Phokion P. KOTZAGEORGIS 257 AN OTTOMAN DOCUMENT FROM 1405 AND ITS PROBLEMS THE EDITION OF THE DOCUMENT AND THE RELATED RESEARCH A t a conference entitled “Mount Athos, 14th-16th centuries,” held in 1996 at the Centre for Byzantine Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, V. Demetriades commented briefly on 16 of the oldest Ottoman documents which are preserved at the monasteries of Mount Athos and date from the 15th century. In the proceedings of the conference, Demetriades’ article was illustrated by high-quality facsimiles of these documents.1 The oldest one is a decree (biti) issued on the first day of Muharrem 808 (28 June 1405), which is today preserved in the archive of Lavra monastery. The top part is missing.2 On this missing part would have been affixed thetuğra or, as we shall see later, the pençe of the issuer; this same part would also have included the first lines of the text. Since the document is in this state, it is not possible to know for certain who was its issuer or recipient. The two notes in Greek on the Phokion P. Kotzageorgis, Assistant Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Philosophy, School of History and Archaeology, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, Greece. [email protected] 1 Demetriades, “Athonite Documents.” Demetriades did not publish any of these documents. 2 This is similar to the oldest Ottoman document on Mount Athos, the much com- mented on nişan issued by Murat I in 1386, preserved at Saint Paul’s Monastery. See relevant bibliography in Kotzageorgis, Η αθωνική μονή, p. 70-71. See also: Zachariadou, “Murad I;” ead., “Revisiting.” For a thorough and innovative study of this document, see also a recent paper whose authors give new solutions to a series of important questions: Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Estangüi Gόmez, “Autour du document.” Turcica, 46, 2015, p. 257-278. doi: 10.2143/TURC.46.0.3087637 © 2015Turcica.Tousdroitsréservés. 997971.indb7971.indb 225757 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 258 PHOKION P. KOTZAGEORGIS verso are, according to Demetriades, contemporary with the document.3 This paper4 suggests a new reading, translation and transcription of the document, including the notes on the verso, and discusses its content.5 TRANSCRIPTION […] (unspecified number of lines) [1] YōrgīveŞāhīnşöyle [2] bilesinkimtekvurdilek [3] eylediDōqīsānbāyīvėrdüm [4] buyıl[l]ıġıḥāṣılıylavėrdüm [5] bitivarduġısa‘atqoyasın [6] gelesingidesineglenmeyesin [7] nesneṣunmayasınqoyasın [8] bitiüzrei῾timādqılasın [9] wazalikakutibafīġurratmuḥarramal-mukarramlisanatsamāninwa samānimi’at. [on the right margin]: ḥücceczālika On the verso: (a) ορισμός προς τον γεώργιον να εξέλθη από του δοξομπού (b) του παλαπάν πει TRANSLATION (...) George and Şahin, know that the Christian leader asked [for Doxom- bous] and I gave it [to him] with this year’s revenues. Deliver the decree the minute it arrives, go and come back, do not lose time. Do not propose 3 The vital importance of notes on the verso in early Ottoman documents has already been underlined. See: Zachariadou, “Remarques;” Kolovos, “Early Ottoman Diplomatics,” p. 192. 4 I thank Elizabeth A. Zachariadou and Elias Kolovos for their comments on the draft of this paper. I also thank the anonymous peer-reviewers for their valuable comments. 5 Since we did not have access to Lavra’s archive, we studied the document from the photograph on Demetriades, “Athonite Documents,” p. 52. 997971.indb7971.indb 225858 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 AN OTTOMAN DOCUMENT FROM 1405 AND ITS PROBLEMS 259 Fig. 1. The order of Balaban Bey, 1405 (Demetriades, “Athonite Documents,” p. 52). 997971.indb7971.indb 225959 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 260 PHOKION P. KOTZAGEORGIS anything and deliver [the decree]. Trust the decree. Written on the first day of the excellent Muharrem 808 (28 June 1405). [on the right margin]: this is proof. On the verso: (α) order to George to leave Doxombous (b) by Balaban Bey In his presentation, Demetriades relied on the notes on the verso, and suggested that the document had been issued by Balaban Bey, and that the recipient was George who was told to leave Doxombous. He proposed to identify the issuer either with Deli Balaban, who took part in the con- quest of Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia after the battle of Çirmen in 1371, or with İnce Balaban, who conquered Sofia in 1385. “The Bala- ban of the document sent to George, perhaps George Branković (?), and Şahin the order to leave Doksombu (Dokisamba in the Turkish text), which Vılk (i.e. Vılk Branković) had given to somebody not mentioned, but whom we presume to be the Lavra Monastery,” he continued. Then he gave information about the document’s Vuk, whom he identified with Vuk Branković, son of the Serbian despot Lazar Branković (sic!), who, in 