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.