[83] Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, edited by J. Theodore Bent, p. 210. (London, 1893.) Similarly, Michel Baudier concludes his description of the festivities in Constantinople on the occasion of the circumcision of Muḥammad III in the latter part of the sixteenth century, with an account of the conversion of a large number of Christians. “During the spectacles of this solemnity, the wretched Grecians ran by troupes in this place to make themselves Mahometans; Some abandoned Christianitie to avoid the oppression of the Turkes, others for the hope of private profit.… The number of these cast-awayes was found to be above foure thousand soules.” (The History of the Serrail, and of the Court of the Grand Seigneur Emperour of the Turkes, pp. 93–4. (London, 1635.) Histoire generale du Serrail, et de la Cour du Grand Seigneur, Empereur des Turcs, pp. 89–90. (Paris, 1631.)) [↑]
[85] Thomas Smith: An Account of the Greek Church, pp. 15–16. (London, 1680.) [↑]
[86] A. de la Motraye: Voyages en Europe, Asie et Afrique, vol. i. pp. 306, 308. (La Haye, 1727.) [↑]
[87] Pitzipios, Seconde Partie, pp. 83–7. Pichler, p. 29. [↑]
[88] Tournefort, vol. i. p. 107. Spon uses much the same language, vol. i. p. 56. [↑]
[89] Gaultier de Leslie, p. 137. [↑]
[90] A. J. Evans, p. 267. Similarly Mackenzie and Irby say: “In most parts of Old Serbia the idea we found associated with a bishop, was that of a person who carried off what few paras the Turks had left” (p. 258). A similar account of the clergy of the Greek Church is given by a writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes (tome 97, p. 336), who narrates the following story: “Au début de ce siècle, à Tirnova, un certain pope du nom de Joachim, adoré de ses ouailles, détesté de son évêque, reçut l’ordre, un jour, de faire la corvée du fumier dans l’écurie épiscopale. Il se rebiffa: aussitôt la valetaille l’assaillit à coups de fourche. Mais notre homme était vigoureux: il se débattit, et, laissant sa tunique en gage, s’en fut tout chaud chez le cadi. Le soleil n’était pas couché qu’il devenait bon Musulman.” [↑]