Horse prices and factors affecting the prices in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century

Horses were an important element in both civilian and military fields in the Ottoman Empire, as in all societies in the pre-modern period. The subject and purpose of this study are the identification of horse prices, price movements, and the factors affecting them. The main source of the article is the court records of the Ottoman Empire, the judge registers. The 17th century was chosen as the period of the study. First, the 40-volume Istanbul judge registers prepared by the Centre for Islamic Studies (İSAM) were used, followed by the 60-volume Istanbul judge registers completed in 2019 through a collaboration between the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Culture Inc. and Medipol University Faculty of Law. Additionally, master's theses on court records from various universities across the country were also scanned via the National Thesis Center. A wide range of horse prices and their potential impact on price were identified by the scan result. To standardize the data, prices spanning a century were analyzed in grams of silver. All observations are fully accessible, including the location and year of their recording, the type of transaction involved, and price information. Other characteristics were recorded only incidentally. To interpret this data, compiled from the judge registers, determinations were made based on year, location, year, classification, transaction and color. In addition to these civilian prices, prices related to government purchases were also compiled, to a limited extent, from the registers and external sources. This allows for a comparison of civilian and public prices. In this context, the study is expected to make a concrete contribution to price history.