Trudy Gold
Jews, the Ottoman Empire, and Roxelana
Trudy Gold - Jews, the Ottoman Empire and Roxelana
- Well, good afternoon and good morning everyone from London and I wish you well. And today, we’re dealing with the same period of history, but we are taking a slightly different tack because now as far as Jewish history’s concerned, we are going to coincide with the Ottoman Empire. I’ve been saying this quite a lot lately. It’s complicated, isn’t it? Because when you’re looking at Jewish history, in many ways it’s inside out history and it’s important to know what is happening in the world outside, so that we can slot the Jews in. And over the past couple of sessions, I’ve been looking at the tragic story of the end of the Jewish presence in Spain, and I’m just going to put us back into that and describe an eyewitness account of the Exodus. “Exiles had to pass the night more often than not in the fields. Some fell out of the way from fatigue, some from sickness. Old men died, children were born under the open skies, far from the nearest town and remote from help. Some Christians filled with compassion, begged them to submit to baptism, but rabbis or scholars were at hand straight away to encourage the courage, the weary and the despair.” That comes from a very interesting historian, Cecil Roth writing in the 1930s in London. And so what I discussed with you when I talked about the Abravanels, the Exodus from Spain, and later on, the Exodus from Portugal left a mark so deep that it really becomes part of the tragic mantra of the Jews. There was a very interesting historian called Lou Naia, and he was asked by Berlin, “Why on earth don’t you study Jewish history?” He was an Eastern European Jew who became an expert at Oxford on the aristocrats of the the 18th century. And he said, “I’ll tell you why. Because there’s no such thing as Jewish history.
There’s only Jewish meteorology.” I totally challenge that actually. Yes, we are looking at a dark period of history, but what is fascinating about Jewish history is when the dark clouds gather, there is always somewhere else to go. And what we’re going to be looking at is the opening up of the Ottoman Empire for Jews and something else. It’s also a very interesting period in Polish history. The heartland of Ashkenazi Jewry, the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania in 1529, they’re going to annex the Borderlands Ukraine and that’s going to be a very strong Jewish settlement right up until 1648, but more about that later. What we’re going to concentrate on now is the Ottoman Empire and how the Jews finished up there. So can we see the first character, if you don’t mind? Yes, thank you very much. That is Sultan Mehmed II. By the time of his great grandson, you are going to see the Ottomans having the most powerful empire in the world. Now, who were they? They’d formally been Anatole warlords. When Mehmed took the throne through all sorts of chicanery at the palace, he was only 19 years old. And his dream was to capture Constantinople because of course, Constantinople was the centre of the Byzantine Empire. It’s an incredibly important city. Can we have a look at the mediaeval map of Constantinople, if you don’t mind? Yeah. Why is it so important?
Because it’s very much the link between the east and the west, and there are layers of civilization in the Byzantine Empire. And at this period of history, it was the largest city in the world. It just think where it’s the Mediterranean. And I want you to think what I’ve already been discussing with you, the various powers now and the building up of the navys, the beginnings of mercantilism trade and a few decades later, of course, the discovery of the new world. So geographically, Constantinople is incredibly important. Now, the Emperor Constantine, the last thing he wants is war. His empire had become very flabby. The majority of the traders in his empire don’t want war. It’s much more profitable if there is peace. But Mehmed has a dream. He also needs to secure his succession. 23 previous armies of the Ottoman Turks had attempted to take Constantinople, and he at the age of 20, is going to succeed. It’s a total turning point in military history. What he had at his disposal through the good offices of a Hungarian craftsman, one of the largest cannons the world has ever known, and the siege of Constantinople was something absolutely terrible. This is the Venetian Barbaro. We often rely on the Venetian ambassadors and Venetian traders for the gossip of the time and the descriptions of the time. And this is a dark description, he said, “Blood flowed in the streets like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm, the bodies of Turks and Christians like melons along a canal.” When he finally takes the city after a very long siege of months, he allows his army to plunder for three days, tens of thousands of people were enslaved.
You know, the issue of slavery, the majority of traders and countries had slaves and they were a commodity. The dehumanisation of the individual, they are complete commodity. And tens of thousands of Christians, Byzantine Christians are now enslaved. It was also an appalling time. The blood of war for women that were rapes, even nuns were not spared. And then after three days, he halt saw the atrocities. Anyone who has survived, any Christian who has survived is now allowed to live there. And what you have is a huge procession to the Hagia Sophia, which now becomes a mosque. Just as in Cordoba, you have the incredible mosque turned into a church under Charles the fifth. Here in Constantinople, you have the great Byzantine church now mosque. And it really is those of you who haven’t been too Constantinople Istanbul, as the Muslims called it. It is one of the wonders of the… Nevertheless, he did allow the church to remain intact. It’s the largest building in Europe. And for Ottoman purposes, they rename the city Istanbul. And Mehmed has Jews in his kingdom. I’ve already mentioned to you one of the great motifs of history at this period is the continuous war between Christianity and Islam. Now, let’s be very, very careful. Wars don’t go on for a thousand years, but there are ideological reasons, there are religious reasons, remember, but there’s also trade.
