Chapter 9

Gedik: What’s in a Name?

Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

The rules determining the ownership of capital assets are crucial to under-
standing the ways in which society distributes the returns to commercial
activity. In this chapter, we will explore how these rules were defined and
contested in late eighteenth-­and early nineteenth-­century Istanbul.
With this aim in mind, we intend to closely examine an eighteenth-­
century institutional innovation, namely the gedik, a term whose dictionary
meaning is ‘gap, slot, or opening’. Given the multitude of meanings and
functions ascribed to this term, it is rather ambiguous and thus ‘a concept
too many’.1 Various authors have explored the eighteenth century emer-
gence and rise of gediks; but the implications of this process for investment
and growth in urban economic activity have remained mostly unchartered
territory. This chapter will suggest a preliminary framework for clarifying
the ambiguities inherent in this notion. At a more general level, under-
standing how the gedik as an institution emerged and evolved will allow us
to make sense of the overall transformation that the labouring populations
of the capital city experienced during Sultan Selim III’s (r. 1789–1807)
vigorous campaign of reform, during the 1790s and early 1800s.
It is worth stressing that scholars who have worked on the Ottoman
guilds of the eighteenth century have emphasized the emergence of
the ‘gedik’ as a legal concept with a multitude of meanings: thus gedik
referred to the right to own tangible capital goods necessary to practise a
trade or craft, to the exclusive right to work as a fully fledged member of
218 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

a closed community of artisans (esnaf or lonca), and to the entitlement to

a specific work space (workshop or store) reserved for that particular craft
and trade.2 Moreover there are two types of gedik. Here, we will focus
on the fixed (müstakar) gedik which allowed the owner to practise his
craft or trade in a specified location only; in other words, his property was
immovable. When enjoying a havai (moveable) gedik, the owner could
do business without attachment to a specific location, this type of gedik
being generally issued to itinerant tradesmen.
To use Engin Akarlı’s expression, the ‘bundle of rights’ attached to
the gedik appeared as the product of the struggle of urban shopkeepers
to protect their interests through claims to exclusive membership in a
particular group (esnaf) authorized to practise a specific trade or craft.
Certainly, the emergence and expansion of gediks was part of a process
consolidating the monopolistic practices associated with Ottoman guilds.3
At the same time, however, the notion was linked to the struggles involv-
ing shopkeepers’ claims to real estate which these people conducted against
property owners, for the most part religious endowments (vakıf). In addi-
tion, masters stated their claims to capital inputs, in this case opposing the
journeymen that were not, or at least not yet, full members of the guild.4
In the secondary literature, these various functions of gediks have been
conflated, with little discussion as to whether at any point in time the
term had a clearly defined content. Neither has there been any systematic
effort to test the validity of alternative explanations for the emergence
and proliferation of gedik certificates. Although historians have on occa-
sion underlined the interpretative problems surrounding the nebulous
concept of gedik, we still lack a conceptual framework that would help us
to solve these problems.5 Therefore, drawing upon a large collection of
hitherto unused primary sources, we suggest a taxonomy that may help
to clarify ambiguities inherent in the notion of gedik. Based on this tax-
onomy, we will explore when and why gediks implied ‘barriers to entry’
and what ‘barriers to entry’ meant for eighteenth-­century urban eco-
nomic growth.
In the last part of our chapter, we will make a few preliminary obser-
vations regarding certain characteristics of gediks poorly examined in
the secondary literature. Our aim is to contribute to the emergence of
a research agenda in which the implications of secondary gedik markets
will be explored in terms of their effects on credit relations and part-
nership forms. We will also suggest some methods to evaluate to what
extent gedik markets reinforced or undermined existing social barriers rel-
evant to economic transactions. In this way, we aim to highlight potential
implications of secondary gedik markets for the emergence of impersonal
exchange in the Ottoman context.
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 219

Ambiguities in the Secondary Literature:

Origins and Meanings

In the late eighteenth-­ century court registers, gedik is probably one

of the most frequently recurring terms. It was bought, sold, inherited,
mortgaged and owned by one person or else by several people at the
same time, who all wanted to ensure they had proof of ownership in the
form of a document issued by the court or guild, or later by the newly
established Ministry of Pious Foundations. One century earlier, however,
the relevant documents had contained very few references to gediks. The
question, then, is where this institution originated and why it became
popular. The answers to these questions will help us to understand the
meaning of emergent gedik markets.
In the literature, two explanations have been offered for the rise of
gediks. One of these is related to the original meaning of the term that
has emerged in Islamic jurisprudence. Ahmet Akgündüz, a legal histo-
rian, has claimed that until the term became associated with the guilds
in the eighteenth century, it had merely referred to the usufruct rights
granted to artisans and tradesmen by virtue of their residence in shops,
in particular those rented out by religious endowments (vakıfs).6 In line
with this meaning of gedik, Engin Akarlı, who has studied the devel-
opment of property relations connected with gediks between 1750 and
1840, has explained the emergence of gediks as a by-­product of urban
artisans’ and tradesmen’s attempts to preserve their real incomes during
the later 1700s, a period noted for its economic difficulties. Financial
stringencies, so Akarlı maintained, had led the Ottoman administration
to search for ways to gain a share in the revenues of pious endowments,
which by this time owned most urban commercial buildings. In response
to these pressures, foundation administrators attempted to increase their
revenues, particularly rents. By registering their shops as gediks, the shop-
keepers hoped to preserve their permanent rights to tenancy and resist
such increases.
A second way of explaining the emergence of gediks involved the agency
of guilds. As eighteenth-­century urban artisans and tradesmen came to
hold various monopolistic privileges, the term acquired the meaning
of a ‘licence’ required to practise particular crafts or trades. Hence, the
term was associated with sector-­specific barriers to entry that limited the
number of people able to enter a craft or trade.
Although these studies offered anecdotal evidence indicating that
both meanings of the term, namely usufruct rights related to perma-
nent tenancy and licensure related to monopolistic privileges were valid
220 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

in specific cases, there was no discussion as to whether these cases were

­generalizable to all sectors and periods.7 Neither was there an attempt
to specify in which ways gedik implied a rupture from earlier forms of
tenancy and licensure.8 By contrast we argue that gedik, in the urban
context of the late 1700s and early 1800s, meant different things in dif-
ferent sectors, which unfortunately have been conflated in the literature.
Subtle differences in content, not at first apparent in official documents,
arise from the accompanying regulations (or the lack thereof) character-
izing a particular sector.
In order to clarify the ambiguities inherent in the notion, we suggest
differentiating two kinds of gedik and focusing on how each one of these
relates to the notion of ‘barriers to entry’:

1. Gediks as real-­estate deeds implying long-­term (or permanent) tenancy of a

specific shop for a fixed rent, creating opportunities for speculative invest-
ment in real estate markets.
2. Gediks as occupational licences limited in number, implying potential (but
not necessarily actually imposed) barriers to entry on a sectorial basis.

