Oсманизовање средњовековног града: урбани и демографски развој Призрена од половине XV до краја XVI века
Ottomanisation of a Medieval Town: Urban and Demographic Development of Prizren from the Second Half of the 15th Until the End of the 16th Century

Summary/Abstract: The town of Prizren fell under Ottoman rule during the reign of Mehmed II the Conqueror, after 1444 and before 1452/53, the year from which the first reliable information on Ottoman possession of the town dates. Claims from Serbian chronicles about the seizure of Prizren in June 1455 must be dismissed as the new sources testify to the existence of the Prizren Sanjak in early March 1455 at the latest. In the first decades of Ottoman rule, Prizren did not undergo significant changes in urban terms. The greatest change was the construction of several Islamic religious and communal facilities and turning the Church of Our Lady of Ljeviš into the main town mosque. All new buildings were erected in the key places in the town with the aim of ensuring full control over the lives of its inhabitants. In the late 15th and the first two decades of the 16th century, new Islamic places of worship were erected in accordance with needs, on the periphery, due to the influx of settlers. As a result of economic progress, achieved in this period, a larger number of patrons built in Prizren caravanserais, schools, bridges, fountains. Intensive Islamisation at the time of Sultan Suleiman the Lawgiver resulted in the construction of mosques and masjids in downtown quarters, earlier inhabited exclusively by Christians. The erection of the religiouseducational complex of Mehmed Bey Dukagjinzade in the second half of the 16th century marked the end of this process, which led to the transformation of this medieval Christian town into an Islamic-Oriental town. Prizren was a mixed ethnic and religious milieu, where the Serbs dominated until the second half of the 16th century. Due to strong Islamisation and a more significant influx of the Albanians, which unfolded in parallel, the Serbs no longer constituted the majority of the urban population, but remained the most numerous Christian community. According to our estimate, the total number of inhabitants of Prizren in the 16th century varied between 2600 and 3800.

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