I. Sources of Ottoman Governmental Ideas

Three traceable lines of influence can be followed from the earliest times until their appearance in the Ottoman government of the sixteenth century. The oldest began in Egypt, and continued down through various dynasties until the Roman conquest, after which it began to enter the Roman imperial government. From this it passed to the Byzantine and thence to the Ottoman system. Locally again it followed a more direct course through the Fatimides and Mamelukes until the time of Selim I’s conquest of Egypt. The slave government of the Mamelukes offers an interesting subject for comparison with the Ottoman Ruling Institution. It would be superfluous to give references for this line of development, except perhaps to mention Sir William Muir’s book, The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt (London, 1896), and Stanley Lane-Poole’s Egypt in the Middle Ages (London, 1901).

The second line, which seems to have contributed a greater number of elements, came down in the Bagdad-Euphrates valley through various governments to the Saracen and Seljuk empires, from which it passed to the Ottomans. Here again no general references need be given. Perhaps the most useful book in connection with the subject is D. B. McDonald’s Moslem Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory (New York, 1903).

The third and most direct line of influence is through the Tatars of the steppe lands. In A. H. Keane’s Man, Past and Present (Cambridge, England, 1899) there is a full and clear discussion of the anthropological relationships of the Turks. E. H. Parker’s A Thousand Years of the Tartars (London, 1895) gives an account which is based closely upon the Chinese sources, but which would be helped by the addition of as many of the two or three thousand notes which he did not print as would show the sources of his information. The Chinese story of the great Tatar empire of the sixth century A.D. may be found in Stanislas Julien’s Documents Historiques sur les Tou-Kioue (Paris, 1877). W. Radloff’s Alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei (Leipsic, 1894-95) discusses the earliest known Turkish monuments, which date from the eighth century. Emil Bretschneider’s Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (2 vols., London, 1888, new edition, 1910) gives an account of the Uigurs, whose greatness came in the eighth and ninth centuries and whose name persisted until at least the twelfth century, as is shown by the oldest known Turkish book, which is in their dialect.

This old book has been printed, with original Syriac text, transliteration into Roman characters, and German translation, by Arminius (Hermann) Vambéry, under the title Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik (Innsbruck, 1870). The Kudatku Bilik, the “Wisdom that Blesses,” written at Kashgar in 1068 by Yusuf Khass Hajil, is really an “Art of Government,” composed for the instruction of a Turkish prince. It contains in rhymed couplets, arranged in chapters, a large amount of advice on governmental matters, much of it being in the form of proverbs. The book throws a great deal of light on the fundamental Ottoman character. Vambéry has also made a study, on a philological basis, of the civilization of the Tatars, entitled Die Primitive Cultur des Türko-tatarischen Volkes (Leipsic, 1879).

A book equally remarkable with the Kudatku Bilik is the Siasset Namèh, written in 1092 for the Seljuk sultan Melek Shah by the great vizier Abu ’Ali al Hasan b. Ishaq (known better by his title, the Nizam al-Mulk), and printed in the original Persian, with a French translation, by Charles Schéfer, Paris, 1893. This “Book of Government” reveals to some extent three things,—the methods of government of Sassanian times, the actual government under Melek Shah, and the Seljuk government as the Nizam al-Mulk would have it. It also sheds much light upon Ottoman institutions.

The best general book on the Turks in Central Asia and their activities down to the occupation of Asia Minor is undoubtedly Léon Cahun’s Introduction à l’Histoire de l’Asie: Turcs et Mongols (Paris, 1896). The same ground is covered briefly by Cahun in Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vol. ii. ch. xvi. There is a great deal of information about the Persians and the Seljuk Turks in E. G. Browne’s Literary History of Persia (2 vols., London, 1902-1906). Maximilian Bittner has made a valuable study of the Turkish language, entitled Der Einfluss des Arabischen und Persischen auf das Türkische (Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe, vol. cxlii. pt. iii. Vienna, 1900). Sir W. M. Ramsay’s books are valuable for a study of the settlement of the Turks in Asia Minor, particularly his Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890), The Geographical Conditions determining History and Religion in Asia Minor (with comments by D. G. Hogarth, H. H. Howorth, and others, Geographical Journal, September, 1902, xx. 257-282), and Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire (Aberdeen, 1906). Volume v of H. F. Helmolt’s Weltgeschichte (Leipsic, etc., 1905) is useful for its attempt to trace the elements of Ottoman culture which were derived from Byzantine and other sources. William Miller’s The Latins in the Levant (New York, 1908) gives a clear picture of the confused and divided state of affairs to which the Ottomans put an end in their rough way.

