Edward A. Freeman

THE EASTERN EMPIRE.

?Contrast between the Eastern and Western Empires.?

The geographical, like the political, history of the Eastern Empire is wholly unlike that of the Western. ?The Western Empire fell to pieces.? The Western Empire, in the strictest sense, fell asunder. Some of its parts fell away formally, others practically. The tie that held the rest snapped at the first touch of a vigorous invader. But that invader was an European power whose territories had once formed part of the Empire itself. From the invasions of nations beyond the European pale the Western Empire, as such, suffered but little. The Western Empire again, long before its fall, had become, so far as it was a power at all, a national power, the Roman Empire of the German nation. Its fall was the half voluntary parting asunder of a nation as well as of an Empire. ?Position of the Western Emperors;? The Western Emperors again had, as Emperors, practically ceased to be territorial princes. No lands of any account directly obeyed the Emperor, as such, as their immediate sovereign. When the Empire fell, the Emperor withdrew to his hereditary states, taking the Imperial title with him. In the Eastern Empire all is different. It did to some extent fall asunder from within, but its overthrow was mainly owing to its being broken in pieces from without. ?of the Eastern.? But, throughout its history, the Emperor remained the immediate sovereign of all that still clave to the Empire, and, when the Empire fell, the Emperor fell with it. ?The Eastern Empire fell mainly through foreign invasion.? The overthrow of the Empire was mainly owing to foreign invasion in the strictest sense. It was weakened and dismembered by the Christian powers of Europe, and at last swallowed up by the barbarians of Asia. ?Tendencies to separation.? At the same time the tendency to break in pieces after the Western fashion did exist and must always be borne in mind. But it existed only in particular parts and under special conditions. It is found mainly in possessions of the Empire which had become isolated, in lands which had been lost and won again, and in lands which came under the influence of Western ideas. The importance of these tendencies is shown by the fact that three powers which had been cut off in various ways from the body of the Empire, Bulgaria, Venice, and Sicily, became three of its most dangerous enemies. But the actual destruction of the Empire came from those barbarian attacks from which the West suffered but little.

Speaking generally then, the Western Empire fell asunder from within; the Eastern Empire was broken in pieces from without. Of the many causes of this difference, perhaps only one concerns geography. At the time of the separation of the Empires, the Western Empire was really only another name for the dominions of the King of the Franks, whether within or without the elder Empire. ?Closer connexion of the East with Roman political traditions.? The Eastern Empire, on the other hand, kept the political tradition of the elder Empire unbroken. ?Disuse of the Roman name in the West.? No common geographical or national name took in the three Imperial kingdoms of the West and their inhabitants. ?Its retention in the East.? But all the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, down to the end, knew themselves by no national name but that of Romans, and the land gradually received the geographical name of Romania. But the Western Empire was not Romania, nor were its people Romans. The only Romania in the West, the Italian land so called, took its name from its long adhesion to the Eastern Empire.

?Importance of distinctions of race in the East.?

In the East again differences of race are far more important than they ever were in the West. In the West nations have been formed by a certain commingling of elements; in the East the elements remain apart. All the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, whether older than the Roman conquest or settlers of later times, are there still as distinct nations.

?The original nations.?

