Administrative Divisions of The Ottoman Empire - Governors - Beylerbey

Beylerbey

The Turkish word for governor-general is Beylerbey, meaning ‘lord of lords’. In times of war, they would assemble under his standard and fight as a unit in the sultan’s army. However, as a territorial governor, the Beylerbey now had wider responsibilities. He played the major role in allocating fiefs in his eyalet, and had a responsibility for maintaining order and dispensing justice. His household, like the sultan’s in the capital, was the political centre of the eyalet. By the mid-16th century, apart from the principalities north of the Danube, all eyalets came under the direct rule of the sultan. The Beylerbeys were all his appointees, and he could remove or transfer them at will. Their term of office was limited: governorships were not hereditary, and no one could serve for life.

The office of Beylerbey was the most prestigious and the most profitable in the provincial government, and it was from among the Beylerbeys that the sultan almost always chose his viziers. There was also, it appears, a hierarchy among the governors themselves. The senior was the Beylerbey of Rumelia who, from 1536, had the right to sit on the Imperial Council. Precedence among the remainder, according to Ayn Ali in 1609, followed the order in which the eyalets were conquered, although he does not make it clear whether this ranking had anything other than a ceremonial significance. However, before 1650, there was another development. During this period, the practice began of appointing some Beylerbeys with the rank of vizier. A vizieral governor, according to the chancellor Abdurrahman Pasha in 1676, had command over the governors of adjoining eyalets who ‘should have recourse to him and obey his command’. Furthermore, ‘when Beylerbeys with Vizierates are dismissed from their eyalet, they listen to lawsuits and continue to exercise Vizieral command until they reach Istanbul’.