The 1455 Ottoman defter (Defter-i Mufassal-i Vilayet-i Vlk / Oblast Brankovića) is sometimes used by certain Serbian activists as an argument that Albanians were a minority in Kosovo in the 15th century. This defter however only records a small number of households in that particular area.

It explicitly identified as Albanian (Arbanas), commonly cited as 46 dwellings in 23 villages amid 12,985–13,000 total dwellings across 480 settlements. This is not a claim unique to the Scribd upload of the 1972 Sarajevo Oriental Institute edition (Hadžibegić, Handžić, Kovačević et al.).

It is the standard figure drawn from that published transcription or analysis of the original Ottoman register. Wikipedia and secondary literature consistently report roughly: the large majority Slavic/Serb-named households, 75 Vlach, 46 Albanian, plus small numbers of Bulgarian, Greek, etc. Name analysis in the register yields circa 96% Slavic personal names in the covered area, with only a tiny fraction classed as Albanian.

Many of these Slavic names were however adopted by local Albanians as a result of the pressure of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This defter does not prove “only 40 houses of Arbanas in the 1400s” across a broad territory, nor does it erase earlier Albanian presence.

Scope and limitations of the 1455 register

– The district of Branković (Vuk-ili) covered parts of what is now eastern Kosovo (Kosovo Plain), central Serbia (Toplica, parts of Rashka), and northeastern Montenegro. It was not a full census of medieval Kosovo, western Kosovo, the Dukagjin and Has areas, or Albanian highland zones farther west and south. Prizren and some western districts fall outside or are only partially represented.

– Ottoman “defters” were fiscal and tax registers focused on taxable adult males, households (“hane”), and land. Ethnicity was not systematically recorded the way a modern census would; identification as “Arbanas” typically rested on explicit labels, distinctive anthroponymy, or (sometimes) linguistic and cultural markers visible to scribes.

Many individuals of Albanian background who had adopted Slavic Christian names, which was common under the Serbian Orthodox church and administration would appear under Slavic onomastics and thus not be counted as “Albanian.”

– Pastoral and transhumant groups (katuns) and highland populations were often under-registered or registered differently. Mobile herding communities characteristic of some Albanian and Vlach groups could be incompletely captured.

– The numbers are therefore a snapshot of the settled, tax-paying population in that specific administrative unit shortly after Ottoman consolidation, not a complete ethnic map of the broader region or of the pre-Ottoman period.

Serbian historiography has long used the defter (and later ones) to argue for an overwhelmingly Serbian demographic base in the mid-15th century that later changed. That reading is only partly factual in the register’s onomastics and household labels for the area it covers, but it is frequently over-extended to claim total absence of Albanians across all of Kosovo. Albanians pre-dated all Serbs in the region of Dardania (Kosovo).

Albanian scholarship counters with facts that the same series of defters shows a mosaic, with Albanian presence already visible and growing in certain districts, and that Slavicization of names under Serbian rule masks earlier continuity.

Earlier Slavic sources documenting Arbanas presence (13th–14th centuries)

Slavic (primarily Serbian royal and monastic) documents do attest Albanian presence well before 1455, especially in western and highland zones of what became Kosovo and adjacent areas:

– Serbian chrysobulls (charters) from the Nemanjić period repeatedly mention Albanian individuals, villages, and katuns (pastoral settlements). The Dečani chrysobulls (c. 1330s, Stefan Dečanski) list multiple Albanian stock-breeding villages near Prizren (examples cited in the literature include Gjinovci/Gjinajt, Magjerci, Bjellogllavci/Kryebardhët, Flokovci, Caparci, Gjonovci, Shpinadinci, Novaci, and related place-names). Albanian personal names (Gjin, Gjon, Lul, etc.) and mixed Slavic-Albanian onomastics appear.

– Other 13th–14th-century references include place-names and anthroponyms in documents linked to Banjska, Gračanica, and various grants; mentions of Arbanas in the context of Hvosno and Dukagjin, Drenica, and areas near the White Drin; and earlier 13th-century notices (e.g., related to Miroslav’s holdings or Ship and Pogragje-area names showing Albanian elements such as Gjin, Gjon or Gon). Scholars such as Milan Šufflay noted Albanian presence in western Kosovo from the early 13th century onward, partly encouraged by Serbian rulers settling areas after Byzantine withdrawal.

– These sources show Albanians primarily as pastoralists and in specific villages rather than as a dominant settled population across the Kosovo plain. Many bore or adopted Slavic names under Orthodox influence, which is consistent with later defter patterns where pure Albanian anthroponymy is rare.

This earlier documentation is not disputed in its existence; the debate is over scale, continuity, density, and whether it supports autochthony claims versus expansion from core Albanian territories (roughly the Bar–Prizren–Ohrid–Vlorë zone) in the later medieval period. Both processes can and did occur: limited earlier presence and later demographic shifts (including after the late-17th-century Habsburg–Ottoman wars and Serbian migrations).

Conclusion

– The “only ~40–46 Albanian houses” figure is accurate only for the 1455 Branković district register as published and analyzed. It is routinely (and often polemically) repeated in Serbian sources to contest modern Albanian autochthony narratives for Kosovo. It does not describe the entire region, the entire 15th century, or the pre-Ottoman situation.

– It cannot “debunk” 13th–14th-century Slavic documentary evidence of Arbanas individuals, villages, and pastoral communities. Those sources establish presence centuries earlier, concentrated more in western and highland areas.

– Methodological caveats apply to both sides: fiscal registers undercount mobile groups and Slavized names; medieval charters are selective (focused on church estates) and do not provide population totals. Later Ottoman defters (late 15th–16th centuries) show gradual increases in Albanian-identified households in some areas, consistent with both natural growth and migration.

In short, the Scribd publication figure is real for its limited scope and is not fabricated, but treating it as proof of near-total Albanian absence in the broader 1400s (or earlier) is an overreach that ignores the geographic limits of the register and the earlier Slavic documentary record.

Sources

Hadžibegić, Hamid, Adem Handžić, and Ešref Kovačević, eds. Oblast Brankovića: Opširni katastarski popis iz 1455. godine. 2 vols. Monumenta Turcica historiam Slavorum Meridionalium illustrantia, Tomus tertius, Serija II, Defteri, Knjiga 2. Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut, 1972. (Original Ottoman title: Defter-i Mufassal-i Vilayet-i Vlk, sene 859.)

Vukanović, Tatomir. Srbi na Kosovu. Vranje, 1986. (Frequently references the household and onomastic data from the 1455 register.)

Stefan Dečanski. Dečani chrysobulls (c. 1330–1330s). Published in various critical editions of Serbian medieval charters (e.g., collections of Nemanjić-period documents). These list Albanian katuns and personal names near Prizren.

Banjska chrysobull (early 14th century, associated with Stefan Uroš II Milutin). Contains Albanian-form anthroponyms (e.g., Lul/Lulić). Referenced in studies of medieval Kosovo onomastics.

Other relevant Nemanjić-period charters (Gračanica and related grants involving Hvosno/Dukagjin, Drenica, and White Drin areas) are published in standard collections of Serbian royal and monastic documents from the 13th–14th centuries.

Šufflay, Milan. Works on medieval Albanian settlement patterns (early 20th century), noting Albanian presence in western Kosovo from the early 13th century. Cited in later Balkan historical literature on ethnography and expansion.