engleski

The correlation between the spatial distribution of forests and pig farming in Ottoman slavonia

The state of forests of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries is a sparsely researched topic because Ottoman sources are generally silent regarding the state of forests in the mentioned period. However, Ottoman detailed (mufassal) tax surveys give us a lead on the possibility of researching forests through the tax on pigs and their grazing in the forests, at least in the provinces with considerable Christian population practicing pig farming. The present paper deals with the three Ottoman sancaks in the region of Slavonia in the 16th and 17th centuries: Sancak of Syrmia (Sirem), Sancak of Požega (Pojega), and Sancak of Pakrac (Pakraç, Zaçasna, or Çernik), where the Christian population represented a majority. The amount of money obtained through taxes on pigs was very high in numerous Slavonian settlements. Pigs needed to be reared by letting them graze in oak and beech forests and eat fallen acorns ; this practice is called pannage. The presumption is that the surroundings of the settlements with huge number of pigs were heavily covered with oak and beech forests. Thus, the spatial distribution of pig farming settlements of Ottoman Slavonia is presumed to be correlated with the distribution of Slavonian forests. The comparison is based on the data on resm-i pelit tax in the detailed Ottoman tax surveys and on the data on the approximate distribution of forests in Slavonia in the 1698 and 1702 Habsburg censuses of Slavonia, and it demonstrates clear correlation.

Ottoman Empire, tapu tahrir registers, Slavonia, forests, pig farming

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