Under Ottoman rule: until the end of the 18th century

This is how Konstantin Mihailović of Ostrovica recalls in his Memories of a Janissary the dramatic days when the army of Sultan Mehmed II (1451–1481) conquered 
\nNovo Brdo, the economic heart of the Serbian Despotate. According to the available sources, after Novo Brdo, the Ottoman Turks also captured Trepča, Plana, Zaplanina, Brvenik, Prizren, Bihor, Lipljan and multiple forts in the area of the Sitnica River. The details of these conquests remain unknown, other than Serbian chronicles noting that multitudes of Christian folk had been killed between the early spring and late summer of 1455 .In the 15th and 16th centuries, the effects of 
\nsuch large-scale military campaigns usually had a longterm negative impact on the birth rate. In Kosovo and Metohija, sources describe the abductions of women and children, the forced recruitment of young men into the Ottoman army, epidemics of the plague and other infectious diseases, famines and organized displacement of the population. In addition to demographic 
\nlosses, the Ottoman-Serbian conflict in the region of Kosovo and Metohija wreaked material damage too. Economic life and trade were temporarily halted; the 
\nproperty of many private individuals and institutions 
\nwas plundered; and dozens of churches and monuments of medieval Serbian and Byzantine culture were left in ruins. Buildings that served as symbols of the medieval Serbian state were in particular disfavor with the conquerors. The palace complex around the Svrčin 
\nLake is not mentioned in any sources after 1455 and all 
\ntraces of many other residential structures of the Serbian nobility and clergy vanished too. The Monastery of the Holy Archangels near Prizren, where Emperor 
\nDušan (1346–1355) was buried, was sacked and demolished. Severe damage was inflicted on the Monastery of Banjska, the endowment of King Milutin (1282–1321), 
\nwith its church, like the cathedral church of the Metropolitanate of Prizren, converted into a mosque; on the Church of the Virgin Ljeviška in Prizren; and on dozens of other religious buildings.