CHAPTER XX

CONCLUSION: THE CAPTURE EPOCH-MARKING; ALARM IN EUROPE;

DISASTROUS RESULTS; UPON CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS AND ON EASTERN

CHURCHES; DEMORALISATION OF BOTH; POVERTY THE PRINCIPAL

RESULT; DEGRADATION OF CHURCHES: TWO GREAT SERVICES RENDERED

BY THE CHURCHES; RESULTS ON TURKS: POWERLESS TO ASSIMILATE

CONQUERED PEOPLES OR THEIR CIVILISATION.

The capture of Constantinople marked an epoch in the world’s history.

The dispersion of its scholars and its treasures of learning leavened

Western thought; the lessons gained from Turkish warfare, from the

discipline of the Janissaries and the mobility of the army were learned

by European states. These results entitle the event to be regarded

as of importance, but another, the conviction, namely, brought home

to Europe of the significance of the capture, helps still further to

entitle it to be regarded as epoch-marking. The Slavic and Teutonic as

well as the Greek and Latin races had been developing for centuries,

unchecked by any external influence, in the direction of human progress

which we understand by the word ‘civilisation.’ From Ireland to

Constantinople and even to the banks of the Euphrates all the peoples

had accepted Christianity, a religion which had not been substantially

changed either in dogma or discipline by any of the various races

included in the above area, a religion which had aided them to develop

the morality, the habits and customs, the thoughts and ideals, which

are comprehended in the modern conception of civilisation. The capture

of Constantinople was the intrusion into this Christian area of a

foreign force, with a different morality, and with a tendency hostile

to the habits, customs, and aspirations which it encountered. The

capture was the latest step in a series of successful efforts to detach

a large mass of territory from the area of European civilisation. As

large sections of the empire had during successive centuries been lost,

Constantinople came to stand in her loneliness as the representative

of European ideals of Christianity. When the city was taken, Western

statesmen were compelled to recognise that the remaining European area

of civilisation was face to face with an Asiatic, a non-Christian, and

a necessarily hostile movement. The European peoples, for the first

time during centuries, were awakened from their dream of security and

saw the possibility of the advance of races professing the creed which

had been held by those who in the early days of Islam had utterly

rooted out the civilisation and Christianity of North Africa. The shock

and alarm were universal.

[Sidenote: Alarm created in Europe.]

The military reputation of the Turk was enormously increased by the

capture of Constantinople. Hallam justly observes that though the fate

of the city had been protracted beyond all reasonable expectation,

the actual intelligence operated like that of a sudden calamity. ‘A

sentiment of consternation, perhaps of self-reproach, thrilled to the

heart of Christendom.’[561] Those who knew what the progress of the

Turks had been and how numerous and mobile were the hordes at the

disposal of the sultan were the most anxious regarding their further

progress. The podestà of Pera, writing within a month after the

capture, declares that Mahomet intended to become lord of the whole

earth and that before two years were over he would go to Rome and ‘By

God, unless the Christians take care, or there are miracles worked, the

destruction of Constantinople will be repeated in Rome.’[562] Other

contemporary writers express the like dismay. Aeneas Sylvius, in the

presence of the diet of Frankfort, pointed out that by the capture of

Constantinople Hungary lay open to the conqueror, and declared that if

that country were subdued Italy and Germany would be open to invasion.

The rapid extension of their power by sea as well as by land was soon

a constant source of anxiety to the nations whose territory bordered

on the Mediterranean. Piratical expeditions upon their shores with

the object of carrying off slaves kept them in perpetual alarm. When

Don John of Austria, in 1571, defeated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto,

the dread of the victorious Turk was so acute and the relief at the

completeness of his victory so great that the Venetians congratulated

each other with the cry that the Devil was dead, and the pope

commemorated the great triumph by preaching from the text ‘There was a

man sent from God whose name was John.’

From the capture in 1453 until John Sobieski relieved Vienna, upwards

of two centuries later, the universal topic of European politics,

quiescent for a few years but constantly becoming paramount, was the

progress made by the Grand Turk. During the whole of this period he had

continued to be the terror of Europe.

La Brocquière, who had noted the traffic in Christian slaves by the

Turks and the oppression of their Christian subjects, remarked that it

was a shame and scandal to Europe to allow herself to be terrorised by

such a race. A succession of travellers from the West, who, one after

another, observed the sufferings of the Christians, the misgovernment

of the Turkish empire, its rapid increase, and the widespread terror

of the Turkish name, vainly endeavoured to show how the Turks might be

defeated; but their victorious progress was unchecked until 1683.[563]

The results of the destruction of the empire were of a uniformly

disastrous character. Constantinople, which had been the heart of the

empire and for centuries the great bulwark of European civilisation,

became the stronghold of the professors of a hostile creed. After

aiding Europe by resisting the long encroachments of the Turks, it

had first become an isolated outpost of Christianity surrounded by

hostile hordes, and then, after a century of struggle, not altogether

inglorious, had been overwhelmed by them. By its capture Europe lost

all that its citizens might have contributed to civilisation. The

philosophy, art, theology, and jurisprudence which had emanated from

its schools had, happily, leavened Western lands--happily, because

after the conquest the city ceased to exercise any influence on

European thought. Under the rule of its new masters it was destined

to become the most degraded capital in Europe, and became incapable

of contributing anything whatever of value to the progress of the

human race. No art, no literature, no handicraft even, nothing that

the world would gladly keep, has come since 1453 from the Queen City.

Its capture, so far as human eyes can see, has been for the world a

misfortune almost without any compensatory advantage.

[Sidenote: Results upon Christian subjects.]

The disastrous results of the conquest fell with greatest force upon

the conquered subjects of the empire. The great cry which went up from

the Christians who had fallen under Turkish rule, and which has never

ceased to be justified among their descendants to the present hour,

was that the new rulers failed in the primary duty of government--to

render life and property secure. Tried by a higher standard of good

government, as an institution which should secure to its subjects

justice, the rule of the Turk fell immeasurably short. The Christians

became _rayahs_ or cattle, and as such were legally incapable of

possessing the same rights as Moslems. While an analogy to such

inequality might be found in other countries, in Turkey the Christians

found that the rights which even the law of the conquerors accorded

them were denied. Their property was arbitrarily seized. They were

constantly harassed and pillaged by their Mahometan neighbours and no

redress could be obtained in the law courts, for Christian testimony

was not admissible against the word of a Moslem. The effects of

this legal inequality were soon apparent and have continued to the

present day. The Christians were tillers of the ground, artificers,

or merchants. Their earnings exposed them to the envy of their Moslem

neighbours, who, being less experienced in agriculture or less skilful

in trade, less energetic and less intelligent, were unable, as they

are still, to compete with them successfully. Their superior power

of creating wealth, rather than the fanaticism of a hostile creed,

has from the time of the conquest led to fierce outrages upon the

Christians and to raids upon their property, and when combined with

such fanaticism has produced the periodical massacres which have

occurred during nearly every decade in Turkish history.

The difficulties of the Christian traders and agriculturists were

greatly increased by the conduct of the conquerors in allowing the

great roads and bridges to get out of repair. Turkish ignorance,

contempt for industry and commerce, belief that such matters were only

of interest to unbelievers, led even the governing class to allow the

public works which they had found in the country to fall into ruin. The

traveller in Asia Minor and in European Turkey finds everywhere the

remains of roads once well constructed and well preserved, which the

Turks have made few or no efforts to maintain, reconstruct, or replace.

The destruction or decay of the means of communication coupled with the

want of security soon made it useless for the Christian tiller of the

soil to engage in agriculture or even increase his flocks and herds.

The surplus over what was necessary to supply his own wants could not

be taken to market. Abundance of evidence shows that the Christians

in almost every part of the empire had possessed large flocks and

herds of cattle. These, indeed, formed a special temptation to the

Turks, who at all times since their entry into Asia Minor and Europe

were given to making raids on neighbouring Christian lands. After

the conquest it soon became useless for the Christians to attempt to

keep a form of property which was so easily carried off. Those who in

spite of all obstacles contrived to save a few hundred aspers became

objects of envy to their Moslem neighbours and carefully hid their

little savings. The want of security and the absence of roads were

evils which the Christian shared, though to a less extent, with the

Turk. All inducements to the accumulation of wealth, but especially

for Christians, were removed, till at length all alike ceased to save

or do more work than was necessary to keep body and soul together.

Nor can it be said that the condition of the population under Turkish

rule has in this respect greatly improved at the present day. In the

interior of the empire the man who has acquired a little wealth is

careful not to appear better off than his neighbours. In the capital

and a few seaports, Christians had a somewhat better chance, but even

there the practice of squeezing a wealthy Greek or Armenian merchant

and stripping him of his property lingered into the last century and is

even yet not altogether extinct.

[Sidenote: Population impoverished,]

Poverty as the consequence of misgovernment is the most conspicuous

result of the conquest affecting the population of the empire. Lands

were allowed to go out of cultivation. Industries were lost. Mines

were forgotten. Trade and commerce almost ceased to exist. Population

decreased. The wealthiest state in Europe became the poorest; the most

civilised became the most barbarous.

[Sidenote: and demoralised.]

The demoralisation of the conquered people and of their churches

resulting from the conquest and especially from the poverty it produced

were not less disastrous than the injury to their material interests.

The Christians lost heart. Their physical courage lessened. In remote

districts, and especially in mountainous regions, where the advantage

of natural position counterbalanced the enormously superior numbers of

the enemy, the Christians continued to resist. The Greeks in Epirus

gave a good account of themselves during centuries, while the Armenians

round about Zeitoun and the inhabitants of Montenegro even continued

to keep something like independence. But the Greek, Bulgarian, and

Armenian populations, all of whom had fought well in resisting the

Turks, became less virile. Grinding poverty and constant, though

usually petty, oppression even more than the periodical massacres took

away from them much of their manliness.

[Sidenote: Degradation of Church.]

The influence of the conquest upon the Orthodox Church was purely

mischievous. The ecclesiastical revenues were seized. The priests had

to eke out a living on the miserable pittances they could obtain from

performing the services of the Church for an impoverished people,

and soon came to be chosen from the peasant class. Poverty of the

flock meant poverty throughout the hierarchy. Learning declined and

disappeared. The parish priest knew his office by heart, but in course

of time hundreds of priests were unable to understand the classic

words and phrases with which the liturgy of Chrysostom and others

employed in the Eastern Church abound. The most commodious churches

were transformed into mosques. The libraries perished. Thousands of

precious manuscripts were destroyed. The means of obtaining an educated

clergy no longer existed. The voice of the preacher was regarded with

suspicion, and the Orthodox Church as a power for the education of

its congregations became almost valueless. There were no longer any

heresies or dissensions which invited discussion, for people and clergy

were alike sunk in ignorance. The art of preaching was forgotten.

Religious teaching or expression of thought in or out of the Church

almost ceased to exist. The Church of Chrysostom was condemned to

silence. To all appearances, there was little or no consciousness of

lofty ideals or aspirations towards them. Piety, as understood in the

West, seemed for centuries to be unknown. A book like the ‘Imitatio’ or

even the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ would have been unintelligible. Churches

as well as people had become sordid and destitute of aspiration.

Ignorance and other causes, due to the conquest, reduced the Churches

to a stagnant level of uniformity, superstition, and spiritual death.

With the substitution of an ignorant for a learned priesthood the

influence of the Church upon Western Europe ceased. Down to the

conquest it had not only claimed an equality with the Latin Church,

but its learning was respected by popes, cardinals, and scholars, who

recognised that it merited gratitude for its guardianship of Christian

learning and for the succession of scholars who had expounded the

treasures of its literature.

[Sidenote: Benefits conferred by Church.]

