CHAPTER VI. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.

 CHAPTER VI.

THE  SPREAD  OF  ISLAM  AMONG  THE  CHRISTIAN  NATIONS IN  EUROPE   UNDER  THE  TURKS.

WE first hear of the Ottoman Turks at the commence­ment of the thirteenth century, when fleeing before the Mongols, to the number of about 50,000, they came to the help of the Sultan of Iconium, and in return for their services both against the Mongols and the Greeks, had assigned to them a district in the north-west of Asia Minor. This was the nucleus of the future Ottoman empire, which, increasing at first by the absorption of the petty states into which the Saljūq Turks had split up, afterwards crossed over into Europe, annexing kingdom after kingdom, until its victori­ous growth received a check before the gates of Vienna in 1683.[1]

From the earliest days of the extension of their kingdom in Asia Minor, the Ottomans exercised authority over Christian subjects, but it was not until the ancient capital of the Eastern empire fell into their hands in 1453 that the relations between the Muslim Government and the Christian Church were definitely established on a fixed basis. One of the first steps taken by Muhammad II, after the capture of Constantinople and the re-establishment of order in that city, was to secure the allegiance of the Christians, by proclaiming himself the protector of the Greek Church. Persecution of the Christians was strictly forbidden; a decree was granted to the newly elected patriarch which secured to him and his successors and the bishops under him, the enjoyment of the old privileges, revenues and exemptions enjoyed under the former rule. Gennadios, the first patriarch after the Turkish conquest, received from the hands of the Sultan himself the pastoral staff, which was the sign of his office, together with a purse of a thousand golden ducats and a horse with gorgeous trappings, on which he was privileged to ride with his train through the city.[2] But not only was the head of the Church treated with all the respect he had been accustomed to receive from the Christian emperors, but further he was invested with extensive civil power. The patriarch's court sat to decide all cases between Greek and Greek : it could impose fines, imprison offenders in a prison provided for its own special use, and in some cases even condemn to capital punishment: while the ministers and officials of the government were directed to enforce its judgments. The complete control of spiritual and ecclesi­astical matters (in which the Turkish government, unlike the civil power of the Byzantine empire, never interfered), was left entirely in his hands and those of the grand Synod which he could summon whenever he pleased; and hereby he could decide all matters of faith and dogma without fear of interference on the part of the state. As a recognised officer of the imperial government, he could do much for the alleviation of the oppressed, by bringing the acts of unjust governors to the notice of the Sultan. The Greek bishops in the provinces in their turn were treated with great consideration and were entrusted with so much jurisdiction in civil affairs, that up to modern times they have acted in their dioceses almost as if they were Ottoman prefects over the orthodox population, thus taking the place of the old Christian aristocracy which had been exterminated by the conquerors, and we find that the higher clergy were generally more active as Turkish agents than as Greek priests, and they always taught their people that the Sultan possessed a divine sanction, as the protector of the Orthodox Church. A charter was subsequently published, securing to the orthodox the use of such churches as had not been confiscated to form mosques, and authorising them to celebrate their religious rites publicly according to their national usages.[3]

Consequently, though the Greeks were numerically superior to the Turks in all the European provinces of the empire, the religious toleration thus granted them, and the protection of life and property they enjoyed, soon reconciled them to the change of masters and led them to prefer the domination of the Sultan to that of any Christian power. Indeed, in many parts of the country, the Ottoman con­querors were welcomed by the Greeks as their deliverers from the rapacious and tyrannous rule of the Franks and the Venetians who had so long disputed with Byzantium for the possession of the Peloponnesos and some of the adjacent parts of Greece; by introducing into Greece the feudal system, these had reduced the people to the miserable condition of serfs, and as aliens in speech, race and creed, were hated by their subjects,[4] to whom a change of rulers, since it could not make their condition worse, would offer a possible chance of improving it, and though their deliverers were likewise aliens, yet the infidel Turk was infinitely to be preferred to the heretical Catholics.[5] The Greeks who lived under the immediate government of the Byzantine court, were equally unlikely to be averse to a change of rulers. The degradation and tyranny that characterised the dynasty of the Palæologi are frightful to contemplate. "A corrupt aristocracy, a tyrannical and innumerable clergy, the oppression of perverted law, the exactions of a despicable government, and still more, its monopolies, its fiscality, its armies of tax and custom collectors, left the degraded people neither rights nor institutions, neither chance of amelioration nor hope of redress."[6] Lest such a judgment appear dictated by a spirit of party bias, a contemporary authority may be appealed to in support of its correctness. The Russian annalists who speak of the fall of Constantinople bring a similar indictment against its government. " Without the fear of the law an empire is like a steed without reins. Constantine and his ancestors allowed their grandees to oppress the people; there was no more justice in their law courts; no more courage in their hearts; the judges amassed treasures from the tears and blood of the innocent; the Greek soldiers were proud only of the magnificence of their dress; the citizens did not blush at being traitors; the soldiers were not ashamed to fly. At length the Lord poured out His thunder on these un­worthy rulers, and raised up Muḥammad, whose warriors delight in battle, and whose judges do not betray their trust."[7] This last item of praise[8] may sound strange in the ears of a generation that has constantly been called upon to protest against Turkish injustice; but it is clearly and abundantly borne out by the testimony of contemporary historians. The Byzantine historian who has handed down to us the story of the capture of Constantinople tells us how even the impetuous Bāyazīd was liberal and generous to his Christian subjects, and made himself extremely popular among them by admitting them freely to his society.[9] Murād II distinguished himself by his attention to the administration of justice and by his reforms of the abuses prevalent under the Greek emperors, and punished without mercy those of his officials who oppressed any of his subjects.[10] For at least a century after the fall of Constantinople a series of able rulers secured, by a firm and vigorous admini­stration, peace and order throughout their dominions, and an admirable civil and judicial organisation, if it did not provide an absolutely impartial justice for Muslims and Christians alike, yet caused the Greeks to be far better off than they had been before. They were harassed by fewer exactions of forced labour, extraordinary contributions were rarely levied, and the taxes they paid were a trifling burden compared with the endless feudal obligations of the Franks and the countless extortions of the Byzantines. The Turkish dominions were certainly better governed and more prosperous than most parts of Christian Europe, and the mass of the Christian population engaged in the cultivation of the soil enjoyed a larger measure of private liberty and of the fruits of their labour, under the government of the Sultan than their contemporaries did under that of many Christian monarchs.[11] A great impulse, too, was given to the commerical activity of the country, for the early Sultans were always ready to foster trade and commerce among their subjects, and many of the great cities entered upon an era of prosperity when the Turkish conquest had delivered them from the paralysing fiscal oppression of the Byzantine empire, one of the first of them being Nicæa, which capitu­lated to Urkhān in 1330 under the most favourable terms after a long-protracted siege.[12] Like the ancient Romans, the Ottomans were great makers of roads and bridges, and thereby facilitated trade throughout their empire; and foreign states were compelled to admit the Greek merchants into ports from which they had been excluded in the time of the Byzantine emperors, but now sailing under the Ottoman flag, they assumed the dress and manners of Turks, and thus secured from the nations of Western Europe the respect .and consideration which the Catholics had hitherto always refused to the members of the Greek Church.[13]

There is, however, one notable exception to this general good treatment and toleration, viz. the tribute of Christian children, who were forcibly taken from their parents at an early age and enrolled in the famous corps of Janissaries. Instituted by Urkhān in 1330, it formed for centuries the mainstay of the despotic power of the Turkish Sultans, and was kept alive by a regular contribution exacted every four years,[14] when the officers of the Sultan visited the districts on which the tax was imposed, and made a selection from among the children about the age of seven. The Muhammadan legists attempted to apologise for this inhuman tribute by representing these children as the fifth of the spoil which the Qur'ān assigns to the sovereign,[15] and they prescribed that the injunction against forcible conversion[16] should be observed with regard to them also, although the tender age at which they were placed under the instruction of Muslim teachers must have made it practically of none effect.[17] Christian Europe has always expressed its horror at such a barbarous tax, and travellers in the Turkish dominions have painted touching pictures of desolated homes and of parents weeping for the children torn from their arms. But when the corps was first instituted, its numbers were rapidly swelled by voluntary accessions from among the Christians themselves,[18] and the circumstances under which this tribute was first imposed may go far to explain the apathy which the Greeks themselves appear to have exhibited. The whole country had been laid waste by war, and families were often in danger of perishing with hunger; the children who were thus adopted were in many cases orphans, who would otherwise have been left to perish; further, the custom so widely prevalent at that time of selling Christians as slaves may have made this tax appear less appalling than might have been expected. This custom has, moreover, been maintained to have been only a con­tinuation of a similar usage that was in force under the Byzantine emperors.[19] It has even been said that there was seldom any necessity of an appeal to force on the part of the officers who collected the appointed number of children, but rather that the parents were often eager to have their children enrolled in a service that secured for them in many cases a brilliant career, and under any circumstances a well-cared-for and comfortable existence, since these little captives were brought up and educated as if they were the Sultan's own children.[20] This institution appears in a less barbarous light if it be true that the parents could often redeem their children by a money payment.[21] Metrophanes Kritopoulos, who was Patriarch of Constantinople and afterwards of Alexandria, writing in 1625, mentions various devices adopted by the Christians for escaping from the burden of this tax, e. g. they purchased Muhammadan boys and represented them to be Christians, or they bribed the collectors to take Christian boys who were of low birth or had been badly brought up or such as " deserved hanging."[22]  Thomas Smith, among others, speaks of the possibility of buying off the children, so impressed: " Some of their parents, out of natural pity and out of a true sense of religion, that they may not be thus robbed of their children, who hereby lie under a necessity of renouncing their Christianity, compound for them at the rate of fifty or a hundred dollars, as they are able, or as they can work upon the covetousness of the Turks more or less."[23]  The Christians of certain cities, such as Constantinople, and of towns and islands that had made this stipulation at the time of their submission to the Turks, or had pur­chased this privilege, were exempted from the operation of this cruel tax.[24] These extenuating circumstances at the outset, and the ease with which men acquiesce in any established usage—though serving in no way as an excuse for so inhuman an institution—may help us to understand what a traveller in the seventeenth century calls the " un­accountable indifference "[25]  with which the Greeks seem to have fallen in with this demand of the new government, which so materially improved their condition.

Further, the Christian subjects of the Turkish empire had to pay the capitation-tax, in return for protection and in lieu of military service. The rates fixed by the Ottoman law were 2½, 5 and 10 piastres a head for every full-grown male, according to his income,[26] women and the clergy being exempt.[27] In the nineteenth century the rates were 15, 30 and 60 piastres, according to income.[28] Christian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries generally speak of this tax as being a ducat a head,[29] but it is also variously described as amounting to 3, 5 or 5 7/8 crowns or dollars.[30] The fluctuating exchange value of the Turkish coinage in the seventeenth century is the probable explanation of the latter variations. To estimate with any exactitude how far this tax was a burden to those who had to pay it, would require a lengthened disquisition on the purchasing value of money at that period and a comparison with other items of expenditure.[31] But by itself it could hardly have formed a valid excuse for a change of faith, as Tournefort points out, when writing in 1700 of the conversion of the Candiots: " It must be confessed, these Wretches sell their Souls a Pennyworth: all they get in exchange for their Religion, is a Vest, and the Privilege of being exempt from the Capitation-Tax, which is not above five Crowns a year."[32] Scheffler also, who is anxious to represent the condition of the Christians under Turkish rule in as black colours as possible, admits that the one ducat a head was a trifling matter, and has to lay stress on the extraordinary taxes, war contributions, etc., that they were called upon to pay.[33] The land taxes were the same both for Christians and Musalmans,[34] for the old dis­tinction between lands on which tithe was paid by the Muhammadan proprietor, and those on which kharāj was paid by the non-Muhammadan proprietor, was not recognised by the Ottomans.[35] Whatever sufferings the Christians had to endure proceeded from the tyranny of individuals, who took advantage of their official position to extort money from those under their jurisdiction. Such acts of oppression were not only contrary to the Muhammadan law, but were rare before the central government had grown weak and suffered the corruption and injustice of local authorities to go unpunished.[36] There is a very marked difference between the accounts we have of the condition of the Christians during the first two centuries of the Turkish rule in Europe and those of a later date, when the period of decadence had fully set in. But it is noticeable that in those very times in which the condition of the Christians had been most intolerable there is least record of conversion to Islam. In the eighteenth century, when the condition of the Christians was worse than at any other period, we find hardly any mention of conversions at all, and the Turks themselves are represented as utterly indifferent to the progress of their religion and considerably infected with scepticism and unbelief.[37] A further proof that their sufferings have been due to misgovernment rather than to religious persecution is the fact that Muslims and Christians suffered alike.[38] The Christians would, however, naturally be more exposed to extortion and ill-treatment owing to the difficulties that lay in the way of obtaining redress at law, and some of the poorest may thus have sought a relief from their sufferings in a change of faith.

But if we except the tribute of the children, to which the conquered Greeks seem to have submitted with so little show of resistance, and which owed its abolition, not to any revolt or insurrection against its continuance, but to the increase of the Turkish population and of the number of the renegades who were constantly entering the Sultan's service,[39]—the treatment of their Christian subjects by the Ottoman emperors—at least for two centuries after their conquest of Greece—exhibits a toleration such as was at that time quite unknown in the rest of Europe. The Calvinists of Hungary and Transylvania, and the Unitarians of the latter country, long preferred to submit to the Turks rather than fall into the hands of the fanatical house of Hapsburg;[40] and the Protestants of Silesia looked with longing eyes towards Turkey, and would gladly have purchased religious freedom at the price of submission to the Muslim rule.[41] It was to Turkey that the persecuted Spanish Jews fled for refuge in enormous numbers at the end of the fifteenth century,[42] and the Cossacks who belonged to the sect of the Old Believers and were persecuted by the Russian State Church, found in the dominions of the Sultan the toleration which their Christian brethren denied them.[43] Well might Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, congratulate himself when he saw the fearful atrocities that the Catholic Poles inflicted on the Russians of the Orthodox Eastern Church : " We all wept much over the thousands of martyrs who were killed by those impious wretches, the enemies of the faith, in these forty or fifty years. The number probably amounted to seventy or eighty thousand souls. O you infidels ! O you monsters of impurity ! O you hearts of stone ! What had the nuns and women done ? What the girls and boys and infant children, that you should murder them ? . . . And why do I pronounce them (the Poles) accursed ? Because they have shown themselves more debased and wicked than the corrupt worshippers of idols, by their cruel treatment of Christians, thinking to abolish the very name of Orthodox. God perpetuate the empire of the Turks for ever and ever ! For they take their impost, and enter into no account of religion, be their subjects Christians or Nazarenes, Jews or Samarians : whereas these accursed Poles were not content with taxes and tithes from the brethren of Christ, though willing to serve them; but they subjected them to the authority of the enemies of Christ, the tyrannical Jews, who did not even permit them to build churches, nor leave them any priests that knew the mysteries of their faith."[44] Even in Italy there were men who turned longing eyes towards the Turks in the hope that as their subjects they might enjoy the freedom and the toleration they despaired of enjoying under a Christian government.[45] It would seem, then, that Islam was not spread by force in the dominion of the Sultan of Turkey, and though the want of even-handed justice and the oppression of unscrupulous officials in the days of the empire's decline, may have driven some Christians to attempt to better their condition by a change of faith, such cases were rare in the first two centuries of the Turkish rule in Europe, to which period the mass of conversions belong. It would have been wonderful indeed if the ardour of pro­selytising that animated the Ottomans at this time had never carried them beyond the bounds of toleration estab­lished by their own laws. Yet it has been said by one who was a captive among them for twenty-two years that the Turks "compelled no one to renounce his faith."[46] Similar testimony is borne by others : an English gentleman who visited Turkey in the early part of the seventeenth century, tells us that " There is seldom any compulsion of conscience, and then not by death, where no criminal offence gives occasion."[47] Writing about thirty years later (in 1663), the author[48] of a Türcken-Schrifft says: " Meanwhile he (i.e. the Turk) wins (converts) by craft more than by force, and snatches away Christ by fraud out of the hearts of men. For the Turk, it is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity. . . . What then has become of the Christians ? They are not expelled from the country, neither are they forced to embrace the Turkish faith : then they must of themselves have been converted into Turks."

