Peter Sugar, "City Organization and Administration," Chapter 4 of his Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354-1804, University of Washington Press, 1977.

1. OTTOMAN ATTITUDES TOWARD TRADE; THE TRADE ROUTES

Cities cannot flourish if the government does not promote those activities on which their very existence rests. Of all these activities those concerning trade are the most essential. The Ottomans have often been accused of not understanding the importance of commerce and of failing to support it. The very fact that cities developed and prospered in the Ottoman Empire contradicts this assertion. To show that there was a basis for city life and that it rested to a considerable extent on the central government's understanding of the importance of trade, it is necessary to examine trade policy before life in the cities can be discussed.

Until quite recently scholars dealing with the later Middle Ages and the early modern period have usually blamed the decline of Byzantium and the rise of the Ottoman Empire for the disruption of the Mediterranean trade that occurred in those periods. Recent scholarship has shown that this view was erroneous, but the image of the Turks as savage horsemen destroying and looting still prevails. The great interest that the Ottomans had in trade and production, while known to the experts, still awaits a specialized monograph. Nevertheless, enough is already known to be able to state that the Ottomans regarded economic pursuits, including manufacture and trade, as essential to the well- being and financial stability of their state and favored such pursuits, although they regulated and taxed the producers and traders heavily.

Their approach is not surprising; it follows logically from both the Ottomans' experience and their view of the state. Although weakened considerably era by the time the Ottomans entered on the stage of history, Byzantium still had the financial resources to buy off enemies or to subsidize allies, including the early Ottomans. The few manufactured goods needed by the western Anatolians were supplied, to a considerable degree, by merchants in touch with the imperial city, and the various caravan routes and ships laden with merchandise going to Byzantium passed near and later through Ottoman-held territory. It was not difficult to connect this lively commercial activity with the seemingly inexhaustible supply of money the Byzantines appeared to have. If the Ottomans were willing to fight for booty, as to some extent they were, how much more tempting must the easier, Byzantine way have been.

Nor should it be forgotten that the Ottoman Empire was the domain of the House of Osman and that its official name included the adjective "well flourishing." Almost by definition Allah's domain had to flourish, but under the Ottomans it was also considered the duty of the subjects to add to the power and prosperity of the ruling house. Productive work was, therefore, considered not only a religious and civic duty, but also a pledge of loyalty to the ruler. On the other hand, it was part of the sultans' hadd to create circumstances that contributed to the well-being of their subjects. In this manner experience, basic philosophy, and the duties of both ruler and ruled combined with the growing needs of an expanding state, court, and bureaucracy to create a climate favorable to economic pursuits.

Beginning with their capture of Bursa in 1326, the Ottomans not only confirmed the privileges of artisans and traders in each city that they conquered, but also tried very hard to build up flourishing centers of manufacture and trade. These cities were connected by roads, and those among the zimmi who were exempt from various taxes to maintain them in good repair worked not only on major military, but also on other roads whose significance was mainly commercial. The privileges accorded to those who served in the merchant marine fall into the same category of special treatments accorded to the road crews.

The major roads in the European provinces, both military and commercial, were often the old Roman iters and had been in use since the days of the Roman Empire. The major road started out from Istanbul, the terminal point of numerous roads coming from Asia, Asia Minor, and the Arab lands, and led to Edirne. There it split and moved on in four directions. The northern line passed through the Dobrudja to the mouth of the Danube and followed the Prut to the northern border of Moldavia, where it entered Polish territory. The southern side road leading to Gallipoli was short but very important strategically. The major, central road moved from Edirne to Plovdiv, Sofia, Nis, Belgrade, and Buda. Very important commercially, this was also the major military highway. The fourth main line ran south of the major military highway to Serres, Salonika, Monastir, and Ohrid, reaching the Adriatic at Durres (Dirac, Drac, Durazzo), and was primarily of commercial importance. The main military highway was of economic importance not only because it connected Istanbul-Edirne and Nis-Belgrade- Buda, but also because it served as the first half of an extremely important trade route, the fifth major artery, that forked off near Sofia at Pazardzhik (Tatarpazarcik) and passed through Skopje (Uskub, Uskup, Skoplje, Skopije, Shkupi), Pristina (Pristina), Sarajevo, and Mostar before reaching Dubrovnik (Ragusa) on the sea. Secondary roads branched off from these main roads. Another major commercial "highway was, of course, the Danube, and the rivers feeding it or leading to the Aegean Sea were also important trade routes.

The most important cities were located along these major and minor roads and waterways. Several, as indicated earlier, were Ottoman foundations, but the great majority owed their existence to their geographic locations and had been urban centers since Roman or Byzantine times. A few had been established by the Slavs. Although these cities housed only a minority of the population, they became the economic heart of the Ottoman Empire. During the period presently under discussion the population of most of them increased, thanks in part to the arrival of Turkish settlers, in part to the influx of people from the countryside who sought refuge in times of war, and in part to the opportunities city life offered. These cities supported the state not only by their production and trade, but also by the considerable tax revenue these activities produced. By analyzing them from different angles it is possible to explain much about life in Southeastern Europe during the best years of the Ottoman Empire. The task is made easier by the fact that most cities in the "core" eyalets of Rumelia and Bosnia were organized along similar lines. Differences existed, depending on location, major economic activity, and other circumstances, but the basic organization and life patterns were nearly identical. Cities in Hungary and the Aegean region offer significantly divergent patterns and warrant separate description.

