisis in Finance: Crown, Financiers and Society in Seventeenth-Century France [Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973], 38, 45). The English also farmed their customs revenues (the main source of central government income) as well as production monopolies, partly in order to ensure the predictability of the revenue (Frederick Charles Dietz, English Public Finance, 1485-1641, 2 vols. [New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964], 2: 90-91). ‘* For the use of the tahrir registers in determining population and production and the pitfalls encountered therein see M.A. Cook, Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, 14501600 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); Amnon Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Inalcik, “Impact of the Annales School”; Faroghi and Islamo#lu, “Crop Patterns and Agricultural Production Trends.”

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 29 diversity, the only practical way for a small bureaucracy to administer

a multinational empire.’ Revenue Assessment by Survey (Tahrir)

The history of fiscal surveys in the Middle East dates at least to the Assyrian Empire of the seventh century BC, when the Harran census or survey of northern Mesopotamia was made. It recorded agricultural lands, buildings, crops, and animals, and enumerated the residents by

family, including their names, occupations, personal status, and obligations to the state.'° Similar information was customarily recorded

in bills of sale, and a letter of Hammurabi I (c. 2200 BC) indicates that in his time land and land use were recorded, although no surveys survive from that early period.'’ Another revenue survey that found its way into the pages of history was performed in the sixth century by the Sasanian king Khusrau Anushirvan."* He set the level of taxation by measuring the extent and kind of land rather than the amount of

the harvest, as delay in measuring the yield until after harvest apparently caused hardship and injustice.'? He also established a separate tax administration independent of provincial governors and 5 The Ottoman situation was not unique; at this period Spain, France, and Britain were likewise not homogeneous nations but accumulations of provinces under a single crown. Each province was virtually autonomous with respect to law, custom, and taxation. The

provinces of France had separate tax systems, customs dues, and languages until the nineteenth century (Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976]). '6 Claude Hermann Walter Johns, An Assyrian Doomsday Book: or, Liber Censualis of the District Round Harran, in the Seventh Century BC, Assyriologische Bibliothek, 17 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1901); Frederick Mario Fales, Censimenti e catasti di epoca neoassira, Studia Economici e Tecnolgici, 2 (Rome: Centro per le Antichita e la Storia dell’ Arte

del Vicino Oriente, 1973). '7 Leonard William King, The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, about B.C. 2200, 3 vols., Luzac’s Semitic Texts and Translation Series, 2, 3, 8 (London: Luzac and Co., 1898-1900), 3: 23-25. 18 Mario Grignaschi, “Quelques spécimens de la littérature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothéques d’Istanbul,” Journal asiatique 254 (1966): 17-18, 20-23. These reforms were begun by Khusrau’s father Kobad (Kavad I, 488-531) before he died. 19 Richard N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962),

218. In addition to land tax, the Sasanian tax system also included personal taxes, extraordinary levies, and “gifts.” The three upper classes (priests, nobles and soldiers, and bureaucrats) were exempt from taxation, but not from “gifts” (Arthur Emmanuel Christensen,

L’Iran sous les Sassanides, 2nd ed. [Osnabriick: O. Zeller, 1971], 367). On harvest measurement and taxation in Sasanian and Ottoman times see Halil Inalcik, “Islamization of Ottoman Laws on Land and Land Taxation,” Festgabe an Josef Matuz: Osmanistik-

30 CHAPTER ONE commissioned judges to supervise assessment and collection in their districts. To handle unforeseen problems, he instituted a complaint procedure staffed by scribes, judges, and personnel from the palace. For later empires, Anushirvan became the model of the just ruler. In the early Islamic period revenue surveys were performed under

the Umayyads and Abbasids; the latter returned to a system of measuring the harvest for assessment purposes.”” Egypt had a long tradition by which land covered by the Nile flood was surveyed and redistributed and the revenue assessed.”! Surveys performed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century combined Middle Eastern and Chinese

methods, and information on the procedures they used was available to the Ottomans through the Ilkhanid scribal manuals.”? The Mongol example was followed by the Romanovs, who conducted a land survey immediately after consolidating their control over Russia in the 1620s.”

The Byzantine Empire also made records, called praktika, which inventoried the domains of military men, government officials, monasteries, and the like, enumerating land and buildings, cultivators and their families, animals, and possessions, and the revenues due from various kinds of taxes and rents.”4

Turkologie-Diplomatie, ed. Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992), 100-116. *° Frede Lgkkegaard, Islamic Taxation in the Classical Period (Copenhagen: Branner & Korch, 1950), 113-16. For the Ottoman interpretation of early Islamic land and taxation systems see Inalcik, “Islamization of Ottoman Laws on Land and Land Taxation.” *I Gladys Frantz-Murphy, The Agrarian.Administration of Egypt from the Arabs to the Ottomans, Supplément aux annales islamologiques, 9 (Cairo: Institut francais d’archéologie orientale, 1986). *? Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Mongke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 3 Parker, Europe in Crisis, 113. Western Europe was unable to attain this standard of administration until a later period. In sixteenth-century Spain, census information was simply not available, although it was recognized that good planning depended on accurate information obtained through such devices (I.A.A. Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620 (London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1976], 76-77). In France of the ancien régime there was no general register even of the royal domain, despite an attempt to compile one in the seventeenth century (Roland E. Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, trans. Brian Pearce and Arthur Goldhammer, 2 vols. [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979-84], 2: 437). Little Denmark made a census of agricultural land for taxation purposes in 1681 that was used until 1844 (Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in Europe, 1598-1700, Macmillan History of Europe [London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1990], 346). * Ostrogorsky, Pour I’histoire de la féodalité byzantine, 259-368.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 31 The Ottomans employed regular tahrirs, or surveys, to determine and record (in the imperial register, the defter-i hakani) the value of the empire’s revenues.” These revenues could then be distributed as timars, retained by the central treasury, or assigned as vakif and miilk.

A tahrir or registration could be occasioned by the conquest of new territory, by the accession of a new sultan, by change in the constitution of a region sufficient to render the previous defter out of date, or by the institution of certain reforms. It permitted taxation of those who had recently come of age or moved into an area, as well as the correction of errors and the deletion of exempted and deceased persons.

A tahrir might involve the registration of the whole empire at once, or one might be made for a single region or province. It could be initiated centrally, by an order from the sultan, or locally, by a petition

requesting the issuance of such an order. A superintendent or director was appointed to take charge of the survey; he held the title of agent (emin or emin-i defter, often translated “intendant’’) or registrar (yazici or muharrir). He was usually a former governor or finance official or a member of the ulema (religious

scholars), someone with authority and knowledgeable about the Ottoman revenue system, often someone acquainted with the area to be surveyed. For example, several sixteenth-century tahrirs of Hungary were made by Dervis Bey, the cizye collector of Budin.”© A scribe, or katib, accompanied the emin to keep the actual records and supervise their copying. He was usually a scribe in central government employ or a sipahi’s son with scribal training; he had to be an expert on the timar system and scribal practice. In the early years of conquest, 5 Omer Litfi Barkan, “Tiirkiye’de Imparatorluk Devirlerinin Biiyiik Niifus ve Arazi Tahrirleri ve Hakana Mahsus Istatistik Defterleri,’” JUJFM 2 (1940-41): 39-44; Inalcik, Hicri 835 Tarihli Siret-i Defter-i Sancak-1 Arvanid, xix—xx; idem, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest,” 110-11. The descriptions of the Ottoman survey process offered by these two scholars have been repeated and amplified numerous times, most extensively by Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “The Administration of the Sanjaq Registrations in Hungary,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 21 (1968): 181-223; Iréne Beldiceanu-Steinherr and Nicoara Beldiceanu, “Réglement ottoman concernant le recensement (premiére moitié du XVI° siécle),” SudostForschungen 39 (1978): 1-40; Bistra A. Cvetkova, “Early Ottoman Tahrir Defters as a Source for Studies on the History of Bulgaria and the Balkans,” Archivum Ottomanicum 8 (1983): 133-214; Inalcik, “Ottoman State: Economy and Society,” 132-42; and Feridun M. Emecen, whose XV/. Asirda Manisa Kazdsi, Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Kil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 14, no. 6 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1989) successfully integrates data from a large number of survey registers of various kinds into a detailed economic and social history of the kaza of Manisa. 76 Gustav Bayerle, Ottoman Tributes in Hungary, According to Sixteenth Century Tapu Registers of Novigrad (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), 18.

32 CHAPTER ONE the Ottomans also employed scribes from the conquered population,

people who knew the area to be surveyed, the language of the inhabitants, and the potential sources of revenue. Residents of the area, both taxpayers and those with rights to collect tax revenues, appeared before the emin and katib armed with whatever documents they possessed establishing their status, possessions, and privileges. Fields, villages, towns, and cities were examined to determine their probable revenue yield. The local kadi (judge) remained in attendance

on the emin to provide whatever assistance was necessary for the success of the survey, and special information on local conditions was obtained from governmental personnel and local notables. If a survey was conducted in a dangerous frontier area, or if the population offered

resistance to the assessment, military force could be called upon to ensure the security of the process.

The task of the emin and katib was to register the taxpaying population and their obligations and to discover and record all sources

of tax revenue in the area surveyed. As authorization, they carried an imperial order (isan) appointing them to the task and commanding compliance by the population and local authorities. If a previous survey register existed, they carried a copy as a basis for the new one. They estimated expected revenue from agricultural, productive, and commercial activities by taking an average of the previous three years’ production, and they counted taxpayers by household (hane, the basic unit of agricultural production) to reach a projected figure for personal taxes.”’ Particular note was taken of any changes in population or production since the previous survey, if any, and of

special local practices and tax rates, which were recorded in a kanunname, a list of regulations, at the front of the register. Documents in the claimants’ possession verified the claims of those wholly

or partially exempt from taxation and of timar holders and others entitled to collect the revenues assessed, as well as the status of lands held as miilk, vakif, or sultanic has. The possibility of corruption in

the survey process was lessened by the confrontation in person of peasant, timar holder, local kadi, and imperial emin. It was to each 7 On Ottoman tax households see Inalcik, “Ottoman Empire: Economy and Society,” 143-54. Spanish censuses of the sixteenth century were likewise made for tax purposes and enumerated not individuals but households (vecinos) (A.W. Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain, 1517-1598 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986], 245). The French, too, counted their taxpayers in hearths (sing. feu), equivalent to households (P.J. Coveney, ed., France in Crisis, 1620-1675 [Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977], 250).

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 33 party’s interest to expose misrepresentation or cheating by the others,

and the survey order imposed severe penalties for tax evasion and substantial rewards for its exposure.” Information gained by the survey was recorded in several different types of registers, known collectively as tahrir defters.””? The mufassal

defter, or detailed register, listed the taxpayers by name and status according to their place of residence (for that reason it was also called a register of names, defter-i esami or esami defteri). It also recorded the taxes assessed on them and on their agricultural production and livestock, on marketing activities in the towns, and on certain manufacturing activities such as milling or cloth dyeing. This type of register

often contained a kanunname, or regulatory code, detailing local taxation practices.*° Miilk and vakif revenues might be included in such a register, or they might appear in separate registers of their own. The icmal defteri, or summary register, recorded assignments of revenue

as timar, zeamet, or has; it identified the revenues assigned and the names of the holders, but not the names of the taxpayers. The kadis made up additional defters listing the names of those obligated to pay cizye and avariz. Another separate count was made of all zeamet and timar holders and their armed retainers (cebeliis). Scribes made two copies of each defter, which were sent to the capital for approval; one was then retained in the treasury’s archives and the other, validated by the sultan’s tugra or monogram, was returned to the locality surveyed. Upon sultanic approval of the defters, documents confirming tax amounts, exemptions, and collection rights could be issued and timars could be reassigned. These registers became the law of the land on revenue; the Ottomans were even able to prove claims to villages in disputed Hungarian territory through the use of tahrir 28 In 987/1579-80, timar holders were able to petition against an incorrect tahrir made by a governmental official who had misrepresented the amounts of revenue produced by the various timars (Ismail Hakki Uzungarsili, Osmanli Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlar, ser. 8, no. 16a [Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1948], 107, n. 2). 29 Many studies of local areas have been done using the tahrir defters as a basis, but as yet there is no complete bibliography of these studies nor of published tahrir defters. A study showing the advantages of using the tahrir registers in conjunction with court records to gain a fuller insight into regional life is Amy Singer’s “Tapu Tahrir Defterleri and Kadi Sicilleri: A Happy Marriage of Sources,” Tarih 1 (1990): 95-125. 30 Collections of these kanunnames include Omer Liitfi Barkan, XV. ve XVIinci Asirlarda

Osmanll Imparatorlugunda Zirai Ekonominin Hukuku ve Mali Esaslari, vol. 1: Kanunlar, Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlari, 256 (Istanbul: Tiirkiyat Enstitiisii Nesriyati, Burhaneddin Matbaasi, 1943); Ahmet Akgiindiiz, Osmanli Kanunnameleri ve Hukuki Tahililleri, 7 vols. to date (Istanbul: Isis Ltd., 1990-).

34 , CHAPTER ONE defters.*! If necessary, the defters were updated by means of marginal

notes (der kenar) until the time of the next survey. Between general surveys, tahrir registers were produced by copying the registers of a previous survey, incorporating any corrections that had been transmitted to the center.** Control and updating of the tahrir registers was in the hands of scribes responsible to the nisanci, the official in charge of inspecting outgoing orders for adherence to kanun and validating them with the sultan’s tugra; he himself was responsible to the grand vizier and the imperial divan rather than to the finance department.*” In the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries numerous general

and regional tahrirs were made. By the mid-sixteenth century, after over a century and a half of experience, the practice of holding a general tahrir every 30 years, or once a generation, had become a standard, prescribed by the grand vizier Liitfi Pasa in his Asafname of 1543.** The patchiness of document survival, however, means that we cannot be sure if the whole empire was ever surveyed at one time. Moreover, the period of the grand tahrirs was short. In 1592 the grand vizier Ferhad Pasa confirmed Liitfi Pasa’s recommendation, but this confirmation proved without lasting effect. The 1590s saw the last of the great general tahrirs of the empire. While the compilation of tahrir defters never entirely ceased, the last defter made of an area subsequently served for many decades as the basis for revenue assignment, being updated on an ad hoc basis.*° 3! Eléd Vass, “Two Tahrir Defters of the Sanjaq of Mohacs from the Time of Sultan Murad III, 1580-1591,” in Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe, ed. Gyérgy Kara, Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of South-Eastern and Central Europe, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Institute for Oriental Studies/ Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Group for Altaistic Studies (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1987), 342-44. *° Some peculiarities of the tahrir process have been examined by Rhoads Murphey, “Ottoman Census Methods in the Mid-Sixteenth Century: Three Case Histories,” Studia Islamica 71 (1990): 115-26. 3 Douglas A. Howard, “The Historical Development of the Ottoman Imperial Registry (Defter-i Hakani): Mid-Fifteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries,” Archivum Ottomanicum 11 (1986): 213-30. Liitfi Pasa, Das Asafndme des Lutfi Pascha, ed. and trans. Rudolf Tschudi (Leipzig: W. Drugulin, 1910), 33, 44; see also Barkan, “Biiyiik Niifus ve Arazi Tahrirleri,” 31; and Kaldy-Nagy, “Administration of the Sanjaq Registrations,” 185, n. 15. ** The recommendation was repeated by the grand vizier Kemankes Kara Mustafa Pasa in 1639, and it seems he did attempt to implement it (Faik Regit Unat, ““Sadrazam Kemankes Kara Mustafa Pasa Layihasi,” Tarih Vesikalari 1 [1941-42]: 462). *° For the updating of timar registers in the late seventeenth century, see Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 167. In western Europe new tax assessments were infrequent. In France,

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 35 As long as the empire was relatively small and compact, the survey process worked well to control the flow of revenues. It is noteworthy, however, that much of the enormous expanse of the Arab lands was

never surveyed after its conquest in 1516-17. After the sixteenth century, surveys were made only in extraordinary circumstances, such

as after new conquests, or for a limited area, such as a single province.*’ This has sometimes been construed to mean that all regular tax assessment ceased after 1600 and the administration became incapable of or uninterested in keeping up with changes in the countryside.** In fact, however, the documents in the Ottoman archives show that the opposite was the case. In the face of new demands on its fiscal resources and a military restructuring that threatened to shake

the social system of the empire, the finance department worked out new approaches to revenue-raising and control. New priorities led to shifts in the importance of various revenues and collection methods, alterations in fiscal organization, and changes in the groups from which

finance personnel were recruited. These changes were designed to cope with an economy in which rising prices caused the government’s

budget to swell and made it harder for people to pay their taxes. The Monetary System and the Price Revolution The sixteenth century was a period of rapid price increases all over the world, changes in the value of money and commodities severe enough to be called a price revolution. Study of the sixteenth-century price revolution in the Ottoman Empire began with Barkan’s work on prices in the 1940s.” Barkan computed the rate of inflation in the cost of a single large quantity of goods, both in the official Ottoman taxes were paid throughout the seventeenth century on the basis of assessments last made in 1530 (William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and ‘Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History

[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], 141). , 37 Sertoglu, Muhteva Bakminda Basvekdlet Arsivi, 43-44. 38 Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline,” 119; Bistra A. Cvetkova, Les institutions ottomanes en Europe, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Ver6ffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission, 32 (Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1978), 101. 39 Omer Liitfi Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’empire ottoman aux XV° et XVI° siécles,” JESHO 1 (1958): 9-36; idem, “Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire”; idem, “Bazi Biiytik Sehirlerde Esya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarinin Tesbit ve Teftisi Hususlarin. Tanzim Eden Kanunlar,” Tarih Vesikalari |

(1941/42): 326-40; 2 (1942/43): 15-40, 168-77; idem, “Les mouvements des prix en

36 CHAPTER ONE coin and in its silver equivalent. The Ottoman coinage system was initiated in the reign of Orhan with a silver coin called the akce, about 30 of which equalled a Venetian gold ducat.” Gold and copper coins began to be minted later; the Ottoman gold coin was modelled on the ducat. Over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the average weight of the akce decreased until by the mid-sixteenth century the ducat was

worth 60 akce. Prices followed suit: after a period of stability in the first half of the sixteenth century, they began to rise around midcentury. In the 1580s the value of the akce was halved again, 120 being equivalent to a gold piece, and in the following decades there were occasions when the gold piece equalled 240 akce. Again, prices rose accordingly; the steepest price rises occurred in the years 1585— 1595 and 1600-1605 and the highest prices in the period 1605-1625. Prices subsequently decreased and leveled off, though they remained more than twice as high as before. Table 1. Price Inflation in the Ottoman Empire, 1555—1655

NOMINAL VALUE

YEAR VALUE IN INDEX IN SILVER INDEX AKCE

1555-56 875,184126.51 100.00755,092 639,759 118.03 100.00 1573 1,107,173 1585-86 1,122,965 128.31 765,862 119.71

1586-87 1,649,975 223.88 188.53752,402 633,590117.61 99.04 1587-88 1,959,381 1588-89 2,248,665 256.94 863,487 134.94 1605 3,788,575 432.89 1,223,709 191.28 1623-25 3,650,751 417.14 1,179,132 184.31 1655-56 2,841,328 324.65 | 869,446 135.90 Source: Omer Lutfi Barkan, “The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire,” LJMES 6 (1975): Table 2, page 11, with index numbers adjusted to use 1555 as the base year rather than 1489.

Turquie entre 1490 et 1655,” in Histoire économique du monde méditerranean, 145-1650: Mélanges en I’honneur de Fernand Braudel (Toulouse: Privat, 1973), 65-79. “© The most recent analysis of the Ottoman monetary system is Sevket Pamuk, “Money in the Ottoman Empire, 1326-1914,” in The Ottoman Empire: Its Economy and Society, 1300-1914, ed. Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 947-80; I am grateful to Sevket Pamuk for letting me see the manuscript of this article prior to publication. On monetary history see also Halil Sahillioglu, “The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements in Ottoman Monetary History 13001750,” in Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, ed. J.F. Richards (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), 269-304.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 37 Major discrepancies can be noted between the rise in prices expressed in akce coin and the extent of inflation measured in silver. The highest

prices of 1605 were well over four times those of 1555 in terms of the akce but less than double in terms of silver. Over the century from 1555 to 1655, the inflation rate of the akce was 225% (approximately 2% per year), but the inflation rate of silver was only 36% (averaging 1/3 of 1% per year), not much different from the rate for the previous century. Inflation rates were higher for the peak period 1573-1605,

242% in akce and 62% in silver (7.5% and 1.9% per year, respectively). This higher inflation, though relatively short-lived, disrupted the monetary system in ways that dramatically altered the post-classical fiscal system. The inflation and monetary chaos have been explained in two ways: by a massive influx of silver from the New World via Spain and Italy, or by a sixteenth-century population increase

that caused demand to outstrip production of food and other goods. In fact, both of these forces were in operation, and their coincidence in time created havoc in the Ottoman economy. In explaining the price revolution, Inalcik has focused on the influx of silver from the Americas to Spain as a result of its conquests in Mexico and Peru.*! The value of silver in Europe fell rapidly against gold and other commodities. Merchants, particularly Italian middlemen, took advantage of the relative cheapness of European silver to purchase Ottoman gold and goods for re-export throughout Europe, making immense profits. As silver poured into the Ottoman Empire from Europe in the 1550s, the value of silver there began to fall as well. The official exchange rate between the akce and the gold piece was not altered, however, and the akce continued to be minted at the old rate. Overvaluation of the akce gave rise to widespread counterfeiting and clipping of coin as akge coins were remade into something

closer to the market value of the silver they contained.” “Good,” unaltered akce disappeared from the marketplace, people lost confidence in the official coinage, and prices fluctuated wildly as merchants disregarded official fixed-price lists.*’ At the same time, price increases 41 Inalcik, “Tiirkiyenin Iktisadi Vaziyeti iizerinde bir Tetkik Miinasebetiyle.” 4 On counterfeiting see, in addition to Inalcik’s work, Liitfi Giiger, XV —XVII. Asirlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi ve Hububattan Alinan Vergiler, Istanbul Universitesi Ikitsat Fakiiltesi Yayinlari, 152 (Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakiiltesi,

1964), 36-37; Skender Rizaj, “Counterfeit of Money on the Balkan Peninsula from the XV to the XVII Century,” Balkanica 1 (1970): 71-97; Suraiya Faroghi, “Counterfeiting in Ankara,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 281-92. 43 For lists of fixed prices (narh defterleri) see Barkan, “Esya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlari”;

38 CHAPTER ONE affected the government’s budget by raising the cost of supplies for the military, the palace, and pious foundations, creating huge defi-

cits.“ In the 1580s, the government yielded, devaluing the akce overnight to its approximate market rate. Several decades of monetary fluctuation ensued until a new equilibrium was reached in the second

quarter of the seventeenth century. The difference between the lower rate of silver inflation and the much higher price rise in akge shows, however, that the influx of cheap American silver from Europe was only one of the problems facing the Ottoman monetary system in this period.* The first sign of the silver influx appeared in 1554. Between that date and the first official devaluation in 1586, a number of factors combined to increase

the demand for coinage and especially for the akce coin: growth in population, urbanization, and the volume of commercial exchange; accelerating monetarization of the economy and the tax system; a rise in wages; a decrease in gold imports from Europe; a drain of silver toward Iran and the east, where its relative value was greater; and

a growth in the salaried military forces and in war expenditures. Halil Sahillioglu, “Osmanlilarda Narh Miiessesesi ve 1525 Yili Sonunda Istanbul’da Fiyatlar,” Belgelerle Tiirk Tarihi Dergisi 1, no. 1 (1967/68): 36-40; Miibahat S. Kiitiikoglu,

“1009 (1600) Tarihli Narh Defterine gére Istanbul’da Cesidli Esya ve Hizment Fiatlan,” Tarih Enstitiisti Dergisi 9 (1978): 1-85; idem, “1624 Sikke Tashihinin Ardindan Hazirlanan Narh Defterleri,” Tarih Dergisi 34 (1983/84): 123-82; idem, Osmanlilarda Narh Miessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1983); Yasar Yiicel, 1640 Tarihli Es’ar Defteri, Osmanli Devlet Diizenine ait Metinler, 5 (Ankara Universitesi Dil ve TarihCografya Fakiiltesi Basimevi, 1982). “ For the effect of the crisis on a pious foundation see Suraiya Faroghi, “A Great Foundation in Difficulties: or Some Evidence on Economic Contraction in the Ottoman Empire of the Mid-Seventeenth Century,” Revue d'histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 109-21. ** The precise causal sequence is a matter of scholarly debate. For the details of the 1586 devaluation see Cemal Kafadar, “When Coins Turned into Drops of Dew and Bankers Became Robbers of Shadows: The Boundaries of Ottoman Economic Imagination at the End of the Sixteenth Century” (PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1986). This first devaluation is thought to be related to a devaluation in the Persian coinage (Haim Gerber, “The Monetary System of the Ottoman Empire,” JESHO 25 [1982]: 309-24). See also Inalcik, “Impact of the Annales School”; Ozer Ergeng, “XVI. Yiizyilin Sonlarinda Osmanhi Parasi tizerinde Yapilan Islemlere [ligkin Bazi Bilgiler,” Turkiye Iktisat Tarihi Uzerine Arastirmalar: Geligme Dergisi, Ozel Sayisi (1978): 86-97; Holm Sundhaussen, “Die ‘Preisrevolution’ im Osmanischen Reich wahrend der zweiten Hilfte des 16. Jahrhundert: ‘Importierte’ oder intern verursachte Inflation? (Zu einer These O.L. Barkans),” SiidostForschungen 42 (1983): 169-81; Jack A. Goldstone, “The Ecological Dynamics of Empires: Seventeenth-Century Crises in Ottoman Turkey and Ming China,” in Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor of S.N. Eisenstadt, ed. Erik Cohen, Moshe Lissak, and Uri Almagor (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 31-47; Nezihi Aykut, “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Sikke Tecdidleri,” Tarih Enstitiisi: Dergisi 13 (1983-87): 257-97.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 39 Theoretically, demand for coinage should have increased its value and

deflated prices but, in the Ottoman case, shortage of coin seems to have played a more important role. The government in particular experienced a shortage of silver akce for paying its personnel. A general lack of ready cash was aggravated by periodic but extreme cash flow difficulties brought about by a discrepancy between the solar and lunar

calendars; every 33 years there was a lunar year for which expenses had to be paid but no solar-year revenues were collected.“ The government appears to have used devaluation to solve this problem, periodically decreasing the amount of silver in the akce to make a limited supply of precious metal stretch further. Frustration at this “solution” sparked a number of money-related disturbances in this period.*’ Barkan’s figures for nominal prices in akce show that these prices doubled over the three years from 1585-86 to 1588-89. Over the same period, though, silver inflation amounted only to 13%. Silver inflation did not follow a steady curve but exhibited sharp ups and downs; real prices fell even below mid-century levels in the second year of the period. In the year 1000/1591-—92 it was necessary to spell out a tax farm bid both in akce and in silver to ensure proper payment.* The high inflation figures in Table 1 and in official price lists refer to prices expressed in akce and do not necessarily reflect an equivalent inflation

in other coins, even other silver coins.*? The importance of this discrepancy lies in the fact that the akce was not the only coin available for making payments; if it had been, only the nominal inflation figure would be relevant. Ak¢ce of various issues (whole, clipped, and 4 Halil Sahillioglu, “Osmanh Imparatorlugunda Sivig Yili Buhranlan, JU/FM 27, no. 1/2 (1967-8), 75-111; idem, “Sivis Year Crises in the Ottoman Empire” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: From the Rise of Islam to the Present Day, ed. M.A. Cook (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 230-54; idem, “The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements in Ottoman Monetary History 1300-1750,” in Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, ed. J.F. Richards (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), 283 and n. 36. 47 Rhoads Murphey, “The Functioning of the Ottoman Army under Murad IV (162339/1032-1049): Key to the Understanding of the Relationship between Center and Periphery in Seventeenth-Century Turkey,” (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979), 213. Eventually these factors combined to produce a total disintegration of the Ottoman monetary system (Sevket Pamuk, “The Disintegration of the Ottoman Monetary System During the Seventeenth Century,” Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies, no. 2 [1993}: 67-81). 48 MM 687 (9820), p. 64. 49 Gibb & Bowen state that the silver para of Egypt was devalued at the same time as the akce (Islamic Society and the West, pt. 2: 51 and n. 7); but Pamuk questions that conclusion (“Money in the Ottoman Empire,” Table A.4, n. 3, p. 954).

40 CHAPTER ONE counterfeit) continued to circulate for some time beside newly-minted coins, despite government efforts to recall the old ones. Other types of coin, of gold and copper as well as silver, were in circulation, and outlying regions of the empire had their own coinages. Foreign coins,

such as the various types of kurus (the name given to large silver coins from several European countries), also circulated freely in the empire.°’ Foreign silver coins had their own rates of change, and gold coinage remained fairly stable. Evidence from Moldavia indicates that

foreign coins could be used instead of the akce for all payments, including revenues sent to the central treasury.°' The government set a special fee, called tefaviit-1 hasene ve kurus, for taxes paid in coins

other than the akce, charging two akce or more per coin.” Change in the value of the akce had its greatest impact in provinces close to the capital. Exchange rates decreed in Istanbul took several

years to spread throughout the provinces.°? By judicious currency manipulation, a properly-situated person could experience in daily life a rate of inflation quite a bit lower than the nominal rate. The people

hit hardest by nominal inflation were those on government payroll, paid wholly in new akce and at the official exchange rate (usually considerably above the market rate). Among them, of course, were the bureaucrats, and it was they who authored the histories and advice memoranda which have shaped our understanding of this period. It is perhaps understandable if they painted their time in hues of black, but their accounts must be treated with caution. The effect of inflation depends in part on what happens to wages. Research on salaries shows that between 1560 and 1635, the wages of construction laborers doubled in nominal terms. Scribal wages also doubled, on average, but the lowest salaries showed no rise at all. Military salary registers have not yet been exploited, but from gross

*’ For the interaction among these factors see Inalcik, “Tiirkiyenin Iktisadi Vaziyeti iizerinde bir Tetkik Miinasebetiyle”; and Cemal Kafadar, “Les troubles monétaires de la aan ave siécle et la prise de conscience ottomane du déclin,” Annales E.S.C. 46 (1991): >! Mihai Maxim, “Considerations sur la circulation monétaire dans les pays roumains et l’empire ottoman dans la seconde moitié du XVI° siécle,” Revue des étiides sud-est européennes 13 (1975): 409-10. *? This fee compensated for the treasury’s loss due to devaluation (Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 218). ** Ergeng, “Osmanlarinda Osmanli Paras: iizerinde Yapilan Islemlere [liskin Bazi Bilgiler”; Suraiya Faroghi, “Town Officials, Timar-Holders, and Taxation: The Late Sixteenth-Century Crisis as Seen from Corum,” Turcica 18 (1986): 59.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 41 figures in the expenditure summaries it would appear that per-capita military wages rose no more than about 25%. Other research indicates that garrison soldiers received no increase at all and that salaries of

the most highly-paid branches of the palace military corps were repeatedly cut.°* These figures go some way toward explaining the military unrest of the period. The two decades after 1605 saw both the highest prices and the most dramatic rise in salaries, but the growth of wages lagged behind that of prices, and even if some salaries doubled

in those years, prices more than tripled. The litthke we know about Ottoman agriculture and economy around the turn of the century suggests increased pressure on the food supply and on cultivation, a decrease in purchasing power for imported goods, and an inability on the part of resource controllers such as timar holders and dervish convents to meet their financial commitments.

Population and Economic Change

Change in the Ottoman economy had a significant impact on the resources available to the state and the effectiveness with which the government could execute its will. Population and agricultural productivity largely determined the empire’s tax intake. Our knowledge

of seventeenth-century economic trends is slight and, except for international trade, confined to the first decades of the century. Historians’ dependence on tahrir registers has created an imbalance in the data between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Research on population has shown that in the sixteenth century, with a certain amount of local variation, the general trend was upward, just as it was in Europe. Barkan calculated that urban population increased by an average of 90% and rural population by 40%; he found that regional population increases averaged 71% in the Balkans, 60% in Anatolia, and 55% in the Syrian provinces.» Other research results parallel his 4 On builders’ wages see Faroghi, “Long-Term Change and the Ottoman Construction Site”; on scribal salaries see Linda T. Darling, “Ottoman Salary Registers as a Source for Economic and Social History,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 14 (1990): 1333; on military wages see Barkan, “Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire,” 20-21; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 221, 246; information on military wages also comes from personal communication with Mark Stein. For the military, however, prices of the most common foodstuffs were fixed by the government. 55 Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques,” 9-36; idem, “Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys,” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, ed. M.A. Cook

42 CHAPTER ONE conclusions. Almost all studies show the population of the sixteenth-

century Balkans as increasing; according to some, it more than doubled.*° In the Anatolian towns studied by Jennings, population grew at rates ranging from 147% to 278%, and other studies also show population growth.°’ The Syrian provinces form the only exception to this trend; there, population increased during the first half of the century, but toward the end of the century it showed a decrease which has not yet been explained.*? Much of the urban growth was doubtless due to immigration from the countryside, and there was considerable migration and population movement.°? Because tahrir registers were not produced on an empire-wide scale after the 1590s, and no other sources have been exploited on a large scale, there are no reliable estimates of population or population (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 163-71; Inalcik, “Impact of the Annales School,” 73-78. °° Metodiya Sokolovsky, “Le developpement de quelques villes dans le sud des Balkans au XV° et XVI’ siécles,” Balcanica 1 (1970): 81-106; Spyros Asdrachas, “Sociétés rurales balkaniques aux XV*—XVI* siécles: mouvements de la population et des revenus,” Etudes Balkaniques 13 (1977): 49-66; Gilles Veinstein, “La population du sud de la Crimée au début de la domination ottomane,” in Mémorial Omer Liitfi Barkan, Bibliothéque de 1’Institut

francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 28 (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1980), 227-49; Yusuf Halacoglu, “XVI. Yiizyilda Sosyal, Ekonomik ve Demografik Bakimdan Balkanlar’da Bazi Osmanli Sehirleri,” Belleten 53 (1989): 637-78. >? Ronald C. Jennings, “Urban Population in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Kayseri, Karaman, Amasya, Trabzon and Erzurum,” JJMES 7 (1976): 21—57; idem, “The Population, Society, and Economy of the Region of Erciyes Dagi in the Sixteenth Century,” in Contributions a l'histoire économique et sociale de l’empire ottoman, ed. Jean-Louis Becqué-Grammont and Paul Dumont (Paris: L’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 1984), 149-250; Cook, Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia; Erder and Faroghi, “Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia.” *§ Bernard Lewis, “Nazareth in the Sixteenth Century, According to the Ottoman Tapu Registers,” in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of Hamilton A.R. Gibb, ed. George Makdisi (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965), 416—25; idem, “Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives: A Contribution to the History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire,” Oriental Notes and Studies 3 (1952): 1-52; idem, “Studies in the Ottoman Archives — I,” BSOAS 16 (1954): 469-501; Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine; E. Toledano, “The Sanjaq of Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century: Aspects of Topography and Population,” Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 279-319; Amy Singer, “The Countryside of Ramle in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Villages with Computer Assistance,” JESHO 33 (1990): 51-79. Tripoli is an exception; there the population seems to have decreased throughout the century (Ralph S. Hattox, “Some Ottoman Tapu Defters for Tripoli in the Sixteenth Century,” al-Abhath 29 (1981): 65-90). > On Ottoman migration see Giicer, Osmanl Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi,

21. The urban population of Spain may have decreased as much as 50% in the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 146); there, also, the figures may reflect out-migration rather than an absolute decline in numbers (J.H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964], 288).

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 43 movements in the seventeenth century. The idea that Ottoman population, like Europe’s, declined soon after the end of the sixteenth century is based largely on impressionistic evidence: reports of peasant flight, famines and epidemics, deserted villages and the incursion of nomads

onto formerly settled areas. When censuses began to be taken in the nineteenth century, the population level was found to be well below its sixteenth-century height, and it is assumed that the drop occurred during the early seventeenth-century period of turmoil. A widely-cited study of the Konya region in southwest Anatolia, the area most af-

fected by Celali disturbances, does indicate that population there declined dramatically in the early seventeenth century.” Studies made for other locations, however, reveal growing populations during the same period. Aleppo saw an increase of population in the seventeenth century, particularly in the suburbs outside the walls; Bursa’s population doubled between 1631 and 1670 and then decreased again, as the city received refugees from areas farther south where Celali disturb-

ances were taking place; and although the Christian population of seventeenth-century Tozluk decreased, an increase in the Muslim popu-

lation more than compensated for the loss.*' McGowan located a considerable drop in population at the end of the seventeenth century; Todorova, however, disputing his method, found only a relatively small decrease in the Christian population, much of which may be accounted for by islamization.* Many sources document the migration (tempo-

rary or permanent?) of Anatolian peasants to cities, to places with lower tax rates, or to Rumeli where things were quieter, while Murad IV (1623-1640) implemented a policy of returning urban refugees to the countryside. Other sources suggest a certain amount of re-nomad-

ization, but this has not yet been quantified. In cases like these, a © Wolf-Dieter Hiitteroth, Ldndliche Siedlungen in siidlichen Inneranatolien in der letzten vierhunder Jahren, Gottingen Geographische Abhandlungen, 46 (Gottingen: Geographischen

Institut der Universitat Gottingen, 1968). 6! André Raymond, “The Population of Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

According to Ottoman Census Documents,” JJMES 16 (1984): 447-60; Haim Gerber, Economy and Society in an Ottoman City: Bursa 1600-1700, Max Schoessinger Memorial Series, 3 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1988); Machiel Kiel, “Anatolia Transplanted? Patterns of Demographic, Religious and Ethnic Changes in the District of Tozluk (N.E. Bulgaria) 1479-1873,” Anatolica 17 (1991): 1-27. ® Bruce McGowan, “The Study of Land and Agriculture in the Ottoman Provinces within the Context of an Expanding World Economy,” /nternational Journal of Turkish Studies 2, no. 1 (1981): 59; Maria N. Todorova, “Was There a Demographic Crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century?” Etudes balkaniques 24, no. 2 (1988): 55-63.

44 CHAPTER ONE decline in population registration does not necessarily mean a decline in population. The lack of seventeenth-century tahrir registers has increased the difficulty of tracing agrarian history in this period, and other sources have not been sufficiently exploited. Ideas about climate change and its impact on Ottoman agriculture are extrapolated from evidence on Europe. We do not yet understand the effects of the “Little Ice Age” in the Ottoman Empire; a hard year in Belgrade might have produced

a bumper crop in Damascus.” Dendrochronological evidence does indicate a period of lowered growth of Anatolian trees between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries, especially severe from 1570 to 1600, but these dates do not coincide with the “Little Ice Age”

in Europe, and the impact on agriculture empire-wide is as yet undetermined. The records of Anatolian dervish foundations suggest a possible agricultural crisis, but for a somewhat later period, around 1620 to 1690.“ Frequent droughts in the period 1578-1637 are thought to have forced pastoralists to feed their flocks on agricultural land for want of grass in traditional pasturelands. A study of late sixteenthcentury Aleppo, however, uncovered an extension of cultivation onto unworked or marginal land as population in that area rose.© Assertions about an increase in pastoralism in the seventeenth century have gone largely undocumented, and although there is abundant evidence of abandoned villages and peasant flight, where these peasants went and how they made their living remains unknown. There is a similar dearth of evidence on other aspects of the economy.

Important elements of an analysis, such as the amount of financial support for the military or the growth of tax farming, have not been subjected to quantitative research. On coinage and monetary movements the evidence is more extensive than that on the economy as a whole, but the official coinage was actually used less and less. We ° On Ottoman grain production see Maurice Aymard, Venise, Raguse et le commerce du blé pendant la seconde moitié du XVI’ siécle (Paris: Ecole pratique des hautes études, 1966); Giiger, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi. For harvest failures and famines in Spain see Elliott, Imperial Spain, 292; for plague and famine in France see Coveney,

France in Crisis, 27. * P.I. Kuniholm, “Archaeological Evidence and Non-Evidence for Climatic Change,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 330 (1990): 645-55; Giicer, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi; Suraiya Faroghi, “Agricultural Crisis and the Art of Flute-Playing: The Worldly Affairs of the Mevlevi Dervishes (1592—1652),” Turcica 20 (1988): 43-70. °° Margaret L. Venzke, “The Question of Declining Cereals’ Production in the Sixteenth Century: A Sounding on the Problem-Solving Capacity of the Ottoman Cadastres,” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984): 251-64.

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 45 have no overall figures for internal or foreign trade, trade balances, or customs revenue in the seventeenth century. Revenue from the spice trade undoubtedly declined after 1600, but revenue from the new

coffee trade all but made up for it, so the impact on the Ottoman budget is questionable.” Income and expense summaries of the Ottoman

treasury showed deficits throughout the century, but summary totals do not include all government funds.*’ We know very little about urban or village politics, provincial governance, or relations between province and center during this period. Studies of Ottoman politics and ideology in most of the seventeenth century are lacking, as are biographies of the major players. The timar system declined but did not disappear; that raised the problems of class conflict and maintenance of internal order, but the military and financial impact might well have been positive. Tax farming undoubtedly increased, but the extent and effects of such an increase are not known. There may have been more complaints of oppression, but whether there actually was more oppression we cannot tell. As the fiscal base of the Ottoman treasury became more insecure, the demands made upon it became more onerous. In the Ottoman Empire, as in the west, the early seventeenth century was a period of expansion for the bureaucracy and palace staff. The finance department grew from 35 to 188 salaried scribes, and other departments of government service increased even more. For instance, salaried members of the corps of heralds or imperial messengers (cavuslar)

went from 20 in 1535 to a high of 840 in 1645. Even the sultan’s tasters (casnegirler) increased in number from 24 to 101 and court architects (mimaran) from 7 to 42. Some of this growth may be ascribed

to duplication of staff, as sultanic sedentarization entailed separate

palace and campaign administrations,” and some to the greater workload caused by imperial expansion and bureaucratization. Another reason for growth in staff, however, may be that during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the palace staff became the

6 Suraiya Faroghi, “Coffee and Spices: Official Ottoman Reactions to Egyptian Trade in the Later Sixteenth Century,” WZKM 76 (1986): 87-93; Shaw, Financial and Administrative Organization and Development, 104-7. 67 Halil Sahillioglu, “XVII. Asrin Ik Yarisinda Istanbul’da Tedaviildeki Sikkelerin RAici,” Belgeler 1 (1964): 227-34; idem, “The Income and Expenditures of the Ottoman Treasury between 1683 and 1740,” Revue d’histoire maghrébine 25-26 (1982): 65-84. 68 Employment figures come from salary registers produced by the kiiciik ruznamge kalemi and found in the MM and KK collections of the Basbakanlik Arsivi. 6° Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 18.

46 CHAPTER ONE most important route of promotion to high office.” It is not surprising to find that people pushed to get their sons and protegés enrolled in the palace service, shouldering aside the true slaves, products of the child levy (devsirme), whose province this service used to be.’’ The ruling class’s desire for entry into the palace service is indicated by the continued growth of the miiteferrika corps, a palace cavalry corps

composed of sons of the elite, numbering 64 in the mid-sixteenth century; in 1660, although other departments’ rolls had begun to shrink,

the miiteferrika corps was at 693 and still rising. After the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of salaried staff was decreased

in order to ease the burden on the treasury: finance scribes in the salary registers went down from 188 to 86 and tasters from 101 to 22. In the case of the finance staff, as we shall see, this did not mean a decrease in personnel but the use of other revenue sources to pay them. The cost of pensions for retirees and people temporarily out of office further burdened the Ottoman treasury. These costs paled, though, in comparison with military expenditures. The empire’s expenditure records show that between 1567 and 1669 the number of men in the standing infantry and garrison forces more than quadrupled, more than doubling in the years 1570 to 1600 alone.” Large numbers of infantry with firearms were also recruited from the peasantry on a seasonal basis. Their employment was made possible by the military revolution, the widespread use of infantry with handguns, which affected the Ottoman Empire as well as western

Europe. The Ottomans had long employed cannon, but in the late sixteenth century individual gunpowder weapons became militarily effective, and the former backbone of the army, the timariot cavalry armed with bows and arrows, was outmoded. Infantry with handguns were relatively easy to recruit and train; they were not recompensed ” The one study of Ottoman career paths in the early seventeenth century indicates that in those decades the main avenue of advancement to the post of provincial governor was service as a retainer in the sultan’s palace (I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550—1650, The Modern Middle

East Series, 14 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1983]). "™ Cornell H. Fleischer has suggested that, contrary to the stereotype, the hold on the palace service of men of servile origin was never absolute and may have been only a temporary phenomenon (“Between the Lines: Realities of Scribal Life in the Sixteenth Century,” in Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, ed. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber [Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994], 45-61). __? Omer Liitfi Barkan, “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcesi,” IUIFM 19 (1957-58): 305-6; idem, “1079-1080 (1669-1670) Mali Yilina ait Bir Osmanli Biitcesi ve Ek’leri,” JUIFM 17 (1955-56): 227-28; Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation.”

CLASSICAL OTTOMAN FINANCE 47 by timars but by cash salaries from the treasury. Although these salaries

did not keep pace with inflation, they combined with the rise in the price of foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and military weapons and supplies to inflate the cash needs of the government. The wars of the period did not result in lucrative and easy conquests, and the Ottomans had no American treasure house to replenish their silver supply at regular intervals. As a result, the finance department was obliged to adopt numerous expedients for rounding up the cash to pay military and other expenditures. Some tactics used by the Ottomans to increase revenue were strikingly similar to those employed in the west. As in France or England,

tax farming was widely used to obtain cash revenues and increase their amount, as well as to reward government servants. Ottoman customs dues and urban taxes had long been farmed, but the seventeenth century saw an extension of tax farming into new areas such as hass-i hiimayun revenues, extraordinary levies, and the poll tax. In the Ottoman Empire, as elsewhere, extraordinary taxes were regu-

larized and levied annually as a means of tapping urban and nontraditional wealth. Like many European countries, the Ottoman Empire also resorted to contributions and forced loans from officials and the

wealthy; the extent to which they were repaid is not known, as the records of these loans have not been investigated.” Advance payment of taxes and late disbursal of salaries also constituted forms of shortterm loans. In other respects, however, the Ottomans’ financial ex-

pedients differed sharply from those employed in some western European countries. No security was offered for loans, so the Ottoman Empire, unlike Spain or France, did not lose control of its future tax receipts by borrowing. The Ottoman government, in contrast to most European governments, did not engage in long-term borrowing from international moneylenders or banking houses, nor in the sale of bonds.

And unlike Spain or England, the Ottoman treasury was never able to tax the equivalent of ecclesiastical property, the evkaf, though it borrowed from their surplus funds. Nor, unlike many Spanish and French taxes, could Ottoman taxes generally be altered by the ruler’s decision (with or without the subjects’ consent).” It was also difficult 73 That loans were sometimes repaid is shown by amounts designated as debt payments in expense summaries (Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 247-51). 7 For example, the revenues of Trablus-Sam showed almost no increase between 979/ 1571-72 and 1002/1594 (Hattox, “Some Ottoman Tapu Defters for Tripoli,” 82). For an example of an order in 1037/1627—28 forbidding the collection of any more than the traditional amount for the tax called bedel-i lagim see MM 2728 (3457), p. 52, and for

48 CHAPTER ONE for the Ottomans to find a legitimate and regular way to tax the wealthiest class, the askeri, though a number of expedients were tried. The timar bedeli (a tax on timar-holders who did not go on campaign,

amounting to 20% of the income of the timar), was levied as early as 1038/1628—29, but it did not become an important source of revenue until the mid-seventeenth century.” The kassabiye was a levy on the wealthy to subsidize meat sales to janissaries. Finally, employing the justification that all government servants were technically slaves

whose property was forfeit on their death, the Ottomans recouped large sums from the estates of high office-holders; miisadere, confiscation, from the office-holders themselves also increased in frequency.” Quantification of these trends and a more precise evaluation of the Ottoman economy can only come through intensive study of the records produced by the finance department in the seventeenth century. These

documents cannot be dismissed as the product of a decayed and incompetent bureaucracy out of touch with its surroundings. Scrutinizing the finance department through the lens of decline severely limits our perception of its underlying dynamics, as growth in number of officials is ascribed to nepotism, change in the function of bureaus to the irrationality of an oriental bureaucracy, and exaction of new

taxes to greed and corruption. Finance department structure and functioning must be understood as facets of the government’s response

to critical conditions in the economy and the fiscal system.

the motivation for this policy, fear of upheaval if such traditions were violated, see Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 313. > MM 2728 (3457), p. 86; other contributions by the ruling class also became important in the second half of the seventeenth century (Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation’). 7 Klaus Rohrborn, “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Miisadere ve Mutavassit Giicler,” in J. Milletlerarast Tiirkoloji Kongresi, Tebligler, vol. 1: Tiirk Tarihi (Istanbul: Terciiman Gazetesi

ve Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi, Tiirkiyat Enstitiisii, 1979), 254-60; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 226.

CHAPTER TWO

THE OTTOMAN CENTRAL FINANCE DEPARTMENT

The Ottoman finance department has generally been described in the context of imperial decline: through its inefficiency, rapacity, nepotism, and corruption, it is thought to have contributed to the weakness of the Ottoman state and the ruin and despoliation of the peasantry.

According to Bernard Lewis, “the breakdown in the apparatus of government affected not only the supreme instruments of sovereignty

but also the whole of the bureaucratic and religious institutions all over the empire. These suffered a catastrophic fall in efficiency and integrity.... This deterioration is clearly discernible in the Ottoman archives, which reflect vividly and precisely the change from the meticulous, conscientious, and strikingly efficient bureaucratic government of the 16th century to the neglect of the 17th and the collapse

of the 18th centuries.”' The idea of a causal link between finance department operations, however corrupt, and imperial decline has been questioned by Lewis himself.? More importantly, this characterization

ignores the real contribution made by the finance department to the survival and stability of the empire. Not only was it responsible for uncovering and bringing together needed financial resources, but its uniformity of procedure lent consistency and legitimacy to Ottoman governance amid the turmoil and transformation of the early seventeenth century. Studies of Ottoman administrative personnel have tended to concentrate on people in the highest positions, such as the grand vizier, who headed the administration, the bas defterdar, who headed the finance department, and the reisiilktittab, whose office eventually became the ministry for foreign affairs.’ The route of advancement to the top of the hierarchy has also been examined, but little research | “Some Reflections on the Decline,” 112. ? “Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline,” 83. 3 Tbniilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli Devrinde Son Sadrazemlar, 4 vols. (Istanbul: Maarif Basimevi, 1940-53); Mehmed Zeki Pakalin, Maliye Teskilati Tarihi (14421930), Maliye Bakanligi Tetkik Kurulu Yayim, 1977/180/1 (Ankara: Basbakanlik Basimevi, 1978); Inalcik, “Reis-iil-kiittab”; Norman Itzkowitz, “Mehmed Raghib Pasha: The Making

50 CHAPTER TWO has been done on the organization and work of lower-level members

of the scribal service.* The idea that the finance department was inefficient and corrupt seems to be based on a multiplication of bureaus

and growth in number of finance officials beginning in the mid-sixteenth century. The finance department of the stereotype is static and unchanging, organized according to stages in the documentation process

rather than by a rational separation of functions. Part of the reason for that impression, however, is that the lists of bureaus in most descriptions of the finance department are derived from eighteenthand nineteenth-century catalogues published by d’Ohsson and Hammer.

Lybyer’s influential study of sixteenth-century Ottoman government employed these later sources to describe the Ottoman finance department of 250 years earlier, and many historians have followed his lead.° The uncritical use of comparatively recent sources to describe the institutions of prior centuries is both a product and a confirmation of stereotypes about “the unchanging east.” Uzungarsili’s

publication of two earlier lists of finance department bureaus, one taken from a mid-eighteenth century document, the other from a midsixteenth century kanunname, could have helped to rectify the situ-

ation, but it attracted little notice.° From salary registers and other

of an Ottoman Grand Vezir,” (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1959); idem, “Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities,” Studia Islamica 16 (1962): 73-94. One exception, focusing on the lower-level scribes of the divan, is Christine Woodhead, “Research on the Ottoman Scribal Service, c. 1574-1630,” in Festgabe an Josef Matuz: OsmanistikTurkologie-Diplomatik, ed. Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 150 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992), 311-28. * The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been treated by Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Realities”; Carter V. Findley, “The Legacy of Tradition to Reform: Origins of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry,” JJMES 1 (1970): 334-57; Joel Shinder, “Career Line Formation in the Ottoman Bureaucracy, 1648-1750: A New Perspective,” JESHO 16 (1973): 217-37. The earlier period was examined by Klaus RGhrborn in his study of the defterdars, “Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirokratie im Osmanischen Reich (Ende 16. Jahrhundert),” ZDMG 122 (1972): 118-39. Christine Woodhead traced the career of a single chancery scribe in “From Scribe to Litterateur: The Career of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Katib,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 9 (1982): 55— 74. Finally, Fleischer investigated the sixteenth-century scribal career in general and Mustafa

Ali’s career in the provincial finance service in particular in Bureaucrat and Intellectual. > D’Ohsson, Tableau général de I’ empire ottoman, 7: 261-73; Joseph von HammerPurgstall, Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1815; photocopy reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1977), 2: 14567; Albert Howe Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent, Harvard Historical Studies, 18 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1978), 167-75. ® Uzungarsili, Osmanli Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teskildti, 338-61.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 51

archival sources it is now possible to obtain a fuller picture of the development of the finance department over time. The conclusion that finance department standards dropped in the seventeenth century has been inferred from the fact that records once produced in great numbers were produced no longer and others were less legibly written than in earlier centuries. Complaints about taxation have also been used to support charges of administrative corruption. A major problem here is bias—who has ever had anything good to say about paying taxes? In order to evaluate charges of decline and corruption we must be able to separate the normal operation of the system from its abuse. Critics, both contemporary and modern, have made much of what was wrong with the post-classical fiscal system, but they have paid little or no attention to its actual development and functioning, confining themselves to horrified exclamations at how far it had come from the system of the classical age. It can be argued, however, that changes to the procedures and records used in the finance department reflect structural changes in Ottoman financial administration occurring in response to the exigencies of governance.

Early Finance Department Organization The creation of a governmental finance bureaucracy (maliye) distinct from the sultan’s personal household is generally dated to the reign of Bayezid I. Scribes (katibs)’ employed in the maliye were organized into cadres assigned to particular tasks connected with the government’s financial affairs. These scribes were recruited from the sultan’s servants and secretaries, from trained and literate members of the conquered Byzantine population, and from the ranks of the Muslim learned class, the ulema, particularly the ulema of the Anatolian hinterland who had access to techniques of imperial administration practiced by the Seljuks and Ilkhanids. While the chronicles note the inauguration of the maliye, its development between the 1390s and the 1480s cannot

be traced for lack of documentation. The only fourteenth-century officials attested by title in the chronicles are the defterdars, the heads 7 The word “katib” was used by the Ottomans both in the general meaning of “scribe” and in the more specific meaning of a particular rank of scribe within the bureaucratic hierarchy. In this book the term “katib” will be used only in the specific senses of a higherranking scribe or a scribal assistant to a tax collector, while “scribe” will refer to a scribe

of any rank or position.

52 CHAPTER TWO of the finance administration. No facts are available on the organization of their subordinates, and little of their work has survived. We can assume that, following the example of Ilkhanid scribal practice, the early Ottoman scribes organized themselves around the various

types of registers they produced.’ These clusters of scribes around particular defters formed the nucleus of the structure of bureaus, or kalems (lit. “pen’”), which was the Ottoman maliye’s characteristic mode of organization. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the fiscal administration’s role in assimilating and exploiting the empire’s resources

forced the maliye to expand and reorganize several times.'° A compilation of ceremonial regulations, or tesrifat kanunnamesi, dating from

the end of the reign of Mehmed II (1451-1481), furnishes a glimpse of maliye organization in the late fifteenth century.'' This kanunname regulated the duties, relative ranks, promotion paths, and privileges of high administrative officials in the Ottoman government. The finance

administration it describes was headed by an official called the bas, or head, defterdar. Ranking immediately below the bas defterdar were an unspecified number of mal defterdars, who headed the finance administration in the provinces. They were responsible for non-timar revenues and were called mal (money) defterdars to distinguish them from timar defterdars, also members of the provincial bureaucracy, who kept records of timar allocations. The central finance staff, as described in the kanunname, consisted of an unspecified number of ordinary scribes called katibs, among whom seniority granted a certain precedence. They were supervised by senior scribes functioning as bureau heads, hacegdn (masters, sing. hace). According to the kanunname, the finance department hacegan = “Defterdar,” IA 3: 506. ” Nejat Géyiing, “Ta’rih Baslikli Muhasebe Defterleri,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 10 (1990): 1-37. Many early copies and Turkish translations of IIkhanid scribal manuals can be found

in Turkish manuscript collections. For each section of Ilkhanid government finances, organized geographically by province, there was a separate defter and a particular scribe or group of scribes responsible for it (Hinz, “Rechnungswesen,” 114-37).

' An overview of early finance department structure is provided by Josef Matuz,

1974), 57-63. . .

Das Kanzleiwesen Sultan Siileymans des Prdchtigen (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, '' The kanunname was published by Mehmed Arif, “Kanunname-i Al-1 Osman,” TOEM, suppl. 3 (1330/1912). Its authenticity was questioned by Konrad Dilger, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des osmanischen Hofzeremoniells im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, Beitrage zur Kenntnis Siidosteuropas und des Nahen Orients, 4 (Munich: Rudolf Trofenik, 1967). Dilger’s position was in turn challenged by Hans Georg Majer in a review in SiidostForschungen 28 (1969): 464-67.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 53 of the late fifteenth century were the ruznameci, the mukabeleci, the mukataaci, and the tezkireci. A muhasebeci, a member of the hacegan in later times, was mentioned in the kanunname but not in the rank list of hacegan.'* The titles of the bureau heads reflected their functions: the ruznameci supervised the journal or daybook (ruzname), where receipts and payments were recorded in chronological order; the mukabeleci compared (mukabele) military wage tickets with salary registers and authorized their payment; the mukataaci kept the books on revenues outside the tapu system (mukataas); and the tezkireci wrote memoranda and notes (tezkires); while the muhasebeci drew up and audited the state’s accounts (muhasebe). Working under each bureau head were a number of ordinary scribes, katibs. Under these, surely, were apprentices, sagirds, not mentioned in the kanunname presumably because they were without ceremonial rank. The number of scribes employed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was not large. A document from the year 900/1494—95 shows a total of only 20 salaried finance scribes, and one from 909/1503-4 lists 35; by the 1530s, after the finance department had been reorganized and enlarged, the number of salaried employees was still only 65." During the period between Mehmed II’s kanunname and the next extant description of Ottoman finance administration, dated in the mid-sixteenth century, the organization of the maliye was significantly transformed. By that time the unitary central finance staff of the earlier period had been divided into several branches with responsibilities organized more or less on provincial lines; the number and organization 12 Arif, “Kanunname-i Al-1 Osman,” 18. A sixteenth-century list of hacegan published by Uzungarsili is much longer (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskildti, 19). Its 29 officials comprised

all or almost all of the bureau heads of the time, and the muhasebeci was included in this list. In the eighteenth century the muhasebecis ranked above the other hacegan and immediately below the defterdars (d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 191-96). 13 For 900/ 1494-95 see Omer Liitfi Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina

ait bir Biitce Ornegi,” JUIFM 15 (1953-54): 309; the same document is discussed in Matuz, Kanzleiwesen Sultan Siileymans des Prachtigen, 57-63. For 909/1503-4 see Omer Liitfi Barkan, “Istanbul Saraylari’nin ait Muhasebe Defterleri,’ Belgeler 9 (1979): 307-8 and 351-52; while this list omits the defterdar, it includes the emin-i defter, the scribe in charge of timar records. Further information on the growth of the scribal service in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is given by Cornell H. Fleischer, “Preliminaries to the Study of the Ottoman Bureaucracy,” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 135-42. The number of salaried finance scribes in 942/1535-36 was determined from

a salary register from the Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi in the Bagbakanlik Arsivi, MM 122 (559). On the internal organization of finance bureaus see Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy.”

54 CHAPTER TWO of these units altered more than once in the course of the sixteenth century. In the first stage of the process, the maliye was divided into two sections (defterdarliks, areas of jurisdiction of a defterdar) and a second upper-level defterdar was appointed to head the second section.'* The first defterdar, now called the defterdar of Rumeli (“Romeland’) as well as bas defterdar, was responsible for the revenues and

expenses of the European part of the empire; the second, called the defterdar of Anadolu (“Anatolia’’), was responsible for those in Asia. The bas defterdar retained oversight of the maliye as a whole. The vast increase in finance department business resulting from expansion

of the empire on two continents in the late fifteenth century was undoubtedly the reason for this change. Dividing the central finance department entailed duplicating certain of the kalems, probably dou-

bling the number of scribes employed. We have already noted an increase in salaried finance staff from 20 to 35 between the years 900/ 1494-95 and 909/1503—4, which supports the suggestion that the second

defterdarlik was founded during those years, that is, during the reign of Bayezid IL. The next stage in the reorganization of fiscal administration was the establishment of provincial treasuries in the outlying provinces of the empire. After the conquest of Safavid and Mamluk territory in 1514~17, a high-ranking defterdar, called the Arab ve Acem defterdar1,

was appointed for the Arab and Persian lands; he was headquartered in Damascus from 1516 to 1521 and in Aleppo from then on.’° The '4 The whole question of the establishment and jurisdiction of the various defterdarliks, formerly argued from the very inconclusive evidence presented by the Ottoman chroniclers, must be settled by archival research. The date of the establishment of the second central defterdarlik has been placed during the reign of Bayezid IT (1481-1512) by d’Ohsson

(Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 261) and by Uzuncarsili (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 327 and notes 5 and 6). Rdhrborn asserts, however, (“Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirokratie,” 118) that it was not founded until the reign of Siileyman I, sometime after 930/1523-—24, while Fleischer has presented evidence that would date its foundation

to the reign of Mehmed II (Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 312 n. 2). '? The date of the creation of the Arabve Acem defterdari is also disputed. According to Uzungarsili (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 327 n. 7), this office was created by Yavuz Sultan Selim (1512-1520); d’Ohsson (Tableau général de |’ empire ottoman, 7: 261) says the same. ROhrborn states that while a third defterdarlik was probably created as early as 1516, it may have been as late as 940/1534 (“Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirékratie,” 119). He also cites contradictory evidence mentioning only two defterdars as late as 932/ 1526, despite an earlier reference to a defterdar in Aleppo in 930/1523—24. The defterdar of the Arab lands, however, must not be identified with the third defterdar in the capital; the third central defterdarlik was a separate office. Muhammad Adnan Bakhit has now established that there was a defterdar in the Arab lands from the time of the conquest (The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century {Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1982], 143-44).

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 55

remaining provincial treasuries were probably founded during the middle decades of the sixteenth century.'® Provincial defterdars functioned as intermediaries between the central finance department and

the sources and destinations of funds within their provinces: they gathered the reports and remittances of local tax collectors and sent annual reports and summaries of provincial financial affairs to the capital, receiving in return orders from the bas defterdar which they transmitted to local agents and tax collectors. In connection with this reorganization, mal defterdars in the older provinces became provincial defterdars, and a supervisory mechanism for non-timar revenues was instituted, entrusted to a kadi called the nazir-i emval (inspector

of finances); in the seventeenth century some of the provincial defterdar’s functions were performed by a still another official called the muhassil-i emval (fiscal supervisor).'’ The functioning of provin-

cial treasuries has not yet been studied, but their organization was probably modelled on that of the central finance department and their

staffs drawn from a variety of sources, both central and local. At some time in the first half of the sixteenth century, a third defterdar

was appointed at the center, but his responsibilities are difficult to determine; he did not have charge of revenue from the Arab lands.'® In a balance-sheet (Summary of income and expenses, often miscalled a “budget’) dated 931/1524—25, the revenues of Rumeli were divided '© Dates cited for the creation of provincial defterdarliks again vary; ROhrborn notes that they must have been established before the composition of Ayn-1 Ali’s Kavanin-i Al-1 Osman in 1610-11 (“Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirékratie,” 119), while the unattributed article in JA specifies without evidence a date of 1574 (“Defterdar,” 507). Cornell H. Fleischer suggests that the provincial treasuries were organized in the 1540s and 1550s (“The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Siileyman,” in Sileyman the Magnificent and His Time, ed. Gilles Veinstein, Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales [Paris: La documentation francaise, 1992], 167, 171).

According to d’Ohsson (Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 261), the provincial defterdarliks were suppressed sometime after the reign of Murad III. '7 An entry in Mihimme Defteri 1, p. 288, records the appointment berat of the timar defterdari and nazir-1 emval of Temesvar in 962/1554—-55. For the muhassil-i emval see Halil Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration,” in Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Thomas Naff and Roger Owen, Papers on Islamic History (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 28-29; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 272-77. '8 The date of the establishment of the third central defterdarlik has also been a matter of contention. Dilger, relying on European sources, cites a date for this reorganization of 1526 (Untersuchungen, 22); Fleischer also prefers that date (Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 312 and n. 2). ROhrborn, basing himself on an interpretation of MS Esad Efendi 3363, which describes the seating order of high dignitaries at a feast, favors an indefinite date before 946/1539 (“Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirokratie,” 118 and notes 4 and 5). Uzuncgarsili, however, reads the same manuscript to say that the change must have come after 946/1539 (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 328 and n. 1).

56 CHAPTER TWO into two separate sections, one under the defterdar of Rumeli, Iskender

Celebi, and the other under Mahmud Celebi, not labeled a defterdar in that document. The second section was called the sikk-i sani (second division) and consisted mainly of mukataa revenues. The balancesheet gives no information about the reason for dividing the revenues nor about the way specific mukataas were allocated between the two divisions. The revenues of Rumeli were reunited in a balance-sheet dated 933—34/1527—28 but divided again in a balance-sheet from 954—

55/1547-48. In an accounting register for 974—75/1567-68 the revenues of Anatolia were also divided into two sections, sikk-1 evvel and sikk-1 sani.'? This document lists four revenue heads, two for Rumeli and two for Anadolu, all four designated as defterdars. A fourth central defterdar with responsibility for the Danube region was appointed around 992/1584; it is not clear whether still another division was created at that time or whether one of the four existing

divisions was simply renamed.” The fourth defterdar was called defterdar of the Danube (Tuna defterdari1) and head of the third division (sikk-i salis), while the third defterdar’s titles were defterdar of Istanbul

and head of the second division, the sikk-1 sani. The bas defterdar, still known as the defterdar of Rumeli, acquired the additional title of defterdar of the sikk-1 evvel, the first division. The defterdarlik of Anadolu did not have a number at this time. The new position, the Tuna defterdarlig1, was eliminated in the seventeenth century, leaving only three defterdarliks in the eighteenth century.”! The divisions were Halil Sahillioglu, “1524-1525 Osmanh Biitgesi,” Ord. Prof. Omer Liitfi Barkan’a Armagan: IUIFM 41 (1985): 434-35; Omer Liitfi Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina ait bir Biitge Ornegi,” 280-87; idem, “954-955 (1547-1548) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcgesi,” JUIFM 19 (1957/58): 237-50; idem, “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcesi,” 298-303. 20 D’Ohsson (Tableau général de I’empire ottoman, 7: 261) dates the appointment of “the” fourth defterdar to the reign of Stileyman I (1520-1566), but while it appears that there were indeed four defterdars during at least part of Siileyman’s reign, the fourth was not the defterdar of the Danube but the second defterdar for Anadolu. Uzuncarsili (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 329 n. 2), on the authority of the historian Selaniki, cites a date of 992/1584—85 for the creation of the defterdarlik of the Danube (see Mustafa Selaniki, Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Mehmet Ipsirli, Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yay:nlar1, 3371 (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Basimevi, 1989], 1: 156). R6hrborn, also on the authority of Selaniki (see Tarih, 1: 183), asserts that the correct date was 995/1586—87 (‘Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirokratie,” 118). Selaniki actually recorded this event under both dates, but the man appointed to the post in 992/1584—85 was promoted soon afterward, and the position may have lapsed until 995/1586-87. 71 According to RGhrborn, the office was eliminated in 1035/1625-26 (“Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirékratie,” 119 and n. 6; Uzungarsil, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 329 n. 3), but Victor Ostapchuk finds that in 1627-28 the Tuna defterdarligi still existed and

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 57 renumbered sometime after the fourth defterdar’s position was eliminated, possibly at the beginning of the eighteenth century; the third defterdar became the defterdar of the sikk-1 salis and the defterdar

of Anadolu the defterdar of the sikk-1 sani.” Reorganizations in the Finance Structure The bureau structure supervised by the defterdars underwent signifi-

cant change during the first half of the sixteenth century. It was reorganized again later in the century, and the seventeenth century saw ongoing change. These developments, occurring below the top-

most level of authority, are not mentioned in chronicles and are generally invisible in summary documents, but they can be traced in detail through archival records. The most important kind of record

for this purpose is the monthly salary registers (miisaherehoran mevacibi defterleri).* These registers list the names of salaried finance department staff, together with their bureau assignments and their daily and monthly wages. Scribes were recorded in the registers either as katib (full scribe) or sagird (apprentice). While registers from the 1530s include approximately equal numbers of katibs and sagirds, in seventeenth-century registers the rank of katib seems to have been

reserved for heads of bureaus, hacegan, as even halifes, second in command of bureaus, were listed as sagirds. Although bureau heads were subject to rotation, replaced at least every two years in the early seventeenth century, the registers show that the bureau staffs did not rotate but served continuously until promotion, transfer, or death. Numerous salary registers for the seventeenth century are catalogued in the Ottoman archives, but for the sixteenth century very few have

been preserved, all dating to the first half of the century. As far as can be determined from position descriptions, the registers from the 1530s included the whole staff of the finance bureaus except perhaps for a few young boys who were there to get an education and to fetch was being reorganized (“The Ottoman Black Sea Frontier and the Relations of the Porte with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy, 1622-1628,” [PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1989]). D’Ohsson (Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 261) connects the appearance and disappearance of this defterdarhk with the capture and loss of Budin, the dates of which were 1541 and 1686. 22 Uzuncarsili, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 332-33 and n. 4. 3 For a full description of the salary registers and examples of their possible uses, see my “Ottoman Salary Registers as a Source for Economic and Social History.”

58 CHAPTER TWO tea. As time went by, the registers included fewer scribes, since they did not record wages paid from sources other than treasury revenues. Scribes on the highest level, bureau heads and defterdars, gradually

disappeared from the salary registers, as they were increasingly compensated by income from zeamets and timars.” Those on the very

lowest level, apprentices and learners, did not receive salaries but were compensated, if at all, out of their masters’ income; they too are unrecorded.” Fees paid by those for whom services were performed and documents written became an additional source of revenue for members of the finance department, and gifts and bribes were

still another.*© The salary registers provide no evidence on scribal support from these income sources. For the purpose of this study, it

has been assumed that the proportion of recorded to unrecorded employees was consistent, yielding, if not an absolute, at least a relative

notion of the size of bureaus.

24 This development was in line with the advice of the nasihat writers of the 1630s and 1640s recommending the compensation of government employees by timars as a way of cutting back the demand for scarce cash resources. Shinder was mistaken in his assumption

that the upper-level staff, katibs and above, were “enrolled in the pay registers of the ruzname-i kiictik kalemi,” at least after the mid-sixteenth century (“Ottoman Bureaucracy,”

56, and “Career Line Formation,” 229); it was the upper-level staff who were the first to drop out of the registers. It is impossible to determine whether any of the scribes listed in the registers simultaneously received income from both salaries and timars. It might be expected that Ottoman officials would have kept a record of timars granted to finance scribes, but although special registers of scribal timars and zeamets began to be produced around the middle of the seventeenth century, these registers list only the zeamets and timars of high-level chancery scribes of the divan, not those belonging to scribes of the maliye (an example is MM 4091 [3275], dated 1059/1649—-50, a list of zeamets and timars belonging to scribes of the imperial divan). Even though in a few registers a specific area was designated for the zeamets of finance scribes, that area was invariably left blank. *° The system by which these very low-ranking scribes were remunerated and promoted has been variously described for a later period; see Findley, “Legacy of Tradition,” 33940, 345-47; Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 57-58; idem, “Career Line Formation,” 229-36. 7° Payment from fee income was normal for the sixteenth century; see John Horace Parry, The Sale of Public Office in the Spanish Indies under the Hapsburgs, Ibero-Americana, 37 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953), 2; Koenraad Wolter Swart, The Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), 49-50; Richard J. Bonney, The King’s Debts: Finance and Politics in France, 1589-1661, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 10. If high-level Ottoman officials received part of their remuneration in cash, it was not in the form of a salary granted from tax revenues but probably came out of the document fees collected in the finance bureaus. According to d’Ohsson (Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 263), in the eighteenth century even the bas defterdars were paid solely from fees. The revenue from fees was recorded in separate registers (see

MM 1480 [651] dated 1012/1603-4, which records deposits of document fees in the treasury), but salaries paid out of fee income were not recorded in the salary registers.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 59 Table 2. Total Numbers of Salaried Scribes

YEAR NUMBER OF SCRIBES SOURCE

900/1494—95 20TKSA TKSA E. D. 5475 9587 920/1514-15 36 Prior to 942 53 TKSA D. 78437’ 942/1535-36 65 MM MM 174 122 (7118) (559) 955/1548-49 38 961/1553-54 37 KK 6593

982/1574—75 68 Koci Bey Risalesi 1000/1592-93 183 Mustafa Nuri, Netayic

1013/1604—5 160 MM 1495 (3365) and KK 3398

1033/1623-24 212 MM 2587 (5586) 1035/1625-26 205 MM 2732 (5510) 1036/1626—27 182 KK 3399 1038/1628—29 182 MM 2919 (5965) 1041/163 1-32 163 Koci Bey Risalesi 1042/1632-33 3400 1050/1640-41 92120 MMKK 3556 (6248) 1060/1650-51 102 MM 4195 (6261) 1069/1658-S9 86 MM 4691 (6008)

1070—71/1660—61 70 Hezarfen, “Telhis’til-Beyan”

1071/1661-62 78 KK 3406 1079-80/1669-—70 70 MM 5594 (2950)

post-1768 714 d’Ohsson” TKSA D. 3208B” 1780s 700 Sources: Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina ait Biitce Ornegi,” 309, 313, 324; Uzungarsili, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 336; Barkan, “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina ait Bir Osmanli Biitcesi,” 294; Koci Bey, Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Ali Kemal Aksiit (Istanbul: Vakit Gazetesi Matbaa Kiitiiphane, 1939), 29, 41; Mustafa Nuri, Netayic lil-Vukuat, ed. Neset Cagatay, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 22, no. 1-2 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1979), 1: 152; Omer Liitfi Barkan, “1070-1071 (1660— 1661) Tarihli Osmanli Biitcesi ve Bir Mukayese,” [UIFM 17 (1955-56): 317; idem, “10791080 (1669-1670) Mali Yilina ait Bir Osmanli Biitcesi ve Ek’leri,” 230; Shinder, “Career Line Formation,” 236 n. 1; Gibb & Bowen 1: 136.

The numbers of salaried scribes at various points in time are shown in Table 2. According to the figures in this table, the number of salaried

finance department personnel, after doubling in the early sixteenth century, inexplicably dropped again, subsequently rose to a peak in the 1620s, and then diminished almost to its previous level. Figures for the seventeenth century are all a little low due to the omission

27 Barkan dated this document to the bas defterdarlik of Nazli Mahmud Celebi (944— 949/1537-1542), but it must have been written before the defter of 942/1535—36, since scribes in the 942/1535—36 register who are also listed here usually appear at lower salaries,

and those promoted in 942/1535-36 are still shown at their old positions in this document.

8 May include nonsalaried as well as salaried staff.

60 CHAPTER TWO of bureau heads from the salary registers. The large numbers of finance scribes reported for the late eighteenth century, however, suggest that

that their actual number increased constantly, and that the totals for the second half of the seventeenth century may be a great deal too low. Still, even in the early seventeenth century, their number was

quite small considering the volume of work, and their growth in numbers seems proportionate to the expansion of their task.” The first half of the sixteenth century in the finance department was a period of organizational changes and structural experiments, some of which can be traced in the salary registers. The first change, visible in registers from the 1530s, was the creation of a bureau structure for the Arab lands and eastern Anatolia (together called the vilayet-i Arab), parallel to those for Rumeli and Anadolu.” According to register MM 122 (559) for the years 942/1535-—36 and 943/1536—37, the finance department consisted of three nearly parallel structures

of bureaus. Two of these structures, labeled, like their defterdars, “Rumeli” and “Anadolu,” were responsible for the European and Asian parts of the empire respectively. The bureaus in each of these groups were the muhasebe, mukataa, mevkufat, and tezkire bureaus. The third

bureau structure, consisting of ruznamce, muhasebe, mukataa, and ahkam bureaus, was labeled “Arab” or “vilayet-i Arab”; its function was doubtless to supervise the revenues controlled by the Arab ve Acem defterdan. There were no bureaus for the gikk-1 sani, despite the subdivision of the revenues of Rumeli under that heading in the balance-sheet of 931/1524—25; this suggests that the amalgamation of Rumeli’s revenues seen in 933—34/1527—28 was still in force ten years later. The bureau structure of 942/1535-36 resembles the organization of revenues in the balance-sheet of 933/1526—-27 more closely than that of 931/1524—25. An organizational shift between these two dates can be explained by the 1525 revolt of the newly conquered Arab provinces and the subsequent revision of political and fiscal arrangements ? In the sixteenth century the English finance staff numbered about 80, but the Ottoman Empire was a much larger and more diverse country (John Craig, A History of Red Tape: An Account of the Origin and Development of the Civil Service [London: Macdonald & Evans, 1955], 61). The sale of offices in France and Spain increased the number of officeholders into the tens of thousands in those countries during the seventeenth century. *° See register TKS D. 7843, published by Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina ait Biitce Ornegi,” 324—25; and register MM 122 (559) for 942-43/1535-37. The organization of finance responsibilities by geographical area is reminiscent of the Ilkhanid style of organization. Bureau assignments of finance scribes are listed in Table 4.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 61 made at their conquest in 1516. The original plan allowing management of finances to remain on the provincial level was altered in favor of central control, and the salary registers display the administrative structure by which the new arrangement was carried out. Separation of the revenues of Rumeli into two divisions was temporarily suspended, and a separate bureau structure for central control of revenues from the Arab lands was put into place. It seems probable that this rearrangement provoked the appointment of the third central defterdar. Outside these three bureau structures, the ruznamce or daybook function was separated into first (evvel) and second (sani) sections,

but their work was divided not by province but by a difference in their tasks. The ruznamce-i evvel maintained the finance department’s

daily income and expense journals, while the ruznamce-i sani kept salary records for palace personnel who were paid monthly (miisaherehoran) rather than quarterly or half-yearly like the military. The remaining finance bureaus (mukabele, varidat, mevcudat, tesrifat, and teslimat) show no indication of division at this time. This organizational structure, however, was relatively short-lived. Beginning around 1540, multiple provincial treasuries were organized and the finances of the Arab lands were no longer handled as a single unit. By the late 1540s, the bureaus for the “vilayet-i Arab” had disappeared, replaced by elements of a new bureau structure for the sikk-1 sani. This organization of finance duties proved more longlasting, enduring with minor changes through the end of the period studied. The distribution of scribal assignments in salary register MM 174 (7118) from 955/1548—49 reflects this readjustment of central finance responsibilities. The bureaus designated as “Arab” in the register

of 942/1535-—36 were gone; the concept of a third bureau structure parallel to the first two and responsible for the revenues and expenditures of a separate geographical region of the empire was abandoned. Instead, the salary register for 955/1548—49 includes a separate

varidatci (receiver of income) for the sikk-1 sani apart from those of Rumeli and Anadolu, reflecting the separate. income total for the sikk-1 sani in the balance-sheet of 954—-55/1547-48. No other bureaus

handling revenues of the sikk-1 sani are indicated in that register. Salary registers cannot be used to reconstruct the finance department’s structure during the second half of the sixteenth century, because no registers covering those years are extant, and only one exists from

the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The others presumably perished in the many fires that swept the defterdar’s archives during

62 CHAPTER TWO that time.*’ A look at the next surviving salary register, dating from 1013/1604—5, shows a great proliferation in the number of departments between 955/1547-48 and 1013/1604—5. Some of this growth

undoubtedly resulted from the organization of the third central defterdarlik and the resulting creation of new bureaus and reallocation

of functions. In the absence of salary registers for the intervening period, we must turn to other records for information on what happened. An important source of information for the period without salary registers is a kanunname prescribing the organization of the maliye in the mid-sixteenth century.’ Preserved in the Atif Efendi collection of the Siileymaniye Kiitiiphanesi (and therefore known as the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi), the kanunname has been dated around 1560, near the end of Siileyman’s reign.*? Another useful source from

around the same time is a register showing allocations in kind distributed to palace personnel and members of the finance department. The register is dated 977/1569—70, but the section on finance scribes

bears the date 961/1553-54.* Table 3 summarizes information from the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi

on the overall structure of the maliye around 1560. When this regulatory code was composed, the finance bureaus were organized in three sections under the direction of the bas defterdar, the Anadolu defterdari, and the third (iiciincii) defterdar respectively; the third defterdar was in charge of the sikk-1 sani. There is no provision for the fourth division of revenues appearing in the balance-sheet of 974— 75/1567—68, so the kanunname must have been written prior to that

time. It not only provides information on the finance department’s personnel but also describes their responsibilities in some detail. Subsequent to the balance-sheet of 931/1524—25, when the sikk-1 sani was a subdivision of Rumeli, the distribution of provinces among the bureaus had undergone considerable change. The provincial designa-

*! Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans le second moitié du XVII’ siécle, Bibliothéque archéologique et historique de |’Institut francais d’archéologie d’Istanbul, 12 (Paris: Librairie Adrien Maisonneuve, 1962), 30-36; Mustafa Cezar, ‘““Osmanl Devrinde Istanbul Yapilarinda

omey Yapan Yanginlar ve Tabii Afetler,” Tiirk Tarih Arastirma ve Incelemeler 1 (1963): *2 The regulatory code is in Ms. Auf Efendi 1734, fols. 124b—31a; parts of this kanunname were published by Uzungarsili (Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 338-46) and by Barkan (“H. 974-975 [M. 1567-1568] Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcesi,” 315-22). °° Halil Inalcik, “Suleiman the Lawgiver and Ottoman Law,” Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969): 174. * KK 6593, published in part by Uzungarsili in Merkez ve Bahriye Teskildti, p. 336.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 63 Table 3. The Structure of the Maliye in the Mid-Sixteenth Century Bas Defterdar Ruznamcei-i Evvel Ruznamcei-i Sani

Muhasebei-i Rumeli Muhasebei-i Anadolu Bas Defterdar Anadolu Defterdari Uciincii Defterdar Mukataaci-1 Evvel Mukataaci-1 Evvel Mukataaci-1 Evvel Mukataac1-1 Sani Mukataaci-1 Sani Mukataaci-1 Sani

Mevkufat¢ Mukataaci-1 Salis Mukataaci-1 Salis Varidatg1 Mevkufat¢1 Mevkufat¢1 Tezkireci-i Ahkam-1 Varidatg¢i Varidatci

Rumeli Tezkireci-i Ahkam-1 Tezkireci-i Ahkaém-1

Tezkireci-i Kila Anadolu Defterdar-1 Salis Tezkireci-i Kila Mevcudat¢i Tesrifatg1

Teslimatgi

Source: Atif Efendi MS 1734

tions of “Rumeli” and “Anadolu” in the titles of the defterdars no longer accurately reflected their jurisdictions; their responsibilities were

not so neatly geographical. The bas defterdar, in addition to his general responsibility for the financial affairs of the whole empire, now had specific responsibility only for the mukataa revenues of northern Rumeli as far south as Ohri, Usktip, and Filibe, and for those of the Danubian provinces of Bosna, Budin, and Temesvar.* These revenues were divided between two mukataa bureaus not by location, but by the nature of the revenue source: one bureau handled revenue from the customs dues of Danubian ports and the salt works, the other the revenue from mines. In addition

to these revenues, the bas defterdar was also responsible for issuing berats (diplomas of appointment) and salary and payment orders for fortress garrisons in the outlined area, as well as for those in Erzurum and the Arab lands, the former “vilayet-i Arab,” the income of which

was accounted for elsewhere. For these orders and payments he employed an official called the tezkireci-i kila, who wrote documents for the garrisons. 35 For maps showing the locations of Ottoman provinces see Donald Edgar Pitcher, A Historial Geography of the Ottoman Empire: From Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972).

64 CHAPTER TWO The defterdar of Anadolu was responsible not only for the mukataa

revenue of the province of Anadolu (western Anatolia) itself, but also for revenue from the provinces of Sivas, Erzurum, Trabzon, and Kefe in the Crimea. His responsibilities were apportioned among three bureaus by rough geographical criteria which are simpler to describe in reverse order. His third bureau received mukataa revenue from the following sancaks and provinces: Saruhan, Karesi and Bolu in Anadolu, then Karaman, Sivas, Erzurum, Trabzon, and Kefe. With the excep-

tion of Karesi and Bolu, these provinces are all adjacent and run neatly in a straight line eastward across central Anatolia and north up to and across the Black Sea. The second bureau administered revenue

from the sancaks of southwest Anadolu, plus Bergama and Midilli in the northwest. To the first bureau was allotted the remainder of Anadolu, comprising the northern and northwestern sancaks minus Karesi, Bolu, Midilli and Bergama. The jurisdiction of the third defterdar was, from a geographical point of view, even less coherent. His first bureau recorded mukataa revenue from Istanbul, Edirne, and two Greek provinces, Selanik and Mora; it is possible that these revenues were among those allocated in the balance-sheet of 931/1524—25 to the sikk-1 sani of Rumeli. His second bureau oversaw other mukataa revenues of the sikk-1 sani, but no source enumerates these revenues; they may have been the same as those later categorized separately in the balance-sheet of 974—25/ 1567-69, and they may have been on the Anatolian side of the empire. In addition, the second bureau handled revenue from the extensive has properties of the late grand vizier Ibrahim Pasa and certain other revenues from the sikk-1 evvel of Rumeli.*° His third bureau handled mukataa revenue from the remaining areas of southern Rumeli: the rest of Greece (Tirhala, Siroz, and Inebahti), Albania (Iskenderiye, Arnavut, and Belgrad/Berat), and Thrace (Gelibolu and Cirmen). These

may have been included in the sikk-1 sani revenue of the balancesheet of 931/1524—25. The odd configuration of the third defterdar’s

jurisdiction may be related to the formation of the province of the Cezayir beylerbeyi, who was also the Grand Admiral of the empire; his province, containing parts of Greece and Gelibolu as well as the Aegean islands and a portion of western Anatolia, was considered part

6 Fora description of the has of Ibrahim Pasa in Rumeli, see Gokbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 75.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 65

of the sikk-1 sani.*’ The third defterdar was also responsible for payments to the fortress garrisons of Mora, Inebahti, Modon, Coron, “and other fortresses” (according to the kanunname), while the fortresses in the remainder of his region were overseen by the bag defterdar; the defterdar of Anadolu is not described as having had any responsibility for fortress garrisons. The kanunname describes three parallel structures of finance bureaus, one under each of the three defterdars; these structures involved a number of officials in addition to the various mukataacis and the kila tezkirecis whose jobs have been described above. A varidatci in each division was responsible for recording incoming payments to the treasury from the areas for which his defterdar was responsible. A mevkufatci recorded income from properties which were temporarily in the possession of the treasury, such as unallocated timars, strays, or the legacies of deceased persons (beytiilmal).*® A tezkireci-i ahkam

prepared tezkires, memoranda, requesting the production of orders (hiikm, pl. ahkdm) on matters unrelated to fortress garrisons. In addition to the above officials, there were certain functionaries who served the entire treasury department. Besides the ruznamecis, there were the muhasebecis, who oversaw the accounts of the cizye and of the imperial emins; we have seen these officials earlier under Mehmed II. In addition, there was a mevcudatci who counted cash as it came in and kept records of the contents of the treasury; a tesrifatci who noted the piskes or presents; and a teslimatci who recorded fabrics

and robes and kept track of those removed from the treasury to be worked or embroidered by the palace craftsmen. Two functions were disregarded by the kanunname. The maliye kalemi, the main order-writing bureau of the finance department, was omitted from the kanunname’s list, although it was certainly in existence

at that time, since it appeared in the salary registers, where it was often listed separately from bureaus dealing directly with money. Secondly, although salaried mukabele scribes were referred to earlier

in the ceremonial kanunname of Mehmed II and appear in later registers, the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi omitted any mention of them. *7 For the province of Cezayir see A. Galotta, “Khayr al-Din,” E/2 4: 1157; Uzuncargih, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilat, 420; Idris Bostan, Osmanli Bahriye Teskilat: XVI. Yiizyilda Tersdne-i Amire, Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlar, ser. 7, no. 101 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1992), 233. 38 For procedures related to unallocated timars see Howard, “Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation,” 95-97, 104.

66 CHAPTER TWO Nor does the kanunname describe bureaus whose function was to spend the revenues that other bureaus took in; expenditures were handled by the same bureaus as income. Although we moderns assume

that the primary division of finance operations ought to be between income and expenditures, the Ottoman division of labor was predicated on the nature of the revenue source and the records and types of problems associated with it.” Our second source from this period, the register detailing allocations in kind to central government personnel, confirms that the full bureau structure for the sikk-1 sani already existed in 961/1553—54, predating the kanunname by several years. This register has been used

as evidence for a massive increase in finance staff at this time, but what it actually shows is a decline in numbers.” The register contains a list of 37 finance scribes who received allotments of fodder for the year 961/1553—54. The total of 37 scribes is similar to the 955/1547-

48 total, but the list of offices agrees more closely with the later kanunname than with the earlier salary register. For instance, the salary

register shows only a varidat scribe for the gikk-1 sani, while the register of allotments includes gikk-1 sani scribes for varidat, mukataa and tezkire functions, corresponding to the responsibilities of the third defterdar as detailed in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi. It would appear

that a structural transformation to the sikk-1 sani began in the late 1540s and was completed during the 1550s. The growth of the finance department to over 100 salaried scribes must have taken place during the second half of the sixteenth century, after the composition of these

sources. On the basis of an order in register MM 1513 (7316) dated 1011/1602—3, however, we can hypothesize that the increase took place not long before the turn of the century. The order was issued °° The English finance administration divided its work into income and expenditures (Craig, History of Red Tape, 27, 32). In sixteenth-century Spain, however, it was recognized that the safest way to ensure that bills were paid was to assign expenditures to specific revenue sources; these could be switched or “borrowed” from if more urgent needs arose (Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 87). The Ottoman expenditure

system has not yet been studied. ” KK 6593, dated 977/1569—70, and cited in Uzuncarsili, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskildti, 336 and n. 2. Uzungarsili believed this register to prove that the number of scribes in the finance department at that date was 192, but the figures in the section dealing with the finance department do not record the number of scribes in each bureau in 976/156869 but the number of units of fodder or hay (giyah-1 husk) allocated to each scribe in 961/1553-54. The finance scribes do not appear in any list of later date. That each unit of fodder did not represent one member of a bureau is shown by the fact that the fodder for the sagirds, who numbered 6, was listed in a separate section below that for the 31 katibs; the katibs’ fodder was not shared with the apprentices.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 67 in response to a complaint from the scribes of the maliye that as their

number had grown (because of an increase in their workload), the amount of food issued to them from the imperial kitchens no longer sufficed. The previous bas defterdar had obtained additional food for

them, but the present one had taken it away; they requested that it be restored, which it was. To summarize, although originally organized by province, the three defterdarliks as finally constituted were not geographically based. The creation of an organization, the sikk-1 sani, in which finances from

both regions of the empire were combined into a third jurisdiction that overlapped the other two geographically, was a clear break from the Ilkhanid fiscal system organized by province, appropriate to an appanage state where the provinces had had considerable autonomy. The great geographical divisions of the Ottoman Empire lost their significance as demarcators, although they were retained as titles. Nothing could more vividly illustrate the centralized character of Ottoman administration in the sixteenth century. Contrary to the myth of

immobility, the finance department was a structure that developed gradually over time, expanding with the empire’s growth and altering its basis of organization to suit the changing character of imperial administration.

The Seventeenth Century and Beyond After a gap of about fifty years for which no salary records are available, the scribal salary registers for the first half of the seventeenth century once again provide detailed information on scribal identities and bureau assignments. By the middle of the century, however, due to the treasury’s cash flow problems, many scribes were remunerated by timars and fee revenues rather than by salaries from the treasury.

They therefore disappear from the salary registers, rendering the registers less valuable as sources. Detailed information on the finance department after that point must be obtained from literary descriptions or from new sources. Table 4 contains information from a number of scribal salary registers whose dates span the period 1535-1660. The table shows the finance bureaus in which the scribes worked and the number of salaried scribes

employed in each bureau, as well as the number of scribes whose bureau assignment was not identified in the register. Judging by the

oS] = .) - N © t+ mA osi Valo = tN _ aAN1Tnn Ae rion ~ & nem N na [La | oe — 1 En a

—2 oun

RX 20 5 ee |

oS Nome NAN ran) tN IN | Oo OH = w |W N =

oS nel ac a Ae NN 1ON Mm wMIO A

ox — om N om N N s neee |

| 00 00Q No) — = co oncA ola Y oon JC2— Nwlan ™

PED ent

4Ss =1oNR}] na Co Nt 1LANTH Cn BAN OO

a So ty = N foe) om ron) N — —_ =

faa)

Ss aatloo Oo east oO \O Om q ox wtIL=ANNA fon) oeNBAM _ —A wo

oC =—

&

[Ly wi? cr aloe

N Iow+ LaANMNA = of OQ mm NnNNMA=+=cr wand

° , oe NM

cD)

— “— Cr) oi =m cncrm~

oO \O N on) | + | OoOmMmMmmvo NN wane = ann |

= omen | .

-5) =—=BSBil atOo =nwo=cn ro st AN om + IL ananie AN 4m oe— ON a) Nca—N Ce ©

=

Z, — of

¢ oRnlmm aM ae bt tin ome Il Nw ON By | een |

OQ “— OO

WO + mom MN moltliirt oe Olt © i3 weal ON

t+ NA aH ANA | | | C NA — | 0 Cc ON a

qy A

© Dy o~ Ca = 2 fe 8sQ 20.2

ae:

:=)Pads PeeSogogs, a2Easy, 2°1 »oe < Sa Bane. gOisssd Boo SS< Ee ei et = QO are "Tt are ba aodddbdar | ce | ba eo] om epee QeGZ 3 fad < x ba | | ES an] = ~|ooo85 SoePEN SHO HESHOB ware N «aa S| EERE R SS9QES SRE bo0282 ~ SeeESn sete ¥sdcse geese EF ac

Z| SSSES BSSESE 22 53 £0SSSzEESE2 = o)e2eaahHh oo oOo & 0 Oon

mal] tan brett t ttt tt tt to | aa am nN 7 90

Fon ne cman Olli tli titi tt igo omtitin

—

< a & 2 ed) oO fr

8 3&g as) =) la sS8ios > oe oY S on

om

fia ~ 3aQhac 3S ml OSSOP m¥shpAOO Sen Gane sea 7 fé ray m| PERS ERS SSE See ee ees 8B SE

2 Odeo a tt Mest sauvescsas >&3 ~~’ © a oO Dn, SAKE RRRRHBRRBHKRRHES soto S\|SSESSESSSSSSSSSSSSE ZHERP —_

SSseseOVsessesnetcstssnsnsssnyn vsououoe

— Se EEE3sYY RSH moPPPOE mg ais Sxsesanss SSS55 53356 eaaag MI SSZZAVIAZAAZAAZSZAAAAAAH

~o SAS “= OS ss =o a Cs oO

Oo = oases = © Ww ag 2257 SSlmiwvin aloaA ez tanaae g 2". “Te ze Lass

Se Bel

ASImimit an wn Tiis¢ oO DOG

Q

AFwSs

til/-> WOO mm

oo we on S= nin WM wo Eom &

7 acs ce LzSS =7 _ OBIS ~— N wo

ae =a I omlt N | N mt tO ce wa ae SEMS HM A

aBo| Mat leo NI NN akan 00 on 6 DE 6 So ¥

Co = —_ as 4 cr)Eo4 so)

aol ran le N | Nn “OO — Mog ®

Wo

o-= = = 4 OQ > St 2 oD —~ Og & nm DTASO

NAN =

HA ce ~ 29 LR to o MO HL A= SEARS - ay Ss =a&aq2eZoa Saw 5 st ~s < oSou. - sesS85 aw] 2 » ”2=OA Unt 3 SS

S SOCEM SsaaPAES a QO = AgZ=s5 O wt m5 2 G2 S2/,35 57 —) oom OD nt “7 Oo S 3s 82 eT S42 . wee wb 2? coe yg . ° OC @ on wz- SoS Gm wo V aGOBE et el fae} » o 5Q= --.aw ONS =l|eaen Bie Bess o o|/SsS8§ 8 UO OO 6tt”Ste OD 4oO yoOo = © MM So EN Y Q Us_,3.0 >OQnao r&wY ON >UZU>s 2235 BEES S838 §FS— FR] FEST Es Sara H 2ADH 2HHO FH « wI1L A oAS

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 71

distribution of scribes among the bureaus, significant change in the finance department’s organizational structure as well as considerable growth in numbers took place between the mid-sixteenth century sources and the first of the seventeenth-century salary registers. A large increase in the number of scribes and of bureaus directly responsible for accounting tasks reflects a growth in finance department business that accompanied the subdivision of fiscal responsibilities in the second half of the sixteenth century.*! Instead of three parallel groups of bureaus, seventeenth-century registers reveal a multiplication and complication of bureaus in certain areas of administration and a gradual attrition and disappearance in others. The description of the finance department’s structure in the sixteenth-century kanunname was clearly not a prescription for permanence but a snapshot of a changing reality at a particular moment in time. Indeed, the fact that sikk-1 sani bureaus of various types appeared and disappeared

at different dates implies that the neatness and symmetry of the kanunname’s depiction may have been an idealization rather than a reality even at the time it was written. If the number of scribes employed in a bureau is a valid indication of the size or significance of that bureau’s job, it appears that certain of the finance department’s functions, once central to the department’s operation, became less important with time. This decrease in importance can be seen in the case of the varidat bureaus. During the sixteenth century, as shown by the mid-century kanunname and the 955/1548— 49 register, the single varidat bureau of the early decades had become three separate bureaus, one under each of the defterdars. Several varidat bureaus were likewise listed in the early registers of the seventeenth century, but after the 1620s they began to disappear and the number of varidat scribes diminished. There were no varidat scribes at all in the register of 1071/1660—61, and according to d’Ohsson the varidat

bureaus no longer existed in the eighteenth century. In some bureaus the number of salaried scribes decreased even though the bureau’s function continued to be performed. Decreases in the bureau staffs of muhasebe-i evvel (from 4 scribes in the sixteenth century to 1 in the 1620s), mukataa-i evvel (from 9 to 3 in the same period), and mukataa-i Anadolu (from 6 to none) may have 41 Growth in the Ottoman finance staff was negligible compared to that of France, where in 1643 financial and judicial employees together numbered 45,000 (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 271-73.

72 CHAPTER TWO been related to the transfer of some of their responsibilities to newly created bureaus. The teslimatt and the mukabelei-i sipahiyan disappeared from the lists and the mevcudatt appeared only intermittently. These decreases and disappearances were probably due to the compensation of these officials by timars or fees instead of by cash salaries. On the other hand, despite the absence of the mukabele function from the kanunname, mukabele scribes were included in the list of finance scribes receiving allotments of fodder in 961/1553-—54, and throughout

the seventeenth century registers mukabele scribes continued to receive salaries. A disproportionately large increase can be noted in other areas. There were three areas where the rate of scribal growth was more than double the 225% average increase from 942/1535-—36 to 1013/ 1604—5: ruznamce, mevkufat, and order-writing. The number of scribes

in the ruznamce bureaus nearly tripled before 1013/1604—5, from 5 to 14, and tripled again over the next three decades to a peak of 42. By 1660, however, the total dropped again to 22; this may have been a real cut due to overstaffing earlier in the century, or it may only be apparent, reflecting a shift in compensation from salaries to timars or fee income. Even with this reduction, however, the ruznamce staff was still the largest in the finance department in 1660, demonstrating the continued importance of the ruznamc¢e bureaus, especially the ruznam¢e-i evvel, in accounting for receipts and expenditures and summarizing the accounts of other bureaus.

