Michael Talbot

University of Greenwich, History, Politics and Social Sciences, Faculty Member

SOAS University of London, History, Alumnus

University of Cambridge, Jesus College, Alumnus

University of St Andrews, History, Former Teaching Fellow

Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne, History, Former Postdoc

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I am a Lecturer in History at the University of Greenwich, specialising in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Previously I was an ERC Postdoctoral Fellow as part of the 'Mediterranean Reconfigurations' project at Université Paris 1, Teaching Fellow in Ottoman History at the University of St Andrews, and a Senior Teaching Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I have also served as a visiting lecturer at St Mary's University, Twickenham, and the University of Warwick.

My Ph.D. thesis used the case study of the British embassy in Istanbul in a "long" eighteenth century (1660-1807) to demonstrate the intimate links between mercantile interests, provision of finance, cultural convention, and diplomatic practice. I have consulted a large range of material in the British and Ottoman archives, from a wide variety of archival and printed documents and financial records in English, Italian, and Ottoman Turkish, and incorporating a number of material sources, including paintings, maps, and museum artefacts (timepieces, textiles, etc). My postdocotral research examined intercultural trade and commercial litigation involving Ottoman Algiers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

My current research projects include Ottoman maritime space and law in the eighteenth century and beyond, and a number of studies relating to Ottoman diplomacy and Ottoman Palestine.

I have taught a number of courses on the Ottomans and the wider Middle East and Islamic world, including on the urban history of the early modern Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, on the Hamidian period of the Ottoman Empire, and on early modern North Africa.
Supervisors: Benjamin Fortna

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Conference Presentations by Michael Talbot

Negotiators, not diplomats: Ambassadors and the notion of friendship in Ottoman- British relations

The use of the term 'diplomacy' in the early modern relations is perhaps problematic. Rather, fol... more The use of the term 'diplomacy' in the early modern relations is perhaps problematic. Rather, following the example of Franç ois de Callières, it is perhaps better to think of these interactions in terms of negotiations and négociateurs. Using the example of Ottoman-British relations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this paper will examine how the key notion of 'friendship' (dostluk in Ottoman Turkish) can be used to examine how relations were formed, formulated, and maintained. The Ottoman court used a variety of practices, from particular phrases in written treaties, to gift-giving, to audience ceremonial, in order to explain and enforce its version of friendship upon foreign states sending ambassadors to the Abode of Felicity. Ottoman attitudes towards friendship and its maintenance can be found in the text of the imperial Capitulations (ahdname-i hü mayun), which provide narratives and explanations for certain practices and ideas, particularly through the use of historical narrative within the text highlighting the events of individual embassies. The British ambassador in Istanbul thus performed a variety of functions, but above all from the Ottoman perspective, he was there to maintain royal friendship through a series of constant negotiations, cultural and performative. His personal skill working within a particular geopolitical context might see new articles added to the Capitulations, but this was only possible through the performance of friendship by gift-giving, participation in formal audiences, and the reading of royal letters. This paper will therefore propose the utility of a comparative assessment of the idea of 'friendship' and the performance of friendship in early modern diplomacy, using specific examples from Ottoman-British relations to consider macro developments in friendly-or less-than-friendly-relations between European and non-European powers. Crucially, the constant negotiation of ideas and rhetoric, spatial barriers, and geopolitical relations were a central part of this performance and this friendship.

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Protecting the Mediterranean: Ottoman legal and naval responses to maritime violence in the eighteenth century