2. THE LAYOUT OF CITIES IN THE "CORE" PROVINCES

Practically every city in the world has a business district, good and bad residential neighborhoods, industrial districts or suburbs, parks and recreational centers, "ghettos," and several other similar sections. The combination of these areas determines the unique nature of each city. In older European cities, whose histories go back to antiquity or medieval times, it is still possible to point to the old part of the city built around some fortification or royal or noble residence and separated from the new districts by a belt of major avenues or boulevards that follow the lines of the protective walls of the old city.

Cities in Southeastern Europe follow this familiar pattern almost without exception. They grew up around the acropoleis of the old Greek cities or around important geographical features like the castle hill in Buda, the Kalimegdan in Belgrade, the small peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara in Constantinople, or the various bays along the sea coast and the Danube that offered the best port facilities. The Ottomans did not disturb the pattern in the cities that they took over, although they did alter the character of the focal points by making them Turkish or Islamic and by adding new ones such as schools and markets. In the cities that they established or that grew spontaneously around Ottoman focal points the same pattern was copied.

What differentiates any given city under Ottoman rule from what it had been prior to conquest was that the divisions existing between districts were institutionalized and made more strict and explicit. The repeatedly mentioned Ottoman custom of arranging everything in a strict hierarchical order and producing regulations for everything was reflected in their cities also. In a sense the European cities of the empire took on a Near Eastern character. Not only were the inhabitants and professions, as will be discussed later in this chapter, ranked in strict order, but so were their places of business and habitation.

The city was really nothing more than a conglomeration of more or less self-contained boroughs grouped around a common core. Each borough was separated from the others either by natural obstacles such as ravines or by walls. These walls were often the windowless backs of houses with doors that were closed at night. On the basis of data covering several cities Stoianovich has calculated that the "average" borough (mahalle) contained between twenty- five and fifty houses; those of really large centers like Istanbul, Edirne, and Athens were considerably larger. This author's estimates based on his own research confirm Stoianovich's findings. In sancaks where habitations were taxed by the number of doors opening on a street, the mahalles were further subdivided by additional walls surrounding large courtyards which enclosed several habitations but had only one door opening on the street. Not only did Muslims, Christians, and Jews live in different mahalles, but the practitioners of the various trades belonging to the three millets lived in one or several separate boroughs, depending on their number in a given city. The distance of the mahalles from the center of the city depended on the religion and profession of those who lived in them.

Each mahalle had its own night watchmen and was administered by its own headman, who was usually called muhtar but sometimes seyh. If it was large enough, it had its own place of worship and clergymen, coffee house, public bath, and small local market. The walls are now gone, but the names of the districts remain in today's Balkan cities to remind us even now of the old mahalles.

A bird's eye view of any city disclosed to the observer the plan of the Its center was clearly distinguishable by the major mosques, buildings housing the chief markets, a fortress if any, and even a open square. The size and height of structures in a given mahalle indicated clearly to which millet its inhabitants belonged. Not only were public buildings more substantially constructed than were the private homes, but their shapes were also indicative of their functions. Thus, while Christian churches could not be high or have towers, their manner of construction and shape differentiated them from the occasional synagogue and indicated whether a given mahalle was inhabited by Christians or Jews. Not only did the lack of minarets indicate the location of a non-Muslim mahalle, but so did the height of houses. Each city had its own regulations, but Muslim houses were by law always higher than the homes of zimmi while shops and locales of manufacture outside the central market area were limited to even less footage vertically. The numerous building regulations and zoning laws were strictly enforced, giving the Ottoman city its specific look and characteristic. For the most part residences were very small and consisted of one room that served all purposes, including food preparation, although every city also had large buildings of several stories and rooms. In spite of these rather limited quarters built along narrow and winding streets, the cities were clean, as noted by all Europeans who traveled through the European provinces of Turkey.

The great majority of the people living in the mahalles worked in the center of the city. The configuration of this area differed depending on the origin of the city, on its exact location within city limits. and on its major buildings. Whatever its exact lay-out and location, it almost always included the major mosque of the city and the great market, and depending on the type of pious endowments bestowed on it by various dignitaries a number of fountains, medreses, public baths, inns of various types, at least one major square, and on its fringes the most elegant homes of the dignitaries and richest merchants. The larger the city, the greater were the number of mosques and other public buildings and the greater the likelihood of a fortress or garrison.

Various religious, commercial, and public service buildings, including in some cases hospitals, were always added by the Ottomans to those already in existence at their arrival. They usually formed part of a smaller or larger imaret, another old Muslim institution adopted by the Ottomans that had roots in one of the "Five Pillars of Faith," almsgiving. The donor set aside income-producing property, most often tracts of agricultural land which were frequently large enough to become a separate administrative entity, or revenues produced by tolls, rents, etc., to support a specified "good cause." He drew up a document of donation (vakfiye), and after it was properly registered by the competent kadi and confirmed by the sultan, the income- producing property became a vakif, the unalienable property of God. The income could be used only for the originally specified purpose. The buildings that were erected for the Glory of God were of stone or brick and were to last for eternity. They dominated the cities' skylines. The tekkes and zaviyes of the akhi and dervishes as well as a few large warehouses of the richest merchants complete the picture of the center of each town and city.