The Turks considered that the greatest kindness they could show a man was to bring him into the salvation of the faith of Islam,[49] and to this end they left no method of persuasion untried : a Dutch traveller of the sixteenth century, tells us that while he was admiring the great mosque of Santa Sophia, some Turks even tried to work upon his religious feelings through his aesthetic sense, saying to him, " If you become a Musalman, you will be able to come here every day of your life." About a century later, an English traveller[50]  had a similar experience : " Sometimes, out of an excess of zeal, they will ask a Christian civilly enough, as I have been asked myself in the Portico of Sancta Sophia, why will you not turn Musalman, and be as one of us ? " The public rejoicings that hailed the accession of a new convert to the faith, testify to the ardent love for souls which made these men such zealous proselytisers. The new Muslim was set upon a horse and led in triumph through the streets of the city. If he was known to be genuinely honest in his change of faith and had voluntarily entered the pale of Islam, or if he was a person of good position, he was received with high honour and some provision made for his support.[51] There was certainly abundant evidence for saying that " The Turks are preposterously zealous in pray­ing for the conversion, or perversion rather, of Christians to their irreligious religion: they pray heartily, and every day in their Temples, that Christians may imbrace the Alcoran, and become their Proselytes, in effecting of which they leave no means unassaied by fear and flattery, by punishments and rewards."[52]

These zealous efforts for winning converts were rendered the more effective by certain conditions of Christian society itself. Foremost among these was the degraded condition of the Greek Church. Side by side with the civil despotism of the Byzantine empire, had arisen an ecclesiastical despotism which had crushed all energy of intellectual life under the weight of a dogmatism that interdicted all dis­cussion in matters of morals and religion. The only thing that disturbed this lethargy was the fierce controversial war waged against the Latin Church with all the bitterness of theological polemics and race hatred. The religion of the people had degenerated into a scrupulous observance of outward forms, and the intense fervour of their devotion found an outlet in the worship of the Virgin and the saints, of pictures and relics. There were many who turned from a Church whose spiritual life had sunk so low, and weary of interminable discussions on such subtle points of doctrine as the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit, and such trivialities as the use of leavened and unleavened bread in the Blessed Sacrament, gladly accepted the clear and intelligible theistic teaching of Islam. We are told[53] of large numbers of persons being converted, not only from among the simple folk, but also learned men of every class, rank and condition; of how the Turks made a better provision for those monks and priests who embraced the Muslim creed, in order that their example might lead others to be converted. While Adrianople was still the Turkish capital (e. g. before 1453) the court was thronged with renegades, and they are said to have formed the majority of the magnates there.[54] Byzantine princes and others often passed over to the side of the Muhammadans, and received a ready welcome among them : one of the earliest of such cases dates from 1140 when a nephew of the emperor John Comnenes embraced Islam and married a daughter of Mas'ūd, the Sultan of Iconium.[55] After the fall of Constantinople, the upper classes of Christian society showed much more readiness to embrace Islam than the mass of the Greeks; among the converts we meet with several bearing the name of the late imperial family of the Palæologi, and the learned George Amiroutzes of Trebizond abandoned Christianity in his declining years, and the names of many other such individuals have found a record.[56] The new religion only demanded assent to its simple creed, " There is no god but God: Muhammad is the apostle of God "; as the above-mentioned writer[57] says, "The whole difficulty lies in this profession of faith. For if only a man can persuade himself that he is a worshipper of the One God, the poison of his error easily infects him under the guise of religion. This is the rock of offence on which many have struck and fallen into the snare that has brought perdition on their souls. This is the mill-stone that hung about the necks of many has plunged them into the pit of despair. For when these fools hear the Turks execrate idolatry and express their horror of every image and picture as though it were the fire of hell, and so continually profess and preach the worship of One God, there no longer remains any room for suspicion in their minds."

The faith of Islam would now be the natural refuge for those members of the Eastern Church who felt such yearnings after a purer and simpler form of doctrine as had given rise to the Paulician heresy so fiercely suppressed a few centuries before. This movement had been very largely a protest against the superstitions of the Orthodox Church, against the worship of images, relics and saints, and an effort after simplicity of faith and the devout life. As some adherents of this heresy were to be found in Bulgaria even so late as the seventeenth century,[58] the Muhammadan conquerors doubt­less found many who were dissatisfied with the doctrine and practice of the Greek Church;. and as all the conditions were unfavourable to the formation of any such Protestant Churches as arose in the West, such dissentient spirits would doubtless find a more congenial atmosphere in the religion of Islam. There is every reason to think that such was the result of the unsuccessful attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The guiding spirit of this movement was Cyril Lucaris, five times Patriarch of Constantinople, from 1621 to 1638; as a young man he had visited the Universities of Wittenberg and Geneva, for the purpose of studying theology in the seats of Protestant learning, and on his return he kept up a correspondence with doctors of the reformed faith in Geneva, Holland and England. But neither the doctrines of the Church of England nor of the Lutherans attracted his sympathies so warmly as the teachings of John Calvin,[59] which he strove to introduce into the Greek Church; his efforts in this direction were warmly supported by the Calvinists of Geneva, who sent a learned young theologian, named Leger, to assist the work by translating into Greek the writings of Calvinist theologians.[60] Cyril also found warm friends in the Protestant embassies at Constantinople, the Dutch and English ambassadors especially assisting him liberally with funds; the Jesuits, on the other hand, sup­ported by the Catholic ambassadors, tried in every way to thwart this attempt to Calvinise the Greek Church, and actively seconded the intrigues of the party of opposition among the Greek clergy, who finally compassed the death of the Patriarch. In 1629 Cyril published a Confession of Faith, the main object of which seems to have been to present the doctrines of the Orthodox Church in their opposition to Roman Catholicism in such a way as to imply a necessary accord with Protestant teaching.[61] From Calvin he borrows the doctrines of Predestination and salvation by faith alone, he denies the infallibility of the Church, rejects the authority of the Church in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, and condemns the adoration of pictures : in his account of the will and in many other questions, he inclines rather to Cal­vinism than to the teachings of the Orthodox Church.[62] The promulgation of this Confession of Faith as representing the teaching of the whole Church of which he was the spiritual head, excited violent opposition among the mass of the Greek clergy, and a few weeks after Cyril's death a synod was held to condemn his opinions and pronounce him to be Anathema; in 1642 a second synod was held at Constanti­nople for the same purpose, which after refuting each article of Cyril's Confession in detail, as the first had done, thus fulminated its curse upon him and his followers :—" With one consent and in unqualified terms, we condemn this whole Confession as full of heresies and utterly opposed to our orthodoxy, and likewise declare that its compiler has nothing in common with our faith, but in calumnious fashion has falsely charged his own Calvinism on us. All those who read and keep it as true and blameless, and defend it by written word or speech, we thrust out of the community of the faith­ful as followers and partakers of his heresy and corruptors of the Christian Church, and command that whatever be their rank and station, they be treated as heathen and publicans. Let them be laid under an anathema for ever and cut off from the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in this life and in the life to come, accursed, excommunicated, be lost after death, and be partakers of everlasting punish­ment."[63] In 1672 a third synod met at Jerusalem to re­pudiate the heretical articles of this Confession of Faith and vindicate the orthodoxy of the Greek Church against those who represented  her as infected  with  Calvinism.   The attempt to Protestantise the Greek Church thus completely failed to achieve success:   the doctrines of Calvin were diametrically opposed to her teachings, and indeed incul­cated many articles of faith that were more in harmony with the tenets of Muslim theologians than with those of the Orthodox Church, and which moreover she had often at­tacked in her controversies with her Muhammadan adver­saries. It is this approximation to Islamic thought which gives this movement towards Calvinism a place in a history of the spread of Islam;  a man who inveighed against the adoration of pictures, decried the authority and the very institution of the priesthood, maintained the doctrines of absolute Predestination, denied freedom to the human will and was in sympathy with the stern spirit of Calvinism that had more in common with the Old than the New Testament —would certainly find a more congenial atmosphere in Islam than in the Greek Church of the seventeenth century, and there can be little doubt that among the numerous converts of Islam during that century were to be found men who had been alienated from the Church of their fathers through their leanings towards Calvinism.[64]   We have no definite information as to the number of the followers of Cyril Lucaris and the extent of Calvinistic influences in the Greek Church; the clergy, jealous of the reputation of their Church, whose orthodoxy and immunity from heresy were so boastfully vindicated by her children, and had thus been impugned through the suspicion of Calvinism, wished to represent the heretical patriarch as standing alone in his opinions.[65]   But  a   following  he  undoubtedly had: his Confession of Faith had received the sanction of a synod composed of his followers;[66] those who sympathised with his heresies were anathematised both by the second synod of Constantinople (1642) and by the synod of Jerusalem (1672)[67]—surely  a  meaningless  repetition,  had  no  such persons existed; moreover the names of some few of these have come down to us : Sophronius, Metropolitan of Athens, was a warm supporter of the Reformation;[68] a monk named Nicodemus Metaras, who had brought a printing-press from London and issued heretical treatises therefrom, was re­warded with a metropolitan see by Cyril in return for his services;[69] the philosopher Corydaleus, a friend of Cyril, opened a Calvinistic school in Constantinople, and another Greek, Gerganos, published a Catechism so as to introduce the teachings of Calvin among his fellow-countrymen;[70] and Neophytus II, who was made Patriarch in 1636, while Cyril was in exile in the island of Rhodes, was his disciple and adopted son; he recalled his master from banishment and resigned the patriarchal chair in his favour.[71] In a letter to the University of Geneva (dated July, 1636), Cyril writes that Leger had gained a large number of converts to Calvinism by his writings and preaching;[72] in another letter addressed to Leger, he describes how he had made his in­fluence felt in Candia.[73] His successor[74] in the patriarchal chair was banished to Carthage and there strangled by the adherents of Lucaris in 1639.[75] The Calvinists are said to have entertained hopes of Parthenius I (the successor of Cyril II), but his untimely end (whether by poison or banishment is uncertain) disappointed their expecta­tions.[76] Parthenius II, who was Patriarch of Constan­tinople from 1644 to 1646, was at heart a thorough Calvinist, and though he did not venture openly to teach the doctrines of Calvin, still his known sympathy with them caused him to be deposed, sent into exile and strangled.[77] Thus the influence of Calvinism was un­doubtedly more widespread than the enemies of Cyril Lucaris were willing to admit, and as stated above, those who refused to bow to the anathemas of the synods that condemned their leader, had certainly more in common with their Muhammadan neighbours than with the Orthodox clergy who cast them out of their midst. There is no actual evidence, it is true, of Calvinistic influences in Turkey facilitating conversion to Islam,[78] but in the absence of any other explanation it certainly seems a very plausible con­jecture that such were among the factors that so enormously increased the number of the Greek renegades towards the middle of the seventeenth century—a period during which the number of renegades from among the middle and lower orders of society is said to have been more considerable than at any other time.[79] Frequent mention is made of cases of apostasy from among the clergy, and even among the highest dignitaries of the Church, such as a former Metro­politan of Rhodes.[80] In 1676 it is said that in Corinth some Christian people went over every day to "the Turkish abomination," and that three priests had become Musalmans the year before;[81] in 1679 is recorded the death of a renegade monk.[82] On the occasion of the circumcision of Mustafā, son of Muhammad IV, in 1675, there were at least two hundred proselytes made during the thirteen days of public rejoicing,[83] and numerous other instances may be found in writings of this period. A contemporary writer (1663) has well described the mental attitude of such con­verts. " When you mix with the Turks in the ordinary intercourse of life and see that they pray and sing even the Psalms of David; that they give alms and do other good works; that they think highly of Christ, hold the Bible in great honour, and the like; that, besides, any ass may become parish priest who plies the Bassa with presents, and he will not urge Christianity on you very much; so you will come to think that they are good people and will very probably be saved; and so you will come to believe that you too may be saved, if you likewise become Turks. Herewith will the Holy Trinity and the crucified Son of God, with many other mysteries of the faith, which seem quite absurd to the un­enlightened reason, easily pass out of your thoughts, and imperceptibly Christianity will quite die out in you, and you will think that it is all the same whether you be Christians or Turks."[84]

Thomas Smith, who was in Constantinople in 1669, speaks of the number of Christian converts about this period, but assigns baser motives. “'Tis sad to consider the great number of wretched people, who turn Turks; some out of meer desperation; being not able to support the burthen of slavery, and to avoid the revilings and insultings of the Infidels; some out of a wanton light humour, to put themselves into a condition of domineering and insulting over others . . . some to avoid the penalties and inflictions due to their heinous crimes, and to enjoy the brutish liberties, that Mahomet consecrated by his own example, and recom­mended to his followers. These are the great and tempting arguments and motives of their apostasy, meer considera­tions of ease, pleasure and prosperity, or else of vanity and guilt; for it cannot be presumed, that any through conviction of mind should be wrought upon to embrace the dotages and impostures of Turcisme."[85] Records of conversions after this period are rare, but Motraye gives an account of several renegades, who became Muhammadans in Constantinople in 1703; among them was a French priest and some other French Catholics, and some priests from Smyrna.[86]

Another feature in the condition of the Greek Church that contributed to the decay of its numbers, was the corruption and degradation of its pastors, particularly the higher clergy. The sees of bishops and archbishops were put up to auction to the highest bidders, and the purchasers sought to recoup themselves by exacting levies of all kinds from their flocks; they burdened the unfortunate Christians with taxes ordinary and extraordinary, made them purchase all the sacraments at exorbitant rates, baptism, confession, holy communion, indulgences, and the right of Christian burial. Some of the clergy even formed an unholy alliance with the Janissaries, and several bishops had their names and those of their households inscribed on the list of one of their Ortas or regiments, the better to secure an immunity for their excesses and escape the punishment of their crimes under the protection of this corporation which the weakness of the Ottoman rulers had allowed to assume such a powerful position in the state.[87] The evidence of contemporary eye­witnesses to the oppressive behaviour of the Greek clergy presents a terrible picture of the sufferings of the Christians. Tournefort in 1700, after describing the election of a new Patriarch, says; "We need not at all doubt but the new Patriarch makes the best of his time. Tyranny succeeds to Simony : the first thing he does is to signify the Sultan's order to all the Archbishops and Bishops of his clergy : his greatest study is to know exactly the revenues of each Prelate; he imposes a tax upon them, and enjoins them very strictly by a second letter to send the sum demanded, otherwise their dioceses are adjudg'd to the highest bidder. The Prelates being used to this trade, never spare their Suffragans; these latter torment the Papas : the Papas flea the Parishioners and hardly sprinkle the least drop of Holy Water, but what they are paid for beforehand. If afterwards the Patriarch has occasion for money, he farms out the gathering of it to the highest bidder among the Turks: he that gives most for it, goes into Greece to cite the Prelates. Usually for twenty thousand crowns that the clergy is tax'd at, the Turk extorts two and twenty; so that he has the two thousand crowns for his pains, besides having his charges borne in every diocese. In virtue of the agreement he has made with the Patriarch, he deprives and interdicts from all ecclesiastical functions, those prelates who refuse to pay their tax."[88] The Christian clergy are even said to have carried off the children of the parishioners and sold them as slaves, to get money for their simoniacal designs.[89]

