The Cost of Preindustrial Communication: Horses, Fees, and Taxes in the Ottoman Postal System

Choon Hwee Koh, University of California, Los Angeles
Tunçer Ali Coşkun, University College London

This paper examines the fiscal governance of the Ottoman relay postal system in the eighteenth century using a unique set of fiscal records spanning over a ten-year period (1756-67 C.E.). Ottoman post stations were maintained by local villages under fixed tax obligations, which were instituted through negotiation between villagers and the imperial administration over the long term. In exchange for the obligation to feed and maintain horses for state communication, these villages received compensation through a combination of local tax revenues and fees paid by the imperial capital based on courier traffic. We quantify and analyze the costs of maintaining horses alongside the revenues collected from locally assigned taxes and courier fees. Our findings reveal no strong correlation between the long-standing tax obligations to maintain a fixed number of horses and actual courier traffic. Additionally, we examine the relationship between a station’s volume of courier traffic and its capacity, measured by the number of horses kept. We estimate an “optimal” volume–capacity ratio for a station and georeference those that deviate from this benchmark. Our findings allows us to see the effects of institutional layering (Mahoney and Thelen 2009) in a preindustrial organization. More broadly, this paper presents the first quantitative analysis of a large, premodern communications network, offering new insights into the financial and logistical underpinnings of state infrastructure in the Ottoman Empire.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 176. Markets and Money in State-Society Relations