About the Janissary Law أدس نران يكي١٠ىر صوا ىخيرات

Abstract

The contribution presented gives a survey both of an Ottoman source edition and a summary of an important legal code ftom the early seventeenth century. It is an extensive janissary corps law of 1606. The name of the code author is unknown, but it is understood that ile was a retired janissary, mentioned as a korucu (a guardian), who says about himself tirat for twenty-one years he had been serving as a janissary notary, and that his grandfather had been the agha oflstanbul for fourteen years. This fact by itself ensures authen- ticity of the presented data on the structure and set-up of that corps.

The source edition has been preserved in the part of the oriiginal Ottoman text from the mentioned code with a translation into Bosnian as presented Jrere. Our purpose is to present in extenso a text about an important episode which has been often quoted, but has never been published as a whole. It is about an unusual and historic encounter of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror with the Bosnian population gathered near Jajce, in May 1463, after. the fall of the Kingdom of Bosnia. This is the main purpose ofthis paper.

Furthermore, we have benefited from the opportunity to give a summary of an attitude to this important, quite often elaborated issue from the Ottoman history. This law, although conceived early in the seventeenth century, covers development ofthis organization ftom its beginnings, as early as the fourteenth century, which during its existence, until late seventeenth century, represented the backbone of the Ottoman Empire.