HALIL ixntcrr(Derleyen: Prof.

BIBLIYOGRAFYASIMahmqt $akiroflu)

\-)194r"Tanzimat Nedir?" Tarih Aragtrmalarr, I

(19 40/4I) , 237 -263 .(1941,), e.u. orcrU I

rg4z"Bosna'da Tanzimat'rn Tatbikine Dair Vesikalar", Tarih Vesika-

lart, | (1942), s. 374-389."Tanzimat ve Fransa", Tarih Vesikalaru, Il/8 (Aiustos 1942),

s. 128-139."Saray Bosna $er'iyye Sicillerine gore Viyana bozgunundan son-

raki harp yrllannda Bosna ", Tarih Vesikalan, Il/9 (1942),s. 178-187 ve c.IULI (1943), s. 372-383.

rg43"Osmanlr tarihi hakkrnda mtihim bir kaynak" , Ankara Uniuer-

sitesi Dil ue Tarih-Co{rafya Fakilltesi Dergisi, UZ (L943),s.89-96. (rrx Ki.itiiphanesi'nde bulunan Y/5L4 no'lu defter-den negir.

Tanrtma: "L. Rasonyi, Di.inya Tarihinde Tiirkliik, Ankarat942", Ankara Uniuersitesi Dil ue Tarih Co{rafya FakiiltesiDergisi,U3 (1943), s. 120-I25.

Tanzimat ue Bulgar Meselesi. Le Tanzimat et la Question Bulga-re (Doktora tezi), Ankara, 1943, s. XI-151.

Tercirme: Paul 'Wittek, "Ankara bozgunundan istanbul'un zap-trna" (1402-1455), Belleten, VIV1 (1943), s. 557-589.

Thnrtrna: Yusuf Hikmet Bayur, Tiirk inkilAhTarihi,c. I-il, krsrmI-II, Ank ara, 1.942,, Tiirk Thrih Kurumu Yayrnr: Anhara Uni-uersitesi Dil ue Tarih Co{rafya Fakiiltesi Dergisi, VS (1943),s. 175-179.

UrnnrNteN RTsSARCH Ixsrnurp, HRRvRno UNrvERSrryStudies in Ottoman Documents Pertaining to

Ukraine and the Black Sea Countries, 2

HALIL INALCIK

SOURCES AND STUDIESON THE OTTOMAN BLACK SEA

VOL. ITHE CUSTOMS REGISTER OF CAFFA, 1487_1490

Victor OstapchukVolume Editor

UKRAYNA ARA$TIRMALARI ENSTITUSU, HNRVNRN UNiVTNS |TTS i

Ukrayna ve Karadeniz iilkelerine iliEkin osmanlrbelgeleri ilzerine arasttrmalar, 2

Yaym kurulu

Halil Inalcik, Fahri baEkanOmeljan Pritsak, BaEmuharrir

Victor Ostapchuk, Yazt iEleri miidiirfi

Lubomyr HajdaCemal Kafadar

Edward L. KeenanAndri{s Riedlmayer

Gilles Veinstein

Robert De Los sa, Yazr i;leri sorumlusu

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The publication of this volume was made possible in part thanksto the support of Katheryna Wenhrynowycz, outstandingbenefactor of Ukrainian studies at Harvard University

ISBN 0-91&58-82-2@ 1996 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Cover lllustration: Ottoman Map of the Black Sea, r',rs 660 ff. 8b-9a.Reproduced with the kind permission of The Walters Art Gallery Baltimore.

Published simultaneously as vol. 25 of the Sources of Oriental Languagesand Literatures and vol. 22 of its sub-series Turkish Sources, edited by$inasi Tekin and Gdntil Alpay Tekin. Carolyn I. Cross, managing editorand composer of the Journal of Turkish Studies, provided invaluable helpin compositing the text.

