Although almost every member of the governing group in the Ottoman Empire had been born a Christian, it was absolutely necessary for his advancement that he should profess the Moslem faith. A keen contemporary observer knew of only one Christian who had been entrusted with great power. Alvise Gritti was allowed to hold special command in Hungary, but this appointment was made outside the system, as a personal affair of the grand vizier Ibrahim, without the concurrence of the sultan.[157] Various Christians were employed in such matters as the superintendence of ship-building and cannon-founding;[158] but this was a purely commercial relationship, and such a man had no place in the cursus honorum. The fundamental rule, open to the few exceptions previously described, was very simple. Every member of the Ruling Institution must have been born a Christian and must have become a Mohammedan.
A number of questions arise at once. Why were none but sons of Christians admitted? Why was conversion essential to promotion? What was the process of accomplishing conversion? How thorough was the conversion? Why were the sons of most of the converts, and the grandsons of practically all, carefully pushed out of the system?
The first of these questions might be answered in terms of policy of state; but since, in all Moslem thinking, church, state, and society form one undivided whole, such an answer would be inadequate. Conversion to Mohammedanism meant much more than an inward change and an outward association for religious purposes with a new group of worshippers. It meant the adoption of a new law for the whole of life, beginning with the religious and ethical, but including as equally essential portions the regulation of all social, commercial, military, and political relationships.[159] It meant admission to a new social system, naturalization in a new nation, an entire separation from the old life in all its aspects and a complete incorporation with the new. Expansion of membership was always a cardinal principle of Mohammedanism; and the expansion was to be not merely by the aid of the sword, but far more by peaceful means. The sword took the land and sometimes the body of the unbeliever; but his soul was to be won by the benefits of the system, first religious, then social, financial, and political.[160] Every nation that has reached eminence has believed firmly that its general system was immensely the superior of every other in the world, and no nations have been more thoroughly convinced of this than those of Moslem faith. Accordingly, their desire to convert the unbeliever was founded primarily on benevolence. Closely connected with this motive was a burning interest in the grandeur of Islam as a militant, expanding system; and subordinate thereto was a purpose to increase the wealth, numbers, and power of the state.
The Ottoman system incorporated young Christians not merely to obtain more faithful, more obedient, and more single-hearted servants, but, before and beyond this, to obtain new members of the Ottoman nationality, new believers in the Moslem faith, and new warriors for the Ottoman Empire as representing Islam. This missionary purpose stands out very clearly in the words attributed to Kara Khalil Chendereli, the traditional founder of the corps of Janissaries, by a poet-historian of the early sixteenth century, who no doubt here, as elsewhere in his writings, introduced the ideas of his own day: “The conquered are slaves of the conquerors, to whom their goods, their women, and their children belong as a lawful possession; in converting the children to Islam by force, and in enrolling them as soldiers in the service of the faith, one is working for their happiness in this world and their eternal salvation. According to the words of the Prophet, every infant comes into the world with the beginnings of Islam, which, developing in an army formed of Christian children, will encourage even in that of the infidels the ardor of conversion to Islam; and the new troop will recruit itself not merely with the children of the conquered, but also with a crowd of deserters from the enemy, united to the believers by common origin or pretended opinions.”[161] The sentiment of this declaration is woven of two strands, both ultimately religious,—a desire to convert great numbers to Islam, and a purpose to strengthen the army which wars for the faith.
Mohammed the Conqueror expressed the same idea poetically in a letter to Uzun Hassan: “Our empire is the home of Islam; from father to son the lamp of our empire is kept burning with oil from the hearts of the infidels.”[162] This declaration seems to reveal two things. First, the Conqueror asserts that, since by Moslem theory there can be but one Dar ul-Islam, or land of Islam, his empire is the sole lawful Moslem state; second, he declares that, by the policy of his house, the empire derives its strength from the ever-renewed supply of Christians. Whether this exegesis be exact or not, the fact is indisputable that the fundamental missionary spirit of Islam was strong in the Ottomans of the sixteenth century,[163] and that the Ruling Institution was deliberately conducted for the purpose, among others, of transferring the ablest and most useful of the subject Christians in each generation into the dominant nation. As the first Western observer who comprehended the system remarked, “This comes from no accident, but from a certain essential interior foundation and cause, which,” he feels it his Christian duty to say, with a helpless admiration, “is desperation of good, and obstinacy in evil, and ... is the work of the devil.”[164] Not only did Mohammedanism encourage the practice of taking in outsiders to serve, fight, and aid in ruling, but this practice was thoroughly in harmony with the old Turkish spirit which prevailed in the steppe lands, and a similar policy had been followed by the Byzantine Empire. Thus, in encouraging the incorporation of foreigners the three great influences which met in the Ottoman state had exerted a combined activity as perhaps in no other direction. The Ruling Institution acted for centuries as a great steadily-working machine for conversion.