1394-1395, together with his mother, the nun Eugenia, and his brother Stefan, had given to Lavra some villages in the Serbian area of Petrus. However, Demetriades admits in a footnote that we may have doubts about George being the Serbian despot, since there is no title in the docu- ment next to the name. In a recent book on the changes of domination and land control between the Byzantines and the Ottomans at the time of the last Palaeologi, R. Estangüi Gόmez comments on this document. He presents Demetria- des’ arguments, and concludes by summarising the document as follows: “en 1405, l’auteur de l’acte ordonna au Serbe Djuradj Branković de remettreaumonastèredeLavralevillagedeToxompousqu’ildétenait àtitredetimar.AvantluisonpèreVukBrankovićavaitdéjàdétenuce village et l’avait donné au monastère.” He corrects Demetriades in a footnote concerning “Vuk” whom he identifies not with Lazar Branković’s son but with George Branković’s father.6 We shall return to Estangüi Gόmez’s tracking of the village’s changes of ownership later on. 6 Estangüi Gόmez, Byzance, p. 307-309. 997971.indb7971.indb 226060 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 AN OTTOMAN DOCUMENT FROM 1405 AND ITS PROBLEMS 261 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CORRECT READING OF THE DOCUMENT Some points in the abovementioned remarks need further interpreta- tion. The fourth word of the second preserved line of the document has not been properly read. Demetriades read it as “Vulk,” which made him think of George Branković and his father Vuk. However, we should read not Vulk but dilek. The word is written with dal (d), lam (l) and kef (k), while Vulk is always written with vav (v), lam (l) and qaf (q) (so the -The ye missing after the dal, accord .(ﺩﻟﻚ but ﻮﻟﻖ document doesn’t have ing to the dictionary form of dilek, is substituted by a kesre under the dal. Furthermore, dilek really goes both with the previous word tekvur, as well as with the following auxiliary verb eyledi, with which it creates a new verb (dilekeylemek, to request). This reading changes the content of the document and adds a new element which will become apparent below. The rest of the text presents no particular palaeographic problems, apart from the first two words of the fourth preserved line, which we cautiously transcribe as buyıl[l]ıġı, as it goes better with the following word ḥāṣılıyla. Both historically and palaeographically, it is difficult to prove that the Christian leader mentioned in the document is George Branković. The latter is not known to have been in Eastern Macedonia around 1405. On the contrary from what has been revealed about this particular period, the Serb nobleman came to the area in 1411, not in 1405.7 Thus he cannot be relative to the document. 7 To be precise, around 1411-1412 George Branković was wandering around Thessa- loniki to avoid the men of Musa, one of the Bayezid I’s four sons who were fighting each other for supremacy with the Ottoman throne in view. D. Kastritsis uses Konstantine the Philosopher as his main source to study the events concerning Stefan Lazarević, despot of Serbia, George Branković, pretender to the Serbian throne, and the son of a certain Savcı (Kastritsis, TheSons, p. 180-182). According to Konstantine, after the battle of İnceğiz at the end of 1411, George Branković was sent to Thessaloniki in a Byzantine ship. Stefan Lazarević, Savcı’s son, and Paşa Yığıt with Yusuf Bey, generals of Musa at variance with him, were also going to Thessaloniki. They wanted to unite with the forces of the Byzantine despot of Thessaloniki, Andronicos Palaeologos, and Savcı’s son to be presented as the legal heir to the Ottoman throne and to advance against Musa. When Branković heard of Stefan’s arrival, he left the city to return to Serbia; this has not been an easy thing to do since an ally and namesake of Musa put obstacles in his path. Not being able to return to Thessaloniki, he had to hide in the countryside dressed as one of his nobles, while the army under Stefan Lazarević thought he was already half way back to Serbia. George Branković later managed to meet them and finally to return with them to Serbia. Kastritsis (ibid., p. 182, fn. 57) notes that it is difficult to date all these events, which are only men- tioned by Konstantine the Philosopher. According to Kastritsis, Branković probably came 997971.indb7971.indb 226161 113/07/153/07/15 008:078:07 262 PHOKION P. KOTZAGEORGIS THE AUTHOR OF THE DOCUMENT Since the top part of the document is missing, we cannot see the tuğra —or to be precise, the pençe. We have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the —contemporary with the document— Greek notes, thus we agree with Demetriades that someone called Balaban was the author of the document. The fact that the pençe has not been affixed on the right mar- gin of the document, but on the missing top part, can be explained.