1 Gombrich, E.H., Ideals and Idols. Essayson Values in History and in Art (Oxford 1979) 105 Google Scholar.

2 The Ottoman History Society (Tāhīh-i ^cOsmārī Encümeni) was founded in 1909, in the year after the Young Turk revolution. The society and its journal (Tāhīh-i^COsmārnī Encümeni Mecū^Casi, later, after the fall of the dynasty, renamed as Türk Tāhīh Encümeni Mecū^Casi) were under the direction of the last Ottoman Imperial Historiographer, ^CAbdurrahamān Seref (1853-1925; cf. Fr. Babinger, , Die Geschichtsschreiberder Osmanen undihre Werke [Leipzig 1927] 404–6)Google Scholar. ^cAbdurrahman Şeref and his associates represent the beginnings of scientific, archive-based history-writing in Turkey. On the Ottoman archives see Fekete, L., ‘Über Archivalia und Archivwesen in der Türkei’, Acta Orientalia Hungarica 3 (1953) 179–205 Google Scholar. For the antecedents of modern Turkish historiography, commencing with the mid-nineteenth century Imperial historiographer Ahmed Cevdet, see Ercüment Kuran, ‘Ottoman historiography of the Tanzimat period’, in Bernard Lewis and Holt, P.M., eds., Historians of the Middle East (London 1962) 422–9 Google Scholar; further, the pamphlet by Key, Kerim K., An Outline of Modern Turkish Historiography (Istanbul 1954)Google Scholar; ibid., ‘Trends in Turkish Historiography’, Report on Current Research (Washington, D.C. 1947) 39-46. A reliable, up to date and comprehensive study of Ottoman historiography from its origins to the end of the empire’s existence, which would mitigate the faults of Babinger’s useful but unreliable and now in many ways outdated Geschichtsschreiber remains a desideratum. On the earliest period of Ottoman historiography, while mentioning the 1922 study by the Dutch orientalist Kramers, J.H., ‘History-writing by the Ottoman Turks’, Analecta Orientalia I (Leiden 1954) 3–21 Google Scholar, emphasis should be placed on more recent authoritative statements, e.g., Inalcik, Halil, ‘The Rise of Ottoman Historiography’, in Lewis and Holt, Historians, 152–67 Google Scholar, and Ménage, V.L., ‘The Beginnings of Ottoman Historiography’, ibid., 168–179 Google Scholar. Cf. further Ménage, V. L., Neshri’s History of the Ottomans: the Sources and Development of the Text (London 1964)Google Scholar, which carries forward the pioneering work of Wittek, P., ‘Zum Quellen-problem der àìtesten osmanischen Chroniken (mit Auszügen aus Nesn)’, Mitteilungen zur Osmanischen Geschichte 1 (1921-2) 77–150 Google Scholar. For a subjective but stimulating survey of aspects of western historiography on the Ottomans during the past century and a half see Kreiser, Klaus, ‘Clio’s poor relation: Betrachtungen zur osmanischen Historiographie von Hammer-Purgstall bis Stanford Shaw’, in: Gemot Heiss and Grete Klingenstein, eds., Das OsmanischeReich und Europa 1683 bis 1789: Konflikt, Entspannung und Austausch (Wien 1983) 24–43 Google Scholar.

3 Critical discussions of the referential aspects of Ottoman history do not appear to have been initiated by historians of the field to the same extent as has been the case in, for example, Byzantine studies (cf. for a somewhat theoretical overview, John Haldon, ‘“Jargon” vs. “the Facts”? Byzantine History-writing and Contemporary Debates’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 9 (1984/85) 95-132. Cf., however, for an early statement of the epistemological unity of Ottoman history, the ‘Einleitung’ (by Kraelitz, Fr. and Wittek, P.) to Mitteilungen zur Osmanischen Geschichte, 1 (1921) 1 Google Scholar, ff.; further, the discussions in Karpat, Kemal, ed., The Ottoman state and its place in world histor (Leiden 1974)Google Scholar.