Yet amid all the meanness and debasement of the Christian Churches

it should ever be remembered that they rendered to their people two

inestimable services. They helped to preserve family life and to keep

the great mass of their members from abandonment of the Christian

profession. However abject the Church, however subservient at times its

leaders became to the Ottoman rulers, and however we of the twentieth

century may despise priestly pretensions and the claims of any body of

men to have a supernatural commission, it is a duty to recognise that

the service rendered by the Churches to the Christian subjects of the

sultan, and indeed to humanity, in preserving the habits of family

life was immeasurably great. One may fully admit that the priests were

ignorant, and that the Church became more than ever saturated with

pagan superstition; but it safeguarded the idea of Christian marriage

based upon the union of the husband for life with one wife. Children

were reared in the companionship of a father and mother to each of whom

chastity and the necessity of forsaking all others was not merely a

tradition and an ideal, but a duty enjoined by the universal teaching

of the Church. The results of the education of children amid such

teaching, tradition, and environment can only be appreciated when

they are compared with those which are produced among their Moslem

neighbours, where, under a system fatal to family life, the mother

holds a position immeasurably inferior to that of the father.

[Sidenote: Inducements to renounce Christianity.]

The Church also helped to prevent the Christian population from

abandoning their religious belief, and, to the philosophical student

of religions hardly less than to Christians, this result should be

regarded as pure gain. The Christians were permitted to have their own

religious services, and the attempt was seldom made forcibly to convert

them to Mahometanism. The teaching of Mahomet that the ‘People of

the Books’ were not to be molested so long as they submitted and paid

tribute, usually secured a contemptuous toleration of their worship.

There was little formal interference with their religious practices.

Their processions, rites, and ceremonies only encountered opposition

from the fanatical brutality of individuals, though Christian

worshippers were constantly exposed to petty persecutions from persons

in authority who expressed their dislike and loathing of Christianity

in a thousand different ways. But it must always be remembered to the

credit of the Christians that abandonment of their faith would at any

time have saved them from all persecution and have placed them on an

equality with their conquerors. The singularly democratic creed and

practice of Islam at once open every preferment to the convert. The

negro, the Central Asiatic, no less than the Christian rayah, once

he has pronounced the _Esh-had_, is on an equality in theory and in

practice with the descendant of the Prophet. Turkish history abounds

with instances of renegades or their sons rising to the highest

positions in the state. A Christian who accepted Islam had every

career open to him. The Christian subjects of the empire have always

been aware of their own superiority in intellectual capacity to their

Turkish neighbours. This superiority is manifest in every country where

Moslems and Christians live side by side. It is mainly due to the

inferior position assigned in practice in every Mahometan country to

woman, a position illustrated by the custom of repudiation--which the

husband may exercise in lieu of divorce--by the lack of family life in

which children are nurtured in the companionship of both parents, and

even by the absence of a family name.[564]

It would indeed have been remarkable if with the unspeakable advantages

of family life on their side the Christians had not been superior

in capacity to their neighbours. But, in spite of their lively

consciousness of such superiority and of the advantages to be gained by

perversion, few Christians became renegades.

[Sidenote: Degradation of people.]

But, notwithstanding the fact that their refusal to abandon a

higher for a lower form of religion must be accounted to them for

righteousness, the Christians passed into a Slough of Despond. Disarmed

and oppressed, they became demoralised and lost self-respect. Their

progress and development, material, intellectual, and moral, was

arrested. They fell back upon deceit and cunning and the other vices

with which a subjugated people seeks to defend itself against its

oppressors and which are the usual characteristics of a people held in

bondage. The most disastrous result of the conquest upon the people was

to create a low standard of morality, and, as in the course of time

habits form character, this result endured and continues to the present

day. Dishonesty, unfair dealing, bribery, and untruthfulness came to be

regarded among all the Christian races of the Ottoman Empire as venial

offences or as pardonable blunders. This deterioration of character was

not, and is not, confined to laymen. The environment of all classes has

been powerful for evil, and the standards in particular of commercial

honesty generally prevalent in Christian nations have neither been

preserved nor attained.

Under Turkish rule punishment often failed to follow detection. In some

cases--notably, for example, bigamy--the conquering race recognises

no offence and therefore awards no punishment. The Christians had

and have so little confidence in their chance of obtaining justice

that it is the exception to prosecute an offender. A man will rather

suffer loss than waste his time in appealing to a court where he

knows that he will certainly incur expense and inconvenience and that

the offender, provided he can pay, can escape condemnation. It is to

this impossibility of obtaining justice that must be ascribed more

perhaps than to any other cause the lowering of the morals of Eastern

Christians. Those who know them best, from Arab Christians in Syria to

the Greeks and others in Constantinople and the Balkan Peninsula, and

whose sympathies are entirely with them in the persecution they have

undergone, and in their desire to shake off the oppressor’s yoke, have

regretfully to confess that the reputation which they have acquired

in Western Europe for untrustworthiness and untruthfulness is not

undeserved. Happily, in Greece and other countries which have been

freed from Turkish misrule there are abundant signs of an awakening to

the necessity of regarding offences from a loftier standpoint and of

presenting in the Churches a higher ideal of morality; signs, too, of

the public opinion which is bringing these countries into line with

Western states.[565]

[Sidenote: Effect of conquest on Turks.]

The conquest of Constantinople had but little effect on the mass of the

Turkish population. The Turks ceased to be mainly a nomadic people,

and great numbers of them took possession of the arable lands of the

conquered races. But in other respects their habits and characteristics

remained unchanged. They had and have their virtues. They are brave and

hardy, and, except when under the influence of religious fanaticism,

are hospitable and kindly. Their religion inculcates cleanliness

and sobriety. While its teaching must stand condemned in regard to

the treatment of non-Islamic peoples and, judging by the universal

experience of Moslem countries, in regard to the position, fatal to

all progress, which it assigns to woman, it has nevertheless helped

to diffuse courtesy and self-respect among its adherents. Unhappily,

the Turkish race has never had sufficient continuous energy to be

industrious nor enough intelligence to desire knowledge.

Fortunately for the populations under the rule of the Turk, his

religious intolerance has only become virulent at intervals; for

when his fanaticism is awakened, corruption and cruelty in the

administration of government show themselves at their worst. It is so

in Morocco now, where the fiercest Moslem intolerance and perhaps the

most cruel and corrupt government in the world co-exist. It has been so

at various periods under Turkish rule. Sultans have alternated in their

government between periods of lethargy, sloth, and sensuality and those

of spasmodic activity. But the periods of fanaticism have been those

not only of massacre and exceptional cruelty but of want of patriotism,

and the worst corruption in the administration of government.

In Greece and Italy more vigorous physical races in earlier times

had triumphed over peoples further advanced in civilisation. But the

conquerors profited by the civilisation of the vanquished and the

latter became more virile. The two races coalesced and formed a united

people. No such results followed 1453. The Turkish nation was unable to

assimilate the civilisation of the peoples it subdued, and its work has

been simply to destroy what it could not take to itself. It has fallen

so far short of reconciling the conquered races and welding them to

itself so as to form one people that the assertion may safely be made

that every century since 1453 has widened the gulf between it and the

Christians.

In one respect only has the Turk been able to appreciate the progress

made by his neighbours and, in part at least, to appropriate their

development--namely, in the art of war. He knows and cares nothing

about art, science, or literature. He has made a miserable failure of

government. His civil administration is probably more corrupt than it

was four centuries ago. He admits that, since his defeat at Lepanto in

1571, Allah has given the dominion of the seas to the Giaours. But as a

soldier he has always been ready to learn from European nations.

That the heavy weight of misrule has hindered and still continues to

hinder the progress of the Christian races is attested by all who are

acquainted with Turkey. Condemned to constant persecution and a sordid

poverty which leaves on travellers an overpowering sense of human

misery, and living amid a hopeless and dispiriting environment, they

passed into the blackest night which ever overshadowed a Christian

people. It is true that they were not utterly destroyed, as other

Christian nations have been, but, except for the feeling of solidarity

arising from community of race and of religious belief and for the hope

which the Churches aided them to keep alive, their night was without

a single ray of light. They and their countrymen who had escaped into

foreign lands looked in despair and in vain for the signs that the

night would pass. It is barely a century ago since the keener-sighted

watchmen observed indications of dawn. The daylight has arisen upon

Roumania, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and other countries once under

Turkish rule, and signs of dawn are visible, though with indications of

blood-red, in Macedonia and Armenia. Sooner or later, but as surely as

light overcomes darkness, the Christian and progressive elements in the

Turkish empire will see the day and rejoice in it.

The friends of the liberated territories have often complained of

the vagaries, the inconstancy, and the slow rate of progress of the

re-established states. They are apt to forget that to shake off

the effects of centuries of bondage is a task which has never been

accomplished in a single generation. All historical precedents, from

the time when Moses led the children of Israel into the desert, teach

the same lesson. But it is satisfactory to note that while each of

the states that have obtained emancipation was, a century ago, far

behind the civilisation even of Constantinople, it is now far ahead of

it. If the traveller who eighty years ago spoke contemptuously of the

collection of mud huts which fanatics are pleased to call Athens, while

they refer to their barbarian occupants as Greeks, could now be placed

on the Acropolis, he would see the well-built and prosperous capital

of a country which, in spite of financial difficulties, is flourishing

in agriculture, trade, and commerce; the chief city of a people which

has recovered its self-respect, is full of patriotism, of zeal for

education, and of intellectual life, and whose Church has awakened

to the necessity of an educated priesthood and a higher standard of

morality. A like prosperity could be noted in every other land which

has escaped from Turkish bondage. Wherever, indeed, the dead weight of

Turkish misrule has been removed, the young Christian states have been

fairly started on the path of civilisation and justify the reasonable

expectations of the statesmen, historians, and scholars of the West who

have sympathised with and aided them in their aspirations for freedom.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

NOTE ON ROMANUS GATE AND CHIEF PLACE OF FINAL ASSAULT

Some doubt exists as to the position of the Romanus Gate mentioned by

the historians of the siege, and as this position determines those of

the great gun, of the stockade, and of the principal place of the final

assault, it is desirable to endeavour to set such doubt at rest.

What I desire to show may be summed up in the following propositions.

(1) That contemporary writers agree in stating that the principal place

of attack and the final assault was at or near the Gate of St. Romanus.

(2) That the present Top Capou had long been known as the Gate of St.

Romanus.

(3) That there is evidence to demonstrate that the final assault was

not at or near Top Capou but in the Lycus valley.

(4) That the Pempton is the Gate referred to by contemporary writers as

the Romanus Gate.

Among the evidence showing that the principal place of attack was at or

near the Romanus Gate is the following:

Barbaro (p. 21) states that four great guns were ‘alla porta de San

Romano dove che sun la piu debel porta de tuta la tera. Una de queste

quatro bombarde che sun a la porta da San Romano’ was the big gun cast

by Orban. On p. 16 he speaks of an attack as being against ‘le mure da

tera de la banda de San Romano.’ On p. 26 he mentions the destruction

of a tower, presumably the Bactatinean, spoken of by Leonard. This

tower was ‘de la banda de San Romano.’ It was destroyed by the big gun

with a portion also of the wall (‘con parechi passa de muro’). On p.

27 he describes the repair of the walls going on at the Gate called San

Romano. On p. 40 he again says that the weakest place in the landward

walls was at San Romano, ‘dove che iera roto le mure.’ On p. 53 he adds

that the Turks fought furiously ‘da la banda da tera, da la banda de

San Romano dove che iera el pavion’ of the emperor. On the same page

he describes them again as still fighting ‘da la banda de San Romano.’

On p. 55 he describes the entry of the Turks into the city as being

‘da la banda de San Romano,’ and on p. 57 he states that the emperor

was killed at the entry which the Turks had made ‘a la porta de San

Romano.’ According, therefore, to Barbaro, the Romanus Gate is the

central place of attack and of capture.

But Barbaro was a Venetian, and probably did not know the city well.

Phrantzes and Ducas, however, were citizens. The first, on p. 254,

says that Justiniani took charge of the defence ἐν τοῖς μέρεσι τῆς

πύλης τοῦ ἁγίου Ῥωμανοῦ, which the Bonn editor translates correctly

by saying that he defended the ‘regionem ad portam Sancti Romani.’

