You're Dead to Me - Istanbul in the Ottoman Golden Age

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Ebru Boyar and special guest Sue Perkins as they travel back 500 years to explore the Ottoman Empire. They take a look at the cultural richness and diversity of Istanbul through the ages, from law and order to what your sartorial choices said about you. Why was physical proximity to the throne vital for a son of a sultan and what surprising activity used to be enjoyed by the fearsome Ottoman Soldiers? They’ll even take you to a Grand Circumcision Festival!You’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.Research by Claudia Treacher and Genevieve Johnson-Smith Written and produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Siefe Miyo and Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Abi Paterson

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and I'm the ex-chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. And today we are living that city slicker life as we travel back over 500 years to learn about life in Ottoman Istanbul and to help me find my way around town. I'm joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, she's a professor in Ottoman and Turkish history at

Middle East Technical University in Turkey with expertise in diplomatic and social history. She's written a tonne of academic publications, including co-authoring the book A Social History of Istanbul. It's Professor Ebru Boyac. Welcome, Ebru. Thank you for having me on the programme. Delighted. And in Comedy Corner, she's a TV and radio broadcaster, writer, actor and comedian.

You'll know her from literally everything on the telly, including Great British Bake Off, insert name here, QI, various documentaries on art, literature, travel and history. Plus, she's the host of the iconic Radio 4 comedy show, Just a Minute. It's the splendid Sue Perkins. We are super delighted to have you here. Yes, that's the level of pun you're getting on this show. Okay, I'm just recalibrating. Changing the pun threshold to zero. You are famously brainy and you've presented historical documentaries. So I am automatically, I'm charting

you up as a history nerd. Is that fair? I'm history curious. Okay. Unlike you guys, I've never put the full force of my mental rigour towards history. It's not tended in that direction. You've made a lot of travel documentaries. So can I presume you've been to Istanbul? I haven't actually. It was one of the places that we were slated to go and we were then stopped because it was deemed to be not entirely safe for blithering tourists

like myself at the time. Well, I've never been either. So we're going to go on a wonderful journey with an expert professor who's going to take us back in time. So what do you know? Time now for the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And despite the Ottoman Empire having been mega powerful at its height, I think the influence hasn't really translated into pop culture visibility, in the UK at least.

If you're a war buff, you might know your Crimean War or even your doomed Gallipoli campaign. But if I say Ottoman, you might be thinking, uh, furniture? But perhaps I'm being unfair. You might be one of the 200 million people to have watched the terrific TV drama Magnificent Century. It's a Turkish show which focuses on Sule terrific TV drama Magnificent Century. It's a Turkish show

which focuses on Suleyman the Magnificent, the longest reigning of the Ottoman sultans. And if gaming's your thing, you may have wandered the streets of Ottoman Istanbul in Assassin's Creed Revelations. But from law codes and leisure to caravans and coffeehouses, what else do we need to know about life in the golden age of Ottoman Istanbul? Right, Professor Ebru, we're doing mid-1400s to mid-1600s, the golden age. We could have just kept going into the 20th century, couldn't we, with the Ottomans? Yes, absolutely, we could. The Ottomans who conquered Constantinople in 1453, in fact, ruled over the empire for more than 600 years until it collapsed after the First World War. At its height, Ottoman Empire covered an enormous

area stretching in the west from Hungary to Ukraine in the north, across all of what is known as the Middle East and along the North Africa coast up to the borders of Morocco. To cover all this in one podcast will be rather difficult. So we'll just be looking today at daily life in the empire's capital, magnificent Istanbul. And we start our story in 1453. This is a very famous year in history. And it begins really with the fall of the mighty walls of Constantinople. The booming cannons of the Ottoman Turks demolish those walls pretty quick. And this 1000 year empire falls very fast. And do you know what the empire was that crumbled that day? The pre-Ottoman Empire? I don't know what it was. Would it have been the Austro-Hungarian one?

No, that's too early. It's a good guess, but no, we're saying bye-bye Byzantium. Oh, Byzantium, of course. The Byzantines, what did they do wrong? Wrong place, wrong time. And no cannonballs by the sounds of it. Well, they certainly didn't have cannonball-proof walls, sadly. The city had been founded in 330 by Constantine the Great. So this is the Eastern Roman Empire, Sue. So the Roman Empire is split in half and the East continues for over 1,100 years. It's the power base of the Greek Orthodox Church. And Constantinople is this mighty city. And then in 1453, suddenly it falls, which is this incredibly serious, huge trauma. And it must have been very, very traumatic for the people in the city, Ebru.

Yes, the capture of the city by Mehmed II, known as the Conqueror, on 29th May 1453, was without doubt seen by many contemporaries as a cataclysmic event. For the Byzantines, it was the end of their world as they knew it, and for those from the West, it represented a terrifying Ottoman success which threatened their own states. Various contemporary accounts refer to the rivers of blood that flowed through the city, with corpses floating out to sea like melons along a canal. Oh, this has got quite dark quite quickly. Yeah. Did the Byzantines get a slight whiff that an invasion was coming?

Of course. The city was sieged many times before by Arabs, by the Ottomans. changed many times before by Arabs, by the Ottomans. But the final blow came in 1453 by Mehmed II, who was a very young sultan. And yes, he is known as the conqueror Mehmed II. And one of the effects actually, Sue, of the fall of this mighty city is you get refugees, and many of those refugees were very learned. You get scholars and priests, physicians, engineers, poets, and they flee into Europe. A lot of them go to Italy, and actually, it helps to push the Renaissance along. But let's get back to Mehmed II. He is the conqueror. He's a young man. He has this huge success. What do you think he does now he's conquered this city?