While schools, baths, fountains, inns, and other public buildings served the people's daily needs, the mosques served their spiritual needs, and the hospitals took care of their health problems, the market (carsi) determined their livelihood and the prosperity of the city. The heart of the market was the bedestan, called bazaar by the European travelers. Often the most impressive building in the city, apart from the great mosques, the bedestan was a strong structure, a virtual fortress of the economy, with thick walls, heavy gates, and its own force of watchmen. It contained stores dealing in the most expensive goods, as well as the safe deposit vault where the merchants kept their money and the rich of the city their cash and other valuables. The stores and even workshops of the lesser crafts ranged along narrow streets around these impressive, covered buildings and were often covered by mats to keep out the rain and sun. Within both the bedestan and the carsi surrounding it the various artisans and craftsmen, traders, and merchants were assigned stalls in accordance with their position in the official hierarchy of economic endeavors. Proximity to the center of the bedestan marked the importance of the stall to the economy of the city. The practitioners of a given profession always worked in a specific location irrespective of their religion. Thus, the carpet vendors worked on the street of carpet vendors, tailors on the street of tailors, and so on. When a city was large enough to require several markets, each was organized along the same pattern around smaller bedestans or the most important public building in a given part of the city.

3. THE GUILD SYSTEM AND THE CITY GOVERNMENT

All reaya of the Ottoman Empire belonged to officially listed classes ranked according to importance. At the very bottom of the social scale were Gypsies and other people with no visible permanent professional affiliation. Together with the nomads these people did not fit neatly into the Ottoman social pyramid, and pressure was often brought on them to move away or to settle into "useful" occupations. The other social classes were all considered useful, and therefore their membership had to be protected for the good of the state. That meant that in theory social lines were frozen, although people were encouraged to better their position within their own class.

The lowest ranking of these useful classes were the peasants and the animal husbandsmen. Next in importance came the members of a group called esnaf, the small merchants and tradesmen who served local markets and needs. Above the esnaf came the craftsmen, and at the very top were the large merchants, tuccars or bazirgans, who handled empire-wide or export-import trade. All but the peasantry lived and worked in the cities. The top three classes worked in and around the bedestans of the cities, and, with the addition of the drifters, civil, military, and religious officials, and the soldiers of the garrison, if any, formed the population. While the ratio between Muslims and zimmis varied from town to town, and while the Muslims enjoyed certain tax advantages and received better living quarters, the daily lives and activities of all these people followed a similar pattern. Their activities were regulated by guilds, and the various officers of these guilds, together with the numerous government officials appointed to supervise, constituted "city government." There was no formal municipal government with officers of its own. The members of the esnaf group and all the craftsmen were organized in guilds and very strictly regulated, while the top group of tuccars was practically free to run its affairs as it pleased acquiring, as a result, great import beyond the limits of their own professions.

By dealing with the guilds and their activities not only can life in the city be presented, but, by mentioning I the various state-appointed of- ficials that controlled these activities or with whom the guild masters had to negotiate, most of the city government can also be described. To make this presentation intelligible, it is necessary to examine the principles that regulated both internal, voluntary and external, state-imposed regulations concerning the guilds.

Although there were numerous guilds in the cities before the Ottoman conquest, the akhi organizations that followed the armies of the sultan quickly absorbed them. They brought their organizations and futuwwas with them, but were broad-minded enough to incorporate the existing regulations and often even religious practices. Regardless of the millet to which they belonged, people usually became members of the same guild, produced or sold their goods on the same street of the carsi, and followed the same rules and regulations, although they lived in different mahalles. Most of them were involved in economic activities that had only a rather narrowly limited scope, the utilizations of locally produced or imported raw materials for the manufacture and subsequent sale of articles needed by the city and the countryside. As will be seen, these limitations together with guild regulations set bounds to activities and to the number of individuals that any given guild could accommodate. Admission to the various guilds involved a mystic religious ceremony, which varied according to the religion of the entrants. Their number was strictly regulated, as were their activities in accordance with the just mentioned two factors unless the guild produced goods for the empire-wide internal or the export trade.

The guilds had a social-moral function besides an economic one. They acted as a benevolent society, taking care of those among them in need, especially widows and orphans. The moral, religious, and beneficial activities of each guild were supervised by the old head of the fraternity, the seyh, who was considered the highest ranking member, but economic power rested with the kethuda

whom the masters elected from their own ranks. The latter ran the business side of the guild, negotiated with other guilds and with government officials, and represented his fellows when decisions had to be made affecting the whole city. Thus, he became a member of the "city government." When business that concerned all guilds came up, another official, who had the same title, became important. The second kethuda was the city's agent and not a guild official. He took matters to the capital when the inhabitants wished to have grievances redressed. In order for a guild to be established, the two chief officials had to be selected first. They then went to the kadi and registered the association and its rules, provided no opposition was raised by existing guilds.

When new officials were elected, they too had to be registered by the kadi who, in these cases, acted as a cross between a notary public and a keeper of city records. In addition to the seyh and the kethuda the following also had to be registered: the yegitbasi and his deputy, and the two officials called ehl-i hibre. Both were selected from among the usta (masters) by their colleagues. The yegitbasi acted as a buying agent for the guild and procured raw materials for all masters. He was also responsible for picking up and delivering the finished goods, depending on their nature, to other guilds, to shops in the carsi, or to other buyers. The ehl-i hibre were involved in quality and price control and settled any disputes about workers.