Phrantzes further identifies the place by saying it was where the Turks

had stationed their largest gun because the walls were convenient for

attack and because the sultan’s tent was pitched opposite. As to the

position of the sultan’s tent Phrantzes and others say that it was

opposite the Romanus Gate. Ducas, however, states that it was opposite

the Chariseus or Adrianople Gate. Phrantzes, p. 287, says further that

the emperor and many soldiers fell ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ἐκείνῳ πλησίον τῆς πύλης

τοῦ ἁγίου Ῥωμανοῦ where the Turks had built their wooden tower and

stationed their largest gun. Ducas says that the Turks placed this big

gun near (πλησίον) the Romanus Gate. He further describes the

destruction of the tower (presumably the Bactatinean mentioned by

Leonard) which was near the Romanus Gate. Other authors could be cited

who use similar expressions.

In fact, all the evidence is in favour of my first proposition, that

the principal place of attack was at or near the Romanus Gate.

(2) It is undisputed that Top Capou (that is, Cannon Gate) was known

in early times as the Gate of St. Romanus. It is mentioned under that

name, for example, in the ‘Paschal Chronicle’ in the time of Heraclius,

and again in the reign of Andronicus the First by Nicephorus Gregoras

(ix. ch. 6), and as late as the middle of the fourteenth century by

Cantacuzenus (p. 142, Ven. ed.).

(3 & 4) The evidence to show that the final assault was not at or near

Top Capou is abundant.

Owing, however, to the constant mention of St. Romanus and the

undoubted association of that name with Top Capou, it has been

naturally assumed that the chief place of attack was at or near the

latter Gate. Even Paspates was driven to disregard the evidence of his

own eyes and to fix the assault on the steep part of the slope near Top

Capou (Πολιορκία, p. 186).

But all observers who have studied the question on the spot, with the

exception of Paspates, are now agreed that the chief place of assault

was in the Lycus valley. In such case it necessarily follows that the

name Romanus was given during the siege to some other gate than Top

Capou.

The late Dr. Dethier was the first to suggest that the Gate spoken of

by the contemporaries of the siege as St. Romanus was the Pempton. Let

us examine the evidence. It is worthy of note that Phrantzes places

Justiniani in the ‘region’ or district of the Romanus Gate. The Italian

writers, knowing less of the city, say ‘at’ such Gate.

Now what was the Pempton? Each of the two Civil Gates on the

landward side which we need here regard--namely, Top Capou and the

Adrianople Gate--crowned a hill on one side of the Lycus valley and

was exceptionally strong. They formed, in fact, with their towers and

barbicans two of the strongest positions in the landward walls. The

bridges across the foss opposite these and the other Civil Gates were

intended to be broken down during a siege, and in fact were broken down

when Mahomet’s siege commenced.[566] The Military Gates which led from

the city to the Peribolos were then opened, though they were generally

walled up in times of peace. The Pempton or Fifth Military Gate or Gate

of the Fifth (for both forms of names are found) was the one which gave

access to the Enclosure in the Lycus valley. It was known also in early

times as the Gate of St. Kyriakè, from a neighbouring church, and as

the Gate of Puseus from a Latin inscription still existing upon it,

dating probably from the time of Leo the First, recording that Puseus

had strengthened it.[567]

It is a remarkable fact that no writer who was either a witness of the

siege or subsequently wrote upon it mentions the Pempton either under

that name or by those of Kyriakè or Puseus. It is impossible to believe

that it was not used. It was built for the express purpose of giving

access to the troops into the Peribolos within which, beyond all doubt,

the most important fighting took place. To admit that Justiniani and

the soldiers under him were stationed between the Outer and the Inner

Walls in this part and yet to suggest that the Pempton was not used

is altogether unreasonable. Dethier’s suggestion is, that when the

Civil Gates were closed people gave to the Military Gate the name of

the nearest Civil Gate. Probably the earlier names given on account of

their numbers were generally unknown. The latest instance I have found

of the use of Pempton is in the ‘Paschal Chronicle.’

In support of this view it is important to note that many

contemporaries speak of another place where the cannonading was

severe as at the Pegè Gate (as, for example, Barbaro and Philelphus),

whereas no one doubts that the present condition of the walls affords

conclusive evidence that the writers intended to indicate Triton--that

is, the Third Military Gate between the Pegè and the Rhegium Civil

Gates.

The suggestion that the Pempton was commonly called the Romanus Gate

explains various statements which are otherwise irreconcilable. We

have seen that Ducas says that the sultan was encamped opposite the

Chariseus Gate, while Phrantzes places him opposite the Romanus. Dr.

Mordtmann urges[568] that from the small knoll where, according to

Ducas and Critobulus, Mahomet’s tent was pitched, an observer might

fairly describe its position as opposite either, but if the Pempton

were called Romanus, such a suggestion would be much more plausible.

Again, Barbaro, as already quoted, places the great gun opposite the

San Romano Gate because this was the weakest gate of all the city.

But on p. 18 he uses the same phrase in stating that the ‘Cressu’ or

Chariseus was the weakest gate in all the city, the explanation being,

I think, that as the Pempton was about midway between the Romanus

and the Chariseus Civil Gates he heard it called indifferently by

either name. Tetaldi, the Florentine soldier who was present at the

siege, states that two hundred fathoms of Outer Wall were broken down

during the last days. Now, although the Inner Wall was repaired by

Mahomet[569] and continued fairly complete, no attempt appears to

have been made to rebuild the Outer.[570] The spectator has little

difficulty in distinguishing where the twelve hundred feet of Outer

Wall of which Tetaldi speaks was destroyed. It was opposite the Pempton

and, judging from the condition of the walls, certainly not opposite

the present Top Capou. But the same writer says that it was ‘à la

porte de Sainct Romain.’[571] The Moscovite or Slavic chronicler says

that the great cannon were placed opposite the station of Justiniani

‘because the walls there were less solid and very low,’[572] a

description which would not apply to those near Top Capou, but which,

like all the descriptions given, does apply to the lower part of the

Lycus valley. Here, in the phrase of Professor van Millingen, was the

heel of Achilles, the Valley of Decision.[573] The weakness of this

portion of the walls is illustrated by the fact that when Baldwin the

Second expected an attack by Michael he walled up all the landward

gates ‘except the single one near the streamlet where one sees the

church of St. Kyriakè’--that is, except the Pempton.[574] In other

words, the walls being there the weakest, it was anticipated that there

would be the attack, and the entry into the Peribolos must be kept open

to defend the Outer Wall. In the ‘Threnos’ the siege is described as

being at the ‘Chariseus Gate,’ now St. Romanus, which is called Top

Capou.[575] Apparently the confusion in this description is hopeless,

but if the Pempton were called indifferently, as by Barbaro, Romanus

and Chariseus, it becomes intelligible.[576]

A statement by the ‘Moscovite’ (ch. vii.) also points to the Pempton as

the chief point of attack. He mentions that on April 24 a ball from the

great cannon knocked away five of the battlements and buried itself in

the walls of a church. The only church in the neighbourhood either of

Top Capou or the Pempton was one dedicated to St. Kyriakè, which was in

the Lycus valley near the Pempton. But the attack is always stated to

be against the Romanus Gate.

Near the Pempton the Peribolos is now about twenty feet higher than the

level of the ground on the city side of the Great Wall. Beyond doubt

this is largely due to the accumulation of refuse and broken portions

of the wall, but, allowing for this, an observer will probably conclude

that the Peribolos was at the time of the siege several feet higher

than the level on the city side. This same discrepancy of level did

not exist--if, indeed, any existed--at Top Capou. Hence when the small

gate was opened from the city by Justiniani to give easier access to

the stockade, men had to ascend to it. This is what Critobulus implies

they had to do. The gate was opened to lead ἐπὶ τὸ σταύρωμα (lx. 2).

Critobulus states that Mahomet drew up his camp ‘before the _Gates_ of

Romanus.’[577] The argument Dethier draws from the plural, ‘gates,’

is not perhaps worth much, but it is remarkable that in speaking of

other gates Critobulus usually employs the singular: as, for example,

in ch. xxvii. 3, ‘The Wood-Gate, as far as the gate called Chariseus.’

Gregoras also employs the plural: παρὰ τὰς πύλας τοῦ Ῥωμανοῦ (Book ix.

ch. vi.).

The Turkish writers throw very valuable light on the question and show

clearly that the assault was not at Top Capou, but rather nearer the

Adrianople Gate.

The imaum Zade Essad-Effendi says that in the final assault Hassan

mounted the broken wall where the Franks were defending it, ‘which wall

was to the south of Edirne Capou’--that is, of the Adrianople Gate. The

Turkish writer Sad-ud-din, who died in 1599, gives similar testimony.

He states that Constantine ‘entrusted to the Frank soldiers the defence

of those breaches which were on the south side of the Adrianople Gate.’

And again: ‘The Turks in the final assault did not rush to the gates

but to the breaches that were made in the broken wall between Top

Capou and the Adrianople Gate, and, after the capture, went round and

opened the gates from the inside, the first to be opened being the

Adrianople Gate.’[578] If the Venetian and Genoese soldiers had been

near Top Capou the writer would not have described their position as he

does. Probably he was ignorant of any name for the gate in the valley

where the assault occurred, and therefore describes the breaches with

sufficient accuracy as south of the Adrianople or Edirne Gate.

Lastly, Dr. Mordtmann calls attention to the fact that on old

Turkish maps the Pempton is marked as Hedjoum Capou or Gate of the

Assault.[579] If it were the Gate of the Assault, as I also believe,

it was the gate spoken of by contemporaries as Saint Romanus, and all

difficulties as to the place of the general assault, the position of

the stockade defended by Justiniani, and the station of the great guns

vanish.

Thereupon the description of Critobulus makes the arrangement

of Mahomet’s army clear. His guards were encamped opposite the

Mesoteichion and the Myriandrion--that is, opposite the whole length

of walls between Top Capou and the Palace of Porphyrogenitus (ch.

xxvi.). His three largest guns were stationed opposite the Pempton or

Military Gate of Romanus, and his imperial tent was pitched in a place,

and at a distance from the walls, where it could properly be described

indifferently as opposite either the Chariseus or Romanus Gate.

In conclusion, I would suggest that the name Top Capou was given or

transferred by the Turks, after the siege and when the Pempton was

walled up, to the Civil Gate of St. Romanus. There was no need for a

name among ordinary people for an unused gate, and the Turks, instead

of using the name of a Christian saint, spoke of it as that near which

the great cannon was placed, or shortly as Top Capou--that is, Cannon

Gate. It is remarkable that Gyllius, though mentioning that there was a

gate at the situation of Top Capou, calls it neither by that name nor

by that of St. Romanus.[580]

APPENDIX II

WHERE DID THE SEA-FIGHT OF APRIL 20, 1453, TAKE PLACE?

The late Dr. A. D. Mordtmann,[581] and Dr. Paspates,[582] followed by

M. Mijatovich,[583] and M. E. A. Vlasto,[584] answer, that it was to

the west of the Marmora end of the landward walls: that is, off Zeitin

Bournou. In favour of this view they give the following reasons:

(1) Because during the fight the sultan rode into the water, and he

could not have done so if the fight had been on the north shore of the

Golden Horn, as the shore there is too steep. The answer to this is,

that the Galata shore four centuries ago was like that of the Golden

Horn outside the walls of Constantinople now, and consisted of a low

flat of mud, now built upon. The present Grande Rue de Galata is really

the ‘Strand’ of Galata, and is all land reclaimed from the sea. This is

even now obvious; but Gyllius observed the growth of this flat land and

gives a curious description of it.[585] This argument therefore fails.

(2) Because Barbaro mentions that the wind dropped when the ships were

‘per mezo la citade,’ which Dr. Mordtmann considered to mean halfway

along the length of the city between the end of the landward walls and

Seraglio Point, or, as he puts it definitely, at Vlanga Bostan. But

‘per mezo’ means here simply alongside or opposite or abreast of the

city. It is used as meaning ‘through the midst’ in the same paragraph,

when Barbaro states that he is going from the city on board certain

galleys ‘per mezo la citade.’

It is undisputed that a southerly wind had been blowing four days:

a strong wind which had brought the ships from Chios. There would

therefore be a current running northwards. Consequently if the wind had

suddenly dropped opposite Vlanga Bostan the ships would have drifted

toward the Bosporus and not backwards to Zeitin Bournou.

(3) Because Pusculus says that the townsfolk crowded to the Hippodrome

to see the fight, and they would not have done so (because buildings

intercepted the view) if the fight had been at the mouth of the Golden

Horn.

