Studies in Ottoman History and Law 9781463230104

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Studies in Ottoman History and Law

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

20

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

Studies in Ottoman History and Law

Colin Imber

The Isis Press, Istanbul

preSS 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 1996 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

ISBN 978-1-61143-138-4

Printed in the United States of America

Colin Imber is a Lecturer in Turkish at the University of Manchester. He is the author of The Ottoman Empire, ¡300-148! (Isis Press, 1990), and is currently working on a study of the ¡eyhii'l-islam- Ebu's-su'ùd.

CONTENTS

Introduction

VII

The Navy of Siileyman the Magnificent (Archivum Ottomanicum VI: 1980, pp. 211-282)

1

The Costs of Naval Warfare: The Accounts of Hayreddin Barbarossa's Herceg Novi Campaign in 1539 (Archivum Ottomanicum, IV: 1972, pp. 204-216)

71

The Reconstruction of the Ottoman Fleet after the Battle of Lepanto, 1571 -1572, ( 1971, previously unpublished)

85

The Persecution of the Ottoman Shi'ites According to the Muhimme Defterleri, 1565-1585 (Der Islam, 56/2: 1979, pp. 245-273)

103

The Wandering Dervishes (Mashriq: Proceedings of the Eastern Mediterranean Seminar, University of Manchester, 1980, pp. 36-50)

129

The Malâmatiyya in the Ottoman Empire (Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, VI, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991, pp. 225-228)

145

A Note on "Christian" Preachers in the Ottoman Empire (Osmanh AraçUrmalari, X: 1990, pp. 59-67)

153

Four Documents From John Rylands Turkish MS No. 145 (Tarih Dergisi, XXXII: 1979, pp. 173-186)

161

Zinâ in Ottoman Law (Contributions à l'histoire économique et sociale de l'Empire ottoman. Collection Turcica, III: 1981, pp. 59-92)

175

The Status of Orchards and Fruit Trees in Ottoman Law (Tarih Enstitiisu Dergisi, 12: 1982, pp. 763-774)

207

"Involuntary" Annulment of Marriage and its Solutions in Ottoman Law (Turcica, XXV: ¡993, pp. 39-73)

217

VI

STUDIES

IN O T T O M A N

HISTORY

AND

LAW

Why You should Poison Your Husband: A Note On Liability in Hanafi Law in the Ottoman Period, (Islamic Law and Society, 1/2: 1994, pp. 206-216)

253

Women, Marriage and Property: Mahr in the Behçetii'1-Fetâvâ of Yeni§ehirli 'Abdullah (forthcoming, presented at "Women in the Ottoman Empire: history and legacy of the early modern Middle East", a conference held at the University of Maryland, April, 1994)

263

A Note on Pliny's Iresia (Classical Quarterly, XXIX: 1979, p. 222)

289

Paul Wittek's "De la défaite d'Ankara à la prise de Constantinople" (Osmanli Araçtirmalari, V: 1986, pp. 65-81)

291

The Ottoman Dynastie Myth (Turcica, XIX: 1987, pp. 7-27)

305

The Legend of Osman Gazi (in Elizabeth Zachariadou, éd.), The Ottoman Emirate (1300-1389), Rethymon: Crete University Press, 1993, pp. 67-75)

323

'Othmàn I, (Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, VIII Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, pp. 180-182)

333

INTRODUCTION

Probably the most famous and undoubtedly the most widely read study of English history is Sellar and Yeatman's 1066 and All That, first published in 1930. For those unfamiliar with this classic, it is a glorious parody of text-book history : an inextricable jumble of misremembered "facts" from English history and literature, presented in a series of solemn clichés with a constant appeal to inane nationalism. For Ottoman historians Sellar and Yeatman's classic is particularly appealing, since much of what is published in their field embodies the methodology which these authors pioneered. Why this should be so is at first something of a puzzle. There are, after all, more Ottomanists working today than ever before, some of them producing work of the highest quality. What is noticeable, however, is that it is not the best work that defines the character of modem Ottoman historiography and gives it its direction. The best work tends rather to stand out in isolation and only rarely leads to serious debate and development. It is the bad and mediocre that is typical. What, in fact, Ottoman history lacks is a serious academic tradition, as opposed to serious work by isolated individuals. It is worth asking why. The strongest influence on the direction of Ottoman historical studies is undoubtedly nationalism. As this is the official ideology of most, and probably all the successor states to the Ottoman Empire, where inevitably consciousness of the Ottoman past is strongest, it is a force that it is almost impossible to escape:. To the nationalist, the Ottoman Empire is an episode in the history of a nation and, to adopt the Sellar and Yeatman scheme of history, is either a Good Thing or a Bad Thing according to the nation in question. Of the competing nationalisms, the strongest has probably been Turkish, since many Ottoman historians working outside Turkey itself have, wittingly or unwittingly, adopted its tenets. For the Turkish nationalist, the Ottoman Empire was one of a succession of Turkish States, which lead according to choice, from Bilge Kagan or the Huns until the present. This preconceived scheme inevitably comes up with pre-determined answers, leading historians to explain Ottoman law, customs and institutions with reference to a Turkish, usually Central Asian past, and to ignore alternative (and usually more plausible) explanations for the problem in hand. Nationalism, in short, by pre-determining answers to historical problems blocks rational historical enquiry. There are also areas of research

vm

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D L A W

which it renders out of bounds. An example of this is the study of place mimes, which can yield useful historical data: it is through place names, for example, that one can map the areas of Scandinavian settlement in the British Isles. However, the results of research in this field would not invariably be acceptable to nationalists and the fact that governments in the Middle East and the Balkans frequently change place names which they find ideologically unacceptable indicates that this is an area fraught with danger. So as well as (He-determining answers, nationalism excludes certain items from the historical agenda. Another negative influence on the development of Ottoman studies has been a decline in philological skills and, allied with this, an increasing influence of the social sciences. This is perhaps inevitable, as it reflects a general trend in the academic world, and need not in itself be harmful. For the study of Ottoman history, however, where almost all the source material exists only in manuscript and where reliable editions are a rarity, philology in the sense of the scientific and literary analysis of texts, is a sine qua non. Many mistakes in Ottoman history arise simply through careless misreadings and misunderstandings of texts. The social sciences, by contrast, can have only a limited use for the Ottoman historian. The problem is that good social science depends on continuous series of reliable data, and this is precisely what is lacking in most areas of Ottoman history; furthermore, the social sciences require a grasp of statistics which most Ottomanists do not possess. Clearly the social sciences do have their place, and in the hands of a few historians, have made a useful contribution to Ottoman studies, but in the hands of the innumerate they lead simply to woolly thinking. The fashion among Ottomanists for the social sciences seems to reflect a wish to keep up with whatever is fashionable in other fields of history. Again this is not a bad thing in itself, but requires rather more discrimination than is usual. The model which Ottomanists follow is, inevitably, European history, but too often they forget that the study of European history is a century in advance of the study of Ottoman history. The major facts are known, the chronology is known, texts and documents are published, issues have been raised and debated. None of this is true of Ottoman history, and when Ottomanists attempt to imitate contemporary debates in European history, the result is usually a grotesque parody. This point is illustrated by the Ottomanist fashion for imitating the work of the Annates School. The results have not been happy, and it is easy to see why this should be. The pioneer of this School, and perhaps still its greatest representative, was the mediaevalist Marc Bloch, whose Feudal Society provides the kind of generalisations and grand sweep of history to which some Ottomanists aspire. Bloch however succeeds because he was able to base his generalisations very securely on the detailed and precise work of a generation of text editors. Ottomanists have no such advantages. They have no choice but to work on details, and to accept that answers to the big questions are, for the

INTRODUCTION

IX

moment at least, out of reach, and when they look to European history for inspiration they should select what is appropriate, and not what is fashionable. Not all barriers which an Ottoman historian faces are intellectual. One of them is physical, and this is the problem of access to records. In some cases access is no longer possible because, as in Bosnia, records, whether in stone or on paper, have been deliberately destroyed. One should remember, too, that it is only by good fortune and the swift action of scholars that the Ottoman archives in Istanbul survived the holocaust of Ottoman culture in the 1930s. Where records do survive, the problem is gaining access. This is particularly true of the Libraries and Archives of Istanbul, which remain by far the richest source for the study of Ottoman, and indeed Islamic history and civilisation. What strikes the foreign researcher very forcibly, is that access to these institutions is in the hands not of scholars and librarians, but of civil servants, consular officials and the security services, and that the granting or witholding of access often seems to be quite random. One can only conclude that the purpose of these apparently arbitrary hindrances is to discourage serious research, and to keep the study of Ottoman history Firmly under government control. There is probably not much that historians can do to make access to Ottoman records any easier. However, the other problems which impede the development of the academic study of Ottoman history are more easily dealt with. Firstly, Ottomanists should be aware of the ideologies and preconceptions which have determined the course of their subject. Nationalism is the most obvious, but there are others. Secondly, they should recognise priorities. We do not even possess an accurate chronology of the Empire's history, or an adequate account of its institutions and personalities. Until these basics are sorted out, sophisticated, high level debate is not possible. Thirdly, they should be selective in what they borrow from European historians. Finally, they should be less respectful of received opinion, no matter how eminent the source. Without open debate, no subject can advance. The lack of serious debate has, in some aspects, left the study of Ottoman history stranded in the 1930s which is where, I suspect, some national governments would like it to stay. Manchester, 1994

THE NAVY OF SÜLEYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

THE OTTOMAN FLEET* The Ottoman Empire emerged as a naval power in the second half of the fifteenth century, when the navies of Mehmed the Conqueror and Bayezid II expelled the Genoese from their Black Sea colonies and seriously reduced Venetian and Genoese strength in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean 1 . The victorious Ottoman fleet had adopted from its rivals the traditional maritime technology of the Mediterranean. This tradition distinguished between the heavy "round-ships" used as merchantmen and the long galleys used as men-of-war. The distinction was never absolute. Heavy galleys often carried merchandise and the bulky freighters sometimes carried guns, but by and large Mediterranean shipping fell into these two categories until well into the seventeenth century 2 . However, during the fifteenth century shipbuilders both in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic seaboard made unspectacular but highly significant advances in the rigging of round ships. The clumsy, single-masted "cog", carrying a single square sail, gave way to two-or three-masted vessels

Note

the abbreviations in source references refer to the catalogue numbers of documents in the Ba§bakanlik Ar$ivi, Istanbul, as follows: AE Ali Emirf (Kanuni) Fekete Fekete IE (bahriye) Ibnuleimn lhakriyej KK Kämil Kepe^i MD Miihimme Defteri (in all references to the mühimme deflerleri the first number shows the volume, the second the page, and the third the series number) MM Mäliyeden Miidevver.

1 For an account of the Ottoman navy at this period see Hajji Khalifeh, The History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks, tr. J. Mitchell, London, 1831 (English translation of Tuhfet-iilkibarfi erfar-il-bihar): A C. Hess. "The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the Oceanic Discoveries. 1453-1525" in The American Historical Review 125 vii (1970) pp 1892-19/9.

See F.C. Lane, Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance, Baltimore, 1934; R. C. Anderson, Oared Fighting Ships, London 1962; R and R. C. Anderson, The Sailing-Ship, London, 1926.

2

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D LAW

with more than one square sail on the mainmast and a lateen on the mizizen. These ships were far more easily manoeuverable than the cumbersome roundships of the previous century, and with the development of naval artillery they became highly effective as men-of-war. These ships formed the backbone of the Atlantic navies. In the early sixteenth century the "Indiamen" of Portugal and Castile appeared in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, to be followed from the latter part of the century by English and Dutch vessels. Without the fifteenth-century developments in naval technology, the overseas "expansion of Europe" would not have been possible 3 . These technical advances did not bypass the Mediterranean. The improved, vessels played an important part as merchantmen, armed or otherwise, and towards the end of the fifteenth century Venice built a number of large roundships called bargias (bane) expressly as warships 4 . The Ottomans began to build large men-of-war at the same time. Mehmed the Conqueror ordered a galleon of 3,000 fugi (tons) in imitation of similar vessels in the Venetian, Genoese, and Aragonese fleets, but it sank on launching 5 . Two Venetian galleons built at the beginning of the following century suffered the same fate. The weight of artillery on the upper deck combined with the narrowness of the beam caused them to capsize®. Ottoman shipbuilders were to encounter the same problem in 1651 when the government, alarmed by the success of galleons in the Christian navies, ordered a similar vessel for the imperial fleet. This too c a p s i z e d 7 . However, it was not only Mediterranean shipbuilders who occasionally miscalculated the ballasting necessary for a fully-armed galleon The architect of the Swedish Royal Ship Vasa in 1628 evidently made a similar mistake. Despite costly disasters, round-ships did appear in the Ottoman war fleets in the late fifteenth century. A document of 1487 lists the armament on board two bargias and a gripar*. The gripar appears to have been a small galleon usually used as a merchantman 9 . According to Enveri, ships of that name: had already appeared in the fleets of the Emir of Aydin in the previous century 1 0 , which would suggest that they were a traditional Mediterranean type. They were

^See 4

C.M. Cipolla,

Guns. Satin and Empirei,

London, 1965.

L a n e , op. ci/., pp. 4 9 - 5 0

^Kfitip Celebi,

Tuhfel-iil-kiburfiesfar-iì-bihar,

Istanbul, 1329/1911, p. 13.

^Lane op. dr.. p. 51. 7

K a t i p Celebi, op. dr.,

p

128.

^Quoled in I. H. Uzunfar;ih, 512.

Osmanli Devtetinin merkez ve bahriye tefkilcUt,

Ankara, 1948, p.

The Lingua Franca in the Levanl, Urbana, 1958, para. Kan ùnnàme-yi sultani ber mùceb-i orf-i osmàni, Ankara, 1 9 5 6 ,

' h and R. Kahane - A. Tietze,

7 5 7 ; R.

Anhegger - H. lnalcik,

pp. 58,

63.

Diisturname-i Enverì.

ed

I Mélikoff, Paris, 1954, p. 56.

THE

NAVY

OF

SÛLEYMAN

THE M A G N I F I C E N T

3

possibly the same as the Venetian lateen-rigged gripou. In 1499 two very large cogs (Turkish: koke) put to sea with the Ottoman Imperial Fleet, but these, according to Katip Qelebi's description, were very different from the traditional one-masted cog 1 2 . They were hybrid vessels with the lower deck in the form of a large galley and with the upper deck and stern of a galleon. They carried oars as well as sails. A seventeenth century miniature, based partly on Katip ^elebi's description and largely on conjecture, since it shows the ship with the upperwork of a seventeenth-century galleon, portrays these as four-masted vessels, with the fore and mainmasts each carrying two square sails, and the mizzen and the jigger each carrying a lateen 1 3 . Unfortunately there are no contemporary descriptions of these vessels. They may well have followed Venetian models, since their architect was apparently a Greek called Gianni who had learned shipbuilding in Venice 1 4 . The English were experimenting with similar oared galleons at about the same time 1 5 . There were some round-ships — cogs and bargias — in the fleet of Selim I, 1 6 but it is uncertain whether these were cargo vessels, men-of-war, or both. In the reign of his successor their use as fighting ships seems to have lapsed altogether, although the Ottomans certainly did use roundships of various sorts. For example, in 1528-1529 two bargias underwent repair in the imperial arsenal at Galata 1 7 . Matrakiji Nasuh depicted three ships resembling carracks in his miniatures of the Ottoman fleet of 1543 1 8 . In 1553, according to a Venetian report, the Sultan possessed twenty-six large ships (navi) of 600 to 800 botte which carried merchandise to and from Syria 1 9 . This sort of ship seems to have accompanied the Ottoman fleet, carrying provisions and munitions, but there is no evidence that it carried guns. Ottoman documents mention other types of ship, particularly "artilleryships" (top gemisi) and "horse-ships" (at gemisi). Artillery ships presumably transported heavy guns to sieges and horse-ships transported cavalry. In 1614 Pantero Pantera called horse-ships palandarias and described them as having a draught of about four feet and a door in the poop which could easily be opened to let on animals. Each ship could take about twenty horses, and occasionally they

1

' Lane, op. cit., pp. 53, 261.

