Reuiew,l, gl4, Winter/Spring 1978 , 69-96.

Impact of the Annsles School

on Ottoman Studies
and New Findings

-q4 9r.

Ealil i:Urcrc

'i Halil inalak

Tar afi nd

"

an E c[ i ; ! -.zr3!t r.

"'i:;$ il,"trHii i xJ:l llil;l

:

the Ottoman EmPire"

F. Braudel, The Mediterranean,

I,

13.

In the late ninteenth century French social thought, and positivism in particular, had a strong impact on the minds of the Young Turks in exile in Paris, who
sought an intellectual foundation upon which to base their program for -the
reformation of the 0ttoman Empire.t ZiyaGokalp,z the first to hold the chair
. of sociology in the University of Istanbul (1915) and an able follower of Emile
I Durkheim, was directly indebted to this gFoup for his intellectual development.
I fn. spreading influence of French ro.ilto*l, was further consolidated under
I Giikafp's disciple, Mehmed Fuad l(6proli.i,3 ihe foun<ler of rnodern.Turcology

rl

ll
l$

1'

$erit Mardin,

!6n Tirktein Siyasi Fihirlei:

1895-1908 (Ankara: T.iq Bankasr

in

Kiiltiir Yaytnlan,
of Business

the Idcas of thc Young Turhs (Ankara: School

lAdmirrirtration and Economics, Robcrt College, fstanbul, 1969).

rge+1. $. Mardin, Continuity

ll::
'

ast..:. Change

.l

z' fUl inat"it,"ZiyaG6kalp," International

I
,

Encyclopedia

of the Sociat

Sciences,

vI, 1968,

194-96,

'' On K6pritl6 see Fuad Kilprnfri. 1{.rma|ant, Milurnges Fuad, KSpriitri (istanbul: Univ. of Ankara, DTC
Fakiiltesi, 1953) and [L Inalcrk, "TOrk Ilmi ve Fuad Kiiprtlii," Tiirlr Kiltiirii, VI, 65, 1968, 289-94.

Iillillluluuul[|urilflril

70

Halil

inalc*

years of the Turkish

in Turkey. ln the intensely nationalistic mood of the early
of the Turkish
roots
cultural
the
on
studies
his
focus.d
Republic, Koprtilii
and Annales
Febvre
Lucien
nation. After 1930, his interest in the work of
conceptuof
m,:de
his
and
became i.,.r.uri.,gly'.uia."t in both his methodology
Trlrkif:gl3l
o1
scholarlylournal
first
the
alization. In 193i,'h. published
Tarihi Mecmuasr. At the same trme a
..o.o*i. history, Tiirh Hukuh ae iktisat
among *-h"_- were Abdiilbaki
him,
with
goup of yo,rn|';;J;-r,"ai.a
Faruk Stimer' and Mustafa
'i"tu",
Kiiymen,
Altay
nr.r,met
G6lprnarlr, or*"u"
Akdaf. As one of his students,l am greatly indebted, to Kiiprtilii tor my orienta'
tion towards institutional, social and economic history.
Thus, Durkheim's sociology, intimately associated with the movement for
reform and social change, _wiefd_e.d a dominating influence on social and historical
studies from the beginning of ihe Republican period. It was, however, not until
after the Second World War that any great progress was made in the study of the

social and economic history of the Ottomans. This development was due largely
to the great.yi*"1g. in interest in contemporary socio-economic problemsl "id
was facllitatJd by the fact that -the archives were then made ready for study. It
was not mere coincid.ence that the initial studies of Omer L0tfi Barkan, which
dealt with land reforms in various Balkan countries4 emphasizing their Ottoman
background, came at a time when a land reform project with far'reaching social
implilations was under discussion in the Turkish Parliamenr It is to Barkan, a
graduate of the University of Strasbourg and a colleague of Fuad Kopriili.i, that
*. owe the most original works in the postwar period o-n th: demographic,
social, and economic hlstory of the Empire, all of these are$ased exclusively on
archival materials.
' During the past thirty years there has been tremendous Progress in research on

the socio-economic structure of the Empire, both inside and outside Turkey.
The publication of Fernand Braudel's Ia Miditerranie,s which clearly defined
the issues and offered suggestions of seminal importance,-has been the most
significant milestone in thii"period. One of the major contributions of Braudel's
studies but also to general historiograPly' 1*'.I
-Lrk, not only to Ottoman
historical place of thi Ottoman Empire' Previously
the
believe, his redisco.r.ry of
than in intruder, a constant disruptor of-the
more
no
iN
it had been treated
normal course of European events. Viewing events and developm'ents in their
^Bru.,del was able to demonstrate, courageously' and in
long-term ,igrrifi"urr..,
of
the face of nurn.rous biases,. that the Ottoman Empire was an integal part
the Mediterranean world, participating in its general development. The history of
! the Mediterranean in the sixtetnth century, he showed, cannot b-e ProPerly
evaluated rnrithout acknovvlcdging the significance of ttre Ernpire of the Otto: rrrans, whose capital city was the largest city in Europe, whose Lcvantine trade
i competed with the growing Atlantic economyr and whose military ventures gave
i occaiion to such unprecedented events as Lepanto. T0 illustrate accurately the
influence of the Aniales School, or more exactly that of Braudel, uPon Ottoman''
4- ..B"lk"r, Memtcketlerinin Zirai Rcform Tecriibcleri," iktirot Fahiiltesi Mccmuasr, lJy', 4, 194+,
of this rcvicw do not contain the Inttoduction with the intererting remarks on

+55-554. Somc copics

orrrent politicd

5' Th.

Frrst

issues.

edition *as publ-ished in Paris in 1949'

7l

Annales and Ottoman Studies

studies during the last two decades, I thought it best to discuss some specific
points raised in La Mdditenande, which, in my opinion, gave a new orientation to
those studies. ln this paper I intend to review new research, and add my comments on the problems of population change and its relation to the economy,
and the concomitant topic of Ottoman production and trade with Europe, and
the monetary impact this trade had on the Ottoman Empire.

I. hoblems of Ottoman Demography

"Le nombre pafiage, organise Ie monde."
F. Braudel, ciuilisation mat|rieile et capitarisme, 6g.
Population Problems Associated with the Foundation of the Ottoman State

Lfitfi Barkan is undoubtedly the pioneering scholar of Ottoman demoresults of his extensive and still unfinished research were published
The
41p-!y
il the form of short articles.6 These were available to Fernand Braudel only
after the initial publication of LaMdditenanie,buthe was able to consult them
in the preparation of the second edition of his work.7
Barkan's studies cover a wide range of Ottoman demographic history, starting
with the role played by the dervish convenrs (zdaiyel in the process of thi
expansion and settlement of Turkish population in the irontier zone during the
foundation of the Ottoman state, a subiect upon which attention was focused
following Fuad Koprtilii's studies.8 Referring mainly to R. Busch-Zantner's summary of the subject,g Braudel stated that "ihe Ottoman success was intirnately
Omer

6'

Ci. f. Barkan's publications on Ottoman demography: "Tiirkiye'de fmparatorluk Devirlerinin Biiyiik

niifus ve Arazi Tahrirleri vc Hakina Mahsus istatistik Dcftcrleri," ihtitot Fahiiltesi filecmuast,Il, 1,1940,
20-59; II, 2, 1941, 214'47. "Osmanlt i-p.t"torlrr;rrnda bir iskin vc Kolonizasyon Metodu Olarak Vakrflar
ve Temlikler," Vaktflar Dergisi,ll, 1942,279-386. "Osmanlr imparatorlu[unda bir iskin ve Kolonizasyon
Metodu Olarak Siirgiinler," iktisat Fahilltesi Mecmuas4 XI, 1949/50,52-69; XIII, 1951/52,56.78:'XV,
1953154, 209-37. "Tarihi Demografi Araltrrmalan ve Osmanh Tarihi," Tiirhiyat Mecmuast, X, 1951153,
l-26. "Essai sur les donn6es statistiques des r6gistres de recensement dans I'Empire Ottoman aux XVe et
XVIc silcles," Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient,I, l, 1958,9-36. "Research on the
Ottoman Fiscal Surveys," in M. Cook, ed., Stadres in the Economic History of the Middle East (London:
Oxford University Press, 1970), 163-71. "894 (1488/1489) yrh Cizyesinin Tahsilatrna ait Muhasebe Bilangolarr," Belgeler, I, l,1964, l.ll7.
1

"

Lo Mlditenanie et Ie monde Miditenanien

l'ipoque de Phitippe // (Paris: Lib. Armand Colin,
1966); Engfish translation by S. Rcynolds, The Meditenanean and the Meditnranean World in the Age of
Philip II (Ncw York: Harpcr and Row, l97Zl.
8' "Ab,, tsha-q Kltzenrni und Irhnqi
Dcrwischc in Anarolien," Det Istatn,XIX, l93O/31, 18-25; antd Les
otigines de l'Empire ottoman (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1935), F. Kiipriilii, ,'Abdal," Tiirh Hatk Edebiydtr
Awiklopedisf,l, 1934.

9'

Riafr"rd Busch-Zantn er, Agratverfassung, Geselkchaft

und, Siedlung

in Siidostanopa, lrnter besonder-

er Beritksichtung der Tihkei, Bcihefte zur "Lcipziger Vierteljahnschrift fiir Stidosteuropa," III (Lcipzig:

O.

Ilarrassowitz, 1938). On Turkish axpansion and settlement in this.pcriod see FarukSiimer,Ofuzlar(Tii.rhmcalcr), Taihleti, Boy TeSkilat4 Destanhrr (Ankara: Ankara Universitcrsi, DTC Fakiiltesi, 1967); F.

Siimcr, "Anadolu'da Mofollar," Selguhtu Arastvmalan Dergki, I, l969, l-147;.Speros Vryonis, The Declinc of Mcdieaal Hellenkm in Asia Minor and thc hocess of Is&rnization fron the Eleaenth through the
Fifteenth Ccntury (Berkelcy: Univenity of Califomia Press, l97l).

Hatil inalczk

72

the peoples
connected with the waves of invasion, of silent invasion, which drive
of the
extraordinary
the
with
also
and
ProPaganda
.
.
.
of Turkestan westwards
by
connoticed
Ivluslim orders." The population Pressure in the frontier zone'
in
this
devel'
phenomenon
temporary nyzanti". tf""..s,I0 seems to be the basic
opment. it *o, the result of the concentration in the area of mobile Turcoman
tribes, pushed forward in the second half of the thirteenth century-bI -tl.:
Mongols and attracted by the prizes ensuing frop successful raids into "infidel"
stream
lands-. This massi.re popuiation movement brought with it into the ^re^a
ot settled population and discontented potttal leaders, and resulted in the
transformation oI Asia Minor west of the Krzrlrrmak (Halys) river into a new
Turkey. Toward 1330, Al-'Umari'sl I sources estimated that the sixteen
Turcoman principalities established by that time could mobilize over a quarter
million cavalrymen. This figure is obviously exaggerated. However, it can be said
that Al-'Umari's figures give rough estimate of the size of the adult male population of fighting capability in the tribes inhabiting the frontier zone. Compare it
with the figures given by Ibn Sa'idrz ldied in 1274 or 1286) of two hundred
thousand tents in Menteshe, in the.southwest sector of the frontier, one hundred
thousand tents in Paphlagonia, and thirty thousand tents in the middle area.
With a new Turkey of great demographic potential and a heightened "Holy War"
ideology emerging on the old Seljukid-Byzantine frontier zone, a thrust against
the neighboring Byzantine territories in Western Anatolia became almost inevitable.