So these, of course, at certain times there’s peace ambassadors are exchanged. But who are the people that in a way the Muslims can trust far more than Christians, the Jews, because the Jew, look, the Jews are traders. Beginning in 911 when money lending was forbidden to Christians, of course, we had that very interesting lecture for by William on money and money lending. Jews are the money lenders and because of their international contacts, they’re very, very useful. So Jews are put in positions of power in Istanbul. You know, the same thing had happened in Spain in 711 when the Islamic conquerors invaded Spain in 711 and took it from the Christians. They did exactly the same thing. And this is another description. All the valuables and other beauty were taken to their camp. And as many as 60,000 Christians were captured, crosses were torn down and trampled. The nuns left be behind, were disgraced. Now, obviously after the fall of Constantinople, many Greeks fled the city bringing documents and artefacts to Italy. And of course, this further far fueled the Renaissance. So on one level, the conquest of Constantinople had far reaching effects. Just imagine all this knowledge of Constantinople, Greek Constantinople now comes west into the Italian cities and it really enriches and just think that the architectural designs, et cetera, which Patrick is going to be spending a lot of time on. It comes, much of it comes from this part of the world.
Now, so you have this incredible conqueror, and then he dies in 1581 to be succeeded by his son. Can we see Bayezid the second? Now, Bayezid the second is Sultan between 1481 and 1512. And this really should give you a clue to how he’s going to invade Jewish history because think about it, the expulsion happens in his reign. Constantinople has made the fact that he has Constantinople as his capital. It’s made the empire one of the most powerful empires in the world. And of course, he and his son are going to come up against Charles the fifth, Henry the eighth of England. So slots and France is the first, slotting them into the sort of history, we’ve already been talking about. So it’s important. This is a story that Jewish sources tell. There’s no correlation in the Muslim sources. And this is a report from a Jewish writer of the time the expulsion has happened from in Spain. So this is Jewish sources, no correlation into his court chronicles. “So the Sultan Bayezid, king of Turkey heard all the evil that the Spanish king had brought upon the Jews and heard that they were seeking a refuge. He took pity on them and wrote letters and sent emissaries to proclaim throughout his kingdom that none of his city rulers may be wicked enough to refuse entry to Jews or to expel them. Instead, they were given a gracious welcome.” Now, this is extraordinary because the story is in Jewish sources that Bayezid actually goes as far as to send vessels to transport them into the Ottoman Empire.
And evidently, again, according to Jewish sources, he says, “Of Ferdinand of Aragon, can you call such a king wise and intelligent? He’s impoverishing his country and enriching my country.” But what we do know is that Sephardi Jews were given a welcome in the Ottoman Empire. And of course, in 1492, many of them fled straight into the Ottoman Empire. In 1497 when there’s going to be a horror story in Portugal, many of them are going to make their way again into the Ottoman Empire. Some went via Italy. We’ve already discussed how Italy provided a welcome in some of the city states. The same is going to happen with the Ottoman Empire. So keep those two dates in mind. 1492, 1490 second. The second wave is going to be much more sporadic because the Jews who are going to leave Portugal are Converso. And it’s going to become really a flood after in the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1547. Now, you’ll remember that the Inquisition had no power whatsoever over Jews. It only had power over Jews who had converted. They were called the Conversos. You have the same with the morisco. They are Muslims who converted after the fall of Bernard. There were many Muslims who converted because they also wanted to maintain their positions in Spanish and in Portuguese society. So Moriscos and Conversos are to give them non pejorative term marrano, which means swine. That’s why I’m very careful not to use it. These were the terms used, so these are the people the Inquisition had a holdover.
And it’s fascinating that Heinrich Heine, the great Jewish writer, playwright poet, when he wrote his play “Mansur,” he was talking about the Inquisition in Spain and the attacks on the Quran by the inquisitions. And that’s when he said his very, very famous line, “Any people that burn books for one day burn people.” And I think that also gives us an insight into the extraordinary Heinrich Heine that he, it’s the double message, isn’t it? He’s not talking about the Conversos, he’s talking about the horror that befell the Moriscos who had converted to Christianity. And it also is the beginning, not just of a large Jewish population in Istanbul. And in my next session, I’m going to talk to you about two extraordinary individuals, Donna Gracia and Joseph Marcie, who came from the Mendes family, one of the greatest Converso merchant families in Europe. She’s going to have a great king, she’s going to have a great empire. Just as Benvenida Abravanel had a great empire. And the role of women at this time is actually quite fascinating. Please don’t forget them a little later on, not only have you got Elizabeth on the throne, you’ve got Catherine de’ Medici as well, and another woman, Roxelana, who I’m going to talk about later. So let’s look at other figures. So according to the statistics for Istanbul, in 1477, there were 1,647 Jewish households. By 1535, that’s just before the Inquisition is created in Portugal, there were 8,070. So this is a big increase of the Jewish population.
And also it gives you a notion just how small the Jewish population really was. You know, we make an awful lot of noise for a tiny people. Now, some of you might come from that world. You’ll be interested to know that in 1478, there was no Jewish population in Salonica, part of the Turkish empire. By 1520 there were 2,645, these are heads of households, of course. So you’re talking about more people and you see a similar increase in the big cities of the empire. Also important to remember there are internal migrations within the Ottoman Empire, which is going to grow and grow. There are four major cities, Istanbul, Izmir, Salonica and Edirne. So these are the four major cities. They are sophisticated, cosmopolitan cities. Because if you look… Yes, on one level, you have the Renaissance in Europe now, and particularly in the Italian cities. But these ideas of humanism are also beginning to creep into the Ottoman Courts, Mehmed, for example, and Bayezid, these people could, these men could speak many languages. They had interesting advisors, and I should have mentioned to you that Mehmed, his father had a Serbian princess as one of his sultanas. And she was incredibly useful to Mehmed and taught him a lot about the ways of the West. And she became a very important figure in the court of the Ottomans. So they are a sophisticated as a dynasty at this stage, they are sophisticated, yes, they’re war lords, but they are also poets, they are writers, they are thinkers, and they are at a very high level of sophistication.
