Leading Families in Ottoman Hungary

It is often rather difficult to figure out the family relationships of high-ranking officials in Hungary mentioned in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman sources. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the fortunes of members of certain important kinship groups. Also worthy of attention are prominent individuals who were not affiliated by blood, but who belonged to common networks. Among these, we find individuals of Turkish origin, but encounter many more who were renegades, from families which hailed from the Balkans. Those from Turkey are best represented by Çandarlızade Halil bey, who drew up the first cadastral surveys of the sancaks comprising the vilayet of Budin/Buda in 1546 and who went on to become defterdar of the same province in 1549, while the most significant families of Slav background were the Yahyalıs and the Sokollus. The fact that three of Yahya paşa’s offspring and other relations (Bali, Mehmed, and Arslan paşas) were appointed governors of Buda and another three (Arslan, Derviş, and Mehmed beys) were each charged with setting up a new sancak shows how influential this kinship group was, and that it transferred its main field of activity from the Balkans to the Hungarian territories in the 1540s. The Sokollus occupied high administrative positions from 1566 up until the 1620s. District governors with the cognomen Aranid were descended from a well-known Albanian noble family. One kinship group, with four or five members (Ulama, Kanber, ‘Deriel’, Mehmed Han, and Velican beys), originated from the eastern parts of the Empire; certain of them belonged to the Tekeli tribe and another was of Zulkadirli background, while the remainder were of unknown descent and had been in the shah of Iran’s service before coming to Hungary. Of Croatian origin, Kasım bey and paşa, who began his career as a voyvoda for Yahyapaşaoğlu Mehmed bey and who remained in close contact with the bey’s kinsfolk, was able to create quite a large following from among his subordinates. A smaller group of interrelated ümera – İskender, Deák (‘Scribe’) Mehmed, and Macaroğlu Ali paşa – probably had Hungarian forebears. It is still difficult to determine the real strength of these families and groupings, and also the kinds of developments they could influence and how far this influence went. Other issues are the extent to which the centre – if it so wished – could check their actions, should these go beyond the limits customary, and the kinds of political games the centre played with them. However, what cannot be disputed is that the system generally functioned rather efficiently in the period under discussion. An important reason for this – perhaps the most important one – was the very great remuneration given these officials, while the enormous prestige and extraordinary possibilities accompanying their roles also played a part