Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
p18
harem女性称呼的变化反映出地位的变化：“sultanate of women”时期，妃子、公主、太后的正式称呼是 “名+Sultan”，如Hafsa Sultan，Mihrimah Sultan，但是17世纪以后妃子政治地位不断下降，渐渐失去了Sultan的称呼，改称kadın（和之前的叫法khatun有关联）
p20
男性政治上成熟的时候，也是开始当爹的时候，而女性政治上成熟则在停止生育后。This did not necessarily mean that men acquired power earlier than did women, since the dynasty could manipulate the reproductive activity of an individual, postponing it, limiting it, or preventing it altogether.
p21
从Ahmed I死亡（1617）起，王位由家族最年长男性继承，不再搞“父传子，即位者杀光兄弟”
p22
The practice of seniority in the Ottoman state preserved what was the most enduring feature of Ottoman politics: absolute control by the dynasty of the distribution of power.
从十五世纪末开始，为了“肥水不流外人田”，公主不再外嫁，而是和堂表兄弟/政治家结婚
p23
女人公开展示政治权力和财富（比如资助公共建筑项目），一般始于sexual role结束之后（老公死了，或者不再和老公有性接触）。后来的公主政治权力不彰，可能和十六世纪及以后公主得在老公死后改嫁（所以一直处在sexual role）有关
p24
皇宫的物理布局反映皇太后在家中的地位：her large apartments occupied a central location and connected to all parts of the harem compound, including a direct link to her son’s quarters.
The importance of women as power brokers is reflected in the fact that the greatest tension within the dynasty now existed among rival mothers. 案例：Kösem之死
p25
Ottoman军事扩张时期，武力争王位有“reconquest”象征意义。停止扩张的阶段，长男继位制更加稳定
长男继位制开始后有一半的sultan被废黜：需要太后支持
p29
外交婚姻：十四世纪主要和基督徒王室女人结婚，十五世纪变成主要和穆斯林王室女人结婚。原因之一是the Islamic sociolegal principle of kafâ’a—which不鼓励女子“下嫁”给地位低的男人。
十五世纪前半叶后和其他势力联姻结束的原因之一是周围的国家大部分都征服了，原因之二是Ottoman势力壮大，不再看重和其它势力结盟
p31
最迟到14世纪末，Ottoman王室繁殖全靠纳妾，而不靠合法婚姻。
p32
we should not look to Ottoman chronicles for the dynasty’s matrimonial and reproductive record
说chronicle的记录者出于”a monogamizing and Islamicizing selectivity”，”rarely attributes more than one wife to each sultan, and it ignores Christian alliances” 然后还可能人为给Sultan的女人编造高贵出身
p36
the practice of acquiring women through raid and conquest, familiar to the early Ottomans from their nomadic heritage, overlapped in important ways with the Muslim institution of slave concubinage
p37
Apart from the half-dozen marriages made with Muslim princesses from Anatolian Turkish principalities, 第一代和第二代奥斯曼统治者之后的所有王室配偶（只有一个例外）都不是穆斯林，也不是土耳其人。
p39
After the fourteenth century or perhaps even as early as the midfourteenth century. virtually all royal children appear to have been born of concubines. The barrenness of formal marriages was presumably accomplished through avoidance of sexual relations between the sultan and his royal wives. 以至于苏丹的寡妇正妻再婚时，拜占庭人评论道，如果没意外，她没和苏丹睡过…
不和出身外国贵族的正妻生育 1.让王位竞争更公平2.避免外国势力在继位斗争中干预
正妻地位比妾低（因为没孩子），很少修公共建筑
p50
如果王子死了（病死或者在继位斗争中落败被处决），王子的妈就退休，离开王子生前的封地，住到Ottoman旧都Bursa去，潜心宗教活动，并且罩着王子生前的手下，确保他们有出路
p51
王室成员的陵墓成为朝圣和崇拜的重要对象。这意味着，关于陵墓的选址、规模，以及谁有资格永久陪葬的决定，都具有重要政治意味。
p66
From the late fifteenth century on, however, princesses made marriages exclusively with members of the slave institution or their sons, and occasionally with cousins
The preference for avoiding marriages with native Turkish members of the ruling class was certainly consonant with Mehmed’s policies of undermining their power by governing almost exclusively through the slave elite.
p68
到十五世纪末，苏丹和王子们不再正式结婚，公主的婚礼弥补了这个原因造成的ceremonial gap
p69
做王室驸马的代价：公主花销高，并且和公主结婚必须先和已有的老婆离婚。
p71
The policy of binding the most powerful of slave statesmen to the dynasty through marriage was, another means of control, aimed primarily at curbing the potential centrifugal power of the slave elite. This policy not only prevented this elite of the elite from allying itself with other interests in the society but also diverted its primary loyalty from its own group, the slave institution, to the dynasty.
