In the Ottoman dynasty, the upbringing of a prince covered the years spent on horseback and in open country as well as those spent over books. Archery, riding, javelin games and hunting made up the physical side of this education and prepared the future ruler as a future army commander. Because Amasya served as a princely sanjak for centuries, it was one of the places where this training was carried out for the longest time. The mountains and forests around the city, the plains running along the Yeşilırmak and the open fields on its edge offered a suitable setting for these exercises, which the young princes sent to the provinces regarded as both lessons and recreation. The javelin game played by ordinary people, and the Amasya and Merzifon teams, are a separate subject; only the princes' training in hunting and cirit is described here.

The Place of Hunting and Riding in Turkic Tradition

Before Islam, too, hunting was regarded among the Turks as both a sport and a form of military drill. The main pursuits of that age were riding, archery, the javelin game and wrestling, and every kind of hunting was counted alongside them. The Prophet's words praising riding, archery and swimming helped the passion survive after the Turks became Muslim. The favourite pastime of the Great Seljuk sultans was the drive hunt, organized with great pomp. The sultans also used these hunting trips to make contact with the people and listen to their troubles. That the chief huntsman of the Seljuks held the rank of emir, under the title emir-i shikar, shows the importance given to hunting. The same office existed among the Anatolian Seljuks, and its duty was to look after the sultan's hunting dogs and birds of prey and to accompany the sultan on the hunt. The Ottomans took over this inheritance and developed it.

Among the Ottomans, hunting parties go back to the early years of the state. According to one account, Süleyman Pasha, the conqueror of Rumelia, died during a hunt in 1359. The depiction of Murad I in a miniature releasing his falcon during a hunt shows that hunting with birds of prey was an ordinary pastime of early rulers. In time, hunting grew from a ruler's hobby into an organized institution. The shikar agas, such as the master of gyrfalcons (çakırcıbaşı), the master of falconers (şahincibaşı) and the master of sparrowhawk keepers (atmacacıbaşı), who stood closest to the sultan, held a high protocol rank among the palace's outer services. Besides their corps at the centre, they were also the superiors of the official breeders of hunting birds across the empire. For a prince raised within such a tradition, hunting was a skill to be taken seriously in its own right.

Preparation Begun in the Palace

The education of Ottoman princes had two stages. In the classical system, which lasted until the early seventeenth century, the first stage was theoretical education inside the palace, and the second was practical training that began when the prince went out to his sanjak. In the first stage, the leading teachers of the day gave the princes a wide range of lessons, from religious sciences and literature to Arabic, Persian and calligraphy, and these usually continued until the ages of ten to thirteen. In the third courtyard of the palace, the princes received training in riding and the martial arts together with the palace pages (iç oğlan). Some accounts say that before the age of ten to twelve a prince reached a good level in sports such as archery, hunting and cirit.

After completing his palace education, the prince was circumcised, and large ceremonies and entertainments were held on the occasion. The mounted games played at circumcision festivals offered the young both something to watch and something to learn from. For example, at the circumcision festival of Prince Mehmed, son of Murad III, in the summer of 1582, the game of kabak was played, in which mounted archers turned back at a gallop and shot at a golden ball on top of a pole. Murad III himself joined in and hit the target dead centre, and the young prince leapt to his feet to applaud his father. This festival was held in Istanbul, not in Amasya, but it can serve as an example of how princes became acquainted with mounted games. After the circumcision, the prince was sent with his lala and his teachers to the sanjak assigned to him.

Training for Real Life in the Sanjak

A prince who went out to a sanjak was given lalas responsible for his education, teachers, a chancellor, a treasurer, secretaries and every kind of staff he needed. The lala was often an experienced and trusted statesman raised in the Enderun; besides the prince's education, he presided over the prince's council, went on campaign with the sanjak troops and, in wartime, took charge of defending the region. The age at which princes went to their sanjaks varies widely in the sources. Prince Alâeddin, appointed to the sanjak of Amasya at the age of fifteen in 1440, took part in the war against the Karamanids in 1443 with the sipahis under his command, on the orders of his father Murad II. He died when he returned to Amasya from the war. The record shows that a prince who governed a sanjak did not only administer it but also went to the front at the head of his sipahis; the years of training on horseback were given for this duty.

Amasya had the three qualities required to become a princely sanjak. It was a frontier region on the eastern border, it was the centre of the Danishmendids, an old Anatolian principality, and it was a city of culture and trade. The sources name Yıldırım Bayezid, sent in 1386, as the first princely sanjak governor; the last prince was Prince Murad, who came to Amasya in 1566 at the age of twenty-one and was transferred to Manisa about a year and a half later, that is, the future Sultan Murad III. During the roughly two hundred years in between, such figures as Çelebi Mehmed, Prince Murad (Murad II), Prince Alâeddin, Bayezid II, Prince Ahmed, Prince Mustafa and Prince Bayezid served in Amasya. The claim that Mehmed II (the Conqueror) was appointed governor of Amasya at the age of six is doubtful; what is known is that in the spring of 1443 he was sent from Edirne to Manisa with his two lalas.