II. The Ottoman Government in the Sixteenth Century

Abundant material for a study of the sixteenth-century Ottoman government has been provided and preserved; for the great place which the expanding empire held in the world developed an immense interest in its affairs on the part of the West, and made it worth the while of many of its Western residents to prepare descriptions of its outstanding features, among which its peculiar government was treated with special fulness. The writings of these men of various Western nationalities are in a way more helpful than a similar number of books from native writers would be, because the foreigners could usually take nothing for granted, but were compelled to draw a complete picture. They could not, on the other hand, get at the inner springs of the Ottoman activity as well as natives could; nor do any of them, with the exception of Menavino, seem actually to have read and known the Ottoman laws. Fortunately, Ottoman historians began to write abundantly shortly before the reign of Suleiman. For Suleiman’s own time, the collections of his Kanuns (since he was noted as a legislator) contain much material which helps toward an understanding of his government; moreover, writers of a later date have been drawn with special interest toward his reign, as the climax of Ottoman greatness. At the same time, no one but Zinkeisen has attempted to give an extended account of the Ottoman government as it was in the sixteenth century.

No reasonably complete bibliography of books relating to Turkey has been made. The following lists are worthy of mention as giving information in regard to the material for a study of Turkish history and institutions before the year 1600:—

Richard Knolles gives a bare list of his authorities, to the number of about twenty-five, at the beginning of his Generall Historie of the Turkes, London, 1603.

J. H. Boecler published at Bautzen in 1717 a Commentarius Historico-Politicus de Rebus Turcicis, in which he gives, at pp. 14-41, a list of 317 works on Turkish history and affairs, including 45 folio volumes, 128 quartos, 98 octavos, and 45 duodecimos.

Joseph von Hammer discusses his authorities in the preface to volume i of his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (Pest, 1827); and in volume x, pp. 57-336 (1835), he prints a list containing 3,025 titles of works relating to Ottoman history which were to be found in Europe outside of Constantinople.

Amat di San Filippo, in his Biografia dei Viaggiatori Italiani, etc. (2 vols., Rome, 1882), gives accounts of many of the early Italian writers on Turkish affairs.

Henri Hauser, in his edition of Du Fresne-Canaye, described below (p. 319), prints as Appendix II an Essai d’une Bibliographie des Ouvrages du XVIe Siècle relatifs au Levant. The list, which does not pretend to completeness, contains about 60 different titles.

The catalogue of the library of Count Paul Riant, published in two parts at Paris in 1899, also contains the titles of a great number of books and pamphlets which relate to the subject under discussion. Most of this material has been transferred to the Ottoman collection of the Library of Harvard University, through the generosity of Messrs. J. R. Coolidge and A. C. Coolidge,—a gift, it may be added, that has made the preparation of the present treatise possible. There are also many titles on early Ottoman history in the catalogue of Charles Schéfer’s Oriental library (published at Paris in 1899), from which the same donors have contributed 445 volumes to the Harvard Ottoman collection.

The list given in the Cambridge Modern History, i. 700-705, in connection with Professor J. B. Bury’s chapter on “The Ottoman Conquest,” is fuller than most of those just mentioned. It omits some valuable authorities, however, such as Schiltberger, Menavino, Ramberti, and Busbecq.

It is possible to get contemporaneous views of the Ottoman Empire at a date earlier than the beginning of the sixteenth century, though they are all incomplete. The first accounts go back to the battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Froissart (Chroniques, ed. Lettenhove, xv. 319 ff., Brussels, 1871), in a description of the battle and succeeding events which was based on accounts given by Jacques du Fay and Jacques de Helly, gives some idea of the Turkish army and the sultan. A better account for the present purpose is that by Johann Schiltberger (translated into English by J. B. Telfer, and published by the Hakluyt Society as The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, London, 1879). Schiltberger, then a youth of sixteen, was taken prisoner at Nicopolis, and after serving as slave to Bayezid I for six years, was captured by Timur at the battle of Angora, 1402. He was retained as captive, not without important responsibilities and wide journeys, for twenty-five years longer, when he succeeded in escaping. It is a matter for regret that he says very little of his life at the sultan’s court, since he held a position which corresponded to that of page in later times.