The usta were the full members of the guilds. In large shops kalfas worked under the master. Full members of the guilds, both had earned their mastership, but the kalfas were unable, for various reasons, to open their own establishments because there could only be a certain number in a given city. They were the real master craftsmen. Lower in the scale came the gediks, journeymen, and the ciraks, apprentices. Although Muslims and zimmis were treated equally in the guilds in this first, well-regulated period, the existence of kalfas indicates that while the guilds were producers and distributors, they were also an economically repressive force.

In many ways the activities of Ottoman guilds paralleled those of guilds of medieval Europe. Like their western counterparts, their aim was two-fold: to produce enough to cover local needs and to assure a decent living to their members, and to prevent any "outsider" from infringing on their monopoly. Both the western guilds and those in the Ottoman Empire achieved these goals by strictly regulating production, quality, prices, and membership. Yet, there was a great difference. In major western urban centers the guilds responded to economic stimuli and grew as trade, production, and urbanization expanded, until they reached a limit beyond which they could not go. This led to their decline and final dissolution. In the Ottoman Empire, where everything was strictly regulated supposedly for eternity, once the number of masters of a given guild had been fixed in a given location, it was kept constant. This arrangement protected the interest of the guild members, but it hampered the growth of the various production sectors and, therefore, the growth of the city and the economy. This led to numerous problems including disregard of regulations in spite of repeated imperial edicts, and the creation of new guilds and even illegal associations. The least harmful of these developments was the first because it corresponded to real economic needs; however, by its very illegality it tended to lead to bribes and other corrupt practices. The creation of new guilds presented greater difficulties. During this early period it produced such degrees of specialization that prices steadily increased and new monopolies were created. A good example of this tendency is the production of woolen cloth after the settlement of Sephardic Jews in Salonika. Their guild rapidly achieved a monopolistic position preventing the new skill from spreading and necessitating continued large-scale importation of woolen goods. The restrictive practices of the guilds created the most problems, but this occurred in the later period when it will be analyzed.

Restrictive practices also operated within the guilds and stifled both innovation and incentive. Laws that conformed with a section of the sacred law, the hisba, regulated prices, weights, and quality and punished cheaters of all kinds. Each workshop received enough raw material and skilled labor to assure its owner and his family and employees of a living. Hisba legislation was based on the old Islamic ihtisab, i.e,, part of the ruler's duties that enjoined him to make certain that his subjects were treated fairly, and its aim was to secure just that for both producer and consumer.

Unfortunately, however, quality control was so strict that it virtually prevented the introduction of new and better methods and ideas, and, coupled with the Muslim belief that earthly life is only a preparation for paradise and that, therefore, ostentatious good living was not only unnecessary but practically sinful, these controls also regulated profits very strictly without regard to needs and changing market conditions. Most professions were limited to a 10 percent profit.

If regulations had achieved the Muslim ideal of an egalitarian society, they could be defended. The law, however, favored the middle man at the expense of the producer, because it did not cover the tuccar class, which conducted business according to the principles of supply and demand and made tremendous profits. Furthermore, it did not prevent amazing inequalities from developing within the ranks of each guild. It could not prevent tuccars from establishing a sort of putting-out system and thus degrading some masters, nor did it stop them and other capitalists who made a lot of money from large timars from using their influence to have some regulations waived in favor of those guild masters in whose enterprises they had become silent partners. Todorov gives good examples of this inequality in a study of the value of workshops that were registered by the kadis as inheritances. Theoretically, each of these should have belonged to a master. In fact, he found the following distribution:

These figures indicate that of the 925 workshops listed in the first four lines, only 252 were legally owned if the guild regulations serve as the norm of legality. His study also reveals that these multishop owners were not artisans. One of those who owned 5 shops, Elhac Musa, also owned 8 1/2 mills, 1 1/4 inns, and considerable other valuables. Clearly a man like the tailor Farvan, who left no shop to his heirs and whose tools were valued at only 1.5 kurus, worked for somebody like Elhac Musa. On the other hand, Lazar, who was in the same profession and left behind tools, raw materials, and finished goods valued at 1,171 kurus, was clearly a well-established usta in his own right.

While Todorov's data come from the eighteenth century and are based on the study of three cities only, there can be no doubt that the development that led to these disparities was not limited to his localities and must have begun in the previous centuries. Clearly, the strict guild regulations and hisba-based laws, while serving certain goals satisfactorily, did not prevent abuse and were detrimental to economic development. This might explain in part why the cities of the "core" provinces that grew in population and prospered at the beginning of the Ottoman period shrank in size in the later centuries.

The different professions not only produced goods, but also added considerably to the revenue of the state. All members paid taxes on their homes and workshops, additional fees for every document they needed, dues for permission to get married and to inherit, a tax on remaining unmarried after a certain age-in short on almost every possible activity their personal lives. If they were zimmi they also paid the cizye, and all of them paid numerous fines to the kadi for an incredible number of "misdemeanors," like talking unkindly to a fellow citizen. To these can be extraordinary taxes like the present due to the sultan on his and special war contributions. They also contributed handsomely through their professions. Taxes had to be paid on raw material brought into a town. During transport there were numerous tolls at river crossings and other strategic locations on the road. When the materials finally reached! the city they were inspected by one of the city officials, the muhtesib, who established their fair value and levied a tax before, again under his supervision, they could be sold by the assigned broker to the guilds for distribution to the various workshops. This same official was in charge of markets, weights, and quality control, independently of the guild officials and the collector of the various market dues. With the help of the kadi and the guild officers he fixed prices. In short he was the state-appointed economic master of the city, and one of his main duties was the collection of numerous taxes and fees. The magnitude of the amounts collected becomes evident from the figures available for 1553, when the empire was at its military and economic zenith. The income of the state treasury that year amounted to about 12,750,000 gold ducats. Of this sum the cizye constituted 1,000,000, the land tax 800,000, and trade and custom related revenues 1,200,000 ducats.