Now, there’s also, where do you find Jews? You find a lot of them in the towns along the trade you roots. And later on under his son, when they conquer from the Mamluks, because the next great conquest of the Ottomans is against the Mamluk dynasty. The Mamluks ruled in Egypt. But where else are they going to conquer? They ruled in Egypt, but they also controlled what is today Israel and what is today Jordan, they controlled the Middle East. So you’re going to see an increased population in spots, in Jerusalem, in Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria. This is the beginnings of very important Jewish communities, of course, in Iraq. But today we call Iraq in Babylon. There was a Jewish community that went back for a long period, pre-exile. So, but this is the real swelling of these important Jewish communities within the Ottoman Empire. And also what is fascinating, Jews, Jews, Jews, this huge tensions between the various groups in the various towns. Mehmed II saw himself as in charge of religious appointments, and he appointed Moses Capsali as Chief Rabbi of Constantinople after the city was conquered. And he is succeeded by a man called Elijah Mizrachi. Because of and after he dies, there’s terrible power struggles. And because who is going to be in charge of the Jewish community? Should it be the rabbis or should it be the late merchants who are in charge of tax collecting? Just as in the Christian world, if you were to turn to Poland at this period, Jews were not collect, they were not taxed as individuals, they were taxed as a community. The exact same thing is happening in the Ottoman Empire.
The lay leaders were responsible for giving, deciding how much tax every person should deal with, who’s going to look after the widows, who’s going to look after the orphans. So they have huge power. The Muslim authorities do not interfere in Jewish internal affairs. It’s only if there is a dispute between a Jewish merchant and a Muslim merchant, it would go into the courts, and it’s going to be left to his grandson, Suleiman, the great Lord giver, who’s really going to tighten up the Muslim code. So important to remember, they have a great deal of internal autonomy. And in a way, the community really relies on the economic wellbeing and the achievements of a few really court Jews and princes, they quite often were advisors to the Ottomans were going to see it at its height with Joseph Marcie, who is even created the Duke of Naxos by the Ottoman Sultan of his time. They are quite often involved in medicine. Muslim Islamic medicine at this period was far in advance and gathered the world of Christendom. That’s why the majority of Popes had Jewish doctors. And you have Jews and Muslims studying together medicine. Also, the poorer elements of the community developed urban skills that you didn’t see in the Ashkenazi community. What they did was, they filled the gaps in the economy and also they strengthened the trade route. We know, for example, that a group of merchants called the Radanites controlled the trade route or the way to China.
Even when societies are at war, they still need trade. And of course, the Jews are particularly well suited to trade because they are international and they might be quarrelling with each other, but they can still communicate with each other. And of course, this is also a period of commercial endeavours between Italy, particularly Venice. Don’t forget, there’s a large Jewish community in Venice. There’s a lot of trade with the Ottoman Empire. Look at what he’s wearing. I’m sure you see fur. Now, where do you think the fur comes from? That’s further east. Later on, of course, they are going to conquer Hungary. But we’re going to note later find out that Suleiman the magnificent, is going to be involved in all trade deals with the leader of the Russian Empire. The first really consolidating leader who is known to history as Ivan the Terrible. So there was another, there was a very important port, Split on the Dalmatian coast. It was a free port, and this becomes very important in trade between Islam and the world of Christianity. And the major financier in his reign was a man called Daniel Rodriguez, obviously a Converso name. And he ran much of the overland trade through the Balkans, through Macedonia.
Now, what about the Jews of Salonika? That was an extraordinary community, which had such a tragic end in the Second World War, they established an incredible trade in the textile industry. They didn’t just deal with the raw goods. They went in for weaving the wonderful woollen designs, LEDs, hides, wax, pepper, linen, importing from the various parts of the empire, particularly to Venice, which was really the port into the west at this Baton. And what this meant was it leads to much more liberal policies for the Jews in Venice, and eventually leads to the establishment of Livorno, which I talked about. Look, the Medici established Livorno because they wanted good trading route, you know, trade, you need a liberal society in order to encourage traders. So Livorno is going to become incredibly important as, and I mentioned to you the other day, it led to the great wealth of the Montefiore family, which eventually is going to finish up in England. And the wonderful story of Benjamin Disraeli’s grandfather, Benjamin Disraeli was a wonderful fantasist. I think Israeli said his great trick was that he could say, he would create a castle in the air, but he could persuade the whole of most of England to move into it. He wrote that he came from the greatest people that ever walked the world, the Sephardi Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, and that he was descended from the Davidic line. All we know about Israeli is that his grandfather was a straw bonnet in Porter, in Livorno who came to England and made enough of a fortune to have a state be home in Edmonton.
So, but nevertheless, he passes through the Livorno. Other areas that Jews got involved in under the Ottoman Turks, they were translators, they were still money lenders, they were still tax farmers and also very involved in the minting of coins. Just as, when William was talking about banking in the West, they quite often the mint masters were Jewish. And the same thing was true of the Ottoman Empire. The Hamman Family, for example, was an incredible dynasty of doctors at the Ottoman Court. So, a very good textile empire was developed in Swat. Already, I’ve talked about Salonika, but it’s developed in Swat as well, which was also, and it employed thousands of people. But I already mentioned to you how… Because of the horror of what had happened in Spain, and later in Portugal, Swat became a great centre of Kabbalah, the mystic path, the secret writings. Because in a period on one level they are creating life for themselves in the Ottoman Empire. But the image of what happened in Spain and later in Portugal were so deeply etched on these Jews that they are really looking for new, they’re looking for some sort of sense of salvation. And the other point, a very rich intellectual life, the first printing press in Istanbul was the Hebrew printing-press in 1494. It’s the printing spreads to Salonika very important centres of Hebrew publishing because as more and more Converso are going to come through, what are they missing? They’re missing knowledge.