Another general account of the Turkish polity comes from the pen of Bertrandon de la Broquière, first gentleman-carver (écuyer tranchant), councillor, and chamberlain of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. In the course of a trip through the Levant he met Murad II in Rumelia in 1433. His observations show that many features of the Turkish system were then already in operation,—as the four pashas, the slave system, the pages, the imperial harem, the Janissaries (Jehanicéres), the feudal army, the Divan, etc. La Broquière’s memoirs are edited by Charles Schéfer, under the title Le Voyage d’Outremer, as volume xii of Recueil de Voyages et de Documents pour servir à l’Histoire de la Géographie depuis le XIIIe jusqu’à la fin du XVIe Siècle (Paris, 1892). The same volume contains an opinion in regard to the military power of the Turks by Jehan Torzelo, dating from the year 1439.

Still another report was written by a Transylvanian whose name remains unknown, but who was a slave in Ottoman private families from 1436 to 1453. Evidently he had before his capture been a theological student who held some of the ideas that preceded the Reformation movement. His book had a great vogue after the year 1509, under various titles, such as: Ricoldus, De Vita et Moribus Turcarum, Paris, 1509 (the attachment to the name of Ricoldus is purely accidental); Libellus de Ritu et Moribus Turcarum, Wittenberg, 1530 (with a preface by Martin Luther); S. Frank, Cronica-Abconterfayung, etc., Augsburg, 1531; Tractatus de Moribus, etc. The Wittenberg edition has been used in this treatise, and is referred to as Tractatus. Although most of the book is theological and argumentative, it affords a great deal of information. Among other things, it contains what is probably the earliest mention of the tribute children as the regular means of recruiting the Janissaries (Ginnitscheri).

The next good contemporary account of the Ottoman system is given in the history of Chal(co)condyles (written in Greek), of which there are many editions and translations. The one used here is the French translation, Histoire de la Décadence de l’Empire Grec et Établissement de celui des Turcs, Rouen, 1670. This writer, whose story comes down to 1465, speaks out of his own observation in describing the Ottoman camp and government.

The oldest authentic Kanuns are in the Kanun-nameh of Mohammed II, which is translated by Hammer in his Staatsverfassung (Vienna, 1815), 87-101.

The earliest book that was devoted to a description of Ottoman manners, religion, and government is by Teodoro Spandugino Cantacusino. Born of an Italian father and a Greek mother, he spent his life alternately in the East and the West. His book describes the empire as it was under Bayezid II, who died in 1512, his information about the government being obtained from two very high renegade officials, probably Messih Pasha and Hersek-Zadeh Ahmed Pasha. The earliest edition was printed in French at Paris in 1519 under the title Petit Traicté de l’Origine des Turcqz; later editions, with and without his name, or under the name of B. Gycaud, bear the title La Généalogie du Grant Turc à Présent Regnant, etc. The edition used here is a reprint of the first French issue, edited with notes by C. Schéfer, Paris, 1896. This writer is sometimes quoted as Spandugino, and sometimes as Cantacusino. The first form is used in the present treatise.

A book that is even more valuable in some ways is Giovanni Antonio Menavino’s Trattato de Costumi et Vita de Turchi. The edition used here was printed in Florence in 1548. Menavino came of a wealthy Genoese family. About the year 1505, when he was twelve years of age, handsome, bright, and well educated for his years, he was captured near Corsica by corsairs, and set aside as a gift suitable for the sultan. Taken to Bayezid II, he pleased the old sultan greatly, and was placed at once in the school of pages, where, as his book shows throughout, he must have profited greatly by the teaching that he received. He describes the religion, customs, and government of the Ottomans in much detail. In 1514 he was taken by Selim I on the expedition against Persia; but he managed to escape to Trebizond, whence he made his way to Adrianople, Salonika, and thence home to Genoa.

A group of excellent sources for studies of both the government and the history of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century is found in the reports which the Venetian Bailos and orators extraordinary presented to their Senate.

Venice, says Ranke, “frequently sent her most experienced and able citizens to foreign courts. Not content with the despatches on current affairs regularly sent home every fourteen days, she further required of her ambassadors, when they returned after an absence of two or three years, that they should give a circumstantial account of the court and the country they had been visiting.”[799] Since Constantinople was in the sixteenth century the station of first importance in the Venetian diplomatic service, it is safe to assume that the sons whom she sent there were her most intelligent.