4 Cf., for the first quarter of the twentieth century the valuable study by Rossi, Ettore, ‘Gli studi di storia ottomana in Europa ed in Turchia nell’ultimo venticinquennio’, Oriente Moderno 6 (1926) 443–60 Google Scholar; on the earlier history of western scholarship (to the mid-nineteenth century) see Babinger, Fr., ‘Die tiirkischen Studien in Europa bis zum Auftreten Hammer-Purgstall’s’, Welt des Islams 7 (1919) 103–29 Google Scholar. Bibliographical indications mentioned above may be amplified by reference to the following (in order of date of publication): Spuler, B. and Forrer, R., Der Vordere Orient in isiamischer Zeit (Bern 1954) 193–233 Google Scholar; Sauvaget, J., Introduction to the History of the Muslim East¹ (Berkeley-Los Angeles 1965) 191–215 Google Scholar. The extensive periodical literature (initially in western languages only) is covered by Pearson, J.D., Index Islamicus, Cambridge, 1958 Google Scholar — (in progress; vol.1 covers the period 1906-55; subsequent quinquennia are covered by supplementary volumes, including [beginning with suppl. 5, 1976-80 (2 pts., 1983)] monographs as well as articles, and by the (preliminary) Quarterly Index Islamicus (1-; 1977-). Of the greatest importance as a reliable, comprehensive and up-to-date survey of writing on Ottoman history in all languages is the Tiirkologischer Anzeiger/Turkology Annual, I-Il published as appendices to the Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes 67 (1975) and 68 (1976); since III (1977) appearing as a separate publication, Wien, im Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Instituts (Universitàt Wien). For the most recent bibliographical survey of Ottoman history see ‘Osmanisches Reich’ (by Kreiser, Klaus), in: Mathias Bernath and Karl Nehring, eds., Historische Bucherkunde Sudosteuropa II (‘Neuzeit’), Tl.1 (München 1988), 1–299 Google Scholar.

5 The influence of classical studies on the study of Ottoman history in the twentieth century, either through the borrowing of the methodology of textual criticism or through a ‘transference’ from classical archaeology via, e.g., epigraphy, should not be underestimated. In many cases, e.g. in the early work by Wittek and others on Ottoman chronicles (see supra, n.3) or in the epigraphic work by the onetime German consul-general in Istanbul, Mordtmann, J.H. (d.1932; cf. Babinger, F., J.H. Mordtmann zum Gedachtnis [Berlin 1933]Google Scholar this influence is paramount, and may be said to have given the field a shape and an intellectual rigour which it would otherwise not have possessed.

6 Tietze, Andreas, ‘Mit dem Leben gewachsen. Zur osmanischen Geschichts-schreibung in den letzten fünfzig Jahren’, Das Osmanische Reich und Europa, 15–23 Google Scholar.

7 For the classic and still widely accepted critical reinterpretation of the Ottoman foundation-myth and the early history of the state see Wittek, P., The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London 1938)Google Scholar which recapitulates and summarises the author’s earlier contributions to the subject (cf. in particular ibid., ‘De la défaite d’Ankara à la prise de Constantinople’, Revue des Études Islamiques 12 (1938) 1-34). Wittek’s ‘ghāzī-state’ thesis has recently received a certain amount of critical attention from historians; cf. Lindner, R.P., Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (Bloomington, Ind. 1983) 3 Google Scholar; Imber, Colin, ‘Paul Wittek’s “De la défaite d’Ankara à la prise de Constantinople”’, Osmanli Arastirmalari/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 5 (1986) 65–81 Google Scholar; Heywood, Colin, ‘Wittek and the Austrian Tradition’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1988) 7–25 Google Scholar; idem,”‘Boundless dreams of the Levant”: Wittek, Paul, the George-Kreis and the Writing of Ottoman History’ (ibid., forthcoming)Google Scholar.

8 For a crucial distinction between antiquitates and historia, the significance of which has not yet been fully received in Ottoman historical studies, Momigliano, A.D., Studies in Historiography (New York 1966)Google Scholar Iff. Cf. also Hourani, Albert, ‘The Present State of Islamic and Middle Eastern Historiography’, Europe and the Middle East (London 1980) 161–96, esp. 180, ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Cf. Grunebaum, G.E. von, ‘Self-Image and Approach to History’, in: Historians of the Middle East, 457–83, esp. 470–1 Google Scholar, reprinted in the author’s Modern Islam: the Search for Cultural Identity (New York 1964) 129-71.

10 Cf. Momigliano’s remark, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford 1977) 340, that ‘for Durkheim, of a rabbinical family …, individual immortality counted for rather less than the collective sense of the community preserving itself and laying down laws through the centuries’. Hence, no doubt, the idealised, essentially two-dimensional quality of Ottoman (as opposed to, e.g., Homeric — or Scandinavian) foundation myth, particularly as it was developed by later ulema-chroniclers (cf. Wittek, P., ‘The Taking of Aydos Castle’, Arabic and Islamic studies in honour of Hamilton A.R. Gibb, ed. Makdisi, G. (Leiden 1965) 662–72)Google Scholar.

11 Grunebaum, G.E. von, op.cit.Google Scholar

12 McNeill, William H., Mythistory and other essays (Chicago-London 1986) iff., 23ffGoogle Scholar.

13 1 have taken the liberty of expanding McNeill’s implicit apocope into the more euphonious (and possibly more illuminating, if less correct) form of ‘mythohistory’.

