DURING THE FIRST century of their advance towards Southeast Europe (ca. 1353– 1453), the Ottomans were not an unrivalled dominant economic and political power. They developed varied strategies (diplomatic alliances, dynastic marriages, commercial cooperation) to coordinate their disparate territorial holdings, acquired mostly by military means, and to forge partnerships. From the second half of the fifteenth century on, this configuration was transformed with the gradual consolidation of their rule, implementation of novel administrative measures and reorganization, as well as delimitation, of territory. In this contribution, I examine the social and economic investments of diverse population segments that constituted the new power elites and also those of some indigenous loci of power that had sufficient economic and social capital to renegotiate their place within this new socio-political environment.

Strategies of reproduction and re-conversion depend, according to Pierre Bourdieu, on the objective profit-risks offered to investments in a given state of the institutional instruments of reproduction and of the capital they are to reproduce. The structure of the distribution of the wealth among classes and segments of classes assures the maintenance of order, ensured by ceaseless changes in the layout of the society. Those who are not capable of reproducing their social and economic capital and regenerating their power bases lose their political positions. I will apply this scheme to highlight the reclassement and déclassement, in other words, upward and downward social mobility, of the main Ottoman power holders in Rumelia in the first two centuries of their presence by focusing on their infrastructural and philanthropic investments.

The Socio-Genesis of Ottoman Rule in the Balkans (1353– 1453)

If the Ottoman chroniclers are keen on giving an idyllic picture of the initial settlement circumstances in the Balkans, contemporaneous local sources state the opposite. The Ottoman conquest removed the ruling Greek-Byzantine, Serbian, and Bulgarian dynasties except the “Rumanian” princes. Magnates and higher nobility who were incapable of integrating into the new regime lost their power bases immediately or gradually. A substantial number of them, however, opted for quiet after all the turmoil and acted as brokers for the political transformation. In the subdued regions, a conciliatory policy (istimalet) was initially pursued so as to incorporate middle and lower-level military administrators as well as the clergy into the fabric of the state.