A number of these Venetian reports, which do not, however, reach far into Suleiman’s reign, are summarized by Marini Sanuto the Younger in his voluminous Diarii, 1496-1533 (58 vols. in 59, Venice, 1879-1903). The reports of Alvise Sagudino in 1496, and of Andrea Gritti in 1503, are quoted by Schéfer in the introduction to his edition of Spandugino’s work, noticed above. Rinaldo Fulin, in his Diarii e Diaristi Veneziani (Venice, 1881) reprints Sanuto’s abstract of the Itinerary of Pietro Zeno, orator at Constantinople in 1523.

The Venetian reports for the reign of Suleiman are all, so far as preserved and known, collected in the invaluable work of Eugenio Alberi, Relazione degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato (15 vols., Florence, 1839-1863). The three volumes of the third series (published 1840, 1844, 1855, respectively), as well as a portion of the fifteenth volume or Appendix, are devoted to Turkish reports. Volume i of this series is also separately printed as Documenti di Storia Ottomana del Secolo XVI (Florence, 1842). A few writings are included in these volumes which were not reports to the Venetian senate.

In all, thirty-nine documents are thus presented, of which sixteen fall within the reign of Suleiman. Unfortunately there is a gap between the years 1534 and 1553, a period for which there should be eight or ten documents of great value bearing on the Ottoman dealings with France, Austria, Spain, and Persia.

These volumes contain much helpful apparatus, such as a glossary of Turkish words (vol. i); notes on the Venetian embassies to the Porte in the sixteenth century, with a list of the Venetian representatives (vol. ii); biographical notes concerning the writers (all three volumes); chronological tables, genealogies, etc. (Appendix). The Venetians were particularly interested in the financial side of the Ottoman government, its mechanism, its army, and its fleet. Many character descriptions of great personages enliven the pages. The last pages of the Appendix contain a chronological index of the Relazione and the other writings included; also an alphabetical list of them by authors, and chronological lists by countries. The subjoined list of reports from Constantinople is taken from page 435, and will serve as a means of locating many references in the foregoing pages. The more valuable reports are distinguished by asterisks.

Venetian Reports from Constantinople
as given in Alberi’s Relazione, 3d series, 3 vols. and Appendix (Florence, 1840-1863)

An interesting small pamphlet is the Auszug eines Briefes ... das Türckich Regiment unn Wesen sey, which was printed in a South-German dialect in 1526. It purports to be a letter from a German settled at Adrianople to his cousin in Germany, telling of his life as subject Christian under the sultan. The literary arrangement is so good, and the statements diverge so uniformly toward the dark side, that this would seem to be a pamphlet written in Germany for the purpose of arousing alarm and activity after the battle of Mohacs.

Hieronymus Balbus, bishop of Gurk, published at Rome in 1526 a little book of two essays addressed to Clement VII. The second part, “continens Turcarum Originem, Mores, Imperium,” etc., was also commended to the Archduke Ferdinand. The work makes up for a conspicuous lack of definite and accurate information by means of abundant scriptural and classical quotations and allusions, vituperation of the Turks, and assertion of their military ineffectiveness. It is chiefly valuable as an evidence of the “Turkish fear.”

A book that had a wide influence is Turcicarum Rerum Commentarius addressed by Paolo Giovio, or Paulus Jovius, bishop of Nocera, to Emperor Charles the Fifth, and dedicated at Rome in 1531. It was published in several languages; the edition used here is the Latin one, Paris, 1539. The book is historical except for the last ten pages, which contain a description of the Ottoman government with particular reference to its military resources. Giovio published also in two volumes at Florence, in 1550-1552, Historiarum sui Temporis Tomus Primus [et Secundus].

V. D. Tanco, or Clavedan del Estanco, a Spanish gentleman, wrote in his native tongue a book that was translated into Italian and published at Venice in 1558 under the title Libro dell’ Origine et Successione dell’ Imperio de’ Turchi. The basis of the work is the Commentarius of Jovius, just noticed; but this has been intelligently combined with information from Froissart, Aeneas Sylvius, and others. The latest date mentioned is 1537, and the death of Ibrahim in 1536 is not known.

