Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)
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414 part two—chapter three
[i.e., Hegira] of our prophet, Muhammad Mustafa, that
is on 29 June 1635”)
483
1637 Na końcu seferulachyr miesiąca nazwanego, roku po
zejściu z tego świata proroka naszego Machometa
Mustafy 1047, w stołecznym mieście naszym Bachcze
Saraju.
(“[Written] in the third decade
484
of the prosperous
485
month named Safer, of the year 1047 aer the depar-
ture of our prophet, Muhammad Mustafa, from this
world,
486
in our capital city of Baghchasaray”)
1637 (qalga) Roku po zejściu wielkiego i prawdziwego naszego pro-
roka 1047, w stolicy i rezydencyji naszej Lut Saraju.
[Written] in the year 1047
487
aer the death
488
of our
great and true Prophet, in our seat and residence of
Lut Saray.
489
1640 . . . dėb hat bitildi tarih-i ming elli yılında Rebi‘ü`l-
ahir ayında tahtgahımız Baġçe Sarayında bi-maqami
Baġçesaray el-mahruse.
(“us saying, the letter has been written in the month of
Rebi II, in the year 1050, in our capital of Baghchasaray,
in the abode of Baghchasaray,
490
the well-protected”)
1640 (qalga) Tahriren evaili şehri Cemaziyi`l-evveli min şuhuri
seneti hamsin ve elf bi-yurt-i hendeq-i Ferahkerman.
483
e second decade of Muharrem 1045 A.H. lasted from 27 June till 6 July
1635.
484
e Polish phrase na końcu (“at the end”) is an apparent translation of the Turk-
ish term evahir (lit. “the end”) referring to the third, last decade of a month.
485
e Polish translator apparently did not understand the standard formula
Seferü`l-hayr (“the prosperous Safer”) and erroneously rendered it as Seferü`l-ahir
(Pol. seferulachyr), lit. “the last Safer;” the Arabic adjective al-ahir (“the last”) is used
only in reference to the months Rebi and Djumada (Rebi‘ü`l-ahir for Rebi II and
Cemaziyü`l-ahir for Djumada II) in order to distinguish them from Rebi I (Rebi‘ü`l-
evvel) and Djumada I (Cemaziyü`l-evvel), respectively.
486
Sic; of course it should refer to the Hegira and not Muhammad’s death. e
third decade of Safer 1047 A.H. lasted from 15 till 23 July 1637.
487
e Muslim year 1047 A.H. lasted from 26 May 1637 till 14 May 1638, but we
may date the qalga’s instrument more precisely; it was probably issued at the same
time as the khan’s letter, i.e., in July 1637; cf. n. 486 above.
488
Sic; of course it should refer to the Hegira and not Muhammad’s death.
489
Perhaps Lut Saray (lit. “Graceful Palace”) should be identied with Aq Mesdjid
Saray, the qalga’s customary residence; cf. n. 418 in Part I.
490
e locatio is redundantly repeated.
the crimean instruments 415
(“Written in the rst decade of the month of Dju-
mada I of the year 1050, in the tent of [i.e., near]
the moat of Ferahkerman”)
491
1640 (nureddin) . . . dėb hat bitildi [. . .] evahiri mah-i Rebi‘ü`l-ahir
sene-i 1050 bi-maqami Baġçesaray el-mahruse.
(“us saying, the letter has been written [. . .] in
the third decade of the month of Rebi II of the
year 1050, in the abode of Baghchasaray, the well-
protected”)
1646 Bi-maqami . . .
(“In the abode of . . ”)
492
1649 Tahriren mah-i Şa‘bani`l-mu‘azzam sene-i 1059
bi-yurt-i qal‘e-i İzborov.
(“Written in the esteemed month of Shaban of the
year 1059, in the tent of [i.e., near] the fortress of
Zboriv”)
1654 Tahriren mah-i Muharremü`l-haram sene-i 1065
bi-maqami Baġçesaray el-mahruse.
(“Written in the sacred month of Muharrem of
the year 1065,
493
in the abode of Baghchasaray, the
well-protected”)
1667 Data pod Podhayciamy 16 oktobra Anno 1667.
(“Given near Pidhajci on 16 October 1667”)
494
1672 Działo się pode Żwańcem, w obozie naszym, dnia 23
octobra 1672.
495
(“Took place in our camp near Žvanec’, on the 23rd
day of October 1672”)
1742 İşbu biŋ yüz elli beş senesi şehr-i Şevval-i şeriŋ
doquzuncı pencşe[n]be güni tahrir olundı.
