Joya

The Turk’s Arrival









He first announced and notified his vizirs, his emirs and his servants that from then on Istanbul would be his throne; ... for his own residence and for the comfort of his closest and his slaves, he built palaces and kiosks ... he had a great bedesten and bazaars and market places established and spacious kervansaray for those who came and went. ... he divided water among his palace, the baths and the quarters. And in a suitable place, he built the forty fountains (Kyrkçe?me) by an aqueduct. And in that location, he built a great mosque in the image of the masterpiece of Hagia Sophia ... And on several sides of the mosque he had eight medreses built in a most brilliant and beautiful way. ... And on one side of it he had a hospital (darü??ifa) built for patients from among the lowest and the highest alike ... And on one side he had a great imaret (soup kitchen) built ...
Tursun Bey

Balance



Reviving the city



Port









Navy, arsenal, slaves



Trade



Hans, markets, bazaars





The Bezazistan (Covered Bazaar) slave-traders having presented a request at my Threshold of Felicity and from times of yore female slaves have been sold in the New Bezazistan and while it was decreed that male and female slaves sold according to Kassam (inheritance) register should be sold in the old Bezazistan...



The Market, which they call Bazar (Pazar) or Bezestan (Bedesten), is also a beautiful building, roofed with domes covered in lead, supported by several colonnades and pillars within, located in the western part of the City. The main trading done there is in furred robes, jackets, beautiful horse saddles, bridles, scimitars and other arms.
George Wheler



Traders and goods

Enormous quantities of cloth of all qualities and provenance are brought here; but come more specifically from southern France, from the United Provinces of Holland and from England.
Desolneux

... we do not ordinarily conduct trade with Turks, who are neither buyers or sellers, but rather the Jews, the Armenians and the Greeks ...
Report on French trade in the Levant

Everyday a market is held in some part of the city and on Friday in three places, the most important being the market held everyday, and particularly on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays called Schibazar (Eski Pazar), or market for old goods, and one can find a great many goods being sold every day for great sums of money; and there are more than two thousand such shops in the vicinity.
Domenico Hierosolimitano



Money





State power





The palace







The first courtyard: the threshold of power

Anyone can enter the first courtyard of the Palace, and it is here that the servants and slaves of Pashas and Aghas who have business at court wait for their masters.
Pitton de Tournefort



We found (in the first courtyard of the Palace) some companies of Sipahis on horseback, lined up on both sides. Although they were not all present, I was told that there were at least some five hundred of them. Under the porticos to the right of the entrance four thousand janissaries were lined up in orderly ranks in great respect and complete silence.
Pietro della Valle

All the Pashas upon whom the Grand Signor bestows governorships and in general all who leave the Seraglio to take up a post are obliged, before undertaking their duties, to present their Lord with gifts proportional to the benefits they have received.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier

The second courtyard: the administration of power

A gate opens from the first courtyard into a larger and better protected courtyard. In this courtyard a beautiful avenue lined with trees leads to the Divan Odasy (Council Chamber). To the left is the Treasury of the Grand Signor as well as a fountain where Pashas whom the Sultan has decided should be publicly executed are beheaded.
Du Loir



The third courtyard: the privacy of power

The Seraglio I saw as farre as Strangers use, having accesse into the second Court ... the inside (the third court) I saw not, but an infinite swarme of officers and attendants I found, with a silence, and reverence, so wonderful, as shew’d in what awe they stand of their soverayne.
Henry Blunt

