From the mid-seventeenth century onward, sovereignty came to be wielded and statehood was understood in the Ottoman Empire in a more corporate and less dynastic way than before. Governmental continuity thus strengthened in many respects. Leading chancery bureaus of the Imperial Council shifted from the monarch's court to the grand vizier's. The bureaucracy became institutionalised notwithstanding the unseatings and appointments of grand viziers, a de facto foreign ministry was born from within the imperial chancery, and outgrowths in document genres as well as more specialised practices in record keeping arose. Historians have acknowledged the outcomes thereof in foreign dealings (above all with European governments), bureaucratisation, and the functional evolution (if not promulgation by name) of modern institutions.Footnote 1 Our knowledge in this field will grow further as we dig into the rather overlooked history of the Ottomans’ long eighteenth century.
This essay first deals with the seemingly scribal but indeed executive role that the master-class (hâcegân/efendi) secretaries of the Ottoman chancery played in putting the empire's foreign policy into words. Then it handles one of the chancery's particular outputs: what may be called stepwise-wrought or many-inputted documents, which took shape as one bureau worked these papers, filled them in, and forwarded them to another bureau up or down the ladder. These set an eye-grabbing example of how the chancery practice of writing down and keeping financial dealings between officials, commissioners, and treasuries can shed light on those matters of political history that have been unknown to us. On the basis of these two topics, the essay looks in the end at how far the handled phenomena could be linked to the rise of the early modern chancery, growth in governmental departmentalisation, understanding of sovereign statehood, and the “lore” of documentation, as well as record keeping.
Putting the Imperial Meaning into Words: The State Secretary Draws Up Top-Level Diplomatic Correspondence
From the Treaty of Zuhab (1639) to the downfall of the Safavid kingdom (1722), Ottoman–Safavid dealings lacked a new pact underwritten by both sides. During these eighty-four years of peacetime, no new examples from the much discussed, widely published, and well-researched genre of pledge-deeds (ahid-nâme) arose,Footnote 2 and hence neither did the formal treaties (muâhede), which would come into being through the two sides’ swapping their pledge-deeds. The same is true also for protocols (temessük), which both sides’ plenipotentiaries would draw up and underwrite following a settlement reached at peace talks, and whose text would afterwards be repeated in pledge-deeds, treaties, peace-instruments (sulh-nâme), or ratifications (tasdîk-nâme).
Within the time span handled in this essay too was there no new contract drafted and underwritten together by the two sides. We have (mis)taken this, however, for a lack of dealings between the two sides, whereas the genres of monarchal epistle (nâme-i hümâyun) and grand-vizierial letter (mektûb-i sâmî) bear witness to how lively relations were throughout this peacetime. In the given framework, these genres took up the function that was otherwise fulfilled by treaties and pledge-deeds. Monarchal epistles thus renewed the Treaty of Zuhab and lengthened its life-span no less than nine times. Unlike the ahid-nâmes that the Ottomans sent out to European states, these epistles that renewed the peace did not have the ruler's monogram (tuğra) on them. Neither did they repeat the original contract clauses one by one, confining themselves instead to referencing the treaty and its conditions as a whole. The same genre of monarchal epistles, together with that of grand-vizierial letters, also changed the status quo of the Ottoman–Safavid peace no less than three times after 1639. They likewise wrote down the deals struck at unrecorded bargainings between host governments and guest ambassadors, or, as an outcome of failed talks, the calling-off of former settlements.Footnote 3
The growing weight of monarchal epistles and grand-vizierial letters in Ottoman–Safavid diplomacy betokens a better-known phenomenon in early modern Ottoman history: the rise of the state secretary (reisü’l-küttâb) from head-director of the imperial chancery to de facto minister of foreign affairs. In diplomacy with European states, this growth in the authority of the state secretary was felt more and from an earlier stage, owing to this dignitary's also having taken on the position of imperial plenipotentiary and foremost negotiator in peace talks abroad as well as negotiations at home. His input in Ottoman–Safavid diplomacy, on the other hand, was rather in his scribal capacity, as drafting epistles and letters to be sent to the shah and his prime minister was within his job definition. More often than not, he had to draw up these writings with a jeweller's precision, for in the lexiphanic style of eastern literary composition, the difference between a conventional threat and an earnest last warning, or between customary courtesy and a true show of friendship, was mostly uttered by means of shadings within and slight deviations from the norm rather than straightforward and explicit statements. The state secretary therefore needed to have competency beyond what was expected of a chancery head, although he was still operating within the scribal field.
One of the examples of this shift comes from 1642. In this year, Shah Abbas II sent two epistles to Padishah Ibrahim and Grand Vizier Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Pasha through ambassador Karadağlı Maksud Sültan. The shah made known that he was enthroned and would abide by the peace. He also openly acknowledged Ottoman supremacy. Kemankeş Mustafa answered him next year with a letter, by which the Sublime Porte (i.e., imperial government) renewed the Treaty of Zuhab. Former state secretary Sarı Abdullah Efendi was entrusted with drawing up this critical writing.Footnote 4
Sarı Abdullah was the Constantinopolitan-born son of a northwest African prince who had resettled to the Ottoman capital. Learning, among other subjects, Arabic, Persian, and calligraphy in his teenage years, he served on the Iranian front as scribe (kâtib) at the grand-vizierial chancery, after which he shows up again as the secretary (tezkireci) of the Imperial Council and lastly twice as the state secretary on Murad IV's Iranian campaigns during the 1620s and ’30s. After the Treaty of Zuhab, he held high-ranking posts at imperial financial departments.Footnote 5 In 1643, he put together an anthology of the correspondence that he had thitherto drawn up for various dignitaries, which he named Düstûrü’l-İnşâ (Norms of Composition).
