Fiscal Crisis and Institutional Change in the Ottoman Empire and France

2009 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 809-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliana Balla ◽  
Noel D. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Fiscal Crisis ◽  
Fiscal Institutions ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Tax Farming ◽  
Fiscal Pressure

Why is it that some countries adopted growth enhancing institutions earlier than others during the early modern period? We address this question through a comparative study of the evolution of French and Ottoman fiscal institutions. During the sixteenth century, both countries made extensive use of tax farming to collect revenue, however, uncertain property rights caused by fiscal pressure led to different paths of institutional change in each state. In France, tax collectors successfully overcame the collective action costs of imposing constraint on the king. In the Ottoman Empire, tax collectors faced prohibitive transaction costs to organizing in a similar manner.

scholarly journals “Turkish” Textiles in South-Eastern and East-Central Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Evidence of Transylvanian Customs Accounts

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 363-382
Author(s):  
Mária Pakucs-Willcocks
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Serial Data

Abstract This paper analyzes data from customs accounts in Transylvania from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth on traffic in textiles and textile products from the Ottoman Empire. Cotton was known and commercialized in Transylvania from the fifteenth century; serial data will show that traffic in Ottoman cotton and silk textiles as well as in textile objects such as carpets grew considerably during the second half of the seventeenth century. Customs registers from that period also indicate that Poland and Hungary were destinations for Ottoman imports, but Transylvania was a consumer’s market for cotton textiles.

On the Appropriation of Lexicographic Methods of Kemālpaşazāde’s (1468–1534) Glossary Daḳāyiḳu l-ḥaḳāyiḳ

DIYÂR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26
Author(s):  
Hasmik Kirakosyan ◽  
Ani Sargsyan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Persian Language ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Analysis Methods ◽  
First Time

The glossary Daḳāyiḳu l-ḥaḳāyiḳ by Kemālpaşazāde is a valuable lexicological work that demonstrates the appropriation of medieval lexicographic methodologies as a means of spreading knowledge of the Persian language in the Transottoman realm. The article aims to analyse this Persian-Ottoman Turkish philological text based on the Arabic and Persian lexicographic traditions of the Early Modern period. The advanced approaches to morphological, lexical and semantic analysis of Persian can be witnessed when examining the Persian word units in the glossary. The study of the methods of the glossary attests to the prestigious status of the Persian language in the Ottoman Empire at a time when Turkish was strengthening its multi-faceted positions. Taking into account the linguistic analysis methods that were available in the sixteenth century, contemporary philological research is suggesting new etymologies for some Persian words and introduces novel lemmata, which make their first-time appearance in Persian vocabulary.

MIGRATION FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EASTERN CHRISTIANS IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Paul A. Ghobrial
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
The Everyday

ABSTRACTFrom Lebanese politicians in Argentina to Iraqi immigrants in Sweden, Middle Eastern Christians can be found today scattered across the entire world. Too often, however, this global migration has been seen purely as a modern development, one arising from contemporary political and religious tensions in the Middle East. In fact, this type of mobility had earlier manifestations in the early modern period. From the sixteenth century onwards, Christians from the Ottoman Empire set out for distant worlds and foreign lands, travelling as far as Europe, India, Russia and even the Americas and leaving traces of themselves in countless European and Middle Eastern archives, chanceries and libraries. This paper lays out a framework for understanding movement in the early modern world in a way that pays as much attention to how migrants understood their own travels as to contemporary European ideas about Eastern Christian mobility. Focusing on the intersection of two traditions of sources, I explore here how European and Eastern Christian perspectives about migration drew from one another, reinforcing and feeding on each other in powerful, mutually constitutive ways. In doing so, this paper seeks to make a contribution to our understanding of the everyday experience of circulation and mobility in the early modern world.

scholarly journals Ancient Pneumatics Transformed during the Early Modern Period

Nuncius ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Valleriani
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Exact Role ◽  
Ancient Technology ◽  
Ancient Science ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Natural Philosophers

The paper aims to show how sixteenth century hydraulic and pneumatic engineers appropriated ancient science and technology – codified in the text of Hero of Alexandria’s Pneumatics – to enter into scientific discourse, for instance, with natural philosophers. They drew on the logical structure, content and narrative style passed down from antiquity to generate and codify their own theoretical approach and to document their new technological achievements. They did so by using the form of commented and enlarged editions, just as Aristotelian natural philosophers had been doing for centuries. The argument aims to detail the exact role of ancient science and the process of transformation it underwent during the early modern period. In particular, it aims to show how pneumatic engineers first tested the ancient technology codified by Hero while carrying out their own practical activities. Once these tests were successfully concluded, in the spirit of early modern humanism they finally presented these activities as being associated with the work of their discipline’s most authoritative author, Hero of Alexandria, whose technology was tested during the construction of the hydraulic and pneumatic system of the garden of Pratolino.