(“Written on ursday, on the ninth day of the
noble month of Shawwal, of this year 1155”)
496
491
I.e., Perekop.
492
e locatio is unnished and the datatio is missing; the document was probably
issued in Baghchasaray in February 1646 (see Document 58, notes 1 and d).
493
Muharrem 1065 A.H. lasted from 11 November till 10 December 1654; for a
more precise dating, see Document 64, n. 10.
494
e common text, composed in Polish, was corroborated by the plenipotentia-
ries of the two sides.
495
e last numeral in 1672 initially read 1 and was corrected.
496
9 Shawwal 1155 A.H. coincides with Friday, 7 December 1742; however, as in
the Muslim calendar a day is counted from the preceding evening, this document was
apparently issued in the evening of 6 December.
416 part two—chapter three
e Genghisid rulers, who converted to Islam in the 13th and 14th
centuries, did not authomatically abandon the traditional Turco-
Mongolian cyclic calendar, developed under the Chinese inuence
and consisting of twelve-years’ cycles, whereas the successive years in
each cycle were named aer twelve animals. e Muslim khans of the
Golden Horde typically referred in their documents both to the Turco-
Mongolian calendar and to the Muslim lunar one, in which the year
count started from the Hegira (i.e., 622 C.E.).
497
e Crimean khans inherited this custom of double dating, although
they used the “animal calendar” with a diminishing frequency. A yarlıq
of Hadji Giray, issued in 1453, was still dated “in the year of hen”
(taquq yılı) and symultaneously in 857 A.H.
498
As late as 1501, Mengli
Giray dated his letter to the Muscovian grand duke Ivan III “in the
year of hen” (v kurjač’e leto).
499
Still later, in 1502, Mengli’s son and the
future khan Mehmed Giray, dated his document “in the year of dog”
and simultaneously in 908 A.H.
500
In the Crimean documents, published in the present volume, we
do not encounter any references to the traditional “animal calendar.”
In return, in the eenth- and early sixteenth-century documents a
Muslim date which refers to the Hegira is oen accompanied by a
Christian date which refers to the Nativity of Jesus. One cannot always
ascertain whether both the Muslim and the Christian dates had gured
in the original document, or the latter one was added by translators
or copyists. To be sure, the khan’s document from 1514, preserved in
the Italian original, contains both the Muslim and the Christian dates.
e şartname from 1520, composed in Khwarezmian Turkic, contains
only the Muslim date, but its contemporary Ruthenian translation also
497
On the Turco-Mongolian calendar and its usage in the Golden Horde, cf.
Usmanov, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., pp. 257–263.
498
e document, preserved in the Topkapı Archives, is published in Akdes Nimet
Kurat, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivindeki Altın Ordu, Kırım ve Türkistan hanlarına
ait yarlık ve bitikler (Istanbul, 1940), pp. 62–80 and 173–184; and Le khanat de Crimée,
pp. 33–38; judging by the absence of a nişan, a number of errors and ommissions, and
the unusual length of the document (475 cm.), Usmanov regards it a slightly later copy
although he does not doubt that its text is based on the genuine, now lost, document;
cf. idem, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., pp. 31, 62–66 and 132.
499
Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix snošenij, vol. 1, p. 420; the text is recorded among
the Crimean letters brought to Moscow in July 1502; Usmanov erroneously attribu-
tes this letter to 1503 (idem, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., p. 258),
although that year would correspond with the year of pig.
500
See Usmanov, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., p. 36.
the crimean instruments 417
provides an incomplete Christian date: the name of the month (Octo-
ber) and the day number. On the same date, Mehmed Giray issued a
yarlıq that was probably composed in Ruthenian; its extant Ruthenian
copy contains the complete datation according to the Muslim as well
as the Christian calendars, including the year, month, and day num-
bers.
501
To resume, it is likely that documents composed in Ruthenian
or Italian, typically draed by the Christians in the khan’s service,
were provided with both the Muslim and the Christian dates, while
the Arabic-script documents contained Muslim dates only.
Since the mid-sixteenth century, the Crimean instruments sent to
Poland-Lithuania were usually composed in Arabic script and dated
only according to the Muslim calendar. Simultaneously, the Crimean
chancery adopted the Arabic datatio formula (tahriren . . ., “written
on . . .”), apparently under the Ottoman inuence. Nevertheless, in the
khans’ documents from 1592 (oath-yarlıq), 1640, and 1742 the dates
were still recorded in Turkish, and not Arabic.
