The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman EmpireThe unprecedented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. This book examines the sources of royal women's power and assesses the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition. By examining political action in the context of household networks, Leslie Peirce demonstrates that female power was a logical, indeed an intended, consequence of political structures. Royal women were custodians of sovereign power, training their sons in its use and exercising it directly as regents when necessary. Furthermore, they played central roles in the public culture of sovereignty--royal ceremonial, monumental building, and patronage of artistic production. The Imperial Harem argues that the exercise of political power was tied to definitions of sexuality. Within the dynasty, the hierarchy of female power, like the hierarchy of male power, reflected the broader society's control for social control of the sexually active. |
Contents
The House of Osman | 15 |
Wives and Concubines The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries | 28 |
The Age of the Favorite 15201566 | 57 |
The Age of the Queen Mother 15661656 | 91 |
The Imperial Harem Institution | 113 |
Women and Sovereign Power | 151 |
Shifting Images of Ottoman Sovereignty | 153 |
The Display of Sovereign Prerogative | 186 |
The Politics of Diplomacy | 219 |
The Exercise of Political Power | 229 |
Women Sovereignty and Society | 267 |
Genealogical Charts | 287 |
Notes | 289 |
345 | |
363 | |
Common terms and phrases
Ahmed Akkoyunlu Alberi Anatolian aspers a day Bayezid Bayezid II brother Bursa campaign capital career Çelebi ceremonial concubinage concubine damad daughter death dynastic family dynasty's Efendi elite endowment eunuch Evliya Çelebi execution father favorite female grand vezir Hafsa haseki historian household Hurrem İbrahim imperial harem imperial palace Islamic Istanbul Janissaries jariyes kadın Khatun Koçi Bey Köprülü Kösem Sultan letter Mahmud male Manisa marriage married Mehmed III Mehmed IV Mehmed Pasha Mehmed's Mihrimah military müfti Murad Murad III Murad IV Muslim Mustafa Mustafa Ali Naima Neşri Nurbanu Old Palace Orhan Osman II Ottoman dynasty Ottoman Empire Ottoman sultan Peçevi political prince's princes princesses Relazioni religious role royal family royal women ruler Rüstem Safavid Safiye Selaniki Selim Selim II seventeenth century sexual sixteenth century slave sons sovereign sovereignty status stipend Süleyman's reign Tarih throne tion tomb tradition TSMA Turhan Sultan Turkish Uluçay Uzunçarşılı valide sultan Venetian ambassador
Popular passages
Page 4 - ... is a space to which general access is forbidden or controlled and in which the presence of certain individuals or certain modes of behavior are forbidden. That the private quarters in a domestic residence and by extension its female residents are also referred to as a "harem" comes from the 1slamic practice of restricting access to these quarters.