Even though these two meanings could overlap in certain cases, in

analytical terms they should remain separate as only by following this
procedure will it become clear which functions the registration of gediks,
as well as later transactions, served in any particular sector. This taxon-
omy will enable us evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the existing
hypotheses about the causes and implications of the widespread use of
gediks. We will also be able to suggest an alternative explanation for the
proliferation of gedik registrations in the early nineteenth century.

Gediks as Permanent Tenancy Rights

How do gedik and permanent tenancy rights relate to one another? In

line with Islamic jurisprudence, pious foundations (vakıfs) could be
endowed with rent-­yielding property, including urban commercial build-
ings. Although vakıf property was unalienable, contemporary jurists on
several grounds legitimized long-­term or permanent tenancy, although
such contracts might imply a threat to the permanence of foundation
holdings. A short-­term tenant had little incentive to keep the premises
in good condition, and thus the value of the estate would go down due
to natural wear and tear. More importantly, frequent fires and occasional
earthquakes destroyed the buildings, depriving the vakıf of its revenues.
In such cases, restoring a property might force the vakıf to incur large
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 221

expenses, all the more burdensome as they could not be foreseen or

planned for. Hence, some Muslim jurists maintained that, in order to
ensure stable revenues, long-­term tenancy (icare-­i tawila) of vakıf prop-
erty was permissible.9
In order to acquire this right to long-­term tenancy, tenants had to
make an advance lump-­sum payment (muaccele) to the vakıf owning the
piece of real estate in question. Theoretically this sum of money should
have been sufficient to restore the building; in addition the tenants of
course agreed to pay monthly or annual rents (müeccele). This arrange-
ment, also known as icareteyn (double rent), was somewhat controversial
among legal scholars as it created a loophole for the alienation of vakıf
property. Yet, although some important figures of Ottoman jurisprudence
such as Ebu Su’ud (d. 1574), the chief jurisconsult of Süleyman the Law-
giver, disputed that icareteyn or icare-­i tawila was a valid form of rental
contract, most jurists adopted it; and it seems to have become a common
practice by the seventeenth century.10 Furthermore, through various legal
modifications made over time, the right of long-­term lease embedded
in the notion of icareteyn paved the way for greater flexibility in the use
and control of rented property.11 As a result, the ‘tenant’, who now was
referred to as the proprietor (mutasarrıf) of the gedik, could sell, pawn,
rent and bequeath his/her usufruct rights granted by icareteyn contract.12
As mentioned above, Akarlı and Akgündüz have suggested that the
term ‘gedik’ emerged as a particular form of this long-­term tenancy con-
tract. While icareteyn contracts granted stable and favourable tenancy
rights, in return for the tenant’s commitment to make the repairs necessary
to preserve the value of the estate, gedik referred to permanent usufruct
rights granted in return for the tenant’s placement of the capital inputs
required for a particular craft or trade. Thus in the late eighteenth-­and
early nineteenth-­century court registers the term gedik literally referred
to this tangible equipment, in other words to implements and inventory
(alat-­ı lazıme-­i malume). As long as the tenant paid the initially set rent,
the landlord could not evict him. Yet, the gedik holder and the proprietor
were linked in such a way that the agreement always referred quite clearly
to a specific real estate in which the tenant would place the equipment. In
this sense, the gedik was a version of ‘icareteyn’ where permanent tenancy
rights were granted in return for improvement of the premises through
their designation as commercial spaces.
Through gedik, shopkeepers acquired permanent tenancy rights;
and for this reason Akarlı has viewed widespread appeals for gedik as an
attempt to resist rent increases. Yet icareteyn contracts had been avail-
able ever since the seventeenth century. The question, then, is to what
extent contracts involving gedik assignments were different from icareteyn
222 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

c­ ontracts and what these differences imply in terms of tenancy rights. The
most important difference originates from the fact that gedik owners had
more flexibility in the control and use of their usufruct rights; for towards
the late 1700s gedik owners were able to sell or rent their usufruct rights,
albeit with serious restrictions in specific sectors, which will be discussed
shortly. Put differently, there was an active secondary market in gediks. In
the following pages we will provide evidence for these arguments through
an analysis of both legal norms and actual practices.
Under the law, in icareteyn contracts the tenant was able to sell his
usufruct rights, but the payment exacted could not be higher than the
lump-­sum amount originally paid to the vakıf.13 Judicial opinions and
court registers indicate that initially experts in the field determined this
amount, evaluating the cost of reconstructing a ruined building.14 In the
seventeenth century, for instance, there are various cases of icareteyn con-
tracts, in which tenants and vakıf administrators agreed that the former
would reconstruct a ruined vakıf property with their own funds,; and
then the cost of reconstruction as estimated by experts would constitute
the advance payment (icare-­i muaccele) required for the initiation of a
double-­rent contract. Also in some cases, tenants made repairs and the
amount they had spent was deducted from an advance payment payable
in the future.15 This deduction probably concerned the payment that
foundation administrators would once again charge at the renewal of
the contract; this observation also confirms the non-­permanent nature
of icareteyn contracts. In cases in which the vakıf used its own resources
for the reconstruction of its property, administrators seem to have had
the right to increase the annual/monthly rent (müeccele) above the
amount specified in the icareteyn contract.16 There are, however, very
few examples of such increases in the primary documents studied to
date.
Although a narrow focus on legal sources might indicate that the cost
of repair or reconstruction determined advance payment, almost from the
start icareteyn tenants’ ability to transfer usufruct rights, and the limited
supply of available real estate, facilitated the emergence of a secondary
market, in which supply and demand established the prices of transferred
usufruct rights. Before explaining the logic of this argument, let us present
the historical evidence. As early as 1742, the tenancy rights of vakıf prop-
erties were sold at auction, a procedure signifying that the muaccele was
a source of revenue for the foundation’s budget (on conflicts between
shop-­renting artisans and those plying their trades on the street, compare
Ch. 1 and 3).17 Although the initial justification for long-­term or perma-
nent tenancy was the vakıf’s need for stable revenues, presumably higher
advance payments were being legitimized in a similar vein.
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 223