The mentioned kethuda and the various kethudas of the guilds, the muhtesib, the all-important kadi, or in smaller localities his naib, and on the mahalle level the muhtars, all constituted something resembling "city government." The last-mentioned officials were paired with a third form of kethuda, the city-appointed supervisor of the mahalle. With the exception of the judicial-religious-public notary functionary, the kadi, all the functionaries worked in pairs. Each of these pairs had an "elected" and an appointed member: guild kethudas - city kethuda, muhtesib-ehl-i hibre; muhtar-mahalle kethuda, with the appointed official carrying more authority. In addition, everywhere there was a tax collector, although his rank and personality differed greatly; for example, he could be an appointed official, a local dignitary, or a tax farmer. Equally omnipresent were the "police" officials who could be subasis, cavus basis commanding forces usually called cavuses whose main duty was to carry out the decisions and punishment decided on by the various authorities. Although these officials were not considered members of the city's administration, in those places that were seats of sancaks or kazas the entire component of Ottoman provincial officials was present and carried great weight, especially if the city was either part of a given bey's sancak, or of an imperial or other type of has. Other informal participants in the local decision-making process were the officers of vakif-supported establishments (public baths, inns, etc.) because the institutions under their supervision played an important role in the city's life, and because they frequently disposed of considerable sums of money. If the vakif establishment happened to be a medrese the role of the teacher and his students in the life of the city was far from negligible. Even less official, but often important was the role of the Christian and Jewish clergy and teachers, especially in those cities in which members belonging to their millets constituted important segments of the most essential guilds.

One last group, the city notables, influenced the life of each place. These men always carried great weight and participated in the discussions leading to decisions that either affected the entire city or brought it in touch with authorities on a higher than local level. In this category belonged the tuccars and people who became with time known as ayans. The former will be discussed shortly. The latter were rich and distinguished people, either wealthy timarli who lived in the city nearest to their fiefs or retired officials and their descendants who brought their prestige and often their wealth to their places of retirement. From behind the scenes they often controlled much of the city's economy, had great prestige due to their social position, and often enjoyed good connections in the capital. They were consulted on most issues of importance.

What developed was not a city government in the formal, accepted sense of the word, but rather a "city government" consisting of a group of people who were "elected" by their peers, appointed, or enjoyed local prestige, and constituting something like a city oligarchy. That "government" was responsible for carrying out the various laws and regulations, but it also kept the city's interests in mind, consulted others, made decisions, and in numerous cases formulated petitions or lists of grievances that either the city kethuda, or one of the influential ayans took to the beylerbeyi, the sancak beyi, and in some cases even to the central government.

The ayans did not belong to the reaya class, although they lived among them, participated in their activities, and belonged to the small "upper class" of each city; it was the tuccars who were members of the "flock." Whether Muslim or zimmi, their position differed markedly from all professional Ottomans and reayas discussed so far, and indicates the importance the government attached to large-scale economic activity. Without them the Ottoman economy could hardly have functioned. As already indicated, they were the people who were involved in long-distance internal commerce and in the export-import trades. In the European provinces of the empire there were Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Jews, and occasionally some Armenians in their ranks. This group was initially free from regulations, unlike everyone else in Ottoman society. Although its activities, including relationships of its members with each other, were controlled, the various rides and regulations applying to them can properly be compared to commercial and business law in the western sense without which any regular trading activity would be difficult to organize. Furthermore, while the tuccars, too, were guild-merchants, the Muslim disdain for those who accumulated wealth did not apply to them; on the contrary, they were supposed to accumulate wealth (mal), and for these reasons hisba regulations did not apply to them.

Like the lower ranking merchants and the artisans who contributed to the welfare of the state both by their labor and the taxes and dues paid, the tuccars performed many other functions. The most important of these was the distribution of raw material, food, and finished goods throughout the empire. Next in importance came their activities in the export-import trade, and, finally, from the viewpoint of the central government, their large contributions in customs and tolls. All these were large-scale activities in most cases or, in the case of luxury goods, high in value. Few were those tuccars who had enough capital to handle these activities, and all needed associates. These circumstances resulted in a variety of partnerships and contracts, and the establishment of chains of agencies regulated by law. Whatever the composition of a given business complex, a single individual or a few men in partnership were in command of the entire operation and made the largest profits. While these tuccars concentrated in major trade centers, in Istanbul, Edirne, Athens, Salonika, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and a few others, smaller trade centers, including the major port cities on the Danube or along the Aegean coast, also served as the homes of some very important commercial entrepreneurs. Even the smallest city harbored at least a few agents of the big enterprises. These men, who were in touch with others all over the state, were the main sources of domestic and foreign news.

