Decline of the Ottoman Provincial Administration? The Ruznamçe-Register No. 1033 from the Leipzig University Library as Source

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The imperial historiography was strongly influenced from the paradigm raise-height of the power-decline for the long time. This paradigmatic depiction of history of the empires was challenged in the recent time by the scholarship and partly replaced by the new approach, in which centre the term transformation stands. The second half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century has been seen for the long time as the turning point in the history of the Ottoman Empire. This time was regarded as the beginning of the slow but irreversible decline of the Ottoman Empire which was manifested in rampant corruption, maladministration in the activities of the governing institutions and irregularities in the Timar-System. The goal of this research project is to make a contribution to the state of Timar-System in the light of the current discussion on the beginning of decline or transformation of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 17th century on the basis of the entries in the ruznamçe-register No. 1033 preserved in the Library of the University of Leipzig. The register contains of 176 pages spanning the time from 1606 until 1615, and offers the detailed data about the fiefs which became vacant because of the death of fiefholders or desertion and then again assigned to the new persons. The register has a unique value because its entries indicate that the assignment of these vacant fiefs took place orderly and lawfully which questions the claims about the chaotic state in the Ottoman Timar-System at the turn of the 17th century found in the literature. Due to the fact that this register is preserved in the Library of the University of Leipzig this research project should be regarded also as a contribution to the publishing of the Ottoman sources from the German libraries.