p75
Sultan的权力受到军队和Ulema的制衡，直到19世纪Tanzimat改革时期Sultan才有arbitrary power
p87
This tendency to assign responsibility to the sultan’s associates for unpopular actions or seeming breaches of proper monarchical conduct is typical of the attitude of Ottomans toward their sovereign. They preferred to see him as blameless, and if the author of harmful policy, then the victim of self-seeking and treacherous intimates.
p96
The practice of honoring a single son, the eldest prince, in the reigns of Selim II and Murad III functioned as a transition to the system of seniority, which institutionalized the notion that sovereignty belonged to the eldest, not only of the generation, but of the entire dynastic family.
p97
With the reign of Mehmed begins the total confinement of princes to the palace.
p98
16世纪晚期的苏丹基本解决了自己在世时诸子内斗的问题，但是没有解决儿子可能篡位的问题。
No longer an apprentice ruler, a prince had minimal status even within the palace. His official stipend of one hundred aspers a day was the lowest received by members of the sultan’s immediate family, matched only by those of his unmarried sisters His lack of political status was emphasized by the fact that he was not permitted to father children when he became sexually mature (although he was given concubines)
p100
Ahmed I后连续三位苏丹都没有男性后代，这也是促使皇位继承制度向长男继承制转变的关键因素之一。
p101
这一时期，只有Osman II和Murad IV杀掉了他们的兄弟。而这两位苏丹和其他苏丹的不同之处是，他们因为出征而长期不在首都。 Fratricide appears therefore to be linked to the possibility of a real threat to a sultan’s tenure on the throne.
p102
The lapse of the practice of fratricide was due in considerable degree to this political interest in the survival of princes.Lacking overt political power, princes were neverthless able to constrain the sultan through their function as figures around whom competing factions might coalesce.
从这一时期开始，被限制在宫殿内的王子不被允许生育子女。这和兄弟残杀制度是不兼容的。允许一个没有子嗣的苏丹在还没证明自己生育能力的情况下处决他的兄弟，可能会使王朝面临灭亡风险。
p104
when, under seniority, princes lost access to public adulthood, their mothers lost their public roles as well. It went against the protocol of dynastic politics to publicly honor the mother of a son who had yet to achieve public identity. The position of haseki as a true favorite of the sultan was thus incompatible with the practice of seniority.
如果王子失去地位，那么他们的母亲也将默默无闻。
p106
It is certainly worth noting that the two women of the dynasty to suffer the harshest judgment by history had two things in common: the absence of a valide sultan during most of their career as haseki and an unusually large number of sons.
p107
后宫paradox：养育整个帝国，甚至整个伊斯兰世界最有权势的家庭，但是这个工作通过异教徒奴隶女性完成，而不通过自由的穆斯林女性完成。
p110
valide sultan与haseki sultan之间的tension，有点像grand vezir与他的直属下属——其他vezir，尤其是grand vezir出征时被任命留守首都的代理grand vezir（kaymakam）之间的tension。
p117
关于后宫的史料记载是否可靠的试金石：看怎么描述太后的作用。
p118
Most useful are privy purse registers (masraf-ı şehriyari/harc-ı hassa defteri) covering the century from the 1550s to the 1650s.
p124
一个妃子的生涯伴随着她在两个宫殿之间的移动。在旧宫（Old Palace）受训期间，她服从宫中更资深的女性成员，前途未定。如果她被苏丹选中，她就会被送往新宫（New Palace）。在那里，短时间内，她成为苏丹的性伴侣。如果她怀孕了，她就得返回旧宫，并在那里得到自己的房间和侍从。如果她生下男孩，她和她的孩子最终会离开旧宫，在provincial capital组建一个新的家庭。如果妃子没有怀孕，苏丹会把她嫁给奴隶。生不了孩子的没用妃子是毫无地位的。
p125
The hierarchy of the harem institution was recognized and symbolized by the daily stipends (mevacib) paid to each of its members from the imperial treasury.
p126
太后位高权重的表现：工资是整个帝国上下最高的，高于苏丹本人和文武百官。
p129
Favorites were listed as “haseki sultan” or, in retirement, “haseki of the deceased Sultan X”—suggesting that the individual’s fundamental relationship was with the sultan himself. Other concubine mothers of sons were listed as “the mother of Prince X” (valide-: Sultan X)— suggesting that the individual had no special relationship with the sultan, but only with a potential sultan, her son. Concubines who were the mothers of daughters only were not even listed individually in the privy purse registers
p139
Marrying male and female slaves was an ancient practice that appears to have originated with the institution of elite slavery itself: the ninth-century Abbasid caliph Mu’tasim, whose Turkish slave guard was the earliest instance of the Islamic practice of elite slavery, married his soldiers to slave women of the same ethnic origin
A striking feature of the organizational elaboration of the harem after its move to the New Palace is its similarity to the organization of the pages and eunuchs who inhabited the third courtyard.
