APPENDICES (continued 2)

Baber, descendant of Timur in the sixth generation, descendant also of Genghis Khan, came at the beginning of the new era. Less ruthless than either of his great ancestors, less legal than the “Inflexible One,” less Moslem than the “Scourge of Asia,” but possessed of much of the leadership and military genius of both, he stands forth, by reason of his memoirs, as one of the best known conquerors of history. His love of carousing, his family affection, his literary bent, his toleration of heretics and infidels, his bold leadership, his liberality in dividing spoil, presented qualities and suggested modes of activity which were to characterize all his descendants down to the puritanical Aurangzeb.

Thus the family life of the house of Baber was far more normal than that of the house of Osman. In contrast with an almost unbroken line of Ottoman slave mothers and wives, whose names with those of their daughters have hardly survived, many of the Mogul imperial ladies are well known. Witness the princess Gul-Badan, daughter of Baber, who like her father wrote memoirs; the empress Nur-Jehan, who ruled India for a time; and the empress Mumtaz-Mahal, for whom her devoted husband built the fairest of all mausoleums. Turki princesses, ladies of high Persian descent, and daughters of Hindu Rajahs, were taken into the imperial harem, where, though women and eunuchs were present “from Russia, Circassia, Mingrelia, Georgia, and Ethiopia,” no emperors sprang from slave mothers during the period of greatness. With such a policy in the family which constituted a chief element in the unity of the Mogul Empire, it was but natural that officers and soldiers, statesmen and public servants, should be accepted with a like catholicity. The best fighters, of course, continued to be those who came down newly from the high country beyond the northwest passes; and since such of these as met success were apt to send for relatives and friends, there was continual recruiting from among Tatars, Persians, Afghans, and Arabs,—all Moslems, but of various sects. “Rûmis” from the Ottoman Empire were especially useful in the artillery service. Some of them were doubtless European renegades, but “Firinjis” or Franks were likely to come more directly from Portugal and other European countries. Yet by no means all the brave were from foreign lands. Many Rajputs under their own Rajahs served the Mogul emperors most acceptably, and when treated without prejudice they were faithful. The high officers of government were usually Persians; but Akbar was nobly served by the great Todar Mal, and appointed Rajahs to govern the Punjab and Bengal. About one in eight of his paid cavalry chiefs was a Hindu; and of the lesser civil-service positions the mere necessity for numbers, apart from superior skill and training, required that many should be held by Hindus.

It is not that slavery had disappeared from the Mogul system. Traces of the old method can be discerned as late as the eighteenth century. In fact, Muhammad Khan, a Bangash Nawab of Farrukhabad, maintained what was practically a replica in miniature of the Ottoman system. Hindu boys between the ages of seven and thirteen, some of them sons of Rajputs and Brahmins, were seized, bought, or accepted as chelas or slaves to the number of one or two hundred a year. They were taught to read and write, and were specially rewarded when the task was completed. Five hundred chelas from eighteen to twenty years of age were trained as a regiment of musketeers. From among the older chelas were chosen the officers of the household, generals of the army, and deputy governors of provinces. The Nawab arranged marriages between chelas and the daughters of chelas. He encouraged them to acquire personal property, which he could claim in time of need; but he forbade them to found towns or build masonry structures, lest occupying these they might tend toward independence. Muhammad Khan did not, however, depend exclusively on his Hindu slaves; he sent money to his own Bangash tribe, and thus obtained a colony of Afghans to whom he gave high military positions and upon some of whom he bestowed his daughters in marriage. Other vassals of the emperor made use of a similar slave system; and it is not unlikely that the emperor himself recruited his permanent infantry with the help of slavery, and that he promoted some slaves to high positions. But the absence of definite information in this direction is in most striking contrast to its abundant presence in the records which deal with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century.

In theory the officers of government were so far the servants of the emperor that their accumulated personal property belonged to him at their death; but in practice the opulence and the generosity of the sovereign led him often to leave such wealth in the hands of the officers’ children. When this was not done, employment in the public service was assigned to sons and pensions were granted to widows.

Titles of nobility were awarded for life to distinguished officials; the chief officers of the central government and governors of great provinces were called Emirs (Omrahs in many Western writings, probably a plural of majesty), generals of the army were Khans, and distinguished soldiers of lesser rank were Bahadurs or knights. Khondamir says that Humayun organized a system of twelve orders or arrows, according to which the entire imperial household was graded. “The twelfth arrow, which was made of the purest gold, was put in the auspicious quiver of this powerful king, and nobody could dare to touch it. The eleventh arrow belonged to His Majesty’s relations and brethren, and all the sultans who were in the government employ. Tenth, to the great mushaikhs, saiyids, and the learned and religious men. Ninth, to the great nobles. Eighth, to the courtiers and some of the king’s personal attendants. Seventh, to the attendants in general. Sixth, to the harems and to the well-behaved female attendants. Fifth, to young maid-servants. Fourth, to the treasurers and stewards. Third, to the soldiers. Second, to the menial servants. First, to the palace guards, camel-drivers, and the like. Each of these arrows or orders had three grades; the highest, the middle, and the lowest.” Appointments and promotions were, as at Constantinople, based upon valor and manifest ability. Through all the period of greatness the ladder of advancement was kept so clear that vigor, courage, and prowess could mount from the lowest ranks to the steps of the throne.

Relation of Government to Religious Propagation

When the Ottoman Turks conquered their European territories, as well as parts of their Asiatic dominions, they for the first time introduced the Moslem religion. This was not the case with the Mogul advance into India. Beginning with Mohammed ben Kasim’s invasion of Sind in 712 A.D., and starting afresh with Mahmûd of Ghazni in 1000 A.D., the Moslem political control, accompanied by the conversion of a portion of the native population, had spread step by step until, when Baber came after eight centuries, there remained little of India that was not actually or had not at some time been under Moslem rule. No data appear to exist for determining the actual proportion of the total population that was Moslem during the Mogul period. Guesses have been made ranging from a possible one in four to Bernier’s estimate of one in hundreds. The only basis of any value would perhaps be that obtained by working backward from the British censuses. In 1911 the Mohammedans constituted about twenty-one per cent of the population of India, and their number was increasing at a slightly more rapid rate than the average. It may be supposed that the increase of the Moslem proportion was greater during the days of the Mogul Empire, when it was especially profitable to change, and when there was a strong inward flow at the northwest; but since the Mogul decline the rate of relative progress has probably always been slow. Perhaps the proportion about 1761 was somewhat less than one in five, and in 1526 it may have been not more than one in from ten to twenty. Bernier’s guess would certainly seem to have been wild, for it is inconceivable that so small progress would have been made in a thousand years and so great in the next two hundred. No doubt the Moslem contingent was then, as it is now, unevenly distributed, being in high proportion in the northwest and diminishing gradually with the distance from the mountain passes. At points on the seacoast where trade had been active, the Moslem influence had come early by way of the sea; hence there also the percentage was greater. In Suleiman’s empire, comprising as it did a large amount of old Moslem territory and including even the Holy Cities, the proportion of Moslems was, of course, much higher; but it diminished rapidly from south to north, until in Hungary it must have been extremely attenuated.