14 An investigation into the intellectual motives or conceptual pressures which have impelled successive generations of historians writing on Ottoman history (Lybyer; Wittek; Gibb and Bowen …) to take refuge from the inherent intractability of their subject-matter in premature or imperfectly worked-through theories or imposed structures cannot be fully attempted here, although some of the current manifestations of the phenomenon are discussed below. A disturbing thought is that the causes are, in the main, twofold: the intellectual underdevelopment of the field as a discipline and in relation to its content; and — possibly as a causative force, or as a consequence of this — its fragmented nature (in terms of the linguistic Tower of Babel which encompasses its scholarly productions), allied with academic underpopulation in relation to the potential sources available for its study. This view receives some support from, e.g., Hourani, op.cit., 174, 179-80.

15 Gehlen, Cf. Arnold, ‘Ende der Geschichte?’, Einblicke (Frankfurt-am-Main 1975) 115–34 Google Scholar.

16 Wansbrough, John E., Res ipsa loquitur: History and Mimesis (Jerusalem 1987)Google Scholar.

17 Wansbrough, op.cit., 1.

18 The views of a writer of impeccably Ottoman antecedents (although offered by him in the context of the fate at the hands of modern historians of the fourteenth-century Delhi sultan Muhammad b. Tughluk, rather than that of certain of his contemporary but less well documented Ottoman analogues) ought perhaps to be taken into consideration: Canetti, Elias, Crowds and Power (New York 1971) 434 Google Scholar. Cf. idem, Die gerettete Zunge: Geschichte einer Jugend (Frankfurt-am-Main 1979); idem, Die Provinz des Menschen: Aufzeichnungen 1942-1972 (Frankfurt-am-Main 1976) 182.

19 Cf., by way of illustration, (a) the observations on the standard work of the Munich Ottomanist Babinger, Fr., Mehmed der Eroberer und seine Zeit (München 1953)Google Scholar (= Mehmed the Conquerer and his Time, ed. Hickman, William C., Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar, in Trapp, Erich ‘Plagiat in der Geschichtsschreibung Mehmeds II?,’, Byzan-tios. Festschrift ftir H. Hunger (Wien 1984) 321–32 Google Scholar, supplementary to Wittek, P., [Review of Babinger, op.cit.], Bibliotheca Orientalis 14 (1957) 262 Google Scholar, and Inalcik, Halil, ‘Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) and his time’, Speculum 35 (1960) 408–27 Google Scholar; and (b), in relation to the most recent synthesis of Ottoman history, Shaw, S.J. and Shaw, E.K., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey I-II (Cambridge 1976–7)Google Scholar, the synoptic review-analysis by Kreiser, , Clio’s poor relation, 38 Google Scholarff. Cf. for further enlightenment the individual reviews by Ménage, V.L., Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies 61 (1978) 160–2 Google Scholar, and Imber, Colin, English Historical Review 93 (1978) 393–5 Google Scholar.

20 Tietze, Zur osmanischen Geschichtsschreibung, passim; Kreiser, , Clio’s poor Relation, 37–8 Google Scholar, 43. Cf. Hourani, Present State, for an overview in the broader context of Middle Eastern history.

21 I hope to develop in a forthcoming paper the theme outlined here and in the following paragraphs, in order to deal in particular with the shifting post-imperial historicity of the Ottoman Empire, with its successive images of alienation and, more currently, appropriation vis-à-vis its successor states.

22 There is not space here to develop these themes, aspects of which are in part (resp. mythopoeia vis-à-vis western history-writing on the Ottomans) developed in the works by Lindner, Imber and Heywood mentioned above, p.317, n.7. Cf. also the supportive observations on the mythopoeic faculty, in the editors’ Introduction to Historians of the Middle East, p. 18, and, from the Byzantine side, the important observations by John Haldon, “Jargon” vs. “theFacts”, 122ff. For a brief but incisive introduction to Byzantine historiography on the Ottomans see Runciman, Sir Steven, ‘Byzantine Historians and the Ottoman Turks’, Historians of the Middle East, 271–6 Google Scholar; for a recent important essay throwing light for the first time on nineteenth and early twentieth century Ottoman perceptions of Byzantine history, cf.Ursinus, Michael, ‘Byzantine History in late Ottoman Turkish Historiography’, BMGS 10 (1986) 211–22 Google Scholar.