Naturally, it was tuccars who took advantage of the state's encouragement and accumulated considerable liquid wealth; only rarely did they acquire real estate, apart from their own homes and summer houses. With the help of this accumulation they started a sort of putting-out system when there was a demand for some merchandise that was not produced in sufficient quantity by the guilds. This system not only undercut the autonomy of the guilds, but even extended into the countryside in the form of cottage industries. Unlike in the West, however, it never developed into the beginning of a true industrial establishment.

There were probably two main reasons for the tuccars' reluctance to go beyond the putting-out system. First, they were organized as trading associations. The putting-out system could be justified as a source for trade in those goods they were supposed to sell, but industrial enterprises would have taken these capitalists into activities for which they were not licensed, and this would have been too risky. Second, the few industries that did exist, mainly those connected with the military establishment, were state-owned and worked by slave labor. They presented a model that the tuccars could not duplicate.

While the tuccars were among the most important and influential inhabitants of every city, they were also among the least popular. Given the profession and the understanding of the market economy of these people, it is not amazing that they always aimed to maximize their profits involving speculative ventures of the simplest kind like buying cheap and selling high. Because this speculative activity included food and raw materials, the tuccars were blamed for all shortages that occurred occasionally. Their standing sank even lower in the later period when their wealth permitted them to go into such professions as tax farming, which was certainly very unpopular with the population at large. This last-mentioned activity, together with the loans they were able to extend to the central government, made these men the only reaya, except for a few translators, clerks, and occasional professionals like doctors, who managed to become part of the administrative-political establishment of the Ottoman Empire even while it was still functioning well.

The tuccars' only serious competition came from other merchants who performed the same duties and lived in the same cities but enjoyed extraterritorial status because they were not subjects of the sultan. Not only did these merchants contribute to the economic life of the "core" provinces' cities and to that of the empire as a whole, but they were also Southeast Europeans. Most of them were citizens of the city republic of Ragusa, but some came from other Dalmatian cities. Their mahalles were cities within cities because they were not subject to the local authorities and had the privileges of organizing and running their own communities in accordance with the laws of their native cities. Like the tuccars, they belonged to large and often very complicated business establishments, but their home offices, banks, and other sources of credit lay outside the sultan's realm. It is astounding to find Ragusan colonies in practically every important city of the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. One gains the impression that at least half of the city republic's citizens lived outside its borders.

These Dalmatian colonies are important for the history of Southeast European people not only from the commercial, but also from the religious and cultural point of view. Life in Dalmatian towns was closely to that of Italy and therefore mirrored the various cultural, political, and other changes that occurred there. The colonists who came from these cities to those of the Balkan interior brought this western culture with them. Although they lived in self-contained settlements in each city, both by choice and in accordance with Ottoman regulations, they could not avoid all contact with their neighbors. If nothing else, their architecture, clothing, and the organization of their community was something the local inhabitants could not avoid observing. It should also be remembered that these people were Roman Catholics. By bringing their priests with them, they offered an alternative to the Orthodox millet, although they were strictly forbidden to engage in missionary activities. Nevertheless, their very presence contributed to the appearance of Roman Catholics as far east as Bulgaria where they were severely persecuted in the seventeenth century. Not only were the Dalmatians as prosperous as the tuccars were, and the Kulturtrager of the Balkans during the long centuries of Ottoman rule among the Slavs, but, unlike their Greek and Slav fellow merchants, they represented the only example of a different way of life for the inhabitants of the European Ottoman provinces. Their influence, at least on the cities, cannot be overvalued.

Each city had an additional group of inhabitants who belonged to the lowest social order, the "drifters" and Gypsies. These "undesirables," were needed to carry loads and perform some of the most demeaning labor. Since they were outside the "pale" very little is known about them except in those cases where the kadis' records show punitive actions taken against them individually or as a group, or where the records speak of attempts to get rid of them altogether. All that can be said for certain is that they were not considered a part of the city population and had no real mahalles of their own. Each night they returned to whatever type of housing they were able to erect beyond the city limits. They represent the urban equivalent of the nomads and yuruks.

Generalized as this image of the "core" province's city is, it represents a fairly accurate description that, with slight modification, can be applied to most Ottoman cities. Istanbul is one of the great exceptions, although it too had its guilds, mahalles, and the various functionaries mentioned. The imperial capital had to have features that no other city had, but because it does not truly fall within the scope of this survey, and also because numerous excellent works deal with this city and its special institutions it will not be covered. There are, nevertheless, a few other peculiar city situations that deserve special mention.

4. THE "ATYPICAL" CITY OF THE "CORE" PROVINCES

Several types of settlements in the "core" provinces do not conform fully to the description of cities presented so far in this chapter. Only the most important of these can be discussed, because if all were treated a special study would have to be written. One of the major groups, the border settlements, was more of a rural than an urban phenomenon. Such settlements were located mainly in those lands bordering on Habsburg possessions.

Geographically nearest to these border settlements were the towns of Hungary, Slavonia, Eastern Croatia, and northern Bosnia. Prior to the Ottoman conquest all these regions were either Hungarian or alternately Hungarian, Serbian, or Bosnian, and so they were neither typically Balkan nor truly western cities although in Hungary "royal free cities" began to develop paralleling developments in the West. Most of the Slav cities developed along the lines already described, but some acquired interesting privileges. Most notable is the case of the almost purely Muslim town of Sarajevo, which was really "self-governing" to the point where troops were not permitted to enter the place.