A very valuable and interesting work is the Libri Tre delle Cose de Turchi, etc., published by Aldus in Venice in 1539, and reprinted often thereafter. It appears also as one of the component parts of the work published by Aldus in 1543, Viaggi fatti da Vinetia, alla tana ... in Costantinopoli, known sometimes simply as Viaggi alla tana, or “Travels to the Don.” The book appeared anonymously, but it has been attributed with much confidence to Benedetto Ramberti (see Alberi, Relazione, 3d series, iii. 8; Archiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, 1897, lxxxiii. 9; Revue Critique, 1896, i. 20-21). Ramberti accompanied Ludovisi to and from Constantinople during the first six months of 1534. The book was written in the same year; for it shows that Barbarossa was made pasha while it was in process of composition (see above, Appendix I, p. 246, and, for the fact that Barbarossa was back in Algiers, May 9, 1534, see Ursu, La Politique Orientale de François I, Paris, 1908, p. 79), and in a long characterization at the close of the third book it represents Luigi (Alvise) Gritti, who was assassinated in Hungary late in 1534, as still living.

The first book of the three describes the journey overland from Ragusa to Constantinople; the third book contains observations of no great value on the power and policies of the Turks. The second book is the pièce de résistance. It opens with a brief description of Constantinople and a rapid sketch of the origin and history of the Ottoman Turks. An account of the Turkish government follows, beginning with the inside service of the household of the sultan, proceeding to the outside service, then taking up the chief officers of government, the Janissaries, the Spahis of the Porte and the auxiliary branches of the army. The harem, the palaces of the pages, the Ajem-oghlans, and the arsenal are next described; then the feudal army is explained as it was constituted in Europe and in Asia; and, finally, a list of the sanjakates of the empire is given. The Italian used is fairly good, and the style is very simple, often degenerating to the mere cataloguing of officers. Throughout the book the financial aspect of the government is emphasized strongly, the incomes of all persons mentioned being carefully stated. This second book of Ramberti is of so great importance to the present treatise that it is given in translation as Appendix I. The text used is that of the Viaggi ... alla tana (Venice, 1543).

Standing in exceedingly close relationship to the second book of Ramberti is a twenty-two page pamphlet bearing the name of Junis Bey (Ionus Bei). Written in broad Venetian dialect and printed on coarse paper in type of a poor quality, not kept clean, it is in two portions, respectively of eight and fourteen pages, which are distinguished by the use of larger and smaller type. The title-page bears the inscription “reprinted in 1537.” The sixth page begins the list of pashas with the statement that “Ibrahim of Parga is dead,” and then gives the name of his successor in the office of grand vizier. On the seventeenth page it is said that the territories of the Beylerbey of Mesopotamia “border” those of Bagdad which belong to Persia (Bagdad was taken by Suleiman in the winter of 1535 and 1536); on the eighteenth occurs the remark that Alvise Gritti “says” such and such a thing; and at the close the book is attributed to “Ionus bei” and “Signor Aluise gritti.” Now, Junis Bey was in Venice from December 6, 1532, to January 9, 1533 (thesis of Theodore F. Jones, p. 168, Harvard College Library); Gritti was assassinated in 1534; Junis Bey was again in Venice from January 15 to February 17, 1537 (Jones, 209). It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the first edition of the pamphlet was printed at Venice in 1533 at the time of Junis Bey’s first visit, and that at the time of his second visit in 1537 the first eight pages were recast with a few changes, and in certain unsold copies substituted for the older pages, the remainder being left as it stood originally, despite the erroneous reference to Gritti.

It is very clear that Ramberti had before him while preparing his “second book” a document almost identical with this pamphlet. Beginning with his description of the sultan’s household service, the order of treatment is practically the same, and even the words and phrases are often the same, except for differences of dialect. His language frequently suggests that he is expanding on some material before him. It is worthy of note, however, that not only Ramberti’s use of Italian, but also his use of Turkish, is frequently better than that of Junis Bey. Moreover, in his list of officials he includes the Mufti and the chief dragoman (Terjuman), whom Junis Bey leaves out, the latter omission being the more remarkable in that Junis Bey held that office himself. On the other hand, where there are differences in numbers, Junis Bey is more apt to be correct than Ramberti. It seems not unlikely that both works were derived from a manuscript, more nearly complete and correct than either, in the possession of Alvise Gritti, which the latter allowed the two writers to use, Junis Bey probably in 1532 and Ramberti in 1534. Alvise Gritti was well known to both. Natural son of the doge Andrea Gritti, he had won high favor with Ibrahim, who entrusted him with great responsibilities. In fact, it may not be too bold a conjecture to suggest that some of the information contained in his manuscript came from the celebrated Grand Vizier himself. Aside from this possibility, a minute survey of the Ottoman government, prepared by Gritti himself or with his collaboration, either for his own use or for the information of his kinsfolk the Venetians, possesses a presumption in favor of its accuracy and truthfulness. Accordingly the closing words, “all is true,” may be accepted with little reserve.