Besides the combined religious and national purpose which led to the introduction of Christian youth into the system, other motives helped to give it definite shape. That purpose alone would hardly have caused a rigid rule to be laid down which would exclude Mohammedans. Here, undoubtedly, the well-known tendency of governments that rest on force to rely upon servants brought from a distance and owing all to their favor came strongly into play.[165] The sultan’s kullar were uniformly faithful to the hand that had raised them from poverty to high position. “Being all slaves by condition, and slaves of a single lord, from whom alone they hope for greatness, honor, and riches, and from whom alone on the other hand they fear punishment, chastisement, and death, what wonder that in his presence and in rivalry with each other they will do stupendous things?”[166] Having expected ill treatment from the enemies of their nation, they were drawn by the surprising contrast to deep gratitude and boundless devotion;[167] they were not attached to interests and traditions of family and property which would prevent full and loyal obedience; they learned what was taught them by their master’s command, and were not possessed by ideas and prejudices that would make them independent in mind and intractable. On the contrary, Moslems born and bred in pride of religion and nationality could not easily be moulded to the shape desired; the very title of kul was out of harmony with their beliefs; hence they were inherently unavailable for the system, and the recognition of this fact led to their rigid exclusion. An important reason for excluding children of renegades was that heredity of privilege and office was against Ottoman policy. The immunity from taxation that was enjoyed by the sultan’s officials would tend to the building up of vast fortunes that would be beyond the reach of public taxation;[168] and the power of great families entrenched behind large property interests would in time endanger the supremacy of the throne.[169]
Conversion was a principal object of the system, and favor and promotion waited as rewards upon acceptance of the Moslem faith. In fact, a young man was not fitted to participate in the system until he had turned Moslem. He could not be an Ottoman warrior and statesman and fail to profess and practise, in most respects, at any rate, the system which inspired his fighting and on whose principles the state rested. The garment was seamless: it must be either worn or not worn.
At the same time, conversion of the neophytes of the Ruling Institution seems not ordinarily to have been forcible.[170] The Ottomans were too wise to believe that the best results could be accomplished by such means. Their policy was rather to throw every difficulty in the way of remaining a Christian, and to offer every inducement to make the Moslem faith and system seem attractive. To this end their educational scheme helped greatly;[171] for it involved complete isolation from Christian ideas of every sort, and complete saturation in all the ideas of Mohammedanism, religious, moral, social, and political. Even those whose education was mainly physical were isolated from Christians in a strict Moslem environment. No doubt there were special rejoicings and rewards when a kul was ready to declare, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet,” as there were in like circumstances in the rest of the Ottoman world.[172] But the kullar seem not to have been urged to change their faith; on the contrary, an attitude of apparent indifference was sometimes taken with them.[173] Probably, however, few who remained long in the system failed to surrender sooner or later. Prejudices of child-hood would in time be overcome; what the majority did would tend to act powerfully upon the individual; the reward of a brilliant career would take clearer and more alluring shape, until in time, in the absence of all contrary suggestion, the real truth and value of the Mohammedan religion would make it appear to be the only worthy system. It is not surprising that the scheme seemed to Christians one of diabolical ingenuity.
What went on in the sultan’s slave-family in regard to the conversion of slaves went on in every Mohammedan household. Conversion was desired but not compelled, and reward awaited it.[174] Among female slaves also, even in the imperial harem, the same process was employed. Not merely the imperial slave-family, but the entire system of slavery that existed in the Ottoman Empire, was thus a great machine for the conversion of Christians into Turks.
It is not easy to learn what thoughts possessed the hearts of the members of the Ruling Institution. Enough is recorded, however, to show that not all who turned Moslem did so without mental reservation, and to prove that it was possible to hold fast to an inward belief in the superiority of Christianity through many years spent in the sultan’s service. It has been said sometimes that the converted Christians were more severe than the Moslems toward their brethren who remained steadfast.[175] This would be natural both because of the zeal of new converts, and because Christianity is intrinsically less tolerant than Mohammedanism; but the accusation does not seem to be supported as against the members of the Ruling Institution. A distinction must be drawn between behavior in time of war and in time of peace. The Janissaries were fierce fighters and terrible enemies; but religiously they belonged to a sect which was so liberal as to be accused of rank heresy, and even, it is said, to have been denied the name of true believers.[176] Many of the renegades were persons who held no sort of religion.[177] The grand vizier Rustem told Busbecq, after offering him great rewards if he would turn Moslem, that he believed in the salvation of those of other faiths;[178] and a deli, or scout, in his service confided to a French gentleman that, while he pretended to follow Mohammedanism, he was a Christian at heart.[179] The fact that a Genoese boy, taken at twelve years of age, educated as a favored page for eight or nine years, and evidently trained carefully in Mohammedan beliefs, would seize the first opportunity to escape shows what was possible beneath the surface.[180] Two generations earlier there was a renegade who cursed the day when he had turned Turk, but who felt that he could not go back.[181] Nor were the members of the system always submissive to the stricter rules of Mohammedan ethics. The Janissaries, for example, forced Bayezid II to reopen the wine shops of the capital, which in the religious fervor of his later years he had ordered closed;[182] and the members of the government were led by fondness for display and lavish expenditure into shameless venality, the cause and the effect being equally contrary to the teachings and example of Mohammed. The probability is that large numbers of the sultan’s slaves were merely nominal Mohammedans in religious belief, though they necessarily followed the larger part of the Moslem scheme of life.