The Hippodrome is four miles as the crow flies from the sea opposite

Zeitin Bournou, and the spectators would not have crowded to such a

place when they could have seen so much better from a hill behind

Psamatia and elsewhere. If, however, the fight, or any part of it,

took place opposite Seraglio Point, spectators on the Sphendone of

the Hippodrome would have had an excellent view of the ships as they

approached and as they passed, and of an attack made in the Bosporus

before the ships passed the Acropolis. I have tested this on several

occasions.

(4) Because Phrantzes says the fight took place about a stone’s-throw

from the land where the sultan was and that he and his friends watched

it from the walls,[586] and that the only place where these two

requirements can be satisfied is Zeitin Bournou.

The mouth of the Horn satisfies both requirements equally well. Dr.

Paspates observes that ships coming to Constantinople with a south

wind do not keep near the walls, but keep well out; and the remark is

just. They take this course to avoid the eddy current, which if they

kept near the walls would be against them. If the ships were about a

stone’s-throw distant from the land, they would not only be out of

their usual course but taking another where their progress would be

hindered.

(5) Because Ducas (who was not a witness of what he relates) says that

the Turkish fleet set out to wait for the fleet off the harbour of the

Golden Gate.[587]

There probably never was a harbour of the Aurea Porta. Paspates says

there was a _scala_ near the Golden Gate, which, indeed is shown in

Bondelmonte’s map, but the ships could not discharge at an open _scala_

in the Marmora with a south wind blowing, even if there had been depth

enough of water where it existed, which, at the present day at least,

there is not.

The statement of Ducas is improbable, because, as the object of the

ships was to get past the boom from St. Eugenius to Galata, the ships

with the wind which was blowing would have simply passed the fleet or

gone triumphantly through them, if they had been waiting off the Golden

Gate, and have made for Seraglio Point and the harbour.

I suggest that the words of Ducas (Χρύση Πύλη) are either an error in

the copying or are a mistake made by Ducas. They may be a transcriber’s

mistake for Horaia Porta--that is, the gate near Seraglio Point, on the

Golden Horn. Horaia Porta and Aurea Porta are almost undistinguishable

in sound, the aspirate being unpronounced. The similarity in sound had

led at an early period to confusion.[588]

It may nevertheless be true that the fleet set out to await the ships

off the end of the landward walls. There is not, however, the slightest

evidence that it ever got there. On the contrary, as we shall see, the

evidence shows that it did not. Once it is established that it never

got so far, the contention that the fight was off Zeitin Bournou falls.

These are all the arguments which, so far as I know, have been urged

in favour of the Zeitin Bournou position. Some of them are destructive

of the others, and, with the exception of the statement of Ducas as to

the Turkish fleet setting off for the Harbour of the Golden Gate, are

all deductions from the evidence of the authorities rather than direct

evidence. Moreover, as will be seen, important statements of witnesses

testifying to what they themselves saw are either entirely overlooked

or set aside without any sufficient reason.

My contention in the text is that the fight commenced at the mouth of

the Bosporus off Seraglio Point; that the wind suddenly dropped while

the ships were under the walls of the Acropolis at that Point; that

the ships drifted towards the Galata or Pera shore, and that the most

serious part of the fight took place off such shore, where it was

watched by the sultan and into the waters of which shore the sultan

rode. The evidence in support of this view is the following:

(1) It is agreed on all sides that the Turkish fleet was stationed at

the Double Columns (Diplokionion).

(2) Leonard the archbishop says that he was a spectator from the city,

and that the sultan was on the slope of the Pera hill. Leonard is

a witness deserving of confidence. He was present during the whole

siege. He had much to do with the people of Galata, who were, like

himself, of the Latin Church. In describing this particular incident,

he speaks of himself as a spectator of the fight.[589] His letter is

an official report addressed to the pope within three months after the

event, and therefore while its details were fresh in his memory and not

like the account of Ducas, who was not present at the siege and only

wrote years afterwards. His testimony, if he is to be believed--and I

know no reason why he should even be doubted--is decisive. ‘The King

of the Trojans’ (as he calls the Turks throughout) looked on from Pera

hill.[590]

Le Beau, who took the view which I adopt, relied no doubt upon

Leonard’s narrative in describing the battle. Dr. Mordtmann remarks

upon Le Beau’s statement that no one standing upon the hillside at Pera

could see a fight at sea beyond Seraglio Point. The observation is

correct, and my deduction is that, when the ships were first attacked,

they were abreast of Seraglio Point and not beyond or behind it. Dr.

Mordtmann’s is that the sultan could not have been at Pera, and this

notwithstanding that the archbishop says that he was there and implies

that he saw him there. The archbishop further mentioned that when the

sultan ‘blasphemed,’ as he rode into the water and witnessed the loss

his men were suffering, it was from a hill.[591] But the archbishop

does not leave his readers in doubt as to what hill he means. A few

sentences later in his narrative we are told that the sultan had

concluded that he would be able from the eastern shore of the Galata

hill either to sink the ships with his stone cannon-balls, or at least

drive them back from the chain.[592] The rest of the passage shows

unmistakably that the sultan, in Leonard’s belief, was on the shore

outside the Galata walls: that is, exactly where a spectator might be

supposed to be who, having come from Diplokionion, wanted to see the

most of a fight in or near the mouth of the Horn. Unless, therefore,

within a short period after the capture of the city, the archbishop had

become hopelessly muddled as to what he himself saw, we must conclude

that the fight did not take place off Zeitin Bournou but in or near the

mouth of the Golden Horn.

Pusculus, another spectator, says the ships entered the Bosporus and

that the wind dropped while they were under the walls of the Acropolis.

The account given by this writer is clear and precise. He was in the

city and relates what he witnessed, and although he wrote his poem some

years afterwards, when safe in his native city of Brescia, he had the

broad outlines of the siege well in his recollection. His narrative

is the following, and is in complete accord with that of every other

eye-witness. The ships are seen approaching on the Marmora; some of

the townsfolk flock to the Hippodrome where (from the Sphendone) they

have a view far and wide over the sea, and can observe them taking the

usual course for ships coming from the Dardanelles to the capital with

a southerly wind. The Turkish admiral with his fleet has gone to meet

them, and orders them to lower their sails. The south wind still blows

full astern, and with bellying sails they hold on their course. The

wind continues until they are carried to a position where the Bosporus

strains against the shore of either land.[593] That is, as I understand

the phrase, until they are at least well past the present lighthouse.

‘There the wind fails them; the sails flap idly _under the walls of

the citadel_.[594] Then, indeed, began the fight; the spirits of the

Turks are aroused by the fall of the wind; Mahomet, watching from

the shore not far off, arouses their rage.’ My only doubt as to this

interpretation arises as to the question whether the writer did not

mean that the wind dropped, not merely off Seraglio Point, but within

the mouth of the Horn.

Ducas says the sultan, when the ships came in sight of the city,

‘hastened’ to his fleet, and gave orders to capture them or, failing

that, to hinder them from getting inside the harbour. This hastening of

the sultan meant a journey of between two and three miles from his camp

in the Mesoteichion to Diplokionion. Once he was there, his natural

course would be to follow on shore the movements of his fleet, until he

reached the eastern walls of Galata, which is exactly the place where

the archbishop stations him. If it should be objected that Mahomet’s

hastening to his triremes implies that they were stationed near Zeitin

Bournou, the answer is twofold: first, that there would be no haste

necessary, and secondly, that even Ducas implies that the fleet was in

the Bosporus, as indeed Barbaro and others say that it was.

The two statements of Phrantzes--first, that the fight was about a

stone’s-throw from the land where the sultan was on horseback and

rode into the sea to revile his men, and, second, that he (Phrantzes)

and his friends watched the fight from the walls[595]--are both

reconcilable with the contention that the fight was where I have placed

it. I conclude that the balance of evidence is in favour of the opinion

that the fight commenced in the open Bosporus off Seraglio Point, and,

the wind continuing, the ships rounded the Point, and that then the

wind dropped, the general attack took place, and the ships drifted to

the Galata shore.

When the question is considered ‘What position accords with all the

accounts of the eye-witnesses?’ there can be only one answer. The

people watch from the Hippodrome, says Pusculus, and would have a good

view until the ships had rounded the point. The vessels were aiming for

Megademetrius, says Ducas: which was the usual landmark for vessels to

steer for when coming to the Golden Horn from the Marmora with a south

wind. ‘We being spectators’ from the walls and the sultan being on the

Pera slope watching the fight, says Leonard; and the vessels being

about a stone’s-throw from the shore, says Phrantzes. Pusculus answers

the question ‘Where were Leonard and the other spectators?’ by telling

us that the wind dropped under the walls of the citadel.

There is yet another test which may be applied and which ought almost

of itself to settle the question. Upon considering the position without

reference to authorities upon matters of detail and upon _a priori_

grounds, an unbiassed local investigator would discard the Zeitin

Bournou position and accept that of the Bosporus-Galata. Four large

ships want to enter the Golden Horn, since there is no harbour on the

Marmora side of the city sufficiently large into which they could

enter. They are approaching with a southerly wind. The Turkish fleet

consists of large and small sailing boats which are stationed nearly

two miles from the Horn in the Bosporus. The object of the fleet is to

capture or sink the ships, or at least to prevent them from entering

the harbour. What, under these circumstances, would the commander of

the fleet do? He would keep his boats well together near the mouth of

the Horn and attempt to bar the passage. He would recognise that he had

little chance of capturing comparatively large sailing vessels on open

sea so long as they were coming on with a wind. So long as the ships

were sailing, they would be attacked at a great disadvantage. Wait for

them near the Horaia Porta, when they would have to stop, and they

could then be fought at an advantage. If the wind suddenly dropped,

the Turkish admiral would naturally give orders to attack. This is

what, as I contend, actually happened. The fight would then be seen

by Greeks from the walls and by Mahomet and his suite from the Galata

or Pera shore. What would happen when the wind became calm, would be

that the vessels would drift. I repeat what I have said in the text,

that it may be taken as beyond doubt that after a strong southerly

wind has been blowing in the Marmora for four or five days--and it was

such a wind which had brought the ships from Chios--there would be

in the Marmora and the Bosporus near Seraglio Point a strong current

setting in the same direction, and the ships would drift toward the

Galata shore. It would then be quite possible to have got within a

stone’s-throw, as Phrantzes relates, and for their crews to have heard

the reproaches of the sultan.

APPENDIX III

NOTE ON TRANSPORT OF MAHOMET’S SHIP. WHAT WAS THE ROUTE ADOPTED?

In commenting on the story of the transport of Mahomet’s ships overland

from the Bosporus into Cassim Pasha bay, Gibbon says ‘I could wish

to contract the distance of ten miles and to prolong the term of one

night.’[596] I have sufficiently remarked in the text upon the time

occupied in the transit. The distances given by the various authors who

describe the incident are confusing, but ten miles is beyond a doubt

wrong.

In order to learn what the distance was, it is necessary to determine

what was the route adopted by Mahomet. Two routes have been suggested:

the first is from Dolma Bagshe, across the ridge where the Taxim Public

Gardens now exist and down the valley leading to Cassim Pasha; the

second, from Tophana along the valley which the Rue Koumbaraji now

occupies, across the Grande Rue, and down the valley commencing at the

street between the Pera Palace Hotel and the Club to Cassim Pasha. It

is convenient to speak of these routes as those of Dolma Bagshe and

Tophana respectively. No writer who saw the transport of the ships has

described the route. We may gather evidence, however, on several points

which will aid us to determine it.

The evidence as to the distance traversed is the following. The

archbishop speaks of it as being seventy stadia. I should agree with

Karl Müller, the editor of Critobulus, that the _seventy_ stadia of

Leonard is a clerical error, the figure being intended to apply to the

number of ships, but for the fact that a little later Leonard speaks of

the bridge built over the upper Horn as thirty stadia long and gives

the distance of the Turkish fleet from the Propontis to its anchorage

at the Double Columns as a hundred stadia. As both these distances are

about nine or ten times too long, it is evident that by ‘stadium’ he

means some other measure than the ordinary stadium, which is 625 feet

long, or rather less than a furlong.[597] I therefore suggest that when

Leonard speaks of seventy stadia he makes the difference traversed

about eight stadia as the word is understood by his contemporaries.