23 In Turkish, resp.: Defter (pl. Defātir)-i Hākānī; Tapu ve Tahrīr Defterleri. On the term defter in Ottoman chancery usage see EI² , s.v. ‘Daftar; on the tahrir defters, op.cit., s.v. Daftar-i Khākānī’ (B. Lewis). The principal holdings of these registers are in Istanbul, The Prime Ministers Archive (Başbakanhk Arşivi), classes Tapu ve Tahrir Defterleri (siglum: TT) and Maliyeden Müdevver Defterleri (‘Registers removed from the [old] Finance Ministry’, siglum: MM), and in Ankara, Land-Deed and Survey General Directorate (Tapu ve Kadastro Umûmî (now Genel) Müdürlüğü).

24 Fekete, L., Az esztergomi szandzsák 1570. évi adöösszeírása. Budapest, 1943 Google Scholar. On Fekete’s fundamental contributions to Ottoman history and in particular to the auxiliary disciplines of palaeography and diplomatic, see Csegledy, K., Acta Orien-talia Hungarica 13 (1961) 3–8 Google Scholar; Ligeti, L., ibid., 22 (1969), 379–81 Google Scholar; Jahn, K., Der Islam 46 (1970) 307–8 Google Scholar; Bayerle, Gustav, Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969) 303–16 Google Scholar (with bibliography).

25 Barkan, Ömner Lûtfi, XV ve XVI inci Asirlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Ziraî Ekonominin Hukukì ve MaliEsaslan, 1: Kanunlar (Istanbul 1943)Google Scholar. For a recent summary of research on kanun-names see EI,¹ s.v. ‘Kanun-name’ (by H. Inalcik).

26 Barkan’s collection of kanun-names was neither complete nor compiled on scientifically valid principles. For a critique of his methodology and a further (but once again not exhaustive) attempt to establish a list of extant kanun-name texts see Lowry, Heath, ‘The Ottoman Liva Kanunnames contained in the Defter-i Hakani’, Osmanli Arastirmalari/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 2 (1981) 43–74.Google Scholar

27 Dzhikiya, S.S., Gurjistanis vilāiethis didi davthari/Prostrannii reestr Gyurdzhyustanskogo Vilayeta/Defter-i mufassal-i vilāyet-i Gürcistān (‘Detailed register of the province of Georgia’) (3 vols., Tbilisi 1940-7; vol.1 (1947)Google Scholar = the Ottoman text, in Arabic characters).

28 Inalcik, Cf., op.cit. (n.29, infra), p.viii; McGowan, op.cit. n.35 infra Google Scholar, p.li

29 Inalcik, Halil, Hicrî835 Tarihli Sûret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (‘Copy of the Register for the sancak of Arvanid dated A.H. 835’ = BA MM 231) (Ankara 1954 Google Scholar: modern Turkish transcription-text with toponyms and technical terms in Arabic script).

30 Šabanović, Hazim, Krajište Isa-bega Ishakoviéa Zbirni Katastarski Popis iz 1455. godine (‘Summary Cadastral Survey of the Region of Isa-Beg Ishakovic (scil. Tetovo and Skopje) of 1455’ = BA MM 544) (Sarajevo 1964;Google Scholar text in Arabic script; Serbo-Croat translation with introduction and exhaustive commentary); ibid., Turski Izvori za Istoriju Beograda 1/1 : Katastarski Popisi Beograda i Okoline 1476-1566 (‘Turkish Sources for the History of Belgrade: Cadastral Surveys of Belgrade and the vicinity’) (Beograd 1964: extracts from late fifteenth and sixteenth-century registers, in Serbo-Croat translation).

31 Hadzibegić, Hamid et al., eds., Oblast Brankovića. Opsirni Katastarski Popis iz 1455. godine (‘Detailed cadastral survey for the District of [Vuk] Brankovic’ = BA TT2m, Defter-i Vilāyet-i Vlk) I-II (Sarajevo 1972)Google Scholar: II facsimile text; I Serbo-Croat translation and commentary).

32 Djurdjev, Branislav, Dva Defiera Crne Gore iz Vremena Skender-Bega Crnojeviéa (‘Two Registers for Montenegro from the Time of Skenderbeg Crnojevic’ = TT 106, 121 (1521, 23)) I-II (Sarajevo 1968-73 Google Scholar: I fascimile text; II Serbo-Croat translation).

33 Bojanic, Dusanka, in: MeSovita Gradja (Miscellanea) 2 (Beograd: Istorijski Institut 1973) 5–192 Google Scholar (= Serbo-Croat introduction and translation, with first-class facsimile plates, of two fragmentary fifteenth-century defters for the sancak of Vidin (n.e. Bulgaria), resp. BA MM18, a summary register for 1466, and TT814, a detailed register for the same region for 1479-81). A more recent important publication (in Serbo-Croat translation only) of sections of a large number of tahrtr defters for the sancak of Semendire (Smederovo) dealing with the region of the Western (Zapadna) Morava river basin, sets less high editorial standards: Alicie, Ahmed S., Turski Katastarski Popisi nekih podrutja Zapadne Srbije XV i XVI vek Mil (Cacak 1984–5)Google Scholar.

