R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

It was Mohammad II who defined the position of the Grand Vezir as the Sultan’s representative and regent. The Grand Vezir received the right of using the Sultan’s seal and of holding a divan or State council in his own palace, which was called the High Porte. It was a position of which the political importance necessarily varied according to the character of the ruler. But it is not till the reign of Solyman that the Grand Vezir attains the plenitude of his power. In 1523 Solyman raised to the Grand Vezirate his friend Ibrahim, a Greek who had been captured by corsairs, and in the following year married him to his own sister. Ibrahim associated with his master more as a friend and equal than any Vezir with any Sultan; they were bound together by youthful friendship and common tastes. Ibrahim, says a contemporary Venetian report, is “the heart and breath” of the Padishah, who does nothing without consulting him; he is learned, fond of reading, and knows his law well. In 1529, before setting out for Hungary, Solyman increased his salary to 60,000 ducats and made him commander-in-chief (serasker) of the army: “all that he says is to be regarded as proceeding from my own pearl-raining mouth.” This delegation of supreme military command is an innovation not in the spirit of Orchan or Mohammad, and is a premonition of the new paths along which the empire is about to travel. It is a significant fact, that no sooner has the Vezirate reached a high elevation, than the influence of the harem begins to make itself felt for the first time in Ottoman history,—and as an influence hostile to the Vezir.

The income of the Ottoman State at the beginning of the sixteenth century was probably about four million ducats; and it went on increasing with new conquests till, towards the middle of the century, it seems to have approached ten millions. The head of the financial administration was the Defterdar of Rumelia, to whom those of Anatolia and, afterwards, of Aleppo, were subordinate. About three-fifths of the revenue were produced by the kharaj or capitation tax, levied on all unbelieving subjects with the exception of priests, old men, and children under ten. It does not seem to have been oppressive, it was generally paid with docility; and the duties on exports and imports were so reasonable that commerce, which was mainly in the hands of Christians, was in a flourishing condition. The worst feature in the fiscal system of the Turks was the stupid method employed in levying the land-tax (incident on all landowners without distinction of creed), which might amount to much more than a tithe of the produce. The farmer was not allowed to begin the harvest, until the tax-gatherer was on the spot to watch over the interests of the treasury, and he was forbidden to collect the produce until the fiscal portion was set aside. Apart from the incidental waste of time and injury to the crops, the inevitable consequence of this system has been that agriculture has never improved; certain primitive methods of work are prescribed by the law, and these and no others must be followed under the tax-officer’s eye. Another weak point in the financial system has been the depreciation of the coinage, a process which had set in at least as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Until the empire began to decline and the system became established of leaving the provinces to be exploited by officials who had paid heavy sums for their posts, the condition of the subject Christian population as a whole was perhaps more prosperous under Turkish rule than it had been before. The great oppression was the tribute of children, but even this was thought to have some compensations. Greeks, Albanians, and Servians rose to the highest positions in the State. Christians and Jews were, as a matter of policy, suffered to exercise their religions freely—a toleration which might indeed at any moment be withdrawn. In nothing had Mohammad shown astuter statesmanship than in his dealings with the Greek Church. He knew the “Romaic” language well, and had sounded the nature of the Greeks of that age; he was well aware how they were absorbed in narrow theological interests, utterly divorced from the principles of honour and rectitude, which they were always willing to sacrifice in order to gain a victory for their own religious party. He saw that the Greek Church under a Patriarch appointed by the Sultan would be a valuable engine of government, placing in the Sultan’s hands a considerable indirect influence over the laity. It was, further, his policy to favour the Greek Church, in view of the crusading plans of the Latin powers; for, though the Roman pontiffs of this period showed themselves able to rise to the higher conception of the unity of Christendom, the bigoted hatred existing between the Latin and Greek Churches went far towards paralysing the sympathies of the Catholic countries. Mohammad aimed at fostering this ill-feeling, and he was thoroughly successful; the supremacy of the infidel Sultan seemed more tolerable than the supremacy of the heretical Pope. Naturally Mohammad chose for the Patriarchate one of those who were opposed to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches: George Scholarios, a man of learning and bigotry, who had thrown whatsoever obstacles he could in the way of the Emperor Constantine’s forlorn defence of Constantinople. On his election George took the name of Gennadios. A church in the city was assigned to him, and the Sultan guaranteed that he and his bishops should be exempt from tribute and enjoy their former revenues. But the internal dissensions and intrigues of the Greek clergy and laity rendered the position of the Patriarch so difficult, that in a few years Gennadios resigned. His successors were equally helpless; and after the fall of Trebizond (1461) the struggle between the Trapezuntine and the Constantinopolitan Greeks, each anxious to secure the Patriarchate for a man of their own, made matters worse. A wealthy Trapezuntine, named Simeon, compassed his own election by paying a thousand ducats to the Sultan; and this was the beginning of a system of unveiled simony which has lasted in the Greek Church to our own times. This payment was increased at subsequent elections; afterwards a yearly contribution to the treasury was promised; but it is important to observe that these tributes were not originally imposed by the Sultans, but were voluntarily offered by the intriguing Greeks. The policy of Mohammad, who was solicitous to repeople Constantinople, had the effect of gathering thither a multitude of Greek families of the better class, who might otherwise have sought refuge in foreign lands. Settled in the quarter of the Phanar, in the north of the city, they were known as Phanariots, and came to be reputed a class of clever, unprincipled intriguers.

We have followed the expansion of Turkey up to the eve of its greatest splendour and widest extent. Subsequent pages will tell how the Ottomans advanced westwards by sea, and how the Austro-Spanish monarchy set limits to their expansion both in the north and in the south.

IN the latter half of the fifteenth century Italy presented the appearance of comparative calm. Frederick III, in spite of the motto attributed to him, “Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich untertan,” took no step to assert imperial claims in Italy. Conciliar storms had blown over. The condottieri had been tamed; secure for the most part in their little tyrannies they drew the pay of some neighbouring State, and spent it on luxury, literature, and art. If war was on foot, its bitterness was mitigated, at any rate to the soldier, by every courteous device. The clash of party strife was seldom heard, for most cities had bought internal peace at the price of liberty.