Note 605 — Chapter VI · THE RULING INSTITUTION: AS GOVERNMENT

The extensive notes given above show clearly that from 1433 to 1660 there was a progressive increase in the sultan’s income, as measured in aspers or ducats. Brosch (in Cambridge Modern History, iii. 130) accuses Suleiman of raising by taxation double the amount exacted by Mohammed II, and thus bringing undue pressure to bear. This statement fails to take account of the fact that Suleiman’s empire was about double that of Mohammed II’s in area, population, and wealth. Also it seems to have been the case that the value of gold and silver fell greatly after the discovery of the American mines (Day, 135). If these effects were felt promptly in the Levant, Suleiman’s income in the last years of his life may have had little more purchasing power than Mohammed II’s. Distributed over a wider area, the pressure of taxation in his time may easily have been lighter than it was three generations before.