History of the Fourth Crusade E-Book

Edwin Pears

• Herausgeber: Ozymandias Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 695

Beschreibung

The Greek speaking Roman empire at the end of the twelfth century was very much smaller than it had once been. It is no part of my purpose to trace the history of its decline, further than to show what were the immediate causes which led to its weakness in 1203, when the Fourth Crusade effected what is generally known as the Latin Conquest of Constantinople. In the year 1200 the territory over which the Roman emperor in the East ruled, no longer included any part of Italy or Sicily. Cyprus had been taken possession of by our Richard the Lion-hearted in 1190, and never again came under the sway of the emperors. The Saracens had captured some of the fairest Asiatic provinces which had owned allegiance to Constantinople. The successes of the Crusaders had for a time established a kingdom of Jerusalem, and had won a considerable number of important places from the enemy, but as the century closed nearly all of them had been lost...

Leseprobe

HISTORY OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE

Edwin Pears

OZYMANDIAS PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by Edwin Pears

Published by Ozymandias Press

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ISBN: 9781531285661

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY-EXTENT OF EMPIRE IN TWELFTH CENTURY- ITS CONDITION AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

CHAPTER II. WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY ATTACKS OF THE SELJUKIAN TURKS

CHAPTER III.WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY ATTACKS FROM THE NORTH.

CHAPTER IV. WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE FROM DYNASTIC TROUBLES

CHAPTER V.WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY THE CRUSADES.

CHAPTER VI.WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY ATTACKS FROM THE WEST.

CHAPTER VII.THE CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1200.

CHAPTER VIII. THE PREPARATIONS FOR A CRUSADE

CHAPTER IX. ARRIVAL IN VENICE.

CHAPTER X. THE DEPARTURE TO, CONQUEST OF, AND STAY IN ZARA

CHAPTER XI. THE PLOT

CHAPTER XII.FROM ZARA TO CORFU.

CHAPTER XIII. FROM CORFU TO CONSTANTINOPLE

CHAPTER XIV. FLIGHT OF THE EMPEROR ALEXIS AND RESTORATION OF ISAAC. REVOLUTION IN THE CITY.

CHAPTER XV. THE ASSAULT, CAPTURE , AND PLUNDER OF THE CITY.

CHAPTER XVI. THE ELECTION OF A LATIN EMPEROR

CHAPTER XVII. CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY-EXTENT OF EMPIRE IN TWELFTH CENTURY- ITS CONDITION AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

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The Greek speaking Roman empire at the end of the twelfth century was very much smaller than it had once been. It is no part of my purpose to trace the history of its decline, further than to show what were the immediate causes which led to its weakness in 1203, when the Fourth Crusade effected what is generally known as the Latin Conquest of Constantinople. In the year 1200 the territory over which the Roman emperor in the East ruled, no longer included any part of Italy or Sicily. Cyprus had been taken possession of by our Richard the Lion-hearted in 1190, and never again came under the sway of the emperors. The Saracens had captured some of the fairest Asiatic provinces which had owned allegiance to Constantinople. The successes of the Crusaders had for a time established a kingdom of Jerusalem, and had won a considerable number of important places from the enemy, but as the century closed nearly all of them had been lost. The principality of Antioch, together with Bey rout and two or three other strongholds of less importance, were still held by the Christians. But the progress made under Saladin had threatened to drive every Western knight out of Syria, and the victories of the Third Crusade had proved fruitless. Saladin, however, was now dead, and members of his family were quarrelling about the division of his territory. In Asia Minor the Seljukian Turks had firmly established themselves in the interior, with unbroken communication into Central Asia. But in 1200 a quarrel similar to that which was weakening the Saracens was dividing also the Turks. The ten sons of the famous Sultan Kilidji Arslan of Iconium had apportioned his empire among them, and were themselves quarrelling about the division. The Armenians and the Georgians, or Iberians, had again struggled into national life. Under Leo the Second the former had established themselves in Little Armenia around Marash, where they were destined to hold their own for centuries, and to play a part which recalls the struggle for independence of the Montenegrins down to our own time. The shores of Asia Minor on all its three sides, with the exception of a few isolated points, still acknowledged the rule of the New Rome. In the Balkan peninsula, at the close of the twelfth century, the empire, though still supreme, had many troublesome neighbors. The Normans had indeed been expelled from Durazzo and from Salonica. But on the northwest of the peninsula, Dalmatia and Croatia had fallen under the rule of Venice, with the exception of two or three cities on the coast held by Hungary. Branitzova and Belgrade had been captured by Bela, King of Hungary, though Emeric, his successor, had not been able to extend his dominions farther south. Yolk, King of the Servians, held his own on the eastern frontier of Hungary, and was attempting to conquer territory from the Huns rather than from the empire. The Wallachs and the Bulgarians were unsettled, but were attempting, on the north of the Balkans, to shake off the imperial yoke. South of the Danube, as far westward as Belgrade, and thence westward still to the boundary of Dalmatia, the whole of the peninsula, with the exception of a territory pretty closely corresponding to the newly established Bulgaria, remained loyal to the capital.

Until the accession of the first of the Basils, in 867, the empire is usually regarded as the eastern branch of the Roman empire. With Basil, however, commences a period when its rulers had turned their attention almost exclusively eastward. Hence the empire is often spoken of as the Byzantine, rather than the Eastern empire. If the term Byzantine be used, it is important to recall that the empire was also Roman. The emperors and people called themselves Romans, and their country, even by Western writers, was usually spoken of as Romania. The latter writers sometimes indeed speak of the European portion of Romania as Greece, but no inhabitant of Constantinople would have used the term in this sense. The capital was called indifferently Constantinople and New Rome, to distinguish it from what its writers speak of by contrast as the Elder Rome. Throughout the East, Rome was the name which attached most completely to the city, and Roman to the territory which it ruled. The Turks, the Arabs, and the Persians knew the capital by this name only. The people under the rule of the empire were known to them not as Greeks but as Romans. The descendants of these races still call the Greek-speaking population of the empire I-roum, or Romans. The language of the Greek-speaking population of the empire is still known as Romaic. The traces of the ancient name are widespread. The imperial city founded on the borders of Armenia is Erzeroum. The Turkish province to the north of Constantinople is Roumelia. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church still commonly describes himself as Bishop of the New Rome. The language of the capital and of the empire had become, in the time of Basil, Greek. Latin lingered on in certain official formulas, and had supplied many technical words to common speech, but, on the whole, the triumph of the language of the great mass of the people had been as great as that of English over the Norman-French, introduced into England by William the Conqueror. Under the Basilian dynasty—that is, from 867 to 1057—the empire of the New Rome had attained its most perfect development. Everywhere it gave signs of good government and great prosperity.

