The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

~ AT THE MARGINS OF EMPIRE ~ 77
fact that, for example, the doge of Venice was a more powerful figure than the
voyvoda of Moldavia. 10 Chroniclers, however, might take a more realistic view.
Thus the seventeenth-century author Hüseyin Hezarfenn distinguishes between
the tribute paid by areas ‘veritably conquered’ and that due from rulers living at
peace with the sultan, such as Moldavia, Walachia and Transylvania. 11
~ ‘Dependent principalities’ with long life-spans
While the central Hungarian provinces were thus rapidly transformed into Ottoman
vilayets under provincial governors (beylerbeyi), Sultan Süleyman and his
successors preferred to recognize a vassal principality in the eastern sections of
the defeated Hungarian state; this new entity was known to the Ottomans as
Erdel and to English speakers as Transylvania. Located on an important route
linking Istanbul with Lvov (Lwiw) in the modern Ukraine by way of the towns of
Brašov and Sibiu, which both constituted active commercial centres, Transylvania
had no significant Muslim population. Local princes as well as the noble and
urban vassals of the latter rulers, also known as estates, were largely autonomous
in their internal affairs. On certain occasions, Transylvania even came to play a
role of some significance in seventeenth-century inter-state politics. Although
possession of this territory was hotly contested by the Habsburgs, Transylvania
never became a centrally governed Ottoman province, as so many other acquisitions
of the sultans had done, but remained in the orbit of Istanbul as a dependent
principality until finally conquered by the Habsburgs in the war of 1683–99/
1094–1111. 12
Among dependent princes who were Muslims, both the Crimean khans and
the sherifs of Mecca also retained their positions over many centuries. The khans
had become vassals of the Ottoman sultans after 1475/879–80, the sherifs in
1517/922–23. Given the dependence of the Hijaz on Egyptian grain, the sherifal
dynasty had submitted voluntarily, without any confrontation in the field, after
Selim I’s conquest of the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria. Neither the existence
of the khanate nor the dignity of the sherif as a subordinate but autonomous
ruler was ever called into question by the Ottoman government. In both cases,
individual khans or sherifs were quite often deposed, but their successors always
appointed from the same ruling families. In this manner, the khans of the Crimea
held office until Catherine II annexed their lands to the Russian Empire in 1783/
1197–8, and the sherifs as rulers of the Hijaz even survived the end of Ottoman
government in the Arabian peninsula (1918), albeit only for a very short time. It
was thus common enough for a principality to maintain its vassal status over
many centuries.