By the seventeenth century, the tenants, who held the usufruct rights
granted through icareteyn contracts were already able to sell their tenancy
rights. For instance, in 1612, one of the two owners of the usufruct rights
over a mill died and his daughter, as his sole heir, sold the rights at auction
to pay her father’s debts. In this case, the co-­owner purchased these rights,
but the document emphasized that an auction had been held, supervised
by the trustee.18 In other words, the partner did not have any priority in
acquiring the assets.
The reasons for the emergence of a secondary market are quite
obvious. Firstly, there was demand for tenancy rights of this kind because
icareteyn contracts ensured that rent increases were highly improbable.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly in this earlier period, the transfer
of tenancy rights at free market prices enabled the tenants to pay their
debts to various creditors including the vakıf administrators, to whom
rent arrears could have been due. Although this was not the initial justi-
fication for icareteyn contracts, vakıfs in difficulty over uncollected rents
considered the reallocation of usufruct rights at auction as a remedy for
their financial troubles.19 Whether the vakıf could easily reclaim and resell
usufruct rights if the tenant did not pay his rent is not clear from the
documents. In other words, we do not know if the secondary market,
from the perspective of the vakıf, served as a safety net against tenant
defaults. Even in cases when the vakıf administrator was not able to evict
the defaulting tenant, as long as he/she could reclaim the usufruct rights,
the foundation could count on the help of the new tenant for evicting the
previous one. Unfortunately, we do not have many examples as to how
vakıfs dealt with defaulting tenants. Rents specified in icareteyn contracts
being lower-­than-­market, administrators may have found replacements
very quickly, so that no such disputes came up in court. If the tenant died
without heirs— – given epidemics and infant mortality, heirless prop-
erty was not rare20— – the vakıfs could also expect to profit from higher
market prices.
The secondary literature maintains that when a tenant acquired gedik
rights for a particular shop, he would make an advance lump-­sum payment
and agree to defray a regular monthly or yearly rent, as was the rule in
all icareteyn contracts.21 We argue that this assumption was correct only
if the gedik rights had been acquired from the vakıf directly – in other
words, if the gedik owner was also the tenant of the icareteyn contract.
However this was not always the case, an issue overlooked in the second-
ary literature. Tenants of icareteyn contracts could profit from an increase
in market rents not only by selling their usufruct rights but also by sublet-
ting the premises for higher rents. Some shopkeepers active in the urban
market were therefore sub-­tenants who could be charged more than the
224 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

rates specified by the icareteyn contract. Theoretically, and as various cases

from the late eighteenth century indicate empirically as well, the tenant
of an icareteyn agreement could thus be different from the owner of the
gedik or equipment placed in the shop that had been rented out by this
contract. When the gedik holder was a sub-­tenant, it is not clear if he had
to make an advance payment to the vakıf or to the principal tenant; in
some cases there must have existed an icareteyn contract within another
icareteyn contract, as in ‘Russian dolls’. As the guilds could issue deeds
of gedik, known as warden’s deeds or kethüda temessükü, perhaps gedik
owners were not always expected to pay a lump sum to the vakıf or prin-
cipal tenant.
Even for the beginning 1800s for which we have the most extensive
data, we do not yet know what percentage of gedik owners were primary
tenants of icareteyn contracts and what percentage were sub-­tenants. Nor
do we know what percentage of gedik deeds had been issued by vakıf
administrators, and how large was the share of guild-­issued documents. We
do, however, know that gedik, by definition, implied a protection against
eviction and rent increases, very much like the icareteyn contract had origi-
nally done. So a gedik owner could resist a tenant’s attempts to increase
rents.22 In this case, it would be the price of the gedik, rather than the
payment for usufruct rights involving the premises, which would increase.
If most gedik holders were sub-­tenants and dealt with principal tenants
rather than with the vakıfs, this might explain why, in the gedik transac-
tions registered at the court, there is almost no reference to the role of
the vakıfs in determining the price of gediks. As long as the gedik holder,
whether a tenant or a sub-­tenant, continued to pay rent regularly to the
property owner, he or she was free to sell, pawn or rent the gedik to any
potential creditor or sub-­tenant. Although in most court registers there
is no explicit discussion of how gedik prices were determined, it is appar-
ent that the owners of gediks were able to sell them at auction. In other
words, such a person could sell his gedik for a price higher than the muac-
cele if he was the primary tenant or higher than the cost of his gedik – if
he had incurred any costs in obtaining the gedik from his guild. In both
cases, the value of the gedik would reflect the expected benefits accruing
from permanent tenancy rights, such as paying below-­market rents.
Archival evidence also demonstrates the existence of a secondary
market in gediks. According to numerous documents surviving in court
registers from the late 1700s and early 1800s, non-­artisans and non-­
traders assiduously bought and sold gediks as well as gedik shares. For
instance, a money-­changer (sarraf) held the gedik relevant to a large
bakery cum mill complex.23 Similarly a man described as a tobacco-­dealer
(duhani) could legally own another combined bakery and mill.24 Various
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 225

people with titles indicating legal-­religious positions (molla, kadı, müder-

ris) also owned entire gediks or at least shares.25 In addition women held,
sold and pawned gedik shares in a wide variety of sectors.26 Furthermore,
especially in gediks pertaining to retail shops, numerous shares circulated,
with prices fluctuating within short time spans. We may thus conclude
that the value of the gedik was determined in a secondary market, regard-
less of the condition of the relevant real estate or commercial enterprise.
It is not exactly clear in these cases if gedik owners considered them-
selves as partners to the shopkeepers and claimed any say in shop man-
agement. Most probably they profited by merely renting out the gediks
to actual practitioners of a craft or trade. For instance, a certain Mehmed
Şerif Efendi, a respected judge, was the tenant of an icareteyn contract of
a grocer’s shop and also owned the gedik. He rented the latter to a certain
Yani for 16.5 guruş per month, with other grocers standing surety for any
potential debts, both to the gedik owner for rent arrears and to wholesale
merchants for goods bought on credit.27 In other words, it was only the
gedik holder, and not the gedik owner, who was responsible for comply-
ing with guild regulations.
Guilds, however, could shape the issuance and distribution of gediks in
other, more direct ways. Before exploring the manner in which guild reg-
ulations affected gedik markets, we will look at the most obvious way by
which guilds became involved in the rules concerning gedik acquisition.
After all it was these organizations that set the number of gediks available
to potential artisans or shopkeepers in a given sector, and thereby made
these ‘immaterial goods’ serve as occupational licenses.