The impression left most deeply in the mind of the reader of the native historians of the Byzantine empire down to the middle of the twelfth century is one of strength, of success, and of a government with singularly few changes in its uninterrupted prosperity. The organization of the government of the empire was built upon the solid foundations of Roman administration and of Greek municipal government. From the selection of Byzantium as his capital by Constantine down to 1057 the machine of government had worked steadily and well. There had been few violent changes. There had been general accumulation of wealth. There had been security for life and property, and a good administration of law under a system of jurisprudence brought, indeed, from Rome, but developed in Constantinople—a system the most complete which the human mind has ever formulated, a system which has been directly copied or adapted by the whole of modern Europe, and which is the foundation of every body of jurisprudence now administered throughout the civilized world. While the New Rome had thus given to the world a body of law which was far in advance, not only of the civil law, but even of the law of the Praetor Peregrinus of the Elder Rome, the same city had developed and formulated the religion of Christendom. Christianity and law were the bonds which united the various parts of the empire together. But there was, in at least the European portion of the empire, a spirit which made the inhabitants of the cities and provinces self-reliant, and, to a great extent, independent of the central government. Once that the communities were protected from external enemies, they had hardly any need of other protection. They formed their own police. They wished only to be let alone, to be allowed to engage in commerce or cultivate their own lands without being harassed by government. On the whole, they succeeded in their wish. Under the influences of Orthodox Christianity, Roman law, and the Greek spirit of individualism as represented in municipal government, a steady progress had been made, which had met with but few interruptions. No other government has ever existed in Europe which has secured for so long a period the like advantages to its people.

Under the rulers of the Basilian dynasty, a series of absolute monarchs, who were men of genius, gave the country security and wealth at home, and success abroad. The very successes of these emperors had, however, tended to weaken the empire. They had

caused power to flow into the hands of the rulers. Centralization became the bane of the empire. The spirit of municipal life was weakened. The attachment to the city or province ceased to exist. When the attempt was made to transfer local sentiment to the empire, it began rapidly to disappear. The subjects of the New Rome dwelling in remote provinces acknowledged its rule, but were indifferent about its rulers so long as they had no heavier burdens to bear than their fathers. Thus, while outwardly the empire had become stronger under the Basilian dynasty, it had been actually weakened by the diminution of municipal and provincial spirit. The same system of centralization continued as long as the empire existed. Perhaps it was inevitable that under the circumstances centralization should be preferred by the emperors to local government, and should ultimately triumph. In the absence of the modern devices of representative institutions, of rapid communication, or of a press, the only government possible over a large extent of territory was absolutism. This might have been checked by local municipal government, but the tendency of the emperors had been hostile to such governments. Municipalities were imperia in imperio, and the independence they developed was unfavorably regarded by absolute rulers. The employment of foreigners as mercenary troops, and also very largely in the administration of government, was due to a desire on the part of the emperors to render themselves independent of their troublesome subjects. Still, the municipal spirit never altogether perished. The progress which the small Greek communities had made was in great part the result of the development of this spirit, which made the head of every household anxious to obtain the good-will of his fellow-citizens, and jealous for the reputation of the community to which he belonged. The great success of the Roman empire, and the long duration of that branch of it with which we are concerned, is due to the fact that the municipal spirit had lasted during many centuries after the towns and cities had been brought into subjection to the empire. In the capital itself the population always preserved the forms of its ancient municipality, and usually had a voice in the change of emperors. Indeed, until the empire fell, it was always necessary to satisfy the population of the capital. Although it had no official representation, or nothing better than that provided by the trade-guilds or esnafs, the populace of the city could usually obtain its object by the dread of a riot. Absolutism had gradually undermined the municipal spirit, and was always tempered by fear of the masses of the capital. The soldier had been separated from the citizen. Byzantium preserved the bad tradition of the Elder Rome, which regarded with jealousy the attempt of the soldier to become a citizen. It was the duty of the latter to pay taxes and furnish conscripts, and the emperors had gradually found it more convenient to receive payment in substitution for military service, and to find soldiers elsewhere than among the agricultural or mercantile population of the empire. The Roman citizen had at length been forbidden to carry arms. He was placed in subjection to Slavonians, to Italians, to Warings, and to other foreigners, some of whom were merely mercenaries, while others had been invited to settle in Romania in order that they might furnish troops to keep the Roman citizen in subjection. But, notwithstanding these changes, the opposition of the masses was a popular power which had to be taken into consideration.

It is difficult to form a satisfactory idea of what was the popular conception of the position of the Roman emperor in the East during the tenth and two following centuries. But I would suggest that the Russia of today, with certain important reservations, offers a tolerably close analogy to the position under a Basilian emperor or a Comnenos.

