Boğaç A. Ergene

WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN 18TH-CENTURY KASTAMONU: ESTIMATIONS FOR THE MUSLIM MAJORITY

This paper introduces methods to estimate wealth levels and disparities among Muslim inhabitants of 18th-century Ottoman Kastamonu. Our sources in this pursuit are estate inventories of the deceased (sing. tereke ) as recorded in Kastamonu court records ( sicil s), mainly in the first half of the 18th century (1712-60). By analyzing information provided by these sources through a variety of quantitative techniques, we measure levels of inequality among Muslims of Kastamonu and describe the relationship between economic privilege and social, political, religious, and occupational status as well as gender identity. Our work outlines the contours of economic stratification in 18th-century Kastamonu and reveals the relative positions of various social groups within this hierarchy.

Inequality of Wealth in the Ottoman Empire: War, Weather, and Long-Term Trends in Eighteenth-Century Kastamonu

This article offers a quantitative analysis of wealth inequality in the Ottoman Empire, employing data from probate inventories ( tereke s) of eighteenth-century Kastamonu, a town located in northern Anatolia. Extracting information on wealth levels and personal characteristics of individuals, we estimate aggregate measures of wealth inequality, namely the Gini coefficient, the coefficient of variation, and the wealth shares of the wealthiest 10 and 25 percent of estates. We use regression analysis to identify the time trend of wealth inequality and determine how warfare, significant weather events, macroeconomic variables, and shifts in population characteristics affected it.

Inheritance and intergenerational wealth transmission in eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu: an empirical investigation.

This article investigates the relationship between inheritance and wealth in the context of eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu. Based on the estate inventories of the deceased (sing. tereke) as recorded in Kastamonu court records (sicils), the article introduces a variety of quantitative techniques to measure the impact of Islamic inheritance practices on wealth accumulation across subsequent generations and to understand how it influenced wealth mobility among various socioeconomic groups. The estimations provided in this article suggest that while the inheritance practice in Kastamonu caused wealth fragmentation, the process also contributed to the durability of economic divisions within the provincial Ottoman society.

A temporal analysis of wealth in eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu

This article studies temporal variations in wealth levels and distribution in an Ottoman context during the eighteenth century. By analysing the probate estate inventories of the Muslim deceased in Kastamonu, located in north-central Anatolia, we demonstrate that real wealth levels generally declined over the course of the century. Our analysis also suggests that the economic conditions of poor men, if not women, deteriorated more so than those of the rich, fuelling growing inequality. The article explores the factors that contributed to these trends and discusses the relevance of our findings for long-term economic development patterns in the region from a comparative perspective.

Intergenerational wealth accumulation and dispersion in the Ottoman Empire: observations from eighteenth-century Kastamonu

This article studies the accumulation and intergenerational transmission of wealth in early-modern Ottoman Anatolia by employing data from probate estate inventories (terekes) as found in the court records (sicils) of eighteenth-century Kastamonu, a town located in northern Anatolia. Extracting information on the wealth levels and personal characteristics of father-son pairs in the period between 1710 and 1806, we conduct regression analysis of factors determining the wealth of sons. In this first attempt to simultaneously analyze the estate inventories of parents and children in the Ottoman Empire, we also compare our results with those obtained for regions that were growing rapidly in this era and discuss the implications of our findings for the prospects of capital accumulation in the Ottoman context. Our results show that wealth holding was more equal in Kastamonu than in Britain in the eighteenth century. This was caused in part by the significantly lower transmission of wealth from fathers to sons. Although there was a significant correlation between the wealth-levels of fathers and sons in Kastamonu, this relationship was weaker there than what has been observed for eighteenth-century Britain. Regression to the mean among the sons was more rapid in Kastamonu. Finally, in at least one Ottoman context, our calculations cast doubt on the argument that Islamic inheritance practices led to excessive levels of wealth fragmentation.

