The Battle for Central Europe: The Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnificent and Nicholas Zrínyi (1566) 9004396225, 9789004396227, 9789004396234

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i The Battle for Central Europe

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_001

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The Battle for Central Europe The Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnifijicent and Nicholas Zrínyi (1566)

Edited by

Pál Fodor

budapest

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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iv Cover illustration: Melchior Lorck: Süleyman the Magnifijicent (16th century) and Matthias Zündt: Portrait of Miklós Zrínyi (1566) The publication of this book was supported by the National Research Development and Innovation Offfijice (NKFIH) under the project “The Political, Military, and Religious Role of Szigetvár and Turbék in the Rivaly of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and in the Ottoman-Turkish Regime in Hungary – Facts and Memory” (No. 116270). This book is a co-publication with he Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. ISBN 978-96-34-16145-5 Copyright 2019 Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, except where stated otherwise. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2019930442

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isbn 978-90-04-39622-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-39623-4 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands, except where stated otherwise. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhofff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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Contents Contents

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Contents Preface ix Pál Fodor Introduction 1 Pál Fodor

part 1 The Empire of Süleyman the Magnifijicent Ottoman Politics in the Reign of Sultan Süleyman: Government, Internal Politics and Imperial Expansion 7 Feridun M. Emecen Transformation of the Ottoman Empire into a Military-Fiscal State: Reconsidering the Financing of War from a Global Perspective 21 Erol Özvar State and Religion, “Sunnitization” and “Confessionalism” in Süleyman’s Time 65 Tijana Krstić Law and Legislation under Süleyman I 93 Colin Imber The Aesthetics of Empire: Arts, Politics and Commerce in the Construction of Sultan Süleyman’s Magnifijicence 115 Gülru Neci̇poğlu

part 2 The Empires of Charles V and Ferdinand I of Habsburg Habsburg Dynastic Politics and Empire Building during Charles V’s Reign 161 Zoltán Korpás

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The Central European Habsburg Monarchy in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century – Elements of Cohesion and Division 179 István Fazekas Camerale, Contributionale, Creditors and Crisis: The Finances of the Habsburg Empire from the Battle of Mohács to the Thirty Year’s War 193 Peter Rauscher “Clash” or “Go-between”? Habsburg–Ottoman Relations in the Age of Süleyman (1520–1566) 213 Arno Strohmeyer Intangible Cultural Exchanges: Christendom’s Eastern Frontier as Seen by Philip II’s Ambassador Chantonnay (1566) 241 Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra

part 3 The Hungarian Theatre of War in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent The Ottoman Conquest in Hungary: Decisive Events (Belgrade 1521, Mohács 1526, Vienna 1529, Buda 1541) and Results 261 János B. Szabó The Ottoman Conquest and Establishment in Croatia and Slavonia 277 Nenad Moačanin Ottoman and Habsburg Military Afffairs in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent 287 Gábor Ágoston Ottoman Defence System in Hungary 309 Klára Hegyi Hungary, Vienna and the Defence System against the Ottomans in the Age of Süleyman 321 Géza Pálfffy

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part 4 The Siege of Szigetvár – the Death of Süleyman and Zrínyi The Hungarian Frontier and Süleyman’s Way to Szigetvár according to Ottoman Sources 339 Claudia Römer and Nicolas Vatin Tokaj, 1565: A Habsburg Prize of War, and an Ottoman Casus Belli 359 James D. Tracy Miklós Zrínyi, Captain-General of Szigetvár (1561–1566) – His Organisational Activity and Death 377 Szabolcs Varga The Sieges of Szigetvár and Gyula, 1566 397 József Kelenik Sigetvarname: A Visual Source of Sultan Süleyman’s Last Campaign 411 Zeynep Tarım On Süleyman the Magnifijicent’s Death and Burials 427 Nicolas Vatin

part 5 Remembering the Battle for Szigetvár, Süleyman and Zrínyi and the Search for the Lost Türbe of the Sultan The Memory of the 1566 Siege of Sziget and of Miklós Zrínyi in Hungarian Literary Tradition 445 Gábor Tüskés The Entangled Memory of the Battle of Sziget (1566) in Early Modern Europe 479 Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik The Memory of Nicholas IV of Zrin and the Battle of Szigetvár in Croatia and the Balkans 509 Damir Karbić

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The Memory of Szigetvár and Sultan Süleyman in Ottoman/Turkish Culture 523 Günhan Börekçi The Pilgrimage Town (Türbe Kasabası) of Sultan Süleyman at Szigetvár  539 Norbert Pap Index of Personal Names 553 Index of Geographical Names 561

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Preface This book is the outcome of a conference which was held in Pécs and Szigetvár (Southern Hungary) on 6–9 September 2016. The scholarly meeting was convened on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the siege of Sziget(vár) and the death of the main actors of the events: the famous Ottoman ruler Sultan Süleyman I (1494–1566) and the captain of the fortress Nicholas (Hung. Miklós/Cro. Nikola) Zrínyi (1508–1566). Hence the title of the conference: “Szigetvár, 1566: Commemorative Conference on the Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnifijicent and Miklós Zrínyi”. The event was jointly organised by the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Pécs and it was supported by the “Miklós Zrínyi – Szigetvár 1566 Commemorative Committee” as well as by the National Research Development and Innovation Offfijice (NKFIH) under the project “The Political, Military, and Religious Role of Szigetvár and Turbék in the Rivalry of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and in the Ottoman-Turkish Regime in Hungary – Facts and Memory” (No. 116270). It is my glad duty to thank all those colleagues who assisted in organizing the conference. I would like to mention by name Géza Dávid and Géza Pálfffy, both of whom greatly helped me in developing the concept of the conference, as well as Norbert Pap and his team, without whose tireless work the conference could not have been realized. The support we have received from the University of Pécs and from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has been invaluable, and my thanks go to the University’s rector and the Academy’s president as well. I am indebted to the Hungarian government and its main representative in this matter János Hóvári, former ambassador, who, as president of the Commemorative Committee, has given us his full support and provided the bulk of the funding. I thank Andy Gane for his invaluable language editorial assistance. Last but not least, my deepest thanks are due to the colleagues from the United States, England, France, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Turkey who took the trouble to travel thousands of miles to deliver their papers and then submitted the fijinal versions, thereby making this hopefully thorough and informative volume an integrated whole. Pál Fodor Budapest, 23 October 2018

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Introduction Szigetvár has been a shared Hungarian–Turkish–Croatian place of remembrance since the establishment of a Hungarian–Turkish Friendship Park in the 1990s with the statues of Sultan Süleyman and Nicholas Zrínyi, the captain of Szigetvár. The inauguration of the site aroused some interest in Europe and Turkey, but later on the curiosity slowly faded away. The discovery of the remnants of Süleyman’s lost mausoleum by a research team directed by Norbert Pap and Pál Fodor drew world-wide interest and turned the spotlight on Szigetvár once again. The research fijindings clearly contributed to the decision of the Hungarian government to declare 2016 a “Miklós Zrínyi – Szigetvár 1566 Commemorative Year”. These developments and the opportunities presented by the 450th anniversary inspired us to seek a new scientifijic reckoning, one that would not merely offfer the – at best one-sided, at worst “parochial” – approaches and interpretations of the historians of a single nation, but which would explore and make manifest the vantage-points and interests of all the contemporary actors. From the outset, an aim of ours was that the two main powers of the period – the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires – should receive the attention they deserve, for the history of Europe – and especially that of Central Europe – in the mid-16th century cannot be properly understood without examining the rivalry between these two empires and their role in the broader context. Historians (especially in Central Europe) have long been familiar with the maxim that advances in history-writing are due primarily to two things: deadlines and anniversaries. At times, however, the latter – the anniversaries – do have some awful consequences. Indeed, they can often result in overhurried work and hastily convened conferences offfering few new fijindings. Still, if we make good use of these occasions, then we can turn them into scholarly events that benefijit both historiography and public history. For instance, at the time of the 400th anniversary of the Siege of Szigetvár or the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács, Hungarian historians produced volumes of scholarly papers that remain, even today, essential manuals, mediating to us all the knowledge and ideas of those generations.1 In the international literature too, we know of many fijine examples that have stood the test of time. Here, I shall mention just some of them; true, not all of them arose at the time of 1 Lajos Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromának 400. évfordulójára. Budapest, 1966; Lajos Rúzsás and Ferenc Szakály (eds.), Mohács. Tanulmányok a mohácsi csata 450. évfordulója alkalmából. Budapest, 1986.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_002

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a major anniversary, being linked instead with the “discovery” in the West of Süleyman the Magnifijicent – which, however, was not completely unrelated to the approach of the 500th anniversary of the sultan’s birth. The fijirst work comprised the materials of the Chicago and Princeton conferences of 1987.2 The second was an edited version of the presentations heard in London and Cambridge in 1988.3 The third contains the papers of the Paris conference of 1990.4 What was said about the Hungarian conference paper volumes, applies also to these works: We continue to use them as guides and manuals, as they are fijilled with articles and essays by the very best of our profession. Of course, there were some other, additional reasons for convening our conference and publishing its edited proceedings. When it comes to assessing Süleyman’s imperial and expansionist policies, there is no true consensus either in Ottoman studies or in European or global history writing. There are historians who, when discussing Süleyman’s wars, choose either to ignore the Hungarian front or to give it less importance than it deserves. The fact that the man who is regarded as one of the empire’s greatest rulers and who, since the late 1980s, has “starred” in multiple exhibitions,5 died 450 years ago on Hungarian soil, was a good reason to draw attention to the role played by this region in the relationship that evolved between the Ottoman Empire and Europe and indeed – and perhaps this is no exaggeration – in the subsequent fate of the empire. An additional and salient reason for holding a conference in the vicinity of Szigetvár on the anniversary of the sultan’s death was that, as mentioned above, we recently found, as the result of a research programme that has been running for several years, the memorial türbe erected at the sultan’s fijirst burial site, as well as the remains of the other sacred buildings constructed around the türbe. These discoveries are not merely archaeological and historical sensations (which is how they were treated by the world press), 2 Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993. 3 Metin Kunt and Christine Woodhead (eds.), Süleyman the Magnifijicent and His Age: The Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern World. London, New York, 1995. 4 Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Acte du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales de Grand Palais. 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992. For another collection of essays on the age of Süleyman, see Özlem Kumrular (ed.), Muhteşem Süleyman. İstanbul, 2007. 5 National Gallery of Art: The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnifijicent, January 25–May 26, 1987. For its catalogue, see Esin Atıl, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Washington, DC., 1987; Galeries National de du Grand Palais, Paris: Soliman le Magnifijique, 15 fevrier au 14 mai 1990. For its catalogue, see Soliman le Magnifijique. Paris, 1990; Hungarian National Museum: Nagy Szulejmán szultán és kora, 1994. szeptember 7.–1995. január 8. / Kanunî Sultan Süleyman ve Çağı, 7 Eylül 1994–8 Ocak 1995. For its catalogue, see Ibolya Gerelyes (introd. and ed.), Nagy Szulejmán szultán és kora / Kanunî Sultan Süleyman ve Çağı. Budapest, 1994.

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but also important scientifijic sources or raw materials that help us better understand the signifijicance of the military and cultural activities that were taking place in and around the fortress of Szigetvár all those centuries ago. And may I mention one further and important reason why we wanted to hold this conference just “on the spot” and in 2016. Although some may be thinking that historically speaking it is erroneous or at least an exaggeration to mention Süleyman and Zrínyi in one breath, for the former was the powerful ruler of a world empire, while the latter was the commander of a local, albeit important, defence system – a Hungarian–Croatian–Austrian magnate and not a king or ruler. Despite his gallant leadership of the defence of Szigetvár, his signifijicance, they might argue, is not comparable with that of the sultan. Evidently, there is some truth in this point of view. Still, by including Zrínyi – and the Hungarian front with the defence system in general – we seek in particular to draw attention to the fact that the Ottoman conquest of Hungary reached a new stage in the 1550s. That decade marked the end of an era in Hungarian–Habsburg history that had been characterised by confusion, perplexity and despair – an era in which even some of the Hungarians had sided with the Ottomans, for which very reason (among others) the Ottomans had been able to advance their positions without major losses or risks. The establishment of the Hungarian border fortress system, the appearance on the scene of politicians and soldiers of Zrinyi’s bent, and the uncompromising resistance that they showed, marked the beginning of a new era in which the Ottomans had to fijight for every additional square foot of territory and in which it became clear that, instead of going on to conquer the imperial city of Vienna, they would have to be satisfijied with ruling over a number of smaller or larger forts in Hungary and Croatia.6 Therefore, probably it is not an exaggeration to give this volume the title “The Battle for Central Europe: The Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnifijicent and Nicholas Zrínyi (1566)”. In the spirit of the above-mentioned considerations, the structure of the book follows a course from the global to the local and from the past to the present (the latter meaning the modern politics of remembrance). The fijirst part (“The Empire of Süleyman the Magnifijicent”) is devoted to the 16th-century Ottoman Empire. Feridun M. Emecen gives a general overview of the age of Süleyman. Erol Özvar investigates the Ottoman fijiscal policies and points out that they could fijinance wars and sustained territorial expansion 6 On this, see János B. Szabó, ‘An Example for Some – a Lesson for Others. The First Ottoman Siege of Szigetvár and the Military Campaigns of 1555–1556 in Southern Transdanubia’, in Péter Kasza (compil. and annot.), Remembering a Forgotten Siege: Szigetvár 1556. Ed. by Pál Fodor. Budapest, 2016, 136–144.

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by relying on residual budgetary revenues and extraordinary war taxes. Tijana Krstić’s essay focuses on the phenomenon of Sunnitization in the era of Süleyman through the prism of catechetical (ilmihal) literature produced between the 1540s and 1560s; it shows that Sunnitization was a broader societal phenomenon that transcended the purview of the state. Colin Imber reminds us that although it is Süleyman I who is remembered today as Kanuni or the “Lawgiver”, it was his grandfather, Bayezid II, who laid the foundations of what came to be known as Ottoman secular law; viewed from the end of the 16th century, when chronic treasury defijicits became the norm and the old military and fijiscal order began to change rapidly, Süleyman appeared to embody a vanished ideal of the rule of law. Gülru Necipoğlu’s article focuses on the less familiar fijirst half of Süleyman’s reign; it highlights the underestimated cosmopolitanism of visual culture prior to the codifijication of a mature Ottoman idiom in the arts and architecture at the turn of the 1550s. The second part (“The Empires of Charles V and Ferdinand I of Habsburg”) presents the formation of the empires of the two branches of the House of Habsburg. Zoltán Korpás emphasises that the composite monarchy of Charles I/V was a conglomerate of possessions inherited from his grandparents and the heterogeneous structure generated considerable internal and external opposition. István Fazekas’s study identifijies four elements which reinforced cohesion within the Central European Habsburg Monarchy (the person of the monarch, central administration, the formation of an imperial aristocracy, the persistent Ottoman danger). Peter Rauscher’s contribution examines essential aspects of the fijinancial structure of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy in the 16th century where the crucial revenues and basis of war fijinance were the various taxes granted by the estates. Arno Strohmeyer describes the Ottoman– Habsburgs relations as a multifaceted phenomenon in which elements of cultural encounters, adaptations, empathy, interactions and contradicting universalisms and ideological opposition can be seen. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra’s essay demonstrates the highest interest that the siege and fall of “Çiguet” (Sziget) had both to the Spanish ambassador to Emperor Maximilian II and to Philip II himself; from the epistolary sent week by week to Madrid it turns out that Hungary and the theatre of war there was viewed from Spain as an organic part of the imperial system. The third part (“The Hungarian Theatre of War in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent”) deals with the process of Ottoman conquest and the formation of the respective defence systems in Hungary and Croatia, as well as with the military developments of the age. János B. Szabó describes the origins of the conflict between Hungary and the Ottomans and the main military events during Süleyman’s time leading to the occupation of the central parts

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of Hungary. Nenad Moačanin’s article highlights that the Ottomans conquered most of Croatia and half of Slavonia in a piecemeal way between 1470 and 1596. Gábor Ágoston’s study compares the military organisations, strength and fijinances of the competing empires; it emerges that the Ottomans enjoyed military superiority against their Habsburg rival during Süleyman’s reign but we must not overstate its importance. Klára Hegyi points out that it was not the Battle of Mohács or the occupation of Buda that led directly to the formation of Ottoman Hungary; on the contrary, the Ottoman dominium was created by a 25-year war. Géza Pálfffy’s contribution establishes that during the fijirst two decades of Ottoman conquest the Habsburg–Hungarian side was unable to create an efffective defence system. But the 1540s and 1550s saw the birth of a completely new defence system administered from Vienna which proved able to contain the Ottoman advance in the long run. On the other hand, Süleyman with his conquest shaped the contours of Central Europe for centuries to come. The fourth part (“The Siege of Szigetvár – the Death of Süleyman and Zrínyi”) leads us into the thick of the events of 1566. Based on Ottoman sources, Claudia Römer and Nicolas Vatin seek to reveal what prompted the ailing Süleyman to launch a campaign against Hungary (the factors are, among others, the delicate position of Transylvania, the delay in paying the tribute, the plundering raids of Habsburg commanders, building and repairing fortifijications, etc.). James D. Tracy highlights the role of Tokaj and other Hungarian fortifijied towns in the northeast (occupied by King Maximilian’s troops) in the outbreak of the war of 1566; he convincingly argues that the Ottomans made Tokaj a casus belli for various reasons. Szabolcs Varga gives a short “biography” of Nicholas Zrínyi, who acquired the post of captain of Szigetvár in 1561. József Kelenik introduces the reader to the parallel history of the sieges of Gyula and Szigetvár. Zeynep Tarım examines a special source of the Szigetvár campaign, the socalled Sigetvarnames [The Book of Szigetvár]. These chronicles, which narrate Süleyman’s last campaign, are illustrated with miniatures which constitute a separate (visual) source of the events. According to Nicolas Vatin, if we compare Süleyman’s death and funeral to those of the other Ottoman sovereigns, there is no fundamental diffference; the burial in Szigetvár of his internal organs seems to be a legend that arose locally. The fijifth and last part (“Remembering the Battle for Szigetvár, Süleyman and Zrínyi and the Search for the Lost Türbe of the Sultan”) investigates how the people of later periods remembered the event and its main protagonists. The essay by Gábor Tüskés traces the Hungarian literary tradition of Sziget and Zrínyi from its inception up to the late 19th century, and outlines the process of constructing this memory and the forming of a particular national narrative. Zsuzsanna Barbarics-Hermanik’s article explores the creation of the

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memory of the Battle of Sziget in the western part of the European continent and delineates its entangled character with acts of remembering in the eastern part of Central Europe. Damir Karbić traces the formation of the cult of Nicholas Zrínyi in Croatia from the 16th century onwards. He underlines the role of the family of the counts of Zrin in the creation and maintaining of the cult. Günhan Börekçi seeks to explore how Sultan Süleyman I’s death in Szigetvár during his last military campaign of 1566 has been remembered in Ottoman/Turkish culture over the course of centuries until recent years; he underlines the impact of television series fijictionalizing the life and times of Sultan Süleyman. The last essay authored by Norbert Pap, one of the two leaders of the research programme on the “lost” memorial site of Süleyman, gives a summary of their most recent research fijindings. Finally, I wish to express the hope that this book will serve – similarly to the volumes I mentioned above – as a manual and as academic or university reading material for decades to come. Pál Fodor

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part 1 The Empire of Süleyman the Magnifijicent

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Ottoman Politics in the Reign of Sultan Süleyman: Government, Internal Politics and Imperial Expansion Feridun M. Emecen İstanbul 29 Mayıs University [email protected]

A “New Age” in the History of the Empire In 1520, Sultan Süleyman succeeded his father Selim I, the conqueror of the East; he was twenty-six years old, that is, at a mature age for an Ottoman prince. His reign lasted forty-six years and left an indelible mark on Ottoman history, in the 10th century of the Islamic calendar. For those believing in the apocalyptic prophecies, the 10th century after the Hejira was the Last Age, during which the ruling sovereign, as the Mahdi and the renewer of Islam (müceddid), would fijinally deliver the eternal state to its “rightful owner” and would bring eternal felicity to the world.1 In a time overwhelmed with apocalyptic beliefs, Süleyman stayed in power for nearly half a century, a fact that enhanced his image as the last ruler on earth before the end of times. He undertook a series of glorious campaigns in the European lands; engaged in military clashes along the eastern borders of the empire with an unprecedented religious vigour; and launched a number of political initiatives of unmatched scale both on the northern and southern borders. Many Ottoman intellectuals of the time came to believe that Sultan Süleyman embodied in his person the just ruler of the end of times, a man who would establish his dominance all over the globe. Sultan Süleyman was most likely aware of the circumstances surrounding himself and played along with public expectations. Clearly, he introduced a 1 On the image of Süleyman I, see Barbara Flemming, ‘Sāḥib-ḳirān und Mahdī: Türkische Endzeiterwartungen im ersten Jahrzehnt der Regierung Süleymāns’, in György Kara (ed.), Between the Danube and the Caucasus. A Collection of Papers Concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europa, Budapest 1987, 43–62; Cornell H. Fleischer, ‘The Lawgiver as Massiah: The Making of Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân’, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Acte du Colloque de Paris. Galeries Nationales de Grand Palais. 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992, 159–177.

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number of political and military instruments to back up his claims to universal sovereignty. Under Sultan Süleyman, the Ottoman Empire underwent a structural change in the nature of the state. The ruling elite readjusted the empire’s bureaucratic organization, enforced a series of provincial law codes over the imperial lands, set a long-lasting mode of relationship between the holy (şeriat) and the traditional (örf ) law, and elevated the Sunni-Hanefiji interpretation of Islam to the backbone and formal ideology of the Ottoman state. In the centuries following his death, the Ottoman intellectual mind praised the reign of Sultan Süleyman for the absolute sultanic power it represented over the entire imperial system. In this study, I intend to defijine the underlying features of the new imperial policies that gained predominance in this era in the decision-making, their impact on domestic afffairs and the shift they triggered in the conception of practical authority.

Imperial Politics It should fijirst be emphasized that the political and military developments at the turn of the 16th century had already established imperial conflict zones and even framed a preliminary universalist imperial programme for Süleyman. In this regard, Süleyman inherited a number of unsolved issues, albeit not only on the western front of the empire as is usually supposed. The Safavids still posed a considerable threat to the very heart of the Ottoman political system. The Ottoman central government was not fully able to cope with the social disturbances the Safavid challenge had caused in Asia Minor. The Ottoman ruling elite had launched a campaign of conquest in Syria and Egypt, in an attempt to relieve the social and economic tensions within the empire which, I believe, brought about a change in Ottoman political ideas. During his short reign, between 1512‒1520, Selim I had repelled the Safavid threat at Chaldiran temporarily (1514) and had brought Cairo, the spiritual centre of Arabian lands, under Ottoman rule (1517). The Ottomans were keen on elevating their state to a much more powerful position and on assuming the role of protector of the entire Muslim world. However, while the Safavids were held back by the Ottoman forces, they were not decisively defeated and continued to challenge Ottoman authority. Even so, the Ottomans now had a strong foothold in Eastern Anatolia that could facilitate further Ottoman incursions into Caucasus and Iran and bring the trade routes in the east under Ottoman control. The military campaigns of Selim I against Syria and Egypt had likewise enabled the Ottoman palace to assert territorial claims on the routes connecting the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean through the

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Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and Egypt. This could, at least to a certain degree, reinvigorate commercial activities in the Mediterranean. The Ottoman armies overthrew the Mamluk Empire and paved the way for Ottoman supremacy in the Arab lands, which lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. Following the collapse of Mamluk rule, the Ottoman dynasty sought to complement the title of “protector of the two holy shrines” with their age-old custom of waging holy war against the Christian monarchs. In fact, the Ottoman caliphate denied a lineage with the Abbasid caliphs and claimed to be the servant and protector of the Muslim holy places. In short, in the third decade of the 16th century, the Ottomans seem to have established a state of relative security in the east and acquired for themselves a solid religious mission.2 The transition in Ottoman imperial politics naturally played a part in shaping the Ottomans’ western policy. The Ottoman government could now pursue the “grand strategy” envisaged most probably as early as during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror (1451–1481) with a comparatively functional set of ideological tools.3 Ottoman involvement in imperial power play seems to have been a far-reaching projection interwoven with sophisticated moves rather than randomly delivered responses to daily political needs. After the fijirst Ottoman warriors set foot on the Balkan peninsula, the Ottoman military advanced fijirstly towards the Danube and then, having crossed the river, even further north. Consequently, the Ottoman capital needed a new political approach that would enable the centre to restrain the far-flung frontier lands. It seems plausible to assert that the Ottoman imperial plans did not only include the vast territory stretching from the Caucasus to Central Europe but also claimed dominion over the seas (the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean) from north to south. This supports the idea that the Ottomans were seeking to build a new “imperial system”. This grand plan, however, was not well adjusted to the changing circumstances of the time and would eventually collapse in the face of inner political crises and the deteriorating international political and economic environment. Yet, the time had not come for a decline 2 For an overall assessment of the events in the reign of Selim I, see Feridun M. Emecen, Yavuz Sultan Selim. İstanbul, 2016 (revised edition). 3 Applying this terminology, I refer not to a modern perspective but to a self-identifijication inspired by the military endeavours that had been consistently pursued by the Ottomans since the 15th century. For continuity in Ottoman military and politics, see Feridun M. Emecen, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Siyaset. İstanbul, 2009, 221–238. For another analysis of this concept, see Gábor Ágoston, ‘Information, Ideology, and Limits of Imperial Policy: Ottoman Grand Strategy in the Context Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry’, in Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Gofffman (eds.), The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. New York, 2007, 75–103.

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in Ottoman power; and it is reasonable to believe that the Ottoman Empire was the leading political entity in the 16th century. The fijirst topic covers the military and political moves that might be seen as a continuation of the traditional gaza activities on the western borders, now adorned with religious sentiments. In this regard, the most challenging problem for the Ottomans in the West was the “Hungarian Question”, which demanded a continuous efffort with political and military aspects to defy Habsburg claims over the same region. The second topic was closely related with the Safavid threat in the East. The neighbouring Safavid state had contributed to the formation of the Ottoman socio-religious identity and further compelled the Ottoman ruling elites to manifest their ideological concepts explicitly in public spheres. Thirdly, in an attempt to control the Black Sea trade and to consolidate Ottoman authority over the Arab countries, the Ottoman central government sought to secure imperial zones both in the “cold lands” in the North and the “warm seas” in the South. The Ottomans, driven by commercial incentives, also waited for an opportunity to make overseas expeditions in the Southeast. This policy required operations on distant frontiers both in the North and in the South; it also complemented the main line of the Ottoman advance on a West–East axis. 1. Regarding the “Western Question”, one may assert the following ideas: Sultan Süleyman, immediately after he ascended the throne, besieged the fortresses of Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522, a clear sign that he intended to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. The Ottoman offfensive on Belgrade was in fact directly linked with a new imperial policy, namely the increasing interest in Hungary, which implied a will to interfere in interstate power relations. This, of course, required far more elaborated planning than that of the traditional gaza activities. It has long been a debate in Ottoman historiography whether the Ottoman court was content, at least in the fijirst phase of Sultan Süleyman’s campaigns in the west, with the annexation of Hungary. The leaders of the empire were most likely inspired by the ostentatious military endeavours of Mehmed II. Following the collapse of the Kingdom of Hungary at Mohács in 1526, however, they had to revise their original plans to include a wider perspective reaching beyond the Hungarian lands. Yet, I am rather inclined to think that the Ottomans in reality tried to consolidate their power in Hungary and wanted to create a bufffer zone to protect Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania (which was in fact established a little bit later). In the meantime, they frequently appealed to political propaganda and to an imperial discourse that sought incessant conquests far beyond Hungary to support their practical goals. I would not

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readily accept such an assumption that the Ottomans, in the aftermath of the Battle of Mohács in 1526, intended to overthrow Habsburg rule as well as the Kingdom of Hungary by taking the imperial capital of Vienna. In 1529, for instance, although the Ottoman army led by Sultan Süleyman laid siege to Vienna, the Ottoman leadership seems to have been more concerned with the retaking and securing of Buda. Furthermore, even if the Ottoman siege forces had been successful in taking Vienna, they would probably have abandoned the city, as they had done before, for example, at Buda.4 The ensuing military events in Hungary strongly allude to the fact that Sultan Süleyman was in no position to carry out his alleged goals against the Habsburgs, but was resorting to an aggressive political discourse to conceal his political intentions in Hungary. One can safely assume that when Süleyman arrived on the western front at the head of his army in 1566, it was not his intention to end Habsburg rule in Central Europe. In terms of domestic afffairs, his aim was to reinforce his authority over his subjects by personally taking the lead of the Ottoman army. In foreign policy, on the other hand, he probably set out for Hungary for the last time in hope of re-securing Ottoman sovereignty over Transylvania. I suggest that the “Western Question” in the reign of Süleyman I represented an imperial policy focused on Hungary. It would also not be too much of a stretch to claim that in the 16th century Ottoman influence increased to a certain extent in Europe well beyond the Hungarian borders. At this time, the Ottoman navy was operating in alliance with the French forces against the Spanish Habsburgs. The Ottomans gained a strong foothold in the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman court staged diplomatic effforts to interfere with the interstate power struggles in Europe. In short, Sultan Süleyman inherited a legacy of conquest from his grandfather, Mehmed the Conqueror, and left his successors an imperial programme with the Hungarian lands as its main focus. I have to refute the view that this legacy led successive generations of the Ottoman dynasty to waste the resources of the empire on ill-planned military actions, since it carries many shortcomings of a retrospective approach. 2. Secondly, the “Eastern Question” undoubtedly had a religious aspect. The Ottoman elites in the reign of Sultan Süleyman envisaged a consolidated, orthodox form of Islamic faith for the society they ruled. The Ottoman notables accused in principle the Safavids for all the internal problems they faced in this era, regardless of their socio-political background, who had an appealing tone 4 For the political moves and debates, see Pál Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy towards Hungary, 1520– 1541’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45:2–3 (1981), 271–345; Idem, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest 20162, 56–93; Emecen, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Siyaset, 156–159.

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in their religious claims over the people living under the Ottoman rule. In the meantime, the Ottoman state, faced by the Safavid challenge, was forced to reidentify its socio-religious ideology. It was no coincidence that in 1524, during the wedding celebrations of Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, a scholarly debate on a Quranic verse regarding the issue of the caliphate took place.5 Sultan Süleyman wanted to regenerate the post of caliph in his person in its classical form, so that he would be able to confront both the Safavids beyond the borders of the empire and certain social groups within. That is to say, unlike the practice in the Mamluk Sultanate, where the caliph undertook ceremonial duties under the patronage of an earthly ruler, Süleyman wished to combine the heavenly and worldly authorities in himself, a fact that can be deduced from the religious concepts prevailing in his time. For this reason, Sultan Süleyman’s military expeditions against the Safavids cannot only be explained by socio-economic factors. In my opinion, Süleyman initially considered bringing an end to the “Eastern Question” by radical means. The so-called campaign of the “Two Iraqs” in 1534– 1536, however, demonstrated the limits of Ottoman military power – much to the disappointment of Süleyman, who saw that there was no easy solution for the problems in the east.6 In his fijirst quest towards east, the Ottoman sultan could only take control of the region between Baghdad and Basra, thereby securing an outlet on the Persian Gulf that could be used for overseas expeditions. He failed, however, to triumph over his archenemy, the Safavids. In 1548–1549, Süleyman led his army once again through Anatolia. This time, he established the province of Erzurum to strengthen the border defence system against Safavid incursions and reinforced the frontier garrisons.7 Süleyman’s last campaign against the Safavids in 1553–1555 was mainly a military manoeuvre aimed at forcing the Safavid government to conclude a peace treaty with the Ottomans. This campaign was also highly entangled with the inner conflicts of the ruling dynasty; Süleyman now considered his eldest 5 It is telling that the Ottoman sources of the period gave a special place in their narrative to the subject; see, for instance, Cenabi, Tarih. Nuruosmaniye Library, 3097, fol. 91b; Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî, Künhü’l-Ahbār. Dördüncü Rükn: Osmanlı Tarihi, Vol. I: Facsimile Edition. Ankara 2009, fols. 276b–277a. 6 Feridun M. Emecen, ‘Irakeyn Seferi’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA). Vol. 9. İstanbul, 1994, 116–117; Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, ‘Recherches sur la campagne d’Iran de 1533–1535’, Anatolia Moderna / Yeni Anadolu 1 (1991) 143–145. 7 Feridun M. Emecen and İlhan Şahin, ‘Osmanlı Taşra Teşkilâtının Kaynaklarından 957–958 (1550–1551) Tarihli Sancak Tevcîh Defteri’, Belgeler 19:23 (1998) 77–80. For the campaign, see also Walter Posch, Osmanisch-safavidische Beziehungen 1545–1550. Der Fall Alḳas Mîrzâ. Vols. I–II. (Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse, 841; Veröfffentlichungen zur Iranistik, 71.) Wien, 2013.

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son, Mustafa, to be a potential rival for the throne, and the events of these campaigning years were marked by background tensions within the upper echelon of the ruling elites.8 The Ottoman–Habsburg peace treaty of 1547, as well as the peace signed in Amasya between the Ottoman and Safavid courts in 1555, formally ended military operations on both the western and eastern fronts. The troops garrisoned in the frontier fortresses, however, never gave up arms and pursued sustained warfare in their regions, which sometimes included military activities of a remarkably large scale. In the second half of the 16th century, Buda and Belgrade in its hinterland emerged as great military bases holding the Ottoman line of frontier defence together along the western borders while the provinces of Van and Erzurum served the same purpose in the east. During the governor-generalship of Hadım Ali Pasha, for example, the Ottoman central administration put all the beys of the frontier districts under the command of the beylerbeyi of Buda.9 A similar authority seems to have been granted to the governor-generals of Erzurum in the eastern front.10 3. Thirdly, I believe that the Ottoman political and military attempts along the “Far Frontiers” in the south and north of the empire, although timidly planned and poorly coordinated, reveal and illustrate well the Ottoman imperial vision. In fact, the Ottoman decision-makers seem to have invested a certain amount of energy and resources in the Russian steppes, the Indian Ocean and the forgotten frontiers of North Africa. The Ottoman forces, having secured the northern shores of the Black Sea, particularly the coastal towns in the northwest, upheld the security of the region at all costs. At the opposite end of their empire, the Ottomans attempted to draw long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean back 8

9

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For the campaign of 1553–1555, see M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, Osmanlıların Kafkas-Elleri’ni Fethi (1451–1590). Ankara, 1976, 205–249; Feridun M. Emecen, İmparatorluk Çağının Osmanlı Sultanları–1. Ankara, 2011, 142–143. For some remarks on Süleyman’s eastern policy, see Rhoads Murphey, ‘Süleyman’s Eastern Policy’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. İstanbul, 1993, 229–248. As I have underlined (in my ‘Hadım Ali Paşa’, in DİA, Vol. 15. İstanbul, 1997, 4–5) the governors in Rumelia were under the command of Hadım Ali Pasha due to his military successes as governor-general of Buda. The mühimme register in Topkapı Palace Museum Library (Koğuşlar, 888) includes numerous orders in this regard. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor published records related to Hungary in this register: „Az ország ügye mindenek előtt való”. A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei (1544–1545, 1552) / “Afffairs of State Are Supreme”. The Orders of the Ottoman Imperial Council Pertaining to Hungary (1544–1545, 1552). (História könyvtár. Okmánytárak, 1.) Budapest, 2005, 312, 314, 321, 343, 368, 381. Dündar Aydın, Erzurum Beylerbeyiliği ve Teşkilatı: Kuruluş ve Genişleme Devri (1535– 1566), Ankara, 1998, 125–126. Erzurum attained great military importance especially during the governor-generalship of Iskender Pasha (1550–1553): ibid., 122–134.

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to the Mediterranean waters under Ottoman control. Ottoman troops, in the meantime, invaded the costal line of North Africa and the eastern shores of the Red Sea and sought to penetrate the African mainland. In this regard, the Ottomans expanded their political and military influence in Egypt, Tripolitania, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco, doing so at the expense of the former Spanish presidios along the North African coastal strip. The Ottoman attempts to cling to the eastern shores of Africa, when considered in combination with the Ottoman control of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, can be regarded as supporting their effforts to secure a foothold on the western shores of India.11 Some authors argue that the Ottoman leadership failed to set priorities among a wide range of fronts, squandered a huge amount of resources on remote areas, and should have more efffectively invested these resources with a view to achieving long-term objectives. Some even claim that the magnitude of the occupied territories overburdened the administering abilities of the Ottoman leadership and caused a “crisis of orientation” in the reign of Süleyman I. However, such views are based on hindsight and on current interpretations of the past. Even in modern politics, it is not an easy task to implement long-term strategies in the face of an ever-changing international balance of power. Minor setbacks or difffijiculties arising along the way may easily lead to a series of hastily made decisions and temporary solutions. I would say, therefore, that this view may please observers casting an eye backwards to bygone events, but it means nothing in terms of how the historical events were actually perceived by those who experienced them. My personal opinion on the matter is that the military operations carried out by Ottoman forces in the same decades on multiple fronts, contributed a lot to the promotion of the Ottoman imperial vision. We should not let the failures of subsequent centuries downplay the complexity of the Süleyman’s imperial strategy.

Bureaucratic Adjustment The military developments in the borderlands were naturally interconnected with the policies pursued within the empire. Sultan Süleyman established a number of new administrative provinces in order to adjust his bureaucratic organization to an ever-expanding empire. In his reign, the Ottoman central government commissioned the establishment of more provinces in the eastern 11

For a general view, see Feridun M. Emecen, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunun Kuruluş ve Yükseliş Tarihi, 1300–1600. İstanbul, 2015, 267–273; Idem, ‘Sultan Süleyman ve Çağı’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Siyaset, 165–170, 176–181.

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lands of the empire than those created along the western frontier. Around the same time, some political entities acknowledging the Ottoman supreme authority were forced to accept the whimsy interventions of the Ottoman capital, as was the case in the Crimean Khanate.12 At this point, it is worth noting that the imperial register of 1550–1551 reflecting the administrative organization of the empire includes important details on how the Ottoman province of Buda was established in 1541.13 The same register remarkably lists many towns and fortresses not yet conquered by Ottoman forces as under the jurisdiction of nominally created sancaks. According to the Ottoman treasury, the lands of Wallachia, Moldavia, Jane (Jenő), and even Transylvania (listed with its so-called livas: 1. Erdel, 2. Kule-i Dımışkar [Temesvár, Timişoara], 3. Kopan, 4. Çanad–Beçey–Beçkerek [Csanád/ Cenad, Becse/Bečej, Nagybecskerek/Zrenjanin], 5. Çayla and Dodvaş [Cella/ Ţela, Tótvárad/Vărădia], 6. Lipova [Lippa], 7. Naylak [Nagylak] and Makrava [Mákosfalva/Macovişte]) were would-be provinces whose names needed to be carefully recorded, a fact clearly showing the Ottoman imperial planning for the region. Of course, the data in the register did not correspond with the actual circumstances back then; in nearly fijive years, however, the Ottomans captured the fortress of Temesvár and established a new province in conformity with what had already been outlined in this register years ago.14 The same conclusion holds true for the Ottoman eastern frontiers. In this part of the empire the Ottoman chancellery listed the provinces of Van and Georgia along with the province of Erzurum. Further south, the Ottoman bookkeeper heralds the establishment of a province in Luristan, alongside the existing Ottoman provinces of Baghdad and Basra. In Georgia, two of the three livas, namely Kutaisi (Kutatis) and Samegrelo (Dadyan), are worth mentioning.15 On the north-south axis, the new administrative centres established by Sultan Süleyman included the province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefijid, which proved to be the fijirst maritime-based Ottoman province to push Ottoman influence further west in the Mediterranean, the province of Cezayir (Cezayir-i Garb),16 and the 12

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For example, for the nature of the relations starting with Sahib Giray in Crimea, see Halil İnalcık, ‘The Khan and the Tribal Aristocracy: The Crimean Khanate under Sahib Giray I’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3–4 (1980) 445–466; Feridun M. Emecen, ‘Sahib Giray’, in DİA, Vol. 34. İstanbul, 2007, 519–520. Emecen and Şahin, ‘Osmanlı Taşra Teşkilatının’, 60–63. Ibid., 63–64. For a study giving the names of the districts (sancak) mentioned here, see Feridun M. Emecen, ‘Osmanlıların Tuna’nın Kuzeyine Yönelik İlgileri: XVI. Asırda Erdel Örneği’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Siyaset, 232–234. Emecen and Şahin, ‘Osmanlı Taşra Teşkilatının’, 94. It consisted of fijive livas: Mehdiye, Medine, Tenis, Şark, Beledi’l-unnâb and Kal’a; see Emecen and Şahin, ‘Osmanlı Taşra Teşkilatının’, 97–98.

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provinces of Habeş,17 Yemen,18 and Basra19 along the southern edge of the empire. In a general overview, the directions towards which the Ottomans expanded their administrative borders at this time correspond to the political ambitions prevailing in the reign of Sultan Süleyman. In harmony with the imperial policy followed at his time, Süleyman established twelve provinces, with a view to adjusting the state’s governing capacity to changing circumstances. In terms of centre-periphery relations, I believe that Sultan Süleyman was to a large extent able to enforce the political authority of his capital over the entire imperial lands. One should admit, however, in time the Ottoman central government occasionally fell short of meeting the demands of the ever-expanding frontiers. The growth of the empire during Süleyman’s reign led to an increase in the number of bureaus within the imperial administrative system. Ottoman archival documents and the register series produced at his time, give insights to the bureaucratic infrastructure underpinning the Ottoman political and administrative developments under Süleyman’s rule. To exemplify, one can briefly point out to a new register series introduced at this time by the secretaries of the imperial council. To this can be added the new methods applied in recording the tax revenues in land survey registers and the increasing complexity in the registers, both including the timar distribution in the empire and the decrees held on fijinancial matters.20

Domestic Afffairs I would like, fijinally, to make a brief comment on the dynamics of domestic politics: It is a matter of curiosity how the Ottoman social groups and the intellectual circles reacted to the swift growth of the empire in the mid-16th century. In the absence of clear evidence, we must turn our attention to the chroniclers of the time and carefully search for hidden remarks in their texts. The Ottoman chroniclers deliberately constructed their historical narrative around Sultan Süleyman and strongly held the view that an age of justice and

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Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı İmparatorluğunun Güney Siyaseti: Habeş Eyaleti. İstanbul, 1974, 31–42. It was referred as the province of Zebid and Aden: Emecen and Şahin, ‘Osmanlı Taşra Teşkilatının’, 98. Ibid., 94–96. Feridun M. Emecen, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Hanedan, Devlet ve Toplum. İstanbul, 2011, 111–157.

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fairness had begun with Süleyman assuming the Ottoman throne.21 In general, Ottoman intellectuals were carried away with the notion that the imperial power they were living under was turning into an eternal state. In fact, the social strata constituting Ottoman society in the middle of the 16th century believed that they enjoyed a life in tranquillity unlike their forefathers in previous centuries. The stability reflected in the production and population fijigures in the fijinancial records of the time may be used to support this conviction.22 The Ottoman state treasury had to come up with more efffijicient ways of collecting money for the major imperial campaigns in the 1520s and thus commissioned a general land survey to extract as much information as possible throughout the empire. This caused, quite understandably, distress among the rural population and the Turcoman groups especially in the Zülkadır–Maraş region and Inner Anatolia vehemently protested against the taxes imposed by the central government. These groups then received the support of those whose tribal leaders had been executed by the Ottoman government. During the Mohács campaign, the people in the Bozok region revolted; in 1526–1527, the discontented populace in Anatolia rebelled under the charismatic spiritual leadership of Shah Kalender, as they had done before with Shah Kulu.23 The fact that not only the Shia oriented people, but also peasants of Sunni faith and some timar-holding sipahis also joined in the uprisings places the issue in a diffferent context. In fact, these popular movements seem to have been sustained by a desire among people in Anatolia to defend themselves against a centralizing bureaucracy that was demanding ever-increasing sums of money in tax, doing so with an increasingly fijierce Islamic tone. The Sufiji circles in the 16th century reacted in a similar way to the growth of imperial bureaucracy. Apparently, the troublesome impacts of social change and the harshness of the political and economic measures in the reign of Sultan 21

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Süleymanname literature accentuates the sultan’s preoccupation with justice. For an example, see Kemal Paşa-zâde, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman. X. Defter. Ed. by Şefaettin Severcan. Ankara, 1996, 7, 36–44. Also see Lokman, Kıyâfetü’l-İnsâniye fî Şemâil’l-Osmaniye, İstanbul, 1987 (facsimile), fol. 48b. For remarks and statistical tables on population and budgets, see Ahmet Tabakoğlu, Türk İktisat Tarihi. İstanbul, 2000, 138–140, 180–182. Feridun M. Emecen, ‘İhtilalci Bir Mehdilik Hareketi mi? Şahkulu Baba Tekeli İsyanı Üzerine Yeni Yaklaşımlar’, in Mehmet Öz and Fatih Yeşil (eds.), Ötekilerin Peşinde: Ahmet Yaşar Ocak’a Armağan / In Pursuit of the Others: Festschrift in Honour of Ahmed Yaşar Ocak. İstanbul, 2015, 521–534. For revolts during the Mohács campaign, see Petra Kappert (ed. and introd.), Geschichte Sultan Süleymān Ḳānūnīs von 1520 bis 1557 oder Tabakāt ül-Memālik ve Derecāt ül-Mesālik von Celālzāde Muṣṭafā genannt Ḳoca Nişāncı. (Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland. Supplementband, 21.) Wiesbaden, 1981, fols. 158a–165a.

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Süleyman brought the spiritual leaders of certain mystical orders to the fore as key fijigures in the wave of dissidence in the periphery aimed at the imperial centre.24 The Ottoman state was also faced by increasing tensions between the followers of Sufiji and Salafiji doctrines within Ottoman society. The polarization of Ottoman population should be understood as a broad problem with political, social, and economic aspects rather than merely as the enmity of various groups in society arising from religious diffferences. Between 1527 and 1560, the Ottoman state’s response to the Safavid threat in the east also gave rise to a solid orthodox identity within the ruling elites and consolidated Sunni religious institutions. On the other hand, however, the Ottoman sultan styled himself, although not a consistent policy in the history of the Ottoman Empire, as the Caesar/Roman Emperor through a western discourse of legitimation.25 Sultan Süleyman stayed in power for a very long time; thus, it is not unreasonable to think that his seemingly unending days on the throne caused a pent-up weariness both among the ordinary public and among the ruling classes and that this weariness could not be openly addressed. Although not related in detail in the historical sources, the power struggle within the Ottoman dynasty during this period seems to have impacted greatly on the course of the events. Clearly, the battle for the Ottoman throne between Süleyman’s sons became the gravest problem in the domestic afffairs of the empire.26 It is hard to decide whether Sultan Süleyman still wanted to make a public image of himself during his last days because he believed that the Ottoman sovereignty was perpetuated in him. In conclusion, it would be fijitting to claim that the reign of Sultan Süleyman heralded the coming of a new age for the Ottoman Empire in many aspects, including foreign policy, military enterprises, the dynamics of domestic policy, and bureaucratic organization. I strongly believe that Süleyman’s reign should be re-evaluated within Ottoman history in its entirety and that this should be done from a global perspective and in the European historical context. The aim should be to reach a well-balanced assessment which will free us from the double-edged distortions of undue aggrandizement and unfounded disdain.

24

25

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Ahmed Yaşar Ocak, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Döneminde Osmanlı Resmi Düşüncesine Karşı Bir Tepki Hareketi: Oğlan Şeyh İsmail Maşuki’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 10 (1990) 49–58; see also İsmail Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri. İstanbul, 2014. For instance, Ottoman claims to the imperial crown went beyond rhetoric and took a solid form: Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg-Papal Rivalry’, İnalcık and Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second, 195–216. Şerafettin Turan, Kanunî’nin Oğlu Şehzâde Bayezid Vak’ası. Ankara, 1961.

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Transformation of the Ottoman Empire into a Military-Fiscal State: Reconsidering the Financing of War from a Global Perspective Erol Özvar* Marmara University, School of Economics, Istanbul [email protected]

This article tackles two intertwined albeit neglected questions concerning the nature of the Ottoman fijiscal and military policies until the end of the 16th century. We will address the question of how the Ottoman Empire fijinanced territorial expansion in the age of Süleyman and discuss the possible reasons for the lack of fijiscal problems such as chronic budget defijicits and frequent bankruptcies in a time of surmounting fijiscal demands due to intensive military conflicts.1 Sultan Süleyman diverged from the contemporary pattern in fijinancing war followed by European monarchs some of whom were his rivals. He never opted for fijinding loans at interest to support his military undertakings in his long reign, which were often a reason for bankruptcy; he actually did not need loans in peacetime either for a long time. Facing fijiscal strains, the Ottoman administration rather chose to take measures in land regime and taxation in the agrarian sector that comprised the 90 per cent of all the economic activities. The Ottomans had religious and political reasons for refraining from taking loans at interest, and thereby they preferred measures ranging from expanding tax-farming system, debasement, and levying additional taxes. Thus, in public expenditure, the Ottomans contradicted the early modern military-fijiscal states that managed to fijind long-term loans with low interest rates. While the measures taken are * I am indebted to Mehmet Genç, Kahraman Şakul, Abdurrahman Atçıl, Ergin Çağman, Şaban Bıyıklı, Süleyman Kaya, and Mehmet Savan for their constructive ciriticisms, suggestions, and corrections without which this work would have remained incomplete. 1 There is signifijicant work on the cost of the wars with the Austrian Habsburgs in the late 16th century and with Iran in the 17th century: Caroline Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593–1606. Vienna, 1988; Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 1500–1700. London, 1999; Virginia Aksan, ‘Ottoman War and Warfare, 1453–1812’, in Jeremy Black (ed.), War in the Early Modern World, 1450–1815. Boulder, Co., 1999, 147–175.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_004

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attributed to the fijiscal quagmire brought about by the intensive and expensive wars of Süleyman, the chronic fijiscal strains fijirst occurred in the 1590’s rather than the 1560’s. They would not be over until the fijiscal reforms of Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha in the 1630’s that comprised the imposition of price control, fijixed exchange rate, austerity measures, and auditing of public revenues. It is clear from the treasury accounts that military spending led to budget defijicits periodically throughout this period of fijiscal strains that almost lasted half a century. The Ottoman authorities fought budget defijicits by debasing their offfijicial currency and levying extraordinary wartime taxes towards the end of the 16th century; when such measures failed to yield the expected results, inner treasury reserves were put to use to close the budget defijicit. Historians have characterized this period as one of decentralization because of several reasons such as the halting of territorial expansion, the end of the decisive military victories, and fijiscal shortages. However, it was also a period of centralization in terms of imperial growth. The tax-farming system, which had always been part of Ottoman fijiscal system – albeit in a limited way – became widespread in revenue-raising in this period, which was a universal development linked to geographical expansion. This transformation took place under the supervision of a fijiscal department that had a limited number of expert stafff in the imperial seat and provinces, and with the support of kadı courts. Another divergence from the European pattern was the failure to attain a high monetization ratio in Ottoman economy; factors such as geographical expanse, sparse population and high transportation costs inhibited the desired growth in the use of currency in economic transactions in spite of the demographic rise. Came at a cost, a lower monetization ratio also brought some advantage. For instance, many items had lower prices in the Ottoman lands. Such moderateness also meant supplying provisions and ammunitions to the army at more reasonable prices when compared to European rivals. Therefore, the Ottoman bureaucracy fed and maintained its army at lower costs with cheaper armaments and munitions. Changing nature of warfare caused by “the military revolution” in the 16th century increased spending in all European monarchies. In the face of rising costs, the Ottoman central bureaucracy resorted to the imposition of extraordinary taxes and debasement policy more often, relatively increasing the tax burden of the subjects. In this process, fijiscal control and institutionalization in the provinces continued in parallel with the expansion of the tax-farming system. The local fijiscal departments established in the fijirst quarter of the 16th century for the audition, collection, and spending of the tax revenues were few in numbers until the end of the century when they spread to all provinces. Their growth in numbers in the 16th and 17th centuries also meant the growth of the

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fijiscal bureaucracy. Thus, despite the common wisdom, the expansion of the state started long before the 19th-century reforms in the Ottoman Empire. We attempt to demonstrate the expansion of the state in this article by focusing on the increase in the poll-tax revenues. Our work contradicts the conventional studies on the fijiscal and monetary measures the Ottomans took in fijinancing war by refusing to view these measures as the policies that accounted for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. We offfer to view them in their universal aspects through a comparison with similar policies of the contemporary European monarchies.

Debates on the “Military Revolution” and the “Military-Fiscal State” Geofff Mortimer complained not without a reason that one could not avoid the debates on “military revolution” in military history since the publication of Michael Roberts’ seminal work in 1956.2 There are many facets of the extensive changes encapsulated in the term of the “military revolution”. Roberts, who was also an expert on Swedish history, argued that the military tactics developed by Maurice de Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus beginning in the late 16th century were a milestone in military history as a result of which permanent infantry armies that grew into unprecedented sizes in a short while predominated the battlefijields. Geofffrey Parker, on the other hand, difffered from Roberts in attributing this revolutionary change in army size and composition to the spread of Italian type fortifijications known as trace italienne. For him, this military transformation took place in the 16th century with its roots going back in the past. Lynn, by contrast, disagreed with Parker and relying on sound evidence demonstrated that the swelling of army ranks was not exclusively a European phenomenon.3 Critics soon began questioning the military revolution for its theoretical underpinning; that is, the explanation of the 19th-century world hegemony with the military abilities the European powers acquired in the 16th and the following century. In consequence, comparative works on military changes in the early modern world began to appear in print. Known as the “New Military History”, they put forth the prevalence of permanent and large

2 Geofff Mortimer, ‘Introduction: Was There a “Military Revolution” in the Early Modern Period?’, in Geofff Mortimer (ed.), Early Modern Military History 1450–1815. Basingstoke, 2004, 3–4. 3 John Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle. Cambridge, 1997, 171–175.

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armies adopting fijirearms on a massive scale and sophisticated tactics on the Eurasian landmass.4 Charles Tilly was one of the fijirst scholars who dealt with the political consequences in Europe of the changes in the art of war and the gradual intensifijication of military conflicts since the Middle Ages. Tilly contended that modern state apparatus was a by-product, if not an unintended consequence, of the monarchical desire for a more efffective way of fijighting. For him, the modern state was the culmination of three novelties: The establishment of permanent and large armies with a view to be ever victorious on the battlefijields; the introduction of the necessary military industry; and, the creation of state agencies and institutions in order to raise funds to cover the new military expenditure.5 A set of new works have addressed a neglected topic by the military revolution literature; under the rubric of “New Fiscal History”, these works focus on the way in which the European states responded to the new fijiscal demands set forth by the military changes of the 18th and the 19th centuries. The “fijiscal-military state” or “military-fijiscal state” was originally intended for explaining how Britain managed its enormous revenues in the 18th century when it amounted to twice as much the sum of Britain’s GNP. New studies followed that analyzed the ability of other European states in meeting huge military expenses in the same century through increasing capacity for taxation and/or fijinding cheap long-term loans. The military-fijiscal state is currently used as a term to shed light on non-European states-in-the-making in the early modern period. The historians with this view have emphasized both the similarities and diffferences of European and nonEuropean societies, and the likely universal roots of the modern state.6 Academic economists also contribute to the “military revolution” debate by analysing within the bounds of economic theory whether political regimes played a role in the growth of a particular state’s fijiscal capacity in the early modern era when constantly menaced by potential military conflict. The 4 Frank Jacob and Gilmar Visoni-Alonzo (eds.), The Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe: A Revision. New York, 2016; Mortimer (ed.), Early Modern Military History; Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800. New Jersey, 1991; Idem (ed.), European Warfare, 1453–1815. New York, 1998. 5 Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back. Cambridge, 1985, 169–191. 6 Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortes-Conde (eds.), Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New World: Monetary and Fiscal Institutions in the 17th through the 19th Centuries. Cambridge, 2001; Rafael Torres Sanchez (ed.), War, State and Development: Fiscal-Military States in the Eighteenth Century. Pamplona, 2007; Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, Patrick K. O’Brien and Francisco Comin, The Rise of Fiscal States: A Global History, 1500–1914. Cambridge, 2012.

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economists rather examine the interactional context of the art of war, political regimes, and economic development against the background of brand new data sets created about borrowing and taxation.7 A group of researchers in Ottoman military history has recently begun to focus on the question whether the Ottomans as the super military power of the 16th century were part of the military revolution.8 Majority of the research agree that the Ottoman military capabilities, performance, and tactics did not lag behind at least until the end of the 17th century in comparison to European rivals.9 The literature on military revolution gives the priority to pure military issues ranging from battlefijield tactics and siege warfare to the army size and composition. With the exception of the problem of long-term borrowing in the 7 K. Kıvanç Karaman and Şevket Pamuk, ‘Diffferent Paths to the Modern State in Europe: The Interaction Between Warfare, Economic Structure, and Political Regime’, American Political Science Review 107:3 (2013) 1–25; Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson, ‘Wars and State Capacity’, Journal of the European Economic Association 6:2–3 (2008) 522–530; Mark Dincecco, ‘Fiscal Centralization, Limited Government, and Public Revenues in Europe, 1650–1913’, The Journal of Economic History 69:1 (2009) 48–103; Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. New York, 1997; Douglass C. North and Barry Weingast, ‘Constitutions and Credible Commitments’, Journal of Economic History 49 (1989) 802–832; Philip T. Hofffman and Kathryn Norberg (eds.), Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government, 1450–1789. Stanford, 1994. 8 Finkel, The Administration of Warfare; Caroline Finkel and Gábor Ágoston, ‘XV. ve XVI. Yüzyıllarda Büyük Meydan Muharebelerinde Uygulanan Strateji ve Taktikler’, in XV. ve XVI. Asırları Türk Asrı Yapan Değerler. İstanbul, 1997, 155–184; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800’, Journal of World History 25:1 (2014) 85–124; Idem, ‘Ottoman Artillery and European Military Technology in the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 47:1–2 (1994) 15–48; Idem, ‘Ottoman Warfare in Europe, 1453–1826’, in Black (ed.), European Warfare, 1453–1815, 118–144, 262–263; Murphey, Ottoman Warfare; Gábor Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, 2005; Virginia Aksan, ‘Ottoman Military Matters’, Journal of Early Modern History 6:1 (2002) 52–62; Eadem, The Ottoman Wars: An Empire Besieged. London, New York, 2007; Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confijines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000.
 9 Finkel, The Administration of Warfare; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Ottoman Warfare in Europe’; Murphey, Ottoman Warfare; Aksan, ‘Ottoman Military Matters’; Günhan Börekçi, ‘A Contribution to The Military Revolution Debate: The Janissaries Use of Volley Fire During the Long Ottoman–Habsburg War of 1593–1606 and The Problems of Origins’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59:4 (2006) 407–438; Feridun Emecen, ‘Ateşli Silahlar Çağı: Askeri Dönüşüm ve Osmanlı Ordusu’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Savaş. İstanbul, 2011, 27–71; Kahraman Şakul, ‘The Evolution of Ottoman Military Logistical Systems in the Later Eighteenth Century: The Rise of A New Class of Military Entrepreneur’, in Jefff Fynn-Paul (ed.), War, Entrepreneurs, and the State in Europe and the Mediterranean, 1300–1800. (History of Warfare, 97.) Leiden, 2014, 307–327.

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United Provinces at the beginning of the 17th century and in England towards the end of the same century, the question of how successfully the early modern monarchs dealt with the fijiscal problems caused by the military revolution begs more attention.10 Researchers working on the history of political economy and economic growth are less concerned with analysing the ways in which the European monarchs and governments fought fijiscal strains in the 16th century on its own terms than considering them as an early phase of the European success story in which modern European states achieved world hegemony in the 19th century. The same observation also holds true for the 16th-century Ottoman Empire. Ottoman history writing for the early centuries and the classical age overemphasizes the Ottoman expansion into Europe and the Islamic world as well as the creation of the Ottoman hegemony from Mehmed the Conqueror through Süleyman the Magnifijicent. While some works underline the centralized state apparatus, large and strong army, and expert tactics, others suggest that international military and political situation and the division of Europe into Catholic and Protestant camps favoured the Ottoman expansion.11 Glamorous military campaigns of Süleyman overshadowed the way in which he overcame the fijinancial burden of the wars. In fact, his military successes would not have made a strong impression on his contemporaries, had it not been for the efffijicient fijinancial management of military conflicts. Conquests undoubtedly meant remarkable contributions to his treasury as revealed by the data on the state revenues: Central revenues and spending increased more than fijive-folds in terms of akçe (asper) from late 15th century to the end of the 16th with the former surpassing the latter. Süleyman made use of budgetary surplus in fijinancing his military campaigns. However, it does not sufffijice to draw attention to treasury reserves to explain the absence of a fijiscal breakdown caused by intensifijied military conflicts in the reign of Süleyman. The Ottomans were not dependent on local nobility, as was the case for their rivals, in meeting the cost of campaigns owing to the maturing 10

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There are exceptions to this observation; see Yun-Casalilla, O’Brien, and Comin, The Rise of Fiscal States; Richard Bonney, The King’s Debts. Finance and Politics in France, 1589– 1661. Oxford, 1982; Richard J. Bonney and Margaret M. Bonney, Jean-Roland Malet: premier historien des fijinances de la monarchie française. Paris, 1993; Richard Bonney (ed.), Economic Systems and State Finance. Oxford, 1995; Idem, The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c. 1200–1815. Oxford, 1999. İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilatından Kapukulu Ocakları. 2 vols. Ankara, 19842; Idem, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilatı. Ankara, 19842; Gyula KáldyNagy, ‘The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31 (1977) 147–183.

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of a particular land regime in the reign of Süleyman that enabled them to establish central control on the resources of the newly acquired territories. Süleyman managed to mobilize manpower and economic resources for the internal and external conflicts in a successful way. Prior to the launching of a military campaign, a careful planning and surveying of human and economic resources was one the most remarkable functions of the imperial council that represented the central administration. This tradition made the Ottomans competent in estimating the war-related costs and planning to meet them. Ottomans attained self-sufffijiciency largely in the procurement of provisions, arms and ammunition, which together claimed the largest share in war-related costs.12 They were able to manufacture domestically the cannon, cannon wagon, cannon ball, gunpowder, and ship required by the army and navy. Ottoman policies concerning military industry decreased the cash spending of the treasury and reduced the need for credit at least in the short run. As suggested by new researches on Ottoman military history, the Ottoman administration established a system of military logistics that functioned smoothly in the campaigns. Consequently, we can conclude that comparative superiority of the Ottomans lasted until the 18th century in the fijield of logistics as well.13 In response to the growing demands of warfare in the late 16th century, the Ottomans enlarged the infantry forces and strengthened the navy. They expanded certain taxes to a broader base of tax-payers and increased the rates within tolerable limits in order to satisfy the increasing need for cash imposed by these new military investments. The Ottoman authorities also spread the tax-farming system that was already a means of revenue-raising in the Ottoman realms.14 As indicated in the fijield of history of money, Ottomans were determined to protect the value of the imperial currency from the 1500’s to the 12 13

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Ágoston, ‘Ottoman Warfare in Europe’, 118–144. Finkel, The Administration of Warfare; Murphey, Ottoman Warfare; Aksan, ‘Ottoman War and Warfare, 1453–1812’; Ágoston, ‘Ottoman Warfare in Europe’; Pál Fodor, ‘Ottoman Warfare, 1300–1453’, in Kate Fleet (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 1: Byzantium to Turkey, 1071–1453. Cambridge, 2009, 192–226; Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York, 20092; Géza Dávid, ‘Ottoman Armies and Warfare, 1453–1603’, in Suraiya Faroqhi and Kate Fleet (eds.), The Cambridge History of Turkey. Vol. 2: The Ottoman Empire as a World Power, 1453–1603. Cambridge, 2013, 273–319; Lütfiji Güçer, XVI–XVII Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Hububat Meselesi ve Hububattan Alınan Vergiler İstanbul, 1964. Some Ottoman historians are of the opinion that the monetization of Ottoman taxation system neither afffected the tax-payers nor caused a general pauperization at least in the 17th century. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 187. Murphey contends that the traditional taxation imposed a disproportionately heavier burden on the subjects in the countryside in the 17th century, for it relied on the taxes collected from the agricultural produce. Nevertheless, he does not corroborate this claim with evidence. A detailed critique of the

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end of the 1580’s. The empire lived a period of considerable economic prosperity under these circumstances accompanied by fijiscal and monetary stability. The Ottoman bureaucracy diverted its human and natural resources to military clashes quickly and efffectively when its rivals could not go to war before securing loans; this was partly due to the central control on the revenues, the predictability of campaign costs, self-sufffijiciency, an efffijicient billeting system, and treasury reserves earmarked for the campaigns. A successful management of war fijinances at wartime was contingent, among other factors, on the capability of the Ottoman army to end the military conflicts in a short time. Prolongation of wars in Iran and Central Europe in late 16th century wore down the state fijinances. Unceasing double front engagements put much strain on war fijinances. The provincial cavalrymen who used to go back to their timar-holdings at the end of the campaign season, now had to stay in the army camp due to protracted wars for longer periods. The army grew in size enormously when compared with its former state in the early 16th century. A huge burden for the treasury was the maintenance of supply lines all year around because of the inability to close fronts besides the inflated military pays. The debasement policy that the Ottomans pursued beginning from the end of the 16th century with a view to alleviate the fijinancial pressure surely was not a measure particular to the Ottomans. Works on the European economic history demonstrate that contemporary European states also resorted to debasement frequently. Research has attributed these instances of debasement in Europe to the intensifijication of military conflicts the largest of which was the Thirty Years’ War as well as the economic recession of the 17th century.15 What accounted for the budget defijicits of the late 16th century were the fluctuations in the value of the coin, price rises, and surmounting military expenditure. It is common to interpret the recurrence budget defijicits in the following century as a telling sign of the Ottoman decline. Conversely, recent works on comparative history, though few in number, point out that all states proved to be fragile in the face of demographic, climate, military, and economic oscillations that afffected world regions from Europe and India to China.16 Some

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works on Ottoman logistics, see Kahraman Şakul, ‘Osmanlı Askeri Tarihi Üzerine Bir Literatür Değerlendirmesi’, Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatür Dergisi 1:2 (2003) 529–571. Kıvanç K. Karaman and Şevket Pamuk, ‘Osmanlı Devleti ve Avrupa Devletlerinde Tağşişler ve Nedenleri (1326–1844)’, ODTÜ Gelişme Dergisi 43 (2016) 229–256. For an analysis of warfare and climate changes from a global perspective, see Geofffrey Parker, Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven, 2014; for a study on the interaction between climate changes and political crises in the Ottoman realms, see Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, 2011; Alan Mikhail, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environ-

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historians argue that such oscillations were the harbingers of the developments that would connect multifarious societies scattered in far regions in a global network for the fijirst time.17 French historian Fernand Braudel, for instance, defijined economic, political and social trends that the 16th-century states encountered as “collective destinies.”18

Financing of War and the Financial Revolution in Europe Changes in warfare in continental Europe in the 16th century compelled the European monarchs and states to make more loans and levy new taxes. The gap between the state revenues and expenditure increased due to military conflicts; this gap was closed through formal and informal means, and most often borrowed money. The most illustrative case is the Spanish Habsburgs’. The apparent fijiscal ability of Charles V was to secure loan on interest to continue his wars. He turned regular revenues of Castile into a fund and lent it on security to get short-term credit contracts (asientos) through the services of the business partners of Castile, namely the bankers of Augsburg and Genoa. He thus tried to pay his debts to his creditors by exporting more formal unearned incomes such as treasury bonds (juros), which were attractive to both Spanish and foreign investors. Spain declared bankruptcy in 1557, 1560, and 1575 to its creditors. Historians tend to interpret these bankruptcies as the

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mental History. Cambridge, 2013. For an inspiring work that compares the impact of the fluctuations of value in coin on the Ottomans and the Safavids at the end of the 16th century, see Cemal Kafadar, ‘Les troubles monétaires de la fijin du XVIe siécle et la prise de conscience ottomane du declin’, Annales. Économies, Sociétes, Civilisations 2 (1991) 381– 440; Murat Çizakça, ‘Osmanlı Ekonomisinde Akçe Tağşişinin Sebebleri Üzerinde Kısa bir İnceleme’, Boğaziçi University Journal, Administrative Sciences and Economics 4–5 (1976– 1977) 21–27; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Precious Metal Flows and Prices in Western and Southern Asia, 1500–1750: Some Comparative and Conjunctural Aspects’, Studies in History 7 (1991) 79–105; for a pioneering work that compares revolutions in Europe and Asia in terms of high prices, fijiscal crises, and demographic fluctuations, see Jack A. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1991. 
 For a study on the impact of the fijirst wave of globalization witnessed in the 16th century on the social imaginations, see Serge Gruzinski, Quelle heure est-il là-bas? Amérique et Islam à l’orée des temps modernes. Seuil, 2008; Idem, L’Aigle et le Dragon: Démesure européenne et mondialisation au XVIe siècle. Paris, 2012; for a study that relates climate changes and globalization on the Eurasian landmass in the early modern period, see John L. Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History. Cambridge, 2014, 383–486. Fernald Braudel, The Mediterranean and The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Vol. 2. Translated by Sian Reynolds. Los Angeles, 1973, 657–904.

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result of the Spanish failure to fijind credit. Until 1584, the ratio of the annual payment required by juros was as high as three-fourths of the annual regular revenues of Castile. Yet, need for borrowing progressively continued in Habsburg Spain. The royal share in American silver in the 1580’s and the 1590’s did not save the Habsburgs from going bankrupt for the fourth time. These fijinancial crashes signalled the end of Spain’s status as a world power in the 17th century.19 The growing war-related fijinancial strain on states in the 16th century led to fijiscal breakdowns not only in Spain but also in other European states one after another. The need for borrowing was such that a French king was forced to seek loans from a Muslim monarch, namely, Süleyman.20 European monarchs were ill famous for failing to pay offf their debts or provide collateral – commonplace abuses that exacerbated fijinancial crises in that period. The need for loans led to the development of similar methods of borrowing. For instance, until the year of 1600 more than half of the papal revenues went to the offfijice owners and the coupon payment of the particular bond known as monti (a type of bond backed by regular revenues).21 Braudel once proposed to think of the 16th-century history of the papal state as a history of debts.22 19

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Mark Greengrass, Politics and Warfare in the Sixteenth Century. Ed. by Euan Cameron. Oxford, 2006, 83–85; James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance and Domestic Politics. Cambridge, 2002, 17–19. France had joined the alliance against the Habsburg emperor in Italy after the violation of the Treaty of Vaucelles. France under Henry II (1547–1558) clashed with the Habsburgs and this clashes spread to Flanders. Defeated by the Spanish king Phillipe II at this front, the French king had to recognize the danger of a Spanish invasion of his country. Thus, he sent M. de la Vigne on special mission to Süleyman, his ally in the Mediterranean, with the request for having the Ottoman navy anchoring at Provence. Besides, he also wanted to make a loan of 2 million gold pieces. It is apparent from the letter sent in reply from M. de la Vigne to his king that Süleyman remained aloof to the fijinancial request of Henry II. See Ernst Charrière, Négociations de la France dans le Levant. Tome II. 1850, 363–374, 414. – Henry II was not the only French king who sought loans from Süleyman; in 1563, Charles IX, son of Henry II, also applied to the Ottoman sultan for credit, but his request was rejected all the same. The French ambassador wrote back to his king from Istanbul that the sultan considered asking for loans without pledging assets unfeasible and unjustifijied regardless of friendship between the two courts. The ambassador noted that the Ottomans rejected the French request for loans since their laws and customs were against lending money to an individual: Charrière, Négociations, 724–725. The passage on the French request for a loan is in Italian. I am grateful to Emrah Safa Gürkan and Mehmet Asım Özvar for their assistance in rendering the relevant parts into English. On the history of borrowing and credit in Italian states, see Marc Boone, Karel Davids and Paul Janssens (eds.), Urban Public Debts: Urban Governments and the Market for Annuities in Western Europe (14th–18th Centuries). Turnhout, 2003. 
 Braudel, The Mediteranean, II. 697–700.

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The cost of credit increased because of the royal abuses such as late payment of debts to close the budget defijicits – if not outright rejection of honouring the debt –, confijiscating the properties of the creditors, and taking measures that destabilized the currency. Thus, the monarchs gradually grew unable to convince the creditors to extend loans on informal terms. A series of methods were invented in the 17th century in the United Provinces and then in England that expanded the capacity for borrowing enormously on longer terms, and with lower cost of credit, hence the “fijinancial revolution”. Owing to these methods, the right to property of the creditors were given legal protection and the royal abuses were prevented. Legal and political regulations incomparably increased the capacity of these states to use borrowed money with low interest rates and in abundance.23 Both the United Provinces and England became the pattern setters in Europe in that they transformed the pattern in taxation based on mostly the agricultural taxes, which were both difffijicult and expensive to collect. Indirect taxes gradually claimed a greater portion in state revenues at the expense of the agricultural taxes. Direct taxes including those collected on property and income decreased to 55 per cent by the mid-17th century and 35 per cent at the end of the same century, whilst this fijigure had amounted to 80 per cent in the mid-16th century.24 In the Netherlands, the ratio of the indirect taxes in the overall state revenues was somewhere between 40 per cent and 70 per cent in the 17th and the following century.25 The French taxation system also began to change in the latter part of the 17th century, following England and the United Provinces. Under the guidance of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the fijiscal reforms made the revenues of the French monarchy largely composed of indirect taxes and state monopolies. Although the overall ratio of the indirect taxes within the treasury revenues rose in France throughout the 18th century, it never reached the ratio in England. Indirect taxes continued to be the predominant

23

24 25

Peter George Muir Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756. New York, 1967; James D. Tracy, A Financial Revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands: Renten and Renteniers in the County of Holland, 1515–1565. Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1985; Jan De Vries and Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: The Rise, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. Cambridge, 1997; Bruce G. Carruthers, City of Capital: Politics and Markets in the English Financial Revolution. Princeton, 1996. Patrick K. O’Brien and Phillip A. Hunt, ‘The Rise of a Fiscal State in England, 1485–1815’, Historical Research 66 (1993) 129–176. Tracy, A Financial Revolution; Wantje Fritschy, ‘A “Financial Revolution” Revisited: Public Finance in Holland During the Dutch Revolt, 1568–1648’, The Economic History Review 56 (2003) 57–89.

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form of taxation in France. Other European states followed the suit albeit in a much lower pace by the 18th century.26 The signifijicance of the indirect taxes lies in its close link to the fijinancial revolution of the 17th century. The fijinancial revolution not only provided the states with the opportunity to make long-term loans on low interest rates but also made the public debt a crucial element of fijiscal systems. For instance, indirect taxes supported the rise of the fijiscal state and supplied the majority of the additional revenues necessary to support the steep rise in permanent public debt. In conclusion, the transformation of the taxation pattern broadened the tax base and increased tax revenues. Perhaps an even more important consequence was that states increased their fijinancial respectability owing to this transformation.27 Although indirect taxation also grew in proportion and variety in the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century parallel with the European experience, direct taxes remained the backbone of the central revenues. In the 17th and 18th centuries, most of the European states did not participate in the “fijinancial revolution”, but they still increased their tax revenues by inflating the tax rates at diffferent levels in order to respond to military spending. It is a matter of debate which of the political regimes consolidated its power more efffectively in the face of military threats before the modern era. For example, Karaman and Pamuk has argued that representative regimes controlling smaller territories increased their revenues through high rates of urbanization, population density, and monetarization as opposed to the centralist empires controlling larger territories, which increased their revenues through centralizing their rural-agrarian tax resources owing to their strong military.28

Managing Fiscal Revenues in the Ottoman Empire The Ottomans pursued a very successful expansionist policy in Eurasia from the 1450’s to the end of the 16th century.29 They achieved a world power status by encountering their major rivals, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and Central and Eastern Europe, sharing

26 27 28 29

Michael Kwass, ‘Taxation, Europe 1450 to 1789’, in Jonathan Dewald (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Vol. 6. New York, 2004, 2–7. O’Brien and Hunt, ‘The Rise’, 129–176. Karaman and Pamuk, ‘Diffferent Paths’, 1. The extent and rapid pace of the Ottoman expansion so impressed both contemporaries and modern historians that it overshadowed the fact that the Ottomans continued to expand their territories until the mid-18th century, albeit with occasional territorial losses.

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with them the control of these zones of conflict.30 Besides the geographical expanse of the newly acquired territories, the amount of the new revenues accruing from these lands to the central treasury is also noteworthy. Annual tax revenues extracted from Egypt only was almost equal to the annual revenues of the central treasury. Regular transfer of the revenues of these new provinces to Istanbul was possible after the legal, economic, and social reforms under Süleyman.31 Ottoman land regime was one of the most noteworthy institutions in fijinancing wars and it was likely to count for the absence of any need for borrowing for a long time in Ottoman history. The Ottoman administration achieved to fijinance one of largest armies in Europe in the 16th century by granting the right to collect taxes to its horsemen rather than collecting these taxes directly to pay the military in cash from the central treasury. In this system of allotment of rural-agrarian revenues known as timar, the provincial cavalry had to join the army in full armament at wartime upon mobilization orders, and keep peace and order in their localities – the prerequisites of agricultural production – in peacetime. Relying on the timar system, the Ottoman sultans could fijield as many as 50,000 cavalry for a campaign. The timar-holders did not own the land, neither were they a land-based aristocracy (assembly of estates). They were required to keep and equip a retinue of warriors the number of which had to agree with the amount of their revenues. These lands were under the legal and administrative control of the central bureaucracy that audited the revenues of the timar lands, oversaw the appointment of the timar-holders, kept a track of the deceased grantees, and checked whether they participated in the campaign; in the 16th century, 38 per cent of all the tax revenues of the state went to the timar-holders.32 A close analysis of the Ottoman “budgets”, which are rather ledgers of revenues and expenditure of the central administration, reveals that organizational alterations paralleled the growth in the revenues and spending. The Ottomans attempted at a more efffijicient and centralized control over the resources in the reigns of Mehmed II and Bayezid II. The creation of a legal and administrative framework necessary for the regular collection of tax revenues 30 31

32

Murat Çizakça, ‘The Ottoman Government and Economic Life: Taxation, Public Finance and Trade Controls’, in Faroqhi and Fleet (eds.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, II. 241–275. Apparently, the Ottomans established their power and authority in Egypt through lengthy negotiations with local Mamluk military stratum, see Abdurrahman Atçıl, ‘Memlükler’den Osmanlılar’a Geçişte Mısır’da Adlî Teşkilât ve Hukuk (922–931/1517–1525)’, İslam Araştırmaları Dergisi 38 (2017) 89–122. Ömer Lûtfiji Barkan, ‘H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Malî Yılına Ait Bir Bütçe Örneği’, İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 15:1–4 (1955) 324.

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was part of this attempt.33 Until the mid-16th century, a central bureau under the administration of a chief treasurer with three or four assistants kept accounts of revenues and expenditure with respect to geographical regions. The budgetary revenues essentially supported the military industrial plants such as the gun foundry, gunpowder factory and the imperial dockyards in addition to the royal palace and the permanent central army. The Ottoman administration began to create institutions in the provinces similar to the central fijinance department after the fijirst quarter of the 16th century because of the new territorial gains. The fijiscal organization grew in the centre as well as in the provinces. People from diffferent social backgrounds and diverse careers began to fijill the administrative and fijiscal bureaucracy.34 It is possible to observe this bureaucratic expansion also in the quantitative increase of the stafff. The number of the bureaucrats in the central department rose from 15–20 men in the 15th century to 55–65 men the next century, and was almost tripled in the 17th century, up to 140–190 men; by the 19th century, it amounted to 700 men.35 The bureaucratic expansion continued exponentially in the 19th century. The development of a fijiscal bureaucracy competent enough to audit the revenues and expenditure of the farthest provinces from Istanbul was complete by the middle of the 17th century. The structural change in the budgets is an indication of this development. The fijinancial registers from the mid-17th century show that the regional breakdown of the revenues and expenditure was abandoned in favour of classifijication along types and varieties in 25 to 30 separate bureaus. Besides this change, most of the accounting bureaus established in the provinces to audit the revenues and expenditure were either closed down or transformed into a functional offfijice that supervised the salaries and rations of ever-increasing numbers of garrison troops deployed along the frontiers. Some historians have interpreted this transformation of the Ottoman

33 34

35

Kaya Şahin, Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire World. Cambridge, 2013, 218. Ibid., 217; Cornell H. Fleisher, ‘Between the Lines: Realities of Scribal Life in the Sixteenth Century’, in Colin Imber and Colin Heywood (eds.), Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V. L. Menage. Istanbul, 1994, 45–61; Abdurrahman Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, 2016, 170–187. Linda Darling, ‘Ottoman Fiscal Administration: Decline or Adaptation?’, Journal of European Economic History 26 (Spring 1997) 167. A comparison of the expansion in the Ottoman fijiscal organization with the bureaucratic structure of contemporary European states including England suggests that the Ottoman bureaucracy was not overcrowded by a multitude of scribes.

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fijisc in the 17th century as the weakening of the grip of the central administration on local tax revenues.36 The central administration tax-farmed the very accounting offfijices that supervised the collection and spending of the tax-farm revenues themselves. It thus both transferred the fijinancial responsibility to the private sector and created additional cash revenues. Furthermore, the central treasury was relieved of paying the stafff of the provincial fijinancial bureaus. This novelty redefijined the limits of the tax-farming system and partly overcame the irregularities in the extraction of the provincial resources.37 The Ottoman administration designed its accounting system to scrutinize regular revenues and spending by the central treasury and to record the costs of campaigns together with the special revenues raised to cover them. Known as “campaign budget” among Ottoman historians, these account registers crucially supplied the Ottoman administration with realistic information concerning the military pays, cost of provisions and ammunition on the eve of a given campaign. Lütfiji Pasha, the renown grand vizier of Süleyman, illustrated in his Asafname (a mirror-for-princes) the way in which the ruling elite calculated the costs of war and set aside particular revenues to cover them before the opening of a campaign. He drew attention to the coordination of the grand vizier and the chief treasurer in the fijinancial and logistical planning before the war. According to him, these two offfijicials took account of the scale of the campaign in deciding the number of troops to be mobilized, the grains to be stockpiled, the amount of the ammunition to be spent, and the military salaries to be paid; they would then send orders to the provinces to prepare the provisions in advance.38 Lütfiji Pasha underlined that the cost of the campaign was to be twice as much should the sultan lead his army in person. Should this be the case, he pointed out, the responsibility of organizing the campaign and meeting its costs belonged to the members of the imperial council who would discuss in detail in the war councils the issues of mobilization of troops, war fijinance, logistics and transportation.39

36

37 38

39

Halil İnalcık, ‘Centralization and Decentralization in the Ottoman Administration’, in Thomas Nafff and Roger Owen (eds.), Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History. Carbondale, Edwardsville, 1977, 27–52. Erol Özvar, ‘Voyvoda’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 43 (2013) 129–131. Mübahat Kütükoğlu, ‘Lütfiji Paşa Âsafnâmesi (Yeni Bir Metin Tesisi Denemesi)’, in Prof Dr. Bekir Kütükoğlu’na Armağan. İstanbul, 1991, 49–62, 88–90 (for a new edition of this work, see Lutfiji Paşa, Âsafname. Ed by A. Cüneyd Köksal. İstanbul, 2018). Kütükoğlu, ‘Lütfiji Paşa Âsafnâmesi’, 49–62.

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We understand from the contemporary observers of the Ottoman military as well as from Ottoman historians who work on Ottoman campaigns that the ruling elite surveyed the war-related costs and revenues to cover them from very early on.40 The examples of these registers also known as daily campaign accounts (sefer ruznamçesi) and summary accounts of the army chest go as far back as to the 16th century. In 1526, a very interesting example of an offfijicial document that exhibits the daily entries of revenues and expenditure entered by the scribes of the fijinancial bureau has come down to our day.41 Research undertaken by modern Ottoman historians demonstrate that the custom of making and preserving an account of campaign costs from very early on drew a fijiscal picture of military campaigns for the Ottoman administration and provided them with indebt knowledge and insight about military issues.42 Ottoman military self-sufffijiciency was another reason for the good fijiscal management of military campaigns throughout the 16th century. Ottoman sultans paid particular attention to the manufacture of the weapons and ammunitions used in wars. Ottomans supplied raw materials domestically with the sole exception of tin; Ottoman gun foundries and gunpowder workshops had a capacity for mass production in times of emergency.43 Thus, the Ottomans neither sufffered from “difffijiculties of mass production” nor depended on imports from Europe, for they could amass guns, projectiles, weapons of all kinds, iron, 40

41 42

43

Halil Sahillioğlu, ‘Ruznamçe’, in Tarih Boyunca Paleografya ve Diplomatik Semineri. İstanbul, 1988, 114–115; Erhan Afyoncu, ‘Ruznamçe’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 35. Istanbul, 2008, 276; Rhoads Murphey, The Functioning of the Ottoman Army Under Murad IV, 1623–1639/1032–1049. PhD diss., Chicago, 1979, 228–259; Caroline Finkel, ‘The Ottoman Campaign Account Books (Sefer Ruznamçesi) as a Guide to Military Activity, 1593–1606’, Comité International d’Etudes Pre-Ottomanes et Ottomanes. VI. Symposium Cambridge, 1–4 July 1984. İstanbul, Paris, Leiden, 1987, 173–183; Süleyman Polat, ‘Osmanlı Askeri–Mali Tarih Kaynaklarından Sefer Ruznamçe Defterleri ve Bütçenin Kaynak Değeri Üzerine İncelemeler’, Akademik Bakış 8:15 (2014) 242–263. Feridun Emecen, ‘Mohaç 1526: Osmanlılara Orta Avrupa’nın Kapılarını Açan Savaş’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Savaş. İstanbul, 20112, 172–175. André Corvisier and John Childs stressed that no campaign budgets did exist in Europe until the mid-17th century, see ‘Military Finances’, in André Corvisier and John Childs (eds.), A Dictionary of Military History. Oxford, Cambridge, 1994, 5; Richard MacKenney complained about the difffijiculty to estimate the “costs” of the wars Venice waged in 1509– 1617 although Venice was a major Mediterranean power. He observed that Venice could not yet put together a war budget that anticipated the fijinancial consequences of the conflict in this era. This observation is supported by the fact that Venice lacked a bureau specialized on the matters of military pays, supplies and ammunition, armament, transportation costs and freight payments, and military aid given to allies. See Richard MacKenney, Sixteenth Century Eupore: Expansion and Conflict. New York, 1993, 53–54. Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan, 118–144.

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copper, saltpetre, lumber, and charcoal from various regions of the empire with relative ease.44 The institutions and customs in Ottoman warfare that we have discussed above gave certain advantages to the Ottomans relative to their European rivals in the 16th century. Similarly, the territorial expansion that began at the end of the 15th century and continued throughout the 16th century surely contributed much to the central revenues. One can view the traces of the fijiscal expansion in the 16th century in Table 1. From the end of the 15th century to the mid-16th century central revenues and expenses doubled every 20 years in real terms; the annual growth ratio was 3.5 per cent. The revenues continued to grow albeit at a lower pace until the 1580’s. Taking the year 1493 as base, central revenues increased by 3.5 times in the last years of Süleyman’s reign, whilst the annual growth rate was close to three per cent. This obvious capacity increase in the central revenues and spending did not halt by the end of the reign of Süleyman. Until the 1590’s, the fijiscal capacity of the central administration doubled. Real decrease in central revenues occurred in 1592–93 and 1597–98, as reflected in the available budgets. The central treasury sufffered considerably from budget defijicits for the fijirst time in these years (Table 1). The Ottoman Empire unquestionably increased its fijiscal revenues in the 16th century owing to the territorial acquisitions in the Balkans and the Muslim world. Table 2 shows the tax revenues accrued from the provinces to the state cofffers; they represent the revenues which were separate from the revenues related to timar lands, endowments, and private property and were forwarded to the central treasury. Accordingly, in 1493–1582 revenues from Anatolia increased fourfold after establishing the Ottoman control over Anatolia proper. The revenues from the Balkans, by contrast, increased more than two times owing to the Ottoman expansion that spanned roughly a century. After the enthronement of Sultan Süleyman, the revenues from Diyarbekir, Syria, and Egypt that his father Selim I had added to the empire contributed enormously to the central treasury. Süleyman sent his Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha to Egypt whose reforms here and in Syria – creation of new provinces – doubled the central revenues after 1524.45 44 45

Ibid., 130. After defeating the Mamluks in Syria and Egypt, Selim I left the administration of these lands to the Mamluk commanders who had defected to his side in the conflict. He made Seyfeddin Hayır Bey and Canberdi Gazali his vassals in Egypt and Syria, respectively, granting them near independence in domestic afairs. They were free to rely on their own retinue in regional administration. Hayır Bey did not even transfer tax revenues to the central administration. The decision to leave the administration of these vast realms to the Mamluks caused discontent among the Ottoman ruling elite. After the suppression of

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table 1    Cash revenues and expenditure of the Ottoman central treasury 1493–1583 (silver, metric ton)46

Year 1493–94 1495–96 1509–10 1523–24 1524–25 1527–28 1546–47 1547–48 1564–65 1566–67 1567–68 1581–82 1582–83 1592–93 1597–98

Revenue

%

34.9 43.0 48.1 77.1 93.2 182.9 159.5 131.2 111.6 113.2 139.7 173.3 170.5 99.7 69.0

45.2 55.7 62.5 100 121 237 207 170 145 147 181 225 221 129 89

Expenditure 38.4 40.3 45.1 78.4 83.5 122.5 113.4 73.9 115.7 126.8 135.1 152.5 169.3 123.5 207.0

%

Diffference

48.9 51.4 57.5 100 106 156 144 94 147 161 172 194 216 157 264

-3.5 2.7 3 -1 9 60 46 57 -4 -13 4 20 1 -23 -138

As shown in Table 2, the tax revenues of Egypt, Aleppo, Damascus, and Diyarbekir were more than those of Rumelia and Anatolia together in the year of 1527. MM46

46

Gazali’s rebellion in 1520, Syria lost its autonomy. The Ottomans divided Syria into three provinces and appointed governors from the centre to their administrative centres of Damascus, Aleppo, and Tripoli. As for Egypt, the death of Hayır Bey in 1522 was followed by turmoils in Egypt which was only worsened by the intra-elite rivalries among the Ottoman dignitaries until the restoration of order in 1525 by Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha. He rearranged the agrarian economy and secured the return of the peasants who had abandoned their villages through a series of reforms in a short while. He also released the bankrupt Egyptians who had been imprisoned becuase of their debts. For details see, Nikolay Ivanov, Osmanlı’nın Arap Ülkelerini Fethi (1516–1574). Translated by İlyas Kemaloğlu and Rakhat Abdieva. Ankara, 2013, 50–59. We have retrieved the data in the table from Mehmet Genç and Erol Özvar, Osmanlı Maliyesi: Kurumlar ve Bütçeler. 2 vols. İstanbul, 2006.

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transformation of the ottoman empire table 2    Central revenues in cash by geographical regions, 1493–1583 (akçe)

34,01847 179,06848 Region

1493–94

1509–10

1527–28

1546–47

1582–83

Rumelia Anatolia Diyarbekir Egypt Aleppo and Damascus

47,163,113 6,919,510

59,496,968 13,440,977

94,784,238 34,018,28847 7,169,190 116,538,994 24,734,073

93,958,005 23,378,831 6,193,623 179,06848 21,838,648

104,918,085 29,353,921 ? 30,811,452 37,087,420

Developments in the sphere of economy were equally important as the new conquests in increasing the central revenues in the 16th century. Administrative and legal regulations made in the age of Süleyman promoted an increase in the production capacity and the use of currency in economic transactions.49 A remarkable legal regulation was the one about the land regime; this was signifijicant in an economic setting in which almost 90 per cent of the economic activities took place in the agricultural sector. Known as miri, the land nominally belonged to the state and farmers who tilled the land held the usufruct rights over their fijields. It was legally impossible to sell, mortgage, or donate the land. There are historians today who argue that this meant limited ownership rights over the land on the part of the peasantry and inhibited economic development. 47 48

49

This sum contains the revenues of the provinces of Karaman, Rum, and Zülkadır. Entries for this year record a fijigure as low as 179,000 akçes as the revenue “from the province of Egypt”. Closer scrutiny shows that this sum represents the discharge of the revenues in arrears by the merchants and tax-farmers to the account of the treasury. Revenues from the endowments (vakıf) and real properties (emlak) excluded, the amount of the revenues of Egypt at the disposal of the central treasury was 116.5 million akçes. Of this sum, 26 million akçes were spent locally and the remaining was dispatched to the central treasury (irsaliye). The records dated 1574 show that the inner treasury received 500,000 gold pieces (30 million akçes) as remittance from Egypt. Fernand Braudel stressed that the European monarchs had paid some attention to the positive social impact of the law codes promulgated in the reign of Süleyman. He mentioned the hearsay according to which Henry VIII of England had sent a group of lawyers to examine the way in which Süleyman’s new laws enhanced the Ottoman legal system. According to Braudel, Süleyman’s laws were to the world of Islam as the laws of Justinian were to the western world. Braudel considered İbrahim bin Muhammed el-Halebi (d. 1549), the author of Mülteka which has not yet drawn enough attention from the historians of Islamic law, a prominent jurisprudent comparable to the greatest European jurisprudents of the 16th century: Braudel, The Mediterranean, II. 683.

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Nevertheless, state’s ownership of the land, albeit in nominal terms, was in fact a safety measure that protected peasants throughout the classical age from losing their fijields to local foci of power because of indebtedness among other pretexts. In other words, in a world when the land was not a commercial item, the real security for a peasant was not so much the nominal ownership of the land as the usufruct rights he enjoyed by law so long as he continued tilling the land. Moreover, the Ottoman farmer, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, had the right to pass on his usufruct rights to posterity, which was his real asset in this type of land regime; this legal opportunity surely encouraged him to make a living and be productive on his land in the 16th century. By way of example, peasants of Rumelia had good reason to experiment with the cultivation of new crops such as cotton and rice. Production and economic transactions has a good record in Ottoman towns since the end of the 15th century due to the legal regulations on product standardization, prices, usury, and guilds as well as investments in infrastructure undertaken by endowments. Towns blossomed and grew in size as also suggested by demographic data. Urbanization in the Ottoman realms gives clear clues about the growth of agricultural sector in this century.50 The Ottoman administration rearranged foreign trade relations in the conquered territories in line with the imperial interests. The reason for these rearrangements was primarily to meet domestic needs. That said, the state did not ban exportation so long as it secured the provisioning of the army, the palace and the society. Indeed, it even promoted exportation when there was no shortage of goods in the domestic market. Offfijicial control over foreign trade, including the commercial concessions granted to foreign states, contributed much to the Ottoman industrial production and improved the empire’s trade balance. In this century, the port cities that passed under the Ottoman rule stopped to be exporters of raw materials to Europe and rather began selling fabrics and leather goods that were highly popular in European markets.51 Another factor in the increased use of cash as a payment instrument in the 16th century was the remarkable population growth in the Ottoman realms. This had a positive impact on the agricultural sector, artisanship, and trade in 50

51

For the expansion of the agricultural sector and urbanization in the 16th century see, Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts and Food Production in an Urban Setting 1520–1650. Cambridge, 1983; Idem, ‘Ottoman Cotton Textiles, 1500s to 1800s: The Story of a Success That Did Not Last’, in Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi (eds.), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850. Oxford, 2009, 89–104; Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800. Cambridge, 1981. Mehmet Genç, ‘XV ve XVI. Yüzyıllarda Osmanlı Devleti’nde İç ve Dış Ticaret’, in XV ve XVI. Asırları Türk Asrı Yapan Değerler. İstanbul, 1997, 395–401.

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general terms. Central treasury undoubtedly profijited from the population growth as well; production technology and capacity could respond well to the rise in domestic demand based on the population growth. However, foreign demand for Ottoman goods rose as well in the latter part of the century, leading to shortages and high prices. The revenues the state could extract from the gross national product were limited in an economy that failed to adapt its production capacity properly to the increased demand. The expanse of the Ottoman Empire, low population density, and high transportation costs inhibited the use of cash as a payment instrument as much as desired. Under these circumstances, the state attempted to maintain its available revenues at a certain level by cutting down spending as much as possible.52 One may fijind the answer to the question whether the state’s capacity grew in the 16th century by analyzing the changes in the tax burden of the subjects. Focusing on the poll-tax revenues extracted from non-Muslim subjects may be a feasible method for calculating the tax burden of Ottoman tax-payers. The poll-tax revenues in Ottoman budgets almost stayed at the same level in terms of aggregate amount from late 15th century to the 1590’s. Table 3 shows the polltax and mukataa revenues in the budgets of the central treasury; poll-tax revenues accruing from the Rumelian provinces in 1495–96 amounted to 38 million akçes and it rose to 40 million akçes in 1523–24. In 1582–83, poll-taxes paid in Rumelia – including Wallachia and Moldavia – was little more than 44 million akçes. Thus, poll-tax revenues collected on behalf of the central treasury in a period of century increased by 16 per cent. table 3    Poll-tax and tax-farm revenues in the budgets, 1495–1583 (akçe)

Poll-tax Mukataa (taxes, largely direct ones, from mines, agriculture, manufacture, etc.)

1495–96

1523–24

1582–83

38 millions 11 millions

40 millions 37 millions

44 millions 47 millions

Poll-tax revenues records in the budgets of the central treasury do not represent all the poll-tax revenues collected in the empire. The population growth was not 52

Ibid.

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less than 50 per cent in a period of 60–70 years in certain urban and rural settings as suggested by demographic history.53 Therefore, one would expect that it should have led to a greater increase in the poll-tax revenues especially when the violent efffects of the natural and social phenomena such as epidemics, food shortages, lack of law and order, and emigration were yet to come. The long-term stability of poll-tax revenues in the budgetary income was enhanced by the large religious endowments (vakıf ) established in growing numbers. The central treasury abandoned the local revenues including the poll-tax to provide these vakıfs with an endowed capital. The central administration could only forward the surplus revenues of such large endowments to the central treasury, whilst the regular revenues supported the regular activities of the vakıfs. Another likely reason for the apparently low increase in the poll-tax revenues might be the collection method in which religious communities had to pay a negotiated lump sum collectively (ber vech-i maktu) rather than demanding it from each non-Muslim male or household separately. We know that particularly the non-Muslim subjects in the Balkans occasionally negotiated with the centre the method of payment of the poll-tax. There are cases indicating that the nonMuslim subjects were insistent about paying a fijixed lump sum collectively instead of paying the poll-tax individually. The latter method would require taking population census on a regular basis; the former method, by contrast, would result in lighter taxation by concealing any increase in the number of potential tax-payers as well as protect the tax-payers from possible maltreatment of the tax collectors. The central administration tended to respond positively to such demands by the non-Muslim subjects lest they abandoned their farms and villages along the frontiers afffected badly by military confrontations. Collective payment of the poll-tax would be advantageous for the non-Muslim tax-payers in the periods of marked population growth. But, it would be harmful when the population decreased due to various reasons ranging from emigration to epidemics.54 Another possible explanation for the surprising lowness of poll-tax revenues might be the potential inefffijiciency of raising the tax. It might be that the tax collectors kept a large portion of the poll-tax to themselves as the collection fee owing to the method of collection, though we are unable to calculate their 53

54

Ömer Lütfiji Barkan, ‘Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys’, in M. A. Cook (ed.), Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day. London, 1970, 166–168; Numan Elibol, ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Nüfus Meselesi ve Demografiji’, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi 12:2 (2007) 135–160. Halil İnalcık, ‘Cizye’, in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 8. Istanbul, 1993, 46–48.

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exact share. In principle, it was the sultan’s servants and even the kadıs who raised the poll-tax. Yet, a close analysis of the tax collectors of the 16th century reveals that collection of the poll-tax resembled the tax-farming system since it was delegated to any interested party. A safer course of conduct in the analysis of the alterations in poll-tax collection is to calculate the tax rate per household or person. Although Table 3 gives the impression that the increase in the poll-tax revenues in the budgetary revenues in the 16th century falls short of our expectations, the diagram below shows that the poll-tax to be paid by each non-Muslim household increased in real terms. The holy law allowed levying the poll-tax at higher rates than was the norm followed by the Ottoman administration, which collected the poll-tax at the lowest rate permitted by the holy law at the beginning. In later periods, the Ottomans tended to collect the poll-tax at rates ranging from lowest to medium level. It is imperative to deal with the introduction of the poll-tax, which was rooted in the Islamic law, in order to realize that the Ottomans established their taxation system in the Balkans and Hungary from the 15th century onwards without facing signifijicant tax revolts. The Ottomans had formulated the poll-tax as a customary tax in the aftermath of the early conquests in Rumelia, although they specifijied the collection rates and areas of spending in accordance with religious precedents. In the eyes of the locals, the poll-tax levied by the Muslim state was no diffferent from the head tax they used to pay to their traditional rulers before the Ottoman conquest. The Ottoman authorities entered in the provincial law books the legal regulations concerning the method of collection and the rate of the poll-tax. For example, the head tax paid in the Hungarian provinces to the Hungarian king became resm-i fijilori in Ottoman times. The Ottomans used the resm-i fijilori and the pre-Ottoman head tax (baş haracı) interchangeably at fijirst, but then they preferred cizye instead. The non-Muslim subjects continued to pay the equivalent sum of a florin to the Ottoman central treasury under the name of head tax or cizye. The Byzantinist Nicolas Oikonomides explains the successful implementation of the Ottoman tax system in the Balkans in a short time by the fact that, in spite of the imposition of a poll-tax, the tax burden of the peasantry decreased signifijicantly. In the period of interregnum, Süleyman Çelebi, son of Bayezid I, signed a treaty in 1403 in which he ceded to the Byzantine emperor Salonica, Halkidiki, and Strymon along with their tax resources that were under Ottoman control until then. Byzantine administrators continued with the Ottoman tax system rather than reverting back to their ancient taxation system. The Orthodox peasants under Byzantine administration paid taxes similar in content to the Ottoman taxes of harac, cizye, öşr, ispençe, and

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badiheva under diffferent names. Oikonomides estimated that the peasants paid to the Byzantine authorities under this new taxation system inspired by the Ottomans half the amount of what they had paid to their feudal lords in the 14th century. According to Oikonomides, tax cuts concerning the rural population might count for the success of the Ottomans in the 14th century. Nevertheless, it certainly explains why the Byzantines did not dare impose the ancient taxation system after 1404.55 The diagram below shows the rate of the poll-tax per person or household in terms of pure silver dirhem and supports the observations of Nicolas Oikonomides. diagram 1    Poll-tax (cizye) revenues on average in the Ottoman Empire, 1480–1830 (pure silver dirhem) SILVER (dirhem)

1596

1691

48

36

24

12

0 YEAR

1500

1600 Offfijicial min. cizye rate Offfijicial max. cizye rate Actual cizye rate

1700

1800

Offfijicial mid. cizye rate Fitted values

The diagram demonstrates the change in the poll-tax rate per household in real terms over centuries. Orange line that runs parallel to horizontal axis corresponds to the annual poll-tax rate for the poor non-Muslim taxpayers, whereas the purple line represents the non-Muslim tax-payers of moderate means. The green line, by contrast, shows the poll-tax rate specifijied for the wealthy men. 55

Nicolas Oikonomides, ‘The Role of the Byzantine State in the Economy’, in Angeliki E. Laiou (ed.), The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century. Vol. 3. Washington, DC, 2002, 1039. I am grateful to Murat Çizakça for drawing my attention to the study of Oikonomides.

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Black dots denote the actual cizye rate collected from the tax-payers. Accordingly, from the end of the 15th century to the fijirst quarter of the next century, the Ottoman administration collected the poll-tax at rates even lower than the lowest rate (edna) determined by law, which was 12 dirhems of silver. The burden of the poll-tax exceeded the level of 12 dirhems of silver per household towards mid-16th century, in the reigns of Süleyman and Selim II. The poll-tax rate per household continued to increase in real terms in the fijirst half of the 17th century. The average burden of the poll-tax was at around the medium level of 24 dirhems of silver. Although it followed a down turn, receding back to the lowest level, from the mid-17th century onwards, it increased in real terms once again after the cizye reform in 1691. At the beginning of the 18th century the average poll-tax per capita was above 24 dirhems of silver and oscillated between 30 and 36 dirhems of silver until the middle of the century; it ranged from 12 to 24 dirhems of silver towards the end of the century. Relying on the data on poll-tax per capita or household, the diagram above indicates that the fijiscal capacity of the state began to increase earlier than the 19th century. It also contains some clues on the increase in the income levels of the non-Muslim population at least in the long-term with respect to their ability to pay the poll-tax. When it proved to be impossible to meet the wartime spending by relying on the poll-tax and other ordinary revenues, the Ottomans chose to levy extraordinary taxes on the subjects, based on their income levels and property, regardless of their religious identity and urban-rural divide. In the 16th century, the state collected a number of extraordinary taxes known as avarız in kind or in cash, while occasionally demanding compulsory service instead. Those levied in cash were called avarız akçesi. Conversely, it is hard to estimate the monetary value of those levied in kind or commuted into compulsory manual labour. However, the Ottoman budgets at hand offfer some clues about the extraordinary taxes collected in cash. As shown in Table 4, the share of such taxes in the overall tax revenues in the years of levy was somewhere between 4 per cent and 19.5 per cent. In 1523, for instance, they constituted 6.9 per cent of the budgetary revenues and this fijigure increased to 19.5 per cent the next year. By 1546, however, it fell to 3.5 per cent. While it rose to 12.33 per cent in the year of 1581 in the midst of protracted wars, it fell to 11.60 per cent in 1592. Apart from the avarız akçesi levied in cash, a provisions levy called nüzul was introduced to supply the troops mobilized for a given campaign; these inkind contributions belonged to avarız taxes and consisted of wheat and barley. As the distances increased between the theatres of war and the interior the entire process of collecting grains and delivering them to the campaigning army or the frontier fortresses turned into a huge burden due to exorbitant

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transportation costs. Therefore, the Ottomans chose to commute these in-kind contributions into cash equivalents so that it could make on-the-spot purchases at the local markets close to the marching route of the army. These taxes were not levied on a regular basis in the reign of Sultan Süleyman. The Ottomans primarily imposed avarız taxes on the eve of the campaigns of big magnitude. The extraordinary tax of avarız gained some degree of regularity during the wars with the Safavid Iran (1578–1590) and the Austrian Habsburgs (1593–1606). From the 1520’s onwards, the payment of extraordinary taxes stopped to be a local liability and turned into a general tax involving several large provinces and all the subjects living therein. For instance, the state levied avarız in 1582 on a number of provinces including Anatolia, Diyarbekir, Aleppo, Karaman, and a few others. Similar to poll-tax and tithe revenues, the state levied in-cash avarız contributions on the basis of provinces and districts (sancak) in order to supply the navy as well; these included the substitute for the oarsman levy in the navy (kürekçi bedeli), and the cash equivalent for the provision levy (nüzul bedeli). table 4    Extraordinary taxes in the 16th century (avarız levies, cash equivalent for the provision levy [nüzul grains], substitute for the oarsman levy)

Year Akçe (million) Percentage (%) in budgetary revenues

1523

1524

1546

1547

1567

1581

1582

1592

8.1 6.9

27.4 19.5

8.6 3.5

2.9 4.3

9.7 4.23

34.6 12.18

5.4 1.94

34 11.6

The annual account ledgers at our disposal from the reign of Bayezid II that show the cash revenues and spending of the central treasury in four years do not include an entry for in-cash avarız contributions as a type of revenue. Conversely, treasury account books from fijive diffferent years belonging to the reign of Sultan Süleyman reveal that the state levied in-cash avarız contributions in all these years except for the year of 1527, as shown in Table 4. The highest tax proceeds in all these years belonged to the year of 1524 when the central treasury gained roughly 27.5 million akçes from Anatolia and Rumelia through in-cash avarız contributions, the nüzul fees and other miscellaneous items. The tax-payers of Anatolia and Rumelia were burdened by extraordinary taxes that represented a sum equal to 25 per cent of the ordinary taxes that amounted to 107 million akçes. According to the records that show the balance between

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annual cash revenues and expenditure on an annual basis, the burden of the extraordinary avarız taxes did not exhibit a rising trend after 1524. The level of the in-cash avarız contributions reached a record high in that century in early 1580’s due to the fijiscal strains of the wars with the Safavid Iran. After this date, the value of the avarız revenues decreased until the beginning of the 17th century because of the fluctuations in the value of akçe. Avarız saved the treasury from incurring additional cash expenses in an era of limited monetarization and high transportation costs insofar as it extracted from the subjects the resources necessary for the military in the form of in-kind taxation. Historians have debated the extent to which this kind of taxation favouring the central treasury afffected the peasantry who were the principal producers. Rhoads Murphey cogently argued that one should search for more information on production levels, income levels of the peasant producers, and grain prices in order to answer this question. Virginia Aksan, on the other hand, pointed out that problems related to the mobilization of military resources occurred in later periods rather than in the reign of Sultan Süleyman. She maintained that it was not so much such problems that led to rapid, decisive, and irreversible weakening of Ottoman military power as the restructuring of the power relations between the central administration and local foci of power which was aimed at tapping into new fijinancial resources. According to Aksan, the Ottoman Empire managed to overcome such problems until the end of the 18th century to varying degrees of success.56 The administrative, fijiscal, and legal institutions created by the Ottoman ruling elite had a role of their own in the geographical expansion of the Ottoman Empire. However, one should also pay attention to the signifijicance of the convenient ecological environment in the territorial expansion particularly in the fijirst half of the 16th century.57

Military Spending in 16th-Century Ottoman Budgets Ottoman budgets record the expenses of the central treasury under several entries and the trimonthly wages paid to a part of the military stafff constitute the largest expense item. While the timariot cavalry did not draw cash stipends 56 57

Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 187; Aksan, ‘Ottoman Military Matters’, 52–62. Sam White demonstrates the competence of the Ottoman administration in taking advantage of environmental and climate conditions for fostering demographic, agricultural, and commercial dynamism of the empire in his work on the impacts of the climate changes in the Ottoman realms: White, The Climate of Rebellion.

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from the central treasury, the janissaries, who were the backbone of the infantry, did. Other military units who drew salary from the central treasury were the technical services such as armourers, cannoneers, and wagoners, and those troops deployed in the garrisons of several provincial towns and of frontier fortress garrisons. Besides, the central treasury paid in cash the aghas, gatekeepers, and müteferrikas employed in various capacities in and out of the palace, the palace artisans and the employees in the palace kitchen and stables, as well as the naval arsenal. The infantry troops grew in number in the Ottoman army as the musketbearing infantry gained in importance in battles in the 16th century. Early in the reign of Süleyman, in 1527, there were 15,000 infantry troops paid stipends by the central treasury, but this fijigure increased to more than 26,000 in 1567. The total sum of spending on military stipends doubled in 40 years due to the increase in the number of the infantry troops, putting much strain on the central treasury, which had to set aside 60–70 per cent of its cash revenues to pay the military stipends and meet the cost of arms and ammunition production. As shown in Table 5, the cash spending classifijied under the title of allocations (teslimat) included the expenses of 1. the provisioning of offfijicial institutions and the palace; 2. the military supplies of the gun foundry, powder works, the naval arsenal, and the royal stables; 3. foodstufff and clothing for the military stafff. In the reign of Sultan Süleyman, cash spending made as allocations increased twice as much similar to the situation in military wages. The increase of cash spending offfers interesting examples to the expansion of both the palace and the military institutions in the reign of Süleyman. High-ranking ruling elite (askeri) also drew an annual salary from the central treasury in addition to their timar revenues. Classifijied as salyane, such annual salaries made their fijirst appearance as an expense item in the budgets in 1527. Representing 3.5 per cent of the cash spending of the central treasury, they decreased in proportion in time. A particular expense item classifijied as “purchases” (mübayaat) refers to the cash revenues spent on clothes and robes of certain members of the palace and the military institutions, and it amounted to something between a million and 7 million akçes in this century. The revenues earmarked for this expense item tended to diminish in the reign of Sultan Süleyman. Such purchases made for the institutions stood at somewhere between 3 per mille and 4 per cent of the total cash spending. A close analysis of the budgets suggest that other expense items began to include the purchases of such items so that spending made under “purchases” did not really mean a decrease in real purchases.

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Expenditure of the central treasury

118,783,849 126,581,347 185,620,549 171,872,357 111,997,449 207,932,516 221,532,453 277,578,755

Year

1523–1524 1524–1525 1527–1528 1546–1547 1547–1548 1566–1567 1567–1568 1582–1583

67,272,819 68,797,803 65,882,940 82,079,039 76,650,017 100,597,149 127,316,983 133,614,856

Wages of the central army

38,785,126 48,658,008 45,775,362 83,410,899 28,222,053 72,745,777 73,068,949 125,958,947

Allocations (teslimat)

5,754,737 3,701,955 3,860,664 5,307,948 5,398,369 3,759,422 4,242,152 7,984,618

Customary allowances (adat), subsidies (inamat), protocol expenses (teşrifat), etc.

table 5    Breakdown of cash expenditure in the 16th-century Ottoman budgets (akçe)

– – 6,646,006 –       597,379           517,768           551,157 –

Annual salaries (salyane)

– – 58,521,450 – – 27,822,024 15,573,463 –

Wages of fortress garrisons

4,887,457 5,423,581 4,934,127 1,065,678 1,130,185 1,700,598 ,779,749 6,938,626

Purchases (mübayaat)

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Subsidies (inamat), alms (tasaddukat), customary allowances (adat), and protocol expenses (teşrifat) constituted another expense item in Ottoman budgets in the 16th century. As the names suggest, this expense item consisted of cash grants, alms, and presents as well as customary allowances made to royal troops to cover the cost of arms and armament (such as the keman baha money given to the janissaries to buy bow and arrow). In addition, costs of transportation, security, accommodation, and provisioning of foreign envoys and ambassadors during their stay in the Ottoman Empire are listed under the same entry as the protocol expenses (teşrifat). All these expenses constituted 2 to 5 per cent of the overall cash spending. When we scrutinize the annual cash expenses of the central treasury over a period of century, we come to the conclusion that the military and the palace expanded, and major state military industry plants such as the gun foundry, gunpowder works, and the naval arsenal flourished. The military and the palace stafff grew in number in parallel with the growth of the army size. In 1514, there were almost 4,000 men working in these institutions, but their numbers exceeded 16,000 in half a century. This corresponds to an annual rise in the number of the employees by 5–6 per cent.

Tax-farming: Formation of an Ottoman Style Military-Fiscal State In the early 1550’s Ottoman military attempted at a global domination in several theatres of war that were far away from one another such as Hungary, the Mediterranean, Azov–Don region, Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. A sixth front was to be opened in the north against the Russians from late 16th century onwards. A number of Ottoman historians have argued that these military confrontations burdened the state beyond its military and fijiscal capacity. In this view, Sultan Süleyman aimed to be victorious in all these fronts, but failed to achieve this goal to a certain extent. Furthermore, he exhausted the fijinancial resources of his empire as he lacked a list of priority concerning various fronts and military goals.58 The conventional view about the introduction of tax-farming maintains that the central administration resorted to the practice of tax-farm more and more in an attempt to overcome serious fijiscal difffijiculties that the empire faced for the fijirst time in the 1550’s. Historians who adopt this view claim that tax58

Pál Fodor, Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottoman in Central Europe – the Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1565). Budapest, 20162, 125.

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farming proved to be harmful to the empire in the long run, destroying the tax base and placing a heavy burden on the tax-payer. The commonplace evidence for this claim is the contemporary criticisms directed at Rüstem Pasha for implementing the policy of expanding the scope of tax-farming, and, allegedly, abusing the practice. Was the fijiscal exhaustion really a case in the empire? Fiscal data at our disposal demonstrate that revenues and expenses continued to increase both in nominal and real terms after the death of Süleyman, until the 1580’s (Table 1). Accordingly, until the last quarter of the 16th century, the empire managed to end military conflicts without experiencing budget defijicits, that is, without sufffering from revenue shortages. Figures concerning the cash revenues and expenses in Table 1 indicate clearly that the fijinancial strains began to occur in the 1590’s, rather than in the 1550’s during the reign of Süleyman, and continued with brief respites until the end of the 1630’s when Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Pasha took the offfijice of the grand vizier. Kemankeş implemented the kind of economic measures comparable with those of Cardinal Richelieu’s in France. His policies ranged from price control and fijixed exchange rate to austerity measures against overspending and surveillance over tax collection. He thus eliminated the shortages in the markets and difffijiculties in public fijinance, which proved to be a great relief for the Ottoman centre. Why and when did the Ottoman administration expand the practice of taxfarming? Contrary to the common view, this practice had always been part of the Ottoman fijiscal system from the beginning, though it was never the dominant method of revenue extraction. In the formation period of the empire, it was tipically the state agents who collected the taxes. The spread of tax collection based on tax-farming followed the territorial expansion. By 1523, taxes collected by the tax-farmers in Rumelia increased threefold in the past 30 years. By the mid-century, the Ottoman fijisc extracted half of the public revenues through the timar system in order to fijinance the provincial timariot army, whereas it turned over the collection of the other half to either salaried commissioners (emanet) or tax-farmers in order to fijinance the central standing army, military institutions, and the palace. The emanet system that envisioned the tax collection through state functionaries never fell in disuse. Nevertheless, the state opted for emanet or taxfarming depending on political and economic developments, the type of the revenue, and the geographical constraints. Tax-farming as a form of turning over the extraction of a certain fijiscal resource to an entrepreneur in return for a fijixed sum of money began to spread by the 16th century and became the principal practice of revenue extraction in the Ottoman taxation system. This practice persisted until the end of the 19th century through adaption and

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adaptation. Despite the fact that several Ottoman statesmen and chroniclers drew attention to the drawbacks of this practice for the producers, the Ottoman authorities never abandoned tax-farming, and indeed reinforced its place in the fijinancial structure of the empire. The long-term insistence of the Ottoman decision makers on the tax-farming system is a more complicated matter than suggested at fijirst sight. First, one needs to take account of the universal correlation between the spread of taxfarming and the territorial expansion. A ruler was supposed to augment his surveillance capacity over ever expanding territory. This was however contingent on the improvement of communications, transportation, and bureaucratic record keeping. The geographical expanse, low population density, hardships and exorbitant costs involved in communications and transportation in a premodern setting hides the clues for the spread of tax-farming in an empire that ruled in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Added to these material constraints was the inability of the Ottoman Empire to maintain an army of fijiscal bureaucrats equal in size to its military forces. The geographical extension of the empire forced the imperial central bureaucracy to follow the practice of tax-farming to collect taxes at a cheap cost under the surveillance of a fijinancial department manned by a minimum number of experts in the imperial seat and provinces and with the assistance of the local kadı courts. The practice of tax-farm made it possible to estimate the tax yield in advance since the contracts made with the tax-farmers could last from a year to ten years; thus, the fijinancial department was able to calculate the amount of the budgetary revenues at the beginning of the fijiscal year. Moreover, the state transferred the risks involved in tax collection to the tax-farmer, as stipulated in the contract. Evidence suggests that there was healthy competition in the tax-farm market until the end of the 16th century. A limited number of studies show that the annual sums delivered by tax-farmers to the treasury in lieu of the taxes they collected gradually increased and that the duration of the contracts allowed tangible investment return. The tax-farming system functioned smoothly due to the monetary stability and the negligible impact of climate changes and countryside violence until the last quarter of the 16th century. In the course of the century, this practice gradually became the main instrument of making investment and collections not only for the Ottoman treasury but also for the vakıfs and the ruling elite.59 59

Mehmet Genç, ‘İltizam’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 22. İstanbul, 2000, 56–58; Murat Çizakça, ‘Tax-farming and Financial Decentralization in the Ottoman Economy, 1520–1697’, The Journal of European Economic History 22:1 (1993) 219–250.

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Cash shortages in the treasury led the cash payments fall in arrears in late 16th century. The most afffected group was the members of the central standing army whose numbers increased considerably by that time. Historians have the conviction that these men, who sufffered from the rising cost of living and meagre stipends that often fell in arrears, entered the tax-farming market in growing numbers and ousted the non-military (non-askeri), “civilian” entrepreneurs, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, from the tax-farming sector. When did the janissaries and the imperial cavalries dominate the tax-farming sector? Undoubtedly, they participated in the business of tax collection in the 16th century and they were in a position to control this sector towards the mid17th century. Yet, the tax-farming sector was predominantly the realm of the “civilian” Muslim and non-Muslim entrepreneurs in the late 16th century. As late as 1592, the latter were controlling more than four times as much revenue as the members of the standing army. The Jewish tax-farmers invested in this sector as much as 30 million akçes, as opposed to the Muslim tax-farmers who invested roughly 20 million akçes in the tax-farms. This poses a contrast with the investment of the men of military status which was around 11 million akçes. The Jewish and Muslim tax-farmers of non-military origins controlled 81.5 per cent of the tax-farming sector.60 Jews were still the main investors in this sector in the last years of the century when the economic instability began to prevail. Tax-farming was also an instrument of short-term borrowing. Tax-farmers had to pay a fijixed collateral (prepayment) to the treasury in order to obtain authorization for collecting taxes. What was initially a fee paid to be licensed as a taxfarmer gradually turned into a sound source of revenue for the treasury paid in increasing amounts. A general prerequisite for the bidders and their partners to obtain the tax-farming contract was the availability of liquid capital. Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the renowned grand vizier of the latter half of the 17th century, increased the prepayments deposited by the tax-farmers in the treasury. The sums that the bidders had to offfer to win the contract for tax collection began to exceed in amount the annual tax estimates of the tax unit put on auction. The increasing importance of the downpayments was likely to prompt the Ottomans benefijit from the practice of tax-farming as an instrument of domestic borrowing.61 60

61

Sadullah Yıldırım, H.1000/M.1592–93 ve H.1001/M.1593–94 Tarihli Ruznamçe Gelir Defterine Göre Osmanlı Devleti’nin Merkezi Hazine Gelirleri. Unpublished MA thesis, Marmara Üniversitesi, 2008, 60–70. Mehmet Genç and Murat Çizakça were fijirst to evaluate the practice of Ottoman tax-farming as a domestic borrowing mechanism, see Mehmet Genç, ‘Osmanlı Maliyesinde Malikane Sistemi’, in Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Devlet ve Ekonomi. Ankara, 200010, 95–143; Çizakça, ‘Tax-farming and Financial Decentralization’, 219–240; Idem, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships: The Islamic World and Europe, with Specifijic Reference to

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The calculation of the portion of the overall tax revenues that went into the state’s cofffers is one of the criteria for measuring the fijiscal capacity of the central administration. This tells us if there was any change in the fijiscal capacity in the early modern era when the economic growth was piecemeal and very slow. Insufffijicient data on Ottoman demography and public fijinance precludes any comprehensive analysis of the change in Ottoman fijiscal capacity. However, one can make the following observation with some caution: The share of the central treasury in the overall tax revenues in the 17th century was larger than in the following century, which was equal to one-third.62 One needs to take account of Ottoman reservations about borrowing at interest and deposit banking in order to explain the prevalence and endurance of the practice of tax-farming (be it for lifetime or of short term) in the Ottoman fijinancial system before the age of modern reforms. As an Islamic state, the Ottoman Empire refrained from borrowing at interest for a long time because of the Islamic ban on usury. However, it would be reductionism to resort exclusively to religious prohibition in order to explain the Ottoman reluctance to take loans with interest throughout centuries. As a matter of fact there were practices similar to usury in both the tax-farming sector and the private sector. Within the bounds of Ottoman law, there were credit relations in the private sector since the beginning. Offfijicial refrainment from seeking loans with interest should be evaluated along with the political consequences of indebtedness. The Ottoman sultans must have delayed as long as they could the formal methods of borrowing as they scrutinized the European monarchs who had to make political and legal concessions to their indebtors when they realized that reneging on debts or abusing the debtors made further borrowing impossible.

Financing Military without Loans The Ottomans distinguished themselves from their European rivals by the ability of waging war in the 16th century, particularly under Süleyman, without

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the Ottoman Archives. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 8.) Leiden, New York, Köln, 1996. Genç, ‘İltizam’. Genç points out that the central treasury received only one-third of the net tax revenue in the 18th century. The remaining portion went to the Istanbul-based mukataa-owners and money-changers as well as the tax-farmers in the provinces after the money-lenders were required to stand surety for the tax-farmers. In the 17th century, by contrast, this ratio must have been the other way around. According to our calculations, slightly more than two-thirds of the net revenue went into the state’s cofffers and the remaining was pocketed by the tax-farmers.

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resorting to borrowing from domestic and foreign sources. Ottoman budgets in this period were in surplus in peacetime and the Ottoman administration was competent enough to tap into the accumulated budgetary surpluses in times of war to meet their need for cash revenues. table 6    The budget surpluses of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century

Year

Akçe

1528 1547 1548 1566 1567 1583

74,042,842 69,889,477 86,889,845 141,736,000 119,509,235 34,094,678

Table 6 shows the cash revenue surpluses of the Ottoman budgets during the terms of Ibrahim Pasha (1528), of Rüstem Pasha (1547 and 1548), of Sokollu Mehmed Paşa (1566 and 1567), and of Siyavuş Pasha (1583). The table indicates that the cash reserves were built up until the year of 1566 and that they existed in diminishing amounts in later years. The Ottoman bureaucrats used these cash reserves to cover the war-related expenses until the last quarter of the 16th century. Sultan Süleyman did not frequently resort to the policy of debasement to fijinance the expenses as opposed to his grandfather Mehmed II and grandson Murad III. He ordered the debasement of the Ottoman akçe only twice in his reign that lasted almost half a century that resulted in a mere eleven-per cent loss in the value of akçe; this is a crucial symptom of the existence of a healthy monetary regime in the reign of Süleyman.63 Owing to these cash reserves, Süleyman did not have to depend on money lenders to obtain the necessary funds before going on a campaign, as did the European monarchs. He had sufffijicient cash reserves on the eve of the siege of Vienna in 1529, war with Iran in 1534–1535, and the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. In addition to other fijiscal measures, there were times when the Ottoman centre transferred the surplus revenues of the sultanic vakıfs to the central treasury in the face of immediate cash need. For instance, Selim II seized the revenue surpluses of the vakıfs established by Süleyman in the fijirst place and 63

Şevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, 1999, 121–122.

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of those belonging to the earlier sultans to support the cash expenses of the central treasury. This policy was not restricted to the sultanic endowments, but also afffected those established by several viziers and pashas.64 The Ottoman realms underwent a demographic and economic growth accompanied by fijiscal and monetary stability until the 1580’s. More land was brought under cultivation while inter-city and inter-regional commercial relations entered a new phase of development. The improvement of the trade networks reinforced the links between urban and rural economies. The markets achieved the monetary expansion they sorely needed by relying on primarily the Egytian gold as well as the increasing volumes of Peruvian silver that reached the Ottoman realms by the 1530’s via Europe. Metal coins, particularly silver akçe and copper mangır achieved wide circulation in the markets, for the majority of urban and rural population began to enter trade exchange relations, and the state began to tax various commercial activities.65 Owing to these positive economic developments, the Ottomans consolidated their fijiscal strength. The Ottoman fijisc was able to fijinance the double front engagements thanks to its sound fijinance structure. The fijirst fijiscal bottlenecks occurred in the end of the 16th century. Protracted wars with Iran (1578–1790), the Austrian Habsburgs (1593–1606), and, once again, Iran (1603–1639) compelled the Ottomans to take a number of extraordinary measures. First, the Ottomans set out to counterbalance the increasing fijirepower and military efffectiveness of the Habsburgs. Confronted with multiplication and protraction of the military conflicts, they increased the manpower of their armies. The central standing army grew from 10,000 men strong at the beginning of the 16th century to more than 25,000 in the last years of Süleyman, reaching to 70,000 men strong in the 1600s. The expansion of the army size aggravated the treasury’s fijinancial burden. In the age of “military revolution” the Ottomans increased not only the janissary corps and the technical services, but also recruited companies of musket-bearing men from among the imperial subjects under the appellation of sekban and levend. The military pays of these mercenaries and the cost of their equipment imposed new fijinancial burden on the treasury. The cost of recruitment 64

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For more information, see Tevfijik Güran, Ekonomik ve Mali Yönleriyle Vakıflar: Süleymaniye ve Şehzade Süleyman Paşa Vakıfları. İstanbul, 2006; Kayhan Orbay, ‘Bursa’da Sultan II. Murad Vakfı’nın Mali Tarihi (1608–1641)’, İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 61:2 (2011) 293–322; Idem, ‘16. ve 17. Yüzyıllarda Bursa Ekonomisi: Sultan Çelebi Mehmed Yeşil İmareti’nin Mali Tarihi (1553–1650)’, OTAM 22 (2007) 125–158; Ömer Lütfiji Barkan, ‘H. 974–975 (M. 1567–1568) Malî Yılına Âit bir Osmanlı Bütçesi’, İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19:1–4 (1957–1958) 277–332. Pamuk, A Monetary History, 131–132.

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of these new mercenary groups was not restricted to the fijinancial sphere. Upon disbandment after the restoration of peace, these armed mercenaries did not go back to their villages and they threatened the social and economic order of the countryside on the road networks of Anatolia. They kept the Ottoman administration busy until the beginning of the 17th century. The cash reserves dried up during the wars with Iran and the Austrian Habsburgs at the end of the 16th century. The Ottomans were hard put to pay the troops because of the protraction of wars in the eastern and western fronts. As a result of the setbacks in the transfer of revenue surpluses of the provinces to Istanbul, when coupled with the immediate need of cash for certain expenses in the imperial seat, the Ottomans had to mobilize the reserves of the inner treasury (hızane-i enderun) in an increasing frequency.66 Murad III dispatched the grand vizier roughly 15 million akçes to pay the troops during the long wars with Iran on two occasions in 1583 and 1591–92.67 After this date, the Ottoman sultans resorted more frequently to use the inner treasury reserves particularly to pay the military.68 In the fijirst quarter of the 17th century, the amount of funds transferred from the inner treasury to the outer/central treasury was more than 300 million akçes in total – a fijigure equal to the budgetary revenues in late 16th century. The fijinancial support lent by the inner treasury to the central treasury after the 1650’s was eight times as much as in the fijirst half of the century and most of it was spent on the military pay. Uncertainty continues to surround the military and strategic goals of the Ottoman administration in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. However, we can argue that the Ottomans intended to expand eastwards beyond Anatolia in order to capture the Safavid towns to the west and south of the Caspian Sea so that they would fully control the thriving silk industry and trade. In the wars with the Safavids and Georgians the Ottomans added to their realms the important cities of Tabriz, Ganja, Revan, Shirvan, and Tbilisi. Transformed into a province, Revan was to yield tax revenues of roughly 14 million akçes annually 66

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Historians generally argue that the Ottomans had a dual system of a state treasury composed of the imperial treasury (hızane-i amire) or the outer treasury (hazine-i birun) on the one hand, and the inner treasury of the sultan on the other. The former was under the responsibility of the grand vizier and the treasurer who used its revenues to pay the military and fijinance the military institutions and the palace. Thus, this central treasury served as the budget of the central administration. The latter was the sultan’s personal cofffer that was part of the Topkapı Palace that hosted the sultan’s share of the war booty, related revenues, jewellery, invaluable arms, precious clothes, and horse harnesses. However, it was not only a store for valuable articles; it was like a cashier’s desk with dynamic revenues and expenses. Yıldırım, H.1000/M.1592–93, 67. İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, ‘Osmanlı Devleti Maliyesinin Kuruluşu ve Osmanlı Devleti İç Hazinesi’, Belleten 42:165 (1978) 67–93.

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according to the land survey conducted in the region in 1590; this fijigure was equal to more than 3 per cent of the annual budgetary revenues.69 By the end of the wars with Iran, Revan and other captured towns from the Safavids supplied the Ottoman treasury with new fijinancial resources that amounted to 10–15 per cent of the central revenues. Mere religious motivation is not a satisfactory explanation for the Ottoman persistence in waging protracted wars on the Safavids, given the wealth of the region and its strategic location within the trade networks as well as the prevailing local political conditions. Initially, the local tax revenues covered the cost of the Ottoman military presence in the region with the remaining portion being transferred to Istanbul as surplus revenue. In this period, the Ottoman administration delegated the right to gather the revenues of these distant provinces to the beylerbeyis or local treasurers as a collective tax-farm (toptan iltizam).70 However, by the beginning of the 17th century, the distance of the region proved to be a hindrance to an efffijicient administrative control. The Ottomans ran into serious problems because of the accompanying administrative abuses, upheavals in Anatolia, and the Safavid military resurgence in the region. Therefore, regional economic potentials and the actual local revenues did not match. In the absence of a steady flow of local revenues, the regional administrators stopped forwarding taxes to the central treasury and even sent pleas for cash funds to cover the military costs in the region.71 All these developments, coupled with the new war with the Austrian Habsburgs in Central Europe, ended shortly the strategic and economic advantages in the Caspian that the Ottomans had over the Russians and the Safavids. The Ottomans tried to fijinance the increasing expenses by imposing new taxes, increasing the rate of various existing taxes, and borrowing informally from high dignitaries of the state. When these measures fell short of yielding enough revenues to cover the expenses, the Ottomans sought to use the Ottoman offfijicial currency akçe as an instrument of fijinance starting from 1585. After the 1580’s, they tried to generate extra revenues by decreasing the value 69 70

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Selçuk Ilgaz, Osmanlı Hâkimiyetinde Revan (Çukur Sa’ad) (XVI.–XVIII. Yüzyıllar Arasında Sosyo-Ekonomik Tarih). PhD diss., Atatürk Üniversitesi, Erzurum, 2010, 138. A comparison of distances in the east and west may reveal the problems of communication encountered in the east. The air distance between Istanbul and Belgrade is 870 km, while Buda is slightly more than 1000 km way from the imperial seat. But, the air distance between Tabriz and Istanbul is 1500 km. We can say that Ottoman territorial expansion in the east was 1.5 times the breadth of that in the Balkans. The memoranda of Koca Sinan Pasha explain the hardships involved in the revenue extraction from Ganja, Revan, and Tabriz. See Halil Sahillioğlu (ed.), Koca Sinan Paşa’nın Telhisleri. İstanbul, 2004, 128–129, 251.

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of the silver akçe. Similar methods were employed by the European monarchs in the same period.72 The Ottoman administration debased the akçe on ten diffferent occasions during the wars with Iran (1578–1590, 1603–1639) and the Austrian Habsburgs (1593–1606). The biggest lost in the value of akçe at one time occurred in the debasement carried out in 1584–1586 that reduced the silver content of the coin almost by half.73 While it had been the norm to mint 450 akçes from 100 dirhems of silver, the relevant debasement policy dictated the minting of 800 akçes from the same amount of silver. Thus, akçe lost half of its value against the gold coin of sultani and the Venetian ducat.74 The market was the barometer that measured the value of the akçe. The prices of the foodstufff and the raw materials consumed in towns began to increase moderately in the second half of the 16th century, but recorded steep rises in the last quarter.75 A crucial consequence of the debasement policy was the doubling of the prices in general. Particularly in Istanbul, Bursa, Edirne, and other big towns stockpiling and black marketing thrived when the authorities and the guilds 72 73

74 75

By the 1566 debasement, the akçe lost 7.5 per cent of its silver content, but the treasury could not generate a handsome income by this policy. For the debates revolving around the 1584–86 debasement and the price revolution, see Ömer Lutfiji Barkan, ‘The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Near East’ [abridged translation with revisions of ‘XVI. Asrın İkinci Yarısında Türkiye’de Fiyat Hareketleri’, Belleten 34 (1970) 557–607, translated by Justin McCarthy], International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975) 13; Halil İnalcık, ‘Notes on a Study of the Turkish Economy during the Establishment and Rise of the Ottoman Empire’ [revised translation of ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğunun Kuruluş ve İnkişafı Devrinde Türkiye’nin İktisadi Vaziyeti Üzerinde bir Tetkik Münasebetiyle’, Belleten 15 (1951) 629–690, translated by Douglas Howard], in Halil İnalcık, The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society. Bloomington, 1993, 205–263; Halil Sahillioğlu, ‘The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements in Ottoman Monetary History, 1300–1750’ [translation of ‘Osmanlı Para Tarihinde Dünya Para ve Maden Hareketlerinin Yeri (1300–1750)’, Gelişme Dergisi Special Issue (1978) 1–38, translated by İlter Turan and Rhoads Murphey], in John F. Richards (ed.), Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds. Durham, 1983, 269–304; Kafadar, ‘Les troubles monétaires’, 381–400; Şevket Pamuk, ‘The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Empire Reconsidered’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 33 (2001) 69–89; Baki Tezcan, ‘The Ottoman Monetary Crisis of 1585 Revisited’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52 (2009) 460–504. Sahillioğlu, ‘The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements’. Şevket Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler 1469–1998. Ankara, 2000, 37–61; Murat Çizakça’s work on the impact of the price revolution on the silk fabrics of Bursa in the latter half of the 16th century underlined that the price increase in raw materials that was higher than in the market goods eroded the profijit margins in the industry: Murat Çizakça, ‘Bursa İpek Sanayinin Maliyet Yapısı Üzerinde Düşünceler ve Ham İpek Fiyatları (1550–1650)’, Gelişme Dergisi 1 (1978) 98–110.

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attempted at keeping prices low. Ottoman markets began sufffer from scarcities as the European demand for cheaper Ottoman raw materials and grains rose.76 Such shortages, in turn, exerted an upward pressure on the prices of both manufactures goods and raw materials. The Ottoman administration followed a policy of increasing the customs rates by the beginning of the 17th century to compensate for the diminishing treasury revenues so that it would deliver the trimonthly wages of the central army that continuously fell in arrears. Was the 1584–86 debasement the harbinger of the Ottoman fijinancial collapse? Did the Ottoman administration lose its grip over economy and society after the new minting policy? Did the debasement policy, coupled with the new military situations at home and abroad as well as novel political an economic developments, ushered in a new era of fijinancial crises and shortcomings for the centuries ahead? Notably, debasement was a commonplace policy in the 16th century for every early modern state with each having a great debasement for varying and disputable reasons. By way of example, Henry VIII and his son Edward VI reduced the intrinsic value of the gold and silver coin in England considerably through debasement in 1542–1551. In 1551, the purity grade of the English silver coin was reduced to 25 per cent.77 In 1519–1641, France debased its coin by 54 per cent whereas this fijigure stood at 57.5 per cent in the Ottoman case. Furthermore, in both Ottoman and European realms a gap between the offfijicial and market value of the currency occurred while circulation of counterfeit coins and coin clipping became widespread, paralysing the functioning of the markets in this period. Recent research on the history of debasement in Europe has revealed that the considerations behind the debasement policy in the Ottoman Empire resembled those prevailing in Europe in the late 16th century.78 An even more signifijicant conclusion of this research is the fact that the debasement policy was no more damaging for the Ottoman economy than was the case in Europe.79 76

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The central administration sent instructions to the local authorities (hassa harcı) in Gallipoli to search for the prohibited items in the cargoes of the Venetian, French and other European merchant vessels in order to prevent the foreign merchants from smuggling out these items from the Ottoman realms. As reflected in the mühimme registers, the following items were in short demand in Istanbul: grains, acorn, gold, copper, beeswax, grapes, fijigs, honey, oil, rice, soap, fijirewood, and brick. Ling-Fan Li, ‘After the Great Debasement, 1544–51: Did Gresham’s Law Apply?’, London School of Economics, Working Papers 126:09 (2009) 9–11; Arthur J. Rolnick, François R. Velde and Warren E. Weber, ‘The Debasement Puzzle: An Essay on Medieval Monetary History’, The Journal of Economic History 56:4 (1996) 789–808. Karaman and Pamuk, ‘Tağşişler ve Nedenleri’, 229–256. Haim Gerber, ‘The Monetary System of the Ottoman Empire’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 25 (1982) 315.

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The Ottomans could not immediately close the budget defijicits despite the extra revenues the 1584–86 debasement generated, whilst political and social grievances continued to exist. Imperial troops mutinied when they were paid in debased coin and caused the murder of the grand vizier. The social strata whose livelihood was endangered by this monetary turmoil failed to organize a joined resistance against the debasement policy despite all the political disorder it brought about. The Ottomans continued to follow the debasement policy in spite of the opposition of the imperial troops in İstanbul in the fijirst half of the 17th century. Nevertheless, accompanying adjustments in the value of the coin prevented the market prices from going out of control. In 1600–1650, the price index showed upward momentum on a few occasions, but exhibited stability in the long run. By the mid-century there was fijinally fijiscal discipline with the result that the price index by the end of the century did not even double.80 The revenues of the Ottoman Empire did not display a serious increase in real terms from the 16th century to the 19th when compared with the European states. The debasement policy truly reduced the real income of the state, but it was not the sole reason for the long-term stagnation in the revenues. It proved to be hard to expand the state’s fijiscal capacity in a geographical setting characterized by a number of aspects ranging from sparse and scattered population to agrarian-based revenue extraction, and limited use of money in exchange of goods and items. Under these circumstances, the Ottoman authorities sought to cut down spending and preserve the existing income levels in order to overcome fijinancial difffijiculties.

Borrowing Mechanisms and the Funding of the Ottoman Military The Ottoman administration occasionally took interest-free loans from high dignitaries apart from the borrowings from the inner treasury as mentioned above. Towards the end of the long wars with Iran, the Ottoman fijisc borrowed approximately 16.5 million akçes in total from the prominent members of the ruling elite including the grand vizier, defterdars, beylerbeyis, and representatives of the provincial dignitaries in Istanbul. The sum borrowed this way amounted to 15 per cent of the annual cash revenues of the central treasury.81 The fijinancial bureau recorded the money taken from the ruling elite as “loan” (karz).

80 81

Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde, 11–14. Yıldırım, H.1000/M.1592–93, 67.

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The Ottomans also borrowed from merchants in wartime, albeit rarely. Some historians interpret this as forced borrowing. But at the end of the century, the Ottoman sultans demanded from the high ranking bureaucrats various types of contributions and altruism that went beyond making loans to the treasury. For instance, Murad III complained about the fijinancial troubles of the treasury and ordered the members of the imperial council and provincial commanders to build galleys from their own pocket in 1590 as part of military preparations for a planned campaign on Spain.82 Intensifijied and protracted military conflicts grew in number in the 16th century. Facing enormous war-related costs, the Ottoman authorities experimented with another universal means of increasing the state revenues: confijiscation of the goods and estates of the middle- and high-ranking members of the ruling elite upon death on behalf of the treasury. Those subjected to confijiscation were not only viziers, provincial governors, and army commanders, but also the members of the court and bureaucrats in the fijinancial bureaus. Confijiscation policy was to become a commonplace practice in this and the next century.83 In summary, the Ottomans continued to face fijiscal challenges after the 16th century as well, and they tried to confront them by making changes in the taxation methods as was the case in the poll-tax and modifying the intrinsic value of the offfijicial coin in a limited way. They refrained from borrowing until the 19th century.

Conclusion The 16th century was an age of military conflicts. The availability of abundant resources was not sufffijicient for being successful in international confrontations; it was also imperative to have a state capacity capable of mobilizing these resources for an active foreign policy. In the reign of Sultan Süleyman, the Ottoman Empire was not richer than the great monarchies of Europe in terms of natural and economic resources. A comparison of overall tax revenues reveal that the Ottomans ranked after Spain and France and before Venice in 82

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Pál Fodor, ‘Between Two Continental Wars: The Ottoman Naval Preparations in 1590– 1592’, in Ingeborg Baldauf and Suraiya Faroqhi (eds. in collaboration with Rudolf Veselý), Armağan. Festschrift für Andreas Tietze. Praha, 1994, 89–111. Our research on probate inventories has shown that there were roughly twenty confijiscations a year and more than 200 in total in 1655–1675. Another measure to generate resources was to confijiscate on occasions the wealth of those bidders who entered public tenders on political and legal grounds.

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the list.84 Moreover, the Ottomans were inferior to these three states when we compare the overall tax revenues and tax revenue per capita even in the glorious 16th century. Although the central revenues were lower, the Ottomans were more successful to wage war more cheaply than their rivals. Many warrelated expenses were met from local resources. Self-sufffijiciency and relative prices in favour of the Ottomans let them fijinance their military campaigns in cheaper ways. Therefore, under Süleyman, they could fijinance wars and sustained territorial expansion by relying on residual budgetary revenues and afffordable extraordinary wartime taxes. They neither resorted to debasement policy on a regular basis nor borrowed at interest in this era. In later periods, they tried to expand the fijiscal capacity through the practice of tax-farming. Military conflicts became costly and more intensifijied in the following centuries. Fiscal instruments of military fijinance proved to be insufffijicient in the face of intensifijied armed conflicts and the Ottomans were thus compelled to overtax the agrarian and industrial sectors. While these sectors displayed a boom comparable to the close rivals and neighbours, over-taxation paralyzed them both in the 17th and the next century. Long-term domestic borrowing arrived late in the Ottoman Empire in comparison to western European countries. This nevertheless did not lead to an Ottoman retreat from the international competition until the late 18th century when warfare began to claim vast resources.

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Kıvanç Karaman and Şevket Pamuk, ‘Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective’, The Journal of Economic History 70:3 (2010) 623.

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State and Religion, “Sunnitization” and “Confessionalism” in Süleyman’s Time Tijana Krstić * Central European University, Budapest [email protected]

Although the era of Sultan Süleyman represents one of the better-researched periods of Ottoman history, the complexities of its religious politics have only recently come into a sharper focus. New research has built on the pioneering work of the scholars such as Gülrü Necipoğlu, Cornell Fleischer, Colin Imber, Haim Gerber, and Ahmed Yaşar Ocak who have peeled offf the “classical” label to reveal the ideological innovation and experimentation of the age and signifijicant departures from the practices of the medieval Sunni polities in terms of the state’s relations with the ulema, the relationship between the sultanic law (kanun) and divine law (şeriat), and the role of the state in persecuting religious dissent.1 Following their lead, over the last decade, scholars have gradually come to realize that rather than being unquestioningly and unselfconsciously inherited from the “classical” Islamic period or, for that matter, from the “core Islamic provinces” of Syria and Egypt upon the conquest, Ottoman understanding of Sunnism in the 16th century was in fact the outcome of a complex engagement with the tradition shaped by contingencies of building a state in the post-Mongol Islamic world, with a seat in Constantinople with

* Research for this essay has been undertaken within the framework of the project entitled “The Fashioning of a Sunni Orthodoxy and the Entangled Histories of Confession–Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th–18th Centuries” (OTTOCONFESSION), which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648498). 1 Gülrü Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman–Habsburg–Papal Rivalryʼ, The Art Bulletin 71:3 (1989) 401–427; Cornell H. Fleischer, ‘The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymânʼ, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Actes du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992, 159–177; Colin Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition. Palo Alto, 1997; Haim Gerber, State, Society and Law in Islam. New York, 1994; Ahmed Y. Ocak, Osmanlı Toplumunda Zındıklar ve Mülhidler (15.–17. Yüzyıllar). İstanbul, 1998. © Tijana Krstic, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_005 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC License at the time Pál Fodor - 978-90-04-39623-4 of publication Heruntergeladen von Brill.com06/14/2019 10:00:32AM via Universitat Wien

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all its symbolic baggage.2 In this context, researchers’ attention has focused especially on the reasons behind the marked shift in Ottoman religious politics in the beginning of the 16th century from one comfortable with “confessional ambiguity” to one increasingly concerned with defijining and enforcing a particular understanding of “correct” belief and practice. Some scholars have explained the Ottomans’ growing Sunna-mindedness by pointing to the rise of the Shiite Safavid Empire and the religio-political challenge this posed to Ottoman dynastic legitimacy.3 Others, however, have emphasized processes related to Ottoman state building, particularly urbanization, monetization of the economy, institutionalization and bureaucratization launched in the 1450s that were conducive to the rise of an increasingly self-confijident class of Ottoman scholars who sought to assert their vision of what Islam is and where the boundaries of belief began and ended.4 As the sources to be discussed in this essay suggest, without excluding further possible factors, both dynamics contributed to the fashioning of Ottoman Sunnism in the 16th century. However, this is not the main concern of this essay. Regardless of which explanations it prioritizes, recent literature shares the analytical vocabulary that features terms such as “confession-building”, “confessionalism”, “confessionalization”, “Sunni orthodoxy” and/or “Sunnitization”, revealing its conceptual indebtedness to the historiography of early modern Europe in the age of confessional polarization, which requires careful consideration of each term.5 What exactly do we mean by “orthodoxy” 2 On this aspect of recent scholarship see particularly Gülrü Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. London, 2005; Derin Terzioğlu, ‘How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: A Historiographical Discussionʼ, Turcica 44 (2012–13) 301–333; Guy Burak, ‘The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Post-Mongol Context of the Ottoman Adoption of a School of Lawʼ, Comparative Studies in Society and History 55:3 (2013) 579–602. 3 For instance, Nabil Al-Tikriti, ‘Kalam in the Service of the State: Apostasy and the Defijining of Ottoman Islamic Identityʼ, in Hakan Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (eds.), Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power. (Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 34.) Leiden, Boston, 2005, 131–150; Markus Dressler, ‘Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman–Safavid Conflictʼ, in ibid., 151–176. 4 For instance, Terzioğlu, ‘How to Conceptualize’; Guy Burak, ‘Faith, Law and Empire in the Ottoman Age of Confessionalization (Fifteenth–Seventeenth Centuries): the Case of Renewal of Faithʼ, Mediterranean Historical Review 28:1 (2013) 1–23; Idem, The Second Formation of Islamic Law: the Hanafiji School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. New York, 2015; Abdurrahman Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, UK, 2017. 5 For an overview of the paradigm of confessionalization, see Heinz Schilling, ‘Confessionalization: Historical and Scholarly Perspective of a Comparative and Interdisciplinary Paradigmʼ, in John M. Headley, Hans J. Hillerbrandt and Anthony J. Papalas (eds.), Confessionalization in

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when it comes to the 16th-century Ottoman context? Furthermore, what was the discursive framework and content of Ottoman Sunnism that would serve as the basis of “Sunnitization”? Finally, can we speak of an Ottoman Sunni “confession” that would constitute the basis for confession-building or confessionalism? In the following discussion I seek to offfer some tentative answers to these questions based on a particular set of sources. Research so far has overwhelmingly focused on the opinions of the chief Ottoman jurisprudents ( fetava) and their religious treatises, or imperial orders recorded in the registers of important imperial afffairs (mühimme defterleri) regarding the followers of the Safavid shah who were pejoratively called Readheads (kızılbaş), to guage the boundaries of Sunni Islam as imagined by the Ottoman establishment, as well as the sanctions for transgressing them.6 This has left the impression that “Sunnitization” was exclusively the state authorities’ attempt at defijining Sunnis in contrast to the kızılbaş (or rafızis,7 as they are also often called in the sources), and that it entailed only measures of persecution. However, in her recent essay on how to conceptualize “Sunnitization,” Derin Terzioğlu has suggested that the phenomenon was not merely reactive (to the Safavid religious and political threat) but also pro-active, entailing “the adoption by the Ottoman religious and political authorities of a series of policies to modify the behavior (and to a lesser extent the beliefs) of all their Muslim subjects in line with the precepts of Sunni Islam, as they were understood at the time”.8 In this essay I build on Terzioğlu’s insight about the goals of Sunnitization and seek to cast it as a broader societal phenomenon that transcends the purview of the state but inevitably engages with the Europe, 1550–1700. Farnham, UK, 2004, 21–36; for a recent evaluation of its usefulness and status in European historiography, see Marc Forster, Bruce Gordon, Joel Harrington, Thomas Kaufmann and Ute Lotz-Heumann, ‘Forum – Religious History Beyond Confessionalizationʼ, German History 34:4 (2014) 579–598. 6 For instance, Elke Eberhard, Osmanische Polemik gegen die Safawiden im 16. Jahrhundert nach arabischen Handschriften. (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 3.) Freiburg im Breisgau, 1970; Colin Imber, ‘The Persecution of the Ottoman Shi’ites according to the mühimme defterleri, 1565–1585’, Der Islam 56 (1979) 245–273; al-Tikriti, ‘Kalam in the Serviceʼ; Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, ‘The Formation of Kızılbaş Communities in Anatolia and Ottoman Responses, 1450s–1630sʼ, International Journal of Turkish Studies 20:1–2 (2014) 21–48, etc. 7 E. Kohlberg, ‘al-Rāfijiḍaʼ, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Accessed 08 October 2016. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573–3912_islam_SIM_6185. The term was used to refer to (a) the proto-Imamiyya (and, subsequently, the Twelver Shia); (b) any of a number of Shiite sects, and thus provided sufffijicient space for semantic slippage for Ottoman and other authors to make it unclear in many cases as to whether they were referring only to the kızılbaş, as a subgroup of the Shia, or to the Shia in general. 8 Terzioğlu, ‘How to Conceptualizeʼ, 313.

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religious and political authorities’ views on belief and worship in a complex, and sometimes competitive dialogue. I will do so by exploring how religious primers or catechisms (ilmihal) authored during Süleyman’s reign by various authors with or without ties to the state sought to defijine the boundaries of the “people of the Sunna and the Community” (ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat). Sultan Süleyman’s reign witnessed the production of more religious primers in Turkish than any of his predecessors’. During the 15th century many diffferent texts were written in Turkish with the purpose of educating common people in the basics of faith and practice, with Kutbeddin İzniki’s Mukaddime, Yazıcızade Mehmed’s Muhammediye, and Yazıcızade Ahmed’s Envarü’l-Aşıkin becoming most popular, along with numerous hagiographies and works on ethics translated from Persian.9 What is characteristic of these works is that they tapped into and drew upon all hermeneutic resources traditionally available to Muslims, combining insights from Sufiji, legal ( fıkıh), morally edifying (ahlak, edeb), theological (kelam) and, to a lesser degree, philosophical ( felsefe) literature, sometimes explicitly privileging the Sufiji path and sometimes without committing to a particular hermeneutic system.10 In contrast, as I will argue, one of the key features of the ilmihal literature that emerged in the Süleymanic era, which left a lasting imprint on Ottoman religious primers for time to come, is prioritization of fıkıh over all other paths for reaching the Truth in Islam. The key texts under consideration here will be: 1.   İmadü’l-İslam by Abdürrahman b. Yusuf Aksarayi, written most likely in 950/1543–1544. It is a translation/adaptation of a text on the fijive pillars of Islam entitled Umdat al-Islam, written in Persian by a certain Mevlana Abdulaziz; however, the Ottoman translation contains considerable additions by the translator. Nothing is known about Abdürrahman b. Yusuf Aksarayi. Given his good knowledge of Persian and Arabic, as well as detailed references to the works of fıkıh and hadith, it is possible that he received a formal medrese education; however, there are no indications that he held an offfijicial post or was otherwise afffijiliated with the Ottoman 9

10

On these and other 15th-century texts in Turkish used for religious instruction of Ottoman Muslims, see Hatice K. Arpaguş, Osmanlı Halkının Geleneksel İslam Anlayışı ve Kaynakları. İstanbul, 2001; Tijana Krstić, Contested Conversions to Islam – Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Palo Alto, 2011, 26–50; Tobias Heinzelmann, Populäre religiöse Literatur und Buchkultur im Osmanischen Reich – Eine Studie zur Nutzung der Werke der Brüder Yazıcıoġlı. Würzburg, 2015. For a detailed discussion of the variety of hermeneutical paths in Islam by which my discussion in this essay is inspired, see Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton, NJ, 2015.

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establishment.11 The text itself became widely read within decades of being written, as numerous copies of it survive already from the 1570s, copied anywhere from Aksaray in Anatolia to Sofijia and Sarajevo in Rumeli. It is a long work, reaching over 300 folios in most versions. 2.   Mehmed b. Pir Ali Birgili’s (1523–1573) Vasiyetname or Risale-i Birgili from 970/1562–1563.12 This is a short text on the basics of belief and practice that seems not to have been very popular in the 16th century, but rather reached its fame and became the epitome of an Ottoman catechism in the 17th and 18th centuries, similarly to Birgili’s other popular didactic and moralistic treatise, al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya, written in Arabic just before his death. Recently, much has been written on Birgili who was one of the most prolifijic authors of catechetical and moralistic literature in the 16th century and an inspiration for various 17th-century Sunna-minded authors.13 For the purposes of this essay it is important to emphasize that Birgili did not belong to the top echelons of the Ottoman ulema, although he was certainly well connected to the Ottoman establishement through his most prominent patron, Ata Allah Ahmed Efendi (d. 1571), the teacher of Prince Selim (future Sultan Selim II, 1566–1574), in whose hadith school (darülhadis) in Birgili Mehmed reached his fame as the hadith teacher.14 3.   In addition to these, the discussion also rests upon several didactic and catechetical works authored by one of Sultan Süleyman’s grand viziers and sons-in-law, Lütfiji Pasha (grand vizier 1539–1541; d. 1563), which were produced immediately after his forced retirement and in quick succession in the early 1540s. Although these works generally remained little known, in terms of productivity in the sphere of moralistic and didactic literature in Süleyman’s era Lütfiji Pasha appears to have been second only 11

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For a discussion of this text, see Hatice K. Arpaguş, ‘İlk İlmihal Örneklerinden İmâdü’l-İslâmʼ, in Eadem Osmanlı ve Geleneksel İslâm. İstanbul, 2014, 65–109. See also her article on ‘İmâdü’l-İslâm’ in Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 22. İstanbul, 2000, 172– 173. A version in simplifijied Turkish with certain parts of the text edited out or changed was published by Mehmet Rahmi as Büyük İslam İlmihali. İstanbul, 1990. In this paper I will be using the manuscript of the work from İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi (Atatürk) Kitaplığı (İBB), Osman Ergin koleksiyonu (OE), Ms. No. 9 (from 979/1571–72). In this paper I will be referring to the following edition of Vasiyetname: Birgili Muhammed Efendi, Vasiyyetname – Dil İncelemesi, Metin, Sözlük, Ekler İndeksi ve Tıpkıbasım. Ed. by Musa Duman. İstanbul, 2000. See especially Ahmet Kaylı, A Critical Study of Birgivi Mehmed Efendi’s (d. 981/1573) Works and Their Dissemination in Manuscript Form. Unpublished MA thesis, Boğaziçi University, 2010; Katharina Anna Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law: A Study of Birgivī Mehmed Efendī’s Al-Tarīqa al-Muhammediyya. Unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 2012. Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law, 20–23.

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to Birgili.15 Furthermore, his works add an important dimension to the discussion of communal and individual beliefs of the period due to his close relationship to the political establishment. 4.   A short anonymous text in question-and-answer format, entitled Cevahirü’l-İslam (which is also known under the title of Eğer Sorsalar). It is not clear when it was fijirst written, but the earliest copy I was able to track down so far dates from 955/1548–1549, with further copies proliferating in the second half of the 16th century, which would suggest that it also hails from Süleyman’s era.16 By the mid-17th century this text was so widespread and popular that it can rightfully be considered one of the most popular Ottoman ilmihals of all time, along with Birgili’s Vasiyetname.

Ehl-i Sünnet ve Cemaat ‒ Defijining the Community of Believers To what extent do these texts project a particular defijinition of Sunnism, or defijinition of who belongs to the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat and who does not? The phrase ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat appears in some of the earliest Hanafiji creeds (akaid), yet it does not come with a set defijinition. Rather, the boundaries of this group were defijined and redefijined through the creeds (and later other genres) expounded by various individuals throughout early Islamic history, giving voice to a communal consensus at a given time and place. In his seminal study on the development of Muslim creed, Wensinck states that unlike personal confession of faith (shahada; Tr. şehadet), which represents a summary of belief for individual purposes, creeds arose out of the need of the community to formulate its position vis-à-vis dissenting elements.17 He writes: “Although the creed fijixes the position of the community in face of the sects, it refrains from open polemics… Nevertheless the separate forms of the Muslim creed are full of hidden polemics. It is their contents and the sequence of their articles that show which were the heresies deemed to be most dangerous at the

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Lütfiji Pasha authored twenty two works, out of which fijive were dedicated to the explication of elements of faith and practice in Islam: Zübdetü’l-Mesayil fiji’l-İtikad ve’l-İbadat (in Arabic), as well as Tenbih al-Akilin ve Tekid al-Gafijilin; Tuhfetü’t-Talibin; Hayat-i Ebedi, and Risale-i Sual ve Cevab (in Turkish). The oldest copy of this text that I was able to fijind thus far is located in the collection of Oriental manscripts at the University Library in Bologna, No. 3324. Arent J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed – Its Genesis and Historical Development. New York, 1932, 102.

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time they were composed.”18 It is, therefore, in comparison with other credal statements that a creed’s polemical overtones come into relief, and what may appear as a random list of items pertaining to belief and practice given in an arbitrary order gains a new meaning.19 Wensinck’s comments provide a critical insight for approaching Ottoman ilmihal literature from Süleyman’s era. For instance, İmadü’l-İslam opens the relevant section on this topic with a question supposedly posed to Abu Hanifa: What are the signs of ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat?20 He responds that such people respect Abu Bakr and Umar as well as Uthman and Ali, and that they perform the wiping of the socks (al-mash ala’l-khufffayn). The fijirst part of that answer is not surprising, as it aims to establish, contrary to the Shiite practice of cursing of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, that all four caliphs following Muhammad are worthy of respect. The issue became particularly poignant in the 16th century as the reports reached the Ottomans of ritual cursing of the fijirst three caliphs enforced by the so-called tabarraiyan (ritual disavowers) who were implicitly or explicitly supported by the Safavid court.21 The second part of the statement is less obvious: The wiping of the socks was rejected as a substitute for the washing of the feet by the Shia and Kharijites, which suggests that both parts of the statement are essentially aimed at the Shia.22 We know from other contemporary sources that the issue of al-mash ala’l-khufffayn gained particular prominence during Süleyman’s era and was much debated by the ulema.23 For comparison’s sake, the issue is not featured at all in the earliest creed (likely from the 2nd/8th century) attributed to Abu Hanifa, al-Fiqh al-

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20 21

22 23

Ibid., 103. On this issue, see also Norman Calder, ‘The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxyʼ, in Andrew Rippin (ed.), Defijinining Islam – A Reader. New York, 2014 (originally published in Farhad Daftary [ed.], Intellectual Traditions in Islam. London, 2000, 66– 86). İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 20b; see also Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 39. On the issue of ritual cursing in the Safavid realm during the 16th century, see Rosemary Stanfijield, ‘The Tabarra‘iyan and the Early Safavidsʼ, Iranian Studies 37:1 (2004) 47–71. On the Ottoman perceptions of the issue, see Eberhardt, Osmanische Polemik. For a detailed discussion of this article, see Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 158–162. For instance, one of the reasons why Şeyhülislam Çivizade (in offfijice 1539–1542) was eventually dismissed from his post was his fatva which declared that mash ala’l-khufffayn (wiping of the socks) was not permissible. According to Lütfiji Pasha’s account of the episode, Sultan Süleyman was familiar with the issue, and understanding that the fetva was incorrect, he ordered the viziers to gather the ulema in order to look into it. The ulema of the time got together and seeing that it was invalid, said that it was contrary to the correct books and views of the earlier müftis. The sultan then asked them to sign this opinion and make their decision public. See Lütfiji Paşa, Tevarih-i Al-i Osman. Ed. by Kayhan Atik. Ankara, 2001, 295.

