 Palace School

The Palace School ("Enderun-i Hümayun Mektebi") was a special school inside of the innermost court of Topkapı Palace that provided the education for the servants of the Ottoman dynasty, who went on to staff the administrative elite of the Ottoman Empire.These were converts to Islam, young males between 8 and 20 years old, who were mostly taken away from the rural Christian communities settled in Rumelia in a process known as "devşirme".