Gediks as Sectorial Licences

One of the earliest references to a gedik as an occupational licence is an

official document authorizing the transfer of a deceased water carrier’s
gedik to his brother ‘according to the traditional way of doing things’
(vech-­i meşruh üzre kadimden olıgeldiği üzre). There are two reasons
why we should analyse gediks as occupational licences. Firstly, as previ-
ously noted, there was a type of gedik allowing the holder to operate a
legitimate business without any reference to usufruct rights connected to
real estate. These gediks, also known as movable (havai), were generally
assigned to itinerant retailers or service providers, such as water carriers
(sakas) and itinerant bagel sellers (simitçis).28 Ownership of a gedik, in this
sense, implied access to a market hedged in with barriers to entry, and,
therefore, a potential for oligopolistic profits or at least protection against
competition. Gediks such as these were not rented or bought from the
226 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

vakıf and their acquisition did not entail an obvious cost, c­ omparable to
the advance payment in icareteyn contracts. Secondly, most gedik holders,
whether they held usufruct rights to a particular piece of real estate or
not, had some relationship to guilds. Hence, in various ways and degrees
– again depending on the sector – guilds became involved in the issuance
of gediks and their distribution.
We have suggested that there was a secondary market in gediks, espe-
cially those assigned to retail shops. Yet in many cases, the use and control
rights over gediks were restricted by the collective rights and obligations of
the relevant artisans or tradesmen. For instance, in sectors where quality
concerns were important, gedik owners or their heirs would not be able to
sell the gedik to people deemed unqualified by the guild. Such regulations
were most obvious with respect to gediks concerning the looms placed
in authorized urban weavers’ workshops. Although gediks connected to
looms changed hands frequently, it was mostly qualified journeymen and
masters who took part in these transactions.29 Furthermore, unlike gediks
assigned to bakeries or grocers’ shops, weavers’ gediks were not divided
into shares, a custom implying that there was no separation between man-
agement and ownership.
Where retail was at issue, the guild concerned itself with the owner-
ship of gediks, but the underlying reason was solvency rather than pro-
fessional skills. Guild members were collectively liable for debts arising
from their transactions with the state or wholesale merchants, making
the guild responsible for the resale of gediks to pay the debts of deceased
or absconding gedik owners. Hence, it was not unusual for guild offi-
cials to take over the gedik of a shop owner indebted to his wholesalers
or the state and sell it at auction to extinguish these debts. In one case,
for instance, Mehmed Ağa, owner of six out of thirty-­two shares of a
bakery-­cum-­mill gedik, sold his shares to Veliyüddin for 1,500 guruş, an
important sum of money which served to pay his debts to the state and
the merchants.30 In this case, the indebted seller, Mehmed Ağa, was not
in fact present in the qadi’s court, but was represented by the warden of
the bakers’ guild. This situation raises the possibility that given collective
liability, the guild had forced this transaction upon the gedik owner.31
In another case, the guild warden likewise represented a certain Nuri
Usta in court: the latter needed to sell a quarter share of his gedik to his
brother İsmail Usta, and the money automatically served for the extinc-
tion of his debts.32
Collective liability does not seem to have precluded outsiders from
taking part in gedik markets. On the contrary, the use of gediks as collat-
eral against commercial debts, authorized by the guilds concerned, must
have opened the way to the partitioning of gediks and the subsequent
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 227

transfer of shares. As mentioned above, in the early 1700s gediks and

gedik shares pertaining to bakeries, grocery stores, and other retail shops
were easily transferable, with little reference to guild prerogatives.
Due to their monopolistic claims, guilds also played a significant role
in the creation and transferral of gediks. Theoretically, through register-
ing their shops as gediks and acquiring a charter fixing the number of the
latter, tradesmen or artisans could prevent new entries into their sector.
Yet, even in the 1500s and 1600s before gediks were at all widespread, it
had not been unusual for urban artisans and shopkeepers to claim exclu-
sive rights in their particular sectors (compare Ch. 1). Law codes specify-
ing the number and kind of people allowed to perform a given trade or
craft had long introduced this restriction, known as inhisar-­ı bey ü şira
(or just inhisar). Only qualified journeymen, upon approval of the guild
administration, could acquire the status of a master (ustalık) and practise
their craft, provided of course that a vacant shop was available. It has
been suggested that the institution of gedik emerged out of this exclusive
right.33 As mentioned above, however, the term seems to have its roots in
the notion of permanent tenancy, and only after certain additional steps
had been taken did gediks come to be affiliated with claims for exclusive
rights. Contemporary administrative attempts to restrict the creation of
gediks also attest to this interpretation.
Contemporary jurists argued that, especially in sectors dealing with
essential commodities such as bakeries, butcher shops and grocery stores,
for the sake of the public good shopkeepers should be allowed permanent
tenancy, and the sultan’s officials agreed.34 Although the decree at issue
did not directly associate gedik with monopolistic privileges, these were
also the sectors in which inhisar was justified on the grounds of serving
the public good. Once these gedik rights were in place, shopkeepers from
different sectors started to claim exclusive privileges to practise a certain
craft or trade on the grounds of holding the appropriate gedik. On many
occasions, one or another group of craftsmen applied to the court to offi-
cially register their gediks as the only ones valid for that particular craft or
trade. We will provide examples below.
Although during the late eighteenth century such charters were
granted to a wide variety of sectors, they were not at all irreversible. In
a decree from 1792, sellers of aba or coarse woollen cloth came to the
qadi’s court with a charter granted by a previous sultan to prevent sellers
of old and used garments from dealing in new aba (for regulations con-
cerning the different branches of textile production in Bursa, see Ch.
1). According to this charter dated 1787, those not trained in the guild
were not allowed to open a business, and even those who had already
acquired training in the authorized guild shops could not open their own
228 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