Editorial colrespondence for Studies in Ottoman Documents Pertaining to Ukraineand the Black Sea Counrries should be addressed to:

Publications OfficeUkrainian Research InstituteHarvard UniversityI 583 Massachusetts Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Table of Contents

Editorial ForewordAuthor's Preface

Part IThe Register of the Arrears of the Customs Dues of Caffa, 1487-1490

IntroductionTextTranslationIndex of the TextNon-Turkish Names

Part IIEssays on the Black Sea Trade

The Ottoman Customs System and the Black Sea TradeShipowners, Captains and Merchants in the Black Sea, 1487-1506Imported and Exported Goods in Caffa According to the Caffa Customs

Register of 1487-1490Imports of the Crimea, ca. 1750Grain Production and Export by the Crimea and its DependenciesImports and Exports at Kili, March-September 1505Kerg and its Trade According to the Regulation of 1542

AppendicesTeer-Es

I Annual Revenue Sources in the city of Caffa, ca. 1520 and 1542II Customs Duties (giimrtik) at the Port of Caffa, l54ZIII Slave Tax Regulation at Caffa after 1,502ry Slave Tax Regulation at Caffa, 1542V Market Dues (bac) at CaffaVI Bazaar Thxes at the Bdb-r Tatarln (Tatarlar gapusr), 1542VII Market and ilrtisdb Dues in the City of CaffaWn Population of Caffa, ca. 1520 and 1542DocuurNrs

I A Report to the Ottoman Sultan on the Malpractices of Yalryd,Emin of the Caffa Customs, ca. 1487

ixxi

37

53798'7

9l113

t2lt25133135139

t43t44t45r46t47148t49150

l5r

n rhe Mu[riifa'a of the isranbul customs zone,, l47Gl4B0ru AbD's-Su.tid's Fatwii on Giimriikry A Report on How Thxes Were Determined at the Port of Kili

after the 1484 Conquesr (1490)V Emendated Text of the Regulation of Customs Duties and Market

Dues at the Fortress of KiliVI Imperial Order Concerning the Minting of the Caffa (Kefevi) alrgaVU Imperial Order Concerning the Caffa (Kefevi) ahgaVm The Population of Caffa in a Detailed (Mufagqal) Register, ca. 1520Wprcurs nNo MeesuREs

OrrounN AND KEFEVLISQ,q,S

GLOSSARY

ABBREVIATIONS

TRANSCRIPTION SYSTEM

MAPSl. Black Sea Region2. Plan of Caffa

FACSIMILESI. THE REGISTER of the ARREARS of the cusroMs DUES of

CAITA, t487-t490II. DOCUMENTS I-VI, VM

r57161

r62

r66r69t7lr73

r75

185

189

197

203

I-IXXI-XXUI

Editorial ForewordDuring the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries Genoa was the foremost state in Europe in terms of its economicdevelopment. It possessed colonies in Eastem Europe, especially in the Crimea, centered around the city ofCaffa. However, in 147S-following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453-the Ottomans occupied Caffa.Some ten years later the Ottoman government had already compiled a register of the customs dues of thisimportant trading city. That register was first discussed by Halil Inalcik in one of his publications in 1960.

We are extremely pleased to co-present as the second volume of our series a work that is both a culmina-tion of decades of research and publications activity and an original contribution toward the history of theBlack Sea region by the universally acclaimed dean of Ottoman historical studies. The centerpiece of thisstudy is the oldest extant Ottoman customs defter, or register, from Caffa, in the northern Black Sea region.Substantial in size and scope, this defter gives us a colorful tapestry of the Ottoman Black Sea trade system:goods from the luxurious to the mundane-brocades, mohair, leathers, spices, caviar, butter, lumber, arrnor,swords, nails, and many, many others; their carriers-merchants and shipowners; and the routes by whichthese items were funneled into and fanned out from Caffa, the city which the great English ambassador to thePorte Sir Thomas Roe would in 1625 call "the chief seat and port of the Euxine."

However, Halil Inalcik has given us a work that is much more than a full publication of this Ottomandefter. A series of essays serves not only as a commentary on and analysis of the register, but an investigationof the workings of Ottoman Black Sea trade in the early period, with additional data from the same period andwith comparative data from the late period. His original and authoritative presentation of the Ottoman cus-toms system goes far toward filling a gap in our understanding of the conduct of Ottoman commerce. In theappendices, tables and rare documents bring forth fascinating details of Ottoman economic and administra-tive life on the Black Sea frontier. The compilation of data on weights and measures, excursus on Ottoman andCrimean curency, and the glossary with its detailed treatment of the items of trade will make this book aninvaluable reference for anyone studying Ottoman trade and its documentation. Thus, Professor Inalcik hasprovided us with a work that is a mine of information and ideas in which no section has a marginal status{nthe contrary, each stands as an important contribution in and of itself.

In his previous studies, Professor Inalcik has variously demonstrated how control of the Black Sea andthe region's wealth-purposely directed toward the hub of the empire, Istanbul-was a key to Ottoman impe-rial achievements, both internal and external. The materials provided in rhis book give a panorama of ihetransformation of the Black Sea into an Ottoman lake in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, busyand thriving. This transformation was a fateful and enigmatic development for the northem Black Sea coun-tries-Moldavia, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, the Crimean Khanate, and Muscovy. Forexample, in the case ofthe Ukrainian lands, the elites which then controlled them-the old Ruthenian, and relatively recent arrivals,the Lithuanian, and then Polish princely elites-lost for centuries any chance of extending their dominions tothe south and repeating Grand Prince Vytautas'early fifteenth-century effort to gain a foothold on the rim ofthe Black Sea. Economically, the situation was more ambiguous. Ukraine remained basically outside theOttoman Black Sea trade zone. This is suggested by the scant trace of Ruthenian goods and merchants in theearly materials presented in this book (though we know from other sources that there was a certain, notinsignificant niche for trade between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). On theother hand, Ottoman entry into the northern Black Sea created the basis for another form of long-distancecommercial activity, namely, the great Tatar slave raid and trade boom, with Ukraine as its most significantsource of supply. In the wake of this development came another, the rise of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, forwhom the El Dorado to the south presented in this book-that is, the Black Sea-would soon become theirlifeblood, thanks to their ingenious naval raiding tactics. The complex of problems connected with Ukrainianhistory mentioned here is but one set of examples of the importance of this book outside of Ottoman historyalone.

With this volume our series reaches a turning point. The series continues its international character, bothin terms of its editorial board and in terrns of the work being conducted within it. Under the direction of GillesVeinstein at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociiles in Paris, the long-awaited volume of Ottoman,Italian, and other documents pertaining to the founder of the 7-aporozhian Sich, Prince Dmytro VySneveckyj,is nearing completion. With the renewal of the Institute of Ukrainian Archeography in 1990 and the openingof the Institute of Oriental Studies in l99l-both within the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine-

scholars in Kiev have.emerged as cotlaborators in the series'endeavors. In 1994 both institutes jointly formedthe Black sea commission for research and publications, with the aim of combining resources for the task offurther opening the treasures of the ottoman archives for the history of the rcgion. The commission nowcollaborates with the ukrainian Research Institurc.t Hu*"r0il;;'E.ori ao irrui., g,uo* to plan fururevolumes.The next volume in the series will be Dariusz Kotodziejczyk's The onoman survey Register of podotia(ca' l68l ): Defter'i Mufassat'i Eyalel-i Kamanige. Next arier itris witi ue Lubomyr Hajda,s presentation ofrane narrative sources,Two ottoman Gazanames'Concerning the Chyhyryn campaign of I67g,and professorveinstein's above-mentioned study of Vyineveckyj. other Jolumes cJrrently are under way.on behalf of the editorial board we wish to thank the Dircctor of the ukrainian Research Institute arHarvard' ProfessorGeorge G. Grabowicz, and the Directorof the ukrainian studies runJ, pr. Roman procyk,for their support of the series. Finally, we continue to be grateful to professor $inasi rekin for his cooperationin the publication of this volume.

Omeljan Pritsak and Vctor OstapchukJune 1995

Cambridge, Mass.

Author's Preface

Over a decade ago, I began to prepare for publication the Ottoman customs register of Caffa,now preserved in the Ottoman archives, which is unique in its importance for the study of the portof Caffa and the Black Sea trade in the years 1487-1490. Professor $inasi Tekin and the UkrainianResearch Institute of Harvard University offered to publish it in their series of Turkish-Ottomansources. My original plan was to include a deciphered text in the Arabic alphabet, a facsimile, and afull translation with a glossary. As the work progressed, I thought that I should add essays clarifyingand describing the terms and commodities mentioned in the text as well as the Ottoman customssystem and navigation and trade in the Black Sea region.

In the meantime, studies published by my colleagues M. Berindei and G. Veinstein on the Ottomancity and province of Caffa, based on the detailed surveys of 1520 and ll{2preserved in the Otromanarchives, encouraged me to make further inquiries into the history of the city of Caffa, including itspopulation and topography. As a result, the work on the customs register of Caffa grew into avolume of a more general character with contributions on the history of the Black Sea economy.

While I was working on the Caffa register, I started to examine similar customs registers of Kiliaand Akkermdn dated to the last decade of the fifteenth century. Since the registers of these other twoimportant Black Sea ports demonstrated similar patterns in traffic and body of merchants, I thoughtthat I should add to the Caffa volume some information from these sources. In the meantime, Iproposed to M. Berindei and G. Veinstein a collaboration for the full publication of the Kilia andAkkermdn registers, and thus far we have read and copied substantial portions of the texts. We hopeto publish these companion sources on the Black Sea in the same series as the Caffa register.

In the transcription of terms, the Arabic or Persian form is used whenever a given word was notcommon usage in Turkish, e.g., bawilSi instead of beviiki. Ottoman place names outside of modernTurkey are given in full transcription, whereas those within Turkey are rendered in their modernform (thus, Akkermin, but Karaman).

In the preparation of this study my thanks go first to $inasi Tekin for the encouragement heextended to me to publish this work in his series on Turkish sources and for his understanding of thelong delays caused by the inevitable difficulties in preparing this kind of work for publication. I amalso most grateful to Omeljan Pritsak, Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute until1989, and George G. Grabowicz, Director sinnce 1989, for their support by including this work inthe Institute's publications. I thank Oleksander Halenko (Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy ofSciences of Ukraine) for his contribution towards the preparation of the maps.

My special thanks are due to Victor Ostapchuk, who has read the work many times, each timecontributing very helpful suggestions which substantially improved the end result. Without hisconstant assistance, this book would never have appeared in the form it does now. Any shortcomings,of course, are my own.

INTRODUCTION

The RegisterThe document we are publishing here is the register of arrears of the customs dues of the Ottoman

port of Caffa (Kefe in Ottoman Turkish), located on the southeastern coast of the Crimea, for the periodbetween L487 and 1490.1 The original is preserved in the Bagvekilet Archives of Istanbul (Kimil KepeciTasnifi, no. 5280 Miikerrer;.2 this complete register consists of seventeen pages of the size 38 x L3 cm. Adefter of the "tall and narrou/' format used for financial records in the fifteenth century, it is written in avariant of siyalat (siyala) script with some frvlnr- characteristics. In most cases figures are rendered insiyl[

IntroductionAround the year L492, when the state finances were in a state of constraint as a result of thedisastrous war against the Mamluks (148 5-L4gL), a general inspection of the major revenue so'rces

appears to have been embarked upon as witnessed by inspection orders on the accounts of the Serbo-Croatian mines and on the port of Kili (Kilia) in the 1400s.4 Toward L487 g;ave cha.ges by the garrison ofcaffa against Yalryd, the finance agent (emrn), reached Istanbul.S

As for the defter-i bawekl it was a register of baki. lyes (plural bawat

Introductionmtfredat or riizn5mge).ll This register is arranged in the same manner as our register, gtving the namesof the shipowners and the customs dues paid. However, it includes no prices; perhaps by this time thecentral bureaucracy decided that it was unnecessary to record prices.