It is worth reminding here that although the Muslim and Chris-
tian calendars were embedded in religious beliefs that were hardly
reconcilable, at least for the Muslims a reference to the Nativity was
not a blasphemy as, aer all, Jesus was venerated as a prophet. Also
the Ottomans referred to the Nativity of Jesus in their instruments,
addressed to Poland-Lithuania.
502
Strikingly, the Crimean documents
from 1667 and 1672, composed in Polish but corroborated with the
seals of the qalga and the khan, respectively, refer in their datatios only
to the Christian era. e Crimean envoys to Russia are also known
to have dated their documents, drawn in Moscow, according to the
Christian (Byzantine) era, even though these instruments were written
in Arabic script.
503
501
e Ruthenian copies of Mehmed Giray’s yarlıq and şartname from 1520 also
contain indiction numbers; as the last method of time measuring, which referred to
een-years’ cycles, was then commonly used in the Lithuanian chancery, but prob-
ably not in the Crimean one, we may assume that the indiction numbers were added
by the clerks of the Lithuanian chancery.
502
Ottoman instruments, composed in Latin or Italian, were dated according to
the Christian era. Aer 1525, when the Ottoman sultans ceased to issue documents in
Western languages, references to the dates “of the era of His Excellency Jesus (peace be
upon him!)” (hazret-i ‘İsa ‘aleyhi’s-selam tarihinin . . .) could be still found in the Ara-
bic-script instruments from 1525, 1553, 1623, 1634, 1640, 1713, and 1790, although
no longer in their datatio; cf. Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations,
p. 32 and passim.
503
Cf. n. 219 above.
418 part two—chapter three
e practice of double dating encountered in the Crimean docu-
ments, especially from the earlier period, should help us conrm or
establish the exact dates of their issue. Yet, in some cases, it only
leads to confusion and furnishes us with conicting information. For
instance, the two earliest yarlıqs of Hadji Giray and Mengli Giray,
published in the present volume, contain contradictory dates accord-
ing to the Muslim and Christian calendars.
504
Although it seems more
likely that their Muslim dates are genuine, one cannot entirely dismiss
the opposite options and for the lack of further evidence one has to
wait with denite conclusions. Similar contradictions can be found in
the datatios of Sahib Giray’s instruments from 1539 and 1542, but the
evidence from other sources allows one to conrm their Muslim dat-
ing and dismiss the Christian one.
Six documents, extant today merely in Ruthenian or Polish transla-
tions, contain a common mistake that should be attributed to their
translators or copyists: when referring to the Muslim era, they identify
its beginning with the death (or even birth!) of Muhammad, and not
with his emigration from Mecca to Medina, i.e., the Hegira.
As far as the place of issue is concerned, the oldest instrument, pub-
lished in the present volume, was issued in Qırım, known alterna-
tively as Solgat, the administrative center from the times of the Golden
Horde, situated in the east of the Crimean peninsula (today Ukr. Staryj
Krym or Tat. Eski Qırım, lit. “Old Qırım”).
505
Already during the reign
of Hadji Giray, the khan’s main residence was moved to Qırq Yer, a
town and castle that topped a mountain overlooking the valley where
future Baghchasaray was to be founded.
506
e documents of Hadji’s
sons, Nur Devlet and Mengli Giray, from the years 1467 and 1480,
were issued in this new Crimean capital.
In the years 1500–1503, Mengli Giray built a new residence in
Saladjıq below Qırq Yer. Referred to in Tatar as Devletsaray (“Pal-
ace of Prosperity”) or Devletkerman/Devletkermen (“Town of Pros-
perity”), in the Muscovian sources it came to be known under such
terms as Sčastlivyj Saraj (“the Prosperous Palace”), Sčastlivyj Gorod
(‘the Prosperous Town’), or even Veselyj Gorod (“the Merry Town”),
504
Cf. notes 448 and 451 above.
505
On Eski Qırım, see Jankowski, Historical-Etymological Dictionary, pp. 468–471.
506
Aer the khans had moved to Baghchasaray, their former capital was settled
by the Karaites and came to be known as the “Jewish Fortress”—Chufut Qal‘e; on
Qırq Yer (the later Chufut Qal‘e), see Jankowski, Historical-Etymological Dictionary,
pp. 424–427.
the crimean instruments 419
whereas the adjectives sčastlivyj and veselyj were the Russian transla-
tions of the term devlet (“prosperity,” “fortune,” but also “power”).
