#a sultana or empress with a male harem

[dodscans]

i noticed that in the manga hurrem is already referred to by the "haseki" title preceding the death of suleiman's mother, when to my knowledge he only legally married and created the title "haseki sultan" for hurrem after hafsa died, to solidify her position of authority in the harem. but manga hurrem also doesn't seem to be referred to by the title "sultan" yet, only "haseki." is it a case of historical liberty on the manga's part? and do you think manga hurrem will receive the "sultan" rank separately after being legally married to suleiman, or is she already considered someone with the rank of "sultan" since she's been given the haseki title? sorry about all the questions and tysm for the translations!

Sorry for the late reply, but I had to take a couple of books from my shelves for this XD But shortly after I figured it will take me too much time to do a deep research, so here's my unimportant opinion as an Ottoman history familiar:

When a woman is referred to as "sultan" in the Ottoman Empire, it doesn't mean that she is a "sultan." What I mean is, the Ottoman Empire does not have the "king/queen" or "emperor/empress" duos. You only have the male "sultan" as a ruler. Females being called "sultan" was mostly out of courtesy, and didn't mean that they had an official title in the state protocol.

I believe Hafsa was the first woman to be called "Valide Sultan", using the word "sultan". Also, the sultan's daughters/sisters are also referred as "sultan." For instance, we call Hatice "Hatice Sultan", but I call her simply "Princess Hatice" in the translations to avoid confusing the readers.

As for "haseki"s, they were simply sultan's favorite consort who gave him a son, and sultans had several haseki afterwards. Only the #1 haseki was called "haseki sultan." And again, That didn't make them a "sultan" like the emperor. At best, it meant that she is a woman to be respected because she is important to the sultan himself, like his female kin.

And there is also the mess created by the Europeans, who didn't understand how the Harem worked, and thought that just like their kings have queens, the Ottoman sultan must have a "sultana."

And later on, the use of the title "sultan" fell out of fashion with sultans's wives. So, we can say that even the people concerned didn't attach much meaning to it. And seriously, unless you are the valide sultan, being a "sultan" didn't make you the "sultan of the harem" anyway.

Okay, sorry but I don't even know what I'm getting at and made you read all this rambling XD

[ottomanladies]

I know that It was illegal for a man to lay eyes on a Sultan’s harem and concubines. If that is the case, how do we know of their physical features so much like a Venetian saying Hurrem wasn’t pretty, how did he, a male, know. And also, were the concubines allowed to step outside the Palace at any time or were they stuck in the palace 24 hrs. a day? Also, lastly, what would they where when they went out? THX 😊

All the physical description of concubines that we have from men are obviously descriptions that they received from other people: the sultanas' Jewish Kiras could enter and leave the harem as they wished and of course could also meet with men, for example. Harem eunuchs too could meet with anyone they wished.

We're told that Hürrem used to leave the palace only at night (so people would not see her), but she was a very high-ranking consort. Low-ranking concubines definitely could not.

“She does not let herself be seen (so they say), and if she goes out, she goes at night in a closed carriage, as [do] all the wives of the great in Turkey.” (Bassano was not wholly correct as, at least in later years, Roxelana did make daytime excursions.) — Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

When consorts (or valide sultans) went out, they probably covered themselves completely, leaving only their eyes visible.

[ottomanladies]

Hi! Can you explain me ( geographical as well, i would like to know where this palaces set up) difference between Old Palaces? I remember, that firstly ( before Murad.iii) in one of them lived women of decreased Padishah and in a another lived harem of present Padishah. But then harem of present sultan moved to Topkapi. And what happened to both old Palaces? In which one of them lives exiled Valide Sultans? ( Safiye when rebels demanded that, Kösem while second half of Ibrahim reign).

Hello! I think there's some confusion here because there are not two Old Palaces. There's just one and it's located in what is now the main entrance of the Istanbul University in Beyazit Square.

(sorry Topkapı Palace is in Italian but the rest isn’t for some reason)

The Old Palace was the first palace to be built by Mehmed the Conqueror when he conquered Constantinople. It was a large palace that extended until what would become the Süleymaniye Complex.

In 1459, construction began for what would become Topkapı Palace: the Tiled Pavilion was built first and it was here that Mehmed II moved. Most of the harem (and the royal family) stayed in the "Old Palace", as it began to be called. Inside Topkapı indeed there were only the present favourites of the sultan, that is the concubines he was bedding at the moment. As soon as one of them got pregnant she was transferred back to the Old Palace, where she would raise her child. If it was a son, her sexual role would end and she would raise him until it was time for him to become a province governor; at that point, his mother would follow him and she would be his most trusted adviser. If it was a daughter, on the contrary, she could go back to the sultan's bed until she conceived a son. She would also raise her daughter in the Old Palace until it was time for her to get married. If the sultan had got tired of the concubine or if she could not conceive, she was married off to a palace steward or another male member of the palace. In fact, it was a great honour to marry one of the sultan's former concubines.