Why Did Ümmü Gülsüm Go to Court? Ottoman Legal Practice between History and Anthropology

This article offers a critical assessment of the existing literature on Ottoman courts of law, which characterizes the courts operations as single-mindedly legalistic and socially disinterested. There is a conceptual discrepancy between this literature and recent legal and anthropological studies of modern Islamic courts, which highlight the influence on the courts actions of communal considerations, such as the desire to make peace among disputants. With reference to a specific rape incident in eighteenth-century Anatolia, I propose in this article a characterization of Ottoman legal practice that acknowledges the contextual and socially-bounded nature of the courts actions.

Social Identity and Patterns of Interaction in the Sharia Court of Kastamonu (1740-44)

In this article I introduce quantitative techniques and procedures to analyze how various social groups in mid-18th-century Ottoman Kastamonu experienced the court process. By processing the information found in three Kastamonu court registers, I attempt to determine the group identities of court clients and to compare the choices made by different groups in various legal circumstances. I will identify the kinds of issues brought to court by different segments of the social hierarchy, and the legal adversaries and/or contracting parties brought to court by these court clients; and I will assess how these groups fared in their disputes. My analysis confirms the existence of diverse patterns of court use by various groups in 18th-century Kastamonu and the differential use of the courts services by clients with different social and economic backgrounds.

Spouse Selection and Marital Mobility in the Ottoman Empire: Observations from Eighteenth-Century Kastamonu

Abstract Based on the information found in probate estate inventories, this article examines patterns of spousal preference and marital mobility in eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu, located in northern Anatolia. For this purpose, we introduce quantitative techniques and categories of analysis specifically designed for Ottoman sources, primarily postmortem estate inventories (terekes), allowing us to measure how various socioeconomic groups established marital associations and to what extent they married other groups. The article also compares marital and intergenerational mobility patterns in eighteenth-century Kastamonu.

Intergenerational mobility in the Ottoman Empire: Observations from eighteenth-century Kastamonu

Based on probate estate inventories from eighteenth-century Kastamonu in north Anatolia, this study examines intergenerational mobility patterns in one Ottoman provincial town. Although the topic is well-studied in many Western contexts, historical and contemporary, we still know little about the ways in which socioeconomic disparities and class identities were transmitted across subsequent generations of parents and children in the Ottoman Empire. In order to explore this issue in a sophisticated fashion, this article introduces quantitative techniques and categories of analysis tailored specifically for Ottoman sources. In addition to other findings, our analysis suggests that Kastamonu in the eighteenth century was vertically and horizontally segmented: Not only were there significant impediments to intergenerational mobility across privileged and underprivileged sectors of the society, such transitions were also infrequent across sub-groups within upper and lower classes. Despite a general lack of intergenerational fluidity at all socioeconomic levels, however, our calculations also reveal that the provincial elite were particularly immobile.

The selection bias in court records: settlement and trial in eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu

Court records are used extensively in historical research. Preserved as summaries of daily legal proceedings, they give historians a unique opportunity of access to the information about the names, personal characteristics, and socio-economic status of individuals and about the laws, local customs, and legal institutions that were used in resolving disputes. Although researchers have thoroughly discussed the limitations of these records in accurately reflecting court proceedings, the problem of selection bias has not been systematically studied. Since litigants would likely settle disputes in which one side is likely to be a clear winner, the cases that go to trial would likely be the difficult and uncertain ones for which there is greater disagreement, altogether comprising a non-random and unrepresentative subset of all disputes. We study the selection bias in Ottoman courts in the town of Kastamonu in northern Anatolia, from the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. We separate disputes by type and study the distribution of court participants according to size, gender, and religious and socioeconomic status. We run regression analysis to determine the factors affecting the likelihood of cases being tried in court. Our results indicate that the cases that wound up in court were selected systematically. If the selection bias is ignored, research based on Ottoman court records may be seriously flawed in its ability to yield general conclusions.