In the absence of an elaborate slave system in India, there was not the steady public machinery of conversion which operated powerfully in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, it would seem that before the reign of Aurangzeb no emperor cared to promote conversion to Islam by financial or political rewards. Akbar, in fact, removed the jizyeh, or poll-tax, which had previously, as in all other truly Moslem lands until recent times, laid special burdens upon unbelievers, and the tax was not reimposed until the time of Aurangzeb. Akbar also forbade the enslavement of captives and of their wives and children. For a century, therefore, the government lent little encouragement to change of faith. Down to the accession of Aurangzeb there was a clear contrast between Ottoman and Mogul policy in the attitude toward the Moslem religion: the Moguls held far less than the Ottomans to the idea of the conquest of the world for Islam, or to the conversion of unbelievers, as an object of governmental endeavor. Aurangzeb alone had such zeal as characterizes the average descendant of Osman; he desired no infidels in his service, and regarded the Deccan as the Dar-ul-harb which he wished to make part of the Dar-ul-Islam. There can be no doubt, however, that under all the Mogul emperors the social pressure usual in Moslem lands continued to encourage conversion privately, while the slavery which Islam normally sanctions was also contributing to the increase of the faithful. Moreover, it is not likely that all the officers of the liberal emperors were as tolerant and as indifferent to Moslem progress as were their superiors.

The Army

At Delhi, as at Constantinople, no sharp line could be drawn separating government and army. The Mogul conquest was achieved by an army, and the army became a government. Amalgamation with older systems of course introduced groups of under-officials who had no military duties; but those who would be great had to be capable of military command, men who might be familiar with the pen but who must know how to wield the sword.

The Mogul army organization seems, in the midst of confused testimonies, to have borne a considerable resemblance to that of the Ottomans. The emperor was commander-in-chief, and as late as Aurangzeb regularly commanded in person in great campaigns. He had a personal army of 12,000 to 15,000 paid infantry and 12,000 to 40,000 paid cavalry. These corresponded in number and function, but not at all in political importance, to the Janissaries and Spahis of the Porte among the Ottomans. In great campaigns the standing army was supported by the feudal cavalry, estimated at from 200,000 to 400,000, and by indefinite numbers of irregular infantry, drawn from a mass estimated at four millions. The army was strong in artillery, and possessed in trained elephants a force of which the Ottomans could not make use.

The emperor’s infantry were, at least from Akbar’s time, matchlockmen; they seem to have been the only trustworthy and efficient foot-soldiers. It would appear that their clumsy weapons, improved by Akbar himself, were not changed up to the time of Aurangzeb; for Bernier reports that in his day the muskets were rested on forks and fired by men who squatted on the ground, and who feared that the flash might damage their eyebrows and beards. On account of the method of payment it is not possible to estimate closely the number of the emperor’s cavalry, or Mansabdars. Men who agreed to furnish from five to five thousand troopers were taken into his service, and pay (mansab) was assigned for the stipulated number; but even in Akbar’s time, according to Badauni, it was possible to present followers hired only for the occasion, and yet to draw life-long pay for their services. In later years there ceased to be even approximate correspondence between the amount of pay and the number of troops furnished. The mansab was then regarded as a salary, or even as a pension.

The more numerous feudal cavalry consisted of the holders (with their followers) of jagirs, or grants, of the revenue of districts of larger or smaller size, in return for which they served without other pay, except in case of unduly prolonged campaigns. Holders of large areas were accustomed to administer them in person, whereas those who held smaller sections would often leave the administration to the governors of provinces, who in time tended to appropriate the revenues. Aurangzeb, however, pursued the policy of assigning service in regions remote from the appointee’s jagir, and of retaining wives and children at the court as pledges of fidelity. Hindu Rajahs were easily brought into the system by being invested with analogous rights in their hereditary territories. Apart from these cases, the appointments, as in Turkey, were not regarded as hereditary, but were apt to be given to fresh recruits of ability from beyond the mountains. It was customary to make small assignments to sons of dead Jagirdars, and to increase their allowances upon proof of merit. Jagirdars and Rajahs, like Timariotes and Zaims, had jurisdiction and other governmental duties in the areas assigned to them, and thus carried a large part of the task of local government. Ultimately many of the higher positions became hereditary in families which worked toward independence in the days of decline.

The artillery seems to have been surprisingly strong under Baber and Humayun, and to have declined later. Baber is said to have had seven hundred guns at Panipat, which he chained together after the method employed by Selim I at Kaldiran. Humayun is reported to have had at Kanauj seven hundred guns discharging stone balls of five pounds weight, and twenty-one guns discharging brass balls ten times as heavy. Aurangzeb, it is said, transported seventy pieces of heavy artillery and two or three hundred swivel guns, mounted on the backs of camels. For fortress defence and siege operations the Moguls had a few enormous guns, some of which are said to have required for transport two hundred and fifty and even five hundred oxen! In addition to these resources, it appears, if testimonies can be trusted, that Akbar kept five thousand war elephants, each of which was accounted equal in time of battle to five hundred horsemen; and Hawkins says that Jehangir had twelve thousand elephants of all descriptions. Aurangzeb is reported to have maintained in the palace stables the more modest number of eight hundred elephants.

