Central Scrutiny, Local Records, and the Limits of Fiscal Oversight in Late Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Provinces

Abstract

Abstract

This article examines the supervisory order that the Ottoman central administration sought to establish through tevzī' registers in the late eighteenth century. Focusing on the period of Selim III (r. 1789-1807), it analyzes how locally produced apportionment registers functioned as instruments of central scrutiny, fiscal correction, and on-site inspection. Drawing primarily on the tevzī' registers of the Tevziat, Zehair, Esnaf ve İhtisab Defterleri series in the Ottoman Archives (BOA, A.DVNS.TZEİ.d., nos. 1-4) and examining district-level cases from Anatolia, Rumelia, and the Morea throughout the late eighteenth century, the article argues that tevzī' registers occupied an intermediate position between local fiscal practice and central supervision, recording how district-level expenses were apportioned among the local population. The study shows that the arrangements introduced under Selim III aimed to render local fiscal burdens more visible, ensure their more systematic recording, and make them more accessible to central scrutiny and intervention. However, this supervisory order remained limited by the local production of records, the influence of provincial intermediaries, delays in central approval, wartime fiscal pressure, and the costs associated with superintendent [nāzır] appointments, while the analysis itself is bounded by the empire's avārız-paying regions and does not extend to provinces of special status such as Egypt. The article concludes that these measures should be understood neither as a failed reform nor as the full centralization of provincial finance, but as a limited yet significant expansion of the center's capacity to gather information and intervene in local fiscal affairs.