Crispien Van Aelst 1 Ottoman Capitulations in the Longue Durée Little in the study of history illustrates the bias of the selective timeframe quite like the study of empire. In the great empires of the past selecting a time frame shapes not only the questions asked, but the results, often to the point of invalidating a useful past. Etymologists, for whom looking backward is a method of seeking origin, not justification or revision, are often freer to explore the historical origins than historians; with this idea firmly in mind, this paper seeks to examine the contentious issue of Ottoman capitulations to the Western Empires in a etymological manner that follows the evolution and usage of the word capitulation and considers alternative historiographical methodologies that would assist in understanding the structural forces and changes overtime. 1 Put simply, the use of the long-term in the study of empire allows a recovery of important issues that are rendered invisible, intentionally or otherwise, by a limited timeframe. The word capitulation has its roots in the Latin caput (head), and its diminutive capitulum (heading, chapter or title). By the Medieval Period capitulum had evolved into capitularium meaning, to organize under headings. 2 Here we find the origins of the modern word capitulate, though in this initial usage it merely signified specific sections of diplomatic agreements between political entities, specifically in Byzantine treaties of trade with the Latin 1 FƌaŶĐis MauƌiĐe AŶdeƌsoŶ. The CapitulatoƌLJ ‘égiŵe, World Affairs, Vol. 102, No. 1 (March, 1939): p. 14 2 John Victor Tolan, Gilles Veinstein, Henry Laurens, and Jane Marie Todd. Europe and the Islamic world: a history. 2013. p. 216