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Akbar.24 In another Hanafiji creed attributed to Abu Hanifa, a text most likely from the 3rd/9th century entitled Wasiyya (Testament), the wiping of the socks comes only in the sixteenth place (out of twenty seven items) on the list of beliefs associated with ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat,25 while it appears as the twelfth item (out of twenty-nine) in the so-called al-Fiqh al-Akbar II, a text from the 10th or 11th century also traditionally attributed to Abu Hanifa.26 As the second distinguishing feature of the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat, İmadü’lİslam states that they are allowed to follow anyone as an imam, whether he is a good or bad person, since “in our school of law (mezheb)” imams are not expected to be infallible or without sin (masum). This is also an argument from the earlier creeds directed against puritanism of the Kharijites; however, here it is clearly aimed at the Shiite belief in the infallibility of the imams.27 Aksarayi further28 specifijies that an imam, however, should have a sufffijicient knowledge of the Quran and be able to lead the community in prayer according to the precepts of the scriptures.29 The article is not featured in the Wasiyya or al-Fiqh al-Akbar I, but it appears in al-Fiqh al-Akbar II as the thirteenth article. Next on İmadü’l-İslam’s list is the precept of “not drawing the sword and rebelling against the ruler, no matter how unjust he is”. Although it is not featured in the earliest Hanafiji creeds mentioned above, this notion appears in the creed of al-Tahawi (d. 933), a Hanafiji scholar from Egypt, as the twentyseventh (out of forty-fijive) item on his list of beliefs associated with the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat, and in the extremely popular creed of Najm al-Din Abu

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For the English translation of the text, see Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 103–104; for the commentary, see 104–124; on the issue of authenticity, see 122–124. For the English translation of the Wasiyya, see ibid., 125–131, for the commentary, see 131–187; on the issue of authenticity, see 185–187. For the translation of this text into English, see ibid., 188–197; for the commentary, see 187–247. More recently, a number of scholars have suggested that this text was authored by Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 373/983), a Transoxanian Hanafiji jurisprudent. For this argument as well as a discussion of manuscript transmission and distribution, and a critical edition of the text in Arabic, see Hans Daiber, The Islamic Concept of Belief in the 4th/10th Century. Tokyo, 1995. In contrast, Ulrich Rudolph argues that Abu al-Layth’s authorship cannot be proven beyond doubt, especially in light of some signifijicant departures in the text from Abu al-Layth’s teachings. Instead, he points to the similarities with the teachings of Ali Pazdawi and dates the text to the 11th century; see his Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand. Translated by Rodrigo Adem. Leiden, 2015, 325–328. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 192. Ibid., 192. İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 20b; see also Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 39.

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Hafs al-Nasafiji (d. 1142) as the twenty-eighth item (out of forty).30 Its singling out in İmadü’l-İslam as the fourth out of six items suggests that the issue of political dissent, exemplifijied at the time by the kızılbaş loyal to the shah, was of paramount importance for the community’s self-defijinition. The following, fijifth item on the list is the correct order of the righteous caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Utman, Ali) and the claim that each one of them had the right to the caliphate and that altogether their caliphate lasted for thirty years. The text then states: “If one prefers Ali over others for the caliphate, he is called a rafızi.”31 However, he explicitly says that those who hate Ali are called havaric (Kharijites). In the Wasiyya, the order of caliphs appears as the tenth item, with a stipulation that anyone who accepts them is God-fearing and anyone who hates them is a hypocrite (munafijik). However, in the Wasiyya, there is no further discussion focusing specifijically on Ali.32 The same is true of al-Fiqh al-Akbar II, where the item is also listed as tenth on the list.33 The fijinal sign of the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat according to İmadü’l-İslam is also polemical and seeks to circumscribe the veneration of the House of the Prophet (ehl-i beyt). It states that among women, Aisha is the most excellent one, above Fatima and all others.34 This statement speaks to the Shiite aversion to Aisha (due to her role in the Battle of the Camel) and claim that Fatima is the most excellent one among women. This article is also featured in the Wasiyya, where it appears as the twenty-sixth, second-to-last attribute.35 As the preceding discussion suggests, all the articles listed in İmadü’l-İslam also appear in older Hanafiji creeds, but are not foregrounded, listed in the same order or grouped together in the same way. What this list does, therefore, is defijine ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat in a way that privileges the burning polemical

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32 33 34 35

For the English translation of al-Tahawi’s and al-Nasafiji’s creeds, see W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds – A Selection. Edinburgh, 1994, 48–56 and 80–85, respectively. It seems that some later copies of the text may have had a further explanation here, adding that some people may prefer Ali not in the sense of the outward caliphate but of the esoteric way based on the prophet’s saying: “I am the city of knowledge and Ali its gate.” The explanation is not present in İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 21a, but it is featured in Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 39. In Rahmi’s version the text does not explicitly say that in this case it is permissible to prefer Ali, but this is implied. In this way later editors seem to have attempted to carve out a circumscribed yet palpable space for the veneration of Ali and the house of the prophet (ehl-i beyt). Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 127–128. Ibid., 192. İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 21a. Interestingly, in Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 40, it is Hadija that is said to be above Fatima and Aisha. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 130.

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issues of the day and those beliefs and practices, among numerous potential items, that directly offfset Sunnis from the Shia. In Birgili’s Vasiyetname concerns with contemporary dissenting groups are a bit more difffijicult to discern, since the fijirst part of the text is modeled more closely on older Hanafiji creeds ‒ in particular the Wasiyya of Abu Hanifa, but also on al-Ghazali’s creed included in the second volume of his Ihya’ Ulum alDin ‒ and contains a more extensive list of items pertaining to ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat. After fijirst discussing the divine attributes, Muhammad’s prophethood, miracles and death; the order of the caliphs and each article of faith, Birgili begins to engage with other issues that pertain to faith (iman) and islam. Among other items, he echoes Aksarayi’s list by mentioning that the wiping of the socks was allowed (caiz) and that it is permissible to follow any believer in prayer, even if he were a grave sinner ( fasik). He also states that it is not permitted to rebel and draw sword against the ruler, no matter how unjust he is. However, Birgili’s list goes on and seemingly does not have a single polemical target. For instance, he adds that funeral prayers have to be performed upon any believer’s death, be he righteous (salih) or a grave sinner; that prayers are useful; that prayers performed upon somebody’s death are useful for the spirit of the deceased, etc. However, in his al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya, a didactic and moralistic work that was very popular with imams, he includes a more detailed heresiography where he explicitly proscribes the Twelver Shias and belief in transmigration of the divine soul through the chain of the twelve imams. He also denounces the Yazidis, Kharajites, Mutazilites, and several other “classical” sects.36 Before Birgili switches his focus in the Vasiyetname to the issues related to practice, he addresses the question of how to defijine one’s mezheb in terms of belief. He writes: “If they say: ‘Which is your way (mezheb) in terms of tenets of belief (itikad)?’ Say: ‘Ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat’.” Then he explains: “In other words, whichever beliefs were followed by the Prophet, his Companions and community, I follow them as well. These beliefs have been enumerated heretofore. And proclaim that ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat way is the correct one, while others are false.” This sentence captures how Ottoman Sunni orthodoxy was articulated, through the selection of particular polemical arguments already existing in the repertoire of the classical akaid texts, foregrounding of select arguments and, if necessary, their slight tweaking in conjunction with the needs of the time, all the while permitting the authors to claim that

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Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law, 149; Imam Birgili, The Path of Muhammad. Interpreted by Tosun Bayrak. Bloomington, IN, 2005, 87–92.

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they were expounding nothing more than the beliefs followed by the prophet himself and his companions.37 It is useful to contrast the defijinitions of ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat in these two popular works authored by individuals who were not directly afffijiliated with the Ottoman government, to Lütfiji Pasha’s views on the same subject in his treatises Tenbih al-Akilin ve Tekid al-Gafijilin (c. 1543) and Hayat-i Ebedi (1546), two in the series of polemical and catechetical works he wrote after he was dismissed from the post of the grand vizier. Lütfiji Pasha states that ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat are people who embrace the following ten virtues: 1. they perform fijive daily prayers with the community 2. they do not believe that one of the prophet’s companions followed the road of mischief and betrayal or mention any one of them with disdain 3. they do not draw the sword against the sultan 4. they do not have doubts in their faith 5. they believe that everything that is good and lawful is owing to God 6. they do not bring fijight or dispute into the places of worship 7. they do not denounce anyone among the people believing in oneness of God (tevhid) as unbelievers (that is, they do not engage in tekfijir) 8. they do not reject the prayers of anyone who prays to Mecca 9. they believe that moistening of the socks is permitted 10. they follow in prayer any individual regardless of whether he is righteous or sinful.38 Items 3, 9, and 10 appear in Aksarayi’s and Birgili’s lists, as well as in the older Hanafiji creeds, where, as we already saw, they typically fijigure as a response to the Shia (and in some cases also Kharijites). Item 2 can also be taken as a restatement of the argument about the fijirst four caliphs all deserving the caliphate and respect. However, the wording here brings to mind the abovementioned ritual cursing of Uthman, Abu Bakr and Umar practiced in contemporary Safavid realm. Item 7 deals with the issue of tekfijir ‒ denouncing other Muslims as unbelievers ‒ which was traditionally associated with the Kharajites; however, in his own defijinition of the rafızis, Lütfiji Pasha writes that they pronounce tekfijir on all caliphs before Ali.39 Rafızis can also be seen as the 37 38 39

On this discursive process of establishing orthodoxy in creeds, see also Calder, ‘The Limitsʼ, 222–224. Tenbih al-Akilin ve Tekid al-Gafijilin, Millet Kütüphanesi, Ali Emiri 257, 52a; Hayat-i Ebedi, ibid., 6a. Hayat-i Ebedi, ibid., 6b. The Shia appears as a separate category within the larger rafızi group. For them Lütfiji Pasha says that they are from the group of Ali (Hazret-i Ali bölüğinden) and that they believe that Ali was the imam after the prophet, that imamate is passed on through Ali and his descendants, and that it is their right. He concludes the entry in

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target of item 8, since it was believed that Safavids were trying to change the direction of prayer and pilgrimage (kible) to Ardabil.40 Item 6 may be referring to the destruction and desecration of graves of the prominent Sunni jurists and individuals, such as those of Abu Hanifa (which was adjacent to a mosque and a madrasa) and Abd al-Kadir al-Gilani upon the Safavid conquest of Baghdad in 1508.41 As we can see, compared to Aksarayi’s and Birgili’s creeds, Lütfiji Pasha’s defijinition of the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat is much more explicitly informed by the contemporary religio-political challenges faced by the Ottoman Sunni community at the time of his writing. It is also more aligned with the views of the contemporary ulema integrated into the Ottoman state administration, as expressed in the fetava issued against the kızılbaş by şeyhülislams of the fijirst half of the 16th century, Kemalpaşazade and Ebussuud, as well as in various polemical treatises.42 The phrasing of his key items, while within the general spirit of the classical Hanafiji creeds, departs from them in terms of singling out particular aspects of the more general issues according to the specifijic historical context. This brings us to the remaining items on Lütfiji Pasha’s list, which are also typically not found in older creeds. He sees fijive daily prayers performed with the community as the primary distinguishing mark of the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat. In this respect, too, Lütfiji Pasha echoes contemporary state policies. As Gülrü Necipoğlu has shown, starting in the late 1530s, Sultan Süleyman’s administration made the performance of the fijive daily congregational prayers and the availability of communal prayer spaces the corner stone of their strategy for creating an empire-wide community of believers which Süleyman would lead as the caliph.43 All Islamic jurists traditionally delegated the enforcement of the rights of God to the state, but as recent research suggests, reinterpretation of the moral limits of the sultanate and sultanic law during Süleyman’s reign gave the state new claims to enforcing the divine law. In recent years scholars like Reem Meshal, Guy Burak and Shahab Ahmed have suggested that we should revise our understanding of the sultan as a secular fijigure and sultanic law (or kanun) as secular law. To quote Ahmed,

40 41 42 43

the same way he concludes every entry on the seventy-two sects of ehl-i heva ve bidat (people of fancy and innovation), namely, “crushed with these beliefs and these words, they are destroyed (bu itikadlarıyla ve bu sözleriyle ezüp helak oldılar)”; see 13b–14a. On the issue of qibla in the context of Ottoman anti-Safavid polemics, see Eberhardt, Osmanische Polemik, 101–104. Ibid., 110–111. For a detailed analysis of the tropes found in the fetava and in other 16th-century anti-Safavid polemical treatises, ibid., 71–116. Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 48.

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“Sultanate represents a (re-) ordering of the world in terms of Islam in which the religious-secular distinction is not present. There is no indication that these rulers regard themselves as acting in a separate domain of ‘secular’ values, or that they, or anyone else, recognized the operation of two separately constituted domains of truth or of value”.44 Indeed, these scholars have challenged the heretofore-prevalent notion that what transpired in Süleyman’s reign can be described as “harmonization of kanun and şeriat”, whereby the subordination of kanun to şeriat (or fıkıh, the jurists’ law) is implied. Reem Meshal has argued that a “measure of alignment between Islamic jurisprudence and state legislation took place, but on the latter’s terms”.45 The ultimate illustration of this, as Guy Burak has argued, was the Ottoman state’s ability to promote the Hanafiji school of law (mezhep) into the state school of law ‒ a development unprecedented in Islamic history ‒ which he historicizes in the context of the new “political cosmologies” of the postMongol period that led to the new and heretofore poorly studied perceptions of Islamic law.46 By combining various Islamic discourses, jurists afffijiliated with the Ottoman state, like Ebussuud and Kınalızade, recast the sultan as a caliph and imam with a claim to universal sovereignty derived from his ability to rule with justice and equity.47 In addition to justice and enforcement of the divine law within the community of believers, this bid for sultan’s universal sovereignty also had a strong messianic undercurrent of moral renewal (tecdid). Consequently, enforcement of the correct and regular performance of the acts of worship in a communal setting and greater attention to public morality became a key feature of the imperial policy. The boom in the building of the neighborhood mescids, many of which were funded by artisans, suggests that this imperial strategy ‒ which is visible in the numerous fetava of Şeyhülislam Ebussuud ‒ was indeed embraced by the wider urban middle-class population.48 Further evidence of this increased emphasis on and attention to performance of prayer (salat, namaz) is also reflected in the contemporary catechetical literature, which begins to focus in great detail on the regulations for performing acts of worship (ibadet) and all the possible things that might invalidate one’s ritual ablutions (abdest) and prayers.49 In 44 45 46 47 48 49

Ahmed, What Is Islam, 223. Reem A. Meshal, Sharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian-Islamic Law and Custom in the Courts of Ottoman Cairo. Cairo, New York, 2014, 63. Burak, ‘The Second Formationʼ, 581. On this issue, see Meshal, Sharia, 41–68; Ahmed, What is Islam, 473. Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 48. Progressively greater emphasis on salat will culminate by the early 17th century in the ubiquitous copies of prayer handbooks under the generic title of Kitabü’s-Salat.

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the context of the Ottoman catechetical literature and its evolution during Süleyman’s era, one corollary of this attention to the performance of the acts of worship in general and prayer in particular, which were regulated by Islamic law, was the new prominence of jurisprudential ( fıkıh) sources and approaches to belief and worship at the cost of other “hermeneutical resources” of Islam, as Ahmad terms them, that were heretofore prominent, such as Sufijism. The inclusion of detailed fıkıh regulations on acts of worship in combination with the articles of faith (iman) is also what distinguishes Ottoman ilmihal literature from the major medieval Hanafiji akaid texts, which tended to focus on elements of communal creed without reference to law.50 By including references to legal stipulations on both faith and worship, Ottoman authors of religious primers moved discursively closer to setting the boundaries of orthodoxy than their medieval colleagues, and also appear to have produced a new genre that reflected distinctly Ottoman approach to religious education. When we think of the prominence of law during Süleyman’s reign, we mostly have in mind what scholars of Islamic law usually translate as “transactional law” or “laws regulating legal acts between people” (muamelat), such as marriage, divorce, emancipation, commercial exchange and unilateral legal acts. Rarely do we speak of the other equally integral sphere of fıkıh, the laws regulating the acts of worship (ibadat), which is often ignored by western historians because it pertains to ethical dimensions of fıkıh and is not a legal subject matter according to the western legal tradition.51 The rise in the social stature of the ulema in the late 15th and early 16th century was not due exclusively to their expertise in transactional law necessary for running a bureaucratic state, but also in the laws regulating worship, which was central to communal purity of which the state saw itself in charge. However, sources suggest that during the 16th century fıkıh as a discourse was not considered an exclusive property of the ulema. It looks like many individuals who did not necessarily have a medrese education embarked on production of works drawing extensively on fıkıh literature, especially in reference to the acts of worship. For instance, Lütfiji Pasha, who was educated in the palace, was one of them, and in the catechetical works he produced he relied almost exclusively on the legal sources and presented himself as the facilitator of the popular access to the jurists’ law in Turkish. Similarly, Abdurrahman b. Yusuf Aksarayi wrote in his sebeb-i telif (reasons for composing the work) that for a long time he had 50

51

On the point, see Calder, ‘The Limitsʼ, 225. As Calder points out, while the books of law contained expressions of creed, creeds did not contain references to law, which he, in turn, interprets as the limits of the genre of creed to establish the boundaries of orthodoxy. Baber Johansen, Contingency in Islamic Law – Legal and Ethical Norms in the Muslim Fiqh. Leiden, Boston, Köln, 1998, 34.

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intended to write a treatise based on the hadith stating that Islam was founded upon fijive pillars, which would explain all the elements of worship and be used like Abu Layth al-Samarqandi’s Mukkadimatu’s-Salat. However, then he came across Mevlana Abdulaziz’s Umdet al-Islam, which was based on sixty-fijive well-known books of the Hanafiji school of law, but was written in Persian. In light of the fact that a book in Persian was not of use to many people in Rum, he decided to translate it into Turkish.52 In the conclusion, he styles his book as ahkam-i şeriyye kitaplardan and says that its aim was to make these legal precepts known to the people, since books intended to make people aware of the laws should be written in people’s language, just as müftis write their fetvas in Turkish and kadıs pronounce their decisions in Turkish.53 For Aksarayi, therefore, the legal culture established as part of the Ottoman imperial project by the 1540s and its comprehensibility to the general public was of paramount importance for justifying his own work, which he styles as a contribution to the public knowledge of law. Similarly, in his Tuhfetü’t-Talibin (951/1544–1545), which he dedicates to Sultan Süleyman, Lütfiji Pasha embarks on a work that would summarize the precepts of fıkıh related to belief and worship by citing the hadith saying that things should be explained to people so that they can understand them in their own language, reminding the reader that the jurists (müfti), teachers (müderris), hadith expounders (muhaddis), and preachers (vaiz) all delivered their teachings and opinions in Turkish.54 Aksarayî and Lütfiji Pasha were certainly not the only ones wanting to make aspects of fıkıh available to the general population. In her study of the court records of Aintab in 1540–1541, Leslie Peirce poses the question of popular legal knowledge and the extent to which it shaped people’s strategies at the court. She remarks that it was likely not a coincidence that in one of the cases she analyzes the woman ran crying to precisely the number of witnesses necessary to establish her claim of rape.55 It appears that in various ways the communication of legal precepts to the general population was on the rise together with a growing number of neighborhood houses of prayer (mescid) and imams responsible for their congregants in the eyes of the state. This development is well captured in Birgili’s defijinition of ilmihal ‒ a term that he uses in both Vasiyetname and his other popular didactic work, 52 53 54

55

İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 7a–b; see also Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 8–9. İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 316b; Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 623. Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Fatih 1507. The theme of language and his intention to facilitate students’ and common people’s access to legal precepts is discussed from 2a to 3a, but for the specifijic comment on ulema writing in Turkish, see 3a. Leslie P. Peirce, Morality Tales ‒ Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab. Berkley, Los Angeles, 2003, 105–106.

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al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya. As Katharina Ivanyi points out, Birgili understood ilmihal to denote the knowledge “about what a given situation demands of [a man] in terms of the law, whatever situation he may be in. Since he must pray, it is incumbent upon him to know what it entails exactly [that is, in terms of postures, movements, words, etc.], to the extent that this helps him carry out the duty of prayer. … And likewise with fasting and almsgiving, if he has money, and the pilgrimage, if it is incumbent upon him; and likewise in buying and selling, if he works as a merchant. … And everybody who works in the trades and crafts has to know how to guard himself against that which is unlawful in his dealings.” Ivanyi also remarks that Birgili at some points seems to equate ilm al-fijiqh with ilm al-hal.56 It is important, in this context, that most ilmihals from Süleyman’s reign make an explicit allegiance to the Hanafiji legal school, an integral part of the new confessional template that was emerging. For instance, Cevahirü’l-İslam, which will become one of the most popular Ottoman ilmihals by the mid-17th century due to its question-and-answer format, progressively classifijies a believer’s belonging in this way, as does Lüfti Pasha’s Risale-i Sual ve Cevap:57 If they ask: Whose offfspring (zürriyet) are you? Answer: I am the offfspring of the Prophet Adam. If they ask: Of whose religion (millet) are you? Answer: I am of the Prophet Abraham’s religion. If they ask you: Of whose community (ümmet) are you? Answer: I am of the Prophet Muhammad’s community. If they ask you: Whose way (mezheb) do you follow? Answer: I follow the Great Imam Abu Hanifa’s way. A similar hypothetical interrogation, which may be inspired by the questions the angels Münker and Nekir would ask of each believer upon death, also fijigures in Birgili’s Vasiyetname which emphasizes that, when asked, one should

56 57

Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law, 183–184. In the Vasiyetname Birgili refers to “compulsory knowledge that constitutes ilmihal ( farz-i ayn olan ilimleri ki ilmihaldur)”: Vasiyyetname, 118. Risale-i Sual ve Cevap, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Kılıç Ali Paşa 378, 64b–73b (internal folio pagination 71b–79b); Cevahirü’l-İslam, Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek A. F. 437 (282), 22a–28b. On the complicated and intertwined history of Cevahirü’l-İslam and Lütfiji Pasha’s Risale-i Sual ve Cevap, see Tijana Krstić, ‘From Shahâda to ‘Aqîda: Conversion to Islam, Catechization, and Sunnitization in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Rumeliʼ, in Andrew C. S. Peacock (ed.), Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History. Edinburgh, 2017, 296–314.

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declare oneself as a follower of the ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat way (mezheb) in terms of beliefs (itikad), while If they say: Which is your way in terms of practice of worship (amel), say “Imam Abu Hanifa’s”. However, do not say: “Abu Hanifa’s way is the correct one and others are false. Say, perhaps, “Abu Hanifa’s way is the correct one (doğru), but there is a possibility of its erring as well”.58 This explicit declaration of one’s mezheb, although it appears in passing in earlier Ottoman ilmihals, becomes particularly prominently featured in the texts from Süleyman’s era, and appears to be related to the progressive institutionalization of the Hanafiji mezheb as the state school of law. While that may indeed be the case, it would be wrong to assume that all the ilmihal writers’ ‒ especially Birgili’s ‒ quest for piety and morality rooted in the knowledge of legal precepts was identical to that of the Ottoman state establishment. On the contrary, Birgili’s didactic opus seems to rather illustrate the extent to which the legal discourse became the arena for debating and making moral claims as to who the real custodians of the Sunna and the Community as well as of the Hanefiji school of law are. A major focus of Birgili’s criticism in his al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya, for instance, is sanctimony (riya) or seeking approval of others by feigning devoutedness or publicizing one’s good deeds.59 In this context, he is particularly concerned with sanctimony in the performance of the ritual acts, or in pursuit of power and leadership, especially among the men of religion (ehl-i din). While the issue of intention and sincerity in worship was central to the legal tradition up to Birgili’s time (especially in Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi’s work, by which Birgili was very influenced), one cannot help but feel the currency of his concerns when he speaks of “the self-righteous and exaggerated display of concern for ritual purity”, “making a show of one’s worship”, “feigning a posture of humility”, attending religious gatherings whereas one would normally not do it, or praying only in public but not in private.60 It is not hard to surmise that the state’s attempt to promote the moral edifijication of the society by emphasizing ritual worship created conditions in which various individuals could be perceived as trying to outdo others in public displays of piety, possibly in pursuit of worldly goals. Birgili is particularly critical of sanctimony among religious scholars who “no longer act 58

59 60

Vasiyyetname, 107. Birgili later goes on to explain the history of diffferent schools of law and points out that their disagreements (ihtilaf ) on issues of practice (but not belief!) transpired with God’s permission and that they do not pose a harm (ibid., 108–109). Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law, 190–191. Ibid., 215.

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in accordance with what they know [to be right]”, but sacrifijice this knowledge and right intention by endorsing illegal practices in pursuit of positions. This is not a very veiled stab at the state-afffijiliated ulema like Ebussuud Efendi, with whom Birgili had a well-publicized feud over the legal validity of the cash wakfs ‒ an issue that he also discusses in al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya.61 Like many of his jurist colleagues in Ottoman Syria and Egypt, Birgili did not condone what he saw as unwarranted encroachments of kanun upon şeriat (especially in terms of land ownership and tenure laws) during Süleyman’s reign, and represented those members of the Ottoman ulema ranks who were not ready to condone the state’s interference into determining which from the range of legal opinions from the Hanafiji tradition, and beyond, will become the legal orthodoxy of the empire.62

Iman ‒ Personal Dimensions of Belief Now that we got some sense of how communal beliefs were framed in the sources under discussion, it is important to examine how they approached the issue of faith (iman). All the texts in question discuss the divine attributes and the articles of faith fijirst, before getting to the discussion of the acts of worship, which are sometimes followed by other topics as well. When it comes to the articles of faith, the authors agree that faith consists of belief in one God, in his angels, books, prophets, the Day of Judgment and the divine predetermination of all things, but there are variations in the method of presentation. Lütfiji Pasha, for instance, seems to be most concerned of all authors with the individual believers’ process of learning, so he repeatedly insists in his works that faith consists of six key beliefs, which he carefully itemizes for easier memorization and repeats often throughout his catechetical works, with his Risale-i Sual ve Cevap being the epitome of simplicity and conciseness of presentation of basic compulsory knowledge.63 Easy learning experience also seems to be central to the anonymous Cevahirü’l-İslam, which teaches through answers and questions the divine attributes and the six articles of faith and their underlying proofs, before turning to the performance of the acts of worship.64 Aksarayi also provides a concise summary (hulasa) of what iman is,65 while Birgili discusses the six articles of faith and their sub-items

61 62 63 64 65

Ibid. On this issue, see particularly Burak, ‘The Second Formationʼ and ‘Faith, Law and Empireʼ. Risale-i Sual ve Cevap, Kılıç Ali Paşa 378, internal folio pagination 73b. Cevahirü’l-İslam, Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek A. F. 437 (282), 22a–28b. İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 22 a; Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 43.

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together, without providing a pithy summary.66 Unlike in the case of communal beliefs, where we see variations, the authors are unanimous on the list of beliefs upon which one’s personal faith should be based, as well as in afffijirmation that faith should be articulated by the tongue and rooted in the heart. At the same time, however, they seem to disagree over how detailed one’s knowledge of faith should be, which is a topic that merits a separate discussion.67 Aksarayi, Lütfiji Pasha and Birgili all agree that basic knowledge of faith had to be coupled with the knowledge of laws of worship and a rigorous regime of introspection (nefijisni tanımak) in order to proceed on the path to piety, although they do not put the same emphasis on this point. While Birgili seems to take his contemporaries’ knowledge of faith more for granted than Aksarayi and Lütfiji Pasha, he puts greater emphasis on actions and deeds as a reflection of one’s piety in everyday life. As Ivanyi explains, for Birgili, piety (takva) denoted guarding oneself from everything that might harm you in the Hereafter. In legal terms, it denoted guarding one’s soul by active commission or omission of certain acts.68 Scrutinizing one’s behavior and speech was central to maintaining one’s virtue and piety in everyday life, and in both Vasiyetname and al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya he details “evils” of various parts of body that might lead to smaller or greater sins. Birgili’s conceptualization of piety as guarding oneself from sin thus breeds a much more defensive kind of a Muslim believer, fearful lest anything he or she does might lead to unbelief. In order to preserve oneself from lapsing into küfr unknowingly, Birgili suggests renewing one’s faith every day by saying “O, God, if I uttered a blasphemy or made a mistake, I repented and returned to faith by re-entering Islam. I believe that everything that Hazret-i Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) brought from you is correct. And I believe upon God’s wish in everything that came from God. And upon the wish of the prophets, I believe in everything that came to them and from them”.69 Aksarayi and Lütfiji Pasha also advise believers to say prayers that are supposed to protect one against unbelief.70 While Lütfiji Pasha and Aksarayi do not go into such details on sins potentially committed by various parts of the body, all texts under discussion devote considerable space to evils of the tongue or blasphemous utterances 66 67

68 69 70

Vasiyyetname, 95–104. Authors discuss various categories of faith, such as iman-i icmali (the summary faith) as opposed to iman-i tafsili (the detailed faith). I will address this subject in a separate article on the discussion of belief and unbelief in Ottoman ilmihals from the 16th and 17th centuries. Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law, 153. Vasiyyetname, 114. Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 41; Hayat-i Ebedi, 16b.

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(elfaz-i küfr), accidental or intentional.71 Here again the encroachment of fıkıh on the genre of ilmihal becomes clear, as elfaz-i küfr was typically a section in the fetva collections. By bringing this section into the structure of the ilmihal, something that seems to be an innovation of the Süleymanic period,72 the authors explicitly circumscribed the fijield of piety for Ottoman Muslims by erecting ever more numerous signposts beyond which the domain of infijidelity began, while at the same time promoting fıkıh and its practitioners as the ultimate arbiters of the boundaries of belief. By cataloguing myriad ways in which believers could become unbelievers (kafijir), Ottoman Hanafiji ilmihals display exactly the opposite spirit from the early Hanafiji akaid literature that is concerned with a positive defijinition of faith and insists that even committing a grave sin does not make one an infijidel, unless he or she proclaims it lawful ‒ paradoxically, this is also something that Birgili himself insists upon in the fijirst part of his Vasiyetname, giving rise to a curious tension at the core of his text.73 Many of the listed “signposts” had nothing to do with mistakes in belief or worship per se, but condemned as unbelief joking or offf-hand remarks or swearing that made light of the boundaries between belief and infijidelity (such as “I was so enraged that I wished I would become an unbeliever…”, an utterance that would turn the speaker into an unbeliever; or if a husband called out to his wife “Hey, unbeliever!” and she responds in anger “So I am!”, she would be lapsing into infijidelity).74 Furthermore, many of the utterances deemed blasphemous appear to aim at the preservation of the social hierarchy in which it is tantamount to küfr to offfend or disrespect mütfijis, kadıs, and imams or learning (ilm) that was the basis of their social distinction.75 The subject of blasphemous utterances was particularly developed in the Hanafiji legal tradition. According to a recent study, Hanafijis considered blasphemous utterances as violations against the rights of God, and by extension, as violations against public good and notions of Islamic propriety, which were, in turn, culturally and historically contingent.76 Given the new attention to 71

72

73 74 75 76

For Birgili’s discussion of sins committed by various parts of the body, see Vasiyyetname, 112–113; for elfaz-i küfr: 114–118; for Aksarayi’s, see İBB OE Ms. No. 9, 29a–33a; Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 55–70; for Lütfiji Pasha’s, see Hayat-i Ebedi, 15a–53b. For instance, in his Mukaddime, İzniki omits the details on elfaz-i küfr, saying that those interested can take a look at the relevant chapter of the fetva collections. Kutbe’d-din İzniki, Mukaddime (Giriş–İnceleme–Metin–Sözlük). Ed. by Kerime Üstunova. Bursa, 2003, 154. See his discussion of sins in Vasiyyetname, 105. For both examples, see Aksarayi’s section on blasphemous utterances in Rahmi, Büyük İslam İlmihali, 59. See also Burak, ‘Faith, Law and Empireʼ, 7–8. For an insightful discussion on this topic, see Intisar A. Rabb, ‘Society and Propriety: The Cultural Construction of Defamation and Blasphemy as Crimes in Islamic Lawʼ, in Camilla

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purity and moral integrity of the community of believers in Süleyman’s era, it is not difffijicult to see why blasphemous utterances begin to receive so much attention in the catechetical literature of the time. According to the ilmihals and the fetva collections they were drawing upon, anyone making a blasphemous utterance voided his or her previous acts of worship and their marriage became automatically invalid, triggering the necessity of the renewal of faith and marriage (tecdid-i iman ve nikah) in order to re-enter the community of believers. In his recent study of this phenomenon from the perspective of the Ottoman fetva literature, Guy Burak has suggested that Ottoman jurists departed from their medieval colleagues’ understanding of faith and elaborated a state of temporary excommunication from which a believer could return into the community upon pronouncing shahada and renewing his or her marriage.77 This procedure presumably had to be done at the court of law and thus not only promoted imperial courts as the sites at which one’s faith was “certifijied”, but also state-afffijiliated müftis and kadıs as the certifijiers. The reasons for and timing of the invention of this juridic device, which became fully elaborated in the Ottoman fetvas of the 16th and 17th centuries but appears to stem from earlier legal compendia of Transoxanian provenance, await a more detailed study. However, as Burak and Reem Meshal have both pointed out, this stratagem of the Hanafiji jurists afffijiliated with the Ottoman government was rejected by non-state Hanafiji and other jurists, especially in Syria and Egypt, who interpreted it as practicing takfijir against other Muslims ‒ a notion they deemed in contravention of the tradition (Sunna).78 İlmihals from Süleyman’s era thus bear witness to the process of negotiation of what Sunna was not only vis-à-vis dissenting groups such as rafızis or the Shia, but also vis-à-vis other Sunni communities with diffferent relationships with the Ottoman government.

Conclusion When we return to the questions from the beginning of the paper in light of this discussion, what conclusions can we draw? While scholars continue to acknowledge that the notion of “orthodoxy” is relevant to Islamic tradition, they emphasize that it is a discursive process diffferent from articulation of

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Adang, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.). Accusations of Unbelief in Islam. Leiden, Boston, 2016, 434–464. Burak, ‘Faith, Law and Empireʼ, 4–11. Ibid., 11–13; Meshal, Sharia, 79–83.

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orthodoxy in the Christian (especially Latin) tradition, due to the absence of an ecclesiastical authority with a mandate to defijine correct belief, the fundamentally pluralistic nature of the Islamic law, and multiple hermeneutic paths for reaching the Truth. As Norman Calder pointed out, Muslims are always engaged in the process of reinterpreting their own past and their tradition depending on day-to-day experiences of the community; as a consequence, each articulation of the communal creed and attempt to set the limits of orthodoxy, no matter how influential, will not be fijinal.79 Talal Asad, on the other hand, has argued that “orthodoxy is not a mere body of opinion but a distinctive relationship‒relationship of power”.80 More recently, Shahab Ahmed, while disputing Asad’s contention that “orthodoxy is crucial to all Islamic traditions”, agreed that attending to social and discursive locations of power is central to the notion of orthodoxy.81 When we conceive of orthodoxy as a historically-contingent discursive process informed by particular relations of power, the grounds for characterizing the developments in the Ottoman Empire in Süleyman’s long reign as “orthodoxizing” become clearer as we see attempts to limit pluralities characteristic of Islam on several conceptual levels. First, we have a desire on the part of the state and the ulema afffijiliated with the state to defijine the boundaries of the Sunni community and its beliefs and practices, backed by the social authority and power to impose legal sanctions on dissenters.82 When it comes to plurality of Islamic law, by making the Hanafiji mezheb the state school of law, and even prioritizing certain opinions within the range of the Hanafiji tradition, the Ottoman state and its chief jurists attempted to circumscribe the plurality that was a traditional feature of Islamic law. Research so far has focused on the decisions of the chief Ottoman jurisprudents as the primary evidence of this initiative; however, 16th-century ilmihals discussed here allow us to understand how various individuals with or without ties to 79 80 81 82

Calder, ‘The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxyʼ, 224. Talal Asad, ‘The Idea of an Anthropology of Islamʼ, in Occasional Papers Series, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Washington, D.C., 1986, 15. Ahmed, What Is Islam, 273–274. Shahab Ahmed has recently argued that “Those commitments and practices which are answerable to the demands of the ʿulamā’/‘religious experts’ – who render Muslim subjects answerable to them (that is, to both norms and ʿulamā’) by acting for/through the state by instruments of legal sanction – is orthodoxy, the social existence of which requires the authority to impose sanction on dissenters, but does not require ‘ecclesiastical authority’ per se.” He also wrote that “the intervention to disqualify is, of course, an intervention to establish orthodoxy – that is, the staking of a claim to the authority exclusively to answer the question ‘What is Islam’ – which is, in turn, contingent upon (a) a desire to establish orthodoxy, and (b) the possession of the social authority to establish orthodoxy.” See Ahmed, What Is Islam, 297 and 270, respectively.

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the state engaged with these orthodoxizing initiatives and elaborated them in normative texts designed for a wide public consumption. If the concept of “orthodoxy” can be said to be relevant to the Ottoman context, the situation is less clear-cut with the notion of “confession”. In a recent magisterial study of Christian creeds and confessions of faith, Jaroslav Pelikan pointed to the difffijiculty of defijining either notion or distinguishing between them, arguing that adequate understanding arises only after studying numerous examples of such texts in a historical perspective. He provisionally defijined “confession of faith” as “a formal statement of religious beliefs” and argued that it was only in the 16th century, with the advent of the Reformation, that it established itself as a theological and literary form distinct from creed (which he defijined as “a brief authoritative formula of religious belief”).83 Early modern Christian confessions tended to be subdivided into chapters and articles and tended to combine expository and polemical passages, seeking to delineate the boundaries of a confessional community in terms of both teachings and practices, with special attention to moral issues. In this respect, the Augsburg Confession (1530), a statement of Lutheran beliefs drafted by Philipp Melanchthon, does not greatly difffer in type of content and issues it covers from Birgili’s Vasiyetname, but the two texts emerged in diffferent social contexts and acquired diffferent type of authority, which in turn goes back to the fact that the notion of orthodoxy is negotiated diffferently in Christian and Muslim contexts. While the fijirst text was formally proclaimed soon after its publication as the offfijicial confession of faith of Lutheran communities everywhere, manuscript evidence from the major Ottoman collections suggests that the second text gradually and spontaneously won communal endorsement by the mid-17th century as the most popular statement of Sunni beliefs ‒ one of many ‒ among Turkish-speaking Muslims. Establishment of a Lutheran confessional identity was not an event but a process, which resulted in further texts explaining, defending, and supplementing the Augsburg Confession (including Luther’s Small and Large Catechism, his booklets on marriage and baptism, etc.), which were compiled in 1580 in the Book of Concord that constitutes the defijinitive, offfijicially authorized collection of Lutheran confessional writings. In contrast, while study of the content of numerous Ottoman miscellanies suggests that a canon of Ottoman Turkish Sunni confessional literature eventually emerged, consisting of Birgili’s Vasiyetname, Ahmet Rumi Efendi’s (d. 1631?) Risale-i Rumi, which is also a statement of Sunni beliefs closely modeled on the Vasiyetname, Kadızade’s (d. 1635) Risale-i Salat 83

Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo – Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. New Haven, London, 2003, 2 and 458, respectively.

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(which focuses specifijically on the performance of prayer), and the anonymous Cevahirü’l-İslam (which is a catechism in question-and-answer format), it was again through a spontaneous process of communal selection and endorsement. So, while the notion of “confession” in the sense of a “statement of religious beliefs” is certainly relevant to the 16th-century Ottoman context, these texts were neither authoritative nor constitutive of the community in the same sense as in contemporary Lutheran contexts, even if most Lutherans were not necessarily intimately familiar with the fijiner theological points expounded in the Augsburg Confession and other confessional texts. But does that automatically mean that we cannot speak of confessionalism or confessionalization in the Ottoman context, in the sense of “creating fijixed identities and systems of belief for separate [religious groups] which had previously been more fluid in their self-understanding, and which had not even sought separate identities for themselves”?84 Wietse de Boer in his study of the Milanese Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, one of the foremost champions of the postTridentine Catholic Reformation, defijines “Catholic confessionalism” as “the attempt to shape a disciplined, devout and loyal Christian community able to withstand the perceived threats of a religiously and politically divided world”. He describes the main feature of this “project” as “orthodoxy, a code of public conduct, a general penitential ethos” and its methods as a “disciplinary turn in pastoral services, particularly confession”.85 Central to these effforts at Catholic confessionalism was a package of normative texts, catechisms, seeking to explain facets of orthodoxy. While we cannot speak of a uniformly worded and universally-sanctioned text of a Sunni confession, as we saw above, ilmihals in Turkish from Süleyman’s era did promote a particular state-and-ulema-endorsed doctrinal template that expected the believers to identify themselves as the followers of the “only true” way in terms of belief, that of ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat, which was in turn defijined primarily in contrast to the Shia/kızılbaş/rafızis, as well as the followers of the Hanafiji way in terms of practice. Furthermore, these texts contained didactic, polemical, moral and disciplinary codes, and sought to create a devout, disciplined and loyal Muslim community able to “withstand the perceived threats of a religiously and politically divided world”. Of course, one should be very careful not to overestimate the impact of the normative texts such as fetvas and ilmihals, and confuse wishes of particular power structures for control over their subjects’ piety with social realities. We know that there existed many groups throughout the empire that did not fijit the confessional template promoted by these sources. First of all, by the virtue 84 85

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. New York, 2009, 639. Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul. Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2001, 3.

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of their being in Turkish, these texts catered to a particular group of Ottoman Sunnis, Turkish-speaking Muslims who hailed mostly from the Balkans and Anatolia and were known to other early modern Muslims as Rumis, while they were not necessarily acceptable to other Arabic-, Kurdish-, and Persianspeaking Sunnis in the territories ruled by Ottomans (and beyond), many of whom were followers of other legal mezhebs. Furthermore, scholars criticizing the notion of “Sunnitization” have pointed to the absence of persecution of the empire’s Shia population in Mt Lebanon, for instance, and inconsistencies in the persecution even of the kızılbaş groups in various parts of the empire.86 However, as we have seen, persecution and punishment were hardly the only aspects of “Sunnitization” and state its only enforcer. Various members of the ulema and individuals able to comprehend legal texts had vested interests, sometimes in reaction to the state’s exclusive claims, in determining the boundaries of the (legal) tradition and ehl-i sünnet ve cemaat. Elements from the legal discourse at the highest level, such as increased attention to outward signs of unbelief reflected in some fetvas and risales, appear in a more basic form in both ilmihals and popular epics that discuss not only rafızis’ headgear but also eating, drinking and personal grooming habits, suggesting a rising awareness of various forms of alterity.87 People engaged with this alterity and the discourse of the new social, legal, and political orthodoxy in everyday life. As 16th-century court records from Üsküdar and Aintab illustrate, one could denounce as kızılbaş individuals who may have irritated other members of the community by their non-normative behavior or posed some sort of competition.88 So, even in the absence of the overt persecution by the state, social mechanisms of compliance informed by the confessional template were 86

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For instance, see Stefan Winter, The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788. New York, 2010; Idem, A Secular History of the ‘Alawis: From Medieval Aleppo to the Turkish Republic, 947 to 1936. New Jersey, 2016; Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, ‘The Formation of Kızılbaş Communities’. For the discussion of headgear and wine-drinking in fetava, see Eberhard, Osmanische Polemik; for risales, see al-Tikriti, ‘Kalam in the Service of the State’. It was apparently well-known among Anatolian population that “rafızis” do not eat rabbit meat (giving rise to a nickname tavşan yemezler), and in some texts we fijind references to this being used as a test for establishing whether or not particular individuals or groups are rafızi/kızılbaş. Such reference exists already in Ibn Battuta’s travelogue (Mehmed F. Köprülü, Early Mystics in Turkish Literature. Translated by G. Leiser and R. Dankofff. New York, 2006, 233), but also appears in various popular Ottoman texts. For Üsküdar, see Bilgin Aydın and Ekrem Tak (eds.), İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri: Üsküdar Mahkemesi 1 Numaralı Sicil (H.919–927/M.1513–1521). İstanbul, 2008, Nos. 47, 201, 203; Rıfat Günalan (ed.), İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri: Üsküdar Mahkemesi 2 Numaralı Sicil (H.924– 927/M.1518–1521). İstanbul, 2010, No. 139; İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri: Üsküdar Mahkemesi 3 Numaralı Sicil. İstanbul, 2008, No. 1020, etc.; for Aintab see Peirce, Morality Tales, 251–350.

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available to individuals and communities in various parts of the Ottoman realm to enforce or reject. By emphasizing correctness in performance of prayer and worship in general, and promoting a particular code of public morality, the Ottoman administration of Süleyman’s era, particularly starting in the 1540s, created a framework in which the legal discourse became the privileged hermeneutic resource for defijining what Islam is, which is reflected in the contemporary ilmihals. Unlike earlier catechetical texts, like İzniki’s Mukaddime (c. 1418), where the author consistently emphasizes the plurality of paths leading to the Truth in Islam, and seeks to achieve a synthesis by carefully balancing esoteric (batın) and exoteric (zahir) ways and references to Sufiji and fıkıh authors, there are few explicit references to Sufiji sources in these 16th-century ilmihals. While some of the authors (particularly Birgili) had a complicated personal history with Sufijism, Sufiji influences are for the most part sublimated and integrated as expressions of ethical conduct and self-improvement and only the exoteric path is elaborated.89 This is not to say, however, that Sufijism, ahlak, edeb, kelam and felsefe ceased to be forces in the education and formation of Ottoman Muslims. On the contrary, manuscript evidence suggests that during the 16th century Sufiji and ahlak texts played a prominent role in religious education, much more so than the ilmihals, with the latter gaining more importance in the 17th century.90 However, we seem to be witnessing the emergence of a particular dynamic whereby public displays of piety were increasingly judged as Islamic (or not) based on fıkıh precepts, while other paths to the Truth could be explored within spaces designated for such purpose (tekkes, 89

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This tendency, which will become even stronger in the 17th century, afffected Sufijis as well. Ahmad captures this dynamic well in his description of the conceptual undertaking of the Indian Nakshbandi Sufiji Ahmad al-Faruqi al-Sirhindi (1564–1624). He writes that: “Sirhindi sought to domesticate unbounded Sufiji experience of the Unseen within the parameters of legal regulation of the Seen (producing a Sufijism that subordinates its epistemological claims to Real-Truth to the fijinal arbiting authority of the epistemology and truths of legal discourse).” Ahmed, What Is Islam, 30. Interesting insight into this issue is provided by the collection of Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian manuscripts “saved” from the mosque of Buda in 1686 by Luigi Marsigli, and currently housed in the Marsigli Fund in the library of the University of Bologna. For a mosque library collection with terminus ante quem of 1686 it contains surprisingly few catechetical works, while the number of Sufiji and ahlak works, many by Muslim literati from Rumeli, is substantial. The collection has been catalogued by Orazgozel Machaeva: Catalogo dei manoscritti islamici conservati nella Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna. Vol. I: nn. 1–124. Bologna, 2017. For an attempt at reconstructing the müfti of Buda’s library, see Zsuzsa Kovács, ‘The Library of the Müfti of Buda in the Marsili Collection, Bologna’, in Pál Fodor and Pál Ács (eds.), Identity and Culture in Ottoman Hungary. (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Türkvölker, 24.) Berlin, 2017, 69–119.

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medreses, etc.), keeping in mind their “compatibility” (or lack thereof) with relevant legal principles. One could, therefore, say that Sunni confessionalism was a spatially diffferentiated phenomenon that was particularly visible in public communal spaces, but with aspirations to reach the private and interior through the normative texts such as ilmihals and cooperation of the heads of households tasked with inculcating their dependents in correct precepts of faith and worship.91 Shahab Ahmed recently argued that “Muslims have, in making their modernity, moved decisively away from conceiving of and living normative Islam as hermeneutical engagement with Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text of Revelation, and have, instead, begun conceiving of and living normative Islam primarily as hermeneutical engagement with Text of Revelation”, which in turn led to the equation of Islam with law in popular and scholarly perception.92 However, upon a closer inspection of the 16th-century Ottoman ilmihals it would appear that this phenomenon does not have roots in modernity, but rather in early modernity, beginning in the era of Süleyman.

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For the discussion of the spatial diffferentiation of the hermeneutical resources in Islam, see Ahmed, What is Islam, 379–382. Ibid., 515. Ahmed defijines Pre-Text as “the world of the Unseen”. He writes: “That the Qur’ān/Text of the Revelation is true but does not encompass all the Truth of the Unseen Pre-Text of Revelation is accepted by all Muslims” (ibid., 347), and he points out that over time Muslims have disagreed on whether Truth-in-the-Pre-Text can be accessed and known without the Text, or via the Text, or only in the Text (ibid., 347), with Sufijism and philosophy being primary projects for exploration of the Unseen. He defijines Con-Text as “the entire accumulated lexicon of … meanings of Islam that has been historically generated and recorded up to any given moment”, not only in the form of textual discourse but practices as well (ibid., 356–357).

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Law and Legislation under Süleyman I Colin Imber University of Manchester [email protected]

The inscription over the portal of the Süleymaniye mosque in Istanbul describes Süleyman I (1521–1566) as the “promulgator of sultanic laws” (nashir al-qawanin al-sultaniyya), and it is this attribute that later Ottoman tradition emphasised in awarding him the epithet “Kanuni”, or “Lawgiver”. In Ottoman historiography, therefore, it is Süleyman who, after his great-grandfather Mehmed II (1451–1481),1 has earned the reputation for establishing a specifijically Ottoman legal order. To evaluate this claim requires, fijirst of all, a defijinition of kanun.

Kanun: a Defijinition Kanun in its broadest sense, may refer to any law or laws issued by or on the authority of the sultan, but in its original and typical sense it refers specifijically to the laws determining the relationship between tax-payers and the recipients of their taxes, whether these be cavalrymen (sipahis) resident on their fijiefholdings (timars), or agents (amils) collecting taxes on behalf of the treasury or other benefijiciary. It is kanun that regulates the types and rates of taxation2 and, in the countryside, the conditions on which the cultivators may occupy the land. Similarly, it prescribes the military obligations of the sipahis. It classifijies the tax-payers themselves as “townsmen” (şehirli) or “peasants” (reaya). The term reaya – singular, raiyyet – derives from fijiqh, where it denotes simply “the common people”. In kanun, it has the more specialised sense of “peasant cultivators”. In addition to the settled peasantry, kanun also regulates 1 The famous kanunname on state institutions attributed to Mehmed II is a later confection, compiled from several sources. It dates, in its present form, probably from the early 17th century. For a discussion and further references, see Colin Imber, ‘“An Illiberal Descent”: Kemalism and Ottoman Law’, Eurasian Studies 4:2 (2005 [2007]), 215–243. 2 The term very probably derives from Gk. kanon, defijined as “the basic tax on land and on those who cultivated it”. See Alexander P. Kazhdan (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Vol. 2. New York, Oxford, 1991, 1102.

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the taxes and other obligations due from nomadic or semi-nomadic groups, such as yürüks, Vlachs or gypsies, and from military auxiliaries, such as yayas and müsellems, some of whose members served on campaign. In Ottoman society therefore, there was a distinction between tax-payers and those who received a fijief – typically a timar – or a salary from the sultan in return for military or other obligations. This had been a de facto distinction from the early days of the empire, but it was Bayezid II (1481–1512) who made it a de jure distinction, classifying fijief- and salary-holders as “military” (askeri) and placing them under a separate jurisdiction.3 It is essentially the relationship between tax-payers and the askeri class that is the subject of kanun, and it was again during Bayezid’s reign that the practice began of collecting kanun in “law-books” or kanunnames. The earliest surviving kanunname, dating from 1487, is an exposition of the laws to be applied in the sancak of Hüdavendigar (Bursa) and, over the next century, it became customary to produce a law-book for each sancak.

The Sources of Kanun The preamble to the 1487 kanunname of Hüdavendigar gives the best account of the sources of kanun, describing the collection as: “A detailed explanation of the shari established kanuns and the rules for the well-known customary taxes which are the foundations of the Ottoman registers (defters) and the sources of sultanic decrees.”4 Starting at the end, this statement links kanun to two immediate sources, the defters and sultanic decrees. The defters to which it refers were the detailed land-and-tax registers of Ottoman sancaks, recording each village or settlement, together with the names of all adult male tax-payers, the size of their tenements, and the taxes due from each. They also showed the names of the fijief-holders – usually timar-holding sipahis – together with the total value of their fijiefs, which, in turn, determined the extent of their military obligations. It was material extracted from the defters that formed the framework of kanun, in particular the rates of taxation and obligations on sipahis to bring to war men, arms and tents in proportion to the size of their timar. The clauses in Bayezid II’s “general kanunname” of about 1500 enumerating these obligations provide evidence of a direct 3 Théodore Spandouyn Cantacasin, Petit Traicté de l’Origine des Turcqz. Ed. by Charles H. A. Schefer. Paris, 1896, 217–218. 4 Ömer Lûtfiji Barkan, XV ve XVI ıncı Asırlarda Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Ziraî Ekonominin Hukukî ve Malî Esasları. Birinci Cilt: Kanunlar. İstanbul, 1943, 1:§1.

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transfer from defter to kanun. The defters from this period append “men and tent notes” to the records of each timar, and it is these notes that form the basis of the corresponding clauses in the kanunname. The clumsy drafting of this material – which, in some recensions of the kanunnanme, is virtually incomprehensible – is evidence of the difffijiculties the draftsmen faced in summarising in prose information recorded in tabular format in the defters.5 The preamble to the 1487 kanunname names sultanic decrees as the second source of law. This is a principle which the 1528 law-book for the sancak of Aydın neatly summarises in the maxim: “Whatever the sultan commands is an imperial kanun (şol ki emr-i padişahidir kanuni-i şehinşahidir).”6 The truth of this statement is clearly visible from the many clauses in kanunnames which reproduce the texts of decrees. A section in the 1545 law-book for the newly established sancak of Pojega (Požega/Pozsega) exempting from tax the Vlach auxiliaries known as voynuks, (Slavonic vojnik: “soldier”), provides an example: “There are some infijidels among the reaya known as voynuk. When service on the frontier is required, or there is a campaign, they go to war on the frontiers under their sancakbeyi and voyvodas, with their horses, armour (don), spears and shields, in short, fully armed. They perform various duties, gathering intelligence and seeking information on the enemy. It was submitted to the foot of the Exalted Throne that the beylerbeyi of Buda and the sancakbeyi of Pojega had reported that up until now they have always been exempt from taxes, dues and fijilori-tax. It has therefore been commanded that 120 men be appointed from among them as voynuks. So long as they serve in the manner set forth, going to war on the frontier and on campaign, and [so long as] there are no defijiciencies in their weapons and armour, they should be exempt from all taxes and dues in accordance with the previous decree.”7 This clause in the kanunname has the format of a decree, the fijirst section summarising a submission from the authorities in the newly-established province of Buda, and the second summarising the sultan’s command in response to the submission. If, in the formulation of the 1487 kanunname, the defters and sultanic decrees were the written sources of kanun, the ultimate source of both of these, and of kanun in general, was custom and practice. The general term for “custom” (urf ) derives from fijiqh, where it denotes a lawful practice sanctioned by common usage rather than by an authoritative text. The word itself has the sense of 5 Tim Stanley, ‘Men-at-arms, Hauberks and Bards: Military Obligations in the Book of the Ottoman Custom’, in Çiğdem Balım-Harding and Colin Imber (eds.), The Balance of Truth: Essays in Honour of Professor Geofffrey Lewis. Istanbul, 2000, 331–363. 6 Barkan, Kanunlar, 14: §52. 7 Ibid., 306: §12.

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“knowledge”, denoting knowledge of secular custom, and acts as a counterpart to ilm, also meaning “knowledge”, but denoting religious knowledge, and specifijically knowledge of the sharia. The two concepts often appear in parallel, as in a clause in the 1528 kanunname for Kütahya forbidding the commutation of the death sentence for a fijine. This, the kanunname states, is contrary to the “noble and divine sharia, the exalted sultanic urf and ancient Ottoman kanun”.8 Despite the preamble’s description of kanun as shari – that is, as deriving from, or at least sanctioned by, the sharia – its real basis was always urf or custom, which might in some cases stretch back centuries. An example of this is a basic rule which the 1539 kanunname for Vize expresses succinctly: “If a raiyyet lets his tenement (çiftlik) lie fallow for three years, according to kanun, his sipahi may remove his title and give it to another.”9 The principle that permits a landlord – in the Ottoman case, usually a sipahi – to expel a tenant who fails to cultivate his land for three successive years, appears to date from late Roman times.10 The fijirst clause in the 1559 kanunname for Malatya provides another example of a pre-Ottoman practice. This describes a system where half of the produce of a timar, called the divani share, goes to the sipahi, while the other half, called the malikane share, goes to a private owner: “In most of the villages, cultivated fijields and parcels of land in the said sancak, it was the ancient custom among the people to set aside one-fijifth of the grain produced by cultivation, and for two tithes, known as the malikane share and the divani share, to be taken from this…”11 This form of “double-headed timar” dates from the time of the Anatolian Seljuks, when the sultans began to sell revenues to private individuals.12 The kanunnames have innumerable other examples of continuities from preOttoman times. The notion that whatever was ancient custom was the law was widely understood, and could serve to underpin petitions brought by the reaya, especially those demanding reductions in taxes. In the early 1520s, a group in Sofijia petitioned for the re-instatement of the threshing tax (adet-i harman), presumably in place of the more onerous tithes which had recently been imposed. The 1525 kanunname of Sofijia records the procedure: “Now when the said province was, by imperial command, being surveyed, some knowledgeable 8 9 10 11 12

Ibid., 27: §21. Ibid., 233: §10. Colin Imber, “The Law of the Land”, in Christine Woodhead (ed.), The Ottoman World. London, 2012, 41–56. Barkan, Kanunlar, 115: §1. Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, ‘Fiscalités et formes de possession de terre arable’, Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 19 (1976) 233–322.

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old men and reliable persons, aged eighty, ninety and one hundred, testifijied in the presence of the reaya: ‘It is our knowledge that when this province was still in a state of error and unbelief, adet-i harman was [customarily] levied (alınageldüği) from the reaya. From the earliest days and the bygone years when the glory of Islam burnished the said lands, [this custom] continued to be observed and in this way became the established kanun.’ When they stated this, they obtained certifijicates (hüccet) to this efffect from the kadıs of the said province and brought them to submit to the Porte. It was commanded that, in accordance with the old custom, two kiles of wheat and two kiles of barley per tenement (baştina) be taken from the reaya of the said province. This has therefore been recorded in the new defter.”13 Here the petitioners produced a group of unfeasibly old men to testify to the antiquity of the custom and obtained offfijicial certifijicates recording their testimony to present to the sultan’s council in Istanbul. The council in turn issued a decree in the sultan’s name upholding their claim, and the offfijicials surveying the province duly recorded it in the new defter. The idea of ancient custom as the source of kanun allowed the compilers of kanunnames to import from Islamic doctrine the concept of bida. This, in its original sense, means an act or actions which lie outside the sunna of the prophet and are often therefore considered illegal. In kanun, the term came to mean a rule which did not conform to the norms of custom or kanun and was therefore also unlawful. In Pojega in 1545, for example, when the surveyors compiling the defter for the new sub-province reported on practices which they had uncovered and considered to be illegal, the sultan issued a decree declaring these to be bida: “The persons collecting shari dues and urfiji taxes from the reaya oppressed the people by collecting two akçes each at harvest time and grape-pressing time, as ‘permit-tax’ (icazet akçesi). They did not take grain and grape-juice in kind, but demanded cash in lieu of tithes [in kind] … When they reported this to the foot of the justice-dispensing throne, it was commanded that all these things should be abolished because they are bidas.”14 The 1559 kanunname for Safed records the abolition, on the same ground, of a series of taxes dating from the Mamluk era: “In the time of the Circassians, they used to levy certain taxes. Şar-i şaari dues, slaughter-dues, chicken-tax, sheep-tax … and some others like these are bidas. These are clear injustices, and because they are recorded in the old register as completely abolished, they are also recorded as abolished in the new register. In future they should not be taken.”15 13 14 15

Barkan, Kanunlar, 252: §4. Ibid., 305: §9. Ibid., 230: §14.

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These two examples show that, while the notion of bida appears at fijirst to be conservative, it often, in fact, acted as an agent for change, particularly when invoked as a reason for abolishing a practice inherited from a pre-Ottoman regime. It also had a certain degree of flexibility in itself. While bida in religious doctrine has a generally negative connotation, scholars made a distinction between an “evil innovation” (bida sayyia), which is absolutely prohibited, and a “good innovation” (bida hasana) which, although it lay outside the sunna, is nonetheless permitted. The compilers of kanunnames made a parallel distinction. The 1548 kanunname for the province of Damascus, for example, describes a series of taxes as bida sayyia, and records their abolition by sultanic decree.16 This contrasts with a clause in the 1528 kanunname for Kütahya, permitting a practice which it describes as bidat-i marufe (well-known innovation), with the sense of a “bida sanctioned by custom”: “To transport a sipahi’s tithe to his barn, or a fortress-guard’s [tithe] to the fortress is a bidat-i marufe. But if the distance is greater than one day[’s journey], it should not be demanded, to prevent exploitation.”17 Sometimes, acceptance of bidas was a simple necessity. Many Christian reaya kept pigs and since, in Islamic law, pigs are forbidden and have no commercial value, they are, in principle, not taxable. This was a problem which the compilers of kanun recognised, and tried to solve by never referring to “pig tax”, but always – in recognition of its illegality – to “pig bida” (bidat-i hinzir, bidat-i hanazir), and by using the Turkish word for “pig” (domuz) only rarely, and using instead the Arabic (hinzir, pl. hanazir) or simply calling them “creatures” (canver). The 1525 kanunname for Sofijia records the rules for levying pig-tax in the sancak: “…apart from their paying one akçe bidat-i hanazir for every two pigs (hinzir) in a herd of swine (hanazir), one akçe Christmas tax (resm-i bojik) should be taken per tenement (baştina), and in places without any tenement, one akçe per household should be taken from houses where they are slaughtering a creature (canver).”18 The “Christmas tax” (resm-i bojik, Slavonic božić: “Christmas”) was a preOttoman tax, evidently requiring each household to present a joint of pork to their lord at Christmas, here commuted to one akçe payable to the sipahi. Like pigs, wine is also forbidden to Muslims and therefore, in principle, not taxable. Nonetheless, the kanunnames record taxes on wine in all areas where it was produced, often masking the nature of the tax by referring not

16 17 18

Ibid., 227: §38. Ibid., 24–25: §10. Ibid., 252: §5.

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to “wine” but to “grape-juice” (şıra). It is, however, taxes on pigs, and not taxes on wine, that they designate specifijically as bida.

The Development of “Ottoman Kanun” The concept of bida indicates that the compilers of kanunnames had in mind a standard, equivalent to sunna in religious doctrine, against which to assess the legality of each kanun. Complete uniformity of kanun was clearly impossible given the diffferences in the economies and societies in diffferent regions of the empire, and between diffferent sections of the sultan’s subjects. Groups such as gypsies, who did not generally make a living from the land, paid taxes on whatever was their means of livelihood. A clause in the 1530 kanunname for the gypsies of Rumelia is an example: “They pay a fijixed tax (kesim) of 100 akçes per month for each of the gypsy women in Istanbul, Edirne, Filibe and Sofijia who perpetrate acts contrary to the sharia.”19 Similarly groups, such as voynuks, who served as military auxiliaries, were subject to special statutes. The fijirst clause in the 1543 kanunname for the canbazes of Rumelia is typical: “Ten canbazes form a unit (ocak). When there is an imperial campaign, one serves in turn. The remaining nine each pay 50 akçes [to pay for his] expenses (harçlık).”20 However, the great majority of Ottoman subjects were peasants living in villages and labouring on the land, and it is in the statutes relating to these rural populations that attempts to standardise kanun are apparent. The original models for standardisation were two kanunnames for sub-provinces in Northwestern Anatolia. 1528 saw the completion of new land-and-tax surveys of the sancaks of Aydın, Kütahya, Bolu and Hamid, each with an attached kanunname. Of these, the kanunname for Aydın is the most complete, with sections dealing with the conditions governing peasants’ access to the land, the diffferent categories of tax-payer, and the taxes and tolls due. Its inclusion in what appears to be an offfijicial compilation of kanuns21 suggests that it served as a model and a source of reference for later compilations. More interesting, however, is the contemporary kanunname for the neighbouring sancak of Kütahya. This document shares most of its material with the 1487 kanunname for Hüdavendigar, which it appears in fact to predate. In the fijirst place, despite probable re-draftings over the decades, it retains 19 20 21

Ibid., 249: §2. Ibid., 247: §1. Library of the Topkapı Sarayı, Revan 1935.

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some archaisms which the compilers of the Hüdavendigar kanunname have eliminated. For example, the clause regulating the double tithe which a peasant must pay when he abandons his own tenement to work on another tenement registered to a diffferent timar opens with the words: “Two tithes are taken from such a raiyyet as … (İki onda şunın gibi raiyyetden alınur kim …).”22 In Hüdavendigar, this becomes: “A repeat tithe is taken from the raiyyet who … (Ve raiyyetden tekrar öşür şol kimesneden alınur ki …).”23 Here the compilers of Hüdavendigar have changed the Turkish iki onda to the Arabic tekrar öşür, and the Turkish relative particle kim to the Persian ki, reflecting a strong tendency from the late 15th century to replace Turkish terms with Arabic or Persian.24 In other examples, Hüdavendigar changes the Turkish su basar yerden25 (“from places which are [well]-watered”) to arazi-yi sakiyyeden26 while, in defijining the size of a dönüm of land, Hüdavendigar changes orta adım ile tulen ve arzen kırk adım27 (“40 paces lengthwise and breadthwise with an average step”) to the more heavily Arabised hatevat-i mutearefe kırk hatve … tulen ve arzen.28 Hüdavendigar also adds clarifijications to clauses in Kütahya. For example, on the question of a sipahi’s charging an orphan an entry-fee (tapu) to his father’s land, Kütahya reads: “[Taking] tapu[-tax from an] orphan is a rejected bida. If an orphan’s land is delivered to another [person] because it has not been cultivated, [the orphan] receives it when he becomes an adult.”29 In Hüdavendigar, this becomes: “[Taking] tapu[-tax from an] orphan is a prohibited bida. His father’s land is treated as his inherited property. If the land left by an orphan’s father is delivered to another person on the grounds that it was left uncultivated, if the orphan wants it when he becomes an adult, it is once again assigned to the orphan.”30 Hüdavendigar not only expands the clause, but also adds a new rule missing in Kütahya: the orphan

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

Barkan, Kanunlar, 24: §5. Ibid., 2: §8. This change could cause problems. The 1510 kanunname for Aydın forbids sipahis and amils from levying yemlik – that is, a measure of grain as fodder for the sipahi’s horse – in addition to salariyye, as these are in fact the same tax, the pseudo-Arabic term salariyye having replaced the Turkish term yemlik in legal usage; see Ahmed Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri ve Hukukî Tahlilleri. Vol. II. Istanbul, 1990, 165: §27. The 1528 kanunname for Aydın repeats this clause: Barkan, Kanunlar, 10: §28. Barkan, Kanunlar, 25: §11. Ibid., 2: §5. Ibid., 25: §11. Ibid., 2: §6. Ibid., 25: §14. Ibid., 3: §17.

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does not receive the land automatically on becoming an adult, but only if he demands its return. In some places, too, where the drafting of Kütahya is clumsy, Hüdavendigar makes stylistic improvements. At the beginning of the clause stipulating who is to receive fijines levied for criminal offfences, Kütahya reads: “On free timars, fijines for [knocking out] teeth and [spilling] blood, like other fijines belong in their entirety to the holder of the timar to which the raiyyet is registered (sahib-i raiyyet).31 In Hüdavendigar, this becomes the rather more elegant, if slightly more ambiguous: “On free timars, all fijines from the reaya belong to the holder of the timar (sahib-i timar).”32 The ambiguity arises from the uncertainty whether the “holder of the timar” refers to the holder of the timar to which the miscreant is registered, or to the holder of the timar where he committed the offfence. On this point Kütahya is clearer. However, it is the continuation of this clause, giving rules for fijines on unfree timars, that shows that Kütahya is earlier than Hüdavendigar. Kütahya reads: “On unfree timars, half [the fijine] goes to the holder of the timar to which the raiyyet is registered, and the other half to the sancakbeyi or the zaim from outside who has an entitlement [to a share of fijines] (haricden dahl eden). If both of them have an entitlement (ikisi bile getirdüği takdirce) each one has the right to a quarter.”33 Hüdavendigar repeats this passage with a slight change in wording, for example, modernising ikisi bile getirdüği to become ikisi bile dahl itdüği. However what makes it clear that Hüdavendigar is copying Kütahya is an addition to the rule that, where half the fijine is shared between the sancakbeyi and the zaim, each receives a quarter: “However, in this sancak [of Hüdavendigar], there is no case of the two of them both having an entitlement.”34 Here, having copied the material from Kütahya, the compiler has to add a note to say that the rule does not apply in Hüdavendigar. It is clear, therefore, that the oldest law-book is the kanunname for Kütahya, which survives only in a recension of 1528. It is this document that formed the basis of the 1487 kanunname for Hüdavendigar, the two of them together providing the model for what later statutes refer to as “Ottoman law” (kanun-i osmani). The importance of these two sancaks quite possibly derived from their role in the second half of the 14th century. The sub-province of Hüdavendigar was the site of the old capital of Bursa, and took its name from the title hüdavend(i)gar (“monarch”) often given 31 32 33 34

Ibid., 27: §21. Ibid., 5: §28. Ibid., 27: §21. Ibid., 5: §29.

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to Murad I (1362–1389). The sancak of Kütahya, on the other hand, included the capital and much of the territory of the old principality of Germiyan, which came under Ottoman control with the marriage in 1381 of Murad’s son Bayezid [I] to a Germiyanid princess. It is possible, therefore, that with the annexation of Germiyan, Murad I adopted the laws of this principality for use in the area of his personal rule in the neighbouring district of Hüdavendigar, and that these subsequently became the basis for “Ottoman kanun”. The transfer of material from Kütahya and Hüdavendigar is evident in the 1528 kanunname for Aydın which later came to function as an important source of reference for legal draftsmen. This kanunname is, in turn, a slightly expanded recension of an earlier version, dating from 1510,35 again from the reign of Bayezid II. For example, a clause in Aydın (1528), prohibiting the misappropriation of pasture held in common, reads: “Sowing or fencing offf meadows set aside since ancient times for townsmen’s or villagers’ animals is a public harm, and is therefore forbidden and prohibited.”36 This repeats a clause in the version of 1510 which, in turn, copies almost verbatim similar clauses in Kütahya and Hüdavendigar. In some cases, however, Aydın gives a more extended version of a statute such as, for example, the rule concerning women who hold a tenement. This appeared fijirst in Kütahya: “If a woman does not leave the land fallow and pays the tax [due on] it, it is against the ancient kanun to take it from her.”37 In Hüdavendigar, this becomes: “If a woman does not leave fallow the land which she occupies and pays her tithe and taxes, it is contrary to the kanun to take it from her.”38 Aydın (1510) gives a more detailed version of the rule: “If a woman, who buys and occupies land on a timar, does not leave it fallow, and pays the tithe and taxes [due] on the land to the timarholder, it may not be taken from her on the grounds that a sipahi who comes afterwards says: ‘There is no land for a woman.’ But if a piece of land is vacant and a woman says: “I shall pay the entry-fee [tapu] which an outsider pays,’ it is forbidden by sultanic decree to give land to [such] a woman.”39 Aydın (1528) repeats this clause with some insignifijicant changes in wording, and one signifijicant omission. In place of “who buys and occupies land”, it has simply “who occupies”, omitting “buys”.40 The reason for the omission is a clause which appears already in the version of 1510, prohibiting reaya from buying and selling land: “It is contrary to kanun for reaya to sell raiyyet-land to 35 36 37 38 39 40

Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 154–168. Barkan, Kanunlar, 7: §8. Ibid., 25: §14. Ibid., 3: §18. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 163: §10. Barkan, Kanunlar, 7: §9.

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one another. In this matter a sultanic decree has been issued as follows: They should not buy and sell such lands to one another. Buyers and sellers should be seriously warned. But if, with the knowledge of the sipahi, they exchange some akçes for the right of residence [on the land] (hakk-i karar), this is permissible. The sipahi takes one-tenth of the money paid.”41 To this the recension of 1528 adds: “But to buy and sell without the knowledge of the sipahi is absolutely forbidden. This valid kanun is again confijirmed.”42 The two Aydın kanunnames, as these examples show, add detail to the clauses in the kanunnames of Kütahya and Hüdavendigar. They also deal with matters which are absent, or dealt with only briefly in the earlier texts. For example, the question of what taxes are due when two or more brothers occupy a tenement is absent from Kütahya, appearing fijirst in a short clause in Hüdavendigar: “If a raiyyet dies leaving sons, one of whom is registered for a tenement (çift), and the other[s] as bennak,43 they should jointly occupy their father’s land. It has been commanded that they should, between them, pay çifttax and bennak-tax in an equitable manner.”44 Aydın (1528), slightly emending the version of 151045 greatly expands on this clause: “The sultanic kanun on this matter is as follows: A raiyyet dies leaving several sons, who jointly occupy their father’s tenement (çiftlik). In matters of taxation, [the son] who is registered as bennak pays bennak[-tax] and additionally the tax due on the portion of land which he holds as his share. For example, a raiyyet dies leaving more than one son. Each half of the tenement (çift) is registered in [the names of] two of his sons. The remainder of his married [sons], and his unmarried [sons] who are capable of labour are registered as kara.46 The custom and kanun is as follows: Those registered as bennak should pay 12 akçes bennak-tax, and those registered as kara should pay 6 akçes kara-tax. The brothers who have been registered as bennak and kara should agree among themselves on the share to be paid on whatever portion of land fell to them from their father’s lands.”47 In sum, therefore, the law-books for Kütahya and Hüdavendigar served as models for the establishment of an “Ottoman kanun” during the reign of Bayezid II. Their importance in this respect is evident from the “general kanunname” for the empire which Bayezid promulgated ca. 1500. In the section dealing with the 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 165: §40. Barkan, Kanunlar, 11: §41. A raiyyet holding less than half a çift of land. Barkan, Kanunlar, 4: §19. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 164: §18. A landless peasant. Barkan, Kanunlar, 8: §17.

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afffairs of the reaya, the “general kanunname” frequently either quotes verbatim or abridges clauses from these earlier models. For example, the clause in the “general kanunname” on the date for collecting çift and bennak-tax reads: “Çifttax and bennak[-tax] and associated [taxes] used originally to be collected at harvest-time (harman vaktinde). Now it is the established kanun that they should be collected in March.”48 The earliest version of this clause appears in Kütahya: “Çift-tax and its related [taxes] used originally to be collected at harvest. It has now been commanded for March by the solar calendar.”49 In Hüdavendigar, this appears as: “Çift-tax and bennak[-tax] used originally to be collected following the harvest. It has now become the established kanun that they should be collected in March.”50 It is an emended version of the clause in Hüdavendigar that appears in the “general kanunname”. The latter also demonstrates how a kanun relating to a particular area became a general “Ottoman kanun”. Kütahya also has a clause relating to hunting trophies: “The skins of lynxes and panthers (kaplan) taken in the said province (vilayet) belong to the beylerbeyi, unless it was the yayas and müsellems who took them. What they take belongs to their [own] sancakbeyi. They possess noble commands on this subject, which have been inspected.”51 This clause re-appears in Hüdavendigar with some insignifijicant changes in the wording, and omitting any reference to the sultanic decrees in the possession of the yayas and müsellems. The Hüdavendigar version, slightly abbreviated re-appears in the “general kanunname” but with an important change: “in the said province” has become “in every sancak”,52 efffectively making a local law valid for the whole empire.

Kanuni Süleyman In sum, therefore, kanun emerged as a body of written law during the reign of Bayezid II, with the kanunnames of Kütahya and Hüdavendigar acting as the original exemplars. The impetus to establish a new legal regime probably came from the need to re-establish fijiscal and social order following the reign of Bayezid’s father Mehmed II (1451–1481), with its land confijiscations and frequent debasements of the silver akçe, and from the need to incorporate newly conquered lands into the empire. At his accession, Süleyman I inherited 48 49 50 51 52

Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 101: §180. Barkan, Kanunlar, 24: §2. Ibid., 2: §7. Ibid., 26: §19. Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 103: §204.

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a somewhat similar situation. His father Selim I’s conquests in Syria, Egypt and Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia had added vast territories to the empire, but left them very unstable. There were rebellions in Syria in 1521, in Egypt in 1523 and 1524, and in Southeastern and Central Anatolia between 1526 and 1529. Furthermore, as the reign progressed there was a need to incorporate Süleyman’s own conquests in Hungary, Iraq, Eastern Anatolia and Southern Georgia into the Ottoman domains. Like his grandfather Bayezid II, Süleyman used kanunnames as an instrument for stabilising and Ottomanising his realms. The most enduring legacy of his legislative effforts was the kanunname for Egypt,53 compiled in Istanbul after 1525, following the suppression of Ahmed Pasha’s rebellion and Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha’s return from Cairo after his mission to pacify the province. This document, however, is not a typical kanunname, covering as it does military, fijiscal, agricultural, commercial, monetary and other matters, in a province where the timar-system did not apply. A second law-book, the 1540 kanunname for Boz Ulus54 is less all-embracing, but also aimed to stabilise a troubled area, while increasing the revenues coming to the treasury. The Boz Ulus was a Turcoman confederation that spent its winters in the lowlands of Northern Syria and summers in the Anatolian uplands, and had played an important part in the rebellions of 1526–1529. Late in 1535, as he passed through the region on his return from the campaign of the “Two Iraqs”, Süleyman ordered a survey of the tribe. The taxes from the Boz Ulus were not assigned to timars, but were collected by agents (emins) directly for the treasury, and the kanunname that resulted from the survey aimed not only to regularise the taxes and their mode of collection, but equally to put an end to the numerous extortions which the tribesmen sufffered at the hands of emins, local governors and tribal chiefs. Since the timar-system was not in force in Egypt or among the Boz Ulus, typical Ottoman kanun – what the law-books refer to as kanun-i osmani – did not apply. However, in areas where it was in force, it was again the laws current in Western Anatolia that provided the model for new kanunnames. The preamble to the 1540 kanunname for the province of Erzurum makes this clear: “Previously, when the sancaks of Bayburd and Erzurum were surveyed, the masses of the reaya, the companies of merchants, and the peoples of the well-protected realms could not tolerate the customary kanun recorded in the old register and put into efffect as the kanun of Hasan Padishah. When they petitioned the Foot of the Exalted Throne that the kanun of Rum [should be applied], the Shadows of Justice [cast] by the Imperial Wing and its Mercy53 54

Barkan, Kanunlar, 355–387. Ibid., 140–147.

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Bestowing Shade appeared, and it was decreed that the kanunname of Rum should be applied to the people of the said province…”55 The kanun “of Rum” to which the preamble refers is the kanun of Kütahya and Hüdavendigar, and it was the kanunnames of these two sancaks that provided the model for drafting the new law-book for Erzurum, as the wording of a number of clauses make clear. The rule requiring sipahis to bring back peasants who have abandoned their land is an example. This appeared originally in Kütahya: “It is the old law to round up reaya who have become dispersed from [their] timars. However, it has been forbidden to remove [anyone] who has been settled in a place for more than fijifteen years. A person who has been settled in a town for more than twenty years should be registered in that town …”56 In Hüdavendigar, this becomes: “If a raiyyet who has land (yerlü) is dispersed, it is the old law to remove him and bring him [back] to his land. However, it has been forbidden to remove and bring back a person who has been resident in a place for fijifteen years [or more], particularly if he is a bennak. Wherever he is, it is forbidden to remove him once he has paid tax. However, if a person of raiyyet descent is resident for fijifteen years in [a] town, and particularly if he is not recorded in the register of reaya, it has been decreed that he be registered to the townsmen. [This] is the kanun.”57 Both the wording and the contents of this clause in Hüdavendigar are the basis for the corresponding clause in the 1540 kanunname for Erzurum, changing only the fijifteen-year limitation for returning an absconding peasant to ten: “If a member of the reaya who possesses land is dispersed, it is the kanun for sipahi to remove him and bring him back to his land. But it is forbidden to remove and bring back the person who has gone to a place and settled [there] for more than ten years … If [a member] of the reaya is resident in a town for fijifteen years [or more], and in particular if he is not recorded in the register of reaya, such a person should be registered to the town.”58 This is one of many clauses which very clearly derive from the two earlier models. The following are two further examples: “If a woman does not allow the land which she possesses lie fallow, but cultivates it and pays the tithe (behre) 55

56 57 58

Ibid., 62: §1. Similarly, a clause in the 1541 kanunname for Çemişgezek (Barkan, Kanunlar, 190: §9) opens with the statement: “In the said province, many of the reaya have scattered and have gone to other provinces as a result of the oppression of the Kurds” and rules on procedures to be followed “if they return to settle on their lands when they hear that the kanun of Rum is [to be applied].” Barkan, Kanunlar, 24: §4. Ibid., 2–3: §9. Ibid., 65: §13.

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and taxes [due on] it, it is against the kanun to take it from her.”59 “Sowing or fencing offf meadows which, since ancient times have been set aside as pasture for townsmen and villagers’ animals is forbidden.”60 What is more surprising is that the Erzurum kanunname reproduces almost verbatim the section in Hüdavendigar – itself adapted from Kütahya – which lays out the procedures to be followed and penalties to be inflicted in criminal cases.61 This is unexpected, because by 1540 Bayezid II’s “general kanunname”, which opens with a code of criminal law, was available and in the 16th century, it was more usual for the compilers of sancak law-books simply to refer users to this compilation. For example, the 1559 kanunname for Malatya, instead of listing the fijines applicable to each offfence, states simply: “In matters concerning incidental taxes (bad-i hava) and fijines (cürm ü cinayet), the Ottoman law (kanun-i osmani) should be consulted. No more [than what is prescribed there] should be taken. Whoever is judge at the time (hakimü’l-vakt olanlar) should prohibit and prevent this.”62 The 1540 kanunname for the province of Diyarbekir provides another example of the spread of “Ottoman kanun”. The earlier kanunnames for the diffferent sancaks of this province, compiled immediately after the conquest in 1516, follow the “kanun of Hasan Padishah”. The 1540 kanunname by contrast contains material on the status of the settled reaya familiar from Kütahya and Hüdavendigar. An example is the rule requiring the reaya to transport grain levied as tithe to a barn or storehouse, which appeared fijirst in Kütahya and then in Hüdavendigar, and re-appears in Diyarbekir 1540 in a slightly emended form, making it incumbent on the reaya themselves to provide a barn to store their sipahi’s crops: “It is the established kanun for the reaya to fijind a barn or a storehouse in their own villages for each village’s tithe (behre), and to transport the tithes to the nearest market. ‘The nearest market’ is [one that is not more than] a day’s journey away. It is not incumbent on the reaya to transport [the tithes] further. It should not be demanded [of them].”63 Here the change to the original clause as it appeared in Kütahya is not very great. In other clauses, the source of the rule is less clear, but nonetheless discernible. The law concerning double tithes is an example. In Kütahya, this reads: “Two tithes (iki onda) are taken from a raiyyet who leaves his tenement (çiftlik) on his own sipahi’s timar and cultivates in another place. In cases where

59 60 61 62 63

Ibid., 65: §11. Ibid., 66: §20. Ibid., 70–71: §44–51. Ibid., 117: §13. Ibid., 131: §3.

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there is no suitable place to sow on their sipahi’s timar, to take two tithes from reaya who sow in another place is an unacceptable injustice.”64 This re-appears in Hüdavendigar with little change: “Double tithe (tekrar öşür) is taken from a raiyyet who leaves the tenement on his own sipahi’s timar and goes to cultivate in another place. But in cases where there is no cultivatable land on his own sipahi’s timar, to take double tithe from a person who cultivates in another place is an unacceptable injustice.”65 Diyarbekir 1540 repeats this rule, but adds the proviso that if the peasant cultivates a separate plot only after completing work on his own tenement in his sipahi’s timar, it is illegal to levy a double tithe: “Persons registered in the defter as holding a tenement (çift) should not leave their land and cultivate in another place, unless – after sowing all the lands for which they are registered – they wish to undertake extra labour and go to cultivate another plot in another village. Their aghas should not prevent such people. [However], their aghas should prevent those who wish to leave their own lands [where they are] registered and go to cultivate other soil in another place. They should warn them: ‘If you abandon your own land and cultivate another plot, I shall take another tithe (behre)’. If, after a warning, they leave the place [where they are registered] and cultivate in another village, a double tithe (tekrar behre) should be demanded.”66 The model for re-drafting the rules for the double tithe as they appear in Kütahya and Hüdavendigar, was probably the kanunname for Aydın of 1528 which here repeats the version of 1510 almost verbatim: “Double tithe (tekrar öşür) is taken from a raiyyet who leaves the tenement on his own sipahi’s timar and goes to cultivate in another place. However, if he sows and fully cultivates the land [where he is] registered, it is an injustice for the double tithe to be taken for the land which he cultivates in another place.”67 Other clauses in Diyarbekir 1540 suggest that Aydın 1528 provided the model. The rules for the honey-tax provide an example. In Diyarbekir, these are very succinct: “This has been registered as 2 akçes per hive. If a raiyyet moves his hive to another sipahi’s land, the holder of the land (sahib-i arz) [where the hive is positioned] should take half, and the holder of the timar with whom the raiyyet is registered (sahib-i raiyyet) should take half.”68 Simple though this rule may seem, it arose out of a problem in Aydın which required a sultanic command to resolve. A report on the case and its resolution 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid., 24: §5. Ibid., 2: §8. Ibid., 132: §6. Ibid., 8: §11; Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 163: §12. Barkan, Kanunlar, 133: §14.

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appears in the 1510 kanunname of Aydın,69 and this was copied verbatim into the version of 1528: “Two akçes has been charged per hive. Wherever the raiyyet is registered, the hive-tax is also recorded as income due to the sipahi of the village where that raiyyet is registered. In the sancak of Aydın, the reaya usually remove their hives from the places where they are registered, and place them in another sipahi’s timar. They move their hives from timar to timar, with the aim of paying one akçe for four hives in the place where they produce honey, on the basis that the tax should be paid in whatever place produces the honey. When the sipahi of the place where the reaya are registered demands the tax, they object, saying: ‘The honey is not produced on your land. I am not giving [you] anything.’ For this reason, the timars to which the yield of the hive-tax is registered sufffer a considerable loss. For this reason, the matter was submitted to the sultan’s threshold, and the following [procedure] was determined: The tax should be set at two akçes per hive. The sipahi of the place where the peasant is registered (sahib-i raiyyet) should take one akçe, and the holder of the land where the hive produces honey should take one. The holder of the land (sahib-i arz) should not say: ‘Your hive produced honey on my land. I am taking two akçes per hive.’ He should take one akçe per hive, and not act unjustly by taking more. If a raiyyet does not move the hives, but produces his honey in the place where he is registered, he should give two akçes per hive to the holder of the timar where he is registered. The reaya should not raise objections.”70 By 1540, therefore, the kanunname of Aydın had joined Kütahya and Hüdavendigar as a model for implanting Ottoman law in areas, such as Diyarbekir, where it had previously been applied only partially or not at all. It was these kanunnames that were the reference point for a systematic redrafting of laws to conform to “Ottoman kanun”.

Ebussuud and the “Islamisation” of Kanun The term “Ottoman law” (kanun-i osmani) referred primarily – although not exclusively – to the law that applied to the settled reaya in areas where the timar-system was in operation. The original models for both the substance and, often, the wording of the law were the kanunnames for the sub-provinces of Kütahya and Hüdavendigar, although during Süleyman’s reign, the very detailed kanunname for the neighbouring district of Aydın also became a model for legal draftsmen. It is impossible to be sure of the date of the 69 70

Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnâmeleri, II. 165: §39. Barkan, Kanunlar, 11: §40.

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original kanunname for Kütahya, as it survives only in a recension of 1528. The kanunname for Hüdavendigar, however, dates from 1487, and the fijirst version of the kanunname for Aydın from 1510. Written kanun, therefore, seems to have been an innovation of Bayezid II, and one that provided a model for his son, Selim I (1512–1520). The years between 1516 and 1518 saw the compilation of new defters for the lands Selim had conquered in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, each with an accompanying kanunname. These did not follow Ottoman kanun, but were compiled “in accordance with the kanun of Hasan Padishah”, that is the laws attributed to the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan (d. 1478) which were in force in the region at the time of the Ottoman conquest. It was these laws that Süleyman was to modify in 1540 with the re-drafting of the Ottoman kanunnames for Erzurum, Diyarbekir and other regions in Eastern Anatolia, to conform more closely to Ottoman practice. Selim’s retention of the Akkoyunlu laws in the immediate aftermath of his conquests in Eastern Anatolia provided a model for Süleyman in Hungary. The kanunnames compiled in the 1540s following the annexation of part of the old kingdom consist largely of listing the taxes which had been current in preOttoman times. For example, a clause in the 1545 kanunname for the reaya of Buda, Estergon (Esztergom), Hatvan and Novigrad (Nógrád) reads: “Those who are capable of [paying] haraç, pay their sipahi 25 akçes gate-tax (resm-i kapu) on Hızır İlyas day and 25 akçes on Kasım day. However, because the reaya in the towns of Buda and Pest did not pay gate-tax in the days of the kings, it has not been recorded in the new register.”71 The practice of levying a tax, equivalent in value to a gold coin, in two tranches on 24 April and 26 October – considered as the fijirst days of summer and winter respectively – was an inheritance from the Kingdom of Hungary, as was the exemption for the tax-payers of Buda and Pest. The probable intention was to retain the old Hungarian laws as a preliminary to the introduction of the Ottoman land regime and timar-system into Hungary, with Ottoman kanun gradually replacing the Hungarian laws, much as it had eventually replaced the “kanun of Hasan Padishah” in the east. Had this happened, it would have brought the lands of the old kingdom into conformity with Ottoman practice in Rumelia, to the south of the Danube. The notion of “Ottoman kanun”, the practice of compiling kanunnames, and the retention of pre-Ottoman laws in the immediate post-conquest period were not therefore innovations of Süleyman’s reign. What Ottoman tradition, in fact, recalls as Süleyman’s distinctive achievement was rather the systematic re-ordering of the administration of the law that occurred during his reign, under the auspices of the kadıasker of Rumelia and subsequently chief müfti, 71

Ibid., 301: §3.

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Ebussuud. In the early 17th century, Atai summarised these accomplishments as “arranging religious and governmental afffairs in the best possible order”, reforming “the composition of legal documents and kadı’s registers” and “improving the spelling in diplomas and decrees”. Atai, however, opened his list with the statement that Ebussuud brought “Ottoman kanuns into conformity with the noble sharia”,72 and this is what subsequent generations have remembered. The supposed conformity of kanun with sharia is, however, an illusion. After the creation of the province of Buda in 1541, the sultan evidently wished to introduce the Ottoman system of land tenure to his new realms. The problem was that, although the kanunnames together provided a mass of detailed statutes relating to this subject, they contained no systematic account of its basic principles. It was Ebussuud who, in his introduction to the fijirst fijiscal survey of the province, fijirst gave a clear account of fundamentals.73 All moveable goods, he stated, and all immoveable goods which are above the ground – buildings, orchards and vineyards – are the private property of their owners, who may dispose of them as they wish. The fijields which they cultivate are not their private property but, so long as they keep them under continuous cultivation and pay all the taxes due, they may remain in possession. When they die, the land passes automatically to their sons, who may occupy it on the same conditions. If they have no sons, the land should be given to an outsider on payment of an entry-fee (tapu). The new entrant may then cultivate it on the same conditions. It should be noted, however, that if buildings, vineyards or orchards on the land are removed or fall into disrepair, the land beneath them does not become the private property of their owner. The clarity of the statement ensured that it was accepted as the basic account of Ottoman land-tenure until 1858, and this is why it is important. What, however, has caught people’s attention is that Ebussuud cloaked his description of the law in Islamic legal terminology. Since the classical jurists treated land as private property, Ebussuud needed to fijind who owned the soil, and so described it as belonging to the “Muslim treasury” (beytü’l-mal-i müslimin). He described the occupants of the land as holding it as a “loan” (ariyyet) from the treasury, a loan having the sense of a gratuitous transfer of the use of a non-fungible property, which the owner may recall at any time. He described the entry fee (tapu-tax) as an advance rent (ücret-i muaccele). He labelled the tithe as harac-i mukaseme, a term which in fijiqh describes the tax, of up to 50%, paid on the produce of land which remained in the hands 72 73

Atai, Zeylü’l-Şakaik. Istanbul, 1852, 185. Barkan, Kanunlar, 296–297: No. 85.

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of its original owners at the time of the Muslim conquest. In a later statement appended to the defter for Üsküb (Skopje) and Selanik (Salonica) of 1568,74 Ebussuud also labelled the çift-tax, due annually on each tenement (çift) as harac-i muvazzaf, the annual tax payable on land which remained in the hands of its original owners at the time of the Muslim conquest. In the same text, he borrowed from the jurist Ibn Bazzaz (d. 1414) the term arazi-yi memleket to describe the land where a system of feudal land-tenure was in force. He also created a fijiction to explain how such land came into the possession of the treasury instead of remaining in private ownership, as classical fijiqh would have required. This process of Islamisation was self-evidently a fijiction. Ebussuud knew perfectly well that the treasury was not the “owner” of the soil in a technical legal sense and so avoided using a technical term to denote ownership. Instead, he indicated possession simply by the using the genitive case. He knew too that the occupiers of the land did not hold it as a “loan”, which the treasury – or whoever owned it – could take back at will. Occupancy of land was unconditional, so long as the occupiers continued to cultivate it and pay all taxes due. Nor can tapu-tax be described as a “rent”. A valid contract of rent requires the term of the lease to be defijined, whereas payment of tapu-tax permitted an occupant to remain on the land until death or until he lost the land as a result of his neglect. It could also descend to his sons. In other words, the term of the lease was indefijinite. This was a problem which Ebussuud himself recognised when he later stated: “As the term of occupancy is not [fijixed] it is a defective lease (icare-i faside).”75 Nor is it entirely consistent to describe the occupants’ tenure of the land as both a lease and a loan. Furthermore, the use of the terms harac-i mukaseme and harac-i muvazzaf to describe respectively the tithe and the çift-tax is no more than a re-labelling of pre-existing taxes. The importance of the imagined “Islamisation” of kanun is therefore ideological. While it had no practical consequences, it was nonetheless one element in Süleyman’s quest to present himself – in Ebussuud’s formulation76 – as “Caliph of the Messenger of the Lord of the Worlds and the one who makes smooth the path for the precepts of the Manifest Sharia”. Occasionally the desire to “Islamise” kanun also manifests itself in the use in kanunnames of vocabulary borrowed from fijiqh. For example, the 1540 kanunname for the Boz Ulus describes the sheep-tax as zekat-tax (adet-i zekat)77 and, although 74 75 76 77

Ibid., 297–300: No. 86. Istanbul, University Library, T 2008, fol. 59b. In his introduction to the “kanun of Buda” and elsewhere. Barkan, Kanunlar, 142: §10.

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it was clearly no such thing, Ebussuud approved this designation.78 Similarly, the 1559 kanunname for Malatya describes the divani portion of a timar that goes to support the sipahi as a “burden on the land” (meunet-i arz),79 borrowing the term from fijiqh, which describes the tax due on land which, at the time of the Islamic conquest, remained in the hands of its non-Muslim owners, as a “burden” (mauna). The 1554 kanunname for Pojega records an attempt to equate the resm-i fijilori – the old Hungarian tax of one gold coin per household per year – with the Islamic cizye,80 which it designates as haraç. The canonical cizye, however, is levied on persons and not on households and, when the tax-payers of Pojega objected to the new demand to pay as individuals, the pre-Ottoman practice of payment per household was re-instated, making it clear the resm-i fijilori was not cizye. However, the use in kanun of terminology borrowed from fijiqh pre-dated Süleyman’s reign and did not greatly increase thereafter, even following Ebussuud’s re-formulation of the laws of land-tenure.

Summary The practice of compiling kanunnames began in the late 15th century, during the reign of Bayezid II, with the intention of establishing the legal relationship between the sultan’s tax-paying subjects and the military class who, as agents of the sultan, collected taxes and fijines, and administered punishments. This means, in practice, that their overwhelming – but not exclusive – concern was with the relationship between timar-holding sipahis and the settled peasantry. In origin, they were adjuncts to the detailed defters, which were also, in part, their source. In the 1590s, as the changing nature of warfare and new fijiscal demands undermined the timar-system, the practice of making the traditional defters ceased81 and, with their demise, the associated practice of making kanunnames also came to an end. The “classical” kanunnames associated with defters, therefore, date from the hundred years between the late 15th and late 16th centuries, with the reign of Süleyman as the middle point. This was an era of relatively benign economic conditions, and also a period when the inherited military and fijiscal structure of the empire – in particular, the timar-system – continued to underpin the 78 79 80 81

Mehmet Ertoğrul Düzdağ, Şeyhülislâm Ebussuûd Efendi Fetvaları Işığında 16. Asır Türk Hayatı. İstanbul, 1972, 63: No. 217. Barkan, Kanunlar, 115: §1. Ibid., 303–304: §1. Pál Fodor, The Business of State: Ottoman Finance Administration and Ruling Elites in Transition (1580s–1615). Berlin, 2018, 236–286.

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inherited legal order. Viewed from the end of the 16th century, when chronic treasury defijicits became the norm and the old military and fijiscal order began to change rapidly, Süleyman appeared to embody a vanished ideal of the rule of law. Since, in popular belief, it was the justice of the ruler that ensured the welfare of the people, the amplitude of the treasury, and the success of the army, it followed that it was Süleyman’s role as a just ruler and upholder of the law that led to the partly imagined good order and military successes of his reign. It was for this that later generations gave him the epithet Kanuni. While this image of the sultan is idealised, his reign was nonetheless important in the development of Ottoman law. It was under Süleyman’s auspices that Ebussuud systematised the mundane realities of the legal system, drawing up rules for the appointment of kadıs and müderrises, providing models for the drafting of legal documents, refashioning the fetva-offfijice, and collaborating with the sultan in bringing solutions to cases where Hanafiji law is ambiguous. In kanun, Süleyman oversaw a new recension of Bayezid II’s “general kanunname”, but the most enduring achievement of his reign was perhaps the kanunname of Egypt which – in principle – still remained valid in the 18th century. The kanunnames for Anatolia and Rumelia, where the timarsystem was in operation, follow the pattern established by his grandfather, Bayezid, in taking the kanunnames of Kütahya and Hüdavendigar as models for “Ottoman kanun”. Their validity, however, did not outlive the century. One thing that did endure, however, was the “kanun of Buda”, Ebussuud’s statement on land tenure in Rumelia and Anatolia. The Köprülü era of the 17th century saw the promulgation of the “New Law-Book” (kanunname-i cedid), a systematic description of the laws of land tenure in force in Anatolia, Rumelia and parts of Syria and Iraq, and it was Ebussuud’s statement that the compilers of this work chose as the foundation text. Their reason for doing so was clearly because it summarised the basic and unchanging rules, but it also had an importance beyond this. Ebussuud had cloaked these rules in Islamic terms, and it is these terms that the compilers of the new fijiscal regulations for the recentlyconquered Crete in the late 17th century and for the areas in the Aegean reconquered from Venice in the 18th, chose to draw up the new regulations. The Islamic terminology, dating from the time of Süleyman, although having little or no influence on practice, mesmerised legal draftsmen in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and continues to mesmerise historians today.

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The Aesthetics of Empire: Arts, Politics and Commerce in the Construction of Sultan Süleyman’s Magnifijicence Gülru Neci̇poğlu* Harvard University [email protected]

A perspective of Süleyman’s empire viewed from the lens of visual material presents a rather diffferent picture from that of Ottoman written sources, enabling readings that are not explicitly stated in texts. I explore this proposition by focusing on the less familiar fijirst half of the sultan’s reign (1520–1566), when expansion into Central Europe and Italy constituted the main priority, concluding with an epilogue that zooms into his last campaign and death in Szigetvár.1 Ultimately, my aim is to highlight the underestimated cosmopolitanism of visual culture prior to the codifijication of a mature Ottoman idiom in the arts and architecture at the turn of the 1540s–1550s, which has by now become common knowledge.2 European luxury goods were already embraced by Süleyman’s predecessors as a medium of diplomacy and negotiation, especially during periods of the empire’s westward expansion. Artifacts in the internationally acclaimed Italian Renaissance manner, and those produced in the Ottoman royal workshops, collectively communicated at home and abroad the unprecedented splendour of the young sultan’s court, enriched with a string of conquests by himself and his father, Selim I (1512–1520). Prestige objects functioned as a transcultural * I thank my research assistants Ezgi Dikici and Cecily Pollard for their invaluable help with references and illustrations. 1 Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 2016; Kaya Şahin, Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World. Cambridge, UK, New York, 2013. 2 Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘A Kanun for the State, a Canon for the Arts: The Classical Synthesis in Ottoman Art and Architecture during the Age of Süleyman’, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Acte du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales de Grand Palais. 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992; Soliman le Magnifijique. Paris, 1990; John Michael Rogers and Rachel M. Ward, Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Secaucus, N.J., 1988; Esin Atıl, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Washington, 1987.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_007

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mode of communication through the commonly understood language of magnifijicence. Carrying this lingustic metaphor further, it can be argued that the eventual abandonment of multilingual visual discourses in favor of monolingualism paralleled, with a time-lag, the adoption in the early-1520s of Ottoman Turkish as the only offfijicial language in central chancellery documents that departed from previous polyglot scribal practices (with the exception of Persian and Arabic in some cases). Despite this shift to an aesthetic universe with clearer articulations of diffference, Ottoman visual culture never entirely disengaged itself from its cosmopolitan heritage: a legacy born from the deliberate fusion of multiple artistic traditions to express a sense of aesthetic belonging to both Europe and Asia.

Artistic Trends in the Early Decades The 1520s and 1530s were characterized by a remarkable scarcity in the production of Ottoman illustrated historical manuscripts and monumental architectural complexes. In the context of escalating Habsburg–Valois–Ottoman imperial rivalry, accompanied by Süleyman’s diplomatic alliances with Venice and France, the aesthetics of empire was primarily cultivated through luxury arts, especially silk brocade textiles and precious metalwork studded with jewels. Exemplifying half of the sultan’s forty-six-year-long reign, this phenomenon was by no means marginal. Ceremonial displays of precious artifacts in multiple media were arguably the principal agents in constructing the magnifijicence of Süleyman and his extended court. The empire’s power was aestheticized and performatively enacted in palace rituals and imperial processions that dazzled participants as well as onlookers (Fig. 1a-b).3 Before Sinan’s tenure as chief court architect in 1539–1588, only a few relatively modest architectural monuments were constructed in Istanbul, one of them being the posthumous funerary mosque complex of Süleyman’s late father (1520s). Other socio-religious complexes were mostly sited in provincial towns, including those of the sultan’s mother in Manisa, the Vizier Çoban Mustafa Pasha in Gebze, and the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha at Razgrad (Bulgaria). With the construction boom under the new chief architect, monumental mosque complexes became largely concentrated in the capital, parallel to the increasing centralisation and Sunnitisation of the Ottoman

3 Gülru Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1991.

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Pieter Coecke van Aelst (d. 1550), Friday procession of Sultan Süleyman through the Hippodrome, from a series of woodcuts posthumously published in 1553 at Antwerp after drawings made in 1533 and titled ‘Ces moeurs et fachons de faire de Turcz’. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art photograph: william stirling-maxwell, the turks in mdxxxiii. london, edinburgh, 1873

state, along with the rising public prominence of royal women and their vizier husbands who began to build prestige monuments in Istanbul.4 During the 1520s the focus in the capital was on renovating the Topkapı Palace as a lavish setting for the enhanced gravity and pomp of court ceremonies. Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha’s (g.v. 1523–1536) nearby palace, facing the Roman-period Hippodrome (Atmeydanı), was described by Charles V’s ambassador in 1533 as having been “made in the Italian manner (à l’italienne)

4 Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. London, 2005 (2nd ed. 2011).

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with squared blocks of stone”.5 This public piazza provided the theatrical stage for communal festivities, including parades to Friday mosques, Ibrahim Pasha’s wedding extravaganza in 1524, and the circumcision celebrations of Süleyman’s sons in 1530 and 1539. After the Battle of Mohács (1526) the pasha erected on a column in front of his palace, next to the Hippodrome’s obelisk, Renaissancestyle bronze statues made for the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus that were transported in the Roman manner from the royal palace at Buda as trophies of Süleyman’s victory. The historian Kemalpaşazade (d. 1534) states that these three unequaled “wondrous and exemplary fijigures (suret-i garib-heybet ü ibretnümay)” were hauled by cranes on a sturdy column “for the contemplation of possessors of intelligence and wisdom (erbab-ı akla vü ashab-ı ihtiyara itibar maslahatı içün)”, and as visual mementoes ensuring that the victory would never be forgotten.6 According to the campaign diary, the group comprised the “copper statue of a man” that stood on a column outside the Buda palace, while those of “his sons” were removed from within the palace complex.7 This group of statues, displayed as an admirable artistic “wonder” at the Hippodrome, is identifijied by a 17th-century Ottoman chronicler who hailed from Pécs as representing a great king of Hungary and his two sons that succeeded him.8 A late-16th-century Ottoman painting, executed long after the statues were removed, depicts a helmeted ruler in full armor, hugged by two kneeling naked boys (Fig. 2). Perhaps these were the efffijigies of the governor John Hunyadi and his two sons, Ladislaus and Matthias, described by the latter’s historian Antonio Bonfijini. According to Hans Dernschwam (1553–1555), who did not see the Hippodrome statues, one of them represented Hercules and was commissioned by Matthias Corvinus in memory of his late brother Ladislaus Hunyadi. It used to stand on a red-porphry column at the courtyard of the Buda palace on the spot where he was decapitated by a rival faction, while the other two fijigures were removed from the gate of the palace bridge.9 The eyewitness account of 5 Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power; Nurhan Atasoy, İbrahim Paşa Sarayı. İstanbul, 1972. ‘Missions diplomatiques de Corneille Duplicius de Schepper (1533)’, in Baron de Saint-Génois Jules Ludger Dominique Ghislain and G. A.Yssel de Schepper (eds.), Memoires de l’Academie Royale de Belgique 30 (1857) 119. 6 Kemal Paşa-zâde, Tevarih-i Âl-i Osman. X. Defter. Ed. by Şerafettin Severcan. Ankara, 1996, 316–317. 7 Taşrada saray öninde … amud üzerinde olan bakır şahsı ve içerüde olan oğullarını cümle taşıyub… Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Feldzugstagebücher des ersten und zweiten ungarischen Feldzugs Suleymans I. Wien, 1978, facsimile 54. 8 İbrahim Peçevi, Tarih. Vol. 1. Istanbul, 1864, 99. 9 Franz Babinger (ed.), Hans Dernschwam’s Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55). München, Leipzig, 1923, 100. On the Hercules statue in the forecourt

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figure 2 Circumcision festivities of Sultan Süleyman’s sons in 1530, with three bronze statues from Buda raised on a column in front of Ibrahim Pasha’s palace. Seyyid Lokman, Hünername, 1587–1588. Topkapı Palace Museum Library, TSMK H. 1524, fol. 119b photograph: harvard university, visual collections

Charles V’s aforementioned ambassador (1533) identifijies all three fijigures at the Hippodrome as “efffijigies of Hercules”. So does Francesco della Valle (1531–1534), who says that the three Hercules statues commemorated Süleyman’s conquest of Buda and were bound together by a massive iron chain, which implies an intended allusion to the captured Kingdom of Hungary.10

10

of the Buda palace, with two others in front of a gate, and Bonfijini’s reference to statues of the three Hungarian kings, see Joseph von Karabacek, Zur orientalischer Altertumskunde IV. Muhammedanische Kunststudien. Wien, 1913, 89, 92: note 1. Most early sources mention the Hercules statue at the Hippodrome, without identifying the others: Benedetto Ramberti, Libri tre delle cose de’ Turchi [1534], in Albert Howe Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnifijicent. New York, 1978, 240. I thank Alain Servantie for sending me the ambassador Schepper’s description in the original manuscript: illecq transportés de Buda avec les efffijigies d’Hercules. This passage difffers from the published version, referring to only one fijigure: ‘Missions diplomatiques de Corneille Duplicius de Schepper (1533)’, 119. Della Valle was the chamberlain of Alvise Gritti, Ibrahim Pasha’s intimate adviser, see ‘Narrazione di Francesco dalla Valle Padovano’, Magyar Történelmi Tár 3 (1857) 18: [T]re Herculi di bronzo posti sopra una pietra di marmo circondati tutti tre d’una grossa cattena di ferro, li quali Herculi erano in Ongaria nell castella della città di Buda; et quando essa città fu presa da Solimano, furono essi Herculi mandati a Costantinopoli, et per memoria di quell aquisto furono posti ivi com’ho detto.

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A posthumously published print designed by the Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (who was in Istanbul in 1533) depicts a puzzling trio of standing nude fijigures on a cluster of three columns near the Hippodrome, rather than on the single column next to the obelisk (Fig. 1b). The earliest authors identifying the two fijigures that accompanied Hercules as the pagan gods Apollo and Venus (or Diana), are Jacques Gassot (1550) and the historian Paolo Giovio (1552); the latter’s informant may have been his relative Pietro

figure 3 The Timurid Prince Bediüzzaman Mirza received by Sultan Selim I in Tabriz. Şükri Bitlisi, Selimname, ca. 1530, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, TSMK, H. 1597–98, fol. 140a photograph: serpİl bağcı, et al., osmanlı resİm sanatı, p. 62: fig. 31

della Porta who was a jewel-merchant present in Istanbul before 1535.11 Whether these nude fijigures were Coecke’s invention or not remains a controversial issue.12 In any case, all the statues were pulled to the ground by a reactionary 11

12

Jacques Gassot, Le discours du voyage de Venise à Constantinople. Paris, 1550, 10. On Pietro della Porta: Linda Klinger and Julian Raby, ‘Barbarossa and Sinan: A Portrait of Two Ottoman Corsairs from the Collection of Paolo Giovio,’ in Ernst J. Grube (ed.), Arte Veneziana e Arte Islamica. Venice, 1989, 50. I owe to Gábor Ágoston the following refences and am grateful for his comments: Pauli Jovii Episcopi Nucerini Historiarum sui temporis. Vol. 2. Florence, 1552, 15, 100. Giovio’s earlier Commentario de le cose de’ Turchi, completed in 1530 and fijirst published in Rome in 1531, only refers to two bronze statues made for Matthias Corvinus, which Sultan Süleyman raised at the piazza as victory trophies. Later sources rely on Giovio’s 1552 account. See Árpád Mikó, ‘Imago Historiae’, in Árpád Mikó and Katalin Sinkó (eds.), Történelem–Kép. Szemelvények múlt és művészet kapcsolatából Magyarországon. Budapest, 2000, 34–47 and 47: notes 77, 80–81. Mikó, ‘Imago Historiae’, 42–46. Although Jolán Balogh thought the nude statues were Coecke’s invention, Mikó cites an eye-witness account of Buda (1534), according to which the Hercules statue was probably nude or half-nude. The two statues mentioned by Giovio in 1531 (note 11 above) could alternatively refer to two sets of triple statues, a

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crowd upon the 1536 execution of Ibrahim Pasha, whom they claimed to be an unbeliever, notwithstanding the obvious fact that his master Sultan Süleyman had approved the display of “infijidel” fijigural sculptures in Istanbul’s main public square for a decade.13 In the 1520s and 1530s illustrated manuscripts were dominated by literary works in prose and verse, featuring paintings of courtly entertainments and hunts echoing the lifestyle of the sultan and his favourite Ibrahim Pasha, both of whom were fond of music, poetry, and hunting. One of the few early illustrated histories is the Selimname, Şükri Bitlisi’s chronicle of Selim I’s reign, two copies of which were produced in the court workshop of painters (nakkaşhane) for Süleyman and probably his grand vizier in 1527 (Fig. 3).14 Another notable illustrated historical manuscript contains Matrakçı Nasuh’s account of the sultan’s fijirst anti-Safavid campaign of the “Two Iraqs” (1534– 1536).15 In my view, this amazing pictorial record of the army’s camping stations and conquests extending from Istanbul all the way to Syria, Iran, and Iraq was almost certainly conceptualized by Ibrahim Pasha who commanded that campaign, although the manuscript itself reached completion in 1537 shortly after his execution (Fig. 4a-d). Unparalleled in contemporary Islamic courts, this innovative genre of topographical painting that enjoyed a long life throughout Süleyman’s sultanate emerged in dialogue with the enduring Ottoman interest in cartography since Mehmed II’s reign (1451–1481). Mapmaking conventions were aestheticized in topographical manuscript paintings associated with the school of the historian-geographer and paintercalligrapher Matrakçı Nasuh. This polymath, skilled in the arts of war, navigation, and mathematical sciences was not enrolled in the court workshop of painters.16 It was also Ibrahim Pasha who encouraged the sea-captain Piri Reis (d. 1554) to prepare the 1526 royal copy of a celebrated cartographic

13

14 15

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possibility suggested without reference to Giovio in Karabacek, Orientalischer Altertumskunde, 95–96, although other early sources only mention a single set. On the destruction of the statues: Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry’, The Art Bulletin 71:3 (1989) 419. Serpil Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı. Ankara, 2006, 55–65. Naṣūḥü’s Silāḥī (Maṭrāḳçı), Beyān-ı Menāzil-i Sefer-i ʿIrākeyn-i Sulṭān Süleymān Ḫān. Ed. by Hüseyin Gazi Yurdaydın. Ankara, 1976; Nurhan Atasoy, with Seyit Ali Kahraman and Ruşen Deniz, Swordsman, Historian, Mathematician, Artist, Calligrapher Matrakçı Nasuh and His Menazilname: Account of the Stages of Sultan Süleyman’s Iraqi Campaign, Istanbul, 2015. Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 72–81; Kathryn A. Ebel, ‘Representations of the Frontier in Ottoman Town Views of the Sixteenth Century’, Imago Mundi 60:1 (2008) 1–22.

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figure 4a-d

[a] İstanbul, [b] Aleppo, [c] Sultaniya, [d] Baghdad. Matrakçı Nasuh, Beyan-ı Menazil-i Sefer-i Irakeyn-i Sultan Süleyman Han, 1537, İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, T. 5964, fols. 8b–9a, 31b–32a, 47b–48a, 105b–106a photograph: hüseyİn g. yurdaydın, beyān-ı menāzİl-i sefer-i ʿirākeyn-i sulṭān süleymān ḫān, facsimile

compilation of Mediterranean ports.17 Ottoman cartographers employed in the imperial arsenals of Gallipoli and Istanbul prepared single-leaf military or siege maps, like those of Belgrade (1521), Lepanto (ca. 1540), and Malta (1565) by revising European portolans, atlases, and printed cityscapes, based on their own observations (Fig. 5a-c).18 The conjunction between military science and art also found expression in other practices during Ibrahim Pasha’s grand vizierate. I discovered, for example, that a shipbuilder called Giovan-Francesco Giustiniani was enrolled 17 18

Piri Reis, Kitab-ı Bahriye / Book of Navigation. Ed. by Bülent Arı. Ankara, 2002. For these maps and an ink drawing of the 1566 Szigetvár siege, see Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 79–81. The Belgrade map has been dated 1521, rather than to Mehmed II’s earlier siege. The Lepanto map depicting men, unlike typical siege maps, has been dated ca. 1540–1550 because its inscriptions mention two fortresses built by Kasım Bey, governor of the Morea (ca. 1535–1541): Soliman le Magnifijique, 97. A date ca. 1540 may be more likely for this painting, which apparently documents Lepanto’s refortifijication after its reconquest by the Ottomans in 1534 (the Habsburg admiral Andrea Doria had seized it in 1532).

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figure 5a-c

[a] Map of Belgrade, 1521 (TSMA, E. 9440); [b] Map of Lepanto, ca. 1540 (TSMK, H. 17/348); [c] Map of Malta, 1565 (TSMK, Y.Y. 1118) photograph: harvard university, visual collections

in the Ottoman corps of royal architects in the early 1530s, prior to Sinan’s appointment. The name of this Venetian nobleman is recorded in the monthly payroll registers of architects as Françesko kapudan-ı Portukal (Francesco seacaptain of Portugal).19 He had worked in Portuguese ports of India before being employed in 1531 to construct large ships at the Istanbul arsenal for a planned 19

He was enroled in the corps of royal architects between 1534 and 1537; earlier payrolls did not survive. His daily salary was raised from 50 akçes to 60 akçes in 1536–1537, thereby surpassing that of the chief architect Alaüddin, who received 55 akçes: Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 563–564. A report published in Venice in 1537, but compiled ca. 1534 before Alvise Gritti’s death, mentions Giustiniani among employees of the arsenal with a wage of 50 akçes: El Zustiniano zoe uno zentilomo Venetiano che serve il Turcho & e sopra a far fare galere ancora lui spexe straordinaria ha do soldo 50 aspri il di. – Pamphlet of Junis Bey and Alvise Gritti printed in 1537, presented in the original Italian, in Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire, 270.

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figure 6a-b Nigari, [a] Double portrait of Charles V and Francis I, ca. 1560. Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, Harvard University, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 85.214; [b] Portrait of Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha, ca. 1540 (TSMK, H. 2134, fol. 9)

naval campaign in the Indian Ocean.20 The presence at the Ottoman capital of this Venetian architect-engineer, who made navigation maps showing the route to Calicut, is one of the remarkable instances of cross-cultural exchange in naval science, technical drawing, and architectural practice. Another case of transcultural exchange involved the painter-poet and seacaptain Nakkaş Haydar Reis, with the penname Nigari, who like Matrakçı Nasuh did not belong to the court workshop of painters. He interpreted European portraiture in an Ottoman idiom, annotated with amusing couplets bearing his signature, as seen in his double portrait of Charles V and Francis I, and another 20

Giustiniani moved in 1537 to Egypt to help Hadım Süleyman Pasha plan the 1538 Indian Ocean campaign: Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration. New York, 2010, 56–59. Giustiniani came to Istanbul in 1531 to build galleons and in 1532 urged Ibrahim Pasha to send a fleet to India via the Gibraltar: Maria Pia Pedani, ‘Ottoman Ships and Venetian Craftsmen in the 16th Century’, in Dejanirah Couto et al. (eds.), Seapower, Technology and Trade: Studies in Turkish Maritime History. Istanbul, 2014, 460; Alain Servantie, ‘Giovan-Francesco Giustinian: A Venetian Technical Assistance to the Ottoman Fleet in View of Countering the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean (1531–1534)’, 1–12 (Academia website). These publications are not aware of Giustiniani’s enrollment in the corps of royal architects and his salary raise in 1536–1537.

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portrait of his colleague, the Ottoman admiral Barbaros Hayreddin (Fig. 6a-b). Attributed to Nigari, a now lost series of painted miniature portraits depicting Ottoman sultans was presented in 1543 inside a luxurious box by Barbaros to Gentile Virginio Orsini, Count of Anguillara, who commanded some galleys during an allied Franco-Ottoman naval campaign against the Habsburgs. These Ottoman portraits were copied in oil paintings for Giovio’s portrait-gallery in Como, and translated in the 1570s into woodcuts illustrating his published works. This episode exemplifijies yet another long-lasting tradition in Ottoman art, also going back to Mehmed II’s reign: the taste for naturalistic portraiture that other Islamic courts only acquired by the late 16th century.21

Ibrahim Pasha and Alvise Gritti as Mediators of Taste The uninhibited aesthetic receptivity to Renaissance status symbols in the young Süleyman’s court was largely mediated by the Italian community of merchants and diplomats in the Pera (Galata) district of Istanbul. Their leader, Alvise Gritti (1480–1534), was the Pera-born illegitimate son of the doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti (1523–1538). The latter had been a prominent grain merchant and diplomat for many years in Pera, during Bayezid II’s reign (1481– 1512). He later concluded a peace treaty with this sultan as an ambassador in 1503, which lasted until the Ottoman–Venetian war of 1537–1540.22 The doge’s son, nicknamed Beyoğlu (Son of the Prince), was a wealthy merchant trading in jewels, silks, spices, and grains. Having received a humanist education in Venice and Padua, he became the intimate advisor and commercial partner of Ibrahim Pasha, who was born in Parga (Greece) on Venetian territory.23 21

22 23

Hans Georg Majer, ‘Nigari and the Sultan’s Portraits of Paolo Giovio’, in 9th International Congress of Turkish Art. Vol. 2. Ankara, 1995, 443–561; The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman. Istanbul, 2000; Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic Conversations with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople’, Muqarnas 29 (2012) 1–81. Ivone Cacciavillani, Andrea Gritti: Nella vita di Nicolò Barbarigo. Venice, 1995. Gizela Németh Papo and Adriano Papo, Ludovico Gritti: Un principe-mercante del Rinascimento tra Venezia, i Turchi e la corona d’Ungheria. Mariano del Friuli, 2002; Gizela Németh Papo and Adriano Papo, ‘Ludovico Gritti, partner commerciale e informatore politico-militare della Repubblica di Venezia’, Studi Veneziani 41 (2001) 217–245; Robert Finlay, ‘Al servizio del Sultano: Venezia, i Turchi e il mondo Cristiano, 1523–1538,’ in Manfredo Tafuri (ed.), ‘Renovatio Urbis’: Venezia nell’ eta’ di Andrea Gritti (1523–1538). Roma, 1984, 78–118. On Ibrahim Pasha’s relationship with Alvise Gritti: Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’; Ebru Turan, ‘The Marriage of Ibrahim Pasha (ca. 1495–1536): The Rise of Sultan Süleyman’s Favourite to the Grand Vizierate and the Politics of the Elites in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire’, Turcica 41 (2009) 3–36.

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The pro-Venetian grand vizier and Alvise simultaneously enhanced their personal mercantile-political interests, along with those of the allied Ottoman and Venetian states. Intimately involved in Levantine trade, the Gritti family had long favoured peace with the Ottoman court. As I noted elsewhere, Alvise’s great-uncle, Giovanni Battista Gritti, was the bailo in Pera at the end of Mehmed II’s reign (1479–1480) when the Signoria sent the painter Gentile Bellini, upon the sultan’s request, to portray him from life. This bailo had afffijirmed Mehmed’s right as “Emperor of Constantinople” (Imperatore di Costantinopoli) to reclaim Otranto, Taranto, and Brindisi from the “king of Puglia”. The importation of artists and artifacts from Italy at the beginning of Süleyman’s reign must therefore be seen as the continuation of a persistent trend that characterized not only the court of Mehmed II, but also that of Selim I, which comfortably coexisted with the patronage of Islamicate artworks.24 Just before Süleyman’s accession, his father had paid a fortune in 1519 for the antique statue of a reclining nude, and a Florentine banker encouraged Michelangelo to join the court of this sultan, who was fond of the fijigural arts unlike his predecessor Bayezid II, or to send another fijirst-rate artist in his place.25 All three sultans – Mehmed II, Selim I, and Süleyman I − emulated their ancestor Bayezid I’s (1389–1401) adoption of Alexander the Great as a role model for their shared ideal of universal sovereignty. In 1396, this sultan had demanded and received a series of Arras tapestries depicting the life of Alexander for the ransom of a captured Burgundian prince, declaring his intention to seize St Peter’s Basilica in Rome upon completing the siege of Constantinople, as he was “born to rule the whole world”.26 Having inherited from his father an empire greatly extended in size, wealth, and commercial potential, the young Süleyman too dreamt of restoring the ancient Roman Empire by reuniting Constantinople with Rome, as did his great-grandfather Mehmed II. In his Commentario de le cose de’ Turchi, published in 1531 in Rome with a dedication to Charles V, Paolo Giovio stated that like his father, Süleyman avidly read translations of the life of Alexander the Great. On the authority of trustworthy informants Giovio testifijied that the sultan often declared the empire of Rome and the whole West belonged to him, as the legitimate successor of Constantine the Great, who had transferred the Roman Empire to Constantinople.27

24 25 26 27

Necipoğlu, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism’, 32, 49, 73: note 142. Ibid., 48; Friedrich Sarre, ‘Michelangelo und der türkische Hof’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 32 (1909) 61–66. Necipoğlu, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism’, 3. Ibid., 50.

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A Venetian ambassador sent twice to Süleyman’s court reported in 1521 that the sultan planned three major campaigns; later in 1527 he observed that Rhodes and Hungary had already been conquered, while the third campaign in Italy remained to be accomplished.28 However, the ambition to seize Rome fluctuated with Süleyman’s desire to capture another “Red Apple”, Vienna, in order to obstruct Habsburg claims for universal sovereignty. This goal gained momentum in 1525 with the defeat of King Francis I at Pavia and the Sack of Rome by the Habsburgs in 1527, reaching a crescendo with Charles V’s coronation in 1530 at Bologna by Pope Clement VII as Holy Roman Emperor, and the designation of his brother Ferdinand I of Austria-Bohemia as King of the Romans in 1531. However, just as Charles would give up mounting a crusade against the Ottomans after his disastrous siege of Algiers in 1541, Süleyman’s imperial project reached an impasse by the end of the 1530s.29 Thereafter, the longstanding continuity in the cultivation of a multifaceted, cosmopolitan Ottoman visual culture capable of addressing diverse internal and external audiences dwindled. Refashioning for himself an austere persona, the elderly Süleyman renounced his youthful enthusiasm for conspicuous consumption in 1551, during the construction of the Süleymaniye complex in Istanbul, where he inspected the already laid foundations of his future mausoleum. At that time he ordered the walls of the Topkapı Palace to be stripped of jewel-incrusted gold- and silverplated revetments, giving up rich costumes, jewelry, goldwork vessels, Italian wine, and listening to music.30 The repudiation of imperial extravagance surely had an economic dimension as well, corresponding as it did to a downturn in state fijinances and to a general disillusionment concerning global ambitions, also shared by his archrival Charles V who abdicated and retired to a monastery in 1556. An Austrian Habsburg ambassador observed in 1564–1565, on the eve of Süleyman’s last Hungarian campaign in Szigetvár, that the sultan harboured three wishes before his death. Of these only the last one remained unfulfijilled: First, building a grandiose mosque complex like the Süleymaniye; second, constructing a water-supply system with aqueducts in Istanbul; and third, converting St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna to a mosque.31 The fijirst two monumental constructions would be acclaimed among Sinan’s most remarkable masterpieces (Figs. 7a-b, 8). 28 29 30 31

Marco Minio’s observations are cited in Theodore Francis Jones, ‘Venice and the Porte, 1520–1542’, PhD diss., Harvard University, 1910, 110. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 86; Şahin, Empire and Power, 108–109. Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’, 404–405, 421–423. Jacob von Betzek, Gesandtschaftsreise nach Ungarn und in die Türkei im Jahre 1564/65. Ed. by Karl Nehring. München, 1979, 25.

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figure 7a-b [a] Istanbul, Süleymaniye mosque complex overlooking the Golden Horn, built by Sinan 1548–1559 photograph: reha günay; [b] Süleymaniye mosque complex aerial view

Süleyman’s self-image as the new Ottoman Alexander and Solomon merged political and spiritual authority, tinged with a messianic dimension that persisted throughout his reign, modifijied according to changing circumstances. Claiming to be the last Roman world emperor as well as the renewer of Islam’s glory, the sultan aspired to fijill the universe with justice as the tenth Ottoman sultan in the apocalyptic tenth-and-last century of the Muslim era.32 The 1565 endowment deed of Süleyman’s charitable waterworks in Istanbul decribes him as the “provider of flowing water in such Muslim cities as the sacred Jerusalem and the well-protected Constantinople, the restorer of religion (müceddid) and its strengthener in the beginning of the 10th century of the Hejira, with the confijirmation of divine support, the tenth and greatest of the sultans descending from the Ottoman family, the most just of all the sultans”. Similar titles appear in the foundation inscription of the Süleymaniye mosque (1557) and in the fijivevolume illustrated Şahname-yi Al-i Osman manuscript (1558), whose last volume

32

Cornell H. Fleischer; ‘The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân’, in Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique, 159–177. On the persistence of the sultan’s messianic image, inseparable from the theme of justice, see Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest: ‘Abd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan Süleyman’s Glosses’, Muqarnas 25 (2008) 17–105; and Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 189–230.

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figure 8

Istanbul, Mağlova aqueduct of the Kırkçeşme water distribution system, built by Sinan 1561–1565. photograph: kırkçeşme water systems. istanbul, 2010

called Süleymanname presents Süleyman’s reign as the glorious culmination of Islamic world history.33 The Süleymaniye and Süleymanname retrospectively celebrated the sultan’s lifelong achievements from the perspective of the latter Süleymanic age. This should not blind us to the fact that the former receptivity to Italianate status symbols for the cultivation of magnifijicence had not been deemed incompatible with Süleyman’s claim for divinely supported universal sovereignty as a Muslim emperor. On the contrary, the amplifijication of artistic exchanges with Venice during Ibrahim Pasha’s grand vizierate was primarily propelled by Süleyman’s ambition to be the one-and-only sanctifijied world emperor. The adoption of Renaissance luxury arts by the Ottoman court in those years was intricately

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The sultan is hailed as the “renewer of religion” and the dynasty’s “tenth ruler in the tenth century of the Hejira” in this manuscript written in Persian verse by Fethullah Çelebi (Arif); see Fatma Sinem Eryılmaz Arenas-Vives, ‘The Shehnameci’s of Sultan Süleyman: ʿArif and Eflatun and their Dynastic Project’, PhD diss. University of Chicago, 2010, 174– 183, 270. The Arabic inscription of the sultanic mosque, composed by Grand Müfti Ebussuud, asserts Süleyman’s secular and divine right to the universal sultanate and caliphate, also stressing his role as lawgiver and as “the tenth of the Ottoman Khaqans, may the line of his sultanate endure until the end of the ages”. Cited in Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 191, 208.

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figure 9a-c [a] Anonymous, Portrait of Sultan Süleyman, Venetian woodcut in two blocks, ca. 1532. London, British Museum photograph: william stirlingmaxwell, examples of engraved portraits of the sixteenth century. london, edinburgh, 1872, pl. 41; [b] Anonymous, Portrait of Sultan Süleyman, Venetian woodcut in two blocks, ca. 1535. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund photograph: m. muraro and d. rosand, titian and the venetian woodcut. washington, dc., 1976, no. 48); [c] Robert Péril, Coronation Cavalcade of Charles V and Clement VII, detail from a series of woodcuts, 1530. Vienna, Albertina, Graphische Sammlung photograph: gülru necİpoğlu, ‘süleyman the magnificent and the representation of power’

entangled with the enterprises of foreign merchants and diplomats, often enmeshed in international networks of espionage. A paradigmatic example of the marriage between art, politics, and commerce in the early 1530s, when European merchants and artists flocked to the Ottoman court, is Süleyman’s bejeweled golden helmet with four superimposed crowns. In an article published in 1989, I interpreted this stunning headgear, competing with the triple-crowned papal tiara and the single-crowned imperial miter, as a challenge directed against the alliance in Bologna between the pope and Charles V (Fig. 9a-c). Produced by a consortium of Venetian nobles, jewelmerchants, and goldsmiths, it was presented by Ibrahim Pasha to the sultan just before they both marched to confront the Habsburg-brothers in Hungary and Austria during the ill-fated 1532 German (Alaman) campaign. I showed that the helmet-crown was designed by Alvise Gritti in collaboration with Ibrahim Pasha, and that the consortium which fijinanced it included the chief treasurer Iskender Bey, thereby establishing that it was not a purely speculative foreign

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enterprise as previously thought, but rather a joint Venetian–Ottoman project. Expressing the sultan’s claim for universal dominion over the “four corners” of the earth, this headgear was boastfully described by Ibrahim Pasha as a “trophy of Alexander the Great (un trofeo di Alexandro Magno)”.34 My interpretation was reinforced by the recent publication of an illuminated manuscript in Italian, discovered by Ana Pulido-Rull at Harvard’s Houghton Library (Figs. 10a-d, 11a-i).35 Written by an anonymous eulogist, the manuscript is a short history of the Ottoman dynasty’s deeds, dedicated in its fijirst line to “Divine Süleyman, Most Invincible” (Divo Solimano Invictissimo). The Turkish sultan’s prestigious semi-divine Trojan lineage is traced to the mythical ancestor Teucro, born from the pagan god Apollo and Cassandra (King Priam of Troy’s daughter), both of whom are shown naked in an amorous embrace on a margin (Fig. 10a-b). Perhaps a subtle humanist allusion to the FrancoOttoman alliance in the early 1530s, when Süleyman’s helmet-crown was produced, the text explains that this couple’s two sons Teucro and Franco became the ancestors of the Ottoman Turks and the kings of France, respectively, after the sack of Troy.36 As a descendant of Apollo – declared to be the God of wisdom, inventor of medicine, and ruler of the Sun – Süleyman’s “theater of virtues” includes humanity, clemency, constancy, justice, wisdom, and his learned patronage of scholars and literati, himself being a practitioner of the fijine arts (le bone arti). What is more, the author applauds the sultan’s artistic skills about which he apparently had insider information: 34

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Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’; Eadem, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism’, 49–51. The Caorlini family of goldsmiths produced the helmet-crown in partnership with Venetian jewel-merchants, including Vincenzo Levriero, and the noblemen Pietro Morosini, Jacomo Corner, Marco Antonio Sanudo, and the sons of Pietro Zeno, who was Venetian vice-bailo in Istanbul. See also Otto Kurz, ‘A Gold Helmet Made in Venice for Sultan Sulayman the Magnifijicent’, Gazette des beaux-arts 74 (1969) 249–258; Ennio Concina, ‘Dell’arabico’. A Venezia, tra Rinascimento e Oriente. Venezia, 1994; Ennio Concina (ed.), Venezia e Istanbul: Incontri, confronti e scambi. Udine, 2006, 100–103; Jürgen Rapp, ‘Der Pergamentriss zu Sultan Süleymans „Vierkronenhelm“ und weitere venezianische Goldschmiedeentwürfe für den türkischen Hof aus dem sogenannten Schmuckinventar Herzog Albrechts V. von Bayern’, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 54:3 (2003) 105–149. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms. Typ. 145. Ana Pulido-Rull, ‘A Pronouncement of Alliance: An Anonymous Illuminated Venetian Manuscript for Sultan Süleyman’, Muqarnas 29 (2012) 101–150 (Appendix II is an English translation by Christopher Brown, revised, edited, and annotated by Gülru Necipoğlu). On the manuscript discovered by Pulido-Rull, see also my comments in the same volume: ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism’, 49–51. The Harvard manuscript revives an earlier discourse on the alleged Trojan origin of the Turks by pro-Ottoman humanists: James Hankins, ‘Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the Age of Mehmed II’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995) 111–207.

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figure 10a-d Anonymous Panegyric for Sultan Süleyman, ca. 1532. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms. Typ. 145 photograph: ana pulido-rull, ‘a pronouncement of alliance’, facsimile; [a] fol. 1r, vignette of Apollo; [b] fol. 1v, vignette of Apollo and Cassandra; [c] fol. 10r, vignette of Süleyman shaking hands with possibly Alvise Gritti; [d] fol. 10v, vignette of an enthroned monarch holding a scepter and being crowned

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figure 11a-i

Anonymous, Panegyric for Sultan Süleyman, ca. 1532. Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms. Typ. 145 photograph: ana pulido-rull, ‘a pronouncement of alliance’, facsimile; [a] fol. 2v, Coronation of Osman I; [b] fol. 4r, Mehmed II in combat on horseback; [c] fol. 5v, Bayezid II and Andrea Gritti shaking hands; [d] fol. 7r, Coronation of Süleyman; [e] fol. 8r, Süleyman pardoning the defeated Grand Master of Rhodes; [f] fol. 9r, Süleyman enthroned with orb and scepter as absolute King of Hungary after Mohács; [g] fol. 9v, Süleyman enthroned as possessor of virtues; [h] fol. 10r, Süleyman enthroned shaking hands with possibly Alvise Gritti; [i] fol. 10v, Coronation of an enthroned monarch with a single-crowned miter Pál Fodor - 978-90-04-39623-4 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com06/14/2019 10:00:32AM via Universitat Wien

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“What will we say about your other virtues, and discipline, as much in philosophy as in every other sort? About this, I will be silent, glorious Solimano, you who always want near you erudite men, literati, men excellent in every virtue, always exercising you in the fijine arts; and so as to not stay idle, you execute with your divine genius and with your hands works and things of great mastery, imitating nature and the gods, things which you then sell, and you distribute the money among the poor and the mendicants: an act that is certainly laudable, worthy, and pleasing to the gods (li dei).”37 Süleyman was trained in his childhood as a goldsmith by a Greek master in Trebizond, together with his milk-brother Yahya Efendi. Later in his reign, the sultan is said to have sent gold and silver objects as charitable gifts to this Sufiji shaykh, who retired in a convent-garden at Beşiktaş in Istanbul.38 Süleyman’s craft-skill contributed to his patronage of goldsmiths and jewelers at the court workshops, and to the flourishing international jewel-trade in which Alvise Gritti became an important intermediary. The latter was, in fact, fijirst introduced as a great connoisseur of jewels to the sultan by Ibrahim Pasha, another jewelry enthusiast. The Harvard manuscript portrays Süleyman from a humanist perspective, comparing him to classical heroes (Augustus, Trajan, and Alexander the Great) and attributing his conquests to the favour of pagan deities: Belgrade “in lower Hungary” (1521), Rhodes (1522), and his second entry into the Kingdom of Hungary (Mohács 1526, when he occupied Buda), after which he “remained absolute king of the Hungarians”. The manuscript is curiously silent about Süleyman’s reentry into Buda during the otherwise unsuccessful 1529 Vienna campaign. At that time, the Hungarian kingdom of John Szapolyai (1526–1540) was recuperated from Ferdinand I by the Ottomans. The king was enthroned and crowned with the Holy Crown of St Stephen in Buda as Süleyman’s protegée. Representing the sultan, Alvise Gritti stayed over fijive months in 1530 at Buda, where King Szapolyai appointed him “Governor of Hungary”. Alvise returned to Istanbul in 1531, marching back with his own armed forces from Edirne to Buda in 1532, when Süleyman and Ibrahim Pasha left for Vienna during the German campaign.39 37 38 39

Pulido-Rull, ‘Pronouncement of Alliance’, Appendix II. 143–144. Haşim Şahin, ‘Yahyâ Efendi, Beşiktaşlı’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 43. İstanbul, 2013, 243–244. Ferenc Szakály, Lodovico Gritti in Hungary, 1529–1534: A Historical Insight into the Beginnings of Turco-Habsburgian Rivalry. (Studia Historica, 197.) Budapest, 1995, 54–71, esp. 65–68.

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The astonishing Harvard manuscript was most probably commissioned by the pro-French Venetian doge’s son, Alvise Gritti, who “publicly professed being a servitor of the king of France” and its anonymous author could have been a humanist from his or his family’s circle. Alvise may even have personally presented the manuscript as a gift to the sultan, before leaving for Buda in 1532, in his capacity as Süleyman’s regent in Hungary (1530–1534), where he assisted the vassal King Szapolyai, a protégé of both the sultan and Francis I.40 The gift seems to have accompanied the helmet-crown itself, depicted in the manuscript’s vignettes painted in grisaille, which Ibrahim Pasha presented to Sultan Süleyman in Edirne, before they both proceeded with the Ottoman army to confront the Habsburg brothers.41 The manuscript is worthy of a closer examination in light of its striking emphasis on Hungary on the eve of the Hungarian–Austrian campaign. It was obviously assumed that this would be most welcome as a gift by Süleyman. One of its painted vignettes depicts Alvise’s father, Andrea Gritti, shaking hands with Bayezid II in 1503 as the Venetian ambassador who concluded a “perpetual” peace treaty with that sultan. This scene visually echoes a later vignette, which I interpret as Alvise shaking Süleyman’s hand before departing for the Hungarian capital Buda in 1532 (Figs. 11c, 11h).42 His father, the ambassador Andrea Gritti, anachronistically wears the ducal hat as if he were already doge of Venice, just as Bayezid II is wearing the helmet-crown long before it was created for Süleyman. The manuscript represents this headgear as the ancient imperial crown of the Ottoman dynasty, fijirst worn by the empire’s true founder Mehmed II. Hence, it implicitly corresponds to the Holy

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Szapolyai’s European allies also included the doge of Venice, the king of England, and the king of Poland who was his father-in-law. According to a letter of Charles V from April 1535, the late Alvise Gritti (d. 1534) had made “profession publique de serviteur dudit roy de France”; see Ernest Charrière, Négotiations de la France dans le Levant… Vol. 1. New York, 1964 or 1965, 148–149, 265: note 1. The humanists in Alvise’s circle included Andronicus Tranquillus, Augustinus Musaeus, and Francesco della Valle (Alvise’s secretary-cum-chamberlain); see Tibor Kardos, ‘Dramma satirico carnevalesco su Alvise Gritti, Governatore dell’Ungheria, 1532’, in Vittore Branca (ed.), Venezia e Ungheria nel Rinascimento. Firenze, 1973, 397–427. Pulido-Rull proposes that the manuscript was likely commissioned by Alvise Gritti and Ibrahim Pasha, and its illuminations were perhaps by the Italian miniaturists Vincenzo Raimondi or Girolamo dai Libri (Giulio Clovio’s master): ‘Pronouncement of Alliance’, 101–109. The text accompanying the vignette (fol. 10r) suggestively refers to touching the sultan’s hand: “But we will now not write anything if not what we see in you; that which can be touched by hand, that which is well known and manifest to the entire world.” Pulido-Rull, ‘Pronouncement of Alliance’, Appendix II. 144: note v.

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Crown of Hungary that Süleyman had magnanimously donated to his vassal at Buda in 1529. The author acknowledges Süleyman’s “Majesty of Ceasar”, thanks to which he deserves to be “absolute monarch and emperor of the whole world”. In fact, the present age has “only one emperor, Solimano”.43 The last two pages greet the sultan as “more fortunate than Alexander the Great”, declaring that, “as king of kings and emperor of emperors ... you are worthy of every empire, of every triumph, of every crown, not just of myrtle and laurel, but of gold and precious, most ornate gems, such as that helmet (elmetto) that we now see ornamenting your divine Caesarship” – an obvious reference to the four-crowned helmet (Fig. 11c-d).44 The manuscript ends with wishes for the “most sacred emperor’s” long life and future conquests, “so that the world can benefijit from you longer, and after your death you will be placed among the number of the gods”. The fijinal vignette depicts an enthroned monarch’s coronation with a singlecrowned miter topped by an Ottoman crescent, which curiously echoes the coronation scene of the dynasty’s founder Osman I with a similar crown (Figs. 10d, 11a, 11i). Both coronation scenes are similarly composed and coloured red, as that of Süleyman, with the exception of his more imposing fourcrowned helmet (Fig. 11d). The enigmatic last vignette may hint at the sultan’s intention to more fijirmly establish his tributary vassal Szapolyai as the only legitimate king of Hungary, through the mediation of Alvise Gritti.45 Solving the “Hungarian question” was certainly an aim of the 1532 campaign, which partly responded to Ferdinand I’s aborted attempt to wrest Szapolyai’s royal seat, Buda Castle, and his capture of several Ottoman strongholds in Hungary at the turn of 1530–1531.46 The sultan’s hope to overwhelm the Habsburg brothers in the Austrian capital Vienna did not materialize. Instead, the German campaign led to a truce (1533) that afffijirmed the fijixing of Ottoman– Habsburg borders with Süleyman’s arbitration, an ominous task assigned to Alvise Gritti who would be murdered in Hungary in 1534.47 The Harvard manuscript exemplifijies a philo-Ottoman discourse promoted by the Venetian peace-party, dominated by noble families engaged in Levantine trade. This humanist image of the Ottomans, with allusions to classical antiquity, was particularly espoused by Pera merchants praising the justice and 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid., fols. 8v–9v, Appendix II. 143–144. Ibid., fols. 10r–v, Appendix II. 144. Rumours even claimed that the sultan allegedly planned to give the Hungarian Kingdom to Alvise Gritti: Szakály, Lodovico Gritti in Hungary, 61–71. During the Habsburg siege Alvise Gritti heroically defended Buda Castle; ibid., 55–65. On Alvise’s declining power in 1533–1534 and his murder, see ibid., 11–39, 81–83; Kardos, ‘Dramma satirico’.

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humanity of Süleyman, who was “not at all like a barbarian prince”.48 An antiOttoman pamphlet in Italian claims that the 1532 campaign was spurred by certain “allegedly” Christian princes like Francis I and political exiles from the Kingdom of Naples, Florence, and other nations, but especially by the “merchants of Constantinople”. They had convinced Ibrahim Pasha to persuade Süleyman that this campaign would make him “world emperor”, thereby nullifying Charles V’s aspiration for universal rule in the manner of Roman

figure 12 Anonymous, Equestrian sultan with a panorama of Istanbul (identifijied by an inscription as Mehmed IV, but probably a recycled print of Süleyman), engraving, mid-17th century. “Augsburg zu fijinden bey Jacob Koppinayr” photograph: courtesy of julian raby

emperors. The pasha reportedly told Süleyman that the conquest of Belgrade and Hungary had opened the gates of Italy and of all Christendom, guaranteeing the success of a land-and-sea campaign in which his navy would conquer Puglia and Sicily, just as Otranto had previously been seized by Mehmed II.49 Although the Harvard manuscript and widely circulating Venetian prints depict Süleyman wearing the helmet-crown, in actuality he never did. During the German campaign, it was displayed in imperial tent receptions on a stool next to the sultan’s throne. In triumphal parades this “Venetian helmet bearing 48

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Paolo Paruta, Historia Vinetiana (1513–1551). Vol. 6. Venice, 1703 (fijirst published in 1583), 254, cited in Jones, ‘Venice and the Porte’, 108–109. For two humanist eulogies in Italian, addressed to Mehmed II and Selim I, which also refer to classical heroes and deities but are not illustrated, see Necipoğlu, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism’, 49–50. Giovan Luigi di Parma, Discorso sopra l’impresa dell’Austria fatta da Gran Turco nel 1532. Bologna, 1543. I consulted the manuscript version of this pamphlet, attributed to Luigi Borra Parmigiano, in Venice, Marciana Library, Ms. Italiani, Cl. VI (8398), fols. 48r–94r.

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a striking resemblance to the papal tiara”, was carried by royal attendants alongside eleven bejeweled helmets of Ottoman workmanship. For the parade through Belgrade, streets had been decorated with triumphal arches “in the manner of ancient Roman triumphs”, which must have intimated to onlookers the “Rumi” (Roman) heritage of the Ottoman sultanate. These ceremonies responded to the coronation procession of the pope and emperor at Bologna in 1530, accompanied by pamphlets that dehumanized the barbarian Ottomans, in contrast to the humanist perspective of the illuminated manuscript.50 Süleyman’s helmet-crown was complemented by a saddle, saddlecloth, and scepter (mace) produced in Venice by diffferent consortiums (Fig. 12).51 Ottoman illustrated historical manuscripts never depicted these artifacts, being produced from the late 1550s onward when a new cultural politics no longer tolerated “foreign” symbols of rulership. The fame of Süleyman’s helmet-crown was primarily publicized by Venetian prints and plays of the notorius playwright, author and art critic Pietro Aretino.52 The latter had settled in Venice in 1527, initially as a protégé of the Gritti and Corner families (whose members became involved in the helmet-crown’s production). There, he surrounded himself with an entourage of literati and artists.53 Aretino’s circle included the painter Titian, on whose design Süleyman’s printed portraits with the helmet-crown are believed to be based, and the goldsmith Luigi Caorlini who fashioned this headgear. Another associate of Aretino was the sculptor-architect Jacopo Sansovino; he designed a baldachin (baldacchino) and umbrella (ombrella) for Süleyman in partnership with Luigi Caorlini and his colleagues, who ventured into other projects after the commercial success of the helmet-crown. But they sufffered fijinancial losses with Ibrahim Pasha’s departure to the “Two Iraqs” campaign at end of 1533 and his execution in 1536, along with Alvise Gritti’s murder in 1534.54 Moreover, the Venetian jewelmerchant Marco di Niccolò, closely associated with both Alvise and Aretino, was executed in Istanbul in 1536 as a double-agent of the Ottomans and the Habsburg emperor.55 This merchant, who had been a partner in the consortium of the 50

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Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’, 407–417. Anti-Ottoman Habsburg propaganda is contrasted with the pro-Ottoman discourse of the illuminated manuscript in Pulido-Rull, ‘Pronouncement of Alliance’, 114–118. Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’, 407–409. Ibid., 412, 417–418, 420–421: Aretino’s La cortigiana (1534) and Il marescalco (1533), but also Francesco Negri’s Libero Arbitrio (1546). See note 34 above for the consortium partners. On their fijinancial losses: Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’, 417–418. He was also an intermediary between Francis I and Sultan Süleyman. See the following Academia website articles by Alain Servantie: ‘L’Information de Charles Quint sur les Turcs, ou les élements pour décider de la guerre ou de la paix: Du rêve de croisade aux

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bejeweled scepter in 1532, subsequently entered a failed partnership that tried to sell to Süleyman jewels and fijigural tapestries produced by the Dermoyen fijirm at Brussels, a project for which the artist Coecke was sent to Istanbul in 1533.56 Aretino’s play La cortigiana (1534) mentions a group of unnamed “sculptors and painters,” who came to Istanbul with the Venetian goldsmith Luigi Caorlini and his partner Marco di Niccolò (the double-spy), under Alvise Gritti’s protection.57 We know that the latter invited Aretino and his circle to Istanbul after this humanist offfered his services in 1531 with a letter addressed to Ibrahim Pasha, and through him to the sultan, stating that he wished to immortalize their fame with laudations that would adorn the whole world.58 Aretino’s letter, praising the “divine” (divo) Süleyman’s clemency and justice, glorifijies him as “the most sacred and most invincible prince of princes, king of kings, and god of demigods”, much like the Harvard manuscript. One even wonders whether he could have been the anonymous author of this manuscript, a conjecture requiring further research that goes beyond the purview of my essay. We learn from a dispatch Marco di Niccolò sent from Istanbul to Aretino that his letter was presented to the pasha by Alvise Gritti together with a silver portrait medal of Aretino, which was supplied by this jewel-merchant.59 Given these intricate

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réalités’, 19: note 68; ‘De la mévente de tapisseries bruxelloises en Turquie aux “Façons de faire des Turcs” et à la “Description de la court du Grant Turc”’, 11: notes 38–39. Necipoğlu, ‘Representation of Power’, 420. The failure of the tapestry project was reported to Charles V in a letter written on 2 June 1534 by his ambassador in Istanbul, Schepper, requesting the emperor to inform the Antwerp merchant Pieter van der Walle about this mishap and about the sultan’s reluctance to buy, in the absence of Ibrahim Pasha who departed for the Persian campaign, the jewels that had been sent: Servantie, ‘De la mévente de tapisseries bruxelloises’, 2: note 5. Another partner involved in both the scepter and tapestry projects was Pietro della Porta, the jewel-merchant relative of Giovio, based in Istanbul before 1535: Klinger and Raby, ‘Barbarossa and Sinan’, 50. Pietro Aretino, Tutte le comedie. Ed. by G. B. De Sanctis. Milano, 1968, 173. On the Venetian painter Gian-Maria di Andrian Gian-Battista who was in Istanbul in 1533, see Klinger and Raby, ‘Barbarossa and Sinan’, 50. On Alvise Gritti’s invitation letter in June 1532, see Lettere scritte à Pietro Aretino. Bologna, 1968, 1:1, 223–224. Aretino’s letter to Ibrahim Pasha, dated 2 August 1531, is published in Paul Larivaille, ‘Pour l’histore des rapports de l’Arétin avec les puissants de son temps. Deux lettres inédites aux Pacha Ibrahim et au Roi François Ier’, in La Correspondence. 2 vols. Aix-en-Provence, 1984–1985, II. 55–92. According to Larivaille, Gritti’s invitation letter cannot be dated later than the last months of 1531 or the beginning of 1532, when he left for Hungary. Marco di Niccolò’s letter, dated 9 September 1533: Paolo Procaccioli (ed.), Edizione nazionale delle opere di Pietro Aretino. Lettere Scritte à Pietro Aretino. Roma, 2003, 9:1, 81: No. 59. See also Lettere scritte à Pietro Aretino. Bologna, 1968, 1:1, 94–95. Larivaille dates this letter earlier because it describes Aretino’s 1531 letter being presented to Ibrahim Pasha by Alvise Gritti, who was in Hungary in 1533: Larivaille, ‘Pour l’histore’, 58.

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networks, I am tempted to suggest that the Venetian prints advertising the helmet-crown were probably produced through the mediation of Aretino’s circle of artists and dealers, who were directly involved in its creation. The prints may even have circulated with the input of the consortium’s Ottoman collaborators as a public relations campaign to enhance the reputation of both the producers and the possessor of this headgear, sold for the extraordinary sum of 115,000 ducats. After all, Süleyman did care about public opinion abroad: He used to send donations via French ambassadors frequenting his court to the historian Giovio, who received pensions from Francis I and Charles V.60

The Franco-Ottoman Alliance and Barbaros Hayreddin During the German campaign, Ottoman Coron (formerly a Venetian coastal fortress in the Morea) was seized by the commander of Charles V’s fleet, Andrea Doria, a loss blamed on the Signoria’s reluctance to help the Ottoman navy. Thereafter relations with Venice deteriorated, leading to the previously mentioned Ottoman–Venetian war of 1537–1540.61 France took the privileged place of Venice in Ottoman diplomatic relations around 1534–1535, a development that culminated in a commercial treaty received by the French ambassador from Ibrahim Pasha in 1536, as the grand vizier’s last legacy.62 Within the context of Franco-Ottoman alliance against the Habsburg navy in the Mediterranean, the former corsair-merchant Barbarossa (Barbaros Hayreddin), who became an Ottoman vassal as the ruler of Algiers around 1519–1521, rose to unprecedented power. It has been noted, however, that the foundation inscription on the portal of his mosque in Algiers, dated April 1520 (Cemaziülevvel 926), makes no reference to Ottoman suzerainty.63 This Arabic inscription identifijies Barbaros as a “sultan and warrior on behalf of Islam”, and the son of a “Turk”, thereby 60 61

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Servantie, ‘L’Information de Charles Quint,’ 10: note 37. On Ibrahim Pasha’s complaint concerning Venice’s role in the fall of Coron: Jones, ‘Venice and the Porte’, 145–177, esp. 165–170. The pasha criticized the doge of Venice later in 1535 for not helping Barbaros during the absence of the sultan in the Persian campaign: İdris Bostan, ‘Kanuni ve Akdeniz Siyaseti 1530–1550’, in Özlem Kumrular (ed.), Muhteşem Süleyman. Istanbul, 2007, 31. Jones, ‘Venice and the Porte’, 177–193; Christine Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infijidel: The Ottoman and French Alliance in the Sixteenth Century. London, 2011. Nicolas Vatin, ‘Note sur l’entrée d’Alger sous la souveraineté ottomane (1519–1521)’, Turcica 44 (2012–2013) 131–166; Rhoads Murphey, ‘Seyyid Muradî’s Prose Biography on Hızır Ibn Yakub, Alias Hayreddin Barbarossa: Ottoman Folk Narrative as an Under-Exploited Source for Historical Reconstruction’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54:4 (2001) 519–532.

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ethnically diffferentiating him from Arab-Berber tribal chiefs and rival rulers like the Hafsid sultans of Tunis and the Zayyanids of Tlemcen.64 It was not until 1531 that the star of Barbaros began to rise under Sultan Süleyman’s personal protection, leading to his eventual substitution of Ibrahim Pasha as the main actor in Franco-Ottoman politics.65 Invited to Istanbul after the fall of Coron by the sultan, who received him at the Topkapı Palace in 1533, Barbaros replaced Ibrahim Pasha’s inexperienced “charming” cousin, Kemankeş Ahmed Bey (1531–1533) as admiral of the Ottoman fleet.66 Subsequently meeting with Ibrahim Pasha (who was then in Aleppo) for the confijirmation of his position, Barbaros returned to Istanbul and was appointed as governor-general of Mediterranean islands (Cezair-i Bahr-i Sefijid beylerbeyi, Cezair beylerbeyi) in 1534, a newly created province comprising Mediterranean-Aegean ports and islands.67 Süleyman also bestowed upon him the additional title of “pasha” as fourth vizier of the imperial council. The grand admiral (1534–1546) owed these unique privileges to having donated to the sultan his North African kingdom, with its capital Algiers, where he had appointed his own slave as lieutenant before settling in Istanbul in 1533.68 Interestingly, Barbaros too corresponded with Pietro Aretino who, soon after a peace treaty was signed with Venice, introduced himself to the sultan’s admiral with a letter, offfering to enhance his addressee’s international prestige. Dated 1541, this letter to “Araindin Barbarossa, King of Algiers (Re d’Algieri)”, hails him as “famous king, worthy pasha, unvanquished captain, and 64

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Al-Sultan al-Mujahid fiji sabil Rabb al-ʿAlamin Mawlana Khayr al-Din ibn al-Amir al-shahir al-Mujahid Abi Yusuf Yaʿkub al-Turki: Gabriel Colin, Corpus des inscriptions arabes et turques d’Algérie. Paris 1901, 13–15; Mehmet Tütüncü, Cezair’de Osmanlı İzleri. Istanbul, 2013, 67–70. Bostan, ‘Kanuni ve Akdeniz Siyaseti’, 26–28. On Ibrahim Pasha’s cousin, see Jones, ‘Venice and the Porte’, 154–157. In May 1534 Alvise Gritti expressed discontent about Barbaros’s promotion, decided by the sultan while Ibrahim Pasha was away in Aleppo, and against his own advice to the pashas, which forced the grand vizier to swallow this decision: Servantie, ‘Giovan-Francesco Giustinian’, 10: notes 45–46. On the rivalry between Beyoğlu and Barbaros, the bey (prince) of Algiers, who moreover became a pasha: Szakály, Lodovico Gritti, 81–82. On Barbaros’s promotion as “Beylerbeyi of the Sea” who was “then made fourth pasha” as vizier, see Ramberti (1534), Libri tre, 246, 255–256; Pamphlet of Junis, 265, 270; İdris Bostan, ‘The Establishment of the Province of Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefijid’, in Elisabeth Zachariadou (ed.), The Kapudan Pasha: His Offfijice and His Domain. Rethymnon, 2002, 241–251; Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, ‘Roi, pirate ou esclave? L’image de Hayru-d-din Barberousse’, in Nathalie Clayer and Erdal Kaynar (eds.), Penser, agir et vivre dans l’Empire ottoman et en Turquie. Études réunies pour François Georgeon. Paris, Louvain, Walpole, MA, 2013, 233–259; Nicolas Vatin, ‘Le pouvoir des Barberousse à Alger d’après les Gazavat-ı Hayreddin Paşa’, forthcoming in Mélanges Georgeon, Halcyons Days in Crete.

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outstanding man”, whose celebrity even surpasses that of his patron, “the mighty Emperor Solimano”. Aretino applauds the admiral’s world-famous deeds and reputation among Christians, who wrote about his exploits in many languages and honoured Barbaros by having “a picture of your proud face to be engraved (imprimere lo essempio de la tua faccia altera), and when they contemplate it, with unfailing reverence and wonder, they perceive in the expanse of your forehead and within the circle of your eyes that singular gravity and awsome ardour”. As a sign of his devotion to Venice, Aretino requests the admiral to be merciful to Christian slaves “in recollecting the debt owed by your mighty prowess to those who have given you immortality”.69 In his response sent from Istanbul in 1542 via the Venetian bailo, before he sailed with the Ottoman fleet to join Francis I’s navy, Barbaros praises the “magnifijicent and circumspect” Aretino as “foremost of Christian writers”, referring to himself as “Hayreddin Pasha Barbaros, Commander-in-chief in the Sea of Sultan Süleyman’s imperial army, and King of Algiers”.70 The second title diverges from the admiral’s offfijicial position as governor-general with the rank of vizier after 1534, even though he was once the sultan of Algiers. Lutfiji Pasha’s chronicle notably accuses Barbaros of “prematurely priding himself with selfappointed status as emperor (padişah) of the Maghrib” upon seizing Tunis in 1534, thus provoking Charles V’s humiliating reconquest in 1535 and the reinstatement of the Hafsid ruler as a Habsburg vassal.71 Barbaros seemingly continued to cultivate his “aura” of royalty on certain occasions. He thanks Aretino for sending a silver portrait medal depicting Aretino’s face, “the head of a captain, rather than a writer”, about whose fame and virtues Barbaros had engaged in many conversations with his slaves from Genoa and Rome, who knew him personally. Ibrahim Pasha reacted similarly to a silver medal of Aretino, presented a decade ago with his abovementioned letter, by asking what country the king portrayed in it ruled, to which Alvise Gritti gallantly replied: “The realm of virtue.”72 69

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Paolo Procaccioli (ed.), Edizione nazionale delle opere di Pietro Aretino. Lettere Scritte à Pietro Aretino. Roma, 1998, 4:2, 378–379: No. 249, dated 1 April 1541. Aretino: Selected Letters. Translated by George Bull. Harmondsworth, 1976, 203–205: No. 77. Ariadin Bassà Barbarossa, Generale in Mare de l’armi de la Imperial Signoria di Sultan Salim [sic: Süleyman] e Re d’Algieri, mid-Ramadan 949, translated from Turkish to Italian: Paolo Procaccioli (ed.), Lettere Scritte à Pietro Aretino. Roma, 2004, 9:2, 148: No. 136. See also Lettere scritte à Pietro Aretino. Bologna, 1968, 2:1, 269–270; The Works of Aretino: Letters and Sonnets. Translated by Samuel Putnam. New York, 1933, 285. Cited in Murphey, ‘Seyyid Muradî’s’, 520: note 4. Although sultan can be interpreted as a synonym for bey, the former title was reserved in the Ottoman context for the royal family. A reason for Ibrahim Pasha’s execution was his adoption of the title serasker sultan. Cited in note 59 above.