The early Mogul armies were efficient and successful. Aurangzeb, however, conducted about the Deccan in his twenty-four years’ war of conquest a horde that resembled a migration rather than an army. For each fighting man there were at least two camp-followers; the march was without discipline and order, like the movement of a herd of animals; and the camp was a city five miles long, or, as others say, seven and a half miles, or twenty miles in circumference. One European observer even reported that the encampment was thirty miles about, and contained five million souls! Among these he counted seven hundred thousand soldiers, of whom three hundred thousand were cavalry. With all due allowance for exaggeration, the Mogul army clearly tended to become exceedingly numerous, but of increasing weakness and inefficiency. A battle in 1526 between Baber and Suleiman would have been a worthy contest, but the army of Aurangzeb would probably have been defeated easily by the Ottoman troops which bit the dust before Prince Eugene.

The Court

Splendid as was the display of Suleiman’s entourage, it lacked the financial basis which the Moguls possessed from Akbar to Aurangzeb. Gold and silver, gems, silks and muslins, were far more abundant in the eastern land. A more highly developed architecture, showing far greater richness of detailed ornamentation, served in India to construct not only temples of religion and tombs of great personages, but also marvellous palaces and pleasure-houses for the emperors. Many thousands of attendants supplied every possible luxury and rendered every conceivable service.

No systematic description of the organization of the imperial household has come to hand. Scattered allusions reveal the presence of very numerous groups of officials, agents, and servants of all grades. Teachers, physicians, scholars, valets, chamberlains, butlers, cooks, kitchen servants, musicians, poets, generals, captains, guards, equerries, hostlers, herdsmen, elephant-drivers, and stablemen, ministers of state, judges, treasurers, secretaries, swarmed about the great halls and myriad chambers of the palaces at Agra, Delhi, and Fatehpur-Sikri. These, with the tradespeople who made their living by supplying the household but who were less directly attached to the emperor, constituted a migratory city of large size, which followed the emperor from residence to residence and in time of campaign swelled almost unbelievably the following of his enormous army.

As for the court life which went on at the center of this vast and multi-colored setting, this was necessarily twofold, by that custom of all Moslem lands according to which the sexes must be segregated. Daily assemblages, gatherings at the mosques on Fridays, great ceremonies for special occasions, and the imperial hunts contained none but men as participants. If women saw any part of such festivities, it was from a distance and through thick veils or close-wrought lattices. Khondamir says that Humayun divided his attendants into three great classes, concerned respectively with government and war, with learning and literature, and with music and personal grace and beauty. The latter were called “people of pleasure ... because most people take great delight in the company of such young-looking men, of rosy cheeks and sweet voices, and are pleased by hearing their songs, and the pleasing sound of the musical instruments, such as the harp, the sackbut, and the lute.” Humayun devoted Sundays and Tuesdays to dealings with the first class, holding audience and attending to government duties on those days. Saturdays and Thursdays were days when “the tree of the hope” of literary and religious persons “produced the fruit of prosperity by their obtaining audience in the paradise-resembling court.” Mondays and Wednesdays were devoted to pleasure parties, when old companions and chosen friends were entertained by musicians and singers. On Fridays were convened “all the assemblies,” whatever this may mean; and the emperor sat with them as long as he could.

The splendor of the court may be illustrated by two or three extracts. Nizam-uddin Ahmad relates that Akbar, journeying in the fifteenth year of his reign, accepted an invitation to rest at Dipalpur. “For some days feasting went on, and upon the last day splendid offerings were presented to him. Arab and Persian horses, with saddles of silver; huge elephants, with chains of gold and silver, and housings of velvet and brocade; and gold and silver, and pearls and jewels, and rubies and garnets of great price; chairs of gold, and silver vases, and vessels of gold and silver; stuffs of Europe, Turkey, and China, and other precious things beyond all conception. Presents of similar kind also were presented for the young princes and the emperor’s wives. All the ministers and attendants and dignitaries received presents, and every soldier of the army also participated in the bounty.”

Sir Thomas Roe describes a curious annual ceremony of the Mogul emperors as carried through by Jehangir. “The first of September was the King’s Birth-day, and the solemnitie of his weighing, to which I went, and was carryed into a very large and beautiful Garden, the square within all water, on the sides flowers and trees, in the midst a Pinacle, where was prepared the scales, being hung in large tressels, and a crosse beame plated on with Gold thinne: the scales of massie Gold, the borders set with small stones, Rubies and Turkeys, the Chaines of Gold large and massie, but strengthened with silke Cords. Here attended the Nobilitie, all sitting about it on Carpets until the King came; who at last appeared clothed or rather loden with Diamonds, Rubies, Pearles, and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious; his Sword, Target, Throne to rest on, correspondent; his head, necke, breast, armes, above the elbows, at the wrists, his fingers every one, with at least two or three Rings; fettered with chaines, or dyalled Diamonds; Rubies as great as Wal-nuts, some greater; and Pearles such as mine eyes were amazed at. Suddenly he entered into the scales, sate like a woman on his legges, and there was put in against him many bagges to fit his weight, which were changed six times, and they say was silver, and that I understood his weight to be nine thousand rupias, which are almost one thousand pounds sterling: after with Gold and Jewels, and precious stones, but I saw none, it being in bagges might be Pibles; then against Cloth of Gold, Silk, Stuffes, Linen, Spices, and all sorts of goods, but I must believe for they were in sardles. Lastly against Meale, Butter, Corne, which is said to be given to the Banian.” The extract neglects to state that the ceremony was followed by the distribution as largesse of all the valuables weighed against the royal person with its heavy adornments.

Bernier describes an audience of Aurangzeb. “The king appeared seated upon his throne at the end of the great hall in the most magnificent attire. His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin, with a silk and gold embroidery of the finest texture. The turban of gold cloth had an aigrette whose base was composed of diamonds of an extraordinary size and value, besides an oriental topaz which may be pronounced unparalleled, exhibiting a lustre like the sun. A necklace of immense pearls suspended from his neck reached to the stomach. The throne was supported by six massy feet, said to be of solid gold, sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It was constructed by Shah-Jehan for the purpose of displaying the immense quantity of precious stones accumulated successively in the Treasury from the spoils of ancient Rajahs and Pathans, and the annual presents to the monarch which every Omrah is bound to make on certain festivals. At the foot of the throne were assembled all the Omrahs, in splendid apparel, upon a platform surrounded by a silver railing and covered by a spacious canopy of brocade with deep fringes of gold. The pillars of the hall were hung with brocades of a gold ground, and flowered satin canopies were raised over the whole expanse of the extensive apartment, fastened with red silken cords from which were suspended large tassels of silk and gold. The floor was covered entirely with carpets of the richest silk, of immense length and breadth.”