The extortions practised in the seventeenth have found their counterpart in the nineteenth century, and the suffer­ings of the Christians of the Greek Church in Bosnia, before the Austrian occupation, exactly illustrate the words of Tournefort. The Metropolitan of Serajevo used to wring as much as £10,000 a year from his miserable flock—a sum exactly double the salary of the Turkish Governor himself— and to raise this enormous sum the unfortunate parishioners were squeezed in every possible way, and the Turkish authorities had orders to assist the clergy in levying their exactions; and whole Christian villages suffered the fate of sacked cities, for refusing, or often being unable, to comply with the exorbitant demands of Christian Prelates.[90] Such unbearable oppression on the part of the spiritual leaders who should protect the Christian population, has often stirred it up to open revolt, whenever a favourable opportunity has offered itself.[91] It is not surprising then to learn that many of the Christians went over to Islam, to deliver themselves from such tyranny.[92]

Ecclesiastical oppression of a rather different character is said to have been responsible for the conversion of the ancestors of a small community of about 4000 Southern Rumanians, at Noanta in the Meglen district of the vilayet of Salonika; they have a tradition that in the eighteenth century the Patriarch of Constantinople persuaded the reigning Sultan that only the Christians who spoke Greek could be loyal subjects of the Turkish empire; the Sultan thereupon forbade the Christians to speak anything but Greek, on pain of having their tongues cut out; when the news of this reached Noanta, a part of the population fled into the woods and founded fresh villages, but those who were left behind went over to Islam, with their bishop at their head, in order thereby to retain their mother-tongue.[93]

Though the mass of the parish clergy were innocent of the charges brought against their superiors,[94] still they were very ignorant and illiterate. At the end of the seventeenth century, there were said to be hardly twelve persons in the whole Turkish dominions thoroughly skilled in the knowledge of the ancient Greek language; it was considered a great merit in the clergy to be able to read, while they were quite ignorant of the meaning of the words of their service-books.[95]

While there was so much in the Christian society of the time to repel, there was much in the character and life of the Turks to attract, and the superiority of the early Otto­mans as compared with the degradation of the guides and teachers of the Christian Church would naturally impress devout minds that revolted from the selfish ambition, simony and corruption of the Greek ecclesiastics. Christian writers constantly praise these Turks for the earnestness and intensity of their religious life; their zeal in the performance of the observances prescribed by their faith; the outward decency and modesty displayed in their apparel and mode of living; the absence of ostentatious display and the sim­plicity of life observable even in the great and powerful.[96] The annalist of the embassy from the Emperor Leopold I to the Ottoman Porte in 1665-1666, especially eulogises the devoutness and regularity of the Turks in prayer, and he even goes so far as to say, " Nous devons dire à la confusion des Chrêtiens, que les Turcs têmoignent beaucoup plus de soin et de zèle à 1'exercice de leur Religion : que les Chrêtiens n'en font paroître à la pratique de la leur. . . . Mais ce qui passe tout ce que nous experimentons de dévot entre les Chrêtiens : c'est que pendant le tems de la prière, vous ne voyez pas une personne distraite de ses yeux : vous n'en voyez pas une qui ne soit attachée à l'objet de sa prière: et pas une qui n'ait toute la révérence extérieure pour son Créateur, qu'on peut exiger de la Créature."[97]

Even the behaviour of the soldiery receives its meed of praise. During the march of an army the inhabitants of the country, we are told by the secretary to the Embassy sent by Charles II to the Sultan, had no complaints to make of being plundered or of their women being maltreated. All the taverns along the line of march were shut up and sealed two or three days before the arrival of the army, and no wine was allowed to be sold to the soldiers under pain of death.[98]

Many a tribute of praise is given to the virtues of the Turks even by Christian writers who bore them no love ; one such who had a very poor opinion of their religion,[99] speaks of them as follows :—" Even in the dirt of the Alcoran you shall find some jewels of Christian Virtues; and indeed if Christians will but diligently read and observe the Laws and Histories of the Mahometans, they may blush to see how zealous they are in the works of devotion, piety, and charity, how devout, cleanly, and reverend in their Mosques, how obedient to their Priest, that even the great Turk himself will attempt nothing without consulting his Mufti; how careful are they to observe their hours of prayer five times a day wherever they are, or however employed ? how constantly do they observe their Fasts from morning till night a whole month together; how loving and charitable the Muslemans are to each other, and how careful of strangers may be seen by their Hospitals, both for the Poor and for Travellers; if we observe their Justice, Temperance, and other moral Vertues, we may truly blush at our own cold­ness, both in devotion and charity, at our injustice, intem­perance, and oppression; doubtless these Men will rise up in judgment against us; and surely their devotion, piety and works of mercy are main causes of the growth of Mahometism."

The same conclusion is drawn by a modern historian,[100] who writes:—" We find that many Greeks of high talent and moral character were so sensible of the superiority of the Mohammedans, that even when they escaped being drafted into the Sultan's household as tribute-children, they voluntarily embraced the faith of Mahomet. The moral superiority of Othoman society must be allowed to have had as much weight in causing these conversions, which were numerous in the fifteenth century, as the personal ambition of individuals."

A generation that has watched the decay of the Turkish power in Europe and the successive curtailment of its territorial possessions, and is accustomed to hearing it spoken of as the " sick man," destined to a speedy dissolu­tion, must find it difficult to realise the feelings which the Ottoman empire inspired in the early days of its rise in Europe. The rapid and widespread success of the Turkish arms filled men's minds with terror and amazement. One Christian kingdom after another fell into their hands: Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, and Hungary yielded up their independence as Christian states. The proud Republic of Venice saw one possession after another wrested from it, until the Lion of St. Mark held sway on the shores of the Adriatic alone. Even the safety of the Eternal City itself was menaced by the capture of Otranto. Christian literature of the latter half of the fifteenth and of the sixteenth centuries is full of direful forebodings of the fate that threatened Christian Europe unless the victorious progress of the Turk was arrested; he is represented as a scourge in the hand of God for the punishment of the sins and back-slidings of His people,[101] or on the other hand as the unloosed power of the Devil working for the destruction of Christianity under the hypocritical guise of religion. But—what is most important to notice here—some men began to ask themselves, "Is it possible that God would allow the Muhammadans to increase in such countless numbers with­out good reason ? Is it conceivable that so many thousands are to be damned like one man ? How can such multitudes be opposed to the true faith ? since truth is stronger than error and is more loved and desired by all men, it is not possible for so many men to be fighting against it. How could they prevail against truth, since God always helps and upholds the truth ? How could their religion so marvel­lously increase, if built upon the rotten foundation of error?"[102] Such thoughts, we are told, appealed strongly to the Christian peoples that lived under the Turkish rule, and with especial force to the unhappy Christian captives who watched the years drag wearily on without hope of release or respite from their misery. Can we be surprised when we find such a one asking himself ? " Surely if God were pleased with the faith to which you have clung, He would not have thus abandoned you, but would have helped you to gain your freedom and return to it again. But as He has closed every avenue of freedom to you, perchance it is His pleasure that you should leave it and join this sect and be saved therein."[103]

The Christian slave who thus describes the doubts that arose in his mind as the slow-passing years brought no relief, doubtless gives expression here to thoughts that suggested themselves to many a hapless Christian captive with over­whelming persistency, until at last he broke away from the ties of his old faith and embraced Islam. Many who would have been ready to die as martyrs for the Christian religion if the mythical choice between the Qur'ān and the sword had been offered them, felt more and more strongly, after long years of captivity, the influence of Muhammadan thought and practice, and humanity won converts where violence would have failed.[104] For though the lot of many of the Christian captives was a very pitiable one, others who held positions in the households of private individuals, were often no worse off than domestic servants in the rest of Europe. 

As organised by the Muhammadan Law, slavery was robbed of many of its harshest features, nor in Turkey at least does it seem to have been accompanied by such barbarities and atrocities as in the pirate states of Northern Africa. The slaves, like other citizens, had their rights, and it is even said that a slave might summon his master before the Qādī for ill usage, and that if he alleged that their tempers were so opposite, that it was impossible for them to agree, the Qādī could oblige his master to sell him.[105] The condition of the Christian captives naturally varied with circum­stances and their own capabilities of adapting themselves to a life of hardship; the aged, the priests and monks, and those of noble birth suffered most, while the physician and the handicraftsman received more considerate treatment from their masters, as being servants that best repaid the money spent upon them.[106] The galley-slaves naturally suffered most of all, indeed the kindest treatment could have but little relieved the hardships incident to such an occupation.[107] Further, the lot of the slaves who were state property was more pitiable than that of those who had been purchased by private individuals.[108] As a rule they were allowed the free exercise of their religion; in the state-prisons at Constantinople, they had their own priests and chapels, and the clergy were allowed to administer the con­solations of religion to the galley-slaves.[109]  The number of the Christian slaves who embraced Islam was enormous; some few cases have been recorded of their being threatened and ill-treated for the very purpose of inducing them to recant, but as a rule the masters seldom forced them to renounce their faith,[110] and put the greatest pressure upon them during the first years of their captivity, after which they let them alone to follow their own faith.[111] The majority of the converted slaves therefore changed their religion of their own free choice; and when the Christian embassies were never sure from day to day that some of their fellow-countrymen that had accompanied them to Constantinople as domestic servants, might not turn Turk,[112] it can easily be understood that slaves who had lost all hope of return to their native country, and found little in their surroundings to strengthen and continue the teachings of their earlier years, would yield to the influences that beset them and would feel few restraints to hinder them from entering a new society and a new religion. An English traveller[113] of the seventeenth century has said of them: " Few ever return to their native country; and fewer have the courage and constancy of retaining the Christian Faith, in which they were educated; their education being but mean, and their knowledge but slight in the principles and grounds of it; whereof some are frightened into Turcism by their impatience and too deep resentments of the hardships of the servitude; others are enticed by the blandishments and flatteries of pleasure the Mahometan Law allows, and the allurements they have of making their condition better and more easy by a change of their Religion; having no hope left of being redeemed, they renounce their Saviour and their Christianity, and soon forget their original country, and are no longer looked upon as strangers, but pass for natives."

Much of course depended upon the individual character of the different Christian slaves themselves. The anony­mous writer, so often quoted above, whose long captivity made him so competent to speak on their condition, divides them into three classes :—first, those who passed their days in all simplicity, not caring to trouble themselves to learn anything about the religion of their masters; for them it was enough to know that the Turks were infidels, and so, as far as their captive condition and their yoke of slavery allowed, they avoided having anything to do with them and their religious worship, fearing lest they should be led astray by their errors, and striving to observe the Christian faith as far as their knowledge and power went. The second class consisted of those whose curiosity led them to study and investigate the doings of the Turks : if, by the help of God, they had time enough to dive into their secrets, and understanding enough for the investigation of them and light of reason to find the interpretation thereof, they not only came out of the trial unscathed, but had their own faith strengthened. The third class includes those who, examining the Muslim religion without due caution, fail to dive into its depths and find the interpretation of it and so are deceived; believing the errors of the Turks to be the truth, they lose their own faith and embrace the false religion of the Muslims, hereby not only compassing their own destruction, but setting a bad example to others : of such men the number is infinite.[114]

Conversion to Islam did not, as some writers have affirmed, release the slave from his captivity and make him a free man,[115] for emancipation was solely at the discretion of the master; who indeed often promised to set any slave free, without the payment of ransom, if only he would embrace Islam;[116]  but, on the other hand, would also freely emancipate the Christian slave, even though he had persevered in his religion, provided he had proved himself a faithful servant, and would make provision for his old age.[117]

There were many others who, like the Christian slaves, separated from early surroundings and associations, found themselves cut loose from old ties and thrown into the midst of a society animated by social and religious ideals of an entirely novel character. The crowds of Christian work­men that came wandering from the conquered countries in the fifteenth century to Adrianople and other Turkish cities in search of employment, were easily persuaded to settle there and adopt the faith of Islam.[118] Similarly the Christian families that Muhammad II transported from conquered provinces in Europe into Asia Minor,[119] may well have become merged into the mass of the Muslim population by almost imperceptible degrees, as was the case with the Armenians carried away into Persia by Shāh 'Abbas I (1587-1629), most of whom appear to have passed over to Islam in the second generation.[120]

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there would seem to have been a decay of the missionary spirit among the Turks, but the latter years of the reign of Sultan 'Abd al-Ḥamīd witnessed a renewed interest in Muslim propaganda, and Turkish newspapers began to record instances of conversion. Among the most noteworthy of such converts were some eighteen amīrs of the princely family of Shihāb in Mount Lebanon, which had been Christian for about a century; they are said to claim descent from the Quraysh, and the Turks made every effort to bring them back to the fold of Islam; those who became Muslims were appointed to lucrative posts in the Turkish civil service.[121]

In the following pages it is proposed to give a more detailed and particular account of the spread of Islam among the Christian populations of Albania, Servia, Bosnia and Crete, as the history of each of these countries after its con­quest by the Ottomans presents some special features of interest in the history of the propagation of Islam.

The Albanians, with the exception of some settlements in Greece,[122] inhabit the mountainous country that stretches along the east shore of the Adriatic from Montenegro to the Gulf of Arta. They form one of the oldest and purest-blooded races in Europe and are said to belong to the Pelasgic branch of the Aryan stock.

Their country was first invaded by the Turks in 1387, but the Turkish forces soon had to withdraw, and the authority of the Sultan was recognised for the first time in 1423. For a short period Albania regained its independence under George Kastriota, who is better known under his Muhammadan name of Scanderbeg or Sikandarbeg. Recent investi­gations have established the falsity of the romantic fictions that had gathered round the story of his early days—how that as a boy he had been surrendered as a hostage to the Turks, had been brought up among them as a Muslim and had won the special favour of the Sultan. The truth is, that the days of his youth were passed in his native mountains and his warfare with the Turks began with the victory gained over them in 1444; for more than twenty years he maintained a vigorous and successful resistance to their invading forces, but after his death in 1467, the Turks began again to take possession of Albania. Krūya, the capital of the Kastriot dynasty, fell into their hands eleven years later, and from this date there appears to have been no organised resistance of the whole country, though revolts were frequent and the subjection of the country was never complete. Some of the sea-port towns held out much longer; Durazzo was captured in 1501, while Antivari, the northernmost point of the sea-coast of Albania, did not surrender until 1571. The terms of capitulation were that the city should retain its old laws and magistrature, that there should be free and public exercise of the Christian religion, that the churches and chapels should remain uninjured and might be rebuilt if they fell into decay; that the citizens should retain all their movable and immovable property and should not be burdened by any additional taxation.