This westward Turkish expansion was accomplished in the following stages:

1. The seasonal transhumance movements

Byzantine coastal plains.

of Turcoman nomads into

the

2. The organizition of small raiding groups under ghdzt leaders, who were
mostly of tri6al origin, for booty raids or for employment as mercenaries.
3. The .-.rg.rrie of succeisful leaders capable of bringing together local
chiefs under their clientship for conquest and for the establishment of Turcoman
principalities in the conquered lands.
But underlying all these, the major factor seems to have been a population
pressure o.iuti-o.,.d by both the cbntinuing immigration from inner Asia Minor
and the inelasticity of the rather primitive economy prevalent in the frontier zone'
an economy relying mainly on animal husbandry, forest products, carPet
weaving, and the slave trade.l 3
By lomparing the data fiom the early Ottoman surveys published by
lO' Vryoni", ib;d., +g-55,248.88;
Doukas, Historia TLTco-Byxdlntina (Detroit: Waync Statc ljnivcr3ity
Prcss, 1975), 133-36.

F. Taeschner, ed.,
sowitz, 1929),3+45.

/l-Unari!

Bencht ilher Andtolienmch denllasillik ahbsar (Leipzig: 0. Hanu-

l2' 55." Paul Wittck, Das Fiirstcntun MctttcscAc (Amstcrdam: Oriental Pretr, 1967), l-5; fir:st publishcd
in lrtanbul: Der Abteitung Istanbul des dcutschen archiologischen Institutes, 1934.

13'

Th. pointr I

eds., The Cntsades,

Barkanl a with the descriptions

the following facts:

in the Ottoman chronicles,l 5 one can establish

1. Popular Turcoman dervishes of various denominations were the pioneers in

the settlement of the frontier areas in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. These dervishes led and organized the actual settlement process in its initial
stages by providing in their orders a kind of organizational framework within
which to arrang. th. relationship of these settlements to the founders of the
Turcoman priniipalities. The newcomers, mostly uprooted peasant youth from
the hinterland, ioined the tounden of the convents and became theu dervishes,
reclaiming and cultivating the surrounding land for the convents. Since under the

constant raids

of

the ghdzis the Christian population was fleeing the frontier

lands, extensive areas were available for settlement and cultivation. Dervishes, or
settlers in the g"is9 of dervishes, penetrating deep into half-abandoned Byzantine
territory, were able to found their simple- convents, soon to become points of
attraction for further immigration and the nuclei of future Turkish villages. The
softas or silhtes of the second half of the sixteenth century, poor country youths
in search of livelihood, flocking in the thousands to the religious colleges of the
provincial towns, can appropriately be compared to these dervishes of the earlier

period in their origins, motives, and their use of the religious institutions for
social and economic purposes. A basic difference of the sixteenth-century phenomenon was that now the surplus population from the countryside could no
longer orient itself toward frontier lands open to new settlement, and had to
turn rather to a ruinous invasion of urban centers.
2. The founders of Turcoman principalities considered it the best policy to
protect and give legal sanction to these convents, granting them title to the land
and the status of pious endowments. The convent-settlements were outposts not
only for settlers but also for ghdzts and military leaders in their raids into
Christian territory, often reached through wild and unsettled country. Service to
travellers and settlers was expressly required in the diplomas granted by the
ghdzt lord, an obligation to be fulfilled in return for the endowment. The community thereby acquired a permanent legal status within the body politic. The
significance

of this institution's position in early Ottoman society can

have made here are expandcd on in a paper to appear in

V (forthcoming, Univenity of Wisconsin

Press).

Sctton and H. W. Hazard,

be

measured by the unusually great number of convents of this kind in the countryside under the first Ottoman Sultans.

Population

0f

the )ttoman Empire: 22 or 35 Nlillion?

In his recent writings, Braudell6 favors the idea of a universal increase

of population in the sixteenth century, z so-called biological revolution. At the
l4-,t
rY ,.,
' " Earkan, "0smanfi Impuatorlufu ndq"

il

"'

73

Annales and Ottoman Studies

op,cit,;

0,

Bukan, Hildwendrgirllurf,ir (Ankara: Iurkjslt

Historical Society, forthcoming); ti. 1,. Barkan, "Les problimes fonciers dans I'Empire Ottoman au temps
de sa fondation," ;{.naales d'histoire sociale,I, 3, 1939, 233-37.

l5' fir. most important of thcsc chronicles is Agrk Pasazide's, sce B. Lcwis and P. Holt,
of the Middle Eist (London: Oxford Univenity Press, 1962).

l6'

S.. Braudel, Meditenanean, op. cit.,I,-402

(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), l-65.

ff.; F. Bnudel, Cdpitdl;sn

and

eds-,

Ilistoidns

Mateial Life, 1400'1800

Halil Inalcr,h

1.1
t't

to Braudel, a
same time, the Mediterranean world as a whole recorded, according
There
million'
70
or
60
to
million
35
30
or
from
increasing
1007",
rate
of
growth
the
in
1560-1580
and
1500-1550
was definitely a *pia increase"in the periods
in
all
factor
"the
major
asserted,
he
incr."r.'*"r,
Western half of the sea. This
the
Turkish
than
important
more
concerned,
we
are
which
with
the revolutions
of
conquest, the dislovery and colonization of America, or the imperial vocation
SPain."l

to be
Braudel estimates the PoPulation of the Ottoman Empire around 1600
8
22 to 26 million, breaking down this figure by regions as iollows:t

I5

Annates and Ottoman Studies

sewants, members of the standing army and slaves. Barkan uses a multiplier of
five for households, and adds one million for those not included in the registers.
Adding the population of the lands conquered between 1530 and 1600 and
assuming a population growth of 60 percent in the same period, Barkan suggests

a figure for the whole empire of 30-35 million at the turn of the century.

Braudel has labelled this an "optimistic judgement," and sticks to his own estimate of 22-26 million.
In a paper published in 1970, Barkanz3 gives the following population figures,
based on the results

of research on the 0ttoman surveys in the period l5l0-E0:

millions

Households

European Turkey

Asian Turkey

Asia Minor (modern Turkey, excluding

its eastern provinces)

Egypt

2-3

Arab provinces (Syria and Palestine in

Tunis and Algeria

2or3

the period 15 70- 1 590)

Households

Asia Minor (modern TurkeY in

Asia, excluding the eastern provinces
of Bayburt, Kemah, and Matatya)

Arab provinces (Syria and Palestine)

Rumeli (the Balkans south of the
Danube and Sava

rivers)

Totd

283,55 I

Iraq (Bagdad and Basra provinces)

On the basis of the figures suggested by Barkanle for the 1520's, (12 or 13
million only for Asia Minor and the Balkans) this means an increase of about
33% in a period of 70 or 80 years. According to Barkan, the rate of increase Was
highest in- the cities, reaching 83.6 per ..nt.z0 Barkan's estimate of 12 or 13
million for the early.sixteenth century is based on the total number of households (hdne) obtained by counting the entries in the general tax and population
surveys *od. under Siiieyman I in the period L52A-1530.21 The geographical
distribution is given below:

| ,360,47 4

Total

88,297
1,732,322

(no figures are given for the Balkans)

if his previous paper, Barkan thus finds a population growth

$
for the
1520-1580Period

rate

of

In Braudel's opinion24 gto*th at this rate

59.9%

"seems

reasonable." However a natural growth rate of 60%^on the basis of a population

of 12 million would add about 7.2 million, thus bringing the total population up
to about 19 million in 1580. Even if we add the population of the new con-

quests and annexations

in the period 1530-1600 (North

East Asia Minor,

Georgia, Northern Azerbaidjan, Iraq, North Africa, Temeqvar, and Cyprus), it is

not clear how we could reach a figure of 30 million. One of the most interesting
findings of Barkan is that on the sJcial structure of Asia Minor.25

8 72,6L022

Households

131,843

Percentage
1,040,457

2,044,900

these registers include the tax exemPt

In addition to the taxable population,
^provinces,
functionaries' and the retired, but they
Such as the military in the

1s2o-1s30 1570-1s80 ';::;i;

1,025,487 60
Settled Muslini 640,193
Nomadic Muslim 160,564
220,217 38
71,577
Christian
114,198 60

of

"'i'u!30''"
75.4
16.2

8.4

exclude the domestic servants and retinue of the governors, the Sultan's palace
| 7' r"l"d.it.nofleaa,

op. cr?., I, 4og-

t*' tnt, 6gurc,

Braudcl argrcd in rbid,, I,396, agrccs with thc assumption that the populationof the
Islamic world wai about double the total poPulation of ltdy.

l9'

Plainly pastoral nomads still constituted an important percentage of the poPuIation of Asia Minor in 158O- But the rate of increase of their population was
about half that of the other sectors, a fact obviously attributable to sedentarization. The rate of growth of thc Christian population follows the general' Ottoman grorr'th rate trend. A different grort'th rate is observed amons the indilidual

"R...*ement,"

op. cit.,20;and, "Fiscal Suweys," op. cit.. 169.

2O' tt;a-; in Braudel,

Meditenanedr., op.

cit.,l,4l}z 90 pcrcent.
2l' B"rk-, "Fiscal Suneyl," op. cit.,l69. Barkan has notyetcompletedhisvastproject
surveys. The figures he gives in his studies differ.

22' ln

"Recenseme nt,"

op. cit-,

the figrrre is 1,026,1 73.

on Ottoman

23' "Fir""!guweys," op. cit.,l69,

l7l.

24' Br",rd.l, Meditenanean,

op. cit.,I, gg8.
25' S.. Barkan, "Recensementr" op. cit., tables t,
V, VI, VII.

Halil Inalc*
76

Poll-tax Reuenue

as a result of mieratiori'
regions,z 6 and in large cities, mainly
ottitan period has been conResearch on Balkan a.*ogrupttyiltf;n. on Ottoman archival materials'
liriait' bised
siderably expanded by recentg"rko"27
of the Ottoman-poll-tax registers has
and
publication by ioaorou
population in the
basis #-;h. study of non-Muslim
provided .r, *itli;i;
^Balkans

77

Annales and Ottoman Studies

from the Non-Muslim Population in Rumeli and Anatolia29
Year

Million

1488

32.4
36.4
42.2

r524
t527

akga

in the Period f 488-1492'

Non-Muslim Population subiect

to Poll-tax in

of tn''i"'o-crii oo""Ue

Rumeli2S

south
'1'Bolkor.t

including Istanbull

1489

625,729
665,846

1490

696,661

1488

Ilouseholds

The increase in the number of hdnes should be attributed to improvement tn

registration methods rather than to natural increase in this Pttigq of three years'
Ert,ahs,Christian pastoral nomads of the Balkans, 19,079,34,902 and 34,970 in
i+gO respectively, are included in the above totals'
I488, 148g,
^na
totals from ,the poll-tax showed considerable growth in the
The revenue
in popu1520's, which can be interyreted is an indication of a natural increase
lation.

26' Ttr. following

is a simpliFrcd version

169:
of Barkan's table in "Fiscal Suweys"' op' cit''
(Household's)
percent growth

hovinces

1520-1530 1570'1580

Anadolu (western Asia Minor)

Kanaman (central Asia Minor)
Zul kadriye ( Krrsehir-Maras area)
Ri.rm-i Kadim (Amasya-Tokat arca)

Rirm-i Hadis (Trabzon'Malatya

area)

TOTAL

(exc\udinglstanbu\) tor the period 0t l5?0.t53b:

Households (hirne)

Yeor

Barkan gives the following figures for the whole poPulation in thc Balkans3

+74,++7

672,512

+1.7

l+6,644

268,o28

82.8

69,481

I 13,028

62.6

106i062

189,643

79.0

:15,976

ll7,263

54.0

872,610

1,360,474

Muslims

1g4,g5g

Christians

862,707

4,134

Jews

Total

1,061 ,799

The increase at the rate of about 2STobetween the years 1490 and 1535 must be
partially accounted for by natural population growth. Increases due to declining
exemptions from the tax and to more thorough survey work alone could not
explain such a large increase.