How do you spread knowledge through the books? Look, if you are a Converso family for three generations, and I’m going to be talking, as I said about the Mendes Family next week, how much do you lose of knowledge? The Converso is in Portugal, they are going to be practising Christianity outwardly and at home, they are trying to keep to many of them are trying to keep to Jewish ritual. But what if there’s no one to tell? What happens when the old die? Who knows? So these printing presses are incredibly important. So this would Swat, they become the principal centres of Jewish scholarship. Great Yeshiva are established, and Solan even attracted students from Poland. The Yeshiva and Salonika becomes so important that Eastern European Jews are travelling to Salonika. And you have many of the great sages of Halakhah. So this is going to go on for generations.
And ironically, the story of the Ottoman Empire, when does it go into decline? Ironically, when does it go into decline? Well, you can work that out for yourself. When the Ottoman Empire goes into decline, that is when Jewish life goes into decline. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you see, Selim II. He only reigned for a short while 1512 to 1520. But he was incredibly important in terms of century of solidifying the empire. He was a warrior, he was a great warrior. He was also an intellectual. He’s known as Selim the Grim. I suppose he looks rather the grim, doesn’t he? He didn’t live a very long life. He was involved in military. He was a brilliant military strategist. He was involved in campaigns both in the West and in the East, as I’ve already mentioned. It was he who destroyed the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, which took the whole of the Middle East under Ottoman control. Never forget how important this is is going to be in the history of the Jews, because eventually with the first and second Aliyah in Palestine, it is controlled by the Turks. The first Jews who settle as Zionists in Palestine from 1881 onwards, come over from Eastern Europe and settle in the Turkish empire. By the 19th century, though, the Turkish empire is known as the sick man of Europe.
But it is taken by selling in this period. And this is when, if you like, there’s a lot of vigour in the Ottoman world. Not just strategy, but also it’s a strong empire in terms of trade, in terms of learning. It’s absolute zenith. Now what happens in the East? Belgrade falls the Ottomans in 1521, roads falls in 1522, the Knights of St. John. Later on we’re going to have some lectures on the great military orders. I’m bringing some specialists in because they’re absolutely fascinating. So in his reign, he consolidates power. And then we come to perhaps the greatest sultan of them all, Suleiman the Magnificent. Can we have his picture, please if you don’t ran Shawn? Now, Suleiman the Magnificent, the poet, the writer, the statesman, the soldier, the man who codifies the law. He is a great architect. He loves architecture under him, Ottoman architecture flourishes, Ottoman art flourishes, literature flash flourishes. This is the zenith of the Ottoman Empire. And I mentioned the other day that Francis I, you know, the Wiley French sovereign, who is reigning at the time of whom Charles V, Henry VII, Henry VIII, he breaks the Christian alliance to do a deal with Suleiman the Magnificent. They’re always fighting particularly over the Italian states, they never met. And this is a composite by Titian of two separate paintings.
So you see Francis I, who of course, we’ve met before, because he is the father-in-law of Catherine de’ Medici. Isn’t it fascinating how a few interlocked individuals of huge power, all of whom think they rule by divine rights in their own ways, have such power over everybody’s destiny, including the Jewish people. And it’s in Suleiman’s reign, Suleiman the Magnificence reign that in 1526. Can we see the next slide, please? Oh, sorry. Oh, we haven’t got it in. Oh, that’s another picture of Suleiman. I love that one. Have we got another one, please? Yes, this is the Battle of Mohács. In 1526, the armies of Christen suffer a terrible defeat at the Battle of the Mohács. And this is when the Turkish empire takes much of Hungary. Ironically, the Jews who live in Hungary under the Ottomans have a far better deal than the Jews who live in the part under Christianity. And it is going to stay under Ottoman rule until 1683 when the final great army of Islam is defeated at the gates of Vienna.
I know I often mention this to you, but 1683 is an incredibly important event. It is Christianity triumphant over Islam, and this is the Battle of the Mohács. There are many, many paintings of this. This was a huge blow to Christendom. And it’s not until 1576 at the Battle of Lepanto, which is a sea battle that Christianity, if you’d like, has a great defeat over Islam. But they’re not just fighting over territory, they’re fighting over trading rights. Just imagine the world of the Mediterranean. We’ve now had the discovery of the new world, the sea roots to India has been established. Those of you in South Africa run the Cape of Good Hop. Trading posts are established. You can imagine how many Converso families were working these because they leave Spain and Portugal quite often as merchants. How much safer is it to set up trading posts for the various companies as far to the east as India? And later on, when we look at the British East in India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the majority of the agents out in the East are former Converso who have now come out as Jews.
Now, so having said that, this was one of the greatest empires in the world. And this was the greatest empire at the time of whom, at the time of Suleiman the Magnificent. Remember, he’s begun his campaign against the Christian powers of the West. It’s the apex of the Ottoman Empire. And under his rule, until the Battle of Lepanto, Islam dominates the Mediterranean. Let me, I really want you to have a picture of this man as a great hero. He’s one of the great heroes of Islam. Justice Salah al-Din was a great hero. He was the great crusader king who held the Holy Land away from the Christians. Now, you have Suleiman and these are characters whose names resonate today in the Muslim world. Remember, he institutes huge changes in law, society. He wants to create a very sound educated class. That’s one of the reasons that he was so favourable towards the Jewish community. It’s not about love you though, it’s about utility. Yes, he is a religious Muslim, but he’s also a secular ruler. And as a secular ruler, he realises the use of the Jews and what he tries to do under this huge secure empire. Just think about it, it’s one of the largest empires in the world. He’s harmonising the law of the land with the law of Islam. So he’s working very hard to create, if you like, a harmonious, a harmonious law. And there’s a great deed of peace in his reign. But he had what later appears to be his great fatal floor. Well, let’s have a look at the next picture.
