Mapping İstanbul's hammams of 1752 and their employees

Abstract

Following the Patrona Halil Revolt, which ended on 2 October 1730 with the deposition of Sultan Ahmed III, the Ottoman administration became especially concerned about the great number of Patrona Halil’s fellow countrymen – that is, Albanians – who crowded into Istanbul in search of employment. In the view of Istanbul bureaucrats these men constituted a dangerous ‘mob’. Of particular interest to officialdom were the many Albanian tellâks and nâtırs staffing Istanbul’s bathhouses, since Patrona Halil himself had been a bath attendant. Moreover the latter’s ability to mobilize a rebellious crowd was based not only on ethnic solidarity (or being hemcins). The nature of his profession was also important, as it brought him into close contact with the many bathers frequenting his workplace, the Bayezid Hamamı (no. 43 on Map 4.2 at the end of the chapter). It should therefore come as no surprise that the administration felt the need to police hammam employees more closely, a quest that began with the creation of a detailed record of all the existing bathhouses of Istanbul, including their male staff. Accordingly, an imperial decree of 1734/5 ordered that ‘whoever works in a hammam [. . . they] shall all be registered with their names and patronymics and it shall be written where they are from, their appearance and their features shall be described; next to the names of the Albanians, with a red pen shall be made a sign saying “Albanian”’.