Early Modern Albanians in the Hands of the Inquisition

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-109
Author(s):  
Noel Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Conversion To Islam

It is very difficult to find, in the historical records, the voices of ordinary Albanians from the early modern period; the only rich body of material suitable for this purpose consists of the records of the Inquisition, where individual testimonies are preserved. This essay presents evidence from the Inquisition archives of Venice, Udine, Naples and Malta, plus documents from Palermo (preserved in Madrid), and cases from Barcelona, Majorca and Lisbon. In the great majority of cases, people appeared before the Inquisition because they had converted from Christianity to Islam—mostly while they were living in the Albanian lands, but in some cases when they were elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Sometimes conversion was a deliberate choice on economic grounds (to avoid taxation), but often the change took place when the person was below the age (early- to mid-teens) when Muslim practice required consent. In several cases the life-story revealed by this evidence involves casual enslavement of young Albanians within the Ottoman Empire by others who were, like them, Ottoman subjects; it is argued that this was a more common phenomenon than standard accounts of Ottoman slavery have suggested. And in a few cases we hear the voices of Albanian women; for two of these, conversion to Islam was an opportunistic act to evade an unwanted marriage.

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.

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.

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.

Crusade Propaganda in Word and Image in Early Modern Italy: Niccolò Guidalotto’s Panorama of Constantinople (1662)*

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-543
Author(s):  
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
Golden Horn ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The City ◽  
Venetian Republic

AbstractThe focus of this article is a vast seventeenth-century panorama of Constantinople, which is an exceptional drawing of the city, currently displayed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The panorama is an elaborate piece of anti-Ottoman propaganda designed by the Franciscan friar Niccolò Guidalotto da Mondavio. Guidalotto also prepared a large manuscript, held in the Vatican Library, which details the panorama’s meaning and the motivation behind its creation. It depicts the city as seen from across the Golden Horn in Galata, throwing new light on both the city and the relationships between the rival Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire. It also trumpets the unalloyed Christian zeal of Niccolò Guidalotto and serves as a fascinating example of visual Crusade propaganda against the Ottomans in the early modern period.

scholarly journals Festivities of Curfew

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levent Kaya Ocakaçan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Main Condition ◽  
Indirect Connection ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Household System

The Ottoman Empire was a dynastic state, as were its counterparts in Europe and Asia in the early modern period. In order to explain the characteristics of this dynastic governance model, it is essential to focus on how the Ottoman ‘state’ mechanism functioned. One of the prominent aspects of the dynastic state was the integration of politics in household units (For the Ottoman household system Cf.: Gürkan 2015; Kunt 1974; 1975; 1978; 1983; 1995; 2007; 2011; 2012). Direct or indirect connection of people to these households was the main condition of legitimacy. Thus, the redistribution and succession strategies had a centralized importance in dynastic states. Since being a member of the dynasty was a given category, the state could be reduced to the house of the dynasty at the micro levels. This house transcended those living in it, and in order to sustain the continuity of the house, there was a need to create a ritual showing ‘the loyalty to the dynastic household’. This loyalty was the dominant factor in ensuring the continuity of the house, in other words, the ‘state’, and therefore, the succession strategies in dynastic states had a key importance.

The Ottoman Rationale for Codification: The Mecelle

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-153
Author(s):  
Samy A. Ayoub
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Late Ottoman Empire ◽  
Late Ottoman

This chapter is dedicated to the Mecelle, the first Islamic civil law code. It is primarily concerned with the substance of the articles of the Mecelle. This chapter contends that the Mecelle is a culminating articulation of late Ḥanafī legal scholarship in the early modern period. What is important about the Mecelle, this chapter argues, is not only that it represents a faithful synthesis of late Ḥanafī jurisprudential norms in this period but also that it promulgated new social and legal norms for the late Ottoman Empire. The Mecelle underscores the increasing bureaucratization and centralization of judicial and legal authority in the Ottoman Empire. This chapter stresses that the Mecelle should be understood in the context of the Ottoman modernization project and that it constitutes a response from within the Islamic legal tradition to the Tanzimat and the penetration of Western laws into Ottoman society.

scholarly journals The last Venetian-Byzantine Trade Agreement and Mehmed II’s First Peace Agreement with Venice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iassen Vanev
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Period

The goal of this article is to compare two inter-state commercial charters as the title suggests, a chrysobull by the Byzantine emperor John VIII and a document signed by Mehmed the Conqueror. The Ottoman Empire at that time was expanding at the expense of the Venetian thalassocracy, and particularly Byzantium. Venice, in its turn, was deriving more trade privileges from the dying Byzantine Empire. The emphasis in the article will be put on the similarities between the documents proving the continuity in the various spheres of international politics in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.

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