The “Golden Age” as a Political Agenda 203
for the past sixty years”: M3). Kitâb-ı müstetâb notes that fiefs are now granted
by viziers and magnates (ekâbir); even a scribe can ascribe fiefs to his servants,
children, and slaves, and thus collect the income, while the real timariot army
becomes smaller and poorer—in fact, says the author, low-ranking and low-
paid sipahis now constitute only a small part of the Ottoman army, whereas
the rest consists of Turkish, Roma, and ex-Celali followers of the sancabeyis,
along with the janissaries who form its bulk (Y15–17, A614–16). Koçi Bey also
considers the timariot sipahis the fundamental factor in the past sultans’ vic-
tories (A24–26; Ç32–36): at that time, he says, there were no strangers among
them, no peasants or “city boys”; they all were soldiers (sipahis or slaves, kul) or
the sons of soldiers, with the latters’ ancestry having to be proved by between
two and ten witnesses. Moreover, they were not promoted in rank and fief un-
less their service on campaign was outstanding; they had to stay in their prov-
inces and remain ready for battle always. This system worked because neither
would Istanbul grant a timar without a proposal from the provincial governor,
nor would a governor give timars to people who were not entitled to them. To
illustrate his point, Koçi Bey gives various examples and quotes the numbers
of timars and timariots in each province, adding that sipahis would never dig
trenches or take care of firearms since these were jobs for the infantry (piya-
degân). As he remarks elsewhere, in the past every class knew its limits and
did not depart from them (her zümrenin hadd-ı muayyeni olup), unlike in the
present.
Having described the rules of the military as in times of glory, Koçi Bey sets
out to explain the causes and features of the decline (A30ff.; Ç41ff. and A38ff.;
Ç51ff.). Before Murad III’s ascent to the throne (1574), he claims, grand viziers
were undisturbed from any interference whatsoever and only had to deal with
the sultan himself. But afterwards, the sultan’s companions started to gain offi-
cial posts and intervene in state affairs, causing the fall of virtuous viziers. More
particularly, it was in 1584 that Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha granted timars to a
number of strangers who had fought valiantly on the Iranian front, and thus
opened the way to all kinds of peasants and “city boys” gaining timars with-
out being worthy of them. Thus gaining power, these companions (iç halkı)
started to take timars and other revenues for themselves and then to distribute
posts in the provincial administration to unworthy people who bribed them.
From provincial governors to the viziers’ officers, from scribes to mutes and
dwarves, everybody started to grant timars to their servants and even to their
slaves, sometimes many to one person. This situation is also described in some
of the Veliyuddin telhis: the fourth memorandum complains of the granting of
state land to palace officials and favorites as either private freehold (mülk) or
vakfs, arguing that such properties would serve the state much better if they