RELIGIOUS CHANGE AND THE TIMING OF BAPTISM IN ENGLAND, 1538–1750

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. KITSON
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Common Prayer

ABSTRACTThe religious reforms of the sixteenth century exerted a profound impact upon the liturgy of baptism in England. While historians' attention has been drawn to the theological debates concerning the making of the sign of the cross, the new baptism liturgy contained within the Book of common prayer also placed an innovative importance on the public performance of the rite in the presence of the whole congregation on Sundays and other holy days. Both religious radicals and conservatives contested this stress on ceremony and publicity throughout the early modern period. Through the collection of large numbers of baptism dates from parish registers, it is possible to measure adherence to these new requirements across both space and time. Before the introduction of the first prayer book in 1549, there was considerable uniformity among communities in terms of the timing of baptism, and the observed patterns are suggestive of conformity to the requirements of the late medieval church. After the mid-sixteenth century, parishes exhibited a range of responses, ranging from enthusiastic adoption by many communities to complete disregard in religiously conservative parts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Additionally, the popularity of saints' festivals as popular days for baptism fell markedly after 1660, suggesting a decline in the observance of these feasts.

scholarly journals THE RISE OF THE AMBASSADRESS: ENGLISH AMBASSADORIAL WIVES AND EARLY MODERN DIPLOMATIC CULTURE

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEMMA ALLEN
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Scholarly Attention

AbstractThis article reveals how the ambassadress became an important part of early modern diplomatic culture, from the invention of the role in the early sixteenth century. As resident embassies became common across the early modern period, wives increasingly accompanied these diplomatic postings. Such a development has, however, received almost no scholarly attention to date, despite recent intense engagement with the social and cultural dimensions of early modern diplomacy. By considering the activities of English ambassadresses from the 1530s to 1700, accompanying embassies both inside and outside of Europe, it is possible not only to integrate them into narratives of diplomacy, but also to place their activities within broader global and political histories of the period. The presence of the ambassadress changed early modern diplomatic culture, through the creation of gendered diplomatic courtesies, gendered gift-giving practices, and gendered intelligence-gathering networks. Through female sociability networks at their host court, ambassadresses were able to access diplomatic intelligence otherwise restricted from their husbands. This was never more true than for those ambassadresses who held bonds of friendship with politically influential women at their host or home court, allowing them to influence political decision-making central to the success of the diplomatic mission.

Fiscal Crisis and Structural Change in the Late Ottoman Economy

2015 ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Murat Birdal
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Financial Accounting ◽  
Fiscal Crisis ◽  
Tax Reforms ◽  
Foreign Markets ◽  
Fiscal Institutions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Late Ottoman

This chapter examines institutional change in the Ottoman economy with a focus on its financial crises and subsequent reform attempts. Traditional fiscal institutions functioned well until the late sixteenth century when the state introduced tax reforms and dismantled the traditional tımar system. In the nineteenth century, the administration sought solutions such as the debasement of the coinage and domestic borrowing to finance its deficits. In 1854, the government resorted to foreign borrowing and initiated reforms to improve its financial accounting to gain credibility in foreign markets. After twenty years of borrowing, the Porte defaulted in 1875, and in 1881 signed the Decree of Muharrem, which led to the establishment of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA). The OPDA era saw unprecedented levels of foreign direct investment and played a pivotal role in the integration of the Ottoman Empire into the world economy.

scholarly journals Sons of Something: Taxes, Lawsuits, and Local Political Control in Sixteenth-Century Castile

2007 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Drelichman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Tax Exemptions ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
High Level

The widespread ennoblement of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the Early Modern period has been traditionally considered one of the main causes of the “crisis of the seventeenth century.” Using a new time series of nobility cases I provide the first quantitative assessment of Castilian ennoblement. Contrary to established scholarship, I find that the tax exemptions cannot alone explain the flight to privilege. My data show that the central motivation behind ennoblement was to gain control of local governments. Although ennoblement reflected a high level of redistributive activity, there is no evidence linking it to economic stagnation in Spain.

Health as a Social Agent in Ottoman Patronage and Authority

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 147-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miri Shefer Mossensohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Medical System ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Over Time

AbstractOttoman society and its medical system of the early modern period and the nineteenth-century demonstrate the marriage of medicine and power. I present the view from the imperial center and focus on the aims and wishes of the Ottoman elite and imperial authorities in İstanbul as they were embodied in state activities, such as formal decrees and policies meant to be implemented all over the empire. For the Ottoman elite, medicine was always a significant imperial tool, but it was neither the only tool of control, nor the most important one. The extent to which the Ottoman elite used medicine in its social policies changed over time. A comparison between the Ottoman use and distribution of health and food from the early modern period until the nineteenth century illustrates this point. It was especially during the nineteenth century that medicine was intentionally-and successfully-implemented as a mechanism of control in the Ottoman Empire.

John Derricke’s Image of Irelande, Sir Henry Sidney, and the massacre at Mullaghmast, 1578

1999 ◽  
Vol 31 (123) ◽  
pp. 305-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent P. Carey
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Political Controversy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Conflict

One of the bitterest fruits of human conflict is the resort to massacre. From the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572 to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, combatants have regularly attempted to defeat their enemies through acts of indiscriminate killing. The history of early modern European colonial expansion is replete with such incidents. The remembering and recounting of them has become the stuff of historical and political controversy. The aim of this article is not to review these painful episodes, but to examine the sixteenth-century context in which these resorts to massacre occurred; to focus on one particular atrocity that achieved some notoriety in Ireland in the early modern period; and to suggest that a now largely forgotten episode, at Mullaghmast in County Kildare in 1578, was part of a pattern of conquest which implicated not only the soldiers and settlers who served in the Gaelic localities, but also the upper echelons of the English administration in Ireland. This pattern was accompanied by an apologetic ideology of civility and savagery best reflected in a central text, John Derricke’s Image of Irelande (1581). Derricke’s Image provides us with sufficient evidence to suggest that indiscriminate slaughter was an accepted tool in the effort to subdue Gaelic Ireland. Indeed, Derricke’s text adds weight to the conclusion that the atrocity at Mullaghmast in 1578 implicates no less a figure than Sir Henry Sidney, the quintessential renaissance English official in Ireland. Mullaghmast is important not only because it demonstrates the officially sanctioned brutality of the conquest, but also because it raises the question of how memory and history are constructed.

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