Ottoman occupation in the Balkans usually did not entail large-scale permanent destruction, although life along the major military roads was not secure until Ottoman rule was firmly established, and occasional campaigns produced major damage. These devastations were, as a rule, rapidly made good. The timarli needed peasants to work the land, and when the original population did not return the Ottomans settled Turks and/or transplanted other people forcibly to the areas where they were needed. The importance the Ottomans placed on trade, commerce, and crafts has been mentioned and their settling in towns and cities that, during the first period of their rule, prospered was also discussed.

Once the Ottomans crossed the Danube-Sava line the situation changed. The most important variations occurred on the Hungarian-Slav border and in Hungary proper. Here two phenomena deserve special attention, especially in view of modem historical developments. First, as indicated, the Ottomans attempted to create vassal states, and later, when they established their own eyalets in these lands, they lacked settlers. Even if such people had been available, it is unlikely that the government would have sponsored large settlements.

When the Ottomans moved into Croatia-Slavonia-Hungary the situation resembled very much that which followed the first permanent Ottoman crossing of the Dardanelles. There were Christian states nearby -Habsburg Hungary and Transylvania-to which the population could flee. Their flight in this case was encouraged by the nobility, which itself had fled and urged its dependents to follow. The Ottomans did not have the manpower that they had had in the fourteenth century to fill this void. Furthermore, the settlement of nomads would not have worked in these regions because of the nature of the land.

The large plain between the Danube and Tisza (Theiss) rivers, the Great Hungarian Plain, is basically poor land. Prior to the arrival of the Ottomans it had supported a relatively large population (estimates run from three to five million) and produced a great variety of grains. Steady deforestation, however, had reached the point where it threatened the water supply for crop production. The cultivators had to know exactly how to operate under these special conditions. When they ran away the land rapidly deteriorated; spring floods of unregulated rivers, sand dunes, and alkali flats produced a wasteland of marshes. Newly settled nomads working basic small cifts could not have survived under these conditions. The original damage caused by Suleyman I's first campaigns could possibly have been repaired had not the civil war between the two kings, Suleyman's numerous interventions, and finally the fact that the Habsburg-Ottoman wars, which lasted almost continuously until 1699, made these lands into a permanent frontier battlefield creating an erosion that can be observed even today.

The permanent battlefield situation coupled with soil erosion and the flight of the population made it very difficult for cities and their burghers to make a living. Many Magyars and most Germans followed the example of the nobility and peasantry and moved away. The major Ottoman administrative centers, including Buda, Pest, Pecs (Funfkirchen), and Szeged (Szegedin), attracted the necessary administrators, garrisons, and artisans and tradesmen as in the Balkans. Yet here, unlike in the Balkans, there was no indigenous population with which to cooperate and coexist; consequently, these places became truly Muslim towns. Buda had about five thousand inhabitants around 1500 and they were, naturally, all Christians. By 1547 the number of Christians in Buda was around one thousand, and eighty years later it had fallen to about seventy. The other cities showed the same decline in number of original inhabitants, but those in the south of Hungary gained a few Christian inhabitants, Serbs, .and Romanians. They moved into the Bacska (Backa), Baranya, Banat, and what is today the Vojvodina, as well as into Slavonia where there were already a considerable number. This ethnographic change had lasting historical consequences.

These movements can be fairly easily explained. Most of the "Turkish" officials in Hungary were Bosnians who naturally spoke Serbian and ha had contact with Serbian merchants and artisans for centuries. Although religion separated them, these two groups had enough in common to facilitate cooperation not only in the cities but also in the countryside, west of the Danube and north of the Drava, where Serbian peasants had replaced the fleeing Magyars. East of the Tisza, roughly in today's Romanian province Crisana, the same phenomenon occurred. The Magyars fled either to the north or into Transylvania. It was only natural for the Romanians, who were both the most numerous and the worst off of the people in Transylvania proper, to move into these empty lands. Although they did not enjoy more freedom under the Ottoman masters of Temesvar and later Nagyvarad than they had been granted in Transylvania, they could settle and become agriculturalists, something that was impossible in Transylvania where the sparse good land was already fully populated. In this manner the nature of the cities changed ethnographically not only west of the Danube, but also east of the Tisza.

The most interesting development occurred in the devastated central plain, which was not suitable for timars and remained part of the sultan's personal property. During the second half of the fifteenth century the Hungarian peasantry had been slowly rising from its totally servile status. On the great plains several villages had grown into agricultural towns, which also served as market centers. They were not free cities but holdings of various lords. Yet their inhabitants were not considered serfs, had certain rights, and were clearly on their way to total emancipation-at least to the degree to which "free towns" were free.

Legally, these towns (in Latin oppida and in Hungarian mezovarosok [prairie towns]) lost most of their rights and privileges when the Hungarian Diets passed massive anti-peasantry laws and regulations following the great peasant uprising of 1514. Despite the laws these towns were still clinging to their way of life when the Ottomans arrived only twelve years later following the Battle of Mohacs. Situated as the region was between the two rivers, in the center of the first Turkish attacks, it was not easy for the inhabitants to run away. Furthermore, being at odds with the nobility, the peasantry was not tempted to follow it. Thus, around these curious towns a new life developed. Of the dozen or so prairie towns, Nagykoros, Kecskemet, and Cegled became the most important and are among the leading Hungarian cities today.