That he was entrusted with drafting this weighty writ, at a time that he was no longer the state secretary but an overseer at the finance department, means that the Sublime Porte was aware of his outstanding skill, which he shows above all in phraseology and terminology. This former head of the imperial chancery left his mark in the aforesaid diplomatic exchange by blending the patronising and condescending meaning of the message into the courtly convention of the genre, by which it was expected of the grand vizier, even when threatening the shah, to speak to the ruler of Iran with respect. Shaping such a key text called for not only wordsmithery but also policy counselling.
A later case exemplifies the weight of the state secretary's input to Ottoman–Safavid diplomacy even better. By means of an epistle in 1691, Shah Süleyman had followed through with the fresh “brotherhood and coalition” between the two states, and upheld Ottoman supremacy. In his answer in 1692, Ahmed II said that the Ottomans and the Safavids had to abide by their “brotherly” peace bidden by God, and that he wished the treaty to last forever. Again, the Sublime Porte showed great care in the wording. State secretary Kara Ebubekir Efendi, who was a born Iranian, was entrusted with crafting the text. Coming from Shirvan, he had gone on pilgrimage with his father to Hejaz and settled down in the empire. First recruited into the household of the governor-general of Egypt in Cairo, and then into that of the Köprülüs in Constantinople, he later made his way into the master class of the Imperial Council secretaries. The poetic harmony in composition and eloquence in wording of this groundbreaking epistle (in that it redefined the Ottoman–Safavid peace, which thitherto had to be renewed by new monarchs, now to be an everlasting brotherhood) did not go unacknowledged. In a deed unheard-of in the whole of Ottoman history, the monarch's handwrit (hatt-ı hümâyun) reconfirmed Kara Ebubekir as state secretary for life in appreciation of his skill as witnessed in this missive to the shah. Although afterwards this lifelong appointment was called off, he later served as state secretary again for three more terms.Footnote 6 This gratification of Kara Ebubekir should not make us wonder: the Sublime Porte put utmost weight in this correspondence that underscored a diplomatic revolution in the Middle East. Moreover, this text stands out within its genre as a literary show of strength in composition and phraseology.
Yet another example is the letter of 1695 from the Ottoman grand vizier to the Iranian governor of Kirmanşah, Süleymân Murtazâ-Kulu Xan. The then state secretary, Reference RâmîRâmî Mehmed Efendi, was entrusted with drawing up the text. Although the grand vizier's tone in his written word as drafted by this chancery head was mostly reassuring, the text spoke softly but carried a big stick.Footnote 7
Râmî Mehmed was a career employee of the Imperial Council's chancery (silk-i kalemiye). He had risen through its ranks and become a scribe. A chancery employee could reach this position only after training and practice of ten to fifteen years first as apprentice (şâgird), then as journeyman (kalfa). Given a raise to the class of master secretary before long, Râmî Mehmed became state secretary in 1694. He and the head dragoman of the Imperial Council served as the empire's plenipotentiaries at the peace gathering that brought about the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, and thanks to his skill in negotiating, there he made a name for himself among his colleagues representing the German emperor, the Polish king, and the Venetian Republic. Entrusting plenipotentiary powers in the name of the Ottoman monarch to these two chancery overseers betokens a groundbreaking moment in the history of the Ottoman scribal service, in that career employees had now gone beyond being wordsmiths and become foreign-policy executives outfitted with extraordinary ambassadorial authorisation. Râmî Mehmed's career as shaped by his chancery service was soon topped when he reached the highest post in the empire, the grand vizierate.Footnote 8
In other words, a chancery director, who once drafted a diplomatic letter on behalf of his head of government, rose so high as to himself become the head of government in less than eight years after the aforesaid commission. Again, although one can see more concrete examples of this phenomenon by looking at the state secretary's functioning in the Ottoman Empire's European diplomacy, the above-outlined case from Asian dealings also hints at how the Ottoman scribal service, as its overseers came to the fore by partaking in the conduct of diplomacy, in the end found the highest political posts, once the monopoly of the ruling/military class, within its reach.
The Ottoman state secretary busied himself in dealings with the shah's court not only as scribe, adviser, or ceremony attendee. By definition of his post, he was in all likelihood the empire's leading delegate who dealt with Safavid ambassadors at court, as he did with missions coming from European states.
The Sublime Porte deemed the talks that it held with incoming ambassadors to be state secrets. That is why their content was not made public. In such settings at the imperial court, the reisülküttâb still fulfilled key tasks as the foremost negotiator, although an Iranian–Ottoman peace conference did not gather in the timespan handled here, which otherwise could make the state secretary shifting into a minister of foreign affairs shine out even more. Friendships could come about between an Ottoman state secretary and a visiting Safavid ambassador, and live on even after the embassy went back to Iran.Footnote 9 Therefore, the state secretary must have been playing a leading role in talks at court and working together with Safavid embassies insomuch that they bred personal ties. That the friendship between an Ottoman state secretary and a former Safavid ambassador went on, such as in the case of Râmî Mehmed and Ebulmasum Şamlu in 1696–8, hints that the imperial secretary and the Iranian ambassador indeed collaborated.Footnote 10 For these two officials to work together must have become a given after the mid-seventeenth century.
