The illustrations give a general idea of their dress. In contemporary Persian-style paintings they are shown in varied colours including biack, blue, red and purple, but 16th Century Europeans were struck by the uniformity of their dress — ’The Make and Colour of their Clothes were almost the same, so that you would judge them all to be Servants of one Man’ — and the uniform issued appears to have been of coarse blue cloth, though some of the Segmens, like the 33rd Orta, the Avcus, (huntsmen), may possibly have worn green.
Typical Turkish shield patterns, ‘d’ shows plan as well as front view.
Over a short plain tunic, sometimes worn on its own, they had a short-sleeved caftan of near ankle-length; its front corners were normally hitched up and tucked into the striped sash, which ended in a gold or silver fringe; beneath were blue trousers and yellow stockings.
The characteristic sleeve-cap or ’zarcola’ was of white felt with the band and frontal of silver or gilt; senior soldiers or members of picked ’forlorn-hope’ groups such as ’Serden-gecti’ (head-riskers) or ’Dal kilic’ (bare-swords) were distinguished by semiprecious stones in the nasal and long heron or bird-of-paradise plumes. Apart from the powder-horn shown, a pouch usually hung from the sash. Except for officers the uniform was notably plain, neither slashed nor decorated.
The Janissaries shaved their heads except for a scalp-lock and were usually clean-shaven but for a large moustache, unlike the often bearded Turks.
Up to the 16th Century the Janissaries had sometimes worn armour, but this seems to have vanished during our period, while the composite bow also gave way to
Turkish armour of the 15th-16th Century with a Turkish-converted Persian ‘Kulah Khud' helmet (Tower of London).
Turkish cavalry helmets (Tower of London).
The arquebus. Usual armament in the 16th Century was a long and richly-decorated arquebus, a scimitar, a dagger, and a small axe (usually thrust through the back of the sash). By the siege of Malta some Janissaries carried muskets, said to be more accurate than European ones; Turkish sniper-fire from over 500 feet range made a rampart sentry-walk untenable. Probably the musket gradually replaced the arquebus, as in Europe, though the Turks do not seem to have used musket rests.
Armament, however, was not entirely standardised, as by tradition each Janissary could choose his own weapons from the Imperial armoury before going on carn-paign. The great majority certainly carried firearms but a traveller of the 1580s says the
Remainder had half-pikes, while for close combat the Janissaries normally slung their muskets and relied on shield and scimitar, advancing with high wailing warcries.
Though they were highly-disciplined troops, at least in the 16th Century, the firing and battle formation of the Janissaries were probably of irregular type rather than following Western drilled patterns.
World History
