Halkidiki in the early modern period: towards an environmental history

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Halkidiki in the Early Modern Period:
Towards an Environmental History
Elias Kolovos
University of Crete
Phokion Kotzageorgis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
In the case of Halkidiki, the early modern period coincides with the centuries of Ottoman
rule. The Ottoman conquest of Halkidiki took place in two stages within the broader con-
text of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans after the mid-fourteenth century. The Otto-
mans first conquered Halkidiki in 1384, following a battle on the Chortiatis Mountain and
kept it until 1403. The second conquest occurred in 1423 in the context of their prepara-
tions for the final siege of Thessaloniki (1430). A twenty-year interlude (1403-23) saw
the peninsula revert to Byzantine rule, following the catastrophic defeat of Sultan
Bayezid Ι by Tamerlane at Ankara in 1402. The first Ottoman conquest, in the late four-
teenth century, led to the settlement of Muslim populations, particularly Yürük pastoral-
ists, around Thessaloniki and in Halkidiki. These newcomers, to a certain extent, trans-
formed the patterns of settlement and land use in the areas they had settled. At the
same time, the peasants of Halkidiki and the monks of Mount Athos had to renegotiate
their status in the area under the Ottomans. The final Ottoman conquest, after the first
quarter of the fifteenth century, paved the way for the most important change that
marked the period of Ottoman rule in Halkidiki, as well as the region’s environmental
history, our research topic in this collective volume: the operation of the mines at
Siderokavsia (Ott. Sidrekapsı) in the mountains of western Halkidiki.
1. Settlement Patterns: Continuity and Change
Through studying the archives of the Athonite monasteries, we know a great deal
about settlement patterns and the rural economy of Halkidiki during the late Byzantine
times.1 Now, for the first time, the Ottoman tax registers provide us with an almost
complete picture of the population and the region’s settlements as a whole during the
early modern period. The combined study of these sources shows us both continuities
1 Jacques Lefort,
Villages de Macédoine. I: La Chalcidique occidentale
, Paris: De Boccard 1982. See also the
chapter on the Byzantine period in this volume.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[124]
and changes during the transition from Byzantine to Ottoman rule and, more broadly,
within the historical context of the transition from the Middle Ages to the beginning of
the early modern period.
Our research shows that during the transition to Ottoman rule Halkidiki preserved a
considerable number of its settlements, a fact that is well reflected in the preservation
of many of its medieval place-names. In western Halkidiki (the Byzantine Kalamaria),
whose history has been particularly well studied, some of the largest villages in the hilly
part of the peninsula, such as Galatista, Portarea, Agios Mamas and Zombatoi, were
preserved (and still exist today), together with a considerable number of smaller vil-
lages, numbering almost thirty in all.2 In the plain of Ormylia, the old Byzantine villages
(Ormylia, Agios Sozon or Agios Dimitrios, Vatopedini Ermileia or Vatopedi) continued
to survive until the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, when the population
concentrated in the settlement of Maroula or Kalyvia (present-day Ormylia).3 Further to
the east, the main population centre is still Ierissos, which has existed since Middle
Byzantine times, although up until the earthquake of 1932 it lay on the acropolis of an-
cient Akanthos. In the vicinity of Ierissos, the Byzantine agricultural village of Gomatou
was continuously inhabited up until the earthquake of 1932.4
On the other hand, the late medieval settlement in Halkidiki underwent a serious
decline, which had begun even before the Ottoman conquest. It is debatable whether
this fact can be connected with the more general demographic crisis that marked the
end of the medieval period.5 In any case, the crisis led to some serious depopulations of
villages in the area. In the case of the peninsula of Kassandra, there appears to have
been no organised settlement after the invasion by the Catalan Company in 1307, while
2 For the settlements in western Halkidiki during the Byzantine period, see Lefort,
op.cit
. For the Ottoman pe-
riod, see Elias Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi stin othomaniki Halkidiki, 15os-16os aiones” [Peasants and
Monks in Ottoman Halkidiki, 15th-16th c.], unpublished PhD thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2000,
vol. 1, pp. 78-86; and vol. 2, for a list of the settlements of Halkidiki during the 15th and the 16th centuries.
3 Cf. Ioakeim A. Papaggelos, “I istoria”, in
Ormylia. Iero koinovio Evaggelismou tis Theotokou
[“History”, in
Ormylia. Holy Coenobion of the Announciation of the Virgin
], Athens: Interamerican, 1992, pp. 29-68 and es-
pecially the topographical sketch in p. 28; Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, pp. 42, 83-4, 91-2, 118-9;
for the 17th and 18th century, see the unpublished Ottoman tax registers in Istanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı
Arşivi (hereafter: BOA), Maliyeden Müdevver (hereafer: MAD) 3461, p. 184; MAD 4609, p. 47; BOA, Kamil
Kepeci (hereafter: KK) 2869, p. 9.
4 The present day village of Gomatou, however, is situated to the south east of the old site in the same plateau.
In the Provlakas area there existed also in the late Byzantine and the early Ottoman period the settlements of
Eladiava and Komitissa, along with the settlements founded by the
paroikoi
of the Athonite monasteries (Iviron,
Alypiou); see Ioakeim A. Papaggelos, “Eidiseis gia ta iviritika metochia tis Ierissou” [Notices for the metochia of
Iviron monastery in Ierissos],
Byzantina,
13 (1985), 1569-1618; Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, pp.
48-9, 61, 67-8, 83.
5 The conclusion that the population of the monastic
paroikoi
declined during the 14th century was drawn from
the study of Aggeliki Laiou-Thomadaki,
I agrotiki koinonia stin ysteri byzantini epochi
[Peasant Society in the
Late Byzantine Empire], Athens: MIET 1987, p. 392; cf. Konstantinos Moustakas, “I dimographiki krisi tou
ysterou Mesaiona ston elliniki choro: I periptosi tis notio-anatolikis Makedonias” [The demographic Crisis of the
late Middle Ages in the Greek lands: the Case of the South-Eastern Macedonia],
Mnimon,
25 (2003), 9-33.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[125]
it is likely that the raids of pirates from the Turkish emirates of Anatolia and the first Ot-
toman conquest during the fourteenth century further contributed to the desolation. After
repairing the wall of Kassandreia, in 1407-08 the despot of Thessaloniki John VII Pa-
laeologos attempted to reorganise agricultural production on the peninsula by making
donations to the Athonite monasteries. Subsequently, Kassandra appears to have been
occupied by the Ottomans before 1425, when it was temporarily retaken by the Vene-
tians.6 In the Ottoman registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and prior to its
repopulation in 1588, the Kassandra peninsula is recorded as “grazing land” and “winter
pastureland” (otlak, kışla) with no villages at all. Similarly, the peninsula of Longos (pre-
sent-day Sithonia) was also classified as winter pastureland during the same period,
without any organised settlement until the second half of the sixteenth century. Its Byz-
antine villages (Longos, Sarti, Koskinas) were recorded as “old villages’ (Gk. paleo-
choria, i.e. abandoned villages) already from 1346, probably as a result of the activity of
pirates from the Turkish emirates of Anatolia in the previous year.7
2. The Athonite Monks and their Properties
After the devastating raids by the Catalan Company, the Athonite peninsula appears to
have also been raided from the sea by pirates from the Turkish emirates of Anatolia in
the first half of the fourteenth century.8 In the second half of that century, however, it
appears that Mount Athos ceased to be the target of raids. On the basis of a reference
by Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos regarding the Turks’ respect for the Holy Mountain,
Elizabeth Zachariadou has claimed that the monks had probably secured their protec-
tion probably through the mediation of John VI Kantakuzenos, Sultan Orhan’s father-
in-law.9
The Athonite monks continued to preserve a kind of independence on the penin-
sula during the first Ottoman conquest, while in 1423-24 they hastened to “pay their
6 See the relevant documents in Paul Lemerle et al. (eds),
Actes de Lavra
, vol. 3, Paris: P. Lethielleux 1979,
no. 159; Jacques Bombaire (ed.),
Actes de Xéropotamou
, Paris: P. Lethielleux 1964, no. 28; Phokion Kotza-
georgis,
Archeio tis I.M. Agiou Pavlou. Epitomes eggrafon, 1010-1800
[Archive of the Holy Monastery of Agios
Pavlos. Summary of Documents], Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation 2008, no. 19; Konstantinos
Mertzios,
Mnimeia makedonikis istorias
[Monuments of Macedonian History], Thessaloniki: Etaireia Make-
donikon Spoudon 1947, pp. 62-7.
7 For the Byzantine habitation in Sithonia, see Ioakeim A. Papaggelos, “I Sithonia kata tous vyzantinous chronous:
Istoria-Mnimeia-Topografia” [Sithonia in Byzantine Times: History-Monuments-Topography], unpublished PhD
thesis, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University 2000. For the Ottoman period, see Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol.
1, pp. 94-9.
8 Mirjana Zivojinovic, “Concerning Turkish Assaults on Mount Athos in the 14th Century Based on Byzantine
Sources”,
Prilozi za Orijentalnu Filologiju
, 30 (1980), 501-16.
9 Elizabeth Α. Zachariadou, “‘A Safe and Holy Mountain’: Early Ottoman Athos”, in A. Bryer and M. Cunning-
ham (eds),
Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism
, Aldershot: Variorum 1996, p. 127.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[126]
respects” to Sultan Murad II at Adrianople,10 immediately after the beginning of the
blockade of Thessaloniki. A few days after the fall of the city in 1430, they met the Sul-
tan in person and were granted a decree guaranteeing protection of their properties in
Halkidiki, the Strymon valley and Mount Pangaion, which ratified previous decrees by
his predecessors on the same subject.11
The monastic properties in Halkidiki constitute a case of continuous – albeit partial
– land use in the region during the transition between the Byzantine and Ottoman peri-
ods.12 We will present some examples below.13 The monastery of Esphigmenou re-
tained its metochion at Portarea, despite the fact that some of its lands had been con-
fiscated in the first Ottoman conquest (1383/87-1403). As can be seen in this case, the
Ottomans had indeed confiscated lands during their first conquest of Halkidiki. The
monastery’s lands at Portarea had been confiscated before 1388, together with the
lands of Georgios Anatavlas, so that they could be handed over to a Muslim, perhaps
a timar-holder. However, the monks of Esphigmenou, after appealing to the Sultan and
the Vizier Ali Paşa, “at no little expense and with considerable haste”, managed to re-
cover them,14 retaining, as can be seen from the Ottoman tax registers, an estate
(çiftlik) at Portarea during the sixteenth century, together with five dönüm of vineyards
and meadows, according to the list of monastic vakıf properties in 1568.15 As a result
of the granting of timars by the Ottomans, the monasteries lost the tax revenues from
their paroikoi, which now passed to the timar-holders; nevertheless, they were able to
retain, at least in many cases, their main monastic estates (domaines) by paying taxes.
Thus, we observe that while Lavra owned Vromosyrta (now Agios Panteleimon) during
the Byzantine era and had a number of paroikoi, who paid tax to the monastery, ac-
cording to the Ottoman tax register of 1445 in that year the monastery was no longer
entitled to the tax revenues from the 36 families living in the village; the taxes were
10 Peter Schreiner,
Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken
, Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaf-
ten 1983, vol. 1, p. 473.
11 See Elias Kolovos, “The Monks and the Sultan outside Newly Conquered Ottoman Salonica in 1430”,
Jour-
nal of Turkish Studies
, 40 (2013), 271-81.
12 For losses of real estate properties during the first Ottoman occupation of Central Macedonia, with examples
from the Halkidiki and Serres regions, see Kostis Smyrlis, “The First Ottoman Occupation of Macedonia (ca.
1383-ca. 1403): Some Remarks on Land Ownership, Property Transactions and Justice”, in A. D. Beihammer,
M. G. Parani, C. D. Schabel (eds),
Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000-1500
, Leiden-Boston: E.J.
Brill 2008, pp. 331-339. These losses might be related mainly with the colonisation of Muslim peasants and
Yürüks pastoralists, for which see below.
13 See, in detail, Elias Kolovos, “Katalipsi tou chorou kai monastiriaki gaioktisia stin othomaniki Halkidiki (15ος-
16ος ai.)” [Settlement and Monastic Land Properties in Ottoman Halkidiki (15th-16th c.)], in
To Agion Oros ston
15o kai 16o aiona. Praktika synedriou
, Thessaloniki: Agioreitiki Estia 2012,
pp. 107-25.
14 Jacques Lefort (ed.),
Actes d’Esphigmenou
, Paris: P. Lethielleux 1973, no. 29 and the interpretation of the
document in Smyrlis, “The first Ottoman occupation”, p. 334 and fn. 25. For the Byzantine estate, see Lefort,
Chalcidique
, p. 129.
15 Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, pp. 160-1. Unfortunately, we do not have enough data on the size
of the real estates in the Ottoman tax registers so as to compare them with those from the Byzantine period.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[127]
shared between two timars held by the “royal slaves” (gulam-ı mir) Sofı Hızır and Uzun
İlyas. Nevertheless, the monastery of Lavra retained its lands as an estate by paying a
lump sum tax (mukataa-ı çiftlik).16 Similarly, it appears that the monastery of Vatopedi
also retained its Byzantine metochion at Agios Mamas as an estate (now Georgikos
Stathmos Halkidikis) by paying a lump sum tax.17
During the reign of Mehmed II, Şihabeddin Paşa, the former commander of the
Sultan’s forces in Rumelia who ended his career in honourable pension as governor of
Thessaloniki by issuing numerous documents in favour of the Athonite monasteries,
granted a favourable tax arrangement, involving the payment of dues at a lump sum
(mukataa), to the Athonite metochia at Ormylia (held by the monasteries of Vatopedi,
Lavra and Xeropotamou). Indeed, this arrangement appears to have been respected
by Şihabeddin’s successors too, as he had requested in the relevant documents.18 In
the same area, the monasteries of Docheiariou and Zographou also retained their
Byzantine metochia. On the other hand, the fate of Esphigmenou’s Byzantine meto-
chion remains unknown.
