230

THE TAESCHNER COLLECTION (Or. 12.410, cont., 12.411)

46b-47b); the safety of pilgrims and the dispatch of the surre-i hümOyan (21b-22a, 27a, 29b-30a); the change in statutes of provincial tïmdrs and ze'amets (22b-23a); and financial matters (e.g. on the alloy of various coins current in the Ottoman Empire and measures to suppress debasement, 42b-43a). The collection also contains examples of epistolary phrases (ta'bTrat, la, 94a-95b, 98b (see plate), inner back-board), preambles (dibace, often spelt as ‘dfbüce’, la-b, 88b-90a) and entries found in financial ledgers, showing amounts of debit and credit (2a, 98b, see plate). The inn^r front- and back-boards also contain some verses: gazels by Na’ilï and Rühï, and a quatrain by Rasftj. The legend (name?) ‘plinuy’ or ‘plivuy’ (?, see plate) is written on the outer front-cover and f. 98a (the same legend is found in Cod.Or. 12.412, below). Ff. 50a-87a, 90b-93b and 96a-98a have been left blank. Bound in boards covered in varicoloured marbled paper with leather back and edges; glazed white paper; 99 folios numbered 1-33 and 34-98, whereby the folio following f. 33 has remained without number; 220x147 mm and 190x115 mm, varying; 24 lines, diagonally written; occasional catchwords in the last line; nesih with nk'a elements; occasional headings and, rarely, rubrics and dots in red; the inscription ‘Franz Taeschner Ms. Nr. 91’ is found on f. la.

Cod.Or. 12.411 A manual for Janissary clerks The undated copy, which misses ten folios at the beginning, contains primarily, up to f. 143b, a collection of (parts of) letters which were to serve as models for, clearly, clerks of the Janissary Corps. The authorship of only one item is given: a letter of friendship and longing written by an inferior to a superior; it was composed the the ser-kdtib of the corps, Yüsuf Efendi (141a-142a). The letters often lack the names, if not the rank, of senders and recipients, and only a few are dated: we find the last days of Muharrem 1031 (6-15 December 1621, 29b), the first of Cerna# l-afar 1071 (1 February 1661, 20a), and the last day of Zil- hicce 1088 (22 February 1678, 15b). Other letters may be (roughly) dated on the basis of content; e.g. the name of the ruler of Transylvania and ‘Hungarian King’ [Istvan] Bocskai [1557-1606] is mentioned (11a: 15), as is the long struggle with Venice over the island of Crete of the mid 17th century (116b-l 18b). Most letters discuss in detail day-to-day affairs and lack the extremely florid style often found