Urban Population

In his La Miditerrande Braudels l pointed out a general and steady increase-in

urban population in the sixteenth ..nt,try, both inlhe Christian West and in the
Islamic East. He further observed that all categories of towns shared in this trend
rose more quickly than mral. ln the following cenand that urban populations
-*",
,r't.rsed. Barkan, publisiring preliminary results of his retury this trend
seaich on this subject, underlined the iruth of thise observations for Ottornan
;;b;..nt.rr.3 z H"uing aside exceptional cases such as Aleppo and Bursa' the
per
population in these priticipat cities increased on the average by about 90

..La rituation
27- Ni.ol"i
de la pninsulc balkanique au cours dcs XVc et
drnographiquc
Todorov.
pocuttc de Ph;losophic ct d'Ll;s-toi/e. LIII. 2' 1959'
dc aoio.
Annuaite dc l,(Jniwetsit
X.VIc siclcs,'.
Mth&scbe'i cizve
op- cit.i Barken, uring the 3ame tyPc of docurncnts.
lg3-226;
Barkan, ..gg4 (r4a8/89),"
and

ar a unique
has corrected Todorov's calculations. Barkan describer the Muhdsebe-i Cizyc registers
At thc same timc hc tries to
incompuable rource for demognphic studics bccausc of thcir completcn$s,

of
dealing with the po[:w (toy'] registen
show all their shortcomings. His introduction to this study,
dveloppc"k
sokoloski'
uL
see
Also
1488-1490 is of basic importance for ottoman demographic studies'
Balcanica' I' 1970' 81'106;J'
mcnt de quelques villcs dans le rud dec Balkenr "., xvt c.t.Xuie liicler"'
Acta Ori'

und dcr Tahir'Dcfter"'

KiJdy-Nary, "Beviilkenrngsstatistischcr Quellcnwert der 6i4te'Dcftet
thc household unit for
entalia,II, 1960, 25g-671showed that we have to determinc for cach rcgister how
poll,tax was reckoned since

28' B"tk"r,, lbia.,

26,

it

each time'
changed according to the fortunes of the taxpayen

Ek ccdvel no. l-

29'

Brrk*,

rbrd.,

ld,

30' "R...nrement," op. cit.,52, Tablc VI.

3l' Mrdirroonedn,
q.,

op. cit., 1, 325-52.

"'' The following tible was fint published in Barkan, "Tarihi Demografi," op, cit.,35; an4, Barkan,
"Fiscal Surveys," op. cit.tl68. In my table I omitted Istanbul; for this city see H. inalcrk, "lstanbul,"
Enc-yclopaedia of Islam,2nd ed., lV,22448.

Halil inatuh

7B

5
clear that some cities and towns
cent. A comparison of Barkan's listss makes it
majority while the surrounding
Muslim
a
with
in the Balkans noi " population
century'
sixteenth
the
early
in
majority
mral areas had a Cnrisiian

of
Ronald Jennings' examination of population changes in five selected cities
interest
particular
of
is
century
central and eastern Asia lv{inor in the sixteenth
from methodological point of view.37 His conclusions may be summarized as
follows:

Households

Muslims
16,935
12,347
9,122
1,569

Sarajevo

Triccala
Nicopolis
Sofia

Population Growth in Four Anatolian Cities, based on Jennings'article'

In cities

In rural areas
Christians
19,519
57,671
31 ,891

24,34r

Muslims

(Percentage)

Christians

1500'23 1523-50

City

1,024

301
468
47r

79

Annales and Ottoman Stuclies

1550-85

1523-8 5

male pop.)

343
775

Kayseri

238

Karaman

The Ottomans were city builders. The most important cities in the resion
were originally the seat of the military chiefs on the frontier zones, which
rapidly developed into relatively crowded commercial centers with such typical
Oitoman instiiutions as bedestans, caravanserais, andbazaars, all based on pious
endowments. (Bedestans, economic centers of Ottoman cities, were to be found
only in the important cities on the main trade routes.)34 Thj, bulk of the
population ir, -a.,y of those cities consisted of Muslim artisans.35 The Balkan
.iti.r were real centers of Ottoman rule and culture and the network of the
Balkan cities today dates back actually to the Ottoman Empire.36

49

Amasya
'I rabzon

134

-rn

1585 (adult

249

8,251

195

2,048

67

3,326

l1

2,t22
44
Kayseri and Karaman, Jennings stressed, "expanded at a rate far in excess of the
expectations of Braudel." The rate of growth varied from one city to another as
a result of local conditions and general political circumstances, but, says Jen-

nings, they all benefitted from the Pax Ottomanica in the sixteenth century.
Kayseri's spectacular growth seems to be the outcome oI particularly favorable
conditions - its rich agricultural hinterland, its vigorous local industry, and,
perhaps most importantly, its location on north-south and east-west Anatolian
irade routes. Furthermore it received considerable immigration during this
period.s

Research on the Balkan torvn and its demography under the Ottoman rule has

Population of the Principal cities and Towns in the ottoman Empire

Syria

City or town

1s20-1530

1571-1580

Aleppo

56,881

45

Damascus

34,930

Asia Minor Bursa

Amid
Ankara

Tokat
Sivas

0,68 6

18,942 (1541)

31,443

14,872
8,354

13,282

6,127
5,560

Konya
Balkans

33r

57,326

29,007
15,356
16,846
7,616

Athens

72,633

Edirne

22,335

30,140

Sarajevo

5,6t2

23,485

Monastir

4,647

5,918
9,A67
7,848

4,631
3,499

Skopljc
Sofia

33' "R...nsement," op.

cit.rTables VI and VII; "siirgtinletr" op, cit.r237 r295'

q4,.
tt'
Sr, inalcrk, "istrnbul," op. cit.,22?-38.0n Ottoman u$anism and towns,

see notes 39 and 40.

264-3 lO.
Balkanskiiatgrad

Izdetetstvo Nauka i Izkustvo, 1972).

mentioned here.4 o
What makes all these figures and calculations shaky, or even T.t: guesswork,
is the fact that the surveyi in the Ottoman archives were not made for statistical
for
purposes, but simpl y as'a basis for taxation, ahd in the nineteenth century
purstatistical
for
useful
are
they
whether
determine
fo
conscriptiott.
rnitirury

accurately' one
fores,'und, if ;, to sift and interpret the demograpfic-da1a registers were
ought to have an expert knowledgi of the ways in which these
a1

J
'' Ronald C. Jennings, "Urban Poputation in Anatolia in the Sixteenth Century: A Study of Kayseri,
Karaman, Amasya, Trabzon, and Erzurrm," Intenational loutnal of Middte Edst Studies, !y'll' l' 1976,
2t-57-

38' Ib;d..27, Sliand his article, "Kayseri," Encyclopaedia of Islamr 2nd cd., lV,842-46.
10

35. S.. Barkan,s lists in ..Tarihi Demogra6," op. cit. 25-26,and "Quelques obscrvations sur l'organisation 6conomiquc et sociale des villes ottomanes," Recueil de I'sociati tean Bodin, Vll, La Villc., l, 1955,

36. tt. Todorov,

to the two conferences organized by International Association of South East European Studies in 1969 (N{oscow) and in
lg73 (lstanbul).39 Nikolai Todorov's important monograph o.n the Balkan town
with ar, .*ph^sis on its demographic and social stmcture is especially to be
recently been intensified, thanks

XV-XIXvek: sotsiolno-tkonomichesko i demogralsko razvitie (Sofia:

"u'

Conference 0n the Balkan Town, XV-XUll Centudes, Moscow, March 29-30, 1969. The papers are
published in Studia Balcanicd,Ill, 1970, During thc discussionsT. Stoianovich (see tbid.,l9l) pointcd out
the seminal cffects of "L'csprit de I'cnseignement des Anaales" on Balkan studies. The sccond conference,
"La colloque interdisciplinaire: Istanbul i la jonction des cultures balkaniques mdditerraniennes, slaves et
oricntales, XMc.XIXc siicles" was held in Istanbul. The papers are published in Bulletin de I'association
internatiotule des itud,es du sud-est europien, XII, l, 1974.

4o'

Todorou , op. cit.

Halil inalcth

80

prepared, and of the specific Ottoman laws which determined the rate, liability,
and collection methods of a particular tax. Yet the size of the Ottoman hdne
(household) or audiz hdne, oi the meaning of such terms asnefer, mi)cerred,
regionally ot ftorn one period to another, are still
iaba, or hara, which changed
'frurthirmore,
the level of our knowledge of changes in
matters of controversy.4l
types of land tenure, as well as the
and
crop patterns, cultivation methods'
giu.tt.time in Ottoman society' does
at
conjuncture
institutional
and
politiial
"
not permit us to make appropriate analyses* on the data on population' At this
stage of rcsearch, the f".,t* should be on detailed studies for each particular area'
taking into account local factors as well as historical conjuncture.
Problem of Population Pressure: Demography and Economic Conditions
Following Maurice Aymard's basic work42 on wheat trade between Venice
and Levant, Braudel suggesteda 3 that the drop in ltaly's wheat imports from the
Ottoman dominions during the period 1564-1600 can be taken as an indication
of population pressure in the Empire. The strict Ottoman prohibitions on wheat
exports which began in 1564 were, he thought, the result of growing demand in
the Levant; in the previous period, 1548-64, however, wheat exports on alarge
scale were made possible by the great quantity of surplus wheat in the Levant -

the Turkish wheat boom. The tolerant attitude of the Ottoman government
toward wheat exports and the considerably lower prices in the Levant during
this period were seen as indication of a large surplus owing to a "smaller population."44 Of course, the variations in grain trade were dependent not only on
the size of the population but also on such factors as wars, government policies,
and climate. But the question still remains whether the changes observed were
really long-term ones determined by population growth or short-term ones
caused bv occasional factors.

In one of his early studies published in 1950, Mustafa Akda[45 posed.tht

question of population pressuie in Anatolia without being aware of Braudel's
hypothesis (first published in 1949). Though admitting that no de-tailed investig"tion had been done of the subject, he'suggestcd on the basis oI the growing
of reports on shortag"i it't the major cities, that it was not before the
i..qr.n.y'stileyman
I (1520-66), and particularly not before the middle of the
reign of
sixieenth ..nirry, thai a "long-term shortage in grain" seems to have appeare.d
in Turkey.a6 Increasingly coicerned with the difficulty of supplying the big
cities, the government *ia. every effort to stop the contraband wheat trade' It
is interesti-ng to read in the 0ttoman reports that widespread conftaband trade
was carried on in the coastal areas: thc profiteers, offering20% more than the
officially set priccs, amassed in. their storehouses large q,rur't1iti.s of wheat to sell

to "European ship owners;" and timar-holders, goulrnors, Janissaries, and even

members of the ulema were actively involved in this profitable trade. According
to Akda$,47 however, the real cause of long-term shortage in Anatolia was not
the contraband trade stimulated by higher European prices, but the spread of
the giftlik system (estates owned by grandees), which entailed the decrease of
cultivated land in favor of animal breeding. According to Aymard,4 8 who used
Venetian documentation, .the situation in the second half of the sixteenth century can be summarized as follows:

1548-53
I 55 3

from the 15th to the 17th Century," Middle Eastern StudieS, XI,3, Oct. 1975,284-30.llexamined the
question in the light of modern demographic theory. In view of the fact that many surveys also register
popufation as nefer, supposedly taxable adult rnalcs, Erder suggests the following for a more reliable
methodology of estimating populations.: I. Instead of taking as a basis forourcalculations hdne the household family unit, which is often purely a fiscal convenicnce and il not Seographicdly constant, it is safer to
consider the actual suwey entries for the male population above the age of pubcrty, nefer.ll. Given "the
relationship of population growth rates and the changing agc comporition of a population," comparativc

ED8s in
hultiPlicF

populatlon
multlplicn
can be crtablfuhcd
are confincd
to a rclatiwcty nuow
Eng!