Almost all of the Athonite monasteries possessed estates from the Byzantine era
on the Isthmus of Ierissos, which survived through the Ottoman period.19 It is charac-
teristic that the oldest Ottoman document relating to Mount Athos, a decree issued by
the beylerbey of Rumelia Hace Firuz bin Abdullah in 1401, ratifies the collection of
dues from Prosphorion by the monks of Vatopedi.20
After the Ottoman conquest, the Athonite monasteries did not cease to invest in
land by creating new metochia. In the Portarea area, for example, the monks of Diony-
siou monastery appear to have created a new metochion during the fifteenth century
(before 1474) at Katakali (now Dionysiou), which is recorded in the Ottoman registers
as an agricultural area (mezraa), under the title ‘Dionysiatiko’ (Dyonişad).21 On the
other hand, Docheiariou monastery’s Byzantine metochion of Mariana, a village which
monks from that monastery had repopulated by settling paroikoi in 1373-75 and con-
tinued to exist in the Ottoman era, may not have been preserved in its entirety, since in
1568 the Ottoman registers mention only the monastery’s water-mills – two mills with
16 See in detail the comparison that Nicos Oikonomides attempted in his “Ottoman Influence on Late Byzantine
Fiscal Practice”, in H. W. Lowry & R. S. Hattox (eds),
IIIrd Congress on the Social and Economic History of
Turkey
, Istanbul-Washington-Paris: Princeton University Press-Isis 1990, pp. 252-7. See the complete data in
the Ottoman tax registers in Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 1, pp. 115-8, 120, 135-7 & vol. 2, pp. 184-5.
17 Kolovos,
op.cit.
, vol. 2, pp. 139-40. For the Byzantine
metochion
of Agios Mamas and the relations of the
monks of Vatopedi with their
paroikoi
,
see Kostis Smyrlis, “‘Our Lord and Father’: Peasants and Monks in mid-
Fourteenth-Century Macedonia”,
Travaux et Mémoires,
16 (2010), 786-91.
18 Kolovos, “Katalipsi tou chorou”, pp. 114-6.
19
Ibid.
, pp. 116-8.
20 Elias Kolovos, “Early Ottoman Diplomatics Revisited: An Order of the
Beglerbegi
of Rumeli Hace Firuz ibn
Abdullah in Favour of the Athonite Monastery of Vatopedi (1401)”,
Turcica
, 45 (2014), 187-208.
21 See Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, «Ottoman Documents from the Archives of Dionysiou (Mount Athos) 1495-
1520»,
Südost Forschungen
,
30 (1971), 1-36.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[128]
two millstones each – as well as a vineyard and a vegetable garden.22 In the case of
the metochion of Agios Pavlos monastery at Avramites (now Agios Pavlos), which was
granted to the monastery in 1405 by Radoslav Sabias, the monks exploited the lands
of villages that had been previously abandoned.23
To sum up: The Athonite monasteries were in a position to expand their posses-
sions with grants from the Ottomans, the most characteristic example being the exploi-
tation of the Longos peninsula for their flocks, from the fifteenth century onwards, and
the partial exploitation of the Kassandra peninsula. We will discuss these develop-
ments further below.
3. The Newcomers: Yürüks in Halkidiki
In a region that had suffered from a demographic crisis in the fourteenth century, the
Ottoman conquest appears to have offset the demographic losses caused by the mili-
tary operations, partly by the settlement in the countryside around Thessaloniki of Mus-
lim populations that had taken part in those operations, and partly through the forced
resettlement (sürgün) of Yürük pastoralists, who, under Murad I in the 1380s and
Bayezid I in the 1390s, were transferred from Western Anatolia (Sarukhan) to the
countryside around Thessaloniki, forming a semi-circle around the city in order to bol-
ster its defences.24 On the basis of the later Ottoman registers, it is possible to chart
these settlements, as far as they relate to Halkidiki, as follows: A small number of Mus-
lim agricultural villages were created in the Vasilika valley, namely the settlements of
Ilıca, Turhanlu, Tuzcılar, Karaçulhali, which had Turkish names, and the settlements of
Sarantarea and Agathi, which preserved their Byzantine names despite the Turkish
colonisation of the area. Agathi, it should be noted, enjoyed special immunity from ex-
traordinary taxes in exchange for the villagers’ guarding of the coastline and the reve-
nues from the sale of salt. In two other villages that preserved their Byzantine names,
Panagia and Karkara, Muslim farmers were settled in the area between Vavdos and
Portaria. The Yürük pastoralists, on the other hand, were recorded in the tax registers
under the broad title of ‘Yürük subjects’ (reaya Yürükler), and were subjects of Kala-
maria, which indicates that at least until the sixteenth century they were still in a semi-
nomadic state. It is clear that they moved around with their flocks between Mount Ver-
tiskos, more northerly-lying grazing grounds and western Halkidiki (summer pastures).
22 Kolovos, “Katalipsi tou chorou”, p. 114.
23 For Avramites, see in detail Phokion Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni Agiou Pavlou kata tin othomaniki periodo
(14os ai.-1830)
[The Athonite Monastery of Agios Pavlos during the Ottoman Period (14th c.-1830), Thessalo-
niki: University Studio Press 2002, pp. 56-96.
24 See Nevra Necipoğlu,
Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late
Empire
, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009, pp. 99-100. For the
Yürüks
in general, see H. İnalcık,
“The
Yürüks
: Their Origins, Expansion and Economic Role”, in his
The Middle East and the Balkans under the
Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society
, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1993, pp. 97-136.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[129]
Their temporary settlements, which are recorded in the registers as “neighbourhoods”
(Ott. mahalle) (43 in the first few years of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and 81
in the early part of the reign of Selim II, for the largest group of them) with Turkish an-
throponyms, were noted by the registrars as being spread out over the areas of Kala-
maria, Thessaloniki, Mount Vertiskos (Boğdan), Serres, Sidirokastro, Stroumtza, Gy-
naikokastro (near present-day Kilkis) and Vardaris, and as far away as Philippoupo-
lis/Plovdiv.25
The winter settlements of the Yürüks in western Halkidiki appear to have been lo-
cated mainly on Mount Kalavros and in the semi-mountainous zone to the south, and
less on the southern slopes of Mount Chortiatis. This arrangement is corroborated from
the distribution of their settlements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.26 It
is very interesting to note that the settlements of the Yürük pastoralists correspond
exactly with the present-day maquis zone. It should also be noted that a Yürük settle-
ment also existed at Eğri Buçak, present-day Nea Apollonia. In this case, it is possible
to trace, in a relatively clear manner, the evolution of the Yürük communities through
the registers, beginning with their initial settlement, moving on to their transformation
into farmers of the land and ending finally in their establishing of villages, though the
latter does not mean they lost their semi-nomadic character (as seen in the movement
of their flocks to nearby summer pastures to the west of Eğri Buçak).27
A note should also be made of the tension that was caused by this category of
pastoralists as they moved along the borders of cultivated areas or in areas that com-
prised a mixture of farmland and maquis (as in the case of the land to the north of pre-
sent-day Nea Kallikrateia). This tension may have led to the abandonment of the vil-
lage of Sigilou in the period 1527-68 and the relocation of its inhabitants to Rossaiou
(which took the name Sigilou), with Yürüks settling on the land of the old Sigilou at the
same time.28
4. Demographic Growth, 15th to 16th Century
At the beginning of the early modern period Halkidiki experienced the kind of large
demographic increase that characterised the Mediterranean and European worlds as
a whole in the sixteenth century.29 Thanks to the data provided by the Ottoman tax
registers, it is possible to make relatively sound calculations for this “demographic
revolution”.
25 Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, p. 106.
26 Paul Bellier et al.,
Paysages de Macédoine
, Paris: De Boccard 1986, map no. 2 at the end of the book.
27 See the relevant sections in Kolovos, "Chorikoi kai monachoi", vol. 2, pp. 34, 93-4 and 58.
28
Ibid
., p. 109.
29 Fernand Braudel,
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
, vol. 1, Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1995, pp. 402 ff.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[130]
A starting-point for the demographic history of Halkidiki during the Ottoman pe-
riod is an abridged Ottoman poll tax register from 1490-91.30 Given that Halkidiki was
a region with an overwhelmingly Christian population and that the fiscal units in this
survey generally corresponded to the geographical area covered by the later surveys
of the sixteenth century, it is possible to compare the figures. The register of 1490-91
mentions the “fiscal provinces” (vilayet) of Kalamaria, Chortiatis, Mount Bogdan, and
the Sidrekapsi mines, which made up the region. The total number of Christian
households in 1490 was 5,736, while in the following year it was 5,991. Table 1 illus-
trates how these figures evolved according to the Ottoman tax registers of the six-
teenth century.
Table 1
The tax-paying population of Halkidiki in the sixteenth century
Muslims Christians Totals
Year Households Unmarried Households Unmarried Widows Households Unmarried Widows
1519 627 380 5,235 777 541 5,862 1,157 541
1527 653 314 7,568 1,522 715 8,311 1,836 715
1568 584 426 6,462 3,352 292 7,046 3,788 292
Note: households = hane; unmarried = mücerred; widows = bive.
Source: The database made by Christos Kyriakopoulos, assistant researcher, for the project. Cf. Kolovos,
“Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2. These data emerge from the figures given for 111 settlements in 1519 (or
earlier), 113 settlements in 1527 and 107 settlements in 1568. The Yürüks and the Muslim or Christian
çiftliks have not been included.
On the basis of the number of households, it is possible to observe a 41.77% in-
crease in the size of the taxed population in a relatively short period, between 1519
and 1527. The same increase may also be observed if the calculations are based on
the number of adult males (unmarried and households combined show an increase of
44.56%) or the total number of households (unmarried males and widows show an
increase of 43.67%). However, we should note that the register of 1519 did not record
the salt-workers (tuzcıyân), nor did the registers of 1527 and 1568. This means that the
actual increase in the tax-paying population was not so large. In the period 1527-68, on
the other hand, there was a drop in the number of households (-15.22%), but an in-
crease in the number of unmarried males (a 6.67% increase for households and un-
married males combined) and in the total number of households (a 2.33% increase for
unmarried males and widows). This was the result of a twofold increase in the number
of unmarried males between the registers of 1527 and 1568. Overall, on the basis of
30 Nikolai Todorov & Asparuh Velkov,
Situation démographique de la péninsule balkanique (fin du XVe s.-
début du XVIe s.)
, Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 1988, pp. 264-5 and 274.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[131]
the above figures, it is possible to conclude that the tax-paying population of Halkidiki
generally increased during the sixteenth century.31
As the villages of Halkidiki form a sizeable sample, it has been possible to identify
the settlements in the various registers. Assuming that migration was a negligible fac-
tor, we have deduced the region’s overall population from the number of adult males
on the basis of a set of different factors.32
Table 2
Estimates on the population of Halkidiki in the sixteenth century
Year Adult males Coefficient Estimated population
1519 7,019 4.31 30,251.89
7,019 2.72 19,091.48
1527 10,147 4.31 43,733.57
10,147 2.72 27,599.84
1568 10,824 4.31 46,651.44
10,824 2.72 29,441.28
Source: Table 1 with the coefficients in Faroqhi-Erder, “Population rise”.
According to the data in Table 2, the average annual rate of demographic growth
in the fifty-year period 1519-68 was 0.89%, which is considered to be generally satis-
factory, though not particularly impressive, for a pre-industrial society.33
The above estimates can be indicatively compared with the data provided by the
first few censuses of the twentieth century. However, it should be borne in mind that
while today much of the region examined in this study falls under the former Prefecture
of Halkidiki, a part of it falls under the former Prefecture of Thessaloniki. According to
the 1920 census, the semi-urban and rural population of the Halkidiki prefecture was
48,859, while in 1928 it was 60,618 and in 1940 74,523. The semi-urban and rural
31 For increases in the population of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, see Ömer L. Barkan, “Essai
sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’Empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siècles",
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
,
1 (1958), 9-36; Suraiya Faroqhi (in collaboration with
Leila Erder), “Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia, 1550-1620”,
Middle Eastern Studies
, 15.3 (1979), 322-45.
However, not all Greek lands experienced such a demographic growth. For example, in western and central
Macedonia (districts of Horpişte and Karaferye) the average annual rate of growth fluctuated from -1.8% (1519-
1530) to 0.8% (1530-1542), before dropping again to -0.75% (1542-1568); see Vassilis K. Gounaris, “Di-
mografikes paratiriseis” [Demographic remarks], in J.S. Koliopoulos (ed.),
Opseis tou Argous Orestikou
(Chroupistas) kata tin Tourkokratia (1400-1912)
[Aspects of Argos Orestikon during Turkish Rule, 1400-1912],
Thessaloniki: Adelphoi Kyriakidi 2013, pp. 54-5 and fn. 55 and Table 1.
32 For the method, see: Faroqhi-Erder,
op.cit.
, p. 33 fn 3.
33 The average annual rate of demographic growth in the Greek towns of that period fluctuated between 0.8%-
1.2%; see: Machiel Kiel, “Das türkische Thessalien: Etabliertes Geschichtsbild versus Osmanische Quellen.
Ein Beitrag zur Entmythologisierung der Geschichte Griechenlands”, in R. Lauer-P. Schreiner (eds),
Die Kultur
Griechenlands in Mittelalter und Neuzeit
, Göttingen: Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen 1996, p. 133.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[132]
population of the whole of the Thessaloniki prefecture was 74,458 in 1920, 116,952 in
1928 and 147,265 in 1940.34
The figures that exist for the settlement and population of Halkidiki in the fifteenth
century are not complete, since the relevant tax surveys have only been partially pre-
served; consequently, it is not possible to calculate overall figures that may be com-
pared with those we have for the sixteenth century. Below, we have chosen to make a
comparison between smaller samples, consisting of the same villages that occur in the
tax surveys of both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Excluding those villages that
were also inhabited by salt-workers, in as much as the latter were not recorded in ear-
lier tax surveys, we have selected a sample of twenty-five Christian and one Muslim
village, which appear in the surveys of 1445 and 1519.
Table 3
The tax-paying population of 26 villages of Halkidiki in 1445 and 1519
Muslim Christian Totals
Year Households Unmarried Households Unmarried Widows Households Unmarried Widows
1445 8 836 56 111 844 56 111
1519 103 58 2,047 271 233 2,150 329 233
Source: Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2.
The results are impressive. A 154.73% increase in the number of households that
is calculated, a 175.44% increase in the number of adult males (households and un-
married men combined), a 168.24% increase in the total number of households, adult
males and widows. The increase in the size of the tax-paying population is in excess of
150% and almost threefold. It represents actually a “demographic increase of 100 per
cent”.35 The annual rate of demographic growth for the total number of households,
unmarried men and widows is 1.34%, a high percentage for this type of society. By
comparing two samples from the same villages that appear in the registers for the pe-
riods 1445-78 and 1478-1519, respectively, it is possible to form a more accurate pic-
ture of the increase in the size of the tax-paying population between the late fifteenth
and the early sixteenth century. For the first period the sample that was used includes
24 Christian and one Muslim village, while the sample used for the second period in-
cludes 52 Christian and ten Muslim villages.
34 Michail Chouliarakis,
Exelixeis tou plithismou ton agrotikon periochon tis Ellados, 1920-1981
[The Evolution
of the Population in Rural Areas of Greece, 1920-1981]
,
Athens: ΕΚΚΕ, 1988, p. 17.
35 Braudel,
op.cit.
