The Rise of the Köprülü Household: The Transformation of Patronage in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 229-256
Author(s):  
Cumhur Bekar

Abstract This article documents the formation of a powerful political network stretching from the central bureaucracy to the provinces under the aegis of the Köprülü household, the most influential vizierial household in the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire. Starting with the appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha as a grand vizier in 1656, the members of the Köprülü household occupied in the years that followed the most important positions in the Ottoman administrative and military system. Thanks to their long-lasting incumbency, the Köprülü grand viziers managed to establish the most efficient political network in the Ottoman state during the seventeenth century. By exploring the roles of the kethüdas, ağas and scribes in the Köprülü household and by examining those of its clients and family members in the military and administrative system, this article sheds light on the transformation of the recruitment system and patronage patterns in the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth century.

Author(s):  
Pesach Malovany ◽  
Amatzia Baram ◽  
Kevin M. Woods ◽  
Ronna Englesberg

This chapter deals with the manpower and administrative system in the Iraqi Armed Forces. It describes the Administration Division of the General Staff that was responsible for all manpower matters in the Armed Forces, its missions and responsibilities and its development, especially during the Iran-Iraq war. It describes the directorates that were involved in this field—the General Recruitment system, the Scientific and Technical Training of manpower, the Enlisted Men and the Officers systems, the officers organizations, the personal services system, the Military Archives and the General Affairs directorates. It describes also the Medical Services of the Armed Forces, their functioning and training system, the Military Police and women service in the Armed Forces.


Author(s):  
BURCU ÖZGÜVEN

This chapter examines military building activity in the region in the light of Ottoman sources preserved in the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archive in Istanbul and memoirs written by the senior bureaucrats of the Empire. It aims to assess whether the military building programme of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries continued in later periods in the same spirit as in the earlier time of conquests and expansion, or if the empire only supported repairs of existing strongholds. The issue was noted by numerous Ottoman writers as early as the Koçi Bey Risalesi in the seventeenth century. This chapter examines four frontier areas of the Ottoman Empire: the Hapsburg borderland in Croatia; the frontier between Montenegro and southern Herzegovina; the fortress line on the banks of the Danube in Wallachia; and the Danube Delta region near the Black Sea.


2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogaç Ergene

AbstractThis essay investigates the ways in which the notion of "justice" was utilized as a mechanism of political legitimization in the early-modern Ottoman Empire. I claim that there existed alternative definitions of justice and that these were instrumental in the struggle between the central government and those official and unofficial power-holders in the administrative and geographical peripheries of the empire. According to the specialized terminology of the Ottoman administrative system, "justice" was the protection of the rural and urban producers against abuses of the military elite. This definition highlighted the personal benevolence of the ruler who claimed to be the sole protector of the weak against oppression. On the other hand, at least some segments of the ruling elite insisted on representing justice as the recognition of the mutual rights and obligations of the sultan and his "servants." Justice, in this context, referred to the protection of privileges and entitlements of those who were thought to deserve them. While using a variety of sources - including treatises on government and ethics composed by the Ottoman literati, documents from regional court records and correspondence between the imperial center and the officials in the provinces - my primary focus is on Evliya Çelebi's seventeenth-century travel-book, Seyahatname, and a well-known seventeenth century chronicle, Tarih-i Naima.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-96
Author(s):  
Dilbar Karshieva ◽  

This article demonstrates the great attention and care paid by the state to the military and their families in our country.Social protection of families of military men consists in creating necessary conditions for family members to develop and demonstrate their abilities in socio-economic, cultural, medical and other spheres.


2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (141) ◽  
pp. 16-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
René d’Ambrières ◽  
Éamon Ó Ciosáin

After the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, hundreds of Catholic priests and religious were forced into exile on the Continent, with many seeking refuge in France, Spain and the Spanish Low Countries. For some, refuge was temporary while awaiting political developments and toleration in the home country; for others, it was permanent. The sheer numbers involved – in the hundreds (see below) – mark this as a new phenomenon in the migration of Irish Catholics to France. Although large numbers of Irish soldiers arrived there in the late 1630s and again from 1651 onwards, as Ireland was cleared of regiments connected with the Confederation of Kilkenny, the volume of priests and seminarians migrating to France had hitherto been on a much smaller scale than that of the military.


2009 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Baki Tezcan

AbstractA short chronicle by a former janissary called Tûghî on the regicide of the Ottoman Sultan Osman II in 1622 had a definitive impact on seventeenth-century Ottoman historiography in terms of the way in which this regicide was recounted. This study examines the formation of Tûghî's chronicle and shows how within the course of the year following the regicide, Tûghî's initial attitude, which recognized the collective responsibility of the military caste (kul) in the murder of Osman, evolved into a claim of their innocence. The chronicle of Tûghî is extant in successive editions of his own. A careful examination of these editions makes it possible to follow the evolution of Tûghî's narrative on the regicide in response to the historical developments in its immediate aftermath and thus witness both the evolution of a “primary source” and the gradual political sophistication of a janissary.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 149-170
Author(s):  
Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez

Recently, several studies have focused on the figure of the viceroy in the Spanish Monarchy, especially in the Kingdom of Naples. However, far less attention has been paid to the role of the vicereines of Naples. The goal of my study is to investigate and clarify the significant roles held by these noblewomen at one of the most important viceregal courts of the Spanish Monarchy. I will focus on one vicereine in particular, Catalina de Zúñiga y Sandoval, 6th Countess of Lemos and sister to the Duke of Lerma (1599–1601), who developed an extensive political network through copious correspondences, requesting and distributing mercedes (dignities and favours) among family members and her clientage. A revisionary analysis of the vicereines’ roles at the Neapolitan court demonstrates how knowledge of their political contribution is essential for a deeper understanding of the economic and political strategies deployed by their families.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 214-241
Author(s):  
Aslıhan Gürbüzel

Abstract What is the language of heaven? Is Arabic the only language allowed in the eternal world of the virtuous, or will Muslims continue to speak their native languages in the other world? While learned scholars debated the language of heaven since the early days of Islam, the question gained renewed vigor in seventeenth century Istanbul against the background of a puritan reform movement which criticized the usage of Persian and the Persianate canon as sacred text. In response, Mevlevī authors argued for the discursive authority of the Persianate mystical canon in Islamic tradition (sunna). Focusing on this debate, this article argues that early modern Ottoman authors recognized non-legal discourses as integral and constitutive parts of the Islamic tradition. By adopting the imagery of bilingual heaven, they conceptualized Islamic tradition as a diverse discursive tradition. Alongside diversity, another important feature of Persianate Islam was a positive propensity towards innovations.


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