The Ottoman cadastral tax census (defter) of 1455 in the District of Branković (defter Vuk-ili) is one of the oldest Ottoman tax registers in the Balkans. At the time of the defter, the District of Branković included parts of central Serbia (present-day Toplica District and the historical Raška Region), part of northeastern Montenegro and parts of eastern Kosovo (the Kosovo Plain). The defter recorded:
In 1972, the Sarajevo Institute of Middle Eastern Studies translated the original Turkish census and published an analysis of it.[1] Subsequently, others have covered the subject, such as Vukanović Tatomir, Srbi na Kosovu, Vranje, 1986.
Of the names mentioned in this census, conducted by the Ottomans in 1455 and covering a part of Eastern Kosovo, 96.3% were of Slavic origin, 1.90% of Roman origin, 1.56% of uncertain origin, 0.26% of Albanian origin, and 0.25% of Greek origin. Serbian scholars consider that the defter indicates an overwhelmingly Serbian local population. However, Madgearu argues that the series of defters from 1455 onward "shows that Kosovo... was a mosaic of Serbian and Albanian villages", while Prishtina and Prizren already had significant Albanian Muslim populations, and that the same defter of 1455 indicates the presence of Albanians in Tetovo.[2] The accuracy and the consistency of the registration have been doubted, as shown in the example of Janjevo (a primarily Catholic Croat village in eastern Kosovo), which according to the reading of the register had only one Croat household.
As the defter only recorded timar holders and dependent farmers, groups which socially weren't part of either of these two classes were not included. That is most probably the reason why Vlachs (a social category which was not part of the Ottoman feudal hierarchy) were not recorded in the region which the defter covered.
The scholar Selami Pulaha, studying the defter of 1455, considered nearly 100 villages and the towns to of mentioned inhabitants with Albanian names such as 'Gjon', 'Gjin', 'Lesh' etc. or inhabitants with Slavic names but which have 'Arbanas', meaning Albanian, as a last name or cases where placenames of Albanian origin would have inhabitants with Slavic names such as the Arbanas village in the Toplica district.[3] Pulaha noted also the defter did not include the Dukagjini plain.[3]