The traditional sentiment which had regarded the emperor as divinity lingered on long after the teaching of Christianity had made the holding and avowal of such an opinion impossible. Though the coins of Constantine and his successors no longer proclaimed the emperor as a god, lie still in the minds of his subjects retained many divine attributes. Before Constantine it was not merely that a divinity hedged in the ruler, but that the emperor himself was divinity. Although the adoption of Christianity by the state deprived him of the title, yet the popular idea would be likely to linger long. It became modified rather than completely changed, and had not altogether been forgotten even at the end of the twelfth century. In its new form it gave to the emperor the same position as a divine ruler which peasant opinion throughout Russia still attributes to the czar. While, therefore, it is impossible for us to realize the attitude of mind which worshipped the emperor as divine, we may learn much from the curious analogy presented by the empire of the czar. In Russia the czar, in the popular conception, is a sacred person ruling by divine authority, if not, indeed, through divine inspiration. In Russia alone would the mass of people feel no surprise if the ruler were to be spoken of as divine. In Russia alone are the ruler’s acts unquestioned and unquestionable by the bulk of the population. The halo of sanctity which still surrounded the Byzantine emperors was singularly like that with which the Russian peasant surrounds the czar. Allowing for the presence in the nineteenth century of the newspaper press, of telegrams, and of railways, which compel a certain attention to political movements, not only in Russia but in other countries, we have in this respect a counterpart of the Byzantine empire during the Basilian epoch. All that the devout and ignorant Catholic attributes to the pope, added to that which a country parson of the reign of Charles II., who was fully imbued with the principles of Filmer, attributed to the sovereign who was the Lord’s anointed, the Emperor of Russia is to his subjects as the early emperors of the New Rome were to theirs.

The conception was not precisely the doctrine of the divine right of kings as such doctrine was developed in Western Europe after the Reformation, though there was much in common between the two ideas. The more recent doctrine was widely accepted, probably because the Reformation had, in England at least, attached to the person of the sovereign the attribute of supremacy in spiritual things which in the West had, before the Reformation, been conceded to the pope. But in Constantinople, as at present in Russia, the emperor had always been supreme in things temporal and in things spiritual. The advocates of divine right in England based their argument on the assumption that certain families had been divinely chosen, and retained a divine right in consequence of this choice. In Eastern Europe the assumption was rather that an inspiration was granted to them on their appointment. A divine right of succession, so far as I am aware, never formed part of the popular belief. The ruler was the “ Lord’s anointed,” and is so called by the Greek writers of the twelfth century, but he was only entitled to be regarded as possessing this sacred character after he had been anointed. His selection was another matter, and the people of Constantinople never lost sight of the fact that, they had a right to appoint an emperor when there was a vacancy. With this exception the right of the emperor was theoretically undisputed and indisputable. The conception of government was of an authority over the nation with which the people had nothing to do but obey its decrees. The duty of the government was not only to protect the empire from external foes, to provide security for life and property, and to give protection at sea to the commerce of merchants, but also to propound the religious belief of the nation, and to be at once the guardian of its faith, its morality, and its orthodoxy. All the attributes which in the West were possessed by the Roman emperor as head of the state in things temporal, and by the pope in things spiritual, were in Constantinople possessed by the Roman emperor alone. In this respect, indeed, the Russian czar is the true successor of the emperor of the Greek-speaking Roman empire.

But, as I have said, important reservations must be made.

The old municipal spirit had never become altogether extinct.

In so far as the empire consisted of men of the Greek race it could never be wholly extinguished.

And a large proportion of the subjects of the empire to the last were of the Greek race. The home of the Greek has always been the islands and shores of the Ægean and the neighboring seas. The Greeks have always been rather a mercantile than an agricultural people. The islands of the Ægean have scarcely been influenced by the waves of invaders which have swept over the mainland on each side of it. The features of the race have, by the genius of its artists, been moulded into shape for all time in bronze or chiselled in marble, and the living counterparts are still to be found in abundance among the islanders of the Ægean and even on the mainland. The spirit of the Greek was too much steeped in individualism to allow it to give the unquestioning obedience which is rendered by Slavs. Its traditions and its intelligence alike made it take an interest in the course of government, and thus to this extent made the condition of things in the Byzantine empire different from that which exists under the ruler of Russia.

Thus it happens that while, when we reach the twelfth century, we find ourselves with abundant traces of a traditional sentiment in favor of absolute right, we find also equally abundant evidence of the dawn of the modern idea that the ruler holds a trust for the benefit of the people, and is responsible to them. Trade and commerce had contributed largely to the introduction of this new view of government, though Christianity and ancient philosophy had also had a share in bringing about the change. The people of the capital were essentially a commercial people. The inhabitants of the leading cities of the empire were principally engaged in trade. Salonica, Smyrna, Nicomedia, Rodosto, and a host of other cities, derived their prosperity from the fact that they were seaports frequented by merchants coming from far-distant countries. The islands of the Archipelago and coasts of the Ægean have at all times supplied great numbers of sailors. The movement within the empire itself for the purpose of government over so wide a territory as that ruled from Constantinople must also have been great. The result was a population in which there was an unusually large number of travellers. Travel brought intelligence, and the profits of commerce brought independence. The interests of the population required security for life and property, and the people on many occasions showed that they were indisposed to tolerate a ruler who neglected these first necessities of good government. We shall see that the population of the capital cared little for mere dynastic changes, but on many occasions showed resentment against rulers who tampered with the coinage, or who could not repress piracy and keep the peace of the seas.

In the twelfth century the government of the country was in the hands of the emperor and the nobles. Many of the latter were merchant princes; sometimes, indeed, men of imperial blood, but still men who engaged in commerce. In the dynastic struggles of the last quarter of that century, men belonging to the class of nobles were continually putting themselves forward, or being put forward by others, as candidates for the imperial throne. The frequency of such attempts, together with the support they met with, points to the fact that the monarchs were coming to be regarded merely as the persons chosen as rulers from the class of nobles. The nobles had lessened the distance between themselves and the emperor, and as each generation passed had become possessed of a larger share of the government of the country. There was, indeed, nothing like a caste of nobles. One family became impoverished and sank into obscurity, while another family, like that of Angelos, rose from small beginnings, and by prosperity and alliances with the nobles rose to power, and ultimately furnished occupants of the throne. The power of the merchant princes had been continually increasing, while that of the emperor had been growing less. To such an extent had this change gone, that the rule in the capital itself had become not much unlike that which prevailed in Venice. The government was nominally absolute; actually in great part oligarchical. There was the lingering tradition of the divine right of the emperor still strong in the provinces, and not altogether forgotten in the capital, but there was also a control exercised by the merchants throughout the empire, and especially in the capital, which seriously modified the absolutism of the imperial rule. The actual government was, therefore, something between that which prevails in Russia now and that which prevailed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Venice.