As regards the female side of the court, although this had almost a separate organization and was, in keeping with Moslem and Indian tradition, to a large extent secluded, yet the imperial ladies possessed a measure of freedom through two centuries which allowed several of them to stand forth as distinct individuals, and a few to influence affairs profoundly. Jehangir assigned to the women of the household the sixth and fifth orders, or arrows, of rank. Akbar is said to have kept five thousand women in his harem. As usual, however, only a few of these were wives or votaries of the imperial pleasure; most of them constituted an elaborate organization for the housekeeping and entertainment of the few great ladies, the mother, aunts, sisters, wives, and favorites of the emperor. As already indicated, these women were of all kinds,—free-born and slave, Moslem, Christian, and pagan, Turki, Afghan, Persian, Hindu, Armenian, Slavic, Circassian, Georgian, and Ethiopian. Their communication with the outside world was kept up through their relatives and through eunuchs.

A few of the imperial ladies may be mentioned. The princess Gul-Badan, third daughter of Baber and Dil-Dar, wrote a history of the deeds of her half-brother, Humayun. In her later life she went with other great ladies on pilgrimage to Mecca, taking seven years for the journey; one-half of this time she spent in Arabia, where she performed the rites of the pilgrimage four times. After twenty more years filled with works of piety and charity she died at the age of eighty. Her nephew, Akbar, with his own hand helped bear her to the tomb.

Most powerful of all the Mogul imperial ladies was the Persian Nur-Jehan, or Nur-Mahal, wife of Jehangir. Born in poverty and actually cast away by her parents, she rose to the throne of command. Mohammad Hadi says that “by degrees she became, in all but name, undisputed sovereign of the empire, and the king himself became a tool in her hands. He used to say that Nur-Jehan Begam has been selected, and is wise enough, to conduct the matters of state, and that he wanted only a bottle of wine and a piece of meat to keep himself merry. Nur-Jehan won golden opinions from all people. She was liberal and just to all who begged her support. She was an asylum for all sufferers, and helpless girls were married at the expense of her private purse. She must have portioned above five hundred girls in her lifetime, and thousands were grateful for her generosity.” Not only could she rule the empire effectively, if not always wisely and impartially, but she could lead armies. Defeated at last by Shah-Jehan, she put on perpetual robes of mourning for her dead husband and spent her last eighteen years in devoted seclusion.

Mumtaz-Mahal, niece of Nur-Jehan and wife of Shah-Jehan, did not aspire to political control. She held fast the heart of her imperial husband and became the mother of his fourteen children. The incomparable Taj Mahal, built by the emperor after her untimely death, bears eternal witness to great love followed by great grief.

Last may be mentioned two of the daughters of Mumtaz-Mahal, Jehan-Ara and Raushan-Ara. These ladies, like Charlemagne’s daughters too great for matrimony, stirred up much trouble in the imperial household. Jehan-Ara was her father’s favorite in his decadent old age, and an active partisan of her brother Dara. Of vast influence for many years, she was at length overshadowed by Raushan-Ara, who supported Aurangzeb and rose to greatness with his advancing fortunes. Bernier was well-nigh overcome by a distant view of this lady’s majesty. “I cannot avoid dwelling on this pompous procession of the Seraglio. Stretch imagination to its utmost limits, and you can imagine no exhibition more grand and imposing than when Raushan-Ara Begam, mounted on a stupendous Pegu elephant, and seated in a meghdambhar blazing with gold and azure, is followed by five or six elephants with meghdambhars nearly as resplendent as her own, and filled with ladies attached to her household (and succeeded by the most distinguished ladies of the court) until fifteen or sixteen females of quality pass with a grandeur of appearance, equipage, and retinue, more or less proportionate to their rank, pay, and office. There is something very impressive of state and royalty in the march of these sixty or more elephants; in their solemn and as it were measured steps, in the splendour of the meghdambhars, and the brilliant and innumerable followers in attendance; and if I had not regarded this display of magnificence with a sort of philosophical indifference, I should have been apt to be carried away by such flights of imagination as inspire most of the Indian poets, when they represent the elephants as conveying so many goddesses concealed from the vulgar gaze.”

The Government Proper

“The authority of the Great Mogul was despotic by all its origins: by the fact of the conquest, by the Turkish tradition, by the tradition of the old royalties of the country”;[798] and also, it may be added, by the practice of Islamic governments since the abandonment of Medina as the seat of the caliphs. The conquering chief owned all the conquered land, and the wealth and labor and lives of its inhabitants were at his disposal. As for the restriction of despotism by the Sacred Law, the house of Baber did not feel this strongly until late. On the other hand, even a drunkard like Jehangir had a keen sense of the responsibility of his high position. The emperor considered it his duty to maintain order, reward faithful service, and sit daily on the bench of justice to redress the wrongs of his people. Aurangzeb is reported by Bernier to have expressed his feeling of responsibility by saying: “Being born the son of a king and placed on the throne, I was sent into the world by Providence to live and labour, not for myself, but for others; ... it is my duty not to think of my own happiness, except so far as it is inseparably connected with the happiness of my people. It is the repose and prosperity of my subjects that it behoves me to consult; nor are these to be sacrificed to anything besides the demands of justice, the maintenance of the royal authority, and the security of the State.” One of his letters to his imprisoned father contains these words: “Almighty God bestows his trusts upon him who discharges the duty of cherishing his subjects and protecting the people. It is manifest and clear to the wise that a wolf is no fit shepherd, neither can a faint-hearted man carry out the great duty of government. Sovereignty is the guardianship of the people, not self-indulgence and profligacy. The Almighty will deliver your humble servant from all feeling of remorse as regards your Majesty.” The sole fountain of legislation, the emperor observed economy in the issuance of it, making use, so far as possible, of established Islamic practice and immemorial custom. Yet from time to time, by administrative regulations, ordinances, and decrees, he sought to improve the methods of government. Aurangzeb, so much like Suleiman in many other respects, like him also ordered and financed the compilation of a code of the Sacred Law. It does not appear, however, that any such quantity of personal legislation was issued by him or by any other Mogul emperor as by the great Ottoman.

