The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe
Overview of lecture
 The Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in early modern
Europe, occupying territory in eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as the
Middle East and North Africa.
 Many in Christian Europe saw the Muslim empire primarily as a threat to their
civilization; several European states were locked in fierce rivalry with the
Ottomans.
 The Ottoman Empire was also an important trading partner for many European
countries.
 Although those espousing religious hatred had loud voices, there were plenty of
Europeans who had a more nuanced and sensitive understanding of Ottoman
society. (The same could be said of Ottoman views of Christian Europe, though I
won’t have time to discuss this).
Who were the Ottomans?
 The Ottoman dynasty – a single dynasty lasting from 1299 to 1922 – were
Turkish Muslims.
 The broader ruling elite – who called themselves Osmanlı (Ottomans) – was
diverse, drawing on the manpower of Muslim and Christian populations in the
region. All assimilated to elite, Ottoman, Muslim culture.
 Many in the Ottoman elite were technically the Sultan’s slaves, who nevertheless
occupied positions of enormous power and amassed great wealth.
 The Ottomans’ subject population was also diverse, religiously and ethnically.
War
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Ottomans’ chief European rivals were the Habsburgs, with whom they fought
numerous wars over territory in Hungary and the Balkans.
Ottomans also fought frequent wars with Venice and with Poland-Lithuania.
Holy Leagues, formed under papal auspices, were an attempt to realize Christian
unity in defiance of the Ottoman-Islamic threat.
Peace
 Some European countries sought alliances with the Ottoman Empire, based on
mutual interests and in defiance of the climate of religious hostility.
 France formed alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the 1520s-30s, due to
common antagonism with the Habsburgs.
 England and the Dutch Republic sought friendly relations with the Ottomans at
the end of the sixteenth century, during conflicts with Spain.
 Most historians today argue that pragmatic self-interest, more than religious
hostility, drove foreign policy in both the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe.
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War and Peace: the case of Venice
 Venice was both a frequent antagonist (six wars during period 1500-1750) and a
key trading partner for the Ottoman Empire.
 Venice was the first Christian to establish a permanent embassy in Ottoman
Constantinople, and the only city in Europe with a resident community of
Ottoman Muslim expatriates.
 Venice was the traditional intermediary for trans-Mediterranean trade.
Trade
 Ottoman Empire was main source of several key commodities in early modern
Europe: silk, cotton, opium, coffee.
 Ottoman Empire also exported manufactured goods, in particular textiles and
carpets.
 Christian Europe had less to offer in return, so paid for much of its imports in
hard currency.
The Importance of Coffee
 Coffee was grown in Yemen, southern Arabia, and introduced to Constantinople
and the central Ottoman lands during the sixteenth century.
 Coffee-drinking spread from the Ottoman Empire to western Europe during the
seventeenth century, via diplomats, merchants and other travelers.
 Most coffee sold in Europe was Ottoman until coffee plantations were established
in the French Caribbean in the eighteenth century; the coffee trade was highly
lucrative for the Ottomans.
 Ottoman practices surrounding coffee were widely imitated in western Europe.
European Views of the Ottoman Empire
 Crude religious rhetoric depicting Ottoman Muslims as cruel fanatics was
common.
 Europeans who had traveled to the Ottoman Empire often had more nuanced, in
some cases positive views of Ottoman society & culture and even of Islam. These
views circulated in Europe through the growing genre of travel literature.
 Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Habsburg ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1554
and 1556, admired Janissary discipline and Ottoman meritocracy.
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire in 1716, used her Ottoman experiences to criticize gender inequality in
Europe, arguing that Ottoman women were freer than their European
counterparts.
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