The Archery Field and Horse Training

There is no firm record of where the princes trained with weapons in Amasya, but the city's topography and the interpretation of some researchers offer a clue. Selim Özcan reports that the city square of Amasya lay to the west, at the head of the Meydan Bridge on the flat ground outside the square gate, and was known as the "archery field" (ok meydanı). It is thought that this area may have been set aside mainly for sporting contests, and the name is said to come from the teaching of archery, the Turkish national horseback sport, there. A second area, called Hacılar Meydanı, is mentioned on the south bank of the Yeşilırmak, but its name comes from the pilgrimage journeys and there is no information that it was used for sport. There is no direct record that princes and their retinues practised shooting on the archery field; the teaching of archery is given as the origin of the name.

A prince's relationship with the horse was not limited to shooting arrows. It is told that during the years Mehmed the Conqueror spent as sanjak governor in Manisa, he rode, shot arrows and learned war techniques by day, and took lessons from his teacher Molla Gürani in the evenings. The dual structure of sanjak education, physical training by day and learning by night, is plainly visible in this account. The example of Murad IV, from a later period when the custom of going out to a sanjak was fading, also shows how detailed the training of the horseman could be. He learned archery from Hüsamzâde Abdurrahman and riding from Cündi Halil Paşa, the master of the stables (emir-i ahur), and surpassed his contemporaries in the use of the horse, sword, bow, spear, mace and javelin. A separate master had been engaged for each skill.

The Prince's Hunt and the Hunting Organization

In the sanjak, hunting was not done merely for pleasure. Until the late sixteenth century, the princes serving as sanjak governors in the provinces went out on drive hunts wherever they were, and for this reason they had a hunting organization of their own. A drive hunt was often an operation lasting days, in which the whole retinue took part. Besides falconers and the hunting people, the sultans' drive hunts included the aghas of the Privy Chamber, the peyks, the keepers of hounds, the sekbans, the solaks, high-ranking dignitaries of state, and even janissaries and gardeners of the palace (bostancı). Such hunts were regarded as an occasion for rest and entertainment, and also for preparation for war, contact with the people and inspection. Since the prince had a hunting organization of his own, it is clear that these purposes held in the sanjak too; on the hunt, the prince tested his horse and weapons, commanded his retinue and made contact with the local people.

Hunting demanded riding, shooting, reading the terrain and making sudden decisions. A pursuit lasting long hours over rough ground built physical endurance as much as it taught patience. The large and orderly structure of hunting parties gave the prince a chance to run a small-scale campaign. According to the sources, breeders of hunting birds in Anatolia were concentrated in the wet and wooded places of the western Black Sea region, the eastern Mediterranean and eastern Anatolia; no record of a bird-breeding site around Amasya is found in the sources consulted here. Even so, the mountainous and wooded surroundings of the city offered suitable ground for large-scale hunting.

Cirit and Mounted War Games

Cirit is a two-team javelin game played on horseback. Each rider is given a wooden stick about a metre long; the player throws it at an opponent from a galloping horse, avoids the stick thrown at him, or catches it in the air. The game arose as a miniature rehearsal of war and was developed to teach accurate throwing of the spear and bayonet from horseback. In the Ottoman palace, cirit was part of Enderun education. According to accounts, the players were divided into two groups called Lahanacı and Bamyacı, and the Enderun's soldiers on duty and the palace pages were trained through this game. The palace dignitaries also watched these fiercely contested matches with great pleasure.

A prince who went out to a sanjak was surrounded by sipahis and a mounted retinue, which supplied the personnel that cirit required. In the cirit field the prince tested his command of the horse, his balance and his timing, learned to sense an opponent's move in advance, and practised quick turns and sudden stops on horseback. Because such a match also required managing the cohesion of a team, it counted as a lesson aimed at command. Cirit was a spectator sport in the Ottoman world, played to the sound of drums and zurnas, and the public watched. It can be said that the days when the prince and his retinue played drew spectators, and that the game kept a sense of rivalry alive among the young. No direct document showing that princes played cirit in Amasya was found in this research; the account rests on the general educational order of sanjak princes.