Oh, well, I can only speak personally. The first thing you do is erect an enormous statue of yourself. I mean, just an enormous face looking out to sea, preferably in gold. You get the entire workforce who are disgruntled, sad, shell-shocked, if they aren't floating down the river with faces like melons. You get them embarking on public works to reflect your glory and your magnificence. Or a mini break to Mallorca. It one or the other I couldn't quite work out he rebuilds the city so he's knocked it down oh that's decent of him but he's gonna put it back up he did not entirely knock it down great he kept for instance uh Saint Sophia you know

Hagia Sophia he turned into the mosque but okay the thing is, he wanted to restore the city to its former glory. Because the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, was a very declined city. Because we are talking about a very much crumbling empire. He wanted to reestablish it as an economic powerhouse. He therefore began to rebuild the city, constructing markets, not his statue, public baths, mosques, soup kitchens, hospitals, schools and aqueducts.

Yeah. Oh, so he's going for hearts and minds, basically, isn't he? Yes. He's sorry about the wall. Here's a hospital. Exactly that. Yes, yes. Here's some soup.

He is now rebuilding. And also, I think we need to just address the name as well, because it's Constantinople when it's part of the Byzantine Empire. But Ebru, you've asked us to refer to the city as Istanbul, which is the current name, of course. So is that a name that is in use at the same time? How does the naming change work? The thing is, Istanbul under the Ottomans had many names.

work? The thing is, Istanbul under the Ottomans had many names. Istanbul, Istanbul, Dersaadet, Asitane, Payitaht. But the majority of the people used Istanbul during the Ottoman times. Can I just say that I think easy jets still fly to all of those destinations. You need to go to Southend. I'm just wondering if he also, amongst his many good works and popular good deeds, invested in the playgrounds, because then he could be the Sultan of Swing. Hey! It's very weak, but you did set the pun bar low. Actually, they don't do public grounds, but Janissaries, the fearsome Ottoman soldiers, actually enjoyed swings very much in the festivals.

They hang on big swings all around the city. No one expected this. Yeah, no, it is one of the major Ottoman entertainment. That was a fun time. But not the sultan himself, of course. But in the 16th century, you can find a lot of little illustrations. That's amazing. So the city is being rebuilt. He's building soup kitchens and hospitals.

He converts the famous church of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. So there is an Islamicisation of the city, but also he has to repopulate the city. There's a lot of people have fled, refugees and people died. So who is repopulating the city? Not only that, before the war, a lot of people abandoned Constantinople. Mehmed brought people in from different parts of the empire in order to revitalise the city. At the same time, Western merchants, for example, Genoese, continued to live and work there, as of course, did part of the original Byzantine population. Mehmed appointed an Orthodox patriarch to be head of the Ottoman Orthodox community.

There was also a Jewish community there, which expanded with the arrival of Jews fleeing from Spain after they were expulsed in 1492. If you keep in mind the geographical location of the city, it is easy to understand why it was such a magnate for international trade, which also therefore brought in many foreigners to the city. Istanbul became therefore a huge cosmopolitan and multi-religious capital. Even though his idea was to Islamify the city, actually it's, as you say, a multi-faith environment where religious faiths are accepted and tolerated yes but that is part of the ottoman governance practice because they accept the people of book as long as they pay tax right so then they are under protection memid the second he's

investing in hospitals and mosques and all sorts of things so he's got a huge logistical bottleneck to get through how do you think he manages all that paperwork so he could do what i do just just move it to one side but i suspect the level of paperwork at a sultan level is probably more than you could yeah i mean that's difficult he's either going to abolish it or he's going to have an a bureaucratic class he's going to invent accountants or something. There's going to be bean counters galore that come from all around the world and there are opportunities in Istanbul. Of course, they all speak like that.

Yeah, there's this fantastic sort of civil service. He certainly has all these advisors and bureaucrats. Are they in the palace with him or are they in a sort of boring council estate on the ring road? I'm going to say probably in the palace. What do you reckon? Yes, you are correct. Actually, he ruled from the very imposing palace of Kopkapı. He built after the conquest of the city. Bear in mind that these people did not live there,

but they worked there or visited the sultan there. So the chief figure of the government after the sultan was the Grand Vizier. The Grand chief figure of the government after the Sultan was the Grand Vizier. The Grand Vizier presided over the imperial council, the divan, which functioned a bit like the cabinet. Other officials or viziers who were in the divan were the defterdar, the official in charge of finances, the chancellor who was in charge of all official documents and correspondence so he was the busy person and the top legal judges responsible for judicial affairs the kazaskars okay so you've got a grand vizier we've got viziers yeah there's so many viziers in there it's a full palace presumably enjoying lots of work drinks and social occasions because they all work together?

No, I don't think so. I think they will leave and go to their little abodes outside. So they did actually live on the Ring Road. We've been slightly overcome. They did live on the Ring Road, but they commuted into a bright gold palace. Was it a gold palace? No, no, it wasn't. Actually, Topkapı is a very humble palace, considering the 19th century Ottoman palaces. But Topkapı is imposing, but not incredibly glorious, it is not. Understood. I love the idea of a humble palace. This is my humble palace. It's just a two up, two down.

Have we checked for a basement conversion? It's a one-story cubical building. It's a bungalow. He's got a sultanic bungalow. What makes it imposing is where it stood. So the location is beautiful. Fabulous. Ebru, I'm assuming all these bureaucrats, they're all men, am I assuming?

