Özet:

Studies on monetary history which constitutes an important area of economic history, derive their basic data from archive documents. However, one of the most important sources of information on this subject is undoubtedly the sheria court records. The inheritance lists in the sheria court records contain the movable and immovable assets left behind by the deceased persons and sometimes also provide information about the cash assets of the persons. Although cash assets in the inheritance lists are mostly recorded in terms of akçe, there are also records in which the types of coins such as tuğralı, efrencî or zincirli are rarely expressed. These documents should be examined to determine the situation of the coins in circulation in the Ottoman market in the provinces. Because, beyond the archive data containing the complaints about the current values applied in the provinces, the heritage records provide valuable information about the use of local and foreign coins in circulation in the Ottoman lands and their current values. This information makes it possible to compare the coin rates determined by the state with the practices in the provinces. In addition, the tendency of families to accumulate foreign gold alongside domestic gold or silver coins during the Ottoman period is most clearly followed from the inheritance lists. The coins in the inheritance lists and the values of these coins are also important for work on large-scale sanjaks as well as the micro-scale regional studies. At the macro level, the densities of the coins in the regions can be determined by examining the different sanjaks; the change in the preferred coin type between regions can be followed and the factors affecting this situation can be revealed. In this study, in the light of the heritage registries in the Bitola sharia registers in the first half of the eighteenth century, the gold and silver coins used by the people of Bitola in this period and the wealth of those who owned these coins were examined. In this context, the type and market values of the coins found in the inheritance lists were determined. The consistency between the market values determined in the Ottoman center and the market value in Bitola was evaluated. In addition, the inheritance lists of the people who have gold or silver coins in the monastery were examined and evaluations were made on their welfare status. In this way, it is aimed to contribute to the Ottoman monetary history, which is one of the important study areas of the Ottoman economic history.

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