INTROD.]

VIZIERS OF THE CUPOLA. THE DIVAN.

1

13

his high authority: as Vesiri Aasam, or Greatest Vizier; Vekili Muthlak, uncontrolled representative; Sahibi Develet, lord of the empire; Sadri Aala, highest dignitary; Dusturi Ekrem, most honoured minister; Sahibi Mühr, master of the seal; or lastly, in his relation to the army, Serdari Eshem, or most renowned generalissimo. His vast income was augmented from indirect and extraordinary sources, such as presents from Beylerbeys, foreign ambassadors, a share of warlike spoils, &c., and went on increasing during the decline of the Empire. The Grand Vizier alone had the right of constant access to the Sultan and of speaking in his presence. Yet this mighty minister was always originally a foreigner or Christian slave; for the extraordinary qualities required for the office could rarely or never have been found among the native Turks.

The same reasons which induced Mahomet II. to augment the power of the Grand Vizier, also led him to appoint some assistants. These were what were called the Viziers of the Cupola, or of the bench, who had the privilege of sitting in council on the same bench, and under the same cupola as the Grand Vizier. Though subordinate to him they were his constituted advisers in all affairs of importance, and were entitled like him to three horse-tails as ensigns of their rank. Their number was regulated by the necessities of business, but they were never to be more than six. Under such a man as Ibrahim they had but little influence, but they might always look forward to fill the post of Grand Vizier; they enjoyed large incomes, and the chiefs commands in the army or fleet. For the most part they were, like the Grand Vizier, converted Christians of humble birth. But the name of Vizier came in process of time to be given to all Governors of provinces who had attained to the rank of a Pasha of three tails.

The DIVAN, or Ottoman Council, ordinarily consisted of, besides the Viziers, 1, the two military judges (Cadiaskers) of Roumelia and Anatolia, to whom, after the conquests of Selim I. in Africa and Asia, was added a third; 2, the Beylerbeys of Greece and Asia Minor; 3, the two Defterdars, or treasurers, for Europe and Asia, to whom a third was likewise added by Selim; 4, the Aga of the Janissaries; 5, the Beylerbey of the sea (Capudan Pasha), or high admiral; 6, the Nishandshi, or secretary who affixed the Sultan's signature. When the debate concerned foreign affairs, the interpreter of the Porte was also admitted to the Divan. It sat regularly on four days of the week-Saturday, Sunday, Monday,

1 Zinkeisen, B. iii. S. 63.

14

PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION.-FIEFS.

[INTROD. and Tuesday, when, after morning prayer, the members, attended by their retinues of scribes, chiauses, &c., took their seats with great ceremony. Refreshments were served during the sittings, which lasted till the evening; when they were concluded with a meal in common, consisting of plain fare, with water as the only beverage. The business was conducted in a short and summary method; the Grand Vizier gave his decision, which was without appeal. Silence and the greatest decorum prevailed during the proceedings. In matters of law-for everybody, rich or poor, had a right to appear before the Divan and state his case -those who committed themselves by disrespectful and indecent behaviour were bastinadoed on the spot. In the administration of justice, as well as in the conduct of political affairs, the singular advantage of the Turkish government was quick despatch, subject of course to the faults which inevitably attend such a system.

Down to the time of Bajazet II. the Sultan himself presided at the Divan, and pronounced the decision. After that period he ceased to appear; but there was a niche, or box, over the seat of the Grand Vizier, in which, screened by a curtain, he might, if he pleased, listen to the debate. After the Divan was concluded the Sultan held a solemn audience in his apartments, in which he was made acquainted with its decisions. The different members of the Divan appeared before him in turn; the Nishandshi Bashi read the proceedings, and the Sultan gave his assent, after sometimes requiring preliminary explanations. Yet even in these audiences it was chiefly the Grand Vizier who spoke. In affairs of the highest importance, and especially on the undertaking of a new war, the Sultan held a Divan on horseback; on which occasions he appeared mounted in the Atmeidan, or ancient Hippodrome of Constantinople, with a magnificent retinue, and asked the opinions of the Vizier and other members of the Divan, who also attended on horseback. But this kind of assembly soon. degenerated into an idle ceremony, and fell at length into disuse. The Divan of the Grand Vizier (the Sublime Porte) was always the real council for the despatch of business. This was the central seat of the subordinate boards of the three chief executive officers; namely, the Kiaja Bey, the deputy, and as it were attorney-general, of the Grand Vizier; of the Reis Effendi, or minister for foreign affairs; and of the Chiaus Bashi, or home minister.

The provincial administration of the Ottoman empire was founded on that system of fiefs, or military tenures, to which we

INTROD.]

THE MOLLAS.-THE MUFTI.

15

have already alluded. The Turkish dominions consisted of conquered territory, and by the laws of Islam the conqueror was the lord and proprietor of what his sword had won. A union of several siamets and timars constituted a district called a sandjak (banner), under command of a Sandjakbey (lord of the sandjak), to whose banner with a horse-tail the retainers of the district resorted when called out. A union again of several sandjaks formed an ejalet, or government under a Beylerbey (lord of lords), who according to the extent of his province had a standard of two or three horse-tails. The highest of these Beylerbeys were the Governors-general of Roumelia and Anatolia. But the greatest of provincial governments was the Pashalic, consisting of a union of several ejalets.