34 Sokoloski, M., ed., Turski Dokumenti za Istorijata na Makedonskiot Narod (‘Turkish Documents for the History of the Macedonian People’) I. (Skopje 1971-). Series in progress: six vols, (to 1984)Google Scholar of translations (into Macedonian) of the most important fifteenth and sixteenth-century mufassal defters for the region. Cf. for a detailed listing, with archival references, Historische Biicherkunde Siidosteuropas II/l, no.1462, p.313. Cf., for a recent attempt to utilise the same series of tahrirs (and also vakif texts) for the urban history of Skopje, Eran Fraenkel, ‘Skopje from the Serbian to Ottoman Empires: Conditions for the Appearance of a Balkan Muslim City’, unpublished University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. dissertation, 1986.

35 McGowan, Bruce W., Sirem Sancagi Mufassal Tahrir Defteri (‘Detailed Register for the Sancak of Sirem’) (Ankara 1983 Google Scholar: modern Turkish transcription-text with (pp. li-lxxxv) a valuable introduction in English) Cf., further, as an accessible illustration of ‘applied’ defterology, McGowan, B., ‘Food Supply and Taxation on the Middle Danube, 1568-1579’, Archivum Ottomanicum 1 (1969) 139-96 Google Scholar.

36 Cvetkova, B., Mutafcieva, V. et. al., eds., Turski Izvori za B’lgarska Istorija, I-III (in progress?) (Sofia 1964 Google Scholar-: facsimile texts and Bulgarian translation and apparatus of the relevant defters).

37 Cvetkova, Bistra, ed., Opis na Timarski Registri (Sofia 1970)Google Scholar.

38 Pulaha, Selami, Defteri i Regjistrimit tè Sanzhakut të Shkodrës i vitit 1485/Le cadastre de l’an 1485 du Sandjak de Shkoder I-II (Tirana 1974 Google Scholar: I Albanian translation and introduction; II Ottoman text in Arabie characters of TT17, Defter-i mufassal-i liva-i Iskenderiyye AH 890).

39 Káldy-Nagy, Cf. Gy., Kanuni Devri Budin Tahrir Defteri (1546-1562) (Ankara 1971 Google Scholar: modem Turkish transcription-text conflating TT 388, 410 and 449 with TT 345).

40 The greatest need is for the publication of further relevant defter material for the region of the first Ottoman settlement in Rumeli (scil. ‘Eastern Thrace’ from Gallipoli to the environs of Istanbul plus Edirne and its surrounding regions and hinterland) to supplement the valuable but chaotic collection by Gökbilgin, M. T., XV.-XVI. Asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa Livasi (Istanbul 1952)Google Scholar.

41 The Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire lie outside the remit of the present article, except insofar as they are of relevance for my observations infra, §IV.

42 Mention here must be made of two studies by Turkish scholars based largely on the exploitation of the relevant tahrir defters: Göyünc, Nejat, XVI. Yüzyilda Marāin Sancagi (‘The Sancak of Mardin in the Sixteenth Century’) (Istanbul 1969)Google Scholar, and Ismet, Miro-lu, XVI, yüzyilda Bay buri Sancagi (‘The Sancak of Bayburt in the Sixteenth Century’) (Istanbul 1975)Google Scholar, and also of the recent publication of the complete text (in modern Turkish transcription) of a detailed sixteenth-century register for Malatya: Refet Yinanç and Elibüyük, Mesut, KanunîDevri Malatya Tahrir Defteri (1560) (Ankara 1983)Google Scholar.

43 Lowry, Heath W., ‘The Ottoman Tahrīr Defterleri as a Source for Social and Economic History: Pitfalls and Limitations’Google Scholar, unpublished paper read at the IV. International Congress on Turkish Economic and Social History, Munich, 4-8 August 1986. I am deeply grateful to Heath Lowry for his kindness in providing me with a copy of this paper and for allowing me to make use of it.

44 For a more critical attitude to the analogous influence of classical studies on modern Byzantine history-writing see Haldon, ‘“Jargon” vs. “The Facts” ’, 124 ff.