The Ottoman Mediterranean was a place of intense imperial interest in the eighteenth century, yet... more The Ottoman Mediterranean was a place of intense imperial interest in the eighteenth century, yet our understandings of that century are still overshadowed by European naval ascendance, the defeat at Çeşme in 1770, and the beginnings of reform under Selim III. However, this paper will demonstrate the eighteenth century was a period of significant investment in naval resources, and development in maritime legal practices. Linked to new notions of maritime sovereignty and territoriality that emerged from concurrent ideas on land following the treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and particularly Passarowitz (1718), naval protection missions (Bahr-ı Sefid muhafazası) took on a new purpose of not simply defending Ottoman coasts and waters, but asserting maritime territoriality. The endemic threat of foreign corsairs, particularly Maltese, and local pirates, especially Maniots, necessitated increasing investment in naval patrols as a regular safeguard for trade and sovereignty, ensuring a regular imperial presence in the coastal provinces. In addition to this threat, the numerous wars between friendly European powers, particularly the British and French, saw increasingly destructive privateering wars that affected Ottoman shipping and subjects. This resulted from the 1690s in 'maritime regulations', şurut-u derya, that forbade armed European ships from entering extended Ottoman maritime space in times of war. Based on research on the administrative and legal documents relating to the Ottoman navy throughout the eighteenth century, this paper will chart these two concurrent developments-enhanced naval patrols and legal innovation-between 1690 and 1790 to demonstrate that the Ottoman state reacted to both foreign and domestic challenges in its maritime spaces (coastal and in the open sea) in the Mediterranean by using force, law, and diplomacy to enforce and consolidate its claims over its littoral territory and maritime trade routes and to solidify a dependent relationship local actors in the provinces.

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The Sea: Spatial History and Its Sources

This paper used an 18th-century Ottoman imperial command to the fleet to consider how we can use ... more This paper used an 18th-century Ottoman imperial command to the fleet to consider how we can use administrative documents to unpack notions of maritime space. In particular, it considered how the language used in this and similar imperial commands denoted a specific maritory defined by islands and coasts, and argued for the importance of coastal history in understanding historical notions of maritime space.

Encounters on the face of the wide ocean: Ottoman and North African notions of shared maritime space in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

The Mediterranean Sea and its constituent waters provide a case-study par excellence on how space... more The Mediterranean Sea and its constituent waters provide a case-study par excellence on how space as a geographical and political construction was the focus of delineations of territoriality and power between the Ottoman and non-Ottoman world. European notions of a mare liberum or a mare clausum are only one part of the story. Through repeated encounters at sea with European shipping –sometimes violent, sometimes peaceful – the Ottoman Empire and its North African Regencies incorporated spatial categories of maritime space into treaties and imperial commands that set laws and customs defining interactions between ships and sailors. From the North African Regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Libya who issued treaty articles enabling them to search European ships whenever they encountered them anywhere in the world, to Ottoman ideas of territorial waters (sular) as opposed to the open sea (deryâ) that evolved into maritime regulations blocking European violence, the legal texts in Ottoman Turkish provide a clear insight into how the Ottoman polities sought to regulate an increasingly crowded shared space in order to avoid violence and misunderstandings. But this was also an evolutionary process, from an Empire in the seventeenth century still seeking new territories on land and at sea, to a state that shifted in the first decades of the eighteenth century to consolidation and defence of its existing provinces. Examining Ottoman and North African ideas of regulating the shared space of the Mediterranean in their encounters with European shipping therefore provides important insights into how an abstract space like the sea could be a sphere in which developing ideas of territoriality and sovereignty were articulated and implemented.

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Separating the waters from the sea: The place of islands in Ottoman maritime territoriality in the eighteenth century

The Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century faced challenges in the Mediterranean from domestic ... more The Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century faced challenges in the Mediterranean from domestic and above all foreign pirates that forced it to articulate its notions of maritime territoriality, that is, the parts of the sea over which it claimed imperial and legal authority. This article will examine the role of islands in defining that territoriality, examining several cases involving the imperial response to piracy for their articulation of maritime space. The most important distinction was between the open sea and domestic waters, which were above all delineated by the shoreline, except in exceptional responses to European privateers. Consequently, it is argued that the place of islands in Ottoman maritime territoriality is largely littoral in nature, and that littoralité is an essential component of the Ottoman understanding of insularité.

