Within the Ottoman State structure peasants or farmers were another productive class apart from townsfolk. Since the Empire’s economic structure were based on agriculture, it is clear that peasants who worked in this field possessed great importance for the Empire.  In one hand the general structure of the Ottoman Empire during the foundation period, were forcing the nomads which were another part of the Ottoman Society to work in minor scale agriculture in agricultural lands (mezra’). On the other hand, it readied the appropriate conditions to make these nomads build villages and settle. As a natural outcome, villages were built in Anatolia and Rumelia apart from urban settlements. These villages were the settlements of the people who worked in agriculture or of those who made their livings out of these lands. There were also small businesses like mills in these villages. This shows, that these villages had industrial facilities which at least provided self-sufficiency.

 During the classical era when the city life was not common, people tended to have extra occupations other than farming which made their lives self-sufficient and it was quite common. There were farmers among the peasants who also held occupations like imam, sheikh, coppersmith, ironsmith, saddle maker and carder. Also, there were farmers who held occupations which made them tax exempt. Some of those can be listed as follows: Fort lieutenants, birdmen who were called sayyâdân, miners who were called küreci, çeltükçüler who were employed by the state for rice plantation, derbentçiler who were responsible for the safety of the important roads and passages, mosque caretakers and sheikhs of a zaviye who were called zaviyedâr. Sometimes a whole village or an important population of a village had been recorded on tax rolls as cemaat-ı ulemâ or zaviyedâr and thus exempted from paying taxes. Because of the importance given to the village unit by the Ottoman Empire, there were solid organizations in villages. The peasants/farmers had a special status. Because they were the ones who held the land in the name of the public without having private property, who were the fundamental element of the agriculture in the eye of the state, who were paying the tax and thus fed the state beurocracy as a whole with the exception of Kapıkulu Ocağı. In this regard the peasant was indispensable in the context of state-society relations.

However, peasants left their settlements during a time that, there was a population surplus, nomads were on the move and the state’s authority started to grow weaker. Movements of the nomads were not a problem during the initial periods because there was not a population surplus, agricultural lands were relatively large and the state authority was strong. Unfortunately, the situation changed during the following periods. Instead of struggling against the bandit raids and nomads who were damaging their crops, settled peasants chose the easy way and left their lands. As a result of all of these the villages which were important production centers during the 16th century has disappeared towards the end of the 19th century. In this study we are going to try to identify these lost villages. 

Keywords: Alâiye, nomad, peasant, settled life, lost villages