45 Lowry’s critique (‘Liva Kanunnames’, 43-5) of Barkan’s methodology is not altogether reflected in his own edition of the series of kānūn-nāmes for the island of Lemnos (‘A Corpus of Extant Kanunnames for the Island of Limnos…’, Osmanli Aras, tirmalari/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 1 (1980) 41-60. For an edition of a kanun-name text (in fact, of a series of [non-provincial] kānūn-nāme texts forming the ‘Ottoman Criminal cotie’) which meets the requirements of such a praxis, see Heyd, Uriel, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, ed. Ménage, V.L. (Oxford 1973)Google Scholar. In the context of sancak kānūn-nāme texts, I hope to offer for consideration in a forthcoming study a new model praxis via a study and re-edition of the extant kānūn-nāme texts for the sancak of Semendire (cf., meanwhile for a late version of the text, Berindei, M., Berthier, A., Veinstein, G., ‘Code de lois de Murad III concernant le province de Smederovo’, Siidost-Forschungen 31 (1972) 140–63)Google Scholar.

46 Cf. the critique (from a different standpoint) of previous treatments of the tahnrs in: Lowry, Pitfalls and Limitations, 3ff., passim.

47 For a specimen berat (comission) for the drawing up of a tahrir see Beldiceanu-Steinherr, I. and Beldiceanu, N., ‘Règlement ottoman concernant le recensement (première moitiee du XVI^e siècle)’, Südost-Forschungen 37 (1978) 1–40 Google Scholar.

48 Lowry, Pitfalls and Limitations, 19ff.

49 Cf. the definition of a numismatic type immobilisée as ‘a form copied without understanding of its meaning’, Whitting, P., Byzantine Coins (London 1975) 77 Google Scholar. How far this concept may be applied to Ottoman chancery practice in the context of tahrir defters remains debatable.

50 Cf. Lowry, Pitfalls and Limitations, passim.

51 Cf. n.29, supra.

52 Cf. n.35, supra.

53 Halasi-Kun, Tibor, ‘Some notes on Ottoman Mufassal Defter studies’. Raiyyet Riisûmu. Essays presented to Halil Inalak, 1 [Cambridge, Mass, 1986; = Journal of Turkish Studies, 10, 1986] 163–6 Google Scholar.

54 Halasi-Kun, Ottoman Mufassal Defter studies, 165.

55 Cf. further my forthcoming re-edition of the Semendire kānūn-nāme (n.45, supra).

56 Bryer, Anthony and Lowry, Heath (eds.), Continuity and change in late Byzan tine and early Ottoman society. Papers given at a Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks in May 1982 (Birmingham [England] and Washington, D.C., 1986)Google Scholar.

57 The observation by the editors of the 1982 Dumbarton Oaks symposium that the study by the Greek-American historian Speros Vryonis, Jr., The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1971, ‘aroused the appetite’ amongst historians to ‘turn the page to the next stages of the process’ (Continuity and change, 1) is presumably a meiosis for ‘inflamed the passions’. Cf. inter alia the forensic review by Ménage, V.L., BSOAS, 36 (1973) 659–61 Google Scholar, and Vryonis, Speros, Jr.’s critical ‘review of reviews’ (under the same title as the book), The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 27/2-3 (1982) 225–85 Google Scholar.

58 Cf. in particular the following: Lowry, Heath W., ‘The Ottoman Tahrir Defters as a source for urban demographic history: the case study of Trabzon (ca. 1486-1583)’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1977 Google Scholar (published version impending); idem, ‘A corpus of extant kanunnames for the island of Limnos as contained in the Tapu-Tahrir Defter collection of the Basbakanlik archives’, Osmanli Arastirmalan/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 1 (1980) 41-60; idem, ‘Portrait of a city: the population and topography of Ottoman Selânik (Thessaloniki) in the year 1478’, Ai’nwxa 2 (1980-1) 254-91; idem, ‘The Ottoman liva kanunnames contained in the Defter-i Hakani’, Osmanli Arastirmalan/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 2 (1981) 43-74; idem, ‘A note on the population and status of the Athonite monasteries under Ottoman rule (ca. 1520)’, Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes 73 (1981) 115-35.

59 Details of the three symposium papers by Lowry based on the utilisation of specific tahrir defters for a single region are as follows: [1] ‘Radilofo’ (based on TT3 and TT7) = ‘Changes in fifteenth-century Ottoman peasant taxation: the case study of Radilofo’, Continuity and change, 23-37; [2] ‘Maçuka’ (based on TT52, MM828, TT387, TT288) = ‘Privilege and property in Ottoman Maçuka in the opening decades of the Tourkokratia: 1461-1533’, op.cit., 97-128; [3] ‘Limnos’ (based on TT25 and TT75) = ‘The island of Limnos: a case study on the continuity of Byzantine forms under Ottoman rule’, op.cit., 235-59.

60 Cf. my review of Continuity and Change, forthcoming in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies.

61 Cf. the recent rather acrimonious debate between Lowry and N. Beldiceanu over the dating and utility of TT70 and TT403, two important mufassal defters from Mehemmed II’s reign, dealing with Thessaloniki and the surrounding districts. The debate was precipitated by Lowry’s 1981 article in WZKM (see n.58, supra), but cf. further (a) Beldiceanu, N., Byzantion 52 (1982) 496–9 Google Scholar; (b) Lowry, ibid., 55 (1985) 403-8; (c) Beldiceanu, ibid., 409-12; (d) Lowry, ibid., 413-ff.

