been St. Anthony of Padua (1231). In 1260 the Flagellants appeared in
Italy as _Devoti_. "When the land was polluted by vices and crimes, an
unexampled spirit of remorse suddenly seized the minds of the Italians.
The fear of Christ fell upon all; noble and lowly, old and young, and
even children of five years of age marched through the streets with no
covering but a scarf round the waist. They each carried a scourge of
leathern thongs, which they applied to their limbs, amid sighs and
tears, with such violence that the blood flowed from the wounds. Not
only during the day, but even by night and in the severest winter, they
traversed the cities with burning torches and banners, in thousands and
tens of thousands, headed by their priests, and prostrated themselves
before the altars. The melancholy chant of the penitent alone was heard;
enemies were reconciled; men and women vied with each other in splendid
works of charity, as if they dreaded that divine omnipotence would
pronounce on them the doom of annihilation."
But at length the priests resisted this dangerous fanaticism, without
being able to extirpate the illusion, which was advantageous to the
hierarchy, as long as it submitted to its sway.
The processions of the Brotherhood of the Cross undoubtedly promoted the
spreading of the plague; and it is evident that the gloomy fanaticism
which gave rise to them would infuse a new poison into the already
desponding minds of the people.
Still, however, all this was within the bounds of barbarous enthusiasm;
but horrible were the persecutions of the Jews, which were committed in
most countries with even greater exasperation than in the twelfth
century, during the first crusades. In every destructive pestilence the
common people at first attribute the mortality to poison. On whom, then,
was vengeance so likely to fall as on the Jews, the usurers and the
strangers who lived at enmity with the Christians? They were everywhere
suspected of having poisoned the wells[52] or infected the air, and were
pursued with merciless cruelty.
These bloody scenes, which disgraced Europe in the fourteenth century,
are a counterpart to a similar mania of the age which was manifested in
the persecutions of witches and sorcerers; and, like these, they prove
that enthusiasm, associated with hatred and leagued with the baser
passions, may work more powerfully upon whole nations than religion and
legal order; nay, that it even knows how to profit by the authority of
both, in order the more surely to satiate with blood the swords of
long-suppressed revenge.
The persecution of the Jews commenced in September and October, 1348, at
Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, where the first criminal proceedings
were instituted against them, after they had long before been accused by
the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes followed in Bern and
in Freiburg, in 1349. Under the influence of excruciating suffering, the
tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty of the crime imputed to them;
and it being affirmed that poison had in fact been found in a well at
Zofingen, this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the world; and
the persecution of the abhorred culprits thus appeared justifiable.
Already in the autumn of 1348 a dreadful panic, caused by this supposed
poisoning, seized all nations; in Germany, especially, the springs and
wells were built over, that nobody might drink of them or employ their
contents for culinary purposes; and for a long time the inhabitants of
numerous towns and villages used only river and rain-water. The city
gates were also guarded with the greatest caution: only confidential
persons were admitted; and if medicine or any other article which might
be supposed to be poisonous was found in the possession of a
stranger--and it was natural that some should have these things by them
for private use--he was forced to swallow a portion of it. By this
trying state of privation, distrust, and suspicion the hatred against
the supposed poisoners became greatly increased, and often broke out in
popular commotions, which only served still further to infuriate the
wildest passions.
The noble and the mean fearlessly bound themselves by an oath to
extirpate the Jews by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their
protectors, of whom the number was so small that throughout all Germany
but few places can be mentioned where these unfortunate people were not
regarded as outlaws and martyred and burned. Solemn summonses were
issued from Bern to the towns of Basel, Freiburg in Breisgau, and
Strasburg, to pursue the Jews as poisoners. The burgomasters and
senators, indeed, opposed this requisition; but in Basel the populace
obliged them to bind themselves by an oath to burn the Jews and to
forbid persons of that community from entering their city for the space
of two hundred years. Upon this, all the Jews in Basel, whose number
could not have been inconsiderable, were enclosed in a wooden building,
constructed for the purpose, and burned, together with it, upon the mere
outcry of the people, without sentence or trial, which, indeed, would
have availed them nothing. Soon after the same thing took place at
Freiburg.