12

Kâtip Çelebi, op. cit.. p. 18. 1 "J 1J

Miniature from a MS of Tuhfel-til-kibar

14

Kâtip Çelebi, op. cit., p. 18.

in the Library of the Topkapi Palace, Revan 1192.

' ' Anderson, Oared Ships, pp 62 ff. 16

Selimname,

anonymous MS in the Library of the Topkapi Palace, Hazine 1597-1598.

n

2. 1\E{bahriyey. o

Tarih-i feth-i $iktof, anonymous MS in the Library of the Topkapi Palace, Hazine 1608.

,9

E . Albèri (ed.), Relazioni degli ambasciaturi iii, p. 153.

veneli al senato. Series 3, Florence, 1863-1893,

4

STUDIES

IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y

AND

LAW

transported artillery. 2 0 According to Selánikí there were fifty artillery-ships and palandarias at the siege of Malta in 1565. 2 ' Despite these f e w experiments with round-ships, the long-ship, the armed war galley, remained the principal and, at most times, the only type of warship in the Ottoman fleets. At the siege of Castelnuovo in 1539 there were eightytwo standard galleys, fifty-eight heavy galleys (bastardas), eleven light galleys (galliots) and four artillery s h i p s 2 2 , and all records suggest that this was a normally composed fleet. However, at this time the galley was the standard vessel of all Mediterranean navies, and the Ottoman fleet was not exceptional. Even the Iberian powers, with their experience of oceanic navigation, d o not seem to have brought their galleons into the Mediterranean as fighting vessels. In fact, the Spanish Armada of 1588 included a number of galleasses, a type of ship developed in the Mediterranean and hardly suitable for the rough seas of northern Europe. The superior size and artillery of the galleon made it more effective than the galley as a fighting ship. It was far more heavily armed and could fire broadsides, whereas oared vessels could fire only from the prow. Their artillery was really conceived as an extension of the ram. A galley bombarded an enemy ship from a distance before ramming it amidships and boarding. 2 3 Most of the fighting was hand to hand, as in a land battle. Artillery played a far more important part in an encounter between galleons, even though the combatants' final aim was usually to board and capture the enemy ship. The concentrated fire power of the galleon made it difficult for a galley to approach, and the great height of its deck made ii difficult to board. Events were to demónstrale the weakness of the long-ships. The Ottoman galleys equipped at Suez and Basra in the reign of Siileyman were unable to dislodge the Portuguese f r o m Hormuz or Goa, or seriously to disrupt their shipping in the Indian O c e a n . 2 4 Piri Reis' illfated expedition against Hormuz in 1552 2 5 and other encounters demonstrated the inferiority of the Ottoman galleys to the Portuguese carracks. In 1607 Sir T h o m a s Sherley observed that a single English ship could defeat ten Turkish

90 Pantero Pantera, LArmate 21 22

Novate. Rome, 1614, i, p. 43.

Seläniki Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Seläniki,

Istanbul, 1281/1864-1865, p. 8.

MM 523, p. 560. For an illustration of Ottoman galleys see the miniature in Tulüi's Pajanume of 1629, British Museum, Sloane 3584. 24 F o r an account of Turco-Portuguese rivalry in the Indian Ocean see M.L. Dames, "The Portuguese and the Turks in the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1921; C.R Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, London, 1969; S. Özbaran, "The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf, 1534-1581", Journal of Asian History 6 i ; for Arabic sources see R.B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, Oxford, 1963. •y c iJ K a t i p £elebi, op. cir., p. 6 ! .

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE

MAGNIFICENT

5

galleys. 2 6 Drake's encounter with Spanish galleys outside C a d i z harbour in 1587 2 7 again proved that the galley was no match for the ocean-going galleon. In the mid-seventeenth century KStip Qelebi noted that it was a mistake for a galley to attack a galleon, unless it had first immobilized it by destroying its rudder and rigging.28 However, it was not until the seventeenth century that the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet began regularly to encounter galleons in enemy navies. The galley did have certain advantages. It was swift and manoeuverable, and since it was low in the freeboard and had a shallow draught, it could operate close to the shore and was not visible from a great distance, features which made it very useful as a pirate vessel. Above all, it did not rely on the wind and could move on calm days when galleons lay immobile. In a mixed fleet, an oared galley could take a becalmed or crippled galleon in tow. In this respect the A r m a d a galleasses proved their worth, although they were not very useful as combatants. 2 9 As late as the eighteenth century, when galleys were at last disappearing from the Mediterranean, Peter the Great began to build them for his Baltic fleet which was attacking the south coast of Finland. T h e Finnish Archipelago, with its innumerable islands and reefs, narrow channels and uncertain winds was virtually impassable to a fleet of large sailing ships. In this situation the light, manoeuverable galley was ideal, and the Swedes soon adopted it in imitation of the R u s s i a n s . 3 0 However, in the open seas galleons were undoubtedly superior, By this time the galley had become a specialized ship, useful only in very limited circumstances. In the Mediterranean it was really the shortcomings of the galley that determined the pattern of warfare. With its elongated form and shallow draught the galley could not withstand storms. A fleet could not safely put to sea in the winter, limiting the campaigning season to the summer months. The Ottoman imperial fleet usually put to sea on nevruz,31 the Persian New Y e a r ' s day falling on the vernal equinox, and returned to its base in October or the beginning of November. 3 2 Only a few patrol vessels remained at sea in the winter. 3 3 This was the standard practice of all Mediterranean galley fleets. Even after its great victory Quoted in H. Inalcik. The Ottoman Empire, The Classical Age 1300-1600, p. 44. 27 G. Mattingley, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, London, 1970, pp. 95 ff. 28

London,

1971

K a t i p (,'elebi, op. cil., p. 150

79

Mattingly, op. cit. 30

Anderson, Oared Ships. ' A standard formula in Ottoman Imperial Decrees calling up troops, etc., to the fleet was : "It has been decreed that my Imperial Fleet put out to sea on this blessed New Year's Day...". 32 MD 3.143.381 elal. 3

33

' J A s , for example, in 1571 after Lepanto, when Uluf Ali patrolled the Aegean to ward off any possible enemy attack. See Colin Imber, "The Reconstruction of the Ottoman fleet after the Battle of Lepanto, 1571-72", below.

6

STUDIES

IN O T T O M A N

HISTORY

AND

LAW

at Lepanto in October, 1571, the allied fleet did not stay in the eastern Mediterranean to follow up its success. It dispersed, and each ship returned to its home base before the onset of the autumn and winter storms. Galley warfare had not only a limited season, but also a limited range. The crew of the galley was very large in comparison with the size of the ship. A standard vessel had twenty-five thwarts on each side and three oarsmen to each thwart, giving a total of 150 oarsmen. 34 The officers on board were much fewer, perhaps si* to ten men. 35 In about 1560 Ottoman galleys appear to have carried two bombardiers and about sixty soldiers each, 36 but in 1572 the government was anxious that each galley should carry 150 warriors.37 Thus an average sized vessel would carry over 200, and perhaps even over 300 men. Consequently a fleet consumed an enormous quantity of victuals. The Castelnuovo fleet of 155 vessels ate 40,806 quintals — roughly 2,305 metric tons — of biscuit in three months. 38 In 1566, 1,000 quintals — about 56.5 metric tons — of biscuit were baked at Smederovo as only part of the provisions for a small flotilla on the Danube. 39 In contrast to this enormous demand, a galley could carry only a limited supply of victuals and water-barrels in its holds, and this supply was soon exhausted. The government had to make arrangements to supply a fleet from the land or from separate supply vessels which sailed with the fleet. These support ships could, if necessary, return to a pre-arranged point on the coast to collect supplies, as, for example, at the siege of Malta in 1565 when a vessel returned to load provisions at Lepanto. 40 However, a galley fleet could not be fed if it were too far from its own shore and the sea lanes were insecure. Before the Djerba expedition in 1560, Busbecq reported the alarm felt by the Ottoman galley crews at operating so far from their home base against an intrepid enemy. 41 In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the Ottoman Imperial Fleet never dominated the western Mediterranean, nor the Habsburg fleets the eastern part of that sea. Ottoman fleets were hardly different from those of their Mediterranean rivals, and Ottoman shipbuilders faithfully followed the slight changes in galley design which occured during the sixteenth century. In the first decades of the century Mediterranean galleys were alia sensile. That is to say, each oarsman on a thwart pulled a separate oar. There were normally three rowers to a thwart, so 34

K 5 t i p Celebi, op. d / „ p. 153. The number of oarsmen naturally varied according lo the size

of the galley. Larger galleys had more thwarts and more oarsmen per thwart. 35

S e e below, pp. 251-253.

36

A l b f t r i , op. dr., i, p. 294.

37 38

MD 18.116-117. 256 el at. MM 523, p. 560.

39

M D 5.297.767; MD 5.373.987.

40

M D 6.667.169.

41

E S. Forster (trans ). The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghisetin de Busbecq.

Oxford, 1968, p. 170.

THE NAVY OF S Ü L E Y M A N THE

MAGNIFICENT

7

the oars were arranged in banks of three. From about 1540 the Venetians began to adopt the galley al scaloccio,

where all the oarsmen on a thwart pulled the

same oar. 4 2 On a galley alia sensile of twenty-five thwarts, there were seventyfive oars on each side. On a similar galley at scaloccio

there were twenty-five. In

1543 the Ottomans were still using galleys alia sensile,

as Matrak;i Nasuh's

miniatures 43 clearly show. By 1571, as various paintings of the battle of Lepanto indicate, they were using galleys al scaloccio.

The change occurred

perhaps after 1560, when a Venetian ambassador reported that the Ottomans were experimenting with various arrangements of oars. 4 4 For most of the sixteenth century the standard galley had a single mast. By about 1600 it usually carried a double mast, and the Ottoman shipbuilders duly followed s u i t 4 5 The galleass, which the Venetians first introduced into their fleet at Lepanto in 1571, was an innovation among Mediterranean warships. It was an attempt to combine the virtues of the galleon and the galley in a single vessel. 4 6 It had the hull and rigging of a large merchant galley but, like the galleon, could fire broadsides. It was superior to the ordinary galley in artillery, although less swift and manoeuverable. However, it was by no means a revolutionary vessel, requiring only slight modifications in normal galley design. The Ottoman shipbuilders were able to imitate and construct galleasses in 1572, immediately after their introduction into the Venetian fleet. 4 7 In short, Ottoman and other Mediteranean warships changed very little during the sixteenth century and during much of the seventeenth. It was not until after 1682 that galleons began to play a prominent part in the Ottoman fleets. 4 8 There is no doubt that the maintenance of the galley fleets was a heavy burden on the Ottoman exchequer, but there is too little evidence to calculate the total cost of equipping and maintaining a fleet. Some surviving figures give a rough idea of the magnitude of the expenses, but no more than this. The most complete record dates from 1539 and shows the expenditure on the fleet which recaptured Castelnuovo. 4 9 For the period between June 2 and August 31 the Treasury expended 10,000,000 ak(es,

a sum corresponding to approximately

180,000 gold ducats. This includes the pay of the crews of the ships and of the 42

F o r a fuller description of galley design see Lane, op. cil., p. 9; Anderson, Oared Ships, 52 ff.

43

In Tarihi

feth-i

pp.

fiklog.

^ A l b è r i , lip. cil., i, p. 293. 4

^ C / . , the miniature in Tulûi, op. cit.

^ For a fuller description of the galleass see Anderson, Oared Ships; for the galleass and all types of seventeenth century shipping see G. Fournier, Hydrographie, conlenanl la Théorie el la Praticque de toutes les Parlies de la Navigation, Paris, 1643. 47 l m b e r , "The Reconstruction". 48 4

Silâhtâr Findiklili Mehmet Aga, Silähtar tarihi,

Istanbul, 1928, i, pp. 762-763.

" M M 523, p. 560. This document is reproduced in Colin Imber, "The Costs of Naval Warfare," Archivum Ottomanicum 4 (1972), pp. 203-216.

8

STUDIES

IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D

LAW

craftsmen w h o built them and sailed with the fleet. It does not include the pay of the warriors in the ships or the price of shipbuilding materials and ordnance. There are a f e w figures for Treasury expenditure on the Ottoman arsenals. In 1536 a certain Ferruh £ a v u § transferred 1,000,000 akfes, equal to about 18,000 ducats, to the arsenal at Sinop. 5 0 In 1538 the Treasury paid 100,000 akfes to the Izmit arsenal, of which only 23,982 — about 220 ducats — were spent. 5 1 T h e records do not, however, say how many ships were built for these sums. In 1528-1529 total expenditure at the Galata arsenal, the largest in the Empire, was 684,000 akges — about 12,000 ducats — but no new warships were built there in this year, which saw no important naval action. T h e sum includes the completion of eleven bastardas and galleys, repairs to a number of other vessels and some other minor items of expenditure, 5 2 but it does not indicate how much the full construction of a galley actually cost. The expenditure in the following year was 1,002,556 akges — about 198,230 ducats — but again no complete ships were built. 5 3 These figures, even when added together, do not indicate the total cost of building a fleet and sending it to sea. Most of the materials for shipbuilding —timber, sail-cloth, rope, pitch, oakum, anchors, chains, nails, and so on — came from the provinces of the Empire, and the state frequently made the purchases from local revenues of the particular province, or transferred the money directly from the Treasury to the province. 5 4 Consequently arsenal accounts do not record all purchases of naval equipment. Furthermore, whenever the state required a large number of new ships, many of these were built outside the arsenals, as in 1571 -1572 after the defeat at Lepanto. 5 5 There is no record of the cost of naval artillery and powder, and the pay of the warriors is not directly recorded. Before 1572 the majority of the soldiers who sailed with the fleet were sipahis56 who received their pay not from the Treasury, but directly from their timar incomes. 5 7 The Janissaries also fought at sea, but records of their pa;/ are separate from naval accounts. Thus the e v i d e n c e for the costs of naval warfare is limited. T h e Castelnuovo accounts show a direct Treasury expenditure of about 180,000 ducats for a campaign of three months. A fleet often stayed at sea for as much as six or seven months, and a long campaign, such as the Malta expedition of

50 5

MM 523, pp. 220 ff.

' M M 523, pp. 362 ff.

sl

lE(bahriye),

2.

53

KK 5637.

55

See Imber, "The Reconstruction"

C/., the various naval accounts in MM 523 el al. 56

See below, pp. 45 ff. For an account of the ttnuir system see Inalcik, op. dr.. pp. 104-118.

