A prince's sanjak was a state in miniature. The şehzade sent to Amasya as sanjak governor acted within his province much like a sovereign, and around him stood an administrative staff modelled on the central government. Beside these princes, known in the sources as "çelebi sultan", there was a lala who presided over the council, a defterdar who managed the revenues, a nişancı and scribes who handled correspondence, aghas who kept the gate, and a large service staff that ran the table, the stables and the tents. According to Haldun Eroğlu, the number of people serving in a prince's household rose to as many as two thousand in the sixteenth century. The names of these men have mostly remained in the shadow of great events, yet the day-to-day administration of the sanjak passed largely through their hands. Many of Amasya's mosques, madrasas and bathhouses are, moreover, the work of statesmen and gate aghas who came to the city in the service of its princes.

The Çelebi Sultan and the Sanjak as a Small State

In the early period the Ottomans turned newly acquired lands into sanjaks, much as earlier Turkic states had done, and entrusted them to members of the dynasty. The posting of princes to the provinces was called "going out to the sanjak" (sancağa çıkma), and a prince so posted was called a "çelebi sultan". The practice served several purposes: the prince would learn government by doing it, he would make the centre's presence felt as the dynasty's representative in the region, and since the revenues of the sanjak were assigned to him, the burden on the treasury would be lightened. As Eroğlu notes, a place was considered suitable as a prince's sanjak if it lay in a frontier zone, had been the seat of an earlier principality, and was a centre of culture and trade. Amasya, taken from the lands of Kadı Burhaneddin, met all of these conditions. After Bayezid I (Yıldırım) captured Amasya, princes regarded as heirs began to be sent to this sanjak; after Selim I, the weight shifted to Manisa.

The list of princes who served as sanjak governors in Amasya is a long one. Bayezid I gave Amasya to his son Mehmed Çelebi, and Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), once on the throne, sent his eldest son Murad to this city on the eastern frontier. Alaeddin Ali, eldest son of Murad II; Bayezid, eldest son of Mehmed II (the Conqueror); Ahmed, son of Bayezid II; and Mustafa and Bayezid, sons of Süleyman the Magnificent, also held Amasya as çelebi sultans. By the time the empire's order had settled under Mehmed II, no princely sanjaks remained other than Manisa, Amasya and Konya, and these three were in the hands of the sultan's three sons. Amasya kept this privilege until 1559. When Şehzade Bayezid fled to Iran, the city was removed from the ranks of the princely sanjaks, and no prince ever served in Amasya again.

A prince's departure for his sanjak was a ceremonial occasion. As Uzunçarşılı relates on the basis of documents in the Topkapı Palace Archive, the grand vizier presented him in the sultan's name with a drum, a standard and a green banner, and handed over gold and silver saddles, harness, kaftans, furs, silks, kitchen equipment, and trains of horses, mules and camels. The prince set out together with his mother and remained under her supervision. The most important part of these preparations was the "arrangement" of the household. Six months before Süleyman's son Şehzade Mehmed went out to his sanjak, officials had been designated for him, from his lala, tutor, defterdar and nişancı down to the steward of the gatekeepers, the chief çavuş, the chief scribe and the master of the horse, and more than two thousand people from the sipahi, silahdar, ulufeci, sekban and solak companies and from the stable and pantry staff had been enrolled in his household.

The Prince's Council

At the heart of the household stood the prince's divan, or council. Uzunçarşılı describes it as a small replica of the Imperial Council (Divan-ı Hümayun): the lala sat in the place of the vizier, and beside him were the nişancı, the defterdar, the chief scribe (reisülküttab), the chief çavuş, the steward of the gatekeepers and the council scribe. According to Eroğlu, the council met on fixed days of the week and decided the matters that fell within the prince's jurisdiction; its core members were the lala, the defterdar and the nişancı, while a scribe and a water carrier were also in attendance, and others could be summoned as the business required. Lawsuits in the sanjak, matters of fiefs and taxes, questions of public order and the petitions to be sent to the centre were all discussed here. Seated at the head of the council, the young prince learned how matters were weighed and on which registers and laws a decision was to rest.

