The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of...

16 Id. x. 99. 100. ↑

17 “On ne forçait cependant pas les jeunes Chrétiens à changer de foi. Les principes du gouvernement s’y opposaient aussi bien que les préceptes du Cour’ann; et si des officiers, mus par leur fanatisme, usaient quelquefois de contrainte, leur conduite à cet égard pouvait bien être tolérée; mais elle n’était jamais autorisée par les chefs.” (M. d’Ohsson, tome iii. pp. 397–8.) ↑

18 Hertzberg, p. 472. ↑

19 “Sed hoc tristissimum est, quod, ut olim Christiani imperatores, ex singulis oppidis, certum numerum liberorum, in quibus egregia indoles præ cæteris elucebat, delegerunt: quos ad publica officia militiæ togatæ et bellicæ in Aula educari curarunt: ita Turci, occupato Græcorum imperio, idem ius eripiendi patribus familias liberos ingeniis eximiis præditos, usurpant.” (David Chytræus, pp. 12–14.) ↑

20 Creasy, p. 99. M. d’Ohsson, tome iii. p. 397. Menzel, p. 53. Thomas Smith, speaking of such parents, says: “Others, to the great shame and dishonour of the Religion, Christians only in name, part with them freely and readily enough, not only because they are rid of the trouble and charge of them, but in hopes they may, when they are grown up, get some considerable command in the government.” (An Account of the Greek Church, p. 12. London, 1680.) In the reign of Murād I, Christian troops were employed in collecting this tribute of Christian children. (Finlay, vol. v. p. 45.) ↑

21 “Verum tamen hos (liberos) pecunia redimere a conquisitoribus sæpe parentibus licet.” (David Chytræus, p. 13.) De la Guilletière mentions it in 1669 as one of the privileges of the Athenians. (An Account of a Late Voyage to Athens, p. 272. London, 1676.) ↑

22 Confessio, p. 205. ↑

23 An Account of the Greek Church, p. 12. (London, 1680.) ↑

24 Menzel, p. 52. Thomas Smith: De Moribus ac Institutis Turcarum, p. 81. (Oxonii, 1672.) ↑

25 Hill, p. 174. ↑

26 Joseph von Hammer (2), vol. ii. p. 151. Hans Schiltberger, who was captured by the Turks in 1396 and returned home to Munich after thirty-two years’ captivity, states that the tax the Christians had to pay did not amount to more than two pfennig a month. (Reisebuch, p. 92.) ↑

27 Soli Sacerdotes, quasi in honorem sacri illius, quo funguntur, Deo ita ordinante, ministerii hoc factum sit, una cum fœminis, ab hoc tributo pendendo immunes habentur. (De Græcæ Hodierno Statu Epistola, authore Thoma Smitho, p. 12.) (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1698.) ↑

28 Silbernagl, p. 60. ↑

29 Martin Crusius, p. 487; Sansovino, p. 67; Georgieviz, p. 98–9; Scheffler, § 56; Hertzberg, p. 648; De la Jonquière, p. 267. A work published in London in 1595, entitled “The Estate of Christians living [153]under the subjection of the Turke,” states the capitation-tax for male children to have been eight shillings (p. 2). Michel Baudin says one sequin a head for every male. (Histoire du Serrail, p. 7. Paris, 1662.) ↑

30 Georgirenes, p. 9; Tournefort, vol. i. p. 91; Tavernier (3), p. 11. ↑

31 In a work published by Joseph Georgirenes, Archbishop of Samos, in 1678, during a visit to London, he gives us an account of the income of his own see, the details of which are not likely to have been considered extortionate, as they were here set down for the benefit of English readers: in comparing the sums here mentioned, it should be borne in mind that he speaks of the capitation-tax as being three crowns or dollars (pp. 8–9). “At his (i.e. the Archbishop’s) first coming, the Papas or Parish Priest of the Church of his Residence presents him fifteen or twenty dollers, they of the other Churches according to their Abilities. The first year of his coming, every Parish Priest pays him four dollers, and the following year two. Every Layman pays him forty-eight aspers”—(In the commercial treaty with England, concluded in the year 1675, the value of the dollar was fixed at eighty aspers (Finlay, v. 28))—“and the following years twenty-four. The Samians pay one Doller for a Licence; all Strangers two; but he that comes after first marriage for a Licence for a second or third, pays three or four” (pp. 33–4). ↑

32 Tournefort, vol. i. p. 91. ↑

33 Scheffler, § 56. “Was aber auch den Ducaten anbelangt, so werdet ihr mit demselben in eurem Sinn ebener massen greulich betrogen. Denn es ist zwar wahr, dass der Türckische Käyser ordentlich nicht mehr nimt als vom Haupt einen Ducaten: aber wo bleiben die Zölle und ausserordentliche Anlagen? nehmen dann seine Königliche Verweser und Hauptleute nichts? muss man zu Kriegen nichts ausser ordentlich geben?… Was aber die ausser ordentliche Anlagen betrifft; die steigen und fallen nach den bösen Zeiten, und müssen von den Türckischen Unterthanen so wohl gegeben werden als bey uns.” ↑

34 Finlay, vol. v. pp. 24–5. H. von Moltke: Brief über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 1839, pp. 274, 354. (5th ed., Berlin, 1891.) ↑

35 Hammer (2), vol. i. p. 346. ↑

36 “The hard lot of the Christian subjects of the Sultan has at all times arisen from the fact that the central authority at Constantinople has but little real authority throughout the Empire of Turkey. It is the petty tyranny of the village officials, sharpened by personal hatred, which has instigated those acts of atrocity to which, both in former times, and still more at the present day, the Christians in Turkey are subjected. In the days of a nation’s greatness justice and even magnanimity towards a subject race are possible; these, however, are rarely found to exist in the time of a nation’s decay.” (Rev. W. Denton: Servia and the Servians, p. 15. London, 1862.) Gerlach, pp. 49, 52. ↑

37 Businello, pp. 43–4. ↑

38 “The central government of the Sultan has generally treated its Mussulman subjects with as much cruelty and injustice as the conquered Christians. The sufferings of the Greeks were caused by the insolence and oppression of the ruling class and the corruption that reigned in the Othoman administration, rather than by the direct exercise of the Sultan’s power. In his private affairs, a Greek had a better chance of obtaining justice from [155]his bishop and the elders of his district than a Turk from the cadi or the voivode.” (Finlay, vol. vi. pp. 4–5.)