First among them come three nations whose settlement in the peninsula is older than the Roman conquest. One of these has kept its name and its language. One has kept its language, but has taken up its name afresh only in modern times. The third has for ages lost both its name and its language. ?Albanians.? The most unchanged people in the peninsula must be the Albanians, called by themselves Skipetar, the representatives of the old Illyrians. ?Greeks.? Next come the Greeks, who keep their language, but whose name of HellÊnes went out of ordinary use till its revival in modern times. ?Vlachs.? Lastly there are the Vlachs, representing those inhabitants of Thrace, Moesia, and other parts of the peninsula, who, like the Western nations, exchanged their own speech for Latin. They must mainly represent the Thracian race in its widest sense. ?Use of the Roman name.? Both Greeks and Vlachs kept on the Roman name in different forms, and the Vlachs, the Roumans of our own day, keep it still. Of the invading races, the Goths passed through the Empire without making any lasting settlements in it. ?Slavonic settlers.? The last Aryan settlers, setting aside mere colonists in later times, were the Slaves. ?Turanian settlers.? Then came the Turanian settlers, Finnish, Turkish, or any other. Of these the first wave, the Bulgarians, were presently assimilated by the Slaves, and the Bulgarian power must be looked at historically as Slavonic. ?Turanian neighbours.? Then come Avars, Chazars, Magyars, Patzinaks, Cumans, all settling on or near the borders of the Empire. ?The Magyars.? Of these the Magyars alone grew into a lasting European state, and alone established a lasting power over lands which had formed part of the Empire. All these invaders came by the way of the lands north of the Euxine. Lastly, there are the non-Aryan invaders who came by way of Asia Minor or of the Mediterranean sea. ?The Saracens.? The Semitic Saracens, after their first conquests in Syria, Egypt, and Africa, made no lasting conquests. They occupied for a while several of the great islands; but on the mainland of the Empire, European and Asiatic, they were mere plunderers. ?The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.? In their wake came the most terrible enemies of all, the Turks, first the Seljuk, then the Ottoman. Ethnologically they must be grouped with the nations which came in by the north of the Euxine. Historically, as Mahometans, coming in by the southern route, they rank with the Saracens, and they did the work which the Saracens tried to do. Most of these invading races have passed away from history; three still remain in three different stages. ?Comparison of Bulgarians, Magyars and Ottomans.? The Bulgarian is lost among the Aryan people who have taken his name. The Magyar abides, keeping his non-Aryan language, but adopted into the European commonwealth by his acceptance of Christianity. The Ottoman Turk still abides on European soil, unchanged because Mahometan, still an alien alike to the creed and to the tongues of Europe.

?The Eastern Empire becomes Greek.?

Among all these nations one holds a special place in the history of the Eastern Empire. The loss of the Oriental and Latin provinces of the Empire brought into practical working, though not into any formal notice, the fact that, as the Western Empire was fast becoming German, so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ?Loss of the Oriental provinces,? To a state which had both a Roman and a Greek side the loss of provinces which were neither Roman nor Greek was not a loss but a source of strength. ?of the Latin provinces.? And if the loss of the Latin provinces was not a source of strength, it at least did much to bring the Greek element in the Empire into predominance. ?Dying out of Roman ideas.? Meanwhile, within the lands which were left to the Empire, first the Latin language, and then Roman ideas and traditions generally, gradually died out. Before the end of the eleventh century, the Empire was far more Greek than anything else. Before the end of the twelfth century, it had become nearly conterminous with the Greek nation, as defined by the combined use of the Greek language and profession of the Orthodox faith. The name Roman, in its Greek form, was coming to mean Greek. And, about the same time, the other primitive nations of the peninsula, hitherto merged in the common mass of Roman subjects, began to show themselves more distinctly alongside of the Greeks. ?Appearance of Albanians and Vlachs.? We now first hear of Albanians and Vlachs by those names, and the importance of the nations which have thus come again to light increases as we go on. ?The Latin Conquest, 1204.? Then the Greek remnant of the Empire was broken in pieces by the great Latin invasion, and, instead of a single power, Roman or Greek, we see a crowd of separate states, Greek and Frank. ?The revived Byzantine Empire.? The reunion of some of these fragments formed the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi. But at no moment since the twelfth century has the whole Greek nation been united under a single power, native or foreign. ?1461-1821.? And from the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond to the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, the whole of the Greek nation was under foreign masters.[24]

We have now first to trace out the steps by which the Empire was broken in pieces, and then to trace out severally the geographical history of the states which rose out of its fragments. And with these last we may class certain powers which do not strictly come under that definition, but which come within the same geographical range and which absorbed parts of the Imperial territory. Beginning in the West, the territory which the Empire at the final separation still held west of the Hadriatic, was gradually lost through the attacks, first of the Saracens, then of the Normans. ?Sicily.? These lands grew into the kingdom of Sicily, which has its proper place here as an offshoot from the Eastern Empire. ?Venice.? At the other end of the Italian peninsula, Venice gradually detached itself from the Empire, to become foremost in its partition: here then comes the place of Venice as a maritime power. ?Slavonic powers.
Bulgaria.? Then come the powers which arose on the north and north-west of the Empire, powers chiefly Slavonic, reckoning as Slavonic the great Bulgarian kingdom. ?Hungary.? Here too will come the kingdom of Hungary, which, as a non-Aryan power in the heart of Europe, has much both of likeness and of contrast with Bulgaria. The kingdom of Hungary itself lay beyond the bounds of the Empire, but a large part of its dependent territory had been Imperial soil. ?Albanians.
Roumans.? Here also we must speak of the states which arose out of the new developement of the Albanian and Rouman races, and of the states, Greek and Frank, which arose just before and at the time of the Latin Conquest. ?Asiatic powers.? Then there are the powers, both Christian and Mahometan, which arose within the Imperial dominions in Asia. Here we have to speak alike of the states founded by the Crusaders and of the growth of the Ottoman Turks. Lastly, we come to the work of our own days, to the new European states which have been formed by the deliverance of old Imperial lands from Ottoman bondage.