507
Mengli’s instruments, addressed to Poland-Lithuania in 1507 and
in the fall of 1514 were issued in this new residence, referred to in
the Ruthenian documents as Horod Veselyj (“the Merry Town”) or
Ščaslyvaja Polata (“the Prosperous Palace”), and in the Italian one
simply as Dovlat Sarai. Interestingly, in the documents from the fall
of 1514 Devletsaray is identied with Qırq Yer, although in fact it was
located in nearby Saladjıq.
We do not know whether Sahib Giray’s documents, issued in 1539
and 1542, were already issued in Baghchasaray, the khan’s new resi-
dence completed under his reign.
508
e earliest reference to Bagh-
chasaray can be found in the locatio of the instrument of his successor,
Devlet Giray, issued in 1552. From the following instrument, issued
by Devlet Giray in 1560, it is evident that at that time Baghchasaray
was still identied with Qırq Yer, apparently regarded as the latter’s
suburb.
While in the mid-sixteenth century Saladjıq and Baghchasaray were
still treatied as the suburbia of Qırq Yer, by the end of the same cen-
tury the situation reversed and such localities as Qırq Yer, Saladjıq,
and Eskiyurt came to be treatied as the suburbs of the new expanding
capital, namely Baghchasaray.
509
In the 17th century, almost all the
documents issued by the khans were drawn in Baghchasaray. Under
the Ottoman inuence, the Crimean chancery adopted the Arabic
locatio formula: “in the abode of Baghchasaray, the well-protected”
(bi-maqami Baġçesaray el-mahruse). Besides, two documents from 1592
were issued in Alma Saray, the khan’s residence on the Alma river, sit-
uated to the north of Baghchasaray and later known as Almakerman/
Almakermen.
510
Several documents were issued in the fortress of Ferahkerman, stra-
tegically located on the moat that separated the Crimean peninsula
from the mainland and therefore known in the Slavic languages as
Perekop or Przekop (“ditch”), and in Turkish also referred to as Or
507
Cf. Syroečkovskij, “Muxammed-Geraj i ego vassaly,” p. 5; Hajvoronskyj, Pov-
eliteli dvux materikov, vol. 1, p. 83.
508
e earliest document of Sahib Giray drawn in Baghchasaray, known to
Usmanov, was issued in 1549; see idem, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI
vv., p. 266.
509
Cf. Muzaer Ürekli, Kırım Hanlığının kuruluşu ve Osmanlı himâyesinde yükselişi
(1441–1569) (Ankara, 1989), p. 70.
510
Cf. Jankowski, Historical-Etymological Dictionary, pp. 158–161.
420 part two—chapter three
(“ditch”), Or qal‘esi (“ditch fortress”), or Or qapu (“ditch gate”).
511
Apart from the khans’ documents from 1514 (June),
512
1520, and
1527, also the qalgas’ documents from 1527 and 1640 were drawn in
Ferahkerman.
While the qalga’s usual residence was Aq Mesdjid Saray, a town
situated near modern Simferopol,
513
the nureddin apparently resided
in Baghchasaray, along with the khan.
514
e instrument from 1640,
issued by Nureddin Qırım Giray, was issued in Baghchasaray and
apparently drawn in the khan’s chancery.
Crimean instruments could also be issued on campaigns, like the
ones from 1649, 1667, and 1672, drawn in the military camps near
Zboriv, Pidhajci, and Žvanec’. If a document was composed in Turk-
ish, such circumstances were usually referred to in its locatio by the
expression: “in the tent of [i.e., near]” (bi-yurt-i . . .). One document
published in the present volume was issued in the Lithuanian territory,
and yet not on a military campaign, when the future qalga Bahadır
Giray arrived at Čerkasy in order to conrm the peace with his oath.
Physical description
e oldest Crimean instrument of peace, preserved in the original, was
composed in 1514 in Italian. According to European medieval tradi-
tion, it is written on parchment. e following document, issued in
1520 in Khwarezmian Turkic, is written on yellowish paper, perhaps
manufactured from silk and imported from Central Asia.
515
All the
511
Cf. Jankowski, Historical-Etymological Dictionary, pp. 748–750.
512
Admittedly, in that case the locatio: pysan u Perekope might also refer to the
whole peninsula; cf. n. 456 above.
513
Cf. n. 418 in Part I.