The Albanians under Turkish rule appear always to have maintained a kind of semi-autonomy, and the several tribes and clans remained as essentially independent as they were before the conquest. Though vassals of the Sultans, they would not brook the interference of Turkish officials in their internal administration, and there is reason to believe that the Turkish Government has never been able to appoint or confirm any provincial governor who was not a native of Albania, and had not already established his influence by his arms, policy or connections.[123] Their racial pride is intense, and to the present day, the Albanian, if asked what he is, will call himself a Skipetar,[124] before saying whether he is a Christian or a Muhammadan—a very remarkable instance of national feeling obliterating the fierce distinction between these two religions that so forcibly obtrudes itself in the rest of the Ottoman empire. The Christian and Muhammadan Albanians alike, just as they speak the same language, so do they cherish the same traditions, and observe the same manners and customs; and pride in their common nationality has been too strong a bond to allow differences of religious belief to split the nation into separate communities on this basis.[125] Side by side they served in the irregular troops, which soon after the Turkish conquest became the main dependence of the government in all its internal administration, and both classes found the same ready employment in the service of the local pashas, being accounted the bravest soldiers in the empire. Christian Albanians served in the Ottoman army in the Crimean War,[126] and though they have perhaps been a little more quiet and agricultural than their Muslim fellow-countrymen, still the difference has been small: they have always retained their arms and military habits, have always displayed the same fierce, proud, untameable spirit, and been animated with the same intense national feeling as their brethren who had embraced the creed of the Prophet.[127]

The consideration of these facts is of importance in tracing the spread of Islam in Albania, for it appears to have been propagated very gradually by the people of the country themselves, and not under pressure of foreign influences. The details that we possess of this movement are very meagre, as the history of Albania from the close of the fifteenth century to the rise of 'Alī Pasha three hundred years later, is almost a blank; what knowledge we have, therefore, of the slow but continuous accession of converts to Islam during this period, is derived from the ecclesiastical chronicles of the various dioceses,[128] and the reports sent in from time to time to the Pope and the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide.[129] But it goes without saying that the very nature of these sources gives the information derived from them the stamp of imperfection—especially in the matter of the motives assigned for conversion. For an ecclesiastic of those times to have even entertained the possibility of a conversion to Islam from genuine conviction —much less have openly expressed such an opinion in writing to his superiors—is well-nigh inconceivable.

During the sixteenth century, Islam appears to have made but little progress, though the tide of conversion had already set in. In 1610 the Christian population exceeded the Muhammadan in the proportion of ten to one,[130] and as most of the villages were inhabited by Christians, with a very small admixture of Muhammadans,[131] the conversions appear to have been more frequent in the large towns. In Antivari, for example, while many Christians elected to emigrate into the neighbouring Christian countries, the majority of those who remained, both high-born and low, went over gradually to the Muslim faith, so that the Christian population grew less and less day by day.[132] As the number of accessions to Islam increased, churches were converted into mosques— a measure which, though contrary to the terms of the capitulation, seems justified by the change in the religion of the people.[133] In 1610 two collegiate churches only re­mained in the hands of the Latin Christians, but these appear to have sufficed for the needs of the community;[134] what this amounted to can only roughly be guessed from the words of Marco Bizzi: " There are about 600 houses inhabited indiscriminately by Muhammadans and Christians—both Latin and Schismatics (i.e. of the Orthodox Greek Church) : the number of the Muhammadans is a little in excess of the Christians, and that of the Latins in excess of the Schismatics."

In the accounts we have of the social relations between the Christians and the Muslims, and in the absence of any sharp line of demarcation between the two communities, we find some clue to the manner in which Muhammadan influences gradually gained converts from among the Christian population in proportion as the vigour and the spiritual life of the Church declined. 

It had become very common for Christian parents to give their daughters in marriage to Muhammadans, and for Christian women to make no objection to such unions.[135] The male children born of these mixed marriages were brought up as Musalmans, but the girls were allowed to follow the religion of their mother.[136] Such permission was rendered practically ineffective by the action of the Christian ecclesiastics, who ordered the mothers to be excluded from the churches and from participation in the sacraments;[137] and consequently (though the parish priests often dis­regarded the commands of their superiors) many of these women embraced the faith of their husbands. But even then they kept up a superstitious observance of the rite of baptism, which was supposed to be a sovereign specific against leprosy, witches and wolves,[138] and Christian priests were found ready to pander to this superstition for any Muhammadan woman who wished to have her children baptised.[139] This good feeling between the members of the two religions[140] is similarly illustrated by the attendance of Muhammadans at the festivals of Christian saints; e. g. Marco Bizzi says that on the feast-day of St. Elias (for whom the Albanians appear to have had a special devotion) there were as many Muhammadans present in the church as Christians.[141] Even to the present day we are told that Albanian Muhammadans revere the Virgin Mary and the Christian saints, and make pilgrimages to their shrines, while Christians on the other hand resort to the tombs of Muslim saints for the cure of ailments or in fulfilment of vows.[142] In the town of Calevacci, where there were sixty Christian and ten Muhammadan households, the followers of the Prophet contributed towards the support of the parish priest, as the majority of them had Christian wives.[143] Under such circumstances it is hardly surprising to learn that many openly professed Islam, while satisfying their consciences by saying that they professed Christianity in their hearts.[144] Marco Bizzi has three explanations to offer for such a lapse— the attraction of worldly advantage, the desire to avoid the payment of tribute, and the want of a sufficiently large number of intelligent clergy to supply the spiritual needs of the country.[145] Conversions are frequently ascribed to the pressure of the burden of taxation imposed upon the Chris­tians, and whole villages are said to have apostatised to avoid payment of the tribute. As no details are given, it is impossible to judge whether there was really sufficient ground for the complaint, or whether this was not the apology for their conduct alleged by the renegades in order to make some kind of excuse to their former co-religionists— or indeed an exaggeration on the part of ecclesiastics to whom a genuine conversion to Islam on rational grounds seemed an absolute impossibility. A century later (in 1703) the capitation-tax was six reals a head for each male and this (with the exception of a tax, termed sciataraccio, of three reals a year) was the only burden imposed on the Christians exclusively.[146] Men must have had very little attachment to their religion to abandon it merely in order to be quit of so slight a penalty, and with no other motive; and the very existence of so large a body of Christians in Albania at the present time shows that the burden could not have been so heavy as to force them into apostasy without any other alternative.

If only we had something more than vague general com­plaints against the "Turkish tyranny," we should be better able to determine how far this could have had such a preponderating influence as is ascribed to it: but the evid­ence alleged seems hardly to warrant such a conclusion. The vicious practice followed by the Ottoman Court of selling posts in the provinces to the highest bidder and the uncer­tainty of the tenure of such posts, often resulted in the occupants trying to amass as large a fortune as possible by extortions of every kind. But such burdens are said to have weighed as heavily on Muhammadans as Christians.[147] Though certainly an avaricious and unjust official may have found it easier to oppress the Christians than the Muslims, especially when the former were convicted of treasonable correspondence with the Venetians and other Christian states and were suspected of a wish to revolt.

However this may have been, there can be little doubt of the influence exerted by the zealous activity and vigorous life of Islam in the face of the apathetic and ignorant Christian clergy. If Islam in Albania had many such exponents as the Mullā, whose sincerity, courtesy and friendliness are praised by Marco Bizzi, with whom he used to discuss religious questions, it may well have made its way.[148] The majority of the Christian clergy appear to have been wholly unlettered: most of them, though they could read a little, did not know how to write, and were so ignorant of the duties of their sacred calling that they could not even repeat the formula of absolution by heart.[149] Though they had to recite the mass and other services in Latin, there were very few who could understand any of it, as they were ignorant of any language but their mother tongue, and they had only a vague, traditionary knowledge of the truths of their religion.[150] Marco Bizzi considered the inadequate episcopate of the country responsible for these evils, as for the small numbers of the clergy, and their ignorance of their sacred calling, and for the large number of Christians who grew old and even died without being confirmed, and apostatised almost everywhere;[151] and unless this were remedied he prophesied a rapid decay of Christianity in the country.[152] Several priests were also accused of keeping concubines, and of drunkenness.[153]

It may here be observed that the Albanian priests were not the repositories of the national aspirations and ideals, as were the clergy of the Orthodox Church in other provinces of the Turkish empire, who in spite of their ignorance kept alive among their people that devotion to the Christian faith which formed the nucleus of the national life of the Greeks.[154] On the contrary, the Albanians cherished a national feeling that was quite apart from religious belief, and with regard to the Turks, considered, in true feudal spirit, that as they were the masters of the country they ought to be obeyed whatever commands they gave.[155]

There is a curious story of conversion which is said to have taken place owing to a want of amicable relations between a Christian priest and his people, as follows: " Many years since, when all the country was Christian, there stood in the city of Scutari a beautiful image of the Virgin Mary, to whose shrine thousands flocked every year from all parts of the country to offer their gifts, perform their devotions, and be healed of their infirmities. For some cause or other, however, it fell out that there was dissension between the priest and the people, and one day the latter came to the church in great crowds, declaring that unless the priest yielded to them they would then and there abjure the faith of Christ and embrace in its stead that of Muhammad. The priest, whether right or wrong, still remaining firm, his congregation tore the rosaries and crosses from their necks, trampled them under their feet, and going to the nearest mosque, were received by the Mollah into the fold of the True Believers."[156]

Through the negligence and apathy of the Christian clergy many abuses and irregularities had been allowed to creep into the Christian society; in one of which, namely the practice of contracting marriages without the sanction of the Church or any religious ceremony, we find an approxi­mation to the Muhammadan law, which makes marriage a civil contract. In order to remedy this evil, the husband and wife were to be excluded from the Church, until they had conformed to the ecclesiastical law and gone through the service in the regular manner.[157]

In the course of the seventeenth century, the social conditions and other factors, indicated above, bore fruit abundantly, and the numbers of the Christian population began rapidly to decline. In the brief space of thirty years, between 1620 and 1650, about 300,000 Albanians are said to have gone over to Islam.[158] In 1624 there were only 2000 Catholics in the whole diocese of Antivari, and in the city itself only one church; at the close of the century, even this church was no longer used for Christian worship, as there were only two families of Roman Catholics left.[159] In the whole country generally, the majority of the Christian community in 1651 was com­posed of women, as the male population had apostatised in such large numbers to Islam.[160] Matters were still worse at the close of the century, the Catholics being then fewer in number than the Muhammadans, the proportions being about 1 to 1 1/3,[161] whereas less than a hundred years before, they had outnumbered the Muhammadans in the proportion of 10 to 1;[162] in the Archbishopric of Durazzo the Christian population had decreased by about half in twenty years,[163] in another town (in the diocese of Kroia) the entire popula­tion passed from Christianity to Islam in the course of thirty years.[164] In spite of the frequent protests and regulations made by their ecclesiastical superiors, the parish priests continued to countenance the open profession of Islam along with a secret adherence to Christianity, on the part of many male members of their flocks, by administering to them the Blessed Sacrament; the result of which was that the children of such persons, being brought up as Muhammadans, were for ever lost to the Christian Church.[165] Similarly, Christian parents still gave their daughters in marriage to Muhammadans, the parish priests countenancing such unions by administering the sacrament to such women,[166] in spite of the fulminations of the higher clergy against such indulgence.[167] Such action on the part of the lower clergy can hardly, however, be taken as indicating any great zeal on behalf of the spiritual welfare of their flocks, in the face of the accusa­tions brought against them; the majority of them are accused of being scandalous livers, who very seldom went to confession and held drunken revels in their parsonages on festival days; they sold the property of the Church, fre­quently absented themselves from their parishes, and when censured, succeeded in getting off by putting themselves under the protection of the Turks.[168] The Reformed Franciscans and the Observants who had been sent to minister to the spiritual wants of the people did nothing but quarrel and go to law with one another; much to the scandal of the laity and the neglect of the mission.[169] In the middle of the seventeenth century five out of the twelve Albanian sees were vacant; the diocese of Pullati had not been visited by a bishop for thirty years, and there were only two priests to 6348 souls.[170] In some parishes in the interior of the country, there had been no priests for more than forty years; and this was in no way due to the oppres­sion of the "Turkish tyrant," for when at last four Fran­ciscan missionaries were sent, they reported that they could go through the country and exercise their sacred office without any hindrance whatever.[171] The bishop of Sappa, to the great prejudice of his diocese, had been long resident in Venice, where he is said to have lived a vicious life, and had appointed as his vicar an ignorant priest who was a notorious evil-liver: this man had 12,400 souls under his charge, and, says the ecclesiastical visitor, " through the absence of the bishop there is danger of his losing his own soul and compassing the destruction of the souls under him and of the property of the Church."[172] The bishop of Scutari was looked upon as a tyrant by his clergy and people, and only succeeded in keeping his post through the aid of the Turks;[173] and Zmaievich complains of the bishops generally that they burdened the parishes in their diocese with forced contributions.[174] It appears that Christian ecclesiastics were authorised by the Sultan to levy contributions on their flocks. Thus the Archbishop of Antivari (1599-1607) was allowed to " exact and receive " two aspers from each Christian family, twelve for every first marriage (and double the amount for a second, and quadruple for a third marriage), and one gold piece from each parish annually, and it seems to have been possible to obtain the assistance of the Turkish authorities in levying these contributions.[175]

Throughout the whole of Albania there was not a single Christian school,[176] and the priests were profoundly ignorant: some were sent to study in Italy, but Marco Crisio condemns this practice, as such priests were in danger of finding life in Italy so pleasant that they refused to return to their native country. With a priesthood so ignorant and so careless of their sacred duties, it is not surprising to learn that the common people had no knowledge even of the rudi­ments of their faith, and that numerous abuses and corrup­tions sprang up among them, which "wrought the utmost desolation to this vineyard of the Lord."[177] Many Christians lived in open concubinage for years, still, however, being admitted to the sacraments,[178] while others had a plurality of wives.[179] In this latter practice we notice an assimilation between the habits of the two communities—the Christian and the Muslim—which is further illustrated by the ad­mission of Muhammadans as sponsors at the baptism of Christian children, while the old superstitious custom of baptising Muhammadan children was still sanctioned by the priests.[180]  

Such being the state of the Christian Church in Albania in the latter half of the seventeenth century, some very trifling incentive would have been enough to bring about a wide­spread apostasy; and the punishment inflicted on the re­bellious Catholics in the latter half of the century was a determining factor more than sufficient to consummate the tendencies that had been drawing them towards Islam and to cause large numbers of them to fall away from the Christian Church. The rebellious movement referred to seems to have been instigated by George, the thirty-ninth Archbishop of Antivari (1635-1644), who through the bishops of Durazzo, Scodra and Alessio tried to induce the leaders of the Christian community to conspire against the Turkish rule and hand over the country to the neighbouring Christian power, the Republic of Venice. As in his time Venice was at peace with the Turks a fitting opportunity for the hatching of this plot did not occur, but in 1645 war broke out between Turkey and the Republic, and the Venetians made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Antivari, which before the Turkish conquest had been in their possession for more than three centuries (1262-1571). The Albanian Catholics who had sided with the enemy and secretly given them assistance were severely punished and deprived of their privileges, while the Greek Christians (who had everything to fear in the event of the restoration of the Venetian rule and had remained faithful to the Turkish government) were liberally rewarded and were lauded as the saviours of their country. Many of the Catholics either became Muhammadans or joined the Greek Church. The latter fact is very significant as showing that there was no persecution of the Christians as such, nor any attempt to force the acceptance of Islam upon them. The Catholics who became Muhammadans did so to avoid the odium of their position after the failure of their plot, and could have gained the same end and have at the same time retained their Christian faith by joining the Greek Church, which was not only officially recognised by the Turkish government but in high favour in Antivari at this time: so that those who neglected to do so, could have had very little attachment to the Christian religion. The same remark holds good of the numerous conversions to Islam in the succeeding years: Zmaievich attributes them in some cases to the desire to avoid the payment of tribute, but, from what has been said above, it is very unlikely that this was the sole determining motive.

