The Ruling Institution was affected strongly by the splendor and luxury of the court of Suleiman. The Sultan had so enormous an establishment, and was so fond of display and ceremony, that a similar spirit developed in all his _kullar_. Each officer of position became inordinately ambitious to have a large household, many horses, much portable wealth, and superb equipment for his horses and servants on state occasions and in time of war. Just as Suleiman’s splendor embarrassed his finances, so that he was willing that Rustem should require payment for office from newly-appointed great officials, so most of his _kullar_, in order to keep up display, were led to undignified and extortionate procedures. In the time of Suleiman’s grandfather the Ottomans of high position had already been excessively grasping. “And to tell the truth,” writes Spandugino, “in that country they are more eager after money than devils after souls. And one cannot accomplish anything with the princes or lords except by the power of money. In general, as well the emperor as his princes and lords have mouths only for eating, for if you go to them without giving them some present you will accomplish nothing.”[502] That eagerness for wealth with which Spandugino reproached the Turks became only worse under the Magnificent sultan’s example. The members of the Ruling Institution might prey on each other to a certain extent by the sale of offices; but the ultimate evil effect fell upon the subjects outside. They in the end must pay for all the luxury and splendor of the great court and the little courts. The pressure upon them tended to become worse and worse. Lands began to grow less productive and to pass out of cultivation. That dead blight began to descend upon agriculture and trade which persists in Turkey to the present day.[503] Yet in the time of Suleiman this weakness hardly appeared. Although his best two sons had come to cruel deaths, although twenty thousand of his troops had lately died in vain at Malta, he went forth to his last campaign with a train which surpassed in pomp and splendor all that he had led before.[504] CHAPTER VI THE RULING INSTITUTION: AS GOVERNMENT SUMMARY The Ottoman Ruling Institution has now been considered in all but the last of its aspects. The recruiting of its members from Christian subjects and enemies, their conversion to Mohammedanism, and their training for the duties of war and government were first explained; then the military duties and organization of the sultan’s _kullar_, their privileged and noble status, and their organization and activity as a household and court were described. Of the seven aspects in which the Ruling Institution may be considered only one remains, that of government in the narrow sense.