Critobulus in describing the overland passage of the boats says they

travelled ‘certainly eight stadia’ (στάδιοι μάλιστα ὀκτώ). Probably

Critobulus, writing a few years afterwards and mixing with Turks,

Greeks, and Genoese in Pera itself, would have the best chance of

learning the truth as to the actual road taken. ‘Certainly eight

stadia’ is what an observer who did not wish to exaggerate might

estimate the distance between the present Tophana and Cassim Pasha to

be, and if my suggestion as to Leonard’s measure be accepted, then the

two writers are substantially in accord. Barbaro gives the distance

traversed as three Italian--equal to two English--miles. The evidence

as to distance, therefore, is somewhere between eight stadia and two

miles.

The evidence as to the place from which the ships started is important

also. Barbaro states that they left the water at Diplokionion, a place

which he describes as two miles from the city (say, one and a third

English mile), and therefore not so far as the Double Columns; Ducas,

from a place ‘below Diplokionion;’ Pusculus:[598] Columnis haud longe

a geminis;’ Phrantzes, ἐκ τοῦ ὄπισθεν μέρους τοῦ Γάλατα: a phrase which

certainly does not imply that the route travelled was so far from the

walls of Galata as Dolma Bagshe is. Chalcondylas and Philelphus[599]

say, ‘behind the hill which overhangs Galata.’

It is interesting to determine where Diplokionion or the Double Column

was. It has usually been considered to be Beshiktash, and Cantemir

so translates it. Professor van Millingen places it rather in Dolma

Bagshe bay--say, half a mile south of Beshiktash.[600] The late Dr.

Dethier says[601] that the present Cabatash and Tophana were formerly

called Diplokionion and that, as he expresses it, ‘Columnae et

incolae emigrarunt post adventum Turcorum in suburbium Beshiktash.’

I am unaware of his authority for this statement. It appears to me

certain that the Columns were at Dolma Bagshe, which may be called the

southern extremity of Beshiktash. They are so marked in Bondelmonte’s

map made in 1422. It is worth nothing that none of the authors place

the starting-point at the Columns except Barbaro, and that even he

qualifies his statement by explaining that it was two Italian miles

from the city.

Having thus seen the evidence (1) as to the distance travelled and (2)

as to the starting-point, we may ask What was the probable route? Dr.

Paspates in his ‘Poliorkia’[602] discusses the question, and sensibly

remarks that the shortest route would be preferred, unless there were

exceptional difficulties. Now the difficulties by the Tophana route are

decidedly less than by the other. The distance is less by half than

that of the Dolma Bagshe route and the height to be surmounted is 250

feet against 350. Paspates suggests the route I have adopted--namely,

from Tophana. Dr. Mordtmann adopts the Dolma Bagshe route and objects

to that of Tophana because the Turkish ships could have been seen by

the Christian ships at the chain and that these were strong enough to

hinder the undertaking, especially as the sultan had no batteries on

the eastern side to oppose the fleet.[603]

To this view--and anything suggested by so careful an observer as Dr.

Mordtmann is deserving of attention--is to be opposed (1) that the

point of departure adopted by him at Dolma Bagshe could also be seen

from the chain, though of course not so distinctly as at Tophana; (2)

that though there was no battery above Tophana, there was one above

the eastern end of Galata walls, and probably, as Dethier suggests,

very nearly on the site now occupied by the Crimean Memorial Church;

(3) that the height to be surmounted is lower by nearly a hundred feet

than by the Dolma Bagshe route; (4) that the distance to be traversed

is less than half by the Tophana route than that from Dolma Bagshe;

(5) that it is not by any means clear that the Christian ships could

have hindered the execution of the project, since the Genoese were

absolutely powerless on land outside their own walls. It may, however,

be true, as Ducas asserts, that the Genoese alleged that they could

have stopped the transit if they had wished. But the allegation, if

true, at least implies that they knew what was going on, and, as

mentioned in my text, Mahomet was ready for opposition.

The shortest distance ought to furnish one indication of the route.

The evidence as to what that distance is stated to be should furnish

another, and the starting-point of the expedition a third. I claim that

the eight stadia of Critobulus and the eight or nine given by Leonard

are not greatly at variance with the three Italian or two English miles

of Barbaro, and that from the evidence of these three witnesses we may

say that the distance travelled was about a mile or a little over. Now

the actual distance by the Tophana route is a little over a mile and

‘certainly eight stadia.’

The indication gathered from the starting-point is that the ships left

the water well below the Double Columns. But I submit that there is

no place suitable for such an undertaking as that under consideration

between Dolma Bagshe and Tophana. The indications, therefore, drawn

from the place of departure, if they do not point to the Tophana route,

are not at variance with it.

As to the precise place at which the ships arrived on the Golden Horn

Critobulus is probably again the safest guide. They came to the shore

τῶν ψυχρῶν ὑδάτων--that is, to the Cool Waters, otherwise called the

Springs and now known as Cassim Pasha. There they were launched into

the Golden Horn. The statement is confirmed incidentally by several

authors who mention that the fleet was opposite a portion of the

walls where stands the Spigas Gate--that is, the gate leading to the

passage across.[604] Cassim Pasha itself was sometimes spoken of as

Spigae.[605] Andreossi (in 1828) suggests that the ships started

from Baltaliman or rather the bay of Stenia, but the only evidence

in favour of this route is the statement of Ducas--who more than any

other contemporary is constantly inaccurate--that they started from

the Sacred Mouth (a name usually employed to designate the north

end of the Bosporus but used by Ducas for the part between Roumelia

and Anatolia-Hissar) and that they reached the harbour opposite the

monastery of St. Cosmas which was outside the landward walls.

Dr. Mordtmann and Professor van Millingen think that the balance of

evidence is in favour of the route from Dolma Bagshe. The route which

Dr. Paspates and Dr. Dethier approved is that which appears to me also

not only the most probable but to have the balance of evidence in its

favour. The tract along which the ships were hauled formed the short

arm of a cross, the long one of which was the road along the ridge now

known as the Grande Rue de Péra: the two giving the modern Greek name

to the city, of Stavrodromion.

APPENDIX IV

THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON GREEKS AND MOSLEMS RESPECTIVELY

In reading the contemporary authors of the period between the Latin and

the Moslem conquests the following questions suggest themselves: What

was the influence of the Orthodox Church upon the people of the capital

and of the empire? What was its value as a national ethical force? and

how did its influence as such a force compare with that of Islam?

Before attempting a reply to these questions certain facts must be

noted. It must be remembered that the empire was composed of many

races and languages. In the Balkan peninsula alone there were always

at least half a dozen races with as many different forms of speech. In

Asia Minor the component elements of the population were even still

more numerous. The Church largely aided the State in the endeavour to

keep these divergent elements under the rule of the empire. Her special

task was to change the various races into Christians. But even when

this task was completed to the extent of causing them all to profess

Christianity they retained their racial characteristics and traditions.

These characteristics, though widely various, may be classified in

two categories. In other words, it may be said that among all the

different populations of the empire there were two streams of tendency:

the Hellenic and the Asiatic. The tendency and influence of each were

markedly present in the church from the first days of the empire

and continued until 1453. Greek influence left an indelible impress

upon the Orthodox Church. But while it influenced the other races

of the empire, the Greeks themselves fell to some extent under the

Asiatic influence. Greek tendency was always to make of Christianity a

philosophy rather than a religion. The opposite tendency, which I have

called Asiatic and which corresponds fairly well to what Matthew Arnold

called Hebraic, had less enduring results upon the population but was

nevertheless constantly present. The two tendencies were constantly

striving one against the other within the Church.

Greek influence (1) largely aided in the formation of a philosophical

body of theology, (2) helped to perpetuate paganism and develop a

paganistic tendency, and (3) deprived the Church of the religious

enthusiasm which the Asiatic tendency might have provided and has often

inspired. The service of the Greeks in reference to the formation of a

body of theological philosophy is too completely recognised to require

any notice. Greek influence helped to perpetuate paganism in various

ways. It was naturally always most powerful in the Balkan peninsula,

its chief centres being Athens and Salonica, but had great weight also

in the western cities of Asia Minor. Greek polytheists in pre-Christian

times were not opposed to the recognition of other gods than those

worshipped by themselves. How this rational toleration, which was as

utterly opposed to the exclusive spirit of Asiatic Christianity as

to that of Islam itself, tended to perpetuate paganism will be best

understood by recalling the early history of the later Roman empire.

The population under the rule of New Rome had for the most part

adopted the profession of Christianity because it was the religion of

the State. Most people found little difficulty in conforming to the

demands of the emperor and became Christians. Under such circumstances

Christianity did not conquer paganism: it absorbed without destroying

it. Just as in Central Asia many tribes who have come under the power

of Russia have been ordered to elect whether they would declare

themselves Christians or Moslems, so in the days of the early Christian

emperors, and especially under the laws of Theodosius the choice was

between a profession of the Court creed or remaining in some form of

paganism where its professors would be subject to various disabilities

and persecutions. The conformity which resulted was curious. The people

became nominally Christians, but they brought with them into the

Church most of their old superstitions. Their ancient deities were not

discarded but were either secretly worshipped or came to be regarded as

Christian saints: their festal days became the commemoration days of

Christian events. I do not forget that something of the same kind went

on in the Western Church and that the missionaries, finding themselves

unable to persuade their converts to abandon their old observances,

deftly adopted them into the Christian Church. But all that was done in

this direction in the West was small in comparison with what went on in

the East. St. George took the place of Apollo. St. Nicholas replaced

Poseidon. The highest hill in every neighbourhood on the mainland

and in every island of the Marmora and the Aegean had fittingly

been crowned with a temple dedicated to the God of Day. The great

dragon, Night, had been overcome by Helios. To this day it is almost

universally true that all the peaks in question have an Orthodox church

which has taken the place of the temple of Apollo and is dedicated to

his successor, St. George.[606] In like manner the temples built in

fishing villages to Poseidon have almost invariably been dedicated

to St. Nicholas. The episcopal staff of a Greek bishop has the two

serpents’ heads associated with Aesculapius. The distribution of holy

bread at funerals, the processions to shrines, to sacred groves, to

Hagiasmas or holy wells, and numerous other customs of the Orthodox

Church, are survivals or rudimentary forms of paganism.[607]

Asiatic influence was more powerful in Constantinople than in Greece.

The explanation of this fact is to be found in the remoteness of Athens

from the capital; in the greater intellectual life of Constantinople;

in the presence of many leaders of thought from the cities in Asia

Minor under Asiatic influence, and in the traditional Roman sentiment

derived from the influence of Latin rulers, literature, and tradition.

The iconoclastic movement towards the end of the eighth century was

a genuine attempt to get rid of pagan practices. It failed because

of the base character of some of its imperial supporters, because of

the opposition of the less cultured western church, and because the

Empress Irene, a native of Athens and brought up among the traditions

of paganism which still lived on in what was then a remote part of the

empire, placed herself at the head of the Hellenic party and with her

strong will was able to prevent any reformation being accomplished.

But paganism in Greece and Asia Minor lived on long after the time of

Irene. The Hellenistic influence struggled hard against the Asiatic or

what was not unfitly called the Roman party. When we come to the last

century of the empire’s history, we find its influence triumphant,

and this to such an extent that we see Plethon and his school, as

the representatives of a phase of Greek thought, dreaming of the

restoration of paganism. I conclude, therefore, that Greek influence

helped to perpetuate paganism or at least a paganistic tendency.

Greek influence deprived the Church of the religious enthusiasm which

the study of the Old Testament has often inspired. It must always

be remembered that the Greeks had the New Testament in a language

they could understand. Every one recognises that a large part of the

intellectual movement in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries was due to the translation of the sacred Scriptures into the

vernacular. But there has been no period in the history of the Greek

race since the compilation of the Christian record in which the Greeks

have not had the advantage of a familiarity with the Gospels and the

writings of St. Paul. They knew the New Testament well. Its Greek

was colloquial. But they were less familiar with the Old Testament.