?800-1204.?

We will therefore first trace the geographical changes in the frontier of the Empire itself down to the Latin Conquest. ?1204-1453.? The Latin Empire of Romania, the Greek Empire of Nikaia, the revived Greek Empire of Constantinople, will follow, as continuing, at least geographically, the true Eastern Roman Empire. Then will come the powers which have fallen off from the Empire or grown up within the Empire, from Sicily to free Bulgaria. But it must be remembered that it is not always easy to mark, either chronologically or on the map, when this or that territory was finally lost to the Empire. This is true both on the Slavonic border and also in southern Italy. ?Distinction between conquest and settlement.? On the former above all it is often hard to distinguish between conquest at the cost of the Empire and settlement within the Empire. In either case the frontier within which the Emperors exercised direct authority was always falling back and advancing again. Beyond this there was a zone which could not be said to be under the Emperor’s direct rule, but in which his overlordship was more or less fully acknowledged, according to the relative strength of the Empire and of its real or nominal vassals.

§ 1. Changes in the Frontier of the Empire.

?Power of revival in the Empire.?

In tracing the fluctuations of the frontier of the Eastern Empire from the beginning of the ninth century, we are struck by the wonderful power of revival and reconquest which is shown throughout the whole history. Except the lands which were won by the first Saracens, hardly a province was finally lost till it had been once or twice won back. No one could have dreamed that the Empire of the seventh century, cut short by the Slavonic settlements to a mere fringe on its European coasts, could ever have become the Empire of the eleventh century, holding a solid mass of territory from Tainaros to the Danube. But before this great revival, the borders of the Empire had both advanced and fallen back in the farther West. ?Sardinia, Sicily, Southern Italy.? At the time of the separation of the Empires, the New Rome still held Sardinia, Sicily, and a small part of southern Italy. The heel of the boot still formed the theme of Lombardy,[25] while the toe took the name of Calabria which had once belonged to the heel. Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi were outlying Italian cities of the Empire; so was Venice, which can hardly be called an Italian city. ?Loss of the islands.
Advance on the continent.? In the course of the ninth century the power of the Empire was cut short in the islands, but advanced on the mainland. ?Loss of Sardinia.? The history of Sardinia is utterly obscure; but it seems to have passed away from the Empire by the beginning of the ninth century. ?Loss of Sicily, 827-965.? Sicily was now conquered bit by bit by the Saracens of Africa during a struggle of one hundred and forty years. ?Loss of Agrigentum, 827;
of Palermo, 831;? Agrigentum, opposite to the African coast, fell first; Palermo, once the seat of Phoenician rule, became four years later the new Semitic capital. ?Messina, 842;? Messina on the strait soon followed; but the eastern side of the island, its most thoroughly Greek side, held out much longer. ?Malta, 869;? Before the conquest of this region, Malta, the natural appendage to Sicily, passed into Saracen hands. ?Syracuse, 878.? Syracuse, the Christian capital, did not fall till fifty years after the first invasion, and in the north-western corner of the island a remnant still held out for nearly ninety years. ?Tauromenion, 902-963.
Rametta, 965.? Tauromenion or Taormina, on its height, had to be twice taken in the course of the tenth century, and the single fort of Rametta, the last stronghold of Eastern Christendom in the West, held out longer still. By this time Eastern Christendom was fast advancing on Islam in Asia; but the greatest of Mediterranean islands passed from Christendom to Islam, from Europe to Africa, and a Greek-speaking people was cut off from the Empire which was fast becoming Greek. ?Partial recovery and final loss of Sicily, 1038-1042.? But the complete and uninterrupted Mussulman dominion in Sicily was short. The Imperial claims were never forgotten, and in the eleventh century they were again enforced. By the arms of George ManiakÊs, Messina and Syracuse, with a part of the island which at the least took in the whole of its eastern side, was, if only for a few years, restored to the Imperial rule.