e­ stablishments without the permission of guild officials and senior guild

masters. There were in total twenty-­five authorized gediks and when one
of the gedik owners died, his gedik would be sold to his son or, if he had
no sons, to a qualified member of the guild. Overseen by the warden
and the senior guild members, these transactions had to take place at the
current market price (semen-­i misil).
Referring to the regulations specified in this charter, the aba sellers –
including the warden, his assistant the yiğitbaşı, thirteen Muslim and ten
Christian masters – came to court to complain about certain dealers in old
and used fabrics who were buying and selling new woollen cloths (aba
and şayak). In this context, they specifically referred to thirteen Chris-
tian salesmen. Upon the complainants’ request, the administration issued
a new decree to confirm the regulations concerning the marketing of
garments and to prohibit cloth-­dealers from other branches of the trade
from buying and selling new woollens. A few years later, however, in
1798, a certain Mehmed Arif, also a dealer in woollens, came to the court
complaining about his colleagues who had prevented him from convert-
ing his shop, where he must have been selling a variety of textiles, into
an enterprise specializing in woollens. Mehmed Arif appealed to a decree
issued in 1788/89 abolishing barriers to entry (inhisar-­ı bey ü şira) in
non-­essential commodities. The sultan decided in his favour and asked
the court to expunge the regulation setting barriers to entry in the above-­
mentioned charter, in line with the abolishment of inhisar.35
Although the 1788/89 decree invoked by Mehmed Arif is not avail-
able to us, an edict dated 1791 apparently reconfirmed the prohibition
of barriers to entry where non-­essentials were concerned. By this decree,
Sultan Selim III abolished inhisar in all sectors but those dealing with
primary consumer goods, claiming that these limitations caused inflation
and harmed the consumers.36 Certainly the ‘public good’ had always been
part of the legal and political discourse concerning regulation in urban
markets (compare Ch. 10). Yet Selim III’s administration was the first to
openly criticize and prohibit inhisar as a general principle, and as a result,
by the end of the century, shopkeepers may have been more concerned
with proving that their monopolistic privileges were in line with common
interests.
In another case, a decree abolishing ‘barriers to entry’ among plas-
terers specified in detail various rules concerning in-­guild training and
limitations applicable at the work site. This guild had required that a
man had to be at least twenty-­five years old when he became amaster,
and also that Muslim and Christian plasterers must work in separate
buildings. Although the decree prohibited inhisar in theory, with the
regulations introduced, the authorities ensured that the established
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 229

occupational and, seemingly, quality-­oriented limitations continued to

prevail.37
In many cases, members of officially recognized groups of artisans and
shopkeepers infringed upon the exclusive rights presumably granted to
other groups. For instance, in 1798, the producers and sellers of sherbet
who had previously been granted gedik rights came to the qadi’s court,
complaining about the sellers of akide (a kind of sugar candy), who were
now producing sherbet and thus violating the rights granted to the com-
plainants by the earlier charter. As for the sellers of akide, they defended
their actions on the grounds of the decree prohibiting barriers to entry.
While this argument seems to have resonated with the court which under-
lined that sugar was not an essential commodity (erzak-­ı zaruri), sherbet
sellers responded by referring to the earlier decree that fixed the number
of gediks and also to the fact that they and the akide sellers had dif-
ferent wardens and different organizations with specific quality require-
ments, as was also the case in other sectors such as flour products. In
other words, the complainants invoked the example of the separate guilds
for bakers of bagels and breads. In the end, the sultan decided in favour
of the sherbet producers on the grounds of both the limitation set upon
gedik numbers by the earlier decree and the quality concerns raised by the
sherbet sellers.38
All these examples indicate that in practice gediks did not automati-
cally imply ‘barriers to entry’. Legally opening a new shop or increas-
ing production/marketing capacity in an existing establishment did not
depend on whether these shops already had gediks or not. After all, if a
potential entrant in a sector or sub-­sector acquired an official permis-
sion he seemingly could find the building and equipment needed for his
gedik.39 In other words, although gedik numbers – in the sense of licences
to produce – were in general fixed, the same thing did not apply, ipso
facto, to the supply of gediks in the sense of workplaces and implements.

Gediks and the Problem of Intra-­guild Mobility

When a particular group of artisans and tradesmen specified their gediks

as belonging to their specialty, and fixed the numbers involved, this action
could serve two purposes. First, as Suraiya Faroqhi has underlined, estab-
lished masters of the guild could use their gediks to prevent qualified jour-
neymen from acquiring the same privileges. By preventing intra-­guild
mobility, the masters could preserve both their access to raw materials
and their market share. In both a growing and a stagnant economy, this
situation would result in an increasing income gap among practitioners
230 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

of one and the same craft. According to Faroqhi, a growing number of

journeymen with claims to master status and thus the acquisition of their
own shops was the reason why masters felt threatened and used the gedik
to preserve their economic and social status.40 This story indicates that
an increase in the number of journeymen per master, possibly driven by
a growing market, caused the widespread use of gediks. Faroqhi supports
her argument by pointing out that ‘gediks were developed first in collective
workshops, such as dyers and tanners, where interaction between masters
was much closer than in other places and fixed rules more necessary’.41
The argument that gediks were used by masters to preserve or even
increase their market share is corroborated by archival evidence, which
will be presented below. But this use of gediks is not necessarily the only
or even the initial cause of an expanding gedik market. For instance,
already in 1764 a large group of retailers selling the cloth known as alaca,
imported into Istanbul from Aleppo and Damascus, asked the court not
to allow the opening of new shops explicitly on the grounds of protecting
the public good. According to the seventy-­one complaining shop-­owners,
including both Muslims and non-­Muslims, these new shops, which by the
way also held gediks, were unable to pay their debts to the wholesalers,
they raised the prices of the commodity, and furthermore they sold their
gediks to outsiders for prices above the actual values of their shops.42
This case of collective petitioning for a restriction of legitimate gediks
by a group of tradesmen – and not a group of artisans labouring in collec-
tive workshops with relatively expensive capital – does not fit in well with
Faroqhi’s theory. As retailers dealing with imported cloth, doing business
in shops dispersed throughout the city, alaca sellers’ demand for a restric-
tion of gedik numbers seems to originate from their concern with increas-
ing competition from outsiders. Theoretically, the gediks could even serve
the established journeymen as long as they prevented the entry of ‘com-
plete’ outsiders into the sector. The assignment of gediks to a particular
guild would prevent the participation of these outsiders in the auctions
designed to sell the gedik of a deceased shopkeeper. Given limited entry,
the auctions would not drive up the price very much, enabling existent
guild masters or journeymen to acquire the gediks for affordable prices.
Before further elaborating on the theoretical implications of guild
organization for gedik markets, let us look at several cases in which gediks
seem to have served as an impediment to intra-­guild mobility. One of
these cases concerns a group of master craftsmen in the weaving busi-
ness. In 1797–98 certain silk weavers (kemhacı) requested the abolition
of gediks on the grounds that they allowed the wealthier guild members
to prevent the poorer ones from using the looms (destgâh) and practising
their craft; after all, every destgâh assigned to a gedik cost 400 guruş. Put
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 231

