DEVSHIRME , verbal noun of T. devshir-'to collect’ (with various spellings, cf. TTS s.v. dersirmek), Ottoman term for the periodical levy of Christian children for training to fill the ranks of the Janissaries (see vent GrR1) and to occupy posts in the Palace service and in the administration Gr. xondopéGaua). The same verb is used in the earliest Ottoman sources (Giese's Anon, 22, 1. 12 = Urudj 22, 1. 4) for the ‘collection’ of the fifth part of prisoners from the dar al- harb due to the Sultan as pendjik [g.0.], from whom, according to tradition, the Janissary corps was first raised in the early years of the reign of Murad I; but the date of the institution of the dashimme in its narrower sense of a levy of dhimni children is still uncertain (Idlvis Bidhist's attribution of it to Orkhan is certainly anachronistic, although, having been followed by Sa'd al- Din and Hammer, it long enjoyed general acceptance). The earliest contemporary reference to the devshirme so far known appears in a sermon preached in 1395 Ge,, in the reign of Bayezid I) by Isidore Glabas, the metropolitan of Thessalonica, lamenting the 'scizure of the children by the decree of the amir'(Opthio. nepi tig apnayiig tv narSiov Kate to tod dunpa éniroryucr, first noticed by O. Tafrali, in Thessalonique au XIV°™° sidcle, 1913, 286 £., and discussed by S. Vryonis Jr. in Isidore Glabas and the Turkish Deushirme in Speculum xxi, 1956, 433-43); the second oldest appears in Sinan Pasha's letter, of 1430, to the inhabitants of Ioannina, promising them if they submitted exemption from maopdv naudiov (cf. K. Amantos, in “EAAnvtxd. ix, 1936, 119). Bartholomacus de Jano, in his letter written in 1438, says (Migne Patr. Graec. vol. 158, col. 1066): [| Murad IT] decimam puerorum parlem de Ghristianis, quod prius numquam fecerat (sic, not fuerat as in EL), nuper accepit ...', which has been interpreted as indicating that it was Murad II who introduced the deushirme ; however in the light of Isidore Glabas's reference it seems rather that Murad re-introduced it, perhaps after it had been suspended in the years of confusion following the battle of Ankara (as is [U2] 1a] stated by ‘Ata I 33) and as part of his re-organization of the Ja ries (Sphrantzes 92). Although Idris Bidlisi maintained, on the ground that most of the dhimmi's had been conquered by force (be- ‘anzea), that the devskirme was in accordance with the shar, this argument seems not (o have commended itself to Sa‘d al- Din (cf. V. L. Ménage in BSOAS, xviii, 1956, 181-3), and the devskirme does appear in fact to have been an infringement of the rights of the dhimmi s (see puuvima ). It has been suggested however that a justification of the devshirme might have been drawn from the Shafit doctrine that Christians converted since the Descent of the Kur’an (and hence most of the rural population of the Balkans, but not the Greeks) were not entitled to the status of dhimmi (cf. P. Wittek, Devshirme and Shavi‘a , BSOAS, xvii, 1955, 271-8). With certain exceptions (see below) all the Christian population of the European domains of the Empire, and later the Asiatic domains as well, was liable to the devshirme . In the 16th century, the devshirme was entrusted to a Janissary officer, usually a yaya- bashi (for the ranks eligible for this duty cf. I. H. Uzung arsth, Kapukulu Ocaklan, i [hereafter KKO], 15), who went to the district where the levy was to be made, accompanied by a Aattb , and (aking with him a letter from the Agha of the Janissaries, a ferdt of authorization, and (according to Navagero [see BibL}) a supply of uniforms. In each fada criers summoned the children to gather, accompanied by their fathers and by the priests, who brought the baptismal registers. Under the supervision of the fad? and the siphi s, or their representatives, the officer selected the best of the children of the ages eligible, The age-limits reported in European accounts vary greatly, from as low as eight years old to as high as 20 (cf. Lybyer 48); relatively late Ottoman Roninkliike Briti NV. Tdocuments (of 1601, 1621, 1622 and 1666) prescribe the limits 15-20 (KKO, 95, 98; A. E. Vakalopoulos [see Bibl] 286 £.). For each group of 100-150 children two registers were made, listing their names, parentage, ages and descriptions; one remained with the recruiting- officer, the other went with the siinigii (drover') who conducted the impressed children to Istanbul (see especially documents in KkO, 92-7). The local re‘@yd were obliged to pay a special tax to meet the cost of the uniforms (KkO, 17 f., 22 n.). On arriving in