There occurred in these prairie towns a unique development, made possible by the Ottoman occupation of Central Hungary. On the one hand, these towns tried to survive and to revive and even to extend their privileges. On the other hand, the Ottomans needed some way to make this large deserted plain useful; the only way, given the deterioration of the land, was through pastural-type animal husbandry, which was well suited to the vast expanse of newly created desert. When the Ottomans arrived Nagykoros, the most important of the three largest oppida, held legal title to about 92,500 acres, mostly in pastures. By the middle of the seventeenth century the town had increased its holdings to about 466,000 acres by acquiring the lands of the deserted villages around it. It is important to realize that these lands were considered miri, that is, state-owned, by the Ottoman government. They were assigned either to the various havas-i humayun or to the hases of the beylerbeyi of Buda, but were identified with these cities and considered part of them.

These towns naturally paid a land tax, harac, the cizye, and the tithe on the product they raised, animals. The last- mentioned tax amounted to about eight to ten thousand head of cattle each year for all cities together. Considering that the custom station of Vacz alone saw as many as two thousand head pass from Ottoman-held to Habsburg territory each month and that the total export from Hungary westward amounted to as much as a hundred thousand head per year, this was a real tithe. These custom stations as well as fords and bridges across the Danube were leased and produced considerable revenue for the Ottoman government. For example, the customs and ferry station on Csepel Island (just south of Buda) paid a lease of six hundred thousand akces for the three-year period between 1543 and 1546. The large sums also indicate the importance of animal raising and trade of the mezo varos. The oppida prospered. The sample city of Nagykoros had about 1,500-2,000 inhabitants before the Turkish occupation and about the same number some 150 years later. To get the true picture of the economic life of these towns, their increased landholding and large cattle business must be compared with their obligations. In 1631 Nagykoros had four types of cash or delivery duties that amounted to:

What is important to realize is that "in comparison with figures we have from the sixteenth century and considering also the devaluation of the akce, the tax load of the city increased only slightly." Clearly the city lived well when its obligations remained the same and its income increased.

The prairie towns had other irregular features, too. There were no Muslim settlers and, therefore, no Ottoman akhi or functionaries. These towns ruled themselves; the representatives of the authorities appeared only to collect taxes. They had no kadis and only limited jurisdictional rights; certain litigants were forced to travel long distances to reach their "legal superiors," their old feudal lords, to get rulings.

This and the fact that taxes were calculated in Austrian currency indicate another peculiarity that affected not only these towns but some border villages too: double suzerainty. The Hungarian nobility did not give up its legal rights to territories under Ottoman rule and even claimed the right to travel and temporarily reside unmolested and tax free on "their" Ottoman-held lands. They also laid claim to income and taxes. The Ottomans made counterclaims and taxed localities that were officially on the other side of the frontier but within easy reach of their border guards. These claims and counterclaims figured in every negotiation between the Ottomans and Habsburgs on a state-to-state basis, and in those of local frontier authorities. The result was, in several cases, de facto double taxation, although those who wanted to collect in lands held by the other side usually got but a token. If this curious system had affected only the real "frontier" where the military could raid and "collect" anyhow, it would not have been too remarkable. However, when it touched on localities far from the border, such as the mezo varos (although these towns usually ignored their nominal absentee lords), it represents a unique situation in the Ottoman "core" provinces.

The case of the oppida developed out of the dual circumstances of economic interest and proximity to the enemy. In a sense the same situation applied to the Aegean islands, the best examples being Khios and Rhodes. Most of them acquired Ottoman governors after they were conquered, but retained their institutions, governed themselves, and in general managed their own affairs. They were not subjected to the standard Ottoman taxes, but were assessed fixed dues to be delivered annually. These were not light. The Island of Khios contributed the same amount during the time of Suleyman I (ten thousand ducats) that Ragusa, which was much richer, and Wallachia and Transylvania, both of which were richer and larger, paid as tribute. In general the islands suffered from the endemic Ottoman-Venetian wars and from the "revenge" of the victorious, but in time of peace their cities and villages were left much to their own devices and were better off than were the Greek settlements on the mainland.

On the Greek mainland a few "self-governing" regions also existed. Where geography and special local circumstances made direct rule too costly, the Ottomans settled for taxes, a few other fringe benefits, and recognition of their suzerainty. This situation created few problems in the glorious first period of Ottoman power, but it became a dangerous precedent that created great difficulties in the later centuries. The Greek mainland had several of these virtually self-governing regions of which the best known were in the Souliou Mountains in western Epirus centered around the town of Ioannina (Janina, Yanya), in the Mainalon Mountains, north and east of today's city of Tripolis in the central Morea where the Mavromikhalis family practically "reigned," and in the central massives of the Pindus Mountains. Some of these local potentates became so closely connected with the "establishment" that they were allowed to bypass the local, provincial authorities and send their own representatives (vekils) to Istanbul to negotiate directly with the central administration. In Albania and Crna Gora several small regions enjoyed similar "freedoms." Only those who were able to establish local power enjoyed such privileges. The peasantry was probably worse off than were those subject to direct Ottoman rule.

It is clear from the above discussion of selected cases that there was enough flexibility in the strictly centralized and regulated Ottoman Empire to make these variations in the cities of the "core" provinces possible. This very flexibility, in turn, made it easier to keep order in a large region whose inhabitants had different customs and needs.