514
In 1681, the Russian embassy members were ocially received by the qalga in
Aq Mesdjid, and by the nureddin in nearby Bulganaq; see “Spisok s statejnago spiska
[. . .] Vasil’ja Mixajlova syna Tjapkina, d’jaka Nikity Zotova,” p. 641. is informa-
tion suggests that at that time the ocial residence of nureddin was in Bulganaq (on
Bulganaq or Bulganaq Badraq, cf. Jankowski, Historical-Etymological Dictionary, pp.
245–248). Yet, in the rst half of the 17th century, the letters of nureddins sent to
Poland-Lithuania were usually issued in Baghchasaray and their sophisticated lan-
guage suggests that they were issued by the khan’s chancery; apart from Document
56, cf. also the letter of Nureddin Sa‘adet Giray, addressed to Vladislaus IV in 1635;
AGAD, Dz. tat., k. 63, t. 8, no. 466.
515
On similar paper, used for Sahib Giray’s document issued in 1523 in Kazan, see
Usmanov, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., p. 87. In its most recent reed-
ition, the document’s paper is described as “thick Oriental paper without water-mark;”
the crimean instruments 421
following documents, issued in Turkish, are written on paper of prob-
ably Venetian origin, which was also commonly used in the Ottoman
chancery and must have been imported to the Crimea.
516
Long and
narrow documents usually consisted of several sheets of paper that
were glued together. e dimensions of the Crimean documents pub-
lished in the present volume are as follows:
Table 3. Physical characteristics of the Crimean instruments
sent to Poland-Lithuania
Date Length (cm.) Width (cm.) No. of sheets
1514 76 43 x
1520 151.5 34 3
1592 (‘ahdname) 125 30 3
1592 (oath-yarlıq) 125 30 3
1632 89.5 35 2
1634 156 40 4
1640 (khan) 198 40 4
1640 (qalga) 125 30 3
1640 (nureddin) 123.5 30 3
1646 168 40 3
1649 58 40.5 1
1654 145 40.5 3
1742 75 51 1
see Shamil Muhamedyarov and István Vásáry, “Two Kazan Tatar edicts (Ibrahim’s
and Sahib Girey’s Yarliks),” in: Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of
Papers Concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-
Eastern Europe. Edited by G. Kara (Budapest, 1986): 181–216, esp. p. 190.
516
In the 18th century, the longest and most solemn Ottoman and Crimean docu-
ments, stored in the Polish Crown Archives, were pasted onto wide sheets of linen
in order to preserve them from further destruction, especially caused by folding. e
decision helped to preserve them in good shape, but the documents pasted onto the
linen cannot be examined today in regard to their watermarks, unless more sophisti-
cated methods are used (and authorized by the Archives’ management). Hence, only
three documents from the years 1592 (the ‘ahdname and the oath-yarlıq) and 1649,
which were not pasted onto the linen, could be thoroughly examined for the present
study; for their watermarks, see Document 34, n. 1, and Document 60, n. 1. e wide-
spread use of Western paper, typically of Venetian origin, has been conrmed by the
present author through a cursory examination of the Crimean documents preserved
in Moscow and Copenhagen; their watermarks contain anchors, trefoils, and most
oen the characteristic mark consisting of three crescents (Italian tre lune), found on
the Venetian paper exported to the Ottoman market.
422 part two—chapter three
Although the Crimean ‘ahdnames cannot compete in length with the
Ottoman ones,
517
their dimensions are impressive and were clearly
intended to impress the addressee. e Crimean şartnames sent to
Moscow reached analogous dimensions and measured 110.5 × 38 cm.,
149 × 46.5 cm., 297.5 × 41.5 cm., and 116 × 41 cm. in the years 1630,
1636, 1647, and 1682 respectively.
518
Aer completion, the document was rolled up and put into a bag
(kise), typically made of satin or taeta, which was bound up with
a string, holding a red wax seal, and provided with a heart-shaped
paper sheet known as kulak (lit. “ear”), on which the addressee’s title
or name was written.
519
In order to protect the wax seals, especially
vulnerable during transport, they were sometimes enclosed in capsules
made of silver, bone, or gilded brass.
520
517
For the dimensions of the Ottoman ‘ahdnames sent to Poland-Lithuania, see
Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, pp. 39–40; the longest one,
issued by Murad IV in 1623, is 491.5 cm. long, and was originally even longer.
518
Cf. RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, nos. 39, 43, 54a, and 64; the instrument from 1636 was
certainly longer; today, its invocatio is missing and the upper sheet of paper measures
only 24.5 cm., while the middle one as much as 72 cm. Apparently a large part of the
upper sheet, which had contained the invocatio, has been torn o and lost. Hence, we
can assume that the document originally measured 196.5 cm. (by adding 47.5 cm., i.e.,
the dierence in length of the middle and the upper sheet).
