whom the other party had called to their aid. Like the Angles and Saxons, who, entering England on invitation, remained as conquerors, these barbarians were barely across the straits before they began to make conquests for themselves. During the reign. of Amurath I. (1360–1389) a large part of the country known as Turkey in Europe fell into their hands.

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The Janizaries. - Amurath was the organizer of the celebrated body of soldiers known as the Janizaries. The body was composed at first of the best youth chosen from among his Christian captives. When war ceased to furnish a sufficient number of recruits, the subjugated Christians were required to pay their taxes in children, every fifth male child being demanded.

These youth, who were generally received at the tender age of eight, were brought up in the Mohammedan faith, and carefully trained in military service. This famous body may be likened to the Pretorian guard at Rome, the Varangian guard of the Greek Emperors, or the Mamelukes of the Egyptian caliphs.

Conquests of Bajazet (1389–1403).—Amurath was followed by his son Bajazet, who, by the rapid advance of his arms, spread the greatest alarm throughout Western Europe. The warriors of Hungary, Germany, and France united their armies to arrest his progress; but their combined forces, numbering 100,000 men, were cut to pieces by the sabres of the Turks on the fatal field of Nicopolis, in Bulgaria (1396).

The unfortunate issue of this terrible battle, in which had fallen "the flower of the Christian chivalry of Europe," threw all the West into a perfect panic of terror. Bajazet vowed that he would stable his horse in the Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, and there seemed no power in Christendom to prevent the sacrilege.

Before proceeding to fulfil his threat, Bajazet turned back to capture Constantinople, which he believed in the present despondent state of its inhabitants would make little or no resistance. The city was invested by the Turkish hosts, and the fate of the capital appeared to be sealed. In vain did the Greeks call upon the Latin warriors for aid; Christendom was weak from the losses at

Nicopolis, and besides was paralyzed with fear. But though no succor came from the Christian West, aid did come, strangely enough, from the Mohammedan East.

Just at this time Tamerlane was leading the Mongols on their career of conquest. He directed them against the Turks in Asia Minor, and Bajazet was forced to raise the siege of Constantinople, and hasten across the Bosphorus, to check the advance in his dominions of these new enemies. The Turks and Mongols met upon the plains of Angora, where the former suffered a disastrous defeat, and Bajazet himself was taken prisoner. The conqueror treated his unfortunate rival with ungenerous barbarity, carrying him about with him in an iron cage.

The battle of Angora occurred in the year 1402. It checked for a time the conquests of the Ottomans, and saved Constantinople to the Christian world for another period of fifty years.

The Capture of Constantinople. The Ottomans gradually recovered from the blow they had received at Angora. By the year 1421 they were strong enough to make another attempt upon Constantinople. The city was this time saved by the strength of its defenses. Another quarter of a century passed, during which time the Turks were busy taking possession of the remaining provinces in Europe of the Greek Empire, until the authority of the successor of Constantine was limited to the space within the walls of Byzantium.

Finally, in the year 1453, Mohammed II. the Great, Sultan of the Ottomans, laid siege to the capital with an army of over 200,000 men. The walls of the city were manned by a mere handful of Greek soldiers. After a short siege the place was taken by storm. Constantine XI., the last of the Greek Emperors, met death, as became the last representative (in the East) of the Cæsars, sword in hand. The Cross, which since the time of Constantine the Great had surmounted the dome of St. Sophia, was replaced by the Crescent, which remains to this day.

Thus fell New Rome into the hands of the barbarians of the East, 1140 years after Constantine had made it an imperial city,

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and almost an exact millennium after the fall of Old Rome before the barbarians of the West. Of the 100,000 inhabitants in the capital at the time of the siege, 40,000 were killed and 50,000 made slaves. As Mohammed, like Scipio at Carthage, gazed upon the desolated city and the empty palace of Constantine, he is said to have called to mind the lines of the Persian poet Firdousee : "The spider's curtain hangs before the portal of Cæsar's palace; the owl is the sentinel on the watchtowers of Afrasiab."

Check to the Ottoman Arms. - The consternation which the fall of Byzantium created throughout Christendom was like the dismay which filled the world upon the downfall of Rome in the fifth century. All Europe now lay open to the Moslem barbarians, and there seemed nothing to prevent their placing the Crescent upon the dome of St. Peter's and the Tower of London.

Various attempts were made through councils and diets to effect a union among the different Christian powers for the recovery of Constantinople, and the expulsion of the Turks from European soil. But times had changed since Peter the Hermit and St. Bernard preached the Crusades for the recovery of the holy places of Palestine, and the warriors of the West could not be roused for a united effort against the infidel intruders. So long as the crown of a prince was not in immediate danger, he cared but little whether Christian Greeks or Mohammedan Turks knelt in St. Sophia.

But though no plan for united action could be concerted among the Christian states, the warriors of Hungary made a valiant stand against the Ottomans, and succeeded in checking their advance upon the continent, while the Knights of St. John, now established in the island of Rhodes, held them in restraint in the Mediterranean. Mohammed II. did succeed in planting the Crescent upon the shores of Italy-capturing and holding for a year the city of Otranto in Calabria; but by the time of the death of that energetic prince, the conquering energy of the Ottomans seems to have nearly spent itself, and the limits of their empire were not afterwards materially enlarged.

The Turks have ever remained quite insensible to the influences of European civilization, and their government has been a perfect blight and curse to the countries subjected to their rule. They have always been looked upon as intruders in Europe, and their presence there has led to several of the most sanguinary wars of modern times. Gradually they are being pushed out from their European possessions, and the time is probably not very far distant when they will be driven back across the Bosphorus, as their Moorish brethren were expelled long ago from the opposite corner of the continent by the Christian chivalry of Spain.

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CHAPTER VI.

GROWTH OF THE TOWNS: THE ITALIAN CITY-REPUBLICS.

The Teutons and the Roman Towns. The barbarians who overran the Roman Empire had no love for city life; hence the Roman cities fared hard at their hands. In England, the Angles and Saxons seem to have almost destroyed them. The present English towns have grown up, the greater number of them, since the invasion, having been built anew from their foundations, often, however, on the old sites. A somewhat similar fate apparently befell the cities of Northern France. In Southern France, however, and in Italy and Spain, they escaped destruction; yet the result of the conquest everywhere was the decline of the towns in population and importance. The city gave place to the castle.

Revival of the Old Towns and Founding of New Ones. But just as soon as the invaders had become settled, and civilization had begun to revive, the old Roman towns began gradually to assume somewhat of their former importance, and new ones to spring up in those provinces where they had been swept away, and in the countries outside of the limits of the ancient Empire.

The location of the new towns was determined by different circumstances. The necessities of trade and commerce pointed out the sites of many of them, and formed the basis of their growth and prosperity. Favorable locations on the sea-coasts, upon the great rivers, or along the overland routes of travel, were naturally chosen as depots for exchanging, distributing, and forwarding the wares and products of the times. On such spots grew up opulent and powerful capitals.

When feudalism

Relation of the Cities to the Feudal Lords. took possession of Europe, the cities became a part of the system. Each town formed a part of the fief in which it happened to be situated, and was subject to all the incidents of feudal ownership