If, indeed, the comparison were restricted to Constantinople, the condition of things in the New Rome during the later half of the twelfth century resembled far more closely that winch existed in the most prosperous days ot Venice than that which exists or has existed in Russia. If the latter empire is the successor and representative of the imperial rule of New Rome, Venice was in a still more striking manner the successor and representative of the greatness and also of the narrowness of the intellect and of the internal life of Constantinople. Each city was imperial in the sense that it domineered over the whole of the territory under its rule, and absorbed into itself the life, the intelligence, the wealth, the art, and the commerce of such territory. The palaces of the city of the Adriatic were built from the spoils of commerce and by merchant princes, as were most of those of the city on the Bosphorus. The Great Church of Venice was a small copy of the Great Church of the Divine Wisdom; less beautiful, less shapely, less harmonious as to its interior, though with the advantage of having had its exterior finished, which the earlier and larger church never had. The domestic as well as the earliest ecclesiastical architecture of the city of the Adriatic were the development of that which the Venetians had seen in Constantinople. The joyous life of Venice and its love of art were the reproduction of Byzantine life. Like Constantinople, too, the source of all or nearly all its wealth was commerce. Trade was the life and soul of both cities. Their governments, indeed, differed, but the difference was rather in form than in reality. If Venice, in the language of Wordsworth, had once held “ the gorgeous East in fee and was the safeguard of the West,” she was so only as the continuator of the work of Constantinople, which, as we shall see, was in a far truer sense the first bulwark of defence against the advance of the hordes of Asia. Under the rulers of the Basilian dynasty, Constantinople had not only resisted all foreign invasions, but had carried the development of trade to a very remarkable extent. Roads, bridges, and security had made access to the coasts easy Harbors, a powerful fleet, and freedom from restrictions in trade had encouraged commerce.

With the end of the Basilian dynasty comes a time when, though very slowly, there begins a period of decline. This period I may place between 1057 and 1203, when the capital was captured by the Latins. By the latter event the long and prosperous history of the Byzantine empire was suddenly interrupted, and the European state which was by far the most advanced in civilization was handed over to anarchy and, subsequently, to barbarism. At the beginning of this period of, speaking generally, one hundred and fifty years preceding the Latin conquest, the empire was still strong. In order to show how it had become weakened, it becomes necessary that I should describe at some length the events in which it took part during the period in question, and which were the cause of this weakening.

CHAPTER II. WEAKENING OF THE EMPIRE BY ATTACKS OF THE SELJUKIAN TURKS

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CONSTANTINOPLE DURING THE CENTURY AND a half preceding its conquest was an island amid a sea of peoples. On every side peoples were in motion, new races coming in, old ones being pushed aside. The Normans, who were troubling our fathers at this very period, were likewise troubling the Byzantine empire. The great wave of population from Central Asia, which was rushing westward, spent its force in the Balkan peninsula and in Asia Minor. Constantinople was the strong barrier at once against Asia and Arabia. Since the time of Mahomet all Western Asia had been in motion, and had been hurling itself on Europe. The Byzantine empire had furnished the strongest line of defence, and had hitherto held its own with a consummate ability to which Western Europe has never yet done justice. Huns, Bulgarians, Patchinaks, Avars, Comans, Uzes had passed to the north of the Black Sea, and had maintained a hold, for a time at least, over some portions of the Balkan peninsula or neighboring territories. The Wallachs, the Croats, and the Scythians had repeatedly given trouble. Men of our own race, the Warings, had come with Russians, and had at an early period tried and proved the strength of Micklegard, the imperial city. The great movement, however, from Central Asia was principally felt in Asia Minor. Again and again during the nine centuries from Constantine was the empire able to beat off its enemies, but again and again was the attack renewed. During the last one hundred and fifty years preceding her fall, Constantinople was almost continually fighting the battle of civilization against barbarism, and during that period she was afflicted by almost every ill that can distress a nation.

She had defeated external and internal foes. But these conquests, by their very success hardly less than by the expenditure of her force, were weakening her, and when, during the last quarter of a century which preceded the Latin conquest, she added to her other troubles those which arose from a series of dynastic revolutions among thoroughly incompetent men, she found herself too weak to resist the invader from the West.

The troubles of the century and a half preceding her fall come respectively from the side of Asia and from that of Europe. Those from the former were the more serious, and arose from the attacks of the Turks—a race which had recently commenced to push its way southward and westward. The Asiatic hordes, known under the generic name of Turks, included various tribes spoken of sometimes as Comans, at other times as Turcomans, and more rarely at first as Turks. The Patchinaks, the Uzes, and other less-known .divisions, were also occasionally called Turks. All who were called by this name were probably of the same stock as the ancient Scythians, who were famous as bowmen. The terms Scythian and Turk or Turcoman had come to be synonymous with each other and with barbarian; and Turk bears the same signification among the Moslem subjects of the sultan to this day. The people so designated came from Central Asia, and especially from the country which still bears the name Turkestan. They belonged to the Turanian race, and were thus cut off from the traditions, the common stock of language, and the influences which have always formed a tie among peoples of Aryan origin. The central plains of Asia furnished during many centuries a constant supply of new emigrants of this race, who, from various causes—the commonest being probably the pressure of the Chinese — were constantly pushing their way to the West. The inhabitants of these plains were then as now mostly nomads. The rich pastures which have been the rearing-grounds of innumerable horses have enabled the people, on the several occasions when they have had a leader of military genius, to descend like locusts upon the countries to the west. The Tartar emperors are said to have maintained in the field for many years at least half a million of cavalry, and at all times the strength of the inhabitants of these plains has consisted in their horses and flocks. The early history of these races is involved in much obscurity. The Byzantine and Arab writers speak of Turks, Tartars, Mongols, Turcomans, and Scythians, and the Byzantines, sometimes even of Persians, without caring to distinguish between them. The Turks, however, are ethnographically distinguishable from the Tartars, though the two words are radically the same, and call attention to the fact that they were roving hordes, confirmed wanderers, nomads, as the Bedouins and Turcomans are to-day. These wandering emigrants from Turan, during the six centuries which preceded the final conquest of Constantinople by the division of the race known as the Ottoman Turks, caused a constant movement of the populations in the north and in the east of the empire. Two great routes were open to them in their progress westward. The first, a broad strip of country lying on the north shores of the Black Sea, and bounded on the north by Little Russia, was the way in which the Bulgarians, the Hungarians, and, at a later period, the Comans, the Patehinaks, and the Uzes had entered into Europe. The second was to the south of the Black Sea, and was the way by which the larger division of the Turks harassed the empire and ultimately reached Constantinople.