62 Lowry, Radilofo, 23.

63 Ibid., 24.

64 Ursinus, Michael, ‘An Ottoman Census Register for the area of Serres of 859 H. (1454-1455)?’, Südost-Forschungen 45 (1986) 25–36 Google Scholar.

65 Cf. the list of previous attributions of TT3, Ursinus, Census Register, 26, n.4.

66 Ursinus, Census Register, 27, ff.

67 Lowry, Radilofo, 23-4, 34.

68 The recoinage of the akce by Mehemmed II in 865/1460 reduced its weight from + /-5.25 kirat (1.00 gm) to + /-4.75 kirat (0.90 gm). In 875/1470 the akce was reduced in weight to +/-4.25 kirat (0.80 gm); in 886/1481 to as low as 3.15 kirat in some instances. The fineness remained at approximately .900 throughout the reign. Ibrahim, and Artuk, Cevriye, Istanbul Arkeloji Muzeleri teshirdeki Islāmī Sikkler Katalogu (‘Catalogue of Islamic Coins conserved in the Archaeology Museum, Istanbul’) II (Istanbul 1974) 480 Google Scholar.

69 Lowry, Radilofo, 35.

70 Lowry, Radilofo, 34.

71 Lowry, Radilofo, 36-7.

72 I have taken these figures from Lowry’s ‘Appendix’ (p.35). It should be noted, however, that they are gross figures unadjusted for what he terms (p.37, §3) ‘scribal errors’.

73 It is a weakness of the existing literature on the reign of Mehemmed II that the axial point of history at the intersection of its political and economic interpretations is rarely gained (a notable exception being provided by Inalcik’s contributions to the period). On the one hand political history, currently unfashionable and disregarded, has not progressed far beyond either naive romanticism (Wittek) or undigested regurgitated tevārīh (Babinger); on the other, the inability of what may be termed ‘applied defterology’ to deliver the goods beyond the level of elementary mathematical analysis, unless it is made use of in conjunction with other classes of source, has been well demonstrated. The most urgent need for current Ottoman historiography, conceptually speaking, is to rid itself of documentary typological obsessions (twenty years ago the Mühimme; now the Tapu ve Tahrīr!).

74 Lowry, Pitfalls and Limitations, 12ff.; cf. the striking example provided by idem,. ‘The Question of Trabzon’s Efrenciyan Population: 1486-1583’, VIII. Turk Tarin Kongresi (Ankara 11-15.X.1976) ([Proceedings of the] Eighth Turkish History Congress, Ankara, 11-15 Oct. 1976) 2 (Ankara 1986) 1493-1501.

75 Cf. the table in Lowry, Radilofo, 36.

76 Lowry, Radilofo, 36.

77 The lists provided by the two published guides to the Başbakanhk Arşivi ( Sertoglu, Midhat, Muhteva Bakimindan Başvekâlet Arşivi (Ankara 1955) 39–44 Google Scholar and Çetin, Attilâ, Baçbakanlik Kilavuzu (Istanbul 1979) 85–110)Google Scholar offer only an unsystematic list of TT numbers arranged by place name, with no indication of even the date of the defters indicated; the list in Lowry, ‘Liva Kanunnames’, lists all the BA defters which contain kānūn-nāme texts, but, by virtue of administrative unhelpfulness, only some (derived from secondary sources of information) of the Ankara holdings in the Survey Ministry.

78 Tietze, Attila, Zur osmanischen Geschichtsschreibung, 17–8 Google Scholar.

79 Lewis, Bernard, ‘The Ottoman archives as a source for the history of the Arab lands’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Oct. 1950) 139–155; idem, Notes and documents from the Turkish archives. A contribution to the history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire (Jerusalem 1952)Google Scholar (Oriental Notes and Studies 3).; idem, ‘Studies in the Ottoman archives-I’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 16(1954)469-501.

80 Cohen, Amnon and Lewis, Bernard, Population and revenue in the towns of Palestine in the sixteenth century (Princeton 1978)Google Scholar.

81 Tietze, , Zur osmanischen Historiographie, 15. For a short but comprehensive survey of British writing on Turkish mattersBowen, cf. Harold, British contributions to Turkish studies (London 1945)Google Scholar; on the lexicographer Redhouse, Sir James (A Turkish and English lexicon, [Constantinople 1890; rp. 1921; Beyrouth, 1985])Google Scholar see Findley, Carter V., ‘Sir James W. Redhouse (1811-1892): the making of a perfect orientalist?’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 99 (1979) 573–600 Google Scholar.