THE

NAVY

OF

SÜLEYMAN

THE

MAGNIFICENT

9

1565, might cost twice this amount. With the costs of building, equipping, and repairing the ships during the winter, it is unlikely that a galley fleet in wartime could be maintained for less than 500,000 gold ducats per year. Figures from the other end of the Mediterranean are equally staggering. In 1538 the hull of a single Spanish galley cost 1,000 ducats. Fully armed and equipped, it cost over twice this amount. 5 8 It is difficult to believe that the Mediterranean galley fleets did not impose an unbearable strain on the economies of the states which supported them, yet in the middle years of the sixteenth century there are few obvious signs of exhaustion in the Ottoman Empire. The dramatic Ottoman recovery after the disastrous defeat at Lepanto in 1571 was a sign of vigour rather than exhaustion, and this occurred after a series of maritime campaigns which must have stretched the Empire's resources to the utmost: Malta in 1565, Chios in 1566, the DonVolga project in 1569, and the prolonged siege of Cyprus. Before the Lepanto defeat the Sultan was even considering an assault on Crete. 59 Much of the Ottoman strength undoubtedly lay in the abundance of natural resources. All the necessities for shipbuilding were available in the Empire, and, in fact, transport seems to have been a greater problem than supply. 6 0 The population of the Empire was expanding throughout the century 61 and provided the manpower necessary for the galley fleets. There was a visible shortage of manpower in 1572, but this reflected a crisis situation and was in any case overcome. 62 It is unlikely that the Christian Mediterranean navies had such resources to dispose of. The Venetian terra firma and islands were hardly extensive enough to supply all the materials for a galley fleet. The territories of the Spanish Habsburgs equalled or surpassed those of the Sultan, but they were scattered and divided by seas and hostile territories. The provision of sailcloth for the fleets illustrates the advantage which the Ottomans enjoyed. Much of the sailcloth for ships built in Spain came from Flanders, 6 3 a territory hundreds of miles to the north and divided from Spain by France, a hostile country before 1559. If it came by sea it had to cross the stormy English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. The Sultan's sailcloth was woven mainly in southern Greece and western Anatolia, and travelled to the arsenal at Galata overland through Ottoman territory or across the safe waters of the Aegean. Even cloth from Egypt had only

(O

K Braudel, The Mediterranean and Ike Mediterranean

World in the Age of Philip II, London.

1972, i, p. 536. 59 60

MD 14.686.987.

S e e below, pp. 228-235. 61 Ö . L Barkan, "Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l'empire ottoman aux XV e et XVIe siècles", Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient I. ^ S e e Imber, "The Reconstruction". 63 Braudel, op. cit., p. 536.

10

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND LAW

to cross the eastern Mediterranean, 6 4 where Ottoman shipping, after the expulsion of the piratical Knights of St. John from Rhodes, was relatively unmolested. In fact, most of the men and materials for the fleet came from the Balkans and Anatolia and never needed to cross foreign territory or open sea. It seems, although only through lack of evidence to the contrary, that the Ottoman government did not exceed its means in maintaining the galley flc&ts. This is in coldly economic terms. Undoubtedly the population of the Empire suffered considerable hardships for the sake of the fleet. The enormous demands of the galleys must have resulted in a high rate of taxation, whether in cash, kind, or labour. The reaya in certain forest areas near Izmit and Sinop performed the compulsory service of felling timber for the ships and often received no pay for their exertions. The state also requisitioned their carts to transport the timber and other naval supplies, although normally it paid a hire charge. 65 Shipwrights were taken from their homes to perform duties in the arsenals and in the fleet at sea, and it seems from records of those who escaped that this service, although paid, was unpopular. 66 More oppressive was the levy of oarsmen for the fleet, and the elaborate provisions taken to prevent escaping of the conscripts attest to the levies' unpopularity. The non-convict oarsmen did receive a wage, but part of this was levied as a tax on the village which provided the oarsman. 67 However, such things are inevitable in times of war, and the Ottoman government, which through its agents controlled every stage in the construction of the galley fleets, was careful, at least according to the wording of its decrees, to prevent any illegal exaction on the reaya. It was not until the post-Lepanto crisis that the government experienced any great difficulties in finding the labour, oarsmen, and warriors for the fleet. In the reign of Siileyman I there were occasional signs of discontent, as in 1560 when the people of the Province of Ziilkadir in southeast Anatolia petitioned that the levy of cash and provisions for the fleet at Basra was beyond their means. 6 8 But apparently there was no widespread discontent, and so it seems that the burden of naval warfare was not intolerable. Nor, apparently, did the Treasury's cash expenditure on the fleets exceed its income. It was not until the crisis of 1571-1572 that the Admiral of Kavala received his post on condition that he constructed galleys at "100 filoris per ship less than the galleys in the Imperial Arsenal", 69 and dignitaries of state

64

See below, pp. 19-20.

65

See below, pp. 16-18.

66

See below, pp. 28-30.

67

S e e below, pp. 49-53.

68

M D 3.417.1249.

69

M D 16.41.75.

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE M A G N I F I C E N T

11

had ships constructed at their own expense. 7 0 Before this date the Treasury seems to have been living within its means. This happy situation did not last long. T h e drastic debasement of the silver akge in the 1580s was the end of a long period of apparent financial stability. The akge had maintained its value in relation to gold since the reign of Selim 1. The debasement of the coinage, only one symptom of a general social and economic crisis in the Empire, 7 1 can only have been the culmination of a long period of overstraining the Empire's economic resources. It is tempting to think that military expenditure, including the cost of the galley fleets, had at last exceeded the resources of the state and played an important part in the troubles of the late sixteenth century. A century before, the financial d e m a n d s of Mehmed the Conqueror's bellicose policies had led to the repeated debasement of the akge and considerable popular unrest after his death. 7 2 In the late sixteenth century, the situation was even more drastic. Imperial ambition w a s m o r e than a mediaeval economy could bear. In an age which saw the foundation of European ocean-borne empires, the achievements of the Ottoman galley fleets do not seem very spectacular, even though they were perhaps greater than those of any other Mediterranean navy. From the beginning of the sixteenth century until the appearance of the Cossack raiders early in the seventeenth, the Ottomans enjoyed absolute control of the Black Sea, although this was due to geography and political circumstances rather than to naval power. After the expulsion of the Knights from Rhodes in 1522, the Sultan's fleet e n c o u n t e r e d little e n e m y o p p o s i t i o n in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. By 1540 Venice had lost her last Aegean possessions, and in 1570-1572 Cyprus, too, fell to the Ottomans. This part of the sea was within easy reach of the Imperial Fleet based at Galata and Gallipoli and was patrolled by smaller squadrons from Rhodes and Alexandria. 7 3 Outside this area, bounded on all sides by the Ottoman coastline, the imperial fleet made incursions but never gained complete mastery. A determined onslaught in 1537 failed to wrest C o r f u from the Venetians. T h e island commanded the entrance to the Adriatic, 74 and Venice remained the major power in that sea. Distance from its h o m e base severely limited the scope of the Ottoman fleet in the western Mediterranean. Certainly it achieved some successes on the western half of the North African coastline, notably Piyale Pasha's capture of Oran and Bi/.crta in 1556 and 1557, his victory at Djerba in 1560, and

70

MD

16.146.287-288.

See tnalcik, op. tit., pp. 41-51. 72

Idem, p. 30.

73

S e e below, pp. 41-42.

74

S e e Braudel, op. til., p. 124.

12

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND

LAW

Kilif Ali Pasha's recapture of Tunis in 1574, but it was not naval strength alone that secured these Ottoman gains. In their struggle with Spanish power in North Africa, political circumstances favoured the Ottomans. In accordance with Ferdinand's original policy, the Spaniards had never wholeheartedly carried the Reconquest into North Africa, but occupied only a few key points on the coast, and, as the century advanced, Spanish preoccupations with European wars inevitably turned their attention away from North A f r i c a . 7 5 In addition to this, the native North Africans had religious ties with the Ottomans and none with the infidel Spaniards who were persecuting their co-religionists and expelling them f r o m the peninsula. O t t o m a n presence in North A f r i c a and the western Mediterranean relied partly on the willing cooperation of the Algerian corsairs and the weakness of Spain. The Franco-Ottoman alliance of 1535 provided the Sultan with another lever against Habsburg power in the West. T h e two fleets cooperated at the siege of Nice in 1543, but apart from this one occasion, the alliance was never really effective. With the Franco-Spanish peace of 1559, the Sultan could no longer use the alliance as an instrument of aggression, and Ottoman influence receded from the western Mediterranean. 7 6 It seems, too, that f r o m the final decades of the sixteenth century Algiers b e c a m e increasingly independent of the central government, and this source, if not of power, at least of irritation passed from the Sultan's control. So at height of its power, in the years between the battle of Preve/:a in 1538 and the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Ottoman imperial fleet never gained control of the Adriatic or the western Mediterranean. The failure of the siege of Malta in 1565 put an end to the Sultan's westward ambitions against Christianheld territories. The marauding Knights were able to continue molesting Muslim shipping, the prevention of which seems to have been one of the main reason for undertaking the siege. The limited success of the Ottomans in the western Mediterranean was hardly surprising in view of the short range and short season of the galley fleets. 7 7 In the Indian Ocean the achievements of the Ottoman galleys were far more modest. The recovery of the spice trade via the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the middle years of the sixteenth century, after its slump following the Portuguese discovery of the Cape route, 7 8 suggests that perhaps the Ottoman galleys from Suez were succesful in defending the Arab trading fleets f r o m Portuguese disruptions. This certainly seems to have been the main function of the Ottoman squadrons in the Red Sea and the Indian O c e a n . In 1564 the

75

S e e J.H. Elliott, Imperial

76

S e e lnalcik, op. dr., pp

77 78

Spain 1469-1716,

London, 1963, pp. 41-44.

:i6-37.

Seläniki Mustafa Efendi, op. cil., p. 7.

F . C . Lane, "The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Further Evidence of Its Revival in the Sixteenth Century", American Historical Review 45 (1940).

THE NAVY

OF St/LEYMAN

THE M A G N I F I C E N T

13

beylerbeyi of Egypt received a command to equip a fleet against the "ships of the evil-doing Portuguese", who had "continually been causing damage to merchant ships coming by sea from the land of India". 79 But there are other possible explanations for the recovery of the Middle Eastern spice trade. It is likely that the Portuguese, with their limited numbers of ships and factories, thinly spread over a vast area, were unable to do much harm to Arab shipping; and spices shipped by the shorter Middle East route were apparently fresher and more in demand than those brought round the Cape. 8 0 When Ottoman galleys did encounter Portuguese carracks, the result was usually disaster, and even without the Portuguese, galleys were not suitable for operations in the ocean. In 1554 Seydi Ali Reis broke through the Portuguese blockade at Hormuz, only to encounter a terrible storm in the open sea.81 The Ottomans did, in fact, use galleons on the Indian Ocean. There is a record of one which sailed, in 1565, with the Admiral of Suez, Sefer's expedition to Aden to protect the merchantmen coming from India. However, as in the Mediterranean fleets, this was not a fighting vessel, but merely carried supplies. Ten galleys and galliots made up the fighting force. 82 The Ottomans never appreciated the revolutionary advances in naval architecture and warfare in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century. Even in the ocean they remained faithful to the mediaeval traditions of the Mediterranean. However, within the Mediterranean, and within the limits of traditional Mediterranean warfare, the Ottoman galley fleets were very successful, They seem even to have gained the reputation of invincibility, so that Cervantes could refer to Lepanto as a battle which "revealed to all nations of the world the error under which they had been labouring in believing that the Turks were invincible at sea". 83 Certainly between 1538 and 1571, and even after this date, the Ottoman Empire was the greatest single naval power in the Mediterranean. The strength of the Ottoman fleet does not seem to have come from superior ships or a superior grasp of naval tactics. The number of European reports describing Ottoman galleys as poorly built suggest that this was more than just wishful thinking by those whom Ottoman power threatened. Marco Minio in 1522 84 and Danielo Ludovisi in 1534 85 reported to the Doge that 79 80 Ol

MD 6.122.256.

Braudel, op. ài., p. 545

A. Vàmbéry, The Travels and Adventures of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali Reis, London, 1899 (trans, of Seyd! Ali Reis' Mirat-i memalik), pp. 10-16. 82 MD 6.122.256. Ol

" 'Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha,(trans. S. Putnam), London, 1953, p. 347. 84 Albèri, op. ci'»., i, p. 67. 85 /¿em. i, pp. 18-19.

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND

14

LAW

Ottoman vessels were badly built and badly maintained. In 1547 Jean Chesneau wrote that they were heavier and less manageable than those in the Christian navies. 8 6 In 1558 Antonio Barbarigo noticed a lack of skill among the craftsmen in the Arsenal, w h o worked with undersized adzes and no axes at all, so that work was slower than necessary. He described the ships as "not lasting more than a year, so that when they come to disarm, it is pitiful to see them in a s tate of disrepair". H e added, too, that the wood used for galley construction was green and unseasoned, which impaired the vessels' manoeuvrability in the w a t e r . 8 7 Certainly, Ottoman records of naval timber suggest that it was never left so season. It seems that the ships of the levends, the free-booting Muslim corsairs, were better built than the galleys of the imperial fleet. 8 8 Neither does it appear that the Ottoman c o m m a n d e r s were usually superior to their Christian rivals. Of the mid-century grand admirals, only two had had experience of the sea before their appointment. These were the great Hayreddin Barbarossa, admiral from 1533 to 1546, and Kill? Ali Pasha w h o succeeded to the Admiralty in the crisis after Lepanto. 8 9 But these appointments were exceptional. In accordance with the normal Ottoman practice in making appointments to governorships, 9 0 the admiral was usually a kapikulu graduated from the Palace School, and without experience of the s e a . 9 1 Barbarossa - s successor, Sokullu Mehmet, had previously been kapiciba§i (head doorkeeper) in the Palace, and the Admiralty was his first outside appointment. In 1549 he was to become Beylerbeyi of Rumelia. 9 2 After him came Sinan Pasha, likewise a graduate of the Palace School, who presumably held the post through the influence of his brother, the Grand Vizier Riistem Pasha. 9 3 In fact the job had been offered to an ideal candidate, the ex-corsair Turgut, who refused it for fear of Rustem's reprisals. 9 4 Sinan's successor was another kaptcibait, Piyale, 9 ' 1 whose period as admiral was very successful, despite his previous inexperience. It was he who commanded the fleet at Oran, Bizerta, Ciudadela, Djerba, and Chios. His single defeat was at Malta in 1565, where he was, in fact, only second in c o m m a n d . The commander-in-chief was the vizier Mustafa Pasha. 9 6 T h e next

86

J . C h e s n a u , Le Voyage

de Monsieur

d'Aramon,

Ambassadeur

pour

le Roy en Levant

(ed. E.

Leroux), Paris, 1887, p. 244. 87 88

A l b è r i , up. cit., iii, pp.

151-152.

Wem. iii, p. 191.

89

K â l i p Çelebi, op. cit., p. 140.

90

See Inalcik, op. cit.. pp 76-118.

91

See b e l o w , pp. 247-251

92

K â t i p Çelebi, op. cit., p

93 94

Idem,

139.

p. 140.

l b r â h î m Peçuyi, Tarih i Peçuyi,

M e h m e t , Tarih-i

Solakzade,

95

K â l i p Çelebi, op. cit., p

96

M D 6.283.597

étal.

