Ottoman Greece: Encyclopedia II - Ottoman Greece - Ottoman rule

Ottoman Greece - Ottoman rule

The consolidation of Ottoman rule was followed by two distinct trends of Greek migration. The first entailed Greek intellectuals, such as Johannes Bessarion, George Gemistos Plethon and Marcus Musurus, migrating to Western Europe and influencing the advent of the Renaissance. The second entailed Greeks leaving the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettling in the mountains, where the rugged landscape made it hard for the Ottomans to establish either military or administrative presence.

Ottoman Greece - Administration

The Ottomans divided Greece into six sanjaks, each ruled by a Sanjakbey accountable to the Sultan, who established his capital in Constantinople in 1453. Before this division occurred, the Ottomans implemented the millet system, which segregated peoples within the Ottoman Empire based on religion. The conquered land was parcelled out to Ottoman nobles, who held it as feudal fiefs (timars and ziamets) directly under the Sultan's authority. The land could not be sold or inherited, but was reverted to the Sultan's posession when the fiefholder died. So long as this system applied, the Greek peasants were in some ways better off than they had been during the time of the Byzantine Empire.

Ottoman Greece - Religion

The Sultan regarded the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church as the leader of the Greeks within the empire. The Patriarch was accountable to the Sultan for the Greeks' good behavior, and in exchange he was given wide powers over the Greek community. The Patriarch controlled the courts and the schools, as well as the Church, throughout the Greek communities of the empire. This made Orthodox priests the effective rulers of Greek villages. Some Greek towns, such as Athens and Rhodes, retained municipal self-government, while others were put under Ottoman governors. Some areas, such as the Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese, and parts of Crete and Epirus, remained virtually independent. For their part, the Patriarchs regarded the tolerant rule of the Ottomans as preferable to rule by the Roman Catholic Venetians, who threatened the Orthodox faith in a way the Ottomans did not. When the Ottomans fought the Venetians, the Greeks mostly sided with the Ottomans. The Orthodox Church assisted in the preservation of the Greek heritage

As a rule, the Ottomans did not require the Greeks to become Muslims, although many did so in order to avert the economic hardships of Ottoman rule. Many Greeks became Crypto-Christians (Greek Muslims who were secret practitioners of the Greek Orthodox faith) in order to avoid heavy taxes and at the same time express their identity by maintaining their secret ties to the Greek Orthodox Church. Crypto-Christians ran the risk of being killed if they were caught practicing a non-Muslim religion once they converted to Islam. Greeks who converted to Islam and were not Crypto-Christians were deemed Turks in the eyes of Orthodox Greeks.

Ottoman Greece - Taxation and the tribute of children

Greeks also paid a land tax and a tax on trade, but these were either collected irregularly by the inefficient Ottoman administration, or they undertook punishing 'tax raids'. Provided they paid their taxes and gave no trouble, they were left to themselves. Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan's army, so the burden of conscription was lifted from the Greek peasants. The exception to this was the "tribute of children" (in Greek paidomazoma, meaning "child gathering"), whereby every Christian community was required to give one son in five to be raised as a Muslim and enrolled in the corps of Janissaries (yenicheri or "new force"), elite units of the Ottoman army. This impost aroused surprisingly little opposition: probably the corps offered Greek boys the opportunity to advance as high as governor or even Grand Vizier.

Opposition of the Greek populace to taxing or paidomazoma resulted in grave consequences to those who opposed. For example, in 1702 an Ottoman official was sent from Naoussa in Macedonia to search and conscript new Janissaries and was killed by Greek rebels who resisted the burden of the devshirmeh. The rebels were subsequently beheaded and their severed heads were displayed in the city of Thessaloniki. ^{[citation needed]} The "tribute of children" was greatly feared as Greek families would often have to relinquish their own sons who would return later as their opressors. The Greek historian Papparigopoulos stated that approximately one million Greeks were conscripted into Janissaries during the Ottoman era.

Ottoman Greece - Demographics

The incorporation of Greece into the Ottoman Empire had other long-term consequences. Economic activity declined to a great extent (mainly because trade flowed towards cities like Smyrna and Istanbul), and the population declined, at least in the lowland areas (Ottoman censuses did not include many people in mountainous areas). Large numbers of Albanians, Vlachs (related to the Romanians) and Bulgarians settled in various parts of the country. Turks settled extensively in Thrace. After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews settled in Thessaloniki (known in this period as Salonica or Selanik), which became the main Jewish centre of the empire. The Greeks became inward-looking, with each region cut off from the others - only Muslims could ride a horse, which made travel difficult. Greek culture declined, and outside the Church few people were literate. The Greek language broke up into regional dialects, and absorbed large numbers of Turkish and Slavic words. Greek music and other elements of Greek folk-culture were, to an extent, influenced by Ottoman trends.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ottoman rule", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki