The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

46 ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
people regarded as heterodox by the authorities were nomads or semi-nomads,
who, given access to horses and arms, might turn to robbery in order to supplement
a meagre livelihood. Separating the quest for booty from a degree of
insurgency for religious and political reasons is not easy for the present-day historian,
and presumably was even less so for people of the sixteenth century.
Limits of imperial reach: some Rumelian examples
Nor was central control at all absolute in the often mountainous territories of the
Balkans. Where the Muslim population was concerned, the sources of unrest
were, however, but marginally linked with forces outside the Ottoman Empire.
Heterodox dervishes faced repression like their Anatolian colleagues, but there
were no claims that they maintained links with the Safavids. When considering
possible ‘security risks’, the central authorities were rather more suspicious of
the sympathies of Orthodox monks in rural areas. Given the often remote places
in which such monasteries were located, many monks maintained stores of arms
in order to protect themselves against marauders. In some instances, such as the
famed Meteora, the monasteries in question, located high up on rocky mountains,
could only be reached by means of baskets and ladders. During the war over
Cyprus (1570–73/977–81) these monasteries were regarded as possible sources
of aid and comfort to the enemy, although many of the monks in question, as
devout Orthodox, may not have been very partial to the Catholic rulers of the
Holy League. Local administrators accordingly were ordered to confiscate horses
and weaponry. In part, this may have been due to the rule, enshrined in religious
law, that non-Muslims were not to carry arms. At least as important was probably
the overall policy of disarming the subjects, Muslims and non-Muslims alike,
which the Ottoman authorities pursued at least where firearms were concerned. 76
In more peaceful circumstances, monasteries located close to the seashore were
considered hotbeds of smuggling, the monks being accused of illegally selling
grain to ‘Frankish’ merchants. 77 In one instance, dating from the 1580s/987–98,
we also learn of the nuns of what was to become the St Philothei convent of Athens,
who provided refuge to escaped slaves and especially slave women wishing
to return to ‘Frengistan’. 78 Apparently the nuns were willing to disregard the tensions
between Catholics and Orthodox for the time being.
On a higher level of the hierarchy, there were contacts between the Serbian
Orthodox Church and the grand dukes of Muscovy, later to become the tsars of
Russia, the earliest records going back to the sixteenth century. Visits of church
dignitaries, as well as correspondence, continued with increased intensity after
1600/1008–9. However, the published documents, mainly letters from Serbian
churchmen asking the Russian rulers for material and moral support, show a gap
between 1509/914–15 and the seventeenth century. As for the oecumenical patriarchate
in Istanbul, its contacts to the grand dukes of Muscovy and later to the
Russian tsars were quite intensive, especially during and immediately after the
patriarchate of the staunchly anti-Catholic Cyrillos Lucaris. 79 After the latter’s