differently, the petitioners maintained that the unequal access to capital

goods originated from economic differences among guild members and
the assignment of a fixed number of gediks to highly valued means of
production. For the gedik owners, on the other hand, these claims were
unjustified. In their response the latter, whowere apparently all estab-
lished masters, maintained that there were 432 looms with officially
assigned gediks and that this number sufficed for the consumption of
the city. They also argued that the petitioners requesting the abolition
of gediks were the journeymen who had not yet completed their training
but who had already dared to establish their own unauthorized looms
and produced low-­quality fabrics.43 The court sided with the masters and
decided to punish journeymen who acted against guild rules. According
to a court register from 1816–17, the average price of looms as recorded
in market transactions was now around 1,000 guruş, two and a half times
what it had been fifteen years earlier. Even with allowance for inflation,
the established masters seem to have ‘made a killing’.
When complaining about the high price of entering their craft, the
younger masters or journeymen thus surely had a point. Probably the high
price of the gedik was not due only to the price of the looms that after all
were available in a free market. The decree makes it clear that the jour-
neymen, in spite of regulations, could start their business in unauthorized
shops, which means that they were able to acquire looms although the
latter might have been of lower quality. Rather, loom gediks were expen-
sive because their numbers were fixed, and in this way the gediks served as
official licences to practise the craft. By limiting the number of looms by
means of gedik, the masters probably aimed not only at preventing com-
petition driven by an increasing number of authorized master craftsmen,
but also at preserving the value of the gediks in existence, assuming that
there was an active gedik market in this period and craft.
The master weavers of bürüncük, a white crepe-­like cloth made of
raw silk, also seem to have controlled access to the relevant looms. In
1200/1785–86, their guild was able to obtain an imperial decree specify-
ing the masters’ exclusive rights to practise this craft.44 Only ninety-­one
shops, each with two looms, had obtained authorization, and neither the
number of shops nor the number of looms could increase. When a shop-­
owner died, his gedik could only go to his son as long as the latter was
qualified in the craft, or else it went to his journeymen.
While in these cases, masters of the guild apparently controlled access
to capital inputs and thereby benefited from the increasing value of their
gediks, in other textile sectors there were some regulations favouring
journeymen. For instance, the Ottoman government had fixed the price
of the looms used by muslin weavers (dülbent and çine) and also of those
232 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

used by silk weavers producing a relatively cheap kind of silk (sandal).45

Such price controls probably aimed at preventing an increase in the price
of looms that would harm journeymen. At the same time such controls
might have favoured the emergence of a black market, yet until now the
present authors have not encountered any complaints to that effect.
Also, in a guild more strictly controlled by the central administration such
as the manufacturers of thread, including silver or gold wire (kılapdancı),
masters were probably less able to use their gediks to prevent journey-
men’s access to capital goods. Perhaps the emergence of standard ‘half-­
share looms’ among kılabdancıs in the late eighteenth century enabled an
increased number of journeymen to acquire the status of masters.46
These various cases offer some insights and help us to raise further ques-
tions as to the causes and consequences of gedik markets. Some masters
could use their gediks to curb intra-­guild competition. As suggested by
Faroqhi, in a sector such as the manufacture of thread, including silver or
gold wire, which obviously required specific skills and relatively expensive
capital goods, the guild was probably organized in a more formal way,
implying a more hierarchical master–journeyman relationship and a more
strictly defined promotion procedure. By restricting access to capital goods,
guild masters probably did not only aim at protecting their pecuniary inter-
ests but also the established social structure. As a result in these sectors, we
do not see any partitioning of gediks or sale of gedik shares to outsiders.

Ethno-­religious Restrictions
There is another dimension to the gedik which is probably more intrigu-
ing and puzzling than any other, namely the ethno-­religious restrictions
occasionally, if not always, observed at the issuance and transfer of gediks.
A number of eighteenth-­century documents reveal that the transfer of
gediks and gedik shares from one ethnic group to another was in principle
strictly prohibited. Thus in 1194/1780, a sultanic edict ordered that the
bakeries of Armenians, when they died or left their workplaces – often
due to debts – should not be sold to members of other groups.47 As Selim
III was much given to complaining about Albanians acquiring bakeries
who were probably suspect because of their janissary connections, this
particular decree probably targeted Albanians too. Another order stated
more generally that the gediks of Armenian bakeries should only be trans-
ferred to other Armenians, while the bakeries’ gediks held by Muslims
should only go to Muslims.48
Interestingly, there are also instances where the parties involved in the
transaction ignored the prohibition of transferring gediks between ethno-­
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 233

religious groups – and moreover the authorities were willing to overlook

the irregularity.49 In this context the following example may be of inter-
est. In the early 1800s, the urban ward of Firuzağa contained a bakery
with a mill attached to it. Eight horses as well as two millstones belonged
to El-­Hac Mustafa bin El-­Hac Ahmed, who wanted to transfer them to
a mill to be established in the area of Koca Mustafa Paşa but did not
have the necessary means. In consequence he sold his shares to two non-­
Muslims, who planned to transfer their new acquisition to a mill that they
jointly owned in nearby Samatya. Even though the seller was a Muslim
and the purchasers were not, the qadi’s court endorsed the transaction,
requesting permission for re-­registration of the Samatya mill in the reg-
isters of the Baş Muhasebe (Accounting Office), given its now increased
number of millstones. We are left with the unanswered question of how
the two parties to the transaction secured the necessary official permis-
sions. Were there perhaps officials that did not believe these restrictions
to be necessary, or was there a bribe involved?
The general question then is the following: in which sectors were non-­
economic factors such as ethno-­religious identity important in restrict-
ing access to capital assets, and how did the broad context of political
economy shape these restrictions? A future systematic study of gedik
markets will hopefully allow us to answer these questions.

