Defter

Defter

A Defter (plural: Defterleri) was a type of tax register in the Ottoman Empire. The information collected could vary, but tahrir defterleri typically included details of villages, dwellings, household heads (adult males and widows), ethnicity/religion (because these could affect tax liabilities/exemptions), and land use.[1]

The defter-i hakâni was a land registry, also used for tax purposes.[2]

The term is derived from Greek diphthera διφθέρα meaning book (having as sheets membranes of goat skin, used along with papyrus as paper in antique Greece) borrowed into Persian دفتر: daftar meaning book, registry, and in modern time office or bureau.

Some Ottoman officials responsible for these tax registries were known as defterdars.

The term 'diphtheria' or 'diphtheritis', acute contagious disease caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae (Klebs-Loffler bacillus) has the same origin[3]

References

  1. ^ Cosgel (2004). "Ottoman Tax Registers (Tahrir Defterleri)". Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 37 (2): 87-100. http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/econ_wpapers/200247/. Retrieved 1 November 2011. 
  2. ^ Barnes (1987). An introduction to religious foundations in the Ottoman Empire. Brill. pp. 151. ISBN 9789004086524. 
  3. ^ [1]