These two works, by Ramberti and Junis Bey, were much used by other writers on Turkish affairs. Postel shows a close acquaintance with them, and Geuffroy frequently does little more than present a translation. Ramberti was incorporated into a number of the collected works in regard to the Turks which appeared in various languages after the middle of the sixteenth century and thus entered into systematic histories. Since the pamphlet of Junis Bey is very rare, its text is presented in Appendix II, above. Besides matter very similar to that of Ramberti, it contains near the end an account of the order of march of the sultan’s army when he went to war.

Guillaume Postel is perhaps the broadest-minded of the sixteenth-century observers. He gives evidence of having had a legal training, and of having reflected along political and constitutional lines. Nicolay, in his preface, informs us that Postel knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as the principal Western languages. He was sent by Francis I with the momentous embassy of La Forêt, and was therefore in Constantinople about the year 1535. He seems to have made a later visit for the purpose of acquiring manuscripts; but the substance of his book, as appears from numerous references, dates from the first visit. The volume was printed at Poitiers in 1560, but was not published till 1570. It contains three parts, separately paged:—

I. De la République des Turcs; II. Histoire et Considération de l’Origine, Loy, et Coustume des Tartares ... Turcs, etc.; III. La Tierce Partie des Orientales Histoires, où est exposée la Condition, Puissance, & Revenue de l’Empire Turquesque, etc. The first part gives, among other things, an excellent account of the page system and of Ottoman law and justice. The third part is built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey; it describes the page system further, and adds a good account of the Ajem-oghlans and the Janissaries. By a reference it shows acquaintance with Giovio.

Antoine Geuffroy, knight of St. John, issued in 1542 his Briefve Description de la Court du Grand Turc. Four years later this was published in English by R. Grafton under the title The Order of the Great Turcks Court of Hye Menne of War; and from thirty to fifty years later it appeared, combined with other material, in large volumes in the Latin and German tongues under the name of N. Honigerus or Haeniger, with a Latin translation by G. Godelevæus, entitled Aulae Turcicae, Othomannicique Imperii Descriptio, etc. The work of Geuffroy thus had a great vogue. It was a sound, intelligent description of the empire, built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey. By references and allusions it shows acquaintance with Froissart, Spandugino, and Giovio. The references to Geuffroy in the foregoing pages are to the reprint in Schéfer’s edition of Jean Chesneau, described below.

Bartholomew Georgevitz, pilgrim to Jerusalem, issued a small book, De Turcarum Moribus Epitome, which passed through many editions in two or three languages, the first dating not later than 1544, and the latest not earlier than 1629. The chapters are on various topics and from various sources. The first, on the rites and ceremonies of the Turks, is abridged from Spandugino. The second, on the Turkish soldiery, is by Georgevitz himself; it is perhaps the most valuable, and shows by the age assigned to Prince Mustapha that it was written about 1537. The fourth chapter gives useful Turkish phrases, and is interesting as showing how Turkish words were pronounced in the sixteenth century. The fifth chapter gives a full account of the treatment of slaves of private citizens, written by one who had been a slave, apparently Georgevitz himself. The edition referred to in this treatise was printed at Paris in 1566.

Jérome Maurand accompanied Captain Pinon on his mission to Constantinople in 1544. A few years later he wrote, in Italian, an account of his journey, which was translated by Léon Dorez as Itinéraire de Jérome Maurand d’Antibes à Constantinople, and published at Paris in 1901 as vol. xvii of Recueil de Voyages, etc.

Before 1549, Ibrahim Halebi, the jurist, prepared by command of Suleiman the codification of the Sacred Law which bears the name of Multeka ol-ebhar, and which formed the foundation of D’Ohsson’s great work.

