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.
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.
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.
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.