The prince's powers were broad but not unlimited. He could appoint and dismiss the officials of his household, grant fiefs and salaries, award increments to existing holdings, and punish or pardon. He was also responsible for the economic, commercial, building and social affairs of the sanjak. In return, he was obliged to report these matters to the centre and obtain approval. Uzunçarşılı writes that grants made by the çelebi sultans in their sanjaks were reported to the centre and, once accepted, entered as corrections in the master register, and that for this purpose the princes had "a small nişancı's staff" with them. Whether a prince's requests were accepted often depended on the influence of the grand vizier at the centre. When the revenues of Şehzade Korkud in Antalya were given to the grand vizier Hadım Ali Pasha and Korkud's objection was rejected, an open rift opened between the two.

The documents issued by the council resembled those of a sovereign's divan. Princes wrote orders bearing their own tughras for matters on which they had received approval. A prince's tughra, like the sultan's, had three streamers and two loops, and these tughra-bearing orders were called "tevki-i hümayun", just as the sultan's were. The earliest surviving prince's order with a tughra is one sent at the beginning of 1510 by Şehzade Şehinşah in Konya concerning the wages of the musicians in his household. Important appointments were sometimes made by tughra-bearing decrees as well. Uzunçarşılı draws attention to the fact that such decrees were issued above all in times of crisis, when relations between a prince and the centre had broken down. Amasya provides a known example: while Şehzade Bayezid was taking a defiant stance against his father in Amasya, the revenues of Sonisa and its rice fields were annexed to the sultan's own estates, whereupon Bayezid appointed his servant İsfendiyar to these revenues and gave him a patent. The document dates from the Hijri year 966, that is, early 1559.

In corresponding with the centre, the prince's council followed set formulas. A çelebi sultan began his letters to the viziers of the Imperial Council with an address such as "Huzur-ı Paşayan-ı izam ve Lalayan-ı fiham" and closed them with a phrase like "Muhibb-i bi-iştibah Şehinşah" or "Muhibbü'l-müştak Korkud". At the end of petitions addressed directly to the sultan he wrote "bende" (your servant) or "abdü'l-fakir". This correspondence was not confined to administrative affairs. Princes serving as sanjak governors also reported to the Imperial Council the news they gathered from beyond the frontier through spies. A petition sent to the council by Murad, governor of Karahisar and son of Şehzade Ahmed of Amasya, is a good example: relying on the loyalty of Seydi Ahmed Bey, governor of Arapkir, and on the reports of his men arriving from Tabriz, Murad passed on to the centre news of the death of the Timurid ruler, the Akkoyunlu ruler's designs on Khorasan, and reports coming from the Mamluk side.

The titles at the head of the sultan's decrees to his sons also reveal the language of this relationship. In a decree sent by Mehmed II to his son Bayezid, governor of Amasya, the address read "ferzend-i es'ad-ı erşed, ercümend nur-ı hadaka-i saltanat, nevver-i hadika-i memleket, nurü'd-devleti ve'd-din oğlum Bayezid tale bekahu". The decree by which Süleyman transferred Şehzade Mustafa from Manisa to Amasya likewise opened with a long and ornate string of titles. Uzunçarşılı observes that these forms of address reflected a father's affection for his son, or his wish to flatter the prince's pride on account of a service he was about to entrust to him. The prince's reply, by contrast, was extremely humble and was signed with expressions such as "bende" and "kulun" (your slave).

The Lala

The head and foremost member of the household was the lala. In Persian the word means "a servant charged with looking after his master's child", and in time it came to denote those responsible for the education and upbringing of rulers' children. The Law Code of Mehmed II is the first explicit document showing that the office of prince's lala had acquired an official character; there the lala's place in protocol is set below that of the treasury defterdar. In the sixteenth century the office steadily gained in importance and rank. Lalas were for the most part chosen with great care from among experienced and trustworthy men trained in the palace school (Enderun) and were appointed from the centre. In the early period members of local notable families were also given the post, but from the late fifteenth century onwards men of kul (slave) origin were generally preferred. Uzunçarşılı notes that the choice of a lala was a matter to which the Imperial Council paid particular attention, and that the sultan held the council responsible for it.

The lala's duties extended well beyond the prince's upbringing. He presided over the prince's council in the capacity of vizier, went on campaign with the troops of the sanjak or took charge of the province's defence while a campaign was under way, maintained the link between the centre and the prince, and when necessary corresponded directly with the centre to take measures. Supervising the prince's morals and conduct was also his task, and if he saw any improper behaviour he reported it to the council. This oversight did not run in one direction only. If the lala himself tried to lead the prince astray, the prince's mother could complain of him to the sultan. Gülruh Hatun, mother of Bayezid II's son Alemşah, wrote that her son's lala was "the head of all mischief" and had accustomed her son and those around him to drink, and asked for the lala to be replaced.