The mevkufat kalemi also tripled in size, but in contrast to the ruznam¢e bureaus, it experienced a more consistent pattern of growth

through the middle years of the century, its staff slowly increasing from 3 to 6 to 7 to 9. A separate mevkufat bureau for the sikk-1 sani had been described in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi, and the mevkufat income of the sikk-1 sani had its own heading in the balance-sheets, but only one scribe was ever listed (in the register for 1033/1623— 24) as belonging to such a bureau. In the registers from 1630 on, the mevkufat bureaus for Anadolu and the sikk-1 sani no longer appeared. By the second quarter of the seventeenth century the mevkufat func-

tion had been consolidated under a single head, and a source from the second half of the seventeenth century confirms that at that time there was only one mevkufat bureau.” ” Hiiseyin Hezarfen, “Telhis iil-Beyan fi Kavanin-i Al-1 Osman,” cited by Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 43. The mevkufat continued as a single bureau throughout the eighteenth century (d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 267).

| THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 73 The two fastest-growing bureaus of the period were the tezkire-i Rumeli kalemi, whose staff increased by 550% from 2 to 13, and the ahkam-1 maliye kalemi (elsewhere called the maliye kalemi), whose staff increased by 630% from 3 to 19. The fact that these two bureaus were responsible for communication rather than accounting tasks is suggestive. Their expansion reflects the bureaucratization of the empire

in this period and a consequent rise in the amount of paperwork. It also indicates the enormous importance of the office of bas defterdar between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, owing to his ability to mobilize the empire’s financial resources at a time of fiscal crisis. The tezkire and ahkam bureaus, as communications tools,

played an important role in the bas defterdar’s exercise of empirewide power. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, however, salaried scribes in these bureaus decreased to 2 or 3; although there were undoubtedly non-salaried employees, it is possible that overall numbers did decrease with the bas defterdar’s loss of power at that time. The maliye kalemi still existed in d’Ohsson’s day, whereas the three tezkire bureaus had been replaced by a single bureau called the mektupcu kalemi, or oda. The Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi and the allotments register of 961/ 1553—54 had listed a tezkire bureau under each defterdar, along with tezkire bureaus for fortress garrisons under the first and third defterdars. In the register of 1013/1604—5, the tezkire bureaus of Rumeli (tezkire-i evvel kalemi, 13 scribes) and the sikk-i sani (7 scribes) were considerably larger than the tezkire bureau of Anadolu (2 scribes), and the disproportionate size of the tezkire-i evvel kalemi continued in later registers despite the overall decrease in numbers. This difference doubtless reflected the wider responsibilities of the Rumeli and sikk-1 sani defterdars as described in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi.

In the salary registers, none of the scribes in the Anadolu tezkire bureau were identified as tezkire-i kila scribes, confirming the impression obtained from the kanunname that the defterdar of Anadolu did

not have responsibility for any fortress garrisons, even those within his own area of jurisdiction. In d’Ohsson’s time the two bureaus for fortress garrisons were called “Biiyiik Kale” and “Kiiciik Kale,” greater

and lesser garrison bureaus. In two areas of function, muhasebe and mukataa, still more extensive alterations in bureau structure are apparent. Within the area of muhasebe (accounting), which throughout the first half of the sixteenth century had been divided into bureaus along provincial lines (Rumeli, Anadolu, and vilayet-i Arab), tasks were reassigned later in

74 CHAPTER TWO the century in a way that cannot simply be ascribed to the establishment of another defterdarlik. Separate bureaus appear in the 1013/ 1604—5 register for examining the accounts of collectors of the cizye, or poll tax on non-Muslims (muhasebe-i cizye kalemi), and those of imperial evkaf, or pious foundations (muhasebe-i evkaf kalemi). The expansion of the muhasebe-i cizye kalemi from 3 scribes in 1013/ 1604—5 to 16 in 1033/1623—24 and 19 two years later reflects a growth

in this department’s functions. During these two decades, as we shall

see, independent cizye surveys began to be made, and the muhasebe-i cizye kalemi was responsible for the records of those surveys. By 1033/1623—24, an additional accounting bureau called the muhasebe-i haremeyn kalemi had been established for examining the accounts

of evkaf dedicated to the Two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina, the haremeyn-i serifeyn. The responsibility of the muhasebe-i evkaf kalemi

was then limited to examining the accounts of evkaf not dedicated to the haremeyn; in the eighteenth century this bureau was known as the kiiciik evkaf muhasebesi kalemi.* The old muhasebe bureaus of Rumeli and Anadolu were now responsible for examining the accounts of imperial emins,“ emins of the hass-1 hiimayun, and provincial finance departments. The muhasebe bureaus retained this overall structure into the eighteenth century, but as time went by the bureaus of muhasebe-i Rumeli and muhasebe-i Anadolu were given new responsibilities for malikdne (life-term tax farms), pensions, and troop salaries.* Although the muhasebe staff numbered only 11 scribes at the beginning of the century, by mid-century it rivaled that of the ruznam¢e bureaus.

The mukataa bureaus in the late sixteenth century underwent an expansion and diversification even greater than that of the muhasebe bureaus. This expansion resulted primarily from reorganization around the third defterdarlik. The number of scribes employed in the mukataa

bureaus increased from 23 to 36 between 942/1535—36 and 1013/ 1604—5 and to 49 over the next two decades, making it for a time the largest group of scribes in the finance department. The bureau structure also became more complex. The register of 942/1535—36 had identified three mukataa bureaus, one under each defterdar. According

“3 D’Ohsson, Tableau général de lI’ empire ottoman, 7: 268. “ Agents for expenditures: among the major emins were those of Istanbul (sehir), the dockyards (tersane), the mint (darphane), the imperial kitchens (matbah), and barley (arpa). ** D’Ohsson, Tableau général de Il’ empire ottoman, 7: 265-66.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 75 to the mid-sixteenth century kanunname, there were then eight mukataa

bureaus, two or three responsible to each defterdar, and the register of allotments in kind listed nine mukataa bureaus. Over the next few decades, mukataa responsibilities were further subdivided; the number of bureaus increased to eleven by 1013/1604—5, and twenty years later

there were two additional bureaus. After the 1620s several bureaus disappeared, leaving eight in the final register examined (from 1071/ 1660-61), but one new bureau, governing the ziyade-i cizye tax, was added before the end of the century. The muhasebe-i evvel kalemi also handled some mukataa revenues, notably those for the Arab lands; it apparently took over the responsibilities of the old mukataa-1 Arab kalemi. Information in the sixteenth-century Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi enables us to allocate responsibility for mukataa bureaus mentioned in salary registers among the defterdars and to understand their tasks as of that date. Conversely, the salary registers reveal the names of bureaus described in the kanunname. The responsibilities of the mukataa bureaus

at the end of the seventeenth century have also been studied, using registers dating between 1090 and 1110 (1679-1699) issued by the bureaus to record the award or accounting of the mukataas in their

charge.* The lists of taxes administered by each bureau are not comprehensive, in part because not every tax was offered in iltizam every year, and many smaller taxes were subsumed under larger categories. In some cases income sources were apparently shifted around among bureaus to meet payment obligations, so these lists must be considered suggestive rather than definitive. They do indicate,

however, that the system had undergone radical change by the late seventeenth century. According to the kanunname, as we have seen, the bas defterdar

was responsible for two mukataa bureaus. The bureau governing mukataas of mines, labeled in the registers the mukataa-1 maadin kalemi, first appeared in the allotment list of 961/1553-—54. In the late

seventeenth century, this bureau farmed the mines of Sidrekapsi, Previste, Uskiip, and Bekofca in southern Rumeli, and also handled taxes on coffee, wine, and tobacco as well as the cizye of the Wallachians, the Moldavians, and the gypsies (kibtryan) of Rumeli. The 4 Omer Liitfi Barkan, “Osmanl imparatorlugu Butcelerine dair Notlar,” [UIFM 17 (1955-56): 198-213. No comparable examination has yet been made for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

76 CHAPTER TWO bureau responsible for the remaining mukataas of Rumeli, in particular the customs dues of the Danubian ports, was called the mukataa-1 Rumeli or mukataa-1 evvel kalemi. In later times it also administered tax farms of rice fields and salt works, mines in Usktip and Kratova, and the yava (non-resident) cizye of Selanik, of Armenians in Rumeli and Anadolu, and of Jews in Istanbul. In 1013/1604—5 there

was a short-lived bureau called the mukataa-1 memlaha-1 Istanbul kalemi, also responsible for salt works; it is not yet known in whose jurisdiction it lay, but it might have belonged to the third defterdar. The defterdar of Anadolu supervised three mukataa bureaus in the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century, the mukataa-i Anadolu kalemi, which had originally handled the mukataas of southwest Anatolia, had ceased to exist. The mukataa-1 Kefe kalemi controlled the mukataas of Kefe and of the sancaks in Anadolu associated with Kefe in the kanunname’s list, and by the late seventeenth century it also administered the revenues of southwest Anatolia.4’ The mukataa-1 Brusa kalemi held jurisdiction over the mukataas of Bursa and the sancaks of northwestern Anadolu, and in the late seventeenth century the silk market taxes (mizan-i harir) of Istanbul. In the eighteenth century these taxes were administered by the Istanbul mukataas1 kalemi. The mukataa-1 haremeyn kalemi (bureau of mukataas of the Two Holy Cities) was responsible for the mukataas of the Two Holy Cities, but by the late eighteenth century its responsibility was limited

to Anadolu, while the muhasebe-i haremeyn kalemi had charge of similar mukataas in Rumeli. The mukataa-1 haremeyn bureau, there-

fore, may have been under the defterdar of Anadolu. Certain bureaus probably came under the jurisdiction of the third defterdar, who was responsible for Istanbul, southern Rumeli, western Anadolu, and the province of Cezayir. These were the bureaus called mukataa-1 Avlonya (Albania), mukataa-1 Istanbul, mukataa-1 Agriboz (eastern Greece), and mukataa-1 hasha (royal domain). The mukataa-1 Avlonya kalemi administered the mukataas of Albania and

*” The reorganization of provincial administration lying behind these bureaucratic changes is mentioned by Rhoads Murphey, Regional Structure in the Ottoman Economy: A Sultanic Memorandum of 1636 A.D. Concerning the Sources and Uses of the Tax-Farm Revenues

of Anatolia and the Coastal and Northern Portions of Syria, Near and Middle East Monographs, n.s., vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1987), xxv—xxvii. In the summary mukataa register analyzed by Murphey, the Anatolian sancaks were divided into yet different groups, indicating that Ottoman officials did not hesitate to alter their administrative organization if necessary.

THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 77 western Rumeli, while the mukataa-1 Istanbul kalemi was responsible

for Istanbul, Thrace, and parts of Greece. The mukataa-1 Agriboz kalemi disappeared from the salary registers after the 1630s and did not exist in d’Ohsson’s time, though it was still in operation in the late seventeenth century with responsibility for a variety of locations in Rumeli. The mukataa-1 hasha kalemi originally administered the has of Ibrahim Pasa; in the late seventeenth century it had responsibility for the has lands of Aydin in western Anadolu and by the eighteenth century for all has lands. The mukataa-1 hasha-1 cedide kalemi (bureau of new has mukataas) was also called the mukataa-1 cedide-i ula kalemi (first bureau of new mukataas). For the early seventeenth century we do not know which

defterdar had charge of it or what taxes it administered, but later in the century it managed a curious mixture of taxes in various sancaks of Anadolu. The mukataa-1 hasha-1 cedide-i sani kalemi (second bureau

of new has mukataas) is yet more elusive: never described in detail, it disappeared from the salary registers after the 1630s, and although it appeared in a list of bureaus from 1670, it was absent from d’Ohsson’s

list. In the late eighteenth century the cedide-i evvel and cedide-i sani bureaus apparently managed new taxes levied to support Selim III’s New Model Army.” The mukataa-1 aSnam kalemi (bureau of sheep [tax] mukataas), a short-lived bureau of the 1620s, was later subordinated to the mevkufat kalemi. Another short-lived bureau was the mukataa-1 mensuhe kalemi (bureau of abrogated or unassigned mukataas). By d’Ohsson’s time, a salyane mukataasi bureau (mukataas of annual revenues) had replaced the ziyade-i cizye mukataasi, and an esham (shares) mukataas1 bureau had been founded. A dating bureau

is mentioned by Hezarfen in the second half of the seventeenth century,” but its absence from any of the lists suggests a late date for its establishment as a separate bureau. Changes in the number of defterdars and their responsibilities, made

for reasons of fiscal control of an expanding empire, brought corresponding changes in the subordinate bureaucratic structure and its scribal staff. It must be remembered that in 1013/1604—5 there was also a fourth defterdar, the Defterdar of the Danube (Tuna). No fourth bureau structure parallel to the other three was created for him. The 48 Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 45. 49 Hezarfen, “Telhis iil-Beyan,” cited by Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 35. The dating bureau still existed in d’Ohsson’s time.

78 CHAPTER TWO bas defterdar, burdened with responsibility for the finances of the empire as a whole, may simply have given the fourth defterdar charge over the existing bureaus controlling northern Rumeli, together with the financial affairs of Hungary and the Danubian provinces. D’Ohsson states (and others repeat) that in the second half of the seventeenth century, the second and third defterdarliks became sine-

cures and all responsibility was borne by the bag defterdar.°° The creation of the fourth defterdarlik casts doubt on this generalization for the period before 1650, although the consolidated bureau structure of the eighteenth century might support such a judgment for a later time. For the seventeenth century, however, Tevkit Abdiirrahman Pasa, often cited as the source of d’Ohsson’s statement, says only that the second and third defterdars did not generally involve themselves in the business of the divan, although they attended its sessions; when

the bas defterdar was on campaign they were able to stand in for him.°! The holders of these positions, then, had to be ready to carry the full weight of responsibility when needed, and they doubtless had other duties inside the finance department. An interpretation closer to Tevkii Abdiirrahman Pasa’s text is that the positions of the second

and third defterdars were depoliticized or professionalized in the seventeenth century.>* From the beginning the bas defterdar had been charged with general oversight of the empire’s financial welfare. The

duties of the other defterdars must always have been oriented more narrowly toward departmental affairs. Sometime in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, the maliye outgrew its allotted space in the Topkapi Palace and moved to separate quarters outside the palace, called the defterdar kapisi, the Porte of the Defterdar. Proliferation of finance department responsibilities and growth in staff were probably not the only reasons for this move. It also coincided with a period of increased political power for the bas defterdar stemming from his critical ability to mobilize °° D’Ohsson, Tableau général de I’ empire ottoman, 7: 261-62; Gibb & Bowen, 1: 130. >! Tevki‘i Abdurrahman Pasa, “Osmanli Kanunnameleri,” MTM 1 (1331/1912-3): 517. »? Likewise, the Spanish Council of War was professionalized after 1586; both its members and its secretaries all had previous field experience in either the army or the navy (Thompson, War and Government, 39-40). The duties of the French Controleur Général des Finances in the seventeenth century seem not dissimilar to those of an Ottoman defterdar, lying mainly in the area of verifying, checking, comparing and signing accounts of receipts and

expenditures, keeping track of the movement of cash in and out of the treasury, and Mee 86)" statements (Mousnier, /nstitutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2:

~THE OTTOMAN FINANCE DEPARTMENT 719

resources to meet the financial straits of the empire.’ The move underlines the extent to which the finance department had become independent of the sultan’s household by this time. Government finances were administered outside the palace by a hierarchy of salaried

scribes working in functionally differentiated groups according to regularized procedures. The sultan’s private expenses were separate from the costs of government; receipts from sales by the palace gardens

furnished the sultan’s pocket money, and separate registers for “the imperial pocket” (ceyb-i hitimayun) existed from at least the early seventeenth century.” If the Ottoman Empire had once fit the description of a patrimonial state, it was now approaching a bureaucratic model, at least in the case of the finance department.>° Ottoman bureaucracy has often been depicted as unchanging, its rigidity a cause of the empire’s decline. Comparing the description of the sixteenth-century finance department in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi, the seventeenth-century lists of bureaus in the salary registers, and the eighteenth-century description of d’Ohsson shows that, while the number of bureaus and their names remained nearly the same for 250 years, the finance department was reorganized several times during

that period.°° Although a few of the maliye’s functions retained the labels “Rumeli” and “Anadolu,” the sixteenth century’s three parallel 3 Rohrborn, “Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirékratie,” 121; even the bas defterdar’s office, however, became depoliticized and professionalized in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Shinder, “Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 47-50). 4 Giilrii Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), 135; examples of seventeenth-century ceyb-i hiimayun defterleri exist in the Maliyeden Miidevver collection in the Prime Minister’s Archives, Istanbul. 55 For the tension between household and bureaucratic government in the Ottoman state, see Inalcik, “Comments on Sultanism;” Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 127-73. In the seventeenth century, subjects’ loyalty to the Ottoman house seems to have become more abstract, and loyalty to the dynasty and its administration was separated from loyalty to any individual member of it (Peirce, Imperial Harem, 263). At this time, the complex relationships between royal household, court, and bureaucracy in western Europe were also in the process of changing (Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke, eds., Princes, Patronage, and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 14501650, Studies of the German Historical Institute, London [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991]). Rosenberg posits for Prussia the development of a “new” bureaucracy of dynastic (not quite “‘public”) servants, separate from the princely household and loyal to the monarchy

rather than to the monarch (Hans Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660-1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958], 14). 56 In contrast, the French fiscal structure could not be altered and during the seventeenth century had to be completely bypassed by a new illegal structure (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 28-29). The English in the sixteenth century created a new finance administration dispensing with the Latin, parchment, wooden tally sticks, and Roman numerals of the old,

80 CHAPTER TWO divisions disappeared completely in the later period. Allocation of work among the mukataa bureaus by geographical area was replaced by division of labor according to function. The number of muhasebe bureaus increased, also along functional lines. Later the department was consolidated again and its tasks redistributed once more. The finance department emerges from this examination as a flexible structure, constantly adapting to changing circumstances, in contrast to the static and dateless picture derived from the use of eighteenthcentury accounts to represent its entire history.°’ It responded to the

growth of the empire not only by developing a provincial finance bureaucracy but also by dividing central administrative functions to permit a greater degree of efficiency and control. The subdivision and reconsolidation of the varidat and mevkufat bureaus contradicts the stereotype of governmental structures that, once created, remained in existence whether or not their functions were still necessary. The mukataa and muhasebe-i Anadolu bureaus illustrate another pattern of flexibility found in the finance department, assignment of new functions to a bureau which had become unnecessary or of reduced importance, without changing its name. The lack of correspondence between old names and new purposes highlights the need to go beyond

prescriptive sources to administrative documents in order to understand how Ottoman government actually functioned.

only to have the old structure absorb the new one by the end of the century (Craig, History of Red Tape, 35-38). >’ A similar conclusion has been reached by Murphey, “Ottoman Census Methods.”

CHAPTER THREE

REVENUE ASSESSMENT BY THE CENTRAL FINANCE DEPARTMENT: CIZYE AND AVARIZ

Revenue assessment methods used by the central finance administra-

tion in the seventeenth century were based on or derived from the major Ottoman tax assessment procedure, the tahrir or fiscal survey. The tahrir has been perceived as a barometer of the empire’s administrative cohesiveness and strength, the regular surveys of the sixteenth century indicating firm central control over land, revenues, and military personnel, and their absence in the seventeenth century signaling disintegration and decay. It is true that the Ottoman tahrir represents a level of administrative ability achieved by very few states before the modern period. Its abandonment, however, was related less to a sudden onset of bureaucratic incapacity than to a change in the relationship between the military forces and the land. After about 1600, alterations were made in the Ottoman fiscal system in response to conditions of political and economic upheaval and social change, alterations that diminished the role of the defter-i hakani in Ottoman fiscal practice.! At the same time, other types of records gained prominence or were invented to record changes in population and revenue.

The price revolution of the last quarter of the sixteenth century, combined with military requirements, increased enormously the central government’s need for cash, while advances in military technology and organization simultaneously rendered the timar-holding cav-

alry army less effective. In consequence, granting timars for the maintenance of the sipahi army lost its importance as a goal of Ottoman

fiscal administration in favor of rounding up sufficient cash to meet government expenditures in other areas. As an instrument in the search

for increased cash resources, the general tahrir could not have been very useful; a large part of timar revenues was collected in kind and it was impossible to raise their rates. Furthermore, around the turn of the century tahrir officials found it increasingly difficult to conduct accurate and thorough surveys of land revenues due to unrest in the ' See McGowan, “The Study of Land and Agriculture,” 57-S8.

82 CHAPTER THREE countryside and Celali activity. As a result of these conditions, three categories of state revenue gained new importance during the first half of the seventeenth century: the cizye (poll tax on non-Muslims), the avariz-1 divaniye ve tekalif-i Grfiye (extraordinary taxes and imperial and customary levies), and the taxes farmed to private bidders through the iltizam system. Reasons for their increased importance were that their returns were made in cash, they were easier to assess than typical agricultural taxes, and their rates could to some extent be manipulated to meet current needs. Tax farming, which permitted the government to abandon direct revenue assessment, will be treated in the next chapter.

Cizye and avariz were more easily assessed than agricultural taxes—

basically by counting heads. Cizye was always paid in cash, while avariz included levies in cash, in kind, and in service, the latter two commutable to cash if necessary. Although the rate of the cizye was set by Islamic law and could be altered only to keep pace with inflation,

the rate of the avariz was variable and could be changed to meet budgetary needs. Until the end of the sixteenth century, the potential returns of the cizye and avariz-1 divaniye were calculated by kadis in the course of the tahrir. With the near cessation of land revenue surveys, a new system of surveys was developed for these taxes which replaced the traditional tahrirs as the basic method of assessment during

the seventeenth century.

Revenue Surveying by the Finance Bureaus Cizye (often called harac by the Ottomans, especially in the sixteenth century) was the traditional poll tax paid by non-Muslims living in Islamic lands in return for the protection of the Muslim community.’ It could be assessed either on a whole community as a lump sum (maktu) or on military-age males (usually 15-60) as individuals (ala’I-

ruius), but in the Ottoman Empire before the end of the seventeenth century it was usually assessed on a non-Muslim household (hane) regardless of the number of adult male inhabitants as long as their finances were shared in common. The cizye was usually assessed at a flat rate, although according to Islamic tradition people of low income * An introduction to the pre-Ottoman and Ottoman history of the cizye may be found in Claude Cahen and Halil Inalcik, “Dyizya,” EJ2 2: 559-66; Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina ait Muhasebe Bilancolari,” 1-16; Yavuz Ercan, “Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nda Gayrimiislimlerin Odedikleri Vergiler ve Bu Vergilerin Dogurdugu Sosyal Sonuclar,” Belleten 55 (1991): 371-91.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 83 (edna) paid half as much as those of middling income (evsat), who paid half as much as the richest (a‘/a). The indigent (people whose property was valued at less than 300 akce) and the unemployed were

exempt, as were women (except widows farming their deceased husbands’ property), children, the blind and disabled, and sometimes clerics and monks. Non-Muslim groups providing military service, such as Vlachs (Efiadk), martolos, and voynuks, were also exempt.

Relatives of voynuks paid a substitute for the cizye (bedel-i cizye, much lower than the regular cizye) but were otherwise tax-exempt.’ Reaya living on lands belonging to a vakif often paid their cizye to the vakif rather than to the central treasury. Even when assessed individually, the cizye (like other taxes) might be paid communally; the entire community was responsible for the taxes of all people listed in the assessment register and so in reality could apportion them as it pleased. Cizye was payable in cash, and the rates in akce or other silver coins were repeatedly adjusted to keep the lowest rate equiva-

lent to the traditional assessment of one gold coin. Cizye payers (haracgiizadr) were normally counted in the course of

the timar tahrir, when the list of villagers or urban residents was made. The number of cizye payers was sometimes recorded in the tahrir register itself, and local kadis were also required to prepare sep-

arate cizye registers.* The number of taxpayers liable for avariz-1 divaniye was determined at the same time and was usually written into the cizye registers. A separate register recorded payers of yava cizye, non-Muslims who had left their original place of residence and were surveyed and taxed separately. The cizye count was updated by means of triennial inspections made by a kadi or by a cizyedar (also called haracci, agent in charge of the cizye) accompanied by a kad1.

The purpose of these frequent updates was to delete from the rolls the deceased (miurde), converts (nev-miislim), and those who paid cizye

> For martoloses see Robert Anhegger, “Martoloslar Hakkinda,” Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi 7-8 (1940-42): 282-328; Milan Vasi¢, “Die Martolosen im Osmanischen Reich,” Zeitschrift fiir Balkanologie 2 (1964): 172-89; idem, “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Martoloslar,” Tarih Dergisi 31 (1977): 47-64; idem, “The Martoloses in Macedonia,” Macedonian Review 7, no. 1 (1977): 31-41; for voynuks see Yavuz Ercan, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Bulgarlar ve Voynuklar, Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 7, no. 88 (Ankara: Titirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1986); idem, “The Taxes Imposed on the Voynuks and Those from Which They Were Exempted,” Revue des études sudest européenes 21 (1983): 341-48. * Recording of cizye payers in a tahrir register can be seen in the registers published by Bayerle, Ottoman Tributes in Hungary, 20; and Lewis, “Nazareth in the Sixteenth Century,” 416-25.

84 CHAPTER THREE separately for any reason (e.g., transfer into a vakif), and to add new residents and the nev-yaftegdan, the newly uncovered, those not previously recorded or recently come of age. Hanes newly entered in the register might be required to pay an increase (ziyade) of 5 akce over the normal cizye; that was probably why some hanes in a cizye register for Dukakin were assessed at 70 akce, while others were assessed at 75.° Like tahrir defters, cizye defters were produced in two copies, one kept in the capital and the other maintained locally. Sixteenth century cizye registers in the archives contain the names of cizye payers, listed according to their place of residence, together

with a total figure for each location.® Most also include totals of avarizhanes. At the end of each register appear the seal and imza (stylized signature or monogram) of the kadi who compiled it. Very few cizye registers produced before the 990s/1580s can be found in the Maliyeden Miidevwver collection of the Basbakanlik Arsivi; several

exist in other collections, and some provincial copies have been preserved in the archives of former provincial capitals. A portion of a cizye tahrir for Szolnok from the year 979/1571—72, from the Consular Academy Library in Vienna, has been published by Lajos Fekete.’

This register contains no figure for the number of avarizhanes but is otherwise identical in format to those in the archives, listing the cizyepaying inhabitants of each town and village by name and including the total number of households (hanes). Summarized survey results can also be found in the records of kadis and in the ahkém records of the central government. Provincial accounting records note cizye payments to provincial treasuries.° The Ottoman archives contain a series of cizye registers beginning in 992/1584—85 and including registers for all but four of the years between 1585 and 1660. Most of these registers cover only one sancak; in some years the number of sancaks represented is greater than in

others, but in none are there registers from all the sancaks of the > MM 256 (14783) 971/1563-64; see Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina ait Muhasebe Bilancolan,” 9. © See also the description in Machiel Kiel, “Remarks on the Administration of the Poll Tax (Cizye) in the Ottoman Balkans and Value of Poll Tax Registers (Cizye Defterleri) for Demographic Research,” Etudes balkaniques 26, no. 4 (1990): 70-104. ’ Lajos Fekete, Die Siyaqgat-Schrift in der Tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung, 2 vols., Bib-

one Orientalis Hungarica, 7 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1955), 1: 350-55 and 2: ° ® See Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “The Cash Book of the Ottoman Treasury in Buda in the Years 1558-1560,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 15 (1962): 174-75.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 85 empire. The number of registers increases from 2 per year in 992/ 1584-85 to 5-9 per year around 1002/1593—94 and to 10-14 per year around 1010/1601—2, and although the total drops to only two per year in 1017/1608—9 it rises again to 5-9 or more per year by 1031/ 1621-22, trailing off again only after the middle of the century. The many registers dating from the 1590s and early 1600s must be based on the general tahrir conducted during the reign of Murad III (1574— 1595). The registers for succeeding years, however, appear to reflect new counts of cizye payers taken in areas where no regular tahrir had recently been made. A number of them record periodic registrations of nev-yaftegan made by kadis to keep the registers up to date between major tahrirs.” Register MM 863 (1460) 999/1590-91 for Malakas, for example, lists the names of cizye payers and the number of hanes in each village or urban mahalle (quarter or neighborhood),'° followed by the names of nev-yaftegan added since the tahrir. Another defter of nev-yaftegan is MM 2315m (14732) 1027/1617-18 for Vulcitrin. Register MM 2485 (1057) 1031/1621-—22 for Midilli includes “‘cor-

rections made after the tahrir’; it is not clear whether this refers to the last general tahrir or a more recent count of cizye payers only, but given the rather late date it might well be the latter. Some defters dated after the 1030s/1620s refer explicitly to the making of new tahrirs which are unlikely to have been traditional surveys of land revenues. The process by which these new tahrirs were made will be examined in more detail below. Some registers definitely produced by new tahrirs are MM 3205 (14638) 1043/1633-— 34 for Sakiz (Chios), a tahrir made by one Mehmed from the cavalry

of the Porte with assistance from the community heads (kethiidas) of the non-Muslims; MM 3535 (1539) 1050/1640—41 for Tikves, which refers to the reorganization of the cizye after a new tahrir; MM 3701

(17716) 1052/1642-43 for Kibris (Cyprus), which mentions a new tahrir made in that year listing the names of non-Muslims; and MM 3720 (1209) 1052/1642-43 for Sidrekapsi, including problems concerning the cizye related to a recent tahrir of Sidrekapsi. The twelve 9 See the notation “this is a nev-yafte year” in cizye accounting registers: Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina 4it Muhasebe Bilancolani,” 9, n. 6; and MM 895 (14725) 1002—3/1593-95 for Karaferye. Selaniki records the award of a medrese post to

a kadi as a reward for having completed a nev-yafte tahriri of Rumeli in 1004/1595-

9610 See (Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Ipsirli, 2: 600. , Ozer Ergenc. “Osmanh Sehrindeki ‘Mahalle’nin Islev ve Nitelikleri Uzerine,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 4 (1984): 69-78.

86 CHAPTER THREE cizye defters surviving from the year 1060/1650—51 all refer explicitly

to the subtraction of runaways from the cizyehanes; there may have

been an order for a general recount in that year.'! Another kind of cizye defter found in the finance records is a summary register (icmal), covering a wider area than the detailed registers described above. The summary registers list not individuals but the total number of households owing cizye in each village or urban mahalle; registers covering a whole province or region show only the number in each kaza (judicial district).'’2 An example of a summary register is MM 589 (15151) dated 993/1585-86 for Bosna and other areas in Rumeli, which shows the total number of cizye

payers in each village but does not list names. A broader kind of summary, called erkam-i cizye (cizye figures), is represented by register MM 2161 (5696) dated 1024/1615—16, which contains totals of cizye payers for every kaza in Rumeli and Anadolu. Summary registers were assembled, either in a provincial capital or at the central government, from the detailed registers submitted by individual kadis. In addition to the number of taxpayers liable for cizye, they also list

amounts of money expected, enabling finance officials to estimate the empire’s income and to determine the accountability of collection agents. Scribes of the cizye muhasebesi kalemi (accounting bureau for the

poll tax) were responsible for receiving and storing cizye registers from all over the empire, compiling summary registers, making annually

updated copies of survey registers for each cizye collector, auditing collectors’ annual accounts, keeping registers up to date, and researching answers to questions or complaints regarding the cizye. We saw earlier that this bureau was founded between 977/1569-70 and 1013/

1604—5, and it is tempting to hypothesize that its establishment coincided with the proliferation of cizye registers produced by Murad Iil’s tahrir in the 1590s. Between 1013/1604—-5 and 1033/1623-24, as cizye assessment was separated from the timar tahrir, the bureau

'! Subtraction of missing people can be seen in a published defter of 1597 for an area in Hungary: Joseph Perenyi, “Trois villes hongroises sous la domination ottomane au XVII° siecle,” in Actes du ler congrés international des études balkaniques et sud-est européennes, vol. 3: Histoire (Sofia: Editions de 1’ Académie Bulgare des Sciences, 1969),

585; see also the fifteenth-century registers in Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina Muhasebe Bilancolan.” '2 A published cizye defter of Budin from 954/1548—49 is of this type: Fekete, SiydqatSchrift, 1: 176-99; 2: plates 9-14.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 87 increased from 3 salaried scribes to 16, remaining around that level through the middle of the seventeenth century. Avariz (levies), avariz-1 divaniye (state levies), and tekalif-i orfiye (civil and customary dues) were blanket terms for a large number of dues in cash, kind, or services.'’ Some of these were extraordinary revenues or levies of supplies assessed, usually for military purposes, by order of the sultan in times of need.'* Others were routine levies for the maintenance of institutions such as the post system, the imperial kitchens or the navy, or longterm services such as guarding mountain

passes or maintaining bridges, roads, and waterworks.'> The term “avariz,’ which often refers to an assessment in cash (also called avariz akcesi), can be used as a general term for all these levies.!® Levies in kind could be transmuted to cash; they were then called bedel (equivalent, price, substitute). Some levies were empire-wide, 13 For the origin and nature of avariz taxes see Omer Liitfi Barkan, “Avariz,” /A 2: 13-19. Documents cited by Wittek show the imposition of this tax as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (“Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, II,” 248-55). Others who have discussed the origins and the basis of avariz taxation include Giicger, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi; Avdo Suceska, “Die Entwicklung der Besteuerung durch die ‘Avariz-i divaniye und die Tekalif-i ‘6rfiye’ im Osmanischen Reich wahrend des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” Siidost-Forschungen 27 (1968): 89-130; Bruce McGowan, “Osmanli Avariz-Niiziil Tesekkiilii, 1600-1830,” VIII. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi, 3 vols. (Ankara:

Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1981), 2: 1327-31; Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 311—17; idem, “Rice Cultivation and the Celtiikci-Reaya System in the Ottoman

Empire,” Turcica 14 (1982): 69-141; rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Collected Studies Series, 214 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), Selection VI. '4 The avariz was defined in a fifteenth-century sultanic order as a tax paid in time of war (Aryeh Shmuelevitz, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the Late 15th and 16th Centuries: Administrative, Economic, Legal, and Social Relations as Reflected in the Responsa (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984], 94 and n. 41). In England, until the 1530s, extraordinary taxation was sanctioned only for the purpose of war-making (Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol [Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1985], 180). '> On the post system see C.J. Heywood, “Some Turkish Archival Sources for the History of the Menzilhane Network in Rumeli during the Eighteenth Century (Notes and Documents on the Ottoman Ulak, I),” Bogazici Universitesi Dergisi, Begeri Bilimler 4-5 (1976-77): 39-55; see also Yusuf Halacgoglu, “Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nda Menzil Tegkilat1 Hakkinda Bazi Miilahazalar,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 2 (1981): 123-32; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 97-104. For studies of workers on roads, bridges, and water works see Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Sehircilik ve Ulasim Uzerine Arastirmalar, ed. Salih Ozbaran, Ege Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlar1, 31 (Izmir: Ticaret Matbaacilik, 1984); Abdullah Martal, “XVI. Yiizyilda Osmanl ImparatorluSunda Su Yolculuk,” Belleten 52 (1988): 1585-1654 and plates. '6 In the early eighteenth century, the avariz akcesi made up nearly half of all avariz income (Ahmet Tabakoglu, Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi, Dergah Yayinlan, 117; Tarih Dizisi, 10 [Istanbul: Dergéh Yayinlan, 1985], 153-57).

88 CHAPTER THREE while others were assessed only on the population of a given area. Both Muslims and non-Muslims contributed to these levies. Exemptions were gr anted for a variety of reasons (most commonly for service

to the state), and have been estimated at 20% to 40% of the total number of households.'’ Reaya who paid taxes to a vakif were often, though not always, exempt from avariz levies destined for the state;

such reaya might have to supply wood or foodstuffs to the vakif instead.'® Certain localities received blanket exemptions for reasons such as proximity to a war zone or frontier area or possession of taxexempt status under a previous ruler.'? People who supplied one type of levy generally did not have to contribute for another.”’ Individuals and villages providing long-term services or deliveries of goods were exempt from emergency levies, as were such groups as sharecroppers (ortakcis) and rice growers (celtiikcis).*! In the records examined for this study, by far the largest number of exemptions from avariz was given to guardians of mountain passes (derbendcis); bridge keepers (kdpriiciis); miners (madencis); supporters of post stations and post '7 Elena Grozdanova, “Bevélkerungskategorien mit Sonderpflichten und Sonderstatus—

nach unverdéffentlichten osmanisch-tiirkischen Dokumenten der Orient-Abteilung der Nationalbibliothek ‘Kyrill und Method’ in Sofia,” in Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschaftsund Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, ed. Hans Georg Majer (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 46-67. For a list of tax-exempt categories see M. Cetin Varlik,

“XVI. Yiizyilda Kiitahya Sancagi’nda Yerlesme ve Vergi Niifusu,” Belleten 52 (1988): 115-67. '8 In register KK 2576, p. 107, it is explicitly stated that the reaya owe certain dues to the vakif in place of the avariz. Exemptions from avanz for vakif reaya also occur in KK 2576, pp. 46, 47, 61, 77, 78, 81, 94, 104, 108. In MM 2256 (5712), p. 47, hanes previously part of the beylerbey’s has and subsequently transferred to a vakif were exempted from avariz. KK 2576, p. 130, notes the exemption from the avariz of reaya on the grand vizier’s has. '? Muhamed HadzZijahi¢, “Die privilegierten Stidte zur Zeit des Osmanischen Feudalismus: Mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Privilegien der Stadt Sarajevo,” Siidost-Forschungen

20 (1961): 130-58; Avdo Suceska, “Uber ‘Mu‘Afiyet’ im Bosnischen Eyalet,” in Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, ed. Hans Georg Majer (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 156-63. * KK 2576, pp. 9, 30, 59, 81, 110, 129. Bruce McGowan asserts (Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600-1800, Studies in Modern Capitalism/Etudes sur le capitalisme moderne [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de 17Homme, 1981], 107) that after the late sixteenth century the avariz and niiziil began to be assessed simultaneously on the same people; but in KK 2576, p. 10, there is a long letter to kadis dated 22 Ramazan 1044/ 12 March 1635 calling for the collection of niiziil instead of, not in addition to, avariz.

_ 7! For sharecroppers see Omer Liitfi Barkan, “XV ve XVIinci Asirlarda Osmali Imparatorlugunda Toprak Isciliginin Organizasyonu Sekilleri: Kulluklar ve Ortak¢i Kullar,” IUIFM 1 (1939): 29-74, 198-245, 397-447; for rice growers see Inalcik, “Rice Cultivation

and the Celtiikci-Reaya System.”

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 89 horses (menzilci)s; and saltmakers (tuzcus or memlaha personnel). Exemptions were also granted to oarsmen in the imperial fleet (kiirekcis)

and suppliers of war materiel such as oars (kurek), saltpeter (giihercile), carts (araba), horses, oxen, mules, and camels. Other groups exempted from regular avariz were those who provided supplies for the imperial kitchen (matbah)—onions, chickens, melons, oil, butter, honey, grain, wood; the stables (istab!)—-straw, grain, leather; the grain storage system (anbar); the imperial armory (cebehane); or the dockyards (tersane).” Provision of repairs to fortresses, walls, fountains,

aquaducts, roads, mosques, and other public buildings was often considered grounds for tax exemption. Twenty-eight non-Muslim reaya

who cultivated the gardens of Catalca were exempt from avariz, probably in return for supplying vegetables or flowers for the palace. One individual, Girgis oglu Hitisne, from the city of Damascus, ren-

dered such exceptional service in the suppression of the Ma‘noglu rebellion that he was granted exemption from avariz for his whole neighborhood (mahalle). The inhabitants of another area evaded payment of avariz on the grounds that they were all monks (kesis); clerics, then, must ordinarily have been exempt. Dispersed ( perakende) reaya newly settled in Koca Ili were exempted from all extraordinary

levies except avariz (here probably avariz akcesi). Exemptions were valid only as long as services were provided; people formerly exempt but no longer performing service had to be registered in avarizhanes.” Exemptions from cizye, on the other hand, were rarely granted in exchange for service; in the documents examined, this study found only three cases of exemption from cizye in return for supplying honey, olive oil, and chicken fat for the state. All tax exemptions were recorded in the finance department’s records and supported by verification documents (temessiiks) which could be produced to substantiate a claim.

_ ™ For derbendcis see Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nda Derbend Teskilat, Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlam, 1209 (Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi, 1967; rpt. Eren Yayincilik ve Kitapgilik, 1990); for kiirekgis see Mehmet Ipsirli, “XVI. Asrin Ikinci Yarisinda Kiirek Cezasi ile Ilgili Hiikiimler,” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 12 (1981/82): 203-48. Exemption from avariz taxation was the reason why such groups began to think of themselves as askeri: biz askeri, “we are askeri,” was the excuse given in 1066/1656—-57 by dogancis, képriiciis, etc., in Uskiidar for not contributing to

a levy of wood (MM 4646 [7455], p. 21); see also Gibb & Bowen, 2: 4, 19. 3 KK 2576, pp. 93, 32, 84, 65; MM 3881 (2765), pp. 13, 186; KK 2576, p. 56. For the exemption of clerics from avariz see Halil Inalcik, “Notes on N. Beldiceanu’s Translation of the Kanunname, fonds turc ancien 39, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris,” Der [slam 43 (1967): 151.

90 CHAPTER THREE For example, an entry in the register of outgoing orders of the finance department records an exemption from cizye granted in 1036/1646 in return for supplying chicken fat to the imperial barges (kayvks);

it states that the exemption was recorded in the defters of the bas muhasebe kalemi and that a temessiik was produced verifying deliv-

ery of the fat.” In the early sixteenth century, extraordinary taxes were levied once every few years; the general policy was not to impose avariz on any

area two years in a row.” It has been disputed whether the avariz was in essence a levy in kind occasionally commuted into cash, or a cash tax for which services could be substituted.” If, however, the avariz was a levy exacted in time of need, the basis of assessment must have taken into account both the nature of the government’s immediate need and what could realistically be expected from the population at that moment. The actual rate of levies comprising the avariz was determined by apportioning the government’s estimated total need among the areas to be taxed according to the number of avarizhanes in each. The amount assessed was divided evenly among the avarizhanes which, like the cizyehanes, were organized by a process

that took into account each taxpayer’s ability to pay. The traditional Ottoman revenue system drew mainly on agriculture, urban revenues

representing only a small part of the total, but the avariz, paid by all, tapped the new commercial prosperity resulting from sixteenthcentury urbanization.”’

The bureau in charge of the avariz, along with other occasional taxes and revenues in kind, was the mevkufat kalemi. In the early sixteenth century it was divided into two sections, Rumeli and Anadolu,

and employed a total of three salaried scribes.“ By about 1560 a * KK 2576, p. 58; MM 2728 (3457), p. 13. For a fuller description of temessiiks see below, chapter 6. > The levies were every 4-5 years, according to the grand vizier Liitfi Pasa (cited by Barkan, “Avariz,” 16). Thus, MutafCieva overestimated the tax burden of the reaya at 35% of total production when she figured the taxes of a reaya household as if the avariz of one particular area at one date had been assessed on the entire population of the empire every year (Vera P. Mutafcieva, “De l’exploitation féodale dans les terres de population bulgare sous la domination turque au XV° et XVI° s.,” Etudes historiques [1960]: 166). 26 See Barkan, “Avariz,” 16; Gibb & Bowen 2: 4; McGowan, Economic Life, 107. *7 Mustafa Akdag, “Osmanli Imparatorlugunun Kurulus ve Inkisafi Devrinde Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadt Vaziyeti,” Belleten 13 (1949): 54; Haim Gerber, “Jewish Tax-Farmers in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 143. 8 A register of revenues submitted to the mevkufat kalemi in 964/1566—67, before the

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 91 mevkufat bureau for the sikk-1 sani had come into existence. The mevkufat-1 Rumeli kalemi was always the largest, suggesting that the

imposition of these taxes was heaviest there.” As noted earlier, by the mid-seventeenth century the mevkufat scribes lost any specific responsibility for separate regions of the empire and merged into a single bureau. Mevkufat register KK 2576, for example, whose entries date from around 1050/1640-41, covers the whole empire. The duties of mevkufat scribes paralleled those of cizye scribes with respect to keeping records up to date, providing survey register copies, checking on problems, and answering questions. Salaried mevkufat scribes num-

bered 6 at the beginning of the seventeenth century and 9 at midcentury. Given that avariz records were far more complicated to maintain than cizye records, it is surprising that the mevkufat kalemi was no larger. As the avariz increased in importance, however, other duties of the mevkufat scribes seem to have faded into insignificance; some may have been reassigned to other bureaus. A survey for the avariz was made during the reign of Stileyman, but its records do not seem to have survived.” Throughout the rest of the sixteenth century, cizye and avariz payers were usually counted simultaneously and recorded in a single defter. Separate avariz registers had to be made for Muslim avariz payers or those previously tax-exempt. The earliest such register found in the archives, dated 1009/1600-1601, enumerates members of the piyade and miisellem, two groups which until the mid-sixteenth century rendered auxiliary military service; exempt from taxation, they were not counted in the regular tahrir. By the end of the century both groups had ceased to provide military service and were required instead to make an annual payment to the treasury under the heading of avariz; they thus had avariz became an annual tax, is found in the Ali Emiri collection of the Basbakanlik Arsivi, Kanuni 50. 29 McGowan’s research showed that the number of avariz taxpayers was always higher in Rumeli than in Anadolu or the eastern provinces (Economic Life, 113-14). This may reflect a difference in population or wealth among the empire’s regions. In the early eighteenth century the difference in avariz revenue between the two regions was slight, whereas with respect to the cizye, the remittances from Rumeli were by far the largest, followed by the Syrian provinces, with Anadolu a distant third (Tabakoglu, Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi, 171-73). 30 Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisat Vaziyeti,’ 550; cf. MutafCieva, Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 188. During the rest of the century avariz surveys were apparently done sporadically; there is an order dating from 98 1/1573—74 in which the kadi of Karadag

was commanded to make an avariz tahrir of villages from which the inhabitants had fled (MM 357 [20115], p. 118).

92 CHAPTER THREE to be surveyed.*! The register of 1009/1600—1601, compiled for Tokat,

lists members of the piyade and miisellem groups required to pay avariz and, in addition, those too poor to pay and those who had run away for fear of the Celalis.** Several other defters recording piyade and miisellem avariz survive from the first two decades of the seventeenth century. After about 1620, avariz registers became more comprehensive, reflecting efforts to extend the payment of avariz to all the taxpayers of an area. A detailed avariz register of Harput for 1056/1646—-47 represents an attempt to be still more inclusive, listing by name not

only taxpayers but also tax-exempt members of the ulema and the military class, both salaried and timar-holding.**? Summary or icmal

defters, similar to those for the cizye, were also compiled for the avariz. Most surviving avariz registers are summaries, listing only the

number of hanes in a village or kaza and not individual taxpayers. These summaries usually cover a whole province; the earliest examples in the archives are for Mentese and Hamid. A published avariz

defter of Istanbul for 1044/1634—35, also of this type, lists not the names of the individual taxpayers but the total numbers of avarizhanes

for each mahalle in the city.» The descriptive titles of summary registers indicate that avariz defters,

like those for the cizye, were often produced by kadis. Two examples are a summary defter of piyade and miisellem avarizhanes of Hamid

compiled, according to the heading, from defters submitted by the *! Inalcik has noted in the sixteenth century a general policy of standardizing the status and tax obligations of Ottoman subjects (“Rice Cultivation and the Celtiikci-Reaya System,”

92). On the piyade and miisellem groups, see Gibb & Bowen, 1: 53~55, 99, 252; 2: 16; Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “The Conscription of Miisellem and Yaya Corps in 1540,” in HungaroTurcica, Studies in Honour of Julius Nemeth (Budapest: Lorand Eétvés University, 1976), 275-81; idem, “The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization,” Acta Orientalia

Hungarica 31 (1977): 169-73. * MM 1294 (15615); for Tokat’s central role in the Celali uprisings see M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, “Tokat,” JA 12: 407. °° Early seventeenth-century avariz defters include MM 1509 (14802) 1013/1604—5 for Saruhan, 1511 (14683) 1013/1604—5 for Alaiye, and 2100 (14804) 1023/1614-15, again

for Saruhan. Harput’s inclusive register was published by Mehmet Ali Unal, “1056/ 1646 Tarihli Avariz Defterine gore 17. Yiizyil Ortalarinda Harput,” Belleten 51 (1987): 119-29.

* KK 2556 is an icmal defter of the piyade avarizhanes of Mentese in 1013/ 1604-5; Ali Emiri, I. Ahmed 281 covers piyade and miisellem avarizhanes of Hamid in 1022/1613—14. Another summary register was published by Aktepe, “XVII. Asra Ait Istanbul Kazasi Avariz Defteri,” 109-39. For a list of summary avariz registers in the Basbakanlik

Arsivi covering all of Rumeli and Anadolu for the years 1641-1834, see McGowan, Economic Life, 115-17.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 93 kadis and naibs (assistants) of the kazas, and a summary register for the whole of Anadolu containing registrations from various kadis’

tahrir defters.°° The use of kadis to record avarizhanes continued throughout the first half of the seventeenth century; a slightly later example is register KK 2581 (1047/1637-38), an avariz tahrir of Kirsehir, Kayseri, Sigla, and Koca Ili compiled by the kadi of Kayseri, Mehmed b. Mustafa. From mid-century comes a summary defter for

Kayacik compiled and sent to the capital by the kadi of Kayacik, Osman b. Mustafa, in 1056/1646-47.*° As the century progressed, however, avariz surveys were more often undertaken by government finance scribes or by military officials. Of 24 people identified in

various documents as conducting avarz tahrirs during the second quarter of the seventeenth century, only 2 were kadis; of the others, 6 were beys or pasas, 3 agas, 3 cavuses, 7 scribes, and 3 of unidentifiable status. Precisely when the emergency levy became an annual exaction is not known, but it probably occurred during the Long War with the Hapsburgs (1593—-1606).°’ The historian Selaniki reports that in 973/ 1565-66 and 979/1571—72 avariz was levied for the imperial fleet. He states further that Murad III never levied the avariz, but that in the first five years of the reign of Mehmed III (1595-1603) it was levied every year. This is an exaggeration, however; Selaniki himself records the submission of avariz moneys to the treasury in 999/1590— 91, during Murad III’s reign.** Surviving avariz defters show that the transformation to a regular tax was essentially complete by 1030/ 1620-21. Almost all surviving avariz registers dating from before that year list only piyade and miisellem avariz payers, with the exception of defters for Haleb in 1025/1616—17 and for sam in 1026/1617-18, areas where no piyade or miisellem groups resided. After about 1030/ 35> These registers are MM 2385 (594) 1029-31/1619-22 and MM 1950 (43) 1020/ as Feridun M. Emecen, “Kayacik Kazasinin Avariz Defteri,” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 12 (1981): 159-70. At the same period, when the muhassil-i emval appointed to make a tahrir of Egribucak failed to do so, the kadi was entrusted with the job (KK 2576, P Thalolk, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 314-15; Harold Bowen, ““‘Awarid,” E[2, 1: 760-61. The Spanish extraordinary tax (servicio) became an annual tax as early as 1525 (Elliott, Imperial Spain, 194-95); in 1575 it made up over 15% of Spain’s annual revenue (Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain). The French began collecting extraordinary taxes during peacetime in 1560 (Robert R. Harding, Anatomy of a Power Elite: The Provincial Governors of Early Modern France [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978], 100). 38 Selaniki, Tarih-i Seladniki, ed. Ipsirli, 1: 11, 85, 249; 2: 828.

94 CHAPTER THREE 1620-21, however, separate avariz defters become more numerous and cover more of the empire, including all-Muslim areas where no cizye defters were made. Also, cizye defters after that date record avarizhanes less frequently, suggesting that separate records were being

kept for the avariz. This evidence indicates that avariz was levied more widely as well as more often, and was assessed on people who were not liable for

cizye. Indeed, at this time an intensive effort was made to broaden the base of population from which avariz could be collected.” The extension and rectification of the avariz is not usually mentioned among the reforms of the 1640s, but the documents indicate that such a reform

was in progress, probably attributable to the grand vizier Kemankes Kara Mustafa Pasa (1638-44). Regularization of the avariz increased the importance of a precise assessment. Special avariz tahrirs were made in areas where neither a recent tahrir nor a count of cizye payers was available. Eventually this process was carried out over most of the empire. The procedure employed in avariz tahrirs was an extension of methods long used by kadis to draw up and update cizye registers. The elements of the tahrir process are illustrated in a detailed order, a firman, instructing a surveyor of avarizhanes how to carry out the survey.” The order, dated 1 Safar 1050/23 December 1640, relates

that a tahrir was required in the sancaks of Mentese and Sigla in southwestern Anatolia because reaya registered in the avarizhanes of those sancaks, both Muslims and non-Muslims, had deserted their homes to avoid renewed fiscal impositions.*! They had settled on *° French taxes as well were regularized in the 1620s and 1630s (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 274). Faroghi alludes to an effort during Murad IV’s reign (1623-1640) to resettle migrants and those who had fled the land (“Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 28); intensified avariz registration was a means of keeping track of resettled reaya, and the resettlement may have been motivated in part by a desire to increase avariz revenues. “© The order was recorded in a register of outgoing orders of the finance department (maliye ahkam defteri) number KK 2576, pp. 48-49 (this register, though dated 1043— 49/1633—40, actually contains entries dating from 1043/1633—34 to 1053/1643—44).

* The problem of deserted villages is well known (Villages désertés et histoire économique, XV°—XVIII° siécle, Les hommes et la terre, 11 [Paris: Ecole pratique des hautes études, Vle section, 1966]). For seventeenth-century Anatolia see Suraiya Faroqhi, “Anadolu Iskam ile Terkedilmis K6yler Sorunu (The Settlement of Anatolia and the Problem

of Deserted Villages),” in Tiirkiye Toplumsal Bilim Arastirmalarinda Yaklasimlar ve YGnetimler Semineri, ed. Seyfi Karabas and Yasar Yegilgay (Ankara: Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi, 1977), 289-302; Wolf-Dieter Hiitteroth, “The Demographic and Economic Organization of the Southern Syrian Sancaks in the Late 16th Century,” in Tiirkiye’nin Sosyal ve Economik Tarihi (1071-1920), ed. Osman Okyar and Halil Inalcik (Ankara: Meteksan, 1980), 35-42; and Halil Inalcik, “Mazra‘a,” EJ2, 6: 959-61. Avariz defters,

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 95 sultanic and vizierial evkaf properties and evkaf of the Two Holy Cities, on imperial has lands, and in serbest (free) and muaf (exempt)

areas.” Those remaining behind were required to pay the taxes of those who had left, and their complaints had reached the ears of the sultan. In consequence, a new tahrir was mandated for the area and one of the higher ulema was appointed to carry it out. This man, Mevlana Pir Mehmed, had formerly been a teacher in one of the high-

ranking religious colleges of the Ottoman Empire and was now, as another order reveals, fiscal supervisor (muhassil-i emval) for several sancaks in southwestern Anatolia.” The appointed surveyor was instructed to inspect and register the following categories of population: those already recorded in the cizye and avariz defters; the former military groups of piyade and miisellem; retired pensioners (miitekaidin) who customarily paid bedel-i giihercile, a cash payment in lieu of supplying saltpeter to gunpowder factories

(a levy normally imposed on the sons of sipahis and retired janissaries“); persons not previously recorded in the defters who performed no service that would entitle them to an exemption; and boys attaining

maturity whose families were not tax-exempt. Those who had formerly enjoyed exemptions for services rendered, such as k6priictis or derbendcis, were also to be registered at this time if their service was

no longer performed or was unnecessary to the welfare of the empire, as were dervishes in convents (tekkes and zaviyes) formerly providing shelter to travelers, and sons of janissaries and state servants (evlad-i kul taifesi), formerly exempt because of the askeri status indicating the destinations of fleeing villagers, may provide a useful approach to this problem.

#2 All these places were normally exempt from avariz levies. In the sixteenth century, most vakif lands seem to have been exempt from avariz, but during the seventeenth, while formerly exempt lands usually retained their exemptions, other (perhaps newly created) vakif areas were apparently no longer exempted. Register KK 2576, p. 54, for example, shows that reaya of the evkaf of Selanik were exempt from avariz, but those on the evkaf of the sancak of Pasa paid avariz as a lump sum. This is in line with a general tendency during the seventeenth century to extend the imposition of avariz over as much of the empire’s population as possible. 43 KK 2576, p. 42; by now the muhassil-i emval seems to have replaced the mal defterdari as the chief fiscal official in the provinces; he also had supervisory authority over tax farming (Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization,” 28-29). * Ahmet Refik, ed., Osmanli Devrinde Tiirkiye Madenleri (967-1200): Tiirkiye’de Cikan Madenlerle Bu Madenlerin Islerilmesi Hakkinda Divani Hiimayun Miihimme Defterlerinde Mukayyet Hiikiimleri Havi (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaasi, 1931), pp. 12, 15. In Bursa in 1052/ 1642 the bedel-i giihercile amounted to 100 akce (Bursa Kadi Sicil 259, p. 147, published in Uludag: Bursa Halkevi Dergisi 7 [1936]: 106-7).

96 CHAPTER THREE of their families. All of the above were to be registered by name and categorized according to their degree of wealth as high-, middle-, or low-income.

The registrar was specifically instructed not to follow the longstanding policy of always seeking to increase the tax figures. In villages where avarizhanes had been broken up, he was to take careful account of what the current population could afford to pay and not record any

higher figure. On the other hand, he was not to hold back where the assessment could be increased (presumably because of population immigration). He was also to ignore the old rule that people who had

moved should be registered in their former homes for at least ten years. Instead, he was to record them in their current places of residence regardless of the length of time they had lived there. He was particularly ordered to register those not personally exempt who had moved to places where avariz was not normally collected, the evkaf, serbest, and muaf areas. Rather than forcing them back to the villages from which they had come, he was to register them in avarizhanes and cizyehanes in their present locations. This was a new policy; in 1610 the government had enforced the old rule, granting three-year exemptions from avariz to people who voluntarily returned to their former residence. In the 1630s enforcement became more shrill, and orders went out to return to their original homes even reaya who had lived elsewhere for as much as 40 years. Evidently, by 1640 Ottoman officials recognized that this rule had become unenforceable, and conditions for return became a subject for bargaining between fugitive

reaya and the state.* In the last part of the order, the registrar was commanded to make avariz and cizye registers, sign and seal them, and send them to the

capital. After imperial approval of the registers, he could present documents verifying their tax status to the towns and villages surveyed. Finally, the registrar himself was enjoined to make unlimited efforts, in return for which his personal petitions would be answered. 45 Giicer, Osmanh Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi, 27; Aleksandar Matkovski,

“La résistance des paysans macédoniens contre |’attachement a la glébe pendant la domination ottomane,” Actes du ler C ongrés International des Etudes Balkaniques et SudEst Européennes, Vol. 3: Histoire (Sofia: Editions de l’Academie Bulgare des Sciences,

1969), 706; Hrand D. Andreasyan, “Celalilerden Kagan Anadolu Halkinin Geri Gonderilmesi,” in Ord. Prof. Ismail Hakki Uzungarsilt’ya Armagan, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu

Yayinlan, ser. 7, no. 70 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1976), 45-54; Amy Singer, “Peasant Migration: Law and Practice in Early Ottoman Palestine,” New Perspectives

on Turkey 8 (1992): 49-65.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 97 Those who helped him in his work would also gain favor, while those

who hindered him would lose it. The first half of the seventeenth century was a period of great turmoil and population movement. Predictably, the result was a hodge-

podge of exempt individuals, those paying revenues to a vakif, and those paying taxes to the central government all living side by side in the same village. The resulting confusion of responsibilities may have contributed in some degree to timar holders’ inability to maintain

order in the countryside. In these circumstances, the injunction to register people where they actually lived made practical sense with respect to easing the survey process. It was a boon to taxpayers, eliminating problems such as the one arising when the Jews of Lepanto were relocated to Patros; they were registered in two places and owed double taxes for several years until they managed to have themselves erased from the Lepanto registers.*° The new policy also made sense with respect to cultivation: the old system, binding cultivators to the land, was a solution for labor shortage, the prevailing condition during the first three centuries of the empire. Population growth and a transfer to stockraising would have made labor more abundant, reducing

the necessity of tying peasants to the land except in conditions of peasant flight. A series of documents relating to Erzurum in 1055/1645—46 offers another context in which a new tahrir might be made. The order for the tahrir was initiated by a petition from the governor of Erzurum, who was worried about his revenue account with the central government.*” According to the petition, a tahrir of cizye and avarizhanes in the province of Erzurum had been completed as recently as 1053/ 1643-44 by the mukataa accountant, Cafer Efendi. In the ensuing two years, however, a plague had visited Erzurum, many had died, and the count of taxpayers was invalidated.** Those still alive could not 4 Shmuelevitz, Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 90 and n. 27. 47 Maliye ahkém defteri MM 3881 (2765), p. 127. In addition to the avariz register compiled in response to this order, MM 3891 (14839) for 1055/1645—-46, the archives contain the original general tahrir register compiled by Cafer Efendi in 1052/1642—43, register MM 3727 (5152), the cizye register made from it, MM 3765 (4277) dated 1053/ 1643-44, and the earlier avariz register for the same year, MM 3801 (6422). Similar comprehensive tahrirs were made in the same year in Amasya and Samsun; for Amasya see Jennings, “Urban Population in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century,” 21-57; for Samsun see Suraiya Faroghi, Towns and Townsmen in Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting, 1520-1650, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 106—7. 48 Contemporaneous registers for Kayseri show a population decrease in the same year

98 CHAPTER THREE afford to pay the taxes of the deceased as well as their own, and a serious shortfall in Erzurum’s tax revenue would result. Consequently,

the governor was ordered to conduct a new tahrir, drawing on the expertise of Cafer Efendi and the services of the kadis of the area. A record was to be made of what the remaining population could afford to pay and the resulting defter was to be sent to the capital. Once again, contrary to the typical practice of recording higher reve-

nues in a new survey than in the old, the surveyor was ordered to lower the total figure in the interest of the long-term health of the imperial revenue. The avariz register indicates that these instructions were duly carried out.

The case of Erzurum shows that in the seventeenth century the avariz, though assessed individually, was paid communally, avariz owed by absent taxpayers being distributed among those who remained.

An order dated 1693-94 explicitly commanded such a procedure.” Communal payment was in accord with the nature of the avariz as an extraordinary levy; it was assessed on an area or community as a whole and adjusted according to what the people of the area were able to contribute, rather than by any sort of strict accounting by head.

The way the number of households per hane was computed reflects this understanding. An order commanding the voyvoda Besliti Mehmed

to make a tahrir of the village of Abu Bali instructed him to report to the central government not how many taxpayers there were but how

many hanes the village could bear. An order to a kadi illustrates how information obtained through the

survey process was used in making new assessments.°! The order, issued to Serhi Mehmed, the kadi of Kayseri, commissioned him to make a cizye and avariz tahrir of the province of Karaman because areas in the province dedicated to evkaf and formerly exempt from avariz taxation were seeing an influx of non-exempt immigrants. The

consistent with epidemic conditions; the decrease, however, could also be interpreted as a reaction to conditions of unrest (Suraiya Faroghi, Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Ankara and Kayseri, Cambridge Studies

in Islamic Civilization [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 54; idem, “Crisis and Change,” 439). “ Bistra A. Cvetkova, “Contribution 4 l’étude des impots extraordinaires (avariz-1 divaniye

ve tekalif-i drfiye) en Bulgarie sous la domination turque: L’impot ‘nuzul’,” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 23 (1959): 62.

on mikdar haneye tahammiilleri oldugun lam eylemek emrim olmustur; KK 2576, P >! KK 2576, p. 78; the use of survey registers in tax collection will be examined below.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 99 old survey register was to be used as a basis for the new, and the finance department was ordered to furnish a copy for the kadi. From it reaya traditionally connected to evkaf and thus legitimately exempt from the avariz could be identified; the rest were to be registered in new avariz defters. The figures from the previous survey were copied into the mevkufat order register directly beneath the notice of Serhi Mehmed’s appointment to record his commission and to facilitate comparison with the new survey when it was completed.” The mevkufat

scribes also copied figures from newly-made surveys into the order register, as in the case of a tahrir of Beysehir in Sigla performed by Mevlana Pir Mehmed el-Miiderris.°? Almost half of the 631 taxpayers surveyed by Pir Mehmed had to be subtracted from the avariz register because of their connection with a vakif. The mevkufat scribes may have recorded the figures in the ahkam register in order to verify them

against the vakif survey registers before allowing them to stand. These cases are more detailed than most in the registers, but other orders issued for similar purposes contain the same procedures in outline. For example, an order commanding Elhac Ali to make a tahrir

of Vidin required him to base his survey on the defter provided by the mevkufat bureau and to register in a new defter villages not included

in the old one and reaya not performing services or those exempted for services no longer necessary.’ While there may have been instances in which these procedures were not employed, they were followed by most seventeenth-century Ottoman tax assessors. Local kadis and other persons appointed to make surveys of the population liable for cizye or avariz taxation listed their findings in registers or defters, copies of which were dispatched to the central administration in Istanbul. In conformity with orders commanding surveys, registers created by the tahrir process bore the surveyor’s signature and seal as a guarantee to central officials of their authenticity and correctness.

Registers sent from the provinces were kept in the central finance department’s archive, and from them summary registers were compiled.

These records served as the government’s official tax assessments until the next survey, which might take place within the following year or two or might not occur for several decades. People moving 2 KK 2576, p. 79; other instances of this record-keeping procedure in the same register

appear on pages 51, 68, 72, 89, 90, 99, 100, 101. A number of the registers to which these figures refer still survive in the archives. 3 KK 2576, p. 113. 54 KK 2576, p. 108.

100 CHAPTER THREE into the area in the interval would owe taxes in their old homes until the registers could be changed. Thus, in the first half of the seventeenth century, enumeration of the taxpaying population was still being carried out by the government, even though examination of land allocation and agricultural production was not. In the absence of timar tahrirs, the finance department developed alternative procedures for determining the amount of anticipated income, for maintaining the government’s record-keeping system, and for governing the people with justice. Conscientious and detailed records were still kept, although their format and locus had changed. The image of the finance department’s “catastrophic fall in efficiency and integrity” between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries has no basis in reality. While a certain degree of “breakdown in the apparatus of government” may have taken place, it seems to have affected provincial administration rather than the central scribal

service.» Combined with the problems of price revolution, monetarization of the economy, and “seventeenth century crisis,” provincial disorder forced the finance department to find new ways to organize

and assess its revenues. The “carefully kept” tahrir registers of the sixteenth century gave way in the seventeenth not to “neglect” and “collapse” but to cizye registers beginning in the 1590s and to avariz registers from about 1620. The cessation of regular surveys did not mean the disintegration of the fiscal administration’s hold over the countryside, but its transformation into different forms. Registration of Taxpayers and Population Estimation The usefulness of the cizye and avariz defters for the study of Ottoman population, like that of the traditional tahrir defters, depends on our understanding of how the figures in the registers were compiled. The defters reveal a bewildering variation in the way people were counted for inclusion and in the amounts assessed for different taxes. Such wide variation makes it a complex matter to derive generalizations about population change or the incidence of taxation from °° On disorder in the provinces, see Mustafa Akdag, Tiirk Halkinin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavegasi (= Celali Isyanlari) (Ankara: Bilgi Yayinevi, 1975); William J. Griswold, The Great Anatolian Rebellion, 1000—1020/1591-—1611, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 83 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983); Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation”; and Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 101 these registers. Data from any one register may or may not be valid beyond the location and date to which it refers. An empire-wide picture

of population changes and fiscal conditions must be founded on a broad base of detailed local studies. The question of the relationship between the number of names in the defters and the actual size of the population seems to have no single answer. In general, cizye defters based on timar tahrirs can be presumed to be as accurate as the latter, subject to the difficulties involved in determining the family multiplier used to convert from hanes or households to individuals: the multiplier formerly used was 5, but recent studies suggest that average household size was probably

closer to 3.5.° Cizye tahrirs made independently, however, present further difficulties, as they offered a greater opportunity for idiosyncratic local arrangements. Exemptions must also be considered, including the traditional exemption from cizye of those owning less than

300 akce worth of goods.’ In studying this problem, Kaéldy-Nagy found that in some areas of Hungary, non-Muslims exempt from payment of cizye in the mid-sixteenth century and thus absent from the cizye defters of that period amounted to 20-30% of those in the tahrir defters. As the nominal poverty level did not rise with inflation, later cizye defters recorded a greater percentage of the population. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, totals of taxpayers recorded in the cizye defters of some localities agreed within less than 1% with

totals in the tahrir defters. Compared with contemporaneous nonOttoman records, the dica (church tithe) registers, cizye defters showed

almost no variation, suggesting that the basis of compilation of the

°° The problem of household size has been discussed by Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques”; Bruce McGowan, “Food Supply and Taxation on the Middle Danube (15681579),” Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969): 139-96; Leila Erder, “Measurement of PreIndustrial Population Changes: The Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the 17th Century,” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 284-301; Jennings, “Urban Population in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century”; Geza David, “The Age of Unmarried Children in the TahrirDefters (Notes on the Coefficient),” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 31 (1977): 347-57; Inalcik, “Impact of the Annales School”; Nejat Géyiing, “‘Hane’ Deyimi Hakkinda,” Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979): 331-48; Eugenie Biettry-Elifoglu, “Ottoman Defters Containing Ages of Children: A New Source for Demographic Research,” Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 321-28; Kemal H. Karpat, “The Ottoman Family: Documents Pertaining to Its Size,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 4, no. 1 (1987): 137-45; Todorova, “Was There a Demographic Crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century?” 59-62; Bekir Kemal Ataman, “Ottoman Demographic History (14th-17th Centuries): Some Considerations,” JESHO 35 (1992): 187-98. *7 Cahen and Inalcik, “Djizya,” 564; Barkan, “Avariz,” 15.

102 CHAPTER THREE two sorts of records might have been the same. However, detailed comparison between the late sixteenth-century tahrir defter of a single

sancak and a contemporaneous list of tithe payers in the same area revealed that while the number of taxpayers was similar in the two lists, the overlap of names was only 70-80%; quite a few people were not included in each list. The average overlap for the whole of Hungary proved to be about 90%. On the basis of these figures Kaldy-

Nagy was able to determine a correction factor to apply to figures in the registers which would yield a fairly accurate estimate of the

actual population.

Other scholars have reached varying conclusions about the accuracy of population figures in cizye registers they have studied. According to Amnon Cohen, the list of Jews liable for cizye in Jerusalem was far from accurate. Discovering in the lawcourt registers numerous individuals of some financial standing whose names were not in the cizye tahrirs, he concluded that despite strenuous efforts on the part

of the government to correct the tahrir by close inspection of the Jewish communities of that city, the cizye registers of Jerusalem did not contain all members of the community, although they might give an indication of population trends. In Safed, as well, people new to the community were not added to the cizye rolls. Jewish authorities in Vidin in the mid-sixteenth century, rather than swear on the Torah that the cizye registers were correct, were prepared to pay up to four times the assessed sum, which suggests the size of the underpayment a true assessment might have uncovered. Rabbis’ responsa included instructions about how to bribe survey officials to erase taxpayers’ names from the registers. A contemporary observer in Salonica, on

the other hand, believed that register totals for most communities exceeded the taxable population. Machiel Kiel showed that the disappearance of large numbers of people from some cizye registers in the early seventeenth century was related to the creation of evkaf and

the transfer of large groups of taxpayers to their support. Finally, Perenyi states that in the Hungarian towns he studied, cizye administra-

*’ Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “Bevolkerungsstatistischer Quellenwert der Gizye-Defter und der

Tahrir defter,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 11 (1960): 259-69; idem, “Der Quellenwert der Tahrir Defterleri fiir die osmanische Wirtschaftsgeschichte,” in Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, ed. Hans Georg Majer

(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 76-83. Kaldy-Nagy’s procedure has been employed by Istvan Hunyadi, “Etude comparée des sources fiscales turques et hongroises du XVI° siécle comme base de calcul de la population,” Turcica 12 (1980): 125-55.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 103 tion was in the hands of local town leaders who kept the total number of defter entries constant, even though the number of inhabitants rose markedly after the first quarter of the seventeenth century.’ It seems

that the question of reliability can only be answered on a case-bycase basis by comparison of register totals with other sources and by familiarity with practices regularly employed in the area under study. Variations in procedure from survey to survey and from place to place necessitate checking the tahrir defters for a particular locality against other sources before the accuracy of their figures can be ascertained. Scholars have employed cizye and avariz tahrir registers in a variety of ways. Grozdanova employed cizye defters to determine population

figures for tax-exempt groups in Bulgaria not appearing in tahrir registers and not liable for avariz, finding these registers adequate to establish the overall ratio between taxpaying and exempt groups at various dates. Unal used a detailed avariz tahrir register for Harput in conjunction with other registers to chart the rise and fall of population in that town and the relative size and wealth of the Muslim and Christian populations. Heyd found the cizye registers of the Jews of Istanbul useful as a source not only for population figures but also for the location, history, and makeup of the various Jewish congregations of the city. As Shmuelevitz observed, however, data for a small group might be recorded in a register for another having the same tax collector, making it complicated to arrive at complete totals.° The difficulty of guessing what percentage of the population remained unregistered at any particular time is suggested by an order mandating a tahrir to enroll new taxpayers because the old ones were few in number and could not pay the assessed amount; it sounds as if there was a pool of unregistered people from which new taxpayers could be drawn.° A further barrier to the use of cizye defters to determine population °° Amnon Cohen, Jewish Life under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century (Cam-

bridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 7, 20-35; Uriel Heyd, “Turkish Documents concerning the Jews of Safed in the Sixteenth Century,” in Studies of Palestine during the Ottoman Period, ed. Moshe Maoz (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 117; Shmuelevitz,

Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 89-90 and notes 24 and 25; Kiel, “Remarks on the Administration of the Poll Tax,” 77; Perenyi, “Trois villes hongroises.” °° Grozdanova, “Bevélkerungskategorien mit Sonderpflichten und Sonderstatus,” 46— 67: Unal, “1056/1646 Tarihli Avariz Defterine Gore,” 119-29; Uriel Heyd, “The Jewish Communities of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century,” Oriens (Leiden) 6 (1953): 299314; Shmuelevitz, Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 87 and n. 15. ‘| KK 2576, p. 53.

104 CHAPTER THREE is the practice whereby the cizye of some communities was not assessed

on individuals or on separate households but on the community as a whole in a fixed lump sum (maktu). Communal leaders divided the total sum among the individuals in the community.” It has sometimes

been assumed that the taxes of all non-Muslim communities were handled in this way, but in fact the cizye was usually assessed by means of an actual count. In some cases only part of a village was assessed under the maktu system, while the remaining households were assessed individually. Many of the villages of the eskinciyan of Yanya, for example, exhibit this dual assessment. Under each village appear the names of several individuals and the amount of cizye to be paid by each (not always the same amount, as some villagers paid 70 akce and others 75, reflecting their more recent addition to the register). Then appears the phrase ber vech-i maktu, “paying in a lump sum,” followed by a number of hanes paying communally and a total amount. Finally, the word yekin, “total,” introduces the combined total of hanes paying separately and hanes paying communally,

and the cizye total owed by the entire village.” The advantages to a community of paying in common were several: the ability to apportion taxes as it saw fit, exempting its clergy from

taxation, for example, or easing the burden on its poorer members; freedom from harrassment and from the imposition of extra fees by tax collectors from outside the community; and reduction of the per capita imposition during a time of population growth. Conversely, the increase of the per capita tax burden in a period of population decline would give groups a powerful incentive to switch to an individuallyassessed cizye at such a time. Payment of taxes in a lump sum became a subject for bargaining between the population and the government.

For example, a summary register of those paying ziyade-i cizye on various evkaf properties shows numbers of hanes and payments by

maktu; in each case it appears that the villagers paid an amount ° For a general discussion of maktu see Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 333-34. For the assessment of cizye in Safed by maktu see Lewis, “Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives”; Daniel S. Goffman, “The Maktu‘ System and the Jewish Community of Sixteenth-Century Safed: A Study of Two Documents from the Ottoman Archives,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 3 (1982): 81-90. Collective liability for taxes is the most efficient mode of collection for small bureaucracies, as can be seen in the case of seventeenth-century France (Hilton L. Root, Peasants and King in Burgundy: Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism, California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy, 9 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987], 13-16; 207-8).

° MM 836 (14713) 1001/1592-93, p. 43.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 105 equal to half of what they would have paid had they been assessed by household.” The benefits to the government of the maktu system included ease of collection, voluntary cooperation by the taxpaying community, stability and predictability of the assessment through population fluctuation, and elimination of a range of middlemen who took a share

of the state’s revenues; the disadvantages involved a loss of central control, lowered revenue when the population rose, and the possibility

of incomplete payments in a period of population decline. The sixteenth century, a time of general population growth, saw efforts by the Ottoman government to do away with the maktu system in areas where it was applied. During the seventeenth century, however, although declining population made fixed assessments more onerous for some taxpayers, the degree of rural upheaval gave the system a practical

advantage for the government in terms of ease of tax collection. Attempts to do away with it then began to come from the populace.” Both taxpayers and government took advantage of the maktu system to reduce the incidence of abuse by tax collectors and officials. One difficulty affecting avariz defters in particular is the problem of determining the number of households in an avarizhane. The usually accepted generalization holds that one avarizhane was made up of anywhere from 3 to 15 households, the precise number being determined by the wealth of the taxpayers. Information in the defters makes it possible to qualify this statement. It will be remembered, first of all, that cizye defters for the sixteenth century contain, along with the number of cizye payers, the total of avarizhanes. In many instances these two figures are identical. It is highly improbable that in so many cases the number of Muslim reaya in an area precisely equalled the number of non-Muslims who were exempt or combined with others to make up avarizhanes. It is far more likely that the reaya population of the area was wholly non-Muslim and that their avarizhanes were

6 KK 2559, dated 1023/1614—15. 65 For governmental attempts to eliminate the maktu system see Goffman, “The Maktu‘ System” (for the year 959/1544—45); and Uriel Heyd, Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 1525-1615: A Study of the Firman According to the Miihimme Defteri (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 121-22 (for the year 1577). For attempts by taxpayers to do away with it see KK 2576 (1050/1640—41), pp. 3, 14; and Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “The Effect of the TimarSystem on Agricultural Production in Hungary,” in Studia Turcica, ed. L. Ligeti (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1971), 241-48. A similar logic applied to the making of new surveys (Shmuelevitz, Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 87).

106 CHAPTER THREE counted as one per household in that period. In accord with this conclusion is the frequent assessment of the avariz during the first three quarters of the sixteenth century on the basis of a specified number of avarizhanes. For example, an imposition made in 913/ 1507-8 called for one fortress repairer from every 20 hanes and 20 akce from each hane, while in 980/1572—73 the rural areas of Diyarbekir

and the east were assessed one fortress repairer from every 7 hanes and one miid of grain from every 8 hanes. Combined with the record of avarizhanes in the defters, these instances confirm the interpretation

that the avarizhanes of the early sixteenth century must have been individual households. From the late sixteenth century, however, avarizhanes were clearly composed of multiple households. The total number of avarizhanes in the empire dropped nearly 50% between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While this reduction might be attributed to demo-

graphic or economic change, a more likely reason was a change in the manner of assessment.® A record of the avariz of Balikesir in 1603 provides one indication of the number of individuals or households in a hane, prescribing that three married men and six bachelors would constitute one hane.® Barkan relates that Muslims settling in Cyprus in 1015/1606 were counted as 5 taxpayers (nefer, individuals,

referring to heads of households as well as to single men) per avarizhane. The avariz tahrir of the kaza of Timurci, made in 1032/ 1622-23, shows an average of 3.59 individuals per hane.* Interest6 The generalization of 3-15 households per avarizhane appears in Barkan, “Avariz,” 15. In his documents on sixteenth-century Palestine, however, Bernard Lewis found the word avarizhane to be equivalent to “taxpaying household” (“Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives,” 10-11; “Studies in the Ottoman Archives — I,” BSOAS 16 [1954]: 485), and it is similarly defined by Gékbilgin (Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 69). Nejat Géyiing also uses avarizhane as an equivalent for hane, household, meaning a taxable unit (“‘‘Hane’ Deyimi Hakkinda,” 331). As late as 1677, levies of hemp were assessed from avarizhanes on the Black Sea coast which were equivalent to single households (Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 465). °’ McGowan, “Osmanli Avariz-Niiziil Tesekkiilii,” 1329-30. During the seventeenth century population in Spain declined 17.6% (John Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2 vols. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1964], 2: 135). Rifat Ozdemir, “Avariz ve Gergek-hane Sayilarinin Demografik Tahminlerde Kullanilmasi iizerine Bazi Bilgiler,” in X. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi (1986), Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, vol. 4, Atatiirk Kiltir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlani, ser. 9, no. 10e (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1993), 1581-1613. & Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisat Vaziyeti,” 554, ii¢ benndk ve alti miicerred bir hane hesabinca (in view of the disproportionate number of unmarried men to married, this passage might be better translated “three married men or six bachelors”). ° Barkan, “Avariz,” 15; MM 2517 (14730).

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 107 ingly, the order for the tahrir, copied into the front of the register, specifies that taxpayers should be counted as 3 per hane, and while very few figures for single villages in this kaza come out to round numbers of persons per hane, most do fall between 3 and 4. A defter of notes and orders regarding avariz for the year 1051/ 1641-42 contains scattered information on the subject of the number of taxpaying individuals per hane in that year: one village (Bostanh, p. 7) had 8 individuals (nefer) comprising 1.5 hanes, or 5.3 individuals

per hane; another (Miisellem, p. 8) had 20 reaya in 3 hanes, or 6.3 individuals per hane; and a third (Koyun, p. 129), formerly with 71 nefer forming 7 hanes, or 10.1 individuals per hane, had been recorded in a new tahrir as holding 59 reaya, 3 descendants of members

of the ruling class (kul oglu), and 2 not present, for a total of 64 individuals forming 9 hanes, or 6.6 individuals per hane (reaya only;

7.1 if all inhabitants are counted). The kaza of Manastir in 1640 averaged 3.8 taxpayers per hane.” In a register for the early 1050s/ 1640s (KK 2576), assessments for most areas in both Rumeli and Anadolu were figured at an even 5 individuals per hane except for Dimetoka at 7 individuals per hane and Beysehir at 3 individuals per hane. In 1055/1645—46 Malazgirt was assessed at 97 nefer and 15.5 hanes, or 6.25 individuals per hane.”’ Finally, the defter of Kayacik dating from 1056/1646—47 published by Emecen shows a total of 455 reaya forming 167.5 hanes, or an average of 2.7 individuals per hane.

Only rarely in that register did the number of individuals per hane in a single village equal a round number, though it usually fell between 2 and 3. The groups of piyade (footsoldiers) and miitekaid (retirees)

in this kaza numbered 82 and were counted at an even 4 per hane, for an additional 20.5 hanes. It should be noted that half and quarter hanes were registered as such in surveys and are not simply a function

of averaging. The existence of fractional hanes per village or kaza is evidence that hanes were not actually considered clusters of real people but were essentially an accounting device used to calculate the total avariz liability of a village, mahalle, or kaza. If there is a trend

in these figures, it seems to involve an increase in the number of individuals per hane between the beginning of the century and the 1640s, which would be equivalent to a decrease in tax burden if the

KK 2590; McGowan, Economic Life, 106. 7 MM 3881 (2765), p. 134.

108 CHAPTER THREE amount demanded remained the same; further research, however, could

reverse that conclusion.

Amounts of Money Taken in Tax According to the stereotype, the decline period was characterized by the oppression of Ottoman subjects through high and ever-increasing taxation. While assessments did increase in this period, the defters, petitions, orders, and kanunnames showing the amounts of money at which both cizye and avariz were assessed indicate that the Ottoman tax system had no pretension to uniformity. Canonical prescriptions and sultanic decrees notwithstanding, the wide range of variation seen in agricultural taxes was also characteristic of both cizye and avariz.” For all our study, we have only begun to understand Ottoman taxation; scholars’ conclusions have been marred by assumptions about the uniformity of tax rates, of accession increases, and of the value of the currency. Synthesizing the available statements, while indicating overall trends, reveals the true level of diversity within the system and suggests that more comprehensive research must be done before we can generalize accurately. The cizye was usually assessed at the silver equivalent of one gold piece (50 akce in the early sixteenth century), the lowest canonical

rate. Along with the assessed cizye, additional sums were paid to defray collection costs, usually one ak¢e to the collector and one akce to the scribe as salary (guldmiye), and sometimes an additional due

of one akce as resm-i kitabet (recording fee), resm-i hane (“hane fee”), or tefaviit-ii hasene (money-changing fee).”> For the mid-sixteenth century, secondary sources report cizye figures ranging between 50 and 80 akce. These reports are not always carefully dated nor the locations specified, and it is not always clear how long it took a rate ” This point has also been made by Barkan (“894 [1488/1489] Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina ait Muhasebe Bilancolan,” 1); his research showed that the cizye paid in Rumeli in 894/ 1488-89 varied from a low of 6 akce for certain widows to a high of over 100 akce for the inhabitants of Drama (pp. 17-28). ” Cahen and Inalcik, “Djizya,” 564; Barkan, Kanunlar, see index. Collection fees were lower in the late fifteenth century; Barkan, “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina dit Muhasebe Bilancolan,” 9. For cizye amounts from earlier in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Akdag, ““Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 557-58; Hamid Hadzibegi¢, Glavarina u Osmanskoj Drzavni, Posebna Izdanja, 4 (Sarajevo: Orientalni Institut u Sarajevu, 1966), 52-62.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 109 change, once ordered, to penetrate to the provinces—or whether the value of silver was the same throughout the empire.”* There may also have been variations in the original tax rates at the time of an area’s conquest. It does appear that the akce figure for the cizye was regularly raised as the value of silver dropped during the second half of the sixteenth century. Rumeli’s cizye of 50 akce was raised to 60 in

the reign of Selim II.” The cizye of the Arab lands seems to have followed the same pattern at an earlier date: according to a tahrir register, the cizye of Sis near Adana was raised from 50 akce, the Mamluk rate, to 60 akce between 930/1523-24 and 943/1536—37. Other sources report the Mamluk rate as 60 akce per household, which

the Ottomans raised to 80.’”° Rates in eastern Anatolia were lower, varying from 25 to 35 to 55 ak¢e, usually explained by the poverty of certain areas of the East, though it may be that the akce’s value was higher there. Lower rates or total exemptions were occasionally granted for military or other service or in cases of hardship, such as residence in a war zone, although in general exempting people from cizye was considered to be against the interests of the state. Table 5 contains an overview of cizye rates for the period 1560—1660. In 974/1566—67, on the accession (ciilus) of Selim II, a general increase of the cizye was ordered, reported as 10 akce for most parts of the empire and 5 akce for Christians in $am and Trablus and nonMuslims in eastern Anatolia. Another increase on the accession of Murad III (984/1576—-77) amounted in most places to 6 akce, but in a few areas only to 5.”’ Accession increases appear to have been the means by which the cizye’s rate was adjusted for inflation.” Akdag 74 Numismatic research shows that when the akce in Istanbul and Rumeli weighed .5—.75 grams, the akge was still minted in the east at the old weight of .9-1.3 grams (Ciineyt Olger, Yildirim Bayezid’in Ogullarina air Ak¢e ve Mangirlar {Istanbul: Yenilik Basimevi, 1968]; Ibrahim Artuk, Kanuni Sultan Siileyman Adina Basilan Sikkeler, Tirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 58 [Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1972)). 7 Cvetkova, Les institutions ottomanes en Europe, 56. _ ’° For the 50-akge rate see Yusuf Halacoglu, “Tapu-Tahrir Defterlerine g6re XVI. Yiizyilin

Ilk Yarisinda Sis (= Kozan) Sancagi,” Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979): 888-91; for the 60-akce rate see Cohen, Jewish Life, 21, 33. Both Shmuelevitz and Lewis state that the rate for Damascus and Hungary in the sixteenth century was 75 akce but provide neither a specific date nor documentary support (Shmuelevitz, Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 85 and n. 12, citing Lewis, Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives, 10-11). 77 For the 974 increase see Barkan, Kanunlar, 83, 193, 216, 226; Lewis, “Nazareth,” 419. For the 984 increase see Barkan, Kanunlar, 83, 316; two increases of 5 akce each would have brought the cizye of Jerusalem up to the 90 akce cited by Cohen for 1590 (Jewish Life, 33). 78 For discussion of the relationship between increases in the cizye and changes in the

110 CHAPTER THREE Table 5. Cizye Rates in Text, 1560—1660

DATE AMOUNT IN AKCE PLACE

1560s 50-80Eastern Rumeli, Syria 1560s 25-55 Anatolia 1566 5—10 increase (55-90) Syria 1576 5-6 increase (60-96) 1592 100 1595 5-22 increase (105-122) 1604 1614200220 Bosna

1626 225 Trabzon 1640 95-333 + 40 maas Bosna 1645 290 Ankara 1646 325 Trabzon, Haleb

believed that accession increases were always 5 akce, but in both prescriptive literature (kanun) and cizye defters, the amounts of such increases vary.”? After these increases, the cizye was actually lower in value than in the mid-sixteenth century, as the akce had been debased

to approximately half its former value in the mid-1580s. According to a ferman of the year 1000/1591-92, the nominal amount

of the cizye was increased in that year specifically in order to keep its value canonically correct with respect to gold. In the following year, taxes on wine and sheep (bedel-i hamr and adet-i agnam) were added. It seems that because of abuses in the collection of these taxes, their assessment according to rates of production and their separate collection were abolished; they were commuted to flat fees of 30 and 15 akce respectively, to be collected with the cizye. Together with collection costs, these increases resulted, by Akdag’s calculations, in a cizye of 100 akce.® Another increase on the accession of Mehmed

exchange rate between silver and gold, see Hadzibegi¢, Glavarina, 62-64; Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine, 71-72. ” Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 558-60. 80 Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 558-59, from a ferman recorded in Ankara Ser? Sicil number 4, pp. 250-51; also in Selaniki, Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Ipsirli, 1: 293, and Hadzibegi¢, Glavarina, 65-66. A register of 1014/1605-6, MM 1630 (15674), also cites the hamr bedeli (wine tax) and ziyade-i cizye (increase of the cizye) as amounting to 45 akce together. Cohen says that this increase took several years to take effect, but his figures for its amount vary; he lists the total increase as 82 akce for Christians and 107 for Jews VJewish Life, 33), but on another occasion he states that the increase was 60 akce for Christians and 88 for Jews (ibid., 232, n. 38). Hadzibegi¢ saw the decree relating to the sheep tax as beneficial for the reaya, as it permitted them to expand production with no fiscal penalty. According to Cvetkova, the ordinance dated to 1604, and its purpose

was to encourage sheep-raising (Les institutions ottomanes en Europe, 53).

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 111 If (1003/1594—95) is reported by Akdag as 5 akce and by Cohen as 12 akce for Christians and 22 for Jews in Syria. Evidence from the ser? sicills shows that during the reign of Mehmed III (1595-1603), the cizye and additional dues went up from 100 akce to 140, and then in 1013/1604—5, shortly after the accession of Ahmed I (1603-1617), to 200.*' After these leaps the rate of increase in the cizye slowed markedly.

Table 6 summarizes information from a number of seventeenth century cizye registers on the rates of the cizye assessed at different locations during the first half of the seventeenth century. These data show that by the end of Ahmed I’s reign, the amount collected had risen to 220-225 akce, where it stabilized for the next two decades.” Twice during those two decades, in 1623-24 and again in 1635-40, the unofficial or market rate of exchange of the akce rose to 240 akce or more, double the official rate of 120 akce to the gold piece. These rises were followed by official government coinage revaluations, the exchange rate in each instance returning to the official rate for a short

time before creeping upward again. The rate of the cizye did not follow these ups and downs. By the 1050s/1640s the cizye’s ordinary base rate had increased slightly to 240-250 akce, which included the gulamiye paid to the collector as well as the sheep and wine taxes. About that time Koci Bey cited the normal cizye as 285 akce.* Cizye amounts for some of the Balkan sancaks in 1639-40 were found to

range from 95 to 333 akce, in addition to which a 40-akce salary called maas was collected.® The gulamiye was now 40 akce as well, *" Selaniki, however, states that already in 1006/1597—98 the cizye with its increases amounted to 300 akge (Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Ipsirli, 2: 717). For the increase of 1003/ 1594-95 see Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 558; Cohen, “New Evidence,” 63, n. 3; Jewish Life, 232, n. 38. For later increases see Akda®, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 559; Hadzibegi¢, Glavarina, 65-66. The doubling of the sheep tax in 1596 may have contributed to part of the increase; see Akdag, Tiirk Halkinin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavgasi, 53. 82 Hadzibegi¢ found a rate of 222 akce in Bitola in 1031/1621—22 and 232 in 1043/ 1633-34 (Glavarina, 67). Documents 96 and 185 in Metodiya Sokolovsky, ed., Turski dokumenti za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod, Serija Prva: 1607-1699, Tom III: Jan. 1636-end 1639 (Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, Komisija za Publikuvatse Arhivski Materijali, 1969) also specify 232 akce, and in addition, an “exemption substitute fee” (bedel-i muafiyet) of 30 akce was charged. According to doc. 153 in the same collection, the Gypsies of Rumeli paid 200 akce. Doc. 174 specifies that the ziyade-i cizye in two vakif villages in the area would be 130 akce, plus the bedel-i muafiyet of 30, but the document does not tell what payers of the bedel-i muafiyet were exempted from. 83 Sahillioglu, “XVII. Asrin [lk Yarisinda Istanbul’da Tedaviildeki Sikkelerin Raici,” 239-41; Pamuk, “Money in the Ottoman Empire,” 962. 84 Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 112. 85 Hadzibegi¢é, Glavarina, chart, 73-75. The charts in this book are misleading and must

112 CHAPTER THREE Table 6. Seventeenth-Century Cizye

DATE PLACE AMOUNTS TOTAL 1023/1614 BosnaUrgiip 200 + 20 sheep 220 1023/1614 220tax220

1026/1617 Bosna 230, 236 230 1026/1617 Bosna 284, 290 290 1026/1617 Kibris 337 337 1030/1620 Rumeli 126, 210, 214, 223, 233, 240, etc.

1033/1622 Selanik 250 + 120 bedel-i kiirekciyan 370

1036/1626 Trabzon 220 + 5 accession 225 1038/1629 Trabzon 1055/1645 Bosna 240 + 225 maas225 280

1055/1645 Ankara 250 + 40 maas 290 1055/1645 Arabkir 250 (cizye + gulamiye) + 40 maag 290 1055/1645 Yenisehir 339 (cizye + gulamiye + maags +

new increase) 339 1056/1646 Cunkes 251 + maas 291 1056/1646 Trabzon 240 + 5 accession + 40 maas 285

1056/1646 Diyarbekir 240 + 5 accession 245 1056/1646 Trabzon 240 + 5 accession + 40 maas +

40 gulamiye 325

1056/1646 Haleb 285 (cizye + gulamiye) + 40 maas 325

Sources: MM 2256 (5712) 1026/1617, MM 2428 (5331) 1030/1620, MM 2728 (3457) 1037/1627-28, KK 2576 (1050/1640-41), MM 3881 (2765) 1052-55/1642—46.

and it sometimes looks as if it were being charged twice (see Trabzon and Haleb in the table). The maas was paid to the individual doing the actual house-to-house or village-to-village collecting, while the gulamiye was assigned to the central government appointee respon-

sible for assembling and accounting for the cizye of a larger area, such as a sancak.*©

It is obvious that the variations in cizye totals shown in Table 6 did not originate in a distinction among taxpayers of high, middle, and low income.*’ Descriptions in the documents suggest that since be used carefully; filling blank spaces in them with data from the text creates quite a different impression from the one presented by the charts as they stand. *° For further discussion of the increase in the collectors’ salaries see Chapter 5. In comparison, French diocesan tax collectors of the period took as their fee 2'/2% of what they collected, while local collectors took 5% (Beik, Absolutism and Society, 248 and n. 5).

*’ An accounting register of the cizye of Rumeli and Anadolu for the year 1013/ 1604—5, MM 1520 (5334), shows the cizye of only two places as being assessed at differing

rates for people of high, medium, and low income: the displaced (yava) Jews of Istanbul paid 445 akce, 325 akce, and 265 ak¢ce respectively, while the non-Muslims of the evkaf of Ali Paga-1 Atik paid 330, 315, and 300 akce respectively. All others paid a cizye of

274 akce plus a sheep tax of 26, for a total of 300 akce.

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 113 the original amount of the cizye varied from place to place, the basic

amount of a locality’s cizye was derived from older records and supplemented by accession increases and collection costs decreed since

the last collection, yielding a new total to be paid. Occasionally it would appear that the inclusion of these added amounts was forgotten or ignored, and that the previous total rather than the original cizye was used as the base figure for the next installment. Or a local increase may have been decreed by an order of which no copy has yet come to light; the continued exploitation of the ser‘f sicills will doubtless Clarify the way in which cizye amounts were determined. Some of the lower figures may be explained by the exemption from increments to the cizye of non-Muslims whose cizye was paid to a vakif. A vakif account register for Edirne in 1042/1632—33, for example, shows the cizye at 70 akce per hane even at that late date.** To bring their tax closer to that of everyone else, vakif reaya were assessed a supplemental cizye (ziyade-i cizye) around the turn of the century. Lower

inflationary increases in taxes paid to evkaf may explain some of the financial difficulties experienced by dervish orders in the seventeenth century. With respect to the avariz, it is impossible to calculate the total rates of its various levies without knowing the cash value of the goods and services involved.” This discussion will therefore focus on the avariz in cash, which varied even more wildly than the cizye. Table 7 provides an overview of avariz figures over the century. An avariz levied in 890/1485 demanded 15 akce per hane, while levies in 903/ 1497-98 and 913/1507—8 were 20 akce per hane. A levy in 922/1516— 17 exacted 15—30 akce per hane in Rumeli and 10-20 akce per hane

in Anadolu. In 944/1537—38 the residents of Balikesir paid 60 akce Pp er hane.” In 977/1569-70 and 978/1570—71 the Tiirkmens of Haleb

88 Omer Liitfi Barkan, “Edirne ve Civarindaki Bazi Iméret Tesislerinin Yillik Muhasebe Bilancolari (2 fotokopi ile birlikte),” Belgeler 1 (1964): 368. The increases in the cizye were apparently not universal; a kanunname for Hatvan from the mid-seventeenth century still prescribes a cizye of only 66 akce (Barkan, Kanunlar, 316). ®° For the complexities involved in only one of these levies, see Barkan’s discussion of the levy of oarsmen (kiirekci) in his article “Avariz.”” Except where otherwise indicated, the data cited here on the rates of the cash avariz in the sixteenth century come from that article. Mutafcieva in her discussion of “feudal rent” does not attempt to quantify the portions paid in labor or goods (Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 182-86). * For the levy of 890/1485 see Halil Inalcik, “Osmanli Idare, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Tarihiyle Ilgili Belgeler: Bursa Kadi Sicillerinden Secmeler,” I: Belgeler 10, no. 14 (1980—-

81): 56-57; for Balikesir see Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 554.

a 114 CHAPTER THREE

Table 7. Avariz Rates in Text, 1500—1660

DATE AMOUNT IN AKCE PLACE

1507 2010-20Rumeli 1516 15-30 Anadolu

1537 60 Balikesir 1569-70 80 Haleb, Diyarbekir 1577 50 Maras 1592 160 Balikesir 1606 300 Kubris 1621 360 Manastir 1622 100 Anadolu 1626-30 300 Pasa Bitola 1636 400 1642 325 Vidin 1643 100 Rodos, Istankéy 1645 435 Yenisehir 1645 501 Rumeli Bosna 1655 325

1656 125 Rumeli, Anadolu

paid one gold piece (sikke-i filori, equal to 80 akgce) per hane, the same rate charged in 980/1572—73 in Diyarbekir and Mardin. In 981/ 1573-74 Debri and Kalkandelen were assessed 1 oarsman and 1000 akce for every 15 hanes, or 67 akce per hane in addition to the man, while the payment demanded in Maras in 985/1577—78 amounted to

only 50 akce per hane. Thus, although the avariz base rate for the mid-sixteenth century has been cited as 30-40 akce, as early as 944/ 1537-38 the actual rate was almost double that.?! Over the sixteenth century, however, the per capita weight of timar taxation decreased considerably, so the total tax burden increased at a slower rate than the avariz itself.” After the coinage devaluation in the mid-1580s, avariz rates were immediately raised.?? The kiirekci bedeli (oarsmen substitute cash levy)

in Trabzon was 80 akce in 972/1564—65, but in 1001/1592-93 the °! McGowan, Economic Life, 109; the increases of later years, therefore, were proportionally only half as large as McGowan thought. Cf. MutafCieva, Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 189. * Faroghi, “Taxation and Urban Activities,” 35. °3 The Ottoman experience was not unique in this respect; Spain’s customs dues tripled or quadrupled in 1566 (von Ranke, The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires, 115), while the inauguration of the millones in 1590 nearly tripled again the existing tax burden per household (Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain, 234). Denmark’s extraordinary taxes doubled between 1629 and 1643 (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 286).

