a singular condition, that it should be lawful for him to sell his
prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd
of Christians of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of
matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was
frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indigent
Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the
worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage [50] Cantacuzene was
reduced to subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been
still more pernicious to the empire: a body of ten thousand Turks had
been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire
forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these
calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed
away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the
conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely
evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his
pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could
never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his
theological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own
history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage
of the Hellespont, [51] and describe the son of Orchan as a nocturnal
robber, who, with eighty companions, explores by stratagem a hostile
and unknown shore. Soliman, at the head of ten thousand horse, was
transported in the vessels, and entertained as the friend, of the Greek
emperor. In the civil wars of Romania, he performed some service and
perpetrated more mischief; but the Chersonesus was insensibly filled
with a Turkish colony; and the Byzantine court solicited in vain the
restitution of the fortresses of Thrace. After some artful delays
between the Ottoman prince and his son, their ransom was valued at sixty
thousand crowns, and the first payment had been made when an earthquake
shook the walls and cities of the provinces; the dismantled places were
occupied by the Turks; and Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, was
rebuilt and repeopled by the policy of Soliman. The abdication of
Cantacuzene dissolved the feeble bands of domestic alliance; and his
last advice admonished his countrymen to decline a rash contest, and to
compare their own weakness with the numbers and valor, the discipline
and enthusiasm, of the Moslems. His prudent counsels were despised by
the headstrong vanity of youth, and soon justified by the victories
of the Ottomans. But as he practised in the field the exercise of the
_jerid_, Soliman was killed by a fall from his horse; and the aged
Orchan wept and expired on the tomb of his valiant son. [511]
[Footnote 50: The most lively and concise picture of this captivity
may be found in the history of Ducas, (c. 8,) who fairly describes what
Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush!]
[Footnote 51: In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe,
Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides; nor
am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles, (l. i. p. 12, &c.)
They forget to consult the most authentic record, the ivth book
of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still
manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. * Note: Von Hammer excuses the
silence with which the Turkish historians
pass over the earlier intercourse of the Ottomans with the European
continent, of which he enumerates sixteen different occasions, as
if they disdained those peaceful incursions by which they gained
no conquest, and established no permanent footing on the Byzantine
territory. Of the romantic account of Soliman's first expedition, he
says, "As yet the prose of history had not asserted its right over
the poetry of tradition." This defence would scarcely be accepted as
satisfactory by the historian of the Decline and Fall.--M. (in Quarterly
Review, vol. xlix. p. 293.)]
[Footnote 511: In the 75th year of his age, the 35th of his reign. V.
Hammer. M.]
Chapter LXIV: Moguls, Ottoman Turks.--Part IV.
But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their enemies;
and the Turkish cimeter was wielded with the same spirit by Amurath the
First, the son of Orchan, and the brother of Soliman. By the pale and
fainting light of the Byzantine annals, [52] we can discern, that he
subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from
the Hellespont to Mount HÊmus, and the verge of the capital; and that
Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion
in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her
foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted
by the Barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour
had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms
of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath
postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied
with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John PalÊologus
and his four sons, who followed at his summons the court and camp of the
Ottoman prince. He marched against the Sclavonian nations between
the Danube and the Adriatic, the Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and
Albanians; and these warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the
majesty of the empire, were repeatedly broken by his destructive
inroads. Their countries did not abound either in gold or silver;
nor were their rustic hamlets and townships enriched by commerce or
decorated by the arts of luxury. But the natives of the soil have been
distinguished in every age by their hardiness of mind and body; and
they were converted by a prudent institution into the firmest and most
faithful supporters of the Ottoman greatness. [53] The vizier of Amurath
reminded his sovereign that, according to the Mahometan law, he was
entitled to a fifth part of the spoil and captives; and that the
duty might easily be levied, if vigilant officers were stationed in
Gallipoli, to watch the passage, and to select for his use the stoutest
and most beautiful of the Christian youth. The advice was followed:
the edict was proclaimed; many thousands of the European captives were
educated in religion and arms; and the new militia was consecrated and
named by a celebrated dervis. Standing in the front of their ranks, he
stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier,
and his blessing was delivered in these words: "Let them be called
Janizaries, (_Yengi cheri_, or new soldiers;) may their countenance be
ever bright! their hand victorious! their sword keen! may their spear
always hang over the heads of their enemies! and wheresoever they go,
may they return with a _white face!_" [54] [541] Such was the origin of
these haughty troops, the terror of the nations, and sometimes of
the sultans themselves. Their valor has declined, their discipline is
relaxed, and their tumultuary array is incapable of contending with
the order and weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of their
institution, they possessed a decisive superiority in war; since
a regular body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was not
maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought
with the zeal of proselytes against their _idolatrous_ countrymen; and
in the battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian
tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field,
he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless
youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his vizier, that age and
wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But
the sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from the dagger of
despair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and
Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. [542] The grandson
of Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover
of learning and virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence
from public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the
mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause: a mixture of
servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history. [55]
[Footnote 52: After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there
follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, Michael
Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of
Constantinople.]
