15thC Ottoman Yaya?

[rodge]

Can anyone throw any light on when the Ottoman Yaya ceased to be battlefield units in their own right?
I'm aware that 'yaya' mean 'pedestrian' or 'on foot' so the name may be misleading but I'm looking at the Baueda Ottoman-Balcan Yaya 15mm figures; the bumpf says:

These figures are accurate reproductions of Ottoman-Balcan Yaya as they may have appeared in late 14th - early 15th Century, and are designed especially to be used as Irr Ax(O) in DBM list 55 book IV, Ottoman 1281AD - 1512AD.

I am trying to find some evidence to slot them into a 15thC Ottoman Turk army list for Armati.

Wiki has them as late as 1396 at Nicopolis:

Among notable engagements of yaya miliary units are battles of Marica (1371) and Nicopolis (1396) where Ottoman infantry units, including yaya, were used to bait enemy heavy cavalry into an ambush between two flanks of more maneuverable light Ottoman cavalry.[1]

'A Military History of the Ottomans' (Uyar and Erickson) has them in some numbers at Kosovo 1389, though lumped with the Azabs:

The composition of the army in percentage terms was as follows: Kapıkulu units—including the palace guards—a bit more than 5 percent, Azabs and Yayas around 30 percent and cavalry troops more than 50 percent, which consisted of Akıncıs andTimarlı Sipahis evenly. The soldiers of the vassal emirates—cavalry and infantry—comprised around 10 percent, and Christian vassals probably less than 5 percent....
....The heavy presence of the problematic Yayas was also an important weakness because they had been reduced to a secondary position and they were very unhappy about this lost status.

The lost status is the downgrading of the Yaya as the Janissaries Corps rose to the prominent position it took in the order of battle (the Azabs were a tad miffed too allegedly). They then seem to be further downgraded:

Even though the Yaya corps did not fulfil the expectations of the Ottoman military as an infantry corps, it managed to become a viable model for the support and auxiliary corps.

Uyar and Erickson discuss the formation of the Janissary Corps in the reign of Bayezid II (so post 1480):

The final number of regiments were 101 Cemaat (or Yaya) Ortas, 61 Ag˘a Bo¨lu¨kleri and 34 Sekban Ortas. Although the number of regiments then stabilized, the personnel strength the corps continued to rise.....

But I expect this use of yaya may be referring to the literal translation of 'on foot'?

[Duncan Head]

Have a look at Palmer's classic "Origin of the Janissaries" - he talks about the yaya, and says that the yaya as a distinct paid infantry corps were raised in the mid-14th century, and that the European ("Rumili") yaya were converted to musellem cavalry at the beginning of the reign of Murad II (that is, in or soon after 1404).  Therefore, there should be no "Balkan yaya" after the first decade or so of the 15th century - which may be why Baueda say " late 14th - early 15th Century".

Of course  the generic meaning of yaya as simply "footman" might suggest that the word might be used loosely for other units. The Baueda figure is based directly on an illustration in David Nicolle's Osprey Armies of the Ottoman Turks, the figure at left on the cover, which is dated to "early 15th century". If I remember, I'll check sometime to see what the text says, though I do recall that he takes the quilted armour from Italian sources and the incendiary javelin may be from a Mamluk treatise.

[rodge]

Thanks
Was aware that Baueda said early...but Uyar and Erickson muddied my waters