94 molly greene
The Black Sea was a vital resource for the Ottomans just as it had been, at one time,
for the Byzantines. As Halil Inalcık points out, from antiquity the Black Sea and the
Aegean world had been closely knit together—the former provided huge quantities of
grain, meat, fish and other animal products to the capital city and to the Aegean
world. The latter exported Mediterranean goods—wine, olive oil and fruit—as well as
luxury goods to the rulers of the steppe (Inalcık, 1994: 271). But from the time of
the Fourth Crusade (1204) the Byzantines had been forced to surrender control of
the Black Sea to the victorious Latins. Now, if he wanted to restore the shrunken
capital to its imperial grandeur, Mehmet the Conquerer had to gain control of this
essential body of water. Without the cheap Black Sea grains and meats, Istanbul would
never have grown to be the most populous city in sixteenth-century Europe (Inalcık,
1994: 273). Consequently, it is there that we see the most dramatic overthrow of the
existing maritime order.
With the completion of the second castle on the Bosphorus in 1452 (Rumelihisarı),
Mehmet was now in a position to control traffic coming out of the Black Sea. He
moved swiftly, requiring all ships to lower their sails at the castles, to pay dues, and to
obtain a permit to proceed on their way. He soon had an opportunity to demonstrate
his seriousness. When a Venetian ship carrying grain refused to submit to the new
rules, gunshot from the castles quickly dispatched it to the bottom of the straits. From
then on, the export of many Black Sea goods—grains, cotton, leather, beeswax, lard
and slaves, and other goods considered strategic—was prohibited whenever the
Ottomans felt that they were threatened with a shortage. The provisioning of Istanbul
became the first priority. Over time, as the city grew and grain shortages became more
frequent, foreign trade was increasingly restricted (Inalcık, 1978: 82 and 76–77).
From Italian to Ottoman merchantsIt had been the Italians, of course, who for several centuries had sailed past the fading
Byzantine capital on their way to their Black Sea commercial emporia. Now the
Italians found that, in addition to the restrictions on navigation, their favorable tax
status had been withdrawn and it was Ottoman subjects who were privileged. All of
this was aimed at ending the long-standing dominance of Venice and Genoa and
building up an indigenous Ottoman commercial class instead.^2
This change of personnel, as it were, is a highly significant, and enduring, aspect of
the Ottoman presence in the Mediterranean, and one that is often overlooked. In the
longue durée narrative of European ascendancy in the commerce and navigation of the
inland sea, Latin domination, which begins in the medieval period, morphs seamlessly
into European domination of another kind, the arrival of the French, the Dutch, and
the British at the end of the sixteenth century that Braudel called “the Northern
Invasion.”^3 In fact, the reconstruction of a large imperial power at the eastern
Mediterranean gave a boost to Ottoman merchants, sailors and shipowners—
particularly but not exclusively the sultan’s non-Muslim subjects—that proved to be
both long-lasting and consequential on many levels.
For analytical purposes it makes sense to divide the activities of Ottoman mer-
chants into three zones. First, there was the gargantuan job of provisioning Istanbul.
The Ottoman heartland—the eastern Balkans and western Anatolia—was charged
with this responsibility, along with the Black Sea and, after its conquest, Egypt.