Besides cirit, princes also learned other mounted and armed games. Mastery of such war games as marksmanship, riding, cirit, sword, shield, wrestling, boxing, mangala, matrakî and kabak was part of the education. Mangala was a stone game for two players that demanded intelligence and strategy; matrakî was a game played with sticks that involved fighting and strategy. These were not mounted games, but they taught the prince to think within rules and a plan. In the same period, the army's favourite commanders and the akıncı beys gave the princes military lessons and taught them to use various war games and weapons and equipment.

The Military Experience of Amasya's Princes

Bayezid served as sanjak governor of Amasya for about twenty-seven years, and during this time he took part in the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473 with his father, serving as commander of the right wing. On the return from the campaign he stayed in Amasya for about a month with Mehmed the Conqueror. Lâdik, a dependency of Amasya, was the summer residence of the sanjak governors, and Bayezid spent the summer there every year; there is no record of whether he went hunting there. Experienced statesmen such as Çandarlı İbrahim and Yahya Pasha served as his lalas, and he learned calligraphy from Sheikh Hamdullah. Bayezid's governorship thus became a period in which scholarly education and military duty went hand in hand.

Bayezid's son, Prince Ahmed, was sanjak governor of Amasya from 1481 to 1511. In 1511 he intervened with his forces in the Şahkulu rebellion that shook Anatolia, but was defeated and withdrew. His struggle for the throne against his brother Selim ended with the battle lost at Yenişehir in 1514. Mustafa, the eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent, was appointed from Manisa to Amasya in 1538, or in 1541 according to some sources, and served in this sanjak until he was killed in 1553. The Austrian traveller Hans Dernschwam records that during the days when Süleyman was in Amasya, the people he saw along the road were grieved and angry, and that everyone praised the murdered prince. Mustafa's popularity among the people and the janissaries is explained in contemporary accounts by his courage and gallantry. The sources give no detail about Mustafa's habits of hunting or cirit.

The End of the Sanjak System

The custom of going out to a sanjak was narrowed over time because of the struggles for the throne among the princes. The fratricidal struggles that began with the Ottoman Interregnum, Prince Cem's rebellion against Bayezid II, Selim I's seizure of the throne from his father, and, in Süleyman's reign, the affair of Prince Mustafa and the rivalry between Selim and Bayezid led to limits on the princes' powers. Selim II introduced the rule that only the eldest prince would be sent to a sanjak; Mehmed III turned this into the eldest prince's administering a sanjak by proxy. From 1617 onward, the princes lived in a closed life in the palace called the kafes. Thus the chance for young princes to ride and go hunting in the provinces disappeared. The sources studying the hunting organization note in addition that the beginning of the princes' education in the palace, and their no longer going out to the provinces, also cut their ties with hunting. The spread of firearms reduced the need for hunting birds, and after the abolition of the Janissary Corps the organization of bird-of-prey breeding vanished into history.

Cirit, by contrast, lived much longer. In the nineteenth century it became one of the greatest spectator sports of the Ottoman lands and palaces; in 1826 Mahmud II banned it on grounds of the game's danger, though it was later played again. These two activities, which had been part of the education princes received in the sanjak, thus followed different paths. The hunting organization weakened when the princely sanjaks and the palace structure that sustained it disappeared; cirit, in the hands of the people, has lasted to the present in many parts of Anatolia. Although the share princes in Amasya contributed to this tradition cannot be documented directly, it should be considered within the wider frame of the horse culture of the sanjak centres.

Chronology

1386: Yıldırım Bayezid is sent to Amasya as the first princely sanjak governor.

1440: Prince Alâeddin becomes sanjak governor of Amasya at the age of fifteen.

1443: Alâeddin takes part in the war against the Karamanids with the sipahis under his command and dies in Amasya on his return. In the same year Mehmed (the Conqueror) is sent to Manisa with his two lalas.

1454: Bayezid II is appointed sanjak governor of Amasya at the age of seven.

1473: Bayezid takes part in the Battle of Otlukbeli as commander of the right wing.

1481: On the death of Mehmed the Conqueror, Bayezid leaves Amasya; his son Ahmed remains as governor.

1538 (1541 according to some sources): Prince Mustafa becomes sanjak governor of Amasya.

1553: Prince Mustafa is killed.

1566: Prince Murad becomes the last princely sanjak governor to come to Amasya.

1617: The kafes system begins to be applied to the princes.

1826: Mahmud II bans the game of cirit.

Sources

Academic studies

  • Selim Özcan, "Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, issue 5.
  • İsmail Çolak, "Cihan Sultanlığına Hazırlık: Osmanlı'da Şehzade Eğitimi", Somuncu Baba Dergisi, issue 204. somuncubaba.net
  • "Osmanlı'da Şehzade Eğitimi", Hüma Dergisi.
  • "Tüm Detaylarıyla Ata Sporumuz Cirit Oyunu", dergiCE.

Other sources

Online sources