The real weight of the lala varied with the age and character of the prince. If the prince was young, the burden of administration rested in practice on the lala's shoulders. Beside adult, strong-willed princes, however, the lala often stayed in the background, and his role became that of an intermediary between the centre and the prince. According to studies of the institution, the lalas attached to Bayezid II's sons Selim, Korkud and Ahmed had very little administrative influence and remained in what was virtually a nominal post. By contrast, the lalas of Mehmed II, Süleyman, Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III came to the fore politically and administratively. A lala's term, like that of a sanjak governor, lasted about two or three years. The main reason for replacing them frequently was to prevent them from bringing the prince under their influence and becoming a power centre in their own right.

The lalas of Amasya include a good number of Ottoman statesmen. Bayezid Pasha, a native of Amasya who was among Mehmed Çelebi's close entourage during his governorship there, remained loyal to this prince through the Interregnum and rose in 1413 to the grand vizierate and the governorship-general of Rumelia; the endowment deeds of his mosque, soup kitchen and madrasa in Amasya are dated 1418 and 1420. When Mehmed I sent his twelve-year-old son Murad to Amasya in 1414 with the governorship of the province of Rum, he gave him Yörgüç Pasha as his lala. Mongol and Turkmen elements were causing unrest in this province, which took in the regions of Amasya, Tokat, Sivas, Çorum and Osmancık, and the young prince sought to restore order with the help of his prudent lala. The title "atabeg" in the inscription of Yörgüç Pasha's mosque is thought not to refer to his father but most probably to his own office as lala.

When Bayezid, son of Mehmed II, was sent to Amasya at the age of seven, the weight of administration naturally fell on his lalas. Experienced statesmen such as Çandarlı İbrahim Pasha and Yahya Pasha were appointed as his lalas. According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Atabeyzade Hayreddin Hızır Pasha also served as Bayezid's lala and in 1466 built a madrasa and a bathhouse in the Amasya quarter that bears his name. The case of Cezerî Kasım Pasha is a good example of a career advancing within a prince's household. After serving in the Imperial Council he won the favour of Mahmud Pasha and was appointed by Mehmed II as defterdar to Şehzade Bayezid in Amasya. Hüsameddin writes, without citing a source, that Kasım Pasha went to Amasya as Bayezid's lala in 1473-74 and that, when Vizier Mustafa Pasha was given this post in 1479, he returned to Istanbul and became nişancı.

There are also some records concerning the lalas of Ahmed, son of Bayezid II. According to Gelibolulu Mustafa Âli, Hadım Yakub Pasha served as Şehzade Ahmed's lala after holding the posts of chief gatekeeper and standard-bearer, and later, while governor of the sanjak of Aydın, became lala to Şehzade Şehinşah. During the years of the succession struggle, Ahmed's lala was Sinan Bey, known by the nickname Yularkısdı. According to spy reports reaching Selim I, Sinan Bey gathered ten to fifteen thousand men from among the troops of Rumelia, came to Ankara and began preparing to cross into Rumelia. This record shows that in a moment of crisis the lala could become the prince's most important military support.

The Defterdar and the Finances of the Sanjak

The prince's finances rested on his crown revenues (has). The çelebi sultan held the crown revenues of his sanjak, and the taxes levied on the city's trade were also assigned to him. Until the sixteenth century, a fifth of the booty taken in independent operations or in campaigns in which he served as commander was another important source of income. To these were added the annual allowance (salyane) paid from the centre and gifts. In 1558, when Süleyman moved Selim to Konya and Bayezid to Amasya to separate his sons, he granted each an increment of 300,000 akçe to their revenues. There were also times when the income was insufficient. In such cases princes either asked for an increase or borrowed. Şehzade Şehinşah's request in 1501 that 125,000 akçe be borrowed from a merchant is one of the known examples.