Can you move it on please, Shawn? And here you see his fatal floor, Roxelana. Roxelana, whose dates are 1500 to 1558. She is the stuff that books and films are made. I dunno if it’s still on Netflix, but there was about, there was a Turkish production, I think it was about 40 episodes on Suleiman and Roxelana. Now, the Sultans of Turkey, they had many wives, they had many concubines. And this is a period of slavery, remember? And having said that, Suleiman had created one of the greatest empires in the world. It’s capital on the straits of Amara. It’s stretched from the outskirts of Vienna across Eastern Europe to the tip of North Africa and through the Middle East to the Persian Gulf. That is the stretch of his empire. But many historians be, think it declines. Why? Because of this woman. Who was she? She was a Ukrainian peasant girl. She was the daughter of a priest. And remember, Ukraine means borderlands. It’s much of that area. A little after of Roxelana’s death is going to be taken by the Polish Lithuanian crown who inhabited the Ukraine? It was a peasant society.
It had runaway surfs from the great Bruce Empire, which is developing now. It had Tarks, it had Mongols. It was, I suppose the nearest thing that I could equate it to is the Wild West. It was a, no, it was a lawless area. And the settled villages were often plagued by Marauders, Tatars, Mongols. And what were they looking for? They were looking for slaves. Slavery was a huge commodity in this period of history. And it’s going to go right on until the 19th century. I don’t have to tell you about slavery. So basically Roxelana is she’s the daughter of a priest. She’s kidnapped by Tatar raiders. And she’s taken, she’s a great beauty. As many, many descriptions of Roxelana, evidently she had flame red hair and a very milky white complexion. And age 15, she is on the slave, the great slave market in Constantinople Istanbul. Can you just imagine the fear and the horror? She evidently though, had an incredibly positive disposition. She would laugh at life. She was the laughing one with her red hair and her sparkling eyes. They nicknamed her the laughing one because she seemed, she was one of those creatures who could make the best of any situation even being sold in the slave market of Istanbul. Can you imagine the horror? This happened to many, many people. You know, even we know that for examples of French princesses going from on the Mediterranean who were captured and sold in the slave market, it’s a terrible, terrible thing.
And very often there were attempts to ransom. Ironically, Jewish slaves were often so, were often saved and ransom by wealthy Jewish communities in Italy and in the Ottoman Empire. I’ve already mentioned Benvenida Abravanel. But we’re going to see that Donna Garcia is going to be so involved in trying to prevent the slavery of Jews. And tragically, there were Jews involved in the slave trade. This was a period of history when people were not seen as people. I often think of Shakespeare’s merchant of Venice, which was also written, remember, in this period of history to war, I think it was 1598, aware that speech of Shylocks has not a eye as organs dimensions, what he’s really saying through the mouth of Shylock, Jews of people too. But you could say that about anyone, this is the humanistic tradition that is gradually beginning to be absorbed. But it doesn’t really have much impact when slaves are a very, very useful commodity. Because in the slave market that why did the tar steal these women for money, for gold, for ransom? This is what it’s all about. They are a commodity. So the very, very beautiful Roxelana, this is the story, as I said, these legends are made of these stories. She was bought by Ibrahim Pasha. Who was he? He was the Grand Vizier, and he was the chief advisor to the new Sultan Suleiman. He was an incredibly clever wily diplomat. And he would ingratiate himself with the sultan because who he knew had a partial for fair-skinned women. So she comes into the hare of one of the most powerful men on earth.
So what was the hare like? Well, you can just imagine the salt, the women were very much a commodity at this period in many, many societies. And these are hundreds of women who really spend their time being beautified in order to attract the attention of the sultan. And you can just imagine the febrile atmosphere, the infighting, the wish to be the mother of the successor of the sultan. It was always his oldest son. So Roxelana, the beautiful Ukrainian peasant girl is now in the hare. There is another tradition. You see, there are many traditions about Roxelana that she was actually selected by Ibrahim, by Ibrahim’s, by beg your pardon, Suleiman’s mother, who also would be on the lookout for beautiful commodities for the son. But what happens is, having attracted his attention, according to the many accounts, she absolutely bewitched him, she became known as Haseki Sultan, his favourite concubine. Now this Michalo Lituanus who was Michael the Lithuanian. He wrote a chronicle around 1550. And he says this, “She was the most beloved wife of the Turkish emperor, mother of his son, who will govern after him and who has been kidnapped from our lands.”
Because what happens with Roxelana, she is incredibly astute. She must have been incredibly wily because what she does is she so be witches him, that she persuades him to marry her. Now, to marry a concubine was an almost unheard of thing. But he marries her. And there are many descriptions of her from European ambassadors. They, one of them talks of her, her beautiful red hair and green eyes. And this is another, this is the analysis of the world of the hare from “Lords of the Golden Horn.” I love this phrase, the glittering, insular and conspirator world of eunuchs, slaves and perfumed concubines. Because who on earth could the sultan trust to look after is women? Well, they were Unix, they had huge power, but they paid a huge price for it. So they didn’t, the Ottoman consultants didn’t usually marry. And now you have this incredible woman who is through witchery and sexuality. Because an interesting question for you. How could women exert power at this stage? Yes, you did have women like Catherine de’ Medici who had power during the infancy of her son. And of course, Elizabeth I had huge bowel, but the majority of women who took power had to do it through sexuality. It’s very, very unusual at this period of history that women can do it in their own right.
