Macedonia AD 1553

[kostas68]

Pierre Belon(1517-1564)was a French naturalist who,starting in 1546, travelled through Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine, and returned in 1549. A full account of his Observations on this journey,was published in 1553 under the title <Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étrangèrs>. :

You can find the whole original book scanned in pdf format and download it in the link below:
ftp://ftp.bnf.fr/005/N0053619_PDF_1_-1.pdf
or you can download single pages here:
http://gallica2.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bp...zoom.f2.langEN
The regions of Macedonia he visited were Mt.Athos (Agion Oros) in Halkidiki,Serres and Kavala.I must clarify that i don't speak French and the only French words i understand are those which are common or simmilar in both English and French due to their Latin origin.I could interprete hard some interesting excerpts from Belon's work,using on-line translators and a dictionary from Microsoft Encarta,but we must not forget that Belon lived almost 500 ago and many times he used literary or archaic words which i couldn't translate but i think that we can understand the meaning of his phrases.
Let's see what he writes about Macedonia :
On page 93 he says about the monks (<caloieres>) of Mt. Athos and their nationalities:There were <Grecs,Circasses,Valacques,Bulgares,Moscovites,Rus ciens,Polons,de Mengrelie,de la Bossena,d'Albanie,d'Esclavonie,Tartares,de Servie,Croates.
Here are mentioned all the Christian nations who live in Balkans(even Russians and Tatars),but not any <Macedonian nation>.

Reading below,we will find on pages 114,116,117 his observations on the famous mines of Siderokapsa(the Byzantine Siderokavsia) where worked miners from many countries.Their nationalities were,according to Belon,<Bulgare,Grec,Turc,Albanois,Juifs,Vallaques, Cercasses,Serviens,Alemans>.Those are the only nations which are mentioned by Belon.Again the same absence : No <Macedonians>.Doesn't mean that something?There were people from all the Balkan nations,even from distant countries like Germany and Russia,either as monks or as miners,but no <ethnic Macedonians> in Macedonia!



On page 137,Belon is now in the plain of Serres,near to the river Strimonas and he writes that <the millers who grind on Strimonas speak Greek>(les mousniers qui meullent sur la riviere de Strimone,parlent Grec).

On the next page,138,we find the most interesting excerpt of Belons book:He says that all the inhabitants of Tricala(it's not the known city of Trikala in Thessaly,it is another city that nowadays either doesn't exist or has different name.I didn't find which city and exactly where was it but it was sure somewhere between Kavala and Serres because he mentions the Mt. Pangeo.) and Serres (<Ceres> according to Belon) speak Greek(touts le habitants de Tricala et de Ceres parlent Grec) and the villagers are speaking Greek and Serbian(les villageois parlent Grec et Servien).Probably he means some villages with Slavophones who i know that existed untill the middle of the last century.Bellon calls this language <Serbian>,not Bulgarian or something else and that's owing to the fact that the whole region was part of the Serbian empire of Stephan Dusan during the 14th century.
But the most amazing is that there was a persil which was called by the peasants <Makedoniki> or <Makedoniko>!(Estant en Macedoine, ie ne fus onc en ville ne village que touts le paisants ne m'ayent nomme le persil dont nous usons,Macedonici ou Macedoniko).They didn't called it <Makedonski> but <Makedoniko> and that's shows who are the real Macedonians.

On pages 140 and 141,Belon mentions a local myth in the village Chalastrea close to ancient Philippoi : The locals called this city <city of Bucephalus> and they believed that there was the manger where Alexander the Great's horse ate.<Les habitans du pays en sont une fable enti eulx,estimants que c'est la mangeoire de la iument d' Alexandre le Grand.Mais par la iument fault entendre Bucephalus.>
The memory of their great ancestor was still alive by those real Macedonians,whereas the fake <Makedontsite> at this time probably didn't know nothing about Alexander and his history.


On page 142 we read : <Il fault entendre que Bucephala de Grece est une ville sur une butte amancee en la mer qui n'est qui a deux lieues long de philippoi.Est maintenant me tresbelle habitation.N'y a pas longtemps qu'elle estoit desert,route ruine.Mais de puis que les Turcs retournerent de la guerre de Hongrie,qu' ils amenerent tous les Juifs qu' ils trouverent dedans Bude,Pest,Albaregal ou Albe real ,qu'ils les eurent envoyes habiter a la Cavala,a Tricala,a Ceres,ou Cranon,elle a tousiours depuis est habite : maintenant il y a plus de cinq cents Juifs avec les Grecs et les Turcs.>

Here Belon uses the archaic forms of some words and therefore the translation wasn't easy but we can interpret the meaning of this excerpt is that the Turcs after the war in Hungary brought with them Jews from Buda,Pest and Albaregal and settled them in Kavala,Serres and Trikala and now there are around 500 Jews amongst the Greeks and the Turks.Thus,in those Macedonian cities lived only Greeks,Turks and Jews,nothing like <ethnic Macedonians>.

[akritas]

Excellent work Kosta.
I am just removing your work in Medieval Macedonian History since this sub-forum cover the specific time.