Between company and state: Anglo-Ottoman diplomacy and ottoman political culture, 1565-1607

Thesis

This thesis focuses on the diplomatic relationship between England and the Ottoman Empire between roughly 1565 and 1607, using an actor-centric approach to provide case studies of the first three English embassies in Istanbul. These studies engage with wider historiographical debates in the ‘New Diplomatic History’, early modern English commercial expansion and the roots of its later evolution into colonialism, and the form and exercise of political power within the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. Drawing heavily on archival material from England, Venice, France, and the Ottoman Empire, the thesis argues that the success of these earliest English ambassadors to the Ottomans reflected the growing self-confidence of the merchant class driving England’s switch to an import economy. Successful import of luxury goods from Asia built the financial and social basis for the political significance of merchants to rise at home, while the diplomatic role of the company in Istanbul gave leading members plenty of practice in engaging in high politics abroad. With the Ottoman Empire being a vast, diverse, and decentralised territory, and politics in the capital becoming increasingly fractious and factional as the sixteenth century drew to a close and the seventeenth began, English merchant-diplomats had to develop their political reach and standing through building networks of alliances amongst the Ottoman political elite in Istanbul and participating in disputes and intrigues surrounding foreign (and, occasionally, domestic) affairs within the Ottoman government. The thesis reveals successive embassy households straddling the uncertain boundaries between being English state actors, developing a pioneering trading company invested with some state-like powers, and performing as players in Ottoman high politics alongside state representatives of France, Spain, Venice, and the Holy Roman Empire.

Authors: Butler, J

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-mvbzgoezp
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: sublime porte; sixteenth century; political culture; trade; new diplomatic history; anglo-ottoman diplomacy; actor networks; istanbul; correspondence; trading companies; cosmocracy; embassies; ambassadorial roles; anglo-ottoman relations; east india company; trans-imperial subjects; state papers foreign; seventeenth century; cultures of diplomacy; practices of diplomacy; embassy households; diplomatic letters; cultural history; elizabethan; microhistory; c17th; tudor england; c16th; ottoman empire; early modern; ambassadors; tudor; diplomacy; levant company
• Subjects: Ambassadors; Trade routes; Diplomatic etiquette; Ambassadors--Dwellings--Turkey; Great Britain--History--Tudors, 1485-1603; Turkey--History--Ottoman Empire, 1288-1918; International relations and culture; Usages of trade; Ambassadors' writings; Diplomatic and consular service, British; Political culture