Maybe the most substantial role that the state secretary played in Ottoman–Safavid diplomacy other than as scribe or negotiator is seen in in the following case: In 1698, Kavuk Mehmed Bey-Efendi, formerly twice the state secretary and then the trustee of the Imperial Registry (Defterhâne-i Hâkânî emîni), was sent as ambassador to the shah, and therefor titularly made pasha. Kavuk Mehmed had risen through the ranks of the chancery, having served earlier as the grand-vizierial secretary (mektûbî-yi sadr-ı âlî) and the treasury secretary (rûz-nâmçe efendisi). After his aforesaid embassy, this chancery master would be made vizier and serve as governor-general in many provinces. Throughout the eighty-four years of peacetime from the Treaty of Zuhab until the downfall of the Safavids in Iran, Kavuk Mehmed was the only ambassadorial-ranking Ottoman diplomat sent to the shah's court. Moreover, politically, the embassy of this chancery overseer embodied the culmination of the Ottoman–Safavid alliance: it started between Baghdad, Constantinople, and Isfahan the coordination of a military campaign in Kurdistan and the north of the Persian Gulf.Footnote 11 Kavuk Mehmed was also the first diplomat sent to Iran whom the Sublime Porte picked from the scribal career.
All these were the outcome of a new administrative setup that had begun in the mid-seventeenth century and deepened step by step. Probably since the fifteenth century, Ottoman reisülküttâb had been the director of the Imperial Council's chancery, besides being responsible for decrees, appanage charters, and appointment diplomas. His role in this field had widened throughout the sixteenth century, and came to also include drafting nâmes, issuing passports for foreign diplomats, translating incoming letters from other states, and keeping international writs.
“Great” chancellor (nişancı) Celâlzâde Mustafa Efendi's career in the early and mid-sixteenth century saw the first of the two early modern reorganisations of the Ottoman administrative departments. Switching from academic to chancery career, he first functioned as scribe. Even at this rank, he stood out as the confidential secretary of Selim (I) the Grim, whose utterances he even dared to rephrase to the padishah's face. He then served for eight years as the grand vizier's secretary and meanwhile schooled Pargalı İbrahim Pasha in the ways of prime ministership. In this capacity, Celâlzâde Mustafa played a leading role in the imperial reform of governance in Egypt. This achievement brought about his appointment as reisülküttâb. While at this post, although the head-director of the imperial chancery was not yet the reisülküttâb but still the nişancı, he was nevertheless entrusted with drafting weighty nâme-i hümâyuns and fermâns owing to his skill as a wordsmith. After ten years as state secretary, he was made nişancı by Süleyman the Magnificent following the taking of Baghdad from the Safavids, and he stayed on as chancellor for twenty-three years. Celâlzâde Mustafa was the foremost chancery master shaping the standardisation of Ottoman official texts, dîvânî inscriptio, and diplomatic formulations. Most famous was Suleiman's epistle to shah Tahmasp, which he also crafted. For almost a century, the imperial chancery drew on his expressions in decrees, charters, diplomas, and correspondence as models.Footnote 12
After the mid-seventeenth-century administrative reorganisation, some bureaus of the state chancery stayed at the Imperial Council within the palace court, and some bureaus were resettled outside to the grand vizierate (Bâb-ı Âsafî/Paşa Kapısı). As an outgrowth of this specialisation, some chancery masters, first and foremost the state secretary, came to busy themselves with diplomacy as not only traditional scribes but also negotiators and contact persons with missions at the imperial court, plenipotentiaries at international peace gatherings, and diplomats in outgoing imperial missions. The state secretary also began to oversee the Sublime Porte's correspondence with foreign diplomats, drafting credentials and instructions for outgoing Ottoman diplomats, drawing up the grand vizier's letters to foreign prime ministers, and writing down the minutes of negotiations. Thus the Ottoman state secretary evolved into a de facto minister of foreign affairs, rising from the early scribal role first to advisership on international conventions and in the end to the conduct of diplomacy. Next to the already established criteria for appointment as reisülküttâb, the Sublime Porte now also came to seek in the candidates experience in talks with foreign diplomats, former service in the chancery bureaus specialising in interstate writings, and knowledge in drafting muâhedes as well as nâmes.Footnote 13
Betokening this trend, the last Ottoman mission to Safavid Iran was led by Dürrî Ahmed Efendi, another career employee of the imperial scribal bureaus, where he had risen to the class of master secretary and held bureaucratic posts. While an overseer at the finance chancery in 1720, he was titularly made minister of finance (defterdâr) and appointed as imperial envoy to the shah of Iran shortly before the downfall of the Safavid kingdom. He is well known for his later report of this Iranian legation.Footnote 14
Alongside the above-outlined widening in authority, the chancery service kept on operating in its traditional role of drafting diplomatic correspondence in foreign relations throughout the early modern period. Even in this capacity, outstanding secretaries could sometimes leave their own marks on the texts that they wrote in the name of imperial dignitaries. The following case is a fitting example thereof: In 1655, the field marshal (Ott. serdâr; Saf. sipehsâlâr) of the east, Melek Ahmed Pasha, specifically chose master secretary (dîvân efendisi) Gınâyizâde Ali Efendi, who was then posted at Van, to draw up his letters to the Iranian governor-general of Azerbaijan, for Gınâyizâde Ali had already made a name for himself with the letter he had written on behalf of the governor-general of Baghdad to none other than the shah of Iran. The field marshal ordered that these letters be likeable and eloquent while at the same time threatening the addressee with military action.Footnote 15
Likewise, in 1701, the then field marshal of the east, Daltaban Mustafa Pasha, ordered Baghdad's chancery master Nazmizâde Murtezâ Efendi to draw up a last warning for the Iranian headquarters to leave Basra. Nazmizâde Murtezâ's former and later drafts commissioned by the governors of Baghdad highlight his choice for a rather lexiphanic style.Footnote 16 That he this time shaped a text which was strikingly straightforward in words is therefore remarkable. In light of the garnished phrasing that otherwise marks his writings, the straightforwardness in this one must have stemmed only from the finality of Daltaban Mustafa's meaning and his outspoken direction to the master secretary.
