GÉZA DÁVID – PÁL FODOR: NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND STRENGTH OF THE TIMARIOT ARMY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
GÉZA DÁVID – PÁL FODOR: NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND STRENGTH OF THE TIMARIOT ARMY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
The results of the study can be summarized under the following five headings.
1. The Ottoman court tried to and succeeded in maintaining the number of kiliç at about the same level between the 1580s and the 1690s.
2. Timar estates gradually became inheritable without being split up from father to son.
3. Regulations concerning the obligations of timar-holders to provide armed retainers underwent significant changes during the sixteenth century, at least in three respects: 1. the minimum portion of income from which the timariot had to bring an armed retainer with him, rose from 3,000–4,000 to 6,000 akçe. To put it in other words: only the owners of the larger (tezkerelü) timars and the ziamets were in charge of fielding cebelüs; 2. timar-holders with an income of 10,000 up to 19,999 akçe were equally obliged to maintain three cebelüs; 3. the ziamet-holders were in charge of deploying a retainer according to every 5,000 akçe instead of the previous 4,000 akçe. Due to these alterations, with the passage of time, the contingents fitted out by sipahis seems to have diminished.
4. The incessant growth in the number of sancaks and especially of vilayets in the second half of the sixteenth century can be linked to the increasing importance of the governors’ household troops as against lower rank sipahis.
5. By the middle of the 1690s the traditional timariot army sank into insignificance. At the same time, the composition of the Ottoman army as a whole, came much closer to the European standards of the age.