The succession to the Mogul throne never became regular, since neither by Mongol nor by Moslem custom was any one method prescribed. Nor did the more kindly disposition of the house of Baber ever permit the publication of such a decree as that of Mohammed II for the execution of brothers upon the accession of a sovereign. Accordingly the resources of the empire were apt to be wasted in civil wars between father and son, and between older and younger brothers. Even the sons of Baber engaged in civil war: Kamran, aided by Askari and Hindal, fought against Humayun. Akbar’s brothers were so young that he had no rival at the time of his accession. His two elder sons drank themselves to death; but this did not prevent Selim, who became the emperor Jehangir, from rebelling against his father and hastening the latter’s death. Jehangir’s two sons rebelled against him in turn. Shah-Jehan’s four sons, Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb, fought together until the last encompassed the death of the others, besides keeping his father a prisoner during the last seven years of life. The mournful story need not be carried beyond the fierce civil war which followed the death of Aurangzeb, in which two of his sons were slain. Clearly, the Ottoman method was more practical if less humane. So unstable was the personal situation of the emperor that, if he failed to show his face in public daily, the empire fell into commotion and civil war became imminent. From the uncertainty of the succession the state, at least, derived this benefit, that the fittest of the candidates for power was likely to obtain the throne. Nevertheless, as Dow says, “to be born a prince” of the Mogul Empire was “a misfortune of the worst and most embarrassing kind. He must die by clemency, or wade through the blood of his family to safety and empire.”

As the army was the defence and prop of the Mogul government, so finance was its sustenance. Here again the regulations of the Sacred Law were but scantily observed. Akbar, aided by Todar Mal and extending the methods of the Afghan Sher Shah, reduced to order and regularity the existing revenue system, which in the course of centuries of varying rule had become much confused. By ancient custom of India, the sovereign as primary owner of the land was entitled to one-third of the crops in kind. It was Akbar’s task to change the system to a more modern money régime, a step in progress which the Ottomans have not been able to take even to the present day. In classical times as in late years, India, importing less of other commodities than she exported, steadily absorbed gold and silver. It is likely that a large share of the wealth of the newly-discovered Americas had already by Akbar’s day made its way to India through the increasing Portuguese trade, and that Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro thus unwittingly gave him the means of modernizing his land revenue. Several great tasks were involved in the change. All the cultivated land of India had to be measured, its quality judged, its average annual produce for the first nineteen years of Akbar’s reign calculated, and the amount of the government’s share for each tract reduced to current money. At first, it was attempted to renew the settlement annually; but, since this proved very difficult in a large and conservative land, a ten-year basis was eventually adopted. When the British came to power they found the revenue in a state of confusion which indicated that at some time during the Mogul period the evaluation had ceased to be made regularly, modifications of the last assessment having then been introduced successively, until all system had disappeared.

The imperial revenue was collected by a separate hierarchy of officials. The great provinces were divided into districts, or sirkars, in each of which a Diwan was chief financial agent. His office was the Defter ali, and his clerks were Mutasidis. In lesser districts the collectors were Amils or Karoris, the treasurers Fotadars. Karkums were appointed to settle disputes and audit accounts. The crown revenue might be farmed out, in areas of a size comparable to the jagirs, to officials known as Zamindars or Talukdars, who in the days of decline strove to make their position hereditary. In the local unit, or pargana, the government was represented by a Kanungo, who kept the records of assessments and payments. Akbar took measures also to bring under cultivation waste and abandoned lands, and appointed for this purpose Karoris, whose efforts were attended with much success. In the best days the imperial financial officers acted as a check upon the civil and military officials, upholding alike the interests of emperor and common people. Evidence exists, however, that even in the time of Akbar there was financial corruption, and that revenue officials were not lacking who plundered the people and defrauded the emperor.

The granting of jagirs to officers and Rajahs, of pensions to learned men and others, and of land in full title, free from revenue, for religious foundations seems to have diverted from the royal treasury about two-thirds of the possible land revenue. On the other hand, it has been estimated that the emperor received from customs, tolls, miscellaneous taxes, and presents an amount equal to what he got from the land. Careful calculations have resulted in ascribing to Akbar a revenue of over two hundred million dollars annually, and to Aurangzeb as much as four hundred and fifty million dollars. Suleiman’s revenue would then have been not the tenth part of Akbar’s and Louis XIV’s not the tenth part of Aurangzeb’s.

This revenue was expended upon the standing army, the court, the support of learned and religious persons, a series of building operations which were perhaps costly beyond parallel, bountiful gifts at certain seasons, and regular charities. It would appear, farther, that the expenses of the provincial governments were deducted from the imperial land revenue after it had been estimated but before it was paid into the treasury. In spite of the lavish outflow, however, an enormous treasure seems to have been accumulated. By Mandelslo it was estimated in 1638 at the incredible sum of one and a half billion crowns, equivalent to about the same number of dollars!

It was probably because of the greatly increased revenue which Akbar obtained by his new method that he found it possible to remit the jizyeh or capitation tax on non-Moslems, and also the tax on pilgrims, which had made the earlier Moslem rule obnoxious to the Hindu population. On the other hand, it may have been not merely religious zeal, but also financial stress caused by the civil wars preceding his accession, by the Rajput revolt, by the long struggle in the Deccan, and by the pious remission of many taxes not authorized by the Sacred Law, including the tax on Hindu temple lands, that influenced Aurangzeb to reimpose the capitation tax, and thus open wide the rifts in his disintegrating empire.

In the days of its greatness, the budget of the Mogul Empire, alike in income and expenditure, reached a height which had rarely if ever been attained before. That of the East Roman Empire under the Macedonian dynasty, and of the Saracen Empire in the days of Harun Al-Rashid, may have rivalled it; but it is probable that only the great Western powers, enriched by the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have ever reached a financial magnitude beyond that of the empire of Aurangzeb.

Humayun divided the responsibilities of government among four ministers, and a fourfold division persisted at least as late as Aurangzeb. By a curious form of logic the classification of duties and the names of the four departments were based, not on convenience, but on relation to the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The Khaki department had the care of agriculture, buildings, and domain lands; the Hawai, of the wardrobe, the kitchen, the stables, and the like; the Ateshi, of the artillery and the making of war material and other things in which fire was employed; and the Abi, of the emperor’s drinks, and canals, rivers, and water-works. When Khondamir wrote, about 1534, one man had oversight of all four departments; but the development of a regular supreme official of great power, like the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, seems never to have taken place, no doubt because the imperial house did not abandon the tradition of personal government.