A regular diet was held at Bennefeld, in Alsace, where the bishops,
lords, and barons, as also deputies of the counties and towns, consulted
how they should proceed with regard to the Jews; and when the deputies
of Strasburg--not, indeed, the bishop of this town, who proved himself a
violent fanatic--spoke in favor of the persecuted, as nothing criminal
was substantiated against them, a great outcry was raised, and it was
vehemently asked why, if so, they had covered their wells and removed
their buckets? A sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which the
populace, who obeyed the call of the nobles and superior clergy, became
but the too willing executioners. Wherever the Jews were not burned they
were at least banished; and so being compelled to wander about, they
fell into the hands of the country people, who, without humanity and
regardless of all laws, persecuted them with fire and sword.
At Eslingen, the whole Jewish community burned themselves in their
synagogue; and mothers were often seen throwing their children on the
pile, to prevent their being baptized, and then precipitating themselves
into the flames. In short, whatever deeds fanaticism, revenge, avarice,
and desperation, in fearful combination, could instigate mankind to
perform, were executed in 1349, throughout Germany, Italy, and France,
with impunity and in the eyes of all the world. It seemed as if the
plague gave rise to scandalous acts and frantic tumults, not to mourning
and grief; and the greater part of those who, by their education and
rank, were called upon to raise the voice of reason, themselves led on
the savage mob to murder and to plunder.
The humanity and prudence of Clement VI must on this occasion also be
mentioned to his honor. He not only protected the Jews at Avignon, as
far as lay in his power, but also issued two bulls in which he declared
them innocent, and he admonished all Christians, though without success,
to cease from such groundless persecutions. The emperor Charles IV was
also favorable to them, and sought to avert their destruction wherever
he could; but he dared not draw the sword of justice, and even found
himself obliged to yield to the selfishness of the Bohemian nobles, who
were unwilling to forego so favorable an opportunity of releasing
themselves from their Jewish creditors, under favor of an imperial
mandate. Duke Albert of Austria burned and pillaged those of his cities
which had persecuted the Jews--a vain and inhuman proceeding which,
moreover, is not exempt from the suspicion of covetousness; yet he was
unable, in his own fortress of Kyberg, to protect some hundreds of Jews,
who had been received there, from being barbarously burned by the
inhabitants.
Several other princes and counts, among whom was Ruprecht of the
Palatinate, took the Jews under their protection, on the payment of
large sums; in consequence of which they were called "Jew-masters," and
were in danger of being attacked by the populace and by their powerful
neighbors. These persecuted and ill-used people--except, indeed, where
humane individuals took compassion on them at their own peril, or when
they could command riches to purchase protection--had no place of refuge
left but the distant country of Lithuania, where Boleslav V, Duke of
Poland, 1227-1279, had before granted them liberty of conscience; and
King Casimir the Great, 1333-1370, yielding to the entreaties of Esther,
a favorite Jewess, received them, and granted them further protection;
on which account that country is still inhabited by a great number of
Jews, who by their secluded habits have, more than any people in Europe,
retained the manners of the Middle Ages.
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
When the evil had become universal in Florence, the hearts of all the
inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity. They fled from the sick
and all that belonged to them, hoping by these means to save themselves.
Others shut themselves up in their houses, with their wives, their
children and households, living on the most costly food, but carefully
avoiding all excess. None was allowed access to them; no intelligence of
death or sickness was permitted to reach their ears; and they spent
their time in singing and music and other pastimes.
Others, on the contrary, considered eating and drinking to excess,
amusements of all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratification,
and an indifference to what was passing around them as the best
medicine, and acted accordingly. They wandered day and night from one
tavern to another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In this way
they endeavored to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned their
houses and property to chance, like men whose death-knell had already
tolled.
Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of
every law, human and divine, vanished. Most of those who were in office
had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many
members of their families that they were unable to attend to their
duties; so that thenceforth everyone acted as he thought proper. Others,
in their mode of living, chose a middle course. They ate and drank what
they pleased, and walked abroad; carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs, or
spices, which they smelt at from time to time, in order to invigorate
the brain and to avert the baneful influence of the air, infected by the
sick and by the innumerable corpses of those who had died of the plague.
Others carried their precaution still further, and thought the surest
way to escape death was by flight. They therefore left the city; women
as well as men abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and
retiring into the country. But of these, also, many were carried off,
most of them alone and deserted by all the world, themselves having
previously set the example.
Thus it was that one citizen fled from another--a neighbor from his
neighbors--a relation from his relations; and in the end, so completely
had terror extinguished every kindlier feeling that the brother forsook
the brother, the sister the sister, the wife her husband, and at last
even the parent his own offspring, and abandoned them, unvisited and
unsoothed, to their fate. Those, therefore, that stood in need of
assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants; who, for an exorbitant
recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine, remained
with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently became
themselves victims to their avarice, and lived not to enjoy their
extorted gain.
Propriety and decorum were extinguished among the helpless sick. Females
of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness, and committed the
care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of the lowest
order. No longer were women, relatives or friends, found in the houses
of mourning, to share the grief of the survivors; no longer was the
corpse accompanied to the grave by neighbors and a numerous train of
priests, carrying wax tapers and singing psalms, nor was it borne along
by other citizens of equal rank. Many breathed their last without a
friend to comfort them in their last moments; and few indeed were they
who departed amid the lamentations and tears of their friends and
kindred.
Instead of sorrow and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity, and
mirth; this being considered, especially by the females, as conducive to
health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants;
and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest
of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and
accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it
was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave
that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes,
and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or
negligence induced most of these to remain in their dwellings or in the
immediate neighborhood; and thus they fell by thousands; and many ended
their lives in the streets by day and by night.
The stench of putrefying corpses was often the first indication to their
neighbors that more deaths had occurred. The survivors, to preserve
themselves from infection, generally had the bodies taken out of the
houses and laid before the doors, where the early morn found them in
heaps, exposed to the affrighted gaze of the passing stranger. It was no
longer possible to have a bier for every corpse--three or four were
generally laid together; husband and wife, father and mother, with two
or three children, were frequently borne to the grave on the same bier;
and it often happened that two priests would accompany a coffin, bearing
the cross before it, and be joined on the way by several other funerals;
so that instead of one, there were five or six bodies for interment.
FIRST TURKISH DOMINION IN EUROPE
TURKS SEIZE GALLIPOLI
A.D. 1354
JOSEPH VON HAMMER-PURGSTALL[53]
During the early years of the fourteenth century a new
Mahometan realm was established on the ruins of the
Seljukian and Byzantine power in Asia Minor. Osman,[54] or
Othman, the founder of this realm, which is regarded as the
original Ottoman empire, subdued a great part of Asia Minor,
and in the year of his death 1326, his son Orkhan captured
Prusa (now Brusa) and Nicomedia. In 1330 he took Nicæa--then
second only to Constantinople in the Greek or Byzantine
empire--and six years later he defeated the Turkish Prince
of Karasi, the ancient Mysia, and annexed his territory,
including the capital, Berghama, the ancient Pergamus, to
the Ottoman dominions, thus securing nearly the whole of
North-western Asia Minor.
During the reign of Orkhan the Ottomans made frequent
passages of the Hellespont for the purpose of extending
their power into Europe. After fifteen invasions without any
permanent conquest, in 1354 Orkhan and his son Suleiman
perceived an opportunity by which they prepared themselves
to profit--civil war was raging in the Byzantine empire,
where John Palæologus was striving to deprive the emperor
Cantacuzenus of his throne.
The plan whereby the Ottomans secured a foothold in Europe
which soon enabled them to establish a permanent sovereignty
on the peninsula of Gallipoli was executed by Suleiman with
a military skill which gave his name a conspicuous place in
Turkish history.