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Another fascinating reference to the circulation of portrait medals as a currency of reputation and exchange (alongside letters and prints), appears in an unpublished letter sent by Andrea Doria to Charles V from Genoa on 17 December 1528, prior to Süleyman’s 1529 Vienna campaign. Two cut chords attached to this letter, discovered by George L. Gorse, held a no-longer-present medal of the “Grand Turk’s portrait drawn from life” so as to better acquaint the emperor with his chief adversary before meeting him alive, as the admiral hoped, and triumphing over him to the benefijit of Christianity.73 This seems to have been Süleyman’s uniface medal in profijile attributed to Alfonso Lombardi (1520s), which would be copied in a portrait medal of Charles V (post-1530) whose face is flanked by that of the sultan and an angel, accompanied by a legend predicting that “the present head will fall before Ceasar’s sword”.74 To return to Barbaros’s letter, he expresses gratitude to Aretino who has glorifijied him, thereby making him dear to the Turks and Franks (a reference to Aretino’s habit of publicly circulating copies of his letters). Upon returning from the Franco-Ottoman naval campaign (1543–1544), the admiral promises to repay Aretino’s favour. The geriatric Barbaros died shortly after coming back to Istanbul (in 1546) from this land-and-sea campaign, celebrated in a chronicle illustrated with topographical paintings. Attributed to Matrakçı Nasuh (ca. 1545), its fijirst part covers Barbaros’s naval operations, while its second part recounts the simultaneous Hungarian campaign of 1543 commanded by Sultan Süleyman, in response to Ferdinand I’s renewed attempt to recover Buda and Pest from the Ottomans the previous year (Fig. 13a-b).75 Barbaros concludes his letter by expressing the wish “to see one of those images (imagini), which are in the likeness of my face, that are common 73

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Professor Gorse, who discovered the letter in 1984, kindly sent me his precious notes and allowed me to cite his transcription of it: Essendomi pervenuta alle mani una Medaglia col ritratto dal naturale del Gran’ Turco, me è parso mandarla a V. Maestà. Ad cio che quando li occorara vederlo vivo, com’io tengo ferma speranza, possa conoscerlo con più facilitate, et cussi N.S. dio gli ne presti la gratia e la faccia di lui et di tutto el mondo insieme triomphare per reintegratione e Augumento del nome Christiano, Conservando V. Maestà secondo li suoi sancti desiderij. Alla quale quanto più humilmenti posso mi Rac.do. Da Genova alli xvij de Decembre MDXXVIIJ. Di V. Sac. Ces. Cat. Mtà. / Humil Servitor qual sue man basa. Andrea Doria. Archivo General de Simancas, Estado Legaio 1553, fol. 272. Inscribed variously as SULIMANUS.TUR[CARUM].IMP[ERATOR], and SOLYMAN.IMP. TUR., see Ulrich Middeldorf, ‘Una proposta per Alfonso Lombardi’, La medaglia d’arte 10–12 (1970) 25–26; The Sultan’s Portrait, No. 14. For Charles’ medal, see Max Bernhardt, Die Bildnismedaillen Karls des Fünften. München, 1919, 82: Pl. 15 (No. 189). This medal is dated “c. 1532?” in Raymond B. Waddington, ‘Breaking News: Representing the Islamic Other on Renaissance Medals’, The Medal 53 (Autumn 2008) 12–13. Sinan Çavuş [sic], Tarih-i Feth-i Sikloş, Estergon ve İstol(n)i Belgrad, or Süleyman-name. Istanbul, 1987; Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 78–79.

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figure 13a-b [a] Nice; [b] Buda. Matrakçı Nasuh, Tarih-i Feth-i Sikloş, Estergon ve İstolni Belgrad, ca. 1545, Topkapı Palace Museum Library (TSMK), H. 1608, fols. 27b–28a; 89b–90a photograph: facsimile with same title, istanbul, 1987

throughout Italy”, which Aretino had mentioned in his letter.76 The images in question were likely earlier engraved portraits of Barbaros that perhaps circulated among pro-French factions in Italy. Examples that come to mind are two engravings dated 1535, whose inscriptions refer to Barbaros as a king, which are signed respectively by the Venetian engravers Lorenzo and Agostino Veneziano (de’ Musi) (Fig. 14a-b). Barbaros’s royal pretensions are particularly captured by his profijile portrait with an all’antica Renaissance helmet, bordered by a single crown and decorated with a winged lion and a female nude holding an Ottoman crescent. Its Italian inscription identifijies the sitter as “King of Algiers, called Barbaros Sultan Hayreddin” (RE DE ALGIERI. / DITTO BARBA. ROSSA / SOLTAN. CHARADIN). Barbaros did actually possess a royal helmet, which is mentioned in a work by Lodovico Dolce, published at Genoa in 1535 in praise of Charles V’s North African victory. In it, Barbaros is said to have paraded during the siege of Tunis along the streets of the city, followed by his retinue, while a slave carried in front of him a helmet as a royal emblem. This is 76

[I]o desidero vedere una di quelle imagini che à la similitudine de la faccia mia per Italia si veggono. Procaccioli (ed.), Lettere Scritte à Pietro Aretino, 9:2, 148: No. 136; Lettere scritte à Pietro Aretino, 2:1, 269. Translated in Putnam, The Works of Aretino, 285.

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reminiscent of Sultan Süleyman’s helmet-crown being paraded before him during processions in the 1532 German campaign. Barbaros’s headgear was “a helmet worked with pearls and other gems, with notable ingenuity, so that the eye never tires of looking at it, for it doubles beauty and pleasure. Another carried a mace, and yet another a horse, [who were] also his slaves”. Dolce concedes that the 66-year old “Ariadino”, who aged in the seas like Ulysses, had with astute ingenity made himself the “King of Tunis and Algiers” (Re di Tunegi e d’Algere). The other engraving of a turbaned Barbaros, which comes close to

figure 14a-c [a] Lorenzo de’ Musi, Engraved portrait of Barbaros, 1535 (photograph: the illustrated bartsch, 31: p. 361); [b-c] Agostino Veneziano, Engraved portraits of Barbaros and Süleyman, 1535 photograph: the illustrated bartsch, 27: pp. 191, 193

Aretino’s description above of the admiral’s portrait circulating in Italy, refers to him as the king of Algiers and Tunis, a position he only held briefly in 1534– 1535. Its Latin inscription identifijies the sitter as “Hayreddin Barbaros King of Cirtha (Constantine, in modern Algeria) and Tunis, and Commander of the Ottoman Fleet” (ARIADENUS BARBARUSSA CIRTHAE TUNET/IQ[UE] REX AC OTOMANICAE CLASSIS PRAEF[ECTUS]). This engraving was published together with a recycled smaller version of Sultan Süleyman’s 1532 anonymous Venetian woodcut portrait wearing the four-crowned helmet, both of them signed by Agostino Veneziano in 1535 (Fig. 14b-c).77 77

The portrait of Barbaros with a helmet is signed by Lorenzo de’ Musi, known as Lorenzo Veneziano, who was probably a relative of Agostino de’ Musi, called Agostino Veneziano; Susanne Boorsch and John Spike (eds.), The Illustrated Bartsch. Vol. 31. New York, 1986, 361. I am grateful to Cristelle Baskins for bringing to my attention Lodovico Dolce’s pamphlet titled Stanze di M. Lodovico Dolce Composte nella vittoria Africana novamente havuta

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The two Barbaros engravings and that of Süleyman, each dated 1535, were produced while Venice was still in good terms with the sultan, prior to the Venetian–Ottoman war of 1537–1540, which erupted when Charles V forced the previously neutral Signoria to enter the holy league of 1536. At that time, diverse pro-French factions in Italy tried to resist the peninsula’s domination by the emperor. During the winter of 1535 a secret mission was negotiated by Francis I for a Franco-Ottoman alliance that would involve a naval attack by Barbaros from Tunis against Genoa and Spanish coasts. The instructions of the king of France on 11 February 1535, which address the ambassador he sent to Barbaros, refer to the Ottoman grand admiral as “the Lord Hayredddin-BegPasha, King of Algiers” (le seigneur Haradin-Begii-Baschia, roy d’Arget), who rules over the “kingdom and state of Tunis and Algiers” (du royaume et estat de Thunis et d’Arget). The same ambassador was to subsequently negotiate with Sultan Süleyman and Ibrahim Pasha, who were then engaged in a war against the Safavid shah. The ambassador would make a plea for “universal peace” on behalf of Francis I, whose instructions list among his allies the pope, the kings of England, Scotland, and Portugal, and the Venetian Republic. (Indeed, a letter sent from Venice in June 1535 to Francis assured him that Doge Andrea Gritti, secretly hoped for the success of the king of France’s enterprise in concert with Barbaros against the emperor, being more than ever fearful about Habsburg ambitions over Italy.) The instructions of Francis to his ambassador add that the king of Spain, Charles V, could join the alliance with Sultan Süleyman if he would give up enmity and discord, returning to France its occupied territories, and leaving King Szapolyai in peaceful possession of the Kingdom of Hungary. Should the king of Spain refuse, the only option left would be waging a war against him by these allied potentates, plus others like the Danish and Swiss kings, the duke of Guelders, and many German princes. Besides asking for a money loan to fijight against Charles V, who aspired to universal monarchy against him and the sultan, Francis requested that the sultan’s armada commanded by “Seigneur Haradin” attack the Kingdom of dal Sacratissimo Imperatore Carolo Quinto. Se vendeno ala botega de Mestro Giovanne Antonio appresso ala Dugana in Genova, 1535, unpaginated: Portava un schiavo inanzi adagio per le strade c’hanno a lassar forse di corto, una celata lavorata a perle et altre gioie, per ingegno accorto, che all’occhio non mai satio di vederle raddopian la vaghezza & il diporto. Porta un’altro una Mazza, un’altro poi una gianetta, pur dei schiavi suoi. For the turbaned portait of Barbaros, see Konrad Oberhuber (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch. Vol. 27. New York, 1978, 191, 193. Cirtha (Cirta), the capital of the Berber Kingdom of Numidia in North Africa (modern Algeria), was rebuilt by Emperor Constantine the Great and named after him as “Constantina”. I thank Noémi Lévy-Aksu, Cristelle Baskins, and Evridiki Georgantelli for their interpretations of the Latin inscription.

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figure 15a-b [a] Silver portrait medal of Barbaros, ca. 1534–1535, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (Photo: Klinger and Raby, ‘Barbarossa and Sinan’, p. 58: Fig. 4); [b] Silver portrait medal of Sultan Süleyman, Dresden, Münzkabinett, Inv.-Nr. 2566. photograph: im lichte des halbmonds, p. 75: no. 24

Naples via Sicily and Sardinia, thereby forcing the king of Spain to accept the aforesaid universal peace. During the summer of that year, in June 1535, Charles V trumped the grandiose plans of Francis by conquering Tunis from Barbaros, while Süleyman was still away fijighting the Safavid shah. Judging by the boastful Latin titles of the Ottoman grand admiral’s engraved portraits, I would propose that these heroic royal images must have been created during the winter or spring of 1535, before Barbaros’s humiliating loss of Tunis from which he managed to escape with a vast treasure and his closest comrades via Constantine to Bona and Algiers.78 A small undated silver medal of Barbaros may have circulated around the same time to enhance his reputation in Europe and North Africa (Fig. 15a). Produced by the German medallist Ludwig Neufahrer (d. 1563) in Vienna, its bilingual inscriptions address both Christian and Muslim audiences. The 78

Charrière, Négotiations de la France, I. 246–262; see 255–262 for the instructions of Francis I (dated 11 February 1534, that is, 1535) to his ambassador M. de la Forêt, who was to negotiate with Barbaros in Tunis and then with Sultan Süleyman and Ibrahim Pasha, esp. 255– 259. On the fears of the doge of Venice, see “Lettre de l’évêque de Lavour à François Ier”, sent from Venice on 18 June 1535, ibid., 266–268. On the escape of Barbaros from Tunis via Constantine to Bona and from there to Algiers, see the report of Comte d’Anguillara (the pro-French Gentile Virginio Orsini who commanded the papal galleys), dated 28 July 1535, ibid., 273–275, which plays down the triumphalist accounts of Habsburg propagandists. For the explosion of propagandistic texts and imagery produced in celebration of Charles V’s Tunis victory, see Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa, ‘L’expédition de Tunis (1535). Images, interprétations, répercussions culturelles’, in Bartolomé Bennassar and Robert Sauzet (ed.), Chrétiens et Musulmans à la Renaissance. Paris, 1998, 75–132.

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inscription in Latin script, identifying the sitter as “BARBA ROSSA” is followed by the artists’ signature “LNE”. I suggest a new reading for the defective Turkish inscription in three lines of Arabic script: “Hayreddin Beg Pasha, Sultan of Algiers” (KHAYR ED DİN BEGİ PA / ŞA CEZAİR / SULTANI).79 This reading closely matches the admiral’s titulature in Francis I’s aforementioned instruction letter to his ambassador in February 1535, Haradin-Begii-Baschia, roy d’Arget, which refers to his offfijicial Ottoman titles (bey and paşa), plus his self-appointed regal title. Signifijicantly, the king’s instructions concerning the ambassador’s meeting with Sultan Süleyman omit Barbaros’s royal title, only referring to him as Sr. Haradin-Begii-Baschia. Nicolas Vatin has noted that thereafter French chancellery documents no longer referred to Barbaros as king, but rather as Haradin-Begii-Baschia.80 A date ca. 1534–1535 therefore seems highly plausible to me for the medal. A little-known silver portrait medal of Süleyman could also have circulated in the Maghrib and Western Mediteranean during this period of Franco-Ottoman alliance, marked by intensifijied naval campaigns. The Latin inscription of the uniface medal refers to the sitter as “Süleyman the Turkish Ceasar” (SULEYMAN. CAESAR. TURCARUM), while his Arabic title in smaller Latin script reads, “King of the Arabs and Turks” (MELECK. ET. ARAb. TURC).81 Though somewhat generic, the latter title likely alludes to the multi-ethnic populations of North 79

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“CEZAIR” (pl. islands or Algiers) lacks an alif. Alternatively this word can be read as “CEZİRE” (sing. island), which does not correspond to Barbaros’s offfijicial title: Governor-general of Islands (Cezair beylerbeyi). My reading parallels Lorenzo Veneziano’s 1535 engraving, referring to Barbaros as the “King of Algiers”. The tiny medal measures 28mm. Neufahrer’s model was perhaps a painted portrait of Barbaros in Giovio’s collection; see Klinger and Raby, ‘Barbarossa and Sinan’, 48, where the “malformed Arabic inscription” is read as “KHAYR AD DIN NAY / [PA]SHA JAZIRÎ / SULTANΔ and translated as“‘Haireddin / pasha of the islands / the imperial”. For the reading “KHAIR ED-DIN PASHA JAZAIR SULTAN”, see Baldwin’s Auctions 49 (September 2006) No. 1438, where the medal is dated ca. 1533. Another specimen with thinner letters is dated to ca. 1535 in the website http:// www.coingallery.de/KarlV/Osma-Z_E.htm. No date is provided in Günther Probszt, Ludwig Neufahrer: ein Linzer Medailleur des. 16. Jahrhunderts. Wien, 1960, 86–87: No. 17, Fig. 16; and Piero Voltolina, La storia di Venezia attraverso le medaglie. Vol. 1. Venezia, 1998, 404–405: Nos. 356–357. The medal is dated ca. 1565–1546 [sic] and ca. 1540 in Waddington, ‘Breaking News’, 12–13: Fig. 4. See note 78 above. I thank Nicolas Vatin for bringing to my attention the following essays on Barbaros’s titulature: Vatin and Veinstein, ‘Roi, pirate ou esclave?’, esp. 250 and 250: note 66; Vatin, ‘Le pouvoir des Barberousse’. Vatin points out that Barbaros reigned as king until 1533, when he left Algiers for Istanbul, or 1535 considering his brief conquest of Tunis in 1534. The only known specimen of this medal measuring 55mm. is in Dresden: Im Lichte des Halbmonds: Das Abenland und der türkische Orient. Dresden, Bonn, Leipzig, 1995, 75: No. 24.

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Africa, whose factionalism plagued Barbaros in his struggle for dominion by appealing to Sultan Süleyman’s imperial legitimacy. The medallic and engraved portraits of Barbaros resonate with the regal self-image he promoted in competition with local North African rulers and tribal chieftains, as well as his European interlocutors including Francis I and his Genoese archrival Andrea Doria, who was a prince and patron of all’antica Renaissance art. Both grand admirals fashioned their royal image in conjunction with that of their suzerains, the Ottoman and Spanish emperors respectively.

Epilogue: Süleyman and Sokollu in Szigetvár Another famous Ottoman offfijicial known for aggrandizing his own image in combination with that of Süleyman was Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. This successor of Barbaros as admiral (1546–1550) rose to the vizierate after serving as governor-general of Rumelia, and skilfuly directed the Szigetvár campaign as the sultan’s last grand vizier (1565–1579). By that time Süleyman was a seventytwo-year-old ailing man, worn down by family tragedies and no longer hoping to conquer Vienna or Rome, but rather preoccupied with his future legacy and otherlife. His touching last will, addressed to Crown Prince Selim in his own colloquial voice, provides an intimate glimpse into the private thoughts of the sultan, just before he marched to his death in Szigetvár (Fig. 16a-b). It is worth quoting this document, which I “rediscovered” in the palace archives (see Appendix): “The last will of the late Sultan Süleyman Khan, the Mercy of God be upon him. This is the copy (suret) of the imperial last will (vasiyyet-i hümayun) that he wrote with his own hand and deposited in the flourishing royal treasury when he set out to the Szigetvár campaign on the ninth of the month of Şevval in the year 973 [29 April 1566]. The light of my two eyes and my more than life beloved Selim Khan. I have made a waqf endowment of these two arm-guards (bazubend) and one bejeweled hand-casket (cevheri el sanduğı) to the soul of the [Prophet] Muhammad Mustafa, [who is] the Glory of the Two Worlds. My last will to you is that you sell these and bring water to Jidda, the Cultivated. Fulfijill your duty as a son by carrying out this last will. All the aghas in the palace and all pages of the [Privy] Chamber are witnesses. You know my handwriting. This is for the sake of the [Prophet], the Glory of the Universe, not mine. Let me see how you fulfijill it. This world is not

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figure 16a-b Nigari, [a] Portrait of Sultan Süleyman with two Privy Chamber pages, ca. 1560–1565 (TSMK, H. 2134, fol. 8); [b] Portrait of Crown Prince Selim drinking wine, ca. 1561–1562 (Prince Sadruddin Agha Khan Collection, TM. 5, Toronto, Aga Khan Museum)

everlasting to anyone. It is hoped that you will sell it. May God, the Exalted, bless this campaign and facilitate our return willingly, out of respect for His Prophet, Peace be upon Him!”82 Süleyman’s testament, afffijirming his waqf of two objects intimately connected with his own body, reminds us of his youth when he fashioned precious artifacts as a goldsmith to sell them as personal acts of charity. The testament also chimes with his creation in old age of charitable waterworks in Istanbul, 82

Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi (TSMA) E. 750/67 (formerly E. 5888), briefly mentioned in Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 160. I am grateful to Pál Fodor who brought to my attention, after I submitted this essay for the present volume, the previous publication of the same document by Nimet Taşkıran, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sosyal Hizmetlere Verdiği Öneme Bir Örnek’, Haseki Tıp Bülteni 13:1 (1975) 1–4 (p. 2: photo, pp. 2–3: transcription). My reading of the document agrees with Taşkıran’s, with the exception of his following rendition: Bu iki bazubend ve bir mücevheri al, sandığı vakf ettim (“Take these two armguards and one jewel, I have endowed the chest”). He interprets the endowed items as two arm-guards and one jewel kept in a chest, rather than two arm-guards and one bejeweled hand-casket (as I read it).

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Jerusalem, and the Hijaz. The sultan’s last will was fulfijilled with some delay in 1573, when his son-and-successor Selim II (1566–1574) sent a decree to Jidda’s governor, stating that “my late father Sultan Süleyman Khan had willed (vasiyyet) the water flowing in the village of Jidda to be brought to Jidda”. The decree orders a cost estimate for creating several cisterns (sarnıç), because a land survey previously prepared by the chief architect of Cairo with thirty experts revealed the unfeasibility of constructing a water channel from Mecca to Jidda.83 Selim informed the governor-general of Egypt about his decision to construct cisterns in Jidda and ordered him to also create four masonry wells (kuyu) for the soul of his father along the pilgrimage road from Cairo to Mecca in 1573.84 It was earlier in the same year that Selim endowed two tax-exempt villages near Szigetvár for the preservation and upkeep of the “garden where my father, the late ghazi emperor, had pitched his imperial tent”, in order to make it flourish and “replace its damaged trees with fruit-bearing trees”.85 In my 2005 book on the age of Sinan, I demonstrated that the memorial mausoleum complex in that garden was an imperial foundation jointly endowed by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, the grand vizier of Selim II, who was also his son-in-law. Based on Sokollu’s unpublished waqfijiya dated April 1574 (evahir-i Zilhicce 981), before Murad III’s accession in December 1574 (Ramazan 982), I showed that the mosque and dervish convent the grand vizier personally endowed at the complex in Szigetvár must have been completed close to that date. The mausoleum and fortress were probably already in place by then, or at least under construction (Fig. 17).86 Selim II’s 1573 decree does not mention the mausoleum and fortress perhaps because it mainly concerns the garden. I shall revisit here, with additional details, my discovery that has been overlooked in subsequent publications.87 The waqfijiyya describes Sokollu’s 83 84 85

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Cited in Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 160, 529: note 89: Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Mühimme Defteri (MD) 23, 227/112 (15 Receb 981). BOA MD 23, 448/212 (28 Şaban 981); MD 23, 565/267 (11 Şevval 981). BOA MD 23, 103/50 (25 Cemaziülevvel 981); transcribed and translated in Nicolas Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître. Note sur la fondation et la destination du türbe de Soliman-le-Magnifijique à Szigetvár’, Turcica 37 (2005) 26–27. Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 346–347, 543: notes 361–363. Ankara, Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü (VGM), D. 572, No. 20: 28–29, registered in evahir-i Zilhicce 981. This late-19th-century copy, dated Ramadan 1313, is rendered in modern Turkish alphabet in VGM, D. 2104, No. 323: 442–478. Studies have not considered the waqfijiyya. An exception is: Erika Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Otağ Yeri, Ölümü ve Türbesi’, Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum Special issue 8 (2014) 67 and 67: note 33. Without referring to my book, Hancz cites two short passages from Sokollu’s waqfijiyya, for which she says she obtained the help of archivists.

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endowed buildings and their personnel, only obliquely referring to other components of the imperial complex not endowed by himself:88 1. The fijirst item reads, “One of these [waqfs] is the Friday mosque outside the castle called Szigetvár, constructed on the site where the late Sultan Süleyman’s corpse was temporarily deposited (Biri dahi Sigetvar nam kalanun haricinde merhum Sultan Süleyman’un cesed-i şerifleri emanet konulan mevzide bina olınan camidür)”. 2. The second item states that Sokollu, who was fond of dervishes, constructed three convents (hankah) in various cities: “One of these dervish convents is adjacent to the above-mentioned noble Friday mosque that he built in the vicinity of Szigetvár which he endowed to that vigilant community [of dervishes] (hankahlardan … biri dahi salifü’l-zikr Sigetvar kurbinde bina itdükleri cami-i şerife muttasıl olub ol taife-i uli’l-intibaha vakf itdüler).” 3. A third passage about the mosque’s personnel mentions the already existing fortress and mausoleum: “Near Szigetvár, inside the fortress that is known as the Fortress of the Mausoleum, he built a noble Friday mosque (Sigetvar kurbinde olub Türbe Palankası dimekle iştihar bulan palankanın içinde bina itdükleri cami-i şerif )”, to which he appointed one Friday preacher, one imam, two Koran reciters, one müezzin, one lamp lighter, and a janitor. 4. The fourth item concerns the “cells of the convent (zaviyenün hüceratında)” for dervishes, to whom Sokollu assigned salaries and endowed many books kept at the “convent itself” (zaviyede). A learned shaykh appointed at this “convent” (hankah) was to lead the communal rituals of dervishes in reciting “prayers and litanies (evrad ve ezkar)” or “praises of God and the profession of God’s unity (tesbih ve tehlil)”. This shaykh would simultaneously serve Muslim congregations as imam and Friday preacher at the “aforementioned Friday mosque near ... the convent (hankah ... civarında olan cami-i mezburda).”

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VGM, D. 572, No. 20, 28fff. In an article published after the submission of my essay, Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap interpret the evidence of Sokollu’s waqfijiyya diffferently than I do, believing that the tomb of the sultan was not built during Selim II’s reign but rather under Murad III. In my view, the tomb preceded the dependencies listed in Sokollu’s waqfijiyya as part of his own endowment. The tomb, omitted from Sokollu’s waqfijiyya, was in all likelihood constructed as an imperial monument after the sultan’s death by his son and sucessor, Selim II. I would like to thank the authors for sending me a copy of their new publication: Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman in Szigetvár’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71:2 (2018) 179–195.

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figure 17 Pál Esterházy, ground plan of Turbék in Szigetvár, 1664: 1. Sepultura Solymanni (Süleyman’s mausoleum), 2. Moscea interior (inner mosque) 3. Moscea exterior (outer mosque) 4. Habitatio monachorum turcicorum (residence of Turkish monks) 5. Fossa (trench), 6. Milites ex Sziget (barracks of soldiers from Szigetvár); National Archives of Hungary, T2 No. 1051 photograph: ákos stiller. from norbert pap et al.,‘finding the tomb of suleiman the magnificent in szigetvár’, figure 8

To summarize, we learn from Sokollu’s waqfijiyya that the compound surrounded by a fortifijication was already called “Fortress of the Mausoleum” (Türbe Palankası) in April 1574, prior to Murad III’s accession in December that year.89 According to Evliya Çelebi, the commemorative mausoleum and fortress were built by Selim II with income from the ghaza of Cyprus (1570–1571), but their exact construction date remains an open question.90 The mosque, adjacent 89

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Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 67 and 67: note 33, only cites items 1 and 2, quoted above and in my The Age of Sinan, 543: note 361. Unaware of items 3 and 4, quoted above but not mentioned in my book, she assumes that the waqfijiyya does not mention the mausoleum “for an unknown reason”. Hancz reasonably speculates that the mausoleum must have existed before the mosque and was probably built during Selim II’s reign, but observes that sources are inconclusive. She mentions, without giving a citation, the report of a spy who observed that the mausoleum was still under construction in 1577 and its site was where Süleyman’s inner organs were buried: ibid., 65, 67. Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Vol. 6. Ed. by Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı. İstanbul, 2002, 300–307, esp. 302, 304–306. Evliya claims that Süleyman’s inner organs were buried on a hilltop with vineyards, inside the fortress

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convent, and residential dervish cells must have been endowed, like all of Sokollu’s waqfs, during Selim II’s reign (1566–1574). However their completion seems to have lingered into Murad III’s sultanate, as implied by his decrees cited in my book, a delay possibly caused by the 1571 Lepanto disaster. These decrees concern the reappointment of fortress guards (1576), and the transfer of Mevlana Ali from Sarajevo to serve as “shaykh of the sanctifijied mausoleum” as well as the mosque’s imam and Friday preacher (1577).91 Notably, the shaykh’s multiple functions parallel those specifijied in Sokollu’s waqfijiyya for the shaykh of the mosque-madrasa and convent complex he coendowed with his royal wife at Kadırgalimanı in Istanbul that lacks a mausoleum.92 The mausoleum in Szigetvár was closely connected to the convent, described as adjacent (muttasıl: contiguous) to the mosque in Sokollu’s waqfijiyya (item 2 cited above). This is furthermore suggested by Pál Esterházy’s detailed 1664 drawing, where the polygonal mausoleum-cumconvent and the square mosque form a single block, accompanied by separate L-shaped residential dervish cells (Fig. 17).93 I had formerly pointed out that the Szigetvár complex was entrusted to the Halveti order of dervishes, which propagated the ghaza ideology in the empire’s European territories (Rumelia). The shaykh of the complex, Mevlana Ali, was a disciple of the Szigetvár campaign’s Halveti spiritual leader, or “army shaykh” (ordu şeyhi), Nureddinzade, for whom Sokollu built the convent at Kadırgalimanı (ca. 1574). The latter shaykh is said to have incited Süleyman to undertake this

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later called Türbe Kalası, while his body was “temporarily” (emaneten) buried in his tent pitched elsewhere. However, the mausoleum fortress was where Süleyman’s body/corpse was temporarily placed according to Sokollu’s waqfijiyya and a decree of Murad III: Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 347, 543: note 362; Vatin, ‘Un türbe’, 33–36. These early sources do not mention two sites or the sultan’s organs. Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 347, 543: note 362–363. The 1576 decree orders the reduction of fortress guards from 50 to 25, because previously appointed guards abandoned the palanka due to the low pay from the imperial treasury, leaving behind only the dervishes (sofijiler). Hence, the convent was already functioning before 1576, and before the 1577 appointment of the Bosnian shaykh Mevlana Ali (Ali Dede, d. 1598). The shaykh of the Kadırgalimanı convent also served as Friday preacher at the mosque: Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 333–347, esp. 343–344. Another passage in the waqfijiyya (item 4 cited above) more vaguely refers to the mosque as “near” (civarında) the convent, while Murad III’s decree quoted in note 97 below refers to the mosque as “near” (kurbinde) the mausoleum and convent. This may not be a contradiction: Although “contiguous” structures are by defijinition “near” one another, structures “near” each other are not necessarily “contiguous”. Therefore, the use of the more specifijic term “contiguous” (muttasıl) in the waqfijiyya, along with the evidence of the Esterházy drawing is difffijicult to dismiss.

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campaign by recounting a dream, where the prophet had charged him to ask the sultan why he abandoned the sacred obligation of the jihad.94 Murad III’s decrees were subsequently published in a thoughtful article by Nicholas Vatin who, not having access to Sokollu’s waqfijiyya, hypothesized that the mausoleum complex in Szigetvár was an invention of this sultan’s reign.95 While the complex may partly have been a political gesture, as Vatin proposed, to reinforce Ottoman claims over this conquered frontier region, its multidimensional meanings also included commemoration of the sanctifijied site of Süleyman’s death as a legendary ghazi-martyr, and of Sokollu’s own role in the fijinal military victory. I interpret the same decrees as indications that stipulations of the grand vizier’s 1574 waqfijiyya were still being regulated and modifijied in 1576–1577.96 For instance, Sokollu’s masjid became converted to a Friday mosque in 1576 with Murad III’s permission, a common practice that was probably foreseen from the beginning. Since Friday mosques were legally allowed only in towns, unlike masjids, this conversion procedure implies that a township began to develop around the venerable complex, as suggested by new archaeological discoveries atop the Turbék vineyard hill.97 Nevertheless, the ground-plan of the complex has yet to be confijirmed by further excavations, given that recent fijinds diverge from Pál Esterházy’s 1664 drawing (Fig. 17). This drawing reflects the original layout before the destruction of the complex that year, except for the mausoleum, and prior to its rebuilding when the Ottomans recaptured it (the whole complex was demolished in 1692– 1693 and its materials sold).98 If the drawing is to be trusted, the interconnected 94

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On Nureddinzade, see Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 54, 189, 341–344, 347. As Nureddinzade was dying, close to the convent’s completion, he requested Sokollu to appoint in his place Kurt Efendi, trained by his own master, Shaykh Bali of Sofijia. Vatin, ‘Un türbe’, 23. Vatin admits not being able to fijind the date and builder of the mausoleum complex, even though he cites my Sinan book on p. 14: note 22. He dated the complex to the fijirst month of Murad III’s reign when, in his view, the mausoleum was erected due to fear of revenge by Miklós Zrínyi’s son. This was also the case with some of Sokollu’s other endowed monuments, such as his Azapkapı mosque in Istanbul, and his bedesten-caravansaray complex in Belgrade, both of them endowed in 1574 but completed by the late 1570s; see Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 362–368; Andrej Andrejević, ‘Sokollu Mehmet Pasha’s Contribution to the Building of the City of Belgrade’, in 8th International Congress of Turkish Art. Vol. 3. Ankara, 1983, 1627–1636. Previously unknown to me, the 1576 decree on the conversion of the masjid, already built “near” (kurbinde) the mausoleum (türbe) and convent (zaviye), is published in Vatin, ‘Un türbe’, 29–30. On legal requirements for constructing Friday mosques and converting masjids, see Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan. Norbert Pap et al., ‘Finding the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnifijicent in Szigetvár, Hungary: Historical, Geophysical and Archeological Investigations’, Die Erde 146:4 (2015) 289–303.

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figure 18a-b [a] Süleymaniye mosque and funerary garden with domed burial tent: Sinan oversees the construction of Süleyman’s mausoleum as the funeral cortège parades in the foreground. Seyyid Lokman, Zafarnama, 1579. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, T. 413, fols. 115v–116r; [b] Anonymous Austrian Habsburg artist, Süleymaniye mosque and funerary garden with mausoleums of Sultan Süleyman and his wife Hürrem Sultan, ca. 1590. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 8626

mosque-convent-mausoleum block must have been reminiscent of other sanctifijied funerary complexes with contiguous components that Sinan built in Istanbul. A fijitting example is the convent-masjid (mescid-tevhidhane) on a hilltop near Beşiktaş, later converted to a convent-mosque (cami-tevhidhane), intercommunicating with an adjacent domed mausoleum which Selim II commissioned from Sinan for the deceased Sufiji shaykh Yahya Efendi (d. 1571). This venerated shaykh was no other than the aforementioned milk-brother of Süleyman.99 In conclusion, Sokollu’s personal endowments in Szigetvár were not only a permanent reminder of his ingenious concealment of Süleyman’s corpse

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The Turbék hillsite is most probably the location of the mausoleum complex, but the two excavated quadrangular buildings are separate from each another, and their layouts do not correspond to the Esterházy plan, where the mausoleum-cum-convent is polygonal and adjacent to the square mosque. Şahin, ‘Yahyâ Efendi, Beşiktaşlı’, 243–244; M. Baha Tanman, ‘Yahyâ Efendi Külliyesi’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 43. İstanbul, 2013, 246–249. See also the complex of Şemsi Ahmed Pasha in Üsküdar (1580–1581), who claimed descent from a companion of the prophet. It comprises a mosque intercommunicating with the founder’s mausoleum, and a separate L-shaped madrasa: Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 492–498.

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figure 19 Istanbul, Interior of Sultan Süleyman’s mausoleum, built by Sinan 1566–1568

before the fijinal victory, but also of his sincere devotion to the martyred sultan of the ghazis, whose revered body was transported under his own supervision to Istanbul.100 It was ceremonially buried there a second time under an imperial tent at another enclosed garden, next to the mausoleum of his beloved wife. The tent was replaced by a domed mausoleum (1566–1568) Selim II comissioned from Sinan (Fig. 18a-b). The symbolic mausoleum complex at Szigetvár, in turn, became a multilayered lieu de mémoire or site of memory that consecrated the locus of Süleyman’s death and architecturally monumentalized the victory masterminded by Sokollu in the name of his dead master. The agency of Sokollu, not so far emphasized or even recognized in the literature, is therefore essential for interpreting this monument. With the retrospective formulation of an idealized Süleymanic “Golden Age” through illustrated history manuscripts produced by Sokollu’s protégés, remembrance of the aesthetic cosmopolitanism of the young sultan’s court faded away into amnesia.101 The autobiography of the chief architect Sinan also contributed to the posthumous glorifijication and mythifijication of his foremost patron, Süleyman, for whom he built a magnifijicent mausoleum (Fig. 19).102 Modeled on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which the sultan 100 101

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Sokollu’s waqfijiyya stipulates daily prayers at his Lüleburgaz mosque for Sultan Süleyman’s soul: Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 348, 351. Cemal Kafadar, ‘The Myth of the Golden Age: Ottoman Historical Consciousness in the Post Süleymanic Era’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993, 37–48. Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Sources, Themes, and Cultural Implications of Sinan’s Autobiographies’, preface in Sinan’s Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth-Century Texts. Translation and critical edition by Howard Crane and Esra Akın, edited by Gülru Necipoğlu. Leiden, Boston, 2006.

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had renovated, the unique mausoleum was Sinan’s architectural tribute to the “Second Solomon”.103 With its allusion to the Solomonic shrine in Jerusalem, marking the site of the last judgment, this was a befijitting fijinal resting place for the messianic “emperor of the Last Age”.

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Necipoğlu, ‘The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest’. On the mausoleum, see also Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Connectivity, Mobility and “Portable Archaeology”: Pashas from the Dalmatian Hinterland as Cultural Mediators,’ in Alina Payne (ed.), Dalmatia and the Mediterranean. Portable Archaeology and the Poetics of Influence. Leiden, Boston, 2014, 313–381, esp. 350–351.

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appendix

Sultan Süleyman’s Last Will Topkapı Sarayı Müzesı Arşivi, E 750/67 [formerly E 5888] Vasiyyetnâme-i merhûm Sultân Süleymân Hân ʿaleyhi’r-rahme Sene-i 973 mâh-ı Şevvâlinüñ tokuzında Sigetvâr seferine ʿazîmet buyurduklarında hazîne-i maʿmûrede dest-i hattıyla kodukları vasiyyetnâme-i hümâyûnuñ sûretidür. Benüm cândân sevgülü iki gözüm nûrı Selîm Hânum, bu iki bâzûbendi ve bir cevherî el sanduğı vakf eylemişimdür. İki cihân fahri Muhammed Mustafâ’nun rûhına sana vasiyyet iderem. Bunları satub Cidde-i maʿmûreye su getürdesiz, oğullık idüb bu vasiyyeti yirine getüresiz. Cümle ağalar kim sarâydadur ve cümle oda oğlânları şâhiddür. Sen benüm yazum bilürsün. Bu esbâb fahr-ı ʿâlemüñdür, benüm degildür. Göreyin nice yirine korsız, dünyâ kimseye pâyidâr degüldür. Ümiddür ki bahâsıyla satasız. Hakk-ı Teʿâlâ bu seferi mübârek idüb gönül hoşlığıyla gelmek müyesser ide, Habîbi hürmetine ʿaleyhi’s-selâm.

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part 2 The Empires of Charles V and Ferdinand I of Habsburg

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Habsburg Dynastic Politics and Empire Building during Charles V’s Reign Zoltán Korpás Historian [email protected]

Heritage and the Composite State Charles of Habsburg was born on 24 February 1500 in Gent. After the death of his father, Philip the Handsome, the young man inherited the rich Duchy of Burgundy. On 19 September 1517 the young duke came by sea to Villaviciosa (Asturias, Castile) with the purpose of taking over – after the death of his grandfather, Fernando el Católico – his inherited lands on the Iberian Peninsula. The monarch faced strong political resistance from the very fijirst moment mainly from the Castilian estates, but also from representatives of the polities comprising the Crown of Aragón (Aragón, Catalonia, Valencia, etc.). In 1518 the cortes of Castile (Valladolid), Aragón (Zaragoza), Catalonia (Barcelona) and Valencia (city of Valencia) were convoked, where all the states – having sought major political compromises – declared their loyalty to the new sovereign. One of the most important compromises was that legally Charles became co-ruler in Castile and Aragón for long decades, together with his mentally confused mother, Juana I, who died in 1555, a year before Charles’s abdication. His long “induction” on the peninsula was almost complete when Charles I’s grandfather, the emperor Maximilian I, died (12 January 1519) and the new Spanish king was proclaimed “in absence” king of the Romans in Frankfurt am Main on 23 October 1520. Three days later Charles was elected as Holy Roman Emperor in Aachen.1 Charles I/V inherited from his four grandparents/predecessors – both from the Habsburg and from the Trastámara dynasties – a composite state, consisting of heterogeneous sovereign lands with multiple and complex state and political 1 Some of the most known biographies are: Karl Brandi, Carlos V, Vida y fortuna de una personalidad y de un imperio mundial. México, D.F., 1993; Manuel Fernández Álvarez, Carlos V, el César y el Hombre. Madrid, 1999; Alfred Kohler, Carlos V 1500–1558. Una biografijia. Madrid, Barcelona, 2000; Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, Carlos V. Carolus (in)victissimus. Madrid, 2016.

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hierarchies. The inheritance comprised the imperial crown from Maximilian I of Habsburg, including the territories of the Holy Roman Empire; the Burgundian heritage from the wife of Maximilian, Mary of Burgundy, including the Low Countries, Franche-Comté and the Duchy of Burgundy; the Crown of Aragon from Fernando el Católico, including Aragón, Catalonia, Valencia and also the lands in Italy such as Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, Corsica, some possessions on the other side of the Pyrenees (Roussillon, Cerdagne); and fijinally the Castilian crown from Isabel la Católica, including the crowns of Castile and León, the crown of Navarra, the presidios of the Maghrib in North Africa and the dynamically growing colonies in the Americas.2 The composite state of Charles I/V, or rather of his family the Casa de Austria or the Maison d’Autriche, was augmented by the new acquisitions of his younger brother, Archduke Ferdinand I, being crowned as king of Bohemia and Moravia, and also as king of Hungary after the death of Louis II of Jagiello. The Habsburg dynasty led by Charles I/V possessed a unique inherited conglomerate of sovereign kingdoms, principalities, independent cities and states. It formed an (over)extended empire without historical precedence, covering nearly 20–25 percent of Europe at the time. The rule of Charles within the dynasty was rarely disputed. Ferdinand, king of the Romans (after 1531) and king of Hungary and Bohemia (after 1526), followed a mainly independent course, which, in dynastical questions and in European “high politics”, was subordinated and fijine-tuned to the policies of his brother, Charles I/V.3 The latter positioned himself as supreme head not only of the dynasty but also of the Universitas Christiana. Seen from this perspective, his military and fijinancial resources seemed to be inexhaustible, while his diplomatic power was dominant.4 These circumstances defijined Ferdinand’s position and opportunities within the dynasty. On the one hand, without Charles’s decisive support, the younger brother would have had no 2 On the composite state and the Spanish Empire, see Miguel Artola, La monarquía de España. Madrid, 1999. See also the specifijic studies about Sicily, Naples, Cerdagne, Milano, FrancheComte in Ernest Belenguer Cebrià (ed.), De la unión de coronas al Imperio de Carlos V. [Congreso internacional, Barcelona 21–23 de febrero de 2000]. Vol. 2. Madrid, 2001. 3 The correspondence of Martin de Salinas published in Antonio Rodriguez Villa, El emperador Carlos V y su Corte, según las cartas de don Martín de Salinas, embajador del Infante don Fernando (1522–1539). Madrid, 1903, and the correspondence of the next envoy, Juan Alonso de Gámiz, make clear the nature of the family relationship: Juan Ramón Cuesta Astobiza, Epistolario político de Juan Alonso de Gámiz, secretario destacado a la corte del emperador Carlos V, en el archivo histórico provincial de Álava. Álava, 2002; Zoltán Korpás, ‘I. Ferdinánd levelezése V. Károly melletti követével, Juan Alonso de Gámizzal (1542–1556)’, Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 16:2 (2009) 249–306. 4 Miguel Ángel Ochoa Brun, Historia de la diplomacia Española. Vol. Quinto: La diplomacia de Carlos V. (Bibliotheca Diplomatica Española. Sección Estudios, 6.) Madrid, 1999.

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chance of consolidating his new acquisitions or even of holding out against the Ottoman advance in Hungary. Ferdinand actively used Charles’s diplomatic, fijinancial and military resources for his own political purposes against the Ottomans in Hungary.5 Those resources – regardless of the country of origin (Holy Roman Empire, Italy or Spain itself) – were insufffijicient for driving the Ottoman Empire out of Hungary, but were nevertheless decisive when it came to protecting dynastic interests in the Carpathian Basin and slowing down Süleyman’s expansion at the cost of enormous effforts.6 On the other hand, the elder brother needed Ferdinand’s contribution to the administration of the Holy Roman Empire and his support during the political and religious debates of the German diets. Until the dynastic heritage and religious debates of the period 1548–1552, their relationship was perceived by the European public and political stakeholders as a peculiar yet integral one. There were very few cases when conflicts between them became palpable to external observers.7 Another peculiar characteristic should be highlighted: With the exception of the conquest and colonization of the Americas, Charles V, unlike his major enemies (mainly Süleyman I and to some extent Francis I), was not an active conqueror. Besides his inherited lands there were only very few territories, such as the Duchy of Milan, Siena, some presidios in North Africa, fijive provinces in the Netherlands and to some extent Geldren, where the Habsburg ruler appeared as expansionist. The defence of the heterogeneous and extensive territories themselves gave rise to highly challenging and largely unresolvable difffijiculties, which after his abdication in 1556 led to the splitting of the empire between the eastern and western branches of the Habsburgs.

Dynastic Challenges (Religion, Valois, Ottomans) Due to the extensive and heterogeneous structure of the empire, Charles faced many external and internal challenges. In the early years of his reign, he and 5 About the diplomatic resources and “family diplomacy”, see Ochoa Brun, La diplomacia, 447–472, 534–541; Zoltán Korpás, V. Károly és Magyarország. Budapest, 2008, 85–88, 209–214. 6 Major publications on the Ottoman expansion in Hungary are: Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.) Boulder, Co., New York, 2009; James D. Tracy, Balkan Wars: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia, 1499–1617. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London, 2016; Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162. 7 See also María José Rodriguez Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire: Charles V, Philip II and Habsburg Authority, 1551–1559. Cambridge, 2008.

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his court with Burgundian character met strong opposition in the Castilian and Aragon lands, culminating in revolts in both those kingdoms (the Communeros movement in Castile and the Germanías in Valencia, 1520–1522). Both the Communidades and the Germanías were the manifestation of social tensions from the time of the Catholic monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand, but the mere fact of a new and “foreign” (= Burgundian) ruler in the kingdom and also the provision of royal favours in Castilian high-administrative roles to the Burgundian vassals, caused high tension and ultimately the revolts.8 It is worth mentioning that the younger brother, Ferdinand I, born and educated in Castile, experienced a similar reaction on arrival in his new Austrian lands: He was regarded by the local German-speaking population as a “foreigner” and a “Spaniard”. This consequently led to the revolt of Wiener Neustadt, led by Martin Siebenbürger.9 Parallel to the initial internal problems, from the very fijirst moment the emperor-king faced three large-scale challenges. 1. Some of those challenges were “inherited”: for instance, the wars with France. The fijirst expedition of Gran Capitán Gonzálo Fernández de Córdoba against the French in the Kingdom of Naples (1495) was the starting point of two centuries of war (lasting until 1700) between France and Spain, as both states vied for hegemony in Italy and in Europe.10 The Casa de Austria sought to encircle France. Further, some territories, including the Low Countries, the Duchy of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, had already been disputed by both the Habsburg and Valois dynasties, and later by the Bourbon kings. The Kingdom of Aragon also came into conflict with French interests, both in the south (Bearn, Navarra, Cerdagne, Roussillon) and – in view of the AnjouTrastámara dynastic changes in rulership – in Naples. In this way Charles “inherited” multifaceted, deeply intertwined and inextricable conflicts on three major fronts: the Netherlands/Duchy of Burgundy, the Pyrenees and Naples/ Italy. The picture becomes even more complex if we take into consideration that a large portion of the Burgundian heritage was part of the Holy Roman Empire and in many cases the German princes were also involved in the local conflicts. The intensity of the fijive wars with the French rulers (Francis I, Henry II) varied, with the last one being concluded by their successors, Philip II and Henry II, in Cateau Cambresis (1559). The Achilles’ heel of the French–Habsburg 8 9

10

Joseph Pérez, Los comuneros. Madrid, 2001. Peer Schmidt, ‘„Infans sum Hispaniarum.” La difijicil germanización de Fernando I’, in Alfredo Alvar and Friedrich Edelmayer (eds.), Fernando I, 1503–1564: Socialización, vida privada y actividad pública de un Emperador del Renacimiento. Madrid, 2004, 273–284. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, Isabel la Católica: una reina vencedora, una mujer derrotada. Madrid, 2004; James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance and Domestic Politics. Cambridge, 2010, 39–49, 114–132.

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wars was possession of the Duchy of Milan. The geostrategic importance of that state was obvious. On the one hand, it was, for the French troops, a gateway to the Italian territories; on the other, it constituted a crucial link for the Spanish Empire between the northern lands (Burgundy, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire) and the southern possessions (Naples and Castile, Aragon maritime via Genoa). In the long run, the “survival” of the famous Spanish military corridor to the north (Camino Español) and the “supply” of the Netherlands depended on the possession of the “Milanesado” and nearby territories (Valtellina, Savoy, etc.).11 2. Other challenges were “born” and then matured together with Charles. Such challenges included Luther’s growing influence and the advance of Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire and in other kingdoms. Religious conflicts greatly restrained Charles V’s opportunities. Regarding the birth of Protestantism, we should emphasize that the religious questions quickly turned into profane political demands, with princes and states of the Holy Roman Empire striving to impose their will. To separate the religious and the political content of the imperial debates, Charles offfered to restore the unity of Christendom and positioned himself as the real leader and protector of the Christian faith, doing so even in opposition to the pope in some instances. This attitude can be identifijied in many religious compromises made during the German diets with the “heretics”, whereby on occasion Charles even pragmatically opposed the doctrines of the Holy See. In 1536, Charles V gave a long political speech in Rome, arguing that the layman who is a real representative of Jesus Christ outranks Pope Paul III.12 The religious debates and Charles’s relative but limited flexibility on that topic were utilised in the political disputes about the emperor’s authority and rights within the empire.13 The German princes and states strived to impose more and more limitations on that, and also to reduce the overshadowing power of the emperor and king of Spain. As a consequence, topics which had enormous impact on the status of the Universitas Christiana were subordinated to and captivated by the religious debate. Here we can refer to the Ottoman expansion in Hungary which posed a direct and real danger to the eastern frontiers of the Holy Roman Empire, especially to Vienna. (See the Ottoman campaigns with Vienna as target: 1529, 1532, and possibly 1543–1544, 1566). The matter of Türkenhilfe – 11

12 13

Geofffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659. Cambridge, 1972; J. Sánchez Montes, Franceses, protestantes y turcos. Los españoles ante la política internacional de Carlos V. Madrid, 1951; John Lynch, Los Austrias (1516–1598). Barcelona, 1993, 87–117. Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, Discurso de Carlos V en Roma en 1536. Madrid, 1982. Kohler, Carlos V, 117–157.

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help or support against the Ottomans – was a constant topic at the German diets from the 1520s onwards, becoming properly addressed in the 1540s. But all the fijinancial concessions or rejections by the princes, states and cities were the outcome of the political debates and the expected compromises between the emperor and his German vassals.14 3. The third challenge, Ottoman expansionism, seemed rather remote, but it was growing in importance. The emperors (Charles and Süleyman) ascended to their imperial thrones around the same time, in 1519 and 1520, respectively. The Central European expansion of both the Habsburg and Ottoman empires and the advance of the Ottomans in the Western Mediterranean/North African region displayed a strong correlation,15 although for the time being the two empires just grazed each other.16 Ottoman expansion on land and the advances at sea cannot be treated in separation. Recent research has demonstrated a strong correlation between developments at diplomatic and military levels on the distant frontiers. Here, it is worth recalling the fall of Buda in 1541. Even a casual glance at the major events in Europe in 1541–1543 reveals a strong link between the fall of Buda and Charles V’s military disaster in Algiers just a few weeks later. Also, it is easy to identify a connection between Francis I’s alliance with Süleyman, culminating in the siege of Nice by François de Bourbon and Grand Admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, and Süleyman’s expedition in the same year against Hungary, which resulted in the fall of strategic cities in the country (1543). Further, it is worth recalling that thousands of Spanish and Italian soldiers of the famous tercios (including those commanded by Álvaro de Sande 14

15 16

Peter Rauscher, ‘Carlos V, Fernando I y la ayuda del Sacro Imperio contra los turcos: dinero, religión y defensa de la cristiandad’, in Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558). Actas del congreso internacional. Vol. IV. Madrid, 2001, 363–383; Idem, ‘Kaiser und Reich. Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des „Langen Türkenkriegs” (1548–1593)’, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) Wien, München, 2003, 45–83; Zoltán Bagi, ‘A birodalmi gyűlés és a Magyar Királyságnak szánt töröksegély kérdése a 16. században’, in Adrienn Horváth and Zoltán Bagi (eds.), Mozaikok a Magyar Királyság 16–17. századi történelméből. Budapest, 2012, 193–214. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire; Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary; Tracy, Balkan Wars, 91–145. Korpás, V. Károly, 43–53; Idem, ‘La frontera oriental de la Universitas Christiana entre 1526–1532’, in Dr. Juan Luis Castellano and Francisco Sánchez Montes González (eds.), Carlos V. Europeísmo y Universalidad. El Congreso Internacional. Granada, 1–5 de mayo, 2000. Vol. 3: Los Escenarios del Imperio. Madrid, 2001, 321–337; Idem, ‘Las luchas antiturcas en Hungría y la política oriental de los Austrias’, in Alvar and Edelmayer (eds.), Fernando I, 335–370.

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or Bernardo de Aldana) were fijighting on both frontiers: serving Ferdinand in fortresses in Hungary and fijighting for Charles on galleys in the Mediterranean or during the sieges in the Maghrib (Djerba, 1560; Malta, 1565; Vélez de la Gomera, 1564). Concerning the dynastic hierarchy, it is telling that the military commanders of Charles who came to help and serve Ferdinand in Hungary styled themselves as sacratissimae caesareae maestatis campi magister; in other words, Bernardo de Aldana, Álvaro de Sande, Sforza Pallavicini, Giovanni Battista Castaldo and the others regarded Charles V as their sovereign, rather than Ferdinand I, whom they nevertheless served when in Hungary. Thus, in fijirst place, they were loyal to the dynasty.17 In addition to the military aspect, we should mention that the Habsburg brothers on several occasions joined forces diplomatically while negotiating with the Sublime Porte. For instance, the diplomatic missions of Cornelius Schepper in 1533–1534 and Gerhard Weltvyck in 1545–1546 acted on instructions received from both rulers. Schepper, who was the offfijicial representative of Ferdinand I, had to negotiate, in addition to Hungarian issues, about the status of Algiers and Hayreddin Barbarossa – topics that evidently related to the interests of the Spanish kingdoms.18 It is well known that the Treaty of Nice between Charles and Francis in 1538 served as the basis for the coordination of the Holy League of 1538 with the participation of Venice, Florence, Pope Paul III, Charles and Ferdinand. But it is less known that the Treaty of Várad between Ferdinand and John Szapolyai signed in the same year, was part of that system of “Mediterranean treaties”. If we recall that the “local” Hungarian peace treaty was ratifijied by the non-Hungarian king Charles in Toledo (!), this becomes evident. At the same time, Ferdinand as king of Hungary was also a member of the Holy League. So, the picture about maritime actions in the Adriatic (the Battle of Preveza and the siege of Castelnuovo) is not complete without taking into account the – never executed – plans of the Holy League concerning a parallel land expedition through Hungary against the Ottomans.19

17

18 19

Zoltán Korpás, ‘La correspondencia de un soldado español de las guerras de Hungría a mediados del siglo XVI. Comentarios al diario de Bernardo de Aldana (1548–1552)’, Hispania 60:3 Número 206 (2000) 881–910; Idem, ‘Álvaro de Sande hadjárata Trencsén vármegyében – 1545’, in Lilla Krász and Teréz Oborni (eds.), Redite ad Cor. Tanulmányok Sahin-Tóth Péter emlékére. Budapest, 2008, 199–210; Idem, ‘Ami a magyarországi hadjárat után történt. Bernardo de Aldana és a spanyol zsoldosok sorsa 1552 után’, Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 12:3 (2005) 379–398. Ochoa Brun, La diplomacia, 447–462; Gábor Barta and Pál Fodor (eds.), Két tárgyalás Sztambulban. Budapest, 1996. On the link between the Holy League of 1538 and the Treaty of Várad, see Korpás, V. Károly, 169–205; Idem, ‘Las luchas antiturcas’, 351–362.

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The three political and geostrategic challenges described above, have something in common: They challenged one by one the Habsburg dynasty, not only during the life of Charles, but also up until the end of the Spanish Habsburgs in 1700. On the other hand, in specifijic circumstances, these challenges were intertwined; from 1519 until 1556 there are many examples of alliances between the French monarch and German princes or of military cooperation/alliances between the Ottoman and French rulers. In this regard it should be noted that in 1550–1552, a period of acute crisis for the Habsburg brothers, not only did King Henry II of France ally himself with the German princes, but also the pasha of Buda asked (in 1552) for the German princes and French forces in the Holy Roman Empire to coordinate their military actions with those of the Ottoman troops in Hungary, with the aim of dividing and weakening Habsburg military power on both fronts. At the same time, Henry II offfered the Ottomans the possibility of a joint attack against the island of Mallorca, a plan that was never realized. Still, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis (Dragut), captured Tripoli from the Knights of Malta (1551) and Spanish forces were placed under siege in the presidio of Bougie (1552), losing this fortress in 1555, together with other important strongholds in the Tlemcen region. By the mid-1550s the Spanish presidio system in the Maghrib was on the verge of collapse. Furthermore, in 1554 French–Ottoman joint forces raided Veste, capturing three thousand Italians.20 It may well be that a series of major events – the princely wars and military disasters after 1550–1551 in the Holy Roman Empire (the siege of Metz, etc.), the Ottoman campaigns in Hungary during the same period (resulting in the loss of Szolnok, Temesvár, Lippa, Drégely and many other fortresses), the raids against the Italian and Spanish coasts in 1552–1554, the loss of a series of strongholds in the Maghrib (1551– 1555), the tense debate between Ferdinand and Charles about the imperial legacy, having involved their heirs, Philip and Maximilian respectively (1548– 1552) – resulted in the mental and physical collapse of Charles V. After 1552 Charles retired from everyday politics, ceding governance to Ferdinand in the Holy Roman Empire and to the infant Philip in Spain. The abdication ceremonies in Brussels in 1556 were merely the symbolic steps of a ruler who had already given authorization and empowerment to his successors.21

20 21

Mercedes Garcia Arenal and Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, Los españoles y el Norte de África. Siglos XV–XVIII. Madrid, 1992, 78–83; Tracy, Emperor Charles V, 232–242. Rodriguez Salgado, The Changing Face; Brandi, Carlos V, 461–506; Fernández Álvarez, Carlos V, 739–761.

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The Organization of the Empire and Administrative Innovations The fijinal years of Charles V’s reign were characterized by the fading effforts of an exhausted monarch whose political dreams had been shattered. Even so, he clearly accomplished some innovative and lasting changes in the administrative organization of the Habsburg Monarchy. His composite monarchy included distant lands with peculiar local, legal and administrative systems, whereby the absence of the ruler was inevitably a constant, resulting in many conflicts and tensions with the local political decision-making apparatus, the aristocracy, the church and other estates. Under these circumstances, it seemed only natural to introduce the “system of alter ego” and to delegate authority to empowered members of the dynasty acting as governors, and in some cases, as regents, depending on the regular written instructions given by the emperor’s chancellery. In the Holy Roman Empire Charles’s brother, Ferdinand I, was the “alter ego”, who, as king of the Romans (1531), was empowered to handle political issues in the absence of the emperor. The Netherlands and Burgundy were ruled – under a system of governorship – by his aunt, Margaret (1517– 1530), and, after her death, by his sister, Mary of Hungary (1530–1555). The Spanish crowns were ruled by regents, his wife Isabel of Portugal (1529–1533, 1535–1538) and by the infant Philip (1543–1548, 1551–1555); in the 1540s, the archbishop of Toledo was also acting as (co)regent. The other possessions were mainly led by viceroys, although Milan, as a strategic territory, was ruled by a (military) governor (for instance, Antonio de Leyva, Marquis del Vasto, duke of Alba). Only the viceroys of the Kingdom of Aragon belonged to the old Trastámara royal dynasty. In other viceroyalties we can fijind many Spanish grands, for instance, from the houses of the duke of Alba (Álvarez de Toledo) or Mendoza (Kingdom of Naples), as well as some Italians (Gonzaga, Pignatelli in the Kingdom of Sicily). Among the viceroys of Navarra we can see the prominent families of Hurtado de Mendoza, Velasco or the dukes of Alburquerque (Cueva y Toledo). In the new colonies, the system of royal alter egos was introduced very early on. The founder of New Spain (= Mexico) and its fijirst viceroy was Antonio Mendoza y Pacheco, a nobleman who started his diplomatic carrier after the Battle of Mohács in Hungary and died in 1552 as second viceroy of Peru.22

22

Manuel Rivero Rodriguez, La edad de oro de los virreyes. El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid, 2011. About the mission of Antonio Mendoza in Hungary, see Korpás, V. Károly, 53–60.

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Besides the system of alter egos, it was necessary to introduce governmental system based on various councils bearing responsibility for the diffferent territorial and professional areas, in line with the aims of Charles. The most relevant changes in this respect were introduced in Spain (Monarquía Católica), with a crucial role being played by the chancellor Mercurino di Gattinara and the private secretaries Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle and Francisco de los Cobos. The foundation of the supranational State Council (Consejo de Estado), which assisted the emperor in addressing major political issues throughout the empire was important, not only because this organization – having undergone many changes and reorganizations over the centuries – still exists in modern Spain, but also because the fijirst documentation of its existence is the so-called consulta in November 1526 about the Battle of Mohács.23 Other councils, such as the War Council (Consejo de Guerra, with the fijirst ad-hoc meetings in 1523 and its actual establishment in 1586), the Supreme Council of Inquisition or Suprema (1483), which was responsible for supervising the Spanish Inquisition and upholding religious unity, the Financial Council (Consejo de Hacienda, 1523), the Crusade Council (Consejo de Cruzada, 1509), which was responsible, among other things, for handling the crusade taxes, the papal bulls, and the indulgences, and the Council of the Military Orders (Consejo de Ordenes Militares, 1495) controlling the revenues from the orders of Calatrava, Santiago, Álcantara and Montesa, were professionally specifijied councils with legal remit throughout Spain. Others, including the Castilian (Royal) Council (Consejo de Castilla), the Aragon Council (Consejo de Aragón), and several councils established during Philip II’s reign, such as the Italian Council (Consejo de Italia, 1559), the Flemish Council (Consejo de Flandres, 1588), and the Portuguese Council (Consejo de Portugal, 1582), were limited geographically or territorially and advised the monarch on issues relating to their specifijic fijields.24 It is worth mentioning that the councils and the court were also arenas where the various personalities, political groups and court alliances could exercise political influence. One of the characteristics of Charles’s empire is the role played by the state secretaries (Jean Allemand, Francisco de los Cobos, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, and Juan Vázquez de Molina). They wielded signifijicant influence, but their power was limited in comparison with that 23 24

On the consulta of 1526, see Korpás, V. Károly, 53–60; Idem, ‘A spanyol Államtanács a mohácsi csatavesztésről’, Lymbus (2004) 5–17. About the institutions and government, see Santiago Fernández Conti, Los consejos de Estado y Guerra de la Monarquía Hispana en tiempos de Felipe II. (1548–1598). Valladolid, 1998; Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, El consejo de Hacienda de Castilla, 1523–1602. Valladolid, 1996; José Antonio Escudero, Los secretarios de estado y despacho, 1474–1724. Madrid, 1976.

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wielded by the “Favourites” (Válidos) of the 17th century (for example, Olivares or Lerma).25 Evidently, Charles’s empire cannot be regarded as an absolutist monarchy; there was an appreciation of the imperative of balancing power and of establishing compromises with the local estates. In this respect, there were diffferences between the various territories. Thus, in the Holy Roman Empire and in Aragon, Charles had quite limited authority and was required to make compromises. Even in Castile, however, where theoretically he was far less limited, it was nearly impossible to rule without observing the Castilian rights and privileges. This was required in order to get the necessary fijinancial support from the estates. Even in 1538, when Charles as king of Castile excluded the noble and religious estates from the cortes of Castile, converting that institution into a diet of the representatives of 18 cities, it was imperative to achieve compromise in the political sphere.

Military System Pecunia nervis belli – says the old Latin proverb, and it is clearly applicable to Charles. The emperor inherited a proven and reformed military force from his grandparents, the Catholic kings. The reforms initiated by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba introduced an efffijicient, disciplined and permanent infantry with powerful fijirearms (arquebuses and later muskets), which were reorganized into tercios after 1534–1536. The Spanish tercios, each of which had, in theory, approximately 3,000 infantry soldiers, were divided into 10–12 companies of pikemen and arquebusiers. They were decisive fijighting units and were renowned for being unbeatable until their defeat in the Battle of Rocroi in 1643. During the reign of Charles there were four permanent tercios with headquarters in Sicily (Tercio Viejo de Sicilia), in Naples (Tercio Viejo de Nápoles), in Milan (Tercio Viejo de Lombardia), and in Cerdagne (Tercio Viejo de Cerdeña). The fijirst permanent marine force in the world was the Tercio de las Galeras in Naples, founded in 1537. The importance attributed to the tercios (three terrestrial tercios and one marine tercio in Italy and one tercio in the Pyrenees) reflected the strategic priorities of the empire. It is no coincidence that the tercio of Lombardia, led by the maestre de campo Álvaro de Sande, and the tercio of Naples, led by the maestre de campo Bernardo de Aldana, took part 25

Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos, Secretary of the Emperor Charles V. Pittsburg, 1958; Daniel Antony, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle. Besançon, 2006; Rebecca Boone, Mercurino di Gattinara and the Creation of the Spanish Empire. London, 2014.

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not only in the Schmalkalden wars (Battle of Mühlberg, 1547), but also in the Hungarians’ struggles against the Ottomans (Sande, 1545; Aldana, 1549–1553). These permanent tercios served as the backbone of the imperial armies, which were then complemented by additional regiments/tercios in the case of larger enterprises on an ad-hoc basis and from diffferent nations (Italians, German Landsknechts, Bohemians, Walloons, Flemish, Spanish, Scottish, Hungarian light cavalry, etc.). The size of the imperial armies varied between 25–35,000 soldiers, but there were even more in specifijic cases, such as during the siege of Metz in 1552, when the number of soldiers increased to around 60,000. An exception occurred in 1532, when Charles V succeeded in putting together a force of nearly 90–95,000 soldiers. At the time he had the fijinancial and military support of half of Europe, including the king of Portugal, the Spanish crowns, the Netherlands, the Italian and Papal states, the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia and Hungary.26 When evaluating the military power of Charles’s empire, we should also examine maritime warfare during his reign, focusing on the Mediterranean and to a lesser extent on the Atlantic. In comparison with the terrestrial power and the tercios, the Habsburgs had far less powerful armadas in the fijirst half of the 16th century. On the one hand, since the rise of the Barbarossa brothers in the service of the Ottoman Empire in Algiers, the main initiatives in the Mediterranean had been led by the pirates and corsairs of the Maghrib, unifijied for the most part under the banners of the talented Hayreddin Barbarossa. After 1529, Algiers became a dangerous centre of Ottoman expansion, having been incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as a province. The balance of maritime power was nevertheless re-established when Andrea Doria left the French service and joined (together with the powerful Genovese galley-fleet) the Habsburg cause in 1528. But even without his assistance, Charles’s maritime forces were occasionally able to take the initiative at sea. As part of a large and expensive military expedition against the Ottoman strongholds in North Africa, they were able to bring in powerful land forces and to reduce temporarily the pressure from the Maghrib (successfully done at Tunis in 1535,27 but ending in failure at Algiers in 1541). The Spanish presidio system in North Africa, which Cardinal Cisneros had established in the fijirst decades of the 16th century, was enough when fijighting against local Berber tribes and pirates. After 1529, however, when Algiers, 26

27

René Quatrefages, Los tercios. Madrid, 1983; Enrique Martínez Ruiz, Los soldados del Rey. Los ejércitos de la Monarquía Hispánica (1480–1700). Madrid, 2008; Parker, The Spanish Road. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, ‘Los mediterráneos de Carlos V y la empresa de Túnez’, in Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra and José Ruiz Rodríguez (eds.), Túnez, 1535. Madrid, 2010, 185–235.

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with the backing of the Ottomans, stepped on to the scene, the presidios went into passive defence. But regardless of its apparent inferiority, the Habsburg maritime power was strong enough to force the Sublime Porte to invest more and more fijinancial and military resources in the Western Mediterranean and in North Africa. Those resources could not then be used to launch an Ottoman attack on Hungary, and thus the Christian galley fleets led by Doria indirectly lessened the pressure on Ferdinand’s realm. The years between Süleyman’s two campaigns against Hungary (in 1532 and 1541) can be perceived in that way: The Ottoman empire focused more on other fronts, including the Mediterranean, and during this decade the Habsburgs confronted the Ottomans mainly in the Mediterranean (Tunis, 1535; Preveza and Castelnuovo, 1538–1539; Algiers and Buda, 1541 – to mention the major battles).28 As a consequence, Süleyman lost his strategic advantage and Ferdinand could seize the opportunity to consolidate his initially weak positions in Hungary.29 But keeping large armies and fijighting incessant wars on extended fronts came at a great price for Charles and his realm. The fijinancial problems were Spain’s greatest Achilles’ heel. Already during the reign of Charles V one can identify tendencies which led to the fijinal collapse and exhaustion of the Spanish Empire in the 17th century. While, on the one hand, revenues during Charles V’s reign grew from around one million ducats to two or three million, on the other hand the state debt increased by an unprecedented amount to twenty million ducats. The disaster of Algiers in 1541 cost about eight hundred thousand ducats and the siege of Metz in 1552 more than two and a half million ducats. Thus, in 1551, Charles was required to take on a loan of four million ducats. Even though in 1552–1553 silver and gold from the Americas was expected to bring in more than two million ducats, the full defijicit for the year 1554 reached 4.3 million ducats. During this period the interest payable on loans rose to 43 percent! In 1557 when Philip II announced that he is not willing to pay his father’s debt, the amount of short term loans reached 7,524,000 ducats. 5,224,000 ducats of that amount were linked to revenues of the forthcoming years 1557–1660, already bonded.30 Such fijinancial pressures were simply too great. Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of his coronation in 1556, 28

29 30

John Francis Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th Century. Conway, 2003; Ricardo Cerezo Martinez, Las armadas de Felipe II. Madrid, 1988. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire; Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary. Lynch, Los Austrias, 74–75. Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, El precio del dinero dinástico: endeudamiento y crisis fijinancieras en la España de los Austrias, 1557–1647. Vol. II. Madrid, 2016, 71–87.

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Philip II cancelled all the loan repayments to the creditors and refused to acknowledge liability for his father’s debts.31

Ideology and Abdication Imperial “grand strategies” tend to be linked to the ideology, self-evaluation and myth created around an individual monarch. From this perspective Charles V is a unique ruler in early modern history. We can certainly identify the intentional creation of an ideology and myth around his person. Charles was born in the year 1500, which generated apocalyptical prophecies in Christendom and may well be linked to the providential mission exhibited by the monarch in his youth.32 The notion of Charles’s historical mission was developed and enhanced by Mercurino di Gattinara, the great imperial chancellor. Charles himself identifijied with the notion, showing the face of a monarch who was conscious of his mission to unify Christendom against internal and external enemies. That his empire reached far beyond the Columns of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) to the other side of the ocean (the Americas), contributed to this undisputable world ruler status. Charles’s motto, Plus Ultra (Further Beyond), reflects this sense of imperial superiority and magnifijicence. But how can we explain the abdication of a monarch with such majestic ambition if we do not recall here the impact of Erasmus of Rotterdam on him. The Institutio Principis Christiani surely impacted on his imperial concept. When he declared his abdications in Brussels – as a mentally and physically weakened emperor and in consequence of the failures of 1551–1552 on many fronts of his empire – he may well have been acting according to the modest views of Erasmus.33 Comparing the ideological priorities with the ordinary decision-making of everyday life, we struggle to answer the question: What was Charles V’s “grand strategy” or, indeed, did a conscious “grand strategy” even exist? At the most 31

32

33

For the imperial economy and war fijinancing, see Tracy, Emperor Charles V; see also the very detailed work of Ramón Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros. Vols. I–III. Madrid, 1943– 1967; Felipe Ruiz Martin, Pequeño capitalismo, gran capitalismo. Simon Ruíz y sus negocios en Florencia. Madrid, 1990. Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France, 1500–1700. New Haven, Conn., 1995; Ángel L. Rubio Moraga, ‘La propaganda carolina: Arte, literatura y espectáculos al servicios del Emperador Carlos V’, Revista de Historia y Comunicación Social 11 (2006) 115–26; Fernando Checa Cremades, Carlos V y la imagen del héroe en el Renacimiento. Madrid, 1987. Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y España. Ciudad de México, 1956; Rodriguez Salgado, The Changing Face.

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basic level his inner drive, coupled with such external influences as Mercurino di Gattinara and others, prioritised the unifijication of Christendom against the hostis naturalis, the Ottoman Empire. Soon, however, an internal enemy emerged, the Protestant “heretics”, who quickly became the next priority on Charles’s list. In third place we fijind France and the Valois challenge in Italy and in the other Habsburg lands. Evidently, the daily realities obliged him to reconsider his ideological priorities; and so it happened that Francis I became a dangerous enemy ready to make alliances with any other “stakeholders” who were against Charles’s empire, including the German princes, the “heretics” and the Ottomans. As a consequence, the “real priority list” had to be reversed, thereby coming into conflict with the ideological one. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Charles regarded as his most lasting victories the two expeditions where there was either no real “imperial clash” (Vienna, 1532) or where his victory had only limited impact on Ottoman expansionism (Tunis, 1535). In the case of both expeditions a persistent myth arose in line with the propaganda, but the real politics regarding the possession of Italy and the establishment of the European hegemony turned Charles’s attention away from the Ottoman advance.34

34

María José Rodriguez Salgado, ‘Carolus Africanus? El Emperador y el Turco’, in José Martínez Millán (ed.), Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558). [Congreso internacional, Madrid 3–6 de julio de 2000]. Vol. 1. Madrid, 2001, 487–532; Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, Las supuestas memorias del Emperador Carlos V. Madrid, 1989, 107–117.

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The Central European Habsburg Monarchy in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century – Elements of Cohesion and Division István Fazekas Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest [email protected]

The explication of the complex and strange formation which took shape in Central Europe in the fijirst half of the 16th century represents a major challenge for contemporary historians. Diffferent names were used to defijine this state, which largely determined the development of Central and Southeastern Europe: Habsburg Empire (Habsburger Reich), Habsburg Monarchy (Habsburgermonarchie), Danube Monarchy (Donaumonarchie), and then, in the last half century of its existence, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The greatest problem may be the fact that present-day historians were socialized within the confijines of national historiography and they do not really know how to approach this peculiar state formation, the composite state. This study has been compiled by a historian socialized within the confijines of Hungarian national historiography. Evidently, an Austrian, German, Czech or Croatian historian (mentioning just a few possibilities) would have approached the issue in a diffferent way.1

The Habsburg Monarchy: Component Elements The Habsburg Monarchy arose in 1526 when, following the death of Louis II, Archduke Ferdinand, who was the younger brother of Charles V and had ruled 1 A few of the numerous comprehensive works: Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526–1918. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1974; Robert J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford, New York, 1979; Jean Bérenger, Die Geschichte des Habsburgerreiches 1273–1918. Wien, Köln, Weimar, 1995 (French orig. 1990); Paula Sutter Fichtner, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1490–1848. Haundmills, New York, 2003; Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1622–1699. Vols. 1–2. (Österreichische Geschichte 1522–1699) Wien, 2003.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_009

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the Austrian principalities since 1521–1522, was elected king of Bohemia and then king of Hungary. As a result, he became the ruler of three diffferent countries, each of which was composed of several units. Their area and population around 1550 are as follows.2 table 1

Austrian Hereditary Provinces Bohemian Crown Kingdom of Hungary (1/3 of its territory) under the Habsburgs

Area

Population

110,000 km2

2,100,000

125,000 km2

2,500,000

120,000 km2

1,8–2,000,000

Ferdinand at fijirst ruled on behalf of his brother Charles V as “Viceroy” (kaiserlicher Statthalter), then from 1531 as “King of the Romans” in the Holy Roman Empire and from 1558 until his death as “Holy Roman Emperor”. The imperial title was later inherited by his son, Maximilian II. The lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Austrian Hereditary Provinces were parts of the Holy Roman Empire, which had an area of 500,000 km2 and a population of 14 million.3 The title of Holy Roman Emperor greatly enhanced the prestige of the Central European Habsburgs, although the mobilization of the empire’s resources was not easy: Usually the promised imperial fijinancial aid was received only partially and the mobilization and efffective control of the army proved to be a recurring problem (as in 1542 and 1566). Nevertheless, it was an important change that for Ferdinand I and Maximilian II the Ottoman threat appeared in the Danube basin instead of the Mediterranean region. In the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century signifijicant fijinancial support was provided by the Holy Roman Empire to sustain the defence line in Hungary against the Ottomans and during the open wars imperial troops assisted (1593–1606, 1663–1664, 1683–1699).4 At the 2 Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, I. 14. 3 Heinrich Lutz, Das Ringen um deutsche Einheit und kirchliche Erneuerung 1490–1648. (Propyläen Geschichte Deutschlands, 4.) Berlin, 1983, 38. 4 Peter Rauscher, ʻKaiser und Reich. Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des “Langen Türkenkrieges” (1548–1593)ʼ, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert.

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same time, the title of Holy Roman Emperor created new conflicts as well. The Habsburg emperor became absorbed in the imperial issues, such as the religious problems and his struggle with the estates (the German principalities – Fürstenstaat, Territorialenstaaten – were formed at the time).5 The title of Holy Roman Emperor offfered the potential of achieving European hegemony. It turned out to be vain hope but as a result the attention of the Habsburg rulers was divided between West and East until the 19th century. The Habsburg Monarchy was a multiple complex formation. The individual country groups were composed of several units, and sometimes the units were also deeply divided, such as Silesia (Slesian).6 According to Thomas Winkelbauer’s good formulation: “A monarchic union composed of the monarchic union of states with estates and a composite state composed of composite states.”7 The phenomenon was not unique at the time, as the 16th century was the period of the composite states; for example, the Spanish Habsburg state was similarly a composite state.8 The Central European Habsburg state formation had explicitly diffferent social structures and cultural traditions, largely due to the Hungarian Kingdom. Keeping together and governing these states posed a serious challenge, especially in the initial decades, under the fijirst Habsburg monarchs, Ferdinand I and Maximilian II.

5 6

7

8

(Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) München, Wien, 2003, 45–83; Jan Paul Niederkorn, Die europäischen Mächte und der “Lange Türkenkrieg” Kaiser Rudolfs II. (1593–1606). (Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 135.) Wien, 1993; Onno Klopp, Das Jahr 1683 und der folgende große Türkenkrieg bis zum Frieden Carlowitz. Graz, 1882; Oswald Redlich, Weltmacht des Barock. Österreich in der Zeit Kaiser Leopolds I. Wien, 1961, 155–195, 415–484. Heinz Schilling, Aufbruch und Krise. Deutschland 1517–1648. Berlin, 1998, 227–240, 397–419. The Hereditary Provinces include the Lower and Upper Austrian provinces, Tyrol and Vorlande. The countries of the Bohemian Crown are Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Lower and Upper Lausitz. Compared with this, Hungary was a relatively simple formation, only Croatia had semi-independence. (The independence of Transylvania developed in the Ottoman period and became permanent after the wars of reconquest.) On the German territories, see Gerhard Köbler, Historisches Lexikon der deutschen Länder. Die deutschen Territorien von Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. München, 1988. Bohemia and Moravia: Joachim Bahlcke, Winfried Eberhard and Miloslav Polívka (eds.), Handbuch der historischen Stätten. Böhmen und Mähren. Stuttgart, 1998, XVIII–CI. Hungary: Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.) Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld and Helen D. DeKornfeld. Boulder, Co., New York, 2009, 17–23. “Eine monarchische Union monarchischer Unionen von Ständestaaten und ein aus zusammengesetzten Staaten zusammengesetzter Staat.” Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, I. 25. On this, see Zoltán Korpás’s study in this volume.

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There were earlier precedents for major state formations in Central Europe. For example, in the 15th century, the empire under Matthias Corvinus (1458– 1490), including the Hungarian Kingdom, part of Bohemia, Moravia, Lausitz and some of the Austrian provinces; or the Jagiellonian Empire, composed of the Bohemian Crowns and Hungary (1490–1526).9 The Habsburgs had also made an attempt to control the states of the region; Albrecht II (1437–1439) and Ladislaus the Posthumous (1440–1457) once ruled simultaneously Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, Lower and Upper Austria. However, that state formation disintegrated after the early death of Ladislaus.10 The state established under Ferdinand I was diffferent, as it proved to be a long-lasting formation. This paper examines the reasons why the Habsburg Monarchy lasted longer than the earlier formations.

The Structure of the Habsburg Monarchy: the Elements of Cohesion 1. The person of the monarch and the prestige and tradition of his family are of considerable importance in this regard. The Habsburgs had been present in the region since the 13th century, as one of the two traditional Central European dynasties, together with the Polish Jagiellonians. During these centuries the power of the Habsburg dynasty was at its peak. At the beginning of the 16th century, a member of the Habsburg dynasty held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, and they inherited from the princes of Burgundy the Spanish throne, which had just extended its authority over the New World. They had diverse family relationships with the major European dynasties. The centuries-old dynastic traditions offfered security, while the family relationships provided prestige. The Czech and Hungarian estates decided to support Ferdinand I, because the prestige of the Habsburg dynasty and his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, were behind him.11 9

10 11

András Kubinyi, Matthias Rex. Budapest, 2008; Jörg K. Hönsch, Matthias Corvinus. Diplomat, Feldherr und Mäzen. Graz, Köln, Wien, 1998; Zofijia Kowalska (ed.), Aus der Geschichte Österreichs in Mitteleuropa. Heft 1. Geschichte. Wien, 1998. Alois Niederstätter, Das Jahrhundert der Mitte. An der Wende von Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. (Österreichische Geschichte 1400–1522) Wien, 2006, 135–149. Several examples from the broad literature on the Habsburg dynasty: Brigitte Wacha (ed.), Die Habsburger. Eine europäische Familiengeschichte. Graz, Wien, Köln, 1992; Adam Wandruszka, Das Haus Habsburg. Die Geschichte einer europäischen Dynastie. Wien, 1995; Karl Vocelka, Die Lebenswelt der Habsburger. Kultur- und Mentalitätsgeschichte einer Familie. Graz, Wien, Köln, 1997; Karl Vocelka, Die private Welt der Habsburger. Leben und Alltag

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An important element of cohesion was the monarch himself. The new state formation benefijited from the fact that its fijirst monarch, Ferdinand I, ruled for a long period, for 38 years (1526–1564).12 His person transmitted security and stability towards his subjects. During his long reign he had the opportunity to educate and appoint pro-Habsburg advisers and politicians in several countries. Ferdinand I himself needed a long time to get to know his new countries and gain political experience to solve the problems. It is important to understand that in 1526 he had lived in Central Europe only for a few years and did not know much about the Czech, Hungarian or imperial estates or about the difffijicult relationships between the Central European countries. He needed time to familiarise himself with the situation. It is to his credit that he was able to adapt to new surroundings both linguistically and culturally more than once. It is no coincidence that his signifijicant, successful reforms were implemented in Bohemia and Hungary in the 1540s, when he had enough knowledge and experience and the political conditions were also favourable (victory over the Schmalkaldener Bund in 1547).13 The importance of the person of the ruler is well illustrated by the case of Rudolf II (1576–1613). His withdrawal from the government paralyzed the decision-making process and hampered the central administration at the end of the 16th century, during the Long Turkish War.14 I am sure that the rule of Ferdinand I would have been diffferent in Hungary if he had been present in the country in 1528–1529. The Habsburg Monarchy in the 16th century was composed of many countries and, accordingly, it became one of the basic problems that the ruler could not be present everywhere simultaneously whenever he was needed. His absence caused disruptions in the functioning of the state apparatus, although the Habsburgs, among them Ferdinand I and

12

13

14

einer Familie. Graz, Wien, Köln, 1998; Paula Sutter Fichtner, The Habsburgs: Dynasty, Culture and Politics. London, 2014. Paula Sutter Fichtner, Ferdinand I of Austria: The Politics of Dynasticism in the Age of the Reformation. Boulder, Co., New York, 1982; Alfred Kohler, Ferdinand I. 1503–1564. Fürst, König und Kaiser, München, 2003. Bohemia: Jaroslav Pánek, ʻRegierugsstrategie und Regierungsreformen Ferdinands I. in den böhmischen Ländernʼ, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 323–337; Hungary: István Kenyeres, ʻDie Einkünfte und Reformen der Finanzverwaltung Ferdinands I. von Ungarnʼ, in Fuchs, Oborni and Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I., 111–146. Robert J. Ewans, Rudolf II. Ohnmacht und Einsaimkeit. Graz, Wien, Köln, 1980, 39–42; Václav Bůžek, ʻHandlungsspielräume des Oberkammerdieners Philip Lang von Langenfels am Kaiserhof zu Beginn des 17. Jahrhundertsʼ, in Anna Fundarkova and István Fazekas (eds.), Die weltliche und kirchliche Elite aus dem Königreich Böhmen und Königreich Ungarn am Wiener Kaiserhof im 16–17. Jahrhundert. Wien, 2013, 369–384.

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Maximilian II were conscientious, responsible monarchs, who spent their days reading reports, holding hearings and participating in meetings.15 It cannot be ignored that in the new countries, Bohemia and Hungary, there were serious aversions to the new dynasty, which was viewed as the representative of the Germans. This was not without reason, because since the resignation of Gabriel Salamanca (1525) mostly Germans had been employed by Ferdinand in the administration.16 The Habsburgs took diffferent steps to overcome these aversions. One way was to strengthen the personal relationships, usually in the royal court, whose signifijicance will be explained later. Sometimes godparents were chosen from the aristocracy, for example Ferenc Batthyány (1497–1566), a prominent counsellor of Ferdinand I in Hungary, became the godfather of the later Emperor Rudolf (1552–1612), together with Archduke Charles.17 Another way of strengthening the relationships with the local aristocracy was to appoint members of the Habsburg dynasty as governors in the provinces. Although the Bohemian and Hungarian estates asked for it several times, there was only a single case in the middle of the 16th century, when the younger son of Ferdinand I, Ferdinand of Tyrol, became governor of Bohemia (1547–1566).18 A further method was the integration of the royal traditions of the diffferent countries. For example, one of the six sons of Maximilian II was called Wenzel (1561–1578), another one was called Matthias (1557–1619). The fijirst name refers to Saint Wenceslaus (904–929), the patron saint of Bohemia. The second name possibly refers to the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490). Thus, interestingly, a major opponent who had threatened the positions of the Habsburg dynasty, was added to the traditions. It was no coincidence either that the diet, summoned to crown Maximilian II as king of Hungary, was originally scheduled for 20 August, when the anniversary

15 16 17

18

Maximilian Lanzinner, ʻGeheime Räte und Berater Kaiser Maximilians II.ʼ, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 102 (1994) 296–315, 300–303. Kohler, Ferdinand I., 137–142. Péter Kóta, ʻBatthyány Ferenc végrendelete 1559-bőlʼ, in Zoltán Nagy (ed.), A Batthyányok évszázadai. Tudományos konferencia Körmenden, 2005. október 27–29. Körmend, Szombathely, 2006, 53–64, 60. Václav Bůžek, Ferdinand von Tirol zwischen Prag und Innsbruck. Der Adel aus den böhmischen Ländern auf dem Weg zu den Höfen der ersten Habsburger. Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2009, 77–151. The Hungarian estates asked the monarch (Act No. V of 1547) to appoint Maximilian as governor in Hungary, following the example of Ferdinand. Vilmos Fraknói, Magyar országgyűlési emlékek / Monumenta comitialia Regni Hungariae. Vol. 3: 1546– 1556. Budapest, 1876, 134–135.

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of the fijirst king of Hungary, the founder of the Hungarian state, Saint Stephen, was celebrated.19 2. The central administration was one of the important elements of cohesion for the early modern states. The foundations for the central administration of the Habsburg Monarchy were laid by Maximilian I and they were developed further under Ferdinand I.20 According to recent research, although the Hofordnung of 1 January 1527 was a signifijicant step, the organization of the central administration, a key factor in the state’s functioning until 1848, lasted for decades. The stabilisation of the bureaucracy, the development of the administration, the separation of powers and the development of a reasonable level of co-operation between the various governmental offfijices, constituted a process lasting several decades. The events of the fijirst decades show that the formation of the bureaucracy depended not only on the monarch’s decision but also on the power balance between the monarch and the estates.21 One of the new government offfijices, the Court Chamber (Hofkammer), was of particular importance: It was responsible for the fijinancial administration and controlled the monarch’s private and state revenues. The importance of the Court Chamber was further increased, because an overarching organization was developed: Territorial chambers responsible for the fijinances of the diffferent regions were established in Prague, Vienna, Innsbruck, Buda or Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava) and later in Breslau (Wrocław) and Kassa (Košice). The relationship between the territorial chambers and the centre was rather complex. The chambers were formally independent but usually they carried out the orders received from higher authorities. At the same time, the decisions of the Court Chamber were generally based on the opinion of the territorial chamber, the offfijicials of which knew the region well and were adapted to the local conditions. Thus, the chamber was more than the executive of the higher authority; in many cases it functioned as a counterbalance. This applies to other government offfijices as well, especially to the chancelleries. The Court Chamber was an important government offfijice. In this state complex

19

20

21

Friedrich Edelmayer et al., Die Krönungen Maximilians II. zum König von Böhmen, Römischen König und König von Ungarn (1562/63) nach der Beschreibung des Hans Habersack, ediert nach CVP 7890. Wien, 1990, 185. Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr (eds.), Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung. Abt. I. Von Maximilian I. bis zur Vereinigung der Österreichischen und der Böhmischen Hofkanzlei. Bd. 2. Aktenstücke 1491–1681. Wien 1907, 91–126, 238–307. Peter Rauscher, ʻPersonalunion und Autonomie: Die Ausbildung der zentralen Verwaltung unter Ferdinand I.ʼ, in Fuchs, Oborni and Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I., 13–40.

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there was always a shortage of money, but it was always able to function – and that is important.22 The Aulic War Council (Hofkriegsrat) was established decades later (1556) than were the other government offfijices. Although it was created after a long process, from the late 1520s there were precedents for the appointment of war councillors and commissioners, who contributed to the organization of the defence against the Turks or the campaigns against King John Szapolyai. The primary responsibility of the Aulic War Council was the organization and direction of the defence against the Ottomans. The conditions for its functioning were set in the middle of the 16th century, so the organization was still being formed in 1566, in the year of the Ottoman campaign against Szigetvár. Nevertheless, in the long term it functioned well, successfully organizing and co-ordinating the available forces.23 The third overarching institution, the Privy Council (Geheimer Rat) was established in 1527. It was a supreme advisory council consisting of several privy counsellors, without executive authority. It was most active in foreign afffairs but from time to time it gave its opinion on important domestic afffairs as well. The real signifijicance of the institution lay in the fact that at the request of the monarch it could give its opinion on issues concerning the entire state complex, thereby contributing to the harmonization of effforts.24 Two more government offfijices should be mentioned, both of which demonstrate that the central administration was intended to be a strictly managed system. According to the initial, 1527 regulation of the Court Council (Hofrat), its authority extended over all the countries of the composite state. However, the specifijic Hungarian and Bohemian legal systems rendered the implementation of the concept impossible. The decrees (Hofratsordnung) of 1537 and 1541 expanded the powers of the Court Council; its area of competence became similar to that of the Privy Council. However, the monarch’s concept and aims failed; indeed, the particularism of the estates proved stronger and the planned 22

23

24

Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung. Bd. 1. Geschichtliche Übersicht. Wien, 1907, 72–76; Peter Rauscher, Zwischen Ständen und Gläubigern. Die kaiserlichen Finanzen unter Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. (1556–1576). Wien, München, 2004, 122–152, 153–187. Fellner and Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, I. 234–268; Friedrich Firnhaber, ʻZur Geschichte des österreichschen Militärwesens: Skizze zur Entstehung des Hofkriegsrathesʼ, Archiv für österreischische Geschichte 30 (1864) 91–178; Géza Pálfffy, ʻDie Akten und Protokolle des Wiener Hofkriegsrats im 16. und 17. Jahrhundertʼ, in Josef Pauser, Martin Scheutz and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie (16.–18. Jahrhundert). Ein exemplarisches Handbuch. (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband, 44.) München, 2004, 182–195. Fellner and Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, I. 39–52.

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centralized government was never realised. After 1559, following Ferdinand I’s election as emperor, the well-known jurisdiction plans resurfaced.25 A similar development – a centralising tendency – can be observed in the case of the Court Chancellery (Hofkanzlei). After 1526, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Silesian secretaries were employed by the chancellor (from 1528, archchancellor), while the old chancelleries remained in the individual countries. In the end this model did not work; it failed because of the strong particularism of the estates. It is no coincidence that after the death of Bernhard Cles (1539) the Habsburgs did not nominate a new archchancellor. From the 1540s the Hungarian Chancellery and the Bohemian Chancellery worked independently, with their own leaders, although in proximity to the ruler and in constant communication with the centre. Initially, the chancelleries were “mere assistant offfijices” but later their role was extended to the preparation of decisions. As mentioned above, the chancelleries had strong links with their own feudal hinterlands. An examination of the Hungarian Chancellery shows that the chancellery was more than the executor of the ruler’s will; the monarch often had to change his original concept and seek a compromise with the estates.26 The functioning of the central administration was repeatedly accompanied by problems, but it was able to meet its main responsibilities. A major task was to respond to the external threats and halt the Ottoman advance. The central administration and its territorial offfijices were important from a social point of view as well: They allowed social mobility for the sons of the non-noble, bourgeois stratum of society or for the lower echelons of the nobility. The offfijicials employed in the central administration and in the territorial offfijices from the 16th century onwards, were loyal to the dynasty, and the central government could rely on their loyalty and expertise.27 3. The elite, the aristocracy of the diffferent countries became a very important element of cohesion; in the words of Thomas Winkelbauer, the aristocracy was 25

26

27

Eva Ortlieb, ʻDie Formierung des Reichshofrats (1519–1564). Ein Projekt der Kommission für Rechtsgeschichte Österreichs der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften im Zusammenarbeit mit dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchivʼ, in Anja Amend et al. (eds.), Gerichtslandschaft Altes Reich. Höchste Gerichtsbarkeit und territoriale Rechtsprechung. (Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Alten Reich, 52.) Köln, Weimar, Wien, 2007, 17–25; Eva Ortlieb, ʻDie Entstehung des Reichshofrats in der Regierungszeit der Kaiser Karl V. und Ferdinand I. (1519–1564)ʼ, in Frühneuzeit-Info 17 (2006) 11–26. Fellner and Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, I. 139–143; Gerhard Rill and Christiane Thomas, Bernhard Cles als Politiker. Kriterien für das Verhaltensbild eines frühneuzeitlichen Staatsmannes. (Kleine Arbeitsreihe zur europäischen und vergleichenden Rechtsgeschichte, 18.) Graz, 1987, 15–16. Bruno Schimetschek, Der österreichische Beamte. Wien, 1984, 34–76.

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“the cement of the Habsburg Monarchy”.28 Intermarriage among the aristocrats of Lower Austria, South Bohemia, Moravia and Western Hungary was typical from the late Middle Ages. After the formation of the common state these relationships became even more intense. The role of the royal court in this process was important, because the aristocrats of diffferent countries could communicate there, and diffferent relationships, marriages, friendships or patron-client relationships could develop. These groups were well able to assert their interests, whereby the royal court served as an important venue for establishing direct ties.29 The court also facilitated contact between the ruler and the aristocracy of the various countries. Based on Norbert Elias’s research, for a long time historians considered the court to have been a tool of the ruler and one that could be used to appease the aristocracy and bind them to the dynasty. In recent years, historians have spoken instead about a venue (or communication room) that assisted the ruler in making contact with the elites of the various countries and promoted communication between the elites of these countries; a common cultural area (Kulturraum) and common ceremonies (Zeremonie) could develop.30 The court of Ferdinand I and Maximilian II played this role from the 1550s; by this time, besides the Spanish, Dutch, German and Italian aristocrats there were plenty of Bohemians and Hungarians as well. In the common royal court, aristocrats from the countries of the Bohemian Crown accounted for 4–5 per cent of the total, while aristocrats from the Hungarian Kingdom made up a slightly smaller share, about 3–4 per cent.31 For the Habsburg Monarchy it was desirable that the aristocracy – the local elites in the provinces – be given every motivation to have an interest in its survival. The Habsburgs solved this task successfully, although from time to time there were strained relations with the estates or groups of estates of certain countries. On occasion these tensions escalated into armed conflicts, but in the end the ruler and the estates could achieve compromises. The estates 28 29

30 31

“Kitt der Habsburgermonarchie”; Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, I. 191. Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, I. 191–196; Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780. Cambridge, 2003; Mark Hengerer, Kaiserhof und Adel in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Eine Kommunikationsgeschichte der Macht in der Vormoderne. (Historische Kulturwissenschaft, 3.) Konstanz, 2004; Idem, ʻCourt and Communications. Integrating the Nobility at the Imperial Court (1620–1665)ʼ, The Court Historian 5 (2000) 223–229. Jeroen Duindam, ʻNorbert Elias und der frühneuzeitliche Hof. Versuch einer Kritik und Weiterführungʼ, Historische Anthropologie 6 (1998) 370–387. Václav Bůžek, ʻIntegrationsmöglichkeiten böhmischer Adeliger am Hof Ferdinands I.ʼ, in Fuchs, Oborni and Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I., 351; Géza Pálfffy, ʻDer ungarische Adel am Wiener Hof König Ferdinands I.ʼ, in Fuchs, Oborni and Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I., 103.

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of the various countries usually did not want to destroy the empire; instead they wanted to obtain a better position against the ruler within the empire. Although the dynastic historiography condemned the Hungarian nobility, the previous conclusion applies to them as well. The dethronement (1707) during the Rákóczi war of independence was an exceptional event, likewise the Fenstersturz (1618) in Prague. 4. It is important to mention one more element of cohesion: the external pressure, the persistent Ottoman danger in the area. In many cases the Ottoman threat forced the ruler and the estates – the two basic parties of political life in the period – to make a compromise. In this matter the 1541 occupation of the Hungarian capital, Buda, was an important landmark. It is no coincidence that in 1542 a large imperial army marched into Hungary to recapture Buda. Likewise, in the following years imperial troops were sent to Hungary in response to the major Ottoman campaigns (1552, 1566).32 The Holy Roman Empire became aware of the proximity of the Turkish threat and the importance of the Hungarian military border. The Austrian, Styrian, Bohemian and Moravian nobility was even more conscious of it and at the end of 1541 they assembled in Prague to discuss how to ward offf the danger. In the following decades they continuously provided aid for the strengthening of the military border against the Ottomans and sent troops to the Hungarian fortresses when such help was needed (for instance, the estates of Lower Austria sent troops to defend Győr).33 It can be concluded that the external pressure was one of the most important elements of cohesion and that, in all probability, without this threat the Habsburg Monarchy would not have existed for such a long time.

The Habsburg Monarchy in 1566 What was the situation of the eastern part of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1566, in the year of the siege of Szigetvár? Two important changes had taken place 32

33

Árpád Károlyi, ʻA német birodalom nagy hadivállalata 1542-ben Magyarországon I–Vʼ, Századok 14 (1880) 265–299, 357–387, 445–465, 558–589, 621–655; Alfred Kohler, Das Reich im Kampf um die Hegemonie in Europa 1521–1648. München, 2010, 74–76; Winfried Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert. Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äusseren Bedrohung. München, 1978. Joseph Loserth and Franz Ferdinand Mensi, ʻDie Prager Ländertagung 1541/1542. Verfassungs- und fijinanzgeschichtliche Studie zur österreichischen Gesamtstaatsideeʼ, in Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 103 (1913) 433–546; Karl Gutkas, Geschichte Niederösterreichs. Wien, 1984, 105–107; Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary, 102; Idem, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története 1526–1598. (A győri főkapitányság története a 16–17. században, 1.) Győr, 1999, 177–207.

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immediately before 1566, in the fijirst half of the 1560s. The issue of the succession to the throne was settled in these years. Ferdinand I ensured the succession of his fijirst-born son, Maximilian, to the throne of Bohemia (1562), of the Holy Roman Empire (1562, king of the Romans) and of Hungary (1563). It is a mark of the talent of Ferdinand I that he was able to overcome resistance on the part of the estates of the various provinces and successfully resolve this issue.34 The death of Ferdinand I (1564) brought another important change, which altered the situation of the Habsburg Monarchy. In his testament (1534, 1554) Ferdinand I divided the countries under his rule into three groups. Maximilian was granted the countries of Lower Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and the title of emperor; Archduke Ferdinand received the earlier Upper Austrian provinces (Tyrol and Vorlande) and Archduke Charles acquired the provinces in Inner Austria (Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the territories lying near the Adriatic Sea).35 The partition could have been devastating but the brothers and their successors were able to cooperate well. The participation of Inner Austria in the Turkish wars and in the building of the Southern Transdanubian military border was signifijicant. Naturally, the attempt to halt the Ottoman advance in Hungary and keep the Turks away from their own country was also made out of self-interest.36 Religion remained the most important unsolved issue in the Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire, despite the 1555 Religious Peace of Augsburg, which had been signed largely thanks to Ferdinand I.37 Religion was not only a confessional but also a political problem; indeed, it constituted an issue that brought conflicts among the leaders of the empire to the surface. Maximilian’s treatment of the issue difffered from that of his father. The “enigmatic emperor” (“rätselhafte Kaiser”, Viktor Bibl), whose personal beliefs the historians have always found puzzling, accepted the status quo and, after the Council of Trent (1563), he counted on the long-term presence of the two denominations, the Catholic and the Lutheran.38 Nevertheless, he rejected the newer denominations (the Calvinist, for instance) and this led to strained 34 35 36 37

38

Paula Sutter Fichtner, Emperor Maximilian II. New Haven, London, 2001, 50–52. Kohler, Ferdinand I., 297–303. Fritz Posch, ʻInnerösterreich und die Türkenʼ, in Österreich und die Türken. Internationales Kulturhistorisches Symposion Mogersdorf. Eisenstadt, 1972, 59–71. Axel Gotthard, Der Augsburger Religionsfrieden. Münster, 2004; Heinz Schilling and Heribert Smolinsky (eds.), Der Augsburger Religionsfrieden 1555. Wissenschaftliches Symposium aus Anlass des 450. Jahrestages des Friedensschlusses, Augsburg 21. bis 25. September 2005. Münster, 2007. Viktor Bibl, Maximilian II., der rätselhafte Kaiser; ein Zeitbild. Hellerau in Dresden, 1929. According to Hugo Hantsch, there is nothing strange in the emperor’s behaviour. Hugo Hantsch, Die Geschichte Österreichs. Vol. 1. Graz, Köln, Wien, 1994, 398.

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relations, especially within the Holy Roman Empire. The monarch aimed at the state control of the two already existing denominations, the Lutheran and the Catholic churches.39 This intention is reflected in the religious concessions (Religionsassekuration) given to the Lutherans of Lower Austria in 1571 and in the foundation of the Klosterrat in 1568, which tried to regularize the situation and control the monasteries, which were in difffijiculty.40 I should also note in passing that at the same time there was a plan to establish a similar institution, a Klosterrat, in Hungary as well, but that it was never implemented.41 The shifts of the balance of power between the new monarch and the estates caused tensions, especially in Bohemia and Hungary. As a heritage of the Hussite period, in Bohemia the religious issue was more difffijicult than in the other provinces and the usual methods of Maximilian failed here. The unresolved religious issue and the unsuccessful 1566 campaign undermined the prestige of the monarch. Taking advantage of the situation, the Bohemian estates were willing to resist Maximilian and they refused to pay the requested taxes several times.42 His policy in Hungary was more successful, because he could solve two problems inherited from his father. In 1568 he concluded a peace with the Ottomans for eight years (Treaty of Adrianople) and the peace treaty, which was prolonged repeatedly, settled the situation of those Hungarian territories that remained under Habsburg rule and enabled the construction of the aforesaid military border. It took a long time, because although the Aulic War Council had been established in 1566, the task of organizing military afffairs had not yet been accomplished. The building of the deeply indented military border, hundreds of kilometres in length, lasted several decades. Construction was carried out under centralised control, with the active participation of the Hungarian, Bohemian, Moravian, Austrian, and Styrian estates.43 The stabilisation was promoted by the 1570 Treaty of Speyer, 39 40

41

42

43

Hantsch, Die Geschichte Österreichs, I. 279–285. Karl Ritter Otto, ʻGeschichte der Reformation im Erzherzogthum Oesterreich unter Kaiser Maximilian II. (1564–1576)ʼ, Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Oesterreich 10 (1889) 1–60; Ernst Tomek, Kirchengeschichte Österreichs. 2. Teil. Humanismus, Reformation und Gegenreformation. Innsbruck, Wien, 1949, 331–334. Maximilian II to the Hungarian Chamber, Vienna, 13 April 1568. Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára, Magyar Kamara Levéltára, E 21 Benignae Resolutiones, 13 April 1568. Jaroslav Pánek, ʻMaximilian II. als König von Böhmenʼ, in Friedrich Edelmayer and Alfred Kohler (eds.), Kaiser Maximilian II. Kultur und Politik im 16. Jahrhundert. München, 1992, 55–69, especially 63–69. Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary, 89–118; Idem, ʻDie Türkenabwehr in Ungarn im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert – ein Forschungsdesideratʼ, in Anzeiger philosophisch–historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 137 (2002) 99–131.

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concluded with John Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania (John II, Elected King of Hungary). The treaty settled the borders between Habsburg Hungary and Transylvania.44 At the same time it is indisputable that under the reign of Maximilian the relationship between the Hungarian estates and the monarch became more and more tense. As evidence we can mention the arrest of several Hungarian noblemen in 1569, who were accused of conspiracy (the so-called Balassa–Dobó conspiracy).45

Conclusion The decades during the reign of Ferdinand I and Maximilian II were crucial in the history of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy. It was during this period that the foundations of the central administration that governed the Habsburg state formation (Habsburg Monarchy) until 1848, were established. Methods and instruments of rule were formed, which helped the Habsburgs to govern their countries in the following centuries. The Habsburgs acknowledged that the influence of the estates in their provinces was so strong that it could not be eliminated in the given circumstances. Therefore, relying on their rights as rulers, they tried to implement their plans, but they were also ready to come to a compromise with the estates if necessary. This model of governance proved to be efffective until the middle of the 18th century, the period of Maria Theresa. The Habsburgs created a framework for the nations of Central Europe that proved efffective and attractive in the long term; at the same time, Habsburg power was instrumental in halting the Ottoman advance in Europe. For various reasons many nations continued to support this model in later periods – doing so even in the age of the nation states. The big question is what accounted for this: Was the model of governance optimal under the circumstances or were there other social and foreign policy factors at play?

44 45

Roderich Goos, Österreichische Staatsverträge. Fürstentum Siebenbürgen (1526–1690). Wien, 1911. Árpád Károlyi, ʻDobó István és Balassa János összeesküvésének történetéhez (1569–72)ʼ, in Századok 13 (1879) 398–412, 488–509, 564–597; János Hóvári, A hűtlen Dobó. Budapest, 1987.

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Camerale, Contributionale, Creditors and Crisis: The Finances of the Habsburg Empire from the Battle of Mohács to the Thirty Year’s War Peter Rauscher University of Vienna [email protected]

In 1591, when military tension between the Habsburg1 and the Ottoman Empire was on the increase, the bookkeeper of the Imperial Court Chamber (Hofkammer) needed to calculate revenue available to fijinance the fortresses and troops at the military border against the Turkish threat. He estimated the annual costs of the border defence system in Hungary without the Wendish and Croatian confijines at 1.13 million florins. However, the bookkeeper faced serious problems estimating the funds available to cover these expenses. The Aulic War Council (Hofkriegsrat) expected revenue of 960,000 florins, 350,000 florins thereof were from the war taxes of the Holy Roman Empire, whereas the Court Chamber calculated only 530,000 florins, and 150,000 florins thereof from the German territories and cities. The bookkeeper himself expected even less revenue – 400,000 florins – because he did not anticipate any income from the Holy Roman Empire.2 This brief example gives us insight into some of the problems of analysing 16th-century Habsburg fijinances. Firstly, sources are insufffijicient or inconsistent. There are some rough estimates of the total revenues and expenses of the Habsburg Empire for some 1 The terms “Habsburg Monarchy” or “Habsburg Empire” used in this study refer to the “Austrian” or “German” branch of the dynasty, that is, to Ferdinand I and his successors. Even if there were strong family and political, sometimes even fijinancial relations between this “younger” and the older “Spanish” branch of the “Casa de Austria”, the European and non-European territories of the Spanish Crown are not topic of this paper. 2 Peter Rauscher, ‘Kaiser und Reich. Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des „Langen Türkenkriegs” (1548–1593)’, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) Wien, München, 2003, 79: note 160, with the exact fijigures.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_010

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years, but even the imperial authorities did not have enough information to draw up a budget.3 It is impossible to reconstruct the annual revenues and expenses because contemporaries had no overview of the fijinances. We depend to a high degree on more or less incomplete series of passed down books of accounts or on fijigures cited in the correspondence of fijinancial or military authorities. Records of the numerous assemblies of estates (Reichsstände/ Landstände) mention taxes granted by the diets (Reichstage/Landtage) of the individual Habsburg kingdoms and territories, and of the Holy Roman Empire. These and other sources are difffijicult to interpret because they often contain estimations or payment obligations but fail to document real cash flow.4 Secondly, and closely related to the fijirst point, the “Habsburg Empire” or “Habsburg Monarchy” was no uniform state (Gesamtstaat), not even a combined monarchy, but a complex power system consisting of the dynasty and its few central authorities as well as of the estates of the Habsburg territories and the Holy Roman Empire.5 In some occasions, fijinancial or military aid from the

3 Thomas Winkelbauer, ‘Nervus rerum Austriacarum. Zur Finanzgeschichte der Habsburgermonarchie um 1700’, in Petr Maťa and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1620 bis 1740. Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismusparadigmas. (Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 24.) Stuttgart, 2006, 187–193. For the “military budget” of the last decades of the 16th century, see Géza Pálfffy, ‘Der Preis für die Verteidigung der Habsburgermonarchie: Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen, 32–34; István Kenyeres, ‘Die Kriegsausgaben der Habsburgermonarchie von der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zum ersten Drittel des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Peter Rauscher (ed.), Kriegführung und Staatsfijinanzen. Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Römische Reich vom Dreißigjährigen Krieg bis zum Ende des habsburgischen Kaisertums 1740. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 10.) Münster, 2010, 61; Thomas Winkelbauer, ‘Territoriale, sozial und nationale Aspekte der Staatsfijinanzen der Habsburgermonarchie (vom 16. Jahrhundert bis 1918)’, in Jiří Mikulec and Miloslav Polívka (eds.), Per saecula ad tempora nostra. Sborník prací k šedesátým narozeninám prof. Jaroslava Pánka. Vol. 1. Praha, 2007, 181–194, focuses mainly on the period between the second half of the 17th and the early 20th centuries. 4 The main sources are discussed in the cited literature. Cf. additionally Josef Pauser, Martin Scheutz and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie (16.–18. Jahrhundert). Ein exemplarisches Handbuch. (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband, 44.) Wien, München, 2004, especially the contributions by Mark Hengerer and Peter Rauscher. 5 The problem is discussed by Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1522–1699. Vol. 1. (Österreichische Geschichte 1522–1699) Wien, 2003, 25–28, who stressed that early modern Habsburg Monarchy has been a state (ibid., 28). In contrast Robert Evans argued earlier that this political system “was a complex and subtly-balanced organism, not a ‘state’ but a mildly centripetal agglutination of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements”. Robert J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford, 1979, 447.

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Spanish branch of the dynasty, from the pope, or from some Italian territories also played a role.6 Thirdly, our example shows that a huge defijicit arose between expenditure and revenue. Borrowing was therefore a crucial component in this system. Fourthly, the various estates normally granted taxes for only a short period, one or a couple of years at most. In contrast, the border defence system that had been established in the middle of the century entailed high regular costs,7 whereas the authorities involved could not rely on stable military funding. Even if we could add the annual civic and the military expenditures of the kings and (since 1558) emperors of the German branch of the House of Austria, we could not gather an appropriate impression of the fijinances of the Habsburg Monarchy.8 In other words, the fijinances of the emperor would give no evidence of the power of the Habsburg Monarchy. One of the major reasons for this is the 1564 division of the Habsburg territories between the three sons of Emperor Ferdinand I following his death.9 Whereas the so-called Lower Austrian Lands remained in the hands of the imperial branch of the family, the Upper Austrian and Inner Austrian lands became largely independent principalities. Upper Austria, including the County of Tyrol, did not contribute signifijicant amounts of money to the border system against the Ottomans,10 but Inner Austria – the prince and the estates of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola – administrated the

6 7

8

9 10

Cf. Jan Paul Niederkorn, Die europäischen Mächte und der „Lange Türkenkrieg“ Kaiser Rudolfs II. (1593–1606). (Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 135.) Wien, 1993. On 16th-century border defence, see the extensive and substantial studies of Géza Pálfffy; for example: ‘The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (up to the Eighteenth Century)’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confijines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 3–69; Idem, ‘The Habsburg Defense System in Hungary against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europe’, in Brian J. Davies (ed.), Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500–1800. (History of Warfare, 72.) Leiden, Boston, 2012, 35–61; Idem, ‘Preis’, 20–44. Cf. Peter Rauscher, Zwischen Ständen und Gläubigern. Die kaiserlichen Finanzen unter Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. (1556–1576). (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 41.) Wien, München, 2004, 277. For the fijinancial impacts of this territorial division, see Rauscher, Stände, 188–205. Tyrol did not contribute to the Hungarian border defence system. On the Tyrolian fijinancial aid against the Ottomans in times of open warfare for the period after the division of the Austrian Hereditary Lands, see Tullius R. von Sartori-Montecroce, Geschichte des landschaftlichen Steuerwesens in Tirol. Von K. Maximilian I. bis zu Maria Theresia. (Beiträge zur österreichischen Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte, 2.) Innsbruck, 1902, 124–126, 157–170.

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two southern sections of the military border. They were therefore integral components of the Austrian fijinancial and military system.11 Another challenge is the fijiscal administration of the various estates. Sixteenth-century sovereigns could not bear the burden of external warfare and internal peacekeeping, including the development of administrative infrastructures in politics and justice, purely on the basis of the income of their seigniories (manors, Grundherrschaften), ordinary taxes, and regalian rights (Regalia).12 These ordinary revenues – in Austria called Camerale – constituted only the smaller part of “public” fijinances: The other, larger, portion were the extraordinary taxes granted by the diets of the kingdoms and territories – the so-called Contributionale.13 This part of the “public” revenue depended on the approval of the estates. Also the levy of the taxes was organized by the territorial cities and lords of the manor.14 The emperor and his authorities had only limited access to these funds. Even if some territories transferred the taxes raised to offfijicials of the emperor, others did not, employing special paymasters who remunerated the military.15 Last but not least, fijinancial aid for military afffairs was just one side of the coin. The other was military aid in the form of auxiliary troops payed by the estates and fijighting under their command (feudal levy and peasant militia [Landesaufgebot]; forces of the Holy Roman Empire, imperial circles or 11

12

13 14

15

Winfried Schulze, Landesdefension und Staatsbildung. Studien zum Kriegswesen des innerösterreichischen Territorialstaates (1564–1619). (Veröfffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, 60.) Wien, Köln, Graz, 1973, 56–77; Pálfffy, ‘Origins’, 44–45, 51. Cf. Uwe Schirmer, Kursächsische Staatsfijinanzen (1456–1656). Strukturen – Verfassung – Funktionseliten. (Quellen und Forschungen zur sächsischen Geschichte, 28.) Stuttgart, 2006, 28–36. For details on the Habsburg Empire including the German estates: Rauscher, Stände, 278–334. Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit, I. 465–466. Cf. Peter Rauscher, ‘Krieg – Steuern – Religion – Recht. Staatsgewalt und bäuerlicher Protest in Österreich ob und unter der Enns (16.–18. Jahrhundert)’, in Peter Rauscher and Martin Scheutz (eds.), Die Stimme der ewigen Verlierer? Aufstände, Revolten und Revolutionen in den österreichischen Ländern (ca. 1450–1815). (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 61.) Wien, München, 2013, 237–272. The Habsburg Monarchy neither had a common tax system nor a centralized tax administration. General statements on tax burden per capita or total tax burden are impossible. Cf. K. Kıvanç Karaman and Şevket Pamuk, ‘Die osmanischen Staatsfijinanzen in europäischer Perspektive’, in Peter Rauscher, Andrea Serles and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Das „Blut des Staatskörpers“. Forschungen zur Finanzgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. (Historische Zeitschrift, Suppl. 56.) München, 2012, 206–208. Michael Hochedlinger, ‘“Onus militare”. Zum Problem der Kriegsfijinanzierung in der frühneuzeitlichen Habsburgermonarchie 1500–1750’, in Rauscher (ed.), Kriegsführung, 81–100.

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German princes; portalis militia, banderia, etc.).16 It is difffijicult to distinguish between military and fijinancial aid because the diffferences were only slight: The scope of action for the emperor was relatively high if he received fijinancial aid administrated by his authorities and relatively low if the estates granted auxiliary troops under their command. During the 16th century both systems and variants thereof were common.17 As a result of the aforementioned and because this survey should outline only the most important developments I will not attempt to analyse any aspect of the chaotic and variable conditions of the Austrian fijinancial (and military) system. Drawing primarily from current studies which discuss the primary sources and contain additional literature I will focus on a few major questions: How was fijinancial administration organized? Where did the money come from and how was it spent? Who were the creditors of the Habsburg emperors? And fijinally, did the Habsburg Monarchy encounter a substantial fijinancial crisis during the 16th century?

The Financial Administration Analysing the fijinancial administration of the Habsburg territories we learn a lot about the general structure of this dynastical union. When Ferdinand I began his reign in the Austrian territories of his grandfather Maximilian I he inherited a lot of debt but no functioning administrative system. Even if Maximilian had been a great reformer who established modern authorities – so called councils – he did not create a stable bureaucratic system.18 In 1522–1523 Ferdinand I installed a general treasurer and two chambers for the Lower Austrian and the Upper Austrian territories to administrate his fijinances.19 In 1527 the Court 16 17

18

19

Michael Hochedlinger, Austria’s Wars of Emergence. War, State and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1683–1797. (Modern Wars in Perspective) London, 2003, 78–97. A substantial study on the armies under the command of the emperor is missing for the 16th century. Cf. generally the works of Hochedlinger: Austria’s Wars; Idem, ‘Onus militare’. An impression of the composition of imperial armies can be gained from Leopold Kupelwieser, Die Kämpfe Oesterreichs mit den Osmanen vom Jahre 1526 bis 1537. Wien, Leipzig, 1899, 91. Thomas Fellner and Heinrich Kretschmayr, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, Part I: Von Maximilian I. bis zur Vereinigung der Österreichischen und Böhmischen Hofkanzlei (1749). Vol. 1: Geschichtliche Übersicht. (Veröfffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, 5.) Wien, 1907, 9–29; Sigmund Adler, Die Organisation der Centralverwaltung unter Kaiser Maximilian I. Leipzig, 1886. Fellner and Kretschmayr, Geschichtliche Übersicht, 29–33; in detail: Gerhard Rill, Fürst und Hof in Österreich von den habsburgischen Teilungsverträgen bis zur Schlacht von Mohács

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Chamber has been established.20 This central fijinancial authority was responsible for the Hungarian, Bohemian, and Austrian territories as well as for the Holy Roman Empire, both for borrowing and fijinancing the court and the military. Since the 1530s–40s two central payment offfijices have been subordinated to the Court Chamber: the offfijice of the court paymaster (Hofzahlmeister) and the offfijice of the war paymaster in Hungary (Kriegszahlmeister in Ungarn/Hofkriegszahlmeister).21 The offfijice of the court paymaster in particular was used not only for the civil spending of the imperial household but as payment offfijice for war fijinances as well.22 Apart from the activities of other war paymasters of the emperor and of the estates – Feldkriegszahlmeister, Reichspfennigmeister, Kriegszahlmeister (for certain sections of the border defence system against the Turks) – and their complex fijinancial relations to the royal/imperial court and war paymasters, the lack of the accounting books of the war paymasters in Hungary renders it extremely difffijicult to estimate the fijinances of the Habsburg Empire.23 The Court Chamber was the fijirst and only authority for all territories under Ferdinand I. It took thirty additional years to establish the Aulic War Council as

20

21 22 23

(1521/22 bis 1526). Vol. 2: Gabriel von Salamanca, Zentralverwaltung und Finanzen. (Forschungen zur Europäischen und Vergleichenden Rechtsgeschichte, 7/2.) Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2003, 260–270; Eduard Rosenthal, ‘Die Behördenorganisation Kaiser Ferdinands I. Das Vorbild der Verwaltungsorganisation in den deutschen Territorien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Verwaltungsrechts’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 69 (1887) 172–215; Werner Kögl, ‘Die Entstehung der niederösterreichischen Rechenkammer’, Archivalische Zeitschrift 71 (1975) 26–41; Renate Spechtenhauser, Behörden- und Verwaltungsorganisation Tirols unter Ferdinand I. in den Jahren 1520–1540. Beamtenschematismus des oö. Wesens. PhD diss., University of Innsbruck, 1975. Besides Fellner and Kretschmayr, Geschichtliche Übersicht, 68–81, cf. also Rosenthal, ‘Behördenorganisation’, 101–144; Rauscher, Stände, 122–137; Idem, ‘Personalunion und Autonomie. Die Ausbildung der zentralen Verwaltung unter Ferdinand I.’, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 13–39; Idem, ‘Habsburgische Finanzbehörden und ihr schriftlicher Ordnungsbedarf im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Anita Hipfijinger et al. (eds.), Ordnung durch Tinte und Feder? Genese und Wirkung von Instruktionen im zeitlichen Längsschnitt vom Mittelalter bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 60.) Wien, München, 2012, 161–178. Rauscher, Stände, 182–184. Ibid., 254–263; Kenyeres, ‘Kriegsausgaben’, 46–54. Only two books of accounts of the war paymasters in Hungary for the years 1570 and 1623 have been passed down. Rauscher, Stände, 272–277; Kenyeres, ‘Kriegsausgaben’, 54–80; Idem, ‘Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr und des Langen Türkenkriegs (1593–1606) im Kontext der ungarischen Finanzen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Rauscher, Serles and Winkelbauer (eds.), „Blut des Staatskörpers“, 37–38.

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the central military authority. From a bureaucratic point of view, 16th-century Habsburg Empire was – apart from the dynasty – a fijinancial and military union consisting of various “states” with their own tax and military systems, laws, customs or institutions.24 Even the influence of the Court Chamber (and of the Aulic War Council) on the territories remained weak: Territorial chambers like the Upper and the Lower Austrian Chambers, the Bohemian (1527), Hungarian (1528), Silesian (1558) and Szepes Chambers (1567) had been reorganised or established by the 1560s.25 The main task of these chambers was the central administration of the Cameralia of a single land or of a group of territories. With a share of up to 80 per cent, the main sources of princely income of the Austrian Hereditary Lands were the revenues of the various customs and of the mines.26 Even more signifijicant were the revenues of the toll stations in the Kingdom of Hungary, where nearly the entire ordinary income of the Hungarian Chamber came from the taxation of goods transport. Other revenues, like the taxes of the royal cities, played a marginal role. The structure of the ordinary income of the Szepes Chamber was quite diffferent. In this north-eastern part of the Hungarian Crown the revenues from the seigniories and their sale during the last decades of the century almost equalled the income from the customs. 24

25

26

Cf. Peter Rauscher, ‘Comparative Evolution of the Tax Systems in the Habsburg Monarchy, c. 1526–1740: The Austrian and the Bohemian Lands’, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), La Fiscalità nell’economia Europea secc. XIII–XVIII / Fiscal Systems in the European Economy from the 13th to the 18th Centuries. Atti della “Trentanovesima Settimana di Studi” 22–26 aprile 2007. (Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F. Datini” Prato, Serie II – Atti delle “Settimane di Studi” e altri Convegni, 39.) Firenze, 2008, 291–295; Idem, ‘Systèmes fijiscaux, dettes et empruts: le cas de la monarchie des Habsbourg (XVIe– XVIIIe siècle)’, in Katia Béguin (ed.), Ressources publiques et construction étatique en Europe XIIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Animation de la recherche) Paris, 2015, 81–100. Rauscher, Stände, 153–176; Idem, ‘El gobierno de una “monarquía compuesta”. Fernando I y el nacimiento de la Monarquía de los Austrias en el centro de Europa’, in Alfredo Alvar and Friedrich Edelmayer (eds.), Fernando I, 1503–1564: Socialización, vida privada y actividad pública de un Emperador del Renacimiento. Madrid, 2004, 309–334; Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit, I. 470–474. Especially the fijinancial administration of Habsburg Hungary has been investigated recently. See, for example, István Kenyeres, Uradalmak és végvárak. A kamarai birtokok és a törökellenes határvédelem a 16. századi Magyar Királyságban. (Habsburg történeti monográfijiák, 2.) Budapest, 2008; Idem, ‘Die Kammerherrschaften und die Türkenabwehr im Königreich Ungarn des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Krisztián Csaplár-Degovics and István Fazekas (eds.), Geteilt – Vereinigt. Beitrage zur Geschichte des Königreichs Ungarn in der Frühneuzeit (16.–18. Jahrhundert). (Edition Ungarische Geschichte, 1.) Berlin, 2011, 98–129; Idem, ‘Die Einkünfte und Reformen der Finanzverwaltung Ferdinands I. in Ungarn’, in Fuchs, Oborni and Ujváry (eds.), Ferdinand I., 111–147; Idem, ‘Die Finanzen des Königreichs Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen, 84–122. Rauscher, Stände, 206–220.

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The Lower Austrian Chamber was the third authority administrating the Hungarian revenues: During the 1570s, 50 per cent of the income consisted of revenue from the mines, and 44 per cent came from the toll duties.27 In the realm of the Bohemian Crown the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Duchy of Silesia played the key roles in the princely fijinancial system, whereas the Margravates of Moravia and Upper and Lower Lusatia were far less important.28 The structure of the ordinary royal revenues in the Kingdom of Bohemia is unclear. Important sources of income were the Bohemian seigniories, the tolls, and portions of the lucrative beer tax.29 In Silesia the toll stations were likely the most profijitable offfijices of the emperor/king as territorial prince of the duchy.30 The “national” or “territorial” interests of the kingdoms and provinces ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs were pursued by the regional chambers as well as by the various estates. The estates had the right to grant military and fijinancial aid to the monarch. Since they collected and administrated taxes imposed on the subjects, the estates controlled a huge part of the military and therefore the entire fijinancial budget of the Habsburg Monarchy.31 There is no question that the estates remained separated: During the 16th century there were few meetings of the representatives of all territorial diets.32 Of course, some groups 27

28

29

30 31 32

Kenyeres, ‘Finanzen’, 97–115. The total income of the Hungarian Chamber amounted to up to 25 per cent of the extraordinary war taxes granted by the estates; in the realm of the Szepes Chamber these taxes represented almost one-third of the income of the Chamber in specifijic years. The Lower Austrian Chamber did not administrate Hungarian taxes. Bronislav Chocholač and Tomáš Sterneck, ‘Die landesfürstlichen Finanzen in Mähren in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen, 123–142; Peter Rauscher, ‘Die Oberlausitz als Steuerquelle und Pfandobjekt der Habsburger (1526–1635)’, in Joachim Bahlcke (ed.), Die Oberlausitz im frühneuzeitlichen Mitteleuropa. Beziehungen – Strukturen – Prozesse (Quellen und Forschungen zur sächsischen Geschichte, 30.) Stuttgart, 2007, 406–433. On the structure of the Bohemian fijinances, see Anton Gindely, ‘Geschichte der böhmischen Finanzen von 1526 bis 1618’, Denkschriften der phil.-hist. Classe der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien 18 (1869) 89–168 [reprint Wien, 1971]. Rauscher, Stände, 235–239. For an outline of the territorial composition of the Habsburg Empire, see Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit, I. esp. 465–470; Hochedlinger, Austria’s Wars, 10–29. Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit, I. 200–201. Very instructive but overestimating the tendencies of the estates to create a kind of united body of the Habsburg kingdoms and countries (“Gesamtstaat”): Winfried Schulze, ‘Das Ständewesen in den Erblanden der Habsburger Monarchie bis 1740: Vom dualistischen Ständestaat zum organisch-föderativen Absolutismus’, in Peter Baumgart (ed. in collaboration with Jürgen Schmädeke), Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preußen. Ergebnisse einer internationalen Fachtagung. (Veröfffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, 55.) Berlin, New York, 1983, 263–267.

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of territories, such as the lands of the Bohemian Crown or the Lower and Inner Austrian lands, were in close communication regarding tax burdens and military effforts. Be that as it may, the estates never formed a corporate body or a kind of Austrian “États généraux”.33 On the one hand, the estates were not interested in losing their national or regional autonomy, and on the other the Habsburgs feared that the united opposition of the estates could pose a danger to their reign.34 A good example of the ambiguous position of fijinancial authorities between the emperor/king and the estates is the offfijice of the paymaster of the Holy Roman Empire (imperial paymaster, Reichspfennigmeister):35 Until the 1540s the estates of the Holy Roman Empire granted only military aid to Emperor Charles V and King Ferdinand in the form of troops. After the year 1541 the imperial estates approved fijinancial support to repair the fortifijication of Vienna and other fortresses at the border to the Ottoman Empire on occasion. As they did not want to pay the money directly to the administration of the king, the estates engaged paymasters to administrate the taxes. As early as the 1550s Ferdinand I and his Court Chamber gave orders to these paymasters who resided in Augsburg and Leipzig. The campaign of 1566 against the Ottomans 33

34

35

Hans Sturmberger, ‘Dualistischer Ständestaat und werdender Absolutismus’, in Idem, Land ob der Enns und Österreich. Aufsätze und Vorträge. (Mitteilungen des Oberösterreichischen Landesarchivs, Suppl. 3.) Linz, 1979, 257–258; Hochedlinger, ‘Onus militare’, 85–88; Idem, Austria’s Wars, 26–29; Winkelbauer, Ständemacht, I. 196–201; Rauscher, ‘Systèmes fijiscaux’, 81–100. Peter Rauscher, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden. Kaiserliche Finanzkrise und Friedenspolitik im Vorfeld des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs (1612–1615)’, in Guido Braun and Arno Strohmeyer (eds.), Frieden und Friedenssicherung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Das Heilige Römische Reich und Europa. (Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e.V., 36.) Münster, 2013, 372–377. Cf. Winfried Schulze, Reich und Türkengefahr im späten 16. Jahrhundert. Studien zu den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen einer äußeren Bedrohung. München 1978, 310–336; Maximilian Lanzinner, Friedenssicherung und politische Einheit des Reiches unter Maximilian II. (1564–1576). (Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 45.) Göttingen, 1993, 464–473, 481–483; Peter Rauscher, ‘Carlos V, Fernando I y la ayuda del Sacro Imperio contra los turcos: dinero, religión y defensa de la cristiandad’, in Jesús Bravo Lozano and Carlos J. de Carlos Morales (eds.), Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558). Congreso internacional, Madrid, 3–6 de julio de 2000. Vol. 4. Madrid, 2001, 363–383; Idem, ‘Kaiser und Reich. Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des „Langen Türkenkriegs“ (1548–1593)’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen, 45–83; Idem, Stände, 185–187; Alexander Sigelen, „Dem ganzen Geschlecht nützlich und rühmlich.“ Reichspfennigmeister Zacharias Geizkofler zwischen Fürstendienst und Familienpolitik. (Veröfffentlichungen der Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg, B/171.) Stuttgart, 2009, 119–138.

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was a turning point in the administration of imperial aid: The next diet of 1570 waived the right to audit the accounts of the imperial paymasters who de facto became offfijice bearers of the emperor and his Court Chamber. Since the estates of the Holy Roman Empire granted high fijinancial aid to the emperor almost continuously, the imperial paymaster in Augsburg became a crucial component of the Habsburg fijinancial system. In sum, during the 16th century Habsburg rulers established central and provincial fijinancial authorities but the sovereign and his central administration had only partial access to the fijinancial resources of the empire. They remained dependent on the cooperation of various estates representing regional interests and administrating a large part of the military budget.

Revenues and Expenditure The emergence of the “early modern state” generally indicated, among others, centralization, imposition and rising of taxes, monopolization of the military forces by the monarch, invention of political economy to raise productivity and public wealth.36 The losers in this development were the rivals of the ruling dynasties, especially the nobility and the church. The 16th-century Habsburg Monarchy was still far from this level of state development. The economic activities of the monarch and of the estates were primarily restricted to fijinancing the court and the warfare. The ordinary income of the emperor/king of the Romans, king of Hungary and of Bohemia respectively, etc., meaning the fijinancial basis considered sufffijicient for his household, was unequally distributed between his various kingdoms:37 The Holy Roman Empire, for example, provided no substantial regular income for the monarch’s household. If we look at the registers of the court paymaster during the third quarter of the 16th century, we can estimate the annual costs for the imperial court at 650,000 to 700,000 florins. In order to cover these expenses, half of the receipts of the 36

37

For a general overview, see Wolfgang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt. Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. München 1999. On the fijinance of the imperial court, see Peter Rauscher, ‘Die Finanzierung des Kaiserhofs in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Frühneuzeit-Info 12:2 (2001) 49–64; Idem, Stände, 248–271; Idem, ‘Die Finanzierung des Kaiserhofs von der Mitte des 16. bis zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts. Eine Analyse der Hofzahlamtsbücher’, in Gerhard Fouquet, Jan Hirschbiegel and Werner Paravicini (eds.), Hofwirtschaft. Ein ökonomischer Blick auf Hof und Residenz in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. (Residenzenforschung, 21.) Ostfijildern, 2008, 405–441.

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court paymasters consisted of loans. If we consider revenue from the ordinary princely income and from taxes granted by the estates, the picture becomes more clear: The most signifijicant fijinancial contributions to the imperial court came from the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Duchy of Silesia; a single offfijice, the Hungarian toll station of Magyaróvár (Oberdreißigist Ungarisch-Altenburg) and its subordinate offfijices, contributed more than four per cent of the total income of the imperial court. Less signifijicant were taxes from Hungary and from the Austrian Hereditary Lands and the princely income from the Austrian seigniories. If we look at the income of the court during the period between 1590 and 1604 we can also see the predominance of Bohemia, Silesia and – to a lesser extent – Moravia contributing nearly 80 per cent to the receipts of the paymaster of the court. The structure of war fijinancing was even more complex, as a result of the large number of actors involved and the fact that money was not the only “currency” of war, given the provision of auxiliary troops. Furthermore, the mercenary troops of the emperor, which represented his own military power, were disbanded at the end of each campaign. In times of relative peace the militia at the so called “Turkish border” was the only garrisoned force of the emperor and of the estates. These border troops were often in poor condition and unsalaried. Their number and costs grew considerably during the course of the century. table 1

The number of imperial fortresses and manpower at the “Turkish border” in Hungary during the second half of 16th century * Year 1556 1572 1576 1582 1593

Fortresses

Number of soldiers

ca. 80 128 123 118 171

ca. 14,000 ca. 20,000 ca. 22,500 ca. 21,000 ca. 22,500

* Including Croatia and Slavonia, auxiliary troops not included. Source: Pálfffy, ‘Preis’, 24: Table 1.

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The preserved sources primarily relate requisite salaries but fail to include the expenditures for fortifijication, war materials and provisions, administration, the fleet on the Danube, intelligence and postal services, and expenses for the diplomacy with the Sublime Porte.38 At the end of the 1570s even in years without any major military operation total fijinancing needs for the Turkish border exceeded 2 million florins.39 table 2

Required annual salaries for the troops at the “Turkish border” 1545–1593 (rounded fijigures)* Year

Florins

1545 1554 1558 1572 1582 1593

384,000 606,000 1,025,000 1,221,000 1,418,000 1,338,000

*Including Croatia and Slavonia, auxiliary troops not included. Source: Pálfffy, ‘Preis’, 27: Table 2.

As Géza Pálfffy has pointed out, the fijirst serious attempts to organize a new defence system did not begin until the 1540s. During the course of the 16th century it became clear that the rising costs of the military border could be fijinanced neither by the remaining Kingdom of Hungary alone nor by the entire Habsburg territories.40 During the last quarter of the century the fijinancial aid of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichstürkenhilfe) increased and was granted regularly.41 Beginning in 1576 the Holy Roman Empire paid more or less the 38 39 40 41

Pálfffy, ‘Preis’, 25–30. Pálfffy, ‘Preis’, 33: Table 4; Rauscher, Stände, 76: Table 7. Pálfffy, ‘Origins’, 16–54, esp. 41–42. Schulze, Reich; Idem, ‘Die Erträge der Reichssteuern zwischen 1576 und 1606’, Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 27 (1978) 169–185; Idem, ‘Reichstage und Reichssteuern im späten 16. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 2 (1975) 43–58; Lanzinner, Friedenssicherung, 449–509, 525–527; Peter Rauscher, ‘Nach den Türkenreichstagen. Der Beitrag des Heiligen Römischen Reichs zur kaiserlichen Kriegführung im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert’, in Idem (ed.), Kriegführung, 435–437; Idem,

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same amount as the Austrian and Bohemian lands together. This means that any interruption of these payments, and especially the collapse of this aid following the Long Turkish War, would inevitably result in a serious crisis for the entire fijinancial system of the emperor.42 The mutual dependence between the emperor and the estates of the various Habsburg lands led to regular taxation within the territories, the assumption of imperial debts by some estates, and to military and fijinancial cooperation between the estates and the crown. At the same time, the monarch could do little toward repressing the political and religious opposition in the Habsburg lands and in the Holy Roman Empire.43 If we compare court expenses to military expenses we might estimate that at the end of the century the border defence was three or four times as expensive as the imperial court. During the Long Turkish War civil expenditures might not have exceeded 10 per cent of total spending.

Credits and Creditors Like the fijinances of the court, war fijinance depended on formidable loans. Géza Pálfffy has pointed out that the border defence system was characterized by a structural defijicit.44 This also applies to periods of open warfare. István Kenyeres has estimated that between 15 and 30 per cent of the expenses for the Long Turkish War were fijinanced by loans.45 This debt policy resulted in an increase of imperial debt from 12.3 million florins upon the death of Ferdinand I (1564) to allegedly more than 30 million at the end of the reign of Rudolf II (1612).46

42 43 44 45

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‘Kaiser’; Géza Pálfffy, ‘An “Old Empire” on the Periphery of the Old Empire: The Kingdom of Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Robert J. W. Evans and Peter H. Wilson (eds.), The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806: A European Perspective. Leiden, Boston, 2012, 264–269. Cf. Rauscher, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden’, 349–386. Cf. Hans Sturmberger, ‘Türkengefahr und österreichische Staatlichkeit’, in Idem, Land ob der Enns, 320–326; Niederkorn, Mächte, 49–60. Pálfffy, ‘Preis’, 30–34; Kenyeres, ‘Kriegsausgaben’, 61. Kenyeres, ‘Kosten’, 36–37; Idem, ‘Kriegsausgaben’, 70–75, Idem, ‘A „Fiscal-Military State” és a Habsburg Monarchia a 16–17. században’, in Ildikó Horn et al. (eds.), Művészet és mesterség. Tisztelgő kötet R. Várkonyi Ágnes emlékére. Vol. 1. Budapest, 2016, 119. The amount of the debts of Rudolf II is still unclear. Most historians assume ca. 30 million florins mentioned by the prime minister of Emperor Matthias, Melchior Khlesl. Rauscher, Stände, 198–205, 356; Idem, ‘Reiche Fürsten – armer Kaiser? Die fijinanziellen Grundlagen der Politik Habsburgs, Bayerns und Sachsens im Vorfeld des Dreißigjährigen Krieges’, in Friedrich Edelmayer et al. (eds.), Plus ultra. Die Welt der Neuzeit. Festschrift für Alfred Kohler zum 65. Geburtstag. Münster, 2008, 251–253; Friedrich von Hurter, Geschichte Kaiser Ferdi-

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Historians have emphasised the vital importance of loans in keeping the fijinancial system of early modern monarchies running.47 This is also true of the realm of the Habsburg kings and emperors. Already Alfons Huber highlighted the negative aspects of the growing princely loans because debt service caused the highest expenses along with military spending. Huber has also stressed that these debts cannot be characterised as “state debts”, an Austrian state had yet to exist, and individual territories did not assume liability for princely debts.48 Although some estates took over portions of imperial debts, the fijirst steps to create a kind of “public” or “national” debt were not realised until the late 17th century.49 There is no question that Augsburg was the fijinancial centre of the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire including the Austrian Hereditary Lands.50 As early as the reign of Maximilian I there were special relations to the Swabian

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nands II. und seiner Eltern, bis zu dessen Krönung in Frankfurt. Vol. 7. Schafffhausen, 1854, 416–424, esp. 417. Other sources only indicate 22.5 million florins of imperial debts at the death of Rudolf II. Cf. Anton Chroust (ed.), Der Ausgang der Regierung Rudolfs II. und die Anfänge des Kaisers Matthias (Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges in den Zeiten des vorwaltenden Einflusses der Wittelsbacher, 10.) München, 1906, Nos. 287, 709. The fijinancial heritage of Rudolf II is discussed by Anton Chroust, Abraham von Dohna. Sein Leben und sein Gedicht auf den Reichstag von 1613. München, 1896, 231–232: note 4, and especially by Alfred H. Loebl, ‘Eine mährische Anleihe im Zeitalter der Fürstenschulden und Domänenverpfändungen vor dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereines für die Geschichte Mährens und Schlesiens 18 (1914) 358–359: note 1. For the debts of the Bohemian and Silesian Chambers and of the imperial paymaster, see Oskar Freiherr von Mitis, ‘Gundacker von Liechtensteins Anteil an der kaiserlichen Zentralverwaltung (1606–1654)’, Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte Österreichs 4 (1908) 58–59. For instance, Felipe Ruiz Martín, ‘Las Finanzas españolas durante el reinado de Felipe II (Alternativas de participación que se ofrecieron para Francia)’, in Relaciones hispano-francesas a traves del tiempo. (Cuadernos de Historia. Anexos de la revista Hispania, 2.) Madrid, 1968, 109. Alfons Huber, ‘Studien über die fijinanziellen Verhältnisse Oesterreichs unter Ferdinand I.’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung Suppl. 4 (1893) 213. Winkelbauer, ‘Nervus’, 200–201; Adolf Beer, ‘Die Staatsschulden und die Ordnung des Staatshaushaltes unter Maria Theresia I’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 82 (1895) 9–10; Peter G. M. Dickson, Finance and Government under Maria Theresia 1740–1780. Vol. 2: Finance and Credit. Oxford, 1987, 133–138. Wolfgang Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach, ‘Die oberdeutschen Geld- und Wechselmärkte. Ihre Entwicklung vom Spätmittelalter bis zum Dreißigjährigen Krieg’, in Scripta Mercaturae 10:1 (1976) 40; Othmar Pickl, ‘Universales Kaisertum und Hochfijinanz. Die Kreditoren der Habsburger von Maximilian I. bis Leopold I.’, in Herwig Ebner et al. (eds.), Forschungen zur Landes- und Kirchengeschichte. Festschrift für Helmut J. Mezler-Andelberg zum 65. Geburtstag. Graz, 1988, 381–383. On the banking system, see Reinhard Hildebrandt, ‘Banking System and Capital Market in South Germany (1450– 1650): Organization and Economic Importance’, in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pietà nell’Europa preindustriale. Amministrazione, tecniche operative e ruoli economici.

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metropolis and their merchant bankers.51 The Fuggers, the most important creditors of Charles V and Ferdinand I at the beginning of their reigns and the main fijinanciers of their elections as Roman kings, came from Augsburg. Loans to the Habsburg rulers gave the Fugger company and other Augsburg merchant bankers the opportunity to access the rich silver and copper mines in Tyrol and Hungary as well as revenue at the Iberian Peninsula and to overseas expeditions.52 In the realm of the Austrian Habsburgs, the rich copper deposits of the Hungarian mining towns were of great importance for princely credit operations. Following the resignation of the Thurzó-Fugger company in 1546, the mines in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica/Neusohl) were integrated into the princely administration while the copper trade was leased solely to the Augsburg companies Matthias Manlich, Haug-Langnauer-Linck, Melchior Manlich and Abraham Katzbeck/Philipp Welser and, since 1569, to the company of Wolf I. Paller (Paler)’s and Leonhard Weiß’s heirs. It was not until 1593, that Bartholomäus Castell as a fijirst Viennese merchant became an equal partner to Wolf II. Paller. In 1602, the famous Viennese merchant Lazarus Henckel53 joined the Paller company. The predominance of Augsburg merchants in the Hungarian copper business and as important creditors of the emperor ended following the cooperation between Henckel and the Augsburg merchant Marx Konrad Rehlinger in 1626–1627. In following years Italian merchants in Vienna, Andrea, Paolo and Baptista Guilini (Julini), took over the copper trade.54

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Atti dell Convegno Genova, 1–6 ottobre 1990. (Atti della Sociatà Ligure di Storia Patria, Nuova Serie, XXXI/2.) Genova, 1991, 827–842. Christoph Böhm, Die Reichsstadt Augsburg und Kaiser Maximilian I. Untersuchungen zum Beziehungsgeflecht zwischen Reichsstadt und Herrscher an der Wende zur Neuzeit. (Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg, 36.) Sigmaringen, 1998. Cf. the summary of Mark Häberlein, Die Fugger. Geschichte einer Augsburger Familie (1367–1650). Stuttgart 2006, 76–88; Peter Rauscher, ‘La Casa de Austria y sus banqueros alemanes’, in Juan Luis Castellano and Francisco Sánchez-Montes González (eds.), Carlos V. Europeismo y universalidad. Congreso Internacional Granada, mayo de 2000. Vol. 3: Los escenarios del Imperio. Madrid, 2001, 411–428. On Henckel, see Josef Kallbrunner, ‘Lazarus Henckel von Donnersmarck’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 24 (1931) 142–156; Mattheus Reischl, Der Merchant Banker Lazarus Henckel von Donnersmarck. MA thesis, University of Vienna, 2013. Rauscher, Stände, 120–121; Kenyeres, ‘Finanzen’, 89–90, 119–120; Idem, ‘A magyarországi réz- és marhakereskedelemmel kapcsolatos nemzetközi hitelügyletek a 16. század második felében’, in Magdolna Baráth and Antal Molnár (eds.), A történettudomány szolgálatában. Tanulmányok a 70 éves Gecsényi Lajos tiszteletére. Budapest, Győr, 2012, 219; Gerhard Seibold, Die Manlich. Geschichte einer Augsburger Kaufmannsfamilie. (Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg, 35.) Sigmaringen, 1995, 74–77, 133–136; Josef Vlachović, ‘Die Kupfererzeugung und der Kupferhandel in der Slowakei vom Ende des 15. bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Hermann Kellenbenz (ed.), Schwerpunkte der

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The Upper German fijinancial elite was connected with the imperial paymasters such as Georg Ilsung or Zacharias Geizkofler who resided in Augsburg. Ilsung as well as some uncles of Geizkofler worked for the Fugger company. Zacharias himself was a brother-in-law of the afore-mentioned Marx Konrad Rehlinger. Based on their own creditworthiness and backed by the revenue of taxes granted by the German princes and cities, the imperial paymasters raised enormous loans for the benefijit of the Emperors Ferdinand I, Maximilian II and Rudolf II.55 The era of the imperial paymasters in Augsburg came to an end following the 1608–1609 dismissal of Matthäus Welser, a descendent of the famous mercantile family who met with serious fijinancial difffijiculties and was facing bankruptcy.56 The signifijicance of Augsburg merchant bankers for “big business” and the role of the city as seat of the administration of the fijinancial aid of the Holy Roman Empire notwithstanding, historical research has disputed the predominance of

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Kupferproduktion und des Kupferhandels in Europa 1500–1650. (Kölner Kolloquien zur internationalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 3.) Köln, Wien, 1977, 166, 170; Reinhard Hildebrandt, ‘Augsburger und Nürnberger Kupferhandel 1500–1619. Produktion, Marktanteile und Finanzierung im Vergleich zweier Städte und ihrer wirtschaftlichen Führungsschicht’, in ibid., 190–224; Reinhard Hildebrandt (ed.), Quellen und Regesten zu den Augsburger Handelshäusern Paler und Rehlinger 1539–1641. Wirtschaft und Politik im 16./17. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Deutsche Handelsakten des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 19/1–2.) Stuttgart, 1996, 2004; Herrmann Kellenbenz, ‘Private und öfffentliche Banken in Deutschland um die Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert’, in Banchi pubblici, 848–849. On international money transfer and the role of the Giulini, see Herman[n] Kellenbenz, ‘Geldtransfer für Graf Oñate’, in Histoire économique du monde méditteranéen 1450–1650. Mélanges en l’honneur de Fernand Braudel. Toulouse, 1973, 289. Cf. Rauscher, Stände, 178–181; Idem, ‘Verwaltungsgeschichte und Finanzgeschichte. Eine Skizze am Beispiel der kaiserlichen Herrschaft (1526–1740)’, in Michael Hochedlinger and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Herrschaftsverdichtung, Staatsbildung und Bürokratisierung. Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs- und Behördengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 57.) Wien, München, 2010, 203–204; Johannes Müller, ‘Die Verdienste Zacharias Geizkoflers um die Beschafffung der Geldmittel für den Türkenkrieg Rudolfs II.’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 21 (1900) 251–285; Idem, Zacharias Geizkofler 1560–1617, des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Pfennigmeister und oberster Proviantmeister im Königreich Ungarn. (Veröfffentlichungen des Wiener Hofkammerarchivs, 3.) Baden bei Wien, 1938; Schulze, Reich, 310–336; Sigelen, Geschlecht; Idem, ‘„Amtsträger“ und „Beziehungsmakler“. Das kaiserliche Finanzsystem im Reich unter Reichspfennigmeister Zacharias Geizkofler (1560–1617)’, in Rauscher, Serles and Winkelbauer (eds.), „Blut des Staatskörpers“, 355–388. Johannes Müller, ‘Der Zusammenbruch des Welserischen Handelshauses im Jahre 1614’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1903) 196–234; Reinhard Hildebrandt, ‘Der Niedergang der Augsburger Welser-Firma (1560–1614)’, in Mark Häberlein and Johannes Burkhardt (eds.), Die Welser. Neue Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des oberdeutschen Handelshauses. (Colloquia Augustana, 16.) Berlin, 2002, 265–281; Rauscher, ‘Türkenreichstage’, 438–442.

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Augsburg creditors. Erich Landsteiner has analysed the creditors of Zacharias Geizkofler for the short period from 1596 to 1600. On the basis of this data he observed that merchants from Nuremberg and Italy were the most important lenders of Geizkofler, whereas merchants from Augsburg played only a comparatively minor role. Landsteiner concluded that merchants from Nuremberg, rather than from Augsburg, were leading players in the trade and fijinance of Southeastern Central Europe.57 Should we perhaps modify our conception of Augsburg as the fijinancial hub of 16th-century imperial fijinances? We do not think so. Landsteiner’s study clearly examines the loans of the imperial paymaster rather than the credits of the emperor. The reason for our incomplete picture of imperial borrowing is that we do not have a central register of all the loans and their conditions, and are therefore forced to analyse other sources which, while they contain a signifijicant sample, provide only an incomplete overview.58 If we examine the repaid debt obligations of the Court Chamber between 1521 and 1612 (focusing exclusively on borrowings of more than 50,000 Rhenish florins and excluding loans made by the prominent Fugger company) we can perhaps gather a more complete picture of the major creditors of the Austrian Habsburgs. Lukas Winder has calculated that 44 per cent of these extensive loans came from merchants from Augsburg. Together with the 4.4 per cent of credits from Nuremberg, the Upper German merchants provided almost 50 per cent of the larger loans of the Austrian Habsburgs, even without the Fugger company. These fijigures clearly indicate the predominance of Augsburg and especially of companies such as Wolf Paller, Leonhard Weiß or Matthias Manlich engaged in the Hungarian copper trade. Based on these sources (which do not contain the total amount of the imperial credits) 7.6 per cent of the imperial loans came from Viennese merchants (including Italians settling in Vienna) and another 4.8 per cent from Italian bankers, potentially living in Vienna as well.59 Even if these fijigures include neither the credits of the Fugger company nor the loans of the territorial chambers or the imperial paymaster we 57

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Erich Landsteiner, ‘Reichspfennigmeister Zacharias Geizkofler gründet eine Bank. Geldwesen und Kriegsfijinanzierung im Habsburgerreich am Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Oliver Kühschelm (ed.), in. Money – Market – Actors. (Austrian Journal of Historical Studies, 26:1.) Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen, 2015, 191–192. Lists of imperial creditors are mentioned in Karl Oberleitner, ‘Österreichs Finanzen und Kriegswesen unter Ferdinand I. vom Jahre 1522 bis 1564’, Archiv für Kunde österreichischer Geschichts-Quellen 24 (1860) 89: note 75, 97: note 36, etc. On the important loans in the context of the Hungarian ox trading and the role of the merchants from Nuremberg, see Kenyeres, ‘A magyarországi réz- és marhakereskedelemmel kapcsolatos nemzetközi hitelügyletek’, 215–216; Idem, ‘Finanzen’, 118–119. Lukas Winder, ‘Die Kreditgeber der österreichischen Habsburger 1521–1612. Versuch einer Gesamtanalyse’, in Rauscher, Serles and Winkelbauer (eds.), „Blut des Staatskörpers“,

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can state that Augsburg was the major fijinancial centre. Landsteiner’s and Winder’s fijigures60 and the afore-mentioned cooperation between merchants from Vienna and Augsburg in the copper trade following the 1590s might indicate the Augsburg companies lost importance towards the end of the century.61 In addition to the merchants, Habsburg offfijice bearers and imperial or provincial nobles were important lenders to the kings and emperors – with a share of more than 18 per cent. In return for their credits this group could achieve seigniories or higher ranks within the court and the territorial administration.62 Other creditors included territorial estates and imperial or provincial cities. Overall, it is clear that the imperial debts consisted of more or less “domestic loans”. In contrast to the second half of the 18th century, when loans were raised in Genova or Amsterdam,63 borrowing from outside of the Habsburg territories and the Holy Roman Empire respectively was not relevant for the imperial fijinances. This means that the relations between the monarch, the estates, various nobles and merchants were not limited to monetary capital but extended to include the prospect of achieving titles, privileges, and positions at the court and in the military. The underlying conditions of imperial borrowing were as diverse as the status of the imperial creditors. Territorial towns and ecclesiastical institutions, for instance, were considered as belonging to the Camerale, and could therefore be forced to provide loans without interest.64 The interest rate requested by merchant bankers normally ranged between 7 and 10 per cent.65 If loans were secured by reliable revenue the interest rates could decline as much as 5 per cent. Considering that merchants had to procure the capital to provide their loans from the market, achievable profijit margins were relatively low, even if merchants

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435–458; with some minor corrections Idem, Die Kreditgeber Ferdinands I., Maximilians II. und Rudolfs II. (1521–1612). MA thesis, University of Vienna, 2013. Winder, Kreditgeber Ferdinands I., 120–127. Pickl, ‘Kaisertum’, 383. On imperial creditors at the end of the century, see Reischl, Merchant Banker, 110–115. Cf. Rauscher, Stände, 349–353; Reinhardt Hildebrandt, ‘Der Kaiser und seine Bankiers. Ein Beitrag zum kaiserlichen Finanzwesen des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen, 234–245. Dickson, Finance, 272–299. On the following, see Rauscher, Stände, 342–354. Reinhard Hildebrandt, ‘The Efffects of Empire: Changes in European Economy after Charles V’, in Ian Blanchard, Anthony Goodman and Jennifer Newman (eds.), Industry and Finance in Early Modern History. Essays Presented to George Hammersley to the Occasion of his 74th Birthday. (Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Suppl. 98.) Stuttgart, 1992, 74.

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charged compound interest. Members of the imperial fijinancial authorities were themselves expected to provide credit. These loans were usually secured by the income of their offfijices. The lease of princely seigniories for a certain period was also quite secure. These credit operations bore risk for the sovereign that he could not repay the rent and would eventually have to sell his manors. This development led into a considerable decrease of princely estates and income.66

Facing Financial Crisis The fijinancial history of the two branches of the Habsburg dynasty seems to be largely comparable: The almost permanent warfare, the accumulation of towering debts, and dependency between the sovereigns, their creditors, and the tax-granting estates led to substantial fijinancial crises. But in contrast to Habsburg Spain under the reign of Philip II (“the borrower from hell”), whose fijinancial policy continues to be the subject of much discussion,67 the fijinancial disaster of his Austrian relatives has not been systematically analysed. As a result of their investigations, Reinhard Hildebrandt and István Kenyeres, two of the most respected experts on Habsburg fijinancial history, have stated that the Austrian Habsburgs were able to avoid formally declaring bankruptcy during the 16th century.68 Finance specialists, however, defijine a “sovereign default” as a state not fulfijilling the agreed payment conditions by virtue of refusing to reimburse the full credit range or by reducing the interest rates or extending the loan term.69 If we accept this defijinition, we must accept that Central European Habsburg Empire was in fact bankrupt during the duration of that century. Even in the absence of a comparative study on the loan agreements between the Habsburg 66

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Herbert Knittler, ‘Habsburgische „Domänen“. Das Fallbeispiel Österreich unter der Enns im 16. Jahrhundert’, in Walter Leitsch and Stanisław Trawkowski (eds.), Polen und Österreich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Wiener Archiv für Geschichte des Slawentums und Osteuropas, 17.) Wien, Köln, Weimar, 1997, 64–89; Rauscher, Stände, 223–229; Kenyeres, ‘Finanzen’, 118; Idem, Uradalmak, 94–102; Idem, ‘Kammerherrschaften’, 105–107. Cf., for example, Ruiz Martín, ‘Finanzas’, 109–173, and recently Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, Felipe II: Un imperio en bancarotta. La Hacienda real de Castilla y los negocios fijinancieros del Rey prudente. Madrid, 2008; Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth, Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt, Taxes, and Default in the Age of Philip II. (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) Princeton, Oxford, 2014. Hildebrandt, ‘Kaiser’, 237; Kenyeres, ‘Kosten’, 37; Rauscher, Stände, 354. The term “state bankruptcy” should not be used. Hanno Beck and Aloys Prinz, Staatsverschuldung. Ursachen, Folgen, Auswege. München, 2011, 80–81; cf. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogofff, This Time is Diffferent: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton, Oxford, 2009, 11.

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rulers and their creditors, there can be no doubt that renegotiating credit periods and terms of payment were matters of everyday business for the fijinancial authorities, so too was the postponement of salary payments for court servants.70 Just as the modern term “state” fails to characterise the 16th-century Habsburg Empire, “sovereign default” or even the term “domestic debt crisis”71 is inadequate for describing the relations between the imperial borrower and his creditors. Even if there was a credit market, the contracts between the two parties – monarch/lender – were much more personalized than modern loan relationships. The emperor was, moreover, able to protect his lenders from their creditors in cases of fijinancial difffijiculties.72 The bad payment practice of the Habsburgs notwithstanding, the system held steady as long as the southern German credit market persisted73 and (domestic) mercantile creditors could trust the sovereigns to raise new money (taxes) from the various estates. The councillors of the Imperial Court Chamber therefore made the emperor aware of the dire situation brought on by a lack of taxes.74 In the longer term, the participation of several diets and the manifold religious conflicts made it impossible to create a stable fijinancial system. This system fijinally collapsed when the estates of the Holy Roman Empire refused to resume the war against the Ottomans and dramatically reduced their fijinancial aid at the Imperial Diets in 1608 and 1613.75 As a result, in the winter of 1609–1610 the imperial court lacked sufffijicient revenues to even pay the poor servants.76 Two years later the councillors of the Court Chamber stated that they could not obtain any loans as a result of widespread distrust and the debt overload on the remaining resources.77 In 1614 the common diet of the Habsburg territories failed as did substantial attempts to reform the fijinancial administration between 1614 and 1617.78 After 90 years of struggle with the Ottoman Empire, the fijinancial system of the Habsburgs which was founded on the conflict with the Sublime Porte collapsed as a result of peace. 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

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Rauscher, Stände, 344. Reinhart and Rogofff, This Time, 13–14. Hildebrandt, ‘Kaiser’, 244–245. On the short-term crisis during the 1570s, see Hildebrandt, ‘Efffects’, 64–65. Rauscher, Stände, 332; Idem, ‘Kaiser und Reich’, 80; Idem, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden’, 362. Rauscher, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden’, 354–355, 364–384; Hildebrand, ‘Efffects’, 69. Hildebrand, ‘Kaiser’, 238. Based on Venetian reports, Gindely puts the total debts of the emperor at 16 million florins. Anton Gindely, Rudolf II. und seine Zeit 1600–1612. Vol. 1. Prag, 18632, 86. Rauscher, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden’, 362–363: note 30. On the disastrous political and fijinancial situation in the year 1614, see Mitis, ‘Gundacker’, 45–70; Rauscher, ‘Zwischen Krieg und Frieden’, 374–375; Hildebrandt, ‘Kaiser’, 238; cf. also Rauscher, Stände, 356.