This system meant that the female members of the royal family permanently lived in the Old Palace: the sultan's mother, his unmarried daughters and sisters, widowed princesses of any rank all lived in the Old Palace.

The first woman to move permanently to Topkapı Palace was Hürrem Sultan after her marriage to Süleyman I. Suleyman had already begun harem renovations at the end of the 1520s but after he got married in 1534, he had to build apartments for his official wife. It is not known when Hürrem moved: Necipoğlu says that she moved right after Hafsa's death and Mahidevran's departure for Manisa. Peirce is more cautious and says that the move was gradual:

The more plausible reality is that Roxelana remained a significant figure in both royal palaces, moving back and forth between them but gradually making the New Palace her primary residence following her marriage. — Peirce, Leslie. Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

In any case, her apartments were splendid:

Writing in the late 1530s, the Venetian [Luigi Bassano] informed his audience that “the palace of the Sultana is within that of the Grand Turk, and one can go through secret rooms from the one to the other.” Some fifteen years later, the ambassador Bernardo Navagero supplied further details: “In the middle [of the magnificent garden] are the rooms of the Grand Signor and of the Signora Sultana, whose room is separate; to go from one to the other, one must pass through a small walled garden belonging to the Grand Signor, and thence to another garden belonging to the Sultana, which is also walled.” [...] Bassano provided details of Roxelana’s quarters in the New Palace. “Like those of the Gran Signore, the chambers of the Sultana are most splendid,” he wrote, “with chapels, baths, gardens, and other amenities, not only for herself, but for her damsels as well, of which she keeps as many as one hundred.” — Peirce, Leslie. Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

Süleyman's son and successor Selim II lived in Topkapı with his haseki Nurbanu and possibly with the mothers of his other children. Since Hürrem had died before his accession to the throne, there was no valide sultan to house somewhere. The problem presented itself when Selim II died and his son with Nurbanu became sultan: for the first time in 50 years, there was a valide sultan and it was someone who had previously lived in Topkapı, at the centre of the power. She was not going to the Old Palace quietly, far from everything that mattered. Murad III was also a very domestic sultan: he had a nuclear family with his haseki Safiye and did not seem inclined to take more concubines; he was also very close to his mother, and considered her the best adviser he could ever have. It was only natural for him to transfer everyone to Topkapı: mother, haseki sultan and children. At this point a place was needed for the mothers of Selim II's younger sons (who had been - in the meantime - executed): the Old Palace seemed the perfect place. From this point onwards, the Old Palace would become the residence for retired concubines or women who had displeased the sultan. It became to be known as the Palace of Tears.

But what happened to the sultan's former consorts before the advent of Murad III? There were two options and they were based on the children they were mothers to: mothers of sons who had graduated to a provincial post (Mahidevran, for example) would retire in Bursa, the old capital of the Empire.

The mother of a prince who either died at his provincial post or was executed in a contest for the succession did not return to the imperial palace in Istanbul. Instead, she retired to Bursa, the first Ottoman capital, and the place where, until the conquest of Constantinople, members of the dynastic family were buried. In retirement she occupied herself with pious works. Often she undertook the construction of her own or her son's tomb. Befitting her role as senior member of her son's household, she looked after members of the deceased prince's suite and assured that they were given appropriate new posts. — Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Mothers of princesses stayed instead in the Old Palace:

Ranking lowest in the 1555–1556 register were ordinary concubine mothers. The stipend of Shah’s mother, a former consort of the mighty Selim I, was only seventy-five aspers daily, and Huma Shah’s mother received a mere thirty. — Leslie P. Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

As none of Selim II's younger sons was dispatched to a province (because they were too young but also because Murad had been already singled out as the heir), at his death their mothers were still in Topkapı. The same would happen at Murad III's death: only his eldest son and heir was dispatched to a province, his other sons were living in Topkapı with their mothers in a limbo in which they were technically adults (I think the eldest was 17) but they were not recognised as adults either because they had not graduated to a provincial post and for this reason could not acquire concubines or father children. In the Ottoman mentality, someone who did not have children was also at the base of the hierarchy (this is also why they stopped fathering children with noblewomen and foreign princesses: without children, those women were powerless)

In sum, I think you mistook Bursa with a second Old Palace.

As for your last question: Safiye was indeed sent to the Old Palace for a couple of days but Mehmed III recalled her right away after the rebellion had died out. Kösem was instead sent to the gardens of Iskender Celebi:

Ibrahim even tried to banish his mother. He planned to have her exiled to the island of Rhodes, but this indignity was resisted by his hasekis, and the sentence commuted to exile in one of the imperial gardens in the capital. According to the historian Naima, [T]he valide sultan would sometimes speak affectionately, giving counsel to the ... padishah. But because he paid no attention to her, she became reluctant to talk with him, and for a long while resided in the gardens near Topkapı. During this time the padişah became angry as a result of some rumors and sent the grand vezir Ahmed Pasha to exile the valide sultan to the garden of İskender Çelebi, thereby breaking the hearts of all, great and small — Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire