Die Rezeption der Religionsgemeinschaften des Osmanischen Reiches in der west- und mitteleuropäischen Reiseliteratur des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts

The Perception of Religious Communities of the Ottoman Empire in Western and Central European Travel Accounts of the 15th and 16th c. The present article focuses on selected passages from the 15th and 16th c. European travel accounts which describe the religious communities of the Ottoman Empire. The analysis follows geographically the so called Via militaris (Via Traiana) between Budapest and Constantinople (Istanbul). The accounts in question comprise Johann Schiltberger (1396–1427), Bertrandon de la Broquière (1432–1433), Konstantin Mihailović (1455–1463), Arnold von Harff (1496–1499), Benedikt Kuripešič (1530–1531), Hugone Favolio (1545–1546), Antun Vrančić (1553), Hans Dernschwam (1553–1555), Jakob von Betzek (1564–1565), Michael von Saurau (1567), Karel Rijm (1570–1574), Salomon Schweigger (1577–1581) and Reinhold Lubenau (1587–1588). These travelers write on the faith of the peoples they had met during their travels, both in a general way (e.g. Orthodoxy, Islam) as well as on their places of worship. Thus, we are able to reconstruct the distribution of religious communities along the so called Via militaris and even identify some of the churches and monasteries with the still existing monuments.