, p. 402.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[133]
Table 4
The tax-paying population of 25 villages in Halkidiki between 1445-78
Muslim Christian Totals
Year Households Unmarried Households Unmarried Widows Households Unmarried Widows
1445 8 820 54 111 828 54 111
1478 30 10 815 46 127 845 56 127
Source: Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2.
Table 5
The tax-paying population of 62 villages in Halkidiki between 1478-1519
Muslim Christian Totals
Year Households Unmarried Widows Households Unmarried Widows Households Unmarried Widows
1478 157 55 1 1,409 56 213 1,566 111 214
1519 463 313 3,603 494 384 4,066 807 384
Source: Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2.
A comparison of the above tables reveals that the tax-paying population in the
sample of 25 villages remained extremely stable during the period 1445-78. By con-
trast, the sample of 62 villages displays a particularly high increase in the period 1478-
1519. In respect of households, the increase is in the order of 159.64%, in respect of
adult males 190.57%, and in respect of households, unmarried men and widows as a
whole 178%. The annual rate of demographic growth in the first period is 0.105%, dis-
playing a real stability in the population, while the annual rate of demographic growth in
the second period is 2.525%, an impressively high increase for this period and this
type of society. This observation concurs completely with the findings of a study con-
ducted for the Strymon area, which, like Halkidiki, possesses sufficient historical
sources for the transitional period between Byzantine and Ottoman rule. In this study it
is argued that in the period 1454-78 the demographic increase was negligible (the
population remained more or less stable), while in the period 1478-1519 large-scale
demographic changes occurred.36
In order to calculate the density of the calculated population in the sixteenth cen-
tury, it was necessary to calculate the total size of the area under examination on the
basis of the figures provided by the National (Greek) Statistical Service in 1962 for
every municipality and community. To be precise, the figures for all the municipalities
and communities in the Prefectures of Halkidiki and Thessaloniki below the line of
the lakes (which is the northernmost limit of the area examined in this study) were
36 Moustakas, “I dimografiki krisi”, especially pp. 32-3. Similarly, from a sample of ten villages in the district of
Horpişte between 1445 and 1500 (or 1519) an annual rate of growth of 1.6% (or 1.3%) is observed; Gounaris,
“Dimografikes paratiriseis”, pp. 54-5 and table 2.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[134]
added together, while the Sithonia and Kassandra peninsulas were excluded as they
had no villages during the period under consideration.37 The total land area was cal-
culated at 3,203.9 km2. On the basis of this figure, and the highest and lowest calcu-
lated figures for the total population in Table 2 above, the population density in the
whole of the area under examination has been estimated to be as follows:
Table 6
Density of the estimated population of rural Halkidiki in the sixteenth century
(in a total land area of 3,203.9 km2)
Year Estimated population Inhabitants per km2
1519 30,251.89 9.44
19,091.48 5.95
1527 43,733.57 13.65
33,688.04 10.51
1568 46,651.44 14.56
35,953.68 11.22
Source: Based on Table 2.
The above calculations represent minimum values as they do not include the
Yürüks, the monks or the population of Sidrekapsi and the two mining villages
nearby (Izvor and Piavitsa). In comparative terms, in 1920 the population density of
the Halkidiki prefecture was 16.96 inhabitants per km2, while in 1928 it was 21.04
and in 1940 25.87.38
5. The Resettlement of Kassandra and Sithonia
Evidence of the large demographic increase that occurred in the sixteenth century,
which certainly led to a fuller occupation of the land area of Halkidiki, is to be found in
the resettlements, during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, of the Kassandra
and Longos (Sithonia) peninsulas, which, as we saw earlier, had had no organised
habitation up until that point.
37 National Statistical Service of Greece,
Katanomi tis ektaseos tis choras kata vassikas katigorias chriseos.
Proapografika stoicheia
[Allocation of the Land Area of the Country According to Basic Categories of Use. Pre-
Census Data]
,
Athens: Ethniki Statistiki Ypiresia Ellados 1962, pp. 182-5 and 150-4.
38 For the area of the Prefecture of Halkidiki, see
idem
, p. 4. The data of 20th-century censuses are in Chou-
liarakis,
op.cit.
, p. 17. Cf. the population density of the Peloponnese in 1700 (8.4 inhabitants/km), in contrast
with the later data (1879: 34.0, 1907: 44.0, 1940: 55.6), in Vassilis Panagiotopoulos,
Plithysmos kai oikismoi tis
Peloponnissou, 13os-18os aionas
[Population and Settlements of the Peloponnese, 13th-18th centuries], Ath-
ens: Istoriko Archeio Emporikis Trapezas Ellados 1987, pp. 170-82. We should underline that the average
density in the Greek peninsula at the beginning of the 19th century was 13.3 inhabitants/km2; Dimitris Anogiatis-
Pele, “Dimografikes plirofories gia tin Ellada apo periigites (1800-1820)” [Demographic Information on Greece
Based on Travellers’ Accounts],
Mnimon,
10 (1985), 5-6 and 15.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[135]
In the Ottoman tax registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Kassandra was
classified as grazing land. In the tax register of 1478 the revenues from the hass of the
then governor of Thessaloniki included the “dues from the grazing land of Kassandra in
the district of Kalamaria” (resm-i otlak-ı Kesendire der vilayet-i Kelemerye). The same
“dues from the winter pasture of Kassandra” (resm-i kışla-ı Kesendire) were also men-
tioned in the tax register of 1519. In 1527 these also included dues from beehives, fish
and resin. In 1568 the dues from the winter pasture of Kassandra (together with the
dues from beehives, buffalo, sheep, pigs, fish and resin) were recorded together with
other revenues from the hass of the governor of Thessaloniki.39 The partial continuity
of the exploitation of Kassandra, as in the case of Longos, was aided by the presence
of certain monasteries based on Athos and at Serres which, according to the Ottoman
tax registers, maintained winter pastures on Kassandra (the Athonite monasteries of
Vatopedi, Philotheou, and Dionysiou, of Timios Prodromos at Serres, Kossifoinitsa on
Mount Pangaion, Agia Anastasia in the Thessaloniki area).40
The Kassandra peninsula was resettled in the late sixteenth century on the initia-
tive of a high-ranking Ottoman official, Gazanfer Ağa (d. 1602-03), the head of the
White Eunuchs (Kapu Ağası), to whom the peninsula had been granted, with full own-
ership (temlik), in 1588 by Sultan Murad III, according to a document granting tax im-
munity to the Kassandra peninsula (suret-i muafname-i cezire-i Kesendire). Gazanfer
was later to convert the holding into a vakιf.41 In order to attract settlers, the Sultan de-
creed that the reaya of the peninsula and their descendants should be granted immu-
nity (muaf ve müsellem) from extraordinary taxes (avarız) and a set of obligations to
provide mandatory services.42 Of particular interest are the exemptions from the obliga-
tions to work in the mines or on the galleys, to pay the tax on postal services and the
taxes on barley, hay and tree-felling, and to provide boys for the devşirme. The fact
that the “exemption document” included a tax on tree-felling indicates that the Ottoman
State was concerned about the uncontrolled felling of trees in the peninsula.
The establishment of Gazanfer Ağa’s vakıf in Kassandra led to the settlement of
those villages that still account for the majority of the peninsula’s population today. It is
not known where the new inhabitants came from. It seems quite likely, however, that
the peninsula was settled by people from other parts of Halkidiki. The lack of any evi-
dence to the contrary and the peninsula’s smooth demographic development since
39 BOA, Tapu Tahrir Defteri (hereafter: ΤΤ) 7, p. 560 and 590; ΤΤ 70, p. 103; ΤΤ 403, p. 781; ΤΤ 723, p. 250.
40 Kolovos, «Katalipsi tou chorou”, pp. 121-3. See also : Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, p. 116, for a grant of
uncultivated lands in 1542 by the Patriarch of Constantinople Ieremias I to the monastery of Stavronikita; how-
ever, this property is not registered in the catalogue of 1568.
41 For a similar resettlement project of the same years on the island of Samos, see Sophia N. Laiou,
I Samos
kata tin othomaniki periodo
[Samos in the Ottoman Period], Thessaloniki: University Studio Press 2002, pp. 33-
8.
42 BOA, ΤΤ 723, p. 250 (copy). A copy of the document is also held in the archive of the Agios Pavlos monas-
tery; see Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, p. 116 fn. 166.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[136]
then both lead to this conclusion. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that in the sec-
ond half of the sixteenth century Halkidiki, like other parts of the Balkans, came to have
a demographic surplus and thus there was enough population surplus for people to be
resettled in Kassandra. The first evidence we have of village settlements during this
period concerns the villages of Valta in 1589-90, Pinakas in 1593-94, Paliouri and Agia
Paraskevi in 1596-97, Polychrono in 1597-98, Aphytos in 1615, Kapsochora and Kal-
linikou in 1623, and Kalandra in 1629.43 At the same time, almost all of the Athonite
monasteries hastened to re-establish their Byzantine metochia in Kassandra, whose
ownership was safeguarded with the issuing of deeds and boundary documents by the
administrators of the vakιf or Gazanfer Ağa. The metochia of Agios Pavlos, Esphig-
menou and Dionysiou monasteries had already been founded in 1591, while those of
Xeropotamou, Zographou and Koutloumousiou were established in 1597-98, 1599 and
1608, respectively.44
Already in documents dating from the fifteenth century there is considerable evi-
dence of the extensive use of the Longos peninsula by the Athonite monasteries as a
winter grazing land. Due to its immediate proximity to the Mount Athos peninsula, al-
most all of the monasteries held winter pastures on Longos from the early Ottoman
period onwards. The Ottoman tax register of 1478 contains a list of the Athonite mon-
asteries which at that time paid taxes to the timar-holder of Nikiti, relating to their hold-
ings on Longos, in the form of dues on beehives (resm-i kovan) and on winter pastures
(resm-i kışlak);45 according to the list of vakıf estates held by the Athonite monasteries
in 1568, winter pastures on Longos were held by 15 out of the 20 monasteries.46
In the second half of the sixteenth century the peninsula of Longos became part of
the Sultan’s hasses, a source of tax revenue for the Sultan himself.47 It is likely that
during this period certain villages on the peninsula were reconstituted as fiscally ac-
countable units. From this period we have the first reference to the village of Sykia, in
43 See in detail, Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 1, 87-94. Athytos was a village in the 14th century. For
the movement of peasants from Athitos to Agios Mamas in 1346-48, obviously evacuating their former village
for unknown reasons, see Smyrlis, “Peasants and Monks”, p. 787 and fn. 87.
44 Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, no. 191, 201, 223, 224; Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, p. 116. For
the topography of the villages and the metochia in Kassandra after the colonization of the 1590s, see Bellier et
al.,
Paysages de Macédoine
, passim; Johannes Koder, “Die Metochia der Athos-Klöster auf Sithonia und
Kassandra”,
Jachrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik,
16 (1967), 211-24.
45 ΒΟΑ, ΜAD 17748, p. 6. Cf. the special Ottoman regulation for the “winter pasture of Longos” (
kışla-ı ada-ı
Longoz
) in John C. Alexander,
Toward a History of Post-Byzantine Greece: The Ottoman Kanunnames for the
Greek Lands, circa 1500-circa 1600
, Athens 1985, p. 45 and 217.
46 Kolovos, “Katalipsi tou chorou”, pp. 119-21.
47 Vassilis Dimitriades, “Forologikes katigories ton chorion tis Thessalonikis kata tin Tourkokratia” [Tax catego-
ries of the villages of Thessaloniki during the Ottoman Period],
Makedonika,
20 (1980), 429-30.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[137]
the vicinity of the Byzantine village of Longos, while Sarti is also mentioned once again
as a village.48
Apart from having demographic repercussions, the resettlements described above
may also have had an environmental impact in the medium term. The hilly region in the
north-west part of the Kassandra peninsula is now cultivated with large tracts of cere-
als, separated by areas of pine forest. Nineteenth-century records show that the areas
of pine forest were probably larger, and coexisted with areas of cultivated land and
maquis. The situation was very different in the fourteenth century, where records show
that oak forests existed instead of the pine forests and that most of the land was used
for stockbreeding. The disappearance of oak forests between the fourteenth century
and the modern era has also been noted in the case of the region to the south-west of
Ormylia and the Vourvourou area on the Longos peninsula.49
6. Rural Economy and the Environment
The rural economy in the Late Byzantine era has been analysed by Angeliki Laiou,
mainly on the basis of the example of the Halkidiki countryside. In the case of the vil-
lage of Gomatou, the peasants cultivated only a small proportion of the land, which
may reasonably be assumed to have been the village’s small plain (the rest of the land
was mountainous and barren). The peasants owned vineyards and fruit trees, oxen to
plough the land (an average of 0.62 each in 1300), pigs (an average of 0.8 each),
sheep and young goats (an average of 8.0 each), which grazed on the barren land or
in the fields after harvest-time. A system of crop rotation was used, and the fields were
sown with winter seeds (wheat and rye) and spring seeds (wheat, millet, oats and leg-
umes).50 We have no reason to believe that this situation changed during the period of
Ottoman rule. In 1527, for example, the peasants of Ierissos were cultivating for food
cereals (wheat, barley, oats and rye) and legumes (broad beans and bitter vetch). A
considerable part of their diet consisted of fish, which were taxed quite heavily. They
also had pigs for meat and fat (they had no olive trees), bees for honey and, of course,
sheep and goats. They were also taxed on the figs and flax they cultivated. Of course,
they also cultivated vineyards and produced must and wine, which, together with cere-
als, were the principal goods taxed by the Ottomans at the time. Similarly, in 1527, the
48 Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, no. 146 (1577), 161 and 162 (1583). See also Ioakeim A. Papagge-
los, “To telos tis Teronis” [The End of Teroni], in G. Karadedos (ed.),
Doron. Timitikos tomos ston kathigiti Niko
Nikonano
[Volume in Honour of Professor Nikos Nikonanos], Thessaloniki: 10th Ephoreia Byzantinon Archaioti-
ton 2006, p. 182-183, with a reference on donors’ names from Teroni and Sykia in the old “vrevion” of the
monastery of Pantokrator from the second half of 16th century. Thus, it is probable that Toroni was also re-
colonised in the second half of 16th century.
49 Bellier et al.,
Paysages de Macédoine
, pp. 112-3. For travellers’ evidence of 19th-and early 20th-century
maquis
(yews, arbutus, and wild olive-trees) in the region southwest of Ormylia, see p. 89. For evidence of the
retreat of forests in the northern part of Kassandra, see p. 90; for Longos, see p. 94.