In 1649 a still more widespread insurrection broke out, an Archbishop of Antivari, Joseph Maria Bonaldo (1646-1654), being again the main instigator of the movement; and the leading citizens of Antivari, Scodra and other towns conspired to throw open their gates to the army of the Venetian Republic. But this plot also failed and the in­surrection was forcibly crushed by the Turkish troops, aided by the dissensions that arose among the Christians them­selves. Many Albanians whose influence was feared were transported from their own country into the interior of the Turkish dominions; a body of 3000 men crossed the border into Venetian territory; those who remained were overawed by the erection of fortresses and the marching of troops through the disaffected districts, while heavy fines were imposed upon the malcontents.[181]

Unfortunately the Christian writers who complain of the "unjust tributes and vexations" with which the Turks oppressed the Albanians, so that they apostatised to Islam,[182] make use only of general expressions, and give us no details to enable us to judge whether or not such complaints were justified by the facts. Zmaievich prefaces his account of the apostasy of 2000 persons with an enumeration of the taxes and other burdens the Christians had to bear, but all these, he says, were common also to the Muhammadans, with the exception of the capitation-tax of six reals a year for each male, and another tax, termed sciataraccio, of three reals a year.[183] He concludes with the words: "The nation, wounded by these taxes in its weakest part, namely, worldly interest, to the consideration of which it has a singular leaning either by nature or by necessity, has given just cause for lamenting the deplorable loss of about 2000 souls who apostatised from the true faith so as not to be subject to the tribute."[184]  There is nothing in his report to show that the taxes the Catholics had to pay constituted so intolerable a burden as to force them to renounce their creed, and though he attributes many conversions to Islam to the desire of escaping the tribute, he says expressly that these apostasies from the Christian faith are mainly to be ascribed to the extreme ignorance of the clergy,[185] in great measure also to their practice of admitting to the sacraments those who openly professed Islam while in secret adhering to the Christian faith :[186] in another place he says, speaking of the clergy who were not fit to be parish priests and their practice of administering the sacraments to apostates and secret Christians : " These are precisely the two causes from which have come all the losses that the Christian Church has sustained in Albania."[187] There is very little doubt that the widespread apostasy at this time was the result of a long series of influences similar to those mentioned in the preceding pages, and that the deliverance from the payment of the tribute was the last link in the chain.

What active efforts Muhammadans themselves were making to gain over the Christians to Islam, we can hardly expect to learn from the report of an ecclesiastical visitor. But we find mention of a district, the inhabitants of which, from their intercourse with the Turks, had "contracted the vices of these infidels," and one of the chief causes of their falling away from the Christian faith was their con­tracting marriages with Turkish women.[188] There were no doubt strong Muhammadan influences at work here, as also in the two parishes of Biscascia and Basia, whose joint population of nearly a thousand souls was "exposed to the obvious risk of apostatising through lack of any pastor," and were "much tempted in their faith, and needed to be strengthened in it by wise and zealous pastors."[189]

Zmaievich speaks of one of the old noble Christian families in the neighbourhood of Antivari which was represented at that time by two brothers; the elder of these had been "wheedled" by the prominent Muhammadans of the place, who were closely related to him, into denying his faith; the younger wished to study for the priesthood, in which office " he would be of much assistance to the Christian Church through the high esteem in which the Turks held his family; which though poor was universally respected."[190] This indeed is another indication of the fact that the Muhammadans did not ill-treat the Christians, merely as such, but only when they showed themselves to be politically dis­affected. Zmaievich, who was himself an Albanian, and took up his residence in his diocese instead of in Venetian territory, as many of the Archbishops of Antivari seem to have done,[191] was received with " extraordinary honours " and with " marvellous courtesy," not only by the Turkish officials generally, but also by the Supreme Pasha of Albania himself, who gave him the place of honour in his Divan, always accompanying him to the door on his departure and receiving him there on his arrival.[192] This "barbarian" who "showed himself more like a generous-hearted Christian than a Turk," gave more substantial marks of good feeling towards the Christians by remitting—at the Archbishop's request—the tribute due for the ensuing year from four separate towns.[193] If any of the Christian clergy were roughly treated by the Turks, it seems generally to have been due to the suspicion of treasonable correspondence with the enemies of the Turks; ecclesiastical visits to Italy seem also to have excited—and in many cases, justly—such suspicions. Otherwise the Christian clergy seem to have had no reason to complain of the treatment they received from the Muslims; Zmaievich even speaks of one parish priest being " much beloved by the principal Turks,"[194]  and doubtless there were parallels in Albania to the case of a priest in the diocese of Trebinje in Herzegovina, who in the early part of the eighteenth century was suspected, on account of his familiar intercourse with Muhammadans, of having formed an intention to embrace Islam, and was accordingly sent by his bishop to Rome under safe custody.[195]

No subsequent period of Albanian history appears to have witnessed such widespread apostasy as the seventeenth century, but there have been occasional accessions to Islam up to more recent times. In Southern Albania, the country of the Tosks, the preponderance of the Muhammadan population placed the Christians at a disadvantage, and a story is told of the Karamurtads, inhabitants of thirty-six villages near Pogoniani, that up to the close of the eighteenth century they were Christians, but finding themselves unable to repel the continual attacks of the neighbouring Muham­madan population of Leskoviki, they met in a church and prayed that the saints might work some miracle on their behalf; they swore to fast till Easter in expectation of the divine assistance; but Easter came and no miracle was wrought, so the whole population embraced Islam; soon afterwards they obtained the arms they required and massacred their old enemies in Leskoviki and took possession of their lands.[196] Community of faith in Albania is never allowed to stand in the way of a tribal feud. Even up to the nineteenth century Albanian tribes and villages have changed their religion for very trivial reasons; part of one Christian tribe is said to have turned Muhammadan because their priest, who served several villages and visited them first, insisted on saying mass at an unreasonably early hour.[197]

At the present day the Muhammadans in Albania are said to number about 1,000,000 and the Christians 480,000, but the accuracy of these figures is not certain. The Mirdites are entirely Christian; they submitted to the Sultan on condition that no Muslim would be allowed to settle in their territory, but adherents of both the rival creeds are found in almost all the other tribes. Central Albania is said to be almost entirely Muhammadan, and the followers of Islam form about sixty per cent. of the population of Northern Albania; the Christian population attains its largest pro­portion in Southern Albania, especially in the districts bordering upon Greece.

The kingdom of Servia first paid tribute to the Ottomans in 1375 and lost its independence after the disastrous defeat of Kossovo (1389), where both the king of Servia and the Turkish sultan were left dead upon the field. The successors of the two sovereigns entered into a friendly compact, the young Servian prince, Stephen, acknowledged the suzerainty of Turkey, gave his sister in marriage to the new sultan, Bāyazīd, and formed with him a league of brotherhood. At the battle of Nikopolis (1394), which gave to the Turks assured possession of the whole Balkan peninsula, except the district surrounding Constantinople, the Servian con­tingent turned the wavering fortune of the battle and gave the victory to the Turks. On the field of Angora (1402), when the Turkish power was annihilated and Bāyazīd himself taken prisoner by Tīmūr, Stephen was present with his Servian troops and fought bravely for his brother-in-law, and instead of taking this opportunity of securing his inde­pendence, remained faithful to his engagement, and stood by the sons of Bāyazīd until they recovered their father's throne. Under the successor of Stephen, George Brankovich, Servia enjoyed a semi-independence, but when in 1438 he raised the standard of revolt, his country was again overrun by the Turks. Then for a time Servia had to acknowledge the suzerainty of Hungary, but the defeat of John Hunyady at Varna in 1444 brought her once more under tribute, and in 1459 she finally became a Turkish province.

It is not impossible that the Servians who had embraced Islam after the battle of Kossovo had knowledge of the fate of the little Muslim community that had been rooted out of Hungary about a century before, and therefore preferred the domination of the Turks to that of the Hungarians. Yāqūt gives the following account of his meeting, about the year 1228, with some members of this group of followers of the Prophet in medieval Europe, who had owed their conversion to Muslims who had settled among them. " In the city of Aleppo, I met a large number of persons called Bashkirs, with reddish hair and reddish faces. They were studying law according to the school of Abū Hanīfah (may God be well pleased with him!) I asked one of them who seemed to be an intelligent fellow for information concern­ing their country and their condition. He told me, ' Our country is situated on the other side of Constantinople, in a kingdom of a people of the Franks called the Hungarians. We are Muslims, subjects of their king, and live on the border of his territory, occupying about thirty villages, which are almost like small towns. But the king of the Hungarians does not allow us to build walls round any of them, lest we should revolt against him. We are situated in the midst of Christian countries, having the land of the Slavs on the north, on the south, that of the Pope, i. e. Rome (now the Pope is the head of the Franks, the vicar of the Messiah in their eyes, like the commander of the faithful in the eyes of the Muslims; his authority extends over all matters connected with religion among the whole of them); on the west, Andalusia; on the east, the land of the Greeks, Constanti­nople and its provinces.' He added, ' Our language is the language of the Franks, we dress after their fashion, we serve with them in the army, and we join them in attacking all their enemies, because they only go to war with the enemies of Islam.' I then asked him how it was they had adopted Islam in spite of their dwelling in the midst of the unbelievers. He answered, ' I have heard several of our forefathers say that a long time ago seven Muslims came from Bulgaria and settled among us. In kindly fashion they pointed out to us our errors and directed us into the right way, the faith of Islam. Then God guided us and (praise be to God!) we all became Muslims and God opened our hearts to the faith. We have come to this country to study law; when we return to our own land, the people will do us honour and put us in charge of their religious affairs.' "[198] Islam kept its ground among the Bashkirs of Hungary until 1340, when King Charles Robert compelled all his subjects that were not yet Christians to embrace the Christian faith or quit the country.[199]

The Servian Muslims may, therefore, well have been pleased to escape from the rule of Hungary, like their Christian fellow-countrymen, for when these were given the choice between the Roman Catholic rule of Hungary and the Muslim rule of the Turks, the devotion of the Servians to the Greek Church led them to prefer the tolerance of the Muhammadans to the uncompromising proselytising spirit of the Latins. An old legend thus represents their feelings at this time :—The Turks and the Hungarians were at war; George Brankovich sought out John Hunyady and asked him, " If you are victorious, what will you do ? " " Establish the Roman Catholic faith," was the answer. Then he sought out the sultan and asked him, "If you come out victorious, what will you do with our religion? "By the side of every mosque shall stand a church, and every man shall be free to pray in whichever he chooses."[200]  The treachery of some Servian priests forced the garrison of Belgrade to capitulate to the Turks;[201]  similarly the Servians of Semendria, on the Danube, welcomed the Turkish troops who in 1600 delivered them from the rule of their Catholic neighbours.[202]

The spread of Islam among the Servians began imme­diately after the battle of Kossovo, when a large part of the old feudal nobility, such as still remained alive and did not take refuge in neighbouring Christian countries, went over voluntarily to the faith of the Prophet, in order to keep their old privileges undisturbed.[203] In these converted nobles the sultans found the most zealous propagandists of the new faith.[204] But the majority of the Servian people clung firmly to their old religion through all their troubles and sufferings, and only in Stara Serbia or Old Servia,[205] which now forms the north-eastern portion of modern Albania, has there been any very considerable number of conversions. Even here the spread of Muhammadanism proceeded very slowly until the seventeenth century, when the Austrians induced the Servians to rise in revolt and, after the ill-success of this rising, the then Patriarch, Arsenius III Tsernoïevich, in 1690 emigrated with 40,000 Servian families across the border into Hungary; another exodus in 1739 of 15,000 families under the leadership of Arsenius IV Jovanovich, well nigh denuded this part of the country of its original Servian population.[206]

Albanian colonists from the south pressed into the country vacated by the fugitives : these Albanians at the time of their arrival were Roman Catholics for the most part, but after they settled in Old Servia they gradually adopted Islam and at the present time the remnant of Roman Catholic Albanians is but small, though from time to time it is recruited by fresh arrivals from the mountains : the new-comers, however, usually follow the example of their predecessors, and after a while become Muhammadans.[207]

After this Albanian immigration, Islam, began to spread more rapidly among the remnant of the Servian population. The Servian clergy were very ignorant and unlettered, they could only manage with difficulty to read their service-books and hardly any had learned to write; they neither preached to the people nor taught them the catechism, consequently in whole villages scarcely a man could be found who knew the Lord's Prayer or how many command­ments there were; even the priests themselves were quite as ignorant.[208] After the insurrection of 1689, the Patriarch of Ipek, the ecclesiastical capital of Servia, was appointed by the Porte, but in 1737, as the result of another rebellion, the Servian Patriarchate was entirely suppressed and the Servian Church made dependent upon the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople. The churches were filled with Greek bishops, who made common cause with the Turkish Beys and Pashas in bleeding the unfortunate Christians: their national language was proscribed and the Old Slavonic service-books, etc., were collected and sent off to Con­stantinople.[209] With such a clergy it is not surprising that the Christian faith should decline : e. g. in the commune of Gora (in the district of Prizren), which had begun to become Muhammadanised soon after the great exodus of 1690, the Servians that still clung to the Christian faith, appealed again and again to the Greek bishop of Prizren to send them priests, at least occasionally, but all in vain; their children remained unbaptised, weddings and burials were conducted without the blessing of the Church, and the consecrated buildings fell into decay.[210] In the neighbouring district of Opolje, similarly, the present Muslim population of 9500 souls is probably for the most part descended from the original Slav inhabitants of the place.[211] At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bizzi found in the city of Jagnevo, 120 Roman Catholic households, 200 Greek and 180 Muhammadan;[212] less than a hundred years later, every house in the city was looked upon as Muhammadan, as the head of each family professed this faith and the women only, with some of the children, were Christian.[213] About the middle of the eighteenth century, the village of Ljurs was entirely Catholic; in 1863 there were 90 Muslim and 23 Christian families, but at the present day this village, together with the surrounding villages, has wholly given up Christianity.[214] Until recently some lingering survivals of their old Christian faith, such as the burning of the Yule-log at Christmas, etc., were still to be met with in certain villages, but such customs are now fast dying out.

