XMJIAHJJAPCKU 3BOPHHK 11 RECUEIL DE CHILANDAR 11 PHOKION P. KOTZAGEORGIS ®OKMOH 1. KOWATEOPIMC TWO VAKFIYYES OF MARA BRANKOVIC IIBE BAKY®HAME MAPE BPAHKOBMA, BEOGRAD 2004307 TWO VAKFIYYES OF MARA BRANKOVIC* PHOKION P. KOTZAGEORGIS Abstract.—The present article offers new data forthe activity ofthe Serbian lady Mara Brankovic. Two vakifnames written in Arabic, by which Mara bequeathed immovable properties to two Athonite monasteries, are published and analyzed. Furthermore, the article tries to contribute tothe early Ottoman terminology on dona tions, discussing the fluid situation, which the researcher observes in the early ‘Ottoman Balkans, In the early 1980's, the Yugoslav Turcologist Vanto Boskov published some Ottoman-Turkish documents from the Athonite monasteries of Chilandar and Saint Paul. These documents dealt with the Serbian princess Mara Brankovié, stepmother of Mchmed II. BoSkov underlined that one of these documents con- stituted the earliest known vakifname for Christians (1471).! The document had hitherto remained unpublished. It is written in the Arabic language. Recently, in the two-volume work on the Athonite monastery of Vatopedi, in the chapter relating to the Ottoman-Turkish archive of the monastery the photo- graph of another vakifname of the same princess for the Vatopedi monastery was + I thank Dr. Cihad Bilal and Prof. Hasan Baddawi, who kindly helped me in translat- ing the Arabic text of the documents. 1. Botkoy, Mara Brankovié x surskim dokumeniima iz Svete Gore, Hilandarski zbomnik $ (1983) 194. There is a very rich bibliography on the Serbian princess, who ‘was among the most eminent Christians in the Ottoman Balkans of the 15th c. I mene tion for example the following articles: R Cuk, Carica Mara, storijski Easopis 25-26 (1978-79) 53-97; A. Potié, Despina Mara Brankovié and Chilandar: Between the Desired and the Possible, Huit sigcles du ‘monastére de Chilandar. Histoire vie spiri- tuelle, littérature, art et architecture, Belgrade 2000, 93-100,published. The document has been compiled in the Arabic language as well? As the study of the Ottoman-Turkish archives of the Athonite monasteries has only just begun and although these places might have preserved other such docu- ments dealt with Mara, to this date we do not know of any other Ottoman- ‘Turkish documents on Mara’s bequests to the Athonite monasteries. 1. THE DOCUMENTS Both of the documents referred to Christian vakifs. According to the classical Ottoman jurisprudence on vakif, the bequeathed objects before the bequest belonged to the donor under the status of full property (miilk). The donor, who ‘was up to the moment of the bequest the owner of the bequeathed property, ‘tured his property into a vakif, ic. a charitable foundation, the incomes of which would be designated for beneficial purposes (vakf:i hayrt) or for the sub- sistence of the persons the donor determined (wakf-i ahil).+ ‘The cases under study apparently do not provide us with new elements: in the first case, Mara had bought (actually, she had outbid by auction) the metochion (an agricultural unit) of the monastery of Esphigmenou in the area of Provlaka (near lerissos, on the Chalkidiki peninsula) in accordance with all legal pre- ms to the Serres kad. In the same date — and probably on the same day’ = she bequeathed the aforementioned landed property to the monastery of St Paul, acting according to all legal prescriptions to the same Kadi. In the second case, she bequeathed a house with its dependent buildings and a vineyard of about a half déniim, all located in Istanbul, to the monastery of Vatopedi. We do not know more about this property but, evidently, either it was bought by Mara 2 V. Demetriades, To tourkiko archeio, in: LMM. Vatopsidiou. Paradossi - Istoria — Techni, vol. 2, Mount Athos 1996, 628. In sented is illegible and I can not give further information on this endowment. Finally, = document of 1466 from Xeropotemau the legend of the document 1474 was writ- ten asthe year of the issue of the document. In the document (the photograph is very clear) the year of the issuance is 892 A.H., ‘whieh corresponds to 1487 A.D. 3. For an indirect mention of an endow= ‘ment of two icons from Mara to the monastery of Lavra ef. document 0. 1, published by V. Demetriades — EA. Zachatiadou, Serbian Ladies and Athowne Monks, Wiener Zeitschrift ir de Kinde des Morgenlandes £4 (1994) 42-3 farsa and 44-5 (English mansiasoeh ‘monastery mentions Mara (Despina Hatun). but its content is not clear; it could pechaps refer to Proviaka, as 2 Greek mate on the verso implies (E Kolowos, Chorio’ ai ‘monachoi stim Ochomanits Chelsie Ta PHOKION P KOTZAGFORGIS