The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

~ ON SOVEREIGNTY AND SUBJECTS ~ 59
count of people and settlements. 129 After Sultan Ahmed III had reconquered the
province in 1715/1126–8, he ordered a similar description to be compiled, and a
comparison between the two documents allows us to appreciate the impact of
war on a population literally caught between two fires. 130 Thus the official confirmation
of the conquest of the Peloponnese, for it was as a novel acquisition, and
not as a reconquest, that the Ottoman authorities chose to view the matter, constituted
the major gain achieved in Passarowitz. Presumably this success
contributed toward the legitimization of Sultan Ahmed III.
Once peace had been concluded and Ahmed III’s rule thus stabilized, the
Ottoman government was free to attempt a certain reorganization of its territory.
As a first step, towns such as Vidin, which long had been located deep in the
Ottoman lands but in 1689/1100–1 had temporarily been occupied by the
Habsburgs, were revamped as fortress towns. Garrisons of janissaries were
established; at least in part these men must have come from the lost Hungarian
provinces. 131 Reorganization was an urgent matter as, during the wars, all
resources had been channelled into the army and navy, and even important matters
such as the security of the roads had been neglected. Attacks on the
pilgrimage caravans had become much more frequent, and as the Ottoman sultans
made much of their role as protectors of the pilgrimage to Mecca, this matter
demanded immediate attention.
Apart from the pilgrimage, minimal security on the roads was also of prime
importance to traders, to say nothing of the peasants who were liable to flee
when exposed to too many marauders. In consequence the interests of the Ottoman
ruling group too were affected by pervasive banditry. Many office holders in
the capital supported their households out of the revenue provided by lifetime tax
farms (malikâne), but the subaltern tax farmers responsible for selling the grain
or cotton they had collected from the tax payers, were unable to remit much revenue
under conditions of rampant insecurity. Last but not least, customs
payments and taxes constituted a revenue item of some significance to the central
administration itself, so that securing the trade routes constituted a basic precondition
for political and economic recovery. 132
This explains why, in the years following Passarowitz, the construction of fortified
khans was undertaken along the major routes. With their windowless walls
and single solid gate, such buildings could function as minor fortresses in case of
need, and seem to have attracted settlement because of the protection they provided.
Equally, along the Syrian hajj route, such khans were built in appreciable
numbers. Moreover, the old institution of the passguards (derbendci) was
revamped. It is certainly not a matter of chance that while the sixteenth-century
tax registers contain scattered references to villages responsible for the security
of travellers, documents describing the passguard organization in detail normally
date from the 1700s. Now the villages in charge of road security were placed
under the authority of officially appointed commanders and their obligations,
which in earlier centuries must have been defined largely by custom, were now
formalized by means of sultanic commands. 133