Inter-Chancery Production: Bureaus Work Up Documents Stepwise into Many-Inputted Records
The imperial chancery not only had a share in executing Ottoman foreign policy in dealings with Iran. Its secretaries also helped make diplomatic practice into knowledge, thanks to the upswing in the output of stepwise-wrought archival records and to improvement in the state's ways of record keeping. We have undervalued this composite genre, though, above all in political and diplomatic history.
Such stepwise-wrought papers were typically started by a petition (arzıhâl) from a nonofficial, or by an exposition (arz) from an official. Next, the relevant minister, such as that of finance (defterdâr), worded the content anew and laid the case before the grand vizier in a summarisation (telhîs). The grand vizier then put in his behest (buyrultu) bestowing, rejecting, or forwarding the request to the relevant department, such as the Chief Accounting Bureau (Baş Muhâsebe Kalemi), the central treasury (Hazîne-i Âmire), or the Imperial Registry (Defterhâne-i Hâkânî), for the request's rightfulness to be crosschecked with the logs. The receiving department then fetched the relevant records (more often than not a defter kaydı in Persian language and siyâkat script, and sometimes an itemised list of outgoings, i.e., müfredat), copied them, and then wrote down its opinion on whether the fetched records matched or gainsaid the beseeched claim. Sometimes, further inputs of manifold kinds come up. For example, the grand-vizierial chancery or the finance minister could tell the involved department to further work up the information that was put together before giving the end verdict, which might be that a treasury bill (hazîne tezkiresi) be drafted for the requested payment, reimbursement, or deduction.
That these government writs went through such steps affords an outstanding case from within the “lore” of documentation, in that these are much more accountable than most other records to be found in archival holdings. Firstly, the writ as a whole took shape stepwise at the hands of at least four agents of separate stocks, whose inputs could and sometimes did gainsay one another. If so, they marked it down in the document. Thus, when the inputs of the writ—including the applicant's request, the involved ministry's rewording, the grand-vizierial command, the referred minister's notification, and the referred department's logs—overlap each other in information, we have before us a sound source which held good through verification steps from the time it began to shape up. Next, we sometimes have the means to further verify the writ's content by crosschecking with the referenced precedent named in the starting petition, usually a decree (fermân), and with financial logs, the copies of whose fetched records we see on the document. Usually, one can also find another copy of the decree in the extant registers of important affairs (Mühimme Defterleri), courthouse registries (Kadı Sicilleri), in the references of documents drawn up independently from the handled one, or as an end draft signed off and ordered by the grand vizier to be sent out as the padishah's decree. Of the many drafts of decrees (which sometimes have words crossed out or fitted in as well as other editings) housed at the Ottoman archives, we can trust, unless shown otherwise, in the finality and fulfilled issuance of those that have on top of the main text the grand vizier's two stylized paraphs, which evolved from the spelling of and stood for “true” (sahh) and “bidden” (buyuruldu). Whereas all of these together do not rule out the critical filter one needs to set when handling each source, they nevertheless make a document outstandingly sound and very unlikely to be gainsaid.Footnote 17
Public documents for diplomacy, such as chronicles or correspondence between states, may not always tell of what indeed happened, sometimes overlooking even a whole mission. In such instances, the stepwise documentation brought forth by strings of reimbursement petitions, financial summaries, accounting reports, and governmental orders of payment may shed light on a missing link.
One example is the Safavid embassy of 1696–7 to the imperial court. By means thereof, the shah's government made known that its steadfastness to uphold the Peace of Zuhab, to work together with the empire along the southern flank of their frontier, and to abide by the principle of Ottoman supremacy in word as well as in deed, did not hinge upon circumstances but was its main policy. Notwithstanding the weight of the occasion, the date of 15 February 1697, on which ambassador Ebulmasum Şamlu Xan set out from the imperial court at Adrianople towards Iran, can be found out only thanks to the logs of his state-subsidised provisioning in the first two months of his stay at court and the estimate made for the sixteen days left until the time he would foreseeably head out. The dealings involved correspondence and itemisations by the chief accounting bureau, the grand vizierate, the barley trusteeship, and the deputy minister of finance, as well as treasury notes about the bread-makers guild and the head butcher regarding the allotment of grain, straw, and meat.Footnote 18 In light of the outcome of the diplomatic bargain between this embassy and the Sublime Porte on the one hand, and the empire's ongoing struggle against the Holy League (namely the armies of Russia in the Ukraine, Poland in Moldavia, German states in Hungary, and Venice in Greece) on the other, knowing the exact days of events becomes vital. Any update reaching the imperial court from the front or from one of the warring sides could shift the Ottomans’ footing in talks with Safavid Iran, as would happen within just a few years.