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“Clash” or “Go-between”? Habsburg–Ottoman Relations in the Age of Süleyman (1520–1566) Arno Strohmeyer University of Salzburg; Institute for Modern and Contemporary Historical Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna [email protected]

Public Discourse – Research – Cultures of Remembrance “We are following with great concern the attacks against Islam hidden behind the attack on the satirical magazine in France. Despite all our effforts to prevent it, the clash of civilizations thesis is being brought to life.”1 With these words did the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comment on the French government’s reaction to the Islamist terrorist attack on the offfijices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on 7 January 2015. Two masked perpetrators, who later became known as members of Al-Qaeda’s terrifying network, had entered the editing rooms of the magazine known for their provocative Mohammed cartoons, killing eleven people. On their escape, they murdered a policeman. The next day, another terrorist in the Parisian East oversaw a supermarket for kosher goods, killing another four people. He was a proponent of the Islamic State and stated that his assault was linked to the attack on Charlie Hebdo. France was then in a state of exception. Islamic critics condemned the two attacks as a war of Muslim fundamentalism against freedom of press, diversity of opinion, and tolerance – fundamental values of the western society. It has become quite common to interpret the encounters of the Western and the Muslim worlds as fundamental religious and cultural “clashes”. Not only Erdoğan and right-wing populist politicians interpret these encounters that way, but also Islamist groups and considerable parts of Europe’s public.2 In 1 Orhan Coskun and Jonny Hogg, ‘Turkey’s Erdogan warns of clash of civilizations following attacks’, World News (Reuter), 16 January 2015, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www. reuters.com/article/us-france-shooting-turkey-idUSKBN0KP1OA20150116. 2 For example, ‘Pressestimmen: “Kampf der Kulturen eine traurige Realität”’, Der Standard, 8 February 2006, accessed 30 December 2016, http://derstandard.at/2334997/Pressestimmen-Kampf-der-Kulturen-eine-traurige-Realitaet.

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addition to the attack on Charlie Hebdo, 9/11, the terrorism of the Islamic state, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda, the invasion of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as difffijiculties in the integration of Muslim migrants in Europe serve as evidence. This well-known narrative is not new. An early use is the 1926 published study of the British missionary Basil Mathews on the secularization policy Mustafa Kemal’s in Turkey.3 It is based on racist theories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continues with a view of the Islamic world as an antithesis of Europe, its culture and its values, which goes back to the late Middle Ages.4 Studies published by the Belgian medievalist and national historian Henri Pirenne, who described the militant expansion of the Arabs in the Mediterranean in the 7th and early 8th centuries, proved to be particularly influential. According to Pirenne, Islam had sprung up the unity of the ancient world; Orient and Occident had been separated from this time on: “With Islam, a new world penetrates the shores of the Mediterranean, through which Rome had spread the syncretism of its culture. There is a crack that continues into our days. On the margins of the mare nostrum two diffferent, hostile cultures now live.”5 Prominent expression found this in recent historiography as a “bloc paradigm”6 named perception of a fundamental and indissoluble contradiction between the Western and the Muslim worlds in the influential studies of Paul Kennedy, Bernard Lewis, Bassam Tibi, and Samuel P. Huntington.7

3 Basil Mathews, Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations. London, 1926. 4 Pascal W. Firges and Tobias P. Graf, ‘Introduction’, in Pascal W. Firges et al. (eds.), Well-Connected Domains: Towards an Entangled Ottoman History. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society, and Economy, 57.) Leiden, 2014, 3; John M. Hobson, ‘The Clash of Civilizations 2.0: Race and Eurocentrism, Imperialism and Antiimperialism’, in Mahmoud Eid and Karim H. Karim (eds.), Re-Imagining the Other: Culture, Media, and Western–Muslim Intersections. New York, 2014, 75–97. 5 Henri Pirenne, Mohammed und Karl der Große. Untergang der Antike am Mittelmeer und Aufstieg des germanischen Mittelalters. Frankfurt am Main, 1985 [1936], 111; Idem, ‘Mahomed et Charlemagne’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 1 (1922) 77–86; Idem, Les villes du moyen âge. Essai d’histoire économique et sociale. Bruxelles, 1927; Carl August Lückerath, ‘Die Diskussion über die Pirenne-These’, in Jürgen Elvert and Susanne Krauß (eds.), Historische Debatten und Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. (Historische Mitteilungen, 46.) Stuttgart, 2003, 57–58; Dan Diner, ‘Ideologie, Historiographie und Gesellschaft. Zur Diskussion der Pirenne-Thesen in der Geschichtswissenschaft. Ein Nachtrag’, in Pirenne, Mohammed, 207–237. 6 Firges and Graf, ‘Introduction’, 3–4. 7 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York, 1989; Bassam Tibi, Krieg der Zivilisationen. Politik und Religion zwischen Vernunft und Fundamentalismus. Hamburg, 1995; Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, 1996; Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. Oxford, 2002.

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Following Huntington’s broadly received thesis of the “clash of civilizations”, the main causes of future world political conflicts would be irreconcilable civilizing diffferences, especially between (Latin) Christians and Muslims. In his studies the American political scientist focused primarily on the world political developments of the 21st century, however, he also argued on a historical level, referring to the Habsburg–Ottoman relations: “Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for 1,300 years. … From the 11th to the 13th century the Crusaders attempted with temporary success to bring Christianity and Christian rule to the Holy Land. From the 14th to the 17th century, the Ottoman Turks reversed the balance, extended their sway over the Middle East and the Balkans, captured Constantinople, and twice laid siege to Vienna.”8 Huntington claimed that the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire had been separated by a deep cultural border: “Peoples to the north and west of this line are Protestant or Catholic; they shared the common experiences of European history – feudalism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution... The peoples to the east and south of this line are Orthodox or Muslim; they historically belonged to the Ottoman or Tsarist Empires and were only lightly touched by the shaping events in the rest of Europe...”9 Can the Habsburg–Ottoman relations during the reign of Süleyman be interpreted as an elementary and inevitable “clash” of opposed civilizations? Quite a number of military conflicts that suggest and support such a view can be found throughout this period: Süleyman’s conquests of Belgrade (1521) and Rhodes (1522), the Battle of Mohács (1526), the campaigns against Vienna (1529, 1532), the Tunis-expedition of Charles V (1535), followed by the expedition of the Habsburg’s armada against Algiers (1541), the sea battles of Preveza (1538) and Djerba (1560), the sieges of Eger (1552) and of Malta (1565), and last but not least the Ottoman campaigns against Szigetvár in 1555, 1556, and 1566. Indeed, two rather contrary empires met. For quite a long time the influencing role of religious diffferences have been overrated, underestimating sociopolitical, ideological, economic, and military factors.10 However, we must not fall into the opposite and ignore the influence of religion; religion was present in all areas of life. Over the last three decades research on confessionalisation 8 9 10

Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Afffairs Summer (1993) 31; similar Huntington, Clash and Remaking, 209–210. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, 30. Rhoads Murphey, ‘Süleyman I and the Conquest of Hungary: Ottoman Manifest Destiny or a Delayed Reaction to Charles V’s Universalist Vision’, Journal of Early Modern History 5 (2001) 197–221.

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has focused, amongst others, on the rivalry between Catholics and Protestants. Numerous studies have shown which great impact this rivalry had on the understanding of basic political and social processes as well as international politics in many parts of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries;11 religion and politics could not be separated.12 The discrepancies between Christianity and Islam were quite more powerful. Their rivalry is, without doubt, a characteristic feature of the Habsburg–Ottoman relations of Süleyman’s epoch. This is also confijirmed by the perceptions of the contemporaries, the ruling propaganda, and the legitimacy of the numerous military conflicts. The defence or spread of the “true” faith, the struggle against unbelievers, were on both sides important arguments for the justifijication of foreign policy. Thus, the Turkish wars are counted to the religious wars.13 A list with further diffferences with far-reaching consequences for the bilateral relations could be compiled easily. For instance two expansive empires met. Their power political rivalry even intensifijied regarding Hungary, as has been outlined by Pál Fodor.14 Furthermore, fundamental diffferences in the systems of government were pointed out by James D. Tracy, which would justify talking about a “clash”.15 Within the Ottoman Empire political estates, a characteristic feature of European political culture, did not exist, which led to 11 12

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Thomas Brockmann and Dieter J. Weiß (eds.), Das Konfessionalisierungsparadigma – Leistungen, Probleme, Grenzen. (Bayreuther Historische Kolloquien, 18.) Münster, 2013. Alfred Kohler, Expansion und Hegemonie. Internationale Beziehungen 1450–1559. (Handbuch der Geschichte der Internationalen Beziehungen, 1.) Paderborn, 2008; Heinz Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen. Internationale Beziehungen 1559–1660. (Handbuch der Geschichte der Internationalen Beziehungen, 2.) Paderborn, 2007. Franz Brendle and Anton Schindling, ‘Religious War and Religious Peace in the Age of Reformation’, in Robert J. W. Evans, Michael Schaich and Peter H. Wilson (eds.), The Holy Roman Empire 1495–1806. (Studies of the German Historical Institute, London) Oxford, 2011, 165–181; Franz Brendle and Anton Schindling, ‘Religionskriege in der Frühen Neuzeit. Begrifff, Wahrnehmung, Wirkmächtigkeit’, in Franz Brendle and Anton Schindling (eds.), Religionskriege im Alten Reich und in Alteuropa. Münster, 2006, 16, 21–22, 29–32; Anton Schindling, ‘Das Strafgericht Gottes. Kriegserfahrungen und Religion im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Erfahrungsgeschichte und Konfessionalisierung’, in Matthias Asche and Anton Schindling (eds.), Das Strafgericht Gottes. Kriegserfahrungen und Religion im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Münster, 2002, 17–19, 27; Bernhard Kroener, ‘Krieg’, Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit 7 (2008) 158. Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – a Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162; cf. further Barbara Fuchs and Emily Weissbourd (eds.), Representing Imperial Rivalry in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Toronto, 2015. James D. Tracy, Balkan Wars: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia, 1499–1617. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London, 2016, 1–3.

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far-reaching diffferences in the theory and practice of rule. The dynastic policy, one of the most important political instruments of the Habsburgs in foreign politics, did not exist in the Ottoman Empire in this way. This list of diffferences could be quite easily continued. Huntington’s studies triggered controversial, still ongoing debates about the relations between the Western and Islamic societies.16 The founder of the Orientalism thesis, Edward Said, for instance, talked rather disapprovingly about a “clash of ignorance”. With the appropriate expertise, cannot be spoken of a “clash of civilizations”.17 Among the most important points of criticism of Huntington’s interpretation regarding the relations between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires is the argument that this is a very simplistic and therefore distorted view, based on a monolithic cultural concept, which ignores the internal diffferentiations, reciprocal contacts, and the historical change of cultures: “In fact, Huntington is an ideologist, someone who wants to make ‘civilizations’ and ‘identities’ into what they are not: shut-down, sealed-offf entities that have been purged of the myriad currents and counter currents that animate human history, and that over centuries have made it possible for that history not only to contain wars of religion and imperial conquest but also to be one of exchange, cross-fertilization and sharing.”18 Within historical research two main strategies – with a wide range of intermediate forms – can be diffferentiated:19 1. On the one hand, there are publications which focus particularly on the diffferences between the two empires; 2. on the other hand, various studies have been published that emphasise that Christian and Muslim worlds were intertwined and that there were many exchange processes and transcultural spaces. This corresponds to the historiography about the expansion of the Ottoman Empire to Southeastern Europe, which is often based on binary patterns, as noted recently by Oliver 16

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Martin Riesebrodt, Die Rückkehr der Religionen. Fundamentalismus und der Kampf der Kulturen. München, 2001; Gazi Çağlar, Der Mythos vom Krieg der Zivilisationen: der Westen gegen den Rest der Welt. Eine Replik auf Samuel P. Huntingtons “Kampf der Kulturen”. Münster, 2002; Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York et al., 2006; Samuel P. Huntington (ed.), The Clash of Civilizations? The Debate: 20th Anniversary Edition. What Did Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations?” Get Right and Wrong, and How Does it Look Two Decades Later? New York, 20132. Edward W. Said, ‘The Clash of Ignorance. Labels like “Islam” and “the West” serve only to confuse us about a disorderly reality’, The Nation, 4 October 2001, accessed 30 December 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance/. Said, ‘Clash’. Firges and Graf, ‘Introduction’, 3–4; Andreas Helmedach et al. (eds.), Das osmanische Europa. Methoden und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitforschung zu Südosteuropa. Leipzig, 2014.

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Jens Schmitt: “Victory versus defeat; decline versus emergence; integration versus destruction; the Ottoman and the others; Muslims and non-Muslims; Pre-Ottoman and Ottoman; Byzantine and Post-Byzantine to name but a few.”20 1. The emphasis on the contradictions between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans was newly called a “metanarrative”21 of historiography because of its widespread use and long-standing dominance. It has even resulted in the fact that historians rejected Turkey’s accession to the European Union, as they argued, the centuries-long enmity is still present in people’s minds, which is why the country cannot be fully integrated.22 The American historian James D. Tracy dealt with the question whether one could understand the Habsburg– Ottoman relations as “clash” of two contrary civilizations most recently. He concluded that the history of Europe and the Ottomans must be investigated together, because they were connected to each other in a variety of ways. However, one must consider “that the two worlds came together in opposition – a conflict of worlds, or a clash of civilizations”.23 The cultures of remembrance are predominated by this rather common viewpoint. The central point of reference are the Turkish wars, which in many countries of Central and Southeastern Europe form a highly political “imperative of remembrance”. Süleyman’s age, a particularly conflict-stricken period, plays a pivotal role in this context. In a wide range one can fijind national heroes, catastrophe myths, debt attributions, threat scenarios, and enemy stereotypes, which are very diffferently used in politics of remembrance. This can be seen particularly clearly in the memory culture of Hungary, in which the Battle of Mohács in 1526, which resulted in the loss of the political independence of the kingdom, plays an important role. The event is seen as a national catastrophe, like the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. There is a saying: “Több 20

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Oliver Jens Schmitt, ‘Introduction: The Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans. Research Questions and Interpretations’, in Oliver Jens Schmitt (ed.), The Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans: Interpretations and Research Debates. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, 872.) Wien, 2016, 39. Dennis Dierks, ‘Friedensbild und Herrscherbild in osmanisch-habsburgischen Friedensverträgen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Arno Strohmeyer and Norbert Spannenberger (eds.), Frieden und Konfliktmanagement in interkulturellen Räumen. Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie in der Frühen Neuzeit. (Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 45.) Stuttgart, 2013, 311. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ‘Die Selbstzerstörung der EU durch den Beitritt der Türkei’, in Idem, Konflikte zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Essays. München, 2003, 46; Heinrich August Winkler, ‘Ehehindernisse. Gegen einen EU-Beitritt der Türkei’, Süddeutsche Zeitung 23 November (2002) 13. James D. Tracy, ‘The Habsburg Monarchy in Conflict with the Ottoman Empire, 1527–1593: A Clash of Civilizations’, Austrian History Yearbook 26 (2015) 26.

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is veszett Mohácsnál” (“Worse was lost at Mohács”)! In 1976, when the 450th anniversary of the battle took place, on a seven-hectare site a Historical Memorial Park was opened.24 In 2011, a four-storey glass building was erected in the complex, which is modelled on the Crown of St Stephen, the symbol of the political independence of the country. Until today, the battle is a symbol of the necessity of national unity against enemies from outside.25 Another Hungarian place of remembrance, which commemorates the Turkish wars under Süleyman, is the siege of Szigetvár with the death of Miklós Zrínyi, who is also honoured in Croatia as a national hero. Since Süleyman died just before the end of the siege, it is also a Turkish place of memory. Already among the contemporaries, Zrínyi’s heroic death attracted great attention. In Szigetvár, for the fijirst time in 1833, memorial ceremonies took place. They were used for various political purposes. Szigetvár, however, is not only reminiscent of military conflicts, since in 1994, on the 500th birthday of Süleyman, a “peace park” with a “Monument of Hungarian–Turkish Friendship” was established as a symbol of reconciliation.26 In September 2016, on the “Zrínyi Memorial Days”, the heads of state of Hungary and Croatia visited the fortress together.27 Another central memorial place are the two sieges of Vienna by the Turks in 1529 and 1683.28 In 2009, a Viennese headmaster had to take note of the importance of their position in Austria’s collective memory, when he instructed a teacher not to teach about the Turkish wars and the two sieges because of the migration background of many pupils in the classrooms. An uprising of parents and a campaign of the right-wing press with the accusation of the falsifijication

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‘Historical Memorial Park’, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.mohacs.hu/en/info/ battle-of-mohacs/historical-memorial-park.html; ‘Mohácsi Nemzeti Emlékhely’, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.mohacsiemlekhely.hu. Norbert Spannenberger and Sándor Őze, ‘“Wir brauchen Mohács!” Historiographie und politische Instrumentalisierung der Erinnerung an eine nationale Niederlage in Ungarn’, in Konrad Clewing and Oliver Jens Schmitt (eds.), Südosteuropa: Von vormoderner Vielfalt und nationalstaatlicher Vereinheitlichung. Festschrift für Edgar Hösch. (Südosteuropäische Arbeiten, 127.) München, 2005, 327–349; Zsolt K. Lengyel, ‘Die Schlacht bei Mohács 1526’, in Joachim Bahlcke, Stefan Rohdewald and Thomas Wünsch (eds.), Religiöse Erinnerungsorte in Ostmitteleuropa. Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationen- und epochenübergreifenden Zugrifff. Berlin, 2013, 851–864. Márta Fata, ‘Szigetvár 1566’, in Bahlcke, Rohdewald and Wünsch (eds.), Erinnerungsorte, 865–873. On the Croatian culture of remembrance concerning the Turkish wars, see Suzana Miljan and Hrvoje Kekez, ‘The Memory of the Battle of Krbava (1493) and the Collective Identity of the Croats’, Hungarian Historical Review 4 (2015) 255–282. Paula Sutter Fichtner, Terror and Toleration: The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526– 1850. London, 2008, 15–19.

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of history was the result.29 The fijirst siege in 1529, which ended after three weeks with the withdrawal of the Ottoman army, is, however, mostly in the background, since the second, politically more important siege of 1683 is usually placed in the focus. The relief of Vienna by an imperial army commanded by Duke Charles V of Lorraine, who joined up with units from other parts of the Holy Roman Empire and the troops of the Polish King Jan III Sobieski is fijirmly anchored in the cultures of remembrance of Austria, Poland, and Germany. Numerous exhibitions, monuments, anniversaries, and commemorative events, often of national and Catholic character, call it in remembrance regularly to this day. Because of its relevance – the expansion of the Ottomans to Central Europe was now fijinally stopped, the Habsburg Monarchy rose to a major power – the event is even considered a European memorial.30 Quite recently it was instrumentalized by right-wing populist circles. Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), for instance, organized a celebration on the 333rd anniversary of the battle on 12 September 2016 in Vienna.31 The Polish Embassy in Vienna also organized a ceremony on this occasion. In his address, Andrzej Duda, the president of the Republic of Poland, described the coalition of the Habsburg Monarchy with Poland against the Turks as an “excellent testimony and example of European solidarity”.32 The second siege can even be found in 29

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Martina Münzer, ‘Eltern sind empört. Türkenkriege als Unterrichtsthema gestrichen’, Neue Kronen Zeitung, 6 June 2009, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.krone.at/Nachrichten/ Tuerkenkriege_als_ Unterrichtsthema_gestrichen-Eltern_sind_empoert-Story-147852; Karl Hunna, ‘Türkenkriege werden gestrichen. Das freie Wort’, Neue Kronen Zeitung, 11 June 2009, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.krone.at/Das-freie-Wort/Titel-Story-148455; ‘APA-OTS Presseaussendung’, 24 June 2009, accessed 30 December 2016, http:// www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20090624_OTS0294/fp-jung-tuerkenkriege-haeuplkritisiert-kronen-zeitung-heftig. Johannes Feichtinger and Johann Heiss (eds.), Geschichtspolitik und “Türkenbelagerung”. (Kritische Studien zur “Türkenbelagerung”, 1.) Wien, 2012; Martin Scheutz, ‘1683 – Zweite Türkenbelagerung Wiens. Internationale Konflikte, beginnende Zentralisierung der zusammengesetzten Habsburgermonarchie und Konfessionalisierung’, in Martin Scheutz and Arno Strohmeyer (eds.), Von Lier nach Brüssel. Schlüsseljahre österreichischer Geschichte (1496–1995). (VGS Studientexte) Wien, 2010, 111–135; Ernst Petritsch, ‘Die Schlacht am Kahlenberg 1683’, in Pim de Boer et al. (eds.), Europäische Erinnerungsorte. Vol. 2: Das Haus Europa. München, 2012, 413–419; Mathieu Lepetit, ‘Die Türken vor Wien’, in Étienne François and Hagen Schulze (eds.), Deutsche Erinnerungsorte. Vol. 1. München, 2003, 391–406. Michael Unger, ‘Skurriles Fest: FPÖ feiert Ende der Wiener Türkenbelagerung. Bildungsinstitut der FPÖ Wien begeht Jahrestag mit einer Feier im Palais Ferstel’, News. Fakten. Leben. Menschen, 2 September 2016, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.news. at/a/fest-fpoe-tuerkenbelagerung. ‘333. Jahrestag der Befreiung Wiens und 33. Jahrestag des Besuchs Johannes Paul II [!] auf dem Kahlenberg’, accessed 30 December 2016, http://www.wieden.msz.gov.pl/de/

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the contemporary music culture. For instance, the Swedish power metal band “Sabaton” released the album The Last Stand in 2016 with the song Winged Hussars, which tells the fijights of the heavy Polish cavalry (Hussaria) against the janissaries during the decisive battle at the Kahlenberg.33 In the song Vienna 1683, released by the German dark-metal band “Nachtblut” in 2014, it says: “The colour green wants us death, but the next one is the next. ... You long for power, an apple of gold. ... The enemy is in every direction of heaven. We stick together. We fijight together. ... We do not believe in your scriptures, not in your God, so there are only two possibilities: freedom or death.”34 To sum up, in public discourse as well as in remembrance politics, the conflicts are centered on the relations between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. The Turkish wars are a highly political issue until today. 2. In opposition to these contrasting perspectives, a series of studies emerged since the end of the 20th century, showing that the Ottoman relationship to early modern Europe was not only dominated by profound opposites and military conflicts, but also that numerous cultural and economic exchange processes took place:35 “Over the course of the past thirty–forty years, historians have made it clear that the traditional view of Ottoman expansion, which discerned nothing but sharp conflict between Europe and the Ottomans and spoke of a struggle between two worlds equally determined in terms of ideology and religion, is no longer tenable.”36 These studies are related to the

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ereignisse/333_jahrestag_der_befreiung_wiens_und_33__jahrestag_des_besuchs_ johannes_paul_ii_auf_dem_kahlenberg;jsessionid=09171EBA568FC0808A6F15DAB1 F5A143.cmsap1p. Sabaton, ‘Winged Hussars’ (2016); offfijicial lyrics video, accessed 30 December 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zmIj_4LFQ. The Hussaria might have played a prominent role in the victory of the relief army. Cf. Richard Brzezinski, Polish Winged Hussar 1576–1775. Oxford, New York, 2006, 7. Nachtblut, ‘Vienna 1683’ (2014); offfijicial lyrics video, accessed 30 December 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACv4qiZ0qqs. For the signifijicance of war in the music productions of heavy metal bands, see Ireng Maulana, Heavy Metal Music and the Outcomes of Wars: a Content Analysis. MA thesis, Iowa State University, 2010. For instance, Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It. (The Library of Ottoman Studies, 7.) London 2004; Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Princeton, 2002; Linda Darling, ‘Rethinking Europe and the Islamic World in the Age of Exploration’, Journal of Early Modern History 2 (1998) 221–246; Michael Talbot and Phil McCluskey, ‘Introduction: Contacts, Encounters, Practices: Ottoman–European Diplomacy, 1500–1800’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 48 (2016) 269–276; Firges et al. (eds.), Well-Connected Domains; Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, ‘Between Universalistic Claims and Reality: Ottoman Frontiers in the Early Modern Period’, in Christine Woodhead (ed.), The Ottoman World. New York, 2012, 208–212. Pál Fodor, ‘Hungary between East and West: The Ottoman Turkish Legacy’, in Pál Fodor et al. (ed.), More Modoque. Die Wurzeln der europäischen Kultur und deren Rezeption im Orient

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“history of transfer”, the “entangled history”, the “connected history” or the “histoire croisée”.37 In the view are for instance border regions like the “Triplex confijinium”, the Mediterranean world, the Ottoman tributary states,38 and the Adriatic Sea,39 conflict management und peace effforts40 as well as the activities of diplomats, dragomans, Jews, spies, prisoners of war, slaves, merchants, and renegades. They are seen as actors in a transcultural space, so-called “go-betweens”.41 Similarities between the two empires are highlighted like, for example, imperial behaviour and parallels between the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Southeastern Europe and the Middle East and the Spanish Habsburgs in the New World. Moreover, the importance of Constantinople as a market place for information interlinked with European metropoles like Paris, Venice, and

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und Okzident: Festschrift für Miklós Maróth zum siebzigsten Geburtstag. Budapest, 2013, 403–404. Sebastian Conrad and Shalini Randeria (eds.), Jenseits des Eurozentrismus. Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main, 2002. Gábor Kármán and Lovro Kunčević (eds.), The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 53.) Leiden, Boston, 2013. For example, Wendy Bracewell, ‘The Historiography of the Triplex Confijinium. Conflict and Community on a Triple Frontier, 16th–18th centuries’, in Steven G. Ellis and Raingard Eßer (eds.), Frontiers and the Writing of History, 1500–1850. Hannover, 2006, 211–227; Egidio Ivetic and Drago Roksandić (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance on the Triplex Confijinium. Approaching the “Other” on the Borderlands. Eastern Adriatic and beyond 1500–1800. Padua, 2007; Egidio Ivetic, ‘L’Adriatico come spazio storico transnazionale’, Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche 35 (2015) 483–498; Andrew C. S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. New York, 2009; Christine Woodhead, ‘Consolidating the Empire: New Views on Ottoman History, 1453–1839’, European Historical Review 123:503 (2008) 973–987; Virginia H. Aksan, ‘What’s Up in Ottoman Studies?’, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 1 (2014) 3–21; Maria Pia Pedani, ‘Note di storiografijia sull’Impero Ottomano’, Mediterranea ricerche storiche 34:12 (2015) 445–458; Eric R. Dursteler, ‘On Bazaars and Battlefijields: Recent Scholarship on Mediterranean Cultural Contacts’, Journal of Early Modern History 15 (2011) 413–434. For instance, Strohmeyer and Spannenberger (eds.), Frieden und Konfliktmanagement. See, for instance, Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Mediating Boundaries. Mediterranean Go-Betweens and Cross-Confessional Diplomacy in Constantinople, 1560–1600’, Journal of Early Modern History 19 (2015) 107–128; Norbert Spannenberger and Szabolcs Varga (eds.), Ein Raum im Wandel. Die osmanisch-habsburgische Grenzregion vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. (Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 44.) Stuttgart, 2014; Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth–Early Eighteenth Centuries). (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 37.) Leiden, 2007; Gábor Kármán and Radu G. Păun (eds.), Europe and the “Ottoman world”: Exchanges and Conflicts. Istanbul, 2013.

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London, is emphasised.42 It is claimed that in the Ottoman Empire a modernization took place, and that it influenced many fundamental processes of European history.43 The Ottoman Empire, according to this opinion, was not separated from Europe by sharp cultural boundaries and insuperable civilian opposites, but was “an integral component”44 of it, or, even a “full and active member of a concert of European states”.45 Nevertheless, in contrast, it was pointed out that the Ottoman Empire had related to Europe in a variety of ways, but that integration was ultimately limited: “However, if we are asking whether the Ottoman world participated fully in the early modern development of Europe, my answer is a fijirm no.”46 Similarly, the scope of the transcultural approach was relativized critically, because, that is the argument, the cultural boundaries of the Ottoman Empire to Europe were not dense, but the cultural border trafffijic was signifijicantly less than the inner-European cultural exchange:47 “After all, the frontier zone in Hungary was far from closed in the military sense, but it still constituted a cultural barrier between two worlds.”48 Thus, research on the Ottoman Empire’s relations 42

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For instance, Firges et al. (eds.), Well-Connected Domains; Eric R. Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople. Nation, Identity, and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Baltimore, 2006; Stephen Ortega, Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Ottoman-Venetian Encounters, 1400–1700. Farnham, 2014; E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Ithaca, London, 2012; Emrah Safa Gürkan, ‘Die Osmanen und ihre christlichen Verbündeten’, Europäische Geschichte Online, Mainz, 2011–10–18, accessed 30 December 2016, http:// www.ieg-ego.eu/gurkane-2010-de; John-Paul Ghobrial, The Whispers of Cities. Information Flows in Istanbul, London, and Paris in the Age of William Trumbull. Oxford, 2013. Gábor Ágoston, ‘Information, Ideology, and Limits of Imperial Policy: Ottoman Grand Strategy in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry’, in Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Gofffman (eds.), The Early Modern Ottomans. Remapping the Empire. Cambridge et al., 2007, 77; Firges and Graf, ‘Introduction’, 5–6. Daniel Gofffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, 2002, XIV. Ibid., 233. Similar: Florian Kühnel, ‘Westeuropa und das Osmanische Reich in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ansätze und Perspektiven aktueller Forschungen’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 42 (2015) 244. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight, 20. Christoph Herzog, ‘Aufklärung und Osmanisches Reich. Annäherung an ein historiographisches Problem’, in Die Aufklärung und ihre Weltwirkung. (Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Special issue, 23.) Berlin, 2010, 320. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, ‘From Philological to Historical Approach: Twentieth Century Hungarian Historiography of the Ottoman Empire’, in Frank Hadler and Mathias Mesenhöller (eds.), Vergangene Größe und Ohnmacht in Ostmitteleuropa: Repräsentationen imperialer Erfahrung in der Historiographie seit 1918 / Lost Greatness and Past Oppression in East Central Europe: Representations of the Imperial Experience in Historiography since 1918. (Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtskultur im 20. Jahrhundert, 8.) Berlin, 2007, 154–155.

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to the Habsburg, European and Extra-European world is quite vivid at the moment. A summary on the current state of research, published in 2014, highlighted, that we need “better insight into how concepts of order, identity, and boundary were shaped and reshaped through processes of exchange.”49 In the following, this research fijield will be further developed. This paper argues that it is necessary to distinguish between diffferent levels of cultural interaction and therefore to analyse the relationship between the empires of the Habsburgs and Ottomans from several perspectives. For this reason, on the one hand, the micro-political level of the actors is investigated and, on the other hand, the macro-level structure of the bilateral relationship. It should also be noted that this is a politically sensitive topic, as the cultures of remembrance in many countries and the public discourse illustrate. The focus will be on diplomacy which was, along with the numerous wars, the most important aspect of the Habsburg–Ottoman relationship in Süleyman’s age; the economic contacts between both empires developed rather late in comparison to Venice, England, France, and the Netherlands.50 At fijirst, a short overview will be given of the rise of Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy, than follow three case studies, in which the rivalry and the cultural diffferences are particularly clear to see: The title of the Habsburg rulers used by Süleyman, the Ottoman demands for tribute, and the discourse of alterity in Habsburg diplomacy. In the centre of interest are the cultural encounters and the overcoming of ideological antagonisms, while the comparative perspective, with which the empires of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans can also be explored profijitably, stays on the side-line.51 49 50 51

Firges and Graf, ‘Introduction’, 7. Robert-Tarek Fischer, Österreich im Nahen Osten. Die Großmachtpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie im Arabischen Orient 1633–1918. Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2006, 13–30. Eyal Ginio and Karl Kaser, ‘Introduction. Towards a Comparative Studies of the Balkans and the Middle East’, in Eyal Ginio and Karl Kaser (eds.), Ottoman Legacies in the Contemporary Mediterranean: The Balkans and the Middle East Compared. (Conference and Lecture Series, 8.) Jerusalem, 2013, 3–17; Wolfram Drews and Christian Scholl (eds.), Transkulturelle Verflechtungsprozesse in der Vormoderne. (Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung, 3.) Berlin, Boston, 2016; Gábor Ágoston, ʻEmpires and Warfare in East Central Europe, 1550–1750: The Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry and Military Transformation’, in Frank Tallett and D. J. B. Trim (eds.), European Warfare, 1350–1750. Cambridge et al., 2010, 110–134; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Ideologie, Propaganda und politischer Pragmatismus: Die Auseinandersetzungen der osmanischen und habsburgischen Großmächte und die mitteleuropäische Konfrontation’, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 207–233; Colin Heywood, ‘The Frontier in Ottoman History. Old Ideas and New Myths’, in Daniel Power and Naomi Standen (eds.), Frontiers in Question. Eurasian Borderlands, 700–1700. London, New York, 1999, 228–250.

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The Rise of Habsburg–Ottoman Diplomacy The beginnings of the diplomatic relations between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans date back to the late 15th century. With the growing threat of Hungarian and Habsburg territories by the Ottoman army and the beginning of the disputes over Hungary in the 1520s, their intensity increased.52 During Süleyman’s reign, the Habsburgs sent more than 40 diplomatic missions to the Sublime Porte.53 Their size and duration could vary a lot; sometimes they included only a few people. In any case, they were considerably smaller than for instance the grand embassies of the 17th and 18th centuries, which could comprise more than 1,000 people. Since 1547 a representative of the Habsburgs was in permanent residence in Constantinople. However, Süleyman, like all early modern sultans, did not send a permanent envoy to the imperial court as well as to other European courts, for the Ottomans used exclusively temporary ad hoc legations on special occasions, to the imperial court until 1747 about 40.54 This well-known and in research controversial discussed asymmetry of the diplomatic relations, which continued until the turn of the 19th century, was relativized through the Ottoman’s efffijicient systems of information gathering and espionage, as was shown by research the last years.55 In addition, Constantinople was a hub of early modern European diplomacy. However, the 52

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Anton C. Schaendlinger, ‘Die osmanisch-habsburgische Diplomatie in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 4 (1986) 181–196; Fernando Fernández Lanza, ‘La imagen de España in el Imperio Otomano a través de los embajadores de Carlos V’, in Alain Servantie and Ramón Puig de la Bellacasa Alberola (eds.), L’Empire ottoman dans l’Europe de la Renaissance / El Imperio Otomano en la Europa renacentista. Leuven, 2005, 180–185; Johann Gröblacher, ʻKönig Maximilians I. erste Gesandtschaft zum Sultan Bajezid II.’, in Alexander Nowotny and Othmar Pickl (eds.), Festschrift Hermann Wiesflecker zum 60. Geburtstag. Graz, 1973, 73–80; Pál Fodor and Géza Dávid, ‘Hungarian–Ottoman Peace Negotiations in 1512–1514’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Budapest, 1994, 9–45; John Elliott, ‘The Ottoman–Hapsburg Rivalry: The European Perspective’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993, 153–162. Bertold Spuler, ‘Die europäische Diplomatie in Konstantinopel bis zum Frieden von Belgrad (1739). 3. Teil’, Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven NF 9 (1935) 316–325. Kerstin Tomenendal, Das türkische Gesicht Wiens. Auf den Spuren der Türken in Wien. Wien, 2000, 15; Karl Vocelka, ‘Eine türkische Botschaft in Wien 1565’, in Heinrich Fichtenau and Erich Zöllner (eds.), Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte Österreichs. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 20.) Wien, Köln, Graz, 1974, 102–114; Alfred Sitte, ‘Tschausch Hedakets Aufenthalt in Wien (1565)’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 6 (1908) 192–201. Ágoston, ‘Information’, 102; Emrah Safa Gürkan, Espionage in the 16th-Century Mediterranean. Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-Betweens and the Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry. PhD diss., Georgetown University, Washington, 2012.

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Ottoman’s institutional imparity prevented the continuous interaction of their envoys with politicians and statesmen of other powers and the communication “face to face”. Moreover, one should not underestimate the underlying symbolic meaning and the importance of other centres of information and diplomacy like London, Paris, and Madrid, were the Ottoman’s had no permanent representative. A special form of the diplomatic contacts was the border diplomacy, which developed against the background of the small-scale war, which characterized the daily life in the border region: border violations, raids, skirmishes, abductions, etc.56 A central position in this context had the Ottoman representatives in Buda (Budin/Ofen), who corresponded with the Viennese court and assumed an important mediating role in bilateral relations.57 Habsburg Spain had only very loose diplomatic relations to the Ottoman Empire until the late 18th century.58 So far little is known whether Spain’s few ad-hoc-missions, its well working system of espionage and the envoys of the Austrian line of the dynasty could compensate this defijicit.59 One thing is clear, namely that the imperial diplomats in Constantinople, Vienna, and Madrid exchanged information with Spanish agents, diplomats and statesmen quite actively.60 Inadequately researched are the multiple loyalties of the Austrian diplomats in Constantinople, some of whom belonged to the clientele of the Spanish king.61 The relations between the two Habsburg dynastic lines were in 56

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Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Claudia Römer, ‘Raub, Mord und Übergrifffe an der habsburgisch-osmanischen Grenze: Der diplomatische Alltag der Beglerbege von Buda abseits der Zeremonien’, in Ralph Kauz, Giorgio Rota and Jan Paul Niederkorn (eds.), Diplomatisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im Mittleren Osten in der Frühen Neuzeit. (Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 141; Veröfffentlichungen zur Iranistik, 52; Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, 796.) Wien, 2009, 253–256. For border diplomacy as an element of Ottoman foreign relations, see Nicolas Vatin, ‘L’Empire ottoman et l’Ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem à Rhodes entre 1480 et 1522’, Archiv Orientální 69:2 (May 2001) 357–359. Güneş Işıksel, La diplomatie ottomane sous le règne de Selîm II: paramètres et périmètres de l’Empire ottoman dans le troisième quart du XVIe siècle. (Collection Turcica, 20.) Paris, Louvain, Bristol, 2016, 7–14. Miguel-Ángel Ochoa Brun, Historia de la diplomacia Española. Apendice 1: Repertorio diplomático, listas cronológicas de representantes desde la Alta Edad Media hasta el año 2000. (Biblioteca diplomática Española. Sección Estudios, 6.) Madrid, 2002, 264–267. Miguel-Ángel Ochoa Brun, ‘Die Diplomatie Karls V.’, in Alfred Kohler, Barbara Haider and Christine Ottner (eds.), Karl V. 1500–1558. Neue Perspektiven seiner Herrschaft in Europa und Übersee. (Zentraleuropa-Studien, 6.) Wien, 2002,191–192. Gürkan, Espionage, 234–235. Friedrich Edelmayer, Söldner und Pensionäre. Das Netzwerk Philipps II. im Heiligen Römischen Reich. (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur der iberischen und iberoamerikanischen Länder, 7.) München, 2002, 68, 109.

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fact close; however, one should not forget that problems and difffijiculties arose as the two lines were growing apart. The relationship between Charles V and Ferdinand I was complicated and changed over time. In the fijirst years of Charles’ reign, Ferdinand, who would have had chances in Castile as well as in the Holy Roman Empire to ascend the throne, accepted the authority of his elder brother, who was the head of the family. But after the takeover of the rule in the hereditary lands by the treaties of Worms and Brussels in 1521–1522 and the elections to the king of Bohemia and Hungary in 1526, which led to the establishment of the Austrian line of the dynasty, Ferdinand emancipated himself increasingly. Thus, the plans of Charles V to secure his son Philip II the succession on the imperial throne, failed among others because Ferdinand and his son Maximilian II did not accept this loss of power. Even if some ambassadors travelled on behalf of Ferdinand I and Charles V to the Sublime Porte,62 there were fundamental diffferences of opinion concerning the Ottoman policy between the two Habsburg brothers, for instance whether the focus should be on the Mediterranean or on Hungary.63 Indeed, Maximilian II subordinated his foreign policy to that of Philipp II in central points, however, during the reign of Rudolf II a greater distance between the two dynastic lines can be observed.64 Therefore, it would be a wrong conclusion to assume that the Austrian House and its envoys in Constantinople represented automatically the interests of the Spanish one.

Titles Used (or Recognized) by Süleyman to Refer to the Habsburg Rulers Thinking in hierarchical patterns of superiority, submission and terms of world domination is a key feature of early modern political thought, which can be found already in ancient Mesopotamia, in the Old Testament as well as in the age of Alexander the Great, the Roman and Byzantine Empire, and among the Mongols and Chinese.65 In Habsburg–Ottoman relations during Süleyman’s reign it rose in the context of reciprocal universal world domination claims 62 63 64

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Miguel-Ángel Ochoa Brun, Historia de la diplomacia Española. Vol. Quinto: La diplomacia de Carlos V. (Biblioteca diplomática Española. Sección Estudios, 6.) Madrid, 1999, 450–462. Alfred Kohler, Ferdinand I. Fürst, König und Kaiser. München, 2003, 70–72, 211–215; Ochoa Brun, La diplomacia de Carlos V, 462–463. Maximilian Lanzinner, Friedenssicherung und politische Einheit des Reiches unter Kaiser Maximilian II. (1564–1576). (Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 45.) Göttingen, 1993, 80. Harald Kleinschmidt, Geschichte des Völkerrechts in Krieg und Frieden. Darmstadt, 2013, 28–44, 53–57, 89–93.

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and apocalyptic ideas;66 for two world rulers, the world was too small. Gábor Ágoston therefore spoke of the “clash of imperial ideologies between the Habsburgs and Ottomans”.67 Of course, it is difffijicult to fijind out, how much political action was influenced by these universalisms and there are many situations and decisions where we do not fijind them.68 However, without universalism it is not possible to understand Ottoman and Habsburg policy in this era; 16th-century universalism must not be understood as a simple programme of thinking and implementation. For the rulers, it was a constitutive component of their monarchic self-image, their legitimation of reign and a concept of international order. In Charles’ concept of rulership and those of some of his closest advisors like his Grand Chancellor Mercurino Gattinara the monarchia universalis played a crucial role.69 It was a very flexible model of global rule, which was easily adjustable to diverging interests and goals; the interpretation in Spain difffered from the one in the Holy Roman Empire.70 Although it mostly referred to a very abstract rule over Christendom, it could also be applied to the territory of the Imperium Romanum, the Holy Roman Empire, and the ancient-medieval 66

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Cornell H. Fleischer, ‘Shadows of Shadows. Prophecy in Politics in 1530s Istanbul’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 13 (2007) 51–62; Robert Finlay, ‘Prophecy and Politics in Istanbul. Charles V, Sultan Süleyman, and the Habsburg Embassy of 1533–1534’, Journal of Early Modern History 2 (1998) 1–31; Hannes Möhring, Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit. Entstehung, Wandel und Wirkung einer tausendjährigen Weissagung. (Mittelalter-Forschungen, 3.) Stuttgart, 2000. Ágoston, ‘Information’, 97. Ágoston, ‘Ideologie’, 210. Franz Bosbach, Monarchia universalis. Ein politischer Leitbegrifff der frühen Neuzeit. (Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 32.) Göttingen, 1988; Franz Bosbach, ‘The European Debate on Universal Monarchy’, in David Armitage (ed.), Theories of Empire, 1450–1800. (An Expanding World. The European Impact on World History 1450–1800, 20.) Aldershot et al., 1998, 81–98; Rebecca Ard Boone, Mercurino Di Gattinara and the Creation of the Spanish Empire. (Empires in Perspective, 23.) London et al., 2014; Ilse Kodek, Der Großkanzler Kaiser Karls V. zieht Bilanz. Die Autobiographie Mercurino Gattinaras aus dem Lateinischen übersetzt. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 4.) Münster, 2004; Peer Schmidt, ‘Monarchia universalis vs. monarchiae universales. El programa imperial de Gattinara y su contestación en Europa’, in José Martínez Millán and Ignacio J. Ezquerra Revilla (eds.), Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa 1530–1558. Vol. 1. Madrid, 2001, 115–129. Salvador Esteban, Carlos V. Emperador de Imperios. Pamplona, 2001, 31–34; Bosbach, Monarchia universalis, 35–45; Joseph Pérez, ‘La idea imperial de Carlos V’, in Francisco Sánchez-Montes González and Juan Luis Castellano (eds.), Carlos V. Européismo y universalidad. Vol. 1. Granada, 2001, 239–250; Horst Pietschmann, ‘Imperiale Konzepte im Spanien Karls V.’, in Christoph Strosetzki, (ed.), Aspectos históricos y culturales bajo Carlos V. / Aspekte der Geschichte und Kultur unter Karl V. (Studia Hispanica, 9.) Frankfurt am Main, 2000, 390–411.

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continents Europe, Asia, and Africa, later also to the New World. In its secular sense, it was a comprehensive way of rule mostly granting a single person – in many cases the emperor – a claim to universal leadership, which could be defijined in a disparate way and be valid for some, but not for all crucial sectors of political and social life. In political discourse, it was closely connected to peacekeeping.71 Therefore, Charles was represented in propaganda as the supreme protector of the Respublica Christiana, fijighting against the Muslims. For instance, after the conquest of Tunis 1535, a crusade with him at the front of the Christian army was one of the leading motifs of his universalistic propaganda.72 Another example is the Peace of Madrid (1526), in which the Habsburg promised a crusade against the Turks.73 The Ottoman concept of universal rule was based on antique, Turkish– Mongol, and religious traditions and had already existed under Bayezid I and Mehmed II.74 A change took place with the conquests of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Mecca, and Medina by Selim I in 1516–1517, which contributed to the Ottoman Empire’s rise to the leading power of (Sunni) Islam. Under Süleyman’s reign, the concept of universal rule was developed further. The sultan was portrayed as a world conqueror and from the 1540s on as the caliph. The importance of religion in the legitimation of rule increased. Süleyman was also called “ruler of the four holy places” Mecca, Medina, Hebron, and Jerusalem, which was in

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Arno Strohmeyer, ‘Ideas of Peace in Early Modern Models of International Order: Universal Monarchy and Balance of Power in Comparison’, in Jost Dülfffer and Robert Frank (eds.), Peace, War and Gender from Antiquity to the Present. Cross-Cultural Perspectives. (Frieden und Krieg. Beiträge zur Historischen Friedensforschung, 1.4) Essen, 2009, 65–80. Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Das Tunisunternehmen Karls V. 1535’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staastsarchivs 37 (1984) 35–72; Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Tunis – Algier – Jerusalem? Zur Mittelmeerpolitik Karls V.’, in Kohler, Haider and Ottner (eds.), Karl V., 685–690; James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V’s Crusades against Tunis and Algier: Appearance and Reality. (The James Ford Bell Lectures, 38.) Minnesota, 2001; Ágoston, ‘Ideologie’, 214–216. Tratado de Madrid, Madrid, 14 Januar 1526, in P[asquale] Mariño (ed.), Tratados internacionales de España. Período de la preponderancia española. Carlos V. Vol. III/III: España – Francia (1525–1528). Madrid, 1986, 151; Arno Strohmeyer, ‘Friedensverträge im Wandel der Zeit: Die Wahrnehmung des Friedens von Madrid 1526 in der deutschen Geschichtsforschung’, in Heinz Duchhardt and Martin Peters (eds.), Kalkül – Transfer – Symbol. Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz, 1., online.) Mainz, 2006, 132–143, accessed 02.01.2017, http://www.ieg-mainz.de/vieg-online-beihefte/01-2006.html. Peter Thorau, ‘Von Karl dem Großen zum Frieden von Zsitva Torok. Zum Weltherrschaftsanspruch Sultan Mehmeds II. und dem Wiederaufleben des Zweikaiserproblems nach der Eroberung Konstantinopels’, Historische Zeitschrift 279 (2004) 328–329; Karl-Heinz Ziegler, ‘Völkerrechtliche Beziehungen zwischen der Habsburgermonarchie und der Hohe Pforte’, Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 3:4 (1996) 180.

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direct opposition to the title of “King of Jerusalem”, which Charles V, like many other European rulers, had.75 Perhaps more important was the contradiction in the imperial title, which was directly connected with universal rule. For Charles V, the title “emperor” was extremely important, as becomes evident when having a look at his election to “Holy Roman Emperor” (“King”) in 1519. He ran for the election even though Dutch and Spanish counsellors advised him against it and despite concerns within the family and the opposition of the Castilian estates. The importance of the title is also reflected by the ostentatiously staged coronation in 1530 in Bologna.76 Süleyman’s response came promptly: During his campaign against Vienna in 1532, he presented himself as world conqueror during his entrances in Niš and Belgrade. His headdress resembled the crown of Charles V and the tiara of the pope.77 The sultan was represented as the successor of Alexander the Great. The message was clear: Süleyman challenged the authority of both the pope and the emperor. This universalistic ideology, which was propagandistically spread in western media, was strongly inspired by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and his confijident Ludovico Gritti from Venice.78 The way how Süleyman addressed the Habsburg rulers was closely interlinked with the “two emperor problem”, with which Charles the Great after his imperial coronation in 800 and the Byzantine emperors already had to deal with. It recurred after Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople and his taking over the Eastern Roman emperorship.79 Therefore, in several letters and other documents Süleyman addressed Charles V only as “King of the Spanish Land” or “King of Spain” or even as “small King of Spain”, which must be interpreted as a symbolic degradation of the Habsburg – a clear consequence of the universalistic contradiction.80 However, a diffferent picture evolves when 75 76 77 78 79 80

Ágoston, ‘Information’, 94–97. Franz Bosbach, ‘Selbstaufffassung und Selbstdarstellung Karls V. bei der Kaiserkrönung in Bologna’, in Kohler, Haider and Ottner (eds.), Karl V., 83–103. Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-Papal Rivalry’, The Art Bulletin 71:3 (1989) 403–405. Ibid., 404–416. Thorau, ‘Karl der Große’, 309–334. Markus Köhbach, ‘Çasar oder imperator? – Zur Titulatur der römischen Kaiser durch die Osmanen nach dem Vertrag von Zsitvatorok (1606)’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 82 (1993) 223–224; Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 163.) Wien, 1983; Ernst D. Petritsch, ‘Der habsburgisch-osmanische Friedensvertrag des Jahres 1547’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 38 (1985) 71, 73, 76.

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having a look at the Habsburg–Ottoman treaties concluded by the sultan, because the term “imperator” is often used, for instance when referring to Ferdinand I (treaties of 1559 and 1562) or to Maximilian II (agreement in 1565).81 In offfijicial documents, Süleyman addressed Ferdinand for quite a long time only as “King of Vienna”, “King of the Viennese Land” or “King of the Austrian Land”, but after the Habsburg’s accession to Holy Roman Emperor, one fijinds denominations like “Imperator of the Christian Kings, Dukes, and Beys” (1559) and “Imperator of the Germans” (1562).82 In letters to Maximilian II formulations were used like “King of Austria and Germany” or simply “King Maximilian”, but also “Imperator of Vienna”.83 In the Treaty of Zsitvatorok in 1606, further changes can be observed. The Ottomans – by that time their military superiority had already deteriorated – obligated themselves to use the title “Roman Emperor” in offfijicial writings of the sultan to the Habsburg emperor.84 Certainly, the Ottoman state chancellery did not use the term çasar, but in the inscriptio of their offfijicial letters the title Nemçe imperadori (or orthographic varieties).85 Çasar was thought to be etymologically too closely interlinked with the title of the sultan.86 The Sublime Port hence made a compromise: They did not deprive the Habsburgs of the title “emperor”; however, they did not acknowledge them to be fully equivalent to the sultan. From the viewpoint of the Habsburgs, however, equivalence existed, as Süleyman was referred to as Turcarum Imperator in several charters.87 To sum up, one can observe the instrumental use of various interpretations of key words concerning the title of the rulers. The general opposition between the two rulers did not cease but became less acute as time passed.

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Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 327. Ibid.; 327; Schaendlinger and Römer (eds.), Die Schreiben, XXII–XXIII, 23. Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 327. Treaty of Zsitvatorok, 11 November 1606, in Ludwig Fekete (ed.), Türkische Schriften aus dem Archive des Palatins Nikolaus Esterházy 1606–1645. (Schriften des Palatins Nikolaus Esterházy) Budapest, 1932, art. 2. Köhbach, ‘Çasar’, 231; Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 329; Dennis Dierks, ‘Übersetzungsleistungen und kommunikative Funktionen osmanisch-europäischer Friedensverträge im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in Martin Espenhorst (ed.), Frieden durch Sprache? Studien zum kommunikativen Umgang mit Konflikten und Konfliktlösungen. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz. Abteilung Universalgeschichte, 91.) Göttingen, 2012, 135–137. Köhbach, ‘Çasar’, 229. Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 330.

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Ottoman Demands for Tribute The peace treaty respectively truce between Charles V, Ferdinand I, and Süleyman, negotiated in 1547 in Edirne by Gerhard Veltwyck, stipulated an annual payment to the sultan.88 In return the Habsburgs could rule over parts of Hungary. Especially Ferdinand insisted on this treaty provision, which was also adopted in further contracts. Until 1593, the payment was carried out nearly 30 times.89 Was it a tribute? Already contemporaries dealt with this question. For instance, writers of travel reports repeatedly hinted at the tributary character.90 The Habsburgs certainly declared them to be a munus honestum et honorium, or so-called “honorary gift”91 and their diplomats had to pay attention that the payments were not purported to be tributes. How did the Ottomans react? In their internal correspondence, they preferred the word harac, originating from Islamic law. The term was also used for the polltaxes paid by non-Muslims as well as the tributes of vassals like the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania. But when directly corresponding with the Habsburgs, the Ottomans mostly did not use this word. Instead one can fijind terms like virgü which had broader meanings (“tax, tribute”, etc.) and could also be translated as “present” or “gift”. In the ratifijication of the treaty of 1547, the term “money consideration” and when the treaty was prolonged in 1559 the term “duties” was used. In 1562, only the amount of the money is mentioned. In 1565, merely Süleyman’s sovereign rights over Hungary were confijirmed. Only in 1551 did the sultan explicitly demand the payment as tribute – after Habsburg troops had invaded Transylvania.92 All in all, the Ottomans avoided emphasizing the tributary character of the payments in their offfijicial communication with the Habsburgs. That means, the seemingly irresolvable opposition between the two powers fijighting for their hegemonic position blurred. Despite such rather “weak” formulations one must bear in mind that these payments were still legally binding. Therefore, the Habsburg diplomats in Constantinople had to deal repeatedly with tributary demands of the Ottoman 88

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Petritsch, ‘Friedensvertrag’, 54–59; Bart Severi, ‘“Denari in loco delle terre…” Imperial Envoy Gerard Veltwijk and Habsburg Policy towards the Ottoman Empire’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 54 (2001) 242–246. Ernst D. Petritsch, ‘Tribut oder Ehrengeschenk? Ein Beitrag zu den habsburgisch-osmanischen Beziehungen in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Elisabeth Springer and Leopold Kammerhofer (eds.), Archiv und Forschung. Das Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in seiner Bedeutung für die Geschichte Österreichs und Europas. (Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 20.) Wien, München, 1993, 51–53. Petritsch, ‘Tribut oder Ehrengeschenk’, 55–56. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 57; Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 326–330.

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dignitaries, depending on the power political situation and the political climate. For example, Johann Maria Malvezzi, the fijirst permanent imperial resident in Constantinople, was arrested in 1551 because the payment had not been carried out as agreed upon.93 As a matter of fact, a paragraph was integrated into the later Peace of Zsitvatorok (1606), per which the regular tributes should be abolished through a single payofff. The negotiations had been tough on this point and the corresponding passage is missing in the Ottoman ratifijication document, to which an ambiguous formulation had been added, namely that the payments should be carried out according to the old custom. Finally in the peace Treaty of Vienna (1615) did the Ottomans accept the Habsburgs point of view, certainly without formally confijirming it.94 Nevertheless, Ottoman dignitaries continued to stipulate tributes from Habsburg diplomats. In 1640, for instance, on the occasion of the inauguration of Ibrahim I, such a payment was demanded from the imperial resident Johann Rudolf Schmid zum Schwarzenhorn; a further payment was claimed in 1642 from Schmid by hinting at the old capitulations of Süleyman.95 In his reports to Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, the resident explicitly called these payments “tribute”.96 According to the reports of imperial diplomats, their everyday life was coined again and again by the attempts of Ottoman dignitaries to treat them – and hence the Habsburg emperor – as a vassal and payer of tribute until the second half of the 17th century.97 In the diplomatic negotiations, the Ottomans used the tribute demands as threat or provocation. Therefore, the 93

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Peter Meienberger, Johann Rudolf Schmid zum Schwarzenhorn als kaiserlicher Resident in Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1629–1643. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen Österreich und der Türkei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. (Geist und Werk der Zeiten, 37.) Bern, 1973, 18–23; Johann Maria Malvezzi to King Ferdinand, Constantinople, 12 October 1551, in Srećko M. Džaja and Karl Nehring (eds.), Austro-Turcica 1541–1552. Diplomatische Akten des habsburgischen Gesandtschaftsverkehrs mit der Hohen Pforte im Zeitalter Süleymans des Prächtigen. (Südosteuropäische Arbeiten, 95.) München, 1995, 620. Karl Nehring, Adam Freiherrn zu Herbersteins Gesandtschaftsreise nach Konstantinopel. Ein Beitrag zum Frieden von Zsitvatorok (1606). (Südosteuropäische Arbeiten, 78.) München, 1983, 16–22, 49, 60; Dierks, ‘Übersetzungsleistungen’, 135–136. Meienberger, Johann Rudolf Schmid, 20. Johann Rudolf Schmid to Emperor Ferdinand III, Constantinople, 30 July 1642: Wien, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA), Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Staatenabteilungen, Türkei I. Kt. 116, Konv. 1, fols. 187–194. Arno Strohmeyer, ‘Politische Leitvorstellungen in der diplomatischen Kommunikation: Kaiserliche Gesandte an der Hohen Pforte im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges’, in Christoph Kampmann et al. (eds.), Lʼart de la paix. Kongresswesen und Friedensstiftung im Zeitalter des Westfälischen Friedens. (Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e.V., 34.) Münster, 2011, 409–439.

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instructions of the Habsburg envoys included detailed references on how they should deal with these demands. For instance, when handing over a gift they should avoid using the word harac.98 For the Habsburg diplomats, the discussion about the rank of their monarch, his tribute obligations and title as emperor was a never-ending story until the 18th century. The key word in this context, repeatedly used in their communication with the imperial court, was aequalitas respectively “parity”. The parity between the states respectively rulers had developed into a guiding concept of the ius publicum europaeum during the 17th century, despite the fundamental diffferences in political power.99 For the Habsburg diplomats in Constantinople, this theoretical pattern comprised various spheres to which one had to pay attention: For instance, the usage of the title emperor, the repulsion of any demands for tribute, the diplomatic ceremonial, the giftgiving and even the clothing of the diplomats. These themes were also discussed during the peace negotiations and were integrated into the treaties of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) 1699 and Passarowitz (Požarevac) 1718. The struggle for parity right down to the smallest details became especially evident during the border crossings of the grand embassies.100 The disputes about the tributary obligations of the Habsburg rulers illustrate, like the question of their correct title, that the encounters were given flexibility. Despite contrasting interpretations of key words, one took care of each other. It can also be seen that the ideological rivalry only changed slowly and that it still had impact on diplomatic communication in the 17th century.

Habsburg Diplomacy and the European Discourse of Alterity In Europe, it was the “Turks” – the term for all Muslims since the middle of the 15th century – who embodied the “other”, which communities need for the 98

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For example, Alexander von Greifffenklau zu Vollrads to Emperor Ferdinand III, Constantinople, 20 June 164: ÖStA HHStA, Staatenabteilungen, Türkei I. Kt. 116/2, fols. 103r–125v; Alexander von Greifffenklau zu Vollrads to Emperor Ferdinand III, Constantinople, 30 September 1644: ÖStA HHStA, Staatenabteilungen, Türkei I. Kt. 118/1, fols. 538r–549v; Meienberger, Johann Rudolf Schmid, 21. Dierks, ‘Friedensbild’, 316–318. Arno Strohmeyer, ‘Die Theatralität interkulturellen Friedens: Damian Hugo von Virmont als kaiserlicher Großbotschafter an der Hohen Pforte (1719/20)’, in Guido Braun and Arno Strohmeyer (eds.), Frieden und Friedenssicherung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Das Heilige Römische Reich und Europa. Festschrift für Maximilian Lanzinner zum 65. Geburtstag. (Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e.V., 36.) Münster, 2013, 413–438.

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intellectual foundations and formation of their own identities. Until the 17th century, during the climax of the Turkish fear, the focus was on Islam, which was dichotomously opposed to Christianity. According to apocalyptic and salvifijic historical ideas, the Ottomans were regarded as the “Antichrist”, a punishment, sent by God for sinful life, comparable to the locusts in the Bible. This was related to the stereotype of the “hereditary enemy”, which was spread propagandistically. The Ottomans were also regarded as barbarians: cruel, violent, immoral, voluptuous, and heretical. Overall, they were a negative counterpart to the more “civilized” Christian Europe, where they were perceived as a fundamental threat to the order of life. In addition to this pejorative view, there were also, to a lesser extent, positive pictures, such as admiration for the Ottoman military system. Finally, there evolved a relatively sober ethnographic view. At the end of the 17th century, with the decline of the military threat and under the influence of the Enlightenment, a change of these images took place. Now, the attention was increasingly focused on the exoticism of oriental culture and the supposed despotism of the Ottoman system of rule. However, the negative views also continued.101 The Habsburg diplomats in Constantinople were fijirmly involved in this discourse of alterity, since their main tasks were the procurement and transmission of information about the Ottomans. For this reason, they hired agents, knitted networks, and made espionage. Until well into the 18th century, much of the knowledge about the Ottomans and Islam in Central Europe originated from the activities of Habsburg diplomats.102 In this knowledge transfer the travel reports written during their missions played a central role. 101

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Felix Konrad, ‘From the “Turkish Menace” to Exoticism and Orientalism: Islam as Antithesis of Europe (1453–1914)?’, European History Online, Mainz, 2011–03–14, accessed 02.01.2017, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/konradf-2010-en; Eckhard Leuschner and Thomas Wünsch (eds.), Das Bild des Feindes. Konstruktion von Antagonismen und Kulturtransfer im Zeitalter der Türkenkriege. Ostmitteleuropa, Italien und das Osmanische Reich. Berlin, 2013; Charlotte Colding Smith, Images of Islam, 1453–1600: Turks in Germany and Central Europe. (Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World) London, 2014; Yiǧit Topkaya, Augen-Blicke sichtbarer Gewalt? Eine Geschichte des “Türken” in medientheoretischer Perspektive (1453–1529). Paderborn, 2015. Stéphane Yerasimos, Les voyageurs dans lʼEmpire ottoman, XIVe–XVIe siècles. Ankara, 1991, 144–276; Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, ‘Die Entdeckung des Osmanischen Reiches in Wort und Bild. Eine Geschichte zwischen persönlicher Erfahrung, Wahrnehmung und überlieferten Vorstellungen’, Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur (mit Geographie) 58 (2014) 393–407; Almut Höfert, ‘“Turcica”: Annäherung an eine Gesamtbetrachtung repräsentativer Reiseberichte über das Osmanische Reich bis 1600’, in Ulrike Ilg (ed.), Text und Bild in Reiseberichten des 16. Jahrhunderts. Westliche Zeugnisse über Amerika und das Osmanische Reich. (Studi e ricerche. Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz, 3.) Venedig, 2008, 105–137.

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Many of them were printed and some were widely distributed. One of the fijirst diplomats who wrote such a report was the Slovenian Benedict Kuripešić, who came to the Porte in 1530 and published his experiences and observations the following year.103 The diaries of Hans Dernschwam, a merchant working for the Fugger, who travelled to the Ottoman Empire in 1553 as a member of a delegation of Ferdinand I to Süleyman and the imperial court servant Jakob Betzek who came 1564–1565 to the Sublime Porte should also be mentioned.104 The most influential travelogue which originated in the age of Süleyman were Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq’s Legationis Turcicae Epistolae quattuor, which were translated into several languages and reissued about twenty times in Latin until the early 18th century. The Dutch humanist travelled to the Porte twice, (in 1554 and 1555), on behalf of Ferdinand I and Maximilian II and spent a total of about eight years in the Ottoman Empire.105 His letters are considered in the following by way of example. A consistent pattern is the dichotomous distinction between Christians and Muslims. There are also references to the barbarism of the Ottomans. With the help of episodes, Busbecq illustrates also well-known stereotypes: the enjoyment of wine, the bad architecture of the residential buildings, the immorality of the women in the baths, and the threat posed by the Ottomans.106 At the same time, however, there are passages where he admires the Ottomans; 103

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Gerhard Neweklowsky (ed.), Kuripešić, Benedikt. Itinerarium oder Wegrayß Küniglich Mayestät potschaffft gen Constantinople zudem Türckischen Keiser Soleyman, Anno 1530. (Österreichisch-bosnische Beziehungen, 2.) Klagenfurt, 1997 [1531/1910]. Hans Hattenhauer and Uwe Bake (eds.), Dernschwam von Hradiczin, Hans, 1494–1568: Ein Fugger-Kaufmann im Osmanischen Reich: Bericht von einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien 1553–1555. Frankfurt am Main, 2012; Marianna D. Birnbaum, ‘The Fuggers, Hans Dernschwam, and the Ottoman Empire’, Südost-Forschungen 50 (1991) 119–144; Kurt Oberdorfffer, ‘Dernschwam von Hradiczin, Hans’, Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957) 609; Jakob von Betzek, Gesandtschaftsreise nach Ungarn und in die Türkei im Jahre 1564/65. (Veröfffentlichungen des Finnisch-Ugrischen Seminars der Universität München, C 10.) Ed. by Karl Nehring. München, 1979. Ogier Gishlain de Busbecq, Legationis Tvrcicae Epistolae quatuor …. Frankfurt am Main, 1595; German translation: Ogier Gishlain de Busbecq, Reysen und Bottschaffften: welche aufff gnedigsten Befelch beyder Unüberwindlichsten Allermächtigsten Keyser Ferdinandi und Maximiliani II. Der gantzen Christenheit zu höchsten nutzen glücklich vollendet hat …. Frankfurt am Main, 1596; Ignace Dalle, Un Européen chez les Turcs. Auger Ghiselin de Busbecq (1521–1591). Paris, 2008; Edward Seymour Forster (ed.), The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554–1562: Translated from the Latin of the Elzevir edition of 1663. 3rd edition, Baton Rouge, La., 2008; Zweder R. W. M. von Martels, Augerius Gislenius Busbequius. Leven en werk van de keizerlijke gezant aan het hof van Süleyman de Grote. Groningen, 1989; James D. Tracy, ‘The Ambassador as Third Party: Busbecq’s Summary Account for the Year 1559’, Acta Histriae 22 (2014) 195–206. Busbecq, Reysen, 17–18, 20–21, 27, 131, 195, 208–209.

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for example, the observance of the religious obligations of Ramadan, the discipline of the janissaries, the body hygiene of the elites, the great skills in archery, and the social mobility, which causes that the offfijices – unlike in Busbecq’s home society – are occupied by the most suitable persons.107 Busbecq thus used the Ottoman system of rule as a shining example and to criticize his own society. He is thus included in the series of authors who attributed positive characteristics to the Ottomans. Reference points were the advancement opportunities, the sultan’s extraordinary power, which was regarded as the prerequisite for an efffijicient governmental system, as well as the religious tolerance (measured by contemporary standards).108 He described not only the course of the journey and his diplomatic activities, but also the customs of the Ottomans, their religious forms of behaviour as well as the flora, fauna, history and topography of the regions visited without resorting to the wellknown pejorative stereotypes. Especially meritorious are his records of the language of the Crimean Goths.109 Accordingly, Busbecq was interested to present a broad spectrum of Ottoman society. Of course, these passages are not “neutral”, but they are based on personal experiences, so they are more than simple constructions of alterity. They represent the ethnographic production of knowledge, which grew enormously in the 16th century.110 The envoy was therefore involved in a transfer of knowledge, which linked the Ottoman Empire with Europe. At the same time, however, he drew borderlines, since his transferred knowledge also strengthened the discourse of alterity. The contrasting exposition of Christians and Turks, for instance, is to be attributed to which Reinhart Koselleck regarded as asymmetrical conceptualization of otherness.111 The letters also contain those language fijigures which the French 107 108

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Ibid., 105–106, 108, 207–208, 240–242, 293–296. Ernst D. Petritsch, ‘Fremderfahrungen kaiserlicher Diplomaten im Osmanischen Reich (1500–1648)’, in Michael Rohrschneider and Arno Strohmeyer (eds.), Wahrnehmungen des Fremden: Diffferenzerfahrungen von Diplomaten im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. (Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Neueren Geschichte e.V., 31.) Münster, 2007, 355–358; Joachim Eibach, ‘Annäherung – Abgrenzung – Exotisierung: Typen der Wahrnehmung des Anderen in Europa am Beispiel der Türken, Chinas und der Schweiz (16. bis frühes 19. Jahrhundert)’, in Joachim Eibach and Horst Carl (eds.), Europäische Wahrnehmungen 1650– 1850. Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Medienereignisse. (The Formation of Europe / Historische Formationen Europas, 3.) Hannover, 2008, 25–33. Busbecq, Reysen, 384–389. Almut Höfert, ‘Alteritätsdiskurse: Analyseparameter historischer Antagonismusnarrative und ihre historiographischen Folgen’, in Gabriele Haug-Moritz and Ludolf Pelizaeus (eds.), Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit. Münster, 2010, 30–35. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Zur historisch-politischen Semantik asymmetrischer Gegenbegrifffe’, in Idem, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten. Frankfurt am Main, 1989, 211–259; Höfert, ‘Alteritätsdiskurse’, 24–28.

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historian François Hartog described as “rhétorique de l’altérité”: comparisons, analogies and diffferentiations between the Ottomans and his home society, which constructed alterity.112 All in all, the knowledge transfer of Busbecq thus led to an ambivalent result. On the one hand the ambassador transported – sometimes profound – knowledge of the Ottomans and the Islam to his home society; in this sense, he was connecting Europe with the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, however, he helped to build those walls that separated Europe from the Ottoman world discursively.

Conclusions The case studies on the title of the Habsburg ruler by Süleyman and the obligations of the Habsburgs to pay tribute to the Ottomans show that cultural diffferences and fractures was flexibly bypassed. At the level of micro-historical practice, the culturally diverse actors communicated with each other. In so doing, meanings of political key concepts (for example, universalism, hierarchy) were constructed, influenced by the interests and the powerpolitical conditions. To be seen are various effforts to understand each other, to consider the diffferences of opinion, ambiguities and to compromise. Here, the cultural encounter had by no means only sharp rough edges. The transfer of knowledge about the Ottomans and the Islam – pejoratively, stereotypically, admirably, ethnographically – by the letters of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq illustrates that diplomacy could work unifying. However, the macro-level structure shows in a long-term perspective that the ideological rivalry only changed slowly. The problem of the title of the Habsburg Emperor was by no means solved after the Peace of Zsitvatorok (1606), for Ottoman dignitaries sometimes denied the emperor’s title until the 18th century. That is also the case with the demands of the Ottomans to the Habsburgs to pay tribute to the sultan which were repeated consistently in diplomatic everyday life in the 17th century. Likewise, the transferred knowledge strengthened the discourse of alterity, which separated the Ottoman Empire from Europe. The Habsburgs’ struggle for parity was not static, it changed, but only slowly and in close connection with the change of political power relations. A core phase were the decades after the Peace of Zsitvatorok, when the diplomatic contacts stabilized and the rivalry became part of an intensive culture of problem solving through diplomatic negotiations. A further change took place with the devastating 112

François Hartog, Le miroir d’Hérodote. Essai sur la représentation de l’autre. (Bibliothèque des Histoires) Paris, 1980.

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defeat of the Ottomans in the Great Turkish War at the end of the 17th century. Therefore, the ideological rivalry must be interpreted as a process, not as a conflict of unchangeable political ideas. Nor is it that two sharply separated cultures came into conflict. For this reason, it would be wrong to interpret the Habsburg–Ottoman relations as a “clash” in the sense of Huntington. Is another understanding of “clash” appropriate? In answering this question, it must be considered that it is a politically prejudiced term because of its use in public discourse. It should also be considered that the Turkish wars dominate the memory cultures in many countries. Therefore, when using the term, one must be aware of the risk of misinterpretation and political instrumentalisation. This danger, however, exists also, if one makes a one-sided emphasis on cultural contacts and “soft” transition zones, since this can lead to a distorted historical picture of a harmonious relationship; the profound diffferences and rivalries for centuries must not be underestimated. The task of a historical science which is aware of its political and social responsibility and does not refer only to the scientifijic discourse must leave the ivory tower of basic science talking only to colleagues. Scientifijically valid studies should correct distorted historical pictures and popularize diffferentiated views of Habsburg–Ottoman relationship to influence the political discourse and socio-political attitudes in European society.

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Intangible Cultural Exchanges: Christendom’s Eastern Frontier as Seen by Philip II’s Ambassador Chantonnay (1566)* Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científijicas (CSIC), Madrid [email protected]

Territories and Their Functions The siege and conquest of Szigetvár in 1566 is practically absent from Spanish historiography. And this is truly a serious defijiciency, because the siege of Szigetvár forms part of the sequence of confrontations which took place between the two empires in the Mediterranean.1 So I shall now be devoting a few lines to this event. The Spanish Empire – that is, the political, diplomatic, cultural and military power that spread out over both hemispheres and all known continents during the second half of the 16th century – was organised according to a government hierarchy based on the delegation of power by the king of Spain to his viceroys or governors. They, in turn, strove to maintain local structures through skilful pacts with territorial oligarchies, albeit at the service of the Catholic monarchs. Every viceroy was thus held accountable to the king in Madrid, whilst also being responsible for keeping the peace in the respective territory under his command. In turn, every territory contributed to the whole, just as it also received assistance from them all, whether by way of manpower, money or logistics. It is a fact that viceroys travelled from one area to another. Intermediate authorities, as well as local power families, often held positions of prestige within the plurinational imperial structure. Such is the case of “Monsieur de Chantonnay”, hailing, like his father and brothers, from Besançon, in the Franche-Comté region. * This paper is a result of the research project “Intercambios culturales personales tangibles e intangibles (ss. XVI–XVII)” (Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, no. de ref. HAR2014–55233–P), developed at the Spanish Research Council, CSIC under PhD Alfredo Alvar’s direction. 1 For many years in Spain the most used or known (almost the only one?) history of Hungary was that of Domokos Kosáry, Historia de Hungría. 2 vols. Madrid, 1944.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_012

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Further, each territory was assigned a “function” within this structure. Needless to say, for instance, that the Spanish territories in Italy acted as two large defence walls (Naples fijirst, followed by Sicily–Sardinia) against the Ottoman advance; they were also a great cultural source, and of course, enormous granaries and so on and so forth. In North Africa the important enclaves (presidios) of the king of Spain served to stem the “second invasion” of the Iberian Peninsula, expected with impatience. Genoa supplied ships and banking resources; Milan was a stronghold south of the Alps that enabled armies to be placed anywhere in Europe within a few days; the Franche-Comté and Flanders were the gateways to the northern world and a permanent siege of France. Thus, in just a few days, any army serving the king of Spain could move from Tunisia to Brussels, from Malaga to Genoa, on its way to Vienna. Each part was therefore endowed with concord and safety by the whole. And therefore, each part had to be involved to the benefijit of the whole. And what to say about the Indias! None of the above should surprise us: after all, was not Hungary the bulwark of Christendom?2 For it was standing against Ottoman Bosnia, which was a platform for the expansion of Islam, and its southern borders were forever in the spotlight between Venetians and Habsburgs seeking to erect a further border.3 I shall conclude these fijirst few lines with an example: Once the military operations were over in Hungary and the armies had returned to their winter headquarters, on 5 December 1566 Maximilian II wrote to the governor of Milan, Gabriel de la Cueva, duke of Alburquerque, to provide accommodation and provisions to the troops of Savoy which, after the war, were returning to that territory by cutting across the Duchy of Milan.4 This shows that holding Milan meant to hold the key to communications between the East and West of Europe (and between North and South).

The Western and Eastern Mediterranean as Viewed from Spain The Mediterranean was seen in Spain as the sea to be defended, insofar as it provided life to almost the entire empire. But it was also feared: Turks and 2 Tibor Martí, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis en Europa Central: la frontera húngara y croata de la monarquía de los Habsburgo en la época modernaʼ, Roberto Quirós Rosado and Cristina Bravo Lozano (eds.), Antemurales de la fe. Conflictividad confesional en la Monarquía de los Habsburgo, 1516–1714. Madrid, 2015, 181–195. 3 James D. Tracy, Balkan Wars: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia and Venetian Dalmatia. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London, 2016, 456. 4 Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Section: Estado (E), legajo 655, nr. 14.

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Berbers blighted its shores in rapid onslaughts in search of prisoners (enormous fijinancial resources in ransoms) and, to a lesser extent, in pursuit of commodities. Thus, neither Malta, nor insular Italy, nor mainland Italy, nor Balearic Spain or the coastline of Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia or Andalusia could live in peace. In order to put an end to this situation of instability and fear of setting sail, Emperor Charles V organised the memorable international campaign to recover Tunis in 1535. This astoundingly successful military operation was reflected in the literature, but above all in art, with the renowned series of tapestries of the “Conquest of Tunis”, of which even the cartoons are still kept.5 The dream was that as of 1535 the entire Eastern Mediterranean would be a Spanish and peaceful sea. But a blemish still remained to tarnish this picture of bliss: Algiers. While Charles V was away from Spain, his wife Isabella encouraged him time and again to organise a campaign to defend his Spanish subjects against Algiers. The preparation of the 1535 Tunis campaign was kept under wraps until the very end. Isabella herself did not become aware of the destination of the fleets being organised in Barcelona and Malaga until the last minute. The 1535 campaign was directed against Tunis, as opposed to Algiers, and this was a disappointment for Isabella. However, after her death in 1539, Charles V decided, as a tribute to the memory of his wife, to organise a large campaign against Algiers which, unfortunately, was a complete failure (1541). Had Algiers been conquered in 1541, from Tunis, Malta and Sicily, almost all the territories in the Eastern Mediterranean would have been either Spanish or Spanish allies. Peace, calm and tranquillity would have reigned throughout this region of the continent. But this was not to be. The large blemish of Algiers remained and the strategy in the Mediterranean altered the most optimistic outlook of the king of Spain. Algiers, “universal haven for corsairs, shelter and refuge for thieves” (Cervantes, Persiles, 1617), remained entrenched in the midst of the Mediterranean “pocket”. There were kings who tried to improve on the greatness of Charles V. And, in this endeavour, they improved on his defeats. Philip III of Spain tried, once again, to conquer Algiers6 with no success, but managed to occupy Larache (1610) and Mamora (1614) on the Atlantic coast. Both cities remained under Spanish rule until 1689. During the reign of Charles III, two bombardments of 5 Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra and José Ignacio Ruiz Rodríguez (eds.), Túnez, 1535. Madrid, 2010, 233. 6 Miguel A. Bunes Ibarra, ‘Felipe III y la defensa del Mediterráneo: la conquista de Argelʼ, in Enrique García Hernán and Davide Mafffiji (eds.), Guerra y sociedad en la monarquía hispánica: política, estrategia y cultura en la Europa moderna (1500–1700). Vol. 1. 2006, 921–946.

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Algiers took place in 1783 and 1784, culminating with the signing of a peace treaty in 1786. The damage caused by the Algerians to the Mediterranean coastline was constant. Occasionally, the attacks remained ingrained in the collective memory for centuries, as is the case of the Island of Minorca. In the main square of its capital city, Ciudadela or Ciutadella, there is a monument to those killed in the siege and destruction of 1558. The names of adjacent streets are still today a reminder of a harrowing past: that of the Degollados (the Beheaded), that of 9 July [1558]… From Mohács (29 August 1526) to the siege of Vienna (Autumn 1529), the Ottoman threat was at the gates of Western Christendom. There was also the powerlessness of Ferdinand I who, without the help of Charles V, would have most probably fallen victim to the Ottoman advance – it was thought in those times in Spain. In fact, in 16th-century Spanish historiography, Charles V is much more present in matters of the empire than Ferdinand I, who has almost become “forgotten”.7 It has been asserted that during the reign of Süleyman, the central axis of his policy “was to push the Habsburgs out of Transylvania and to return the principality to the heir of the House of Szapolyai, John Sigismund.”8 The fact is that – as pointed out by Lajos Rúzsás – Ferdinand I managed to instil in Hungary the idea that the only campaign to be waged against the Turks was a defensive war.9 If we performed a brief review of dates, it would lead us to wonder whether there was any year in which nothing actually happened. Evidently not: while all this was going on at one end of the Mediterranean shore, things were not much calmer at the other. However, on the other side of Europe, in the heart of the continent – as Hungarian historiography, especially Lajos Rúzsás has established – “the impetus of the Ottoman attacks had in fact been waning since 1532”.10 If this were the case, this cycle of unstable tranquillity would have been altered since 7

8 9

10

Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, ‘El olvido historiográfijico de Fernando de Austriaʼ, in Alfredo Alvar E. (ed.), Socialización, vida privada y actividad pública de un emperador del Renacimiento. Fernando I (1503–1564). Madrid, 2004, 27–54. Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe. A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1520–1566). Budapest, 2015, 131. Lajos Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvár of 1566: Its Signifijicance in Hungarian Social Developmentʼ, in János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. (Eastern European Monographs, CIV.) Brooklyn, NY, 1982, 252. Rúzsás, ibid.

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before 1555–1556, prior to the fijirst two sieges of Szigetvár. Perhaps the waning of such attacks was due to the proliferation of reconstruction works or the building of watchtowers and castles along the entire border, as of those years and more so as of 1550–1560, with more than one hundred constructions having been erected.11 In fact, the towns of Eger, Szigetvár and Gyula “attacked and plundered territories held by the Ottomans with growing audacity”, so that by 1565 Sultan Süleyman was obliged to strengthen his military support of John Sigismund, in an attempt to stabilise Ottoman dominion in Hungary.12 If the atmosphere had remained the same since 1532 (that is, since the second siege of Vienna), with localised skirmishes, and therefore no expectations of outright war, what happened to cause the commencement of the campaigns in 1555–56? Fodor has restated the traditional view that the campaigns were begun by a more belligerent vizier or were caused either by a default in the peace taxes payable by the Habsburgs or by an efffort on the part of the sultan to rebuild his damaged credibility as a military leader. In short, could it be argued that to a large extent the defence of the Eastern Mediterranean was a matter for the king of Spain in the event of failure by other players, such as the Venetians? The defence of the imperial territories along the Hungarian–Ottoman border was a family matter, and a matter interesting the local feudal families: the Habsburgs hand in hand with the feudal territorial magnates. Indeed, the instability caused by the so-called “War of Hungary” (which in Spain was interpreted as the division of the kingdom, following the Battle of Mohács, between the House of Habsburg, the Principality of Transylvania and the Turks), would have necessitated the collaboration between the cousins, Maximilian II and Philip II.

Thomas Perrenot de Granvelle (Monsieur de Chantonnay, or “Chantoné”), Ambassador to the Emperor At this point “my” main character, the Sieur de Chantonnay, Thomas Perrenot de Granvelle, makes his entrance. He was appointed ambassador to the emperor in 1565, and he sent his fijirst letter to Philip II from the imperial court on 25 April of that year.13 During his perilous journey to Vienna he became 11 12 13

Martí, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, 187–l89. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 129. The correspondence of this embassy can be found in bundles 652 and following of AGS, section Estado. This dossier contains documents such as the “Instruction of what you, faithful and beloved Thomas Perenot, sieur de Chantonnay – from our Council – must do

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acquainted with some of the issues he would be facing. In fact, some of the matters already rang a bell; of others he knew nothing: “About what is going on in Transylvania … I am not informed of the certainty [of the news available, and therefore] shall cease writing reports.”14 This disdain, “I shall cease writing” on the matters about which I know nothing, will take a diffferent turn upon arrival in Vienna and becoming aware of the importance of what is about to happen throughout 1566. His epistolary reveals a deep knowledge of what was taking place in Hungary. At the end of February, he had met Emperor Maximilian in Augsburg, during the Imperial Diet, on his way to Vienna.15 Among other matters they discussed the deployment of troops for the war in Hungary or the defence of Tunis and La Goulette, and the support of Philip II. Maximilian wanted the Musterplätze (in Spanish, las plazas de muestra, that is, the places where the troops parades were made), to be in Italy, whereas Chantonnay requested that they be in “Germany”. The reason was obvious: If there was no money for the troops at the fijirst military parade, there would be some outcry. Those soldiers would be German. However, the emperor was concerned because perhaps some of the oligarchs would not allow them to move from some territories to others, if the latter were enemy, or not amicable, territories. So Chantonnay would despair: If to gather an army of Germans to fijight against the Turks was this hard, he did not care to imagine what would happen if it had to be organised to fijight against the French. Moreover, these German soldiers were keener to remain garrisoned in Italy rather than in any other location, as Italy was closer to home. In the end, the Musterplätze were Milan and the area surrounding Trent.16

14 15 16

and negotiate in Germany to where I hereby send you” (E–652, 205 and 208) as well as all his letters. The drafts of the credentials for Archduke Ferdinand, the emperor, etc., are found in E–652, 206, 207. Dr. Tibor Martí has informed me that in the volume Samu Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris et diplomaticus Comitis Nicolai de Zrinio / Zrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős életére vonatkozó levelek és okiratok. Vol. II. (Monumenta Hungariae Historica. Diplomataria, 30.) Budapest, 1899, there are published partially or in abstract some letters of Chantonnay: Győr/Javarino, 22 September 1566, pp. 72–74: No. LXII; Győr/Javarino, 24 September 1566, pp. 75–76: No. LXIII; Győr/Javarino, 5 October 1566, pp. 85–86: No. LXVIII; or “Campo del Emperador”, 16 Octobre 1566, p. 87: No. LXIX; Vienna, 2 November 1566, p. 90: No. LXXI. In document No. LXII is included a part of another document which below we will analyse in detail. Chantonnay to Philip II, Mustorfa (Musdorf, Germany), 20 Mach 1565, AGS, E–653, 17. The report from ambassador Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 15 February 1566, AGS, E–655, 22. Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 12 March 1566, AGS, E–655, 30.

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However, the Turkish advance in Hungary could not have happened at a worse time, given that in the midst of the Augsburg Diet, while discussing whether or not to accept the Council of Trent, “the main Protestant princes say that this time the emperor must clearly declare what religion he belongs to, as they wish to know whom they are dealing with. And others say that if His Majesty wishes to have help against the Turks, he must not believe that this will be provided without some concessions made to the advantage of the Protestants. Please God that everything may conclude as befijits His service. This news of the arrival of the Turks in Hungary, could not come, in my opinion, at a worse time, given what I have always feared…”.17 The ambassador sighed with relief when he saw that Maximilian was aware that the Turkish presence in Hungary was encouraged by France, and therefore it would be highly advantageous to settle the marriage between Archduchess Elizabeth (daughter of Maximilian II and Mary of Spain, 1554–1592) as soon as possible with the king of France, Charles IX. The espousal took place in 1570. And, fijinally, everything in that month of February 1566 pointed towards the preparations of the Turks being in earnest and that the Venetians were expecting help from the king of Spain to decide on action to be taken and that serious problems were on the horizon. The worst omens came true. On 19 March 1566, all the foregoing became an evident alarm.

Chantonnay in the Face of the “Arrival of the Turks” “The news of the arrival of the Turks in Hungary was confijirmed.” The numbers of enemy troops deployed, horrifying: “About two hundred and fijifty thousand men without the Tartars – some fijifty thousand – are believed to have arrived. There are many ships for bridges as well as those that have been ordered to be built and which are in Buda.” The uncertain movement of the Turkish army was signifijicant, but it was suspected that it would “take Transylvania and these bridges suggest that it will cross Moravia and all the flatlands and burn and destroy everything”. In the face of the feared devastation, “from now on all the people of those regions must begin to gather whatever they can and leave their homes behind”; “there will be dire necessity in all those lands and in the surrounding areas supplied by them”.

17

Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 15 February 1566, AGS, E–655, 22.

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The Poles were suspected of supporting the prince of Transylvania, but they tried to warn him against dealing with the Turks, for if they, the Poles entered Transylvania and “having gained those mountains, they would be unable to keep them anyway”. Likewise, it seems that some Polish lords swore loyalty to the emperor, but he preferred to have them defending “Pausonia” (?) (Cassovia?) now abandoned by the voivode.18 And if the Turkish military deployment was under way, it was evident that the campaign would be implacable: spies had been sent from Constantinople to Augsburg, Sicily, Naples, Malta…19 In light of the situation, in the Augsburg Diet, the emperor asked the German princes for 45,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalrymen, for eight months, and half thereof for another six years. This seemed meagre to Chantonnay, given the size of Germany and the approaching danger. But he was obliged to report to Philip II that others were complaining that Maximilian I in 1510 had asked for 500 ordinary horses and not managed to get them; that they did not realise that now Hungary was devastated and that the Turks were upon it.20 At the beginning of April the tragedy began to unfold. It seems that the fijirst skirmishes were taking place (“the Turks are starting to make inroads in those regions [in Austria?], up to twelve thousand horses and four thousand infantrymen, who have already captured a few souls…”), one of the colonels perished amid his troops, it became difffijicult to move the troops or fear began to spread among the men. The king of Poland “made it understood that if the Turks wanted forty thousand Tartars to step in, he would not deny this”; and in Augsburg and even in Vienna or Prague, “the fear at the arrival of the Turks and the downheartedness of our men is such since they have been asked provide themselves with weapons and horses, that they already believe the enemy is within. From Vienna and the vicinity many people are escaping, as if the siege was actually happening”. Only one person seemed ready to stay and face the enemy: Archduke Charles, but he “is unable to stop or restrain them”. Moreover, the renowned “Suendi” (Lazarus von Schwendi) expected to be appointed commander-in-chief of all the men entering Hungary, and the appointment was not happening; and to make matters worse, “the Hungarians are surly, [written in codes:], they appear to have poor relations with the emperor and it is certain that he does not trust them” and he concludes that the mistrust between them already had a precedent in history: “A situation such as this caused the ruin and death of King Louis, the emperor’s uncle.”21 18 19 20 21

Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 19 March 1566, AGS, E–655, 31. Ibid. Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 26 March 1566, AGS, E–655, 32. Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 5 April 1566, AGS, E–655, 33.

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There was a last attempt to put a stop to the Turkish advance (“in those days one envoy left Comar [Komárom] in Hungary sent by the emperor to Constantinople, but I think it is too late to redirect or put a stop to the Turkish plan”). But there was no confijidence, even with regard to Charles IX, or among the “few friends that Your Majesty has in Germany”.22 On 3 May 1566, Chantonnay foretold a catastrophe: The amount of people that could be deployed to Hungary was not known; the private interests of the potential army commanders led them to reject the imperial proposals and, although three captaincies had been created, about twelve were actually needed. They all presented their excuses to the emperor and no one seemed to be aware of the gravity of the situation.23 To make matters worse, the “curious” Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529–1595) was on the brink of death and his father was convinced that a spell had been put on him by his lover Filipina to prevent him from going to war.24 Finally, the Augsburg Diet came to an end and the emperor returned to Vienna. Meanwhile Chantonnay received unsettling news from Flanders, and, above all, the information about the failure of the Turkish siege of Palota, which was transmitted by a spy (so-called “language”). Despite this success, the ambassador was convinced that “I do not know anyone close to the emperor who could veritably call himself a soldier to give advice on this enterprise”. The Turks were too large an enemy. If there were victories, these were due to good luck; from information provided by the spies it was known that the fijinal decision to lift the siege of Palota was due to somene who, influenced by the news received from the spy, warned the pasha that an immense army was descending upon them. It turned out that this army was a mere 400 carts that stirred up a lot of dust, ready to cut fijirewood. That night they must have lit a few bonfijires and this confijirmed to the sentinels that this was indeed a very big army. The Turks lifted the siege in a hurry; “he [the pasha] was so unhappy that he has hanged all those who had reported on the dust of the carts.”25 Then the pasha himself was garrotted, on account of having lost Tata, Veszprém and after the ridicule of Palota.26 Süleyman the Magnifijicent was expected to appear in Hungary, although it was said that he was sufffering from gout.

22 23 24 25 26

Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 12 April 1566, AGS, E–655, 34. Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 3 May 1566, AGS, E–655, 40; Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 10 May 1566, AGS, E–655, 40. Chantonnay to Philip II, Augsburg, 15 May 1566, AGS, E–655, 44. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 29 June 1566, AGS, E–655, 52. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 14 August 1566, AGS, E–655, 56.

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Maximilian II had begun with his calculations and his fear was a powerful army of 31,000 infantry and 35,000 cavalrymen. So he was lacking men and, except for the Hungarian cavalry, all the other knights were inexperienced. Only the personal presence of the emperor at the front could encourage another 2,000 cavalrymen from the duke of Saxony, but these would take some time to reach the border.27 And although another 2,000 were expected from Ferrara, Archduke Charles was sufffering from smallpox and Ferdinand, weak and thin, could hardly keep upright.28 This was the situation in the months of July and August 1566. The skirmishes continued, and they were reported on from Vienna as of the beginning of July 1566. By mid-month the army had crossed the Danube. Chantonnay was greatly discouraged: “I am afraid for Agria, Yula and Cazovia (Eger, Gyula and Kassa/Košice), which will perhaps be lost, and we cannot send them support, and also for Tokay and Satmar (Tokaj, Szatmár/Satu Mare), if they are not benefijited by the rising rivers.” Only rising river levels could save Hungary. The idea was to direct the imperial army against Buda, so that Süleyman was forced to go to its aid thus weakening his position elsewhere. But the imperial army, with soldiers coming from the north of Italy, took its time to arrive, “and the German cavalry was very delayed”.29 Further south, however, there was an important fortress: Szigetvár, a strategic point in the defence of the Danube. When, in 1555, Ali Pasha was appointed commander of the Ottoman army in Hungary, his fijirst mission was to conquer this stronghold.30 The siege took place the following year; but it was lifted after a few weeks.

Chantonnay and “Çiguet” (Sziget) The fijirst time that the fortress of Sziget(vár) is mentioned in this rich collection of weekly reports about what was going on at the borders was on 13 July. But the place name is written phonetically, as it would sound in Spanish, “Çiguet”. This was on the occasion of a skirmish with a district governor (sancakbeyi) moving from Bosnia to the Turkish camp. He and his guards were attacked in

27 28 29 30

Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 14 August 1566, AGS, E–655, 56. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 15 June 1566, AGS, E–655, 46; received in Madrid on 17 July. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 13 July 1566, AGS, E–655, 48. Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvár’, 253.

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the vicinity of the fortress,31 now defended by the hero Zrínyi, who not only defended the fortress and the adjacent strongholds, but also his own feudal domain.32 The skirmishes and concerns were on the rise throughout the summer. But for the king of Spain the main problem was not the situation on the Hungarian– Ottoman border, but what was starting to brew in Flanders, where his presence was required. He intended to go, but the death of the crown prince in 1568 put an end to that project. Chantonnay writes that “having found myself alone with the emperor and the empress, the emperor told me that he had received letters from Flanders stating that those states were in a poor situation, that religion was laying them to waste and that it was preached in all corners of the region to large crowds, and that if Your Majesty delayed his visit any longer it would be impossible not to lose them…”33 By mid-August, even though nobody had seen Süleyman in person (despite the many spies deployed or people who may have caught a glimpse of him during his travels), the movement of his army was greatly feared: over 200,000 people and some 1,000 camels. Providing a possible respite for the emperor were the rising river tides, which were said to be carrying the most water in 30 years.34 Allegedly, the Turks were forced to abandon the siege of Gyula (35,000 besiegers, 5,000 dead, of which 2,000 were janissaries) precisely on account of the river levels (this proved to be fake news). When Maximilian marched to Tata without Italian support, the Transylvanians were receiving the Turks with open arms. Meanwhile, in Sziget, Count “Serim” (Miklós Zrínyi) was waiting for reinforcements from Germany, which were taking their time: “I am afraid about this attack on Sziget because it is well within the enemy camp and whoever should go and help them would fijind it difffijicult to ensure provisions, given the amount of small Turkish castles on the way, and Estrigonia, Buda and Albarragal (Esztergom, Buda and Székesfehérvár) would be left far behind…”35 8,000 Tartars appeared elsewhere and the French aristocracy was preparing an army to attack Florida, on the other side of the Atlantic, which greatly pleased Charles IX as this would get a load of “unsettled” people offf his back.36 31 32 33 34 35 36

Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 13 July 1566, AGS, E–655, 48. Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvár’, 253. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 20 July 1566, AGS, E–655, 49. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 20 July 1566, AGS, E–655, 49; received in Madrid on 18 August 1566. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 27 July 1566, AGS, E–655, 50; received on 4 September. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 3 August 1566, AGS, E–655, 54; also received on 4 September.

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By mid-August 1566 the fact was now evident: “With the decision taken to siege Sziget, if you should walk onwards you could cross the entire country and rush to this place [Vienna] with no opposition.” In order to defend Sziget, a decoy siege had to be carried out in a diffferent location, but other fortifijications were unprotected, so that “many times I have written to Your Majesty that what I most fear is the absence of people to form the government and the council, rather than the actual enemies”.37 In summary, the Spanish ambassador considered that Sziget meant to Vienna or to the empire what Vienna meant to Christendom.38 But naturally, if at the end of Süleyman’s reign the great achievement had been the conquest of Sziget, in lieu of Vienna, for example, it could seem slightly ridiculous. So much so that – and I quote Fodor – Szigetvár “could even be a symbol of the failure of Ottoman ambitions for world domination”.39 Chantonnay kept on receiving timely reports on the skirmishes happening in Sziget, on the large artifijicial mountain created by the Turks to enable them to assault the town, on the valour and high spirits of Zrínyi and his people and how they had even managed to take Turkish prisoners and heads… Reports on all this were sent by him to Philip II on 14 August 1566. The situation was now tragic. On 19 August 1566, the ambassador was about to visit the emperor, who in turn was about to set offf to rescue the fortress.40 And, eventually, the attacks began. The fijirst onslaught “lasted … from eleven in the morning to midday the following day, and although the fijighting was not too intense at night it showed that those within the walls would be unable to rest. Close to four thousand Turks, as reported, died in the attack; no numbers of those who died inside are known”. Even the Grand Turk personally approached the soldiers to encourage them. The men within the city walls fijired their artillery when the beylerbeyi of Anatolia and his retinue were near, killing the beylerbeyi. The heroic defence provoked the wrath of Süleyman: As the ambassador had suspected, he refused to lift the siege until the fortress was defeated. Should this be the case, “all the states of Archduke Charles would have little to do”. It is not surprising that Carinthia was a territory taking part in the Hungarian war, as we shall shortly see.

37 38 39 40

Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 14 August 1566, AGS, E–655, 56. Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvárʼ, 254–258. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 132. “I shall arrive tomorrow – God willing – where the emperor is, and should I learn any further news I shall advise Your Majesty.” Chantonnay to Philip II, Pallesdorf (Bezenye), 19 August 1566, AGS, E–655, 57.

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At the beginning of September, reports were sent to Madrid that the Turks had already attempted three attacks on the town of Sziget, which continued to be defended by Zrínyi.41 But there was great confusion: News from Sziget was received via the letters sent by Zrínyi, or listening to the rumours in the vicinity and, being unable to verify them, the ambassador accepted them as they were. In this regard, for instance, “last night we got news from Boboche (Babócsa), a castle not too far from Sziget”, according to which, “on the twenty-sixth of August the Turks had attacked Sziget and lost one thousand men, and during the Turkish withdrawal, we had come out and captured the agha of the janissaries and imprisoned him in the castle”. Similar reports had greatly encouraged the imperial camp, but the prudent ambassador expressed his concern: “I am worried because the news does not specify whether the attack was on the town or on the castle”, and he assumed the town to have been lost because there would never be sufffijicient support to put a stop to the permanent, reiterated and relentless onslaught of the Turks. Moreover, once Sziget had been taken, Chantonnay predicted, this will never be snatched back from the Turks.42 In subsequent reports it is Flanders which most concerns the ambassador. However, as he remained at the imperial camp, he continued his exhaustive reporting on the attack on Sziget and, more generally, on the battles in Hungary. On 22 September 1566 he reported to Madrid that during the thwarting of a skirmish, the sancakbeyi of Albarragal (Székesfehérvár/İstolni Belgrad), “the main sancakbeyi in Hungary”, was taken prisoner and sent to the emperor. He was interrogated and he declared that the Turks would never leave Sziget and that Gyula had just fallen (resulting in the death of 5,000 Turks, of which 2,000 were janissaries). Interestingly, as they were not aware of this in the imperial camp, they did not believe him. Nevertheless, a few days later news arrived confijirming the loss of the town and informing that, despite having surrendered, “the Turks had beheaded all those within it”, except for the “Carachil (captain László Kerecsényi) and his brother” who had been the negotiators.43 However, a few days later, news arrived of what had just happened in Sziget. It is an epic account: The Turks had attempted fijifteen attacks and, from the artifijicial mountain, could see the inside of the castle, where there remained no more than “fijive or six hundred men” heroically defending the town. In fact,

41 42 43

Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, two leagues away from Komárom, 2 September 1566, AGS, E–655, 58. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, two leagues away from Komárom, 4 September 1566, AGS, E–655, 59. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the imperial camp in Javerin (Győr), 22 September 1566, AGS, E– 655, 63. In fact, Kristóf Somlyai Báthory of Transylvania was the negotiator.

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Count Zrínyi had captured the hagá (agha) of the janissaries, had impaled him and exhibited for the Turks to see. On 7 September there was another attack lasting three hours, which the defenders were unable to withstand. They all died, except the count: “He fought relentlessly and was ultimately forced to withdraw to a small bridge which nobody dared reach, bearing only his scimitar. The [Grand] Turk told him to surrender to avoid being killed, assuring him he would be treated fairly. He refused and in the end they sent a janissary to fijire an harquebus blast at him, which he did. The count nonetheless managed to keep upright, calling them ‘dogs’ and daring them to get closer. They then fijired another shot to his body and one to his head. He fell. They cut his head offf and took it to Süleyman who, on seeing it, asked whether this was the count; once assured that it was, he shouted at it: ‘Corbato, corbato! (that is, Croat, Croat!); how many times did I tell you to hand over the town and you refused, now you have left it to me along with your head.’ Nonetheless, as a tribute to the bravery of the count, he ordered that yellow tafffeta be placed over the deceased’s face, with the head wrapped in black velvet and placed on a rug on the ground. After having remained there for one day, they took it to the pasha of Buda, who sent it wrapped up in crimson tafffeta to the count of Salm (Eck Graf zu Salm und Neuburg) who was in Komárom, and on Sunday the fijifteenth, when all the inhabitants of Komárom gathered with this camp before Győr, they placed it in a carriage draped in black velvet with a white cross on top, to be paraded before the Hungarian squadron at the gateway of the place; the emperor had ordered the carriage to stop in the camp and for all the warlords to walk beside it to the church and for the clergy to come outside: One of the main Hungarians, who is a heretic, while the emperor reviewed the squadrons of people that arrived, hurried the carriage on and arrived at the door of the church with no ceremony or accompaniment. It was sad to see all the Hungarians weeping for the deceased who had courageously fought in all the janissaries attacks… And he was dressed in the most elegant of outfijits with silver fabric and many body ornaments. We don’t know what they did with him, but that they cut offf his hands in order to take offf a few gold bracelets.”44 This lengthy and laconic memorial was followed by other letters containing other news, such as the death in the last attack on Sziget of Ali Portuk, sanjakbeyi of Rhodes, who had been wounded in Malta in 1565,45 or that other towns – after receiving news of Sziget – had sworn to fijight to the end (like the people of Bobxa 44 45

Chantonnay to Philip II, from the imperial camp in Győr, 22 September 1566, AGS, E– 655, 63. Ibid. In fact, he was killed in the battles at the end of August.

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[sic]), whereas those from Boboche [Babócsa] had fled from the fortress).46 It seems that right after the fall of Sziget, the town walls was being rebuilt, whereby all the inhabitants within seven leagues were ordered to bring the wood and manpower necessary for the reconstruction “on pain of death”.47 This report of 22 September is very lengthy and almost all of it is coded. When reread carefully, certain turns of phrase stand out: “the loss [of Sziget] has caused much distress in this camp”; “much fear has been felt by those in charge of the border towns on seeing the lack of assistance [in Sziget] against the power of the enemy…”; “I am afraid that none of these lesser towns [Veszprém, Tata, Babócsa, Pápa] will not want to wait for the attack” and will surrender before; there are rumours warning that the Turks could carry out a “razzia against Austria and Moravia”; news has arrived that the Turks “have left Sziget and are heading to attack this place of Győr … and Komárom” and although the emperor had lifted the camp, the loss of these towns was assumed: “If it [Komárom] were attacked I do not know how it could be helped”; perhaps the Turks could enter to “destroy the country from here to Vienna and, if this happens, it means the loss of all borders to that point”; “all these fortresses are an enormous joke against the efffort of the Turks”; and, in short, “it might be the case that if the [Grand] Turk should perish in these attacks it could be his son, seeking to counteract the poor opinion held of him, who would carry on the war, so I am not convinced that what is left of Hungary, or even of Moravia or part of Austria, would be kept…”, or even “however fortifijied [Vienna] may be, if the Turks should reach it, I am certain that they would conquer it in less than a month … please God that it [the siege of Vienna] is never carried out by the Turk, that if [break in the document] a universal efffort is not made by all to fijight, the city would be lost.”48 Having taken Sziget, the Turks went further, entering Austria, which was being defended with courage by Archduke Charles.49 And in the midst of all this agitation, strange rumours began to be spread: It was not known whether or not Süleyman had died; a physician of the Turk was said to have clearly informed a pasha thereof in Sziget; from the sancakbeyi of Estergon alarming news was arriving that the death of Süleyman was being covered up…50 46 47

48 49 50

Ibid. Ibid. For the Ottoman repair work in the fortress, see Pál Fodor, ‘Bauarbeiten der Türken an den Burgen von Ungarn im 16.–17. Jahrhundert‘, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 35:1 (1981) 56–57, 74. See note 44; received in Madrid on 15 October 1566. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, 5 October 1566, AGS, E–655, 64. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, 5 October 1566. AGS, E–655, 64: “Every day we expect news on the Turk, whether he is dead or alive, because according to the spies and

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This confusion seems to have confijirmed the predictions written by a spy in Constantinople on 3 August 1566, in a letter to Philip II, hitherto unpublished: “A janissary arrived yesterday from the camp, with letters from the Grand Turk to the sultana … in which he wrote that he would hopefully return home in October.” And the spy continued resuming the letters as follows: “The [Grand] Turk was well and very happy because some Frenchmen and a few Italians had crossed over to his ranks, since they were neither paid nor valued by the Germans” and he was grateful for the great assistance received from the prince of Transylvania. Moreover, this janissary clearly stated that the “Christians felt afffijinity with the Turks on many occasions, which he found remarkable and amazing” and, in summary “they say that they have a very poor feeling about this war because the moon placed on the mosque by the emperor who won Constantinople had fallen and this and other signs led them to believe that the empire would expire with the end of the life of the [Grand] Turk…”, etc.51

News of the War in Hungary in the Letters of the Future Imperial Ambassador to Madrid, Hans Khevenhüller At this point another of our characters enters the stage. This is Hans Khevenhüller, who for the time being was only a gentleman in the imperial court, but who subsequently, for almost 40 years, served as imperial ambassador to Philip II. Hans Khevenhüller left a Khürzer extrakt of his lineage and his own biography. The original text is kept in Vienna52 and was transcribed and published by Georg Khevenhüller in 1971.53 Recently we have translated it into Spanish and made comments thereto.54 In 1566, he was ready to travel to Spain to congratulate Philip II on the birth of his daughter, Isabel Clara Eugenia. The imperial letters at the beginning of October were very long and Maximilian had planned to give them to the Spanish king via “Keveniller, gentleman of the imperial court” to present them by hand in Madrid.

51 52 53 54

renegades we have seen, he was deemed terminal by the physicians, and in the mosque built in Sziget, according to their custom to thank God for victory, the Turk in person did not attend, which is something he always does.” Library of Francisco Zabálburu, col. Altamira 219/25. Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Hausarchiv, Sammelbände, 85–89. Hans Khevenhüller, Geheimes Tagebuch (1548–1605). Hrsg. von Georg Khevenhüller-Metsch, für den Druck bearbeitet von Günther Probszt-Ohstorfff. Graz, 1971. Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, El Embajador imperial Hans Khevenhüller (1538–1606) en España. Madrid, 2015, 750.

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In his history of the lineage and in his autobiography, in the pages devoted to 1566, he mentions the war in Hungary (which is not only the war in Transylvania, as I mistakenly interpreted in my translation), and that he had been sent to Rome, Florence and Lucca to request cooperation in the war against the Turks. Finally, he joined the imperial army which had been inspected in Vienna by Maximilian II on 29 July; the emperor set offf on 7 August, including Archdukes Charles and Ferdinand in his ranks who had joined up in July and in August, respectively. Charles was recovering from a bout of smallpox, and soon Ferdinand left the campaign due to health problems. The accounts of events provided by Chantonnay and Khevenhüller are similar in their substance, but there are more details in the letters of the ambassador to Philip II. Both accounts are also similar in terms of the confusion and misunderstandings they reflect: “Once Szigetvár had been conquered … the Turkish emperor personally wished to visit His Imperial Majesty”, etc.55 Both accounts coincide (what information sources did they have, maybe the same one?) in how the imperial army was very gradually and hopelessly becoming smaller, despite the gravity of the situation and the arrival of soldiers from Italy and Germany. This desperation is described by Chantonnay: “Your Majesty will remember that on occasions I have written to you about being more afraid of the lack of governance here than of the Turks, … the whole camp is talking about this, while recalling the wars of Emperor Charles of glorious memory and those of Your Majesty, as well as the men of valour and experience involved in them. Everything is very confused because the emperor and the archduke have little assistance and there are not many men on whom they can rely, so obedience and respect are scarce. I am not sure whether this is due to the emperor’s informality and permissiveness or to the fact that the soldiers’ hopes of being granted a large reward have been dashed.” Outrageous demands are made from the emperor “and there is no justice or punishment”. If one wished to accomplish anything in 1567, then “another course” would have to be followed.56 And even in mid-October 1566, when Khevenhüller was preparing to travel to Spain and the imperial standard was heading for Altenburg, which was seen as marking the end of the war in that year, there was no news on Süleyman.57 Interestingly, more news arrived via Venice than via any other route to the 55 56 57

“Als nun Siget erobert … der türggisch Kaiser welle persönlich I. K. Mt besuechen…”; Khevenhüller, Geheimes Tagebuch, 27. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, 5 October 1566, AGS, E–655, 64. Chantonnay to Philip II, from the camp, 16 October 1566, AGS, E–655, 64.

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imperial court, now settled in Vienna in November. Every new report was more outrageous than the preceding one: “Everything is unclear”; “the emperor told me yesterday that he had heard the new Turk [the sultan] had died”, information which obviously was not accurate. Only after his arrival in Vienna and towards the end of October 1566, when Maximilian II arrived in the city, did the ambassador of Venice confijirm the news of the death of Süleyman on 5 September 1566 (in fact, he died on 7 September), which led Chantonnay to lament: “We have spent two months without being certain, and it has had to come via Venice that he died three days before the fall of Sziget; so what I described in such detail about what he had said when he took the head of Count Zrínyi was based on the news I had and what His Majesty himself had told me.”58 In summary, at the end of the year, a degree of calm reached that part of Europe (but not for long): “There is no news for the time being from Hungary, and if the Turks are getting up to anything, this is of little importance and they would continue their actions even if there were a truce.”59

Conclusions First, the correspondence of ambassador Chantonnay from the empire highlights the extent to which Hungary was, in the eyes of Madrid, a cause for constant concern or calm. Hungary was, indeed, the bulwark of Christendom. Second, the Kingdom of Hungary boasted of a “functional” system of defensive/offfensive fortresses just like those built along the Spanish coastlines at the time of Charles V or Philip II, or inland during the time of the Reconquista. Watchtowers protected by garrisons of various logistics capacities, fortresses, walled cities and so on.60 Third, in a certain way, the political situation could be seen by folding a map of Christendom, from the south of Poland to the north of Africa, and from west to east, with matching events on land and at sea. Thus, for instance, the death of Süleyman and the “national” sacrifijice at Sziget would fijind their match in Cyprus and this, in turn, as part of a spiralling cycle of events, in Lepanto. Can we thus argue that without the Sziget events, the Battle of Lepanto would never have occurred? Defijinitely, because without the Ottoman advance there would 58 59 60

Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 2 November 1566, AGS, E–655, 67; received on 20 November 1566. Chantonnay to Philip II, Vienna, 15 January 1567, AGS, E–656, 1. Martí, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, passim.

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not have been a war in the land or maritime borders of Christendom, or the siege of Malta (until September 1565) or the conquest of Cyprus (August 1571). Fourth, Süleyman left his successors a non-written “will” (or order) to conquer Vienna, for which Szigetvár was a strategic staging post. Fifth, I believe the opinion of Professor Pálfffy, expressed in his excellent monograph on the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy, to be absolutely correct insofar as the changes that took place after Mohács “would determine not only Hungary’s but also central Europe’s history for several centuries”.61 And the truth is that, indeed, if the Ottoman presence beyond the Balkans had the consequences that it did, these are not restricted only to this part of Europe, but are closely linked to the most important war events in the Mediterranean. In fact, as Pálfffy points out: “After 1526, the Kingdom of Hungary became an organic component of the strongest alliance in Europe”, and indeed, “Hungary received the most signifijicant military and fijinancial assistance in sixteenth-century Europe, in return for which Hungary guaranteed the Monarchy’s protection and peaceful development”.62 The Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century writing on those times were clearly concerned about the situation in Hungary, the bulwark of Christendom. Charles V himself had deployed Spanish troops (tercios) – between 10,000 and 12,000 men – in the territories of Hungary, as was pointed out by Zoltán Korpás,63 although from a micro-geographical perspective Hungary was essential for its contribution of commodities, victuals, meat and other supplies. The fact is that, unfailingly, all the territories in an empire perform a function or, in the absence thereof, are abandoned or their relations become a problem. For this functionality to work it is clear that the agreement with the territorial elites must be efffective. This is what the Ottomans attempted with Transylvania and what the Habsburgs managed to achieve with Hungary. Philip II wanted to be kept abreast of everything that was going on in that part of Europe. He thus required that Chantonnay report all what was discussed in the negotiations leading to the truce of 1568 between Maximilian II and Selim: “From what you write to me on the whole, I have understood how the truce between the emperor and the [Grand] Turk was concluded and how the ambassadors negotiated with the pasha. As for myself, I would still like to see a copy of the entire capitulation and therefore request that you obtain it and

61

62 63

Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.) Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld and Helen D. DeKornfeld. Boulder, Co., New York, 2009, 236. Ibid., 238. Zoltán Korpás, V. Károly és Magyarország (1526–1538). Budapest, 2008, 11–15.

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send it to me.”64 On 18 July 1568 Philip II congratulated Chantonnay for not having received the sultan’s ambassador.65 Therefore, I believe that in fact “the fundamental changes taking place during the decades after 1526 determined the symbiosis of the Kingdom of Hungary and of the Habsburg Monarchy for a very long time”.66 In other words, the pact and the functionality fulfijilled their tasks.

64 65 66

Philip II to Chantonnay, Aranjuez, 20 May 1568. AGS, E–663, 202. Philip II to Chantonnay, Madrid, 18 July 1568, AGS, E–663, 174. Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary, 244.

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part 3 The Hungarian Theatre of War in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent

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The Ottoman Conquest in Hungary: Decisive Events (Belgrade 1521, Mohács 1526, Vienna 1529, Buda 1541) and Results János B. Szabó Budapest History Museum; Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest [email protected]

The Logic of Conqueror Parts of Alexander the Great by Karel Čapek, 1 May 1937 (translated by Norma Comrada): “I thought that I was following in the footsteps of Achilles and would conquer a new Ilium from the glory of the Greeks; in reality, as I see it today, it was of utmost necessity to drive the Persian from the Aegean Sea; and I drove them back so efffijiciently, my dear teacher, that I seized all of Bithinia, Phrygia and Cappadocia, plundered Cilicia, and did not stop until we reached Tarsus. Asia Minor was ours. … You might say, my dear Aristotle, that my paramount political and strategic goal, namely, the fijinal expulsion of Persia from Hellenic waters, had now been achieved in full. With the conquest of Asia Minor, however, a new situation arose: our new shoreline could be threatened from the south, that is, from Venice or Egypt; Persia could procure reinforcements and supplies from there for waging further wars against us. Consequently, it was essential that we occupy the Tyrian coasts and control Egypt, and this way we became masters of the entire seaboard. Yet a new danger arose at one and the same time: that Darius, relying on the resources of his rich Mesopotamia, might sweep into Syria and thereby cut offf our Egyptian domains from our base in Asia Minor. Thus I had to crush Darius at any cost, and I succeeded in so doing at Gaugamela; as you know, Babylon as well as Susa, Persepolis [as] well as Pasargadae fell to their knees before us. By this action we gained control of the Persian Gulf, but in order to safeguard these new holdings against possible incursions from the north, it was necessary to march northwards… While our territory now extended from the Caspian

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_013

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Sea to the Persian Gulf, it lay open to the east; for this reason I marched my Macedonians to the borders of Areia and Drangania, laid waste to Gedrosia and annihilated Arachosia. … I should explain that Gedrosia and Arachosia are hemmed in by high mountains much like fortifijications, but for these fortifijications to be impregnable, they require a bufffer zone from which to launch an offfensive or, withdraw to the ramparts. In this instance, the strategic bufffer zone is India as far as the Indus. It was necessary, from a military point of view, to invade this territory and with it the bridgehead on the opposite bank of the Indus; no responsible soldier or statesman would have acted otherwise. But when we came to the river Hyphasis, my Macedonians balked and said that they were too tired, ill, and homesick to go any further. I had to turn back. It was a harrowing journey for my veterans, but it was even worse for me; it had been my intention to reach the Bay of Bengal and secure a natural eastern frontier for my Macedonia, and now I was forced, for the time being, to abandon this essential move. … It would free my hands here in the east, were I assured that my Macedonia and Hellas accepted the political principle of my absolute authority; it would ease my mind in setting out to obtain and secure for my Greek homeland her natural frontier on the coast of China. I could thus ensure for all time the power and safety of my Macedonia. With best wishes, my dear Aristotle, from your Alexander.”

New Trends – Old Frames: the “Byzantine Inheritance” and the Problem of Natural Borders Symbolic acts and the symbolism of power in the early period of Süleyman’s rule have recently become prominent themes in Ottoman studies. In this approach, the sultan intervened in Christian Europe as the heir of the Byzantine emperors, antithetically to the Habsburgs, with their similarly grand ambition of “world rule”.1 It is also possible, however, to interpret the Ottoman ambition 1 Gülru Necipoğlu, ʻSüleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman–Hapsburg–Papal Rivalry’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993, 163–194; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Ideologie, Propaganda und politischer Pragmatismus. Die Auseinandersetzung der osmanischen und habsburgischen Grosmächte und die mitteleuropäische Konfrontation’, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 207–233; Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162.

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to recover the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire as a real and highly signifijicant geostrategic objective, with a far-reaching influence on relations between the empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Eastern Roman Empire had enjoyed a better strategic position by virtue of possessing the south bank of the Danube, which thus formed its northern border. Byzantium reinforced this area in the period of the Hungarian conquest and the foundation of the Hungarian state, and it became the southern border of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The old Roman limes along the Danube resumed its role as an active defensive system. In the 11th century, the Byzantines reactivated the Roman fortifijications on the right bank and the Hungarians took control of the left.2 Although the southern border along the Danube–Sava line always offfered a geostrategic advantage to the southern neighbours, the Hungarians were able to take over almost the entire defensive apparatus after the Byzantine territorial losses in the early 13th century. In the following centuries the Hungarians could thus maintain an active and flexible defence, designed as much to make reprisals for enemy attacks and destroy property and supplies on the other side of the border as to reconnoitre and defend against Ottoman raids. What made this possible were the Hungarian bridgeheads on the south banks of the Sava and Danube. The advantage this affforded them became directly apparent to the young Süleyman in 1515, when the Hungarians mounted an attack on the castle of Zsarnó (Žrnov/Havale) and – in the absence of his father Sultan Selim – he had to call out the remaining Balkan forces in response.3 The Hungarian bridgeheads in the Balkans may be seen as presenting the Ottomans with a problem in continental Europe resembling that posed by Rhodes in the sea.4 Furthermore, to secure his lines of supply for an invasion of Hungary, the sultan would have to capture the forts along the line of the Danube before setting offf for the interior. According to a recent analysis of the strategy behind the empire’s conquests, the Ottomans made gradual preparations for this in the 1520s.5 2 István Bóna, Az Árpádok korai várai. Debrecen, 1998, 27–28; Paul Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkan, 900–1204. Cambridge, 2000, 47–114; Alexandru Madgearu, Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 10th–12th Centuries. Leiden, Boston, 2013. 3 Pál Fodor, ‘Wolf on the Border: Yahyapaşaoğlu Bali Bey (?–1527): Expansion and Provincial Elite in the European Confijines of the Ottoman Empire in the Early Sixteenth Century’, forthcoming. 4 Eric Brockman, The Two Sieges of Rhodes: The Knights of St. John at War, 1480–1522. New York, 1969. 5 Ferenc Szakály, ‘The Hungarian–Croatian Border Defense System and Its Collapse’, in János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. Brooklyn, NY, 1982, 141–158; Gábor Ágoston, ‘Where Environmental

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Paradoxically, as the advantage swung to the Ottoman Empire, relations between the two powers became less predictable than they had been during the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) and the fijirst half of the reign of Vladislaus II (1490–1506), when a state of near parity had assured the Hungarians a long period of armed peace.6 The Ottomans’ newly won superiority gave them greater scope for unilateral action, but it stimulated desperate attempts by the Hungarians to set up an anti-Ottoman European coalition, threatening to broaden the hitherto limited conflict.7

The Key to the Kingdom of Hungary: Belgrade, 1521 In Süleyman’s fijirst Hungarian campaign in 1521, there were severe divisions among his commanders as to what the campaign objectives should be. The old, experienced Grand Vizier Piri Mehmed Pasha recommended a relatively unspectacular but strategically vital objective: to lay siege to the key to border defence, Belgrade. Third Vizier Ahmed Pasha, however, proposed a much bolder plan: to capture the much weaker castle of Szabács (Šabac/Böğürdelen) and use the crossing point to launch forces into the interior of Hungary and capture Buda itself.8 and Frontier Studies Meet: Rivers, Forests, Marshes and Forts along the Ottoman–Hapsburg Frontier in Hungary’, in A. C. S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. (Proceedings of the British Academy, 156.) Oxford, 2009, 58–60. 6 Ferenc Szakály, ‘Phases of Turco–Hungarian Warfare before the Battle of Mohács (1365‒1526)’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33 (1979) 65‒111; András Kubinyi, ʻThe Road to Defeat: Hungarian Politics and Defense in the Jagiellonian Period’, in Bak and Király (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rákóczi, 159–178; Tamás Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman–Hungarian Warfare, 1389–1526. Leiden, Boston, 2018, 77–371. 7 Carl Göllner, ‘Zur Problematik der Kreuzzuge und Türkenkriege im 16. Jahrhundert’, Revue des Etudes Sud-Est Européennes 13 (1975) 97–115; András Kubinyi, ‘The Hungarian State and the Papacy during the Reign of Jagello Kings (1490–1526)’, in István Zombori, Pál Cséfalvay and Maria Antonietta De Angelis (eds.), A Thousand Years of Christianity in Hungary = Hungariae Christianae Millennium. Exhibition held in Musea of the Vatican, Vatican City, 10 October 2001–12 January 2002, Hungarian National Museum, February–May 2002. Budapest, 2001, 82–85; Attila Bárány, A szulejmáni ajánlat: Magyarország, a Török Birodalom és a Nyugat (1521–1524). Máriabesnyő, Gödöllő, 2014; Attila Pál Bárány, ʻThe Year 1526 and Jagiellonian Diplomacy’, in Attila Pál Bárány (ed.), The Jagiellonians in Europe: Dynastic Diplomacy and Foreign Relations. (Memoria Hungariae, 2.) Debrecen, 2016, 133–158. 8 Gyula Káldy-Nagy, ʻSuleimans Angrifff auf Europa’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 28:2 (1974) 165; Ferenc Szakály, ʻNándorfehérvár, 1521: the Beginning of the End of the Medieval Hungarian Kingdom’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Budapest, 1994, 50–52; Pál Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy towards Hungary, 1520–1541’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45:1–2 (1991) 285–291; Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis, 372–395.

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Such were the difffijiculties of Hungarian mobilization that an Ottoman army reaching the interior in July would not have encountered any substantial army there. With only a few hundred soldiers, the Hungarian king could hardly have defended Buda against them. Ahmed’s daring plan was thus a serious threat, and a conscious fear of a similar “lightning strike” was current in Buda in 1526.9 The only worry for the Ottoman commanders was how the army – which would be weighed down with booty after ransacking and pillaging the country – could get back to the empire if the strong castle of Belgrade blocked offf the best route home. Süleyman favoured Ahmed Pasha’s plan, possibly because it offfered much greater glory. Nonetheless, Grand Vizier Piri Mehmed Pasha marched to Belgrade with the small army of the district governor of Semendire (Szendrő/Smederevo) to blockade the fort. Ahmed Pasha led the Rumelians to deliver the main blow to Szabács, on the bank of the Sava, capturing it in a single bloody attack on 7 July. The smaller castle of Zimony (Zemun) on the north bank of the Sava opposite Belgrade fell on 11 July.10 Süleyman himself had reached Szabács by this time, but on 19 July, a flood on the Sava swept away a weak bridge that had taken ten days to build, spoiling the army’s chance of a quick and easy crossing. The sultan had to make do with letting his forces across in boats to pillage Syrmium, thereby diminishing the element of surprise which was essential to the main operation’s success. To prevent the Hungarians from settling back into the Danube forts, even the stones of the minor fortifijications captured were taken away and used to reinforce the damaged fortress of Szabács/Böğürdelen. By their actions, the Ottomans thus gave no sign that they actually wanted to occupy the captured territory – all they did was devastate the Hungarian countryside.11 In the end, the major siege of Belgrade did indeed take place. There were said to be only 700 soldiers and some civilians in the castle in 1521, promising little hope for the defenders (the victorious sultan was to leave 3,000 soldiers there!). They put up a hard fijight, however, and the enormous fortress surrendered only on 29 August, after a 66-day blockade and siege, when hardly a tenth of the defending army was left alive.12 Antonio Bonfijini, the well-informed historian of Hungarian kings, claimed that one important function of the border fortresses was to gain time.13 In 1521, 9 10 11 12 13

János B. Szabó and Ferenc Tóth, Mohács (1526): Soliman le Magnifijique prend pied en Europe centrale. Paris, 2009, 31. Káldy-Nagy, ʻSuleimans Angrifff’, 166; Szakály, ʻNándorfehérvár, 1521’, 56–57. Szakály, ʻNándorfehérvár, 1521’, 57, 61. Káldy-Nagy, ʻSuleimans Angrifff’, 168; Szakály, ʻNándorfehérvár, 1521’, 64–69. Antonio Bonfijini, Rerum Hungaricarum Decades. Vol. 4. Ediderunt József Fógel, Béla Iványi, and László Juhász. Budapest, 1941, 234.

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however, although the forces were gathered at the usual slow pace, they made no counterstrike. After an epidemic spread through the camp, the army efffectively broke up without a fijight.14 The outcome was the neutralization of the Hungarian border fortress system at the most threatened point on the Danube.15 In the following years, the Hungarian government failed to restore it or to fijind a replacement for Belgrade, and in the summer of 1526, only two minor castles on the way, Pétervárad (Petrovaradin) and Újlak (Ilok), were able to slow down the Ottoman attack.16

The Final Solution – and Its Failure: Mohács, 1526 In 1526, conflicts in Western Europe and Hungary’s separation from its traditional allies – Venice and Poland – generated the right conditions making the kingdom ripe for being forced to its knees.17 The Ottomans would “only” have to face the Hungarian and the Bohemian armies on the battlefijield, but there were still some risks.18 Although Süleyman had twofold superiority in “regular” forces against the 26,000 troops of the Kingdom of Hungary, and threefold when counting the border akıncıs, volunteers and other soldier peasants, he was entering the fijirst and only major battle of his life.19 Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the Ottoman vanguard, was understandably cautious, even though he had almost the same strength as the 14 15 16

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Szakály, ‘Nándorfehérvár, 1521’, 70. Szakály, ‘Nándorfehérvár, 1521’, 71–72; Idem, ‘The Hungarian–Croatian Border Defense System’, 152–153. András Kubinyi, ‘The Battle of Szávaszentdemeter–Nagyolaszi (1523): Ottoman Advance and Hungarian Defence on the Eve of Mohács’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confijines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 71–94. Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, Ottoman–Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th–18th Century): An Annotated Edition of Ahdnames and Other Documents. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 18.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 1999, 222–226; Ilona Czamańska, ‘Poland and Turkey in the First Half of the 16th Century – Turning Points’, in István Zombori (ed.), Fight against the Turk in Central Europe in the First Half of the 16th Century. Budapest, 2004, 91–101. Antonín Kalous, ‘The Last Medieval King Leaves Buda’, in Balázs Nagy, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende and András Vadas (eds.), Medieval Buda in Context. (Brill’s Companions to European History, 10.) Leiden, Boston, 2016, 519–524; B. Szabó and Tóth, Mohács, 58–68. Gábor Ágoston, ‘War-winning Weapons? On the Decisiveness of Ottoman Firearms from the Siege of Constantinople (1453) to the Battle of Mohács (1526)’, Journal of Turkish Studies 39 (2013) 140–141.

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whole Hungarian army. He saw no urgency in fijighting on 29 August: The stepped terrain around the plain of Mohács offfered him excellent positions and the behaviour of the Hungarians probably did not suggest to him that battle was unavoidable that day. He saw the possibility of waiting for the main forces that were still making their approach.20 It was Louis II’s forces, realizing that the enemy did not want to take up the offfer of battle, which made the fijirst move. They advanced on the right wing around three or four in the afternoon. By that time, however, the defensive positions in the centre of the opposing Rumelian corps were already in place and the Anatolian corps cannot have been more than an hour’s march from the battlefijield. The decision was quite clearly motivated by fear of the enemy’s several fold superiority. The attack on the right wing was highly successful and swept away the Rumelian army.21 When the fijirst line troops reached the new Ottoman camp, the Hungarian commander Pál Tomori22 resolved on the decisive step of deploying the reserve Hungarian second line to break up the wavering Rumelian forces.23 In about the second or third hour of the battle, as further Ottoman formations arrived on the battlefijield, new clashes began, efffectively independent of the continuing combat by the Hungarian right wing. The Hungarian command must have reckoned with this contingency, because its left wing had previously stayed out of the fray. At this point, the left wing attacked the Anatolian cavalry which was forming up in front of them, with similar efffectiveness as the attack on the right.24 From today’s perspective, an objective assessment of how the battle developed is almost impossible. The report of a Bohemian eyewitness, however, suggests that the Hungarian commanders appraised the likelihood of an unfavourable turn in the battle after the enemy’s main forces had formed up. Since they had by that time routed the cavalry of both Ottoman flanks, it was worth attempting an attack on the centre that might just decide the battle in their favour.25 20

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B. Szabó and Tóth, Mohács, 98–103; Feridun M. Emecen, ‘Mohaç 1526: Osmanlılara Orta Avrupa’nın Kapılarını Acan Savaş’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Savaş. İstanbul, 2010, 159–216. B. Szabó and Tóth, Mohács, 107–111. János B. Szabó, ‘Pál Tomori’, in Cliffford J. Rogers (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Vol. 1. Oxford, 2010, 360. B. Szabó and Tóth, Mohács, 112–119. Ibid., 119. Letter of an anonymous Bohemian nobleman, November 1526, in János B. Szabó (ed.), Mohács. Budapest, 2006, 124.

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This heavy cavalry charge probably took some efffect, and some sources report that they managed to break through the lines of janissaries in front of the sultan. The attack did not, however, undermine the morale of the full Ottoman army. From then on, Ottoman superiority dictated the course of the battle. As the Hungarian troops fell or fled, exacerbating their initial numerical inferiority, they gradually ceased to present a serious challenge, and the remnants were encircled and destroyed piece by piece.26 The cause of the Hungarian defeat was quite clearly not Ottoman superiority in tactics or weaponry. Above all, it was a matter of numbers. Contrary to popular belief, the signifijicance of the much mentioned Ottoman fijirearms is difffijicult to assess as a specifijic factor. The failure of attacks against infantry arquebusiers defending cannon in reinforced positions did not result so much from the “modernity” of Ottoman equipment as from the way it was used. Hardly more than 4,000 of the paid infantry carried arquebuses in 1526, and this represented no superiority over the fijirearms of the Hungarian–Bohemian– Polish infantry facing them.27 The Ottomans had unwittingly reaped total military victory, but they went on to lose the peace. The Hungarian governing elite was decimated in the battle, King Louis II died, and although the Ottoman army pillaged the country after the battle, there was nobody to negotiate a peace on new terms. Additionally, the death of the young king potentially rendered the Bohemian and Hungarian thrones vulnerable to the claim of a potentially much more dangerous enemy than the Jagiellon dynasty, the Habsburgs.28 After the Ottomans had weakened and neutralized the Kingdom of Hungary, a new and 26 27

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B. Szabó and Tóth, Mohács, 120–125. Ibid., 58–63, 71, 78–81. “As opposed to public belief, it is hard to judge the real signifijicance of the often-mentioned Ottoman fijirearms … Stressing the technical and tactical diffferences in themselves, with reference to the ‘military revolution’, will certainly not bring us closer to understanding the events of the past, if we ignore the disparity in the strength of the opposing parties, or the diffferences between the characteristics of European and Ottoman warfare. All these aspects should be considered when bringing up events as arguments in an academic discussion.” János B. Szabó, ‘A mohácsi csata és a “hadügyi forradalom”, II. rész. A magyar hadsereg a mohácsi csatában’, Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 118:3 (2005) 626; cf. Ágoston, ‘War-winning Weapons’, 142–143. Géza Perjés, The Fall of the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohács 1526–Buda 1541. Boulder, Co., Highland Lakes, NJ, 1989, 270–271; Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream. London, 2006, 123–124; Paula Sutter Fichtner, Ferdinand I of Austria: The Politics of Dynasticism in the Age of Reformation. New York, 1982, 40–78; Péter Sahin-Tóth, ‘A Difffijicult Apprenticeship: The Integration of Hungary into the Habsburg Monarchy in the 16th Century’, in Wim Blockmans and Nicolette Mout (eds.), The World of Emperor Charles V. Amsterdam, 2004, 247–263; Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.)

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urgent objective came into the focus of imperial strategy: to eliminate the Habsburgs as contenders for control of Hungary.29

The “Radius of Action” Problem: Vienna, 1529 – Kőszeg (Güns), 1532 Shortly after 1526, a plan emerged to make a temporary tactical alliance with the new Hungarian king, John Szapolyai (who was himself in conflict with the Habsburgs), to enable the Ottomans to use the Kingdom of Hungary as a base for eliminating the Habsburgs’ Central European power base in Austria. This was the objective of the 1529 and 1532 campaigns against Vienna.30 It may have been then that the Ottomans faced the problem of the radius of military action, a subject discussed so often in Hungarian historiography. The sultan’s armies left Istanbul on 10 May 1529, but laid siege to Vienna only on 27 September. Only a few weeks later, the early winter weather combined with the swelling and increasingly signifijicant relief army forced them to abandon the attempt – on 15 October – and go into retreat.31 Süleyman also failed to secure the line of the Danube: Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava), on the north bank, remained in Ferdinand’s possession. Having been denied the use of sufffijiciently large siege guns because of difffijiculties in river transport, the Ottomans made an attempt on the city through intensive tunnel warfare, but it proved inadequate in such a short time even against what were essentially medieval fortifijications.32 Three years later, the campaign got under way on 25 April, and the Ottoman army laid siege to Kőszeg on 5 August 1532. The march via Kőszeg brought the sultan’s armies to the outskirts of Vienna almost a month earlier than had been the case in 1529, when they had only crossed the Austrian border on 19 September. As well as leaving earlier, they had taken a substantially shorter route. Instead of following the Danube, taking them due north and then due

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Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld and Helen D. DeKornfeld. Boulder, Co., New York, 2009, 89–155. Szakály, ‘The Hungarian–Croatian Border Defense System’, 154; Idem, Lodovico Gritti in Hungary, 1529–1534: A Historical Insight into the Beginnings of Turco-Habsburgian Rivalry. (Studia Historica, 197.) Budapest, 1995, 49–70, 97–122. Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy’, 296–298. Walter Hummelberger, Wiens erste Belagerung durch die Türken 1529. (Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe, Heft 33.) Wien, 1976; Günter Düriegl (ed.), Wien 1529. Die erste Türkenbelagerung. Textband der 62. Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien. Wien, Köln, Graz, 1979. Caspar Ursinus Velius, Tíz könyv a magyar háborúról. Máriabesnyő, 2013, 91–108.

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west, the army proceeded along the diagonal line from Eszék (Osijek/Ösek), to Kőszeg.33 They thus had considerably more time for military operations. Another fundamental determinant of the Ottomans’ radius of action was the efffectiveness of its enemies’ defensive measures.34 King Ferdinand had been unable, or unwilling, to take almost any efffective steps to defend his Hungarian kingdom in 1529,35 but when his heritage, Austria, was threatened, he put together a 17–19,000-strong force in Vienna which would even have been a formidable fijield army at the time. In 1532, with the crucial assistance of his brother Charles V, he assembled beside Vienna one of the largest forces in Europe of that time, numbering approximately 60-90,000.36 Faced with such a force, even Süleyman declined to risk an open battle of uncertain outcome so far from his own base, with a country at his back of uncertain loyalty.

The Turning Point: Buda, 1541 After 1532, owing to their commitments in the east and south, the Ottomans confijined themselves to stabilizing afffairs in Hungary and containing the ambitions of King Ferdinand.37 The means they employed were to consolidate King John’s rule in Hungary and increase their control over him. John turned out in 1538 to be a less than reliable ally,38 however, and his death in July 1540 made clear that the status quo was at an end: As early as October of that year, Ferdinand attempted to take John’s royal seat in Buda.39 By 1541, there was a clear danger that the sultan would be overtaken by Ferdinand if he did not act soon. The rule of Dowager Queen Isabella and the infant John Sigismund

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The main stations of the Ottoman army’s march through Transdanubia: Eszék, Siklós, Babócsa, Berzence, Csurgó, Kanizsa, Szombathely, Kőszeg. Perjés, The Fall, 50–54; Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare 1500–1700. London, 1999, 20–25. Béla Iványi, ‘Buda és Pest sorsdöntő évei’, Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 9 (1941) 63–74. James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance and Domestic Politics. Cambridge, 2002, 138–141. Rhoads Murphey, ‘Süleyman’s Eastern Policy’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993, 229–248; Szakály, Lodovico Gritti, 71–96; Zoltán Korpás, ‘Las luchas antiturcas en Hungría y la política oriental de los Austrias, 1532– 1541’, in Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra and Friedrich Edelmayer (eds.), Fernando I, 1503–1564: Socialización, vida privada y actividad pública de un Emperador del Renacimiento. Madrid, 2004, 335–370. Zoltán Korpás, V. Károly és Magyarország (1526–1538). Budapest, 2008, 155–203. László Veszprémy, ‘Buda: From a Royal Palace to an Assaulted Border Castle, 1490–1541’, in Nagy, Rady, Szende and Vadas (eds.), Medieval Buda in Context, 507–510.

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stood on weak foundations, casting the future of Ottoman influence in Hungary into doubt.40 There was no outright winner in 1541. Although the new fortifijications of Buda put in place by the Szapolyai party once again proved too much for Ferdinand’s forces, the city fell to the Ottomans without a fijight after they routed a substantial Habsburg army.41 Plans for an actual occupation of the rest of the Szapolyai party’s territory, however, were not carried out. For the moment, the sultan was content to set up a new vilayet centred on Buda, and he formally appointed three Hungarian district governors (sancakbeyis) to run areas further from Habsburg confrontation.42 By establishing the province of Buda, Süleyman was applying a new strategy to attain old objectives. The Hungarian capital was to become a truly efffective bastion of defence,43 but it would also serve as an important jumpingofff point for attaining the old but renewed aim of capturing the Habsburg centre in Vienna. To secure a route for his armies and to strengthen Buda, the sultan came to Hungary again in 1543 and cut offf an enormous slice of the east part of Transdanubia.44 In 1544, the base of Ottoman power was reinforced with local forces.45 The decisive blow against the Habsburgs planned for 1545, however, was cancelled for as yet unknown reasons.46 Along the main Danube route, Komárom (Komorn/Komárno) and Győr (Raab) remained in possession of the Habsburg sovereign, and within a few years, the border defence of the Kingdom of Hungary took on a more efffective, organized form.47 Vienna 40 41

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Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy’, 305–326. Veszprémy, ‘Buda: From a Royal’, 507–510; András Végh, ‘From Medieval Town to Ottoman Fortress: The Development of the Fortifijications of Buda from the Foundation until the End of the 16th Century’, manuscript [https://www.academia.edu/14935505/From_ medieval_town_to_Ottoman_fortress._The_development_of_fortifijications_of_Buda_ from_the_foundation_until_the_end_of_the_16th_century]. Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy’, 326–333; Teréz Oborni, ‘Le royaume des Szapolyai, du royaume de Hongrie orientale à la principauté de Transylvanie (1541–1571)’, Histoire, Économie et Société. Époques Moderne et Contemporaine 34:3 (2015) 65–77. János B. Szabó, ‘Buda elfeledett ostromai (1529–42). Egy hadtörténeti “kakukktojás”, avagy a “Military Revolution” elmélet zátonya?’, Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 42 (2016) 121–140. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 98–99. Géza Dávid, ‘An Ottoman Military Carrier on the Hungarian Borders: Kasım Voyvoda, Bey and Pasha’, in Dávid and Fodor, Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs, 272–276. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 99–100. Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (Up to the Early Eighteenth Century)’, in Dávid and Fodor, Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs, 3–69; Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Habsburg Defense System

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remained at an unattainable distance for the Ottoman army. Thus within a few years, the short-term tactical measures of defending the costly and vulnerable Hungarian provinces and preventing the reunifijication of the divided Kingdom of Hungary became long-term – and sometimes not easily attainable – strategic objectives.48

Force Limits Itself Parts of The Death of Archimedes by Karel Čapek, 17 April 1938 (translated by Norma Comrada): “Yes. The mission of Rome is to be master of the world. And I’m telling you that it will be.” “Possibly,” Archimedes said, and he rubbed out a line on his tablet. “But I wouldn’t advise it, Lucius. Listen, to be master of the world – someday defending your position’s going to be one big headache. It wouldn’t be worth the efffort, given all you’d have to do.” “No matter; we shall be a great empire.” “A great empire,” muttered Archimedes. “Whether I draw a small circle or a large circle, it’s still only a circle. There are still frontiers – you will never be without frontiers, Lucius. Do you think a large circle is more perfect than a small circle? Do you think you’re a greater geometrician if you draw a larger circle?” “You Greeks are forever playing with arguments,” Captain Lucius objected. “We have another way of proving that we’re right.” “How?” “Action. For instance, we have conquered your Syracuse. … But Rome will be great. Rome must be the strongest of all the lands in the world.” “Why?” “To maintain her position. The stronger we are, the more enemies we have. That’s why we must be the strongest force.”

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in Hungary Against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europe’, in Brian L. Davies (ed.), Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500–1800. (History of Warfare, 72.) Leiden, Boston, 2012, 35–61. Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 103–133; János B. Szabó, ‘An Example for Some – a Lesson for Others. The First Ottoman Siege of Szigetvár and the Military Campaigns of 1555–1556 in Southern Transdanubia’, in Péter Kasza (compil. and annot.), Remembering a Forgotten Siege: Szigetvár 1556 / Egy elfeledett ostrom emlékezete. Szigetvár 1556. Ed. by Pál Fodor. Budapest, 2016, 121–147.

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“As to force,” muttered Archimedes, “I’m a physicist of sorts, Lucius, and I’ll tell you something. Force limits itself.” “What does that mean?” “It’s a sort of law, Lucius. When force is exerted, it limits itself by that action. The greater your force, the more of your strength you use up; and the time will come…” “What are you trying to say?” “Nothing, really. I’m not a prophet, Lucius, only a physicist. Force limits itself. More than that I do not know.”

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The Ottoman Conquest and Establishment in Croatia and Slavonia Nenad Moačanin* Zagreb University [email protected]

Raids and Conquest It is necessary to bear in mind that Croatia and Slavonia as political and geographical entities have not had the same meaning throughout history. Shifting borders and identities make our task here quite difffijicult. Indeed, the complicated history requires a way of following the Ottoman advance by paying respect to changing borders from the late Middle Ages until the present day. As a relatively practical reference tool I intend to use the territory covered by the two bishoprics, that is, Zagreb and Split. This is what Croatia and Slavonia were at the time when the land begun to experience strong Ottoman pressure. This division was valid for most of the Middle Ages, except for a period during the reign of King Tvrtko I in Bosnia and parts of Croatia. On the other hand, I must also mention the area that is today inside the borders of the Republic of Croatia, stretching in the east to the Danube and in the south to Dubrovnik, but lacking much depth in the Adriatic hinterland, which was mainly the consequence of the Ottoman withdrawal at the end of the 17th century. Regarding the Croatian lands, what is usually called the Ottoman conquest1 was, in large part, the consequence of the advance of local forces from the provinces of Bosnia and, to a lesser extent, from Semendire (Smederevo/ Szendrő). Only some places along the Danube, which at the time belonged to Hungary and today to Croatia, were captured in the imperial campaigns. As a prologue we may mark the period 1470–1516, during which much land in the Dinaric zone was lost in consequence of the confrontation with Hungary and * This study has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project 9215. 1 Ive Mažuran, Hrvati i Osmansko carstvo. Zagreb, 1998, 368. This book, despite its outdated views, is still very useful as a detailed representation of the chain of events.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_014

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of Venice’s effforts to curb the Ottoman threat to its possessions in Dalmatia by relying on the Croatian bufffer-zone in the hinterland. An intense phase of conquest occurred between 1522 and 1552, while a piecemeal penetration took place on the middle section of the border between 1558 and 1596. Of course, all the conquests made during the reign of Süleyman the Lawgiver occurred within the broader framework of top level planning and decision-making. Only the advance in the second half of the 16th century was, at least in part, an independent venture at the local level. Generally speaking, Ottoman raids and conquest were often interrelated in the sense that when taking booty (slaves and livestock) became less lucrative, the conclusion was drawn that the area in question should be conquered in order to recolonise it and to establish a regular system of taxation. The impulse usually came from the ranks of the local sipahi class. This was particularly so in the Pannonian and Peripannonian lowlands in the context of the confrontation with Hungary, but was less salient in the Dinaric Adriatic hinterland, owing to the specifijic role of Vlach transhumant pastoralism coupled with a higher capacity of survival. Despite these limitations, the local military class (askeri) knew how to take advantage of the conquest by appropriating the best agricultural land and even by redirecting poll-tax income from the treasury to their own prebends.2 According to the described pattern, the greatest armed conflict with catastrophic and lasting consequences, that is, the Battle of Krbava in 1493, occurred in the context of the gazi raids. It is a well-established fact that because of the terrible losses, the Croatian nobility turned their hopes toward the Habsburgs. But was it possible that at a certain moment a diffferent kind of reasoning was also present? That is, did the Croats try to fijind an “arrangement” with the Ottomans? In 1494, a Croatian mission was in Edirne.3 We do not know its purpose or who sent whom to the sultan. At the same time one Hungarian mission was there, but apparently not as a joint venture. Because at that moment no conquest at that section of the border had been considered, and the area was lying in waste, but still outside the Ottoman realm. Nor did the local population declare its submission to the sultan. Yet this had been the typical sequence of events during the early phase of Ottoman expansion in the southernmost part of Croatia (1470–1516). The offfensive activities were not encouraged by the central authorities, but since many nobles and Vlach leaders preferred peace under Ottoman sovereignty, the fortresses fell one by one. During the reigns of Bayezid II (1481–1512) and Selim I (1512–1520), this 2 İstanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), MMV 17685 (ruznamçe from 1587). 3 Mehmet Tayyib Gökbilgin, XV–XVI. Asırlarda Edirne ve Paşa Livası. İstanbul, 1952, 109.

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expansion went on almost spontaneously, the catalyst being Vlach policy and the Ottoman–Venetian wars. The relative long-term stabilisation of the border after 1537 came about just when the last royal strongholds in the Adriatic hinterland had fallen, this time as a side-efffect of the warfare in Hungary. On the newly conquered territory a borderland province (vilayet-i Hırvat) was established around 1525 with its centre in Sinj, or, more probably, in Drniš. After the fall of Klis in 1537 the area was transformed into a new sancak. By around 1500 the region between Livno and Kamengrad on the Sana river, lacking any kind of fijirm military-political regime, had been integrated into the adjacent Ottoman possessions in Bosnia in a similar manner. The Ottoman advance in the middle section of the border (Una–Kupa) was somewhat similar, but in a way “belated”. After the conquest between the Drava and Sava rivers had reached its farthermost point (the slight Ottoman retreat in 1556 and 1591 notwithstanding), the Bosnian governors continued to take castles along the Una river and beyond. The main reason for this was the “permeability” of the area, because the Croatian nobles, lacking the capacity for resistance, did not want to accept the king’s offfer to abandon a few fortifijied places for rationality’s sake and to leave him to defend the rest. The Ottoman central authorities did not have any particular interest in conquest there, but they nevertheless supported the introduction of the regular system (timarholdings, etc.) as soon as more land had been annexed. This had ended in failure, since in some places the askeris turned the plots into their çiftliks,4 while most of the area remained a “no man’s land”, which was hard to approach, except for some Vlach groups. There had also been many unsuccessful attempts to organise that area as a sancak, fijirst in Ostrožac, then in Petrinja, then even for a month or so in Sisak itself.5 Finally Bihać was chosen, which remained the seat of the district for some time. In 1593 many of the Bosnian sipahis had perished at Sisak, which paradoxically had strengthened the position of the survivors, by means of the further development of the ocaklık timars or semihereditary prebends.6 After the fall of the banate of Jajce (Jajca) in what is today Northwestern Bosnia, another border vilayet seems to have been established, for Banja Luka 4 Nenad Moačanin, ‘Neki problemi tumačanja turskih izvora u vezi s bitkom kod Siska 1593. godine’, in Ivo Goldstein and Milan Kruhek (ed.), Sisačka bitka 1593. Zagreb, Sisak, 1994, 125–130; BOA Mühimme Defteri (MD), 73, pp. 80, 328, 565. 5 BOA Timar Ruznamçe Defteri 505. 6 The formation of such timars had a long prehistory, with many diffferent causes. It was not a concession to the Bosnian nobles as representatives of “statehood”. See Nenad Moačanin, ʻThe Complex Origin of the Bosnian ocaklık timarʼ, in Halil İnalcık Armağanı – I. Ankara, 2009, 142–167.

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was not mentioned in the registers before 1540, while the seat of the sancak of Bosna was transferred there in 1553, presumably in reflection of the general strategy of confrontation in Hungary. It is possible that this area was under the command of the kapudan in Gradiška (the kapudanlık was founded in 1535), who in 1540 did style himself as Croatię et portu Zawy dominus.7 It was impossible to install a provisional military administration immediately after the enemy’s withdrawal from a completely devastated area and without minimal preconditions such as a sufffijicient number of settlements and/or major strategic importance. The banate of Srebrenik fell in 1512, but for a long time thereafter the Ottomans did not introduce the regular system. In present-day Slavonia and Srijem (Szerémség/Sirem), between the Sava, Drava and Danube, the sequence of devastation/conquest followed the more “ordinary” pattern, if for no other reason, then because the area did not have a particular political status, being a part of Hungary proper and sharing the destiny of other counties on the kingdom’s southern borders. The characteristic feature of the fijirst two decades of the Ottoman rule was the absence of the sipahi timar-holdings, the surplus income going directly to the sultan or to the sancakbeyi. Probably it had something to do with the rather unrealistic idea that after the fijinal victory these lands would be returned to King John Szapolyai as an Ottoman vassal. First a vilayet of the Cezire-i Sirem was established, to be later expanded with the territory of Požega. Just as in occupied central Hungary, these new administrative units were deemed “unprofijitable”.8

The Regularly Administered Areas What was the most characteristic feature of the Ottoman regular administration as opposed to the regime in the marches? The answer is not easy. As far as the area we are dealing with is concerned, the prevalence of mixed forms is conspicuous. Out of many possible defijinitions, I have chosen the following: The presence of the ordinary (classical, or typical) Ottoman institutions, coupled with the ordinary reaya status of the vast majority of subjects. A welldeveloped stratifijication of the askeri class is not enough, as the prevalence of peasants paying tithes and the poll-tax is also necessary. Only the territory lying between the Danube in the east and Požega in the west was administered 7 Ernst Dieter Petritsch, Regesten der osmanischen Dokumente im Österreichischen Staatsarchiv. Vol. I. (Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs. Ergänzungsband, 10/1.) Wien, 1991, 40. 8 Hacı Osman Yıldırım et al. (eds.), 6 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri. Ankara, 1995, No. 124.

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in a regular way. All the rest was a sparsely inhabited “Vlach sea” containing several bigger or smaller ordinary reaya islands.9 In the north, the Muslim population was concentrated in, and sometimes around, towns and fortifijied places; presumably such people had been brought there as prisoners and had then converted. In the Dinaric countryside most of the Muslims were locals. Due to the needs of security and safe transport, in areas with no signifijicant Vlach population, such as present-day Central and Eastern Slavonia, many among the ordinary reaya were given tax easements in exchange for work as bridge-keepers and guards (in the sancak of Pojega [Požega/Pozsega] about one quarter of peasant households). One might say that until the last two decades of the 16th century the area did not experience signifijicant building activity, except for fortress repair. Art and architecture did not reflect the “magnifijicent” century. Pious endowments did not possess substantial means. Mosques were mostly wooden, decaying quickly. A notable exception was the fijine building in Ösek (Eszék/Osijek), Kasım Pasha’s mosque. Even the “great Suleymanic bridge” at Ösek had more modest dimensions than a few decades later. A kasaba of 200–300 households of soldiers and simple craftsmen was typical for the urban landscape. Yet at the same time trade was thriving and large fortunes created. It seems that the war had given a golden opportunity to the Muslim elite, which engaged in medium and long-distance trade, local non-Muslim merchants or those from Dubrovnik being not numerous at that time. For example, the fortress commander (dizdar) of Pojega Hacı Mehmed Ağa was a very rich person, while local merchants were engaged in business worth millions.10 By the end of the 16th century this period had seemingly gone for ever.

“The Farthermost Borderland” (intiha-i serhad) Once Ottoman rule had been stabilised, all the borderland territories ceased to function as vilayets, kapudanlıks or subaşılıks and became “normal” parts of the respective sancaks. This did not imply that the farthermost track of land had lost some special features: A rather dense network of fortifijied places with 9 10

One exception to this rule was the easternmost corner of the sancak of Kilis, with the nahiyes of Neretva, Rama and Uskoplje. Nenad Moačanin, ʻHacı Mehmet ağa of Požega, Godʼs Special Protégé (ca. 1490–ca. 1580)ʼ, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Budapest, 1994, 171–181; Nicolaas H. Biegman, The Turco–Ragusan Relationship According to the Firmans of Murad III (1575–1595) Extant in the State Archives of Dubrovnik. The Hague, Paris, 1967.

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garrisons, low density of settlement and little or no surplus to set apart for the state. The width of this belt of land was uneven, from nothing at Klis/Split to some fijifty kilometres between Una and Kupa. In contrast to that, the popular idea of what the serhad was, refers to a much wider space, covering nearly all Ottoman possessions to the west and north of Rumelia. In other words, the serhad was where gazi raiders constituted a signifijicant part of the Muslim population. On the “extreme borderland” the garrison members cultivated the land themselves wherever possible, being at the same time frequently dependent on provisions from the hinterland. The role of the Vlachs in the military organization was less prominent than in the Christian border defence system in Croatia–Slavonia. The idea of a “free peasant soldier” did not develop as it later did on the Habsburg side. They were always merely auxiliaries. The askeri status was limited to the few leading men, knezes and others, for only they were given appointment diplomas (berat). Then they exerted their command over cemaats, that is, not more than fijifty men, just like the akıncıs. When greater numbers of Vlachs participated in raids, they were said to be performing the “martolos service”.11 The Ottomans did not need a kind of Militärgrenze, let alone a true corpus separatum. This evolution had a reverse course: from purely military vilayets to the regular sancak administration. The Ottoman regulations were intertwined with popular institutions from below. In principle, the authorities did not allow for autonomy, in particular at the higher level, which made the role of kadıs, emins, voyvodas, etc. difffijicult, if not superfluous. Exceptions were few, and only in very special cases, as in the noble community of Poljica (great knez, assembly, statute) or the Primorje league in southern Dalmatia (with a statute). In the conquered territories the Ottomans were to a great extent relying on the collaboration of the Vlachs, particularly in Croatia where they have been already present in large numbers, while in the Drava–Sava region they were newcomers. The Vlach populations found by the Ottomans in the Western Balkans were remnants of the inhabitants from pre-Roman times. They were linguistically Romanised but retained a distinct cultural pattern of life (patriarchal complex families, pastoralism). By around 1400, most of them had lost their language and had adopted one of the Slavic vernaculars. Lacking a state tradition, an elite or urban culture, and their own church, they started to

11

This is the reason why the non-Ottoman sources speak of hundreds and thousands of martolos marauders, while the Ottoman documents mention martoloses as paid members of garrisons, ignoring the “martolos order”.

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merge with the South Slavic peoples who had such identity tokens.12 The transformation of the Vlachs was very much influenced and accelerated by the establishment of Ottoman rule. Yet only a few of them were mentioned under this name (Eflakan) in tax records and other documents, because such groups were bound to serve as auxiliaries or because they were still pure livestockbreeders. When Vlachs appeared as auxiliaries, they never did so in the “natural” form of clans or tribes, but as units of some 30–40 men or less, which were common in other parts of the empire. They appeared in the early records as a form of military unit. The bulk of the Vlach population was thus “hidden” under the heading “florin [one-ducat] payers” ( fijiloriciyan), their dues being mostly assigned to imperial domains. In addition to groups of “true” Vlach auxiliaries, many Vlach fijiloricis joined in the borderland warfare and raiding or they took part in everyday plundering (cattle and captives were the main booty). Some moved to the Habsburg or Venetian side in order to obtain tax exemptions for serving in militias. Unlike their policy toward nomads in Anatolia, the Ottomans did not try to force the Vlachs to sedentarise; rather, they settled down voluntarily in many regions and to an ever-greater extent. Designations like Eflak reayası and Eflak keferesi appear after the early forms of registration were abandoned, probably following sipahi pressure in the 1520s against reaya gaining entry to the military class. For obvious reasons, Vlachs, unlike groups with similar duties, are never mentioned as askeris. It seems that the Vlachs were simply too numerous for each of their leaders and indeed every adult male (if not disabled) to be treated as a “normal” askeri. In the fijirst quarter of the 16th century they served as auxiliaries in rotation, so it was not possible to enrol a particular man separately from the others, that is, to give him an appointment diploma. The engagement en masse was reserved for exceptional situations. Understandably, the authorities were energetically opposed to the survival of autonomous decisionmaking at a level higher than the settling of internal village frictions. The Vlach milieu produced many specifijic features in Ottoman borderland society in Croatia and Slavonia. Its offfspring were foremost the voynuks, the fortress martoloses, the new network of “lesser” kapudanlıks and partly the institution of ocaklık timars in the 17th century. It is quite possible that the shift of meaning 12

The process was very long. Depending on the region it lasted from the 16th until the 19th century. In turn, the impact of Vlach heritage is remarkable in the culture of modern Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. They shared the so-called “Balkan family pattern” with nonVlach Albanians in the area of their settlement or predominance, which was very large, including the whole of present-day Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia, most of Serbia, Western Bulgaria, some parts of Croatia and parts of Northwestern Greece.

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of the word kapudan from its use in the early period, denoting the lord of a march (equalling more or less an ucbeyi), to a more modest one meaning the head of the mobile part of a garrison, occurred under the influence of the Vlach organisation where kapetan was a frequent term. Thus, the originally Ottoman Turkish designation receded in favour of a local one. As for the ocaklık timars, usually thought of as a result of the Battle of Sisak in 1593, it can be said that they were already there, albeit in small numbers, among the Vlachs before that event. The land or baştinas possessed by the Vlach leaders was hereditary and was passed from father to son. For the sake of simplicity, they were proclaimed equal to the timars, even though their value was no more than a few hundred akçes. The theatre of minor warfare covered the eastern and southern parts of medieval Slavonia (Körös/Križevci County and the southern part of Zagreb County). Unlike their colleagues farther to the north in Hungary, whose main problem was how to put up with the pressure and incursions of Hungarian nobles, they had to face the raids of Habsburg commanders from fortifijied places opposite to their strongholds. This threat had never become a great one. But along the border with Croatia, the danger had soon become deadly, for the uskoks from Senj successfully managed to hamper signifijicantly the whole Ottoman system in a very wide radius.13 The historical term uskok (pl. uskoci, “jump-ins”, refugees) refers to persons which have abandoned their places on Ottoman territory in the Adriatic hinterland or in present-day Western Bosnia and settled on the Habsburg side. With the exception of a large group of Orthodox uskoks, who later became followers of the Uniate Church and who were given land in Žumberak (40 km to the west of Zagreb), living as a peasant borderland militia, most of the uskoks were Catholic, coming either in small groups or individually to serve as garrison members, especially in Senj from 1537 on. Eventually a number of former Venetian subjects (venturini) joined them, as well as some other elements (Senj townsmen, Italians, Albanians). Many had come from the Vlach population, but not all. All were experienced in small-scale borderland warfare and had connections in the regions of their origin. Thus, the Habsburg military border captaincy of Senj became the strongest and the most aggressive part of the defence system. This was because most of the uskoks were not paid very well, and there was a lack of arable land or pastures in the vicinity of the town. The Ottomans never found a proper response to constant and violent uskok raids, which often left the defence, communication network and economy in 13

Catherine Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj. New York, 1992, 329.