Istanbul, 1 2 8 3 / 1 8 6 6 - 1 8 6 7 , i, p. 347; H e m d e m î S o l a k x a d e

Istanbul, 1297/1880, p. 540. 140.

THE

NAVY

OF

SÜLEYMAN

THE

MAGNIFICENT

15

admiral, Müezzinzade Ali Pasha, had previously been aga of the Janissaries. 97 His lack of maritime experience had disastrous consequences when at Lepanto he decided, against the advice of his captains, to attack the fleet of the Holy League. 98 The crisis of 1571 obviously required an experienced admiral, and under K1I19 Ali Pasha the fleet again sailed to victory. His successor, Ulu? Hasan Pasha, had, like him, been a corsair in Algiers. 99 In the seventeenth century, KStip Qelebi recognized that Ottoman admirals were frequently unskilled in naval warfare and advised them, if they had no personal experience of the sea, never to act without the advice of their seasoned commanders. Only this could avoid another Lepanto. 1 0 0 In the late sixteenth century, Mustafa Ali of Gallipoli had written rather more bluntly that "an admiral who is not himself a corsair is not worthy of the post". 1 0 1 It does appear that the ordinary galley captains were men of experience, 102 but except in times of crisis the admirals were usually landsmen. Thus, in some respects the weaknesses of the Ottoman galley fleets were rather more evident than their strengths. Even in the 1540s, after the advent of Barbarossa and the victories of the Venetian war of 1537-1540, the former grand vizier, Luffi Pasha, was able to write that "... many of the past sultans have ruled the land, but few have ruled the seas. In the management of naval expeditions, the infidel is superior to us". 1 0 3 The Ottoman army remained more formidable than the fleet. However, the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet had two enormous advantages over its rivals. It drew on the vast human and material resources of a geographically united empire, 1 0 4 and was under the control of a centralized, military government that was able to exploit these effectively. This contrasted favourably with the vacillations of Habsburg naval organization in the Mediterranean. Throughout the reign of Charles V, the galley fleets of Spain, Naples, Genoa, and Sicily had been held by the captains general or by private owners in contract from the crown. Philip II found this decentralized system unsatisfactory and, after his accession, brought the Spanish, Neapolitan and Sicilian fleets under direct royal administration, only to revert again later to the

97

K a t i p felebi, up. dl.

98

Idem

"idem, 100 101

p. 140.

p. 93. p. 140.

K a t i p £elebi, op. dl., p. 159.

Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali, Meva'id-un-nefais fi kava'id-U-mecalis

(facsimile), Istanbul

p. 57. 102 K

S e e below, pp. 37-40.

% Tschudi (ed.), Das Asafname des Lutfi Puschti, Berlin, 1910, pp. 30-31.

104

S e e above, pp. 9-10.

1956

16

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N

HISTORY

AND

LAW

old organization. 1 0 5 The Venetian government, like the Ottoman, maintained its own galley fleets under centralized supervision, and the Arsenal at Venice was in the forefront of galley building and design, but it lacked the resources of a vast territorial empire. The Sultan was never short of these.

THE MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE FLEET The continued maintenance of a fleet of wooden vessels required vast and regular supplies of timber for construction, pitch, oakum, and tallow for caulking and oiling, iron for nails, anchors, chains, and other metal parts, fibrous plants for rope and sailcloth, and numerous other materials. Sixteenthcentury records show that in all of these the Ottoman Empire was self-sufficient, h o w e v e r scattered its resources may have been, and however formidable the problem of transport. The exploitation of these resources was strictly under the control of the central government. T h e arsenal at Galata, seems to have bought only fairly minor items from private dealers. 1 0 6 It was the Imperial Divan in the capital that issued the orders for large amounts of any ship-building materials, 1 0 7 and in the provinces it was the sancak beyh, or other centrally-appointed governors or kadis who were responsible for the execution of these commands and for returning the account-books and registers to the central government. The abundance of timber in the Ottoman Empire was the particular envy of foreign observers B a r b a r i g o m e n t i o n e d it in 1 5 5 8 , 1 0 8 and in 1573 Constantino Garzoni was not surprised to find that the Ottomans left Iheir galleys in the water all through the winter, attributing this neglect to the amount of timber on the Gulf of tzmit and along the Black Sea coast, which made ships easy to replace. 1 0 9 In the following century Thomas in 1620 1 1 0 and Fournier in 1 6 4 2 1 1 1 commented on the great stretches of forest in Bithynia, the Ottoman Sancak of Kocaeli, which were the main source of naval timber.

'0SI.A.A. Thompson. War and Administrative

Devolution,

The Military Government

of

Spain

in the Reign of Philip II (Thesis 5322 in the University Library), Cambridge, 1965. 106

K K 5637;lE (bahriye)!.

107

Fermons

ordering large amounts of timber, etc., for the Imperial Arsenal appear in the

miihimme defterleri

and must therefore have been issued by the Divan. However, these dc> not

contain a complete record of naval orders. Smaller quantities of material must have been ordered directly from the Arsenal 108 l09

A l b è r i , op. cit., ill. p. 152

ldem,

iii, p. 420.

Thomas, Observations el Remarques plus notables de la Providence l'Accroissement de la domination des Princes Othomans, Paris, 1620, p. 132. ' " F o u m i e r , op. cit., pp. 100-101

de Dieu

: en

T H E NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE

MAGNIFICENT

17

Ottoman sources confirm these accounts. The forests of north-western Anatolia and the Istranca Mountains in eastern Thrace supplied the Imperial Arsenal, and in these areas the government reserved stretches of woodland for the sole benefit of the fleet and appointed forest guards to enforce the monopoly. 1 1 2 Most of the timber came from the Sancak of Kocaeli which, at this time, was thickly wooded 1 1 3 and near to the capital and the dockyard at Izmit. It was to continue as the principal source of timber at least until the mid-seventeenth century. 1 1 4 Records in the miihimme defterleri show that Kocaeli supplied the timber for the last three great naval campaigns of Siileyman's reign, the Djerba expedition of 1560, 1 1 5 the siege of Malta in 1565, 1 1 6 and the capture of Chios 1 1 7 in the Sultan's last year. Before the Malta expedition enough timber to build ten galleys was felled in this sancak and sent to the Imperial A r s e n a l ; " 8 smaller amounts came from the sancaks of Vize in Thrace and Biga and Hiidavendgar in Anatolia, to the south of the Sea of Marmara." 9 The same area supplied the Imperial Arsenal in the following year, 1 2 0 and since it was close to the Dardanelles, it probably also furnished the arsenal at Gallipoli with timber. Although these large forests were conveniently close to Istanbul, the Imperial Divan on occasions ordered timber from further away. In the summer of 1565 it sent a command to the bey of Caffa in the Crimea to send planks to the Arsenal for galley building 121 and, in the winter of the same year, to the kadi of Samokov in Bulgaria to supply timber for a bridge at £ekmece and for ships in the Imperial Arsenal. 122 The Imperial Treasury usually sent the money to meet wages, hire charges, and other expenses to the sancak beyi of the area where the timber was being felled, 1 2 3 except in the case of the Crimea, where the Treasury of Caffa met all expenses and returned the accounts to the central government. 1 2 4 The Imperial Divan sent the original commands for timber to the sancak beyis, but

112

M D 3.502.1434.

"3A!b£ri, op. cil., i, pp. 146, etui. ll4

K a t i p Celebi, op. cit., p. 154.

1I5

M D 3.222.622.

1,6

M D 6.252.543; MD 6.135.283.

I17

M D 5.171.448 era/.

118

M D 6.252.543.

U 9

MD

i20

M D 5.171.418.

121

M D 6.411.865.

122

M D 5.192.472.

!23

MD

124

6.135.283.

6.252.543; MD 6.135.183.

M D 6.411.865.

STUDIES

18

IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y

AND

LAW

records suggest that it was specially appointed "pavujes in the service for ships' timber", or else the kadis who actually supervised the w o r k . 1 2 5 The kadis also dealt with complaints of injustice brought by the men engaged in felling and c a r r y i n g . 1 2 6 There is little information about the labour force. They must have b e e n reaya, and it is likely that the inhabitants of particular villages did this work each year. The reaya of three specified villages each year felled the tree;) for the Sinop A r s e n a l , 1 2 7 and a command of 1564 requires that the inhabitants of sixteen villages near Izmit, who traditionally cut the firewood for the Palace, 1 2 8 should not also be e m p l o y e d felling timber for the f l e e t . 1 2 9 If s o m e villages were legally compelled to perform this service for the Palace, others would similarly provide a labour force to fell trees for the navy. The men who felled the timber were also responsible for cutting it into shape before its dispatch to the Arsenal. 1 3 0 The kadis, (avufes, or others responsible for the preparation of timber sent it to Istanbul by sea, from Vize along the Black Sea coast, 1 3 1 from Kocaeli via the port of Izmit, 1 3 2 and from Biga via the quays at Bogaz Hisari, Lapseki, Qardak, and K e m e r . 1 3 3 Various persons were responsible for hauling it to the shore. A c o m m a n d of 1564 orders the sancak bey is of Biga, Kocaeli, Hiidavendgar and Vize to appoint a lay bey in, and a sufficient number of sipahis and zaims to bring the timber to the points whence ships from the Arsenal under the command of the vizier Mustafa Pasha would collect it. 1 3 4 Other commands make the kadis or f a v M ^ e s 1 3 5 responsible for transporting the timber to the quays, for which purpose they requisitioned ox-carts from the reaya,136 usually paying a hire c h a r g e . 1 3 7 Timber from C a f f a in 1565 was carried by ordinary cargo vessels for a hire charge since, by June when the timber was required, all the galleys and mahones belonging to the Imperial Arsenal had sailed with the

125

M D 5.171.418; MD 5 116.269

,26

M D 6.377.799 el at.

I27 ,28

MD

etal.

5.528.1445.

F o r laws relating to Palace firewood see Mehmet Arif (ed ), Kanunname-i

in Tarih-i Osmani Enciimeni Mecmuasi 5 Suppl. (1329/1911). i29

M D 6.58.122.

I30

M D 6.531.1153

131

M D 6.531.1153

132

M D 6.489.1064 el al.

133

M D 5.154.364.

134

M D 6.135.283.

,35

M D 6.238.513; MD 6 294 626; MD 6.531.1153; MD 5.578.1600

136

M D 6.489.1064 el at.

137

M D 6.236.510; MD 6 294.626.

Sulian

Suleyinan,

THE

NAVY

OF

SULEYMAN

THE

MAGNIFICENT

19

fleet. 1 3 8 In the winter of that year timber from Samokov was sent overland by camel. 1 3 9 The wooden staves for the casks and barrels in the fleet were prepared in Kocaeli and, although it was the responsibility of the beys and kadis to collect and send these to Galata by the same means as other naval timbers, 1 4 0 in 15641565, at least, their preparation was under the control of a single person, mentioned as a "Jewish woman". 141 Sailcloth and awnings for the fleet came, according to Katip £elebi, from Levadhia in Greece and Menemen in western Anatolia, and awnings from Eceovasi and Egypt. 1 4 2 Egyptian cloth, he said, was particularly fine, but rare. Records from Suleyman's reign are few, but on the whole confirm Katip Qelebi. Most sailcloth seems to have come from Greece and the Aegean region of Anatolia, although not necessarily from LevSdhia and Menemen themselves. There are records from 1539-1540 of sailcloth coming from Levidhia, 1 4 3 and Thebes 1 4 4 in Greece, and from Bergama, 145 Gallipoli, 146 Lefke, 1 4 7 and various parts of the Sancak of Meniere 1 4 8 in Asia Minor. In 1559-1560 the government ordered sailcloth from Euboea, Athens, and Thebes, 149 from Egypt, 150 and from Aleppo, 151 a place which Katip felebi did not mention. The Sancak of Saruhan in western Asia Minor supplied the Imperial Arsenal with sailcloth in 1565 1 5 2 and with sailcloth 153 and awnings 154 in 1566. The collection of the cloth was under the general supervision of the kadis, to whom the Divan normally sent the original commands, or of a representative working in accordance with the kadi's instruction. 155 Local revenues usually

l38

M D 6.588.1289.

I39

M D 5.192.472.

140

M D 6.185.397; MD 6.263.560.

141

MD 6.423,960.

142

K a t i p Celebi, op. cit.. p. 156

143

M M 523, pp. 291, 392.

144

Idem,

145

pp. 295-296.

Idem. p. 264.

l46

ldem,

]41

ldem,

m

ldern,

p. 302. p. 345. pp. 292, 343.

149

M D 3, 288.842.

I50

M D 3.226.633; MD 3.325.952.

I51

MD

,52

M D 6.238.514.

3.277.808-809.

153

M D 5.293.758.

)54

M D 5.293.758.

155

M D 3.288.842; MM 523, pp. 291, 295, 345 el al.

20

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND LAW

financed the purchase of the cloth, and the packing and transport of it to Galata; 1 5 6 any surplus funds were sent to the Imperial Treasury. At Lefke in 1539-1540 157 and at Athens, Thebes and Euboea in 1560' 5 8 the cash to finance the purchase and transport of cloth came directly from the Imperial Treasury, but it seems more often to have been raised locally. The commands for cloth from Egypt 1 5 9 and Aleppo 1 6 0 were addressed to the beylerbeyi and Chief Treasurer (nazir-i emvat) of Egypt and to the chief Treasurer of Aleppo (Arap defterdart), which suggests that the money was paid from these treasuries. Local weavers produced the sailcloth. The work was divided among the quarters and village of the areas from which it was ordered, 161 and the overseers of the various groups of craftsmen delivered the finished cloth. 1 6 2 It usually travelled overland to Galata by pack animal. This is recorded in the case of cloth from Bergama and southern Greece in 1539-1540 1 6 3 and from Aleppc in 1560. 164 Stuff prepared in western Anatolia sometimes went by sea. Cloth from Mente§e in 1539 travelled by sea from the quay at Izmir, 1 6 5 and in 1564 the sancak beyi of Midilli carried cloth in his galley from Foija to Galata. 1 6 6 Egyptian cloth must also have gone by sea. The continuous construction and equipping of the fleet required a large crop of fibrous plants to provide the raw material for cordage and cloth. These grew in abundance, particularly along the south coast of the Black Sea where the humid climate favoured their cultivation. In 1558 Barbarigo spoke of the abundant supply of hemp in the Empire, and in 1620 Thomas wrote of the great amount of "flax and hemp from which they make large canvasses", 167 but added that some was imported from Italy, despite the restrictions on the trade in war materials. 1 6 8 In the sixteenth century, however, there does not seem to have been any shortage until 1572, when the government had great difficulty in acquiring enough hemp to make ropes for the new fleet.169

156

M M 523; MD 5.293 756

157

M M 523, p. 345.

138

M D 3.288.842.

159

M D 3.226.633; M D 3 325.952.

160

MD

161

MM 523, p. 296.

3.277.808-809.

l62

W e m , p. 268.

163

/ d e m , pp. 264, 291, 295-296, 392.

164

MD

,65

M M 523, pp. 292, 343

166 167

3.277.808-809.

M D 6.238.514.

Alb4ri, op. cit., iii, p. 152

168

T h o m a s , op. cit., p. 132

169

l m b e r , "The Reconstruction".