Jean Chesneau went to Constantinople with D’Aramont, ambassador of Henry II of France, and accompanied him on Suleiman’s campaign against Persia in 1549. His narrative, which is not very illuminating or accurate, was edited by Charles Schéfer and published at Paris in 1887, under the title, Le Voyage de Monsieur d’Aramon, as vol. viii of Recueil de Voyages, etc. Bound in the same volume are five letters in the Italian language, written from Constantinople in 1547 by the ambassador Veltwyck to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria; there is also (at pp. 227-248) a reprint in French of the first edition of Geuffroy.

Nicolas de Nicolay of Dauphiné, royal geographer and extensive traveler, who wrote a book called Discours et l’Histoire Véritable des Navigations, Pérégrinations et Voyages faicts en la Turquie, is not the least interesting of sixteenth-century authorities on Turkey. His account of his voyage from Marseilles to Constantinople in the year 1551 in the train of the Seigneur d’Aramont, ambassador of Henry II, and the drawings from life with which he embellishes his book, show his capacity for exact observation. In his descriptions of the customs and government of the Ottoman Empire, however, he does not reveal the possession of much first-hand information. Menavino is here his principal source of knowledge. The first edition of his book appeared at Lyons in 1567; it was translated into several languages and reproduced often. An enlarged edition, published at Antwerp in 1586, is the one referred to in the foregoing pages. The plates in the book, about sixty in number, have been said to be the work of Titian; but this is apparently incorrect, for the preface merely states that Nicolay drew from life on the spot and afterwards had the drawings reproduced “avec fraiz & labeur incroyable.”

From a literary point of view, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq is by all odds the most interesting of sixteenth-century sources for the study of Ottoman history and government. The charm of his style should not obscure the facts that he was a keen and exact observer possessed of a true scientific spirit, and that he reflected carefully on what he saw. He wrote on Turkey during his period of service as ambassador from Charles V to Suleiman between 1555 and 1562. One of his four Turkish letters was printed in Antwerp in 1581, and since that time at least twenty-seven editions and reprints have appeared in seven languages. The edition of his Life and Letters, in two volumes, translated from the original Latin by C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniell (London, 1881), has been used in this treatise, as has also his De Re Militari contra Turcam instituenda Consilium, as printed in a complete edition of his writings published at Pest in 1758, pp. 234-277.

Philippe Du Fresne-Canaye, a young Huguenot gentleman, was sent by his family to Venice for safety in the troubled days after the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and he took advantage of his nearness to the Levant to visit Constantinople in 1573. He had prepared himself for his visit by reading Ramberti, Postel, Nicolay, and others, but he does not seem to have learned much that was not in those authorities. His Voyage du Levant was edited for publication in Paris in 1897 by Henri Hauser, as vol. xvi of Recueil de Voyages, etc. Hauser’s Appendix II contains the bibliography of sixteenth-century works relating to the Levant which is mentioned above (p. 308).

The Kanun-nameh of Suleiman, collected by the Mufti Ebu su’ud, who died in 1574, contained a number of the Sultan’s Kanuns relating mainly to financial and feudal matters. A translation of the incomplete table of contents of the Turkish manuscript copy of this Kanun-nameh (which is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, Fluegel No. 1816) is given above as Appendix III. Many of the Kanuns are translated in Hammer’s Staatsverfassung, pp. 396-424, where they are erroneously attributed to Achmet I.

A little anonymous book, The Policy of the Turkish Empire, published at London in 1597, contains an interesting preface. The remainder of the book deals only with the Turkish religion, and is drawn mainly from Menavino, with some incorporation from Spandugino and Georgevitz.

At the conclusion of Richard Knolles’s Generall Historie of the Turkes (London, 1603), is to be found “A Briefe Discourse of the Greatnesse of the Turkish Empire,” written probably in the year of publication, since the story comes down to the accession of Achmet I in 1603. The lands of the empire, “of all others now upon earth farre the greatest,” are described, its revenues are set forth, the Timariotes, the Janissaries, the chief officers of state, and the fleet receive notice, and the Turkish power is compared with that of all states which touch its frontiers. It is to this part of Knolles’s work (as printed in the 6th edition of his History, with Ricaut’s continuation, London, 1687, ii. 981-990) that most of the references in the foregoing pages are made.