So the question I want to ask is, can women exert political control or influence? Yes, all these officials were men. I mean, we are talking about early modern period, especially in the Ottoman Empire, but that did not mean that women would not wield political power. The Valide Sultan, for example, the mother of the ruling sultan, could be a very powerful and influential figure. Indeed, in the first half of the 17th century, power was effectively in the hands of Mahpeyker Kösem Sultan,

the mother of two Ottoman sultans, Murad IV and Ibrahim. This period became known as the Sultanate of Women. The Sultanate of Women. So the queen mother, the sultan's mother, how do you pronounce that again? Walid Sultan, is that right? Walide Sultan. Sultan, okay. That's the sultan mother. And she would rule over the harem, which is how we pronounce it in English. Sue, what do you think of when you hear the word harem? I think of a group of beautiful, sexually available women

who I, and I would be an outcast, I would not be able to join their ranks. I would be an anomalous member of the harem. Just slightly side-eyeing everybody, like a confused, ageing Staffordshire ball terrier. I would not be welcome into the army of the delicious. They're all kind of full of mysticism and fecundity and just available, just available, beautiful women that I would find very intimidating.

Ebru, that's certainly how I think they're glamorised in popular culture. Is the word harem correctly pronounced? It is harem. Harem simply meant the secret or private part of a house or the female quarters. In the context of the palace, the harem referred to the place where the female members of the royal family, the wives and concubines of the sultan as their children, as well as enslaved females who served them, lived. The harem of the ruling sultan was located within the palace of Topkapi. Any son of the sultan was legitimate heir, whether his mother was a wife or a concubine. For the mother of a son, placing her son on the throne had considerable significance,

as this would make her the valide sultan, which, as we have seen, was a position that could bring great power. Okay, well, I have lots of questions. How many concubines would a sultan normally have? It depends. No fixed number. There's no limit, for example. No, no, there's no limit. If you want to marry them, there are four wives. But for concubines, no limit.

Four wives is the limit. Okay. So the concubine mothers push their sons forward and any one of the boys could end up as the next sultan which means it's not primogeniture like our system so it's not the eldest boy who becomes the next sultan it's whoever gets in the throne first it's sharp elbows it's pushy stage mums pretty extraordinary i don't know if we should bring that back in with our royal family i like that so what would be the ideal qualities they'd look for? The most handsome child, the smartest kid, the one that's the most aggressive? What would they go for?

The fastest child, because the fastest child who could reach the throne after the death of the father. So it's entirely based on who could run the fastest 100 metres? No, it's not, because Ottoman princes were, after a certain age, they were sent to certain provinces in Anatolia. So generally, the father has a favourite, for instance, and he's sent to the nearest province as a governor, as a prince. So, of course, once he died, he would be the fastest. It's Hunger Games, isn't it? It's like a TV show. I love that. It's like,

yeah, raised to the throne. What happens to the other ones? Is it curtains? Oh, yeah. Okay. We didn't talk about that. In Ottoman, there is a practice of retricite. Okay. Yeah, that answers the question. Yes. He will order the execution of his brothers and his brother's sons. Wow. Oh, it's gone dark again. Okay, let's move away from politics and power because we want to get to the social history. What jobs could people do in a city like Istanbul? People were employed in one of the trades,

industries and crafts that were practiced in the city, many of them belonging to the various artisan guilds of tradesmen, such as shoemakers, tanners, porters, and butchers. The hamam, the bathhouse, was a major source of employment, employing attendants, porters, and stockers to keep the fires ablaze to heat the water. The dockyards also employed many people, carpenters, shipwrights, labourers, as well as sailors. And this is also a city where enslavement is also part of the economy. I have to honk my problematic slavery klaxon, which I often have to do on the show. There is a slave class,

but slavery is also quite confusing in this city because there are different ways of thinking of it. Yes. Military conquests brought with it many enslaved people who were sold in the markets where buyers inspected them physically before purchase. At the same time, slavery in the Ottoman Empire was a little different from slavery elsewhere for what was important was not free status so much as closeness to the centre of power. So the ruling elite were the sultan's slaves. The Grand Vizier, the second most powerful figure in the empire, was therefore a slave.

Were these slaves taken, they took them from presumably North Africa and then moved them into the labor market in the emerging sort of new Istanbul? The majority of the slaves in Ottoman Empire were not black slaves from Africa. Actually, they were prisoners of war, for instance, with Venetians. And also there were certain attacks to Poland or in Caucasus, Ukraine. So they were, you know, captured people. The majority of the slaves were used either in the Navy, or they were used as like small industries or as household slaves. The prisoners of war, basically, that then is repurposed.

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge empire, so it reaches out into faraway lands. It's fascinating that the Grand Vizier would have been considered enslaved. That's like our prime minister being enslaved, which is a sort of extraordinary idea. But let's move on to city life in terms of domestic architecture, in terms of the streets. I mean, Sue, if we dropped you back into Istanbul 500 years ago, what do you think the streets look like, the houses? What do you imagine the local communities felt like? Imagining narrow streets as a sort of labyrinthine sort of ad hoc system. The building's the same colour as the earth.

I'm imagining that it was incredibly bustling. I'm imagining that there's a lot of market stalls and activities, spices, of course, lots of great smells, food. Then I guess animals are being sold in markets as well, so you've got the constant noise of that. But I'm imagining is very a very active dynamic city yeah absolutely ebru the word i'm going to mispronounce in mahali is that right mahali yes do you want to talk us through these and the houses one of the most important divisions

of the city was the mahali the neighborhood or quarter where people lived close together in narrow streets here a sort of neighborhood watch was in operation with everybody watching their neighbors, checking to make sure that they were behaving properly and that no inappropriate behavior was going on. Houses were wooden and had large lattice windows from which women could watch and listen. A traditional Ottoman house was divided into two parts.

The public area, the selamlık, where men received guests, and the harem, the private quarters, where women of the house lived. So you've got a kind of neighborhood watch scheme. Net curtains twitching before the net curtains. Yes, exactly. Openly staring through open spaces, I guess. Yes, it's not so much Constantinople as Constantinople people, I think is probably the joke there. You know, you've got people in tight, snug little communities and maybe they are eavesdropping on each other's lives. But also we've got door-to-door salespeople. We've got vendors bringing sweets and meats and vegetables. But also, Sue, door-to-door poem salesman and door-to-door matchmaking services.