Humayun set aside two days of the week for business of state. Drums were beaten to summon officials and give notice that the hall of audience was open. Any subject might appear and ask for justice. Suits of fine apparel and purses of money were at hand to reward the worthy, and executioners stood by with drawn swords to punish the guilty. Guns were fired at the close of the audience to notify officials that they might retire. Aurangzeb held general court in the great hall of audience for two hours on regular days. Persons who had petitions to present held them up, and these were taken by the emperor, read by him, and often granted on the spot. On at least one day in the week he sat with the two Kazis of the city, and on another day he heard privately ten cases of persons of low rank. In the evening the chief officers were commanded to be present in a smaller hall, where Aurangzeb sat to “grant private audiences to his officers, receive their reports, and deliberate on important matters of state.” This gathering resembled the Divan of Suleiman, but it lacked most of the latter’s judicial work; in India such work was done by the chief judges sitting separately, or by the emperor in the great audiences. Furthermore, it was the sovereign and not a grand vizier who presided in this council. The assembly was deliberative in matters of policy and general administration, and judicial in that it had jurisdiction of cases which involved officers of high rank.

For purposes of local government the empire was divided into subahs, or provinces, each under a Nawab (a plural of majesty, from naib, often called “nabob” by Westerners), or governor. Under Akbar the number of subahs varied from fifteen to eighteen. Like the Beylerbeys of the Ottoman Empire, the Nawabs tended to increase in number, the size of their provinces diminishing accordingly. The Nawab was almost a little emperor in his province. He held audiences, commanded the army, conferred lesser titles, appointed and dismissed most officials, and was the highest judicial authority. His power was limited, however, by the emperor’s right to recall him, by the right of appeal in judicial cases from him to the emperor, and by the fact that the financial and judicial officers were separately appointed and were responsible only to the throne. The Nawab and his court were supported by lands granted in jagir. He might suspend the jagirs of officers pending imperial decision. He was responsible for the security and order of his province, and had Faujdars under him in the several districts, who exercised military command and the powers of chief of police and police judge, their position resembling somewhat that of the Sanjak Beys of the Ottoman system. The chief financial officers in each province were the Diwans, who, as explained above, collected the imperial revenue and had oversight of all lesser revenue officers. They and their deputies possessed judicial powers in cases concerning finance and land titles. The chief judge of the province, subject however to appeals to the governor, was the Nizam. He heard the serious criminal cases, and his deputy, the Daroga Adaulat al Aulea, attended to most of the important civil ones. Local Kazis, aided by Muftis, Mohtesibs, and Kutwals or mayors, kept order in the smaller cities and districts. Rajahs who had made terms with the emperor exercised powers very similar to those of the Nawabs. Their positions were secured by heredity, however, and in their provinces the imperial financial and judicial officers had no jurisdiction. They simply owed military service and a certain amount of tribute, failing in which they might be reduced by force of arms. The Ottoman system contained no subjects who were at once so secure of their positions, so nearly independent, and so powerful as the Rajahs. Kurdish, Albanian, and Arabian chieftains were perhaps as secure and as independent, but they were of very small wealth and might; while the Voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were not so secure or so independent.

The condition of the common people under this government is to be known mainly by inference. Various documents and acts show the benevolent intentions of emperors and high officials toward the masses. Whether from wise prevision or from genuine charitable feeling, there appears to have been much solicitude lest the cultivators of the soil should be reduced to utter penury or driven from their lands. Akbar, for instance, issued strict orders that on military expeditions nothing should be taken from the people without careful assessment and immediate or subsequent payment. Nevertheless, at the best the result of the general policy was to leave the cultivator little more than a bare living. The whole system drained away wealth to a few great cities and a comparatively few persons. If but few complaints rose from the masses, it was because their lot was no worse than that of their forefathers had been for many generations. Aside from the periods of civil war, the Moguls gave peace and order. Akbar removed internal tolls two centuries before such a thing was accomplished in France, and thus made of the land a single economic unit, with the result that in his reign India as a whole enjoyed such prosperity as she has known at very few other periods in her history.

Before the time of Aurangzeb special care was taken to conciliate the Hindus. Akbar adopted definitely the policy of equal treatment for all, a degree of toleration not to be found in the contemporary Europe of William the Silent and Henry of Navarre. The government strove to abolish or mitigate such Hindu practices as were abhorrent to Mohammedanism, and at least one Moslem practice which offended the Hindus. Child-marriage, the ordeal, and animal sacrifice were forbidden. Widows were to be burned on the funeral pyres of their husbands only with their own full consent, and those who preferred to live might marry again. In the Rajput tributary states Hindu law of course prevailed. Probably in the regions under direct Mogul rule Hindus were judged by their own law when Moslems were not concerned and perhaps even by their own judges. It is true that the Hindus had to wait until Akbar came to be released from the personal disabilities imposed by earlier Moslem conquerors, that their temple lands were taxed until the time of Aurangzeb, and that Brahmans, pundits, and fakirs were perhaps only in Akbar’s presence treated with respect equal to that accorded Sheiks, Seids, and Ulema. But the emperors and their officers gave like justice to all; they permitted every man to worship according to the rites of his forefathers, and apparently never had a thought, as had Selim the Cruel, of giving to all non-Moslem subjects the choice between Islam and death. There was little ground for discontent until Aurangzeb began to apply a harsher policy.

The Moslems and the Moslem Church

In comparison with conditions in the Ottoman Empire, Moslems and non-Moslems in the India of the early Moguls were far more nearly on a level. This was due not merely to the toleration and indifference of the emperors, but even more to the circumstances of the conquest, under which both groups were treated alike, since Baber at Panipat in 1526 subdued the Moslem Lodi Sultans of Delhi, and at Kanwaha in 1527 the Hindu Rajput confederacy. Indian-born worshippers of Allah and of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva were mingled in the same vast mass of conquered subjects, equally separated from the victorious invaders. There was also, in all probability, a much greater difference of race between Baber’s highlanders and the Moslems that he found in India than between the latter and the Hindus; for many inter-marriages had taken place, and many natives of India had joined the followers of the Prophet. Time, of course, diminished this distinction.