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disarray. Skilfully using light boots, the uskoks soon became a plague for Venetian, Ragusan, and Jewish merchants, capturing wares of “Ottoman” origin on their boats. On several occasions Venice tried by various military means to stop or to curb the uskok raids, but with little or no success. The uskoks had a large number of “friends” among the Ottoman subjects, whose collaboration was not necessarily based on free will, for they had to pay a kind of ransom money to be left in peace. The uskoks knew that the Vlach tribute to the Ottomans was one gold coin, so they wanted one fijilori more for themselves from each tax unit. Thus, a special case of double taxation emerged, maybe having the same (or similar) economic impact as in Hungary, yet the socio-political framework was quite diffferent. When Evliya Çelebi speaks of the non-Muslims in the Adriatic hinterland he uses only a single term: uskoks (uskok kavmi), some of them being “ours”, some “theirs”. This might well reflect the 16th-century practice, when the military viewpoint prevailed. Finally, the Habsburg power itself was pushed into this conflict (the “Uskok/ Gradisca War”, fought in Istria and Friuli, 1615–1618). According to the stipulations of the Peace of Madrid (1617), the uskoks were transferred from Senj to several small fortifijied places near the border, whence they continued their attacks on Ottoman territory, but with less serious consequences. The fortress Nehaj on a hill above Senj does not belong to the history of uskoks; because it had always had a garrison of regular soldiers from Inner Austria. The Ottomans tried on many occasions to improve the defence by various measures, none of which were particularly efffective. Thus in 1550, and again in 1570, a settlement of a fair number of Muslim serhad soldiers and of large, presumably loyal, Vlach groups in Lika was initiated,14 then in 1580 a new sancak, Kırka or Lika, was created with the aim of improving the control of the unruly Vlachs. The uskok raids prevented many askeris from cultivating their landholdings, which prompted the central authorities to encourage the soldiers to build “safe” dwellings. Those of modest substance had to build houses of stone with iron gates (“because one can simply push the wooden door and enter”), while the better-offf were persuaded to erect polačas (probably walled farms with a kule in the middle, 1576).15 Things remained more or less unchanged until the beginning of the Cretan war.

14

15

Mirjana Polić-Bobić, ʻDva dokumenta o naseljavanju Turaka u Liku i Krbavu u XVI. stoljeću u španjolskom državnom arhivu Simancasʼ, Radovi instituta za hrvatsku povijest 24 (1991) 207–210. BOA Mühimme Zeyli Defteri, 3/84.

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Changing Patterns of Life The establishment of Ottoman rule in parts of what is now Croatia brought substantial changes, but it also supported the continuation of a number of phenomena of the late medieval period. The nobles and the clergy left or perished almost completely. Many peasants retreated along with their masters, heading for more secure parts of Croatia itself, Western Hungary or Inner Austria. Their abandoned lands were mainly occupied by pastoralist or semipastoralist Vlach from the south or southeast. In many places the Catholic clergy were replaced by Serbian Orthodox priests or even by Protestant preachers (lower Podravina), and only later by Bosnian Franciscans. Islamisation outside the towns was not massive, the converts being mostly freed slaves. On the other hand, continuity persisted in some important segments. In the Adriatic hinterland, cattle breeding became more widespread than before, but this did not alter the existing pattern of living, with dominant pastoralism, clans and complex families, trade in dairy products and some additional income from auxiliary military engagement. Towns grew no larger than their size around 1500, and they were mainly dwelling places for small or mediumsize garrisons inhabited by a kind of Soldatenbauer. Unlike developments in post-medieval Bosnia, in Croatia and Slavonia the Ottomans did not bring into existence new towns, except for Petrinja near Sisak, which was soon abandoned. Many of the medieval castles, with or without suburbs, had no function for the conquerors and were left in ruins. At the outset of Ottoman rule much was done to repair the major strongholds. A labour force of more than 28,000 was engaged in 1540 in repairing the castle of Pojega. They were recruited from a vast area, sometimes from places 300 kilometres away. However, the maintenance of the fortresses and stockades soon become superfijicial or completely neglected. In the 16th century the characteristic fortifijied complex of buildings with both economic and defensive purposes (kule) was just about to appear. Only a few market-places and even villages became kasabas, among them Hrvace in Dalmatia.

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Ottoman and Habsburg Military Afffairs in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent Gábor Ágoston Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. [email protected]

From the mid-15th century through the early 18th century the Ottomans were an important player in European power politics, the only Islamic empire that challenged Christian Europe on its own territory. The Ottomans were a constant military threat to their Venetian, Hungarian, Polish–Lithuanian, Spanish and Austrian Habsburg neighbours and rivals. Ottoman expansion, itself a consequence of imperial ambitions and responses to geopolitical challenges, led to imperial rivalry with the Habsburgs in the Mediterranean and Hungary, and with the Safavids of Persia in Azerbaijan and Iraq. Ottoman conquests in the 16th century reshaped geopolitics in a vast area from Central Europe and the Mediterranean to Greater Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. By the middle of the 16th century the Ottomans consolidated their conquests against both their Habsburg and Safavid rivals, and the empire’s borders in Hungary saw only minor adjustments until the end of the 16th century. The fijirst section of my study compares the sinews of power of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy. In the second and third sections I address Ottoman and Habsburg military commitments. These sections show that the Ottomans enjoyed military superiority against their Habsburg rival during Süleyman’s reign. While the Habsburg Monarchy did not have a standing fijield army until after the Thirty Years’ War, Ottoman military pressure in Hungary forced the Viennese government to establish along the Habsburg–Ottoman border in Hungary and Croatia a permanent border defence force, which could be considered the fijirst permanent army of the monarchy. Since the Habsburg government fijinanced, supplied and administered the anti-Ottoman border defence in Hungary and Croatia in cooperation with the Hungarian, Croatian, Bohemian and Austrian estates, the Ottoman challenge profoundly shaped the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy’s military, fijinancial and state institutions.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_015

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Sinews of Power Süleyman’s successful war in Hungary against Ferdinand was due in large part to Ottoman superiority in resources and military power. By the early 16th century the Ottoman Empire emerged as a major military power in control of the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Black Sea littoral, the eastern Mediterranean, and most of the Middle East. While modern sociologists do not consider the Ottoman Empire a world power, for it could not claim to be a seaborne empire, for contemporary Europeans it seemed “the most powerful” empire.1 The Ottoman Empire held this image by virtue of its geopolitical situation, its enormous territory and population, its wealth of economic resources, and a central and provincial administration capable of mobilizing these resources to serve the interests of the House of Osman. The vast empire of the Habsburgs possessed human and economic resources comparable to that of the Ottomans. However, unlike Süleyman’s territorially contiguous “well protected domains”, the Habsburg brothers ruled over a discontinuous empire with territories loosely arranged and scattered all over Europe and overseas. The division of the Habsburg domains into a Central European Habsburg Monarchy and a Spanish Empire further limited the resources available for fijighting the Ottomans in the Danube basin. Ferdinand – the Ottomans’ main antagonist in Central Europe – possessed only limited resources. In the words of one scholar, Ferdinand’s Central European monarchy was “not a ‘state’ but a mildly centripetal agglutination of bewilderingly heterogeneous elements.”2 Although geographically contiguous, the Austrian Habsburg lands were much smaller than Süleyman’s domains. The territories under direct rule of the Austrian Habsburgs had shrunk from about 450,000 square kilometres in the 1520s to about 350,000 square kilometres by the 1550s. Counting the territories of the Holy Roman Empire (estimated at 500,000 square kilometres), the geographical extension of the Austrian Habsburgs reached only about one third of that of Süleyman, whose realm by the end of his reign had grown to 2.3–2.5 million square kilometres. The population of Ferdinand’s Central European realms around 1550 is estimated to have been about 6.5 million, which was only about half of the estimated 12–13 million people who inhabited Süleyman’s domains in the early years of his reign. Charles V’s three wealthiest lands (Castile, the Kingdom of Naples, and the

1 Lucette Valensi, The Birth of the Despot: Venice and the Sublime Porte. Ithaca, 1993, 24–29. 2 Robert J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford, 1979, 447.

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Low Countries’ core provinces of Flanders, Holland, and Brabant) in the mid16th century had a combined population of about 10 million inhabitants.3 The balance sheet of the Ottoman imperial treasury for 1527–1528 recorded a total revenue of about ten million gold ducats: fijive million in cash revenue, 3.6 million from military fijiefs, called timar, and an additional one million from pious foundations. By contrast, Charles V’s combined revenue from Castile, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Low Countries’ core provinces – realms that yielded the most income – amounted to about 2.8 million Spanish ducats in 1520 and 4.8 Spanish ducats in 1540. Ferdinand’s ordinary revenues reached only about 1.7 to 1.9 million Venetian ducats (2.15 to 2.5 million Rhine gulden or florin).4 The Habsburg Monarchy was still in the transition from a “domain state” to a “tax-state”. Revenues came from two main sources: camerale and contributionale. Designed to cover the expenditures of the court, the monarch’s camerale or “ordinary revenues” came from his shrinking domain lands, mines, and customs duties. Contributionale were considered “extraordinary” subsidies to meet emergency military expenses, and required a vote by the estates. While the Aulic War Council administered “extraordinary” taxes, the Court Chamber or Treasury and its subordinate provincial chambers collected ordinary cameral revenues. When the estates rejected the extraordinary war tax known under various names (subsidium, contributio, dica, Anschnitt) the Habsburgs sufffered serious loss of income. Due to large military and court expenditure, Ferdinand faced permanent defijicits and relied on subsidies from his kingdoms and lands.5 Süleyman faced no such problem. Most of the available balance sheets of the Ottoman central treasury during his reign show surpluses, and the Ottoman treasury experienced regular defijicits only after 1592. These comparisons are useful only to an extent, and the recent tendency among economic historians to explain military capabilities with fijinancial 3 Halil İnalcık, ‘The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600’, in Halil İnalcık – Donald Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Cambridge, 1994, 29; Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht: Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1522–1690. Vol. I. (Österreichische Geschichte, 1522–1690) Wien, 2003, 13–14, 23. For an earlier comparison with diffferent fijigures see Charles Issawi, ‘The Ottoman-Habsburg Balance of Forces’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993,145–147; James Tracy, ‘War Finance and Fiscal Devolution in Charles V’s Realms’, in Wim Blockmans and Nicolette Mount (eds.), The World of Emperor Charles V. Amsterdam, 2004, 73. 4 İnalcık, ‘The Ottoman State: Economy and Society’, 79–81; Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht, I. 488; Tracy, ‘War Finance’, 73; István Kenyeres, ‘A Habsburg Monarchia és a Magyar Királyság pénzügyei és hadi költségei a 16. század közepétől a 17. század első harmadáig’, Történelmi Szemle 45 (2013) 549. 5 On this in general, see Peter Rauscher’s study in this volume.

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fijigures is misleading.6 Comparing treasury revenues for measuring military capabilities can be justifijied if an army is fijinanced only from such revenues. This was not the case in either the Ottoman or Habsburg realms. In the Ottoman Empire timar revenues fijinanced some 75 per cent of the mobilized forces in the 16th century. The imperial treasury’s income paid only for the wages of the standing household troops, which amounted to about 25 per cent of Süleyman’s mobilized armies. Except for the 1527–1528 “budget”, the balance sheets of the Ottoman imperial treasury contain neither the revenues from timars nor the number of timariot provincial cavalrymen remunerated via timar revenues. Fiscal devolution and the complex system of credit, which paid Charles’ and Ferdinand’s mercenary troops, renders Habsburg war fijinance too complicated to make any simple connection between revenues and military potential.

Ottoman Military Superiority The Ottoman Empire derived its economic stability and military might largely from the prebendal timar system, which managed revenue collection and maintained a large provincial cavalry. In return for the right to collect revenues from his assigned village, the Ottoman provincial cavalryman (sipahi) had to provide for his arms (sabre, bows, arrows, and javelin), armour (helmet and chain mail) and horse, and to report for military service along with his armed retainers when called upon. The cavalryman received a basic annual income of 3,000 akçe, about 50 Venetian gold ducats in the 1550s. The sipahi resided in his village, collected taxes and fijines according to regulations stipulated in his sancak’s law code, and kept law and order among the villagers. When called upon for military service, he presented himself to his commander, the district governor (sancakbeyi). The sipahi could increase his income through good military service and patronage. When he doubled his initial income, he had to maintain another fijighting man. The more revenue he had, the larger his military retinue became. The sancakbeyi had substantially larger income. In the 16th century those who served in the empire’s European provinces usually started their service with revenue grants, called has, yielding annually 150,000 to 200,000 akçe, that is, 2,500 to 3,300 ducats. They too could increase their revenues. In the 1510s sancakbeyis in Ottoman Europe received grants worth as much as 500,000 to 600,000 akçe (8,300 to 10,000 ducats) per annum, the most 6 For such an attempt see Kıvanç Karaman and Şevket Pamuk, ‘Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914’, Journal of Economic History 73 (2010) 593–629.

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prominent of them, the sancakbeyi of Bosnia, collecting 739,000 akçe (12,300 ducats) yearly revenue, at least on paper. In return, sancakbeyis were expected to maintain a military retinue of 100 to 200 men, but they often had larger contingents of household troops. Sancaks were organized into provinces, headed by provincial governors or beylerbeyis, who resided in the chief town of the province. In the mid to late 16th century, beylerbeyis had revenue grants yielding annually 800,000 to 1,000,000 akçe (13,300 to 16,700 ducats), and maintained household troops approaching 1,000 men.7 In order to keep track of the number of fijief-holding cavalrymen and their obligations, the Ottomans introduced various survey registers, perhaps as early as the reign of Bayezid I (1389–1402). During campaigns, muster rolls were checked against these registers in order to determine if all the cavalrymen reported for military duty and brought the required number of retainers and equipment. If the cavalryman did not report for service or failed to bring with him the required number of retainers, he lost his military fijief, which was then assigned to someone else. These conditional revenue grants, and the related bureaucratic surveillance system, provided the Ottoman emperors in the 16th century with a provincial cavalry potential of 70,000–100,000 men, while relieving the central bureaucracy of the burden of revenue-raising and paying military salaries.8 The most prosperous towns, with considerable revenue from customs and dues on artisanal production, were designated as imperial domains. Collected either through salaried tax offfijicials or tax-farmers, the annual revenue from imperial domains accounted for 58 per cent of the empire’s total revenues in 1527–1528, exclusive of religious endowments. This amount covered the salaries of the largest household of the empire, that of the ruler’s servitors or kuls. In 1527–1528, Süleyman’s imperial household numbered 27,000 men, including 7 Ömer Lütfiji Barkan, ‘H. 933–934 (M. 1527–1528) Malî Yılına Ait Bir Bütçe Örneği’, İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 15 (1953–1954) 303; Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550–1650. New York, 1983; Idem, ‘Royal and Other Households’, in Christine Woodhead (ed.), The Ottoman World. Milton Park, Abingdon, 2012, 103–115; Géza Dávid ‘Incomes and Possessions of the Beglerbegis of Buda in the Sixteenth Century’, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Acte du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales de Grand Palais. 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992, 385–398. 8 Regarding the military potential of the timariot provincial army see Gyula Káldy-Nagy, ‘The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31:2 (1977) 161–162; Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 1500–1700. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1999, 38; Gábor Ágoston, ‘War-Winning Weapons? On the Decisiveness of Ottoman Firearms from the Siege of Constantinople (1453) to the Battle of Mohács (1526)’, Journal of Turkish Studies 39 (2013) 140–141.

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15,136 salaried soldiers, known as kapukulu or “servitors of the [ruler’s] gate”, 3,553 janissary novices, 2,830 personnel of the imperial stables, and almost 3,000 servants of the inner palace.9 In terms of revenue and the size of his household, no vizier or provincial governor could come close to Süleyman.156910

table 1    Size and composition of the Ottoman standing (kapukulu) army, 1484–1569 10

Date

1484 1512 1514 1520a 1520b 1521 1522–1523 1523 1523–1524 1524–1525 1527–1528 1530 1547 1567–1568 1568–1569

9 10

Janissary

Janissary novice

Gunner

Armourer

7,841 8,164 10,065 7,780 8,361 8,349 7,010 7,164 8,641 9,390 7,886 8,407 12,131 12,798 11,535

– 3,467 – 2,668 3,190 3,333 3,002 4,107 3,514 4,961 3,553 3,640 5,840 7,745 7,231

– 331 353 394 396 560 688 600 594 632 695 687 – 1,204 1,070

– 401 451 518 522 504 484 517 568 528 524 528 – 789 784

Barkan, ‘H. 933–934’, 281, 300; İnalcık, ‘The Ottoman State: Economy and Society’, 89, with somewhat diffferent numbers. Data for the period of 1484 through 1530 are from İstanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Maliyeden Müdevver Defterler (MAD) 23, fijirst published with more details in Gábor Ágoston, Osmanlı’da Strateji ve Askeri Güç. Translated by Fatih Çalışır. İstanbul, 2012, 177–179; data for 1527–1528 and 1567–1568 were originally published by Barkan and in English by Káldy-Nagy, ‘The First Centuries’. Figures for 1569 are from a pay list covering the period from 20 December 1568 through 18 March 1569 (Reşen 976): see BOA Kamil Kepeci Defteri (KK) 1767. The number for the four cavalry companies is incomplete as the fijigures for one of the ulufeci corps are missing.

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Gun carriage driver

Sipahi

Silahdar

Four cavalry companies

Total

– 346 378 305 308 544 543 542 543 516 943 1,168 – 678 606

1,401 1,059 1,951 1,771 2,090 2,133 2,228 2,358 2,274 2,278 1,993 1,953 – 3,124 2,644

1,446 1,338 2,064 1,664 1,904 1,848 1,782 1,798 1,734 1,779 1,593 1,582 – 2,785 893

1,459 1,499 2,187 2,232 2,386 2,211 2,012 1,962 1,874 1,940 1,502 1,371 – 5,135 1,858

12,147 16,605 17,449 17,332 19,157 19,482 17,749 19,048 19,742 22,024 18,689 19,336 – 34,258 26,261

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In 1527–1528 the combined military potential of the fijief-based provincial cavalry, salaried standing army and garrison forces is estimated at over 125,000 men, including 27,888 provincial timariot light cavalry, an estimated 41,832 retainers, 9,653 garrison soldiers paid via timars, 15,136 salaried kapukulu troops, 27,617 salaried garrison troops, and 3,761 salaried troops in Egypt.11 While none of the Ottomans’ neighbours could match these fijigures, the estimated 125,000-strong Ottoman military potential represented only about one per cent of the empire’s 13 million population, which is hardly a sign of a “near-perfect military society”, as once suggested.12 Of this military potential Süleyman frequently mobilized some 60,000 to 70,000 soldiers, 75 per cent of which were timariot provincial cavalry and 25 per cent salaried kapukulu troops. During the 1526 Mohács campaign the government mobilized all the provincial cavalrymen of Rumeli, numbering about 26,000 men. From Asia Minor only the cavalrymen of ten west Anatolian sub-provinces were mobilized, a total of about 19,000 men. Missing from the 1526 campaign were the sipahis of the provinces of Karaman, Rum, Diyarbekir and Damascus, about 24,000 cavalrymen from 44 sancaks. In other words, Süleyman deployed only about 65 per cent of his timariot manpower potential in 1526.13 Of the central salaried troops Süleyman mobilized only 11,699 men for the 1541 Hungarian campaign, including 6,362 janissaries, 3,670 palace cavalry, and 1,667 artillerymen.14 For the 1543 Hungarian campaign the padishah brought with him 14,957 kapukulu troops, including 8,166 janissaries, 2,624 palace cavalry, and 4,167 artillerymen.15 11

12 13

14

15

Barkan, ‘H. 933–934’. For my calculations regarding the number of retainers and diffferent estimates by Barkan and Murphey, see Ágoston, ‘War-Winning Weapons?’ 140–141; Idem, Európa és az oszmán hódítás. Budapest, 2014, 38. For another calculation, see Dávid Géza and Fodor Pál, ‘Changes in the Structure and Strength of the Timariot Army from the Early Sixteenth to the End of the Seveteenth Century’, Eurasian Studies 4:2 (2005) 170–173. Peter Sugar, ‘A Near-Perfect Military Society: The Ottoman Empire’, in Lancelot L. Farrar (ed.), War: A Historical, Political and Social Study. Santa Barbara, CA, 1978, 95–104. The list of mobilized sancaks is published in Feridun Emecen, ‘Mohaç (1526): Osmanlılara Orta Avrupanın Kapılarını Açan Savaş’, in Idem, Osmanlı Klasik Çağında Savaş. İstanbul, 2010, 209–212. For my calculations, see Ágoston, ‘War-Winning Weapons?’ 141, and Ágoston, ‘Mohács és Szulejmán szultán magyarországi hadjáratai’, in Ildikó Horn et al. (eds.), Művészet és mesterség. Tisztelgő kötet R. Várkonyi Ágnes emlékére. Vol. I. Budapest, 2016, 66–67. Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi D. 9619. The artillery included 697 artillery gunners, 411 armorers, and 559 gun carriage drivers, whereas the mobilized palace cavalry consisted of 1,047 salaried sipahi, 1,684 silahdar, 594 ulufeci, and 345 gureba. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 46 and 223 cited the aggregate numbers. BOA KK 1765, 10v; Mehmet İpçioğlu, ‘Kanuni Süleyman’ın Estergon (Esztergom) Seferi’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 10 (1990) 140.

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Data summarized in the table demonstrate that the numbers of the standing kapukulu troops started to rise under Süleyman. While between 1520 and 1530 the standing troops averaged less than 16,000 men (19,000 men with janissary novices), by 1567 their number rose to 26,500 men (34,000 men with janissary novices). The most spectacular expansion occurred not among the janissaries but in the palace cavalry, whose number more than doubled between 1530 and 1567. However, the fijigures for 1567 seem unusually high, and data for 1568–1569 and the 1570s are lower. The number of janissaries rose from 8,407 in 1530 to 12,131 in 1547, while that of the janissary novices increased from 3,640 to 5,840.16 These increases can partly be explained by the need to garrison newly conquered frontier provinces such as Baghdad (1534), Erzurum (1535), Buda (1541), Basra (1546), and Temeşvar (Temesvár/Timişoara, 1552), and to besiege artillery fortifijications in the Mediterranean and Hungary. Higher casualty rates in sieges, amphibious operations, and major naval battles from the mid-16th century onward also created additional demand for military manpower. During Süleyman’s 1543 campaign the Ottoman salaried army’s average rate of casualty was 7.5 per cent, but it rose up to 10 per cent among the janissaries, who stormed the walls.17 The number of killed and wounded Ottoman soldiers at the battle of Lepanto in 1571 is estimated between 20,000 and 30,000 men, in addition to 3,500 captured. This was about 34 to 51 per cent of the estimated 58,000 combatants and auxiliaries.18 The bulk of the Ottoman army used swords and bows. The Ottomans adopted fijirearms in the latter part of the 14th century, and established a separate artillery corps as part of the sultan’s standing army in the early 15th century, well before their European opponents. Initially, the janissaries were equipped with their formidable composite bow, sabre, shield and light coat of mail, while other units used crossbows, javelins and war-axes. The janissaries began to use matchlock arquebuses under Murad II (1421–1444, 1446–1451), and matchlock muskets from the late 16th century onwards.19 The Ottomans possessed ample deposits of saltpetre, sulphur, copper and iron ore, the most important strategic raw materials for the production of gunpowder and fijirearms in an age when the possession of these weapons was 16 17 18 19

Gábor Ágoston, ‘Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800’, Journal of World History 25 (2014) 113–114. Of 14,957 kapukulu troops only 13,826 were mustered at the end of the campaign. BOA KK 1765, 25r; İpçioğlu, ‘Kanuni Süleyman’ın Estergon (Esztergom) Seferi’, 140. Hugh Bicheno, Crescent and Cross. The Battle of Lepanto 1571. London, 2003, 307, 320, who gives slightly diffferent percentages. Gábor Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, 2005, 16–42, Idem, ‘Firearms and Military Adaptation’, 88–99.

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essential to compete in the accelerating arms race. The Ottomans also established cannon foundries and gunpowder works throughout their empire and attained self-sufffijiciency in weapons and ammunition production.20 As a consequence, they enjoyed fijirepower superiority over their rivals in Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. While factors such as numerical superiority, cavalry charge, better logistics and tactics were all important in the Ottoman victories at Chaldiran (1514), Marj Dabik (1516), Raydaniyya (1517) and Mohács (1526) against the Safavids, Mamluks and Hungarians, Ottoman fijirepower superiority played a crucial role in all these fijield battles. In siege warfare, fijirepower superiority remained the Ottomans’ strength throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Although janissaries represented only 15 to 25 per cent of Süleyman’s expeditionary armies, their steadfastness and continuous volleys – which they achieved by fijiring their weapons row after row – often decided the outcome of battles. Whether this latter manoeuvre, documented from the battle of Mohács in 1526, can be interpreted as countermarch – one of the hallmarks of the “military revolution” that Geofffrey Parker regarded a “Dutch discovery” from 1594 – needs further research.21 The Ottomans also had a well-oiled fijinancial and bureaucratic apparatus, as well as advanced provisioning, supply and logistical systems. They managed a sophisticated road network, partly inherited from Roman and Byzantine times, and a well-functioning courier and relay system. The government ordered the repair of roads, mountain passes and bridges before campaigns, and instructed the sancakbeyis to store substantial quantities of wheat, barley, flour and biscuit in the depots along the campaign routes. The mobilization, storage and distribution of food supplies to the fijighting army remained the strength of the Ottomans until about the mid-18th century, positively afffecting discipline and moral.22 Ottoman military history is too often equated with land warfare, and the importance of the fleet in Ottoman power projection too little appreciated. The Ottoman navy proved instrumental in the protection of the Ottoman imperial capital, the Levantine trade routes, and the maritime lanes of communication that connected Constantinople with Egypt and the Black Sea littoral. The Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets, in cooperation with the river 20 21

22

Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan, 96–189; Idem, ‘Firearms and Military Adaptation’, 99–108. Ágoston, ‘War-Winning Weapons?’ 134–142; Idem, ‘Firearms and Military Adaptation’, 97–98; Günhan Börekçi, ‘A Contribution to the Military Revolution Debate: The Janissaries Use of Volley Fire during the Long Ottoman–Habsburg War of 1593–1606 and the Problem of Origins’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59:4 (2006) 407– 438. Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 65–103; Caroline Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593–1606. Vienna, 1988.

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flotillas on the Danube, Tigers, and Euphrates and their tributaries, played a crucial role in Ottoman campaign logistics. The fleets ferried troops and transported hundreds of metric tons of food, cannons, shots, and gunpowder to the theatres of war in Hungary, Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus, Iraq, and the Mediterranean islands of Rhodes, Malta, Cyprus and Crete. Ottoman flotillas on the Danube, based in Vidin, Buda, and Mohács assisted campaigns against the Habsburgs. The Ottomans operated further flotillas on the rivers Sava and Drava, and the latter’s tributary the Mura, as well as on the river Tisza, and Lake Balaton. Cannons and ammunition were shipped via the Black Sea to Varna, where they were loaded on carts, and transported to either Rusçuk (Russe) or Belgrade.23 To ship weapons, ammunition, and other war supplies to the Hungarian theatre of war, the Ottomans used hundreds of smaller transport ships, built and repaired before campaigns on the Danube and its tributaries. In preparation for Süleyman’s 1566 Hungarian campaign, the imperial council ordered the sancakbeyi of Semendire (Smederevo) in November 1565 to construct 250 vessels, including 50 şaykas. The sancakbeyi of Vidin had completed the construction of 140 ships by mid-April 1566, although he did not have enough oarsmen, who therefore were drafted from Wallachia. The government also instructed the sancakbeyi of İzvornik (Zvornik) to build 200 vessels (and 16 şayka boats) on the Drina for the transportation of provisions. Shipbuilders in Güvercinlik (Galambóc/Golubac), Russe, Niğbolu (Nikopol), Pojega (Pozsega/Požega), Alacahisar (Kruševac), Mohaç, Buda, and Estergon (Esztergom) also contributed.24 These were not unusually large numbers. In 1536–1538 the shipbuilders in Semendire and İzvornik had to construct 200 and 100 ships, respectively, and those in Semendire again built 200 vessels in 1572.25 The defence of the far-flung empire’s borders tied up most of the military potential already in the fijirst decade of Süleyman’s reign. Of the 125,000 troops in 1527–1528, only some 15,000 served in the empire’s capital city. The rest stationed in the provinces as timar-holding cavalry and garrison soldiers: 41,000 troops (33 per cent of the military potential) served in the empire’s 292 fortresses and provincial centres. The strategic importance of the Balkans, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean is demonstrated by the fact that 58 per cent of 23 24

25

BOA Mühimme Defteri (MD) 5, 288/743, 333/873, regarding the 1566 campaign. See also Ágoston, Guns for the Sultan, 52. BOA MD 5, 201/496 (Semendire), 530/1449 (Vidin), and 394/1042 (İzvornik). See also Olga Zirojević, Tursko vojno uredjenje u Srbiji (1459–1683). Belgrade, 1974, 232–233 (Semendire and İzvornik); Colin Imber, ‘The Navy of Süleyman the Magnifijicent’, Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980) 276 (Semendire and Vidin). Imber, ‘The Navy’, 276 (1536–1538); MD 10, 231/356 (1572).

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the garrison soldiers served in the Balkans, and another 16 per cent in Cairo and a handful of coastal forts of Egypt. Of the 292 castles, 200 were also in the Balkans. The provinces of Asia Minor (Anadolu, Karaman, Rum, Zülkadır, and Diyarbekir) housed a mere 24 per cent of the garrison troops in 92 castles. The remaining two per cent of the soldiers were deployed in Syria.26 As the Ottoman conquest slowed down by the mid-16th century, the government assumed an increasingly defensive posture. In general, military manpower in newly conquered frontier castles was largely met by local soldiers (neferat-i yerlüyan), often redeployed from the empire’s neighbouring interior provinces and paid from local provincial treasuries. However, to key fortresses the government also deployed central kapukulu troops, especially janissaries, in increasing numbers. By 1547 there were 4,648 janissaries on garrison duty, who comprised 38 per cent of the 12,131 janissaries paid from the imperial treasury. The signifijicance of the Hungarian frontier is demonstrated by the fact that almost half of the janissaries serving in the empire’s fortresses in 1547 were deployed in Hungary.27 In 1545 the Ottomans paid 12,975 garrison soldiers in their 29 forts in Hungary. Including janissaries of the Porte (2,282 men in 1547), the occupying military force of the province of Buda numbered around 15,000–16,000 men. According to Ottoman salary registers and treasury account books, in the 1570s some 16,000 salaried garrison troops served in the province of Buda, in addition to some 5,000 timariot cavalry. The combined military force paid in cash and via timar prebends was about 21,000 men. At the same time, a Habsburg spy report, prepared for a military conference convened by Archduke Ernst in Vienna in 1577, put the Ottomans’ military strength in their Buda province at 35,043 men, and in Ottoman-held Hungary at 47,049 men. While spy reports often exaggerated the military strength of the enemy, and the Habsburg report certainly could have done so to pressure the Viennese authorities to commit more resources in Hungary, the discrepancy between the two data is too high. It is likely therefore that the Habsburg report counted all available Ottoman soldiers, including regular forces, military escorts and the household armies of the district and provincial governors, as well as unpaid volunteers.28 In any event, this was a much larger military commitment than the Habsburgs could affford in Hungary in the 16th century. 26 27

28

Barkan, ‘H. 933–934’, 282, 284–285, 294–296. Barkan, ‘954–955 (M. 1547–1548) Malî Yılına Ait Bir Osmanlı Bütçesi’, İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1957–1958) 270–271; Klára Hegyi, A török hódoltság várai és várkatonasága. Vol. 1. Budapest, 2007, 141. Imre Szántó, A végvári rendszer kiépítése és fénykora Magyarországon, 1541–1593. Budapest, 1980, 24; Hegyi, A török hódoltság várai, I. 157, 170.

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Habsburg Military Commitments Against the Ottomans Unlike Süleyman, initially neither Charles V nor Ferdinand had a standing fijield army. Both had to raise armies anew for each new campaign and negotiate with the estates of their respective kingdoms to be able to get the troops and funds necessary to pay them. Ferdinand never had enough troops to match Süleyman’s armies that attacked his Hungarian and Croatian kingdoms. He received little practical military aid from his brother, as Charles was fijighting his Valois rival in Italy, the Protestant princes in the empire, and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. When in 1529 Süleyman recaptured Buda from Ferdinand for King John Szapolyai and attacked Vienna, the emperor’s Spanish and imperial troops were busy besieging Florence, a member of the anti-Habsburg League of Cognac. The Treaty of Cambrai (3 August 1529) came too late to have any efffect on Ferdinand’s attempt at saving Buda. In their Diet in Speyer the imperial estates promised troops, as did the estates of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia in their gathering in Budějovice (Budweis) in July, but on condition that Ferdinand uses them only if the Ottomans attack Austria. As a result, Ferdinand was unable to relieve Buda, which Süleyman took on 8 September. Ferdinand also lost his Danube flotilla, when in June his unpaid Serbian boatmen defected to the attacking Ottoman flotilla near Erdut (Erdőd). In the end, Ferdinand succeeded in assembling a force of 17,000 infantry, 1,400 heavy cavalry, and 1,200 light horsemen to defend Vienna.29 However, these troops did not so much repulse Süleyman’s army, which outnumbered the opponent 5:1. The padishah started the siege of Vienna on 27 September, rather late in the campaign season, following an exhausting march that lasted one hundred and forty one days. Süleyman had to lift the siege on 15 October, after less than three weeks of fijighting, due to unusually cold and rainy weather, early snow, lack of adequate siege artillery, shortage of food and fodder, disease and pressure from his fatigued and demoralized troops.30 Events in 1532 proved that when not fijighting against his Valois rival in Italy, Charles V could assemble an army comparable in size to that of Süleyman. The imperial estates voted to mobilize 38,000 infantry, 6,000 heavy cavalry, and 6,000 light cavalry. With the Bohemian troops, the army numbered some 55,000 soldiers. However, according to an offfijicial calculation prepared on 16 29 30

Christine Turetschek, Die Türkenpolitik Ferdinands I. von 1529 bis 1532. Vienna, 1968, 117. See Süleyman’s campaign journal in József Thúry (transl.), Török történetírók. Vol. 1. Budapest, 1893, 324–346; Ferdinand Stoller, ‘Soliman vor Wien’, Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 10–11 (1929–1930) 11–76; Walter Hummelberger, Wiens erste Belagerung durch die Türken. (Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe, Heft 33.) Vienna, 1976.

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August, the Reich’s army numbered only 36,000 troops (6,000 heavy cavalry, 30,000 infantry), along with 8,000 people for the train, and 38,000 horses. The emperor for his part had about 43,000 troops: 12,000 German mercenary infantry known as Landsknechte, 10,000 Spanish and 10,000 Italian infantry, 4,000 heavy and 2,000 light cavalry, 3,000 to 4,000 “pioneers” for digging trenches, and 40 good cannons. Pope Clement VII sent money sufffijicient to hire 10,000 Hungarian and Croatian hussars. Ferdinand later claimed that Charles V’s army altogether numbered 80,000 foot and 6,000 cavalry, which is close to other contemporary sources that put the number of the imperial forces at 81,000 men. For his part, King Ferdinand gathered 42,000 infantry, 6,000 heavy cavalry, 2,000 light horse, and 10,000 men of the Danube flotilla. In addition he also had 4,300 carriages with 17,200 horses and 8,600 people, 30 guns with 120 persons and 500 horses, and 300 wagons with 600 people and 1,200 horses. With all these people, his camp numbered 97,120 people and 30,000 horses. The offfijicial estimate on 16 August put the combined military and auxiliary manpower of the Habsburg brothers and that of the Reich at 222,820 men.31 Whatever the actual size of the army that was en route to the Habsburg capital in 1532, it was sufffijiciently strong to deter Süleyman. Due to sustained modernization effforts and experimentation with weapons systems and tactics in the Italian wars, Charles’ army, and especially his Spanish infantry, matched that of his Muslim antagonist. The proportion of arquebusiers in the Spanish infantry was about a quarter already in 1500. Just like the Ottoman janissaries at Mohács in 1526, they too discharged their weapons row after row in 1522 at Bicocca and in 1525 at Pavia, routing the famous Swiss infantry in both battles along with the French cavalry in the second. The manoeuvre by which these Spanish foot soldiers maintained a steady rate of fijire in 1522 and 1525 are among the earliest known examples of the countermarch. Later in 1536, the Genoa Ordinances organized the Spanish infantry into three permanent tercios or regiments of pikemen and arquebusiers, each of about three thousand. One of Europe’s most complex tactical and administrative formations, the tercio soon became early modern Europe’s fijirst standing force. Famous for its status as the empire’s shock troops, they composed about 20 per cent of the emperor’s expeditionary armies, a percentage comparable with data regarding the 1532 mobilization against the 31

Figures for troops are from Turetschek, Die Türkenpolitik Ferdinands, 311–312. László Bárdossy, Magyar politika a mohácsi vész után. Budapest, 1943 (reprint 1992), 344, mentions Ferdinand’s estimate of Charles V’s forces. James D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impressario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance and Domestic Politics. Cambridge, 2002, 139, uses the same sources as Turetschek regarding the Reich’s offfer and Charles V’s own forces, but does not use the 16 August estimate of the Reich’s and Ferdinand’s army.

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Ottomans. Just as the janissaries, they too stood fijirm in battles, often deciding the fate of the engagement. Spanish fijirepower was further enhanced by the reform of the artillery. By mid-century, it evolved into a specialized artillery corps with cannons whose calibres the 1522 decree attempted to standardize.32 In 1532, however, neither Charles nor Süleyman wanted to risk their prestige by engaging their armies in an open battle. Having “conquered” Kőszeg in Northwestern Hungary symbolically, Süleyman returned to Constantinople. Occupied with the German Protestant electors and estates of the empire, Charles instructed Ferdinand to conclude a peace with Süleyman, for “the two of us alone are weak” against the Turks.33 Süleyman happily concluded the truce in 1533, as he had to concentrate on the renewed war with the Safavids (1533–1535). Without the help of his emperor-brother, Ferdinand was still able to guard Vienna by placing German Landsknechte and Spanish mercenaries in fortresses such as Komárom, Győr, Esztergom and Tata. His commanders-in-chief not only commanded the German and Spanish mercenaries serving in Habsburgcontrolled Hungary and Croatia, but they also gradually assumed control over matters related to border defence. This created much resistance from the Hungarian and Croatian estates because it was the right of the estates’ leaders – the palatine (palatinus) of Hungary and his proxy (locumtenens) when Ferdinand left the offfijice of the palatine vacant (1530–1554), and the ban of Croatia and Slavonia – to command troops in the absence of the king. However, since Ferdinand’s Austrian lands – especially the Lower Austrian estates – paid the troops serving in Hungary and Croatia, Ferdinand’s Austrian commandersin-chief, war councillors and war secretaries gradually took over the management of the military and border defence in the 1530s. In the process, Vienna’s military experts gained useful knowledge about border defence and the Turkish wars by consulting their Hungarian and Croatian counterparts experienced in these matters.34 The Ottoman conquest of Buda (1541) shocked Europe. At their assembly in Speyer in February 1542 the imperial estates approved the hiring of 24,000 32

33 34

Fernando González de León, ‘Spanish Military Power and the Military Revolution’, in Geofff Mortimer (ed.), Early Modern Military History, 1450–1815. Basingstoke, 2004, 28, 30–32. Bárdossy, Magyar politika, 105–109. Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System Against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (up to the Early Eighteenth Century)’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confijines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 18–22.

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infantry and 4,000 cavalry to recapture Buda. Depressed by the destruction of his navy offf the coast of Algiers (24–25 October 1541), Emperor Charles reneged on his promise to lead the expedition personally, citing news about imminent Ottoman and French attacks. Joachim II, the Elector of Brandenburg, proved to be a poor replacement for the emperor. Under Joachim’s inept leadership, the imperial army and the joined Hungarian cavalry, a force of about 55,000 strong, besieged Pest in vain from 28 September through 8 October. The campaign ended in humiliation before the army ever shot a single cannon ball at Buda. Insufffijiciently provisioned and decimated by disease, only about a fourth of the imperial mercenaries returned to their home. By then, Charles had been fijighting against Francis, who declared war on the emperor in May 1542, and attacked Perpignan to the south of France, Milan and Antwerp; a joint FrancoOttoman fleet besieged Nice in August 1543. The Franco-Ottoman military operations and the wintering of the Ottoman fleet of some 110 galleys and 30,000 men in the French port of Toulon in 1543–1544 accomplished little strategically. However, these assaults blocked the emperor from helping Ferdinand in 1543, when Süleyman’s troops attacked Hungary to retaliate for the failed imperial campaign in 1542.35 The Habsburg–Valois conflict consumed increasingly more resources. Charles’ and Ferdinand’s armies consisted of mercenaries whose wages grew by 55 per cent from 1530 to 1552. The army that Charles led into Provence in 1536 cost him 1,500,000 Spanish ducats, but accomplished little. A somewhat larger army that the emperor took against Metz in 1552 cost him 3,276,000 Spanish ducats, and accomplished even less. The successful twelve-month campaign against the Schmalkaldic League in 1546–1547 cost 3,000,000 Spanish ducats. This amounted to more than 60 per cent of the combined revenue of Castile, Naples, and the Low Countries’ core provinces, realms that yielded more income than any other directly ruled by Charles V.36 Naval commitments against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean were even more expensive. Charles’ Mediterranean fleet was under the able leadership of Andrea Doria, the Genoese maritime condottiere, who had entered the emperor’s service after his contract expired with Francis in 1528. The fleet consisted of Doria’s own galleys, galley squadrons from Spain, Sicily and Naples (Charles’ Aragonese inheritance), and other hired galleys from Italy. Contemporaries estimated that the emperor’s naval expedition against Algiers 35

36

Árpád Károlyi, ‘A Német Birodalom nagy hadi vállalata Magyarországon 1542-ben’, Századok (1880) 265–299, 357–387, 445–465, 558–689, 621–655; J. Ursu, La politique orientale de François Ier (1515–1547). Paris, 1908, 142–147; Christine Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infijidel: The Ottoman and French Alliance in the Sixteenth Century. London, 121–138. Tracy, ‘War Finance’, 69–70.

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in the fall 1541 cost him some 4,000,000 gold coins, but a winter storm destroyed some 130 ships and seventeen galleys of the fleet.37 These costly wars made Charles even more reluctant to aid Ferdinand against the Turks in Hungary. Even if Charles wanted to help his brother, the parliamentary assemblies of the emperor’s realms were unwilling to vote for subsidies spent outside their countries. The failure of the 1542 expedition and Ottoman conquests in Hungary in 1543–1544 and 1551–1552, demonstrated that the existing defence strategy needed re-adjustment. The hastily reinforced castles in the middle of the country, which were to replace the collapsed Danubian border defence, provided insufffijicient protection against the superior Ottoman art of siege warfare. A document that the Lower Austrian estates presented at the Imperial Diet of Regensburg in 1556 listed no less than 262 towns, castles, and manor houses that the Ottomans had captured between 1526 and 1556.38 Between 1521 and 1566 only thirteen castles were able to resist Ottoman fijirepower for more than ten days and only nine for more than twenty days.39 In the same period, only four castles managed to withstand Ottoman sieges: Kőszeg in 1532, Temesvár in 1551, Eger in 1552, and Szigetvár in 1556. Yet, even these castles enjoyed only temporary success, as the Ottomans eventually captured Temesvár in 1552, Szigetvár in 1566, and Eger in 1596. In view of continued Ottoman advance, the Habsburg authorities in Vienna assumed a central role in organizing and fijinancing the defence of their Hungarian and Croatian border zones. Representatives of the Hungarian and Croatian estates and the Habsburg authorities worked out a new defence strategy via numerous proposals, meetings and military conferences, of which those held in 1554–1556 and in 1577 proved to be the most signifijicant. At the meetings in 1554–1556 the experts not only took stock of lost castles and forts, but they also deliberated on how to strengthen the remaining castles, where to build new fortresses, and how to garrison and fijinance them. These discussions led to the establishment of the Viennese Aulic War Council (Wiener Hofkriegsrat) in November 1556. As the central organ of the monarchy’s defence and military administration, the Aulic War Council had jurisdiction over the 37 38

39

Jan Glete, Warfare at Sea, 1500–1650. London, 2000, 99; Ernest Charrière, Négociations de la France dans le Levant. Vol. 1. Paris, 1848, 523; Károlyi, ‘A Német Birodalom’, 375. The document is published in Géza Pálfffy, ‘Egy rendkívüli forrás a magyar politikai elit 16. századi földrajzi ismereteiről. Az 1526 és 1556 között török kézre került magyarországi városok, várak és kastélyok összeírása a Német-római Birodalom rendjei számára’, in György Terei et al. (eds.), Várak nyomában. Tanulmányok a 60. éves Feld István tiszteletére. Budapest, 2011, 177–194. Endre Marosi, XVI. századi váraink (1521–1606). Budapest, Miskolc, 1991, 32.

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whole monarchy. However, in its fijirst decades its main task was to organize and manage the anti-Ottoman border defence system in Hungary. Since diplomatic relations with the Ottomans largely concerned war, the War Council handled the “Turkish diplomacy”, too.40 The Habsburgs’ new defence strategy brought about a number of political and military developments all related to the anti-Ottoman war effforts. These included the royal takeover and modernization of strategically important fortresses (held originally by Hungarian aristocrats and the Catholic church), the construction of new fortresses, the maintenance of a sizable permanent border defence force, and the establishment of new administrative bodies to coordinate, manage, and fijinance these tasks. When Ferdinand became king of Hungary in 1526, several of the most important castles and castle domains – including such key forts as Eger, Szigetvár, Kanizsa, Fülek, and Győr – were either mortgaged or in the hands of Hungarian aristocrats and the clergy. A similar situation existed in Croatia and Slavonia, where Ferdinand controlled only two out of thirty-four castles in 1537. Between the mid-1540s and the late-1560s, the Habsburg administration not only redeemed several mortgaged estates but also obtained – through purchase and exchange – the important castles of Szigetvár, Eger, Gyula and Kanizsa, along with their vast domains. Ferdinand and his successor, Maximilian II, acquired other castles and castle domains in Northeast Hungary by military force in 1549 and 1565–1566. Whereas the king controlled only two of the 280 castle domains in Hungary in 1541, in 1560 he administered 35 of the then existing 150 castle domains. The treasury reorganized the administration of these castle domains so as to adequately supply and provision their respective castles. Only a few decades later the treasury would mortgage or sell more than half of its castle domains in Hungary. However, in the 1560s these castles and domains played a crucial role in establishing an efffective antiOttoman border defence system. Later, in the hands of the landowning nobility these domains remained an important source for fijinancing and provisioning the border defence.41

40 41

Oskar Regele, Der österreichische Hofkriegsrat 1556–1848. Wien, 1949; Géza Pálfffy, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története, 1526–1598. Győr, 1999, 120–122. István Kenyeres, Uradalmak és végvárak: A kamarai birtokok és a törökellenes határvédelem a 16. századi Magyar Királyságban. Budapest, 2008, 89–95; Idem, ‘Grundherrschaft und Grenzfestungen. Die Kammerherrschaften und die Türkenabwehr im Ungarn des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Krisztián Csaplár-Degovics and István Fazekas (eds.), Geteilt-Vereinigt. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Königreichs Ungarn in der Frühneuzeit (16.–18. Jahrhundert). Berlin, 2011, 98–119.

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After taking over strategically important forts, the Viennese government embarked on a major modernization project to rebuild and strengthen the fortresses according to the standards of the time. Italian architects and military engineers supervised the modernization of the most important forts such as Szigetvár, Kanizsa, Győr, Komárom, Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky), Eger, and Temesvár. The most famous engineers such as Pietro Ferabosco, Ottavio Baldigara, and Carlo Theti, planned the construction of the key forts that defended Vienna. Strategically important towns of Győr, Komárom, Érsekújvár, Kassa (Košice), Nagyvárad (Oradea), Szatmár (Satu Mare) were turned into “fortifijied towns” (Festungstadt) of the type well-known in Italy, France, and the Netherlands.42 The new crescent-shaped defence line, established from the mid16th century on, stretched some 1,000 kilometres in length from the Adriatic Sea to Northeast Hungary. In 1556, the Hungarian and Croatian–Slavonian defence system comprised about 80 fortresses, forts and smaller guardhouses, manned by 14,000 soldiers. The respective numbers rose to 170 and 22,700 by 1593. Of the 22,000 soldiers manning the border castles in the 1570s and 1580s, 15 per cent were German, Italian and Spanish mercenaries stationed in key fortresses, whereas the rest were comprised of Hungarians, Serbs and Croats.43 From the 1550s onward, the Viennese authorities set up a host of other military-fijiscal administrative offfijices in order to muster and pay the soldiers (Kriegszahlmeister in Hungary, Hofkriegszahlmeister, Kriegszahlmeister in Upper Hungary); to map, oversee, build, and modernize the forts (Oberstbaukommissar, Bausuperintendent), and to provision the garrisons and troops and supply them with weapons and ammunition (Oberstschifffmeister, Oberstschifff- und Brückenmeister, Oberstzeugmeister, Oberstzeugmeisterleutnant in Oberungarn). Although their establishment may seem haphazard, these administrative offfijices were instrumental in managing and fijinancing the antiOttoman defence system. Financing the border defence proved to be an especially difffijicult task, and it led to the mutual interdependence of the Habsburg court and the estates in defence administration and fijinance.44 42

43

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György Domokos, Ottavio Baldigara. Egy itáliai várfundáló mester Magyarországon. Budapest, 2000, 20–29; Lajos Gecsényi, ‘Ungarische Städte im Vorfeld der Türkenabwehr Österreichs. Zur Problematik der ungarischen Städteentwicklung’, in Elisabeth Springer and Leopold Kammerhofer (eds.), Archiv und Forschung. Das Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in seiner Bedeutung für die Geschichte Österreichs und Europas. (Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 20.) Wien, 1993, 57–77. Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.) Translated by Thomas J. DeKornfeld and Helen D. DeKornfeld. Boulder, Co., New York, 2009, 99. Géza Pálfffy, A Magyar Királyság és a Habsburg Monarchia a 16. században. Budapest 2010, 176–181; Pálfffy, ‘The Origins and Development’.

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Since the Viennese Court Chamber (Hofkammer) or Treasury, established in 1527, could not alone manage the revenues of the monarchy, separate treasuries were established in Ferdinand’s kingdoms and provinces. Revenues from Hungary were administered by three diffferent treasuries, which were also responsible for paying the garrison troops. The Hungarian Chamber was established in 1528 in Buda but moved to Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava) in 1529. The chamber in Kassa was organized in 1567 to manage revenues and pay the soldiers in Upper Hungary. The Lower Austrian Chamber managed ordinary royal revenues from Hungary and paid the soldiers along the Hungarian– Croatian border. Thanks to the reorganization of Habsburg fijinances and revenue management, by the 1570s the Hungarian lands contributed about one third of the Habsburg Monarchy’s total annual income.45 However, it was only due to the substantial fijinancial contribution from the Austrian provinces and the Holy Roman Empire’s “Turkish Aid” (Türkenhilfe), and subsidies from the Habsburgs’ Spanish line, the papacy, and other allied countries, that Ferdinand and his successors were able to fijinance the border defence.46 Vienna also relied increasingly on domestic borrowing in the form of forced loans raised from aristocrats and offfijicials. The estates in Hungary and Croatia too remained instrumental in manning, supplying, and fijinancing the anti-Ottoman border fortresses through their castle domains and by approving the extraordinary war taxes. As a result, Habsburg war effforts remained heavily dependent on the estates for manpower as well as for economic and fijinancial contributions. The estates of the border zones also had a ready military force at their disposal – the armies of the magnates and the soldiers of the border fortresses – with which to check Habsburg absolutism.

45

46

István Kenyeres, ‘Die Finanzen des Königreichs Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) München, Wien, 2003, 84–122; Idem, Uradalmak és végvárak, 373. Géza Pálfffy, ‘Der Preis für die Verteidigung der Habsburgermonarchie. Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner, and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft, 20–44; István Kenyeres, ‘Die Kriegsausgaben der Habsburgermonarchie von der Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zum ersten Drittel des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Peter Rauscher (ed.), Kriegsführung und Staatsfijinanzen. Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Römische Reich vom Dreißigjährigen Krieg bis zum Ende des habsburgischen Kaisertums 1740. Münster, 2010, 41–78.

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Conclusion Ottoman military superiority enabled Süleyman to conquer Central Hungary. However, the new defence system, which the Habsburgs established in Hungary and Croatia proved strong enough to stop further Ottoman advance in Central Europe. That Süleyman died in Hungary in 1566, leading his last campaign against the same country whose key fortress he had conquered more than forty years before during his fijirst campaign is symbolic. It not only shows the failure of the padishah’s policy,47 but also reminds us not to overstate the importance of (relative) military superiority. This Ottoman military superiority, and the Ottoman threat in general, had a dual impact on the development of the Habsburg military and administration. On the one hand, it spurred military modernization and administrative centralization, and acted as an important catalyst for military experimentation and reform.48 On the other hand, Vienna’s dependence on the estates to man, supply, and fijinance the border fortresses perpetuated a system of military devolution and administrative decentralization, which in turn maintained the distinct political, constitutional, and cultural institutions of the Habsburg kingdoms and domains.

47 48

On this, see Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire. The Ottomans in Central Europe: A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, esp. 129–133. Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Habsburg Defense System in Hungary Against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europe’, in Brian J. Davies (ed.), Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500–1800. (History of Warfare, 72.) Leiden, Boston, 2012, 35–61.

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Ottoman Defence System in Hungary Klára Hegyi * Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest [email protected]

In Hungarian schools, children who are just getting acquainted with history are taught that after the fall of the capital city of Buda in 1541, the Kingdom of Hungary was split into three parts. This is both true and false. The country’s southern defence line collapsed already in 1521 and so did its army fijive years later. After that, the eastern part of the territory between the Drava and Sava rivers was lost (this area became later the sancaks of Sirem [Szerémség/Srem] and Pojega [Pozsega/Požega]), and the territories along the Lower Danube as well as Titel, which lay to the north of the Danube at its confluence with the Tisza, came under Ottoman rule.1 This shows that the kingdom had been falling apart, but for the time being there was no such thing as Ottoman Hungary. In 1541, Buda (Budun, Budin) and Pest (Peşte) on the other side of the river were standing by themselves far away to the north. Another twenty-fijive years of war was needed to establish Ottoman Hungary, and the process was concluded during the last campaign of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. The process of the establishment of the Ottoman fortress system clearly demonstrates the needs and the aims. First of all Buda, the waterway on the river Danube leading to it and the military road along the river had to be secured, because even if King Ferdinand I of Hungary had shown little aptitude in attempting to retake Buda in 1542, a better organised attack had to be considered. Establishing a connection between Eszék (Osijek/Ösek) and Buda was a top priority, yet it was not enough, as the youngest seat of a vilayet in the empire had to be provided with a hinterland.

* This essay summarises the fijindings of my book entitled The Ottoman Military Organization in Hungary: Fortresses, Fortress Garrisons and Finances. (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Türkvölker, 25.) Berlin, 2018, 75–115, 159–163. 1 Olga Zirojević, ‘Turska utvrđena mesta na području današnje Vojvodine, Slavonije i Baranje’, Zbornik za istoriju Matice Srpske 14 (1976) 99–143.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_016

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map 1

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Establishing the fortress system in Ottoman Hungary, 1543

Between the autumn of 1541 and the spring of 1542 military forces were already protecting the busiest crossing places over the Danube, and garrisons were ordered to Kalocsa (Kalaça), Szekszárd (Seksar), and Szekcső (Sekçöy). By the spring of 1543 garrisons were ordered to the southern part of the Danube–Tisza interfluve, to Bács (Baç), Szeged (Segedin) and Zombor. During the campaign of 1543 Süleyman I took the most important fortresses of Eastern Transdanubia, namely Siklós (Şikloş) at the river Drava, Pécs (Peçuy), Székesfehérvár (İstolni Belgrad), and Esztergom (Estergon) to the north, and Vác (Vaç) in the Danube bend. Shown on a map, these fortresses mark out a territory, but only to the eye. They were spread out in an area that was continuously under attack, with the devastating forays of the Hungarian military forces. Each new Ottoman fortress had to defend itself; they could not rely on support from neighbouring fortifijications. Therefore the supreme commanders ordered giant garrisons of about one thousand soldiers to the major fortresses (the military troops of Buda

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map 2

Establishing the fortress system in Ottoman Hungary, 1547

consisted of more than 4,000 soldiers).2 In the mid-1540s an estimated number of 13,000 soldiers made up the local garrisons in Ottoman Hungary, and their number was reinforced by 2,300 janissaries from the Porte who were stationed in four large fortresses, and thus the total number of soldiers in the garrisons amounted to approximately 15,000.3 This force was already big enough to initiate minor conquests on its own. In 1544 Visegrád (Vişegrad) and Hatvan were taken, substantially strengthening the defence of Buda in the north and northeast, and Csókakő (Çoka) near Fehérvár was also occupied. In the following two years the fortresses in Tolna County, namely Simontornya (Şimontorna), Endréd (Endrik), Ozora (Ozor),

2 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Türkische Handschriften (ÖNB), Mxt 550 and 566: pay lists 1543. 3 ÖNB Mxt 583 and 561: pay lists 1544–1545; Mxt. 590 and 581: pay accounts 1544–1546. Ömer Lütfiji Barkan, ‘954–955 (1547–1548) Mâlî Yılına Âit Bir Osmanlı Bütçesi’, İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 19 (1957–1958) 270–271.

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Tamási (Tomaşin), Döbrököz (Döbrekös), and Hídvég (Hidvig) were taken.4 The Ottoman fortresses in Transdanubia started to form a network or a true system. The mid-1540s was also the beginning of the construction of fortresses. The network of medieval forts in Hungary was the thinnest in the central areas of the country, namely the area of the Great Plains, which actually became the core of Ottoman Hungary. The captured strongholds, whether they were in the frontier zone, alongside rivers or roads, needed to be augmented. The Ottomans possessed a great number of fortresses out of wood and earth. Out of 174 strongholds built by them in Hungary, 80 were built in this manner. (Note: In Ottoman sources, two types of strongholds are consistently distinguished: occupied stone fortresses are called kales even if they were old fashioned, small and came to be demilitarized after a couple of years, and fortresses built by the Ottomans themselves are always referred to as palankas, or parkans, the big and important ones included. In the 17th century these two terms were not used in such a consistent manner. These 174 fortresses of course never functioned together or at the same time.) Of all the constructions during the 1540s, two stand out: The fortress of Ciğerdelen raised on the other side of the Danube opposite the strategic fortress of Estergon and the fortress of Korkmaz, or Cankurtaran, built south of Buda. The defenders of older fortresses had been moved to those that were taken or built in this decade, which meant that the number of the troops stationed in the province remained almost stable. To alleviate the burdens of the treasury of Buda, several infantry units started to receive their pay in salary timars; this method became common somewhat later, in 1570. The year 1552 marks an important step in the establishment of Ottoman Hungary.5 Hadım Ali Pasha, governor of Buda, occupied the important fortress of Veszprém (Bespirim) in Transdanubia, and several minor forts in Nógrád County, to the north of Buda, and formed thus a defence circle to the north of the seat of the vilayet. The imperial forces led by Kara Ahmed Pasha conquered the eastern territories. They occupied Temesvár (Temeşvar) and other fortresses in the north, by the river Maros, including Csanád (Çanad) and Lippa (Lipova) which later became sancak centres. After that the same forces also took Szolnok (Solnok) located by the river Tisza. The occupied fortresses and the palankas built before or one or two years after the campaign made up a protective frame 4 Géza Dávid, Osmanlı Macaristan’ında Toplum, Ekonomi ve Yönetim: 16. Yüzyılda Simontornya Sancağı. İstanbul, 1999, 10. 5 Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire. The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, 103–129.

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Establishing the fortress system in Ottoman Hungary, 1552

in the northern and eastern parts of the Ottoman country. A contiguous area bordered by an almost unbroken chain of frontier fortresses thus arose, which could be protected as a territorial unit and could function as Ottoman Hungary. The area’s fortresses were now able not only to defend themselves but also to support and defend one another. A second Hungarian vilayet was born, with Temeşvar as its centre. Later, more provinces were to follow, but in the fijield of decision making, administration and relations with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania, the seats of Buda and Temeşvar remained the main centres throughout the Ottoman era. Due to insufffijicient sources it is impossible to tell whether this great territorial expansion of 1552 brought about any changes in the size of the garrisons in Ottoman Hungary. The number of local garrisons in the vilayet of Buda was about 13,000 men at this time, too, which was complemented by approximately

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Establishing the fortress system in Ottoman Hungary, 1568

one thousand janissaries from the Porte.6 The defensive forces of the vilayet of Temeşvar cannot be totalled earlier than in 1591. How many soldiers were positioned here at the time of its establishment remains an open question because there are no pay lists left. It was the campaign of 1566 that fijinalized the process of establishing Ottoman Hungary. During the campaign, the area of the occupied territories increased both in the west and in the east. In the west, Szigetvár (Sigetvar) and its auxiliary fortresses, namely Babócsa (Bobofça), Berzence (Berzenç) and Segesd (Şegeş), were taken by the Ottomans, and since each of them was sizeable, together they formed one of the largest Ottoman fortress districts. At the other end of the Ottoman territory, the fortresses of Gyula (G’ula) and (Boros)Jenő (Ineu/ Yanova) were occupied, and they contributed largely to the defence of the northeast border. This section did not have to be protected from the tributary 6 ÖNB Mxt 643, 578 and 614: pay lists 1552–1557; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Ms. or. Fol. 432: pay list 1553.

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Transylvania, but rather from the Hungarian soldiers sortieing southward from the fortresses located in the northeastern parts of the kingdom, and it was in this defence task that the mentioned two strong fortresses played an important role. Besides the conquests of 1550s and 1560s, the constructions of new palankas continued until the fijirst two decades of the 17th century. The last campaign of Süleyman the Magnifijicent marked the end of the formation of Ottoman Hungary. It was time to make peace, to sign a treaty that acknowledged its undisputable existence, thereby dispelling any hope of reversing the events among the enemy. This peace treaty was signed in 1568 in Edirne and brought twenty-fijive years of tranquillity to both fijighting parties. The Ottomans fijinalized the administrative divisions, straightened the budget of the Buda treasury, which until then had been run with a substantial fijinancial defijicit, made the fortress system complete with further constructions, rearranged the soldiers of the garrisons according to the experiences gained from the past decades, and secretly, on the quiet, took some more fortresses despite a military advance being forbidden by the treaty. The Aulic War Council of Vienna had a new defence plan designed and elaborated with an engineer’s precision, and the inhabitants of Ottoman Hungary bred thousands of cattle and horses, which they then drove to European markets. In the 16th century this became the basis of their survival, and it required peace. What the occupation of Szigetvár and its auxiliary fortresses meant for the Ottomans comes to light only from later sources. At the end of a register which contains information on the payment of soldiers in 1612–1614, a three-page summary was bound with information on how many defenders had their diploma of appointment, the so called berats, renewed after the new sultan was enthroned.7 The source is undated, and does not even name the sultan. Later, the soldiers of the fortress of Vaç, taken back in 1620, were also registered in the empty space beside the title of the chapter on Buda, so it is probable that the defter was written after Mustafa I ascended the throne in 1617, or after Osman II was enthroned in 1618. According to the register, in the European part of the empire the berats of 31,934 defenders had been renewed; out of this, on the Balkan Peninsula 14,530 and in Ottoman Hungary 17,404 garrison soldiers were assigned with renewed diplomas. Both the numbers referring to the Balkans and those referring to Hungary can be broken down even more. Three quarters of those serving in the Balkans, that is 10,302 soldiers, served in the fortresses of Bosnia, whereas, only 4,228 were stationed in all remaining places,

7 İstanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Maliyeden Müdevver Defterler (MAD) 4133, p. 208–210.

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in spite of the fact that it included the troops in two Black Sea districts, that of Akkerman and Bender. Likewise, there is a huge diffference between the eastern and the western half of Ottoman Hungary. In the two vilayets of Transdanubia, that of Buda and that of Kanije (Kanizsa), there were 11,277 soldiers, and in the two vilayets in the east, that of Eğri (Eger) and that of Temeşvar there were 6,127. (From the pay lists [mevacib defterleri] and pay account registers from these years we get very similar numbers, the biggest deviation of 400 men being in the vilayet of Kanije.) It is worth comparing the two Transdanubian provinces. In the 16th century, in Ottoman Hungary, the fortress district of Buda was the strongest of all. The fortress district in Southwestern Transdanubia – however strong the forts there might have been – was lagging behind. During and after the Long War at the turn of the century (1593–1606) the number of fortresses defending Buda diminished, and the military importance of the district decreased. On the other hand, that of Southwestern Transdanubia increased, mostly due to the Ottoman occupation of Kanizsa in 1600, but also to the fact that it was comprised of many garrisons of several hundred soldiers. Bosnia and the district of Kanije and Sigetvar were and remained a shield and a battering ram held up against the Habsburg hereditary lands even during a century when defeating Europe was everything but a realistic goal. The maps of the establishment of Ottoman Hungary may give the impression that the three parts of Hungary were separated by nice, clean-cut borders. However, this impression deceives, as the borders were drawn back and forth depending on actual needs. If we want to illustrate something – the current state of the conquest, the extension of the sancaks in the frontier, commercial routes or whatever – we must draw up borders. Borders that do not exist, or more accurately are running here or there according to what kind of a question we are dealing with. The border of the Ottoman fortress system can easily be marked out; this was made visible on the maps shown so far. A straight line can be drawn between the farthermost Ottoman fortresses, which would mark how far Ottoman Hungary extended. However, this would not stand, not even in military terms, because the fortresses and their defenders had a function which caused the border to fall at a completely diffferent place. By the beginning of the 16th century, the wars in the Balkans had already ended; indeed, the Balkan peninsula had become a hinterland. Duties characteristic of a hinterland were assigned to it, and to fulfijil these, a network of diffferent military peasant organizations covered the area. The mainland front of the war between Europe and the Ottoman Empire was transferred to Hungary, and it remained there for a period of two centuries. The country was burdened with constant war. This statement seemingly contradicts the fact

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Limits of Ottoman taxation within the northern counties, late 1540s

that only one third of the 178 years that elapsed from the conquest of Belgrade in 1521 to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, was marked by war when troops were marching across the country and besieging forts. The other two thirds were theoretically spent in peace. Only that peace and tranquillity never existed in Hungary, as not a single month passed without forays, raids, the burning down of villages, the robbing of merchants, or kidnappings. For the soldiers of the fortresses these kinds of battles became a constant reality of everyday life, the only diffference being that the Hungarian and Ottoman armies did not fijight on battlefijields or on the walls of castles, but were making incursions into the enemy’s part of the country in order to spread their own dominance, fijirst of all their taxing power by force.8 The soldiers of the Ottoman fortresses and the timariots started their raids as early as in the 1540s, trying to enforce the regular payment of taxes in the entire frontier area. Their expansion can be followed in parallel Hungarian and Ottoman archival documents, mainly in county and sancak survey registers from the same regions. Now we are going to take a look at two maps showing the same border section of the Kingdom of Hungary, lying to the north of Buda. The fijirst one shows what it looked like at the end of the 1540s and is based on Hungarian

8 Ferenc Szakály, Magyar adóztatás a török hódoltságban. Budapest, 1981.

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Limits of Ottoman taxation within the northern counties, late 1570s

and Ottoman registers prepared between 1546–1549.9 At that time, there were ten fortresses including Buda in this region, which were in the possession of the Ottomans. Out of these, Buda, Estergon, Novigrad and Hatvan were made seats of sancaks, and their garrisons, consisting of about nine or ten thousand soldiers, together with the tax-imposing authorities of these centres, were turned loose on the royal counties to the north. The areas selected for taxation were supposed to be defended by more than thirty outdated, weak and badly supplied Hungarian fortresses, which proved to be impossible. The Buda campaign of Süleyman in 1541 and that of Estergon two years later destroyed not only the Hungarian military defence, but also incapacitated all forms of resistance. Obviously, the conquerors, who advanced on roads along river valleys, did not reach every little settlement in the areas behind the Hungarian strongholds, where taxation was to be imposed. The villages located far from the roads received thus a couple of years’ respite for payment of taxes. In the 16th century there are several years when both Hungarian and Ottoman tax registers show the actual borders of the Ottoman taxation in this 9 BOA Tapu Tahrir Defterleri (TT) 410, p. 104–157; TT 981, p. 1–39. Wien, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Orientalischen Handschriften der Konsularakademie Nr. 291 (Katalog Kraffft 291); BOA TT 293; Lajos Fekete, A hatvani szandzsák 1550. évi összeírása. Jászberény, 1968; Gyula Káldy-Nagy, Kanuni Devri Budin Tahrir Deftereri (1546–1562). Ankara, 1971; Ferenc Maksay, Magyarország birtokviszonyai a 16. század közepén. Vols. I–II. Budapest, 1990.

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border section of the Kingdom of Hungary. From these I have selected the end of the 1570s.10 On the map that shows the current state of those years, we can trace thirty years of expansion. By this time, ten more fortresses were in the possession of the Ottomans, half of which were acquired during the war period of 1552. They were not located far to the north, so their capture meant that the border line of the Ottoman fortresses was expanded only slightly to the north. The taxation on the other hand had advanced much farther. As early as in the second half of the 1540s it engulfed entirely some of the counties that had just been attacked and even some which had not yet been attacked, and engulfed some others extensively. (When viewed together, Maps 5 and 6 make the territorial expansion between the two dates even more visible). Such an expansion did not only take place in the northern corners of Ottoman Hungary, but also along the entire frontier, to the detriment, for instance, of the Principality of Transylvania, and it can be seen in the district of Szigetvár, already prior to the occupation of the fortress.11 The fragmentation of Hungary, the power struggles arising from it and the confusion of interests caused permanent struggles on the one hand, while on the other hand they burdened the fortresses with special tasks which would not have burdened them in a more clear-cut military and political situation. The fortifijications housed all the Ottoman offfijices and religious-cultural institutions. In the 16th century some kadı courts still existed in towns that were not protected by walls or troops, but by the turn of the 17th century these had disappeared. Zaims and timariots, who held prebends in the neighbourhood also lived in the forts; there is data about one exception, according to which the Ottoman and Hungarian owners of the village lived in the village, were good friends, and had good times eating and drinking together. The network of fortresses in Ottoman Hungary coincided with the Ottoman administrative network and the domicile of all kinds of public offfijicials.

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ÖNB Mxt. 587, p. 10–38; BOA TT 318, 335, 1003. Lajos Fekete, Az esztergomi szandzsák 1570. évi adóösszeírása. Budapest, 1943; Gustav Bayerle, Ottoman Tributes in Hungary According to Sixteenth-Century Tapu Registers of Novigrad. The Hague, Paris, 1973. Hungarian tax registers: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára, Urbaria et conscriptiones, E 158, Vol. 1, pp. 333–371; Vol. 9, pp. 240–249; Vol. 14, pp. 196–200; Vol. 24, pp. 407–446; Vol. 26, pp. 435–446; Vol. 57, pp. 75–108. Éva Sz. Simon, A hódoltságon kívüli „hódoltság”. Oszmán terjeszkedés a Délnyugat-Dunántúlon a 16. század második felében. Budapest, 2014.

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Hungary, Vienna and the Defence System against the Ottomans in the Age of Süleyman Géza Pálfffy Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest [email protected]

Two Turning Points in the History of Hungary and East Central Europe: 1521 and 1566 The reign of Süleyman the Magnifijicent can be considered an outstanding era in the history of the Ottoman Empire – as indicated by several essays in this volume. The sultan’s fijirst and last Hungarian campaigns are turning points from the perspectives of Hungary, Vienna and the defence system against the Ottomans as well. Between 1521 and 1566, primarily due to the sultan’s seven campaigns in Hungary (1521, 1526, 1529, 1532, 1541, 1543, 1566, see Map 1), fundamental changes happened that, in the long run, profoundly influenced the defence and fate of Central Europe. Let us observe these fateful changes from the perspectives of the protagonists of this study: the sultan, Hungary, Vienna and the defence system itself. Süleyman inflicted a severe blow on the great old rival, Hungary, and its border defence system with his very fijirst campaign (1521). The fall of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár/Beograd) was indeed the beginning of the end for the mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary – as the Hungarian historian, Ferenc Szakály pointed out nearly three decades ago.1 In the immediate aftermath of 1521, almost all the important border fortresses that protected Hungary on the Danube and the Sava were captured by the Ottomans. The only exceptions were Jajce and Banja Luka in Bosnia which held out until 1528 when they also fell to Süleyman’s troops.2

1 Ferenc Szakály, ‘Nándorfehérvár, 1521: The Beginning of the End of the Medieval Hungarian Kingdom’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Budapest, 1994, 44–76. 2 Gábor Barta, ‘A Forgotten Theatre of War 1526–1528 (Historical Events Preceding the Ottoman–Hungarian Alliance of 1528)’, in Dávid and Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman, 93–130.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_017

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Ottoman campaigns in Hungary, 1521–1566

Forty-fijive years later, during his last campaign in 1566, the sultan occupied the main outposts of the new border defence system that was being constructed in the middle of Hungary: Szigetvár and Gyula. Thereby, he came to possess 40 per cent of the territory of the late mediaeval Kingdom of Hungary as well as Transylvania, which had long been a vassal state of the Porte.3 We know from the research of Pál Fodor that Süleyman wished for much more, namely, to conquer the whole country or even Vienna;4 although he sufffered defeat under the walls of the would-be imperial city (1529, 1532) and eventually failed to achieve his “grand plan”, he made signifijicant conquests in the Danube basin. With his seven campaigns, Süleyman redefijined the historical development of Hungary for centuries to come even if he could not incorporate it as he could the Balkan states. The sultan’s Hungarian campaigns – directly and indirectly – strongly influenced the history of Vienna and that of the Central European Habsburg 3 Teréz Oborni, ‘From Province to Principality: Continuity and Change in Transylvania in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century’, in István Zombori (ed.), Fight against the Turk in Central-Europe in the First Half of the 16th Century. Budapest, 2004, 165–179. 4 Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – a Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, 48–133.

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Monarchy.5 In this respect, enormous changes occurred between 1521 and 1566. In the year of the siege of Belgrade, it was not only Sultan Süleyman the Magnifijicent who aspired for Hungary. At the end of May 1521, in Linz, Archduke Ferdinand I of Habsburg married Anne, sister of King Louis II of Hungary, in order to pave the way to the Hungarian throne for a Habsburg prince once again. By the same token, after the fall of the key fortress of Belgrade, Ferdinand started to help his brother-in-law both militarily and fijinancially against the Ottomans, primarily on Croatian territories that were the most threatened at the time from the perspective of his Austrian provinces.6 He came to spend more and more time in Vienna which gradually became his seat, despite the fact that initially he had serious conflicts with its citizens.7 Forty-fijive years later, in 1566, Ferdinand’s son, Emperor Maximilian II had already been the second Habsburg ruler on the Hungarian throne after the Battle of Mohács in 1526; yet, originally, the dynasty hardly envisioned possessing Hungary like this. The 1521 ad hoc aid against the Ottomans had become regular by 1566,8 and Vienna turned out to be not only the residence of Habsburgs in Central Europe and a capital of the Holy Roman Empire but also one of the great fortress cities of Europe.9 Süleyman’s conquest played a crucial role in Vienna’s becoming the residence of the Habsburg Monarchy. The construction and maintenance of the new defence system in Croatia and Hungary became 5 Robert J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation. Oxford, New York, 1979; Paula Sutter Fichtner, The Habsburg Monarchy 1490–1848: Attributes of Empire. (European History in Perpective) Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2003, 14–30; Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht. Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter, 1522–1699. Vol. 1. (Österreichische Geschichte 1522–1699) Vienna, 2003; see further the study of István Fazekas in this volume. 6 Gunther Erich Rothenberg, The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522–1747. (Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, 48.) Urbana, 1960; James D. Tracy, Balkan Wars: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia, 1499–1617. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London, 2016, 69–143. 7 Ferdinand Opll, ‘Ferdinand I. und seine Stadt Wien: Versuch einer Neubewertung des Verhältnisses zwischen Herrscher und Stadt’, Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 61 (2005) 73–98. 8 Géza Pálfffy, ‘Der Preis für die Verteidigung der Habsburgermonarchie: Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft. Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) München, Wien, 2003, 34–39. 9 Karl Vocelka and Anita Traninger (eds.), Die frühneuzeitliche Residenz (16. bis 18. Jahrhundert). (Wien. Geschichte einer Stadt, 2.) Wien, Köln, Graz, 2003, and recently Ferdinand Opll, Heike Krause and Christoph Sonnlechner, Wien als Festungsstadt im 16. Jahrhundert: Zum kartografijischen Werk der Mailänder Familie Angielini. Wien, 2017.

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The composite monarchy of the Habsburgs in Central Europe in the second half of the 16th century

one of the greatest challenges for the monarchy, as it was this system that could guarantee the survival of Vienna and Central Europe (see Map 2). On the whole, the Habsburgs could keep merely 40 per cent of Hungary’s former territory after the sultan’s campaigns came to an end. Ferdinand’s original objective was to keep much more than this, as much of the country as possible. In the light of the Ottoman military dominance,10 however, this 40 per cent was rather a signifijicant achievement. The new defence system played a decisive role in this accomplishment, although its construction went hand in hand with enormous sacrifijices and hardships for both Hungary and Vienna.

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Gábor Ágoston, ‘Habsburgs and Ottomans: Defense, Military Change and Shifts in Power’, The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 22:1 (1998) 126–141; Idem, ‘The Most Powerful Empire: Ottoman Flexibility and Military Might’, in George Zimmar and David Hicks (eds.), Empires and Superpowers: Their Rise and Fall. Washington, 2005, 127–171.

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Hungary and Its Defence Possibilities Following the Battle of Mohács, Hungary endured one of the most critical periods of its history up until that time. King Louis II perished on the battlefijield, and, within a few months, the Hungarian elite had completely legally chosen and crowned two rulers: John I Szapolyai and Ferdinand I of Habsburg. This led to several decades of civil war, a conflict masterfully exploited by the Ottoman military leadership. In the spring of 1528, the Porte made King John, who was isolated in European foreign policy, its vassal.11 During the period of the Ottoman imperial campaigns between 1529 and 1532 the main task in Hungary was mere defence; constructing a new defence system consisting of a network of fortresses was out of question. For the most part, this was because King Ferdinand held a smaller part of the country until the 1530s and only gradually came into possession of a territory that was suitable for a new border fortress system. For the Hungarian elite, this decade was about path-fijinding amidst unprecedented turbulences characterized by two rulers, two dynasties, the monstrous campaigns of the sultan and a civil war.12 These circumstances did not favour the construction of a new defence system. Thus, at the end of the 1530s, the fijirst modest initiatives appeared only on Croatian territory, where the Ottomans could fijirst approach the Austrian provinces. After the Ottoman conquest of Jajce in early 1528, Carniola, Carinthia and Styria came under direct threat.13 However, the Ottoman menace seemed distant from the two new capitals of the Kingdom of Hungary governed by Ferdinand, Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava) and Vienna, because Belgrade was indeed some 600 kilometres from these cities. Buda was held and fortifijied by King John Szapolyai, who repeatedly received assistance from the Ottoman troops against the Habsburgs. Thus, only those Hungarian politicians who were best acquainted with the afffairs of the kingdom could see the real threat in that decade. For instance, in December 1531, Elek Thurzó, the chief justice of Hungary (1527–1543), told Ferdinand in no uncertain terms that “the future of both Your Majesty and all the German provinces entirely depends on 11

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Gábor Barta, La route qui mène à Istanbul 1526–1528. (Studia Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae, 195.) Budapest, 1994; Sándor Papp, Die Verleihungs-, Bekräftigungsund Vertragsurkunden der Osmanen für Ungarn und Siebenbürgen. Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Schriften der Balkan-Kommission, 42.) Wien, 2003, 27–51. Géza Pálfffy, The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century. (East European Monographs, 735; CHSP Hungarian Studies Series, 18.) Boulder, Co., New York, 2009, 37–51. Barta, ‘A Forgotten Theatre of War’; Tracy, Balkan Wars, 109–126.

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Hungary”.14 In the summer of 1539, Tamás Nádasdy, the ban of Slavonia and Croatia (1537–1539), expressed his concern in almost the same words: “If Your Holy Majesty does not support this country with your other provinces it will certainly happen that, due to the loss of this country, the other provinces of Your Holy Majesty will be lost.”15 However, in the midst of a civil war, even these politically responsible magnates could do very little. The majority of the Hungarian estates were not yet aware of the immediacy of the danger and the need to support the erection of a new defence system. Perhaps they still believed that Ferdinand could recapture Buda from John Szapolyai, which the king received from the Ottomans in 1529, during the third Hungarian campaign of Süleyman. Urged by the Hungarians, Habsburg troops attempted to recapture Buda three times (1530, 1540, and 1541), but their attempts failed. After the fijifth and sixth Hungarian campaign of Süleyman (1541, 1543), the hitherto seemingly distant threat suddenly became imminent. By the mid1540s, even the central parts of the country had been under attack. Following the capture of Esztergom in August 1543, Vienna and Pozsony came to be closer to the new Ottoman border fortress than Laibach (Ljubljana) had been to Jajce in Bosnia. And because the 1542 attempt to recapture Buda was unsuccessful despite the large-scale mobilisation of the military and fijinancial resources of the Holy Roman Empire, there was no more time to lose.16 There was an urgent need to construct a new border defence system against the Ottomans on the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary. However, even at this time, there were serious obstacles to its implementation. The almost incessant battles against the Ottomans and their Hungarian vassal, John Sigismund, Elected King of Hungary and Prince of Transylvania lasted until the last campaign of Süleyman (1566). Thus, the foundations of a new defence system had to be laid down in the midst of constant warfare. At the same time, its construction was facilitated by the fact that Süleyman himself did not march on Hungary for nearly a quarter of a century after 1543. Moreover, he unwillingly acknowledged in the Treaty of Edirne in 1547 that he 14

15 16

Gabriella Erdélyi (ed.), Bethlenfalvi Thurzó Elek levelezése (Források a Habsburg–magyar kapcsolatok történetéhez). Vol. 1: 1526–1532. (Lymbus kötetek, 1.) Budapest, 2005, 318: No. 88. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Wien (ÖStA); Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Ungarische Akten (Hungarica), Allgemeine Akten Fasc. 39, Konv. F, fols. 36–37. Árpád Károlyi, A német birodalom nagy hadi vállalata 1542-ben. Budapest, 1880; Paula Sutter Fichtner, ‘Dynasticism and its Limitations: the Habsburgs and Hungary (1542)’, East European Quarterly 4 (1971) 389–407; Antonio Liepold, Wider den Erbfeind christlichen Glaubens. Die Rolle des niederen Adels in den Türkenkriegen des 16. Jahrhunderts. (Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 3: Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften, 767.) Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, 1998, 237–252.

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could not conquer Hungary in its entirety.17 With these steps he himself contributed to the establishment of Hungary’s defence system that eventually put an end to his plans for world domination. Thus, from the mid-1540s, during the eastern engagement of the Ottomans, a new border fortress system was born out of the cooperation of the Hungarian estates and Viennese military leaders. Amidst frequent improvisations, forced measures and debates, it was slowly constructed from the Adriatic region to the Transylvanian border. Finally, in distress, Hungary, Vienna and Central Europe were able to co-operate.18 In all likelihood, Sultan Süleyman did not properly consider the possibility of such a development which meant a decisive blow on his European conquest strategy. After 1543, the Ottoman ruler missed a huge opportunity that could not be made up for in 1566, mainly due to the new defence system. The consequences of the fall of Buda 1541 pushed the Habsburg-governed Central European countries into interdependence. By then, it had become clear that despite a still considerable territory (120,000–150,000 km2) and its respectable incomes (700,000–800,000 Rhenish florins),19 the Kingdom of Hungary was incapable of covering the costs of defence against the Ottoman world empire. This is well illustrated by the fact that before the sixth campaign of the sultan, in the winter of 1542–1543, for six and a half months, the wages of some 10,000 German, Austrian, Hungarian and Italian mercenaries garrisoned in Hungarian castles and towns amounted to 197,480 Rhenish florins.20 This sum, which was equal to one-quarter of the annual revenues of the Kingdom of Hungary, was enough merely for half a year and solely for the wages of mercenaries in fortresses in the central regions of the country – that is, excluding Croatian and Slavonian territories. Thus, the Hungarian estates voiced their concern at the Diet of Pozsony in 1547 in a separate article: “There is a need for fijinancial and military aid from the Holy Imperial and Royal Majesties [that is, Charles V and Ferdinand I] and the Imperial Princes because Hungarian war tax alone

17 18 19

20

Ernst Dieter Petritsch, ‘Der habsburgisch-osmanische Friedensvertrag des Jahres 1547’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 38 (1985) 49–80. Pálfffy, The Kingdom, 89–109. István Kenyeres, ‘Die Finanzen des Königreichs Ungarn in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner, and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft, 97–121; Idem, ‘Die Einkünfte und Reformen der Finanzverwaltung Ferdinands I. in Ungarn’, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 111–146. Erwein Eltz (ed.), Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Karl V. Vol. XV: Der Speyrer Reichstag von 1544. (Deutsche Reichstagsakten. Jüngere Reihe, 15.) Göttingen, München, 2001, 1091–1095: No. 139.

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cannot cover all these expenses.”21 On the whole, in order for a new defence system to be constructed, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia by all means fell back upon the regular aid of Vienna and Central Europe.

Vienna and the Defence in Hungary However, Vienna likewise fell back upon the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia. Due to its perilousness, the Hungarian–Croatian theatre of war had long been terra periculosa et incognita in the eyes of the leaders of Habsburg military afffairs.22 They had to cope with not knowing the places, language and laws of Hungary. Furthermore, not only the defence of a small part of the country but a huge border area stretching over several hundred kilometres had to be organised. But at the time, Ferdinand I did not have diplomats familiar with Ottoman practices or an apparatus capable of organising a new border defence system. Thus, he chiefly had to rely on the knowledge and advice of Hungarian– Croatian magnates, prelates and soldiers including the Croatian ban Miklós Zrínyi/Nikola Zrinski who later became captain of Szigetvár.23 Finally, during these times, even natural-geographical circumstances were in favour of the Ottomans. Following the invasion of Syrmium (Szerémség/Srem) between the Danube and the Sava in 1521, there was no signifijicant natural obstacle (mountain, river or marshland) until Lake Balaton to hinder them. Therefore, Vienna and Hungary were mutually dependent on each other. The only problem was that the military and fijinancial opportunities of the emerging Habsburg Monarchy were rather limited. On the one hand, Ferdinand I took over the Holy Roman Empire from Charles V after the fijirst two Ottoman sieges of Szigetvár (1555–1556). Thus, it was imperative that the fortress besieged by the troops of Hadım Ali Pasha of Buda, be saved in the summer of 1556 by a joint Central European military manoeuvre.24 (See Map 3) On the other hand, for a long time, it was difffijicult to convince the Austrian, Moravian and German estates

21 22 23 24

Magyar törvénytár / Corpus Juris Hungarici 1526–1608. évi törvényczikkek, accompanied by explaining notes by Dezső Márkus. Budapest, 1899, 198–199 (act 16, 1547). Pálfffy, The Kingdom, 58–51, 89–94. Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, 57–187. János B. Szabó, ‘An Example for Some – a Lesson for Others. The First Ottoman Siege of Szigetvár and the Military Campaigns of 1555–1556 in Southern Transdanubia’, in Péter Kasza (compil. and annot.), Remembering a Forgotten Siege: Szigetvár 1556 / Egy elfeledett ostrom emlékezete. Szigetvár 1556. Ed. by Pál Fodor. Budapest, 2016, 136–144.

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The campaign of 1556

of the reality of the Ottoman threat. Furthermore, there were very few soldiers from among these estates who had more experience in Hungary. In this sense, too, the mid-1540s brought about crucial changes. After Sultan Süleyman had strengthened the vilayet of Buda with his campaign in 1543, all hope failed to reconquer the capital city. There was an immediate need for aid, especially in the esplanade of Vienna. This is the reason, why, from the middle of the decade, Lower Austrian estates contributed not only occasional but regular fijinancial aid and military services to the construction and operation of a new border defence system.25 Obviously, this was limited to the borderland in the foreground of their province, between Lake Balaton and the Danube. In the meantime, the Türkenhilfe (Turkish Aid) also arrived more and more regularly from the Holy Roman Empire.26 In the following decades a fijinancial system gradually crystallised, where basically every neighbouring Austrian and Bohemian province participated in maintaining the Hungarian and Croatian border territory 25 26

Géza Pálfffy, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története 1526–1598. (A győri főkapitányság története a 16–17. században, 1.) Győr, 1999, 65–166. Peter Rauscher, ‘Kaiser und Reich: Die Reichstürkenhilfen von Ferdinand I. bis zum Beginn des „Langen Türkenkriegs“ (1548–1593)’, in Edelmayer, Lanzinner and Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft, 45–83.

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closest to it. The young sultan could hardly have thought in Belgrade in 1521 or under Vienna in 1529, that two decades later Ferdinand of Habsburg would be able to mobilise the fijinancial and military resources of Central Europe so much so that he would keep the sultan’s overwhelming forces at bay. From the 1550s onwards, the hitherto forced measures were replaced by more and more systematic planning. An increasing number of factors opened up opportunities for doing so. First, Sultan Süleyman had not marched against Hungary in person, giving the Habsburgs and Hungarians another reprieve – though in 1552, an army led by Second Vizier Kara Ahmed Pasha conquered the entirety of the Temesköz (later Banat) and a signifijicant part of Slavonia, annexing vast new territories to the Ottoman Empire. Second, the Hungarian estates and Viennese military leaders began to co-operate even more closely, and held military conferences in both Vienna and Pozsony. During these conferences based on border area inspections, they primarily debated which fortresses should be fortifijied and taken under treasury control, which ones should be garrisoned or demolished, where new ones should be built, how their garrisons could be fijinanced and how ammunition and provisions could be provided. The opinion of Hungarian magnates was regularly taken into account when choosing those who fulfijilled the most important military positions.27 Finally, in November 1556, another decisive change occurred when Ferdinand I set up the Aulic War Council in Vienna. Thereby, modelled on the fijinancial administration, the military administration of the monarchy and the Hungarian–Croatian border defence, too, received a central governing offfijice.28 This brought about a quality change compared to the late Middle Ages and the previous decades. In Europe, this institution was one of the fijirst military government bodies and specialised offfijices which held regular meetings. Obviously, its main task was to organise the new defence system and to design a unifijied defensive strategy in co-operation with the Hungarian magnates. Setting up such a council also meant that military afffairs in the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy came under joint central control and that the Hungarian elite had to relinquish a large part of its former political and administrative power. What remained under the control

27 28

Pálfffy, A császárváros védelmében, 109–133. Oskar Regele, Der österreichische Hofkriegsrat 1556–1848. Wien, 1949; Géza Pálfffy, ‘Die Akten und Protokolle des Wiener Hofkriegsrats im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Josef Pauser, Martin Scheutz and Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.), Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie (16.–18. Jahrhundert). Ein exemplarisches Handbuch. (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband, 44.) Wien, München, 2004, 182–195.

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of the estates, were primarily armed levies of the nobility (insurrected noble troops, Lat. insurrectio).29

Success or Failure? The New Border Defence System against the Ottomans The systematic organisation bore fruits by the 1560s. Sufffijice it to delineate here the most signifijicant phenomena from the perspective of the sultan’s campaign of 1566. The most important Hungarian fortresses, fijirst and foremost Szigetvár, Eger, Gyula and Győr, were fijirst taken partially or entirely into royal possession and treasury administration from the 1540s, then built out to be key fortresses of the new border defence system. As the next step, all the smaller castles and guard points around them garrisoned by royal guards were, in accordance with the above-mentioned military conferences and the recommendations of Hungarians, organised into respective defensive zones called border fortressgeneralcies. In 1556, in approximately 80 border castles, almost 14,000 troops served in the seven generalcies of the new defence system (see Map 4): Croatian and Slavonian border areas and the ones centred around Szigetvár, Győr, the mining areas, Upper Hungary and Gyula, while Komárom (Komárno) became the centre of the Danube fleet – as is shown by Table 1.30 Among them, the generalcies of Szigetvár, Győr and Upper Hungary were of the highest strategic importance. While the border area of Győr, together with the fortress of Komárom, protected the main Ottoman target, Vienna, Szigetvár and Eger (in Upper Hungary) were detached posts of border defence. In the east, the same function was fulfijilled by Gyula, which also served as a control point for Transylvania. Also, each and every border fortress-generalcy was hierarchically structured. They varied in natural and strategic properties; each castle had a specifijic task and role according to its location and signifijicance.31 The so-called “main castles” (such as Bihács [Bihać], Varasd [Varaždin], Szigetvár, Győr, Komárom, Eger, Kassa 29

30 31

József Zachar, ‘Die Insurrektion des Königreichs Ungarn (Ein historischer Überblick)’, in Ferdi I. Wöber (ed.), Actes du Symposium international „La campagne de 1809”. Vienna, 2009, 93–100. ÖStA HHStA Ungarische Akten (Hungarica), Allgemeine Akten Fasc. 76, Konv. A, 1556 Jan.–Juli fols. 16–37. Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System Against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (Up to the Early Eighteenth Century)’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military

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map 4

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The border defence system in Hungary and Croatia against he Ottomans between 1556 and 1565

[Košice] and Gyula; with a garrison of 1,000–1,500), were transformed into fortresses and fortress cities from the 1550s and, with the help of Italian fortress architects, became pillars of defence and local centres of military administration. Step by step, further greater border castles (with garrisons of 400–600 soldiers) and third-class, smaller stone and palisade strongholds (with garrisons of 100– 300 soldiers) were added to these key fortresses. Finally, an important role in the system was given to guardhouses and watch-towers with merely a dozen soldiers. Their main task was keeping an eye out for enemy raids, alerting greater castles and warning the surrounding population by mounted orderlies as well as with a system that used gun-shots and fijires as signals. Basically, the structure would not change much in the next century or so, though in the 1570s and later in the 17th century, it was reformed a couple of times. Albeit the last campaign of Sultan Süleyman in 1566 brought the border territories of Szigetvár and Gyula under Ottoman rule, the former was replaced by the establishment of the generalcy of Kanizsa (Nagykanizsa), and the role Confijines in the Era of the Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 39–54.

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of Gyula was partially taken over by Eger. The latter held out until 1596 when, once again, a sultan (Mehmed III) marched against Hungary in person and occupied this important stronghold.32 Then, it was not by accident that in 1566 Sultan Süleyman led his troops against Szigetvár and Gyula instead of his perennial target, Vienna. He might have realised around this time what an opportunity he missed after 1543. Table 1

The border defence system in Hungary and Croatia, 1556

Captain-generalcy

Fortresses

Infantry

Cavalry

Total annual payment (Rhenish florin)

Croatian confijines Slavonian border Troops led by the banus Border fortresses around Szigetvár Fortresses around Győr Komárom Confijines protecting the mining towns Border fortresses in Upper Hungary (including Eger) Captain-generalcy of Gyula Total

ca 15 15 + fijield troops ca. 5 castles

565 944 200

241 900 300

77,206 111,160 28,056

ca. 10

1080

826

97,730

8

1874

987

143,203

1 ca. 12

928 762

150 826

69,456 80,539

ca. 10 + fijield troops

1375

859

123,000

ca. 5 + fijield troops ca. 80

250

915

59,125

7978

6004

789,475

In 1529, 1532 or even in 1541 he could have easily marched towards Vienna, as there were no signifijicant fortresses left in Hungary threatening his troops from behind. However, the evasion of Szigetvár, Gyula and Eger would have been a huge risk to take in 1566. His decision was also motivated by the fact that with the establishment of the new Habsburg defence system in Hungary, these 32

Günhan Börekçi, Macaristan’da Bir Osmanlı Padişahı: Sultan III. Mehmed’in Eğri Seferi Rûznâmesi (1596). (Okur Kitaplığı, 167.) İstanbul, 2016.

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three fortresses menaced the untroubled possession of the occupied territories during the 1550–1560s. Miklós Zrínyi, the captain of Szigetvár as well as the captains of Gyula and Eger were preparing for active defence in these years. By leading raids to and levying taxes in Ottoman territories, they terrorised and destabilised the provinces of Buda and Temeşvar. Moreover, Gyula was able to limit the Ottoman control of the vassal Principality of Transylvania. Therefore, Szigetvár and Gyula were a great nuisance for the Ottoman military leaders. Their importance was also evident to Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the campaign, as he had signifijicant family estates around Beçkerek (Becskerek/Zrenjanin), in the vicinity of Gyula.33 Thus, because of the new defence system, in 1566, it was no more about the continuation of global conquest plans but about the consolidation of the Ottoman rule in Hungary and the settlement of the case of Transylvania – especially, because in 1565, the famous German general, Lazarus von Schwendi reconquered important fortresses (Tokaj and Szatmár [Satu Mare]) from John Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania.34 In the end, both Ottoman aims were perfectly met in 1566: Süleyman’s campaign signifijicantly increased and stabilised the Ottoman dominion and solved the problem of Transylvania for a quarter of a century. For a lengthy period, fijighting offf the Ottomans was out of the question; Hungary and Vienna were forced into persistent defence. All this had a catalyst efffect on the development of military administration, cartography and fortress architecture in Central Europe.35 To give only one example: If there had been no Ottoman conquest, the military cartographic survey of Hungary and Croatia would most probably have begun two hundred years later in the 18th century rather than during the Szigetvár captaincy of Miklós Zrínyi in the 1560s – as is shown by the beautiful, manuscript secret military maps of the defence zones designed by the members of the military architect Angielini family from Milan.36 33 34

35

36

Varga, Europe’s Leonidas, 212–223. See the study of James Tracy in this volume. Cf. Géza Pálfffy, ‘Un penseur militaire alsacien dans la Hongrie au XVIe siècle: Lazare baron von Schwendi (1522–1583)’, in Hervé Coutau-Bégarie and Ferenc Tóth (eds.), La pensée militaire hongroise à travers les siècles. (Bibliothèque Stratégique) Paris, 2011, 41–59. Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Habsburg Defense System in Hungary Against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europe’, in Brian J. Davies (ed.), Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500–1800. (History of Warfare, 72.) Leiden, Boston, 2012, 35–61. Géza Pálfffy, Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie in der Habsburgermonarchie. Die regelmäßige kartographische Tätigkeit der Burgbaumeisterfamilie Angielini an den kroatisch-slawonischen und den ungarischen Grenzen in den Jahren 1560–1570. Budapest, 2011; Opll, Krause and Sonnlechner, Wien als Festungsstadt, 325–344.

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After all this, it is wholly appropriate to question whether it was worthwhile for the Habsburg military leaders and Hungarian estates to erect such signifijicant fortresses as Szigetvár, Eger, Gyula and Győr, and later on Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky), Karlstadt (Karlovac, Croatia) and Szatmár. And was it worth mobilising all material, military and human resources of the Hungarian–Croatian, Austrian and Bohemian provinces to maintain them? The most recent research shows that the answer is a defijinite yes, as is shown by Table 2 below.37 Table 2

Sieges of signifijicant Hungarian border fortresses in the 16th and 17th centuries

Start of fortifijication Eger, 1552 Szigetvár, 1556 Szigetvár, 1566 Gyula, 1566 Győr, 1594 Komárom, 1594 Eger, 1596 Kanizsa, 1600 Érsekújvár, 1663 Vienna, 1683

1548– 1546– 1546– 1552– 1537– ca. 1535– 1548– 1568– ca. 1570– ca. 1530–

Troops in garrison

Length of the siege

2,000 1,000 4,000 2,100 5,000–6,000 1,000–1,500 3,000–4,000 1,000–1,500 3,500 11,200

40 46 33 44 61 18 22 45 41 61

Outcome of the siege defended defended conquered conquered conquered defended conquered conquered conquered defended

Although several of the great fortresses listed in the table were occupied during the 16th–17th centuries, in general, their conquest required the entire force of the Ottoman army. Primarily, their surrender had nothing to do with inadequacies of their fortifijications but rather with the tardiness of military assistance and the superiority in numbers of the attacking Ottoman troops and their artillery. The frequent incompleteness of their fortifijication, however, undoubtedly decreased the possibility of their further perseverance – as it happened in Szigetvár in the late summer of 1566. In almost every case, 37

Géza Pálfffy, ‘Die Türkenabwehr der Habsburgermonarchie in Ungarn und Kroatien im 16. Jahrhundert: Verteidigungskonzeption, Grenzfestungssystem, Militärkartographie’, in Harald Heppner and Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik (eds.), Türkenangst und Festungsbau: Wirklichkeit und Mythos. (Neuere Forschungen zur ostmittel- und südosteuropäischen Geschichte, 1.) Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2009, 53: Tab. 6.

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however, their lengthy resistance played a crucial role in lessening the Ottomans’ ability to expand their territories in any of those war years. All this, in the end, contributed decidedly to the survival of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy. During the Speyer Imperial Diet, it was rightly stated in 1570 that “the Kingdom of Hungary is the protective bastion of the German territories and their forward shield”.38 However incomplete or uneven this success was, the cooperation of Hungary, Vienna and Central Europe, on the whole, reached its goal in containing the Ottoman advance.

Success or Failure? Sultan Süleyman as the Re-drawer of the Map of Central Europe Seen from the Ottoman perspective, the same can be said about the conquests of Sultan Süleyman in Hungary and Central Europe. I wholly agree with Pál Fodor’s conclusion that the series of campaigns against Hungary were “a failed attempt at universal monarchy”.39 Out of 13 campaigns, the sultan led 7 in Hungary. Contrary to his original plans, however, he could merely take possession of 40 per cent of the country’s territory by 1566. This was indeed a Pyrrhic and partial victory. Therefore, in early September 1566, Ottoman plans of global conquest in Europe met their end under the walls of Szigetvár. Although the international theatre of politics and diplomacy also played important roles in it more than once, the failure of the sultan’s attempt was an imperishable merit of the united, Habsburg-led Central Europe as well as the new defence system set up on the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia. This does not mean, however, that Sultan Süleyman’s conquests along the Danube did not have grave long-term consequences. No other ruler has changed so much the history of Central Europe and the Carpathian Basin, and redrawn its map for such a long time as he did. Süleyman once and for all put an end to the role of the Kingdom of Hungary as one of Europe’s leading powers in the late Middle Ages. With the conquest of Buda, he defijined the development of the Hungarian royal capital for quite a long time; it was only in the 19th century that the city partially regained its former signifijicance.40 Also, it can be seen as an indirect impact of Süleyman’s conquests that the capital city of today’s Slovakia is Bratislava (Pozsony) and that the borders of present-day Croatia lie 38 39 40

Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, Ansbacher Reichstagsakten (Rep. 136) Bd. 43, No. 19 (1570). Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire, 56–133. Ferenc Szakály, ‘Die Bilanz der Türkenherrschaft in Ungarn’, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34:1 (1988) 63−77; Géza Pálfffy, ‘The Impact of the Ottoman Rule on Hungary’, Hungarian Studies Review 28:1−2 (2001) 109−132.

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where they do. Without the conquest of Buda, Pozsony could never have had that outstanding role thanks to which it became the capital of Hungary for a period of centuries, and later the capital of Slovakia in the 20th century.41 Furthermore, the Ottoman wars fundamentally redrew the ethnic borders of the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin. In conclusion: Although his attempt to create a universal monarchy failed, Sultan Süleyman can rightly be deemed one of the most successful re-drawers of the map of Central Europe.

41

Géza Pálfffy, ‘A Magyar Királyság új fővárosa: Pozsony a XVI. században’, Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 20:1 (2013) 3–76.

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part 4 The Siege of Szigetvár – the Death of Süleyman and Zrínyi

∵

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The Hungarian Frontier and Süleyman’s Way to Szigetvár according to Ottoman Sources Claudia Römer University of Vienna [email protected]

Nicolas Vatin Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, CETOBAC (CNRS-EHESS-Collège de France), EPHE, PSL [email protected]

We have a lot of material about the Szigetvár campaign of 1566, western as well as Ottoman, narrative as well as archival. It is the archival Ottoman documentation that we will use in order to understand the political implications and the spirit which explain the “long way to Szigetvár”. With a few exceptions, archival material only will be discussed, although there are a number of narrative sources dealing with the Szigetvár campaign and the events that led to it.1 Ottoman imperial decrees are either preserved as their originals or as copies of drafts in the so-called mühimme defterleri (MD), the registers of “important afffairs”. We will be making use of both originals and the MDs. The simple facts and the chronology of events being well known, we

1 See especially, Nicolas Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey: Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár: édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-aḫbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr (ms. H 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkapı Sarayı). (Neue Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 6.) Wien, Münster, 2010; Gyula Káldy-Nagy, ‘Selānikī als Augenzeuge des Szigetvárer Feldzuges (1566)’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 76 (1986) 171–177; Nicolas Vatin, ‘Une page de roman historique: le récit par Evliya Çelebi de la campagne de Szigetvár (1566)’, in Vera Costantini and Markus Koller (eds.), Living in the Ottoman Ecumenical Community. Essays in Honour of Suraiya Faroqhi. (The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 39.) Leiden, Boston, 2008, 277–291; Hüseyin Gazi Yurdaydın, ‘Sigetvarnameler’, in Ankara Üniversitesi İlâhiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 2–3 (1952) 124–136. On the Hungarian campaign narratives, see Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, passim. We would like to thank Pál Fodor for having drawn our attention to this book, which appeared too late for us to make use of.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_018

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will here only give some outlines and concentrate more on the wording of the documents, as secondary literature usually only summarizes their content. For analysing the “way to Szigetvár”, there are three MDs. Chronologically, the fijirst one is Österreichische Nationalbibliothek/ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270, which covers the period of 1563–1564.2 Its fijirst entry on fol. 1r bears the registration date of 23 Şevval 970/15 June 1563, and its last one on fol. 297v was registered on 29 Zilhicce 971/8 August 1564. MD 6 begins on the very next day, that is, 1 Muharrem 972/9 August 1564.3 The third MD in question is MD 5, which is the continuation of MD 6. MD 5 does not contain any direct correspondence between Süleyman and Maximilian II. This may be due to the fact that Süleyman, preparing a campaign against the latter, did not deem necessary to keep contact. On the other hand, one must not ignore the fact that messages were also sometimes delivered orally.4 There also is ample documentation at the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA) in Vienna. Ottoman offfijicials wrote in many diffferent languages, Ottoman Turkish, Hungarian, Italian, German, and Latin. Some texts are translations of Ottoman originals that have been otherwise lost. Among the major subjects addressed in the material from the HHStA is the Transylvanian question of 1551 and 1552.5 When Süleyman did send letters to Ferdinand or Maximilian, the tone could be quite rough. Diffferently from what is found in the headings of entries in the MDs, the Habsburgs were not always thought to be equal to other European sovereigns with respect to the kind of document that was composed. Formally they were, of course, texts of the name type.6 Some were also hükm type documents, even if they lack the introductory formula of the disposition (buyurdum ki “I order that”). First of all, the type of a specifijic document is sometimes referred to in

2 This manuscript has been badly damaged by water and is therefore extremely difffijicult to decipher, even with the help of multi-spectral images showing the text under diffferent wavelengths. On this manuscript and its edition project, see Claudia Römer, ‘An Unknown 16th Century Mühimme Defteri at the Austrian National Library’, in Tuncer Baykara (ed.), CIÉPO XIV. Sempozyumu Bildirileri.18–22 Eylül 2000, Çeşme. Ankara, 2004, 639–654; Claudia Römer, Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, ‘Un mühimme defteri de 1563–1564: le manuscrit Mxt 270 de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Vienne. Étude préliminaire accompagnée d’un dossier de six documents concernant les relations entre Soliman le Magnifijique et Ferdinand de Habsbourg’, Archivum Ottomanicum 28 (2011) 5–48. 3 Römer, ‘An Unknown 16th Century Mühimme Defteri’, 646. 4 Géza Dávid, ‘The Mühimme Defteri as a Source for Ottoman–Habsburg Rivalry in the Sixteenth Century’, Archivum Ottomanicum 20 (2002) 188, 190. 5 Ernst Dieter Petritsch, Regesten der osmanischen Dokumente im Österreichischen Staatsarchiv. Vol. I. (Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs. Ergänzungsband, 10/1.) Wien, 1991. 6 Dávid, ‘The Mühimme Defteri’, 192.

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other decrees.7 Another argument for this view is the wording of the texts themselves, for example: eger dostlık muradun ise emr-i şerifüme imtisal eyleyesin ki gendü memleketün yıkılmasına sebeb olmayasın (“If you want friendship, you shall obey my lofty order, so that you will not become the reason for the destruction of your own country”).8 What MD 5 does contain, however, is material concerning “the way to Szigetvár” in its practical sense, that is the fermans sent to numerous sancakbeyis and kadıs and other dignitaries about the preparations of the Szigetvár campaign.9 We will not go into further detail about this aspect here, as we understood that “the way to Szigetvár” was meant to be the development up to the beginning of the campaign. As is well known, for one and a half centuries, the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier10 went through Hungary, with constant shifts of territories and fortresses from one side to the other. (The Ottoman fortresses along or near the border were guarded by salaried troops.11 Until the second half of the 16th century, the 7

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For a thorough discussion of this issue, see Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 163.) Wien, 1983, XI–XII (“Urkundentypen”). Ibid., No. 3, line 7. Michael Fehlmann, Die Vorbereitungen zu Süleymāns Feldzug gegen Szigetvár 1566: ein Fallbeispiel für die Nutzung der „mühimme defterleri“ als historische Quelle. MA thesis, University of Vienna, 1999. Fehlmann devoted a special chapter to the construction of the bridge at Petrovaradin (Pétervárad); see also Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 34, 38–39. MD 5 has also been extensively used by Gyula Káldy-Nagy, ‘The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31:2 (1977) 174–183, and Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey. For a very comprehensive view of the Ottoman–Habsburg border, including notions of geography as a prerequisite of handling a region, the economic situation, linguistic diversity, the defence system as a counterpart to the Habsburg Croatian and Hungarian military border, the climatic conditions in the period of the Little Ice Age, see Gábor Ágoston, ‘Where Environmental and Frontier Studies Meet: Rivers, Forests, Marshes and Forts along the Ottoman–Hapsburg Frontier in Hungary’, in Andrew C. S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World. (Proceedings of the British Academy, 156.) Oxford, New York, 2009, 57–79. British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2012, DOI:10.5871/ bacad/9780197264423.003.0003 (last accessed 3 September 2016). See Klára Hegyi’s study in this volume, as well as Eadem, ‘The Ottoman Military Force in Hungary’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Hungarian–Ottoman Military and Diplomatic Relations in the Age of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. Budapest, 1994, 131–148; Eadem, ‘The Ottoman Network of Fortresses in Hungary’, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confijines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 163–193. On the soldiers’ appointment procedure and

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total amount of garrison soldiers in Hungary had increased from roughly 6,000–7,000 in 1541–1542 to about 10,000–11,000.)12 It was a zone of unrest and insecurity for the population, not only because of ongoing military campaigns, like, for instance, precisely the Szigetvár campaign. But to a large extent the instable situation was due to the activities of fortress commanders and warlords of both sides who disregarded the stipulations of the peace treaties. Starting with the treaty of 1547,13 one of the foremost Ottoman objectives of concluding a treaty with Ferdinand was a tribute of 30,000 florins (or honorary gift, munus honestum et honorarium, as the Habsburgs insisted on calling it)14 to be paid annually to the Ottomans in exchange for the Habsburg part of Hungary (bil-fiji’l Üngürus vilayetine tabi olub hristiyan tayifesinün olan yerler mukabelesinde “in exchange for the places that are indeed part of Hungary and belong to the Christians”).15 Even earlier on, in 1541, Süleyman had made it clear that a peace treaty could only be concluded if Ferdinand accepted to pay the tribute: eger ulu dergahumla dostlık ve mahabbet murad edinürsen Üngürusa müteallık olan yerler ki evvelden elünde ve tasarrufunda ola ol yerler içün ulu asitaneme kesim vermek üzre (“If you want friendship with my lofty threshold,

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salaries and other bureaucratic matters connected with these fortresses, see Claudia Römer, Osmanische Festungsbesatzungen in Ungarn zur Zeit Murāds III., dargestellt an Hand von Petitionen zur Stellenvergabe. (Schriften der Balkan-Kommission, Philologische Abteilung, 35.) Wien, 1995; Klára Hegyi, The Ottoman Military Organization in Hungary: Fortresses, Fortress Garrisons and Finances. (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Türkvölker, 25.) Berlin, 2018. We would like to express our thanks to Pál Fodor for drawing our attention to this book, which appeared two years after we had fijinished the present article and thus we could not make use of it. Gábor Ágoston, ‘The Cost of the Ottoman Fortress System in Hungary in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in Dávid and Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs, 197. Ernst Dieter Petritsch, ‘Der habsburgisch–osmanische Friedensvertrag des Jahres 1547’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 38 (1985) 49–80. See also, Petritsch, Regesten, No. 93 with all its contemporary translations, ratifijications, and editions. At the same time, after the date of the treaty, 19 June 1547, a ferman to Ferdinand I and one to Charles V were dispatched, among other instances enumerating the conditions for peace (Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns an Karl V., Nos. 7 and 6 respectively). The one directed to Ferdinand also grants a three-month armistice for the ratifijication of the treaty to be sent back – note that this document is NOT the Ottoman-language original of the 1547 treaty (cf. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 12: note 25), which is not extant at the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv. Ernst Dieter Petritsch, ‘Tribut oder Ehrengeschenk? Ein Beitrag zu den habsburigsch–osmanischen Beziehungen in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in Elisabeth Springer and Leopold Kammerhofer (eds.), Archiv und Forschung. Das Haus, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in seiner Bedeutung für die Geschichte Österreichs und Europas. (Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 20.) Wien, 1993, 49–58. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 7, line 6.

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you shall pay a tax16 for the places that were in your hand and usufruct before”).17 One of the ever-recurring themes of fermans as well as Ottoman offfijicials’ letters to the Habsburgs was the delay in payment. Ottoman peace treaties with Christian sovereigns were concluded for a fijixed number of years only and renewable at expiry and at the accession to the throne of a new ruler in one of the two countries involved. This was based on the concept that an ahdname, a peace treaty or rather an armistice treaty, was a unilateral gift of the Islamic ruler in order to interrupt permanent warfare with representatives of the daru’l-harb.18 The renewals of the ahdnames relevant for our subject here are the one of 156219 and the treaty of 1565,20 which was concluded with Maximilian II after Ferdinand I’s death in 1564, only one year before the Szigetvár campaign. Another stipulation of the treaties was the so-called condominium, meaning that villages along the border (serhad) were liable to taxes from both sides. It is clear that any overburdening with tax loads quickly caused people to evade from their homes (perakende olmak “to become dispersed”,21 as this fact is rendered in the offfijicial language). According to the treaties, people had to be brought back if they were found and punished: ve iki canibün reayasından biri kaçsa cümle emlaki beglik olduğından gayrı gendüsi redd olınub veyahud hakkından geline ki sayirlere mucib-i ibret ola (“and if one of the subjects of 16

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Note here the word kesim (“a price, rent, rate, etc., agreed upon and fijixed”; Sir James W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon Shewing in English the Signifijications of the Turkish Terms. Constantinople, 1890, 1549b), designating the tribute, which normally is called harac in the Ottoman documents of this period. For the Ottoman–Habsburg discussions about the correct terminology to be used, see below. The word kesim probably is a calque or copy of Arabic maktu; see Nicolas Vatin, ‘Les Patmiotes, contribuables ottomans (XVe-XVIIe siècles)’, Turcica 38 (2006) 131, and Paul Lemerle and Paul Wittek, ‘Recherches sur l’histoire et le statut des monastères athonites sous la domination turque’, Archives d’histoire du droit oriental 3 (1948) 469. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 3, lines 4–5. On the ideology and characteristics of Ottoman ahdnames, see Hans Peter Alexander Theunissen, ‘Ottoman–Venetian Diplomatics: the ‘Ahd-names. The Historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Commercial Instruments together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents’, Electronic Journal of Ottoman Studies 1:2 (1998) 1–698 (= https://www.academia.edu/16485339), last access date 30 August 2016); Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman–Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th–18th Century): An Annotated Edition of ‘Ahdnames and Other Documents. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 18.) Leiden, 2000. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 25. Ibid., No. 32. Cf., for instance, Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 25, line 30 and No. 32, line 29: perakende olmağa yüz tutmışlardur (“they started to become dispersed”).

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both sides flees, all his property shall be confijiscated; moreover he shall be brought back or he shall be punished in a way that it will be a warning for the others”).22 It is difffijicult to determine when exactly “the way to Szigetvár” may have begun. Here, we do not mean the real decision of starting a campaign against Hungary, which was taken in November 1565 (see below). This decision also caused Süleyman not to engage into any further action against rebellious tribes in the hinterland of Basra in February 1566, as he personally was going to set out into Hungary.23 What is meant here is the development ultimately leading to the Szigetvár campaign. For apart from the above-mentioned subjects that caused diffferences between the two empires, the Transylvanian question was a permanent problem, at least from the 1550s onward. From this period, there is ample correspondence with many fermans addressed to various Transylvanian dignitaries and commanders, as well as to John Sigismund himself.24 These never lack a drastic warning as to what might happen if the sultan’s orders will not be heard, for instance: amma şöyleki istikamet etmeyüb Nemçe tayifesiyle ittifak üzre olasız mazlemenüz boynunuza külliyen yakılub yıkılub taş taş üzre kalmayub harab olmak mukarrerdür (“But if you are not sincere and unite with the Austrians, it will be at your own risk. Defijinitely, you will be completely burned down and destroyed, not one stone will stay upon the other, and [everything] will be ruined”).25 When in 1556 Hadım Ali Pasha of Buda besieged Szigetvár, Ferdinand understood it was time to act and recognized John Sigismund as prince of Transylvania.26 However, in 1564, John Sigismund and Maximilian II were at war over Transylvania. John Sigismund on the one hand asked Süleyman for 22 23

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Cf., for example, ibid., No. 32, line 23, and a nearly identical sentence in the treaty of 1562, ibid., No. 25, lines 25–26. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 19; Idem, ‘Un territoire “bien gardé” du sultan? Les Ottomans dans leur vilâyet de Basra, 1565–1568’, in Eyal Ginio and Elie Podeh (eds.), The Ottoman Middle East: Studies in Honour of Amnon Cohen. Leiden, 2014, 73–74. Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, Militärbeamte, Beamte und Richter. Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 183.) Wien, 1986. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, No. 15, lines 8–9. – On the need to threaten (and reiterate orders), see Gilles Veinstein, ‘La voix du maître à travers les fijirmans de Soliman le Magnifijique’, in Idem (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Actes du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992, 127–144. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 13, quoting Gyula Káldy-Nagy, ‘Süleymans Angrifff auf Europa’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 28 (1974) 207.

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help, and on the other concluded the Treaty of Szatmár (March 1564) with Maximilian. Nevertheless, he then joined his troops to Süleyman’s forces in order to regain his fortresses.27 In 1565, the royal army besieged Tokaj, a fact that made Süleyman raging with anger.28 Süleyman regarded Transylvania as his domain and John Sigismund was kulum oğlı kulum “my slave, the son of my slave”,29 to whom he had given Transylvania as a sancak.30 Troops were gathered 27

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Pál Fodor, ‘Who Should Obtain the Castle of Pankota (1565)? Interest Groups and Self-promotion in the Mid-Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Political Establishment’, Turcica 31 (1999) 73. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 16. Although Süleyman had granted the ahdname and while he asked for the fortress of Szatmár (Satu Mare) to be given back, Tokaj and other castles were attacked. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 34, lines 13–14, 18; see also Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 16, and James D. Tracy’s study in this volume. For this recurring designation for John Sigismund, see, for instance, Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, No. 1, line 12; see also Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 16–17. Another occurrence of this phrase is to be found in a decree sent to the beylerbeyi of Buda, dispatched on 8 Rebiülahir 971/25 November 1563 (ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270, fol. 208r: No. 1055): İmdi kıral-i mezbur yarar kulum oğlı kulum olub vilayet-i mezbure şimşir-i zafer-tesirümle alınmış memalik-i mahrusemden olub anda olan begleri ve reayası cümle kullarum olub vilayet-i mezburenün hıfz u hiraseti ve adasınun def ü refiji zimmet-i hümayunuma ehemm u lazım olmağın (“Now, the aforementioned king is my worthy slave, son of my slave [or: my slave, son of my worthy slave – it is not clear which word yarar ‘worthy’ is a complement of]. The aforementioned country belongs to my well-protected domains that were conquered with my victorious sword. The beys and subjects there are all my slaves. Guarding and protecting the afore-mentioned country and suppressing and removing its enemies is extremely important and necessary”). On the assignment of Transylvania and the Temesköz region as sancaks by Süleyman in 1541, see Pál Fodor, ‘Ottoman Policy towards Hungary, 1520–1541’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45:2–3 (1991) 326–333. For further documentary evidence highlighting Transylvania’s position at the time, see Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, No. 10, line 4: Erdel vilayeti … kıral oğlı kulumun sancağıdur (“The land of Transylvania… is the sancak of my slave the king’s son”). See also Süleyman’s letter to Maximilian of 29 July 1565 (Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 34, lines 9–11. This document is Petritsch, Regesten, No. 475 = MD 6, No. 1383: Eyle olsa Hakk sübhanehu ve teala hazretlerinün ulüvv-i inayeti ile vilayet-i Erdel kuvvet-i kahiremüzle feth olınmış memleketümüz olub kıral oğlı cenab-i devlet-meabumuz tarafından vilayet-i merkumeyi sancağ-i nusret-ayatumuzla zabt edüb sayir ümera kullarum gibi ahvali emr-i şerifümüze mevkuf iken icazet-i hümayunumuz olmadın serdarlarınuz ve kapudanlarınuzla etdüği sulh nice müfijid olur (“If this be so, the land of Transylvania is our country that was conquered by the highest grace of God, praise be to Him and exalted is He, with our victorious power. On behalf of our auspicious majesty, the king’s son is ruling over the above-mentioned country with our victorious sancak. As his situation, like the one of all my other slaves, is dependent on our lofty order, what use is the peace he concluded with your commanders and captains without my imperial permission?”). An even more emphatic expression of Süleyman’s anger about this illicit treaty is to be found in Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Vasallen, No. 33a,

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from Hungarian and Balkan provinces under the command of the beylerbeyi of Temeşvar (Temesvár).31 The fijirst fermans announcing the preparation of a campaign were sent to several beylerbeyis as early as 14 November 1565.32 As was mentioned at the beginning of this paper, many excursions from fortresses took place, in the course of which people were forced to work for the commanders, people were taken prisoner and ransom was taken for their release (which was against the treaty).33 According to a letter of Hadım Ali Pasha of Buda to Ferdinand, when he besieged Szigetvár in 1556, earlier on haydud (hajdú in Hungarian) from Szigetvár and other places had raided ships on the Danube and committed a number of crimes. Ottoman offfijicials, when writing to Ferdinand or Maximilian, expressed the same ideas as the sultan, albeit in a very diffferent tone, which can be reproachful, but is less harsh. In June 1556, Ali Pasha of Buda writes from the camp in front of Szigetvár: “Therefore Toygun Pasha went and conquered those fortresses, and when he was about to position cannons against Szigetvár, your letter arrived, where you said about the

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lines 12–13: kıral oğlına istiklal hükmi verilüb (“As the king’s son is given rights of independence...”). This decree should have been included in Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V. after document No. 33, but it turned only up in the HHStA when this volume had come out. Fodor, ‘Who Should Obtain’, 73: note 16, lists 37 fermans from MD 5 that were sent during these operations. Káldy-Nagy, ‘The First Centuries’, 175; Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 18 (MD 5, Nos. 491, 493, 494, 496, 516, 569, 577). Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 32, lines 29–30: ve bu dostlık içinde Üngürusdan ve gayrıdan hiç reayamuz esir olmaya nagah olsa dahı alıkonılub behasız sag ve salim memleketine gönderilüb satılmakdan ve bağışlanmakdan beri olalar (“During [the period] of this friendship, none of our subjects shall be taken prisoner. If it should happen nevertheless, they shall be freed and sent sound and healthy to their homes without [the payment of] a ransom. They shall not be sold nor given as a present”). Here, the word esir means slave rather than captive (see also Nicolas Vatin, ‘Une afffaire interne: le sort et la libération des personnes de condition libre illégalement retenues en esclavage sur le territoire ottoman’, Turcica 33 [2001] 149–189). In 1554, Toygun Pasha had complained bitterly and iteratively about the fact that people were captured and freed only after paying a ransom, which was an intolerable act during times of peace (“What a treaty is this if ransom is exacted for those who were captured during the times of peace? Especially so as until now no one of those who were captured was subsequently released with a ransom during the period of peace … For in our religion, exacting a ransom and taking money in exchange for those who were captured during the period of the treaty does not happen”); see Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Claudia Römer, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben und Privatbriefe der Zeit Süleymāns des Prächtigen aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 357.) Wien, 2007, No. 32; Petritsch, Regesten, No. 251, HHStA Turcica 10/3, fols. 28–33.

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fortress of Szigetvár: ‘This fortress belongs to us. Do not interfere with it!’ Then Toygun Pasha renounced conquering the fortress of Szigetvár. […More evil deeds are enumerated…] Therefore our exalted padishah sent us and we attacked Szigetvár. […More evil deeds are enumerated…] Toygun Pasha was dismissed, because he had failed to conquer the fortress of Szigetvár. He was not guilty of anything else. If you had known about the oppression and evil doings of the haydud, by my faith, you would have destroyed the fortress and killed the haydud!”34 Szigetvár and its commander as well as troublemakers around it were a constant source of anger for Süleyman. In 1557 he complains about it in a letter to Ferdinand, saying: “The fortress of Szigetvár belongs to the border region [next to] our well-protected domains. When the haydud and robbers make trouble and commit evil acts, they take refuge in this fortress.”35 Even Grand Vizier Ali Pasha complains about Isa, one of his relatives from the garrison troops of Buda, being assaulted and robbed by people from Szigetvár. He concludes: Akrabamuzdan olanlara bu vech-ile te’addi olıcak sayirlerün ahvali nice olacağı ruşendür (“As those who are relatives of ours sufffer such aggression, it becomes clear what the circumstances of the others will be”).36 As a good-bye remark in August 1562, Süleyman asked Busbecq concerning the difffijiculties with Szigetvár Quid, inquit, attinuit nos hic pacem fecere, si eam disturbabunt, qui Sigethum praesidio tenent, et bellum continuabunt? (“What” said he “might make us conclude peace, if those who are in charge of Sigeth will disturb it and continue the war?”)37

34

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Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben, No. 46 (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 339). From the camp, Ali Pasha also sent a number of letters in Hungarian and Latin concerning Szigetvár to Ferdinand and other people, like, for instance, on 29 June 1556, addressing Ferdinand, where regarding the siege of Szigetvár, he again enumerates the evil deeds done by the soldiers of the castle (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 341). Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 21, lines 7–8; Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 22. Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben, No. 66 (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 441). Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Omnia quae extant opera. Basel, 1740. Reprint Graz, 1968, 342, cited by Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 22 with note 93.

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One aspect of the activities of the beylerbeyis of Buda seems to be a function of mediating between the two emperors.38 At least this is the impression they want to give in their letters, pleading for peace.39 In his letter to Maximilian of after 17 June 1565,40 Arslan Pasha says about his role: “Our great and powerful padishah has sent me as his representative in order to organize the whole country. He has entrusted me with all issues. … Whatever may have happened before is bygone. … It is my wish that there may be an armistice between the two rulers according to the treaty of our lofty padishah. … Moreover, the subjects shall not be ruined between the two armies. We strive to strengthen the friendship between the two sides and to prevent the subjects from being ruined and taken prisoner. In the same way, the fortunate king should send orders to both the army in Transylvania and the beys along the border that they may not do anything against our lofty padishah’s imperial treaty nor penetrate into the country of our padishah as long as your ambassador41 is on his way. The dearest wish is that there may be friendship and peace between the two sides. … How could we do anything against the imperial treaty of our mighty padishah? As long as your ambassador is on his way, you should check your people, just as our side is being checked.” At the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, there are more letters of this kind from Arslan Pasha to Maximilian, not only in Ottoman Turkish, but also in Hungarian, Italian, and German. The subjects of these are always the same, that is, the 38

39

40 41

Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Claudia Römer, ‘Raub, Mord und Übergrifffe an der habsburgisch–osmanischen Grenze: Der diplomatische Alltag der Beglerbege von Buda abseits von Zeremonien’, in Jan-Paul Niederkorn, Ralph Kauz and Giorgio Rota (eds.), Diplomatisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im mittleren Osten in der frühen Neuzeit. (Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 141; Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse, 796; Veröfffentlichungen zur Iranistik, 52.) Wien, 2009, 251–264. This is a characteristic feature of practically all the beylerbeyis of Buda’s Ottoman-language letters. They ask why things are as they are, they stress that they are only the sultan’s subjects who have to carry out his orders, and they all emphasize the fact that they are unable to infringe the treaty between the two rulers. On diplomacy along the border, see Güneş Işıksel, La diplomatie ottomane sous le règne de Selîm II: paramètres et périmètres de l’Empire ottoman dans le troisième quart du XVIe siècle. Paris, Louvain, Bristol, 2016, 7–14 (“Les frontières ottomanes et la diplomatie frontalière”). Cf. also Nicolas Vatin, ‘Les instruments de la diplomatie de Bayezid II (1481–1512)’, in Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 2013 II (avril–juin). Paris, 2013, 715–727, especially 723–724; Idem, ‘Un exemple de relations frontalières: l’Empire ottoman et l’Ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem à Rhodes entre 1480 et 1522’, Archiv Orientální 69:2 (May 2001) 349–360, especially 357–359. Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Osmanische Beamtenschreiben, No. 85 (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 468, HHStA Hungarica 91/1, fol. 89). Michael Černović; on him, see Michel Lesure, ‘Michel Černović “explorator secretus” à Constantinople (1556–1563)’, Turcica 15 (1983) 127–154.

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delivery of the tribute, Habsburg incursions on the Ottoman side, the envoy Hidayet Ağa42 who should long ago have been sent back, and the fact that the treaty of 1565 can only be valid if Maximilian takes back his troops from Transylvania.43 The chronicler Feridun Ahmed gives exactly the same reasons for the campaign. The “king of Vienna”, taking advantage of Grand Vizier Semiz Ali Pasha’s laxity,44 did not pay the tribute regularly, did not acknowledge his submission, and had attacked Transylvania. The hayduks (Hungarian hajdús) were the cause of insecurity on the roads. They delivered the travellers they captured to the commander of Szigetvár. Archival documents show that for several years, Ottoman authorities had complained about aggressive acts increasingly witnessed from various members of the royal forces.45 Erroneously, Feridun also complains about the condominium, which, however, was a clause 42

43 44

45

On him, see Alfred Sitte, ‘Tschausch Hedajets Aufenthalt in Wien (1565)’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 6 (1908) 192–201; Karl Vocelka, ‘Eine türkische Botschaft in Wien 1565’, in Heinrich Fichtenau and Erich Zöllner (eds.), Beiträge zur neueren Geschichte Österreichs. Wien, Köln, Graz, 1974, 102–114. See, for instance, Petritsch, Regesten, Nos. 483, 485, 488–489. The grand vizier’s laxity in this matter is described by his saying: “It is money, let it come, be it under the name of harac or as a gift, what diffference does it make?” (Nüzhet, fol. 3v, Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 110–111). Although Zrínyi was not yet commander of Szigetvár in 1554, Toygun Pasha mentions him in a complaint about other raiders of various fortresses, including Szigetvár, who had made incursions into Ottoman territory, capturing people and asking for a ransom in order to let them go. Zrínyi gathered a mass of soldiers near Pojega, and Toygun had sent orders to the bey of Bosna not to move nor attack them; see Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben, No. 43 (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 301, HHStA Turcica 11/2, fols. 153– 159). When Zrínyi was commander of Szigetvár (from 1561 onward), he and his men were often involved in the abduction of peasants and other people, forcing them to work for them. Their activities are described in a lengthy list of captives (Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben, No. 61; Petritsch, Regesten, No. 410, HHStA Türk. Urkunden, see also the discussion of this matter by Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 21–22). ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270, fol. 124r: No. 663 is a ferman addressed to the sancakbeyi of Pojega as a reaction to his worry about a parkan Zrínyi constructed after having destroyed some fortresses in the sancak of Pojega. The document was dispatched on 28 Zilhicce 970/18 August 1563. The bey of Pojega suggests building a parkan as well with the help of the bey of Zaçasna Ferhad and the inhabitants of the region and others. But Süleyman forbids any action against the treaty with Ferdinand, who promised to send the tribute. A stipulation of this treaty is that no side should build new fortifijications (Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 25, line 13: yeniden nesne yabmakdan ... hazer eyleyüb [“They shall beware of building anything anew”]. Therefore, Süleyman says, bu ahd u aman içinde ne ol canibden ve ne bu tarafdan nesne ihdas olınmak münasib degüldür [“It is not appropriate newly to build anything within the period of this treaty and armistice, neither by their side nor by ours”].)

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of the treaty. Summing up, he says: “In a nutshell, they disrupted the order in this border zone of the lands of the padishah of Islam in such a way that because of such excessive oppression and abundant evil, one had practically lost control over this fortunate country.”46 In ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270 and MD 6 there are manifold fermans addressed to Ottoman offfijicials about mismanagement, Ottoman commanders capturing and forcing subjects to work for them, their asking too high amounts of taxes and about the general atmosphere of unrest and insecurity. These orders probably reflect the fact that some Ottomans had the feeling that they did not totally master the Hungarian lands beyond the river Drava, leaving them an option of incursions into what they regarded as a kind of harbi (“enemy”) country. This is corroborated by the fact that on the way back from Szigetvár, on 20 October 1566, the Ottoman army crossed the Drava and halted at Ösek [Eszék/Osijek], then the next day at Sotin (Szata), pretending that Süleyman was still alive. It is only there that Sokollu Mehmed Pasha decides to announce Süleyman’s death, having been informed of Selim II’s arrival at Belgrade. Also, Selaniki says that at Sotin the troops were told to relax, as they had arrived at iç il (“inner region or country”, which probably means on secure territory).47 Finally, there is a parallel concerning the inhabitants of Patmos who are regarded as harbi by Anatolian pirates who sell their captives calling them esir (“slaves”).48 There are three levels of dealing with complaints and infringements of the treaty. 1.   Süleyman protesting in a ferman addressed to Ferdinand or Maximilian and stressing his good will.49 46 47

48

49

Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 20, with a quotation from fol. 4r, ibid., 114. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 56 and 416, notes 672 and 627; Selânikî Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selânikî. Ed. by Mehmet İpşirli, İstanbul, 1989, 46: ve bu gün ikindi divanında sahib-sa‘adet hazretleri bölük ağalarına icazetdür şimden gerü iç el-dür növbet sipahi oğlanları ağası Mehmed Ağanundur üç yüz nefer bekçi yoldaş kifayet eder padişah hazretleri şikar tariki üzre rikab-ı hümayun ağaları ile tenha kalur deyüb destûr verdi (“Today during the afternoon divan, His felicitous Highness gave leave to the aghas of the units, saying, ‘You are given leave. From now on [we are in] iç el. Mehmed Agha of the sipahi oğlanları is in charge. Three hundred guardian soldiers will be enough. His Majesty the padishah will stay alone with the aghas of the imperial stirrup while he goes hunting’”). Nicolas Vatin, ‘Les Patmiotes face à la piraterie entre le début du XVIe siècle et la Guerre de Crète’, in Albrecht Fuess and Bernard Heyberger (eds.), La frontière méditerranéenne du XVe au XVIIe siècle. Échanges, circulations et afffrontements. Turnhout, 2013, 199–214, especially 208–209 and note 41. – See also above on the meaning of esir. On the other hand, Süleyman sometimes ordered raids into Habsburg territory, justifying them as retaliation. This is coherent with the ever-repeated clause that the Ottomans will respect the armistice as long as the Habsburgs do so (see, for example, the treaties of 1562

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2.   Ottoman offfijicials, mostly the beylerbeyis of Buda protesting in a letter to Ferdinand or Maximilian and stressing the Ottoman side’s good will as well as their own. 3.   Süleyman sending orders to Ottoman offfijicials, beylerbeyis and sancakbeyis to check the warlords of their territories. We have seen examples for the fijirst two levels, which are always prompted by Ottoman complaints about Habsburg wrongdoers. From the material in Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben alone, we can glean a large number of individual cases, which are shown in tables 1–6 (see Appendix).50 Tables 1–3 give the sums for the years 1550–1565, and tables 4–6 those of 1561–1563 only, showing the proportion of this shorter period in comparison to a fijifteen-year period. To these numbers, an unspecifijied number of single cases have to be added from the destruction of villages in 1550.51 Now we will have a look at the third level of dealing with Habsburg complaints or with complaints of the local population on the Ottoman side, which, as stated above, may still have been regarded as being harbi. The subjects addressed in these fermans concern the following questions: 1.   Zero tolerance for actions against the population, which further destabilize and weaken the region. See, for instance, ÖNB, cod. Mxt. 270, fol. 142v: No. 659: An order to the beylerbeyi of Buda about the fact that ümera ve hükkamun ihmal u tekasüli ve teaddi vü tecavüzleri sebeb-i nefret-i kulub-i reaya olmağla vilayet-i mezkure şenleyüb mamur olmayub (“The negligence and abuse of the emirs and judges is the reason for fear in the subjects’

50

51

and 1565; Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns an Karl V., Nos. 25 and 32). One example (MD 6, No. 1372; see also Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, “Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos.” A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei [1559–1560, 1564–1565]. Budapest, 2009, 302: No. 198) may sufffijice here, an order to the bey of Çirmen (dispatched on 10 Zilhicce 972/9 July 1565): Mohac sancağına karib olan küfffar-i hakisar vilayetlerine akın etmek emrüm olub … buyurdum ki … küfffar canibine gaflet erüb fırsat el verdügi mahallden küfffar-i hakisarun vilayetini nehb [ü] garet ve yağma vü hasaret edüb geregi gibi toyumluklar edüp adu-yi makhur taraflarına bir vechile intikam olına ki işidenlere mucib-i ibret ü nasihat vakı ola (“My order was given for a raid into the lowly unbelievers’ land that is next to the sancak of Mohács. … Therefore I order that … you shall plunder and devastate the land of the unbelievers, catching them unawares from a suitable place and acquire good booty. Revenge shall be brought upon the parts of the damned enemy in such a way that it will be a warning and an advice for those who hear about it”). These tables were fijirst drawn up in an unpublished conference paper: Claudia Römer, ‘Das Leben an der osmanisch–habsburgischen Grenze im 16. Jahrhundert – Versuch einer Quantifijizierung der Berichte von habsburgischen Überfällen auf osmanisches Gebiet’, in Das osmanische Europa. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 1–3 July 2010. Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben, No. 14 (Petritsch, Regesten, No. 130).

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hearts. Therefore the aforementioned country is not fortunate and prosperous”). The subjects are forced to cut wood and also to mow the grass (odun kesdürüb ve otlık biçdürüb)52 and to do other services for them. As a consequence, the subjects are on the verge of getting dispersed (see above). But Süleyman does under no circumstances give his consent to these acts (asla rıza-yi şerifüm yokdur). In the comminatio part of the command, dire consequences for the beylerbeyi are anticipated: şöyle ki ... senün dahı ihmalün müşahede olınsa mansıbun alınmağla konılmayub neticesi sana aid olur (“If your negligence, too, is witnessed, it will not sufffijice to take your offfijice from you, but you will also bear the consequences”). Another order addressed to the beylerbeyi of Buda concerns extortions of provisions and grains from the local population without payment by the sancakbeyis. They also illegally confijiscate their wagons in case of a campaign.53 There are, however, also cases that have no direct connection to Habsburg–Ottoman relations, nor to the bad treatment of the subjects. These could happen in any sancak of the empire, given the avarice and inclination to evil of people in general.54 2.   The condominium. Some villages do not pay taxes. ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270, fol. 241v: No. 1204, dispatched on 11 Cemaziülahir 971/5 February 1564, is directed to the beylerbeyi of Buda. It concerns among other subjects a list of 43 villages dependent of Komárom that refuse paying the poll-tax (cizye). Süleyman orders the subjects who were already registered to be brought and punished, but he also advises the governor-general to be careful not to do anything against the treaty, as three of these villages originally belong to Tata and therefore should not be molested by the Muslims. The list that is mentioned in this document probably is similar to the list of 42 villages of Petritsch, Regesten, No. 415, 2 December 1563 concerning Székesfehérvár.55

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55

This is a very frequent kind of forced labour, see Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben, passim, especially Nos. 60– 61, the lists of complaints. A protest against similar actions was brought forth by the bey of Mohaç against timar-holders and zaim of Peçuy (Pécs), but he in his turn was accused of oppressing the subjects (see MD 6, Nos. 219, 228). MD 6, No. 829. See, for example, ÖNB cod. Mxt. 270, fol. 254r: No 1259, sent on 4 February 1564 concerning a report of the kadı of İstolni Belgrad (Székesfehérvár) about the quarrel for a house between two sancakbeyis. This list originally was to be included in Procházka-Eisl and Römer, Beamtenschreiben, but it turned out that most of the names of the villages could not be deciphered, not even with the help of our Hungarian colleagues. Therefore we decided to leave this list and

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3.   Ottoman–Habsburg relations and John Sigismund. An important decree is the one sent to John Sigismund, which was registered on 17 August 1564 (MD 6, No. 31). John Sigismund is ordered to prevent the construction of fortifijications by the Austrians, but he must not endanger the lives of his men nor do anything that may be detrimental to the honour of the sultanate, without any reason; this could either mean he must not engage in any action against the treaty or that he must not do anything which would end unsuccessfully and thus bring shame on the Porte. A reminder is sent on 21 September 1564 (MD 6, No. 148). This same order and a previous one of the same day (MD 6, No. 147, addressing the beylerbeyi of Buda) deal with the revolt of Melchior (Menyhárt) Balassa against John Sigismund and his changing sides.56 In No. 147, doubt is cast on Maximilian’s good will.57 At the same time, as in MD 6, No. 152, sent to the beylerbeyi of Temeşvar, John Sigismund is seen as more eager to fijight than necessary.58 Many more commands of MD 6 concern these two issues.59 The Tokaj afffair (see above) occurs in fermans of February and March 1565 (for instance, MD 6, Nos. 790, 792, 798, 811, 814–815, 817, 819, 823). 4.   The military and fijiscal organization of Hungary forms a large bulk of correspondence in MD 6, but this topic is of a more general character and at best gives a background for the “way to Szigetvár”. Therefore, these aspects will not be considered here.

Conclusion The Ottoman view is expressed in both Süleyman’s decrees and his offfijicials’ documents. They see the treaty endangered by actions against it. As long as the Habsburgs respect it, the Ottomans will refrain from actions against it and advise all their commanders and beys to do so. The tone in Süleyman’s orders

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some others for a future publication, also on the grounds that it contained names only and no coherent text, diffferently from the lists of captives (documents Nos. 60–61). This afffair is even alluded to in the two ahdnames of 1562 and 1565, inasmuch as Balassa and Báthory are included in the treaty (Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., No. 25, line 15, No. 32, line 14). See also Dávid and Fodor, “Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos”, 150–151: Nos. 14–15 (they give the date in both cases as 19 September, correcting the day of the week from Monday to Tuesday). Ibid., 155: No. 18. For more details, ibid., passim.

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to his beys to check the commanders of the fortresses not to go raiding against Habsburg territory is quite severe. Similarly, John Sigismund is warned not to be too zealous without any reason. On the other hand, Süleyman constantly complains about commanders’ actions and the conquest and or building of fortresses by the Habsburg side. The beylerbeyis of Buda try to intervene and plead for peace. As we have seen, there are several main topics that cause constant dissent between the two sides that in sum prompted Süleyman to regard the treaty as no longer existent and to wage war. 1.   Transylvania and the role of John Sigismund as a non-autonomous ruler dependent on Süleyman’s orders; 2.   The delay in paying the tribute; 3.   The raids of Habsburg commanders against Ottoman territory (although the opposite occurred frequently as well), killing and abducting people and livestock; 4.   Building and repairing fortifijications; 5.   Attacking castles on Ottoman territory with the Tokaj afffair as a trigger for the Szigetvár campaign; 6.   If one looks at the progress of the army from Istanbul, it seems clear that the aim of the campaign was no other place than Szigetvár. Had not the sultan warned Maximilian in his last words to Busbecq? In this way, the nuisance Szigetvár and its commander represented could at the same time be dealt with.60

60

It was especially actions starting from Szigetvár that were a nuisance by interrupting communication with Buda and also trafffijic on the Danube (Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 21–22).

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appendix

Cases of people killed, abducted and robbed from Ottoman-language documents of the HHStA (see above)

table 1    

1550–1565, persons killed Civilians Garrison troops Sum

64 1516 1589

table 2    

1550–1565, persons abducted Civilians Garrison troops Offfijicials’ servants Sum

1705 236 3 1944

table 3    

1550–1565 Stolen livestock Stolen money

164 ca. 4,500 florins

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table 4    

1561–1563, persons killed Civilians Garrison troops Offfijicials’ servants Sum

4 7 3 14

table 5   

1561–1563, persons abducted Civilians Garrison troops Offfijicials’ servants Sum

37 234 1 272

table 6   

1561–1563 Stolen livestock

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Tokaj, 1565: A Habsburg Prize of War, and an Ottoman Casus Belli James D. Tracy University of Minnesota, Minneapolis [email protected]

On 13 November 1565, the Sublime Porte sent out mobilization orders for a spring campaign in Hungary.1 Many reasons for this decision have been alleged. According to some reports, Sultan Süleyman hoped to conquer Vienna before he died. Others suggest that Ottoman offfijicials saw a need to repair the empire’s military prestige, in the wake of defeat at Malta.2 Along the frontier, the Ottomans had long complained of incursions by Habsburg garrisons at Eger, Gyula, and especially Szigetvár.3 Moreover, the annual tribute of 30,000 florins (as per the 1547 Treaty of Edirne) was rarely delivered on schedule. When Ferdinand I died (25 July 1564), payments from Vienna were two years in arrears. It was not until the end of October that Maximilian II sent offf the requisite 60,000 florins, together with three ambassadors, led by Michael Černović.4 By April 1565, payment was late again, at least by Ottoman reckoning.5 But scholars commonly point to Transylvania as the principal focus of the Porte’s concern.6 By Ottoman law, all of Hungary belonged to Sultan Süleyman 1 Nicolas Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey: Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár. Édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-ahbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr (ms. H 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkapı Sarayı. Wien, Münster, 2010, “Introduction”, 16. 2 Radovan Samarđžić, Mehmed Sokolovitch. Le destin d’un grand vizir. Lausanne, 1994, 113–115, 124. On the other hand, a Hungarian historian suggests that the Ottoman retreat from Malta prompted Sultan Süleyman to stipulate terms for a possible peace: Nicolaus Isthuanfffiji (Miklós Istvánfffy), Regni Hungarici Historia … Libris XXXIV … Exacte Descripta. Colonia Agrippine, 1685, 301. 3 James D. Tracy, ‘The Road to Szigetvár. Ferdinand I’s Defense of His Hungarian Frontier, 1548–1564ʼ, The Austrian History Yearbook 44 (2013) 17–46. 4 Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian II, Prague, 5 October 1564, and Maximilian II to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 30/31 October 1564, in Viktor Bibl (ed.), Die Korrespondenz Maximilians II. 2 vols. Wien, 1916, I. 37–42: Letter 31, and I. 57–61: Letter 47. 5 Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 297, on the letter from Sultan Süleyman carried by Hidayet Ağa, who arrived in Vienna in April 1565. 6 For instance, Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1600: The Structure of Power. London, 2002, 60. See further the studies in this section of the present volume.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_019

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by right of conquest, based on his great victory at Mohács in 1526.7 The “king of Vienna,” as Ottoman protocol called him, paid tribute for lands he held in Hungary and Croatia, but he had no right to lay hands on the rich province of Transylvania, which Süleyman had granted out to John Szapolyai (d. 1540), then to his widow, Isabella Jagiellon (d. 1559), and fijinally to their son, John Sigismund Szapolyai (d. 1571). Ferdinand’s effforts to extend his authority to Transylvania had failed because of internal opposition, not just because of Ottoman armies. In 1565–1566, the sultan’s afffection for the young prince, John Sigismund, may have been a further consideration, at least according to two contemporary Habsburg historians, Ferenc Forgách and Miklós Istvánfffy.8 But personal feelings will not have been decisive. The Ottomans went to war for reasons of state, and control of Transylvania was a matter of fijixed policy.9 Under Maximilian II the Habsburgs were up to their old tricks. As if he did not know better, the new “king of Vienna” had to be reminded in a stern letter from the sultan, that Transylvania was his “property.” At issue was the so-called “Partes” (later, after 1571, “Partium”), the Hungarian counties west of Transylvania that Süleyman had also entrusted to John Szapolyai and his heirs. This area included Bihar County, with Várad (Oradea), and several counties to the north, in what was called Upper Hungary. Most important in this discussion are Szatmár County, with Szatmár (Satu Mare); Bereg County, with Munkács (Mukacheve); Máramaros County, with Huszt (Hust) and Zemplén County, with Tokaj. This essay focuses on what seems to have become the single most site of contention, namely Tokaj. The Tokaj of this era was not yet the center of a famous wine region, but, with its fortress on an island in the Tisza,10 Tokaj guarded a vital river crossing. The following discussion deals with 1. the Habsburg seizure of Tokaj; 2. previous Habsburg effforts to claim Tokaj by diplomatic means; and 3. Maximilian’s gamble – that is, his decision not to return Tokaj to John Sigismund, despite the sultan’s explicit demand. 7

8

9

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Pál Fodor, ‘Ungarn und Wien in der osmanischen Eroberungsideologie (im Spiegel der Tariḫ-i Beç ḳralı, 17. Jahrhundert)ʼ, in his In quest of the Golden Apple: Imperial Ideology, Politics, and Military Administration in the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul, 2000, 56–57. On the meeting at Belgrade between Süleyman and John Sigismund: Ferencz Ghymesi Forgách, Magyar Historiája 1540–1572. (Monumenta Hungariae Historiae. Scriptores, XVI.) Pest, 1866, 316–319, and Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 305–306. Since there are interesting diffferences in the two accounts, Istvánfffy may not have relied solely on Forgách, who in 1567 defected to Transylvania. Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire. The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, 129: “The apparent guiding principle of Süleyman’s policy was to push the Habsburgs out of Transylvania and to return the principality to the heir of the house of Szapolyai, John Sigismund.” Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 292.

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The Habsburg Seizure of Tokaj In 1559, Isabella Jagiello called upon a magnate ally, Melchior (Menyhárt) Balassa, to rid her of erstwhile supporters whom she now saw as enemies. For his reward, Balassa received the city of Szatmár; at John Sigismund’s direction, he strengthened the citadel, and stocked it with artillery. Then in 1561 Balassa switched to the side of Ferdinand I, giving the Habsburgs a fortifijied base that projected their power a bit farther beyond the upper Tisza.11 Balassa’s defection was vigorously protested by John Sigismund, and the pasha of Temeşvar (Temesvár/Timişoara) sent troops to help him. But in fijighting that lasted for much of 1562 Habsburg troops from Kassa (Košice) joined Balassa in defending Szatmár.12 Meanwhile, negotiations at the Porte had resulted in a new Habsburg– Ottoman treaty of peace, replacing the 1547 Treaty of Edirne. Ferdinand’s ambassador, Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, managed to obtain a clause in the treaty stipulating that Balassa’s transfer of allegiance was not to be construed as a violation of agreements then in place.13 The Porte thus recognized Ferdinand’s claim to Szatmár. In 1564, Balassa started a new round of skirmishing by building a fortress on what Transylvanians claimed was their territory. From his post in Várad, István Báthory, the future voivode of Transylvania and king of Poland–Lithuania, watched with interest, because Szatmár had formerly belonged to his family. Early in September 1564, Báthory’s local partisans staged a coup, so that Szatmár returned to John Sigismund’s allegiance.14 Maximilian circulated the news to his advisers, asking for their opinions on how to respond. The Council of Hungary called for the immediate dispatch of an army to the east, but the cautious Archduke Ferdinand did not think Szatmár was worth the risk of a war. Opting for a compromise, Maximilian ordered a sizeable increase of the garrison of the Habsburg outpost at Kisvárda, beyond the Tisza, but north and west of Szatmár. Meanwhile, John Sigismund had already launched an offfensive, and he occupied Kisvárda before the reinforcements arrived. At Tokaj, he and his men crossed the Tisza on a pontoon bridge (leaving their Ottoman allies behind on the left bank), and headed north toward Kassa, the 11 12 13

14

Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 167–174, 275 (the artillery); Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 261. Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 274–275; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 268–271. See “Exemplum Confijirmationis Pacis”, in Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien (HHStA), Turcia, I. 15, Konv. 3, fols. 173–187v, here fol. 176, a statement that both Balassa and Nicholas Báthory (another defector to the Habsburg side) may freely possess what they now have outside of Transylvania. Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 275; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 269–270.

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anchor-fortress of the Habsburg frontier-sector known as Upper Hungary; stalled by heavy rains, he had to pull back, leaving his artillery at Tokaj.15 Ferdinand I died on 25 July. According to Istvánfffy, Maximilian II came to the throne amid high expectations that the young emperor would “with the help of Almighty God, shake offf the fetters of the Turkish truce by which his father had been bound”16 – that is, the treaties of 1547 and 1562. Now, John Sigismund’s attack gave Maximilian an opportunity to assert himself. Yet armies marched only if they were paid, and Ferdinand had left the fijinances of his dynasty in a “catastrophic” condition. When Maximilian and his two brothers – Archduke Ferdinand and Archduke Charles – divided their father’s debts, the total was found to exceed twelve million gulden.17 In Upper Hungary alone, current arrears in wages for the border garrisons amounted to 180,000 florins. Nonetheless, Maximilian decided for a counter-attack; in a letter to his brother-in-law, Albert V of Bavaria, explaining his decision, he attached particular importance to the participation of Ottoman troops in John Sigismund’s campaign.18 To pay for a new army in the east, Maximilian mortgaged properties in Hungary worth more than 100,000 florins. He also contracted for an interest-free loan of 200,000 scudi, in return for which Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany became Grand Duke Cosimo I.19 To lead his forces, Maximilian obtained permission from his uncle, Philip II, to hire a celebrated commander of Spanish forces in the Low Countries, Lazarus von Schwendi. At the end of November 1564, Schwendi signed on as oberst Kriegskomissarius. To give him a co-commander who knew Upper Hungary well, Maximilian chose András Báthory, from the pro-Habsburg branch of the extended Báthory clan.20 15

16 17 18 19

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Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 5 October 1564, and Maximilian to Ferdinand, Vienna, 10 and 30–31 October 1564: Bibl (ed.), Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 37–42, 43–51, and 57–61: Letters 31, 34, and 47; Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 276–277; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 290. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 286. Peter Rauscher, Zwischen Ständen und Gläubigern. Die kaiserlichen Finanzen unter Ferdinand I und Maximilian II (1556–1576). Wien, München, 2004, 198–200. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 22 October 1564, and to Albert V, Vienna, 24 February 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 53–55, 109–111: Letters 41, 100. For the bargain with Cosimo I: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. Letters 152, 153, 165, 182, 196; for the mortgages in Hungary, see Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 8 December 1564: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 74–75: Letter 64, and Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 280. Summary of Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 28 November 1564: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 66: Letter 58; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 291. For Schwendi’s campaigns in the Low Countries, see Adolf Eiermann, Lazarus von Schwendi, Freiherr von Hohenlandsberg, ein deutscher Feldoberst und Staatsmann des XVI. Jh. Freiburg in Breisgau, 1904, 61–92.

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Géza Pálfffy’s study of Habsburg military cartography in Hungary has greatly facilitated our understanding of the ensuing campaign.21 Nicolo Angielini, the map-maker on whose work he focuses, was sent from Vienna to accompany Schwendi and Báthory on their march to the east.22 The co-commanders held a council of war in Kassa. Istvánfffy says that Schwendi studied a map before the army set out, surely to be identifijied with Angielini’s map of Upper Hungary, reproduced by Prof. Pálfffy (Map XI), or a version thereof. It shows that to reach Szatmár on a direct line east and south from Kassa, the army would have to cross hilly country and one or more rivers, including the Bodrog, which flows into the Tisza at Tokaj. Far preferable was the roundabout but familiar route, south to Tokaj, and then eastward across the Tisza towards Szatmár.23 Again according to Istvánfffy, Menyhárt Balassa wanted to strike fijirst at Szerencs, west of Tokaj, lest this fortress be left in their rear. But Báthory argued that “all reputation” in Upper Hungary depended on the possession of Tokaj by one side or the other. He noted too that the time for an attack was opportune, because the Tisza was frozen over. As for Szerencs, it would surrender soon enough once Tokaj fell. Schwendi, having examined the map, agreed with Báthory.24 Habsburg troops departed from Kassa on 1 February 1565, with an artillerytrain of thirty-three guns. The city of Tokaj was taken, and the besiegers were able to storm the island fortress a few days later. The cannon were then hauled across the ice to the left bank of the Tisza. At Szatmár, István Báthory gave orders to burn the fortress; since the Szamos river was likewise frozen solid, he could not have withstood a siege. Schwendi and Báthory left a garrison in Szatmár, and started construction of a new fortress, but the co-commanders soon quarreled, and András Báthory chose to return to his estates. Schwendi’s troops proceeded to capture two other strongholds, Nagybánya (Baia Mare), near the Transylvanian border, and Erdőd (Ardeud), south of Szatmár. They discussed a march south to Várad, but Maximilian rejected the idea, lest it provoke a wider war.25 István Báthory was now in Schwendi’s camp, sent by 21

22 23 24 25

Géza Pálfffy, A haditérképészet kezdetei a Habsburg Monarchiában / Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie in der Habsburgermonarchie. Budapest, 2011. I am grateful to Prof. Pálfffy for calling my attention to his book, and for giving me a copy. On the Angielini family and their service with the Habsburgs, Pálfffy, Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie, 15–27. Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 276–277, mentions a road between Tokaj and Kassa. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 292. As Báthory predicted, Szerencs surrendered after Tokaj fell. Maximilian to Albert V, Vienna, 24 February 1565, and 25 March 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 107–111: Letter 100, and I. 127–128: Letter 114; Istánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 292–295; Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 283; Wilhelm Edlen von Janko, Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi, oberster Feldhauptmann und Rath Kaiser Maximilians II.

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John Sigismund to offfer terms. The Treaty of Szatmár (13 March 1565) stipulated that John Sigismund would retain Transylvania, with Johanna of Austria, Maximilian’s youngest sister, as his bride. In the Partes, he ceded the four counties in Upper Hungary that included Szatmár, Munkács, Huszt, and Tokaj, retaining only Bihar County, with Várad. But the prince of Transylvania was playing to gain time. When István Báthory arrived in Vienna a month later, as John Sigismund’s ambassador, he offfered terms quite diffferent from what had been agreed at Szatmár.26 In Maximilian’s entourage, not everyone was pleased by the successes in the east. Archduke Ferdinand wondered if Habsburg commanders had perhaps exceeded their orders by seizing Tokaj. In reply, Maximilian turned aside the implied question: When Schwendi and Báthory took Tokaj, he said, “they did what the Turks themselves do, as you with your military experience can well understand”.27 According to Istvánfffy, Maximilian considered Tokaj a rightful prize of war, since John Sigismund had started the fijighting.28 But the Habsburg government had had its eye on Tokaj for some time, especially during the fijinal years of Ferdinand I, when Habsburg diplomats at the Porte presented claims on his behalf for three fortress-towns in Upper Hungary: Munkács, Huszt, and Tokaj.

The So-called Tria Loca in Ferdinand I’s Ottoman Diplomacy Ferdinand I never abandoned the dream of ruling all of Hungary.29 After Buda became the capital of a beylerbeyilik in 1541, Ottoman military superiority rendered the idea of conquest unrealistic. Yet there remained an opening for talks with anti-Habsburg magnates in Hungary, because the Porte asserted its authority in such a way as to make them wonder if suzerainty was a fijirst step

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nach Original-Akten des K.K. Haus-Hof-und Staats-Archives, der Archive der K.K. Ministerien des Innern, der Finanzen und des Krieges. Wien, 1871, 46. Summary of Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 23 March 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 120: Letter 112; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 295; Viktor Bibl, Maximilian II. Der rätselhäfte Kaiser. Dresden, 1929, 124–125; Pálfffy, Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie, 40–42; Janko, Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi, 47. Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 24 March 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 120–127: Letter 113, here 124. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 294. For this paragraph, save as noted, Gábor Barta, ‘Le Principauté de Transylvanieʼ, in Gábor Barta, István Bóna, Béla Köpeczi et al., Histoire de la Transylvanie. Budapest, 1992, 239– 292, and Tracy, ‘The Road to Szigetvárʼ.

