During the eighteenth-century the Ottoman Empire was changing, and so the long-standing institutions changed with it. By far the most famous, or, in some cases, infamous, of these institutions is the Janissary Corps. Once the elite backbone of the Ottoman infantry historiography has debated the moral and legal corruption of the corps for decades. The purity/corruption paradigm is now viewed as not being a useful lens through which to view the janissaries. With that in mind the doctoral research upon which this talk is based focussed on re-framing the discussion of the janissaries in eighteenth-century Istanbul away from purity/corruption and towards viewing the changes as an adaptation to the changing world.

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