CHAP. I.] THE TURKS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 79 M CHAPTER I. AHOMET II., after capturing Constantinople, May 29th, 1453, made it the capital of his extensive Empire, and took up his residence in that City. The Emperor Constantine Palæologus had fallen while bravely fighting in defence of his Crown; about 2,000 of the inhabitants were put to the sword; many thousand more were sold into slavery, or sought refuge in other lands, and the void thus created was supplied by a Turkish population. New Rome, the second head of the Christian world, thus assumed the appearance of an Eastern city; Justinian's magnificent patriarchal church of St. Sophia was converted into a Mahometan mosque; and the wish of Sultan Bajazet I. was at length accomplished, to obtain possession of Constantinople, and "to convert that great workshop of Unbelief into the seat of the True Faith." In consolidating his new Empire Mahomet was guided by politic and enlightened counsels. To entice back the fugitive Constantinopolitans, the free enjoyment of the religion and the customs of their ancestors was proclaimed; the Greek clergy and learned men were treated with indulgence; the Patriarchate was allowed to subsist; and Gennadius, head of the party which had opposed a union with the Latin Church, having been elected to that dignity by an assembly of the chief citizens, was confirmed in it by the approbation of the Sultan. The renewal of the Patriarchate gave rise to that remarkable population of Greek nobles called Phanariots, who attained to a considerable share of wealth and independence. In spite, however, of these measures, a void was still left within the walls of Constantinople, which Mahomet was So called because they resided in the Phanar, that quarter of the city which surrounded the residence of the Patriarch. They were employed by the Porte as tax gatherers, &c. See Finlay, Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination, pp. 146, 294. 80 SUBMISSION OF THE GREEKS. [CHAP. L employed several years in filling. As his conquests proceeded he drafted to his capital city families from Servia and the Morea; the Genoese colonies on the Black Sea, as well as Trebizond, Sinope, and other places, were with the same view deprived of a considerable portion of their inhabitants; and even Adrianople was compelled to contribute its reluctant quota of citizens to the new seat of Turkish Empire. After the fall of Constantinople the Greek towns and Princes which still remained independent sent messages of congratulation to Mahomet II., who compelled them to acknowledge his sovereignty either by paying tribute or by sending every year ambassadors to the Porte. To these conditions Thomas and Demetrius, the brothers of Constantine and Despots of Peloponnesus, the Trebizond Emperor, the Princes of Chios and Lesbos, and other potentates, submitted. But the Peloponnesians revolted against the act of their rulers. The population of Peloponnesus, or the Morea,1 was a mixture of Franks, Albanians, and Greeks, the last of whom, however, had received a large infusion of Slavonic blood, The Franks were descended from settlers at the time of the Latin Byzantine Empire, and were holders of small fiefs. The Albanians, a hardy Old-Illyrian peasantry, were chiefly immigrant agricultural labourers, retaining their native customs and mixing but little with the Greeks. A poor and nomad race, supported chiefly by the flocks which they pastured on the mountains, their numbers and warlike habits nevertheless rendered them the most formidable part of the population, and it was among them that the revolt was organised. But it proved unsuccessful. Mahomet espoused the cause of the Despots, despatched an army into the Morea, and reduced the rebels to obedience (1454). But the Despots having, from the distracted state of the country, failed to pay their tribute, Mahomet in 1458 overran the Morea, with exception of the strong town of Monemvasia and the mountain tract of Maina, where Demetrius and Thomas had respectively taken shelter; and he seized Corinth, the key of the peninsula. The conquered lands, together with the district formerly ruled by Constantine, were now annexed to the Pashalic of Thessaly. In 1460, Mahomet, in consequence of an attempted revolt of the Despots themselves, proceeded in person into the Morea, and reduced the whole peninsula, with exception of Monemvasia, The name of Morrha or Morea is first found about the time of the Latin conquest of Constantinople, and was applied to the western coast of Peloponnesus, especially to Elis. It was not till after the Turkish conquest that the name was extended to the whole peninsula. See Finlay, Medieval Greece, p. 28 sq. CHAP. I.] FATE OF THE PALEOLOGI.-ATHENS. 