82 Cf. in particular (in addition to Redhouse), Gibb, E.J.W., A history of Ottoman poetry, 6 vols. (London 1900-9; repr. 1958-67)Google Scholar.

83 For an examination of Wittek’s historical views see my forthcoming study and, for the present, the other works by Lindner, Imber and Heywood cited above, p.317 n.7.

84 Cf., in particular, Ménage, V.L., Neshñ’s History of the Ottomans. The sources and development of the text (London 1964)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Seven Ottoman documents from the reign of Mehemmed II’, Documents from Islamic chanceries, ed. Stern, S.M. (Oxford 1965) 81–118 Google Scholar; idem, ‘The “Annals of Murad II” ’, BSOAS 39 (1976) 570-84; idem, ‘On the constituent elements of certain sixteenth-century Ottoman documents’, BSOAS 48 (1985) 283-304.

85 Heywood, , ‘Wittek and the Austrian tradition’, 7–8, 11 Google Scholar ff; cf., for a sympathetic evaluation of Gibb, Hourani, Albert, ‘H.A.R. Gibb: the vocation of an orientalist’, Europe and the Middle East (London 1980) 104–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 Lewis, Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London 1961)Google Scholar.

87 Gibb, H.A.R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic society and the West, vol.1, pts. 1–2, Islamic society in the eighteenth century (London 1950–7 Google Scholar); cf. in particular the critique by Itzkowitz, Norman, ‘Eighteenth-century Ottoman realities’, Studia Islamica 16 (1962) 73–94 Google Scholar.

88 Cf., principally, Parry, V.J., ‘La manière de combattre’, in Parry, V.J. and Yapp, M.E. (eds.), War, technology and society in the Middle East (London 1975) 218–56;Google Scholar supplemented by three principal articles in The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden 1954-), viz: ‘Bārūt’ [i.e., ‘Gunpowder’]; ‘Harb’ [‘War’]; ‘Hisār’ (‘Fortification’]. Cf. further, in continuation of Parry’s approach to Ottoman military history, Collins, L.J.D., ‘The military organisation and tactics of the Crimean Tatars, 16th-17th centuries’, Parry and Yapp, op.cit., 257–76 Google Scholar.; Heywood, C.J., ‘The activities of the state cannon-foundry at Istanbul in the early sixteenth century according to an unpublished Turkish source’, Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiu, 30 (1980) 209–17 Google Scholar; Finkel, Caroline, The Administration of Warfare: the Ottoman Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606 (unpublished London Ph.D. dissertation, 2 pts., 1985)Google Scholar.

89 Collected in Holt, P.M., Studies in the history of the Near East (London 1973) §III (pp.151–251)Google Scholar.

90 At Edinburgh Walsh, J.R. was a one-time student of Wittek, as was Susan Skilliter (d. 1985) at Manchester, later Cambridge Google Scholar.

91 Cook, M.A., Population pressure in rural Anatolia 1450-1600 (London 1972)Google Scholar.

92 Cook, op.cit., 44.

93 Cf. in particular Schaendlinger, A.C., Osmanische-Tiirkische Dokumente aus dem Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv zu Wien, 1–2 (Wien, 1983, 1986)Google Scholar.

94 Lowry, Heath, Pitfalls and Limitations; Káldy-Nagy, G., Quellenwert der Tahrir Defterleri. For a more balanced view, Cvetkova, B., ‘Ottoman Tahrir Defters’, Archivum Ottomanicum 8 (1983) 133–213 Google Scholar.

95 The relevant literature is in Turkish. Cf. in particular Göyünç, Nejat ‘Turk kültür tarihi bakimindan arşiverlimizin önemi’ (The significance of our archives from the point of view of Turkish cultural history), Belleten 37 (147) (1973) 305–19 Google Scholar; Ózbaran, Salih, ‘Osmanli arsivi ve tarihin geleceg (The Ottoman archives and the future of history), Tarih ve Toplum 48 (Dec. 1987) 369–74 Google Scholar. A variety of official and scholarly views are to be found in the proceedings of the Osmanli arsivleri ve Osmanli arastir-malan sempozyumu (Symposium on the Ottoman archives and Ottoman researches, Istanbul 1985 [Istanbul n.d.]) (Türk-Arap ilişkileri incemeleri vakfi yayinlan 1)

96 Cvetkova, Ottoman Tahrir Defters, 203-4; 193ff.

97 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, quoted (without reference) in Levey, Michael, High Renaissance (Harraondsworth 1975) 289 Google Scholar. I am grateful to April Gleeson for bringing this quotation to my attention.