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 115 same levy in Balikesir amounted to 160 akce, and Ankara paid 250 akce the following year. In 1010/1601-—2 Lapseki’s kiirekci bedeli was 240 akce per hane. Reaya settling in Kibris (Cyprus) in 1015/1606—

7 paid 300 akce per hane as bedel-i avariz, and the same tax in 1031/

1621-22 cost the reaya of Manastir 360 akce per hane. An avariz raised in 1032/1622—23 to pay a levy of soldiers with firearms was originally set at 240 akce; this proved to be more than was needed, however, and the rate was lowered to 207 akce in Akhisar, 177 akce in Marmara, and 221 akce in Gordiik. That same year, however, the avariz for Anadolu was only 100 akce per hane. The cash avariz in 1037/1627-28 in the area of Izvornik displayed a variegated assessment pattern: the urban hanes of Izvornik itself were assessed at 370 akce per hane; the hanes of the kislak, the wintering area of the nomads,

were assessed at 400 akce; and ciftliks were assessed at 100, 150, 200, or 250 akce each. In 1038/1628—29 and 1039/1629-30, the avariz

of Bitola was 300 akce. A few years later, in 1046/1636—37, the residents of Bitola again paid 300 akce per hane, but the sancak of Pasa paid a bedel-i niiziil (cash substitute for grain for horses) of 5 kamil kurus, or 400 akce.% Thus, the avariz rose steadily until the 1620s, when it began to fluctuate between 100 and about 400 akce. Koci Bey’s treatise, however, ignored this variation, citing the normal

level (which he called the kanun, regulation) as 300 akce.” Table 8 displays amounts of cash avariz assessed from 1049/1639-—

40 to 1052/1642-43, as recorded in register KK 2576. The figures hover around 325 akce per hane. For about the same period, however, Barkan reported the assessment of considerably higher figures: 1000 akce per hane in 1048/1638-39, 950 akce per hane in 1049/1639— 40, and 1100 akce per hane in 1050/1640—41.”° Barkan did not specify

his sources for these figures nor the locations where they were assessed; but since amounts charged in one location usually differed from those charged in another, and rates rose and fell depending on 4 Akdag, “Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti,” 555; MM 1720 (15562); M. Cagatay Ulucay, XVII. Asirda Saruhan’da Eskiyalik ve Halk Hareketleri, Manisa Halkevi Yayinlarindan (Istanbul: Resimli Ay Matbaasi, 1944), 187-88; MM 2550 (5855), p. 85; Barkan, “Avariz,” 15; McGowan, Economic Life, pp. 2045 n. 17; KK 2571; Metodija Sokolovski, ed., Turski dokumenti za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod, docs. 8, 41, 182, and 219. °% Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 112. %® Barkan, “Avariz,” 15; MM 2770 (16163) 1041/1631-32. The bedel-i niiziil was stabilized at 600 akce in the eighteenth century (McGowan, Economic Life, 109-10; Cvetkova, “Contribution 4 1’étude des impéts extraordinaires,” 60). Abou-El-Haj translates a petition dated 1108/1696 prescribing this amount (“Power and Social Order,” 98).

116 CHAPTER THREE Table 8. Avariz Assessed around 1640

YEAR PLACE AMOUNT TOTAL 1049/1639 Mezistre 300 + 25 gulamiye 325 1049/1639-40 Avlonya 325 + 40 maas 365 1050/1640 Mora & Mezistre 325 325

Rodos & Istankéy 325 325

Tirhala 325 325 325 Uskiip 325 Haslar 360390 360 Sam 390 Zagora 408700 408 Bolu 700

1051/1641 Vize & Saray 325325 325 1052/1642 Vidin , 325

Vize 325 325 Tirhala 325 + 30 maas 355

Sidrekapsi, Selanik 325 + 40 maas 365

Source: KK 2576

the government’s needs, specification of time and place is essential. Avaniz figures gleaned from registers of similar date reveal only one

instance of such a large assessment: the bedel-i niiziil for the year 1042/1632-33, totalling 20 kamil kurus (1560 akce) in Aksaray and 14 kamil kurus (1092 akce) in Haleb, amounts reduced by 25% on petition of the inhabitants. The bedel-i ntiziil appears always to have been higher than the regular avariz, varying from 380 to over 1000 akce, and Barkan’s figures probably refer to this levy. Avariz amounts in subsequent years show little evidence of a pattern, let alone of a continuous rise. The avariz of Rodos and IstankGy, after

being raised from 140 akce to 325 in 1050/1640—-41, was lowered again to 160 akce in 1053/1643—44. In 1055/1645—46 Yenisehir paid an avariz of 435 akce per hane, which was the avariz base amount plus gulamiye, plus a bedel-i tabhane (cookery fee, for the manufacture of either ship’s biscuit or gunpowder), plus a new increase called simply zam-i cedid (new increase). In the same year, most of Bosna was assessed an avariz of 400 akce per hane plus an 81-akce increase (zam) and a sheep due (celebkesan) of 20 akce, while Bosnian Muslim bastina cultivators paid only 146 akce and Christian bastina cultivators 200 akce. The following year all of Rumeli paid a bedel-i niiziil of 400 akce per hane. In 1064/1653—54, the taxpayers of sam paid 400 akce per hane; but the avarizhanes of Rumeli paid 225, 250, 300, 325, 350, or 358 akce depending on location; the “exempt” (muafen)

REVENUE ASSESSMENT 117 paid a bedel or substitution price of 30 akce, and the out-of-office (mazulen) paid 120 akce. In 1066/1655—56 the avariz rate for most of Rumeli was a flat 325 akce per hane, for Rhodes 160 akce, and for Tirhala 80 akce; Anadolu in that year paid 300 akce and Istanbul 429 akce per hane. In 1067/1656—-57, however, the amount assessed empire-wide was only 125 akce per hane.”’ It is possible, by using the highest and the lowest figures commonly applied for cizye and avariz, to calculate very roughly the nominal percentage of increase in these taxes, although this calculation ignores rate variations from place to place. With this considerable caveat, it can be said that in the period 1555-1625, the period of greatest inflation, the annual rate of the cizye rose 212—350%, depending on location, and that of the avariz 425-—500%. It will be recalled that the nominal inflation rate of the akce, according to Barkan’s figures, was 317% over that period. Thus, at this time the increase of the cizye ordinarily did not keep pace with the rate of inflation, while growth in the rate

of the avariz outstripped the inflation rate but not to the extent of doubling it. Over the century as a whole the picture is somewhat different, as taxes continued to rise while inflation slackened. Between 1555 and 1655, the inflation rate of the akce was 225%. Cizye rates increased 306—480% in that period, while avariz rates increased 108—

436%. Thus, at its highest the growth in the cizye rate was double the inflation rate for the whole century, and at its lowest it was still somewhat above inflation. Most of the increase, however, can be accounted for by the rise in the gulamiye and the institution of the second salary, the maas. These figures actually exhibit not an increase

in the cizye itself but a salary raise for its collectors. Excluding the gulamiye and maas, neither of which enriched the treasury, the average increase in cizye was only 263%, 17% over the rate of inflation, and the lowest rates barely kept up. Making a similar calculation for the avariz is more complex, as its rates vacillated wildly according to the

government’s needs. Its percentage of increase ranged from half to twice the rate of inflation, depending on the year, but the average rate increase for the century was 272%, only 21% above the rate of inflation. In the seventeenth century the avariz was also assessed more frequent-

ly, every year as opposed to every 4—5 years in the early sixteenth century. The number of avarizhanes in the empire, however, was halved 7 MM 3881 (2765), p. 202; MM 2256 (5712), p. 59; Barkan, “Avariz,” 15; MM 4410 (2989), p. 39; MM 4410 (2989); MM 4511 (3847); MM 4576 (18206).

118 CHAPTER THREE at the beginning of the seventeenth century, effectively cancelling out

much of that increase. The actual rise in the cash avariz was only moderately greater than the rate of inflation. Thus, at a time when government expenditures should have been expanding to pay for a larger standing army and modern weaponry, increases in the rates of the cizye and avariz taxes, the two largest sources of central government income, were not much higher than the

rate of inflation. This conclusion must be taken into account when evaluating claims about tax increases. If per capita production were decreasing in the seventeenth century, even a modest increase in the tax rate would have placed a proportionately greater burden on taxpayers, but that research remains to be done. As far as the government’s budget is concerned, the increase was minimal. This analysis does not take into account other sources of government income, but if the figures

for cizye and avariz are at all typical, it is not surprising that the Ottoman Empire began to fall behind in the seventeenth-century arms

race and to decline militarily vis-a-vis the European states.

CHAPTER FOUR

TAXATION WITHOUT ASSESSMENT? TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM)

More than any other form of taxation, tax farming carries a symbolic freight of decline ideology. As a “sign of decline,” tax farming connotes weakness in the central government; it is assumed to give license to unprincipled individuals to exploit the peasantry unchecked. Its mere existence is treated as presumptive evidence for loss of central control and diversion of government revenues into private pockets. Its use supposedly raised tax rates beyond legitimate levels and encouraged corruption and abuse by tax farmers. The effect of tax farming in the Ottoman Empire, however, has been assumed without investigation; narration of individual examples of extortionate practice has generally substituted for an understanding of its principles and procedures. Before an accurate assessment of its impact can be made, tax farming documents must be investigated more systematically to determine how the system functioned under normal circumstances. Although a full exploration of tax farming must include its operation at the provincial level, this examination of the central finance department’s role in tax

farming between 1560 and 1660 finds evidence for greater central control and less corruption than previously suspected. Revenue farming means contracting out the collection of state income, taxes or revenue from state-owned monopolies and enterprises, to private bidders. It attempts to maximize revenue through competitive bidding, in which bidders undertake to supply an agreed-

upon sum regardless of the actual yield of the revenue source. It transfers risk and effort from the government to the tax farmer, who is not only burdened with the labor of collection but is responsible (often in advance) for the full sum contracted for, even if the revenue

source fails to yield it.’ On the other hand, if the revenue yield is higher than the contracted amount, the tax farmer benefits from the ' There is a suggestive analogy between the government’s farming its taxes and the risk-avoidance behavior characteristic of peasants in an agrarian economy (see James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance [New Haven: Yale

120 | CHAPTER FOUR discrepancy, which in certain circumstances can be considerable. Tax farming is a high-risk, high-yield investment.

As a means of revenue collection, tax farming affords a greater degree of central control than is possible under a system in which rights over state revenue sources are held as a form of private property, such as a feudal system. In such a system, the government does not receive the revenues and has no control over how they are spent. Its only recourse is the threat to remove a designee disobedient to central authority or so corrupt as to cause public outcry. Farmed revenues, on the other hand, are either remitted to the government or disbursed according to government orders. In addition, tax farmers,

sent by the state, embody a greater degree of central authority than vassal rulers or feudatories. At the same time, the farming of taxes allows for less central control than a fully bureaucratized system of revenue collection by salaried members of a state apparatus, in which both collection and disbursement come under direct government supervision. Revenue farming was known to the ancient world and was widely employed in both east and west down to the development of modern

bureaucracy.” Its use was on the rise in early modern Europe as monarchs expanded their standing armies, gained tighter control over their kingdoms, and sought to increase their revenues.’ By contracting University Press, 1985]). See also Murat Cizakca, “Tax-Farming and Financial Decentralization in the Ottoman Economy, 1520-1697,” Journal of European Economic History

22 (1993): 221-22; his major study on tax farming was inaccessible to me at the time of writing. * Eisenstadt, Political Systems of Empires; Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (rpt. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1981), 168, 317— 18. For tax farming in the ancient Near East see Matthew W. Stolper, Entrepreneurs and Empire: The Murasi Archive, the Murasi Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia Uitgaven,

Nederlands Historisch-Archeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 14 (Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1985). For classical Europe see A.H.M. Jones, “Taxation in Antiquity,” in The Roman Economy: Studies in Ancient Economic and Administrative History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 151-85; E. Badian, Publicans and Sinners: Private Enterprise in the Service of the Roman Republic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). > For early modern England, see A.P. Newton, “The Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ser. 4, vol. 1 (1918): 129-55; W. Percy Harper, “The Significance of the Farmers of the Customs in Public Finance in the Middle of the Seventeenth Century,” Economica 9 (1929): 61-70; Frederick C. Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” English Historical Review 45 (1930): 35-57; idem, English Public Finance, 2: 311-58; Robert Ashton, “Revenue Farming under the Early Stuarts,” Economic History Review ser. 2, vol. 8 (1956): 310-22. For France, see F. Bayard, “Fermes et traités en France dans la premiére moitié du XVII° siécle,”

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 121 revenue collection to private persons, ambitious rulers employing small numbers of officials could exploit wide territories for their own benefit rather than delegating control to others.’ In addition, granting tax farms

became a means of bestowing privilege and rewarding loyalty and service in a fashion that did not deplete crown lands or royal treasure.° Besides monetarizing and potentially increasing the yield, tax farming also made delivery of money to the treasury more predictable and more secure.° In the Islamic world, revenue farming was employed from an early period, and it was widespread in medieval Egypt.’ Among the Ottomans Bulletin du Centre d’ Histoire Economique et Sociale de la Région Lyonnaise 4 (1975): 45-80; Richard J. Bonney, “The Failure of the French Revenue Farms, 1600-60,” Economic History Review ser. 2, vol. 32 (1979): 11-32; Mousnier, /nstitutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2: 67-72, 423-39. In comparison, tax farming was somewhat less important in Spain; see Elliott, Imperial Spain, 104; Pierre Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920, trans. Judith White (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1976), 146-48. However, the revolt of the Comuneros was related to a proposal to farm the alcabala of the towns; after the revolt these taxes were farmed and by 1534 were being purchased by a consortium of towns (Lovett, Early Habsburg Spain, 311-33). Moreover, the taxes of Spain’s dependencies such as Naples were farmed and the income dedicated to the support of Spanish armies (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 266). * European “governments in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were incapable of mobilizing funds, armies or navies without considerable private assistance”; Spain in the late sixteenth century did institute a policy of direct tax administration but was forced to abandon it by the 1630s under the pressure of war. Administrative ideology, nevertheless, always called for complete central control (Thompson, War and Government, 2-7). > A noted instance of tax farms granted as rewards was the English revenue farms of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, bestowed on favorites and close advisors of the monarchs

(Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558—1641 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965], 428-39). In Spain, tax farming was a preserve of the lesser nobility from which common people were barred (Elliott, mperial Spain, 104). In the Ottoman Empire in the 1570s, Michael Cantacuzenus, the buyer for the palace, who built a number of new galleys for the sultan after Lepanto, received in return the farm of the customs, salt works, and fisheries of the empire and died fabulously wealthy; his contemporaries knew him as Seytanoglu, son of Satan (Nicolae Iorga, Byzance aprés Byzance [Bucharest: Association international d’études du sud-est européen, Comité national roumain, 1971], 121). In Russia,

by contrast, profits from tax farming do not seem to have been sufficient to attract great merchants and top officials (Paul Bushkovitch, “Taxation, Tax Farming, and Merchants in Sixteenth-Century Russia,” Slavic Review 38 [1978]: 398). 6 The farming of English import dues, besides increasing the yield and making receipt of the revenues more predictable, enabled these taxes to escape the treasury’s extremely old-fashioned and inefficient administrative system (Dietz, English Public Finance, 2: 32130); nevertheless, the amounts received by the crown were much less than the total collected (idem, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” 52). Tax farming was widely used in France for customs dues (traités), the salt monopoly (gabelle), internal tolls, sales taxes (aides), and taxes on the royal domain land (Mousnier, [nstitutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2: 423-39). ’ Tax farming appeared in the early Islamic period under the names gabala and daman;

122 CHAPTER FOUR its employment probably antedates its earliest record in the fifteenth

century. Over the next two centuries its use increased, as it did in western Europe, and probably for the same reasons: to centralize and maximize revenue, to monetarize the tax system, to transfer collection risks, and to seek societal support by granting privileges to a wider

range of people than was possible with other revenue collection systems.’ Most of the revenues of the Arab provinces were farmed after the conquest of that region. Revenues formerly collected by central government employees were farmed with increasing frequency during

the sixteenth century, as were timar lands after the mid-seventeenth century.” Although Ottoman tax farming is often condemned as a sign

of governmental corruption, this criticism seems to be related to a rising level of abuse in the later period, when tax farming itself became

more common. Changes in the operation of the system over time, therefore, need to be investigated. Here we will examine the central treasury’s role in the processes of assessment and collection of farmed revenues, the types of records produced by these processes, the ways in which the finance department attempted to control the behavior of see C.H. Becker, “Steuerpacht und Lehnswesen,” Der Islam 5 (1914): 81-92; Lgkkegaard, Islamic Taxation, 92-108. In the Abbasid era, tax farmers had the authority, not granted to fiscal employees of the state, to remit taxes in cases of need (Abu Yusuf, Kitab alKharaj, trans. A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in Islam, 3 [Leiden: E.J. Brill; London: Luzac & Co., 1969], 49). For taxation in Egypt see Kosei Morimoto, The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the Early Islamic Period, Asian Historical Monographs, 1 (Kyoto: Dohosha Publisher, Inc., 1981); Hasanain Rabie, The Financial System of Egypt, A.H. 564-741] A.D. 1169-1341, London Oriental Series, 25 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972). ® Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline,” 122; Omer Liitfi Barkan, “The Social Consequences of Economic Crisis in Later Sixteenth Century Turkey,” in Social Aspects of Economic Development: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Social Aspects of Economic Development, Istanbul, 1963 (Istanbul: Economic and Social Studies Conference Board, 1964), 26; Ioana Constantinescu, “L’ Affermage des domaines aux paysans

corvéables dans les principautés danubiennes sous le régime phanariote,” Revue roumaine d@ histoire 20 (1981): 517-34; Huri Islamoglu and Caglar Keyder, “The Ottoman Social Formation,” in The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics, ed. Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 312. For evidence of the marketing of mukataa produce by miiltezims, see KK 2576, p. 114. ® Salih Ozbaran, “Some Notes on the Ottoman Practice of Iltizam in the Arab Lands in the Sixteenth Century,” Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies, no. 5/6 (1992): 89-95; Bakhit, Ottoman Province of Damascus, 205—7; Gibb & Bowen 2: 21. In the first half of the century vacant timar lands were ordinarily reassigned to members of the salaried military forces who had demonstrated ability in warfare (Howard, “Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation,” 214; Géza David, “Financial Policy in a Hungarian Sanjag [The Case of Simontornya],” in Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe, ed. Gyorgy Kara, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Group for Altaistic Studies [Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1987], 23-29).

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 123 tax farmers, and how the system responded to the pressures of the early seventeenth century. Mukataa Revenues and Records

Ottoman tax farming is often referred to as “the mukataa system,” but the word “mukataa” had a broader meaning than tax farming. Mukataa (lit. “something divided”) referred to the division of state revenue sources into portions to be distributed in return for a mutually agreed-upon price.'? Mukataa revenues could come from land (land not subject to tapu, not held in hereditary peasant proprietorship, such as rice fields) or from other taxes (such as customs dues) or govern-

mental monopolies (such as mints or salt production). Each portion of the revenue, each mukataa, could be farmed out, collected by a salaried agent (emin) of the government in a process called emanet, or awarded as part of a timar, zeamet, or has. Farming the revenue, that is, contracting for its collection, was called iltizam (undertaking), the contractor was a miiltezim (undertaker), and the revenue was said to be collected by means of an undertaking (ber vech-i iltizam). In keeping with this usage, the word mukataa will refer here to a section of revenue, while iltizam will refer to the tax farm contract, the undertaking itself. Revenue farming procedures included a bidding process, by which the revenue level was set and collection rights awarded,

a collection process (sometimes related to a production process, as in state-run enterprises), and a recording and reporting process, in which farmed revenues were either disbursed or submitted to the treasury. Revenue could also be offered in farm by property-holders other than the government, especially by evkaf or by officials and palace personnel granted lands as has or zeamet. 0 For definitions see Haim Gerber, “Muqata‘a,” EJ2 7: 508; Pakalin, Osmanli Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sézligii, 2: 578; Uzungarsili, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 332 n. 2; Inalcik, “Village, Peasant and Empire,” 4-5. Generalized discussions tend to obscure the wide variety of tax farming practices. For detailed studies on the fifteenth century see Gobilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 87-160; Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi ve I¢timat Tarihi, 2: 334-69; Halil Sahillioglu, “Bir Miiltezim Zimem Defterine gore XV. Yiizyil Sonunda Osmanli Darphane Mukataalan,” TUIFM 23 (1962-3): 145-218. For the seventeenth century,

Bistra A. Cvetkova’s “Recherches sur le systéme d’affermage (iltizam) dans |’Empire Ottoman au cours du XVI°-XVIII° s. par rapport aux contrées bulgares,” Rocznik Orienta-

listyczny 27 (1964): 111-32, though founded on Gokbilgin, stresses the contribution of tax farming to Ottoman decline and oppression in the Balkans; for a more analytical

124 CHAPTER FOUR Although tax farming put the collection of taxes into private hands,

in the Ottoman Empire it was not, as is often claimed, a private enterprise.'! In the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, the finance department exercised strict control over who could touch its revenues and under what circumstances.'’* Although technically those undertaking iltizams were not state employees, they,

like other types of tax collectors, were registered in the finance department’s records as government servants. In order to do their work and be remunerated, iltizam officials needed imperial orders in their hands.'? Awards of iltizams, appointments of officials, issuance of collection orders, deposit of revenues in the treasury, and submission of proper accounts were all meticulously recorded, and the records

were checked whenever a problem arose. Tax collection proceeded in accordance with survey registers (tahrir defters), revenue laws (kanun), and local custom (adet), and taxpayers were free to complain

to the government if tax farmers exceeded those limits. Every miiltezim’s accounting registers were inspected at the end of his term. Miiltezims and officials could be dismissed for oppression or extor-

tion, for not adhering to proper procedure, or for not fulfilling their contracted obligations. Any idea that mukataa revenues were up for grabs was strongly discouraged. All these processes generated documentary records, the oldest extant dating from the mid-fifteenth century. These documents can be used examination of its role in the upheavals of the period see Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 327—33.

'! Despite reiterated assertions of the absence of state intervention in or supervision of tax farmers, which appear with regularity in the secondary literature (for example, see Mantran, Istanbul, 217), the Ottomans did exercise quite a lot of control over tax farmers. This contrasts with the situation in Spain, for example, where the asiento fell under the civil law of contracts (Thompson, War and Government, 257), or in England, where tax farmers’ accounts were not subject to audit (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” 137; Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” 46). '2 Cvetkova stresses a lapse of central control in the later seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries which is not visible in the period under study (“Recherches sur la systéme d’affermage,” 121). The work of Ariel Salzmann on tax farming in the 18th century suggests that if there was a lapse of control, it was by no means universal, since involvement in tax farming generated an interest among participating social groups and individuals in the reproduction and extension of state power (“An Ancien Régime Revisited”). In Egypt, tax farmers were not only considered government appointees, they wore special uniforms (Israel M. Goldman, the Life and Times of Rabbi David Ibn Abi Zimra: A Social, Economic and Cultural Study of Jewish Life in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th Centuries as Reflected in the Responsa of RDBZ [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1970], 152).

'° A record from 899/1493 indicates that salaries and fees ate up about 10% of the receipts of a mukataa: Akdag, Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi ve Ic¢timat Tarihi, 347 n. 1.

TAX FARMING (iLTIZAM) 125 to reconstruct the taxation system itself and to investigate fiscal and economic conditions on the local and regional level.'* The sources of mukataa revenue were extremely diverse; any kind of revenue might

be included, and in practice different sorts of revenue were often combined within a single iltizam. The destinations of the funds were equally diverse, and many types of payments could be made from a single revenue source. Tax farming records thus form valuable sources

for the history of trade, agriculture and commodity production, and military funding and organization.'’’ The existing mukataa and iltizam records are voluminous; this study cannot attempt to cover them all, nor can it furnish a complete exposition of how these systems worked

in the Ottoman Empire between 1560 and 1660. Summary records

offer the most comprehensive coverage of mukataa income and expenditures. For example, a published summary of the farmed revenues of Anatolia and northern Syria gives an overview of the sources of a large part of central government income and indicates how it was spent.'© Precisely because they are summaries, however, the information such records contain cannot provide a detailed explanation of the workings of the system. Study of mukataa records for a single location over time may be the most fruitful approach for this

purpose. An excellent example is Vass’s treatment of the finance administration of the province of Budin in Hungary, which relates records of bidding and payment on the tax farm of Vac to those of the provincial administration and its finances.'’ Nevertheless, it is 4 See, for example, Inalcik, “Notes on N. Beldiceanu’s Translation of the Kanunname.” A general comparison of mukataa registers with tahrir registers was made by Diindar Giinday, “Tahrir Defterleriyle Mukataa Defterleri Arasinda Mukayese,” POF 27 (1977): 277-82. 'S Detailed provincial mukataa records for customs revenues have been used to track changes in the economic life of Szegedin over a three-year period (Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “Turckiye Reestrovye Knigi Mukata’a kak Istorceskie Istocniki [Les livres de compte turcs ‘Muqata’a’—Source de documentation historique],” in Vostocnye Istcniki po Istorii Narodov Jugo-Vostocnoj i Central’ noj Evropy, ed. A.S. Tveritinova [Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka,” Glavnaja Redakcija Vostocnoj Literaturny, 1964], 76-90. Tax farming records other than customs registers have rarely been employed in this way; however, for the use of iltizam

records in the kadi sicills of Ankara as a source for information on mohair production and trade see Ozer Ergeng, “1600-1615 Yillari1 arasinda Ankara Iktisadi Tarihine ait Arastirmalar,” in Tiirkiye Iktisat Tarihi Semineri, Metinler/Tartismalar, ed. Osman Okyar and H. Unal Nalbentoglu, Hacettepe Universitesi Yayinlan, C13 (Ankara: Hacettepe Universitesi, 1975), 145-68. 16 Murphey, Regional Structure in the Ottoman Economy; this is not, however, a typical summary register compiled for accounting purposes but a regional overview. 17 Eléd Vass, “Eléments pour compléter |’histoire de l1’administration des finances du vilayet de Buda au XVI° siécle,” in Studia Turcica, ed. Lajos Ligeti, Bibliotheca Orientalia Hungarica, 17 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1971), 483-90.

126 CHAPTER FOUR unwise to generalize from the experience of a single area, nor can we estimate the impact of events in a single place on the financial state of the whole empire. Numerous local and regional studies will be required to produce a satisfactory account of the operation of the mukataa system as a whole and of the struggles over revenue and control of revenue sources that formed an integral part of the complex state-society relationships entailed by tax farming."

The term iltizam refers to a method of collection and not a kind of revenue, but in the early centuries urban revenues tended to be retained as part of the imperial has, collected by emanet or iltizam, while revenues of agricultural lands worked by peasant households were usually distributed as timars. Out of 177 Balkan cities in the sixteenth century, for instance, the revenues of 159 were designated as has and zeamet, 9 belonged to evkaf, and only 9 were awarded as timars; just under half of the sultanic has was farmed, while the remainder was collected by emanet.’? Tax farmers were usually less effective in managing agricultural revenues than long-term holders of land because of the difficulties of collecting agricultural tithes in kind— the need for a large number of short-term employees, a vast storage system, and a system of marketing the crops.” The revenues of imperial has \ands were sometimes farmed, however, especially when the lands in question were outside the tapu system, like rice paddies or mezraas; over time, even tapu lands were subjected to iltizam. More typically farmed were the revenues of state-owned monopolies like salt or metals, revenues generated by enterprises and industries such as mills, mints, or dyehouses, and revenues which were irregular in nature or whose total yield was difficult to estimate accurately or to collect, such as fines or marriage taxes, customs dues or market taxes.”! Tax farming could also be used to collect revenues other than those of the mukataa

system per se, such as cizye and avariz taxes or document fees. '8 Halil Berktay, “Three Empires and the Societies They Governed: Iran, India and the Ottoman Empire,” in New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History, ed. Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroghi (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 247. '? Nicolai Todorov, The Balkan City, 1400-1900, Publications on Russia and East Europe of the School of International Studies, University of Washington, 12 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983), 80-83. 0 Haim Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890-1914, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 101 (Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985), 160-61. 1 An order enforcing an imperial monopoly for the sake of ensuring the flow of iltizam revenues is KK 5019 (1038/1628—29), p. 169. A description of sixteenth-century Sidon illustrates the variety of urban revenues collected by farming: revenues of the port, slaugh-

TAX FARMING (iLTIZAM) 127 A single revenue source could pass from the status of timar to emanet to iltizam and back. It was possible for mukataa revenues, even from a source formerly given in iltizam, to be included as part of a timar; for instance, the timar of Ismail, katib of the defterhane in 977/1569-70, included mukataa revenue from the bridge market in Karahisar-1 Teke.” The has of the beylerbey and sancak bey and the zeamets of subasis (urban commanders) routinely included, in addition to village agricultural taxes, revenues from market taxes, mills and other enterprises that were normally farmed or collected ber

vech-i emanet.”> Around 1540 many timars and zeamets included income from mills, fishing stations, and the like, possibly because of a shortage of suitable land revenues for the growing number of military personnel awarded timars. This practice was not new even then; timar

records from a century earlier also record the inclusion of mukataa revenues in timars.” Vacant timar lands, whose revenues were normally collected by emanet, could be farmed out as iltizam. The relationship

was reciprocal: in the early eighteenth century, farmed revenues in the conquered territory of Tabriz were granted as timars to garrison troops because the miiltezims had not kept up with their treasury payments.” Emanet and iltizam were used interchangeably as collection methods for certain revenues. After a tahrir of Hamid and Teke sancaks in 976/1568—69, imperial has revenues which had until then been terhouse, dyeing house, salt tax, horse market tax, oxen tax, road tolls, revenues from strayed persons and runaway slaves, market inspection fees, weighing fees, beytiilmal, poll tax on Jews, charge for night watchmen, taxes on Christian pilgrims, wineshops and wine, soap shops, winter pasture, olive presses, silk wheels, buffaloes, bees, and goats (Muhammad Adnan Bakhit, “Sidon in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Times,” Osmanli Arastirmalari 3 [1982]: 64-66). For a list of farmed revenues of Edirne in the fifteenth century see Gékbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 89-124; for those farmed in Aleppo in 1583 see Jean Sauvaget, Alep: Essai sur le développement d'une grande ville syrienne, des origines au milieu du XIX° siécle (Paris, Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1941), 254—

56; and for tax farming in Egypt see Shaw, Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 31-40; 98-133. 22 Timar Ruznamce Defteri 31, p. 353 (I owe this reference to Douglas A. Howard). 23 An iltizam on farmed taxes in southern Rumeli was cancelled (fesh olunmak) when they were removed from the havass-1 hiimayun and made part of a vizierial has: MM 564 (15405) 992/1584-85. 4 Robert Lee Staab, “The Timar System in the Eyalet of Rumeli and the Nahiye of Dimetoka in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” (PhD dissertation, University of Utah, 1980), 58, and examples on 51, 52, 69, 85, 86, 291, 292; Inalcik, Hicri 835 Tarihli Stiret-i Defter-i Sancak-1 Arvanid, xxxiv—xxxv, and examples on 9, 39, 43. 25 Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Tabriz under Ottoman Rule (1725—1730)” (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1991), 112-14.

128 CHAPTER FOUR collected in emanet were bid for as an iltizam, and tithes (a@’sar) in the province of Aydin which were collected by emanet in 980/157273 were later farmed. By the same token, revenues normally farmed out as iltizam could be collected by emanet if necessary, such as when

bidders on the taxes of Sakiz offered less than the amount in the survey register, or when no bidders appeared for the iltizam of the salt works of Mora in 983/1575—76. Brigandage by deserting soldiers made farming the revenues of Filibe excessively dangerous, so it was ordered that they be collected ber vech-i emanet. In another case, the

has of the provincial governor of Aydin and’Sigla was added to the imperial has, where it was offered as an iltizam. The emin resigned and no new bidders came forward due to the difficulty of collecting taxes over the entire area of the has, which was scattered through several kazas. Numerous people declined even to accept it in emanet, and the position of emin lay vacant (and the revenue uncollected) for some time. Finally:in 973/1565—66 it was awarded to a certain Mustafa

in his absence; he was to be given a berat for it if he returned “fortunately” (saadet ile) from campaign.” Some revenue sources experienced repeated change in status, such as the beytiilmal (unclaimed inheritances) of the Jews of Istanbul, held in iltizam for a sum of 50,000 akce for three years from 972/1564— 65 to 974/1566—68. The end of the iltizam saw a deficit in collection

of 10,000 akce, and no one was willing to submit a bid for the next three-year period (and risk facing a similar deficit). Consequently, that

revenue source was designated as emanet. However, the emin and katib quit their job (the source does not say why) and nothing was collected for several years. Finally in 983/1575—76 two other individuals undertook a bid of 40,000 akce, and the revenue source reverted to the status of iltizam. In another example, when the Danubian ports

of Vidin and Nigbolu were closed on account of the rebellion of the voyvoda of Wallachia, their iltizam was annulled (fesh olunmak) and the existing revenues were collected ber vech-i emanet for three years. After conditions settled down, a new bid for the iltizam was proposed.

A similar fate befell the mukataa of the port (iskele) of Cesme in 6 For the tahrir of Teke and Hamid see Murphey, “Ottoman Census Methods,” 125— 26. The first three examples here come from register MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fols. 97b, 25b, and 58a; the case of Mora is from KK 4994 (983/1575-—76), fol. 20b; that of Filibe is from MM 687 (9820), p. 196, and that of the provincial governor’s has is from MM 241 (115) 969/1561-2, fol. 58a. It was possible for a tax farmer to be compelled to accept another term even against his will if necessary (Goldman, [bn Abi Zimra, 152).

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 129 Aydin in the years 973—976/1565-—68 as a result of the temporary loss

of that island by the Ottomans.”’ The organization of a mukataa was complex, involving a number of officials with different functions. One group of officials was charged

with managing and operating the revenue source, whether a mine or a candle works, a customs house or a piece of agricultural land. The

man in charge was the emin, or agent, who functioned as head of the enterprise, collector of the revenues, or manager of the lands. In

the case of has lands or other types of landed property, the chief official might be a voyvoda (financial supervisor in a kaza), miitesellim or miisellim (financial agent of a sancak), or miitevelli (supervisor of

a vakif). The official in charge, whatever his title, functioned as supervisor and decision-maker for the mukataa, as is clear from an order instructing a kadi on how to manage mukataas without emins. He was to allocate the waters of a rice field (celtiik), hire and fire workers, ensure that accurate records were kept, and oversee revenue submission.”~ A katib, or scribe, was responsible for record-keeping. Depending on the nature of the revenue source, there might be numerous

other agents, employees, and assistants. The operation of a mint, for instance, involved a different set of workers from a customs post or a rice field belonging to the sultan’s has. The word miuibasir, agent,

often seen in connection with mukataa records, did not refer to a specific office but was a general term for a subordinate, as was the word adam (man, in the sense of employee). A second set of officials collected revenues for the treasury and delivered them to the capital or to their intended recipient. In the case of mukataa revenues collected by emanet, the responsible official was

also called an emin. He was assisted by a katib, also a government appointee. When revenues were collected by iltizam rather than emanet,

this emin and katib were replaced by the miiltezim and his officials. The miiltezim, the successful bidder for the revenue farm, could be 27 KK 4994 (983/1575-6), p. 57; MM 687 (9820), p. 173 dated 1006/1597-98; MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 94a. 78 KK 5019 (1038/1628—29), p. 184. The people operating the revenue source seem to have stayed on the job even when the revenues were farmed, in contrast to England, where the tax farmer appointed all the officials (Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” 38-39). The statement made by both Cohen (Jewish Life, 142) and Todorov (The Balkan City, 84), that despite the farming of revenues to private individuals the taxes were collected by employees of the state, must refer to the work of this group of officials. For the various types of financial supervisors and their responsibilities see Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization.”

130 CHAPTER FOUR either a single individual or a partnership or consortium. In the fifteenth

century the miiltezim was commonly known as the amil (pl. ummal, agent or tax farmer). This term, however, almost never appears in

seventeenth-century documents; even in documents from the late sixteenth century it is used primarily when revenues formerly farmed

were transferred to emanet.” The tax farmer was required to work closely with the emin or agent in charge of the revenue source; fifteenthcentury kanuns mandated, and orders in court registers reiterated, that the amil must not do anything without the knowledge and cooperation

of the emin.*” The miiltezim was directly responsible to the government for collecting and submitting the revenues of the iltizam and for selecting subordinate officials. A number of other officials were responsible to the government for aspects of iltizam operation. An emin and katib, subordinates of the miiltezim, were primarily responsible for revenue collection, just as in an emanet. In the seventeenth century, revenues were often collected by someone designated as the kabiz-i mal (receiver of the money);

this official, often the nazir, seems to have assembled funds collected by a number of more lowly functionaries. The office of kabiz-1 mal may be a product of the employment of absentee military emins, or

it may have resulted from the practice of sub-farming, assembling large groups of revenue farms under a single head. Another position that gained prominence during the seventeenth century was the havale

(pl. havalegadn), the person or persons receiving collected funds or conveying them to their destination.*! This function seems originally ° MM 267 (2775) 973/1565—66, p. 32, contains an order concerning unsold mukataas of Uskiip whose revenues were collected by amils in emanet; MM 241 (115) 969/1561-— 62, fol. 21b: bundan akdem ummal uhdesinde 260,540 akce iken, “formerly, when it [the

iltizam] was in the hands of amils for 260,540 akce...”. Sahillioglu describes other terminology used for cases where revenues formerly collected in emanet were bid on by their emins (“Bir Miiltezim Zimem Defterine Gore,” 147); in the seventeenth-century documents examined here these distinctions seem to have been less important. *° Inalcik, “Notes on N. Beldiceanu’s Translation of the Kanunname,” 144; idem, “Osmanli Idare, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Tarihiyle Ilgili Belgeler,” no. 14: 3; 13, no. 17: 1112; Kaldy-Nagy, “The Cash-Book of the Ottoman Treasury in Buda,” 179. In England, too, the customs collector and the controller were required to act in concert with one another (Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” 42). *! A havale can be defined as an assignation, that is, the assignment on a particular revenue source of the payment of a particular item of expenditure; the same word is also used for the document of assignment and for the person to whom it was awarded (see Halil Inalcik, “Hawala,” E/2 3: 283-85). The difficulty of transferring large amounts of coinage over the muddy and bandit-infested roads of England_in the sixteenth century has been described by Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 511.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 131 to have been performed on an ad hoc basis, but in the seventeenth century it became a regular appointment. The yasakci, on the other hand, prominent in fifteenth-century records as an enforcer of iltizam

regulations, did not appear in the seventeenth-century documents examined and was seldom seen in those of the late sixteenth century. The nazir, or inspector, was responsible for ascertaining the correct-

ness and completeness of the iltizam’s accounts. Traditionally the kadi of the area, he was expected to apply his knowledge of law and of local conditions to solve problems arising from the undertaking. Occasional mention is made of a nazir-i nuzzar, suggesting a hierarchy

of nazirs. From the mid-sixteenth century, the office of nazir was increasingly awarded not to the local kadi but to a nominee of the miiltezim who was often a cavus, less frequently a member of the standing army or a timariot. The function of inspection and oversight,

however, was not abandoned to the miiltezim’s designee but was performed by another official called the miifettis, again a kadi, who served as financial inspector for a whole province or region.*? One of the most important tasks of the miifettig and nazir was to ensure that iltizams were awarded only to suitable and capable people, people able to do the work of collecting and bear the financial responsibility involved. Finally, the kefil (guarantor) was responsible for guaranteeing payment of all or part of the sum contracted for, in the event that the revenue source proved insufficient or the contractor defaulted. An iltizam might involve sub-farming portions of the revenue to yet another layer of officials.*? In urban areas, for example, there was * For a discussion of the kadi’s role in tax farming as recorder, intermediary, and guarantor see M. Tayyib Gékbilgin, “XVI. Asirda Mukataa ve IIltizam Islerinde Kadilik Miiessesesinin Rolii,” Tebligler, Tiirk Tarih Kongresi, 4th (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1952): 433-44. Sometimes he also had to act as enforcer of the government’s decisions (idem, “Hatvan Kadiliginin Iki Sicilli,” in Hungaro-Turcica: Studies in Honour of Julius Németh, ed. Gyula Kaldy-Nagy [Budapest: Lorand Eétvés University, 1976], 315-19). Every miifettig encountered in this research was a kadi, like Mevlana Mehmed, the kad of Selanik and Sidrekapsi, miifettig for the mukataas of Selanik (KK 4994, p. 2). Cvetkova has given examples of nominations of non-kadis to the position of miifettig but she did not reveal the date or say whether these nominations were ratified by the central government (“Recherches sur le systéme d’affermage,” 123). Gdkbilgin found one example of a non-kadi acting as miifettis in the mid-sixteenth century (“Kadilik Miiessesesinin Rolii,” 441). European tax farmers do not seem to have had any supervision of this kind. 33 Cvetkova, “Recherches sur le systeme d’affermage,” 126-29. In England, the large “general farm” with subdivisions was found to be more profitable than many smaller ones, as enforcement of government decisions was more effective and less money was spent on administration and bribery (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” 149).

132 CHAPTER FOUR a tendency for various mukataas to be consolidated under one or a few major miiltezims, who then assigned or farmed out mukataas within their iltizam to others. In rural areas the same process might take in large expanses of territory. Thus there came into existence a pyramidal hierarchy of tax farmers, only the upper levels of which dealt directly with the state. At the head of such pyramids of revenue collection could be found important military-administrative officials such as leaders of palace cavalry and janissary forces or provincial governors and sancak beys.* The obvious problems of control in such a system have not yet been studied in detail, but the finance depart-

ment’s registers formed the means by which the state kept track of these layers of officials. With the exception of the miifettis, the nazir,

and the kefil or kefils, all officials could be recompensed from the revenues of the emanet or iltizam, and as recipients of state funds, they had to be recorded in the finance department’s registers. The recording of mukataa matters was complex and produced several different kinds of mukataa records. The simplest are those pertaining

to revenue collected ber vech-i emanet, by emins who were salaried employees of the central government. These records are of four types: registers listing assignments of emins, detailed accounts kept by emins

themselves, registers showing deposits of money into the central treasury, and summary accounting registers of funds submitted. An example of an assignment (tevzi) register is KK 2282, which listed the names of those appointed to collect beytiilmal funds in Rumeli and Anadolu for the year 984/1576—-77. The names of emins appointed

to collect various taxes in emanet can also be found in tahvilat or tevcihat registers, containing entries for revenue amounts submitted to the treasury along with the names of those responsible for their collection. Emins’ detailed daily account registers, often called defter-i miifredat or ruznam¢e, are rarely found in the central treasury; their summarized accounting registers (muhasebe defterleri) appear more frequently. The importance to the government of the emins’ muhasebes is indicated by an imperial order firing the emin of certain * Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 291, 329; idem, “Centralization and Decentralization,” 29-30. The English customs regime in the sixteenth century attempted through tax farming to install such a hierarchical system rather than having every customs collector independent of the others, because controlling and altering the system would be much easier (Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration,” 38); in addition, tax farming was less expensive for the state than direct collection (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” 146). In France, as well, tax farms showed a tendency toward consolidation (Bonney, “Failure of the French Revenue Farms,” 22).

TAX FARMING (ILTIZAM) 133 taxes in the sancaks of Teke, Alaiye, and Hamid for not submitting his muhasebe, which caused anxiety over possible non-collection of revenue.” The third type of register, a record of deposits of funds into the treasury, is exemplified by register MM 303 (16020) dated 977—78/1569-71, recording deposits from has lands held in emanet, and by register MM 619 (7376) dated 994—95/1585—87, detailing receipts from zeamets held in emanet in the area of Filibe. These records are organized according to the nature of the revenue source and its geographical location. Treasury deposits of emanet revenues also appear in tahvilat registers, listed by bureau and month, and in income daybooks (ruznamce-i varidat), listed in order of receipt.* Finally, the finance department compiled summary accounting registers

from the income ruznamces and from individual muhasebe registers submitted by emins. Register KK 2281 is an accounting summary (muhasebe) for receipts and expenditures of the mukataas and mevkufat (vacant timars) of Mentese. These revenues were not farmed but were

collected ber vech-i emanet, and the register lists them emanet by emanet with their totals. A published example of an accounting summary is a muhasebe of the customs dues of Tulga, collected ber vech-i emanet and remitted to Akkerman every three months.’ Documentary records for mukataas held in iltizam were more complicated than those for emanets, as records were required of the various bids and the award of the iltizam. The bidding process was initiated by a petition, or arz; some original petitions still survive. A successful bid was rewritten in the form of a report (called telhis or tezkire) summarizing the circumstances of the iltizam and the details of the bid, which was sent to the central government for confirmation.** These reports were copied or simply bound together into registers called in the catalogues mukataa/mukataaya ait arz tezkireleri,

reports on petitions for mukataas, or talebnameleri, documents of 35 MM 241 (115) 973/1565-66, fol. 53b. For an emin’s muhasebe in published form see Gyula Kadldy-Nagy, “Two Sultanic Hass Estates in Hungary during the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 13 (1961): 31-62. 36 MM 1488 (651) 1012/1603—4 lists the tahvilat of the muhasebe-i Rumeli bureau, and KK 5172 (1026/1616—17) the tahvilat of the maadin bureau. Registers numbered 1696 to 1956 in the Kamil Kepeci collection of the Basbakanlik Argivi are income and expense ruznamce registers. 7 Janos Hévari, “Customs Register of Tulca (Tulcea), 1515-1517,” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 38 (1984): 115-42. 38 Original petitions include AE Kanuni 269, 271, 274, and III. Murad 275; iltizam tezkires include AE I. Ahmed 336, 479; KK 4994, p. 2; and MM 404 (17950), p. 1.

134 CHAPTER FOUR request. Registers detailing iltizam awards are also called registers of undertaking (mukataa iltizam defterleri), registers of sale (fuiruht— the award of an iltizam was often called a sale), or registers of bestowal (tevcih) of mukataas.”’ The holders of iltizam, the miiltezims, are also listed in detailed ruznamce registers, tevzi (distribution) registers used in the collection process, and tahvilat/teslimat/hasilat registers recording the submissions of funds to the treasury.” In addition, miiltezims were required to keep individual muhasebe registers showing moneys collected, expended, and remitted, and to submit these accounts to the treasury at the end of the period of iltizam.*! Summary mukataa account registers exist which cover a whole area or province.” Finally, orders

describing tax farms can be found in maliye ahkam registers and in specialized mukataa ahkam registers, as well as in miihimme defterleri,

“registers of important affairs.”” The term of an iltizam, especially one for agricultural revenue, was usually figured according to the solar calendar and then translated into

the hicri calendar.“ The solar calendar was made up of the twelve °° Mukataa ait arz tezkireleri registers include KK 4990-4997, 4999, 5003, 5005-5010, 5014, 5016, and 5024, MM 526 (5359) and 314 (7189); talebname registers are MM 1665 (5383), 1835 (3360), and 2027 (4684). MM 304 (7319) is called a mukataa iltizam defteri showing 3-year revenue averages; MM 241 (115) is labelled mukataa iltizamini gosterir defteri (register showing iltizams of mukataas); MM 453 (4972) is entitled ftiruht-i mukataat-1 Haleb (sale of the mukataas of Haleb); MM 708 (6218) is a mukataa furuht defteri (register of mukataa sales).

” Register MM 595 (312) includes a mukataa ruznamcesi; MM 851 (18118) is an income and expense daybook for various mukataas. MM 331 (17862) and 4843 (5804) are mukataa tevzi or tevziat registers, and MM 1142 (5294) is a mukataat tevcih register. MM 522 (5640) is a mukataa teslimat register, as are MM 646 (14382) and 812 (3229), while mukataa tahvilat registers include MM 877 (1830), 1288 (501), 1308 (693), and 1786 (5688). *! One emin’s detailed account register can be found in AE Kanuni 26, dated 975/1567— 68. Examples of miiltezim’s muhasebes are KK 2283, 3061, 5015; MM 1393 (16038). A published example is in Fekete, Siyadqat-Schrift, #15, 1: 304-17; 2: plates 29-30. * MM 533 (22420) shows Belgrad’s mukataa income and expenditures, MM 828 (7449) those of Nigbolu. MM 411 (1838) shows all of Rumeli and MM 1322 (4116) the mukataas of Egypt, while MM 2233 (18129) summarizes the mukataas of Anadolu in 16 pages. * MM 22603 (9824) dated 1021/1612 is a mukataa ahkém register whose heading reads: Siiver-i ahkam-i serife der zaman-i Nesuh mukataa-i el-fakir an 19 Ziilhicce sene 1021 ila 12 Saban sene 1022, copies of noble orders in the time of your humble servant the mukataaci Nesuh from 19 Ziilhicce 1021 to 12 Saban 1022/10 January—27 September 1613. * KK 4994 (983/1575-76), p. 12, petitions the ruler to grant a bidder’s request for the mukataa of the kapan galle of Selanik to be calculated according to the solar rather than the lunar year; the reason given was that selling this mukataa by the lunar year was difficult and there had been no other bidders that year. Knowledgeable people testified that following the solar calendar would be more profitable. Sahillioglu published an order

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 135 Roman months: Yanar, Febrar or Felvar, Mart, Abril, Mayis, Yunyus, Yulyus, Agustos, Septuris, Uhturis, Nuvurus, and Dekuris. An iltizam frequently began either on 1 Mart or on Nevruz (the solar New Year, 25 Mart); the first installment payment was usually due on 1 Agustos or on Hizir Ilyas’s day (Ruz-i Hizir, April 23), while the second payment was due on Ruz-1 Kasim (October 26). It was quite possible,

however, for an iltizam to begin on another date, as in some of the examples below, which show iltizams beginning on 1 Abril, 1 Yulyus, or 1 Septuris. Most iltizams in register MM 15259 began on 1 Mayis.

The months of Yunus and Nuvurus were not often used, possibly because they could easily be misread as Nevruz. Iltizams of revenues not dependent on the agricultural cycle were often computed by the lunar calendar.

The total amount of the iltizam, divided by the number of days in its term, yielded an amount due per day, called the kist el-yevm. This daily portion, multiplied by the number of days in a payment period, equalled the amount due in each installment. It was also used to prorate a miiltezim’s liability: if his iltizam was so much for one year, then the daily portion was so much, but if the iltizam ran for more or less than an exact year, the amount to be added or subtracted could be determined by multiplying the daily portion by the number of days in question. Three years was the normal term or tahvil for a single iltizam, after which the mukataa was again offered for bidding. A six-year tahvil could result from the award of two three-year tahvils together.* Contracts of other lengths could also be made, and it was possible for a bid to be submitted in mid-term. If it was accepted,

the old miiltezim’s term would end as of that date and his liability would be prorated for the shorter time period.*° The examples below illustrate these and a number of other features of the iltizam system

as practiced in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. They reveal that the system was not static and that generalizations to the provincial officials of Basra in 1105/1694 making the same switch, on the ground that revenues of that province were tied to the agricultural calendar and the monsoon cycle (“Sivig Yili Buhranlari,” 78). These discrepancies occurred perennially in the tax systems of Muslim states; for the Mamluks see D.S. Richards, “A Mamluk Petition and a Report from the Diwan al-Jaysh,” BSOAS 40 (1977): 1-14. 45 KK 4990 (971/1563-64), p. 21, 2 tahvils; p. 22, 3 tahvils. For a fuller definition of the term “tahvil” see chapter 6. 46 An example is the iltizam of the mint in Diyarbekir, farmed to Bagdes(?) and his partners for three years in 1021, but bid on by Nikofor and partners after only two years had passed (AE I. Ahmed 336).

136 CHAPTER FOUR based on a single place or period must not be taken to represent the functioning of the system as a whole.

Bidding and Revenue Amounts A description of central finance department procedures and documents for iltizams must begin at the beginning, with the initiation of a bid.

The initiative for making a bid came from the bidder or talib in the form of a petition (arz). Any financially responsible person could bid on a tax farm, and bidders and other iltizam employees came from all branches of society: bureaucrats, religious personnel, military men,

local elites, merchants, well-to-do farmers, widows, tribal sheikhs, members of the non-Muslim communities, even slaves. Tax farming was one institution that brought the empire’s diverse populations together and gave them a reason to cooperate with the state and with each other.*’ Bidders presented petitions either at the court of the kadi

serving as nazir or miifettig of the mukataa or at the imperial divan in Istanbul. Information on the bid and on guarantors for the sum offered was recorded in the kadi sicills and a copy (suret) in the form of a tezkire or telhis was sent to Istanbul for recording in the mukataa iltizam registers. For a bid presented in Istanbul, the telhis was produced

by the divan scribes and communicated to the local kadi, who recorded it in his sicil. The kadi was also required to find kefils for the amount bid and was sometimes called upon to testify to the bidder’s

financial capability or find witnesses to do so.* Accounts from later periods show that during the nineteenth century, iltizams were offered to bidders only at particular times and in public gatherings or auctions regulated by kanun and carefully over*7 Mark Alan Epstein, The Ottoman Jewish Communities and Their Role in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Iskamkundliche Untersuchungen, 56 (Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1980), 107-11; Gerber, “Jewish Tax-Farmers in the Ottoman Empire,” 143; Eisenstadt, Political Systems of Empires, 129. For a slave holding a tax farm (with his master as a guarantor) see Halil Inalcik, “Bursa I: XV. Asir Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihine Dair Vesikalar,” Belleten 24 [1960]: 45-66, 244-58; rpt. in Osmanli Imparatorlugu Toplum ve Ekonomi iizerinde Arsiv Caligsmalari, Incelemeler (Istanbul: Eren Yayinlan, 1993], 238).

In England tax farming and its rewards in contacts and privileges were reserved for the upper nobility and in France for the great financiers, though both groups drew on less important people as investors (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs;” Bonney, “Failure of the French Revenue Farms,” 21-22). “8 A tezkire from the finance department to the kad: of Istanbul making these requests is AE Kanuni 221.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 137 seen to preserve order and prevent fraud.” While similarly regulated public auctions may have been held in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the records hold little trace of such a practice; most of the time it appears that the presentation of an arz was sufficient to constitute

a bid.°° As part of his bid, the talib agreed to follow certain procedures, such as submitting all or part of the total sum in advance or in regular installments, rendering accounts at the end of each year of his term, or presenting kefils for all or part of the amount pledged—

so that, one group of bidders was told, the money would not be embezzled nor the reaya oppressed.°! In turn, the talib could pose certain conditions of his own. Individual petitions from persons bidding on tax farms can be found

in the archives primarily in the Ali Emiri collection of documents; a typical example is AE Kanuni 274 dated 969/1561-62.” This petition,

addressed to the sultan, did not name the sender (intimating that he presented the petition in person), but an appended note (der kenar) identified him as Mustafa, a member of the silahdar corps, presenting his petition in the imperial divan. Mustafa requested the iltizam of all mukataas in Edirne and offered to pay a 100,000-akce increase (ziyade) over the current price (al-as/) for each one, with the condition

(sart) that he be granted the positions of nazir (financial inspector) and sehremini (city administrator) of Edirne and emin of the beyttilmal

(controller of the estates of those dying without heirs). Another appended note indicated that the current nazir, Seyyid Mehmed, had held these three offices for the preceding 17 years. Above the petition, in the wide margin left for further notes, were copies of register entries verifying the date of appointment of Seyyid Mehmed to his offices. Finally, the uppermost line of the document was an order (buyuruldu) containing the decision to appoint Silahdar Mustafa to replace Seyyid

49 Haim Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 161-64; Eli Eshkenazi, “Za Nachina na Subiraneto na Niakoi Danutsi v Zapadna Bulgariia prez XIX V. do Osvobozhdenieto,” Izvestiia na Instituta za Istoriia 16-17 (1966): 344-45. 50 The seventeenth-century writer Koci Bey used the word auction (bey men yezid) for iltizam sales but did not describe the procedure employed; Kogi Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 56; Zuhuri Danisman translates the same term as acik artirma, open bidding (Koci Bey Risalesi, Tiirk Kiiltiirii Kaynak Eserleri Dizisi [Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1972], 57). For a description of the bidding process used in Egypt see Shaw, Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 31-41. 51 Halil Sahillioglu, “Osmanli Idaresinde Kibris’in Ik Yili Biitgesi,” Belgeler 4, no. 7/8 (1967): 30. °2 AE Kanuni 269 and 271 are similar in format.

138 CHAPTER FOUR Mehmed, with the effective date and a notation setting his salary (no raise was granted, possibly in view of the opportunity for enrichment offered by the iltizam).

Some petitions were written by kadis on behalf of bidders who presented their bids orally in court. One example is a petition written

by the kadi of Selanik on behalf of a resident of that city named Ibrahim b. Omer, who appeared before him to bid for the mukataa of the Seftali Haslar1 for a 3-year period beginning 1 Mart or 18 Zilkade 982/1 March 1575.3 Omer undertook (kabil ve iltizam) a 3000-akce ziyade, for a total of 33,000 akce over three years, to be guaranteed by Ali b. Abdullah, a resident of the same quarter. The kadi ascertained that both of these men were capable and diligent (yarar ve maslahatgiizar), recorded the bid in his register (sicil), and composed and transmitted the petition. More common in the archives than actual petitions are documents called telhis or tezkire which repeat and record the information in the petitions. They appear either as individual documents or bound or copied into registers called mukataa ait arz tezkireleri (reports on petitions concerning mukataas). In archival catalogues, tezkires can be found under the terms talebname (document of request), fiiruht (sale), and tevcih (bestowal). The tezkires themselves do not indicate how they were produced, but a catalog description for one states that it was written by the Aydin katibi, a provincial scribe.-* It seems likely, however, that most were written by the nazir or miifettis of the mukataa at the time the bids were made. They were then sent to the central finance department for compilation in registers, accompanied by the bidder’s petition. Clearly, then, the tezkires record bids which were (at least temporarily) successful. The central government’s record of tezkires was authoritative, as can be seen by a register entry

concerning a group of four mukataas in Selanik. A janissary named Omer Cafer was awarded the position of emin of these mukataas by the central government, but when he arrived in Selanik he found that three of them, traditionally awarded separately from the fourth, had > KK 4994 (983/1575—76), p. 3. Records of petitions written by kadis for bids on iltizams (called arzname) can be found in the kadi: sicills; see Inalcik, “Bursa Kadi Sicillerinden Secmeler: I,” 40. See also Halit Ongan, Ankara’nin Iki Numarali Ser’iye Sicili, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 14, no. 4 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi,

1974), nos. 416, 471, 476, 486, 489, concerning a single case; another case, nos. 153, 713, 714, 766, 1685. Tbniilemin 42, dated 984/1576—77.

TAX FARMING (iLTIZAM) 139 been granted locally to a Selanik resident. On the basis of his entry in the central government’s record of awards, Omer Cafer sought and

obtained an order overriding the local grant and giving him full collection rights over the four mukataas.> Whether individual documents or copied into registers, all tezkires/ telhisler in the archives have the same basic format: identification of the mukataa, identification of the bidder, details of both the old iltizam and the new bid with its conditions, and finally the decision and the effective date. The following example is typical.°° First, the mukataa

in question is defined: the emanet of the salt works of Selanik, currently held by Hiiseyin in iltizam (ber vech-i iltizam) at a salary of 140 akce per day. Then the talib, or bidder, is identified, in this case the same Hiiseyin and his partner Hac1 Mehmed Cavus. Then appear the current amount of the iltizam (fi al-asl), 8,600,000 for three years; the amount bid (the iltizam, or undertaking), 9,100,000 for three years beginning on the first of Yulyus/22nd of Rebiiilevvel 983/1575—76;

and the increase (ziyade) of the new bid over the old, 500,000 akce for the three-year period. Next, the entry explains that Hac1 Mehmed Cavus had come before the divan and undertaken the above bid (kabil ve iltizam eder) with the following conditions: that his current salary of 23 akce per day (8,142 per year) should remain in the treasury and that instead he should be given a zeamet (his first) of 25,000 akce;

that he should not have to wait for a zeamet but should receive the first one to fall vacant; that his partner Hiiseyin should receive a raise of 5000 akce; that a person named Muzaffar should receive an order for an initial timar of 2000 akce; and that the conditions of Hiiseyin’s previous bid should remain in force. A marginal note informs us that these conditions were accepted and the iltizam awarded to Hiiseyin and Haci1 Mehmed Cavus on 29 Muharram 983/10 May 1576. The intricate bidding process resulting in the above bid is detailed in another register entry concerning the same mukataa.°*’ This entry,

a petition from the kadi of Selanik, mentions the old iltizam of 8,600,000 held by Hiiseyin b. Hasan and partners Mehmed b. Ali and > KK 5019 (1038/1628-29), p. 3. °° KK 4994 (983/1575—76), p. 1. Bids by partnerships or consortia of bidders were not unusual in either the Ottoman Empire or western Europe, particularly after the consoli-

dation of the tax farms. For some Ottoman consortia, see Epstein, Ottoman Jewish Communities, 128-30; for France see Mousnier, /nstitutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2: 67. 57 KK 4994 (983/1575-76), p. 5.

140 CHAPTER FOUR Ali b. Tursun for the three-year period from 980/1572—73 to 983/

1575-76. A new bid had been made in 983/1575—76 by Zaim Sidrekapsili Dervis Mehmed, including a ziyade of 250,000 akce and a condition that he receive a 5000-akce increase in his zeamet. After that, Hac1 Mehmed bid 200,000 akce higher, bringing the total bid

to 9,050,000 akce, with the condition that he receive a salary raise of 4 akce per day. Subsequently, the miiltezim Hiiseyin b. Hasan (here identified as a member of the garrison of Selanik possessing an order

for a 6000-akce timar) combined forces with Hac1 Mehmed Cavus and appeared at the kadi’s court. They offered to match the 450,000 increase already bid (for a total bid of 9,050,000) on the following conditions: Hac1 Mehmed Cavus would receive a 7-ak¢e raise, Hiiseyin would receive a 10,000-akce increase in his timar, Muzaffar b. Abdullah

would receive a 2000-akce timar (presumably as recompense for assisting in the collection), and the conditions of Hiiseyin’s current iltizam would continue. Then one of the petitioners altered his condition: Hac1 Mehmed Cavus requested a zeamet of 30,000 akce instead of the 7-akce salary increase. The kadi’s decision, recorded in his sicil

on 25 Muharram 983/6 May 1575 and presented in the form of a petition, amended these conditions slightly: Hac1 Mehmed should be awarded a smaller zeamet of 25,000 akce, Hiiseyin a lesser increase of only 5000 akce, and Muzaffar the requested timar of 2000 akce. In the final offer presented in the divan, recorded in the tezkire analyzed above, the ziyade was raised from 450,000 to 500,000, although the conditions remained the same. The discrepancy between the last bid made before the kadi and the offer Hac1 Mehmed Cavus made four days later in the divan may result from the process of bargaining or from another unrecorded bid received during those four days.

It is interesting to note the identities of the bidders in this case: Hiiseyin b. Hasan, a member of the garrison of Selanik awaiting a timar; Hac1 Mehmed, a cavus of the Porte; and Dervis Mehmed, a zeamet-holder born in nearby Sidrekapsi, all members of the Ottoman askeri class, at least two with local ties. The identity of Muzaffar b. Abdullah is obscure, but his patronymic, Ibn Abdullah, and the fact

that he was awarded a small initial timar suggest that he was a rather lowly kapikulu in the local garrison who assisted the bidders as scribe or agent. A methodical study of bidders’ identities might well illuminate state-society relations over time. The kadi’s role in the negotiation seems at first glance to be merely that of recorder and transmitter, but on closer inspection he emerges as a negotiator

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 141 for the government and a mediator among the bidders. While arz and tezkire made up the usual format in which bids for iltizams were communicated to the central finance department, infor-

mation on bids can also be found in other register entries. For example, a register of orders on mukataas (mukataa ahkaém defteri), addressed mainly to kadis, contains an entry recording a petition by the nazir of Belgrad about a bid on mukataas in the area of Hersek and Dubrovnik, as well as one recording a bid made in the imperial divan for mukataas in Alaca Hisar and Semendire. Copied into a similar register is a long order to the miifettig of Yanya including the details of a bidding war between Ali Gureba-i Yemin and Isaak Yehudi and explaining the complex result.°> Mukataa iltizam defters, record-

ing the award of mukataas, also include data on the nature of the mukataa, the bidder’s identity, dates and amounts of the iltizam, names

of kefils, and sometimes additional information. Registers labelled fiiruht, “sales,” on the other hand, usually record not only details of the grant of iltizam but also payments submitted to the treasury, as do mukataa defters, also called mukataa tahvilat or “transfer” registers. Tevzi, or assignment, registers list what a havale should collect from miiltezims. All of these sources will be useful in putting together a picture of the mukataas of a particular area and tracking economic

and personnel changes over time. The potential value of an iltizam could be determined in a number of ways, depending on the type of revenue source. Kadis, as part of their fiscal responsibility, were often asked to investigate the revenue potential of mukataas being offered in iltizam. For example, a kadi’s report including figures from three previous iltizams was requested in 976/1568-69 for an iltizam in Edirne on which a bidder promised to pay a 120,000-akce increase. Previous registers were often used to set totals, as in a bid on the zeamet and ihtisab of Filibe based on an accounting register made when these revenues were collected in emanet. Sometimes the amount of an iltizam or a change in its total appears to have been the product of an estimate by the bidder. Local kanunnames set the rates for customs dues, production taxes, market tolls, fees, and fines, and although totals collected varied with levels of production and trade, years of experience by responsible individuals made it possible to project what they would be. One bidder’s estimate appears in a petition sent by a person offering to open 588 MM 687 (9820) 997-1012/1588-1603, pp. 20, 24; KK 4994 (983/1575-76), p. 54.

142 CHAPTER FOUR up a new iltizam consisting of two mines, the potential revenue of which he forecast as 100,000 akce per year. Another estimate appears

in a request from a miiltezim in Silistre: unable to collect the full amount he had contracted for because one of his revenue sources, a customs station (iskele) on the Danube, had been taken from the Ottomans, he sent a petition estimating that the iltizam should be reduced by half.’ Another vehicle for deciding an iltizam total was negotiation or power plays among interested parties. In one example, Hamza, a member of the ebna-1 sipahiyan, undertook an iltizam of 60,000 akce

for the stamp tax (damga resmi) and other taxes in Kayseri. The people of Kayseri, however, insisted that they were not accustomed to pay this tax and would abandon their homes unless it were lifted. In the face of their threat, the government agreed to forego this revenue and lowered the amount of the iltizam. The process worked the other

way when proceeds of the Damascus stamp tax on cloth (damga-i akmise), which paid the wages of the city’s garrison, proved insufficient to meet the salary total and the treasury lacked the funds to make

up the deficit. On that occasion, the government took the initiative, ordering an increase of 100 kurus per month in the mukataa of the stamp tax.” In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the revenues of has lands and other areas subject to tahrir came to be more extensively farmed, survey registers were frequently used to govern tax collection by iltizam, setting the amounts and rates of taxes and the conditions

under which they could be collected. For instance, a bid on various taxes in the havass-1 hiimayun of the sancaks of Hamid and Teke listed as the original amount (al-asl, the basis) the sum recorded in the new tahrir defter. The same source, a tahrir register, was used to determine the amount of an iltizam for taxes on newly founded villages near Karahisar-1 Teke not yet awarded as timars. A tahrir of Antalya in 974/1566—67 disclosed that merchants weighed their goods themselves at the scales (kKapan) of that city and did not pay a weighing * For the kadi’s report see AE Kanuni 275; for the accounting register see MM 687 (9820), p. 229 dated 1011/1602-3. For an example of a local kanunname, together with an extensive discussion of the various taxes and their origins, see Mihnea Berindei and Gilles Veinstein, “Les possessions ottomanes entre Bas-Danube et Bas-Dniepr: Reglements fiscaux et fiscalité de Bender-Aqkerman,” Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique 22 (1981): 251-328. For bidders’ estimates see MM 687 (9820) 998/1589-90, pp. 27, 275. © MM 2728 (3457) 1037/1627—28, pp. 62, 58.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 143 fee (Kapan resmi); when it was estimated that in a three-year period the weighing fee could bring in 90,000 akce, the kapan was immediately put up for bid. The close tie betwen the amount of an iltizam and the survey total is illustrated by a complaint from two collectors named Hasan and Mustafa regarding their iltizam of reaya taxes in 1055/1645—46. The reaya had left the land, and collecting the surveyed amount of tax was now impossible, but no new tahrir had been made reflecting the lowered revenue level. Because the iltizam was pegged to the survey, the tax farmers were forced to petition for a reduction in their iltizam.*! The original amount of an iltizam, however it was determined, would

naturally be raised in the course of bidding. Part of this increase was purely nominal: in a period of inflation, certain revenues rose automatically with the general rise in prices. This was especially true of revenues

collected in kind. In fact, tax farming can be regarded as a method of compensating for inflation on taxes whose amounts might be fixed

in monetary terms. As tithes of grain and other products from has, mevkuf, or vakif lands increased in price with inflation, the amount offered for the iltizam could rise without any increase in the percentage of crops levied. If nominal rates of taxes or fees were raised to

compensate for the falling value of the akce, the bid on an iltizam could also rise without representing a real increase in taxes. An increase

in iltizam prices might be based on a growth in volume of business, as in the case of customs or market dues, milling or dyehouse fees, and the like. In this way tax farming could tap commercial revenues generated by urbanization. Revenues of mines, salt works, and other productive enterprises could also increase considerably through price rises and increased production without putting any additional burden on the taxpayer. It is possible that the growth of iltizam bids, like the increase in cizye rates, did no more than keep pace with inflation.” The greatest real increase, as with the cizye and avariz, may have stemmed from raises in official salaries. 6! For iltizams in Hamid and Teke see MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fols. 97b, 54a. The tahrir defteri for Hamid could not be located, but an icmal register for Teke (TT 471) contains entries referring to these mukataas. The miihimme registers examined by Murphey regarding this tahrir apparently do not address the issue of tax farming (see Murphey, “Ottoman Census Methods,” 125-26). For the kapan of Antalya see MM 241 (115), fol. 64a; for Hasan and Mustafa’s complaint see MM 3881 (2765) 1055/1645—46,

i: ‘ “by the eighteenth century, the profit on tax farming in Egypt exceeded the amount paid to the government (Abdul Rahim Abdul Rahman, “Financial Burdens on the Peasants

144 CHAPTER FOUR When aspiring talibs bid against each other for an iltizam, the price

could rise more rapidly. For example, a group of three zimmis in partnership (ber vech-i istirak) held the iltizam of the has of Kalonya on the island of Midilli for the amount of 350,000 akce for three years from 974/1566—-67. The following year Silahdar Mahmud submitted

a bid of 355,000 akce. To prevent him from obtaining the iltizam, the zimmis countered with a bid of 370,000 akce, increasing the total by 5.7%. In a case from 969/1561-62, a bidding war between Abdiilcebbar and Ilyas for the mukataas of Aydin, Saruhan, and Mentese raised the amount bid by 1,100,000 akce (6.1% of the total); at that point the two bidders, probably recognizing that the upper limit had been reached, agreed to divide the mukataas between them, ending the price rise.” In register KK 4994 dated 983/1575—76, iltizams of

the Selanik mukataas increased by an average of 7.2% over their original prices of three years earlier. The revenue increase, averaging about 2% per year, was a little more than double the period’s inflation rate of slightly less than 1% per year. A register dated 1003/1594— 95. shows much greater increases after the rapid inflation of the 1580s, ranging from a minimal 5% to 148% of the original price; the average increase was 48%, or nearly half again the original price.“ In other registers of the same period, however, increases were only 4% to 8%,

well below the inflation rate. On the other hand, the 8.5% increase offered by a bidder in 1067/1656—57, a period of price stability, must

have exceeded inflation.” More detailed study of these increases is needed to clarify the pricing of iltizams, the degree of real growth

in amounts demanded, and the actual incidence of oppression in Ottoman tax farming.

under the Aegis of the Iltizam System in Egypt,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 12 [1976]: 122-38). Whether this was universally true has yet to be determined, but it does not seem to have been the case in the first half of the seventeenth century. In seventeenth-century England, despite the inflation of the period, customs rates were infrequently updated and thus were usually well below the actual value of goods taxed, allowing bids to rise by what look like astounding amounts (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” 144). ° For the Kalonya iltizam see MM 241 (115), fol. 44b; for the Aydin area see MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 36b. Cizakca has used data on the bidding prices and rate of turnover of iltizams to determine the competitiveness of a number of tax farms (“TaxFarming and Financial Decentralization,” 222); unfortunately, his data do not begin until 1593, so they cannot be compared with figures from the 1570s. * MM 949 (7597) 1003/1594-95; but compare MM 989 (2768) 1004/1595-96, MM 1176 (624) 1007/1598-99, and KK 5008 (1012/1603—4). 6 MM 4550 (7455), p. 11.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 145 Another justification for an increase might lie in prior undervaluation of the revenue source. A case in point involved the grain tithe of the kaza of Alasehir in Aydin, held in iltizam by Sinan and Piri for the amount of 27,000 akce, which was raised by a bidding war

in 970/1562—63 (well before the period of high inflation) by an astounding 181%. If the new iltizam total of 73,000 akce was really

payable from normal mukataa revenue, then the old amount must have been considerably less than the value of grain taken in tax. It was recognized that a village’s taxes could be arbitrarily raised through the bidding process, and some care was taken to ensure that the resulting

sum was not extortionate. When the tax of a village in Karaman, a maktu of 2500 akce, became the object of a bid of 3000 akce, a 20% increase, the order from the capital explicitly noted that awarding the

iltizam at that level constituted a rise in taxes for the village, but it pointed out that the village was comfortably off and quite capable of paying the increased sum.°’ Iltizam amounts could not be increased indefinitely. A natural ceiling

on the extent to which a bid could be raised was formed by the capacity of the revenue source to generate new income. A bidder could always increase his bid based on potential extortion or illegal increases in the tax rate, but that course was risky. Later chapters will explore what happened to miiltezims who attempted to increase their revenue through extortion or fraud. Here we will examine the normal

course of events when a mukataa’s revenue failed to reach the miiltezim’s contracted amount. In general terms, when this happened the iltizam was re-awarded at a loss (noksan iizere or kesr tizere) or else assigned as emanet (ber vech-i emanet). The first method lowered

the total demand to an amount within the capacity of the revenue source, while the second also absolved the emin from personal responsibility for the final sum. For example, when the term of Turak, miiltezim of rice farms (celttik) and villages in Elmali, ended in 971/1563—64, no bidders were found

for the next term because the irrigation system was in disrepair and the revenues were in deficit (kulli kesirleri olmagin). Pir Fakih was appointed to collect the revenues ber vech-i emanet, on condition that 6 MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 40a. 87 MM 4550 (7455) 1067/1656—-57, p. 18. The same care was taken with respect to other taxes: when a sancak bey doubled the levy of oil due from a village in Tirhala and villagers complained they were unable to deliver that much, the amount was lowered,

though not to the original level (MM 2728 [3457], p. 67).

146 CHAPTER FOUR he repair the irrigation works. In another instance, several mukataas in Aydin (a rice farm, an oil press, and several mezraas) had been combined in a single iltizam of 500,000 akce which showed a deficit (kiilli kesir gosterip). A new miiltezim was found who undertook the iltizam at the reduced amount of 300,000 akce, but he was required to provide kefils who were not in debt or involved in other mukataas, in case he had difficulty meeting even that lowered amount. The nazir who nominated him also pointed out the need to reexamine the merging

of these disparate income sources, presumably to determine exactly where and why the deficit occurred. Another example involves the mukataas of Athens, awarded in iltizam for three years in 969/1561— 62 for 141,000 akce. In 972/1564—65, the next award date, there were no bidders except Cafer b. Abdullah, who offered 21,000 akce less than the previous iltizam (kesr tizere), a total of only 120,000 akce. He must have perceived that the treasury was desperate to sell this mukataa, because he put numerous conditions on his undertaking, all of which were accepted. In Kastamonu, the year 1020/1611—-12 was particularly bad because of Celali disturbances. No miiltezim could collect anywhere near what he had contracted for, and the miifettis received permission to sell every iltizam for 100,000 akce less than its previous price.® In all these cases the treasury can be seen to prefer the assured receipt of a lower income to the greater risk involved in obtaining a higher sum. Fluctuations in bids for iltizams should be a sensitive indicator of local economic conditions and ought therefore to be studied carefully by local historians.

Bidders’ Conditions and Personnel Recruitment A feature of the iltizam system that increased the power of successful bidders was the conditions (sartlar or surut, sing. sart) under which an iltizam was awarded. At first the term “sart” seems to have referred

merely to the circumstances of the iltizam, but it came to connote demands made by the bidder, whose bid was conditioned on governmental acceptance of these demands. The finance department, in return, imposed conditions on the bidder, generally having to do with proper collection and recording procedures. This section will investigate bid& MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fols. 26a; 77b; 44a (see also fols. 38a, 94a, and KK 4990 [971/1563-64], p. 21); AE I. Ahmed 479.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 147 ders’ conditions; conditions imposed by the government will be discussed later. These conditions reflect aspirations of participants in the system and problems commonly encountered. According to register MM 241 (115), in the period from 970/1562-63 to 974/1566—67 fewer

than half the bidders put conditions on their bids, but by 976/156869, after the accession of Selim II, the frequency with which conditions were included in bids increased greatly and the conditions themselves became more elaborate. By the turn of the century, these conditions had become standard procedure, and their execution was recorded in shorthand form.” Certain bidders sought to ensure that during their tahvil, conditions prevailing in the previous term would continue to apply. In a typical example, Ilyas, the successful bidder on the mukataas of Aydin, made his bid “on condition that the conditions formerly in effect would continue.” “Conditions,” referred to in this way, generally meant the salaries of the emin and katib. Some bidders made this more explicit, as in a bid made “on condition that the old salaries be continued from the starting date.” Others made their requests in more detail: “on condition that the former salaries of 10 akce per day be continued.” One petition on behalf of a new miiltezim named Mehmed, taking over a mukataa from the former emin, Mirza, requested specifically “that the aforementioned Mirza’s salary of 12 akce per day be [given] to him.” From here it was an easy step to specifying a new salary unconnected to the old; Mahmud b. Hac, for instance, made his bid

“on condition that he be emin with 15 akce per day.” Another common set of conditions had to do with specifying who should occupy the iltizam’s administrative offices (and collect the attached salaries). The most important office was that of emin, the person in charge of collecting the tax or revenue. Ordinarily the successful bidder, the miiltezim, served as emin, but not invariably; he could appoint someone else to that office. Cafer b. Abdullah’s bid on the mukataas of Athens, mentioned above, proposed Mustafa b. Bali as his kefil “on this condition, that the aforementioned Mustafa ®° See MM 687 (9820), p. 279, entries dated 1010/1601-2. ” MM 241 (115) 969/1563-64, fol. 36b: sol sartla ki... sabika eyledikleri surut dahi mukarrer olmak tizere; KK 4994 (983/1575—76), p. 58: sol sartiyla ki mevacib-i kadime

ibtida-i tarihten mukarrer olup; MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 87a: sol sartla ki mukaddema olan yevmi on akce ulufeleri mukarrer olup; MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 53b: mezkur Mirzanin yevmi on iki akce ulufesi kendiye olup; MM 241 (115) 969/

1561-62, fol. 25b: sol sartla ki kendisi yevmi on bes akce ile emin olup. }

148 CHAPTER FOUR be emin of the aforementioned mukataa at 4 akce per day and that he himself be katib at 2 akce per day.” The position of katib could also be made the subject of a condition. Mahmud b. Hac, who took the job of emin, made the additional condition “that a person named Hayirca b. Salih... be katib.”” Ahmed b. Mehmed bid on three mukataas with three kefils, under the condition that each kefil should serve

as katib for one mukataa. In many cases the bidder did not name a specific candidate, but demanded that the job be filled by “the person he wanted.” In some cases, bidders shared a position and the attached

salary in partnership (ber vech-i istirak), like Mehmed Cavus and Sinan Cavus, dual nazirs of the mukataas of Selanik.” It is not yet known how many of these requests were granted or whether any were refused. The appointment of functionaries as a condition of a bid rapidly extended to positions beyond emin and katib. For instance, Zaim Ilyas

bid on the mukataas of Aydin and Saruhan on condition that he be appointed nazir. It is doubtless through such conditions that the office of nazir came to be occupied by non-kadis, causing the interposition of the miifettis to maintain legal oversight of mukataas. By the seventeenth century most nazirs came from the ranks of cavuses, some as successful bidders themselves but many nominated to their positions by miiltezims. It also became increasingly popular in the seventeenth century to request a cavusluk for someone as a condition of an iltizam, though in the mid-sixteenth century the popular request had been for a yayabasilik (command of foot troops, possibly even then a nominal position).” In the mid-seventeenth century, when the number of salaried miisaherehoran of all types was decreasing, the corps of cavuses still numbered 709; the attraction of the job and the new responsibilities and opportunities it represented are not well understood.” ™ MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 44a: sol sartla ki mezkur Mustafa yevmi dért akce ile mukataa-i mezbureye emin olup ve kendisi yevmi iki akce ile katib olup; see also KK 4994, p. 34, where the miiltezim Yunus Ser-Oda nominated Dervis Mehmed b. Pervane as the emin of the mukataa of Modon. MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 25b: ve Hayirca b. Salih nam kimesne ... katib olup; KK 4994 (983/1575-76), p. 2; MM 241 (115) 969/ 1561-62, fols. 53b, 69a, 76b: kendi istedigi kimesne/kimesneler olup; KK 4990 (971/156364), p. 21. ” Nazir: MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 36b. Nazir-1 nuzzar: MM 687 (9820) 997— 1012/1588—1603, p. 216. Cavuses as nazirs: MM 241 (115), fol. 93a; MM 687 (9820), pp. 11, 166, 167; KK 4994, p. 21; yayabagilik: MM 241 (115), passim. Other positions made the object of conditions in bidding include yasak¢i (enforcer or guard) and dideban

(watchman), for which see MM 241 (115), fol. 69a; MM 687 (9820), pp. 13, 30. ™ KK 3406 (1071/1660). In the seventeenth century there were cavuses stationed in all the major cities of the empire (Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 291).

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 149 Some bidders had several nominations to make. For example, Reis

Mehmed b. Hiiseyin specified as a condition of his iltizam that he

be appointed nazir, that the current katib be retained, that other employees of the mukataa (huddam) be whoever he wanted, and finally,

that the miifettis be the kadi of his choice. Reis Mehmed may have been seeking to surround himself with allies, or perhaps to reward previous favors. The latter motive seems to have animated Daud, a bidder for the mukataas of Sakiz, who requested a 30-akce increase in the salary allotment, to be distributed among the employees as he saw fit. More people paid out of iltizam revenues, of course, meant that less money was remitted to the treasury. Miiltezims even pre-

sumed to nominate kadis. One bidder made the condition that a dismissed miifettig and kadi of Halomic, Semseddin, be restored to his position, another that the kadi of Yanya be made kad: of Tirhala and miifettis of all his mukataas.” A study of kadis’ relationships with

local officials and notables might be quite helpful in understanding tax farming as well as other problems in local administration. Bidders soon demanded not just salaries or positions on the iltizam, but jobs in governmental cadres which could provide salary and status

on an ongoing basis. Bidders made such demands not only on their own behalf or on behalf of those who worked with them on the iltizam, but increasingly on behalf of people apparently unrelated to the iltizam,

possibly relatives or protegés. By so doing, they could surround themselves with people they knew and trusted while providing employment for members of their entourage. Looking back at some previous examples, Mahmud b. Hac requested that Hayirca b. Salih,

his chosen katib, be recompensed not with a salary but with a yayabasilik. Zaim Ilyas, bidding on the mukataas of Aydin and Saruhan, specified that he receive a 10,000-akce increase (terakki) to his timar

and that Abdiilcebbar, his former competitor and now collaborator, be enrolled in the military corps as a silahdar. One bidder had himself enrolled as a cavus with a zeamet. Another requested a 10,000-akce increase in the timar of a muteferrika named Osman.” A miiltezim

in Sofya made the condition that Hasan b. Abdullah, an azeb, or locally recruited fortress guard, receive a position in the mehter, the military band. Cafer b. Abdullah, who wrote himself in as katib to the mukataas of Athens, demanded that Dervis Mehmed, one of the 74 MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fols. 39a, 80a; KK 4994 (983/1575-76), pp. 63, 4. ™ MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fols. 25b, 36b, 79a; KK 4994 (983/1575—76), p. 65; MM 687 (9820) 997—-1012/1588-1603, p. 153.

150 CHAPTER FOUR garrison troops, be confirmed in his gedik for the duration of the iltizam, and that Cafer b. Mehmed’s timar be given to Ahmed b. Mustafa, another member of the garrison. Hizir, the former miiltezim of the same iltizam, had held the command of the fortress (dizdarlik)

as a condition of his iltizam.”° The Ali Emiri collection contains a portion of a register recording appointments of military men in tax collection positions through conditions made by successful bidders on

iltizams.”” The nature of the links between those who received positions and the miiltezims who nominated them is not explained; its exploration may be a task for local history. If well understood, the employment conditions made by miiltezims in a particular area would throw a fascinating light not only on patronage patterns but also on the process by which the empire’s ruling class became involved in the local economy. Still other types of conditions could be imposed. It was typical for bidders on iltizams made up of more than one revenue source to request that any surplus in one be used to make up a deficit in the other.” The bidders would be spared having to dig into their own

resources to make up a deficit, while the government could pair unprofitable mukataas with profitable ones to make them more attractive to bidders. Another popular condition was that, after providing kefils for the amount bid, the miiltezim should be allowed to proceed

directly with tax collection. This might have been an attempt to circumvent the long wait for an official berat or to forestall competition for the iltizam.” It was common to request that if a campaign (sefer) took place during the term of an iltizam, the employees, even if military, would remain at home in the service of the treasury. Not at all unusual was the condition of a bidder named (ironically) Sefer that if a campaign occurred during his tahvil he be allowed to send a substitute.*? The miifettig and nazir of the Bozdogan mukataas petitioned on behalf of 7° MM (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 43a. " TI. Mehmed 170, dated 1010/1602-3. 8 Birinin fazlasi birinin kesrine mahsub olup; e.g., KK 4990, p. 22. The linking of mukataas in this way over a long period was one means by which larger and more complex iltizams were created (Sahillioglu, “Bir Miiltezim Zimem Defterine Gore,” 148. ™ MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 54a. 80 Ve tahvili iginde sefer-i hiimayun vaki olursa varmayip mal-t miri hizmetinde ola: e.g., MM 687 (9820) 997-1012/1588—-1603, pp. 44, 64. For Sefer see MM 241 (115), fol. 97b: ve tahvili iginde sefer-i hiimayun vaki oldukta yerine yarar cebeliisiin génderip kendisi mukataa zabtina kalip.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 151 the emin of the celtiik (rice farms), a member of the cavalry corps of ulufeciyan-t yemin who was ordered on service in Egypt just as the rice harvest drew near; since the imperial revenue would be harmed

if the rice were not collected properly, the emin was allowed not to go to Egypt with his troop.*’ The frequency of this demand suggests the extent to which the military had become involved in tax farming. Employees holding timars then had to request permission to retain possession of their timars even though they had not gone on campaign. Bidders had an influential bargaining point if recipients of treasury salaries for military or other services left that money in the treasury (hazine mande) and were recompensed from iltizam revenues not yet collected; this practice amounted to a short-term loan as well as a transfer of risk. As the number of absentees and substitutes rose,

however, a military corps could be thrown into disorder. Extended involvement of military men in tax farming could clearly be detrimental to military efficiency, whatever its effect on taxpayers or the revenue system. Bidders often worried that someone installed as miiltezim but later

outbid by a rival would lose not only his position but also the perquisites attached to it. To prevent this, talibs often negotiated to retain the benefits for which they had bargained even if they lost the iltizam. For example, the timariot Sefer, mentioned above, stipulated that he should retain the 15,000-akce increase to his timar if a higher bidder came along before the end of his tahvil. Another common condition

was that a successful bidder not be replaced in mid-term. Mehmed, bidding on the iltizam of certain evkaf lands, specified that his position of miitevelli not be taken away for three years, no matter what befell the iltizam. Mehmed Cavus and Sinan Cavus were among the many to demand that they be allowed to match any higher bid made during their tahvil so they could retain their iltizam.** The popularity of this condition suggests that the government was attempting to maximize its income by accepting higher bids for mukataas at any time during 3! MM 687 (9820), p. 64 dated 1000/1592-93; MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 88b. Several registers of such people, iltizam employees excused from campaign in order to collect revenues, are bound together in register Divan-1 Hiimayun Muhtelif ve Mutenevvi Defterler 47, dated in the 980s. One entry on p. 55 even added up the total amount of money involved in order to demonstrate the benefit to the state of having these people stay home and collect taxes. 8 MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 76b: ve mezkur tevliyetler ic yili degin elinden alinmayip; ibid., fol. 97b: ve tahvili tamam olmadin emanet-i mezbureyi gayri kimesne gelip ziyade edip elinde alirsa sadaka olunan terakki iizerine mukarrer olup.

152 CHAPTER FOUR the term rather than waiting for the end of a tahvil. While this practice was not outside the treasury’s rights, its too-frequent application could

induce disorder in the revenue system. Bidders’ demands could become quite extravagant, but the government retained the right to modify or reject them if necessary. For example, the timariot Sefer, who had requested a 15,000-ak¢e increase

to his timar, was actually granted one of 4,000 akce. A bidder on the salt works of Aydin, where the previous emin had been paid 30 akce per day, requested an increase to 50 but was awarded 41, while the emin of customs at the port of Antalya, who requested 45 akce per day when the previous emin received 35, was allowed 40. The grant of a cavusluk to Mahdi b. Murad, who demanded it as a condition of undertaking an iltizam on the Danubian ports of Vidin and Nigbolu,

-was made conditional on the successful completion of his three-year tahvil.®? In general, the government seems to have sought a compromise position rather than reject a request outright. Once made, an agreement had the force of a contract to which both sides were expected to adhere. The seriousness with which the agreement was taken is shown in the case of the bidder Yunus Ser-Oda, who had requested as one of his conditions that the agalik of the azebs of Modon be assigned to a man named Ibrahim. When the agalik was

granted to someone else, Yunus considered his contract with the government broken and abandoned revenue collection, leaving his tahvil vacant. Another miiltezim, Mustafa b. Dizdar Hiisrev, awarded the iltizam of Yanya, Karli Ili, and Inebahti in 983/1575—76, stated in a petition that as the conditions he had requested were not accepted, it would be impossible to fulfill the undertaking and he would aban-

don it, leaving the revenues uncollected.”

Iltizam Supervision A relatively decentralized tax collection system like the iltizam system needed built-in supervision mechanisms to avoid degenerating into a free-for-all of self-aggrandizement. The primary supervisor of an iltizam MM 241 (115) 969/1561—62, fols. 97b, 69a; MM 687 (9820) 997-1012/1588-1603, . 83 173. ° ¢ Yunus: Mezbur Ibrahimin agaligi ahara verilmekle sartim bozuldu deyii iltizamdan ve kefilleri kefaletten riicu edip miibaseret eylemeyip mukataanin tahvili hali kalmagin (KK

4994 [983/1575-76], p. 35; Mustafa: Zikr olunan gsartlar makbul olmadigi takdirce

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 153 was the nazir, who provided security for the revenue, as recorded in a register entry appointing Hiiseyin Cavus as nazir-1 miiltezim of the

mukataas of Sofya in 997/1589-90.© He was ordered to work in conjunction with the miifettis to locate sufficient kefils for all the mukataas in his charge, men who were capable and wealthy; have them properly recorded, with their address and reputation, in the kad1

sicills; and send a signed and sealed copy of the list to the capital. He was not to allow collection of money by anyone without a berat. He was to inspect the accounts of every mukataa and demand detailed registers from the katibs, go over the accounts in the presence of the mufettis, sign and seal them as proof of accuracy, and send them on to the capital. The traditional duties of the cavus were communication and transportation, which may explain the large number of cavuses acting as nazirs, and it is not surprising to find cavuses particularly involved in the transfer of mukataa revenues around the empire. The same duties detailed in the order above were listed in an arz and telhis (petition and report) regarding the appointment of Mahmud b. Sah

Kulu as nazir of the Ede Haslari in Edirne in 979/1571-72, and we can observe them being carried out in a telhis for the mukataa of the weighing scales of Antalya in 974/1566—67.*° The latter document, written by the nazir Yahya, kad: of Lazkiye, verified the appointment of an emin and katib, the examination of their detailed (miifredat) and summarized muhasebe registers, and the dispatch of the revenues under the nazir’s supervision. In the seventeenth century nazirs also functioned as miiltezims for a number of mukataas, which may have been those designated as ocaklik for garrison troops; in this case the nazir was granted wide jurisdictional powers in the area of the mukataa.*’ Two register entries show that the nazir of the mukataas of Mentese had a katib and describe the appointment and duties of this function-

ary. Like the nazir, he was employed to ensure that tax farmers submitted what they were supposed to. He was ordered to collect the detailed registers of the emins, katibs, and amils of the mukataas for which the nazir was responsible, to inspect their muhasebes one by

one, to compile a muhasebe for the whole iltizam and obtain the iltizamimiza cevaba imkan olmamagin miibaseret olunmayip feragat mukarrer oldugu (KK

re Mak ei) (9820) 997-1012/1588-1603, p. 11. 86 KK 4994, pp. 36, 37; MM 241 (115), fol. 64a; see also KK 4994 p. 47 (kefils) and MM 241 (115) fol. 34b (duties). 87 Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 271-73.

154 CHAPTER FOUR signatures of the nazir and miifettis, and finally to submit it, together

with any proceeds, to the treasury. The miifettis, in our sources, was always a kadi, usually the kadi of the area where the mukataa was located, though sometimes bidders

requested the right to select another kadi as miifettis. Qualified by piety, probity, and good management, the miifettis exercised general oversight over mukataas in his charge, making sure that personnel performed their jobs correctly, that any who died or departed were replaced with suitable persons, and that accounts were properly submitted. He was ultimately responsible for seeing that miiltezims obtained kefils attested in court as capable of guaranteeing their bids,

and that collectors delivered the amounts due. He also adjudicated disputes and handled complaints or sent them to the capital.” The miifettig rarely appeared as a central character in iltizam records; he was the person from whom petitions came and to whom orders were sent, the intermediary and inspector, overseeing work performed by others. Neither he nor the nazir ordinarily took part in the operation of the mukataa, but both were important in ensuring that the system functioned smoothly and correctly. As iltizam supervisor the miifettis was rarely involved in crooked dealings, but it did occasionally happen. However, the checks and balances of the system, giving immediate attention to complaints of illicit behavior by officials, operated to restrain the miifettis and limit

the damage. One example in the records is the case of Mevlana Abdullah, miifettis of the mukataas of Kili, Akkerman, Tulca, and Isaakci prior to 1005/1597-98: after ordering large amounts of money transferred from various mukataas to pay for repairs to the fortifications of Kili, he paid out only a fraction of the amount and embezzled the rest. The governor of Silistre blew the whistle, and a new man, Musliheddin, was appointed miifettis, while a sealed order was pro-

duced to prevent Abdullah from acting further and to command a proper inspection of the matter.”? In another case, two miiltezims working in partnership reported that the four former emins of their mukataas had been working for Mevlana Ahmed, a resident of Izdin who exercised undue power in that region.”’ Even though the four

** MM 241 (115) fols. 36a, 42b. °° MM 687 (9820) 997-1012/1588-1603, p. 10; AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 3, 13. MM 687 (9820) 997-1012/1588-1603, p. 162. °! Mezburun ol diyarda kiivvet-i kahiresi olmagin; AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 13.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 155 miiltezims had committed irregularities in collection which had considerably harmed imperial income during their term, Mevlana Ahmed, as miifettis, had approved and signed their registers. An inspection was ordered and an imperial kapici1 named Mustafa was appointed as miibasir, executor, to perform it. Kefils appeared in the documents frequently as names but rarely as actors. If the mukataa functioned well, producing enough revenue to meet the miltzim’s bid, kefils were not called upon to do anything more than stand waiting in the wings for a call that never came. Only if the miiltezim defaulted were they required to act. Nevertheless, they were carefully sought out, recorded, and screened for financial capability in the court of the kadi serving as nazir or miifettis. The kad heard witnesses who testified to the general probity of the kefils and their ability to pay the amounts pledged. Some reports labeled the kefils miizekkda, legally competent as witnesses; their honesty could not be doubted.” They were also described as maldar (wealthy), mal edasina kadir (able to pay the money), yarar (capable), makbul (wellesteemed), or yerli yurtlu (local residents, known to all and unlikely to disappear before the end of the iltizam). Kefils were usually recorded in the kadi’s sicil at the time a bid was accepted and a telhis

or tezkire written. Often they were listed in the tezkire itself, but sometimes their names appear in a separate document.” This document is called kefil defteri, kiifela defteri, or kefilname, and it is usually

vouched for as a signed and sealed copy of the list in the kadi’s records (imzali ve mihiirlii suret-i sicil). As such, it often includes the names of suhud, official witnesses to court proceedings and to the identities and reputations of local people involved in cases, who testified to the kefils’ ability to meet their commitments. The number of kefils 7 MM 241 (115), fol. 87a. In contrast, the guarantees on French tax farms were nearly worthless: tax farmers were usually guaranteed by their own business associates, who would often go bankrupt if the tax farmers themselves failed, while the advances required amounted to only three months’ revenue (Bonney, “Failure of the French Revenue Farms,” 14). > Tezkires listing kefils include MM 241 (115) fol. 21b, 28a, 48b, 51a; AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 9. In MM 687 (9820) 997—1012/1588-1603, p. 34, kefils were described as kiifela bi’l-mal ber muceb-i defter-i Mevlana Seyfullah kadi-i Yenipazar el-miifettis, “guarantors

of the money, according to the register of Mevlana Seyfullah, kadi of Yenipazar, the miifettis.” KK 4994, p. 45, is a copy of a sebeb-i tahrir from the kadi of Edirne listing the kefils of Dervis Bey b. Ya&ma, miiltezim of the Ede Has in 982/1574—75, while a separate kefil register is AE II]. Murad 286: suret-i kefilname-i mukataa-t iskele-i Ahyolu deruhde-i Andonaki ve Manul el-miilteziman, “copy of the kefilname for the mukataa of the port of Ahyolu, which is in the possession of the miiltezims Andonaki and Manul.”

156 CHAPTER FOUR listed depended on their wealth and the size of the sum to be covered;

in the documents examined the number of kefils ranged from 1 to over 100. In the sixteenth century, iltizams could be awarded without kefils. The need for kefils was sometimes obviated by payment of all or part of the iltizam in advance (ber vech-i pisin); such advances were called bedel-i kefalet, substitute for kefils.* In time, however, provision of kefils was required for obtaining an iltizam. A bid covered by guarantors was favored over one that was not, and bidders without kefils were ordered to provide them.” When a man named Receb offered no kefils for a 500,000-akce bid, the iltizam went for the same price to another bidder, Muharrem b. Abdiirrahman, who was able to supply them. In another case, the iltizam of the Mesih Pasa Has in Silistre, which had been in deficit under its three miiltezims, Osman of Silistre, Selman “the bankrupt Jew,” and his young son Mustafa, was awarded to Katib Mehmed for a year. Mehmed had only been collecting for eight months when Osman, concealing the fact that he had been ousted from his position, offered a higher bid and obtained the iltizam in the name of young Mustafa. Besides what he still owed on his old iltizam,

Osman was found to be embezzling from the new one. So Katib Mehmed made a new bid for six years, scarcely higher than the old one, but offering 133 kefils. Encouraged by the far greater chance that the treasury would receive its revenue, the finance department accepted this new bid with alacrity.” In a period of fiscal deficits like the late sixteenth century, the government did all it could to ensure receipt of its revenues in full; thus, a bidding war for the Istanbul dellaliye mukataa also became a “war of kefils.’” Kemal Yehudi, the original miiltezim, had bid 1,650,000 akce for the iltizam. After two years he had only paid 4 KK 4994, p. 21: ve bedel-i kefalet ber vech-i pisin miifettis marifetiyle sene ahda ve semanin ve tisama’ya Nevruzi irsaliyesinin ziimre-i sipahiyandan havale Mustafa yedi ile hazane-i amireye tysal ettigim yiiz bin akce bedel-i kefalet olsun, “and let the bedel-i kefalet of 100,000 akce be the Nevruz remittance for the year 981, which I deposited in the imperial treasury in advance with the knowledge of the miifettis, by the hand of

havale Mustafa of the sipahi corps” (see also ibid., p. 23; KK 4990, p. 2). °° MM 687 (9820) 997—1012/1588—1603, p. 32: kefil vermege aczleri olup mukataa hali

kalmagin, “since they were unable to give kefils and the mukataa remained vacant”; KK 4994, p. 26: yedi kere yiiz bin akce zarar-i mala yarar ve maldar kefilleri alinmak ferman olunduktan sonra, “after being ordered to obtain kefils capable and wealthy [enough] for a loss of 700,000 akce,” the bidder was granted the iltizam. °° For Receb see KK 4990, p. 22; for the Mesih Pasa Has see MM 687 (9820) 997-— 1012/1588—-1603, p. 34.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 157 216,325 akce, and a new bid of 1,850,000 was offered by Isaak, who

furnished kefils for 515,000 akce. A counter-bid by Diakomi of 1,900,000 akce included kefils for 600,000. Isaak then matched Diakomi’s bid and offered kefils for 615,000 akce. How to decide? The finance department sent a cavus to the kadi’s court with an order to bring together both bidders and their kefils, gather knowledgeable local people (ehl-i vukuf) to testify to their business acumen and ability

to meet their obligations, and award the iltizam to whichever bidder was better at the task and had more suitable and capable kefils. When the kad: decided on Isaak, his report described the kefils in full, showing not just their names but their backgrounds and occupations (most were

merchants, a few, doctors). The provision of kefils was also at issue

in a case from Akkerman. Officials there wrote several petitions protesting the re-granting of an iltizam to a derelict former official who was unable to produce kefils for his bid. The officials were worried because the iltizam revenues supported the fortress garrison, and this

miiltezim had shown a deficit (noksan tizere) in a previous iltizam. Without kefils, the deficit might be repeated. Besides, a good officer had been displaced from his position as one of this miiltezim’s latest conditions, and adequate defense of the fortress had become a matter of concern. The disposition of the case was not recorded in this entry, but it is likely that the kadi was ordered to demand that the miiltezim provide kefils or be replaced.” The state also tried to ensure receipt of its money by institution-

alizing the position of havale, assignee. A havale was someone authorized by possession of a havale, or letter of transfer, to take direct possession of state revenues on his own behalf or for transfer to the central treasury or to another recipient.”* On an iltizam, a havale

was a person other than the emin or miiltezim authorized to receive the revenues or to transfer them to the treasury or to the location where they would be spent. References to havales in sixteenth-century

iltizam records are sporadic; it is possible that it was ordinarily the miiltezim’s reponsibility to dispose of collected funds, and a havale *7 For the “war of kefils” see KK 4994, p. 42; for Akkerman see MM 687 (9820) 997— 1012/1588-1603, p. 271. 8 Inalcik, “Hawala,” 283. The French had a similar system whereby disbursements could be authorized, either centrally or locally, against the presentation of appropriate documentation (Mousnier, Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2: 18790; Dent, Crisis in Finance, 82). In England, on the other hand, only specially favored courtiers were able to obtain payments directly from tax farmers rather than from the treasury (Dietz, English Public Finance, 2: 343).