You do see it with Donna Gracia, and you saw it with Benvenida because her husband allowed her to take over his empire. But, and please don’t compare it if you like, with English history, because when was it, this is a task for you, the Women’s Property Act. When a woman married, she became her husband’s possession in terms of her property. So I’m sure there are lawyers on board who can give us the date of the Women’s Property Act. So one of the traditions of consultants not marrying, it’s evidently that one of the wives of a previous sultan was captured by an enemy. This is way back in the 1300, just as the development of the dynasty. And she was made to wait naked at table and completely humiliated. So from then on the decision that was made that there will never be a queen, but now you have one Roxelana. So ironically, all the sultans were sons of slaves.
And now, and the oldest son was the one who would take power. But now you have Roxelana. And when she joined the harem, there was already a first sultan, a woman called Belly Bar who was known as the Rose of Spring. She was the mother of Suleiman’s eldest son Mustafa. And because Roxelana is so ambitious, and not only that, she also has a great deal of favour with the Grand Vizier. She can wrap him round her little finger. And then of course, she has a son by Suleiman, Selim, who’s going to later take over the empire within a year, she… Usually, once a concubine had born assault and a son, that was it, that her childbearing years were over, there would be no more children. But that wasn’t, he becomes so be witched with by her, that there are no other women and she’s going to bear him other children, they called her evidently ziadi, which means the witch. And that was the words of Luigi Bassano, who was a Venetian page to the Sultan. So, he left a chronicle.
She is so bewitching that Suleiman has discarded all his other women, including Gulbiha, and was faithful only to her. And Roxelana also insisted that Suleiman marry off all the virgins in the harem because she would have no rivals. And what happened, she was obviously a very clever woman. Later on, she’s going to be involved in diplomatic activity. She’s going to be involved in treaties between the Ottomans and the Poles. And she’s going to do a lot to stop slavery raids in the villages that are now going to be part of the Polish domains. So she’s a clever, ambitious woman, and the pear becomes so inseparable that they write each other love poetry. And finally, of course, he marries her. And when he marries her, this completely scandalises the court. This is the Clark at the Genoese Bank of St. George in Istanbul. Think about trade. The Italians have ambassadors, but they also have banks and trading centres in Istanbul. It’s the largest city in Europe. This week, there has occurred in the city a most extraordinary event, absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Sultans. The grand senior Suleiman has taken onto himself a slave woman from Russia called Roxelana as his empress. And there has been great feasting and much rejoicing in consequence. There is great talk all over the country about this marriage, and no one can understand exactly what it means.
So Roxelana also needs to get herself out of the claustrophobic harem because there was a great deal of distance between the harem and the Sultan’s palace. And so what happens, it all, the Sultan’s palace was attached to the seat of government, and then events played into her hands because there was a fire, a huge fire broke out on the waterfront of the Bosphorus, and it spread to the old palace where the harem was. The Sultan’s in the new palace reduces it to ashes. And many eyewitnesses recorded what happened because Roxelana with hundreds, I’m quoting again with hundreds of oddlys, eunuchs, servants and slaves led in a possession to the new palace and formally asked her husband for shelter. She agreed, he agreed she enters the palace and was never to leave it again. So now she’s in total proximity to him. And she made sure that the renovations of the old palace, which housed the harem, were never completed. And she had a private door cut between her apartment and those of the Sultan. She had total access to him, and also to his Council of Ministers. Suleiman at her bequest - at her behest, or her insistence is very difficult to understand the relationship because remember, he is Lord of the Golden Horn. He rules his world, but for her, he constructed a tar with a lattice window, which overlooked the divine where he would, so she could observe the ministers, she could observe foreign dignitaries who came to do deals with Suleiman.
So she becomes his main political advisor, watching, learning, counselling, and it really marked the beginning of the rise of the harem because there are now only two people between her and total power. One is, of course, his son by his first concubine and also, and that is Mustafa and Ibrahim, the advisor who had brought her into the palace, the Grand Vizier. And what she does is, she initiates a campaign against Ibrahim and that he was actually plotting against the throne. There’s a huge intrigue in the palace, and Roxelana manages to bring Ibrahim down and he is assassinated. And the story goes that she was actually Roxelana and Suleiman was sleeping in the next room when he is assassinated. And whilst it’s going on, according to legend again, that she, whilst, because Ibrahim had been a, his devoted servant for the whole of his brain. And she covered her husband’s mouth with kisses, so that he couldn’t hear Ibrahim’s cries. And then she persuades Suleiman to appoint her daughter’s husband and her ally Rustin Pasha as Grand Vizier. So she takes complete control. The new Grand Vizier is her son-in-law. And then she manages to concoct to plot against his successor, Mustafa. So what happens is that in fact, her son, Selim becomes the new Sultan.
And this is when Suleiman dies. And this is absolutely unprecedented, and it’s going to, there are many historians who say in a way, this begins the decline of the empire because it had always been the oldest son. Now, it’s going to be the favourite son, and it’s going to lead to horrific infighting in the palace. And those of you who’ve been to Istanbul will have seen the Topkapi Palace. And there’s something called the golden cage. You can just imagine what this led to the fighting between the concubines after Suleiman’s death. And also what would happen when the Sultan chooses his successor to keep the successor safe. They would put the boy in what was called the golden cage, where he was put away from the rest of society. He wasn’t taught statecraft, he was taught nothing. And he was only released when his father died. And sometimes they were gibbering idiots. My favourite Sultan is a man called sell him the sought, I think in about 1720, he evidently had 720 concubines. And he was so terrified of women that he just drowned himself in alcohol, the Muslim. So basically, I just wanted to tell you this story because I think it’s a fascinating one of intrigue, but it also is the beginning, ironically, of the decline of the empire because this incredibly powerful man gave in to this extraordinarily wily, but beautiful woman. Remember Suleiman was an incredibly well educated man. He was a great statesman.
