In Ottoman cities, the shoe industry had played an important socioeconomic function as one of the chief industries. Very few studies, however, have ever tried to elucidate the actual state of the shoe industry and guilds. This study aims to create a concrete picture of their role in eighteenth-century Istanbul, with a focus on their structures, processes of their production and trade, and their relationship with the government. The principle resource used in this paper was the Ahkâm Defterleri, which was published as Istanbul Esnaf Tarihi by the Istanbul Arastirmalari Merkezi.
The shoe industry was clearly divided into two sectors—production and retailing. Shoemakers had become specialized according to the type of shoes they made. They had their own guilds according to the kind of shoes and were all well organized under a leader called the dikicibasi. Meanwhile, most shoe retailers had their shops in shoe markets called arasta. Each market was staffed with one kethüdâ to supervise the shoe retailers working there. The kethüdâ of the kebîr arasta administrated all the shoe retailers in the city. He also had a degree of influence on the shoemakers' guilds and undertook to maintain cooperation between the shoemakers' and the retailers' guilds.
Though the guilds needed the approval of kadis or the government in regard to all matters, they were hardly interfered with by the government, but were managed and administrated strictly by the leaders in a quite autonomous manner. Especially, shoemakers had to buy materials and produce shoes in accordance with the regulations which guilds made to protect members against violation of their rights.
This paper concludes that the guilds of the shoe industry in eighteenthcentury Istanbul formed a complex structure in order to supervise their members who produced and sold many kinds of shoes in many places, and that the guilds were granted a relatively wide degree of autonomy.

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