People would come to your door and set you up on a date. I find that less uncomfortable than the poetry. I mean, just having to open the door and go, hi, I've got a quatrain I want to run by you. And then just thinking I've just got to just breathe very deeply through this. And I love poetry, but not all the time and from select providers. Okay. I mean, the most iconic street scene in modern Istanbul

would be the Grand Bazaar, this enormous, vast, covered market with something like 4,000 shops inside. And I'm presuming that also existed back in our golden age, back in the 1500s, 1600s, Ebru. So what could you buy at the market in this bazaar? Could you just buy everything? So because Istanbul was very much a city of consumption,

places like the Grand Bazaar sold goods from all over the world, luxury goods like silks and satins, spices and precious stones. At the other end of the scale were the markets selling basic foodstuffs, bakers selling bread, or the peddlers going from house to house. Wow. It's a one-stop shop. It's eBay, isn't it? It's the marketplace where everything's available all the time at the click of a button.

We think Amazon's quick, but you can have a poem delivered to your door, a suitor delivered to your door. You've got precious stones down the road. You've got everything you need. I like the idea of Istanbul. It's great, isn't it? You can shop local and at the same time shop global. It's the perfect combination.

Yeah. We also need to talk about clothing, fashion, what people are wearing, because they're not all running around naked, hopefully. This is obviously a world where silks are coming in. I mean, is it bursa that's renowned for its silk yes what kind of variety of clothing do we have in the city and is there a are there rules about who gets to wear what kind of clothing sartorial laws that that is the point everything is available even you have money you can't buy it so because what you could wear was controlled by the sartorial laws.

Clothes were markers of social and religious status. So only high-up officials, for instance, could wear furs. Certain colors were reserved for a particular religion. Selim III, a sultan ruled at the end of the 18th century, for example, ordered that the

Orthodox were to dress in black hats and shoes and the Jews in blue ones, while Muslims were to dress in yellow turbans and shoes. In 1580, Christians and Jews were banned from wearing turbans and had to wear hats. They complained because they said these new hats made them more susceptible to headaches and colds. So you've got the colour you wear demarcates your religion. Only the wealthiest and most powerful can wear furs. And then hats are specific too. So turbans only for Muslims after 1580.

Sue, if you were a benign tyrant, what sartorial rules would you bring in for today? Well, I think everyone should be in pedal pushers because I was forced into a pair of those at a very critical age in my early adolescent development at 12 and then lots of pictures were taken of that, which I can never unsee, and brought out routinely at family gatherings. So if I'm going to suffer, I do believe everyone should.

Actually, I think I'd probably get, I'd do the opposite of what the Sultan did. I would get everybody in the same sort of clothing because clothing for me is, you're so right, it demarks certain social status. Who's got money, who hasn't, who's in quotes, cool, who isn't, who's in the club, who's in the gang and who isn't. So I'd probably have just said everyone wears the same thing rather than going to the opposite degree that he has by saying we're going to colour code people according to their religious beliefs, which for me, the moment you start doing that and making things easily identifiable,

you're on the approach road to being able to contain and then eliminate. So that makes me very queasy as to what happens to these different ethnic and religious groups now that they're being classified. happens to these different ethnic and religious groups now that they're being classified. Ebru? I agree. And I wouldn't want to live in that world. But the point is that the aim was to ease the governance. It's a way of controlling and ordering the city. But also, apart from making the different religious groups to dress differently,

I'd also make sure that people should not spend more than they could afford, or they shouldn't dress above their status. For instance, you could be very rich, but you were not able to dress like a ground with you. So the money did not give the right you to dress as you like. So you couldn't be showy? No, you couldn't. But they did it.

Of course, there's another thing. These sartorial laws were always renewed. For instance, in 1580, the hats were introduced. They complained, changed. Now they could wear turbans. So in a way, there was always a negotiation. The laws were ignored. So that is the Ottoman system.

They imposed something and they reimposed it because it wasn't possible to implement it. Okay, let's move on to food because, I mean, Sue, you're a big foodie. You famously presented several food programs and the Ottoman world is full of a variety of foods, Ebru. So what would be on the menu? There was a huge diversity of types of food. So spices from the Far East, rice from Anatolia, cheese from the Aegean Islands and from the Balkans, grain from Egypt, meat from the Balkans, butter from Crimea, olive oil from the Aegean region, chestnuts from Bursa. Typical foods included bread, pilav, rice and kebab. More luxuries, so something not eaten every day was clotted cream. There were places in the city as early as the 16th century

where women went to eat clotted cream, a bit like eating fancy ice cream. The sultans could not afford to have a hungry population, who might then, of course, revolt. So there was a complex system of provisioning the city wowzers clotted cream sounds nice so oh just that women would would meet and eat clotted cream i can get without without guilt without a cosmopolitan article telling you that three weeks away from a bikini body who cares cares? It does sound amazing. As you say, they've got access to all the different flavourings and commodities from that vast, sprawling empire.

Well, places like the Balkans and Ukraine have traditionally been the sort of breadbasket for all of us for years. So it's interesting that they were, even back then, sort of supplying that to their ingredients. Absolutely. And the other famous thing, of course, about modern Turkey would be coffee. And it's still the same thing in the golden age, the 1500s, 1600s. Coffee houses everywhere.

Not one of them are Starbucks. But the sultan often tried to ban them. Any guesses why, Sue? Oh, well, I imagine it inflamed appetites. I imagine there was something about the caffeine that created a great and deep stirring in the minds and hearts of the populace and they needed to be sort of sedated. So bread will do that. And if that doesn't work, the clotted cream, without question. There's nobody's ever rioted after a plate of clotted cream. It's not going to happen.

