Summary
After the conquest of a region the Ottomans drew up tax registers, which they renewed at regular intervals. The so-called tapu tahrir defterleri recorded the existing settlements, the taxes payable in the Ottoman Empire, the agricultural production and the names of the taxpayers. The Ottoman tax registers are an extremely valuable source for the history, historical geography, toponymy, economy, demography, ottoman linguistics, palaeography etc. In this paper the focus is on the Ottoman tax registers as a source for settlements and placenames especially regarding the preottoman period. The less placenames and settlements for a certain region are known from written sources of the byzantine period the more important and valuable are the tax registers. In the paper are presented two regions of Western Macedonia, the Ottoman vilayet-i Serfice (vilayet of Serbia), part of the kaza-i Kara Verye (kaza of Veria) and the vilayet-i Kastorye (vilayet of Kastoria). For both regions we have for instance not any byzantine documents about monastic land ownership. In both regions the focus is on the oldest Ottoman tax register preserved. That is in the case of Serbia a text dated in 1498-1502 edited by Kampurides and Salakides (2013) and in the case of Kastoria a text just before 1445 and edited by Sokoloski (1973). It is of some interest that in the region of Kastoria the majority of the placenames are of Slavic origin, whereas around the city of Serbia Greek and Slavic placenames are about the same number. At any rate we have reason to suppose that almost all the settlements and their names recorded in the tax registers are of a considerably earlier date.
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