Sons of Janissaries were not allowed to become Janissaries, although the rule began to be infringed about the end of Suleiman’s reign.[183] Sons of Spahis of the Porte might be admitted as pages and to the corps of Spahi-oghlans, but their grandsons were rigidly excluded.[184] Sons of great officials were provided with fiefs, or pensions, and so usually passed out of the Ruling Institution into the territorial army.[185] Thus few were allowed in the scheme beyond the first generation in the Moslem faith, and almost none beyond the second. The explanation of this has been given already: descendants of renegades were Moslems, and hence subject to the same disqualifications as members of Mohammedan families of long standing. Not all Moslems of the empire were counted Ottomans, or, as they called themselves, Osmanlis, or, as they are commonly called nowadays, Turks; for Arabs, Kurds, and other Mohammedans who had not adopted the Turkish language did not bear the Turkish name. But all the descendants of members of the Ruling Institution were added to the Ottoman-Turkish nationality. The total number of Janissaries in the three centuries during which they were recruited from Christian children has been estimated at five hundred thousand;[186] but, as reckoned above, the tribute boys furnished less than one-half of the recruits of the institution,[187] and the page system persisted in its original form after the Janissaries had become hereditary. From one to two millions of the flower of the Christian population must have been brought into the Ottoman nation by the operation of the Ruling Institution.
It does not necessarily follow that a like number of new Turkish families were thus founded. The Janissaries were not supposed to marry, although the rule was not strictly enforced;[188] a hundred years later, at any rate, the majority are said to have been unmarried.[189] As the Spahis of the Porte probably married late, when they married at all, the whole system had thus something of a monastic aspect.[190] High officials, it is true, were apt to keep harems of some size; yet the children even of these were ordinarily few in number.[191] Furthermore, the frequent fierce wars carried off many of the sultan’s slaves, and the danger of execution and of confiscation of property put a check on their establishment of families. It is probable, therefore, that the Ruling Institution, like most great slave-families, was wasteful of human life.[192] But although its Christian-born members may not have perpetuated their numbers, they nevertheless increased the Ottoman nation by the addition of such children as were born to them; and the Moslem descendants of these, sailing in quieter waters, doubtless became, both numerically and otherwise, a great strength to the nation.
Plato would have been delighted with the training of the sultan’s great family, though his nature would have revolted from its lowliness of birth. He would have approved of the life-long education, the equally careful training of body and mind, the separation into soldiers and rulers (even though it was not complete), the relative freedom from family ties, the system’s rigid control of the individual, and, above all, of the government by the wise. Whether the founders of the Ottoman system were acquainted with Plato will probably never be known, but they seem to have come as near to his plan as it is possible to come in a workable scheme. In some practical ways they even improved upon Plato,—as by avoiding the uncertainties of heredity, by supplying a personal directing power, by insuring permanence through a balance of forces, and by making their system capable of vast imperial rule.
In the largest sense the Ruling Institution was a school in which the pupils were enrolled for life. Constantly under careful drill and discipline, they advanced from stage to stage through all their days, rewarded systematically in accordance with their deserts by promotions, honors, and gifts, and punished rigorously for infraction of rules, while both rewards and punishments increased from stage to stage until the former included all that life under the Moslem scheme could offer, and the latter threatened to take away the life itself. The system also cared for all sides of the nature of its pupils, subject to the considerable limitation that it was especially a school of war and government. The bodies of all were trained as thoroughly as were the minds of the best. Though all received some mental training, including at least an acquaintance with the Moslem mode of life, the ablest were put through a severe course in Oriental languages and Moslem and Ottoman law, which embraced ethics and theology. Thus both body and mind, as well as the religious nature, were provided for systematically and through life. Looked at thus, the Ottoman educational scheme, in its relations to the whole lives of those under instruction, was more comprehensive than any Western institution of learning. The officers of a Western army are educated and organized in a life-long system which provides for both body and mind; but they do not learn theology and they do not govern the nation. Great American railroads and manufacturing corporations possess schemes of education and advancement which bear comparison to the Ottoman system in life-long scope, promotion for merit, and the possibility of rising from the bottom to the top; but the mental training which they give even to their ablest helpers is of a highly technical sort, which bears no comparison to the general learning and finished culture bestowed upon the most studious in the Ottoman scheme. In general, Western universities and educational systems, although they far surpass the Ottoman scheme in the scope and character of the intellectual training which they give, do not provide a comparable systematic training of the body; and their control over the lives of their students ceases early. The superior comprehensiveness of the Ottoman system was, of course, based upon the fact that its members were slaves. Their master could keep them at school all their lives, in order that they might become better and better trained to serve him. At the same time, reward was considered more potent than the rod. Unequalled prizes were offered in this school, so skilfully disposed and graded as to call out the utmost strivings and the best work of every pupil.