Conclusion

This chapter has argued that, depending on the sector and period involved,
there were different reasons for individual shopkeepers, groups of master-
sor prominent traders to register their shops as gediks, the latter turning
intowidely transacted documents certifying a multitude of property
rights. In this manner, the gediksserved the claims of established artisans
and shopkeepers, mostly organized in guilds. These people demanded
exclusive rights to practise a certain craft or trade; in other words, the
gediks fulfilled a monopoly-­sustaining function. But at the same time
gediks could serve the claims of newcomers to equal rights to capital
assets and market participation, and in this respect they were monopoly-­
eroding. Whether gediks sustained or eroded monopolies depended both
on the sector at issue and on various conditions surrounding that sector
at a particular point in time.
If a group of artisans or traders was indeed successful in fixing the
number of gediks, then gediks would serve their monopolistic privileges,
which might or might not be used against journeymen of the same group.
If in spite of the collective demands of guild members, gedik registration
234 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

did not take place, the acquisition of this ‘immaterial capital good’ might
facilitate the entry of newcomers into a sector as well as their permanent
rights to work premises.
Formal barriers to entry, however, did not imply that outsiders’ access
to capital assets was totally impossible. Whenever secondary markets were
available, the ownership of gediks and gedik shares might enable newcom-
ers to access the rents which guildsmen had obtained from their monopo-
listic privileges. When access to secondary markets was restricted, as was
often the case in the textiles sector, this fact could work in two ways. As
long as the prices of gediks were controlled, the number of journeymen
limited, and journeymen’s access to those openings that became available
regulated according to some objective criteria, the journeymen would
benefit from the restriction. If, by contrast, the prices of gediks were not
controlled and the number of journeymen was allowed to increase, then
masters could profit at the expense of journeymen.
In brief, whether guild masters succeeded in preventing journeymen
from sharing their privileges depended on the particular craft or trade in
which they were engaged. Further research may help us to better under-
stand how a given guild’s willingness and ability to set a fixed number of
gediks related to the structure and division of power within this particular
organization.

Notes
The research for this paper is financed by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research
Council of Turkey), project code 111K274.

1. For an earlier case study referring to this complex notion in similar terms, see Onur
Yıldırım, ‘Gedik: A Concept Too Many’, presented at the panel ‘Crafts and Craftsmen in
the later Ottoman Empire: From Craft to Industry in the Ottoman Empire and its Suc-
cessor States’, at the 29th German Congress of Oriental Studies combined with the 11th
Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), Halle/Saale, Germany,
20–24 September 2004.
2. Engin D. Akarlı, ‘Gedik: A Bundle of Rights and Obligations for Istanbul Artisans and
Traders, 1750–1840’, in Law, Anthropology, and the Constitution of the Social, Making
Persons and Things, edited by Alan Pottage and Martha Mundy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 166–200; Suraiya Faroqhi, ‘Between Conflict and Accommoda-
tion: Guildsmen in Bursa and Istanbul during the Eighteenth Century’, in Guilds, Economy
and Society, Proceedings of the Twelfth International Economic History Congress, B1, eds
Stephen Epstein, Clara Eugenia Nuñez, et al. (Seville: Fundacion Fomento de la Historia
Economica, 1998), 143–52; and W. Padel and Louis Steeg, De la législation foncière otto-
mane (Paris: A. Pedone, 1904), 267.
3. Gabriel Baer, ‘Monopolies and Restrictive Practices of Turkish Guilds’, Journal of the Eco-
nomic and Social History of the Orient 13 (1970), 145–65; Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlı
Tarihi, 6 vols (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1976) vol. 6, 276.
Gedik: What’s in a Name? 235