Yeah, it happens the same in England as well. Charles II also bans coffee houses for a while. It's the notion that these places become hotbeds of dissent, political rumour and gossip. Yeah, the meeting houses. Yeah, yeah. So it's where ideas get shared and not good ideas. So the sultans try to banish them, but can't get rid of them. People desperately want them. And so the saying goes, if you can't beat them, Sue, join them, tax them. They set up their own coffee houses. The viziers set up their own coffee houses. They make money off it. Talk about being on the grind, which is both a drug dealing and coffee double pun.

So you're welcome. We've talked about food a lot, but we want to talk about feasting and grand occasions and people coming together to celebrate. And one of the biggest occasions for a Knees Up was to celebrate the circumcision of the Sultan's sons. That's not easy to say. No, it's not. Respect to you for that.

Or easy to watch, I imagine. I was going to say, it's not just the saying, it's the sort of thinking about it. That's the thing that makes me wince. Ebru, can you tell us about the Grand Circumcision Festival? Celebrations for the circumcisions of royal sons were magnificent affairs in the city. During the 60-day celebrations for the circumcision of... It took 60 days? The circumcisions of royal sons were magnificent affairs in the city. During the 60-day celebrations for the circumcision of... It took 60 days? Hopefully not, not the operation.

They need to really sharpen up in every sense. Ouch, ouch. I think the celebrations took 60 days, not the circumcision. I hope not. During the 60-day celebrations for the circumcision of Murat III's eldest son Mehmet in 1582, a giant kitchen was set up with 500

cooks who prepared food every day for the poor, hungry, and destitute. During such festivities, circumcisions would also be provided for thousands of poor boys. The purpose of such pageantry was not only to display power, but also to bring in the population,

to provide them with festivities, to break the routine of life, and to connect people personally to the success of the empire. This need to provide almost a release mechanism to the populace was recognized by one of the officials of the Selim II when he remarked to the Sultan that by nature people cannot bear constant repression, they sometimes want release. Lovely, you can't always push people down, you've got to give them the occasional moment to enjoy themselves, even if it's a mass circumcision circumcision yeah i mean i imagine it's their equivalent of the platinum jubilee you know it's just get the street parties going who's not been

circumcised might as well do it now get the sausage sandwiches out oh no not sausages please i bet you i bet you somebody served Someone's got to have done that. Circumcision presumably was part of the sort of religious practice. But would every community, not just the Islamic community, come together for the 60-day circumcision get-together? Yeah, it is open for the city population. And a lot of also, of course, foreigners, non-Ottomans, watched them and they were included.

Oh, did they actually watch the circumcisions? Were the circumcisions public? No, no, the circumcisions were done properly. That's good. I mean, the celebrations for 60 days, especially foreign ambassadors were very much big celebration. Everybody was enjoying food that was served. I mean, rice and meat, I mean, saffron rice and all these things. And it is very much an occasion. One of the things you mentioned, Ebru, was the opening of the kitchens for the poor, the feeding of the poor. And I wanted to ask about charity in the city, in the system. Is there a sort of welfare state?

We can't talk about welfare state, but there was a welfare system. And there was a system of the vakıf or pious foundation, which was a central institution of Ottoman life throughout all empire. Vakıfs were endowments which owned shops or agricultural land or other economic units. which owned shops or agricultural land or other economic units. The income from which was then used to pay the upkeep of mosques, schools and hospitals. It also paid for water and food for the poor, schooling and feeding for orphans. Some bakıfs were enormous mosque complexes, which included schools, hospitals, soup kitchens, baths and karavanserais, guest houses.

Some were set up by women like Hürrem Sultan, the wife of Suleyman I. One of the most famous imperial vakıfs was the Fatih Mosque complex, built by Mehmet II, which fed a thousand people twice a day. They served rice soup, wheat soup and saffron rice. The hospital provided free treatment and food. So this is amazing. So you've got businesses set up where the profits are then put back into looking after the local community, as well as mosque complexes, which are feeding the poor. A thousand people twice a day. It's really quite something, isn't it? It's almost better than Victorian London. Oh, God, absolutely. I mean, it's way better than Victorian London, isn't it? They sort of better than Victorian London. Oh, God, absolutely. I mean, it's way better than Victorian London, isn't it?

They sort of had to bring in school meals because children weren't being fed at home. You know, it's amazing the sort of social enterprise that's going on. Yeah. As a teetotaler myself, I wanted to ask about alcohol, because this is an Islamic city in theory. I know it's multi-faith, but the laws are being made by a sultan who's a Muslim. What is the policy on alcohol? Under Islamic law, alcohol consumption was banned for Muslims. This is not applied to non-Muslims who were permitted to drink, to produce and to trade alcohol in Istanbul.

But of course, Muslims did drink. The most popular venues in the 16th century were bozohanes, where boza, an alcoholic drink made from fermented barley or millet, was served and often drunk with kebabs. There were also many wine houses in the city. In the later centuries, rakı, the famous anisit drink, became very popular. Drinking was ignored by the authorities, But if drinking led to a problem, then it was punished. Okay, so there's a sort of don't ask, don't tell policy if you're sort of moderately drinking. There's drinking culture. And there's also, of course, bathing culture, which is so important, even in modern Turkey. The hammams, these bathhouses, they're a place

of recreation, of sanitation, of hygiene, but also of employment. Who's going to the hammams, these bathhouses, they're a place of recreation, of sanitation, of hygiene, but also of employment. Who's going to the hammams? The hammam was a fundamental social space and was about much more than washing. It was a multi-religious and multi-ethnic social space, segregated according to gender, with men and women going at different times or different batazas. The hamam gave, in particular to women, a place to meet and socialize, exchange gossip, check out potential brides for their

