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Christian Roth: “Non-Muslims dealing with the Ottoman kadi in the eighteenth century rural and urban Aegean”
The eighteenth century was a time of change for the Aegean region: Venice lost its last important footholds there, French merchants found competitors in the English, and Russia discovered her interest in her Orthodox coreligionists. But although the region had a special status in the Mediterranean economy as a major centre of trade between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the Aegean islands still remained a part of the political periphery even after their complete conquest, as the Ottoman administration never gained as strong a foothold there as it did in other areas with Christian population. Furthermore, the eighteenth century is a time associated with the rise of local elites in the Ottoman Empire.
These developments form the background for Christian Roth’s study of non-Muslim subjects in the Aegean region dealing with the Ottoman kadi. Using documents issued by kadis on the islands kept in the archives of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian on the island of Patmos in contrast to records from the sicills of the city of Selānīk kept in the Historical Archive of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, the study will focus on several practical aspects of legal pluralism in this multicultural region, like the relevance of ṣulḥ agreements, the role of the non-Muslim clergy and the enforcement of court decisions.
