Some notes on Ottoman tax farming in Hungary

Abstract

On the basis of an „inventory of tax farms in the province of Buda” (defter-i first-i mukataa-i vilayet-i Budun), the paper describes the administration of Ottoman tax arms in Hungary in a comparative way (the reference area being the Lower Danube). Its main concern is the sixteen-century practice but the seventeenth-century transformations are also touched upon. The widely held view that the seventeenth century saw rapid spread of tax farming, is untenable for Hungary; in this period, the tax farms were increasingly replaced by „corporate estates” (ocaklik) not only in Hungary but in other parts of the empire as well.