Returning, however, to the Turks before their emigration had commenced, the most famous division among them at the end of the tenth century was that of the Seljuks. The traditional story of Seljuk, the founder of the tribe bearing his name, is that he was banished from Turkestan in consequence of his having forced his way into the harem of his father. Subsequently he and his followers, who travelled as easily as the inhabitants of the same region do now, went southwards. After crossing the Jaxartes they pitched their tents in the country around Samarcand. They were a nomad race, terrible as fighters, and but slightly advanced in civilization. They had neither towns nor fortifications, and little knowledge of agriculture. They pitched their tents wherever they found a place convenient for their flocks and horses. When they moved they struck their tents, drove away their cattle, and settled down, as their descendants of pure blood do to this day in Central Asia. The fact of their emigrating probably indicates that the followers of Seljuk were the most enterprising men of their race. They brought with them from the north the energy of a cold climate, and found the task of conquest by no means difficult. They embraced Moslemism almost contemporaneously with their emigration southwards, and immediately commenced a religious war with all the zeal of newly made Moslem converts.

I propose in this place to point out what were the influences of the religion of Mahomet upon this and similar barbarous nations who have accepted it. Such an examination is not out of place if we would understand the progress which was made by the Seljukian Turks, and how they inflicted a fatal blow upon the Roman empire in the East. The history of the progress of Islam shows that wherever a nation which has been given over to idol worship or to any of the lower forms of paganism has adopted the simple creed of Mahomet, the immediate effect has been to produce a great advance in its national life. Religion usually forms a strong common bond among a people, but no religion has ever succeeded so completely as Moslemism in causing barbarians at once to sink their differences and to unite with fierce energy for the propagation of their faith. The success of Mahomet and his followers had been marvellous, and remains unexampled in history. The whole of Arabia had accepted Islam during the lifetime of the prophet. The empire had lost Damascus and great part of Syria in the year after his death in 632. Five years later the Saracens captured Jerusalem. In 640 they took Alexandria. Persia and Egypt almost immediately afterwards fell under their sway. In 668 they made an obstinate attack upon Constantinople itself. Large conquests had been made in Central Asia. The Christian kingdoms of North Africa were rapidly wiped out, and the whole of Spain, with the exception of the northwestern corner, had to accept the yoke of the Moors. It appeared as if Western Europe would have to share the lot of Christian Syria and Africa. The invaders passed the Pyrenees, and the fate of Europe trembled in the balance, when the decisive victory of Charles Martel at the great battle of Tours in 732, exactly a century after the death of Mahomet, turned the scale in favor of Christianity, and rescued Western Europe from the religion and law of Mahomet. A few years before, namely, in 718, Europe had experienced a deliverance in the East of at least equal importance with that obtained at Tours. The strongest army which Arabia had ever furnished made an attack upon Constantinople, and 180,000 men and a great fleet were utterly defeated by the military skill of the Byzantine generals. The tide of Mahometan progress was, however, only momentarily checked, and amid the conquests in the East as far as Sinde the failure before Constantinople was forgotten.

Among the causes which contributed to this amazing success were the enthusiasm with which Mahomet had inspired his followers, the peculiar character of his teaching, and the accidental circumstances of the time in Arabia and Syria. Much was no doubt due to the enthusiasm with which Mahomet, by his personal influence, inspired his followers. Every caliph or pretender to authority over Moslems has claimed to reign in his name. Mahomet to-day rules over Moslemdom in a sense in which Jesus does not rule over Christendom. Mahomet only claimed that he was the apostle of God, and distinctly repudiated any title to divinity, and his followers have never asserted the higher claim. The Christian Church, on the other hand, has almost universally affirmed that Jesus is God. Yet the authority of Mahomet is much more absolute over Islam than that of the Divine Founder over Christendom. While Christians, or, to speak correctly, some of them, claim that the Bible is the only safe guide in matters of religion, all Moslems admit that the Koran is all that any Christians admit the Bible to be, and is, moreover, the rule of daily life in things temporal as well as spiritual. The Christian Church, in its various forms of organization, has taken possession of much of the power over the followers of Christ which belongs in Mahometan countries to the direct authority of the successors of Mahomet. The Prophet’s acts and words constitute throughout Islam the standard of morality.