Istanbul the children were inspected both for their physique and for their moral qualities as revealed by the science of Physiognomy ( kiyafa, [g.v.]; ef. ‘Alt, Kiinh, v, 14 fs id., Medidi‘’n- Nofa's, Istanbul 1956, 21; Postel, iii, 3). The best were taken directly into the Palace service or distributed to high dignitaries; the rest were hired (for 25 akées a head, according to Navagero [1553]: one ducat according to Busbecq; two ducats according to Koii Beg) to Turks in Asia Minor, and later—already by the middle of the 16th century [Navagero, Busbecq, Chesneau]—in Raimeli as well, to work on the land for some years, learn Turkish and assimilate Muslim ways (the term for this training period was Tiirk iizerinde olmak, cf. KO, 115 ff}. The lads were called in as required to fill vacancies in the ‘agiami udjak (see ‘ADJAMT OGHLAN). In principle the devshirme was not applied to children of townsfolk and craftsmen, as being sophisticated and less hardy than peasant lads (KKO, 18, 39), though these rules were often abused: devshirmes were levied regularly in Athens in the middle of the 16th century (cf. the chronicle in Ecthesis Chronica, ed. S. Lampros, 1902, 86). As (1:21 1b} married lads were not taken, the Christian peasantry often married their children very young (Gerlach, 306). Regions which had submitted voluntarily to the Ottomans seem to have been. exempt from the devshinne (cf. Des Hayes): certainly exemption is specified among the terms granted, for example, to Galata (cf. E. Dalleggio d'Alessio in ‘EMAnvixé: xi, 1939, 115-24), Rhodes (cf. Gharriére, Mégociations, i, 92; Fontanus in Lonicerus [1584 ed.] i, 423) and Chios (cf. P. Argenti, Chius Vincta, 1941, cxliii, 208 ff.). The inhabitants of Istanbul, perhaps as being townsfolk, were in practice not liable (Gerlach 48; and cf. the story in the Historia Patnarchica [Bonn ed. 167, discussed by J. H. Mordtmann in BZ, xxi, 1912, 129-144] that Mchemmed II had granted them amdn ). Moldavia and Wallachia were never subject to the devshinme (Cantemir, 1734 ed., 38, and cf. KO, 14 n., Jorga, iii, 188); the Armenians seem to have been exempt at first (Thevet, 799 b, but cf. A&O, 17), but were so no longer in later years ( Koti Beg). Freedom from the dashirme , temporary or permanent, was also included occasionally among the exemptions from taxes and ‘awdnd granted to various groups of raya in return for services rendered directly to the State, eg., miners, guardians of passes and dwellers on main roads, or to some dwellers on wakf-lands (KKO, 109-14; O. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 72, 85; relazione of Garzoni [1573] in Albéri, 3rd ser., i, 396); these exemptions were strictly checked and liable to be withdrawn (KkO, 97-101). The Muslims of Bosnia were in a special position. According to a late Ottoman source (Sham‘dani- ade, Mari al- tavdrikh, Istanbul 1338, 454) the Christian population embraced Islam en masse upon the Ottoman conquest in 867/1463, but requested that their children should nevertheless be eligible for the devshinme . Though the Islamization of the peasantry was not in fact instantaneous (cf. B. Djurdjev, noswa, 1265 b above), there is a record of a recruitment of 1000 lads for the Janissaries from the Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina as early as 921/1515 ( Feridiin 2, i, 472). Here the converted Bosnians are called The Netherlands: 22.10.2006Poturnak (cf. A. V. Soloviev, in Byzantion, xxiii (1953), 73-86); they are called Potur ta'fesi in a document of 981/1573 (KKO, 103), and the recruited lads Potur oghullart in a document of 998/ 1589 (KKO, 108), which defines them as ‘circumcised but ignorant of Turkish’, and which warns the beylerbey against recruiting boys who are ' Tiirkleshmish’, ic., ‘Turkish-speaking. An undated list preserved in the Topkapu archives (published by R. M. Merig in st. Enst. Dergisi, iii, 1957, 35-40) gives the names and descriptions of 60 boys (whose ages range from 13 to 19) recruited from the kadd of Yenipazar; the names show that 44 of them are Muslim-born and 16 Christian-born, the latter being identified both by their (new) Muslim names and by their (former) Christian names. It is said that these Muslims of Bosnia were not distributed for training, but mostly drafted straight into the Palace or into the ogjak of the bostangiis, [g.v.] (AKO, 19, referring to the Kiueanin-i Yenidenyan, a work composed under Ahmed F—see Bibl). Many of the European reports suggest that the deshirme was made at regular intervals, estimates ranging from every five years to annually (references in Zinkeisen, iii, 216 and Lybyer, 51). More probably it took place on an ad hoc basis according to need—infrequently in the reign of Mchemmed II, when the Janissarics were relatively few and pendik prisoners abundant (cf. Cippico [1472] in Sathas, Docs. in- [1-2 12a} &dits ..., vii, 281: ‘se non possono auere prigioni' = Basle ed. 1544, ii, 51; acopo de Promontorio-de Campis {ca. 1480] ed. Fr. Babinger, 1957, 36: 'manchandoli [ie., prisoners] preda rape de figlioli de christiani subditi soi’), then at more and more frequent intervals throughout the 16th century, until at the end of the century the ranks of the Janissaries were in effect opened to all comers; thereafter, when recruitment was no longer dependent upon the devshirme , levies were spasmodic. Again, many reports maintain, erroneously, that the devshinne officials recruited a fixed proportion of children, often stated to be a ‘tithe’, though estimates range as high as one in five (Spandugino, Thevet) and even one in three (anon. report of 1582 in Albéri, 3rd ser., i, 245; Palerne [also 1582]). A fermén, said to be of the early 16th century (KKO, 92 ff.) shows that—at that time, at least—the number of boys to be levied was calculated beforehand on the basis of one boy (aged 14 to 18) from every 40 households. Reports of the numbers taken also vary greatly, Postel’s being as high as 10-12,000 a year. According to Gerlach (34) a deushirme of 1573 (documents in KkO, 103 ff. show that it covered both Rameli and Asia Minor) produced 8000 boys. Sa‘d al- Din calculated that in the 200 years and more that it had been in force the devshirme had produced over 200,000 converts to Islam (i, 41), ie, an average of 1000 a year, which is the figure given by Sham‘dantziide (loc. cit). However, there was much abuse by the recruiting officers, who levied more children than their warrants permitted, selling the surplus for their private profit (Spandugino); they also grew rich on bribes, both from Christians who bought their children off, and from non- Christians who smuggled their children in (Gerlach, 48, 306; Roe, Negotiations, 534; Selanikt 263 £,, referring to the devshirme of 998/ 1589-90, for which cf. the documents in KKO, 102 f.). When the dashirme was extended to Asia Minor is not clear. In 1456 the Greeks of the west coast appealed to the Grand Master of Rhodes for help against the ‘Turks ‘who take (népvovv) our children and make Muslims of them! (Miklosisch and Miiller, Acta, ii, 291), but this complaint may refer only to piracy. Trabzon was liable to the devshirme at various times throughout the 10th/16th century (KO, 15 n., 19); it may be that the devshirme was extended . Leiden, The Netherlands. 22.10.2006from this (formerly Christian) district over the rest of Asia Minor. Kartal had been subject to the devshinme before 945/1538 (KKO, 111 f.); the sandiak s of Sis and Kayseri were visited shortly before 972/1564 (KKO, 126), and the districts of Bursa, Lefke and Iznik before 984/1576—the year in which Gerlach visited Ulubad and found it liable to the devshirme (257). In 981/1573-4 there was an extensive devshirme not only in Rimeli but also in the area Begshehri- Mar‘ash and around Biledjik (KO, 103-6, 127), no doubt that which, according to Gerlach (34), brought in 8000 boys in January 1574. The devshirme reached as far as Batum in 992/1584 (AKO, 107), and in 1032/1623 almost the whole of Asia Minor was covered (AKO, 94 48. and cf. 22 n,); in the latter year, that following the murder of Sultan ‘Othman, Greece too was visited ‘to fill the seraglio' (Roe, Negotiations, 534). By the beginning of the 1 1th/17th century, the ranks of the Janissaries had become so swollen with Muslim-born 'intruders' that frequent recruitments by devshirme were no longer necessary. Although according to Lithgow (Rare Adventures, 1906, 106 (1E212b) and 149) the devshirme was ‘absolutely abrogated by Ahmed I, levies were made throughout the century, but sporadically: according to the relazione of Foscarini (1637) there had then been no levy for twelve years (Barozzi-Berchet, v/ii, 86). There was a devshirme however in the next year, 1048/1638 ( Fedhieke, ii, 211), and it was not, as Hammer believed (GOR, v, 244, and hence Zinkeisen, iv, 166), the last; for according to Rycaut (Present State, i, ch. 4) the Janissary leader Bektash Agha demanded (in 1061/1651) that henceforth the 'yearly* collection of children should be abolished, and only the children of Janissaries be admitted ‘Yor the service of the Grand Signior’, and Ewliya Celebi (i, 598) speaks of a deashinne