After the battle of Kossovo and the downfall of the Servian empire, the wild highlands of Montenegro afforded a refuge to those Servians who would not submit to the Turks but were determined to maintain their independence. It is not the place here to relate the history of the heroic struggles of this brave people against overwhelming odds, how through centuries of continual warfare, under the rule of their prince-bishops,[215] they have kept alive a free Christian state when all their brethren of the same race had been compelled to submit to Muhammadan rule. While the very basis of their separate existence as a nation was their firm adherence to the Christian faith it could hardly have been expected that Islam would have made its way among them, but in the seventeenth century many Montenegrins in the frontier districts became Muhammadans and took service with the neighbouring Pashas. But in 1703, Daniel Petrovich, the then reigning bishop, called the tribes to­gether and told them that the only hope for their country and their faith lay in the destruction of the Muhammadans living among them. Accordingly, on Christmas Eve, all the converted Montenegrins who would not forswear Islam and embrace Christianity were massacred in cold blood.[216]

To pass now to Bosnia :—in this country the religious and social conditions of the people, before the Turkish conquest, merit especial attention. The majority of the population belonged to a heretical Christian sect, called Bogomiles, who from the thirteenth century had been exposed to the persecution of the Roman Catholics and against whom Popes had on several occasions preached a Crusade.[217] In 1325, Pope John XXII wrote thus to the king of Bosnia : " To our beloved son and nobleman, Stephen, Prince of Bosnia,—knowing that thou art a faithful son of the Church, we therefore charge thee to exterminate the heretics in thy dominion, and to render aid and assistance to Fabian, our Inquisitor, forasmuch as a large multitude of heretics from many and divers parts collected hath flowed together into the principality of Bosnia, trusting there to sow their obscene errors and dwell there in safety. These men, imbued with the cunning of the Old Fiend, and armed with the venom of their falseness, corrupt the minds of Catholics by outward show of simplicity and the sham assumption of the name of Christians; their speech crawleth like a crab, and they creep in with humility, but in secret they kill, and are wolves in sheep's clothing, covering their bestial fury as a means to deceive the simple sheep of Christ." In the fifteenth century, the sufferings of the Bogomiles became so intolerable that they appealed to the Turks to deliver them from their unhappy condition, for the king of Bosnia and the priests were pushing the persecution of the Bogomiles to an extreme which perhaps it had never reached before; as many as forty thousand of them fled from Bosnia and took refuge in neigh­bouring countries; others who did not succeed in making their escape, were sent in chains to Rome. But even these violent measures did little to diminish the strength of the Bogomiles in Bosnia, as in 1462 we are told that heresy was as powerful as ever in this country. The following year, when Bosnia was invaded by Muḥammad II, the Catholic king found himself deserted by his subjects : the keys of the principal fortress, the royal city of Bobovatz, were handed over to the Turks by the Bogomile governor; the other fortresses and towns hastened to follow this example, and within a week seventy cities passed into the hands of the Sultan, and Muḥammad II added Bosnia to the number of his numerous conquests.[218]

From this time forth we hear but little of the Bogomiles; they seem to have willingly embraced Islam in large numbers immediately after the Turkish conquest, and the rest seem to have gradually followed later, while the Bosnian Roman Catholics emigrated into  the neighbouring territories of Hungary and Austria. It has been supposed by some[219] that a large proportion of the Bogomiles, at least in the earlier period of the conquest, embraced Islam with the intention of returning to their faith when a favourable opportunity presented itself; as, being constantly persecuted they may have learnt to deny their faith for the time being; but that, when this favourable opportunity never arrived, this intention must have gradually been lost sight of and at length have been entirely forgotten by their descendants. Such a supposition is, however, a pure conjecture and has no direct evidence to support it. We may rather find the reason for the willingness of the Bogomiles to allow themselves to be merged in the general mass of the Musalman believers, in the numerous points of likeness between their peculiar beliefs and the tenets of Islam.They rejected the worship of the Virgin Mary, the institution of Baptism and every form of priesthood.[220]   They abominated the cross as a religi­ous symbol, and considered it idolatry to bow down before religious pictures and the images and relics of the saints. Their houses of prayer were very simple and unadorned, in contrast to the gaudily decorated Roman Catholic churches, and they shared the Muhammadan dislike of bells, which they styled "the devil's trumpets."   They believed that Christ was not himself crucified but that some phantom was substituted in his place : in this respect agreeing partially with the teaching of the Qur'ān.[221] Their condemnation of wine and the general austerity of their mode of life and the stern severity of their outward demeanour would serve as further links to bind them to Islam,[222] for it was said of them: " You will see heretics quiet and peaceful as lambs without, silent, and wan with hypocritical fasting, who do not speak much nor laugh loud, who let their beard grow, and leave their person incompt."[223] They prayed five times a day and five times a night, repeating the Lord's Prayer with frequent kneelings,[224] and would thus find it very little change to join in the services of the mosque. I have brought together here the many points of likeness to the teachings of Islam, which we find in this Bogomilian heresy, but there were, of course, some doctrines of a distinctly Christian character which an orthodox Muslim could not hold; still, with so much in common, it can easily be understood how the Bogomiles may gradually have been persuaded to give up those doctrines that were repugnant to the Muslim faith. Their Manichæan dualism was equally irreconcilable with Muslim theology, but Islam has always shown itself tolerant of such theological speculations provided that they did not issue in a schism and that a general assent and consent were given to the main principles of its theory and practice.

The Turks, as was their usual custom, offered every advantage to induce the Bosnians to accept their creed. All who embraced Islam were allowed to retain their lands and possessions, and their fiefs were exempt from all taxa­tion,[225] and it is probable that many rightful heirs of ancient houses who had been dispossessed for heretical opinions by the Catholic faction among the nobility, now embraced the opportunity of regaining their old position by submission to the dominant creed. The Bosnian Muhammadans retained their nationality and still for the most part bear Serb names and speak only their national tongue;[226] at the same time they have always evinced a lively zeal for their new faith, and by their military prowess, their devotion to Islam and the powerful influence they exercised, the Bosnian nobility rapidly rose into high favour in Constantinople and many were entrusted with important offices of state, e. g. between the years 1544 and 1611 nine statesmen of Bosnian origin filled the post of Grand Vizier.

The latest territorial acquisition of the Ottoman conquests was the island of Crete, which in 1669 was wrested from the hands of the Venetian Republic by the capture of the city of Candia after a long and desperate siege of nearly three years, which closed a struggle of twenty-five years between these rival powers for the possession of the island.

This was not the first time that Crete had come under Muslim rule. Early in the ninth century the island was suddenly seized by a band of Saracen adventurers from Spain, and it remained in their power for nearly a century and a half (A.D. 825-961).[227] During this period well nigh the whole population of the island had become Muslim, and the churches had either fallen into ruins or been turned into mosques; but when the authority of the Byzantine empire was once re-established here, the people were converted again to their ancient faith through the skilful preaching of an Armenian monk, and the Christian religion became the only one professed on the island.[228] In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Venetians purchased the island from Boniface, Duke of Montserrat, to whose lot it had fallen after the partition of the Byzantine empire, and they ruled it with a heavy hand, apparently looking upon it only in the light of a purchase that was to be exploited for the benefit of the home government and its colonists. Their administration was so oppressive and tyrannical as to excite several revolts, which were crushed with pitiless severity; on one of these occasions whole cantons in the provinces of Sfakia and Lassiti were depopulated, and it was forbidden under pain of death to sow any corn there, so that these districts remained barren and uncultivated for nearly a century.[229] The terrific cruelty with which the Venetian senate suppressed the last of these attempts at the beginning of the sixteenth century added a crowning horror to the miserable condition of the unhappy Cretans. How terrible was their lot at this time we learn from the reports of the commissioners sent by the Venetian senate in the latter part of the same century, in order to inquire into the condition of the islanders. The peasants were said to be crushed down by the cruelest oppression and tyranny on the part of the Venetian nobles, their feudal lords, being reduced to a worse condition than that of slaves, so that they never dared even to complain of any injustice. Each peasant had to do twelve days' forced labour for his feudal lord every year without payment, and could then be compelled to go on working for as long as his lord required his services at the nominal rate of a penny a day; his vine­yards were mulcted in a full third of their produce, but fraud and force combined generally succeeded in appropriating as much as two-thirds; his oxen and mules could be seized for the service of the lord, who had a thousand other devices for squeezing the unfortunate peasant.[230] The protests of these commissioners proved ineffectual to induce the Venetian senate to alleviate the unhappy condition of the Cretans and put a stop to the cruelty and tyranny of the nobles : it preferred to listen to the advice of Fra Paolo Sarpi who in 1615 thus addressed the Republic on the subject of its Greek colonies : " If the gentlemen of these Colonies do tyrannize over the villages of their dominion, the best way is not to seem to see it, that there may be no kindness between them and their subjects."[231]

It is not surprising to learn from the same sources that the Cretans longed for a change of rulers, and that " they would not much stick at submitting to the Turk, having the example of all the rest of their nation before their eyes." Indeed, many at this time fled into Turkey to escape the intolerable burden of taxation, following in the footsteps of countless others, who from time to time had taken refuge there.[232] Large numbers of them also emigrated to Egypt, where many embraced Islam.[233] Especially galling to the Cretans were the exactions of the Latin clergy who appro­priated the endowments that belonged of right to the Greek ecclesiastics, and did everything they could to insult the Christians of the Greek rite, who constituted nine-tenths of the population of the island.[234] The Turks, on the other hand, conciliated their good-will by restoring the Greek hierarchy. This, according to a Venetian writer, was brought about in the following manner : " A certain papas or priest of Canea went to Cusseim the Turkish general, and told him that if he desired to gain the good-will of the Cretan people, and bring detestation upon the name of Venice, it was necessary for him to bear in mind that the staunchest of the links which keep civilised society from falling asunder is religion. It would be needful for him to act in a way different from the line followed by the Venetians. These did their utmost to root out the Greek faith and establish that of Rome in its place, with which interest they had made an injunction that there should be no Greek bishops in the island. By thus removing these venerated and authoritative shepherds, they thought the more easily to gain control over the scattered flocks. This prohibition had caused such distress in the minds of the Cretans that they were ready to welcome with joy and obedience any sovereignty that would lend its will to the re-institution of this order in their hierarchy—an order so essential for the proper exercise of their divine worship. He added, that it would be a further means of conciliating the people if they were assured that they would not only be confirmed in the old privileges of their religion, but that new privileges would be granted them. These arguments seemed to Cusseim so plausible that he wrote at once to Constantinople with a statement of them. Here they were approved, and the Greek Patriarch was bidden to institute an archbishop who should be metropole of the Province of Candia. Under the metropolitan seven other bishops were also to be nominated."[235] 

The Turkish conquest seems to have been very rapidly followed by the conversion of large numbers of the Cretans to Islam. It is not improbable that the same patriotism as made them cling to their old faith under the foreign domination of the Venetians who kept them at arm's length and regarded any attempt at assimilation as an unpardonable indignity,[236] and always tried to impress on their subjects a sense of their inferiority—may have led them to accept the religion of their new masters, which at once raised them from the position of subjects to that of equals and gave them a share in the political life and government of their country. Whatever may have been the causes of the widespread conversion of the Cretans, it seems almost incredible that violence should have changed the religion of a people who had for centuries before clung firmly to their old faith despite the persecution of a hostile and a foreign creed. Whatever may have been the means by which the ranks of Islam were filled, thirty years after the conquest we are told that the majority of the Muslims were renegades or the children of renegades,[237] and in little more than a century half the popula­tion of Crete had become Muhammadan. From one end of the island to the other, not only in the towns but also in the villages, in the inland districts and in the very heart of the mountains, were (and are still) found Cretan Muslims who in figure, habits and speech are thoroughly Greek. There never has been, and to the present day there is not, any other language spoken on the island of Crete except Greek; even the few Turks to be found here had to adopt the language of the country and all the firmans of the Porte and decrees of the Pashas were read and published in Greek.[238] The bitter feelings between the Christians and Muhammadans of Crete that have made the history of this island during the nineteenth century so sad a one, was by no means so virulent before the outbreak of the Greek revolution, in days when the Cretan Muslims were very generally in the habit of taking as their wives Christian maidens, the children of their Chris­tian friends.[239] The social communication between the two communities was further signified by their common dress, as the Cretans of both creeds dressed so much alike that the distinction was often not even recognised by residents of long standing or by Greeks of the neighbouring islands.[240]

Recent political events have brought about a considerable diminution in the Muhammadan population of Crete. In 1881 the number of Muhammadans in the island was 73,234; in 1909, in consequence of continual emigrations, it had been reduced to 33,496.[241] 

---

[1] This is no place to give a history of these territorial acquisitions, which may be briefly summed up thus. In 1353 the Ottoman Turks first passed over into Europe and a few years later Adrianople was made their European capital. Under Bāyazīd (1389-1402), their dominions stretched from the Ægæan to the Danube, embracing all Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly and Thrace, with the exception of Chalkidike and the district just round Constantinople. Murād II (1421-1451) occupied Chalkidike and pushed his conquests to the Adriatic. Muhammad II (1451-1481) by the overthrow of Constantinople, Albania, Bosnia and Servia, became master of the whole South-Eastern peninsula, with the exception of the parts of the coast held by Venice and Montenegro. Sulaymān II (1520-1566) added Hungary and made the Ægæan an Ottoman sea. In the seventeenth century Crete was won and Podolia ceded by Poland.

[2] Phrantzes, pp. 305-6.

[3] Finlay, vol. iii. p. 522.    Pitzipios, seconde partie, p. 75.    M. d'Ohsson, vol. iii. p. 52-4.    Arminjon, vol. i. p. 16.

[4] A traveller who visited Cyprus in 1508 draws the following picture of the tyranny of the Venetians in their foreign possessions :   " All the in­habitants of Cyprus are slaves to the Venetians, being obliged to pay to the state a third part of all their increase or income, whether the product of their ground or corn, wine, oil, or of their cattle, or any other thing. Besides, every man of them is bound to work for the state two days of the week wherever they shall please to appoint him : and if any shall fail, by reason of some other business of their own, or for indisposition of body, then they are made to pay a fine for as many days as they are absent from their work: and which is more, there is yearly some tax or other imposed on them, with which the poor common people are so flead and pillaged that they hardly have wherewithal to keep soul and body together.” (The Travels of Martin Baumgarten, p. 373.)    See also the passages quoted by Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, p. 183.

[5] Finlay, vol. iii. p. 502.

[6] Urquhart, quoted by Clark :  Races of European Turkey, p. 82.

[7] Karamsin, vol. v. p. 437.

[8] Martin Crusius writes in the same spirit : " Et mirum est, inter barbaros, in tanta tantæ urbis colluvie, nullas cædes audiri, vim iniustam non ferri, ius cuivis dici. Ideo Constantinopolin Sultanus, Refugium totius orbis scribit : quod omnes miseri, ibi tutissime latent: quodque omnibus (tam infimis quam summis : tam Christianis quam infidelibus) iustitia administretur. ' (Turcogræcia, p. 487.) (Basileæ, 1584.)

[9] Phrantzes, p. 81.

[10] Phrantzes, p. 92.

[11] Finlay, vol. v. pp. 5, 123. Adeney, p. 311. Gerlach, writing in the year 1577, says :"Wo Christen oder Juden in den Orten wohnen, da es Kadi oder Richter und Subbassi oder Vögte hat, dass die gemeinen Türcken nicht ihres Gefallens mit ihnen umbgehen dörffen, sind sie viel lieber unter den Türcken, dann unter den Christen. Wann sie Jährlich ihren Tribut geben, sind sie hernach frey. Aber in der Christenheit ist das gantze Jahr des Gebens kein Ende." (Tage-Buch, p. 413.)

[12] Hertzberg, pp. 467, 646, 650.

[13] Finlay, vol. v. pp. 156-7.

[14] This interval was, however, not a fixed one; at first, the levy took place every seven or five years, but later at more frequent intervals accord­ing to the exigencies of the state. (Menzel, p. 52.) Metrophanes Kritopoulos, writing in 1625, states that the collectors came to the cities every seventh year and that each city had to contribute three or four, or at least two boys (p. 205).

[15] Qur'ān. viii. 42.

[16] Id. x. 99. 100.

[17]" On ne forçait cependant pas les jeunes Chrétiens à changer de foi. Les principes du gouvernement s'y opposaient aussi bien que les préceptes du Cour'ann; et si des officiers, mus par leur fanatisme, usaient quelquefois de contrainte, leur conduite à cet égard pouvait bien être tolerée; mais elle n'était jamais autorisée par les chefs." (M. d'Ohsson, tome iii. pp. 397-8.)

[18] Hertzberg, p. 472.

[19] " Sed hoc tristissimum est, quod, ut olim Christiani imperatores, ex singulis oppidis, certum numerum liberorum, in quibus egregia indoles præ cæteris elucebat, delegerunt: quos ad publica officia militiæ togatæ et bellicæ in Aula educari curarunt: ita Turci, occupato Græcorum imperio, idem ius eripiendi patribus familias liberos ingeniis eximiis præditos, usurpant." (David Chytræus, pp. 12-14.)

[20] Creasy, p. 99.    M. d'Ohsson, tome iii. p. 397.    Menzel, p. 53.    Thomas Smith, speaking of such parents, says: "Others, to the great shame and dishonour of the Religion, Christians only in name, part with them freely and readily enough, not only because they are rid of the trouble and charge of them, but in hopes they may, when they are grown up, get some con­siderable command in the government."    (An Account of the Greek Church, p. 12. London, 1680.) In the reign of Murād I, Christian troops were employed in collecting this tribute of Christian children.   (Finlay, vol. v. p. 45.)

