Kassandra in the Ottoman documents from Chilandar (Hilandar) Monastery (Mount Athos) in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Abstract

The rich archive of the Athonite Monastery of Hilandar contains a group of Ottoman documents relating to the promontory of Kassandra. Hilandar did not begin to acquire land in Kassandra until the very end of the sixteenth century. No link has been found between the newly-acquired landed property and the metochia Hilandar had held under Byzantine rule. Bits of information gleaned from the documentary material on Hilandar’s metochia within the village boundaries of Kalandra and Mavrokol, of the now non-existent village of Plastara, and of Valta, modern Kassandria, have been used to look at the ways of land acquisition, the composition of estates, forms of tenure, relations with the “master of the land”, taxes, and disputes in the course of the two centuries.