(rec p. 297, Ttblc 4). Ax shc establirher them, all

bctwccn I ud 4- Thit fu safer becaute the possiblc

variation' is smaller. Howcver there multiplien must be used in conncction with large populations and with
scttlcments that can bc idcntificd from onc suwcy to the ncxL Bruce McGowan applied an interesting

in the runl ueas in "Food Supply and Tuation 0n the Middle

Danub e ( I 568- 1 5 79)," Archivum }tt o mdnicum, I, I 969, I g9-96.
42' M"rlri". Ayrnard, Venkc, Ragase et le commerce du bli pendant h seconde moitii du XVIe si|cle

method

of

calculating total production

(Paris: Ecole Pratique des flauter Etudes, l966).

43'

"'

44

Mrd,irrnonesn, op, cit.r I, 5gg-94.

3*;iH::l

1565-67
L570-72

:il:1";:"il,Jll'J,(;::i:1'.":,',1111;3:':ff;r,"'"

1582-88

Ottomanprohibitions
Ottoman-Venetian war;prohibitions
Shortage and famine in Anatolia and Istanbul
Fluctuations in the imports from the Levant

1588

Shortage in Istanbul

1589

Great shortage in the Levant

1590

Great shortage in Italy; wheat imports from northern countries

1591-93

Re-opening 0f the wheat market of the Levant

1594

Ottoman prohibition; Italy's massive imports from northern countries

I595'7629 Levant competes with northern countries in supplying Italy's wheat

t'' Mustafa Akdai, "0smanl impuatorluiunun

LA

Vuiyeti,"

Kurulu; ve inkinfr Dcvrinde Tiirkiye'nin iktisadi

Belleten, XIV, 55, 1950,390.

46'

Ib;a.,390-91; M. Akdag, Tiirkiye:nin int*oat ae igtimai Taihi,II, (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kunrmu,
l97l),345.'llrere were great famines in the yean 149*1503.

47' Akd^6,"osmanlr,"
48'

Aymudrop, cit,,l29; F. Braudcl, ibid.t583.

Bad harvests and shortages in ltaly; exceptional abundance and low

prices in Turkey; 300-400 thousand staia (240-320 thousand hectoliters) were exported from Turkey in 7552

60

t57 +7 5

4l' B"tk"n's choice of a single multiplier of five per hllne (household) in thc Ottoman surveys isnow
being reconsidered. L. Erder ("Mcasurement of Pre-Industrial Population Changes: The Ottoman Ernpire

8l

Annales and Ottoman Studies

Ayrn"rd

, op. cit. ,l

op.

cit., gg2.gg.

t 2; I 14, tables.

Halil Inalcrh

82

The Venetian Bailo, always on the lookout for the possibility of .wheat export
from the Ottoman dominions, provides us in his reports with reliable observarions on the fluctuations of grain production in the Empire. lnvestigations of the
Turkish archives might ptouid. further data for comparison and lead us to more
conclusive findines

But Gi.iger's researcha 9 into the Ottoman sources on croP shortages in the period
L578-1637 is not complete enough to enable us to make meaningful comparisons. The following list can be drawn up from his findings:

1564-65
157 +-76
15 79

l5 80

Widespread shortage in Anatolia (cf . Akdafi, Belleten XlV, 396)

Severe shortage in rstanbul (also in Akda$, ibid., 401)
Shortage in Archipelago, Syria

dJ

Annales and Ottoman Stutlies

lb4g, the Republic relied upon ltalian wheat-producing areas, and that aiter
1593 massive wheat imports from the Baltic countries changed the pattern,
without, however, eliminating the imports from the Levant. In fact, in the years
1600-01 and 1628-29, because of favorably low price levels, Levantine wheat
supplies replaced those from northern countries.5 2 Within this broad picture,
variations in wheat imports from the Levant do not seem to suggest a progresslve
decline which might be attributed to a constant factor such as long-term population pressure. Th! boom of 1549-53, taken as the beginning of a new era in the
east-west trade, may simply have been the outcome of an unusual disparity of
prices between the two areas resulting lrom exceptionally good hawests in tht
Levant and great shortages in ltaly.S'3 [t shouti Ue added that rhe Ottoman
campaigns in Transylvania in the years 1551-52 clid not obviously affect the
large scale wheat exports. In any case, because of the high transport costs,

158 3

Shortage in western Asia Minor, Archipelago

Shortage in Archipelago, Aleppo

I 584

Shortage in western Anatolia, Syrian coasts, Tripoli

imports from the Levant were economically feasible only iuhen p.i..r in the
Levant sank below half the Italian prices.s4 In fact, price seems to be the most
comprehensive single indicator of the east-west trade.

1585

Shortage in western Anatolia, Rumeli (Edirne, Berkofca, Teme;var),

Lepanto, Zulkadriye in Eastern Asia Minor

The Pice Factor in East-West Trade

159 0

Shortage in Damascus

r59 I

Shortage in Skoplje

609

Shortage

in Crimea, the Tokat-Qorum

area, Batum, western Ana-

tolia

In this list, the

shortages indicated in the Aegean area are. particularly noteworthy, since that area provided the main source for Venetian wheat purchases,
whether by permit or contraband. The severe crop shortages and rising prices in
western Anatolia in 1564-65, witnessed in Venetian sources as well,50 led to an
active wheat traffic from Macedonia and Thrace to the Aegean coasts of Asia
Minor. Akda$,51 in a sweeping generalization, suggested an almost permanent
shortage and relatively high prices in Western Anatolia and the Marmara basin as
a result of massive purchises by Western nations in the sixteenth century. As to
the shortages and riling prices in Istanbul in the 1580's, these are attributed in
the Venetian sources to a diversion of surplus to the army in the East.
Briefly speaking, in the period 1549-1593, the Levant, orto be more precise,
the Aegean coasts and Albania, constituted the principal wheat market from
which Venice replenished its short supplies. It has been suggested that, prior to

In the period 15+8-52, the massive exports from the Levant also coincided
with cheaper silver in Italy from 1540,55 so that Italian buyers made massive
purchases not only in wheat but also in such other commodities as wool, Ieather,
timber, sugar, and furs. Thus a price disparity large enough to justify specu-

lation, whether resulting from a real shortage or from an inflation in silver in

Italy, seems to have played a decisive role in the variations in the Levantine
trade. It must be remembered that even in times of acute shortages in the Levant

'contraband trade continued.5

If we take the period 1550-82, when silver coins in the Ottoman Empire as
well as in Ragusa and in Venice remained fairly stable in value, we see that the
official Ottoman wheat price almost doubled, iiring from a 4-5 akga to 8-10.57
52' Ay-"rd , op. cit.,l66-67.
53' Ay-"rd (;bid., 125) pointed out that heavy impositions on whcat exports from Sicily made the
larger
Venetians turn to the Levant' Braudel (Meditenane0'n' op' cit" l' 58 t ) also suggests that the use of
cargo vessets reducing transportation costs, became a factor in the expansion

54'

Aym.rd

, op, cit,,50;

and Europc in the

of the wheat trade'

Turkey
also see Ljuben Berov, "Changes in Price Conditions in Trade Between

l6th.l9th Century [sicJ,"

Etudes Balhaniques,ll-n, 170'73.

55' Br"ud.l, Meditenanean, op. cit., l, +76. For particularly light silver coins in thc Levant during
49'
Altnan

Giiger,

Lii.fi
Guccr, )(VI-XVV
Astrlarda
Meselcsi ve l{ububattafl
Osmanlt imparatorlujunda
llububat
Vcrgiler (/stanbul:
istanbul
ikrisar Faktiltesi, f964),8-9,
iinivcrcitesi
Table l. On whcat trade, L.

"XVII. yiizyrl Ortalarrnda istanbul'un iagcsi igin Liizumlu Hububatrn Temini Mesclesi," iktisat
Fokilter Mecnur,lu XII, 1950/51, 397-416; L Griger, "Osmanfi imparatorluiu Dahilindc HububatTicare.

tinin

tlbi

Olduh Kayrtlar," iht*ot Fdkilttesi Mecmudst, XI[, l9SU52, 76-98; Muie-Mathilde Alexi t'tudc de I'approvisionnement en bl6 de Constantinople au XVIIIc siicle,"
l, lgSZ, l3-g 7.

andrescu, "Contribution
Studia et Acta Orientalia,

50' Ay.".d
, op. cit.,3l.

5l' nta";,',osmanlr,,, op. cit., 513.

period,

se a

report by the Venetian Bailo in Istanbut, cited in Braudel, Mediterranean, op. c;t.,1,

55' Fo. an example in

67
tll,

1564, scc Akda!, "Osmanlr," op-

this

+5O-

cit.,396.

7
,
,
"" [q.t
wheat prices in the 0ttoman [mpire, see Akded, tbii,,,i|lg.Il;Ciiger, XVl.XVll /lsrirrrdr.,of,
,

cil., 59;6. L l"rt"n,

graph

in Braudel, Meditenanean, op. cit.,!,518, and "Price Revolution of thc

SixtcentJr Ccntury: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the Ncar East," International Journal of
Middte Edst Studies, VI, I,Jan. 1975, 8-15; Aymard, op. c;t., l2O-*5; Braudel, Mediterrdnean, op. cit.,l,
515, 518. For the.pcriod 1490-1540, prices in Akdag (2-3 ahga per kile, hile = 25.656 kg) are lower than
Barkan's (e8 in Bursa, 6-10 in Edirne, 13.5 in Istanbul), apparently because the latter takes prices only in
the capitd cities. Buna kddt records confirm Barkan's prices there. The officiat prices set for wheat in

Thrace during the same period was

,|.

akga per

[ile.

See

Tayyib Gtikbilgin, Edhne ue

Paga

liuair (istanbul:

Annales and Ottoman Studies

Halil Inalc*

84

rhe rise

Jort.i.,

"'il:,:in-#
ttztd iI

was approxim-atery. the same rate in Venicc

'*"'P'
in Veiti.e, t551-54. R"g,,"t, an Ottoman tributary' was. granted

iitf;i'.'.":'r';,',.1i',T"""Y,'ni:*f'
ih"n

ih" Otto-n

;::":n$",
rncrEas''"t'""f;';;;:;i;i
e1i::."::T"tJ*:i"T:il'l,i:rt'$',iyi-fr!{j:+ilitTil
Ly tht simP,lt peos nts to fulfill
"ti

p"ti.i".,

"ti

lffi:ru'Fliiiqifi.i"1'H
i consrucrcu 1'"
sta;d that the five
*a'f5 timei higher in the followinc :f:Xfl-1;"ffi:J,#;*Hi"JJ,f****ru;1;;.:li;i+i"ii:

r prices during isSr-S+

l;;;, ;";;;;'ir.-'ee#, ," ihe S,,ltan60

i :il m:['.,""*ii:;il*1*]il""t'f]"''""'il"i{:{:::ii'"'"7
ii*l;,:1""ffF;:S,.','1.''"i;l:
llxl*l=],!:*:li:
were full and
""'
15s0-1600. otioman devaluati"" oi-ileteo caused a sirarp.increT".:l-p-::::::: llltlilil."lilil;uni
t *,.ttr. Thc storeirouses, thc rlport added'
::t'**"'m"l
*'fif:l,l-T:f'f.l'-'Lfi:"*1l*."il'JLllili il:il \ ffid i"y." noi';t,n noti' tt', emins, hesgifs, rnd other rmpni to\\tctots
seem to confirm this fact. The depradations
as well as
of the Celdlfs, rebellious mercenary
companies, caused the peasant population to flee the countryside en masse, and
seem to have resulted in a dramatic decline in agriculture and in famines in
Central Anatolia.5S Thus, considering wheat prices-in the Levant, roughly four
periods can be discerned inlhe sixteenth century. These
9tjlil:,
1550-85, 1585-95, 1595-1610. But did this pattern.*.ig. from "r.15b0-50,
a population
pressure, production level, or disparity in the price of silver?
Theory o/ Qiftlik System and Integration of Ottoman Economy with the West
ln the context of east-west wheat trade, the Ottoman Empire is also brought
into the theory of the "refeudalization" oI Eastern Europe- Braudel, subscribing
to Aymard's hypothesis,59 suggests that:
The grain crisis, combined with the money crisis, was largely responsible for encouraging the development of inheiited property . . . , to full ownership as exemplified by
the contemporary estates of Hungary and Poland. If historians talk of "refeudaliza'
tion" . . . in the West between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, a very similar
pattern was developing in Turkey. . . . Omer Lfitfi Barkan and his pupils in the course

the agricultural revolution imposed upon her, as upon other countries, by population

growth.. .. Great changes were certainly on the way after the 1560's'

in which the
the followonly
add
Ottoman Empire shaied a "common destiny," let me here
ing remarks. A-ong.various factors affecting the level of Ottoman wheat exports
seeks

to

Italian commerce with Egypt (cereals, but also spices, linen, sugar, etc.)."6 I
Thus silver was so badly needed in the Ottoman Empire that the Ottomans were
ready to offer their valuable wheat reserves for sale to the Westerners. It must
also be remembered that almost half the revenues from the timdrlhhdss or uahf
lands, which constituted no less than 90% of the arable lands in the Balkans and
Asia Minor, were exacted in kind, but then had to be converted to cash for the
treasury or the timar-holder. Farmers were asked to pay their obligations in cash
and, despite government orders to the contrary, timar-holders also pressed taxpayers to pay their tithes not in kind but in cash.6 2 Under these circumstances
the Ottoman economy strained to adjust, it is argued, to a money economy,
whose actualization obviously demanded a closer economic integration with the
Western Mediterranean.6 3
It is also true that there was strong pressure toward integration from the lVest,
manifesting itself in the offer of higtL prices and the organization of.large-scale

of an.extensive research program have confirmed this spread of the modern estate
(gifttik) to the advantage of the Sultanas and Pashas whom we know to have been
engaged in the grain boom. . . . One suspects that this transformation was very far
t."ihing. Turkey like Western Europe wis living through the "price revolution" and

On this interesting theory, which

the common tax paying subjects it was extremely hard to sell Itheir
wheat] and Pay the tax due." In 1549-1551, the availability oIgreat quantities
of grain at such low prices was evidently the main reason for "the renewal of

show another way

contrabanJ trade in the Aegean.6a The Ottoman government struggltd !?.P.rotect its internal market through the enforcement of fixed prices, the prohibition
of export of such basic tt...tiity goods as grain' cotton' leather, hides and wax
along with strategic items such Is po-der, arms and lead; through fighting
agairist smuggling," r,o, only in the Aegean Sea but also in the internal market;
,ia Uy p,-,riiir,g'u.,d pror.cuting those native merchants engaged in collecting
and hoaiding the abovi-mentioned goods direc_tly from the villages'
curb the largeAlthough"Ayrnard says in gne illace that Otioman efforts t0
to have
generally
scale wheit trade to Venice were indeed successful, he seems
60' N"tion"lbibliothck, Vienna, Manuscript AF 2gg,Miinshedt-i ibrahim Bey,v-78b.

istanbut IJniversitcsi, Edcbiyat Fak{iltesi, lg52), I68,2g7,248,2g7. S- Faroqhi and H- islamollu, "Crop
Pattcms and Agriculturd :Crndr in Sixtcenth-Ccntury Anatolia," papr pre3ntcd at Firrt lntcrnational
Congress of thc Social and Economic Flirtory of Turkcy: lOTl-192O (Ankara: Hacettepe Univ.,July 1l-13,
1977), give the same rate in central Anatolia for thc period 15?0-?4, but 1O in lznik and 18 for thc Adana
area- In the period 1550-1584, before the 0ttoman devduation, whcat priccl increascd moderately,
but

the Archipelago, lstanbul and Egypt.

afrcr thc dwaluation thcy shot up to 20 otgo 0r more in the pcriod 1585.95, 40.50 atga in thc period

During the yean of abundance even the common people were permitted
directly to the foreignen; see Aymard' ibid.' 50-51.

I 595- I 6 1 0. As Braudel pointed out, unless we esrablish comprehcnsive price

different parts of the Empire, we cannot be certain of our assumptions.

series covering long periods

for

58' Akd";, "Osmanlr," op.

cit., 532-37, graph on 553; M. Akda!, "Cclili isyantarrnda Biiyiik
Kag(unluk," Tarih Aragtvmalan Dergisi,II,2/3, 1964, 1-49.; L Giiger, XW-XWL Asrrlarda,op.cit.,lg.
59' Br.,rdct Meditetanean, op. cit-,1r
op. cit.t 5l-52.
,

593-94;Aymard,

61. eyn.r"td,
Venetian cargo ships left Venice for
.op. cit.,48, 56, 122. ln the years 1549-f 555, large
AC)

u('

63' S..

to sell their

surpluses

notes 83 and 87.

64' Rtir,.-, tic Grand Vizier, reportedly said to the Bailo about the Venetians, "sfis vengono pigliar

grani ncll'Archipelago a forze de denari," cited by Aymard, op. cit.,50. Westcrn nations also pressed the
porte to grant trade privileges; see H. inalcrk, "imtiyizit," Encyclopaedia ol Isldm,2nd ed', IV, ll79'89'

Halil

86

inalc*

oI disorganization and ineffectiveness, combined with

the demand for bullion and luxury goods, the Ottoman market was virtually a
free one.6 5 Thus, there apparently was no serious obstacle to the integration
process which led to the spread of estate (g;ftlih) agriculture in the Ottoman
accepted that, as a result

dominions.

But still the problem of the origins and nature of an Ottoman "giftlih system," supposedly capable of changing the "Ottoman social structure," is avery
complex one. Let me only say here that those Sultanas or Pashas supposedly
converting their "benefrcium" to full ownership in Braudel's termsG 6 were in fact
simply selling the tithe income o[ their "beneficium" (fim
6r, arpalth, posmah/zA, etc'), which
paid in kind by the reaya, the peasant possessors of the
-was
state owned lands. If such
granted by ihe Sultan
freehold pro-lands
^t ^ilh, as practiced
P"tly' they were immediately turnid into utahf, pious endowments,
in the periods prior to the sixteenth century. Thepersisting characteristics of the
Ottoman socio_-political system were such ihat the large Oitoman estates, owned
or controlled by the grandees (ekdbir g;ftlili) had i character peculiarly their
own in the seveenteenth and even the eishteenth centuries. At any rate the
existence of gifttihs does not allow them to be identified with central or eastern
European forms, where developments took place within a totally different conte>:t dominated by an aristocracy in absolute control of the land.
The Euidence Supplied by the Ottotnan Sunteys on Population Pressure

Setting aside theories that population pressure might be inferred from such
external variables as the change in the volume of grain exports, shortages'in
urban centers, or the rise in prices, all of which depended on diverse and often
accidental factors, Michael Cook, Wolf-Dieter Hi.itteroth, and Mustafa Soysal,
and most recently Suraiya Faroqhi and Huri islamo$lu6 7 have set out to study
the problem directly in the Ottoman countryside. By using Ottoman fiscal sur55' Ay*"rd ibid.,50, 59, 61,
,

roflean, op.

70, 95,99, 132, 167-68. The original idea comes from Braudel, Mediter'

cit.,I, 539.

66' Braudel ibid.,I,

593-94. For the early history and the origins o( the gifttih system, sce H. inalok,
,
"Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire," lournal of Economic History, XIX, I, Mar. 1969, 124'35;
I. Beldiceanu-steinherr, "Fiscaliti et formes de possession de la terre dans I'Anatolie prd'ottomane,"
to
tounat of Economic and Social History of the Orient, XX, 1976, 234'322. The gifttihs bclonging
Riistem Pasha and his wife were all pious endowments (waqfl. See Giikbilgtn, op. cil., 500'501, 5lEt
52+25. Like other viziers in the imperial council, R0stem Pasha was eager to sell the wheat produce of his

l3::.;.:?:I'.i-r*"*#t":-.?r#,:*?"ii:+*":;xl"F:.-1'#i'H'.l,,?:X#;;i:f:!:::i.#ii
lv involved in the system. For
these developments see H.

i;;;il-'t'.;;;j;;;i";

and Deccntrarization in

Ottoman'Administration," in T. Naff and R. Owen, eds,, Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic Hktory
(London and Amsterdam: Feffcr & Simons, 197?), 2.,.12;[I, inalok, "The Ottoman Dccline and its [ffccts
upon Reaya," in H. Bimbaum and S. Vryonis, eds., Aspects of the Balhans, Continuity and Clange (The
FltS.te and Paris: Mouton, lg72l, 338-64t H. inalcrk, "Military and Fiscal Transformation in thc Ottoman
Empire,

"

Arc hivu rn Ot t o tnaaicu i,

Vt,

I9

Zg ( forthcomin g)

M. A. Cook, Population Pressure in Rurd! Andtolia, 1450-1600 (London: Oxford Univeruity

Ib,
1972); Wolf-Dieter Hiitteroth, L6ndliche giedlungen im siidtichen Innerdndtolien in den letztenvier
ILlresr,
Ecrt!ohren(Gbttingcn:G6ttingerGeographischcAbhurdlungen,Heft46'1968);W.Hiittcroth,Hbto*
:^ ;n ih, l.ntc 16th Century (Erlangcn: ErlrnFt

6t

Annales and Ottoman Studies

veys they have sought

to examine in selected

areas the

ratio of population to its

it changed considerably

over a given period oI time; thus

,.rour..i
giving rise to those phenomeni such as unavailability of marginal land, a rise in
iand irices, an increaie in the number oI landless peasants, emigration, etc.' which
would indicate a population pressure.
M. Cook was the first to examine carefully and critically the Ottoman fiscal
surveys in the period 1450-l575,looking at three selected areas comprisin-g some
seven hundred villages: Aydrn on the Aegean coast, one of the most fertile areas
and whether

of Asia lvlinor; HamiA in

mountainous legion

of the Southwestl and Tokat in

northeastern Anatolia. Cook observes6S that, in allthese areas, we can speak Ot

"a demograPhic saturation under sixteenth-century conditions." As to th; conditions of cultivation, he points out "a general reduction of the size of the land
holding in- the possession of the individual peasant,"69 and that,,the peasants

were raching the limits of cultivation as -defined by their physical environment," as can be_ seen "through the attempts to squeeze a harvest out of the
hillside towards the end of the period."70-A gro*itt in both the size of the
population and the extent of arable land *ur a. undeniable fact, but "the
population growth was more rapid than the extension of cultivation." On the
basis of an index with a base level of 10 in L475, the population by 1575 had
grown to 17 while the land under cultivation had reached only I2.7 | In addition, the average peasant household landholding had fallen from half a gift (one
gift varied betwien 60-150 thousand square meters) to a third or even a quarter
g;ft by the end of the period. However, he pointed out, this does not necessarily
indicate real population pressure, for there is always the possibility of a more
intensive exploitation of the soil.72 Moreover, he adds, conclusions drawn from
the study of the fiscal suryeys are always questionable due simply to the shortcomings of the records themselves.T3 "The surveys indicate a dramatic increase
in the proportion of adult males unmarried. . . . If this can be taken at all
seriously (Jince it may simply have to do with an unrecorded change in fiscal
practice), it provides an elegant confirmation of the population pressure hyPgihesis."Ta Aiso the fact that food prices rose fastir than wages is "a fairly
Geographische Arbeiten, V, 1977); Mustafa Soysal, Die Siedlungs - und Landschaftsentwicklung der
Arbeiten'
Qukurova, mit besonderet Beriiksichtigung d,er Yiiregir-Ebene (Erbngen: Erlanger Geographische
iv, tgze); Faroqhi and islamollu, op. cit.