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE M A G N I F I C E N T

21

The main area of hemp-growing and rope-making was Samsun. In 1656 Katip Celebi wrote that each year 7,000 quintals (c. 395 tons) of h e m p were produced in the area west of Samsun for naval use a l o n e . 1 7 0 In the sixteenth century, Samsun and the Black Sea coast were already the chief source of supply for h e m p and hemp-rope. 1 7 1 Further supplies were available from eastern Thrace and the Bulgarian c o a s t , 1 7 2 and from the Aegean region inland from I z m i r , 1 7 3 but these were small producers in comparison with Samsun. In 1539 the Arsenal purchased 341 quintals of h e m p f r o m Aytos, Vize and Pomorie in T h r a c e , 1 7 4 while in the same year it bought 2,759 quintals from the districts of Sinop, Kiire and A y a n d o n 1 7 5 on the Black Sea coast west of Samsun. H e m p must also have been produced in other areas during the sixteenth century, but records are few. Kàtip Qelebi listed Samsun and Akhtopol, whence thirty quintals per year were alloled to the navy, and also Menemen, Mihali;, tnebolu, Bartin, Nesebur and Salonica. 1 7 6 Hemp could be worked either in the region where it was grown and sent as fully prepared rope to G a l a t a 1 7 7 or other arsenals, as is shown by orders for r o p e from Salonica in 1 5 4 0 , 1 7 8 Samsun in 1 5 6 5 1 7 9 and others, or else raw hemp could be sent to an arsenal and worked there. 1 8 0 Oakum was another fibre product in constant demand. To caulk a single galley only once required twelve quintals (644 kg.), 1 8 1 and a ship had sometimes lo be caulked several limes in a season. To meet the needs of the fleet, the government collected a supply from a very wide area. A part of the supply for the Arsenal at Galata came from the adjoining Sancak of Kocaeli. In 1539 the navy bought seventy-six quintals from the kazas of Iznik, §ile, and K a n d i n 1 8 2 ; a command dated 1565 orders the kadis of Uskiidar, §ile, Kandin, and Ta$kòprìi to buy 100 quintals e a c h . 1 8 3 But accounts of 1536 to 1540 suggest that more copious supplies came from Macedonia and Thrace, from the regions of Monastir

l70

K a t i p f e l e b i , op. t i t , p. 155.

171 172 173

MM 523, pp. 49, 494; IE ( bahriye ), 8 a-d el al. M M 523, p. 467.

/ii£'m, p. 480.

I74

M M 523. p. 467.

i75

M M 523, p. 480.

l76

K a t i p gelebi. op. dr.. p. 155.

' " M M 523, p. 467. 178

Wem, p. 394.

17

'lE {bahriye), 8 a-d.

,80 181

M M 523 p. 381. KStip Qelebi, op. ci!., p. 157.

182

M M 523. p. 381.

183

M D 5.210.525.

22

STUDIES

IN

OTTOMAN

HISTORY

AND

LAW

and Salónica. 184 Oakum supplies from Sinop and Kilre 185 in 1539 and Egypt in 1530 186 and 1559 187 are also recorded. Perhaps the government simply bought from wherever supplies happened to be available. There is less information on the supply of iron for naval use. A Venetian report of 1553 states that some was mined in Greece, but these workings were at such a distance from the capital as to be inconvenient. More iron, it says, came from Anatolia where there were both iron and copper workings. 188 This is perhaps a reference to the mines at Bilecik. However, Ottoman records suggest that by far the most important source for the supply of iron parts was Samokov in Bulgaria, where there were both iron mines and iron workshops. 1 8 9 Commands to the kadi of Samokov in 1565 order 300 anchors for the Imperial Arsenal, 190 and 2,000 quintals (c. 114 tons) of nails for bridge building and for use in the Arsenal. 191 The same workshops supplied the ready-made iron parts for the new fleet in 1572. 192 They were certainly operating earlier in Süleyman's reign. Shipbuilding at Galata in 1528-1529 was financed partly by the surplus cash from the previous year's operations at Samokov, 193 and these workings probably supplied the Arsenal throughout the century. The documents mentioned above record the metal parts as being brought ready-made to the Arsenal, and arsenal accounts confirm that this was normally the case. However, records from Galata 1 9 4 and Sinop 195 show that these arsenals also employed ironsmiths for making nails and other metal parts, and for repair work. The pitch required for caulking was available from various sources. An arsenal record of 1528-1529 mentions Midilli, 196 and Fournier in 1643 described Valona in Albania as supplying mineral-pitch and pine-pitch. 197 A command of 1559 also ordered the Grand Admiral to bring "abundant pitch" from Valona by sea, 1 9 8 and this area, the site of the modern Albanian oilfields, was almost certainly an important source of mineral pitch. In 1565 the Divan ordered pitch 184

M M 523, pp. 377, 379

m

Idem,

186

p. 378.

K K 5637.

187

M D 3.226.653.

188

A l b é r ¡ , op. cil., i, p. 66

189

§emsettin Sami, Kamus-iil-atám,

I90

M D 5.191.464; MD 5.647.1816.

19

' M D 5.325.853.

192

I m b e r , "The Reconstruction"

193

l E (bahriye),

^HE 195 m

lE

197

2.

(bahriye), 2; KK 5637

M M 523, pp. 120 ff. (bahriye),

2.

Foumier, op. cit., ii, p. 101.

198

M D 3.107.272.

Istanbul, 1889, iv, p. 2965.

THE N A V Y

OF

SÜLEYM AN THE

MAGNIFICENT

23

for the Arsenal from Pazardzhik, 1 9 9 and in 1620 Thomas wrote that pine-pitch and other extracts used for caulking came from Phoenicia and Syria by sea. 2 0 0 In 1572 the government was able to exploit further sources of pitch, 2 0 1 which seems to have been a commodity that was never in short supply. The maintenance of the ships required tallow also. Its most important function was to oil the hulls below the water-line, a process which required four quintals (about 340 kg.) of tallow for each galley. 2 0 2 It also served to make candles, and the caulkers rubbed their hands with it to remove the pitch. 2 0 3 According to Fournier, there was an ample supply of tallow because of the large numbers of cattle in the Empire, 2 0 4 and there is no reason for thinking that the situation was different in the sixteenth century. An arsenal record of 1530-1531 mentions its source as Rumelia, 2 0 5 while in 1572, 500 quintals (about twenty-eight tons) arrived from Wallachia. 2 0 6 Arsenal accounts list other materials acquired for shipbuilding and maintenance, but without giving their provenance.

ARSENALS AND DOCKYARDS The arsenals at Galata and Gallipoli were the bases of the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet, where the imperial galleys were housed, maintained, and repaired during the winter. At the same time Galata was the largest shipbuilding yard in the Empire. There were smaller arsenals at Sinop and Izmit, and facilities for shipbuilding at a number of places along the shores and rivers of the Empire. Bayezid I had built the first large Ottoman arsenal at Gallipoli in the 1390s, 207 in a position commanding the entrance to the Dardanelles from the sea of Marmara. It was at Gallipoli that the Ottoman armies crossed from Anatolia to Rumelia, 2 0 8 and to control it was essential for the maintenance of communications between the two parts of the Empire. 2 0 9 At the same time it provided a 199 200 20

' l m b e r , "The Reconstruction".

202 2(

M D 6.657.1444.

T h o m a s , op. cit., p. 132 K a t i p Celebi, op. cit., p. 157.

» A . Jal, Glossaire Nautique, Paris, 1848, art. "Suif'.

204

F o u m i e r , op. til., ii, p. 101.

205

K K 5637.

206

M D 15.148.291; MD 18.149.293-294. 207 M. Silberschmidt, Das orientalische Problem zur Zeit der Entstehung des türkischen Reiches, Leipzig - Berlin, 1923, p. 115. 208 l b n - i Kemal, Tevarih-i äl-i Osman (ed. §. Turan), Ankara, 1954-1957, ii, p. 113; H. Inalcik, "Gelibolu", Encyclopedia of Islam, ii, pp. 983-987. 209 Cf. C R . Markham (trans.), Narrative of the Embassy vf Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court ofTimourat Samarkand. London, 1859, p. 28.

24

STUDIES

IN

OTTOMAN

HISTORY

AND

LAW

base for raids on the Venetian islands 2 1 0 and gave the Ottomans control of shipping passing from the Aegean to Constantinople and the Black Sea. By maintaining this arsenal and by building the castles of Kilidiilbahr and Sultaniye at £anakkale in the 1460s, Mehmed II closed the Dardanelles to enemy shipping. The arsenal at Gallipoli was contained within two artificial harbours, one within the o t h e r , 2 " which are still there today. Overlooking these was a castle, repaired by B a y e z i d , 2 1 2 which dominated the harbour and the town. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo visited Gallipoli at about the time of Timur's invasion and left a brief description: "In the said port of Gallipoli the Turk has all his fleet of ships and galleys, forty in number, and the castle is strongly fortified with a large garrison". 213 Despite the construction of a new arsenal at Galata immediately after the conquest of Constantinople 2 1 4 , Gallipoli remained the principal Ottoman naval base until the reign of Selim I. 2 1 5 Selim, and after him Siileyman, extended the arsenal at Galata, and Gallipoli passed into second place although it too was enlarged at the same time. In 1522 Marco Minio reported that eight docks had been completed at Gallipoli and that more were under construction. 2 1 6 Four years later, Pietro Bragadin put the number at thirty, 2 1 7 and there were further repairs and extensions in 1530 and 1565-1566. 218 By this time, however, it was much smaller than the arsenal at Galata. 2 1 9 The arsenal employed three categories of workmen. The skilled tasks were divided between the groups of permanently employed craftsmen and those shipwrights whom the government levied temporarily when work was in hand. Piyades and miisellems were responsible for many of the unskilled jobs. Many of the members of the permanent corps of craftsmen, both at Gallipoli and Galata, were acemi oglans220 who were later to become

2l0

Silberschmidl, op. cii., pp. 112 ff.

21

' F . Kurtojjlu, Gelibolu w yitresi larihi, Istanbul, 1938, p. 41; MD 5.175.427.

212

Kurtoglu, op. cit., p. 41

213

Maricham, op. cit., pp

214 21

27-28.

S e e above, pp. 26-27.

'Uzunfarjili, Merkez, p 397; Tschudi, op. cit., p. 32.

216

Alb£ri, op. cit., iii, pp. 73-74.

2]1

ldem,

218

iii, p. 107.

KK5636.

219

M D 5.175.427; MD 5.183.446.

220

K K 5636. For an account of the acemi oglan ssee Inalcik, op. cit., pp. 78 ff.

THE NAVY OF SULEYMAN THE

MAGNIFICENT

25

Janissaries. 2 2 1 This supports Chalcocondylas' statement that, on their return from Anatolia, the acemi oglam were employed as ferrymen across the Dardanelles and in the service of the fleet at Galata. 222 The larger corps had their own officers, paid more than the ordinary craftsmen, and usually described as head-carpenter, head-caulker or as kethiida and ser-i boliik of whatever craft they represented. The last two terms were used for officers of other kapikulu organisations, 223 and the term kethiida is found in the craft guilds. 224 The corps of warehousemen included also two clerks, and the description of some of the craftsmen as apprentice (¡akird) suggests a system of apprentice-ship, as in the craft guilds, but records are really too few to give any clear idea of the organization of these corps. With the exception of the gunners and the bombardiers, these corps represented mainly the shipbuilding crafts, and their members would therefore have worked in the arsenal itself. In 1518, the craft corps with the number of men in each were described as: 225 The Corps of Armourers The Corps of Storekeepers The Corps of Oarmakers The Corps of Caulkers The Corps of Pulley-Makers The Corps of Oakum-Workers The Corps of Gunners The Corps of Bombardiers

3 7 3 26 3 3 28 8 81

Records of 1527 and 1530 show that by then several groups of craftsmen had been amalgamated to form a single corps: in 1527 in 1530 The Corps of Caulkers, Carpenters, Oakum-Workers and Pulley-Makers 38-40 62 The Corps of Gunners 21 33 The Corps of Bombardiers 9 9

" ' C / . M D 18.56.114. This document of 1571 commands the aga of the Janissaries to send, from among the novice Janissaries, twenty-five caulkers and twenty-five carpenters to serve in the Arsenal. " ' L a o n i c Chalcocondylas, Histoire Géne'rale des Turcs (with continuation by Thomas), Paris 1562, i, p. 109. 223

See l.H. Uzunçar$ili, Osmanh Devleli teikilâtindan kapikulu ocaklari, Ankara, 1943.

224

S e e Inalcik, op. cit., pp. 150 ff.

225

F . Kurtoglu, "XVI. asnn ilk yanminda Geiibolu", Turkiyat Mecmuast 306.

5 (1935), pp. 291 -

26

STUDIES

IN

OTTOMAN

HISTORY

The Corps of Storekeepers, Ropers, and Oarmakers

AND

LAW

18-20

23

86-90

127

The large number of caulkers in relation to the other groups of craftsmen, both at Gallipoli and at Galata, suggests that they were employed mainly in maintenance work. The ordinary craftsmen in these corps were paid from one to six akfes daily, sometimes as much as nine, while their officers earned eight to twenty akfes. This scale of pay was the same as at Galata, and was on the average less than the pay of the temporarily hired craftsmen. 226 Temporary employees — carpenters, caulkers, clinchers, oarmakers, sawyers and ironsmiths — made up the bulk of the labour force in construction and repair work, but their total numbers are unrecorded, since surviving account books show only the number of days worked. At Galata they received the same pay as the hired craftsmen. Carpenters earned from three to ten akfes daily, clinchers seven to ten, caulkers five to eleven, oarmakers seven to ten, sawyers eight, and ironsmiths five to ten. The piyades and miisellems of the Sancak of Gallipoli were also liable for arsenal service and performed such duties as clearing out the harbours, guarding the ships, pulling them onto land, or cutting oar-shafts. If the fleet had to put out to sea at short notice, they could serve on board ship, the piyades as oarsmen and the miisellems as bailers (su atici).227 There was no separate commissioner — emin — to administer the finances of the arsenal at Gallipoli, as there was at Galata. Arsenal expenses were accounted for together with all other state expenditure in Gallipoli, and there was a single commissioner to supervise all these. 228 Revenues came partly from the Imperial Treasury, but largely from local customs, market dues, and other local sources. 2 2 9 By the reign of Suleyman I Galata had superseded Gallipoli as the main naval base of the Empire. It was a natural choice not only because Istanbul was the capital and centre of the Empire, but also because the Golden Horn, sheltered

226

K K 5636.

