Çiftlik

Çiftlik

 

in the Ottoman Empire:

(1) A tract of land held by a peasant that could be worked with one team of oxen. In the late 16th century peasant holders of çiftliks became sharecropping tenants.

(2) A feudal holding, originally a grant, that was given to feudal lords on condition that they pay a tithe to the treasury or provide one soldier for the sultan’s army. In the late 16th century it became a hereditary holding. In the first half of the 19th century the çiftlik was a large estate of a member of the gentry.