An Egyptian Grain Shipment of 1763 to the Imperial Pantry in Istanbul

Abstract

A set of five documents registered in the year 1177/1763 in the sharc-court of Rosette (Rashid), one of Egypt's Mediterranean ports, throws light on one of Egypt's annual obligations to the Ottoman Empire, namely, the dispatch of comestibles to the imperial kitchen {al-matbakh al-cameri) and the imperial pantry (al-kilar alcameri) in Istanbul and substantiates the description Stanford Shaw gave of these obligations in his classic study of Ottoman administration in Egypt. To fully appreciate the information that these court documents offer us, it is necessary to briefly describe the system by which the authorities in Egypt dispatched the required amount of comestibles annually to Istanbul for use in the imperial kitchen and pantry. In addition to the annual remittance (irsaliyya) in taxes which officials in Egypt were responsible to forward to the imperial treasury in Istanbul and to the dispatch of troops (usually 3,000) which Egypt contributed annually to the wars the Ottoman Empire waged against its European and Persian enemies, the provincial regime was also responsible for sending considerable quantities of Egypt's abundant agricultural produce to the Hijaz and Istanbul as part of its obligations to the empire. The complicated system of financial obligations, in money, services, and kind, underwent numerous changes and grew enormously between the time it was established by the Ottoman conquerors in the early sixteenth century and the French invasion in 1798. Some of the agricultural products unique to Egypt in the empire, lik ice and sugar, were essentials in both the Hijaz and Istanbul and were therefore an important part of the annual tribute Egypt sent to these two districts.