We also know that Roxelana wrote, you know, she had a correspondence with many of the important women of her time. And we know that gifts were sent to her from the English court, from the French court. So she really was for a slave girl from the Ukraine. That is an extraordinary story, the stuff that legends are made of. But you can just imagine the atmosphere in the harem after her death. She died in 1558. And ironically, as I said, it led to the decline of the empire. And that is why eventually the Jewish community in the Ottoman Empire is going to decline. By the turn of the century, the the 20th century, only 11% of the Jewish world are going to be living in the Ottoman Empire. And it’s not because that all of a sudden the Ottoman Empire became hostile to the Jews. No, look, it was never really rosy. Jews were always dimmi peoples. They are subject peoples, but under Islam, they were having certainly in this particular period of history, were having a far better time than they were having in the West. But of course, if you take the view of the Ebb and Flow of empires, the empire of Islam is going to fall. You’re going to see the rise of the Western empires.
And you know, if you want to speculate on that theory of empire, let me leave you on a nice thought. Are we living in the decline of the West? And who will emerge next? Okay, in my next presentation, I’m going to talk about the exodus from Portugal, which is going to be so particularly poignant. You know, in order many Jews converted in Portugal to stay in positions of power. There was the most terrible incidents. In order to keep Jews in the empire, Converses in children were forcibly taken away from their parents between the ages of 4 and 14 and forcibly converted. But I’ll talk about that at the next session when I talk about the family of Mendez. So I believe we have another great session tonight. So let me just see how the questions are going.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: “Arlene, I have read the Inquisition was not a terrible pogrom as far as pogroms go. Can you comment?”
A: Yes, revisionist history. Look, the Inquisition ha look, what they’re arguing about are the numbers. But it was a pretty ghastly instrumental torture, which was sanctioned by the paper. See? Oh, yes.
“Lydia Abel is recommending the last kabalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimmer. Also fugitive pieces on Turkey.”
This is from Danny. “My mother’s parents came from Melapo. They always maintain their own Spanish or origin. I only recently found out through do and that another thing, a very distant relative that the family originally lived in Toledo. Four brothers, all scholars fled to Venice in 1492. One brother went to Poland. My ancestor went onto Aleppo.” I found this information fascinating.
Yes, Danny, isn’t it the story of the Jews? I mean, where do we come from? One of my grandmother’s family originally evidently left Spain as Converso for Holland and then to England. But one never knows all the details.
Q: “How did Muslims and Jews study medicine in these kinds…”
A:CAt academies, basically. And it was far more advanced than Christianity.
Oh, this is from Dennis, “On a lighter side, a pious or Jew from Salonika said for Christmas. I want to have Monica, his wife to annoy him, said there, that’s for go and brought him a Jew’s Art Hanah.” Lovely. “Is the Battle of Mohacs.” Yes, it’s in Hungary. Yeah. It’s the Battle of the Mohacs. It’s terribly powerful. Very important. Yes.
This is from Noah. Yes. “Savanis participated on the side of Venice?” Yes, this is when the, it was, this is a very, very important naval battle. Yes, the Siege of Malta was important, but it wasn’t as important as Lepanto. And don’t forget that the auto… This is the first crack. This is after the death of Suleiman. It goes downhill. Roxelana’s son was a very, very weak Sultan. “Just looking at Roxelana. There are no more pictures of her. She was undoubtedly a beautiful woman” Yeah! Queen Esther. For her people. “Who waited naked at the table?” A former wife of Sultan. That’s why they didn’t marry.
“Story of Roxelana sounds similar to Queen Esther,” indeed.
This is from Linda, “In the old city of Dubrovnik, there is a tiny little synagogue museum. There are three documents. One of them is a letter to Donna Gracia Mendez from the governor of Dubrovnik. Giving her permission to travel through her domain. Unfortunately, I don’t have the date it was written.” We’ll be able to work that out with the lecture. My next presentation Linda, because I’ll be talking about her journeys. “At the time of the show. Are the Turks in Rhode of a help and protection deportation?” Yes, there are so many stories of good people. You know, the Albanian Muslims also helped.
“From your presentation, it sounds that the Ottoman decline took up 400 years.” David, it begins then, it doesn’t happen overnight, but gradually, the Turkish administration falls into the hands of the Unix. It becomes gradually more and more corrupt. And that’s the point. And as the enlightenment takes and as the West, really the growth of nationhood. And then you see the growth of empire. And the first real inroads are Napoleon. Napoleon enters Egypt, remember, which is part of the Turkish empire. It was I think Sir Robert Peel, who called Turkey the Sick Man of Europe. And then that’s when you have the emerging great empires of Britain, France, Russia, all have putting, really cove his eyes on the Turkish empire. The British wanted to bolster up the Turkish empire in the 19th century. The British mantra was balance of power. We will rule by having everyone fight each other.
“Please restate the number of Jews that left Spain and Portugal.” Barbara have a really big problem on this because some historians put it as low as 40,000, some put it as high as 200,000. This is revisionist history. It’s almost, and let’s go for about 100,000. It’s a huge number. That’s the point, it’s a huge number.