Suleiman was distinctly the head of the Moslems of his empire. Through his appointee the Sheik-ul-Islam, through his Hoja, the Kaziaskers, the Nakib-ol-Eshraf, and other learned and saintly personages, he kept in close touch with the religious chiefs of the Mohammedan population. All who prayed toward Mecca, at least from the older portions of the Ottoman Empire, were attached by many ancient ties to the house of Osman. Their ancestors had perhaps been converts through its activities, had certainly fought for it, and had seen its gradual and vigorous rise to greatness. No such vital bonds joined to the Moguls the great mass of their Moslem subjects. These remembered the glories and favors of lost dynasties, and were indebted to the new sovereigns only for defeats and humiliations which depressed them toward the level of the Hindus, whom they had for centuries held to be far inferior to themselves. They had no Sheik-ul-Islam, honored by the sovereign with a seat above his own, whose decisions might determine the fate of the ruler or of the empire. Almost as much to them as to the Hindus the emperor was a stranger and a foreigner, to whom should be rendered, because of his power, full submission and instant obedience, but not loyal affection and whole-hearted devotion. There was ever an absence of solidarity between the house of Timur and those Moslem subjects who had not come into India in the service of that house, and this was not least among the elements of weakness that shortened the life of the empire. When Rajputs had been stirred to revolt, when Mahrattas had grown great, when bronzed and capable Moguls had been supplanted by “pale persons in petticoats,” who were left to rally about the tottering throne? More than two and a half centuries have elapsed since the Ottomans ceased to draw systematically from the strength of the Christian population, and yet the fighting stock of their Moslem subjects has never failed or grown weak or faltered in its loyalty; but Aurangzeb’s successors found few upon whom to rely, and of this few a very small proportion who would sacrifice their own fortunes freely, who would be faithful unto death.

The Moguls found in India Sheiks, Dervishes, Seids, and Ulema, mosques, schools, and pious foundations in abundance. In fact, the developed system of Mohammedanism had extended itself over India with visible results very much like those in all other Moslem lands, among them the Ottoman Empire. From the ranks of those educated in Moslem lore were taken teachers, judges, and counselors-at-law.

There must have existed for the children of the Moslem population mektebs, ordinary medressehs, and law schools, in which the Arabic language and the sciences built upon the Koran, as well as the Persian language and literature were taught. No doubt, also, the imperial household contained systems of education, arranged for the two sexes separately and prepared to train imperial and noble children and young attendants, servants, and slaves in the knowledge which was thought best adapted to fit them for life. It is interesting to notice what impression the teaching regularly given to a young prince made (if Bernier can be trusted) upon the keen intellect of Aurangzeb. When the latter became emperor, his old teacher, it appears, confidently presented himself at Delhi for reward. What, then, must have been his surprise to receive such a deliverance as this from the lips of majesty!

“Was it not incumbent upon my preceptor to make me acquainted with the distinguishing features of every nation of the earth; its resources and strength; its mode of warfare, its manners, religion, form of government, and wherein its interests principally consist, and, by a regular course of historical reading, to render me familiar with the origin of States; their progress and decline; the events, accidents, or errors, owing to which such great changes and mighty revolutions have been effected?... A familiarity with the language of surrounding nations may be indispensable in a king; but you would teach me to read and write Arabic; doubtless conceiving that you placed me under an everlasting obligation for sacrificing so large a portion of time to the study of a language wherein no one can hope to become proficient without ten or twelve years of close application. Forgetting how many important subjects ought to be embraced in the education of a prince, you acted as if it were chiefly necessary that he should possess great skill in grammar, and such knowledge as belongs to a Doctor of Law; and thus did you waste the precious hours of my youth in the dry, unprofitable, and never-ending task of learning words!... Ought you not to have instructed me on one point at least, so essential to be known by a king, namely, on the reciprocal duties between the sovereign and his subjects? Ought you not also to have foreseen that I might at some future period be compelled to contend with my brothers, sword in hand, for the crown, and for my very existence? Such, as you must well know, has been the fate of the children of almost every king of Hindustan. Did you ever instruct me in the art of war, how to besiege a town, or draw up an army in battle array? Happy for me that I consulted wiser heads than thine on these subjects! Go! withdraw to thy village. Henceforth let no person know either who thou art or what is become of thee.”

In this rebuke, whether it comes chiefly from Bernier or from Aurangzeb, is excellent criticism upon the stereotyped Moslem education, and material enough to cheer the hearts of modern advocates of a closer relation between subjects of instruction and the business of life.

The lack of solidarity between the mass of the Moslems of India and the Mogul government, together with the religious indifference of several emperors, prevented the Moslem church there from reaching the full measure of the dignity, influence, and authority of the Moslem Institution in the Ottoman Empire. Humayun’s division of the household into three classes shows that he gave highest rank not to the clergy but to princes of the blood, with nobles and ministers of state and military men. “The holy persons, the great Musheiks (religious men), the respectable Seids, the literati, the law officers, the scientific persons, poets, besides other great and respectable men formed the second class.” The orders, or arrows, of nobility show a little more definitely the place of the Moslem learned men, since they are assigned to the tenth order, after the monarch and the princes of the blood and the Rajahs.

In the palace-city of Fatehpur-Sikri, Akbar built a great hall, the Ibadat-Khana, to which he repaired on holy nights with Sheiks, Seids, Ulema, and nobles. Finding that his followers could not keep the peace when mingled indiscriminately, he assigned one of the four sides of the hall to each group. Here he was accustomed to listen to theological discussions; and it appears that what he heard tended to destroy his respect for the faith of the Prophet, and to predispose his mind toward the eclectic religion which he instituted later. Says Badauni: “The learned doctors used to exercise the sword of their tongues upon each other, and showed great pugnacity and animosity, till the various sects took to calling each other infidels and perverts.” In course of time Akbar obtained a document signed by the principal Ulema, to the effect that a just ruler is higher in the eyes of God than a doctor of the law (Mujtahid), that Akbar was a just ruler, and that therefore his decrees in matters of religion were binding upon the world. This declaration placed Akbar distinctly above the Moslem church and at least on a level with the prophet Mohammed; and he seems even to have played with the idea that he was himself God. Certainly he hoped to unify all creeds by his “divine faith.” His son and grandson were not much interested in religion, and not at all inclined to assume actively the religious headship of the empire; under them, the Moslem church had to take care of itself. Religious interest appeared again in Aurangzeb, not in any spirit of free inquiry, but in a rigid conformity to the rules of the Sacred Law. From those youthful days when he preferred the meagre life of a saint to the splendors of princely state, down to the long-deferred close of his troubled career, Islam knew no more faithful observer of its rites and prescriptions. In Aurangzeb’s reign and in his alone did the Moslem religion take such a place in India as in the Turkey of Suleiman’s time.