227

Ò. L. Barkan, XV. ve XVI. asirlarda Osmanli tniparatorlugunda zirai ekonominin hukukt ve mali esaslan, I, Ktmunlur. Istanbul, 1943, p. 241. 228

K K 5636. Fournier, op. cit., ii, p 102,

THE N A V Y

OF S Ù L E Y M A N

THE M A G N I F I C E N T

27

on t h e east a n d w e s t by t h e hills of G a l a t a and I s t a n b u l , a n d d e e p e n o u g h to a l l o w ships to c o m e a l m o s t to the s h o r e without r u n n i n g a g r o u n d , w a s a p e r f e c t site for a h a r b o u r and a r s e n a l . 2 3 0 M e h m e d t h e C o n q u e r o r h a d built a small arsenal at A y n a l i K a v a k on the s h o r e s of the G o l d e n H o r n at K a s i m Pa§a, consisting of a f e w d o c k y a r d s a n d an administrative building called the Council R o o m ( D i v a n h a n e ) V l Selim I p l a n n e d to e n l a r g e it t o c o n s i s t of 3 0 0 d o c k s s t r e t c h i n g f r o m t h e f o r t r e s s of G a l a t a of K a g i t h a n e , 2 3 2 at t h e other e n d of the G o l d e n H o r n , b u t not e v e n half this n u m b e r w e r e ever c o m p l e t e d . T h e arsenal and the t o w n o f K a s i m Pa$a w e r e , h o w e v e r , e x t e n d e d d u r i n g the early years of Siileyman's r e i g n , 2 3 3 a n d by 1522 there w e r e 114 c o m p l e t e d d o c k s 2 3 4 . T h e r e were 123 in 1 5 5 7 , 2 3 5 but a p p a r e n t l y n e v e r m o r e t h a n this. E a c h d o c k c o n t a i n e d c o v e r e d s l i p w a y s 2 3 6 w h e r e s h i p s c o u l d be built, p u l l e d u p on land f o r r e p a i r s , or h o u s e d d u r i n g t h e w i n t e r m o n t h s , 2 3 7 and e a c h d o c k could hold t w o v e s s e l s . 2 3 8 T h i s a l l o w e d a fleet of about 2 5 0 galleys to winter at Galata. A s i x t e e n t h - c e n t u r y m a p of Istanbul s h o w s the A r s e n a l stretching a l o n g the eastern side of the G o l d e n Horn f r o m A z a p Kapisi a l m o s t as f a r as H a s k o y , a n d c o n s i s t i n g of the M e y y i t q u a y , t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e o f f i c e s of t h e G r a n d A d m i r a l ( d i v a n h a n e ) , t h e s t o r e h o u s e for o a r s (kiirelik), the d e p o t (mahzen),

the

d o c k s and the arsenal g a r d e n . 2 3 9 T h e Arsenal was at first f u l l y v i s i b l e , 2 4 0 but d u r i n g his period a s a d m i r a l b e t w e e n 1546 and 1549, S o k o l l u M e h m e t built a w a r e h o u s e b e h i n d each d o c k to contain the e q u i p m e n t of e a c h galley a n d walled off the w h o l e area so that, although it w a s still visible f r o m the water, it could no longer be seen f r o m l a n d . 2 4 1 T h e G r a n d A d m i r a l w a s the g e n e r a l director of the Imperial A r s e n a l at Galata. The t w o senior officials under him were the kethiida o f f i c e r s , a n d t h e c o m m i s s i o n e r (emin). kethiida

230 23

Evliya

of the A r s e n a l 2 4 2 or kethiida

C e l e b i , Seyahatname

' E v l i y a C e l e b i , op. dr..

232

T s c h u d i , op. d i .

A l b è r i , op. al.,

2ì5

ldem,

2 3 6

A l b e r i , op.

240 24

P i n Reis,

di.,

di.,

p. 4 1 6 .

p.

130.

ii, p. 1 0 2 . iii, p .

164.

Kitab-i bahriye.

A l b è r i , op. dr.,

' A l b è r i , op.

2 4 2

416

iii, p. 129.

I h o m a s , op. dt„ F o u r m e r , op. di.,

2 3 9

( I s t a n b u l , 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 3 8 ) , i, p. 4 1 6 .

i, p

iii, p p . 7 3 7 4 .

237 "

of the o f f i c e r s , s e e m s to h a v e been the

p. 3 2 .

E v l i y a C e l e b i , op. 234

of the c a p t a i n s and

T h e first of these, k n o w n also as the

di.,

M D 2.6.54; M D

iii, p p . i, p.

L i b r a r y of t h e T o p k a p i P a l a c e , R e v a n

73-74.

144.

2.26.223.

1633.

28

STUDIES

IN

OTTOMAN

HISTORY

AND

LAW

senior representative of the captains and officers of the galleys stationed at Galata. He earned forty akfes daily, 2 4 3 and commanded a detachment of galleys when the fleet was at s e a . 2 4 4 In the seventeenth century, and perhaps also in the sixteenth, he was second-in-command of the fleet and deputy of the Grand A d m i r a l . 2 4 5 T h e commissioner, on the other hand, directed the finances and administration of the d o c k y a r d . 2 4 6 Under him were a number of departmental clerks. T h e most highly paid, and therefore presumably the senior of these, earned twenty-seven akfes per day and is described as the clerk f o r state expenditure on the ships in Galata (kdtib-i ihracat-i hassa-i kejtiha-i Galata).2*1 He must be the same clerk whom Ramberti described in 1541 as earning twentyfive akfes per day, with ten clerks working under him, each earning ten akfes.2** He presumably controlled and recorded the purchase of materials required for shipbuilding, those items entered in the accounts under the heading expenses (ihracat). A wages clerk (katib-i icarat), receiving ten to twelve akfes per d a y , 2 4 9 with others working under h i m , 2 5 0 controlled wages in the Arsenal. A clerk of the depots (kdtib-i mahazin), earning eight akfes daily, 2 5 1 and his subordinates recorded all the supplies entering and leaving the depots, how much they cost and to whom they were delivered. 2 5 2 A head quartermaster (sermahzent), with a daily income of seventeen to twenty akfes,253 supervised the depots themselves. The commissioner and the clerk of expenditure made out yearly accounts summarizing the income and expenditure of the Arsenal. These show the total income for the year and its source, the wages of the corps of acemi oglans, the salaries of the commissioner, the kethiida, and the senior clerks, and the wages of the craftsmen and labourers employed, showing the labour costs for the work on each ship or group of ships. They do not include the pay of the captains and officers stationed at Galata, except for the salaries of the three or four captains known as miiteferrika reis.254 The Grand Admiral and the Imperial Treasurer (hizane-i amire defterdari) audited the accounts al intervals. 255

243

K K 5637; IE (bahriye). 2.

244

M D 2.6.54; MD 2.26.223.

245

Abdurrahman Pa§a, "Kanunname of 1087/1676", (1331/1913), pp. 497-544, specially p. 538.

MilH

Tetebbiiler

Mecmuasi

246

K K 5637; IE (bahriye), 2; B. Ramberti, Delle cose di Turchi, Venice, 1541, p. 22 v.

247

K K 5 6 3 7 ; IE (bahriye ), 2.

248 24

Ramberti, op. cil.. p 22 v.

^KK 5637; IE (bahriye),

250 25

MD

2; MD 1.293.1671.

5.308.801.

' KK 5637; IE (bahriye).

252

M D 5.308.801.

253

K K 5637; IE (bahriye).

254

S e e below, p. 40.

255

M D 5.308.801.

2. 2.

1 iii

THE N A V Y

OF S U L E Y M A N

THE

29

MAGNIFICENT

As at Gallipoli there were three classes of workmen in the arsenal — the permanently employed acemi oglans, the temporarily employed craftsmen, and the piyades. The acemi oglans, were divided into corps according to their craft, as at Gallipoli, and paid according to the same wage scale. The surviving account books of the Galata Arsenal do not record their total strength, since some of them were paid separately from the other arsenal craftsmen, out of the customs revenue of the port of Galata, and their wages were accounted separately. 256 The recorded strengths of each corps from 1529 to 1531 were: in The The The The The The The The

Corps of Caulkers Corps of Carpenters Corps of Oarmakers Corps of Bombardiers Corps of Ironsmiths Corps of Repairers Corps of Pulley-Makers Corps of Oakum-Workers

I529251 38 11 14 4 7 6

in

~80

1530258 40 11 14 4 7 5 6 3 ~90

in

1531259 38 11 11 4 6 5 6 3 ~84

There were, in addition, the forty-six craftsmen paid, until 1530, out of the customs revenue. These were The The The The The The

Corps of Caulkers Corps of Carpenters Corps of Oarmakers Corps of Bombardiers Corps of Ironsmiths Corps of Oakum-Workers

13 11 5 2 9 j> 46

The bombardiers, of course, served at sea with the fleet, but so too did some of the craftsmen. 2 6 0 In the seventeenth century, and presumably earlier, cach galley in the fleet was required to carry two carpenters, two caulkers, and two oarmakers to maintain the ships during a campaign. 2 6 1 However, it seems that the temporarily conscripted craftsmen were equally liable for this service. 2 6 2 The Corps of acemi oglans, apart from working in the arsenal, provided a mobile

256

KK 5637.

257 2S8

lE(ta/iri>). 2.

KK 5637.

2S9

lbid.

260 z61 262

M M 523, pp. 564 f f ; M D 4 . 1 6 7 . 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 3 4 .

K a t i p Qelebi, op. cil.. p. 153. M M 523, pp. 564 ff.

STUDIES

30

IN O T T O M A N

HISTORY AND

LAW

labour force which could be sent, if required, to any place where government ships were under construction. A number of them went to repair river beats at Belgrade in 1528. 2 6 3 The majority of the craftsmen, however, were Greek shipwrights, called u p for arsenal service, when ships were being built or repaired, f r o m Istanbul, Galata and the nearby islands 2 6 4 and coastal districts, and in times of great need f r o m as far away as Gallipoli, Midilli, Chios, and R h o d e s . 2 6 5 T h e account books of the Arsenal do not show the total number of craftsmen employed, but only the number of days worked. According to Chesneau, writing in 1547, there were about two hundred skilled workmen in the Arsenal, almost all of them C h r i s t i a n . 2 6 6 In 1558 A n t o n i o B a r b a r i g o again put the n u m b e r at two h u n d r e d , 2 6 7 but this could not have been a steady figure, since work at the Arsenal did not continue throughout the year, and the number of craftsmen mus: have varied with the amount of work in hand. The largest groups of workmen were the carpenters with an average daily wage of seven to nine akfes, caulkers with six to seven, sawyers with eight and a half to nine, clinchers with six and a half to seven, iron-smiths with six, charcoal-burners with six, pulley-makers with six, ropers with five and, for the Sultan's barge and some other work, gilders with s i x . 2 6 8 Other craftsmen and labourers, such as porters and carters, saw-makers, barrel-makers, chandlers or tailors, were hired when the occasion demanded, at day rates or piece r a t e s . 2 6 9 There is very little information about the master shipwrights. Ramberti and, following him, Chesneau wrote that fifty protos, paid twelve akges daily when working and six when idle, supervised the craftsmen. 2 7 0 Prow was the term used for a foreman in the Venetian Arsenal. 2 7 1 In 1553 Bernardo Navagerci re|>orted only one master shipbuilder, a Greek f r o m Rhodes w h o m he calls M i c h e l e Benetto, with three or four masters taking their orders f r o m him and earning fifteen akpes daily. 2 7 2 In 1562, according to Marcantonio Donini, there were a n u m b e r of Venetian shipwrights working in the Arsenal w h o had greatly improved the standard of Ottoman shipbuilding. These were either renegades,

263

I E (bahriye),

264

A l b 4 r i , op. cit., i, p. 145; M D 5.132.308.

2.

265

C h e s n e a u , op. cit., p 244.

266

/frid.

267

A l b 6 r i , op. cit.. iii, p, 151.

268

K K 5637; IE (bahriye),

2. These summary accounts of arsenal expenditure s h o w only Ihe

total number of days worked and the total sum paid in wages. This allows average, but not individual wages to be calculated. 269 27

K K 5637; IE (bahriye), 2.

" R a m b e r t i , op. cit., p 22 v; Chesneau, op. cit., p. 244.

771

'Lane, op. cit., p. 54 272

A l b i r i , op. cit.. i, p. 67.

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE M A G N I F I C E N T

31

attracted to Ottoman service by the high pay, or else captives employed in the Arsenal. 2 7 3 As at Gallipoli and other shipbuilding yards, piyades

and miisellems

also

served in the Galata Arsenal, usually for periods of six m o n t h s . 2 7 4 T h e decrees levying them for arsenal service never, in fact, specify their tasks. However, they were equally liable for service in other state undertakings such as mines, 2 7 5 the Imperial Gun F o u n d r y , 2 7 6 clearing roads, or carrying provisions and dragging artillery for the army, and this suggests that they had no particular skills, but were employed wherever the government required unskilled, heavy labour. They seem to have formed a mobile labour force, and their duties in the Arsenal at Galata must have been much the same as at Gallipoli. After Galata and Gallipoli, Sinop on the Black Sea coast was the largest shipbuilding centre in the Empire. It was an ideal site for an arsenal, since it had a natural harbour and was situated near sources of shipbuilding materials. Timber was plentiful in the hills behind the town and was regularly felled by the reaya of three villages. For this service the government excused them from the tax on the produce of their fiftliks.211 Rope and pitch came by sea from Samsun, and oakum from Ho§alay, Bafra and other places near Sinop. 2 7 8 Sinop was not a naval base and did not operate continuously as a shipbuilding yard. There are no records of a commissioner or of any permanent overseer as at Galata. The workmen were all temporary levies from the Black Sea coast; 2 7 9 the one surviving account book of the Arsenal does not record any who worked throughout the y e a r . 2 8 0 In 1536 the government rented the oakum warehouse and some of the ground on which the ships were built, and the surplus equipment was sent to Galata and not stored at Sinop. 2 8 1 This suggests that the Arsenal was fairly small and may, in fact, have had no permanent docks or warehouses. It had the capacity to build a few more than fifteen ships annually. In 1566 fifteen galleys and three mahones were constructed there, 2 8 2 and in 1572 an assortment of about fifteen galleys, palandarias and galleasses. 2 8 3 It was thus much smaller than the dockyards at Galata and Gallipoli but, as a

21

* Idem, lii, p. 191.

274

M D 3 . 4 2 0 . 1 2 5 7 el al.

27«;

Ahmel Refik. 2 7 6

Osnuinlt devrinde Turkiye madenleri.

MD

5.156.371.

2 7 7

MD

5.528.1445.

278

M M 523, pp. 2 2 0 ff.

279

MD

280

M M 523, pp. 2 2 0 ff.

28

5.452.1213.

'/W.

2 8 2

MD

5.528.1445.

2 8 3

MD

16.68.140.

Istanbul, 1931, d o c u m e n t s 1, 3-6.

STUDIES

32

IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y

AND

LAW

shipbuilding centre, perhaps of equal importance, since the two main arsenals were largely occupied with repair and maintenance work. There are very f e w records of the administration of the Sinop dockyard, but it a p p e a r s that t h e central g o v e r n m e n t appointed t e m p o r a r y o f f i c i a l s whenever it was in operation. In 1566 the Imperial Divan appointed a gavu§ of the Porte to "have the ships built at Sinop", and commanded the kadi of Sinop to appoint his deputy to work beside the f a v u } and to m a k e a register of all expenses incurred. 2 8 4 This seems to have been the normal practice. 2 8 5 In 1536, too, a favuf of the Porte called Ferruh was recorded as having transferred 1,000,000 ak(es from the Central Treasury to Sinop to pay for the construction of the s h i p s , 2 8 6 and he may also h a v e been responsible f o r the orderly disbursement of this sum. In 1571-1572, however, it was the sancak beyi of Kastamonu who was the general overseer at Sinop. 2 8 7 In 1536-1537 there were recorded three arsenal clerks as "clerk of the ships", each earning four akfes daily, also a "clerk of timber", with four akfes, and a "clerk of the depot' with three. 2 8 8 The workmen employed in the Sinop Arsenal were levies from the Black Sea coast between Sinop and Trabzon. Each kadi was responsible for making a register and sending the workmen from his administrative district. 2 8 9 There was also a small Arsenal at lzmit with permanent docks and d e p o t s , 2 9 0 which operated throughout the sixteenth century. 2 9 1 It was situated conveniently close to the forests of Kocaeli and to the Galata Arsenal, f r o m which it received supplies of naval equipment. The one surviving account book, of 1539-1540, suggests that it was smaller than the Arsenal at Sinop, and that it had an income during that year of 100,000 akges paid from the Central Treasury, and an expenditure of only 23,982 afcfes. 2 9 2 In 1536-1537 expenditure at Sinop had been 742,097. 29 - 1 At lzmit, however, the provision of many of the limber parts was imposed as avariz on the reaya of Gebze and §ile. 2 9 4 The arsenal was repaired in 1553. 2 9 5 284

M D 5.528.1445; MD 5.522.1431.