81 which town placed itself under the protection of Pope Pius II. Thomas ultimately found refuge at Rome, where he died in 1462, leaving two sons, Andrew and Manuel Palæologus, and two daughters. Andrew also died at Rome, without issue, in 1502, bequeathing his Imperial claims, which he had previously sold to Charles VIII. of France, to the Spanish Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. Manuel was generously permitted to reside at Constantinople and to retain his religion, and he died in that city in the reign of Bajazet II. The fate of Demetrius was still more unfortunate than that of his brother Thomas. Having submitted to Mahomet II. on the promise of a maintenance, which after a little while was withdrawn, he fell into want and misery, and entering a convent at Adrianople, under the name of Brother David, died of a broken heart in 1471. Of the two sisters of Andrew and Manuel, Helena, the elder, also died in a convent in the island of St. Maura: the younger, Zoë, married, in 1472, through the mediation of Pope Sixtus IV., Ivan Basilovitch, Grand Prince of White Russia or Moscow. Such was the end of the Byzantine dynasty in the Morea and of the ancient Imperial family of the Palæologi.1 Athens, the last Frankish principality in Greece, whose name and some remains of its ancient splendour lend interest to its fate, fell about the same time as the Despots of Peloponnesus. Athens, and its once hostile rival Thebes, whose fortunes had become strangely linked together, had been made over in 1205 to Othon de la Roche, a Burgundian noble; and about half a century later these two famous cities were erected by Louis IX. of France into a duchy in favour of Guy de la Roche. After obeying various masters, Athens came into possession of the Florentine house of Acciajuoli (1386). It had for some time been little more than a fief of the Porte, when the crimes and dissensions of the ruling family hastened its complete subjection. Mahomet terminated their quarrels by seizing Athens. In 1458, on his return from his campaign in the Morea, he visited the former renowned abode of philosophy and art. The Athenian Acropolis and other remains still existed, and the Sultan, who possessed some taste for magnificent architecture, broke out into passionate exclamations of wonder, delight, and thankfulness for the possession of so glorious a city. In 1560 Thebes with its territory was also annexed to the Turkish dominions. Mahomet 1 The Imperial house of the Comneni died out about the same time, but their fate does not belong to the history of Europe. See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. viii. p. 182. 82 GOVERNMENT OF MAHOMET. [CHAP. I. having discovered that Franco Acciajuoli, whom he had invested with the duchy, was plotting for the recovery of Athens, caused him to be put to death by the Janissaries. Thus he obtained possession of all the mainland between the Ægean and the Adriatic, with exception of Albania and several important towns on the western coast and in the Morea which were held by the Venetians as Spalato, Scutari, Alessio, Durazzo, Zara, Navarino, Modon, Argos, Nauplia, Koron, and many more. Of the islands some had acknowledged themselves tributaries of the Porte; while Thasos, Samothrace and Imbros had been subdued by Mahomet in 1457. Some few islands were in the hands of Genoese families, as Chios and Lesbos; a far greater number either belonged to Venice or were ruled by some Frankish lord owing allegiance to that Republic. Among the chief islands under Venetian sway were Euboea, or Negropont, and Crete, or Candia. Naxos was the seat of an independent duchy which comprehended several other isles; and Rhodes, with Cos, was held by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who acknowledged no superior but the Pope. The Knights had obtained possession of Rhodes by the victory of Foulques de Villaret in 1310; but the order was now in a declining state and overwhelmed with debt. In 1456 Mahomet, with 180 vessels, undertook an abortive expedition against Rhodes, though his troops succeeded in making a temporary lodgment in Cos. In 1462 he took Lesbos, and put an end to the Frankish dominion there. The necessity of a navy for reducing the islands and waging war with the Venetians induced Mahomet to establish a great naval arsenal at Constantinople, in which undertaking the ancient foundations of the docks of the Emperor Julian were of much assistance; and the Dardanelles were now fortified with castles on each shore near the ancient Sestos and Abydos. Mahomet abolished in conquered Greece the Greek archonts and Frankish lords, substituting for them the Turkish system of timars, or fiefs. The middle and lower classes lost perhaps little or nothing by this change. The Mahometan government, if we exclude the barbarous system of tribute children, was milder than that of their former petty tyrants; and the Rayahs, or Christian agricultural population, reaped more of the fruits of their labour than the serfs in many Christian States were permitted to enjoy. Greece was subjected to the government of several Pashas under the supremacy of the Beylerbey of Roumelia,' the Turkish com 1 Roumelia comprehends Thrace proper, or south of Hamus, with most of Macedonia. |