Legislation Concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans Before and After Ottoman Conquest: An Overview

Isailović, Neven (2017) Legislation Concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans Before and After Ottoman Conquest: An Overview. In: State and Society in the Balkans before and after Establishment of Ottoman Rule. Institute of History, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü Turkish Cultural Centre, Beograd, pp. 25-42. ISBN 978-86-7743-125-9

Text 8 Legislation Concerning the Vlachs of the Balkans (State and Society Before and After Establishment of Ottoman Rule, 2017).pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (182kB)

Abstract

The paper focuses on the analysis of legislative material from the medieval and early Ottoman period by which the status of the Vlach/vlach population in the Balkans was regulated. By analyzing both fragmentary and complete laws on the Vlachs/vlachs, the author tried to establish whether there were substantial changes in the legal treatment of this group of people after the establishment of the Ottoman rule in the Balkans, with special regard to the area which includes present¬day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. Although it would not be false to say that the Ottoman legislative material on this issue was, to a great extent, based on the medieval, thus representing a continuity, it must be noted that it seems that its use was expanded to a broader population. In fact, it seems plausible to say that the Ottomans finished the already ongoing process by applying the laws formerly concerning an ethnic and professional group to a wider social and even military group, regardless of its origin and profession. This process may have already been devised by their late medieval precursors, but there are not enough sources to decisively support that claim

Actions (login required)

View Item