158 CHAPTER FOUR was appointed only when the iltizam’s revenues were assigned to a particular person, institution, or sultanic expenditure; when the central

treasury needed revenues in a hurry; or when the reliability of the emin was in question. One fifteenth-century order commanded that a havale appointed to transport revenues of the port of Mudanye to the treasury be sent on his way together with the amil (miiltezim) or his man; the two could serve as checks on each other.” At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the term havale gained an additional usage when miiltezims began nominating candidates to a post called mukim havale, resident assignee.! Having a local havale might be particularly appropriate when iltizam proceeds were deposited in a provincial treasury or spent locally rather than sent to Istanbul. For instance, Ruhullah Sefer was appointed as mukim havale in 1038/ 1628—29 for a mukataa in the province of Diyarbekir; the revenues were destined for the Diyarbekir treasury, so it made sense to appoint someone residing there to make the transfer.’®! It is also possible that

at this point miiltezims were able to demand that their own men be used to convey funds they had collected, which would permit them to draw the salary attached to the office of havale. An order from

the turn of the century appointed as havale a man named Hasan Teberdar, a sipahi’s son sent from the provinces to the capital with petition in hand, who may well have been the protegé of the miiltezim.'” This state of affairs lasted only about three decades, however, after

which the reins were tightened again. Appointments of havales are numerous in register KK 5019 dating from 1038/1628—29, but the new havales were the government’s men, mulazims or candidates for office

because of campaign service, who held a suret-i riius, a copy of an

entry in the riius defters, registers of appointment kept by the reistilkiittab, the chief scribe. One of these entries described in detail the task of a havale: Ahmed Nev Muslim Tuba, a member of the Six °° Inalcik, “Osmanh Idare, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Tarihiyle Ilgili Belgeler: Bursa I,” 4; these documents also record the sending of havales to collect revenues destined for a campaign and for garrison salaries (ibid., 19, 51). In England, assignments on the revenues

of customs farms could be transferred by purchase and seem to have circulated on the open market in the manner of bills of exchange, their value depending on estimates of the revenue yield (Harper, “Significance of the Farmers of the Customs,” 68). 1° MM 687 (9820), pp. 15, 28, 64, all dated 999-1000/1591-92; p. 28 reads: Daud bu sene mukim havalemiz olup kapidan havale gelmeye, “Daud this year should be our resident assignee—an assignee should not come from the Porte.” '! The tezkire appointing him and authorizing him to draw his salary from the revenues of the mukataa on a quarterly basis can be found in register MM 2728 (3457), p. 75.

'2 AE II. Mehmed 170, p. 8.

TAX FARMING (/LTIZAM) 159 Boliiks and a miilazim with a suret-i riius, was appointed havale for the Nevruz payments of the mukataas of Mora and Mezistre for the year 1038/1628—29. He was given a tevzi defteri, in this case a register

detailing the names of the miiltezims, emins, and katibs, and the amounts of all the mukataas entrusted to him. He was ordered to go out and collect one-fourth of the total amount due in accordance with this register, kadis were to prevent interference with the collection, and emins were to record what had been collected from them for the

end-of-term accounting.‘ By regularizing the appointment of such havales, the finance department could exercise control over who obtained access to salaries from state funds, as well as over the transport and submission of the funds themselves. Appointing soldiers who had proved themselves on campaign rewarded meritorious service at low cost while the timar system was in abeyance, gave the military forces

a peacetime outlet and the state an additional enforcement arm, and attached to the government’s service people who otherwise might become (and had become in Celali days) a force for rebellion. Clearly, then, to call tax farming “collection without assessment” is an overstatement. While the system of tax farming was, as is often reiterated, subject to abuses, abuse was not inherent in the system but was a product of the specific ways it was administered and the changing

conditions in which it operated. Initially the system was heavily regulated, but as the demand for revenue increased and the value of money fell, the government became more dependent on tax farmers, who were able to set their own conditions on their service. Tax farmers’

need for money increased in parallel with that of the treasury, and they began to exploit every opportunity for enrichment offered by the system in which they operated. In the Ottoman institutional framework, tax farmers were surrounded by checks and safeguards to prevent overcollection, unauthorized profits, embezzlement, or oppression. The government regularly demanded and checked account registers, balanced officials concerned with revenue production against officials concerned with revenue extraction, and provided supervision by kadis.

When tax farmers succeeded in suborning or coopting those safeguards, additional layers of control were instituted, as can be seen 103 KK 5019 (1038/1628—29), p. 86; see also pp. 7, 10, 171, 186, 187. A copy of a tevzi register indicating to havales what was owed on various mukataas for Agustos of 976/1568-69 is in register MM 241 (115), beginning at fol. 104b. A case of havale harassment of miiltezims who had been turning in their receipts faithfully for 5 years is reported in MM 22603 (9824), p. 69.

160 CHAPTER FOUR in the increasingly common provision of government-appointed havales

and the addition of supervision by the miifettis when nazirs became the miiltezims’ nominees. Far from abandoning control of taxation to private parties, the government in this period strove to maintain its hold over the tax farming system and to keep it operating within the bounds of law, justice, and good accounting. The biggest obstacle to its success seems to have been personal

relationships among officials, who could infiltrate nominees into connected positions and then falsify or bypass the checking procedures required by the system. When we examine collection problems

we will encounter additional examples of this practice. Any valid assessment of the impact of tax farming on Ottoman society in this period must therefore be made in the context of the personal relationships, patronage (intisab), and personal politics of the post-classical age, on both central and provincial/local levels. The changing power relationships and political mechanisms of this period, though largely uninvestigated, have been interpreted negatively, as deviations from a pristine pattern of sultanic headship which was responsible for the empire’s power and growth. Although this ideal may always have existed more in imagination than in reality, there were significant alterations in Ottoman politics in the early seventeenth century that

led to a broader sharing of power among the great men of state, a strengthened role for the sultan as arbiter and legitimizer rather than as warrior and decision-maker, and a greater development of the lower echelons of government.'” This was not a “rational-legal” bureau-

cracy, however, but a bureaucracy operated by a ruling class still relatively small and tightly bound by personal links. Some of these personal links ran through the finances of the empire, and it is the interaction between the personal and the official that demands our attention. Tax farming offers a unique window into these relationships, especially on the local level where detailed knowledge of personalities and economic conditions becomes feasible. '* In this respect the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire resembled Stuart England, the France of Louis XIII, or Olivares’ Spain, in all of which the governing role of ministers, royal favorites, and bureaucrats was expanding; for a more extended look at some of these similarities and their significance see my “The Ottoman Empire through British Eyes: Paul

Rycaut’s The Present State of the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of World History 5 (1993): 71-98. For an example of personal politics at work see Evliya Celebi, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-1662) as Portrayed in Evliya Celebi’ s Book of Travels, trans. Robert Dankoff, SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).

CHAPTER FIVE

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL

The infiltration of the military into the taxation apparatus, formerly dominated by civilians, has traditionally been seen as an indication of Ottoman decline. Of course, the portion of government revenues allocated under the timar system had always been collected by soldiers. As the timar system diminished in importance, soldiers proliferated in other tax collection posts. We have seen that in the early seventeenth century the military became a significant presence in the iltizam system and that, among those who conducted cizye and avariz tahrirs, an increasing number of military personnel could be found. Assessing the growing role of the military in this area of government finance requires a closer look at the collectors of these taxes and the procedures for their appointment. Although a systematic study has not

yet been made, an overview is sufficient to reveal a succession of changes in patterns of employment of civilian and military personnel

in tax collection. An examination of these changes is all the more necessary in view of the decline theory’s accusations of finance department complicity in the corruption of government. Control was a paramount issue for the governance of a far-flung empire in an era without modern means of communication and transportation. The finance department’s efforts to secure that control led to a variety of experiments with military and civilian collectors and changes in methods of tax collection and the kinds of records kept. Appointment of Revenue Collectors The Ottoman finance department worked toward legality and fairness in tax collection by insisting that its collection personnel be properly appointed and adhere to standard procedures. Tax collection procedures were based on registers of assessment and other official documents,

while rates were set by custom, kanun, and tahrir. Collectors were obliged to collect according to registers in the case of agricultural taxes, cizye, or avariz, and to maintain canonical rates of customs

162 CHAPTER FIVE tolls, market dues, fees and fines. Efforts were made to ensure that every tax collector knew the relevant laws and practices and could be held responsible if they were violated. One kadi who petitioned the capital about the oppression of a tax farmer received strict instructions not to allow emins and amils to oppress the reaya contrary to custom and law and the registers and imperial orders, nor to act against the conditions of the iltizams and the berats in their hands.'

Cizye collection by agents of the sultan on timar lands and on imperial has properties provided an opportunity for central government inspection and control in areas whose administration was otherwise delegated to timar holders or imperial emins. Government agents

were not permitted to enter serbest, “free,” timars, has lands of provincial and district governors, or most lands belonging to evkaf, and in those areas the cizye was collected from the taxpayers by

agents of the landholder. If the cizye formed part of the revenue assignment (an exception to the rule, made only when specified by the original grant), it was added to the landholder’s income; if not,

it was turned over in a lump sum to a collector sent by the state. Finance department records do not indicate how individuals assigned to collect the cizye were selected, but their appointments were

recorded in registers called tevzi-i cizye defterleri (registers of the distribution of the cizye, also called in the catalogues tevziat-1 cizye,

cizye tevzi, or cizye tevziati defterleri). These are similar to tevzi registers of iltizams but focus on tax collectors rather than amounts to be collected.” Tevzi-i cizye registers in the archives generally cover only Rumeli and Anadolu; cizye collected in provinces with separate provincial treasuries was submitted to the central treasury by provin-

cial treasurers as a lump sum, together with a summarized account. Cizye collection assignments in those provinces were probably made by officials of the provincial treasuries and similar assignment registers were no doubt kept there. The names of cizye collectors can also be found in registers called tahvilat (assignments), teslimat (submissions or deliveries), and irsaliye (transmissions), all of which are ' Emin ve ummal taifesi vech-i megruh iizere rencide ve remide eyledikler vaki ise men i def edip min ba’d hilaf-i adet ve kanun ve mugayir-i defter ve emr-i hiimayun miigariin ileyhin zeameti reayasi ol vechile sart-1 iltizamlarina ve ellerinde olan beratlarina muhalif limena ve ummala ve sairden bir ferde dahil ve taarruz rencide ve remide ettirmeyip: AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 6, dated 1008/1599-1600. Kogi Bey cited collection strictly according to the registers as one of the things regarding which the sultan should instruct the grand vizier in person (Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 112-13). ? For a published tevzi-i cizye defteri see Gékbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 155—59.

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 163 arranged by the date of submission of the collected funds, and also in some muhasebe (accounting) registers, where the entries are arranged by location. One tevzi-i cizye register dated 958/1551—52, found

in the Kamil Kepeci Tasnifi, is described as belonging to the cizye muhasebesi kalemi, although the register probably predates the formation of that bureau.’ The other cizye tevzi registers in the archives are catalogued in the Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi and show no indication of their bureau of origin. The headings of several of these registers, however, indicate that they were copied from a ruznamce or daily record of appointments called a tahvil ruznamcesi. Tahvil ruznamces were compiled by the bas muhasebe kalemi, which kept track of a variety of tax collection assignments.’ Lists of appointees for each type of tax were copied from the chronological appointment register and distributed to the appropriate bureaus, where they were kept for future reference. In the tevzi-i cizye registers, collection of the cizye of each liva (sancak, subprovince) was ordinarily assigned to a team of two men, an emin and a katib. A typical tevzi-i cizye register examined in detail bears the title, “Register of the distribution of the poll tax of the nonMuslims in the provinces of Rumeli and Anadolu for the year 979, made on 15 Cemaziiilevvel 979” (5 October 1571).° It proceeds liva

by liva, listing the number of hanes, the persons assigned to serve as emin and katib for the collection of the cizye, and their term of office (see sample entry below). It will be recalled that cizye tahrirs were organized by liva or sancak. A liva too large for efficient collec-

tion by a single team might be divided. For example, separate collectors were listed in a tevzi register for Sofya and for tetimme-i Sofya (the rest of Sofya), and also for Usktip and for maadin-i Uskiip (the

mines of Uskiip). Such divisions were often made along kaza lines, though these too might be disregarded if necessary.®° Cizye on evkaf > KK 3523 (958/1551-—52).

* For example, register MM 657 (5240) for 996—1006/1587-97, a tahvil defteri of the bas muhasebe bureau, includes appointments for the collection of ispenge and bedel-i hamr (a personal tax and a wine tax, both collected from non-Muslims), while register KK 2282 for 984/1576—77, also compiled by the bas muhasebe bureau, is a tahvil defteri containing the names of men appointed as emins of the beytiilmal. > MM 323 (6874) for the year 979/1571-72: Defter-i tevzi-i cizye-i gebran-i vilayet-i Rumeli ve Anadolu vacib-i sene 979 el-vaki‘ fi 15 cemaziiilevvel sene 979. ° The borders of these administrative units do not seem to have been identical to those of the sancaks of the timar tahrirs, nor were they constant from one period of time to another; villages were apparently moved from one liva to another at need (Kiel, “Remarks on the Administration of the Poll Tax,” 72).

164 CHAPTER FIVE Amed [ ] Der liva-1 Mirmiran tabi-i hazret-i vezir-i a’zam Cizye-i gebran-1 vilayet-i Edirne deruhde-i hane 4746

39 35

Ramazan Abdullah Destan Voyvoda Cerkes an ebna-1 sipahiyan an cemaat-1 mezbure

fi yevm 20 fi yevm 20 emin katib

Kiiciik Aya Sofya kurbunda Daud Pasa Iskelesinde

sakindir sakindir

An vacib an 8 receb sene 979 ila selase eghiir tahriren fi el-tarih el-mezbur Done on [date] Province of the Beylerbey belongs to the grand vizier Cizye of the unbelievers of the district of Edirne, in the responsibility of: hanes: 4746

39[th company ] 35[th company]

Ramazan Abdullah Destan Voyvoda Cerkes of the ebna-1 sipahiyan of the same regiment

20 [akce] per day 20 [akce] per day emin katib

lives near Kiicitik Aya Sofya lives at Daud Pasa Iskelesi Due for [the period]: from 8 Recep 979/26 November 1571 for three months written on the above date

lands was organized by vakif, and if the vakif was large, by the location of the properties, or several small evkaf might be assigned to a single emin for collection. Within a single area, the cizye was often organized by confessional group, especially if the group collected its own cizye and submitted it to the official collector as a lump sum.’ ’ For Sofya and Uskiip see MM 1520 (5334) dated 1013/1604—5. The cizye of the evkaf of Sultan Selim in Edirne was collected separately from the cizye of his other evkaf, while

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 165 Avariz documents from around the turn of the century show that the avariz was collected by kadis and therefore was organized and divided by kaza. No appointment registers like those for cizye collectors exist for avariz collectors before the 1630s, but several temessiiks

for avariz payments found in the Ali Emiri collection in the archives list kadis as the persons responsible for payment.® One of these receipts,

dated 1007/1598—99, indicates that the kadi of Ankara remitted the bedel-i niiziil paid by the Yiiriiks of Ankara; one dated 1009/1600— 1601 shows that two kadis from Hamid sent in the bedel-i kiirekciyan of several kazas in the sancak of Hamid; and one dated 1010/1601-—2 states that the kadi of Midilli, Mevlana Hiisrev, remitted the bedeli kirekgiyan of a kaza in Midilli. Certain levies were picked up from kadis by specialized officials; for instance, agents of the supervisors of the shipyard (tersane emini) and the imperial kitchens (matbah emini) were often involved in the collection and transportation of naval stores and provisions. These were cases in which the revenues of designated mukataas were assigned on a long-term basis to the support of these institutions in a system called ocaklik (discussed below). Members of the standing cavalry were occasionally involved in avariz collection at this time. A record from the year 1010/1601—2, for example, lists Bekir Bey of the ebna-1 sipahiyan as collector for the kiirekci bedeli of Sivas.’ By the mid-1030s/1620s, avariz collectors were listed in tevzi or tevziat registers resembling those produced for cizye collectors, and over the next two decades the term tevzi (distribution) became the one regularly used to describe avariz collection assignments.!° At the same time, procedures for avariz collection, like those for assessment, were gradually assimilated to those used for the cizye; by the 1050s/ 1640s they had become standard avariz procedure. The central government would send an appointee, usually a member of the standing the cizye of the evkaf of Muslih Pasa, Saruca Pasa, and Mehmed Pasa in Dimetoka was all collected by a single emin (MM 224 [236] 1028/1618-19, p. 7). Other subdivisions included the cizye of the Jews of Istanbul, or the cizye of the dispersed (perakende) Armenians of Anadolu living in the kaza of Derviscik as reaya of the evkaf of Sultan Ahmed (ibid., p. 2). ’ For an overview of the kadis’ role in local government and taxation see Ilber Ortayl1, “On the Role of the Ottoman Kadi in Provincial Administration,” Turkish Public Administration Annual 3 (1976): 1-21. ? For avariz collection by kadis see Ali Emiri Tasnifi, II. Mehmed, docs. 75, 76, 212; for collection by emins, see MM 2728 (3457), p. 66; for collection by cavalrymen see MM 1491 (16596), p. 2. 10 See tevziat registers MM 2845 (16215) for 1037—38/1627-29, KK 2614 for 1057/ 1647-48, or MM 4576 (18205) for 1067/1656—57.

166 CHAPTER FIVE cavalry forces, with an order and a copy of the assessment register (emr ii defter) to perform the collection. The appointment procedure for collectors is described in an order regarding an unnamed military man who had been appointed to collect the avariz for the previous year from several kazas and submit it to the treasury. He was sent out with an order and a register (emr ti defter), and local kadis were enjoined to cooperate with him to perform the collection in accordance with the register. The kadis were ordered to compile a new

register of amounts collected and to transmit the money and the collection register to the capital. The tevziat registers were the final authority on appointments, as illustrated by an order prohibiting Kasim

Arnavut, a cavalryman listed in the military’s registers as an avariz collector, from carrying out that task. Because his name did not appear in the mevkufat bureau’s tevziat registers, his claim to the assignment

was disallowed and his registration was cancelled."!

Even in mid-century, however, the avariz was still sometimes collected by kadis. An order to the kadis of Vidin and Saray dated 1051/1641-42 commanded them to collect the avariz of those kazas for the year 1051. The kadis were told to perform the collection in accordance with a register sent from the mevkufat kalemi, submitting the money itself to the agent of the imperial kitchens (matbah emini) and an accounting register (trad ve masraf, income and outgo) to the treasury. In another case from the same period, the kadi of Uskiidar was ordered to collect firewood in lieu of avariz payments from certain reaya in accordance with a new tahrir register bearing a tugra. The kadi of Bogaz Hisar was responsible for collecting camels in a certain area and delivering them to the arpa emini, an official responsible for collection and transport of barley for the state, who had petitioned for additional pack animals. The kadi of the imperial has estates was ordered to collect straw from the avarizhanes in his jurisdiction in accordance with the copy of the register sent to him.'* It is possible that while central government appointees were increasingly responsible for avariz collections in cash, local kadis continued to oversee collections in kind.’ '' For the appointment procedure see KK 2576, p. 59; the man is described as istihdamlardan (blank) zide kadruhu. For the disallowing of an unregistered collector see

wt ER 2516, pp. 91, 181, 123, 90. '5 In the seventeenth century, as the kadis’ role in tax collection seems to have decreased, their role in the enforcement of justice increased, probably because provincial governors became less reliable in this regard (Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 68-70).

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 167 Among the many people associated with an iltizam, it is not always easy to determine who actually took the money from the taxpayers. Anyone drawing a salary from mukataa revenues, however, had to be listed in the central registers. The tezkire recording a successful bid on an iltizam also recorded, of course, the name of the miiltezim. Most miiltezims chose to act as emins of their iltizams and their salaries

were part of the iltizam’s records. If a miiltezim did not do so, but apppointed someone else as emin, a separate entry recorded his name and the amount and source of his salary.'* More frequently, the registers record appointments of katibs and other officials designated by miiltezims. The register entry for such an appointment contains the name, date, location, reason for appointment, amount of salary, and source from

which the funds were drawn. Ibtida-i mevacib-i Hasan ki katib-i mukataa-i celtiik anhar-1 Talmani(?) ve tevabi‘ha siid der liva-1 Mentese becay-i Nesuh ki mazul siid ez an sebeb ki Mustafa emin-i miiltezim-i mukataa-1 mezbure taleb kerde ber muceb-i mektub-1 Mevlana Pir Ahmed nazir-1 sabik-1 liva-1 mezbure el-

vaki fi 25 Saban el-mu‘azzam sene 970 fi yevm 5 fi mahsul-1 havas el-mezbur

Beginning of the salary of Hasan who is scribe of the mukataa of the rice fields of the river Talmani(?) and related [mukataas] in the liva of Mentese in place of Nesuh who is out of office, for the reason that Mustafa, the emin-i miiltezim of the aforesaid mukataa, requested [it], according to the letter of Mevlana Pir Ahmed, the former nazir of the aforesaid liva, on 25 Saban 970/1 May 1562, [salary] 5 [akce] per day from the revenues of the aforesaid has.°

Entries of this type, starting salary or ibtida entries, often record the appointment of new scribes upon the retirement or death of the old. Appointments could be recorded in other ways as well. A petition or

register record of a petition of appointment might be found with an attached buyuruldu, an order commanding that the request be enacted. For example, a petition from the timariot Ibrahim, who became

nazir-1 miiltezim of the mukataas of Edirne on condition that he be allowed to appoint a scribe for each mukataa, requested the appointment of Hasan b. Hiiseyin as scribe for one of the mukataas at a salary

of 15 akce per day. Above the record of the petition is a marginal 4 For example, KK 4994, p. 23; MM 687 (9820) pp. 12, 14. 5 The example comes from MM 241 (115) 969/1561-62, fol. 22a.

168 CHAPTER FIVE note (der kenar) stating that it had been so ordered (buyuruldu).'® The amount of money per hane that tax collectors were allowed to take as their salary increased gradually over the period 1560-1660. The traditional amount of the gulamiye, one akce per hane for the emin and one akce per hane for the katib, was repeated in an order dated 1004/1595—96 stating that 3 akce had formerly been taken as

resm-i hane, one akce for the treasury and one each for the two officials.’ This order, however, mandated a change in the gulamiye

to 10 akce, or 5 akce each for the emin and the katib. The same amount, 10 akce per taxpayer, or 5 akce each for emin and katib, was described as the normal amount of the gulamiye at the turn of the century by Topcular Katibi Abdiilkadir Efendi.'® When each emin

and katib was earning one akce per hane, the sums earned by individual tax collectors ranged from about 100 to 5,000 akce per year, or from less than one-half akce to about 15 akce per day. The larger amount might double the salary of an emin or katib, as although many

men assigned to these duties already earned more than 20 akce per day, a substantial minority earned salaries of only 8 to 13 akce daily. After the increase in the rate, the same jobs paid from 495 akce, or under two akce per day, to 25,995 akce, nearly 75 akce per day.! In the 1050s/1640s, the rate of the gulamiye rose to 40 akce, and an additional 40-ak¢e salary called maag was also charged, yielding annual

salaries of 4,000 to 208,000 akce, or 11 to 585 akce per day. These higher wages more than paid collectors’ living expenses and made it possible for the government to postpone increasing salaries out of tax revenues for a considerable period. At the same time, it was not unknown for a tax collector in the military or scribal forces to waive either his own salary or the salary attached to the post of tax collector; this gesture might have made a candidate for the post more attractive

to those in charge of appointments.”° '© Ibtida entries include KK 5012, p. 6, dated 1017, and KK 5019, pp. 3, 10, dated 1038/1628-29. Appointment petitions are KK 4994, pp. 28, 19, 15, 18, 31. '’ Ulugay, XVII. Asirda Saruhan’da Eskiyalik, 172-73. '§ Cited in Caroline Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606, Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Band 14 (Vienna: VWGO, 1988), 81. '? MM 2224 (236) dated 1028/1618—19. °° MM 3881 (2765) 1055/1645-46, pp. 158, 159, 205, and 206; for the waiving of salaries see MM 3881 (2765), p. 153. Already in 1570 the salaries of garrison soldiers in Simontornya were held in the treasury, replaced by timars (David, “Financial Policy in a Hungarian Sanjag,” 28).

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 169 There were also exceptionally lucrative jobs, usually awarded to high government personnel, such as one for collection of the cash equivalent for the cooking of biscuit (bedel-i tabhane) from the avariz-

hanes of Tirhala in the year 1052/1642-43. The name of the person assigned to this collection job was not recorded, but the register entry states that he was to collect the tax from 8579.5 hanes at a salary of six akge each, totalling 51,477 akce for the year, or over 145 akce per day. Likewise, although the avariz of Sam was disbursed locally for military campaign expenses, the gulamiye, a traditional perquisite of the kapicilar kethiidasi, was nevertheless collected; for the year 1047/1637-38 it came to the tidy sum of 383,200 akce, equivalent to 1,082 akce per day.”!

The Military in Cizye and Avariz Collection The vast majority of those appointed to the offices of emin and katib for cizye collection came from the standing military regiments of the Porte: the miiteferrika guards and the cavalry regiments known as the “Six Boltiks” (alti boluk), comprising the sipahiyan or ebna-i sipahiyan (“sons of sipahis”), the silahdaran, the ulufeciyan-1 yasar and ulufeciyan-i yemin, and the gureba-i yasar and gureba-i yemin, with an

occasional appointee from the janissary corps or the armorers (cebeciyan). By the late sixteenth century it had become customary in time of war for the oldest members of the Six Boliiks to be registered

as miilazims (candidates) and, after a year of campaign service, to receive positions as tax collectors. These assignments became known as their hizmet, service or duty.” A register entry dated 1037/1627—

28 records a complaint from taxpayers accustomed to paying their own cizye who suddenly found its collection assigned to a sipahi.” In a register dated 979/1571—72, 169 emins and katibs out of 217 (78%) came from the standing cavalry, while 16 were scribes or treasury

officials, 10 were from the corps of saddlers (sarac), 7 were cavuses, 21 KK 2576, pp. 101, 32. 22 The hizmet began as a reward for service on the part of Siileyman’s elite bodyguard of 300 cavalrymen, but despite efforts to limit its use, it spread to encompass the whole palace cavalry (M. Belin, Essais sur l’histoire économique de la Turquie, d’aprés les écrivains originaux [Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1865], 124, citing Seyhizade; Gibb & Bowen, 1: 328; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 44; Howard, “Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation,” 203-4). 3 MM 2728 (3457), p. 21.

170 CHAPTER FIVE 8 were other palace officials, 3 were sancak beys, and 4 were retainers

of prominent men. A generation later, a register dated 1013/1604— 5 lists all of the nearly 400 emins and katibs of the cizye of Rumeli and Anadolu as members of standing cavalry regiments, except for miiltezims of the mines of Vulcitrin and Sidrekapsi, who collected the cizye in those areas, and miitevellis of certain evkaf properties (usually serbest, “free” from central government intervention), who collected the cizye on their own evkaf. These exceptions continued throughout the ensuing decades. In 1024/1615—16, the percentage of cizye collectors from the standing cavalry was 90%: 199 out of 221 cizye collectors in a register for the month of Muharrem were from the Six Boliiks. In a register of the 1620s the proportion was about the same: over five years from 1028/1618-19 to 1032/1622-23, the standing cavalry held on average 91% of the positions of emin and katib, while the remaining collectors were either miitevellis of evkaf or other central government functionaries such as cavuses, bdéliik basis

in the palace, or scribal personnel. Two registers from about 1630 show all cizye emins and katibs as men from the standing cavalry forces.** The preponderance of men from the standing cavalry in the position of tax collector was also characteristic of revenues other than the cizye; for example, 75% of the collectors of the sheep tax (adet-i

agnam) around 1620 were from this group.” Using cavalrymen as tax collectors had numerous advantages for the Ottoman government. It tapped the wealth of the military elite and kept them busy during the off-season for campaigning. Armed men were well-equipped to enforce imperial edicts regarding taxation and to represent the sultan’s might in all corners of the empire. Such assignments made up a system of rewards serving as motivators for

state employees. As slaves or dependents, these men might be expected to be relatively loyal and obedient, likely to return collected funds to the capital. Finally, the salaries they received for tax collection increased their income without drawing on treasury funds. The military forces rapidly grew to depend on these assignments and their 4 MM 323 (6874) dated 979/1571-72; MM 1520 (5334) dated 1013/1604-5; MM 2134 (15824), a tahvilat-1 cizye register dated 1024/1615—16; MM 2224 (2363), a register of ziyade-i cizye collected on evkaf properties over several years around 1620; cizye tev-

zit Jegisters MM 2930 (14588) for 1039-40/1629-30 and MM 3200 (14583) for 1044/ a5 MM 2224 (236): 20 of 24 in 1025/1616~17; 15 of 17 in 1026/1617-18; 14 of 21 in 1027/1617-18; 9 of 13 in 1028/1618-19; and 6 of 10 in 1029/1619-20.

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 171 accompanying salaries. When the cavalrymen, on returning from campaign in 1008/1599—1600, learned not only that their salaries were

to be paid in debased coinage apparently brought in by the miiltezim of the Istanbul customs, the Jewish kira or harem vendor, but also that, possibly at her instigation, the best and most lucrative tax collection

assignments were sold to the highest bidders among wealthy civilians

rather than being reserved for campaign veterans, they rioted and killed the kira. As early as 1001/1593—94 there were not enough tax collection assignments to go around among the palace cavalry; the historian Selaniki reported that it was necessary to fill each assign-

ment not just with two men but with five or ten to ensure that all had a chance at the resulting revenues. In the seventeenth century, these positions were often distributed by auctioning the cizye registers among the cavalrymen. Further disturbances over this issue took place in 1036/1627 and 1041/1631, by which time the cavalry’s extra services had expanded to include a variety of positions in military procurement as well as revenue collection.”® The increasing access of the Six Béliiks and miiteferrika guardsmen to positions in cizye collection caused disquiet among those who lost these opportunities in the late sixteenth century, but it was not a sudden or drastic change. By the middle of the sixteenth century, men from the standing cavalry regiments already held nearly 80% of these lucra-

tive assignments. The increase of this figure to 90% by 1620 and to 100% by 1630 meant the loss of that small percentage of opportunities in tax collection previously open to palace and financial officials; men

from those groups naturally felt disgruntled. The cause of their dismay, however, was short-lived. Soon after 1630, registers indicate that

the organization of cizye collection was altered, reducing the use of emin/katib teams to collect the cizye.?’ Cizye collection by agents 6 Selaniki, Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Ipsirli, 2: 854—55; on the kira see also Abraham Galanté, Esther Kyra, d’aprés de nouveaux documents (Istanbul: Société Anonyme de Papeterie et d’Imprimerie (Fr. Haim), 1926); J.-H. Mordtmann, “Die jiidischen Kira im Serai der Sultane,” Mitteilungen der Seminar fiir Orientalistische Sprachen 32 (1929): 1-38; on cavalry hizmets see further Selaniki, Tarih-i Selaniki, ed. Ipsirli, 1: 319 (he called the appointees zaleme-i afarit, “devils of oppressors”); William S. Peachy, “A Year in Selaniki’s

History: 1593-4,” (PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1984), 226, 549; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 43-45, 224. 27 This alteration coincided in time with a proposal for reform of the Six Bdliiks in the 1630s under Murad IV; see Rhoads Murphey, ed., Kaniin-Name-i Sultan? li ‘Aziz Efendi, Aziz Efendi’s Book of Sultanic Laws and Regulations: An Agenda for Reform by a Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Statesman, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 9; Turkish Sources, 8 (n.p.: 1984), 6.

172 CHAPTER FIVE other than emins and katibs lessened considerably the impact of the standing cavalry’s recently established monopoly over these positions.

It was only after a shift to non-military collectors that the higher gulamiye and maas of 40 akce each were instituted. Although the appointment of emins and katibs had long been the normal method of collecting the cizye, it was never the only method used. In register MM 323 (6874) of 979/1571-—72, there were instances

in which the cizye collector was called an emin purely as a formality, such as the sancak bey of Iskenderiye who was appointed “emin and

katib” for the cizye of Iskenderiye, or the nazir (inspector) of the mukataas of Vidin who was also “emin and katib” for the cizye of Vidin. In practical terms, this designation meant only that the person SO appointed was entitled to collect the gulamiye allotted to collection officials. Shortly thereafter, in tahvilat register MM 657 (1520) dated 996—1006/1587-97, cases can be found in which cizye collection was

not assigned to an emin. For example, the cizye of the village of Ortakéy in Siizebolu, belonging to the evkaf of Fatma Hatun, was delivered to the treasury by the villagers themselves, while the cizye of certain sultanic vakif properties in Bursa was collected by a former tezkireci of the sikk-1 evvel who did not receive the title of emin. The number of cizye collectors not labeled emins gradually increased and their origins diversified. By the first decade of the seventeenth century, cizye accounting register MM 1520 (5334) dated 1013/1604—5

shows that cizye was assigned to an emin and katib only 85% of the time; in the remaining 15%, cizye was collected by someone not labeled

an emin. The cizye of Sidrekapsi was collected by Mustafa Aga, the nazir of the mukataa on the mines of Sidrekapsi; he was not called an emin in this register, though in 979/1571—72 he probably would have been. Mehmed Bey, the sancak bey of Vulcitrin and nazir of the mukataa of the mines of Vulcitrin, collected the cizye of Vulcitrin, Pristine, and Novobrdo, again without being labeled an emin, as his counterparts for Iskenderiye and Vidin in the earlier register had been. The cizye of a number of locations was collected by Osman Pasa, the former beylerbey of Eéri, as financial supervisor (muhassil-i emval)

rather than as emin.** The cizye of the evkaf of Mustafa Pasa in Kalkan was collected by the administrator (miitevelli) of the evkaf. *8 The involvement of sancak beys and even beylerbeys in provincial tax collection as emins or miiltezims was to become much more significant later in the seventeenth century (Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization’).

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 173 Finally, two men named Siileyman and Halil collected the cizye of Kalavurna, but not as emin and katib; they were designated instead as havalegan, people who had a havale. While most of the collectors of the ziyade-i cizye in register MM 2224 (236) dated 1028/1618—-19 were called emins and katibs, a fair

number were described as havalegan, assignees. A typical entry in register KK 2576 records an order (emr-i serif) making Topcu Basi (Head Cannoneer) Osman the havale for funds destined for expenses

of the cannons of the fortress of Erzurum, this expenditure having been assigned on the bedel-i niiziil of Amasra for 1044/1634~-35. Other orders record havales (assignments of revenue) for repairs to a mosque

from the cizye receipts of Argiri Kasri and for fortress repairs from the avariz of several kazas in Mora.” In such cases, holders of havales demanded funds from the official collectors and transferred them to their proper destinations. In situations where havales were granted for individuals’ salaries, those individuals might be sent to collect the tax

directly. All cases in register MM 2224 (236) were of this type: the havalegan were imperial soldiers or officials whose salaries had been assigned on the cizye or other taxes of a particular place for a particular

period of time. Rather than having the money collected by others, transmitted to Istanbul, and paid out again as salaries, the men to whom these revenues were assigned were given havales and permitted

to make the collection themselves. In a few cases it appeared that someone other than the havalegan would do the actual collecting; for example, two men were assigned to Timaklia(?) as havalegan, but in addition Mehmet Piri, sipahi, was assigned as cami (collector) with the following marginal note: “and the above Mehmet lives in Timak-

lia and he himself will collect [it].’°° By the time of cizye tevziat register MM 2932 (14588) in 103940/1629-—30, there were many occasions when emins and katibs were not appointed, and even if an emin was listed in the register, someone else performed the actual collection. This person was designated by the words cami, collector, or cem eder, will collect. According to an order dated 1055/1645—46, the second salary or maas collected with the cizye was for the cami, while the government-appointed officials

29 KK 2576, pp. 1, 119, 76. 30 Ve mezktir Mehmet Timaklia’da sakin olup kendisi cem eder: MM 2224 (236), p. 8. The term cami for this type of collector must not be confused with cabi, the revenue collector for a vakif.

174 CHAPTER FIVE responsible for gathering tax receipts over a wider area received the gulamiye.*! The cami often seems to have been a retainer of the emin, sometimes a person connected with vakif management, and occasionally someone with no obvious connection to the appointed emin. In registers from the 1640s and 1650s, no emins at all were recorded; the spaces for their names were left blank (in the responsibility of “blank,” deruhde-i ), and only cami collectors were listed, usually with the phrase, “so-and-so will record and collect”. By mid-century the cizye was often farmed.” Avariz collection, like cizye collection, gradually became a perquisite of the standing cavalry forces. In the years 1031/1621—22 and 1032/1622—23 the majority of assignments for collection of the piyade and miisellem avariz of Anadolu went to men from the standing cavalry:

9 out of 14 in 1031/1621—22, and 14 out of 15 in 1032/1622—23.° Like cizye collectors, appointees listed in the registers as collectors of avariz in the 1030s/1620s and 1040s/1630s were usually members

of standing cavalry regiments. As with the cizye, however, these assignments were gradually given to others. For the cizye, standing cavalry appointments began to decrease around 1630, precisely when the number of military collectors for the avariz began to grow. This suggests that cavalrymen might simply have been transferred from cizye to avariz collection around this time, a move that would have acknowledged their dependence on tax collection salaries to augment

their wages. For the avariz, a decrease in assignments to standing cavalrymen began around 1650; by the mid-1060s/1650s the majority of avariz collectors were from the palace and imperial enterprises or

the retinues of great men of state, while a few were authorities on the local scene, such as sancak beys and provincial emins. Tevziat registers show that other individuals could be assigned to collect avariz. An order for a collection of clarified butter (revgan1 sade) was addressed to the beylerbey and nazir of Kefe; the order stated that an employee of the imperial larder (hassa kilarilerden) had been appointed as agent (miibasir) for transport of the butter to Istanbul, 31 MM 3881 (2765), p. 50. * Filan kayd edip cem eder, MM 3742 (14790) from 1052/1642-43 and MM 4187 (14581) from 1060/1650-51; MM 4569 (14797), a cizye tevzi register dated 1067/1656—

57, also records a large number of cases in which no emin was appointed for cizye collection. For farming of the cizye see KK 5271 dated 1068/1657-58, pp. 6, 7.

1618-19, MM 2224 (236). |

** Assignments (made three years in advance) listed in a tevziat register dated 1028/

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 175 and the beylerbey and nazir should make haste to prepare a suitable ship for him. In an order dated 1051/1641—42, several kadis were alerted to the fact that the cabi and katib of the vakif of Orta Cami would collect the avariz from villages in the area of Tikves possessed by the vakif and would turn the money over to the miitevelli of the

vakif. A temessiik accounting for the money was, however, to be submitted to the mevkufat bureau. A final entry appointed Saban, formerly koyun emini (overseer of the provision of sheep for the state),

as avariz collector of the entire province of Sam for the year 1050/ 1640-41. The order did not mention Saban’s current employment, so it is possible that he was out of office (mazul) at that time and had been assigned this large and lucrative collection post as a form of pension.” Tevziat registers in the last decades of the seventeenth century

reflect a redistribution of the avariz among taxpayers and a readjustment of its incidence which are absent from earlier registers; in that

period, the amount to be collected was decided by a process of negotiation between kadis and other provincial and local authorities and the taxpayers.* Although this makes later tevziat registers less reliable than earlier ones for determining population, they do indicate the distribution of provincial wealth. By the 1060s/1650s, the avariz of certain areas was assigned on

a more or less permanent basis to support the dockyards, stables, kitchen, or other imperial enterprises, and the emins of those enterprises were made responsible for the collection of funds. This system of long-term revenue assignments, known as ocaklik, was frequently applied to farmed revenues, especially those supporting provincial garrisons.*° Revenues assigned as ocaklik and corresponding expenditures were often accounted for outside the treasury’s income and expenditure totals and so must be added in to determine the empire’s 4 MM 3881 (2765), p. 99; KK 2576, pp. 93, 46. > Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 335-37; for evidence to this effect from kadi sicills, see Michael Ursinus, “‘Avariz Hanesi’ und “Tevzi‘ Hanesi’ in der Lokalverwaltung des Kaza Manastir (Bitola) im 17 Jh.,” POF 30 (1980): 481-93. McGowan

sees the tevzi adjustment process as the product of a decrease of population in the late seventeenth century (“Study of Land and Agriculture,” 59-60). According to Ulugay, this process first appeared in the kad: sicills of Manisa in 1671 (M. Cagatay Ulugay, /8 ve 19. Yiizyillarda Saruhan’da Eskiyalik ve Halk Hareketleri [Istanbul: Berksoy Basimevi,

re Fox definitions and a closer examination of the destinations of these revenues see Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 187-203; Ostapchuk, “Ottoman Black Sea Frontier,” 194-257. On ocaklik for the arsenal see Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 461-65.

176 CHAPTER FIVE total revenue. Ocakliks were recorded in separate registers of their own, which contain data on these revenues and their collection as well

as on military groups and enterprises supported by them. Orders regarding ocakliks, however, appear in regular ahkam registers. There is evidence that a good deal of bargaining went on between taxpayers and representatives of the institutions supported regarding the amounts

to be paid and therefore the numbers of avarizhanes to be listed in the registers. This may be the origin of the adjustments noted in the later tevziat registers. Taxation by negotiation seems to have become

a general characteristic of revenue collection in the second half of the seventeenth century. An order dated 1040/1630-31 regarding the collection of the avariz

of Menlik contains a surprising note: it appears that the appointed collector, Ahmed, gave or sold the right of collection to a resident of Menlik named Siileyman.*’ Selling rights to tax collection would have been reasonable behavior, as the award of tax collection responsibilities with the attached salaries was intended in part to compensate

for the effects of inflation on military wages, often nominally unchanged throughout the inflation period.*® By selling his collection rights, the official appointee could receive his money in a lump sum without the inconvenience and risk of collection, while the new collector

could behave like a tax farmer, profiting from anything he might collect over and above the assigned sum. This practice may also be related to the fact that many of the appointed collectors had other responsibilities: during wartime, military men would be less available

to collect taxes in the countryside. The available documents do not indicate how collection appointees were selected, but the process doubtless involved recommendations from superiors, approval from above, and the operation of patronage networks. A document showing the recommendation process at work can be seen in a register dated 1038/1628—29, where an order mandated the appointment of a certain Ali on the recommendation of his superior (also named Ali, an aga of the gureba-i yemin) to the collection

*’ Mezbur Ahmed zide kadruhu dahi Menlik kazasi sakinlerinden Siileyman nam kimesneye

deruhde ve siparis edip memhur temessiik alinmis: KK 2576, p. 86. *8 Personal communication from Mark Stein, whose doctoral dissertation in progress on the seventeenth-century Ottoman forts and garrisons along the Hapsburg border will shed light on the condition of the standing army during this period. For timar-holders selling their tax collection rights see Faroghi, “Town Officials, Timar-Holders, and Taxation,” 68-69.

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 177 of taxes from the rice paddies (celtiik) of Maras, on the grounds that he had submitted the previous year’s collection in full and without arrears (“not one akce nor one grain remained outstanding”).*° One exceptional appointment register, MM 2224 (236), carefully explains

to whose retinue each of the appointees belonged or on whose recommendation they obtained their jobs. This information sheds an interesting light on the process of intisab (connections, usually translated “patronage”’) within the ruling elite.“° At the time of this register, 1028-—32/1619-—23, although most appointees came from the ranks of

the standing cavalry forces, their patrons or superiors were well distributed across the elite. Eleven recommendations were made by various viziers, nine by defterdars, sixteen by members of the finance department below the level of defterdar, another sixteen by members of the palace staff (excluding the harem), eight by harem servants, thirteen by the outer service (bostancis, stables, and arsenal), seven by religious personnel (including kadis, kazaskers, the seyhiilislam, and the sultan’s hoca), thirteen by the emir of the gypsies (kibtiryan emiri) in Edirne, eight by miitevellis of evkaf (all for collection on evkaf lands), and nine by people of unidentifiable status (including “a person known as Camasirzade” and a Jew). The source provides *° Bir akce ve bir habbe baki kalmayip; MM 2728 (3457), p. 76. “ Factionalism apparently became prevalent under Sultan Siileyman, when the whole royal household, including the women, moved into the new palace of Topkap (Halil Inalcik, “Sultan Siileyman: The Man and the Statesman,” in Siileyman the Magnificent and His Time, ed. Gilles Veinstein, Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales [Paris: La documentation francaise, 1992], 94-95; Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Studies in Middle Eastern History [New York: Oxford University Press, 1993], 143-49). A vivid picture of the workings of intisab in the seventeenth century can be obtained from Evliya Celebi, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, which depicts life in the grand vizier’s household. In sixteenth-century Europe, provincial governors commonly received appointment because, as heads of large households where up to several hundred other nobles were trained, they could command large entourages and patronage networks, mobilizing the assistance required for their work (Harding, Anatomy of a Power Elite, 37, 44; Elliott, Imperial Spain, 310). The sale of office as practiced in western Europe was an alternative to patronage that allowed people from outside the noble households to obtain government positions (Parry, Sale of Office, 2-—3; Coveney, Introduction to France in Crisis, 9, 26). It resulted in competition for office between the old nobility and those newly qualified (Coveney, Introduction to France in Crisis, 15-16; Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 481-82; Wilson, Transformation of Europe,

54-55). Abuse of patronage in the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the recruitment of untrustworthy riffraff, is often held to be at the root of military decay (Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform,” 229). Gerber argues, however, that intisab actually played a rather small role in promotion (State, Society, and Law, 146-48). In the finance department, although birth seems to have counted more heavily in initial hirings, promotion was governed by a combination of merit and intisab (Darling, “Ottoman Salary Registers’’).

178 CHAPTER FIVE no information about the factions or alliances to which these patrons might have belonged. Comparison with similar registers, if any exist, or with information from chronicles, might illuminate political relationships within the Ottoman ruling class, and in particular how the sixteenth-century competition for office between timar-holding sipahis and products of the devsirme was transformed during the seventeenth century into a competition between the standing cavalry of the sultan’s household and the households of other great men of state.*!

The Military in Tax Farming During the seventeenth century, gradual alterations were made in the tax farming system resulting in the transfer of its benefits from one group to another in Ottoman society, while the central government struggled to maintain control over the process.” The length of time for which iltizams were normally held was one of the first things to change. The government had the right to abrogate an iltizam at any time if a higher bid were offered, but in the mid-sixteenth century such abrogation was relatively uncommon. Around the turn of the century, however, the completion of a full three-year term was much more unusual. Although most iltizams were still awarded for three years, three-year tahvils were almost never completed, as the accep-

tance of new bids and the award of iltizams in mid-term became prevalent. This turnover was understandable when prices were on the

increase and the government was strapped for cash. Available evidence suggests that the price of iltizams rose by some 2% per year before about 1586 and by larger amounts after that. The high inflation

and widespread unrest of the late sixteenth century caused the real value of mukataas to fluctuate wildly, and three-year bids became less

*! On seventeenth-century officeholders see Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants; the critique of Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj (“Review Article: I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550-1650,” Osmanli Arastirmalari

6 [1986]: 221-46) seems to be contradicted by some of his own evidence (The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics, Uitgaven van het Nederlands HistorischArchaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 52 [n.p.: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1984]). * Cvetkova also notes that the iltizam system was transformed considerably in this period (“Recherches sur le systéme d’affermage,” 123-24). Detailed study would doubtless modify the prevalent image of tax farming and uncover mechanisms by which the problems of the later seventeenth century developed.

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 179 and less realistic. In the end, the term for many iltizams was altered to one year, though some mukataas, probably those with more stable revenues, still formed the object of three-year tahvils.* It was recognized that a high turnover of miiltezims created problems, especially with one-year iltizams, and by the 1050s/1640s iltizams were usually granted for a full year even if a higher bid was made in the middle of the term. Granting an iltizam to a new bidder in mid-term began to be seen as improper as long as the current miiltezim was doing a good job.¥ With rising prices, shortened terms, and a rapid changeover of personnel, it has often appeared that the government was losing control of the iltizam process. During these same decades, however, the finance department tightened its hold on tax farms by changing the personnel to whom iltizams were awarded and the procedure by which awards

were made. Military men had always been employed in iltizam collection, but a tally of miiltezims in 983/1575—76 shows that only 36% came from the askeri class: members of the standing military forces, palace servants, or local timar-holding sipahis; 26% were local

people not of the military class, while 38% were of unidentifiable origin.” A generation later these percentages were reversed: in register MM 1488 (651) dated 1012/1603-4, 64% of miiltezims were from the askeri, mainly standing cavalry forces and palace servants, while only 36% were non-askeri or unidentifiable. By the 1620s, most iltizams were granted to military men who had proven themselves on

campaign, and in registers from the 1630s and 1640s, over 85% of emins came from the standing military forces. The remaining few were people with local ties, both Muslims and non-Muslims. Like the cizye and avariz, iltizam-collected taxes gradually fell under the control of military and palace personnel. The timing of this change paralleled that of the cizye: an increase in the decades before 1620 and a near domination afterward. After 1620, iltizam havale assignments were “ For example, see MM 2765 (1055/1645—-46), pp. 8, 74. “ See, for example, MM 3881 (2765) 1055/1645—-46 p. 64: an iltizam of 1971/2 kurus was upheld even though a bid of 200 kurus was offered. For two examples of refusal to replace a worthy miiltezim see MM 2728 (3457), p. 44. For outstanding performance, collectors could be retained for an additional term; see MM 2728 (3457), p. 60. Finance department policies on tax farms must be added to the list of factors qualifying Cizak¢a’s estimate of their competitiveness (“Tax-Farming and Financial Decentralization,” 221). *® KK 4994. For kuls in tax collection positions in the sixteenth century see the kadi records on Bursa published by Inalcik, and for members of the Six Boliiks involved in mukataas in 964/1556—-57 see Akda§g, Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi ve I¢timai Tarihi, 339, n. 1.

180 CHAPTER FIVE also awarded to campaign veterans. Again, the involvement of these groups was not an innovation, but an intensification of a presence already strongly felt.

At the same time, the nature of the iltizam award underwent a change. After about 1620, the appointment of campaign veterans, miilazims, to tax farming positions was called tevzi, connoting an assignment rather than a competition.*° Koci Bey reports in this period that iltizams on the imperial has villages were routinely parcelled out to the standing cavalry as their service or duty (hizmet, the same term used for cizye collection assignments).*’ Troops obtaining these iltizams

did not receive them because of high bids. These assignments were documented like iltizams, but in almost all cases the new bid was for the same amount as the old, indicating that a true bidding process was not in operation. The motive for these appointments lay not in increasing the treasury’s income but in securing that income through employing the state’s own personnel, and decreasing its expenses by remunerating service to the empire by means other than salary increases. Most miiltezims appointed in this way did not provide kefils; instead, they usually submitted a rather large sum in advance.* Their assignments were for one year rather than the traditional three, and during the year no new bids were accepted. Cizakca has hypothesized that the proceeds of tax farms whose price remained level (which he labeled “frozen’’) were earmarked for military salaries.*? These may *© A register of such appointments, called tevziat-1 miilazim, dated 1042/1632—33, forms

part of MM 3207 (4888). In register KK 5019 (1038-44/1629-35), 86% of appointments were of this type; in MM 1257 (1768) 1047-55/1637-46, 86% again; in MM 4091 (3275) 1059/1649-50, 87%. An earlier tevziat defteri for iltizams, MM 331 (17862) dated 979/ 1571-72, lists only the iltizams and their value, not the persons to whom they were awarded. *’ Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 55. *8 Advance payments by military tax farmers reveal the ability of soldiers to accumulate capital and, as has been pointed out, represent a form of domestic short-term borrowing by the state. It should be noted that not all miiltezims paid in advance, and that Ottoman tax farming as an institution did not necessarily serve as a loan device. The Spanish government repaid loans by granting creditors tax collection rights. In England, as well, the Crown borrowed from customs farmers, who repaid themselves from tax receipts; their profits were considered a fair price for their services in making cash available on demand (Newton, “Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs,” 155; Ashton, “Revenue Farming under the Early Stuarts,” 311). Service as royal creditors involved English customs

farmers in “Court intrigue and wire-pulling,” and they became focal points for chains of wealthy lenders, lending money borrowed from others as well as their own (Harper, “Signi-

ficance of the Farmers of the Customs,” 65-69). In France, tax farming was specifically used to anticipate future revenues by setting the selling price of the farm higher than the anticipated annual revenue (Bonney, “Failure of the French Revenue Farms,” 20). ” Cizakca, “Tax-Farming and Financial Decentralization,” 232.

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 18] have been the very mukataas assigned to provincial military groups

as ocaklik. It is reasonable to assume that, in support of military salaries, the state would prefer the lesser risk posed by assigned collectors to the higher chance of loss inherent in open bidding. However, to conclude that “frozen” iltizams represent fiscal decentralization is to ignore the identity of the tax farmers. If Cizakc¢a’s “frozen” iltizams were indeed the same as those awarded to military veterans from the standing cavalry, then profits generated by the revenue sources

over and above iltizam amounts would benefit the central military forces rather than provincial representatives of a decentralization process. Such profits would represent interest on advance payments, which constituted short-term loans to the treasury. The “frozen” iltizams,

therefore, should probably be regarded as an instrument of centralization rather than decentralization, one by which the state could secure support for its troops, make use of wealth (in the form of ready cash)

accumulated by upper echelons of the military, and ensure an ongoing interest in its own health and strength by some of its most powerful servants. Procedural routinization is clearly visible in the wording of register entries for these iltizams. Assignments were made “at the time of the distribution [of assignments]”, for the reason that “the period of the

year of his iltizam was completed” or “because his year of iltizam is over”.-° There was no competitive bidding for an assignment as emin; competition in these decades resulted from duplicate assignments. For example, although a local resident, Seyyid Osman Cavus, held the iltizam of a number of mukataas in Selanik, a silahdar named Mehmed Ahmed, who by virtue of his campaign service had obtained

an imperial riius (certificate of the reisiilkiittab), was awarded the same iltizam and submitted 50,000 akce in advance as a guarantee. When he petitioned regarding this conflict, the collection post was duly granted to him. Another campaign veteran, Mehmed Mahmud Cavus, was simultaneously awarded the position of hassa harc emini also held by Seyyid Osman Cavus; the latter had to resign that position

as well. In another case, a mukataa awarded to Bekir Hasan of the ulufeciyan-i yesar was also assigned to Hasan, a campaign miilazim. © Hin-i tevzide, ez an sebeb [ki] miiddet-i sene-i iltizames temam siid, or ez an sebeb [ki] murur-t iltizam-1 sene-i hod temam siid; KK 5019, p. 4; also pp. 1, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15. The same wording, presumably indicating the same process, occurred in sixteenthcentury entries, but much less frequently: see MM 241 (115) fol. 34b, dated 971/1563— 64; and KK 4994, p. 23 from 983/1575-76. Belin, citing a firman regulating miilazemet, stated that the term could be as short as six months (Essais, 131-32).

182 CHAPTER FIVE Hasan resigned his assignment in favor of Bekir, who then requested an order confirming him in the position. Resignation (feragat) of an iltizam in favor of another was a fairly common occurrence in this register.°! Usually no reason was given for the action; we can only assume that the person resigning obtained other employment. In addition to providing a degree of central control over the ilitzam process, orders of appointment permitting iltizam employees to draw salaries from state revenues had another purpose, to avert clashes between old and new appointees. An order installing the katib of the candle works (semhane) of Edirne, addressed to the kadi of Edirne, explained that Ali, an Edirne resident, had petitioned stating his ap_pointment to the post at a salary of 4 akce per day. The order permitting

him to collect the mukataa’s revenue and draw his salary also charged the former kAtib, Arslan, not to interfere with Ali’s performance of his duties, and instructed the kadi to copy the order into his sicil and return the original to Ali©? This order, like many others in the registers, hints at conflicts over collection rights arising from turnover in mukataa personnel, especially when iltizam awards were made for only one year or simultaneously on the central and provincial levels,

and explains the care taken to record and date every change. Considering the number of tax-collecting positions available throughout the empire and the fact that collection and recording of taxes took place well after position assignments, the frequency of this sort of trouble seems relatively low. Appointment entries from the 1030s/1620s granting iltizams to soldiers all mention a tezkire or suret from the reisiilkiittab in the hands of the potential appointee (“in accordance with the copy of the imperial riius,” [ber muceb-i suret-i riius-i htimayun]). The suret-i rius, or copy of an entry in the reisiilktittab’s register, verified the applicant’s military service and his status as a candidate (miilazim) for further

government employment. In the year 1000/1591-92, one iltizam appointee had had a suret-i riius from the reisiilkiittab but had also presented a tezkire from the bas defterdar, a document sometimes offered in 1013/1604—5 by finance scribes desiring appointments. Although in the sixteenth century such documentation had not been necessary, by the 1620s a tezkire from the reisiilkiittab was required *! KK 5019, pp. 4, 12, 10, 8, 9, 14. * KK 5019, p. 165, dated 1043/1633; for other examples see Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 201, 224; Ostapchuk, “Ottoman Black Sea Frontier,” 206-13.

| TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 183 for appointment as a finance scribe, and a riitus was the mandatory document for scribes of the divan as well as prospective miiltezims.

Appointments to the office of nazir also became subject to the reisiilkiittab at this time.’ The heightened power wielded by the reisiilkiittab in the 1620s is suggested by the fact that a suret-i riius enabled a young soldier from the ulufeci-yan-1 yesar, Salih Ahmed, to oust the old katib Ibrahim Halife from the mukataa of the weighing scales (kapan) of Edirne, a post he occupied as a form of pension (ber vech-i tekaud).* In the first half of the seventeenth century, therefore, tax farming and other government tax collection assignments filled a gap caused by the decline of the timar system, serving as rewards for military service and as devices for securing the cooperation and loyalty of the military class, particularly the standing cavalry forces. Assigning tax farming and cizye or avariz collection to military personnel permitted greater government control over disbursal of revenues than the timar system had done, as the money collected was spent under treasury auspices rather than private ones. There were other benefits as well: the government could tap the wealth of the askeri class, as military miiltezims usually paid in advance of collection, and could exert a measure of control over soldiers unemployed between campaigns. Registers often noted that tax collection assignments were made to otherwise unoccupied veterans (miildzim-i feragindan);, the government evidently recognized the need to provide soldiers with employment in order to forestall the kind of military unrest seen in connection

with the Austrian War at the turn of the century. The practice of granting tax collection assignments to military candidates rather than

local civilians may have increased the reliability of return. It also reduced the number and extravagance of conditions placed by bidders on iltizams. In 1039/1629-30 and 1040/1630—31, collection assign-

ments to soldiers were allowed to override appointments made in

53 For the riius see Nejat Géyiinc, “XVI. Yiizyilda Ruis ve Onemi,” Tarih Dergisi 22 (1969): 17-34; Inalcik, “Reis-iil-kiittab.” For scribal appointments in the finance department see Linda T. Darling, “The Ottoman Finance Department and the Assessment and Collection of the Cizye and Avariz Taxes, 1560-1660” (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1990), 61-63. For appointments of nazirs see KK 5019 (1038/1628—29), pp. 9, 10. 4 KK 5019 (1038/1628-29), p. 5; when the campaign came around, however, Salih was called up for service and Ibrahim received his former job back. 55 For the wealth of the askeri, see Halil Inalcik, “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Economic History 29 (1969): 97-140.

184 CHAPTER FIVE other ways.°° At the same time, some iltizams were still awarded through open bidding, and some, possibly the same ones, still had three-year terms. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century, awarding one-year iltizam grants to military men seems to have diminished in frequency, and competitive bidding reasserted itself, along with longer terms. Provincial governors in this period often served as miiltezims, undertaking to submit a set amount of provincial revenue to the treasury.>’

The increasing involvement of the standing cavalry forces in tax collection parallels the increasing involvement of janissaries in imperial politics. The growing importance of the standing army as a whole, stemming from the military revolution of the late sixteenth century, resulted in a greater political and administrative role for its members, like that of timar holders in times past. Although it has long been acknowledged that the advice writers’ demands for restoration of the timar army were unrealistic in the face of advances in military technology, the converse has gone unrecognized: that is, the need for studies that analyze more carefully the standing army’s activities in the post-classical era, their interests and loyalties, and the effect of their participation on Ottoman governance. The non-timar-holding military forces have been treated unidimensionally, their involvement in the empire’s political and financial activities analyzed as evidence of decline. The advice writers saw them as an element of disruption that had to be controlled and eliminated from the centers of power. The standing military forces, however, constituted a potential administrative tool, and employing them in tax collection was a means of incorporating them into the governing structure and giving them a stake in the absence of disruption. The litthe we know about patronage

ties suggests that they had links to a broad range of officials and powerful people who probably belonged to different factions of the °° See KK 5019, pp. 16, 89, 153. Again in 1691 it was found necessary to insist on tax farmers’ being allowed to remain in their positions for a full year (Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 538). *’7 Around the turn of the century, positions as sancak bey began to be awarded as sinecures to high officials (usually of palace rather than military origin) who were on rotation out of office and who exercised their governing functions through agents. At the same time, the government began to transfer provincial has revenues to the central treasury’s accounts, causing these officials to seek additional income from tax collection. It is not coincidental that the governmental powers of these provincial officials also diminished, or that control in the countryside became an issue (Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization,” 29-30; Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 202-3).

TAX COLLECTION PERSONNEL 185 ruling elite. Thus, we cannot presume that they all had the same interests

or worked for the same goals. The expansion and diminution of their role in tax collection, and possibly in other areas as well, affected Ottoman governance during this period in ways we have not yet begun to examine. Comparing their impact on the system with those of the

timar holders of the past and the ayan (local notables), who later acquired the role in tax collection that the military had lost, might ncover issues fundamental to maintaining imperial cohesion as well bs to day-to-day administration in the empire.

CHAPTER SIX

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING

Corruption in tax collection is one of the things it seems “everyone knows” about the Ottoman Empire. Oppressive bureaucratization, bribery, and extortion have become standard elements of the decline myth, subscribed to by scholars and ordinary people alike, even in an era when governmental control is far more intrusive and probably no more equitable than in the seventeenth century. The negative assessment of Ottoman fiscal administration originates in the diatribes of advice writers and the complaints of taxpayers living in a nonbureaucratic age. To set Ottoman administration in a comparative context, and to evaluate fairly these charges of corruption, we must start from normal fiscal procedure rather than the exceptions and abuses,

committed without official warrant, that have until now made up the

text of the tax collection story for the seventeenth century. Tax collection problems had a number of causes, only one of which was corruption. Certain kinds of problems were more closely related to the international fiscal crisis of the period than to administrative decline in any one state. Maintaining or increasing the tax yield in a declining

economy generally entails hardship for taxpayers and generates resentment and refusal to pay: the tax collectors of Spain in those years “had a very uncertain expectation of life,” and those of France were regularly murdered at the beginning of major revolts.' Another set of problems, shared with all large bureaucratic states of the early modern

period, was related to the low level of technology in which the administrative system operated, and involved difficulties in transporting money, obtaining information on distant events and circumstances,

and making accurate counts of taxpayers. This chapter details the normal processes by which taxes assessed according to the methods already described were collected and remitted to the treasury and examines normal problems encountered in collection. Corruption and malfeasance will be investigated later.

' Kamen, [ron Century, 378.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 187

Collection Procedures: Cizye and Avariz

Revenue collection procedures were not described in any finance department handbook but can be pieced together from orders addressed to tax collectors and local administrators. These orders (ahkam) contain the finance department’s instructions to tax collectors and details on normal procedure and problems encountered in the collection process. A copy of a tezkire issued in 1036—37/1626—28 requesting an order

for cizye collection will serve to show the contents of a typical tax collection order.” Blank spaces left for the year and the collector’s name indicate that this particular tezkire was intended either as a model for several orders or as a request for an order for a person not yet appointed.’ The order requested by the tezkire was a nigan, a type of berat to be shown as authorization for performing a function. This nigan was supposed to relate that now that the tevzi, distribution,

of cizye and other tax collection responsibilities had been made for this year in the capital, “blank” was ordered to collect the cizye of the city of Trabzon due for the year 103—/162-.* After detailing the number of hanes (1575, from which 533 were to be subtracted, as the cizye from those hanes was devoted to support of the garrison of Giresun), the nisan was to state that at the appointed collection time, “blank” was authorized to collect 220 akce from each taxpayer plus an accession increase of 5 akce, totaling 225, and no one was to interfere with the collection in any way. It specified the current exchange rates at which gold coins and silver kurus were to be accepted

(1 altun = 118 akce; 1 kamil kurus = 78 akce; 1 esedi kurus = wormhole: elsewhere in this register the exchange rate for the esedi kurus is listed as 68 akce) and warned the collector that if he were forced to take actual akce coins, he should accept only those that were new and genuine and of full weight (at that time, 11 to a dirhem). He was to send the money collected to Istanbul and submit it to the treasury. Another tezkire for a nigsan for the year 1055/1645—46 was issued

to Osman, the defterdar and cizye collector of Erzurum, who had 2 MM 2728 (3457), p. 3. A copy of an order like that requested in the tezkire is in MM 241 (115), fol. 55a. 3 Dent has suggested that the blank spaces instead of names found in documents for French tax farmers may have indicated secret participants in the system (Crisis in Finance, 56). * The wording used, “the collection of the cizye of the city of Trabzon due for the year x” (x senesine mahsub olmak iizere nefs-i Trabzon cizyesi), is the standard phraseology employed in almost every such order.

188 CHAPTER SIX petitioned requesting authorization to collect the tax.” The muhasebe defterleri (i.e., the tevzi-i cizye registers kept in the cizye muhasebesi kalemi) were checked and this Osman’s appointment as cizye collec-

tor for Erzurum for that year was verified. Collection having been ordered, he was authorized to collect the cizye of Erzurum in accordance with the cizye assessment (tahrir) register bearing a tugra (the

Sultan’s) and a seal (the muharrir’s) which was given to him, and he was ordered to send neither more nor less than the amount assessed

and recorded in the register. Earlier we examined the production of tahrir registers; here we see them in use in the tax collection process to specify amounts to be collected and individuals responsible for payment. The two orders above illustrate the procedures followed after the appointment of a cizye collector. First, the appointee was given an

appointment berat (nisan), a diploma addressed to all and sundry empowering him as collector of the cizye of a certain place for a certain year, providing specific instructions as to how he was to proceed

and commanding people’s compliance. Dates of appointment in the registers show that appointments were made anywhere from a few months to several years in advance. Shortly before the actual time for collection, the beginning of the year,® the collector petitioned to request another order (emr or hiikm) mandating collection at this specific time. Upon receiving this petition, finance department scribes checked the tevzi-i cizye registers in the cizye muhasebesi kalemi to make sure that this person had truly been appointed as claimed. Only

then was the second order sent. Addressed to the kadi, the miifettis, and/or the local defterdar rather than to the tax collector himself, this second order commanded their cooperation with his collection and contained detailed instructions on collection and reporting procedures which they would have to supervise.’ The tax collector was sent a copy of the area’s current cizye tahrir register, according to which the collection was to proceed. The complexity of the appointment procedure and the long delays between stages explain the need to 5 MM 3881 (2765), p. 157. ° An order in register MM 4646 (7455) 1069/1658—59, p. 20, specified that the cizye of Maras was due “from Muharrem to Muharrem,” the lunar year, but it was collected Mle Bo the beginning of the solar year and the harvest season in that part of the Mid’ For a copy of such an order recorded in the kadi’s sicil see Ongan, Ankara’nin Iki Numarali Seriye Sicili, no. 671.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 189

issue dual orders and keep appointment registers. Another reason for

dual orders appears in a response to a tax collector’s petition; he requested a second collection order specifically to forestall opposition to his collection.® In cases where the actual collection was made from taxpayers by provincial officials, the finance department directed orders to these officials to warn them that collection time had come, to identify the

person sent to pick up the revenue from them, and to ensure the officials’ cooperation with the collector when he arrived in their territory. An example of such an order is one addressed to the beylerbey and defterdar of Kibris (Cyprus) about the cizye of that province. It informed the provincial officials that Hiiseyin Aga, a former miiteferrika

of the Porte now employed by the grand vizier Halil Pasa as kapici basi, had been appointed to collect the cizye of Kibris, and it commanded them, upon Hiiseyin Aga’s arrival, to pack up in purses (der kise) and hand over all money from the cizye, as well as imperial funds (revenues of crown lands and imperial enterprises) and other cash revenues in the provincial treasury.’ Htiseyin Aga would transport these revenues to Istanbul and place them in the imperial treasury. Shortly afterward, a second order was issued to these same two officials informing them that Hiiseyin Aga had now been commanded to receive the cizye collected in accordance with the detailed register for the year 1026/1617—-18 and transmit it to the campaign treasury of the army in the east rather than to Istanbul. This was an unusual circumstance; ordinarily money would be submitted to the central

treasury and recorded there before being sent on to its ultimate destination. A final tezkire on this matter recorded information to be included in Hitiseyin Aga’s berat, specifying the amount of the 1026/

1617-18 payment to be levied from each of the 26,842 taxpayers listed in the defter (with tugra) as the following: cizye plus gulamiye (here called resm-i kalem), plus a 40-akce exemption fee (bedel-i muafiyet; exemption not explained), plus a 10-akce substitution price

for linen (bedel-i kirpas), totalling 387 akce. It gave the current exchange rates, 118 akce to the gold piece and 78 akce to the kamil kurus, and the weight of the akce, 9.5 to the dirhem. It also required that collection take place in the kadi’s court, the mahkeme, and in 8 Min ba‘d muhalefet ettirilmemek iizere; KK 2576, p. 47. ° The value of a standard purse (kise or kese) varied over time between 20,000 and 50,000 akce; see Pakalin, Osmanli Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sdézligi, 2: 247-49.

190 CHAPTER SIX no other location; that collection not take place until the proper cizye

collection time had come (a provision designed to prevent double collection and to avoid burdening the peasants at a season when they

were unlikely to have ready cash), and that a register of the cizye collected should be made, signed, sealed, and submitted to the treasury. These final stipulations were undoubtedly added to ensure that, as the money would not pass through the treasury, irregularities in collection could not slip through unnoticed.'° By such detailed instruc-

tions, the finance department hoped to maintain its control of tax collection and forestall problems that were likely to arise, including disputes over the destination of the revenues, excessive collection, interference by unauthorized personnel, the disappearance of collected funds, and currency alterations. Occasionally, taxes were not collected because a collection order never arrived at its destination, an important reason for notifying local officials of tax collection appointments. When a kadi or appointed collector became aware that a collection order had gone astray, proper procedure was to petition for a new order, which was immediately forthcoming, usually accompanied by injunctions to make the collection as quickly as possible. The kadi of Ankara petitioned in this way when he became aware that neither an order to draft oarsmen for the fleet nor an agent to muster the draft had reached his town; the order was reissued with a command to send men, not money. Likewise, when it was reported that an order for payment of a timar bedeli in the province of Sam had not been seen there, a new order had to be issued to the beylerbey and defterdar.'! Payment of taxes in advance frequently gave rise to problems. The normal procedure in such a situation is illustrated by a case in Trabzon in 1039/1629—30 in which the cizye was paid in advance by its collector,

Hasan Osman Yeniceri. He was given a register signed, sealed, and marked with a tugra showing 1572 hanes and an order permitting him to take 225 akce from each hane. The order listed the advance payments

made by Hasan Osman with the dates on which they were made, 0 MM 2256 (5712) 1026/1617-18, pp. 65-66. Another order of this sort (MM 2256 (5712) 1026/1617—-18, p. 40) was written to the kadis of the cizye-paying areas in Urgiip,

instructing them to oversee cizye collection in that area, since again the money would not pass through the central treasury. While seeing that the agents took no more than was specified, the kadis were at the same time to avoid any shortfall in garrison salaries; whether that was possible we do not know. | MM 357 (20115), p. 130; MM 2728 (3475), p. 77.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 191

showing that by that time he had already paid the full amount to the treasury. The payments had been submitted over a period of about three weeks immediately prior to the issuance of the order, from 26 Ramazan to 18 Sevval 1038.” The order did not explain the reasons behind this arrangement. One consideration may have been the risk involved in transporting large amounts of cash through areas possibly infested with bandits; payment in advance transferred the risk from the treasury to Hasan Osman. Another may have been the government’s

need for immediate cash to make, for example, a salary payment due

at the first of the year. Since appointments of cizye collectors were made in advance, it sometimes happened that appointees died or retired or were dismissed

before collection could take place. Tevzi-i cizye register MM 323 (6874) dated 979/1571-—72 contains a number of such instances, as well as marginal notations showing the names of those newly appointed to take their places. Both emin and katib were replaced, even if only one had retired or died; this might indicate that the two worked together as partners or belonged to the same group. The most unusual

case comes from a register dated 1067/1656—57: when the cizye collector Hasan Aga died, his assignment was given to Elhac Htiseyin Aga on payment of 3,000 kurus in advance, and the “berat and defter” of collection were assigned to him.’ Elhac Hiiseyin Aga, however, never came to pick them up, resigning (farig olmagla) his appointment, so it was reassigned to Yahya Aga, and the “berat and defter”

were awarded to him. He in turn resigned his assignment to Kara Hasan Zade Mustafa Aga, to whom the “berat and defter” were finally presented. One can only wonder whether there were special circumstan-

ces making this particular assignment so unattractive. Appointments of cizye collectors in advance were sometimes connected to their paying in advance, as Hasan Osman above did. Register MM 3742 (14790) dated 1052/1642—43 is a record of cizye collectors who had paid the tax before actually collecting the revenue. A number of entries in the tevziat register MM 4569 (14797) dated 1067/1656— 57 also indicate that payment had been made in advance of collection.

The decline paradigm makes much of the hardship to the peasantry '2 The date on the order itself is 18 Sevval 1036/2 July 1626. That was a slip of the pen; as indicated by adjacent orders, the correct date was 18 Sevval 1038/21 June 1628, this date being a little over two months before the beginning of 1039 (MM 2728 [3457], p. 89). Thus, the collection order was written upon submission of the final installment. '3 MM 4569 (14797), p. 13.

192 CHAPTER SIX caused by collection of taxes in advance, but in these cases, although the treasury received its money in advance, collection from taxpayers was made at the normal time. Iltizam payments in advance, frequent in the 1630s and 1640s, likewise did not necessarily involve collection from taxpayers in advance. The government apparently resorted to this practice only in years when the need was particularly acute, or in preparation for military campaigns, because registers from other

years contain no indication of advance payment.” Another difficulty facing a tax collector was the possibility of arriving

in his territory to find that taxes he had been assigned to collect had already been collected by someone else. This was sometimes due to a conflict of jurisdiction over appointments, as in the case of the evkaf of Haseki Sultan, where cizye collection was assigned by the central bureaus to the team of Ali b. Mustafa and Mahmud b. Mustafa when the cizye had already been collected by Yusuf, an agent of the defterdar

of the Danube. A petition sent by the local kadi described the mixup and requested a solution.’’ In another instance, the grand vizier Mehmed Pasa’s kethuda, Yusuf, reported that a village valued at 18,000

akce had been granted to him as zeamet and he held an imperial be-

rat and a copy of the tahrir defteri for it, but that the emin of the hass-1 hiimayun in that region, claiming that the village belonged to

the imperial has, had started collecting its revenues. When Yusuf requested an order prohibiting the emin’s collection, the miifettig was ordered to inspect his berat and defter to discover whether or not the village really belonged to the has. If the emin had begun collection illegally, he was to be stopped, and it was to be recorded in Yusuf’s berat that miiltezims were prohibited from interfering in collection.

In a similar vein, an attempt was made to collect the revenue of a village in the sultan’s has in Tirhala on behalf of the valide sultan’s fully-owned miilk properties. In this case, the village did not appear in the valide sultan’s miulkname, or deed of ownership, so the attempt was disallowed." A problem similar to conflicts in jurisdiction was that of multiple

allocations of the same revenue. Although any discussion about expenditure of tax revenues is outside the scope of this study, it may 4 Registers showing no payments made in advance include MM 2930 (14588) dated 1040/1630-31 and MM 4187 (14581) dated 1060—62/1650-52. On taxes demanded in advance in preparation for a military campaign, see Finkel, Administration of Warfare,

is AB I Ahmed, 205. © AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 16, 6.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 193

be mentioned that the inadvertent assignment of a single revenue source

to two different expense items (for example, two people’s salaries) formed a significant source of conflict between tax collectors.'’ Agents representing both areas of expenditure, sent to collect the same funds,

were forced to petition the central bureaus for clarification of the status of the revenue source. Tahrir registers and collectors’ appointment registers were used to determine where the revenue should be allocated and who should be permitted to collect it. A good example can be seen in an order regarding the collection of the cizye of Egin and Arapkir. The non-Muslim inhabitants of the area, having paid the cizye for the previous year in full, purchased the collection of cizye for 1034/1624—25 from the appointed collector, Kiiciik Cavus. After

submitting the money to the treasury, they found that the cizye of Egin had been re-awarded to someone named Kara Siileyman and that of Arapkir to Zulfikar, both personnel from the imperial army. Upon

their complaint, an order was sent prohibiting the second collection by the military men and commanding them to return to the reaya any money already collected.!®

Detailed orders for collection of the avariz similar to those for the cizye were not found in the records. Information on avariz collection comes from complaints about problems or abuses occurring in connection with various levies. It is clear, however, that unless he was

a kadi, an avariz collector, like a cizye collector, was expected to make his collection in accordance with the emr and defter given to him. In the case of a kadi, his office was his authorization and he would already have in his possession a copy of the tahrir register, so he only needed to be informed of the rate of the avariz for the year in question. For this reason, the kadi sicills are likely to contain additional information on avariz rates and collection practices.

The records used for this study do not give details of specific procedures employed by tax collectors to obtain money directly from taxpayers. Other sources, such as kadi sicills, might provide a better description of actual collection processes than do the documents of the central government. Aspects of the process giving rise to difficulties and abuses were mentioned in petitions. It is probable, however, that collection was ordinarily handled by a procedure similar to that used in assessment; in other words, the collector proceeded from district '’ For an instance of dual assignment of a single source of revenue for military salaries see Ostapchuk, “Ottoman Black Sea Frontier,” 211-13. 18 MM 2728 (3457), p. 21.

194 CHAPTER SIX to district in the order in which they were recorded in the register and, with the assistance of local government officials and the local kadi, received payments from individuals or from representatives of taxpaying groups.’’ In areas where central government personnel were barred from operating, the collector’s job was simpler; there he had only to accept a lump sum payment from whoever had the right to collect it.

Iltizam Collection

Tax collection by iltizam was essentially the same as tax collection by any other method, with the exception of certain problems peculiar to tax farming. Once a collection order was issued, the tax collection process passed out of the hands of the central finance department, and thus out of its records, unless a problem arose. For agricultural taxes, collection was made at harvest time, while for other types of revenues,

such as customs dues, a year-round staff had to be maintained from whom iltizam holders periodically obtained their revenues (unless they

themselves were involved in operating the mukataa). Unlike other taxes, iltizam revenues were ordinarily delivered in installments, either

annually, semi-annually, or quarterly. The government’s conditions for awarding iltizam rights required miiltezims to guarantee submis-

sion of the full amount contracted for, to record and report their activities properly, and to abide by law and justice. The finance department took what measures it could to ensure fulfillment of the

contract; for example, in a case mentioned earlier, in which the miiltezim’s conditions included a 2000-akce increase for the zeamet of Mustafa, it stipulated that Mustafa would get his increase only after the first year’s returns came in.”° Whether a miiltezim was appointed centrally or locally, tax collection could not proceed without a berat of authorization (nisan) from the government, given only to those properly selected and recorded. '? Cohen indicates that in Jerusalem updating the registers could be done at the same time as collecting the revenues, and that collectors simultaneously gave the taxpayers receipts for the sums collected, but that actual collection from individuals was made by a member of the community VJewish Life, 233 and n. 40). The same was often true in tribal and village groups (Elihu Grant, The People of Palestine (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1921], 150).

20-MM 241 (115), fol. 94b. :

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 195

Prohibitions against collection of state revenues without a berat are frequent in the registers. This rule was so stringent that in 1042/163233 one emin allowed himself to get into trouble for not having made his collection; for a whole year he had waited unavailingly for a berat,

but without it he had not dared to proceed. Possession of a berat in his name identified the official collector to those from whom he collected

revenue and to provincial and central officials. Any request by a miiltezim for a berat authorizing tax collection was first checked against

the registers of the muhasebe and mukataa bureaus to verify that he was duly authorized. If so, the finance department issued a tezkire attesting to his appointment to the position named and authorizing issuance of the berat. A typical register entry for a berat on an iltizam in 1038/1628—29 explained that the iltizam of the coffeehouse of Konya

and related mukataas had been sold by the Karaman treasury to one Abdulgani, that the bas muhasebe registers at the capital had been

checked and his iltizam for that year was recorded there, that the revenues had been assigned to pay for gunpowder and must not be appropriated by the defterdar of Karaman for provincial expenses, and

finally that a tezkire had been written ordering the production of a berat by the finance scribes. Another iltizam collection order described how an emin’s subordinate brought his tezkire in person to the finance

scribes in order to obtain a berat.?! Berats identified the iltizam, the miiltezim, and the temporal limits of the iltizam, indicating amounts due and payment schedules, amounts paid in advance, destinations of the remaining funds, and how they were to be submitted. They listed special conditions applying to the iltizam and mentioned whether kefils still had to be found. They also included instructions as to how miiltezims and emins were to proceed

and what rules they were to observe. The berats warned collectors to adhere to tax rates established by kanun, local custom, and central government registers, and not to attempt to take any revenues before the proper time. A special exception, proving the rule, was made for the miiltezim of the Filibe and Sofya mukataas in the year 1000/159192: the miiltezim, while still waiting for production of his official berat, was given an order (hiikm) permitting his men to begin the collection immediately.” There must have been some unusual reason 1 AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 9-10; KK 5019, p. 165; MM 2728 (3475), p. 83; KK 5019 p. 4; MM 3881 (2765), p. 65. 22 MM 687 (9820), p. 85; for orders containing these specifications see MM 3881

196 CHAPTER SIX for collection of these revenues to proceed with such haste, but it was

not mentioned in the order. When berats were written at the center for iltizams awarded at the provincial level, the governor and provincial defterdar were notified; otherwise, notification was sent to the

miifettis of the mukataa or the kadi of the area. Every attempt was made to install an experienced miiltezim of proven ability. The document awarding an iltizam on port revenues of Chios

in the troubled year of 976/1568—69 stressed that appointing the proposed miiltezim would be profitable for the treasury as he had held such a position before. When the price of the Yiirilik mukataa of Mentese was too high to attract bidders, the former emin, now serving as nazir of the province, nominated as emin a relative named Ali, because he

stood a good chance of collecting the full amount with the nazir’s advice. The finance department, on its part, stipulated that Ali be experienced enough to control the emanet successfully and insisted that a higher bidder obtaining the iltizam be required to provide guarantors for the sum pledged.” _ A newly appointed collector sometimes had difficulty gaining recognition as the authorized official. One example is the case of the miiltezim

Ahmed Cavus, who faced potential resistance to his collection of revenues. Ahmed undertook the iltizam of several mukataas in the sancaks of Vize and Kuirkkilise after Hasan, the emin-i miiltezim, died, offering a separate iltizam for the arrears (bakrye) left by Hasan. The order sent to the miifettig particularly commanded him to keep a close eye on the beytiilmal-1 hassa (repository of estates of deceased members

of the ruling class) and report anyone from the sipahi or kul classes who tried to prevent Ahmed from collecting funds in arrears.” As was the case in cizye collection, the berat or nisan granting authorization to an iltizam collector had to be supplemented by a specific order to collect (hiikm-i serif or emr-i serif). This need is evident in a petition from the miiltezim of the port revenues of Trablus-

Sam for a hiikm-i serif to allow him to proceed with revenue collection in accordance with the new, corrected, authorized kanunname that had already been issued to him with his berat, and in a request by the joint miiltezims of an iltizam in Diyarbekir for an emr-i serif

(2765), p. 18 (collection to take place at the harvest of the crops), 39, 63, 99; MM 357 (20115), p. 116. 23-MM 241 (115), fols. 94a, 38a. 24 MM 687 (9820), p. 181.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 197

in accord with the imperial berat in their hands.” It was in the berats and hiikms that the government set forth the conditions under which tax farmers were allowed to collect state revenues. Besides collection according to law, these conditions included the miiltezim’s accurate and timely reporting of his collection activities, their results, and any difficulties incurred. Reports by taxation agents constituted one of the central government’s links to the outside world, a principal source of information about conditions in the empire, and reporting was a vital part of the tax collectors’ function. The need to update the central government’s registers was uppermost in the minds of the finance scribes. Only when a steady stream of new records came in from kadis and tax officials could the central registers, the all-important instrument of control, reflect actual conditions in the empire. Finance department

orders constantly reiterated that the submission of documents and accounts was one of the “important affairs” of the government.”* Any

study of decentralization and control would do well to examine the flow of papers and reports between the provinces and the capital. Since central finance officials could not provide on-the-spot supervision, they relied on correct procedure and recording in registers to distinguish between legitimate iltizam holders and intruders. In a case in Tirhala, Yusuf and Hiiseyin had been granted an iltizam, but while they were waiting for their berat, Hasan Cavus attempted to collect the mukataa’s revenues without a berat but with a tezkire from the miifettis. The finance department told the miifettis that if he wanted to award the mukataa to someone other than the current holders, he had to find someone capable and wealthy and apply in the proper manner to the finance department, sending to the capital a signed and sealed copy of his register showing sufficient kefils along with a detailed

petition describing the bid, so that a berat could be properly issued. In another case, Iskender, the emin of the Baghdad customs for 1055/ 1645—46, petitioned the capital complaining that the former emin, Sefer, was still collecting revenues even though his term had passed,

and that if this was a ruse to obtain the collection rights again, at accounting time Sefer should be held responsible for this period. The order issued in response, however, commanded Sefer to give Iskender the revenues he had collected since his term had officially ended.?’ 25 MM 357 (20115), p. 116; MM 2728 (3457), p. 75. 26 Umur-1 mithimme, AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 15. 27 AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 11; MM 3881 (2765), p. 185.

198 CHAPTER SIX These and similar decisions demonstrate the government’s desire to run the iltizam system “by the book.” As far as the finance department was concerned, whoever was recorded in the finance department’s registers was the official collector. By the 1620s the finance department was fully prepared for con-

flicts over mukataa collection rights, and from then on its orders frequently contained clauses addressing this issue. An example con-

cerns part of the sultanic has in Selanik, formerly given as has to the vizier Bayram Pasa and farmed to Mustafa, a resident of Selanik. When Bayram Pasa’s revenues reverted to the status of sultanic has in 1038/1628—29, threatening conflict between collectors, the finance department issued a long and detailed order providing for Mustafa’s

having made payments in advance and authorizing his subsequent collection of has revenues for the duration of his iltizam without interference from muhassils, nazirs, emins, ummal, or other has collection personnel.”®

The death of a miiltezim usually occasioned confusion over the status of the iltizam. First of all, the capital had to be informed of the event and a decision made about who would handle the change of miiltezims. When Fazlullah, one of the miiltezims of Mentese, fell ill and died, the nazir petitioned to inform the finance department and to request permission to award the mukataa to someone else. An award

made at such a time was sometimes challenged. After the nazir of Belgrad died having made only a partial collection, the office of nazir was awarded to Mehmed Cavus for a lesser amount. But two other men named Mehmed and Ibrahim went to the divan and undertook the iltizam at the old total on condition that this Mehmed also be made

a cavus; the higher iltizam was accepted and Mehmed was given a position in the gavus corps.”? A more complicated case took place in Karaman, where a man named Abdi petitioned concerning a mukataa which had been held in an iltizam of one year by his deceased brother Yusuf. At the time of Yusuf’s death, three months into the year, he had already submitted the total amount of the iltizam to the treasury

in advance of collection, and Abdi was now engaged in collecting the revenues of the mukataa. In Muharram 1055/March 1645, Abdi requested and received a berat for finishing out the collection. How8 KK 5019, p. 176. A tezkire bound between pages 15 and 16 of the same register and a telhis copied onto page 16 record a previous iltizam for this same mukataa. 29 MM 241 (115), fol. 81a; MM 687 (9820), p. 155.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 199

ever, the following month Abdi had to petition again because another man, Bostanci Hiiseyin, had requested an order to collect the mukataa’s revenues because the iltizam had not been completed. But since Yusuf’s submission of the full amount as well as Abdi’s berat for collection were documented in the registers at the capital, an order was written prohibiting Hiiseyin’s interference in the mukataa for the rest of the year. Hiiseyin apparently petitioned again on the ground that his berat for 1055 entitled him to begin collection at the beginning of the year, even though Abdi was still collecting at that time. The central government upheld this berat and issued a counter-order against Abdi.

Later it was discovered that the problem lay not in the greed of miiltezims but in a conflict in the registers. According to the central government’s registers, Hiiseyin’s iltizam began in Muharrem, the first month of the year, while in the records of the provincial treasury of Karaman it began in Saban, the second month. The revenues of Muharrem 1055 were quite correctly collected by Abdi against the 1054 iltizam. Since the problem was bound to recur at the beginning of every year, Hiiseyin requested another order to clarify matters for the 1056 iltizam. The central treasury wrote to the defterdar of the province detailing the whole problem, rescinding its previous order,

and instructing the provincial treasury not to prevent Abdi from collecting a full year’s taxes.” If a deceased miiltezim had made his collection but had not sent the money to the treasury, it had to be claimed from his estate, or from his heirs if the estate had already been divided. For instance, when Ali Hamza the silahdar, miiltezim of the mukataa of the wine barrel tax in Edirne, died leaving a debt to the treasury of 125,000 akce, an order was written to the kadi of Zagra-1 Atik (probably his home) to demand the sum without delay from Ali Hamza’s estate, his ciftlik, and other properties. When Mehmed b. Ali, miiltezim of taxes in the Uskiidar area, died owing 34,492 akce, his kefils offered to undertake the tahvil themselves in order to discharge the debt.*! If the status of a revenue source altered, it might become necessary to change collectors in the middle of an iltizam. For instance, the area designated as the has of Mesih Pasa in the sancak of Silistre was awarded in iltizam to Saban b. Aydin in 1002/1593—94, but by the time the new miiltezim obtained his berat, the area had been made 3° MM 3881 (2765), pp. 9, 34, 39, 121, 126. 3! KK 5019, pp. 180, 172; MM 267 (2775), p. 778.

200 CHAPTER SIX part of the vizier Cafer Pasa’s has. For two years the vizier’s voyvodas collected: the has revenues, although the miiltezim of record was still

Saban. When the situation was finally brought to the government’s attention in 1004/1595—96, the finance department annulled Saban’s

berat, releasing him from responsibility for the revenue. A more complex situation arose when a mukataa of Haleb farmed in 1055/ 1645-46 was made into has for the mir-i alem Hiiseyin, who was to receive the revenue as of the beginning of the iltizam. The old emin had already paid into the treasury some of the money, which then had to be refunded. The finance department made an extra effort to see that the transaction was properly recorded in the treasury’s ruznamc¢e

(daybook) and the collectors’ account registers (muhasebe).”* The length of time needed to generate the paperwork for an iltizam and the inadequacy of supervision left room for the duplication or overlapping of collection rights, whether deliberate or inadvertent. The danger was especially acute during the time when mukataas were

in the process of changing hands. The fact that iltizams could be awarded at both central and provincial levels increased the possibility that duplicate appointments would occur. A dispute over a mukataa in Haleb between the miiltezim Kasim, appointed by the Haleb pro-

vincial treasury, and a bidder named Omer who had submitted an advance payment and received a berat from the campaign treasury, was solved by awarding Omer the following year’s collection. Duplicate collectors could also result from finance department errors in awarding collection rights. The Tirhala has was actually awarded twice,

once to Marko and again to Mehmed and Abdi. Marko had paid a substantial sum in advance, and the finance department only allowed Mehmed and Abdi to retain the iltizam if they repaid the full amount

of the advance to Marko. The same problem could occur at the provincial level. The Haleb treasury, which had awarded the ihtisab of Antalya to Mehmed Abdullah, also awarded it to someone else, but since Mehmed Abdullah’s name was recorded in the central finance

department’s registers and he held an imperial berat, the order was issued in his favor.” Collection of farmed taxes in advance does not seem to have posed the problem for taxpayers that sometimes occurred with respect to other kinds of revenues. The reason may have been that tax farming 2 MM 687 (9820), p. 140; MM 3881 (2765), p. 153. 33 MM 2252 (7726), p. 12; AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 4; MM 3881 (2765), p. 38.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 201

could only be undertaken by men wealthy enough to pay first and collect later; if so, they could also afford to wait until the proper collection time arrived before reimbursing themselves. Tax farming thus served to even out the flow of revenue to the treasury and to prevent at least one kind of oppression. The only complaint encountered in the mukataa registers concerning a demand for iltizam revenue in advance was not made by taxpayers but by a tax farmer whose

proceeds were designated for support of the Erzurum garrison. For an unspecified reason, the 1067/1657—58 revenues had all been sent directly to the central treasury, and now the garrison was demanding its 1067 salaries out of the 1068 revenues, to be collected in advance. The emin refused to do this, protesting that it would be oppressive, and requested an order to prevent it.” If for some reason taxes could not be collected for an entire year, the whole revenue schedule was thrown off, creating hardships for both taxpayers and collectors. When this happened, the finance depart-

ment took special care to ensure that taxes were collected equitably and that miiltezims remained responsible for the funds they had bid for. In 1068/1658—59 the Corum mukataa emini, Ibrahim, approached the kadi to report that the previous year’s emin had not yet collected

the 1067 revenues and the reaya would have to pay two years’ tax in one year. He was afraid the peasants would leave the land, causing permanent harm to the revenue and making it impossible for him to meet his own iltizam. When the registers were checked, information on the Corum mukataas could not be located. In accordance with the information in Ibrahim’s berat, therefore, an order for him to collect the 1068 revenues was granted, but a clause was added warning him

to be extremely careful not to commit oppression in the process.» A series of orders in a single register illustrates the problems resulting

from collection without authorization by a berat from the center, and the seriousness with which the government took this matter.*° In this instance several mukataas were involved, at least two kadis lost their jobs, and the difficulties stretched over a number of years. The instigator of the problem seems to have been a kadi named Ahmed, 4 MM 7455, p. 9. 35 MM 4646 (7455), p. 50: hilaf-i sar‘ (ve) kanun ziilm ettikten bi-gayet ihtiraz eyliyesin,

you should guard to the utmost against committing oppression contrary to Islamic and sultanic law. Another case in which the finance department urged special care by the miiltezim on account of overlapping collections is MM 4646 (7455), p. 30. 36 AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 3-11.

202 CHAPTER SIX miifettis in charge of the extensive mukataas of Egriboz and Tirhala. Another(?) miifettis named Tursunzade was also involved. For several years prior to 1008/1599-1600, on the pretext that there were no bidders, men appointed by Ahmed collected the revenues of several mukataas

without obtaining berats from the capital. Their only authorization was a letter from the kadi and a tezkire from the nazir, which they obtained by pretending to offer higher bids in the kadi’s court. Their remittances were in deficit because Ahmed was embezzling the money,

but when the finance department demanded his receipts he denied responsibility, protesting, “I am not the miiltezim.” This was the more reprehensible as the money was destined for the imperial army at the Austrian front, where it was urgently needed. When Ahmed’s activities were finally detected, he and(?) Tursunzade were dismissed from their posts as kadi and miifettis, and Ahmed’s men were ousted from

the mukataas. New bids were sought, new miiltezims and officials appointed, and the mukataas of Tirhala and Egriboz were placed under a new nazir, Turak Bey. A new kadi, Zeyniilabidin, was installed as

miifettis. Even after the new men took up their positions, however, Ahmed and his men continued to make collection rounds, brandishing false documents to fool people into handling tax moneys over to them. The new miiltezims, unable to avoid deficits in their 1009/1600—1601 taxes, complained to the capital. Since they could not complete the collection, their accounts could not be audited nor the final mukataa registers compiled. Orders issued to correct the matter went unheeded,

and the new kadi appeared to be walking in the path of the old. Petitions were again submitted, in response to which the new miifettis

and nazir were sent extremely strongly worded orders telling them not to permit continued collection by persons without berats or kefils.

By allowing it, they were told, the miifettis and nazir would create chaos and disorder and diminution and deficit in the revenues. This matter was among the great affairs of state, not comparable to any other. By taking it upon themselves to permit impropriety and despicable behavior, they were forsworn guardians [of the law], allowing collection and activity and supervision without a berat. The miifettis himself was responsible for making good any deficits in the state’s revenues, or he would be dismissed and expelled from office and be

severely punished and degraded, in order that he might serve as a warning to others. He was admonished to be exceedingly cautious not

to miss the least opportunity for exhibiting his carefulness and perseverence on behalf of the state. He should tolerate no delay and

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 203

permit no impropriety in the collection of revenues, and should make

haste to send a complete account of the matter to the capital.’’ This forceful language clearly conveyed the immense significance of the relationship expressed by the grant of a berat: it represented the delegation of the authority of the state, of which the kadis were

guardians. For a kadi, the dispenser of law and order, not only to permit but to be personally involved in subversion of the state’s author-

ity structure was a transgression that could not be tolerated.** The centralized Ottoman administrative system, exerting control over vast distances despite inadequate means of communication, depended on the existence of an ultimate check which was completely trustworthy and could not be challenged. This ultimate check was provided by the kadis, the representatives of Holy Law within the state apparatus. Even the authority granted by the sultan’s berat was upheld by them.

Remittance and Reporting Finance documents of the central government do not usually describe the specific procedures by which tax collectors obtained money from taxpayers or revenue sources, hinting at them only when problems occurred. Delivery (or non-delivery) of tax revenues to the treasury brought the collection process once again under the finance department’s

light and into its records. After gathering the taxes, the official collector was responsible for ensuring that the money reached Istanbul and was deposited in the treasury; it was considered his personal debt to the state. He was also responsible for seeing that the accounting procedures and paperwork were properly done and submitted. About these procedures we have a great deal of information, as the central finance bureaus once again became involved in the process. Orders to tax agents to begin collection usually included specific instructions about what to do with the money collected. For the most part, these 37 AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 10. 38 In his study of the legal system, Gerber found that complaints of kadi corruption were very few, and that most concerned local assistants (naibs) rather than central government appointees. Most complaints dealt with excessive tax collection or embezzlement of property, not corruption of legal decisions (State, Society, and Law, 158-61). On the other hand, Faroghi has uncovered a number of instances of kadis colluding with governors and their men or with brigands and rebels in their misdeeds (“Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 18-20). The question of the frequency of such activity cannot yet be answered from these isolated examples.

204 CHAPTER SIX instructions followed a standardized form: the collector was to put the money into purses, seal each one with his personal seal, and deliver them to the imperial treasury.*’ Occasionally he was ordered to deliver the money elsewhere, to an imperial emin for expenses, for example,

or to a military unit for salaries. The normal procedure for submitting tax receipts to the treasury (teslim-i hazine) was for the depositor to travel to Istanbul, deposit the money in person at the outer treasury in the sultan’s palace, and obtain a receipt for it.“° Register KK 2576 records numerous avariz deposits of this sort. A typical entry reads as follows: In relation to a payment of money by Mustafa Bey, which was presented

against the assignment [tahvil] of Piri Saban Kurd from the standing cavalry, 244th company, [earning] 27 [akce] per day, agent for the avariz

of the kazas of Yenisehir and Fener in the sancak of Tirhala for the year 1042/1632-—33; from the hand of the aforesaid Mustafa Bey, on 11 Ramazan 1043/18 July 1633, 1212 akce were registered in the imperial

daybook; and this amount has been put into the “ziyade-i an el-asl” (increase over the original amount) and it [the collection] was successful [completed] and a tezkire for the payment has been ordered to be written [given]. 1212 [akce]. Written on 25 Ramazan 1043/1 August 1633.4!

The term “tahvil” can be translated as transfer, assignment, term, or debt, according to context; in fiscal matters it refers to the transfer or assignment of tax collection responsibilities to an individual for a fixed term, the amount to be collected being treated as the individual’s

personal debt.” In the example above, the man possessing the tahvil, *° The usual wording of these instructions is: ve hasil olan mali kiseleyip ve miihiirleyip

mezbur Ahmed zide kadruhu bittamam teslim ve yarar ve mutemad aleyh adamlariyla teslim-i hazine ettirile, or kiseleyip ve miihiirleyip bittamam merkum Ahmed Aga’ya eda ve teslim edip temesstik alayiz ve yarar ve mutemad aleyh adamlar kosup asitane-i saadetim

hazinesine ettiresiz (both examples from KK 2576, p. 86).