285

M D ¡8.45.87 el al.

286

M M 523, pp. 220 ff

287

MD

288

M M 523, pp. 220 ff

289

M d 5.452.1213; M D 15.88.174.

290

M D 6.236.510.

29]

See

292 2

16.85.169.

MM 523; MM 55; MD 6 236 510; Albèri, op. cil.. iii, p. 129.

M M 523, pp. 362 ff

« M M 523, pp. 220 ff

294

M M 523, pp. 362 ff

295

M M 55, pp. 193 f f

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE

MAGNIFICENT

33

However, galley building did not require special dockyards. Any sheltered spot by the water with enough room for the craftsmen to work and store their equipment would do, and so it is not surprising to find that the government regularly ordered ships to be built outside the four main arsenals. After the destruction of the fleet at Lepanto, over 100 new ships were built outside the arsenals at various points on the Rumelian and Anatolian shores of the Empire, and went to Galata only to receive their artillery, stores, and final fittings.296 This was the normal practice whenever a large fleet was required. In 1559, before the Djerba expedition, the Imperial Divan instructed the sancak beyi of Rhodes to investigate the place in his sancak most suitable for the construction of ships, which suggests that governement vessels were being built here for the first time. 2 9 7 Rhodes, with its plentiful supply of timber and with its maritime population, continued to provide ships for the fleet in years to come.298 The Malta expedition of 1565 again required an exceptionally large fleet, and to meet this need the government ordered the construction of ships on the banks of the Sakarya River, as well as in the main arsenals. This site was near a forest area and not far from Izmit and Galata where naval equipment was stored. The kadis of Akyazi, Goyniik, and Tarakh Yenicesi were responsible for felling and sending the timber to the places where the ships were under construction; 2 9 9 while the Divan commanded the kadis of §ile and Kandira to hire carts and to bring "anchors and other equipment" from the depot at Izmit to the Sakarya.-' 0 0 As in the Ottoman arsenals the labour force consisted of shipwrights levied from the coast and a division of piyades. In August, 1564, the Divan sent a (avuf of the Porte to the "kadis on the shore", who were then responsible for making a levy of carpenters, caulkers, and sawyers. They were to deliver these, with a register of their names, to the favuf who would then bring them to the appointed spot. 3 0 1 The Divan repeated the command in October, ordering the kadis of Geyve, Akgehisar and Konurpa and the kadis along the road from Uskiidar to Trabzon to send carpenters, caulkers, and sawyers to the Sakarya, along with a register of their names. 3 0 2 At the same time, the bey of the yayas of Ankara sent one division of the piyades in his sancak,303 presumably to work as unskilled labourers.

296

i m b e r , "The Reconstruction".

297 298

M D 3.214.596.

Uzuni;ar$ili, Merkez, p. 446.

299

M D 6.56.116.

300

M D 6.236.510.

30 ]

M D 6.15.35.

302

M D 6.65.139.

303

M D 6.164.349.

34

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND LAW

There is no record of the precise spot on the Sakarya where the ships were built, but it was presumably far from any settlement, since in August, 1564, the sancak beyi of Kocaeli was specially commanded to collect sufficient provisions for the workmen, and to levy bakers and cooks for them. In the following November, too, the kadi of Izmit was ordered to buy provisions at the fixed price of the day and, at the same time, to levy and send bakers, chandlers, and butchers. 3 0 4 This could have been necessary only if supplies were not readily available on the spot. In the winter before the Chios campaign of 1566, ships were built on the Rumelian shore of the Black Sea at Sozopol, Nesebur, Akhtopol 3 0 5 and Pomorie. 3 0 6 Most of the timber came from Vize, cut and prepared by the thirty • nine divisions of miisellems in Vize with the assistance of the sipahis of the sancak,307 while the yuriiks of Vize were employed in the construction of the ships. 3 0 8 More timber for the galleys at Sozopol and Pomorie was ordered from Silistre in May, 1566. 309 The government appears, too, to have had some sort of control over private shipbuilding by the levends, the Muslim pirates whose vessels reinforced the imperial fleet. Two commands of November, 1565, order the beys of Mente§e 3 1 0 and R h o d e s 3 " to give permission to the levends in their sancak to build galliots and to join the fleet in the spring. In November, 1571, when the need for new vessels was urgent, the Imperial Divan issued commands to all the kadis on the Rumelian and Anatolian coasts of the Mediterranean to give these "volunteer captains" all the necessary encouragement and assistance, to build galliots with not less than sixteen thwarts to each side. 312 A command of 1560 ordered the kadi of lzmit to seize a ship which had been built in his district without permission. 313

304

M D 6.56.115.

305

M D 5.320.835. M D 5.608.1688.

306 307 308 309 3,0 3U

M D 5.320.835; MD 5 415.1102. M D 5.415.1102. M D 5.608.1688. M D 5. 211.531

M D 5.202.499. M D 16.145.285. 3,3 M D 3.566.1628. 312

THE

NAVY

OF

SULEYMAN

THE

MAGNIFICENT

35

THE COMMANDERS OF THE FLEET The Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century had a military government where a rank in the civil administration usually corresponded to a rank in the armed forces. Thus the Sultan, was the supreme military commander. If the Sultan did not personally lead an expedition, the leadership would pass to a vizier. If no vizier was present, then a beylerbeyi became commander-in-chief; if there was no beylerbeyi the task fell to a sancak beyi. These posts were not, of course, exclusively military. The viziers sat in the Imperial Divan in the capital, the chief organ of the Ottoman government. A beylerbeyi was the governor of a province, and a sancak beyi the governor of a sancak, a subdivision of a province. There was thus no clear distinction between the civil and military administration. Viziers, when required, were generals or admirals and dictated military policy. Provincial governors were, at the same time, military officers commanding the /imarholding sipahis from their administrative districts. The holders of these positions were usually kapikulus, graduates of the Palace School. 3 1 4 The post of Grand Admiral of the Mediterranean fleet — kapudan-i derya — was no exception to this pattern. The first admirals, after the conquest of Constantinople were sancak beyis of Gallipoli, 315 which is not surprising since Gallipoli was still the largest naval base in the Empire until Selim I's enlargement of the arsenal at Galata. Even then, the admirals continued to receive the post with the Sancak of Gallipoli. The only exception was Gedik Ahmet Pasha whom Mehmed II appointed as admiral with the sancak, not of Gallipoli, but oF Valona in Albania. 3 1 6 This however, was at a time when the fleet was attacking the Adriatic islands and the Italian coastline, using Valona as a base."7 The growing importance of the fleet in the reign of Suleyman I and the appointment of Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1533 raised the status of the Admiralty. Suleyman was not content to appoint Barbarossa as a sancak beyi, but conferred on him instead the beylerbeylik of the Province of the Archipelago. 3 1 8 This province was a new creation, formed from sancaks on the European and Asiatic coasts of the Aegean and Mediterranean, which had previously belonged to the provinces of Rumelia and Anatolia. 3 1 9 The "pasha's sancak", where the admiral

3l4

S e e Inalcik, op. cil., pp. 76-118.

3,5

K a i i p Qelebi, op. cil., p. 139.

3,6

l b n - i Kemal, op. cit., p. 470.

317

Wcm. pp. 470-471.

3)8

i n a f a k , op. cit., p. 105.

319

Idem,

p. 106.

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y AND LAW

36

held his has lands, was still Gallipoli. 3 2 0 Barbarossa received yet further promotion and ended his career as fourth vizier, 3 2 1 a position he held concurrently with that of admiral. However, Barbarossa's promotion did not come automatically with the post of admiral, but was granted only in recognition of his outstanding services to the Empire. When Sokollu Mehmed became admiral he was still an untried young man and, like earlier admirals, received only the Sancak of Gallipoli. 322 His successor, Sinan, received promotion to the beylerbeylik of the Archipelago after an initial period as sancak beyi.i2i When the Sultan offered Turgut the Admiralty, it was to have been as beylerbeyi of the Archipelago, 3 2 4 but again only in recognition of Turgut's established fame. The same applied to Piyale. The Sultan's decree appointing him admiral in January, 1555, reads: "I have increased my favours towards the zeamet of the head doorkeeper ( k a p i c i b a f i ) , Piyale, and with effect from the thirteenth day of Safer in the year, 962, the Admiralty and the Sancak of Gallipoli with its has lands worth 550,000 ak(e% have been bestowed on him. I have decreed that you should confer has lands worth 350,000 akfes from the has lands held by the previous beylerbeyi, Sinan Pasha..." 3 2 5 Piyale did become beylerbeyi of the Archipelago in 1558, but only after he had proved his worth with the capture of Oran and Bizerta and the attack on Ciudadela. 326 It was thus the practice, until the end of Suleyman's reign, to appoint an admiral as sancak beyi of Gallipoli and to promote him to beylerbeyi of the Archipelago only if he were sufficiently famous, or had distinguished himself during his period in the lesser office. It was his position as sancak beyi, beylerbeyi, or vizier, and never the post of admiral itself, that determined his rank in the military and governmental hierarchy. So it is natural to find that the admiral was not invariably the commander-in-chief of every naval expedition. At the siege of Rhodes in 1522, the second vizier commanded the fleet 3 2 7 and not the admiral who was a mere sancak beyi. At Malta in 1565, the vizier Mustafa Pasha superseded the Admiral Piyale. 328

320

A y n - i Ali Efendi, Kavamn-i pp. 20-21. 32

àl-ì Osman

' a . Geuffroy, Briefve Description

der humayun,

de la Court de Grant Ture, 1542.

322

T . Gokbilgin, "Mehmed Pa$a", Isiàm Ansiklopedisi,

323

l b r a h i m Pefuyi, op. t il. i, p. 346.

324

W e m , p. 347.

325

MD

vii, p. 596.

1.276.1568.

3 2 6 j T u r a n "Piyàle Pa§a", islam Ansiklopedisi. 327

K à t i p Celebi, op cit., p. 23.

328

M D 6.283.597 et al

1018/1609, Istanbul,

ix, p. 567.

1280/1863.

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N THE

MAGNIFICENT

37

There were, it seems, further checks on the admiral's authority. Despite the increasing importance of the fleet in the sixteenth century, he w a s not a member of the Imperial Divan, except in the case of Hayreddin Barbarossa. Neither his status as sancak beyi nor as beylerbeyi entitled him to membership, since, although from 1535 the beylerbeyi of Rumelia sat in the Divan, the other beylerbeyis were e x c l u d e d . 3 2 9 Selaniki's account of the preparations for the Malta expedition, 3 3 0 and imperial decrees mobilizing the fleet for the Djerba 3 3 1 and C h i o s 3 3 2 campaigns suggest that the Divan took the major decisions of naval policy and afterwards communicated them to the admiral. Before the siege of Malta, when the Divan had already decided to attack the island, the Grand Vizier assembled a council in the arsenal in Galata to consult with the Admiral Piyale and the galley-skippers. 3 3 3 These consultations must have been normal before an expedition, but it seems that the admiral, unless also a vizier, was excluded from the first discussions. Neither was the admiral's o f f i c e responsible in the first place for mobilizing the oarsmen and troops for the fleet. T h e Treasury Department (,maliye) of the central government dispatched the commands to call up the oarsmen and kept the registers of the levy, 3 3 4 and the Imperial Divan issued the original commands for the levy of provincial sipahis, sending them first to the admiral who added details of where the troops were to join the ships and despatched the documents to the sancak beyis,335 As a provincial governor, the admiral was directly responsible for the troops in his own Sancak of Gallipoli, 3 3 6 and, as commander of the fleet, he was authorized to call up extra troops when required. 3 3 7 The admiral's jurisdiction extended to all the affairs of the Mediterranean fleet. In matters falling entirely within his sphere he could issue c o m m a n d s in the Sultan's name, but the more important decisions he had to refer to the Grand Vizier. He allocated o f f i c e s in the navy but, again, the more important appointments, promotions, and salary increases were subject to the ratification of the Divan. 3 3 8 He could make recommendations for the conferment of timan and zeametf, for outstanding services in the fleet, or increases in the value of fiefs

Mecmua-i munfeut-i selaiin,

329

F e r i d u n Bey,

330

S e l a n i k i M u s t a f a E f e n d i , op. n r . . pp. 7-8.

331

MD3.

332

M D 5.

333

S e l a n i l u M u s t a f a E f e n d i , up. cit., pp. 7-8.

334

S e e below, pp. 5 0 - 5 3 .

335

S e c below, pp. 4 5 - 5 0 .

3 3 6

MD

3.253.732.

3 3 7

MD

3.327.955.

Istanbul, 1 2 7 4 - 1 2 7 5 / 1 8 5 8 , i, p. 5 9 5 .

.Abdurrahman Pa§a, op. at., p. 536. T h i s is a s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y kanunname d a t i n g f r o m the reign of M e h m e d IV, but the regulations correspond to sixteenth century practice.

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D LAW

38

already held, but other beylerbeyis339 and sancak beyis**0 serving in the fleets had the same right. He was director of the Imperial Arsenal, 341 although liefore the appointment of Barbarossa he appears to have been resident at Gallipoli. 3 4 2 From 1533 onwards he lived at Galata, and was responsible for the maintenance of order both there and at Gallipoli, appointing suba§is in both these places. 3 4 3 In the Imperial Arsenal and in the area nearby he listened to lawsuits or referred them to the kadi of Galata. 3 4 4 At sea, too, he listened to lawsuits together with a kadi appointed for his assistance. 345 The admiral was usually, although not invariably, the chief officer of the fleet. The organization of the troops under his command was the same as in the army, with the sancak beyis, alay beyis and subafis commanding the detachments of provincial sipahis serving a season in the fleet. The Janissaries and other military corps also served under their regular officers. 3 4 6 There was no body of troops that served only at sea. There was, however, a corps of galley skippers and their officers employed only in the navy. Records from the early sixteenth century onwards show these as a group of men resident at the arsenals of Galata and Gallipoli and known as the "company of captains and azabs (cemaat-i riiesa ve azaban)".34' Some sources refer to the azabs collectively as azabistan.348 These sixteenthcentury documents, however, give only a few hints and no really satisfactory explanation of their functions in the fleet. Seventeenth-century sources are more explicit. In 1656 Katip Qelebi wrote: "The azabistan, known also as the men of the arsenal (tersane halkt), consists of captains, skippers, bombardiers, caulkers, and carpenters", 3 4 9 but this does not seem to have been true of the sixteenth century, when the bombardiers, caulkers, and carpenters formed separate groups 3 5 0 and were not classed as azabs. In 1630 K09U Bey, without mentioning the term azab, wrote that the "galley skipper, helmsmen, sail-tenders, caulkers, gunners and overseers of galley slaves, all of whom they call men of the arsenal, are very numerous". 351 This seems to correspond more closely to the functions

339

M D 4.152.1540; MD

340

M D 4.150.1522.