[Footnote 53: See Cantemir, p. 37--41, with his own large and curious
annotations.]
[Footnote 54: _White_ and _black_ face are common and proverbial
expressions of praise and reproach in the Turkish language. Hic _niger_
est, hunc tu Romane caveto, was likewise a Latin sentence.]
[Footnote 541: According to Von Hammer. vol. i. p. 90, Gibbon and the
European writers assign too late a date to this enrolment of the
Janizaries. It took place not in the reign of Amurath, but in that of
his predecessor Orchan.--M.]
[Footnote 542: Ducas has related this as a deliberate act of self-devotion
on the part of a Servian noble who pretended to desert, and stabbed
Amurath during a conference which he had requested. The Italian
translator of Ducas, published by Bekker in the new edition of the
Byzantines, has still further heightened the romance. See likewise in
Von Hammer (Osmanische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 138) the popular Servian
account, which resembles that of Ducas, and may have been the source of
that of his Italian translator. The Turkish account agrees more nearly
with Gibbon; but the Servian, (Milosch Kohilovisch) while he lay
among the heap of the dead, pretended to have some secret to impart to
Amurath, and stabbed him while he leaned over to listen.--M.]
[Footnote 55: See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I., in
Cantemir, (p 33--45,) the first book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan was
stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was alleged to
Busbequius (Epist i. p. 98) as an excuse for the unworthy precaution
of pinioning, as if were, between two attendants, an ambassador's arms,
when he is introduced to the royal presence.]
The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is strongly
expressed in his surname of _Ilderim_, or the lightning; and he might
glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery energy of his soul
and the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of his
reign, [56] he incessantly moved at the head of his armies, from
Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though he
strenuously labored for the propagation of the law, he invaded, with
impartial ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe
and Asia. From Angora to Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of
Anatolia were reduced to his obedience: he stripped of their hereditary
possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin and
Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium the ancient kingdom of the
Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests
of Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a
regular form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than he
passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart
of Moldavia. [57] Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace,
Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master: an obsequious
bishop led him through the gates of ThermopylÊ into Greece; and we may
observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief, who
possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favor
by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communication
between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till he
stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys, to command the Hellespont
and intercept the Latin succors of Constantinople. While the monarch
indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he
imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence;
and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of
his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice,
he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who
expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them
to ashes. His ministers trembled in silence: but an ∆thiopian buffoon
presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality
was left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office
of cadhi. [58] The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the
Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan
from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes:
[59] a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by
the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of
the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the
obligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his arms
against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish
victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and
brother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and
the church; and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of
France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of
the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate
army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, that
if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The
far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond,
escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned
after a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. [60] In the pride of
victory, Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he would
subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy, and that he would
feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome.
His progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the
apostle, not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long and
painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are sometimes
corrected by those of the physical, world; and an acrimonious humor
falling on a single fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the misery
of nations.
[Footnote 56: The reign of Bajazet I., or Ilderim Bayazid, is contained
in Cantemir, (p. 46,) the iid book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales
Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example, that the
conquerors and poets of every age have _felt_ the truth of a system
which derives the sublime from the principle of terror.]
[Footnote 57: Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great
Stephen over the Turks, (p. 47,) had composed the ancient and modern
state of his principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, and
is still unpublished.]
[Footnote 58: Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the
cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrust
the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the
Turks themselves, (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217, 229,
230.)]
[Footnote 59: The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of Ben
Schounah, a contemporary Syrian, (De Guignes Hist. des Huns. tom. iv. p.
336.) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir, (p. 14, 15,)
of the election of Othman to the dignity of sultan.]
[Footnote 60: See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l. ii. p.
379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century, was invited
into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if it
be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely
chronicle of the time and country.]
Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous
adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which illustrate
the victory and character of Bajazet. [61] The duke of Burgundy,
sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to the
ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the fearless youth was
accompanied by four princes, his _cousins_, and those of the French
monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of the
best and oldest captain of Christendom; [62] but the constable, admiral,
and marshal of France [63] commanded an army which did not exceed the
number of a thousand knights and squires. [631] These splendid names were
the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might
aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spirit
despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion that
Bajazet _would_ fly, or _must_ fall, they began to compute how soon they
should visit Constantinople and deliver the holy sepulchre. When their
scouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughtless
youths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly clasped
their armor, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard,
and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have
deprived them of the right and honor of the foremost attack. The battle
of Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyed
the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won,
had the Hungarians imitated the valor of the French. They dispersed
the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampart
of stakes, which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, after
a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; and were at length
overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and
charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed
and secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his
enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accuse
his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the count of Nevers,
and four-and-twenty lords, [632] whose birth and riches were attested by
his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had
survived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, as
they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in
his presence. The sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest
Janizaries; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the
French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, [64] they might impute to
themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whose
life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he
might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble
captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes and
barons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp,
exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and Asia, and
strictly confined at Boursa, as often as Bajazet resided in his capital.
