Footnote 320: "It is difficult for the modern traveller who ventures into the heart of Asia Minor, and finds nothing but rude Kurds and Turkish peasants living among mountains and wild pastures, not connected even by ordinary roads, to imagine the splendour and rich cultivation of this vast country, with its brilliant cities and its teeming population." Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway, London, 1890, p. 229.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 321: The general effects of the Crusades are discussed, with much learning and sagacity, by Choiseul-Daillecourt, De l'Influence des Croisades sur l'état des peuples de l'Europe, Paris, 1809.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 322: They were taken from Chios in the fourth century by the emperor Theodosius, and placed in the hippodrome at Constantinople, whence they were taken by the Venetians in 1204. The opinion that "the results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civilization were altogether disastrous" is ably set forth by Mr. Pears, The Fall of Constantinople, London, 1885, and would be difficult to refute. Voltaire might well say in this case, "Ainsi le seul fruit des chrétiens dans leurs barbares croisades fut d'exterminer d'autres chrétiens. Ces croisés, qui ruinaient l'empire auraient pu, bien plus aisément que tous leurs prédécesseurs, chasser les Turcs de l'Asie." Essai sur les Mœurs, tom. ii. p. 158. Voltaire's general view of the Crusades is, however, very superficial.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 323: Yule's Marco Polo, vol. i. p. lxxi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 324: A papal dispensation was necessary before a commercial treaty could be made with Mahometans. See Leibnitz, Codex Jur. Gent. Diplomat., i. 489.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 325: Yule's Cathay, vol. i. p. cxvi.; Marco Polo, vol. i. p. xlii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 326: Yule's Marco Polo, vol. i. p. cxxx.; cf. Humboldt, Examen critique, tom. i. p. 71. The complete original texts of the reports of both monks, with learned notes, may be found in the Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, publié par la Société de Géographie, Paris, 1839, tom. iv., viz.: Johannis de Plano Carpini Historia Mongolorum quos nos Tartaros appellamus, ed. M. d'Avezac; Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruk, ed. F. Michel et T. Wright.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 327: Yule's Cathay, vol. i. p. xxxix.; Ptolemy, i. 17. Cf. Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography, London, 1883, vol. ii. p. 606.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 328: See my Beginnings of New England, chap. i. How richly suggestive to an American is the contemporaneity of Rubruquis and Earl Simon of Leicester![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 329: Roger Bacon, Opus Majus, ed. Jebb, London, 1733, p. 183.[Back to Main Text]