[21] " Verum tamen hos (liberos) pecunia redimere a conquisitoribus sæpe parentibus licet."    (David Chytræus, p.  13.)    De la Guilletière mentions it in 1669 as one of the privileges of the Athenians.    (An Account of a Late Voyage to Athens, p. 272.    London, 1676.)

[22] Confessio, p. 205.

[23] An Account of the Greek Church, p. 12.    (London, 1680.)

[24] Menzel, p. 52. Thomas Smith : De Moribus ac Institutis Turcarum, p. 81. (Oxonii, 1672.) 

[25] Hill, p. 174.

[26] Joseph von Hammer (2), vol. ii. p. 151. Hans Schiltberger, who was captured by the Turks in 1396 and returned home to Munich after thirty-two years' captivity, states that the tax the Christians had to pay did not amount to more than two pfennig a month. (Reisebuch, p. 92.)

[27] Soli Sacerdotes, quasi in honorem sacri illius, quo funguntur, Deo ita ordinante, ministerii hoc factum sit, una cum fœminis, ab hoc tributo pendendo immunes habentur. (De Græcæ Hodierno Statu Epistola, authore Thoma Smitho, p. 12.)   (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1698.)

[28] Silbernagl, p. 60.

[29] Martin Crusius, p. 487; Sansovino, p. 67; Georgieviz, p. 98-9; Scheffler, § 56; Hertzberg, p. 648; De la Jonquière, p. 267. A work published in London in 1595, entitled " The Estate of Christians living under the subjection of the Turke," states the capitation-tax for male children to have been eight shillings (p. 2). Michel Baudin says one sequin a head for every male. (Histoire du Serrail, p. 7. Paris, 1662.)

[30] Georgirenes, p. 9; Tournefort, vol. i. p. 91; Tavernier (3), p. 11.

[31] In a work published by Joseph Georgirenes, Archbishop of Samos, in 1678, during a visit to London, he gives us an account of the income of his own see, the details of which are not likely to have been considered ex­tortionate, as they were here set down for the benefit of English readers : in comparing the sums here mentioned, it should be borne in mind that he speaks of the capitation-tax as being three crowns or dollars (pp. 8-9). “At his (i.e. the Archbishop's) first coming, the Papas or Parish Priest of the Church of his Residence presents him fifteen or twenty dollers, they of the other Churches according to their Abilities. The first year of his coming, every Parish Priest pays him four dollers, and the following year two. Every Layman pays him forty-eight aspers "—(In the commercial treaty with England, concluded in the year 1675, the value of the dollar was fixed at eighty aspers (Finlay, v. 28))—"and the following years twenty-four. The Samians pay one Doller for a Licence; all Strangers two; but he that comes after first marriage for a Licence for a second or third, pays three or four " (pp. 33-4).                          

[32] Tournefort, vol. i. p. 91.

[33] Scheffler, § 56. " Was aber auch den Ducaten anbelangt, so werdet ihr mit demselben in eurem Sinn ebener massen greulich betrogen. Denn es ist zwar wahr, dass der Türckische Käyser ordentlich nicht mehr nimt a1s vom Haupt einen Ducaten : aber wo bleiben die Zölle und ausserordentliche Anlagen ? nehmen dann seine Königliche Verweser und Haupt-leute nichts ? muss man zu Kriegen nichts ausser ordentlich geben ? . . . Was aber die ausser ordentliche Anlagen betnfft; die steigen und fallen nach den bösen Zeiten, und müssen von den Türckischen Unterthanen so wohl gegeben werden als bey uns."

[34] Finlay, vol. v. pp. 24-5. H. von Moltke: Brief über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 1839, pp. 274, 354. (5th ed., Berlin, 1891.)

[35]Hammer (2), vol. i. p. 346.

[36] " The hard lot of the Christian subjects of the Sultan has at all times arisen from the fact that the central authority at Constantinople has but little real authority throughout the Empire of Turkey. It is the petty tyranny of the village officials, sharpened by personal hatred, which has instigated those acts of atrocity to which, both in former times, and still more at the present day, the Christians in Turkey are subjected. In the days of a nation's greatness justice and even magnanimity towards a subject race are possible; these, however, are rarely found to exist in the time of a nation’s decay. " (Rev. W. Denton : Servia and the Servians, p. 15. London, 1862.) Gerlach, pp. 49, 52.

[37] Businello, pp. 43-4.

[38] " The central government of the Sultan has generally treated its Mussulman subjects with as much cruelty and injustice as the conquered Christians. The sufferings of the Greeks were caused by the insolence and oppression of the ruling class and the corruption that reigned in the Othoman administration, rather than by the direct exercise of the Sultan's power. In his private affairs, a Greek had a better chance of obtaining justice from his bishop and the elders of his district than a Turk from the cadi or the voivode.” (Finlay, vol. vi. pp. 4-5.)

" It would be a mistake to suppose that the Christians are the only part of the population that is oppressed and miserable. Turkish misgovemment is uniform, and falls with a heavy hand upon all alike. In some parts of the kingdom the poverty of the Mussulmans may be actually worse than the poverty of the Christians, and it is their condition which most excites the pity of the traveller." (William Forsyth : The Slavonic Provinces South of the Danube, pp. 157-8. London, 1876.)

" All this oppression and misery (i.e. in the north of Asia Minor) falls upon the Mohammedan population equally with the Christian." (James Bryce : Transcaucasia and Ararat, p. 381.)

“L'Europe s'imagine que les chrétiens seuls sont soumis, en Turquie, à 1'arbitraire, aux souffrances, aux avilissements de toute nature, qui naissent de 1'oppression; il n'en est rien! Les musulmans, précisément parce que nulle puissance étrangère ne s'intéresse à eux, sont peut-être plus indignement spoliés, plus courbés sous le joug que ceux qui méconnaissent le prophète". (De la Jonquière, p. 507.)

" To judge from what we have already observed, the lowest order of Christians are not in a worse condition in Asia Minor than the same class of Turks; and if the Christians of European Turkey have some advantages arising from the effects of the superiority of their numbers over the Turks, those of Asia have the satisfaction of seeing that the Turks are as much oppressed by the men in power as they are themselves; and they have to deal with a race of Mussulmans generally milder, more religious, and better principled than those of Europe." (W. M. Leake: Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 7. London, 1824.)

Cf. also Laurence Oliphant: The Land of Gilead, pp. 320-3, 446. (London, 1880.)

[39] It was in the sixteenth century that the tribute of children fell into desuetude, and the last recorded example of its exaction was in the year 1676.

[40] De la Jonquière, p. 333.   Scheffler, § 45-6. Gasztowtt, p. 51.

[41] " Denn ich höre mit grosser Verwunderung und Bestürtzung, dass nicht allein unter den gemeinen Pövel Reden im Schwange gehn, es sey unter dem Türcken auch gut wohnen: wann man einen Ducaten von Haupt gebe, so wäre man frey; Item er liesse die Religion frey ; man würde die Kirchen wieder bekommen; und was vergleichen : sondern dass auch andre, die es wol besser verstehen sollten, sich dessen erfreuen, und über ihr eigen Unglück frolocken! welches nicht allein Halssbrüchige, sondern auch Gottlose Vermessenheiten seynd, die aus keinem andrem Grunde, als aus dem Geist der Ketzerey, der zum Auffruhr und gäntzlicher Ausreitung des Christenthumbs geneigt ist, herkommen." (Scheffler, § 48.)

[42] Hertzberg, p. 650.

[43]  De la Jonquière, p. 34. A similar contrast was made in 1605 by Richard Staper, an English merchant who had been in Turkey as early as 1578 : " And notwithstanding that the Turks in general be a most wicked people, walking in the works of darkness . . . yet notwithstanding do they permit all Christians, both Greeks and Latins, to live in their religion and freely to use to their conscience, allowing them churches for their divine service, both in Constantinople and very many other places, whereas to the contrary by proof of twelve years' residence in Spain I can truly affirm, we are not only forced to observe their popish ceremonies, but in danger of life and goods " (M. Epstein: The Early History of the Levant Company, p. 57. London, 1908.)

[44]  Macarius, vol. i. pp. 183, 165.    Cf. the memorial presented by Polish refugees from Russia to the Sublime Porte, in 1853.    (Gasztowtt, p. 217.)

[45] Alii speciem sibi quandam confixerunt stultam libertatis . . . quod quum sub Christiano consequuturos se desperent, ideo vel Turcam mallent: quasi is benignior sit in largienda libertate hac, quam Christianus."  (Ioannis Ludovici Vivis De Conditione Vitæ Christianorum sub Turca, pp. 220, 225.)

(Basileæ, 1538.) " Quidam obganniunt, liberam esse sub Turca fidem." (Othonis Brunfelsii ad Principes et Christianos omnes Oratio, p. 133. (Basileæ, 1538.) Ubertus Folieta, a noble of Genoa, writing about 1577, says, “ Sæpe mecum quaesivi . . . qua re fiat, ut tot de nostris hominibus ad illos continenter transfugiant, Christianaque religione eiurata Mahumetanæ sectæ nomina dent." (De Causis Magnitudinis Turcarum Imperii, col. 1209.) (Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiarum Italiæ, curâ Joannis Georgii Grævii, tom. i. Lugduni Batavorum, 1725.)

[46]  Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xvii. (a).

[47]  Blount, vol. i. p. 548.

[48] Scheffler, §§ 51, 53.

[49] Dousa, p. 38.    Busbecq, p. 190.

[50] Thomas Smith, p. 32.

[51] Thomas Smith,  p.  42.    Blount,  vol. i. p. 548.    Georgieviz, p. 20. Schiltberger, pp. 83-4.    Baudier, pp. 149, 313.

[52] Alexander Ross, p. ix.   Baudier, p. 317. Cf. also Rycaut, vol. i. p. 276. " On croit meriter beaucoup que de faire un Proselyte, il n'y a personne assez riche pour avoir un esclave qui n'en veüille un jeune, qui soit capable de recevoir sans peine toutes sortes d'impressions, et qu'il puisse appeller son converti, afin de meriter 1'honneur d'avoir augmenté le nombre des fidèles." Thomas Smith relates how the old man who showed him the tomb of Urkhān at Brusa " ingenti cum fervore, oculis ad Cælum elevatis, Deum precatus est ut nos ad fidem Musulmannicam suo tempore tandem convertere dignaretur: Hoc nimirum est summum erga nos affectus testimonium, qui ex isto falso et imperitissimo zelo solet profluere." (Epistolæ duae, quarum altera De Moribus ac Institutis Turcarum agit, p. 20.) (Oxonii, 1672.)

[53] By an anonymous writer who was a captive in Turkey from 1436 to 1458. Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xvii. (a).

[54] Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xi. (b). Lionardo of Scio, Arch­bishop of Mitylene, who was present at the taking of Constantinople, speaks of the large number of renegades in the besieging army: " Chi circondò la città, e chi insegnò a' turchi 1'ordine, se non i pessimi christiani ? Io son testimonio, che i Greci, ch' i Latini, che i Tedeschi, che gli Ungari, e che ogni altra generation di christiani, mescolati co' turchi impararono 1'opere e la fede loro, i quali domenticatisi della fede christiana, espugnavano la città. O empij che rinegasti Christo. O settatori di antichristo, dannati alle pene infernali, questo è hora il vostro tempo." (Sansovino, p. 258.)

[55]  J. H. Krause: Die Byzantiner des Mittelalters, pp. 385-6. (Halle, 1869.)

[56]  Hertzberg, p. 616.   Finlay, vol. v. p. 118.

[57]  Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xix. (a).

[58]  Rycaut, vol. i. pp. 710-11.    Bizzi, fol. 49 (b).

[59]  Pichler,  pp. 164, 172.

[60]  Id. p. 143.

[61] Pichler, p. 148.    It is doubtful, however, whether Cyril was really the author of this document bearing his name.    (Kyriakos, p. 100.)

[62]  Id. pp. 183-9.                                   

[63]  Id. p. 226.

[64]  As regards the Christian captives the Protestants certainly had the reputation among the Turks of showing a greater inclination towards conversion than the Catholics. (Gmelin, p. 21.)

[65] Pichler, pp. 211, 227.

[66] Id. pp. 181, 228.

[67] Id. pp. 222, 226.

[68] Pichler, p. 173.

[69] Id. pp. 128,132,143.

[70] Id. p. 143.

[71] Le Quien, tom. i. col. 334.

[72] Pichler, p. 172.

[73] Hefele, vol. i. p. 473.

[74] Cyril II of Berrhœa.

[75] Le Quien, tom. i. col. 335.

[76] Id. tom. i. col. 336.

[77] Id. tom. i. col. 337.

[78] However, in an earlier attempt made by the Protestant theologians of Tübingen (1573-77) to introduce the doctrines of the Reformed Church into the Eastern Church, the Vaivode Quarquar of Samtskheth in Georgia embraced the Confession of Augsburg, but in 1580 became a Muslim. (Joselian, p. 140.)

[79] Scheffler, §§ 53-6.    Finlay, vol. v. pp. 118-19.

[80] Hammer (1), vol. vi. p. 94.

[81] Spon, vol. ii. p. 57.

[82] Hammer (1), vol. vi. p. 364.

[83]  Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, edited by J, Theodore Bent, p. 210. (London, 1893.) Similarly, Michel Baudier concludes his descrip­tion of the festivities in Constantinople on the occasion of the circumcision of Muhammad III in the latter part of the sixteenth century, with an account of the conversion of a large number of Christians. "During the spectacles of this solemnity, the wretched Grecians ran by troupes in this place to make themselves Mahometans; Some abandoned Christianitie to avoid the oppression of the Turkes, others for the hope of private profit. . . . The number of these cast-awayes was found to be above foure thousand soules." (The History of the Serrail, and of the Court of the Grand Seigneur Emperour of the Turkes, pp. 93-4. (London, 1635.) Histoire generate da Serrail, et de la Cour du Grand Seigneur, Empereur des Turcs, pp. 89-90. (Paris, 1631.))

[84] Scheffler, § 55.

[85] Thomas   Smith:   An   Account   of   the Greek   Church,   pp.   15-16. (London, 1680.)

[86] A. de la Motraye : Voyages en Europe, Asie et Afrique, vol. i. pp. 306, 308.    (La Haye, 1727.)

[87] Pitzipios, Seconde Partie, pp. 83-7.    Pichler, p. 29.

[88] Tournefort, vol. i. p. 107.  Spon uses much the same language, vol. i. p. 56.

[89] Gaultier de Leslie, p. 137.

[90] A. J. Evans, p. 267. Similarly Mackenzie and Irby say : "In most parts of Old Serbia the idea we found associated with a bishop, was that of a person who carried off what few paras the Turks had left” (p. 258). A similar account of the clergy of the Greek Church is given by a writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes (tome 97, p. 336), who narrates the following story : " Au début de ce siècle, à Tirnova, un certain pope du nom de Joachim, adoré de ses ouailles, détesté de son évêque, reçut l'ordre, un jour, de faire la corvée du fumier dans l'écurie episcopale. Il se rebiffa: aussitôt la valetaille l'assaillit à coups de fourche. Mais notre homme était vigoureux : il se débattit, et, laissant sa tunique en gage, s'en fut tout chaud chez le cadi. Le soleil n'était pas couché qu'il devenait bon Musulman.”

[91] Pitzipios, Seconde Partie, p. 87.

[92] Id. Seconde Partie, p. 87.    Pichler, p. 29.

[93] Lazăr, p. 223.

[94] Finlay, vol. iv. pp. 153-4.

[95] Tournefort, vol. i. p. 104.    Cf. Pichler, pp. 29, 31.    Spon, vol. i. p. 44.

[96] Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xiii. (b); fol. xv. (b); fol. xvii. (b); fol. xx. (a).    Veniero, pp. 32, 36.    Busbecq, p. 174.

