For European states in the early modern era the Ottoman empire represented a huge trading bloc, stretching at its height from Hungary in the west to Iran in the east, from Ukraine in the north to Egypt in the south, and along the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the borders of Morocco. Its capital Istanbul was a megalopolis whose population far exceeded most European capitals in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries and whose position controlling the waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and straddling the continents of Europe and Asia made it a natural commercial hub.

This webinar will consider Ottoman-European trade from three aspects: the items of trade, both exported from, transited through and imported into the empire; the mechanisms of trade, including treaties, travel documents, the courts and the role of the ambassadors and the consuls; and the daily life of European traders within the empire, challenging the common argument that European merchants remained aloof from Ottoman society mixing only with their own ‘nationals’ or those of other European states.