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atlanticcanada · 2 years

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Nova Scotia Power parent company expected to detail impact of power rate cap

The fallout from the Nova Scotia government's imposed rate cap on the province's privately owned electrical utility is expected to be detailed during Emera Inc.'s earnings call today.

The parent company of Nova Scotia Power says it will provide an updated rate base investment forecast and funding plan during its third-quarter call.

The utility had applied for a nearly 14 per cent rate hike over two years with the provincial regulator earlier this year.

But the province stepped in and passed legislation to limit the power rate increase to 1.8 per cent over the next two years, excluding increases linked to fuel costs.

The changes to the Public Utilities Act also took aim at the utility's profit by preventing the regulator from approving a rate of return on equity any higher than 9.25 per cent, down from the 9.5 per cent requested.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said last month on Twitter his government would "take the necessary steps to protect you from unfair rate increases while helping to ensure your lights stay on."

The Oct. 19 announcement sent Emera shares tumbling more than 10 per cent following a temporary trading halt, before recovering to just under five per cent down at close at $51.68 a share.

Nova Scotia Power said the cap has restricted its ability to invest in power grid upgrades and renewable sources of energy.

"This legislation prevents us from investing a planned half a billion dollars in clean energy projects in Nova Scotia," Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman Jacqueline Foster said in an email.

"It will take time to fully assess the implications of the legislation," she said. "In the meantime, we've pressed pause on our team's work on the Atlantic Loop."

The Atlantic Loop is a proposed $5-billion transmission megaproject, which would give the region more access to Labrador and Quebec hydroelectricity.

It's a key part of efforts to end the region's reliance on coal power.

Both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have committed to phasing out their coal-fired generation by 2030, while Nova Scotia has enshrined in law its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 53 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has said Nova Scotia has limited options to meet its goal of getting off coal asides from the Atlantic Loop, but called the conflict between Emera and the province a "bump in the road."

RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Maurice Choy said in a client note that the cap could prompt Emera to limit investments in Nova Scotia Power and "redirect the capital to other parts of its business, including Florida."

Emera is the parent company of Tampa Electric, which operates on the west coast of Florida.

Choy also noted that Emera could cut 60 new reliability-related jobs outlined in the utility's 2022 general rate application filed in January as part of a broader effort to rein in operating costs.

Energy analyst Bill Marshall said the government shouldn't interfere in the work of the provincial regulator.

"The entity that exists, that is empowered to decide whether the application is fair or not, is the the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board," said Marshall, president at WKM Energy Consultants Inc. in Fredericton, N.B. "They're the entity that has the power and responsibility to ensure Nova Scotia Power's investments are prudent and in the best interests of customers in Nova Scotia."

He added: "The government has overstepped its authority here by handcuffing the regulator from doing its job."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2022.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/9JbQRBW

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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anamedblog · 2 years

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The Shadow of Early Modern Istanbul: Be makâm-ı Konstantiniyye el Mahmiyye

by Mehmet Ali Çelik, ANAMED PhD Fellow 2021–2022

Constantinople: The Historic Peninsula. Engraving by Jaspar Isac.

As a student of early modern Ottoman social and economic history, I always feel the shadow of Istanbul in my research. I am not studying the Ottoman capital city or any other urban center per se. The focus of my dissertation project is the countryside, more specifically agrarian social and economic relations.

So, I am constantly thinking about the provinces, not Istanbul. Moreover, as a fellow living in Istanbul for almost nine months now, I also found myself thinking about Istanbul for my blog post, and in a way was conditioned, so to speak, to do so. Of course, this must be the effect of living in Istanbul for a while; Istanbul is one of the overarching themes in most of the ANAMED blog posts. This can also be a good opportunity and exercise for me to think and write about early modern Istanbul. I might even contribute to this collection of posts with my humble “provincial perspective.”

I have been staring at the colored version of Jaspar Isaac’s engraving of Istanbul (dated between 1650 and 1659?) in my room at ANAMED since late September. This engraving has also served me well as a “cool” background for online meetings. Early engravings, maps, and paintings provide us a venue to think about early modern sites, in this case Istanbul and what kind of a city it was. They also reflect the vision and interest of the creators of these representational forms. We must not forget that the city itself is an agent of this image-making process. It gives itself in a specific way to be perceived and related to.

In Jaspar Isaac’s engraving, the city is well surrounded and protected by the walls. Topkapı Palace, Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque, Şehzade Mosque, Bayezid II Mosque, Fatih Mosque, Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque, and S��leymaniye Mosque are prominent buildings in the city. It is unlikely that Jaspar Isaac visited Istanbul, but this engraving still reflects a certain image of mid-seventeenth century Istanbul, a city dominated by imperial structures. The Imperial Palace and Mosques are towering over small ordinary houses. The city is well organized and ordered around these imperial establishments. A similar but more colorful sixteenth century Ottoman example is Matrakçı Nasuh’s miniature.

Matrakçı Nasuh, Istanbul.

Source: http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/Ext/matruk.html.

Another seventeenth-century engraving is made by French traveler and draughtsman Guillaume-Joseph Grelot. This more realistic engraving was published in his book, Relation nouvelle d'un voyage de Constantinople, originally in French in 1680 and in English in 1683. In the book, Grelot describes the city with its topography, history, and its prominent buildings and structures. Chapters on Istanbul start with two images of the city from different perspectives. These two images work like windows opening to inner and more specific book sections on the royal palace and chief mosques, especially Hagia Sophia and Süleymaniye Mosques. He also gives his own account of the Greek Church, Greek faith, sacraments, festivals, and religious rituals of the Turks, Muslim ecclesiastical officers, the Ottoman courts of justice, and the civil professions of the Turks. Grelot’s orientalizing tone is prominent throughout the book. At the end, he concludes that these barbarian Turks are the sworn enemies of ingenuity; they are not interested in establishing prosperity in their dominions, and they do not care about the amphitheaters, paintings, sculptures, and other products of noble Arts. In Grelot’s discourse and engravings, the imperial structures have a special place; they overshadow the landscape and the city. Furthermore, the order of imperial establishments is also interesting in the picture. From right to left, they are Sancta Sophia, the Entrance of the Seraglio, the Officers’ Apartments, the Chamber of the Divan (Divan-i Humayun, basically the office of the imperial central government), and the Apartments of the Women of the Grand Seigneur. So, it is not really difficult to see the orientalizing and exoticizing gaze of the author, which takes Istanbul as a city in the middle of the spectacular and glamorous natural scene ruled by barbarous Turks from the Harem.

Engraving from Guillaume-Joseph Grelot, Relation nouvelle d'un voyage de Constantinople. Source: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8726892q.

Source: https://archive.org/details/gri_relationnouv00grel.

Grelot, Guillaume-Joseph,b.ca.1630. 1683. A Late Voyage to Constantinople. Source: https://www.proquest.com/books/late-voyage-constantinople-containing-exact/docview/2240972919/se-2?accountid=11893.

I do not think that Grelot’s contemporary Evliya Çelebi—an admirer of European engravings and famous Ottoman traveler—would agree with him about the barbarous nature of Turks in Istanbul, especially the Ottoman ruling elite. As a son of a palace goldsmith and a proud Turkish Istanbulite educated in the Ottoman palace, Evliya conceived the city as where civilization prospered, and Islam was an integral part of this urbanite culture. He frequently uses the term Islambol, meaning “full of Islam,” for Istanbul, which was the center of his world. During the course of his travels, many encounters with “rustic peasants and provincial people” give clues about the city and cultural hierarchy between Istanbul and the provinces from an Istanbulite learned gentleman’s perspective. For instance, even if he was proud of his Turkish ancestry, Evliya identifies the spoken language of the Turks in Anatolia as “the language of incapable and unclean Turks (Lisân-ı Etrâk-i nâ-kâbil-i nâ-pâk)” (eds. Dankoff 2005, 32) while also noting that it is his ancestral language. So, something must have happened when his ancestors came to Istanbul.

In addition to this cultural hierarchy, early modern Istanbul’s political and symbolic importance was always emphasized by the ruling elite. Just to give an example, the imperial orders sent to the provinces usually end with the signature be makâm-ı Konstantiniyye el mahmiyye or be makâm-ı Konstantiniyye el mahruse, meaning “from the well protected city of Constantinople” or “written in the Protected city of Constantinople,” and are addressed to “the well-protected domains,” memalik-i mahruse. What I meant by the shadow at the beginning of this post is this political and cultural shadow cast upon the provinces and the city itself by the imperial center and elite. This is also visible in the early modern impressions of the city, a well-ordered and organized city, centered around the imperial sites.

However, this is only one aspect of the city. The same elite perspective can give us other clues about this urban center, as well. In the first decade of the seventeenth century, the unknown janissary author of the code of the corps implies that Istanbul is a place that opens people’s eyes and corrupts them. So, no Christian boy shall be recruited to the corps if they had already visited Istanbul and returned to their provinces (Kafadar 2021, 29–30). Interestingly and ironically, a similar elite vision is reflected in the foundation of a new army called the Nizâm-ı Cedîd (the New Order) in the late eighteenth century. This new army of the new order was an alternative to the janissary corps, representing the old, traditional order, according to the proponents of this project. Recruits for the new army were from Muslim peasants, whose eyes had not been opened by urban life, and hence are uncorrupted by the city (Yaycioglu 2016, 41). Here, both visions suggest that urban life makes people unruly and unsuitable to discipline, in contrast to the docility of the provincial peasants.

Of course, this is the early modern Ottoman elite’s vision, and it does not necessarily reflect the complete social reality. No peasant was docile, and no urbanite was unruly, by their nature. However, it is again not surprising to see such an elite concern about the unruly city and urban crowd with open eyes. After all, Istanbul hosted twelve major revolts between the late sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. In that sense, the imperial, orderly shadow cannot really contain the complexity of the social life in the city. The same is true for the provinces.

Looking from the provinces, Istanbul was the seat of power, for sure, and sometimes a place to look for justice. In early modern Ottoman political discourse, the sultanic authority is based upon the just order of the world. Some historians tend to date this understanding back to the ancient Near Eastern state tradition. A tenth-century Islamic schematic formulation reads:

The world is a garden, hedged in by sovereignty

Sovereignty is lordship, preserved by law

Law is administration, governed by the king

The king is a shepherd, supported by the army

The army are soldiers, fed by money

Money is revenue, gathered by the people

The people are servants, subjected by justice

Justice is happiness, the well-being of the world (Darling 2013, 2–3)

A sixteenth-century Ottoman intellectual, Kinalizade, formulates this circular understanding in a more sincere and direct way: no power without troops, no troops without money, no money without prosperity, no prosperity without justice and good administration (Darling 2013, 2–3). The sultan or the state may seem to endow justice to the subjects here. The seat of power also seems like the center of the cosmic order, in this case, Istanbul. A one-dimensional reading of this discourse forgets the starting point of the circle, namely the troops, or, simply, power. In addition, this is just an imperial elite vision and discourse, which corresponds to certain political hierarchies, and it does not reflect the complexity of social and political life. In reality, a provincial demand for justice, either by peasants or other sorts of commoners, is always a calculated and negotiated act involving many parties rather than a one-dimensional patronizing act of the sultan. Furthermore, the imperial seat can also be a seat of injustice and oppression, as it was for the large masses of people with diverse backgrounds, like uprooted peasants or low-ranking military functionaries, in late sixteenth century Anatolia.