Although, as we have seen, the chief strength of the Ottoman army and the political government of the Empire lay in the hands of slaves who had originally been Christians, yet everything appertaining to the administration of justice, religion, and education was intrusted solely to the hands of native Turks. In the Ottoman polity, indeed, religion and justice were united, and the Koran formed the text-book of both. In a nation so essentially warlike even justice assumed a military character. The office of the two Cadiaskers, or judges of the army, was the highest judicial dignity, and, till the time of Mahomet II., conferred upon them a rank superior even to that of the Mufti. The jurisdiction of the Cadiaskers was not, however, confined, as their name might imply, solely to the army. They were the first links in the chain of the Great Mollas, or men of the higher judicial rank; to which belonged besides them only the judges of the following cities:-Constantinople and its three suburbs, Mecca and Medina, Adrianople, Prusa, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Smyrna, Aleppo, Larissa, and Salonica. Then followed the Lesser Mollas, the judges of ten cities of the second rank. Other judicial officers of a lower class were the Muffetish, or investigating officers; the Cadis, and their deputies the Naibs. The Cadi gave his judgment alone, and without assistance, both in civil and criminal cases, according to the precepts of the Koran. He also discharged all the functions of a notary in making wills, contracts, and the like.

The head both of spiritual and temporal law was the Sheikh-ulIslam, or MUFTI The Mufti, however, pronounced no judgments. His power extended only to give advice in doubtful cases: his Fetwa, or response, had only a moral influence, no actual effect;

16

GREECE.

VENETIAN AND GENOESE SETTLEMENTS. [INTROD. but this influence was so great that no judge would have presumed to give a verdict at variance with his decision. The Mufti was consulted by those who were dissatisfied with the sentence of their judges. Mahomet II. placed the Mufti at the head of the order called Ulema, or men learned in the law and in religion; the members of which in the earlier times engrossed in their families the exclusive and hereditary possession of the higher judicial offices, and thus formed the nearest approach to an aristocracy among the Ottomans.1 The Mufti was sometimes consulted in questions of State policy, and, like the oracles of old, was not unfrequently tuned to give a response agreeable to the wishes of the Sultan. Into a description of the various ministers appointed for the service of the mosques it is not necessary to enter.

The history of the Ottoman Turks in Europe before the conquest of Constantinople forms no part of our subject, and it will therefore suffice briefly to recapitulate the state at that time of their possessions in Greece and the adjacent countries. In the reign of Mahomet I. (1413-1421) the greater part of the Greek Empire was in the hands either of Turks or Italians. The Peloponnesus, indeed, still belonged to the Greeks, and was divided into small sovereignties whose rulers bore the title of Despot. This peninsula, as well as the coast from Ætolia to the extremity of Epirus, and the regions of Macedonia and Thessaly, was thickly studded with the castles of lords or knights, who committed unceasing depredations on the inhabitants, and carried on with one another continual wars. The Venetians and Genoese, besides their colonies scattered over the Empire, had factories at Constantinople, which by their fortifications and garrisons were rendered quite independent of the Greeks. The Constantinopolitans themselves had no spirit of enterprise, and thus, almost all the trade of the Eastern Empire fell into the hands of Italians. The Venetians had their own quarter in the city, enclosed with walls and gates, as well as a separate anchorage in the port surrounded with palisades. This colony was governed by a bailo, or bailiff, who had much the same jurisdiction as the Doge at Venice. The Byzantine settlement of the Genoese was still more important. Michael Palæologus, in reward for their services in assisting him to recover the Empire, assigned to them the suburb of Pera, or Galata, on the opposite side of the harbour; a district 4400 paces

See Von Hammer, Des osm. Reiches Staatsverfassung, Th. ii. S. 382.

2 On the settlement of the Genoese at

Pera see Della Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, libri sei, di Lodovico Sauli. Torino, 1831.

INTROD.]

PROGRESS OF THE TURKS UNDER AMURATH II. 17

in circumference, which the Genoese surrounded with a double, and ultimately with a triple wall. The houses, rising in a succession of terraces, commanded a prospect of Constantinople and the sea. The Peratian colonists were the first Christians who entered into an alliance with the Turks, and by a treaty concluded with Amurath I. in 1387 were placed on the footing of the most favoured nations. Mahomet was constantly at war with the Venetians, who enjoyed a mediate jurisdiction in many of the cities and islands of Greece, through the patrician families of Venice who possessed them. They had also spread themselves along the coast of Albania, and were, with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, now settled in Rhodes, the chief obstacle to the progress of the Turks.

Under Sultan Amurath II. (1421-1451) the Emperor John Palæologus II. had found it expedient to purchase peace by a disgraceful treaty (1425). He ceded all the towns and places. which he still possessed on the Black Sea and Propontis, except Derkos and Selymbria; renounced the sovereignty of Lysimachia and other places on the Strymon, and agreed to pay to the Ottoman Porte a yearly tribute of 300,000 aspers. The Byzantine Empire was thus reduced to the capital with a strip of territory almost overshadowed by its walls, a few useless places on the Black Sea, and the appanages of the Imperial Princes in Peloponnesus; while the greater part of the revenues of the State flowed into the Turkish treasuries at Adrianople and Prusa. Amurath respected the treaty which he had made with John Palæologus and turned his arms against the Venetians, Slavonians, Hungarians, and Albanians. In March, 1430, he wrested from Venice Thessalonica, or Salonika, which that Republic had purchased from the Despot Andronicus, a conquest among the most important which the Turks had yet made in Europe. Amurath's next wars were with the Hungarians, and as the relations between that people and the Turks were for a long period of great importance in European history, it will be proper here to relate their commencement.

Amurath having invaded in 1439 the dominions of the Despot of Servia, that Prince implored the protection of Albert II., of Germany, who was also King of Bohemia and Hungary.1 Albert responded to the appeal and marched to Belgrade, but with an inadequate force, which was soon dissipated; and he was compelled to abandon an expedition in which he had effected nothing, For the affairs of these Kingdoms, see below, p. 35.