519
For the description and color picture of four such bags with kulaks, preserved in
Stockholm along with the original letters sent by the Giray ladies, see Święcicka, “e
Diplomatic Letters by Crimean Keräy Ladies to the Swedish Royal House,” pp. 66–67
and 90; according to the description, the bags are made of: a) brick-red double silk,
designed with yellow and golden owers; b) grass-green taeta; c) ivory colored satin;
d) white silk with golden lines and embroidered owers. Two bags of red and green
satin (plus a fragment of the third one), and a number of kulaks, are also preserved
along with the Crimean letters in Copenhagen; see Rigsarkivet, Tyske Kanzelli, Uden-
rigske Afdeling, Tatariet AI 2. Moreover, a bag of red satin with golden embroideries
containing a Chinese cloud motif, along with a kulak, is preserved with the letter of
Adil Giray, sent to the tsar in 1668; see RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 58; the color pic-
ture of the bag and kulak is published in Faizov, Tugra i Vselennaja, pp. 77 (ill. 53);
the bag measures 51 cm. in heigh while its rectangular bottom measures 8 × 2 cm.
Unfortunately, the bags and kulaks of the Tatar instruments, published in the present
volume, are not preserved.
520
Four such capsules are extant in the Swedish Riksarkivet in Stockholm: a silver
capsule preserved with a letter of Nureddin Adil Giray from ca. 1660 (on Adil Giray,
cf. n. 466 in Part I; promoted to the post of nureddin by Islam III Giray, he remained
at this post for the most of the second reign of Mehmed IV Giray), two bone capsules
preserved with the letters of two qalgas, Qırım Giray (undated; Qırım Giray was the
qalga of Khan Adil Giray and corroborated the instrument of 1667, published in the
present volume) and Tokhtamısh Giray (1681), and a gilded brass capsule preserved
with a letter of Nureddin Sa‘adet Giray (1681); see Zetterstéen, Türkische, tatarische
und persische Urkunden im Schwedischen Reichsarchiv, pp. 94 (no. 158), 103 (no. 171),
the crimean instruments 423
e document could be unpacked only in the presence of the
addressee during a solemn audience of the Crimean embassy. When
in 1599 Nikodem Kossakowski met in Moldavia his Crimean coun-
terpart, Djan Temir Agha, who was on his way to Poland carrying
along the khan’s instrument of peace, the Polish envoy complained
that he was unable to control its contents because the document was
“in a sealed bag” (w opieczętowanym worku).
521
Two years later, when
Ławryn Piaseczyński was returning from the Crimea along with Djan
Ahmed Chelebi, who was carrying the khan’s new instrument of peace,
the Crimean envoy refused to show the document to his Polish col-
league arguing that it was sealed (zapieczętowane) and the khan had
forbidden to open it before the audience with His Royal Majesty.
522
Among the documents composed in Arabic script, the earliest one
from 1520 is written in the nesih script, while in the instruments from
1592 only the invocatios are written in the nesih script, while the rest
in the divani script that was also used in the Ottoman chancery. In the
seventeenth-century instruments only the divani script was used, both
in the main text and the invocatio, though in the last document from
1742 we observe a return to the nesih.
An interesting hypothesis has been formulated by Usmanov, who
maintains that the traditional script used in the Golden Horde chan-
ceries was the sülüs and the sixteenth-century Crimean khans, most
notably Sahib Giray, deliberately sticked to it in order to stress their
independence from the Ottoman sultans. Only the tragic fall of Sahib
Giray, instigated by the Porte, paved way to the widespread adoption
of Ottoman models, such as the use of the divani script and of golden
sand sprinkled on the document’s surface.
523
e present study cannot
provide evidence that would enable one to conrm or reject Usma-
nov’s thesis, since all the Crimean instruments of peace, addressed to
Polish-Lithuanian rulers between 1520 and 1592, are preserved only in
copies.
Apart from the document from 1514, which is entirely written in
gold apart from the bottom three lines in black, the documents are
written in black ink, typically with golden insertions reserved for the
and 118 (nos. 195–196). My warmest thanks go to Elżbieta Święcicka, who provided
me with color pictures of these capsules.
521
See Skorupa, “Poselstwo na Krym Nikodema Kossakowskiego,” p. 39.
522
See Pułaski, “Trzy poselstwa Piaseczyńskiego,” p. 474.
523
Usmanov, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., pp. 118–120.