The explanation of his influence is to be found in various facts – in the strong individuality and power of attraction which Mahomet possessed, “ as one of the great governing and leavening minds of the world, one able to stamp his own image upon nations and generations;” in the character of his teaching, which in the short and simple creed, repeated at least three times daily, associates the name of the Prophet with that of God, whose greatness and unity are forever insisted on; but above all, I think, in the fact that the character of Mahomet is one which is much more likely to attract barbarous men than that of the meek and gentle Jesus. The “White Christ” of our forefathers, the beloved of children and women, the Teacher who had not where to lay his head, who bade his followers when struck on one cheek to turn the other, who forbade his disciples to use force, who was in sympathy with the poor in spirit and who prayed that his murderers might be forgiven, whose religion demands self-sacrifice as the first of duties, appeals to those who are capable of a lofty ideal. The acceptance of Christianity has a humanizing effect, which becomes the stronger the more thoroughly the people embracing it become imbued with the teaching and the spirit of its Founder. The claim that Christianity has done more than any other religion towards diminishing the amount of cruelty and suffering in the world is a just one. The Christian churches, indeed, like most other human institutions, have had a tendency to become crystallized, to become the apologists of abuses, as of slavery and of others which they have found in existence. Progressive spirits have, however, always found teaching in the Bible which has enabled them to attack such abuses. Christianity has thus always been better than the teaching of the churches. Its tendency is humanitarian, and at all times has supplied men with encouragement who have longed to realize a loftier ideal. It would be, perhaps, fair to say that the Christian churches or sects which have most directly aimed at living in accordance with the teaching of Christ have been those which have been foremost in aiding every kind of work which has had for its object the benefit of humanity. Self-sacrifice for the benefit of others is of the essence of Christianity, and may yet, deriving its arguments from early Christian teaching, be capable of advocating opinions and bringing about results the mere mention of which would shock the existing orthodoxy of the churches. But the teaching of self-sacrifice, meekness, and humility is repugnant to a barbarous and a warlike people. A religious system which requires merely the acceptance of a simple creed, the first part of which is ennobling and the second a direct incentive to fighting, and which is coupled in the believer’s mind with the conferring of the highest rewards in case he dies fighting against the unbeliever, is much more likely to be popular with a naturally warlike horde than a religion of lowliness and self-denial. The Moslem ideal during life and its heaven after death were in every way as welcome to the barbaric mind as those of Christianity were repugnant. Mahometanism and Christianity are alike missionary religions, and, judged by their fruits, the former has furnished equally as strong incentives towards the propagation of its faith as the latter. But the missionary spirit is widely different. Every Mahometan army was for centuries, and to a considerable extent even now is, an army engaged in holy war. There have been Christian soldiers in plenty, but it has been only at rare intervals that there has been a Christian army which has believed itself engaged in a holy war. There is and has always been a lurking belief among the followers of Jesus that fighting is an unchristian occupation, and that the Christian soldier is Christian in spite of his profession. Fighting the unbeliever is, to the Moslem, the highest of duties, because a missionary duty, and death in such a fight merits and obtains the highest reward. The Moslem soldier is the minister of God’s will and of his vengeance. His life may be impure, but he can atone for every crime as a fighter against the unfaithful, and, dying, can obtain the crown of the highest sensual felicity conceivable to a barbarian. The religion thus appeals on the one side to the highest, and on the other to the lowest side of human nature. Hence it is that wherever Moslemism has been received it has been followed by a remarkable access of fighting power. The central fact which Moslem teaching insists upon in regard to God is his greatness. Christian teaching calls attention rather to his goodness. The daily prayer of the Moslem begins with the declaration “ God is great,” and this declaration is repeated again and again in each recital of the ordinary daily prayer. The daily prayer throughout Christendom, common to all Christians as being that of their Founder, begins with an assumption of the fatherhood of God. The cry of the Muezzin, which is ringing in my ears while writing these pages, is “ God is great, God is great, God is great! There is only one God, and Mahomet is his apostle. Come to prayer, come to salvation : God is great!” The differences in the lives of the founders of the two religions is like that which exists between the two creeds. Mahomet is the warrior, the apostle to drive men into the acceptance of his creed if need be. Jesus is the meek and lowly, whom his followers have represented as wishing to draw all men to him with cords of love. To barbarian converts the oft-repeated creed gives the great conception of Monotheism. It meant, God exists; there is but one God, a living and a great God; all these pictures of the Christians, these images of the pagans, this fire of the Persians, are dead things. It meant the realization that there is a God, whose greatness it is impossible to realize. God’s prophet is Mahomet, and we are the servants of God, to accomplish his will, to put down his enemies, to kill pagans outright, and to subdue all nations who refuse to recognize the mission of Mahomet to carry out God’s will. The teachings of the Koran are unknown to the mass of the followers of Mahomet, as those of any religion are for the most part unknown to ignorant masses; but the two doctrines known to every Mahometan, proclaimed universally throughout Islam with the clarion-like clearness and constant reiteration necessary for a popular creed, are that God is great, and that his will, as revealed through Mahomet, is to subdue the enemies of God and Mahomet. To recognize these doctrines and to live up to them is to be faithful, to refuse to recognize them is to be an unbeliever.

The feeling of superiority which such a revelation supplies over races which have not acquired such knowledge gives compactness to the nation, all the members of which believe they are specially under the Divine protection. Translated into action, this portion of the creed means that it is the duty of those who have accepted Mahomet’s teaching to regard as enemies those who have not so accepted it. The result was that an amount of fanaticism was created in fighting, which at various times in the history of Moslem states has carried on their armies irresistibly to victory. The Moslem faith, with its sure and certain hope of black-eyed houris, has always supplied a certain amount of fanaticism; but Moslem fanaticism has always been at its height when its non-sensual, its great positive side, the revelation to men who had ceased to believe in their idolatry of the existence of a God, has first dawned upon its votaries.

I am speaking here of the influence of Moslemism when it is first embraced by a savage or barbarous race, and it is with this period that I am mainly and almost exclusively concerned. There comes a time in the history of such a race, after its adoption of Islam, when other teachings of the religious system come into play, and when the poison of Moslemism begins to work. Family life is impossible where Islamism exists. Sensuality has everywhere been increased under its rule—a sensuality which causes directly and surely a moral and physical decay of the race. “ Mahomet,” says Sprengel, who has written an exhaustive life of the Prophet, “became a licentious theocrat.” Mahomet affirmed that his devotion was increased by the innocent pleasures of sensuality and perfumes. Wherever his religion has had full sway, the consequent increase of sensuality has always been the means of weakening the race. The modern Turks have diminished in numbers, have been incapable of advancing in civilization, have lost ground, and have gradually become weaker through their sensuality, and especially through that form of it which is least known where Christianity prevails. The inevitable and invariable history of Moslem races after the first spurt has been spent which the adoption of Monotheism had given them has been the same—decay in family life; spasmodic attempts to bring about a revival of religious and political life ; steady but sure decay.

