Everything about Timariot totally explained
A
timariot (or
timar holder;
timarlu in
Turkish) was an
irregular cavalryman that served the
Ottoman sultan and in return was granted a
fief called a
timar. The timariots had to assemble with the army when at war, and had to take care of the land entrusted to him in times of peace. When at war, the timariot had to bring his own equipment and in addition a number of armed retainers (
cebelu). Food was supplied during campaign.
In this way, the Ottomans could quickly muster a large army. When the war was over the warriors returned to their lands, and in that way the sultan didn't have to support them when he didn't need them. In addition, the sultan's lands were taken care of. Local peasants were subjects to the timariot. Law and order was kept, taxes were collected and bandits were brought to justice.
The system of timars was organized during the reign of
Orhan I (
1326-
1359). The Sultan granted officers fiefs with local peasants subjected to their rule in an arrangement similar to European
feudal fiefs. They were an important part of the Ottoman army, especially for being so easily supportable, and kept that status until the early
17th century. The titles and lands of the timar holders remained in use much longer than that.
When on campaign, the timariots were organized into regiments called
alays that were commanded by
alay beys (or
beg). Larger units were the
sanjak (or
sançak) regiments or
livas (standard, banner), commanded by
sanjak beys. At the top were the province governors, the
beylerbeys. A province in the
16th century could muster some thousand timariots, according to the size of the province. In
1525 the total number of timar holders were 37 818, according to the tax rolls. The number of armed retainers was estimated to 50 000. Of course, these great numbers were spread out all over the empire, and couldn't possibly serve in one campaign at a time.
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