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toward occupation. A treaty of 1538 had provided that Transylvania and the Partes would fall to Ferdinand upon the death of John Szapolyai, who was then childless. But this agreement was in efffect nullifijied by the birth of John Sigismund in 1540, shortly before his father’s death. After the Ottomans occupied Buda, Szapolyai’s widow, Isabella Jagiellon, was relegated to Transylvania and the Partes. In 1550 Transylvania’s estates agreed to transfer their allegiance to Ferdinand. But supporters of the queen-mother and her son, backed by Ottoman invasions, compelled the estates to renounce Habsburg rule in 1555. Through his three ambassadors at the Porte, Ferdinand formally abandoned his claims to Transylvania once and for all in 1556 – unless, of course, Süleyman wished to demonstrate his imperial magnanimity by granting this rich province to his devoted son, Ferdinand. Meanwhile, a “castle war” in which fortress-towns often changed hands raged across Upper Hungary. It was apparently not until 1557 that the last Habsburg troops pulled back across the Tisza.30 Now that Transylvania was lost, Vienna focused its hopes on the Partes. In the summer of 1557, the Habsburg ambassadors reminded Ottoman offfijicials of a promise they had made: If Ferdinand gave up his claims to Transylvania, he could retain what he still held in eastern Hungary. In this connection, the ambassadors mentioned Kassa, Munkács, Huszt, Várad, and Gyula.31 What they did not say was that many of the positions Ferdinand once held in the Partes had been lost or abandoned – except for Kassa, Kisvárda, and Gyula (taken by the Ottomans in 1566). Accordingly, Ferhad Bey, a Porte dragoman whom the ambassadors considered an ally, advised them to petition for a general confijirmation of Ferdinand’s holdings in eastern Hungary, without specifying the towns they had in mind.32 In any event nothing was accomplished, and two of the ambassadors returned to Vienna in the summer of 1557,33 leaving Busbecq as Ferdinand’s sole representative at the Porte. He found no opening for negotiations until 1559, when a succession struggle broke out between Süleyman’s two sons. With his father’s help, the future Selim II won a battle in Anatolia, but Prince Bayezid remained a threat. Thus after the Habsburg tribute for that year was delivered, 30 31 32

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Archduke Maximilian to the pasha of Buda, Vienna, 14 February 1558: HHStA I. 13, Konv. 3, fols. 32–35. Needless to say, the sultan felt no need to demonstrate his magnanimity. Busbecq, Antal Verancsics (Antun Verančić), and Ferenc Zay to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 4 August 1557: HHStA I. 13, Konv. 2, fols. 19–23, here fol. 20. Busbecq, Verancsics and Zay to Ferdinand, Istanbul, [1557], in László Szalay (ed.), Verancsics Antal összes munkái. (Monumenta Hungariae Historica. Scriptores, 2.) Pest, 1857, V. 300–344, here 332. Verancsics and Zay departed in August 1557. Ferhad is identifijied in this dispatch as a native Hungarian.

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Grand Vizier Rüstem Pasha showed unwonted interest in discussing a new treaty of peace.34 In a letter of 13 August 1559, Busbecq explained to Archduke Maximilian that he had asked for a “clear and certain” letter from the sultan to defijine the Habsburg position in eastern Hungary.35 In another letter of the same day, he assured Ferdinand that in talks with Ottoman offfijicials he was careful to distinguish between Transylvania proper and “the places outside Transylvania, that is, in Hungary”.36 As was customary, the latter dispatch was circulated for suggestions on how His Majesty should instruct his ambassador. The Council of Hungary had a long list of desiderata, but also a sense of priorities. If Busbecq could obtain nothing else, the Council said, he should by all means try for Munkács, Huszt, and Tokaj. In his reply to Busbecq, Ferdinand adopted this advice,37 and Munkács, Huszt, and Tokaj are henceforth referred to in Busbecq’s correspondence as the tria loca. While Huszt and Munkács did not have notable strategic value – both lay to the north of the Tisza – the associated mining revenues made them valuable. But if a claim was to have any chance of being accepted by the Porte, it had to have a legal basis.38 Habsburg offfijicials seized on the fact that Munkács and Huszt had part of Mary of Hungary’s dowry for her marriage to Louis II Jagiellon. In 1522, the young queen was awarded a cluster of towns and crown rights in northern Hungary, mostly in the westerly region where the kingdom’s mineral wealth was concentrated; this area would later be known as the Mining Towns sector of the Habsburg military frontier. To the east, in what became the Upper Hungary sector of the frontier, she was to enjoy the revenues of the salt mines of Máramaros County, together with the towns and castles of Huszt and Munkács.39 But many of these rights and properties had already been pawned to Hungary’s creditors, notably the Fuggers of Augsburg; 34 35 36 37

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Since the 1547 Treaty of Edirne, there had been truces, but no formal treaty. [Busbecq to Archduke Maximilian], Istanbul, 13 August 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 20–24. Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 13 August 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 26–29. Council of Hungary to Ferdinand, concerning Busbecq’s letter of 13 August, s. l., s. d.: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 34–36; Ferdinand to Busbecq, Vienna, 13 October 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 53–56. The “appurtenances” of Huszt certainly included nearby saltmines: Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 153. For the Ottoman government’s insistence on operating within a framework of law, Halil İnalcık, ‘Decision-Making in the Ottoman Stateʼ, in Caesar Farah (ed.), Decision-Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire. Kirksville, Missouri, 1993, 9–18. Munkács is east and a bit south of Kassa, and Huszt is a bit farther along the same line. Gernot Heiss, ‘Die Ungarischen, Böhmischen und Österreichischen Besitzungen der Königin Maria (1505–1559) und ihre Verwaltungʼ, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 27 (1974) 61–100; 29 (1976) 52–121; here 27 (1974) 62–63; the properties in question are listed in note 6.

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their representatives in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica/Neusohl) fought a long and ultimately successful legal battle to defend the claims of their principals. After 1531, Mary, as Regent of the Habsburg Netherlands, had to turn to her two brothers for satisfaction. They transferred various revenues to her, none of which proved to be fruitful.40 Finally, in 1548, Mary ceded all her rights in Hungary to Ferdinand, in return for annual rentes of 34,000 Hungarian florins, and 15,000 Rhine gulden.41 This background explains why the Council of Hungary identifijied Huszt and Munkács as Habsburg priorities in Upper Hungary. Presumably for Busbecq’s benefijit, a subsequent memorandum fijilled in some details, indicating how both towns had devolved to the royal fijisc, and were then unlawfully seized by Transylvanian magnates. For example, His Majesty had pawned Munkács to Péter Petrovics, but he then switched to the side of Isabella Jagiellon, and refused to return Munkács, despite repayment of his 10,000 florins.42 Much if not all of what the Council says about the two fortress-towns can be confijirmed from the study of Mary’s dowry by Gernot Heiss.43 Tokaj had not been part of Mary’s dowry, although Busbecq seems to have been told that it was.44 Its inclusion among the tria loca seems to have been purely strategic, as the Council indicated: “We have often declared to His Majesty how important this one castle was; for even if the garrison there is not large, its men can scour the countryside as far as Kassa.”45 The Council also made a semblance of legal justifijication, noting that Tokaj had belonged to John Szapolyai’s patrimony, whose lands then devolved to Ferdinand as rightful king of Hungary.46 This was an argument the Porte could not possibly accept, because by the same logic all of Transylvania belonged to Ferdinand. The Council may have hoped that if Ottoman offfijicials were minded to be generous, they might not inquire too closely into distinctions among the tria loca. 40

41 42 43

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For instance, a debt of 200,000 ducats owed by Venice, which Charles V transferred to Ferdinand, who in turn assigned an annual portion to Mary. The problem was that Venice did not recognize the debt. Heiss, ‘Die Ungarischen, Böhmischen’. For the agreement of 1548, ibid., 95–97. Council of Hungary to Ferdinand, c. November 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 68r–69v, here fol. 69r–v. Heiss, ‘Die Ungarischen, Böhmischen’, 29 (1976), 83–90. In discussions with Ferdinand, Mary accepted incomes of 3,000 florins a year in exchange for Munkács, and 7,000 florins a year in exchange for Huszt. Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 24 April 1562: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 2, fols. 106–107. Council of Hungary to Ferdinand, c. November 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 68r–69v, here fol. 68. Council of Hungary to Ferdinand, c. November 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 68r–69v, here fol. 69r–v.

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The Porte was not minded to be generous. Busbecq was told that the Ottomans never returned even a “palm of earth” of conquered territory.47 As for the tria loca, Rüstem Pasha explained that if these important positions were simply given away, the Transylvanians would have due cause for complaint.48 Murad Bey, a Porte dragoman, provided a further detail: Since Queen Isabella had had little authority outside of Transylvania, local notables would fall away if it seemed the Porte was not standing behind John Sigismund.49 Meanwhile, there was active fijighting in Upper Hungary, albeit without any lasting result. István Báthory’s siege of Kisvárda was broken up by Ferdinand’s commander at Kassa, who, en route to Kisvárda, paused to ravage the countryside around Tokaj.50 Busbecq had better luck with Rüstem Pasha’s successor, Semiz Ali Pasha. The new grand vizier was willing to grant some of Ferdinand’s often-repeated wishes.51 He also offfered to cede Munkács, Huszt and Tokaj, provided that Ferdinand agreed to include John Sigismund in the new treaty under discussion.52 Ferdinand turned aside Ali Pasha’s proposals, in part because he insisted on retaining freedom of action in regard to the tria loca.53 Still, three fortress-towns were not worth jeopardizing a much-needed treaty of peace. Busbecq was given authority to drop all reference to the issue if it seemed advisory to do so.54 The end result was a compromise. As instructed, Busbecq promised that Ferdinand would not resort to arms against John Sigismund to assert his claim to the tria loca. In exchange, Sultan Süleyman agreed that Ferdinand and his vassals – including, by name, Menyhárt Balassa – could freely possess what they now held outside of Transylvania proper.55 In strategic terms, Ferdinand’s position in Upper Hungary was improved only marginally by this agreement. Although the treaty recognized that the Habsburg salient beyond the Tisza now extended to Szatmár, the transit 47 48 49 50

51 52

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Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 1 December 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 79–108, here fol. 103. Summary of Busbecq’s dispatches of 30 November and 14 December 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 120–124. Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 1 December 1559: HHStA I. 14, Konv. 3, fols. 79–108, here fol. 96r–v. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 252–254; this was evidently the fijighting concerning which reports reached the Porte in December: summary of Busbecq’s letters, as in note 37, here fol. 122v. Tracy, ‘The Road to Szigetvárʼ, 25–26. Archduke Maximilian to Ferdinand, Linz, 3 March 1562: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 2, fols. 38–44, here fol. 41, citing a dispatch from Busbecq; Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 24 April 1562: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 2, fols. 106–107. Ferdinand to Busbecq, Prague, 16 March 1562: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 2, fol. 60r–v. Busbecq to Ferdinand, Istanbul, 24 April 1562: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 2, fols. 106–107. “Exemplum Confijirmationis Pacis”: HHStA I. 15, Konv. 3, fols. 173r–182v, here fol. 175v.

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corridor from Szatmár to the Habsburg anchor-fortress at Kassa remained blocked, because John Sigismund retained possession of Tokaj. In the fijighting that started in 1564, Maximilian’s commanders took the occasion to remedy this problem.

Maximilian’s Gamble: the Retention of Tokaj In February 1565, a few days after Tokaj had surrendered to Habsburg besiegers, Michael Černović set offf from Istanbul on his return journey to Vienna, carrying an agreement for renewal of the peace treaty of 1562. He was accompanied by a respected çavuş named Hidayet Ağa. But the Ottomans had not yet learned of Tokaj’s fall. As the party was en route, Albert de Wijs (Wyss), Maximilian’s resident at the Porte, sent word of the sultan’s demand for the return of Tokaj.56 Meanwhile, a courier hastened to fetch the ambassador back. Süleyman himself told Černović (who spoke Turkish) how angry he was to learn about Tokaj.57 Černović and Hidayet Ağa were again dismissed, arriving in Vienna prior to 17 April. Hidayet Ağa carried two letters from Süleyman. One certifijied delivery of the 60,000 florins in tribute. The second letter reflected two diffferent moments of discussion at the Porte – before and after the news about Tokaj. It outlined the agreement that Černović and his colleagues had reached, prior to arrival of the news about Tokaj, but it also contained an implied threat. In the context of the treaty, the sultan noted, Maximilian had sworn to respect John Sigismund’s possession of the lands he held beyond Transylvania, “whether in Hungarian territory, or on one side or the other of the Tisza”.58 Maximilian rightly understood this as the language of an ultimatum.59 56

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Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 19 March 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. Letter 111, 119, summarizing recent dispatches, including one of 22 February from Albert de Wijs. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, “Introduction”, 16; Samarđžić, Mehmed Sokolovitch, 118. On Černović: Josip Žontar, ‘Michael Černović, Geheimagent Ferdinands I. und Maximilians II., und seine Berichterstattungʼ, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 24 (1971) 169–222. For the two letters, Anton C. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns des Prächtigen an Karl V., Ferdinand I. und Maximilian II. Transkriptionen und Übersetzungen. Unter Mitarbeit von Claudia Römer. (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 163.) Wien, 1983, Nos. 32, 87–94 (the quote: p. 91), and Nos. 33, 94–95. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 17 April 1565 (reporting Černović’s arrival); and a summary of Maximilian to Ferdinand, Vienna, 3 June 1565 (the sultan’s ultimatum): Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 156, 171: Letters 131, 149; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 297.

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Even though the Porte was pre-occupied with preparations for the coming invasion of Malta, Süleyman and his chief advisers had a preliminary discussion about military action in Hungary, should it become necessary. Full-scale war in Hungary could be avoided, if the “king of Vienna” agreed to respect existing agreements. If the sultan’s letter was not explicit about a return to the status quo ante in the Partes, Hidayet Ağa conveyed the message to Maximilian in person: He would be allowed to keep Szatmár, since it was his before the fijighting began, but he had to give up his recent conquests – Szerencs, Tokaj, Nagybánya, and Erdőd.60 In the same vein, Süleyman wrote John Sigismund to reprimand him for breaking the peace by his seizure of Szatmár.61 István Báthory, John Sigismund’s ambassador, had reached Vienna around the same time as Černović and Hidayet Ağa. Maximilian had been kept abreast of the negotiations in Schwendi’s camp,62 but the posture assumed by Báthory’s instructions made it clear that John Sigismund had no intention of abiding by the Treaty of Szatmár.63 Nevertheless, Maximilian, no doubt buoyed by Schwendi’s victories, chose to exploit the possibilities of an agreement that confijirmed his rights in Upper Hungary. He sent Černović back to the Porte with a letter informing Süleyman of the Treaty of Szatmár. In a letter dated 9 June 1565, he offfered to return Szerencs and Tokaj, but only if John Sigismund agreed to pay the costs of the war – thus admitting responsibility for breaching the peace. Apparently on Černović’s advice, Maximilian sent gifts for the sultan and the viziers, as a token of his esteem, but not the obligatory 30,000 florins in tribute for 1565.64 Meanwhile, the Porte organized a local response to Habsburg advances in the Partes. Details of the fijighting between May and October 1565 are known from Istvánfffy and Forgách,65 from Maxmilian’s and Schwnedi’s correspondence.66 60

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Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 283–284; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 297. Cf. Iskender Pasha to Hidayet Ağa, Buda, 12–21 May 1565: Ernst Dieter Petritsch, Regesten der osmanischen Dokumente im Österreichischen Staatsarchiv. Vol. I (1480–1574). (Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs. Ergänzungsband, 10/1.) Wien, 1991, 159: No. 453. Petritsch, Regesten, 156: No. 444. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 23 March 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 120: Letter 112. Maximilian to Albert V of Bavaria, Vienna, 17 June 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 207–213: Letter 170; Janko, Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi, 47. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 3 June 1565, and 16 June 1565 (forwarding a copy of his letter to the sultan); to Albert V of Bavaria, Vienna, 15 September 1565; and Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 28 November 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 172: Letter 149; I. 203–204: Letter 167; I. 258–260: Letter 258; and I. 311–320: Letter 278, here 313–316. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 285–290; Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 290–291. Used by Janko, Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi, albeit without references, save for a general citation (p. 22). See also Pál Fodor, ‘Who Should Obtain the Castle of Pankota? Interest

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One of the military maps published by Géza Pálfffy provides a graphic presentation of the main actions: Nicolo Angielini’s “Transylvanian and Ottoman Troop Movements around Szatmár in May 1565, or, Fortresses in Upper Hungary Retaken by the Christian Army in 1565” (Pálfffy, Map XII).67 Angielini is known to have been in Szatmár as late as July 1565, returning to Vienna soon afterward, but both the legend and the map itself include reference to subsequent events, including the recapture of Nagybánya by Schwendi’s men in October, and the withdrawal of both armies from the theater of fijighting. Ottoman forces joined John Sigismund’s army at Debrecen. One detachment laid siege to Pankota, and news of its fall reached Vienna by 3 June.68 Hasan Pasha (Predojević) of Temeşvar joined John Sigismund in a march on Szatmár. An attack on Schwendi’s camp (on the left bank of the Szamos) was turned back. But after a seven-week siege Transylvanian and Ottoman troops forced the surrender of Erdőd, where Hasan Pasha massacred the garrison, and burned the fortress.69 They also captured Nagybánya and held it until October, when it was retaken by Habsburg forces. Maximilian was kept informed of these developments by Schwendi’s dispatches, which could reach Vienna in as little as a week.70 The news was on the whole depressing. On 18 August, the emperor sent his brothers a copy of the “vote and opinion” of his advisers, to the efffect that “all hope of a future peace has been taken away”; the Habsburgs had to prepare for a war.71 Any hope there might be of avoiding war lay in diplomacy. Černović reached Istanbul on 27 June, the day before Ali Pasha died. The new grand vezier was Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. Previously, as second vizier, he alone had spoken against the idea of having Sultan Süleyman end his glorious reign with a victorious march on Vienna.72 Maximilian’s correspondence includes a summary of a joint dispatch of Černović and De Wijs dated 8 August, indicating an accord with grand vizier, whereby all sides would pull back their forces in

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Groups and Self-promotion in the Mid-Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Political Establishment’, Turcica 31 (1999) 67–86. Pálfffy, Die Anfänge der Militärkartographie, 42–43. On Pankota, Maximilian to Albert V of Bavaria, Vienna, 3 June 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 171–176, here 173: Letter 149; Fodor, ‘Who Should Obtain’, 75–76. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 284, he blames John Sigismund’s repudiation of the Treaty of Szatmár on the advice of his “Arian” councillors, including Giorgio Biandrata. Janko, Lazarus Freiherr von Schwendi, 51. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 13 August 1565, enclosing a copy of Schwendi’s report of 6 August: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 247: Letter 207. Maximilian to Ferdinand and Karl, Vienna, 18 August 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 248: Letter 208. Samarđžić, Mehmed Sokolovitch, 115.

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Upper Hungary, each retaining what it now held. This would suggest an acceptance of the principle of uti possidetis, at least for now. Maximilian also had information that the grand vizier had written a letter of the same efffect to Hidayet Ağa, who was then still in Vienna.73 Yet when Černović arrived back in Vienna on 22 August, he brought a letter that contained no hint of an uti possidetis agreement. A courier from the Porte, said to have reached Vienna in a mere eleven days, had already brought word of the sultan’s demands: The territories in question must all be returned to John Sigmund, and the tribute for that year must be sent.74 The letter from Süleyman that Černović carried has been dated between 29 July and 7 August. The sultan asked how could there be peace, when Maximilian and his commanders presumed to invade lands which Almighty God had given Süleyman, and which he in turn had granted to John Sigismund? As for the Treaty of Szatmár, it was null and void, since John Sigismund had no right to agree to such a transaction without the sultan’s permission.75 Maximilian and his advisers had much to consider in working out a response to this letter. Their deliberations are summarized in Maximilian’s letter of 13 September to Albert of Bavaria. The critical point was that the emperor and his advisers did not see how His Majesty could have an honorable peace if all his new acquisitions were lost.76 Maximilian was also concerned about the state of his army in the east. As of 15 September, he had news that Hasan Pasha of Temeşvar had bridged the Szamos, to pursue Habsburg troops fleeing toward Kisvárda after the fall of Erdőd. Accordingly, he ordered Schwendi to re-capture Nagybánya – unless the enemy had in the interim abandoned their siege. Ferenc Forgách was in Vienna during these months, lobbying for a new bishopric. His account of the government’s thinking may reflect reports about the pasha of Temeşvar bringing troops across the Szamos: “Caesar and everyone else” had great fears for Schwendi, besieged in Szatmár by a much larger force. 73

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Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 28 November 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 311–320: Letter 278 (cf. pp. 313–316, a summary of documents included with Ferdinand’s letter of 29 August: ibid., I. 265–266: Letter 216. On Mehmet Pasha’s letter to Hidayet Ağa, Albert V of Bavaria to Maximilian, 5 November 1565: ibid., I. 300–304: Letter 261, here 302. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 301. Schaendlinger, Die Schreiben Süleymāns, Nos. 34, 35, and 36 (the fijirst copy is dated, the second and third are not); No. 36 was the one that arrived in Vienna on 22 August; cf. Nos. 34, 97–99. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 29 August 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 255: Letter 216. For this paragraph, save as noted, Maximilian to Albert V of Bavaria, Vienna, 15 September 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, “Bericht des aus Konstantinopel heimgekehrten Boten Černovich und die darauf erfolgten Beschlüsse”, I. 258–260: Letter 220.

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If Tokaj were taken, or “bypassed to the rear” by a strike toward Kisvárda, an army that had been raised at great cost would be in “supreme peril”.77 In fact, news from the east continued to be discouraging.78 Yet the diplomatic option was not necessarily foreclosed. Černović – a seasoned observer of the Ottoman court – thought that the Porte might be satisfijied by a mutual withdrawal of forces, leaving Maximilian in control of the positions his troops still held in the Partes. If current military circumstances in the east were such as to made it difffijicult to order a withdrawal, His Majesty might prolong the discussion for a year or so, while he gained the strength needed to sustain a war. The fact that Arslan Pasha of Buda79 had pulled back his troops may have supported Černović’s opinion. Maximilian ordered Schwendi to keep his army in place for now, but also decided to proceed on the assumption that the Porte would be satisfijied with a mutual withdrawal of forces.80 Maximilian also believed he had time to consult his various councils on whether he should accept the sultan’s terms, or delay things through the winter, or break offf negotiations altogether.81 Accordingly, his response to the sultan’s latest letter, sent with a courier who accompanied Hidayet Ağa on his return journey, continued to temporize.82 Maximilian explained that Szerencs and Tokaj had been captured by his troops only because they “impeded the crossing of the Tisza”, and he again offfered to return both towns if John Sigismund agreed to pay the cost of the war. (One might note that if Transylvania were actually to pay the costs of the war, Maximilian’s honour might have been satisfijied even without Szerencs and Tokaj). He also promised that the tribute

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Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 291–292. See also the editor’s introduction. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 12 October 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 273–275: Letter 240; the second of three deliberative options mentioned earlier, to temporize, through the winter (see note 73), no longer applied, owing to reports from Schwendi on the woeful state of his army. Arslan Bey, who became governor-general of Buda in June 1565, conducted his own correspondence with Maximilian, presenting himself as a mediator for peace: Petritsch, Regesten, Nos. 465, 471, 473, 477, 478, 483, 485, 488, 489. See also the essay in this volume by Claudia Römer and Nicolas Vatin. Maximilian to Albert V of Bavaria, Vienna, 15 September 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, “Bericht des aus Konstantinopel heimgekehrten Boten Černovich und die darauf erfolgten Beschlüsse”, I. 258–260: Letter 220. Maximilian to Archduke Ferdinand, Vienna, 22 September 1565, and Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 28 November 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 264–265: Letter 225, and I. 311–320: Letter 278. For the rest of this paragraph, Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 302; Forgách, Magyar Historiája, 290; Samarđžić, Mehmed Sokolovitch, 122–123; Petritsch, Regesten, 164–165: No. 472.

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would be sent, if the Porte agreed to exclude John Sigismund from the peace treaty under discussion. It may be that the emperor and his advisers, focused on the Partes, underestimated the degree to which peace and order in Hungary (as defijined in Ottoman terms) was a matter of honour for the sultan. In any case, the Porte wanted a quick and defijinitive solution. On 7 October 1565, the sultan wrote John Sigismund that he would go to war the following spring, if Maximilian did not send an ambassador with suitable assurances of peace.83 Yet Vienna sent not an ambassador but a mere courier, who did not bring the tribute for 1565, and made no straightforward promise concerning the return of Tokaj and other Habsburg conquests.84 Thus when John Sigismund reported that Schwendi was besieging Nagybánya, Süleyman wrote back on 5 November to say that he himself would bring military assistance in the spring.85 There would be a further Habsburg mission to the Porte in January 1566,86 but in hindsight one can see that the courier’s mission of September 1565 was Maximilian’s last chance to take steps that might have averted a war.

Conclusion This essay has argued that the Ottoman government, in its communications with Vienna, made Tokaj a casus belli in the diplomatic sense – not a “cause of war,” but a “case” for war. This is not to assert that the Porte went to war solely or even principally because of events in Upper Hungary. The sultan and his divan surely took other issues into consideration, such as the continuing provocations from Szigetvár, and the failure of the siege of Malta, with its implications for Ottoman military prestige. What is clear is that in his formal and informal communications with Vienna, Süleyman demanded a return to the status quo ante in Upper Hungary, and he identifijied Tokaj as the fijirst and foremost of Maximilian’s offfenses against the peace treaty of 1562.

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Petritsch, Regesten, 169: No. 486. Arslan Bey to Maximilian, Buda, 23 October 1565, complaining on both points: Petritsch, Regesten, 170: No. 489. Süleyman to John Sigismund, Istanbul, 5 November 1565: Petritsch, Regesten, 173: No. 502. On the mission of György Hosszútóti and his reception at the Porte, Archduke Karl to Maximilian, Vienna, 17 January 1566: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 371–372: Letter 328; Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 302.

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Maximilian II’s chief advisers – the same men who had stood close to his father87 – had considerable experience in weighing how seriously an Ottoman threat was intended. Both they and their young sovereign may have found it hard to credit that an ageing and infijirm sultan would really go to war over a few strongholds in a province far distant from his capital. In any event, in the summer of 1565, and again in the fall, they chose not to accept Süleyman’s ultimatum at face value, but rather to offfer lesser concessions that might be taken as demonstrations of Vienna’s good intentions. It seems there were three reasons for this decision. First, there were grounds for uncertainty about the Porte’s intentions, particularly in light of Černović’s conversations with the grand vizier. This hope may not have been misplaced, at least as far as the grand vizier was concerned. One report emanating from the Ottoman court indicates that Mehmed Pasha did not give up on peace in Hungary until his cousin, the sancakbeyi of Bosnia, was defeated in battle in Croatia on 10 September.88 Secondly, since John Sigismund (or his partisan, István Báthory) had started the war by seizing Szatmár, a restoration of the status quo ante would mean that Maximilian had incurred huge debts merely to keep what he had before the fijighting started. For a new sovereign – especially for one whose subjects hoped to see some reversal of the humiliations his father had sufffered at the hands of the Ottomans89 – this could not have been a “peace with honour”. In this era, a prince’s honour was no trivial matter. In both the Christian and the Muslim worlds, the welfare of subjects was believed to depend on a ruler’s ability to maintain his reputation. In Bohemia, for example, Maximilian’s advisers urged him not to return all the territories recently conquered, for to do so would not be consistent “with the maintenance of Your Majesty’s imperial reputation”.90 Finally, among the new acquisitions that Maximilian (briefly) gained by the Treaty of Szatmár, Tokaj stood out because of its strategic signifijicance. So long as the town and its island fortress remained in Habsburg hands, it defended 87 88

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Maximilian Lanzinner, ‘Geheime Räte und Beräter Kaiser Maximilians II., 1564–1576ʼ, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichte 102 (1994) 296–315. Samarđžić, Mehmet Sokolovitch, 125. For the battle at Obreška, east of Zagreb, in which Sokollu Mustafa Bey allegedly perished (which was an obviously false news), see Maximilian to Albert of Bavaria, Vienna, 29 September 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I. 269–270. Istvánfffy, Regni Hungarici Historia, 286. Archduke Ferdinand to Maximilian, Prague, 28 November 1565: Die Korrespondenz Maximilians, I, 311–320, here 315: Letter 278.

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the countryside south of Kassa from hostile raids, and it secured communications with Maximilian’s positions east of the Tisza, Kisvárda and Szatmár. In September and October 1565, when Vienna had what looks to have been its last chance of making concessions that might have satisfijied the Porte, Tokaj became all the more vital, because Ottoman forces were attempting to cut offf an egress of Habsburg troops toward the Tisza. Under these circumstances, an immediate surrender of Tokaj was unthinkable. In a narrow sense Maximilian’s gamble paid offf; Tokaj was preserved, and so was Szatmár. In a wider sense, as we know, it turned out that the price of this small gain was a full-scale war in which Szigetvár and Gyula were lost.

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Miklós Zrínyi, Captain-General of Szigetvár (1561–1566) – His Organisational Activity and Death Szabolcs Varga* Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest [email protected]

Miklós Zrínyi and Süleyman’s names have become closely intertwined as the memory of the 1566 siege has deeply infijiltrated into Hungarian and Croatian national identity.1 Thus, in Hungary, the signifijicance of the siege overreaches the framework of history writing and both Zrínyi and Szigetvár have extra meanings. This brings about a delicate situation. While the international specialist literature approaches the events of Ottoman Hungary from the point of view of Süleyman and the Ottoman Empire and regards this area as a theatre of war of the Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry, Hungarian and Croatian historiographies investigate the 1566 campaign from the aspect of Zrínyi and the Hungarian– Croatian border defence system. Of course, the signifijicance of Zrínyi and that of Süleyman are not to be mentioned in the same breath, but the Hungarian aristocrat’s activities and all his life make us better understand the nature of Ottoman Hungary and the causes of the 1566 campaign. First, I will shortly introduce the region where Zrínyi Miklós, the captaingeneral of Szigetvár worked. In international historical scholarship, the area of Ottoman Hungary has generally been portrayed as an integral whole where the major campaigns shifted the borders, but the inner lands remained the same during the 150 years of conquest.2 This impression was strengthened by maps that marked the whole of the Ottoman Hungary with the same colour. Fortunately, the schematic picture has become more sophisticated in the past few decades. Ferenc Szakály pointed out that the Hungarian authorities

* The study was supported by OTKA PD 109863. 1 István Fazekas, ʻSzigetvár emlékezete a XVI. századbanʼ, in Múlt-kor történelmi magazin melléklete. Budapest, 2016, 18–22; Dénes Sokcsevits, ‘A Zrínyiek újkori kultusza a horvátoknálʼ, in Múlt-kor, 62–66. 2 Sadık Müfijit Bilge, Osmanlı’nın Macaristanı. İstanbul, 2010.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_020

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collected taxes throughout the area of Ottoman Hungary3 and Klára Hegyi’s research demonstrated that sipahis serving in Ottoman Hungary were granted prebends well beyond the Hungarian border fortresses.4 Due to these results, the area of Ottoman Hungary has become striped on the maps.5 However, this still conceals the shifts of the border and the rapid changes in the status of certain territories. Since the borders between the two world powers were in constant flux in the Carpathian Basin, it is almost impossible to show longer phases. In 1556, a Viennese report commented on the number of fortresses captured by the Turks after 1526. Published by Géza Pálfffy, this valuable source mentions two hundred and sixty-two fortresses, as the enquired aristocrats, among them Miklós Zrínyi/Nikola Zrinski, were able to recall so many by heart. Hundred and thirty-six of them lay south of the Drava and forty-four stood in South Transdanubia. Since out of these hundred and eighty fortresses only eight were south of the Sava, one can establish that hundred and seventy-two castles fell on a two hundred and fijifty kilometre long strip of the border in thirty years.6 (Maps 1, 2) The opposing forces were engaged in fijierce struggles to possess these forts and the Ottoman military command had to fijight for each meter in Slavonia and South Transdanubia. Such a large-scale struggle took place only once in a while in the fijirst two-thirds of the 16th century – for instance, in the area bordered by the rivers Danube, Tisza and Maros (Mureş) in 1551 and 1552 – and thus the Ottoman conquest did not bring about a dramatic change in the beginning. However, the people in Slavonia and South Transdanubia sufffered badly and sometimes whole counties lost their populations.7 Mainly Orthodox Serbians and Vlachs settled in the empty areas.

3 Ferenc Szakály, Magyar adóztatás a török hódoltságban. Budapest, 1981. 4 Klára Hegyi, ‘“Aranyásó szpáhik” a királyi Magyarországon’, in Ferenc Glatz (ed.), A tudomány szolgálatában. Emlékkönyv Benda Kálmán 80. születésnapjára. Budapest, 1993, 103–111. 5 Ferenc Glatz (ed.), Virágkor és pusztulás. A kezdetektől 1606-ig. (História Könyvtár. Atlaszok Magyarország történetéhez) Budapest, 1995, 52–56. 6 Géza Pálfffy, ʻEgy rendkívüli forrás a magyar politikai elit 16. századi földrajzi ismereteiről. Az 1526 és 1556 között török kézbe került magyarországi városok, várak és kastélyok összeírása a Német-római Birodalom rendjei számáraʼ, in György Terei et al. (eds.), Várak nyomában. Tanulmányok a 60 éves Feld István tiszteletére. Budapest, 2011, 177–194. 7 Ive Mažuran, ʻTurska osvajanja u Slavoniji (1526–1552)ʼ, Osječki Zbornik 6 (1958) 93–135; Nenad Moačanin, ‘Migrationen in Slawonien und Syrmien im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Internationales Kulturhistorisches Symposion Mogersdorf 1997. Zagreb, 2000, 68–75; Nenad Moačanin, Slavonia i Srijem u razdoblju osmanske vladavine. (Bibliotheca Croatica: Slavonica, Sirmiensia et Baranyensia; Studije, Knj. 3.) Slavonski Brod, 2001.

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Advance of the Ottomans in the Southern Transdanubian region until 1566

Slavonia and South Transdanubia, both of which had been conquered, formed the western base of Ottoman Hungary, and the security of this section of the border was, therefore, of strategic importance for the Ottoman military command. The fate of Buda and Ottoman Hungary depended on the logistic line along the Danube, and Christian troops could threaten the reserves sent to Buda only from this direction. This fact is essential to an understanding of the importance of Sziget(vár), the strongest Hungarian border fortress of the region. Szigetvár impeded the Ottoman advance in South Transdanubia, successfully controlling transportation on the Drava and posing a constant threat to the Ottoman border castles in Slavonia, mainly Virovitiça (Virovitica/ Verőce) and Pojega (Požega/Pozsega). Samuel Budina rightly titled his work (1568) “The History of Szigetvár, the Strongest Bastion of the Whole Slavonia”, which “is fortifijied artifijicially and naturally, and lies in a place surrounded and almost flooded by marshes on the border of Slavonia”.8 It is not by chance that the castle of Szigetvár was a constant target of Ottoman attacks and its captains 8 Imre Molnár (ed. and transl.), Budina Sámuel históriája magyarul és latinul Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromáról. (Szigetvári Várbaráti Kör kiadványai, 6.) Translation checked by Mária Berényiné Révész. Szigetvár, 1978, 5–7.

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map 2

szabolcs varga

Advance of the Ottomans in Slavonia until 1565

frequently mentioned this topic in their correspondence. Ottoman troops besieged the increasingly fortifijied stronghold both in 1555 and 1556; however, at that time their attempts remained unsuccessful.9 The mere existence of Szigetvár was an enormous challenge to the Ottoman military command because the fortress might have strengthened to an extent that its soldiers could have seized the initiative in the fijield and could have seriously endangered South Transdanubia and the consolidation of Ottoman Hungary.10 As Géza Pálfffy’s research has shown, the Habsburg border defence system was extremely complex.11 In Slavonia, it was controlled by the Croatian– Slavonian ban, while in South Transdanubia, that is in the territory between 9 10

11

Péter Kasza (compil. and annot.), Remembering a Forgotten Siege: Szigetvár, 1556 / Egy elfeledett ostrom emlékezete. Szigetvár, 1556. Ed. by Pál Fodor. Budapest, 2016. Szabolcs Varga, ʻA vár és mezőváros története 1526–1566ʼ, in Sándor Bősze, László Ravazdi and László Szita (eds.), Szigetvár története. Tanulmányok a város múltjából. Szigetvár, 2006, 45–88. Géza Pálfffy, ʻThe Habsburg Defense System in Hungary Against the Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century: A Catalyst of Military Development in Central Europeʼ, in Brian J. Davies (ed.), Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500–1800. (History of Warfare, 72.) Leiden, Boston, 2012, 35–61.

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the Drava and Lake Balaton, it was managed by the captain-general of Szigetvár and that of Transdanubia. Of the Hungarian aristocrats, only Miklós Zrínyi held all these three posts. The Croatian count and Hungarian aristocrat was Croatian–Slavonian ban from 1542 to 1556.12 Following the 1552 campaign, he consolidated the defence of Slavonia and soon launched a counter-attack. This post brought the best out of Zrínyi in the next fijifteen years. As the fourth most important dignity of the country, not only the Viennese court but also the Austrian territories became aware of his name and respect his military prowess. The Croatian–Slavonian ban literally fought his way up to the highest political circles by his sword, but for the sake of an even more successful career, he had to accept some new tasks. Zrínyi wanted to get into the highest echelon of society and thus he needed to be close to the imperial city. To this end, he left both his native region of Una and his chosen homeland of Slavonia and set up a new home in Transdanubia. In 1546, he acquired Muraköz (Međimurje) in Zala County, and Csáktornya (Čakovec) became the new residence of the family. Although Zrínyi had earlier possessed small estates north of the river Drava, it was at this time that he became a prominent member of the Hungarian aristocracy. As a result of the marriage contract signed with Péter Erdődy in 1556, Zrínyi got hold of the estates of Monyorókerék (Eberau), Vörösvár (Rotenturm) and Vép, all of which lay in a region safe from Ottoman attacks. This agreement rocketed him to the circle of the richest landowners, and his new residence in Monyorókerék was only at arm’s length from the royal court.13 (Map 3) The ruler appointed Zrínyi as royal treasurer in 1557 and from that time on he often visited Pozsony (Pressburg/Bratislava) and Vienna, the two capitals of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy. However, the post of the captain-general of Szigetvár became vacant in 1561 and Zrínyi returned to the battlefijield.14 12

13

14

Géza Pálfffy, ʻA szigetvári Zrínyi Miklós a Magyar Királyság és a Habsburg Monarchia arisztokráciájábanʼ, in Zoltán Varga (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós élete és öröksége. A 2008. november 7–8-án Zrínyi Miklós születésének 500. évfordulója alkalmából Szigetváron rendezett konferencia előadásainak szerkesztett szövege. Szigetvár, 2010, 28–48; Sándor Bene, Zoran Ladić and Gábor Hausner (eds.), Susreti dviju kultura. Obitelj Zrinski u hrvatskoj i mađarskoj povijesti. Zagreb, 2012. Szabolcs Varga, ‘„Az Zrinyi Ház, soha az Erdeödy házhoz ighaz nem volt.” Fejezetek a Zrínyiek és Erdődyek kora újkori kapcsolatából’, in Sándor Bene, Pál Fodor, Gábor Hausner and József Padányi (eds.), Határok fölött. Tanulmányok a költő, katona, államférfiji Zrínyi Miklósról. Budapest, 2017, 187–207. Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, 188–212.

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map 3 Zrínyi estates in the 16th century

He knew the fortress at Sziget well. At the time he was ban, he himself must have galloped over here a number of times, delivering supplies, soldiers and weapons to the fortress that was now in the king’s hands. He knew very well that Sziget was of key importance for the defence of South Transdanubia and Slavonia, so he did everything in his power to assist the castle hiding in the swamps of the Almás brook. He was there under Babócsa in 1556 to stop the fortress from falling to the enemy, and he also took part in the reconstruction of the damaged fortifijications. His new lands in Transdanubia only made him all the more fond of the fortress at Szigetvár, as he knew very well that it was this fortifijication which protected the population of Csáktornya, the whole of Muraköz, and even the more distant Monyorókerék. So he was in no doubt that after the death of Márk Horváth, the captain of Sziget, in 1561, he would take his place. As early as on 22 August 1561, only a few days after his predecessor’s death, he applied to Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, requesting that he put in a good word for him with his father regarding the position. Hardly a month

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later, Ferdinand informed the Hungarian Chamber that he had come to an agreement with Zrínyi on the conditions for accepting the post of captain, and on 3 October he appointed Zrínyi castellan of the fortress of Sziget and senechal – or, to use the contemporary term, provisor – of the castle domain.15 Zrínyi had taken on one of the most dangerous posts in the Hungarian defence system. In the weeks after the appointment, the captain was already in the fortress starting his service. At that time, he did not know that he would have only fijive years commanding the fortress. Yet even this short space of time was enough for the names of Sziget and Zrínyi to be linked irrevocably and for the name “Miklós Zrínyi of Szigetvár” to enter the history books for good. Unlike commanders of smaller castles, Zrínyi was not just the captain of a fortress; as a baron enjoying the greatest honours from the king and belonging to the highest circles of the elite he would not have been satisfijied with such a “minor” position. The Hungarian system of border defences was often divided up into larger main fortresses and smaller fortifijications which belonged to them; this was no diffferent in the case of Szigetvár. The captain of the fortress would also be responsible for the defence of South Transdanubia; for this to be successful, he had to cooperate with the palatine, the ban and the captaingeneral of Transdanubia.16 His jurisdiction extended to the town and to the civilian population of the castle domain, and, with the collection of taxes, his tasks were not only military, but also economic.17 In reality, the Szigetvár posting was a promotion for Zrínyi. If we look at the certifijicate dated 3 October 1561, we see that, aside from its prestige, this post was similar to the offfijice of ban he had previously held. He could retain the position of royal treasurer, too, so he could now boast of two prestigious posts.

15 16

17

István Kenyeres, XVI. századi uradalmi utasítások. Utasítások a kamarai uradalmak prefektusai, udvarbírái és ellenőrei részére. Vol. 2. (Fons könyvek, 2.) Budapest, 2002, 655–663. Géza Pálfffy, ʻThe Origins and Development of the Border Defence System Against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (Up to the Early Eighteenth Century)ʼ, in Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor (eds.), Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military Confijines in the Era of the Ottoman Conquest. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 20.) Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000, 3–69. Kenyeres, XVI. századi, 661: Postquam etiam sibi demandata est proventuum arcis adminsitratio, ideo cunctos redditus, tam ordinarios, quam extraordinarios, scilicet frugum, bladorum vinorum, nonarum, decimarum numerum et aliarum rerum similium in bonis, tam ad arcem spectantibus, quam occupaticiis fijideliter colligere. Censum item ordinarium et subsidia quotiens communi consensu statuum et ordinum regni Maiestati Caesareae offeruntur de comitatu Baranÿa et partibus illis adjacentibus, diligenter exigere ac de universis et singulis praeceptis bonam et justam rationem medio rationistae seu viceprovisoris sui tenere et postulante Sua Majestate eam etiam reddere debebit.

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Under his command was the army, funded by Styrian pay, of the nearby Babócsa, Berzence, Barcs, Vízvár and Csurgó on condition that they were obedient to the Slavonian captain-general as well. In addition, a further hundred soldiers on Styrian pay were stationed at Sziget, a clear sign of the interdependence of the areas to the south and to the north of the Drava. The death of Palatine Tamás Nádasdy in 1562 had an efffect on Zrínyi’s role at Szigetvár. At the time the Habsburg court considered it preferable for the position of palatine to remain vacant, and so Zrínyi – although he gave serious thought to the idea – had no real chance of taking up the offfijice left available by his friend. The captaincy-general of Transdanubia could not remain vacant, however, so in 1563 Zrínyi was appointed to this offfijice.18 With this, the leadership of the area stretching from Lake Balaton to the river Drava was fijinally united in the hands of one man, and in this region the captain-general of Transdanubia had almost the same rights as the palatine in his capacity as the captaingeneral of the Kingdom of Hungary. Zrínyi began work with enormous zeal. Immediately after his appointment as captain he started to make it clear to everyone who was in control of the area now. In spring 1562 he personally led his soldiers across the Drava, where they crushed the troops of Arslan, sancakbeyi of Pojega, bringing the castle of Monoszló (Moslavina) to the ground, to prevent the Ottomans from fortifying it. Under Zrínyi’s leadership, the Christian military command went on the attack, keeping the enemy guard stations on both sides of the Drava in constant dread. On hearing about the Hungarian attacks, many of the Ottoman governors near the border started fortifying their castles, as happened in Peçuy (Pécs), Valpova (Valpovo/Valpó) and D’urd’evaç (Ðurđevac/Szentgyörgy).19 Zrínyi came to the same conclusion the Hungarian elite had reached a generation earlier; namely that the country was unable to withstand the “wartime years of peace”, and only with an active border defence could it stand a chance against the Ottomans’ superior numbers.20

18

19

20

Wien, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA), Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Hungarica AA Fasc. 86. Konv. A. fol. 68–71; Géza Pálfffy, A császárváros védelmében. A győri főkapitányság története 1526–1598. (A győri főkapitányság története a 16–17. században, 1.) Győr, 1999, 90–91. Samu Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris et diplomaticus Comitis Nicolai de Zrinio / Zrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős életére vonatkozó levelek és okiratok. Vol. I. Budapest, 1898, No. CCCXCIV. Géza Pálfffy, ʻElképzelések a török hódoltság elpusztításáról (16–17. század). A Habsburg Birodalom magyarországi hadszínterének néhány főbb sajátosságárólʼ, in Gyöngyi Kovács and Miklós Szabó (ed.), „Quasi liber et pictura.” Tanulmányok Kubinyi András hetvenedik születésnapjára. Budapest, 2004, 387–403.

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Zrínyi knew very well that efffective defence required a huge amount of money on his part, money the central government was not able to generate. So he tried to acquire as much of an income locally as he could. An opportunity for this was offfered by the reorganization of the domain around Szigetvár. It was his predecessor, Márk Horváth, who had already started this work. He had extended the jurisdiction of the castle from 1558 onwards, and thus South Transdanubia was no longer a safe area for the Ottoman conquerors.21 Mehmed Bey, the district governor of Peçuy, complained to the Porte in autumn 1559 that Márk Horváth, captain of Sziget, had captured many Muslim travellers and sipahis, and was hiding them in his fortress.22 In the spring of 1560, hajdús from Szigetvár, Babócsa and Csurgó drove dozens of Ottoman soldiers into the church in Mohács and set the building on fijire. The attackers were supported by Hungarian peasants.23 Due to the Hungarian attacks, the Porte ordered the building of a new fortress in Mohács on the bank of the Danube and the establishment of an independent kapudanlık in order to secure the waterways. The new stronghold was to station the garrisons of the destroyed palisades.24 The soldiers of Szigetvár imposed a constant threat in the conquered areas of Baranya and Tolna Counties – a fact that considerably modifijies the schematic representation of the maps mentioned at the beginning of this study. For in the 1560s, the conquerors had to build fortresses in places well beyond the borderline, which they had occupied without a single shot twenty years earlier. Zrínyi continued the work started by Márk Horváth, and by 1566 almost the entirety of South Transdanubia paid taxes to him. He introduced many innovations which led to a drastic increase in tax burdens. He again demanded unpaid work in kind, the so-called robot: The peasants would have to appear in the castle at an appointed time, with their tools and carts, and carry out whatever the captain’s orders were. Not even the villages of far-flung Tolna County were exempted from this; anyone trying to escape this duty could expect to be severely punished.25 The castle domain of Szigetvár would, by the 1560s, be operating as a state within a state, and Zrínyi governed the province with which he had been 21

22

23 24 25

Ferenc Szakály, ‘Egy végvári kapitány hétköznapjai (Horváth Márk szigeti kapitány levelezése Nádasdy Tamás nádorral és szervitoraival, 1556–1561)’, in Somogy Megye Múltjából 18 (1987) 45–126. Géza Dávid and Pál Fodor, „Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos” A szultáni tanács Magyarországra vonatkozó rendeletei (1559–1560, 1564–1565). (História Könyvtár. Okmánytárak, 6.) Budapest, 2009, 53. Ibid., 86–87. Ibid., 106–107. Szakály, Magyar adóztatás, 72–96.

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map 4 The taxation district of Szigetvár, 1565

entrusted with almost total power. In addition to the rents due to the lord of the land, he also collected state taxes, and far more efffijiciently than the central institutions had done previously. This did not meet with the approval of the Hungarian Chamber, however, and a fijierce conflict erupted between the captain-general and the central administrators regarding the villages which had formerly belonged to the castles of Siklós and Valpó.26 (Map 4) The real reason for the conflict was that Zrínyi thought as a soldier. He knew what resources were needed for defence, but this led to the depletion and impoverishment of the region. The Hungarian Chamber’s interests, on the other hand, lay in seeing as great an income as possible coming into the central

26

Kenyeres, XVI. századi, 664–674; Sándor Takáts, ʻVizsgálat Zrínyi Miklós ellenʼ, Századok 39 (1905) 889–901.

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budget thanks to efffijicient fijinancial management.27 A fijiscal approach would produce serious problems even then. As a result of Zrínyi’s effforts, Szigetvár became an enormous fortress, surrounded by tax-paying villages, smaller fortresses protecting the main thoroughfares, and, most tightly around it, an almost impenetrable swamp. The efffectively inscrutable system of walls and fortresses must surely have presented visitors with an imposing spectacle.28 Posterity is tempted to scofff at the quality of 16th-century Hungarian castle architecture, but contemporaries were well aware that Sziget was an up-to-date fortifijication; some of the architectural elements employed in it can also be seen at Castel Nuovo in Naples, and at the castles of Bergamo and La Valetta. It was thanks to this unapproachable fortress that the Ottoman administration did not succeed in pacifying occupied Transdanubia;29 in fact, by overseeing the shipping route along the Danube and the Drava, the soldiers of Szigetvár posed a constant threat to the guard positions in Northern Transdanubia, too. It came in very handy for Zrínyi that the Ottomans wanted to abolish the sancak of Sekçöy (Szekcső) at that time. According to reports, this step “led to chaos in the area, the villains of Szigetvár can attack both by land and the Danube. There is an awful muddle, it is impossible to reach Mohaç. Peçuy and Seksar (Szekszárd) are far from each other and they cannot put down the riots around Mohaç and Baranavar (Baranyavár)”.30 Due to the disorder, the Ottomans gave up their plans regarding the mentioned sancak at the beginning of 1565 but the uncertainty could come to an end only slowly.31 The situation worsened because of the conflict between the sancakbeyi of Peçuy and the sipahis who refused to obey to their commander.32 As a result of the abuses relating to tax collection, the Christian inhabitants of the villages became more and more hostile and they fijiled their complaints directly with the Porte.33 The ravage and plundering of the garrisons of the newly built 27

28 29 30 31 32 33

István Kenyeres, ʻA végvárak uradalmainak igazgatása és gazdálkodása a 16. századbanʼ, Századok 135:6 (2001) 1349–1412; Géza Pálfffy, ʻDer Preis für die Verteidigung der Habsburgermonarchie: Die Kosten der Türkenabwehr in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhundertsʼ, in Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian Lanzinner and Peter Rauscher (eds.), Finanzen und Herrschaft: Materielle Grundlagen fürstlicher Politik in den habsburgischen Ländern und im Heiligen Römischen Reich im 16. Jahrhundert. (Veröfffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 38.) München, Wien, 2003, 20‒44. Varga, ‘A vár és mezőváros’, 80–82. Dávid and Fodor, „Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos”, 160–161. Ibid., 174. Ibid., 201. Ibid., 164–165, 167. Ibid., 168.

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fortresses along the Drava, Monoszló and Berzőce (Brezovica) also added to the difffijiculty because eighty-one villages of the districts (nahiye) of Şelen (Sellye) and Göröşgal (Görösgal) protested against them unanimously.34 The Porte wanted to solve the problem by ordering Hamza, the sancakbeyi of Mohaç, to prevent the garrisons of the mentioned castles from crossing the river and pillaging the territory of Baranya.35 These cases deserve attention because all these villages had been under Ottoman jurisdiction from 1543 and their fate sheds light on the chaotic state of afffairs of the Ottoman public administration. In 1565, Zrínyi took the strategic initiative and started a counter-attack in South Transdanubia. It was the worst possible moment for the Ottoman military command, as John Sigismund’s power turned out to be insecure in Transylvania and the Habsburg army was stationed near Tokaj and Szatmár (Satu Mare). To repel the attack, the sancakbeyis of Niğbolu (Nikopol) and Hersek (Herzegovina) were summoned to Transylvania,36 and the troops of the sub-provinces of Pojega, Kilis (Klis) and Bosna were ordered to support Hamza Bey of Mohaç in a relieving campaign in South Transdanubia.37 However, it had become increasingly clear that local forces could not solve the problem. Thus, the entourage of Sultan Süleyman determined in autumn 1565 to take Gyula and Szigetvár in order to stabilize their control in Hungary.38 The detailed description of the 1566 campaign and the siege of Szigetvár lies outside the scope of the study. As is well known, several ideas have been put forward about Süleyman’s aims and the plans of the Habsburg military command. Without going into details, I would like to draw attention to some important but unnoticed developments – the more so because these are closely related to the siege of Szigetvár and the heroic death of Miklós Zrínyi. The last campaign of the sultan does not fijit into the series of former attacks because in the 1550s the Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry grew more refijined than it had been in the previous decades. Charles V of Habsburg had died, and Ferdinand and Süleyman had become old. Only the local Ottoman forces were engaged in various attacks in the Hungarian theatre of war after 1552. The local population sufffered badly and several castles were taken at that time, but the fijirst phase of the conquest had ended. In 1562 the two rulers signed a peace treaty for eight years and there were no signs that the sultan wished to launch a further campaign. Indeed, a legitimate hope was that the ageing ruler would 34 35 36 37 38

Ibid., 171. Ibid., 173. Ibid., 308. Ibid., 306. ÖStA HHStA Türkei I. Karton 21. Konv. 1. 1566. Jan.–März. fols. 13–15.

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never again attack the Kingdom of Hungary. However, a conflict that broke out between the Habsburgs and John Sigismund dashed such hopes.39 In the mid-16th century, the most important political issue in the courts of Vienna, Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) and Kraków was Transylvania, as the Habsburg court and members of the Hungarian political elite that were loyal to the Habsburgs never abandoned their desire to gain Szapolyai’s legacy.40 However, the sultan adamantly refused to consent to this, and so Transylvania became the focus of clashes between the two empires in the Carpathian Basin.41 Queen Isabella strengthened her position in Transylvania in 1556, and her son, John Sigismund, also started his reign with a fijirm hand in 1559. During these years only Gyula remained in Habsburg hands in the neighbouring area, but it did not pose much danger at that time. However, the state of afffairs changed drastically in 1562. In that year Melchior (Menyhért) Balassa, who had formerly supported John Sigismund, went over to Ferdinand’s side, whereby the huge Balassa estates lying around Szatmár were also lost for Transylvania. The riot of the Szeklers added to the difffijiculties, and John Sigismund was forced to seek Ottoman help.42 The war dragged on until 1565 when the captaingeneral, Lazarus von Schwendi, arrived and the Habsburg army launched an offfensive. Habsburg forces then occupied Szatmár, Nagybánya (Baia Mare) and the castle of Tokaj, and the defeats shook John Sigismund’s position.43 Being aware of these events, Sultan Süleyman decided to start a campaign in the Hungarian theatre of war the next year. Therefore, after 1551, Transylvanian afffairs led once again to a new war. The main reason for the 1566 campaign was the restoration of the original status quo. It is important to stress the Transylvanian events because even at the time most people were unaware of the reasons for the campaign. Many ideas were put forth relating to its causes. Some Ottoman chroniclers maintained that the reason for launching the campaign had been Szigetvár, while others thought that the soldiers of Eger had made the sultan angry. Again, some other people suggested that the sultan had Vienna in his sights. According to Ferenc Forgách, 39 40

41 42 43

Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, 129–131. Teréz Oborni, ʻDie Pläne des Wiener Hofes zur Rückeroberung Siebenbürgens 1557–1563ʼ, in Martina Fuchs, Teréz Oborni and Gábor Ujváry (eds.), Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher. (Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., 5.) Münster, 2005, 277–297. Dávid and Fodor, „Ez az ügy fölöttébb fontos”, 178–325, passim. Teréz Oborni, ʻKettős függésben. Erdély államisága a 16. század közepénʼ, Korunk 17:7 (2007) 33–40. Géza Pálfffy, ʻVédelmi övezetek a Tiszától keletre a 16. századbanʼ, in István Lengvári (ed.), In memoriam Barta Gábor. Tanulmányok Barta Gábor emlékére. Pécs, 1996, 209–228. See also the study by James D. Tracy in this volume.

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the bishop of Várad (Oradea), “[the sultan] started this last and large-scale campaign with such a huge army and with the aim of not leaving Gyula, the only signifijicant castle held by the enemy, behind his back and capturing it, he would unite his forces, and breaking through the only gate of Hungary, he would march toward Austria”.44 The reports of the Habsburg envoys written from Constantinople prove that the Ottoman military command, when planning the campaign, was intent on maintaining the vassal status of Transylvania and protecting Ottoman Hungary. During this phase the sultan’s state of health represented the biggest uncertainty, as the people in his circle could not decide whether he would be able to set out for Hungary. However, the targets of the attack were decided upon in the autumn of 1565.45 Maximilian of Habsburg’s envoy at the Porte, Albert de Wyss (Wijs), reported the following on 1 January 1566. The Transylvanian envoy had been sent home two weeks before with the message that John Sigismund should prepare for a campaign in early spring. De Wyss also mentioned that the sultan would hold a muster at the spring equinox in Edirne, and then he would fast and set out for the Kingdom of Hungary. The letter also revealed that Süleyman would travel only as far as Sofijia or Belgrade and that he would not take part in military operations in Hungary. A part of the army would march to Buda under the leadership of Prince Selim and ravage the area; another part would capture the castles of Gyula and Eger, while the third one would attack Szigetvár. De Wyss felt that the political climate was very hostile toward them and that the sultan’s war against Maximilian was a certainty.46 According to the next envoy report, “there is a constant preparation for war whose target will be, on the one hand, Gyula and Eger, and on the other, Sziget”. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha boasted that these castles almost fell into their hands. However, some anxious high-ranking offfijicials had the idea that it was all the intrigue of the grand vizier. They suspected that Mehmed was ignoring the 44

45

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Ferenc Forgách, Emlékirat Magyarország állapotáról Ferdinánd, János, Miksa királysága és II. János erdélyi fejedelemsége alatt. Selected and edited with a foreword by Péter Kulcsár, translated by István Borzsák. Budapest, 1977, 846. Tayyib Gökbilgin, ʻNagy Szolimán 1566. évi Szigetvár elleni hadjáratának előzményei’, in Lajos Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromának 400. évfordulójára. Budapest, 1966, 53–61. ÖStA HHStA Türkei I. Karton 21. Konv. 1. 1566. Jan.–März. fols. 13–15. +18. I owe gratitude to László Glück and István Fazekas, who provided me with the transcriptions of these documents. They are collecting and processing them as part of a project entitled “The Political, Military and Religious Role of Szigetvár and Turbék in the Rivalry of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, and the Turkish Regime in Hungary – Facts and Memory” directed by Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap.

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sultan’s state of health and wanted to seize the opportunity to precipitate Süleyman’s death. According to these offfijicials, Mehmed Pasha’s aim was to arrange for his son-in-law, Selim, to be the sultan, whom he could then influence.47 Envoy De Wyss reported on 9 February that Selim would march toward Sziget with the troops of the beylerbeyis of the eastern part of the empire, while the sultan, together with the central and European troops, would attack Komárom and Győr. A vizier would then besiege Gyula and Eger with the auxiliary troops of the vassals.48 Despite the contradictory reports, Zrínyi was sure that one of the targets of the campaign would be Szigetvár. We have to stress this point as the Viennese court was unable to form an idea from the conflicting reports about the plans of the Ottoman military command. Maximilian and his entourage expected the sultan to besiege Vienna, and they planned all their steps accordingly. From the outset, therefore, their focus was the region near Vienna, and they did not have any plans to hinder the siege of Szigetvár or that of Gyula, which lay even further away. The Porte also played a signifijicant role in the situation, as it steadily misinformed the Habsburg envoys, thereby successfully deceiving the Habsburg military command. Therefore, Szigetvár and Gyula were left to their own devices and had no chance of being relieved. Nevertheless, the defenders of the former were not aware of this fact. Zrínyi shut himself up behind the castle walls, secure in the belief that the Habsburg troops would send help, as they had done in 1556 with the successful lifting of the blockade around Sziget. On 29 April 1566, Süleyman set offf on his thirteenth military campaign; so began the sultan’s last enterprise. An army of almost thirty thousand led by Pertev Pasha surrounded Gyula on 2 July, while the sultan himself arrived under Szigetvár on 9 August, although his troops had encircled the fortress and the town by 5 August. There were constant battles under the walls, for the defenders would continuously be breaking out and disturbing the attackers as they prepared for their siege. According to some sources, the sultan’s tent was fijirst pitched on the banks of the lake under the castle, but as Zrínyi’s cannons could reach this far, it was speedily transferred to Semlék hill, lying northeast of Sziget. This would be Süleyman’s last earthly residence. (Map 5)

47 48

ÖStA HHStA Türkei I. Karton 21. Konv. 1. 1566. Jan.–März. fols. 62–64. ÖStA HHStA Türkei I. Karton 21. Konv. 1. 1566. Jan.–März. fol. 68.

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Military campaigns in 1566

Zrínyi had been aware of the impending attack for months and did everything in his power to reinforce the fortress. He summarized his experiences in a lengthy memorandum.49 His opinion was that with six thousand men he would be capable of repelling the Ottoman manoeuvres, and he rightly recognized the role of the town in defending the fortress. He knew that as long as they were able to defend the town, the Turks could not make a direct attack on the fortress. Although previously he had threatened to resign his post a number of times,50 he now announced that he would see the defence of the fortress as his responsibility even if he did not happen to be its commander. His sense was that the fate of his country and of his family really did rest on this siege. On 1 August around 2,300 Hungarian, Croatian and German soldiers and two thousand civilians gathered on the market of the inner castle where – if the chronicler Nicolaus Istvánfffy is to be believed – Zrínyi gave a speech and then had them all swear to resist until death. Giving weight to his words was a scafffold, which had been used that day to make an example of a soldier for 49 50

Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris, Vol. II. Budapest, 1899, Part I, Letters, No. IV. Forgách, Emlékirat, 832.

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insubordination.51 Zrínyi did not ask for mercy for anyone – and neither did he give it. Although we do not have space to discuss the siege in detail,52 we might draw some conclusions about Zrínyi’s leadership skills from the events. Zrínyi certainly kept fijirm control until the last day of the siege, and it was mainly his persistence that made his soldiers endure to the end. The Ottoman army of 50,000 men was more than twenty times the size of the defending force, and a year before, in 1565, more than 9,000 Christian soldiers had put up a fijight in Malta against an Ottoman force smaller than that. A comparison to the siege of Malta vividly demonstrates the size and signifijicance of the 1566 siege of Sziget. Zrínyi’s main experience was in fijighting open battles and organising campaigns, but he also had the skills to defend a castle. He involved his captains in strategic planning; they had already served here during the 1556 siege. They persuaded him to defend the old and new towns lying south of the fortress because these tactics had ended in success ten years before. Further, at the request of veteran commanders, Zrínyi gave permission for two hundred of his cavalrymen to break out and attempt to prevent the swamp being drained. Despite the casualties, this efffort was unsuccessful and further reduced the defenders’ chances. Zrínyi was well aware of this fact but, in the fijirst two weeks of the siege, his underlings forced their own agendas on a number of occasions, making the work of defence harder.53 Following the loss of the towns and the death of his influential captains, Zrínyi organized the defence on his own. He was the one who repulsed attacks against the fortress while his soldiers inflicted great casualties on the enemy. This happened, for instance, on 29 August when the Ottomans wanted to break down resistance in a single decisive assault. By sunset, 4,000 Ottoman corpses lay under the walls. The sultan trusted his traditional lucky day in vain, as fate had something else in store for him.54 The following days passed in relative calm, with the rainy weather giving the defenders a moment’s breathing space. The besiegers were decimated by dysentery; perhaps this is when the sultan himself became infected. The 51 52 53 54

Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól írt históriája Tállyai Pál XVII. századi fordításában. Vol. II. Ed. by Péter Benits. Budapest, 2003, 412–414. On this, see József Kelenik’s study in this volume. Lajos Négyesi, ‘Gondolatok szigetvári Zrínyi Miklós várkapitányi tevékenységéről’, Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 122 (2009) 486–505. Lajos Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvár of 1566: Its Signifijicance in Hungarian Social Development’, in János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. (War and Society in Eastern Europe, 3.) Brooklyn, NY,1982, 251–259.

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defenders sent one letter after another to Maximilian of Habsburg, asking for assistance and then waiting impatiently for relief troops to arrive from the north. Their hopes were in vain, however: The imperial army did not so much as budge from the vicinity of Győr. It is not easy to give a simple answer to the question of why Maximilian’s army did not save Szigetvár.55 What is certain is that the king’s possible hostility to Zrínyi did not play a role; he was thirsty for military triumphs himself, and he would shed a genuine tear on hearing of Zrínyi’s death. Yet an enormous burden of responsibility was borne by the imperial military command for failing to uncover anything in advance of the objectives of the sultan’s campaign. It is telling that even in September they were still expecting the sultan to spend the winter in Buda; it was only on 29 October that Maximilian learned of Süleyman’s death. In the last days of his life the sultan would brilliantly employ the tactic of deception one last time. Until the very last minute, Maximilian was genuinely under the impression that the real target of the campaign was Vienna; it was to this that he tailored his own movements, and it was on the basis of this that he deliberated everything.56 Had he been sure that the sultan’s plan was always just the capture of Szigetvár, then perhaps he could have removed the burden on the defenders with a diversionary military operation. The news of the sultan’s death would also have altered the strategic plans, but Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was very clever in keeping it quiet. While it is true that the imperial commanders were very stubborn in sticking to their original plans, let us not forget that only in the previous year, during the siege of Malta, the Habsburg military command dithered for three whole months before sending a rescue expedition! Perhaps a few weeks later they would have attempted some diversionary tactic, but in the case of Szigetvár there was not enough time to wait for this – and this would seal the fate of its defenders.57 On 7 September, half a day after the sultan’s death, Zrínyi broke out of the castle, at the head of his remaining soldiers, into certain destruction. In recent decades the view has been aired that the fortress of Szigetvár fell because of Zrínyi’s mistakes. This has by now been satisfactorily contradicted.58 One thing is certain, however. At the end, Zrínyi had two choices: to surrender, or to die. He chose the latter. His last act was further evidence of his unbroken sense of duty, which cannot be doubted. He shut himself in the castle when he was not 55 56 57 58

On the events of 1566, see Eduard Wertheimer, ‘Zur Geschichte des Türkenkrieges Maximilians II. 1565–1566’, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 53 (1875) 43–103. Georg Wagner, ‘Maximilian II, der Wiener Hof und die Belagerung von Sziget’, in Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv, 237–269. Szabolcs Varga, ‘A körülmények csapdájában. Szigetvár elestének okai’, in Múlt-kor, 26. Négyesi, ‘Gondolatok’, 498–500.

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obliged to, and, as a baron, an esteemed member of the imperial aristocracy, he chose a hero’s death. Even the historian and politician Ferenc Forgách, who so detested him, paid him a tribute, saying that with his glorious death Zrínyi had washed the vices of his life offf himself.59 His heroism also evoked the enemy’s admiration. Two months after these events, Sokollu Mustafa Pasha of Buda wrote of Zrínyi to Maximilian that “I still regret his death, and I can prove this, because his head is not on a pale; I sent it up to have it cleaned; I also had his body buried, as it would have been a shame to have the body of such a brave gentleman eaten by the birds”.60 The cut-offf head really was washed in vinegar and sent to the camp in Győr. From here it was taken by his son-in-law Boldizsár Batthyány, leading his warriors, to Muraköz, in order that it be laid to fijinal rest in the family monastery in Szentilona (Šenkovec) near Csáktornya, alongside his fijirst wife. The defenders of Sziget sold their lives dearly. The Ottoman army lost almost 20,000 men under its walls. For comparison, in the previous year, some 30,000 Ottoman soldiers, sailors and pirates had been lost in the bay of Malta, while 7,000 of the 9,000 strong defence force had died in the four-month siege. Under the Hungarian fortress, 20,000 besiegers died over a month, while the number of defenders was only four tenths of the number of Christians defending the Mediterranean island. This was the price to pay for the liquidation of an important border fortress and castle area which for more than twenty years had obstructed Süleyman from truly owning that which he had occupied. Sziget fulfijilled its historical calling, preserving in the most difffijicult decades the Hungarian presence in Ottoman Hungary, all the while remaining a thorn in the side of the empire. Although the fortress fell in 1566, a mere few years later and a few kilometres to the west, the next layer of the Hungarian border defence system would already be standing behind it, rising up above the conquerors as an obstacle that could be passed and yet still not beaten. Thanks to the defenders of Szigetvár, the Kingdom of Hungary continued to get stuck in the jaws of the Ottoman Empire.

59 60

Forgách, Emlékirat, 860. Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris, II. Part I, Letters, No. LXX.

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The Sieges of Szigetvár and Gyula, 1566 József Kelenik István Dobó Museum, Eger, Hungary [email protected]

In the early modern period two thirds of the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary consisted of water-saturated areas.1 Warfare, however, required areas that were suitable for transporting masses of people and a large amount of supplies. Consequently, the war against the Ottoman army was fought in and for such territories. The possession of such areas required large centrally located fortifijications with the capacity to house thousands of garrison troops and with the complementary system of smaller fortresses that protected the natural borders of the region. The possession of a central fortifijication guaranteed the possession of the surrounding region.2 Therefore, Süleyman’s campaigns in Hungary were, for the most part, siege wars.3 In 1566, the sultan’s armies besieged two fortresses of strategic importance: Gyula in the eastern part of the country and Szigetvár which protected Southwestern Hungary. Their occupation served two purposes: The new Ottoman garrisons would help keep previously occupied areas and also serve as a new base for further expansion.4

The Siege of Gyula The fortress of Gyula had a third role, which was also important. It closed offf the areas and garrisons under Ottoman rule – Temeşvar (Temesvár/Timişoara), Segedin (Szeged) and Solnok (Szolnok) – in order to eliminate any potential 1 Map of Hungary. Magyarország vízborította és árvízjárta területei az ármentesítő és lecsapoló munkálatok megkezdése előtt. M: 1:600 000. Budapest, 1938. Made by the Hydrographic Institute of the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Agriculture. 2 József Kelenik, ʻHungary, Defender of Christianity 1526–1606’, in Róbert Hermann (ed.), Illustrated Military History of Hungary. Budapest, 2012, 74–76. 3 Ervin Liptai (ed.), Magyarország hadtörténete. Vol. I. Budapest, 1984, 174–176, 187–192. 4 Éva Simon, A hódoltságon kívüli hódoltság. Oszmán terjeszkedés a Délnyugat–Dunántúlon a 16. század második felében. Budapest, 2014, 141–150.

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contact through the Sebes-Körös valley with their ally, John Sigismund, ruler of Transylvania. There was a great need for this, because the war between Transylvania and the new emperor, Maximilian II, broke out again in 1564. The Transylvanians took hold of several important castles – Szatmár, Nagybánya and Ecsed – thus occupying large territories. The key to this success was the surprise element and the unpreparedness of the enemy. These advantages, however, were wasted by 1565. Commanded by the experienced Lazarus von Schwendi, the imperial and royal forces opted for an unusual manoeuvre and launched a counterattack in February that year. They took back one castle after another and soon enough they opened the road into the centre of Transylvania.5 The startled John Sigismund turned to the sultan for military support. He received it straight away, since the positions of the Ottoman invaders were under continuous and heavy attacks not only here in the eastern territories, but basically everywhere in the Kingdom of Hungary. The main forces of the Ottoman Empire had not led a campaign in Hungary for 22 years. Since the Ottomans concentrated their activities in the east during this time their military and economic positions had weakened in Hungary. Under the leadership of the Hungarian landowners who became involved in military campaigns, the occupied territories had been slowly recaptured.6 From military and strategic aspects, this state of afffairs was dangerous for the Ottomans particularly in two locations. The southwestern part of the road leading to the occupied areas was at risk from Szigetvár, while the southeastern access was under threat from the fortress of Gyula and its garrison. Out of the two focal points of the resistance, Gyula’s situation was much worse, because it was almost completely surrounded by the fortress-triangle of Temeşvar–Segedin– Solnok. Because of this position it only had one long and insecure supply link to its home territories. Since it also guarded the road leading through the Körös valley to Transylvania, its strategic role and position made it the second most important target after Szigetvár during the 1566 campaign. There were many similarities between Szigetvár and Gyula in terms of their geographical positions and defence systems. Both fortresses were primarily protected by natural waters. Gyula was built on an island in the Fehér-Körös river, while Szigetvár was surrounded by a lake. Both castles consisted of several 5 Liptai (ed.), Magyarország hadtörténete, I. 88. On these events, see also James D. Tracy’s essay in this volume. 6 Ferenc Szakály, Magyar adóztatás a török hódoltságban. Budapest, 1981; Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, 212–238; János Hóvári, ‘Szulejmán szultán 1566. évi hadjáratának indítékai: magyar–török helyzetkép a 16. század közepén’, in Ádám Erdész (ed.), A kereszténység védőoszlopa – Gyula 1566-ban. Gyula, 2016, 14.

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defence units and had been reinforced with ramparts built from earth and wood. The fortifijication techniques were also similar, which is not surprising, because the reconstruction of both fortresses was overseen by the Italian military architect Paolo Mirandola. Both castles had a garrison of around two thousand soldiers and both were led by very experienced commanders. The commander of Gyula, László Kerecsényi, also served as the castellan of Szigetvár in 1554–1555. Based on the above, it is hardly surprising that the sieges of the two fortresses were also similar in many respects. The siege of Gyula was launched on 2 July 1566 by a 30-35,000-strong Ottoman army led by Second Vizier Pertev Pasha. The defence forces consisted of around 2,000 Hungarian, Croatian and German soldiers only. Although small in number, they were competent and ready to fijight. The weather was also on their side. The water level of the river around the castle was high, and the Ottoman artillery had to fijire at the castle walls from a relatively large distance. It was not until the water was drained that the enemy was able to launch the fijirst infantry attacks. Gyula, similarly to Szigetvár, consisted of three sections. The largest of them, called the “Hussar castle” was open from three sides and was held by the defenders for 12 days. The outer castle could be attacked head on at a very narrow section and was held for 27 days. The inner core of the fortress, including the medieval brick castle and the surrounding ramparts withheld the attack for another 9 days before negotiations on the surrender started.7 The garrison of Gyula, led by Captain László Kerecsényi, fought heroically for two whole months and managed to hold back Pertev Pasha’s army from 2 July to 2 September 1566. This was the longest siege in Hungary during the 16th century.

The Siege of Szigetvár The originally small fortress of Szigetvár in Southwestern Hungary gained strategic importance during the Ottoman expansion in the fijirst half of the 16th century. Surrounded by the thick woodlands of the Mecsek hills and the impenetrable marshland of the river Drava, it succeeded in blocking the Ottoman advancement.8

7 József Dusnoki-Draskovich, ‘A gyulai vár 1566. évi ostromának időrendje’, in Nyitott múlt. Tanulmányok, történetek Gyuláról, Békés vármegyéről és a fordított világról. (Gyulai füzetek, 12.) Gyula, 2000, 126–137. 8 Lajos Bende, ʻSziget 1556. évi ostroma’, Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 15:2 (1968) 281–309; István Sugár, Szigetvár és viadala. Budapest, 1976, 17–18.

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There was an irreconcilable conflict of interest between the Ottomans and the Hungarian landowners. The Ottoman government assigned the occupied lands mainly to the timar-holding sipahis. The former Christian owners, especially the lower and middle-rank nobility, refused to accept the loss of the private estates that had been the source of their livelihood. They sought refuge in nearby garrisons. Many of them took on military service to make a living and they tried whatever they could to continue to collect the income from their formerly owned lands.9 This created tension in the Ottoman-held territories. The new Ottoman landowners were not yet strong enough to gain absolute power and the former landowners were not weak enough to give up their demands. Fights for the lands and the peasants became permanent.10 The tension was further aggravated by personal motives. For example, the post of fortress captaincy of Szigetvár was generally held by big landowners, who had considerable military experience and whose land was mostly situated in areas under the control of the fortress. The captain’s social and economic standing was therefore inseparable from the fate of the fortress. Since Szigetvár prevented the Ottomans from reaching the back of the Croatian line of defence from the north (through Hungary), the Croatian soldiers and castellans/captains played a crucial role in the defence of the fortress. These castellans included Ferenc Tahy, Gergely Farkasics, János Palatics, Márk Stancsics and the most famous of all, Miklós Zrínyi. At the time of the siege, Zrínyi was 58 years old, which was a fairy ripe age in those days. He fought the Ottomans all his life, sufffering immense fijinancial and human losses. As an award for his services, he was granted by the king a large estate in Hungary, called Muraköz (Međimurje). Had Szigetvár been lost, his newly acquired land would have been in danger. So, after 35 years spent with fijighting, fleeing and starting over, Zrínyi did not want to retreat and leave Szigetvár.11 His views and feelings were shared by the Hungarian, Croatian and South Slav soldiers, who had also been fleeing from the Ottomans for decades and had found refuge in the areas surrounding the fortress. They thought that they 9 10 11

Szakály, Magyar adóztatás. Sándor Takáts, Ferenc Eckhart and Gyula Szekfű (eds.), A budai basák magyar nyelvű levelezése. Vol. I. Budapest, 1915. About Zrinyi’s life, see Samu Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris et diplomaticus Comitis Nicolai de Zrinio / Zrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős életére vonatkozó levelek és okiratok. Vols. I–II. Budapest, 1898–1899; Ferenc Salamon, Az első Zrínyiek. Pest, 1865; Kálmán Benda, ʻZrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős’, in Lajos Rúzsás (ed.) Szigetvári Emlékkönyv Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromának 400. évfordulójára. Budapest, 1966, 15–51; Géza Pálfffy, ʻA szigetvári Zrínyi Miklós a Magyar Királyság és a Habsburg Monarchia arisztokráciájában’, in Zoltán Varga (ed.), A 2008. november 7–8-án Zrínyi Miklós születésének 500. évfordulója alkalmából rendezett konferencia előadásainak szerkesztett szövege. Szigetvár, 2010, 28–48; Varga, Europe’s Leonidas.

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had no other choice but to defend the castle and hence their land, home and livelihood. Their determination was clearly shown by the attitude of their family members, who chose not to leave the fortress before the siege, which was very unusual in those times. Those choosing to stay in Szigetvár and fijight even at the expense of their lives included 2,300 soldiers with plenty of experience in handling weapons, as well as around 2,000 women and children as family members.12 Szigetvár’s defence was based on its partly natural and partly artifijicial waterbased defence network. Its strongest element was a large marshland. The use of dams, locks and stream beds that served as canals guaranteed that the valley around the castle was flooded all year round. According to contemporary sources, the fortress was situated in the middle of a “lake”. This “lake”, however, was quite shallow and only had open-water surface areas where the feeding waters were in motion. The rest of the flooded area was covered by thick vegetation. The water supply of the marsh was provided by two dams. The lower (southern) dam was used to raise the water levels and the upper (northern) dam stopped water from flowing back into the higher parts of the valley. The water level was kept constant by two overflows, which were probably natural stream beds. One drained offf the excess water in front of the northern and the other in front of the southern dam. The water was less of a problem for the besiegers, because after cutting through the lower dams the water escaped from the valley. What they were left with, however, was thick mud, overgrown with vegetation, which prevented the cannons being moved closer to the walls and also severely reduced the chances of infantry attacks. We have limited information about the siege of Szigetvár. Only a handful of defenders survived the siege and only one of them, Ferenac Črnko/Ferenc Cserenkó, Zrínyi’s chamberlain left written records behind.13 Apart from these and a few references from contemporary correspondences there are no credible eyewitness reports from the Christian side.14 I will describe this siege by using 12

13

14

Imre Molnár (ed. and transl.), Budina Sámuel krónikája magyarul és latinul Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromáról. (Szigetvári Várbaráti Kör kiadványai, 6.) Szigetvár, 1978, 15. In the following, I will refer to the Latin text of Budina. Lajos Ruzsás and Endre Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, Századok 105 (1971) 57–69; Samuel Budina, Historie von Eroberung der ansehenlichen Vesten Sigeth im Jar 1566. Wien, 1568; Samuel Budina, Historia Sigeti, totius Sclavoniae fortissimi propugnaculi quod a’ Solymanno Turcarum Imperatore nuper captum Christianisq’…Vienna, 1568; Historia di Zigeth, ispugnata da Suliman, re de Turchi l’anno MDLXVI, Venetia, 1570; Johann Siegmund Buchner, Theoria und Praxis artilleriae, oder deutliche Beschreibung, der bey itziger Zeit bräulichen Artillerie… Nürnberg, 1683–1685. See the letters by Ákos Csányi: Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris, II. 58, and Relation und Extract von Aussagen von besondern Kundschaffften, betrefffend des Türggen eroberung

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Črnko’s text and relying on my expertise on the era’s defence technology, codifijied knowledge on artillery, fortifijication and siege technology, as well as the Hungarian practice of fortifijication.15 By the 1560s the practice of besieging the Italian system fortifijications had been established in Europe. Tactical manoeuvres that were built on each other were referred to as regular siege.16 These include the following steps, which were basically in use with some modifijications until the last third of the 19th century:17 – breaching, artillery attack on the walls – crossing the fosse – accessing the damaged fortress walls – enlarging, mostly by explosion, the breaches on the walls – infantry attack This scheme, adjusted to local circumstances, was also used during the siege of Szigetvár. This was hardly surprising, knowing that the siege was overseen by an experienced military engineer of Christian origin, Ali Portuk. In the following, I will present the events in chronological order, yet arranging them according to the professional military manoeuvres. At early dawn on 1 August 1566 the vanguards of the Ottoman army approached the fortress.18 Their task was to cut it offf from the outside world, to set up a blockade, to undertake reconnaissance and prepare the area for the encampment of the main army. Simultaneously some of these vanguards were ordered to start fijights in the gardens and orchards that lay to the east of the castle and the towns. These attacks were aimed to test the enemy’s mental state, discipline, military preparedness and fijire-power of artillery. At the same time they surveyed the

15

16

17

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Zigeth, ervolget auf den 7. Septembris a. 1566, in Karl von Weber (ed.), Aus vier Jahrhunderten. Mittheilungen aus dem Haupt-Staatsarchive zu Dresden. Vol. I. Leipzig, 1857, 1–10. Eugenio Gentilini, Il perfeto bombardiero et real istruttione di artiglieri. Venetia, 1626; Georgi Ginter Kroll de Bemberge, Das Dritte Theyll, vonder Fortifijication oder Architectura der Vestungbaung. Arnheim, 1618; Johann Heinrich Sattler Wissenburg, Von Vestungen, Schantzen, und Gegen Schantzen. Basel, 1619. Buonaiuto Lorini, Das sechste Buch von … Bonaiuti Lorini … in welchem von Defension der Vestungen, Gebrauch deß Geschützes, sampt der Practic und Erfahrung, welche die Canonirer haben sollen… Oppenheim, 1616. Oswald Herbert Ernst, A Manual of Practical Military Engeneering, Prepared for the Use of the Cadets of the U.S. Military Academy and for Engeneer Troops. New York, 1873, 61–183; C. V. Presly, Rules, Chiefly Deduced from Experiment, for Conducting the Practical Operation of a Siege. London, 1841. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 64; Molnár, Budina, 36.

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fortifijications and gathered information on the defence system, such as water depth, locks, distances and state of the vegetation. According to Črnko and Budina, Süleyman and the bulk of the main forces arrived on 6 August, but the Ottoman chronicler and eye-witness Feridun Bey put this date at 9 August.19 In order to divert the attention from the incoming forces and avoid a surprise attack by the defenders, who might have wanted to exploit the confusion within the enemy army when setting up camp, the Ottoman vanguards launched heavy attacks in front of the fortress, which lasted till nightfall. The start of the siege was signalled by a class-fijiring from the unlimbered cannons and the small arms of the janissary troops. The siege preparations started on 7 August. Some of the janissary troops started to build entrenchments in front of the New Town to block the gates. The fijirst cannon shots of the siege were fijired from behind these gabions. Instead of the walls, the Ottoman fijield guns fijirst targeted the palisades that had been erected in front of the gate to force the defenders out.20 Although the fijighting was already close to the fortress walls, that evening the defenders managed to burn down the garden fences and all structures that would have provided cover for the attackers in front of the Old Town and the castle.21 That night the batteries were set up and at dawn on 8 August the artillery attack on the walls of the New Town was launched. The fact that the town’s simple palisade had been under attack for two whole days and one night leads us to believe that only the fijield cannons were used here. The most powerful siege cannons with the largest range were set up by Ali Portuk to attack the central element of the defence system – the fortress itself. At dawn on 9 August the fijirst breaching battery with fijive cannons started to operate on the western side of the castle, right next to the water. It targeted the round brick tower of the inner fortress.22 The defenders had a perfect view of the enemy’s movements from the tower. By observing their preparations they had the chance to get ready for all the attacks. In order to prevent this, as well

19

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Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 65; Molnár, Budina, 36; Erika Hancz, ‘Nagy Szulejmán szultán Szigetvár környéki sátorhelye, halála es síremléke az oszmán írott forrásokban / Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Otağ Yeri, Ölümü ve Türbesi’, in Norbert Pap (ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete Szigetváron / Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Hatırası. (Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum, Vol. VIII. – Special Issue.) Pécs, 2014, 60; Pál Fodor, ‘Szigetvár, 1566’, in Zoltán Móser, A voltat nézni kegyelmesen. Budapest, 2016, 82. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 65–66; Molnár, Budina, 37. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 37. Ibid.

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as to avoid the tower being used for fijiring positions, the Ottomans destroyed the top level of the tower with artillery attacks. There was constant bombardment at the front of the New Town and the inner castle on this day, with busy preparations elsewhere. Entrenchments and siege batteries were built in the area stretching from the southeastern bastion. On the eastern side of the Old Town the janissaries kept getting closer to the walls, behind them the batteries were set up to fijire at the Old Town. The circle of the besiegers was completed by another battery set up at the western side of the Old Town, close to the dam.23 Next to it preparations began to cut through the dam under the protection of 600 janissary troops.24 Due to the heavy losses caused by the bombardment on the evening of 9 August, the defenders, after setting fijire to the houses, withdrew from the New Town.25 Next day, on 10 August, a full-scale artillery attack was launched against Szigetvár. The besiegers had enough resources and power not only to attack the Old Town, but also to start destroying the castle from every possible position. Although the most suitable batteries, closest to the castle, could have been set up within the Old Town, the cannons kept on fijiring until these batteries were ready. Just like in a chess game, Ali Portuk launched several manoeuvres simultaneously. Although the distance made it less efffective, he ordered artillery attacks on the two southern bastions of the castle, while the Old Town was bombarded by four or fijive diffferent batteries.26 The trenches of the janissaries were getting closer to the Old Town and the fijirst siege embankment was also being built in preparation for a future assault on the castle. Being attacked on two fronts divided the defenders. If we are to believe the sources, a diffference of opinion arose between Zrínyi and his veteran soldiers and offfijicers. Knowing that he lacked the necessary manpower to protect both parts of the fortress in the long term, Zrínyi wanted to give up the Old Town. The soldiers and noblemen who lived in the town, however, disagreed, since they wanted to protect their own homes. Since the continued fijight for the town gave extra time for the defenders and because moving over 4,000 people into the castle would have been problematic, Zrínyi agreed to carry on defending the town.27

23 24 25 26 27

Ibid. Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól írt históriája Tállyai Pál XVII. századi fordításában. Vol. I/2. Ed. by Péter Benits. Budapest, 2003, 415. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 37. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 37–38. Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 415.

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On 19 August, following ten days of heavy bombardment, a long section of the town walls had collapsed. The defenders had hardly any chance to withstand the attacks, so they started to retreat into the fortress. Some of the retrieving forces, however, were surrounded by the Ottomans in front of the castle bridge. The defenders fought bravely, but they lost most of their most experienced infantry offfijicers and under-offfijicers in the fijight.28 The occupation of the Old Town led to the next stage of the siege: the crossing of the fosse. Unlike West European defence systems, Szigetvár did not have any outworks.29 This was to some extent compensated by the fact that even the narrowest section of the marshy valley around the castle was four times wider than a standard fosse of a fortress. To cross this marshland and to take thousands of soldiers close to the walls without sufffering serious losses required manoeuvres and logistics that equalled organising the construction of a small town. The key criterion of the attack was to use the earth from the breached walls as a slope on which the soldiers could climb up. The southeastern and southwestern bastions of the castle had been under cannon attack for almost ten days, but without any major progress, due to the large distance and the limited fijiring angle. Two more batteries were set up in the Old Town, on the southern side of the castle, which signifijicantly improved the attackers’ breaching effforts. The cannons targeted the statically weakest and least defendable salient angles of the Italian bastions.30 Bombardment from opposite directions quickly damaged them, even if they were made of stones or bricks. Bastions and walls with earthen and wood structures withstood frontal fijire, but their cross beams were more easily shattered by cannonballs coming from the side. Ali Portuk and his experienced artillery forces were fully aware of this. Breaching the walls yielded the quickest success at the so-called Hegy (Mount) Bastion, which was the closest to the besieging cannons. Six days after the capture of the Old Town a larger wall section collapsed.31 The military leadership of the Ottoman army decided that it was time to launch an infantry attack.

28 29 30

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Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 38; Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 418. On the functions of the outworks, see Martin Eylend von Bellisiren (comp.), Modus artis fortifijicatoriae Belgicus, Niederländisch Vestung Bauen. Dresden, 1582, 52–63. Erard de Bar-Le Duc, Fortifijicatio, das ist Künstliche und wolgegründte Demonstration und Erweisung/wie und welcher Gestalt gute Vestungen anzuordnen… Franckfurt am Mayn, 1604, 39–41; Diego Ufano, Archeley, das ist Gründtlicher unnd Eiygentlicher Bericht von Geschütz, unnd aller Zugehör… Franckfurt, 1621, 58; Eylend, Modus artis, 29. Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 419.

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The decision, however, was primarily governed by non-military factors. The old and ailing sultan wished to see the capture of the fortress, and his military leaders, being aware of their own superiority and dominance, always entertained great hopes of deploying large masses of soldiers. This approach, however, is hardly ever efffective during a siege, in view of the cramped space. On 26 August, they launched the fijirst infantry attack against the castle with great impetus, large forces and dramatic orchestration. It ended with a dramatic defeat and heavy casualties.32 Experts in sieges are well aware of the fact that the fijirst attacks are rarely successful, unless the defence collapses for some unexpected reason. At this stage, the slopes leading to the breaches are too steep and the defenders are still fresh and ready to fijight. According to the West European military practice, the goal of the initial attacks was to occupy and keep the slopes leading to the breaches. During the attacks the soldiers who dug themselves into the slopes worked hard to connect these positions to the entrenchments behind them. Solid cannonballs were of not much use here, so they started to dig mines in order to widen the breaches. Theoretically this was also the aim of the attack on 26 August, which is suggested by the hundreds of shovels left under the walls.33 The reason for the failed attack was not the technically inefffijicient preparation. Draining the lake, raising the batteries, erecting siege embankments each on the muddy bottom of the lake, leading towards the two southern bastions, as well as the high fijire-bay covering them, were all excellent examples of the outstanding military expertise with which the technical preparations for the siege were planned and carried out. The greatest challenge for the military engineer was to fijind ways to protect the soldiers, who were building the ramps and then going on the attacks, from the heavy fijire of the defenders. Working on the embankment was made very dangerous by the constant heavy fijire from the castle. Based on an inappropriately interpreted source, Hungarian historians have often claimed that these embankments were built by Christian serfs who were ordered to advance into the cannon fijire of the fortress.34 It sounds dramatic, but it was hardly the case, because the work under constant gunfijire required expertise, creativity, practice and mental preparedness. It was hardly achievable by the crack of the whip. It is likely, however, that serfs were very much involved in preparing the building materials and transporting them to the sites, during which they probably sufffered losses. 32 33 34

Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 38–39; Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 419. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 39. Von Weber (ed.), Relation und Extract, 3; Lajos Bende, ʻSziget ostroma 1566–ban’, in Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv, 81.

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Following the attack on 26 August, the artillery troops set to work with renewed effforts. Apart from the two southern bastions, the Ottoman cannons started to fijire at the northeastern Nádasdy Bastion. At the same time, the besiegers continued to build embankments from the Old Town to the southwestern and southeastern bastion. The janissary troops, attacking from their high fijire-bay, became more and more dominant following the destruction of the defensive positions within the castle and the associated increase in the defenders’ losses. According to our eyewitness chronicler, the defenders were basically unable to appear on the walls without the risk of being shot dead.35 Although Ali Portuk was killed during the fijights, the fijinal phase of the siege was characterised by a slow advance, based on the tested military engineering solutions, rather than sheer power. The janissary troops dug themselves into the slopes at the western wall and also at the three southern bastions. On the night of 2 September, making the most of the darkness, the attackers successfully dug into the wall opposite the Hegy (Mount) Bastion, which was the key artillery position of the fortress.36 The next step according to the West European military practice would have been widening the breaches by exploding mines. It was technically possible, but the Ottomans in this case chose a diffferent method: fijire – which was more efffijicient, but required greater preparation. The most powerful cannons of the fortress were situated in the Mount Bastion, which was built with earth and wood. It was covered by the southern wall from the front and the two southern bastions from the two sides, so it was a relatively poor target for the siege cannons. That is why the attackers chose the shovels again, instead of the cannons. The janissary troops spent three days removing the soil from the ramp. They put dry wood and other flammable materials into the hole, and on 5 September, at dawn, they set fijire to it with gunpowder. The fijire spread from the bastion to the buildings inside the castle. It was impossible to extinguish it, due to the strong wind and the heavy cannon fijire targeting the bastion and its surroundings.37 By exploiting the difffijiculties of the defenders, the besiegers launched a large general assault on the southern part and bastions of the castle. The janissary troops used their elevated positions to support the attacking soldiers, who were climbing the ramps by being covered on most of the slopes in front of the 35 36 37

Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 66; Molnár, Budina, 38. See Figure 4, the reconstruction of the Mount Bastion. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 67; Molnár, Budina, 39; Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 420–421.

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breaches. This meant that the defenders had little chance to rely on artillery power and the dominance of the besiegers was soon felt during close combat. Step by step they pushed back the defenders.38 We have no exact details of these events, because the eyewitness chronicler was with Zrínyi at the time, at the northeastern Nádasdy Bastion. Zrínyi managed to withstand two attacks here, but realising the futility of further resistance, eventually he and the soldiers next to him retreated into the inner fortress because of the scale of these attacks and the raging fijire behind them. Most of the other garrison troops were unable to retreat and the outer fortress was lost on 5 September.39 The Ottomans knew that the siege was over and that they actually had the castle. The inner fortress was a separated headquarters, rather than a fortifijication fijit for resistance. The battle had been suspended for a day so that the Ottoman army could prepare for the celebratory fijinish of the siege. On 6 September, the units of the army lined up around the castle. The culmination of the victorious parade could have been the capture of Zrínyi and his remaining garrison troops. Having lost most of his soldiers during the defence, Zrínyi had two options: surrender or resistance and death. The Ottomans still hoped to force Zrínyi and his men to surrender, which would have been more favourable for them, so instead of a full-blown attack they set fijire to the inner castle with the defenders inside it.40 But Zrínyi and his men understood the symbolic meaning of the situation, and they opted unanimously for a fijinal battle. Being an exemplary leader, Zrínyi, befijitting his offfijice, was the fijirst to make an assault on the enemy under the flag of the captain-general. He was killed on the bridge of the inner castle by the bullets of the janissary troops, who were storming in. In the complete chaos some defenders continued to fijight, while others tried to surrender. After crushing the defenders’ resistance, the Ottoman soldiers invaded the inner castle and were searching for spoils, when the large amount of gunpowder, which had been stored there, exploded. The large detonation levelled the entire inner fortress with the ground.41 The flying debris actually caused more damage to the crowding Ottomans soldiers than the last general assault. This explosion can be considered as the symbolic end of the siege of Szigetvár. As if it had carried the message that no man and no fortress could fall into the hands of the Ottomans. 38 39 40 41

Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól, 421. Ruzsás and Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, 67; Molnár, Budina, 41. Ibid. Valéria Kováts, ʻSziget várának kutatástörténetéhez’, in A Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 1966. Pécs, 1966, 232.

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Szigetvár from the west – Reconstruction

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Szigetvár from the southwest – Reconstruction

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figure 3

The inner castle and the castle from the northwest – Reconstruction

figure 4

Exterior and interior view of the Hegy (Mount) Bastion – Reconstruction

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Sigetvarname: A Visual Source of Sultan Süleyman’s Last Campaign Zeynep Tarım Istanbul University [email protected]

The Nüzhet-i Esrar, by Nişancı Feridun Bey, was completed on 1 January 1569. It has 305 folios and 14 miniatures. A part of it comprises the last campaign of Sultan Süleyman and the beginning of Sultan Selim’s reign. It is an eye-witness account of the aforementioned period.1 The author, who is better known as the compiler of the famous Münşeatü’sSelatin (1574),2 was the private secretary of Sokollu Mehmed Pasa. He wrote the 1 Topkapı Palace Museum Library (TSMK), Ms. H. 1339. Nüzhet-i Esrar contains 15 miniatures, 4 of which are spread over 2 pages; thus, there are a total of 19 pages of miniatures in the manuscript. There are 3 castle miniatures, one of which is spread over two pages. The last castle depiction, which is spread over two pages, is bound improperly. Consequently, the miniature that should have been on the right-hand side is bound on the left-hand side, which makes the miniature seem inverse. Thus there are 14 miniatures with a subject. – For the transcription and facsimile editions of the manuscript, see [Feridun Ahmed Bey,] Nüzhet-i Esrârü’l-Ahyâr der Ahbâr-ı Sefer-i Sigetvar. Sultan Süleyman’ın Son Seferi. (Zeytinburnu Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 26.) Hazırlayanlar/Edited by H. Ahmet Arslantürk and Günhan Börekçi, Redaksiyon/Proof-reading by Abdülkadir Özcan. İstanbul, 2012; Nicolas Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár. Édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâr-il-ahbâr der seferi Sigetvâr (ms H. 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkopı Sarayı. Wien, Münster, 2010. For further studies on Nüzhet-i Esrar, see Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ, ‘Minyatürlü Yazmaların Tarihi Kaynak Olma Nitelikleri ve Nüzhetüʼl-Esrâr’, in Tarih Boyunca Türk Tarihinin Kaynakları Semineri 6–7 Haziran 1996. Bildiriler. İstanbul, 1997, 31–46; Nicolas Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maitre. Note sur la fondation et la destination du türbe de Soliman-le-Magnifijique à Szigetvarʼ, Turcica 37 (2005) 9–42; Şebnem Tamcan, Topkapı Sarayı Kütüphanesinde Bulunan H. 1339 No.lu Sigetvar Seferi Tarihinin Tasvirleri. MA thesis, Ege University, 2005; Şebnem Parladır, ‘Sigetvar Seferi Tarihi ve Nakkaş Osmanʼ, Sanat Tarihi Dergisi 16:1 (2007) 67–108; The miniatures of the Nüzhet and other Ottoman chronicles pertaining to Hungarian history were fijirst studied and published by Géza Fehér, Török miniatúrák a magyarországi hódoltság koráról. Budapest, 1975; Idem, Magyar történelem oszmán-török ábrázolásokban. Budapest, 1982. 2 Feridun Ahmed Bey, Münşeatü’s-Selatin. İstanbul, 1274–1275/18582; Abdülkadir Özcan, ‘Feridun Ahmed Bey: Hayatı, Eserleri ve Miftâh-ı Cennet’iʼ, in Prof. Dr. Ramazan Şeşen’e Armağan. İstanbul, 2005, 51–66.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_022

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Nüzhet-i Esrar between 1566 and 1568. During the Szigetvar campaign, he was the closest person to Sokollu who was the closest person to the sultan. This is therefore an important and valuable source regarding the campaign. We do not know the name of the artists of the work, because the mid-16th century ehl-i hiref (craftsman) records do not follow a chronological order. However, according to the records dated 1564 and 1566, the head painter/ designer (nakkaşbası) could be Mehmed b. Sinan.3 Thus, while some attribute the miniatures to Nakkaş Osman, it is unlikely that he was the artist. The description of the last campaign of Sultan Süleyman became a separate type of account called the Sigetvarnames, a subgroup of the Fetihname (conquest accounts) literature. The Sigetvarnames could be individual pieces or could be a part of other works. Besides the Nüzhet-i Esrar, there are at least fijive unillustrated accounts of the Szigetvár campaign and three other illustrated manuscripts on this military undertaking; these include Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman (1579),4 Şehname-i Selim Han (1581),5 and the second volume of the Hünername (1588).6 These three works were inspired by the Nüzhet-i Esrar. Most of the illustrations also represent the same events as those from the Nüzhet-i Esrar, but in some instances, events that are not depicted in the Nüzhet-i Esrar were included in these later accounts. The later illustrations sometimes repeat compositions from the Nüzhet-i Esrar, but at other times, change them. Nakkaş Osman was the head of the painters/designers during the making of the above-mentioned works. Thus, we know that the three works were illustrated by Nakkaş Osman and his team. Sigetvarnames narrate Sultan Süleyman’s last campaign to Szigetvár, his last journey, the siege of Szigetvar, details of the war, the sultan’s illness, his death, the concealment of his death from the army, his burial, the funeral ceremony, which was held twice; Prince Selim’s departure from Kütahya and his arrival in Belgrade after a brief sojourn in Istanbul; Selim’s accession ceremony, and the army’s journey back to Istanbul. The latest dated Ottoman illustrated manuscripts before the Nüzhet-i Esrar (1 January 1569) are Arifiji’s Fütuhat-ı Cemile (1557), Osmanname (1558), Süleymanname (1558) and Enbiyaname (1558). Therefore, there are no known illustrated Ottoman works of historical or political nature during this ten-year period. Stylistically, Nüzhet-i Esrar is not a follower of the earlier works but is a model for the later ones. 3 4 5 6

İstanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Arşivi D. 808; Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi MAD 6196. Seyyid Lokman, Dublin Chester Beatty Library, Ms. 413. Seyyid Lokman, TSMK, Ms. A. 3595. Seyyid Lokman, TSMK, Ms. H. 1524.

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Nüzhet-i Esrar begins with a brief introduction followed by a description of Sultan Süleyman’s trip to Hungary upon encouragement from Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. On 29 April 1566 the sultan and his army set out from Istanbul. The Ottoman army reaches Belgrade, having passed through Edirne, Plovdiv and Sofijia. The historian Mustafa Selaniki reports their arrival in Belgrade on approximately the 50th day of their journey.7 They build a bridge over the river Sava and reach Zimony (Zemun). The prince of Erdel (Transylvania) comes to visit the sultan with his men and is accepted by Sultan Süleyman. Containing this event, further events in Nüzhet-i Esrar are in places depicted by miniatures. Each illustration depicts the written events and by doing so clarifijies the text. This study aims to explore Sultan Süleyman’s last campaign in the light of miniatures.

Miniatures about the Szigetvár Campaign The fijirst miniature in the manuscript (Fig. 1) depicts Sultan Süleyman receiving İstefan (Ottoman name for John Sigismund), the prince of Erdel (Transylvania; d. 1571), and his courtiers in Zimony, located between Belgrade and Szigetvár, on approximately the fijiftieth day after the army had left Istanbul. This is the only illustration in the book that shows the ageing Sultan Süleyman while he is still alive. It also shows his administrative stafff, his viziers on his left, and his personal attendants (privy chamber) from the inner palace (enderun) on his right. All the members of the Erdel delegation are shown wearing Ottoman kaftans bestowed on each as a robe of honor (hilat). The expressions on their faces show that this painting must have been the product of two separate artists (nakkaş). The painting as a whole demonstrates the nature of the relationship between the Ottoman sultan and the local governors. Prince of Erdel’s visit to Sultan Süleyman can also be seen in the miniatures of Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman (55b–56a). When the army reaches Pécs, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha leads an expedition with 200 of his men to explore the position of the castle to decide on a strategy for the siege. In the painting (Fig. 2), the pasha is depicted in the centre of the composition. The twenty-two soldiers following him represent about 10 percent of his followers. It also represents fijive separate groups of soldiers, some of whom would have been marching in a position much further away from the pasha. In order to represent all the groups, however, the artist squeezed all onto the same picture plane. This can be understood since the 7 Selânikî Mustafa Efendi, Târih-i Selânikî. Vol. 1. Ed. by Mehmet İpşirli. Ankara 1999, 19. The route to Belgrade from Istanbul is 964 km, according to this information they walked 1000 km in 50 days.

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Sultan Suleyman receiving the Prince of Erdel (Transylvania); Nüzhet, fol. 16b

figure 2

Sokollu Mehmed Pasha exploring the surroundings of Szigetvár; Nüzhet, fol. 22a

marching order of such groups are known.8 The illustration must thus be read from the foreground to the background, but the groups behind the hills must be placed at both the front and the back of the whole procession. In the miniature dated 20 years after the Nüzhet-i Esrar (Fig. 3, Hünername II.), the castle is shown as having four connected units. The royal tent complex is placed next to the fourth inner unit and set further back as is mentioned in written sources. Sultan Süleyman is shown on horseback going towards the royal tent complex, preceded by the royal guards (solak) and followed by the private pages and special offfijicial (from enderun) and the rest of the army.

8 According to the Ottoman state protocol, processions are put in order by hierarchy and in long corteges. The ceremony registers (teşrifat defterleri) give detailed information on this topic.

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Miniatures Representing the Fortress of Szigetvár The book has three depictions of this castle; it is fijirst depicted under siege; second, when parts of it caught fijire during the heat of the battle; and third, after its conquest, when the Ottoman army is shown inside it. The order of these three illustrations, however, does not follow the chronological events since the second image that shows the battle comes before the image representing the Ottoman siege. The fijirst one, showing the siege (fols. 32b–33a), takes place on 9 August 1566, the day when the Ottoman army reached Szigetvár, surrounded the castle and initiated the battle. Feridun Ahmed is an eye-witness and describes the fortress of Szigetvár as seen by Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. The author writes that the grand vizier describes the castle as “having four units within a lake that all have high towers with canons on top”. The author also depicts the fortress in another text included in his Münşeatü’s-Selatin as “having four units that are connected to one another and are so strong that it is hard to fijind another such castle in the world”.9 The text then describes the way the Ottoman army set up camp around the castle: in the shape of a crescent, with the third vizier Ferhat Pasha and the governor-general of Anatolia, Mahmud Pasha, with their followers on one side; the fijifth vizier Mustafa Pasha and his brother, the governor-general of Rumelia, Ahmed Pasha, on the other. The agha of the janissaries and his army were on another side while the sultan was opposite the castle with his own army. The text therefore does not give specifijic information regarding the placement of the diffferent groups of the army. Moreover, other Sigetvarname also do not provide additional clear information, so their descriptions cannot be realistically constructed either.10 The fijirst illustration (Fig. 4) depicting the fortress before the battle shows it as having four main units connected to one another by bridges, entirely surrounded by a body of water. The innermost centre of the stronghold is the smaller section within the third unit, and is also protected by water on two inner sides. The two buildings depicted in the fourth unit, which is a walled inner centre within the third unit of the castle, is most likely the cathedral and the palace of Zrínyi/Zrinski. The illustration shows Szigetvár as an architecturally dense city, with only one main street that divides it in the centre. No other road or square is shown. As such, this image revokes the dense architectural representation seen in Matrakçı Nasuh’s depiction of Istanbul, 9 10

Feridun Ahmed, Münşeatü’s-Selatin, II. 88. For the settlements surrounding Szigetvár castle, see the works by Agehi, Merahi, Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali and Mustafa Selaniki.

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figure 3

Süleyman and his army reach Szigetvár; Hünername II. fols. 277b–278a

and reminds the viewer that the Ottoman army had conquered a densely populated and important city.11 Ottoman tents surround the whole complex. All the tents are shown with white exteriors and red, yellow or blue interiors. This, however, seems to have been an artistic preference because the documents of that time tell us that there are other various color choices that were being used as well, especially the color cengari which seems like light green turquoise, and the color called nohudi (light brown or cream) was commonly used. Although the royal Ottoman tent (otağ) is placed across from the second unit set behind a tall hill, it is more reasonable to think that it was set up across from the third and most important unit, and slightly further back, but still behind a hill. The tent for the council hall and the one of the grand vizier cannot be distinguished even though the text specifijies that they are next to the royal tent. On the other side of the illustration, a large unidentifijiable tent that cannot be matched with a description from the text can be seen on the upper right. The artist changes the distances to match his own conception of the composition, just like Matrakçı Nasuh who eliminated all the empty spaces within the city in his image of Istanbul to such an extent that if the Topkapı Palace were not still extant we would have constructed a totally 11

Matrakçı Nasuh, Beyan-ı Menazil, Istanbul University Library, TY 5964, 8b–9a.

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figure 4

Bird’s-eye view of Szigetvár Castle; Nüzhet, fols. 32b–33a

figure 5

The fijire in the fijirst and second units; Nüzhet, fol. 28a

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Szigetvár Castle; Nüzhet, fols. 40b and 42a

diffferent variant from Matrakçı’s depiction. Similarly, the events and their venues may not be realistically depicted. Artists are at least just as subjective as authors of such records and are more concerned about their art than the representation of events or venues realistically. They can thus be even more subjective in their depictions than the written descriptions in the texts. The image in Fig. 5 represents the fourth day of the battle, when the houses and trees within the fijirst unit catch fijire. This was the moment when the Ottoman soldiers broke into the fortress seizing the fijirst two units. The architecturally dense representation of these units is totally lacking in this scene. Although this illustration is depicting an event that is chronologically later than the previous one, it precedes it in the book. This is highly unusual since it is not a consequence of a rebinding of the manuscript when the folios may have changed their places, because the text on the reverse page of the image continues from the previous page. This might have been caused by the artists lack of attention. The two pages (Figs. 6 and 7) should have been facing one another. They are strongly connected, for we can see the soldiers on one illustration at the edge of the painting, as if they were about to walk into the other image; this continuity can be detected in the other miniature as well, suggesting that the images were drawn together. Here both the buildings and the fijigures are depicted with more detail and shows the conquering Ottoman soldiers fijighting with the defenders within the fortress. The historian Mustafa Selaniki writes (with some exaggeration) that the bastions of the fortress were extremely strong and it could hold

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figure 8 The taking of the third and fourth units; Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman, CBL Ms. 413, fol. 95a

more than 3000 warriors.12 The blue flags of Szigetvár and the red flags which are located around the third unit shows the soldiers in motion, and the death of soldiers which are defending the castle with spears and swords. This scene clearly reflects the event from an Ottoman perspective. The Ottoman sided perspective can be seen throughout the whole text but can be detected most clearly in this specifijic illustration. This idea can be strengthened through the fact that the falling, drowning and dying soldiers in the illustration are generally from the opponent side and the ones that are heroically fijighting putting up flags or killing the soldiers that are protecting the castle are the Ottoman soldiers. The Hünername has two depictions of the fortress, showing it before (Fig. 9) and after (Fig. 10) the Ottoman conquest. Both of these images show the castle with four separate units connected to one another, but these two depictions of the same castle within the same manuscript are completely diffferent from one another. While the fijirst one is more schematic, the second one displays a far more dramatic composition. The miniature in Fig. 11 shows the Ottomans marching towards the fourth inner unit. We see Zrínyi and his men defending it. This image appears to 12

Tarih-i Selânikî, I. 22.

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figures 9–10 Szigetvár Castle before (Hünername II. fols. 277b) and after (ibid., 279b) the siege

figure 11

Szigetvár Castle; Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman, CBL Ms. 413, fol. 78a

figure 12 Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha mourning the sultan’s death; Nüzhet, fol. 41a Pál Fodor - 978-90-04-39623-4 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com06/14/2019 10:00:32AM via Universitat Wien

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figure 13 Heroes of the battle before Sokollu Mehmed Pasha; Nüzhet, fol. 41b

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figure 14 Heroes of the battle before Sokollu; Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman, CBL Ms. 413, fol. 93b

figure 15 Sultan Selim between Plovdiv (Filibe) and Sofijia on the way to Szigetvár; Nüzhet, fols. 83b–84a

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represent an instance that is found in the Nüzhet-i Esrar. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha is also represented in the heat of the battle. There Feridun Ahmed writes that during the taking of the fourth inner unit Sokollu started to fijight as well but at one point he almost fell and Feridun held him.13 In the painting the fijigure that seems to be Sokollu is indeed held by another, who must be Feridun Ahmed. Sokollu learns of the death of Sultan Süleyman who dies on the 21st day of Safar (7 September 1566). Sokollu is alerted to the situation with a short written note (tezkere). The illustration of his receiving the note (Fig. 12) is also the image that tells the viewer that the sultan has died. Sokollu commands the page and the royal physician who bring him the sad news that this must be kept strictly secret. He then asks them to leave him, when he takes offf his turban and cries. The image shows him holding the note in one hand and a black handkerchief in the other while crying, which emphasises the grief of the grand vizier for all the viewers. The artist, however, could not possibly represent him with a bare head, due to rules of Ottoman etiquette. The author of the work, Feridun is represented opposite the pasha with a pen-case (divit) set on the floor before him. This miniature, even without the text, is able to tell us that the sultan has died, and Mehmed Pasa is mourning for the sultan’s death more than the others because he can be seen crying secretly; this is because wise men do not show grief in front of the public. Mehmed Pasha is the sultan’s favourite statesman and the one who loves him more than anyone else, and Mehmed Pasha’s closest fellow is Feridun, thus we see him near Mehmed Pasha while he is crying for the sultan. The day after the sultan died, Sokollu Mehmed tells the soldiers that the sultan is grieving because the inner, fourth unit of the castle was still not taken. This leads to a renewed Ottoman efffort, which ends with the death of the Hungarian commander Zrínyi and the fall of the last unit of the castle. The miniature in Fig. 13 specifijies that the battle has ended. It represents the symbols of bravery in battle, which is measured by the number of heads, here shown in separate piles. Feridun is recording the names of the men, who are to be rewarded. In the meantime, Sokollu Mehmed repeatedly writes to Selim to rush to Szigetvár and tries various tactics to prevent the army from learning of the death of the sultan. Some tactics included taking and repairing the nearby castles, and distributing rewards to the men. In the miniature, in which the same subject is repeated (Fig. 14), Sokollu Mehmed receives the men who showed bravery in battle. It is obvious that it was designed after the Nüzhet-i Esrar and was influenced by it, because of its schematically order. 13

Nüzhet-i Esrâr, 35b.

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As soon as he receives the news, Selim II leaves Kütahya with 4,000 men, stopping in Istanbul and continues on his way through Edirne to Belgrade with great haste (Fig. 15). The existence of the two royal guards (solaks) flanking Selim’s horse signify him as the new sultan since these royal guards only accompany the reigning sultan. Selim’s incredibly fast pace is emphasised by the depiction of the pages/messengers (peyk), who are the fastest runners of the army, with expressions of exhaustion. An exhausted horse that has to be pulled by his rider likewise underlines his fast pace. The depiction of the four horses and their riders, seen on the right-hand side page, top right and bottom right, creates a more dramatic efffect. This second artist’s style can be seen in various places of the Nüzhet-i Esrar.

figure 16 Sultan Selim writing a letter; Nüzhet, fol. 84b

The new sultan, Selim II is shown writing a letter to Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in his camp between Plovdiv and Sofijia (Fig. 16). Immediately following his death, Süleyman’s body was entombed under his throne in the royal tent after being treated with perfumes (abir) and amber. When Selim II neared Belgrade, Sokollu Mehmed ordered that Süleyman’s body be exhumed and re-treated. When leaving the camp, he put the body in a cofffijin secretly prepared from wood obtained from a walnut throne found in the castle of Ösek (Eszék/Osijek). The cofffijin was then secretly transferred to a carriage. In the image (Fig. 17), the carriage is shown to have half emerged from the tent. In addition, we see Mehmed Pasha marching after he supposedly spoke with the sultan, as well as the army advancing towards Peçuy (Pécs) in a formal procession.

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figure 17 Süleyman’s funeral and the army’s departure from Szigetvár to Belgrade; Nüzhet, fols. 103b–104a

figure 18 Sultan Selim meets Süleyman’s hearse near Belgrade; Nüzhet, fols. 107b–108a

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figure 19 Sultan Selim meets Süleyman’s hearse near Belgrade; Hünername II. fol. 294a

This means that in this painting three subsequent instances are represented. The miniature reveals nothing relating to the death of the sultan. Instead the ceremonial robes of the royal guards (solaks), the flags, the crests (sorguç) on the turbans of the administrative stafff and the military band show that this is the victorious march of the army. The only clue about the death of the sultan may be the dark green cover of the royal carriage. In the miniature from the Hünername representing the same event, for example, the carriage has a red cover, which would be a more realistic choice for the living sultan.14 This miniature (Fig. 17) depicts more than one event; for example, we can see the carriage leaving the royal tent, Sokollu Mehmed pretending to talk to the sultan, the army walking in a procession order. It can also be seen that the army has started to leave the camp because they are on the road between Szigetvár and Pécs. The miniature can be read like an Islamic calligraphic composition, starting from the bottom and going towards the top, the order that must be in a 16thcentury procession is depicted perfectly in the miniature. The military band and flags, the backups in line, statesmen, the grand vizier and then the other statesmen, solaks and the carriage continuing with private pages, soldiers and another military band are depicted orderly thus we can see that the army is in perfect procession order while returning from war. 14

Hünername, II. fol. 294a.

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Süleyman’s death is announced near Belgrade (Fig. 18). The new sultan comes out from the royal tent wearing his mourning garments (matem libası) and a special turban which is named şemle to greet his father’s funeral (the şemle is not illustrated in the miniature, but we can read about it in the text). While the hearse approaches the royal tent the viziers and statesmen are seen wearing their mourning dresses and turbans and greeting the funeral of Sultan Süleyman (Fig. 19). Selim II reaches the hearse and prays for his father, which is narrated by Feridun as follows: “He approached the hearse and opened the curtain with his own hands with tenderness and compassion (rikkat ve şefkatle merhumun meyyiti üzerine varıp arabanın kapısını kendü eyad-ı şerifeleriyle feth edip).”

Concluding Remarks Both the description of the events and the miniatures in the work appear to have been chosen to please Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. The best example for this is the representation of the accession ceremony of Selim. According to Selaniki, although Mehmed Pasha wanted an accession ceremony, Selim refused this, and such a ceremony did not take place.15 However, a miniature that shows an accession ceremony is included in the Nüzhet-i Esrar, and it is then repeated in the Şehname-i Selim Han. Doubts have been cast about the reality of some of the knowledge Feridun transmits in his Münşeat. The fact that he constantly reminds the reader of the grand vizier’s intelligence and diplomatic skills and cuts short the section on the ceremony that Selaniki, also an eyewitness, describes in detail, and includes a miniature of a ceremony that had not been conducted, show that the reliability of either the text or the miniatures must be re-considered. It thus appears that the effforts of Feridun followed by those of Lokman and Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali to attract the attention and interest of the grand vizier have molded historical knowledge in this period by shaping the perception of the readers, whether consciously or unconsciously. If it is studied under another perspective, we can say that these miniatures and the text are illustrated with a statesman’s concerns. The detailed scenes of the fortress of Szigetvár, the condition of the army and statesmen and also the accession ceremony scene mentioned above serve as proof that Ottoman statesmen accept and cherish the protocol and the state they belong in, with sincerity.

15

For accession of Selim II, see Z. Tarım Ertuğ, ‘The Depiction of Ceremonies in Ottoman Miniatures: Historical Record or a Matter of Protocol?ʼ, Muqarnas 27 (2010) 251–275.

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On Süleyman the Magnifijicent’s Death and Burials Nicolas Vatin* Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, CETOBAC (CNRS-EHESS-Collège de France), EPHE, PSL [email protected]

A little more than a decade ago, Mrs Dilek Desaive found by chance in the mühimme defterleri a document about Süleyman the Magnifijicent’s türbe in Szigetvár, which arouse my interest. After some researches in the Başbakanlık Archives, I published in 2005 a paper about the foundation and the meaning of this building.1 I saw it as a small addendum to the book that I had published in 2003 with Gilles Veinstein about the deaths and successions of the Ottoman sovereigns.2 I had no idea that it would be read – so few articles are – and my conclusions discussed. Such was the case however, and this is probably why the organizers of the colloquium kindly asked me to prepare a paper on the same topic. This is what I tried to do, in a slightly diffferent way, because a lot had been written since 2005, and because I felt the necessity of analysing the question in a broader context if I wanted to make my points. After having recalled what we know for sure about the death and burials of Süleyman, I shall compare it to the death and burials of other Ottoman sultans, and shall then deal with the burial of the internal organs and at last with the türbe itself.

* I wish to thank for their friendly help Pál Fodor (who gave me the possibility to make use of some of the Hungarian literature on the subject) and Claudia Römer. As asked by the editor, I give a modern Turkish transcription of some quotations in Ottoman Turkish, although I do not personally approve that option in a scientifijic publication. 1 Nicolas Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître. Note sur la foundation et la destination du türbe de Soliman-le-Magnifijique à Szigetvár’, Turcica 37 (2005) 9–42. 2 Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé. Essai sur les morts, dépositions et avènements des sultans ottomans, XIVe-XIXe siècle. Paris, 2003.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_023

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The Death of Süleyman and the Construction of His Türbe near Szigetvár When Süleyman the Magnifijicent left Istanbul for Szigetvár on 29 April 1566 he was severely ill3 and probably knew that it was his last campaign. Although his presence in the army was meant to show the world that the old sultan was in good health and able to govern and protect the empire,4 he may even have envisaged his possible death on the battlefijield. But could he dream a more glorious death than that of a gazi and a şehid? The journey to the Hungarian frontier was hard and tiring. When Süleyman arrived at Szigetvár one or two weeks after the fijirst Ottoman soldiers,5 he settled in his royal pavilion pitched in a place far away enough to protect him from the enemy’s canons,6 which a Hungarian team has been able to identify after thorough historical and archaeological researches.7 Although Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha was the efffective commander, the exhausted Süleyman still did his duties and intervened in the political and military afffairs, but he deceased during the night of the 6 to 7 September, just before the fijinal and victorious assault.8

3 Actually the departure, scheduled for the 5 April, had been delayed because of his bad health: Nicolas Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey: Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvár. Édition, traduction et commentaire des folios 1 à 147 du Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-ahbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr (ms. H 1339 de la Bibliothèque du Musée de Topkapı Sarayı. (Neue Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 6.) Wien, Münster, 2010, 26. 4 Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 19–20; Feridun, Nüzhetü-l-esrâr 5v, in ibid., 118–119; Feridun Emecen, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi Üzerinde Notlar’, in Norbert Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete Szigetváron / Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Hatırası. (Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum, Vol. VIII. – Special Issue) Pécs, 2014, 129. 5 Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 26. 6 Although the Christian sources and Peçevi (who may have used them) say that he fijirst settled on the border of the lake before leaving this dangerous place on the following day: Erika Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre Kanûnî Sultân Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Otağ Yeri, Ölümü ve Türbesi’, in Pap (ed.), Szülejmán Szultán, 60–62; Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 178: note 416. 7 See Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleiman n Szigetvár’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71:2 (2018) 179–195; Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán szultán; Norbert Pap et al., ‘Finding the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnifijicent in Szigetvár, Hungary: Historical, Geophysical and Archaeological Investigations’, Die Erde 146:4 (2015) 289–303. 8 Cf. Feridun, Nüzhetü-l-esrâr, 45v: sene dokuz yüz yetmiş dört saferinin yirmi birinci gecesi ki şenbih gecesi idi. One must remember that a Hejira day begins in the evening, so that the “Saturday night” is the night from Friday to Saturday. Such being the case, Agehi does not make a mistake when speaking of Saturday night, but uses the alternative calendar and speaks of the 22 (and not 21) of Safer (Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 63).

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Those were difffijicult times for the grand vizier. To keep this sad novel secret was necessary,9 for general political reasons about which I shall say a little more later on, as well as for obvious strategic reasons: The Ottoman army had to complete the conquest of Szigetvár and remain mentally strong, for Maximilian II’s troops were not far away. If the enemy happened to learn about the situation, it could try to profijit from it. With the help of a close circle of clients, Sokollu Mehmed managed to keep the secret during 48 days, till the new sultan Selim II was able to come from his provincial governorship of Manisa, via Istanbul where his enthronement took place. He did so by having doctors pretending to cure the ill sultan, by forging fermans bearing Süleyman’s tuğra, by taking measures for a royal wintering in Buda. On the way back, he even showed the soldiers a double of their master. The cleverness and efffijiciency Sokollu Mehmed showed in this occasion gave him an impressive glory: This is why his personal secretary (katibü’s-sırr), Feridun Bey, gives so many details about it in his Nüzhetü’l-Esrar, a text he presents as celebrating the deceased sultan, but the main aim of which actually was to enhance the fame of his patron, Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, and convince the new sultan of his exceptional abilities.10 These were political measures, but something had to be done for the simple Muslim who had died.11 He immediately was ritually washed and shrouded 9 10

11

On the secret about the Ottoman sovereign’s death and the diffferent ways and stratagems that were used, Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 121–149 (143fff for its causes). About this important chronicle and its aim, see Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 69–97, and Nicolas Vatin, ‘Vérité et demi-vérité dans le Nüzhetü-l-esrâri-l-aḫbâr der sefer-i Sigetvâr de Ferîdûn’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 61 (2008) 249–259. There is an archival evidence of Sokollu Mehmed’s astute ways of keeping the secret: Nicolas Vatin, ‘Comment on garde un secret. Une note confijidentielle du grand-vizir Sokollu Mehmed Pasa en septembre 1566’, in Evgenia Kermeli and Oktay Özel (eds.), The Ottoman Empire. Myths, Realities and “Black Holes”. Contributions in Honour of Colin Imber. Istanbul, 2006, 239– 255. About the death of Süleyman and the events that took place, a lot has been written. Apart from what is quoted here, see Emecen, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi’; Tayyib Gökbilgin, ‘Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Sigetvar’daki Türbesi’, Tarih Dünyası 4 (June 1950) 141–145, 174; Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’; Süheyl Ünver, ‘Kanunî Sultan Süleyman’ın Son Avusturya Seferinde Hastalığı, Ölümü, Cenazesi ve Defni’, in Kanunî Armağanı. Ankara, 1970, 301–306; Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’; Nicolas Vatin, ‘La création d’un lieu de mémoire: le mausolée de Soliman le Magnifijique à Szigetvár’, in Daniel Baric et al. (eds.), Mémoire et histoire en Europe centrale et orientale. Rennes, 2010, 97–105; Nicolas Vatin, ‘L’homme d’État ottoman, maître du temps: le cas de la crise de 1566’, in François Georgeon and Frédéric Hitzel (eds.), Les Ottomans et le temps. Leiden, Boston, 2012, 77– 98; Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 123–124, 128–132, 134–135, 139–143. About the ritual norms, see for example Hasan Fehmi Başoğlu, Funeral Rites and Ceremonies in Islam. Ankara, 1959; Mehmet Şener, ‘İslâm’da Cenaze’, in Türkiye Diyânet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 7. İstanbul, 1993, 354–357.

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(techiz ve tekfijin), after having been treated “according to the customs of the khans and padishahs”, with musk, abir (an ointment made of diverse essences),12 and ambergris, a practice that was recommended. This was the normal and fijirst thing to do, amongst the intimates. The second measure was more particular: The corpse was temporarily (emaneten) buried on the spot, in his tent under the throne.13 It remained there till it was exhumed and left Szigetvár on the 17 October.14 It is only after it arrived at Belgrade, on the 24, that the funerary prayer (cenaze namazı) was celebrated in the presence of the son and heir Selim II. The cofffijin then took its way to Istanbul, where it was offfijicially greeted by the authorities and the people of the town, and brought to Süleyman’s imperial mosque, where his body was buried. A türbe was then erected above the grave. A second türbe was built however, close to Szigetvár, on the spot where Süleyman had deceased or, in other terms, where his tent had been pitched and where his fijirst burial had taken place. It was linked to a mosque, a tekke of Halveti dervishes who kept it up, and barracks. The Habsburg-Hungarian troops destroyed the place twice in the 17th century, so that it totally disappeared. Diffferent hypothesises have been made about its location, and it is only very recently that a Hungarian team, after a tremendous efffort of research, was able to fijind traces of that place known as Turbék, on the TurbékZsibót vineyard hill, about 4 or 5 kilometres from the town of Szigetvár.15 The date of its construction is still debated, but we are happy enough to have some Ottoman archival documents that give some light about that question. We know that in September 1573, the plot, defijined by an imperial order as the place where Süleyman had had his tent, was a somewhat badly kept orchard. 12 13 14 15

Halil Sahillioğlu, ‘II Süleyman’ın Techiz ve Tekfijini’, Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi 4 (1968) 73. Feridun, Nüzhetü-l-esrâr, 96v, in Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 392–393. As we shall see, some Ottoman archival documents give the same indication. Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 56. About the türbe at Szigetvár: Gábor Ágoston, ‘Muslim Cultural Enclaves in Hungary under Ottoman Rule’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45:2–3 (1991) 197– 201; Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi, Avrupa’da Osmanlı Mimârî Eserleri. Romanya, Macaristan I. İstanbul, 2000 (second ed.), 252–256; Fatih Elçil and Erika Hancz, ‘Excavations and Field Research in Sigetvar in 2009–2011, Focusing in Ottoman–Turkish Remains’, International Review of Turkish Studies 2:4 (Winter 2012) 75–96; Fodor and Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleiman’; Gökbilgin, ‘Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Sigetvar’daki Türbesi’; József Molnár, ‘Szülejmán szultán síremléke Türbéken’, Müvészettörténeti Értesítő 14:1 (1965) 64–66; Hakkı Önkal, ‘Kanunî’nin Türbesi’, Sanat Tarih Dergisi 8 (1996) 105–110; Pap (ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete Szigetváron; Pap et al., ‘Finding the Tomb’; Rumbegoğlu Fahreddin, ‘Macaristanda Bazı Asar-ı Osmaniye’, Tarhi-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası 22 (1329/1913) 1391–1394; Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’; Vatin, ‘La création d’un lieu de mémoire’.

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The sultan ordered to exempt from taxes some villagers on the condition that they would protect it, plant new trees and keep it in good state.16 This means that at that time, for the Ottoman government, it was to remain an orchard. The status of the place may have changed soon afterwards, for a register of Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s endowment deed (vakfijiyye), bearing the date of April 1574, mentioned “the Friday mosque outside the castle of Szigetvár, being constructed on the site where the late sultan Süleyman’s body was temporarily interred”, as well as “the dervish lodge built adjacent to that mosque”.17 For Mrs Hancz this means that the türbe itself was also built during Selim II’s reign: It should have been erected before the tekke and the mosque or intimately linked to the mosque.18 It does not seem so obvious to me, for an imperial order issued by Murad III in 1577 clearly mentions two diffferent buildings, at a moment when the complex was apparently achieved, speaking of the sanctifijied mausoleum, the hankah, the mosque and the light fortifijications (palanka) in the place where the late Süleyman had deceased.19 Actually, the fijirst clear attested mentions of the türbe date back to March 1576.20 This is why in my 2005 paper, I suggested that the decision to build the türbe could have been taken in the beginning of Murad III’s reign. I did not know at that time the vakıf document which, if it really is to be dated of 1574,21 does not prove that the mausoleum was erected during Selim II’s time, but could allow us to suppose that the decision was actually taken in the last year of his reign, for it seems more than probable that it was the türbe that gave a raison d’être to the whole complex, even if some other buildings may have been erected before it.

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İstanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA) Mühimme Defteri (MD) 23, 50: No. 103; cf. Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 26–27. Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan. Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. London, 2005, 347. Necipoğlu’s translation (“constructed”) is a little ambiguous. As Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 67, quotes the Ottoman text, which has “bina olınan”, we may suppose that the construction was going on in April 1574. Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 67. Erika Hancz adds that she makes this hypothesis “although there is no mention of the sultan’s türbe in the document” (“bu belgede Sultanın türbesinden söz edilmemekle”). But in her contribution to the colloquium, Gülru Necipoğlu referred to the mention, in that same document, of the “fortifijication of the türbe” (türbe palankası). Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 67. BOA MD 27, 340: No. 815, and 354: No. 847; Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 27–30. I did not see myself the document, about which Pál Fodor raised some doubts. One can now read his strong arguments in the recent paper he published with Norbert Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Süleiman’, 185. Nevertheless, even if the türbe did exist or if its erection had begun in the spring of 1574, it remains clear that it did not exist in September 1573, and my general conclusions would not be afffected.

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However, none of the historians working in the Ottoman archives have ever found a document proving the frequently repeated assertion that Selim II ordered Sokollu Mustafa Pasha, the beylerbeyi of Buda, to build his father’s türbe in 1566. This idea comes from a study by József Molnár,22 who perhaps made this hypothesis on the ground of a 1577 Habsburg report which alluded to a visit made by Sokollu Mustafa.23 Actually, the German word “Besichtigung” can mean a simple visit, a pilgrimage, or an inspection. Although the buildings were apparently completed in 1576, the three interpretations seem equally possible, and, anyway, it was not abnormal that the local governor should inspect the buildings before as well as after they were achieved. But it says nothing about the date of the decision or about who decided and who was in charge. One may assume that the sultan had something to say about the türbe of his grandfather (or his father), even if the grand vizier may have played an important part in this afffair.24 Anyway, my main point is that the decision to build Süleyman’s türbe in Szigetvár was not taken by Selim II in the weeks following his enthronement,25 but at the best in the last year of his reign.

Funerary Practices on the Death of a Ruler Such are the historical facts we can consider as sure. They seem, and they are, quite remarkable. They have very much impressed the contemporaries and, as a result, the historians and the public in general. This is in part the result of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s personal propaganda. His managing of the 1566 crisis was his chef d’œuvre and he used it for his career. It is not by chance that he remained grand vizier till his death. But to what point were those amazing events exceptional? Let’s try to place them in the more general context of the Ottoman sultans’ deaths.26 One fijirst important point is that the burial of a great number of Ottoman sultans was delayed.27 This was in contradiction with the normal Islamic practices, but was the necessary consequence of two diffferent dynastic rules. 22 23 24 25

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Molnár, ‘Szülejmán szultán síremléke Türbéken’, 64. This document (dated 21 May 1577) is quoted by Sándor Takáts, ‘Nagy Szolimán császár sírja’, in Idem, A török hódoltság korából. (Rajzok a török világból, IV.) [Budapest, 1927], 127. Although the complex was not his work: see Fodor and Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleiman’, 185. As would write Evliya Çelebi a century afterwards: Sultan Selîm Han cülus ettikte… Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Vol. 7. Ed. by Yücel Dağlı, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Robert Dankofff. Istanbul, 2003, 19. What follows is largely based on Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé. Ibid., 385fff.

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The fijirst one was particularly serious: Following an old Turkish tradition, the Ottoman system gave an equal right to the throne to all the male heirs (by the males). The fijirst prince to sit on the throne was the only legitimate ruler, as his victory showed that he benefijited from the divine kut. The result was the perpetual risk of a civil war, which actually did happen after Yıldırım Bayezid’s defeat in Ankara in 1402 and after Mehmed II’s death in 1481. Another consequence of the Ottomans’ political conceptions was that, in the absence of a reigning sultan, the world’s order (nizam-ı alem) was destroyed. The court salaried troops (kapı kulları), in particular, were left without a master and could do anything: In 1481, they did not hesitate to kill the grand vizier and sack Istanbul. This is why it always was so important to conceal the illness, and still more the death of the sovereign, till a new one was enthroned.28 The secret about Süleyman’s death lasted for 48 days: It is a record, but it lasted for 41 days for Mehmed I, 13 days for Murad II, a little less for Selim II or Murad III. We may add that due to the political confusion, Mehmed II’s body was forgotten in the palace during 15 days, and that for some time nobody took care of it.29 A second cause of delay was the unwritten but strict law by which the sovereign had to be buried in an imperial location.30 Before the conquest of Istanbul, it was to be in Bursa, the fijirst capital, and the bodies of Murad I, Mehmed I and Murad II (and even Bayezid I) had to be brought there. Mehmed II was buried in Istanbul, close to his imperial mosque in the new Ottoman capital and this was to be the rule after him. But Bayezid II and Selim I, as well as Süleyman the Magnifijicent, died far away from Istanbul. The question arouse again in the second half of the 17th century, when the sultans lived and died in Edirne: The bodies of Süleyman II in 1691, Mehmed IV in 1693, and Ahmed II in 1695 were brought to Istanbul. To similar questions similar answers were given.31 The chroniclers describe doctors pretending to cure an already deceased sultan, Mehmed I’s corpse shown to the soldiers as if their master was still in life, etc. If Sokollu Mehmed seems to 28

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Halil İnalcık, ‘Osmanlılarda Saltanat Veraseti Usûlü ve Türk Hakimiyet Telakkisiyle İlgisi’, Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi 14 (1959) 69–94; English translation: ‘The Ottoman Succession and Its Relation to the Turkish Concept of Sovereignty’, in Idem, The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society. Bloomington, 1993, 37–69; Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 81–182. Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, ‘La mort de Mehmed II’, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Les Ottomans et la mort. Permanences et mutations. Leiden, New York, Köln, 1996, 200, quoting İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, ‘Fatih Sultan Mehmed’in Ölümü’, İÜEF Tarih Dergisi 16:21 (1966) 95–108. About the choice of the sultans’ tombs location, see Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 430–435. Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 133–140.

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have been particularly inventive in 1566, he nonetheless used solutions that had been used before: As Feridun was saying, he acted “according to the customs of the khans and padishahs”. This is precisely what said to reticent offfijicials another client of Sokollu Mehmed, Selaniki Mustafa: “Haven’t you forgotten what did the viziers when the previous sultans were in the same situation?”32 One of the most surprising initiatives taken in 1566, namely the temporarily burial of the sultan’s corpse under his tent, happens to be among the practices of the previous viziers, for it had been done in 1520 for the father of Süleyman, Selim I.33 This way of temporarily keeping the body in earth as a deposit (emaneten komak), if accepted by the Maliki and the Hanbali schools, was not recommended by the Shafijii and was strictly forbidden by the Hanefiji.34 But the Hanefiji Ottomans could choose another mezhep when this seemed to be the best choice.35 One is tempted to suggest a link with similar nomadic traditions in Central Asia, when people deceased far away from the clan’s cemetery were temporarily buried, the bones being afterwards exhumed and brought back to be interred close to those of the ancestors, and with the old Turkish practice of exposing the body in the air before dealing with the bones.36 Actually it seems difffijicult to prove such a continuity, and we must add that we have no other reference to temporary burials than those of Osman I, Selim I and Süleyman the Magnifijicent. It is in consequence difffijicult to know what arguments were used by those who proposed to do so for Selim, but it was obviously exceptional and probably dictated by the necessity of dealing with a very material problem: the odour of the decomposing corpse. Other solutions have been found. For example, Selim II’s body was kept in ice in the palace37 till the moment when, after Murad III had arrived and been enthroned, it was possible to proceed with the funeral ceremonies. The same

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Selânikî Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selânikî. Vols 1. Ed. by Mehmet İpşirli. İstanbul, 1989, 37: Hiç vüzera-ı izam, selef padişahlarının bunun gibi hal vakı oldukda ne amel eylemişler ırak değil? Sadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevarih. Vol. 2. İstanbul, 1279/1862–1863, 397. The context of Osman’s remains’ exhumation and transfer from Söğüt to Bursa is slightly diffferent (cf. Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 387). Şener, ‘İslâmda Cenâze’, 356. For example, it is a Shafijii imam who was in charge of the second cenaze namazı (funerary prayer) in honour of Süleyman, a fact that could in part be a consequence of the Hanefiji interdiction of a second cenaze namazı: Vatin and Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé, 405. Joseph Castagné, Les monuments funéraires de la steppe des Kirghizes. Orenburg, 1911, 95–97; Jean-Paul Roux, La mort chez les peuples altaïques, anciens et médiévaux d’après les documents écrits. Paris, 1963, 460. Selânikî, Tarih, I. 98.

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device was used a century later when Süleyman II’s corpse was brought from Edirne to Istanbul wrapped with cotton and ice.38 Another and obvious technique was the use of a great quantity of perfumes. A word generally used is that of tahnit, which is a bit ambiguous today, particularly when we translate it by “embalming”, as does the Yeni Redhouse39 with the derivative meaning of “stufffijing (of animal or birds)”. Şemseddin Sami’s Kamus-i Türki40 gives the same second meaning, but is more precise as for the fijirst one: “(meyyit) buhurla tutsilemek”, as was Meninski in the 17th century, who translated tahannut by “bonis odoribus condiri mortuum” and hanut by “aromatica res inspergi solita, peculiariter mortuis”.41 Halil Sahillioğlu came to a similar conclusion from his reading of the Hanefiji scholar Ahmad bin Ahmad al-Kuddiri of Baghdad (972–1037), and interpreted tahnit as a practice of aspersing odours, or fumigation.42 I have already quoted Feridun who mentions how musk, abir, and ambergris had been used for Süleyman’s body, which was wrapped in waxed bandages and then buried under his throne. A new profusion of perfumes was used, and the bandages replaced, when he was exhumed afterwards.43 This too seems not to have been extraordinary, for ambergris and abir were also used for Süleyman II (with aloes, rose water, camphor…), as well as bandages to keep the cotton around the body.44 We may add that the same perfumes are mentioned for the funeral of an Ottoman merchant died in Venice in 1575.45 So we can conclude that, apart from the political situation and the scales, what happened to Süleyman’s body in 1566 was not exceptional.

Was Süleyman’s Body Mummifijied and Were His Internal Organs Removed? Another question arises however when we deal with tahnit: Could this word mean some kind of mummifijication? Süheyl Ünver quotes a very interesting text, written in Ayasoluk in 1380 by Hacı Pasha of Konya, who had sojourned in 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Sahillioğlu, ‘II Süleyman’ın Techiz ve Tekfijini’, 73. Türkçe/Osmanlıca–İngilizce Redhouse Sözlüğü. İstanbul, 1988, 1082. Şemseddin Sami, Kamus-i Türki. İstanbul, 1890, reed. Beyrouth, 1989, 386–387. Franciscus Mesgnien Meninski, Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae. Vol. 1. Vienna, 1780, reed. Istanbul, 2000, 1102 and 1113. Sahillioğlu, ‘II Süleyman’ın Techiz ve Tekfijini’, 67–68. Feridun, Nüzhetü-l-ahbâr, 101v, in Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 408–409.  Sahilloğlu, ‘II Süleyman’ın Techiz ve Tekfijini’, 72–73. Cemal Kafadar, ‘A Death in Venice (1575): Anatolian Muslim Merchants Trading in the Serenissima’, Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986) 191–218.

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Egypt, where a technique of light embalmment is described: The inner body was purifijied by an enema of perfumed water, then all the natural orifijices were closed with cotton and an ointment of honey and tar was made to avoid bad odours.46 But some historians understand that what was practiced was not a light embalming, but an actual evisceration.47 This is strictly forbidden in Islam, as Mouradjea D’Ohsson reminds us.48 Some evidences however exist of its possibility in pre-Ottoman and Ottoman Muslim society. Some partially preserved bodies have been found in Seljukid türbes, and for Önkal the two levels plan of these mausoleums has something to do with the preparation of the bodies afterwards preserved and kept on the ground floor.49 However this does not necessarily prove that the inner organs were taken from the body. As for the frequently quoted passage of Ibn Battuta’s journey in Anatolia, it clearly does not allude to a form of evisceration and mummifijication, but to the ancient Turkish practice of exposing the body.50 We have two references to actual evisceration and separate treatment of the inner organs in the second half of the 15th century. The fijirst one concerns Prince Mustafa, son of Mehmed II. Angiolello, who escorted the prince, explicitly writes that his inner organs where put in a box full of salt.51 No Ottoman source confijirms this information. It can however be true, but one may wonder to what extent the occidental origin of Angiolello explains either the practice, or a false interpretation of what he saw. The second reference comes from the Vakıat-ı Sultan Cem, where we learn that after the techiz ve tekfijin rites piously accomplished by the Muslim companions of Sultan Cem who had died in Naples in 1495, the French buried his inner organs and put the body itself in a lead cofffijin.52 Obviously this was for the author a Frankish 46 47 48

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Süheyl Ünver, ‘Eski Mısır’da İslâm Dünyasında ve Bizde Tahnit Maddeleri Hakkında’, in Fuad Köprülü Armağanı. Ankara, 1953, 582–584. Cf. Hakkı Önkal, ‘Türk Türbe Mimarîsinde Cenazelik Katının Gelişmesi’, Türk Kültürü 26:307 (1988) 732–738. Ignace Mouradjea d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire othoman. Paris, 1779–1824, II. 318. Some Muslims today do not accept autopsy on this ground. Cheikh Si Hamza Boubakeur, Traité moderne de théologie islamique. Paris, 1985, 261; Jane Idleman-Smith and Yvonne Yaşbeck-Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany, 1981, 103. Halil Edhem, ‘Anadolu’da İslami Kitabeler’, Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası 32 (1331) 454; Önkal, ‘Türk Türbe’. Ibn Battuta describes the exposure of the corpse of a prince of Menteşe in the higher level of the türbe, and its deposition afterwards on the ground floor in a cofffijin: Ibn Battuta, Voyages. Vol. 2. Ed. by Stéphane Yerasimos, transl. by C. Defremery. Paris, 1982, 174fff. Donado Da Lezze [Angiolello], Historia Turchesca. Ed. by I. Ursu. Bucarest, 1909, 65. Vakıat-ı Sultan Cem, 31v, in Nicolas Vatin, Sultan Djem. Un prince ottoman dans l’Europe du XVe siècle d’après deux sources contemporaines: Vâḳı’ât-ı Sulṭân Cem, Œuvres de Guillaume Caoursin. Ankara, 1997, 238–239.

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impious and horrible act, which contrasted with the decent Muslim attitude of Cem’s comrades. It is generally said of three Ottoman sovereigns – Murad I, Mehmed I, and Süleyman I – that they were eviscerated and that their inner organs were buried where they had died. For most of the historians, there is no reason to doubt it, as something obviously had to be done about the decomposition and the odour.53 As we have seen, other solutions apparently existed and we cannot take the practice for granted on the only ground of such “natural” reasons. The only way to solve (or not) the problem is then to look at our sources. For Murad I, the source is Chalkokondylas,54 who was not a contemporary, and whose version is not confijirmed by any of the Ottoman Turkish sources. The same can be said about Doukas who anyway writes that the separate burial of Mehmed I’s inner organs was the result of an accident, for the sultan’s body had exploded.55 It seems difffijicult to reject absolutely these references, but it is equally difffijicult to use such texts, whose Greek speaking authors were not contemporaries of the events, as sure evidences of the systematic evisceration and burial on the spot of these sultans’ bodies. If it really was a normal practice, why do the Ottoman authors remain silent about it? And if it was some sad obligation due to the delay and the wish to avoid bad odours, why was it not done for Mehmed II, whose corpse did begin to stink,56 nor for Bayezid II or Selim I about whom nothing of the sort was ever said? We know by Halil Sahillioğlu’s research that Süleyman II was not eviscerated and we can conclude that Selim II had not been either, as we learn that his body was also preserved in ice.57 What about Süleyman the Magnifijicent, then? The fijirst textual evidence is a sentence from an Austrian report of 1577 quoted by Sándor Takáts, which alludes 53

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Ünver, ‘Eski Mısır’, 581–582; Norbert Pap, ‘Sigetvar’da Kanuni Süleyman Hakkında Yapılan Araştırmaların Ana Noktaları’, in Idem (ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete Szigetváron, 31–32; Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 65; Emecen, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi’, 132; Şehabettin Tekindağ, ‘Fatih’in Ölümü Meselesi’, İÜEF Tarih Dergisi 16:21 (1966) 107, concludes that Mehmed II’s body must have been eviscerated and his inner organs separately buried in an underground room, while we know by a contemporary document kept in the archives that the corpse did stink: İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, ‘Fatih Sultan Mehmed’in Ölümü’, Belleten 39:155 (1975) 477: note 4. Laonikos Chalkokondylas, Laonici Chalcocondylae Atheniensis Historiarum libri decem. I. Ed. by E. Bekker. Bonn, 1843, 55. Doukas, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. Translated by H. G. Magoulias. Detroit, 1975, 129fff. See a note written by the baltacı kethüdası Kasım (Topkapı Sarayı Archives, E 735/21), quoted by Uzunçarşılı, ‘Fatih Sultan Mehmed’in Ölümü’, 477: note 4. Selânikî, Tarih, I. 98.

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to a “church” “where Sultan Süleyman’s inner organs were buried”.58 The fijirst Ottoman mention is to be found, as we know, in Mustafa Ali’s Künhü’l-Ahbar, which was written in the 1590s: “The sacred body of the deceased sovereign was taken on a litter, wrapped in waxed clothes that had been purifijied with musk and ambergris. The other remains were secretly buried in front of Szigetvár above which it was later on decided to erect a mausoleum.”59 More than half a century later, Evliya Çelebi tells a similar story, with picturesque addenda: The belly was cut through, preserved with salt, musk and ambergris and temporarily kept as a deposit (emaneten) on the spot, while the heart, the liver, the lungs, the bowels and so on were buried in a golden box in the fort emplacement, the fort and the türbe being built afterwards.60 Let’s note that the story of the golden box may not be an invention of Evliya, although he makes a literary use of it to narrate a miracle, for a contemporary Hungarian source of 1664 mentioning the Turbék castle where Süleyman had been buried adds: “There is a rumour going about that he has been buried in a golden cofffijin” – but seems not to mention the inner organs.61 The striking point of all these sources is the fact that they are late. The contemporary authors, as Selaniki, Feridun or Agehi, who were fijirst-hand witnesses and even members of the grand vizier’s inner circle, have nothing to say about the inner organs.62 In his Heft Meclis written in 1569–1570, Mustafa Ali does mention the temporary burial of the body, but not the separate one of the viscera.63 He apparently had changed his mind when, more than twenty years later, he wrote the Künhü’l-Ahbar,64 in a time when, as we know by the 1577 Austrian report, the burial of the sultan’s viscera was something people did speak about in the region. Must we conclude that the truth had been concealed 58 59 60

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Derinnen des Sultan Soliman Ingwaydt begraben: Takáts, ‘Nagy Szolimán császár sírja’, 127. Mustafa Ali, Künhü’l-Ahbar, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Manuscrits orientaux, Supplément turc No. 1028, 321v. Evliyâ Çelebi, Seyahatnâme, Vol. 7, 19: derhal cenaze-i Sülyeman Han’ın batn-ı şerifijin yarup ud ve amber ve tuz ile salamura edip emaneten yere korlar ve kalb-ı şerifleri ve sair ciğer ve bağırsak makulesi eşyaların bu kale mahallinde altın leğen ile defn ederler. Badehu Selim Han cülus ettikte bu kaleyi ve türbe-i pür-envarı inşa ederler. István Berkeszi, ‘Gróf Zrínyi Miklós horvát bán téli hadjárata 1663-4 ben’, Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 20 (1886) 255. I did not myself read Agehi, but Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 65, is positive about the fact that no Sigetvarname speaks about them. Mustafa Ali, Heft Meclis. İstanbul, 1316/1901–1902, 33. Mustafa Ali was not a witness, for he was in Syria during the siege. Taken this fact in consideration, I would argue, contrary to Emecen (‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi’, 133), that if the author of the Heft Meclis (who does not mention the separate burial of the inner organs) was a contemporary of Feridun (as the author of the Nüzhetü’l-Ahbar), the author of the Künhü’l-Ahbar (who does) is not.

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for a decade? But if it was a shame to act that way, why let divulge the fact a decade later and give it a material reality by building a türbe? Our best witness is Feridun, who was one of the closer collaborators of the grand vizier. Feridun Emecen thinks that by the words tabiye ve terbiye, Feridun discreetly alludes to an evisceration.65 This may be, but these words, which we could translate by “preparing and treating” (or, to quote Meninski, “bene componere, praeparare”), are not particularly concrete and could as well mean a simple techiz ü tekfijin. On the inverse, Feridun gives a great quantity of details that are not precisely pleasant. I personally see no reason to doubt that he did not speak of the evisceration and separate burial of the inner organs on the spot because he knew nothing about it. But who better than him knew what happened inside the dead sultan’s tent? I would like to signal once more that the products he names are the same which were used for treatments that were not mummifijication, and to quote a very instructive passage of his own chronicle: “From the day of the temporary burial to the exhumation, 42 days passed, and during this time and till its arrival in the well-protected Istanbul and its burial in its canonically pure tomb, thanks to the odour of musk and ambergris that emanated from the sacred body of the deceased, at any moment the noses of men were full of perfumes, and all the time a breeze of pleasant odours passed on the courtyard of the world as on the circular tray of the perfumers.”66 By insisting on the fact that it didn’t stink, Feridun reminds his reader that it should have stunk. We may understand that the tahnit was sufffijiciently efffijicient. But there is a second interpretation (which is not incompatible with the fijirst one): it was a miracle. We may suppose that the actual odour was probably far from pleasant, and conclude that no evisceration had been practiced. Of course, these arguments, which seem strong enough to me, cannot absolutely prove that the inner organs of Süleyman were not buried in Szigetvár. But if archaeological researches do not give us a concrete and factual evidence of their presence in the türbe, I shall go on thinking that the sultan’s body was spared a treatment forbidden by the Islamic rule, and that it came in its integrity to its tomb at the rear of his mosque, close to the remains of Hürrem Sultan.

65 66

Emecen, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi’, 133. Feridun, Nüzhetü-l-esrâr, 96v–97r, in Vatin, Ferîdûn Bey, 392–395: Arza emanet verilmişdi defn olunduğu günden yine ihrac oluncaya değin ma-beynde kırk gün mürur edip bu müddet içinde ve bundan sonra mahmiyye-i İstanbula varıp merkad-ı mutahherlerine defn olunca merhumun meyyit-i şeriflerinden misk ü amber raihasından her saat demağ-ı ademiyan muattar ve her dem sahn-ı cihan tabla-ı attaran gibi ıtır-ı hoş-bu vezan idi.

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The Causes of the Birth of a Legend If I am right, I still have to explain why the rumour spread. This, I think, has something to do with the türbe. The simple fact that there was a türbe could be enough to suggest the idea: If there was a tomb, there was to be a dead body inside. But as everybody knew that Süleyman’s body was buried in Istanbul, under the dome of his türbe, what could be kept in Szigetvár if not his internal organs? Is it by chance that the fijirst mention of this is Christian (as the Muslims would normally not have allowed such an impious act), local, and posterior to the türbe, which as we know existed in 1577? We can add a second argument in favour of the hypothesis of a rumour created by the presence of the türbe: If we omit the particular and dubious case of Mehmed I, the tale of a separate burial of the internal organs in the place where the death had occurred concerns only Süleyman at Szigetvár and Murad I at Kosovo. As for Murad I, the many historians who say so67 do it either do not give a reference or quote each other: It seems that no textual evidence was ever found. In his serious and methodical study, Semavi Eyice cautiously remarks that the sources say a lot about Murad I’s death and his burial in Bursa, but nothing about his meşhed at Kosovo, a fact that confijirms that the building was posterior to the event.68 Neşri tells us that Mehmed II stopped at Kosovo in 1455, at the place where Gazi Hüdavendigar had died as a şehid and that he made donations and had meals cooked there for the soul of Murad and of the şehids fallen in the battle.69 Which means that at that time there was no türbe there – the fijirst known attestations are of the 16th century – and that nobody spoke of the presence of any remains of the body on the spot. This seems to be a mere legend, created by the very presence of the building and (maybe) by what was said of Süleyman. It should be reminded that, supposed that Mehmed I’s viscera were separately buried in the place where he died, no türbe was erected there; and that Bayezid II, Selim I, or the sultans deceased in Edirne, all have a single tomb and 67

68 69

İsmail Eren, ‘Kosovo’da Sultan Murad Türbesiyle İlgili Tarihsel bir Belge’, Çevren 4:9 (1979) 69; Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynakalarına Göre’, 65; Gökbilgin, ‘Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Szigetvar’daki Türbesi’, 144; Önkal, ‘Kanunî’nin Türbesi’, 107; Tekindağ, ‘Fatih’in Ölümü Meselesi’, 107; Ünver, ‘Eski Mısır’da’, 581. Semavi Eyice, ‘Kosova’da “Meşhed-i Hüdâvendigâr” ve Gâzi Mestan Türbesi’, Tarih Dergisi 12:16 (1961) 73–74 and note 11. Neşri, Die altosmanische Chronik des Mevlānā Meḥemmed Neschrī. Kitâb-ı Cihânnümâ. Vol. I (cod. Menzel). Ed. by Franz Taeschner and Theodor Menzel. Leipzig, 1951, 184: Gazi Hünkar şehid olduğu yere konub anda atalar edip nimetler pişirtti anın ruhı için ve anda şehid olanlar için.

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no other türbe, a fact which seems to confijirm that their intact body was transferred to the capital. Does it mean that of all the sultans, Süleyman the Magnifijicent was the only one to sufffer such a peculiar treatment, while all the contemporary authors show that there was nothing special in the way his body was attended? If, by an exceptional fate, the neighbourhood of Szigetvár had been sanctifijied by the presence of his organs, then why did the fijirst sheikh and türbedar, Ali Dede, choose to be buried close to the tomb not of Süleyman, but of another şehid of the siege, Şeyh Kasım, after his death in 1598–99?70 Why did the Ottoman authorities wait for eight years at least before erecting a mausoleum? Why do the offfijicial Ottoman documents speak in September 1573 of “the place where [Süleyman] had pitched his tent”71 and in the spring of 1576, at a time when the türbe existed, why do they speak of the place where the body had been buried?72 These formulas clearly allude not to the inner organs remaining on the spot, but to the well attested provisory burial. This is obvious in an order of January 1577, where Murad III mentions “the sacred türbe, the hankah, the mosque and the palisade (palanka) in the place where the late Sultan Süleyman had been temporarily placed after his death”.73 We fijind the same mention of the place where the body had been temporarily buried in the previously quoted endowment deed of March-April 1574.74 This was a sufffijicient reason to decide the creation of a complex there; strictly speaking, it was not a tomb. It was a meşhed, that is, a martyrium, a building that could cover a tomb, but not necessarily, for its real aim was to be a reminder of a şehid.75 This explains why of all the Ottoman sultans, Murad I and Süleyman the Magnifijicent were the only ones to be honoured by such a building: Both were şehids deceased on the frontier, in front of the enemy. 70

71 72

73 74 75

Peçevî, Tarih. Vol. 2. İstanbul, 1864–1866 (reed. İstanbul, 1980), 219. About the designation of this sheikh in 1576, with a short bibliography, see Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 16–17: note 31. Babam Gazi Hüdavendigar tabe serahu otağ-ı hümayun ile kondukları mahal: MD 23, 50: No. 103; Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 26. Sultan Süleyman Han aleyhi’r-rahmet ve’l-gufranın cesed-i şerifiji defn olduğu mahalde: MD 27, No. 847 (Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 29); cesed-i şerifleri defn olınan mahalde: BOA Mühimme Defteri Zeyli (MDZ) 3, No. 315 (ibid., 30); cesed-i şerifleri medfun olduğu mahalde: MD 29, No. 140 (ibid., 32). Merhum Sultan Süleyman vefat ettikte emanet konulduğu mahalde türbe-i şerife ve hankah ve cami ve palanka: MD 29, No. 267 (Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 33). Sektüvar nam kalenin haricinde merhum Sultan Süleyman cesed-i şerifleri emanet konılan mevzide bina olınan camidir: Hancz, ‘Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre’, 67. About the meşheds, see Christian Decobert, ‘Un lieu de mémoire religieuse’, in Christian Decobert (ed.), Valeur et distance. Identités et societés en Égypte. Paris, 2000, 247–263. Let’s add that the türbes of Murad I and of Süleyman were both sometimes defijined as meşheds.

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It was not a pressing religious duty to erect such monuments. In the case of prestigious sovereigns, the decision obviously was a political one. About Murad I, we have no information at all. One may wonder if the decision was not taken by Mehmed II, who, as we saw, made a pilgrimage at Kosovopolje and had some difffijiculties in Albania. As for the türbe at Szigetvár, I have proposed in my previous article76 to link the creation of a complex around a meşhed of Süleyman with the return in the region of George Zrínyi, the son of Miklós, the last Habsburg-Hungarian commander of Szigetvár. George Zrínyi had become commander of Kanizsa in 1573; he was captain-general of Transdanubia in 1574–1575 and 1583–1592. He was very active in the zone: In March-April 1573, Sokollu Mustafa Pasha, beylerbeyi of Buda, complained about Zrínyi’s attacks against the sancak of Pojega.77 Selim II himself had to protest in a letter to Maximilian II, dated 21 of November 1574,78 insisting on the dangerous part played by George Zrínyi, who was accused of wanting to avenge his father.79 The chronological coincidence is striking. My hypothesis of 2005 still seems convincing for me today: In a time of good peace with the imperials, it made sense to remind symbolically to the Habsburg, but more precisely to the Zrínyi family, that Szigetvár and its surroundings were for ever a Muslim and Ottoman possession. This is probably why, at the end of Selim II’s reign or at the beginning of Murad III’s one, after years of relative neglect, measures were taken to create a complex around a meşhed of Süleyman the Magnifijicent. It may as well have given to the grand vizier an opportunity to reinforce his political status by reminding the glorious role he had played in those difffijicult days of 1566.

Conclusions I shall conclude by a brief summary of my main points. If we compare Süleyman the Magnifijicent’s death and funeral to those of the other Ottoman sovereigns, there is no fundamental diffference. His body was treated as well as it could in difffijicult circumstances, as he had died far away from Istanbul and the death could not be offfijicially declared before Selim II was enthroned. This implied a certain number of surprising measures, but no decisive argument has been given of his being eviscerated. On the contrary, it seems much more probable 76 77

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Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 19–23. Ernst Dieter Petritsch, Regesten der osmanischen Dokumente im österreichischen Staatsarchiv. Vol. I. (Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs. Ergänzungsband, 10/1.) Wien, 1991, 232: No. 695. MD 26, 313–315: No. 98 (Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître’, 22). Babası intikamın almak kasdı ile.

