The urban Janissay in eighteenth-century Istanbul

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Masson, Gemma (2019). The urban Janissay in eighteenth-century Istanbul. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The traditional narrative of Ottoman history claims that the Empire went into decline from the seventeenth century onwards, with the eighteenth century being a period of upheaval and change which led to the eventual fall of the Ottomans. The janissaries are major players in these narratives with claims from both secondary and primary writers that this elite military corps became corrupt and this contributed significantly to the overall decline of the Ottoman Empire. Such a simplistic view overlooks the changes taking place in the environment surrounding the janissaries leading to members of the corps needing to adapt to changing circumstances. The result is that the janissaries of this period were for the longest time almost exclusively studied through a binary ‘purity/corruption’ paradigm and it became difficult for scholars to move away from this system of thinking about the corps. As the principal aim of this dissertation is to facilitate a further move away from to the ‘purity/corruption’ paradigm for scholars it shall explore a range of secondary literature pertaining to the janissary corps and use primary sources to argue that this institutional ‘corruption’ is in fact and institutional adaptation. The primary documentation for this thesis is drawn primarily from the Prime Ministerial Archives in Istanbul and from the Istanbul Court Registers held at ISAM library as well as a range of published primary sources. This thesis shall break down the identity and function of the janissaries of eighteenth-century Istanbul into three principal chapters and examine each aspect janissary life within these chapters highlighting how janissary developments in these areas lend themselves to an interpretation of adaptation as opposed to corruption. Furthermore, this thesis shall attempt to reframe the discussion of the janissary corps moving towards an image of an institution adapting to the changing context it found itself in.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):