Prof. Dr. Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (Institute for Byzantine Studies, Freie Universität Berlin)

Early Ottoman Macedonia from the Perspective of the History of Interconnections

The historical project approaches the transition period from Byzantine to Ottoman rule in Macedonia in the 14th and 15th centuries from an interconnected historical perspective. Among other things, the oldest Ottoman documents on the region will be edited for the first time and commented on from a legal-historical perspective. The legal status of Orthodox monasteries according to the newly introduced Ottoman-Islamic law plays an important role in the transitional phase between the two regimes. In addition to Islamic legal opinions (fetava), Byzantine documents in Greek serve as central sources for the project. The research results are to be published in a joint publication with the legal historian and legal counsellor for the Holy Monastic Community of Mount Athos, Dr. A. Nikopoulos, in the institute series of the Orient-Institut Istanbul, Pera-Blätter.