Another example is from the next Safavid embassy, which came in the following year. This mission marked the heyday of the Ottoman–Safavid alliance and teamwork along the frontier. Notwithstanding how weighty it was in light of the upcoming peace talks with the Holy League, the dates of ambassador Rüstem Zengene Xan's stop at Constantinople, 5 March to 15 March 1698, can be found out only from the inland correspondence string for the separate expenses accrued on these dates, which included a grand-vizierial behest to the deputy minister of finance on 18 February to get ready for the awaited coming of the embassy, a breakdown petition and a reimbursement behest for the costs of its housing at Fazlıpaşa Palace, a petition of reimbursement from and affirmative behest to the bread-makers at Tavukpazarı, a breakdown of state-provisioned items during the trip from Constantinople to Adrianople, a reimbursement of the outgoings made by the suppliers of horse and beasts-of-burden, and the trip-allowance allotments to the bailiffs (çavuş) of the Imperial Council going along with the embassy from the capital to the court. Again, similar transactions logged by the chancery let us know at which step of the business with this Safavid ambassador the Sublime Porte began drafting Mustafa II's answer to Sultan-Hüseyin in 1698. It was in the making as of 30 April, and knowing this date is vital in light of the peace gathering at Karlowitz with Germany, Poland, and Venice, and the agreed-upon Ottoman imperial campaign in Iraq in coordination with Iran. We can unearth this date from the outlay petition for and the affirmative behest to buy silver thread, a satin purse, and mounting for the imperial epistle.Footnote 19
At Adrianople, a consultative meeting, which was held to talk over the Safavid requests brought forward by Rüstem Zengene, ended in a resolution for taking extraordinary measures. Knowing the timing thereof against the Safavid ambassador's stay at court is crucial. The day on which these measures were enacted can be guessed only owing to, first, the petition by fifteen Imperial Council bailiffs who were to go along with the Ottoman ambassador Kavuk Mehmed up to the Iranian border; second, their trip outlays to be allotted; and third, its approval by the grand vizierate on 2 May 1698 and forwarding to the financial departments.Footnote 20 Besides, Rüstem Zengene left on 2 June. We find this out thanks to a courthouse deed that Ahmed Efendi, judge of Adrianople, drew up on 2 June 1698 to bear out the due payment of amounts by the state straw trustee, Seyyid Osman Agha, to porters who had furnished Rüstem Zengene with straw, whose seventy-day stay had come to an end.Footnote 21 However, the Ottoman ambassador-extraordinary, Kavuk Mehmed, who was officially riding alongside the outgoing Safavid ambassador, who indeed set out on 2 June, left after 3 June. This we can know of owing to the imperial ambassador's petition to the grand vizier asking for more funds and twenty pack horses besides the fifty that had already been allotted to him. The grand vizier approved the request forthwith, on 3 June 1698.Footnote 22
No less important was the Safavid mission by Mehemmed Selim Beyg, who stayed at the Ottoman capital from 21 July until shortly after 2 September 1702. It openly shows when and how the early eighteenth-century crisis between the empire and Iran began, for it was by means of this mission that the shah's chief vizier, Mehemmed Mümin Xan Şamlu, willfully made requests to embitter the Sublime Porte and call forth a negative answer, which indeed came to pass. Dates about this Safavid diplomat's business can be inferred only from the dealings that his stay brought about: correspondence involving the vice grand vizier (sadâret kaymakamı), the barley trustee, the head butcher, the janissary officer in charge, and the magistrates on the road from Adrianople up to the Iranian border, concerning the mission's housing and subventions (daily cash of 57.75 thaler, namely 6,930 non-debased aspers).Footnote 23
The same is true for the exchange of 1712 between Constantinople and Isfahan. The grand vizier thereby made it known that Safavid vassals had committed gross breaches across Baghdad, and struck the deal that ended up in the shah's unseating the responsible governors and pledging to pay reparations.Footnote 24 The importance thereof lies in that this diplomatic business gambled with shifting Ottoman–Safavid relations overnight from formal alliance to a full break off. The grand vizier wrote in his answer that he was ready to let the crisis heat up further, and hintingly warned the shah's court for the last time. The diplomatic courier bearing chief vizier Şahkulu Xan Zengene's letter to grand vizier Gürcüağa Yusuf Pasha reached Constantinople on 25 November 1711, and left on 5 January 1712. Chronicles and archival logs conventionally kept for diplomacy do not witness this. We can learn of the mission only by means of the petition, the exposition, the financial department's workup on 6 January 1712, and the affirmative behest on 9 January 1712 about the payment of the daily hire of one-half thaler for the emissary's housing.Footnote 25 Of the 1717 Safavid mission to Constantinople too we would not have heard at all if it were not for the log of ordering the gold letter-disc, âbâdî-type paper, satin purse, and a piece of green dîbâ to be bought for the grand vizier's letter of answer to the letter that reached him by means of this incoming emissary from Iran.Footnote 26
Last but not least, that a diplomatic agent of the shah of Iran came to Constantinople in 1719 we learn only from the bill of payment for a dwelling hired in Galata to house this emissary's following. The Dutch mission's secretary had formerly lived in this building, and now a certain “Saraylı Hanım” owned it.Footnote 27 This mission, gone untold in archival and literary sources, began the last round of diplomatic business between the Ottoman and the Safavid states, and the Sublime Porte set about readying itself for the nearing downfall of the Safavid kingdom in Iran.
Conclusion
Later Ottoman–Safavid relations bear witness to two phenomena that arose within the Ottoman chancery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. First, master secretaries began to function beyond their traditional field and became one of the dignitaries to execute the empire's foreign policy, while also keeping their scribal responsibilities. Ottoman–Safavid dealings, though they do not afford the same examples as Ottoman diplomacy with European states about the rise of the chancery career employees, still show trends from which one can read these shifts.
Second, the output of stepwise-wrought records, which were retrievably archived by the bureaus of the imperial chancery, went up. Tapping these sources lets us better grasp early modern history in several ways. Beyond the knowledge to be drawn forth from the samples of this genre, these writs also give hints about how the Ottomans’ understanding of statehood and sovereignty shifted. The rise in the drafting of this type of document and the betterment in their upkeep betoken a growth in governmental institutionalisation, departmental specialisation, and division of labour among bureaus. Likewise, it would not be wrong to deem this an outgrowth of the reinterpreted relationship between dynasticism and institutional continuity in the constitution of the sovereign state.
The chanceries of the Imperial Council, of the grand-vizierial court, of the finance departments, and of the imperial registry, along with all their aforesaid as well as unmentioned bureaus, as a whole exemplify the workings of how an early modern archive was kept and utilised, before the onset of the later modern institution of “the archive.” This is linked to the record-driven tradition of the Ottoman chancery. How it worked up an application hinged mainly on whether the applicant could also show an original writ that had been drawn up for and given to him, and whether the departments could fetch the state-kept copies of such writs. This also involved a regulation of how documents issued earlier and their official copies kept by the state could be revised. Such chancery conventions brought about a striking degree of accountability, at least for bureaucrats whose deeds were thus trackable, if not necessarily for all political office holders. The topics handled in this essay will be further substantiated as research with the untapped and uncatalogued riches of the Imperial Council's Divan-Beğlikçi bureau goes forward. Yet even those Ottoman holdings that have searchable catalogue inputs afford a manifoldness that is more than enough to set down these facts.
Appendix: Ottoman Archives, Cevdet—Bahriye, doc. 1729
1. Transcription
[I. işlem, sayfanın aşağısı: kaldırılan Bağdat Donanması’nın son başkaptanından arzıhâl]
Hû!
Devletlü ve saadetlü ve merhametlü sultânım hazretleri sağ olsun!
Bu kulları Cezâyirli kullarınızdan olup, vezîr-i sâbık Daltaban Mustafa Paşa Bağdat vâlisi iken bu kullarını arzedip müceddeden inşâ olunan otuz aded firkatanın senede bir yük akçe maîşet ile bâ-fermân-ı-âlî baş-kaptanlık ile bu kullarını çırak edip, üç sene ale't-tevâlî donanma kullanıp gerek Kurna fethinde ve gerek Basra fethinde ve gerek Nehr-i Diyâb cenklerinde emeğim sibkat edip, düşmandan emniyet hâsıl oldukta bâ-fermân-ı-âlî “nüfûzu yoktur”Footnote 28 diye Bağdat donanması ref'oldukta levendât tayfası sâlyâneleri için bu kulları[nın] emvâl ve erzâkımı ğâret edip, ancak bir kuru cân ile halâs olup hâlime merhamet olunup bir nân-pâre ile behremend olmamız için Bağdat vâlisi [Topal] Yusuf Paşa hazretleri arzedip, bu âna dek hâlimize merhamet olunmayıp hâib ve hâsir kalıp hâlim zikrolmağın, selefim Hasan Kaptan altı ay kaptanlık etmekle kırk akçe ekmek ihsân olunmuş. Zamân-ı saadetlerinde bu kulları böyle bî-behre hâib ve hâsir kalmamızı revâ görmeyip bu kullarını bir nân-pâre ile behremend ve mahsus çırak buyurmaları bâbında emr-ü-fermân devletlü ve saadetlü sultânım hazretlerinindir.
bende İbrâhim, ser-kaptan-ı Bağdad hâlen
[II. işlem, sayfanın solunda en yukarıda: sadrazam buyrultusu]
Sahh.
İzzetlü defterdâr efendi! Mezbûrun ahvâlî vâkı mıdır, nicedir, sual edip îlâm eyleyesin diye
buyuruldu.