The requisites of civilization? Satirical critiques of “the West” in the later Ottoman Empire

Defining “the West” is a challenging proposition in the later Ottoman context. This paper propose... more Defining “the West” is a challenging proposition in the later Ottoman context. This paper proposes to consider Ottoman – almost exclusively elite and Istanbulite – attitudes towards “the West” through the notion of medeniyet, civilization, and the debate between alaturca and alafranga – essentially Western and Eastern – cultures. The historian Ahmed Cevdet attributed one of the causes of the overthrow of Sultan Selim III in 1807 as the excessive adoption of European mores as ‘the requisites of civilization’. Such critiques would recur throughout later Ottoman history in a number of media. The notion of medeniyet had far older roots, and to begin with I will consider examples of comparisons between new European and older Islamic civilization, specifically Şemseddin Sami’s Medeniyet-i İslamiye (1296 / 1880) and Akyiğitzade Musa’s Avrupa Medeniyetinin Esasına Bir Nazar (1315 / 1887). The ideas and debates found in these publications were played out elsewhere in late Ottoman discourse, and I will consider an important source for understanding how the West and its ideas were viewed in the later Ottoman context, the satirical cartoons of magazines, newspapers and journals, with a particular focus on the difference in attitude between those from the 1870s and 1910s. Humour and satire became increasingly focused on the tensions between “Ottoman” and “Western” (alaturca and alafranga) culture and ideas within Ottoman society, but humour and satire itself became increasingly alafranga by the turn of the twentieth century. The irreverent and often grotesque and surreal critiques of the alafranga elite found in the 1870s transformed to more polished and accessible images by the 1910s, but critiques of some of the absurdities and excesses of the ‘requisites of civilization’ remained. The changing aesthetic and tone of satirical cartoons were indicative of shifting focus of wider debates in Ottoman culture over the degree to which “the West” should form ‘the requisites of civilization’.

Gift-Giving in British-Ottoman Diplomacy in the Long 18th Century

The history of diplomacy and foreign policy has come into the focus of historical research again.... more The history of diplomacy and foreign policy has come into the focus of historical research again. Mainly two issues might be considered responsible for this development. Firstly, a cultural turn in historical sciences since the 1990s led to the application of new approaches to this once notoriously traditional field of study. Secondly, a number of recent political crises resulted not only in intensifying diplomatic interaction between states but also in increasingly critical reflections on their capability to actually settle international conflicts, above all those of a cross-cultural nature. To be sure, a methodologically renewed history of diplomacy has turned to socio-and cultural-historical perspectives of diplomacy which had been largely neglected in the past. However, not taking into account a few studies on diplomatic gifts or rather marginal examinations of selected objects in specific historical situations, the material culture of diplomacy has hitherto played a limited role in historical research. This is even more surprising, if we look at early modern times as an era in which modern diplomacy evolved. At that period in time, ostentatiously exhibiting or hiding objects as well as exchanging gifts between negotiators and principals was of major significance for diplomatic negotiations all over the world. The panel aims at exploring theoretical approaches of material culture studies as an interdisciplinary field of study to the investigation of diplomatic cultures across the globe in the early modern period and in the nineteenth century. The papers of this panel focus on diplomatic procedures in the context of transcultural diplomacy in different regions of interest and thus in very diverse political and cultural contexts. They examine the gain in knowledge which a perspective on material cultures might offer to historians who are interested in culturally specific means of diplomatic interaction as well as in such forms of political communication which left an imprint on diverse civilizations. They scrutinize the efficacy of artifacts in their meaning as entangled objects (Nicholas Thomas) and their role as objects of translation (Finbarr B. Flood) in the context of the diplomatic ceremonial as well as informal contacts between negotiators of both sides. They are also interested in tracing the diverse ways in which contemporaries tried to translate and make sense of material aspects of diplomatic interaction. Finally, they look for processes of cultural transfer and cultural blending as a result of transcultural contact in early modern times. All these issues cannot satisfyingly be understood by exclusively using the approach of symbolic communication because an object does not consist of mere symbolic SEKTIOn Iva 18.September 2015 / 09:00 / HS14

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"Do you hear the voice of the martyrs?": Historical memories in Turkey and the centennial commemoration of the Çanakkale War/Gallipoli Landings of 1915