[97] Gaultier de Leslie, pp. 180, 182.

[98] Rycaut, vol. i. p. 689.    See also Georgieviz, pp. 53-4, and Menavino, p.73.

[99] Alexander Ross, p. ix.; he calls the Qur'ān a " gallimaufry of Errors (a Brat as deformed as the Parent, and as full of Heresies, as his scald head was of scurf),"—" a hodg podge made up of these four Ingredients. 1. Of Contradictions. 2. Of Blasphemy. 3. Of ridiculous Fables. 4. Of Lyes."

[100] Finlay, vol. v. p. 29.

[101] Schiltberger, p. 96.

[102] Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xii. (b), xiii. (a).

[103] Id. fol. xxvii. (a).

[104] "Dum corpora exterius fovendo sub pietatis specie non occidit: interius fidem auferendo animas sua diabolica astutia occidere intendit. Huius rei testimonium innumerabilis multitudo fidelium esse potest. Quorum multi promptissimi essent pro fide Christi et suarum animarum salute in fide Christi mori: quos tamen conservando a morte corporali: et ductos in captivitatem per successum temporis suo infectos veneno fidem Christi turpiter negare facit." Turchicæ Spurctiæ Suggillatio, fol. i.; cf. fol. vi. (a).

[105] Menavino, p. 96. John Harris : Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, vol. ii. p. 819. (London, 1764.)

[106] " Dieses muss man den Türken nachsagen, dass sie die Diener und Sclaven, durch deren Fleiss und Bemühung sie sich einen Nutzen schaffen können, sehr wol und oft besser, als die Christian die ihrige, halten . . . und wann ein Knecht in einer Kunst erfahren ist, gehet ihm nichts anders als die Freyheit ab, ausser welche er alles andere hat, was ein freyer Mensch sich nur wünschen kan." (G. C. von den Driesch, p. 132.)

[107] Sir William Stirling-Maxwell says of these : The poor wretches who tugged at the oar on board a Turkish ship of war lived a life neither more nor less miserable than the galley-slaves under the sign of the Cross. Hard work, hard fare, and hard knocks were the lot of both. Ashore, a Turkish or Algerine prison was, perhaps, more noisome in its filth and darkness than a prison at Naples or Barcelona; but at sea, if there were degrees of misery, the Christian in Turkish chains probably had the advantage; for in the Sultan's vessels the oar-gang was often the property of the captain, and the owner's natural tenderness for his own was sometimes supposed to interfere with the discharge of his duty." (Vol. i. pp. 102-3.)

[108] Gmelin, p. 16.                             

[109] Id. p. 23.

[110] John Harris: Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, vol. ii.p. 810.

[111]“ Die ersten Jahre sind für solche unglückliche Leute am beschwehrlichsten, absonderlich wenn sie noch jung, weil die Türken selbige entweder mit Schmeicheln, oder, wann dieses nichts verfangen will, mit der Schärfe zu ihren Glauben zu bringen suchen; wann aber dieser Sturm überwunden, wird man finden, dass die Gefangenschaft nirgend erträglicher als bey den Türken seye." (G. C. von den Driesch, p. 132.) Moreover Georgieviz says that those who persevered in the Christian faith were set free after a certain fixed period. "Si in Christiana fide perseveraverint, statuitur certum tempus serviendi, quo elapso liberi fiunt . . . Verum illis qui nostram religionem abiurarunt, nec certum tempus est serviendi, ned ullum ius in patriam redeundi, spes libertatis solummodo pendet a domini arbitrio " (p. 87). Similarly Menavino, p. 65. Cantacuzenos gives this period as seven years :—" Grata è la compagnia che essi fanno a gli schiavi loro, percioche Maumetto gli ha fra 1'altre cose comandato che egli non si possa tener in servitù uno schiavo più che sette anni, et perciò nessuno o raro è colui che a tal comandamento voglia contrafare " (p. 128).

[112] " Fromme Christen, die nach der Türkei oder in andere muhamedanische Länder kamen, hatten Anlass genug zur Trauer über die Häufigkeit des Abfalls ihrer Glaubensgenossen, und besonders die Schriften der Ordensgeistlichen sind voll von solchen Klagen. Bei den Sclaven konnte sich immer noch ein Gefühl des Mitleids dem der Missbilligung beimischen, aber oft genug musste man die bittersten Erfahrungen auch an freien Landsleuten machen. Die christlichen Gesandten waren keinen Tag sicher, ob ihnen nicht Leute von ihrem Gefolge davon liefen, und man that gut daran, den Tag nicht vor dem Abend zu loben." (Gmelin, p. 22.) Cf. Von den Driesch, p. 161.

[113] Thomas Smith, pp. 144-5.

[114] Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xxxv. (a).

[115] M. d'Ohsson, vol. iii. p. 133. Georgieviz, p. 87 (quoted above). Menavino, p. 95.

[116] Von den Driesch, p. 250.

[117] Id. p. 131-2.

[118] Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xi.

[119] Hertzberg, p. 621.

[120] " The old People dying, the young ones generally turn Mahumetans : so that now (1655) you can hardly meet with two Christian Armenians in all those fair Plains, which their fathers were sent to manure."    Tavernier (1), p. 16.

[121] H. H. Jessup: Fifty-three Years in Syria, vol. ii. p. 658. (New York, 1910.)

[122] For a list of these, see Finlay, vol. vi. pp. 28-9.

[123] Leake, p. 250.

[124] The name by which the Albanians always call themselves, lit. rock-dwellers.

[125] One of themselves, an Albanian Christian, speaking of the enmity existing between the Christians and Muhammadans of Bulgaria, says: " Aber für Albanien liegen die Dachen ganz anders.    Die Muselmänner sind Albanesen, wie die Christen; sie sprechen dieselbe Sprache, sie haben dieselben Sitten, sie folgen denselben Gebräuchen, sie haben dieselben Traditionen;   sie und die Christen haben sich niemals gehasst, zwischen ihnen herrscht keine Jahrhunderte alte Feindschaft.    Der Unterschied der Religion war niemals ein zu einer systematischen Trennung treibendes Motiv; Muselmänner und Christen haben stets, mit wenigen Ausnahmen, auf gleichem Fusse gelebt, sich der gleichen Rechte erfreuend, dieselben Pflichten erfüllend."    (Wassa Effendi: Albanien und die Albanesen, p. 59.) (Berlin, 1879.)

[126] Finlay, vol. v. p. 46.

[127] Clark, pp. 175-7.   The Mirdites, who are very fanatical Roman Catholics (in the diocese of Alessio), will not suffer a Muhammadan to live in their mountains, and no member of their tribe has ever abjured his faith; were any Mirdite to attempt to do so, he would certainly be put to death, unless he succeeded in making good his escape from Albania.    (Hecquard: Histoire de la Haute Albanie, p. 224.)

[128] Published in Farlati's Illyricum Sacrum.

[129]Alessandro Comuleo,  1593.    Bizzi, 1610.   Marco Crisio,  1651.    Fra Bonaventura di S. Antonio, 1652.    Zmaievich, 1703.

[130] Bizzi, fol. 60, b.

[131] Bizzi, fol. 35, a.

[132] Farlati, vol. vii pp. 104, 107.

[133] It is also complained that the Archbishop's palace was appropriated by the Muhammadans, but it had been left unoccupied for eight years, as Archbishop Ambrosius (flor. 1579-1598) had found it prudent to go into exile, having attacked Islam " with more fervour than caution, inveighing against Muḥammad and damning his Satanic doctrines."    (Farlati, vol. vii. p. 107.)

[134] Bizzi, fol. 9. where he says. " E comunicai quella mattina quasi tutta la Christianità latina."   From a comparison with statistics given by Zmaievich (fol. 227) I would hazard the conjecture that the Latin Christian community at this time amounted to rather over a thousand souls.

[135] Bizzi, fol. 27, b; 38, b.

[136] Veniero, fol. 34. This was also the custom in some villages of Albania as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century; see W. M. Leake: Travels in Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 49. (London, 1835): "In some villages, Mahometans are married to Greek women, the sons are educated as Turks, and the daughters as Christians; and pork and mutton are eaten at the same table."

[137] Bizzi, fol. 38, b.    Farlati, tom. vii. p. 158.

[138] Bizzi, fol. 10, b.    Veniero, fol. 34.

[139] Shortly after Marco Bizzi's arrival at Antivari a Muhammadan lady of high rank wished to have her child baptised by the Archbishop himself, who tells us that she complained bitterly to one of the leading Christians of the city that " io non mi fossi degnato di far a lei questo piacere, il qual quotidianamente vien fatto dai miei preti a richiesta di qualsivoglia plebeo" (fol. 10, b).

[140] For modern instances of the harmonious relations subsisting between the followers of the two faiths living together in the same village, see Hyacinthe Hecquard: Histoire et description de la Haute Albanie (pp. 153, 162, 200). (Paris, 1858.)

[141] Bizzi, fol. 38, a.

[142] Garnett, p. 267.                       

[143] Bizzi, fol. 36, b.

[144] Id. fol. 38, b.; 37. a.

[145] Bizzi, fol. 38, b; 61,a; 37, a; 33, b.

[146] Zmaievich, fol. 5.    The Venetian real in the eighteenth century was equal to a Turkish piastre.    (Businello, p. 94.)

[147] Bizzi, fol. 12-13.    Zmaievich, fol. 5.

[148] Bizzi, fol. 10-11.

[149] Id. fol. 31, b. 

[150] Id. fol. 60, b.

[151] Id. fol. 33, b. " Qui deriva il puoco numero de Sacerdoti in quelle parti e la puoca loro intelligenza in quel mestiero; il gran numero de' Christiani, che invecchiano, et anco morono senza il sacramento della Confermatione et apostatano della fede quasi per tutto."

[152] " Se 1'Albania non riceverà qualche maggior agiuto in meno di anni anderà a male quasi tutta quella Christianità per il puoco numero dei Vescovi e dei Sacerdoti di qualche intelligenza." (Id. fol. 61, a.)

[153] Id. fol. 36, a.   Id. fol. 64, b.

[154] Finlay, vol. v. pp. 153-4.    Clark, p. 290.

[155] “E quei miseri hanno fermata la conscientia in creder di non peccar per simil coniuntioni (i.e. the giving of Christian girls in marriage to Muhammadans) per esser i turchi signori del paese, e che però non si possa, nè devea far altro che obbedirli quando comandano qualsivoglia cosa." (Bizzi, fol. 38, b.)

[156] Garnett, p. 268.

[157] Bizzi, fol. 38, b; 63, a.

[158] Kyriakos, p. 12.

[159] Farlati, tom. vii. pp. 124, 141.

[160] Marco Crisio, p. 202.

[161] Zmaievich, fol. 227.

[162] Bizzi, fol. 60, d.

[163] Zmaievich, fol. 137.

[164] Zmaievich, fol. 157.

[165] Zmaievich, fol. 11, 159.                        

[166] Zmaievich, fol. 13.

[167] Bizzi, fol. 38. b.    Farlati, vol. vii. p. 158.

[168] Zmaievich, fol. 13-14.

[169] Informatione circa la missione d'Albania, fol. 196.

[170] Crisio, fol. 204.

[171] Fra Bonaventura, fol. 201.

[172] Marco Crisio, fol. 202, 205.

[173] Id. fol. 205.

[174] Zmaievich, fol. 13.

[175] Farlati, tom. vii. p. 109.    Bizzi, fol. 19, b.

[176] Marco Crisio, fol. 205.

[177] Zmaievich, fol. 11.

[178] Id. fol. 32.

[179] Crisio, fol. 204.

[180] Zmaievich, fol. 11.    Farlati, vol. vii. p. 151.

[181] Farlati, vol. vii. pp. 126-32.    Zmaievich, fol. 4-5, fol. 20.

[182] "Plerique, ut se iniquis tributis et vexationibus eximerent, paullatim a Christiana religione deficere coeperunt."    (Farlati, tom. vii. p. 311.)

[183] Zmaievich fol. 5.

[184] Id. fol. 5.

[185] Zmaievich, fol. 15, 197.

[186] Id. fol. 11.

[187] Id. fol. 137.

[188] Id. fol. 149.

[189] Id. fol. 143-4.

[190] Zmaievich, fol. 22.

[191] Farlati, tom. vii. p. 141.

[192] Zmaievich, fol. 7, 17.

[193] Id. fol. 9.

[194] Id. fol. 141.

[195] Farlati, vol. vi. p. 317.

[196] Eliot, p. 401.

[197] Id. p. 392.

[198]Yāqūt, vol. i. p. 469 sq.

[199]Géographie d'Aboulféda, traduite par M. Reinaud, tome ii. pp 294-5.

[200] Enrique Dupuy de Lôme;   Los  Esclavos   y Turquía, pp. 17-18. (Madrid, 1877,)

[201] De la Jonquière, p. 215.

[202]Id. p. 290.

[203] Kanitz, p. 37.

[204] Id. pp. 37-8.

[205] A map of this country is given by Mackenzie and Irby (p. 243) :   it contains Prizren, the old Servian capital, Ipek, the seat of the Servian Patriarch, and the battle-field of Kossovo.             

[206] Kanitz, p. 37.

[207] Mackenzie and Irby, pp. 250-1.

[208] Farlati, vol. vii. pp. 127-8.

[209] Mackenzie and Irby, pp. 374-5.     Kanitz, p. 39.

[210] Id. pp. 39-40.

[211] Kanitz, p. 38.

[212] Bizzi, fol. 48, b.

[213] Zmaievich, fol. 182.

[214] Kanitz, p. 38.

[215] Montenegro was ruled by bishops from 1516 to 1852.

[216] E. L. Clark, pp. 362-3.

[217] Honorius III in 1221, Gregory IX in 1238, Innocent IV in 1246, Benedict XII in 1337. The Inquisition was established in 1291.

[218] Asboth, pp. 42-95.    Evans, pp. xxxvi-xlii.

[219] Asboth, pp. 96-7.

[220] " They revile the ceremonies of the church and all church dignitaries, and they call orthodox priests blind Pharisees, and bay at them as dogs at horses.    As to the Lord's Supper, they assert that it is not kept according to God's commandment, and that it is not the body of God, but ordinary bread."    (Kosmas, quoted by Evans, pp. xxx-xxxi.)

[221] Sūrah iv. 156.

[222] Cf. the admiration of the Turks for Charles XII of Sweden. " Son opiniâtreté à s'abstenir du vin, et sa régularité à assister deux fois par jour aux prières publiques, leur fesaient dire: C'est un vrai musulman." (Œuvres de Voltaire, tome 23, p. 200.) (Paris, 1785.)

[223]Kosmas, quoted by Evans, p. xxxi.

[224] Asboth, p. 36.    Wetzer und Welte, vol. ii. p. 975.

[225] Olivier, pp. 17-8.

[226] Olivier, p. 113.

[227] Amari, vol. i. p. 163;  vol. ii. p. 260.

[228] Cornaro, vol. i. pp. 205-8.

[229] Perrot, p. 151.

[230] Pashley, vol. i. p. 30; vol. ii. pp. 284, 291-2.

[231] Id. vol. ii. p. 298.

[232] Pashley, vol. ii. p. 285.

[233] Id. vol. i. p. 319.

[234] Perrot, p. 151.

[235] Charles Edwardes : Letters from Crete, pp. 90-2.    (London, 1887.)

[236] Pashley, vol. ii. pp. 151-2.             

[237] Id. vol. i. p. 9.

[238] Perrot, p. 159.                                

[239] Pashley, vol. i. pp. 10, 195.

[240] T. A. B. Spratt:   Travels and Researches in Crete, vol. i. p. 47. (London, 1865.)  

[241] R. du M. M. vii. p. 99.