In the day-book of the customs of the port of Antalya dated pjumdda Il967 /February-March L56012we find a somewhat different arrangement and terminology. Wares are first listed under the word matd".Then comes the identification of the shipowner along with the amount of his wares and the respectivecustoms dues. The values of wares were not estimated and recorded. Since a lump sum of customs duesare usually given for several different items, it is not possible to determine prices.

As to the method of arrangement of the entries, in our register the scribe first indicated each arrivingor departing ship with its owner or captain, then the merchants aboard by name and origin, then the goodsimported or exported with the amount and estimated value and, at the end, the dues owed. [fowever, asecond method was also used in which only the merchants were listed along with the goods imported orexported and the dues owed, without speciffing the ship in which they arrived or departed. In our registerthe second method occurs in the entries between the ships of Praskova (fol. 6b) and that of "Ah Rayis (fol.8b). In this case, each entry is introduced by the formula of ber-gimmet-i ("owed by . . ."). In ourtranslation these entries are given a separate numeration with each position prefixed by "A." In thismethod the stress is placed on the debtor, while the goods are listed without speci$ing their amount andvalue. In the first method the ship used by the merchant is specified by the words'an sefine-i ("from theship of . . .") and the goods imported or exported are introduced with the name of the importer orexporter by the words "an yed-i ("by the hand of . . ."). The total sum of the dues owed by the merchant isrecorded obliquely at the end, and each sum is marked by a small circle. In our translation we haveremained faithful, as much as possible, to the original arrangement of the list and added words only whenit was necessary to make the meaning clear. The same ship is recorded repeatedly with differentmerchants and goods at different places in the register (e.g., the ships of Hacr REys, Bali Reyis, Cici-oglu,Yiisuf Fakih and Mesil.r Pasha). The repeated records may refer to the arrivals or departures of the sameship at different dates in the same year or to the merchants separately recorded who arrived or departed inthe same ship at the same time (for the latter case, in particular, see Yiisuf Fa$h's ship, no.23, fols. 2b-3a).

The entries are arranged in a zigzag manner on the page. A particular case illustrating this layout isthe order followed in recording the ship of Mes-rh Pasha and tharof Hasan of inebolu (nos. 35 and 36).After Mestr Pasha on the left side we have flasan on the rlght side and the latter's column continues onthe next page.Tax Farmers and Scribes

As indicated in the register's introduction, the tax farmers who jointly undertook the collection of thecustoms dues arrears were HdcI "Ah, son of $afiyedfin, Enik Atrmed, and Yaftiib, son of Dr=vene. Withinthe four years, several scribes made entries in this register successively: from the first of Yunyus 892/1,June 14t|7 scribe Dere Babas or Papas; from. Rama{dn 894/end of July-August 1489 scribe Uahl; and fromRabf I 895/January-February 1490 scribe Isma5l. The contemporary court records of the cadi of Bursaprovide additional information on some of these persons.

In a record of the cadi court of Bursa, dated 3 Ra{ab 592/25 June L487, al-flac "AlI, son of$afiyedd-rn, mentioned as a "travelling merchant" and an %mil at the port of Caffa, is evidently our HIcr'AlT.lJ A "travelling merchant" (in Arabic tadliir al-saffhr) in contrast to a "resident merchant" (ta![ir d-ke'in or td{ir al-ke'id) was a merchant engaged in caravan or overseas trade and in most cases inmu{tuaba (comnenda) enterprises.la Apparently HdcI'Alr was one of the merchants who was engaged inthe trade between Bursa and Caffa which flourished during this period. The Bursa record also makes it

lrFekete and Kdldy-Nagy, L7-3L9.l1W" are preparing this register for publication.rrBursa court records no. A 6/6,366a. dated 3 Ra$ab 892/25 June 1487: oJJl &u&cHl

