ABSTRACT
Research in the field of Ottoman guild history suffered for a long time from the lack of a clear definition of the term 'guild'. 1 There were authors who used it to denote urban craftsmen in general, even when they found no sign of any organization; there were others who applied it to such organizations as the .futuvvet associations and the ahi societies in Anatolia, even though it is now evident that these associations and societies were not organized along professional lines. One of the results of this absence of a precise definition is that, for more than two generations, orientalists dealt primarily with concepts and ideas supposedly pertinent to the 'guilds', and dealt hardly at all with the economic, social and political reality. This approach distorted research of guild structure in particular, since no differentiation was made between the ideal, theoretical hierarchy that is found in the !utuvvet books and the ranks and positions that in fact obtained in the professional guilds. 2 In this study the opposite approach will be taken, and the actual structure of the guilds will be examined on the basis of firmans and documents from everyday life. We propose first to study the ranks through which a craftsman, merchant or transportation or service worker passed until he reached the rank of usta (master), and then to analyse the character and significance of the several positions and institutions of the guild.