in Rameli every 7 years, when 7-8,000 boys were collected at Uskiib, brought to Istanbul, and placed directly into the various odjaf s (the preliminary training in Anatolia evidently being by now abandoned, cf. KKO, 24 f). Rycaut found that in his time (he was in Istanbul from 1660) the devshirme was 'in a great part grown out of use' (of. cit., i, ch. 18) and 'wholly forgotten’ (iii, ch. 8); so too Quirini (1676) reported that there had been no devskinme since 1663 (Barozzi- Berchet, V/ii, 160, and cf. Hammer GOR, vii, 555), and Morosini (1680) spoke of it as taking place only every twenty years or so (0p. cit., 219); article 3 of the Ottoman-Polish treaty of Buczacz (1083/1672) provided that the inhabitants of Podolia would be exempt ‘if a devshirme is ordered! ( Rashid®, i, 285), a phrase implying that the practice was by then irregular and infrequent. All the same there were deushirmes in 1666 (Vakalopoulos, 286) and 1674 (Hammer-Purgstall, GOR, vi, 299), the latter at least intended only to recruit staff for the Palace. Very shortly after his accession in 1115/1703 Ahmed III ordered that the turbulent bostandjis should be enrolled in the Janissaries and 1000 devshirme boys be collected to replace them ( Rashid’, iii, 88 f., Hammer-Purgstall, GOR, vii, 91); there may be a connexion between this and an attempt to carry out a devshirme in Greece in April 1705 (Vakalopoulos, 292). This is the latest record of a devshirme so far known, though Uzung argtl has found a berat of 1150/1738 exempting a Christian subject from taxes and his son from the devshirme (KKO, 68 f). (V.L. Ménage) (urther to references given in the text): Zinkeisen, iii, 215-230, which is based mainly on the Venetian reports in Albéri (the most circumstantial being that of Navagero [1553}, Albéri, 3rd ser., i, 48 ff.) and Gerlach's Tagebuch, 34, 48, 306 Koninklijke Brill NV. Leiden. Phe Netherlands 10.2606J. H. Mordtmann, pewsureme in EZ! (1912) and references there (most of which have been incorporated above) Koti Beg, Ist. 1303, 27 f. = tr. Bernhauer, 2D.MG , xv, 284 = Ist. 1939, 28 A. H. Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire ..., 1913, 49 ff. 84 ff F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 1929, W. L. Wright, Ottoman Statecraft, 1935, index Barnette Miller, The Palace School of Muhammad the Conqueror, 1941, 74 {f., 174 £. D. Pephanes, Td Tox8opuéCauer, Athens 1948 (not seen) Gibb-Bowen, index J. A.B. Palmer, The Origin of the Janissaries , in Bull. of the John Rylands Library, xxv, 1953, 448- 481 A. E. Vakalopoulos, TpoBAnpora. tig iotopiac tod noSopaCdpertos, in EMAnvexe: xiii, 1954, 274-293. References in European travel-books etc. must be treated with caution, for authors frequently borrow without acknowledgement from their predecessors: thus the reference in Rycaut (Present State, i, ch. 10) to an annual devshinme of [U:213a] 2000 boys mostly from the Morea and Albania derives, presumably via Withers, from Bon (Barozzi-Berchet, v/i, 77}, who was writing 60 years earlier, as does that in Baudier, and the account in B. de Vigenére's [Uustrations (1650 ed., col. 49) largely from Postel. The following references scem to be independent: Spandugino, Petit Traicté, ed. Schefer 1896, 102 ff., 144 f., = Sathas, Documents inédits, ix, 212 £., 225 J. Ghesneau, Le Voyage de M. d'Aramon, ed. Schefer 1887, 44 £. A. Geuflroy, Briefe Description (appendix to preceding) 242 f. G. Postel, De la république ..., 1560, iii, 22 ff. A. Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle, 1575, 799 b, 808 b, 817 b (engraving) N. de Nicolay, Navigations, 1568, 79 ff. S. Schweiguer, Neue Reysbeschreibung, 1608, 168 ff. Busbecq, De Acie .... 1581, 152 f. = Eng. tr. by N. Tate, 1694, 400 f. Netheriands 72.10.2006J. Palemne, Peregrinations, 1606, 412 f., 502 f. H. de Beauvau, Relation Journalidre, 1619, 68 L, Des Hayes, Voiage de Levant, 1624, 137 ff ‘These accounts can be controlled from the archive-material given by I. H. Uzung arsth in Osmank Devleti eshild tndan Kapukule Ocaklan, i, 1943, 1-141 (this includes nearly all the documents published by Ahmed Refik in Edebiyyat Fakilte: Medimitasi, v, 1926, 1-14, and on it is based I. H. Uzung argih's article Devsirme in /A ) Uzung arsil refers frequently to a work Kazodinin-i Yenideriyan in his private library: this seems to be identical with the work, composed under Amed I, which is described in Ist, Kit. Tarih- Cografya Yazmalan Kataloglan, i/ 10, 813 (MS Esad Ef. 2068) and of which MS Revan 1320 contains another copy (cf. L. Forrer in Isl. , xvi, no. 62). Koninkbik Re eicnal