ルメリのユリュクから征服者の子孫たちへ : オスマン朝における準軍人身分の「遊牧民」の成立と展開 (特集 ポスト・モンゴル時代のアフロ・ユーラシア)

Abstract

After the subjugation of the Balkan Peninsula by the Ottoman Empire, many people crossed from Anatolia to the Balkan Peninsula, which was named Rumeli. From Western Anatolia, Turkish nomadic people called yoruk emigrated and settled in various locations, forming tribal groups. Based on the yoruk in Rumeli, the group known as the descendants of the conquerors (Evlad-i Fatihan) was created in the late 17th century. In this article, I employ source materials such as tax registers (tapu tahrir defteri), legal codes (kanun-name) and registers of imperial edicts (muhimme defteri) to study the role played by the yoruk in Rumeli in the Ottoman society, the kind of relationship they built with the central government, and the reason why the descendants of the conquerors was created among the yoruk in Rumeli. In the 16th century, in exchange for a partial tax exemption, the yoruk in Rumeli participated in battles as soldiers in time of war and engaged in various kinds of non-combatant labor in times of peace. The central government and the yoruk in Rumeli were often at odds over the duty to serve the military or invarious types of labor service, but because the yoruk in Rumeli were an important source of labor during times of war and peace, the central government never dismantled the yoruk in Rumeli throughout the 16th century. The yoruk in Rumeli ceased to be mobilized as laborers or soldiers during the 17th century, but as large numbers of troops were required for successive wars at the end of the 17th century, orders for the conscription of the yoruk in Rumeli were once again issued. In order to provide troops from the yoruk in Rumeli and suppress their resistance to military conscription, it was necessary to control the yoruk in Rumeli as a unified whole and manage them as a single unit. Thus, in order to legitimize their military service, the discourse that the yoruk in Rumeli were the descendants of conquerors who had come from Anatolia to the Balkan Peninsula was promoted. And for this, the troops made from the yoruk in Rumeli were named the descendants of conquerors.