?Advance of the Empire in Italy.?

While Sicily was thus lost bit by bit, the power of the Empire was advancing in the neighbouring mainland of Italy. ?Taking of Bari, 871.? Bari was won back for Christendom from the Saracen by the combined powers of both Empires; but the lasting possession of the prize fell to the CÆsar of the East. At the end of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire claimed either the direct possession or the superiority of all southern Italy from Gaeta downwards. ?Fluctuations of the Imperial power in Italy.? The extent of the Imperial dominion was always fluctuating; there was perhaps no moment when the power of the Emperors was really extended over this whole region; but there was perhaps no spot within it which did not at some time or other admit at least the Imperial overlordship. The eastern coast, with the heel and the toe in a wider sense than before, became a real and steady possession, while the allegiance of Beneventum, Capua, and Salerno was always very precarious. ?Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi.? But Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, however nominal their allegiance might be, never formally cast it aside.

Thus, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Emperors held all Sicily, with some patches of territory on the neighbouring mainland. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the island had been wholly lost, while the dominion on the mainland had been greatly enlarged. ?The Normans in Italy and Sicily.? In the course of the eleventh century a new power, the Normans of Apulia, conquered the Italian possessions of the Empire, won Sicily from the Mussulman, and even made conquests from the Empire east of the Hadriatic. Thus arose the Sicilian kingdom, the growth of which will best be traced when we come to the powers which arose out of the breaking-up of the Empire.

The great islands of the Eastern Mediterranean also fluctuated between Byzantine and Saracen dominion. ?Loss of Crete, 823.? Crete was won by a band of Mussulman adventurers from Spain nearly at the time when the conquest of Sicily began. ?Its recovery, 963.? It was won back in the great revival of the Imperial power one hundred and forty years later. ?Cyprus lost, 708; recovered and lost again c. 881-888; recovered again, 965.? Cyprus was lost sooner; but it went through many fluctuations and divisions, a recovery and a second loss, before its final recovery at the same time as the recovery of Crete and the complete loss of Sicily. ?Loss and gain among the great islands.? Looking at the Empire simply as a power, there can be no doubt that the loss of Sicily was altogether overbalanced by the recovery of Crete and Cyprus. Geographically Sicily was an outlying Greek island; Crete and Cyprus lay close to the body of the Empire, essential parts of a Greek state. But Crete and Cyprus, as lands which had been lost and won back, were among the lands where the tendency to fall away from within showed itself earliest. Crete never actually separated from the Empire. ?Separation of Cyprus, 1182-1185.
Conquered by Richard of Poitou, 1191.? Cyprus fell away under a rebel Emperor, to be presently conquered by Richard, Count of Poitou and King of England, and to pass away from the Empire for ever.

?Fluctuations in the possession of the great islands, 801.?

We may thus sum up the fluctuations in the possession of the great islands. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire still took in Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete; Cyprus was in the hands of the Saracens. ?901.? At the beginning of the tenth century, the Empire held nothing in any of the four except the north-eastern corner of Sicily. ?1001.? At the beginning of the eleventh, Crete and Cyprus had been won back; Sicily was wholly lost. ?1101.? At the beginning of the twelfth, Crete and Cyprus were still Imperial possessions; a great part of Sicily had been won and lost again. ?1201.? At the beginning of the thirteenth, Cyprus, like Sicily, had passed to a Western master; Crete was still held by the Empire, but only by a very feeble tie. Thus they stood at the fall of the old Roman Empire of the East; of the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi none of them ever formed a part.

?Relations of the Empire towards the Slavonic powers.?

In the islands the enemies with whom the Empire had to strive were, first the Saracens, and then the Latins or Franks, the nations of Western Europe. On the mainland the part of the Saracen was taken by the Slave. During the four hundred years between the division of the Empires and the Frank conquest of the East, the geographical history of the Eastern Empire has mainly to deal with the shiftings of its frontier towards the Slavonic powers. ?Three Slavonic groups.? These fall into three main groups. ?Servia and Croatia.? First, in the north-western corner of the Empire, are the Croatian and Servian settlements, whose history is closely connected with that of the kingdom of Hungary and the commonwealth of Venice. ?Macedonia and Greece.? Secondly, there are the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. ?Bulgaria.? Thirdly, the great Bulgarian kingdom comes between the two. These two last ranges gradually merge into one; the first remains distinct throughout. Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, will be best treated of in another section, remembering that, amidst all fluctuations, the claims of the Empire over them were never denied or forgotten, and were from time to time enforced. It was towards the Bulgarian kingdom that the greatest fluctuations of the Imperial frontier took place.

