Under the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, an arpalik or arpaluk () was a large estate (i.e.

sanjak A sanjak or sancak (, , "flag, banner") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a liva (, ) from the name's calque in Arabic and Persian. Banners were a common organization of nomad ...

) entrusted to some holder of senior position, or to some

margrave Margrave was originally the Middle Ages, medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defence of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or a monarchy, kingdom. That position became hereditary in certain Feudal ...

, as a temporary arrangement before they were appointed to some appropriate position. Arpalik was a kind of

appanage An appanage, or apanage (; ), is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a monarch, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture (where only the eldest inherits). It was ...

given to members of the Ottoman elite for

tax farming Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contr ...

Etymology

The

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

corn was known as ''arpa'' in Turkish, and the feudal system in

employed the term ''arpalik'', or "barley-money", to refer to a second allowance made to officials to offset the costs of fodder for their horses (for covering the expenses of keeping a small unit of

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from ''cheval'' meaning "horse") are groups of soldiers or warriors who Horses in warfare, fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mob ...

History

The number of viziers was steadily increasing in the Ottoman Empire since the 16th century. Many of them were not satisfied with the income they received so the institution of arpalik was introduced. The rank of the people who were given arpalik was often higher than rank of the regular governor of the whole district. The institution of arpalik was introduced to make burden of government officials easier by compensating losses of its high officials. Instead of resolving problems, the arpalik created new, bigger ones. The exact duties of arpalik holders were never precisely defined by the Ottoman government which caused frequent tensions between the Porte and the province. This tensions probably additionally contributed to the decay of the traditional

timar A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A ...

(fiefdom) system because it left

sipahi The ''sipahi'' ( , ) were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Ottoman Empire. ''Sipahi'' units included the land grant–holding ('' timar'') provincial ''timarli sipahi'', which constituted most of the arm ...

out of the clear chain of command. Initially, in the sixteenth century, the number of sanjaks given as arpalik was very small. After the decline of the timar (fief) system many sanjaks in Anatolia were given as arpaliks to high Ottoman officials.

References

{{Reflist Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire Types of administrative division