On the meridional shore of the Sea of Marmora, at the entrance of the
Hellespont, is perceived the peninsula of Kapoutaghi--the ancient,
almost insular Cyzicus, a Milesian colony. At the neck of the isthmus,
where it joins the mainland, there where are seen to-day the ruins of
Aidindjik, formerly arose Cyzicus, a city celebrated in the history of
Persia and of Rome, of ancient Greece and of the Byzantine empire. This
port, one of the most commercial of the Asiatic coast, possessed, like
Rhodes, Marseilles, and Carthage, two military arsenals and an immense
granary, each placed under the special superintendence of an architect.
The annals of this town have been enriched by the passage of the
Argonauts and of the Goths, by the siege of Mithridates and by the
assistance received from the Romans under the leadership of Lucullus.
Granted its freedom by the latter as a reward for its fidelity, Cyzicus
was shortly afterward deprived of its privileges for having neglected
the service of the temple of Augustus. Under the Byzantines it became
the capital of the province of Hellespont and the metropolitan see of
Mysia and of all the territory of Troy. On Mount Dyndimos, at the gates
of Cyzicus, arose the temple of the great mother, the goddess Ida, whose
worship had been established by the Argonauts, and who was venerated at
Cyzicus as at Pessinunte, in the form of an aërolite, a sacred stone,
which under the reign of King Attalus was carried to Rome, and installed
in the city by all the matrons, preceded by Scipio the Younger. The
inhabitants of the peninsula adored also Cybele, Proserpine, and
Jupiter, who, according to a fabulous tradition, had given the town of
Cyzicus to the wife of Pluto, as dower. Emperor Hadrian embellished this
town with the largest and the finest of the temples of paganism. The
columns of this edifice, all of one piece, were four ells (fifteen and
one-half feet) in circumference and fifty ells (one hundred and
ninety-five feet) in height.
In 1354 Suleiman, the son of Orkhan, Governor of ancient Mysia, a
province recently conquered by the Turks, was seized with admiration by
the aspect of the majestic ruins of Cyzicus. The broken columns, the
marbles prone on the sward, recalled to him the ruins of the palace of
the Queen of Saba Balkis, erected by the order of Solomon, the remains
of Istakhr (Persepolis), and of Tadmor (Palmyra). One evening when
seated by the sea-shore, he saw, by the light of the moon (Aidindjik,
the crescent moon), the porticoes and peristyles reflected in the waves.
Clouds passed along the surface of the sea, and he imagined that he saw
these ruined palaces and temples arise from the deep, and a fleet
navigate the waters. Around him arose mysterious voices whose sound
mingled with the murmur of the waves, while the moon, which at this
moment shone in the east, seemed to unite Asia and Europe by a silver
ribbon. It was she who, emerging formerly from the bosom of Edebali,[55]
had come to hide herself in that of Osman. The remembrance of the
fantastic vision, which had presaged a universal domination to his
ancestor, inflamed the courage of Suleiman, and made him resolve to
unite Europe and Asia by transporting the Ottoman power from the shores
of Asia Minor to the strands of the Greek empire, and thus to realize
the dream of Osman.
Suleiman consulted immediately with Adjebeg, Ghazi-Fazil, Ewrenos, and
Hadji-Ilbeki, ancient vizier of the Prince of Karasi, who had been his
assistants in the government of Mysia. All confirmed him in his
resolution. Adjebeg and Ghazi-Fazil the same night went to Gouroudjouk
and took ship to make a reconnaissance in the environs of Tzympe,
situated a league and a half from Gallipoli, opposite Gouroudjouk. A
Greek prisoner whom they brought with them to Asia informed Suleiman of
the abandoned and unprepared state of the place, and offered himself as
a guide to surprise the garrison. Suleiman immediately had two rafts
constructed of trees united by thongs of bull skins, and made the
attempt the following night, with thirty-nine of his most intrepid
companions in arms. Arrived before the fortress, they scaled the walls
by mounting on an immense dung-heap, and took possession of it easily,
owing to the inhabitants being all absent in the fields engaged in
harvesting. Suleiman then hastened to send to Asia all the ships which
he found in the port, to transport soldiers to Tzympe; and three days
after, the fortress contained a garrison of three thousand Ottomans.
