BHA Webinar Series (Zoom)
Nuray Ocaklı (Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University)
Date & Hour: December 4 (Friday), 17:00 CET / 18:00 EET
Moderator: Timothy French
Technical assistance: Timothy French, contact: timothymfrench@yahoo.com
An Ottoman survey book dated before 1437 serves as a significant late medieval source on the pre-Ottoman military, social, and economic systems of Thessaly, as well as the continuities and changes during the transition from Byzantine to Ottoman rule. The register is only a part of the original ledger that survives today; these folios include only the tax revenues allocated to the fief system in the Trikala (Tırhala), Livadia (Livadiye), Salina (Amfissa), and Domokos (Dömeke) districts of the Sanjak of Tırhala. This rare late medieval source in the Ottoman Archives sheds important light on the dominions of local Christian aristocrats, the organization of the pre-Ottoman silk industry, and the history of Katunas (Vlakhs) in Thessaly on the eve of the changes and transformations of the new era. This lecture aims to share the outcomes of a research project conducted on the pre-1437 survey register of Tırhala (Trikala) and to introduce this highly significant historical source to scholars.