Anti-“Piracy” Measures Under Ottoman Empire From the Last 17th to the Early 18th Century

In Relations with Venice

Abstract

From the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth century, disordering caused by “pirates” still continued aroung the Agean and Adriatic sea areas, where were battle fields in wars between the Ottoman empire and Venice just before the treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. In this situation, the Ottomans and the Venetians were trying to take anti-Ottoman “piracy” measures based on ahdnâmes. Maritime regime against “piracy” have been established during the sixteenth century and followed with slight elaborating some articles until the last ahdnâme given in the first half of the eighteenth century. The formation process of maritime regime on ahdnâmes are well known, however, its applications and practices have not received much attention. In this paper, we examined anti-“piracy” practices during that period with analyzing the Ottoman imperial orders registered in Düvel-i Ecnebiye Defteri 16/4, which shows continuing to following the “traditional” maritime regime on ahdnâmes since for the sixteenth century in practice, while the relationship between the Ottoman empire and Venice was beginning to adopt the European legal system in part.