68' cook, ;bid.,15.

69' n;a-, tz70' Ib;d-,21'22. X'rvier dc Planhol, "Gcography,
Potiticr and Nomadisrn in Anaroliz," fntcna.ional
Social Science Journal, XI, 1959, 525-31, obscwed that Anatolian nomadl under the constant pressure of
agfiCUltufaliSts wcre pushcd into higher pasturc lands in att but cartcrn Asia Minor during the sixteenth and
scvcnteenth centuries.

71'
72'

Cook, op. cit.,

l0-ll.

h;a., rg-r4.

a6

'e'

For a discussion of this point see ;b;d.,20-21, 52-53.

7+'Ibid.,z6-zi,

Halil Inaluh

88

Annales and Ottoman

convincing case for a shift in demand, but the evidence is slight." Cook also
points out that our present knowledge of Ottoman agricultural history is not
adcquate to determine whether there was an intensification in agricultural
-

and cotton.
The authors, arguing that no more objective basis of calculation has yet been
derived from the data in the surveys, adclptcd tax on crops and number of
taxpayers as the indicators on which changes in erain producti<.rn and population
could be demonstrated..Ts But it is a well-known fact that the general fiscal
surveys (mufassal defters) are not complete in their data on revenue and population because a part of these two items was often recorded in separatc surveys,
particularly those for the e xte nsive wahfs. Sometimcs the data thus separated

Suraiya Fanrqhi and I,eila ErderT 6 have studied the question of population
prcssurc during the pcriod f 550-1620, with special emphasis on the demographic
and economic consequences of the Celillt disorders in Asia Minor. Selecting two
areas. of very different characteristics, the Sancaks of $ebin ($abin) Karahisar
and izmid (Kocaeli), they found in both for the years 1550-1620 a decrease in
the number of settlements:
Kocaeli from t6t (f 561) to 141 (t6tb)
Karahisar from 426 (1569) to 402 (16f9)
and in the size of the tax-paying population (in h,dne),
Kocaeli from 54gg (1540's) to 4720 (1619)

from or reinstated in a survey might change not only the amount of t'ax revenue
and number of taxpayers but also the picture on crop patterns. Some of thc
unusual situations which have been obseived may be cxpiair.,ed by this fact. On
the other hand the switch from whcat to barlcy may simply havl becn duc to
the fact that the government demanded large quantities -of barley during thc
military campaigns in the East. This dcmand may have manifcstccl itself in the
fcrrm of a tax levy in kind (ni)zril), required 213'<tr 415 in barlcy and 1
13 or llb

Karahisar from 19,679 (1569) to 77bb

After making note of the uncertainty of Ottoman survey data, they statcd in
conclusion that Karahisar showed a sharp increase in total populati<ln during the
period 1547-69 and an equally dramatic decline during the period 1569-t?t3,
while in Kocaeli the pattern of decline was less evident. In- their opinion, the
dilference in the Kocaeli pattern can be attributed to the formation oi large land
holdings (g;ftlih), with the introduction of new crops and farming patteins and
an ensuing rise in productivity. They noted that their findings that there was
some decline in population towards the end of the sixteenth century concur
with the conclusions of Necdet Tunqclilek, Akdaf and Hiitteroth for other

in wheat, and also in the form of forced government purchases (silrsat)it *hi.h
brought about a rise in barley prices.80
But what Faroqhi and Islamoflu tried to show was that the shrinkagc in wheat
production, the colresponding growth of commercialized crops, and the rise of
the so-called giftlik system were all developments that occrrred under the impact
of the "capitalist world-economy" in the period 1515-1600. Birt in Qukuiova
(Adana), the only place were a change from grain to a commercialized crop has
been established,S l "world-economy demand" does not seem to have been a

of Asia Minor.
Recently Suraiya Faroqhi, and Huri islamo$lu7 7 haue made comparisons of the
rate oI population increase with agricultural production in other areas in Asia
Minor. They have tried to correlate population chanee with shifts in production
and crop patterns. In their joint paper, Faroqhi and islamoflu, using the data on
fifteen selected districts (ndhiye) from Ottoman survey registers dating from
1520 to 1600, conclude that the increase. in grain production in most of these
districts was much below the rate of growth in population. According to their
calculations, with the exception of iznik and Adana, the population in all districts grew at a rate greater than 50 percent. The authors' explanations for the
two exceptions are, first, that the Adana (Qukurova) area was in this period still
predominantly a tribal area, and secondly, that the giftlik system of "commer'
regions

78' Th. same method has been applied in H0tteroth,Ldndliche.,op.

cit.,l66-89;Hiittcroth, Historicdl
cit.,36-ll0; and in .Soysa.l, op. c;t.,9-37. Using Ottoman surveys Hiitteroth studied the
pattcrns of scttlement and agricutture in Central Anatolia (see note 67). According to Hiitteroth,
Geography, op.

agriculture and settlement shrank in the area as a result of political unrcst and the expansion of nomads. He
also pointed out (p. 70) that large estates (g;ftlikl of the type prevalent in the Balkans did not exist in
Central Anatolia. tt should be added that the export of sheep for Istanbut's consumption, as required by
the government and organized locally by the chieftain of thc Cihanbeyli tribe, must have been an important
factor in shaping the economic situation in this steppe area for four hundred years.

79' .S.. Giiger, XVLXWI Asrlarda, op. cit,,76-l t4.

80'

'"'

see H,

inalcrk, "Filllha," Encyctopaedia

of

Ishn,2nd cd., III,

67).

"Pop,rl"tion Risc and Fatl in Anatolia, l550-1620," to bc publish ed in Middle Edst Studies. |
indebted to thc authors for lctting me rcad thc papcr.
^m

77'

F.roqhi and istamoglu, op. cit.

and

8l'

906'09; S. Faroqhi, "Rural Society in Anatolia and the Balkans during the Sixtccnth century,'r Turcica,lX,
l, 1977, 161-96; Faroqhiand islamoitu, op. cit.; and recent publications of Hiitteroth and Soysal (see note
76'

l2 to l8)

Euidorr"e supplied by the Ottoman customs registen of the fifteenth and sixteenth ceniuries leaves
no room for doubt that Ottonara cotton industricr werc flourishing in many Anatolian citics
Adana,
l(ayrcri, Bunra, Ankra, U1ak, I(onya, Nigdi, Tire, Mcnernen, Merzifon, and Diyarbckir to mcntion -thc rnost
imponant centcrs - and that, under a putting-out 3ystem, grcat quantitics of cotton goods were produced
and sent to distant markct$ in the Bdkans and northern Black Sca re$ons. (See my forthcoming cdition of

:1

74

0n the agricultural history of Turkcy

Faroqhi and.islamopushowed that wheat prices rose from 5 to 6 (but in Adana from

that of buley from 3-4 to 5.6 (in Adana from 8 to l0) after the middle of the sixteenth century.

cialized large estates" was presumably on the rise in both areas. In response t0

:::T,:':l$:ilI'ffi

89

to barley and minorgrains, and on the coastal plains of Tirc and Adana to barley

methods.' )

no""3ii?:-,':".::L"*"#1'l}$T:::::l;1.r.*:f

Studies

the customs registen of Caffa and Antalya.) Furthermore cotton g00&, cotton threed, and raw cotton
madc a significant part of Ottoman exports to thc Weltem Meditenanean. (See the lists of P. Masson,
Hktoire du commerce frangais dans le Levant au XVIIe silcle,2 vols. IParis: Lib. Hachette, 18961 ,passiml.
In the period bcfore the industrial revolution in Europe, Ottoman cottons faced competition only from
costly Indian cottohs. Truc, smuggling in cotton as in wheat was always a problem, beginning as early as the
fourteenth century with Venetian pressure. Under the Ottomans, even in the period of decentralization in
the eighteenth century, one cannot speak of a complete loss of control of trade in vital raw materials
(including cotton) at the expensc of the internal market as suggested by Barkan ("Pricc Revolution," op.

Halil Inalczh

90

factor in reality. There, cotton was cultivated on small-sized rnezre'as (uninhabited arable land) by nomads since there is no evidence of large estates
the second
k;ftt;hs) for this period.82 At any rate the theory that,.already in
half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was witnessing the beginning
of a fundamental change in agricultural production andSlandholding system,
leading finally to "the d]ssolutiJn of its social formation"8 cannot be accepted
at this stage of research.

u- ottornan

Price Revolution:

A Result of Siluer Influx or Population Pressure?

"The Turkish Mediterranean lived and breathed
with the same rhythms as the Christian."
Braudel, The Mediterranean,l, 14.

When all the studies in population pressure are evaluated, one is left with one
key indicator of the complex demographic and economic phenomena involved,

that is, rise in prices.

Since the publication of Braudel's La Miditenanie,S4 studies on the rise of
prices in the Ottoman dominions have been pursued in two directions. Some
stress as the determining factor the impact of the silver influx and monetary
policies, others stress the effects of a growing differential between supply and
demand resulting from population. growth and urbanization within the empire
and an expanding trade with the West. Given the chain of upheavals in an empire
with an undeveloped monetary economy, how can one, Braudel asks, avoid using
the term "price revolution"? In a critical review written in 1951 of Akdaf's
study, which focused on surface phenomena such as the shortage of precious
metals in the market and state devaluations to explain the rise of prices, I drew

attentions5 to the Hamilton/Braudel theory86 which stressed the impact of

silver on the rise in prices throughout the Mediterranean world and added the
fact that devaluation played only a partial role in the complex price mechanism
in the Ottoman economy.
ln a recent article summarizing research on price movements in the Ottoman

91

Annales and Ottoman Studies

by
Empire, Barkans 7 concludes that the rise in prices cannot be explained solely

in silver, but must be aitributed basically to the population

pr.rirrr. in the Empire and the mercantile Pressure of Europe on thd one hand'
expendiand to Ottoman devaluations of the ahga as a result of growing public

the'general inflation

tures on the other.

must immediately be noted that one cannot exaggerate the.vital significance

of the import of pr..io,rs metals from the West forOttoman imperial finances
were keenly
and for the economy in general. Certainly the Ottomans themselves
when they
,*or. of its i*pottunce ;s early as the time of Murad I (1362'1389)'

It

imposed a tribute of silver on Serbia,88 .nd Bayezid 1 [1389-1402), when the

Sultan tried to re-organize and exploit the silver mines of eastern Serbia.89 The
control of these rich silver mines was one of the principal incentives underlying
the Ottoman struggle to dominate upper Serbia and Bosnia during the fifteenth
century.9 0 When Mehmed the Conqulror, in great need of silver to finance his
costly imperial policies, established full control over the area, he prohibitedg I
the export of silver to Hungary and Italy through Dubrovnik, one of the principal routes by which silver was supplied to Europe. The Ottomans encouraged
imported silver and gold by exempting them from customs dues and by taking
strict measures to prevent any flow out of the country. To further illustrate this
Ottoman policy of attracting and accumulating bullion, it might be added that,
not only did the Ottomans exempt silver and gold from customs dues, but they
even made it mandatory in some cases for Europeans to bring with them an-

87' "P.i.. Revolution of the Sixteenth Century," op. cit.; the original of the article in Turkish is in
Belleten,XXXIV, l9 70, 55 7-607; cf. Vuk Vinaver, "Monetama kriza u Turkoj, I 5 75-il 650," Ist oriski Glasnik,
1I-IV, 1958, and Skender Rizaj, "Counterfeit of Money in the Balkan Peninsula from the XVth to the
XVIIth Century," Balcanica,I, 1970, 7l-80; S. Hoszowski, "L'Europe centrate devant le r6volution des
prix: XVIc et XWIe sieiles," Annales E.S.C., XVI, 3, mai'juin l96l' 441-56.
88' A.co.ding to Nesri the.Serbian despot offered

an annual

tribute of fifty thousand vukiyya (64'140

to the Ottoman Suttan in 1381; see F. Taeschner, ed., Gihannum'a (Leipzig: O' Harrassowitz'
five
tSSt), SS. In 1332 in a plan of crusade Philip IV, the King of France, was exhorted to capture thc
1938)'
silver mines in Serbia; see A. S. Atiya, Crusades in Later Middte Ages (London; Methuen and Co',
kg. silver)

105.

cit.,6.7). Under the prcssure of the growing demand by native industries to kccP cottonsupplied rcgrlarly
and at tow prices, the Ottoman government during this entire period, however, felt constrained to prevent
smuggling in cotton.
82'

co-p..c

Soysal, otr- cit-,24,64,81-

The gifctih

trlr,cared tl.ere in thc ninetecnth

cntury-

83' S.. iro ll- islamoflu

and $. I(eydcr, "Agenda for Ottoman llistory," Revieu,I, l, 1977,31-56.
Akdaf ("Osmanh," op, cit,r 369,370-71, and Barkan, "Price Rcvolution," op. cit,,6-8, l7-18) had formu'

lated a similar theory, [n "Military and Fiscal Transformatiln," 0p, cil ,

tried to focut on intcrnal

developments and their impact on the Ottoman social structure.

