Economic Characteristics and Development of Market Relations in Sevlievo (Selvi/ Servi) and the Kaza of Hotalich in the 16th – 17th Centuries (According to Data from Ottoman Registers of the Period)

On the basis of partially published Ottoman register material from the 16th and 17th centuries and the published legislative acts of the Ottoman sultans – canuns and canunnames (laws and legislations), and etc., regulating the system of market duties and taxes in the Ottoman Empire, the author makes an attempt to outline the economic characteristics of the settlements – a total of 43 – from the nahi / kaza of Hotalich and the formation of market relations within its scope. The diverse and compact information contained in the selected for the purposes of the study mufassal (detailed, nominal) defters from 1516–1517, 15141–1545, 1613–1614 and 1642–1646 allows us to follow: the establishment of Servi/Selvi as the administrative center of the nahi/kaza Hotalich; to look for indications of its urban status; the formation of a separate market, as indicated by the inscribed market bac by Servi itself (bac-i bazar nefs-i Servi), and its transformation into a market center for the region. It is the commercial bac fee, which as a rule accompanies every transaction on the local city market (except for the purchase and sale of real estate – vineyards, gardens, mills, houses, shops) and is an important part of the system of market duties and taxes is a definite indicator of market activity in the studied settlements. Although it is difficult to reconstruct the picture of the city market only on the basis of the records in the mufassal defteris, which register only the volume of this activity, the applied deductive, conditionally speaking, and inductive method to the entered taxes and fees, reveal not only the whole set of cultivated crops and specific livelihoods of the population, but also provide an opportunity to highlight those industries in the general production characteristics of the settlements of the nahi Hotalich, oriented to the market.