50 Laiou,
I agrotiki koinonia
, pp. 94-100.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[138]
inhabitants of Ormylia cultivated for food cereals (wheat, barley, oats, rye and millet)
and legumes (broad beans). Their diet also included fish. In addition, they had pigs for
meat and fat (they had no olive trees either), although they had no bees, sheep or
goats, living as they did in the middle of the plain. However, on the outskirts of the vil-
lage there was a winter pasture for large animals (buffalos), probably near the river
mouth. The inhabitants of Ormylia were even taxed on their figs and pears. An impor-
tant “commercial” crop that was grown in the fertile plain was hemp and flax. Of
course, vineyards were also cultivated. The inhabitants of Agios Sozon, in the same
plain of Ormylia, also cultivated cereals and vineyards, and cotton as well. Unlike Or-
mylia, this village had olive trees and bees. The inhabitants also bred pigs, and they
too had a winter pasture. The inhabitants of near-by Kalyvia, like those of Agios Sozon,
cultivated most of their crops – cereals, vines and flax – within the boundaries of the
Ormylia estates. Apart from these crops, the people of Kalyvia also had bees. On the
other side of the river of Ormylia, the inhabitants of the village of Vatopedi had similar
crops: cereals, vines, hemp, flax, and cotton. They were also taxed on their cocoons,
figs, beehives and pigs. This village also possessed a winter pasture. The inhabitants
were also fishermen, and they were also taxed on the potteries that existed in the vil-
lage.51
A special category of the rural population in Halkidiki was that of the salt-workers.
The two largest villages in the plain of Vasilika were the Christian villages of Vasilika
and Agia Paraskevi.52 Most of their inhabitants, along with the majority of the inhabi-
tants of another five Christian villages that lay further to the south (Zombatoi, Mesimeri,
Koumoutzoulou, Krini and Kalarinos), were salt-workers and worked on the state’s
saltpans. Saltpans appear to have existed in Halkidiki at an earlier date and further to
the south, in the areas of Agios Mamas, Portaria and Vromosyrta; in the sixteenth cen-
tury some of the inhabitants of these villages were described as “former salt-workers”.
The revenue from the salt monopoly was the most important source of state income
from the city of Thessaloniki in the sixteenth century.53
Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell have recently approached the history of
the Mediterranean from the standpoint of a “new ecological economic history”,54 study-
ing rural history with an emphasis on the diversification that is evident in the Mediterra-
nean. As they have argued, “the omnipresence of the marginal has enforced diversity,
flexibility and opportunism in managing the environment”.55 Even through the selective
51 See the relevant entries in the tax register TT 403, p. 1028, 677, 746-7, 678, 682.
52 TT 403, pp. 117 and 90 respectively.
53 TT 403, pp. 128, 85, 77, 75, 69; p. 126, 98 and 120.
54 Peregrine Horden & Nicholas Purcell,
The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History
, London:
Blackwell Publishing, 2000, pp. 175-7.
55
Ibid.
, p. 180.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[139]
presentation made above, this diversification is particularly evident in the case of the
rural economy of Halkidiki.
In this diversified economy and ecology, the settlement of the semi-nomadic Yür-
üks added yet another level of complexity to the rural economy of Byzantine Halkidiki.
According once again to Horden and Purcell, the schematic distinction between pas-
toralism and agriculture is pointless: “When interdependence is high and intensification
desirable, animals not only make it possible to exploit zones of forest, steep slope, or
marshland which would otherwise yield much less nutriment, but through the addition
of labour into the processing and marketing of animal products, they can readily take
their place in the world of storage and redistributive gain. Hence the importance of the
recognition that pastoralism as a system does not indicate underdevelopment, but
rather the opposite”.56 In addition, ‘mountain pastoralism, and above all long-distance
transhumance, is a novel opportunistic exercise extending the reach of the producers
of the more comfortable landscapes – a kind of displaced intensification.’57 The Yürüks
of Halkidiki, though not a typical example of a mountain population engaged in long-
distance transhumance, introduced a new element into the Halkidiki environment.
Purely nomads at first, they gradually adapted to a region of age-old villages and a
terrain that did not possess the extensive grazing grounds of the Anatolian plateaus.
They moved between a form of short-distance transhumance and a form of agriculture
practised by settled populations. Gradually, losing their nomadic character, they be-
came integrated in the local exchange networks and accumulated capital through ex-
tra-agricultural activities as well (money-trading).
7. Post-Sixteenth-Century Halkidiki: Crisis and Climate Change
Post-sixteenth-century European history has been described by historians as an era of
“General Crisis”;58 recently, Geoffrey Parker argued that the seventeenth century was
an era of “Global Crisis”.59 The historiographical concept of crisis has been applied
also to the post-sixteenth-century Ottoman history, which had been conventionally, and
somewhat ethically, described also as an era of “decline”.60 In any case, however, the
seventeenth century was a century of significant political, economic, and social change
56
Ibid.
, p. 199.
57
Ibid.
, p. 198.
58 Eric Hobsbawm, “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century”,
Past and Present
, 5-6 (1954), 33-53, 44-65.
59 Geoffrey Parker,
Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
, New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.
60 Linda T. Darling,
Revenue-Rising and Legitimacy. Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman
Empire, 1560-1660
, Leiden: E.J. Brill 1996, p. 1-21.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[140]
for the Ottomans. Baki Tezcan has even argued that from 1600 onwards we should
talk of an actual “Second Ottoman Empire”.61
As far as environmental history is concerned, Faruk Tabak has recently described
the post-sixteenth-century era as the “autumn” of the Mediterranean, when the centre
of the world economy left the Inner Sea for the north of Europe; at the same time, set-
tlement in the Mediterranean moved from the plains up to the hills and the moun-
tains.62 The latter was the result of the climate change, alias called the “Little Ice Age”
(1550-1870), which, in the Mediterranean, produced increased rain and snow in higher
altitudes during the cold months and opposite phenomena of big draughts during the
warm months; hence, the abandonment of the plains in favour of the mountains. More
recently, Sam White studied extensively the outbreak of the “Little Ice Age” in the
Eastern Mediterranean, focusing especially on the great draught of the 1590s. White
made a strong argument in favour of a connection between climate change and social
unrest, i.e., the Celali rebellions in Anatolia.63 In the case of Halkidiki, however, an area
of hills and mountains, without major plains, we should not expect to find a similarly
strong impact of climate change onto cultures and yields, as in the case of Anatolia.64
We will discuss in some detail this argument in the following pages. Moreover, for the
case of Anatolia, there is strong evidence that climate change and social unrest coin-
cided also with a “big flight” of the population from the countryside. As we will show in
the following paragraphs, there is evidence of a population decline in post-sixteenth-
century Halkidiki. However, we cannot locate a similarly extreme demographic catas-
trophe in Halkidiki, where settlement was expanding still in the last decades of the six-
teenth centurie (see above, on the resettlement of the Kassandra peninsula, and a
quite similar case in the peninsula of Longos).
8. Population and Settlement (17th–18th Centuries):
Decline and Recovery
The Ottoman tax surveys constitute the basis for our research into the history of seven-
teenth- and eighteenth-century Halkidiki. Notwithstanding significant changes to their
format, the registers of these surveys are considered to provide important information
61 Baki Tezcan,
The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World
,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010.
62 Faruk Tabak,
The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550–1870: A Geohistorical Approach
, Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, pp. 22-35.
63 Sam White,
The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press 2011, esp. pp. 126-39 for the “Little Ice Age” and pp. 140-62 for the big draught of the 1590s in the
Eastern Mediterranean.
64 White,
The Climate of Rebellion
,
p. 80, mentions a famine in Dubrovnik in 1564, which was alleviated with
grain from Chios, Rodos, Limnos, Kos, Mytilene, Tarhanyat, Sığacık and Seferhisar. White mentions also a
famine in Thessaloniki at the same year; however, he has misread the Mühimme 6/266, as Thessaloniki actu-
ally provided grain to Anatolia.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[141]
for both the history of settlement and demographic history.65 Evidence from the Otto-
man poll-tax (cizye) registers indicates a decrease of the population in Halkidiki in the
first half of the seventeenth century. We have already seen that in 1568 the Christian
tax households in Halkidiki comprised a total of 10,106 (Table 1). In 1620-21, the sum
of the poll-tax households (cizyehane), which were recorded in the two “tax provinces”
of Siderokavsia/Thessaloniki (vilayet-i Sidrekapsı tetimme-i Selanik) and Sidero-
kavsia/Gynaikokastro (vilayet-i Sidrekapsı tetimme-i Avrethisarı), were only 5,759;66
the former vilayet included only 25 villages of Halkidiki, whereas the latter included also
a lot of villages outside Halkidiki.67 We can use more comparable data from the regis-
ters of 1620-21 and 1642, when the poll-tax households in the “tax province” of the
vilayet-i Sidrekapsı tetimme-i Selanik dropped from 2,675 to 1,890; 1,824 poll-tax
households were counted in the same “tax province” in 1644.68 In sum, these figures
indicate a downward trend in the population of Halkidiki in the first half of the seven-
teenth century, consistent with the general “demographic crisis” in the Ottoman Empire
at the time.69
In the second half of the seventeenth century, this trend seems to have been re-
versed. A register of 1692 recorded 5,830 poll-tax payers in Halkidiki, not including the
Kassandra peninsula. A few years later, in 1697, another register counted 8,172 poll-
tax payers, including this time 871 men in the Kassandra peninsula; however, 664 from
the aforementioned poll-tax payers were “dispersed” (perakendegân).70 The number of
these cizye registers is corroborated by the number recorded in an avarız register of
1722 for Halkidiki; 3,231 avarızhanes, both Muslim and Christian, comprising an esti-
mated 10,000 tax-payers.71 To sum up, the evidence from the Ottoman tax registers
65 Oktay Özel, “Avarız ve Cizye Defterleri”,
Osmanlı Devleti'nde Bilgi ve İstatistik
, Halil İnalcık & Şevket Pamuk
(eds), Ankara 2001, pp. 35–50.
66 S. Dimitrov, E. Grozdanova & S. Andreev (eds),
Turski izvori za balgarskata istorija
, vol. 7, Sofia: Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences 1986, p. 390. The division of Halkidiki between two “tax provinces” was a fiscal practice
of the first half of the seventeenth century; Bistra Cvetkova (ed.),
Opis na dzizie registri
, Sofia: National Library
“Cyril and Methodius” 1983, no. 216 (1639-40), and no. 273 (1642-43). A poll-tax register dated 1666 refers to
the
vilayet-i Sidrekapsı
as a whole (
ibid
., no. 427).
67 It is interesting to note that in these tax districts in 1620-21 14.3% of the total
hane
s paid their poll-tax in the
reduced price of 215
akçe
s, when the remaining
hane
s paid 245
akçe
s.
68 Dimitrov, Grozdanova & Andreev,
Turski izvori
, p. 390 (abridged register of 1620-21); BOA, MAD 1209
(detailed register of 1642); Cvetkova,
Opis
, no. 273 (abridged register of 1644).
69 Oktay Özel, “Population Changes in Ottoman Anatolia during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The ‘Demo-
graphic Crisis’ Reconsidered”,
International Journal of Middle East Studies
,
36.2 (2004), 183-205.
70 Cf. BOA, MAD 4609 (1692) and MAD 3461 (1697). It has been suggested that around 20-30% of the tax-
paying population was not registered in the Ottoman
defter
s (Darling,
op.cit.
, p.
101). If we accept a minimum
percentage of 20%, then the total number of taxpayers can be estimated at 10,215, a figure that almost equals
the number of Christian taxpayers in 1568.
71 See BOA, ΚΚ 2869, p. 2-23 and 81-116. The survey of 1722 has both an advantage and a disadvantage for
the researcher. It includes both Christians and Muslims, however, only those who had to pay the extraordinary
taxes (
avarız
). Moreover, the register does not indicate a fixed equivalence between
hane
and
avarızhane
. We
would suggest a minimum equivalence of 1:3, whereas an equivalence of 1:5 was standard in the mid-

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[142]
provide some indications for a population decrease in the last decades of the sixteenth
and in the first half of the seventeenth century, a trend which was reversed in the sec-
ond half of the seventeenth century. Around 1700, it seems that Halkidiki had recov-
ered its sixteenth-century population. Interestingly, the ratio between Muslims and
Christians remained the same as in the register of 1568, i.e. 1:10.72
On the other hand, it should be emphasised that in the case of Halkidiki the demo-
graphic crisis of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century did not result in a
radical change of the settlement network in the region. The bigger settlements, as one
would expect, survived the crisis. In the western part, the Christian villages of Vasilika
(97 Christian poll-tax payers in 1697) and Agia Paraskevi (115) continued to be the
biggest settlements in the area. Travelling further to the south in the district of Kala-
maria, one finds all the old Byzantine villages in this area, for example Kalarinos (23
poll-tax payers in 1692), Portaria (35) and Agios Mamas (135), together with the new
settlement of Epanomi (125).73 Further to the east, one finds Ormylia-Kalyvia (36 poll-
tax payers in 1692), Nikiti (125) and, of course, Ierissos (71). Up on the mountains,
Polygyros (159 Christian poll-tax payers) had already become in 1692 one of the big-
ger settlements in Halkidiki. This evolution might partially indicate, for Halkidiki as well,
a population movement from the plains up to the hills and the mountains. The near-by
settlement of Galatista, in the borderline of the plain of Vasilika and the mountainous
area, was the most populous settlement in Halkidiki (321 Christian poll-tax payers in
1697).74 In total, Halkidiki had 107 settlements according to the register of 1568 and
100 according to the register of 1722.75 The deserted settlements during the seven-
teenth century are not many. Most were abandoned as a result of settlement regroup-
ing around modern Ormylia/Kalyvia, which should have regrouped the villagers of the
deserted settlements of Byzantine Ormylia, Agios Sozon or Demetrios, and Vatopedi);
around Ierissos, where one assumes that the population from the deserted settlements
of Eladiava,76 Komitissa, Alypiou, and Ivires had moved; and around the new town of
Bazar-ı Cedid/Pazargâh (mod. Apollonia) in the area of the lakes, which was founded
seventeenth century. See Darling,
op.cit.
, p. 107; Phokion Kotzageorgis,
Mikres poleis tis ellinikis hersonissou
kata tin proimi neoteri epohi. I periptossi tis Xanthis (15os-17os aionas)
[Small Towns of the Greek Peninsula
in the Early Modern Period. The Case of Xanthi (15th-17th centuries)], Xanthi: Iera Mitropolis Xanthis kai
Peritheoriou 2008, pp. 68-71.
72 Cf. Table 1 (esp. the survey of 1568) with the data from the detailed
avarız
register of 1722. The latter,
where tax-payers were explicitly noted, recorded 189 Muslims and 1,745 Christians (9.77%-90.33%) villagers.
73 Nine villages in the district of Kalamaria formed a group of villages producing salt (
tuzcıyan
). Dimitriadis,
“Forologikes katigories”, pp. 419-20.
