Hódoltsági török várak őrsége egy 1576–1590. évi német összeírásban
Turkish Garrisons in Ottoman Hungary as Reflected in a German Register from 1576/1590

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyzes three lists from a German-language register of the castles north of the Drava in Ottoman Hungary. The register is found among documents from 1590 but is dated from 1576. The lists contain the names of 48 castles with the number of guards garri-soned in them. In the paper, these data are compared to two previously published German-language castle registers, the published Turkish defters of soldier’s pay and the headcount numbers from the register of the Hungarian castles. In the 48 forts the lists record 19,341 soldiers altogether, 9809 cavalrymen, 9387 infantrymen and as few as 145 artillerymen. Within the cavalry beshlis, sipahis, the horsemen of the pasha, bey or voivode as well as regular cavalrymen were listed. Under the heading infantry, we can find the categories of hisar eris, Azabs, marauders and regular infantrymen. Even though the overall headcount in our register is close to the estimated size of the occupation army in Ottoman Hungary (20-25,000), this is somewhat misleading as on the one hand the lists overestimated the defensive power of most castles, on the other hand on-ly about half of the castles and hill forts in Ottoman Hungary are listed in the registers (Buda, Esztergom and Szeged are the most notable ones missing). As a result, this source does not provide accurate information about the defensive power of the castles. Yet it re-flects the pieces of information the court in Vienna and the military leadership could gath-er from spy reports about the castles in Ottoman Hungary, the number and composition of guards garrisoned in them, which they could use for planning their defensive measures.

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