The centenary of the First World War in the Republic of Turkey has brought to the fore a number o... more The centenary of the First World War in the Republic of Turkey has brought to the fore a number of debates and strains in national memory. Much of the coverage outside of the country has focussed on the state's continued refusal to acknowledge the 'Events of 1915' (1915 Olayları) – the systematic massacre of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population – as genocide. Whilst there certainly has been heated discussion in the country surrounding this issue, as well as moves to towards formal remembrance, the primary focus has been on the centenary of the Allied invasion of 1915, the Gallipoli Landings, known in Turkey as the Çanakkale War. This commemoration brings together a number of threads in Turkish historical memory, neatly displayed in a commemorative film released on 20 April 2015 by the president's office. Entitled 'The Centennial Epic' (Yüz Yıllık Destan), the four-and-a-half-minute film has been criticised within the country as a distortion of the national memory and a politicised reinterpretation of the past, but has also been praised as an attempt to disentangle a significant historical event from the baggage of subsequent Turkish history. I have translated the film in its entirety so that it can reach an Anglophone audience. It is a fascinating piece of historical film-making, incorporating dramatic reconstruction of battle scenes and soldiers' lives, religious sounds and ceremonies, the reading of a religious-nationalist poem by the President of Turkey himself, and scenes of modern commemoration. By examining the key themes of the film, including public access to historical narratives, religious heritage, and state-controlled commemoration, I hope to consider the broader implications of public versus official memories, and, very much linked to this, to demonstrate how the construction and reconstruction of historical memory in Turkey provides an important case study of how the historical turn to memory has had a significant impact on narratives outside of the ivory tower.

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The Idea of 'Millet' in the Late Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey

This paper will address the question of identity for Muslims in the late Ottoman Empire and Repub... more This paper will address the question of identity for Muslims in the late Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, considering how the merger of a confessional category with a new national label in the Republic of Turkey deprived Muslim minorities of political and cultural autonomy. The millet system – the division of Ottoman society by religious confession – is often employed to conjure up rose-tinted images of a tolerant, multi-confessional society, as a contrast to the inter-communal hatred and slaughter that followed. Yet it can well be argued that the millet system persists in the contemporary Republic of Turkey, defining normative identity in terms of nationality and religion. In the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the word 'millet' transformed from describing a confessional identity to a national one. Yet within this term, the idea of a state-defined, monolithic community persists. In the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim millet referred to all (Sunni) Muslims, be they Turks, Kurds, or Arabs. This idea continued during the wars of the 1920s, but the project of creating a homogenous Turkish republic posed a number of issues regarding identity. After having been considered as separate-but-equal citizens under the homogenising late Ottoman notion of 'Ottomanism', Greeks, Armenians, and Jews returned to being communal minorities following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Consequently, the Muslim majority was redefined as a national millet under the label of 'Turk', leaving Muslim minorities, particularly Kurds, Laz, Zaza, and Arabs, with few outlets for political and cultural expression beyond the bounds of 'Turkishness'. There is therefore significant continuity between the Ottoman and Turkish polities in terms of defining and attempting to regulate a normative identity for the Muslim majority, to the detriment of Muslim minorities.

When no proof is good enough: An Algerian merchant in British and Dutch courts, 1760s-1770s

It is unusual to find near-complete sets of paperwork for individual court cases in eighteenth-ce... more It is unusual to find near-complete sets of paperwork for individual court cases in eighteenth-century mercantile cases, and this paper will examine the implications provided by the attempts of an Algerian merchant of Ottoman Greek origin to secure redress in admiralty courts in Britain and Holland after suffering a number of setbacks resulting in the loss of his cargoes, including pirate attacks and dishonest business partners. In several cases involving this individual, he was able to produce proofs from contracts, legal registers, sworn attestations, and shipping certificates, as well as formal letters in his support from the highest political authorities in Algiers. As a corpus, these documents demonstrate the significant amount of paperwork that went into securing and protecting trans-Mediterranean agreements. However, the rejection of the merchant’s proofs in British and Dutch courts raises the question of the transferability of such documents away from the consular and qadi courts in Algiers to admiralty courts elsewhere. More than this, it brings up the issue of the ability of Algerian merchants to secure their bilateral commercial and contractual rights in European courts without the safety-net of consular protection.