Managing these revenues was the defterdar's task. He recorded the crown revenues, met the expenses and drafted the financial portion of orders. The centre also watched over the limits of the office. An order sent to Şehinşah reminded him that orders concerning his revenues were to be written by the defterdar and that the fee of 24 akçe for this belonged to the defterdar, while the 12 akçe the lala collected under the name of "date money" was an unlawful innovation and was not to be taken. Defterdars, too, were mostly supported by the timars and zeamets granted to them. The household list of Süleyman's son Mehmed, dated 1542, records alongside the defterdar the names and daily wages of financial officials such as the day-book keeper, the tax-farm clerk, the kitchen steward, the fodder steward, the steward of privy expenses and the kitchen scribe.

The names of several men who served as princes' defterdars in Amasya are known. One of Şehzade Bayezid's defterdars was Cezerî Kasım Pasha, mentioned above. Another was Tâcî Bey, known as a poet, prose stylist and calligrapher. According to the accounts of Latîfî and Âşık Çelebi, Tâcî Bey served as Şehzade Bayezid's defterdar in Amasya and also held the post of military commander of Amasya. His sons Câfer and Sâdî Çelebi were born in Amasya and both became leading prose stylists of their age. An order Şehzade Ahmed sent during his succession struggle to his defterdar Muslihiddin relates that pashas, beys, aghas, members of the household, horsemen and foot soldiers had pledged their allegiance to him by letter. This document shows that the defterdar was not simply an official keeping accounts, but in a crisis also took part in the prince's efforts to rally supporters.

Petitions written jointly by the defterdar and the lala to the centre also bring out the household's supervisory function over the prince. In a document published by Uzunçarşılı, the lala Murad and the defterdar Hacı İvaz reported that certain people who had wormed their way into the prince's circle had accustomed him to opium and a narcotic paste called berş, that they themselves had tried to stop this, that the prince had lain unconscious for a day and a night, and that the culprits had been sent to the centre with the chief sword-bearer Ali. Uzunçarşılı attributes this petition to Şehzade Şehinşah, governor of Konya. Hamit Şafakcı, however, recalling that Murad Pasha was one of Bayezid II's lalas, suggests that the document may concern Bayezid II's years as a prince, and hence his Amasya period. Which prince the document belongs to has not been settled with certainty.

The Nişancı, the Chief Scribe and the Council Scribes

The pen of the council was in the hands of the nişancı. The nişancı drew the prince's tughra, had orders, patents and petitions to the centre prepared, and kept the records of grants made in the sanjak. Under him worked the chief scribe and the council scribes. An early example comes from Manisa: according to an anonymous work recounting the campaigns of Murad II, Şehzade Mehmed conducted his administration in Manisa in consultation with his two lalas, Kassaboğlu Mahmud Bey and Nişancı İbrahim Bey. This record shows that as early as the mid-fifteenth century the nişancı was one of the core members of the prince's council. The names of nişancıs such as Hüsrev Çelebi, Bali Bey, Hasan Bey and Sinan Bey appear in Şehinşah's household, and the sons of nişancıs are also seen to have received timars.

The princes' councils in Amasya developed in close association with the scribal and chancery tradition of the period. Câfer Çelebi, son of Tâcî Bey, Bayezid's defterdar in Amasya, was born in Amasya in 1452, received his first lessons there and in 1497 became nişancı of the Imperial Council. According to the sources, whereas his predecessors had ranked below the defterdars, he secured a position above the defterdar, broke new ground in chancery writing and reformed the tughra and divani scripts. His brother Sâdî Çelebi also became known as an outstanding writer of Arabic prose; after Câfer Çelebi's execution he was summoned to the palace to compose a letter to the Mamluk sultan, and the letter he wrote was greatly admired. Hüsameddin records that Sâdî Çelebi wrote a work called Hayrü'l-ahlam describing the beauties of Amasya. The appointment of Cezerî Kasım Pasha as nişancı in 1481, after his posts in Amasya, also shows how closely the prince's council was tied to the central chancery.

There was also a link between the pen of the prince's council and Amasya's calligraphic tradition. Şehzade Bayezid took calligraphy lessons from Şeyh Hamdullah of Amasya, and when he left Amasya in 1481 to ascend the throne he invited his teacher, together with his family, to Istanbul. That the prince's writing master was also the greatest calligrapher of the age suggests that the orders and petitions written in the Amasya council were likewise prepared in a circle of careful penmanship.

