“Kefāf-ı nefsler için”: Oenophilic friars negotiating alcohol rights in eighteenth-century Galata

Abstract

This study examines the means by which individual Latin Catholic religious orders overcame alcohol-related restrictions through a case study of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in Galata, while situating it within the wider socio-political framework of contemporary Ottoman policies and popular reactions to alcohol production and use in Galata. A series of Ottoman documents from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries will be analysed in relation to the types of issues raised, local Ottoman and foreign Catholic actors and bureaucratic processes. These documents reveal that petitions were presented by the friars to the Ottoman state for issues relating to the purchase and import into Galata of raw materials for the productions of wine as well as tax exemptions. Furthermore, these documents are important sources for Ottoman palaeography and diplomatics because they contain Ottoman administrative and bureaucratic language used when addressing non-Muslim- related subjects.

Keywords

• wine
• Capuchins
• Galata
• Ottoman officials
• French ambassador