The first stages of the wide scheme, which constitute the educational system in its narrower sense, were a fitting introduction to the rest. All the recruits for the sultan’s slave-family, whether captured, bought, presented, or levied, to the number of probably three or four thousand annually, with an addition of ten or twelve thousand in the years of the devshurmeh,[193] were brought by a regular process before trained officials, carefully registered, and divided into two classes.[194] Those who best satisfied the criterions of bodily perfection, muscular strength, and intellectual ability so far as it could be judged without long testing,[195]—about one in every ten of the whole number,—were chosen for a superior quality of training, especially on the intellectual side. The remainder were destined for a different education, which was mainly physical.[196] The first regularly became pages and Spahis of the Porte, and the ablest of them rose to the great offices of the army and the government. The others regularly became Ajem-oghlans and Janissaries, but the ablest of these might also rise to positions as Spahis of the Porte and even as generals and officers of state.[197] Failure to be selected for the higher school was not, therefore, a final restriction to low position. Merit was recognized everywhere, and regularly led to promotion. At the same time, it was a distinct advantage to a young man to be chosen for the higher training, since he would receive greater care, would acquire more of both ornamental and useful learning, and would associate with those already great, and perhaps with the sultan himself.
Of those selected for the higher training, a portion were distributed among the households of the provincial governors and high officers at the capital.[198] These were probably brought up in much the same way as if they had remained with the sultan. The very choicest of the recruits, to the number of perhaps two hundred annually, or twelve to fifteen hundred in all,[199] were taken into three palaces of the sultan as Itch-oghlans, or pages. Three or four hundred were in the palace at Adrianople,[200] a like number in one at Galata,[201] and from five to eight hundred in the principal palace at Stamboul.[202] These were all handsome boys, physically perfect, and of marked intellectual promise. An excellent idea of the international character of the college is given by a Venetian writer, who said that the pages of the palace included Bulgarians, Hungarians, Transylvanians, Poles, Bohemians, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, a few French, many Albanians, Slavs, Greeks, Circassians, and Russians.[203]
The Itch-oghlans were dressed in suitable raiment and were well cared for without luxury.[204] That the sultan took a particular interest in the arrival of excellent specimens is evident from the reception that Menavino received.[205] The general Ottoman attitude toward the pages, and indeed toward all recruits, has been well expressed by a thoughtful observer: “The Turks rejoice greatly when they find an exceptional man, as though they had acquired a precious object, and they spare no labor or effort in cultivating him; especially if they discern that he is fit for war. Our plan [that is, in Western Europe] is very different; for if we find a good dog, hawk, or horse, we are greatly delighted, and we spare nothing to bring it to the greatest perfection of its kind. But if a man happens to possess an extraordinary disposition, we do not take like pains; nor do we think that his education is especially our affair; and we receive much pleasure and many kinds of service from the well-trained horse, dog, and hawk; but the Turks much more from a well-educated man (ex homine bonis moribus informato), in proportion as the nature of a man is more admirable and more excellent than that of the other animals.”[206]
That the primary object of the page system was educational appears from all contemporary observations. Not merely are their palaces termed “places for nourishing youths,”[207] but Menavino calls the place where he was taught “the palace school.”[208] Another writer gives chapters on “The Education of Young Men in the Seraglio,” and “The Studies and Learning in the Seraglio,”[209] and speaks of the young men as “designed for the great offices of the empire.” Another says, “And the said emperor does this good for the profit of his soul, and when they are grown up he takes them from there and gives them dignities and offices, according as it seems to the emperor they have deserved.”[210] Some of the pages were the personal servants of the sultan, and a band of thirty-nine constituted his gentlemen of the bedchamber, or Khas Oda.[211] These were the élite of all, chosen by selection after selection; and, though young, they ranked very high in the system. Since only a few of all the pages could attain to this honor, the remainder were at school for outside service.[212]
Besides many less direct descriptions of the course of training, two exist which are derived from men who passed through the palace school. Menavino tells his own story;[213] and Ricaut records what he learned from a Polish captive who had spent nineteen years in the sultan’s service and had reached high position.[214] Although these accounts were written one hundred and fifty years apart, they agree in essentials. Menavino does not refer to the physical training in arms and horsemanship; but at the time of his escape he showed himself, if not a courageous, yet an accomplished horseman. Postel, some twenty years after Menavino’s time, describes this training in some detail. He probably had his information from a French page named Cabazolles, whom he quotes as authority on one point.[215]