84' S.. Braudel,

Mcd.itenanelrn, op- cr't.,I, 518-19.

85' "Tfirtiyenin iktisadi

llcilitpnnnpnn nh

rit.

46,1.\41,. rsnecirllv D.

il7,

R1glements Miniers, 13g0-1512 (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 19641''53'55,

,t,
90'Around 1438. Ottoman Finance Minister Fadtuttah urged the Sultan to caPture silver and gold
mines in .Serbia; sce Doukas, op. cir., 175-77. Mehmed the Conqueror conquered Serbia and Bosnia in a
series of campaigns bctween 1454 and 1464. In 1444 Vcnice asked the l(ing of Bosnia to surrendcr thc
silvcr mincs in rcturn for mititary assistancc. The Scrbian despot's annual rcvenue fiom the silvcr mines of
Novobrdo alonc amountcd to 2OO,0O0 gold ducats; sec N.Jorga, Notes et exttaits pout sentir d l'histoite des
Croboda (Paris;

[. leroux,

1902),11, 152.51;and N.Jorga

, ?achichte

des 2smanischen Reiches (Gotha:

F. A. Perthes, 1909), I, 423. 0n the importance of the silver mines in Serbia, see elso M. Mihailovii,
Memoirs of a Janissary, (Ann Arbor: Univ. of MichiganPress, l9?5),75,77,99, 103;D. KovaEevi6,"Dans
la Serbic et Ia Bosnic mdicvdcs lcs mines d'or et d'argent," Anaales E.S.e, XV, 2, mars-avr., 1960,
148-58;, and espepially N. Beldicernu, Rdglemelttt, op. c;t.

Vaziyeti,,, Belleten,Xv, 60, 1951, 651-76.

86' Co.o"re the first edition

of LaMeditenanie

89' S.. N. Beldiceanu,

(Paris: Librairie A. Colin, 1949),361-420 with Tlra

ol
""

Ragusa protested the Ottoman prohibition of silver export already in.l443; see N.Jorga, Notes et
cit.,II, l5l. For Mehmed II's prohibition, see R. Anhegger and H. inalcrk,Kdniinn1me-i Sultdni

extruits,op.

berMfrccb-i'Of-i Osn'ni (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1955),8,

16.

Halil Inalczh

92

2
nually a certain amount of silver to be stnrck in Ottoman mints'9
When, in the second half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman government
decided to extend capitulatory privileges to the western nations, the decision
for cash to finance the growing
was made under .onditiorrs oi ,ttg.nt-demand
-time,
war entailed for the ottomans
of
state
a
this
needs of the war machine. By
the equipping of costly armadas,g3 the mounting of siege warfare, the construction of fortresses, u.d, most importantly, the reinritment of increasingly large

of paid mercenary troops equipped wit! firearms.94

This meant, as it did'tor the Spo"itn Empire with its numerous financial

numbers

crises, that vast amounts of bu\lion had repeatedly to be tound at short notice to
ensure prompt payment. And it must be remembered that, until vellon replaced
it in the following century,g 5 the only money acceptable was gold and silver
specie. If one is looking for an immediate explanation of the Ottoman shift to a
monetary economy in the second half of the sixteenth century, one should focus

prirnarily on the conditions outlined above.

According to Barkrr,e6 the price of food more than quadrupled in the 127
years between 1490 and 1617, while in the same period the ratio of gold to
silver increased 2.6 times. Thus, he infers, factors other than silver inflation, such
as the growing demand resulting from population growth and the expansion of
trade with Europe, must be taken into account to explain the difference. Within
this long period, however, the years between 1584 and 1606 show a steep rise in
prices, reaching a peak in 1606, with all the consequences of a real inflation.
Measured on the basis of the price of silver, the general index of prices increased
only 627obetween 1490 and 1584, but L65%in the following decade.
The impact, sudden and devastating, of Western mercantilism in the "free"
trade region of the Levant came first in currency and prices. Seliniki, a con'
temporaiy historian and officeholder in the Ottoman finance department; in an
expianation of an uprising of cavalrymen at the Porte in 1588,9 7 complained of
a sudden price change in tie fol.towing way: "One gold piece," he said, "went up
92' According to the stipulations of the treaty of 1454, the silverandgoldimportedby thcVenetians

into the Ottoman Empire was to bc minted in the Ottoman mints; see W. Heyd, Histoite du commetce du
Leadnt (Paris: Soci6t de I'Orient, 1936), II,3l7. European merchantsweretodeliverannually 4O0kilece
(668 kg.) of silver to the mint of Aleppo in the sixteenth century'

93'

The
naval expedition, sec C. Imber, "The Costs of Naval Warfue,
1972,
IV,
Herceg Novi Campaign in 1539," Archivum }ttomanicum.

Fo, the expenses of an 6ttoman

Account

of

203- 16.
94' so.

Hayreddin Barbarossa's

inalcrk,

"Military

and Fiscaf Trtrrfomation,"

op- cic-

95' I.r the critical ycar

of
pafmcnt

of

1688, the Ottoman Govemmcnt decided to accePt copper coins in thc

taxcsl scc documcnts in A, Rcfik, 12, Astrda istanbut Hayah (Istanlul; Devlet htatbwt,

1930), nos. {.?,

96' "Pri.. Revolution," op. cit.,6-17, and Graph. I. Pricesrocc much higher in istanbul than in other
of the Empire; cf- Cengiz Orhonlu, Tclhfslcr (istanbul: Edcbiyat Fakiilteri Yaylnlan, 1970)' doan'

mcnt no. 9. Herc we only considered Edirne and Buna priccs from Barkan's list.

fa;n-i Setitaftf (istanbul:

schichtsschreiber der Osmanen and ihre

i,*ir.,

1281 A. H.), 252. on Sctiniki see

Werhe lLcipzig: O. Harrorsowitz, 1927), 136.

Matbaa.i

F. Babinger, Ge'

93

in value from 60 ahga to 120, and following this increase all the prices in the
market were doubled by the traders. As a result food stuffs and clothing became
twice as expensive as before. One who previously received a salary worth- ten
ducats now found himself seemingly getting only five." It should be noted here
that Seliniki takes gold alone as-tire standard in his evaluation. 'Ali, another
high official in Ottoman finances, echos the alarm among people with fixed
salaries, when he said: "Since trades people were selling their goods as they
pleased, prices, though officially fixed, went up every day, with the result that a
elite
Soup of traders in the market beca*e wealthy while the military and the
went bankmpt."
Barkan,g8 summurizing Sahillio$lu's study on Ottoman devaluations, places
emphasis on this.factor as the principal cause of the price rises at this tirne.
Devaluations of the ahga, the basic Cjttomun monetary unit and money of account, occurred several times before L584. The first important devaluation took
place in 1461 under Mehmed the Conqueror, when 3bb ahga were struck from
L00 dirhem (320.7 g..) of silver, a devaluation ar a rate of tg percent. In the
long space of the next century, the akga was further devaluei by l3%, but
neither of these devaluations can be compared with the drastic devaluation of
1584-90. By the end of these six years, Sahillio$lu says, 800 ahgas were being
struck from 100 dirhem of silver. Through succeeding devaluations the rate
became 950 in about 1600, and 1000 in 1618. Barkan rnakes no attempt to
explain the relationship between the sudden increase of Western silver coins in
the market and the devaluations introduced by the state. He interprets the
devaluation simply as an attempt to ease the financial straits of the state, the
explanation forwarded by other historians before him.g 9 The real mechanism
Ieading to devaluation, bound up as it is with silver inflation or, more exactly,
with the presence of silver specie at different rates in the market, has not been
studied in the Ottoman case.
This process is more closely examined by Luigi de Rosal0 0 in connection
with the monetary problems of the Kingdom of Naples in the period 1570'1600.
He notes that the first signs of imbalance appeared with the increase of clipped
money on the market and the flight of precious metals from the country, an
observation equally valid for the Otloman case. Frequent government imports oI
bullion from Spain to Naples did not ease the situation, but only caused an
increase in prices. Growing expenditures by the state, and the consequent increase in taxation and in the public debt, were only one aspect of the inflation'
ary process at work. The acute budgetary crisis led to partial state bankruptcy.
To prevent the flight of precious metals from the country, it was explicitly
requested in 1587 that the value of the currency be re-adjusted to the changed
value of silver. The date is of particular interest to us since we know that at
0n

"'

ll.

citics

97'

Annales and Ottoman Studies

ttPrice

Revolution," op. cit.,t2.t3.

99' U. Bclin, "Essai sur l'histoire iconomique de la Turquie,"

Journal asiatique,6e sdrie, IV, 1864,

242'96 A. Refik, "Osmanlt imparatorluiunda Meskfikit," Tiirh Taih EnciimeniMecmuast,S, 13404. H.,

367-79.

100'
"11r. Price Revolution, Wan and Pubtic Banks in Naples," Histoire icononique rlu motde miditenanien, 1450-1650, Mihnges en l'honneur de Fernand Braudel (Toulouse: privat, 1973), 159-76.