,-LUl rh. ll ;t ll14see Inalcik, "Capital," 98-101. {i5 it(.,l .,t

Introductionclear that he became an %mil to whom the collection of customs revenues at caffa was farmed out undercontract' In this period, ta:r farmers usually belonged to a group-or *ru1,rty

-...rtants in possession ofready cash for delivery of the installments fo the tieasury oi prid"trr.inea da;s.fi^'i"i1t"i"drj ur.ofi:b:n"*:if ,lfflant' we find him in our register ir inr'**ty to Zii-geref, a merchant ,reuera i,

As for the scribes, the one who was responsible for the records made between yunyus ggzfiune L4g7and Ramadan 894/July 1489, Dele p.lup tir Papas, was evidently an a.-eoi-.it- tn a record from theBursa court book, dated 27 shaban892/?.01ugust l1s]7,a certain'nau"r-f;;;menian from caffa,,,ismentioned'le He may huuG.o ou, s.iib. Ba6as. other er-rrrirns or Greeks by the name of Babas orPapas are to be found in the contemporary ottoman documents. A certain Babas Angel is mentioned in aBursa court record dated shatan.8e1z4{'us! 1486 on the occasion of a credit in the a-ount of 2,g00 akgaextended by Babas to a certain Mibal of nigdan (Y:d;"jT ";ertain

Militar Babas from Istanbul, anArmenian merchant importing feli.ang.oulp to akkerm-a+ is.il; in the .irto-. uook of Alkermdn inApril 1505'21 ismiT, anothei scribe ;. g;ii"glster, might also have been an Armenian. In the Bursacourt records reference is made to a certain "isilaa,'sorr"of o;;ir, Armenian merchant from Kefe,, in adocument dated sha"ban 892/Jaly-August r4s7.i tt ut "

oon-vtoslim was employed as a scribe in theservice of tax farmers *as quite common -- we find many;;;il of this in thJ c-Jntemporary ottomanrecords.23

l5see Inalcik,,,Notes."l6see no.32.l7The Armenian title der or dere referred to someone performing a priestly function, or, as efendi inTurkish, to an honored personage. see Matthias Bedro.iiuo,-Th. iv"i, Ar-""il-English Dictionary(venice, 1875-1879)'101i Der (ciissical attne"ia" pronunciation--TEq the voiced pronunciation with d- iswestern Armenian), God, the Lo-rd;-sir, lord, rnuit.r,

-isterf plssessor, owner master; Reverend (used asa title, especially for priests); Bedros zeki Gar{e{yun,'6r-"niceden Ttrkg-eye Miikemmel Lugat(Istanbul, L907),800; Drer-- t. /Gdwadz (i.e., coai; 2. eiendr;:. diu; 4. mutasarrif; 5. meli! 6. erbab, su-/a-.18In Kipchak Turkish we find it plonounge d pagu,plpaq or babas (see K. Gronbeck, Komnnissheswdrterbuch- Tiirkischer wortindex zu codex cu-a"icui iaffi;;gen: E. Munksga ard, 1942), tg1.l9Bursa court records, no. A5/5, 3%;.20Bursa court recordsj no. AS'f 5', f47;.2lBagvekdlet Archiver, Uutiy"aen pttiOewer, no. 6.

,".r;i"r:til;J:!in#i, no. A5l5,3e2a; Sarkiz, son of ovanis of caffa (ibid. AL/l,Muharram 88s),23see Inalcik, "Notes"; Todorous, a Greek, was a scribe at the port of Antalya in l47g(Customsregister of Antalya, Bagvek6let Archives, lvlaliyeden nrtiar*ri, ,ro. 73g7). The fact that these non-Muslims were bilingual and sometimes involved in trade themselvis might have been among the reasonsthey were preferred over Muslims for employmenf at the customs.