sons. It was where they celebrated after the births of their children and where babies were taken for their first ablutions. But the hamam could also have a more dangerous space because it could be a venue for political criticism. Ah, so like the coffee houses, people are going to the baths

and they're having a gossip. Sue, is that you? When you go to a sauna, are you... When I go to a sauna? Well, I'm not what you know me, Greg. I'm always in the sauna. I've been to a Turkish bath in Budapest and I was so shocked and traumatised by what happened there

that I don't think I necessarily have the mental capacity to think deeply conspiratorial political thoughts because I was moving. I have a problem with going with the general flow. So they were processing through various different temperatures and I just went the wrong way, which meant I went from the boiling place to a man pulling a rope and a bucket of ice and water falling on me and me screaming and then being thrown again into the boiling place.

And so it got very out of hand and I found it quite triggering. But anyway, they're points of congregation, aren't they? So as opposed to a religious meeting place, in other meeting spaces that are secular, gossip's king, isn't it? So you can sit in sort of tepid water and have a little chat about, oh, I tell you what, I tell you, it's an absolute ask, is, you know, what's this chopped menit? And, you know, what can they do?

They can't close them down, can they? I mean, you can't close them down. No. As you say, it's important revenue and jobs, creation and all the rest of it. And so important in the Islamic faith to wash. It's part of practice, isn't it? So it's so crucial. The bathing is so important, Ebru, but of course,

every city in history is dirty, dangerous. There are plagues and diseases. Istanbul is not different, is it? There are serious outbreaks throughout the various years. Like all early modern states, Istanbul had virtually no sanitation and people often lived together in close proximity, allowing for the rapid spread of disease. Devastating plagues were frequent. In the summer of 1467, for example, so many people died that bodies were left unburied because there was not one left to bury them. Many thousands died in the plagues of 1492,

1586 and 1598. Other diseases also struck like smallpox in 1785 when many royal babies died in the palace. Oh, it's horrible. That's a tale as old as time. All cities have always had horrible outbreaks. So the obvious question, Ebru, is how available is medical treatment? In Istanbul, medical treatment was provided in the hospitals, in the great mosque complexes, where people could stay and be treated for free. One English traveller in the 17th century described the great mosque complex of Mehmed II, which he said contained a place where they give

up syrup and medicines free of charge to all who ask for them. This hospital also had a hammam attached to it where patients and their clothes were washed. This hospital complex also served as an educational institution, rather like teaching hospitals in Britain today. Medical students worked at the hospital and attended lectures given by the doctors. There were also doctors, often Jewish, who worked in the palace. More generally, medical care would have been co-added by traditional healers. It's amazing, isn't it? And Sue, patients had legal rights as well, enshrined in law.

They could sue their doctor. Wow, how very American. Yeah, I suppose so. Okay, so they go in and receive treatment for free, and then they could weaponise this treatment. As I understand it, the hospital complexes were run more by the religious organisations and charity. But if you hired a private doctor, you could sue them, which meant that those doctors then in turn would then often start offering their patients

no guarantee of success forms before I treat you. So there's a sort of litigious culture that develops in the private sector. But there was this public sector, this charity sector that looked after people. And I think what's quite interesting for me, Ebru, is that women were also part of this medical world, which is not surprising, of course, but they could be doctors. They could be surgeons. They're not just nursing or doing midwifery. Oh, that's interesting.

So they're not just in the traditional medical arena, by which I mean sort of the ancients, the kind of the healer woman. They're also in hospitals and enshrined in those jobs. They are not in the hospitals. They are private surgeons. They can perform operations. They're called jera. The doctor and surgeon are slightly different.

So they learned the job like apprentices. They've learned from the others. They are trained, not educated. Yes, women worked as midwives through healers, bone've learned from the others. They are trained, not educated. Yes, women worked as midwives through healers, bone setters and surgeons. There are some cases showing that women surgeons performed hernia operations on men. Wow. That's cool. You wouldn't want that in 15th, 16th century Constantinople with no anaesthetic though. Yeah, that's a serious operation. And there's also, we've talked about medical fraud in terms of suing your doctors, because occasionally, I think some doctors were

frauds and quacks. So occasionally, there was always going to be some dodgy bloke who could do you a cure. I can do your kidneys. I can sort out your piles. No worries, bend over. We should talk also briefly about crime as a wider issue within the city. How does law and order work? Maintenance law and order was an array of major importance in such a large city like Istanbul. It could be a very violent city and because it was the capital of the empire, it was often the setting for violent revolt. There was a variety of law and order officials operating in the city, including the Janissaries and the bostancıbışı, who was the very powerful head of a unit of armed guards.

Courts throughout the city were presided over by the kadız, the judges. The legal system in the Ottoman Empire reflected the great diversity of population. So Christian and Jewish communities also had their own courts for intracomunal affairs. At the level of the Mahalle, the local districts of the city, law and order was maintained by the religious official, known as Imam, the Kadı, the judge, and in the later century, the Muhtar, the secular headman of the Mahalle. That's so interesting. You've also then got this sort of bigger court system and then almost a local court system with your local imam, your local judge in the Mahalle, in the kind of

neighbourhood. Well, I guess we have a similar system, don't we? We have almost like a small claims court and then you can go all the way up to the old Bailey and Crown Court and, you know, for different types of civil or criminal misdemeanours. But it's interesting that it breaks along religious lines too, which is something that often crops up, you know, in the UK. It's, you know, should we entertain the idea of small-scale Islamic courts or indeed small-scale Catholic courts or whatever, you know. I mean, it's interesting that they had that going on,