74 Six villages around Galatista belonged to the
vakıf
of İshak Paşa (
ibid.
, pp. 428-31).
75 Cf. the registers ΤΤ 723 and ΚΚ 2869.
76 Eladiava was mentioned as a village at least until 1676 and as an uninhabited cultivated place (
mezraa
) in
1722; see respectively Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, no. 331, and BOA, KK 2869, p. 106. According
to Papaggelos (“Eidiseis”, pp. 1599 and 1609) the residents of Eladiava moved to Hierissos and formed a
quarter which they named “Ladiava”.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[143]
by Sokollu Mehmed Paşa77 and where most probably the villagers of the nearby de-
serted settlements of Rendina, Akrotiri, Roglateia, and maybe Rachova, Kournofolia,
and Souda had regrouped.78
The Kassandra peninsula, which, as we have already seen, was resettled in the
second half of the sixteenth century, retained its villages throughout the period under
consideration. At the end of the seventeenth century Kassandra was registered with
nine villages and in 1722 with 15, exactly as in 1851.79 The villages that appeared in
the registers of 1697 and 1722 were Valta, Athytos, Fourka, Pazaraki, Tsaprani,
Kalandra, Agia Paraskevi, Paliouri, and Kapsochora. Moreover, the Ottoman registers
counted ten monastic metochia in Kassandra (nine belonging to the monasteries of
Mount Athos and one to the Monastery of Agia Anastassia) in 1697 and 12 (11 and
one respectively) in 1722. As we have already noted, the peninsula of Kassandra be-
longed to the vakıf of Gazanfer Ağa, and was fiscally and administratively separated
from the rest of Halkidiki; Kassandra formed a separate nahiye and was administered
by the voyvoda of the vakıf of Gazanfer Ağa. The special status of Kassandra might
have shielded the tax-payers,80 but the opposite might have also been the case. In one
instance, there is evidence that some of its inhabitants moved to the area of Larissa
(Ott. Yenişehir) to escape from the fiscal pressures of the Ottomans.81
To the east of Kassandra, the peninsula of Longos had since the second half of
the sixteenth century only two villages, Sykia and Parthenonas (71 and nine Christian
tax-payers respectively in 1722). The village of Sarti, near the sea, which was revived
by the end of the sixteenth century, was not recorded afterwards as it probably had
77 Machiel Kiel, “Ottoman Building Activity along the Via Egnatia, the Cases of Pazargah, Kavalla and Ferecik”,
in Elizabeth A. Zachariadou (ed.),
The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule 1380-1699
, Rethymnon: Institute for
Mediterranean Studies 1996, pp. 147-9.
78 For more detailed evidence on abandoned settlements, see Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, pas-
sim.
79 For 1697, see BOA, MAD 3461, p. 127-130; for 1722, see BOA, ΚΚ 2869, p. 110-115; and for 1851, see the
table in Dimitriadis, “Forologikes katigories”, p. 431. William Martin Leake
(
Travels in Northern Greece
, vol. 3,
London: J. Bodwell 1835, pp. 163-4) mentioned that the peninsula of Kassandra had 12 villages.
80 I. Vasdravellis (ed.),
Istorika archeia Makedonias. A: Archeion Thessalonikis, 1695-1912
[Historical Archives
of Macedonia. A: Archive of Thessaloniki], Thessaloniki: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon 1952, nos., 14 (of
1696), 47 (1705), 52 and 54 (1706), 59 (1707), 75 (1709).
81 Κ. Kambouridis,
I neoteri Ellada mesa apo othomanikes archeiakes piges. Oikonomia, thesmoi kai koinonia
sti Thessalia tou 17ou aiona
[Modern Greece through Ottoman Archival Sources. Economy, Institutions and
Society in Seventeenth-Century Thessaly], Thessaloniki: A. Stamoulis 2009, p. 259 (of 1662), 350 (1663), 477-
8 (1666).

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[144]
been deserted.82 It seems, however, that the monasteries of Mount Athos had ex-
panded their cultivated lands around 1600.83
On the other hand, the mountainous peninsula of Longos remained mostly a pas-
ture and forest area. The peninsula did not form a separate entity, as in the case of
Kassandra. It belonged to the fiscal entity of the hass of Longos or Langadas, which
included around 15 villages in different areas in Halkidiki (including villages such as
Zombatoi to the west, Agios Mamas to the south and Polygyros to the north).84 On an
administrative level, Longos belonged to the nahiye of Pazargâh, which included 37
villages around 1700.85
The Υürük pastoralists, which settled in Halkidiki at the end of the fourteenth cen-
tury, remained an important element in the region’s countryside during the seventeenth
and the eighteenth centuries; their numbers, however, gradually decreased. In 1691,
the Ottoman state tried to re-organise the Υürük militia through a general survey. Ac-
cording to this survey, the Υürüks in Halkidiki were recorded in 27 temporary settle-
ments (mahalles) in north-eastern Halkidiki (nahiye of Pazargâh), 14 mahalles in north-
western Halkidiki, and 32 mahalles in western Halkidiki. All three groups of settlements
consisted of a total of 1,306 militia soldiers.86
Being semi-nomadic pastoralists, the Υürüks were often in conflict with the villag-
ers and the monks concerning the use of land along settlement boundaries. The culti-
vated lands were often trespassed by the sheep herds of the Υürüks during the sum-
mer. In the case of the metochion of the monastery of Agios Pavlos in Kalamaria,
which had common borders with the summer settlements of the Υürüks, conflicts were
often recorded, at least from 1529 onwards. Sometimes these resulted in violent con-
frontations, as in a case recorded in 1562, when the monk of the metochion of the
monastery of Agios Pavlos was wounded by Υürük shepherds. In another incident in
1599, two Υürük shepherds hit a monk of the monastery of Chilandar with a stone.87
On the other hand, an arrangement between the monks of Agios Pavlos and their
Υürük neighbours was recorded in 1599, whereby the former agreed with the latter to
let them use their lands for winter pastures, after the payment of an annual rent. During
82 ΚΚ 2869, p. 2. For the village of Sarti, see Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 1, pp. 98-9. It was not of
course a coincidence that both the villages of Sykia and Parthenonas are on the mountain, whereas Sarti was
on the littoral. For pirate attacks against Sarti and the area around it, see Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol.
3, nos. 323 and 341.
83 We have located a series of documents of sales of arable fields in Sarti to the monasteries of Agios Pavlos
and Xeropotamou around 1600; Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, p. 98-104, and Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai mona-
choi”, vol. 3, nos. 146, 161, 164, 168, 173-4, 176, 190, 195, 212, 217-218.
84 For the Longos
hass
,
see Dimitriadis, “Forologikes katigories”, pp. 429-30 (table for 1804, with the same 14
villages recorded in the surveys of the end of the seventeenth century); Leake (
Travels
, vol. 3, p. 162-3) men-
tioned 15 villages.
85 Cf. MAD 4609, p. 44-56 and KK 2869, p. 2-23.
86 Totals drawn from the tables published by Dimitriadis (“Forologikes katigories”, pp. 404-6).
87 Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, pp. 94-5.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[145]
the seventeenth century, arrangements of this kind were common practice, due to the
economic problems encountered by the monasteries. In one such case it is recorded
that the arable fields of the monks had been left uncultivated for a long time and had
been transformed to pasture lands; thus, the monks rented them to the Υürüks.88
Another development in the settlement patterns in Halkidiki during the late seven-
teenth and the eighteenth century was the expansion of Muslim-owned agricultural
estates (çiftliks), sometimes simply through the renting of the monastic estates in the
area. The register of 1697 records seven çiftliks in the district (nahiye) of Pazargâh and
23 in the district of Kalamaria; nine of the latter were actually monastic estates then
“belonging” (tabi) to Muslim officials. From the case of the metochion of the monastery
of Agios Pavlos in Kalamaria, which was actually held as a pledge by a certain
Hüseyin Ağa and his son, we can understand that these Muslim officials had been ex-
ploiting the monastic estates without having acquired full ownership of them.89
9. The Expansion of Olive Cultivation
The expansion of olive cultivation has been observed in the case of Crete from the end
of the sixteenth century onwards, prior to which Crete was “the island of wine”.90 More-
over, olive cultivation does not seem to characterise the agricultural production of
Greek lands before the seventeenth century.91 A similar case might be that of Halkidiki,
where the Ottoman tax registers of the fifteenth and the sixteenth century do not record
almost anywhere the systematic cultivation of olive trees. According to the detailed
register of 1568, a tithe of olives was collected only from the metochia of Agios Pavlos
in Provlakas, of Iviron in the village of Gomatou (although it was recorded since 1500),
and of Koutloumousiou in Tristinika, in the Longos peninsula. Other sources mention
also olive trees in the village of Kalyvia/Ormylia in 1560. All these references, however,
are scarce. In addition, we have located a source that shows that in 1566 the monks of
the monastery of Xeropotamou requested permission to extirpate their olive trees in
88
Ibid.
, pp. 85-6, 92-5, 112-3; Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, no. 228. For the relations between
Yürüks
and Athonite monks, see Vančo Boškov, “Jurucite i svetogorskite manastiri”, in
Etnogeneza Jurucite i
nivnoto naseluvanje na Balkanot
, Skopje: MANU 1986, pp. 57-67; Vassilis Dimitriadis, “The Yuruks in Central
and Western Macedonia”,
op.cit.
, pp. 9-15.
89 MAD 3461, p. 119-121, 125; Kotzageorgis,
I athoniki moni
, p. 88-89; Historical Archive of Macedonia, Otto-
man Court Registers, no. 1, #66.1 (of 1697).
90 Molly Greene,
A Shared World. Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean
, Chichester:
Princeton University Press 2002, pp. 118-9.
91 In the Peloponnese and the island of Thassos olive cultivation intensified from the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury onwards; Εvangelia Balta, “I elaiokalliergeia ston tourkokratoumeno Moria” [Olive Cultivation in Ottoman
Morea], in
O de topos ... elaioforos. I parousia tis elias stin Peloponnisso
, Athens: Politistiko Idryma Omilou
Peiraios 2007, pp. 91-4; eadem, “I Thassos stis othomanikes apografes tou 16ou kai tou 17ou aiona” [Thassos
in the Ottoman Tax Surveys of the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Century],
Thassiaka,
10 (1996-97), 512 and
Tables 1b and 2b.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[146]
the small port of Dafni, Mount Athos, and plant instead sour orange trees.92 Argumen-
tum ex silentio: There was no systematic cultivation of olive trees in Halkidiki during the
fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Unfortunately, the registers of the seventeenth
and the eighteenth centuries do not record data on agricultural production. An excep-
tion is the tax survey of 1764 only for the peninsula of Mount Athos, which, however,
records around 35,000 olive trees.93 We are inclined to assume that this shows an im-
pressive increase in the cultivation of olive trees, similar to that of Crete. We do not,
however, have comparable data from the sixteenth century, since Mount Athos paid
then a fixed sum for the taxes of the monasteries. Travellers, however, like Mehmed
Αşık, had noticed already from the sixteenth century the increased cultivation of olive
trees on Mount Athos, an observation that is not made with regard the rest Halkidiki
countryside.94 One final observation we can extract from our sources is that olive trees
in Halkidiki of the eighteenth century were present in all altitudes, like Galatista (mass
bequests of olive trees in 1741) or Liarigkovi (today Arnaia, in 1773).95 In sum, since
the Ottoman tax registers do not mention taxes on olive cultivation in a large scale
way, we argue that, although olive trees had not been absent from the landscape of
Halkidiki, the intensification of the production was a phenomenon of the seventeenth or
even the eighteenth century. This argument is supported by the results of the pollen
analysis in Tristinika (Sithonia peninsula).96 According to these findings, olive cultiva-
tion seems to have declined between 1450 and 1650, compared to the Byzantine pe-
riod. It also looks that olive cultivation became dominant in modern Halkidiki only after
the end of the seventeenth century, particularly during the last two centuries.
92 See respectively Sofia, National Library of Kyril and Methodii, ΟΑΚ 83/85, 16b; BOA, ΤΤ 723, p. 118, 1055,
146, 1052; Archive of the Monastery of Agios Pavlos (hereafter: AMAP), f. 4, P/9; AMAP, f. 9, Α/26; Kolovos,
“Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, nos. 146, 135, 105.
93 Evangelia Balta, “Landed Property of the Monasteries on the Athos Peninsula and its Taxation in 1764”,
Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies,
19-20 (1999), 149, 151, 153.
94 Âşık Mehmed,
Menâzirü’l-Avâlim
, ed. Mahmut Ak, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 2007, vol. 2, p. 250; Robert
Walpole (ed.),
Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey. Edited from Manuscript Journals
, London:
Longman 1817, pp. 198-203 (for Vatopedi monastery), p. 215 (for Xeropotamou), and p. 195 (for Daphni on
Mount Athos); Leake,
Travels
, vol. 3, p. 118 (Xeropotamou), p. 124 (Koutloumousiou), p. 129 (Lavra), p. 131
(Vatopedi); M. E. M. Cousinéry,
Voyage dans la Macédoine, contenant des recherches sur l’histoire, la géo-
graphie et les antiquités de ce pays
, Paris: Imprimerie Royale 1831, vol. 2, p. 152 (Palaiokastro of Nea Roda),
p. 156 (
metochion
at Pyrgadikia and the way to Metangitsi); Pierre Belon du Mans,
Les observations de plu-
sieurs singularitez & choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie, & autres pays
estranges
, Anvers: Imprimerie de Christofle Plantin 1555, ff. 89v-90r, 91r (for Siderokavsia).
95 Paris Gounaridis,
Arheion I.M. Xiropotamou. Epitomes metavyzantinon eggrafon
[Archive of Holy Monastery
of Xeropotamou. Registries of Post-Byzantine Documents], Athens: Hellenic National Research Centre 1993,
nos. 76, 79, 82, 84-88, 90; N. Giannakopoulos,
Arheion I.M. Stavronikita. Epitomes eggrafon, 1533-1800
[Ar-
chive of Holy Monastery of Stavronikita. Registries of Documents], Athens: Hellenic National Research Centre
2001, no. 47.
96 See the article of Sampson Panagiotidis in this volume.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[147]
10. The “Little Ice Age”
The closing years of both the sixteenth and the seventeenth century are considered to
be two of the crucial phases of crisis during the long “Little Ice Age” (1550-1870).