The fact that family life is impossible among a Moslem people, that to raise the position of woman is contrary to the teaching of the Koran, that in common belief women have no souls and are necessarily degraded, is the great and unanswerable indictment upon which Moslemism must be condemned as an enemy to civilization. Weighed in the balance against the lowest and most degrading form of Christianity, it is found wanting. No matter how completely even an Abyssinian or Chaldean Christianity has forgotten the body of principles which Western Churches have treasured, it has yet never invented a theory by which it becomes degrading for a man to live as an equal with his wife and children. It has never tolerated polygamy or recognized the sinlessness of concubinage. It has never allowed marriages for a limited time, or an almost unchecked power of divorce and exchange, or allowed the husband to repudiate his wife without any reason being assigned and without warning. It has never made rules as to intercourse with slaves, which make the abolition of slavery impossible in Moslem states. Lastly, no form of Christianity or any other great religious system has ever offered as a reward to its followers a heaven where the enjoyments are purely sensual. The advance made under certain forms of Christianity has been often slow, but the fault cannot fairly be laid to the charge of Christianity itself. Mahometanism, however, by debasing the race and by presenting a base ideal, makes progress in morals or civilization impossible. Whether Moslemism be examined by the lights of its sacred books, or historically, by the light of its practical working, it will be found to be baneful to the race which adopts it. I have suggested some of the teachings which make it a hinderance to progress, and which would lead an observer to condemn it a priori. I am willing to admit that thousands of Moslems are better than their creed. But, judging such creed historically, looking over the centuries and avoiding individual cases, if the practical rule, “ By their fruits shall ye know them,” be applied, the conclusion cannot be evaded that Moslemism is a mischievous creed, and, except on its first adoption, is a distinct hinderance to progress in a nation.

It was in the early stage of their history that the Seljukian Turks embraced Moslemism. The fierce northern energy of these Asiatic warriors became at once fired with religious fanaticism, and their history continues to be, for a considerable time, an almost unbroken series of triumphs.

Seljuk was succeeded by his grandson, Togrul, who was filled with fervor for his faith. After the conquest of any city his first care was to build a mosque, and it was only after the sacred building was completed that he ventured to lay the foundations of a palace. He extended the dominion of the Seljuk Turks eastward, southward, and westward. He made himself ruler of Persia. He inflicted upon Christendom a serious blow in the conquest of Iberia, the modern Georgia, and in the partial destruction of Armenia, which had hitherto existed as the first barrier of Christendom against the inroads of Asiatic races. Armenia had been invaded by the Seljuks or by other Turks as early as 1016, and from that time was the object of a series of attacks. The invaders, though often defeated, were as continually reinforced by new emigrants, tempted by the rich rewards to be obtained by the sack of wealthy cities and the plunder of comparatively civilized provinces. The city of Arsen was the principal object of one of these attacks. It had long been the great city of Eastern Asia Minor, the centre of Asiatic trade, the depot for merchandise transmitted overland from Persia and India to the Eastern empire and Europe generally. It was full of warehouses belonging to Armenians and Syrians, and is said to have contained 800 churches and 300,000 people. Having failed to capture the city, Togrul’s general succeeded in burning it. The destruction of so much wealth struck a fatal blow at Armenian commerce, and was the first of a long series of acts of destruction by which the Turks have marked the whole course of their dealings with Indo-Germanic peoples, and have converted some of the richest and most populous cities and provinces in the world into comparative deserts. The Armenians fought bravely even after the destruction of Arsen. Togrul’s army met them in great force in 1048, and a battle was fought, which, though indecisive, compelled the general to change his plan of attack upon Asia Minor. In the same year Togrul in person invaded the provinces of the Emperor of Constantinople. The independent principality of Kars was attacked by him, and the Armenians were defeated, but in an attack upon Manzikert Togrul was compelled to retire into Persia. In 1052 he again invaded the empire, but the Greeks, with the aid of the Warings, or, as they are generally called by the Byzantine writers, the Varangians, marched to meet him in such force that the invaders did not venture to give battle. Eight years later he again attempted an invasion of the empire on the frontier of Mesopotamia, but without any decisive result.

Togrul had, however, obtained a success which added greatly to his influence over his followers and overMahometans generally. There were rival claimants for the caliphate, one of whom resided at Bagdad, the other in Egypt. Togrul threw the weight of his influence in favor of the Bagdad claimant, defeated and executed the chief of a rebellion against him, and then contrived to have himself named as the temporal substitute of the caliph. He thus became the Commander of the Faithful and Protector of the Mussulmans. Togrul died in 1063.

His successor was Alparslan, “the Strong Lion,” who reigned from 1063 to 1073. It is unnecessary for my purpose to attempt to follow in detail the career of this sultan—a career which was one long series of attacks upon the dominions of the empire in Asia Minor and upon the neighboring states of Georgia and Armenia. The latter had developed a large amount of industry, commerce, and civilization. Ani, the capital of Armenia, was taken by storm in 1064 The Prince of Kars, in consequence of its capture, made a degrading submission, and was allowed to retain his principality as a vassal under the sultan. Shortly afterwards he ceded his territories to the emperor in exchange for the city of Tzamandos. The inhabitants of Kars, feeling that there was no security against the next Moslem invasion, fled westwards into Cappadocia or southwards to their brethren, who were yet to make a bold stand for independence under their native princes. In 1070 Alparslan besieged and captured Manzikert. Various small principalities were established, the rulers of which endeavored unsuccessfully to stem the advance of the Seljuks.