“It would be a mistake to suppose that the Christians are the only part of the population that is oppressed and miserable. Turkish misgovernment is uniform, and falls with a heavy hand upon all alike. In some parts of the kingdom the poverty of the Mussulmans may be actually worse than the poverty of the Christians, and it is their condition which most excites the pity of the traveller.” (William Forsyth: The Slavonic Provinces South of the Danube, pp. 157–8. London, 1876.)

“All this oppression and misery (i.e. in the north of Asia Minor) falls upon the Mohammedan population equally with the Christian.” (James Bryce: Transcaucasia and Ararat, p. 381.)

“L’Europe s’imagine que les chrétiens seuls sont soumis, en Turquie, à l’arbitraire, aux souffrances, aux avilissements de toute nature, qui naissent de l’oppression; il n’en est rien! Les musulmans, précisément parce que nulle puissance étrangère ne s’intéresse à eux, sont peut-être plus indignement spoliés, plus courbés sous le joug que ceux qui méconnaissent le prophète.” (De la Jonquière, p. 507.)

“To judge from what we have already observed, the lowest order of Christians are not in a worse condition in Asia Minor than the same class of Turks; and if the Christians of European Turkey have some advantages arising from the effects of the superiority of their numbers over the Turks, those of Asia have the satisfaction of seeing that the Turks are as much oppressed by the men in power as they are themselves; and they have to deal with a race of Mussulmans generally milder, more religious, and better principled than those of Europe.” (W. M. Leake: Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 7. London, 1824.)

Cf. also Laurence Oliphant: The Land of Gilead, pp. 320–3, 446. (London, 1880.) ↑

39 It was in the sixteenth century that the tribute of children fell into desuetude, and the last recorded example of its exaction was in the year 1676. ↑

40 De la Jonquière, p. 333. Scheffler, § 45–6. Gasztowtt, p. 51. ↑

41 “Denn ich höre mit grosser Verwunderung und Bestürtzung, dass nicht allein unter den gemeinen Pövel Reden im Schwange gehn, es sey unter dem Türcken auch gut wohnen: wann man einen Ducaten von Haupt gebe, so wäre man frey; Item er liesse die Religion frey; man würde die Kirchen wieder bekommen; und was vergleichen: sondern dass auch andre, die es wol besser verstehen sollten, sich dessen erfreuen, und über ihr eigen Unglück frolocken! welches nicht allein Halssbrüchige, sondern auch Gottlose Vermessenheiten seynd, die aus keinem andrem Grunde, als aus dem Geist der Ketzerey, der zum Auffruhr und gäntzlicher Ausreitung des Christenthumbs geneigt ist, herkommen.” (Scheffler, § 48.) ↑

42 Hertzberg, p. 650. ↑

43 De la Jonquière, p. 34. A similar contrast was made in 1605 by Richard Staper, an English merchant who had been in Turkey as early as 1578: “And notwithstanding that the Turks in general be a most wicked people, walking in the works of darkness … yet notwithstanding do they permit all Christians, both Greeks and Latins, to live in their religion and freely to use to their conscience, allowing them churches for their divine service, both in Constantinople and very many other places, whereas to the contrary by proof of twelve years’ residence in Spain I can truly affirm, we are not only forced to observe their popish ceremonies, but in danger of life and goods” (M. Epstein: The Early History of the Levant Company, p. 57. London, 1908.) ↑

44 Macarius, vol. i. pp. 183, 165. Cf. the memorial presented by Polish refugees from Russia to the Sublime Porte, in 1853. (Gasztowtt, p. 217.) ↑

45 “Alii speciem sibi quandam confixerunt stultam libertatis … quod quum sub Christiano consequuturos se desperent, ideo vel Turcam mallent: quasi is benignior sit in largienda libertate hac, quam Christianus.” (Ioannis Ludovici Vivis De Conditione Vitæ Christianorum sub Turca, pp. 220, 225.) (Basileæ, 1538.) “Quidam obganniunt, liberam esse sub Turca fidem.” (Othonis Brunfelsii ad Principes et Christianos omnes Oratio, p. 133.) (Basileæ, 1538.) Ubertus Folieta, a noble of Genoa, writing about 1577, says, “Sæpe mecum quaesivi … qua re fiat, ut tot de nostris hominibus ad illos continenter transfugiant, Christianaque religione eiurata Mahumetanæ sectæ nomina dent.” (De Causis Magnitudinis Turcarum Imperii, col. 1209.) (Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiarum Italiæ, curâ Joannis Georgii Grævii, tom. i. Lugduni Batavorum, 1725.) ↑

46 Turchicæ Spurcitiæ Suggillatio, fol. xvii. (a). ↑

47 Blount, vol. i. p. 548. ↑

48 Scheffler, §§ 51, 53. ↑

49 Dousa, p. 38. Busbecq, p. 190. ↑

50 Thomas Smith, p. 32. ↑