The Household, the Aghas and the Service Companies

The large staff outside the council was known as the "kapı halkı", the people of the gate. Part of this staff was chosen by the centre. According to Şafakcı, drawing on Eroğlu, officials such as the lala, silahdar, chief gatekeeper, standard-bearer, master of the horse, gate agha, solak and peyk were designated by the government, while the nişancı, defterdar, chief scribe, chief çavuş and steward of the gatekeepers also served beside the prince as government officials. Uzunçarşılı adds to this list the physician, the surgeon, the oculist, the prince's tutor, the kitchen steward, the fodder steward, the chief taster and tasters, and the council çavuşes. Besides these there were sipahi, silahdar and garib companies whose size varied with the prince's age, rank and importance, as well as tent musicians, a day-book keeper, a tax-farm clerk, an imam and a muezzin. These officials did not serve the prince alone; they were also the administrators of the tax-paying peasants on the timars and zeamets assigned to them.

The clearest idea of the size of a prince's household comes from the documents published by Uzunçarşılı. In the record of allowances for Şehzade Korkud before he went out to his sanjak at the end of the Hijri year 888 (1483), the çelebi sultan was allotted 100 akçe a day, his lala İbrahim Agha and his mother fifty akçe each, the gate agha five, his wet nurse seven and his nursemaid five, and daily wages were also assigned to six pages and three gatekeepers. Korkud's first company consisted of fourteen sipahi pages, eleven silahdars, twenty ulufecis, three tent musicians and five cooks. The 1542 household list of Süleyman's son Mehmed, on the other hand, is as crowded as a sovereign's retinue. Its section on the aghas includes the tutor, the nişancı, the standard-bearer, the chief gatekeepers, the master of the horse, the chief taster, the chief falconer, the agha of the sipahi pages, the chief silahdar, the agha of the ulufecis, the agha of the garibs, the chief çavuş, the steward of the gatekeepers, the imam, the day-book keeper, the council scribes, the tax-farm clerk, the chief musicians, the chief solak, the chief tailor and the stewards.

The same list also includes a medical staff of six: alongside the first, second and third physicians there are an oculist and two surgeons, and among the physicians is one named Abraham the Jew. They are followed by çavuşes and tasters with daily wages of fifteen akçe each, sixty sipahi pages, fifty silahdars, thirty ulufecis, twenty-five garibs, gatekeepers and torch-bearers. In the stables there were saddlers, cart drivers, muleteers, companies tending male and female camels, and grooms; in the kitchen, cooks, confectioners, bakers, pantry men, a yoghurt maker, a poulterer, a candle maker and a tinsmith; and there are also entries for tailors, laundrymen, water carriers, eleven standard musicians and forty-two tent musicians. The lists of tents given to princes going out to their sanjaks likewise show the scale of this staff. The set given to Şehzade Mustafa included imperial pavilions, council tents, tents for the treasury, pantry, saddlery and kitchen, and separate tents for the gate agha, the chief pantry man, the privy pages, tailors, bakers, confectioners, water carriers and butchers.

The most tangible traces left in Amasya by a prince's household are the buildings commissioned by its gate aghas. Hüseyin Agha, one of the gate aghas during Bayezid II's years as a prince and known as the Great Gate Agha, built a covered market (bedesten) in 1483 in the Kazancı quarter south of the Helkıs Bridge, and a madrasa in 1489 in the Şamlılar quarter. Also known as the Kapıağası or Hüseyniye madrasa, it is today called the Büyük Ağa Madrasa. Ayas Agha b. Abdurrahman, known as the Little Gate Agha, built a madrasa in the same quarter in 1495, known as the Ayas Ağa or Şamlılar Madrasa, and in the same year the Kumacık Bathhouse in the Bayezid Paşa quarter. Most of these buildings date from the years after Bayezid's accession. It appears that the aghas who had risen at the prince's gate continued to invest in the city where they had been formed even after their master became sultan.

The Household and the Townspeople

Such a large household did not easily blend into the life of the city. Uzunçarşılı writes that the çelebi sultans lived with their crowded retinues outside the towns, in encampments of tents on the edge of the city, that wooden buildings were sometimes put up in place of tents, but that a sanjak governor's household was organised essentially by the number and capacity of its tents. Members of the household other than those on duty were not permitted to have dealings with the townspeople. The reason for this precaution was the fear that the idle men of inexperienced princes would behave outrageously towards the population.

