Vlachs (social class)

This article is about the medieval Ottoman class. For the 20th-century Ottoman class, see Ullah millet.

Vlachs (Latin: Valachi; Ottoman Turkish: Eflak, pl. Eflakân; Serbo-Croatian: Vlah / Влах, pl. Vlasi / Власи) was a social and fiscal class in several late medieval states of Southeastern Europe, and also a distinctive social and fiscal class within the millet system of the Ottoman Empire, composed largely of Eastern Orthodox Christians who practiced nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle, including populations in various migratory regions, mainly composed of ethnic Vlachs, Serbs and Albanians.[1][2] From the middle decades of the 17th century the amalgamation of the process of sedentarization of the Orthodox Vlachs and their gradual fusion with Serbian rural population reached a high level and was officially recognized by the Ottoman authorities.[3][4]

  1. ^ Steven G. Ellis, Luďa Klusáková; (2007) Imagining Frontiers, Contesting Identities p. 145; Pisa University Press ISBN 8884924669
  2. ^ Karl Kaser; (2012) Household and Family in the Balkans: Two Decades of Historical Family Research at University of Graz p. 117-119; LIT Verlag, ISBN 3643504063
  3. ^ Kursar 2013, p. 115,126.
  4. ^ Gavrilović 2003, p. 720.