For the distinction between the outer and the inner treasuries, see Ismail Hakki Uzungarsili, “Osmanli Devleti Maliyesinin Kurulusu ve Osmanli Devleti I¢ Hazinesi,” Belleten 42 (1978): 67-93.

*! Be-cihet-i eda-t akce-i Mustafa bey ki pis ezin an tahvil-i Piri Saban Kurd an ebna-t sipahiyan [bélii]k 244 fi yevm 27 emin an akce-i avariz-i kaza-i Yenigsehir ve Fener

der liva-t Tirhala an vacib-i sene 1042 an yed-i Mustafa bey el-mezbur fi 11 ramazan sene 1043 be-ruznamc¢e-i hiimayun 1212 akce kayd siide bud ve meblag-1 mezbure der ziyade-i an el-asl kerde ve [kabzes] miiyesser siide ve tezkire-i eda nevisten [or daden] fermude. 1212. Tahriren fi 25 ramazan sene 1043 (KK 2576, p. 1; words in brackets are variants found in similar entries). * Nedim Filipovic, “O Izrazu ‘Tahvil’—L’expression ‘tahvil’,” POF 2 (1951/52): 23947. Tax collectors whose accounts were in arrears could be imprisoned until they paid;

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 205

or assignment, of collecting this particular tax, the collector of record, was someone named Piri Saban Kurd. But the person actually depos-

iting the money was Mustafa Bey, perhaps an agent or assistant of Piri Saban Kurd. Making deposits through an agent was, in fact, the typical procedure; on the rare occasions when the official collector

made a deposit in person, it was noted as being “against his own assignment.” While in 26 out of 31 cases from 1044/1634—-35 the assigned collectors were from the standing cavalry forces, like Piri Saban Kurd, the actual depositors of the money were a much more varied group.

None were from the Six Boliiks and only two were miiteferrika guardsmen, while the other twenty-nine were not military men at all. One deposit was made by a kapici, four by cavuses, three by the agent for the imperial kitchens (emin-i matbah), eight by civilian officials (people called celebi or efendi), two by agas and seven by beys (all possibly, and one definitely, in the palace service), two by the financial supervisors (muhassils) of the areas concerned, and two by Jews, one as the representative of his religious community (taife) and the other

probably as an agent for a member of the palace cavalry. Moneychangers (sarraflar) became extensively involved in transmitting tax moneys as well as in guaranteeing iltizams, and at times they, too, appeared as depositors.” Likewise, the additional functionaries of iltizams generally came from different strata of society than the miiltezims: in a register from 990—97/1582-89 listing appointments and salaries of iltizam emins, most of those listed were military men, but not members of the standing cavalry; they were timar holders and members of local garrisons. Two-thirds of the sixty-one emins resided

in the area of the iltizam, a smaller number lived elsewhere in the provinces, and only five were attached to the capital.* for lists of jailed tax farmers see Gokbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 92-103; Fekete, Siyagat-Schrift, #3, 1: 128-37 and 2: plates 5—6. The English customs collectors were also personally responsible to the treasury for their accounts (Dietz, English Public Finance,

* oan tahvil-i hod, as in KK 2576, p. 5. “4 Necibe Sevgen, “Nasil Sémiiriilditik? Sarraflar,” Belgelerle Tiirk Tarihi Dergisi 3, no.

13 (1968/69): 46-59; no. 14 (1968/69): 66-68; no. 15, (1968/69): 59-65; no. 16 (1968/ 69): 54-61; no. 17 (1968/69): 62-66; no. 18 (1968/69): 76-78; 4, no. 19 (1969): 66-67; no. 20 (1969): 69-70; no. 21 (1969): 67-69; no. 22 (1969): 66-67; no. 23 (1969): 54— 55; no. 24 (1969): 5460; no. 25 (1969/70): 73-74; Haim Gerber, “Jews and Moneylending in the Ottoman Empire, Jewish Quarterly Review n.s. 72 (1981/82): 100-18; Epstein, The Ottoman Jewish Communities and Their Role, 133-34; Gibb & Bowen, 2: 24. 45 MM 518 (15259). On the subject of new careers for timar holders, Timar Ruznam¢e

206 CHAPTER SIX Tax revenues were remitted to the treasury either in a lump sum or in a number of installments. A single person might make several deposits relating to a particular tahvil, or several individuals might be involved in collection and transmission of the funds. Since the assignment was considered a personal debt owed by the collector of record, he had to keep careful track of the sums deposited by different

agents against his tahvil. He did this by obtaining for each deposit a finance department receipt called a temesstik (document) or tezkire (note). Tax collectors also obtained temessiiks or tezkires as receipts

for moneys submitted somewhere other than to the treasury: if tax revenues were paid to a military unit or an imperial emin, to one of the provincial treasuries, or to an individual with a havale, the collector obtained a tezkire or temessiik bearing the seal of the person to whom he had given the money, vouching for his collection of the sum even though it was no longer in his hands.* When the cizye of

Kibris was granted as has, for instance, the cizye collector was instructed that upon delivery of the money to the holder of the has, he should obtain both a temesstik and a kadi’s hiiccet (copy of an entry in the kadi’s register verifying the disposition of the money) to submit in lieu of the actual cash.*’ Several kinds of temessiik or tezkire were used in Ottoman fiscal practice, some of which have already been discussed. Documents called

temesstik or tezkire, attesting to the levels and types of taxation for which they were assessed, were issued to villagers and townspeople during surveys to prevent illegal tax collection. Similar documents, also called temessiik or tezkire and showing amounts actually paid, were issued by tax collectors to taxpayers at the time of collection and could be used as proof of payment. For example, when a group of reaya were relocated to another sancak after already having paid taxes in their original home, their new bey was told not to collect taxes from them if they had temessiiks in hand proving prior payDefteri 111 dated 991/1582-83 should be mentioned: it includes entries describing how some timar holders took up careers as katibs (pp. 381, 393). * KK 2576, pp. 95, 128. The Ali Emiri collection contains a large number of various kinds of tezkires. AE I. Ahmet 579 contains tezkires for deposits of the cizye of Moldavia, AE I. Ahmed 738 is a tezkire for an amount taken from the ziyade-i cizye by the bas defterdar, and AE I. Ahmed 798 is a temessiik for a sum paid by the miiltezim of the Vidin mukataas to the beylerbey of Temesvar as part of his annual income (salyane). *” MM 3881 (2765), p. 120. For kadis’ hiiccets verifying temessiiks for the deposit of tax revenues see Ongan, Ankara’nin Iki Numarali Ser’iye Sicili, no. 391, and other entries listed there.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 207

ment.* Tax collectors, usually not local residents nor previously as-

signed to the area, were uninformed about conditions in their appointed locations, so the production of temessiiks verifying prior pay-

ments was vital to preventing double collection.” Temessiiks showing tax payments were also needed because the taxes of a particular year were typically not deposited or recorded at the center until the following year, and in some cases the delay was greater still. On the other hand, there were times when taxes were collected in advance. In the sample entry shown above, revenue for 1042/1632—33 was deposited in the following year, 1043/1633-34. The same register contains records of a deposit due for 1042/163233 made in 1044/1634—35, two years later, and of a deposit due for 1045/1635—36 also made in 1044/1634—35, one year in advance.” The

potential for confusion resulting from overlapping collections neces-

sitated some documentary record of payments already made and amounts still due. So essential was a temessiik in proving payment that it was not unknown for taxpayers to forge these documents in attempts at tax evasion.*! The collector of the yava cizye of Istanbul in 1040/1630 found that many people whose names had not been recorded in the register of collected taxes nevertheless had tezkires in their hands. When he complained, he was told to go by the names in the register and to disregard any tezkires that did not match. At the same time, he was ordered to refrain from using this as an excuse to transgress

against the reaya in any way.” Production of temessiiks for tax collectors at the time of deposit was motivated by a similar need for verification. Temessiiks or tezkires for tax collectors were generated by a complex

process. First, the bureau recording receipt of the incoming revenue

48 MM 3881 (2765), p. 128. Other entries recording the use of temesstiks as proof of payment include KK 2576, pp. 61, 69, 70, 76, 77, 92. Cvetkova records the presentation of a tezkire to prove payment of taxes by the inhabitants of Kegan (/nstitutions ottomanes en Europe, 102). French tax collectors have been reported as refusing to issue receipts for taxes paid to them in order to be able to steal the revenues undetected (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 249-50). 49 Orders documenting the issuance of temessiiks or tezkires specifically for this purpose can be found in MM 2728 (3457), p. 65 and KK 2576, pp. 70 and 89. 30 KK 2576, p. 9. ‘1 Such a case can be found in register KK 2576, p. 44, as well as a suspected case, ibid., p. 105. 32 KK 5019, p. 185.

208 CHAPTER SIX (in the seventeenth century, the ruznamce bureau) requested, by means

of a tezkire, the production of an order of the type called sebeb-i tahrir (from the first two words of its opening phrase, “the reason for writing”). This order, written by the maliye ahkém bureau, commanded the production of a receipt (temessiik or tezkire) vouching for delivery of a particular sum of money to the treasury. Some original orders calling for the production of temessiiks have been preserved.* Register MM 4118 (1888) 1059/1649-50 records receipts (tezakir) for remittances of ziyade-i cizye, avariz, and other taxes; it was generated from marginal notes (der kenar) in the ruznamce defter (daily account register) recording requests for these orders. Other ruznamce registers

may similarly record the production of temessiiks. They are also mentioned in other types of records, such as an ahkam register which

States, “Because we received the aforesaid sum from the hand of Htiseyin Bey, he was given a temessiik to be used as evidence in case of need.’** The temessiik that was produced in response to the sebeb-i tahrir consisted of an exact copy of the register entry for the payment showing tahvil, amount deposited, date, and depositor; the receipt was dated and signed with the pence (stylized signature) of the bas defterdar.> This receipt was transmitted to the tax collector of record and was used in his accounting to the central government. Although collection procedures for iltizam revenues were similar

to those governing the cizye and avariz, there was an important difference in remittance procedures: iltizam revenues, much more frequently than cizye and avariz revenues, were assigned to recipients

Other than the central treasury. A considerable amount of iltizam revenue was deposited in provincial treasuries or paid directly to the designated recipient or to a kadi. Thus, it was all the more necessary for collectors of farmed revenues to obtain receipts for the sums they paid out. These temessiiks showed the amount and date, the name of the person who actually made the payment, where and/or to whom it was paid, and the name and status of the person holding the tahvil who was ultimately responsible for that portion of the revenue. Such > See AE I. Mustafa, docs. 1-4, dated 1032/1622-23; see also AE I. Ahmed 200, 814. A similar order from six decades earlier with almost exactly the same wording is recorded in ahkaém register MM 267 (2775) 973/1565-66, p. 57. * KK 4990, p. 18: meblag-1 mezbur mezkiir Hiiseyin Bey yedinden alip kabz eyledigimiz ecilden yedine temessiik verildi ki vakt-i hacette ihticac idine. > A temessiik or receipt of this type for the cizye of Midilli for 1015/1606-7 is AE I. Ahmed 510, dated 1017/1608-9.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 209

documents enabled miiltezims’ accounts to be balanced against records

of what had actually come into the treasury. Few actual temessiiks are available in the archives, but many entries and documents mention

obtaining temessiiks for moneys deposited and provide the details contained in them. As an example, an order for a temessiik for a treasury deposit from the Kus mukataa of Karadag on 13 Rebiiilevvel 1032/15 January 1623 identifies the miiltezim as Mustafa, the former sancak bey of Temesvar, the depositor as Osman, a kapici, and the amount as 3,413 akce plus 48 akce tefaviit (currency exchange fee) making 3,451 akce.* Finance registers contain many orders notifying those responsible for overseeing mukataa revenues of assignments of specific revenues to specific expenditures; such assignments could be either temporary or permanent. The orders carefully specified the purpose for which the revenue would be used, the identity of the recipient, the amount of money, and the due date of the tax from which the payment would be drawn or on which the change of assignment would take place.°’ Officials were reminded to note these payments in their account registers

and to obtain temessiiks for revenues handed over in this fashion. Even when a revenue assignment involved regular annual payments, an order from the finance department was required each time before mukataa officials were allowed to deliver funds to a third party.* Funds not deposited directly into the central treasury or into one of the provincial treasuries were usually spent on salaries or on the purchase of supplies for the palace, the armory, the navy yard, or a military campaign. An exception was the mukataa revenues of the Syrian sancaks, designated for the expenses of pilgrimage caravans

to Mecca.” The finance department records are thus a mine of © AE I. Mustafa 5, p. 5. KK 4990 p. 19 is a temessiik given by a kadi for a deposit made in a local court, while MM 357 (20115) p. 113 (actually 115) and MM 267 (2775) p. 14 are copies of temessiiks given for deposits to the central treasury. >’ AE III. Mehmed 135 is a kadi’s hiiccet, or evidentiary document, testifying to the assignment of the salary of Mustafa Oda-1 Kiticiik of the ebna-1 sipahiyan on the mukataas of Vize, the acknowledgement of the havale Nurullah Cavus, and his delivery of the money; similar documents are AE III. Murad 176, 177, 400, and AE IV. Murad 22. At this period in France over half of government revenues were expended on the provincial level and most of the rest by the equivalent of the havale; less than 1% of the revenues actually reached the central treasury (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 41). *’ KK 5019, p. 188; MM 687 (9820), p. 280; KK 5019, pp. 163, 167. »? The phrase used in all orders regarding these funds is hacet-i serif miihimmatti icin. For more on the hajj and its financing see Suraiya Faroghi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994).

210 CHAPTER SIX information on the functioning of these institutions as well as on urban economic history. Collectors of farmed revenues were frequently required to pay them,

not to the official recipients, but to intermediaries whose job was to transfer them to their designees. This created new problems of control for the finance department. Agents of the miiltezims, agents of the ultimate recipients, and others in addition to government havales might be involved in handling these funds. An order to the miifettig and nazir of the sancak of Uskiip illustrates the functioning of a havale and the steps taken by the finance department to maintain control over transfers of funds. The order notified the provincial finance officials of the

appointment of a kul named Siileyman to the position of havale for the mukataas of the Uskiip sancak. Siileyman had been given a hiikm and a tevzi defteri showing the tax farms of the region, their revenues, and the names of those responsible for them. He was to gather from the miiltezims of the sancak the iltizam revenues due on Nevruz 981/

1574 and transmit them to a cavus of the Porte named Mustafa, a resident of Uskitip; in turn, Mustafa, with the cooperation of the nazur

and miifettis, was to bring the money to the treasury by Nevruz. A new tevzi defteri would be sent for 982/1574—75, according to which Stileyman was to collect the Agustos installment and bring the money to the capital himself. The order stressed the urgency of receiving the

money on time; the reason for this particular order was the need to make collection prior to the due date. Thus, the nazir, miifettis, cavus, and havale were all made aware of the details of the proposed transmission of funds and could serve as checks on each other in case of transgressions.” Registers detailing amounts due from the miiltezims and orders explaining the transmission procedure and assigning responsibility increased the transparency of the tax farming process. The fluctuating value of revenue sources sometimes made it necessary to shift the assigned destination of mukataa revenues from one recipient to another. If one source was unable to meet the demands placed on it, the need could be met from a nearby source producing a surplus. For example, four bostancis received their salaries from the beytiilmal of Edirne, funded by contributions from the Muslim com-

° MM 357 (20115), p. 100. An entry in KK 5019, p. 8, recording the transfer of the job of havale for the Nevruz 1038/1629 revenues of Selanik from Hiiseyin Veli to Ismail Hasan also indicates that Hiiseyin Veli had already received an order (emr-i serif) and

a tevzi defteri to enable him to carry out his function.

TAX COLLECTION, REMITTANCE, AND REPORTING 211

munity; when the beytiilmal began to have difficulty paying these amounts, the bostancis’ salaries were reassigned on the ihtisab, or marketplace tax, which drew on trade revenues. Likewise, the salary of Seyyid Seyh Ali, drawn on the revenue of the salt works of Aydin, was reassigned on the revenue of the salt works of Ahyolu when the

first source became inadequate.®! Changes of this kind had to be carefully documented to avoid confusion and loss of revenue. Assignments of expenses to sources of revenue, however, were not systematic. The connection between a revenue source and an item of expenditure was usually not a logical or necessary one but a product of convenience and estimation. This opened the door for competition over mukataa

revenues and created new problems for miiltezims in reconciling their accounts. The difficulty of delivering mukataa revenues to their designated recipients is suggested by an order to the kadis of Yanya, Narda, and Ayamavra concerning the mukataa of the Narda salt work, which was

obliged to pay all its revenue in cash directly to the treasury. The order stressed that no revenue from this mukataa was to be sent to any other place without an imperial order, and it called on the kadis to supervise closely the payment of these revenues so that none were disbursed without valid imperial orders. If unauthorized payments were

in fact made, miiltezims and emins would still be considered to owe the full sum to the government. One thoughtful emin attempted to avoid this problem by making it one of the conditions for his new

six-year iltizam on the mukataas of Ahyolu that he alone should transmit and submit his revenues to the treasury. He was also insistent that the Tuna defterdari should not interfere with his iltizam and that

he should report to the bas defterdar alone. If there was a deficit, it should be demanded from him and his staff in accordance with the law (ser‘ ve kanun) and by people favorably inclined to him (miiteveccih).”

These examples, considered together with those above regarding collection, suggest that the diversion of iltizam revenues from their intended recipients was a major problem, severe enough to cause concern and to stimulate attempts to improve supervision. Competition between multiple collectors representing diverse final recipients 611 KK 5019, p. 10; MM 687 (9820), p. 183.

KK 5019, p. 188; MM 687 (9820), p. 25. One is forced to wonder about the relationship between this emin and the Tuna defterdar1.

212 CHAPTER SIX was part of a wider pattern of conflict over access to revenues. Such conflict was probably inevitable, especially because, over time, money was increasingly earmarked for specific recipients rather than being deposited directly into the treasury. More significant for evaluating Ottoman governance than the existence of competition is how the resulting problems were handled. Parties to the conflict appealed to the registers at the central government, to the conditions recorded in a successful bid, and to previously-issued orders.° These written records served as the basis for central government control over collection and

over the final destinations of funds, providing the last word on who could legitimately benefit from the money collected. From these records, we may be able to compile estimates of the distribution of the empire’s

revenues and to track changes in the flow of funds. Through their study it may even be possible to quantify, however roughly, the problems presented in taxpayers’ complaints.

°° See KK 5019, p. 181. An order settling a conflict over collection rights on the yava cizye between some unnamed intruders and the nazir of the mukataas of Uskiip, to whom the collection rights were assigned in the registers and in favor of whom the decision was made, is in Hans Georg Majer, “Nesto za java-dzizieto i maden mukataa nezaretot na Skopje i Vucitrn vo 1663 godina,” Glasnik na Institutot za Nacionaina Istorija 18, no. 3 (1974): 127-38.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS

Budgetary deficits are often seen as symptomatic of Ottoman decline, but the precise nature of the relationship is unclear: was decline the reason for the budgetary deficits, or did the deficits themselves cause decline? Expanding the question highlights its inherent difficulties: did a decline in administrative efficiency or ethics prevent the collection of adequate revenue, and did lack of revenue then cause or contribute to military decline?! Stereotypes of the finance department as “rapacious” and “insatiable” and of the army as poorly led, poorly armed, and poorly paid beg the question. So little is known about the Ottomans’

military funding, training, strategy, and tactics in the seventeenth century that assessments of capability are not yet possible. Steps can be taken, however, toward a better understanding of Ottoman admin-

istrative ability with respect to revenue. Through the finance department’s procedures for allocating incoming funds and accounting for arrears in collection, we catch a glimpse of its goals and priorities in the face of the budgetary deficits of the seventeenth century.

Collectors’ Accounts (Muhasebe)

Together with the money collected (or the final installment) and a detailed record of collection, the tax collector of record presented to the treasury an accounting register (muhasebe) itemizing amounts collected and disbursements made. He was allowed to deduct his salary

from the total before submitting it. The money submitted, plus the amounts disbursed, for which the collector presented temessiiks, were required to equal the total sum for which the collector had been made

responsible at the outset. The submission of a muhasebe served as a signal that collection had been made and as a testimony to its correct performance. An order issued in the year 1010/1601-—2, one of a number | The decline of the Spanish Empire has similarly been ascribed to budgetary deficits (Kamen, /ron Century, 428).

214 CHAPTER SEVEN concerning missing muhasebes, declared that since the year 1000/ 1591-92 it had been necessary and important for emins of the beytiilmal

in Edirne to submit muhasebe registers to the treasury and called for the submission of muhasebes for the intervening ten years, all of which were still outstanding. Finance scribes, taking the absence of muhasebe registers as an indication that taxes had not been collected, tried to monitor this problem carefully. Appointment of a new bureau head presented an opportunity for arrears collection, as suggested by a series of orders on this subject dated immediately after the appointment in 1022/1612 of a new mukataaci, Mehmed Efendi.’ That the submission of a muhasebe register was regarded as evidence for the completion of tax collection is shown by an order to the kadi of Izmir. This kadi, serving as muhassil-i emval (financial supervisor), petitioned in 1049/1639—40 to say that the collector of the bedel-i niiziil for the previous year had counted Izmir as 40 hanes, but the inhabitants claimed that 20 hanes had earlier been subtracted from their assessment. When the registers in the capital were examined it was noted that 20 hanes had indeed been subtracted in 1034/ 1624—25, but it was also discovered that the muhasebe for a kiirekci bedeli levied in the intervening period had never been submitted, and the finance scribes assumed the tax had never been collected. To make up the deficiency, the assessment of 40 hanes in 1048/1638—39 was allowed to stand. Submission of a muhasebe register also formed proof of payment in the case of Hasan Aga, a cizye collector in Bosna, who submitted all his payments in advance but learned at collection time

that the cizye collection post had been awarded to someone else. Because Hasan Aga had submitted a muhasebe register proving payment, however, the Bosna treasury was ordered either to return his advance payments in accordance with the register or to permit him to collect the tax. Conversely, it was often the absence of an account register that alerted finance scribes to the fact that the tax in a particular

locality had not been collected or remitted. Such was the case in Balyabadra, where avariz collection for the year 1048/1638—39 had been assigned to a local resident, K6se Mehmed, but four years later his account register had not been seen (muhasebesi goriilmeyip). On the assumption that the tax had not been collected, an order was sent

1 10). (7316), pp. 44, 45, 56; MM 22603 (9824), p. 31 (see also KK 2576, pp.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 215

to the kadi and kethudas to collect the total amount immediately and send it with any temessiiks to the treasury.° The finance department in this period supervised farmed revenues as assiduously as it did those collected by its own agents. The absence

of a muhasebe for an iltizam indicated that the miiltezim was not doing his job and should be called to account. For example, an order

sent to the miifettis and nazir of Samako noted that the Samako beytiilmal, previously handled ber vech-i emanet, had sometime earlier

been converted to iltizam and added to the Samako mukataas under miiltezim Mahmud, but that since then no money or muhasebe registers had arrived at the treasury. Reiterating that their submission was

necessary and important, the order instructed the miifettis and nazir to lose no time in getting Mahmud to send them, further commanding an on-the-spot inspection of the beytiilmal and a search of the court registers to determine what should have been paid. When the emin Fazlullah was removed from his post in 969/1561—-62 because his payments were in arrears and he did not present a muhasebe, the new appointee, though experienced, required special endorsement by ehl-i vukuf, knowledgeable people who could testify that he would fulfill his undertaking. The submission of muhasebes was considered so important that the fact that none had come in from the mukataas of Egriboz in the year 1010/1601-2 warranted dismissal of the miifettis.*

A tax collector who submitted less than the assessed amount was held personally liable for the difference unless he could produce documentation to show either that the required amounts had been submitted previously or that the taxpayers were unable to pay him the sums demanded, a situation calling for reassessment or partial forgiveness of the amount. There were many circumstances—Celali uprisings, bad weather, epidemics, peasant flight—preventing collection of amounts specified in the registers. Tax collectors customarily petitioned the government with this news, in part to inform the finance

department of the situation and to request instructions, and in part to absolve themselves of responsibility for a revenue shortfall.° For example, Bekir Bey, avariz collector for the province of Rum for the year 1010/1601—2, found himself unable to collect the full amount 3 KK 2576, p. 41; MM 2256 (5712), p. 63; KK 2576, p. 122 (see also 102, 121). 4 MM 357 (20115), p. 117 (actually 119; see also KK 5019, p. 175); MM 241 (115), fol. 43a; AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 8. > Tax farmers could be imprisoned for non-payment; see Fekete, Siyagat-Schrift, #3, 1: 128-37, 2: plates 5—6.

216 CHAPTER SEVEN assessed. Along with the tax money, Bekir handed in a defter showing exactly what he had managed to collect. He also submitted two petitions

from the kadi of Rum. In the first, the kadi notified the government that disruption in the province caused by Celali raids had prevented the agent from completing his avariz collection. The kadi explained that many of the province’s inhabitants had been killed or had left the area, and that those remaining were having a hard time cultivating their land and paying taxes. The second petition was written by the kadi on behalf of the local notables, the provincial ayan, who testified to the parlous state of affairs and tendered their considered opinion that Bekir Bey had collected as much as could be expected. The tacit hope was that the outstanding amount would be written off.° Uncollected taxes were sometimes brought to official notice by a petition from a tax collector. The petition of the beylerbey of Kibris (Cyprus) for an order to collect cizye arrears also reported that the cizye for 1023/1614—15 had been 303 hanes short, a difference which

he as collector had made up. When Zulfikar Cavus petitioned for appointment as a cizye collector in 1055/1645—-46, a search of the registers revealed that the cizye for 1054/1644—45 had not yet been deposited. Mehmed Yeniceri of the ebna-1 sipahiyan, petitioning to collect the avariz of Catalca for 1049/1639-40, seems to have benefited from inside information on missing muhasebes. According to his petition, collection of the tax had first been awarded to the late Fazli, kethuda of the late Mehmed Pasa, and after Fazli’s death to a miiteferrika of the Porte named Mehmed living in Nigbolu. By 1052/ 1642-43 miiteferrika Mehmed’s account had not yet been seen, and presumably no returns had been made; the treasury was owed 64,744 akce, which Mehmed Yeniceri now petitioned to collect.’ When collectors’ muhasebes were inspected by the central finance department, the record of inspection sometimes included notice to the provincial miifettis acknowledging full payment of the revenues in question; this was probably done when the iltizam had been awarded at the provincial level. A letter confirming such an inspection, sent in 981/1573—74 to the kadi of Beysehir in his capacity as miifettis, ° Petitions from kadis in Hamid in the year 1022/1613-14 explaining why they were unable to collect the total amounts of avariz recorded in the defters can be found in the Ali Emiri Tasnifi, I. Ahmed, docs. 240, 241a, 241b, 242, and 243. For a tax collector with a shortfall, see MM 1491 (16596), pp. 1-3; for another such case, KK 2576, p. 91. ” MM 3881 (2765), p. 142; MM 2256 (5712), p. 21; KK 2576, p. 101. For the promotion

of janissaries to the sipahi corps see Finkel, Administration of Warfare, 84.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 217

reported that the muhasebe of Bali, miiltezim of certain has properties

in the three-year period beginning on 24 Sevval 977/1 April 1570, together with Bali’s detailed register (miifredat defteri), had been sealed in a purse and sent to the capital; it further announced that the muhasebe had been inspected and that nothing further was owing on Bali’s account.® Kadis were frequently made responsible for collecting arrears left by delinquent collectors. For example, when the appointed collectors of a bedel, or substitution price, for horses in Bolu province disappeared without submitting their accounts, collection was delegated

to the kadis of the province.’ Kadis also formed an important link between the finance department and tax collectors, as well as serving

in supervisory posts, so most orders regarding the submission of accounts for all kinds of taxes were addressed to them. The following one is typical: It is my order that the emins who are collecting for various dates according to their berats and conditions of undertaking pertaining to the year 1041/

1631-32 be sent to the Threshold of Felicity, together with the money that ought to have come in according to the amount they owed per day, and with all their receipts.’®

Some original firmans ordering the submission of muhasebes can be found in the Ali Emiri collection of documents; AE Kanuni 198, for example, is a firman addressed to the kadi who was miifettis of Florina calling for the examination of the account of a miiltezim who had only served a partial term, while AE Kanuni 199 is a firman to the kadi of Karadag notifying him that one of the miiltezims in his area had not sent in his muhasebe. The firman AE Kanuni 382 notified the kadi of Izvornik that a deceased emin had not submitted a muhasebe

and ordered him to demand that the man’s heirs find his detailed account register, establish what he owed, and pay it. Numerous entries in the ahkd4m registers record submission, or requests for submission, of muhasebes and/or summarize the information they contain. An order to a timar-holder farming twenty-nine mukataas in K6stendil describes

8 MM 357 (20115), p. 72. 9 KK 2576, p. 45. 10 Bin kirk bir senesine mahsub olmak iizere berat ve sart-i iltizamlari mucebince tevarih-i muhtelife ile zabt eyliyen umenanin ber muceb-i kist el-yevm zimmetlerine lazim gelen

malim ile ve ciimle temssiikleri ile asitane-i saadete irsal ve iysal etmek emrim olmustur (KK 5019, p. 163). See also KK 4990, pp. 23, 24, 25; KK 4994, p. 54.

218 CHAPTER SEVEN the typical reporting procedure: he was to submit his receipts to the treasury every six months and his records once a year; he was to obtain a temessiik for each payment, whether to the treasury directly or to another recipient such as the sehremini; and these instructions were to be written into his berat, so that there could be no mistake." Individual miiltezims’ account registers can be found in the archives; examples are MM 1393 (16038), the muhasebe of Abdiirrahman, miiltezim of Mihalic, made on 1 Dekuris or 13 Cemaziiilevvel 1007/1598, and AE I. Ahmed 5, a muhasebe register for the mukataa of the zeamet of Uskiidar for the period 1015—17/1606—9. According

to the catalogue description, Katib Mehmed’s muhasebe for the mukataas of Kefe, including both income and expenditures (KK 2283), was made from his detailed (miifredat) register for 986—-88/1578-81." Muhasebe registers submitted by miiltezims who controlled multiple iltizams or who sub-farmed their iltizams include income and expenditure totals for all the subdivisions, arranged separately by tahvil or emanet (as in KK 2281 dated 961/1553-54 for Mentese), or with all

the income entries together followed by all the expenses. Some muhasebe registers cover more than one iltizam: register MM 1876 (3303) dated 1019—20/1610—11 contains muhasebe registers from a group of miiltezims supervised by the same nazir, and register KK 5503, though labeled “Mukataa ait arz tezkireleri” in the catalogue, contains a number of muhasebes as well. Information from individual collectors’ registers was combined by scribes in the central bureaus into summary accounting registers also called muhasebes. In provinces with provincial treasuries, this task was performed by provincial finance scribes, who remitted the province’s receipts in an annual lump sum together with a summarized muhasebe. The number of individual muhasebe records in the archive catalogues seems too small for the number of tax collectors; many account records may have been disposed of after summary registers were compiled, while others may still exist among the uncatalogued materials in the archives or in former provinces. The scribes of provincial treasuries also kept daily records (ruznam¢e), from which we may be able to track provincial finances in some detail.’ In addition, '' MM 687 (9820) pp. 60-62. '? The distinction between miifredat and muhasebe registers can be seen in the examples

of each published in Fekete, Siydgat-Schrift, #16, 1: 318-25, 2: plate 31; #15, 1: 304— 17, 2: plates 29-30. '> Examples of provincial ruaznamces have been published in Fekete, Siyagat-Schrift,

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 219

some individual registers can be found bound together in groups by province or bureau; for instance, register AE Kanunt 26 is a bound collection of muhasebes for iltizams in the city of Tokat for the period 965—70/1557-—64, while MM 1660 (22203) for the mukataas of Kefe, labeled heyet raporu (“condition report’), is also a collection of muhasebes. Individual accounting registers were submitted in several different formats. The simplest was a register showing remittances as lump sums. A tax collector’s individual muhasebe defter of this type in the archives is MM 2635 (15518) dated 1034—35/1624—26; one page long,

it has the following heading: Account [book] of the poll tax on unbelievers in the sancak of Canik from 1 Ramazan 1034/7 June 1625 to 29 Saban 1035/26 May 1626, the responsibility of Mehmed Ali Tabbah of the ebna-1 sipahiyan, 54th company, 25 [akce] per day, [as] emin and Nesuh (?) Gilman-1 Acemiyan,

from the same corps, 13th company, 10 [akce] per day, [as] scribe."

The first item after the heading is the tahvil or assignment: 1469 hanes

at 220 akce per hane (totalling 223,180 akce). The second item is the total amount to be collected, the hasil (product), which is listed as 323,180 akce. This figure includes an accession increase (ziyade-i ciilus) of 100,000 akce (approximately 68 akce per hane; in compari-

son, Table 6 showed that in the same year the cizye of Bosna increased 60 akce). The third item is a list of eleven remittances, headed

by the words vuzi‘a min zalike (teslim temamen), “deposited out of that: (submitted in full).” The individual entries for remittances include date of deposit, amount submitted, and, if the deposit was not delivered by the collector of record, the name of the person who delivered it. Attached notes indicate that three of the payments totaling 98,600 akce were made in advance, in 1032/1622—23, and that one installment of 47,282 akce was used to pay the salaries of the emin and katib. The sum of the deposits recorded was 293,267 akce, 29,913 akce less than the assignment including the accession increase

#12, 1: 236-79, 2: plates 20-25; #22, 1: 374-93, 2: plates 39-40; #34, 1: 594-609, 2: plates 69-70. For an analysis of the first of these, see Kaldy-Nagy, “Cash Book of the Ottoman Treasury in Buda,” 173-82. '4 Muhasebe-i cizye-i gebran-t vilayet-i Canik an gurre-i ramazan el-miibarek sene 1034 ila gayet-i saban el-muazzam sene 1035 deruhde-i Mehmed Ali Tabbah an ebna-t sipahiyan 54. [bélii]k fi yevm 25 emin ve Nesuh (?) Gilman-i Acemiyan an c[emaat-i] m[ezbur] 13.

[bélii]k fi yevm 10 kétib.

220 CHAPTER SEVEN (if the collection was deemed to be “submitted in full,” the Camk cizye that year actually increased only 47 akce per hane). Listed after

the deposits are two expenditures made from these funds, one for the salary of a member of the corps of cannoneers (topcuyan) who presented a havale for the sum, and the other for the stipends of several pensioners (vazifehoran).

A more elaborate register of the same general type, MM 1579 (15715), is a muhasebe defteri of the ziyade-i cizye for the years 1013—1018/1604—1610 submitted by Mustafa Bey, muhassil-i emval of Rumeli, on behalf of five vakif villages near Gelibolu. The heading

describes the tax and names the villages, mentions that the register

was written by Mustafa Bey and delivered to the treasury by his retainer Hiiseyin and the cavus Kasim Selami, and records one of the

remittances, 38,000 akce deposited in the imperial treasury on 19 Safer 1015/26 June 1606. Subsequent entries give a breakdown of deposits for each year of the period. Copied into the register are three additional items: a petition from the kadi of Gelibolu explaining that part of the tax had been held back to compensate for a previous illegal collection of ktirekci bedeli from which the five villages ought to have

been exempt; a copy of the exemption document (muafname); and a copy of an entry in the kadi’s register documenting the testimony of Mustafa Aga, miiteferrika, regarding his receiving an order to collect the tax, conducting a face-to-face survey (tahrir) in one of the villages

to determine the number of hanes, and collecting from each hane the exact amount specified by the order (the totals cannot be checked, however, as the tax was submitted as a lump sum from all five villages). Some registers were designated by the term irsaliye (transmission),

signifying in this usage that all money collected had been disbursed for various purposes, only the account book being submitted to the treasury. Register MM 2550 (5855), an irsaliye defteri compiled in 1032/1622—23, is a summary register of such accounts, reflecting collections of cizye, ziyade-i cizye, and other taxes of which not one akce was sent to the capital. The heading of each entry, beginning with the word irsaliye, describes the tax, location, collection period, and collectors, followed by number of hanes, amount collected from each, and the total (hasil). Listed below that are sums expended, with notations as to the purpose, date, and authorization for each entry. Totals show that amounts disbursed equalled amounts collected. Register MM 1476 (7486) is an irsaliyat register of the muhassil-i emval of the sancaks of Aydin, Saruhan, and Mentese for the years

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 221

1006—10/1597—1602; for each sancak in each year, the income, expenditures, and treasury payments of each emanet are listed. These registers were obviously put together from the accounts of individual

collectors. In place of the date when funds were received, akham register entries recording the delivery of irsaliye registers say irad ve masraf side, “it was collected and spent” or “income and expenditure were made.” Another type of muhasebe register recorded amounts collected from taxpayers rather than amounts remitted to the treasury. A typical heading reads: This is a register which describes the avariz money collected according

to an imperial order from the avarizhanes of the kaza of Lapseki as ordered for the year 1014/1605-6, written in the first ten days of Muhar-

rem 1016/28 April-7 May 1607."

Below the heading, avarizhanes are listed by neighborhood (mahalle) within the city and by village (karye) in the countryside. Appended notes report a loss of 24 avarizhanes in the kaza since the last tahrir

and record an order in 1010/1601-2 for the collection of 240 akce per hane as bedel-i kiirekciyan (presumably this order still governed tax collection four years later). Also included in the register is a survey

of the avarizhanes of Gordiik and a petition requesting a reduction of 17 hanes in the official count for that kaza because of deaths and flight from the land. Most muhasebe registers in the catalogues belong to the type showing amounts collected rather than sums remitted. The difference between such registers and assessment or tahrir registers, showing amounts to

be demanded, is small, and the two types can easily be confused. Catalogue descriptions of muhasebe registers often include the term “teslimat’” (submissions), denoting a collection register rather than a tahrir, but in other cases the catalogues do not identify the category to which a particular register belongs, and only close inspection of the registers themselves will permit the distinction to be made. By comparing muhasebe registers to tahrir registers held in the treasury, finance scribes could determine whose taxes were paid in full and whose taxes were in arrears; they hoped, of course, that the registers 'S _Defter oldur ki kaza-1 Lapseki sene hamse asere ve elf tarihinden ferman olunan avariz hanelerin ber muceb-i emr-i serif tahsil olunan avariz akceleridir zikr olunur— tahriren fi evail-i muharrem el-haram sene sitte asere ve elf. MM 1720 (15562) dated 1015/1606-7.

222 CHAPTER SEVEN would be identical. Their comparison was assisted by detailed comments in collectors’ registers explaining why the taxes of a particular karye or mahalle could not be collected; such details should prove extremely useful to local historians. These comments permitted the finance department to correct its registers and to decide when new surveys were necessary. They also enabled the government to set in motion the collection of arrears.

Arrears and their Collection The procedure for collecting tax arrears (bakiye, bakaya, “remainder,”

or zimmet, “debt’’) was substantially the same as for collecting the original tax. For example, a register entry for 1045/1635—36 lists arrears

(bakaya) in the bedel-i niiziil from five different kazas and records the assignment of their collection to Receb Bey, who was given an order and a register (emr ii defter) specifying how much to collect. An order to the kadis of Mora stated that agents (miibasirler) assigned to collect the avariz in Mora had sent copies of their registers to the treasury, from which an arrears register (bakaya defteri) had been compiled. Using a copy of this register, the kadis were to demand the missing amounts from the agents, from the agents’ heirs if they had died, or from the taxpayers if the agents had not collected them.'® Like centrally appointed tax collectors, miiltezims were subject to regular accounting procedures, but with respect to arrears there were differences in procedure. Arrears in the collection of farmed revenues

did not need to be reassigned to new collectors; one of the main advantages of tax farming was the ability to hold a miiltezim and his kefils personally responsible for the full sum contracted for. The actions

taken when iltizam revenues were discovered to be in arrears can be illustrated by a case in Egriboz. When the emins of the has of Egriboz and Tirhala for the year 1000/1591—92 were found in 1009/1600—

'© KK 2576, p. 91; register MM 2908 (15972) dated 1038-41/1628~32, a bakaya register

for the bedel-i avariz of Mora, is probably not the register referred to in this order but is of the same type. For the issuance of a similar bakayat defteri for Tuna province see ibid., p. 1. A zimmet defteri for the mukataa of the mints has been published; see Sahillioglu, “Bir Miiltezim Zimem Defterine gére XV. Yiizyil Sonunda Osmanli Darphane Mukataalan,” 145-218. A group of orders for the collection of arrears commanding the issuance of emr

ii defter, an order and a register, is in KK 2576, p. 74. Contemporary France followed similar procedures for collecting arrears (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 62).

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 223

1601 not to have submitted a single coin to the treasury, the Egriboz kadi was appointed miifettigs and ordered to examine their muhasebes, collect the money owed, put it in purses, seal it, and send it directly to the grand vizier on campaign. He was to make an accurate record of the amounts sent, keeping a copy in his own sicil and sending a signed and sealed copy to the capital. He was also ordered to replace emins whose terms were over with local people of wealth who would undertake increases in the amounts to be raised, locating suitable kefils and recording these new iltizams for the treasury. A similar procedure was employed in 1038/1628—29 when the miifettis of Halomig received an order informing him that for the mukataas under his charge in the periods 1029-—32/1619-23 and 1033—36/1623-—27, not one page

of a defter had been seen in the capital, nor had any remittances been sent. The miifettis was ordered to have the emins found and brought into court, their documents forwarded to the treasury, and their debt paid, by the kefils if necessary. The results would be recorded in the treasury’s registers, and signed and sealed copies of their muhasebes given to the emins. This procedure seems predicated on the assumption that the delay was not deliberate. If it was, more serious measures

would be taken, as in the case of the emin of the Bogdan customs mukataa in 1055/1645—46, who had not submitted a muhasebe since the conquest of the area; his mukataa was taken away and given to someone else.'’ The actions resorted to if revenues remained uncollected depended

on whether or not the lapse was the collector’s fault. The finance department was well aware that some causes of non-payment were outside a tax collector’s control. When Ferhad, miiltezim of the Izmir has in 972/1564—65, reported that he had been unable to collect rent on the shops of a particular bazaar because they had been burned in a fire and had been under repair for eight or nine months, the miifettis and nazir were told to subtract 7200 akce from Ferhad’s iltizam. In a case in 1006/1597—98, the nazir of the Filibe zeamet reported that

he was having difficulty collecting the amount he had undertaken because Filibe, being on the main road, was exposed to acts of brigandage by soldiers returning from the Austrian war. He suggested the appointment of an emin ber vech-i emanet and nominated Ramazan Cavus, whom local people vouched for as knowledgeable and capable of managing a zeamet. The finance department approved the 17 AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 3-4; KK 5019, pp. 171, 175; MM 3881 (2765), p. 40.

224 CHAPTER SEVEN nomination and sent an order to the miifettis and nazir of Filibe outlining procedures for Ramazan Cavus to follow. When Kemal Yehudi amassed

a deficit of 216,323 akce after two years of a three-year iltizam on the customs dues of Istanbul, the kadi demanded an examination of his muhasebe. Kemal explained to the kadi, however, that the deficit was due to the Venetian rebellion and the consequent disruption of trade. Requesting a new iltizam comprising the remaining year plus

two more, he promised to pay the deficit out of his own money, expecting to reimburse himself during the new iltizam. Since the delay in payment was not Kemal’s fault, his petition was granted. Another defaulting miiltezim was allowed to proceed with collection but was: given only twenty days to deliver what he owed."®

Collection could also fall into arrears because of taxpayer delinquency. Like taxpayers everywhere, the Ottoman reaya found ways

to evade payment. There should have been 400 hanes in the sancak of Hiidavendigar providing chickens for the imperial kitchens, but for some time collection was made on the basis of a lower figure because the villagers had purportedly fled. There was no evidence of flight, however, and when this anomaly was discovered, the agent of the imperial kitchens was commissioned to determine whether or not the village’s account was paid in full. In the year 1049/1639-40, the bedel-i niiziil assessed on the inhabitants of the sancak of Biga went

unpaid on the excuse that there was no campaign that year. The following year, the Danigsmendlu Tiirkmens did not produce the 3,000 head of sheep they owed as a campaign contribution (siirsat), on the

flimsy pretext that there were no reaya on that campaign. The government’s view, however, was that the tribe still owed the sheep

and could pay them to janissaries on garrison duty. The kadi and voyvoda were ordered to see that the sheep were delivered.” There were, of course, other reasons for arrears in tax remittances that were not the fault of the reaya. One of the most common was

the death of the appointed collector in the midst of the collection process. This immediately raised the question of how much tax he had collected before his death and how much was still uncollected. An order sent to Arslan Pasa, beylerbey of Budin, recorded that his predecessor, Iskender Pasa, had submitted his provincial accounts ‘8 MM 241 (115), fol. 89a; MM 687 (9820), p. 196; KK 4994, pp. 29, 41; MM 1513 (7316), p. 48; see also p. 31 and KK 5019, p. 170. ' KK 2576, pp. 120, 41, 57.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 225

completely up to date, but that the latter’s predecesssor, Mehmed Pasa, had died owing the treasury 118,066 akce. The present order commanded that the province’s arrears be submitted from Mehmed Pasa’s estate, along with a register; finance officials seemed confident that Mehmed Pasa had collected the money from the reaya. Another

group of taxpayers petitioned concerning arrears in their avariz to inform the finance department that they had indeed paid their tax but that the collection agents (miibasirler) had died, and the arrears should be demanded from the agents’ heirs. Arrears of iltizam revenues collected by Islam Aga were submitted by others, presumably his family

or retainers, after he was killed.” When mukataa revenues could not be deposited because they had never been collected, the government usually moved to install new and more effective collectors. The men of the Anabolu garrison in Mora had not been paid for two years because the mukataas supporting their salaries had not been granted in iltizam for the years 980— 981/1572—73. When garrison commanders appeared with havales to obtain the funds, they found that no one had collected the revenues. The local kadi petitioned on their behalf and was told to supervise collection of two years’ revenue and see that the garrison received its pay. In another case, Abdi, emin of the port of Akkerman in 995/ 1586-87, stopped collecting and retired in the middle of his term. When the miiltezim, Hiidaverdi, submitted a deficit accounting at the

end of the iltizam, he was relieved of his post and a new bidder installed. Soon afterward, two men named Yusuf and Haci Receb were granted the iltizam of the ports of Kili and Akkerman for six years, but after three of those years the nazir of Kili had to report that they had not arranged for (yerlestirmek) their ziyade, not a scrap of an accounting had been submitted, they had been unable to provide any kefils, and they owed the sum of 2,500,000 akce. The nazir wanted them removed and replaced, nominating several people in whom he apparently had more confidence.*' In general, the finance department tried to maximize its chance of receiving its revenue and would accept

a lesser sum provided that delivery was reasonably secure. A miiltezim might appear to be in arrears when he had actually paid, due to the overlapping of collectors’ assignments. For instance, 0 KK 2576, pp. 74, 43, 90; MM 267 (2775), p. 13 (see also KK 67, p. 2; KK 2576,

: a KK 4990, p. 40; MM 687 (9820), pp. 59, 216.

226 CHAPTER SEVEN the miiltezim Hiiseyin Aga complained before the kadi of Sirem that he was being charged for a deficit of 24,614 akce in the muhasebe of the emins of the Karlofga mukataa in 976/1568-69. He claimed that he had personally deposited the money in the treasury and had received an order against the time of accounting. The kadi was ordered to bring the disputing parties face to face and make them settle their accounts “according to custom and law” (adet ve kanun iizere). The same claim, made by an emin-i miiltezim in Sofya in 981/1573-74, was treated similarly.” Other reasons for arrears of taxes were more unusual than those above. The collection of oarsmen (kiirekci) in Debri and Kalkandelen in 980/1572-—73 was interrupted when the kadi charged with collection

was rotated out of office (mazul), and an order had to be sent to the next kadi to continue the collection. One group of villagers, who were probably being dunned for arrears in their avariz, petitioned to notify the government that the tax had been collected but that the collectors lived some distance away (and had presumably taken the money home with them). The villagers requested that the finance department delegate recovery of the money to the kadis and kethtidas in the areas where the collectors resided. A levy of onions from the Canik and Samsun areas was delayed through the corruption of the purchasing agent (emin). He ought to have purchased the onions from: onionraising villages at the market price, but he simply took them without payment and forced villages that did not grow onions to buy some so he could collect them. The miitevelli of the evkaf to which these villages belonged petitioned to say that if this practice were not stopped

the villagers would flee. As a result, an order was sent to the kadi of Canik and to the sancak bey, also supervisor of the imperial larder

(kilar nazir1) in Samsun, commanding them to see that the onions were legally purchased.” {Individual misbehavior was always a possibility, but punitive action

was rare in the absence of proof. Ali b. Nesuh, miiltezim of the Karlofg¢a mukataas in 973/1565-66, had not remitted what he owed to

the capital; when questioned, he claimed that Hasan and Hasan, voyvodas of the bey of Sirem, had appropriated it all. An inspection

of his muhasebe had been ordered but could not be carried out (g6riilmek muyessir olmayip). This was suspicious, but in view of the 22 MM 357 (20115), pp. 30, 91. 23 MM 357 (20115), p. 142 (actually 144); KK 2576, p. 74; MM 2728 (3457), p. 59.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 227

lack of evidence, the kadi was told to bring these men to court. If any amount remained to be paid, according to their records and the law, he was to extract it and send it to the capital; if the miiltezim had insufficient funds to cover the arrears, his goods were to be sold. On the other hand, when the muteferrika Ibrahim, miiltezim of the salt works of Selanik, was found in 1041/1631—32 to be 4 million akce in debt, the order sent to the kad1 commanded him to seize all

salt in the storehouses for the treasury and to prevent Ibrahim and his men from having anything to do with the salt works again.” Although the central finance authorities had no control over the award of many provincial iltizams, they were unwilling to let supervisory authority slip completely out of their hands and demanded that provincial treasuries keep them informed. An order to the beylerbey of Basra dated 973/1565—66 commanded him to compile a register showing sale prices of the mukataas in his province, amounts to be submitted to the provincial treasury, its expenditures, and the difference between income and outgo. He was to prepare a sealed muhasebe (in this case a provincial accounting register) and send it to the capital, and he was to include with it a petition describing how these processes were accomplished. An order to the miifettis of Yenisehir and Tirhala in 1010/1601—2 conveys the impression of a need for greater control in those districts. It commanded that documents and receipts for all iltizams under this miifettis’s supervision should be sent to the capital

to be properly inspected and recorded, and that, after collection of any outstanding revenue, summarized accounting registers should be reviewed, claims settled, and official mukataa registers compiled. If mukataa revenues were sent to the army on campaign, signed copies of all documents should be sent to the capital. All miiltezims whose term was over should be located, their muhasebes inspected, and any arrears demanded and sent off to the campaign treasury. Mukataas should not be put into the hands of anyone holding a previous iltizam who had not settled his accounts with the finance department, or anyone

who did not have a berat. Kefils, nazirs, and miifettises were to be held responsible for any defaults and make good any losses.” The cooperation of the courts (marifet-i ser‘) was sometimes 24MM 357 (20115), p. 4; KK 5019, p. 168. 25 MM 267 (2775), p. 31; AE III. Mehmed 170, pp. 1-2. According to Selaniki, around 1006/1597-98 only half of the expected annual revenue reached the treasury in Istanbul; the rest was in arrears (Tarih-i Seldniki, ed. Ipsirli, 2: 733).

228 CHAPTER SEVEN necessary to ensure payment of what was owed. When the sancak bey of Homs, miiltezim of certain of its revenues, paid in full in advance but had trouble making collection in rebellious areas, the court was asked to facilitate his collection while restraining the sancak bey from oppression. Entrusting collection to powerful officials such

as sancak beys or defterdars meant that the courts could have difficulty forcing compliance in cases of non-payment. The full weight of provincial government sometimes had to be brought to bear on a defaulting collector. A case in point is that of Hiiseyin Pasa, miiltezim of a number of mukataas in Haleb in the year 1011/1602—3, whose

remittances were in arrears. One condition of his iltizam had been that no havale would be sent from the capital to collect money from him, so to obtain the balance the finance department was forced to request the provincial governor and kadi to exert what pressure they could on this powerful person. When provincial authority could not produce compliance, the central government sometimes had to exercise its own influence. In a case of arrears owed to the provincial treasury in Bosna, when orders by provincial finance officials were insufficient to enforce payment, central officials stepped in, ordering the kadi to summon the defaulting miiltezims to court, review their unexamined muhasebes, and, with the cooperation of a representative

of the capital, compel them to produce the missing money.” Special agents called baki kullari (tax inspectors) were sometimes appointed to assist in collection of arrears. They collected debts owed to the treaury and had authority to imprison those who did not pay; they heard complaints and investigated bribery and embezzlement. By the eighteenth century there was a staff of sixty baki kullari headed by a bas baki kulu (chief tax inspector), reporting directly to the bas defterdar.”’ They appear only intermittently, however, in orders concerning arrears from the first half of the seventeenth century. A baki

kulu was sent, for instance, to collect the arrears or debt (zimmet) of the emin Abdiilaziz, who was behind in remitting the avariz of Manastir for 1042/1632—33.% In this period, however, arrears were

26 MM 3881 (2765), pp. 16, 24, MM 1513 (7316), p. 56; MM 2256 (5712), p. 72. For the tension between the central government and increasingly powerful provincial officials

a Ne own military forces, see further Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization,” *7 Pakalin, Osmanli Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sézligii, 1: 149; Uzuncarsili, Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati, 333; d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’empire ottoman, 7: 273. 28 KK 2576, p. 44.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 229

more often collected by the same categories of people who received appointment as tax collectors. Occasionally, arrears went uncollected for so long that they lost some of their importance, as in the case of the bedel-i niiziil of Giresun and Kegan for 1045/1635—36, assessed at 20 kamil kurus per hane. The original collector, Besir, left Giresiin 57.5 hanes and Kesan 16 hanes in arrears. Seyyid Yusuf was appointed to collect the arrears but died leaving the debt uncollected, as his brother, Seyyid Aydin,

reported in 1051/1641-42. Since the due date of the money was a full six years earlier (and perhaps because the need for the money had become less acute), the amount owed was lowered from 20 to 12 kurus per hane. A defter itemizing the sums to be collected was sent to the kadis, who were instructed that if the mahalles and villages could show receipts (makbuzat or temessiikler) from either Besir or

Seyyid Yusuf, these should be taken from them and added into the account, and from those who had no receipts the kadis should collect the tax.” At other times, when the treasury was short of funds, special efforts were made to collect arrears in taxes, and successful recovery of arrearages could be rewarded with exceptional assignments. For example,

Ismail, head of the mukataa-1 Rumeli bureau, collected 25 million akce of outstanding arrears in Rumeli in the year 1014/1605-6 and

was awarded the collection of the Istanbul customs dues and wine tax, which probably paid a substantial salary.°° The collection of arrears became especially important at times of need, such as the inception of a military campaign or the approach of a pay period. The beginning of the Crete campaign in 1055/1645, for instance, was marked by an outpouring of orders to tax collectors urging them to make payments in full. Some of them, for unknown reasons, had consistently sent to the capital or to assigned payees only part of what

they owed. Revenues from a salt works in Syria supporting the Damascus janissaries had not been fully paid, nor had revenues from

the mukataas of Trablus-Sam supporting troops on the Baghdad campaign. Now mukataa officials were enjoined to make their payment record complete.*! Mention of finances in Selaniki’s history for the year 1001/1593—-94 occurs most frequently in connection with 2 KK 2576, p. 98. 3° AE I. Ahmed 166. 31 MM 3881 (2765), pp. 157, 183; a compilation of the arrears of Rumeli in the years 1060-67/1650-57, MM 4287 (12585), is probably also related to funding this campaign.

230 CHAPTER SEVEN collection of tax arrears; expenses that year must have run high.” In the period between 1590 and 1610 revenue collection became difficult and large arrears piled up, so it is not surprising that financing the Long War with Austria became a serious problem. Numerous orders were issued in those decades commanding the inspection of muhasebes and the collection of arrears. The problem is usually ascribed to Celali rebels, but it occurred outside areas of Celali activity as well. Register MM 1513 (7316), compiled in 1013/1604—5 by the muhasebeci of Rumeli, contains numerous orders regarding unsubmitted accounts in Rumeli, especially around the year 1010/1601-—2. In the area of Yenisehir in Tirhala it was found that no taxes had been collected between 994 and 1002/1585—94.*° A study of this widespread problem should afford greater insight into the unrest of the early seventeenth century.

Some cases of arrears in taxes were highly complex and dragged on for years. The registers contain long orders or groups of orders about tax collection problems in various regions involving multiple bids, invalid documentation, machinations by miiltezims and appointees, complaints from taxpayers, and strenuous efforts by the finance department to obtain revenue.** New collectors were appointed and reappointed to collect arrears left by the old, temessiiks were issued and later questioned, and defters of amounts collected and amounts still outstanding were repeatedly compiled. Numerous arrears registers (called bakaya or baktye defterleri or zimmet defterleri) survive in the

archives testifying to the extent of this problem and to the renewed attempts made to collect amounts owed. It is not yet known what percentage of Ottoman taxes was in arrears at any given time, or how much was eventually recovered. Nor at this stage can we say how

much of the arrearage can be attributed to embezzlement by tax collectors, lack of funds, resistance by taxpayers, or overestimates in the assessment registers. In general, it was impossible for the finance department to compile a composite figure for arrears in taxes. If taxes were, in theory, collected

during the year for which they were due, they would be submitted 2 Peachy, “A Year in Selaniki’s History.” °° AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 6; MM 1513 (7316), p. 81. * Such orders provide an extensive history of certain iltizams and should be extremely interesting to scholars of local history studying the urban and rural economy; examples can be found in KK 5019, pp. 163-65 for Edirne and 173-74 for Selanik, in MM 3881 (2765) pp. 8 and 74 for Erzurum, and in KK 2576, pp. 44, 56, 63, 75, regarding a levy of horses for the Baghdad campaign.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 231

to the treasury late that year or in the course of the next. The largest portion of tax money was submitted within twelve months after the

end of the year to which it pertained. It was only after that, at the beginning of the second year after taxes were due, that a summarized accounting or balance-sheet could be made. Earlier attempts to do so would produce an unrealistic account, omitting large amounts of money shortly to arrive. After the balance-sheet was made, unpaid taxes were deemed to be in arrears and their collection was reassigned. For the next four years, increasing-ly smaller sums could be retrieved. After the fifth year following the due date, however, any remaining arrears were written off as uncollectible.*>

Central Accounting Procedures Records of deposit, in addition to detailing remittance procedures for tax receipts, demonstrate how money and paperwork submitted by tax collectors were handled once they reached the finance department. These procedures are clearly outlined in the deposit record cited earlier

from avariz ahkam register KK 2576, quoted again here: In relation to a payment of money by Mustafa Bey, which was presented

against the assignment [tahvil] of Piri Saban Kurd from the standing cavalry, 244th company, [earning] 27 [akce] per day, agent for the avariz

of the kazas of Yenisehir and Fener in the sancak of Tirhala for the year 1042/1632-33; from the hand of the aforesaid Mustafa Bey, on 11 Ramazan 1043/18 July 1633, 1212 akce were registered in the imperial

ruznamc¢e; and this amount has been put into the “ziyade-i an el-asl” (increase over the original amount) and it [the collection] was successful [completed] and a tezkire for the payment has been ordered to be written [given]. 1212 [akce]. Written on 25 Ramazan 1043/1 August 1633.

This entry states that the money paid in by Mustafa Bey was registered on a specific date in the imperial ruznamc¢e, the finance 35 In France, the accounting process itself could take up to four years (Bonney, The King’s Debts, 12). In Spain, the accounting system was so slow that by the time audits were concluded and arrears discovered, their collection was impossible. Audits were only rarely conducted; in 1565 audits from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella were still outstanding (Thompson, War and Government, 58-59, 78). The Spanish treasury apparently never wrote off its arrears; in the seventeenth century it was still carrying on its books arrears that were 150 years old (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 249).

232 CHAPTER SEVEN department’s chronological daily record of transactions.*° A description of finance department procedure upon receipt of tax money has been preserved in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi. In this description,

the bureau responsible for each tax recorded deposits of funds (by tahvil) in their own registers.’ Then the scribes of that bureau made a copy (suret) of the register entry and gave it to the ruznamce scribes,

who copied it precisely into their own registers and passed it on to the varidat scribes of the defterdarlik concerned, who in turn copied it into their registers. In this way, without the benefit of computerized data sorting, three complete records would be made of the government’s income: one organized by type of tax (the avariz, cizye, mukataa, or other register), one organized by date of receipt (the ruznam¢e), and one organized by the defterdarlik to which the money belonged (the

varidat register). According to the kanunname, the only job of the varidat bureaus was to record payments submitted to the treasury. In later years, when the finance department moved away from geographi-

cal allocation of revenues and parallel but separate jurisdictions, a record of income by defterdarlik must have become superfluous. Perhaps the varidat bureaus disappeared in the eighteenth century because their job had become unnecessary, and perhaps it was this consolidation of imperial finance that allowed the second and third defterdarliks to be regarded as sinecures. According to the description of finance department procedures in the Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi, the tahvil entry quoted above should exemplify the first step in the process, recording the deposit in the relevant bureau’s registers. It indeed begins by specifying the assignment (tahvil edip), and then describes (tahrir yazip) the deposit made. But a discrepancy can immediately be noted between the kanunname’s description and what the entry itself tells us: the deposit was recorded in the ruznamce two weeks before the date of the entry in the avarz register. Sometime after the writing of the kanunname, it appears, a procedural change made the biiyiik ruznamce kalemi a prior stop on the winding path of revenue deposits through the bureaus. As a result, only after the money was received, counted, weighed, and recorded *° For a detailed description of the ruznamce registers, including their Ilkhanid precedents, see Goyiing, “Ta’rih Baslikli Muhasebe Defterleri.” For a published example see Fekete, Siyagat-Schrift, #33, 1: 572-93, 2: plates 65-68. 37 Mukataacilar ve mevkufatgilar kendi defterlerine tahvil edip ve tahvillik altina tahrir yazip ve ol tahvillik suretin ruznamecilere verip ruznameciler dahi ayniyle gecirip ve mekziir suretleri her efendinin kaleminde vaki olan varidatciye verirler; fol. 124b.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 233

in the ruznamce was the mevkufat bureau notified of its arrival. According to entries in register KK 2576, the normal interval between

the date of the ruznamce entry and the date of the ahkam register entry was about two weeks, but it could vary from the same day to several months. The biiyiik ruznamce kalemi, after recording the payment, presumably sent the mevkufat kalemi a suret and the collection register, from which the mevkufat bureau eventually recorded the entry in its own registers. As evidence, one tahvil register of the mevkufat bureau contains an entry marked an suret-i ruznamce neviste, “written from the copy of the ruznamc¢e”; another entry is an exact copy of

a tezkire (from the ruznamce?) bound into the volume.* Destroying the surets after they were recorded would have ensured that the same sums were not copied twice into the registers; thus, it

is improbable that masses of these surets still await cataloguing in the archives. Occasionally, a small piece of paper with a copy of an entry on it—doubtless one such suret—can be found glued or sewn into a register. Entry and suret were mutually exclusive: when these slips of paper are found in the registers, there is usually no corre-

sponding register entry.’ One can easily imagine a scribe, after completing his register, discovering that he had omitted an entry and inserting the suret “in its proper place’ as a substitute. It would not have been necessary, under these procedures, for the money itself to accompany the documentation from bureau to bureau; it was probably deposited at the beginning of the process. There were many types of registers bearing the name “ruznamce.” Individuals kept ruznamce registers, as did evkaf, provincial treasur-

ies, the army on campaign, and a number of central government departments.” The biiyiik ruznamce kalemi produced two types of ruznamce: income (varidat) and expenditure (masarif).*' Sometimes

these were combined into a single register, but in the seventeenth 38 KK 2574 (1040/1630-31). 39 Examples can be seen in ruznamce defteri KK 1770, dated 981/1573—74, at pages

12, 21, 28, 31, 52, 72, and 77. © A grand vizier’s ruznam¢e is KK 717 dated 968/1560—61 (pp. 11-54), a ruznam¢e of the larder (kiler) of the Siileymaniye imaret is MM 596 (513) dated 993/1585-86, a ruznamce of the provincial treasury of Diyarbekir is MM 791 (365) dated 999/1590-91, and a ruznamce of timar and zeamet bestowals is MM 531 (17666) dated 990/1582-83. For campaign ruznamees see Finkel, Administration of Warfare, 218-35. For the ruznam¢e

of the customs dues of Budin see Fekete, Siyagat-Schrift, #11, 1: 224-35, 2: plate 19. 41 The French treasury had similar registers, and income and expenses were reported weekly. After the summaries were checked, however, the original records were burned,

234 CHAPTER SEVEN century they typically occupied separate registers. Most are catalogued

in the Kamil Kepeci Tasnifi, but there are a few in the Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi as well. Coverage is patchy for the sixteenth century but nearly complete for the seventeenth. Some registers are designated as miisvedde, rough draft; in these registers the handwriting is scribbled and hasty, and various kinds of entries are mixed together. Other registers not so described are obviously fair copies made from the rough drafts; in them the handwriting is neat, and entries are lined

up correctly and segregated into categories. These registers, while easier to read, contain errors visibly due to careless copying, such as the creation of two words out of one. A comparison of ruznamce registers KK 1866 dated 971/1563-64, KK 1785 dated 1015/1606—7, and KK 1954 dated 1071/1660—-61 (all for income) shows that the format of the ruznamce registers changed very little over the century

1560-1660. Two examples from register KK 1785 will suffice to demonstrate how tax receipts were recorded there. 1 Muharrem 1016/28 April 1607 From the assignment of Hamza b. Mehmed of the ebna-1 sipahiyan, 90th company, 27 [akce] per day and Mehmed Zulfikar from the same regiment, 69th company, 18 [akce] per day, havalegan for the money of the ziyade-i cizye and other [taxes] of the reaya of the evkaf of the late Sultan Bayezid I in Edirne due for the year 1015/1606—

7, delivered by Mehmed Sipahi, 71,614 [akce]. 1 (as above) From the assignment of the below-mentioned [persons] on the money of the bedel-i niiziil of the following kazas in the sancak of Kastamonu due for the year 1015/1606—7, paid in advance from their own money

and deposited in the treasury by themselves, 83,500 [akce].

so no further comparisons could be made. By the mid-seventeenth century, secret expenditures not recorded in the registers equalled those made openly (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 78, 85). 42 i gurre-i muharrem el-haram sene 1016. An tahvil-i Hamza b. Mehmet an ebna-t sipahiyan 90. [béli]k fi yevm 27 ve Mehmet Zulfikar an c[emaat-i] m[ezbur] 69. [béluijk ft yevm 18 el-havalegan an akce-i ziyade-i cizye ve saire-i reaya-i evkaf-1 merhum Sultan Yildirim Bayezid Han der Edirne der vacib-i sene 1015 an yed-i Mehmet Sipahi

71,614 (p. 41); and Fi gurre-i m[ezbur] sene-i m[ezbur]. An tahvil-i mezkurin an akce-i bedel-i niiziil-i kaza-i mezkurin tabi liva-i Kastamonu an vacib-i sene 1015 ber vech-i pisin an mal-i hod be-hazine mande an yed-i hod 83,500 (p. 42); no breakdown follows, which is strange in that the Ottoman scribes did not generally use the word mezkurin (mentioned) without a referent, indicating that the entry must have been copied from a source that did have a breakdown, i.e., from a miisvedde or rough draft.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 235

When these entries from the ruznamce register are compared with the entry from the mevkufat bureau’s ahkém register examined above, it can be seen that although the same information is included, the emphasis

is different. While the mevkufat’s register entry focuses on the act of deposit, the ruznamc¢e entries emphasize the responsibility of the appointed collector. This is a little surprising; common sense suggests that the ruznamce bureau, where the money first arrived, would be

more interested in the act of deposit, while the mevkufat bureau, responsible for a particular tax, would be concerned about the degree to which the collector had fulfilled his assignment. This anomaly must be a holdover from before the change in deposit procedure, when the

deposit was made at the mevkufat bureau. The procedure for cizye deposits differed slightly from the one used

for other taxes. According to the Atuf Efendi Kanunnamesi, cizye collectors submitted their collection registers with the money to the muhasebe bureaus. The figures in the registers were checked by apprentices in the muhasebe bureaus (or other apprentices, if the muhasebe

staff was too busy) and compared with the figures from the previous register (muhasebe-i atik).” After the figures were compared, a tahvil

register was compiled showing collection results and a copy was produced and sent to the ruznamce bureau. The money was deposited in the treasury in accordance with the tahvil; thus, the tahvil register should contain all deposits for a particular period. After the deposit was made, the tahvil register was returned to the muhasebe bureau, where a list, called a fihrist, was produced of the income for the year. Some registers recording deposits of cizye funds, however, suggest a change in direction for the flow of cizye paperwork similar to the one described above for the avariz. The heading of register MM 657 (5240), dated 996—1006/1587—98, states that it is a copy of the ruaznamg¢e

register (suret-i ruznamce-i hizane-i amire) containing tahvil entries in chronological order for the bedel-i hamr and ispence taxes, which were collected with the cizye and handled by the cizye bureaus. Most seventeenth-century cizye tahvil registers, however, do not indicate how or by whom they were made. Register MM 2134 (15824) records the tahvilat of the cizye of Rumeli and Anadolu for the year 1024/ 1615-16. Over 100 pages long, it is organized by month according “ For this purpose, the livas were divided among the scribes of the accounting bureau; a register located showing this division, MM 3872 (15410) dated 1054/1644—45, is headed,

“tevziat register of the sagirds of the muhasebe-i cizye kalemi”.

236 CHAPTER SEVEN to the date of submission of the money. For each deposit it lists the assignment (tahvil) to which it belonged, name of collector, time period, name of depositor, amount deposited, and date of submission. Inserted

at page 11 is a 2" x 3" slip of paper headed “suret—fi 16 muharrem sene 1024” containing an entry omitted from the register. According to the kanunname, this register should have been compiled by the cizye muhasebe kalemi and a copy sent to the ruznamce kalemi, but it is more likely to have been compiled by the ruznamce bureau, like register MM 657 (5240) above. Since the ruznamce bureau in the seventeenth century was the point of deposit for all tax moneys, it probably also compiled tahvilat registers for the cizye as well as other taxes and sent them to the bureaus controlling each tax.“ Submissions of avariz and mukataa revenues were likewise recorded in tahvilat registers during the seventeenth century; register MM 2663 (18304) is an avariz tahvil ruznamce for Anadolu for the year 1033/1623—24, and KK 5172 is a tahvilat register of the maadin kalemi for the period 1026—31/1617—22. Registers called tahsilat or hasilat (products, yields)

or teslimat (submissions), like tahvilat defters, list submissions of tax

moneys to the treasury in date order, with the names of appointed collectors and actual depositors. Since the ruznam¢e-i evvel kalemi was required to sort by type of tax (really by tax bureau) all tax collection assignments and all receipts of funds for the whole empire and compile separate annual registers

for each tax, it is not surprising that in the seventeenth century it employed more scribes than any other bureau. This new arrangement replaced the geographically-oriented varidat accounting system of three divisions with a system containing as many divisions as there were types of taxes or tax bureaus. The system operated completely within the ruznamce bureau rather than involving a separate group of scribes. More research will be required to determine whether the system had to be readjusted every time taxes were transferred from one bureau’s jurisdiction to another, as happened frequently in the late seventeenth century. We may find that taxes were transferred in sets corresponding

to the way they were recorded in tahvilat registers.

The annual fihrist, or list, of cizye revenues called for by the kanunname took the form of a general muhasebe defteri, or accounting register. Register MM 1520 (5334) is one such register, a cizye muhasebesi defteri for Rumeli and Anadolu showing income (varidat) “ A portion of a tahvil ruaznamce for 1024/1615—16 for cizye and associated taxes has been published in Fekete, Siydgat-Schrift, #33, 1: 572-93, 2: plates 65—68. In the sixteenth

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 237

and expenditures (masarif or ihracat) of cizye funds due in the twelvemonth period Ramazan 1013-Saban 1014/January—December 1605.*

After summarizing the total income received and the total amount expended, the register records for each liva the emin and katib, number of hanes, amount collected, expenditures made, and remittances to the treasury. The dates of remittances extend from 1013/1604—5 through 1018/1609-10, with a concentration in 1014/1605—6 and 1015/1606~7;

thus, the register must have been compiled five full years after the year to which the taxes pertained. As we saw above, this was the point at which the finance department ceased to expect collection of any further arrears in payment. Fihrist registers for mukataas were compiled by provincial treasuries for the central finance department’s information; examples are MM 1541 (1583), for a number of sancaks in western Anatolia, or MM 3876 (5189) for the mukataas of Haleb, Diyarbekir, and other provinces of eastern Anatolia. Information from this type of register will enable us to make global statements about amounts of taxes collected, amounts of arrears, relative contributions of different areas at different times, and so forth. Comparison of such information among provinces may prove as significant as population statistics for determining the economic history of different regions of the Ottoman Empire.”

Balance-Sheets and Budgets

After muhasebes had been submitted and deposits recorded, a balance-sheet of the year’s income and expenses was produced, adding together the accounts of Rumeli and Anadolu with the accounts sent in by provincial treasuries. These balance-sheets or accounting summaries, called icmal-1 muhasebe (summary of the accounts; often translated “budgets,” although they were produced after the fact), comprised the final step in the central government’s accounting procedures.*” Few of these balance-sheets have been preserved; for the century the bas muhasebe kalemi oversaw the registers of evkaf, cizye, and the imperial emins (Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi, fol. 125b). 45 For a fifteenth-century example see Inalcik, “XV. Asir Osmanli Maliyesine Dair Kaynaklar,” 128—34.

46 Rhoads Murphey has made a similar point in connection with his study of a tax farming summary for Anatolia (Murphey, Regional Structure, xxiii). 47 In the seventeenth century the French produced estimated budgets at the beginning of the year and summaries at the end, but even the final summaries were only approximations (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 30-31). The beginning of a Spanish budgetary system

238 CHAPTER SEVEN century and a half from 1520 to 1670 we have summary totals for 20 years and full balance-sheets for only 11.*° From 1687 on, more of them are preserved. Annual totals for the period 1679 through 1748

have also been figured from the ruznamce registers recording daily income and expenditures.” Although they may not document all the finances of the empire, these sources give an indication of the resources at the Ottoman government’s disposal. Figures available to date show that between 1523 and 1748 cash income received by the central treasury rose from 117 million akce to 1.65 billion, an increase of 1410%, while expenditures rose from 119 million to 1.71 billion, an increase of 1440%. When the figures are controlled for the period’s inflation rate of 333%, the rise in Ottoman

central government income amounts to 326% and the rise in expenditures to 333%; in real terms, the budget quadrupled between 1523 and 1748.°° Most of the rise took place in the period after 1690, when income and expenditure totals, which had hovered between 500 and 600 million akce per year for much of the seventeenth century, leaped

to 1 billion in 1699 and then to 1 billion 600 million in 1748. In was marked by the revolutionary idea that a 1590 tax should be used only to meet the expenses for which it had been imposed (Jaime Vicens Vives, An Economic History of Spain [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], 441), and by the submission in the 1590s of regular budgetary estimates (Thompson, War and Government, 79). Even in the seventeenth century, however, expenditure decisions were made without consulting either the Council of War or the Council of Finance (ibid., 80). The Austrian administration began producing budgetary estimates in the second half of the seventeenth century (Robert John Weston Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979], 148). The English system made comprehensive income and expense summaries impossible until the nineteenth century (Craig, History

of Red Tape, 33). .

* Ahmet Tabakoglu, “XVII ve XVIII Yiizyil Osmanh Biitgeleri,” Ord. Prof. Omer Liitfi

Barkan’a Armagan: IUIFM 41 (1985): 396-97; the figures he reports for 1643 cannot be found in the register to which he attributes them, but Hezarfen provides other figures for that year. Most of the budget summaries can be found in published form: Sahillioglu, “1524-1525 Osmanli Biitgesi,” 415-52, also containing figures for 1523-24; Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina ait Biitce Ornegi,” 238-329; idem, “954-955 (1547—

1548) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcgesi,” 219-76, also containing figures for 1546— 47; idem, “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanh Biitcesi,” 277-332; Mantran, /stanbul, 280-81, figures for 1040/1630—31; ibid., 282-83, figures for 1063/ 1652-53; Unat, “Kara Mustafa Pasa Layihas1,” 469-70, figures for 1049/1639—-40; Barkan, “1070-1071 (1660-1661) Tarihli Osmanl: Biitcesi ve Bir Mukayese,” 304—47; and idem, “1079-1080 (1669-1670) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanl: Biitcesi ve Ek’leri,” 225-303.

” Tabakoglu, Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi, 75-82. Ordinarily, ruznamc¢e records show more money coming in or out than balance-sheets do. For what is included in these records and what is not, see Sahillioglu, “Income and Expenditures of the Ottoman Treasury.” © Tabakoglu, Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi, 17-18.

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 239

addition, income exceeded expenditures most of the time after 1690. Ascribing seventeenth-century Ottoman budgetary deficits to the decline of the empire leaves unexplained the cessation of these deficits in the eighteenth century.

For the period before 1690, however, a much less rosy picture emerges. Over the century from 1560 to 1660, Ottoman cash income increased from 183 million akce to 581 million, and expenditures from 189 million akce to 593 million, a nominal rise in income of 217% and in expenditures of 213%.°' During that period, however, the rate of inflation of the akce was higher still, amounting to 225%. The government budget, despite increases in taxation rates, failed to

keep pace with inflation; both real income and real expenditures decreased.” It should also be noted that up to 1580, income exceeded expenditure almost every year, but between that date and the end of

the seventeenth century, nearly every year saw a deficit.’ The first big deficit appeared in 1581, when the Ottomans experienced a budgetary shortfall of 56 million akce.* The largest deficit, 400 million akce, occurred in 1597. Only after 1700 did these deficits in the official budget disappear. At the very end of the seventeenth century, changes in the fiscal system were introduced, such as the institution of the life term tax farm (malikdne), that succeeded in balancing the budget as long as the empire kept out of major wars. For most of the seventeenth century, however, expenditure exceeded income by an average of nearly

14%, increasing during war years. During the seventeenth century, treasury income from various sources

rose at differing rates. The total amount of cizye collected (including ispence) increased 256% in nominal terms between 1560 and 1660, >! Over this same period, the standing army doubled in size (Murphey, ed., KaniinNéme-i Sultani li ‘Aziz Efendi, 7). The French budget in the same period rose 500% (Dent,

Crisis in Finance, 9). 2 Contrary to MutafCieva’s assertion, then (Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 192), the tax burden on the peasantry could not have increased overall, though it may have spiked in certain years due to lags between inflationary and tax increases. As a comparison, the revenues of Spain only increased by 50% in the first half of the sixteenth century, although inflation over that period was 100%; the difference was made up by loans and, eventually, by the sale of bonds (Elliott, Imperial Spain, 197). France, too, despite much larger tax increases, depended on loans to fund its deficit in the seventeenth century (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 66). 53 In contrast, the French “budget” counted farmed income twice, putting the state’s nominal income far above its actual receipts and creating a much more favorable picture (Dent, Crisis in Finance, 63). 4 Sahillioglu, “Sivig Year Crises,” 240 n. 20.

240 CHAPTER SEVEN making up approximately 21% of the central government’s budget in 954/1547-48, 15% in 974/1567-68, and 20% in 1070/1660-61. In real terms, with inflation at 225%, this increase barely kept up with the

change in the value of silver. Moreover, since the nominal rates of the cizye rose 306%-480% over the same period, the increase of 256% in the amount collected is anywhere from 50% to 224% less than should be expected. This discrepancy may be attributed in part to the fact that the figure for the end of the period excludes a portion of the cizye administered by the bas muhasebe bureau and not separable from that bureau’s other revenues. Other possible reasons for it include conversion and population decrease among non-Muslims and communal bargaining for lower tax rates. Reforms in cizye collection at the end of the seventeenth century, including the institution of high, medium, and low rates and the establishment of quotas,

more than doubled the government’s nominal cizye revenue during the eighteenth century. As for the avariz, the increase over the period in the annual total of cash collected was 1021% in nominal terms and 236% corrected for inflation, despite the fact that nominal rates of the cash avariz increased only 108%—436%. The extremely rapid growth in the total collected can be accounted for by the inclusion of the bedel-i niiziil in the avariz totals and by extension of the avariz to people who had previously escaped paying it.’ In terms of the overall budget, the avariz, which had made up only 4% of the total Ottoman central revenue in 975/1567-68, amounted to nearly a third of the total by 1040/1630-31 and to 20% in 1080/1669-70.° These figures convey some idea of the growth in the tasks of assessment and collection for this tax. In some provinces, the avariz accounted for over half the revenue collected.’ The impact of tax farming on the government’s income is more difficult to assess. The available balance-sheets are not strictly comparable, because alterations in the allocation of revenues among finance

department bureaus produced differences over the decades in the > On the bedel-i niiziil and related taxes see Giicer, Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi, 67-135. °° Barkan, “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina Ait bir Osmanlhi Biitcesi,” 303; Mantran, [stanbul, 280-81; Barkan, “1079-1080 (1669-1670) Mali Yilina ait Bir Osmanh Biitgesi ve Ek’leri,” 226. >’ McGowan, Economic Life, 112 and fig. 7. In France at the same period a similar position was held by the taille, which by the seventeenth century provided more than half of the state’s revenue; the taille was farmed in 1643 (Parker, Europe in Crisis, 274-75).

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 241

categories into which mukataa income was divided. The overall income for 1560—1660, however, did not rise faster than inflation, while the

avariz and cizye did. The remainder left after subtracting the avariz and cizye from the total is composed primarily of mukataa revenues. This remainder rose much more slowly than inflation, from 303 million akce in 974—75/1567-68 to 341.5 million in 1070—-71/1660-61,

a decrease of 66% in real terms.°® Addition of vacant timars to the sultanic has, and their revenues to mukataa income, does not seem to have occurred on a large scale in the first half of the seventeenth century. In the period 1560-1660, the greatest increase in state revenues is attributable not to tax farming but to the avariz; growth in

farmed revenues reaching the central treasury fell far behind the inflation rate. Even with the avariz and cizye added, the treasury’s exactions did not exceed inflation during the seventeenth century. Consideration of these figures leads inescapably to the conclusion that in this period, at least with respect to legitimate central government revenues, tax farming was not as extortionate as the decline stereotype would suggest. If there was overexaction of revenues during this period, it was not in the legally sanctioned revenues of the central finance department. As far as the official business of Ottoman tax collection is concerned, words like “rapacious” and “oppressive” simply do not apply.” Expansion in tax collection took place in other areas. One of these was the unofficial extraction of revenues, collections of funds that do not appear in any government document. Officials and

tax farmers were often accused of taking revenues that never saw the treasury’s coffers but merely lined their own pockets.” Detailed study of petitions of complaint will furnish more information on these abuses and may enable us to chart their incidence in rough terms, although it will not permit the degree of precision obtainable for official government revenues. Recourse against such activities lay 8 In contrast, the revenue of the farm of English customs dues tripled in the period 1604-1664, and that of French tax farms rose even faster (Bonney, “Failure of the French Revenue Farms,” 15). In both countries, these revenues made up over half the state’s nS Gerber comes to similar conclusions from a study of the legal system in the seventeenth century (State, Society, and Law, 20, 162-65). 6 It is in fact the collection of illegal revenues, not legal ones, that Koci Bey and others complain about (Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 47); see also Gibb & Bowen, 2: 47. The levying of taxes by provincial authorities for their own benefit was apparently the traditional way of financing provincial government in much of the Middle East (Richards, “A Mamluk Petition and a Report,” 4).

242 CHAPTER SEVEN in the enforcement mechanisms of the government, which may have been less effective in the seventeenth century than before. Another area of expansion in revenue-raising during the seventeenth century was the provincial budgets. Between 1560 and 1660 there was a significant diminution in the proportion of total Ottoman revenue that lay at the disposal of the central government: the percentage of official Ottoman revenue (including timar revenues) reaching the central

treasury fell from 58% in the 1520s to 25% in the 1660s." If central government income rose by 217% while its percentage of the take fell to 25%, then the overall revenue of the empire must have gone up 868%, or 386% corrected for inflation. The ability to quadruple the revenue yield suggests that the empire as a whole may have been growing richer, not poorer, during this period.” Most of the additional revenue, however, remained in the provinces, either in the hands of provincial treasuries and local tax collectors or disbursed on the local level without passing through the central government’s books (for example, as ocaklik).® It is usually assumed that these revenues went directly into the hands of private individuals, but that is an oversimplification. This money also swelled provincial treasuries and formed

the basis for the growth of provincial power in the eighteenth century.

No study has yet been made of this problem, but any estimates of the Ottoman Empire’s economic health during the seventeenth century will be defective if they do not take into account these provincial revenues.” °! Tabakoglu, Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi, 14 n. 3, 18; Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mali Yilina ait Biitgce Ornegi,”’ 256. In England, as well, the proportion of collected taxes that reached the central treasury fell from approximately 75% in 1608 to 25% in 1619 and 1635 (Frederick Charles Dietz, The Receipts and Issues of the Exchequer during the Reigns of James I and Charles I, Smith College Studies in History, 13, no. 4 [Northampton, MA: The Department of History of Smith College, 1928], 126). 62 Ilber Ortayli sees the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 as evidence that the empire disposed of more resources at that period than is customarily thought (“The Ottoman Empire at the End of the XVIIth Century,” Revue d’ histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 179. °° It is possible that some of this money remained in the hands of the producers; Sella’s comment that the purchasing power of Ottoman consumers decreased in the early seventeenth century refers to elite purchases of imported goods (Domenico Sella, “Venice: The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry,” in The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525-— 1630, ed. Eric Cochrane [New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper and Row, 1970], 342). However, reports of extra-legal “taxes” collected by provincial officials and notables are legion; see Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation,” 322-27. * This point has also been noted by Islamoglu and Keyder, “The Ottoman Social Formation,” 308-9. Kiernan’s analysis was that state transformations connected with the seventeenth-century crisis led, in the Ottoman case, neither to revolution nor to the return

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 243

The severe deficits and economic disorder experienced by the Ottomans were shared with other states of the early modern period. In the mid-seventeenth century France spent nearly its entire annual income in advance. Spain had already done so in the 1530s, again in the 1570s, and again in 1607; by 1621 Spain was spending its income four years in advance. England’s fiscal expedients in this period are well known: Queen Elizabeth’s sale of privileges, including profits

from colonization in the New World, and James I’s tax farming and monopolies. By 1618 Austria had emptied its treasury and was reduced to borrowing. In the face of the inflation and deficits suffered by so many governments of the period, European monarchs all engaged

in tax farming, sold offices, created new taxes, raised the rates of old ones, and contracted massive government debt.” Many of these financial difficulties afflicted states we normally think of as rising rather than declining at this time; the relationship between budgetary deficits and state power, therefore, must be examined more closely. The fact that a substantial proportion of Ottoman provincial revenues escaped the central treasury in the seventeenth century laid the major burden for supporting the empire’s military efforts on the core provinces, Rumeli and Anadolu.© A similar pattern in the Spanish Empire was a critical factor in Spain’s withdrawal from the front rank of military powers in the later seventeenth century: the core province of the old regime, but to provincialization (State and Society in Europe, 255). The motivation for fiscal decentralization may have been efficiency, the desire to reduce delays in payment

caused by poor communications (Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 260). According to Faroghi, however, provincial governments’ budgets rose because their responsibilities had increased (“Crisis and Change,” 566). 6 For France see Beik, Absolutism and Society, 258-59; Dent, Crisis in Finance, 71; Parker, Europe in Crisis, 247. France had begun running large deficits as early as 1522 (Tilly, “War Making and State Making,” 179), especially since the absence of any kind of revenue survey and the frequency of secret expenditures made it impossible for the French to gain an accurate picture of their own finances (Mousnier, /nstitutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2: 181). For Spain see Elliott, Imperial Spain, 197; Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2: 38; Geoffrey Parker, Spain and the Netherlands, 15591659: Ten Studies (Short Hills, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1979), 31-32; Robert Ignatius Burns, S.J., Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). For the English use of tax farming see Dietz, “Elizabethan Customs Administration”; Ashton, “Revenue Farming under the Early Stuarts.” For Austria see Thomas Mack Barker, Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy: Essays on War, Society, and Government in Austria, 1618—1780 War and Society in East Central Europe, 7 (Boulder:

Social Science Monographs, 1982), 10-11. ,

6 The percentage of central government revenues spent on wages, largely for the military, nearly doubled between 1567 and 1627 (Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 222).

244 CHAPTER SEVEN of Castile, no matter how rich or how heavily taxed, could not maintain

the advance of the Empire on all fronts when denied the support of the Netherlands, Milan, Portugal, Catalonia, and Sicily, despite all the riches of the Indies.°’ The English solution to military financing lay in the Bank of England and the national debt, and the French solution in the official sale of offices and privileges, which brought in more revenue than the land tax. The Ottoman treasury was forced to cope without those resources. Had it not been for the inner treasury, whose records have yet to be studied in this regard, and perhaps for additional revenue not reported in official balance-sheets, it might have foundered by the end of the century.” The development of centralized states in the early modern period rested on the ability of rulers to mobilize resources other than their own. In this respect it is important to point out a major distinction between the European experience and that of the Ottoman Empire or China. In contrast to western European monarchs emerging from the decentralized feudalism of the middle ages, the rulers of what Eisenstadt has called the “historic bureaucratic empires” entered the early modern period already possessing a centralized bureaucracy and state account-

ing system, control over the major land resources of their territories, and domination of their noble classes. They had no need to ally themselves with merchant classes to achieve these aims; as a result, in those empires the ideology of mercantilism was not adopted at the level of the state.”' This difference in state financial policies and class 6? Kiernan, State and Society in Europe. 251. In Spain, this fiscal decentralization was supported by an ideology of ancient liberties belonging to the kingdoms joined to the Crown of Castile (Thompson, War and Government, 47). 6 David D. Bien, “The Secrétaires du Roi: Absolutism, Corps, and Privilege under the Ancien Régime,” in Vom Ancien Régime zur Franzdsischen Revolution: Forschungen und Perspektiven, ed. Ernst Hinrichs, Eberhard Schmitt, and Rudolph Vierhaus, Verd6ffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts fiir Geschichte, 55 (Géttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 159-60.

© Although forced loans and contributions, subsidies, and confiscation were sporadically employed, proportional taxation of the wealthy political classes and the religious establishments was unfeasible at this time; see the case of the grand vizier Dervis Pasa, whose execution of a prominent Jewish merchant for unpaid taxes “proved his undoing” (Griswold, Great Anatolian Rebellion, 160 and n. 11). ” For the inner treasury, a repository for precious objects and surplus cash, see Necipo$lu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power, 87, 134; Uzuncarsili, “Osmanli Devleti Maliyesinin Kurulugsu ve Osmanli Devleti I¢ Hazinesi”; on balance-sheets see Sahillioglu, “Income and Expenditures of the Ottoman Treasury,” 65-84; Gibb & Bowen, 2: 10; on borrowing from the inner treasury to meet current expenses see Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 212-13, 234, 237-41. ” For the influence of the mercantile bourgeoisie on state economic and legal policies

ARREARS, ACCOUNTING, AND BALANCE-SHEETS 245

relationships played a key role in the subordination of those empires in the face of European development. On the other hand, the historic bureaucratic empires did not undergo the constitutional crises and struggles against absolutism afflicting many western European states in the seventeenth century. On the contrary, provincial officials continued to seek legitimation through sultanic appointment and to entangle

themselves with the state in complex military and financial relationships. In fact, the transformation characteristic of the Ottoman Empire in this period has been called a “qualified oligarchy,” a broadening of the base of state power by the incorporation of agents in the provinces

that permitted the central government to retain control while deepening its penetration into the empire’s economy.” Thus, the growth in provincial power and resources did not lead at this time to the independence movements and imperial disintegration that ensued with

the rise of nationalism.

in western Europe, see Hugh Trevor-Roper, “Religion, the Reformation and Social Change,”

in The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 1-45; Douglass Cecil North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). Policy shifts toward mercantile values do not necessarily result from the absence of traditionalism or orthodoxy, as Goldstone maintains (Revolution and Rebellion, p. 452). 7 Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 263-65; Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats, 240.

CHAPTER EIGHT

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION

Complaints by seventeenth-century Ottoman subjects of overtaxation and oppression have always been taken as proof of the decline of the empire. Greedy and rapacious officials, it is thought, extorted high

taxes from the peasants and squeezed them off the land, causing a decline in cultivation and impoverishing the empire. Because records of complaints from the fifteenth century or the reign of Siileyman have

not been preserved, it has been concluded that the problems complained of by seventeenth-century taxpayers did not exist or were not

as prevalent in earlier times. As an argument from silence, this is unconvincing. Even if complaints increased, however, we have seen that they need not have been caused by corruption among tax officials. Demographic and economic conditions were serious enough to generate a growth in complaints in the absence of any other causes. When population and wealth were generally increasing, as seems to have been the case during the sixteenth century, it was to the advantage of the reaya not to be resurveyed but to continue to pay taxes at the old rate as long as possible. No complaints would be made, and Istanbul would not be notified of changing conditions, except perhaps by revenue

officials. On the other hand, if the people of an area perceived them-

selves to be declining in numbers or in economic resources, their interest lay in having their assessment reduced accordingly as soon as possible. This second situation prevailed in many locations during the early seventeenth century and, predictably, led to reiterated demands from the populace for changes in their assessments.' From the turn of the century onward, complaints about high taxes and requests for reassessment flooded the government’s financial offices, and pro-

cedures for altering the registers in response to such requests had ' The absence of automatic reassessments was not unusual for the period. In seventeenth-century Spain, the people were taxed on revenue assessments made during the 1590s, although individual communities could request reductions, granted when a community

had lost one-third to one-half of its population (Lynch, Spain under the Habsburgs, 2: 157). England in 1604 paid customs dues according to assessments made in the midsixteenth century (Dietz, English Public Finance, 2: 119).

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 247 to be developed, or rather, expanded and routinized. The exposure of oppression (azhar-i tazalliim) by petition of the oppressed was a tradition going back to the pre-Islamic era. The provision of justice, the protection of the weak from the strong, was central to the Near Eastern concept of state from earliest times, and kings had regular days when they “sat in justice.” Archaeologists have unearthed petitions on clay tablets addressed to Hammurabi and other ancient rulers, as well as royal responses to petitions now lost.’ Stories of the ceremonies in which Sasanian Persian rulers received petitions and dispensed justice were well known in the early Islamic courts and

were retold by authors of advice literature and mirrors for princes.° Abbasid caliphs, Seljuk sultans, and most if not all other Middle Eastern rulers or their representatives—viziers or judges—held court regularly

for the purpose of hearing grievances and receiving petitions.* The petition, according to Ibn al-Sayrafi, author of a Fatimid treatise on the bureaucracy, brought injustices to the attention of the ruler, initiated investigations, promoted the good behavior of officials, and thereby improved the reputation of the state.’ In surviving petitions from the Islamic regimes of Egypt, the evolution of the petition and the petition process can be traced through Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk practice.® Details of procedure altered over the course of time, but many practices applied to Ottoman petitions were already in place in the Fatimid era, some extending back even to Hammurabi’s

time. Over the centuries, one of the most common reasons for complaint was inequities in tax administration. 2 King, Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, King of Babylon; see also Briefe aus dem British Museum (LIH und CT2-33), ed. R. Frankena, Altbabylonische Briefe im Umschrift und Ubersetzung, 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966). 3 On the Sasanians, see Frye, The Heritage of Persia; Christensen, L’Jran sous les Sassanides. For the retelling of their stories by Muslim writers see al-Ghazali, Ghazali's Book of Counsel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk), ed. Jalal Huma’i, trans. F.R.C. Bagley, University of Durham Publications (London: Oxford University Press, 1964; 2nd ed. 1971); Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, trans. Hubert Darke, Persian

Heritage Series, 32 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960; 2nd ed. 1978). 4 H.F. Amedroz, “The Mazalim Jurisdiction in the Ahkam Sultaniyya of Mawardi,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1911: 635-74; Emile Tyan, Histoire de l’ organisation judiciaire en pays d’Islam, Annales de 1’Université de Lyon, ser. 3, fasc. 4, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1938-43), 1: 147; 2: 141-289. 5 Henri Massé, “Ibn el-Cairafi, Code de la chancellerie d’état (Période fatimide),” Bulletin

de l'Institut francais d’archéologie du Caire 11 (1914): 113-15. 6 §.M. Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” Oriens 15 (1962): 172-209; idem,

Fatimid Decrees: Original Documents from the Fatimid Chancery, All Souls Studies (London: Faber and Faber, 1964); idem, “Petitions from the Ayyubid Period,” BSOAS 27

248 CHAPTER EIGHT The Petition Process Like other Near Eastern rulers, Ottoman sultans were bound to hear and redress the complaints of their people; justice was often defined as the ability of the people to present complaints directly to the ruler and to expect redress.’ Advice writers urged rulers to render justice to the poor and powerless, women and slaves. Petitions were received both at court, in the divan, where one day a week was devoted to hearing petitions, and in the field, when the sultan rode out among the people.® A petition was scrutinized by the ruler or his ministers and, if necessary, relevant government records were examined to ascertain the facts of the case. Response came in the form of an order addressed to officials in the provinces, charged with doing what was necessary to rectify the problem. Records of orders issued in response to petitions, containing summaries of the petitions, were kept in the mitihimme defteri, the register of important matters, maintained by the

scribes of the grand vizier.’ The sultan’s servants, functioning as (1964): 1-32; idem, “Petitions from the Mamluk Period (Notes on the Mamluk Documents from Sinai),’” BSOAS 29 (1966): 233-76; D.S. Richards, “A Fatimid Petition and ‘Small Decree’ from Sinai,” /srael Oriental Studies 3 (1973): 140—58; idem, “A Mamluk Petition and a Report”; Geoffrey Khan, “A Petition to the Fatimid Caliph al-’Amir,” JRAS 1990: 44-54; idem, ““The Historical Development of the Structure of the Medieval Arabic Petition,” BSOAS 52 (1990): 8-30. The basic format of the petition as known to the Ottomans is thought to have been invented by the Fatimids, petitions of the Abbasid period and earlier apparently having been submitted in the form of a simple letter. ’ Tnalcik, “Sikayet Hakki,” 33. ® Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 121; Unat, “Kara Mustafa Pasa Layihasi,” 467. In the seventeenth century, even Mehmed III’s mother Safiye Sultan received petitions on her way back from an outing (Peirce, Imperial Harem, 196-97). ? The Ottoman imperial order is studied in Friedrich Kraelitz[-Greifenhorst], “Osmanische Urkunden in tiirkischer Sprache aus der zweiten Halfte des 15. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur osmanischen Diplomatik,” Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 197, III (Vienna, Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1921); Lajos Fekete, Einfiihrung in die osmanisch-tiirkische Diplomatik der tirkischen Botmdssigkeit in Ungarn (Budapest: KOnigliche Ungarische Staatsarchivs, 1926); Jan Reychmann and Ananiasz Zajaczkowski, Handbook of Ottoman-Turkish Diplomatics, trans. Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz (The Hague: Mouton, 1968); Ismail Hakki Uzungarsili, “Tugra ve Penceler ile Ferman ve Buyuruldulara Dair,” Belleten 5 (1941): 101-57 and plates 24-60; Nicolaas H. Biegman, The Turco-Ragusan Relationship: According to the Firmans of Murad III (1575-1595) Extant in the State Archives of Dubrovnik (The Hague: Mouton, 1967); Uriel Heyd, “Farman: ii. Ottoman Empire,” E/2 2: 804-5. The diplomatics of the government’s registers have barely begun to be studied; orders recorded in the miihimme registers are examined by Heyd, Ottoman Documents on Palestine. The petition process is discussed from miihimme records by Suraiya Faroghi, “Political Initiatives ‘From the Bottom Up’ in the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire: Some Evidence for Their Existence,” in Osmanistische Studien zur Wirschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in Memoriam

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 249 extensions of royal power, also had the power to rectify abuses: officers

of the army on campaign, for example, had authority to hear complaints from the people.’® From at least the mid-sixteeenth century onward, petitions on taxation or other strictly financial matters were ordinarily handled by the bas defterdar and his staff, who kept their own records of outgoing orders paralleling the miihimmes, called registers of finance department orders (maliye ahkam defterleri). By the late seventeenth century there also

existed a series of registers called sikayet defterleri, complaint registers, containing only responses to complaint petitions.'' This growing specialization may have resulted from an increase in the volume of complaints or simply from organizational development. The maliye ahkam records have not been methodically exploited for local studies;

finance department orders recorded in kadi sicills have been more widely used. Individual register entries cannot convey the central government’s impact on conditions in the provinces but must be set in a broader context of provincial practice. There is evidence, in the form of reiterated orders on the same topic, that some orders were not enforced; on the other hand, there are occasional complaints about overzealous enforcement. Finance department orders on most petition matters were addressed to the kadi of the area concerned. It was the kad1’s job to amend local

registers and to supervise the collection of taxes controlled by the maliye (questions regarding timars and their taxes were handled by the defterhane under the supervision of the grand vizier). In certain cases, local financial agents of has holders, such as a voyvoda or muhassil-i emval, were included among the addressees. The beylerbey or sancak bey, who headed the empire’s enforcement mechanism in

the provinces, received orders for the collection of additional sums or for the suppression of abuses by government officials. Orders concerning the finances of a whole province or the movement of sums to or from a provincial treasury were addressed to the provincial defterdar. Vanco Boskov, ed. Hans Georg Majer (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 24-33; she finds there many of the same procedures employed in the finance department. 10 Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” vi; Ostapchuk, “Ottoman Black Sea Frontier,” 192. 11 One such register has been published: Hans Georg Majer, ed., Das Osmanische “Registerbuch der Beschwerden” (Sikayet Defteri) von Jahre 1675, vol. 1, Introduction and Facsimile (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984). Its contents are analyzed in Inalcik, “Sikayet Hakki,” and Gerber, State, Society, and Law.

