ABSTRACT
This chapter engages in a historical-anthropological approach to church endowments recorded in parish codices of donors. Samples of this under-researched type of archival source from the Ottoman Balkans dating from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries are consulted in an attempt to understand the complex relations between individuals and their communities, organized around the parish church or the monastery. Utilizing a range of manuscripts from the cities of Elbasan, Berat, and Voskopoja (Albania), the chapter explores the ways in which capital accumulation from donations on feast days, or endowments upon death circulated to parish members in need as well as being channelled for the well-being of the community, thereby establishing strong communitarian ties. The Church, whether a parish church or a monastery, did not only provide a reference centre and a financial hub in periods before the establishment of formal financial institutions such as banks, but it also offered end-of-life space, burial plots for the deceased, and a place in the sacred spatial-temporal space of the holy liturgy by way of commemorating the names of the deceased donors/parishioners.