The pages were trained in the art of war, the use of all sorts of arms, and good horsemanship.[216] Suleiman took especial delight in watching their cavalry evolutions, and occasionally summoned a page who pleased him, conversed with him, and dismissed him with presents.[217] Also, by old Oriental custom, every page was taught some handicraft useful in his master’s service, and, no doubt, intended to provide for his own support in case of need.[218]
Menavino describes the course of study in the so-called Yeni Oda, or New Chamber, which contained from eighty to a hundred boys. “When a boy has remained five or six days in that school, they set him to learning the alphabet. There are four teachers in the school. One drills the boys in reading during their first year. Another teaches the Koran in the Arabic (Moresco) language, giving explanations of the different articles of their faith. After this a third teaches books in the Persian tongue, and some write a little, but they do not teach writing willingly. A fourth teaches Arabic books, both vulgar and literary.” It is interesting to notice that, from the first, rewards in the form of pay were given for labor. “These boys,” continues Menavino, “have a daily allowance of two aspers during the first year, three during the second year, four during the third year, and thus their allowance increases each year. They receive scarlet garments twice a year, and some robes of white cloth for the summer.”[219] Postel describes how they learned with great diligence Arabic and Turkish letters and the law.[220] Ricaut explains in more detail that the chief object of the course of study was to teach reading and writing for the purpose of giving inspection into the books of law and religion, especially the Koran. He says that Arabic was taught to enable the boys to inspect the writings of the judges and to have knowledge of religion, Persian to give them quaint words and handsome and gentle deportment, and adds that both tongues might be needed in governing Eastern regions. He gives a list of their text-books, and remarks that those who wished to become men of the pen studied with greater exactness. They were not, he says, taught logic, physics, metaphysics, mathematics, or geography, and their knowledge of ancient history was much mixed. “Yet as to the successes and progress of Affairs in their own Dominions,” he adds, “they keep most strict Registers and Records, which serve them as Presidents and Rules for the present Government of their Affairs.”[221] This shows that the pages were instructed in Turkish history and the various Kanun-namehs, or imperial laws. Most of the teachers were Anatolian Turks,[222] chosen no doubt, as imparting better pronunciation and more orthodox religious views.
Discipline was severe,[223] but was kept within bounds. A page could be beaten on the soles of his feet with no more than ten strokes, and not more than once on any one day.[224] The boys, organized in groups of ten, were watched carefully by eunuchs, both day and night.[225] Absolute obedience, modest behavior and decorum, and good manners were taught with great insistency.[226] The two sections, or odalar, at the palace seem to have been of equal rank,[227] while the schools in Pera and Adrianople ranked lower.[228] Select boys who had finished their studies were promoted through the different chambers of the personal service of the sultan to the Inner Chamber,[229] where twelve or fifteen of the thirty-nine held titular offices.[230] On reaching the age of twenty-five every page was sent out from the school.[231] Those from the Inner Chamber passed at once to places in the Noble Guard (Muteferrika), or to governorships of towns.[232] Ibrahim passed almost directly to the place of grand vizier;[233] but he was the first to break the regular order of promotion, and in after times much evil was held to date from the precedent.[234] The majority passed into the regular cavalry, or Spahis of the Porte.[235] Those who left the school were honored by a ceremony of farewell. The sultan personally commended each one, and gave him encouragement for good conduct in his new position. He presented each with an embroidered coat and one of his most beautiful horses, and often a gift in money. The young man, with all the presents he had received during his stay, was escorted to the great gate, where he mounted his horse triumphantly, and departed from the palace forever.[236]
Probably because of the tendency of the human mind to construct along parallel lines, the imperial harem partook of the characteristics of the schools of pages. There were two odalar, or rooms, for the recruits of the harem, in which they were taught housework, sewing and embroidery, manners and deportment.[237] They were organized in groups of ten, each group under a matron. Those with a taste for music and dancing learned those accomplishments, those who were studious learned to read and write. All were carefully instructed in the system of Islam. Like the pages, nearly all of them passed out of the palace at the age of twenty-five, being given in marriage to Spahis of the Porte or to other officials.[238] Thus the harem might be considered a training-school of slave-wives for the sultan himself and for the most highly honored of his kullar.