250 CHAPTER EIGHT The maliye ahkam registers of the mid-sixteenth century finance department are bound in annual volumes of up to 2000 pages. These large volumes contain several sections composed of separate fascicules

(ciiz) for each month.'? The maliye ahkam registers of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are quite different in format, rarely exceeding 300 pages and covering only part of a year. There are sometimes several different registers for a given year, suggesting that no methodical effort was made to assemble all finance department orders for a single year in one place. In this later period, ahkaém records were also kept by bureaus other than the maliye ahkam kalemi. After about 1000/1591—92 the bas muhasebe bureau seems to have

become the main producer of ahkam registers, registers containing records of appointments (including those of provincial, but not central, treasury staff) and orders regarding assessment and collection of taxes and disbursement of funds, as well as responses to petitions.’ During the seventeenth century the mevkufat and mukataa bureaus also began to keep ahkam defters, recording orders connected with the taxes they administered. Ahkaém registers produced by individual tax bureaus must have been maintained in the bureaus themselves rather than the

maliye ahkam kalemi, as in addition to orders they record in chronological order receipts of money, revenue surveys, and alterations of the registers. Most entries are written in an extremely cursive and scribbled divani script, some in siyakat. Orders appear to have been written into the registers at some stage of the drafting process rather than after the final copies were written, as even the mid-sixteenth century registers contain errors and amendments in many entries." In the later registers, entries close with commands for an order to be '2 The surviving examples of maliye ahkam registers falling within our period are MM 267 (2775) for 973—4/1565-67, of 1984 pages; KK 67 for 980/1572—-73, of nearly 2000 pages; and MM 407 (7534) for 984/1576-77, of 1850 pages. Register MM 357 (20115) for 981/1573-74 is part 3 (diciincii ciiz) of that year’s volume; it somehow failed to be bound with the remainder of the year’s fascicules. In that register there appear to be several fascicules for each month; there are six fascicules, for example, for the month of Muharram 973. The dates of the orders in each fascicule show that the fascicules are not consecutive but parallel; each contains orders dated throughout the month. ' Examples of these registers include MM 1513 (7316), written by the Rumeli muhasebesi in 1013/1604—5; MM 2256 (5712), a register of tahvilat (assignments) of the muhasebe-i Rumeli dated 1026/1617—18; MM 2728 (3457), a register of the bas muhasebe kalemi dated 1036—37/1626—28; and MM 3881 (2765), an ahkaém register of the muhasebe-i evvel dated 1055/1645—46. '* On this issue see William S. Peachy, “Register of Copies or Collection of Drafts? The Case of Four Miihimme Defters from the Archives of the Prime Ministry in Istanbul,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 10 (1986): 79-85.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 251 produced rather than with the closing protocols of the orders themselves.’ Also, seventeenth-century registers no longer indicated the names of the persons to whom finished orders were given for delivery, which suggests that the orders themselves were not completed when the entries were made. No original complaint petitions from this period were uncovered by this study.'° Register entries, however, record the contents of petitions and the procedures to which they were subjected. The ahkam registers

of the seventeenth century are labeled differently from those of the sixteenth—they are called in the catalogues hiikm or ahkadm kayitlari (order records) or ahkadm tezkire defterleri (registers of tezkires for orders)—and their entries have a different appearance. These registers

record not outgoing orders themselves but tezkires, notes issued by a bureau constituting both a request for production of an order and a draft of its contents. Designation of entries as records of tezkires occurs sporadically in a register dated as early as 1010/1601-2,"’ and by the time of register MM 2256 (5712) dated 1023/1613—14 it was the normal practice. Orders recorded in tezkire form do not appear to have been subsequently re-recorded in the regular maliye ahkam registers. This change in procedure must relate to an alteration in the order-preparation process. In the seventeenth century, once a decision had been reached on a petition matter, the petition must normally have

been sent back to the relevant tax bureau for the composition and recording of a tezkire, which was then routed to the ahkam bureau for production of the final order.'* We have previously noted a dramatic 'S One late sixteenth-century entry ends with an abbreviated form of the closing protocol, sdyle bilesin deyii (MM 357 [20115] 981/1573-74, p. 118). Exceptionally, one later register contained a copy of an order with an extended closing protocol and locatio (MM 2770 [16163] 1036/1626—27, p. 20). ‘6 The most extensive study of the Ottoman petition process, by Halil Inalcik (‘Osmanl Biirokrasisinde Aklam ve Muamelat’’) uses eighteenth-century petitions for timar appointments, which were handled by the grand vizier’s staff. Procedures for handling complaints employed during the seventeenth century by the finance department appear from the defter entries to have been similar. Mamluk petitions requesting appointments and those demanding redress of grievances, and the procedures applied to them, also resembled each other closely (Stern, “Petitions from the Mamluk Period,” 246). Asparouch Velkov analyzes a petition with its accompanying marginal notes and their possible variations in “Les notes complémentaires dans les documents financiers ottomans des XVI°-XVIII* siécles: Etude diplomatique et paléographique,” Turcica 11 (1979): 37—77. Photographs of petitions bearing marginal notes can be found in Ismail Hakki Uzungarsili, “Buyruldi,” Belleten 5 (1941):

plates 2, 3, and 4. 17 MM 1513 (7316), containing orders written in 1010—11/1602-4; see pp. 34, 37, 48. 18 Shinder notes that orders on naval matters were also brought to the maliye kalemi in draft, there to be written up in final form (“Ottoman Bureaucracy,” 35).

252 CHAPTER EIGHT rise in the number of scribes employed in the maliye ahkaém bureau and speculated that one possible reason for this expansion was the increased workload generated by the progressive bureaucratization of the empire. It seems reasonable to believe that some of the overload was relieved by having other finance bureaus keep their own order records, making the ahkam scribes responsible only for penning fair copies of the orders and not for searching the records. The petitions themselves seem to have gone up in smoke.'”” Alternatively, they may have been returned to petitioners as evidence that their complaint had been heard, as was the practice in pre-Ottoman Egypt.”° The ahkam tezkire registers functioned as a sort of index or guide to the finance department’s growing volume of transactions. In addition to outgoing orders, they recorded in chronological order incoming payments, newly made surveys, copies of survey registers given to assessors and collectors, internal departmental correspondence,

documents issued to verify the tax obligations or exemptions of individuals and communities, and sometimes (in the absence of separate appointments registers) appointments of officials and tax collectors. One such register, KK 2576, an ahkaém tezkire register of the mevkufat kalemi containing approximately 625 entries dated from 22

Ramazan 1043/23 March 1634 to 15 Safer 1053/5 May 1643, was examined in detail. About 30% of its entries are records of the receipt of avariz moneys by the treasury. Another 30% deal with problems of tax assessment; about one-fourth of them concern the making of tahrirs and the rest are responses to complaints regarding assessments.

Approximately 15% of the entries in the register are orders on the collection process, and an additional 7% concern arrears in collection. About 10% are grants of tax exemptions (muafiyet) or renewal (tecdid) of such exemptions. The remaining 8% comprises items of information, such as the appointment of a new head of the mevkufat bureau or a change in the exchange rates, and items recording that a register entry or note had been made in another spot or that an official copy

of an entry (suret) had been issued. Some entries in the register record the actions of the bureau itself, for example, entries mentioning the provision of register copies to '9 Literally—see the frontispiece and the description of late eighteenth century office life, depicting the charcoal braziers that warmed the scribes as they worked, in Carter Vaughn Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). © Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 196; “Petitions from the Ayyubid Period,” 32; “Petitions from the Mamluk Period,” 249.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 253 survey Officials, recording the results of surveys, or noting the receipt of tax moneys. Other register entries seem to have been made so that

information could be easily located at a later date. These entries, accompanied by the formula, “an explanation (serh) was given in this very spot,””! usually referred to complicated issues on which future problems might be expected to arise. One such issue was the status of a village in the kaza of Yenisehir in Tirhala; most of the village’s 200 inhabitants were saltmakers, traditionally exempt from avariz,

and there were only 10 avarizhanes. When the entire village was surveyed as avarizhanes and the villagers petitioned to complain, it was ordered that the village be returned to saltmaker status and “in this spot the above explanation was given.” This type of entry was also made to record a problem originating in another division of the administration. An instance of this practice concerned villages in the province of Anadolu that traditionally supplied chickens for military campaigns; after a complaint, it was decided that chickens need only be provided when the campaign was led by the sultan in person. The finance department was notified of this order by the purveyor for the imperial kitchens (matbah emini), and it “was explained and recorded

in this spot.” In this case, the original order to the matbah emini was probably recorded in his defters, but the notification sent to the mevkufat bureau was entered in the ahkam register for future reference.

Responses to petitions in seventeenth-century order registers, in contrast to those from the sixteenth century, enumerate each step in the petition-handling process. All entries written in response to petitions, after designating the addressee, describe first how the petition or complaint reached the government. A villager or official, or a group

of villagers, might present the petition in person to the divan or to the sultan himself.“ An example of the basic formula noting the 21 Isbu mahalla serh verildi. 22 Vech-i mesruh iizere isbu mahalla serh verildi (KK 2576, p. 65). 23 Isbu mahalla serh verilip kayd olundu (KK 2576, p. 31). See also KK 2576, p. 23, an order taking two villages of Argiri Kasri out of avarizhane status and making them into ocaklik (support) for the imperial dockyards (tersane): “it was recorded in its proper place [in the ocaklik and avariz registers] and in this spot [in the maliye ahkam tezkire defteri] an explanation was given” [mahallina kayd olunup isbu mahalla serh verildi). In Egyptian practice, as well, it was customary for the various finance offices to register orders addressed to other offices which might affect them (Stern, Fatimid Decrees, 16770; idem, “Petitions from the Ayyubid Period,” 31). 4 Suraiya Faroghi has investigated in the miihimme registers the question of who sent petitions and how they are referred to in petitionary language (“Political Initiatives ‘From the Bottom Up’,” 27-29). She found that “very often provincial personages got together

254 CHAPTER EIGHT presentation of a petition runs: “A person named Haci Mehmed son of Omer, one of the residents of a village called K6seler belonging to the aforementioned judicial district [G6rdes], came to the imperial divan and presented a petition” [the essence of the petition, a complaint about the inclusion of an imam’s family in the avariz defteri,

follows]. Several petitions recorded in the register came from the reaya of different villages, one was from a seyh resident in a particular

village, and one was submitted by a tax collector who petitioned concerning a village’s assessment. Petitions could also be sent to the

capital by messenger, particularly if the petitioner was a kadi or beylerbey. An instance of the formula denoting this circumstance reads:

“An order to the kadi of Iskrepar: you recently sent a petition to my Threshold of Felicity.”*° Orders lacking either of these formulas may

have been initiated centrally, as an official’s action on a problem presented earlier or discovered in checking the registers.’ Upon receipt, petitions were routed to the appropriate bureaus for verification in the records; pertinent defter entries, and sometimes official opinions or explanations, were copied onto their margins. to hire a messenger who was to convey their complaint” (“Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation [1570—1650],” JESHO 35 [1992]: 2). In the case of the petitions she studied, the petitioners were far from being the poorest and least powerful of the village residents. However, “in the Ottoman government system, even the humblest member of the society had the right to take his complaints to the imperial council” (Halil Inalcik, “State and Ideology under Sultan Siileyman I,” in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society,

Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9 [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993], 72). As a member of the Fatimid bureaucracy stated, “This is an important matter for many reasons. It involves a man’s obtaining his right from another and the establishment of justice in the kingdom. Also, most of those with a grievance are powerless people, paupers and retiring women, most of whom arrive from distant parts of the kingdom, believing that they approach one who will help them and redress their grievances and assist them against their adversaries” (cited in Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 187). In this ideology, even if the petitioners were not literally poor, it was advantageous for them to present themselves as if they were. 25 KK 2576, p. 126: kaza-i merkuma tabi Késeler nam karye sakinlerinden Haci Mehmed veled-i Omer nam kimesne divan-i hiimayuna gelip arz-u-hal sunup; a variation is asitane-i saadetime gelip, “came to the Threshold of Felicity.” See also pages 121, 122, 125, 127, petitions from villagers presented in the divan requesting corrections to the registers. ° KK 2576, p. 99: Iskrepar kadisina hiikiim ki hdla asitane-i saadetime arz génderiip. *” An order regarding k6priiciis which does not seem to have been issued directly in response to a petition begins, “An order to the kadi of the Istanbul has properties: Although the Muslim reaya of the town of Kiiciik Cekmece formerly did not belong to avarizhanes, some time ago its registrar Dilaver registered them as eight hanes”; hasha-i Istanbul kadisina hiikiim ki nefs-i Kiigiik Cekmece’nin miisliiman reayasinin mukaddemé avariz haneleri olmamagla bundan akdem muharriri olan Dilaver sekiz hane kayd olup” (KK 2576, p. 108; similar examples on pp. 64, 103).

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 255 Routine copying of defter entries on petitions is not usually noted in the ahkam registers, but the checking of defters is often referred to in subsequent orders: “When the mevkufat defterleri kept in my imperial

treasury were examined ...”’* Some entries in the ahkam register do refer explicitly to the provision of explanations or opinions, presumably also written in the margins of petitions. Register MM 849 (18142)

contains an actual petition (not a copy) concerning the sale of an iltizam with an explanation (serh) in the margin referring to the previous

history of that iltizam in the muhasebe registers.” It is sometimes clear that the serh was meant to be included in the order to be issued,

as in an entry for an order to the kadi of Gemlik regarding redistribution of an annual levy of oars (kiirek). The entry ends with a comment the mevkufat official obviously wished to be written into the order: “Let an explanation be given saying that you should make a register concerning the redistribution and submit it to the Threshold of Felicity.”°° Another example appears in the response to a petition from the inhabitants of Gevnik, who owed a levy of chickens to the imperial kitchens and complained that the number of chickens demanded was beyond their means. In this case, two explanations were to be given: first, that for the current year, 1053/1643—44, half their assessment had been forgiven, and second, that chickens would be demanded only from the 488 hanes listed in the old survey, while the 173 hanes added in the new survey would be assessed 420 akce each in cash.*! In other cases, the explanation may have been pro-

vided solely for the enlightenment of the decision-makers, as its inclusion in an order does not seem necessary. For example, the response to a request for renewal of the tax exemption of a village in Sivas reads: “An explanation was given that there is a marginal 28 Hazine-i Gmiremde mahfuz olan mevkufat defterlerine nazar olundukta (in an order subtracting an assessment of barley on villages in the kaza of Edirne which were already registered as giving oarsmen for the navy and carts for the stables, KK 2576, p. 120); a variant is hazine-i Gmiremde mahfuz olan mevkufat defterlerinde, “In the mevkufat registers

kept in my imperial treasury ...” (in an order forbidding the collection of avariz from five villages in Erzurum not listed in the mufassal defter of Erzurum as being liable for that tax; KK 2576, p. 87). Entries that did record the making of a marginal note (der kenar) on the petition include KK 2576, pp. 50, 67, 94. 79 MM 849 (18142) 1001-8/1592-1600, p. 42. 30 KK 2576, p. 65: tevzi oldugu tizere defter edip asitane-i saadetime arz eyliyesin...

deyti serh verile. ,

31 KK 2576, p. 125: bin elli tig senesinde beger tavuklari ref oluna deyii emr-i serif

verilmegin serh verile, and tahrirde ziyade olan yiiz yetmis tig haneden dorder yuz yirmiger

akce miri icin taleb ve tahsil olunmak igin gerh verile.

256 CHAPTER EIGHT note in the mevkufat registers [saying] that the above-mentioned village

had no hanes.” Renewal of a tax exemption for a village in Seyyid Gazi was granted in the words: “An explanation was given for it to be renewed.””? A dispute over the yiiriik status of villages in Giimiilcine was settled with the statement: “And since the names of certain Yiiriik villages registered in the Yiirtik defters were not found in the mevkufat

defters, an explanation was given accordingly.” In the next step of the petition-handling process, the matter was decided and the decision recorded in the margin of the petition. As it was not possible to locate complaint petitions from the period studied

that had undergone bureaucratic handling, there are no illustrations for this stage in the decision-making process, although the decisions are known to us from the resulting orders. The only petitions bearing

marginal notes retained in the archives seem to have been those regarding appointments. A number of seventeenth-century petitions on

finance matters exist in the Ali Emiri Collection of the Basbakanlik Arsivi, but these do not seem to have passed through the order-issuing process; at any rate, they have nothing written in their margins. After a decision was finalized, however, two processes still remained to be

carried out: the issuing of an order to the provincial official responsible for enforcement, and the updating of the finance department’s registers to reflect the new state of affairs. Finance department orders to provincial officials were copied for presentation by the calligraphers of the maliye ahkam bureau, the bas defterdar’s chancery, on the basis of tezkires from the tax bureaus.*° 2 KK 2576, p. 66: mevkufat defterlerinde karye-i mezburenin hanesi olmadigi der kenar olmagla serh verildi; similarly, an entry on p. 123 reads: kaza-i mezburun avariz defterinde

karye-i mezburun hanesi olmadigin serh verildi, an explanation was given that in the avariz defter of that kaza [Brusa] the above-mentioned village had no hanes. 33 KK 2576, p. 59: tecdid olunmak icin serh verildi. * KK 2576, p. 116: ve yiiriik defterlerinde mukayyed olan bazi yiiriik karyesinin ismi mevkufat defterlerinde bulunmamagin mucebince gerh verildi. * Facsimiles of finished orders on finance matters can be found in Uzungarsih, “Buyruldi,”

plate 7, and Matuz, Das Kanzleiwesen Sultan Siileymans des Prdchtigen, plates 2 and 6. Petitions from the Fatimid period typically closed with a request for an order to be issued (Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 192). In Fatimid as in Ottoman practice, noting the decision and drafting the order in its final form were two separate procedures. Comments and decisions were written either on the back of the petition or in the margins; the Secretary of the Fine Pen “writes on them what is necessary under the circumstances according to the order of the caliph or the vizier or on his own initiative,” after which the Secretary of the Thick Pen drafted the final order, adding the proper honorifics and details of diplomatics (Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 185—196; Richards, “A Fatimid Petition and ‘Small Decree’,” 155-56). When the order was finished, a copy

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 257 These tezkires cannot be described physically, as no examples of this

type of tezkire were located. Other kinds of tezkires that were examined proved to be small individual pieces of paper ranging in size from about 2" x 3" to about 4" x 6" containing exact copies of defter entries; maliye ahkam tezkires were probably similar in form.*° In content, they resembled the register entries, including the addressee’s title, though usually not his name and never his honorifics; the problem presented in the petition (arzuhal); the request made (rica), if any;

and the decision (hiikm), including actions to be taken and any subsidiary considerations. The tezkires communicated to the maliye ahkam scribes the texts of orders to be written; their wording was

based on the register entries, as can be deduced from the fact that many entries end with the phrase, “and a tezkire was given for the writing of an order stating the above” or “a tezkire was given commanding the giving of an imperial order in the manner described above.”*’ After being recorded in the ahkam register, these tezkires were sent on to the maliye kalemi, where the proper honorifics and other formulas were added by the maliye akham scribes in the course of calligraphy. The final phrase in the defter about the provision of the tezkire was, of course, omitted in the tezkire itself. In the finished order it was replaced by clauses enjoining compliance with the imperial command. Although the original petitions, the bureau’s tezkires, and the final orders are all unavailable for examination, the procedural comments in the register entries elucidate the system quite clearly. The following two examples, provided in full, record each step in the process, from the arrival of the petition, through the checking of the registers, the making of a decision, its communication to the mevkufat bureau for recording, and the production of a tezkire requesting an appropriate order.*

(possibly on a separate sheet of paper rather than in a register) was made and filed before the original was sent out (Stern, Fatimid Decrees, 167). 6 Examples of seventeenth-century tezkires on various matters can be found in Diindar Giinday, Arsiv Belgelerinde Siyakat Yazisi Ozellikleri ve Divan Rakamlari, Tiitk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, v. 57 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1974), 68, 95, 97. For the use of written documentation as testimony to claims made in petitions see Faroghi, “Political Activity Among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 7—10. 37 Vech-i megsruh tizere/mucebince/ ... deyti hiikm/emr-i serif verilmek/yazilmak icin tezkire verildi; or, hiikm-i serif verilmek ferman olmagin tezkire verildi. 38 KK 2576, pp. 130 and 121.

258 CHAPTER EIGHT An order to the kadi of Aksehir: The people of the city of Aksehir came to the imperial divan and presented a petition. They have notified [us]

saying that the city has 35'/ avarizhanes; 20 hanes are registered for support of the post system [menzil] for provision for 5 head of post horses, and 15'/2 are registered for avariz, but 20 hanes for the post system are not enough. When the mevkufat registers were examined, it was found recorded that the above town has 35'/2 avarizhanes, and of these 20 hanes were appointed as menzil and 15'/2 hanes as avariz. It was ordered that a hiikm-i serif be given saying that 5'/2 hanes should be assigned to the post system, and avariz should be taken from only 10 hanes; it has been registered in the mevkufat and a tezkire was given.

An order to the muhassil of Aydin and the kadi of Tazile(?): In the mevkufat registers the above kaza has 1133 avarizhanes, but since its reaya are unable to bear the payment of that many hanes, its current kadi, the leader of the judges and the Muslims, Mevlana Mustafa, may his virtues be increased, has notified [us] saying that its collection is impossible: it was ordered that a hiikm-i serif be given to leave 1000 hanes and to subtract 13[3] hanes; accordingly, a tezkire was given by the mevkufat: on 13 Safar 1053.

The last stage in the complaint-handling process was updating the records to reflect the decisions made. Among the entries in the ahkam registers are some that record changes to survey defters kept by the finance department. For example, one entry recorded the registration of a tax exemption for a certain non-Muslim who informed the central

government that he had been exempted from payment of avariz in return for his services on the eastern campaign: “Since it was ordered

that he be exempt, it was registered accordingly in its proper place [i.e., in the avariz defteri].”°? Similar entries record the proper registration of exemption renewals. Another part of the updating procedure involved issuing temessiiks verifying their new status to people whose assessment had been changed. For instance, a village in Hiidavendigar requested and obtained the commutation of its old levy, a number of chickens for the imperial kitchens, to a lump sum in cash. The entry on the subject specified that, to ensure that there would be

no oppression, the villagers were given a copy of their entry in the avariz defteri.“° The ahkam register records the provision of a copy ° KK 2576, p. 39: muaf ve miisellem olmak ferman olunmagin mucebince mahallina kayd olundu. For exemption renewals see KK 2576, pp. 67, 80, 88. ® KK 2576, p. 14: rencide olunmamak icin suret-i mevkufat dir ki nakl olundu. On the provision of copies of register entries for exemptions see KK 2576, p. 66; for the

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 259 of the register entry (suret-i defter) in many other cases, especially when exemptions were granted, when avarizhanes were subtracted from the surveyed total, or when repeated attempts to collect excess or illegal taxes had been made. Most of the time, the updating process involved both changing the defters and issuing verification documents, as in the case of six villages near Dimetoka exempted from taxation in return for service to the imperial stables in Edirne; here the ahkam register entry reads: “Since it was commanded that an order be given in accordance with the exemption documents in their hands, it was registered accordingly in its proper place [i.e., in the avariz register] and a copy of the mevkufat register [entry, i.e., a temessiik] was issued.’ Some entries not only mention changing the assessment register but reproduce the defter entry as it actually appeared in the other register, in siyakat script and in the layout of the assessment register. An example

is an entry regarding four villages in the sancak of Gelibolu whose defter registration was precisely copied into the ahkaém register, accompanied by an explanation of how their status had changed and how the changes had been recorded. These villages had formerly been

contributors to the post system (menzilcis); at a later date this obligation had been lifted and they had been registered in avarizhanes. Now, however, their services in support of the post system were again

required, and their hanes were subtracted from the avariz defter. In case of future questions, a copy of the entry was made in its chronological place in the ahkém register with the following comment: “Since their hanes were ordered to be subtracted, it was recorded in its proper place, and this is a copy of the avariz defteri [stating] that they would be menzilcis as described above, which was transferred from its place [in the avariz defteri].”** The procedure was often used subtraction of hanes from the assessment see ibid., pp. 43, 75, 104, 119; for a suret given on account of an attempt to collect tekalif-i Grfiye from four villages in Nigbolu that were

exempt see ibid., p. 35. The giving of a suret-i defter when a new tahrir was made is recorded in KK 2576, pp. 44, 103. 41 KK 2576, p. 39: yedlerinde olan muafnameleri mucebince hiikm-i serif verile deyii ferman olunmagin mucebince mahallina kayd olunup suret-i defter-i mevkufat nakl olundu.

Other examples noting registration in the defter together with issuance of a suret occur on pp. 22 (subtraction of 2 hanes from a village that could not pay its assessment), 81

(exemption from avariz of an area that had become the grand vizier’s temlik), 113 (subtraction of half their assessment for villages newly registered that were formerly exempt),

and 123 (reduction in number of hanes for a village whose inhabitants had moved away). 4 KK 2576, p. 25: hanesi fiirunihdde oluna deyii ferman olunmagin mahallina kayd olunup vech-i megruh iizere menzilciler olduklarina isbu suret-i mevkufat dir ki mahal-

260 CHAPTER EIGHT in connection with tahrirs as well; a copy of the entry in the tahrir defter (in siyakat) or of the totals listed there for the location surveyed appears in the ahkam register in its chronological place, with a description of the reason for the survey and the appointment of the surveyor. The same format was used to show that a survey had been completed: on the page containing the order (discussed in Chapter Three) com-

manding Pir Mehmed el-Miiderris to conduct the avariz tahrir of Mentese and Sigla, the results of the survey were later recorded in the margins around the order.” Changing the Assessment

The records make it abundantly clear that the government’s tax accounting procedures relied on matching amounts collected with amounts listed in assessment registers, and tax collectors were ordered again and again to collect the exact amount assigned in the registers

they were given. If a tax collector with a defter attempted to collect more than the amount written, seventeenth-century taxpayers could petition for a sort of restraining order, enforceable by the soldiers of the sancak bey, mandating collection of the amount on record. The registers in the capital were checked, and the order specified precisely what could be collected. Alternatively, excessive collections might be reported by taxpayers to the kadi, who could then petition for a similar

order.** Other solutions to this problem were also available. In one case of overcollection in Premedi, the sancak bey petitioned for a new tahrir to be conducted. In another instance, when an amount of avariz greater than the total in the defter was collected in Sam, the finance department took collection of avariz out of the hands of the appointed collector and entrusted it to the kadi, notifying the provincial governor of the change. The investigation of a similar problem in Haleb was

delegated to the provincial defterdar. In another case, a village in Mezistre experienced repeated attempts to collect a greater amount of avariz than was specified in the defter; as a result, the inhabitants lindan nakl olundu; similar examples can be found on pp. 41 (in the liva of Nigde, where 15'/ hanes were added to the total) and 114 (in the liva of Silistre, where 15 hanes were subtracted). The graphic depiction of a cizye transaction (the subtraction of 500 hanes

from an assessment of 2000) can be found in MM 2728 (3457), p. 66. “ KK 2576, p. 48. “ Examples of petitions from villagers for such restraining orders are KK 2576, pp. 41, 42, 62, 64, 112, 114, 126, 203.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 261 of the village petitioned to collect and submit their own avariz as a lump sum. The finance department officials agreed to this plan, raising the total of the avariz slightly to adjust for future population growth.®

If the figures in the registers were regarded by the government as authoritatively determining the amounts to be collected, it was important for the reaya, especially in a period of declining prosperity, to ensure that their tax assessments were accurate or, if not, that they erred on the low side. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, keeping the defters accurate and up to date became increasingly difficult. Rapid transformations in people’s circumstances made tahrir registers obsolete almost as soon as they were compiled. Changes in the value of the coinage and in the incidence of certain levies suddenly altered the weight of taxation for individuals and communities. The survey process itself was interrupted by rebellion and wartare. The petition was the vehicle by which people sought to adjust the government’s records, requesting reductions in their assessments

and corrections to the registers. With respect to the validity of this type of request, Jennings has observed that “it is difficult to know how much credence to give to these claims. . . . The complaint of three

people from Baf [a small town in Cyprus] might epitomize the complaints of the entire island. However, it might also reflect only the feelings of three people with grudges.’”° Still, the kinds of complaints made and the government’s reactions to them provide a sense of what people considered the most important problems amenable to official solution and suggest the range of responses available to the Ottoman state. Most assessment problems presented in petitions from the first half of the seventeenth century fall into two categories: overassessment of an area beyond what its inhabitants could bear, and inclusion in the tax registers of individuals or communities which were either not required to pay at all or which had already paid another levy. Register KK 2576 contains 80 entries, some 13% of the total, granting reductions in assessments. Mistakes in the registers or outdated survey totals were often detected only when an attempt was made to collect incorrect or double taxes. Sometimes the problem seems to have originated

4 KK 2576, pp. 100, 70; MM 2256 (5712) 1026/1617-18, p. 93; KK 2576, p. 8; for a similar case in a village in Sivas province, see MM 2728 (3457), p. 49. 46 Ronald C. Jennings, Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571-1640, NYU Studies in Near Eastern Civilization, 16 (New York: New

York University Press, 1992), 369.

262 CHAPTER EIGHT with an overgenerous estimate of an area’s capacity; sometimes there had been an error in compiling or copying the registers; and sometimes the tax status of a village had altered since the assessment was made. Occasionally, an entry cites Celali disturbances, flood or drought, or the death or emigration of the population; usually, however, the reason given for inability to pay was simply that that the taxpayers were or had become “poor” (fakir). Many entries give no reason at

all, merely showing the old assessment, the amount subtracted (fiirunihdde), and the new assessment. On occasion, petitioners specified how their assessment should be modified, as when the reaya of Yeni Han, who could not afford to support six post horses, requested to support only four.*’ In register KK 2576 there are 30 entries, about 5%, in which people

already liable for one levy were erroneously assessed a second; ordinarily the second demand was waived, occasionally the first. For example, two villages in the area of Dimetoka regularly supplied barley

for the imperial stables but were registered in avarizhanes in a new tahrir; when the villagers complained about the double assessment, they were relieved of the levy of barley.** Other victims of double recording errors included a kaza in Kastamonu which had been exempt from avariz but was mistakenly registered in a new avariz tahrir made

after the Celali uprisings; a village in the kaza of Selanik, located close to Alasonya and recorded in both kazas in error; residents of a particular street in Haleb who claimed they belonged to a different mahalle and were being charged twice; and a group from Sivas who had fled to Tokat and found themselves registered for ispencge in both

places.” In an individual case, the name of Timurhan b. Mehmed seemingly appeared in two places in the register, as he was more than once forced to pay double taxes. In these cases, a petition to the center produced an order correcting the error in the registers; occasionally

a separate order was sent to the kadi to correct his records as well. An unusual type of error occurred when the avarizhanes of Vidin were somehow added to the cizyehanes, while other reaya remained unregistered; in that case a new tahrir was ordered to straighten out the figures.°° 47 KK 2576, p. 72. “8 KK 2576, p. 112; other examples of relief from dual assessment are on pp. 35, 43, 104, 108, 114, 199, 120.

” KK 2576, pp. 81, 115, 59, 123. Oo MM 3881 (2765), p. 165; KK 2576, p. 108.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 263 It is usually impossible to tell whether these double assessments were mistakes on the part of those compiling the registers or attempts at official extortion, but it is easy to see how errors could have been made. Individuals or communities discovered by a tahrir to be absent from the old registers might have escaped previous registration, or they might be exempt from taxation or already registered in a different set of defters. Taxpayers without exemption documents were entered

into the new registers and required to correct any error by petition. Dual assessments brought to the finance department’s attention were almost invariably disallowed.*' The various levies subsumed under the

name of avariz were considered to be mutually exclusive; in determining the total tax burden of the Ottoman reaya, they should not be added together unless there is definite evidence to the contrary for a particular area, period, or group of people. The only regular exception to this generalization seems to have been made for the niiziil, a levy of grain for the army, which was assessed on the avarizhanes. A few entries, however, indicate that people liable for levies other

than avariz in cash were exempt from niiziil. Other kinds of assessment problems occurred with less regularity. In register KK 2576 there are 20 requests for a change in the type of levy (3% of entries), of which 19 were granted and one was denied. For example, when a village near Edirne that traditionally owed a levy of barley found that levy too onerous, it was transmuted into a levy of oarsmen. On the other hand, when a village whose assessment had been divided between service to the stables and payment of avariz requested that it be completely devoted to stable service, its request was denied.*? Redistribution (tevzi) of sums demanded with-

out a change in their total occurred in 3 cases; one concerned a levy of oars which had grown too onerous for the people of one town and was consequently redistributed among the surrounding villages.” The government was occasionally able to detect that a request for tax remission was spurious. Register KK 2576 recorded 7 instances ‘1 For that reason, 7 hanes were subtracted from the assessment of a village whose 14 hanes had all been registered as avarizhanes in a survey, although half of them had long been madencis (KK 2576, p. 11; similar cases on pp. 25, 112). 2 See, for instance, KK 2576, p. 5, where a village owing chickens to the imperial kitchens was excused from niiziil and siirsat. 53 KK 2576, pp. 119, 109. The latter entry, together with a request concerning collection that was also denied, suggests that the idea that negative answers to petitions do not appear in the registers (and thus might vastly outnumber positive answers) may need to be modified.

* KK 2576, p. 65.

264 CHAPTER EIGHT of tax evasion. A village that had previously always paid avariz, for example, was found trying to avoid payment by claiming, “We are exempt,” muafiz. The reaya in Bursa were apparently not paying avariz

on lands outside the town on the grounds that they were abandoned (metruke); if, however, they were cultivating them, their tax assessment should rise by 8 hanes. In Kusadasi, a number of people moved

into the citadel and refused to pay taxes (perhaps claiming to be askeri). The inhabitants of Mara kaza in the sancak of Ohri claimed to be exempt from avariz, although they were listed in the avariz register as owing that tax. Here the kadis and the sancak bey were ordered to send any exemption documents (muafiyetler) to the imperial divan for verification, while avariz was to be collected as ordered from those not possessing such documents.» Taxpayers could resort to tricks and lies in an attempt to evade taxation. The reaya of Biiytik Cekmece in Istanbul tried to reduce their

menzilci service on the ground that although the neighborhood was once inhabited by non-Muslims, many had converted to Islam and only a few were left to pay the tax. The finance department, however, knew perfectly well that both Muslims and non-Muslims were liable for such levies and ordered both groups to pay. In another case, a village in Argiri Kasri which was obligated to provide pass-guarding services (derbendci) was also registered in the avariz defter. The villagers petitioned to have one of these levies lifted, citing peasant flight as a reason for hardship. When the most recent registers at the capital were checked, however, it was found that of the 171 taxpayers in the village, 80 were registered as derbendcis and 91 as avariz payers.

In the old register there had been 83 taxpayers in the village, all registered as derbendcis; therefore, only the newcomers were being required to pay avariz. There was no double taxation and no peasant flight, so the petition was denied.°° Some petitions reaching the finance department were sent not by villagers but by tax collectors. When Ottoman taxpayers refused to pay, tax collectors tried to ensure that they would not be held personally responsible for the missing sums. This anxiety seems to have animated a cizye collector in Bosna, one Osman, who went to the

> KK 2576, pp. 69, 85, 41, 109. A copy of an order in a kadi sicil regarding attempts by reaya to evade payment of taxes on the grounds of being sipahis or nomads can be seen in Ongan, Ankara’nin Iki Numarali Seriye Sicili, no. 1679. % KK 2576, pp. 128, 108.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 265 extent of testifying in the kadi’s court regarding his inability to collect

the taxes assessed. The kadi made a petition on Osman’s behalf, verifying that the non-Muslim residents of two villages in Bosna had become rebellious and would not pay their cizye for 1020/1611—12 without the intervention of the sancak bey. An order was issued stating that collection must be made by the sancak bey, by force if necessary, in accordance with the defter and the berat previously given, although a warning was included that this must not become a pretext for oppression or extortion on the part of provincial authorities. In another case, the avariz collector for Nigde, Han Timur Ahmed, reported that the

reaya in a number of villages had been driven off their land by moneylenders who then refused to pay the canonical taxes on the land they had appropriated; the government responded with an order stat-

ing that whoever held the land had to pay the taxes.°’ Tax collectors occasionally discovered that between the time their registers were issued and the time they began to collect a tax, certain

villages had, or claimed to have, undergone a change in their tax status. This discovery necessitated a petition to the finance bureaus to ascertain the correct amounts to be collected. When the avariz collector for the kaza of Kirkkilise in 1050/1640—41 learned that a new tahrir had been conducted before he could make his collection, he informed the government and was sent an order detailing the number of avarizhanes according to the latest count. In a contrary case, Mustafa, appointed to collect the 1051/1641-—42 avariz in the kaza of Nigde,

learned that a village registered at 23 hanes in the old tahrir claimed to have been assessed at only 3 hanes in a newly-completed survey. When the registers in the capital were checked in response to Mustafa’s

petition, it was found that the surveyor had not yet submitted the results of the new tahrir, and the truth of the village’s claim could not be ascertained; consequently, the village was required to pay according to its old assessment for one more year. That the central government’s registers were regarded as the final authority in such cases is demonstrated by the example of a village in Iznikmid in 1038/ 1628-29 which had been recorded in the finance department’s register for the last 30 years at 30 hanes, although the provincial register still

listed 76 hanes; an attempt to collect on the basis of 76 hanes was disallowed. On occasion the registered assessment was found to be

57 MM 2256 (5712) 1026/1617-18, p. 62; KK 2576, p. 111.

266 CHAPTER EIGHT excessive and was revised, as in the case of a village which had formerly paid an avariz of 3500 akce plus 8 kantar of straw per hane and was assessed at 10 hanes in a new tahrir. When the collection agent (miibasir) demanded the new rate of 130 kantar of straw, or 13 kantar per hane, the villagers found themselves unable to produce that much, and it was ordered that the village should be returned to its former tax rate.>® Most of the problems mentioned above arose out of the government’s

desire to expand its tax base and its consequent strict instructions to surveyors not to leave anyone out of the tax registers, but they derived their peculiar urgency from the decline in economic welfare which caused taxpayers to demand immediate adjustments as soon as the tax registers ceased to reflect actual conditions. Bringing the registers into harmony with people’s circumstances without neglecting the government’s needs was an ongoing process. There is no way at present to determine the overall effect of remissions and reductions in taxation on the empire and its budget; some of them were temporary and others

were permanent, and their impact on different regions of the empire

varied. At the very least, however, the petition process offered to Ottoman taxpayers a third alternative to starvation or revolt. By drawing

the attention of officials to their plight, they were able to negotiate a livable compromise allowing them freedom from payment while still maintaining the authority of the government. In seventeenth-century

Spain it was also possible to negotiate the tax burden; 167 communities are known to have obtained tax reductions due to inability to pay, though it is not known what percentage of the population these reductions covered. France apparently had no such tax adjustment mechanism and revolt seems to have been the only recourse in times of hardship; there, the correlation between bad harvests and popular revolts was particularly high.’ Because of the frequent rotation of officials, Ottoman peasants did not have the long-term connection with their overlords that facilitated peasant rebellion in France, nor did they

8 KK 2576, pp. 97, 55, 64, 94; see also 79. *» For Spain see Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, La sociedad espanola en el siglo XVII, 2 vols., Monografias hist6rico-sociales, 7 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto “Balmes” de Sociologia, Departamente de Historia Social, 1963-70), 1: 325-37; for France see Kamen, Iron Century, 373. French lawsuits appealing overtaxation do not appear until the 1670s (Pierre Goubert, “The French Peasantry of the Seventeenth Century: A Regional Example,” Past & Present 10 [1956]: 55—77; rpt. in Trevor Aston, ed., Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660 [New York: Anchor Books, 1967], 143).

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 267 have the organization and articulation that fostered peasant political

participation in England; nevertheless, they did have access to a mechanism for administrative change that enabled them to participate

in adjusting the system of governance under which they lived. Corruption in Tax Collection As we have seen, certain kinds of collection problems were perennial, resulting from the low level of administrative technology of the age and the general condition of internal upheaval in the empire. Other

sorts of problems were the products of wrongdoing by individuals involved in the system. Complaints about tax collection in register KK 2576 were fewer in number than those regarding tax assessment, and almost all were related to problems in the assessment registers. If further research confirms this result for the whole period, it would support the conclusion that tax collection by government agents was not the most onerous burden on the reaya between 1560 and 1660. On the other hand, it may reflect the composition of this particular register at a time when an intensified effort was made to reassess the avariz, and corruption in collection may have posed more significant problems at other times. On the whole, though, this study uncovered relatively few problems in the collection of avariz and cizye that could be ascribed to extortion and corruption on the part of tax collectors; tax farming, as we shall see, gave wider scope for misbehavior. The

case of Celil was a nearly unique instance of simple extortion in connection with avariz-related taxes; as collector for the bedel-i siirsat of Traklu Borlu, he collected almost four times the assessed amount,

until a petition from the villagers generated an order to the kadi to enforce collection according to law.° Collection of double taxes due to interference from unauthorized persons was a more frequent occurrence. Some problems of dual collection, like those examined earlier, were accidental, but others resulted from fraudulent claims on the part of would-be tax collectors.

The collector of the deymos (a form of tithe) in Antep for 1056/ ® For the comparison with French peasants see Barkey, “Rebellious Alliances”; for the political participation of peasants generally see Eisenstadt, Political Systems of Empires,

“ KK 2576, p. 41.

268 CHAPTER EIGHT 1646-47, noting that this tithe had been divided among several collectors in the previous year, felt he needed to petition for an order preventing any of them from encroaching on his assignment, whether out of ignorance of his appointment or unwillingness to give up their privileges. Shortly afterward this collector had to petition again for a specific injunction against Murad Pasa Ogullugu Mustafa, who was interfering in his collection of the tax in disregard of the general order sent previously. In another case, a silahdar named Yusuf Veli was given an iltizam in Nigde, but Abdi Yusuf, one of the ebna-1 sipahiyan,

claiming that it had been given to him, interfered in the revenue collection. When the registers were examined, it was found that the mukataa had indeed been granted to Yusuf Veli, with another silahdar,

Ibrahim, as yamak (assistant). Ibrahim had later been removed, but

Yusuf Veli was still in office, so an order was issued to prevent interference on the part of Abdi Yusuf, Ibrahim, or anyone else.” Timar holders anxious about their ability to obtain their own revenues from their reaya entered into competition with tax collectors from the central government. For example, the avariz collector for several kazas in the area of Ohri found that while the reaya there were willing to pay their taxes, timar holders Hocaoglu Ali and Kapicioglu Ali were preventing him from collecting them. The collector was ordered to report on the location of the timar holders and their chief villages, so that their illegal acts could be punished. In such cases a kadi can often be found petitioning on behalf of the government’s tax collector to prevent his being held liable for the missing amounts. A similar concern was expressed, this time on his own behalf, by the kadi of Alaiye in a 1016/1607-8 petition regarding the avariz of that province, uncollected for a number of years because of Celali unrest. The kadi explained that he had previously requested a new tahrir of the area. The tahrir had been made, subtracting the hanes no longer in existence, but the people of the area were still unwilling to pay their taxes. The kadi feared being accused of negligence and losing his post because of delinquent tax returns, so he now petitioned for the appointment of a special agent (miibasir) who could work with local magnates and devote his whole effort to tax collection.” & MM 3881 (2765), pp. 188, 199; MM 2728 (3457), p. 73. | *> On the timar holders of Ohri see KK 2576, pp. 64-65. For two similar cases in 1592 and 1634 see Cvetkova, Institutions ottomanes, 97-98. For the kadi’s petition see MM 1491 (16596), p. 3.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 269 Even if taxes were properly collected, there was no iron-clad guarantee that the treasury would receive what it was owed. Despite all checks and counter-checks, at times the official tax collector simply made off with the money. In 980/1572-73, the man appointed to collect the 978/1570—71 avariz from several kazas around Erzurum apparently did so but failed to remit the proceeds to the treasury. He was said to be living in Tokat, so the beylerbey of Sivas and the kad: of Tokat received an order to go after him, retrieve the money and collection register, and send them on by a trustworthy cavus. It must have been difficult to exert central control in far-away places like Erzurum. An order from around 1010/1601-—2 relates that the defterdar of Erzurum had died and his men were pocketing the tax receipts; a local cavus offered to collect them for the treasury in return for an appointment as sancak bey. Around the year 1026/1617—18, it was found that the provincial moneychanger (sarraf) of Kibris was siphoning off the cizye after it was collected; when this was discovered, the office of cizye collector was given to the man who reported it. The most exciting case concerned Hasan and Mehmed, who collected the avariz of Silistre

for 1050/1640-41. As they were bringing their proceeds to the treasury, Mehmed and two of his men took the money and vanished into the wilds of Silistre. The government notified the kadi that it was sending fit and trustworthy men to join Hasan in the effort to find Mehmed and his men and retrieve the money.™ Many of the problems in collecting farmed taxes were similar to collection problems for any other tax, but there were other ways to corrupt the system besides collecting too much money. Turning the revenue source into personal property, withholding from the treasury all or part of the revenue collected, appointing men to positions in place of government appointees, and collecting revenues assigned to someone else were tactics used to divert revenues from the treasury. In the complex and extensive iltizam system, with insufficient supervision and means of communication, there were naturally people who tried to bend the system to their own advantage. Their attempts did not go entirely unnoticed, however; a fair number of register entries, though the number is not as large as the stereotype would suggest, record corruption and oppression by miiltezims. These entries, of course, KK 67, p. 4; MM 1513 (7316), p. 32; MM 2256 (5712), p. 9; KK 2576, p. 85. On embezzlement see also Halil Inalcik, “Tax Collection, Embezzlement and Bribery in Ottoman

Finances,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 327-46.

270 CHAPTER EIGHT represent only instances that were observed and dealt with; the number

of unrecorded problems of this sort is unknown. A large increase in the amount demanded, though legal, could be as oppressive to taxpayers as illegal exactions, and very few cases were found where such an increase was allowed without significant change in the revenue source. A case in point was that of an island off Koca Ili whose inhabitants complained of oppression by their miiltezim, Hasan. The sancak bey, ordered to inspect and report on the situation, was told that Hasan had undertaken an iltizam for 17,000 akce, a 13% increase over the former tax amount. Thirty-five taxpay-

ers had fled the land and their tax had been divided among those remaining, who could not afford to pay it. The people requested the removal of Hasan and the lowering of the iltizam to its former level of 15,000 akce, which was done.® The assumption in most of the literature seems to be that this case was typical, that an increase in the price of an iltizam always resulted in a higher rate of tax paid by the individual taxpayer. As we have seen, however, even when the amount of an iltizam was higher than the surveyed total, it was possible for the increased amount to come from growth in population, commodity prices, or volume of transactions over what was recorded in the defter, leaving the taxpayer no worse off. The government did its best to see that actual tax increases were the exception

rather than the rule. Tax farmers sometimes collected the revenues of their mukataas properly but failed to remit them in full to the government. The beytiilmal of Edirne in 1043/1633-34 was in the hands of Omer and Mehmed,

but they were found to be embezzling the revenues, so the iltizam was taken away from them and given to Ilyas and Cafer, together with an order prohibiting interference by Omer and Mehmed. The nazir of the mukataa of the rice fields in Filibe refused to pay out the revenues he had collected on the pretext that he had been dismissed before payment. The ayan and reaya of Giimiishane complained

when their miiltezim was 20,000 kurus in arrears; it is probable that he had already collected the money but had not sent it to the treasury, and they feared they would have to pay a second time. In 973/1565— 66 an ulufeci named Ahmed, sent to inspect the muhasebes of the mukataas of Uskiip, was found to have embezzled the money instead.

®& MM 115, fol. 25b.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 271 A miiltezim for the Danube ports, Yako Yehudi, not content with embezzling the proceeds from his own iltizam, was also found to be meddling in the iltizam of David and Menahim. In another case the treasury, discovering that wheat from has lands in Yenisehir, Tirhala, Catalca and other places had not been delivered to the imperial ovens and the storehouses were empty, found that the miiltezims Mahmud

and Zulfikar had for several years been selling it off. Besides the increased expense of buying grain to supply campaigns or to feed the capital, this act was said to be a form of oppression toward the reaya from whom the grain was collected as tithes. The treasury declared that the practice must stop but apparently could not recover the lost funds. The same two miiltezims were again at fault when the finance department discovered it had no record that the revenues of another of their mukataas, the beytiilmal-1 hassa of Tirhala, had been submitted. The two claimed that the money had been properly collected and presented to the inner treasury by the janissary aga, but this “seemed

to be a trick”, because no record of it could be found. A strongly worded order went out demanding submission of these funds. Actual theft of iltizam revenues appears to have been more frequent

when the recipient of the money was a fortress garrison or other distant payee rather than the central treasury, which would immediately notice a delay in payment. Perhaps the defaulting miiltezim hoped to be long gone before his dereliction was reported to the authorities. Hiiseyin, miiltezim of the salt works of Tekfur Golii in Silistre, seems

to have succeeded in that aim: the central government was not informed until two years after the beginning of his iltizam in 1003/ 1594-95 that although Hiiseyin had collected his revenues, he had not submitted them to the treasury.®’ Also successful was Yasif, the emin of the mukataas of Rodos, the proceeds of which were intended for the men of the galleys based on Rhodes. The men were unpaid, a havale sent for the money never returned, and an order to pay was

brought back by its carrier. In despair, the Rodos authorities asked

6% KK 5019, p. 197; MM 22603 (9824), p. 1; MM 267 (2775), p. 52; MM 3881 (2765),

p. 131; MM 22603 (9824), p. 68; AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 5, docs. 1 and 2. 67 MM 687 (9820), p. 153; the iltizam was granted to the man who blew the whistle. See also MM 241 (115), fol. 26a, where an entry of 971/1563—64 records the appointment

of Ahmed to two mukataas in place of Mustafa who had embezzled (bel‘ ii ketm kerde, “swallowed and concealed”) the iltizam revenues. The appointment took place after two years of a three-year tahvil, showing that Mustafa had already had a second chance to prove himself after not delivering the receipts of the first year.

272 CHAPTER EIGHT to have the men paid out of the revenues of Egriboz, and it was so ordered.® As far as we know, in neither case was the money recovered.

Less successful in making off with mukataa revenues were the miiltezims of Budin in 1023/1613—14, where revenues failed to reach the garrison troops; the miiltezims received stern orders to turn over the money. The same was true in Trabzon in 1067/1656—57, where the emins of the port taxes (iskele), who were supposed to have paid the

salaries of ten cannoneers (topcular), tried to retain the money by claiming that their accounts were closed and that they owed no more. But when the bas muhasebe registers at the capital were checked, a marginal note (der kenar) was found recording an order that unequivocally made the miiltezims of that iltizam responsible for the salaries

of these ten cannoneers. They were therefore commanded to come up with the money to pay the men, retaining the temessiiks of payment

against the annual accounting.” Rather than simply keeping tax revenues for themselves, some collectors were found to be funneling them in other directions, occasionally at the demand of someone in power with no actual authority over the revenues. In one instance, ship captains in the Mediterranean who received their salaries and expenses as ocaklik from the mukataas

of the ports of Balyabadra and Halomi¢ stopped receiving their remittances when these mukataas were awarded to the retired muteferrika Zulfikar. It was discovered that the money was being diverted, with the kapudan pasa’s connivance, to pay the salaries of fortress garrison troops in the Mediterranean. As a result, the mukataas

were restored to the control of the captains or their appointees on condition that they remit to the treasury all proceeds over and above their salaries and expenses. The kadis of Balyabadra and Halomic were informed of the change, and the miifettis of the mukataas of Mora was strongly reprimanded and told to see that the mukataa revenues reached the proper recipients and were not given to people who did not have imperial orders for them. Another case concerned the garrison of Aleppo, which was accustomed to receive its salaries from the revenues of the Sabun Han and the sheep market tax. In 1039/1629-30, the Sabun Han was illegally sold to Omer, the hoca of Sultan Osman, who made it into a vakif for the Two Holy Cities 8 AE III. Mehmed 170, p. 8, 1008/1600. See also an ongoing case of embezzlement by the nazir of the Vidin mukataas, MM 22603 (9824), pp. 4, 20, 72, 80. ° MM 2256 (5712), p. 8; MM 4646 (7455), p. 10.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 273 and appointed himself revenue collector. When the misappropriation was discovered, Omer was removed from revenue collection and it was entrusted directly to the garrison.” The classic mode of corruption in the tax farming system is collection of excessive amounts of revenue from the people, and there were some complaints of this, but not nearly as many as might be expected from descriptions of Ottoman decline. In one case, a customs

emin in Edirne was found to be collecting customs dues on tax-free items and was ordered to stop. In another instance, taxpayers complained about oppression by Yusuf Silahdar, who held the iltizam of their tithes in 971/1563—64 at the amount of 36,600 akce; rather than collecting a straight tithe, he daily increased the amount demanded. A Galata resident, timariot Iskender b. Abdullah, offered to replace him at an increase of 10,000 akce and provided kefils for the sum, so his iltizam was immediately accepted. Not long afterward, however, the nazir of the mukataa sent a letter stating that Iskender had not yet sent anything to the treasury, his kefils were bankrupt, and he was in debt; if his debt increased (which certainly seemed likely) he was threatening to flee to Ferengistan (western Europe) at the end of his tahvil. The government decided to cut its losses, give up the 10,000-akce increase, and renew Yusuf Silahdar’s iltizam at the old

amount of 36,600 akce despite the reaya’s complaints, this time demanding that Yusuf present kefils for his undertaking.” Some types of oppression were unrelated to monetary exactions. While complaints and imperial orders rarely enumerate specific oppressive acts, it seems at times that the amount of money demanded

was not the source of the problem. The reaya of a mukataa in Giimiishane, for instance, complained of oppression (izhar-1 tazalliim

eylediler) on the part of their emin, Mehmed, who forced them to transport their harvest a long distance. They found this so oppressive that they threatened to leave the area unless a better emin was appointed;

Mehmed was quickly replaced. Another rather uninformative entry appears at first to record a case of overtaxation, but closer examination reveals a deeper problem. The people of the imperial has in

Karahisar-i Teke paid a three-year iltizam of 35,200 akce to the miiltezim Mehmed b. Abu Ishak; meanwhile, a man named Mirza had offered a 35,000-akce increase, almost doubling their tax. He received ” KK 5012 dated 1040/1630, p. 172, 184; MM 3457, p. 99. ™ KK 5019, p. 182; MM 241 (115), fols. 44b, 48a.

274 CHAPTER EIGHT a berat for the iltizam, but the people of the has complained about his oppression (sekva edip izhar-i tazalliim edip), asking to have Mehmed back, and Mehmed agreed to return at Mirza’s iltizam of 70,200 akce. Since the level of the iltizam was not reduced, the oppression complained of may not have been the amount of money Mirza demanded but the methods he used to obtain it. A case in Dimetoka specified what those methods might be. A successful bid by Mustafa Cavus raised his mukataa’s taxes from 30,000 to 40,000 akce per year, and to be sure of collecting the higher sum, Mustafa came with forty or fifty horsemen, causing most of the reaya to flee and those remaining to complain. When they threatened to leave as well, the iltizam was taken away from Mustafa Cavus and granted to someone else, but as the new iltizam was higher than the old, the real issue was the collection method, not the increased tax. In a similar case, the reaya themselves outbid an overaggressive collector in order to escape his oppressive ways. The iltizam of an island in the sancak

of Naxos, formerly held by the reaya at the sum of 375,000 akce, had been awarded to the late kapudan pasa for a bid of 475,000 akce. The reaya now complained that the person holding the iltizam since

the kapudan pasa’s death had come with 20 to 30 soldiers and janissaries and behaved oppressively. They therefore put in a bid of 500,000 akce, saying that they themselves would be responsible for collection and delivery of the revenue via their vekil, Salmun veled-i David. This group’s bid shows that they had enough money to pay the higher amount; what they objected to was the miiltezim’s collection of taxes by armed force. Their bid was accepted and entered in the mukataa registers with a clause warning “sancak beys and kethudas and emins and others” not to interfere in collection, and another clause ordering a copy of this entry for them. A case of collection by force (nice atlu ile, with numbers of horsemen) combined with embezzle-

ment of the proceeds was perpetrated by emins in Haleb collecting revenue for the soldiers on the frontier; it was solved by directing the money through the treasury before sending it on to its recipients.” These instances suggest that the Celali problem may have been one aspect of a larger pattern of rural administration by force; this issue needs much further study, however, to discover whether its incidence was increasing. 7 MM 3881 (2765), p. 127; MM 241 (115), fol. 53b (see also MM 22603 [9824], pp. 4-5); MM 687 (9820), p. 219; KK 5012, p. 4; MM 1513 (7316), p. 46.

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 275 If berats and official procedures were insufficient to control oppres-

sive behavior, the government could call in other officials to aid in enforcement. In 1009/1600—1601, a report was received from Mahmud,

a miiltezim in Egriboz, concerning oppression of the reaya by Hizir Bey, a local resident. Hizir Bey collected taxes without authority, causing the reaya to flee. Although the petitioner held a berat and an imperial order prohibiting Hizir Bey’s action, he refused to comply with it. A new order reaffirmed Mahmud’s possession of the iltizam,

ordering him to collect the taxes and Hizir Bey to desist. This time the order called on the sancak bey as well as the miifettis to supervise and oversee the process.” It was the intervention of a sancak bey with military and police powers that would prove decisive in enforcing Mahmud’s collection rights. As we have seen, however, the kadis were the primary agents of control for the finance department. The kadi of Sam, commanded to go after the avariz collector for 1050/ 1640-41 (who, not content with collecting the amount ordered, had collected extra from the reaya), was told, “It is necessary that those who collect more than they are ordered be punished.” He was ordered to look into the situation and collect the avariz himself according to the imperial order. In 1022/1613-—14 things had come to such a pass in Sofya province that the mukataa miifettises were dismissed and the kadis were ordered to oversee revenue collection in their place.” It was possible for people to farm their own taxes, as the island inhabitants did above, especially when the behavior of outside collectors became oppressive. A village in the province of Haleb sent three reaya with a petition to the divan to bid on the 1056/1646—47 tax of the nacre mine which they worked, on account (they said) of the oppression of the horsemen of the emins who came every year. A second order indicates that they received the iltizam, because they paid the entire sum in advance, in two installments, and information to that effect was to be included in their berat. In another example, the Cakallu tribe in the area of Diyarbekir sent several men to the divan to complain about their miiltezim, Risvan Mustafa Bey, and to offer to pay whatever was recorded in the defter themselves on condition

that neither the bey’s men nor anyone else should have a hand in their taxation. The presence in the Diyarbekir area of a Risvan tribe 7 AE Ill. Mehmed 170, p. 14. ™ KK 2576, p. 70: emr-i serifimden ziyade alinlarin haklarindan gelinmek lazim gelmegin.... MM 22603 (9824), p. 9.

276 CHAPTER EIGHT probably explains the Cakallu’s unhappiness with Rigsvan Mustafa Bey

as tax collector. The government’s order relieved the Rigsvan bey of all tax collection responsibilities for groups other than his own.” According to the evidence of the registers, charges of extortionate taxation by the finance department cannot be sustained. Overcollection

of taxes ordinarily profited only the tax collector, not the central government. The finance department’s efforts were devoted to ensuring that tax collection was strictly legal and in accordance with the registers. As we have seen, total amounts collected exceeded neither

the rate of inflation nor the needs of the treasury. One case in 980/ 1572-73 in which the emin-i miiltezim reported collecting a surplus was so unusual that the nazir received special instructions from the finance department to send for the emin and examine his detailed registers with care. If anything appeared suspicious, he was to check the muhasebe regarding what had been collected in addition to remittances already sent to the treasury, take from the emin anything he owed, put it in purses, seal them, and send them by suitable garrison

troops to the capital for submission to the treasury. He was also to sign and seal the emin’s muhasebe and send it along, together with his detailed registers and a petition of explanation.” Judging by the complaints addressed to the finance department, the major preoccupation of tax collectors appears to have been the avoidance of a revenue deficit which they would personally have to make up. For taxpayers, errors or incorrect assessments in the registers seem to have created more problems, or at any rate more complaints, than actual extortion by official tax collectors.” Discrepancies in the registers might result from deliberate falsification, perhaps in return for a bribe, but it is impossible to separate such cases from the unavoidable mistakes caused by the inability of taxation and administration ™ MM 3881 (2765), pp. 139, 182; MM 2256 (5712), p. 44. 7% KK 67, p. 1. ™ This conclusion may be a product of the sources: finance registers contain many more requests for alterations in the registers and adherence to procedures than complaints about

the oppressiveness of the system itself, and a detailed study of responses to complaints in other registers might expose a larger problem of oppressive collection practices. Analysis of the complaints in a published sikdyet defteri, however, led Gerber to a similar conclusion (Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 161-62). On illegal methods used to extort money from taxpayers, see Halil Inalcik, “The Ottoman Decline and Its Effects upon the Reaya,” in Aspects of the Balkans: Continuity and Change, ed. Henrik Birnbaum and Speros Vryonis, Jr. (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), 338-54; rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection X, Collected Studies Series, CS87 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1978).

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 277 procedures to keep up with the rate of change in people’s circumstances in a period of rapid economic fluctuation. When the government’s

demands could not be met, taxes were reduced or remitted, either temporarily, by forgiving all or part of a year’s assessment, or permanently, by altering the assessment in the registers. If extra taxes were collected, either illegally or inadvertently, other taxes were often forgiven to compensate for the excess amount taken.” With respect to tax farming, extortionate collection methods seem to have gener-

ated more complaints than high taxes per se. Whether the total tax burden was truly excessive is a question which cannot be answered at our current state of knowledge about economic life in the seventeenth century. For the early sixteenth century the total

rent/tax burden on the reaya has been computed at 30-35% of what they produced, but as yet we have no good estimates for the seventeenth century.” Agricultural taxes were usually assessed on a percentage basis; while their cash value must have increased due to rising prices after the mid-sixteenth century, so too did the value of the crops remaining to the reaya. In the seventeenth century, the overall amount

of the agricultural product may have decreased on account of bad harvests, peasant flight, and a shift to stockraising, but whether that resulted in a per capita decrease is uncertain. In addition, an unknown sum in extra-legal exactions presumably added to the taxpayers’ burden.

On the other hand, increases in fixed-rate taxes, as we have seen, barely kept pace with inflation. Their extension to people formerly 7% See KK 2576, p. 41; MM 1579 (15715), petition in back of defter. ” Even the estimate of the Ottoman tax burden in the early sixteenth century as 35% is too high (see Ch. 3, n. 25, and MutafCieva, “De |’exploitation féodale dans les terres de population bulgare,” 166). Bent Hansen estimated the tax burden for sixteenth-century Egypt at 30% (“An Economic Model for Ottoman Egypt: The Economics of Collective Tax Responsibility,” in The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History, ed. Abraham L. Udovitch, Princeton Studies on the Near East [Princeton: Darwin Press, 1981], 473-519). Mutafcieva estimated the rent/tax burden at the end of the sixteenth century at over 80% of the average household’s grain production, mainly because of increases in the avariz (Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire, 192), but this estimate does not appear to take inflation into account. In France the tax burden doubled in the first half of the seventeenth century (Charles Tilly, “Routine Conflicts and Peasant Rebellions in Seventeenth-Century France,” in Power and Protest in the Countryside: Studies of Rural Unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, ed. Robert P. Weller and Scott E. Guggenheim, Duke Press Policy Studies [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982], 24-25). During the second half of the century it is estimated at over 50% of a peasant’s total production (Goubert, “French Peasantry of the Seventeenth Century,” 155; Steensgaard, “The Seventeenth Century Crisis,” 39). Such a comparison should also take into account productivity and prices, but here our information is much less adequate.

278 CHAPTER EIGHT exempt would have increased the burden on those particular individuals, but on a per capita basis the impact must have been less, especially since many of these taxes were assessed on groups rather than individuals. Any estimate has to take into account the inflated income of the Ottoman populace during this period, the question of population decrease, and the lowered value of the akce. The much higher revenue

coming into the central treasury in the mid-seventeenth century, if divided among a lowered population of (at a guess) 20 million, represents an increase of only 150—250 akce per household over mid-

sixteenth century totals, a decrease in real terms. The decline paradigm, by focusing attention on corruption and injustice, has led us to ignore the real meaning of the changes in procedure we have observed. In the first half of the seventeenth century,

the Ottoman finance department apparently attempted to introduce direct central collection of taxes by state officials to replace delegation

of revenue collection to timar-holding military forces living on the land.® The period’s frequent surveys, annual appointments of collection personnel, and regular examinations of accounts were procedures for controlling a centrally administered bureaucratic taxation system. Survey and appointment procedures developed when the empire was small were adapted and extended as central treasury revenues expanded and the number of centrally-appointed revenue officials grew. The finance department’s aim was apparently to extend the kind of control it had over the cizye to other categories of income. Taking assessment and collection of the avariz out of the hands of kadis, and even for a while controlling collection of farmed taxes, it subjected all its revenues to similar procedures and paperwork. The procedural similarities of the seventeenth century to the tried and true habits of the sixteenth—the defters, orders, petitions, kadis’ adjudication of dis-

80 Likewise, Gerber finds a trend toward codification and universalization in the Ottoman legal system during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (State, Society, and Law, 72-76, 90, 107). Attempts to centralize tax collection were made at the same time not only in western Europe but also in China, Japan, and elsewhere (Niels Steensgaard, “The Seventeenth-Century Crisis and the Unity of Eurasian History,” Modern Asian Studies 24 [1990]: 692-93; Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China, Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions [London: Cambridge University Press, 1974], 313-16). Brewer asserts that the British tax collection system was not professionalized until the eighteenth century at the earliest; even in 1690 the excise administration consisted of only 51 bureaucrats and 1262 full-time collectors, though these numbers grew to 309 and 4601 by 1783 (John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988], 91).

COMPLAINTS AND CORRUPTION 279 putes—served to legitimate the innovations inherent in the new systems.

Direct administration of the whole empire’s taxes by the central finance bureaus, however, was a task far greater in scope than delegation of revenue collection to a timariot class limited in numbers and personally beholden to the sultan, and treating the two as interchangeable could not succeed.*' Orderly and efficient collection of taxes in this period was impossible without a larger and better-controlled fiscal bureaucracy. To conduct sometimes annual censuses of an empire of perhaps 20 or 30 million people and to collect cizye taxes which differed from place to place and avariz taxes which varied

in amount from person to person, from village to village, and from year to year, the Ottoman finance administration had a permanent staff

of a litthe over 23 individuals and a large number of part-time assistants from the military and civilian populations.®* At the same time, with a staff of about 49, it attempted to control hundreds of tax farmers, many assigned in the provinces, whose collection rights changed hands

once a year or even more frequently. This was an ambitious undertaking, and it is not surprising that many errors were made or that amateur collectors with little or no supervision were sometimes able to get away with extortion or abuse. To address the question of a decline in moral standards in the askeri

class would require a very different study than this one. It is not necessary to postulate such a decline, however, to explain the majority of the problems facing the finance officials in this period; the size of the task they set themselves is explanation enough. In the second half of the century the attempt was abandoned, perhaps because it proved impossible, and perhaps also because the state began to employ other

ways of harnessing the services and loyalties of those who administered its revenues. Central finance department control over tax collection broadened in the first half of the seventeenth century, at the same time that, according to Kunt, the palace exercised influence over provincial governorships; after 1656, according to Abou-El-Haj, control over high office passed to retainers of the great men of state, and it is not unreasonable to believe that control over tax collection

altered as well.® Barkey’s model of state consolidation through 81 Moreover, the very growth of the state may have given the reaya “both increased capacity to protest and new reasons to do so” (Root, Peasants and King in Burgundy, 21). 82 The figure of 23 staff represents the salaried scribes of the mevkufat and muha-

sebe-i cizye bureaus in the 1030s/1620s. The mukataa bureaus of the same era had a salaried staff of at most 49. 83 Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants; Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion, 43—49.

280 CHAPTER EIGHT negotiation implies a new organization of revenue collection and distribution to support deals made for participation in governance after mid-century. Before then, however, the problems of direct tax collection became pervasive enough to generate a large number of complaints and to make accurate assessment and fair collection both economically and politically desirable to those responsible for dealing with these complaints. The dismay of government officials confronted with large numbers of petitions and the wide array of problems they represented is not hard to comprehend. Comparing this sea of difficulties to the tight control implied by the terse kanun and regular tahrirs of an earlier period, they could easily have concluded that the empire was in decline,

that central government power was fading, and that provincial officialdom was a morass of iniquity. There may, however, be another interpretation for these phenomena. In the traditional petition process of the Near East, the central government formed a court of last resort for people whose attempts to obtain justice elsewhere had failed. Thus,

a petition’s arrival at the capital could be interpreted as the breakdown of provincial administration, incapacity or corruption on the part of local landholders, lower-level officials, and the judicial network. Centralizing the fiscal administration invalidated this interpretation. Over the period 1560—1660, as the finance department became more involved in tax assessment and collection, its intervention became increasingly necessary for solving taxation problems. Cizye surveys took the place of timar tahrirs; avariz taxes, administered by central officials rather than by timar-holders, were collected more frequently and from a broader segment of the population; and tax farming was

controlled by the central bureaus. These changes created a greater need for central government authorization and documentation on tax matters, making the capital increasingly the first resort of both officials and the populace. Petitioning the central government came to represent, not the failure of other levels of authority, but their subordina-

tion to the imperial level in tax matters. In addition, the regular need for finance department documentation implies a growth in orderliness and impersonal procedure, a rule of law—or at least of regulation— supplanting the more personal and local government of a bygone era. The flood of petitions to the center, heretofore taken as evidence of growing chaos, may in fact be evidence of increasing regularity in government operation.

CHAPTER NINE

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY

The sovereign cannot rule without troops, He has no troops without money, There is no money if the land is not prosperous, The land will not prosper without good and just government, Therefore one cannot reign except by justice. Hasan Kafi al-Akhisari

Hundreds, even thousands, of petitions from all over the empire were recorded in Ottoman registers year after year. They document the fact that Ottoman subjects were able to protest the actions of government and make their wishes known from within the system, and that they took advantage of this ability.! Moreover, they successfully induced

the government to alter its behavior. In the Ottoman Empire, petitioning the ruler was not a mere formality; it generated lasting and sometimes wide-ranging changes in the application of the laws and regulations of the empire. The initiative for making such changes came primarily from the local level. It was most often the taxpaying reaya who initiated a request or pointed out a problem, and their petitions often contained some suggestion for a solution. Of the 625 entries in register KK 2576, there are only two or three in which a course of action proposed by petitioners was rejected by central officials.

This makes sense in view of the limitations on communication in pre-

industrial society.* As far as the finance scribes were aware, the information in their registers was correct and up to date, and they ' Studies of complaints indicate that petitioners knew what was legal and how illegality should be dealt with (Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 162-63). The principal scholar who has studied Ottoman response to complaints is Inalcik; see his “Sikayet Hakki,” “Turkish and Iranian Political Theories,” “State and Ideology under Siileyman I,” and “Village, Peasant and Empire.” E.P. Thompson has demonstrated for England the existence of a popular consensus defining what was legitimate and the endorsement of that consensus by the ruling class (“The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” in Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture [New York: The New Press, 1991], 188-208). 2 On these difficulties see Bruce McGowan, “Ottoman Political Communication,” in Propaganda and Communication in World History, vol. 1: The Symbolic Instrument in

282 CHAPTER NINE depended on input from outside to adjust it. Only people on the spot, local officials or villagers and townspeople themselves, were familiar enough with local conditions to know what constituted a reasonable response to changing circumstances. The central government relied heavily on the initiative of people in the provinces for information and for suggestions as to what to do or whom to appoint to positions. As a matter of policy, petitioners were given the benefit of the doubt. It is probable that the number of petitions not acted upon was small, and that most requests for tax remission were granted. Knowing the financial condition of the Ottoman treasury in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this should surprise us. Finance officials were well aware of the size of the deficit. Fiscally, the government’s interest lay in increasing revenue as much as possible.

Why would a government so badly in need of income act against its own interests by reducing people’s taxes? The answer must be that it had an interest more important than raising money, a need for legitimation which became particularly acute in the circumstances of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the decline paradigm, the multiplication of complaints is usually taken as evidence of a breakdown in government, a lapse of central control over tax collection in the provinces due to corruption in the bureaucracy, attributable ultimately to sultanic inadequacy: “The fish begins to stink at the head.” Although, as we have seen, complaints and their language cannot always be taken at face value, the existence of a petition marks a problem somewhere in the system. Studies of decline as a trope in the Ottoman literary genre of mirrors for princes

find that the Ottoman state is often described in metaphors of the human body or the life cycle, where decline consists of an imbalance of humors or a progression from maturity toward senescence, decay, and death.’ Complaints about extortionate taxation and oppression by State officials signal threats to the balance of the social order, or to the proper hierarchy of society, or to the health of the body politic. In this concept of state and society, threats posed by taxation problems are minor in comparison to the incapacity of Ottoman sultans, usurpation of their authority by their own servants or by members of the

Early Times, ed. Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, and Hans Speier, An East-West Center Book (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), 446, 482-88. > Douglas A. Howard, “With Gibbon in the Garden: Decline, Death and The Sick Man

of Europe,” Fides et Historia 26 (1994): 22-37.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 283

harem, or adulteration of the ranks of timar holders and janissaries by unqualified outsiders, all of which represent the overturn of the proper order of being. There was, however, another Ottoman model of the state in which taxation and its difficulties played a more central role, the model of the Near Eastern concept of state, as encapsulated in the quotation from Akhisari at the head of the chapter.

Revenue and Legitimacy: The Circle of Justice

Muslim writers traced the Near Eastern concept of state to the Sasanians, but elements of this concept can be identified in the earliest

royal inscriptions and lawcodes of the Sumerians and Babylonians, for whom divine favor, military strength, productivity and justice were inextricably bound together. The Sasanians related these qualities to their understanding of social hierarchy as reflecting the order of the supernatural and natural universe and to their definition of justice as the maintenance of that social hierarchy. Though of pre-Islamic origin,

the Near Eastern concept of state became part of Islamic political thought from a very early date; Muslim writers from Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ to al-Mawardi to Ibn Khaldun employed it to describe the caliphate

from the point of view of duties (as opposed to selection of a candidate, which had to conform to Qur’anic and/or historical norms).* The definition of justice and social order was expanded to include the implementation of Islamic law, and divine favor was redefined in Islamic terms. Thus expanded, the elements of the concept could be written around the edge of a circle, emphasizing the interdependency of royal authority, military power, the state treasury, the production of wealth by the subjects, and the justice of the ruler under the holy law which granted him authority. The Ottoman philosopher Kinalizade reproduced one such circle, labeling it daire-i adliye, the Circle of Justice or Cycle of Equity. 4 The tacit use of this essentially pre-Islamic concept by al-Mawardi is particularly interesting, since his work has been considered as the embodiment of Islamic political

norms; see al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya, trans. E. Fagnan as Les statuts gouvernemen-taux, ou Régles de droit public et administratif (Algiers: Librairie de l’ Université, 1915), 30-31. 5 Kinalizade Ali Celebi, Ahlak-i ‘Ald’i, 3 vols. (Bulaq: Matbaa-i Bulag, 1248/1833), 3: 49: see Cornell H. Fleischer, “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldanism’ in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Letters,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 18 (1983): 198-220.

284 CHAPTER NINE In this concept, the ruler’s provision of justice and good administration was necessary to create the prosperous conditions under which peasants, artisans, and merchants could produce a surplus to be garnered as taxes. Those conditions included internal security, an infrastructure

of roads, markets, and irrigation works, regular landholding procedures, a reliable legal system, and social stability, as well as protection from foreign invaders, marauding soldiers, bandits, oppressive overlords or officials, and greedy tax collectors. This protection was extended to all subjects regardless of religion, language, or social status. The surplus went to the treasury, managed by officials, and paid for troops who protected the land and provided the security. If the circle was complete, with all elements functioning properly, the system worked to maintain peace and prosperity. Trouble at any point alerted those in power to a break in the circle. For example, a military rebellion might signal that the treasury was not delivering the soldiers’

pay, a condition that could be caused either by corruption among officials or peasant inability to produce a surplus. Such inability in turn might be due either to natural causes or to unchecked depredations by landlords, officials, the military, or external enemies. Petitions

from the taxpayers requesting remissions were a warning that those responsible for “justice and good administration,” the rulers, had not provided the conditions necessary for the production of a surplus. The petition, then, was a device for calling the power of the ruler into action in order to correct the eccentricities of the circle. His failure to respond adequately called into question his own legitimacy as the pinnacle of the structure. Some studies of the Circle of Justice focus on a definition of justice as maintenance of the social order and, relating it to the unchanging order of the universe, emphasize the conservative and repressive tendencies of this ideology. This interpretation may result from an initial

examination of the Near Eastern concept of state through Iranian sources, which do stress a strictly hierarchical model. The idea that enforcing justice meant keeping everyone in his place and preventing social and other forms of mobility was certainly present in Ottoman thought. The Ottomans’ definition of justice, however, was broader than this: social order required that each position in the social hierarchy have its proper function, which could only be performed under appropriate conditions; maintaining those conditions became a necessary corollary. This concept of state functioned simultaneously to legitimize and restrain power, as rulers needed money to secure the

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 285 loyalty of the army, and money was only forthcoming if the taxpayers were protected.° The ideology of the Circle of Justice included within itself the possibilities of both consent and resistance.’ Calls for justice on the part of the ruler were not, of course, restricted

to the Near East. European royal imagery saw justice as the jewel in the crown of a Christian king, and the right of petition, however bounded and limited, was never eliminated completely.’ In fact, the metaphor of the ruler as a fountain flowing with bounty and justice, which might become poisoned or corrupted, was a powerful image that, like the Near Eastern Circle, could be used to reinforce or critique

the monarch.’ Nor was the myth of the “just king” simply a device

° That royal protection was a genuine benefit in the seventeenth century is suggested by the high cost of military defenses and the inability of dwellers in towns and fortified sites to pay this cost themselves (Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army,” 207). For the dual use of this ideology see Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform,” 218; Engin D. Akarli, “The State as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon and Political Participation in Turkey,” in Political Participation in Turkey: Historical Background and Present Problems, ed. Engin D. Akarli and Gabriel Ben-Dor (Istanbul: Bogazici University, Department of Social Sciences, 1975), 141. For the Iranian version see Ann K.S. Lambton, “Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship,” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 91-119. A general study of the use of dominant discourses by subordinates to challenge hegemonic institutions is Bruce Lincoln’s Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). ” Huri Islamoglu-Inan allows for consent (“Introduction: “Oriental Despotism’ in WorldSystem Perspective,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, ed. Huri IslamogluInan, Studies in Modern Capitalism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 20— 21). In wondering whether taxpayers were aware of the extent of their options, it is well to remember “the role of culturally rooted traditions of rural protest” (Edmund Burke III and Walter Goldfrank, “Introduction,” in Global Crises and Social Movements: Artisans, Peasants, Populists, and the World Economy, ed. Edmund Burke III [Boulder, CO: Westview

Press, 1988], 6). According to Steven Feierman, even the selection of a form of discourse is not a passive act (Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990], 3). What Miller says about Europe is just as true of the Ottoman Empire: “The effectiveness of any premodern regime depended at least as much on the subject’s acceptance as on the monarch’s -power of coercion” (John Miller, Absolutism in Seventeenth-Century Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1990], 13). 8 For a comprehensive discussion of European ideologies of justice and protest see Yves-Marie Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: An Essay on the History of Political Violence, trans. Joseph Bergin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 4-33. Monarchs could demonstrate their justice in a variety of ways; the

Spanish kings appealed to the loyalty of their subjects by granting town charters and decentralizing authority (Nader, Liberty in Absolutist Spain, 7). 9 In seventeenth-century England, “the language of corruption provided a powerful mode of criticism and challange to the court and the king in a society shaped by order and consensus” (Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England [Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990], 11). For Ottoman use of the language of corruption and

286 CHAPTER NINE on the part of monarchs or elites for repressing dissent; the moral economy of the peasant also included a vision of justice.'° Often enough, however, this vision represented a hope or longing impossible to realize,

not an element of practical politics. Its king was “far away,” and requesting justice was expensive if not impossible; in Russia and British

India, peasants who petitioned the government were punished.'’ An unjust ruler, however, was bound to be unsuccessful as well, unable to command, from his major revenue source, the means of preserving the empire against revolt or invasion. A European “circle” of the early

seventeenth century points to commercial sources of revenue: “It is impossible to make war without arms, to support men without pay, to pay them without tribute, to collect tribute without trade.”’’? In place of this justification for mercantilism, the Ottoman Empire’s ideology

of state embodied a vision of agrarian-oriented justice; only the Chinese mandate of heaven tied the provision of justice to the peasants

more closely to royal legitimacy. |

The definition of justice as the maintenance of conditions necessary

for cultivation can be found, combined with other ways of conceptualizing the state and its functions, throughout Ottoman political decline see Cornell H. Fleischer, “From Sehzade Korkud to Mustafa Ali: Cultural Origins of the Nasihatname,” in III. Congress on the Social and Economic History of Turkey, ed. Heath W. Lowry and Ralph S. Hattox, Varia Turcica 15 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990), 74; and Cemal Kafadar, “On the Purity and Corruption of the Janissaries,” Turkish Studies

Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 273-80. “Decline” in this sense is decline from a high ideal, not from some former reality; in those terms every age is an age of decline (Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” 174). '0 For Europe see Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Peasants and Politics,” Journal of Peasant Studies 1 (1973): 14; for Asia see James C. Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” Journal of Peasant Studies 13, no. 2 (1985/86): 9. ' Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), 19; Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 6-9; Michael Adas, “Market Demand

Versus Imperial Control: Colonial Contradictions and the Origins of Agrarian Protest in South and Southeast Asia,” in Global Crises and Social Movements: Artisans, Peasants, Populists, and the World Economy, ed. Edmund Burke, III (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), 101. '2 Antoine Montchrestien, cited in Tilly, “Routine Conflicts and Peasant Rebellions,” 20. In much of Europe, the king’s justice was connected with his possession of land and his position as supreme magistrate; for Prussia royal justice is defined as “the incomeyielding protection of established rights and privileges in the realm” (Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy, 4). An exception was Spain, where the sovereign was bound to rule and defend the people, to administer justice, and to care for the common good, which was thought to include spending tax revenues on roads, bridges, irrigation works, and flood control; public buildings and town walls; salaries of public officials; and internal and external peace (John Laures, The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana [New York: Fordham University Press, 1928], 172-74, 187).

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 287

literature, beginning with fourteenth-century translations of older classics of political thought.'? The fifteenth-century historian Tursun Beg, in the introduction to his history of Mehmed the Conqueror,

stated that the ruler was to repay his debt of gratitude to God for appointing him to high position by developing the moral virtues of wisdom, courage, and justice; an important component of justice was restraint in taxation.'* This statement supported and justified the imperial

system, but at the same time embodied (and was meant to embody) Tursun’s critique of recent tax policies. The sixteenth-century grand vizier Liitfi Pasa’s book of advice also reflected both criticism and support for imperial administration: “The sultanate runs on the treasury, and the treasury runs on good management; it does not run on tyranny.”'’? The preamble to the 925/1519 kanunname for TrablusSam stated that justice was “bonded in the character of the Ottoman sultans,” and that it would be carried out “by relieving them (the reaya) of injustice and reconciling them (to the ruler) through the right and proper action, and by ascertaining what is canonically permissible

to give in the form of jizya, ’ushr, and kharaj.”'® Sultan Murad III (1574-1595) was famous even in Europe for his justice, based on reestablishment of a government of law and right religion after the transgressions of Selim IT (1566—1574)."” The council hall in Topkap1

Palace, where petitions were read, was built with open walls to symbolize free access of the empire’s subjects to imperial justice.” Liitfi Pasa’s contemporary, the historian Celalzade, universalized the Circle of Justice by attributing to it Greek and Persian as well as Islamic antecedents.!? Likewise, Akhisari attributed the version at the 13 Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform,” 220. 4 Tursun Beg, The History of Mehmed the Conqueror, trans. Halil Inalcik and Rhoads Murphey (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1978), 21-23. ‘5 Liitfi Pasa, Das Asafndme des Lutfi Pascha, ed. and trans. Rudolf Tschudi (Leipzig: W. Drugulin, 1910). 16 Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, “Aspects of the Legitimation of Ottoman Rule as Reflected in the Preambles to Two Early Liva Kanunnameler,” Turcica 21-23 (1991): 376. 17 Lucette Valensi, “The Making of a Political Paradigm: The Ottoman State and Oriental Despotism,” in The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Granton

and Ann Blair, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 185. 18 Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power, 84. 19 Ahmet Ugur, Osmanli Siyaset-Nameleri (Ankara?: Kultur ve Sanat Yayinlan, 19857), 168; Fleischer, “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldinism’,” 201. The concept had Turkic antecedents as well, for which see Halil Inalcik, “Kutadgu Bilig’de Tiirk ve Iran Siyaset Nazariye ve Gelenekleri,” in Resit Rahmeti Arat I¢in (Ankara: Tiirk Kiiltiiriinii. Aragtirma Enstitiisii, 1966), 259-75, trans. as “Turkish and Iranian Political

288 CHAPTER NINE head of this chapter to the Sasanian ruler Ardashir and set it in the context of an admonition from the Prophet Muhammad concerning the need to govern with equity and justice.” The ruler’s justice was even considered to validate holding Friday prayers in his name and thus to legitimize the public ritual of faith.”! In Ottoman political literature, the Circle of Justice came into its own in the works of the commentators and advice writers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Ottoman writers commenting on the critical conditions of the period found it useful as an analytical tool, to pinpoint areas of weakness in the state, and as a call

to action. According to Mustafa Ali, writing during a time of war, justice meant putting things in the places where they belong; accordingly, for the sultans, who were concerned with “the well-being of the subjects and the prosperity of the victorious army,” justice meant keeping “an eye on the statesmen,” while for viziers, justice meant “preventing the tyranny of the oppression-prone administrators, and in particular to make strong efforts for the improvement of the state of the poor” and to “provide for the life necessities of the country’s population in general.”** The poet Veysi, around the turn of the century,

wrote that “the source of appropriate action for the padishah is justice and equity . . . oppression and injustice cause the subjects to disperse.” Not only sultans but the common people as well came in for criticism by Selaniki on this account: “The common people have abandoned dealing equitably and acting justly with each other. There remains no

way or possibility for the produce of the Protected Domains to be collected.” Rulers did not escape his critique, however; their rapacity

was presented as the cause of the infertility of the land and the Theories and Traditions in Kutadgu Bilig,” in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9 (Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993), 1-18; Robert Dankoff, Introduction to Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes, by Yusuf Khass Hajib, Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 16 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 3-9. * Garcin de Tassy, “Principes de Sagesse, touchant l’art de gouverner,” Journal Asiatique

4 (1824): 219-20; on Akhisari see Mehmet Ipsirli, “Hasan Kafi el-Akhisari ve Devlet Diizenine ait Eseri Ustli?’l-Hikem fi Nizami’!-Alem,” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 10-11 (1981):

239-78. 21 Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion, 24. 2 Mustafa Ali, Mustafa Ali’s Counsel for Sultans of 1581 (Nasihat al-Salatin), ed. and trans. Andreas Tietze, Denkschriften der Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979), 18-19. > Quoted in Fodor, “State and Society, Crisis and Reform,” 237.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 289 inadequacy of the Nile flood. The anonymous Kitdadb-i Miistetdab, written about 1620, contains the verse, “It is justice, justice, justice, that gives the subjects rest,” and according to Hirzii’?l-Mulik, “the permanency of the sultanate is justice.”” In Koci Bey’s opinion, justice was the reason for length of life; writing in 1632, he quoted the old saw, “The world will endure with unbelief but not with injustice.’ For Katip Celebi, kingship and property could not exist without the military, nor the military without the sword, nor the sword without money, nor money without the people, nor the people without justice.”’ The famous historian Naima also cited the Circle of Justice, attributing it to Kinalizade and Ibn Khaldun, and the employment of the concept continued into the eighteenth century in the work of San Mehmed the Defterdar.”®

The work of the finance department, the equitable allocation and proper collection of taxes, held a special place in the ideology of the Circle of Justice. That place was defined by Aziz Efendi in his 1630s analysis of the Ottoman state: if taxes are collected “from everyone alike without fear or dread . . . the wounds of the poor tax-payers will be relieved, and not only will the villages previously abandoned again produce their full share of revenues for the treasury, but in this era of justice, the ruler Nushirevan will rest in the retreat of oblivion and forgetfulness in comparison, and the tax-paying populace, because they have found comfort and ease, will engage themselves day and night in singing the praises of the sovereign. Moreover, since the treasury will be filled on time, and since the fruit of the trees of his heart which is justice and equity increases day by day,” God will reward the ruler with Paradise.”? For all these thinkers, an empty 4 Peachy, “A Year in Selaniki’s History,” 359, 286. 25 Addletdir addletdir addlet/Ki td Gstide-hdal ola ra‘iyyet, in Yasar Yiicel, ed., Osmanli Devlet Teskilatina dair Kaynaklar, Atatiirk Kiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiikksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 3, no. 13 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1988), 22; 176. *® Koci Bey Risalesi, ed. Aksiit, 48. 27 Ugur, Osmanli Siyadset-Ndmeleri, 169. 28 On Naima see Lewis V. Thomas, A Study of Naima, ed. Norman Itzkowitz, NYU Studies in Near Eastern Civilization, 4 (New York: New York University Press, 1972), 78; Fleischer, “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldinism’,” 201. On Sari Mehmed Pasa, the Defterdar, see Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of Counsel for Vezirs and Governors, ed. and trans., W.L. Wright, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935; rpt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971), 119. 29 Murphey, ed., Kantin-Ndme-i Sultani li ‘Aziz Efendi, 3, 23. It was not long after this was written that the reassessment of the avariz described in Chapter Three was made.

290 CHAPTER NINE treasury reflected poverty in the countryside, and filling it again necessitated meeting the needs of the peasant producers. The petitions

of taxpayers gave administrators vital information about the causes of blockages in the flow of revenues. In Aziz Efendi’s view, for instance,

the main issue was not so much high taxes in themselves but inequities in tax collection that caused abandonment of cultivation, with the result that tax revenues were not sufficient to pay the military. If the sultan could remedy this problem through the exercise of justice, other positive results would follow.*° Thus, petitions were a form of protest from within, signalling a need for the application of justice.*’ Budgetary deficits, a difficulty in themselves, also constituted a signal of inequities in the system. Taxpayers’ petitions were not the only, or even the most significant, sign that something was amiss in the empire. Peasant flight from the land, as Aziz Efendi noted, was disastrous in its implications for the treasury. Moreover, refusal to participate in the creation of a surplus

was tantamount to resistance or agrarian strike, somewhere on a continuum that began with foot-dragging and ended with peasant rebellion.*? Although in the Ottoman case there were a number of “pull factors” inducing peasants to leave the land, discussion of flight

focused on its negative impact on agriculture and its function as a protest against injustice. In the early seventeenth century, flight from the land was perceived as having grown to unacceptable proportions; the years from 1603 to 1608 were known as “The Great Flight” (Biiyiik 30 Abou-El-Haj has theorized (in “Nature of the Ottoman State”) that the Ottoman class structure was in the process of changing, although the old model of class structure continued

to be held up as an ideal; so, too, the ideal of justice inherited from the past continued to be pursued, even as its attainment grew less likely. 3! Faroghi has also commented on the political nature of the complaint process (“Political Initiatives ‘From the Bottom Up’,” 27; see also Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” 22; Amy Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural Administration around Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization [Cambridge University Press, 1994]). Nathan J. Brown, in studying Egyptian peasants, classifies petitioning as a form of resistance by “legal and institutional action,” as opposed to “atomistic” or “communal” actions or actual revolt and revolution (Peasant Politics in Modern Egypt: The Struggle Against the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990),

7-8. In a coun- try with a well-developed legal system, court cases can also be seen as a form of protest from within the system (Root, Peasants and King in Burgundy, 3). 32 Matkovski, “La résistance des paysans macédoniens.” Students of peasant life in other parts of the globe have written extensively on migration and flight as means of protest: A.J. Asiwaju, “Migrations as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945,” Journal of African History 4 (1976): 577-94; Hobsbawm, “Peasants and Politics,” 14; Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” 22; Adas, “Market Demand Versus Imperial Control,’’ 99-100. On peasant rebellion see Roland E.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 291

Kacgun) in Anatolia. An inspection of timars done in 1632-1633 uncovered a large number of timars which were unproductive because

they had become uninhabited. The very ease of escape from the village to pursue an alternative career seems to have contributed to the absence of actual rebellion.** We do not yet know how many reaya left the land, or how the problem differed from place to place or time

to time within the empire, or whether the flight was temporary or permanent. What we do know is that peasant flight filled Ottoman officials with consternation and caused them to seek remedies. The officials were undoubtedly motivated by practical considerations, as abandoned lands could support neither timar holders nor the treasury. At the same time, however, flight from the land represented a protest

against rural conditions of overtaxation, illegal impositions, and banditry, a statement that justice did not extend to the countryside. As a protest, the threat of flight, which became a commonplace in tax-related petitions, was almost equivalent to flight itself.°° The conditions necessary for production were not available, and if the sultan did not provide them he could no longer be considered legitimate. Thus, depositions and assassinations of sultans during this period

can be seen as restorative rather than disruptive acts. The system of governance as a whole was not challenged, as the absence of justice and provision was interpreted as a temporary rather than a systemic phenomenon, but the pursuit of justice might demand replacement of an individual ruler. For that reason, the image of the just king led

astray by his advisors was often invoked, both by rulers in selfMousnier, Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France, Russia, and China, trans. Brian Pearce (New York: Harper and Row, 1970). 3 Howard, “Timar System and Its Transformation,” 222-23. On the Great Flight see Mustafa Akda3, “Celali Isyanlarindan Biiyiik Ka¢ggunluk,” Tarih Arastirmalari Dergisi 2 (1964): 1-49; on landless vagrants and their military options see Mustafa Cezar, Osmanli Tarihinde Levendler, istanbul Giizel Sanatlar Akademisi Yayinlari, 28 (Istanbul: Celikcilt Matbaasi, 1965); Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation”; on resettlement efforts in the 1630s see Faroghi, Towns and Townsmen in Ottoman Anatolia, 272-87. According to Ostapchuk, the most common non-military problem facing the Ottoman commander of the Black Sea expedition of 1627 was peasant migration (“Ottoman Black Sea Frontier,” 260). 4 Suraiya Faroghi, “Political Tensions in the Anatolian Countryside Around 1600: An Attempt at Interpretation,” in Tiirkische Miszellen: Festschrift Robert Anhegger, Varia Turcica, 9 (Istanbul: Divit Press, 1987), 126; Barkey (Bandits and Bureaucrats, 90) emphasizes a lack of alliances with the landholding class. 35 For the increased bargaining power afforded by the threat of flight see Faroghi, “Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 28; Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” 22.

292 CHAPTER NINE justification and by people attempting to mitigate or soften their criticisms.*°

The most extreme form of ruler replacement was millenarianism, the expectation of the end of the age and the imminent arrival of a divine representative to “fill the world with justice as it is now filled with iniquity.”*’ In a sense, millenarianism did not challenge absolute rule as such but sought to replace a human, fallible ruler with another, more perfect one in a way that could not be construed as treasonous. By the end of the sixteenth century, messianic hopes raised by the reign of Stileyman had been bitterly disappointed, and the millennium, the year 1000/1591—92, found the empire militarily and economically in sad straits.°* The great Jewish messianic movement of Sabbatai Sevi in the mid-seventeenth century swept up tens of thousands of Ottoman subjects, largely Jews but also non-Jews, in imminent expectation of a better age, and it was followed by several smaller imitations. Adherence to heterodox religious sects, puritanism, and the clothing of calls for justice in religious terms were equally forms of protest, if less dramatic.” The Kizilbas and extremist Sufi beliefs that attracted so many in the countryside were easily transformed into ideologies of protest and demands for justice.*” The seventeenth-century

preaching of the Kadizadelis, besides being part of a religious dispute and an extension of factional Istanbul politics, was also a religious reaction against the distress of the times and a quest for restoration

of divine favor, lost because of the iniquity and impure religion of the sultan, his advisors, Sufi leaders, and large portions of the Istanbul populace. Even sultans who did not much favor the Kadizadelis, like

Murad IV, could be induced to implement at least portions of their © For the use of this device in the Ottoman context, see Faroqhi, “Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 16; for Russia, Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar, 14; for France, Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 31. *’ For religion as resistance see Hobsbawm, “Peasants and Politics,” 16; Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” 29. 38 For Siileymanic messianism see Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” 159-77. * J. Michael Hayden, “Rural Resistance to Central Authority in Seventeenth-Century France,” Canadian Journal of History 26 (1991): 7-20. In France, rebellion against taxes could be seen as an act of ritual purification that would bring in the golden age (YvesMarie Bercé, History of Peasant Revolts: The Social Origins of Rebellion in Early Modern France, trans. Amanda Whitmore (Cambridge: Polity Press/Basil Blackwell, 1990), 27276. On the radical use of tradition see Craig Jackson Calhoun, “The Radicalism of Tradition: Community Strength or Venerable Disguise and Borrowed Language?” American Journal of Sociology 5 (1983): 886-914. “© Examples are the Seyh Bedreddin and Sah Kulu rebellions, while the original Celalis were part of a series of Kizilbas revolts supporting the Safavi heterodoxy.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 293 program, lest they be regarded as unbelievers, unqualified to rule.*! Disruptions among the military forces were still more alarming, manifesting directly the reign of injustice. Traditional timar cavalry forces had proved both ineffective in battle and resistant to control, as large numbers failed to appear at muster. Discharged units of the infantry, trained and armed with new and more effective gunpowder weapons, preyed on towns and countryside, forming the bandit gangs known as Celalis.** Among the bandits were sipahis whose timar revenues had been lost for nonperformance as well as mercenaries

of reaya origin, dismissed without means of support at the end of campaigns. These Celalis took over portions of the countryside, collecting the revenues for themselves, extorting more, and barring access by tax collectors and government officials.* Nor was this Celali activity the only mark of dissatisfaction among the military. Units of the standing army, no longer satisfied with protests over unpaid salaries,

took it upon themselves to interfere in government. For some time the janissaries had taken an active part in choosing high officials such as viziers and defterdars, rioting against and even killing those whose

Pp y y Ty ey

Olicies they disliked.” In the early seventeenth century they extended this behavior even to the sultanate; they were the principal actors in the deposition and death of Osman II in 1622, they violently opposed the policies of Murad IV, and in mid-century they battled the palace

cavalry in support of Késem Sultan’s attempt to dethrone Mehmed IV. The uncontrollability of the military forces, more than their failure to win the war against Austria, presented a powerful challenge to Ottoman governance in terms of the Circle of Justice.* The military’s “1 Madeline C. Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600-1800), Studies in Middle Eastern History, 8 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988).

