As a result, the Janissaries were extremely well-disciplined troops and became members of the askeri class, the first-class citizens or military class. Once their military training began, they were subjected to severe discipline, being prohibited from growing a beard, taking up a skill other than soldiering, and marrying. These boys (usually between the ages of 10 and 20) were then taken from their parents, circumcised, and sent to Turkish families in the provinces to be raised as Muslims and learn Turkish language and customs. Īccording to military historian Michael Antonucci and economic historians Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane, the Turkish administrators would scour their regions (but especially the Balkans) every five years for the strongest sons of the sultan's Christian subjects. Through a system of meritocracy, the Janissaries held enormous power, stopping all efforts to reform the military. The brightest of the Janissaries were sent to the palace institution, Enderun. As such, they became one of the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire, rivalling the Turkish aristocracy. They were subjected to strict discipline, but were paid salaries and pensions upon retirement and formed their own distinctive social class. kapıkulu), "door servants" or "slaves of the Porte", neither freemen nor ordinary slaves ( köle). Later, those from what is now Albania, Bosnia, Greece and Bulgaria were preferred." According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "in early days, all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately. Ottoman documents from the levy of the winter of 1603-1604 from Bosnia and Albania wrote to draw attention to some children as possibly being Jewish ( şekine-i arz-ı yahudi). Jews were not allowed in the janissary army, and so in suspected cases, the entire batch would be sent to the Imperial Arsenal as indentured laborers. There is however evidence that Jews tried to enroll into the system. This was the taking (enslaving) of non-Muslim boys, notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians Jews were never subject to devşirme.
Agha of the Janissaries, the commander of the corps, in 1768įrom the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the devşirme system, which was abolished in 1648. The Ottomans instituted a tax of one-fifth on all slaves taken in war, and from this pool of manpower the sultans first constructed the Janissary corps as a personal army loyal only to the sultan. 1362–1389), the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The formation of the Janissaries has been dated to the reign of Murad I (r. The corps was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 in the Auspicious Incident, in which 6,000 or more were executed. By the time the Janissaries were suppressed, it was too late for Ottoman military power to catch up with the West. Steadily the Ottoman military power became outdated, but when the Janissaries felt their privileges were being threatened, or outsiders wanted to modernize them, or they might be superseded by their cavalry rivals, they would rise in rebellion. The Janissaries were a formidable military unit in the early centuries, but as Western Europe modernized its military organization and technology, the Janissaries became a reactionary force that resisted all change. Consequently, the corps gradually lost its military character, undergoing a process that has been described as "civilianization". Civilians bought their way into it in order to benefit from the improved socioeconomic status it conferred upon them.
By the seventeenth century, due to a dramatic increase in the size of the Ottoman standing army, the corps' initially strict recruitment policy was relaxed. Forbidden to marry before the age of 40 or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Sultan was expected. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries. They became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order.
Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the devşirme system of child levy enslavement, by which Christian Albanians, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks, Romanians and Serbs were taken, levied, subjected to forced circumcision and conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army. The corps was most likely established under sultan Orhan (1324–1362), during the Viziership of Alaeddin. 'new soldier') was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultan's household troops and the first modern standing army in Europe. A Janissary ( Ottoman Turkish: یڭیچری, romanized: yeŋiçeri,, lit.
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