?The Bulgarian kingdom.?

The original Finnish Bulgarians were the vanguard of Turanian invasion in the lands with which we have to do. Earlier, it would seem, in their coming than the Avars, they were slower to settle down into actual occupation of European territory. But when they did settle, it was not on the outskirts of the Empire, but in one of its acknowledged provinces. ?Settlement south of the Danube, 679.? Late in the seventh century, the first Bulgarian kingdom was established between Danube and HÆmus. It must be remembered that another migration in quite another direction founded another Bulgarian power on the Volga and the Kama. ?White Bulgaria.? This settlement, Great or White Bulgaria, remained Turanian and became Mahometan; Black Bulgaria on the Danube became Christian and Slavonic. ?Use of the Bulgarian name.? The modern Bulgarians bear the Bulgarian name only in the way in which the Romanized Celts of Gaul bear the name of their Frankish masters from Germany, in which the Slaves of Kief and Moscow bear the name of their Russian masters from Scandinavia. In all three cases, the power formed by the union of conquerors and conquered has taken the name of the conquerors and has kept the speech of the conquered. But though the Bulgarian power became essentially Slavonic, it took quite another character from the less fully organized Slavonic settlements to the west and south of it. ?The Empire and the Macedonian Slaves.? Towards the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, it cannot be said that the Empire had any definite frontier. Settled within the Empire, they were its tributaries or its enemies, according to the strength of the Empire at any particular moment. Up to the coming of the Bulgarians, we might, from different points of view, place the Imperial border either at the Danube or at no great distance from the ÆgÆan. ?The Empire and the Bulgarian kingdom.? But from the Bulgarian conquest onwards, there was on the Bulgarian side a real frontier, a frontier which often shifted, but which was often fixed by treaty, and which, wherever it was fixed, marked off lands which were, for the time, wholly lost to the Empire. ?Loss of the Danubian frontier.? With the first Bulgarian settlement, the Imperial frontier definitely withdrew for three hundred years from the lower Danube to the line of HÆmus or Balkan. ?Bulgarians south of HÆmus.? As the Bulgarian power pushed to the south and west the two fields of warfare, against the Bulgarians to the north and against the half-independent Slaves to the west, gradually melted into one. But as long as the Isaurian Emperors reigned, the two fields were kept distinct. ?Extent of Bulgaria in the eighth century.? They kept the Balkan range against the Bulgarians, whose kingdom, stretching to the north-west over lands which are now Servian, had not, at the end of the eighth century, passed the mountain barrier of the Empire.

?Recovery of the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and Greece.?

Meanwhile, as a wholly distinct work, the Imperial power was restored over the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In the middle of the eighth, century the inland parts of Greece were chiefly occupied by Slavonic immigrants, while the coast and the cities remained Greek. ?775-784.
807.? Before the end of the century, the Slaves of Macedonia were reduced to tribute, and early in the ninth, those of Greece wholly failed to recover their independence. ?Recovery of Greece from the Slaves.
Slaves on Taÿgetos.? The land was gradually settled afresh by Greek colonists, and by the middle of the tenth, only two Slavonic tribes, Melings and Ezerites (Melinci and Jezerci), remained, distinct, though tributary, on the range of Taÿgetos or Pentedaktylos. From this time to the Frankish conquest, Greece, as a whole, was held by the Empire. But, as a recovered land, it was one of those parts of the Empire in which a tendency to separate began to show itself. In the course of these changes, the name HellÊnes, as a national name, quite died out. ?HellÊnes of Maina.? It had long meant pagan, and it was confined to the people of Maina, who remained pagan till near the end of the ninth century. The Greeks now knew no name but that of Romans. The local, perhaps contemptuous, name of the inhabitants of Hellas was Helladikoi.