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that his intact body was at last sent to Istanbul and buried there, as it was the dynastic rule to do. Thus, the burial in Szigetvár of his internal organs seems to be a legend that arouse locally. It is not because his organs were buried there that a türbe was built a little less than a decade after the event; it is because there was a türbe that such a rumour arouse, a rumour convincing enough to decide a serious author as Mustafa Ali to adopt it, while he knew nothing about this story in a previous opus written just after the siege twenty years ago. Why was Mustafa Ali so easily convinced? We may suppose that in the 1590s, the legend had become for everybody a historical fact.80 Is it so surprising? As I said, Süleyman’s funeral was not fundamentally diffferent from those of his ancestors and successors. But this does not mean that they were in all matters comparable to those of normal Muslims. The political constraints compelled the men (and women) in charge to such surprising and even chocking acts that it needed just one more step to accept the idea that their bodies could be opened, even if such a practice was surely felt as horrible and contrary to the Islamic rules. As for modern historians, they could easily accept the story because it was a good one, which gave to the Magnifijicent’s reign a striking conclusion. But more than that, for scholars who knew the occidental medieval practices, it seemed perfectly natural to act that way: Was it not the best way to avoid bad odours and to keep the body in a reasonable good shape till the defijinitive burial in the capital? It is only when one forgets the special case of Süleyman and works on the Ottoman dynastic funerals as a whole that the doubt arises… So the türbe of Süleyman in Szigetvár, which we can now situate on the map, was probably nothing more than an empty memorial, meant to remind that in that place had died one of the most glorious Ottoman sultans, in a country that was to remain Ottoman and Muslim. This is precisely why it was twice destroyed by the enemy. Szigetvár at last did not remain Ottoman and Muslim, and the türbe completely disappeared. It nevertheless achieved its goal, at least partially. The siege of Szigetvár was not – as far as the Ottomans were concerned – a great military event. Even the death of Süleyman, an elderly and ill sultan whose unique son was ready to rule, was not such an important political event. But his death as a şehid on the battlefijield – or close to it anyway – was a glorious memory, as the death of Miklós Zrínyi was for the Hungarians, Croats and imperials. In place or destroyed, the meşhed recalled those great deeds. Nowadays it gives to the Turks and the Hungarians a common history, a token of friendship paradoxically arisen from an ancient hostility. 80

Although the Halveti sheikh and türbedar probably knew better, as we saw.

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part 5 Remembering the Battle for Szigetvár, Süleyman and Zrínyi and the Search for the Lost Türbe of the Sultan

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The Memory of the 1566 Siege of Sziget and of Miklós Zrínyi in Hungarian Literary Tradition Gábor Tüskés Institute for Literary Studies, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest [email protected]

In this study, I take as a starting point the fact that the memory of the 1566 siege of Sziget,1 of Süleyman I and Miklós Zrínyi is an essentially international phenomenon. This remembrance has several regional and other variants; however, their examination ought to be viewed from an international perspective, and carried out within an interdisicplinary framework using comparative methods.2 With all diffferences taken into consideration, the depiction of Sziget in the historiography, literature, arts, music, military and political philosophy of European countries shows a kind of unity.3 Several interactions can be observed between diffferent national traditions and genres, and, for this reason, the related works and documents can only be understood together, in their totality. Tradition and, more precisely, the establishment of memorial sites is an extremely complex, dynamic process which evolves in time and constitutes the subject of constant reconstruction and interpretation.4 Its evolution is fundamentally determined by concepts relating to the past, the present and the future. It is profoundly embedded in the all-time cultural and

1 Lajos Rúzsás, ‘The Siege of Szigetvár of 1566. Its Signifijicance in Hungarian Social Development’, in János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. (Eastern European Monographs, CIV.) Brooklyn, NY, 1982, 251–260. 2 Pál S. Varga, Karl Katschthaler, Donald E. Morse and Miklós Takács (eds.), The Theoretical Foundation of Hungarian ʻlieux de mémoire’ Studies / Theoretische Grundlagen der Erforschung ungarischer Erinnerungsorte. Debrecen, 2013. – I am grateful to Csenge Aradi and Bernard Adams who helped me to express my ideas in what I trust is now clear English. The translation of the quotations from the poems was achieved by Bernard Adams. 3 Sándor Bene and Gábor Hausner (eds.), A Zrínyiek a magyar és a horvát históriában. Budapest, 2007. 4 Gabriella Erdélyi, ‘A Dózsa-felkelés arcai: tabuk és emlékezet 1514 mítoszaiban’, Történelmi Szemle 51 (2009) 461–480.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_024

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social context, and is influenced by the agents’ aesthetic, moral, political and other objectives. The memory of the 1566 siege of Sziget, together with those of the 1526 Battle of Mohács5 and the 1552 siege of Eger,6 has intricately intertwined with the history of the 150-year-long Ottoman occupation of Hungary. After Mohács and Eger, Sziget is the third representative memorial site of 16th-century Hungarian history, and in a certain sense it is considered a symbolic counterpart of Mohács. The castle, the defenders, and, above all, Zrínyi, together constitute the starting point of the tradition. The siege itself is one of the major topics of the 16th- and 17th-century literary adaptations of the battles against the Turks, and it left its mark in Hungarian, Croatian and German literature afterwards as well.7 The history of literary adaptations demonstrates the strong link between Hungarian and Croatian literature, and its embeddedness in Central European tradition. It is no coincidence that Sziget was given a place both in a 2011 volume presenting the Southeastern European cultural memory8 and in a 2013 collection on religious lieux de mémoire in Central Eastern Europe.9 The Hungarian literary tradition of Zrínyi is primarily characterized by the extraordinary richness and variety of genres, representations, literary devices, ideas and functions. Also, it is on a par with other literary treatments of Hungarian historical topics of international importance. This tradition evolved relatively fast, reached a high level of aesthetic quality, and integrated into itself several components of humanist historiography, the rapidly changing concept of history often determined by religious denomination and national 5 Lajos Rúzsás, ‘A magyar közvélemény útkeresése Mohács után a XVI. században’, in Lajos Rúzsás and Ferenc Szakály (eds.), Mohács. Tanulmányok a mohácsi csata 450. évfordulója alkalmából. Budapest, 1986, 323–335; Pál S. Varga, Orsolya Száraz and Miklós Takács (eds.), A magyar emlékezethelyek kutatásának elméleti és módszertani alapjai. (Loci Memoriae Hungaricae, 2.) Debrecen, 2013, 199–402. 6 Péter Lőkös and Gábor Tüskés (eds.), Obsidio Agriae Anno 1552. Texte zur Rezeption eines ungarischen Geschichtsstofffes. Eger, 2008. 7 József Karenovics, Zrinyi Miklós. A szigetvári hős költészetünkben. Irodalomtörténeti tanulmány. Budapest, 1905; Ö. István Écsy, Szigetvár és Zrínyi a magyarországi latin költészetben. Kaposvár, 1935; Margit Waczulik, ‘Szigetvár 1566. évi ostroma az egykorú történetírásban’, in Lajos Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromának 400. évfordulójára. Budapest, 1966, 287–306; István Tóth, ‘A szigeti hős alakja a magyar irodalomban’, in Rúzsás (ed.), Szigetvári Emlékkönyv, 307–343; Elisabeth Frenzel, Stofffe der Weltliteratur. Ein Lexikon dichtungsgeschichtlicher Längsschnitte. Stuttgart, 19928, 837–838. 8 Reinhard Lauer, ‘Siget. Heldenmythos zwischen Nationen’, in Idem (ed.), Erinnerungskultur in Südosteuropa. Berlin, 2011, 189–216. 9 Márta Fata, ‘Szigetvár 1566’, in Joachim Bahlcke, Stephan Rohdewald and Thomas Wünsch (eds.), Religiöse Erinnerungsorte in Ostmitteleuropa. Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationen- und epochenübergreifenden Zugrifff. Berlin, 2013, 865–873.

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identity. It reflects the re-interpretation of historical fijigures from era to era, bears witness to the constant vulnerability of the past to the present, and shows the close connection of literature to historiography, fijine arts and history of ideas. The fijigure of Zrínyi provided a good opportunity for the continuous renewal of the tradition, as it enhanced a creative use of rhetoric repertoire and efffijiciently inspired the working out of new motifs, genre patterns and procedures of composition. The major aim of my study is to present the Hungarian literary tradition of Sziget and Zrínyi from its inception up to the late 19th century, and to outline the process of constructing this memory and the forming of a particular national narrative. I have set as second goal to mark the intersections, defijine the main characteristics, and identify the functions of the memory of Sziget. I shall pay heed to the procedure of myth-forming, in the course of which memories of the past condense into stories shaping the experience of the present and the future. I shall prefer to highlight those examples of literature which represent a high quality and are considered important for the history of literary themes (Stofffgeschichte). I shall speak of alternative forms of memory, and shall try to avoid the perspective of “heroic act – heroic sufffering”. The image of Zrínyi depicted by historiography and works written in other vernaculars will be mentioned only if these works are related to Hungarian literature, and only to the extent necessary to explain the phenomena in question. Although tradition in fijine arts shows several points of intersection with literature, I shall not discuss that on this occasion as I presented it at a 2007 international conference on Zrínyi in Budapest,10 and the conference volume was subsequently published.

Antecedents Sziget fijirst became a literary topic in 1556, ten years before the 1566 siege, in Ferenc Tőke’s Hungarian-language verse-chronicle entitled Historia obsidionis insulae Antemi [The Story of the Siege of Antemus Isle].11 The title refers to Osvald Antemus, the knight who had the castle built, and who, according to the introductory verses, predicted the ruining of Christianity and of Hungarians 10

11

Gábor Tüskés, ‘Zur Ikonographie der beiden Nikolaus Zrínyi’, in Wilhelm Kühlmann and Gábor Tüskés (eds. in collaboration with Sándor Bene), Militia et Litterae. Die beiden Nikolaus Zrínyi und Europa. Tübingen, 2009, 319–387. Ferenc Tőke, ‘Historia obsidionis insulae Antemi’, in Áron Szilády (ed.), Régi Magyar Költők Tára XVI. század. Vol. 5: 1545–1559. Budapest, 1896, 131–150, 333–345; Péter Kasza (compil. and annotat.), Egy elfeledett ostrom emlékezete: Szigetvár, 1556 / Remembering a Forgotten Siege: Szigetvár, 1566. Ed. by Pál Fodor. Budapest, 2016, 79–101.

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in the following wars as well as the twist of luck in warfare at Sziget. The poem shows the influence of the historical poems of Sebestyén Tinódi, the bestknown “rhyming war correspondent” of the time; on several occasions the narrative parts are interrupted by the besiegers’ and defenders’ monologues and dialogues. As reported by Tőke, the siege led by Ali Pasha of Buda, lasted for a total of 77 days. He narrates that the defenders quickly rebuilt the destroyed parts of the castle while the Ottomans were trying to liberate Babócsa, which was then in their hands. The strong resistance, the failure to force the defenders to surrender, the losses and the arguments forwarded by the beys and voivodes fijinally led the pasha to end the siege and leave. Tőke attributes the successful defense to a favourable twist of fortune and as a sign of God’s “mercy” on the Hungarians. He lists several fallen and injured Hungarian soldiers by name, who, in his opinion, sacrifijiced themselves “for us”, saved lives by their deaths and are therefore worthy of respect. In terms of content the main points of the poem correspond to János Zsámboky’s (Joannes Sambucus) Latin-language historical work published in 1558 in Vienna, entitled Obsidio Zigethiensis [The Siege of Sziget],12 and some motifs of it can be detected in Zrínyi’s epic poem. Zsámboky dedicated his work to Márk Horváth-Stansych, the then captain of Sziget, who wrote a Latinlanguage memoir for the king following the siege (Wittenberg, 1557), which served as Zsámboky’s primary source.13 Zsámboky places the events in a broader diplomatic and military context, and considers the unsuccessful siege a victory and an instance of glory. After God and King Ferdinand, he attributes it to Horváth’s sedulousness (industria), whom he sets as an example for the aldermen of “perilous places”. Another antecedent worth mentioning is Zrínyi’s letter addressed to Palatine Tamás Nádasdy’s widow, Orsolya Kanizsai, dated 19 April 1566.14 In this letter Zrínyi calls Sziget the bastion of many provinces, and asks for help. Taking into consideration the “survival of Christianity”, he asks the addressee to send riflemen and some “remarkable persons” for the defense of the castle. He declares that “we have decided ... to lock ourselves up in this fortress, our wish being ... to serve our sweet, doomed country with our blood, and, in the event, by risking our lives”. These lines, written four months before the siege, show that by this time Zrínyi had already decided to hold out to the bitter end. The letter efffectively combines the humanist topos of propugnaculum 12

13 14

Ioannes Sambucus, Obsidio Zigethiensis An. M.D.LVI. Viennae, 1558. For its English translation, see Egy elfeledett ostrom / Remembering a Forgotten Siege, 157–166 (the Latin original: ibid., 183–190). For the original Latin text and its English translation, see Egy elfeledett ostrom / Remembering a Forgotten Siege, 177–182, 149–155. Emil Hargittay (ed.), Régi magyar levelestár XVI–XVII. század. Vol. 1. Budapest, 1981, 147–150.

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Christianitatis (the bastion of Christianity) with the idea of service to the country and self-sacrifijice, concepts which will become important themes in literary and historical works written after the siege.

Mythicization in the Spirit of Late Humanism After his death Zrínyi came to be a representative of the Christian hero resisting the Ottomans to defend his country, praised by literature, historiography, fijine arts and family traditions.15 Some humanist topoi of national destiny and the allegorical interpretation of Zrínyi’s fijigure can be detected as early as in the fijirst literary works related to him. Several German, French and Spanish newsletters, leaflets and newspapers reported the siege, the fall of the fortress and the deaths of Süleyman and Zrínyi shortly after the events.16 These reports sometimes had the same text but with a diffferent title, and were often illustrated. For example, one German newsletter narrates the defeat, Zrínyi’s death and the sending of his head to the emperor based on information from the imperial camp at Győr. Another newsletter, dated 29 September 1566, communicates the detailed report of a hajdú (Hungarian footman) who survived. Simultaneously with the publication of these newsletters, Miklós Istvánfffy composed a Latin-language verse-epitaph on 21 November 1566.17 After serving as a soldier under Zrínyi in the months prior to the siege, Istvánfffy calls Zrínyi the honour of Pannonia, the only hope for the decaying country; let the Dalmatian coasts, the Triballs, Illyrians, Dacians, the Danube and the sea testify to his greatness. He also mentions that the Turks sent his head to his children, who buried it fijittingly in a marble tomb. Even though his body was killed, his reputation and glory would never fade. This epitaph can be considered the earliest dated literary treatment of the topic.18 Paul Schede Melissus, who had been appointed poeta laeratus by Ferdinand I two years earlier and later became an outstanding fijigure of German neo-Latin 15

16

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Erzsébet Király, ‘Az európai keresztény hős mítosza és a szigetvári hős’, in András Laczkó (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós emlékezete. A Szigetváron tartott II. Zrínyi-tanácskozás anyaga (1991. szeptember 26–28.). Kaposvár, 1991, 31–37. Ilona Hubay (ed.), Magyar és magyar vonatkozású röplapok, ujságlapok, röpiratok az Országos Széchényi Könyvtárban 1480–1718 / Feuilles volantes, gazettes et pamphlets hongrois ou relatifs à la Hongrie, conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale de Budapest 1480– 1718. Budapest, 1948, 55–58. Nicolaus Istvánfffy, ‘Epitaphium Nicolai comitis de Zrinio, qui 8. die Septemberis a. 1566. in Zigeth a Turcis est interfectus’, in Nicolaus Istvánfffy, Carmina. Ed. by Josephus Holub and Ladislaus Juhász. Lipsiae, 1935, 26–27. Flóris Holik, ‘Istvánfffy Miklós mint költő’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 32 (1922) 140–146.

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poetry, was serving in Maximilian II’s camp at Győr.19 He commemorated Zrínyi in three Latin occasional poems in which he functionalized his fijigure for diffferent purposes.20 The fijirst poem is a 16-line epigram written shortly after the event, in which the author eulogizes Emperor Maximilian and calls Zrínyi a hero deserving fame and military glory for dying while courageously fijighting for his country.21 The second, entitled In P.C. and dedicated perhaps to Pantaleon Candidus, a late humanist German poet and preacher, recalls the captain’s head rolled into a cushion, which the author claims to have seen himself.22 The same motif is recycled in the third poem, in which he praises Georg Farensbach’s military merits.23 Farensbach was fijirst in Emperor Maximilian’s service, and then became a general under István Báthory. Commemorating the siege of Sziget, here Schede alleges that as a soldier he actually held Zrínyi’s severed head in his hands. Like the 1556 siege, that of 1566 was also recorded in a Hungarian-language verse-chronicle entitled the History of Losing Sziget.24 It is substantially shorter than the fijirst, but it too reflects Tinódi’s influence, and the author may actually be the same. It does not refer back to the previous siege and provides poorer and less accurate information than the hajdú’s already mentioned report. Nevertheless, it includes several international narrative motifs and some earlier unknown details. For instance, it mentions that, as one of the four “terrible things” that took place before the last siege, soldiers killed one another’s wives 19

20

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Wilhelm Kühlmann, Robert Seidel and Hermann Wiegand (eds. in collaboration with Christof Bodamer et al.) Humanistische Lyrik des 16. Jahrhunderts. Lateinisch und deutsch. Frankfurt/M., 1997, 753–861, 1395–1483; Eckart Schäfer, ‘Paulus Melissus Schede (1539–1602). Leben in Versen’, in Paul Gerhard Schmidt (ed.), Humanismus im deutschen Südwesten. Biographische Porträts. Sigmaringen, 20002, 239–265; Wilhelm Kühlmann, Vom Humanismus zur Spätaufklärung. Ästhetische und kulturgeschichtliche Dimensionen der frühneuzeitlichen Lyrik und Verspublizistik in Deutschland. Ed. by J. Telle, F. Vollhardt and H. Wiegand. Tübingen, 2006, 323–353. György Gömöri, ‘Az 1566-os év és Zrínyi Miklós Paul Melissus költészetében’, in József Jankovics (ed.), “Nem sűllyed az emberiség!” Album amicorum Szörényi László LX. születésnapjára. Budapest, 2007, 305–308, accessed 5 June 2016, www.iti.mta.hu/ szorenyi60.html. Paulus Schede Melissus, Schediasmata poetica. Frankfurt/M., 1574, 11–12. Paulus Schede Melissus, Schediasmata poetica. Pars I. Paris, 1586, 66–68; Wilhelm Kühlmann, ‘Eruditio und Pietas. Das literarische Lebenswerk des Zweibrücker Superintendenten Pantaleon Candidus (1540–1608)’, in Idem, Gelehrtenkultur und Spiritualismus. Studien zu Texten, Autoren und Diskursen der Frühen Neuzeit in Deutschland. Bd. II. Ed. by Jost Eickmeyer and Ladislaus Ludescher in collaboration with Björn Spiekermann. Heidelberg, 2016, 105–122. Paulus Schede Melissus, Carmina duo. Rostock, 1594, A4. Unknown author, ‘Sziget veszeserül valo Historia’, in Áron Szilády (ed.), Régi Magyar Költők Tára XVI. század. Vol. 6: 1560–1566. Budapest, 1912, 300–311, 420–425.

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so that the Turks should not have them; one of the soldiers killed his own wife. This motif is known from ancient historiography: In Bellum Iudaicum [The Jewish War], Flavius Josephus narrates the suicide of the defenders of Masada. A particularly brave woman fijights to the death at her husband’s side. The motif of women as heroic defenders is present in several historical and literary works related to the 1552 siege of Eger.25 The poet enumerates a total of nine attempts to storm the castle, and the number of Turks increases as he proceeds, fijinally exceeding the real number several times over. Süleyman’s chagrin at seeing his military failures is a recurring motif; it was this anger and distress that caused his illness and subsequent death, which was kept secret for three days. All this clearly indicates that the mythicizing of the scale of the battle had began. According to the poem, the defenders left two beggars at the gates before the last attempted storming. The beggars were wearing clothes fijilled with gunpowder and they set themselves on fijire, causing the death of “countless pagans”. It barely mentions Zrínyi, whose fijigure is not yet heroized. Uniquely among others, the poet claims that Zrínyi did not participate in the fijinal battle, because he had been injured in the eighth assault. He was lying on his deathbed and was found by a janissary, who kept his death secret from the pashas for three days and was later beheaded for so doing. The poem claims that only those 25 defenders survived who hid in the reeds. The Turks fijirst sent Zrínyi’s head, wrapped in red velvet, to their Buda camp. It was kept there for three days, washed in wine and vinegar, and then some delegates took it to the Hungarian king together with a thereatening message. The closing part emphasizes that Sziget was the only fortress that the Turks occupied “with valour” for they “could not obtain anything with lies”. This poem is of great importance as parts of it were later integrated into some Latin and Hungarian poetic accounts. The most detailed contemporaneous report in prose was made by Ferenac Črnko/Cserenkó Ferenc, Zrínyi’s chamberlain, who survived the siege; he was held in Ottoman captivity, and after his release he recorded the events in Croatian.26 Črnko’s narrative is diary-like but it does not show the same level of detail everywhere. He talks about the events leading up to the siege, the defense preparations, and quotes verbatim the oath taken by Zrínyi and the defenders. Moreover, he describes the important battles, enumerates the losses on both 25

26

Péter Lőkös, ‘Az “egri nők” motívum kialakulása a magyar és az európai irodalomban’, Studie Agriensia 27 (2008) 45–60; Julia Papp, ‘A vitéz szigetvári nő(k) a 16–17. századi hazai irodalomban és történetírásban’, in István Bitskey et al. (eds.), In via eruditionis. Tanulmányok a 70 éves Imre Mihály tiszteletére. Debrecen, 2016, 384–393. Ferenac Črnko, ‘Podsjedanje i osvojenje Sigeta’, in Milan Ratković (ed.), Opsada Sigeta. Vol. I. Zagreb, 1971, 1–27.

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sides, and mentions the role that noblemen played in the defense. Furthermore, he presents Zrínyi’s preparations for the sortie on 7 September in detail, quotes his words and depicts the circumstances of his death. Črnko’s text was translated into Latin by the Laibach-born humanist Samuel Budina. The Latin version, published in Vienna in 1568, was entitled Historia Szigethi [The Story of Sziget], and was commissioned by Johann Khisl von Kaltenbrunn, counsellor to the emperor and vice-captain of Krajina.27 Budina gave a long title to the work, in which he calls Sziget the strongest bastion in the whole of Slavonia. In addition, in the fijirst paragraph (which he wrote himself) he places the castle somewhere in the Slavonic border region. This must have been done at Khisl von Kaltenbrunn’s demand in order to support royal absolutism.28 The translator re-worked the text, in some places adding new pieces of information, in others omitting parts. To take an example, he decreased the South Transdanubian lesser nobility’s role in the defense. He elevated the style of presentation to a more elegant and polished level, translated the Turkish words into Latin, and provided Slavonic or Latin versions of geographical and proper names. In Zrínyi’s motivational speech before the last sortie there appears the aphorism referring to the obscene gesture of “showing our middle fijinger to the enemy”.29 This aphorism dates back to antiquity and can even be found in Erasmus’ Adagia, but there is no original version of it in Črnko’s Croatian text as we know it today. The Latin version narrates Süleyman’s death and its concealment and based on antecedents from Antiquity, it lists miraculous phenomena. It then recounts that Zrínyi’s head was severed, displayed to the public, sent to Buda and Győr, and fijinally buried in Csáktornya (Čakovec). Along with Budina’s preface and Zrínyi’s epitaph, the volume also contains three Latin poems about Zrínyi. The epitaphs and laments represent him as a symbol of perseverance and sacrifijice for the sovereign, for Domus Austriaca, and for the monarchy, and they set him and the siege as an example to follow. Up to 1570, the Latin version had two German and two Italian translations published in Augsburg, Vienna, Torino and Venice respectively. The translations 27

28 29

Samuel Budina, Historia Sigethi, totius Sclavoniae fortissimi propugnaculi, quod a Solymano Turcarum Imperatore nuper captum Christianisque ereptum est, ex Croatico sermone in Latinum conversa per M. Samuelem Budinam Labacensem. Viennae, 1568; Imre Molnár (ed., transl. and notes), Budina Sámuel históriája magyarul és latinul Szigetvár 1566. évi ostromáról. (Szigetvári Várbaráti Kör kiadványai, 6.) Szigetvár, 1978. Lajos Rúzsás and Endre Angyal, ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, Századok 105 (1971) 57–69. Gábor Petneházi, ‘Egy kevésbé heroikus gesztus? Zrínyi ujjának mikrofijilológiája, avagy a comma Zrinianum’, in Enikő Békés, Péter Kasza and Réka Lengyel (eds.), Humanista történetírás és neolatin irodalom a 15–18. századi Magyarországon. Budapest, 2015, 66–73.

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were re-published several times until the 19th century, a fact which also contributed to international familiarity with the events. The Latin text became a primary source of further historical and poetic treatments of the topic. Črnko’s report was the source of Brne Karnarutić’s Vazetje Sigeta grada [The Taking of Sziget Castle] (before 1573, fijirst edition: Venice, 1584), an epic poem in four parts, dedicated to Zrínyi’s son György.30 Karnarutić treats the report in an independent and inventive way: He edits, omits, condenses, modifijies the content and intensifijies the twists in the plot. He inserts fijictitious dialogues into the text, increases tension, and summarizes the lessons in aphorisms in the margin. Further devices of re-writing include allusions to ancient authors, above all, Vergil, and to this he adds the imitation of epic patterns, images and topoi offfered by Marko Marulić. Compared to Črnko, it is an original idea on Karnarutić’s part to consider the Ottomans to be God’s punishment for the sins committed (like robbing the poor, oppressing orphans and widows, or abandoning the Catholic religion), but this thought was already wide-spread in contemporaneous Hungarian literature. This assumption, along with the foreseeable fall of the Ottoman rule, would constitute the basis for Miklós Zrínyi’s epic poem in the 17th century. An example of neo-Latin historical epic is the poem De capto Zygetho historia [A Story of the Capture of Sziget] written by Christianus Schesaeus, a Lutheran clergyman from Saxon Transylvania.31 The poem was published in the four-book epic poem entitled Ruinae Pannonicae [The Decay of Pannonia] in Wittenberg, 1571, together with another on the siege of Gyula.32 The dedication in verse addresses Ferenc Forgách, bishop of Várad (Oradea), and that in prose addresses István Báthory, prince of Transylvania. The poem, which consists of more than 500 lines, shows a number of correspondences with the Črnko–Budina text and with Ferenc Forgách’s historical work which is shortly to be discussed. Schesaeus employs Vergil’s technique of writing epics, and uses varied rhetorical devices. He takes several phrases from the Aeneid,

30

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Zrínyi énekek. A szigetvári hős Zrínyi Miklós alakja a szomszéd népek költészetében. Transl. by Károly Kiss, pref. by Gyula Ortutay, notes by D. Sztoján Vujicsics. Budapest, 1956, 19–55; György Frankovics (ed.), Zrínyi énekek és feljegyzések. Horvát, szerb, bosnyák és szlovák népi énekek. Pécs, 2002, 52–86. Christianus Schesaeus, ‘Ruinae Pannonicae’, in Idem, Opera quae supersunt omnia. Ed. by Franciscus Csonka. Budapest, 1979, 290–310. In the same year, on the occasion of the fijifth anniversary of the siege, a mourning oration on Zrínyi and two epitaphs on his captains were published by Johannes Liubicz, canon of Breslau: S. Katalin Német, ‘Zrínyi Miklós, a szigetvári hős gyászbeszéde, Farkasics Péter és Horváth György epitáfijiuma (1571)’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 120 (2016) 621–630.

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but Lucan’s Pharsalia and Sallust can also be detected.33 Zrínyi is depicted as a stoic Christian hero who was prepared to die, a worthy adversary for Süleyman. Apart from these two persons, he does not refer to anyone else by name. Disregarding historical sources and earlier literary accounts, he increases the number of defenders to six thousand, but narrates only three attempts at storming and two sorties. In order to clarify the points of view of Süleyman and Zrínyi, he inserts pairs of fijictitious dialogues and letters into the plot. Just like in ancient historiography, he uses speeches to describe the characters. Several scenes, including Zrínyi’s speech before the siege and the preparations for the sortie, are presented in the same ways as in the Črnko–Budina text. Zrínyi’s fijirmness is in sharp contrast with the sultan’s emotion-governed personality. Seeing the failure of the attempts at storming and the enormous losses, Süleyman curses the builder of the castle. His death, like Herod’s, is the result of emotional overstrain, as stated in the Hungarian-language poems as well.34 Scheaseus speaks of the mixed ethnic composition of the defenders, considers Sziget the gates of Italy and the shield of Austria; he calls Zrínyi the bulwark of Vienna and the protector of Christianity, thereby emphasizing the importance of the event in Europe. He gives a detailed picture of Zrínyi’s preparation for the last siege. He efffijiciently develops motifs familiar from verse-chronicles: The defenders kill one another’s wives and children; one of the wives dies fijighting next to her husband. A new and signifijicant theme is that he associates Zrínyi and all the other fallen defenders with Catholic martyrs. Also, he mentions that when Emperor Maximilian received Zrínyi’s head he burst out into tears. The poem ends with the Sziget heroes’ epitaph and the brief description of Süleyman’s entombment. De capto Zygetho historia also contains Schesaeus’ epitaph written for Zrínyi, made up of 18 distichs. In this poem he evokes the memory of the heroic Roman patriots Horatius Cocles, Curtius and Atilius Regulus, and praises Zrínyi as the immortal example of self-sacrifijice. He closely connects his fame to Süleyman’s memory:

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Hermann Wiegand, ‘Miklós Zrínyi der Ältere (um 1508–1566) in der neulateinischen Dichtung Siebenbürgens im 16. Jahrhundert. Zum 10. Buch der Ruina Pannonica von Christian Schesaeus’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 138–150. Ödön Simai, ‘A szigeti veszedelem első költői feldolgozása’, Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny 27 (1903) 127–145; István Hegedüs, Schesaeus Ruinae Pannonicae czímű epikus költeménye. Budapest, 1916; Ilona Bitay, ‘Christian Schesaeus irodalmi munkásságának magyar vonatkozásai’, in Elek Csetri, Zsigmond Jakó and Sándor Tonk (eds.), Művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok. Bukarest, 1979, 70–77.

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Ergo dum memori Solymanni nomen in aevo, Et tua perpetuo fama vigebit, erit. Interea placida requiescas conditus urna, Heros divinis adnumerande viris. [As long as Süleyman’s name survives / Your fame will stand the test of time / Meanwhile, may you rest, laid in the peaceful urn, / Oh hero to be counted among godlike men.] Of the published historical works using Budina’s adaptation as a source, János Zsámboky’s is the earliest.35 Zsámboky treats Budina’s text freely; taking the court historian’s perspective, he makes a selection of the data and changes the sequence of events in some places. He refers to Zrínyi as the “great protector of the Christian world”. He asserts that the emperor was planning to send an army of 60,000 soldiers to help the fortress. He touches upon the accusation that Vienna abandoned Sziget, but tries to alleviate it by presenting imperial effforts and military success. He diminishes the weight of the failure by a brief description of the siege. He admits that the defenders were in sore need of military aid, but attributes the defeat to fate. A diffferent perspective is adopted by Ferenc Forgách, who was fijirst a proHabsburg humanist bishop, but was later neglected. Forgách took part in Maximilian I’s 1566 military ventures, and was then commissioned by István Báthory to write the history of Hungary and Transylvania between 1540 and 1572. The description of the siege of Sziget is today known from two texts, both attributed to Forgách. The fijirst is Forgách’s historical work, the sixteenth chapter of Commentarii [Commentaries], fijirst published only in 1866.36 The second is an adapted version, published in a collection dedicated to Zrínyi’s memory in 1587, ten years after Forgách’s death.37 In the historical work Forgách 35

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Ioannes Sambucus (ed.), Antonii Bonfijinii Rerum Ungaricarum Decades quatuor cum dimidia. His accessere Ioan. Sambuci aliquot Appendices. Francofurti, 1581, 831–834. Cf. Aus dem Tagebuch des kaiserlichen Hofhistoriographen Johannes Sambucus. Ed. by Hans Gerstinger. Graz, Wien, Köln, 1965, 20 (Zsámboky’s note on the letter of Zrínyi to the emperor from 21 July 1566). Ferenc Forgách, Magyar historiája 1540–1572. [Rerum Hungaricarum sui temporis Commentarii] Forgách Simon és Istvánfiji Miklós jegyzéseikkel együtt. A herczeg Esterházy-féle kéziratból. Ed. by Fidél Majer, pref. by Ferenc Toldy. Pest, 1866, 295–352. Cf. Ferenc Forgách, Emlékirat Magyarország állapotáról Ferdinánd, János, Miksa királysága és II. János erdélyi fejedelemsége alatt. Ed., notes, introd. by Péter Kulcsár, transl. by István Borzsák. Budapest, 1982, 242–3054. Petrus Albinus Nivemontanus (ed.), De Sigetho Hungariae propugnaculo. (Zrínyi-album). Wittenberg, 1587. Facsimile edition with a study by András Szabó. Budapest, 1987.

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illustrates the chaos dominating the Győr camp, and the disregard for the Hungarian magnates. When presenting Zrínyi he does not leave his earlier haughtiness out of account. He calls the fallen Sziget, together with Gyula, the “fortress and key to Christianity”. By doing so, he – like Zsámboky − applies the topos “bastion of Christianity” to Zrínyi and Sziget, and considers both to be the bearer of Hungary’s vocation to Europe.38 He mentions the soldier who took the news of the fall to the Győr camp, and who may be a source of his narrative. He presents the most important events of the siege in a condensed manner, and describes the conditions, blaming the imperial court for not having provided a sufffijicient number of soldiers in the border fortress. He briefly narrates the sortie and says that by his loyalty and self-sacrifijice Zrínyi fijinally made up for his earlier violent deeds. Roughly the fijirst half of the 1587 version shows correspondence with this fijirst work of Forgách. However, the negative description of Zrínyi was omitted from the later version, and was replaced by new material emphasizing the heroism of the defenders and Zrínyi. These include the already mentioned stories about the slaughtered women and the wife fijighting with her husband, Zrínyi’s last speech, which bears resemblances to Budina’s text, and the motif of the letter which the Turks dictated to Zrínyi’s sons’ captured trumpeter in an attempt to persuade the captain to surrender. Although this last motif is lacking in Hungarian and Western European sources, it can be found in the historical work of Selaniki Mustafa, who himself participated in the siege.39 Morover, the descriptions of the sortie are totally diffferent in the two versions. The adapter omitted any negative remarks made about the Habsburgs and inserted an excerpt from Paolo Giovio which denies any accusations concerning Zrínyi’s murder. The historical, literary and artistic traditions of the 16th century are closely brought together in the volume De Sigetho Hungariae propugnaculo [On Sziget, the Bastion of Hungary] (Wittenberg, 1587), illustrated with three woodcut representations of Zrínyi and his coat of arms.40 This collection is an important stage of mythicization: It magnifijies the historical signifijicance of the siege, stylizes the fijigure of Zrínyi and raises it to symbolic heights. It demonstrates the process in the course of which late humanist writers and poets turn the defense and loss of Sziget into victory, the turning point of the Ottoman wars. The volume, which comprises Latin-language prose and poetry composed in 38 39 40

Cf. Lajos Hopp, Az „antemurale” és „conformitas” humanista eszméje a magyar–lengyel hagyományban. Budapest, 1992, 111–115. Selânikî Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Selânikî. Ed. by Mehmet İpşirli, İstanbul, 1989, 32–33. Albinus Nivemontanus, De Sigetho.

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the two decades following the siege, was commissioned by Imre Forgách, Zrínyi’s son-in-law, at his own expense. Moreover, Forgách contributed to the anthology with a manuscript he himself had compiled. The book was edited by Petrus Albinus Nivemontius, a Wittenberg teacher of poetics, and follows a well thought-out programme: It assembles earlier historical writings and poetry related to Zrínyi, and supplements them with more recent ones. The fijirst re-worked excerpt of Ferenc Forgách’s historical work was also published in Wittenberg, including the changes already mentioned; moreover, the volume included Budina’s account, together with the inherited poems. In total, the book contains about 50 poems, 38 of which praise Zrínyi, and the rest − with one exception − the publisher. They vary in the genres of commemoration, mourning and glorifijication.41 Some of the poems were written by Hungarian and Transylvanian noblemen, Calvinist preachers and preceptors living in Ottoman Hungary and by Silesian intellectuals, while others were composed by Hungarians studying in Wittenberg. A shared theme is the comparison of Zrínyi to Roman and Greek heroes; they apotheosize him, referring to him as the “Phoenix of Hungary”, the champion of Christianity, or the victor. The paradoxical idea of the “defeated victor” appears in its most elaborated form in Nicolaus Rhedingerus’ poem: Ergo quid invictos iactus Romane Camillos? Quid Fabios? Gentis numina a magna tuae? Vivi illi: hic etiam avulsa cervice triumphat, Illi victores: hic quoque victus ovat. [Oh, Roman, how come you take pride in your invincible Camilli? / And why in the Fabii? Are they the great protecting spirits of your nation? / They are alive; but he [that is, Zrínyi], triumphs with his neck severed. / They are victorious; but he rejoices in defeat.] Albinus Nivemontius describes Zrínyi’s armaments and speech, and then compares him to a “lion of great courage”, whose merits, perseverance and valour will live eternally. Bálint Szikszai Hellopeus, whose four poems were included in the volume, narrates the events of the siege through Zrínyi. He puts the captain on a par with Hector, who also sacrifijiced his life for his nation. According to Zrínyi’s fijictitious farewell speech, the defenders’ souls will be elevated into heaven by angels. Zrínyi, rising from his grave, warns Hungarian 41

András Szabó, ‘Das Zrínyi-Album (Wittenberg 1587) im Lichte der neueren Forschung’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 151–158.

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nobility: Spare the people, fijight and do not trust allies. Mátyás Ilóczy is the only author in the volume who attributes Süleyman’s death to Zrínyi. Several of the writers highlight Zrínyi’s importance in Europe, and apply the idea of “antemurale” to Sziget. Hieronymus Wolf considers Hungary the bulwark of Germany; Pál Fabricius goes as far as stating that Zrínyi was the “saviour shield of the whole Christian land”. The idea also appears that Zrínyi’s death was a propitiation to God for the sins the Hungarians had committed, and therefore the country will be preserved from ruination. This anthology, prepared by international cooperation, elevated the siege of Sziget to the rank of a historical turning point, an event that determined the fate of Hungary and the Christian world. In the meantime, it transformed the capture of the castle into a defeat that broke the Turk’s strength, and created the myth of a victorious defeat. It placed the siege into the centre of the Ottoman‒Hungarian wars, making it the bearer of Hungary’s fate. By applying to Sziget and Zrínyi the topos of Hungary being the “bastion of Christianity” it attributed an European signifijicance to Sziget. The collection shows that around 1587 the memory of Zrínyi and Sziget existed as a representative historical tradition and as a victory-myth in the family and in that segment of Croatian‒Slovenian, Hungarian and German intelligentsia which considered it important to keep alive the past and to work out new patterns of identity. Later treatments of the topic, including the poet Zrínyi’s epic, were to a great extent inspired by the humanist tradition, the European perspective, the exaltation of captain Zrínyi and the new motifs manifested in the collection. All this also signals that the siege of Sziget went through a quick process of mythicization; by the end of the 16th century the fijigure of Zrínyi had reached mythological dimensions as a result of the interaction between textual canonization, poetry and historiography.

The Afffective Fictionalization of Patriotism From the beginning of the 17th century, Zrínyi and Sziget played a crucial role in the ideology of independence wars and in the construction of a new national mythology. The most detailed historical description of the siege was made by the royalist patriot Miklós Istvánfffy, who continued the tradition of humanist historiography. His work entitled Historiarum de rebus Ungaricis libri XXXIV [The 34 Books of the History of the Hungarian People] (Cologne, 1622) was

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written more than 30 years after the siege of Sziget.42 It discusses the events of the period between 1490 and 1613, and the narration of the siege is placed in the 23rd book. Istvánfffy based his work mostly on Črnko–Budina and Forgách, and supplemented these with his own memories and family traditions. He presents the position of Sziget, the structure of the castle, the Turkish camp and the siege in detail. He calls some of the defenders by name, and mentions some typical characteristics of theirs. He reports in detail Zrínyi’s death, the fate of his head, and Süleyman’s decease. He creates efffective scenes, makes Zrínyi speak at length twice, and puts him on a parallel with King Matthias. His major goal is to demonstrate examples of heroic virtues and to propagate the idea of a war to liberate Hungary from Ottoman oppression. He transmits the thought of Hungary being the “bastion of Christianity” with force, and in order to serve this ideal he inflates the story of the siege almost to epic heights. The Hungarian translation of Historiarum was made in 1629, but it existed solely as a manuscript until the beginning of our century.43 In the winter of 1647–48 captain Zrínyi’s great-grandson of the same name composed his heroic epic poem entitled Obsidio Sygethiana [The Siege of Sziget (The Zrinyiad)], which is indisputably the most substantial literary treatment of the subject.44 Of the epic poets, Zrínyi was the only one to have been an active soldier and a general. Another special aspect of the work is that Zrínyi elaborated his own family’s mythology. The epic is an important piece of European baroque, which summarizes, transforms and expands the earlier tradition, and efffijiciently incites its later evolution. It consummates and puts into a new poetical dimension the process by which the idea of national independence and the defense of the country and of Christianity inspired heroic epic poetry encouraging anti-Ottoman sentiment in the eastern part of Central Europe.45 It was published in Vienna in 1651, in the collection Adriai tengernek Syrenaia Grofff Zrini Miklós [Count Nicolas Zrínyi, Siren of the Adriatic Sea], which, besides the epic, included lyric poems and heroic epigrams. Zrínyi dedicated the book to “the Hungarian nobility”. The poet’s younger brother Péter Zrínyi set about translating the epic between 1651 and 42

43 44 45

Nicolaus Istvánfffy, Historiarum de rebus Ungaricis libri XXXIV. Coloniae Agrippinae, 1622, 467–488. Cf. Miklós Istvánfffy, Historiae de rebus Ungaricis. A magyarok történetéből. Transl. by László Juhász, introd. and notes by György Székely. Budapest, 1962, 284–290, 338–356. Miklós Istvánfffy, Magyarok dolgairól írt históriája Tállyai Pál XVII. századi fordításában. Vols. I–III. Ed. by Péter Benits. Budapest, 2001–2009, 236–243, 411–427. Miklós Zrínyi, Összes Művei. Ed. and introd. by Sándor Iván Kovács, notes by Sándor Iván Kovács, Péter Kulcsár and Gábor Hausner. Budapest, 2003, 24–222. István Lőkös, Zrínyi eposzának horvát epikai előzményei. Debrecen, 1997, 127–151.

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1655, and then made the Croatian translation of the whole volume, adjusted to the expectations of the Croatian readership. The work was entitled Adrianszkoga mora Syrena Grofff Zrinszki Petar [Count Peter Zrínyi, Siren of the Adriatic Sea] (Venice, 1660). This double volume written by the Zrínyi brothers counts as an original literary phenomenon in the age. In addition to its Hungarian and Croatian versions, the epic can now be read in English, French and German.46 Based on the pattern of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the epic is divided into 15 books, the number of stanzas symbolically referring to the year of the siege. This number symbolism is present in some other details as well. Besides praising his ancestor and making a memorial for him Zrínyi’s principal aim was to call upon the nation to chase the Turks out of Hungary, to suggest a plan of action and to set a moral example for it. Accordingly, the work is strongly impregnated with the intention of persuasion and make-believe. The structure of the plot follows the biblical historical-theological model of “national sin − collective punishment − conversion and possibility of salvation”, and Zrínyi varies this theme with the epics of Vergil, Girolamo Vida and Torquato Tasso, making use of the hero-centered structural approach in their works.47 His major statements are as follow: 1. The Ottoman conquest is God’s punishment for the sins of the Hungarians, namely, religious disunity, moral debauchery, avarice, rivalry, and military indiscipline; 2. The Sziget defenders are not peccants, their moral greatness is unquestionable; 3. Their heroic death is a sacrifijice which appeases God’s anger; 4. Their defeat is actually a victory that signals the beginning of the doom of the Ottoman Empire; 5. Lost virtues can be revived, through which the Turks are vincible and can be expelled from the country; 6. The prerequisites of liberation are the achievement of national unity and the renewal of military and moral powers. A central theme of the work is the maxim “one’s own defeat is actually a moral victory”, well-known from both earlier treatments of the topic and European cultural history. This thought efffijiciently feeds strategies of encouraging the defeated. National self-criticism constitutes an integral part 46

47

Graf Nikolaus Zrinyi, Der Fall von Sziget. Obsidio Sigetiana. Übersetzt von Arpad Guilleaume, mit einer Einleitung von Arpad Markó. Budapest, 1944; Miklós Zrínyi, The Siege of Sziget. Transl. by László Kőrössy, introd. by George Gömöri. Washington, DC., 2011; Miklós Zrínyi, La Zrinyiade ou Le Péril de Sziget épopée baroque du XVIIe siècle. (Édition bilingue hongrois–français.) Introduction, traduction et notes de Jean-Louis Vallin, postface de Farkas Gábor Kiss. Paris, 2015. László Szörényi, ‘Der Fall von Sziget im historischen Kontext des europäischen Heldenepos’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 185–197; Farkas Gábor Kiss, Imagináció és imitáció Zrínyi eposzában. Budapest, 2012; Gyula Laczházi, ‘A szenvedélyek és a költészet hatalma Zrínyi Miklós Syrena-kötetében’, in Réka Lengyel et al. (eds.), Amicitia. Tanulmányok Tüskés Gábor 60. születésnapjára, Budapest, 2015, 127–139.

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of the narration: Its main role is to provide an interpretation to history and to one’s own self, therefore developing a new national identity.48 In the exposition, the enumeration of sins and their contrast with the appraisal of the Hungarians of the past clarifijies and explains the conflict of the epic poem: His holy name receives no adoration, The blood his pure Son shed no veneration, Good deeds of charity no exhortation, Nor yet the old their due consideration. But with much foul language, moral turpitude, Hatred and jealousy men strive to delude, Indulging in slander and in conduct lewd, With theft and murder their ways long, long imbued. (I, 9–10) Zrínyi modifijies and fijictionalizes the historical data to an extent never seen before, and further increases the symbolic importance of the siege. The presentation of Süleyman and Zrínyi is initally realistic, but in the course of events the sultan is gradually transformed into a tyrant, a demonic fijigure, whereas Zrínyi becomes a mythical hero, a martyr, and a subject of glorifijication. The captain’s fate is sealed by the words of the crucifijix which bows before him three times during his prayer. At the end of the epic, his apotheosis gives a logical and realistic closure of the evolution of his character and faith. Although law always stands by Christians, the poet draws complex characters on both sides, and attributes admirable qualities to several Turkish fijigures. Zrínyi’s description is especially elaborate and multifaceted. In the fijinal battle, anachronistically, Süleyman dies by Zrínyi’s hand, and the soul of the deceased captain, together with those of the defenders, is taken to heaven by angels. The main characteristics of the narration include the delaying and variation of events, the sophisticated use of devices creating tension, and the detailed presentation of the shift in power relations between the two camps. In addition to the inserted detours and episodes, an important role is also attributed to dreams foreshadowing the events, supernatural elements, reiterative allusions to the denouement, speeches pre-empting the moral, fijictitious monologues woven into the plot and to prayers. The poet condenses the ten attempts at 48

István Bitskey, ‘“Mindenképpen emberek s vitézek legyünk” (Zrínyi Miklós nemzetképe)’, in Ildikó Horn et al. (eds.), Művészet és mesterség. Tisztelgő kötet R. Várkonyi Ágnes emlékére. Vol. I. Budapest, 2016, 349–360.

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storming into one, and inserts a tragic romance story and wedding scene on the Turkish side. Tools of make-believe feature details of weaponry, clashes, the accurate representations of the soldiers’ mentality, epithets, duels, speeches of exhortation and farewell, dialogues, and discussions. The themes of poetic reflections include, for example, the size of the Turkish army, the sultan’s character, fortune, revenge, the divine guidance of human fate, and poetic craftmanship. Christian doctrine, along with the Christian‒Muslim opposition, is a powerful engine of the events. Zrínyi puts any criticism of Germans and the expression of negative sentiment towards the ruling Habsburg dynasty into Turkish mouths. He takes a substantial part of his historical data from the Črnko– Budina text, Istvánfffy’s work, and from the poems of Karnarutić and Scheaseus.49 Zrínyi’s knowledge of antique epic traditions, 16th- and 17th-century poetics, and theories of ars historica literature can also be detected in the background, not to mention the inspiring efffect of humanist panegyric and the Wittenbergpublished anthology. The central elements of Zrínyi’s ars poetica include the close interconnection of rational analysis and heroifijication, political message and moral philosophy, fijiction and imitation, and the pursuit of subjectivity and polysemy. It is important to remark that the epic fijits into the context of the lyric poems in the volume, and can therefore be interpreted only in synthesis with them, as part of a composition carrying moral philosophical implications.50 There is a close connection between the subjective narrative strategy of the epic and the concept of emotions in the lyric poems. The moral and political ideal represented in the work is attested by the personal demeanour of the narrator. The Siege of Sziget is the expression of a secularized and self-critical concept of nation that overcomes confessional identity, and it is also a collection of topoi relating to national history. It evokes the parallelism in the destinies of the Hungarian and Old Testament Jewish peoples, the thought of Pannonia’s fertility ( fertilitas Pannoniae), and the idea of collective culpability. Zrínyi provides us with a community-building interpretation of the past and a political-military overview of the present, indicating the actions to follow. His categories of values are most succintly expressed in captain Zrínyi’s speech addressing his soldiers:

49 50

Rezső Szegedy, ‘Zrínyi Miklós és a Szigeti veszedelem a horvát költészetben’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 25 (1915) 291–299, 406–430. Gyula Laczházi, ‘Poetik der Leidenschaften in Zrínyis barocker Gedichtsammlung’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 174–184.

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We may not fijight for any other cause, But only for our Christian land adored, And for our wives, our children, our liege lord, To save our lives and honour draw the sword. (V, 27) The values listed here will later be completed by the ideas of fama bona (good faith), virtus (virtue), humanitas (humanity), gloria (glory), laus (praise) and aeternitas (eternity). Zrínyi transforms negative history into positive memory, building upon supra-national values that point towards the future.51 In the same way that Zrínyi’s work and its Croatian translation was inspired by Karnarutić’s epic, Pavao Vitezović Ritter drew freely upon The Siege of Sziget when writing his epic Odiljenje Sigetsko [The Farewell to Sziget], fijirst published in Linz in 1684, and then re-printed in Vienna the following year.

Cult-creation in the Context of National Resistance and Habsburg Imperial Ambitions Following Zrínyi’s epic poem, more than 80 years passed in Hungary without the publicaton of any new literary work on the siege of Sziget. The reason behind this is twofold: On the one hand, it would have been extremely difffijicult to compete with the standards set by Zrínyi. On the other hand, the historical context did not favour the literary treatment of such a patriotic subject, considering that these were the last decades of Ottoman occupation and the Habsburgs imposed absolutism on the country. The events of the Ottoman wars in Hungary provided an almost unexhaustible source to school drama in the 18th century. There is only one literary work related to Zrínyi that we know of from the fijirst half of the century, namely a drama written by Andreas Friz, a Spanish-born Jesuit of Pozsony (Bratislava).52 This Latin-language play was staged in Pozsony in 1738, and was originally intended as a school drama for rhetorical practice, but was then presented in the residence of the archbishop as well. The same year the text was published in print with the support of Imre Esterházy, archbishop of Esztergom. The play consists of 380 hexameter lines; it is divided into three acts, and played by only fijive actors. Unconventionally, Friz provides a familial frame to the conflict 51

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István Bitskey, ‘A nemzetsors toposzai a kora újkori magyar irodalomban’, in István Bitskey, Mars és Pallas között. Múltszemlélet és sorsértelmezés a régi magyarországi irodalomban. Debrecen, 2006, 37–60; Idem, ‘Die Topoi des nationalen Selbstverständnisses bei Zrínyi’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 159–173. Andreas Friz, Zrinius ad Sigethum. Posonii, 1738.

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between apparent failure of faith and unswerving patriotism. He is the fijirst playwright not to have staged Süleyman.53 In the fijirst scene Friz places Zrínyi’s son, ready to sacrifijice his life for the country, in Sziget castle. However, two of the castle soldiers warn him against the futility of continuing the fijight and offfer him an image of a heroic future, with the intention of using him to persuade Zrínyi to surrender to the Turks. In the second scene, the son categorically rejects the plan fijirst, but fijinally they manage to persuade him and he asks his father to surrender. Zrínyi appears only in the third scene as an athleta Christi (Christ’s champion), and imitates God and Abraham in being willing to sacrifijice his son. He resists fijiercely, vetoes all the arguments, and fijinally convinces his son and the soldiers that the only possibility is patriotic self-sacrifijice. In the closing scene they are all waiting for death together. The play lacks spectacular battle scenes and allegorical frameplays. Friz elevates the self-sacrifijice of Zrínyi and his son to a sacral level. His major aim is to emphasize the Christian defenders’ moral superiority and to present the idea of patriotism efffijiciently. The play was translated to Hungarian in 1753. Its signifijicance is increased by the fact that we know of 14 Zrínyi-themed Jesuit performances from the period between 1740 and 1770, staged in more than ten places, some of which could have been presentations of this play or a version of it.54 This means that the number of Zrínyi-related performances in Hungary exceeded those dealing with the 1552 siege of Eger. In the second part of the 18th century, Zrínyi was commonly represented as an example of Christian faith, loyalty to the king, and patriotism. The Jesuit Mátyás Platthy’s short Latin-language epic poem entitled Nicolaus Zrinyius was published by the poetics students of Nagyszombat (Trnava) University in 1751.55 The main source of the work was Istvánfffy. There is strong emphasis on the presentation of the Turkish and Hungarian camps, supported by a variety of tropes. Zrínyi is depicted as the fearless hero who is proud of his soldiers, but inflicts capital punishment on oath-breakers. For courage and power Platthy compares him to Hector. In his last words, Zrínyi holds up his own fate as an example to his descendants, and dedicates his soul to God, king and country. Following a temporary stagnation, the late 18th century sees the evolution of a real literary Zrínyi-cult in the frame of which he became a symbol of national 53 54 55

Márta Zsuzsanna Pintér, ‘Zrinius ad Sigethum. Théorie dramatique et pratique du théâtre dans l’œuvre d’Andreas Friz S. J.’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 242–257. Imre Varga and Márta Zsuzsanna Pintér, Történelem a színpadon. Magyar történelmi tárgyú iskoladrámák a 17–18. században. Budapest, 2000, 145–152. [Matthias Platthy], Nicolaus Zrinyius honori … neo-baccalaureorum, dum in Alma Archi-Episcopali Universitate S. J. Tyrnaviensi Prima A.A. L.L. et Philosophiae Laurea donaretur. Promotore R. P. Ignatio Sajgho …. A poesi Tyrnaviensi dicatus. Tyrnaviae, 1751.

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resistance, a desire to bring back lost grandeur, aspirations for independence, and, on the other side, the symbol of Habsburg imperial patriotism. The next Hungarian-language treatment of the topic was published in 1779, 120 years after Zrínyi’s epic. Sergeant János Kónyi composed a “Hungarian military romance” in verse, a genuine Zrínyi-adaptation, adjusted to the expectations of the age.56 It reflects a profane life philosophy: He abandons epic conventions and supra-natural motifs, and elaborates on the romantic strand. He compares Hungary to an oak tree which no element of nature can damage. The fijigure of Zrínyi is de-emphasized to some extent, and the theme of collective sacrifijice is accentuated. The language is characterized by popular expressions, richness of imagery and ironic humour. From the 1780s on, there are more and more Hungarian pieces of literature on the subject. In his 1782 epigram entitled Gróf Zrínyi Miklósról [On Count Miklós Zrínyi], Pál Ányos invokes Zrínyi and the Sziget heroes to protect Hungary against Joseph II’s rule.57 In the spirit of patriorism, he calls upon the nation not to cry over Zrínyi’s grave, for “no champion’s heart can be soaked in tears”. Andreas Friz’s already mentioned play was rewritten into Hungarian hexameter by Dávid Baróti Szabó in 1786. Baróti Szabó accentuated patriotic characteristics, gave Hungarian names to the two soldiers, and featured a third soldier, who was not there in the original and who also bore a Hungarian name.58 The author made several versions of the translation, and utilized the fijigure of Zrínyi in his own poetry. The rewritten text was published in print three times within a short period. Around 1790, Gedeon Ráday made an attempt to re-write Zrínyi’s epic in hexameter of which only 23 lines were fijinished, the rest re-worked in prose.59 A merit of Ráday is that he tried to keep to the epic as far as content is concerned. The main objective of the abovementioned adaptations is to strengthen national sentiment, culture, and the national aspect of literature, and also to refijine the language. The 1790s see the appearance of monarchist and Josephinist writers of German, Austrian and Hungarian origin who sympathize with the political system and put Zrínyi in the service of Habsburg interests in their German-language works, which were also translated into Hungarian. The fijirst to mention is Clemens Werthes, professor of arts at Pest University, who wrote a three-act tragedy 56 57 58 59

János Kónyi, Magyar hadi román, avagy gróf Zrínyi Miklósnak Sziget várban tett vitéz dolgai. Pest, 1779. Pál Ányos, ‘Munkáji’, in Magyar Minerva. Vol. 1. Bécs, 1798, 34. Dávid Baróti Szabó, ‘Zrínyi Szigetnél. Szomorú játék’, in Dávid Baróti Szabó, Vers-koszorú. Kassa, 1786, 7–36. Gedeon Ráday, ‘Grófff Zrínyi Miklós Szigeth Vára veszedelmének köttetlen beszédre-való fordítása’, in Magyar Museum. Vol. 3. Pest, 1789, 212fff.

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entitled Niklas Zrini, oder die Belagerung von Sigeth [Miklós Zrínyi or the Siege of Sziget] in 1790. The Hungarian translation of the play was published the same year.60 The plot follows the triple scheme of “ebbing hope of victory − undertaking a patriotic act − preparation for death”.61 The fijirst act centres around Zrínyi’s exhortative speech and the oath-taking. The captain’s son appears here as well, and he is erroneously believed to have been taken into Turkish captivity. The motif of the “generous” Turkish offfer in return for surrender is repeated several times. Zrínyi’s son’s sweetheart features as a new character. The second act treats the issues of indecision, regained unity, and the evasion of tragic conflict. Zrínyi receives a letter stating that he will receive his son back on condition that he surrenders the castle. The captain and his wife clash: Whereas the wife would sacrifijice anything for her son, Zrínyi considers honour more important than life. In his second speech, which constitutes the climax of the play, Zrínyi persuades his mutinous soldiers, and then his son returns unexpectedly, bringing the news of Süleyman’s death. The third act starts with a silent night scene, the defenders say goodbye to one another, and prepare for death. In his last speech, Zrínyi evokes the obligations of honour, and the play ends with Zrínyi’s wife blowing up the gunpowder tower with the Turkish intruders in it. In contrast with the protagonists of earlier works, here Zrínyi acts less consciously, his portrayal fluctuates. Werthes keeps to historical sources only partially, he attributes certain functions to other characters, and may have borrowed some of the motifs from Friz’s play. The defenders are represented as a group united by afffectionate family ties, and the motif of love also appears. In keeping with the expectations of the era, Werthes privatizes and emotionalizes the story. The structure is closed, and the idea of dying for honour and glory is in evidence from the very beginning. No conflict evolves between national and private interests, any such events diverge into another direction. The real prize is the preservation of one’s inner liberty in death. While praising Hungarian patriotism, Werthes emphasizes the idea of loyalty to the king.

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Friedrich August Clemens Werthes, Niklas Zrini, oder die Belagerung von Sigeth. Ein historisches Trauerspiel in drey Aufzügen. Wien, 1790; Friedrich August Clemens Werthes, Zríni Miklós, avagy Sziget várának veszedelme. Egy históriai szomorú-játék, három fel-vonásokban. Transl. by I[stván] Gy. Cs[épán]. Komárom, 1790. The critical edition of the Zrínyi-dramas by Werthes, Kind, Pyrker and Körner: Kálmán Kovács (ed.), „Zrínyi, Zriny, Zrinski”. Szigetvár német-magyar emlékezete 1790–1826. Debrecen, 2017. Robert Seidel, ‘Siegreiche Verlierer und empfijindsame Amazonen. Friedrich August Clemens Werthes’ Trauerspiel Niklas Zrini oder die Belagerung von Sigeth (1790)’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 258–273.

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From National Romanticism to the Critical Reflection of Memory The decades at the turn of the 1800s witness a real rebirth of the subject: Zrínyi was one of the fijirst to be canonized as a heroic and national ideal. In the course of the 19th century, Szigetvár became a famous memorial site of the Hungarian past, together with Eger and Mohács. Likewise captain Zrínyi was promoted as the symbol of moral standards set for Hungarians and became part of the national identity. The intentions and ambitions of the present were to a great extent projected onto idealized fijigures of the past, including Zrínyi. In the fijirst half of the 1800s the captain and the 17th-century Zrínyi-epic were considered of political importance, and were interpreted accordingly. In the second half of the century, Zrínyi was elevated to a cult fijigure symbolizing anti-German and anti-Austrian patriotism. The topic opened the way for sentimental expansion, the elaboration of tragi-comical situations, and the implementation of humour in the popular genres of the age. Most adaptations can be described in terms of tension between historical authenticity and exemplifijication, stereotyping and individualization, and normative evaluation and narrative methods of triggering sympathy. The inspirational power of literary tradition is demonstrated by the fact that Zrínyi remained the bearer of diffferent aspirations and complex meanings up until the end of the century; at the same time his fijigure underwent gradual secularization. At the turn of the century, it became more and more the practice to mention his name, soul or spirit and weave them into poems in diffferent correlations. For instance, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz uses Zrínyi to criticize followers of German trends (A borital mellett [Sipping Wine]), and Dániel Berzsenyi does so to encourage the degenerate nobility fijighting against the French in his poem Az ulmai ütközet [The Battle of Ulm]. András Fáy refers to Zrínyi in one of his tales which criticizes noblemen who still bask in the glory of their past.62 The same topic often appears in German romanticism as well. The fijirst autonomous work of this kind was Johann Fridrich Kind’s novelized historical narrative, published in Pest in 1808 and translated into Hungarian in 1817.63 This sentimental story is made up of 22 chapters, and it centres around general 62

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Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, Költemények. Vol. 3. Ed. by Ferenc Szilágyi. Budapest, 1992, 163, 777; Dániel Berzsenyi, Művei. Ed. by László Orosz. Budapest, 1999, 68–69, 540; András Fáy, Állatmesék. Ed. by Magda Erős, postscript by József Szauder. Budapest, 1964, 72–73. Johann Friedrich Kind, Nikolas Zriny, oder die Belagerung von Szigeth. Ein historisch-romantisches Gemälde …. Pest, 1808; Johann Friedrich Kind, Gróf Zrinyi Miklós, vagy Sziget várának ostromlása. Transl. by Péter Csery. Pest, 1817.

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Lőrinc Juranics’ love for Stephanie. Zrínyi is against this marriage, and dismisses Juranics after the secretly held wedding. He and his wife take an oath of allegiance and are allowed to stay in the castle. During the siege, Stephanie fijinds a manuscript on Juronics’s table: It is the story of Irene, a woman loved by Süleyman (recte Mehmet II the Conqueror) but beheaded for the janissaries’ sake. She reads it, realises what is going to happen to her, but when her husband returns home he cannot kill his wife. They die together in the sortie, and this is when the fijigure of Zrínyi steps forward.64 Some of the attempts of dramatization are less successful because they lack the possibility of development for the heroes and other characters. The majority of authors went back to the same sources either directly or indirectly, and they did not aspire to an original treatment of the historical material. All this entailed that the action and the motifs were to a great extent similar. János László [Johann Ladislaus] Pyrker, a Hungarian-born Austrian Cistercian, later archbishop of Eger, represents Zrínyi as the father of his soldiers and a husband worrying about his family in his fijive-act tragedy entitled Zrini’s Tod [Zrínyi’s Death] (Vienna, 1810). The captain knows he cannot expect any help from the king, but his loyalty is unswerving. A novel romantic motif is that he places his wife and daughter into safety in a subterranean corridor. Moreover, he is in the centre of the sortie scene. The play lacks Hungarian national spirit, instead it accentuates the ideal of an aulic Austrian imperial patriotism and dedication to the Habsburg sovereign. Pyrker’s drama was studied by Theodor Körner when writing his own fijiveact Zrínyi-themed tragedy, staged in Vienna in 1812.65 Unlike the plays of Werthes and Pyrker, Körner features other places besides Sziget, namely the Turkish camp and Belgrade. The historical context, the beginning of the liberating wars against Napoleon, appears only indirectly.66 The dramaturgical position is organized around the double opposition between politics and private life, and between friendship and inimicality. Zrínyi’s daughter Ilona and one of his soldiers, Juranics, become entangled in a romantic relationship. Zrínyi and Süleyman are primarily concerned with their own glory and immortality, and 64

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Cf. Bernhard Walcher, ‘Zrinyi im historischen Roman des 19. Jahrhunderts und der deutsche Philhellenismus. Joseph Alois Falckhs Roman Paul Juranitsch oder Die Türken vor Sigeth (1828)’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et litterae, 304–315. Theodor Körner, Sämtliche Werke in vier Bänden. Bd. 3. Einleitung von Hermann Fischer. Stuttgart, 1880, 3–94. Kálmán Kovács, ‘Theodor Körners Zriny. Die Wiedergeburt des Nikolaus Zrínyi um 1800’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 285–303; Kálmán Kovács, ‘Die Rezeption von Theodor Körners Zriny und die Konstruktion von nationalen Mythen’, Zagraber Germanistische Beiträge, Beiheft 9 (2006) 109–122.

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both validate their actions by appealing to the sense of community. At the climax Juranics stabs his sweetheart so that she should not be taken by the Turks. Körner borrowed the closing scene from Werthes’ play, the blowing up of the gunpowder tower. The play is based on the triple idea of patriotism − culture clash − romantic death-wish.67 The theme of “one’s own defeat is actually a moral victory” also appears in the piece. The work is found at the intersection of diffferent paradigms, and Körner uses keywords of various ideological content. It is perceptible that he accentuates the ideals of God, country and people more than the notion of the sovereign. By suggesting an almost fraternal relationship betwen Zrínyi and his soldiers Körner essentially represents a bourgeois-plebeian-patriotic tendency. The play saw several editions and was translated into English and French as well. It was translated into Hungarian by three persons and received sharp criticism. Its reception difffered in nature and dynamism in Hungary, Croatia, Austria and Germany. Its Croatian translation, published in 1840, served as the basis of the libretto of the 1876 Croatian national opera. The play became part of the Croatian national identity, and was regarded as a national symbol for a while in Hungary as well. Pál Szemere’s translation, made in 1818 but published only in 1826, had an influence on the Hungarian theatrical language.68 Szemere modifijied the ideological complexion of the drama, in the sense that he tried to eliminate plebeian allusions. Ferenc Kölcsey, a prominent critic of the time, wrote an elaborate criticism on the play reflecting its reception in contemporary Hungary.69 According to Kölcsey, Körner’s Zrínyi is a “German Zrínyi”, and he calls him to account for his knowledge of historical and current Hungarian afffairs. Moreover, Kölcsey thinks that Zrínyi is overshadowed by Süleyman in the play, although the latter is not a dramatic character either. The captain’s character varies between leader, patriot and father, but all in all he stays static. Kölcsey reproaches Körner for faults in dramaturgy, and considers Zrínyi’s epic poem better upon comparing the two works. Nevertheless, he admits that the author “wanted to glorify our Zrínyi and nation despite being a foreigner”. Kölcsey’s criticism, together with Szemere’s translation, was re-published in 1879.

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Roman Luckscheiter, ‘Theodor Körners Zriny-Drama und die Faszination von Tod und Niederlage’, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 274–284. Theodor Körner, Zrínyi. Vitézi szomorú játék öt felvonásban. Ed. by Dániel Petrichevich Horváth. Kolozsvár, 1819; Theodor Körner, ‘Zrínyi. Tragoedia öt felvonásban’, in Élet és Literatura. Transl. by Pál Szemere. Pest, 1826, 60fff. Ferenc Kölcsey, ‘Körner Zrínijéről’, in Idem, Minden munkái. Vol. 3. Ed. by József B. Eötvös, László Szalay and Pál Szemere. Pest, 1842, 173–228.

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Ferenc Kazinczy, a leading fijigure of the Hungarian language and literary reform, published the poet Zrínyi’s works in 1817,70 and in 1825 wrote a historical treatise entitled Zrínyi Miklós Szigetvárat [Miklós Zrínyi in Szigetvár].71 First he meditates on the notion of heroism, then presents Süleyman’s preparations and the castle, followed by Zrínyi’s portrayal. An important part of the treatise is Zrínyi’s fijictitious speech in which he highlights loyalty to religion, to the king, and to his “valiant companions”. In his fragmentary poem Szigetvár, Kazinczy prepares the description of the soldiers’ deaths by applying the well-known repertoire of early Romanticism to it.72 The heyday of Romanticism, or more precisely the 1820–30s, was a period when several poems treated the fijigures of both the captain and the poet Zrínyi, parallel to the strengthening of the nobility’s resistance (aiming at indepence from Austria) and to the commemorations in Szigetvár starting in 1833. The majority of these poems represent diffferent versions of patriotic poetry that evolved in the Reform Era. Mihály Vörösmarty’s elegy entitled Szigetvár (1822) is an outstanding example of the period.73 It was written after the poet’s visit to Szigetvár following his trip to Mohács and Siklós. Zrínyi’s epic was one of his preferred readings and had a substantial influence on his poetry. In a letter of 1822, he refers to Hungary as “Zrínyi’s country”. At the beginning of the poem, Vörösmarty evokes the venue and the battle fought there. Like the 17th-century poet, he contrasts the captain’s heroism to the present that has forgotten the “prospering of the country” and has wasted both money and glory: Te a’ hazáért halni tudál; dicső! Mi nem tudunk már érte csak élni is; [You could die for the fatherland; it was glorious! / Now we can’t so much as live for it.] By evoking the fijigure of Zrínyi, Vörösmarty calls attention to the helplessness of his generation and to the failure of the fijight for independence. In 1828, he composed a long elegy on the poet entitled Zrínyi, which starts with Hungary’s isolation and loneliness.74 It is characterized by the mixture of poetry and 70 71 72 73 74

Ferenc Kazinczy (ed.), Zrínyinek minden munkáji. Vols. I–II. Pest, 1817. Sámuel Igaz (ed.), Hebe. Bécs, 1825, 3–22. Ferenc Kazinczy, Összes költeményei. Vol. 1. Ed. by Lajos Abafiji. Budapest, 1879, 168. Mihály Vörösmarty, Kisebb költemények. Vol. I. (1826-ig). Ed. by Károly Horváth. Budapest, 1960, 192–193, 601–603. Vörösmarty, Kisebb költemények, Vol. II. (1827–1839). Ed. by Dezső Tóth and Károly Horváth. Budapest, 1960, 22–24, 302–309.

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prose, a sharp, occasionally retributory, pathetic tone, and the pain and disappointment felt when contrasting the unworthy present with the glorious past. Vörösmarty becomes absorbed in the poets’ visions, evokes the heroes of the epic poem, and explains that whereas the poet Zrínyi of the 17th century revived a glory historically given, he himself does not enjoy the earlier conditions of combining patriotic act with poetry, of experiencing battles and depicting them at fijirst-hand. Vörösmarty does not treat captain Zrínyi separately; rather he emphasizes the defenders, a group of people prepared to make any sacrifijice for their country. Another example that contrasts the active past with the whining present is his epigram entitled Sziget (1830).75 Varying Ányos’ well-known theme, he asks his compatriots not to weep over the fall of the castle, for Ott hős Zrínyi körűl bátor daliái nyugosznak: Gyönge panasz szózat bántja nagy álmaikat. [There around the heroic Zrínyi sleep his valiant knights: / a feeble lament will disturb their great dreams.] In the same way as Vörösmarty, Kölcsey also features both Zrínyis. In his philosophical poem Vanitatum Vanitas (1823), he mentions Zrínyi of Sziget with painful irony.76 In his spiritual-moral testament connecting social duties with love for the country, entitled Parainesis (Exhortation, 1834), he puts him on a par with Leonidas and Regulus.77 In what remains of his particularly gloomy poems Zrínyi éneke [Zrínyi’s Song] and Zrínyi második éneke [Zrínyi’s Second Song], it cannot be decided with certainty which Zrínyi they evoke as a symbol of patriotism.78 In the former, a person of no concrete identifijication answers the repeated questions of a wanderer; the reason behind pessimism is that “the glorious nation … / … lives but in name – it is no longer here!” The speaker can be the ghost of either Zrínyi, but it cannot be excluded that the dialogue is “the inner dialogue of a soul in constant fijight with ... itself”.79 The second poem is even stronger in tone, passing judgement on “the wild hordes 75 76 77 78

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Ibid., 88, 400–401. Ferenc Kölcsey, Versek és versfordítások. Ed. by G. Zoltán Szabó. Budapest, 2001, 116–118, 788–811. Ferenc Kölcsey, Parainesis Kölcsey Kálmánhoz. Ed. by Gábor Szigethy. Budapest, 1981. Kölcsey, Versek és versfordítások, 157–158, 176–177; Adam Makkai (ed.), In Quest of the ‘Miracle Stag’: The Poetry of Hungary. An Anthology of Hungarian Poetry in English Translation from the 13th Century to the Present. Vol. 1. Chicago, Budapest, 1996, 196–198. Kölcsey, Versek és versfordítások, 939–948.

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now attacking Hungary … her own children, once all nursed by her”. An argument for evoking captain Zrínyi in the poem is the concept that “patriotism proven by action and heroic death ... must have been a telling example ... when constrasted with today’s squalor”.80 In the 1840s, poets criticizing the present day and Austrian oppression raise their voices more than ever before. János Garay evokes the image of the German-led army delayed near Győr, procrastinating over the liberation of Sziget, in a narrative poem entitled Zrínyi Miklós Szigetnél [Nicholas Zrínyi at Sziget] (1846).81 He calls upon the Hungarians of the present to “save” Zrínyi. In Garay’s poetry Zrínyi is the symbol of liberty and the fijight against Austrian rule. Likewise Sándor Petőfiji also recalls captain Zrínyi in his poem A nemzethez [To the Nation], written in August 1848, a critical period in the Hungarian war of independence.82 He articulates his programme clearly when saying Haljunk meg, ha nem szabad már élnünk, … Legyen olyan minden ember, mintha Zrínyi Miklós unokája volna, [Let us die if we may no longer live / ... / Let every man be, as it were / Miklós Zrínyi’s descendant.] The 1850s witness the accentuation of romantic elements in the literary treatments of the subject, and the well-known aspects of loyalty to king and religion are given prominence for a short time. Traces of a diffferent perspective, together with new motifs, can be detected in Mór Jókai’s four-act tragedy in verse entitled A szigetvári vértanúk [The Martyrs of Szigetvár] (1860)83 and in Kálmán Mikszáth’s Új Zrínyiász [New Zrinyiad], an 1898 novel.84 Jókai begins to dismantle the paradigm of heroic remembrance, and Mikszáth completes this process, both writers heading towards a modern way of commemorative thinking. In Jókai’s tragedy, it is not the battle between Zrínyi and Süleyman that is emphasized, but the double conflict between Zrínyi’s sister Anna and Szelim,

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Ibid., 1013–1025. János Garay, Összes Munkái. Vol. 2. Ed. by József Ferenczy. Budapest, 1886, 53–57, 461–462 (here with the title: Zrínyi Miklós 1566. szept. 7.). Sándor Petőfiji, Összes Költeményei. Budapest, 1972, 959–961. Mór Jókai, Drámák (1843–1860). Ed. by Andor Solt. Budapest, 1971, 585–672. Kálmán Mikszáth, Összes Művei. Vol. 10: Regények és nagyobb elbeszélések. X. 1897–1898. Ed. by István Király. Budapest, 1957, 47–216.

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who denied his Hungarian identity and converted into a Muslim, and between Zrínyi and Szelim. Szelim used to be Anna’s fijiancé, but was taken into Turkish captivity, where he became the sultan’s favourite. Süleyman sends his message to Zrínyi by the hand of Szelim; in it he asks the captain not to sacrifijice himself for the West, but to ally himself to the Turks instead. The message is followed by various attempts at bribery, but Zrínyi rejects everything. It is not difffijicult to see that the allusions are actually Jókai’s references to servants of the Austrian political system and to careerists who deny the country for economic advantage. In the second act, Zrínyi charges Anna with escaping from the castle and reporting on the defenders’ situation. In the second scene of act II, Szelim sees a dream of Anna appearing in the form of Hunnia, holding a shield with Hungary’s coat of arms on it. The ending is typical of Romanticism: Thanks to Anna’s influence Szelim reconverts into a Hungarian, and the two young people become reconciled before they fijind death in the explosion. Jókai’s major aim is to criticize those who turn against the interests of the country, at the same time expressing his hope that turncoats can be good patriots after all. Moreover, the play represents the interaction of diffferent literary treatments on signifijicant Ottoman sieges: The love between the renegade and Anna is parallel to that of Omar and Ida in Vörösmarty’s epic poem Eger (1827). The Austrian censorship permitted the staging of the drama only after certain omissions, but even in its mutilated form it was one of the most frequently played pieces during absolutism, for its function as a wake-up call to the nation. For decades, it was considered a representative national drama. It became part of commemoration ceremonies; it was staged at gala performances on the 300th anniversary of Zrínyi’s death and at the millennium.85 Mikszáth’s novel is a persiflage on the fake national identity prevailing in the last decades of the 19th century, and on the self-deceiving lies of social and political afffairs and modes of thinking in that era. It is simultaneously an important attempt to renew the literary Zrínyi tradition. The writer follows the scheme of Ruritanian romance, placing an imaginary historical situation into the centre of the story.86 He employs the strategy of historiographic metafijiction, and uses this event of the past only as a starting point; he develops, updates and makes a parody of it, taking it into the direction of the anecdotic and absurd. In actual fact, he brings forward the Day of the Last Judgement, and places the resurrected Zrínyi and his companions into the reality of late 19th85 86

György Eisemann, Mikszáth Kálmán. Budapest, 1998, 60–66. Eszter Tarjányi, ‘Mikszáth Ruritániája. A populáris irodalom hazai előzménye’, Irodalomismeret 1 (2016) 44–59.

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century Hungary. The news of the resurrection reaches Rome, and the pope greets Zrínyi, the champion who “died a heroic death for the Christian faith”, in an encyclical. As they go along Zrínyi and his companions get into more and more absurd situations. The Parliament discusses their case several times, and Mikszáth features well-known political fijigures of the age. They organize big events to celebrate them; on their way to Budapest they attend a performance of the Jókai-play written about them. When Zrínyi is in need of money, he surrounds a country house with his men, turns out the proprietor, and locks undesired persons into the cellar. The defenders listen to the romantic-nationalist historian Kálmán Thaly’s presentation on the kuruc era. As a bank director, Zrínyi commits fraud in the capital, and has the indignant shareholders slaughtered. He is charged with disorderly conduct and is imprisoned along with his soldiers. The king pardons them, and orders Zrínyi to Vienna for a meeting. He appoints him counsellor, presents him with the castle of Vajdahunyad, and offfers him lavish yearly allowances. In the Epilogue the gift castle is defended against the Cossacks, the sortie is re-enacted, and the attackers kill the captain for a second time. His soul is taken to heaven by angels, a direct reference to the poet Zrínyi’s epic poem. In Mikszáth’s work, Zrínyi provides only the frame of the authorial intent and becomes the protagonist of a politic satire, his myth allegorically projected onto fijiction. In sketching his character, Mikszáth could have relied on the current historiographical results of the second part of the 19th century. Nevertheless, his view on history is more diffferentiated and sensitive than that of most contemporaneous historians.87 He does not question heroism, but associates it with qualities and behavioural patterns which are unacceptable in the modern world. By contrasting the past with the present, it becomes possible to depict the key fijigures of late 19th-century political, social and cultural life in Hungary, and also to criticize the Parliament and public afffairs. The major devices of criticism and the representation of society are alienation, imitation, analogy, disguise, humour, satire and irony. The question proposed in the “Zrínyi-debate” in Parliament, that is, whether it is possible to reconcile moral ideals of the 16th century with those of the present, is left open by Mikszáth. He amusingly creates a novel playing-fijield for this national theme: Instead of nurturing national identity, he emphasizes the parodistic demythologizing tendency, and contrasts it with the mythology of a heroic past. 87

Péter Hajdu, ‘A szigetvári hős feltámadása. Mikszáth és az Új Zrínyiász’, Forrás 42:5 (2010) 44–49.

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His re-writing of history is efffortless and free of pathos, a wish to develop a new historical identity. With the title and the end-quotation Mikszáth signals that he considers his work and its epic antecedent the imitation of both historical and literary texts. By projecting diffferent timelines on one another, he reflects on the question of the narratability of the past, and raises the issue of creative versus imitative memory. While placing the subject of the narrative into the context of historical representation, he gives a critique of the ceremonial commemoration of national history. He implies that what memory maintains, and what the present wants to pride itself on − being the heir to that certain past − cannot be reconciled with a concrete experience of the past. He recognizes that the interpretation of history is always determined by the positions of the present. The genuine relationship to history is an illusion, the past can at best survive as an inclusion in the present. Nationalist-conservative criticism revealed its incomprehension of the novel saying that “the pathos of [Zrínyi’s] martyrdom does not tolerate humour of any sort”.

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The Entangled Memory of the Battle of Sziget (1566) in Early Modern Europe Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik University of Graz [email protected]

Introduction On 29 December 1566 a 20-year-old Danish nobleman lost a part of his nose in a duel in the hanseatic city of Rostock located on the Baltic Sea, in the north of the Holy Roman Empire. The duel was the consequence of a heated dispute at a Christmas celebration in the house of one of his professors, which had taken place two days previously. It was about a mathematical formula that this young gentleman, who was a student at the University of Rostock at that time, had used to predict the death of Sultan Süleyman the Magnifijicent based on a lunar eclipse that he had observed over the city on 28 October 1566.1 In addition to enthusiastically jumping to this conclusion in the last days of October he had also composed and posted some dramatic poems in Latin hexameters at the university announcing his astrological foretelling of the death of the “Great Turk”2 – and in doing so, he brought this to public attention. Unfortunately, the news soon arrived that Süleyman had indeed died, but almost seven weeks before the lunar eclipse. Nevertheless, this ill-fated prediction did not hinder the great career of the young student: Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) became – besides Kepler and Copernicus – one of the most famous astronomers of the early modern period.3 In the 1570s 1 For more detail, see Victor E. Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe. With contributions by John R. Christianson. Cambridge, 1990, 21–23. 2 See John L. E. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe. A Picture of Scientifijic Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, 1890, 26; Tycho Brahe, Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia. Vol. 1. Ed. by John L. E. Dreyer. Copenhagen, 1913, 135–136. 3 He was well known and appreciated – also due to his observatories Uraniborg and Stjerneborg on the isle of Hven built in 1576, one year before the Tophane observatory was founded by Murad III in Istanbul – in both the western part of the European continent and the Ottoman Empire. See John Robert Christianson, On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe, Science, and Culture in the 16th Century. Cambridge, 2002; Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientifijic Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560–1660. Baltimore, 2010, 46.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_025

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and 1580s he worked as a court astronomer to Frederick II, king of Denmark and Norway, and in the late 1590s he was appointed imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague.4 The delineated story of the loss of his nose is, however, emblematic for the process of how the memory of the Battle of Sziget was created in the western part of the continent for the following reasons: 1.   It includes two of the main elements of the overall strategy how the Ottoman threat was communicated in medieval and early modern Europe: Through the interpretation of celestial events as portents with the current Ottoman ruler at the centre. Brahe’s example shows that these elements were well known at that time, even in Denmark and in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. 2.   The above mentioned quarrel at the Christmas celebration, as well as Brahe’s posting up of his (handwritten) Latin poems on the university billboard in Rostock,5 reveal a possible communication environment in which the Battle of Sziget and Süleyman’s death were embedded and discussed in intellectual circles in the second half of 1566. 3.   Brahe himself represents one of the members of the early modern Republic of Letters who actively contributed to the creation of this memory and intentionally used it for their individual (career and/or political) purposes. This might be illustrated by one of his pamphlets kept in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, titled De Eclipsi Lunari, 1573, Mense Decembri.6 Besides the lunar eclipse of 1566 and his prediction of the sultan’s death in addition to his astronomical-astrological analyses of the current lunar eclipse, Brahe delineates the war between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans as a war between good and evil or Gog and Magog7 emphasizing the service of the Habsburg dynasty to Europe as a saviour against the “Turks”.8 It was no accident that the date of compilation was the year after Archduke Rudolf had been elected and crowned king 4 Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg; Gábor Almási, ‘Tycho Brahe and the Separation of Astronomy from Astrology: The Making of a New Scientifijic Discourseʼ, Science in Context 26:1 (2013) 3–30. 5 For the role of university billboards as platforms for intellectual communication and academic disputation in 16th-century universities, see Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther. 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation. New York, 2015, X. 6 Although it was intended to be printed, the pamphlet was left in manuscript. For more detail, see Dreyer, Tycho Brahe, 26. 7 Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientifijic Exchanges, 180. 8 This corresponds with the rhetoric of the political propaganda of Rudolf II’s reign that emphasised his apocalyptic role as the saviour of Europe from the Ottomans. For more detail, see Karl Vocelka, Die politische Propaganda Kaiser Rudolfs II.: 1576–1612. Wien, 1981, 219–301.

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of Hungary in 1572:9 The pamphlet was dedicated to him. Tycho Brahe was quietly aware of Rudolf’s deep interest in astronomy and astrology.10 Therefore, seeking his patronage, this text was an important means of drawing the next emperor’s attention to him and his scientifijic work. All this illustrates the entangledness of acts of remembering11 of an individual who neither witnessed the Battle of Sziget nor was in any form involved in the organisation of the defence against the Ottomans or the so-called Türkenhilfe. And, in 1566, he lived far from the main centres of European politics and information. Nonetheless, he produced manifestations of memory – his poems and pamphlets – that show us that we have to go beyond an a priori setting of homogenous commemorating groups by investigating the memory of the battle in the western part of Europe. Instead – and this is the main hypothesis of this study – the act of remembering has to be understood as a heterogeneous, plural and dynamic process depending on the motivation of an actor’s intervention in the fijield of memory. Therefore, the meaning of this intervention, the protagonist’s material and symbolic resources and their expectations of benefijits by contributing to the creation of the memory are at the focus of my investigations. In doing so, special attention will be paid to the “travels” of memory12 (the reconstruction of its routes and interplays), to its shifting character as well as to its carriers because all this has shaped the mediated content.

The Creation of the Memory of the Battle of Sziget (1566) My research has shown that regarding the creation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget three main periods can be distinguished: The fijirst that was, however, the most productive one, starts in the last quarter of 1566 and ended in the early 1660s, and this is the period that the present study intends to focus on. One of the main characteristics of this period was the creation of a “multimedia 9 10

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On his election and coronation, see Géza Pálfffy, A Magyar Királyság és a Habsburg Monarchia a 16. században. (História Könyvtár. Monográfijiák, 27.) Budapest, 2011, 335–344. In the 1570s scholars at the Habsburg court did also actively participate in the cosmological polemic of that time and interpreted celestial events as portents as well as manifestations of an organic universe. For more detail on this as well as on Rudolf’s deep interest in astronomy and astrology, see Robert J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History, 1576–1612. New York, 1973. For the concept of “entangled memory” in more detail, see Gregor Feindt et al, ‘Entangled Memory: Toward a Third Wave in Memory Studies’, History and Memory 53 (February 2014) 24–44. For the concept of “travelling memory”, see Astrid Erll, ‘Travelling Memory’, Parallax 17:4 (2011) 4–18.

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memoir” of the battle and a canon of mnemonic signifijiers (visual and in form of texts) that were used and instrumentalized by individuals in the following centuries according to the current political circumstances for their own purposes. Information (textual and visual) that circulated in manuscript form (written or drawn) in the months between August and November 1566, fijirstly in the Mediterranean and then to the north of the Alps, was fundamental for this process. At this point a long-lasting myth of historiography has to be challenged: According to this it was assumed that in August and at the beginning of September the European public or at least those of the Holy Roman Empire were informed by printed broadsheets and pamphlets of the ongoing siege of Sziget on a regular basis.13 This was, however, quite impossible if we consider the time span and the conditions of travel and transportation at that time,14 the printing process as well as the fact that printed reports have always relied on manuscript news.15 Contemporaries of Nicholas Zrínyi (Miklós Zrínyi/Nikola Zrinski) and Süleyman I knew exactly that and were aware of the advantages of manuscript news networks in the last quarter of the 16th century. On the basis of handwritten avvisi, by 29 September and 3 October the agents of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) in Antwerp and Paris, had already reported to William Cecil in London directly or through a middleman the reliable news that Sziget had been conquered by the Ottomans.16 And, they wrote on 1 November from 13

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For this assumption, see, for instance, Nóra G. Etényi, ʻDie beiden Zrínyis in der deutschsprachigen Flugschriftenliteratur des 16. und 17. Jahrhundertsʼ, in Wilhelm Kühlmann and Gábor Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae. Die beiden Nikolaus Zrínyi und Europa. Tübingen, 2009, 57. For more detail, see Wolfgang Behringer, Im Zeichen des Merkur: Reichspost und Kommunikationsrevolution in der Frühen Neuzeit. Göttingen, 2003, 53–97. Andrew Pettegree, The Invention of News. How the World Came to Know About Itself. New Haven, London, 2014, 17–138. “There is news of the taking of Sigeth. … Sigeth was taken after fijifteen assaults, the last endured three days long…” Richard Clough to Thomas Gersham. Antwerp, 29 September 1566: Allan James Crosby (ed.), Calendar of State Papers Foreign. Elisabeth, Volume 8: 1566–1568. London, 1871, No. 737. Thomas Gersham was an English merchant and fijinancial agent of the Crown who acted as ambassador plenipotentiary to the court of Duchess Margret of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands at that time. He passed many of the letters of Richard Clough to William Cecil who was Secretary of State at that time as the example from 29 September 1566 shows. On that date the agent of Queen Elisabeth I in Paris, Hugh Fitzwilliam, had merely the information that “Sigeth is so fijiercely assailed by the Turks that without speedy succor it is not possible to hold out”. Hugh Fitzwilliam to Cecil. Paris, 29 September 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 738. Four days later he reported the reliable news that “the Turk has taken Sigeth”. Hugh Fitzwilliam to Cecil. Paris, 3 October 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 741.

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Paris and on 10 November from Antwerp that the “Grand Turk” was dead.17 However, a handwritten newsletter compiled on 19 October 1566 in Antwerp and sent to the Medici court in Florence shows that in this Western European centre of trade and information18 in the north there were already in midOctober rumours regarding the passing of Sultan Süleyman.19 According to the author of this handwritten avviso these rumours were gaining strength around the date of compilation (19 October 1566).20 It is noticeable that all these reports concentrated on the Ottoman conquest of Sziget, on the death of Süleyman I as well as on the following steps of the Ottomans, their fortifijication activities in Sziget21 and on Süleyman’s successor, Selim II, and did not pay so much attention to Zrínyi himself. These are also the main topics that German printed news pamphlets – published not earlier than late October/November 1566 in Augsburg and 17

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It is worth mentioning that in his letter Hugh Fitzwilliam did also analyse the consequences of the death of Süleyman in the context of the on-going Dutch revolt: “If his army avoid Hungary the matters of Flanders will make a great division in these parts of Christendom.” Furthermore, he explicitly emphasized that “There has been no battle between the Turk and the Emperor”. See Hugh Fitzwilliam to Cecil. Paris, 1 November 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 782. How well Hugh Fitzwilliam in Paris was informed it might be shown by the fact that the Spanish envoy in Vienna, Thomas Perrenot de Granvelle, was only one day later (2 November 1566) able to inform his king, Philipp II, in a letter about the passing of Süleyman I; he delineates that the news was submitted by the Venetian envoy who arrived back in Vienna on 28 October 1566. See De Viena, a II. de November: 1566. Samu Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris et diplomaticus Comitis Nicolai de Zrini / Zrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős életére vonatkozó levelek és okiratok. Vol. II: Levelek 1566–1574. (Monumenta Hungariae Historica. Diplomataria, 30.) Budapest, 1899, 90: No. LXXI (cf. also Alfredo Alvar’s study in this volume). For the letter of Richard Clough, see Richard Clough to Gersham. Antwerp, 10 November 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 792. Clough was, however, well informed about the consequences of Süleyman’s death in the Ottoman Empire and reported on 17 November 1566 that “The new Turk has already taken his journey towards Hungary”. Richard Clough to Gersham. Antwerp, 17 November 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 810. For this role of Antwerp in the 16th century, see Paul Arblaster, ʻAntwerp and Brussels as Inter-European Spaces in News Exchangeʼ, in Brendan Dooley (ed.), The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe. Farnham, 2010, 193–206. Similar rumours reached, for instance, Kanizsa in Habsburg Hungary only eleven days earlier on 8 October 1566: Barabás (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós, 85. Avvisi from Antwerp, 19 October 1566: Archivio di Stato Firenze, Epistolary Collection of the Medici Grand Dukes, Corpus of Avvisi (1537–1743), Volume 4254, fol. 207. An undated avviso written after the Ottoman capture of Sziget and transmitted to the court of Francesco I de Medici in Florence reported that “The Turks are hastily fortifying Sziget”: Archivio di Stato Firenze, Epistolary Collection of the Medici Grand Dukes, Corpus of Avvisi (1537–1743), Volume 4148, fol. 242.

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Nuremberg – focused on, although a few of them intensively dealt with the heroic death of Zrínyi, too. One of them, for instance, surmised that his head was buried somewhere in Carinthia.22 Regarding the audience and the impact of these news pamphlets it has to be outlined that we still do not know how many copies were published and did actually appear on the market and consequently on the streets in the last quarter of 1566. This uncertainty applies also generally to their contribution to the creation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget in early modern Western Europe since these little works were intended to be read, passed around and then discarded.23 Furthermore, regarding the publication of news pamphlets on the Battle of Sziget in the Holy Roman Empire it has to be emphasized that in 1566 only very few publishers were involved in this process.24 They did – and this fact surprised 22

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Newe zeitung/von eroberung vnd verlust/der beder Vestungen/Guila vnd Ziget/in Vngern/1566. Gedruckt zu Nurmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler. National Széchényi Library, Röpl. 254 and App. H. 411. Fol. 3; for a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/00/11/dd/1/ ropl_0254.pdf (10. 05. 2017). In addition, for unexperienced news readers who were not involved in politics of that time – and they made up the majority of the population – it was tough going to interpret and understand the content of one single news pamphlet without knowing the current political-military context, the main protagonists in far-offf places as well as their backgrounds and intentions. On the other side, their lack of periodicity and the fact that they served as a means of local authorities and rulers for putting their point of view and justifijication of their policies to their citizens, posed difffijiculties for those whose (economic and political) decisions relied on an accurate flow of reliable information. This is the reason why the latter groups preferred manuscript news networks even after the birth of printed news pamphlets which offfered a very diffferent presentation of news and intended fijirst of all to persuade. For more detail, see Pettegree, The Invention of News, 73–74; Zsuzsa Barbarics and Renate Pieper, ‘Handwritten Newsletters as a Means of Communication in Early Modern Europeʼ, in Francisco Bethencourt and Florike Egmond (eds.), Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1700. Cambridge, 2007, 53–79; Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, ʻThe Coexistence of Manuscript and Print: Handwritten Newsletters in the Second Century of Print: 1540–1640ʼ, in Malcolm Walsby and Graeme Kemp (eds.), The Book Triumphant. Print in Transition in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Leiden, Boston, 2011, 347–368. These are the following: Hans Zimmermann and Matthäus Franck in Augsburg, Valentin Geyßler in Nuremberg and Albrecht Gros in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. There is only one printer and publisher outside Bavaria, the French-born Niklaus Bassée in Frankfurt am Main, who additionally published a single edition of a news pamphlet on the ongoing Ottoman war in Hungary that mentioned Sziget as well. However, it is based on a summary of events compiled on 30 August 1566 in Vienna and concentrates on the operations of Lazarus Schwendi. See Warhaffftige Newe Zeitungen welcher massen Herrn Lazarus von Schwendi Ritter und der Roem. Kay. May. Oberster im Zips die Tuercken und Tartern zum andernmal erlegt geschlagen etliche schloesser erobert. Unnd auch was die Tuercken gegen die beiden Stetten und verstungen gula und Ziget weiter furgenommen haben den 30. Augusti auß Wien bestettiget. Anno M.D.LVI. Frankfurt am Main: Niklaus Basse, 1566.

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the author of this article even more – print only a handful editions of news pamphlets dealing exactly with the battle, the death of Süleyman I and/or Nicholas Zrínyi. Thus, this research outcome25 challenges clearly the former assumption in literature according to which the Battle of Sziget faced an enormous echo in contemporary Holy Roman Empire due to the intensity and quantity of news pamphlets published at the close of the event they described.26 The Augsburg printer and publisher Hans Zimmermann devoted two, his colleagues Matthäus Franck in Augsburg, Valentin Geißler in Nuremberg and Albrecht Gros in the small town Rothenburg ob der Tauber each one single news pamphlet edition to the Ottoman conquest of the fortress Sziget as well as the death of Nicholas Zrínyi and/or Süleyman I. Since news pamphlets were printed anonymously they do not deliver exact information about who penned their texts and commissioned their publication.27 Only in the case of the Nuremberg publisher Valentin Geißler we do have an immediate indication that it might have been the city leaders of Nuremberg themselves who gave him access to a manuscript report compiled in the military camp of the emperor in Győr28 and commissioned its publication because Geißler run one of the two print shops of the city council.29 His news pamphlet30 reports about the fall of both the fortress of Gyula and Sziget. In 25

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It is based on the extensive research that I conducted in the digital collections of both German and Austrian libraries and the National Széchényi Library in Budapest as well as in the printed and digital catalogues of 16th-century printed books, broadsheets, pamphlets and visual materials. For the printed catalogues, see for instance Carl Göllner, Turcica. Die Türkenfrage in der öfffentlichen Meinung Europas im 16. Jahrhundert. Bucureşti, Baden-Baden, 1978; Ilona Hubay, Magyar vonatkozású röplapok, újságlapok, röpiratok az Országos Széchényi Könyvtárban, 1480–1718. Budapest, 1948. For this assumption, see, for example, Etényi, ʻDie beiden Zrínyis’, 57–58. At this point, it has to be also emphasized that the dates named in the title of the news pamphlets do not refer to the date of the publication but the date of compilation of the manuscript report that the printed text based on. The problem of the veracity of these printed sources remained acute in the 17th century, too. It is not clear whether the whole text was composed in the camp of the emperor in Hungary and transmitted in this form fijirstly to the War Council in Vienna and from there to the city council of Nuremberg or additions were made later at the court in Vienna or in Nuremberg. See ‘Valentin Geißler’, in Manfred H. Grieb (ed.), Nürnberger Künstlerlexikon. Bildende Künstler, Kunsthandwerker, Gelehrte, Sammler, Kulturschafffende und Mäzene vom 12. bis zur Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts. München, 2007, 460. Newe zeitung/ von eroberung vnd verlust/ der beder Vestungen/ Guila vnd Zuget/ in Vngern/ 1566. Gedruckt zu Nürmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler. National Széchényi Library, App. H. 411 and Röpl. 254; for a digital copy, see: http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/50/55/ dd/1/App_H_0411.pdf; http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/00/11/dd/1/ropl_0254.pdf (08. 06. 2017).

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doing so, it presents Nicholas Zrínyi as a hero of Emperor Maximilian II who decided for his heroic death (instead of Ottoman captivity) because of his loyalty and devoted service to the ruler.31 According to the long tradition of the anti-Ottoman propaganda of the Habsburg emperors,32 the text excoriates the Ottomans and interprets the campaign of Süleyman I as a punishment of God for the sins of the Christians.33 It also reveals that at the date of publication the publisher was not aware of the passing of Süleyman I. On the contrary, the news pamphlet emphasizes the ongoing threat for the Holy Roman Empire because at that time Süleyman was thought to be on the way to the camp of the emperor in Győr.34 Therefore, it generally calls upon (fijinancial) support for the emperor and prayers asking for God’s assistance for Maximilian II and his army.35 This appeal was implicitly addressed to the estates of the Holy Roman Empire who hold their meetings (Reichstage) in the south-German cities such as Nuremberg, Augsburg and Regensburg. Valentin Geißlers news pamphlet has to be, therefore, understood as a tool of the emperor’s propaganda seeking for their fijinancial support for Maximilian II and his army against the Ottomans. Very similar arguments and intentions behind their publication are to fijind in both news pamphlet editions published by Hans Zimmermann in Augsburg36 who was specialised in small prints.37 Containing the same narrative these editions difffer only concerning their front cover: A woodcut illustration depicting the siege of an unspecifijied fortress/town by the “Turks” decorates 31 32

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Newe zeitung/ von eroberung vnd verlust/ … Nürmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler, 2–3 (Röpl. 254). This is also underlined by the woodcut illustration at the front page of the news pamphlet: It depicts a generic battle scene where under a double eagle knights are fijighting against “Turkish” soldiers. Newe zeitung von eroberung vnd verlust/ … Nürmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler, 4 (Röpl. 254). Newe zeitung von eroberung vnd verlust/ … Nürmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler, 3–4 (Röpl. 254). Newe zeitung/ von eroberung vnd verlust/ … Nürmberg/ bey Valentin Geyßler, 5 (Röpl. 254). Relation vnd Extract/ von aussagen vnd besonderen Kundtschaffften des Türckens eroberung Zigeths/ erfolgt aufff den 7. Tag Septembris. 1566. [Augsburg, Hans Zimmermann, 1566]. National Széchényi Library, Budapest, Röpl. 265 as well as Röpl. 266, and App. H. 414; for digital copies see: http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/00/01/dd/1/ropl_0265.pdf; http:// oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/00/99/84/dd/1/ropl_0266.pdf; http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/ 00/01/50/58/dd/1/App_H_0414.pdf (08. 06. 2017). Such as news pamphlets, broadsheets, ballad broadsheet and pamphlets. He worked as a printer and publisher in Augsburg between 1548–1549 and 1570 and published approximately 100 titles. In 1570 he had to leave the city because of his difffijiculties with censorship; see Thomas Wilhelm, ʻEin Liederbüchlein als Corpus delicti. Protestantische Liedflugschriften im Besitz der Minkdorfer Klarissenäbtissin Susanna von Oberburg’, in Ralf Bogner et al (eds.), Realität als Herausforderung. Literatur in ihren konkreten historischen Kontexten. Berlin, New York, 2011, 112.

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only one of the editions.38 The text itself is based on a report penned in the imperial camp in Győr on 29 September 1566.39 This fact indicates – similarly to the news pamphlet of Valentin Geißler – the intervention of the emperor’s propaganda in the fijield of memory of the Battle of Sziget: Zrínyi is presented here as a hero of Maximilian II, too. However, the author of these news pamphlets made an additional step towards the creation of a “Zrínyi-cult” when he wrote “as long as the world exists, his glory will be praised” and asked God for Nicholas Zrínyiʼs and his soldiers’ resurrection.40 A further similarity with the above mentioned news pamphlet is that the information about Süleyman’s death is missing. Instead, it is explicitly emphasised that he aims at continuing his campaign this time against the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs, threating fijirstly Styria.41 In addition, the pamphlet explains that after conquering the fortress Sziget Süleyman I entered the town and the fortress triumphant.42 However, it is generally striking that there are only two news pamphlet editions explicitly devoted to his death.43 Both are based on a manuscript newsletter compiled on 26 October 1566 in Venice44 that build up on information sent from Constantinople. According to this, Süleyman the Magnifijicent passed away on 5 (sic!) September 1566 in Fünfkirchen (Pécs) (sic!) which is thought to be located fijive miles below Sziget.45 Furthermore, his death is 38 39

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The woodcut illustration is to seen at the front page of Röpl. 265. The visual element is missing at the front cover of the other edition (Röpl. 266 and App. H. 414). This is revealed by the end note of the publication: Im Kays. Veldleger/ bey Raab den 29 Septembris 1566, in Relation vnd Extract [Augsburg, Hans Zimmermann, 1566], 13 (Röpl. 265). The news pamphlet reproduces probably verbatim this manuscript report. …das so lang die Welt steht/ man sein ehr loben wirdt, in Relation vnd Extract [Hans Zimmermann, Augsburg, 1566], 9 (Röpl. 265). Relation vnd Extract [Augsburg, Hans Zimmermann, 1566], 7–8 (Röpl. 265). Ibid., 6 (Röpl. 265). These are the following: Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers/ Soldan Solimanus/ tödtlichem abgang/ vnd aufffsatzung seins Sons Selins. M. D. LXVI. [Augsburg, Matthäus Franck]. National Széchényi Library, Röpl. 264; for a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk. hu/storage/00/01/00/02/dd/1/ropl_0264.pdf. (08.06.2017). Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers/ Soldan Solimanus/ tödtlichem abgang/ vnd aufffsatzung seins Sons Selins. M. D. LXVI. Gedruckt zu Roten-/burg vfff der Tau-/ber durch Al-/brechten Gros. National Széchényi Library, Röpl. 263; for a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/ storage/00/01/00/03/dd/1/ropl_0263.pdf (08. 06. 2017). It is shown by the heading at the fijirst page of the news pamphlet: Außzug/ Newer Zeytung auß Venedig/ von dem sechs vnd zweintzigsten Octobris, in Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers. Augsburg, Matthäus Franck, 1 (Röpl. 264). ‘Von Constantinopel wirdt glaubwirdig geschriben vnd angezeygt/das der Türckisch Keyser/den fünffften Septembris/zu Fünfffkirchen/fünfff meyl vnderhalb Zygeth/seines allters im sechvndsibentzigsten Jar/gewißlich gestorben’, in Newe Zeytungen/ Von des

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directly linked up in the text with the circumstances of Selim’s accession to the throne. In doing so, the author of these news pamphlets outlines that there are serious doubts on the assertion that he died a natural death. Instead, it is assumed that he passed away from starvation carried out by his pashas who wished his son to access the throne.46 Regarding the new sultan the news pamphlets remind of the ongoing threat for the Holy Roman Empire since Selim might start a new campaign next spring. Therefore, they appeal to “wake up” and recognise the danger47 because with the fall of Sziget the Holy Roman Empire lost one of its main ramparts. This call implicitly addresses – similarly to the above mentioned news pamphlets – the estates of the Holy Roman Empire asking for their fijinancial support for the emperor. Consequently, we may assume that this part of the text in both editions was penned not in Venice but in Augsburg according to the tradition of the antiOttoman propaganda48 and the whole text was fijirst published in the print shop of Matthäus Franck in Augsburg. The edition of Albrecht Gros who was the sole printer in Rothenburg ob der Tauber49 relies on this publication. This is also shown by the fact that they consist of identical texts and at the front cover of both editions we fijind similar, though very strange and unusual woodcut illustrations that ought to depict – surprisingly not Süleyman I – but his son Selim II.50 This implicates that the emphasis was put much more on

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Türgkischen Keysers. Augsburg, Matthäus Franck, 1 (Röpl. 264). The author’s information is inaccurate not only regarding the date and the place of the passing of Süleyman but his age, too. Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers, Augsburg, Matthäus Franck, 1 (Röpl. 264). Darumb so wach aufff du Edle Teütsche Nation … So thu nun yetzt deine Augen aufff/ vnd sihe/was grosse grewliche gefahr/ jammer vnd noht/ jetzt vor augen steht…, in Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers. Augsburg, Matthäus Franck, 4 (Röpl. 264). It is shown by the same elements which were used in the aforementioned news pamphlets, too. For instance, that the Ottomans were sent by God in order to punish Christians for their sins or if there will be no (fijinancial) support for the emperor in order to organize the defense against the Ottomans this lack of assistance would bring the territories of the Holy Roman Empire under the yoke of the Ottomans. Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers. Augsburg, Matthäus Franck, 4 (Röpl. 264). From the mid-15th century on it was a general practice that news on the war with the Ottomans was dispatched onward to Rothenburg. Pettegree, Invention of News, 55. For the printer Albrecht Gros in more detail, see Christoph Reske, Die Buchdrucker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgebiet. Auf der Grundlage des gleichnamigen Werkes von Josef Benzing. (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekwesen, 51.) Wiesbaden, 2007, 801. In the case of the edition printed by Albrecht Gros in Rothenburg ob der Tauber it is shown by the notice “Selin” placed above the illustration. Newe Zeytungen/ Von des Türgkischen Keysers/ … Gedruckt zu Roten-/burg vfff der Tau-/ber durch Al-/brechten Gros, Röpl. 263.

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the ongoing threat through the new sultan and his plans than on the passing of Süleyman the Magnifijicent.51 All further news pamphlets which came out in the print shops of the aforementioned printers and publishers deal generally with the Ottoman war in Hungary in 1566 and mention only occasionally the siege of Sziget as one of the places where the emperor’s soldiers fought against the Ottomans.52 In addition, these pamphlets have in common that they are all based on manuscript reports compiled in the military camp of the emperor or at the court in Vienna. This fact underlines their task as a means of imperial policy described above in detail. This applies also to both ballad pamphlet editions which were explicitly devoted to the events of the Ottoman war in Hungary in 1566 and published by the aforementioned printer Matthäus Franck in Augsburg.53 Ballad pamphlets represent a genre of news pamphlet publishing. The authors of these song texts turned contemporary events into ballads, however, these prints do not offfer musical notation. These political songs were performed by “the most marginal fijigures in the world of news”, the itinerant pedlars, mostly in the marketplaces and alleyways of larger cities and towns. After singing out their wares, these “news singers” offfered the printed versions for sale.54 In the case of the two ballad pamphlets published by Matthäus Franck there is a notice concerning the intonation on the basis of which the

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The quality of this woodcut illustration as well as the above mentioned visuals showing unspecifijic battle scenes and sieges of fortresses underline that visual materials created in Venice at that time were not known by these printers and publishers in the south-German cities. For Valentin Geißler in Nuremberg, see App. H. 418/Röpl. 270, 268, 259, App. H. 2556/ Röpl. 249, 246; for Matthäus Franck in Augsburg: Röpl. 267; for Albrecht Gros: App. H. 1813; for Hans Zimmermann in Augsburg: App. H. 1817, App. H. 413, App. H. 417, Röpl. 260, 255, 245, 256. Ein schön newes Lied/ darinn gemeldet wirdt/ was diß 1566. Jar ist außgericht worden/ von dem Herrn Lazarus von Schwende/ von dem Herrn Keretschin Obersten zu Jula/ Auch von dem thewren Helden Grafffen von Serin/ wie gar standhaffftig vnd Rittelich er sich gehalten hat. Vnnd ist im thon wie vom König Ludwig auß Vngern. Gedruckt zu Augsburg/ durch Mattheum Francken. National Széchényi Library, App. H. 405; for a digital copy, see http:// oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/24/58/dd/1/App_H_0405.pdf (08.06.2017); Ein schön newes Klaglied/ darinn kürtzlich bemeldet wirdt/ wie der Türck diß 1566. Jar so jämmerlich die Christen ermordt vnd vmbbracht/ auch wie er Schlösser/ Stätt/ Märckt vnd Dörfffer zurissen vnd zeschleifffet/ sonderlich vom Zigeth vnnd dem thewren Helden Grafffen von Serin/ wie er so standthaffftig sein leben geendet hat/ Im Thon: So wolt ich gern singen/ wann ich vor trawen möchte/ ec. Gedruckt zu Augsburg/ durch Mattheum Francken. National Széchényi Library, App. H. 404; for a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/24/59/dd/1/ App_H_0404.pdf (08. 06. 2017). For more detail, see Pettegree, The Invention of News, 121–126.

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song text was to be performed.55 The intonation wie vom König Ludwig auß Vngern56 as a mnemonic signifijier aims at linking the memory of the Battle of Mohács (1526) and King Louis II with the memory of the Battle of Sziget (1566) and Nicholas Zrínyi. The latter is presented in both song text editions – similarly to the above mentioned news pamphlets – as a hero of Maximilian II who died a heroic death as a saviour of Christianity. However, the sermons, prayers and processions held at the end of 1566 and in the fijirst half of 1567 might have had more influence on the broader public. They were decreed by authorities such as Queen Elizabeth I57 and the Archbishop of Canterbury for churches in England, by Pope Pius V for Venice,58 by the Catholic bishop Urban Sagstetter from Gurk in Carinthia for Vienna,59 or by the Protestant authorities in Maastricht60 in order to commemorate the 55 56 57 58

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For the ballad pamphlet Ein schön newes Klaglied/… (App. H. 404) the recommended intonation is the following: Im Thon: So wolt ich gern singen/ wann ich vor trawen möchte/ ec. Ein schön newes Lied/… Vnnd ist im thon wie vom König Ludwig auß Vngern. Gedruckt zu Augsburg/ durch Mattheum Francken, App. H. 405. Enikő Molnár Basa, ‘English and Hungarian Cultural Contacts in the 16th Centuryʼ, Hungarian Studies 10:2 (1995) 213. In an avviso compiled in Venice, 24 August 1566, and sent to the Medici court in Florence it is reported that prior to the Battle of Sziget a solemn procession was held in Venice declared by Pope Pius V to invoke victory against infijidels. Archivio di Stato Firenze, Epistolary Collection of the Medici Grand Dukes, Corpus of Avvisi (1537–1743), Volume 4148, fol. 246. For more detail, see Christine M. Gigler, ʻ“Gaistliche Kriegsrüstung”. Die Türkenpredigten des Gurker Bischofs Urban Sagstetter (1566/67)ʼ, in Marlene Kurz et al (eds.), Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie. Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150-jährigen Bestehens des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung Wien, 22.–25. September 2004. München, 2005, 213–227. In that context Nóra G. Etényi stressed the role of Catholic priest Wolfgang Schmeltzl. She describes him as a preacher from Nuremberg who had been an eyewitness of the campaign of the emperor in 1566 and as a consequence composed a hymn as a manifestation of memory of the Battle of Sziget; see G. Etényi, ʻDie beiden Zrínyisʼ, 2009, 57–58, and note 16. However, the poet and composer Wolfgang Schmeltzl was a priest and schoolmaster in St. Lorenzen am Steinfeld in Lower Austria and died already in 1564. This man of letters did indeed pen a hymn in order to commemorate the Ottoman siege of Sziget. Though, it concerns the siege ten years earlier in 1556 and this is why he praised in his Ein new Lied the merits of Emperor Ferdinand I instead of Maximilian II. For Wolfgang Schmelztl’s biography in more detail, see Manfred Kendlik, ‘Schmeltzl, Wolfgangʼ, in Neue Deutsche Biographie 23 (2007) 128. See also Ein new Lied/ Gemacht zu Ehren dem Durchleutigisten/ Fürsten vnd Hernn/ Herrn Ferdinand/ …/als General Veld=/hauptman dieses Zugs in Hungern/ durch/ Wolfgang Schmältzl Pfarherrn zu/ Sant Laurentzen aufff dem/ Stainfeld./ In Thulner melodey./ M. D. LVI./ Gedruckt zu Wienn in Osterreich/ durch/ Raphaeln Hofhalter vnnd/ Caspar Kraffft. Vienna, Austrian National Library, CP. 4. G. 1. Richard Clough to Thomas Gersham. Antwerp, 29 September 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 737.

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heroic death of the defenders of Sziget saving Europe/“Christianity” from the Ottomans. In addition to his prayers in the collegiate church in Tübingen after the fall of Sziget in 1566,61 the Lutheran theologian and chancellor of the University of Tübingen, Jacob Andrea commissioned the publication of his sermons with clear instructions on how to perform them at home on a daily basis.62 The same strategy can be observed also at the Catholic side, as the publication of the anti-Ottoman sermons of the aforementioned Catholic bishop Urban Sagstetter from Gurk in 1567 shows.63 Another decisive step towards creating a memory of the battle was made by Ferenac Črnko who was an eyewitness of the siege and a page of the then Nicholas Zrínyi. He penned his Croatian manuscript64 after he had been 61

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Siegfried Raeder, ʻDie Türkenpredigten des Jakob Andreäʼ, in Martin Brecht (ed.), Theologen und Theologie an der Universität Tübingen. Tübingen, 1977, 96–122; Márta Fata, ʻStudenten aus Ungarn und Siebenbürgen an der Universität Tübingen. Eine 500 Jahre lange Beziehungs- und Wirkungsgeschichteʼ, in Márta Fata et al (eds.), Peregrinatio Hungarica. Studenten aus Ungarn an deutschen und österreichischen Hochschulen vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart, 2006, 241. Dreyzehen Predigen vom Türcken. … Wie jhme zubegegnen/ vnd wider jhne glücklich zustreiten/ Vnnd von seinem endtlichen Vndergang. Geprediget durch Jacobum Andree/ D. Probst zu Tübingen/ vnnd bey der Vniversitet daselbsten Cantzlern. Allen Christen/ besonders an den Türckischen Gräntzen/ nutzlich vnnd tröstlich zulesen. … Getruckt zu Tübingen/ bey Vlrich Morharts Wittib. M. D. LXVIII. Special Collections of the University Library in Graz, Sign. I 54593. See also: Damaris Grimmesmann, Krieg mit dem Wort. Türkenpredigten des 16. Jahrhunderts im Alten Reich. Berlin, Boston, 2016, 109–112. As the front page of the publication informs he was also administrator of the diocese Vienna and member of the imperial council in Vienna at that time. For a digital copy of the publication of his sermons, see Gaistliche Kriegsrüstung, Das ist, Christliche Buss vnnd Trostpredigen, sampt angeheffften vermanungen zu embsigem vnd andechtigen Gebet, wider den grausamen Tyrannen vnd Ertzfeind Christlichen Namens vnd Glaubens den Türcken vnd desselben Blutdurstigs fürnemen/ damit Er die Christenhait im verschinen M D LXVI Jar an den Osterreichischen Gräntzen abermals mit Heereskraffft überzogen/ damals gepredigt zu Vienna in Osterreich/ Durch Den Hochwürdigen in Gott Fürsten vnd Herrn/ Herrn Urban Bischouen zu Gurgk/ Röm. Kay. Mt. ec. Rath vnd Administratorn des Bistumbs Wienn. Gedruckt zu Wien in Osterreich/ durch Caspar Stainhofer. Anno M D LXVII. http://digital. onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ202365402 (25. 04. 2017). It is worth to mention that in 1566 two anti-Ottoman sermons of the then Wenzeslaus Linck (1483–1547) were published in Vienna by the same printer in order to invoke victory against the Ottomans in Sziget; see Ein Bitgesang zu Gott Vater, Sun und heiligen Geist, inn gegenwirtiger Türcken Noth … Anno 1566. Sampt zwayen schönen christlichen Gebeten gegen den Erbfeind dem Türcken Go tumb Hilfff an zuruefffen. Gedruckt zu Wienn in Osterreich: durch Caspar Stainhofer, 1566. National Széchenyi Library, App. H. 403. For the published text of his memoir, see Ferenac Črnko, Podsjedanje i osvojenje Sigeta = Opsada Sigeta I. Ed. by Milan Ratković. Zagreb, 1971, 1–27. It is not clear how many copies of this text existed and circulated in manuscript form in the late 1560s. For the “modern” science community the original text was not known until 1911 when a copy with Glago-

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liberated from Ottoman captivity by George Zrínyi (György Zrínyi/Juraj IV. Zrinski, 1549–1603), the son of Nicholas,65 so far no earlier than 1567. The fijirst editions in print, however, represent diffferent interventions into the fijield of memory. The Spanish nobleman and men of letters, Alfonso de Ulloa (ca. 1529– 1570),66 had similar motives to Tycho Brahe: He had the ambition of becoming an imperial court historian to Emperor Maximilian II.67 So, in Venice he published in 157068 an Italian version of Črnko’s text that he presented as his

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litian letters was discovered. For more information, see József Bajza, ʻZrínyi és Karnarutić’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 47 (1937) 135–137. A Glagolitic copy of Črnko’s text is kept in the archive of Prince Karl Auersperg in Upper Austria, in the town of Losenteinleiten. See further the studies by Damir Karbić and Gábor Tüskés in this volume. This fact and Črnko’s close connection with George Zrínyi in the following period may allow the assumption that his intervention into the memory of the Battle of Sziget was strongly encouraged by the son of Nicholas Zrínyi. This might be underlined also by the circumstance that Črnko penned his memoir at one of the residences of the Zrínyi family. In addition, Črnko seems to have had the ambition of a military career at the Habsburg military border. In a letter from 28 August 1574 George Zrínyi asked the Hungarian Chamber in Pozsony to pay 2,000 florin to Ferenac Črnko in order to support him as castellan of the fortress Kanizsa and in his position in the district captain-generalcy of Transdanubia. According to his mentor, Črnko had been appointed to these positions by the emperor himself previously; see Csáktornya, 28 August 1574. Barabás (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós, 112: No. XCVII. In the 1560s he served the Spanish envoy in Venice as his secretary. In addition to that, he was also active as an author and translator. Paola Bellomi, ʻAlfonso de Ulloa’, in David Thomas, Christian–Muslim Relations 1500–1900. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/ entries/christian-muslim-relations-ii/alfonso-de-ulloa-COM_26564#COM-26564-0002 (20. 04. 2017). Gábor Almási, The Uses of Humanism: Johannes Sambucus (1531–1584), Andreas Dudith (1533–1589), and the Republic of Letters in East Central Europe. Leiden, Boston, 2009, 160. Historia di Zighet ispvgnata da Svliman re de Tvrchi, l’anno MDLXVI. Nuouamente mandata in luce. In Venetia: Appresso Bolognino Zaltieri, 1570; for a digital copy, see http://digital. onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ156831604 (26. 01. 2017). One year earlier Alfonso de Ulloa published another text dealing with the Battle of Sziget concentrating on the death of Süleyman I and the succession of his son Selim II to the throne: Alfonso de Ulloa, ʻLe cose fatte in Ungheria l’anno MDLXVI da sultan Solimano, con la narratione della morte di esso sotto Seghetto et la creatione de Selim, suo fijigliuolo’, in Idem, Historia dell’ impresa di Tripoli di Barbaria. Nouvamente mandata in luce de Alfonso Ulloa. Alla quale sono state aggiunte dal medesimo la cose fatte in Ungheria l’anno MDLXVI da sultan Solimano. Venezia, appresso haer. Melchiore I Sessa, 1569. In the case of another publication from 1569 on the siege of Sziget it is not quite clear who the author (or translator) of this Italian text was. The book itself that was published in the print shop of Johann Criegher (a German printer and engraver who was a native from Pomerania) in Turin does not contain any information regarding the author. However, Gábor Petneházi mentions it as a translation completed by Alfonso de Ulloa on the basis of the book of Samuel Budina. Gábor Petneházi, ‘Egy kevésbé heroikus gesztus? Zrínyi ujjának mikro-

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own at the imperial court in Vienna.69 Johannes Sambucus (János Zsámboki) who was competing with de Ulloa for the aforementioned position and also came out with an essay on the Battle of Sziget that time,70 discovered this plagiarism71 and disseminated this knowledge in the network of the Republic of Letters. Nevertheless, de Ulloa’s decision to publish his aforementioned texts in Venice, the printing capital and mercantile centre of the Mediterranean, and there by influential publishers and book merchants of the city, such as the heirs of Melchiore Sessa or Bolognino Zaltieri, had a considerable impact on the creation of memory of the Battle of Sziget south of the Alps: The bookmen Sessa and Zaltieri had a highly ramifijied sales system and were in contact with

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fijilológiája, avagy a comma Zrinianum’, in Enikő Békés, Péter Kasza and Réka Lengyel (eds.), Humanista történetírás és neolatin irodalom a 15–18. századi Magyarországon. Budapest, 2015, 66–73. According to Gábor Almási it was Ferenac Črnko himself who commissioned the publication of his manuscript on the Battle of Sziget in the print shop of Johann Criegher in Turin; see Almási, The Uses of Humanism, 161: note 58. For a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/35/54/dd/1/App_H_0434.pdf (15. 04. 2017). A similar phenomenon can be observed in the case of an account on the siege of Malta (1565) and a history of recent Ottoman wars in Hungary published in 1570. The fijirst one was written by Pierre Gentil de Vendome and de Ulloa used his text without referring to its proper author. H. A. Balbi, Some Bibliographical Notes on the First Book Printed on the Siege of Malta (1565): Written by Pierre Gentil de Vendome … Utilized by Alfonso Ulloa Without Acknowledgment or Mention of the Author... Malta, 1932. The book on the history of recent Ottoman wars in Hungary with a detailed description on the siege of Sziget in 1566 was plagiarized by de Ulloa from Pietro Bizarri’s Historia della Guerra fatta in Ungheria (Lyon, 1568). It was printed by the same publisher in Venice, the famous Bolognino Zaltieri, who was also the publisher of the plagiarized version of Črnko’s memoir. See Le Historie di Evropa del Sig. Alfonso Vlloa, Nuouamente mandate in luce. Nellequali principalmente si contiene la guerra vltimamente fatte in Vngheria tra Massimiliano Imperatore de’Christiani, & Sultan Sulimano Re de’ Turchi. … Con Privilegio. In Venetia, appresso Bolognino Zaltieri. M D LXX; for a digital copy, see http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer. faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ156831409 (15. 04. 2017). Regarding the plagiarism of de Ulloa in more detail, see Massimo Firpo, ‘Pietro Bizarri e la storia della Guerra d’Ungheriaʼ, in Vittore Branca (ed.), Venezia e Ungheria nel Rinascimento. Florence, 1973, 461–467. Alfonso de Ulloa seems, however, to have had a weakness for forging generally: In 1568 he was arrested and tried in Venice for a serious crime of having counterfeited a license of print. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence of death was changed to life imprisonment. That means that de Ulloa was imprisoned when his plagiarized works on the Battle of Sziget were published in 1569 and 1570. For more detail regarding his imprisonment, see Angela Nuovo, Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance. Leiden, 2013, 243. His short manuscript describing the siege of Sziget and Gyula (De Giula et Zigethi exitu, 1566) consists of three pages and was published in one of the main centres of print, Frankfurt am Main in 1581 in the appendix of a Bonfijini-edition. Pál Fodor and Szabolcs Varga, ʻZrínyi Miklós és Szulejmán halála’, Történelmi Szemle 58:2 (2016) 186. This might be considered part of the overall strategy of Sambucus who tried to disqualify his rival for the imperial historian’s post. Almási, The Uses of Humanism, 161.

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booksellers on commission throughout Italy and Spain and participated in book fairs in Italy and in Lyon on a regular basis.72 Therefore, we may assume that de Ulloa’s books were essential manifestations of the memory of the Battle of Sziget in the Romance-speaking Mediterranean world. It also applies to Pietro Bizarri’s Italian narrative on the current Ottoman wars in Hungary that was published in Lyon, the centre of the French book market in 1568.73 This Italian humanist, poet and historian,74 who was even though – similarly to de Ulloa – not an eyewitness of the Battle of Sziget but reported to William Cecil on the ongoing Ottoman war in Hungary from Venice between September and November 1566 on a regular basis,75 dedicated his book to Francis Russell, the Earl of Bredford.76 The latter was one of the most influential politicians and diplomats of Elizabethan England77 and the main patron of Bizarri after he left the continent for the British Isles because of his 72 73

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These book fairs were also visited, for instance, by book merchants from the Balkans or from France. For more information, see Nuovo, Book Trade, 67–84. Historia de Pietro Bizari. Della guerra fatta in Ungheria dall’ inuittissimo Imperatore de Christiani, contra quello de Turchi: Con la narratione de tutte quelle cose che sono auuenute in Europa, dall’ anno 1564, insino all’ anno 1568. In Lyone: appresso Gvliel. Rovillio. M. D. LXVIII; for a digital copy, see https://books.google.at/books?id=xOMrrDSvdCAC&pg=PP1&hl=hu&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false (15. 04. 2017). Pietro Bizarri was trained in classical letters in Venice where he had converted to Protestantism in 1542–1543. He left Italy in 1545 due to his support of the Reformation for Germany. After the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) he moved to England where he spent periods of his life with interruptions such as in 1566 in Venice or 1568 in Lyon. For more details, see Anne Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformation, c. 1535–1585. London, New York, 2016, 96. In a letter written on 21 October 1566 in Venice he informed William Cecil about the taking of Sziget by the Ottomans. In doing so, he refers to news that were sent from Vienna on 10 October 1566 as his sources. See Pietro Bizarri to Cecil. Venice, 21 October 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, No. 769. To a letter compiled on 15 September 1566 and containing intelligence sent from Vienna of 7 September 1566, Bizarri attached a plan of the fortress of Sziget that was engraved at Venice in 1566; Pietro Bizarri to Cecil. Venice, 15 September 1566: Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Nos. 716–717. According to this we may state that one of the main visual mnemonic signifijiers (the plan of the fortress of Sziget) for the creation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget was available at the English court on a comparably very early date (mid-October or end of October 1566 at the latest). See ʻAll’ Illvstrissim. Signore il Sig. Francesco Rossello, Conte di Bedfordia, Cauallier dell’ordine della Garattiera, Gouernator di Beruico, et Consigliero del la serenißima Reina d’Inghilterra’, in Historia die Pietro Bizari. Della guerra fatta in Ungheria, fols. 2r–4v. Bizarri dated his preface as follows: Di Lione á 12. D’Agosto 1568 (fol. 4v). The fijirm Protestant Russell who was educated at the University of Cambridge was appointed by Queen Elisabeth I upon her accession in 1558 to the Privy Council and sent on embassies to the French king and to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. For more information, see ʻFrancis Russel, Earl of Bedford (c. 1527–1585)’, in John A. Wagner and Susan Walters Schmid (eds.), Encyclopedia of Tudor England. Vol. I. Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford, 2012, 974.

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Protestant religion.78 However, it seems to be no accident why Bizarri devoted exactly this book to Russell thanking him for his generous support:79 The time span of Bizarri’s narrative (1564–1568) corresponds exactly to the period in which his patron held a similar position to Nicholas Zrínyi in the mid-1560s. Between 1564 and 1568 Russell was responsible – as warden of the east marches of England and governor of the town Berwick locating in the immediate proximity of the Scottish border80 – for the defence of the most important border area of England during the conflict between Queen Elisabeth I and Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. In addition to Bizarri’s engagement with keen Italianists and humanist scholars in England, especially with a group of alumni of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge,81 it is due to this immediate analogy between the contemporary events and their main protagonists/heroes in Hungary (Zrínyi) and in Britain (Russell) that Bizarri’s book and therefore his intervention into the memory of the Battle of Sziget have to be considered a fundamental step toward the creation of the memory of the battle not only in the Romance-speaking world south the Alps but in the British Isles, too. Bizarri’s narrative was published by one of the most prominent humanist bookseller-printers in 16th-century Lyon, Guillaume Rouillé82 in 1568. How 78

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In 1549, Bizarri became a fellow at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he met Francis Russell, the Earl of Bredford and attached himself to him. By 1551 Bizarri had left Cambridge and become the secretary and tutor in the family of the Earl of Bredford. Their patron-client-relationship was also based on the fact that both were strongly identifijied with the evangelical reform. Nicholas Barker, ʻThe Perils of Publishing in the Sixteenth Century: Pietro Bizarri and William Parry’, in Edward Chaney and Peter Mack (eds.), England and the Continental Renaissance: Essays in Honour of J. B. Trapp. Woodbridge, 1990, 125–141. Francis Russel was, for instance, also Bizarri’s “passport” to the English court and instrumental in his appointment as an agent to William Cecil, the Secretary of State and Lord Treasurer under Elisabeth I to gather news of foreign afffairs for the government. Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformation, 96. For Russel’s patronage in more detail, see Fred Schurink, ʻWar, What Is It Good For? Sixteenth-Century English Translation of Ancient Roman Texts on Warfare’, in Sara K. Barker and Brenda M. Hosington (eds.), Renaissance Cultural Crossroads: Translation, Print and Culture in Britain, 1473–1640. Leiden, Boston, 2013, 135–138. He had also held another signifijicant military appointment: lieutenant general in the north. Wallace T. MacCafffrey, ʻFrancis Russel, Second Earl of Bedford (1526/27–1585)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. Oxford, 2004, 886–888. It was a Cambridge group that took him under its wing during his study at St John’s College and supported him also afterwards. Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformation, 96. Although Rouillé was born in Tours he served his apprenticeship in the Venetian printing-house of Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari in the early 1540s. Therefore, Rouillé and the author of the above mentioned narrative about the current Ottoman wars in Hungary might have known each other from Venice since Bizarri was a student exactly at the same

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successful this publication was shows – besides the above mentioned plagiarism by de Ulloa – the fact that it was re-printed by the same publisher only a year after the fijirst edition came out.83 The knowledge about de Ulloa’s plagiarism of both Črnko’s memoir and Bizarri’s narrative was probably the reason why contemporaries north of the Alps in Western Europe and also later protagonists preferred Samuel Budina’s version of Črnko’s text.84 The fijirst edition was published in Vienna in 156885 and it was not a simple translation into Latin since Budina added some new information such as the death of Süleyman I or a description of celestial events that occurred in 1566.86 But the most important fact is that this book emerged from the context of the struggle of the Protestant estates of Carniola against the Counter-Reformation policy of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria.87

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time in the city. Rouillé, however, obtained strong connections with Italy and particularly with the Venetian printing world (also as a source of vernacular texts) after his arrival in Lyon in 1543. For more information, see Giovanna Granata, ʻBooks without Borders: The Presence of the European Printing Press in the Italian Religious Libraries at the End of the Sixteenth Century’, in Matthew McLean and Sara K. Barker (eds.), International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World. Leiden, Boston, 2016, 236–237. For Rouillé’s biography, see Natalie Zemon Davis, ʻPublisher Guillaume Rouillé: Businessman and Humanist’, in Richard J. Schoeck (ed.), Editing Sixteenth-Century Texts. Toronto, 1966, 72–112. See Pietro Bizarri, Historia della guerra fatta in Ungheria dall’ invittissimo imperatore de christiani, contra quello de’ turchi. Lyon, appresso Guillaume Rouillé, 1569, in Andrew Pettegree and Malcolm Walsby (eds.), French Books III & IV: Books Published in France Before 1601 in Latin and Languages Other Than French. Leiden, Boston, 2012, 276 (No. 58233). Budina’s Latin text became, for instance, part of three signifijicant manifestations of the memory of the battle. These were published in the main Western European centres of printing in the last quarter of the 16th century: in Wittenberg, Frankfurt am Main and Basel. See Zrínyi-album, Wittenberg, 1587; Jacobus Bongarsius, Rerum Hungaricum scriptores varii, historici, geographici. Ex veteribus plerique, sed iam fugientibus editionibus revocati. Apud heredes Andrea Wecheli. Francofurti, 1600; Simon Schardius, Historicum opus in quatuor tomos divisum … Tomus IV. Rervm gestarum, queae incurrerunt in Maximiliani II. Caesaris imperium … ab anno Domini MDLXV usque ad annum Domini MDLXXII. Basileae, Henripetri. 1574. Historia Sigethi, totius Sclavoniae fortissimi propugnaculi, quod a Solymano Turcarum Imperatore nuper captum ereptum est, ex Croatico sermone in Latinum conversa per M. Samuelem Budinam Labacensem. Vienna Austriae, ex offfijicina Caspari Stainhoffferi, 1568; for a digital copy, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/35/51/dd/1/App_H_0422.pdf (20. 04. 2017). For a comparison of Budina’s text with Črnko’s memoir as its main source regarding the diffferences between the two narratives in more detail, see Petneházi, ‘Egy kevésbé heroikus gesztus?’, 66–73; Lajos Rúzsás and Endre Angyal, ʻCserenkó és Budina’, Századok 105 (1971) 57–69. For the struggle of the Protestant estates against the policy of Archduke Charles II in more detail, see Johann Loserth, Die Reformation und Gegenreformation in den innerösterreichischen Ländern im XVI. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart, 1898; Karl Amon, ʻReformation –

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Samuel Budina (ca. 1540–1570)88 belonged to the circle of Primus Trubar and Hans Ungnad89 and it was no accident that his book was published with a preface dedicated to the Carnolian nobleman Hans Khisl zum Kaltenbrunn90 – who was responsible for the defence of the County of Gorizia that was threatened by the Ottomans after their fleet landed in Trieste in 156791 –, and with an elegy of Johannes Gebhardt92 who taught at the Protestant school of the estates in Laibach at that time. The motivation of their act of remembrance was twofold: 1. To commemorate the heroic death of the defenders of Sziget,

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Katholische Reform – Gegenreformationʼ, in Karl Amon and Maximilian Liebmann (eds.), Kirchengeschichte der Steiermark. Graz, 1993, 138–149. This Laibach-born Protestant humanist was educated at the universities of Tübingen and Padua. His father, Leonard Budina was the director of the Protestant school of the estates of Carniola in Laibach. He studied in Leipzig and knew Erasmus personally since they worked together in the print-shop of Frobenius in Basel. Ruzsás and Angyal, ʻCserenkó és Budina’, 59. In spring 1568 Budina completed his Latin text on the basis of Črnko’s Croatian memoir and other sources in Žužemberk (Seisenberg) in the southern part of Carniola that was owned by the influential noble family Auersperg. Since a Glagolitic copy of Črnko’s text is still kept in the archive of the descendants of the Auersperg family in Upper Austria, in the town of Losenteinleiten, we may assume that Budina relied on this manuscript. His mentor Hans von Auersperg and another member of the Auersperg family, Herbard VIII von Auersperg strongly supported the Reformation in Carniola and the activities of the Slovene Reformer Primus Trubar. As a consequence, they opposed and resisted the Counter-Reformation measures of the Inner Austrian court in Graz. The humanist Budina who was employed as a tutor to the sons of Hans Auersperg and a chaplain at Schönberg-castle corresponded with Primus Trubar and Hans Ungnad on a regular basis when they lived in exile at the court of the prince of Württenberg. Peter Radics, Herbard VIII, Freiherr zu Auersperg (1528–1575) ein krainischer Held und Staatsmann. Wien, 1862, VIII–X, 54–55; Ruzsás and Angyal, ʻCserenkó és Budinaʼ, 59–60; Rolf-Dieter Kluge and Eugenio Coseriu (eds.), Ein Leben zwischen Laibach und Tübingen – Primus Truber und seine Zeit. Intentionen, Verlauf und Folgen der Reformation in Württemberg und Innerösterreich. München, 1995. The family Khisl zum Kaltenbrunn belonged also to the main representatives of the Carniolian estates and was well connected to the members of the Auersperg family. The father of Hans Khisl zum Kaltenbrunn, Veit Khisl zum Kaltenbrunn, was in the 1530s and 1540s mayor of Laibach and his mother was the daughter of Leonard Budina, therefore, Samuel Budina’s sister. Between 1567 and 1570 he belonged to the representatives (Verordneten) of the Carniolian and therefore of the Inner Austrian estates. Archiv für Geographie, Historie, Staats- und Kriegskunst. Bd. 11. Wien, 1820, 427–428; Archiv für Geschichte, Statistik, Literatur und Kunst. Bd. 18. Wien, 1827, 581–582. The estates of Carniola sent considerable support to the defenders of Trieste (73 arquebuses) and increased the garrison of the fortress Gorizia with 500 more riflemen. For more details, see August Dimitz, Geschichte Krains von der ältesten Zeit bis auf das Jahr 1813: mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Culturentwicklung. Dritter Theil: Vom Regierungsantritte Erzherzog Karls in Innerösterreich bis auf Leopold I. (1564–1657). Laibach, 1875, 17. Ad Pivm Lectorem Ioannis Gebhardi Labacensis Elegia; for the text of the elegy, see http:// oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/35/51/dd/1/App_H_0422.pdf (20. 04. 2017).

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and to create a personal “monument” for Zrínyi93 who they fought alongside against the Ottomans in the last two decades; 2. To underline their own ongoing services in saving the Habsburg lands and Europe from the “Turks”.94 This exactly explains the year of publication (1568) when the estates refused to pay extraordinary taxes because Archduke Charles II did not provide them with the religious concessions that he had promised in July 1566 if they agreed to join him in the campaign ordered by the emperor.95 In that context it might be also no accident that the book was published with the support of Emperor Maximilian II96 who in August 1568 granted freedom of worship to his Lutheran estates in Lower Austria that was extended to those in Upper Austria in December 1568.97 The estates of Carniola called for the same rights that were, however, refused by Archduke Charles II.98 Therefore, the publication of Budina’s book in 1568 on the Battle of Sziget has to be seen as a signifijicant

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This might be underlined by the fact that the epitaph of the then Nicholas Zrínyi, an epicedon honouring his heroic death that was composed by the imperial mathematician and physician of the emperor, Paul Fabricius and an epigram by Caspar Sitnick who was a native from Laibach and a professor of ethics in Vienna at that time were published as part of Samuel Budina’s book. See Epithaphivm Assoriptvm Sepvltvrae in Zhakatvrn Eiuvsdem Illustriss. Comitis Nicolai Zrinii &c; In Eivsdem Illvstris: Comitis Nicolai Zrinii &c. Epicedon Pavli Fabricii Caes: Mathem: Med: Doct: & ordinarij in Archigymnasio Viennensi Professoris; Alivd M. Caspari Sitnick Labacen: Ethices in eodem Archigymansio Professoris ordinarij; for the particular texts, see http://oszkdk.oszk.hu/storage/00/01/35/51/dd/1/ App_H_0422.pdf (20. 04. 2017). This might be the reason why Budina did provide the printed edition with a title since Črnko’s memoir remained untitled. In doing so, he deliberately directed the reader’s attention to the increased and signifijicant role that Carniola (and the other Inner Austrian lands) had to play in the defense against the Ottomans after the fall of Sziget in September 1566. Ruzsás and Angyal, ʻCserenkó és Budina’, 61. In that context it has to be referred to the fact that in July 1566 the aforementioned Herbard von Auersperg who was lieutenant commander of the Croatian military border at that time did manage to defeat the Ottoman troops from Bosnia at the river Una. The latter were on the way to support the main army of Süleyman I by the siege of Sziget. Dimitz, Geschichte Krains, 10–12. For the promises of Archduke Charles II in 1566, see Loserth, Die Reformation und Gegenreformation, 20; Dimitz, Geschichte Krains, 15–16, 20. Cum gratia & privilegio Caes. Maiest – as it stands at the front cover. For his Protestant-friendly attitudes and policy in more detail, see Howard Louthan, The Quest for Compromise. Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. Cambridge, 1997, 1–10. In that context it has to be remembered that the above mentioned humanist scholar Johannes Sambucus together with the Transylvanian nobleman and humanist Farkas Kovacsóczy tried to collect additional money for the publication of Budina’s book; see Fodor and Varga, ʻZrínyi Miklós és Szulejmán halála’, 186. Amon, ʻReformation – Katholische Reform – Gegenreformation’, 148. Loserth, Die Reformation und Gegenreformation, 139–140.

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instrument of the Protestant estates of Carniola in their struggle for freedom of worship and political power against the Catholic monarch of Inner Austria.99 The fijirst two German editions of Črnko’s memoir were published in 1568, too. One of them represents a German translation of Budina’s Latin edition and was published by the same printer (Caspar Stainhofer) in Vienna.100 The other German edition from 1568 proves, however, a diffferent intention of intervention in the memory of the Battle of Sziget. It is, fijirstly, shown by the fact that this book was published in Augsburg in the print-shop of Hans Zimmermann who was also the publisher of the majority of printed news pamphlets dealing with the Ottoman campaign in Hungary in 1566. These news pamphlets served – as we have seen – as instruments of the anti-Ottoman propaganda in the Holy Roman Empire. Therefore, it is no accident that the introduction attached to the Augsburg edition was composed according to the tradition of these anti-Ottoman broadsheets and calls for unity of all “Christian potentates” against the erschröcklichen mächtigen Wütterlich dem Türgken. Contrary to Caspar Stainhofer in Vienna, the Augsburg printer Hans Zimmermann added – over and above the aforementioned introduction and again according to the tradition of the anti-Ottoman news pamphlets – an image at the front cover of this German edition which depicts the assault of an unspecifijied fortress.101 99

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The assumption of Lajos Ruzsás and Endre Angyal from 1971 that the aim of the publication of Budina’s book was to support the counter-reformatory policy of Archduke Charles II cannot be proven; Ruzsás and Angyal, ʻCserenkó és Budina’, 59. Rather, the case was quite the opposite. In that context it has to be referred to the fact that although the Treaty of Adrianople between Sultan Selim II and Emperor Maximilian II was signed on 21 February 1568, contemporaries, and especially those living directly in the Habsburg–Ottoman military border area could not take it for granted and foresee the following period of twenty fijive years of relative peace between the two empires. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that an agreement between the two sides was reached after fijive months negotiation and the estates of Inner Austria were well informed in this regard since one of the main negotiators of Emperor Maximilian II was the Styrian nobleman Christoph Teufffenbach. For the Treaty of Adrianople in 1568 in more detail, see József Kelenik, ʻA drinápolyi béke. Egy hosszúra nyúlt fegyverszünetʼ, Rubicon 2 (1997) 5–14. History Von Eroberung der ansehlichen Vesten Sigeth, Welche der Türkisch Khaiser Solimanus, Jm Jar 1566. den 7. Septembris, eingenomen, Erstlich von einem ansehlichen des Herrn Grauen von Serin seligen, diener in Crabatischer Sprach beschriben, vnd … in Lateinisch, Jetzt aber dem gmainen man … zugefallen, in Teütsch transferiert. Gedruckt zu Wienn in Osterreich: durch Caspar Stainhofer, Anno M. D. LXVIII. National Széchenyi Library, App. H. 1825. This is the same image that Zimmermann used at the front cover of one of his news pamphlets (Röpl. 265). In this case only the epitaph of Nicholas Zrínyi and a description about the number of Ottomans killed during the siege of Sziget have been attached to the main text. See History Von Eroberung der ansehenlichen Vesten Sigeth/ Welche der Türckisch

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A further German narrative commemorating the Ottoman siege of Sziget in 1566 and in doing so, also the death of Zrínyi and Süleyman I was published by the famous publishing house Petri in Basel ten years later (1578). This publication underlines the impact of de Ulloa’s aforementioned plagiarised works north of the Alps in the late 1570s: It was dedicated to Joachim Brandis who was mayor of Hildesheim and patron of the Saxon Colleges at the University of Erfurt at that time.102 He and the Brandis family generally were well known in the Holy Roman Empire as generous supporters of sciences and scholars. Therefore, the motivation of the author of the preface who also completed the translation of de Ulloa’s Italian text103 and his expectations of benefijits by contributing to the

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Kaiser Solimanus/ im Jar 1566. den 7. Septembris eingenommen/ Erstlichen von einem ansehenlichen deß Herren Grafffen von Serin seligen/ Diener/ in Crabatischer Sprach beschriben/ vnd von denen so auch mit vnd beygewesen in Lateinisch. Jetzt aber menigklich/ vnd sonderlich allen Hohen Potentanten/ zu einer Christlichen warnung vnd Nachgedencken wie die/ diser zeit hoch bschwerliche schwebende jnnerliche Krieg/ abgeschnitten/ zu friden vnd ainigkeit gebracht werden/ Vnd disem erschröcklichen mächtigen Wütterich dem Türgken künffftig/ desto mehr vorstand vnd abbruch geschehen möge/ Ins Teutsch Transferiert. Getruckt zu Augsburg/ durch Hans Zymmerman [1568]; for a digital copy, see http://daten.digitale-sammlungen. de/~db/0002/bsb00027002/images/index.html?id=00027002&groesser=&fijip= eayasdasewqweneayafsdrsdassdasxdsyd&no=63&seite=39 (20. 04. 2017). See the heading of the preface of this German edition from 1578: Dem Ehrenuesten/ Fürsichtigen/ Ersamen vnd Weysen Herrn Joachim Brandis/ Burgermeystern der Statt Hildesheim/ vnd des Sachsischen Collegien, etc. zu Erdtfurt Patronen vnd Schirmherrn/ meinem Günstigen gebiettenden Herrn, in Beschreibung/ Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/ so im jhar M. D. LXV. vnd M. D. LXVI. Der Allerleuchtigst/ Großmechtigst/ Vnüberwindtlichst Fürst vnd Herr/ Maximilian der Ander Römischer Keyser/ König in Böhem vnd Vngern/ ec. wider den Sultan Solymannen/ den Türckischen Keyser/ geführet. Darinnen begriefffen/ waß domahlen die Christen gewunnen/ vnd erobert/ wie auch in diesem Zug/ Solymann im höchsten vorhaben wider die Teütsche Nation/ Christlichen Nammens/ seine Tage beschlossen… Erstlich Durch den Edlen vnnd Wolbekanten/ Herrn Alfonsen Ulloa in Italienischer Spraach an Tag gegeben. Jetzt aber durch eynen liebhaber der Historien/ trewlich in Teütsche Sprach vertolmetschet. Gedruckt zu Basel/ Durch Sebastian Henrichpetri. 1578, I; for the digital copy, see https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c= viewer &bandnummer=bsb00087518&pimage=7&v=150&nav=&l=en (25. 04. 2017). The translator Adam Henricpetri had studied – after his studies in Basel and Dole – in Padua, Pavia and Ferrara for several years and earned his doctoral degree in law from the University of Ferrara. Therefore, we may assume that he was fluent in Italian and was able to complete the above mentioned translation from Italian into German. See Frank Hieronymus, ʻHenricpetri, Adamʼ, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz 2010, http://www.hlsdhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D29162.php?topdf=1 (25. 04. 2017). Library catalogues name Nikolaus Höniger the translator of de Ulloa’s Italian text. Höniger was, however, specialized in translations from Latin into German and there is no indication that he spoke Italian. Rather, he has to be considered German proofreader/corrector of Adam Henricpetri’s translation. Proofreading of German-speaking printed books was generally the task that he was employed for in the Offfijicina Henricpetri between 1570 and 1582. See Hans Bickel,

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creation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget were very similar to Tycho Brahe and Alfonso de Ulloa himself: Adam Henricpetri was seeking Joachim Brandis’ patronage as a scholar and historian.104 This might be the reason why he implies an analogy between the heroic deeds of Nicholas Zrínyi during the siege of Sziget in 1566 and those of the father of Joachim Brandis during the siege of Braunschweig in 1494.105 At the same time his decision for choosing exactly this topic as an instrument for his personal career purposes shows its signifijicance in the culture of remembrance of the Holy Roman Empire in the late 1570s. However, regarding the passing of Sultan Süleyman I Adam Henricpetri claims that it was due to God who sent a severe storm that gave him the rest.106 Furthermore, he praises the merits of Emperor Maximilian II during the Ottoman campaign in 1566 and emphasises that it would be illegitimate to accuse him of unexcused absence during the siege of Sziget.107 The owners of

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ʻDialekt – locale Schreibsprache – überregionale Drucksprache. Sprachnormen in Basel am Ende des 16. Jahrhundertsʼ, in Edit Funk et al. (eds.), Bausteine zur Sprachgeschichte. Heidelberg, 2000, 29–42. As a professor for law (Codex) at the University of Basel he was the supervisor of the doctoral thesis of Johannes Brandis who was the son of the above mentioned Joachim. Johannes Brandis received his doctorate on 7 January 1578 and Adam Henricpetri completed his preface to the translation two months later, on 10 March 1578. How important the Brandis family as patron for historians of that time was underlines the fact that in 1578 another historical work was dedicated to the sons of Joachim Brandis and printed in Basel by the same publisher. Diodori Seculi, Bibliotheca Historicae libri XV. … Basel: Offfijicina Henricpetri, März 1578. For more information, see http://www.ub.unibas. ch/cmsdata/spezialkataloge/gg/higg0247.html (30. 04. 2017). In doing so, Adam Henricpetri also explains in his preface that the city of Braunschweig commemorates the anniversary of saving the city by the troops of the father of Joachim Brandis. In 1494 the city had been sieged by the troops of Duke Heinrich I of Braunschweig und Lüneburg for more than six months. Henricpetri, ʻDem Ehrenuesten/…/ Herrn Joachim Brandis/…ʼ, in Beschreibung/Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/…, 1578, fol. 3v. Henricpetri, ʻDem Ehrenuesten/…/Herrn Joachim Brandis/…ʼ, in Beschreibung/Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/…, 1578, fol. 2v. The book contains a rare and uncommon image of Süleyman I at the fijirst page of the translation and also an image of the fortress of Sziget that difffers from the images that circulated via printed news pamphlets in the late 16th and in the 17th century. See ʻDem Edlen Herren Alphonsen Vlloa Buch von den Vngerischen Krieg/so der Allerdurchleuchtigst/Großmechtigst/Vnüberwindtlichst Fürst vnd Herr Maximilian der Ander Römische Keyser/König in Böhem vnd Vngern/ec. Wider Sultan Solimannen den Türckischen Keiser/geführet/im Jahre M.D. LXVI.ʼ, in Beschreibung/Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/…, 1578, 1, 77. Henricpetri, ʻDem Ehrenuesten/…/Herrn Joachim Brandis/…ʼ, in Beschreibung/Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/…, 1578, fol. 2r–v. The publisher attached a portrait of Maximilian II to the text. ʻDem Edlen Herren Alphonsen Vlloa Buch von den Vngerischen Kriegʼ, in Beschreibung/Des Letzten Vngerischen Zugs oder Kriegs/…, 1578, 6.

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the Offfijicina Henricpetri where this narrative had been published in 1578108 visited the Frankfurt book fair on a regular basis and were major players at the Holy Roman Empire’s book market.109 This implicates the best possible distribution of this book commemorating the Battle of Sziget, especially in the northern and northeastern part of the Holy Roman Empire where the members of the Brandis family lived. This area, most of all the territories ruled by the elector of Saxony, seems to serve generally as a key region for the production and reception of manifestations of memory of the Battle of Sziget in the Holy Roman Empire. It is also shown by a further publication of the Offfijicina Henricpetri commemorating the siege of Sziget. It was dedicated to the son of Augustus, Elector of Saxony (1553–1586), Christian I who was landgrave of Thuringia and margrave of Meißen at that time.110 The author, the aforementioned Italian historian and men of letters Pietro Bizarri was an employee of the elector of Saxony in the year of publication in 1573.111 With the aid of this book he hoped – similarly to the example of Tycho 108

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It was published by the son of the famous Heinrich Petri, Sebastian Henricpetri who was a brother of the author of the preface and the translator of de Ulloa’s text, Adam Henricpetri. Ian MacLean, ʻCardano and his Publishers, 1534–1663’, in Idem, Learning and the Market Place. Essays in the History of the Early Modern Book. Leiden, 2009, 142–143. Pietro Bizarro, ʻIllvstrissimi Dvcis ac Domini D. Avgvsti Saxoniae Electoris Filio Illvstri D. Christiano, Landgravo Tvringiae, Marchioni Misniae S. D.’, in Pannonicvm Bellvm, svb Maximiliano II. Rom. et Solymano Tvrcar. Imperatoribvs Gestvm: cvmque arcis Sigethi expugnatione, iampridem magna cura & studio, descriptum, Per Petrvm Bizarvm. … Cum gratia & privilegio Caesarae Maiest. Basileae: Per Sebastianvm Henricpetri, 1573, 2. For the Battle of Sziget and the death of Zrínyi and Süleyman I, see Bizarro, Pannonicvm Bellvm, 103– 109. This book represents the Latin translation of the author’s above mentioned own work entitled Historia della Guerra fatta in Ungheria dall’ innittissimo Imperatore de’Christiani, contra quello de’ Turchi: con la Narratione de tutte quelle cosec he sono auuenute in Europa, dall’ anno 1564, insino all’ anno 1568 which was published in Lyon by Guillaume Rouillé fijirstly in 1568. See Pettegree and Malcolm (eds.), French Books III & IV, 276. As mentioned earlier in this study this narrative of Bizarri was plagiarised by Alfonso de Ulloa and published in Venice in 1569. The Latin translation of Bizarri’s text which was published by Sebastian Henricpetri in Basel in 1573 was completed by the author himself. Anne Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformation, 197. It is an interesting detail that in the same year (1573) Pietro Bizarri came out with another narrative on current Ottoman wars: It dealt with the Venetian–Ottoman war that was fought between 1570 and 1573 and ended with the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus. As his preface completed in Basel in January 1573 shows Bizarri dedicated this up-to-date narrative to his employer, Agustus, Elector of Saxony, himself. See Pietro Bizarri, ʻIllvstrissimo Principi Avgvsto, Electori, Saxoniae Dvci, Lantrgravio Turingiae, Marchioni Misniae, Imperij Archimarescallo, Domino suo Clementissimo. S. D.ʼ, in Cyprivm Bellvm, Inter Venetos, et Selymvm Tvrcarvm Imperatorem gestum, (Libris tribus, summa cura & diligentia descriptum: Etiam primum in lucem editum.) Authore, Petro Bizaro. Cum gratia & privilegio Caesareae Maiest. Basileae: Per Se-

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Brahe, Alfonso de Ulloa and Adam Henricpetri – for benefijits regarding his career at the Saxon court in the future. Along with that this text was an important means of drawing the next elector’s attention to him and his historical work. Since he was a long resident in England from the late 1540s to 1570, a former fellow of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge and well engaged with both the English aristocracy and the Elizabethan court112 we may assume that his Latin narrative commemorating the Battle of Sziget was read in intellectual circles of the British Isles, too. At this point it has to be referred to the role of the Zrínyi family itself in the creation of the memory of the battle and the so-called “Zrínyi cult” via a multimedia setting (applying diffferent visual and textual genres). This process had started with Črnko’s manuscript memoir which was most likely commissioned by George Zrínyi, the son of Nicholas113 and then strongly supported by humanist scholars originating from the Hungarian and Croatian lands of the Habsburg Monarchy and from Transylvania, who studied or lived in the western part of the continent. In this regard the anthology De Sigetho Hungaria propugnaculo – also called the Zrínyi-album114 – turned out to be one of the most influential lieu de mémoire for both the western as well as for the eastern part of Europe. It was commissioned and fijinanced by Imre Forgách who was (through his second wife, Katalin Zrínyi) a son-in-law of Nicholas Zrínyi and published in the centre of Protestant printing in Wittenberg in 1587. Forgách planned to erect this “literary monument” to the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Sziget and the heroic death of Zrínyi. In doing so, this man of letters sent the manuscript at the beginning of 1586 through his secretary to Wittenberg who unfortunately passed away soon after his arrival to the Luthercity.115 However, the importance of this publication project is underlined by the

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bastianvm Henricpetri, 1573, fols. 2r–8v; for a digital copy, see https://books.google.at/ books?id=_Y6pYI5a6ycC&pg=PT4&hl=hu&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false (20. 05. 2017). Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformation, 96. We have seen that Črnko penned his memoir at one of the residences of the Zrínyi family after he had been released from Ottoman captivity by George Zrínyi. In addition, the latter remained the main mentor of his military career at the Habsburg military border in the early 1570s; see footnote 65 in this article. De Sigetho Hungariae propugnaculo a Turca Anno Christi M. D. LXVI. … opusculum … Dn. Nicolai Comitis a Zerenio … ab Dn. Emerico Forgách … Collectum opera Petri Albini Nivemontii. Witenbergae. Excudebat, M. D. LXXXVII. National Széchényi Library, App. H. 1875. In that context it has to be mentioned that Imre Forgách established strong family ties to the territories ruled by the elector of Saxony since he married – after the death of Katalin Zrínyi – one of the cousins of Elector Augustus in February 1586. András Szabó, ‘Das Zrínyi-Album (Wittenberg 1587) im Lichte der neuesten Forschungʼ, in Kühlmann and Tüskés (eds.), Militia et Litterae, 151–152.

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fact that it was then completed by Petrus Albinus himself who was rector of the University of Wittenberg at that time.116 The particular signifijicance of this anthology for the creation and manifestation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget is that it brings together various traces of memory and individual acts of remembrance via print and visual media with a special geographical focus of origin on Habsburg Hungary, Transylvania and Silesia. Therefore, it mirrors diffferent interventions in the fijield of memory of the siege which took place in these territories in the last twenty years and were deliberately collected by Imre Forgách117 who aimed at presenting them together for the fijirst time through this publication to the members of the Republic of Letters in the Holy Roman Empire and in Western Europe generally. However, the book also contains occasional poems which were composed in order to commemorate the Battle of Sziget and the heroic death of Nicholas Zrínyi by students from Habsburg Hungary and Transylvania who studied at the University of Wittenberg at that time. These poems were added by the aforementioned Petrus Albinus to the volume as it was the case with his own poems as well as selected woodcut illustrations and historical texts such as Samuel Budina’s Latin translation of Ferenac Črnko’s memoir.118 The anthology was printed by the Wittenberg publisher Matthäus Welack whose print shop was generally preferred by students from the territories of Habsburg Hungary and Transylvania for publishing their literary and historical works. The contribution of these students as well as of the rector of the University of Wittenberg to this anthology reveals that this manifestation of memory created to the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Sziget emerged in a very similar communication environment as the poems of Tycho Brahe mentioned at the beginning of this article: the early modern university in the western part of the continent as a central meeting point of the members of the 116

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He was at the same time professor of poetics at the university and well engaged with Protestant students from the Hungarian territories of the Habsburg Monarchy and from Transylvania. It contains, for instance, poems of Forgách’s friend Gáspár Péchy, an elegy of Bálint Szikszai Hellopaeus, texts of Johannes Sommer and Christian Schesaeus from the Transylvanian Saxon community, of Silesian authors and acquaintances of Imre Forgách such as Nicholaus Rhediger, Nicholaus Steinberger or Salamon Breser. Imre Forgách’s editorial contribution is also shown by the fact that he revised a historical text of his own brother, Ferenc Forgách dealing with the siege of Sziget and the death of Nicholas Zrínyi and added a new chapter to it that was based on a work of the Italian historian Paulus Jovius. Forgách editorial work concerned the visual representation of the memory of the battle and the heroic death of Nicholas Zrínyi as well: one part of the visuals of the anthology were selected and provided by him for the publication. For more detail, see Szabó, ‘Das Zrínyi-Albumʼ, 153–154. Ibid., 155–156.

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Republic of Letters originating from both Western and Eastern Europe. However, it should not be forgotten that the initial step for the creation of this “literary monument” was made not in Western Europe but by an individual in Habsburg Hungary who belonged to the family of the then Nicholas Zrínyi whom this act of remembrance was dedicated to.