p141
Both institutions were characterized by enforced industriousness and a strictness of discipline, and were compared by foreigners to monasteries. As in the third courtyard, a rule of silence prevailed in the harem, where there were female mutes, lending it an air of serious and solemn endeavor
p142
To sum up, the career of a jariye might culminate in one of three ways: 给苏丹生儿子路线, 管理路线, 成为自由人和高官结婚路线. It is not clear at what point the harem career bifurcated, but it seems likely that the 只有training过程中表现顶级的女奴隶才能走做妾生儿子路线. A successful career as concubine, as with the pages, depended on character, intelligence, and accomplishment as well as on physical appeal. Women at this level of training who did not become royal concubines most probably went on to occupy the highest offices in the administrative/supervisory staff of the harem or to marry men high in the sultan’s service.
p143
后宫里不是奴隶身份的只有太后（丈夫死的时候自动取得自由人身份）和公主。
p145
Ottoman公主从两三岁就开始订婚结婚，到青春期，往往已经是第三次或者第四次婚姻，因为公主的高官丈夫死亡率颇高，战死，被处死，都有可能。
p147
和高官结婚，又可以回后宫娘家探访的公主，可成为太后的信息源, 带信儿人，政治谋略顾问
最强势的太后通常拥有好几个女儿。
太后通过影响公主/孙女的婚姻来塑造自己的权力网络
p148
Money and material goods accumulated by powerful individuals in the service of the state (including members of the dynasty) were viewed as property on loan, the temporary or usufruct use of which ceased when the owner left office or died.
p155
There is no one moment in the history of Ottoman state and society that can be frozen and labelled “the classical empire.”
p163
This means of linking the dynasty to the household of the Prophet is only one example of the ability of royal women to serve functions not available to or perhaps even avoided by the males of the dynasty.
There may even have been tacit reference to the fact of conversion—Ottoman concubines were converts to Islam as of course were the Prophet’s wives
p164
It is significant that the celebration of ghaza had the power to suspend one of the most fundamental of Ottoman social norms: women temporarily enjoyed the freedom to move about the city and mix with male company.
p167
十六世纪，ulema高层人员，尤其是müfti，对政策的影响逐渐增强
p170
苏丹避免军事活动的另一个原因：害怕失败
p173
As in the later sixteenth century, an integral aspect of the early critique of sultanic seclusion was the charge that “infidel” women were responsible for the corruption of the dynasty.
p191
苏莱曼之后，苏丹愈发倾向于隐居不见人，太后频频在公众面前露面，弥补了sultanic ceremonial的缺乏
p193
Ottoman习俗：苏丹得胜归来，太后和其它女眷要出城接风庆贺。
p194
太后每次出行，从一个地点移动到另一个地点，都是一次庆典的机会。
p196
The valide sultan’s public appearances might represent not only the mag nificence and munificence of the dynasty but also the supreme attribute of Muslim sovereignty: justice.
p198
The construction of public works—usually a complex of buildings providing public services grouped around a mosque—was an element of Muslim noblesse oblige. By undertaking the creation of such insti tutions and of endowments (vakıf) for their maintenance and the salaries of their staffs, members of the ruling classes individually provided much of the urban infrastructure that was the responsibility of the state in other societies. Such works, known as hayrat—pious deeds or establishments—were under taken for the ostensible purpose of pleasing God through an act of piety, but they had the worldly benefit of announcing the status and wealth of the builder and of garnering the gratitude of the local population for his or her philanthropy.
p199
it was during the reign of Süleyman that a new paradigm for women’s public building took shape. Süleyman’s mother Hafsa, his daughter Mihrimah, his sisters and granddaughters, and especially his haseki Hurrem built on a grander scale than had their predecessors and for the first time constructed major monuments in the empire’s capital. These women created public-building roles that formed the standard for the valide sultan in future generations.
p212
The most important of these was the tax income from crown domains assigned to her or from lands granted to her in freehold by the sultan, either when she was haseki or during her son’s reign. Such grants had been a feature of the Ottoman dynasty from the very beginning,
p215
Urban property and other forms of urban income also contributed to the valide sultan’s wealth.
The valide sultan’s wealth also consisted of money and personal goods such as jewelry, jeweled ornaments, and rich materials.
p216
太后非常富有，经济活动很大量，太后的agents，尤其是steward，也都特别富有+享受各种public prestige
p217
皇家专属收税地方的农民的待遇比普通农民好，有各种privileged treatment
p219
十六世纪十七世纪在外交方面活跃的四位Ottoman女性: Hurrem, Nurbanu, Safiye, and Kösem.
Ottoman女性的外交活动有明显的partisan色彩：一般倾向于promote出生国的利益。所以Ottoman奴隶权贵虽然从小被征为奴隶离家，但并没有和自己的出身完全切断联系
p220
While Hurrem never undertook a personal embassy, she acted as the sultan’s voice in diplomatic correspondence. Her correspondence centered on two things: assurances of the sultan’s peaceful intentions and the exchange of gifts.
p230
太后最重要的任务：确保王子存活。教王子不要惹事，出事了利用人脉求情。
p231
The valide sultan was the most formidable challenge to a prince’s mother because she was equally intent on protecting the interests of her own son, the sultan.