Halil Inale*

94

made its

about the same time, under similar Pressures' the Ottoman government
occured
devaluatio.. No*, t ihink, we know why and how Ottoman devaluation
at a particular date.
ln.one of
After 1571, massive Spanish silver shiPments were-arriving- in ltaly-'
how'
detail
in
the brilliant .f,upt.;t-;iit lvl1d.itenanie Braudell0l describes
for'
route
Atlantic
the
from f 571 o.,*irdr, the Barcelona-Genoa route replaced
this
of
part
great
A
Flanders'
to
the transfer of the bulk of American treasure
and Ancona'
silver found its way to the Levant through Genoa, Naples, V.enice'
The reason for this is to be r"nitt, priirarily in the fact that during just this
period there was a great d.m"tid for gold on the Spanish side, while in the
Levant silver was relatively scarce and gold cheap in relation to silver; thus a new
phase in the long history of exchange between Islam, now suffering a silver
famine, and Europe, with a gold famine opened.t 02
The Spanish government, then, to give some more details on this important
point, had to convert its silver into gold, since the transport of the former
overland to Flanders involved great difficulties and expense, and perhaps more
importantly, the soldiery in Flanders insisted on payment in gold. Furthermore,
it must be noted that in the West, all bills of exchange were payable in gold. In a
period of silver inflation, gold became the safe investment. Thus, the great
demand for gold and at the same time large production increases at the Potosi
silver mines ia.rsed an unusual inflation in silver in the western Mediterranean
and made the Levant, where the ratio of gold to silver was lower, a profitable
market for the exchange of silver for gold. From 1570 on in the Levant, the
scarcity of silver was f;lt more than ever as a result of the unusual increase in
state expenses. Italy owed, Braudell0S shows, its great-p.rosperity during this
period tt its role as intermediary between these gold and_silver zones' Currency

traffic between the eastern and western parts of the Mediterranean reached an
unprecedented fr.igni, frb. 1570's or,*"id, and, in ashort time, Spanish real-es
invaded all the Levant markets. Stimulated by the enormous profits to -be

realized, often as high as 307o'104 the speculation in silver and-gold even-disrupted the traditioni pattern of the Levantine trade' ln 1603, for example' a
return of 250,000 s.quirrs from the Ottoman Empire was reported with amazeVenice
ment.r 05 In ih. ,u*d period the amount of silvei e.xported teTlY- from
alone to the Levant was estimated at five million sil.,er pieces.l06 11tt French
new develgovernment with its strong mercantilistic beliefs.was alarmed by this
tot, busily engagedjn thc profitable trade of
opment among its merchlitr,
to
Sevillan and Mexican silver coins than in the'expori of French manufactures

Annales and Ottoman Studies

the Levant. A repor1l07 t.r6*itted to the King in 1614 reads: "In the last few
years, only minted silver is traded, reaching a figure of more than 7 million dcus

a year in terms of transit through lvlarseilles alone, without counting other

regions."

Counterfeit and clipped money appeared in the Ottoman market as soon as

silver inflation upset the ratio of silvli to gold, thus unleashing further speculation on the currencies in circulation. This occurred in fact much earlier than
1600.108 A rePortl0g dated I575 from Bursa tells. us that the
Jewish money
exchangers were collecting g00d akgas at the
rate o[ 50.55 for one gold preci

and' after converting them into counterfeit

ah.ga,were selling them at a rate of
70 ahga for one gold piece.

The following ottoman document dated gg7

under what toiditio"s and how the ottoman A.H. (r5gg A.D.)r

l0 telrs us
devaluations
were
carried
out.
"New groush arg^o{{igially circulated at
g0 akga, ancl each groush
the 1",.
contains 9 and l12 dirhem of silver and
"r
a little over onedirhim ofcopper. If it is
melted and, from the silver thus obtained,
aAg o urc struck, only 65 ahga are
procured' People in the market are aware
of this fact and of the advantage of
keeping
good silver ahga and u.sing onty-' j)ouslz in their
payments. As a
result of^thjir
this ahga disapp"utt from circulatio".'rn. remedy
for this is that the
groush be devalued to i rate of 70
.ohgo pr*'groush.... so, the gain being
negligible at the new rate, no one would
be interJsted in hoarding the new silver
akga"' obviously it was the same disparity u.i-..r,
silver coins in circulation
which was. resPonsible for people's clipping ancl falsifying
the good silver ahga
put into circulation by the imperial mint. -It was this ,,unofficial devaluation,,
which forced the state'to effeci its own devaluation. It is clear from
the report
that the Ottoman-.finance experts were fully aware of the workings of Greshim's
Law' With this adjustment ahga and grouti, were brought back tJ the same level
vis-i-vis gold coin, one gold coin nowLeing worth l.l
fioush, or about I20 ahga.
Similarly, the explanation for the Ottoma'n devaluation after 1584 must be the
desire to prevent speculation occurring in silver specie at the expense of the state
treasury and to prevent the move-.rt of gold to the West, and of silver out of
circulation or to lran, where the ratio of silier to gold washigherthan in Turkey.
(The ratio was I to 12 in Turkey and I to ll iniran, but I to 15 in Sicily.)r r'r
The devaluation was apparently carried out with the advice of experis, the
Jewish bankers who were in control of Ottoman finances during this period, and
107'

lo''

lo2' Ibid,r 4gg-500.

to Gold

and

For the silyer and gotd traffic betwecn east and west

Silvcr," The Econonrc History

109' M"a;r"radnedn, op. cit.,I, 493-508.

lo4'

rc;a.. soo-

lo5'

lb;a.,469.

06'

/b,d., +zB.

PauI Masson, Ilistoire

du conme;ce

to"

Mtd;rtrrarrearr, op. cit.,l, 476-517.

R,1vie1;l,,2nd ser.,

see

Andrew A. Watson, "Back

XX, l, Apr' 1967, l'34'

95

frangais, op. cit-,f , xix, xxxii-xxxiii-

According to Braudel (Meditenanean, op,

_
kvant bcfore 1600.

cit.,I,

SgT-gg),counterfeit money did

not appearin

the

tn0
""'
Akda[, "0smanh," op, cit,,bZL.
110'

It was discovered by Rhoads Murphy

no. 22148). My thanks for allowing this quote.

in

the Bayehdlet Archives

in Istanbul (Maliyeden Miidewer,

752. For the flight of silver lrom Iran to India

sce V. Minorsky, ..Introduction,,. to V. Minorsky, ed.,
Tadhhirdt al-Mutiik (London: Llzac, l94g),
lg, 27.

in ltaly and the

who were fully informed of the conditions. prevailing
statesmen was that
taken there.l l2 The complex Pt;;il io.itig the Otloman
specie under
different
vis-i'vis
of maintaining the stability of a monetary unit
surfaced from
measures

that
circumstances of a changing ratio oigofa to silveor: a situation
"
systems'
'
^
time to time in all medieval currency

97

Discussion

Halil inalith

96

'r

'

NEVILLE DYSON-HUDSON (SuNY-Binghamton): I was struck by Inalcik's

comment that many of these studies oI an Annales sort, dealing with phenomena
which the Annales practioners like to deal with, apparently relate to a time when
the Ottoman Empire was going through a profound crisis. Now that strikes me as
very interesting, in the light of Hobsbawm's earlier suggestion that a characteristic deficiency of Annales' style of history might well be its difficulty in coping
with great events. And I wonder if we can here get at this question of what kind
of great event an Annale.r approach can deal with and what kind apparently it
cannot. Surely the crisis o[ an empire is a great event in some sense , Iirst of all I
guess we could do.it

legitimately consider

by asking Hobsbawm i[ the Ottoman crisis is what he *ould

a

great event.

HOBSBAWM: I did not say great events. I said certain

formative events in the
history of countries. There is a slight nuance. I think the crisis
of the Ottoman
Empire, about which I know ,,otliing, is admirably explainable in terms
of the
Annales school. what it seems to me is more difficult are these curious
but
formative events in national life, whose origin may well be analyzed
in terms of
longue durde and structural change, but
subsequent impact on the shaping
of national life is autonomous. ih.r. is-ho"re
nothing at all in the Annales upproo.n]
of indeed if I may say so, even in the classical lriarxist approach, to stoj us from
analyzing the origins of the French Revolution- The dilficuttv it seems to me is
to say what difference has it made to subsequent French history, politically and
culturally. Other states too have passed through this experienci which is not an
economic experience only. And here it seems to me thii is a question not only
for the Annales school. It is a question I think for all of us. Some people, even in
the Annales school, have begun to recognize the need once again to cope, as it
were, with the crucial event, as something which occurs and radiates outward. I

don't think however in answer to your question that the crises of empires, such
ils occured in the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, is one that I was
thinking of.
DYSON-HUDSON: As a social anthropologist, I find it fundamentally very distressing to think of the possibility that there might be two sorts o[ events, as it
were, out there.

HUPPIRT: kn't there a special difficulty in the case 0f the Ottoman Empire? Is
there a moment in the history of the Ottoman Empire when it isn't in crisis?
INALCIK: Fernand Braudel's book, in its discussion of the irnpact of western
Mediterranean on the Ottoman Empire revealed to us that the empire was integrated in world historlr and not only from the
political point of viiw, We knew

l2'

H. inalcrk, "Capital Formation," op-

cit.,l2l'24'

that Turkish power in the sixteenth century played a major role in shaping
European politics. We began now to understand tetter ttris political and miliiary
impact of the Turkish in the sixteenth century. Thanks to Fernand Braudel's
book, we now see that the Ottoman Levant played a very important role in
conveying Anierican_silver through the markets of the empire toward the East,
to Iran through the Persian Gulf to India, and from there to China. This is one
stmcture which Fernand Braudel brought to light for us, indicating the place of

Lrrscusslon

l-llJvuJJrvrr

98

rhe Ottoman Empire in universal history. Of course the radical change which
occured in the Oito*"r, Empire had an impact on general conditions, not only
in the eastern Mediterran.ur,, but in the whole Mediterranean' There are now
some who believe Venetian decadence can be linked to conditions in the Levant'
I mean the collapse of the Ottoman central control system affected greatly trade
and economic conditions in the Levant, which in turn affected the conditions of
the Italian maritime states. But the empire finally adjusted itself to the new
conditions and created a viable structure to survive. The whole military and
financial system changed; new estates were created. The crisis was important in
the way that it pr.pri.d
a society for a new stmcture. ln tight of the question'
-of
about a theory
change, I think that, by studying the Ottoman example, we
can find some inreresting points about the mechanism of change.

JJ

be resistant to posing that question, in that it becomes very much a question of

the impact of idea systems on social structures. Both Annales and lvlarxism
historically have placed their great emphasis on economic and social underpinnings, not on idea systems, although to be fair, Febvre of course was centrally
concerned with idea svstems.

\/

WALLERSTEIN: I would like to pursue Eric Hobsbawm's point because I think

it is very important. The great political event, the great formative event which he
gave as an example, was the French Revolution. It is obviously an excellent
example. Now it wasn't clear when he made the point at first, but on the second
round it became much clearer what he was talking about. lf he says the Annales
school cannot explain an event like the French Revolution, he clearly does not
mean that they can't account in some sense for it having occurred, because he
went on to say that in some sense they could. ln fact, of course, we have thg
work of Labrousse which attempts an explanation of why the French Revolution occurred and why it occurred when it occurred, taking into account cyclical
conjunctures and various other considerations which are typical of an Annales
approach. So that is not the problem.
There are however two other issues which he raised. One was an assessment of
how much change something like the French f;.evolution really made. Now I
don't know any Annales historian who ever did that, but I would have thought
that the whole Annales approach was central to answering that kind of question.
Because the Annales approach says you take an event and you look underneath
it and you see it in terrns of the long term, asking: was it epiphenomenal? was it
momentary? was it a kind of flash? or did it really make a difference? So one

to that question.
Finally, there is the question about the collective mental impact of a great
formative event. This reflrs us back to what Aymard was talking about when he
discussed the needs of italian history and historians today. To what extent does
the formative event shape people 's'perception of their own nation or their own
can respond

group for a century or two centuriis aftenuard? Aymard was saying that Italian
hirto.i"trt today have to cope with the issue of Italian unification and of its final

realiza:cion, in .
,rrtde" Fascism, that this razas their heritage to which they
""rr"", Ffobsbarazrn \ /as, I thought, rnaking the point that that is
trad to g'iwe rneaningalso a very central -problem of French national history. What has been the
legacy of the fact that there had been a French Revolution, that it took the form

fi

th* it took,

that it rvas complete or incomplete according to your interpretation

of the French Revolution? And to what extent is it a living reality in terms of
French contemporary politics, which I certainly think it is? Again I don't see
*hy, Iogically, that is not a question that one could deal with in terms of the

Annales method. However,

tlr.e

Annales school (as well as indeed Marxism) might

Itrtcol-lfnlrcrltT