Reconstructing Yenice-i Vardar: patronage of the Evrenosoğlu family

Abstract

Underlying this thesis is the conjecture that the Evrenosoğlu family’s patronage activities between the late fourteenth and the mid sixteenth centuries, and the destiny of their power base Yenice-i Vardar, were not independent of the political developments of the early Ottoman period. My premise is that unless the major edifices of the Evrenosoğlu family are placed in the proper context in which they were built, their meanings remain obscure, and their contemporary intentions lost. When viewed from this perspective, Evrenosoğlu patronage acts not only as an instrument for achieving various political and social goals or as a legitimizing device that could even challenge the authority of the sultan, but also as a tool of resistance, a way to assert identity in the face of the threat posed by the centralizing Ottoman state.