These two phases were characterised by temperature instability and weather unpre-
dictability as a whole.97 In the case of Anatolia and the Middle East in general, the most
visible characteristics of the climate were very cold winter seasons and, in sharp con-
trast, summer draughts.98 Draughts, especially, made very hard the survival of popula-
tions that were based on grain production. As a result, during the “Little Ice Age” the
phenomenon of peasants turning to pastoralists was widespread. On a micro-level, this
meant that peasants left their fields uncultivated, which consequently were transformed
to pastures. In the case of Halkidiki, our sources for the seventeenth and the eight-
eenth century indicate a significant presence of pastures. Several sources show the
presence of village pastures and, in some cases, their mortgage when the communi-
ties were in debt.99 The sources, however, of the same period testify to the granting of
titles for cultivation of arable fields as well; and we have already observed above that
the settlement patterns did not change abruptly during the seventeenth and the eight-
eenth century, as was the case in Anatolia.100 Therefore, we can not be sure if and to
what degree there was really a gradual abandonment of arable fields, and, conse-
quently, a decline of agriculture, in favour of pastoralism, as was the case during the
“seventeenth century crisis”.101 According to the same pollen analysis, the pollen indi-
cators Chenopodiaceae, Plantago, Caryophyllaceae, Asteraceae, Ranunculus acris
type, and Cichoriaceae reached their maximum in the period after the second half of
the seventeenth century. Such findings fully comply with our evidence for abandoned
arable fields and expansion of the grazing areas.
In theory, the “Little Ice Age” should have contributed to a reversal of the earlier
(i.e. Late Medieval) period of deforestation. However, Faruk Tabak has observed, the
population flight from the plains up to the hills and the mountains during these centu-
97 O. Miszaros & G. Serlegi, “The Impact of Environmental Change on Medieval Settlement Structure in Trans-
danubia”,
Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae,
62 (2010), p. 214, quoting M. E. Mann,
Little Ice Age. 1: The Earth System. Physical and Chemical Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
,
Chichester: Princeton University Press, 2002.
98 White,
The Climate
, pp. 126-39.
99 See, for example, the case of the village pasture of Palaiochorion, which was rented to the monastery of
Xeropotamou for 38 years, in order to settle a debt of the community to the monks; Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai
monachoi”, vol. 3, no. 302 (of 1640).
100 See Oktay Özel, “The Question of Abandoned Villages in Ottoman Anatolia (Seventeenth to Nineteenth
Centuries”), in E. Kolovos (ed.),
Ottoman Rural Societies and Economies
, forthcoming.
101 White,
The Climate
, pp. 229-48.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[148]
ries should have created new pressures upon the forests.102 Our sources offer some
indications for the deforestation in Halkidiki as well.103
Forests were an essential element of the region’s landscape, covering the slopes
of Mount Holomontas in the centre of the peninsula. Even the three smaller peninsulas
in the south had forests. In fact, the medieval Slavic name of the middle one, “Loggos”,
translates as “dense forest”. In our sources, we have not located any references to
state or communal forests in Halkidiki. There is, however, some information on forests
belonging to Athonite monasteries, which were struggling to protect them from tres-
passing by pastoralists or lumberjacks. In 1591, for example, the monks of the monas-
tery of Agios Pavlos protested to the Sultan against their Christian neighbours, who
had entered without permission into their forest in Sykia, in the peninsula of Longos.
The reply of the central authority was that since the forest was not in common use, the
trespassers should be impeded from entering into it. The same protest by the monks of
the monastery of Agios Pavlos was repeated in 1620 and in 1759, a sign that villagers
were constantly trespassing into the monastic forest.104 In another case, from 1725,
two Christian katrancıs from Florina entered illegally into the forest of the Xeropotamou
monastery in Longos and cut 1,000 pine trees in order to make wood tar. Eventually,
they had to negotiate a settlement with the monks for the compensation of the latter in
cash.105 As everywhere in the Mediterranean, timber was also important for ship build-
ing. In 1624, a Muslim was in conflict with the monks of the Xeropotamou monastery
for the compensation of the timber he had cut for the building of a ship.106 These ex-
amples show that forests were exploited at the time, both by their owners and their
trespassers. More generally, tree-felling for timber and overgrazing in forest areas (a
phenomenon derived from the shortage of pastures and/or from the rising numbers of
animals) should have been more than usual in early modern Halkidiki. Together with
the tree felling for the mines and the furnaces in Siderokavsia, which we will examine
immediately below, these factors led to the deforestation of Halkidiki during the period
under consideration.
102 See, in detail, Vaso Seirinidou, “Dasi ston elliniko choro (15os-18os ai.): Anapsilafontas mia istoria katas-
trofis” [Forests in Early Modern Greece: Reviewing a History of Catastrophy],
Mesaionika kai Nea Ellinika,
11
(2014), 74-5.
103 For the deforestation in early modern Europe, cf. Lajos Rácz, “The Price of Survival: Transformations in
Environmental Conditions and Subsistence Systems in Hungary in the Age of Ottoman Occupation”,
Hungar-
ian Studies,
24 (2010), 26-7.
104 ΑMAP, f. 13, S/23; AMAP, f. 6, 10; AMAP, f. 13, 27.
105 Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 3, nos. 386 and 387 (1725).
106
Ibid
., no. 267 (1624).

11. The Making of an Ottoman Mine
The Ottoman story of mining in Halkidiki originates from the very beginning of the es-
tablishment of the Ottoman Empire during the fifteenth century. In the struggle for fi-
nancing their emerging empire, the Ottomans applied a policy of imperial fiscalism,
aiming at controlling precious metals and coinage. In this context, Sultans Murad II and
Mehmed II went to war with Hungary and the Italian states for control of the mining
areas of the Balkans, principally in Serbia and Bosnia.1 At the same time, the Otto-
mans invested in opening new mines in the Balkans, like the mines of Siderokavsia
(Sidrekapsı) in Halkidiki.
The place name “Siderokavsia” means in Greek “smelting iron”, “ironworks”, or
“siderurgy” (sidero means iron in Greek).2 We encounter it for the first time in the ninth
century, when a monk by the name of Ioannis Kolovos left Mount Athos and settled in
Siderokavsia together with his disciples. Later on, there are references to Siderokavsia
as a “village” (chorion in Greek).3 The Byzantine tax registers (praktika in Greek) enu-
merate the villagers in the area as peasants, with fields, vineyards, and animals. There
is only one reference, from the mid-fourteenth century, to a “public ironworks” (demosi-
akon siderokavseion in Greek) in the nearby village of Kontogrikou,4 which might sug-
gest that some kind of metallurgical activity was active in the area during Byzantine
times. However, there is no reference in mining at all before the arrival of the Otto-
mans.5
Sultan Murad II probably ordered the opening of the mines in Siderokavsia, a
place-name that the Ottomans kept in the form of “Siderokapsı” (and, simplified in
Turkish, “Sidrekapsı”), after his conquest of Thessaloniki in 1430. According to the sur-
viving pages of an Ottoman tax register dating from 1445, Siderokavsia was by then a
silver mine (maden-i nukra). Its revenues had been recently transferred from the fief
(zeamet) of the head of the Treasury (defterdar) Murad Bey to the imperial demesne
1 Halil İnalcık with Donald Quataert (eds),
An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914
,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 58-9. For the Balkan mines, see also Sima Cirković, “The
Production of Gold, Silver, and Copper in the Central Parts of the Balkans from the 13th to the 16th Century”,
in H. Kellenbenz (ed.),
Precious Metals in the Age of Expansion
, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1981, pp. 41-69.
2 Ioakeim Papaggelos (“To ‘koinon’ tou Mademiou”, in
I diachroniki poreia tou koinotismou sti Makedonia
,
Thessaloniki: Kentro Istorias Thessalonikis 1991, p. 257, fn. 1) has located archaeological evidence of metal-
lurgical activity in Skouries, dating from Roman times, and in the plain southwest of Megali Panagia, dated
maybe earlier.
3 D. Papachryssanthou,
O Athonikos monachismos. Arches kai organosi
[Athonite Monasticism. Beginning
and Organisation], Athens: MIET 1992, p. 123 and fn.233, p. 124 and fn. 238. The names of two more villages
in the area are connected with metallurgy: Metallin (“metallo”: metal in Greek) and Rudava ( “ruda”: metal in the
Slavic languages).
4 Bombaire,
Actes de Xéropotamou,
no. 25 (1346), l. 29-31 and no. 27 (1351).
5 Spyros Vryonis (“The Question of Byzantine Mines”,
Speculum,
37 [1962], 13-14) suggested that the Otto-
man mines had Byzantine precedents in the area. It is a suggestion, however, that is based on no other evi-
dence than the place-name “Siderokavsia” itself.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[150]
(hassa-ı padişah).6 Murad II had also issued a regulation (kanunname) for the mines of
Siderokavsia, which does not survive itself, but was renewed by his son, Sultan Meh-
med II, and is partially reproduced in an order issued after a request by the infidel min-
ers (madenci gâvurları) themselves.7 This important text was written according to the
regulation for the mines of Kratova (Karatova in Ottoman), located to the east of
Skopje. This might suggest that the Ottomans, in their effort to open the new mines in
Siderokavsia, had transferred here by force (sürgün) skilled miners from the mines of
Kratova.8 The connection between the two mines is established also by the fact that in
1471 the mines of Kratova and Siderokavsia were farmed out together as a mukataa
worth of 2,250,000 akçes (51,136 ducats).9 Moreover, we know that in the beginning of
the eighteenth century, when the Ottomans attempted to reorganise mining activity in
Siderokavsia, they transferred there some skilled miners from Kratova.10
The “village” (karye) of Siderokavsia, as it was registered in the Ottoman tax regis-
ter of 1445, by 1478 had developed into a town (nefs-i Siderokabsı) that, together with
the neighbour settlements of İzvor and Piyavica, constituted the “imperial demesne of
the mine of Siderokavsia” (hasshâ-yı maden-i Siderokapsı). The three settlements of
the miners included then a total of almost 600 tax households (hane). Their numbers
remained almost the same in the tax surveys of the first years of the reign of Süleyman
the Magnificent (1520-66), but increased to reach almost 1,000 tax households by the
reign of Selim II (1568). The miners were Christians in their majority, including, how-
ever, a Muslim community, which developed from 20 tax households in 1478 to 62 in
1519, 50 in 1527, and 136 in 1568.
6 N. Todorov & B. Nedkov (eds),
Fontes Turcici Historiae Bulgaricae, series XV-XVI
[=Turski izvori za Balgar-
skata istorija, serija XV-XVI]
,
vol. 2, Sofia: National Academy of Sciences 1966, p. 343. A Greek document of
1445, written in Siderokavsia, makes a clear reference to “trochous ergastikous”, i.e., smelting activity, and
Muslim and Christian inhabitants, with names of both Greek and Slavic origin; Bombaire,
Actes de Xéropota-
mou,
no. 30.
7 Robert Anhegger & Halil İnalcık (eds),
Kanunname-i Sultani Ber Muceb-i Örfi Osmani, II. Mehmed ve II.
Bayezid Devirlerine Ait Yasakname ve Kanunnameler
, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu 1956, pp. 66-7; Nicoara
Beldiceanu,
Les Actes des premiers Sultans conservés dans les manuscrits turcs de la Bibliothéque Nationale
à Paris
, vol. 1:
Actes de Mehmed II et de Bayezid II du ms. fonds Turc ancien 39
, Paris – Hague: Mouton 1960,
p. 138; Ahmet Akgündüz (ed.),
Osmanlı Kanunnameleri ve Hukuki Tahlilleri
, vol. 1, Istanbul : FEY Vakf Yay-
ınları 1990, pp. 524-6.
8 For the Ottoman policy of forced migration (
sürgün
), see Ö. L. Barkan, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda bir iskan
ve kolonizasyon metodu olarak sürgünler”,
İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası
, 11 (1949-50), 524-
70, 13 (1951-52), 56-78 & 15 (1953-54), 209-37.
9 Inalcık & Quataert (eds),
An Economic and Social History
, p. 59, table 1:12.
10 Mustafa Altunbay, “Osmanlı döneminde bir maden işletmesinin tarihi süreci: Sidrekapsı”, unpublished PhD
thesis, Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi 2010, pp. 225, 227-8, and below this chapter.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[151]
Table 7
The population of Siderokavsia, Izvor, and Piyavica
according to the Ottoman registers of the fifteenth and sixteenth century
1478 1519 1527 1568
Siderokavsia H. B. W. H. B. W. H. B. W. H. B. W.
Muslim quarters:
Cami-i Şerife 28 6
Üveyş Çelebi 31 19
Hüsam Halife
Cedid
32 24
Hüseyin Çelebi 17 1
Kurucızade nam- ı
diğer Yeni Tarla
14 12
İzzet Hace
14
Muslims 20 1 62 12 50 32 136 73
Christian quar-
ters:
Protopapas 55 2 5 100 18 8 109 46
Pop İvlad 80 2 7 161 26 13 154 73
Pop Yan 72 3 7 73 16 6 98 27
Yani Yerasna 10
Papa Yani 12 1
İstamad İslav 14
Todor Vasıl 11 1
Yani Kirko 70 2 5
Rosotova 11 2
Yani Markovik 14
Christians, total: 349 9 28 305 31 37 334 60 27 361 146
Jews 40 19
Izvor
Pop Yovan 79 22 4 142 47 5
Pop Radoslav 61 11 2 73 31
Pop Dimitri 46 9 5 77 19
Christians, total: 164 8 167 16 13 186 42 11 292 97 5
Piyavica
Christians 75 8 1 91 5 10 89 18 8 129 69
Total 608 18 37 625 64 60 659 152 46 958 404 5
H.: Households (hane). B: Bachelors (mücerred). W: Widows (bive).
Source: Kolovos, “Chorikoi kai monachoi”, vol. 2, pp. 27-9.
Table 7 shows that, apart from the increase in the number of households, the
number of unmarried men in the three settlements of the mines of Siderokavsia in-
creased as well during the sixteenth century, comprising a considerable proportion of
the population (from 10.2% in 1519, to 23% in 1527, and to 42.1% in 1568). These

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[152]
men should have been the unskilled labour force working in the mines, most possibly
migrants. After 1527, a Jewish community from Thessaloniki had also settled in
Siderokavsia, which included 40 tax households and 19 unmarried men in 1568.