Oh, this is from Susan. This is interesting. “Muslims, were doing cataract surgery in Cordoba.” Yeah. Don’t forget much of the knowledge of Greece and Rome. The medicine of the Greeks was in the domain of the Muslims. You can make the case that Christianity the church, I’m saying something like controversial here. Christianity stifled to her for a long period, stifled knowledge, power, I think power.
“Is the magnificent century, the telephone, television series you mentioned,” do you know, I can’t remember the name, Stephen. I’ll look it up.
This is from Rose. “Many Jews were doctors, the Ramban to name, but a few.” Yes, in fact, Ramban was the personal physician. Yes, look, rabbis were not paid at that period of history. So most of them had other professions and medicine was a very Jewish profession. Yes, Barbara visited the Jewish museum in Salonika last week. Read all about the Jewish people who thread there at the time of the English. Yes, what happened to Salonika was so, so tragic. I do know that quite a few Salonikan Jews who escaped, finished up in South Africa, which is another twist to the tale. You know, isn’t it fascinating how our history has to fit into other people’s history? You know, maybe that’s an answer for Zionism.
“There was a Jewish woman who controlled the Porter Salonika until the Nazi occupation. They were shipped by train.” Yes. What was her name? Yes. You see, Jews were great traders in Salonika. They filled every… They did fill all walks of life. “And of course, Isaac Bourlas from Pfizer is from Salonika.” Yes, of course. The man who did such extraordinary work with the vaccine. Yes, he came from Salonika too, didn’t he? So yes, again, another extraordinary story in the crazy story of the Jews. You know, how many of us are there in the world now? About 13 million. 13 and a half million. So complex, isn’t it? So as I said, next week, we’re going to, with William and we are trying to keep in tandem. Patrick has got so many wonderful lectures on the Renaissance coming up. And I know that David Pima is going to be talking about the, more about the Merchant of Venice. But when I talk about the Duke of Naxos, he’s going to give a presentation on the Jew of Malta because it very much ties in with the Duke of Naxos. So we are trying to keep together as much as possible in, but it doesn’t always work. But we are trying to periodize it. Anyway, are there any other questions? “
Ellie, this story seems to bear out my theory. Jews were supposed to be ad light onto the nations. They’re being as expelled from their land, gave them an opportunity to spread their word.” What is the destiny, Ellie? I was doing some work today on a… What was he, you know, the great Zionist thinker. What was it, he said? the only justification is that we’d be a light onto the nations and that we spread light from our land to the diaspora, to the whole world. Is there a prophetic vision? He was called the diagnostic rabbi. Is there a prophetic vision in the Jewish people? Is there a destiny? You know, when Abravanel was worrying himself over what the expulsion meant, he believed it would lead to Gog and Magog and the coming of the Messiah. That was why he rejected the Christian Messiah. Because he believed that when the Messiah came, if you read the Jewish prophecies, it would lead to a time of peace for everyone and including the Jews. And that’s why so many Jews could not accept Christianity. It didn’t make sense to them.
But is there a Jewish destiny? Oh, that’s such a difficult question, isn’t it? Look, I know that we have been around for, you know, we are the only people that’s had a continuous history without a land for 2000 years. And we’ve lived on the borders of so many cultures and so many empires that maybe that’s what’s given us our restlessness. Maybe that in a way gives us a, it’s a dangerous place to be, but maybe in a way it kind of gives us an edge as well. I don’t know. The more I study, the more I ponder these things. I know that Robert Wistrich, who was such a mentor of mine, who had that terrible title, he was head of the Institute for the Study of antisemitism in Jerusalem. He certainly believed in Jewish destiny. Nobody could quite say what it would be, but he did believe, and I know that he lost 157 members of his own family in the show. He was obsessed by the show, but he still believed in Jewish destiny, whatever that really means.
This is from John. “I read that Franco allowed 50,000 Jews from Salonika to settle in Spain before the tragedy.” Now, John, I cannot comment on that. They certainly didn’t go to Spain. I don’t know about Franco, but I will try and find out, and I bet you there is someone online who knows the answer to that. You’ve got to remember that in Spain and Portugal, there are so many people who believe, there of Jewish descent. Look, some historians say as many as a quarter of the Iberian Peninsula were of Jewish stock. If that’s true, I mean, for example, Fidel Castro was meant to be a descendant of Converso. Was that true? I remember when we were sitting on Ira, a colleague of mine went to Lisbon University and met the rector. And the rector said it’s a, he reckoned at least 80% of Portuguese Jew, Portuguese have some strain of Jewish blood somewhere. You know, ironically, you know, the Spanish and Portuguese empire made a terrible mistake in exploring, in expelling its most useful citizens.
Did I say that? You know, there are some historians who, yes, on one level they have all the gold of the new world, but they weren’t very good at building up an economy that’s going to be left to the Dutch. Just think how the Dutch are going to exploit it all. The British and both the Dutch and the British are going to welcome in the Jews. It’s a shame that the world of Islam lost its edge at this time. And also, it didn’t exploit the printing press. And another point, my last point to make for you to think about, you can make the case that the world of Islam, the tragedy was whereas Europe’s going to go through an enlightenment that didn’t happen in the world of Islam, but certainly in the reign of Suleiman, you would say it was a certainly at the court and amongst many of the intellectuals, it was a very sophisticated society, you know, and it touched many other humanist societies. There was a lot of correspondence between Italian humanists into the Ottoman Empire. They met each other as traders. So there is dialogue despite the fighting of the wars between Islam and Christianity, which are also about power and trade.
I think that’s a good time to stop, isn’t it? Yes! So I will stop there.
Very good. Thank you all for joining us. And Trudy, I’m calling you right now. I just need to discuss Baku with you.
God bless, darling.
Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye, everyone.
Bye!