that they were able to embrace different communities and to allow those communities to have some sense of self-governance. I don't know how real that sense was. I imagine if they got out of hand, then the prevailing authorities would clamp down pretty hard. And the clamping down, actually, in terms of reducing crime, Ebru, there are a few different policies. Yes, of course, curfews, collective punishment, exile, imprisonment, very brutal

corporal punishment and execution. There were spies in cafe shops, and barber shops to root out wrongdoing. Sultans would also go out in disguise through the city. The 17th century sultan, Murat IV, who was very hostile to smoking, which he banned, had the reputation of

touring the city at night looking for smokers who, if caught, were killed. Well, they say smoking kills, but wow, that's a lot faster than any of us could have imagined. On the side of the packet, this is dangerous for your health

because Murad IV will hunt you down. Yeah, he would go undercover sometimes or he would go out in the streets. Can you imagine like an episode of Undercover Boss where the guy in the bad wig just starts hacking down his employees? I'm imagining him though,

still with a massive Sultan's turban. So you're just having a crafty snout at the back and suddenly a dude with a massive gold turban is just sort of bearing down on you. Let's change tack away from terrifying, murderous Sultans and look instead at dating and romance and courtship to round out our episode. We've heard about door-to-door people setting you up

on dates with strangers, which is charming or terrifying, depending on how you feel about strangers asking about your love life. Ebru, how does dating work? How would you meet a suitor? How might you flirt? Where might you go for perhaps some fun, sexy times with strangers? Yeah, dating is not the right word, perhaps, because if they come to your door,

if your parents agree to marry you off, therefore you don't date, you marry. But they come to the door and if your parents agree to marry you off, therefore you don't date, you marry. But they come to the door and you marry the person at the door. No, just the matchmakers come and they just say that those two people are suitable for each other, they negotiate and then you end up getting married. But because the contacts between the sexes were highly controlled and there were very few places where flirting could take place. And of course, this flirting is not an acceptable way of flirting. But still they did it.

For instance, one of the locations was the famous Kaatane or Saadabad, known to the Europeans as Sweet Waters. The Sweet Waters, lovely, okay. Yes, especially this was very popular in the 19th century. This was an immensely popular pleasure garden with streams and meadows and forests, which covered an enormous area and where behaviour that was not socially acceptable could be got away with and concealed from unwanted eyes.

Okay, so the sweet waters is putting the pleasure in pleasure gardens, Sue. That's where you go for a for a cheeky snog yeah okay i can see i can see a lot of adolescents going straight to the sweet waters um it doesn't matter where you are in the world it doesn't matter what period of time uh human beings will always find a park under cover of night to do what needs to be done to drink strongbow and get fingered on a bench. That's it. Yeah. You're talking about, for me, all of the 80s,

at least half of the 90s. And, you know, always fingers crossed that it could come again. That time could come again, Greg. Never rule it out. And there's also ways of flirting in the streets, for example. There's the language of flowers and there's also parasol signals, which sounds a little bit vague. Is this poetry? How do flowers come into it? How do parasols come into it? The parasols are used especially in the 19th century. For instance,

if the woman swung her parasol rapidly from right to left, this was a warning to the man to pass swiftly by. Okay. Swipe left. It should close it and it stays closed. This means that they will make an arrangement to meet the following day. So coded language could also use flowers

or other day objects like food or vegetables. The code worked on the basis of a rhyme linking the message and the object. Elif, yaprak in Turkish thus meant either love me or leave me. Ya sev, beni ya bırak.

The rhyme here was rak, yaprak, bırak. Either love me or leave me. So it's a language based on rhyme and poetry, but it's almost cockney rhyming slang in some ways, Su. It's sort of a chat up. A couple of hairs, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. Literally, yeah.

Slightly earlier on in history, in British history, they were doing the same sort of a chat up. It's a couple of pairs, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. Literally, yeah. Slightly earlier on in history, in British history, they were doing the same sort of signalling with fans. So it's amazing how people find a way, don't they, of subtly communicating sexual interest, even if it's very frowned upon socially. It's cool. And there was also one other person I should mention very quickly. I apologise, Ebru, for pronunciation, but Evliya Chelebi, perhaps?

Evliya Chelebi, perhaps? Is that... Evliya Chelebi, yes. Not my worst. He was a travel writer who wrote about the idea of a womanising lute, which is a lute that people are playing in the streets and all the ladies poke their head out the window to enjoy the sound and that's how people are picking up chicks.

But, I mean, much like the house party where the guy gets the acoustic guitar out, it's time for us all to go. The nuance window! where the guy gets the acoustic guitar out. It's time for us all to go. The nuance window! So it's time now for the nuance window.

This is where Sue and I sit back for two minutes with our clotted cream, I think, and enjoy our tasty treats. And we allow our expert, Professor Ebru Boyaj, to tell us about something to do with Ottoman Istanbul. She has two uninterrupted minutes. And without much further ado, Professor Ebru, take it away, please. In order to understand Istanbul, we need to move away from the more traditional approach of seeing the Ottoman Empire as something oriental, located away to the east,

separated from and never part of the European world. We also need to move away from the tendency to portray the empire in religious terms and to abandon the approach of leaving the Ottoman world through the prism of a Muslim-Christian divide. Istanbul was like any other European city, but bigger, more cosmopolitan, more diverse, and in its heyday, much richer. Its ruling elite was certainly more diverse in origin than the ruling elites of its neighbors to the west. Its grand viziers could be from Bosnia or Albania, its grand admirals from Genoa, the women of the imperial harem from Venice or Ukraine. Its population was more multicultural, more ethnically diverse, and more religiously diverse than many of the cities in Europe.