Although frequent allusions are made to the stories in the older book

by many writers during the later centuries of the Church’s history,

the Septuagint was written in a language less understood by the

people. Indications that the Old Testament influenced men’s conduct

are lacking, and point either to a want of familiarity with it, or to

some other cause which made its influence less than that which it has

had on other peoples. The passionate zeal of our own Puritans, with

their application of Jewish history to English politics; the political

principles of the defenders of civil liberty in America; the fierce

enthusiasm of the Scotch Covenanters, of the Dutch Protestants, and

of the Boers, were all derived from the Old rather than from the New

Testament. The influence of the more ancient book might have been great

upon the Asiatic party if its writings had been as familiar as those

of the New Testament. As it was, though its influence was undoubtedly

felt, that derived from the New Testament became more powerful as the

centuries went on, ultimately triumphed, and led to results which

assist us to furnish an answer to the questions under examination.

What, then, was the general effect of the double stream of influence

on the members of the Orthodox Church? The familiarity of the subjects

of the empire with the text of the New Testament combined with the

intellectual genius of the Greek race led them to take a delight in

the study of the philosophical questions which the New Testament, and

especially the writings of St. Paul, suggest. To take a keen interest

in any metaphysical study is for any people a gain, and it is none

the less so when the subject is theology. Now the interest of the

population in theological questions was at all times absorbing.

When these questions were settled by the Church, the Asiatic influence

made itself felt and produced a conservatism, a stubborn refusal

to change or abandon any position, which the more fickle-minded or

philosophical Greek could never have displayed. Each of the two

tendencies exerted its influence upon the conduct of the Orthodox

Church. Speaking generally, we may say that all its members were

devotedly attached to their faith--or perhaps it would be more exact

to say, to their creeds. Of political questions in the modern sense

they knew little. In their ignorance of foreign nations, questions of

external policy hardly interested them, but the intellectual life of

the country--mostly confined to the great cities, to Nicaea, Salonica,

Smyrna, and above all the capital--was fully awake to theological

questions. While ready to discuss, they maintained every dogma and

every article with a persistence which increased as the years rolled

on. They took a keen interest in any question whenever any heretic

appeared who attempted to throw doubt on what the Church had decided.

They were ready to die for their faith.

The writers of the Greek Church show by abundant examples that they and

the people believed in the existence of a God who lives and rules the

world and the conduct of individuals. Their very superstitions afford

sufficient evidence of such a belief. He was an avenging God. Black

Death and Plague are described as the instruments of His vengeance.

Omens and signs in a variety of forms were the means by which He, or

some of the Hierarchy of Heaven, intimated to the faithful what was

about to happen. The absence of omens was a sign of His displeasure or

His abandonment of their cause.

The men who discussed the religious questions which arose during the

later as well as the earlier centuries of the empire regarded them

as tremendous realities. The discussions were not mere exchange of

opinions or formulating of phrases: not mere academical disputations,

among the learned of the time, of metaphysical abstractions, but were

often careful attempts to solve the insoluble. The results were of

supreme importance. If you believed aright, you would be saved. If you

disbelieved or believed wrongfully, you would be damned in the next

world and, as far as the believers could accomplish it, in this also.

Unless the eagerness, the passion, the deadly Asiatic earnestness

of the religious discussions or wranglings be realised, no true

conception can be formed of fourteenth and fifteenth century life in

Constantinople.

Contemporary writers supply abundant and indisputable evidence that,

from the patriarch downwards, the members of the Greek Church attached

overwhelming importance to the correctness of their orthodoxy. The

utmost care about correct definitions was taken by the Church to

check paganism. The miscreant was a worse offender than the man who

disregarded the ordinary laws of morality. Souls were to be saved by

right belief. As in the Western Church, whosoever would be saved,

it was necessary before all things that he should accept the right

formulas. But the Eastern gave greater prominence to the formulas than

even the Western. While the Roman Church attached most importance to

its Catholicity and to the necessity of propagating the faith, the

Greek Church always prided itself rather on its Orthodoxy. If the

question were whether the empire was Christian, and if the test of

being a Christian nation were the jealous guardianship of every dogma

in the precise manner that it had been formulated by the Councils of

the Church, then the Orthodox Church, to which the inhabitants of

the capital and empire belonged, would take a very high rank among

Christian nations.

It is not possible to doubt that the keen interest taken in the

discussion of religious questions quickened the intellectual

development of the population, and in this respect the influence of the

Church was purely beneficial. To suggest, as did the historians of the

eighteenth century, that the Greeks were at once profoundly theological

and profoundly vile is not only to ask that an indictment should be

framed against a whole people, but is contrary to general experience

and to fact. In spite of the occasional conjunction of theology and

immorality in the same individual, the nation which takes a lively

interest in the former is not likely to be addicted to the latter.

A strong and, I think, an unanswerable case might be made out to show

that the religion of the Orthodox Church beneficially influenced

the conduct of men and women in their individual capacity and in

their relations one with another. All believed in the doctrine of

eternal punishment and in the divine gifts granted to the Church

by which punishment might be avoided. In their constant efforts to

take advantage of the graces at the disposal of the Church, and in

their endeavours to attain the ideal of Christian philosophy, men

and women were led by their religion to be more moral, more honest,

and more kindly one to another, than they would otherwise have been.

The denunciations of those who had been guilty of unclean conduct,

and the constant praise of almsgiving, lead to the conclusion that

the Church had so far exercised influence for good. It had given the

citizens of the empire a higher standard of family and social life.

The very stubbornness which the Asiatic tendency supplied, and which

led all to resist every attempt to change the formulas of the faith,

came in itself to stand the population in good stead after 1453. Their

wranglings on religious questions helped to form a public opinion which

prevented any considerable number of Christians from abandoning their

religion. We may safely conclude, therefore, that the Orthodox Church

had aided in developing intellectual life, in raising and maintaining

a high tone of morality, and in so attaching its members to their

religion that when the time of trial came they remained faithful. It

had done more. While accomplishing these objects it had raised a whole

series of heterogeneous races to a higher level of civilisation and had

largely contributed to make the empire the foremost and best educated

state in Europe. It had checked the Greek tendency to attachment merely

to the city or province and had made patriotism and brotherhood words

of wider signification than they possessed in Greece.

It is when we pass from the influence of the Church on the conduct

of the individual, to ask what was the value of its ethical teaching

in regard to national life, whether it ever set before the nation a

lofty national ideal, or whether it ever caused a wave of religious

enthusiasm which influenced the nation as a whole, that we find the

Orthodox Church during the later centuries of its history greatly

lacking. Religion was to guide the conduct of the individual and to

save him from eternal punishment. There was little or no conception

of it as an aid to national righteousness. There was no inspiration

for national action, such as a study of the Old Testament has often

supplied. There was never any great religious fervour for the

accomplishment of an object because it was believed to be the divine

will. I am not thinking of such religious enthusiasm as led to the

abolition of the slave trade or of slavery, to the temperance movement

or to that for the diminution of crime and the reform of criminals

or for the bettering the condition of the labouring classes and the

like. These are social developments belonging to later years, which

may be credited, in part at least, to the account of Christianity. It

is in the contemporary religious movements of other portions of the

Christian world that the measure of the national religious life of

the empire must be taken. The series of Crusades enables a comparison

of this kind to be fairly made, though other standards of comparison

suggest themselves. The empire under the rule of Constantinople had

a greater interest in checking the progress of the Moslems in Syria,

Egypt, and Asia Minor than had the Western nations. But in the whole

course of Byzantine history, though the empire steadily resisted the

Mahometan armies, there was no display of religious enthusiasm to lend

its aid at any time comparable with that which was shown in the West.

An Eastern Peter the Hermit could not have aroused the members of the

Orthodox Church. No Godfrey de Bouillon could have found statesmen in

the East to have espoused his cause. If leaders had been forthcoming,

followers would have been wanting. Though the statesmen of the West

were influenced by many motives to join in the Crusades, they, too,

were largely under the sway of religious fervour. The nations of which

they were the leaders did display such fervour for the accomplishment

of objects which were believed to be in conformity with the divine

will. As for the great mass of crusaders, it cannot be doubted that

they took the cross mainly because they believed that they were doing

the will of God. Absence of precaution, deficiency of organisation,

unreasoning fanatical zeal, unreasonable and senseless haste to come

into conflict with the infidel, the army of child crusaders, the

sacrifices men made of their property, most of the incidents, indeed,

which make up the narratives of the Crusades, show that the Soldiers of

the Cross were steeped in religious fervour, and were in a condition of

pious exaltation. They were, as they called themselves, an army of God.

They were willing to face any danger, and to go to certain death for

their Master’s cause.

The Greek was always ready to defend a dogma. He entertained a profound

dislike and contempt for Christian heretics who were usually less well

informed than he and were generally fanatically in earnest, but he was

more tolerant of heresy than the men of the West, who in the Middle

Ages bestowed on heretics a fanatical hatred and contempt greater even

than that felt towards the infidel, and like that entertained in the

present day towards anarchists as enemies of the human race.

No cause ever presented itself to the Greek as capable of arousing

such fervour as the soldiers of the West displayed. Religion having

become a New Testament philosophy, and the Old Testament inspiration

in national life having been lost, there was little care for its

propagation. The missionary age of the Orthodox Church in the

empire, as soon as the Hellenic influence triumphed over the Asiatic,

had passed away. Since the days of Cyril and Methodius, the great

apostles of the ninth century, the Church could show few conversions

and few serious attempts at conversion. That the Church should be

orthodox was apparently enough. There was no attempt to enlarge its

area. Christianity appeared to be regarded by one party as the best

system of philosophy, and by the other, much as the Jew regarded his

religion, as a sacred treasure to be kept for his own use and not to

be offered to outside unbelievers. His religion in the later centuries

never really moved the Greek to engage in missions. Except in regard

to personal conduct, to almsgiving, kindness to his fellow-members

of the Orthodox Church, and personal and commercial morality, he was

incapable of religious sentiment. Something due to his race, something

to his traditions, and something to his theological training, made

Christianity, except as a philosophical system, sit lightly upon him

and failed to make it a powerful national force. Then, as now, the

Greek members of the Orthodox Church could not sympathise with or even

comprehend the religious sentiment which has led the men of the West,

whether acknowledging the jurisdiction of Rome or not, to undertake

great movements, or even war, in defence of an object whose only

recommendation was that it had right on its side.

In spite of the fact that in the empire and throughout Asia Minor

nationality and religion were, as indeed they are to this day, always

confounded or regarded as synonymous terms, Orthodox Christianity

was unable to add a powerful religious sentiment to the defence of

the empire. As a force inducing them to resist the encroachments of

Islam, like that which influenced our fathers against Spain or the

Ironsides against Charles, I doubt whether it was ever of much value.

We have seen a patriarch writing apparently with great satisfaction

that the Church was allowed to retain its liberty under Turkish rule.

Throughout the long centuries of struggle against Islam, there were

many Christians who transferred themselves to the jurisdiction of the

sultans in order that they might live in peace. The individual aspect

of Christianity was regarded, not the national.

It is when the influence of the Church upon the spirit of the

population of the empire is compared with that of Mahometanism upon

the Turkish hordes that its weakness as a dynamic force is most

plainly seen. Mahometanism, like Christianity in Western lands and in

Russia, is a missionary faith. Islam as a fighter’s religion, with its

fatalism, its rewards of the most sensual pleasures that a barbarian

is capable of conceiving, and its ennobling teaching that fighting

the battles of the faith is fighting for God, has produced the most

terrible armies that have ever come out from among any of the races

among which its converts have been made. Islam in the twentieth century

has spent much of its original force, because doubt as to its divine

origin has entered into the hearts of its ablest members. Those among

them who have seen or have otherwise learned the results of Christian

civilisation instinctively and almost unconsciously judge the two

religions by their fruits. Such men either become entirely neglectful

of the ceremonious duties which their religion imposes, or, if they

profess to have become more intent in their religious convictions than

before, perform their ceremonies with a sub-consciousness that their

religion is not better than that of the unbelievers. In whichever

category they fall they lose their belief in the exclusively divine

character of their creed. Nor do the studies in astronomy, medicine,

geology, and other modern sciences fail to implant a similar and even

a greater amount of scepticism in the Mahometan than they have done in

the Christian mind. While visits to foreign countries and scientific

studies are undertaken by few, their influence as a leaven is great.