A reassessment of Algerian diplomacy with Britain, France, and Tuscany, 16th to 18th centuries

The Ottoman North African Regency of Algiers, provides something of a diplomatic conundrum. Whil... more The Ottoman North African Regency of Algiers, provides
something of a diplomatic conundrum. Whilst subject to the
authority of the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, Algiers operated to a high degree of autonomy, even to the extent of making
treaties with foreign powers and dispatching ambassadors.
Whilst much of the historiographical focus of interactions
between the European mercantile nations and the Regencies
has focused on the issue of slavery and piracy, my paper
proposes to demonstrate several features of relations that can help us to understand this diplomacy in a more nuanced
fashion. By examining the treaty texts and diplomatic
correspondence between the Algiers and Britain, France, and Tuscany using Ottoman Turkish documents from the archives in London, Paris, and Florence, it is possible to see that relations were dominated by questions of maritime sovereignty space, and regulation of commerce. Moreover, unlike those of their Ottoman overlords, the treaties of the Regencies with European states were explicitly bilateral. This means that we can get a far greater sense of the interests that concerned Algiers itself, especially in terms of looking after their merchants and merchant shipping, something that is rarely focused on in the historiography. This reassessment of British/French/Tuscan diplomacy with Algiers will therefore aim to provide and Algerian voice to the diplomatic story, and discuss the interests of the Regency beyond the often cartoonish narratives of pirates and white slavery.

"Ill-treated by friends": Ottoman responses to British privateering in the mid-eighteenth century

From the 1690s until the 1780s the constant wars between the European mercantile states, particul... more From the 1690s until the 1780s the constant wars between the European mercantile states, particularly the British and the French, spilled into the Mediterranean in the form of pirate and privateer attacks on rival shipping. This included attacks against each other's commercial interests in the waters of the Ottoman Empire. However, as Ottoman merchants often used British and particularly French ships as freighters for their own internal trade, attacks on French shipping by British privateers resulted in significant damage to Ottoman trade, especially to the supply of food to famine-stricken provinces. This paper will examine the Ottoman response to attacks by British privateers in Ottoman waters in mid-eighteenth century, particularly in the context of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8), a conflict in which the Ottoman Empire did not participate. Using sources from the British and Ottoman archives, particularly Ottoman declarations and merchants' petitions, I will examine the dynamics between British political and commercial interests in the Levant, the impact British attacks had on Ottoman shipping, and the Ottoman legal responses to these attacks, which involved redefining Ottoman maritime jurisdiction and suing for damages. Overall, this paper will demonstrate that the Ottomans justly felt ill-treated by their nominal allies, and that their response was significant in seeking compensation through legal prosecution, suggesting a sophisticated response to the problem of European privateering.

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Celebrating the Stuarts in Istanbul: Dynastic imagery and charity in the 'Allegrezza' of 1688

This paper examined the report of a formal celebration (allegrezza) held by the British embassy i... more This paper examined the report of a formal celebration (allegrezza) held by the British embassy in Istanbul on the birth of the Prince of Wales in 1688. The Ottoman state kept abreast of dynastic events in Europe, usually through the decelerations presented by the various European ambassadors. However, those ambassadors also used the celebration of dynastic events - birthdays, accessions, births, and marriages – as a means to convey an image of their nation in the Abode of Felicity. The event under consideration here deserves detailed attention as an almost unique example of a British dynastic celebration in Istanbul. The description of the celebration, held in the papers of the ambassador William Trumbull, shows three major elements of the event: the dynastic imagery provided by the illuminations and decorations on the embassy building; the feasts, toasts, and music of the main celebration; and the charitable performance for the benefit of the local Ottoman subjects. The imagery of the decorations is of particular interest, with painted triumphal arches conveying a number of messages aimed at broadcasting the cultural sophistication and dynastic stability of the Stuarts to the hundreds of people who came to the embassy that evening. Therefore, this event was designed on the one hand to construct the dynastic power and legacy of the Stuarts for the benefit of the British and other Europeans through the richness of imagery and food, but also to use the occasion to promote the image of Britain in the Ottoman capital through the charitable distribution of food, for the benefit of political and commercial influence.