There are documents showing that this fear was not unfounded. In the reign of Bayezid II, a sekban page from the household of Şehzade Orhan in Kastamonu molested the son of a townsman; when the incident was reported to the sanjak governor and the sekban was punished, gatekeepers from the prince's household came to the complainant's house at night, threatened him and kept watch at his door for days. Uzunçarşılı writes that it is not hard to imagine that the unmarried retinue living in tents outside the town disturbed the peace of the townspeople, that most such complaints were hushed up, and that only those too widespread to conceal were reported to the centre by the kadı or the notables. No similar complaint from Amasya has been published, but it is clear that the households in Amasya lived under the same arrangements.

Military Strength and the Household in the Succession Struggles

The prince's military strength was made up of his household and the sipahis of the sanjak. Until the time of Selim I, princes could join campaigns at their father's wish, move against rebels in their sanjaks and respond to attacks by neighbouring states. Amasya's proximity to the eastern frontier made this role all the more important. Şehzade Bayezid, governor of Amasya, commanded the right wing of the army at the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473, and in 1479 the forces he sent after the plundering of merchants' goods coming from Iran annexed Torul and its surroundings to Ottoman territory. Uzunçarşılı notes that in Ottoman campaigns after Otlukbeli princes no longer served as wing commanders. Of Bayezid II's sons, only Ahmed, governor of Amasya, and his sons took action, to help the grand vizier Hadım Ali Pasha during the Şahkulu revolt.

The transfer of Süleyman's son Mustafa to Amasya was also connected with this military role. The decree of 1541 explains that the sultan was about to set out on campaign to Hungary, that the grand vizier Süleyman Pasha had been sent east with the household troops and the Janissaries against the possibility of the Qizilbash damaging the frontier districts, and that the prince was being sent to Amasya because the city lay on the side facing the enemy. The decree required the prince, should an attack occur, to join the army without delay. According to Uzunçarşılı, the Janissaries inclined towards the thirty-nine-year-old Mustafa because the sultan had grown old and could rarely go on campaign. The growing weight of Mustafa's household and circle was part of the tensions that led to the tragedy at Ereğli in 1553.

The clearest example of a prince's household functioning like an apparatus of state is Şehzade Ahmed's succession struggle of 1512-1513. Ahmed had held the governorship of Amasya for more than thirty years and was regarded as heir by a large part of the statesmen, including his father. After Selim's accession Ahmed proclaimed himself sovereign and sent couriers with decrees bearing his own tughra to kadıs, subaşıs, village stewards and imams. These documents used the phrase "Sultan-ı selatin-i zaman padişahımız Sultan Ahmed Han", and some orders were written with the annotation "saltanatü'l-mahsus bi-gaye el-melik Ahmed". To those who joined him he promised, should he become sultan, twenty akçe in wages for those entering the company of sipahi pages, eighteen akçe for those entering the silahdar company, and timars worth fifteen thousand akçe each for those receiving fiefs. He also promised the yaya foot soldiers additional timars and gratuities if they came and assembled at Amasya. His grant of the sanjak of Kayseri to Süleyman Bey with 500,000 akçe by a tughra-bearing patent is also among the documents of this period.

In this struggle Ahmed's household worked as both an army and an intelligence network. Besides his lala Sinan Bey, the spy reports name his chief çavuş Bali Bey, the agha of the ulufecis and the agha of the azabs. Selim's counter-intelligence thwarted a planned infiltration by seizing the Chief Taster İsak, who turned out to be Ahmed's spy. While Ahmed pursued the throne, his son Murad took over the administration of Amasya. According to the reports, "rice-field money" was collected from the people in places such as Amasya, Kargı and Tosya to pay the troops, and Murad's forces treated the population harshly. After Ahmed was defeated and killed near Yenişehir in 1513, his son Osman, who was deputising for his father in Amasya, was also put to death.

The story of Bayezid, son of Süleyman and the last çelebi sultan of Amasya, likewise shows the military weight of the household. Bayezid regarded his transfer from Kütahya to Amasya as an insult and reached Amasya on 21 December 1558 after a journey of fifty-five days. In a petition to his father he asked for the sanjak of Ankara, writing: "my state here in Amasya is one of sorrow; for the love of God release me, and grant me the sanjak of Engürü." In the meantime he did not disband his paid soldiers, known as "yevmlü", and soon gathered a force of some thirty thousand men around him. The sources record that because of his modest, upright and courageous character he was much loved by his household and by the officials of state. Defeated before Konya in May 1559, Bayezid returned to Amasya, left the city with his sons on 7 July and took refuge in Iran.

