Bandits and their victims: Abduction and violence in the early modern Ottoman world

This talk addresses the rise of violence against individuals as a symptom of disorders that beset Ottoman government and society in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It attempts to explain why perpetrators of violence (commonly labeled bandits, eşkıya) were often imperial officials and soldiers and why abduction of women and boys was a familiar element in the bandit’s criminal repertoire.