The learned Moslems of the Mogul Empire never had as the head of their hierarchy a personage of such dignity and power as the Sheik-ul-Islam of Constantinople. The Sadr Jehan appears to have been concerned chiefly with the granting of land from the treasury to learned and religious persons in lieu of pensions. The hierarchy of judges seems to have been complete, at least in territory that was directly administered, with two officials at court who corresponded to the Kaziaskers of Suleiman, and with Kazis of high rank in the chief city of each province and of lesser rank in other cities; but the functions of these officers appear to have been more closely restricted than in the Ottoman Empire, by reason of the superior jurisdictions of the emperor and the governors, and of the criminal and financial jurisdictions of the Nizams and Diwans and their deputies. As there is little mention of the muftis, it would seem that their rôle was not very important.

The Moslem church in India was not of the very fabric of empire. The imperial family and most of their associates in government adhered to it; but it had no thorough control of education and justice, and no power to sanction war or pronounce the deposition of an emperor. It did not curb the spirit of the nation or lay a heavy hand upon progress; but, as it was relatively unable to hinder by its weaknesses, so it could not contribute its abiding strength. The Mogul Empire is but a memory. The Moslem church of India thrives and grows under the rule of aliens of another faith.

Books Consulted in the Preparation of Appendix IV

Baden-Powell, B. H. A short account of the land revenue and its administration in British India. 2d edition. Oxford, 1907.

Bayley, Sir E. C. The local Muhammadan dynasties. Gujarát. London, 1886.—A sequel to Elliot’s History of India.

Bernier, François. Travels in the Mogul empire, A.D. 1656-1663. Westminster, 1891.—[As quoted by Lane-Poole and others.]

Crichton, A. S. The Mohammedans as rulers of India. In The Moslem World, i. 99-116. London, 1911.

Dow, Alexander. The history of Hindostan. 3 vols. London, 1770-1772.

Elliot, Sir H. M., and Dowson, John. The history of India, as told by its own historians. 8 vols. London, 1867-1877.—Vol. v (1873) contains extracts from Khondamir, Badáúní, Nizam uddin Ahmad, etc.

Gul-badan Begam. The history of Humāyūn (Humāyūn-nāma). Translated by Annette S. Beveridge. London, 1902.

Holden, E. S. The Mogul emperors of Hindustan. New York, 1895.

Hunter, Sir W. W. A brief history of the Indian peoples. 23d edition. [Oxford, 1903.]

Irvine, William. The army of the Indian Moghuls; its organization and administration. London, 1903.

—— The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad. J. R. A. S., Bengal, 1878, 340 ff.

Keene, H. G. The fall of the Moghul empire of Hindustan. New edition. London, 1887.

—— The Turks in India. London, 1879.

Lane-Poole, Stanley. Aurangzíb. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1893.

Lane-Poole, Stanley. Bábar. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1899.

—— Mediæval India under Mohammedan rule (A.D. 712-1764). New York, 1903.

Lyall, Sir A. C. The Moghul empire. In Cambridge Modern History, vi. 506-529. New York, 1909.

Malleson, G. B. Akbar. (Rulers of India series.) Oxford, 1908.

Rambaud, Alfred. Organisation de l’empire mongol. In Lavisse and Rambaud’s Histoire Générale, vi. 878-883. Paris, 1895.

Ritchie, Leitch. A history of the oriental nations. 2 vols. London, 1848.

Roe, Sir Thomas. Journal of his embassy to the court of the Great Mogul. 1615-1619. In Hakluyt Society’s publications, 2d series, vols. i-ii. London, 1899.—[As quoted by Lane-Poole and others.]

APPENDIX V BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

I. Sources of Ottoman Governmental Ideas

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

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

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

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

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

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

II. The Ottoman Government in the Sixteenth Century

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writer Date Volume Page

Gritti, Andrea 1503 iii 1

Giustiniani, Antonio 1514 ” 45

Mocenigo, Alvise 1518 ” 53

Contarini, Bartolomeo 1519 ” 56

Minio, Marco 1522 ” 69

Zen, Pietro 1524 ” 93

Bragadino, Pietro 1526 ” 99

Minio, Marco 1527 ” 113

Zen, Pietro 1530 ” 119

*Ludovisi, Daniello 1534 i 1

*Navagero, Bernardo 1553 ” 33

Anonimo ” ” 193

*Trevisano, Domenico 1554 ” 111

*Erizzo, Antonio 1557 iii 123

*Barbarigo, Antonio 1558 ” 145

Cavalli, Marino 1560 i 271

Dandolo, Andrea 1562 iii 161

Donini, Marcantonio ” ” 173

*Barbarigo, Daniele 1564 ii 1

Bonrizzo, Luigi 1565 ” 61

Ragazzoni, Jacopo 1571 ” 77

*Barbaro, Marcantonio 1573 i 299

Barbaro, Marcantonio ” Append. 387

Badoaro, Andrea ” i 347

*Garzoni, Costantino ” ” 369

Alessandri, Vincenzo 1574 ii 103

Anonimo 1575 ” 309

*Tiepolo, Antonio 1576 ” 129

*Soranzo, Giacomo ” ” 193

Venier, Maffeo 1579 i 437

Anonimo 1582 ii 209 [800]

Anonimo ” ” 427

Contarini, Paolo 1583 iii 209

*Morosini, Gianfrancesco 1585 ” 251

Michiel, Giovanni 1587 ii 255

Venier, Maffeo ” ” 295

*Moro, Giovanni 1590 iii 323

*Bernardo, Lorenzo 1592 ii 321

*Zane, Matteo 1594 iii 381

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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