The mines of Siderokavsia were described extensively by the French traveller
and botanist Pierre Belon du Mans (1517-64), who had visited them in 1547 in the
course of his Voyage au Levant (first published in Paris in 1553).11 According to Be-
lon, “le village était auparavant mal bâti, mais maintenant il semble à une ville”. He
compares it to the famous mining town of Joachimstal in Bohemia, and maintains
that it had developed in the last 12-15 years, reaching a population of more than
6,000 miners, who had been forced migrants (gens ramassés). They were Albani-
ans, Greeks, Jews, Vlachs, Circassians, Serbians and Turks, who spoke Slavic, Bul-
garian, Greek and Albanian. Further below in his narrative, Belon states that the
metal workers were in their majority of Bulgarian origin (de nation bulgare), a possi-
ble reference to the origins of the miners from Kratova. On the other hand, the in-
habitants of the two neighbouring villages were mostly Christians, speaking Serbian
and Greek. Belon refers also to the Jews of Siderokavsia, who spoke Spanish (La-
dino).12 Actually, according to Jewish sources, the first Jews of Siderokavsia were
Ashkenazim, followed shortly after by Sephardim.13
The population increase in Siderokavsia, which peaked in the mid-sixteenth cen-
tury, corresponded to the increase of the production of the mines. According to Belon,
“c’est un village d’aussi grand revenu au Turc, pour la grande quantité de l’or et de
l’argent qu’on y fait, que la plus grande ville de toute Turquie”.14 He estimates the
revenues for the Sultan between 9-10,000 and 30,000 gold ducats per month, 18,000
ducats on average (216,000 ducats per year). The practices of metallurgy had been
transferred to the Balkans by Saxons in the mid-thirteenth century. As a result, the
technical terms describing mining and metallurgy used by the Ottomans in the regula-
tions for the Balkan mines, and in actual practice, as Belon corroborates, were Ger-
man.15
11
Alexandra Merle (ed.),
Voyage au Levant (1553). Les observations de Pierre Belon du Mans,
Paris: Chan-
deigne 2001, pp. 156-76.
12
Ibid.
,
pp. 156-7 and 159.
13 For the Jewish community of Siderokavsia, see H. Jakobsohn, “The Story of A Lamb: The Jewish Commu-
nity of Sidrokapsi in the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries”, in I. K. Hassiotis (ed.),
The Jewish Communities
of Southeastern Europe,
Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies 1997, p. 214. In 1568, the Jews of Thessa-
loniki were financing the operation of the mines in Siderokavsia with a sum of 50,000
akçe
s, paid as “sarraflık”.
We can assume that they had earlier been assigned the duty of the exchange of coins in Siderokavsia, which
can explain their migration to Siderokavsia. See M. Rozen, “The Corvée to Operate the Mines in Sidrekapısı
and its Effects on the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki in the 16th century”,
The Jewish Communities of
Southeastern Europe,
pp. 453-71.
14
Voyage au Levant
, p. 156.
15 See Nicoara Beldiceanu,
Les Actes des premiers Sultans conservés dans les manuscrits turcs de la Biblio-
théque Nationale à Paris,
vol. 2 :
Règlements miniers
, Paris – Hague : Mouton 1964, pp.
59-66 ; Circović, “The

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[153]
Belon is the first to describe in detail the operation of the Ottoman gold and silver
mines of Siderokavsia. The ore, in some cases found out even in the open, was usu-
ally extracted in pits or galleries. When it was found in middle depth, it was extracted
by four miners. Sometimes, however, it was so deep in the ground, that they had to
extract it with the use of machinery based on horse-power. When the lead ore was
extracted (Belon makes a special reference to the common galena lead ore extracted
in Siderokavsia), silver was separated from the compound through smelting and cupel-
lation, in furnaces of high temperature, where air flow made possible the oxidation of
the lead and the removal of silver and gold. Belon describes in detail these furnaces,
500-600 in Siderokavsia, owned by private individuals (particuliers maitres), and states
that for the separation of silver from the lead ore they did not use charcoal (that they
used for smelting the galena lead ore) but thick wood. Air flow for the furnaces was
provided by bellows, operating with water power from nearby streams.16 On the other
hand, the separation of gold from silver, an operation, says Belon, carried out by an
Armenian expert, was made through the process of salt cementation.17
Belon’s testimony is corroborated by the information from the Ottoman regulations
of the mining activity in Siderokavsia, dating from the fifteenth century.18 According to
these texts, the state claimed a share of 1/12 (8.3%) from the refined metal at the time
of Murad II and the early years of Mehmed II. Before 1478, however, the taxation sys-
tem had changed. A tithe of 10% was collected from the ore, and a second tithe was
imposed later on the refined silver and gold after cupellation (öşr-i cevher and öşr-i
nukra). After the collection of the tax, the miners took their share from the ore, which
around 1478 was divided in half between them and their contractors,19 the owners of
the pits (Turkish kuyu sahibleri or varak, from the German Gewerke).20 Actually, it was
the skilled miners who were actually operating the mine through an assembly called
sabor, arbitrating justice according to the Saxon mining code, and presided by a prel-
Production of Gold”, pp. 42-3; Şevket Pamuk,
A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire
, N. York : Cambridge
University Press 2000, p. 27 ;
Voyage au Levant
, p. 159.
16 Note that the Slavic place name Izvor for the village of miners near Siderokavsia means “source of water”.
17 In 1546, Eliezer son of Abraham, a Sephardic Jew from the congregation of the Old Catalan synagogue
(
Köhne Katalan cemaati
) of Thessaloniki, farmed out (
iltizam
) for 11,000
akçe
s the right to search for gold in
the water streams of Siderokavsia, and, further to the north, on the mountain of Beles. See Altunbay,
“Sidrekapsı”, p. 22, fn. 21.
18 See above fn.112 and especially the detailed report published by Beldiceanu (
Les Actes,
vol. 2, pp. 183-7)
and Akgündüz (
Osmanlı Kanunnameleri
, pp. 518-23). This report has to be dated around 1478, since it was
ordered probably in connection with the survey of that date by Kasım Paşa,
sancakbey
of Thessaloniki be-
tween 1472-83.
19 According to the report, in earlier years, the miners gave only 1/6 of the ore to the proprietors of the pits, and
later, they sold the rest to them. It has to be noted also that the agreement between contractors and miners
changed when the galleries had to take the water from the winter season out.
20 Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 2, pp. 184-5. For the property status of these individuals in Balkan mines, see in
detail
ibid.
, pp. 89-94.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[154]
ate (knez).21 They should have also included the owners of the furnaces, who were
called vatrok.22 The workers in the mines worked in groups of eight men and were led
by skilled miners, elected by the assembly. They were named hutman (“Hutmann” in
German) and şafar (“Schaffer” in German); şafars were Muslims in 1568.23
The Ottoman state had the monopsony of the ore extracted in mines. After the re-
finement of silver and gold with bellows (çarh), the ore was sold to the mint (darbhane),
which operated in Siderokavsia already from the times of Mehmed II.24 However, silver
and gold coins issued in Siderokavsia have been located only from the early sixteenth
century.25 The Ottomans farmed out both tax collection and the monopsony of the ore
to farmers (âmil), who had also the right to collect agricultural revenues, like the tithe
on vineyards. The mint was also farmed out separately.26 However, the state oversaw
the whole operation of the mines through a superintendant (emin-i maden), appointed
by the Sultan, who was supervised by the judge (kadı) of Siderokavsia.27
The remains of the mining town of sixteenth-century Siderokavsia are still visible
today on the slope of Mount Stratoniko to the north of the village of Stageira.28 The
village of Izvor (now Stratoniki) was situated one km to the southeast of Sidero-
kavsia. Finally, Pyavica, according to Belon, was a small village over Siderokavsia,
on the top of the mountain to the east of the town, with small houses.29 According to
the register of 1478, the three settlements of the miners were also taxed for their
vineyards, cereals, sheep, and hives, being exempt from the poll-tax (haraç), the
ispençe, the salarlık, the due from the wine barrels (fuçı resmi) and the service for
the transportation of sheep (celeb).30 However, we can assume that what they pro-
duced did not suffice to meet their needs. These were met from the surrounding
countryside. A tax regulation written around 1478 reports in detail the products that
21
Ibid.
, pp. 117-8. For the
knez
in Siderokavsia already in 1444, see
Actes de Xéropotamou,
no. 30.
22 According to a report of 1537; see Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, pp. 269-70. For the
vatrok
in
detail, see Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 2, pp. 95-7.
23
Ibid.
, pp. 184, 109-11 (
hutman
), 111-12 (
şafar
).
24 See fn. 113.
25 Pamuk,
A Monetary History
, p. 37.
26 Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, pp. 269-70.
27 For the administration of the Balkan mines in general, see Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 2, pp. 127-40. For the
role of the
kadı
, see
ibid.
p. 187, a case of a
kadı
asking for the replacement of the
emin.
28 For archaeological research in the area, see Ploutarchos L. Theocharidis, “The Consolidation Works on the
South Tower at Siderokausia, Halkidiki”, in N. K. Moutsopoulos (ed.),
Pyrgoi kai Kastra
, Thessaloniki: Patriar-
chiko Idryma Paterikon Meleton 1980, p. 77 (a map of the site on p. 76). For the excavation, see also J.-M.
Pesez, “Études de maçonnerie à Siderokavsia”, in
Structures de l´habitat et occupation du sol dans les pays
méditerranéens, les methodes et l´apport de l´archéologie extensive
, Rome-Madrid: Ecole Française de Rome
1988, pp. 319-23.
29
Voyage au Levant (1553)
, p. 173.
30 BOA, TT 7, p. 557 and Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 1, p. 138.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[155]
reached the market of Siderokavsia, including flour, wheat, barley, rice, lentils,
greens and fruits, fat and cheese, honey, fish, sheep, swine, salt, wine, etc.31
The Ottoman traveler Âşık Mehmed described in 1586-87 the town of Sidero-
kavsia, where, he explains, he stayed for more than two years after an invitation from
his local friends, as follows:
Sidrekabsi is the town of the district of the silver and gold mines. It’s a small town. It has
one mosque32 and two public baths (hammams).33 One of the hammams is a double
one, with separate quarters for men and women respectively. The town does not have
many streets. There is a mint there which strikes silver and gold coins from the mine of
the district. The climate of Sidrekabsi is very pleasant during the summer and moder-
ately cold during the winter. The water is coming from pipes and it is mild. Sidrekabsi
has winter pastures near the seaside. During the winter of [99]4 and [99]5 (AD 1586-
87) the goats had kids and we enjoyed goat milk during all this season. This was a deli-
cious drink which cannot be found in any other town of these parts. It is their special
product and the people of Sidrekapsi use to send this goat milk as a gift to their friends
in the towns of Serres and Thessaloniki and the other neighbouring towns.34
Âşık Mehmed described also the “mountain of Siderokavsia” (cebel-i Sidrekabsi):
The mountain is located to the south of the town of Siderokavsia, which is a silver mine.
It is a high and wide mountain. Its length and width are of equal size and its total sur-
face is over three parasangs (fersah) at a rough estimation. The mountain is at the bor-
der of the silver mine. Big and small trees on this mountain are innumerable. These
trees are under the protection of the miners. They are protected from the villagers, so
that they use them for the operation of the mine. On this mountain there are many
places for hiking, full of sources and wells. The people of Siderokavsia have build in a
tongue-shaped corner of the mountain a simple kiosk, named Çardak, with view to the
Sea of Romania (Bahr-ı Rum).35
The testimony of Âşık Mehmed includes the information that wood cutting on the
mountains surrounding Siderokavsia was prohibited to the villagers, because it was
used for the operation of the furnaces of the mines.36 According to the regulation of Mu-
31 Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 2, p. 186.
32 The mosque of Siderokavsia was registered for the first time in the register of 1568 (see above). The re-
mains of the minaret can still be found today among the ruins of Siderokavsia.
33 One of the
hammam
s is also in ruins today on the site of Siderokavsia.
34 Âşık Mehmed,
Menâzirü’l-Avâlim
, pp. 995-6.
35
Ibid.
, p. 406.
36 The same information is repeated by Evliya Çelebi, who had visited shortly Siderokavsia in 1668: “Such big
trees as the trees of the mountain of Siderokavsia cannot be found in any other country. Maybe only in the
mountains of Ravna, in the vilayet of Bosna. But in the case of the trees of Siderokavsia, nobody is allowed to
cut them. This is because the mountain and the trees are the property of the state (
mîrî kûhistân ve dıraht-
istândır
) and are being used for the smelting of the silver ore. If someone cuts a tree, he pays a fine”;
Evliyâ

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[156]
rad II and Mehmed II, the Christian miners of Siderokavsia had the right to make char-
coal in the mountain (dağdan kömür etmeğe mâni olmayalar, kim dilerse ede).37 The
need for charcoal, which was used, as we have described above, for the furnaces that
separated silver from lead, was much bigger of course. Around 1500, a group of villages
in Western Halkidiki had become “villages of charcoal producers” (kömürciyân-ı maden-
i Sidrekapsı) and they had been assigned the task of supplying the mines with charcoal.
In return, the charcoal producers were exempt from the extraordinary taxes (avarız ve
tekâlif-i divaniye or teklifât-ı örfiyye). In the first years of the reign of Süleyman the Mag-
nificent and during the reign of his son, Selim II, these were the old Byzantine villages of
Revenikeia (Ravenik, today Megali Panagia) and Palaiochori (Palyohor), as well as the
villages of Yeniköy (later Novoselo, today Neochori), Raligovi (Raliğova, later Liarigovi,
today Arnaia) and Varvara, which had been settled after the Ottoman conquest. By
1634, however, the Ottomans had established a much bigger group of villages in the
sancak of Thessaloniki (including villages in Serres, Drama, Zichni, Avrethisar,
Demirchisar, and of course Sidrekabsi), which had been assigned the provision of 338
full loads and 25 quarter-loads of charcoal (kömür beygiri) for the mines of Siderokavsia;
these services, however, could be exchanged with payments in cash.38
12. Decline and Re-Organisation of the Mining Activity
As a result of the arrival of large amounts of silver from the Americas, from the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century the Ottoman mints in the Balkans and Anatolia began
to decrease their production until, by the 1640s and 1650s, they virtually stopped the
production of silver akçes, which were replaced in circulation with European silver
coinage.39 During the reign of Ibrahim I (1640-48), the mints all over the empire had
closed, leaving only four still producing akçes, in Istanbul, Diyarbakir, Damascus, and
Cairo.40 Evliya Çelebi, who visited Siderokavsia shortly after, in 1668, testifies to the
closure of the mint:
In the years of the previous Sultans, pure silver akçes used to be struck in Sidero-
kavsia. Actually, the mint is still standing in dowtown Siderokavsia. In the reign of Sul-
tan Murad IV, the mint stroke pure coins which circulated with the inscription ‘Sultân
Murâd ibn Ahmed Hân ızze nasruhu duribe Sidirkapsi’. Afterwards, however, during
the reign of Sultan Ibrahim, Kara Mustafâ Paşa banned their production [...]. The mint
Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi
, ed. S. A. Kahraman, Yücel Dağlı, Robert Dankoff, vol. 8, Istanbul: Yapi ve Kredi Ban-
kasi, 2003, p. 44.
37 Beldiceanu,
Les Actes,
vol. 1, p. 138.
38 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, pp. 133-5 and Table 22 in pp. 143-4 (including only the villages of the
sancak
of
Thessaloniki).
39 Pamuk,
A Monetary History
, pp. 131, 139.
40
Ibid.