34

1175.1822.

' R a m b e r t i , op. eil., p 22 v; Chesneau, op. eil., p. 244.

342

m

A l b i r i , op. eil., i, p. 136.

ldem,

i, p. 136.

344

A b d u r r a h m a n Pa$a, op eil., p 536.

345

/ W d „ M D 3.304.893

346

S e e below, p. 46.

347

K u r t o | l u , op. eil., MM 523 pp. 560-562; KK 223 Divan-i Hümayun.

348

K K 223; Kätip gelebi, op. eil., p. 146.

349

K ä t i p Celebi, op. eil., p. 146.

350

S e e above, pp. 24-28

351

Q u o t e d i n Uzunfarjili.

Merkez, pp.

518-519.

THE

NAVY

OF

StlLEYMAN

THE

MAGNIFICENT

39

of the azabs in the sixteenth century, except that the caulkers and gunners formed a separate class. Although sixteenth-century evidence does not clearly state the functions of the azabs, it does give a picture of their organization. Each azab belonged to a detachment (boluk) of which there were ninety-three in Gallipoli in 1518 3 5 2 and probably 227 in Galata in 1571. 3 5 3 A command of 1571 requires that there be ten azabs to a detachment, 3 5 4 although the 1518 lists for Gallipoli show that at that period there were frequently less. Each detachment was under the command of a captain (reis) earning in the mid-century anything between eight and a hundred akfes per day, 3 5 5 while a tender of sails (yelkenci) with seven or eight ak$es per day was second in command. Under these came the azabs whose chief officer, the odaba^i, earned four to six akfes-, the remainder earned four. 3 5 6 A captain who headed a detachment was called hassa reis, which many sources show to have been the title of the skippers of state-owned galleys or other vessels. 3 5 7 It seems likely, therefore, that each detachment represented the captain and crew of a state-owned ship, the azabs acting as helmsmen, riggers, overseers of oarsmen and the like. Certain details reinforce this impression, although the evidence is not really conclusive. The cadastral survey of Gallipoli in 1518 shows that there was a giimi — an overseer of galley slaves 3 5 8 — in each detachment of azafcs, 3 5 9 although by 1571 these seem to have formed a separate class, at least in the arsenal at Galata. A document of that year states: "There are 2,385 azabs [in Galata]... twelve have become gum/s". 3 6 0 One of the azabs who received promotion to captain in 1571 had been helmsman of the royal bastarda at Lepanto. 3 6 ' Furthermore, the title of the senior azab, yelkenci, suggesis that he was a sailor and that the men under him were responsible for the sailing and navigation of the vessel. There is further slight evidence that each detachment of azabs represented the crew of a ship. The same document of 1571 shows that each detachment bore a number, but in two cases the name of a type of vessel is mentioned after the number of the detachment: boliik 2 mavna and bdliik 2 sefine-i senk,362 This suggests that these detachments manned the types '•^Kurtoglu, ,,p. cil. 353

M D 18.76.162 slates that there were 227 "captains with detachments" in Galata.

354

M D 10, quoted in Uzun{ar§ili, Merkei,

355

K K 223, MD 2.56.516; MD 2.154.1431; MD 4.145.1466, KK 212 Riius 5 a.

3

% K

pp. 518-519.

223.

357

M D 2.23.194; MD 2.56. 516

,S8

H . and R. Kahane-Tietze, op cil., 789.

360

M D 10, quoted in Uzuniar§ih, Merkei,

elal.

Kurtoglu, op. cil. 36

pp. 518-519.

' K K 223.

3 «A mahone was a military transport in the form of a large galley, but without oars and carrying a square sail. "Stone-ships" are often mentioned, but never described in sixteenth century documents. Their name suggests that they were heavy transport vessels, probably for the transport of cannon balls and building stone for fortresses.

40

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D LAW

of ship named ma/tone and "stone-ship" 3 6 3 whereas the majority manned the standard galleys of the Imperial Fleet. However, this evidence of the role of azabs is by no means final. The same Ahmed b. Sinan who had been helmsman of the royal bastarda at Lepanto had also fought with an arquebus in the battle. 3 6 4 Perhaps the naval azabs were also armed, like the military organization with the same name. The Grand Admiral, on the command of the Imperial Divan, enlisted the azabs from able-bodied and, presumably, unmarried young men in the provinces. 365 Azab is the Arabic for bachelor. Records of their names show that most of them were born Muslims, although there were a few Greeks serving as overseers of galley slaves at Gallipoli in 1518, 366 and many of those recorded in 1 5 7 1 3 6 7 bear the name "so-and-so, son of Abdullah" which suggests nonMuslim parentage. Perhaps they were acemi oglans or renegades. A career as an azab could lead to and was, in fact, the normal road to appointment as a galley captain (hassa reis). If a junior post among the azabs fell vacant through the death or promotion of its occupant, a new recruit would usually fill the position. If a post of odabagi or yelkenci fell vacant, it would usually go to a junior azab. A post of hassa reis normally went to a yelkenci, less often to an odabafi or even a simple azab. The pay of the skippers (hassa reis) varied according to their distinction and seniority. Outstanding merit in battle qualified them for an increase in pay. If a senior skipper's post, commanding a high salary, became vacant it was normally conferred on a more junior skipper, rather than on an azab or yelkenci,368 There were several categories of captain. The senior skippers, earning daily 100 akfes or thereabouts, bore the title kapudan,369 At this period the term kapudan referred not to the commander of a single vessel, but to the commander of a fleet or detachment, and so these men probably commanded a section of the fleet when it was at sea. A captain in charge of a group of azabs was called a boliiklu reis (captain with a detachment). There were 227 of these in 1571. An additional 150 captains were without a detachment and called boluksiiz reis (captains without detachment) and so presumably did not command a ship at sea. Their duties, if any, must have been minimal since a command of December, 363

K K 223.

iM

lbid.

365 366

M D 21, quoted in Uzun{arsili,

Merkez.

p. 409 n. 5.

K u r t o g l u , op. cit.

367

KK 223.

36

^ T h i s account is based on a register of promotions made after the battle of Lepanto (KK 223) which reflects a crisis situation. However, nothing in the register suggests a radical departure from normal practice. 369

K u r t o g l u , op. cit., MM 523. pp. 560 ff; KK 223.

THE NAVY OF S U L E Y M A N T H E M A G N I F I C E N T

41

1571, requires that the yelkencis promoted to become captains without detachments be re-appointed as yelkencis.310 There was a third category of captain appearing in records of the Galata arsenal throughout the century, known as miiteferrika reis.371 It seems likely that these were the captains who were first in line for an appointment as captain with a detachment when such a position fell vacant. 372 An azab or a hassa reis could gain promotion through the recommendation of the Grand Admiral, the kethuda of the arsenal, or of any beylerbeyi or sancak beyi serving in the fleet. Recommendations were usually for bravery in battle. It seems, too, that an azab could make a personal request for promotion. An appointed dignitary would then confirm the promotion in the Sultan's name. 3 7 3 Every azab had the opportunity to become a hassa reis and, in fact, most of these captains seems to have been former azabs. The register of 1571 records only one appointment of a hassa reis who was not already a captain or an azab in the Imperial Fleet. He was an independent corsair who had joined the fleet for that year's campaign. However, this register was written immediately after Lepanto and does not represent a normal situation. 374 There were other sources for the recruitment of galley captains. The Muslim corsairs of the Mediterranean, to whom a career in the Imperial Fleet at the time of Ottoman greatness must have been very attractive, formed a permanent pool of skilled captains, and Algiers in particular seems to have provided a great number. 3 7 5 Ulu^ Ali is a famous example. Western sources stress the number of renegades from the Christian Mediterranean powers who rendered great services to the Ottoman fleet and provided skilled captains for its galleys, but it is difficult to estimate their real contribution. Ottoman sources are silent on the subject, and Europeans have always been anxious to ascribe any Ottoman success to the Christians in the Empire. These were the commanders and officers of the Imperial Fleet who lived at Galata and Gallipoli. However, Ihe Sultan maintained a number of smaller squadrons away from these places at various points on the shores of the Mediterranean and Aegean. The establishment of these flotillas became increasingly important as the Empire expanded. Selim I's conquest of Egypt and Syria added territories to the Empire which could communicate with the capital

370

37I

MD

18.76.162.

!E(bahriye), 2; KK 5337; MM 523, pp. 560 ff.

372

MD

373

K K 223.

374

K K 223.

375

M D 2.56.516; MD 2.231.2069; MD 4.175.1822 el at.

18.76.162.

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D LAW

42

only by sea, and later acquisitions in North Africa rendered sea power even more vital. The defensive network of small flotillas protected the Ottoman coastline and shipping routes from pirates and enemy incursions. These flotillas were under the command either of independent admirals (kapudans) or else of the sancak beyis on whose districts they were based. They seem to have been independent of the Grand Admiral except when they joined the main body of the Imperial Fleet on a summer campaign. There were two squadrons in the Aegean. The first of these was based in Kavala, on the Macedonian coast, and was under the command of an independent admiral. Records of this admiral's appointment from 1554, 3 7 6 1556 3 7 7 and 1571 378 suggest that the post usually went to a senior galley skipper (hassa reis) in the Imperial Fleet. It carried with it a teamed9 worth 44,12 akfes per annum in 1607. 3 8 0 He commanded a small squadron of galleys and galliots, patrolling the Aegean as far south as Midilli. There are no records of the crews of his ships except in a command of 1565 showing that he had requested castle guards (hisar erenleri) from the fortresses on the Anatolian and Rumelian coasts as fighting men. 3 8 1 This admiral's most important duty seems to have been to guard the vessels carrying grain from Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace to the capital, loading them, 3 8 2 victualling them, 3 8 3 escorting them to the Dardanelles 384 and preventing the illegal purchase and sale of grain. 385 The sancak beyi of Midilli commanded the second squadron in the Aegean. With this he patrolled the island and nearby coastline. A command of 156Ó 386 records two galleys under his command, manned by the sipahis of his sancak. The oarsmen were probably convicts, since punishment by "the galleys" was very common, and there are records of the release of criminals from the Midilli galleys in 15 56. 3 8 7 The government required this sancak beyi to provide not only troops, but sometimes also ships for naval campaigns, as in 1565 when he sent the galleys under his command and the troops of his sancak to join

376

K K 2 1 2 R u u s 5 a , p. 54

377

MD

378

MD

16.41.75.

379

MD

2.129.1299.

380

2.129.1299.

A y n - i Alt Efendi, np. ^

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DOCUMENTS FROM JOHN RYLANDS TURKISH MS. No. 145

167

Commentary: This complements document no. 1. It is the certifícate which the kadi gave, as evidence of her manumission, to the emancipated slave, whom it describes as the 'bearer of this document'. It is a summary of the full statement of manumission, and suffices to show that the procedure for emancipation was exactly the same as in the previous example. The only difference is that it is a case of a woman emancipating a female slave. Hanafi law entitles a woman to the clientage of her freed slave, female or male, but is unspecific about the rights of inheritance which the clientage would entail. Other records of manumission in the same MS indicate that the procedure was almost invariable.

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HISTORY

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THE STATUS OF ORCHARDS AND FRUIT-TREES IN OTTOMAN LAW

In his "Economic and Social History of Turkey" Professor Mustafa Akdag made the observation that, in the period under discussion (1453-1559), "a factor encouraging the cultivation of orchards was the rule that... with the planting of orchards or cultivation of trees... a field ceased to be miri land and acquired freehold status." 1 This remark highlights one of the most complex issues in 16th-century Ottoman land law — the status of orchards — but is, at the same time, an over-simplification. It was a popular belief rather than a legal rule that planting orchards created freehold, but this belief undoubtedly stemmed from the complexity of the law itself. The problem arose in the first place because Ottoman law, unlike many (most ?) legal systems makes a distinction between the ownership of trees and the ownership of the land on which they grow. Furthermore, if a person planted trees on another's land, the owner of the land did not automatically acquire the ownership of the trees. In this respect. Ottoman practice accorded with the rules of hanafi law. In dealing with cases where a person erects buildings or plants trees on another person's land, the hanafi rules also start from the premise that that ownership of the land does not necessarily entail ownership of its trees or buildings. A landowner does not, therefore, automatically acquire possession of trees or buildings which another person has planted or built on his ground. He has, instead, two options. He may order their removal; or, if he fears that this may damage the soil, he may acquire ownership by compensating their owner with a sum equal to their value, this being the difference in the value of the land with and without the buildings or trees. The compensation is, in effect, a compulsory purchase2. The equivalent Ottoman law starts from the same premise as the shari'ah, in that it distinguishes between possession of the soil and possession of the trees. This becomes clear in numerous/e/vds and other legal records:

Turkiye'nin iktisadì ve ¡{limai larihi, Main ai-Kudiri, Cairo, 1957, 62.

'Mustafa Akdag, 2

See al-Kuduri,

vol. II, Ankara, 197!, p. 166.

208

S T U D I E S IN O T T O M A N H I S T O R Y A N D L A W (1) Question: Zeyd plants a sapling in 'Amr's plot. 'Amr is unaware of this. Who, according to the shari'ah, owns the sapling? Answer: Zeyd. [Kemal Pa§azade] In the n e x t f e t v a , the same rules apply: (2) Question:

Answer:

New shoots sprout from the roots of saplings on Zeyd's land. They come up in the neighbouring plot belonging to 'Amr. According to the shari'ah, who owns the shoots ? Zeyd. [Kemal Pa§azade]

Since possession of the land does not determine possession of the tree, it follows that only the tree's owner has a right to its fruit 3 : (3) Question: Branches from Zeyd's fruit-tree overhang the road. Passersby pluck and eat the fruit from its branches. It this legal? Answer: No. [Unattributed]

These answers conform to the shari'ah insofar as they distinguish between possession of the ground and possession of the trees. It is, however, significant that in the first two answers Kemal Pa$azade did not mention the landowner's canonical right to remove or buy the other man's trees. He did not do so, because it is at this point that the shari'ah and Ottoman law part company, as another of Kemal Pa§azade's fetvas demonstrates : (4) Question: Bekr has trees on Zeyd's plot. Can he interfere with the land beneath those trees? Answer. He can interfere with it (within a diameter determined by) the place where the sun casts a shadow at noon 4 . This answer seems to show that the possessor of the soil had no automatic right to remove or buy the trees, but that, in fact, the person who cultivated the trees had limited rights over the soil where they were growing, even where this belonged to another. None of these questioners say whether the plots which the trees affected were freeholdings (miilk), or whether they were leaseholdings on state (miri) or

•i

Excluding the portion due, usually as djr-i meyva. taxes. 4

to the sipahi,

vakf or other recipient of

T h e midday shadow varies according to the season. The answer — if this translation is correct — is very imprecise.

O R C H A R D S A N D F R U I T - T R E E S IN O T T O M A N L A W

209

endowment ( v a k f ) land. Since this lack of information did not prevent Kemal Pa$azade from giving clear-cut answers, the implication is that the same rule affected both types of land: neither freeholder nor tenant could evict a person who had trees on his land. His replies, however, do not make it clear whether the trees themsel ves were freehold possessions of the cultivator, which his canonical heirs could inherit; or whether they were, in effect, leaseholdings which a fief-holder or v