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The mechanics of commerce and diplomacy: British-Ottoman relations in the eighteenth century

The distinction between the "diplomatic" and "consular" functions of early modern embassies was n... more The distinction between the "diplomatic" and "consular" functions of early modern embassies was not always apparent. With merchants the main species of subject abroad, and commercial interest a crucial factor in bilateral relations, it is perhaps problematic to separate commerce and politics in diplomatic practice. The case study of the British embassy in Istanbul, which was run by the Levant Company between 1580 and 1804, provides an opportunity to examine how an overtly political ambassador charged with diplomatic agendas also served as an agent and protector of merchants. Using financial records and petitions from the British and Ottoman archives, this paper will explore the intimate link between commercial interest and diplomacy in British-Ottoman relations, focusing particularly on the involvement of the ambassador in commercial disputes. In the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, I found a large numbers of takrîrs, petitionary documents dictated by the ambassador and translated into Ottoman Turkish and presented to the Ottoman government. These takrîrs demonstrate that the ambassador was frequently required to act in a large number of often mundane commercial disputes. The frequency of this involvement is also attested by the embassy accounts, which provide great detail into the ambassadors' daily activities. This involvement is not apparent in the diplomatic correspondence, and this therefore also raises important historiographical questions as to how we approach diplomatic history.

Ottoman responses to privateering in the eastern Mediterranean, 1696-1706: French diplomatic victory or Ottoman legal ingenuity?

The French relationship with the Ottoman state, in addition to clear political and strategic inte... more The French relationship with the Ottoman state, in addition to clear political and strategic interests, was above all commercial. French merchant shipping did more than just buy and sell in Ottoman ports, but also acted as freighters for Ottoman merchants. In times of conflict between Britain and France, actions of British and French privateers and men of war against mercantile shipping therefore damaged Ottoman as well as French commerce. The first major instances of this sort of privateering activity occurred during the latter stages of the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession. This paper will examine how the Ottoman government responded to British and French violations of Ottoman ports and attacks on mercantile shipping through the extension of Ottoman law to the high-seas and the creation of exclusion zones for armed ships. Moreover, I will seek to address the accusations raised by the British ambassadors that the novel Ottoman response was due more to intense French diplomatic pressure and common Franco-Ottoman interest than to independent Ottoman action.

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Shifting centres: The political and topographical transformations of Ottoman Haifa, 1700-1900

Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the city of Haifa was transformed from a provinc... more Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the city of Haifa was transformed from a provincial backwater to a major commercial centre. However, more than this, Haifa was the site of a number of political and social contests and tensions, all of which were reflected in the city’s layout and location. The ancient city and Ottoman centre was shifted in the eighteenth century after Ottoman authority was usurped in the region by the Galilean notable, Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar. From this physical move further down the bay, Haifa received a number of new features that marked the struggle between al-ʿUmar and the Ottoman state; al-ʿUmar built walls and a castle, the Ottomans a communal mosque on his death and the re-establishment of their authority. The nineteenth century saw further challenges in the Napoleonic French and Khedival Egyptian conquests, but it was the settlement of German Templers from the 1860s that saw a radical transformation as a centre of commercial, cultural, and political tension, further exacerbated with the arrival of Zionist immigrants at the end of the century. All of these tensions, along with the economic and social changes ushered in by the arrival of steamships and the railway, were reflected in the urban landscape of the city between the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. This paper will examine specific buildings in and areas of Haifa ¬– the castle of al-ʿUmar, the Ottoman communal mosque, the German colony, the port, and the railway station – through their physical remains and documents from the Ottoman archives to demonstrate how the tensions of Haifa were expressed through the urban landscape.

The question of finance in early modern diplomacy

Although the 'new' diplomatic history has done much to attempt to redefine the field in line with... more Although the 'new' diplomatic history has done much to attempt to redefine the field in line with more contemporary historiographical trends and problems, the Rankean approach persists. Part of this is due to a lack of understanding as to what ambassadors actually did on a daily basis, in part fuelled by continuing over-reliance on official correspondence and narratives. This paper will seek to demonstrate the desirability and utility of placing diplomatic history within a financial and social context, using the specific case-study of the British embassy in Istanbul in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By examining the expenditure of that embassy, and documents relating to daily diplomatic activities in the Ottoman archives, I have constructed a narrative of British-Ottoman diplomatic relations that explores cultural convention and, crucially, the concerns of British subjects. The financial records have demonstrated the vast amounts expended on entertainment and gifts in order to further the interest of British merchants. The large number of surviving 'takrirs', or petitionary declarations from the British ambassador to the Ottoman government, again demonstrate that the majority of the ambassador's working life centred on protecting and furthering commercial concerns, with only a limited amount of time spent in political negotiations. Above all, this paper will hope to present a wider historiographical argument that early modern diplomacy was above all concerned with mediating between resident or visiting subjects and subjects and officials of the host state, rather than the high political intrigue negotiation that are conveyed in the diplomatic correspondence.