4. Engin D. Akarlı, ‘Gedik: Implements, Mastership, Shop Usufruct, and Monopoly among
Istanbul Artisans, 1750–1850’, Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin Jahrbuch (1985–86), 225–31;
Akarlı ‘Gedik: A Bundle of Rights and Obligations’; Faroqhi, ‘Between Conflict and
Accommodation’.
5. Onur Yıldırım, ‘Onsekizinci Yüzyılda Kurumsal bir Yenilik Olarak Gedik: Istanbul’daki
Kılapdancı Esnafı Örnegi’, in Osmanlı’nın Pesinde Bir Yasam: Suraiya Faroqhi’ye Armagan,
ed. Onur Yıldırım (Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 2008), 373–99.
6. Akgündüz links the early meaning of the term to several concepts referring to usufruct
rights that tenants acquired by virtue of residence and/or improvements to the premises
(hakk-­ı karar), accepted by various schools of Islamic law as early as the twelfth century. See
Ahmet Akgündüz, İslam Hukukunda ve Osmanlı Tatbikatında Vakıf Müessesesi (Ankara:
Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1988), 402–6, for the meanings of the terms sükna, girdar and
hulüvv. For a brief definition of gedik and its origins, see Ahmet Akgündüz, ‘Gedik’, in
Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, eds Bekir Topaloğlu et al. (Istanbul: Türkiye
Diyanet Vakfı, 1996), (13) 541–43.
7. Engin Akarlı, ‘Gedik: Implements, Mastership, Shop Usufruct, and Monopoly’. See also
Salih Aynural, ’18. Yüzyılın Sonunda İstanbul Esnafının Alım ve Satım Tekeli ve Gedik
Hakkı’, Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları 130 (2001), 215–20.
8. Akarlı, ‘Gedik: Implements, Mastership, Shop Usufruct, and Monopoly’; Ahmet Kal’a,
‘Gediklerin Doğuşu ve Gedikli Esnaf’, Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları 67 (1990), 181–87;
Aynural, ’18. Yüzyılın Sonunda İstanbul Esnafının Alım ve Satım Tekeli’.
9. Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 356, and Murat Çizakça, Islamic Capitalism and Finance:
Origins, Evolution, and the Future (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2011), 81.
10. Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 356–58 and 362–63; Klaus Kreiser, ‘Icareteyn: Zur “Dop-
pelten Miete” im Osmanischen Stiftungswesen’, Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986),
219–26, also appeared as Raiyyet Rüsûmu, Essays presented to Halil Inalcik on his Seventi-
eth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students. Kınalızade Ali Efendi (d. 1572), a prominent
Ottoman jurist, maintained that as long as the arrangement benefited the vakıf it should be
allowed.
11. Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyılda Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi: Bir Sosyal Tarih
İncelemesi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2003); Robert J. Barnes, An Introduction to the
Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986).
12. For instance, the chief juriconsult, Zekeriyazade Yahya Efendi (d. 1643) specified that as
heirs to the proprietors, daughters also could inherit the usufruct rights associated with
icareteyn. See Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 363.
13. Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 401–5.
14. Ibid., 366.
15. Galata court register 41, fol. 1a/2 (1616/1025). This has been transcribed in Timur
Kuran (ed.). Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında 17. Yüzyıl İstanbul’unda Sosyo-­Ekonomik Yaşam,
10 vols (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası, 2010–13), vol. 2, 253–56.
16. Ahmet Kal’a, et al. (eds.), İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri, İstanbul Vakıf Tarihi I (1742–1764)
(Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 1998) (from now: İV I), 4/57/151 (1169/
1756).
17. İV I, 1/37/166 (1155/1742).
18. İstanbul Court Register 1, fol. 51b/3 (1021/1612), cited in Kuran, Sosyo-­Ekonomik
Yaşam, vol. 2, 226–27.
19. İV I, 3/138/527 (1165/1752).
20. We thank Suraiya Faroqhi for bringing this point to our attention.
21. Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 214.
22. ‘İstanbul Mahkemesi 43 Numaralı Şeriyye Sicili (1192 Şevval 22 – 1193 Safer 29)’, tran-
scribed and edited by Mustafa Nuri Türkmen, Marmara Üniversitesi, unpublished MA
thesis, Istanbul, 1995 (from now: İM1) 43(1) (1192/1778).
236 Seven Ağır and Onur Yıldırım

23. ’1205–1207 H. Tarihli İstanbul Mahkemesine Ait Olan 60 Numaralı Hüccet Sicilinin
Transkripsiyonu’, transcribed and edited by Ekrem Yılmaz, Sakarya Üniversitesi, 1997
(from now: İM2) 60(70) (1206/1792).
24. İM2 60, No. 13, (1205/1790–91).
25. İM2 60, No. 1 (1205/1791); No. 8 (1205/1791); No. 107 (2 Ş 1206/1792), No. 159
(1207/1792); No. 178 (1207/1792–93).
26. İM2 60, No. 31 (1205/1791); No. 34 (1206/1791); No. 67 (1206/1791–92); No. 107
(1206/1792); No. 117 (1206/1702), No. 161 (1207/1792).
27. İM2 60, No. 159 (1207/1792).
28. Murat Şener, Salih Dutoğlu and Hacı Osman Yıldırım (eds), 85 Numaralı Mühimme
defteri (1040/1630–1631) <Tipkibasim> (Ankara: T.C. Basbakanlik Devlet Arsivleri Genel
Müdürlügü, 2001) No. 168. According to Eunjeong Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-­
century Istanbul, Fluidity and Leverage (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004), 157, other sectors in
which gedik assignments had already occurred by the 1600s were porters, night guards,
brokers, shoe-­tip makers, and glass manufacturers.
29. İstanbul Mahkemesi 120 Numaralı Şeriyye Sicili (found in the CD-­ROM accompanying
Nejdet Ertuğ and Şevki Nezihi Aykut (eds), İstanbul Mahkemesi 121 Numaralı Şeriyye
Sicili (Istanbul: Packard Humanities Institute and Sabancı University, 2006) (from now:
İM3) 1-­250/54, 1-­250/54b-­3, 1-­120/12b, 1-­122/49b, 17-­129/68.
30. İM2 60, No. 37 (1206/1791).
31. As early as 1757, a decree had authorized takeover and sale of the gediks of meat-­dealers
unable to repay their debts. See C. BLD. 61/3008 (1170/1757).
32. İM2 60, no. 38 (1206/1791).
33. Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyılda Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi, 115.
34. Akgündüz, Vakıf Müessesesi, 411.
35. ‘İstanbul Kadılığı 76 Numaralı Emir ve Ferman Defteri (1211–1217/1796–1803)’, tran-
scribed and edited by Hasan Çağlar, Marmara Üniversitesi, unpublished MA thesis, Istan-
bul, 1993 (from now: İK) 76, No. 23 (1207/1792) and No. 29 (1212/1798).
36. Hatt-­ı Hümayun Collection, Prime Ministry’s Archives, Istanbul. (from now: HAT) 192/
9342 (1205/1791).
37. İK 76, (1211–1217/1796–1803), No.24: ‘esnaf-­ ı mezkurenin yedlerinde olup sened
ittihaz eyledikleri evamir-­i aliyyenin mahall-­i kaydları ref ü terkin ve bu şurut-­ı meriyye
Başmuhasebe kalemine kayd . . .’
38. İK 76, no. 30, (1213/1798).
39. The creation of new gediks continued in this period. For instance, in 1811, new gediks
for snuff-­sellers were created, with 150 guruş advance payment (muaccele): Başbakanlık
Osmanlı Arşivi Cevdet Belediye (from now: C. BLD.) 13/629 (1226/1811). Gediks
for new commercial spaces such as Sultan Odaları, with use remaining unspecified, also
appeared on the market: C.BLD. 106/1528 (1218/ 1803) and C. BLD. 28/1396
(1216/1801).
40. Faroqhi, ‘Between Conflict and Accommodation’.
41. Ibid., 143.
42. C.BLD. 1698.
43. HAT 1413/57568 (1212/1797–98).
44. Sıdkı, Gedikler, 16. Similar restrictions applied also to the weavers of other types of cloth.
45. Database based on İM3 120 and İM4 121.
46. C.BLD 15 (1808).
47. C. BLD. 21/1047 (1194/1780).
48. C. BLD. 739 (1209/1795).
49. C.BLD. 14/696 (1216/1801).