Just like all other large early modern cities, Istanbul always needed laborers and food. Apart from Istanbul being the seat of power, looking from the provinces, the city has always been a center of attraction for those looking for livelihood, and it provided many opportunities, thanks to its large urban economy. Migrant workers have always been an important constituent element of the city. Even if the Ottoman authorities tried to prevent migration most of the time due to concerns about the public order, it never stopped. Istanbul was also a giant to be fed. The provision of food was an absolute necessity for the city. Provincial grain was the most essential part of it, and it required a very complex supply and demand chain, involving peasants, workers, big farm-owners, state officers, merchants, all the urbanites, and even rebellious crowds in its absence.

The provincial perspective is not necessarily about the geographical focus of the interpretation. In the case of Istanbul, decentering what early modern Istanbul represented as an imperial capital can be a productive way of reading the question. Neither the city itself nor its relationship with the provinces were perfectly ordered and organized around the imperial establishments of various sorts. The imperial elite visions and political discourses also do not reflect the complete picture of the city and provinces. Evliya Çelebi’s term Islambol might emphasize the abundance of Islam, but the significant Jewish and Christian presence in the city cannot be underestimated; peasants might be quite unruly, though dissent could also be enjoyable for the urbanite.

A short bibliography for the curious readers:

Dankoff, Robert. An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi (revised Second Edition). Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Darling, Linda T. A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization. London: Routledge, 2013.

Evliya Çelebi. Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, 9. Kitap. Edited by R. Dankoff, S. A. Kahraman, and Y. Dağlı. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2005.

Grelot, Guillaume-Joseph. A Late Voyage to Constantinople Containing an Exact Description of the Proportis and Hellespont, with the Dardanels, and what Else is Remarkable in those Seas, as also of the City of Constantinople ... : Likewise an Account of the Ancient and Present State of the Greek Church, with the Religion and Manner of Worship of the Turks, their Ecclesiastical Government, their Courts of Justice, and Civil Employments : Illustrated ... in Fourteen Copper-Plates ... / Published by Command of the French King by Monsieur William Joseph Grelot ; made English by J. Philips. London: Printed by John Playford, and are to be sold by Henry Bonwicke, 1683. https://www.proquest.com/books/late-voyage-constantinople-containing-exact/docview/2240972919/se-2?accountid=11893.

Hamadeh, Shirine, and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu , eds. A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul. Leiden: Brill, 2021.

Hamadeh, Shirine. “Invisible City: Istanbul’s Migrants and the Politics of Space.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 50, no. 2 (2017): 173–193.

Kafadar, Cemal. “The City Opens Your Eyes Because It Wants to Be Seen The Conspicuity and Lure of Early Modern Istanbul.” In A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, edited by Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, 25–60. Leiden: Brill, 2021.

Kafadar, Cemal. “Janissaries and Other Riffraff or Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels without a Casue?” In Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz, edited by Baki Tezcan and Karl K. Barbir, 113–134. Madison, WI: Center for Turkish Studies at the University of Wisconsin, 2007.

Sariyannis, Marinos. ”Unseen Rebels: The ‘Mob’ of Istanbul as a Constituent of Ottoman Revolt, Seventeenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries,” Turkish Historical Review 10 (2020): 155–188, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-01002009.

Yaycioglu, Ali. Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2016.