The culture of diplomatic gift-exchange in eighteenth-century British-Ottoman relations

This paper will examine the role of material culture in British-Ottoman diplomatic relations in t... more This paper will examine the role of material culture in British-Ottoman diplomatic relations in the eighteenth century. In the course of my research into the wider topic of eighteenth-century British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire from the records of the British and Ottoman archives, I have compiled a database of over 10,000 gifts presented to the Ottoman state by the British ambassadors, as well as hundreds bestowed by the Sultans and their officials. This paper will provide an overview of Ottoman notions of gift-giving, and the extent to which British diplomats were obliged to conform to them. It will then examine specific occasions of gift-exchange, as well as choosing the most common items - garments, fabrics, and timepieces, among others - in order to explain their political and cultural symbolism, as well as to demonstrate the close links between trade and diplomacy. The paper will aim to demonstrate the importance of diplomatic gift-exchange in the Ottoman context, and how the gifts themselves can help in constructing a narrative of British political and economic relations with the Sublime Porte.

Accessing the Shadow of God on Earth: gifts, feasts, and humiliation in Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial

This paper, stemming from my ongoing doctoral research on British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire... more This paper, stemming from my ongoing doctoral research on British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire in the "long" eighteenth century, will aim to examine Ottoman notions of access to the Sultan at the end of the seventeenth century. Focussing primarily on the British experience, but also with examples from French and Venetian diplomats at the Sublime Porte, this paper will aim to examine Ottoman court ritual surrounding ambassadorial audiences with the Sultan through two main questions. The first will examine the essential role of gift-giving in enabling access to the Ottoman court, and will argue that these did not constitute bribes in order to gain access but were a central aspect of Ottoman court patronage networks. The second will consider the ceremonial and spatial elements of access, from the laying on of feasts demonstrating imperial benevolence to the humiliation of ambassadors in the audience chamber as they were forced to the ground before the Sultan. In discerning the rationale for these particular practices that were designed to include foreign ambassadors in Ottoman notions of patronage and social hierarchy, it will be argued that that these ceremonials formed a crucial part in articulating the Ottoman world-view to Christian allies and enemies. Moreover, these Ottoman court practices demonstrate the heterodox nature of the Ottoman court and monarchy in borrowing from earlier Islamic, Byzantine, and Turkic customs.

Corporate diplomacy: the British embassy in Istanbul in the eighteenth century

British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire, from the end of the sixteenth century to the first quart... more British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire, from the end of the sixteenth century to the first quarter of the nineteenth, was run through the medium of a regulated commercial enterprise, the Levant Company. The Company, in return for a monopoly on trade in the Sultan's realms, footed the vast majority of the rather large embassy bill in the name of their monarch. As the Company's fortunes declined, the British Ambassador increasingly found himself conducting diplomacy on a shoe-string budget in a polity of growing importance to British interests that required (for various reasons) significant expenditure.

This paper will use and present the financial records of the Company, along with extensive research into diplomatic and commercial correspondence, as well as the finances of the Crown for foreign affairs. The analysis will examine the mechanisms of a commercial embassy, and how the finances of the Company affected Britain's political relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Particular attention will be given to the tension between the aims of Crown and Company, Ambassadors' and employees' salaries, and gift-giving. More broadly, this paper will seek to explore the role of finance in the running of British diplomacy, and how a quantitative analysis of diplomacy can provide a new angle for diplomatic history, and particularly on the British geopolitical ascendency of the eighteenth century.

Michael Talbot

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