Kastamonu, according to the Islamic religious legal at the end of XVII. century and at the begining of XVII. century

In this study, the amministrative, social, legal and economical situation of the province of Kastamonu 1690-1720 have been investigated. During our studies, within the period studied in general in the state of Otoman, the islamic religious legal records in local courts and partly, the Kastamonu salnames which belonged to later periods, Kastamonu acciuntancy records dated 1530 in the Otoman archives of prime-ministry and some documents which are present in the archives of the general directorate of wakfs have been made use of. On account of the fact that the document which we have studied are first hand sources, and although they comprise a period limited to 30 years, we hope that it will be one of the healthiest studies, which have been done up to now about Kastamonu among the studies in this field. Following the introduction part, this study is comprised of four chapters. İn the introduction after brief geographical and historical information about the general situation of the province of Kastamonu have been given, in the first chapter, at the and of the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the local-adminstrative structure of Kastamonu and the subjects concerning the function of religious legal courts have been made clear; in the second chapter in the same period, identification of the social life in Kastamonu and legal issues which passed to courds has been hanled; in the third chapter after the economical and commercial structure of Kastamonu at the beginning of the eighteenth century and the prices of some of the goods, which changed hands in that period have been given in comparison with today's prices; in the fourth chapter, the religious and cultural life concerning the period studied in Kastamonu has been tried to be identified. We come across a lot of records concerning the setbaeks in public order and the crises in social structure in the documentation, which we have studied concerning this period, which includes a period in which uneasiness in almost every domain and rebellions were experienced widely in the Ottoman Empire. These documents, of course have the character, which can be a sample for the general situation of the state of Ottoman as well as being local. Despitte all these things, the smallness of the issues concerning severe punisment in the source documents, which include a thirtyIV year's time must be a sign of the soundness and the pureness of the social structure in the province of Kastamonu localy. However, that the economical structure in the province of Kastamonu was more active than today's, considerable amount of weaving, work of silkworm- breeder and cattke-breeding, together whit commercial activity in a large number of inns and markets, identification of cotton and tobacco farming are among the most interesting subjects. Above all at this point, that local goods were sold for the market value (for examle;today a kilo of garlic is 250.000 Liras; it was 677.000 Liras in 1700's) must be significant. In city center, while the precense of about 35 medreses (Muslim theological schools) which we identified in the eighteenth century shows that the scientific activities in Kastamonu were rather high, mosques and mescits (small mosques) over 50 reveal Kastamonu people's sensitivity about their adherence to islamic duties. In this connection, only one records of a church in our documents shows that the Chiristian community, which lived in Kastamonu was very few.