Note 285 — Chapter IV · THE RULING INSTITUTION: AS AN ARMY

Curiously enough, the oldest sense in which the Turkish word kul was used as a term denoting relation to a prince, was in reference to soldiers (Vambéry, Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudalku Bilik, 113, stanza 12b). At that time the word was applied to the foot-soldiers as distinguished from the cavalry, who were then volunteer knights. This usage survived in the Ottoman system to the extent that the regular infantry, including the Janissaries, artillerymen, and other lesser permanent corps, were regarded as in a particular and special sense the sultan’s kullar (D’Ohsson, vii. 328; Djevad Bey, i. 15-18).