The term ajemi-oghlanlar signifies “foreign youth,” and was sometimes applied to all the young recruits. Ordinarily, however, it was given only to the remainder left after the pages had been selected. These, for the most part destined to become Janissaries, probably numbered about twenty thousand.[239] Their training was largely physical, industrial, and military, with oral instruction in the Turkish language and the principles of the Mohammedan system. The Ajem-oghlans usually passed through two or three stages. Unless they knew Turkish and something of Turkish ways, they were first scattered through Asia Minor in the service of Moslem country gentlemen.[240] There they were set at hard agricultural labor, to strengthen their bodies to the utmost. They were expected to learn to speak and understand the Turkish language and to learn the faith, the laws, and the customs of the Turks. The sultan allowed them no pay. The gentlemen whom they served, responsible for them to the sultan, supplied them with food and clothing and whatever else they were pleased to give.[241] The number of these Ajem-oghlans of the first stage may be estimated as ten thousand.[242] At the end of two or three years, or perhaps at about the time for a new devshurmeh,[243] officers came to examine them. If they knew enough Turkish and were strong and well-grown, they passed to the next stage.
Having been brought to Constantinople, and once more carefully inscribed and estimated,[244] the Ajem-oghlans were again distributed, but now in groups. About two thousand were assigned to service with the fleet at Gallipoli.[245] Another two thousand, probably the most intelligent, were appointed as gardeners, or Bostanjis, to the sultan’s palaces in Stamboul, Adrianople, Brusa, and Magnesia;[246] and five hundred or more served in other capacities about the palaces, as wood-cutters, helpers in the kitchen, and the like.[247] Five or six thousand were kept in Constantinople and employed in the shipyards or on public buildings,[248] or were hired out in bands of one hundred or more to private citizens for hard labor of various sorts.[249] Some were hired out similarly in other cities.[250] In the midst of such a variety of occupations, two objects seem always to have been kept in mind,—the Ajem-oghlans were to develop the utmost strength of body, and they were to learn some trade useful in war.[251] In this stage they were normally organized in groups or messes of ten. The gardeners were under the charge of an official of high rank and great authority, who bore the humble title of Bostanji-bashi, or head gardener; he was aided by under officers and an administrative staff. Those in Constantinople were under the orders of an Agha, or general officer, with a staff of under officials, clerks, and accountants.[252] Being filled with the spirit of youth, conscious of their superior physical strength and privileged position, gathered together in large groups, and unrestrained by substantial mental instruction, the Ajem-oghlans were by no means easy to manage. They frequently raised great disturbances in the city, in emulation perhaps of the Janissaries.[253] Those who wished were allowed to learn to read and write, but they were not obliged to do so.[254] They received a small amount of pay, with food and clothing.[255]
After a certain time spent in this stage of development, the majority of the Ajem-oghlans were assigned, one by one as each seemed ready, to the service of the odalar, or messes, of the Janissaries.[256] The latter then became responsible for their training in the art of war, and discharged this duty with much zeal. In the course of time, as the Ajem-oghlans acquired sufficient skill, and as vacancies occurred, they were enrolled as full-fledged Janissaries.[257] The gardeners of the sultan’s palaces and the palace servants seem not ordinarily to have become Janissaries, but to have been advanced toward the directing of the transport, commissary, and artillery services, the oversight of the imperial stables, and like positions in the administration of the army and the great household.[258] No doubt some of those assigned to the fleet were promoted in the navy, but most of them seem to have become Janissaries.[259] Thus a large number and variety of openings lay before the Ajem-oghlans, who as they became ready were advanced into them. The ordinary age of graduation from the corps was twenty-five years,[260] which may be regarded as the age of majority for all the sultan’s slaves. At times war caused such depletion of the upper service that Ajem-oghlans were promoted before they had reached the desired age or were thoroughly ready.[261]
The entire system from start to finish was designed to reward merit and fully to satisfy every ambition that was backed by ability, effort, and sufficient preparation. Two parallel lines of reward were established, the honorable and the financial. In the page school the first was represented by promotion from class to class, and, in the case of those who were observed to be the most suitable, by advancement through the chambers of personal service to the Khas Oda. In this oda they were promoted in regular order through the twelve or more special offices.[262]
Among the Ajem-oghlans the process seems to have been carried on by carefully observing and testing individuals, by advancing them from stage to stage on this basis, and by entrusting them in the later stages with greater and greater responsibilities. The financial reward began for the pages immediately upon admission to the school. It was then probably about equal to the daily wages of an unskilled laborer. This was increased regularly year by year, and in the Khas Oda reached the proportions of a handsome salary.[263] The Ajem-oghlans depended during the first stage on the rewards assigned by their temporary masters. After that stage they began to receive a small amount of pay from the sultan, which was gradually increased.[264] All were provided with food, lodging, and at least a part of their clothing, and individuals might hope to obtain special gifts.