Pietro Della Valle, known as Il Pellegrino, or The Pilgrim, wrote Viaggi ... in la Turchia, la Persia, e l’India, which was published in two volumes (four parts) at Rome in 1658-1663. He was in Constantinople in 1614 and 1615, and took advantage of every opportunity to witness a ceremony. Observant of costumes and jewels, he could not esteem the Turkish officials highly, because they were all slaves. The references in this treatise are to the second edition of the first part, published in 1662.

Many collections based on the above-mentioned writings and on others were issued after the middle of the sixteenth century, and many surveys of the Ottoman Empire were prepared as time went on. Of the latter, three stand forth as of sufficient importance to throw light on sixteenth-century conditions:—

Sir Paul Ricaut, a resident of Turkey for many years, issued late in the seventeenth century The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire. He explains that he obtained his information from Turkish records from high officials, from members of the Ulema, and from a Pole who had passed through the school of pages and had spent nineteen years in all at the Ottoman court. Ricaut was evidently a student of political philosophy; he seems to have relied especially upon Tacitus, the civil law, Machiavelli, and Lord Bacon. His book was printed in several languages, has been much quoted since, and deserves the fame it received. The sixth English edition, published in London in 1686, is used here. The book is also printed at the end of the second volume of his edition of Knolles’s Turkish History, London, 1687.

Ignatius Mouradgea D’Ohsson, born in Turkey and long a resident there, prepared between 1788 and 1818 his great Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman. He based his work on the Multeka ol-ebhar (see above, p. 318) which with its comments he rearranged and translated, adding to it a great many observations of his own. The book appeared in two forms, the huge folio edition being a magnificent example of the bookmaker’s art. The smaller edition of the book (7 vols., Paris, 1788-1824) has been used here. The last three volumes were published under the supervision of his son after his death. Six of the seven volumes are based on the Multeka; the seventh contains a full description of the government, including the court, the ministers, the bureaus, the army, etc.

Joseph von Hammer published at Vienna, in 1815, Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, in two volumes. The former is very largely a collection of documents, such as Kanuns, fetvas, and extracts from the Multeka. A large amount of valuable material is presented; but it is only partly digested, and the author often does not indicate clearly whence he drew his extracts. The second volume goes over much the same ground as D’Ohsson’s seventh volume. Another work of Hammer’s, his Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (10 vols., Pest, 1827-1835), has furnished the historical background for this treatise. This work is extremely valuable from the fact that it is based upon numerous inaccessible Turkish sources; but it is largely uncritical, and it does not make sufficient use of Western authorities.

Leopold Ranke published at Hamburg in 1827 the first volume of his excellent work, Fürsten und Völker von Sud-Europa. He was the first to discern the value of the Venetian reports, and by their aid he reached far greater accuracy than had yet been attained in attempts to describe these great South-European empires when at the height of their power. The English translation by W. K. Kelly, entitled The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1843), has been used in the present treatise.

The third volume of J. W. Zinkeisen’s Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa (Gotha, 1855) has been used for its discussion of the Ottoman government in the sixteenth century. It is based too exclusively on the Venetian reports, which Zinkeisen seems to have regarded as always trustworthy, and it makes little or no use of Turkish sources.

Stanley Lane-Poole, in his Story of Turkey, London, 1886, chapters xiv and xvi, gives a very good summary of the structure of the Ottoman household and administration, condensed from D’Ohsson’s seventh volume.

In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, iv. 747 ff., there is a brief account, by Rambaud, of the organization of the Ottoman Empire in general. Though not accurate in every respect, it gives, on the whole, an excellent picture.

A. Heidborn published at Vienna and Leipsic in 1909 a careful, well-planned, and extremely valuable work entitled Manuel de Droit Public et Administratif de l’Empire Ottoman. Although the principal purpose of the book is to explain present-day conditions, the historical background is outlined at many points. Unfortunately there is neither table of contents nor index; but perhaps these will be supplied when the work is extended farther. The chapters of the present volume deal with the territory of the state, the sources and fundamental principles of the legislation in force in the Ottoman Empire, the head of the state, nationality, the administrative organization, and justice. The chapter on justice occupies more than half the book, and treats fully the judicial organization, civil and criminal law, and procedure.

In addition to the works described above, the appended alphabetical list contains the names of a few authors whose works, though occasionally quoted in this treatise, call for no special comment; and also the names of a number of writers who have dealt with the government of Turkey, but who have not been quoted because their information either is of secondary importance or derivation, or deals with a later time, when conditions had been changed.

III. Alphabetical List of Works Cited