[III. işlem, sayfanın ortası: defterdârın arzı]
Arz-ı bendeleri budur ki
Bundan akdem Bağdat'ta Nehr-i Şatt üzerinde olan firkataların üzerlerine yüzbin akçe sâlyâne ile bu sâhib-i arzıhâl Cezâyirli İbrâhim Kaptan başbuğ olup, lâkin bâdehu zikrolunan firkatalar bi'l-külliye ref'olundukta mezbur dahi ref'olunmakla, hâlen merkum kulları “üç sene ale't-tevâlî mevcut ve Kurna ve Basra ve Nehr-i Diyâb'da bulunup emeğim sibkat ve levendât tayfası sâlyâneleri için emvâl ve erzâkımı ğâret edip tahlîs –i cân etmekle hâlen ref’ sebebi ile nehy-i dest ve hâib ve hâsir kalıp her vecihle mağdur ve selefim Hasan Kaptan'a kırk akçe vazîfe ihsân olunup bana bir şey verilmedi” diye îlâm ve hâline merhamet olunmak bâbında istid’â-yi inâyet eder. Fermân-ı âlîleri buyurduğu üzere mukaddemen Bağdat Hazînesi defterdârı Dürrî Efendi kulları o havâlinin ahvâline vukûfu olmakla keyfiyeti sual olundukta mezbûrun ahvâli vâkı ve her vecihle hizmette bulunup müstehakk-ı inâyet olduğunu haber vermişlerdir. Mâlûm-ı devletleri buyuruldukta ahvâline her nice merhamet-i aliyeleri buyurmaları bâbında fermân devletlü sultânım hazretlerinindir.
el-fakir [Bakkaloğlu Sarı] Mehmed [Efendi]
[IV. işlem, sayfanın arka yüzünde, üstte: Sadrazam buyrultusu]
Sahh.
İzzetlü Kaptanpaşa! Emekdârın[ı] îlâm eyleyesin diye
buyuruldu.
[V. işlem, sayfanın arka yüzünde, ortada: Kaptan-ı Deryânın arzı]
Mâruz-ı bende budur ki
Bundan akdem Bağdat'ta vâkı Nehr-i Şatt firkatalarının üzerlerine bir yük akçe sâlyâne ile sâhib-i arzıhâl Cezâyirli İbrâhim Kaptan kulları başbuğ olup, Şatt kaptanlarından hâliyâ bu tarafta mevcut bulunan kullarından vesâirlerinden keyfiyeti sual olundukta, vech-i meşrûh üzere mezbur üç sene ale't-tevâlî hidemât-ı hümâyunda bulunup, velâkin zikrolunan firkatalar ref'olundukta mezbur dahi ref'olunmağın, o serhatlerde küllî emeği sibkat ve uğur-ı dîn-i mübînde yiğitliği zâhir bir müstehakk-ı re'fet olduğun[u] haber vermeleriyle, mâlum-ı devletleri buyurulup, tarîkında [sic] mezbûrun ahvâline her nice merhamet-i aliyeleri nümâyân buyurulur ise o bâpta emr-ü-fermân saadetlü sultânımındır.
[Frenk] Abdurrahman [Paşa]
k. s.[/]mi. [sic]
[VI. işlem, sayfanın sağında en yukarıda: Sadâret dâiresinden sevk yazısı]
Baş Muhasebe'den derkenâr oluna.
[VII. işlem, sayfanın sağında ortanın üstünde: defter kaydının sûreti ve baş muhasebecinin derkenârı]
Berây-ı medâr-ı ma’îşet-i İbrâhim kaptan, başbuğ-i firkatahâ-yi Nehr-i Şatt der Bağdâd. Be-câ-yi Hasan ?Kaptan ki firâr kerde. Bâ arz-i vezîr-i mükerrem hazret-i [Daltaban] Mustafa Paşa vâlî-yi Bağdâd ve bâ fermân-ı âlî, fî 20 Ş[a'bân]-i sene-i 1112. Emr dâde fî sene-i minhu.
fî sene: 100 000 [akçe]
‘an mâl-i hazîne-i Bağdâd
Mezkûr firkataların baş-kaptanı olan Hasan firar, ve medâr-ı maîşeti olmadığından kimse rağbet etmemekle, mezkûr [Cezâyirli] İbrâhim Kaptan’ın hizmeti sibkat edip kemâl-i liyâkat ve vukûfu ve müstahak olmakla be-her-sene Bağdad Hazînesi'nden birer yük akçe medâr-ı maîşet tâyin ve kaptanlık-ı mezbûr ihsân olunmak ricâsına Bağdat vâlisi vezîr [Daltaban] Mustafa Paşa arz etmekle, Şatt Kaptanı [Aşçıoğlu] Mehmet Paşa'nın rây-i savâb-dîdleri üzere hizmet-i aliyede bulunmak şartınca Bağdat Hazînesi'nden bir yük akçe tevcih olunmak bâbında fermân-ı âlî sâdır olmağın, yüz on iki Şâbanı’nın yirminci günü emr-i şerîf verildiği defterde mastûrdur. Ferman, saadetlü sultânım hazretlerinindir.
fî 21 [Ramazâ]N—sene 1116
[Başmuhasebeci'nin imzası]
[VIII. işlem, sayfanın solunda ortanın üstünde: sadrazamın sonuç buyrultusu]
Sahh.
Selânik gümrüğünden düşen mahlûlden takas olmak üzere yirmi akçe tevcih olunmak
buyuruldu.
17 [Şevvâ]L, sene [1]1116
2. Translation
[I. input, bottom of the page: petition by the last admiral of Baghdad's abolished fleet]Footnote 29
He!
Long live my blissful and kindhearted lord Your Preeminent Excellency!