, p. 145.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[157]
of Sidrekapsi, together with other mints, they have been all closed since the reign of
Ibrahim Han; the silver mine, however, is still in full operation.41
The archival evidence shows that the Siderokavsia mines were still farmed out in
the second half of the seventeenth century at an annual rate of 1,600,000 akçes
(around 6,000 gold sultani) in 1670. This figure shows a sharp decrease in revenues
from Siderokavsia after the closure of the mint. Most probably, this was also the reason
behind the transfer of the mukataa of Siderokavsia to the mukataa of the Customs of
Thessaloniki in 1673.42 According to a local report reproduced in an order dated 1700,
the silver mines of Siderokavsia were then almost abandoned.43
During the difficult years of the long wars of the end of the seventeenth century,
the Ottomans began once more to mint Ottoman silver coins, resulting, in the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century, in the circulation of a new silver coin, the Ottoman ku-
ruş.44 In this context, it is of no coincidence that the Ottomans tried to revive silver pro-
duction in the provincial mints, like Siderokavsia. According to the study of Mustafa
Altunbay, in 1703 a Sultanic ferman ordered Çavuşzade Hüseyin Ağa of Thessaloniki,
the tax-farmer of the mines since 1698, to revive the production in Siderokavsia. Ça-
vuşzade Hüseyin Ağa was appointed Superintendant (emin) of the mines and reported
to the Porte on the abandoned mines, as well as on his efforts, with the assistance of
the remaining skilled miners, to register and bring together the reaya for work in the
mine and in the production of charcoal. Some of the old pits and galleries of the mines
were repaired and new ones were opened. The Ottoman government mobilised as
day-workers in the mine the villagers of Sidrekapsi, İzvor, Arnavudköyü, Revenik
(Megali Panagia), Varvara, Yeniköy (Neochori), Yerise (Ierissos) and Liarigova (Ar-
naia), as well as villagers (reaya) from the neighbouring district (nahiye) of Pazargâh.45
Some of the villagers, however, were not happy at all with their mobilisation and agi-
tated for an uprising among workers, aiming at abandoning the mines.46
Despite the efforts for the revival of the mines, the town of Siderokavsia seems to
have never regained its lost population, after the abandonment of production in the
closing years of the seventeenth century. According to a sultanic order of 1707,
Siderokavsia, the seat of the mining villages, was not anymore an important settle-
ment. In fact, the neighbouring village of Izvor, where some Muslims also lived, was
41
Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi
, vol. 8, p. 44.
42 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 26.
43 A. Refik,
Osmanlı Devrinde Türkiye Madenleri (967-1200)
, 2nd ed., İstanbul: Enderun Kitabevi 1989, p. 47
(
hali ve harab
).
44 Pamuk,
A Monetary History
,
pp. 159-60.
45 See in detail Altunbay “Sidrekapsi”, pp. 34-46 and 69-71. The register of the survey of 1702 is the BOA, KK
5189.
46
Ibid.
, p. 108, fn. 411. Some of the agitators were caught and imprisoned in Thessaloniki.

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[158]
much bigger than Siderokavsia.47 This is corroborated by Ottoman surveys of the
eighteenth century. According to one of 1743, Siderokavsia had 72 miners, and Izvor
184. The same figures, more or less, are reported for 1773 as well.48 In 1806, when
the English military expert William Martin Leake visited the mines of Siderokavsia, he
mentions only the settlement of Nísvoro (i.e. Izvor), with 300-400 houses, divided in
two nearly equal mahalles of Greeks and Turks (i.e., Christians and Muslims), situated
half a mile apart.49
On the other hand, between 1704 and 1707 a fort was built in Siderokavsia for the
protection of the mine and the precious metals from bandit and pirate raids. The fort
had a guard of 40 sekban and 20 cannons, sent from Istanbul.50 Leake describes in
1806 the fort (Kastro) as the place where the silver was separated.51 We should maybe
identify the tower which survives today in the centre of the village of Stageira with this
fort.52
After the reorganisation by Çavuşzade Hüseyin Ağa, the mines of Siderokavsia
continued to be controlled by his family for the most part of the eighteenth century.
Çavuşzade Ali Ağa, grandson of Hüseyin Ağa, was the Superintendant of the Mines
(emin-i maden) between 1726 and his death in 1751. He was succeeded by his son,
Çavuşzade Ahmed Ağa, until 1784.53 This was a development consistent with the
general evolution of eighteenth-century Ottoman society, the Ottoman “age of the ay-
ans”, when the Ottoman provincial elites asserted important power at the local level.54
In 1784, however, Çavuşzade Ahmed Ağa resigned from the directorate of the mines
of Siderokavsia, which were farmed out to the retired vizier Seyyid Mustafa Paşa. In
47 Vasdravellis,
Istorika Archeia Makedonias
, pp. 67-8. According to a report of the
nazır
of the mine Süley-
man, the Muslims of Izvor were then forced to move to Siderokavsia, where there was a mosque, together with
the
reaya
,
who had come to Izvor from other districts.
48 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 124. In 1773, Siderokavsia had 71 miners and Izvor 182.
49 Leake,
Travels
, vol. 3, p. 160.
50 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 107. According to a document of 1705, the villagers of Halkidiki were held ac-
countable also for the protection of the mines. The same document testifies to an attempt for the farming out of
the mines by the villagers themselves, just after the first three years of lease by Çavuşzade Hüseyin Ağa;
Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, pp. 260-1, according to Vasdravellis (
Istorika Archeia Makedonias
,
no. 43 [1705]). However, the mines were farmed out in 1705 to Süleyman Ağa from Istanbul.
51 Leake,
Travels,
p. 164.
52 See Theocharidis, “The Consolidation Works”.
53 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, pp. 69-96. For a short interval, from 1772 to 1774, Ahmed Ağa was dismissed and
the mines of Siderokavsia were directed by a Superintendant of the Imperial Mint (
darbhane-i amire
). Ahmed
Ağa was able to regain his appointment, despite the miners’ protestations. For the latter and the miners’ efforts
to farm out the mines themselves, see the document published by Refik (
Osmanlı Devrinde Türkiye Madenleri
,
pp. 42-3).
54 Bruce McGowan, “The Age of the
Ayan
s, 1699-1812”, in İnalcık & Quataert (eds),
An Economic and Social
History,
pp. 637-738.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[159]
1807 Seyyid Mustafa Paşa was still farming out the mines55 and his sons, Seyidi İsmail
and Yusuf Beyzade, took over after his death. Finally, in 1820, after an important rebel-
lion which resulted in the dispersion of the miners and the abandonment of the mines,
they were farmed out to the reaya, following a letter of the Greek Patriarch promising
that the miners would not revolt again. The state retained, however, the control of the
mines through the appointment of Mehmed Emin as director.56
Mustafa Altunbay has studied in detail the surveys of the Siderokavsia mines and
of the villages that had been attributed to them during the eighteenth century.57 Accord-
ing to the survey of 1702 (BOA, KK 5189), 3,461 Christians and 775 Muslim reaya from
more than 150 villages in the sancak of Thessaloniki (which included the kazas of
Selânik, Siroz, Drama, Zihne, Demirhisarı, Avrethisarı) were registered as miners
(madenci). They actually had to provide the mines of Siderokavsia with 360 ¾ full
loads of charcoal (kömür beygiri) or pay a cash equivalent. Another survey was made
in 1722 by Kapucıbaşı Ahmed Ağa, the maden emini of Siderokavsia (BOA, KK 5187).
In this case, the 3,410 Christian and 872 Muslim mine workers (madenci) registered in
the sancak of Thessaloniki were forced to deliver annually 459 1/2 loads of charcoal or
their equivalent in cash, an increase which created much resentment among the min-
ers, especially in the villages of Serres.58 As a result in 1726, when Çavuşzade Ali Ağa
farmed out the mines as an independent contractor, a new survey was ordered. In this
register (BOA, MAD 22135), an increased total of 4,669 Christians and 851 Muslims
were imposed a reduced annual rate of 397 1/2 loads of charcoal or their equivalent in
cash. The new register, moreover, introduced a distinction between the 12 villages of
the actual miners of Siderokavsia (cevherkeşan), which no longer had to deliver char-
coal or pay a cash equivalent, like the other villages of the charcoal producers
(kömürkeşan) in the sancak of Thessaloniki.59 This was the first formation of the later
called “Koinon tou Mademiou” (Mademochoria) in Greek. The villagers of the miners
and charcoal producers of Siderokavsia enjoyed a special status (serbestiyet) of tax
exemptions from the extraordinary taxation, a status which was defended by the super-
intendants of the mines.60 According to Leake’s testimony, in 1806 the maden ağası
55 Leake (
Travels
,
pp. 160-61), however, mentions as the
maden ağası
a certain Rüstem Ağa, a client of İbra-
him Bey of Serres. Previously Rüstem Ağa had been expelled from his post after a complaint of the villagers,
but he succeeded to overrule his dismissal, come back and take revenge upon the Greek notable of Izvor.
56 Cf. Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, pp. 96-99 and Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, pp. 262-65, according to
Vasdravellis (
Istorika Archeia Makedonias
,
no. 302).
57 For the surveys, see in detail Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, pp. 135-9, including also tables of the villages involved.
58 In 1722, 92 villages of Halkidiki were registered as mining and only four as charcoal producers; BOA, ΚΚ
2869.
59 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 149. The register of 1752 (BOA, KK 5196), made by Çavuşzade Ahmed Reşid
Ağa, counted a total of 3,426 Christians and 605 Muslim
reaya
s in 88 villages in the
kaza
of Thessaloniki, who
had to deliver 194 ¾ loads of charcoal or their cash equivalent to the
maden emini
.
60 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 194. For the tax privileges of the miners, cf. Vasdravellis,
Istorika Archeia Make-
donias
, no. 156 (1733) and no. 191 (1762). According to the latter document, the villages of the miners were

Mines, Olives and Monasteries
[160]
had to deliver to the state 200 okes of silver from the mines, but he never made more
than 100 okes; thus he had to supply the difference in cash. However, the “Greeks of
the Sidherokapsika” (the 12 villages of the miners of Siderokavsia, called “eleuthero-
choria” by Leake, i.e., serbest villages), were “well content to make good the deficiency
for the sake of the advantages they derive from belonging to the government of the
mines”.61
Leake describes also the operation of the mines, in 1808, which seems to have
been restricted by then to a single deposit, soon to be exhausted:
The mines now wrought are about half an hour from Nizvoro, between two hills, in a
deep ravine, where a stream of water serves for the operations of washing, as well as
to turn the wheel for working the bellows of the furnace. The whole is conducted in the
rudest and most slovenly manner. The richest ore is pounded with stones upon a board
by hand, then washed and burnt with charcoal; the inferior ore is broken into larger
pieces, and burnt twice without washing. The lead, when extracted from the furnace, is
carried to Kastro, where the silver is separated, in the proportion of two and three
drams to an oke of 400 drams. When the present shafts are exhausted, the mines will
probably be abandoned.62
As the actual farmer of the mines in 1820, the “Community of the Mine” (to koinon
tou Mademiou in Greek) participated in the Greek Revolution of 1821 as a legal entity,
having initially one and by June 1821 five representatives signing documents on behalf
of the revolutionaries. With the outbreak of the revolution, the Ottoman director of the
mines (maden ağası) had to evacuate the fort, which was burnt down a bit later, having
lost almost all of his men but two after an ambush near the village of Stanos. However,
soon after, the Ottoman army marched into Halkidiki and crashed the rebels, who had
to leave their villages for Mount Athos and the islands of the Aegean. In 1823, the ko-
cabaşıs of the 12 villages of the mines had to accept their tax debts from previous
years.63 The events of 1821 seem to have sealed the mines in Siderokavsia. From an
Ottoman document of 1830, we learn that the Ottomans have again tried to revive pro-
duction, and that in 1832 they had appointed vali Vecihi Paşa as the director of the
mines.64 However, the mines were closed until the end of the nineteenth century.65
the following: Sidrekapsi, Izvor, Arnavudkoy, Vrasta, Gomatou, Revenikia, Larigkova, Stanos, Neochori, Var-
vara, and Modi.
61 Leake,
Travels
, p. 161.
62
Ibid.
, p. 164.
63 Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, pp. 267-8. In 1829, 43 families of refuges on the island of Skope-
los were from the Mademochoria.
64 Vasdravellis,
Istorika Archeia Makedonias
, pp. 474, 521, 523.
65 Papaggelos, “To ‘koinon tou Mademiou’”, p. 268 fn. 43.

Aspects of Halkidiki’s Enviromental History
[161]
13. Mining and Deforestation
How did the operation of the Ottoman mines of Siderokavsia contribute to the defores-
tation of Halkidiki?66 There is some scattered evidence that the need for timber, both
for the galleries and for the production of charcoal, distributed among 150 villages in
the area of Thessaloniki, had serious implications for the forest. First of all, we have
detailed information for the timber used for the galleries of the mines during the first
years of the eighteenth century; almost 7,500 trees in 1703, over 35,000 in 1706 and
almost 20,000 in 1707.67 Moreover, in 1731, according to an Ottoman report, there
were not enough trees around the village of Liarigova for the production of charcoal. As
a result, its inhabitants were ordered to offer their services as miners.68 In 1782, the
villagers of Peristera, Galatista, Ravna, Megala Vrasta, Livaditsi, Ardameri, and
Loukova, reported to the emin of the mines that the mountains in the vicinity of their
villages had no more timber for the production of charcoal. After an inspection, which
corroborated the report, the production of charcoal was imposed on villages that had
enough forests, i.e., Larigkova, Nichori, Revenikia, Gomatou, Varvara, and Stanos.69
In light of the above information, it is interesting to note the disappearance of the
forest in the area of the village of Peristera, in the southern slopes of Mount Chortiatis.
We have evidence from the eleventh century, but none from the nineteenth century.70
Likewise, we have evidence from the fourteenth century for the forest on Mount Kalav-
ros, but none from the nineteenth century, at least for a part of it.71. The deforestation
in these two areas might be attributed to the production of charcoal for the needs of the
mines of Siderokavsia. In conclusion, the function of the Ottoman mines seems to
have transformed the environment of Western Halkidiki through the exploitation of both
the subsoil and the forest. This exploitation would intensify from the second half of the
nineteenth century onwards.
66 For the deforestation in the Greek lands, see Seirinidou, “Dassi ston elliniko choro”.
67 Altunbay, “Sidrekapsi”, p. 56.
68
Ibid.
, p. 123.
69
Ibid.
, p. 129.
70
Bellier et al.,
Paysages de Macedoine,
pp. 114 and 91-92.
71
Ibid.
, pp. 114 and 90, 92: In 1901, Adolf Struck found a thick forest of beeches and oak-trees to the west of
the village of Vavdos, which he crossed for two hours.