Conclusion The article delineated the creation of the memory of the Battle of Sziget (1566) in the western part of early modern Europe. Its main hypothesis has been proved according to which the act of remembering was a heterogeneous, plural and dynamic process depending on the motivation of an actor’s intervention in the fijield of memory. In that context, the study analysed the meaning and the purpose of this intervention, the protagonist’s material and symbolic resources as well as their expectations of benefijits by contributing to the creation of this memory. It focused on the most productive period of this process of remembering which started in the last quarter of 1566. This process was characterized by the creation of a “multimedia memoir” of the battle having been used and instrumentalized by individuals in the following centuries according to the current political-military circumstances for their own purposes. Another focus was laid on the “travels” of the memory of the battle, the reconstruction of its routes and interplays as well as on its carriers that has shaped the mediated content. Furthermore, a long-lasting myth of historiography had to be challenged according to which the Battle of Sziget would have faced an enormous echo in the European public, fijirst and foremost in the Holy Roman Empire, thanks to a high number of printed news pamphlets and ballad pamphlets which might have informed the broader public about the ongoing siege already in August and at the beginning of September 1566 on a regular basis. It also applies to the publication of pamphlets about the fall of the fortress and the death of Süleyman I and Nicholas Zrínyi. As against these allegations, the article underlines that only a very few (only four) publishers in Augsburg, Nuremberg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber were involved in this process. Contrary to the state-of-the-art assumption they printed a handful news pamphlet and ballad pamphlet editions dealing exactly with the Battle of Sziget and the death of Süleyman I and/or Nicholas Zrínyi, and these were published not earlier than late October/November 1566. On the basis of these results and the main features of this genre of news publishing,

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we have generally to reassess the supposed impact of these pamphlets on public opinion, especially on the creation of the memory of the battle in the Holy Roman Empire and in the “western” part of the continent. The study also delineates that these little prints served as a means of the anti-Ottoman propaganda of Emperor Maximilian II. They were implicitly addressed to the estates and political decision makers of the Holy Roman Empire and aimed at persuading them to grant fijinancial support for the emperor and his army against the Ottomans. This is an important reason why Zrínyi was always presented in these pamphlets as a hero of Maximilian II. Regarding the broader public the sermons, prayers and processions which were held in the last quarter of 1566 and in the fijirst half of 1567 in diffferent cities and towns of Western Europe in order to commemorate the heroic death of the defenders of Sziget saving Europe and the Christianity from the Ottomans seem to have had a larger impact. It is also underlined by the publication of these anti-Ottoman sermons in the years 1567 and 1568 commissioned by both Protestant and Catholic religious authorities. Another conclusion of the present analysis is that in addition to the intentions of secular and religious authorities the individual acts of remembering in this fijirst period that started at the close of the event itself resulted in memories created by and for the members of the early modern Republic of Letters and not for a broader public. According to the actors’ motivation for their intervention in the fijield of memory of the Battle of Sziget three main groups can be distinguished. 1.   To the fijirst group belonged individuals in Western Europe who neither witnessed the Battle of Sziget nor were involved in the organisation of the defence against the Ottomans or of the so-called Türkenhilfe. Their narratives commemorating the Ottoman conquest of the fortress as well as the death of Süleyman I and Nicholas Zrínyi served as a means either by seeking the patronage of influential mentors for their scientifijic and/or literary work or even to thank them for their generous support. Regarding the geographical dimension of the memory of the Battle of Sziget it is worth mentioning that the books of these men of letters were published in the printing capitals of early modern Western Europe such as Venice, Lyon and Basel by leading humanist bookseller-publishers. This fact granted that these narratives became the main manifestations of memory of the battle in the Romance-speaking world south of the Alps on the one hand and/or in the northern parts of Europe including the British Isles and the northern territories of the Holy Roman Empire on the other. Their impact was based on the analogies that these works drew between

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contemporary events or those in the past in Western European territories and the siege of the fortress of Sziget and the heroic deeds of its defenders. 2.   The second group is represented by the Protestant estates of Carniola who were directly involved in the defence against the Ottomans. The motivation of their act of remembrance through the publication of Samuel Budina’s Latin version of Ferenac Črnko’s memoir was twofold; on the one hand, to create a personal “monument” for Zrínyi who they fought alongside against the Ottomans in the last two decades; on the other hand, to underline their own ongoing services in saving the Habsburg lands and Europe from the Ottomans. In addition, the publication of Budina’s book in Vienna has to be seen as a signifijicant instrument of the Protestant estates of Carniola in their struggle for freedom of worship and political power against the Catholic monarch of Inner Austria. 3.   The activities of the protagonists of the third group are strongly related to the Zrínyi family itself and its contribution to the creation of the memory of the battle and the so-called “Zrínyi cult”. It started with the encouragement of George Zrínyi, the son of Nicholas, for Ferenac Črnko, an eyewitness of the battle, to pen his memoir at one of the residences of the Zrínyi family. This process reached its peak in the 16th century with the publication of the so-called Zrínyi-album in the main centre of Protestant printing in Wittenberg initiated by a son-of-law of Nicholas Zrínyi to the 20th anniversary of the battle and the heroic death of his father-of-law. The signifijicance of this anthology relies in the fact that it mirrors diffferent interventions in the fijield of memory of the Battle of Sziget which took place in the territories of Habsburg Hungary, Transylvania and Silesia in the last twenty years. The initiator Imre Forgách aimed at presenting them together through this publication for the fijirst time to the members of the Republic of Letters in Western Europe. All this proves that in the western part of the European continent around the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Sziget and the death of Süleyman I and Nicholas Zrínyi a “multimedia memoir” did already exist. It was entangled with acts of remembering in the eastern part of Europe in manifold ways. And especially this entangled character of the memory of the battle made it possible that these existing manifestations of memory served as “role models” in the following centuries.

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The Memory of Nicholas IV of Zrin and the Battle of Szigetvár in Croatia and the Balkans Damir Karbić * Department of Historical Research, Institute of Historical and Social Sciences, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb [email protected]

Count Nicholas IV of Zrin (Zrinski in Croatian and Zrínyi in Hungarian) was certainly one of the most important fijigures of 16th-century Croatian and Hungarian common history. He especially excelled himself as one of the most important anti-Ottoman fijighters, which fact helped him to rise to an exceptional position among the aristocracy of the whole Kingdom of Hungary– Croatia and to become a member of the supranational aristocracy of the contemporaneous Habsburg Monarchy, as has been amply demonstrated by Géza Pálfffy in several recent studies.1 His life completely coincided with the period when the whole kingdom was engaged in a long-lasting struggle for survival against the Ottoman Empire and his role in that struggle was very much determined by the fact that his original estate, the castle of Zrin in the border region of the Croatian parts of the kingdom near Bosnia (which at the time of his birth had already been held by the Ottomans for about fijifty years), was extremely endangered. Anti-Ottoman fijighting was already “traditional” within the family. Count Nicholas’s ancestors had participated in that fijighting * This work has been supported in part by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project “Sources, Manuals and Studies for Croatian History from the Middle Ages to the End of the Long Nineteenth Century” (IP-2014-09-6547). 1 See, for example, Géza Pálfffy, ‘Egy horvát–magyar főúri család a Habsburg Monarchia nemzetek feletti arisztokráciájában. A Zrínyiek határon átívelő kapcsolatai’, in Sándor Bene and Gábor Hausner (eds.), A Zrínyiek a magyar és a horvát históriában. Budapest, 2007, 39– 67; Idem, ‘Verschiedene Loyalitäten in einer Familie. Das kroatisch–ungarische Geschlecht Zrinski/Zrínyi in der “supranationalen” Aristokratie der Habsburgermonarchie im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Wilhelm Kühlmann, Gábor Tüskés and Sándor Bene (eds.), Militia et Litterae. Die beiden Nikolaus Zrínyi und Europa. Tübingen, 2009, 11–32; Idem, ‘A szigetvári Zrínyi Miklós a Magyar Királyság és a Habsburg Monarchia arisztokráciájában’, in Zoltán Varga (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós élete és öröksége. A 2008. november 7–8-án Zrínyi Miklós születésének 500. évfordulója alkalmából Szigetváron rendezett konferencia előadásainak szerkesztett szövege. Szigetvár, 2010, 28–48.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_026

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since the very fijirst incursions in the second decade of the 15th century, during which the Ottomans had just played a part in the internal struggles between King Sigismund of Luxemburg and Bosnian Duke Hrvoje.2 Count Nicholas’s grandfather, Count Peter II, and his uncle, Paul III, actively participated in the defence of their own estates and of the southern parts of the kingdom comprising both the territories of Slavonia (in which the castle of Zrin was situated) and the adjacent territories of the Kingdom of Croatia–Dalmatia. They both perished in another anti-Ottoman battle which would receive almost mythical character in Croatian history, that of Krbava in 1493,3 while Michael, son of Paul III (Nicholas’s older cousin), perished in the Battle of Mohács in 1526.4 Count Nicholas’s father, Count Nicholas III, also spent almost all his life in anti-Ottoman fijighting,5 while Nicholas’s uncle on the maternal side, Count John Torquatus of Krbava, also a ban of Croatia, as his nephew would be later on, was a particularly celebrated hero and victim of these wars, whose career very much marked and helped the future development of Count Nicholas IV, as has been recently emphasised in the research of Szabolcs Varga.6 During his lifetime, Count Nicholas IV received, in these wars, both great fame and large estates in Croatia and Hungary, becoming in such manner one of the greatest landowners of the kingdom. These developments would subsequently greatly influence the development of the family. Among the acquisitions were two later major seats of the family, which would subsequently become cultural centres of almost legendary value for both Hungarian and Croatian history – Čakovec (Csáktornya) in Međimurje (Muraköz) in Zala County and Ozalj in Zagreb County.7

2 This is well illustrated by an episode when Count Peter I of Zrin, great-grandfather of Count Nicholas IV, sent an Ottoman prisoner to Emperor Sigismund in Constance in September 1417. For more details, see Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, 51–52. 3 Varga, Europe’s Leonidas, 55–56. For the battle of Krbava as a landmark of Croatian history and previous scholarship on it, see Suzana Miljan and Hrvoje Kekez, ‘The Memory of the Battle of Krbava (1493) and the Collective Identity of the Croats’, Hungarian Historical Review 4:2 (2015) 283–313. 4 Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, Zrin grad i njegovi gospodari. Zagreb, 1883, 57. 5 Ivan Jurković, ‘Nikola Stariji i Nikola Sigetski’, in Zoran Ladić and Đuro Vidmarović (eds.), Povijest obitelji Zrinski. Zbornik. Zagreb, 2007, 11–19; Varga, Europe’s Leonidas, 85–98. 6 Szabolcs Varga, ‘Adalékok a Zrínyi család felemelkedéséhez. A Karlovics-örökség’, in Varga (ed.), Zrínyi Miklós élete, 4–28; Croatian translation: ‘Prilozi povijesti uspona obitelji Zrinski ostavština Karlovićevih’, in Szabolcs Varga, Studije o povijesti Sigeta i obitelji Zrinski u 16. stoljeću. Szigetvár, 2015, 9–37. 7 For more details on the life and agency of Count Nicholas IV of Zrin, see the aforementioned and most recent biographical study by Szabolcs Varga (Europe’s Leonidas). The book is an

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It is also worth noting that besides the fact that Count Nicholas IV and other members of the family played such an important role in anti-Ottoman wars, he belonged to a family which was in many ways rather unique in Croatian and Hungarian history. They belonged to an old Croatian aristocratic kindred, the counts of Bribir, called from the mid-14th century by the name of the Šubići, who had a particularly important position in Croatian and Hungarian history in the 13th and fijirst half of the 14th centuries, when they succeeded in rising almost to the position of uncrowned rulers of Croatia by changing the character of the ban, a king’s deputy in the Kingdom of Croatia–Dalmatia, and extending their rule to the adjacent areas of Bosnia and Hum. They played an almost decisive role in the installation of the Angevines as kings of Hungary, and created a number of dynastic connections, including those with the royal dynasties of the Árpáds and the Angevins.8 However, they could not keep this position for long. Indeed, by the middle of the 14th century they lost it in conflicts with the Angevin kings and they were either destroyed (the branch of the counts of Klis and Skradin) or removed from Croatia to Zrin in Slavonia and given a lesser status. Still, due to their former influence and their surviving (even though frequently neglected) connections with the royal court, the counts of Zrin always enjoyed some special positions, even though that position was not always palpable and was frequently even more diminished by occasional tragic circumstances (the premature deaths of leading members of the family), which usually caused setback and delays in their development, prior to a new rise which happened exactly during the life of Count Nicholas IV.9 After that period, they remained a part of the highest aristocracy of the kingdom until the tragic destruction of the family position in the conflict with the Habsburgs (following the death of Count Nicholas VII and the execution of excellent study, relying on a new analysis of the sources and previous Hungarian and Croatian literature. 8 For more details on the history of the family of the counts of Bribir of the Šubić kindred in that period, see Damir Karbić, ‘Šubići Bribirski do gubitka nasljedne banske časti (1322)’, Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti. Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 22 (2004) 1–26. For a slightly shorter Hungarian version of the same article, see ‘A brebiri Subicsok az örökös báni cím elvesztéséig (1322)’, in Sándor Bene and Gábor Hausner (eds.), A Zrínyiek a magyar és a horvát históriában. Budapest, 2007, 15–38. 9 For the earlier history of the counts of Zrin in Slavonia and their connections to the royal court, see Damir Karbić and Suzana Miljan, ‘Političko djelovanje kneza Pavla I. Zrinskog (1362–1414)’, Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti. Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 30 (2012) 87–107; Damir Karbić and Suzana Miljan, ‘Knezovi zrinski u 14. i 15. stoljeću između starog i novog teritorijalnog identiteta’, in Sándor Bene, Zoran Ladić and Gábor Hausner (eds.), Susreti dviju kultura. Obitelj Zrinski u hrvatskoj i mađarskoj povijesti. Zagreb, 2012, 15–43.

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his brother, Count Peter IV, in 1671 and the confijiscation of family estates)10 and its extinction at the end of the 17th and in the beginning of the 18th century (deaths of Counts Adam11 and John Anthony12). In that context, the transmission of the memory of Count Nicholas IV and of his heroic death in Szigetvár in 1566, particularly, even though not exclusively, in the Croatian tradition, should be also seen. What seems rather interesting, but in a way not illogical, is the fact that the transmission of Count Nicholas’s heroic fame in the Croatian cultural milieu is generally more traceable in the literature than in historical writing itself. It is also noteworthy that all the earliest contributions to that memory were to greater or lesser extent connected to the Zrinski/Zrínyi family itself. Even the very fijirst account of the siege of Szigetvár and Count Nicholas’s death in the fijinal battle was written under the auspices of his son, Count George IV, by Count Nicholas’s former secretary and chamberlain Ferenac Črnko, also a participant in the battle and one of the rare survivors.13 He was ransomed from the Ottomans, together with four other survivors (including Count Nicholas’s nephew, Casper Alapi [Croatian: Alapić], and another secretary and chamberlain of Count Nicholas, Berta Geréczy14), by Count 10 11

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For more details, see Ferdo Šišić, ‘Posljednji Zrinski i Frankopani na braniku domovine’, in Posljednji Zrinski i Frankopani. Zagreb, s. a., 9–132. On Count Adam, see, for example, Rudolf Horvat, ‘Zator Zrinskih i Frankopana’, in Posljednji, 169–170; Gábor Hausner, ‘Posljednji junak obitelji Zrinski: grof Adam Zrinski (1662– 1691)’, in Bene, Ladić and Hausner (eds.), Susreti dviju kultura, 447–461. On the tragic destiny of Count John Anthony, see, for example, Horvat, ‘Zator’, 135–144; János J. Varga, ‘Ivan Antun Zrinski, kraljev zatočenik’, in Bene, Ladić and Hausner (eds.), Susreti dviju kultura, 463–479. For more details on Ferenac Črnko: France Kidrič, ‘Oblega Sigeta v sodobnem hrvaškem opisu’, Časopis za zgodovino in narodopisje 9 (1912) 90–94. There is a hypothesis that Geréczy was the author and not Črnko. They were both survivors of the siege of Szigetvár and had relatively similar later careers, both supported by Count George of Zrin. The hypothesis was, as far as I know, formulated by Croatian literary historian Đuro Novalić, but based on his erroneous assumption that B. Geréczy was in fact not a member of Hungarian noble family of the Geréczy, but a member of the comital Babonić family (originating from the County of Gorica, a medieval county in the area of Zagreb County, hence the name). Đuro Novalić, ‘Grof Bartol Baboneg – pisac “Povesti Sigeta grada”’, Kaj 4:9 (1971) 89–95. The theory does not hold water, because the genealogy of the family of the counts of Blagaj (as they were called at that time) is well known and there was no such person in it, and the family had already moved to Carniola in 1545, where the family lived until its extinction in Ljubljana in 1898 (for the family, see Lajos Thallóczy, Die Geschichte der Grafen von Blagay. Wien, 1898). Novalić’s article was translated in Hungarian by Ferenc Tóth (‘Grof Bartol Baboneg, a Povest Segeta grada írója’, A Hungarológiai Intézet Tudományos Közleményei 3:5–6 [1971] 31–38). For more details on Novalić’s theory and the debate which followed, see Ivan Zvonar, ‘Sigetska tragedija u očima jednog komornika i jednog

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George,15 and remained in Count George’s service. He was apparently encouraged by Count George to write that report,16 most probably on the basis of some diary or at least notes that he might have kept during the siege, because it would be hard to expect the precision with which the report depicts events (and which are mainly in accord with other sources) only on the basis of personal memory.17 The report was written in the Croatian vernacular, which poses certain problem for researchers, because the choice of language certainly could not ensure wider dissemination. Črnko was a literate person and he knew Latin, as is known from other documents and which stems from the fact that he worked as Count Nicholas’s secretary, so he was certainly able to write it in a language with wider circulation.18 I do not know whether Črnko used German, which would be logical to expect in the war situation, but he probably did not, since the extant letters sent from or in Szigetvár during preparations for the siege were all written in either Latin or Hungarian.19 Črnko’s literacy is also attested by the fact that it is not just simple report, but shows good composition and style, as earlier research has established.20 The oldest version of the report extant today was written in Glagolytic script, but it is not completely clear whether the original was written in it or in the Latin script, albeit the latter is

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vojnika (U povodu 450. obljetnice opsade i pada Sigeta)’, Kaj 49:5–6 (2016) 69–71. At any rate, if Geréczy were the author of the report, it would be more probable that he would write it in Hungarian, even though he might be familiar (and he most probably was) with the Croatian language as a member of Count Nicholas’s entourage. Kidrič, ‘Oblega’, 91, quoting Istvánfffy, Historiarum de rebus hungaricis libri XXXIV. Coloniae Agrippinae, 1622, 487. This is not directly stated in the sources, but given that Črnko was ransomed by the count, and stayed after that in his service, this seems rather probable. This idea emerged after a conversation with Dr Pál Fodor during a discussion on the conference, for which I sincerely thank him. The same idea is also independently expressed in Zvonar, ‘Sigetska tragedija’, 68–69. Črnko is referred to as litteratus (Hung. deák, Croat. dijak) in the letter of Count George of 28 August 1574, which implies his knowledge of Latin. Samu Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris et diplomaticus Comitis Nicolai de Zrini / Zrínyi Miklós a szigetvári hős életére vonatkozó levelek és okiratok. Vol. II: Levelek 1566–1574. (Monumenta Hungariae Historica. Diplomataria, 30.) Budapest, 1899, 112. Unfortunately, I did not check personally the originals of the documents containing the correspondence of Count Nicholas, but only their edition (Barabás [ed.], Codex epistolaris, Vol. 2). The letters do not contain information on the scribe, but it probably may be established on the basis of handwriting and then compared with the documents from previous years. However, it remains to be seen. See, for example, Milan Ratković, ‘Ferenac Črnko i njegov opis podsjedanja i pada Sigeta’, in Ferenac Črnko, Podsjedanje i osvojenje Sigeta i popratni tekstovi. Ed. by Milan Ratković. Zagreb, 1971, 30–34.

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more likely.21 The text was apparently disseminated immediately, since the Latin translation of Samuel Budina from Ljubljana, under the title Historia Sigethi totius Sclavoniae fortissimi propugnaculi, was published in Vienna as early as 1568.22 In the same year, there appeared a German translation (two editions)23 and in 1570 an Italian translation was published in Venice.24 In 1598, there was a new German translation by Reichardt Sorscha.25 The Croatian original was not published, even though it apparently had a wide circulation, because its influence is evident in other authors who wrote of the battle in Croatian. It was found only at the beginning of the 20th century in the archive of Counts of Auersperg by the Slovenian historian Antun Kaspret and published in 1912 by the Slovenian historian of literature France Kidrič,26 and soon after, in 1918, once more by the Croatian philologist Stjepan Ivšić.27 Another contemporary work of Croatian origin dedicated to the memory of the Battle of Szigetvár was the epic poem in the Croatian language Vazetje Sigeta grada [The Capture of the Castle of Szigetvár] by the nobleman of Zadar, Brne Karnarutić (Italian name: Bernardino Carnaruti). It was written soon after the fall of Szigetvár, because the author died in 1573, but it was published in Venice as late as 1584.28 Neither in the book itself, nor elsewhere 21

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Stjepan Ivšić, ‘Podsjedańe i osvojeńe Sigeta u glagoļskom prijepisu hrvatskoga opisa iz g. 1566. ili 1567’, Starine 36 (1918) 395–400. Another exemplar, used by one of its German translators, Reichardt Sorscha, was certainly written in the Latin script (Barabás [ed.], Codex epistolaris, II. 491). Budina’s Latin translation was made at the instigation of Hans Kisl, the Landeshauptmann of Carniola. The translation was several times reprinted between 1587 and the 1760s. For these reprints, see Ivan Kosić, ‘Uvod u [Sigetsku kroniku] Franje Črnka’, in Idem (ed.), Nikola Šubić Zrinski i sigetska bitka u Nacionalnoj i sveučilišnoj knjižnici u Zagrebu. U povodu 450. obljetnice. Zagreb, 2016, 33–34: note 8. One edition was printed in Vienna by Caspar Stainhofer, the publisher of Budina’s Latin translation, and another in Augsburg by Hans Zimmermann, apparently in the same year. For more details, see Kosić, ‘Uvod’, 35–36. It was published in Venice by the publisher Bolognino Zaltieri under the title Historia di Zighet, ispugnata da Suliman, re de Turchi anno MDLXVI. According to recent research by Sofijia Zani, University of Padova, the author was a Spaniard named Alfonso de Ulloa, who lived in Venice. For more details, see Anđelko Mijatović, Obrana Sigeta. Zagreb, 20102, 116: note 34, and Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik’s study in this volume. This translation remained apparently in manuscript form. There is only a fragment of that translation, published in Barabás (ed.), Codex epistolaris, II. 489–493: No. 162. Kidrič, ‘Oblega’, 42–97 (the text of the report is on pp. 50–72). Ivšić, ‘Podsjedańe’, 391–429 (the text is on pp. 402–428). The poem was published in Venice by the publisher Rugier d’Alba in 1584 under the title Vazetye Sigetta grada sloxeno po Barni Charnarutichiu Zadraninu. First modern edition: Velimir Gaj (ed.), Vazetje Sigeta grada. Zagreb, 1866. There were several more editions, including one edited by Milan Ratković in the above mentioned edition of Črnko’s work

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is it stated who arranged for its publication. From the book, it appears as if it were the author himself, which is obviously impossible. A clue in that direction is that, besides the text of the poem itself, the book contains only two smaller texts: Karnarutić’s dedication to Count George of Zrin and a poetical epistle directed to the author by Petar Tartaljić (Italian name: Pietro Tartaglia), a nobleman from Split (born in 1525, died in Split on 6 October 1597). He was a personal friend of Karnarutić and they fought together against the Ottomans around Split. The likelihood that Tartaljić was the person organising the publication of the book is further strengthened by the fact that he frequently went to Venice on diplomatic missions for the Commune of Split.29 The book was republished in Venice in 1639 and again in a linguistically slightly altered version by Peter Fodroczy, a nobleman from Križevci (Körös) County, in 1661, but the place where this edition was made is not noted. It was probably published somewhere in the north (in Croatia, Hungary or Austria).30 For our topic here, it is noteworthy that the reception of the Battle of Szigetvár was apparently almost immediately spread to areas covered by Croatian language regardless of the political division of territory between the Habsburgs and Venice. It is even more interesting that Karnarutić wrote his poem in honour of Count Nicholas and dedicated it to his son, Count George, even though in a political sense they belonged to diffferent political entities.31 He might have had various reasons for this. Karnarutić himself was also an anti-Ottoman fijighter as an offfijicer of the Venetian Croatian cavalry in the war of 1537–1540, that is an elite military unit mostly manned by the exiled Croatian nobility of the hinterland of Dalmatian cities, who escaped to Venetian territories after their original estates and seats were taken by the Ottomans.32 It

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(Črnko, Podsjedanje, 35–82), accompanied by a volume containing the reprint of the 1584 original edition. Hungarian translation: Karnarutics Barna, ‘Sziget várának elfoglalása’, in György Frankovics, A megénekelt Zrínyi. Budapest, 2016, 83–109, 190. Tartaljić was recorded on such mission in 1592, but he was probably there also in 1587, and in 1576, when he was the Spalatin envoy on negotiations for the defijining of borders between Venice and the Ottomans. For more details on Petar Tartaljić, see Siniša Tartaglia, Obitelj Tartaglia i Split. Neraskidive veze: 1150.–2010. Split, 2011, 44–47. Josip Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja u hrvatskoj književnosti’, in Josip Bratulić, Vladimir Lončarević and Božidar Petrač (eds.), Nikola Šubić Zrinski u hrvatskom stihu. Zagreb, 2016, V. In the original edition, the dedication precedes the poem (p. 2); Hungarian translation: Frankovics, A megénekelt Zrínyi, 109. For more details on Karnarutić’s military career and his connection to the Croatian cavalry, see Šime Urlić, ‘Prilozi za biografijiju Brna Karnarutića’, Građa za povijest književnosti hrvatske 8 (1916) 345–348, 354–355. For more details on the Croatian cavalry, see Lovorka Čoralić, ‘Iz hrvatske vojne povijesti – Croati a cavallo i Soldati Albanesi, njihova bratovština i gradivo o njezinu djelovanju od 1675. godine do sredine XVIII. stoljeća’, Zbornik

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is also important to note that, in spite of the territorial fragmentation, the 16th century witnessed the growth of a strong cultural sensitivity among Croatianspeaking intellectuals. This is very well reflected even in Karnarutić’s book, dealing itself with a topic considered by the author as a struggle between Croatian lords and counts and the Ottoman knights and using the Croatian language as a medium for it, with a dedication to Count George of Zrin declared by the author as his lord and with the addition of a short poem praising both Karnarutić as a poet and Count Nicholas as a hero written by a nobleman of another Dalmatian city under Venetian rule, Split. It is also worth mentioning that, similar to Merahi’s interpretation mentioned by Professor Kafadar at the opening of the conference, Karnarutić also depicts Count Nicholas as the main target of Sultan Süleyman’s campaign, even though his agenda is completely diffferent.33 Otherwise, in its content, the poem is modelled upon the data contained in the Črnko’s report, known to the author either from Budina’s Latin translation or from some Croatian manuscript. Whether it was done independently from the influence of Count George of Zrin or he had some role in it, cannot be ascertained, but regardless of that, it can surely be seen as a kind of political demonstration in favour of the family’s role in the political life of the period.34 As literary criticism has demonstrated, the poem was also influenced by Marulić’s Judita, testifying in that manner to the aforementioned cultural unity of the Croatian writers of the period.35 It is also worth mentioning that at the end of the 16th century (possibly in 1593) the fijirst Croatian folk song dedicated to the Battle of Szigetvár, the Pjesma o Sigetu [The Song on Szigetvár] was also written down. This was recorded in the so-called Prekomurska pjesmarica (Hungarian Murántúli

33

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Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti. Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 24 (2006) 71–130. The opinion that Szigetvár became the main target of the Ottoman attack only after Count Nicholas’s troops’ victory over the Ottoman avant-garde near Siklós on 17 June 1566, is argued by the Serbian military historian Gavro Škrivanić, ‘Turski pohod na Siget 1566’, Vesnik vojnog muzeja Jugoslovenske narodne armije 4 (1957) 185–214. On the controversy concerning the aims of the Ottoman campaign of 1566, see the study of Szabolcs Varga in this volume. On possible connections between Karnarutić and the counts of Zrin, see Urlić, ‘Prilozi’, 357–359. For more details on Karnarutić’s work, see Milivoj Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak u povjesti hrvatskoga pjesništva’, Rad JAZU 148 (1902) 86–92; Nikica Kolumbić, ‘Sigetska epopeja od manirizma do kasnog baroka’, in Nikica Kolumbić (ed.), Sigetska epopeja od Karnarutića do Vitezovića (1584–1684). Zbornik radova sa znanstvenog kolokvija u povodu 400. obljetnice izdanja “Vazetja Sigeta grada” Brne Karnarutića (Venecija 1584) i 300. obljetnice izdanja “Odiljenja sigetskog” Pavla Vitezovića (Linz 1684) / Senj i Zadar, 26. i 27. studenog 1984. Zadar, 1986, 1–6.

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énekeskönyv) [The Song Book of Prekmurje], a record kept in an area with close connections to the estates of the Zrinski/Zrínyi family in Međimurje.36 A variant of that song was written down in the 18th century in Boka Kotorska, the Venetian territory south of Dubrovnik and inhabited mostly by a Catholic population speaking the Slavonic/Croatian language. Today the area belongs to Montenegro.37 The 17th century continued to witness artistic support for the preservation of Count Nicholas’s heroic cult, which was still almost exclusively connected with the activity of the family itself. In that activity, this time mostly directed by Counts Nicholas VII and Peter IV, can be certainly accounted the second Venetian edition of the Karnarutić’s work, apparently edited by Franciscan Klement Jančetić of Ozalj, who dedicated the work to Count Nicholas, and very probably also Fodroczy’s aforementioned new edition of Karnarutić’s epic. Both of the counts kept lively contacts, political and cultural, with Venice.38 Besides the great elaboration of the Battle of Szigetvár by Count Nicholas in his Adriai tengernek Syrenaia [The Siren of Adriatic Sea], published in Hungarian in Vienna in 1651, and its Croatian translation and elaboration by Count Peter under the title of Adrianszkoga mora Syrena, published in Venice in 1660,39 it is worth mentioning that the memory of the Battle of Szigetvár was also present in the poetical work of the Dubrovnik (Italian Ragusa) nobleman Vladislav Jere Menčetić’s Trublja slovinska [The Slavic Trumpet], which was dedicated to Count Peter and published in Ancona in 1665. The work is primarily a panegyric to Peter, caused by his anti-Ottoman agency in wars between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans, but also his participation on the Venetian side in the war of Candia, at which occasion Peter personally visited Dubrovnik and established good relations with various political and cultural actors there and in Dalmatia in general. As a 36

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The original Croatian text in Olga Šojat (ed.), Hrvatski kajkavski pisci. Vol. 2. (Pet stoljeća hrvatske književnosti, 15.) Zagreb, 1977, 176–182; Hungarian translation: ‘Ének Szigetvárról’, in György Frankovics, A megénekelt Zrínyi, 109–121, 191. For more details, see Zvonar, ‘Sigetska tragedija’, 72–79; István Lőkös, Zrínyi eposzának horvát epikai előzményei. Debrecen, 1997, 171–188. Mijatović, Obrana, 117. For more details, see Emilij Laszowski, ‘Knezovi Šubići Zrinski kao mletački plemići’, Vjesnik Kr. hrv.–slav.–dalm. zemaljskog arhiva 13 (1911) 45–53; Miroslav Kurelac, ‘“Illyricum hodiernum” Ivana Lučića i ban Petar Zrinjski’, Zbornik Historijskog instituta JAZU 6 (1969) 143–155; Idem, ‘Prilog Ivana Luciusa-Lučića povijesti roda Zrinskih i njegove veze s banom Petrom Zrinskim’, Zbornik Historijskog instituta JAZU 8 (1977) 101–131. On the relationship between Hungarian and Croatian version of the epic: Kolumbić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, 6–11 (with a review of the previous literature); Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, V–VII.

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direct pretext for writing, as the author states in the dedication of this work, written in Dubrovnik in 1663, was Peter’s publication of the Siren, but it should be also kept in mind that Menčetić was a proponent of those noblemen of Dubrovnik who were not satisfijied with the position of the city-republic as a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire and who advocated strengthening connections with Croatia and Hungary, whereby Menčetić saw Count Peter as a champion of the idea. However, the catastrophic earthquake in Dubrovnik in 1667 and the ensuing near loss of the Republic’s autonomous status, as well as Peter’s execution by the Habsburgs, made such schemes, which had never been realistic, even more impossible.40 The end of the 17th century witnessed also the last literary attempt at maintaining the memory of Count Nicholas’s death in Szigetvár, which may be more or less directly linked to the Zrinski/Zrínyi family. It was in its form epic, but in its character more lyrical poetic elaboration of the Battle of Szigetvár, Oddilenye szigetsko [The Farewell of Szigetvár] in the Croatian language by Pavao Ritter Vitezović, an erudite and political writer of the period, published in two editions, in Linz (1684) and in Vienna (1685). It is important to stress that the poet dedicated his work to Count Adam of Zrin, son of Count Nicholas VII, who was at the time the last free male member of the family. His cousin, John Anthony, had been imprisoned by the Habsburgs on fabricated charges a year earlier. Although it is neither stated nor alluded to in the text, it is nevertheless possible that this dedication, and even more so the choice of the subject, as well as the elegiac overtone of the work, may be considered as the author’s expression of a degree of support for the family and mild criticism of their tragic fate.41 In spite of the demise of the Zrinski/Zrínyi family, the further transmission of the memory of Count Nicholas IV and the Battle of Szigetvár, was still intertwined with them. It may be stated that this was less than evident in the 18th century, even though the memory of the battle still produced interesting results. From the point of view of Croatian national development in subsequent periods, it is interesting to note the inclusion of the topic of the Battle of Szigetvár in the educative poetical works of two Dalmatian Franciscans, Cvit razgovora naroda i jezika iliričkoga aliti rvackoga [A Flower of Conversations of the Illyrian that is Croatian Folk and Language] by Filip Grabovac from 174742 and Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskoga: pismarica 40 41 42

Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak’, 99–103; Rafo Bogišić, ‘“Trublja slovinska” Vladislava Menčetića’, in Sigetska epopeja, 57–66; Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, VII. Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak’, 103–117; Nikica Kolumbić, ‘Pjesničke vrednote Vitezovićeva spjeva “Odiljenje sigetsko”’, in Črnko, Podsjedanje, 85–92; Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, VII–VIII. Mijatović, Obrana, 119.

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starca Milovana [A Leisurely Conversation of the Slavic Folk: A Song Book of the Old Man Milovan] by Andrija Kačić Miošić from 1759. These works, which were widely popular, were written in a way that accorded with the rules of folk poetry. Kačić’s book received particular acclaim, becoming a kind of reference book for the ensuing period during which a modern national identity was formed.43 Besides Kačić and Grabovac, the Jesuits also used the Szigetvár campaign in their educational activities, which certainly had an impact on the Croatian public, given that they generally played an extremely important role in education in Hungary and Croatia. Still, there were apparently no specifijically Croatian overtones in it.44 Developments in the 19th and 20th centuries elevated the Zrinski/Zrínyi family in general and Nicholas IV in particular to the status of national paragon in both Croatia and Hungary, which is per se a subject for another study. However, here I shall just briefly underline certain important elements regarding that development. At this point I would fijirst like to mention the earlier comprehensive works in the fijield by Dénes/Dinko Sokcsevits45 and Anđelko Mijatović.46 It is also worth noting, that in the traditions of the neighbouring Slavonic nations, the Zrinski/Zrínyi legendary never received great importance.47 In the Serbian case, there were, as much I can say now, only two cases of the deliberate use of the Szigetvár epos in literature, both of them having a Croatian connection: A song of Jovan Subotić, a Serbian politician and cultural worker from Srijem, and a drama by Matija Ban, a politician in Serbia of Croatian origin from Dubrovnik, thus both of them were connected to Croatian cultural influences.48 In the case of Bosnian 43 44

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Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak’, 118–124; Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, VIII. For more details on the use of the fall of Szigetvár and the death of Nicholas of Zrin in the Jesuit educational theatre in Hungary, see Márta Zsuzsanna Pintér, ‘Zrinius ad Sigethum. Théorie dramatique et pratique du théâtre dans l’oeuvre d’Andreas Friz S. J.’, in Wilhelm Kühlmann, Gábor Tüskés and Sándor Bene (eds.), Militia et litterae. Die beiden Nikolaus Zrínyi und Europa. Tübingen, 2009, 242–257. Dénes/Dinko Sokcsevits is author of a number of excellent studies discussing Croatian and Hungarian relations in the past, particularly in the 19th and the 20th centuries. At this spot, I consider fijirst and foremost his books Magyar múlt horvát szemmel. Budapest, 2004 (enlarged Croatian version: Hrvati u očima Mađara, Mađari u očima Hrvata. Kako se u pogledu preko Drave mijenjala slika drugoga. Zagreb, 2006) and Horvátország a 7. századtól napjainkig. Budapest, 2011 (Croatian version: Hrvatska od stoljeća 7. do danas. Zagreb, 2016). Mijatović, Obrana. Contrary to that, Nicholas of Zrin was a hero of Slovak folk poetry. For more details, see Ján Jankovič, Legenda o grófovi Zrinskom. Bratislava, 2010. On Nicholas of Zrin in the Slovak literary tradition and 19th-century policy, see also Mijatović, Obrana, 156–161. Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak’, 162–163; Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, XXI.

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Muslim poetry, the situation is diffferent. There was some memory of the battle and Count Nicholas in folk poetry,49 and the topic reappeared after the AustroHungarian occupation of Bosnia, when a process of rapprochement between the Bosnian Muslim and Croatian political elites started. Such developments resulted even in a rather interesting epic work, Vjerne sluge [Faithful Servants] written by Krsto Pavletić, a Croatian poet with close links to the so-called Party of Rights, under the pseudonym Osman-beg Šafijić, published in Zagreb in the journal Vienac in 1898, which presents the events from an anti-Habsburg point of view, emphasising brotherhood between the Croatian and Bosnian (Muslim) peoples.50 In the Croatian public realm, the 19th-century and to a much lesser extent the 20th-century development of the cult of Nicholas of Zrin was very much influenced by the dual understanding of his role resulting from the negative opinion of Ante Starčević, a leading politician of the so-called Party of Rights and a major proponent of the anti-Austrian policy, who condemned Nicholas as defender of the Habsburgs at the occasion of the 1866 celebration.51 It is noteworthy that his criticism in this case was primarily directed against the Habsburgs and Austria, whom he considered the major problem for Croatia, and much less so against the Hungarians (who, in his view, ought to be of the same opinion against the Habsburgs), even though he was otherwise advocated the complete independence of Croatia. He and his followers therefore preferred the cult of later members of the family, particularly of Count Peter IV and his close family and their tragic fate (they started to do so from 1861, and particularly after the anniversary of 1871).52 However, the negative attitude of Ante Starčević remained relatively isolated (even within the greater part of his own Party of Rights), and it became almost totally forgotten after the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the entry of Croatia into the framework of Yugoslavia. In that context, the history of the family of the counts of Zrin remained a focal point of Croatian national sentiment. As such it was not looked upon well by the authorities and ruling 49

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For the reflection of Count Nicholas of Zrin in folk poetry of both Christians and Muslims in Bosnia, see Josip Kekez, ‘Sigetska bitka u usmenoj književnosti i usmena književnost u sigetskoj epopeji od Karnarutića do Vitezovića’, in Sigetska epopeja, 165–181; Ferenac Črnko, Povijest Segeta grada, s dodatkom narodnih pjesama o podsjedanju Segeta. Ed. by Ante Šimčik. Zagreb, [1931]; Frankovics, A megénekelt Zrínyi, 191–194. Šrepel, ‘Sigetski junak’, 164–172 (Šrepel erroneously believed that the author was really a Bosnian Muslim poet); Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, XXI–XXII. Zvonimir Matagić, ‘Nikola Šubić Zrinski i sigetska bitka u književnosti, umjetnosti i politici’, Riječka revija 14:10 (1966) 910–911. For more details on this matter and the 1866 celebration in Croatia in general, see Mijatović, Obrana, 121–127. Matagić, ‘Nikola Šubić’, 911.

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elites of the new state, but that paradoxically added to the popularity of the cult of both Nicholas IV and his great-grandsons and their unfortunate offfspring among broad circles of the Croatian population. At the same time, the popular cult of the family soon became largely devoid of anti-Austrian sentiments, but it also remained a carrier of a level of positive feelings for the common Hungarian and Croatian past in Croatia.53

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For more details on the later development, see Matagić, ‘Nikola Šubić’, 917–918; Mijatović, Obrana, 128–131, 134–135; Bratulić, ‘Sigetska epopeja’, XXII–XXV.

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The Memory of Szigetvár and Sultan Süleyman in Ottoman/Turkish Culture Günhan Börekçi * Central European University, Budapest [email protected]

When Sultan Süleyman I (1520–1566) left Istanbul towards Hungary in early May of 1566, for what would be remembered as his thirteenth and last military campaign ever, he was over the age of seventy and had been struggling with some health problems, especially gout, for close to two decades. He thus rode his richly caparisoned horse only when necessary, such as during his ceremonial entries into the cities along his path. Otherwise he used a royal carriage to make the long travel less burdensome.1 On the fijiftieth day of the campaign, the ailing sultan and his 50,000 strong imperial army led by Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha reached Belgrade, from where they continued their march in the direction of Southwest Hungary so as to capture Szigetvár, a formidable fortress which was strategically located along the Ottoman–Habsburg frontier in Central Europe and defended by the forces composed of around 2,300 Hungarian, Croatian and German soldiers under the command of Count Nicholas Zrínyi (Miklós Zrínyi/Nikola Zrinski). The Ottoman siege of Szigetvár began in early August and continued for a little over one month, during which period the sultan’s health kept worsening. Eventually, Süleyman I passed away at around 1:30 a.m. on 7 September, shortly before his soldiers managed to breach into the citadel of Szigetvár and complete the stronghold’s conquest.

* This is a revised version of the paper I presented at the Szigetvár conference in 2016. I am truly grateful to Professor Pál Fodor for both his earlier comments on my paper and granting me much extra time to prepare it for this edition. 1 On Süleyman I’s health problems, see A. Süheyl Ünver, ‘Kanunî Sultan Süleyman’ın Son Avusturya Seferinde Hastalığı, Ölümü, Cenazesi ve Defni’, in Kanunî Armağanı. Ankara, 1970, 301–306; Metin Kunt, ‘Süleyman ve Nikris’, in Özlem Kumrular (ed.), Muhteşem Süleyman. İstanbul, 2007, 93–99. For a contemporary Venetian eyewitness account of the sultan’s ceremonial processions on horseback and his travels in a royal carriage during this campaign, see Daniela Roso and Gianni Pedrini, ‘Solimano il Magnifijico a Filippopoli nel 1566’, Studia Venezia, n.s. 40 (2000) 207–233.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004396234_027

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That day Count Zrínyi joined Sultan Süleyman in death after giving an epic fijinal fijight together with his remaining comrades until the sunset. Thanks to the chronicle of Feridun Ahmed Bey, the private secretary of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and a veteran of this campaign, we have a quite detailed and reliable account of what happened at the time of Süleyman’s demise and in its immediate aftermath.2 When the sultan died in his imperial tent, to which access was highly restricted, a confijidential missive was sent to the grand vizier by one of the inner servants. Upon receiving the news, Mehmed Pasha burst into tears out of deep sorrow. Nonetheless, after consulting with the royal physicians, the grand vizier ordered a temporary burial for the late sultan in that his body, after its internal organs were removed and then properly embalmed, was laid to rest in the ground under his throne in the imperial tent. This was just the fijirst step in Sokollu’s new and arguably most challenging task, that is, to conceal the news of the sultan’s demise from the entire army until the heir-apparent, Prince Selim (Selim II, r. 1566–1574) the only surviving son of Süleyman, could come from Kütahya, his province (sancak) in Anatolia, and inherit the vacant throne as dictated by Ottoman dynastic tradition. As is wellknown, particularly until the turn of the 17th century, the death of an Ottoman sultan was such an incident that would potentially result in the most dreadful political-military crisis. The profound anxiety prevailing at the imperial court would not dissipate before the new sultan acceded to the throne, due to a possible outbreak of a janissary revolt within their ranks or rebellions in the provinces anytime during the interregnum.3 Hence it was of utmost necessity to keep the death of Süleyman a secret even if there was no other candidate to the throne. Ultimately, for forty-eight days and with the help of Feridun Ahmed and a few other trusted inner servants, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha managed this critical process so skillfully that Selim II inherited the Ottoman throne without any serious trouble. It was in the outskirts of Belgrade in late October 1566, when Selim joined the Ottoman army returning from Szigetvár, that Süleyman’s 2 [Feridun Ahmed Bey,] Nüzhet-i Esrârü’l-Ahyâr der Ahbâr-ı Sefer-i Sigetvar. Sultan Süleyman’ın Son Seferi. (Zeytinburnu Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 26.) Hazırlayanlar/Edited by H. Ahmet Arslantürk and Günhan Börekçi, Redaksiyon/Proof-reading by Abdülkadir Özcan. İstanbul, 2012, 140–205 (fols. 45b–105b). 3 For Ottoman succession practices, see Halil İnalcık, ‘Osmanlılarda Saltanat Veraset Usulü ve Türk Hakimiyet Telâkkisiyle İlgisi’, Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi 14 (1959) 69–94; Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ, XVI. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Devleti’nde Cülüs ve Cenaze Törenleri. Ankara, 1999; Nicolas Vatin and Gilles Veinstein, Le Sérail ébranlé: Essai sur les morts, dépositions et avènements des sultans ottomans (XIVe–XIXe siècle). Paris, 2003.

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death was fijinally announced to all. His corpse had already been exhumed and clandestinely carried in a cofffijin in the royal carriage noted above. An impromptu funerary prayer was accordingly held for the deceased sultan, after which ceremony his cofffijin was sent to Istanbul in order to be eternally buried within his imperial mosque complex, the Süleymaniye. Ever since this historic last campaign of Sultan Süleyman, Szigetvár has become a symbolic town in both Hungarian/Croatian and Ottoman/Turkish history, yet for diffferent reasons. In the Hungarian and Croatian historiographical tradition from the late 16th century onwards, the heroic deaths of Count Nicholas Zrínyi and his soldiers have been commonly portrayed as a genuine example of patriotism and self-sacrifijice for they bravely fought a hopeless battle instead of surrendering to a mighty enemy which vastly outnumbered them. Thus, for Hungarian and Croatian people, Szigetvár has been a signifijicant site that represents an epic struggle for national independence from a foreign power.4 As for the Ottomans, they have mainly remembered Szigetvár as the place where one of their greatest and most vigorous warrior (gazi) rulers died in waging yet another war aimed at expanding the imperial rule of the House of Osman vis-à-vis their chief dynastic rival in Europe, the Habsburgs.5 Indeed, throughout his 46-year-long reign which witnessed the transformation of the Ottoman patrimony into a full-fledged empire, Sultan Süleyman never truly gave up his ambitious goal of conquering Vienna, the capital city of the 4 See Dénes Sokcsevits, ‘A Zrínyiek újkori kultusza a horvátoknál / Hırvatlar Arasında Yeni Dönemlerde Zrínyi Kültü’, in Norbert Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán Szultán emlékezete Szigetváron / Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Hatırası. (Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum, Vol. VIII. – Special Issue) Pécs, 2014, 111–128, and Szabolcs Varga, Norbert Pap, Erika Kitanics and Máté Hancz, Szigetvár 1566. Pécs–Szigetvár, 2015, 41–51 (in Hungarian), 89–99 (in English) and 137–147 (in Turkish). Also see Szabolcs Varga, Europe’s Leonidas: Miklós Zrínyi, Defender of Szigetvár (1508–1566). Budapest, 2016, 249–255. 5 According to modern scholars, there were a number of reasons behind Süleyman’s 1566 campaign. The chief goal was to resolve issues regarding the contested territories and crowns of Transylvania and Hungary, which remained divided between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans since the early 1540s. Besides, Süleyman apparently sought to reclaim his legitimacy as an active warrior sultan in the eyes of his soldiers who had been criticizing him for becoming increasingly sedentary after his last Iranian campaign of 1553. Moreover, the ailing sultan seems to have undertaken this campaign to eradicate the bitter memories that still prevailed about the execution of his eldest son Prince Mustafa in 1553, as well as the succession struggle that took place between his two remaining sons, Princes Selim and Bayezid, in 1558– 1559. For further discussion of these points, see Tayyib Gökbilgin, ‘Kanunî Süleyman’ın 1566 Sigetvar Seferinin Sebebleri ve Hazırlıkları’, İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi 21 (1966) 1–14; Pál Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire: The Ottomans in Central Europe – A Failed Attempt at Universal Monarchy (1390–1566). Budapest, 20162, 129–133.

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Habsburgs, and controlling the Holy Roman Empire, as part of his once grandeur design of creating a universal monarchy.6 Altough his death during the siege of Szigetvár marked the end of an era in this regard, the Ottomans always kept a vivid memory of Süleyman I and his accomplishments, among which those campaigns and conquests he led in person occupied the special place and as such they had been already commemorated and widely propagated by diverse historical and literary works since the beginning of his long sultanate.7 Besides, celebrated as “the Magnifijicent” by contemporary Europeans largely for his elaborate court ceremonies and military processions, and later as “Kanuni” (Lawgiver or Law-abider) by the Ottomans for his adherence to justice, Süleyman turned into a role model to be imitated by his successors in the early 1600s, at a time when the Ottomans seemed to be imbued with a sense of despair and pessimism that their political-social order had been increasingly deteriorating and their hitherto uncontested military supremacy becoming questionable in the face of the multi-front long wars and incessant rebellions since the 1580s. Overall, by the mid-17th century, Süleyman came to represent an ideal ruler for his virtues and deeds (though not in an absolute nostalgic sense) while his reign was considered as the manifestation of the Ottoman imperial power and order par excellence, much acclaimed to be based on the notions and practices of dispensing justice according to both religious and sultanic laws, a meritocratic offfijice-holding system, an efffective central government by bureaucracy, and a highly sophisticated and successful military-administrative organization.8 Such a perception of Sultan Süleyman and his sultanate still perpetuates in the minds of many people in Turkey and abroad today. In this context, in what follows I will try to highlight some essential elements of the memory binding Szigetvár and Sultan Süleyman in Ottoman/Turkish 6 See Cornell Fleischer, ‘The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymān’, in Gilles Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magnifijique et son temps / Süleymân the Magnifijicent and His Time. Actes du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 7–10 mars 1990. Paris, 1992, 159–177, and Fodor, The Unbearable Weight of Empire. 7 For brief descriptions of the Ottoman works on Süleyman I’s campaigns and conquests, see Erhan Afyoncu, ‘Osmanlı Siyasî Tarihinin Ana Kaynakları: Kronikler’, Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatürü Dergisi 1:2 (2003) 101–172, especially 124–136; Abdülkadir Özcan, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Devri Tarih Yazıcılığı ve Literatürü’, in Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ (ed.), Prof. Dr. Mübahat Kütükoğlu’a Armağan. İstanbul, 2006, 113–154. 8 For Ottoman perceptions of Süleyman I and his times, see Cemal Kafadar, ‘The Myth of the Golden Age: Ottoman Historical Consciousness in the Post-Süleymanic Era’, in Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (eds.), Süleymân the Second and His Time. Istanbul, 1993, 37–48; Christine Woodhead, ‘Perspectives on Süleyman’, in Metin Kunt and Christine Woodhead (eds.), Süleyman the Magnifijicent and His Era: The Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern World. Harlow, Essex, 1995, 164–190.

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culture, and discuss how and to what extent these segments of historical recollection have been retained, changed or enriched by diffferent sources and methods in the ensuing decades and centuries up until the 2010s. Yet this is admittedly a very broad and complex problem to duly examine in a short article like this, both from a theoretical-methodological perspective and in terms of the pool of relevant sources that spans from several contemporary campaign narratives and literary works to modern-era school textbooks on Ottoman history, from memorial shrines and public monuments to archeological ruins, or from popular novels in Turkish to most recent television series fijictionalizing the life and times of Sultan Süleyman. Hence, mostly based on the existing scholarly literature on Ottoman history, I will limit my discussion here to a few select examples and references, hoping that much more detailed and comprehensive studies will be soon conducted on this challenging topic. To begin with, in the 1570s, a so-called memorial shrine (that is, türbe, meşhed or makam) was built near Szigetvár at the location of Süleyman’s imperial tent that marked his initial burial ground. In time, a small Ottoman settlement known as Türbe (Turbék in Hungarian) developed around this shrine, which included a mosque, a dervish lodge, a caravanserai, a bath and guard barracks, all enclosed within a palisade. Ottoman troops typically visited Süleyman’s türbe complex after arriving in Hungary in order to pray for his soul as well as seek his spiritual assistance in their military encounters with the enemy.9 Such pilgrimage sites were not only sacred or religiously important for the Ottomans; they also fulfijilled an important function in retaining myriad memories particularly related to the sounding victories their sultans won during their campaigns, thence they equally propagated and reinforced a more popular perception of the military might of the Ottoman imperial regime established over diffferent regions in diffferent times. For instance, İbrahim Peçevi, a renowned 17th-century Ottoman historian born and raised in Peçuy (Pécs in Hungary), mentions his youth-time expeditions to the nearby town of Mohács under the pretext of hunting and proudly writes that he climbed up and stood a few times on the same hilltop where Sultan Süleyman had once stood and prayed for victory at the Battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526. According to Peçevi, whose father had fought at this battle which ended by the 9 See Nicholas Vatin, ‘Un türbe sans maître. Note sur le fondation et la destination du türbe de Soliman-le-Magnifijique à Szigetvár’, Turcica 37 (2005) 9–42; Feridun Emecen, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın “Kayıp” Türbesi Üzerine Notlar / Gondolatok Törvényhozó Nagy Szülejmán Szultán “elveszett” türbéjéről’, in Pap (ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete, 129–135; Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman in Szigetvár’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71:2 (2018) 179–195.

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victory of Süleyman against Louis II (1516–1526), the king of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and thus facilitated the Ottoman annexation of Hungary in the coming decades, a wooden pavilion (köşk) and a water-well were constructed at that hilltop (known as Hünkar Tepesi) in around 1630 by Hasan Pasha, the governor-general of Buda.10 Though Peçevi does not specify a reason as to why Hasan Pasha built such a kiosk, it was clearly designed to serve as a battlefijield memorial on Sultan Süleyman’s fijirst major military success in Hungary. Indeed, in the early 1660s, the famous Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi paid a visit to Mohács and saw this kiosk, about which he remarks that it also marks the burial ground of thousands of Ottoman soldiers fallen during the battle, and accordingly it had been a popular pilgrimage site among the Muslim inhabitants of the region.11 Evliya similarly visited and described Süleyman’s türbe in Szigetvár, right before it was ransacked by Hungarian troops in the winter of 1664, looking for the golden vessel in which Süleyman’s internal organs were allegedly buried.12 Perhaps what makes Evliya’s description of this shrine complex all the more interesting is that he too mentions a similar detail, that is, Süleyman’s heart was buried there in a golden trophy (altun leğen).13 Clearly, this was a popular “legend” that had at one point started to circulate in the region and, as will be seen shortly, it would stick to both Hungarian and Ottoman/Turkish popular imagination on Süleyman’s death in Szigetvár. Unfortunately these buildings erected to commemorate Sultan Süleyman and his military accomplishments in Hungary did not survive the challenges of time. His türbe complex was heavily damaged in 1692–1693 at the hands of Habsburg forces, three years after they occupied Szigetvár (1689) during the 10

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İbrahim Peçevi, Tarih. Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi (TSMK), Ms. Bağdad 206, fol. 32b. Norbert Pap, Pál Fodor et al., ‘A mohácsi Törökdomb’, Történelmi Szemle 9:2 (2018) 325–345. A team of Hungarian geographers and historians has very recently identifijied the ruins of a structure not far from Mohács, which they think belongs to this kiosk built by Hasan Pasha. For further details, see their cited study in this note. Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Vol. 6. Ed. by Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı. İstanbul, 2002, 105. In this context, one may also mention the makam erected in memory of Sultan Murad I (1362–1389), who had fallen at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. See Osman Doğan and Ebul Faruk Önal, Kosova’da Sultan Murad Hüdâvendigâr Makamı. İstanbul, 2011. This mausoleum of Murad I in Kosovo (most probably completed in the second half of the 15th century) was visited by Sultan Mehmed V (1909–1918) in 1911 to deliver a speech to stimulate solidarity among the Muslims of the Balkans on the eve of the First Balkan War. Also noted by Fodor and Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman’, 181–182. The türbe complex was restored by the Ottomans after this plunder. For further details, see Fodor and Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman in Szigetvár’, 181. Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi. Vol. 7. Ed. by Yücel Dağlı, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Robert Dankofff. Istanbul, 2003, 17.

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Long War of 1683–1699, while subsequent military conflicts in the region facilitated its total destruction (the wooden kiosk at Mohács most likely sufffered the same fate). Hence, by the end of the 19th century, the exact location and ruins of Süleyman’s türbe were completely vanished. In 1913, partly in an efffort to foster more amicable relations with the Austro-Hungarian government and people on the eve of World War I, the Ottoman government placed a commemorative bilingual plaque on the outside wall of the Church of Virgin Mary in Turbék, stating that the heart of Süleyman was buried there and that it was the Ottoman ruler’s once funerary chapel. But recent archeological surveys conducted in the area proved this association wrong. The sultan’s lost türbe turned out to be located on a hillside one kilometer away from this church.14 On the other hand, the story of Süleyman’s fijinal campaign and his death during the siege of Szigetvár has been well-preserved in Ottoman historiography through a set of narrative sources. Among them, those contemporary works commonly known as the Sigetvarnames provide the most detailed accounts of the events that took place during the course of the campaign.15 The abovementioned chronicle of Feridun Ahmed, entitled Nüzhet-i Esrarü’l-Ahyar derAhbar-ı Sefer-i Sigetvar and completed in 1568, has no doubt an exceptional place in this corpus of campaign narratives for both its rich content and splendid illustrations. As the private secretary of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, Feridun Ahmed was in a unique position not only to witness the entire campaign from its onset, but also participate in all the critical decisions and actions taken by the grand vizier during the campaign, such as in improvising numerous tactics and tricks to keep the news of Süleyman’s death from being disclosed. However, Feridun Ahmed composed his chronicle (which conspicuously covers the period of 1558–1568 in which Sokollu Mehmed Pasha emerged as a major actor in Ottoman politics) to mainly eulogize his patron. In his narration of the events, he constantly gives the place of primacy to Sokollu, rather than Süleyman I or Selim II, while addressing him each time in highly flattering words. For Feridun Ahmed, Sokollu was not only an outstanding commander and statesman, but also a political genius of high influence, as if he was a “king-maker”. The grand vizier, after all, was the real commander-inchief of the 1566 Szigetvár campaign, leading the imperial army and the siege ably. Moreover, he distinguished himself as a loyal and skillful statesman by the measures he took immediately after the death of Sultan Süleyman. 14 15

For the history of the search and discovery of the ruins of Süleyman’s türbe complex, see Fodor and Pap, ‘In Search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman’. On Sigetvarnames, see Hüseyin G. Yurdaydın, ‘Sigetvarnameler’, Ankara Üniversitesi İlâhiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 2–3 (1952) 124–136; Agah Sırrı Levend, Gazavât-nâmeler ve Mihaloğlu Ali Bey’in Gazavât-nâmesi. Ankara, 1956, 59–63.

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As noted before, for a period of seven weeks, he carefully paved the way for Selim II to assume the Ottoman throne in an almost seamless process. As such, Sokollu was the sole fijigure in the continuation of the early modern Ottoman dynastic establishment at its most critical moment. It is thus not so surprising that Feridun Ahmed shows no hesitation in defijining him as “the possessor of majesty and felicity (sahib-i devlet ü saadet)”, an expression exclusively reserved for 16th-century sultans, or illustrating him issuing fermans as if he was the ruler of the Ottoman realm.16 Similarly, most contemporary works written about Süleyman’s fijinal campaign were either sponsored by Sokollu or dedicated to him. For instance, Agehi Mansur Çelebi, another veteran of this war, presented his Fetihname-i Kala-i Sigetvar, a chronicle of the campaign in prose, to the grand vizier.17 Sigetvar Fetihnamesi by Seyfiji of Istanbul, a work written in both prose and verse (yet nonexistent today), as well as Merahi’s poetic narrative of the campaign, Fetihname-i Sigetvar, are among the works dedicated to the grand vizier.18 Heft Meclis of Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali was likewise addressed to Sokollu. Mustafa Ali, a celebrated 16th-century Ottoman intellectual and bureaucrat, did not participate in the campaign, which counts for his stylistic concerns rather than a factual representation of the siege. Writing in a time of fijinancial and professional distress, Ali loaded his work with eulogies for Sokollu and submitted it to him (with the expectation for a scribal post at the imperial court) via Şeyh Nureddinzade Muslihiddin, a member of the Halveti order, who had reportedly sided with Sokollu in convincing the elderly sultan to join this imperial campaign so that he could fulfijill his duty of jihad for a last time.19 In this context, I should also note that the anonymous Heft Dastan and Aşık Çelebi’s Sigetvarname are the other two works known to have been written during the grand vizierate of Sokollu (1565–1579).20 There are a few contemporary Ottoman authors who, as witnesses of the siege of Szigetvár and the events in the 1560s, wrote chronicles on this era at a later date. In this respect, Mustafa Selaniki and his Tarih come fijirst to one’s 16 17 18 19

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See, for instance, Nüzhet-i Esrâr, fols. 24b, 26b, 30b, 184b, 187a–b, and 217b. About Agehi’s work, see Yurdaydın, ‘Sigetvarnâmeler’, 130–132. For an edition of this text, see Kübra Naç, Âgehî’nin Fetihnâme-i Kal’a-i Sigetvar’ı. MA thesis, Fatih Üniversitesi, 2013. For an edition of this work, see H. Ahmet Arslantürk and Mücahit Kaçar (eds.), Merâhî’nin Fetihnâme-i Sigetvar’ı: Kanunî’nin Son Seferinin Şiirsel Anlatımı. İstanbul, 2012. On Heft Meclis and Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali’s quest for a benefactor in the person of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, see Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Âli (1541–1600). Princeton, 1986, 58 and 71. Also see H. Mustafa Eravcı, ‘Gelibolulu Mustafa ‘Âlî ve “Heft Meclis” Adlı Eseri’, Tarih Okulu 6 (2010) 1–16. Levend, Gazavât-nâmeler, 60–63.

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mind, for he served in the campaign as a hafız (one who memorized the Quran) from the palace school. His account on the stages of the campaign, the death of Sultan Süleyman and the succession of Selim II largely agrees with that of Feridun Ahmed. Nevertheless, Selaniki observed all these events from a diffferent personal angle, which makes his work noteworthy particularly for ascertaining the details or events not mentioned by other contemporary authors.21 Finally, there is Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman, an illustrated work composed by Şehnameci Seyyid Lokman in verse. This is actually an offfijicial chronicle written in Persian on Süleyman’s reign, with miniatures produced by Nakkaş Osman. According to Ottoman art historians, Nakkaş Osman was one of the artists responsible for illustrating Feridun Ahmed’s Nüzhet-i Esrar, given that there are clear similarities in form and style between the miniatures found in these two works. Moreover, Seyyid Lokman was appointed as the offfijicial chronicler (şehnameci) in 1569 on the recommendation of Feridun Bey, and together with his artists and under the patronage of Selim II, he prepared Şehname-i Selim Han and the second volume of Hünername, both of which also include sections on Süleyman’s 1566 campaign illustrated by miniatures.22 These contemporary and near-contemporary works altogether provide quite an extensive textual and visual historical record on Sultan Süleyman and his last military undertaking. While they all highlight the success and glory of the campaign under the leadership of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in various details, each one of them sheds a diffferent light on Süleyman’s fijinal days and how the news of his death was successfully concealed until the enthronement of Selim II.23 Furthermore, in all these accounts, one encounters a heroic depiction of Süleyman as an exceptionally successful and devout Muslim 21 22

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For Selaniki and his chronicle, see Mehmet İpşirli, ‘Mustafa Selânikî and His History’, Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 9 (1978) 417–472. For these illustrated manuscripts and works by Seyyid Lokman and Nakkaş Osman, see Nurhan Atasoy, Nakkaş Osman’ın Eserleri ve Osmanlı Minyatür Sanatına Getirdiği Yenilikler. PhD diss., İstanbul Üniversitesi, 1962; Zeren Tanındı, Osmanlı Tarihi ile İlgili Minyatürlü Yazmalar: Şehnâmeler ve Gazanâmeler. PhD diss., İstanbul Üniversitesi, 1972; Filiz Çağman, ‘Şehname-i Selim Han ve Minyatürleri’, Sanat Tarihi Yıllığı 5 (1972–73) 411–442; Bekir Kütükoğlu, ‘Şehnâmeci Lokman’, in Prof. Dr. Bekir Kütükoğlu’na Armağan. İstanbul, 1991, 39–48; Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ, ‘Minyatürlü Yazmaların Tarihî Kaynak Olma Nitelikleri ve Nüzhetü’l-Esrâr’, in Tarih Boyunca Türk Tarihinin Kaynakları Semineri (6–7 Haziran 1996) Bildiriler. İstanbul, 1997, 31–46; Şebnem Parladır, ‘Sigetvar Seferi Tarihi ve Nakkaş Osman’, Sanat Tarihi Dergisi 16:1 (2007) 67–108; Emine Fetvacı, ‘The Production of the Şehnāme-i Selīm Ḫān’, Muqarnas 26 (2009) 263–316. In this context, the fijirst miniature in Feridun Ahmed’s Nüzhet-i Esrâr (fol. 16) is especially notable as it depicts how the aged sultan looked like on the eve of his death. However, I should correct a mistake that my colleague Ahmet Arslantürk and I made in our edition of this work regarding this illustration. In the miniature index at the end of our publica-

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warrior-ruler (gazi/mücahid sultan) in that after tirelessly leading his armies into battles for a total of thirteen (or, according to some authors, fijifteen) times, he fijinally died as a “martyr” (şehid) in Szigetvár while fijighting for the sake of expanding the abode of Islam (darü’l-İslam), which defijined his chief political goals during his long sultanate, just like those of his father, Selim I (1512–1520), and great-grandfather, Mehmed II (1444–1448; 1451–1481). Over the course of the 17th century, Süleyman’s last campaign continued to be narrated along these lines and incorporated into major Ottoman chronicles and historical accounts alike, such as by Hasan Beyzade, Mehmed bin Mehmed, İbrahim Peçevi, Solakzade and Karaçelebi Abdülaziz Efendi.24 However, the political, military and socio-economic problems that hit the Ottoman Empire from the 1580s onwards induced a sense of “decline” among contemporary intellectuals and bureaucrats, who in turn began to associate the images of order, justice and perfection with Süleyman’s reign in a sharp contrast to the disorder, arbitrariness and corruption that they observed undermining the fundamental principles and mechanisms of their imperial establishment for some time. For instance, writing in the 1630s–40s, Peçevi begins his chronicle with a discussion of the defijining features of Süleyman’s sultanate and explains them one by one in an endorsing tone. Here is an example: “In his reign, no holder of a government post, no military or judicial appointee, was dismissed without good cause. In fact, dismissal was extremely rare and those against whom there was any shadow of suspicion would never be reappointed to offfijice. Accordingly, all offfijicials acted with justice and moderation for fear of losing all chance of further employment. In this way blameworthy traits were eliminated.”25 While such a juxtaposing discourse and/or idealization between the sultanate of Süleyman and the post-Süleymanic era would persist in early modern Ottoman historiography and political writings, the very image, deeds and achievements of Süleyman inspired some 17th-century sultans to imitate their great ancestor so as to revive the power and prestige of their House of Osman.

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tion, we misidentifijied the prince of Transylvania seen in this miniature as István Báthory (ibid., 414), while it should be John Sigismund Szapolyai. For a list, content analysis and copies of these works, see Rhoads Murphey, ‘Ottoman Historical Writing in the Seventeenth Century: A Survey of the General Development of the Genre after the Reign of Sultan Ahmed I (1613–1617)’, Archivum Ottomanicum 13 (1993–1994) 277–311. Quoted in the same context and translated by Woodhead, ‘Perspectives on Süleyman’, 165.

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Perhaps the prime example in this respect is Sultan Ahmed I (1603–1617), who ascended the Ottoman throne at the age of thirteen. We know that from very early on Ahmed was especially interested in reading about the life and campaigns of Süleyman I, whose reign by then was still so fresh in people’s memory (we can imagine him reading or taking a look at some of the abovecited works, such as Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman and Hünername, available to him as part of the Topkapı Palace library collection). Ahmed’s fascination with his great-grandfather soon took the form of an obsession with emulating and even surpassing him.26 For instance, he studied military tactics by means of model fortresses erected in his harem quarters. Not surprisingly, he named these fortresses after Rome, Vienna, Prague and some other European cities.27 There was even a reenactment of the conquest of Vienna played out during the celebrations held for the circumcision of Ahmed I on 23 January 1604, which can be interpreted as one of the earliest signs of this young sultan’s eagerness to lead a campaign in person as well as his dream of doing what Sultan Süleyman could not do. Francesco Contarini, the Venetian bailo resident in Istanbul at that time, briefly describes this show in one of his dispatches: “On the occasion of the circumcision, many celebrations and parties were held by the pages inside the palace with fijireworks, bell-tolling, and other things; in particular, they represented the acquisition of a city, giving it the name of Vienna, fijirst sending the king of the Tartars to despoil the surrounding [territory] and similar things, until at the end, the sultan entered [Vienna] in victory and triumph.”28

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For an enlightening discussion of Ahmed I’s emulation of Süleyman the Magnifijicent, see Nebahat Avcıoğlu, ‘Ahmed I and the Allegories of Tyranny in the Frontispiece of George Sandy’s Relation of a Journey’, Muqarnas 18 (2001) 203–226. Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASVe), Senato, Dispacci Constantinopoli (SDC), fijilza 60, fol. 223r–v (dated 13 December 1604): Va anco la Maestà Sua a caccia spesso e ogni giorno quando va in seraglio si trattiene con rappresentationi continue di espugnationi di fortezze fijinte, facendole nominare Roma, Viena, Praga, et simili, facendo vestire li defensori più simili all’uso che può, e difendere et combattere fortemente con archibugi carichi senza palla, samitare et bastoni adoperandosi come generale, et rallegrandosi quando vede nel sforzo restar feriti li combatenti. Legge anco alcune volte la vita di Sultan Suliman, et procura di imitarlo… ASVe, SDC, fijilza 58, fol. 336v (dated 3 February 1604): Con l’occasione della circoncisione sono state fatte allegreze, et feste da quei giovini dentro al seraglio con fuochi, suoni, et altro in particolare hanno rapresentato l’acquisto di una città dandole il nome di quella di Viena con diverse circonstantie di haver prima mandato il Re dei Tartaria dar il guasto all’intorno, et cose simili, con far all’ultimo entrar dentro il Gran Signore con vittoria, et trionfante.

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Given that since the reign of Süleyman I, the Ottomans had had an imperial ambition to conquer Vienna, to which they occasionally referred as the Red (or Golden) Apple (Kızıl Elma), this particular play staged at Ahmed’s circumcision party can be read within the context of the ongoing Ottoman–Habsburg Long War of 1593–1606 as well as taken as an indication of Ottomans’ never-ending expectation of a warrior sultan who could continue the imperial territorial expansion and ultimately create that universal monarchy Süleyman once dreamed of.29 In any case, Ahmed I truly modeled himself in the image of Süleyman I, whom he admired and deemed the ideal warrior and the most powerful, just and pious ruler among all of his ancestors. For instance, according to a contemporary European account, at the commencement of his reign, he promised his people that he would create an empire more prosperous than ever before, “by imitating the virtues of his predecessor Süleyman”.30 Similarly, a foreign author in Istanbul remarked in a letter to a Jesuit priest that Ahmed wanted to become the next Süleyman the Magnifijicent.31 Moreover, Ahmed seemingly shared the view with many others that the empire-wide political disorder of his times resulted from a deviation from the principles that had defijined the early modern Ottoman imperial and dynastic establishment. According to this traditional understanding, which is typically reflected in the “advice to kings” literature written or translated for the sultans, a strong, warlike and just ruler was the pillar of the whole imperial system.32 The presence of a sultan with these virtues at the helm of the empire would establish a balance among all social, economic and political elements that sustained the Ottoman world order (nizam-ı alem).33 It was exactly this balance that both 29

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For a discussion of the centrality of Vienna/Red Apple in early modern Ottoman imperial imagination, see Orhan Şaik Gökyay, ‘Kızıl Elma Üzerine’, Tarih ve Toplum 23 (1986) 425– 430; 26 (1986) 84–89; 27 (1986) 137–141; 28 (1986) 201–205; Pál Fodor, ‘The View of the Turk in Hungary: The Apocalyptic Tradition and the Legend of the Red Apple in Ottoman–Hungarian Context’, in Benjamin Lellouch and Stéphane Yerasimos (eds.), Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople: Actes de la Table Ronde d’Istanbul (13–14 avril 1996). Paris, Toronto, 1999, 99–131. Avcıoğlu, ‘Ahmed I and the Allegories of Tyranny’, 218. Ibid., 219. See Douglas A. Howard, ‘Genre and Myth in the Ottoman Advice for Kings Literature’, in Virginia Aksan and Daniel Gofffman (eds.), The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. Cambridge, 2007, 137–166. For a detailed discussion of the Ottoman concept of nizam-ı alem and its connection to the question of sultanic legitimacy as reflected in early modern Ottoman political works, see Godfried Hagen, ‘Legitimacy and World Order’, in Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (eds.), Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power. (The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage. Politics, Society and Economy, 34.) Leiden, Boston Köln, 2005, 55–83.

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Ahmed I and his two successor sons, Osman II (1618–1622) and Murad IV (1623– 1640), wanted to re-establish by cultivating the image of a warrior and dynamic sultan in the fijirst half of the 17th century (though, unlike his great-grandfather or sons, Ahmed never got the chance to lead his armies into a real battle due to his health problems).34 In short, these 17th-century sultans’ choice of Süleyman as a model was not a coincidence. After all, Sultan Süleyman was the last Ottoman ruler to create a permanent impression of a powerful and majestic emperor in the minds of both the Europeans and the Ottomans.35

Concluding Remarks Though one hardly fijinds a detailed description of the last campaign of Sultan Süleyman in 18th-century Ottoman historical works, the opposite is true for the 19th and early 20th centuries. In these later periods, when printing press came to be both offfijicially and widely used in the Ottoman Empire, some renowned authors and intellectuals of the time, such as Cevdet Pasha, Namık Kemal, Ali Cevad and Ahmed Rasim, published books on general Ottoman history, which typically included a lengthy chapter on the reign and accomplishments of Sultan Süleyman with a narration of the story of his fijinal campaign and death based on the information provided by the aforementioned Sigetvarnames and 17th-century Ottoman chronicles. In this respect, these printed books, some of which were used as textbooks in schools, not only perpetuated the same glorious image and legacy of Süleyman in the Ottoman public in a more popular fashion, but also helped solidifying what revisionist scholars today call the “decline paradigm” and its notions of cyclical history in modern Ottoman historiography.36 For instance, Cevdet Pasha located Süleyman’s reign in his history of the Ottomans as follows: “The tree of the Ottoman state was planted by Osman Shah Gazi [c. 1300– 1324] and nourished by the endeavours of his successors until it reached 34

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For further discussion of Ahmed I’s imitation of Sultan Süleyman, see my Factions and Favorites at the Courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617) and his Immediate Predecessors. Unpublished PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2010, 93–147, 234–248. Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Süleyman the Magnifijicent and the Representation of Power in the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg-Papal Rivalry’, The Art Bulletin 71:3 (1989) 401–427, discusses in detail Sultan Süleyman’s attempts to construct an image of himself as the most majestic emperor vis-à-vis his rivals in Europe. See Douglas A. Howard, ‘With Gibbon in the Garden: Decline, Death and the Sick Man of Europe’, Fides et Historia 26 (1994) 22–37.

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the limit of mature perfection in the time of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Khan. Thereafter, it experienced variously both autumnal decay and distress, and spring restoration and rejuvenation, but eventually sufffered much misfortunes that it was reduced to a miserable condition. Then by the skill and enterprise of Sultan Mahmud Khan II [1808–1839] it was restored.”37 In the post-Ottoman modern Turkish Republic, we see that similar notions and perspectives on Süleyman and his times have continued to inform the textbooks used in modern public education as well as common people’s knowledge and imagination about general Ottoman history, while at the same time they got disseminated by some new, more popular and fijictional elements. For instance, from the 1950s to the 2000s, a good array of published novels and theatrical plays, with their diffferent plots and stories set in the 16th-century Ottoman world, have expanded the popular literature about Süleyman’s life, reign and campaigns as well as many famous personalities of the time, such as Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.38 This pre-Internet period also witnessed the critical emergence of several new popular history magazines, which gradually created a massive corpus of articles and opinion pieces about general Ottoman/ Turkish history written by authors from diverse professions, including academic historians, researchers, librarians and archivists.39 For example, in 1950, it was in one of these popular magazines that Kemal Çığ introduced Nüzhet-i Esrar as a “unique work” about Süleyman’s last campaign, whereas an article by Tayyib Gökbilgin briefly discussed the lost türbe of the sultan in Szigetvár.40 Two and a half decades later, Géza Feher published a short article in another popular journal of the time, which similarly described the work of

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Quoted and translated by Woodhead, ‘Perceptions on Süleyman’, 164. See Özlem Okur Kasap, Soliman le Magnifijique et ses proches: De l’histoire à la fijiction. PhD diss., Hacettepe Üniversitesi, 2006. For Turkish novels written about Ottoman history and their depiction of Süleyman and his times, see Gizem Akyol, 1923–1950 Arası Türk Romanında Osmanlı İmajı. PhD diss., Balıkesir Üniversitesi, 2011; Yasemin Uyar Akdeniz, 1950–2000 Arası Türk Romanında Osmanlı İmajı. PhD diss., Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, 2018. For a discussion and article-indexes of these popular history magazines in modern Turkey (1923–2005), see Hakan Öksüz, Cumhuriyet’ten Günümüze Popüler Tarih Dergileri. MA thesis, Marmara Üniversitesi, 2005; Edip Durmaz, Popüler Tarih Dergiciliğin Gelişiminde Hayat Tarih Mecmuasının Yeri. MA thesis, Marmara Üniversitesi, 2006. Kemal Çığ, ‘Sigetvar Seferine Dair Eşsiz Bir Eser’, Tarih Dünyası 9 (1950) 370–372; Tayyib Gökbilgin, ‘Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Szigetvar’daki Türbesi’, Tarih Dünyası 4 (1950) 144–145, 174.

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Feridun Ahmed together with Seyyid Lokman’s Tarih-i Sultan Süleyman, including selected miniatures from both works.41 Then, in the 2010s, came a phenomenal Turkish television series, Muhteşem Yüzyıl [Magnifijicent Century], which signifijicantly enriched and in a sense reshaped how Sultan Süleyman has been remembered and/or imagined in Turkey as well as in many countries abroad. This Turkish show, produced in 139 episodes and aired between January 2011 and June 2014 with record-breaking ratings, followed a chronological storyline from Süleyman’s succession in 1520 to his death in Szigetvár in 1566, featuring several famous Turkish actors and actresses in a fijictionalized soap-opera format. As such, it truly captivated the viewers’ imagination especially with its focus on Süleyman’s relationship with his favourite concubine, Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558). Moreover, the show created an amazing euphoria in Turkish public to know and read more about Sultan Süleyman, his harem, concubines, princes, viziers, etc. To satisfy this sudden demand, more and more popular publications flooded the Turkish book market, typically right before the show’s new season began. On a more academic level, scholars edited and published some of the aforementioned campaign narratives for the fijirst time as well as a few other historical and archival sources regarding Sultan Süleyman and his reign. In other words, the number of both popular and academic publications on the Süleymanic era peaked during these four years of the show. Meanwhile, particularly in its fijirst two seasons, some heated debates took place on television programs regarding whether the show accurately reflects the historical personalities and realities or rests on the imagination of its scenarists and producers. In sum, despite it received repeated criticisms from government circles for misrepresenting the private life of the sultan, and even some serious deaththreats by extreme right-wing people,42 Muhteşem Yüzyıl managed to kindle a remarkable, much wider and much deeper public interest and learning in Turkey on this particular period in Ottoman history and its central fijigure, Sultan Süleyman, for it successfully exposed its viewers to so many historical anecdotes, actual events, diverse personalities and daily-life objects, some of which were hitherto unknown to them. All in all, as millions of people from all walks of life watched Süleyman’s fijictionalized character (played by Mr. Halit 41 42

Géza Fehér, ‘Türk Vekayinamelerinde Zigetvar’, Türkiyemiz 13 (1974) 10–14. As I worked as one of the academic consultants for this show, I can personally testify to such serious threats. Fortunately, no one in the production team was harmed at that time, thanks to the security measures taken by the producers. For a study of the circulation of and the controversies on this show in Turkey, see Josh L. Carney, A Dizi-ying Past: “Magnifijicent Century” and the Motivated Uses of History in Contemporary Turkey. PhD diss., Indiana University, 2015.

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Ergenç), they learned more about the actual Süleyman and celebrated him as one of the greatest rulers in world history, just like generations of Ottomans had done before them. Coincidentally enough, the fijinal episode of this phenomenal show, which dramatically narrated the story of Süleyman’s death in Szigetvár, aired a few months before the joint research team of Hungarian and Turkish geographers, archeologists and historians identifijied the ruins of his above-mentioned türbe. As of today, regardless of whether people in Turkey still read one of those popular or academic works to learn about Sultan Süleyman’s fijinal historic campaign in 1566, or they go to Hungary to visit the ruins of his memorial shrine, or simply re-watch the fijinale of Muhteşem Yüzyıl, one thing is certain: The names of Szigetvár and Süleyman are attached to each other in many myriad ways and as such continue to be part of an ever-lasting memory and legacy in Turkish history and culture.

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The Pilgrimage Town (Türbe Kasabası) of Sultan Süleyman at Szigetvár Norbert Pap* University of Pécs, Hungary [email protected]

Introduction Sultan Süleyman died in his tent during the siege of Szigetvár (1566). Tradition has it that his internal organs were buried locally. His grandson, Murad, ordered that a türbe, an ornamented mausoleum, should be built at the place of his death. During the war of liberation, in 1692 or 1693, the tomb and the surrounding buildings (monastery, mosque, military barracks, palisade) were destroyed. The memory of the settlement was lost in the 18th century. Several sites were subsequently identifijied, in local tradition and in scientifijic research, as the possible location of the shrine. Researchers were unable, however, to establish defijinitively its location. The research that began in 2013 sought once again to locate the türbe; these effforts were fijinally crowned with success. Many people contributed to this success, especially the scholars I had the chance to work with, as well as many supporters without whom this research would not have been successful. The fijirst phase of the research was funded by the Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon Ajansı (Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency = TIKA) under an agreement concluded in late 2012 with the municipality of Szigetvár.1 The parties agreed that Norbert Pap, a geographer and historian working at the University of Pécs, should set up a research group, develop a concept based on a new approach and aim to complete the work by September 2016.2 To date, the * This essay has been supported by the National Research Development and Innovation Offfijice (NKFIH) under the project “The Political, Military, and Religious Role of Szigetvár and Turbék in the Rivalry of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and in the Ottoman-Turkish Regime in Hungary – Facts and Memory” (No. 116270). 1 Historian and Turkologist János Hóvári, who was appointed Hungary’s ambassador to Ankara that year, had a crucial role in preparing the research and the agreement. 2 Norbert Pap, ‘A szigetvári Szülejmán-kutatás keretei, a 2013-as év fontosabb eredményei / Sigetvar’da Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Hakkında Yapılan Araştırmaların Ana Noktaları ve 2013

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Turkish side has provided around 200,000 Euros in several instalments for the budget of the project. The purpose of the work was to examine the possible locations, to narrow the search down to a single location and ultimately to explore it as thoroughly as possible. In some cases, the Turkish party also supported Turkish architects, archaeologists and historians, as well as Turkish university students in a traineeship scheme. The aim was to facilitate the acceptance of the research results in Turkey. From the very beginning, effforts were made to develop cooperation between the research team and Pál Fodor, director general of the Research Centre for the Humanities at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The idea of seeking Hungarian fijinancial support arose during such cooperation. To implement this idea, we submitted a project proposal to NKFIH in early 2015, resulting in a grant of HUF 60 million that assisted progress in the key areas. The title of the project: “The Political, Military, and Religious Role of Szigetvár and Turbék in the Rivalry of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and in the Ottoman-Turkish Regime in Hungary – Facts and Memory.” The implementation of the project began on 1 September 2015 under the joint direction of Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap. Even prior to this time the research work had followed more than one thread. From this date, however, it could be further expanded: geophysical, archaeological, historical-geographic and historical investigations as well as issues related to the politics of memory were complemented by research on environmental history and archaeological research on the theatres of war. In addition to the University of Pécs and the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Research Centre for the Humanities at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, several researchers from the National University of Public Service, Eötvös Loránd University and the University of Szeged have participated in the project.3 Yılı Sonuçları’, in Norbert Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete Szigetváron / Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Sigetvar’daki Hatırası. (Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum, Vol. VIII. – Special Issue.) Pécs, 2014, 23–36. 3 In fact, this project goes even farther back, to 2009, when Erika Hancz and the Turkish scholar Fatih Elçil carried out probing excavations in the churchyard in Turbék as well as geophysical examinations inside the church and in the churchyard. They established that the church in Turbék cannot have been the place where the sultan’s tomb was built. Not only did they fail to fijind any trace of large buildings, fortifijications, a palisade or a moat, which were mentioned in numerous sources, but they did not uncover any archaeological fijinds that would reflect the everyday life of people who might have settled there permanently. All the objects found there originated from the 18th century or a later period. The archaeological explorations carried out under the research programme were supported and funded by the Offfijice for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. The following scholars participated in the programme as consultants: Professor Zsolt Visy (University of Pécs), Professor Ara Altun, head of department at that time (University of Istanbul) and Professor Mehmet Baha Tanman (University of Istanbul). Dr László Gere from the Offfijice also followed the project with attention.

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The University of Pécs provided not only moral but also fijinancial support, contributing to the success of the project for the fijirst time in the 2017–2018 academic year by employing researchers, covering research mobility and publishing costs and funding international networking and certain phases of the project. The University contributed to the research project by establishing the Centre for Excellence “Peace and Conflict in the Balkans and Central Europe” chaired by Norbert Pap and it provided approximately 10 million Hungarian forints for the Centre’s budget.

History of Research on the Türbe Prior to 2013, research work was typically one-sided and disciplinary, carried out by scholars working on their own. To a large extent, these studies relied heavily on the, in part, controversial claims of the sources stemming from 1566 and the subsequent decades in connection with the siege. As a result, the key words typically included “place of the tent”, “place of death”, “waterside place”, “türbe-church continuity” and “folk tradition”. The approach of researchers was strongly influenced by the alleged location of the siege camp, but the battlefijield was not investigated thoroughly. The sources suggest that there may have been several kinds of locations (the place of death, the place of the tent, the place of the türbe), but after such a long time and because of the defijiciencies in the documents, it proved impossible to reconstruct every place and every possible scenario. During the more than 110 years of research of the tomb, three major positions have emerged on its possible location. From the beginning, St Mary’s Catholic Church in Turbék, situated in a flat, marshy area northeast of the castle in Szigetvár, was regarded as a strong candidate. Indeed, in 1913, a memorial plaque with an inscription in Hungarian and Turkish was installed on the wall of the church, commemorating the sultan’s former shrine. Several historians and archaeologists have given their support to this site.4 In 1971, Kováts carried out excavations inside the church and in the churchyard and, even though she was unable to verify her research hypothesis, she argued in favour of this location. In their arguments supporting this theory, researchers have tended to rely on the legitimacy of folk traditions, certain archaeological anomalies 4 Németh Béla, Szigetvár története. Pécs, 1903 (reprint 2011), 389; Hal Pál, Szigetvár 1688 és 1689-ben: Szigetvár török uralom alól való felszabadulásának 250. évfordulója alkalmából. Szigetvár, 1939, 20; Kováts Valéria, ‘Turbék ásatási jelentés’, in Janus Pannonius Múzeum Régészeti Adattár, No. 1638.83, 1971; Gőzsy Zoltán, Szigetvár története a 18. században. Szigetvár, 2012, 324.

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Turbék in 1664 on Pál Esterházy’s ground plan. photograph: ákos stiller

(secondary Turkish building materials), the presumed layout of the siege camp in 1566 (including the sultan’s camp), and the contradictions of historical sources. One researcher, Takáts, rejected the türbe-church continuum but failed to establish an alternative location.5 According to another argument, the sepulchre was built by the Almás stream, which was also commemorated by local folk tradition as one of the places where the sultan might have died – at the Sztracsova Well.6 Not far from this latter place stands the Hungarian–Turkish Friendship Park at the so-called “Turkish cemetery”, which was created in 1994 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Süleyman’s birth and then renewed in 2016 at the time of the 450th commemoration of the siege of Szigetvár in 1566. A memorial türbe was erected here, along with a symbolic tomb of the ruler. József Molnár7 also placed the site near the Almás stream, based on site “F” of the comprehensive map of Szigetvár made by Leandro Anguissola in 1689, which has been known for more than 100 years (F: Orth wo der Türkische Kaiser Solimanus ist gestorben, 5 Sándor Takáts, ’Nagy Szolimán császár sírja’, in Idem, A török hódoltság korából. (Rajzok a török világból, IV.) [Budapest, 1927,] 123–132. 6 János Pesti (ed.), Baranya megye földrajzi nevei. Vol. 1. Pécs, 1982, 452–473. 7 Molnár József, ‘Szulejmán szultán síremléke Turbéken’, Művészettörténeti Értesítő 14:1 (1965) 64–66.

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that is, “The place where the Turkish Emperor Solimanus died”). In addition to the data on the map, the main research argument is provided by the representation of Turbék made at the time of the 1664 military campaign against the Turks, showing that the fort protecting the türbe was surrounded by a moat, which must have been connected to the only available water flow in the region. According to a third, novel supposition, which will be presented below, the mausoleum was built on top of the Turbék vineyard, and later a small oriental town (kasaba) was developed around it. Incidentally, this does not contradict folk tradition, since this site, according to a local legend, is the place where the sultan had his camp during the siege.8 Up to now, several researchers have provided additional information about the history of Turbék as a small Ottoman town. Előd Vass argued that the town built around the tomb consisted of two parts (mahalles).9 Gábor Ágoston wrote about the sultan’s tomb and the life of its fijirst shaikh, Ali Dede of Mostar, in his essay on civilisation and religious life in Ottoman Hungary.10 As part of an examination of what happened to the site of Süleyman’s tomb, the church historian Máté Gárdonyi wrote a paper on the multidimensional importance of the devotional image of Máriahilf that can be found in the Catholic church in Turbék and originates from Passau.11 He established that the devotional painting in Turbék had taken on the role of the original work in Passau “promoting” the defeat of the Turks. He called attention to certain controversies surrounding the continuity of the türbe in Turbék and noted several interesting considerations in connection with the origin of the name “Turbék”. Klára Hegyi published data on the changing number of soldiers in Turbék and the employment of certain residents.12 Zoltán Gőzsy has argued that Süleyman’s mausoleum and the Catholic church in Turbék were connected by a spiritual thread provided by the cult of the Helping Blessed Virgin Mary.13 Balázs Sudár summarized the most important Ottoman sources and data related to the 8 9

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Pesti (ed.), Baranya megye földrajzi nevei, 452–473. Előd Vass, ‘Szigetvár város és a szigetvári szandzsák jelentősége az Oszmán-Török Birodalomban 1565–1689’, in László Szita (ed.), Tanulmányok a török hódoltság és a felszabadító háborúk történetéből. A szigetvári történész konferencia előadásai a város és a vár felszabadításának 300. évfordulóján (1989). Pécs, 1993, 193–217. Gábor Ágoston, ‘Muslim Cultural Enclaves in Hungary under Ottoman Rule’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 44:2–3 (1991) 181–204; Idem, ‘Muszlim hitélet és művelődés a Dunántúlon a 16–17. században’, in Szita (ed.), Tanulmányok, 277–292. Gárdonyi Máté, ‘A turbéki kegyhely kialakulása’, in Szabolcs Varga (ed.), Szűz Mária segítségével. A turbéki Mária-kegyhely története. Budapest, 2016, 15–27. Klára Hegyi, A török hódoltság várai és várkatonasága. Vols. I–III. Budapest, 2007, 1631. Gőzsy, Szigetvár története, 324.

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location in a databank.14 On the basis of Ottoman sources, Nicolas Vatin established that the memorial place may have been built in 1574.15 He argued that the burial of the internal organs was only a later legend and that the shrine was a symbolic memorial türbe, built where the sultan’s body was temporarily buried. As for the location of the türbe, he established that the site had been an orchard before 1574. Feridun Emecen dismissed the view that it was built near the Almás stream and noted that St Mary’s Church in Turbék and the location identifijied in the vineyard were close to each other. He also insisted that the internal organs had been removed and the türbe was not only a symbolic memorial place.16 Gyöngyi Kovács studied the value of the Esterházy drawing depicting Turbék as a source.17 Based on analogies, she found that only certain parts of it corresponded to reality. The depictions are rather schematic and the ground plan of Turbék must be treated with reservations.

Research in Turbék between 2013 and 2018 Research since 2013 has focused on surveys of the geographic environment. The construction of the türbe and the pilgrimages to it coincided with the socalled “Little Ice Age”; therefore, the author of this paper raised the idea that the contemporary geographic and environmental conditions should be examined to see what kind of geographic environment the sources refer to.18 The assumption was that the türbe and the other buildings might have stood in a cooler, damper area with a diffferent vegetation. We focused our effforts on clarifying the main characteristics of the geographic environment by using a landscape reconstruction study and examining the sources embedded in this system. Finally, Péter Gyenizse and Zita Bognár made a spatial model for the investigations based on a geographic information system.19 14 15

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Balázs Sudár, Dzsámik és mecsetek a hódolt Magyarországon. Budapest, 2014, 500‒504. Nicolas Vatin, Un türbe sans maître. Note sur la fondation et la destination du türbe de Soliman-le-Magnifijique à Szigetvár. Turcica 37 (2005) 9–42; Idem, ‘Egy türbe, amelyben nem nyugszik senki. Megjegyzések Nagy Szülejmán szigetvári sírkápolnájának alapításához és rendeltetéséhez’, Keletkutatás 2008. tavasz–ősz, 53–72. Feridun Emecen, ‘Kānûni Sultan Süleyman’ın Macaristan’daki Türbesine Dair Görüşler’, in Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi. 30. Yıl Hâtıra Kitabı. (İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 114.) İstanbul, 2014, 71–86. Gyöngyi Kovács, ‘Oszmán erődítmények a Dél-Dunántúlon. Gondolatok Szigetvár-Turbék régészeti kutatása előtt’, Mediterrán és Balkán Fórum 9:2 (2015) 20–33. Pap, ‘A szigetvári Szülejmán-kutatás keretei’, 23–36. Péter Gyenizse and Zita Bognár, ‘Szigetvár és környéke 16–17. századi tájrekonstrukciója katográfijiai és geoinformatikai módszerekkel / Sigetvar ve Çevresinin Haritacılık ve Jeoen-

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The two sites mentioned previously (the church in Turbék and the “Turkish cemetery” = Turkish–Hungarian Friendship Park) are both located in a flat, marshy area. According to the landscape reconstruction study, the area along the stream was periodically flooded, that is, it was a floodplain. We can safely say that no permanent settlement was built at this place; indeed, there are no archaeological traces of such a settlement. The excavations carried out previously did not uncover any Ottoman fijinds.20 The area around the Turbék church was also marshy and unsuitable for human settlement. In addition, the study found that the castle was not visible from there; it was located at such a low altitude that its use as a command point was out of the question. As the distance from the vineyard to the gardens is more than 600 meters, the description in the sources saying that they are surrounded by gardens and vineyards does not fijit this place. In addition, the sources did not mention any physical traces of large buildings or fortifijications protecting them or permanent communities and frequent pilgrimages. Finally, both the landscape reconstruction studies and the 17th-century maps led us to the top of the Turbék-Zsibót vineyard (in line with the most authentic sources of the 16th century, which placed the sultan’s camp on a nearby hill, sometimes referred to as Semlék or Szemlő Hill.21 Maps from the 1680s and 1690s show a settlement that is closer to the water flow in Zsibót and farther away from the Almás Stream, which might have been an inhabited area of medium size or signifijicance, based on the map legends and where, according to the texts shown on the maps, Süleyman had died or where his tomb could be found. The validity of this site was supported by fijifteen new, 18th-century Latin, German and Hungarian written sources discovered by Máté Kitanics,

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formasyon Yöntemleriyle 16–17. Yüzyıl Peyzaj Rekonstrüksiyonu’, in Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete, 73–90. The fijirst exploration was reported by Pál Hal, which is associated with a local citizen, Béla Salamon. The archaeologist Valéria Kováts also reported on her investigations regarding the “Turkish cemetery” in her documentation. Finally, it was also Valéria Kováts who examined the development area when the Hungarian–Turkish Friendship Park was built in 1994, but she did not fijind any Turkish remains. Our research team carried out a number of inspections in the fijield in 2013 and examined aerial photographs as well, but they did not produce any results either. We do not know whether the name “Turkish Cemetery” stemmed from the fact that the tumuli, which are clearly in evidence at the site, were regarded as “ancient” in folk memory and therefore – as in so many other places – as “Turkish” or whether the name does indeed derive from an Ottoman burial place. More research is required by our research team to settle this issue. Norbert Pap, Máté Kitanics, Péter Gyenizse, Erika Hancz, Zoltán Bognár, Tamás Tóth and Zoltán Hámori, ‘Finding the Tomb of Suleiman the Magnifijicent in Szigetvár, Hungary: Historical, Geophysical and Archeological Investigations’, Die Erde 146:4 (2015) 289–303.

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which provided conclusive evidence.22 The geographic information of the documents can be summed up as follows: It was located to the east of the fortress in Szigetvár, at a distance of 4-5 kilometres), or an hour’s walk, in a hilly area lying on the edge of vineyards and maize fijields. These sources called the fortress in Turbék and the settlement associated with it the “Turkish Fortifijication”, and according to them, the fortress included the chapel-shaped türbe, the convent of the Halveti dervishes (hankah) and the “Grand Mosque” near the hankah. The structure of the “Turkish Fortifijication” starting from the inside and going outwards was as follows: The leader of the convent and the dervishes lived in the cluster, that is, the hankah “enclosed” by the fortifijication. The sources make a clear distinction between the “fortifijication” and the inner part of the fortress, so we can assume that the Turks lived between the surrounding “fortifijication” and the “camp”, while the Christians lived outside the “fortifijication”. After the wars of reconquest, the fortress and its lands came into the possession of the Jesuits, who dedicated the türbe to the Helping Blessed Virgin Mary. However, the building was not given a real sacral function; religious services were not held here but in the former mosque close to the convent. As already mentioned, the consecrated chapel, that is, the türbe, and, it seems, the local mosque were demolished in 1692–1693 and the building materials were then sold for profijit.23 Following fijield surveys, we announced at a conference in 2013 that it was our aim to investigate further these vast Ottoman ruins, which we regarded as possibly constituting the former pilgrimage site. For centuries, this area was surrounded by gardens, vineyards and arable land on one side. It lies 4.2 kilometres northeast of the castle. At this location we come across traces of old Ottoman life on the surface at every step. The population living here must have been quite prosperous, as shown by the fragments of luxurious items (glass, Ming porcelain, Safavid ceramics). There is a good view of the town from here, and it lies at the junction of the roads leading to the east (towards Pécs) and to the north (Kaposvár), next to the Szilvási Inn, which has been here for hundreds of years. It is an ideal place for a camp, a command post and buildings. The probability of this site is enhanced by a large area with Ottoman remnants, which are absent from the other two possible sites. In 2013, we were still reluctant to establish that the probable location of the türbe could be in the area between the Szilvási Inn and the church of the Helping Blessed Virgin 22

23

Máté Kitanics, ‘Szigetvár–Turbék: A szultán temetkezési helye a 17–18. századi magyar, német és latin források tükrében / Sigetvar–Turbék: 17.–18. Yüzyıllara Ait Macarca, Almanca ve Latince Kaynaklar Temelinde Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Mezarının Oluşturulduğu Bölge’, in Pap (szerk./ed.), Szülejmán szultán emlékezete, 91–109. Takáts, ‘Nagy Szolimán’, 123–132.

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Mary. We fully dismissed the area near the stream as a possible location. The most important requirement was to establish the location of large buildings, fortifijications and protective trenches. In late 2014 and early 2015, we conducted a series of tests using various gauges and devices and found that there were no traces of trenches, fortifijications or foundations of large buildings at or near the church.24 At the vineyard site, however, geophysical investigations revealed large buildings that faced southeast and seemed to be identical to the buildings in the sources. Moreover, traces of fortifijications were also found. A relatively large building with a square ground plan was oriented towards Mecca. The location of the buildings is compatible with the layout of the 1664 ground plan (dervish convent, mosque, türbe, military barracks, traces of the fort). First, we carried out a photogrammetric examination with remote detection (using a drone), followed by a LIDAR test to precisely identify even the distinct sections of the trench system surrounding the buildings. In an area larger than the one we had considered in 2013, we found traces of an Ottoman settlement with large buildings at its centre that could be matched with the small town of Turbék mentioned in the sources. Incidentally, folk tradition has it that this is the place where the imperial tent complex was pitched. As noted previously, it is also mentioned in Christian sources as the place where the Turkish sultan had his camp “up on the hill” in Szemlőhegy/Szemlék.25 Although the place has a diffferent name today, the locals still produce wine “from the Szemlőhegy” here. According to local residents, there used to be “Turkish ruins” here and they reported fijinding archaeological remains from the Ottoman period on several occasions. Following these preliminary studies, archaeological research started on 5 October 2015. Based on the radar tests (GPR) we knew where to look for the buildings. In the course of the work led by archaeologist Erika Hancz, we found and excavated the remains of the türbe’s walls. The rectangular, wide walls of the building erected in the Ottoman period were built from brick and stone. The central room of the building is 7.9 × 7.9 metres. It could be approached from the northwest via a lobby divided into three parts. There is no trace of a mihrab and a minaret. The building was covered with stone slabs. In the centre of the town there was a two-metre deep robbers’ pit, which was probably dug by looters in the late 17th century. Some of the decorative elements of this 24 25

Máté Kitanics, Erika Hancz, Tamás Tóth and Norbert Pap, ‘A turbéki kegytemplom török előzményének kérdése’, Történelmi Szemle 59:1 (2017) 1–18. Lajos Ruzsás and Angyal Endre ‘Cserenkó és Budina’, Századok 105:1 (1971) 57–69; Istvánfffy Miklós, Istvánfffy Miklós magyarok dolgairól írt históriája Tállyai Pál XVII. századi fordításában. Vol. I/2: 13–24. Ed. by Péter Benits. Budapest, 2003, 503; Kitanics, ‘Szigetvár– Turbék’, 91–109.

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former building, which luckily ended up in the pit, are akin to the ornaments of the Süleyman türbe in Istanbul. After the excavations and other examinations in 2015, everything indicated that this building must have been Süleyman’s memorial mausoleum. On the other hand, in order to establish this defijinitively, additional investigations were needed, and additional buildings had to be explored in its surroundings. In the next step, we started to excavate the remains of the supposed mosque and dervish convent in the spring of 2016. Prior to this, in early December 2015, we carried out additional geophysical studies to provide an even more accurate picture of the layout and location of the buildings (convent, mosque, türbe). These studies were very encouraging: According to the radar test, the layout of the buildings was the same as shown in a newly found sketch from 1689.26 A written source also confijirms this layout. At the hearing of a commission of inquiry appointed by the Aulic War Council in Vienna in 1693, a witness claimed that no church service had ever been held in the türbe from among the buildings dedicated as a chapel. In contrast, in another one, the former mosque, which lay in the direction of the dervish convent, Bishop Ignác Radonay of Pécs and others had celebrated mass.27 The radar test, the newly-found mysterious map and the testimony confijirmed that the sequence of the three buildings along the northwest-southeast axis was this: the convent, the mosque and the türbe. It appears that the convent was extended with a second wing from the south after 1664 and that the mosque and the türbe, as confijirmed by the excavations, did not form a single building but were built about six feet apart. Taken together, the various pieces of evidence strongly indicated that we had found the türbe. Incidentally, the concurrent presence of these buildings and their relationship with one another also indicate that Sultan Süleyman’s mausoleum once stood here, since no similar arrangement of buildings has been found anywhere else in Ottoman Hungary. From this point on, the main question that needs to be addressed is to what extent archaeological research can confijirm or refute the functions of each of the buildings known from the written sources. In the fijirst days of the 26

27

This “map” was probably owned by a German, who wished to remain anonymous. Perhaps he was the one who offfered the map for sale to the research team in 2013. We did not accept the offfer as we did not have the necessary fijinancial resources. The map was fijinally auctioned in Frankfurt in March 2018, with the owner still concealing his/her identity. Norbert Pap was, however, contacted by the managing director of the auction company, who was seeking information about the document. Thanks to this contact, the map’s information became known to the research team. The map was made by Leandro Anguissola in 1689. The layout of the tomb complex as shown in the diagram is the same as the one discovered by the research team at the site. Takáts, ‘Nagy Szolimán’, 123–132.

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new round of excavations in late May 2016, the mosque’s corner walls emerged. Subsequently, we fully uncovered the foundation walls of the building and found remains of the four northern cells of the convent. This year, we also managed to uncover a segment of the fosse protecting the türbe’s palisade on the northern side of the fort. Its width was 4.8 metres and its depth was 2.4 metres. We found two 17th-century Turkish silver coins (akçes) and other archaeological remains in it, and we also managed to wash over 30,000 plant residues (pollen, phyton) out of the excavated soil. As a result of the environmental history studies led by Pál Sümegi, the vegetation of the newly established settlement and its garden culture also emerged. The settlers from the Balkans and perhaps from Anatolia brought with them the typical plants of their homes and thus created a unique settlement in occupied Hungary. These results will be published in the near future. Pál Fodor published his research results on the time of the sultan’s death in the same year.28 Süleyman died a natural death in the early hours of 7 September 1566 (between 1 and 2 a.m.) in his tent in the vineyard in Turbék. Then, for 42 days, he was buried under the imperial tent until his body was removed and prepared for the long journey to Istanbul. In 2017, further excavations in Turbék uncovered the remnants of the dervish convent. During the same year, we completed the exploration of the northern wing, where we were able to identify the room used by the dervishes for religious services. We continued our work by exploring the western wing, reaching the southern wing. A reservoir cistern was also found in this section. For 2018, our plan is to explore the southern part of the convent complex. The archaeological fijinds bear witness to the lifestyle of the Halveti dervishes living here as well as to the high-quality material culture of the area. In 2017 the Hungarian government decided to take the Turbék area into state ownership and to fund the completion of the research project. This means that the excavations must be completed by the end of 2019 in the area of the türbe fort. This will require exploring the elements of the buildings and the fort that can be found there, as well as drawing up plans for a cultural tourism facility. Thanks to the advanced state of the project, there is a fair chance of success. The results were published in 2017 in a comprehensive volume in Hungarian entitled Szulejmán szultán Szigetváron [Sultan Süleyman in Szigetvár].29 Some of the research fijindings were also made available to the international research community in two journal articles, one of which was an 28 29

Pál Fodor and Szabolcs Varga, ‘Zrínyi Miklós és Szulejmán szultán halála’, Történelmi Szemle 58:2 (2016) 193–200. Norbert Pap and Pál Fodor (ed.), Szulejmán szultán Szigetváron. Pécs, 2017, 300.

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figure 2

The Süleyman tomb complex on air footage. photograph: andrás szamosi (2016)

overview reflecting the views of the research team’s leaders,30 and the other one provided a complete historiography of the research project.31 Investigations in the future will also be extended, in addition to the tomb complex, to the town south of the türbe. We know very little about the internal structure and the physical characteristics of the small town of Turbék (kasaba) composed of two districts (mahalle) that are known from the sources. For now, it seems to be certain that its inhabitants included both Muslims and Christians. The Muslims might have been family members of the fortress military forces, who operated a typical institution appropriate to the Ottoman lifestyle. We know from Evliya Çelebi that there was an inn (han) and a bath (hamam) in the town, and there also seems to have been at least one mosque, in addition to the one next to the türbe. The Christians in the town were most likely Catholics, as the names of two priests are known from the 17th century, who were appointed by the bishop of Zagreb. Calvinist Hungarians lived in the surrounding villages, so the town was quite diffferent from its surroundings in social terms. As for the material culture of the town, the answer will be provided by the excavations.

30 31

Pál Fodor and Norbert Pap, ‘In search of the Tomb of Sultan Süleyman in Szigetvár’, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae 71:2 (2018) 179–195. Norbert Pap and Máté Kitanics, ‘Die Erforschung der Türbe von Sultan Süleyman des Prächtigen bei Szigetvár (1903–2016)’, Ungarn Jahrbuch 33 (2018) 237–262.

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Reception of the Research Findings The investigations generated strong domestic and international interest almost from the very fijirst moment. The press regularly and extensively reported on the progress of the investigations. International TV companies have also discovered the topic and the place itself. Following a press conference held by TIKA on 9 December 2015, several leading newspapers around the world reported on fijinding the tomb chapel. The interest can be explained by the 450th anniversary of the Siege of Szigetvár and the death of the sultan, who remains a fijigure of interest to many. On this occasion, a series of documentaries were produced, including fijilms by the Travel Channel, Germany’s ZDF (the documentary, to which we contributed,

figure 3

Turbék between 1664–1688 – Reconstruction

was shown on 17 April 2016), Croatian television (also with many Hungarian participants), Turkish fijilmmakers, and two Hungarian productions. In the long term, the research will certainly leave a deep mark on Szigetvár and the region as well. The anticipated investments, for which preparations have already begun, may well have life-changing efffects and perhaps even the identity of local people will be altered. When we completed our application for funding and submitted it to the National Research Development and Innovation Offfijice (NKFIH) in 2015, we described our vision as follows: “If the research work is completed successfully and we are able to uncover and reconstruct the former Ottoman religious centre (the tomb of Süleyman) as planned, it will not only be benefijicial to historians and archaeologists, etc., but

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it will also serve as the foundation of touristic and regional development that Szigetvár and its vicinity has needed for a long time. The international benefijits of the research are also indisputable, since it may contribute to improving … international relations among the afffected countries (of diffferent cultures) which, in a tense international environment, is more needed than ever before.” The three years that have passed since the vision was described have evidently justifijied our stated objectives. The Hungarian state is gradually taking into state ownership the gardens and private estates afffected by the research project. Not only is research making good progress, but plans are being prepared for a future exhibition room. We hope that the facility will serve reconciliation rather than division among nations.

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Index of Personal Names Abraham (prophet) 80, 466 Abu Bakr (caliph) 73, 80, 466 Abu Hanifa 71–72, 74, 76, 80–81 Adam (prophet) 80 Aelst, Pieter Coecke van 120 Agehi Mansur Çelebi 438, 530 Ágoston, Gábor 5, 228, 543 Ahmed I 533–535 Ahmed II 433 Ahmed Pasha (governor of Egypt) 105 Ahmed Pasha (governor-general of Rumelia) 415 Ahmed Pasha (third vizier) 266–267 Ahmed, Shahab 76, 86, 91 Ahmet Rumi Efendi 87 Aisha 73 Aksan, Virginia 47 Aksarayi, Abdürrahman b. Yusuf 68, 72, 74, 76, 78–79, 82–84 Alapi (Alapić), Casper 512 Albert V (of Bavaria) 362 Albinus Nivemontius, Petrus 459, 504 Albrecht II (king of Hungary) 182 Aldana, Bernardo de 169, 173–174 Alexander the Great 126, 131, 134, 136, 227, 230, 263 Ali (caliph) 75 Ali Dede of Mostar 441, 543 Ali Portuk 254, 402–405, 407 Allemand, Jean 172 Andrea, Jacob 491 Angielini (family) 334 Angielini, Nicolo 363, 371 Angiolello, Giovanni Maria 436 Anguissola, Leandro 542 Anne (sister of Louis II of Hungary) 323 Antemus, Osvald 449 Ányos, Pál 467, 473 Apollo 120, 131 Aretino, Pietro 138–145 Arslan Pasha (sancakbeyi of Pojega, governor of Buda) 350, 373, 384 Asad, Talal 86 Aşık Çelebi 530 Ata Allah Ahmed Efendi 69

Augustus (elector of Saxony) 502 Augustus (emperor of the Roman Empire) 134 Balassa, Melchior (Menyhárt) 355, 361, 363, 368, 389 Baldigara, Ottavio 305 Ban, Matija 519 Barbarics-Hermanik, Zsuzsanna 5 Barbaros Hayreddin see Hayreddin Barbarossa Baróti Szabó, Dávid 467 Báthory, András 362–363 Báthory, István (prince of Transylvania) 361, 363–364, 368, 370, 375, 452, 455, 457 Batthyány, Boldizsár 395 Batthyány, Ferenc 184 Bayezid (prince, son of Süleyman I) 365 Bayezid I 43, 102, 229, 291 Bayezid II 4, 33, 46, 94, 102–105, 107, 110, 113–114, 125–126, 135, 278, 433, 440 Bellini, Gentile 126 Berzsenyi, Dániel 469 Betzek, Jacob 236 Beyoğlu see Gritti, Alvise Birgili, Mehmed b. Pir Ali 69–70, 74–75, 79–84, 87, 90 Bizarri, Pietro 494–496, 502 Boer, Wietse de 88 Bognár, Zita 544 Bonfini, Antonio 118, 267 Börekçi, Günhan 6 Borromeo, Carlo (cardinal) 88 Brahe, Tycho 479–481, 492, 501, 503–504 Brandis family 500 Brandis, Joachim 500 Braudel, Fernand 29–30 Budina, Samuel 379, 403, 454, 458–469, 496–499, 504, 507, 514 Burak, Guy 76–77, 85 Busbeck, Oghier Ghislain 236–238, 349, 356, 361, 365–366, 368 Calder, Norman 86 Candidus, Pantaleon 452

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554 Caorlini, Luigi 138–139 Cassandra 131 Castaldo, Giovanni Battista 169 Castell, Bartholomäus 207 Cecil, William 482, 494 Cem (prince, son of Mehmet II) 436 Černović, Michael 359, 369–373, 375 Cervantes 243 Cevad, Ali 535 Cevdet Pasha 535 Chalkokondylas 437 Chantonnay (Chantoné)/Perrenot de Granvelle, Thomas 241, 245–253, 257–260 Charles I (of Spain) see Charles V Charles II (archduke of Inner Austria) 496, 498 Charles III (of Spain) 243 Charles IX (of France) 247, 249, 251 Charles of Habsburg see Charles V Charles V (of Habsburg; Holy Roman Emperor)  4, 29, 117, 119, 124, 126–127, 130, 137, 140, 142–144, 146–147, 163–177, 179–180, 182, 201, 207, 215, 220, 227–230, 232, 243–244, 257–259, 272, 288–290, 299–303, 328, 388 Christian I (son of Augustus, elector of Saxony)  502 Çığ, Kemal 536 Cisneros (cardinal) 174 Clement VII 127, 300 Cles, Bernhard 187 Çoban Mustafa Pasha 116 Cobos, Francisco de los 172 Cocles, Horatius 456 Colbert, Jean Baptiste 31 Constantine the Great 126 Contarini, Francesco 533 Copernicus 479 Corner family 138 Cosmo I (duke of Tuscany) 362 Črnko, Ferenac 401–403, 453–456, 461, 464, 491–492, 496, 499, 503–504, 507, 512, 513, 516 Cueva, Gabriel de la 242 Curtius 456 Cserenkó, Ferenc see Črnko, Ferenac Csokonai Vitéz, Mihály 469

index of personal names Dávid, Géza IX Dernschwam, Hans 118, 236 Desaive, Dilek 427 D’Ohsson, Mouradjea 436 Dolce, Lodovico 144–145 Doria, Andrea 140, 143, 149, 174–175, 302 Doukas 437 Duda, Andrzej 220 Ebussuud (şeyhülislam) 76–77, 82, 109, 111–114 Eck Graf zu Salm und Neuburg 254 Edward VI (king of England and Ireland) 60 Elias, Norbert 188 Elizabeth (archduchess, daughter of Maximilian II) 247 Elizabeth I (of England) 482, 490 Emecen, Feridun M. 3, 439, 544 Erasmus of Rotterdam 176, 454 Erdődy, Péter 381 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 213 Ergenç, Halit 538 Esterházy, Imre 465 Esterházy, Pál 154–155, 544 Evliya Çelebi 153, 285, 438, 528, 550 Eyice, Semavi 440 Ezquerra, Alfredo Alvar 4 Fabricius, Pál 460 Farensbach, Georg 452 Farkasics, Gergely 400 Fatima 73 Fáy, András 469 Fazekas, István 4 Fehér, Géza 536 Ferabosco, Pietro 305 Ferdinand I (of Habsburg; archduke, king and emperor) 4, 127, 134, 136, 143, 164–166, 169–171, 175, 179–185, 187–188, 190, 192, 195, 197–198, 201, 205, 207–208, 227, 231–232, 236, 244, 271–273, 288–290, 299–304, 306, 309, 323–328, 330, 342, 344–346, 348–349, 352–353, 359–362, 364–368, 383, 388–389, 450–451 Ferdinand II (of Habsburg) 233 Ferdinand II (archduke of Austria) 190, 249–250, 361–362, 364

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555

index of personal names Ferdinand III (of Habsburg) 233 Ferdinand (of Tyrol; governor of Bohemia) 184 Ferhad Bey 365 Feridun Ahmed Bey 351, 403, 410, 415, 422, 524, 529–531, 537 Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo 166, 173 Fernando el Católico 163–164 Filipina 249 Flavius Josephus 453 Fleischer, Cornell 65 Fodor, Pál 1, 216, 245, 252, 322, 336, 540, 549 Fodroczy, Peter 515, 517 Forgách, Ferenc 360, 370, 372, 389, 395, 455, 457–459, 461 Forgách, Imre 459, 503–504, 507 François (de Bourbon) 168 Francesco (sea-captain of Portugal) 123 Francis I (king of France) 124, 127, 135, 137, 140, 142, 146, 148–149, 165–166, 168–169, 177, 302 Franck, Matthäus 485, 488–489 Franco 131 Frederick II (king of Denmark and Norway)  480 Friz, Andreas 465–468 Fuggers 207–209, 236, 366 Garay, János 474 Gárdonyi, Máté 543 Gassot, Jacques 120 Gattinara, Mercurino 172, 176–177, 228 Gazi Hüdavendigar see Murad I Gebhardt, Johannes 497 Geißler, Valentin 485–487 Geizkofler, Zacharias 208–209 Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali 426, 438, 443, 530 Gerber, Haim 65 Geréczy, Berta 512 al-Ghazali 74 al-Gilani, Abd al-Kadir 76 Giovio, Paolo 120, 125–126, 140, 458 Giustiniani, Giovan-Francesco 122 Gökbilgin, Tayyib 536 Gorse, George L. 143 Gőzsy, Zoltán 543 Grabovac, Filip 518–519 Gritti, Alvise (Lodovico) 125, 130, 134–136, 138–139, 142, 146, 230

Gritti, Andrea 125, 135 Gritti family 126, 138 Gritti, Giovanni Battista 126 Gros, Albrecht 485, 488 Guilini (Julini), Andrea 207 Guilini (Julini), Baptista 207 Guilini (Julini), Paolo 207 Gustavus Adolphus (of Sweden) 23 Gyenizse, Péter 544 Hacı Mehmed Ağa 281 Hacı Pasha of Konya 435 Hadım Ali Pasha (governor of Buda) 15, 312, 328, 346, 348 Hamza (sancakbeyi of Mohaç) 388 Hancz, Erika 431, 547 Hayreddin-Beg-Pasha see Hayreddin Barbarossa Hartog, François 238 Hasan Beyzade 532 Hasan Padishah (Uzun Hasan, Akkoyunlu ruler) 105, 107, 110 Hasan Pasha (governor-general of Buda) 528 Hasan Pasha (Predojević; governor general of Temesvár) 371, 372 Hayreddin Barbarossa 125, 140, 142, 144–145, 148, 168–169, 174 Hegyi, Klára 5, 378, 543 Heiss, Gernot 367 Henckel, Lazarus 207 Henricpetri, Adam 501–503 Henry II (king of France) 166, 170 Henry VIII (of England) 60 Hidayet Ağa 351, 369–370, 372–373 Hildebrandt, Reinhard 211 Horváth, Márk 382, 385, 450 Hóvári, János IX Hrvoje (Bosnian duke) 510 Huber, Alfons 206 Huntington, Samuel P. 214–215, 217, 239 Hunyadi, John 118 Hunyadi, Ladislaus 118 Hunyadi, Matthias see Matthias Corvinus Hürrem Sultan 439, 537 Ibn Battuta 436 Ibn Bazzaz 112 Ibrahim I 233

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556 Ibrahim Pasha (grand vizier) 14, 37, 55, 105, 116–118, 121–122, 124–125, 129–131, 134–135, 137–142, 146, 230, 268 Ilóczy, Mátyás 460 Ilsung, Georg 208 Imber, Colin 4, 65 Isabel Clara Eugenia 256 Isabel la Católica 164 Isabel of Portugal 171 Isabella (wife of Charles V) 243 Isabella (of Jagiellon; queen of Hungary)  272, 360–361, 365, 367–368, 389 Iskender Bey (chief treasurer) 130 İstefan see John Sigismund Istvánffy, Miklós 360, 362–364, 370, 392, 451, 460–461, 464, 466 Ivanyi, Katharina 80, 83 Ivšić, Stjepan 514 Jan III Sobieski (of Poland) 220 Jančetić, Klement 517 Joachim II (elector of Brandenburg) 302 John I (of Hungary) see Szapolyai, János John II see John Sigismund John Sigismund (John II/İstefan; prince of Transylvania, elected king of Hungary) 192, 244–245, 272, 326, 334, 346–347, 355–356, 360–362, 364–365, 368–375, 388–390, 398, 413 Jókai, Mór 474–476 Juana I 163 Juranics, Lőrinc 470–471 Kačić Miošić, Andrija 519 Kadızade 87 Kafadar, Cemal 516 Kanizsai, Orsolya 450 Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Han see Süleyman I Kara Ahmed Pasha (second vizier) 312, 330 Karaçelebi Abdülaziz Efendi 532 Karnarutić, Brne (Carnaruti, Bernardino) 455, 464–465, 514–517 Kasım Pasha 281 Kaspret, Antun 514 Katzbeck, Abraham 207 Kazinczy, Ferenc 472 Kemal, Mustafa (Atatürk) 214 Kemalpaşazade 76, 118

index of personal names Kemankeş Ahmed Bey (admiral of the Ottoman fleet) 141 Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha (grand vizier) 22 Kennedy, Paul 214 Kenyeres, István 205, 211 Kepler, Johannes 479 Kerecsényi, László (Carachil) 253, 399 Khevenhüller, Hans 256–257 Khisl von Kaltenbrunn, Johann 454 Khisl zum Kaltenbrunn, Hans 497 Kidrič, France 514 Kınalızade 77 Kind, Johann Fridrich 469 Kitanics, Máté 545 Kónyi, János 467 Koppinayr, Jacob 137 Korpás, Zoltán 4, 259 Koselleck, Reinhard 237 Kovács, Gyöngyi 544 Kováts, [Valéria] 541 Kölcsey, Ferenc 471, 473 Köprülü Mehmed Pasha 51 Körner, Theodor 470–471 al-Kuddiri, Ahmad bin Ahmad 435 Kuripešić, Benedict 236 Kutbeddin İzniki 68, 90 Ladislaus the Posthumous (of Hungary) 182 Landsteiner, Erich 209–210 Leonidas 473 Lerma 173 Lewis, Bernard 214 Leyva, Antonio de 171 Lokman, Seyyid (şehnameci) 119, 156, 426, 531, 537 Lombardi, Alfonso 143 Louis II (of Jagiellon; king of Hungary and Bohemia) 164, 179, 248, 269–270, 323, 325, 366, 490, 528 Ludwig see Louis II Luther 87, 167, 503 Lütfi Pasha 35, 69, 75–76, 78–79, 82–83 Mahmud II 536 Mahmud Pasha (governor-general of Anatolia)  415 Malvezzi, Johann Maria 233 Manlich, Matthias 207, 209 Manlich, Melchior 207

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index of personal names Margaret (aunt of Ferdinand I) 171 Maria Theresa 192 Marulić, Marko 455, 516 Mary (regent of the Netherlands) 367 Mary of Burgundy 164 Mary of Hungary 171, 366 Mary of Spain 247 Mary Stuart 495 Mathews, Basil 214 Matrakçı Nasuh 121–122, 124, 143–144, 415–416 Matthias (son of Maximilian II) 184 Matthias Corvinus (king of Hungary and Croatia) 118, 182, 184, 266 Maximilian I (of Habsburg) 163–164, 185, 197, 206, 248 Maximilian II (of Habsburg) 180–181, 184, 188, 192, 208, 227, 231, 236, 242, 245–247, 250, 257–259, 304, 323, 342, 345–346, 356 Mehmed b. Sinan 412 Mehmed Bey (district governor of Peçuy)  385 Mehmed bin Mehmed (chronicler) 532 Mehmed I 433, 437, 440 Mehmed II 11–13, 26, 33, 55, 93, 104, 121, 125–126, 132, 135, 137, 229–230, 433, 436–437, 440, 442, 532 Mehmed III 333 Mehmed IV 137, 433 Mehmed the Conqueror see Mehmed II Melanchthon, Philipp 87 Menčetić, Vladislav Jere 517–518 Mendoza y Pacheco, Antonio 171 Meninski, Franciscus 435, 439 Merahi 516, 530 Meshal, Reem 76–77, 85 Mevlana Abdulaziz 68, 79 Mevlana Ali 154 Michelangelo 126 Mijatović, Anđelko 519 Mikszáth, Kálmán 474–477 Mirandola, Paolo 399 Molnár, József 432, 542 Mortimer, Geoff 23 Muhammad (prophet) 71, 74, 80, 83, 149, 159 Münker (angel) 80 Murad Bey (dragoman) 368

557 Murad I (Gazi Hüdavendigar) 102, 433, 437, 440–442 Murad II 295, 433 Murad III 55, 57, 62, 151, 153–155, 431, 433–434, 441–442, 538 Murad IV 535 Murphey, Rhoads 47 Mustafa (prince, son of Mehmed II) 436 Mustafa I 315 Mustafa Ali see Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali Mustafa Pasha (fifth vizier) 415 Mustafa Selaniki see Selaniki Mustafa Nádasdy, Tamás 326, 384, 450 Najm al-Din Abu Hafs al-Nasafi 72–73 Nakkaş Haydar Reis 124–125, 150 Nakkaş Osman 412, 531 Namık Kemal 535 Nassau, Maurice de 23 Necipoğlu, Gülru 76, 130 Nekir (angel) 80 Neşri 440 Neufahrer, Ludwig 147 Niccolò, Marco di 138–139 Nigari see Nakkaş Haydar Reis Nişancı Feridun Bey see Feridun Ahmed Bey Nureddinzade see Şeyh Nureddinzade Muslihiddin Ocak, Ahmed Yaşar 65 Oikonomides, Nicolas 43–44 Olivares 173 Orsini, Gentile Virginio 125 Osman I 132, 136, 434, 535 Osman II 315, 535 Osman-beg Šafić see Pavletić, Krsto Osman Shah Gazi see Osman I Ovid 462 Önkal, Hakkı 436 Palatics, János 400 Pálffy, Géza IX, 5, 204–205, 259, 363, 371, 378, 380, 508 Pallavicini, Sforza 169 Paller (Paler), Wolf 207, 209 Pap, Norbert IX, 1, 6, 539–541 Parker, Geoffrey 23, 296 Paul III (pope) 167, 169 Pavletić, Krsto (Osman-beg Šafić) 520 Peçevi, İbrahim 527–528, 532

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558 Peirce, Leslie 79 Pelikan, Jaroslav 87 Perrenot de Granvelle, Nicolas 172 Perrenot de Granvelle, Thomas see Chantonnay Pertev Pasha (second vizier) 391, 399 Petőfi, Sándor 474 Petrovics, Péter 367 Philip II (of Spain) 166, 170–172, 175–176, 211, 227, 245–246, 248, 252, 256–260, 362 Philip III (of Spain) 243 Pignatelli 171 Pirenne, Henri 214 Piri Mehmed Pasha (grand vizier) 266–267 Piri Reis 121 Pius V 490 Platthy, Mátyás 466 Porta, Pietro della 120 Procházka-Eisl, Gisella 353 Pulido-Rull, Ana 131–133 Pyrker, János László (Johann Ladislaus Pyrker)  470 Ráday, Gedeon 467 Radonay, Ignác (bishop) 548 Rasim, Ahmed 535 Regulus, Atilius 456, 473 Rehlinger, Marx Konrad 407–408 Rhedingerus, Nicolaus 459 Richelieu 51 Ritter Vitezović, Pavao 465, 518 Roberts, Michael 23 Römer, Claudia 5, 353 Rouillé, Guillaume 495 Rudolf II (of Habsburg) 183–184, 205, 208, 227, 480–481 Russell, Francis (duke of Bredford) 494–495 Rüstem Pasha (grand vizier) 51, 55, 366, 368 Rúzsás, Lajos 244 Sagstetter, Urban 490–491 Sahillioğlu, Halil 435, 437 Said, Edward 217 Saint Stephen 134, 219 Saint Wenceslaus 184 Salamanca, Gabriel 184 al-Samarqandi, Abu Layth 79, 81 Sambucus, Johannes see János Zsámboki Sande, Álvaro de 168–169, 173

index of personal names Sansovino, Jacopo 138 Schede Melissus, Paul 451–452 Schepper, Cornelius 169 Schesaeus, Christianus 455–456 Schmid, Johann Rudolf 233 Schmitt, Jens 218 Schwendi, Lazarus von 248, 334, 362–364, 370–374, 389, 398 Selaniki Mustafa 352, 413, 418, 426, 434, 438, 458, 530–531 Selim (fiancé of Anna Zrínyi) 474–475 Selim I 9–10, 37, 105, 110, 115, 120–121, 126, 149–150, 229, 269, 278, 352, 365, 434, 437, 440, 532 Selim II 45, 55, 69, 151, 153–154, 156–157, 259, 391, 411–412, 421–426, 429–434, 437, 442, 483, 488, 524, 529–531 Selim Khan/Selîm Hân see Selim II Semiz Ali Pasha (grand vizier) 351, 368 Şemseddin Sami 435 Sessa, Melchiore 493 Seyfi of Istanbul 530 Şeyh Kasım 441 Şeyh Nureddinzade Muslihiddin 154, 530 Seyyid Lokman see Lokman Shah Kalender 19 Shah Kulu 19 Siebenbürger, Martin 166 Siyavuş Pasha (grand vizier) 55 Sokcsevits, Dénes 519 Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (grand vizier) 53, 149, 151–157, 334, 352, 390, 394, 411–415, 420–423, 425–426, 428–429, 431–434, 442, 523–524, 529–531, 536 Sokollu Mustafa Pasha (governor of Buda) 395, 432, 442 Solakzade Mehmed 532 Solomon 128, 158 Sorscha, Reichardt 514 St Stephen see Saint Stephen Stainhofer, Caspar 499 Stancsics, Márk 400 Starčević, Ante 520 Šubići 511 Subotić, Jovan 519 Sudár, Balázs 543 Suendi see Schwendi, Lazarus von Şükri Bitlisi 120, 121

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559

index of personal names Süleyman Çelebi 43 Sümegi, Pál 549 Szakály, Ferenc 321, 377 Szapolyai, János (king of Hungary) 134–136, 146, 169, 186, 244, 271, 273, 280, 299, 325–326, 360, 365, 367, 389, 532 Szemere, Pál 471 Szikszai Hellopeus, Bálint 459

Veneziano (de’ Musi), Lorenzo (Venetian engraver) 144 Veneziano (de’ Musi), Agostino (Venetian engraver) 144–145 Vergil 455, 462 Vida, Girolamo 462 Vladislaus II (of Hungary and Bohemia) 266 Vörösmarty, Mihály 472–473, 475

al-Tahawi 72 Tahy, Ferenc 400 Takáts, Sándor 437, 542 Tartaljić, Petar (Tartaglia, Pietro) 515 Tasso, Torquato 462 Terzioğlu, Derin 67 Teucro 131 Thaly, Kálmán 476 Theti, Carlo 305 Thurzó, Elek 325 Tibi, Bassam 214 Tilly, Charles 24 Tinódi, Sebestyén 450, 452 Titian 130, 138 Toledo, Álvarez de 171 Tomori, Pál 269 Torquatus, John 510 Toygun Pasha (governor of Buda) 348–349 Tőke, Ferenc 449 Tracy, James D. 5, 216, 218 Trajan 134 Trubar, Primus 497 Turgut Reis (Dragut) 170 Tvrtko I 277

Weiß, Leonhard 207, 209 Welack, Matthäus 504 Welser, Matthäus 208 Welser, Philipp 207 Weltvyck, Gerhard 169 Wensinck, Arent J. 70–71 Wenzel (son of Maximilian II) 184 Werthes, Clemens 467–468, 470–471 Wijs (Wyss), Albert de 369, 371, 390 Winder, Lukas 209–210 Winkelbauer, Thomas 181, 187 Wolf, Hieronymus 460

Ulloa, Alfonso de 492–496, 500–501, 503 Ulysses 145 Umar (caliph) 71, 73, 75 Ungnad, Hans 497 Uthman (caliph) 71, 75 Valle, Francesco della 119 Varga, Szabolcs 5 Vass, Előd 543 Vatin, Nicolas 5, 544 Vázquez de Molina, Juan 172 Veinstein, Gilles 427 Velasco family 171 Veltwyck, Gerhard 232

Yahya Efendi (shaykh) 134, 156 Yazıcızade Ahmed 68 Yazıcızade Mehmed 68 Yıldırım Bayezid see Bayezid I Zaltieri, Bolognino 493 Zimmermann, Hans 485–486, 499 Zrinski (Zrínyi), Adam  512, 518 Zrinski, John Anthony 512, 518 Zrinski, Nicholas III 510 Zrinski, Nicholas VII 511, 517–518 Zrinski, Paul III 510 Zrinski, Peter II 510 Zrinski, Peter IV 461, 462, 512, 517–518, 520 Zrínyi family 503, 507 Zrínyi, Anna 474–475 Zrínyi, György (George Zrínyi/Juraj IV. Zrinski, the son of Miklós Zrínyi) 492, 512–513, 515–516 Zrínyi, Ilona 470 Zrínyi, Katalin 503 Zsámboky, János (Joannes Sambucus) 450, 457–458

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Index of Geographical Names Aachen 163 Adrianople see Edirne Adriatic Sea 169, 190, 222, 277–279, 284–286, 297, 305 Aegean 114, 141, 263 Aintab (Gaziantep) 79, 89 Akkerman 316 Aksaray 69 Alacahisar (Kruševac) 297 Alba 171 Alba Iulia see Gyulafehérvár Albania 442 Albarragal see Székesfehérvár Alburquerque 171, 242 Aleppo 38, 46, 141 Algiers 16, 127, 140–142, 144–148, 168–170, 174–175, 215, 243–244, 302 Almás stream 382 Alps 242, 482, 493, 495–496, 500, 506 Amasya 15 America 164–165, 175–176 Amsterdam 210 Anatolia (Asia Minor) 10, 14, 19, 37–38, 46, 57–58, 69, 89, 96, 99, 105, 110, 114, 252, 269, 283, 294, 365, 415, 436, 524, 549 Ancona 517 Andalusia 243 Anguillara 125 Ankara 433 Antwerp 302, 482–483 Aragón 163–164, 166–167, 171–173 Ardabil 76 Ardeud see Erdőd Arras 126 Asia Minor see Anatolia Asturias 163 Atmeydanı see Hippodrom Atlantic Ocean 174, 243, 251 Auersperg 514 Augsburg 29, 87–88, 190, 201–202, 206–210, 248–249, 483, 485–486, 488–489, 499, 505

Austria IX, 127, 130, 180, 182, 188–191, 195–201, 203, 205–206, 219–220, 231, 248–249, 255, 271–272, 285–286, 299, 301, 303, 306, 323, 325, 329, 364, 381, 390, 456, 471–472, 496, 498–499, 507, 515, 520 Ayasoluk 435 Aydın 95, 99, 102–103, 108–110 Azerbaijan 287 Babócsa (Bobofça/Boboche) 253, 255, 314, 382, 384–385, 450 Baç see Bács Bács (Baç) 310 Baghdad 14, 17, 76, 295 Baia Mare see Nagybánya Balearic Spain 243 Balkans 37, 42–43, 89, 215, 259, 265, 282, 288, 297–298, 315–316, 337, 509 Baltic Sea 479 Banat 330 Banja Luka 279, 321 Banská Bystrica see Besztercebánya Baranavar see Baranyavár Baranya County 385, 388 Baranyavár (Baranavar) 387 Barcelona 163, 243 Barcs 384 Basel 500, 506 Basra 14, 17–18, 295, 346 Bayburd 105 Bearn 166 Beçkerek see Becskerek Becskerek (Zrenjanin/Beçkerek) 17, 334 Belgrade (Beograd/Nándorfehérvár/Belgrad) 12, 15, 122, 134, 137–138, 215, 230, 263, 266–268, 297, 317, 321, 323, 325, 330, 352, 390, 412–413, 423, 426, 430, 470, 523–524 Bender 316 Beograd see Belgrade Bereg County 360 Bergamo 387 Berwick 495 Berzenç see Berzence

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562 Berzence (Berzenç) 314, 384 Berzőce 388 Besançon 241 Beşiktaş (in Istanbul) 134, 156 Bespirim see Veszprém Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica/Neusohl) 207, 367 Bihać see Bihács Bihács (Bihać) 279, 331 Bihar County 360, 364 Black Sea 11–12, 15, 288, 296–297, 316 Boboche see Babócsa Bobofça see Babócsa Böğürdelen see Szabács Bohemia 127, 164, 174, 180, 182–184, 188, 190, 191, 198, 200–203, 205–227, 299, 329, 335, 375, 528 Boka Kotorska 517 Bologna 127, 130, 138, 230 Bolu 99 Bona 147 Borosjenő see Jenő Bosnia 242, 250, 277, 279, 284, 286, 291, 315–316, 321, 326, 375, 509, 511, 520 Bougie (in present-day Algeria) 170 Bozok 19 Brabant 289 Bratislava see Pozsony Braunschweig 501 Breslau (Wrocław) 185 Bribir 511 Brindisi 126 Britain 24, 495 British Isles 494–495, 503, 506 Brussels 139, 170, 176, 227, 242 Buda (Ofen/Budin) 5, 13, 15, 17, 95, 110–111, 114, 117–118, 134–136, 143, 168, 170, 175, 185, 189, 226, 247, 250–251, 254, 263, 266–267, 272–273, 295, 297–299, 301–302, 306, 309–313, 315–318, 325–329, 334, 336–337, 346, 348–350, 353–356, 360, 364–365, 373, 379, 390, 394–395, 429, 432, 442, 450, 453–454, 528 Budějovice (Budweis) 299 Budin see Buda Budweis see Budějovice Burgundy 163–164, 166–167, 171, 182 Bursa 59, 433, 440

index of geographical names Byzantium 265 Cairo 10, 105, 151, 298 Čakovec see Csáktornya Calicut 124 Cambrai 299 Cambridge 2, 495, 503 Çanad see Csanád Candia 517 Cankurtaran see Korkmaz Canterbury 490 Carinthia 190, 195, 252, 325, 484, 490 Carniola 190, 195, 325, 496, 498–499, 507 Carpathian Basin 165, 336–337, 378, 389 Caspian Sea 57–58, 263 Cassovia see Kassa Castelnuovo 169, 175 Castile 29–30, 163–164, 166–167, 173, 227, 288–289, 302 Catalonia 163–164, 243 Cateau Cambresis 166 Caucasus 10–11, 297 Çayla see Cella Cella (Ţela/Çayla) 17 Cenad see Csanád Cerdagne 164, 166, 173 Cezayir-i Bahr-i Sefid 17 Chaldiran 296, 310 Chicago 2 China 28 Ciğerdelen see Párkány Çiguet see Szigetvár Cirtha (in Algeria) 145 Ciudadela or Ciutadella 244 Cognac 299 Çoka see Csóka Cologne 460 Columns of Hercules see Gibraltar Como 125 Comar see Komárom Constantine see Cirtha Constantinople (see also Istanbul) 65, 126, 128, 137, 215, 222, 225–227, 230–232, 234–235, 248–249, 256, 296, 301, 390, 487 Coron 140–141 Corsica 164 Crete 114, 297 Crimea 17

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index of geographical names Croatia IX, 3–6, 219, 277–278, 282–284, 286–287, 299, 301, 304, 306–307, 323, 325–328, 334–336, 360, 375, 471, 503, 509–511, 515, 518–521, 528 Cueva y Toledo 171 Cyprus 153, 258–259, 297 Csáktornya (Čakovec) 381–382, 395, 454, 510 Csanád (Cenad/Çanad) 17, 312 Csókakő (Çoka) 311 Csurgó 384–385 Dadyan see Samegrelo Dalmatia 278, 282, 286, 451, 510–511, 517 Damascus 38, 98, 294 Danube 11, 110, 180, 204, 250, 265, 268, 271, 273, 277, 280, 288, 297, 309–310, 312, 321–322, 328–329, 336, 348, 378–379, 385, 387, 451 Debrecen 371 Denmark 480 Diyarbekir 37–38, 46, 107–110, 294, 298 Djerba 169, 215 Dodvaş see Tótvárad Döbrekös see Döbrökös Döbrököz (Döbrekös) 312 Drava 279–280, 282, 297, 309–310, 352, 378–379, 381, 384, 387–388, 399 Drégely 170 Drniš 279 Dubrovnik (Ragusa) 277, 281, 517–519 Dʼurdʼevaç see Đurđevac Đurđevac (Dʼurdʼevaç) 384 Eberau see Monyorókerék Ecsed 398 Edirne (Adrianople) 59, 99, 134–135, 232, 278, 315, 326, 359, 361, 390, 413, 423, 433, 435, 440 Eger (Eğri) 215, 245, 250, 303–305, 316, 331, 333–335, 359, 389–391, 448, 453, 466, 469–470, 475 Eğri see Eger Egypt 10, 11, 16, 33, 37–38, 287, 294, 296, 298, 436 Endréd (Endrik) 311 Endrik see Endréd England IX, 26, 31, 60, 146, 224, 490, 494–495, 503

563 Erdel see Transylvania Erdőd (Ardeud/Erdut) 299, 363, 370–372 Erdut see Erdőd Erfurt 500 Erivan see Revan Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky) 305, 335 Erzurum 14–15, 17, 105–107, 110, 295 Estergon see Esztergom Eszék (Osijek/Ösek) 272, 281, 309, 352, 423 Esztergom (Estrigonia/Estergon) 110, 251, 297, 301, 310, 326, 465 Ethiopia see Habeş Ferrara 250 Filibe see Plovdiv Flanders 242, 249, 251, 253, 289 Florence 137, 169, 257, 299, 483 France IX, 31–32, 50, 60, 62, 116, 131, 135, 140, 146, 166, 170, 177, 213, 224, 242, 247, 302, 305 Franche–Comté region 241 Frankfurt am Main 163, 502 Fülek 304 Fünfkirchen see Pécs Galambóc (Golubac/Güvercinlik) 297 Gallipoli 122 Ganja 57 Gaziantep see Aintab Gebze 116 Geldren 165 Genoa (Genova) 29, 142–144, 146, 167, 210, 242 Gent 163 Georgia 17, 105 Germany 220, 231, 246, 248–249, 251, 257, 460, 471, 551 Germiyan 102 Gibraltar (Columns of Hercules) 176 Golubac see Galambóc Gorizia (Görz/Goricia) 497 Görösgál (Göröşgal) 388 Görz see Gorizia Gradiška 280 Güns see Kőszeg G’ula see Gyula Gurk (in Carinthia) 490 Güvercinlik see Galambóc

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564 Győr (Raab) 189, 254–255, 273, 301, 304–305, 331, 335, 391, 394–395, 451–452, 454, 458, 474, 485–487 Gyula (Gʼula) 5, 245, 250–251, 253, 304, 314, 322, 331–335, 359, 365, 376, 388–391, 397–399, 455, 458, 485 Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) 389 Habeş (Ethiopia) 18 Halkidiki 43 Hamid 99 Hatvan 110, 311, 318 Havale see Zsarnó Hebron 229 Hersek see Herzegovina Herzegovina (Hersek) 388 Hidvig see Hídvég Hídvég (Hidvig) 312 Hildesheim 500 Hippodrome (Atmeydanı) 117, 120 Holland 289 Hrvace 286 Hum 511 Hungary IX, 3–5, 12–13, 15, 43, 50, 110, 118–119, 127, 130, 134–137, 146, 164–165, 167–171, 174–175, 180, 182–185, 188–193, 198–199, 202–204, 207, 216, 218–219, 223, 225, 227, 232, 242, 244–250, 253, 255–260, 265–266, 268, 270–274, 277–279, 280, 284–288, 295, 297–298, 301–309, 311–319, 321–337, 343–344, 346, 355, 359, 361–368, 370–375, 377–384, 388–390, 393, 395, 397–400, 413, 448, 457–462, 465–467, 471–476, 481, 489, 494–495, 499, 504–505, 507, 509–511, 515, 518–519, 523, 527–528, 538, 540, 543, 548–549 Hust see Hust Huszt (Hust) 360, 364–368 Hüdavendigar 94, 99–104, 106–110, 114 Hünkar Tepesi 528 Iberian Peninsula 163, 207, 242 Ilok see Újlak India 16, 28, 123, 264 Indian Ocean 10–11, 15, 32, 124 Indias 242 Indus 264

index of geographical names Ineu see Jenő Inner Austria 190, 195, 285–286, 496, 499, 507 Innsbruck 185 Iran 10, 28, 46–47, 50, 55–59, 61, 121 Iraq 14, 50, 105, 114, 121, 138, 214, 287, 297 Istanbul (see also Constantinople) 33–34, 57–59, 61, 93, 97, 99, 105, 116–117, 120–123, 125, 127–129, 134, 137–139, 141–144, 150, 154, 156–157, 271, 356, 369, 371, 412–413, 415–416, 423, 428–430, 433, 435, 439–440, 442–443, 523, 525, 530, 533–534, 548–549 İstolni Belgrad see Székesfehérvár Italy 115, 126–127, 137, 144–146, 164–166, 173, 177, 209, 242–243, 246, 250, 257, 299, 302, 305, 456, 494 İzvornik see Zvornik Jajce (Jajca/Yayçe) 279, 321, 325–326 Jane see Jenő Jerusalem 128, 151, 157–158, 229–230 Jenő (Borosjenő/Ineu/Yanova) 17, 314 Jidda 149, 151 Kadırgalimanı (in Istanbul) 154 Kahlenberg 221 Kalaça see Kalocsa Kalocsa (Kalaça) 310 Kamengrad 279 Kanije see Kanizsa Kanizsa (Nagykanizsa/Kanije) 304–305, 316, 332, 335, 442, 450 Kaposvár 546 Karaman 46, 294, 298 Karlovac see Karlstadt Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) 234 Karlstadt (Karlovac) 335 Kassa (Košice/Cassovia) 185, 248, 250, 305–306, 331, 361, 363, 365, 367–369, 376 Kilis see Klis Kırka 285 Kisvárda 361, 365, 368, 372–373, 376 Klis (Kilis) 279, 282, 388, 511 Komárom (Komárno/Komorn/Comar) 249, 254–255, 273, 301, 305, 331, 333, 335, 354, 391

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index of geographical names Komorn see Komárom Kopan 17 Korkmaz (Cankurtaran) 312 Körös (Križevci) County 284, 515 Košice see Kassa Kosovo 440, 442 Kőszeg (Güns) 271–272, 301, 303 Kraków 389 Krbava 278, 510 Križevci see Körös Krupa 279, 282 Kruševac see Alacahisar Kule-i Dımışkar see Temesvár Kütahya 96, 98–104, 106–110, 114, 412, 423, 524 Kutaisi (Kutatis) 17 Kutatis see Kutaisi La Goulette 246 La Valetta 387 Laibach (Ljubljana) 326, 454, 497, 514 Larache 243 Lausitz 182 Leipzig 201 León 164 Lepanto 122–123, 154, 258, 295 Lika 285 Linz 323, 465, 518 Lipova see Lippa Lippa (Lipova) 17, 170, 312 Livno 279 Ljubljana see Laibach Lombardia 173 London 2, 117, 130, 223, 226, 482 Low Countries see Netherlands Lucca 257 Luristan 17 Lusatia 299, 200 Lyon 494–495, 506 Maastricht 490 Macovişte see Makrava Madrid 4, 226, 229, 241, 253, 256, 258, 285 Maghrib 142, 148, 164, 169–170, 174 Magyaróvár 203 Mákosfalva (Macovişte/Makrava) 17 Makrava see Mákosfalva Malaga 242–243 Malatya 96, 107, 113

565 Mallorca 170 Malta 122–123, 169, 170, 215, 243, 248, 254, 259, 297, 359, 370, 374, 393–395 Mamora 243 Manisa 116, 429 Máramaros County 360, 366 Maraş 19 Marj Dabik 296 Maros (Mureš) 312, 378 Masada 453 Mecca 75, 151, 229, 547 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 480 Mecsek 399 Medina 229 Mediterranean 10–11, 13, 17, 32, 50, 140, 169, 174–175, 214, 227, 241–243, 259, 287, 295–297, 299, 302, 482, 493 Međimurje see Muraköz Meißen 502 Mesopotamia 227, 263 Metz 170, 174–175, 302 Milan 165, 167, 171, 173, 242, 246, 302, 334 Minorca 244 Mohaç see Mohács Mohács (Mohaç) 1, 5, 12–13, 19, 118, 133–134, 171–172, 193, 215, 218–219, 244–245, 259, 263, 268–269, 294, 296–297, 300, 323, 325, 360, 385, 448, 469, 472, 490, 510, 527–529 Moldavia 12, 17, 41, 232 Monoszló (Moslavina) 384, 388 Monyorókerék (Eberau) 381–382 Moravia 164, 182, 188, 200, 203, 247, 255, 299 Morea 140 Morocco 16 Moslavina see Monoszló Mostar 543 Mt Lebanon 89 Mühlberg 174 Mukacheve see Munkács Munkács (Mukacheve) 360, 364–368 Muraköz (Međimurje) 381–382, 395, 400, 510 Murcia 243 Mureš see Maros Nagybánya (Baia Mare) 363, 370–372, 374, 389, 398

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566 Nagylak (Naylak) 17 Nagyvárad see Várad Nándorfehérvár see Belgrade Navarra 164, 166, 171 Naylak see Nagylak Nehaj 285 Netherlands (Low Countries) 31, 164–167, 171, 174, 224, 289, 302, 305, 362, 367, 472 Neusohl see Besztercebánya New Spain (Mexico) 171 Nice 144, 168–169, 302 Niğbolu (Nikopol) 297, 388 Nikopol see Niğbolu Nógrád (Novigrad) 110, 318 Nógrád County 312 North Africa 15–16, 147, 164–165, 168, 174–175, 242, 297 Nové Zámky see Érsekújvár Novigrad see Nógrád 110, 318 Nuremberg 209, 484–486, 505 Ofen see Buda Oradea see Nagyvárad Ösek see Eszék Osijek see Eszék Ostrožac 279 Otranto 126, 137 Ozalj 510, 517 Ozor see Ozora Ozora (Ozor) 311 Padua 125 Palestine 229 Palota 249 Pankota 371 Pannonia 451, 455, 464 Pápa 255 Parga 125 Paris 2, 213, 222, 226, 482–483 Párkány(Štúrovo/Ciğerdelen) 312 Partes see Partium Partium (Partes) 360, 364–365, 370, 373–374 Passarowitz (Požarevac) 234 Passau 543 Patmos 352 Pavia 127, 300

index of geographical names Pécs (Fünfkirchen/Peçuy) IX, 118, 310, 384–385, 387, 413, 423, 425, 487, 527, 539–541, 546, 548 Peçuy see Pécs Pera 125–126, 136 Perpignan 302 Persia 263, 287 Persian Gulf 11, 14, 16, 50, 263–264 Peru 171 Pest (Peşte) 110, 143, 302, 309, 467, 469 Peşte see Pest Pétervárad (Petrovaradin) 268 Petrinja 279, 286 Petrovaradin see Pétervárad Plovdiv (Filibe) 99, 413, 421, 423 Podravina 286 Pojega see Pozsega Poland 220, 248, 258, 268 Poland–Lithuania 361 Poljica 282 Portugal 123, 146, 171–172, 174 Požarevac see Passarowitz Požega see Pozsega Pozsega (Požega/Pojega) 95, 97, 113, 280–281, 286, 297, 309, 379, 384, 388, 442 Pozsony (Bratislava/Pressburg) 185, 271, 306, 325–327, 330, 336–337, 381, 465 Prague 185, 189, 248, 480, 533 Pressburg see Pozsony Preveza 169, 175, 215 Primorje (Dalmatia) 282 Provence 302 Puglia 126, 137 Pyrenees 164, 166, 173 Raab see Győr Ragusa see Dubrovnik Raydaniyya 296 Razgrad 116 Red Sea 11, 16 Regensburg 303, 486 Revan (Yerevan) 57–58 Rhodes 12, 127, 133–134, 215, 254, 265, 297 Rocroi 173 Rome 126–127, 142, 149, 167, 214, 257, 274, 476, 533 Rostock 479–480 Rotenturm see Vörösvár

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index of geographical names Rothenburg ob der Tauber 485, 488, 505 Roussillon 164, 166 Rum 79, 105–106, 298 Rumelia (Rumeli) 38–41, 43, 46, 51, 69, 99, 110, 114, 149, 154, 282, 294, 415 Rusçuk see Russe Russe (Rusçuk) 297 Šabac see Szabács Safed 97 Salonica (Selanik) 43, 112 Samegrelo (Dadyan) 17 Sarajevo 69, 154 Sardinia 147, 164, 242 Satmar see Szatmár Satu Mare see Szatmár Sava 265, 267, 279–280, 297, 309, 321, 328, 378, 413 Savoy 167, 242 Saxony 250, 502 Schmalkalden 174 Scotland 146 Segedin see Szeged Şegeş see Segesd Segesd (Şegeş) 314 Sekçöy see Szekcső Seksar see Szekszárd Selanik see Salonica Şelen see Sellye Sellye (Şelen) 388 Semendire see Smederevo Semlék see Szemlőhegy/Szemlék Senj 284–285 Šenkovec see Szentilona Shirvan 57 Sicily 137, 147, 164, 171, 173, 242, 243, 248, 302 Siena 165 Sigetvar see Szigetvár Siklós (Şikloş) 310, 386, 472 Silesia 181, 200, 203, 299, 504, 507 Simontornya (Şimontorna) 311 Sinj 279 Sirem see Syrmium Sisak 279, 284, 286 Skopje see Üsküb Skradin 511 Slavonia 5, 203–204, 277, 280–284, 304, 326, 330, 378–382, 454, 510–511

567 Smederevo (Szendrő/Semendire) 267, 277, 297 Sofia 69, 96, 98–99, 390, 413, 421, 423 Solnok see Szolnok Sotin (Szata) 352 Spain IX, 4, 29–30, 62, 146–147, 165–167, 170, 172, 175, 211, 226, 228, 230, 241–245, 247, 251, 256–257, 288, 302, 494 Speyer 191, 299, 301, 336 Split 277, 282, 515–516 Srebrenik 280 Sremski Karlovci see Karlowitz Štúrovo see Párkány Syrmium (Szerémség/Srijem/Srem/Sirem) 267, 280, 309, 328, 519 Strymon 43 Styria 190, 195, 325, 487 Syria 10, 37, 65, 82, 85, 105, 114, 121, 229, 263, 287, 298 Szabács (Šabac/Böğürdelen) 266–267 Szatmár (Satu Mare/Satmar) 250, 305, 334–335, 347, 360–361, 363–364, 368–372, 375–376, 388–389, 398 Szatmár County 360 Szeged (Segedin) 310, 397–398, 540 Szekcső (Sekçöy) 310, 387 Székesfehérvár (Albarragal [Alba Regia]/ İstolni Belgrad) 144, 251, 253, 310, 354 Szekszárd (Seksar) 310, 387 Szemlőhegy/Szemlék (Szemlő Hill/Semlék) 391, 545, 547 Szendrő see Smederevo Szentilona (Šenkovec) 395 Szepes 199 Szerémség see Syrmium Szerencs 363, 370, 373 Sziget see Szigetvár Szigetvár (Sziget/Sigetvar/Çiguet) III, VII–IX, 1–3, 5–6, 55, 115, 127, 149, 151–157, 186, 189, 215, 219, 245, 250, 252, 257, 259, 303–305, 314–315, 319, 322, 328, 331–336, 339, 341–346, 348–349, 351–352, 355–357, 359, 374, 376–377, 379–391, 394–395, 397–402, 404–405, 408–409, 411–422, 424–432, 438–443, 445, 469, 472, 474, 509, 512–519, 523–530, 532, 536–542, 546, 549, 551–552

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index of geographical names

Szolnok (Solnok) 170, 312, 397–398 Sztracsova Well 542

Türbe see Turbék Tyrol 190, 195, 207

Tabriz 57, 120 Tamási (Tomaşin) 312 Taranto 126 Tata 249, 251, 255, 301, 354 Tbilisi 57 Ţela see Cella Temesköz (later Banat) 330 Temesvár (Timişoara/Temeşvar) 17, 170, 295, 303, 305, 312–314, 316, 334, 348, 361, 371–372, 397–398 Thuringia 502 Timişoara see Temesvár Tisza 297, 309, 310, 312, 361, 363, 365–366, 368–369, 373, 376, 378 Titel 309 Tlemcen 141, 170 Tokaj VII, 5, 250, 334, 347, 355–356, 359–364, 366–370, 373–376, 389 Toledo 169, 171 Tolna County 311, 385 Tomaşin see Tamási Torino 454 Tótvárad (Vărădia/Dodvaş) 17 Toulon 302 Trabzon see Trebizond Transdanubia 273, 310, 312, 316, 378–380, 381, 382–383, 384–385, 387, 388, 442 Transylvania 5, 12–13, 17, 181, 192, 232, 244–248, 256–257, 259, 313, 315, 319, 322, 326, 331, 334, 346–347, 350–351, 356, 359–361, 364–369, 373, 388–390, 398, 413–414, 455, 457, 503–504, 507 Trebizond (Trabzon) 134 Trent 190, 246–247 Trieste 497 Tripoli 170 Tripolitania 16 Tunis 16, 141–142, 144–147, 174–175, 177, 215, 229, 243, 246 Tunisia 242 Turbék IX, 153, 155, 430, 438, 527, 529, 540–547, 549–551 Turbék–Zsibót 430, 545 Turkey IX, 1, 214, 218, 526, 536–538, 540 Tübingen 491

Újlak (Ilok) 268 Una 279, 282 Üsküb (Skopje) 112 Üsküdar 89 Vác (Vaç) 310, 315 Valencia 163–164, 166, 243 Valladolid 163 Valpó (Valpova) 384, 386 Valpova see Valpó Valtellina 167 Van 15, 17 Várad (Nagyvárad/Oradea) 169, 305, 360–361, 363–365, 390, 455 Vărădia see Tótvárad Varasd (Varaždin) 331 Varaždin see Varasd Varna 297 Vélez de la Gomera 169 Venice 62, 114, 116, 125, 129, 135, 140–142, 146, 169, 222, 224, 230, 257–258, 263, 268, 285, 435, 454–455, 462, 487, 488, 490, 492–494, 506, 514–515, 517 Vép 381 Verőce (Virovitica/Virovitiça) 379 Veste 170 Veszprém (Bespirim) 249, 255, 312 Vidin 297 Vienna VI, 3, 5, 13, 55, 127, 130, 134, 136, 143, 147, 149, 156, 167, 177, 185, 201, 207, 209–210, 215, 219–220, 226, 230–231, 233, 242, 244–246, 248–250, 252, 255–259, 263, 271–273, 298–299, 301, 303, 305–307, 315, 321–331, 333–336, 342, 351, 359–360, 363–365, 369–372, 374–376, 381, 389, 391, 394, 450, 454, 456–457, 461, 465, 470, 476, 480, 489–490, 493, 496, 499, 507, 514, 517–518, 525, 533–534, 548 Villaviciosa (Asturias, Castile) 163 Virovitica see Verőce Visegrád (Vişegrad) 311 Vize 96 Vízvár 384 Vorlande 190

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index of geographical names Vörösvár (Rotenturm) 381 Wallachia 12, 17, 41, 232, 297 Wiener Neustadt 166 Wittenberg 450, 455, 458–459, 464, 503–504, 507 Worms 227 Wrocław see Breslau Yanova see Jenő Yayçe see Jajce Yemen 18 Zagreb 277, 284, 520, 550 Zagreb County 510

Zala County 381, 510 Zaragoza 163 Zemplén County 360 Zemun see Zimony Zimony (Zemun) 267, 413 Zombor 310 Zrenjanin see Becskerek Zrin 509–511 Zsarnó (Žrnov, Havale) 265 Zsibót see Turbék–Zsibót Zsitvatorok 231, 233, 238 Žrnov see Zsarnó Zülkadır 19, 298 Žrnov Žumberak 284 Zvornik (İzvornik) 297

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