Édessa

Edessa, known in the Middle Ages as Vodena, stood on the Via Egnatia where the road approached a mountain pass in western Macedonia. Watercourses crossed the town before plunging over the edge of its rocky height. Fortifications guarded a place repeatedly contested by Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian rulers, while churches and monasteries served the surrounding Christian community.

In 1351 Stefan Dušan's Serbs secured Vodena after a struggle with the Byzantines. The magnate Radoslav Hlapen later held it and gave it to his son-in-law Nikola Bagaš around 1366–1367. Bagaš endowed the monastery of Mesonesiotissa near the town with villages and churches in 1384. Toward the end of the century the Ottoman commander Evrenos captured Vodena, bringing the fortified town into a new political order.