Chapter 7 Transforming the Abode of War into the Abode of Islam: A Local Grandee in Ottoman Hungary, Osman Ağa, Çelebi and Bey
In: Dimensions of Transformation in the Ottoman Empire from the Late Medieval Age to ModernitySearch for other papers by Pál Fodor in
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Abstract
It is possible to reconstruct the lives and careers of few middle-level office holders in Ottoman Hungary, but Osman Ağa, the hero of this study, is an exception. He first appears as a prebend-holder and tax farmer of the imperial domains in the sub-province of Fülek. From the late 1560s to mid-1590s, he was the contractor and then fiscal inspector of the Vác (O. Vaç) tax farm (mukataa), the Ottoman state treasury’s most important source of revenue in Hungary, where he exhibited outstanding financial talent. Not only could he outbid his rivals, but he also managed to remit to the treasury what he had undertaken to pay. He was a gifted soldier, with his valiancy repeatedly rewarded with increases in his prebend. He was appointed district governor of Szécsény (O. Seçen) and later transferred to the sancaks of Esztergom (O. Estergon), Hatvan, Szécsény and, finally Szolnok (O. Solnok), the most prestigious district governorship in Hungary. He disappeared from sight during the first decade of the so-called ‘Long War’ (1593–1606). Osman Bey was among those local Ottoman notables who did much to establish and consolidate Ottoman rule in Hungary, both economically and culturally.