and more religiously diverse than many of the cities in Europe. It had a large population of Greek Orthodox, a Jewish population, and a population of Catholics, many of whom were Genoese in origin and who had stayed on after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. There was also a resident population of foreigners, merchants, the diplomatic communities, the sailors and craftsmen employed in the dockyards. It was an opulent international emporium where, in the words of a 16th century Ottoman historian, the buyers and the sellers of the market of the world all came together. The important thing is thus to see Istanbul for what it was, a megalopolis of the early modern world, but not to trap it in the limited and

limiting paradigms of the East-West Muslim-Christian divide. Beautiful. You're absolutely right. I think we tend to think of Istanbul as the gateway to the East, but in saying that, we do locate it in the East. It's othered, it's different, it's unknowable. There's also the fact that we absolutely perceive it as Islamic. What I've learned today, which has been amazing, is like all empires, but particularly more so,

I think, is that the huge diversity of people that it encompasses and different types of people could hold power. That's blown my mind. The Grand Vizier could be from Bosnia, maybe, or Albania, and that's extraordinary. That's something I just hadn't thought about. I certainly hadn't thought about Ukrainians in Istanbul. I hadn't thought about, you know, I thought about Venetians maybe. But, yeah, it's really, it's really, really interesting. It's made me want to go even more now and I'm very frustrated that I'm not there.

But I feel very privileged to have had that drive-by and in two minutes too. That was a tour de force. Yes, thank you, Ebru. So what do you know now? Okay, well, it is time now for our quickfire quiz. This is the So What Do You Know Now? This is where we take our comedian, Sue,

and see how much has gone in into that famous brain of yours. And you are holding your face in dread. Oh, it's like being at school again. I mean, you're used to hosting panel shows. So I suppose this is the shoes on the other foot now. We've turned the tables. I hide my stupidity by asking other people questions. Yes.

We've got 10 questions. So here we go. So question one. In what year did the Ottomans conquer Constantinople? 1453. It was. Question two. Who was the first Ottoman sultan who, after plundering the city,

went on not to build a statue but to rebuild and repopulate it? Mehmed. It was Mehmed II. Question three. Do you remember who was the Walid Sultan? Well, she was the mum. She was, yeah, the queen mother. She was the queen mum.

Yeah, yeah. Question four. What was the name of the neighbourhood or small little community where families would live in close proximity? It begins with M. Mahale. It was Mahale, beautifully pronounced, I think. Question five.

What coded language would you use if you wanted to flirt with someone? The language of flowers. It was. Question six. Pageantry played a huge part in the running of the city. In 1582, there was a 60-day festival celebrating what? Circumcision. Circumcision of, yeah, the son of the sultan.

It was. Question seven. What are Ottoman bathhouses called? Amams. Ah, question eight. The Sarabad, or Sweet Waters, which is the European name for it, was a sort of place where you might go for some romantic action. What was it?

It was Sweet Waters. It was a park. It was a huge pleasure garden. Yeah. Question nine. Name one of the operations that women surgeons could perform on male patients. A hernia operation. It was.

And this for a perfect score. Question ten. Sartorial laws governed who could wear certain things. What headwear was prohibited for Jews and Christians in 1580? And they complained about getting colds. Turbans. It was turbans. A perfect score. 10 out of 10. See, you are clever. You've made me clever, the pair of you. That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Sue. And listener, if you want to hear more

about City Slicker life, then why not listen to our episode on the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s? Or if you're champing at the bit for more Turkish history,

but slightly more ancient, then why not check out our episode on Çatalhöyük and the Neolithic Revolution? That's the Stone Age to you and me. You'll find them all

on BBC Sounds along with our back catalogue. And remember, if you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But I'd love to say a huge thank you to our wonderful guests. In History Corner, we have the illustrious Professor Ebru Boyaj

from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Thank you, Ebru. Thank you, Greg and Sue, for this lovely time. Fantastic. And in Comedy Corner, we've had the sublime sultan herself, Sue Perkins. Thank you, Ebru. Thank you, Greg and Sue, for this lovely time. Fantastic. And in Comedy Corner, we've had the sublime Sultan herself, Sue Perkins. Thank you, Sue. Honestly, a real pleasure.

Thank you to both of you. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we rummage through the bazaars of history with two different shopping companions. But for now, I'm off to go and spread rumours in the local hammam. Bye. You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Claudia Treacher

and Genevieve Johnson-Smith. The episode was written by Emma Neguse, Claudia Treacher and me. It was produced by Emma Neguse and me and assisted by Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow. The project managers were Saifah Mio and Isla Matthews and the audio producer was Abby Patterson. and Isla Matthews and the audio producer

was Abby Patterson. I find quantum mechanics confusing today. You've been listening to a Radio 4 podcast. It was probably in our time. But this is a trail for something else.

It could have been Gardener's Question Time or The Archers. This is a trail for something else. This is a trail for The Infinite Monkey Cage. And we're back.

Also, if you've been listening to any questions or any answers as well, you're also allowed in The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're back with a new series. We've got Eric Idle, any answers as well, you're also allowed in. The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're back with a new series. We've got Eric Idle, Tim Minchin, Alan Davis. We've got Brendan Hunt.

We've got Sarah Pascoe, Katie Brown, Dave Gorman, Chris Hadfield, Nick Holstott, Carolyn Porco, Deva Aman, Hannah Fry, David Spiegelhalter, Uta Frith, Suzanne Simard, Jan Eleven, Netta Engelhardt. So many things. And we're going to cover bats versus flies, the wood wide web, black holes, deep oceans, earth from space, how to teach maths, and how brains communicate. And you can listen on BBC Sounds, but I suppose you know that

because you're listening to this on BBC Sounds because it's a podcast trail. That's a good point. We should probably cut that last bit. I bet they don't, though. No, it's a contractual obligation. In the infinite monkey cage. Turned out nice again. Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki Kiki

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