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latristereina · 6 years

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By the fifteenth century, however, the devolution of substantial authority on a queen-lieutenant had become permanent. The last two queens to serve as lieutenants—Maria of Castile and Juana Enríquez—dominated fifteenth-century Aragonese politics and established important precedents for long reign of Isabel of Castile (Maria’s niece and Juana’s daughter-in-law). Taken together, they governed for forty years. Maria, wife of Alfonso IV, served as Lieutenant General in various realms (but mostly in the principality of Catalunya) from 1421-23 and 1432-53. She maintained a court separate from the king’s at Naples, took council from her own sacrum consilium, convoked Corts regularly, and governed forcefully during a difficult period in Catalan history. Juana Enríquez served as Lieutenant General for her husband, Juan II (1458-79) from 1461 to 1477. Even more so than Maria (her sister-in-law), Juana was a co-ruler with Juan: She had proved her worth as his right hand during the tumult of the civil war and governed Girona during the siege, and became Lieutenant in her own right in 1465. Maria governed longer and possessed broader powers than any of her predecessors. In May 1420, prior to embarking on a military conquest of Naples, Alfonso named Maria, then eighteen years old, as Lieutenant General. In the privilegio, he delegated to her full governmental powers over the kingdoms of Aragón and Valencia, the principality of Catalunya, and the island of Mallorca, stipulating that her powers as Lieutenant General should be equivalent to his own as king and that she had the authority to rule independently. Maria had full sovereign power over all civil and criminal jurisdictions in all four realms, including the army and the military orders. Her authority superseded all other officials—royal, seigneurial, regional, local—including provincial governors, prelates and religious orders, nobles, townspeople, and peasants. She could grant constitutions, make laws, sign letters with her own hand according to her own conscience, carry out justice, both civil and criminal, and name judges and delegates. She could summon, convoke, and preside over the Corts, the regional parliamentary assemblies. This explicit statement of Maria’s legitimately sanctioned authority makes it clear that she held her authority at the king’s discretion. Her authority was equivalent to the king’s, but he retained the ultimate authority. He held dominion, yet in practice they governed together. In 1423 Alfonso returned home empty-handed and the first privilegio expired, but in 1432 he again seized the chance to conquer Naples. This time his original intention was to grant the lieutenancy not to Maria but to his brother, Juan of Navarre, Alfonso’s heir and therefore constitutionally qualified to act for the king. But Juan was a testy and difficult man and the Catalan Corts asked that Maria be placed in charge. An abiding animosity had developed between Juan and the Catalans that threatened to impede government at all levels. They feared, and rightly so, that Juan would drag them into further conflict with Castile, and probably thought, but did not state outright, that Maria would not be nearly as difficult to deal with as Juan and that they could more easily get their way. Most important to Alfonso, however, was the fact that Maria had clearly demonstrated her political abilities. Alfonso changed his mind and named her Lieutenant General, with governmental authority which was essentially the same as in 1420, except that it included all of Alfonso’s Iberian realms. Maria faced a serious crisis in 1435 when a disastrous defeat of the Aragonese navy near Ponza on 5 August resulted in the capture of Alfonso and his brothers. She convoked a Corts Generales of the three realms in Moneó to negotiate with the Genoese, request a subsidy of 100,000 gold florins to pay for his ransom, and organize a rescue fleet. After his release, Alfonso remained in Italy to complete the conquest of Naples and sent Juan, also released from captivity, to Spain. Recognizing the problems inherent in ruling from a distance, and probably wanting to protect himself in the event that something should happen to either Juan or Maria, and fearful that his war in Italy might spread to Catalunya, Alfonso named his brother co-lieutenant in Catalunya with Maria. Once the threat from Italy subsided, Juan devoted more attention to his own kingdom of Navarre. In November 1438 Alfonso, asserting Maria’s ability to govern alone, revoked the co-lieutenancy arrangement of 1436 and granted her full powers as lieutenant in Aragón, Valencia, and Mallorca as well as Catalunya. Ill health and an outbreak of the plague in Valencia limited her ability to govern such a wide region, but she retained full powers in Catalunya and Mallorca. Two years later, as an indication of his increased trust in his wife and his preoccupation with the war in Italy, Alfonso further amplified her powers as lieutenant and gave her greater control over royal finances, both income and expenditures. A decade later, relations between Alfonso and Juan grew worse after the dual catastrophe of defeat at the battle of Olmedo (19 May 1445) and Infant Ernie’s death. Alfonso relied on Maria to provide not only good government but also accurate accounts of Juan’s behavior. In October 1445, Alfonso reinstated Juan as Lieutenant General in Aragón and Valencia but sternly warned him that if he intervened in Castile the lieutenancy would be given to Maria permanently because he would not treat his wife ‘as a child does a toy on a string’. Juan paid attention to his brother’s threat and this configuration—Maria as Lieutenant General of Catalunya and Mallorca, and Juan of Aragón and Valencia—lasted until 1453. The co-lieutenancy arrangement was not a perfect solution, and may have been intended all along as a temporary expedient. Alfonso defined each lieutenant’s powers and duties according to need, not theory, and the only meaningful difference between the two lieutenants is that Juan was expected to take seriously the military powers which Maria delegated. On the other hand, Alfonso relied on Maria to keep the administration running smoothly and used her as a buffer between Juan and the Catalans and he made certain that Juan was never lieutenant of Catalunya unless Maria was co-lieutenant. Even the joint lieutenancy of Juan and Maria in Catalunya lasted only two years, from November 1438 to October 1440, and they never governed together at the same time: Maria was in charge when Juan was away, and vice-versa. Even when the military situation was calm, Juan could not be trusted to focus on his duties as lieutenant. In 1438 Alfonso wanted to force the Justicia of Aragón from office but he doubted that Juan would carry out his orders (‘because he [Juan] does not wish to face the unpleasantness’), so he arranged for Maria to take over the task, and he had a notary keep a complete record of all Juan’s council proceedings. Alfonso had another good reason to switch lieutenants from time to time—the fragile state of Maria’s health. She suffered from a chronic ailment, perhaps epilepsy, and she was prone to fevers and other debilitating viral or bacterial illness. In general, he was reluctant to appoint a substitute for Maria when she fell ill and typically preferred to assume a wait and see approach. The king counted on the well-organized, highly efficient Catalan bureaucrats to handle routine matters of tax collection and processing of judicial petitions until she recovered. But at times she seemed near death, and waiting and seeing was not an option. In May 1440, for instance, she had called a Corts to meet in Lleida to request money for Alfonso’s war against Genoa. While there she became so ill, ‘more dead than alive’, that her opening speech to the Corts was read for her. She urged Alfonso to appoint someone to take over for her, but he wrote back saying that he preferred her and no other. He suggested that she prorogue the Corts and go to Valencia to recuperate. Nevertheless, Alfonso was not about to take chances. At the time, Juan and the Infante Enrique were completely absorbed in Castilian affairs, so he had documents drawn up that named Carles of Viana (1421-61), the nineteen-year-old son of Juan of Navarre, as Lieutenant General. Carles was inexperienced in government and to complicate matters, he and his father were not on good terms and Alfonso may have been concerned about how the two would get along. But by October Maria was back at work and her nephew was not needed. Throughout her two terms as Lieutenant General Maria proved herself to be prudent, fair, and effective and by the mid-1440s, Maria had become Alfonso’s indispensable partner in government. Prior lieutenants had maintained an extensive administrative court that resembled the king’s, but Maria was the first queen-lieutenant with a Consell and Audiencia separate from the king’s that possessed both advisory and judicial functions. She met weekly with her royal council, regularly convoked Corts, consulted with the Diputació del General (the standing committee of the Corts that met when the Corts was not in session), and routinely sat in on sessions of the Consell de Cent, the town council of Barcelona. Regular mail deliveries carried the official documents and private letters between Alfonso and Maria. The Catalans were instructed to report on the proceedings of the Barcelona town council and parliamentary assemblies to both Alfonso and Maria. Much of her time was spent in the administration of ordinary civil and criminal justice; supervision of the financial offices; governance of all subordinate comital, regional, and municipal officials; and maintenance of public order. She passed on to Alfonso all matters dealing with military affairs, diplomacy, the higher nobility and the church; she wrote detailed letters describing the issues and outlining her proposed plans; she suggested candidates for vacant offices; she referred judicial cases that fell outside her jurisdiction; and she reported to him the deliberations of her own council and court. Perfunctory salutations such as ‘Amada muller’ ‘Carissima reyna’ aside, the relationship between Alfonso and Maria was strictly business. Long before the 1440s, she must have resigned herself to marriage to an absentee husband who had a mistress and three illegitimate children, and only after 1450 did she give up on the thought of his return to Spain. She devoted herself to the task at hand, to govern Catalunya in his stead which became difficult during the mid-1440s when two separate but intertwined issues—the convocation of Corts in the absence of the king and Alfonso’s decision to grant manumission to a group of semi-servile peasants (the remenees )—galvanized Catalunya. María’s convocation of the Corts of Catalunya raised constitutional questions while the discussions about the peasants embraced social, economic, and legal concerns. The two issues became connected when the issue of peasant manumission was brought before the Corts, with Maria presiding. Her convocation of the Corts was, in itself, problematic enough for the Catalan ruling elites, but her open support of the peasants made it difficult for them to work with her for a resolution. Maria presided over eight separate sessions of the Corts of Catalunya between 1435 and 1458, most of which were highly charged events. Two separate issues were central to the dispute over a queen-lieutenant routinely presiding over the Corts: first, the legality in general of such a delegation of authority to a lieutenant, and second, the question of what it meant to the Catalans to have a woman stand in for the king in such a weighty matter. The authority to convoke the Corts by the king, in person, was central to Aragonese kingship, and the pertinent question was whether that right was transferable to his lieutenants. Alfonso’s privilegios are unambiguous, but the convocation of Corts by a lieutenant who was also a queen inverted the political order by substituting a female royal body for a male one. The final sessions of Corts over which Maria presided dealt with the manumission of the remenga peasants, an issue that had been brewing for decades, came to the fore in 1447, and occupied all concerned for the next seven years. Ultimately, the issue became not just peasant manumission, but who was to decide the issue itself? The king? The Lieutenant General? The Corts? The remenga dispute is emblematic of the wider theoretical issues of Aragonese kingship, the scope of the office of the Lieutenant General, and ultimately, of co-rulership. In this matter, Tomás Mieres, a prominent jurist and member of the king’s council, provided key support for a lieutenant’s convocation of the Corts. In his treatise, Apparatus super Constitutionibus Curiarum Generalium Cathalonie (1446), Mieres ruled that the authority to convoke the Corts did not rest entirely with the king, but that it could be delegated, as much to a queen as to a prince. The struggle over the remenees was nasty and protracted. Alfonso needed money to finance wars in Italy and the high cost of government in Naples and Barcelona. Maria, following along the path forged fifty years earlier by other queen-lieutenants, Maria de Luna, argued in favor of the peasants from a humanitarian stance. The Catalan landlords tried to minimize their financial losses should the remenees gain their freedom and were willing to go over Maria’s head, directly to the king in Naples, to get what they wanted. The peasants, of course, simply wanted to secure an improvement in their status. The king played one side against the other, granting manumission in 1448 but suspending the order a year later, then seeming to favor the peasants only to change his mind again, and finally in 1450 summoning the Corts to discuss the matter. On 20 July 1450, in a letter to her secretary she considered the entire matter of the remenees in peril of collapse (‘E lo negoci per go sta en bassat e en gran perfil’) because the peasants have lost hope (‘sindichs e pagesos comenger a perdre cor e speranga’), all because of Alfonso’s bad faith negotiation and double dealing. Shortly thereafter, she begged Alfonso not to change his mind and revoke his support, or risk serious unrest among the peasants (‘qualsevol sinistre o perill que de ago pugnes insurge lo que deu no vulla’). She was not exaggerating the seriousness of the situation. That summer, the countryside which had been quiet for over a year came alive again with hints of unrest. The events of 1451 and 1452 were mostly filled with watching and waiting and embassies to and from Naples, marked by Alfonso’s periodic changes of heart. Maria fought vociferously on behalf of the peasants in the Corts, in her actions against the increasingly bellicose lords, and in her letters to her husband, a master of vacillation. In July 1451, she considered the Corts’ offer of a subsidy of 400,000 florins in exchange for the king’s return to Catalunya and, presumably, for a revocation of the decree of manumission. In November, the queen wrote directly to the peasants explaining that, in light of the fact that the manumission decrees would be prejudicial to the landlords, she and Alfonso were seriously considering a revocation of the decrees of 1448 and ordering a return to the status quo ante. A ‘gran clamor’ among the peasants resulted, but the threat of violence and rebellion notwithstanding, in March of 1452, Alfonso tentatively accepted the offer from the Corts, but delayed public announcement until May. Their working relationship was transformed by Alfonso’s revocation of manumission and Maria’s frustration and annoyance spilled over in her letters to him. Having made a decision to abandon the remenees against her advice, in effect over her head, she insisted that he tell her precisely why he changed his mind. As if to emphasize that he now wanted her to simply carry out intentions without listening to her, she wanted to know explicitly what he wanted her to do and when. She had lost all credibility within the Corts, she wrote, and no one will work with her directly. As for the remenees, they were most aggrieved (‘grandissi-mament agreujiats’) at the turn of events. The remenga representatives were afraid to return home where they would face 400,000 very angry peasants who would not be happy if they came home without the deal they were promised. Maria’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Alfonso changed his mind again and in February 1453 he revoked the obligation. By that spring he realized that he could not delay a final decision any longer. In a final about-face, on 15 July 1453, Alfonso re-established peasant obligations to their lords. Expressing frustration and sadness that she had spent five years in fruitless negotiations in the Corts (‘non ha sortit algún fruyt ni algún útil’), Maria nevertheless continued to work through the summer of 1453. In her letters to Alfonso she described seemingly endless wrangling in the Corts and frustration with petty demands. Her health began to decline, but her anger did not falter. On 25 July 1453 she wrote another angry letter to Alfonso about the remenees, this time telling him that the remenees were very angry at having spent a lot of money for nothing, and that the burden of this decision—she foresaw great quarrels with the remenees—was on both their consciences. She finally quit the lieutenancy in the late summer of 1453, predicting that quarrels over Corts and peasants would continue. After leaving Catalunya on 9 October 1453, she spent the rest of that year and most of 1454 engaged in negotiations with her brother and brother-in-law concerning the Castilian succession. Her last years, from 1454 to 1458, were spent mostly in Valencia, where she governed as Lieutenant General and only occasionally took part in events in Catalunya. To replace his wife, Alfonso broke with tradition and legal precedent and appointed Galceran de Requesens, a knight with no connections at all to the royal family. Before she left, she warned Alfonso that the new government may not go smoothly. Her predictions proved accurate: Requesens remained in office for just one year. There were protests to his lieutenancy, and he wrote to Maria, asking for help with the testy Catalans. The latter letter is a remarkable admission of the difficulty of his position, in which he asked Maria to return to Barcelona and resume as lieutenant in his place. Alfonso recognized his mistake and did not repeat it: in July 1454 he replaced Requesens with his brother Juan who, for all his shortcomings, was at least a member of the royal family. Theresa Earenfight, “Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain”

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ottomanladies · 5 years

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Hello! And what can you tell about Sultan Murad the third as a ruler? He is called the useless Sultan, but is it? Now, if we abstract from the harem, what policy did he carry out, what kind of wars were there in his reign, riots, etc.? It is known that he won the war with Persia ..

Who calls him the useless sultan? I’ve never encountered such nickname for Murad III. To be honest, I don’t think he ever had a nickname.

the Ottoman-Safavid war of 1578–90: following Şah Tahmasp’s death in 1576 and the internal division inside the Safavid state that his death provoked, a party of the Divan - led by Lala Mustafa Paşa - thought it was the right time to conquer the Caucasus, which Süleyman I had occupied but not conquered. The decisive Ottoman victory was at Vilasa in 1583, the so-called "Battle of the Torches". Ottoman rule in the Caucasus as far as the Caspian was restored and direct rule in Sirvan and Dagistan established. The sultan's suzerainty over the Georgian kings was reasserted, with Ottoman garrisons assuring more constant loyalty than had been the case previously. Özdemiroğlu Osman Paşa also occupied Yerevan and most of Armenia, securing a defence line against Russian or Persian attacks.

the Long Hungarian War of 1593–1606: war against the Habsburgs which started off as raids in Hungary (secretly encouraged by Venice). A particularly ferocious raid by the Austrians triggered the response of the Bosnian governor, who captured several Habsburg forts; at this point, the emperor renounced the peace treaty he had confirmed in 1590, and Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Paşa declared war to the Holy Roman Empire.

Relations with England: in 1579, Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Paşa negotiated a trade agreement with England, which was given the same privileges as France and Venice. In 1590, the new Capitulations agreement was signed, allowing England merchants to come to the Ottoman Empire with their merchandise by sea or land, under the protection of their own flag, and to buy and sell goods in the sultan's dominions without any hindrance.

Imperial financial problems: devaluation of Ottoman coinage in 1585, which led to various Janissary uprisings and their execution of Grand Vizier Şemsi Paşa.

Military rebellions: provincial administrators and former soldiers rebelled in the Anatolian countryside, which will plague most of Mehmed III's reign.

Patron of the arts: he favoured many poets, writers, theologians and scientists. Murad III was a poet himself, under the pseudonym Muradi.

Etablishment of court and favourites as defining features of Ottoman power politics: increased influence of the valide sultan in politics and rise of favourites in the imperial court; Şemsi Paşa was the first of the big favourites in Murad III's court, whom he needed as he rarely left Topkapi Palace and did not participate in government meetings.

Ottoman intervention in Poland: the end of the Jagellonian dynasty in 1572 triggered a reaction by the major European forces. Being Poland an elective monarchy, it was important both to the Austrians and to the Ottomans to secure the throne for a sympathetic candidate. The Ottomans initially supported the French candidate, Henri de Valois, but the death of his elder brother Charles IX forced him to return to France to become King of France. Some of the Polish nobles elected Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II but his election was not universally recognised and the Ottomans and the French managed to impose their new candidate, Stefan Báthory, who was already a vassal of the sultan.

sources: G. Agoston and B. Masters - Encyclopedia of Ottoman Empire, Stanford J Shaw - History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (volume I)

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inkariasacademyworld · 5 years

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Constitutional Development

The Constituent Assembly was constituted in November 1946 under the scheme formulated by the Cabinet Mission Plan. The features of the scheme were:  The total strength of the Constituent Assembly was to be 389. Of these, 296 seats were to be allotted to British India and 93 seats to the Princely States. Out of 296 seats allotted to the British India, 292 members were to be drawn from the eleven governors’ provinces and four from the four chief commissioners’ provinces, one from each.  Each province and princely state (or groups of states in case of small states) were to be allotted seats in proportion to their respective population. Roughly, one seat was to be allotted for every million population.  Seats allotted to each British province were to be decided among the three principal communities – Muslims, Sikhs and general (all except Muslims, Sikhs and general (all except Muslims and Sikhs), in proportion to their population.  The representatives of each community were to be elected by members of that community in the provincial legislative assembly and voting to be done by the method of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.  The representatives of princely states were to be nominated by the heads of the princely states.  It is thus clear the Constituent Assembly was to be partly elected and partly nominated body. Moreover, the members were to be indirectly elected by the members of the provincial assemblies, who themselves were elected on a limited franchise. The elections to the Constituent Assembly (for 296 seats allotted to the British Indian Provinces) were held in July-August 1946. The Indian National Congress won 208 seats, the Muslim League 73 seats, and the small groups and independent got the remaining 15 seats. However, the 93 seats allotted to the princely states were not filled as they decided to stay away from the Constituent Assembly. Although the Constituent Assembly was not directly elected by the people of India on the basis of adult franchise, the Assembly comprised representatives of all sections of Indian Society – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Anglo – Indians, Indian Christians, SCs, STs including women of all these sections. The Assembly included all important personalities of India at that time, with the exception of Mahatma Gandhi and M A. Jinnah. The Indian Independence Act of 1947 made the following three changes in the position of the Assembly:  The Assembly was made a fully sovereign body, which could frame any Constitution it pleaded. The act empowered the Assembly to abrogate or alter any law made by the British Parliament in relation to India.The Assembly also became a legislative body. In order words, two separate functions were assigned to the Assembly that is, making of a constitution for free India and enacting of ordinary laws for the country. These two tasks were to be performed on separate days. Thus, the Assembly became the first parliament of free India (Dominion Legislature). Whenever the Assembly met as the Constituent body it was chaired by Dr. Rajendra Prasad and when it met as the legislative body, it was chaired by G V Mavlangar. These two functions continued till November 26, 1949, when the task of making the Constitution was over.  The Muslim League members (hailing from the areas included in the Pakistan) withdrew from the Constituent Assembly for India. Consequently, the total strength of the Assembly came down to 299 as against 389 originally fixed in 1946 under the Cabinet Mission Plan. The strength of the Indian provinces (formerly British Provinces) was reduced from 296 to 229 and those of the princely states from 93 to 70. In addition to the making of the Constitution and enacting of ordinary laws, the Constituent Assembly also performed the following functions: It ratified the India’s membership of the Commonwealth in May 1949. It adopted the national flag on July 22, 1947 It adopted the national anthem on January 24, 1950 It adopted the national song on January 24, 1950 It elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad as the first president of India on January 24, 1950. In all, the Constituent Assembly had 11 sessions over two years, 11 months and 18 days. The Constituent – makers had gone through the constitutions of about 60 countries, and the Draft Constitution was considered for 114 days. The total expenditure incurred on making the Constitution amounted to Rs 64 lakh. On January 24, 1950, the Constituent Assembly held its final session. It, however, did not end, and continued as the provincial parliament of India from January 26, 1950 till the formation of new Parliament after the first general elections in 1951-52.

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bulgariablo · 3 years

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The necessary authority must be asked for

In the towns, small boroughs, and villages, where different sects are mingled together, each community inhabiting a distinct quarter shall, by conforming to the abovementioned ordinances, have equal power to repair and improve its churches, its hospitals, its schools, and its cemeteries. When there is question of the erection of new buildings, the necessary authority must be asked for, through the medium of the Patriarchs and heads of communities, from my Sublime Porte, which will pronounce a sovereign decision according to that authority, except in the case of administrative obstacles. The intervention of the administrative authority in all measures of this nature will be entirely gratuitous. My Sublime Porte will take energetic measures to insure to each sect, whatever be the number of its adherents, entire freedom in the exercise of its religion.

Every distinction or designation tending to make any class whatever of the subjects of my Empire inferior to another class, on account of their religion, language, or race, shall be for ever effaced from the administrative protocol. The laws shall be put in force against the use of any injurious or offensive term, either among private individuals or on the part of the authorities.

As all forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my dominions, no subject of my Empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion that he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on this account. No one shall be compelled to change his religion.

Functionaries and other employes of my Empire

The nomination and choice of all functionaries and other employes of my Empire being wholly dependent upon my sovereign will, all the subjects of my Empire, without distinction of nationality, shall be admissible to public employments, and qualified to fill them according to their capacity and merit, and conformably with rules to be generally applied.

All the subjects of my Empire, without distinction, shall be received into the civil and military schools of the government, if they otherwise satisfy the conditions as to age and examination, which are specified in the organic regulations of the said schools. Moreover, every community is authorized to establish public schools of science, art, and industry. Only the method of instruction and the choice of professors in schools of this class shall be under the control of a mixed Council of Public Instruction, the members of which shall be named by my sovereign command.

All commercial, correctional, and criminal suits between Mussulman and Christian, or other non-Mussulman subjects, or between Christians or other non-Mussulmans of different sects, shall be referred to mixed tribunals.

The proceedings of these tribunals shall be public; the parties shall be confronted, and shall produce their witnesses, whose testimony shall be received, without distinction bulgaria private tours, upon an oath taken according to the religious law of each sect.

Suits relating to civil affairs shall continue to be publicly tried, according to the laws and regulations, before the mixed provincial councils, in the presence of the governor and judge of the place. Special civil proceedings, such as those relating to successions, or others of that kind, between subjects of the same Christian or other non-Mussulman faith, may, at the request of the parties, be sent before the councils of the patriarchs or of the communities.

Penal, correctional, and commercial laws, and rules of procedure for the mixed tribunals, shall be drawn up as soon as possible, and formed into a code. Translations of them shall be published in all the languages current in the Empire.

Houses of detention, punishment, or correction

Proceedings shall be taken, with as little delay as possible, for the reform of the penitentiary system, as applied to houses of detention, punishment, or correction, and other establishments of like nature, so as to reconcile the rights of humanity with those of justice. Corporal punishment shall not be administered, even in the prisons, except in conformity with the disciplinary regulations established by my Sublime Porte; and every thing that resembles torture shall be entirely abolished.

Infractions of the law in this particular shall be severely repressed, and shall besides entail, as of right, the punishment, in conformity with the civil code, of the authorities who may order and of the agents who may commit them.

The organization of the police in the capital, in the provincial towns, and in the rural districts, shall be revised in such a manner as to give to all the peaceable subjects of my Empire the strongest guarantees for the safety both of their persons and property.

#The necessary authority must be asked for

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bulgariant · 3 years

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The necessary authority must be asked for

Functionaries and other employes of my Empire

Houses of detention, punishment, or correction

#The necessary authority must be asked for

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lovesbulgaria · 3 years

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The necessary authority must be asked for

Functionaries and other employes of my Empire

Houses of detention, punishment, or correction

#The necessary authority must be asked for

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 months

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"PATTULLO WILL REFUSE RELIEF CUT," The Province (Vancouver). July 14, 1934. Page 1 & 2. --- Frankly Amazed at Federal Government's Reduction -B.C. Wants More. ---- LEAVING FOR OTTAWA JULY 25 ---- Would Mean Extra Burden Of $100,000 a Month for Province, Says Premier. ---- VICTORIA, July 14. British Columbia will flatly refuse to accept the reduction in federal unemployment relief allowances ordered in Ottawa by Premier Bennett on Friday.

The announcement that his government would absolutely insist on continuance of the existing arrangements as a minimum and would press for further federal aid in the form of a real work-and-wages programme was made by Premier Pattullo today.

Frankly amazed at the Ottawa announcement that the Federal Government proposed to cut its grants towards unemployment relief to 25 per cent. of the total cost, Mr. Pattullo wired acting premier as follows: "So far as British Columbia is concerned, it will be necessary for the Dominion Government to make a larger contribution than that suggested in your telegram and for a considerably longer period."

In a statement to newspapermen, the Premier added: "The Dominion Government's plan simply can not be put into effect; that is all."

MORE THAN 100.000 STILL ON RELIEF. He pointed out that in the peak of employment at the midsummer sea- son, British Columbia had over 100,000 persons on relief. Even if this were reduced substantially by the measures now under way, the Premier said, a grave problem remained which the Provincial Government could not handle on the reduced federal contribution proposed.

Ready to go to the mat with the Federal Government and to fight with other provincial premiers for a federal works programme, Mr. Pattullo prepared to leave here July 25 for the national conference called in Ottawa for July 30. He will prob- ably take Hon. John Hart and Hon. G. S. Pearson, minister of labor, with him.

It was estimated that if the Federal Government cut its contribution. from 50 per cent. in unorganized districts and 33 1-3 per cent. in municipalities to a basic rate of 25 per cent.. this would cost the Provincial Government an extra sum of $100,000 a month.

HASN'T GOT MONEY FOR EXTRA EXPENSES. The province simply hasn't got the money to pay this extra cost, since it is financing now on federal loans, which are its minimum requirements.

Thus the Ottawa announcement cut the ground from under the famous agreement reached between Premier Bennett and Premier Pattullo in Ottawa a few months ago. At that time British Columbia was guaranteed loans of $8,000,000 as well as the refunding of a provincial maturity of $2.000.000. Of the total $3,500,000 was for unemployment relief. This was the minimum amount which the Provincial Government said it would need to meet the situation and it was based, of course, on federal contributions at the present rate. If these contributions are cut, of course, the province will need more money for its share of the total. It can not get this money except from Ottawa.

Should the Federal Government insist on cutting down on relief, the Provincial Government, it was intimated officially and emphatically, will then have to take its own course. This statement was not elaborated, but it could mean nothing less than the same threat which was made in Ottawa in the spring, namely, that the province would defer interest payments rather than cut off unemployment relief.

QUARTER SHARE IS EXTENDED FOR MONTH. OTTAWA, July 14. - (CP) - Dominion Government assistance to the provinces in the cost of direct relief will be continued for another month to the extent of 25 per cent. of the total, and a Dominion - provincial conference has been called for July 30 to consider ways and means of dealing with this problem in future. Announcement of this move was made by Rt. Hon. Sir George Perley, acting-Prime Minister, following a meeting of the cabinet council.

Some months ago the provinces were advised that federal contributions to direct relief costs would end on June 15. This limit was later extended to July 15. The extension announced today means a slight decrease in the share to be borne by the Dominion treasury, which now pays one-third of the total.

RELIEF NECESSITY GREATLY LESSENED. The following telegram was despatched to all provincial premiers:

"The government has been giving most careful consideration to the question of direct relief and is of the opinion that it should not continue Indefinitely. In any case, the necessity for it is greatly lessened on ac- count of the improved conditions, and therefore it imposes a lighter local burden. The Dominion Govern- men has decided to contribute 25 per cent. of the cost of direct relief for the month ending August 15 only. As this question of relief is a most important one, we ask that you and the other provincial premiers attend a meeting here on July 30 for the purpose of carefully considering and dealing with this serious matter. If you can not come yourself, you will please send a representative."

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communistbulgaria · 3 years

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