I've heard that the Ottoman Empire has a history of using eunuchs in their courts and I was hoping to find out some more about them and their roles in the empire. Some general questions I have are:
I'm mostly just curious to any information regarding this subject as it has piqued my interest. Many thanks in advance!
Let's break this down question by question and see if I can't help you here. Your first question is on the creation of Eunuchs in the Ottoman Empire. There are two main sources of Ottoman Eunuchs, Africa and the Caucasus.
From the Balkans, and around other parts of the Ottoman Empire the state utilized a practice known as devsirme to forcibly Islamicize and to recruit non-ethnic Anatolians into civil service to create a more cohesive concept of the Ottoman identity. These young mainly Christian boys were often castrated within their community before they were picked by the Ottoman State to come to Constantinople. Generally performed by Priests of the Christian Orthodox, these boys were highly sought after.
The other source of Eunuchs stemmed from the sale of castrated boys from Africa. If you'll recall, one of the most extensive, brutal, and fatal slave trades in human history is between Africa and the Ottoman Empire. I believe for every one slave safely making it to the Ottoman Empire three died, not good times. The Christianized Africans would also castrate boys as they sold for a higher price in the Empire.
Eunuchs played a specific and special role in the Ottoman court. There were two main eunuchs, white eunuchs and black eunuchs, defined by their skin color and geopolitical point of origin. Black eunuchs were most often to be found in the harems of the state officials, keeping order. "The Persian Letters" by Montesquieu is an interesting read as it illustrates the dichotomy of power and powerlessness of the black Eunuchs. Some chief black eunuchs are actually historically very important, also known as Harem Agasi. Their place within the harem allowed them near unfettered access to political, sexual, and societal secrets amongst the elite, often giving them power over viziers or even in certain cases the sultan.
The white eunuchs had far less chances at power than the black eunuch, but were still in and around the court and had the opportunity to over hear things that could give them political power.
Obviously the eunuchs were looked down on as less than men, but these eunuchs were not generally in the public eye. They were still generally above the idea of labor slaves, but below the idea of being an Ottoman citizen.
For your fourth question, refer back to my second answer. Not often, but sometimes with the right information they could indeed amass meaningful power.
I hope this helped. Let me know if you have any other questions I'd be happy to help answer them.
I’ll add on to /u/laklota101 a bit with some bigger eunuch picture stuff.
Like they said, step one to understanding the eunuchs of the Ottoman court is knowing that there were two separate types, “black” and “white.” The black eunuchs would have been African slaves, and without penis or testicles, and the white eunuchs would have been from the Caucasus, Georgia or Circassia are the ones I hear most, and they had a penis but no testicles. This is completely unique in eunuchdom, typically a eunuch is a eunuch, and penis/no penis was largely a matter of local custom/what roles they were serving in society, but having these two types was an important distinction for the Ottomans. The black eunuchs would be harem servants with the imperial women, and the white eunuchs were something closer to courtiers/politicians and not allowed in the harem. White eunuchs increasingly diminished after the 16th century, leaving enslaved black eunuchs by the end of the Ottoman empire in the 20th century.
Black eunuchs were purchased at the market with the other slaves, they were captured as children and castrated. Now, there’s some interesting data on prices. A eunuch slave would be worth AT LEAST about twice as much as an unmutilated male black slave. Probably much more.
A youth on whom this operation has been successfully performed is worth 1000 piastres at Siout, he had probably cost his master a few weeks before about 300, and he probably paid 45 or 60 for his operation. (L. J. Burckhardt, Swiss Arabist, around 1814 in Upper Egypt)
Another traveller (this time German, Gustav Nachtigal) around 1870 in Africa gave these slave prices:
So at one slave market your cheapest eunuch would still cost more than your cheapest concubine (with some possibly much higher prices for some concubines, probably for prettiness), and would cost about 4 times as much as an intact boy of the same age. There’s other price reports but I find those the most interesting because they give you comparisons to other slaves.
(Oh and Western travelers will usually comment to their readers back home that Middle Eastern white slaves are “not really white” which is very interesting if you’re into race in history.)
One curious thing about the Ottomans (and other Islamic slave-using societies) is that they never “advanced” to castrating their own. I say advanced in a specific way, which is that typically eunuchs eventually transition from an “import product” (slaves) to castrating native born children as the societies get more comfortable with them. This can be seen very easily in the evolution of eunuchs in the Byzantine empire. There are laws against castration in Islam but there are also laws against it in Christianity as well, so it’s not so easy just to say “because religion” for why they didn’t internalize castration.
Attitudes against them were wrapped up in their slavery for one, so it’s hard to tease out what is just hatred of their eunuchness and not more their slavery and their Africanness. It’s different than say the Byzantines or the Italian castrati, who were free men of the same “race” as most people they’d interact with, so would rather cleanly isolate their hatred on “eunuch.”
The most common stereotype of eunuchs at that time (and in many times) is that they were conniving, power hungry, selfish, and amoral, as they didn’t have any families and therefore only lived for themselves. Something like “sexually frustrated pervert” also gets thrown around. If you read One Thousand and One Nights it rather runs the gamut on eunuchs. There were also ample disparaging remarks about their physical appearance.
On the positive side, they were widely believed to be the most loyal servant a family could own, as they didn’t have anything else so they’d be faithful to their master. This is one reason for their price premium.
Certainly! Chief eunuchs such as the kislar agasi (who ran the harem) were very powerful. Beshir Agha was one such particularly powerful chief, hand picking viziers. But that was the minority, the majority of eunuchs were household/harem slaves with no power.
We can be reasonably certain that eunuchs were still alive and around in the Middle East after the end of the Ottoman empire, at least through the 1940s and 50s, and there are (to me not easily dismissible) reports of them still being around as late as the 1990s.
Classically our primary source for eunuchs of the Middle East is N. M. Penzer, who published in the 20s and worked off of older Western reports. The best modern research is the FANTASTIC book Eunuchs, caliphs and sultans by David Ayalon, he died shortly after it came out but it’s a masterpiece. The price list comes from this book. I also quite like Race and Slavery in the Middle East although it’s a bit older, because it helps you get a grip on the bigger picture of Islamic slavery and how eunuchs fit into it. Almost forgot: Eunuchs and sacred boundaries in Islamic society is also good.
Anyway, hope this lived up to the wait after I PM'd you to say I had to get home! :)
I don't think this was mentioned but one of the reasons the eunuchs were trusted with the women is because there was no chance they would sleep with and/or impregnate the women of the harem since lacking testes means no sex drive or semen (obviously). Eunuchs were basically the only man the harem would be around other than close family members. If the women ever left the palace (rare), they were accompanied by the black eunuch.