42 On the Celalis see Akdag, Tiirk Halkinin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavgast, Griswold, The Great Anatolian Rebellion; Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats. 43 In folk culture, bandits, such as the Balkan haiduks, are often celebrated as heroes of resistance against the state (Scott, “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance,” 29). Judith M. Wilks describes the epic metamorphosis of an Anatolian bandit into a just king in “The Persianization of K6roglu: Banditry and Royalty in the Central Asian Versions of the KGéroglu Epic,” (paper presented at the Middle East History and Theory Conference, Chicago, 1993). “ Devaluation of the coinage was also seen as injustice; for a dramatic description of military intervention in government see Kafadar, “When Coins Turned Into Drops of Blood.” 45 The historian Solakzade developed this theme: see Rhoads Murphey, “Solakzade’s Treatise of 1652: A Glimpse at Operational Principles Guiding the Ottoman State during Times of Crisis,” in V. Milletlerarast Tiirkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi, Tebligler,

294 CHAPTER NINE turn from defending the realm to preying upon it betrayed the sultan’s loss of control over his own men and the treasury’s fiscal incapacity,

as it was the absence of salary payments that set off revolt. If the ruler could not maintain control, he was guilty of a double injustice toward his subjects, creating the fiscal problem in the first place through

currency devaluation and then allowing further depredations by his men. Barkey portrays the Ottoman state as wily and shrewd in its negotiations with bandits, but perhaps it should be seen as worried or desperate, because loss of control over the military, especially over its operations inside the empire, like an empty treasury or petitions from the subjects, threatened the sultan’s very legitimacy. The petitions from subjects, the emptiness of the treasury, the military rebellions, the lack of success in the Long War with Austria, all forced the men in charge to realize that the circle was beginning to come apart. Adequate conditions for cultivation were not provided, money to pay troops was unavailable, and the military’s willingness to defend the empire and maintain the peace was in doubt. The peasants’

reiterated threats to leave the land if their petitions were not granted formed the fourth leg in the structure of injustice. The external threat posed by Iran or Austria was secondary to the internal danger that the interdependency between rulers and ruled would break down, cultivation would stop, soldiers would go unpaid, and the ruler’s power would vanish. This was what decline meant in the seventeenth-century works of advice literature, this was the threat that the empire urgent-

ly had to meet in order to survive, and this was why the Ottoman government remitted taxes when it desperately needed the money.” Concessions to taxpayers, new rewards for officials, cooptation and control of bandits and provincial officials, and new systems of military organization and compensation all served to shore up the legitimacy

of the Ottoman state. The Ottomans were highly flexible in their use of legitimizing ideologies, and the Circle of Justice was not the only form in which Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 26, no. 4 (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1990), 31. ** James R. O’Connor points out that states “must try to fulfill two basic and often mutually contradictory functions—accumulation and legitimization” (The Fiscal Crisis of the State [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973], 6). Faroghi wonders if the Ottoman state was aware of this contradiction (“Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers,” 33), but although it is fashionable in some circles to consider political ideologies as mere windowdressing, the lies governments tell when they want to commit particularly outstanding crimes, in this case we can actually see the government acting in accordance with its ideology.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 295 claims to legitimacy were organized. The late sixteenth century, the end of the great conquests, brought into prominence several discourses centering around ruling and lawgiving, building rather than conquer-

ing, maintaining rather than extending the faith and the realm— ideologies which, like the Near Eastern concept of state, assumed a sedentary and stable realm.*’ If, however, the Ottoman state’s protection of the peasantry indeed “constituted the basis for the state’s absolute political authority,’** the Circle of Justice was a crucial political statement. Simultaneous challenge to all of its terms conveyed an ominous message to those in power. To stave off decay, the empire’s institutions had to be restored to the level of effectiveness known at the time of Siileyman the Lawgiver, when Ottoman subjects could believe that they served the World-Conqueror, the Restorer of

the Age. It was to restore confidence and faith in the system of governance that the seventeenth-century commentators recommended a return to the timar system of old, not because they necessarily believed that timar cavalry would be successful against armies with gunpowder weapons.” They also recommended a return to the tax levels of the mid-sixteenth century, which was patently impossible. These recommendations were treated as symbolic gestures by decision-makers: governmental actions in the early seventeenth century were not de-

signed to restore a rigid, outdated hierarchy or the fiscal system of the past, but rather to codify whatever order was necessary to bring about social harmony and military success.°° Serious regard was paid,

however, to their underlying motive, the need to repair the fortunes of both ruling and subject classes, to restore military effectiveness, 47 A number of Ottoman forms of legitimation are discussed by Suraiya Faroghi in “Die Legitimation des Osmanensultans: Zur Beziehung von Religion, Kunst und Politik im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift fiir Turkeistudien 2 (1989): 49-67; idem, “Crisis and Change,” 609-22; Howard, “Ottoman Historiography and the Literature of ‘Decline’,” 56; Peirce, Imperial Harem, 153; Fleischer, “The Lawgiver as Messiah,” 160-61. “8 Islamoglu-Inan, “State and Peasants in the Ottoman Empire,” 127; see also Inalcik, “Village, Peasant and Empire,” 149. 4 At least, that was one reason; better internal control of the provinces was doubtless another, and a third one which has been suggested is that by so doing they were protecting their class interests (Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State). °° Howard has noted, however, that altering the timar system threatened kanun, its legal base, and thus also the legitimacy of an empire founded on kanun. Moreover, the advice works forbidding its alteration were written by members of the scribal corps, who saw themselves uniquely as guardians of kanun, as the ulema were guardians of Islamic law, and for whom kanun was the primary instrument of justice (Douglas A. Howard, “The ‘Ruling Institution’, Genre, and the Story of the Decline of the Ottoman Empire” [Grand Rapids, MI: unpublished paper, 1992], 22, 28; idem, “Ottoman Historiography and the

Literature of ‘Decline’,” 59). Kanun here would have to be taken in the sense of the

296 CHAPTER NINE and to improve morale. The seventeenth century’s leadership vacuum made attaining these objectives difficult, but much of the history of

the century can be seen as experiments aimed in that direction. Middle Eastern rulers established legitimacy in a number of ways. Besides announcing their names on coins and in the Friday sermon (sikke and hiitbe), they proclaimed their legitimacy and power in visual terms through architecture and ceremonial.>! But rulers also communicated with their subjects through administrative procedure. Like ritual, administrative procedure formed a link between the individual and the

larger society, an embodiment of political myth.” In administration, the link was simultaneously symbolic and actual: taxation and the provision of justice were at once manifestations and reliable indices of the power and legitimacy of those in charge, revealing both the extent of their control and the legality and morality with which they exercised it. Administration spoke directly to the whole population of the empire, unlike court ceremonial and palace architecture, viewed mainly by the elite. Through his administration a ruler most effectively gained or alienated the loyalty of his ordinary subjects. A large minority of petitions to the finance department constituted requests for reduction or remittance of taxes, and another significant portion complained about the misbehavior of officials. In cases where something could be done, the government sent orders to kadis and governors to do it: correct the registers or compile new ones, lower tax assessments, investigate cases, chase down bandits, or remove

corrupt or incompetent officials. Not much could be done about providing good weather and preventing crop failure, but taxes could be and were remitted in order to leave the peasants their seed grain. In addition, the government took the initiative by issuing justice decrees

(adaletnames) especially to correct official behavior and eliminate

Siileymanic kanunnames, not simply sultanic edicts in general. On the relationship between Islamic law, kanun, bureaucratization, and legitimacy see Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 8; Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 63-64. >! Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power; Howard Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. Irene A. Bierman, Rifa‘at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, and Donald Preziosi, Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3 (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide

D. Caratzas, 1991), 173-243; Paula Sanders, Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo, SUNY Series in Middle East History (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). *? On political ritual see David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution, rev. ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991).

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 297

abuses.’ In the adaletnames the reasons for the actions taken, often suppressed in responses to petitions, were made explicit: enforcement of justice (adalet) and suppression of illegality (bid’at, here construed as something contrary to Islamic law, kanun, the sultan’s orders, and/ or the official registers).°* Two constant themes in these adaletnames were rectification of general problems in taxation and control of officials

such as timar holders, kadis and their assistants, tax collectors, and governors. Moreover, though addressed to high administrators, whose job it was to monitor their subordinates, adaletnames were meant to be read aloud so that the general public could hear and understand them. Claims to legitimacy are addressed to audiences, and discussions of justice in the advice literature were directed primarily toward the ruling class. Putting justice into action by chastising administrators and forgiving taxes, however, was a dramatization of legitimacy that could be understood by the poorest and most illiterate subject, Muslim or non-Muslim. Declaring justice, of course, is not the same as seeing justice done. In view of disturbed conditions in the countryside and the possibility of disobedience to government orders by government officials, pre-

senting a petition and even obtaining a sultanic order might prove ineffective in correcting injustice.” What, then, motivated townspeople

and villagers in a time of drastic inflation to scrape together the often considerable sums required to send a representative to Istanbul and push a petition through the obstacle course of bureaucratic process?°° It was not certainty of redress, though the hope of it was not 3 Halil Inalcik has examined justice decrees and the correction of abuses in his article ““Adaletnameler” (Belgeler 2, nos. 3-4 [1965]: 49-145). * An explicit reference to justice is rare in the finance department’s responses to petitions, but an exception occurs in MM 357 (20115), p. 136, where it was commanded that collection

be made with justice (be vech-i adalet cem ve tahsil edip). In another case, a village in Tirhala subjected to double taxation by the sancak bey blew the whistle (izhar-1 tazalliim, exposed the oppression) to a vizier who was making an inspection tour (feftig), and as a result, part of its levy was subtracted from the total owed (MM 2728 [3457], p. 67; on teftis see Gerber, State, Society, and Law, 70; such inspections were also carried out during the tahrir process). 55 Josef Matuz, “Transmission of Directives from the Center to the Periphery in the Ottoman State from the Beginning until the Seventeenth Century,” in Decision Making in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Caesar Farah (Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993), 19-27. °6 This question has been asked in another context by Faroqhi (‘Political Initiatives

‘From the Bottom Up’,” 30-31); she cites the material benefits in “Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers.” As Haim Gerber points out, however, appeals to justice expect to be met (State, Society, and Law, 163).

298 CHAPTER NINE unreasonable. Petitioning was assuredly safer than armed revolt, where failure tended to result in executions and exactions. It was probably

also more likely to be successful.°’ There was a purely pragmatic justification in the need to seek relief from oppressive taxation, but it is arguable that, to make it worth the cost, the process itself must have had a powerful result in a less tangible sphere. Considered as a weapon, the petition could become a tool against the powerful.°* It transformed the common people from victims into actors, legitimizing them as essential parts of the political system and delegitimizing corrupt officials, oppressive landlords, and stray bandits. Petitions, especially those containing suggestions for change which

were essentially rubber-stamped by central officials, represented a considerable amount of initiative on the part of the subject population, although such initiative, recognizing the sultan’s superior authority, did not lead to autonomy.’ Wittfogel has therefore categorized local initiative under the rubric of “politically irrelevant freedoms.”© Per-

haps, in the sense that the use of absolutist language disguised from

the participants the real power of the peasants and reinforced a consciousness in which the overthrow of the sultanate was inconceivable, villagers’ petitions could be considered politically irrelevant.

If political irrelevance, however, means that through their use the °7 Small and ineffective though Ottoman administration might be, it was larger and more effective than any contemporary government outside China. It was widely acknow]edged that the sultan’s power of command outweighed that of any European king, his nobility was more subordinate, his army greater, and his bureaucracy the marvel of all observers; see Jean Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, A Facsimile reprint of

the English translation of 1606... [by Richard Knolles], ed. Kenneth Douglas McRae (rpt. ed., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). *§ Eisenstadt’s analysis of the weapons of struggle available to peasants does not include the petition process; he may have been seduced by the rhetoric of submission proper to the petition (Eisenstadt, Political Systems of Empires, 213). The petition process itself belies its submissive vocabulary; as Munck points out, “Anyone who has worked with seventeenth-century sources will be only too aware that the language used for complaints, petitions and requests was highly rhetorical and formalised even to the point of stereotype... intended specifically to create an overwhelming impression in the reader” (Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in Europe, 1598-1700, Macmillan History of Europe [London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1990], 28). Even non-governmental sources such as the Jewish responsa literature suggest that Ottoman subjects saw paying taxes as a way to ensure government protection (Shmuelevitz,

Jews of the Ottoman Empire, 108). : .

*? Sultanic edict also upheld customary law (Inalcik, “Orf,” JA 9: 480; Haim Gerber, “Sharia, Kanun and Custom in the Ottoman Law: The Court Records of 17th-Century Bursa,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 2, no. 1 [1981]: 131-147; idem, State, Society, and Law, 124). © Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, 124-25.

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 299

common people could not influence the distribution of resources or call to book the abuses and misdeeds of officials, petitions were far from being irrelevant to the political process. The initiative of the subjects was an intrinsic part of political reality in Near Eastern empires,

actualizing the ruler’s authority in a system lacking modern communications.®! For the Circle of Justice to be a true circle, all parts of the political system had to be weighted equally. The petition process constituted one means by which the weight of the peasantry could make itself felt.

Revenue-Raising and Decline Alterations in finance department procedures, documents, and admin-

istrative arrangements in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries indicate no decline either in standards or in technical capability over that period. Rather, they show that finance officials responded in a reasonable and sometimes creative way to the challenges of economic change, fiscal difficulty, and widespread popular dissatisfaction. Outside the field of finances, the legal system of the seventeenth century continued to develop in the direction of merging

Islamic and sultanic law, meeting people’s needs in a relatively organized and honest manner. The government’s negotiations with bandits were not an indication of weakness but represented an intensified effort to harness military elements for state purposes. Provincial decentralization resulted from demarcation of borders and establishment of garrison forces rather than loss of control. Changes in dynastic family organization giving greater power to women were a natural development of sedentarization, not the result of immorality or folly. The decline of Aleppo as a commercial center was paralleled by the rise of Izmir.® Increasingly, the evidence demands that we do without decline or its euphemisms to describe and explain the events 6! Abou-El-Haj also comments on “the contradiction between the Ottoman theory of power—wherein the sultans were absolute rulers—and the reality that evolved in the second half of the seventeenth century” (The 1703 Rebellion, 6). He is talking about the devolution of ruling authority on members of the government; nevertheless, the point that we have been blinded by the rhetoric of absolutism is well taken. 6 Gerber, State, Society, and Law; Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats; Murphey, “Functioning of the Ottoman Army”; Peirce, Imperial Harem; Daniel Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650, Publications on the Near East, 5 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990).

300 CHAPTER NINE of this period. If we cannot avail ourselves of the catchall concept of decline, we must find a way to discuss these developments that allows for both positive internal development and international loss of power, one that explains Ottoman inability to increase or even maintain the size of the empire despite, rather than because of, the changes of the seventeenth century. Many of the empire’s problems in the early seventeenth century can be related to the “seventeenthcentury crisis,” but that was a temporary phenomenon from which Ottoman economic production and exchange were to recover in a later

period.” Economic recovery, however, was not accompanied by renewed military might, so a simple economic explanation is insufficient. The crisis paradigm seems better able to account for the problems

the empire faced than for the outcome of its efforts to solve them. Theorists of the European state relate its development to the expansion of warfare and economic control in the early modern period.” The absolutist monarchs of seventeenth-century Europe, engaged in a struggle to promote their military aims on a broader scale than ever before, sought to maximize the effectiveness of their power, although law and custom might limit its scope. Having attained absolute rule

in the sense of freedom from domination by external powers such as the pope, they attempted to assert their superiority to nobles and representative bodies and their control over taxation, in order to acquire the means of building armies and waging war. For this purpose, rulers

made efforts to expand the bureaucracy, subordinate the nobility, harness the merchant class, domesticate or do without parliaments and assemblies, and develop closer relations and better communications with the provinces. Although these efforts were not always successful, °° Gerber, Economy and Society in an Ottoman City: Bursa, 213; Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 525. ** Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), ix; idem, Sources of Social Power. According to Tilly, it was against the efforts of states to assemble the means of war that the French peasant rebellions took place (“Routine Conflicts and Peasant Rebellions,” 40). °° A useful summary of an extensive scholarship is Nicholas Henshall, The Myth of

Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy (London: Longman, 1992). Also helpful are James Daly, “The Idea of Absolute Monarchy in Seventeenth-Century England,” Historical Journal 21 (1978): 227-50; John Miller, “The Potential for “Absolutism’ in Later Stuart England,” History 69 (1984): 187-207; A. Lloyd Moote, “The French Crown Versus Its Judicial and Financial Officials, 1615-83,” Journal of Modern History 34 (1962): 146-60; Ragnhild Hatton, ed., Louis XIV and Absolutism (London: Macmillan Press, 1976); and James B. Collins, Fiscal Limits of Absolutism: Direct Taxation in Early Seventeenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 301 they did result in a greater degree of centralization and governmental control. Seventeenth-century Ottoman financial administration can be

seen in this light as an extension of governmental control over the taxation process for the purpose of building up the military. Ottoman rulers had already subordinated their elites to a degree incredible to westerners, and the shift from the timar system to centrally-operated taxation mechanisms brought about, for a brief period at least, bureaucratic fiscal control. Thus, one way of regarding the Ottoman seventeenth century is as a culmination of some of the absolutist tendencies of European society. This formulation accords with the thinking of contemporary observers, for whom the Ottoman sultan was simply the most absolute of the European monarchs, embodying the aspirations of Renaissance political thought.®° Despite wide abhorrence of its slave system and non-Christian religion, the Ottoman Empire became in many ways a model for absolutist monarchs. Eventually, according to theorists of state formation, the emphasis on amassing the means of war led to a general decline in the power of tributary empires, including the Ottoman, as the national state became a more successful form of organization for obtaining men and money.*’ Low communication and transportation technology had necessitated the loose organization of empires, which left local administration and finance to fairly autonomous regional powerholders; but if the means of coercion were dispersed or overcome, the bonds holding provinces to the state were so weak that the empire easily fragmented. A national state, on the other hand, was impelled to develop close ties with its territory through the processes of bargaining and negotiation by which it harnessed the means of coercion, enabling it to provide services, become involved in production, and exercise a much greater degree of local control than an empire.® Increased ability to command the means of war—men and money—permitted national states to outfight 6 Bodin, Six Bookes of a Commonweale, 201; Julian H. Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison a’ Etat and Its Place in Modern History, trans. Douglas Scott (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), 86. 67 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, 15—25. Virginia H. Aksan, working from an eighteenth-century viewpoint, has also commented on the relevance of Tilly’s work for Ottoman history (“Feeding the Troops in the 1768-74 Russo-Turkish War,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 18 [1994]: 27). In the Ottoman case, war may actually have drained the economy (Faroghi, “Crisis and Change,” 469). 68 Mechanisms by which national states attempted to obtain the necessary consent and cooperation are discussed by Brewer, Sinews of Power; Henshall, Myth of Absolutism, 4.

302 CHAPTER NINE both the large, loosely controlled empires and the better-organized but miniscule city-states of an earlier age. The timing of this process has been connected with the rise of capitalism and the monetarization of

the economy. As long as land ownership was the dominant form of possession, real control could only be exerted over a limited territory, but when the dominant form of property became money, which could be transported to a single center, power could be shared and a larger territory administered without decentralization.” Oddly enough, this analysis neglects the role of ideology in enabling states to harness resources. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, the Near Eastern concept of state legitimized and institution-

alized the possibility of resistance to rulers and their policies. Conversely, by constructing oppression as the particular injustice of an individual ruler, it eliminated or lessened resistance to the imperial form of government as a whole.” The result was an extremely stable form of government, but one that could attract only a low level of commitment from most of its subjects. Even that degree of commitment was based on the government’s performance: no rewards for the elite and no justice for the populace meant no loyalty, no military support, and no taxes. National ideologies, on the other hand, based loyalty on invisible ties of blood, language, religion, culture, and history,

not state-related and existing independently of any particular govern-

ment or ruler. States that could plausibly mobilize such ideologies were better able to command the loyalty, wealth, and military service of their subjects even if the government was ineffectual or, indeed,

unjust. They thus had a better chance of coming out on top in the warfare of the early modern period. The Ottoman Empire may easily be described in terms of this model. Because the government’s ties to provincial notables and the notables’

relationship to the peasantry were both weak, the empire could not recruit a people’s army; popular loyalties did not engender a rush to the colors. Probably the economy could not support the loss of a substantial proportion of the empire’s rather small population, and the government did not have the means to increase economic output. Nor ° Norbert Elias, State Formation and Civilization, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), 390-91. ” Samir Amin argues that peasant protests actually strengthened centralization by causing

the ruler to put an end to the abuses of feudal lords (Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism, trans. Brian Pearce [New York: Monthly

Review Press, 1976], 25, 34).

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 303 did it have strong connections with mercantile groups able to provide

cash on demand in return for investment in the state. Taxes were diverted from the treasury for provincial self-aggrandizement, provincial commitment to the center was not high, the center had little coercive

power over the provinces, and the empire ended by disintegrating. What kept disintegration at bay for so long was the ability to coopt military and financial leaders through governance and tax farming positions. Allowing for diversity in custom and law, while it made a national synthesis impossible, paradoxically postponed revolt, as did administrative reform and the provision of justice. The external military

decline of the Ottomans can thus be explained without recourse to an internal devolution which, as we have seen, was more mythological than real. The ability granted by a model of this kind to separate the Ottomans’ late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century period of crisis from the eventual fate of the empire allows us to discuss the fiscal history of this period in new terms. The changes in fiscal organization

and procedure that we have observed can be considered in light of their contribution to the longevity and stability of the empire. In the period after the mid-sixteenth century, when the military strength of the states on the Ottoman frontiers began to grow, the process of continuing the conquests or staving off territorial losses became more difficult and more expensive, demanding increased tax revenues at a time when global conjunctures and internal conditions made a growth in revenue harder to achieve. The finance department succeeded in meeting some of the state’s increasing financial needs by the continuation of cizye assessment and collection outside the timar tahrir system, and by the development and extension of the procedures for avariz assessment and collection. It also expanded the domain of tax farming while maintaining administrative control, though hard pressed by tax farmers and those seeking to enter the system. These maneuvers enabled it to increase revenue sufficiently to maintain the empire’s viability until the eighteenth century ushered in a new international configuration and a new internal organization (the as yet ill-explored workings of which are beyond the scope of this book). At the same time, the petition process and the government’s issuance of justice decrees attempted to compensate, on an ad hoc basis, for the looser control of an imperial system. Through the regularization and bureaucratization of provincial and local government and the provision of justice for the subjects of the

304 CHAPTER NINE empire, finance department procedures contributed to internal stability. Ordinarily, the finance department is not credited with this achieve-

ment, the usual understanding being that it participated fully in the falling off of standards and embrace of corruption that made this period so difficult. While this may have been true of certain individ-

uals, our investigation has shown that it was not the case on the institutional level. For the period 1560—1660, the picture of the finance

department conveyed by the documents it produced contradicts the image of decline and corruption. Although the finance department was

the instrument by which increased taxation impacted the subject population, at the same time it took on the job of adjusting the system

to the varying needs of individuals and groups, functioning as an agency of legitimation for the governmental system and a stabilizing

element in a period of turmoil. ,

Inside the department itself, the sixteenth century was a time of multiple structural reorganizations. A series of organizational experiments adjusted the ordering of provincial finances and the number and responsibilities of the defterdars. New conquests precipitated reassignments of geographical responsibilities until, in the end, a geographical approach to the subdivision of revenues at the center was abandoned and a new organizational format established that lasted with minor alterations into the eighteenth century. The critical years around the

turn of the century had a severe impact on the finance department, making revenue collection at once more necessary and more difficult and precipitating changes in the department’s tasks. The absence of

an ongoing series of timar tahrirs necessitated expansion and reor-

ganization of the cizye tahrirs in order to keep control of cizye collection. Disturbed conditions and fiscal needs caused the transfor-

mation of the avariz from an extraordinary to an ordinary annual tax and the development of a separate assessment system for it. Direct administration of these revenues by the finance department involved developing, expanding, and routinizing procedures and documents for

assessment and collection and adapting to the avariz procedures originally developed for direct collection of the cizye. Expansion of

iltizam staff and record-keeping with the growth of tax farming contributed to controlling tax farmers and ensuring that they collected only the taxes due. While competent and incompetent sultans came and went, battles were won and lost, and political tugs-of-war became the rule in the palace, the finance staff plugged steadily away at the provision of the empire’s fiscal needs. For help with the legwork, they

REVENUE-RAISING AND LEGITIMACY 305 turned to the standing cavalry forces, providing salaries and peacetime employment in return for assistance in the making of tax surveys and the collection and remittance of revenues. The contributions of kadis were also crucial to the finance department’s success. By the 1030s/ 1620s, the new systems were fully operational, continuing in use until the late seventeenth century, when major revisions were again made.

For the empire as a whole, the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries form a period of consolidation after an initial expansionary phase. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Ottoman institutions had been organized for continuous growth. The timar system, the fiscal organization on a province-by-province basis, the training of sultans as warriors and governors, the manning of the janissary corps by levies of boys—these institutional arrangements were designed for an empire expanding by conquest. In the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the same institutions were reoriented to serve a consolidating empire with relatively fixed boundaries.”' Warfare was

no longer important for sultans, the army no longer needed to be detached from ordinary society, harem women moved into the palace,

and boys from ordinary Muslim families moved into government service. The timar system was converted to funding governmental expenses, creating new problems in provincial administration, and the judicial system reconciled the various strands of law it administered, generating a new need for legitimation in Islamic terms. The fiscal system rearranged its revenue categories by type rather than by location, redefined its assessment and collection procedures to accom-

modate changes in the military system, and expanded its tax base inside the empire. When in the seventeenth century the economic conjuncture and institutional alterations combined to create hardship for the populace, rulers attempted to mitigate the hardship where it occurred. Not to respond to the subjects’ needs would have been to acknowledge publicly their own illegitimacy and unfitness to rule over their empire. In order

to continue on the throne, they made restoring the balance of the Circle of Justice their first priority, remitting taxes for peasants in difficulty, striving to build up the treasury by other means, and working

to meet the demands of rebelling soldiers and governors and coopt 7 See also Suraiya Faroqhi, “The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire, 160030,” in Huri Islamoglu-Inan, ed., The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, Studies in Modern Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 311-44.

306 CHAPTER NINE them into the state’s service. The survival and internal effectiveness of the empire demonstrate that the consolidation efforts of the seventeenth century did work, even if imperfectly. Although the state could not eliminate all stresses and strains, it coped sufficiently well to keep the empire from dividing at that time. Through their administration, the Ottoman sultans successfully redeemed themselves as legitimate rulers, able to provide the justice people yearned for and so retain

their place at the top of the circle.

GLOSSARY

The words in this glossary are defined according to their finance department usage in the seventeenth century. The words are listed as spelled in the text, followed by a transliteration into the alphabet used by the Encyclopaedia of Islam, with two differences: k is represented by q, and i is represented by 1.

Adalet (‘adala) Justice

Adaletname Justice decree, issued to condemn illegal ac(‘adalatnama) tivity and check abuses

Adam (adam) Man, employee Adet-i agnam (‘adat-i Sheep tax aghnam)

Agnam (aghnam) Sheep (sing. ganem [ghanam]) Ahkam (ahkam) Orders (sing. hiikm [hukm])

Ahkam-i maliye See maliye ahkam

(ahkam-1 maliyya) , Ahali (ahali) Local residents of a place

Akce (aqce) Small silver Ottoman coin, asper Ala’l-riius (‘ala al-ru’ts) Term designating the payment of taxes on an individual basis

Ala (a‘la) For tax assessment purposes, the highest level of household income

Alti béliik (alti boliik) The “Six Boliiks,” or regiments of standing cavalry, comprising the sipahiyan, silahdaran, ulufeciyan-i yasar, ulufeciyan-i yemin, gureba-t yasar, and gureba-i yemin

Altun, hasene (altun, Ottoman gold coin hasana)

Amil (‘amil) Agent, tax farmer (pl. ummal [‘ummal]) Anbar (anbar) Storehouse; the grain storage system

Arab ve Acem Defterdar or chief treasurer of the Arab lands, defterdari (‘arab ve located in Damascus from 1516 to 1521 and

‘adjam daftardari) in Aleppo thereafter

Araba (‘araba) Cart, wagon

Arpa (arpa) Barley

Arz, arzuhal (‘ard, ‘ard Petition; problem presented in a petition hal)

Askeri (‘asKari) Lit. “military,” but refers to anyone of the

308 GLOSSARY ruling class, including, besides the military, administrators, judges, palace servants, and the

royal family

Asl (asl) Original (sum)

Agar (a‘shar) Tithes (sing. dsr [‘ushr]) Avariz (‘awarid) Levy, extraordinary tax Avariz akcesi (‘awarid An assessment in cash aqcesi)

Avarizhane (‘awarid- Household or group of households liable for

khana) avariz taxation

Avariz-i divaniye ve Extraordinary impositions and customary

tekalif-i Orfiye levies

(‘awarid-i diwaniyya wa takalif-i ‘urfiyya)

Ayan (a‘yan) Provincial and local notables, involved in allocation of tax assessments

Baki kullari (baqi Agents assigned to the collection of arrears in

qullari) taxation

Bakaya, bakiye (baqaya, Remainder, arrears bagiya)

Bakaya defteri (baqaya Arrears register daftari)

Bas baki kulu (bash Chief of collectors of arrears | baqi qulu)

Bas defterdar (bash Chief defterdar, when there was more than one defterdar)

Bastina (bashtina) Indivisible agricultural proprietorship (Balkans)

Bedel (badal) Equivalent, price, substitute

Bedel-i cizye (badal-i Substitute for the cizye, paid by relatives of

dyizya) voynuks

Bedel-i giihercile Cash substitute for saltpeter levy (badal-i giihercile)

Bedel-i hamr (badal-i Wine tax paid by non-Muslims khamr)

Bedel-i kefalet (badal-i Substitute for kefils kafala)

Bedel-i kirpas (badal-i Cash equivalent for a levy of linen — kirbas)

Bedel-i muaftyet (badal- Exemption fee i mu‘afiyya)

Bedel-i niiziil (badal-i Cash equivalent for grain levy nuzul)

Bedel-i tabhane (badal-i Cash equivalent for the cooking of biscuit or

tabkhana) gunpowder

GLOSSARY 309 Ber vech-i emanet (bar By a salaried emin wadjh-i amana)

Ber vech-i iltizam (bar By tax farming wadjh-i iltizam)

Ber vech-i igtirak (bar In partnership wadjh-i ishtirak)

Ber vech-i maktu (bar In a lump sum wadjh-i maqtt‘)

Ber vech-i pisin (bar In advance wadjh-i pisin)

Ber vech-i tekatid (bar As a pension wadjh-i taqa‘ud)

Berat (berat) Diploma granting a privilege Beylerbey (beglerbegi) Governor of an eyalet Beytiilmal (bayt al-mal) Treasury fund for the benefit of the Muslim community at large, especially widows and orphans

Bostanci (bostandj1) Gardener, member of a corps of palace servants

Buyuruldu (buyuruldi) “It has been ordered”; an order

Cabi (djabi) Collector of the revenues of a vakif Cami (djami‘) Tax collector; person who did the actual village-to-village or house-to-house collecting of

taxes such as cizye or avariz

Cebehane-i admire Imperial armory (djebekhana-i ‘amira)

Cebeci, cebet (djebedji, Armorer; member of the corps of armorers djebe’i)

Cebelu (djebeli) Armed retainer, man at arms Celali (Dyalali) Rebel, particularly one of a group of discharged military men living on banditry and theft of tax revenues

Celebkesan Sheep drovers for the state, or an equivalent

(djelebkeshan) sheep tax

Cem eder (djam‘ eder) Lit. “will collect”; designates the person who will actually perform the task of tax collection

Cemaat (djama‘a) A group, especially a cadre of government employees or soldiers, or a tribe Ceyb-i hiimayun (djayb- “The imperial pocket”; the sultan’s personal

i humayun) expenses

Cizye (djizya) Poll tax on non-Muslim Ottoman subjects; also called harac (kharad)j)

Cizye muhasebesi Accounting bureau for the poll tax kalemi (djizya muhasabasi qalami)

310 GLOSSARY Cizyedar (djizyadar) Agent for cizye Cizyehane (djizyakhana) Household liable for cizye

Ciilus (djulus) Accession (of a sultan)

Cuz (djuz’) Part, fascicule of a defter Casgnegir (Cashnagir) Taster

Cavus (Ca’ush) Herald or messenger Cavusan-i dergah-i ali Palace heralds or messengers (Ca’ushan-1 dargah-1 “ali)

Celebi (Celebi) Civilian administrator, lettered man

Celtiik (Celtiik) Rice field, paddy

Celtikci (Celtiikci) Rice grower, exempt from avariz

Dade (dade) Given

Daire-i adliye (dwvira-i Circle of Justice ‘adliyya)

Damga (damgha) Stamp (usually on textiles) Damga resmi (damgha Stamp tax rasm1)

Damga-i akmise Stamp tax on fabric (damgha-1 aqmisha)

Defter (daftar) Register, record book Defter-i hakani (daftar-i The timar registry or its registers khaqani)

Defterdar (defterdar) A head of the finance administration Defterdar kapisi The Porte of the bas defterdar, finance depart(defterdar qapusu) ment headquarters outside the palace Defterdar-i Anadolu Second highest ranking defterdar (defterdar-1 Anadolu)

Defterdar-1 Istanbul Third (uciincii) defterdar, head of the second (defterdar-1 Istanbul) division (gikk-1 sani) of treasury finances

Defterdar-t Rumeli Bas defterdar, head of the first division (sikk-i (defterdar-1 Rumeli) evvel) of treasury finances

Defterdarlik Section of the maliye headed by a defterdar (defterdarliq) or his area of jurisdiction Dellaliye (dallaliyya) Brokerage fees, often farmed Der kenar (dar kanar) Marginal note Der kise (dar kisa) (Coin) packed in purses (see kise) Derbend, derbendci Guardian of mountain passes, exempt from (derbend, derbenddji) avariz Deruhde-i (dar ‘uhda-i) In the responsibility of Devsirme (devshirme) Levy of boys to serve as janissaries and palace staff

Deymos (dimis) Tithe assessed in the former Mamluk lands

GLOSSARY 311 Dica (dika) Hungarian tithe

Dirlik (dirlik) A living, revenue granted as a living Divan, divan-1 hiimayun Imperial council, presided over by the grand

(diwan, diwan-i vizier

humayutn)

Dizdar (dizdar) Fortress commander Ebna-t sipahiyan Member of one of the standing cavalry regiments (abna’-i sipahiyan)

Edna (adna) For tax assessment purposes, the lowest level of household income

Efendi (efendi) Scholar, official

Eflak (Eflaq) Vlachs, breeders of cavalry horses Ehl-i kalem (ahl-i People of the pen (or the bureau), that is, well-

qalam) trained or of scribal background

Ehl-i vukuf (ahl-i Knowledgeable people, experts wuduf)

Emanet (amana) Work of an emin; direct tax collection assignment; government agency concerned with procurement of supplies for a jurisdiction such as sehir, city; harc-i hassa, the sultan’s expenses;

kilar, larder; matbah, kitchen; arpa, barley; tersane, dockyards; tophane, arsenal; etc.

Emin (amin) Agent, person in charge of an emanet (often translated ‘“‘intendant’’); often used to refer to

a person in charge of tax collection

Emin-i defter (amin-i Superintendent or director appointed to take

daftar) charge of a survey

Emr-i serif (amr-i Imperial (“noble”) order sharif)

Emr ti defter (amr wa An order and a copy of the assessment register,

daftar) given to those appointed to collect taxes

Erkam-i cizye (arqam-1 Cizye figures, a summarized register of cizye

dyizya) amounts without names

Esami, esami defteri Names (sing. ism [ism]); register of names of (asami, asami daftari) cizye payers Esedi kurus (asadi Dutch silver coin circulating in the Ottoman

qurush) Empire Esham (asham)

Shares

Evkaf (awgaf) Pious foundations (plural of vakif [waqf]) Evlad-i kul taifesi Sons of janissaries and state servants (awlad-i qul ta’ifasi)

Evsat (awsat) For tax assessment purposes, a medium level of household income

312 GLOSSARY Eyalet (ayala) Province

Fakir (faqir) Poor, humble (used by petitioners to refer to themselves)

Farig etmek (farigh To resign etmek)

Feragat (faragha) Resignation Fesh olunmak (faskh To be cancelled, annulled olunmak)

Fihrist (fihrist) List

Fiiruht (furtkht) Sale, award of a tax farm Fiirunihade (furunihada) Subtracted

Gebran (gabran) Non-Muslims Giyah-i husk (giyah-1 Fodder, dried grass khushk)

Guldmiye (ghulamiyya) Salary of tax collector and scribe, paid by taxpayers in addition to their tax

Gureba-i yesar, Units of the standing cavalry forces gureba-i.yemin (ghuraba’-i yasar, ghuraba’-i yamin)

Giihercile (giiher¢ile) Saltpeter, a levy on retired janissaries in lieu of avariz Hacegan (khwadjegan) Lit. “‘masters,” bureau heads in the finance department (sing. hace [khwadja])

Halife (khalifa) Deputy, second in command of a bureau (later kalfa)

Hane (khana) Household, for tax purposes Harac, harag (kharadj) Term used for cizye by the Ottomans, especially in the sixteenth century; in earlier Islamic practice it referred to a land tax

Haragci (kharadjdji) Agent for cizye

Haracgiizar Person liable for cizye (kharadjguzar)

Harc-i hassa (khardj-i Sultanic expenses khassa)

Haremeyn-i serifeyn The Two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina (haramayn-i sharifayn)

Has (khass) Largest revenue grant under the timar system, belonging to the ruler and his household or to provincial governors (pl. havas [khawass] or hasha [khassha] or haslar [khasslar])

Hass-t hiimayun or Imperial or “crown” lands, royal domains havass-i hiimayun

GLOSSARY 313 (khass-i humayutn, khawass-i humayun)

Hasil (hasil) Product, total to be collected (pl. hasilat [hasilat})

Havale (hawala) Assignation; the assignment on a particular revenue source of the payment of a particular item of expenditure; also used for the document of assignment and for the person to whom it was awarded (pl. havalegan [hawalagan])

Hazine-i admire The state treasury (also hizdne-i dmire (khazine-i amira) [khizane-i amira]) Hazine mande (khazine For a tax collector to leave his salary in the

mande) treasury and recompense himself with the fees from tax collecting

Hizmet (khidma) Service, duty Hoca (khwadja) Teacher, especially of the sultan or his sons Huddam (khuddam) Servants, esp. eunuchs (sing. hadim [khadim])

Hiiccet (hudjdja) Copy of an entry in the kad1’s register or sicil

Hiikm (hukm) Order; decision made on a matter presented in a petition

Hiikm-i serif (hukm-i Imperial (“noble”) order sharif)

Hiitbe (khutba) Friday sermon, in which the name of the legitimate ruler is mentioned

Istabl-1 Gmire (istabl-i The imperial stables amira)

Ibn (ibn) Son of; in certain cases, but not in finance department salary registers, indicates a Muslim

Ibtida (ibtida’) Beginning; refers to a register entry made the first time a person draws a salary from the treasury

Icmal defter (idjmal Summary register; the icmal defter of the tahrir

daftar) recorded assignment of revenues as ftimar, zeamet, or has

Icmal-i muhasebe Summary of accounts, balance-sheet (often (idjmal-i muhasaba) called a “budget’’) Thracat (ihradjat) Expenses, expenditures (sing. harc [hardj])

Ihtisab (ihtisab) Market supervision tax, often farmed Iltizam (iltizim) Lit. “undertaking,” but refers to tax farming, usually called the mukataa system, in which collection of government revenues was farmed

out to private bidders

Imza (imda’) Stylized signature or monogram

314 GLOSSARY Intisab (intisab) Connections, patronage Irad ve masraf (irad Income and expenditure made; accounting

wa masraf) register showing income and expenditures Irsaliye (irsaliyya) Lit. “transmissions,” direct payments made by tax collectors without having sent the money to the treasury

Iskele (iskala) Dock, port (port fees often farmed) Ispence (ispendje) Personal tax paid by non-Muslims

Izhar-1 tazalliim Exposure of oppression (idhhar-i tadhallum)

Kabiz-i mal (qabidh-i Receiver of funds mal)

Kabil ve iltizam etmek To accept, undertake (a tax farm) (qabil wa iltizam etmek)

Kadi (qadi) Judge in an Islamic court, an important administrative official on the local scene

Kale (qal‘a) Castle, fortress (pl. kila [qila‘])

Kalem (galam) Lit. “pen,” a bureau in the Ottoman maliye Kamil kurus (kamil Large silver coin ghurish)

Kantar (qantar) A weight, 44 okka or about 120 pounds Kanun (qanun) Edict, law; the corpus of sultanic law

Kanunname Code of regulations, digest of laws (qanunnama)

Kapan (qabban) Weighing scale for commodities Kapan resmi (qabban Weighing fee, often farmed rasmi)

Kapici (qapidji) Doorkeeper Kapicilar kethiidas Superintendent of doorkeepers in the palace,

(qapidjilar a powerful figure

ketkhudasi)

Karye (qarya) Village

Katib (katib) Broadly, a scribe, record-keeper; in the seventeenth-century finance department, a title referring to the rank of head of department (pl. kiittab [kuttab])

Kayd etmek (qaid To record etmek)

Kaza (qada’) Judicial district, jurisdiction of a kadi Kazasker (qadi ‘asker) One of the two chief judges of the empire, responsible for cases relating to the askeri class

Kefil (kafil) Guarantor (of a tax farm)

GLOSSARY 315 Kefil defteri, kefilname, Register of kefils kiifela defteri (kafil daftari, kafilnama, kufala’ daftari)

Kesis (kashish) Christian monk or priest Kethiida (ketkhuda) Head of a community or group, deputy of an official

Kibttyan emiri (qibtiyan Emir of the gypsies amiri)

Kist el-yevm (qist al- Daily portion or share of an annual sum yawm)

Kilar (kilar) Imperial larder Kile (kila) Grain measure, bushel Koyun emini (quyun Overseer of sheep for the state amini)

Kopriici (k6priidji) One who maintains bridges, exempt from avariz

Kurus, gurus (ghurush) Groush, piaster; large silver coin, at first of foreign origin, circulating in the Ottoman Empire

Kiictik ruznamce kalemi Finance bureau which disbursed the salaries

(kiiciik ruznamdje of certain central government employees qalami)

Kiirek (kurek) Oar(s)

Kirekci (kurekdji) Oarsman, exempt from avariz Kiirekci bedeli (kurekdji Substitute price for oarsman levy badali)

Liva (liwa’) Subprovince, sancak

Maas (ma‘ash) Salary; a second salary charged to taxpayers in addition to the guldmiye and paid to the person who actually collected the tax

Maden (ma‘din) Mine (pl. maadin [ma‘adin]}) Madenci (ma‘dendji) Miner, exempt from avariz

Mahalle (mahalla) Urban neighborhood Mahkeme (mahkama) Kadi’s court Mahsub (mahsub) Due (for a particular period), counted as (covering a particular period)

Makbul (maqbul) Well-esteemed Makbuz (maqbid) Receipt (pl. makbuzat [maqbudat]) Maktu (maatu*) Payment of taxes by a community in a lump sum rather than individually

Mal defterdari (mal A head of provincial finance administration defterdari)

316 GLOSSARY Maldar (maldar) Wealthy Mal edasina kadir (mal Able to pay edasina qadir)

Malikadne (malikana) Life-term tax farm Maliye (mialiyya) Ottoman state treasury and finance department Maliye ahkam defterleri Registers of outgoing orders of the finance

(maliyya ahkam department

daftarlari)

Maliye ahkdm tezkire Registers of notes requesting the issuance of

defterleri (maliyya orders ahkam tadhkira daftarlari)

Maliye kalemi (maliyya Main order-writing bureau in the finance

qalami) department

Marifet-i sar‘ (ma‘rifat-i Judicial supervision shar‘)

Martolos (Martolos) Christian paramilitary and auxiliary forces

Maslahatgiizar Capable of a business (maslahat guzar)

Masarif (maarif) Expenditures (sing. masraf [masraf])

Matbah-i admire Imperial kitchens

(mahbah-i amira) .

Mazul (ma‘zil) Out of office (in a rotational system) Medrese (madrasa) Religious college

Mehter (mihtar) Military band

Mektupcu kalemi Correspondence bureau of the finance depart(maktubdji qalami) ment in the eighteenth century (see oda) Memlaha (mamlaha) Salt works (workers exempt from avariz)

Menzil (manzil) Imperial posting system

Menzilci (manzildji) Supporter of post stations and post horses, exempt from avariz

Metruk, metruke Abandoned (lands) (matruk, matruka)

Mevcudatci Finance official who counted incoming cash (mawdjudatdji) and kept records of the contents of the treasury

Mevkufat kalemi Finance bureau that recorded income from

(mawqufat qalami) properties temporarily in the possession of the treasury; later in charge of the avariz

Mevkufatci Finance official in charge of the mevkufat

(maw qufatdji) kalemi

Mezkiir (madhkir) Mentioned, the aforesaid (pl. mezkiirin [{madhkurin])

Mimar (mi‘mar) Architect

GLOSSARY 317 Mir-i alem (mir-i Troop leader ‘alam)

Miri (miri) Belonging to the state, used especially in reference to land and revenues

Mizan-i harir (mizan-i Weighing station for silk; fees often farmed harir)

Muaf (mu‘af) Exempt from taxation (muafen [mu‘afan]: by exemption)

Muafname, muaftyet Document of exemption from taxation (mu‘afnama, mu‘afiyya)

Mufassal defter Detailed register; listed taxpayers by name and (mufassal daftar) status according to their place of residence and the taxes assessed on them

Muharrir (muharrir) Registrar Muhasebe (muhasaba) Accounting; accounting register

Muhasebe-i atik Previous account register (muhasaba-i ‘atiq)

Muhasebe-i Anadolu Finance bureau responsible for examination kalemi (muhasaba-i of accounts of emins and cizye for Anadolu Anadolu qalami)

Muhasebe-i cizye See cizye muhasebesi kalemi kalemi (muhasaba-i djizya qalami)

Muhasebe-i evkaf Finance bureau responsible for examination kalemi (muhasaba-i of accounts of pious foundations awqaf qalami)

Muhasebe-i evvel Finance bureau responsible for examination kalemi (muhasaba-i of accounts for Rumeli awwal qalami)

Muhasebe-i haremeyn Finance bureau responsible for examination kalemi (muhasaba-i of accounts of evkaf dedicated to the two holy

haramayn qalami) cities, Mecca and Medina, the haremeyn-i serifeyn

Muhasebeci Finance official in charge of drawing up (muhasabadji) and auditing the accounts (muhasebe) of the state

Muhassil-i emval Fiscal supervisor of a province or region (muhassil-i amwal)

Mukabele (muqabala) Comparison

Mukabeleci Finance official who compared (mukabele) (muqabaladji) wage tickets with salary registers and authorized their payment

318 GLOSSARY Mukataa (mugata‘a) Lit. “subdivision,” subdivision of government revenues for collection purposes, especially in

the form of tax farming (iltizam)

Mukataaci (mugata‘adji) Finance official who kept the books of the mukataas

Mukataali yer Land or revenues not subject to tapu (heredi-

(muqata‘ali yar) tary tenancy)

Mukataat-i cedide Revenue bureau of new mukataas kalemi (muqata‘at-i djadida qalami)

Mukataat-i mensuhe Bureau collecting revenues of cancelled or kalemi (muqata‘at-i annulled tax farms mansukha qalami)

Miubasir (mubashir) Agent

Miid (mudd) Measure of 20 kile Miiderris (mudarris) Teacher in a medrese Miifettis (mufattish) Inspector of finances for the imperial has Miifredat (mufradat) Details, detailed Mihimme defteri Register of important matters, the record of (muhimma daftari) outgoing orders from the divan

Mihiir (muhr) Seal

Miilazim (mulazim) Adherent, novice, candidate

Milk (mulk) Private ownership, land privately owned Miulkname (mulknama) Deed of ownership Miiltezim (multazim) Tax farmer, one who undertakes an iltizam Miinseat (munsha’at) Collection of sample documents

Miirde (murda) The deceased, to be deleted from the tax rolls Misadere (musadara) Confiscation (of the property of high officials executed for crimes)

Misellem (musallam) Auxiliary cavalry, exempt from avariz taxation, discontinued by the end of the sixteenth century

Misellim (musallim) Financial agent of a sancak bey Miusvedde (muswadda) Rough draft Musaherehoran Salary registers for all governmental employees mevacibi defterleri whose salaries were paid on a monthly -basis, (mushaharakhwaran including scribes of central finance bureaus mawajibi daftarlari)

Miiteferrika Member of an elite guard unit of palace cavalry (mutafarriga)

Miutekaid (mutaqa‘id) Retired (pl. miitekaidin [mutaqa‘idin}) Miitesellim (mutasallim) Financial supervisor in a sancak

GLOSSARY 319 Miiteveccih Favorably inclined (mutawadjdjih)

Miiteveffa (mutawaffa) Deceased Miitevelli (mutawalli) Supervisor of a vakif Muzekkaé (muzakka) Legally competent as a witness

Naib (na’ib) Assistant judge

Nasihatname Advice memorandum, literary genre flourish(nasihatnama) ing in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Nazir (nadhir) Inspector of a vakif or a tax farm Nazir-1 emval (nadhir-i Inspector of finances amwal)

Nazir-t nuzzar (nadhir-i Inspector of inspectors nudhdhar)

Nefer (nafar) Individual; refers to a soldier or a taxpayer Nev-miislim (naw- “New Muslim,” a convert muslim)

Nev-yafte (naw-yafta) Newly enrolled for taxation (pl. nev-yaftegan [naw-yaftagan])

Nisan (nishan) Type of berat or diploma bearing the sultan’s tugra to be shown by a functionary as authorization

Nisanci (nishandji) Official responsible for drawing the sultan’s tugra on documents and checking that they conformed to kanun

Noksan wzere, kesr At a lesser sum uizere (nuqsan iizere, qasr tizere)

Oda (ida) Room, those who share a room; nickname for the mektupcu kalemi

Ortakci (ortaqdji) Sharecropper, exempt from avariz Orf (urf) Sultanic law, often enshrining customary practice

Osr (‘ushr) Tithe on crops (pl. a‘sar)

Pence (pandja) Stylized signature with a “tail” or long curving stroke at the end, used by grand viziers

Perakende [ve perisan]) Dispersed [and scattered] (parakanda [wa parishan])

Piskes (pishkash) Gifts to a superior Piyade (piyada) Auxiliary footsoldiers, exempt from avariz taxation, discontinued by the end of the sixteenth century

Praktika (praktika) Byzantine records of domains and revenues

320 GLOSSARY Reaya (ra‘aya) The taxpaying class, especially peasants Resm-i hane, resm-i Fee for tax collection paid by the taxpayers kalem, resm-i kitabet (rasm-i khana, rasm-i qalam, rasm-i kitaba)

Revgan-i sade Clarified butter, a levy (rawghan-i sada)

Rica (ridja’) Request; request made in a petition Riius (ru’us) Document of appointment to high office; also, the register where such documents were recorded

Ruznamce, ruzname Daybook; especially, the treasury’s official (ruznamdje, ruznama) daily record of receipts and disbursals in chronological order

Ruznameci (rauznamadji) Finance official in charge of the journal or daybook who recorded all receipts and payments

Saadet ile (sa‘ada ila) With good fortune Salyane (salyana) Lit. “annual,” refers to salaries, provincial revenues, or an annual bonus

Sancak (sandjaq) Lit. “banner,” sub-province, subdivision of an eyalet

Sancak bey (sandjaq begi) Governor of a sancak

Sarag (sarradj) Member of the corps of saddlers

Sarraf (sarraf) Moneychanger :

Sebeb-i tahrir (sabab-i Type of order, so called from the first two

tahrir) words of its opening phrase

Sefer (safar) Campaign (military)

Serbest (sarbast) Lit. “free,” lands free from government inspection and intervention for tax collection purposes

Sicil (sidjill) Register of court cases and imperial orders kept by a kadi

Sikke (sikka) Coin, on which the legitimate ruler’s name appears

Sikke-i filori (sikka-i Gold coin, florin filuri)

Silahdar (silahdar) Sword-bearer, member of one of the standing palace cavalry regiments

Sipahi (sipahi) Cavalryman, either a timar-holder or a member of the standing palace cavalry forces

Siyakat (siyaqat) Cryptic style of script, the shorthand-cumsecret-code of the finance department

GLOSSARY 321 Subasi (subashi) Urban commander, chief of police

Suret (stra) Copy (of a register entry)

Sagird (shagird) Apprentice, rank of scribe below katib (pl. Sagirdan [shagirdan])

Sart (shart) Condition (pl. sartlar or surut [shartlar, shurut]) Sehremini (shahir Purveyor of the city of Istanbul amini)

Semhane (sham‘khana) Candle works, a government monopoly, usually farmed

Seri (shar‘i) According to sharia, Islamic law Seyhiilislam (shaykh al- Grand Mufti of the empire islam)

Sikk-1 evvel (shiqq-i First division of imperial finances awwal)

Sikk-1 salis (shiqq-i Third division of imperial finances thalith)

Sikk-i sani (shiqq-i Second division of imperial finances thani)

Sikayet defteri (shikaya Register of complaints daftari)

Siihud (shuhud) Official court witnesses Tahsilat or hasilat Registers showing the product or yield of defterleri (tahsilat, taxation hasilat daftari)

Tahvil (tahwil) Transfer, assignment, term, or debt; in fiscal matters, refers to the transfer or assignment of tax collection responsibilities to an individual

for a fixed term, the amount to be collected being treated as the individual’s personal debt

Tahvil ruznamce (tahwil Daily record of appointments to tax collection

ruznamdje) responsibilities

Tahvilat (tahwilat) Assignments or transfers; assignments of tax collection responsibilities or of revenues, and registers recording such assignments

Taife (taifa) Group, category of people, religious community Tahrir (tahrir) Taxation survey, held at least once a generation; generated records now used to study land and property use, population, agricultural and industrial production, and commercial trans-

actions during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Tahrir defteri (tahrir Record of taxation survey daftari)

322 GLOSSARY Talebname (talabnama) Document of request (for a tax farm)

Talib (talib) Bidder on a tax farm

Tapu (tapu) Hereditary peasant proprietorship of agricultural land (tapulu yer), confirmed by payment

of a fee (tapu resmi)

Tecdid (tadjdid) Renewal (of a berat) Tefaviit-ti hasene [ve Fee for changing money, charged when taxes

kurus] (tafawut-i assessed in akce were paid in other coinages hasana [wa ghurush])

Teftis (teftish) Inspection, investigation, inquiry (into the state of affairs in the countryside or the behavior of officials)

Tekke (taqqa) Dervish lodge

Telhis (talhis) Report

Temessiik (tamassuk) Document that could be presented as verification

Terakki (taraqqi) Increase (to a timar) Tersane-i admire The imperial dockyards (tarsana-i amira)

Teslim-i hazine (taslim-i Submitted to the treasury khazina)

Teslim tamamen (taslim Submitted in full tamaman)

Teslimat (taslimat) Submissions of tax payments Teslimat defterleri Submissions registers, showing in order of date (taslimat daftarlari) the submissions of tax moneys to the treasury, with the names of the responsible collector and the person submitting the money Teslimatgi (taslimatdyji) Finance official who recorded fabrics and robes and kept track of those removed from the

treasury to be worked or embroidered by palace craftsmen

Tesrifat kanunnamesi Ceremonial code regulating duties, relative

(tashrifat ranks, promotion paths, and privileges of high qanunnamasi) administrative officials Tesrifatci (tashrifatdyji) Finance department official who recorded piskes, gifts and presents

Tetimme (tatimma) Remainder Tevcih (tawdjih) Bestowal (pl. tevcihat [tawdyihat])

Tevzi (tawzi‘) Distribution, redistribution (pl. tevziat [tawzi‘at])

Tevzi-i cizye defterleri Registers of the distribution of the cizye; also

(tawzi‘-i djizya called tevziat-1 cizye, cizye tevzi, or cizye

daftarlari) tevziati

GLOSSARY 323 Tezkire (tadhkira) Memorandum or note Tezkireci (tadhkiradji) Finance official in charge of the bureau that wrote memoranda and notes

Tezkireci-i ahkam Finance official who prepared tezkires for (tadhkiradji-i ahkam) orders on matters not relating to fortress garrisons

Tezkireci-i kild Finance department official who wrote tezkires (tadhkiradji-i qila‘) for orders regarding fortress garrisons Timar defterdari (timar Registrar of timar grants daftadari)

Timar system (timar) Landholding system in which revenues of rural and urban production and exchange were surveyed and registered and awarded as grants called timars in lieu of salary or other recompense to members of the Ottoman ruling class military personnel, administrators and judges,

and members of the ruling house

Topcu (tubdju) Cannoneer (pl. topcuyan [tubdjuyan]) Tophane (tabkhana) Imperial arsenal Tugra (tughra) Sultan’s characteristic monogram, serving as his signature

Tuzcu (tuzdju) Salt maker, exempt from avariz Tuna defterdari (Tuna Defterdar of the Danube, head of the third

defterdari) division (sikk-1 salis) of treasury finances

Ulema (‘ulama’) Scholars of the Islamic sciences, upper layer of religious hierarchy

Ulufeciyan-i yemin, Units of the standing palace cavalry force ulufeciyan-1 yesdar

(ultfadjiyan-i yamin, ‘ulufadjiyan-i yasar)

Vakif (waqf) Pious foundation, property dedicated in perpetuity whose revenue supports a religious or charitable purpose (pl. efkaf [awqaf])

Varidat (waridat) Income

Varidatci (waridatdyji) Finance official responsible for recording incoming payments to the treasury

Vazifehoran Pensioners (wazifakhwaran)

Veled (walad) Son of; in certain cases, but not in finance department salary registers, indicates a nonMuslim

Vezir-i dzam (wazir-i Grand vizier a‘dham)

324 GLOSSARY Vilayet-i ‘Arab Province consisting of the Arab lands and (wilayat-i ‘arab) eastern Anatolia Voynuk (Voynuk) Member of a non-Muslim military group Voyvoda (woywoda) Deputy, especially a financial agent in a kaza

Vuzi‘a min zalike Deposited out of that (out of a total sum) (wudi‘a min dhalika)

Yarar (yarar) Suitable or fit for a job Yasakci (yasaqdji) Enforcer of kanun, especially of iltizam regulations

Yava cizye (yawa Poll tax paid by non-Muslims who had left

djizya) their original place of residence Yayabasi (yayabashi) Officer of foot soldiers Yazici (yazidji) Registrar

Yekiin (yakun) Total

Yerli yurtlu (yerli Local resident yurtli)

Zam (zamm) Increase

Zam-i cedid (zamm-i New increase (in taxes) djadid)

Zaviye (zawiya) Dervish lodge

Zeamet (zi‘ama) Medium-sized revenue grant in the timar system, given to sancak beys, beys of the standing army, and administrators

Zimmet (dhimma) Debt, arrears Ziyade (ziyada) Increase; can refer to a raise in salary or in the level of a tax or iltizam

Ziyade-i cizye (ziyada-i Extra cizye, increase in cizye djizya)

Ziyade-i ciilus (ziyada-i Accession increase djulus)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Unpublished Documents Basbakanlik Arsivi, Ali Emiri Tasnifi, a collection containing mainly individual documents:

Kanuni 26, 50, 139, 198, 199, 221, 269, 271, 274, 275, 382, 383, III. Murad 176, 177, 286, 355, 400, 407, Il]. Mehmed 75, 76, 85, 170, 212, 244, I. Ahmed 5, 29, 52, 97, 110, 130, 166, 200, 205, 206, 240, 241, 242, 243, 277, 281, 336, 407, 479, 510, 610, 622, 658, 690, 726, 738, 751, 783, 798, 814, 852, I. Mustafa 1, 5, IL. Osman 27, IV. Murad 22, 53, 313, 509. Basbakanhk Arsivi, Bab-1 Defteri: groups of finance department registers. Basbakanlik Arsivi, Ibniilemin Tasnifi, mainly individual documents: 42. Basbakanlik Arsivi, Kamil Kepeci Tasnifi, finance department registers: 67, 218, 264, 717, 720, 1770, 1785, 1866, 1868, 1873, 1949, 1954, 1955, 1956, 2219, 2267, 2281, 2282, 2283, 2284, 2285, 2286, 2547, 2556, 2558, 2559, 2567, 2571, 2574, 2576, 2590, 2593, 2614, 3398, 3801, 4990, 4994, 5003, 5008, 5012, 5019, 5167, 5172, 5271, 5276, 6593. Basbakanlik Arsivi, Maliyeden Miidevver Tasnifi, a collection of registers produced by the finance department: 241 (115), 256 (14783), 267 (2775), 323 (6874), 331 (17862), 357 (20115), 404 (17950), 560 (14586), 564 (15405), 657 (5240), 663 (14929), 687 (9820), 836 (14713), 849 (18142), 856 (3255), 863 (1460), 895 (14725), 1054 (14806), 1176 (624), 1257 (1786), 1294 (15615), 1308 (693), 1476 (7486), 1488 (651), 1491 (16596), 1500 (284), 1513 (7316), 1520 (5334), 1541 (1583), 1579 (15715), 1630 (15674), 1657 (23097), 1660 (22203), 1675 (15952), 1746 (597), 1922 (5222), 2134 (15824), 2159 (2725), 2224 (236), 2252 (7726), 2256 (5712), 2316m (1828), 2365 (174), 2385 (594), 2428 (5331), 2517 (14730), 2550 (5855), 2635 (15518), 2663 (18304), 2728 (3457), 2770 (16163), 2930 (14588), 3205 (14638), 3442 (15884), 3711 (3083), 3872 (15410), 3881 (2765), 3891 (14839), 3919 (9832), 4118 (1888), 4287 (12585), 4462 (4402), 4464 (4518), 4569 (14797), 4646 (7455). Basbakanlik Arsivi, Maliyeden Miidevver Zeyli (continuation): 22603 (9824). Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi Arsivi: E. 301. Siileymaniye Kiitiiphanesi: MS Atif Efendi 1734, fols. 124b—131a. Reference Works Aktas, Necati, and Ismet Binark. Arshif al-‘Uthmani: Fihris Shamil li-Watha@’iq al-Dawlah al-Uthmaniyah al-Tabi‘ah li-Ri’asat al-Wuzard@ bi-Istanbul. Trans. Salih Sa‘dawi.

Istanbul: Markaz al-Abhath lil-Ta’rikh wa-al-Funin wa-al-Thaqafah al-Islamiyah, 1986.

Avery, Robert, ed. Redhouse Yeni Tiirkce-Ingilizce Sézliik! New Redhouse Turkish-English

Dictionary. Istanbul: Redhouse Press, 1968. Cetin, Atilla. Basbakanlik Argivi Kilavuzu. Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1979. Elker, Salahaddin. Divan Rakamlari. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 22. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1953. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by M. Th. Houtsma, T.W. Arnold, R. Bosset, R. Hartmann. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1013-36. New Edition (E/2) edited by Sir Hamilton A.R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, E. Lévy-Provencal, J. Schackt, B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960-.

326 BIBLIOGRAPHY Giinday, Diindar. Arsiv Belgelerinde Siyakat Yazisi Ozellikleri ve Divan Rakamlari. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 57. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1974.

Islam Ansiklopedesi. Edited by M. Th. Houtsma, et al. Istanbul: Maarif Matbaasi, 1940-. Pakalin, Mehmet Zeki. Osmanli Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri S6ézliigii. 3 vols. Istanbul:

Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1946. Pitcher, Donald Edgar. A Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire: From Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972. Redhouse, Sir James W., ed. A Turkish and English Lexicon. New ed. Istanbul: Cagn Yayinlan, 1978. Reychmann, Jan, and Ananiasz Zajaczkowski. Handboook of Ottoman-Turkish Diplomatics.

Translated by Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz. The Hague: Mouton, 1968. Sertoglu, Midhat. Muhteva Bakimindan Basvekdlet Arsivi. Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-

| Cografya Fakiiltesi Yaymlan, 103. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1955. Unat, Faik Resit. Hicri Tarihleri Miladi Tarihe Cevirme Kilavuzu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 37. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1974. Yazir, Mehmet Behcet. Siyakat Yazisi. Istanbul: Vakiflar Umum Miidiirliigzii Nesriyati, 1941.

Published Documents and Secondary Sources

Abdul Rahman, Abdul Rahim. “Financial Burdens on the Peasants under the Aegis of the Iltizam System in Egypt.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 12 (1976): 122-38. Abou-El-Haj, Rifa‘at ‘Ali. “Aspects of the Legitimation of Ottoman Rule as Reflected in the Preambles to Two Early Liva Kanunnameler.” Turcica 21—23 (1991): 373-83. ———.. “Fitnah, Huruc ala al-Sultan, and Nasihat: Political Struggle and Social Conflict in Ottoman Society, 1560’s—1700’s.” In Actes du Vle symposium du Comité international d’ études pre-ottomanes et ottomanes, 185-91. Edited by Jean-Louis

Bacqué-Grammont and Emeri van Donzel. Varia Turcica, 4. Istanbul: Divit Yayincilik, 1987. ———. Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. ———. “The Nature of the Ottoman State in the Latter Part of the XVIIth Century.” In Habsburgisch-osmanische Beziehungen, 171-85. Edited by Andreas Tietze. Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 13. Vienna: Verlag des Verbandes der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Osterreichs, 1985. ———. “The Ottoman Nasihatname as a Discourse over ‘Morality’.” Revue d’ histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 15—30. ———. “Power and Social Order: The Uses of the Kanun,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, 77-99. Edited by Irene A. Bierman, Rifa‘at ‘Ali. Abou-El-Haj, and Donald Preziosi. Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991. ———. “Review Article: I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550-1650.” Osmanl Arastirmalari 6 (1986): 221-46. ———. The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics. Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 52. N.p.: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1984. Abu Yusuf. Kitab al-Kharaj. Translated by A. Ben Shemesh. Taxation in Islam, 3. Leiden: E.J. Brill; London: Luzac & Co., 1969. Adas, Michael. “Market Demand Versus Imperial Control: Colonial Contradictions and the Origins of Agrarian Protest in South and Southeast Asia.” In Global Crises and Social Movements: Artisans, Peasants, Populists, and the World Economy, 89-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 327 116. Edited by Edmund Burke, III. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. Adshead, S.A.M. “The Seventeenth-Century General Crisis in China.” France-Asie 24 (1970): 251-65. Akarli, Engin D. “The State as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon and Political Participation in Turkey.” In Political Participation in Turkey: Historical Background and Present Problems, 135-55. Edited by Engin D. Akarli and Gabriel Ben-Dor. Istanbul: Bogazici University, Department of Social Sciences, 1975. Akdag, Mustafa. “Celali Isyanlarindan Biiyiik Kacgunluk.” Tarih Arastirmalari Dergisi 2 (1964): 1-49. —. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunun Kurulus ve Inkisafi Devrinde Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi Vaziyeti.” Belleten 13 (1949): 497-568; 14 (1950): 319-411. —. Tiirk Halkinin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavgasi (= Celdli Isyanlari). Ankara: Bilgi Yayinevi, 1975. ——.. Tiirkiye’nin Iktisadi ve I¢timai Tarihi. 2 vols. Istanbul: Cem Yayinlan, 1959. Akgiindtiz, Ahmet. Osmanli Kanunnameleri ve Hukuki Tahlilleri. 7 vols. to date. Istanbul:

Isis Press, 1990-. Aksan, Virginia H. “Feeding the Troops in the 1768-74 Russo-Turkish War.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 18 (1994): 27-28. Aktepe, Miinir. “XVII. Asra ait Istanbul Kazasi Avariz Defteri.” [stanbul Enstitiisii Dergisi

3 (1957): 109-39, Allsen, Thomas T. Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Mongke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Amedroz, H.F. “The Mazalim Jurisdiction in the Ahkam Sultaniyya of Mawardi.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1911: 635-74. Amin, Samir. Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism. Translated by Brian Pearce. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976. Andreasyan, Hrand D. “Celalilerden Kagan Anadolu Halkinin Geri Gonderilmesi.” In Ord. Prof. Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsil’ya Armagan, 45-54. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlani, ser. 7, no. 70. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1976. Anhegger, Robert. Beitrdge zur Geschichte des Bergbaus im Osmanischen Reich. Istanbuler Schriften, 2. Istanbul: Maarmara Basimevi, 1943. ———.. “Martoloslar Hakkinda.” Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi 7-8 (1940-42): 282-328. Arif, Mehmet. “Kanunname-i Al-1 Osman.” TOEM suppl. 3 (1330/1912). Artuk, Ibrahim. Kanuni Sultan Siileyman Adina Basilan Sikkeler. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 58. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1972. Asch, Ronald G., and Adolf M. Birke, eds. Princes, Patronage, and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, c. 1450-1650. Studies of the German Historical Institute, London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Asdrachas, Spyros. “Sociétés rurales balkaniques aux XV°-XVI° si¢cles: mouvements de la population et des revenus.” Etudes Balkaniques 13 (1977): 49-66. Ashton, Robert. “Revenue Farming under the Early Stuarts.” Economic History Review

ser. 2, vol. 8 (1956): 310-22. Asiwaju, A.J. “Migrations as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945.” Journal of African History 4 (1976): 577-94. Aston, Trevor, ed. Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. Ataman, Bekir Kemal. “Ottoman Demographic History (14th-17th Centuries): Some Considerations.” JESHO 35 (1992): 187-98.

Atwell, William S. “Ming Observers of Ming Decline: Some Chinese Views on the ‘Seventeenth-Century Crisis’ in Comparative Perspective.” JRAS no. 2 (1988): 316-48. Aykut, Nezihi. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Sikke Tecdidleri.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 13 (1983-87): 257-97. Aymard, Maurice. Venise, Raguse et le commerce du blé pendant la seconde moitié du XVI¢ siécle. Paris: Ecole pratique des hautes études, 1966.

328 BIBLIOGRAPHY Badian, E. Publicans and Sinners: Private Enterprise in the Service of the Roman Republic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983. Bakhit, Muhammad Adnan. The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century. Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1982. ——. “Sidon in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Times.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 3 (1982): 53-68. Barkan, Omer Liitfi. “Avariz.” JA 2: 13-19. ——_—. “Bazi Biiyiik Sehirlerde Esya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarinin Tesbit ve Teftisi Hususlarin

Tanzim Eden Kanunlar.” Tarih Vesikalari 1 (1941/42): 326-40; 2 (1942/43): 1540, 168-77. ——, “1070-1071 (1660-1661) Tarihli Osman: Biitcesi ve Bir Mukayese.” JUIFM 17 (1955/56): 304-347. ———. “1079-1080 (1669-1670) Mali Yilina ait Bir Osmanli Biitgesi ve Ek’leri.” JUIFM 17 (1955/56): 225-303. ———., “954-955 (1547-1548) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcesi.” /UIFM 19 (1957/ 58): 219-76. —_——. “Edirne ve Civarindaki Bazi ImAret Tesislerinin Yillik Muhasebe Bilancolar (2 fotokopi ile birlikte).” Belgeler 1 (1964): 235-377. ———. “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans |’empire ottoman aux XV° et XVI° siécles.” JESHO 1 (1958): 9-36. ——., “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Malt Yilina ait bir Biitece Ornegi.” JUIFM 15 (1953/

54): 251-329. ;,

———. “H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali Yilina ait bir Osmanli Biitcesi.” JUIFM 19 (1957/58): 277-332. ———. “Istanbul Saraylari’nin ait Muhasebe Defterleri.” Belgeler 9 (1979): 1-380. ——. “Les mouvements des prix en Turquie entre 1490 et 1655.” In Histoire économique du monde méditerranean, 145-1650: Mélanges en I’ honneur de Fernand Braudel, 65-79. Toulouse: Privat, 1973. ———.. “XV. Asrin Sonunda Bazi Biiytik Sehirlerde Esya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarinin Tesbit ve Teftisi Hususlarin1 Tanzim Eden Kanunlar.” Tarih Vesikalari 1, no. 5 (1942): 323—40, 2, no. 7 (1942): 15-40, and 2, no. 9 (1942): 168-77. ———. “XV ve XVlinci Asirlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Toprak Isciliginin Organizasyonu sekilleri: Kulluklar ve Ortakci Kullar.” JUIFM 1 (1939): 29-74, 198245, 397-447. ——., XV. ve XVIinci Asirlarda Osmanl Imparatorlugunda Zirai Ekonominin Hukuku

ve Mali Esaslari. Vol. 1: Kanunlar. Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlari, 256. Istanbul: Tiirkiyat Enstitiisii Nesriyati, Burhaneddin Matbaasi, 1943.

——. “Osmanli Imparatorlugu °Biitce’leri’ne dair Notlar.” [UIFM 15 (1953/54): 238-50. ———., “Osmanli Imparatorlugu Biitcelerine dair Notlar.” JUIFM 17 (1955/56): 193-224.

———. “The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire.” /JMES 6 (1975): 3-28. ——. “Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys.” In Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, 163-71. Edited by M.A. Cook. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. ———. “894 (1488/1489) Yili Cizyesinin Tahsilatina 4it Muhasebe Bilancolari.” Belgeler 1 (1964): 1-117. ———. “The Social Consequences of Economic Crisis in Later Sixteenth Century Turkey.” In Social Aspects of Economic Development: Proceedings of the 2nd International

Conference on Social Aspects of Economic Development, Istanbul, 1963, 17-36. Istanbul: Economic and Social Studies Conference Board, 1964.

——. “Timar.” JA 12: 186-333.

———. “Tiirkiye’de Imparatorluk Devirlerinin Biiyiik Niifus ve Arazi Tahrirleri ve Hakana

Mahsus Istatistik Defterleri.” (UIFM 2 (1940-41): 20-59, 21447. ———.. Tiirkiye’de Toprak Meselesi: Toplu Eserler, I. Istanbul: G6zlem Yayinlan, 1980.

Barker, Thomas Mack. Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy: Essays on War, Society, and

BIBLIOGRAPHY 329 Government in Austria, 1618—1780. War and Society in East Central Europe, 7. Boulder: Social Science Monographs, 1982. Barkey, Karen. Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Peculiar Route of Ottoman State Centralization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994. —. “Rebellious Alliances: The State and Peasant Unrest in Early Seventeenth-Century France and the Ottoman Empire.” American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 699-715. Bayard, F. “Fermes et traités en France dans la premiére moitié du XVII° siécle.” Bulletin du Centre d’ Histoire Economique et Sociale de la Région Lyonnaise 4 (1975): 45-80.

Bayerle, Gustav. Ottoman Tributes in Hungary: According to Sixteenth Century Tapu Registers of Novigrad. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. Becker, C.H. “Steuerpacht und Lehnswesen.” Der Islam 5 (1914): 81-92. Beik, William. Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Beldiceanu, Nicoara. Le Timar dans Il’ état ottoman (début XIVe-début XVI° siécle). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1980. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Iréne. Recherches sur les actes des régnes des sultans Osman, Orkhan

et Murad I. Acta Historica, 7. N.p.: Societas Academica Dacoromana, 1967. ———., and Nicoara Beldiceanu. “Réglement ottoman concernant le recensement (premiére

moitié du XVI° siécle).” Siidost-Forschungen 39 (1978): 1-40. Belin, M. Essais dur I’ histoire économique de la Turquie, d’aprés les écrivains originaux. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1865. Bercé, Yves-Marie. History of Peasant Revolts: The Social Origins of Rebellion in Early Modern France. Translated by Amanda Whitmore. Cambridge: Polity Press/Basil Blackwell, 1990.

——. Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe: An Essay on the History of Political Violence. Translated by Joseph Bergin. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987. Berindei, Mihnea, and Gilles Veinstein. “Les possessions ottomanes entre Bas-Danube et Bas-Dniepr. Reglements fiscaux et fiscalité de Bender-Aqkerman.” Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique 22 (1981): 251-328. Berktay, Halil. “The Feudalism Debate: The Turkish End—Is ‘Tax-vs.-Rent’ Necessarily the Product and Sign of a Modal Difference?” Journal of Peasant Studies 14, no. 3 (1986/87): 291-333. ————. “Three Empires and the Societies They Governed: Iran, India and the Ottoman Empire.” In New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History, 242-63. Edited by Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroghi. London: Frank Cass, 1992. ———, and Suraiya Faroghi, eds. New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History. London: Frank Cass, 1992. Beydilli, Kemal. “Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson (Muradcan Tosunyan).” Tarih Dergisi 34 (1983-84): 247-314. Biegman, Nicolaas H. The Turco-Ragusan Relationship, According to the Firmans of Murad III (1575-1595) Extant in the State Archives of Dubrovnik. The Hague: Mouton, 1967.

Bien, David D. “The Secrétaires du Roi: Absolutism, Corps, and Privilege under the Ancien Régime.” In Vom Ancien Régime zur Franzosischen Revolution: Forschungen und Perspektiven, 153-68. Edited by Ernst Hinrichs, Eberhard Schmitt, and Rudolph Vierhaus. Verdéffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts fiir Geschichte, 55. Gottingen:

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978. Biettry-Elifoglu, Eugenie. “Ottoman Defters Containing Ages of Children: A New Source for Demographic Research.” Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 321-28. Birn, Raymond. Crisis, Absolutism, Revolution: Europe, 1648—1789/91. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden

Press, 1977.

Bodin, Jean. The Six Bookes of a Commonweale. A Facsimile reprint of the English

330 BIBLIOGRAPHY translation of 1606... [by Richard Knolles]. Edited by Kenneth Douglas McRae. Rpt. ed., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Bonney, Richard J. “The Failure of the French Revenue Farms, 1600-60.” Economic History Review ser. 2, vol. 32 (1979): 11-32. ———. The King’s Debts: Finance and Politics in France, 1589-1661. Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1980. .

Bostan, Idris. Osmanl Bahriye Teskilatu: XVII. Yiizyilda Tersdne-i Amire. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlani, ser. 7, no. 101. Ankara:

Tirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1992. Bowen, Harold. “‘Awarid.” E/2 1: 760-61. Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Translated by Sian Reynolds. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Briefe aus dem British Museum (LIH und CT2-33). Edited by R. Frankena. Altbabylonische

Briefe im Umschrift und Ubersetzung, 2. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966. Brown, Nathan J. Peasant Politics in Modern Egypt: The Struggle Against the State. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Burke, Edmund, III, and Walter Goldfrank. “Introduction.” In Global Crises and Social Movements: Artisans, Peasants, Populists, and the World Economy. Edited by Edmund Burke, III. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988. Burns, Robert Ignatius, S.J. Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Bursa Kadi Sicilleri. Uludag: Bursa Halkevi Dergisi 7 (1936). Bushkovitch, Paul. “Taxation, Tax Farming, and Merchants in Sixteenth-Century Russia.” Slavic Review 38 (1978): 383-398. Cahen, Claude, and Halil Inalcik. “Djizya.” El2 2: 559-66. Calhoun, Craig Jackson. “The Radicalism of Tradition: Community Strength or Venerable Disguise and Borrowed Language?” American Journal of Sociology 5 (1983): 886-914. Cezar, Mustafa. “Osmanl: Devrinde Istanbul Yapilarinda Tahribat Yapan Yanginlar ve Tabii Afetler.” Tiirk Tarih Arastirma ve Incelemeler 1 (1963): 327-414.

—. Osmanli Tarihinde Levendler. Istanbul Giizel Sanatlar Akademisi Yayinlar, 28. Istanbul: Celikcilt Matbaasi, 1965. Christensen, Arthur Emmanuel. L’/ran sous les Sassanides. 2nd ed. Osnabriick: O. Zeller, 1971.

Cohen, Amnon. Jewish Life under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. ———. “New Evidence on Demographic Change: The Jewish Community in 16th Century Jerusalem.” In Mémorial Omer Liitfi Barkan, 57-64. Bibliothéque de 1’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 28. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1980. ———-, and Bernard Lewis. Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Collins, James B. Fiscal Limits of Absolutism: Direct Taxation in Early SeventeenthCentury France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Constantinescu, Ioana. “L’Affermage des domaines aux paysans corvéables dans les principautés danubiennes sous le régime phanariote.” Revue roumaine d’ histoire 20 (1981): 517-34. Cook, M.A. Population Pressure in Rural Anatolia, 1450-1600. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. Corrigan, Philip, and Derek Sayer. The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution. Revised ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Coveney, P.J. “An Early Modern European Crisis?” Renaissance and Modern Studies 20 (1982): 1-26. ———., ed. France in Crisis, 1620-1675. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 331 Craig, John. A History of Red Tape: An Account of the Origin and Development of the Civil Service. London: Macdonald and Evans, Ltd., 1955. Crane, Howard. “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy.” In The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, 173-243. Edited by Irene A. Bierman, Rifa‘at ‘Ali. Abou-El-Haj, and Donald Preziosi. Subsidia Balcanica, Islamica et Turcica, 3. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991. Cvetkova, Bistra A. “Contribution 4 |’étude des impots extraordinaires (avariz-1 divaniye ve tekalif-i Srfiye) en Bulgarie sous la domination turque: L’impot ‘nuzul’.” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 23 (1959): 57-65. — —. “Early Ottoman Tahrir Defters as a Source for Studies on the History of Bulgaria and the Balkans.” Archivum Ottomanicum 8 (1983): 133-214. ———. “Influence exercée par certaines institutions de Byzance et des Balkans du moyen age sur le systéme féodal ottoman.” Byzantino-Bulgarica 1 (1962): 237-57.

—. Les institutions ottomanes en Europe. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Verdffentlichungen der Orientalischen Kommission, 32. Wiesbaden: Franz

Steiner Verlag, 1978. ———. “Recherches sur le systéme d’affermage (i/tizam) dans 1’Empire Ottoman au cours

du XVI°-XVIII* s. par rapport aux contrées bulgares.” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 27 (1964): 111-32. Cagatay, Neset. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Reayadan Alinan Vergi ve Resimler.” AUDTCFD 5 (1947): 483-511. Cizakca, Murat. “Incorporation of the Middle East into the European World-Economy.” Review 8 (1985): 353-78. ———. “Tax-Farming and Financial Decentralization in the Ottoman Economy, 1520— 1697.” Journal of European Economic History 22 (1993): 219-50. Daly, James. “The Idea of Absolute Monarchy in Seventeenth-Century England.” Historical Journal 21 (1978): 227—SO. Daniel, Norman. [slam and the West: The Making of an Image. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960; rpt. ed. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1993. Dankoff, Robert. Introduction to Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes, by Yusuf Khass Hajib. Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 16. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Darling, Linda T. “Avariz Tahriri: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Ottoman Survey Registers.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 10 (1986): 23-26. ————. “The Ottoman Empire through British Eyes: Paul Rycaut’s The Present State of the Ottoman Empire.” Journal of World History 5 (1993): 71-98. ———. “The Ottoman Finance Department and the Assessment and Collection of the Cizye and Avariz Taxes, 1560-1660.” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1990.

———. “Ottoman Salary Registers as a Source for Economic and Social History.” Turkish

Studies Association Bulletin 14 (1990): 13-33.

David, Géza. “The Age of Unmarried Children in the Tahrir-Defters (Notes on the Coefficient).” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 31 (1977): 347-57. ———. “Financial Policy in a Hungarian Sanjaq (The Case of Simontornya).” In Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe, 23-29. Edited

by Gyorgy Kara. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Group for Altaistic Studies. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1987. ——. “Some Aspects of 16th Century Depopulation in the Sanjaq of Simontornya.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 28 (1974): 63-74. de Tassy, Garcin. “Principes de Sagesse, touchant |’art de gouverner.” Journal Asiatique 4 (1824): 213-26, 283-90. “Defterdar.” [A 3: 506. Dent, Julian. Crisis in Finance: Crown, Financiers and Society in Seventeenth-Century France. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973.

332 BIBLIOGRAPHY Dietz, Frederick Charles. “Elizabethan Customs Administration.” English Historical Review

45 (1930): 35-57. —. English Public Finance, 1485-1641. 2 vols. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964. ————. The Receipts and Issues of the Exchequer during the Reigns of James I and Charles I. Smith College Studies in History, 13, no. 4. Northampton, MA: The Department of History of Smith College, 1928. Dilger, Konrad. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des osmanischen Hofzeremoniells im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Beitrige zur Kenntnis Siidosteuropas und des Nahen Orients, 4. Munich: Rudolf Trofenik, 1967.

d’Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea. Tableau général de l’empire ottoman. 7 vols. Paris: F. Didot, 1788-1824. Dominguez Ortiz, Antonio. La sociedad espanola en el siglo XVII. 2 vols. Monografias historico-sociales, 7. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto “Balmes” de Sociologia, Departamente de Historia Social, 1963-70. Eisenstadt, S[hmuel] N[oah]. The Political Systems of Empires. New York: Macmillan Co., Free Press of Glencoe, 1963. Elias, Norbert. State Formation and Civilization. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993.

Elliott, J.H. “The Decline of Spain.” Past & Present 20 (1961): 52-75. —. Imperial Spain: 1469-1716. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964. ———. “Self-Perception and Decline in Early Seventeenth-Century Spain.” Past & Present

74 (1977): 41-61. Emecen, Feridun M. “Kayacik Kazasinin Avariz Defteri.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 12 (1981): 159-70. ———. XVI. Asirda Manisa Kazdasi. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu. Tiirk

Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 14, no. 6. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1989.

Epstein, Mark Alan. The Ottoman Jewish Communities and Their Role in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 56. Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1980. Ercan, Yavuz. Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Bulgarlar ve Voynuklar. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 7, no. 88. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1986. ———. “Osmanl: Imparatorlugu’nda Gayrimiislimlerin Odedikleri Vergiler ve Bu Vergilerin Dogurdugu Sosyal Sonuclar.” Belleten 55 (1991): 371-91. ———.. “The Taxes Imposed on the Voynuks and Those from Which They Were Exempted.” Revue des études sud-est européenes 21 (1983): 341-48. Erder, Leila. “Measurement of Pre-Industrial Population Changes: The Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the 17th Century.” Middle Eastern Studies 11 (1975): 284-301. Ergenc, Ozer. “1600-1615 Yillari arasinda Ankara iktisadi Tarihine ait Arastirmalar.” In Tiirkiye Iktisat Tarihi Semineri, Metinler/Tartigmalar, 145-68. Edited by Osman Okyar and H. Unal Nalbentoglu. Hacettepe Universitesi Yayinlar1, C13. Ankara: Hacettepe Universitesi, 1975. ——.. “XVI. Yiizyilin Sonlarinda Osmanli Parasi iizerinde Yapilan Islemlere Iliskin Bazi Bilgiler.” Tiirkiye Iktisat Tarihi iizerine Arastirmalar. Gelisme Dergisi, Ozel Sayist (1978): 86-97. —. “Osmanli Sehrindeki ‘Mahalle’nin Islev ve Nitelikleri Uzerine.” Osman Arastirmalari 4 (1984): 69-78. Eshkenazi, Eli. “Za Nachina na Subiraneto na Niakoi Danutsi v Zapadna Bulgariia prez XIX V. do Osvobozhdenieto.” Izvestiia na Instituta za Istoriia 16-17 (1966): 333-45. Evans, Peter B., Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Evans, Robert John Weston. The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 333 Evliya Celebi. The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588—1662) as Portrayed in Evliya Celebi’ s Book of Travels. Translated by Robert Dankoff. SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Fales, Frederick Mario. Censimenti e catasti di epoca neo-assira. Studia Economici e Tecnolgici, 2. Rome: Centro per le Antichita e la Storia dell’ Arte del Vicino Oriente, 1973.

Faroghi, Suraiya. “Agricultural Crisis and the Art of Flute-Playing: The Worldly Affairs of the Mevlevi Dervishes (1592~1652).” Turcica 20 (1988): 43-70. ——. “Alum Production and Alum Trade in the Ottoman Empire (about 1560—1830).” WZKM 71 (1979): 153-75. ———. “Anadolu Iskam ile Terkedilmig Kéyler Sorunu (The Settlement of Anatolia and the Problem of Deserted Villages).” In Tiirkiye Toplumsal Bilim Arastirmalarinda Yaklasimlar ve Yonetimler Semineri, 289-302. Edited by Seyfi Karabas and Yasar Yesilcay. Ankara: Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi, 1977. ———. “Coffee and Spices: Official Ottoman Reactions to Egyptian Trade in the Later Sixteenth Century.” WZKM 76 (1986): 87-93. ——. “Counterfeiting in Ankara.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 281-92. —__——-. “Crisis and Change, 1590-1699.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, 411-636. Edited by Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ———. “The Early History of the Balkan Fairs.” Siidost-Forschungen 37 (1978): 50-69. ——. “A Great Foundation in Difficulties: or Some Evidence on Economic Contraction

in the Ottoman Empire of the Mid-Seventeenth Century.” Revue d histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 109-21. ———. Introduction to New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History, 3— 17. Edited by Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroghi. London: Frank Cass, 1992. ——. “Land Transfer, Land Disputes and Asker? Holdings in Ankara (1592—1600).” In Mémorial Omer Liitfi Barkan, 87-99. Bibliothéque de 1’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 28. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1980.

——. “Die Legitimation des Osmanensultans: Zur Beziehung von Religion, Kunst und Politik im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift fiir Turkeistudien 2 (1989): 49-67. ———. “Long-Term Change and the Ottoman Construction Site: A Study of Builders’ Wages and Iron Prices.” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 111-26. ———. Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in SeventeenthCentury Ankara and Kayseri. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ————. “Mohair Manufacture and Mohair Workshops in Seventeenth-Century Ankara.” Omer Liitfi Barkan’a Armagan: IUIFM 41 (1984): 211-36. ———. “Notes on the Production of Cotton and Cotton Cloth in 16th and 17th Century Anatolia.” Journal of European Economic History 8 (1979): 405-17. ——. “The Peasants of Saideli in the Late Sixteenth Century.” Archivum Ottomanicum 8 (1983): 215-50. ——. Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans. London: [.B. Tauris, 1994. ———. “Political Activity among Ottoman Taxpayers and the Problem of Sultanic Legitimation (1570—1650).” JESHO 35 (1992): 1-39. ———. “Political Initiatives ‘From the Bottom Up’ in the Sixteenth- and SeventeenthCentury Ottoman Empire: Some Evidence for Their Existence.” In Osmanistische Studien zur Wirschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in Memoriam Vanco Boskov, 24-33. Edited by Hans Georg Majer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986. ——. “Political Tensions in the Anatolian Countryside Around 1600: An Attempt at Interpretation.” In Tiirkische Miszellen: Festschrift Robert Anhegger, 117-30. Varia Turcica, 9. Istanbul: Divit Press, 1987.

334 BIBLIOGRAPHY ——. “Recent Work in the Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire (1450-— 1800).” Trends in History 2, No. 3 (1982): 15-34. ———. “Sixteenth-Century Periodic Markets in Various Anatolian Sancaks: I¢el, Hamid, Karahisar-i Sahib, Kiitahya, Aydin, and Mentese.” JESHO 22 (1979): 32-80. ———. “Taxation and Urban Activities in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 1 (1979-80): 19-53. ———. “Textile Production in Rumeli and the Arab Provinces: Geographical Distribution and Internal Trade.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 1 (1980): 61-83. ——. “Town Officials, Timar-Holders, and Taxation: The Late Sixteenth-Century Crisis as Seen from Corum.” Turcica 18 (1986): 53-82. ———. “Towns, Agriculture and the State in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Anatolia,” J/ESHO

33 (1990): 125-56.

———. Towns and Townsmen in Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts, and Food Production

in an Urban Setting, 1520-1650. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ————. “The Venetian Presence in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-30.” In The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, 311-44. Edited by Huri Islamoglu-Inan. Studies in Modern

Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———., and Leila Erder. “The Development of the Anatolian Urban Network during the Sixteenth Century.” JESHO 23 (1980): 265-303. ———., and Leila Erder. “Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia, 1550-1620.” Middle Eastern Studies 15 (1979): 322-45. ———., and Huri Islamoglu. “Crop Patterns and Agricultural Production Trends in Sixteenth Century Anatolia.” Review 1 (1978/9): 401-36. Feierman, Steven. Peasant [ntellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

Fekete, Lajos. Einfiihrung in die osmanisch-tiirkische Diplomatik der tiirkischen Botmassigkeit in Ungarn. Budapest: K6nigliche Ungarische Staatsarchivs, 1926. ———.. Die Siyagat-Schrift in der Tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung. Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, 7. 2 vols. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1955. ———. “Tiirk Vergi Tahrirleri.” Belleten 11 (1947): 299-328. ————, and Gyula Kaldy-Nagy. Rechnungsbiicher Tiirkischer Finanzstellen in Buda (Ofen),

1550-1580. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1962. Feridun Bey, Ahmed. Mecmu‘a-i Miinse‘at-i Selatin. 2 vols. Istanbul: Dar et-Tiba‘a el‘Amire, 1848-49. Field, Daniel. Rebels in the Name of the Tsar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Filipovic, Nedim. “O izrazu ‘tahvil’—L’expression ‘tahvil’.” POF 2 (1951-52): 239-247. Findley, Carter V[aughn]. “The Legacy of Tradition to Reform: Origins of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry.” IJMES 1 (1970): 334—57. ———-. Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History. Princeton Studies on the Near East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Finkel, Caroline Ballingal. The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606. Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Band 14. Vienna: VWGO, 1988. Fleischer, Cornell H. “Between the Lines: Realities of Scribal Life in the Sixteenth Century.”

In Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V.L. Ménage, 45-61. Edited by Colin Heywood and Colin Imber. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994. ———. Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600). Princeton Studies on the Near East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. ———. “From Sehzade Korkud to Mustafa Ali: Cultural Origins of the Nasihatname.” In III. Congress on the Social and Economic History of Turkey, 67-77. Edited by Heath W. Lowry and Ralph S. Hattox. Varia Turcica, 15. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990. ——_—. “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Stileyman.” In Siileymadn the Magnificent and His Time, 159-77. Edited by Gilles

BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 Veinstein. Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales. Paris: La documentation francaise, 1992. ——. “Preliminaries to the Study of the Ottoman Bureaucracy.” Raiyyet Riisiimu: Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 135-42. —. “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and ‘Ibn Khaldiinism’ in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Letters.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 18 (1983): 198-220. Fodor, Pal. “State and Society, Crisis and Reform, in 15th-17th Century Ottoman Mirrors for Princes.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 60 (1986): 217-40. Franklin, Julian H. Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Frantz-Murphy, Gladys. The Agrarian Administration of Egypt from the Arabs to the

Ottomans. Supplément aux annales islamologiques, 9. Cairo: Institut francais d’archéologie orientale, 1986. Frye, Richard N. The Heritage of Persia. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. Galanté, Abraham. Esther Kyra, d’ aprés de nouveaux documents. Istanbul: Société Anonyme

de Papeterie et d’Imprimerie (Fr. Haim), 1926. Galotta, A. “Khayr al-Din.” E/2 4: 1157. Gerber, Haim. Economy and Society in an Ottoman City: Bursa 1600-1700. Max Schoessinger Memorial Series, 3. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1988. ———. “Jewish Tax-Farmers in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th Centuries.” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 143-54. ——. “Jews and Moneylending in the Ottoman Empire.” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 72 (1981/82): 100-18. ———.. “The Monetary System of the Ottoman Empire.” JESHO 25 (1982): 308-24. ———.. “Muaata‘a.” F/2 7: 508. ——. Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890-1914. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 101. Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985.

——.. “Sharia, Kanun and Custom in the Ottoman Law: The Court Records of 17th-Century Bursa,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 2, no. 1 (1981): 131-147.

———. State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. al-Ghazali. Ghazali’s Book of Counsel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk). Edited by Jalal Huma’i.

Translated by F.R.C. Bagley. University of Durham Publications. London: Oxford University Press, 1964; 2nd ed. 1971. Gibb, Sir Hamilton A.R., and Harold Bowen. Islamic Society and the West: A Study of the Impact of Western Civilization on Moslem Culture in the Near East. Vol. 1: Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century. Parts 1 and 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1957. Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With notes and a memoir

by F.A. Guizot. 2 vols. London: J.S. Virtue, 18-. Goffman, Daniel S. Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650. Publications on the Near East, 5. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 199. ———.. “The Maktu’ System and the Jewish Community of Sixteenth-Century Safed: A Study of Two Documents from the Ottoman Archives.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 3 (1982): 81-90. Goldman, Israel M. The Life and Times of Rabbi David Ibn Abi Zimra: A Social, Economic

and Cultural Study of Jewish Life in the Ottoman Empire in the I5th and 16th Centuries as Reflected in the Responsa of RDBZ. New York: Jewish Theological

Seminary of America, 1970. ,

Goldstone, Jack A. “East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31 (1988): 103-142. ———. “The Ecological Dynamics of Empires: Seventeenth-Century Crises in Ottoman

, Turkey and Ming China.” In Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor of

336 BIBLIOGRAPHY S.N. Eisenstadt, 31-47. Edited by Erik Cohen, Moshe Lissak, and Uri Almagor. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985.

—. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Goubert, Pierre. ““The French Peasantry of the Seventeenth Century: A Regional Example.”

Past & Present 10 [1956]: 55-77; rpt. in Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660, 141-65. Edited by Trevor Aston. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. Gékbilgin, M. Tayyib. “Hatvan Kadiliginin Iki Sicilli.” In Hungaro-Turcica: Studies in Honour of Julius Németh, 315-19. Edited by Gyula Kaldy-Nagy. Budapest: Lorand E6tv6s University, 1976. ——., “XVI. Asirda Mukataa ve Iltizam Islerinde Kadilik Miiessesesinin Rolii.” In JV. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi, Tebligler, 433-44. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1952. ——. XV—XVI. Asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa Livasi: Vakiflar-Miilkler-Mukataalar. Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlan, 508. Istanbul: Ucler Basimevi, 1952.

—_—. “Tokat.” IA 2: 407. Goyiincg, Nejat. ““‘Hane’ Deyimi Hakkinda.” Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979): 331-48. ———. “XVI. Yiizyilda Ruiis ve Onemi.” Tarih Dergisi 22 (1969): 17-34. ——. “Ta’rih Bashkli Muhasebe Defterleri.””, Osmanli Arastirmalari 10 (1990): 1-37. Grant, Elihu. The People of Palestine. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1921. Grignaschi, Mario. “Quelques spécimens de la littérature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothéques d’Istanbul,” Journal asiatique 254 (1966): 1-142 Griswold, William J. The Great Anatolian Rebellion, 1000-1020/1591—1611. Islamkundliche

Untersuchungen, 83. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983. Grozdanova, Elena. “Bevélkerungskategorien mit Sonderpflichten und Sonderstatus—nach

unver6ffentlichten osmanisch-tiirkischen Dokumenten der Orient-Abteilung der Nationalbibliothek ‘Kyrill und Method’ in Sofia.” In Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, 46-67. Edited by Hans Georg Majer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986. Giicer, Liitfi. XV/—XVII. Asirlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Hububat Meselesi ve Hububattan Alinan Vergiler. Istanbul Universitesi Ikitsat Fakiiltesi Yayinlan, 152. Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakiiltesi, 1964. ———.. “Tahrir Defterleriyle Mukataa Defterleri Arasinda Mukayese.” POF 27 (1977): 277-82. Hadzibegi¢, Hamid. “Djizja ili Harac—le cizya ou harac.” POF 3-4 (1952-53): 55-135; 5 (1954/55): 43-102. ——. Glavarina u Osmanskoj Drzavni. Posebna Izdanja, 4. Sarajevo: Orientalni Institut u Sarajevu, 1966. ———.. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Cizye.” In International Congress of Orientalists, 25th, Moscow, 1960, Proceedings, 2: 429-30. 5 vols. Moscow: Izdatelistvo Vostoynoi

Literaturia, 1962-63. Hadzijahi¢, Muhamed. “Die privilegierten Stadte zur Zeit des Osmanischen Feudalismus: Mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Privilegien der Stadt Sarajevo.” SidostForschungen 20 (1961): 130-58. Halacoglu, Yusuf. XV/-XVII. Yiizyillarda Osmanlilarda Devlet Teskilati ve Sosyal Yap. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlani, ser. 7, no. 127. Ankara: Ttirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1991. ——. “XVI. Yiizyilda Sosyal, Ekonomik ve Demografik Bakimdan Balkanlar’da Bazi Osmanli Sehirleri.” Belleten 53 (1989): 637-78.

——. “Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nda Menzil Teskilati hakkinda Bazi Miilahazalar.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 2 (1981): 123-32. ———.. “Tapu-Tahrir Defterlerine gére XVI. Yiizyilin Ilk Yarisinda Sis (= Kozan) Sancaji.”

Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979): 819-92. Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. 10 vols. Budapest: Ca. H. Hartleben, 1827-35. ———. Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung un Staatsverwaltung. 2 vols. Vienna:

BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 Comesinasche Buchhandlung, 1815; rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Dims Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1963. Hansen, Bent. “An Economic Model for Ottoman Egypt: The Economics of Collective Tax Responsibility.” In The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History, 473-519. Edited by Abraham L. Udovitch. Princeton Studies on the Near East. Princeton: Darwin Press, 1981. Harding, Robert R. Anatomy of a Power Elite: The Provincial Governors of Early Modern France. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Harper, W. Percy. “The Significance of the Farmers of the Customs in Public Finance in the Middle of the Seventeenth Century.” Economica 9 (1929): 61-70. Hatton, Ragnhild, ed. Louis XIV and Absolutism. London: Macmillan Press, 1976. Hattox, Ralph S. “Some Ottoman Tapu Defters for Tripoli in the Sixteenth Century.” alAbhath 29 (1981): 65-90. Hayden, J. Michael. “Rural Resistance to Central Authority in Seventeenth-Century France.”

Canadian Journal of History 26 (1991): 7-20. Henshall, Nicholas. The Myth of Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy. London: Longman, 1992. Heper, Metin. “Patrimonialism in the Ottoman Turkish Public Bureaucracy.” Asian and African Studies 13 (1979): 3-21. Heyd, Uriel. “Farman, ii: Ottoman Empire.” E/2 2: 804—5. ——. “The Jewish Communities of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century.” Oriens (Leiden) 6 (1953): 299-314. ———. Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 1552-1615: A Study of the Firman According to the Miihimme Defteri. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960. ———. “Turkish Documents concerning the Jews of Safed in the Sixteenth Century.” In Studies of Palestine during the Ottoman Period, 111-18. Edited by Moshe Maoz. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975. Heywood, C.J. “Some Turkish Archival Sources for the History of the Menzilhane Network in Rumeli during the Eighteenth Century (Notes and Documents on the Ottoman Ulak, I).” Bogazici Universitesi Dergisi, Beseri Bilimler 4-5 (1976-77): 39-55. Hinz, Walther. “Das Rechnungswesen orientalischer Reichsfinanzamter im Mittelalter.” Der Islam 29 (1949/50): 1-29, 113-141. Hobsbawm, Eric J. “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” Past & Present 5-6 (1954): 33-53, 44-65; rpt. in Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660, 5-62. Edited by Trevor Aston. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.