Ceremonies and symbols



Army & the military ranks

Ottoman armies consisted of salaried kapıkulu regulars, topraklı regional irregulars, short-term levied called miri-askeris, yerli-neferats consisting of the entire Muslim population of a town called up for a local defence, and the gönüllüyan, a general mass of tribal irregulars.
The establishment of a regular army early in the 14th. Century saw the emergence of Byzantine and Classical Islamic elements in th eOttoman battle array.Byzantine influence was strong because of the important role played by Christian vassals,particularly in siege warfare.
By the 16th century Ottoman tactics had reached their classic form.within a formidable system of entrenchments, top arabalari gun-waggons and artillery stood the Sultan, his personal guard of solaks, and the Janissaries armed with arquebuses.On their immediate flanks were the armoured alti bölük housed cavalry.Azap infantry assambled in front of the artillary and to the rear, where they and the muteferika guarded the baggage train.On their flanks stood the provincial sipahi cavalry,whose tast was to draw an enemy to the azaps.They in turn would absorb the charge, then move aside to allow the artillery and Janissaries to open fire. Finally the flanking sipahis would attack and, where possible, surround the foe.The Janissaries were, of course, also trained to attack, but they did so at a rush in large closely-packed formations which rendered their gunfire largely ineffective.





Diplomacy

The Ambassador is escorted to the Audience Chamber by the Kapy A?asy (Chief White Eunuch) assisted by several black eunuchs. On reaching the door, two vizirs receive him and walk by his side until he arrives at the place where he has to kiss the robe of the Grand Signor.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier



The divan is merely a room resembling a chapel with arch and dome and screened by means of a grill similar to those seen in our Churches. The walls are painted with arabesque motifs. Immediately beside it is another room where officials not admitted to the divan remain.
Dominique Sestini



Science

Mr. Watson assured us they kept annals for all that takes place throughout their Empire and of the wars they wage against their neighbours, and that one could have a copy of these Chronicles in five or six large volumes for two hundred crowns; and that there are in the Seraglio Historians or Scribes payed to do this.
George Wheler



Life

Never, even during days of rebellion, does one hear from Istanbul those tumultuous and confused noises resembling the sound of the open sea, the silence being broken only by the shouts of the hucksters and food vendors.
M. Michaud et M. Poujoulat





Stages of life







Domestic interiors







Making a living

(The guild of butchers) march with great activity and pomp, with fat and extraordinary sheep from Karaman, Türkmen, Mihaliç and Osmancyk in Bursa, weighing each forty of fifty okkas (60-70 kg.) laid out on a palanquin, skinned with their heads and trotters, their bodies decorated with white grease and with ruby-like roses and yellow saffron, their horns decorated with silver and pure gold sheets, holding their chopping knives, weighing meat in their yellow brass scales. The sight is indeed worth seeing.
Evliyâ Çelebi

[The boza (fermented millet beverage) vendors] use millet from Tekirda? to make a sort of boza as white as milk which is like a cup of rosewater, so agreeable it is to swallow. It is very thick (and) although some have tried to filter it through handkerchiefs, never has even a droplet seeped through. ... These are white bozas with cream on top and which give life to whomever drinks some. Even ten ladles won’t cause drunkenness. Nor will they give stomach aches.
Evliyâ Çelebi





Water

For the water is brought by this means through a multitude of valleys and mountains, and this aqueduct is of such convenience in Constantinople that at almost all intersectons there is a fountain where one can drink from tin vessels attached to it with iron chains.
"Le voyage de Pierre Lescapolier, Parisien"



Religion

The great mosques, the Imperial mosques, are not only buildings dedicated to worship; the generosity and piety of the founders have in a certain sense enlarged the purpose of the institutions they include. Each of the principal mosques has its own medresseh or college and library, for the Koran has said that war waged against ignorance is the greatest holy war. Most of them also have a hospital which welcomes the sick, an imaret which feeds the poverty stricken: the temple of God, according to Muslims must also be the asylum for all who suffer and the home of the poor should be part of the house of God. To this you should add that the Sultans who founded these mosques wished that their own tombs and those of their relatives should be located near these monuments. You can thus appreciate the amount of space that these mosques occupy in the capital, the number of buildings they include, the memories they bear and what sacred duties they are entrusted with.
M. Michaud and M. Poujoulat





Health and welfare services



Education



Urban development

water supply system


fountains & baths (circle)
water towers & distribution basins (square)
Kırkçeşme water network (Byz.)+ 1453 –1463
Halkaly su yolları (Byz.)+ 1453 –1755
Taksim water network 1731 –1839





Next Episode: Late Ottoman Period !

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