This double system was continued without a break through the entire institution. The lowest Janissary might hopefully aspire to promotion, either through the hierarchy of office in his own corps, or by being lifted out of it for service in the cavalry or the active administration.[265] The pages who had passed out of the school were already well up in the scale of advancement, and every place except the sultan’s own was within their grasp. The grand vizier, indeed, might wield almost the whole of the sultan’s power, a fact which Ibrahim, shortly before his fall, realized so fully that he added to his title of Seraskier the word Sultan.[266] The losses occasioned by fierce and frequent wars, and by not infrequent depositions and executions, gave abundant opportunity for men to rise from below. Conquest was continually adding new offices and commands. The whole Ruling Institution was, so to speak, in a constant state of boiling, in which the human particles were rapidly rising to the top, and, alas, disappearing, while others rose as rapidly behind them.
The figure just employed is applicable, however, only to the mere phenomenon of rising: the upward movement was not in the least accidental or automatic; it was conducted with keen intelligence at every stage. Now and then, as in the case of Ibrahim, favor disturbed the scheme; but this happened very seldom before the end of Suleiman’s reign. Sometimes a temporary confusion resulted from extraordinary losses in war, but order was soon restored. There is reason to believe that human history has never known a political institution which during so long a period was so completely dominated by sheer intellect, and thereby so unerringly held to its original plan and purpose, as was the Ottoman Ruling Institution. The democracy of Athens attained an unexampled level of average intelligence, but under its sway the exceptional mind received discouragement rather than exceptional training. The free democracies of the present age allow the gifted individual opportunities to fight his way upward, but against obstacles which sometimes become insuperable. These systems are unquestionably superior on the whole to the Ottoman scheme, because of their inclusiveness and individual freedom; but as regards sheer efficiency, unobstructed opportunity, and certainty of reward, their operation is wasteful, clumsy, and blind by comparison.
Some testimonies of shrewd contemporary observers will show how they regarded the Ottoman scheme of promotion both in itself and in comparison with Western ways. The intelligent author of the Tractatus is impressed by the unity and control of the scheme. “Out of the aforesaid slaves,” he writes, “promotions are made to the offices of the kingdom according to the virtues found in them. Whence it comes about that all the magnates and princes of the whole kingdom are as it were officials made by the king, and not lords or possessors; and as a consequence he is the sole lord and possessor, and the lawful dispenser, distributer, and governor of the whole kingdom; the others are only executors, officials, and administrators according to his will and command.... Whence it follows that in his kingdom, although there is an innumerable multitude, no contradiction or opposition can arise; but, united as one man in all respects and for all purposes, they look to his command alone, they obey and serve unwearyingly.”[267]
Postel says: “The Seigneur [or sultan] has four or several principal personages for all the business of his empire, whether in war or justice, and they are promoted to this honor by degrees from lower offices, always mounting and giving good examples of living, unless by some extraordinary favor the prince raises them from some low place, which is very perilous.”[268] Speaking of the pages in the palace, he adds: “When they have lived there a long time and done well, they are given a place where they receive pay, and they are made Castellans and given other offices used among them. If there are some who have the ability to make themselves known, they may have the best fortune in the world, and become governors of the land and Pashas; for there they judge of nobility by the worth which they see appearing in a man, and they give honors according to the evidence of his past.”[269] Of Suleiman, Tanco says, “He sows hope of certain reward in all conditions of men, who by means of virtue, may succeed in mounting to better fortune”; and of the Janissaries, “Each has his good and real fortune in his hand.”[270]
Among all observers, Busbecq seems to have been most impressed with the system of advancement by merit. “The Turks,” he tells us, “do not measure even their own people by any other rule than that of personal merit. The only exception is the house of Ottoman; in this case, and in this case only, does birth confer distinction.”[271]
Referring to his audience with Suleiman, he says: “There was not in all that great assembly a single man who owed his position to aught save his valour and his merit. No distinction is attached to birth among the Turks; the deference to be paid to a man is measured by the position he holds in the public service. There is no fighting for precedence; a man’s place is marked out by the duties he discharges. In making his appointments the sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank, nor does he take into consideration recommendations or popularity; he considers each case on its own merits, and examines carefully into the character, ability, and disposition of the man whose promotion is in question. It is by merit that men rise in the service, a system which ensures that posts should only be assigned to the competent. Each man in Turkey carries in his own hand his ancestry and his position in life, which he may make or mar as he will. Those who receive the highest offices from the sultan are for the most part the sons of shepherds or herdsmen, and so far from being ashamed of their parentage, they actually glory in it, and consider it a matter of boasting that they owe nothing to the accident of birth; for they do not believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary, nor do they think that they can be handed down from father to son, but that they are partly the gift of God, and partly the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal; arguing that high qualities do not descend from a father to his son or heir, any more than a talent for music, mathematics, or the like; and that the mind does not derive its origin from the father, so that the son should necessarily be like the father in character, but emanates from heaven, and is thence infused into the human body. Among the Turks, therefore, honours, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service. If a man be dishonest, or lazy, or careless, he remains at the bottom of the ladder, an object of contempt; for such qualities there are no honours in Turkey!