——. “Peasants and Politics.” Journal of Peasant Studies 1 [1973]: 3-22. Hodgson, Marshall G.S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. H6vari, Janos. “Customs Register of Tulga (Tulcea), 1515-1517.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica

38 (1984): 115-42. Howard, Douglas A. “The Historical Development of the Ottoman Imperial Registry (Defter-i Hakani): Mid-Fifteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries.” Archivum Ottomanicum 11 (1986): 213-30. ———.. “Ottoman Historiography and the Literature of ‘Decline’ of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Journal of Asiatic History 22 (1988): 52-77. ———. “The Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation, 1563—1656.” PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1987. ———. “The ‘Ruling Institution’, Genre, and the Story of the Decline of the Ottoman Empire.” Grand Rapids, MI: unpublished paper, 1992. ——. “With Gibbon in the Garden: Decline, Death and The Sick Man of Europe.” Fides et Historia 26 (1994): 22-37. Huang, Ray. Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions. London: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Hunyadi, Istvan. “Etude comparée des sources fiscales turques et hongroises du XVI°

338 BIBLIOGRAPHY siécle comme base de calcul de la population.” Turcica 12 (1980): 125-55. Hiitteroth, Wolf-Dieter. “The Demographic and Economic Organization of the Southern Syrian Sancaks in the Late 16th Century.” In Tiirkiye’nin Sosyal ve Economik Tarihi (1071-1920), 35-42. Edited by Osman Okyar and Halil Inalcik. Ankara: Meteksan, 1980. —. Ldandliche Siedlungen in siidlichen Inneranatolien in der letzten vierhunder Jahren. Gottingen Geographische Abhandlungen, 46. G6ttingen: Geographischen Institut der Universitat Gottingen, 1968. Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. Edited and abridged by N.J. Dawood. Bollinger Series. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Martin Secker & Warburg, 1967; Princeton/Bollingen Paperback, 1969. Inal, Ibniilemin Mahmut Kemal. Osmanli Devrinde Son Sadrazemlar. 4 vols. Istanbul: Maarif Basimevi, 1940-53. Inalcik, Halil. “Adaletnameler.” Belgeler 2, nos. 3-4 (1965): 49-145. ———. “The Appointment Procedure of a Guild Warden (Ketkhudd).” WZKM 76 (1986): 135-42. ——. “Amavutluk’ta Osmanl: Hakimiyetinin ve Iskender Be’ Isyaninin Mensei.” Fatih ve Istanbul 1, no. 2 (1953), 152-75. ———. “Bursa I: XV. Asir Sanayi ve Ticaret Tarihine Dair Vesikalar.” Belleten 24 (1960): 45-66, 244-58; rpt. in Osmanli Imparatorlugu Toplum ve Ekonomi iizerinde Arsiv Caligmalari, Incelemeler, 203-58. Istanbul: Eren Yayinlan, 1993. ———. “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire.” Journal of Economic History 29 (1969): 97-140. ——. “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration.” In Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, 27-52. Edited by Thomas Naff and Roger Owen. Papers on Islamic History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977.

———. “Comments on ‘Sultanism’: Max Weber’s Typification of the Ottoman Polity.” Princeton Papers on Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992): 49-72. ———.. “Decision Making in the Ottoman State.” In Decision Making in the Ottoman Empire, 9-18. Edited by Caesar Farah. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993.

——. “Hawala.” E/2 3: 283-85. ———. “The Heyday and Decline of the Ottoman Empire.” In The Cambridge History of Islam. Vol. 1: The Central Islamic Lands, 324-53. Edited by P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. ———. Hicrt 835 Tarihli Siret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 14, no. 1. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1954. ——. “Impact of the Annales School on Ottoman Studies and New Findings.” Review 1 (1978): 69-96. Rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Selection IV. Collected Studies Series, 214. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985. ———.. “Islamization of Ottoman Laws on Land and Land Taxation.” In Festgabe an Josef Matuz: Osmanistik-Turkologie-Diplomatie, 100-116. Edited by Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992. ——. “Koy, Kéylii ve Imparatorluk.” In V. Milletleraras: Tiirkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi, Tebligler, 1-11. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1990. Rpt. with notes in Osmanl Imparatorlugu Toplum ve Ekonomi iizerinde Arsiv Calismalari, Incelemeler, 1-14. Istanbul: Eren Yayinlani, 1993. Translated as “Village, Peasant and Empire.” In The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 137-60. Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993. ——.. “Kutadgu Bilig’de Tiirk ve Iran Siyaset Nazariye ve Gelenekleri.” In Resit Rahmeti Arat [¢in, 259-71. Ankara: Tiirk Kiiltiiriinii Arastirma Enstitiisti, 1966. Translated as “Turkish and Iranian Political Theories and Traditions in Kutadgu Bilig.” In

BIBLIOGRAPHY 339 The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 1-18. Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993. ———. “Mazra‘a.” FI2 6: 956-61. ———.. The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy

and Society. Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993. ———. “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700.” Archivum

Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283-337. Rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Selection V. Collected Studies Series, 214. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985.

——. “Notes on N. Beldiceanu’s Translation of the Kanunname, fonds turc ancien 39, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.” Der Islam 43 (1967): 139-57. ——. “15. Asir Tiirkiye Iktisadi ve Ictimai Tarihi Kaynaklar.” [UIFM 15 (1953-54): 51-75. ———. “XV. Asir Osmanli Maliyesine Dair Kaynaklar.” Tarih Vesikalari, n.s. 1, no. 16 (1955): 128-34. ——. “Osmanli Biirokrasisinde Aklam ve Muamelat.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 1 (1980): 1-14.

——. “Osmanli Idare, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Tarihiyle Ilgili Belgeler: Bursa Kadi Sicillerinden Se¢meler.” I: Belgeler 10, no. 14 (1980-81): 1-91 and plates 1-9. Il: Belgeler 13, no. 17 (1988): 1-41. III: Belgeler 15, no. 19 (1993): 23-167.

—. Osmanli Imparatorlugu Toplum ve Ekonomi iizerinde Arsiv Caligmalari, Incelemeler. Istanbul: Eren Yayinlar, 1993. —. “Osmanhi Imparatorlugunun Kurulus ve Inkisaf Devrinde Tiirkiyenin Iktisadi Vaziyeti tizerinde bir Tetkik Miinasebetiyle.” Belleten 15 (1951): 629-84. Translated as “Notes on a Study of the Turkish Economy during the Establishment and Rise of the Ottoman Empire.” In The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 205-63. Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9. Bloomington:

Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993. , ———. “Osmanli Tarihi Hakkinda Miihim bir Kaynak.” AUDTCFD 1 (1943): 89-96. ——. “Osmanlilarda Raiyyet Riisumu.” Belleten 23 (1959): 575-610. ———. “The Ottoman Decline and Its Effects upon the Reaya.” In Aspects of the Balkans: Continuity and Change, 338-54. Edited by Henrik Birnbaum and Speros Vryonis, Jr. The Hague: Mouton, 1972. Rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection X. Collected Studies Series, CS87. London: Variorum

Reprints, 1978. ———. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973. Rpt. ed., New

Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1990. ———. The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy. Collected Studies Series, CS87. London: Variorum Reprints, 1978. ———. “Ottoman Methods of Conquest.” Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 104—29. Rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection 1. Collected Studies Series, CS87. London: Variorum Reprints, 1978. —_—. “The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300-1600.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, 9-409. Edited by Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

—_—. “Orf.” IA 9: 480. ———. “The Problem of the Relationship between Byzantine and Ottoman Taxation.” In Akten des X. Internationalen Byzantinisten-Kongresses 1958, 237-42. Rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection Il. Collected Studies Series, CS87. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980. —_——. “Reis-iil-kiittab.” JA 9: 671-83.

340 BIBLIOGRAPHY ———. “Rice Cultivation and the Celtiikci-Reaya System in the Ottoman Empire.” Turcica 14 (1982): 69-141. Rpt. in Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History, Selection

VI. Collected Studies Series, 214. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985. ——_——. “The Rise of Ottoman Historiography.” In Historians of the Middle East, 15267. Edited by Bernard Lewis and P.M. Holt. Historical writing on the Peoples of Asia. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. ———. “The Ruznamce Registers of the Kadiasker of Rumeli as Preserved in the Istanbul Miiftiiliik Archives.” Turcica 20 (1988): 251-75. ———. “The Socio-Political Effects of the Diffusion of Fire-Arms in the Middle East.” In War, Technology and Society in the Middle East, 195-217. Edited by V.J. Parry and M.E. Yapp. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. Rpt. in The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy, Selection XIV. Collected Studies Series, CS87. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980.

———. “State and Ideology under Sultan Siileyman I.” In The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 70-94. Indiana

University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies, 1993. ———. Studies in Ottoman Social and Economic History. Collected Studies Series, 214. London: Variorum Reprints, 1985. ——. “Suleiman the Lawgiver and Ottoman Law.” Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969): 105-138. —. “Sultan Siileyman: The Man and the Statesman.” In Suleyman the Magnificent and His Time, 89-103. Edited by Gilles Veinstein. Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales. Paris: La documentation francaise, 1992. ——.. “Sikayet Hakki: ’Arz-i Hal ve ’Arz-i Mahzar’lar.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 7-8 (1988): 33-54. ——.. “Tax Collection, Embezzlement and Bribery in Ottoman Finances.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 327-46. ———., ed., with Donald Quataert. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Iorga, Nicolae. Byzance aprés Byzance. Bucharest: Association international d’études du sud-est européen, Comité national roumain, 1971. Ipsirli, Mehmet. “Hasan Kafi el-Akhisari ve Devlet Diizenine ait Eseri Usiilii?l-Hikem fi Nizémi’l-Alem.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 10-11 (1981): 239-78. ——. “XVI. Asrin Ikinci Yarisinda Kiirek Cezasi ile ilgili Hiikiimler.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 12 (1981/82): 203-48. Islamoflu[-Inan], Huri. “Introduction: ‘Oriental Despotism’ in World-System Perspective.” In The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, 1-24. ———. “State and Peasants in the Ottoman Empire: A Study of Peasant Economy in North-Central Anatolia During the Sixteenth Century.” In The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy, 101-59. Edited by Huri Islamoglu-Inan. Studies in Modern Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———., ed. The Ottoman Empire and the World-Economy. Studies in Modern Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———., and Caglar Keyder. “Agenda for Ottoman History,” Review 1 (1977/78): 31-55. ———., and Caglar Keyder. “The Ottoman Social Formation.” In The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics, 301-24. Edited by Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. Israel, Jonathan I. “Debate: The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?” Past & Present 91 (1981): 170-80. Itzkowitz, Norman. “Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities.” Studia Islamica 16 (1962): 73-94, ———. “Mehmed Raghib Pasha: The Making of an Ottoman Grand Vezir.” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1959.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 341 Jennings, Ronald C. Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571—1640. NYU Studies in Near Eastern Civilization, 16. New York: New York University Press, 1992. ——. “The Population, Society, and Economy of the Region of Erciyes Dag: in the Sixteenth Century.” In Contributions a l'histoire économique et sociale de l’empire ottoman, 149-250. Edited by Jean-Louis Becqué-Grammonth and Paul Dumont. Paris: L’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 1984. ———. “Urban Population in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Kayseri, Karaman, Amasya, Trabzon and Erzurum.” [JMES 7 (1976): 21-57. Johns, Claude Hermann Walter. An Assyrian Doomsday Book: or, Liber Censualis of the District Round Harran, in the Seventh Century BC. Assyriologische Bibliothek, 17. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1901. Jones, A.H.M. “Taxation in Antiquity.” In The Roman Economy: Studies in Ancient Economic and Administrative History, 151-85. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974. Kafadar, Cemal. “On the Purity and Corruption of the Janissaries.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 273-80. ——. “Les troubles monétaires de la fin du XVI° siécle et la prise de conscience ottomane du déclin.” Annales E.S.C. 46 (1991): 381-400. —. “When Coins Turned into Drops of Dew and Bankers Became Robbers of Shadows: The Boundaries of Ottoman Economic Imagination at the End of the Sixteenth Century.” PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1986. Kaldy-Nagy, Gyula. “The Administration of the Sanjaq Registrations in Hungary.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 21 (1968): 181-223. ——. “Bevolkerungsstatistischer Quellenwert der Gizye-Defter und der Tahrir Defter.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 11 (1960): 259-69.

—.. “The Cash Book of the Ottoman Treasury in Buda in the Years 1558-1560.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 15 (1962): 173-82. —. “The Conscription of Misellem and Yaya Corps in 1540.” In Hungaro-Turcica, Studies in Honour of Julius Nemeth, 275-81. Budapest: Lorand Eétvés University, 1976.

———. “The Effect of the Timar-System on Agricultural Production in Hungary.” In Studia Turcica, 241-48. Edited by L. Ligeti. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1971. ——. “The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization.” Acta Orientalia Hungarica 31 (1977): 147-83. ——. “Der Quellenwert der Tahrir Defterleri fiir die osmanische Wirtschaftsgeschichte.” In Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, 76-83. Edited by Hans Georg Majer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986. ———. “Two Sultanic Hass Estates in Hungary during the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries.”

Acta Orientalia Hungarica 13 (1961): 31-62. ———.. “Turckiye Reestrovye Knigi Mukata’a kak Istorceskie Istocniki (Les livres de compte turcs ‘Muqata’a’—Source de documentation historique).” In Vostocnye Istcniki po Istorii Narodov Jugo-Vostocnoj i Central’ noj Evropy, 76-90. Edited by A.S. Tveritinova. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka,” Glavnaja Redakcija Vostocnoj Literaturny, 1064. Kamen, Henry. “The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth?” Past & Present 81 (1978): 24-50. ———. “The Decline of Spain: A Historical Myth? A Rejoinder.” Past & Present 91 (1981): 181-85. —. The Iron Century: Social Change in Europe, 1550-1660. History of Civilisation. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971. Kara, Gyorgy, ed. Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and SouthEastern Europe. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Group for Altaistic Studies. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1987.

342 BIBLIOGRAPHY Karamursal, Ziya. Osmanli Mali Tarihi Hakkinda Tetkikler. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu, Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 8, no. 11a. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1989. Karpat, Kemal H. “The Ottoman Family: Documents Pertaining to Its Size.” /nternational

Journal of Turkish Studies 4, no. 1 (1987): 137-45. Kasaba, Resat. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century. SUNY Series in Middle Eastern Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. Kautsky, John. The Politics of Aristocratic Empires. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962. Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Kertzer, David I. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. Keyder, Caglar. “The Dissolution of the Asiatic Mode of Production.” Economy and Society 5 (1976): 178-96. Khan, Geoffrey. “The Historical Development of the Structure of the Medieval Arabic Petition.” BSOAS 52 (1990): 8-30. ——.. “A Petition to the Fatimid Caliph al-’Amir.” JRAS 1990: 44-54. Kinalizade Ali Celebi. Ahlak-i ‘Ala’?. 3 vols. Bulaq: Matbaa-i Bulag, 1248/1833. Kiel, Machiel. “Anatolia Transplanted? Patterns of Demographic, Religious and Ethnic Changes in the District of Tozluk (N.E. Bulgaria) 1479-1873.” Anatolica 17 (1991): 1-27. —. “Remarks on the Administration of the Poll Tax (Cizye) in the Ottoman Balkans and Value of Poll Tax Registers (Cizye Defterleri) for Demographic Research.” Etudes balkaniques 26, no. 4 (1990): 70-104. Kiernan, V.G. State and Society in Europe, 1550-1650. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. King, Leonard William. The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, about B.C. 2200. 3 vols. Luzac’s Semitic Texts and Translation Series, 2, 3, 8. London: Luzac and Co., 1898-1900. Koci Bey. Koci Bey Risalesi. Edited by Ali Kemal Aksiit. Istanbul: Vakit Gazetesi Matbaa Kiitiiphane, 1939. —. Kogi Bey Risalesi. Edited by Zuhuri Danigsman. Tiirk Kiiltiirii Kaynak Eserleri Dizisi. Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi, 1972. KO6priiliti, Mehmet Fuat. “Bizans Miiesseselerinin Osmanli Miiesseselerine Te’siri Hakkinda

Bazi Miilahazalar.” THITM 1 (1931): 165-313. Kraelitz[-Greifenhorst], Friedrich. ““Osmanische Urkunden in tiirkischer Sprache aus der zweiten Halfte des 15. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur osmanischen Diplomatik.” In Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1-111. Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1921.

Kuniholm, P.I. “Archaeological Evidence and Non-Evidence for Climatic Change.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 330 (1990): 645655.

Kunt, I. Metin. The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550-1650. The Modern Middle East Series, 14. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1983. _ Kiitiikoglu, Miibahat S. “1009 (1600) Tarihli Narh Defterine gore Istanbul’da Cesitli Esya ve Hizmet Fiatlan.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 9 (1978): 1-85. ——. “1624 Sikke Tashihinin Ardindan Hazirlanan Narh Defterleri.” Tarih Dergisi 34 (1983/84): 123-82. ——_—. Osmanlilarda Narh Miiessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri. Istanbul: Enderun Kitabevi, 1983. Lambton, Ann K.S. “Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship.” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 91-119. Laures, John. The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana. New York: Fordham University Press, 1928.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 Levi, Margaret. “The Predatory Theory of Rule.” Politics and Society 10 (1980/81): 431-65. Lewis, Bernard. “Daftar.” FJ2 2: 77-81. ———. “Nazareth in the Sixteenth Century, According to the Ottoman Tapu Registers.” In Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of Hamilton A.R. Gibb, 416~25. Edited by George Makdisi. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965.

——. “Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives: A Contribution to the History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire.” Oriental Notes and Studies 3 (1952):

1-52. Rpt. in Studies in Classical and Ottoman Islam (7th-16th Centuries), Selection VII. Collected Studies Series, CS54. London: Variorum Reprints, 1976.

——. “Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline.” Islamic Studies 1 (1962): 71-87. ——. “Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire.” Studia Islamica 9 (1958): 111-27. ———. “Studies in the Ottoman Archives — I.” BSOAS 16 (1954): 469-501. Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Lgkkegaard, Frede. Islamic Taxation in the Classical Period. Copenhagen: Branner & Korch, 1950. Lovett, A.W. Early Habsburg Spain, 1517-1598. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Lutff Pasa. Das Asafndme des Lutfi Pascha. Edited and translated by Rudolf Tschudi. Leipzig: W. Drugulin, 1910. Lybyer, Albert Howe. The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent. Harvard Historical Studies, 18. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913. Lynch, John. Spain under the Habsburgs. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Majer, Hans Georg. “Nesto za java-dzizieto i maden mukataa nezaretot na Skopje i Vucitrn vo 1663 godina.” Glasnik na Institutot za Nacionalna Istorija 18, no. 3 (1974): 127-38. ——. Review of Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Osmanischen Hofzeremoniells im 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts by Konrad Dilger. Siidost-Forschungen 28 (1969): 464-67. ———., ed. Das Osmanische “Registerbuch der Beschwerden” (Sikadyet Defteri) von Jahre 1675. Vol. 1: Introduction and Facsimile. Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984. ———.,, ed. Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986. Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power. Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. ———. States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.

——., ed. The Rise and Decline of the Nation State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Mantran, Robert. [stanbul dans le second moitié du XVII’ siécle. Bibliothéque archéologique et historique de |’Institut francais d’archéologie d’Istanbul, 12. Paris: Librairie Adrien

Maisonneuve, 1962. Mardin, Serif. “Power, Civil Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 11 (1969): 258-81. Martal, Abdullah. “XVI. Yiizyilda Osmanh Imparatorlugunda Su Yolculuk.” Belleten 52 (1988): 1585-1654 and plates. Massé, Henri. “Ibn el-Cairafi, Code de la chancellerie d’état (Période fatimide).” Bulletin de l'Institut francais d’archéologie du Caire 11 (1914): 65-119. Matkovski, Aleksandar. “La résistance des paysans macédoniens contre |’attachement a la glébe pendant la domination ottomane.” In Actes du Ier Congrés International des Etudes Balkaniques et Sud-Est Européennes, Vol. 3: Histoire, 703-8. Sofia: Editions de l’Academie Bulgare des Sciences, 1969.

344 BIBLIOGRAPHY Matuz, Josef. Das Kanzleiwesen Sultan Siileymans des Prdchtigen. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner

Verlag, 1974. ————. “Transmission of Directives from the Center to the Periphery in the Ottoman State from the Beginning until the Seventeenth Century.” In Decision Making in the Ottoman Empire, 19-27. Edited by Caesar Farah. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993.

——. “Uber die Epistolographie und Insa’-Literatur der Osmanen.” Deutscher Orientalistentag, 1968. ZDMG, Supplementa I, 2 (1970): 574-94. ———., ed., with the cooperation of Istvan Hunyadi. Die Steuerkonskription des Sandschaks

Stuhlweissenburg aus den Jahren 1563 bis 1565. Islamwissenschaftliche Quellen und Texte aus deutschen Bibliotheken, 3. Bamberg: Verlag Aku, 1986.

al-Mawardi. al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya. Translated by E. Fagnan as Les statuts gouvernementaux, ou Régles de droit public et administratif. Algiers: Librairie de l’Université, 1915. Maxim, Mihai. “Considerations sur la circulation monétaire dans les pays roumains et l’empire ottoman dans la seconde moitié du XVI° siécle.” Revue des études sudest européennes 13 (1975): 407-15. McGowan, Bruce. Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle

for Land, 1600-1800. Studies in Modern Capitalism/Etudes sur le capitalisme moderne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de 17Homme, 1981. ———. “Food Supply and Taxation on the Middle Danube (1568—1579).” Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969): 139-96. ———. “Osmanh Avariz-Niiziil Tesekkiilti, 1600-1830.” In VIII. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi, 2: 1327-31. 3 vols. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1981. ———. “Ottoman Political Communication.” In Propaganda and Communication in World History. Vol. 1: The Symbolic Instrument in Early Times, 444-92. Edited by Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, and Hans Speier. An East-West Center Book. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979. ———. “The Study of Land and Agriculture in the Ottoman Provinces within the Context of an Expanding World Economy.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 2, no. 1 (1981): 57-63. Meinecke, Friedrich. Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’ Etat and Its Place in Modern History. Translated by Douglas Scott. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957. Mémorial Omer Liitfi Barkan. Bibliothéque de |’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 28. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1980. Messick, Brinkley. The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society. Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies, 16. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Miller, John. Absolutism in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1990. ———. “The Potential for “Absolutism’ in Later Stuart England.” History 69 (1984): 187-207. Moote, A. Lloyd. “The French Crown Versus Its Judicial and Financial Officials, 1615— 83.” Journal of Modern History 34 (1962): 146-60. Mordtmann, J.H. “Die jiidischen Kira im Serai der Sultane.” Mitteilungen der Seminar fiir Orientalistische Sprachen 32 (1929): 1-38. Morimoto, Kosei. The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the Early Islamic Period. Asian Historical Monographs, 1. Kyoto: Dohosha Publisher, Inc., 1981. Mousnier, Roland E. The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy. Translated by Brian Pearce and Arthur Goldhammer. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979-84. ———.. Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France, Russia, and China. Translated by Brian Pearce. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 345 Munck, Thomas. Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in Europe, 1598-1700. Macmillan History of Europe. London: Macmillan Education, 1990.

Murphey, Rhoads. “Conditions of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean: An Appraisal of Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Documents from Aleppo,” JESHO 33 (1990): 35-50. ——. “Continuity and Discontinuity in Ottoman Administrative Theory and Practice during the Late Seventeenth Century.” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 419-43. ———. “The Functioning of the Ottoman Army under Murad IV (1623-39/1032-1049): Key to the Understanding of the Relationship between Center and Periphery in Seventeenth-Century Turkey.” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979. —. “Ottoman Census Methods in the Mid-Sixteenth Century: Three Case Histories.” Studia Islamica 71 (1990): 115-26. ——. Regional Structure in the Ottoman Economy: A Sultanic Memorandum of 1636 A.D. Concerning the Sources and Uses of the Tax-Farm Revenues of Anatolia and the Coastal and Northern Portions of Syria. Near and Middle East Monographs, n.s., vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1987. ———. “Solakzade’s Treatise of 1652: A Glimpse at Operational Principles Guiding the Ottoman State during Times of Crisis.” In V. Milletlerarasi Tiirkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi, Tebligler, 27-32. Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 26, no. 4. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1990. ——. “The Veliyuddin Telhis: Notes on the Sources and Interrelations Between Koci Bey and Contemporary Writers of Advice to Kings.” Belleten 43 (1979): 547-61. ———., ed., Kanitin-Nadme-i Sultani li ‘Aziz Efendi, Aziz Efendi’s Book of Sultanic Laws and Regulations: An Agenda for Reform by a Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Statesman. Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 9; Turkish Sources, 8. N.p., 1984.

Mustafa Ali. Mustafa Alf’s Counsel for Sultans of 1581 (Nasihat al-Salatin). Edited and translated by Andreas Tietze. Denkschriften der Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979. Mutafcieva, Vera. Agrarian Relations in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

East European Monographs, 251. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. ——§. “De l’exploitation féodale dans les terres de population bulgare sous la domination turque au XV° et XVI° s.” Etudes historiques 1 (1960): 145-70. Nader, Helen. Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Habsburg Sale of Towns, 1516-1700. The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 109th Series (1990), 1. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Naff, Thomas, and Robert Owen, eds. Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History. Papers on Islamic History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977. Necipoglu, Giilrii. Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the Fifteenth

and Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. Nedkoff, Boris Christoff. Die Gizya (Kopfsteuer) im Osmanischen Reich, mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung von Bulgarien. Sammlung Orientalistischer Arbeiten, 11. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1942. Newton, A.P. “The Establishment of the Great Farm of the English Customs.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ser. 4, vol. 1 (1918): 129-55. Nizam al-Mulk. The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. Translated by Hubert Darke. Persian Heritage Series, 32. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960; 2nd ed. 1978. North, Douglass Cecil, and Robert Paul Thomas. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Nuri, Mustafa. Netayic iil-Vukuat. Edited by Neset Cagatay. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 22, no. 1-2. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1979. O’Connor, James R. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973. Ogilvie, Sheilagh C. “Germany and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis.” Historical Journal 35 (1992): 417-41.

346 BIBLIOGRAPHY Olson, Mancur. The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Olson, Robert W. “The Sixteenth Century ‘Price Revolution’ and Its Effect on the Ottoman

Empire and Ottoman-Safavid Relations.” Acta Orientalia 37 (1976): 45-55. Ongan, Halit. Ankara’nin Iki Numarali Ser’ iye Sicili. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlan, ser. 14, no. 4. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1974. Orhonlu, Cengiz. Osmanh Imparatorlugu’nda Derbend Teskiléti. Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlan, 1209. Istanbul: Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi, 1967; rpt. Eren Yayincilik ve Kitapcilik, 1990. ———. Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Sehircilik ve Ulasim Uzerine Arastirmalar. Edited by Salih Ozbaran. Ege Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayimlan, 31. Izmir: Ticaret Matbaacilik, 1984. Ortayh, Ilber. “On the Role of the Ottoman Kadi in Provincial Administration.” Turkish Public Administration Annual 3 (1976): 1-21. ———. “The Ottoman Empire at the End of the XVIIth Century.” Revue ad’ histoire maghrébine 14 (1987): 179-86. Ostapchuk, Victor. “The Ottoman Black Sea Frontier and the Relations of the Porte with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy, 1622-1628.” PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1989. Ostrogorsky, George. Pour I’ histoire de la féodalité byzantine. Translated by Henri Grégoire. Corpus Bruxellense Historiae Byzantinae, Subsidia 1. Brussels: Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves, 1954. Olcer, Ciineyt. Yildirim Bayezid’in Ogullarina air Akce ve Mangirlar. Istanbul: Yenilik Basimevi, 1968. Ozbaran, Salih. “The Salyane System in the Ottoman Empire as Organized in Arabia in the Sixteenth Century.” Osmanli Arastirmalari 6 (1986): 39-45. ———. “Some Notes on the Ottoman Practice of IItizam in the Arab Lands in the Sixteenth Century.” Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies, no. 5/6 (1992): 89-95. Ozdemir, Rifat. “Avariz ve gercek-hane Sayilarinin Demografik Tahminlerde Kullanilmasi izerine Bazi Bilgiler.” In X. Tiirk Tarih Kongresi (1986), Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler. 4 vols. Atatiirk Kiiltiir Dil ve Tarih Yiikksek Kurumu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 9, no. 10e. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1993. 4: 1581-1613. Pakalin, Mehmet Zeki. Maliye Teskilati Tarihi (1442-1930). Maliye Bakanligi Tetkik Kurulu Yayim, 1977/180/1. 4 vols. Ankara: Basbakanlik Basimevi, 1978. Palmer, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. London: John Murray, 1992. Pamuk, Sevket. “The Disintegration of the Ottoman Monetary System During the Seventeenth Century.” Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies no. 2 (1993): 67-81. ———. “Money in the Ottoman Empire, 1326-1914.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, 947-80. Edited by Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Parker, Geoffrey. Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648. Fontana History of Europe, 9. Brighton, England: Harvester Press, 1980. ———. Spain and the Netherlands, 1559-1659: Ten Studies. Short Hills, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1979. ———, and Lesley M. Smith, eds. The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. Parry, John Horace. The Sale of Public Office in the Spanish Indies under the Hapsburgs. Ibero-Americana, 37. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953. Peachy, William S. “Register of Copies or Collection of Drafts? The Case of Four Miihimme

Defters from the Archives of the Prime Ministry in Istanbul.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 10 (1986): 79-85. ———.. “A Year in Selaniki’s History: 1593-4.” PhD dissertation, Indiana University, 1984.

Peck, Linda Levy. Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 347 Studies in Middle Eastern History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Perenyi, Josef. “Trois villes hongroises sous la domination ottomane au XVII* siécle.” In Actes du ler congrés international des études balkaniques et sud-est européennes. Vol. 3: Histoire, 581-91. Sofia: n.p., 1969. Polk, William R., and Richard L. Chambers, eds. Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century. Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Rabb, Theodore K. The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Rabie, Hasanain. The Financial System of Egypt, A.H. 564—741/A.D. 1169-1341. London Oriental Series, 25. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. Rasim, Ahmet. Osmanli Tarihi. 4 vols. Istanbul: n.p., 1326—28/1908-10. Raymond, André. “The Population of Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries According to Ottoman Census Documents.” [JMES 16 (1984): 447-60. Refik, Ahmet, ed. Osmanli Devrinde Tiirkiye Madenleri (967-1200): Tiirkiye’de Cikan Madenlerle Bu Madenlerin Islerilmesi Hakkinda Divani Hiimayun Miihimme Defterlerinde Mukayyet Hiikiimleri Havi. Istanbul: Devlet Matbaasi, 1931. Remler, Philip. “New Light on Economic History from Ilkhanid Accounting Manuals.” [ranian Studies 13 (1980): 157-77. Richards, D.S. “A Fatimid Petition and ‘Small Decree’ from Sinai.” [srael Oriental Studies 3 (1973): 140-58. ——. “A Mamluk Petition and a Report from the Diwan al-Jaysh.” BSOAS 40 (1977): 1-14. Richards, John F. “The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in South Asia.” Modern Asian Studies 24 (1990): 625-38. Rizaj, Skender. “Counterfeit of Money on the Balkan Peninsula from the XV to the XVII Century.” Balkanica 1 (1970): 71-97. Roemer, H.R. “Insha’.” E/2 3: 1241-44. RGhrborn, Klaus. “Die Emanzipation der Finanzbiirokratie im Osmanischen Reich (Ende 16. Jahrhundert).” ZDMG 122 (1972): 118-39. ——, “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Miisadere ve Mutavassit Giicler.” In /. Milletlerarasi Tiirkoloji Kongresi, Tebligler. Vol. 1: Tiirk Tarihi, 254-60. Istanbul: Terciiman Gazetesi ve Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi, Tiirkiyat Enstitiisii, 1979. Root, Hilton L. Peasants and King in Burgundy: Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism. California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy, 9. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Rosenberg, Hans. Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 16601815. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958. Rycaut, Paul. The Present State of the Ottoman Empire. London: John Starkey and Henry Brome, 1668; rpt. Westmead, England: Gregg International Publishers, 1972. Sahillioglu, Halil. “1524-1525 Osmanli Biitcesi.” Ord. Prof. Omer Liitfi Barkan’a Armagan:

IUIFM 41 (1985): 415-52. ————. “The Income and Expenditures of the Ottoman Treasury between 1683 and 1740.”

Revue d'histoire maghrébine 25-26 (1982): 65-84. —_—. “Bir Miiltezim Zimem Defterine gére XV. Yiizyil Sonunda Osmanh Darphane Mukataalan.” JUIFM 23 (1962-3): 145-218. ———. “XVII. Asrin Ik Yarisinda Istanbul’da Tedaviildeki Sikkelerin R4ici.” Belgeler 1 (1964): 227-34. ——, “Osmanli Idaresinde Kibris’in Ik Yili Biitcesi.” Belgeler 4, no. 7/8 (1967): 1-33.

—_. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Sivig Yih Buhranlani.” JUIFM 27, no. 1/2 (19678): 75-111. __——, “Osmanlilarda Narh Miiessessesi ve 1525 Yili Sonunda Istanbul’da Fiyatlar.” Belgelerle Tiirk Tarihi Dergisi 1 (1967-68): no. 1, 36-40; no. 2, 54-56; no. 3, 50-53.

348 BIBLIOGRAPHY ———. “The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements in Ottoman Monetary History 1300-1750.” In Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, 269-304. Edited by J.F. Richards. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1983. ——. “Sivig Year Crises in the Ottoman Empire.” In Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: From the Rise of Islam to the Present Day, 230-54. Edited by M.A. Cook. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1978. Salzmann, Ariel. “An Ancien Régime Revisited: ‘Privatization’ and Political Economy

in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire.” Politics & Society 21 (1993): 393-423. Sanders, Paula. Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo. SUNY Series in Middle East History. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. Sar1 Mehmed Pasa, the Defterdar. Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of Counsel for Vezirs and Governors. Edited and translated by W.L. Wright, Jr. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935; rpt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971. Sauvaget, Jean. Alep: Essai sur le développement d’ une grande ville syrienne, des origines au milieu du XIX° siécle. Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1941. Schaendlinger, Anton C. “Reformtraktate und -vorschlige im Osmanischen Reich im 17.

und 18. Jahrhundert.” In Festgabe an Josef Matuz: Osmanistik-TurkologieDiplomatik, 239-53. Edited by Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 150. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992. Scott, James C. “Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance.” Journal of Peasant Studies 13, no. 2 (1985/86): 5-35. —. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Selaniki, Mustafa. Tarih-i Selaniki (Die Chronik des Selaniki). Rpt. ed., Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1970. ———. Tarih-i Seldniki. Edited by Mehmet Ipsirli. Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayinlan, 3371. Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Basimevi, 1989. Sella, Domenico. “Venice: The Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry.” In The Late Italian Renaissance, 1525-1630, 331-50. Edited by Eric Cochrane. New York: Harper and Row, Harper Torchbooks, 1970. Seng, Yvonne J. “The Ser’iye Sicilleri of the Istanbul Miiftiiliigii as a Source for the Study of Everyday Life.” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 15 (1991): 307-25. —_—. “The Uskiidar Estates (Tereke) as Records of Everyday Life in an Ottoman Town, 1521-1524.” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1991. Sevgen, Necibe. “Nasil Sémiiriildtk? Sarraflar.” Belgelerle Tiirk Tarihi Dergisi 3, no. 13 (1968/69): 46-59; no. 14 (1968/69): 66-68; no. 15, (1968/69): 59-65; no. 16 (1968/ 69): 54-61; no. 17 (1968/69): 62-66; no. 18 (1968/69): 76-78; 4, no. 19 (1969):

66-67; no. 20 (1969): 69-70; no. 21 (1969): 67-69; no. 22 (1969): 66-67; no. 23 (1969): 54-55; no. 24 (1969): 54-60; no. 25 (1969/70): 73-74. Shaw, Stanford J. The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798. Princeton Oriental Studies, 19. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. ———, and Ezel Kural Shaw. The History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Shinder, Joel. “Career Line Formation in the Ottoman Bureaucracy, 1648-1750: A New Perspective.” JESHO 16 (1973): 217-37. ———. “Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness.” JJMES 9 (1978): 497-517. ———.. “Ottoman Bureaucracy in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century: The Central and Naval Administrations.” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1971. Shmuelevitz, Aryeh. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the Late 15th and 16th Centuries: Administrative, Economic, Legal, and Social Relations as Reflected in the Responsa. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 349 Singer, Amy. “The Countryside of Ramle in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Villages with Computer Assistance.” JESHO 33 (1990): 51-79.

—. Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural Administration around Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ——.. “Peasant Migration: Law and Practice in Early Ottoman Palestine.” New Perspectives on Turkey 8 (1992): 49-65. ——.. “Tapu Tahrir Defterleri and Kadi Sicilleri: A Happy Marriage of Sources.” Tarih 1 (1990): 95-125. Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Sokolovsky, Metodiya. “Le developpement de quelques villes dans le sud des Balkans au XV° et XVI° siécles.” Balcanica 1 (1970): 81-106. ————.,, ed. Turski dokumenti za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod. Serija Prva: 16071699. Tom III: Jan. 1636-end 1639. Skopje: Arhiv na Makedonija, Komisija za Publikuvatse Arhivski Materijali, 1969. Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. 2 vols. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1926-29. Staab, Robert Lee. “The Timar System in the Eyalet of Rumeli and the Nahiye of Dimetoka in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” PhD dissertation, University of Utah, 1980. Steensgaard, Niels. “The Seventeenth Century Crisis.” In The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, 26-56. Edited by Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. ——. “The Seventeenth-Century Crisis and the Unity of Eurasian History.” Modern Asian Studies 24 (1990): 683-97. Stern, S.M. Fatimid Decrees: Original Documents from the Fatimid Chancery. All Souls Studies. London: Faber and Faber, 1964. ——. “Petitions from the Ayyubid Period.” BSOAS 27 (1964): 1-32. —— —. “Petitions from the Mamluk Period (Notes on the Mamluk Documents from Sinai).”

BSOAS 29 (1966): 233-76. ——. “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period.” Oriens 15 (1962): 172-209. Stolper, Matthew W. Entrepreneurs and Empire: The Murasii Archive, the Murasi Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia. Uitgaven, Nederlands Historisch-Archeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 14. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1985. Stone, Lawrence. The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Stradling, R.A. Europe and the Decline of Spain: A Study of the Spanish System, 15801720. Early Modern Europe Today. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “Precious Metal Flows and Prices in Western and Southern Asia, 1500-1750: Some Comparative and Conjunctural Aspects.” Studies in History n.s.

7, no. 1 (1991): 79-105. Suceska, Avdo. “Bosna Eyaleti’nde Tekalif-i sakka.” Tarih Enstitiisii Dergisi 12 (1981): 755-62. ———. “Die Entwicklung der Besteuerung durch die ‘Avariz-i divaniye und die Tekalif-i ‘6rfiye’ im Osmanischen Reich wahrend des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” SiidostForschungen 27 (1968): 89-130. ———. “Uber ‘Mu’afiyet’ im Bosnischen Eyalet.” In Osmanistische Studien zur Wirtschaftsund Sozialgeschichte: In Memoriam Vanco Boskov, 156-63. Edited by Hans Georg Majer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986. Sundhaussen, Holm. “Die ‘Preisrevolution’ im Osmanischen Reich wahrend der zweiten Hilfte des 16. Jahrhunderts: ‘Importierte’ oder intern verursachte Inflation? (Zu einer These O.L. Barkans).” Siidost-Forschungen 42 (1983): 169-81. Swart, Koenraad Wolter. The Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1949. Tabakoglu, Ahmet. Gerileme Dénemine Girerken Osmanli Maliyesi. Dergéh Yayinlari,

350 BIBLIOGRAPHY 117; Tarih Dizisi, 10. Istanbul: Dergah Yayinlan, 1985. —_—. “XVII ve XVIII Yiizyil Osmanli Biitceleri.” Ord. Prof. Omer Liitfi Barkan’a Armagan: IUIFM 41 (1985): 389-414. Tevkii Abdiirrahman Pasa. “Osmanli Kanunnameleri.” MTM 1 (1331/1912-3): 49-112, 305-48, 497-544. Thomas, Lewis V. A Study of Naima. Edited by Norman Itzkowitz. NYU Studies in Near Eastern Civilization, 4. New York: New York University Press, 1972. Thompson, E.P. “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.” In Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, 185-258. New York: The New Press, 1991. Thompson, I.A.A. War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620. London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1976. Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990. ——. “Routine Conflicts and Peasant Rebellions in Seventeenth-Century France.” In Power and Protest in the Countryside: Studies of Rural Unrest in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, 13-41. Edited by Robert P. Weller and Scott E. Guggenheim. Duke Press Policy Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982. ———. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” In Bringing the State Back In, 169-91. Edited by Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Todorov, Nicolai. The Balkan City, 1400-1900. Publications on Russia and East Europe

of the School of International Studies, University of Washington, 12. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983. Todorova, Maria N. Balkan Family Structure and the European Pattern: Demographic Developments in Ottoman Bulgaria. New York: American University Press, 1993. ————. “Was There a Demographic Crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century?” Etudes balkaniques 24, no. 2 (1988): 55-63. Toledano, E. “The Sanjaq of Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century: Aspects of Topography and Population.” Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 279-319. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. “Religion, the Reformation and Social Change.” In The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, 1-45. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. —_—. “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” Past & Present 16 (1959): 31— 64. Rpt. in Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660, 63-102. Edited by Trevor Aston. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. Tursun Beg. The History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Translated by Halil Inalcik and Rhoads Murphey. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1978. Tyan, Emile. Histoire de I’ organisation judiciaire en pays d’Islam. Annales de 1’ Université de Lyon, ser. 3, fasc. 4. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1938-43. Ugur, Ahmet. Osmanli Siyaset-Nameleri. Ankara?: Kultur ve Sanat Yayinlan, 1985?. Ulucay, M. Cagatay. /8 ve 19. Yiizyillarda Saruhan’da Eskiyalik ve Halk Hareketleri. Istanbul: Berksoy Basimevi, 1955. ———.. XVII. Asirda Saruhan’da Eskiyalik ve Halk Hareketleri. Manisa Halkevi Yayinlari. Istanbul: Resimli Ay Matbaasi, 1944. Unat, Faik Resit. “Sadrazam Kemankes Kara Mustafa Pasa Layihasi.” Tarih Vesikalari 1 (1941-42): 443-80. Ursinus, Michael. “‘Avariz Hanesi’ und ‘Tevzi‘ Hanesi’ in der Lokalverwaltung des Kaza Manastir (Bitola) im 17. Jh.” POF 30 (1980): 481-93. Uzungarsili, Ismail Hakki. “Buyruldi.” Belleten 5 (1941): 289-318 and plates 88-107. ——. “Osmanli Devleti Maliyesinin Kurulusu ve Osmanl: Devleti I¢ Hazinesi.” Belleten 42 (1978): 67-93. ———. Osmanli Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teskilati. Tirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 8, no. 16a. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1948. ———. “Tugra ve Pengeler ile Ferman ve Buyuruldulara Dair.” Belleten 5 (1941): 101— 157 and plates 24-60.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 351 Unal, Mehmet Ali. “1056/1646 Tarihli Avariz Defterine Gore 17. Yiizyil Ortalarinda Harput.” Belleten 51 (1987): 119-29. Valensi, Lucette. ““The Making of a Political Paradigm: The Ottoman State and Oriental Despotism.” In The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe, 173-203. Edited by Anthony Granton and Ann Blair. Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Varlik, M. Cetin. “XVI. Yiizyilda Kiitahya Sancagi’nda Yerlesme ve Vergi Niifusu.” Belleten

52 (1988): 115-167. Vasi¢, Milan. “Die Martolosen im Osmanischen Reich.” Zeitschrift fiir Balkanologie 2 (1964): 172-89. — ——. “The Martoloses in Macedonia.” Macedonian Review 7, no. 1 (1977): 31-41. ——. “Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Martoloslar.” Tarih Dergisi 31 (1977): 47-64. Vass, Eléd. “Eléments pour compléter |’histoire de 1’administration des finances du vilayet

de Buda au XVI siécle.” In Studia Turcica, 483-90. Edited by Lajos Ligeti. Bibliotheca Orientalia Hungarica, 17. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiad6, 1971. —-.. “Two Tahrir Defters of the Sanjag of Mohacs from the Time of Sultan Murad IiI, 1580-1591.” In Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and SouthEastern Europe, 339-62. Edited by Gyérgy Kara. Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of South-Eastern and Central Europe, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Institute for Oriental Studies/Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Group

for Altaistic Studies. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiado, 1987. Veinstein, Gilles. “La population du sud de la Crimée au début de la domination ottomane.” In Mémorial Omer Liitfi Barkan, 227-49. Bibliothéque de |’Institut francais d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 28. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1980. Velkov, Asparouch. “Les Basdefterdar ottomans et leurs ‘signatures a queue’ (XVI°— XVIII* s.).” Turcica 16 (1984): 173-210.

——. “Les notes complémentaires dans les documents financiers ottomans des XVI°-XVIII° siécles: Etude diplomatique et paléographique.” Turcica 11 (1979): 37-77. Venzke, Margaret L. “The Question of Declining Cereals’ Production in the Sixteenth Century: A Sounding on the Problem-Solving Capacity of the Ottoman Cadastres.” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984): 251-64. Vicens Vives, Jaime. An Economic History of Spain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Vilar, Pierre. A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920. Translated by Judith White. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1976. Villages désertés et histoire économique, XV°-XVIII° siécle. Les hommes et la terre, 11. Paris, Ecole pratique des hautes études, Vie section, 1966. von Ranke, Leopold. The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Translated by Walter K. Kelly. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845.

Vryonis, Speros, Jr. “The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers

23-24 (1969-70): 251-308. Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976. Wilks, Judith M. “The Persianization of K6roglu: Banditry and Royalty in the Central Asian Versions of the Kéroglu Epic.” Paper presented at the Middle East History and Theory Conference, Chicago, 1993. Wilson, Charles Henry. The Transformation of Europe, 1558-1648. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. Wittek, Paul. “Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, I.” WZKM 53 (1957): 300-313. —_—. “Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, II.” WZKM 54 (1957): 240-55. Wittfogel, Karl A. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957; rpt. New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1981.

352 BIBLIOGRAPHY Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Woodhead, Christine. “From Scribe to Litterateur: The Career of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Katib.” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 9 (1982): 55-74. ———. “Research on the Ottoman Scribal Service, c. 1574-1630.” In Festgabe an Josef Matuz: Osmanistik-Turkologie-Diplomatik, 311—28. Edited by Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 150. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992.

Yalcin, Aydin. Tiirkiye Iktisat Tarihi: Osmanli Iktisadinda Biiyiime ve Gerileme Siireci. Ankara: Ayyildiz Matbaasi, 1979. Yapp, M.E. “Europe in the Turkish Mirror.” Past & Present 137 (1992): 134-55. Yiicel, Yasar. 1640 Tarihli Es’ar Defteri. Osmanli Devlet Diizenine ait Metinler, 5. Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakiiltesi Basimevi, 1982. ———., ed. Osmanli Devlet Teskilatina dair Kaynaklar. Atatirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yiiksek Kurumu. Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, ser. 3, no. 13. Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1988. Zarinebaf-Shahr, Fariba. “Tabriz under Ottoman Rule (1725—1730).” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1991. Zilfi, Madeline C. The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age

(1600-1800). Studies in Middle Eastern History, 8. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988. Ziircher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 1993.

INDEX

Abou-El-Haj, Rifa’at A. 279 avarizhanes in 107; beytiilmal

Absolutism 300-301 collectors of 132; cizye collectors

Abu Bali 98 of 162; cizye in 112 n. 87, 170, Accession increase 109, 112, 219-20 235; cizye summary of 86;

Account register. See Muhasebe defterdar of 54, 56, 64; finance

Accounting 232, 235-36; and bureaus of 60, 62; iltizam of 125; balance-sheet 237; defters in 260 muhasebe of 73, 74, 76

Adaletname 297 Anatolia, eastern 41-43, 76, 109 Adam (man) 129 Ankara 24, 115, 125 n. 15, 165, 190

Adana _ 109 Antalya 142, 152, 153

Adet-i aSnam_ 110 and nn. 80-81; in Antep 267 Rumeli and Anadolu 112 n. 87; Anushirvan 29, 30. See also Sasanians

collectors of 170 Appointment documents, for cizye 162;

Advance, appointment of cizye for iltizam 182; of finance collectors 191; payment by scribes 182; procedures for 161 collectors 191-92; payment by Apprentices. See Sagirds

taxpayers 191; payment not Arab lands, cizye in 109; finance

demanded 192 n. 14 bureaus of 61; garrisons, payment

Advice literature. See Nasihatname of 63; iltizam in 122; revolt

Agriculture 6, 125, 194 in 60; tahrir in 35

Ahkam registers 250; cizye in 84; Arab ve Acem defterdari1 54 and n. 15 collectors’ accounts in 217; irsaliye Araba (carts), levy of 89, 255 n. 28

in 221; mukataa in 133, 141; of Arapkir 193 maliye 249, 250 and n. 12; of Archives 6, 16-18, 45 n. 68, 49;

tezkires 251-52 account registers in 218—19; avariz

Ahkam-1 maliye. See Maliye kalemi registers in 91, 165; cizye registers

Ahmed I (1603-1617) 110 in 84, 162-63; complaint petitions

Ahyolu 211 in 251, 256; deposit records in 233; Akce, value of 36—-39, 40, 108 n. 74, fires in 61; firmans in 217; iltizam 109-11. See also Coinage; Counterfeit; records in 133, 137-139; muhasebe

Silver registers in 221; ruznamce registers

Akdag, Mustafa 109-10 in 234; salary records in 57; tahrir

Akhisar 115 registers in 33, 35 Akhisari 287 Argiri Kasri 253 n. 23, 264 Akkerman 154, 157, 225 Armenians 164 n. 7

Aksaray 116 Armory. See Cebehane Aksehir 258 Arnavut. See Albania

Alaca Hisar 141 Arrears 222; accounting of 214~—15;

Alaiye 92 n. 33, 133, 268 and military financing 230; causes

Alasehir 145 of 223-27; collection of 222-23, Albania 24, 64 228; collection of, by kadi 217; Aleppo. See Haleb liability for 215; register entries

Allocations, scribal 62, 66 on 252; registers of 222 and n. 16,

Amasra_ 173 230; totals of 227 n. 25, 230, 231;

Amasya 97 uncollected 229 Amil (pl. ummal) 130 Arz (petition) 19, 20; and Anadolu, avariz in 113, 115, 117, 174, assessment 261; and

253; avariz summary of 93; centralization 280, 303; and political

354 INDEX power 299; and register entries 251, 113-117; regularization of 47; 263 n. 53, and revolt 266, 298; and registers of 33; sale of collection

tax collector’s liability 215, 216 176

and n. 6, 220, 221; as bid on Avariz akcesi 87 and n. 16. See also iltizam 13641; as initiative 281, Avariz, cash 282; as protest 281, 284, 290; cost Avariz registers 97 n. 47; compilation

of 297; decision making on 256; of 91, 92, 96; compilers of 93; Fatimid 247 n. 6; for favors in number of 94; summary 92

return for service 96; for iltizam Avariz tahriri 91 n. 30; procedures collection 133, 196; for reduction of for 94-99 iltizam 142, 143, 152, 153, 157, 178; Avarizhane 84, 89-90; number

for tahrir 31, 97; for tax collection of 117; size of 105~107. See also

order 188-90; for tax remission Hane

115, 261; format of 248 n. 9; from Avariz-1 divaniye ve tekalif-i orfiye. See

tax collector 265, 268; Mamluk 251 Avariz

n. 16; on conflict in assignments Ayan 216

193; on conflict in collection 192, Aydin, avariz in 258; iltizam in 193, 265; on iltizam appointments 128-29, 144-49, 152, 211; revenue

147, 150, 167, 181, 182, 198; on accounting of 77 oppression 162, 241, 247, 260; Aziz Efendi 289, 290 procedure for 248 and n. 8, 251,

252, 254; response to 248, 249, 253, Baghdad 197

257; written by kadi 138 Bakaya, bakiye. See Arrears

Asiatic Mode of Production 7 Bakaya defteri. See Arrears, registers of

Asikpasazade 24 Baki kullari 228

Askeri 24; and tax exemption 89 Balance-sheet 45; and arrears 231;

n. 22, 95; as iltizam collectors 179; and ruznamce 238 and n. 49; bureau

taxation of 48 structure in 55, 56, 64; production

Assessment, changes in 246; errors of 237; revenue in 238 in 262, 263; problems of 252, 261, Balikesir 106, 113, 115

262; resistance to 230 Balkans 41, 42, 111, 123 n. 10

Assignments of revenue 193, 209; Balyabadra 214, 272

registers of, for emins 132 Bandits 14; and resistance 293 n. 43,

Athens 146, 147, 149 and tax collection 223; collusion Atif Efendi Kanunnamesi, on avariz with 203 n. 38; negotiation 72; on cizye deposits 235; on with 294 deposit of revenues 232; on maliye Barkan, Omer Liitfi, on avamz 113

organization 62-66, 71; on n. 89, 115; on inflation 117; on mukataa 75; on tezkires 73 population 41; on price

Auction 136, 137 and n. 50 revolution 10, 35, 39 Austria 237 n. 47, 243 Barkey, Karen, on consolidation 14;

Avariz 27, 87 and n. 13; and Celali on negotiation 279, 294 unrest 216; and niiziil 88 n. 20; Barley, levy of 255 n. 28, 262, 263

and ocaklik 253 n. 23, 175; Basra 134

assessment of 83, 175, 289; Bas baki kulu 228

cash 27, 87, 113, 115; collection Bas defterdar 49, 78; bureaus of 52,

of 165, 166, 174, 193, 194; 62; handling of complaints by 249; communal payment of 98; deposit importance of 73; professionalization

of 236; exemption from 88, 95; of 79 n. 53; responsibility of 54, frequency of 90 and n. 25, 93; 55, 63. See also Defterdar of Rumeli iltizam of 28, 47, 126; importance Basbakanlik Arsivi. See Archives

of 82; imposition of 90, 91 n. 29, Bayezid I (1389-1402) 24, 51

94, 95 and n. 42, 96; increase Bayezid II (1481-1512) 54

of 117, 240; rates of 108, Bedel 88

INDEX 355 Bedel-i hamr 75, 110 and n. 80, Byzantines 23, 30, 51 163 n. 4

Bedel-i kiirekcgiyan 165 Cabi (vakif revenue collector) as avariz

Bedel-i muafiyet 111 n. 82 collector 173 n. 30, 175 Bedel-i niiziil, arrears of 222; collected Camels, levy of 166

by havale 173; collected by Cami (cizye collector) 173 and n. 30,

kadi 165; exemption from 263 173

n. 52; rates of 115 Candle works. See Semhane

Bedel-i tabhane (cookery fee) 169 Canik 219, 220, 226

Bekofca 75 Cantacuzenus, Michael 121 n. 5 Belgrad 198 Career paths 46 n. 70, 50, 52 Belgrad/Berat 64 Carts. See Araba Berat 25; as control instrument 201-3, Cebeciyan (armorers) 169

275; collection without 195, 202; Cebehane (armory) 89

contents of 195; in iltizam Celalis 14, 82; and decline 1, 7, 11; collection 194—97; instructions and population 43, 92; and rural

in 189; reporting procedures in 218 administration by force 274; and tax

Bergama 64 arrears 146, 215, 216, 230, 262, 268; Beylerbey 26; in tax collection 174, as military protest 159, 292 n. 40,

189; in tahrirs 31 293. See also Rebellion; Unrest

Beysehir 99, 107, 216 Celalzade 287

Beytiilmal 27; emanet of 128; Centralization, administrative 67; and iltizam of 137, 211; emins of 132, absolutism 301; and control 9, 10,

163 n. 4 244; and iltizams 181; and

Bidders 136; conditions of 151; legitimacy 245; and peasant identities of 139 and n. 56, 140 protest 302 n. 70; and petition

Biga 224 process 280; discourses of 295; of Bitola 111 n. 82, 115 tax collection 278 and n. 80, 280

Bogaz Hisar 166 Ceyb-i hiimayun 79 and n. 54

Bogdan 223 Cezayir 64, 76 Bolu 64, 217 Chicken fat, levy of 90

Borrowing, treasury. See Loans Chickens, levy of 27, 89, 253, 255,

Bosna 86, 116, 214, 264 258, 263 n. 52

Bostanli 107 China 13, 278 n. 80, 286 Boyahane (dye house) 27, 126 Chios. See Sakiz

Bozdogan 150 Circle of Justice 283-89; and economic Bribes 58 conjuncture 305; and protest 293, Bridges, repair of 27, 87 299; collapse of 294 Budget, and tax remissions 266; Cizye 27, 82; accession increase provincial, expanding 242 and n. 62. in 112; amount collected 240;

See also Balance-sheet assessment of 83; centralized tax

Budin 125, 233 n. 40, 272 collection, model for 278; collection

Bulgaria 103 costs of 112; collection

Bureaucracy 1, 77; and procedures 187, 189; collectors

patrimonialism 20 and n. 38, 79 and of 162, 171, 172, 193; communal n. 55; development of 23-24, 45; in assessment of (maktu) 103; deposit governance 160; inadequacy of 279 procedure for 235-36; exemption Bureaus, number of 50; organization from 89, 90, 101, 109, 113; iltizam

of 52, 57, 71; size of 58 of 27, 47, 126, 174, 193; rate

Bursa 43, 76, 172, 264 of 82, 108 and n. 72, 110 and Butter, levy of 89, 174 n. 81, 111, 112 and n. 87, 117; Buyuruldu. See Order remittance of 219; tahrir of 85 Biiyiik Kale 73 Cizye muhasebesi kalemi 86, 87, 235 Biiyiik ruznamce kalemi 232 Cizye registers 33, 84-86; and tahrir

356 INDEX defters 101; avarizhanes in 91, 94; Court records. See Kadi sicills cizye collectors in 173; compilation Customs dues 27, 45, 63, 76; as

of 83, 96; format of 235, 237; mukataa 123; collection of 194; irsaliye 220; population figures control of 63; iltizam of 47, 126, in 101; summary (icmal) 86; 152, 171; in England 132 n. 34; updating of 83, 194 n. 19. See also | muhasebe of 133; officials of 129;

Tevzi-i cizye defterleri registers of, in economic history 125 Cizyedar 83 | n. 15 Cizyehanes 86 Ciilus. See Accession increase

Climate 9, 44 Cvetkova, Bistra A. 110, 124 n. 12,

Coffee tax 45, 75 131 n. 32

Cohen, Amnon 102, 110 and n. 80 Cyprus. See Kibris Coinage 36, 44; debased 171; demand

for 38; devaluation of 38, 39, 114, Cakallu 275 293 n. 44; value of 37, 38 n. 45, 39 Catalca 89, 216, 271 n. 49, 180, 261. See also Akce; Cavus 148 and n. 73; as bidder on

Counterfeit; Silver iltizam 140; as cizye collector 169; Commerce. See Trade as nazir of iltizam 131, 148, 152-53; Communications 130 and n. 31, 281 number of 45, 148 Competition, for iltizams 150, Celtiik (rice farm) 151; as

180-182; for office 178; over mukataa 123; iltizam of 126, 145;

revenue 211, 212, 268 operation of 129, 177

Complaint 45; and decline 246; as Celtiikci 88

indicator of problems 282; as Cesme 128

political action 281 n. 1, 290 n. 31; Cizakca, Murat 180, 181

handling of 246-49; in finance Cirmen 64

registers 276 n. 77; and Corum 201 iltizam 201, 273; of tax

collector 276; of taxpayer 241, D’Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea 3, on

247, 267, 276; petition of 251 defterdarliks 54 n. 15, 55 n. 16, 56 Condition (on iltizam). See Sart n. 20, 56 n. 21, 78; on finance

Confiscation 48 bureaus 50, 71, 73, 77

Conflict, over access to revenues 212; Damascus 54, 89, 109 n. 76, 142 Over revenue assignment 192, 193; Damga resmi (stamp tax) 142

over tax collection 192, 198, 212 Danube 56

n. 63 ) Dating bureau 77 and n. 49

Consolidation 8, 13, 14, 305; and Daybook. See Ruznamce

legitimacy 306 Debri 114, 226

Contract, iltizam agreement as 152 Deceased (miirde) 83 Control, by kadis 203; of iltizam 182, Decentralization 7, and iltizams 181,

210; of taxation 161; of tax motives for 242 n. 64

collection 227; loss of and tax Decline 1-8; administrative, lack

farming 119 of 299; alternatives to 300; and

Converts (nev-miislim) 83 complaints 246, 273; and crisis 11

Coron 65 and n. 24, 13, 14 n. 31, 15, 19; and Corruption 1, 32; and arrears 226; deficit 213, 243; and finance and decline 186, 246, 282; and department 48, 49, 51; and finance department 49, 51, 304; by iltizam 119, 123 n. 10, 161, 177 kadi 203 n. 38; by miifettis 154, n. 40, 184; and petitions 280; and 155; by miiltezim 269; checks procedural change 278; and on 159; concept of, as critique of revenue 241; and rural unrest 97,

government 285; in iltizam 100; and tahrir 35, 81; and

system 119, 122, 159, 273; in tax taxation 107-108, 118, 186; as

collection 267 breakdown of social

Counterfeit 10, 37, 40 interdependency 294; economic 266;

INDEX 357 moral 279; metaphors for 282; Direct taxation 278-80

military 303 Dirlik 24, 25

Deficit, and decline 213, 243; and Divan 17; defterdars in 78; iltizam

state power 243; and tax bids in 136, 137, 140; petitions

remission 282; budgetary 239; in in 248, 253, 254; scribes of 183

iltizam revenues 128, 145 Diyarbekir, avariz in 114; iltizam

Defters 18; as final authority 265; in 135 n. 46, 158, 196, 275; treasury changes to 259; errors in 276; in ruznamce of 233 n. 40 petition process 255, in preventing Dockyards. See Tersane

overcollection 260. See also Document fees 126

Archives; Assignment registers; Avariz Documents, administrative 17;

registers; Cizye registers; Kadi sicills; false 202 Maliye ahkaém registers; Muhasebe; Double taxation 207, 261-63, 267; Mufassal; Miifredat defteri; Miihimme spurious claim of 264

defteri; Salary registers; Tahrir Drama 108 n. 72 registers; Tevcihat registers; Tevzi Dubrovnik 141

registers Dukakin 84

Defterdar, bas. See Bas defterdar Duplication, of tax collection

Defterdar kapisi 78 assignments 181, 200 Defterdar of the Danube. See Tuna Dye house. See Boyahane defterdari

Defterdar of Rumeli 54, 56. See also Edirne, arrears in 230 n. 34; avariz

Bas defterdar in 255 n. 28, beytiilmal of 210,

Defterdar of Anadolu 54, 64, 76; 214; cizye in 113, 164 n. 7; iltizam

second 56 n. 20 in 137, 141, 167, 182, 183, 199,

Defterdars, formation of 54 and n. 14; 270; iltizam supervision in 153;

55-56; fourteenth-century 51; overcollection in 273; revenues, fourth 56 and n. 20; in salary control of 64; ziyade-i cizye in 234

registers 53 n. 13, 58; number Egin 193 of 77; organization of 67; Egriboz 202, 215, 222, 223, 275 professionalization of 78; Egribucak 93 n. 36

provincial 55 n. 16; second 54; Egypt, iltizam in 121, 143 n. 62; second and third, as sinecures 78; revenue surveys in 30; tax burden third, bureau structure of 62; third, in 277 n. 79; tax farmers as

creation of 54, 55 and n. 18, 61; officials in 124 n. 12 third, jurisdiction of 64, 76 Eisenstadt, S.N. 20 n. 38

Dellaliye 156 Elmali 145 Dendrochronology 44 Emanet, and iltizam 127, 130 n. 29; Denmark 30 n. 23, 114 n. 93 and mukataa 123; for urban

Deposit, of cizye 219; of money in revenues 126; records of 132 treasury 205; procedures for Embezzlement 154, 156; and

231-33, 235-36; records, for arrears 230; by kadi 203 n. 38; by emanet 132, 133; records, for miifettis 202; by miiltezim 270-72;

iltizam 134 by tax collector 269; checks on 159 Depositors 205 Emecen, Feridun 107 Derbendci (guardian of mountain Emin, in cizye collection 163, 169,

pass) 27, 87, 88, 95 191; in timar tahrir 31-32; of

Der kenar (marginal note) 34, 251 emanet 129; of iltizam 129, 147,

n. 16, 255 167; responsibility of 130; salary

Dervish 44, 95, 113 of 168; selection of 196 Deserted villages 43, 94 Emins, imperial 74 and n. 44 Devaluation 10 Emr ii defter 166, 188, 222 Devsirme 46, 178 Emr-i serif. See Order Dica (church tithe) registers 101 Enforcement of orders 249

Dimetoka 107, 164 n. 7, 259, 262, 274 England, assignment of farmed revenues

358 INDEX in 157 n. 98, 158 n. 99, 180; Finance department. See Maliye budgets of 237 n. 47; bureaucracy Finance documents. See Archives in 160 n. 104; central vs. provincial Finance scribes. See Scribes

wealth of 242 n. 61; centralization Fines 27, 126

in 278 n. 80; crisis in 9; deficits Firearms 9, 46 in 243, 244; extraordinary taxation Firewood, levy of 166 in 87; fiscal organization of 60 Fiscal system, history of 29-31, 51-53,

n. 29, 66 n. 39, 79 n. 56; peasant 121-22, 301-3

political participation in 267, 281 Flight from the land. See Peasant flight

n. 1; reassessment in 246 n. 1; Florina 217

revenue increase in 241; sub-farming Fortress garrison. See Garrison

in 131, 132 n. 34; tax farming Fortress repairers, levy of 106 in 28 n. 13, 47, 120 n. 3, 121 n. 5, France, budget of 237 n. 47, 239 121 n. 6, 124 n. 11, 136 n. 47, 143 n. 51; bureaucracy in 71 n. 41, 79 n. 62; tax farming officials in 129, n. 56, 160 n. 104; crisis in 9; deficit 130 n. 30, 204 n. 42; taxation in 29 in 239, 243, 244; embezzlement

n. 15 in 207 n. 48; extraordinary tax

Errors, in registers 276, 277 in 93; government borrowing in 47, Erzurum, avariz in 255, 269; cizye 180; rebellion in 266, 292 n. 39; in 187; military expenses in 63, receipts for tax payments in 207; 173; iltizam in 201; plague in 97; revenue accounting in 78 n. 52, revenues, control of 64; tax arrears 231, 233 n. 41; revenue increase

in 230 n. 34; tahrir in 97-98 in 239 n. 52, 241; sale of office

Eskinciyan 104 in 60 n. 29; sub-farming of revenues

Europe, centralization in 278 n. 80; in 132 n. 34; surveys of 30 n. 23, Ottorhan image in 1; patronage 32 n. 27, 34 n. 36; tax arrears

in 177 n. 40; population in 43; in 222 n. 16; tax burden in 277;

silver in 37; tax farming in 120, tax collectors’ salaries in 111 n. 86;

122, 131 n. 32, 139 n. 56 tax farmers in 136 n. 47, 187; tax

Evkaf (sing. vakif) 26, 31; cizye farming in 28 n. 13, 47, 120 n. 3,

collection in 162, 164, 170; exempt 121 n. 6, 155 n. 92; taxation in 29 from avariz 88, 95 and n. 42, 99; n. 15, 94 n. 39, 104, 186, 266; payments to 83, 113; revenues transfer of farmed revenues in 157

of 27; taxation of 47 n. 98, 209 n. 57 Exchange fee. See Tefaviit

Exchange rate 37, 187, 189 Garrison, and decentralization 299; in Exemption, from additional cizye 113; iltizam 140, 150, 157; payment from avariz 88 and n. 18, 89, from orders for 63, 65, 73; salaries from

cizye 83, 109 cizye 187, 190 n. 10; salaries from

Exemption documents (muafiyetler) 264 iltizam 225, 271-73; supported by

Expenditures, bureaus responsible ocakhik 175

for 66; conflicts over 193; Gelibolu 64, 220, 259

connected with ocaklik 175; in tax Gemlik 255 accounting 220; increase in 117, General crisis of the seventeenth

238, 239 century 8. See also England; France;

Explanation. See Serh Spain; Seventeenth-century crisis Gevnik 255

Factionalism. See Patronage Giresun 187, 229

Family size 101 Goldstone, Jack A. 12, 13

Faroghi, Suraiya 10, 15 Gokbilgin, M. Tayyib 131 n. 32 Fees 27, 58 and n. 24 Gordes 254 Ferhad Pasa, grand vizier 34 Gordiik 115, 221 Fihrist 235, 236, 237 Government, patrimonial 79. See also

Filibe, emanet of 128, 133; iltizam Bureaucracy in 141, 195, 223, 224, 270 Governor. See Beylerbey

INDEX 359 Grain, levy of 27, 89, 106; storage as 159; military veterans as_ 179; system (anbar), suppliers of 89 responsibilities of 157-59, 210

Greece 64 Havale (assignment document), for cizye Grozdanova, Elena 103 collection 173; letter of transfer 157 Gulamiye, increase in 117, 168, 172; Hemp, levy of 105 n. 66, 106 salary of cizye collector 174. See Hersek 141

also Maas; Salaries Heyd, Uriel 103

Giihercile (saltpeter) 89 Hezarfen, Hiiseyin 77 Giimiilcine 256 Hizir Ilyas 135 Giimtishane 270, 273 Hizmet (service), as cizye collector 169 Gypsies (kibtiyan) 75, 111 n. 82 and n. 22; as iltizam collector 180 Homs 228

Hacegén 52, 53 and n. 12 Honey, levy of 89

Hadzibegi¢, Hamid 110 and n. 80, 111 Horsemen 274

n. 82, 111 n. 85 Household, and competition for

Haleb 43, 44, 54 and n. 15; assessment office 178; and patronage 177 in 262; avariz in 93, 113; bedel-i n. 40; patrimonial, Ottoman

niiziil in 116; cizye in 111; government as 79 and n. 55;

diversion of revenues in 272; iltizam taxpaying, see Hane in 200, 275; overcollection in 260 Hungary, cizye rates in 109 n. 76;

Halifes. See Scribes, Sagirds iltizam in 125; population in 101,

Halomig 223, 272 102; tahrir in 31

Hamid, avariz in 92 and n. 34, 216 Hiiccet, for delivery of revenues 206 n. 6; bedel-i kiirekciyan in 165; n. 47, 209 n. 57; for transfer of funds

emanet in 133; iltizam in 127, 142, in kadi court 206

143 n. 61 Hiidavendigér 224, 258

Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von 3, 50 Hiikm. See Order Hammurabi 29, 247

Hane 32 n. 27, 82, 98; avariz Ibn al-Sayrafi 247

of 113-16; cizye of 84, 104, 108, Ibtida (starting salary) 167 113, 176, 187, 190; fractions of 107; Ilkhanid, administrative techniques 51;

registration of 85-86, 92-93, 94-97; fiscal organization 60 n. 30; scribal size of 101 and n. 56, 105-106. See manuals 30; scribal practices 52

also Avarizhane n. 9, 232 n. 36

Hapsburgs, Long War with 93 Inalcik, Halil 10, 37

Harac. See Cizye Income and expense summary. See

Haracgiizar 83 Balance-sheet

Harput 92 Income, increase Harran 29 India 286of 238, 239

Has, vizierial iltizam of 200. See also Inflation 1, 8, 10; and budgets 239;

Hass-i hiimayun and coinage 35, 37-40, 47; and

Hasil 219 iltizam prices 143, 144, 178; and Hass-i hiimayun 25, 26; and military salaries 176; and tax mukataa 123, 127; and cizye 162; rates 117, 277 emanet of 133; iltizam of 27, 47, Initiative 298, 299

126, 142, 200; in Aydin and Iran 38

Sigla 128; in Hamid and Teke 127; Islamic law 26, 201 n. 35, 299; cizye

officials of 129, 192; revenue rate in 82

accounting of 74 Istanbul, avariz in 92, 117; beytiilmal Hatvan 113 and n. 88 in 128; cizye in 103, 112, 207; Havale (assignee of revenues) 130 and iltizam in 156, 224; revenues, control

n. 31; as cizye collector 173; in of 64, 76; tax evasion in 264 transport of iltizam revenue 158 Italy 37 n. 99; locally nominated (mukim

havale) 158; members of Six Boliiks Icmal (summary), for avariz 92; for

360 INDEX cizye 86; for emanet 132; for Jerusalem 102, 109 n. 77, 194 n. 19 iltizam 125, 132-34; for tahrir 33; Jews 97, 103, 128, 164 n. 7 muhasebe 237. See also Balance- Judge. See Kadi

sheet Justice 24, 194; and decline 286 n. 9;

Iltizam, accounting of 215, 227; and and petitions 248, 253 n. 24, 297 centralization 181; and emanet 127; and n. 54; and moral economy of and mukataa 123; and timar 127; peasant 286; and rebellion 284, annulling of 128; arrears of 145, 293; and state formation 302; as 146, 222, 230 n. 30; award of 156, index of legitimacy 294—97; in 179; bidding on 136, 139-40, 180; European ideology 285 and n. 8, bidding wars 141, 144, 145, 156; 286; in the Near Eastern state 247; collection of 194, 196; collectors millenarian demands for 292; of 167, 179, 199, 227; competition Ottoman concepts of 287—90 over 178, 181, 182, 198, 199, 200;

conditions on 146, 149-52, 199; Kabiz-1 mal (receiver of money) 130 corruption in 269, 273; duration Kadi, as arrears collector 217, 228; as

of 134, 135, 178, 179 and n. 44; avariz collector 165, 166 and n. 13, embezzlement in 202, 270—72; for 193; as avariz surveyor 92, 93 and

urban revenues 126; “frozen” n. 36; as cizye assessor 82, 83; as

180-81; havale in 157; importance guardian of sultanic authority 203; as of 82; increase in revenues of 240, instrument of control 275; as 270; kefils in 156; officials of 130, miifettis 131 n. 32, 154; as 131, 147, 149, 167, 205; oppression nazir 131; as supervisor of revenue in 274; payment of military salaries payments 211; corrupt 201, 202, by 225, 229; price of 137, 144, 203 and n. 38; fiscal responsibility

178, 145; records of 133, 134; of 249; in cizye collection 190; in remittance procedures of 208; iltizam 131 n. 32, 136, 138, 140,

resignation from 182; recipients of 141, 155, 157; in overcollection 260; revenue of 208, 210; routinization in timar tahrir 32; nomination of as of 181; sub-farming of 131, 132; condition on iltizam 149; petitions

summary records (icmal) of 125; by 254

supervision of 131, 152, 153, 160, Kadi sicills 15; cizye in 84, 112; 182, 198, 200, 269; transformations finance department orders in 249; in 178 and n. 42. See also Mukataa; iltizam in 125 n. 15, 136, 140; tax

Tax farming 215 Inebahti 64, 65 payments Kalavurnain 173

Intisab, and decline 177 n. 40; and Kadizadelis 292 factionalism 177 n. 40, 178; and Kaldy-Nagy, Gyula 101, 102 standing army 184; in iltizam 149, Kalkan 172 150, 158, 160; in tax collection Kalkandelen 114, 226

appointments 176, 177 Kalonya 144

Irsaliye 162, 220, 221 Kanun 26, 28; and legitimacy 295

Isaakgi 154 n. 50; governing tax rates 161; on

Iskele (port revenues) 128, 142 avariz 115; on cizye 109

Iskenderiye 64, 172 Kanunname, ceremonial, of Mehmed

Ispenge 163 n. 4 II 52 and n. 11, 53; for

Istabl (stables), suppliers of 89 Trablus-Sam, on justice 287; in Istanbul mukataasi kalemi 76 valuing of iltizam 141; timar 32,

Istankéy 116 33. See also Auf Efendi Kanunnamesi Izmir 214, 223 Kapan, iltizam of 142, 143 Iznikmid 265 Karadag 91 n. 30, 209, 217

Izvornik 115, 217 Karahisar-1 Teke 127, 142, 273

Karaman 64, 98, 99, 145, 198, 199

Janissaries 95, 169, 229, 293 Karesi 64

Japan 278 n. 80 Karlofga 226

INDEX 361 Kastamonu 146, 234, 262 centralization 245, 306; and

Katib 51 and n. 7, 53; of cizye 163, justice 284, 286; and kanun 295

168, 169; of emanet 129; of n. 50, and military unrest 294; and

iltizam 130, 148, 167; of peasant flight 291; and

maliye 57, 58 n. 24, 66 n. 40; of taxation 278, 294, 304; challenge

nazi 153; timar holder as 205 to 282, 285 n. 6, 290-94; concept

n. 45. See also Scribes of 295-97 Kayacik 93, 107 Lewis, Bernard 11, 49

Katip Celebi 289 Lepanto 97

Kayseri 93, 97 n. 48, 142 Little Ice Age 9, 44 Kefe 64, 76, 174, 218, 219 Liva 163 and n. 6, 235 n. 43 Kefil defteri, kiifela defteri, Loans 47 and n. 73

kefilname 155 Liitfi Pasa, grand vizier 34, 287

Kefil, of iltizam 131, 153, 155-57; Lybyer, Albert Howe 50 payment of deceased miiltezim’s debts

by 199 Maas, cizye collectors’ salary 111, 168,

Kemankes Kara Mustafa Pasa, grand 173; increase in 117, 172. See also

vizier 34 n. 35, 94 Salaries Kesan 229 Madenci (miner) 263 n. 51

Kibris, avariz of 106, 115; cizye Maktu 104, 105; iltizam of 145

of 85, 189, 206, 216, 269 Mal defterdar 52

Kinalizade 283 Malakas 85 Kirkkilise 196, 265 Malazgirt 107 Kirsehir 93 Malikane 74, 239 Kist el-yevm 135 Maliye 22, 51; and direct

Kizilbags 292 taxation 278; and legitimacy 304; Kiel, Machiel 102 and state formation 303; adaptability Kili 154, 225 of 100; control of tax collection Kira (Jewish harem vendor) 171 by 161, 190, 214-15; control of tax

Kitchen. See Matbah farming by 124, 132; in Circle of Koca Ili 89, 93, 270 Justice 289; organization of 18, Koci Bey, on avariz 115; on cizye 52-54, 60, 62, 67, 71; quarters

rates 111; on justice 289; on of 78; reorganization of 79, 80, revenue collection 162, 180, 241 304, 305; study of 14

n. 60 Maliye ahkém kalemi 65, 75; and

Konya 43, 195 revenue deposits 208; production of Koyun (village) 107 orders by 256, 257 K6priicii (bridge keeper) 89, 95 Maliye ahkaém registers. See Ahkaém

KOoprilii grand viziers 13 registers

Kosem Sultan 293 Maliye kalemi. See Maliye ahkaém

Kostendil 217 kalemi Kunt, I. Metin 279 Manastir 107, 115, 228

Kusadasi 264 Maras 114, 177, 188 n. 6 Kiiciik evkaf muhasebesi kalemi 74 Mardin 114

Kiicitik Kale 73 Marginal note. See Der kenar Kiiciik ruznamce kalemi 45 n. 68 Market taxes 27, 126 Kiirek (oars), suppliers of 89; levy Marmara 115

of 255, 263 Marriage taxes 126

Kiirekci (oarsman), levy of 27, 113 and Matbah (kitchen) 87, 89

n. 89, 190, 255 n. 28, 263 McGowan, Bruce 43, 113 n. 91

Kiirekci bedeli 114, 165 Mecca and Medina 27, 74

Mehmed II (1451-1481) 52

Lapseki 114, 221 Mehmed III (1595-1603) 93, 110 Leather, levy of 89 Mehmed IV (1623-1640) 293 Legitimacy 19, 20, 49; and Mektupcu kalemi 73

362 INDEX Melons, levy of 89 amounts collected 221; of amounts Memlaha. See Tuzcu remitted 219, 220; of avanz 166; of

Menlik 176 cizye 163, 220, 236; of

Mentese, avariz in 92 and n. 34, 94; emanet 132-33; of iltizam 134,

iltizam in 144, 153, 196, 198; 153, 223; provincial 84, 227; revenue accounts of 133, 218 summarized (icmal) 218

Menzil (post system), levy for 27, 87, Muhasebe bureaus 73

258, 259, 262 Muhasebe-i cizye kalemi 74

Menzilci 89 Muhasebe-i evkaf kalemi 74 Mercantilism 244 and n. 71, 286 Muhasebe-i evvel kalemi 71

Mevcudatgi 65, 72 Muhasebe-i haremeyn kalemi 74, 76 Mevkufat-1 Rumeli kalemi 91 Muhasebe-i vilayet-i Arab 73

Mevkufat kalemi 72 and n. 42, 90-91, Muhasebeci 53 and n. 12, 65

166 Muhassil-i emval 55; as avariz

Mevkufatgi 65 surveyor 93 n. 36, 95; as cizye

Mezistre 159, 260 collector 93, 172; responsibility

Mezraa 126 of 95 n. 43 Midilli 64, 85, 144, 165 Mukabeleci 53, 65, 72

Mihalig 218 Mukataa, and iltizam 123; and

Milan 9 timar 127; bureau structure 74, 75; Military forces, in taxation 150-51, bureaus, responsibility of 75; deposit 169-71, 179-81, 183-84; protests procedures for 236; increase in

of 293; salaries of, from revenues of 241; officials,

iltizam 180-81 responsibility of 129; records

Military procurement 125 of 125, 132. See also Iltizam; Tax Military revolution 9, 10, 46, 117, 184 farming

Millenarianism 292 Mukataa iltizam defterleri 134, 136

Mills 27, 126 Mukataa/mukataaya ait arz Miner. See Madenci tezkireleri 133

Mines 27, 63, 75, 129 Mukataa-1 agnam kalemi 77

Mint 27, 123, 126, 129, 222 n. 16 Mukataa-1 Agriboz kalemi 77

Mizan-i harir (silk scales) 76 Mukataa-i Anadolu kalemi 71, 76

Modernization 7 Mukataa-1 Avlonya kalemi 76 Modon 65 Mukataa-1 Brusa kalemi 76

Mohair 125 n. 15 Mukataa-i evvel kalemi 71, 76

Moldavia 75, 206 n. 46 Mukataa-1 haremeyn kalemi 76 Moneychanger 205, 269 Mukataa-1 hasha kalemi 77

Moneylender 265 Mukataa-1 hasha-1 cedide kalemi 77

Mongols 30 Mukataa-1 hasha-1 cedide-i sani Monks (kesis) 89 kalemi 77 Monopolies 126 and n. 21 Mukataa-1 Istanbul kalemi 77

Mora, arrears in 222 n. 16; avariz Mukataa-1 Kefe kalemi 76 in 173, 222; emanet in 128; Mukataa-1 mensuhe kalemi 77 garrison in 65; iltizam in 159, 225, Mukataa-1 Rumeli kalemi 76 272; revenues, control of 64, 272 Mukataaci1 53

Mountain pass, guardian of. See Mukim havale 158

Derbendci Murad I (1362-1389) 23

Mudanye 158 Murad III (1574-1595) 85, 93

Mufassal defter 33 Murad IV (1623-1640) 43, 94 n. 39,

Muhasebe (account register), and tax 292, 293 collection 213, 214; compilation Mustafa Alt 288 of 218; format of 218 n. 12, 219; Mutafcieva, Vera 113 n. 89 in duplicate assignments 226; Miibasir, of avariz 174, 225, 266, 268;

inspection of 216, 217, 226; of mukataa 129

missing 214, 217, 225, 227; of Miifettis, corrupt 154, 155, 202;

INDEX — 363 identity of 131 n. 32; responsibility Nepotism 49

of 131, 153; 154, 215, 223, 227 Nev-miislim 83 Miifredat defteri, for emanet 132; for Nev-yaftegan 84, 85 and n. 9

iltizam 134; 217, 218 and n. 12 Nevruz 135

Miihimme defteri 248 and a. 9, 253 Nigbolu 128, 152, 258 rf. 40 Miilazim 158; as iltizam collector 179, Nigde 259 and n. 42, 265, 268

180; as cizye collector 169 Nisan. See Order Miilk 24, 31 Miilkname 192Nisanci Nomads 34 43 Miiltezim 123, 129; as emin 167; Novobrdo 172 choice of 196; control,of 124;

death of 198-99; embezzlement Oars. See Kiirek by 270-72; exploitation of iltizam Oarsman. See Kiirekci by 159; liability of 222; collection Ocaklik 165, 175-76; and avariz 253 problems of 196; relationship with n. 23; and “frozen” iltizams 181; for emin of 129, 130; responsibility of ship captains 272; supervision

130, 202, 215, 225; turnover of 179 of 153 Miinseat 17 , Ohri 264, 268 Miisellem (former auxiliary cavalry) 91, Oil, levy of 89, 145 n. 67 92, 93 Onions, levy of 27, 89, 226

Miisellem (village) 107 Oppression 45, 186;.by advance

Miisellim 129 payment 201; by collection Miitesellim 129 method 241, 274; by

Miiteferrika corps 46; as cizye embezzlement 271; by high collectors 169, 171. See also taxes 107; by iltizam 119, 124,

Standing cavalry 144, 145, 159, 228, 270; by Miitekaidin 95, 107 tahrir 24; complaints of 246;

Miitevelli 129, 170, 172 control of 162; exposure of 247;

Naib 93 from 275 Naima 289 Order, as response to petition 248; for non-monetary 273, 274; recourse

Naples 120 n. 3 iltizam collection 196, 197, 210 and

Narda 211 n. 60; for tahrir 32; granting Nasihatname 3, 5, 40, 58 n. 24; and iltizam 137; missing 190; on

legitimacy 295 n. 50; audience assessment 94~—99, 187; on collection of 297; on decline 3 and n. 9, 282, procedures 187, 188; production 294; on justice 247, 248, 288; on of 251; use in preventing standing army 184; recommendations competition 189

of 295 Orhan (1324-1362) 23

Navy, levy for 87 Orientalism . 2, 13, 15, 50

Naxos 274 Ortakci (sharecropper) 88

Nazir, cavus as 153; embezzlement Osman I (1280-1324) 23 by 202; of iltizam 130, 131, 137; Osman II (1618-1622) 293 nomination of 148; responsibility

of 153 Palace staff 45-46; as cizye

Nazir-1 emval 55 collectors 170, 171; offering revenues Nazir-1 nuzzar 131, 148 n. 72 in farm 123

Near Eastern concept of state 247-48, Paperwork 73; for iltizam 200, 203; 280, 283; and resistance 295, 302; for revenue deposits 231-34

and social order 284 Pasa sancagi 95 n. 42, 115

Negotiation 14; and consolidation 280, Patrimonial government, Ottoman 20

299, 301; of iltizam bid 140, 142; of and n. 38, 79 and n. 55 iltizam conditions 151, 152; of tax Patronage. See Intisab

assessments 175, 176; with Patros 97

Celalis 294 _ Payment, communal, of taxes 83, 98;

364 INDEX delays, in iltizam 201; to evasion; farming of taxes by 275;

non-treasury recipients 211 flight of, see Peasant flight; migrating, Payment in advance, as loan 180 return of 96; petitions by 253 and n. 48; as risk avoidance 191; as n. 24, 254, 281; tax burden of 263,

substitute for iltizam kefils 156; 277

collection orders on 190, 191; not Rebellion 8—14; and assessment 261;

required 192 n. 14, of cizye 219; as signal of injustice 284; of iltizam revenues 200; for iltizam military 293. See also Celalis; collection privileges 180; verification Provincial disorder; Unrest

of, by temessiik 207 Redistribution. See Tevzi

Peasant flight 43, 44, 275; and Registers. See Defters

agriculture 97, 277; and non-payment Reisiilkiittab 49; and iltizam

of taxes 215, 221, 224; as appointments 158, 182, 183

protest 290 and n. 32, 291; fear Repairs, providers of 89 of 201; spurious claim of 264; Resettlement, of reaya 94 n. 39

threat of 270, 291 Resignation (feragat) 182

Peasants 24, 26; and justice 284, 286; Revenue, classical system of 22, 23,

and landlords 266; and political 32; deficits in 47; extra-legal 241;

power 298; and resistance 285 n. 7, sources of 26, 32; surveys of,

290; in tahrir 43, 44 pre-Islamic 29; transport of 130 Perenyi, Josef 102 Revolts. See Rebellion; Unrest

Petition. See Arz Rhodes. See Rodos

Pious foundations. See Evkaf Rice farm. See Celtiik

Piyade 91-93, 107 Rice grower. See Celtiikci Plague 97 Rodos 116, 271 Poll tax. See Cizye Rotation of officials 57

Population 4, 6, 10, 13; and crisis 9; Routinization, of iltizams 181; of

and inflation 37; decline of 43-44, procedures 280 105; movement of 97; registration Rum 215, 216 of 32, 41; study of 28 and n. 14, Rumeli 63; arrears in 229, 230; avariz

100-103 in 107, 113, 117; bedel-i niiziil

Post system. See Menzil in 116; beytiilmal collectors in 132;

Premedi 260 cizye in 86, 162, 170, 235; cizye Previste 75 rates in 108 n. 72, 109, 112 n. 87; Price revolution 4, 8, 11 n. 26, defterdar of 54, 64, 76; finance 35-41, 81 bureaus of 60, 61; garrison payments

Pristine 172 of 63, 65; population in 43;

Private ownership. See Miilk revenues of 55, 63, 75, 76 Procedure, and legitimacy 296; and Russia 30, 121 n. 5, 286 personal governance 280; as control Ruz-1 Kasim 135

instrument 275 Ruznamce defteri 53, 232; and

Production, and iltizam prices 143; in balance-sheet 238 and n. 49; for

mukataa records 125 deposits 231; for emanet 132; for Protection 284, 285 n. 6 iltizam 134; format of 234~35; of Protest 288, 290, 292; and collectors’ appointments 163; of

legitimacy 285 n. 7 provincial treasury 218; types

Provincial administration 76 n. 47, 242; of 233 and n. 40

disorder in 100 and n. 55. See also Ruznamc¢e kalemi (ruznamc¢e-i evvel),

Celalis; Rebellion; Unrest creation of 61; growth of 72;

Prussia 79 n. 55, 286 responsibility of 232-33 Ruznam¢e-i sani 61

Reassessment 215 Ruznameci 53 Reaya 24, 25; and iltizam 179; and Riius 181-83 justice 253 n. 24; tax assessments

of 261; tax evasion by, see Tax Sabbatai Sevi 292

INDEX 365 Saddlers (sarag) 169 Seventeenth-century crisis 9, 11 n. 24,

Safed 102 12; and complaints 246; and

Sakiz (Chios) 85, 128, 149, 196 decline 300; and

Salaries 40; accounting of 213; and provincialization 242 n. 64 iltizam 147; and inflation 143, 176; Seyyid Gazi 256 military 41, 47, 168 n. 20; of Sharecropper. See Ortakci standing cavalry 170~71, 174; of tax Sheep tax. See Adet-i agnam collectors 108, 111 and n. 86, 117, Shmuelevitz, Aryeh 103 168, 176, 219; paid by havale 173; Sigla 93, 94, 99, 128

records of 167; scribal 58 n. 24; Sidon 126 n. 21

waived 168 Sidrekapsi 75, 85, 170, 172

Salary registers (miisaherehoran Silistre 142, 156, 259 n. 42, 269, 271 mevacibi defterleri) 18, 45 and Silver 10, 11, 39; coinage 36;

n. 68, 50, 53; bureau structure inflation 37-38; value of 109

in 60-62, 71-75; scribal organization Simontornya 168 n. 20

in 57-58, 67-70 Siroz 64

Sale of office 177 n. 40 Sis 109

Salonica 102 Sivas 64, 165, 255

Salt works 27, 89; as mukataa 123; Six Boliiks, in cizye 169-71; in

iltizam of 126, 128, 139, 152; iltizam 158-59; reform of 171

revenue, control of 63, 76. See also n. 27. See also Standing cavalry

Tuzcu Sofya, cizye in 163; corruption

Saltpeter. See Giihercile in 275; iltizam in 149, 153, 226

Salyane 27 Solar calendar 134 and n. 44, 135 Samako 215 bureaucracy in 78 n. 52, 160 n. 104; Samsun 97, 226 crisis in 9; decline of 2 n. 6, 3 Salzmann, Ariel 14, 124 n. 12 Spain, budget in 231, 237 n. 47;

Sancak bey, and avariz 174; and n. 7, 213 n. 1; deficits in 243-44; cizye 170; and iltizam 228; and extraordinary tax in 93, 114 n. 93;

oppression 270; and tax fiscal organization of 66 n. 39;

collection 184, 260, 265, 275 government borrowing in 47, 180;

Saray (town) 166 justice in 286 n. 12 population

Sari Mehmed, defterdar 289 in 42 n. 59, 106 n. 67; revenue

Saruhan 64, 92, 144, 148, 149 increase in 239 n. 52; sale of office

Sasanians 29 and n. 15, 247. See also in 60 n. 29; silver in 37; tax

Anushirvan assessment in 30 n. 23, 32 n. 27,

Scribes, and cizye 169, 170; and 246 n. 1, 266; tax farming in 120 tahrirs 31, 32; appointment of 182, n. 3, 121 n. 5, 124 and n. 11; 183; compensation of 58; in finance taxation in 29 n. 15, 47, 121 n. 4, bureaus 67—75; number of 45, 46, 186 50, 53, 54, 58-60, 66 and n. 40, 67, Stables. See Istabl 71, 72; organization of 51, 52; ranks Stamp tax. See Damga resmi

of 51 n. 7, 52-53, 57. See also Standing army, as administrative

Katib; Sagird tool 184; in politics 184, 185; in

Selanik, arrears in 230 n. 34; tax collection 185

assessment in 262; avariz in 95 Standing cavalry, in adet-i agnam 170; n. 42, 227; iltizam in 134, 138-140, in avariz 174; in cizye 165-66, 144, 148, 181; revenues, control 169-71, 174; in iltizam 180-81. See

of 64 also Miiteferrika; Six Boltiks

Selaniki, on arrears 229; on avariz 93; State formation 300-301; and

on cizye 110 n. 81; on justice 288; decline 245; and ideology 302; and on tax collectors’ appointments 171 Ottomans 12-13, 303; and

Selim IT (1566-1574) 109 resources 12, 244; European 244

Seljuks 23, 51 Straw, levy of 89, 166, 266 Semendire 141 Sub-farming 131, 132

366 INDEX Sultan, as origin of decline 282; Tahvilat registers 133; for

political role of 160 emanet 132; for iltizam 134 Sultanism 20 n. 38 Talebname. See Tezkire

Summary. See Icmal Talib 136, 137

Suret (copy), of iltizam 136, 155; of Tapu 25, 53, 123, 126 deposit 232, 233, 236; of riius Tax burden 263, 277 and n. 79;

defteri 158-59, 182-83; of tax seventeenth century 107, 114, 239 status 258 n. 40, 259 and n. 41 n. 52, 278; sixteenth century 90

Survey. See Tahrir n. 25; standardization of 92 Siileyman I (1520-1566) 5, 292, 295 Tax collection, and delivery 203; as Siirsat 263 n. 52 reward for military service 183; as

Siizebolu 172 salary for sancak bey 184; by

Syria 41, 42, 110, 125, 229 provincial officials 189; conflict

Szegedin 125 n. 15 over 200, 201 n. 35; enforcement

Szolnok 84 of 228; problems 267; procedures

for 186-88; register entries on 252;

Sagirds, in salary registers 57, 66 starting time of 188 and n. 6;

n. 40; number of 66; rank of 57; Tax collectors 176; death of 191, 224,

role in cizye accounting 235 225; liability of 264

Sam, avariz in 93, 116, 169, 175; cizye Tax evasion 33, 207, 224, 263, 264

rates in 109; overcollection in 260, and n. 55

275 Tax exemption (muafiyet) 252

Sart (pl. sartlar or surut) 140, 147, Tax farming 27, 45, 82; and 150; of bidders 146; of finance decline 119, 159; and deficit 243;

department 147, 197 and income total 240; and

Sehremini 137 mukataa 123; as centralized Semhane (candle works) 129, 182 control 120; as private

Serh (explanation), in register 253; in enterprise 124; as risk

margin of petition 255 avoidance 119 and n. 1; benefits

Sikayet defteri 249 of 122; control of 124 and n. 11, Sikk-1 evvel 57 159; European 120, 121; finance

Sikk-1 salis 56 department in 28; growth of 44;

Sikk-1 sani 60, 61, 66; of pre-Ottoman 120 and n. 2, 121 and Anadolu 56; of Rumeli 56, 64 n. 7; records of 124. See also

Suhud (witnesses) 155 Iltizam; Mukataa

Taxation, and legitimacy 296; and

Tabriz 127 Ottoman state 283; direct 121 n. 4; Tahrir 15, 28; and decline 81; and increase 9; rates of, compared with iltizam 142; of avariz 91, 94—98; of inflation 117; remission of 277;

cizye 85, 97, 188, 220; in ahkam study of 14 registers 253, 260; in preventing Tefaviit-i hasene ve kurus 40 overcollection 260; procedures Teke 127, 133, 142, 143 n. 61

for 24, 28, 31-35 Telhis. See Tezkire

Tahrir registers 33 n. 29, 34, 42, 99; Temessiik, for assessment 206; for

and cizye registers 101; and exemption 89; for register

muhasebe registers 221; and tax change 258; for revenue delivery to

rates 161; as basis for new assignee 209; for surveyed

surveys 98; in collection 188; in taxpayer 96; for taxes paid 206, iltizam 124, 142, 143; updating 207, 229; for treasury deposit 107,

of 34, 258 206 and n. 47, 208, 209; forged 207;

Tahvil (term) 204; accounting format of 208; in revenue

against 206; cizye assignment accounting 218, 229; verifying status as 219; duration of 178, 179; in register 259. See also Tezkire recording by 232, 234—-236 Temesvar 55 n. 17

Tahvil ruznamcesi 162, 163 and n. 4 Tersane (dockyards) 89

INDEX 367 Teslimat registers, cizye 162 Trabzon, avariz in 114; cizye in 111,

Teslimatc1 65, 72 187, 190; iltizam in 272; revenues, Tesrifat kanunnamesi 52 control of 64

Tesrifatc1 65 Trade 6, 10, 45, 125 Tevcihat registers 132, 134 Traklu Borlu 267

Tevkii Abdiirrahman Pasa 78 Treasury, and justice 284, 290; and Tevzi, assignment, of iltizam 180; military expenses 47; assignment, of cizye collection campaign 189, 200; central 26, 27;

responsibilities 187, 188; central and provincial 199, 242, redistribution, of avariz central, remittances to 189, 203, 204, assessment 175 and n. 35 206; empty, and military revolt 294;

Tevzi (tevziat) registers, for inner 244; outer 204;

appointments 166; for avariz 165; provincial 27, 52, 54, 55, 61; for cizye 162, 163; for emanet 132; provincial, accounts of 74, 227;

for iltizam 134, 210 and n. 60 provincial, cizye in 162; provincial,

Tezkire bureaus 73 muhasebes of 218; provincial,

Tezkire 53; for deposit 206, 208; for expansion of 242; provincial, iltizam

iltizam bid 133, 136, 138; for in 158, 199, 200; provincial, orders order 187, 208, 251, 256, 257; for to 249; reports to 218

tax assessment 206; for tax Tulga 133, 154

payment 206, 207 n. 48; format Tuna defterdari 56, 77

of 139, 257; in archives 206 n. 46. Tuna province 222 n. 16

See also Temessiik Tursun Beg 287

Tezkire-i Rumeli kalemi 73 Tuzcu (salt worker) 892 Tezkire-i kila 73

Tezkireci 53 Ulema 35, 51 Tezkireci-i ahkam 65 Unrest 7, 41, 100; and assessment 81, Thrace 64 261; and collection 230, 267, 268; Tirhala, arrears in 230, avariz in 117, and justice 297; and tax 169, 204, 253; embezzlement in 271; farming 123 n. 10~iltizam in 197, 200, 202, 222, 227, Urbanization 143

271; levy of oil in 145 n. 67; Uzuncarsili, Ismail Hakki 50 oppression in 192, 297 n. 54;

revenues, control of 64 Unal, Mehmet Ali 103

Tikves 85, 175 Urgiip 190 n. 10

Timar 31, 81, 161; and agricultural Uskiidar 166, 199, 218 revenues 126; and iltizam 122, 127, Uskiip 75; cizye in 163; iltizam 139, 140; and mukataa 123, 127; in 130 n. 29, 210, 212 n. 63, 270 and peasant flight 291; as scribal

compensation 58 and n. 24; cizye Vac 125

on 162; paperwork on 249; Vakif. See Evkaf

re-awarded 122 n. 9 Varidat bureaus 71, 232

Timar holders 268 Varidatc:1 61, 65 Timar system 4, 15, 25, 26, 45; and Venice 9

legitimacy 295 and n. 50 Veysi 288

Timur 24 Vidin, assessment in 262; avariz Timurci 106 in 99, 166; cizye in 102, 172; Tithes (a’sar) 128, 145 iltizam in 128, 152, 206 n. 46 Tobacco tax 75 Vilayet-i Arab 60, 61 Todorova, Maria 43 Vize 196, 209 n. 57

Tokat 92, 219 Voynuks 83

Topcular Katibi Abdiilkadir Efendi 168 | Voyvoda 129

Topkap1 Palace Archive 16 Vulcitrin 85, 170, 172 Tozluk 43 ©

Trablus-Sam 47 n. 74, 109, 196, 229 Wallachia 75, 128

368 INDEX Waterworks, maintenance of 87 Yeni Han 262 Widows, cizye of 108 n. 72 Yenisehir 116, 271, 227

Wine barrel tax 199

Wine tax. See Bedel-i hamr Zeamet 25; and mukataa 123; as

Wittfogel, Karl A. 298 emanet 133; as iltizam salary 139, Wood, levy of 88, 89 140; of finance scribes 58 and

World systems theory 7 n. 24

Zimmet 222. See also Arrears

Yanya 104, 141 Ziyade (iltizam) 137, 139, 140

Yasakcqi 131 Ziyade-i ciilus 219

Yava cizye 83, 112 n. 87, 207 Ziyade-i cizye 110 n. 80, 111 n. 82,

Yayabasilik 148 113