From the Household to the Ranks of the State

A prince's household also served as a school that trained men for the central bureaucracy. Those who completed their terms as lala were often sent on to higher provincial posts, and their master's accession to the throne brought them great influence. Amasya offers many examples of this rise. Bayezid Pasha, of Mehmed Çelebi's Amasya household, became grand vizier. Yörgüç Pasha, Murad's lala, served as governor-general of Amasya between 1422 and 1435 and left mosques, madrasas, soup kitchens and bathhouses in the city. Cezerî Kasım Pasha, Bayezid's defterdar in Amasya, rose to the office of nişancı and then to the vizierate once his master took the throne. The career of Câfer Çelebi of Amasya, which reached as far as the post of nişancı of the Imperial Council, was also a product of this milieu.

The succession struggles, however, bound the fate of household members to that of their masters. The men of a losing prince were either punished or sought a new master. That 47 sipahis, 56 silahdars and 78 ulufecis from the men of Şehinşah and his son are recorded with Selim in a pay register of 1512, after Şehinşah's death, shows how one prince's household could become a source of troops for another. Şehinşah's mother, Hüsnüşah Hatun, also corresponded with Selim I to find new posts for her son's men.

The Şehzade Bayezid affair brought this order to an end. After this civil war only the eldest of the princes was given a sanjak, and Manisa alone remained as a princely sanjak. The powers of the lalas were increased, and orders sent from the centre came to be addressed to the lala rather than the prince. With the accession of Mehmed III in 1595, the tradition of sending princes to the provinces effectively came to an end. The lala's office lost its administrative side and turned into the educational duty of a "chief lala" chosen from among the palace eunuchs. Thus closed the era of the princely households that had held council, kept registers, drawn tughras and guarded the gate in Amasya.

Chronology

1414: Mehmed I sent his twelve-year-old son Murad to Amasya with the governorship of the province of Rum and gave him Yörgüç Pasha as his lala.

1418-1420: The endowment deeds were drawn up for the mosque, soup kitchen and madrasa in Amasya of Bayezid Pasha, who had risen from Mehmed Çelebi's Amasya household.

1466: Atabeyzade Hayreddin Hızır Pasha, one of Şehzade Bayezid's lalas, built a madrasa and a bathhouse in the Amasya quarter that bears his name.

1473: Şehzade Bayezid, governor of Amasya, commanded the right wing of the army at the Battle of Otlukbeli. According to Hüsameddin, Cezerî Kasım Pasha came to Amasya as Bayezid's lala in the same years.

1479: Forces sent by Bayezid annexed Torul and its surroundings to Ottoman territory; Vizier Mustafa Pasha was appointed Bayezid's lala.

1481: Bayezid left Amasya to ascend the throne; Cezerî Kasım Pasha was appointed nişancı.

1483: Hüseyin Agha, a gate agha during Bayezid II's years as a prince, built a covered market in Amasya. The allowances for Şehzade Korkud's departure to his sanjak were recorded.

1489: Hüseyin Agha built the Büyük Ağa Madrasa in the Şamlılar quarter.

1495: Ayas Agha, the Little Gate Agha, built a madrasa and the Kumacık Bathhouse in Amasya.

1497: Tâcîzade Câfer Çelebi of Amasya became nişancı of the Imperial Council.

1512-1513: Şehzade Ahmed, governor of Amasya, proclaimed himself sovereign and rallied supporters with orders bearing his own tughra; in 1513 he was defeated and killed.

1541: Şehzade Mustafa was transferred from Manisa to Amasya.

1542: The household list prepared for Şehzade Mehmed's departure to Manisa was drawn up.

1558: Şehzade Bayezid was transferred from Kütahya to Amasya and reached the city on 21 December.

1559: After Bayezid's defeat at Konya and his flight to Iran, Amasya was removed from the ranks of the princely sanjaks.

1595: With the accession of Mehmed III, the posting of princes to the provinces effectively came to an end.

Bibliography

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