ABSTRACT
Like many other societies in the early modern period, agricultural production was the major economic activity in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman rulers secured the continuity of production by legal norms that limited the rights of access for the peasants. The Ottoman peasant was not the owner of the land, as the property right belonged to the state, which allowed the appointed administrators (sipahi) of a district the right to collect taxes upon agricultural production. The peasants could use the land as long as they kept the production intact and paid the taxes. Legally, female peasants in the Ottoman Empire had less opportunity to obtain usufruct rights, but under certain circumstances they could enjoy them as men did. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the number of women as usufruct owners and proprietors in agricultural production as reflected in the court record books (sidjil) in the first half of the eighteenth century. This period came after a long period of political and economic crisis in the seventeenth century and led to improved chances for women. The court records of two cities, Vidin and Antakya, are chosen as a case study to investigate women’ s arguments to gain or maintain the right of usufruct of agricultural land or privately owned gardens and vineyards.
