XV. and XVI. century Pri̇zren sanjak

Our study is a doctoral thesis aiming to reveal the administrative, geographical, economic and social structure of Prizren Sanjak in the XVth and XVIth centuries. Sanjak of Prizren is in the central western part of Balkan geography where was dominated by Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian and it became an Ottoman administrative unit which was conquered by the Ottoman State in 1455. Our general aim in this research was to examine the sanjak which is one of the basic administrative units to contribute to the rural construction of the Ottoman Rumelia. It is our most important goal to reveal the provincial administrative structure that the Ottoman Empire applied in the Rumelian geography in this study. On the other hand, we attempted to determine the development of the social-economic and religious structure of the communities, living in this geographical region within certain periods, with indepth study to the sanjak which is a geographical unit. The basic sources in these study are certain documents and register book collections in domestic and foreign archives. Of course, the most important sources of the Ottoman sanjak studies are the Ottoman cadastral record books (Tahrir Registers). In these books, detailed information about the social and economic structure of a region was available. In this study, we tried to determine the socio-economic status of the sub-districts that related Prizren and their settlement units with the evaluation of the information in the register books which mention this period. Also we used other sources in our archives such as Mühimme registers, Ruznamçe registers and Foundation registers, etc. According to the census of 1522 belonging to Prizren, the Sanjak was divided into administrative units in the form of three townships and twelve sub-districts. These are the sub-districts: Prizren, Bihor, Tırgovişte, Eflakân, İstaviç, Gora, Opolye, Piştirik, Debri, Dumoştiçe, Rudine ve Radovine. There is also a mine town named Ma'den-i Jajna. The administrative structure in the İcmâl registers is the same as the year of tahrir of 1522 except Eflakan sub-district. In the year of 1550, we see that Istaviç was removed from sub-district, and Hoça was organized as a sub-district and connected to Prizren. In the register years of 1570, 1580 and 1590, some changes were made in the sub-district that constituted the administrative structure of the sanjak. According to this, the number of the sub-districts which had 11 in the previous year, decreased to 5. These are the sub-districts of Prizren: Hoça, Ma'den-i Jajna, Bihor, and Tırgovişte. In our work, according to tahrir (register) we tried to reveal the distributions, tendencies, the structure and the amount of population of these sub-districts. On the other hand, we tried to provide information on agricultural, commercial and industrial activities in these regions and in the light of this data, we tried to reveal the provincial administration that the Ottoman State applied in the Rumelian geography. One of the main points that we have mentioned in our work is the production activity in Prizren sanjak and the taxation of the subject. In this sense, as in almost all the register (tahrir), all the fields of the production are identified, how much taxes are given to whom, government officials are obliged to collect taxes; so, the distribution of dirlik has been revealed. Key words: Tahrir Books, Prizren, Balkans, Sanjak, State, Rumelia