In the mean while Cantacuzenus, unable to resist any longer the forces
assembled against him by his young rival, John Palæologus, asked the
assistance of Orkhan. Orkhan sent him the conqueror of Tzympe, an
auxiliary whose support later became more troublesome to the Emperor
than it was useful against his enemy. Ten thousand Turkish cavaliers
disembarked near Ainos, at the _embouchure_ of Maritza (Hebrus),
defeated the auxiliary troops which John Palæologus had drawn from
Moesia and from the Triballiens, ravaged Bulgaria, and repassed into
Asia, loaded with spoil.
Cantacuzenus, more at his ease after the departure of the conquering
horde, negotiated with Suleiman the ransom of Tzympe. Scarcely had he
sent the ten thousand ducats agreed upon, when a commissary of the
Ottoman Prince arrived bringing him the keys; but at the same time a
terrific earthquake devastated the towns on the Thracian coasts. The
inhabitants who did not find death in the destruction of their dwellings
went with the garrisons to seek refuge against the destroying scourge
and the barbarity of the Turks in the towns and the castles which the
catastrophe had spared. But torrents of rain, snow, and a glacial
temperature killed the women and the children on the road. As to the
men, they fell into the power of Orkhan's soldiers, who were awaiting
their passage. Thus the Ottomans found a powerful auxiliary in the
warring elements. From that time they believed that God himself favored
their projects. Adjebeg and Ghazi-Fazil, whom Suleiman had left in front
of Gallipoli, penetrated into that town by the large breaches that the
earthquake had made in the walls, and took possession of it, owing to
the confusion which reigned among the inhabitants.
Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, the commercial _entrepôt_ of the
Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, is celebrated in history by the
siege that it sustained against Philip of Macedon, and by the revolt of
the Catalans or Mogabars who, half a century before the disaster, braved
with impunity the power of the Greek Emperor and made it the centre of
their piracies. The tombs of the two Ottoman chiefs are still seen
to-day. These two mausoleums are much visited by Mussulman pilgrims, and
the reason of this pious veneration is due to the fact that here in this
sacred place lie the ashes of the two generations to whom the Ottoman
empire owes the conquest of a town, the possession of which facilitated
the passing of the Turks into Europe. For the same reason all the
surrounding country, which, during the blockade of the town, Adjebeg and
his lieutenant Ghazi-Fazil had put to fire and sword, received the name
of Adje Owa. The two beys, taking advantage of the terror caused by so
many disasters, penetrated into the deserted towns and established
themselves.
On the news of these conquests Suleiman, who then was at Bigha (Pegæ),
refused to restore Tzympe, and, far from being contented with the
peaceful possession of the territory invaded by his hordes, dreamed of
extending the boundaries, and for this purpose sent over to Europe
numerous colonies of Turks and Arabs. One of his first cares was to
raise the walls of Gallipoli and other strong places devastated by the
earthquake; among the number were Konour, whose commander, called
Calaconia by the Ottoman historians, was hanged by order of Suleiman at
the doors of the castle; the fort of Boulair, before which Suleiman
received, as a presage of his future glory, the bonnet of a dervish
Mewlewi; Malgara, renowned for its trade in honey; Ipsala (ancient
Cypsella) on the Marizza; and lastly Rodosto, now Tekourtaghi, ancient
residence of Besus, King of Thrace, and the place of exile where died in
modern times the Hungarian Francis Rakoczy, Prince of Transylvania, and
his partisans. All these towns and strong places fell into the power of
the Ottomans in the course of the year 1357; they served them as
starting-bases for their excursions, which they pushed as far as
Hireboli (Chariupolis) and Tschorli (Tzurulum).