In the centuries preceding the Moslem conquest of Constantinople

scepticism was absent among both the Christian and Mahometan masses.

The Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, more perhaps than at any

other time, were full of the zeal of new converts. They were in a

period of conquest which stimulated them. Many, perhaps most of them,

believed in their divine mission. They were the chosen people, whose

duty it was to give idolaters the choice of conversion to the one true

faith or of death, to subdue all nations who accepted either the Old or

the New Testament but refused to accept the prophethood of Mahomet, and

to treat them as rayahs or cattle. Their spiritual pride caused them to

think of those who professed any form of Christianity as being inferior

and divinely predestined to occupy a hopelessly lower plane, as having

only the privilege that their lives should be spared so long as they

paid tribute and accepted subjection. Their central, overpowering

belief was that they had a mission from God and the Prophet, and the

result of such belief was fearlessness of danger. It was their duty to

kill idolaters and subjugate Christians. Whatever happened to them in

the fulfilment of this duty was not their business but God’s. He would

bring about the predestined victory or the temporary defeat; but in

either case it was well with them. If they lived, the plunder of their

enemies was their reward; if they died, then heaven and the houris.

When this attitude of mind is compared with that which existed among

the members of the Orthodox Church, we see at once great divergences

between the two forms of faith as national ethical forces. On the one

hand, the student of comparative religions must give that Church credit

for having aided the growth of the population in the Christian virtues,

for having given them an inspiration enabling them to suffer and to

hope, for having preserved learning, developed national intelligence,

cultivated exact thought, for having promoted philosophical studies and

in various ways guarded the treasures of classic times until the rest

of Europe was ready to receive them. On the other hand, such student,

while recognising that Mahometanism prevents progress by assigning an

inferior position to woman, by inculcating a spirit of fatalism which

mischievously affects almost every act of the believer’s life and

keeps the Turkish race in poverty, and by presenting a lower ideal of

life, will have to admit that its influence as a religious force, with

its ever-present sense of a Supreme Power, omnipotent to save or to

destroy, was far greater than that of the Orthodox Church, and that

the Church failed to supply the stimulus of a national inspiration

comparable with that of the hostile creed, or with that furnished by

Christianity to the men of the West.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, edited by J. B. Bury,

M.A. Whenever Gibbon is quoted in the text of this volume it is from

Professor Bury’s edition.

[2] Vol. vii. p. 163, Gibbon’s note.

[3] The principal of these works are:

1. ‘Belagerung und Eroberung Constantinopels im Jahre 1453.’

Von Dr. A. D. Mordtmann (Stuttgart, 1858).

2. ‘Die Eroberungen von Constantinopel im dreizehnten und

fünfzehnten Jahrhundert.’ Von Dr. Johann Heinrich Krause

(Halle, 1870).

3. ‘Les Derniers Jours de Constantinople.’ Par E. A. Vlasto

(Paris, 1883).

4. Πολιορκία καὶ Ἁλωσις τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως. By A. G.

Paspates (Athens, 1890).

5. ‘Constantine, the last Emperor of the Greeks.’ By Chedomil

Mijatovich, formerly Servian Minister at the Court of St.

James (London, 1892).

6. Two valuable papers by Dr. A. Mordtmann (the son of Dr.

A. D. Mordtmann) entitled _Die letzten Tage von Byzanz_,

in the ‘Mitteilungen des deutschen Exkursions-Klubs in

Konstantinopel,’ 1895.

[4] _Giornale dell’ Assedio di Constantinopoli_, di Nicolo Barbaro,

P.V., corredato di note e documenti per Enrico Cornet (Vienna, 1856).

[5] Βίος τοῦ Μωαμὲθ βʹ.

[6] Herr Müller’s preface is dated 1869, but I am not aware that it was

published before it appeared in _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_,

vol. v. The dedicatory epistle to Mahomet was published from another

and a somewhat longer version by Tischendorf in 1870 in his _Notitia

Codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici_ (Leipzig).

[7] ‘Informacion envoyée (en 1453) tant par Francisco de Franco au

très révérend père en Dieu Monsgr le Cardinal d’Avignon que par Jehan

Blanchin et Jacques Tetaldi marchand Florentin sur la prinse de

Constantinoble à laquelle le dit Jacques estoit personellement.’ One

version is published in _Chroniques de Charles VII roi de France, par

Jean Chartier_, vol. iii., edited by Vallet de Virivalle (Paris, 1858).

Another, published by Dethier with several important differences, is

stated to be taken from _Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum_ (Paris, 1717).

Though his narrative was printed in France early in the eighteenth

century, it appears to have been generally unknown and is not alluded

to by Gibbon.

[8] _Ubertini Pusculi Brixiensis Constantinopoleos_: in _Analekten der

mittel- und neugriechischen Literatur_, by J. A. Ellisen (Leipzig).

[9] _Esquisse Topographique de Constantinople_ (Lille, 1892).

[10] _Byzantine Constantinople: the Walls of the City and adjoining

Historical Sites_ (published by John Murray, 1899).

[11] See authorities quoted in Sathas, _Documents Inédits_, i. p. xii.

[12] For example, Sir John Maundeville speaks of ‘Constantinople, where

the Emperor of Greece usually dwells,’ _Early Travels in Palestine_, p.

130 (Bohn’s edition).

[13] See valuable remarks on the name of the empire in the Preface

to Professor Bury’s _Later Roman Empire_, and in the Introduction to

_Documents Inédits relatifs à l’Histoire de la Grèce_, by Sathas.

[14] Villehardouin, ch. lxxxvi.

[15] The soldiers are those who received the _soldi_ or pay, as

distinguished from the Crusaders, who were supposed to fight only for

the cause of the Cross.

[16] La Sainte Chapelle in Paris was built to receive these treasures.

[17] Πύλη τῆς πηγῆς, so called because it led to the Holy Well, is

better known as the Silivria Gate. See Professor Van Millingen’s

_Byzantine Constantinople_, p. 75.

[18] P. 191. Pachymer, writing fifty years afterwards, adds that they

placed ladders against the walls; and Nicephorus Gregoras, writing a

century afterwards, speaks of a secret entry by an old subterranean

passage for water, through which fifty men passed. Gibbon makes the

mistake of saying that the entry was at the Golden Gate. Strategopulus

had the Gate of the Fountain--that is, the Silivria Gate--opened for

his troops. The Emperor Michael subsequently entered by the Golden

Gate; possibly, as Dethier suggests (iii. 605), by the ancient gate of

that name in the Constantine Walls, which was still used for ceremonial

purposes.

[19] It is unlikely that at this time there were any foreigners among

the fighting men other than Frenchmen. The pope’s demands for the

defence of the empire do not appear to have been responded to outside

France.

[20] _Epist. Inn._ viii. 133.

[21] Pachymer, iii. 10. Greg. iv. 4.

[22] Pach. iii. 19.

[23] Ibid. iv. 1.

[24] Pach. iv. 6. Pachymer took part in these proceedings, and was in

fact one of the clerks of the court.

[25] The Holy Gates are in the middle of the Iconostasis or screen

which separates the bema or chancel from the nave.

[26] Raynoldus and Vadingus.

[27] Ch. v. 9. It should be remembered that Pachymer had himself joined

the Latin Church.

[28] Pach. v. 18.

[29] Pach. vi. 24 and 25.

[30] I have relied mostly for this account of the attempt at Union on

Pachymer (I agree with Krumbacher’s high estimate of the value of this

author’s history):

‘Pachymeres ragt durch seine Bildung und litterarische Thätigkeit

über seine Zeitgenossen empor und kann als der grösste byzantinische

Polyhistor des 13. Jahrhunderts bezeichnet werden. In ihm erblickt man

deutlich die Licht- und Schattenseiten des Zeitalters der Paläologen.

Es fehlt dem Pachymeres nicht an Gelehrsamkeit, Originalität und

Witz.’ _Geschichte der Byzantinischen Litteratur_, p. 289. Pachymer

was himself a Greek, born in Nicaea but a member of the Latin Church.

He deals with the doings of the emperor and the Greek ecclesiastics in

a fair spirit. His History is essentially that of his own times and

covers the period from 1261 to 1308.

[31] Pach. part 2, ii. 18.

[32] The following table of descent will illustrate the text:

Baldwin II., emperor of Constantinople, fled the city 1261, died 1272.

|

Philip, married Beatrice, daughter of Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily,

| died 1288.

|

Catherine, married in 1301 Charles of Valois, son of Philip III. of France;

| Charles died 1308.

|

+-----------------+-----------------------------------+----------+

| | | |

John, Catherine married Philip of Tarentum, Joanna Elizabeth

died without son of Charles of Sicily. Philip

issue. died 1322: Catherine in 1346.

[33] Pachymer indeed states that the Pope ordered Roger to be given up.

[34] Dr. Koëlle has in my opinion satisfactorily demonstrated that

‘Tatar’ is an incorrect spelling, due mainly to the fact that this form

of the word comes to us from the Chinese, who cannot pronounce the

letter _r_.

[35] _The Mahommedans_, by J. D. Rees, C.I.E., 1894.

[36] Pach. ii. 25.

[37] ‘Roum’ is still the Turkish form of ‘Rome,’ and exists in the

names Erzeroum, Roumelia, &c.

[38] Pach. iv. 27.

[39] _Early Travels in Palestine_, Bohn’s edition, p. 241.

[40] Maundeville in Syria met Christians from Prester John’s country,

p. 189. See Col. Yule’s _Marco Polo_, i. 275, a book which is a model

of good editing.

[41] When, therefore, Mr. Billinski speaks of the Turks of to-day

having ‘millions of confederates in the heart of Russia’ ready to obey

the commands of the Mussulman pontiff, he is, I believe, entirely

mistaken. The Mahometans under Russian rule are a comparatively

insignificant part of her population, and there is no reason to believe

that any but a very small portion of them would think it a religious

duty to fight against the Czar at the bidding of the Sultan. It should

also not be forgotten that the majority of them are Shiahs, who have

never shown any disposition to aid the Sunnis, who acknowledge the

caliphate of Constantinople. _Nineteenth Century_, Nov. 1891, p. 731.

[42] Maundeville in 1322, or a year or two later, discussed

Mahometanism with many of its professors, and goes so far as to say,

‘Because they go so nigh our faith, they are easily converted to

Christian law.’ _Early Travels in Palestine_, p. 196.

[43] See _ante_, p. 28.

[44] Pach. iv. 3.

[45] _Ibid._ iv. 6.

[46] That this aversion to agriculture, and contentment amid poverty,

of the Turkish peasant are not merely the result of Mahometanism, is

evidenced by the fact that the Pomaks--that is, the Bulgarians who

have accepted Islam--and the Mahometans of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who

have emigrated into Asia Minor since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878,

are noticed everywhere to be distinguished by their comparative energy

and by the success they are achieving in various forms of agricultural

pursuits.

[47] Pach. vi. 21.

[48] iv. 21.

[49] Gregoras states that the Turkish ships employed by Andronicus

plundered all the coasts and the islands (viii. 10). Chalcondylas

claims that Othman with eight thousand Turks who occupied the Thracian

Chersonesus was entirely defeated.

[50] It is usually impossible to arrive at the correct estimate of

the numbers of the invaders, but it may be said once for all that,

while they were undoubtedly very large, the figures given by the Greek

authors are seldom trustworthy.

[51] Sir John Maundeville, who visited Constantinople in 1322, remarks

on the diminution of the empire: ‘For he was emperor of Romania and of

Greece, of all Asia the Less, and of the land of Syria, of the land of

Persia and Arabia, but he hath lost all but Greece’ (_Early Travels in

Palestine_, p. 130).

[52] Cant. ii. 9, 14, 15; Greg. ix. 10, xiii. 3; Ducas, vi.

[53] Ducas, i. 6.

[54] Cant. iv. 3.