“This is the reason that they are successful in their undertakings, that they lord it over others, and are daily extending the bounds of their empire. These are not our ideas; with us there is no opening left for merit; birth is the standard for everything; the prestige of birth is the sole key to advancement in the public service.”[272]
Finally, Ricaut, after describing the Ajem-oghlans, declares that this part of the system “is one of the most Politick Constitutions in the World, and none of the meanest supports of the Ottoman Empire.”[273]
Financial rewards paralleled advancement in office with great exactness. When a man came to high position, he was provided with the means to live splendidly in proportion to his rank. In addition to his salary, many opportunities of increasing his income presented themselves; and though some of these would be considered undignified in Western eyes,[274] and others were undoubtedly stained with rapacity and extortion,[275] they were allowed to be enjoyed under all ordinary circumstances. The sultan’s higher officials not only lived in great splendor, with a numerous retinue, a large harem, and many costly garments, dishes, gems, and the like, but they often accumulated great wealth in money, houses, lands, mills, horses, cattle, sheep, and everything else that is considered worth collecting.[276] Thus, as men were promoted, they were enabled regularly to proportion display of wealth to rank and office.
The example of one of Suleiman’s chief servants will illustrate the cursus honorum in the Ottoman system. Ali Pasha was a native of Dalmatia. Levied with the tribute boys, he was admitted to the principal palace at the time when Ibrahim was Oda-bashi, or head of the Inner Chamber of pages. In the course of time he was made Kapuji, or gatekeeper. When Ibrahim became grand vizier, Ali became Chasnejir, or chief taster, to Suleiman, and held that office during the expedition to Vienna in 1529. In due course he was discharged from the palace, and appointed to high office outside. He soon reached the grade of Agha, or general or the Ghurebas, the lowest of the four divisions of the regular cavalry, and was then promoted to be Agha of the Spahi-oghlans, the highest of the cavalry divisions. Next he became second equerry and later first equerry (Emir-al-Akhor), then Agha of the Janissaries, then Beylerbey of Rumelia. In the last capacity he attended the sultan in the Persian war of 1548-1549. As a reward for special services in the war he was made pasha of Egypt in 1549, and at the time of his departure was nominated vizier. Returning to Constantinople in 1553, he was made third vizier, and upon the death of Rustem in 1561, he became grand vizier. Because of jealousies and enmities caused by his promotions he had hardly a friend left; nevertheless, he was able to hold the favor of Suleiman until his death in 1565.[277]
The system did not attempt to rely wholly upon the glittering attractions of indefinite promotion and enormously increasing wealth. Not all men can be allured to remain unswervingly within a narrow path of strict obedience and whole-hearted service. Pages and Ajem-oghlans were held to severe discipline by sufficient and certain punishment; but their teachers and eunuch masters were required to keep that punishment within bounds by the certainty of yet severer punishment.[278] Ajem-oghlans might be beaten, or sold out of the sultan’s service. After the close of the strictly educational period, punishment, like reward, followed continuously the law of proportionate increase. The higher the position, the heavier the punishment of being passed over in promotion, or of being actually degraded. Fines and confiscations also grew with rank. At no great height in the scale, the personal punishments reached that of death, and death was always very near the highest officials. Any tendency toward treason or revolt, any act of disobedience, sometimes a plot against a higher official, sometimes even a disagreement with the sultan in a matter of policy,[279] would lead to sudden execution. The viziers of Selim I carried their wills in their bosoms; and well they might, since the heads of seven are said to have fallen at his command.[280]
Thus was the system carefully kept clear of all the human material that seemed to endanger its working or threaten its unity. There was no sympathy for weakness, no accepting of excuses, no suspension of sentence, no mercy. Suleiman did not always have the heart to execute promptly; but in the end he had no alternative, so remorseless was the system. Even his best friend, Ibrahim, went too far and had to be removed. Two of his sons, the oldest and ablest, threatened the system in turn, and one after the other suffered the bow-string. Small wonder that Suleiman’s soul was not filled with joy at the victory of Jerbé. “Those who saw Solyman’s face in this hour of triumph,” says Busbecq, “failed to detect in it the slightest trace of undue elation. I can myself positively declare, that when I saw him two days later on his way to the mosque, the expression of his countenance was unchanged; his stern features had lost nothing of their habitual gloom; one would have thought that the victory concerned him not, and that this startling success of his arms had caused him no surprise. So self-contained was the heart of that grand old man, so schooled to meet each change of fortune however great, that all the applause and triumph of that day wrung from him no sign of satisfaction.”[281] Arbiter of the destinies of so many men, compelled to be remorseless as fate, Suleiman could allow joy no place in his soul. He who wielded as severe a rod as ever man held must maintain over himself the sternest discipline of all.