The monographic study is devoted to the institution of voynuks from the Imperial stables during the first three centuries of its existence. We did this with the clear awareness that it is the voynuks who serve in the state stables that are most closely related to the history of the Bulgarians under Ottoman rule. The sources from the 15th – the first half of the 16th century have recorded the presence of many voynuks not only in the areas that belonged to the conditional borders of the Bulgarian ethnic space, but also in the lands inhabited by other nationalities in the Western and South-western Balkans. Among them, the most significant share was represented by the Cebelü voynuks, who occupied an important place in the border defence system, and during war they participated as armour-clad and armed horsemen, accompanying the Spahis in their campaigns. The studies of historians from the Western Balkans, supported by rich source material, show that the voynuks who performed actual military service had nothing to do with the institution of the voynuks of the Imperial stables. At the head of the Cebelü voynuks from the Western Balkans were the sanjak-beys of the border sanjaks, who organised the functioning of the border defensive and offensive system – serhad.