[55] Vol. vii. p. 30, edition of Dr. J. B. Bury. The Tartars were

still in the Balkan peninsula, and Orchan in 1347, probably just after

the marriage of John, sent six thousand Turks to aid Matthew, son of

Cantacuzenus, in fighting against the kral of Serbia.

[56] Greg. xxvii. 49.

[57] Cant. iv. 5 and 6.

[58] ἕνεκα ἀσφαλείας πράττειν, iv. 3.

[59] Even Gibbon (vii. 30) says, ‘It was in the last quarrel with his

pupil that Cantacuzenus inflicted the deep and deadly wound which could

never be healed by his successors and which is poorly expiated by his

theological dialogue against the prophet Mahomet.’ But the Moslems,

both from the north and south, had been fighting in Europe fifty years

earlier, sometimes on the side of the Greeks, oftener, as with the

Catalans, against them.

[60] Heyd’s _History of Commerce in the Levant_.

[61] The Black Death (πανούκλα) was the terrible disease which

spread throughout Europe and depopulated most of its large cities

between 1346 and 1370. Cantacuzenus, whose son Andronicus fell a

victim, gives a vivid and terrible picture of its symptoms, and of its

effect upon the population (iv. 8). Dr. Mordtmann, who is not merely

distinguished as an archæologist well acquainted with the Byzantine

writers, but as a physician of great experience, believes it to have

been a black form of smallpox, and not what is usually known as plague,

and a well-known specialist in plague, to whose attention I have

submitted the account of Cantacuzenus, is disposed to accept the same

view.

[62] The walls of Galata, both before and after this enlargement, which

doubled the area of the city, may still be traced.

[63] The demand for slaves, and especially for girls for the harems,

was always great. Slaves, indeed, usually formed the most valuable part

of the booty in a raiding expedition.

[64] Cant. iv. 39.

[65] _Ibid._ iv. 37.

[66] _Ibid._ iv. 37.

[67] The statement that he visited Italy and Germany is made by Ducas

(i. 11), but it is remarkable that Cantacuzenus makes no mention of it.

Muralt (p. 640) suggests that he left Tenedos in the spring of 1352.

But Cantacuzenus, writing of the events of 1254, represents John as

having passed a whole year in Tenedos. Possibly this would be a year

terminating in January 1355.

[68] Gregoras, xxix. 25.

[69] Rayn. iv. lxiii.

[70] iv. 9.

[71] The History of Nicephorus Gregoras, as written by an enemy, is a

useful corrective. Krumbacher in his account of Byzantine literature

speaks of Gregoras as ‘die Hauptperson des 14. Jahrhunderts’ (p. 19).

His narrative is described by Cantacuzenus as stamped with ignorance,

partiality, and falsehood. Its chief accusation against him is not

merely false but improbable (iv. 24). In his own History Cantacuzenus

declares that he has never departed from the truth either on account of

hatred or the desire to say pleasant things (iv. concluding chapter).

What he finds most fault with in Gregoras is the statement that, even

during the lifetime of Andronicus, Cantacuzenus had become possessed of

a burning desire to become emperor, and that he had consulted certain

monks at Mount Athos who were supposed to have the power of divination,

in order to learn whether he would accomplish his desire. The story, he

declares, is absolutely false. It is brought up because he as emperor

protected Palamas in his religious controversies where Gregoras took

the opposite side.

[72] iv. 9.

[73] iv. 24.

[74] iv. 28.

[75] iv. 17.

[76] Greg. xi. 10.

[77] _Ibid._

[78] The Bogomils still exist in Eastern Rumelia. One may be sceptical

as to the doctrines in which, according to their enemies, they

believed. Apparently they were quietists, searchers after the Inner

Light, who would have nothing to do with the worship of Eikons, were

possibly Unitarians, and had a tendency in many directions towards

what may be called reformation principles. Their teaching was imbued

with the Slavic mysticism which is characteristic to-day of Russian

literature.

The Bogomils became first noticeable in Bulgaria in the days of King

Peter (927–968). Even a few years earlier they are alluded to as

certain ‘Pagan Slavs and Manichaeans.’ Later on the Bogomils are spoken

of as Paulicians. In Bosnia they became so powerful that the whole

country was described as Bogomil. The pope in 1407 promised help to

Sigismund against the ‘Manichaeans and Arians’ in Bosnia, and they were

beaten and the kingdom dismembered in 1410–11. The Council of Bâle

received a deputation from the Bogomils in 1435 and dealt at the same

time with them and with the Hussites. In 1443 they lent valuable aid to

Hunyadi against the Turks. Persecuted by both the Catholic and Orthodox

Churches, many of the magnates who had been forced to become Catholics

in order to retain their lands turned Mahometans, and their example

was largely followed by the smaller landholders. Among the Mahometans

of Bosnia there still exist many customs of Christian origin. Mr.

Evans, in _Through Bosnia and Herzegovina_, states that there are still

many thousands of Bogomils in these countries. Herr Asboth, who has

been over the country, declares the statement to be too general, and

says that he was never able to find any, although he admits that they

recently existed. Subject in Bulgaria to persecution from the Orthodox

Church, many of them sought escape about a century ago by joining the

Church of Rome. Bogomilism spread from Bosnia into Europe, where it

gave rise to the Cathari or Albigenses, who acknowledged the Church of

Dragovitza in Macedonia as their mother Church. The best account I know

of the Bogomils in Bosnia is in J. de Asboth’s _Official Tour through

Bosnia and Herzegovina_, London, 1900.

[79] Vol. vii. p. 87.

[80] Raynaldus, N. xxxii., professes to give the text of his

submission. If his text is genuine it shows that John was under the

same delusion as Michael had been: namely, that he could force the

Orthodox Church to accept what he wanted.

[81] Ducas, xii. Chalcondylas makes a similar statement (i. 45); Canale

says that a Genoese doctor restored sight to Andronicus.

[82] Sauli, _Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata_, ii. 260.

[83] Urban the Sixth died in 1389.

[84] Ducas, xiii.

[85] This was in 1097, when, on the invitation of Godfrey de Bouillon,

Alexis had reached the city on its water side by taking his boats, in

part at least, overland from the Gulf of Moudania to the lake. The

object of Godfrey was to prevent the Crusaders being exposed to the

demoralisation of plundering a hostile city.

[86] Greg. ix. 2 says the Turks had carried off three hundred thousand

Christian captives. The Turks fought well, but were exterminated.

[87] Cant. iv. 16.

[88] Cant. iv. 39.

[89] I reserve my description of the Janissaries for a later chapter.

[90] Ch. xxiii.

[91] Chalc. i. 51, and Phrantzes, i. 11.

[92] Du Cange, _Familiae Dalmaticae_, 230, Venetian edition. The

story of this battle is fully described in _Die Serben und Türken im

XIV. und XV. Jahrhundert_ of S. Novakovich (Semlin, 1897) and also in

Ireček’s _History of the Bulgarians_ (p. 430). Ireček states that

as late as the seventeenth century the stone monument of the despot

Uglisha’s tomb still existed. Uglisha was one of the three brothers.

[93] Chalc. i. 44 says that the sultan immediately beheaded his son;

Ducas, that Countouz was blinded (xii.).

[94] Cossovo-pol, the Plain of Blackbirds, is between Pristina and

Prisrend, to the north-east of Uskub. The town of Cossovo is due south

of Prisrend, and about thirty miles distant.

[95] Novacovich, p. 335. ‘Gleichwie durch den Krieg an der Maritza das

Schicksal Ost-Bulgariens und der serbischen Staaten in Macedonien,

ebenso ist durch die Schlacht aus Kossovopolje, den 15. Juni 1389, das

Schicksal der nördlichen serbischen Länder und des westlichen Bulgarien

entschieden worden, namentlich der Länder des Fürsten Lazar und Buk

Brancovic’s.’

[96] Sad-ud-din. See also Halil Ganem’s _Les Sultans Ottomans_, Paris,

1901. Upon the assassination of Murad the custom grew up, which

continued till about 1820, of not allowing any Christian belonging

to a foreign state to enter the presence of the sultan except with

Janissaries holding each arm.

[97] Now called Anatolia-hissar. The word _hissar_ means castle.

[98] The version of Ducas differs from those of Chalcondylas and

Phrantzes, the first of whom knows nothing of the arrangement

suggested, but states that Manuel left the city for Italy, while

Phrantzes declares that John, having lost the favour of Bajazed, fled

to his uncle, who entrusted the city to him during his absence (Phr.

pp. 61–3.)

[99] Ducas, xx.; Chalc. iv. p. 183. Phrantzes, p. 89, praises Mahomet

very highly.

[100] Ducas, xxiii.

[101] Mersaite declared he failed because of the presence of a noble

lady, evidently the Holy Virgin, walking upon and guarding the walls.

[102] According to another version he withdrew on account of the

famine and plague which prevailed in his army. It is, however, certain

that the Turkish revolt in favour of Mustafa took place, and in the

following year, 1423, Murad captured the leader, Elias Pasha, and

bowstrung both him and the young Mustafa at Nicaea. Before the end of

the year he returned to Thrace and took possession of Adrianople.

[103] See _ante_; and also Pachymer, iii. 10 to iv. 25.

[104] ‘The Greek Church has had a fossilised aversion to change;

boasting that it follows the doctrines and practices of the Apostolic

Church, it believes that it has no need of reform.’ _Eighteen Centuries

of the Orthodox Greek Church_, by Rev. A. H. Hore, p. 553 (Jas. Parker

& Co.: London, 1899).

The expression ‘fossilised aversion’ is perhaps too strong, though I

should be prepared to admit that the Eastern _non possumus_ was at

least as obstinate as the Western. The Orthodox Church in countries

where it is free, as in Greece and Russia, shows signs of growth, and

therefore hardly deserves the adjective ‘fossilised.’ Since 1453 in

Turkey it has been comatose.

[105] Milman, _History of Latin Christianity_, 3rd edition, vol. viii.

p. 348.

[106] While the rival representatives were in Constantinople Murad

suggested to John that his friendship under the circumstances would

be of greater value than that of the pope. Chalc., Syropulus, and

Phrantzes.

[107] Phrantzes, pp. 181–6.

[108] Vol. vii. p. 108.

[109] Second Council of Nicaea, in 787.

[110] The copies sent to London and Karlsruhe, as well as the diptych

of Rome (the official record) consulted by Niches, signed by the

emperor of Constantinople and by thirty-six Latin prelates, contain

on this point only the following: ἔτι ὁρίζομεν τὴν ἁγίαν ἀποστολικὴν

καθέδραν καὶ τὸν ῥομαϊκὸν διάδοχον εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίου Πέτρου. The pope

and forty-two Latin prelates, on the other hand, signed the following:

_Item definimus S. Ap. sedem et romanum pontificem in universum orbem

tenere primatum et ipsum pontificem romanum successorem esse S. Petri_.

[111] Many of the towers near the Golden Gate bear inscriptions showing

that they were repaired during John’s reign. For the inscriptions see

Paspates’ Βυζαντιναὶ Μελέται.

[112] Caramania was the Turkish state which remained longest outside

Ottoman dominion. At one period it extended from the river Sangarius

to Adana. Ordinarily its boundaries did not extend further north than

Konia. See Stanley Lane-Poole’s _Mohammedan Dynasties_, p. 134.

[113] The island of Chios had for several years been held by a

Commercial Company, mostly if not exclusively of Genoese, each of whose

members was, apparently, known by the name of Justiniani.

[114] Gibbon suggests, on the authority of the _Hist. Anonyme de

St-Denys_, that the French had murdered their Turkish prisoners on

the eve of the engagement, and that the sultan was merely retaliating

(Gibbon, vii. 37).

[115] Chalc. ii. 807.

[116] Chap. xv.

[117] The word _timour_ is the same as the ordinary Turkish word for

iron, _demir_.

[118] Leunclavius, 250.

[119] Leunclavius, pp. 250–1, Ven. edition, makes the conquest of

Damascus in 1399; Chalcondylas and others, in 1402; the Turkish authors

quoted by Von Hammer, in 1401. The statement of the hindrance due to

locusts I take from Muralt, 772, who quotes as his authority ‘Bizar,’ a

name unknown to me.