This underling of Yours is one of Your underlings from Algiers. When the former [grand] vizier Daltaban Musfata Pasha was the governor of Baghdad, he submitted an exposition on behalf of this underling of Yours, and fostered this underling of Yours, by sublime decree, with the admiralship of the thirty newly built frigates with yearly 100,000 aspers. I wielded the navy for three years in a row, and I laboured at the conquest of Qurna, the conquest of Basra, and the clashes of River Diyab. When [all] was secured from the enemy, the Baghdad fleet was done away with through the sublime decree saying “it no [longer] has a use.” The seamen plundered the belongings and stocks of this underling of Yours against their salaries, and all I could save was my bare life. I petitioned the governor of Baghdad, [Topal] Yusuf Pasha, that my condition be shown mercy and that I benefit from a piece of bread [i.e., income]. Until now, my condition has not been shown mercy, and I have been in lack and loss. As my condition is brought up, my forerunner captain Hasan, who had functioned as captain for six months, has been bestowed with a bread of [daily] forty aspers. Concerning the matter that in Your era of bliss You do not deem it fit for this underling of Yours to be so unluckily in lack and loss, and that You separately foster me with the gain of a piece of bread, the order and the decree is Yours, my blissful lord Your Preeminent Excellency.
underling Ibrahim, currently the admiral of Baghdad
[II. input, top-left corner of the page: the grand vizier's behest]
True.
It is bidden
that you, esteemed master the minister of finance, ask and let [Us] know whether the circumstances of the aforesaid one are true and how they are.
[III. input, middle of the page: exposition by the minister of finance]
The exposition of Your underling is that
Earlier, the petitioner, captain Ibrahim of Algiers, was commander over the frigates of River Shatt at Baghdad with a yearly salary of 100,000 aspers. However, when the aforesaid frigates were later unmade, the named [post] was also unmade. And now, the named underling of Yours utters “I was at Qurna, Basra, and River Diyab for three years in a row, I endeavoured, and the seamen plundered my belongings and stocks against their salaries, I saved my life, and yet because of the unmaking, I am laid off in lack and loss. And I am wronged in every way; although my forerunner captain Hasan has been bestowed with a pension of [daily] forty aspers, I was given nothing.” He beseeches grace for his condition to be shown mercy. As commanded by Your sublime decree, Your underling Dürrî Efendi, who earlier was the finance director of the Baghdad Treasury, has been asked about the state of affairs owing to his knowledge in that region's affairs. He told that the circumstances of the aforenamed one were true, that he performed service in every way, and that he is worthy of grace. When Your Excellency comes to know, regarding Your sublime mercy to his circumstances by any means, the decree is Yours, my lord Your Preeminent Excellency.
the poor Mehmed [Efendi, Sarı Bakkaloğlu]
[IV. input, back of the page, on top: the grand vizier's behest]Footnote 30
True.
It is bidden
that you, esteemed admiral-in-chief, let [Us] know about your veteran.
[V. input, back of the page, in the middle: exposition by the admiral-in-chief]
The exposition of the underling is that
Earlier, the petitioner and Your underling, captain Ibrahim of Algiers, had been the commander of the frigates on River Shatt with a yearly salary of 100,000 aspers. When Your underlings—captains of [River] Shatt that are currently here—and others were asked about his circumstances, they told that as explained, the named one had performed imperial service for three years in a row, that however when [the fleet] of the aforesaid frigates had been undone, the named one['s post] had also been undone, that he had utterly endeavoured at those frontiers, and that his heroism for the sake of the Evident Religion being obvious, he was worthy of clemency. [All these] are laid before for Your Excellency's knowledge. Regarding by whichever means Your sublime mercy is to be shown to the condition of the aforesaid one, the order and decree is my lord's.
Abdurrahman [Pasha the Frank]
k. s.[/]mi. [sic]Footnote 31
[VI. input, top-right corner of the page: referral note by the grand-vizierial chancery]
It shall be annotated by the Chief Accounting [Bureau].
[VII. input, upper right side of the page: record retrieval in Persian and postscript annotation by the chief accountant]
For the means of livelihood of captain Ibrahim, commander of the frigates of River Shatt at Baghdad. Instead of captain Hasan, who fled. By the exposition of the revered, preeminent vizier [Daltaban] Mustafa Pasha, governor of Baghdad, and by the sublime decree. On Sh[aban] 20, year 1112. Ordered in that year.
yearly: 100,000 [aspers]
from the earnings of the Baghdad Treasury.
It is [found to have been] written within the register that
Hasan, who had been the admiral of the aforesaid frigates, fled. No one shows interest in [that post] for it has no means of livelihood. The aforesaid captain Ibrahim [of Algiers] performed service. He is utterly worthy, proficient, and rightful. [Daltaban] Mustafa Pasha the governor of Baghdad petitioned asking for the bestowal of the named captainship and the allotment of a yearly means of livelihood of 100,000 aspers from the Baghdad Treasury. The sublime decree was issued for the granting of 100,000 aspers from the Baghdad Treasury with the condition of employment in sublime service upon the opinion of approval by [Aşçıoğlu] Mehmed Pasha the admiral of the Shatt. The illustrious order was given on the twentieth day of Shaban of [the year one thousand] one hundred and twelve.
The decree is Yours, my blissful and preeminent lord.
on [Ramaza]N 21, year 1116
[underwritten by the chief accountant]
[VIII. input, upper left side of the page: the grand vizier's final behest]
True.
It is bidden
that [daily] twenty aspers be granted by steering the fund that has become unallotted from the customs of Salonica.
17 [Shevva]L, year [1]116.