The barriers of the border states being thus broken down, theTurkish hordes began to pour into the dominions of the emperor in an irresistible flood. The condition of Asia Minor offered a strong temptation to the invaders. We know it to-day as a country which does not contain a single city except Smyrna that would be considered as of third or fourth rank in England, France, or Germany. Smyrna is, indeed, rich and flourishing because of its irrepressible Greek population, and of its having had for centuries large colonies of Franks who, by means of the capitulations, are not under the curse of Turkish rule. Elsewhere the fertile districts of Asia Minor lie idle for want of roads to convey the produce to market. The absence of security for life and property makes the people careless about producing more than is necessary for the supply of their scanty needs. Famine, in some districts, recurs periodically, while there is abundance at no great distance. Everywhere the people are poverty-stricken and wretched. Large tracts of country which were once thickly inhabited are now so feverish that they have been altogether abandoned. Cities like Ephesus, which were populous and contained a highly civilized community, are absolutely and literally abandoned, or, like Nicaea, contain only a hundredth part of their former population, while the yellow faces and hollow cheeks of the unfortunate inhabitants show the continual presence of the devastating fever which Nature imposes as the penalty for allowing a city to fall away from civilization. But Asia Minor, at the time of the invasion of the Seljuk Turks, was a country full of cities and towns in the midst of nourishing provinces. Its mines, nearly all of which have gone to ruin, were producing large sums for the government and private individuals, and were making the byzants of the New Rome the most important medium of circulation even in Western Europe. Its rich soil brought forth a large supply of grain for export to the capital. Everywhere there were signs of a local life and local civilization which had retained the features which Greek cultivation had stamped upon it. Asia Minor has, as yet, been hardly explored by the archaeologist, but the hasty examination of a number of travellers gives evidence of a widespread prosperity in times not very remote. Out of the usual tracks taken by travellers in the interior of Asia Minor lie many ruins of what have evidently been important cities, the former names of which no traveller has yet been able to identify, and this although the labors of several modern travellers, from Millingen to Mr. Ramsay, have identified a great number of almost forgotten cities.

So far as one can judge from the evidence of modern and mediaeval travellers and of Byzantine historians, Asia Mino, at the time of Seljuk invasion of Alparslan, was thickly occupied by races who were industrious, intelligent, and civilized—races with a certain mixture of Greek blood and mostly Greek as to language. The numerous provincial cities were the centres of civilization. Their walls and amphitheatres, their works of art, aqueducts, and other public buildings, give evidence of a long-continued sense of security, of peaceful and progressive peoples, and of a healthy municipal life. Wealth was widely diffused. Given an industrious and intelligent people like the Greeks and the races which had inhabited Asia Minor within historic times, with a government sufficiently strong to secure peaceful occupation, and one which would not interfere to prevent the accumulation of wealth, and it is impossible that Asia Minor should not be wealthy.

It was against this prosperous portion of the empire, which had contributed largely to the wealth of the capital, that Alparslan turned his attention when the border states were no longer able to resist his progress. It is unnecessary to describe how he swept through and through the country, and how the efforts of Romanos Diogenes were ultimately fruitless to arrest his progress. The Strong Lion of the Seljuks devoured many cities and devastated the fairest provinces. Cappadocia was laid waste; the inhabitants of its capital, Caesarea, were massacred, and the great church of St. Basil was stripped of the wealth with which many generations of the devout had endowed it. Mesopotamia, Mitylene, Syria, and Cilicia were plundered. While the emperor, at the head of his army, was pushing forward towards Akhlat, on Lake Van, in order to protect the Armenian frontier, a band of the Seljuks passed him, forced their way through Cappadocia and Lycaonia, and reached Iconium, and, having plundered the latter city, made a hasty retreat with a large quantity of spoil. The career of Alparslan was, however, cut short by assassination in 1073. He was buried at Merv, one of the many districts in Central Asia which, once densely populated, has gone backwards in the paths of civilization under Turkish rule.

Alparslan was succeeded by his son, Malek Shah, in whose reign the power of the Seljukian Turks attained its greatest height. That power had been steadily increasing as new hordes of barbarians from the great central plains of Asia and from the surrounding countries, conquered in the name of Mahomet, were brought under its sway. Turkestan, the home of his race, including Bokhara and Samarcand, was annexed by Malek, and the rule of the shepherd sultan was admitted at Cashgar. In addition to Persia and the countries just mentioned, his territory included at one time nearly the whole of what is now Turkey in Asia. Malek was a man of energy and ability, and a master of the art of keeping one part of his dominions in order by means of the inhabitants of another. The Arabs, who despised and hated the Turks as sheepskin-clad barbarians, were yet compelled to admit not only the power but the desire for knowledge and the appreciation of science which Malek showed. The country over which he ruled has long been in the most complete anarchy, and it is difficult to conceive that about the eleventh century the strongest power in the world had there its seat. The Seljukian empire, however, broke up on the death of Malek, which took place in 1092, and, after a period of civil war, was divided into four parts. During the half-century which followed the death of Malek it again for a little time flashed into fame under Sandjian, who won renown in the East as the second Alexander; but though the Seljukians maintained themselves for some time longer in Syria, and gave trouble to the Crusaders, the steadfast and able opposition of the empire prevented any sultan being able to reconstruct the empire of Malek.

The only one of the divisions into which the empire split up on death of Malek with which I am concerned is that which was carved out of the dominions of the Roman empire, and of which the capital was, for the most part, at Iconium, a city which to-day, under the name of Konich, retains somewhat of a sacred character among the Turks, because of its connection with the first sultans who obtained the right to be caliphs. Sultan Malek, eighteen years before his death, had prevented a quarrel with Suliman, his cousin, by consenting to allow him to be sultan of the Seljuks in the lands of the Christian empire.

With Suliman there begins the famous line of robber chiefs who are known as Seljukian Sultans of Rome or Roum.