Analyses
What the Christians of the Ottoman Holy Land lived through, subject by subject: sickness, school, war, money, numbers, faith, trade, trial. Each subject is read over the years, in the parish registers as much as in the court registers of Jerusalem, the printed works and the household censuses.
Last updated: 29 August 2026
Health
What did they live through when sickness passed?
From 1636 to 1799, 12 health crises pass through these towns. They are read here together: it is their return, more than any one of them, that tells what a life under the threat of plague was.
Education
Where did people learn, and who paid for it?
A school is named 542 times across these three centuries, and 501 of those mentions come from the court of Jerusalem. It appears there through its walls, through the pious endowment that keeps it, and through its teacher's wages, almost never through its classroom.
Army and wars
When did violence reach these towns?
4 episodes of war, siege or fighting reach these towns between 1740 and 1770. They fit within a single generation: that tightness says as much about the state of the sources as about the state of the country.
Economy
What changed hands, and between whom?
11,723 matters of money and property are pleaded and signed across these three centuries: pious endowment, debt and credit, sale, lease, inheritance, gift. One matter may fall under two kinds, a sale on credit for instance, and then counts in each.
Population
How many were they, and how long did they live?
The 1700s bring together the most people: 862 leave at least one written trace there, a count of attested people, not a census.
Religions
How do allegiances read in the deeds?
Scribes name community or rite as the need arises: 13,035 entries out of 301,990 say it. What these registers show far better than belonging is practice.
Trades
Which trades and offices do the deeds name?
The trade or standing of 62,900 people is written down. 48,490 of them, that is 77%, are not the priest holding the pen: the court of Jerusalem brings in offices and titles the parish never knew.
Justice
What took people to court?
38,332 appearances are read in 21,692 matters brought before the qadi: the judge and his clerk, the two parties, the proxy, the guardian and his ward.
Sources and method
What these analyses rest on
Court registers
Parish registers
Printed works
Critical editions
Household censuses
The figures
| Decade | Court registers | Parish registers | Printed works | Critical editions | Household censuses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1500 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 17 | 0 |
| 1510 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 16 | 0 |
| 1520 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 28 | 0 |
| 1530 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 11 | 0 |
| 1540 | 1,090 | 0 | 12 | 24 | 0 |
| 1550 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 46 | 0 |
| 1560 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 32 | 0 |
| 1570 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 19 | 0 |
| 1580 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 41 | 0 |
| 1590 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 26 | 0 |
| 1600 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 51 | 0 |
| 1610 | 2,028 | 7 | 34 | 104 | 5 |
| 1620 | 4,171 | 63 | 39 | 353 | 15 |
| 1630 | 2,054 | 216 | 28 | 878 | 18 |
| 1640 | 1,925 | 153 | 41 | 115 | 14 |
| 1650 | 3,702 | 187 | 80 | 34 | 12 |
| 1660 | 2,144 | 348 | 40 | 37 | 7 |
| 1670 | 2,873 | 613 | 13 | 49 | 14 |
| 1680 | 257 | 914 | 5 | 39 | 3 |
| 1690 | 5 | 926 | 9 | 27 | 10 |
| 1700 | 1,104 | 837 | 3 | 38 | 20 |
| 1710 | 0 | 953 | 12 | 708 | 45 |
| 1720 | 0 | 1,265 | 14 | 36 | 81 |
| 1730 | 0 | 1,754 | 2 | 22 | 87 |
| 1740 | 0 | 1,776 | 4 | 18 | 118 |
| 1750 | 0 | 2,280 | 3 | 17 | 134 |
| 1760 | 0 | 2,320 | 0 | 16 | 110 |
| 1770 | 0 | 2,065 | 2 | 8 | 23 |
| 1780 | 0 | 1,889 | 1 | 2 | 52 |
| 1790 | 0 | 1,795 | 2 | 2 | 130 |
45,909 deeds within the period carry a legible year; 6,784 carry none and enter no curve.
Baptisms, marriages and deaths, decade by decade
Transcription of the court registers and of the printed works is half way through and continues; the Ottoman fiscal censuses are under way and not yet released. The portfolios that live on these holdings will therefore grow, and the thinnest of today are not a verdict.
- Every number on this page is recomputed at each publication, from the deeds themselves. None is written into the site.
- A unit with no legible year is filed under no guessed decade: it leaves the count, and its absence is visible.
- Measures that hold for one holding only say so in their title: the month of a court deed often comes from a calendar conversion and cannot be read as a season.
Corpus 3a17fbe26933+af2316, as of 29 August 2026