The sultan was pressed each day to expiate with their blood the blood of
his martyrs; but he had pronounced that they should live, and either for
mercy or destruction his word was irrevocable. He was assured of their
value and importance by the return of the messenger, and the gifts and
intercessions of the kings of France and of Cyprus. Lusignan presented
him with a gold saltcellar of curious workmanship, and of the price
of ten thousand ducats; and Charles the Sixth despatched by the way of
Hungary a cast of Norwegian hawks, and six horse-loads of scarlet cloth,
of fine linen of Rheims, and of Arras tapestry, representing the battles
of the great Alexander. After much delay, the effect of distance rather
than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of two hundred thousand
ducats for the count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons:
the marshal Boucicault, a famous warrior, was of the number of the
fortunate; but the admiral of France had been slain in battle; and the
constable, with the Sire de Coucy, died in the prison of Boursa. This
heavy demand, which was doubled by incidental costs, fell chiefly on the
duke of Burgundy, or rather on his Flemish subjects, who were bound by
the feudal laws to contribute for the knighthood and captivity of the
eldest son of their lord. For the faithful discharge of the debt, some
merchants of Genoa gave security to the amount of five times the sum; a
lesson to those warlike times, that commerce and credit are the links of
the society of nations. It had been stipulated in the treaty, that the
French captives should swear never to bear arms against the person of
their conqueror; but the ungenerous restraint was abolished by Bajazet
himself. "I despise," said he to the heir of Burgundy, "thy oaths
and thy arms. Thou art young, and mayest be ambitious of effacing the
disgrace or misfortune of thy first chivalry. Assemble thy powers,
proclaim thy design, and be assured that Bajazet will rejoice to meet
thee a second time in a field of battle." Before their departure, they
were indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Boursa. The
French princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting
and hawking equipage was composed of seven thousand huntsmen and seven
thousand falconers. [65] In their presence, and at his command, the belly
of one of his chamberlains was cut open, on a complaint against him for
drinking the goat's milk of a poor woman. The strangers were astonished
by this act of justice; but it was the justice of a sultan who disdains
to balance the weight of evidence, or to measure the degrees of guilt.
[Footnote 61: I should not complain of the labor of this work, if my
materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle of
honest Froissard, (vol. iv. c. 67, 72, 74, 79--83, 85, 87, 89,) who read
little, inquired much, and believed all. The original MÈmoires of the
MarÈchal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 22--28) add some facts, but they
are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of
Froissard.]
[Footnote 62: An accurate Memoir on the Life of Enguerrand VII., Sire
de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben, (Hist. de l'AcadÈmie
des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and possessions were equally
considerable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army of
adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he
claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert
I. of Austria, (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p.
118--124.)]
[Footnote 63: That military office, so respectable at present, was still
more conspicuous when it was divided between two persons, (Daniel, Hist.
de la Milice FranÁoise, tom. ii. p. 5.) One of these, the marshal of
the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defended
Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in
the field of Azincour.]
[Footnote 631: Daru, Hist. de Venice, vol. ii. p. 104, makes the whole
French army amount to 10,000 men, of whom 1000 were knights. The curious
volume of Schiltberger, a German of Munich, who was taken prisoner
in the battle, (edit. Munich, 1813,) and which V. Hammer receives as
authentic, gives the whole number at 6000. See Schiltberger. Reise in
dem Orient. and V. Hammer, note, p. 610.--M.]
[Footnote 632: According to Schiltberger there were only twelve French
lords granted to the prayer of the "duke of Burgundy," and "Herr Stephan
Synther, and Johann von Bodem." Schiltberger, p. 13.--M.]
[Footnote 64: For this odious fact, the AbbÈ de Vertot quotes the Hist.
Anonyme de St. Denys, l. xvi. c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe, tom. ii. p.
310.)]
[Footnote 641: See Schiltberger's very graphic account of the massacre.
He was led out to be slaughtered in cold blood with the rest f
the Christian prisoners, amounting to 10,000. He was spared at the
intercession of the son of Bajazet, with a few others, on account of
their extreme youth. No one under 20 years of age was put to death. The
"duke of Burgundy" was obliged to be a spectator of this butchery which
lasted from early in the morning till four o'clock, P. M. It ceased only
at the supplication of the leaders of Bajazet's army. Schiltberger, p.
14.--M.]
[Footnote 65: Sherefeddin Ali (Hist. de Timour Bec, l. v. c. 13) allows
Bajazet a round number of 12,000 officers and servants of the chase.
A part of his spoils was afterwards displayed in a hunting-match of
Timour, l. hounds with satin housings; 2. leopards with collars set with
jewels; 3. Grecian greyhounds; and 4, dogs from Europe, as strong as
African lions, (idem, l. vi. c. 15.) Bajazet was particularly fond of
flying his hawks at cranes, (Chalcondyles, l. ii. p. 85.)]