Thus, at the division of the Empires, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece had been more or less thoroughly recovered by the Eastern Empire, while the lands between HÆmus and Danube were wholly lost. ?Romania.? The Imperial dominion from the Hadriatic to the Euxine formed, together with the Asiatic provinces, Romania, the land of the Romans of the East. ?Dalmatia, Servia, and Croatia.? The Emperors also kept the cities on the Dalmatian coast, and the precarious allegiance of the Servian and Croatian principalities. These lands were bound to the Empire by a common dread of the encroaching Bulgarian. ?Greatness of the first Bulgarian kingdom.? The ninth century and the early years of the tenth was a great time of Bulgarian advance. ?Attempt on Pannonia, 818-829.? The Bulgarians seem to have failed in establishing any lasting dominion to the north-west in Pannonia;[26] at the expense of the Empire they were more successful. ?Advance against the Empire.? At the end of the eighth century Anchialos and Sardica—afterwards called Triaditza and Sofia—were border cities of the Empire. The conquest of Sardica early in the ninth marks a stage of Bulgarian advance. At the end of the century, after the conversion of the nation to Christianity, comes the great era of the first Bulgarian kingdom, the kingdom of Peristhlava. ?Conquests of Simeon, 923-934.? The Tzar Simeon established the Bulgarian supremacy over Servia, and carried his conquests deep into the lands of the Empire. In Macedonia and Epeiros the Empire kept only the sea-coast, ÆgÆan and Hadriatic; Sardica, Philippopolis, Ochrida, were all cities of the Bulgarian realm. Hadrianople, a frontier city of the Empire, passed more than once into Bulgarian hands. Nowhere in Europe, save in old Hellas, did the Imperial dominion stretch from sea to sea.

?Revival of the Imperial power.?

So stood matters in the middle of the tenth century. Then came that greatest of all revivals of the Imperial power which won back Crete and Cyprus, and which was no less successful on the mainland of Europe and Asia. ?Conquest of Bulgaria.? Bulgaria was conquered and lost and conquered again. But the first time it was conquered, not from the Bulgarian but from the Russian. ?The Russians and Bulgarians. 968-971.? The Russians, long dangerous to Constantinople, now suddenly appear as a land power. Their prince Sviatoslaf overthrew the first Bulgarian kingdom, and Philippopolis became for a moment a Russian outpost. But John TzimiskÊs restored the power of the Empire over the whole Bulgarian dominions. The Danube was once more the frontier of the Eastern Rome.

?The second Bulgarian kingdom.?

It remained so for more than two hundred years during the lower part of its course. But in the inland regions the Imperial power fell back almost at once, to advance again further than ever. A large part of the conquered land soon revolted, and a second Bulgarian kingdom, Macedonian rather than Moesian, arose. The kingdom of Ochrida, the kingdom of Samuel, left to the Empire the eastern part of the old Bulgaria between Danube and HÆmus, together with all Thrace and the Macedonian coast. But it took in all the inland region of Macedonia; it stretched down into Thessaly and Epeiros; and, while it nowhere touched the Euxine or the ÆgÆan, it had a small seaboard on the Hadriatic. Now came the great struggle between Romania and Bulgaria which fills the last years of the tenth century and the opening years of the eleventh. ?Second conquest of Bulgaria, 1018.? At last all Bulgaria, and with it for a while Servia, was restored to the Empire. ?Croatia.? Croatia continued its vassalage, and its princes were presently raised to royal rank by Imperial authority.

Thus the Eastern Empire again took in the whole south-eastern peninsula. Of its outlying European possessions, southern Italy was still untouched. ?Venice.? At what moment Venice ceased to be a dependency of the Empire, it would be hard to say. Its dukes still received the Imperial investiture, and Venetian ships often joined the Imperial fleet. This state of things seems never to have been formally abolished, but rather to have dropped out of sight as Venice and Constantinople became practically hostile. In the other outlying city north of the Euxine the ninth and tenth centuries change places. Through all changes the Empire kept its maritime province in the Tauric ChersonÊsos. ?Cherson annexed, 829-842; taken by Vladimir, 988.? There the allied city of Cherson, more formally annexed to the Empire in the ninth century, was taken by the Russian Vladimir in the interval between the two great Bulgarian wars.

?The Empire in Asia.?

In Asia the Imperial frontier had changed but little since the first Saracen conquests. The solid peninsula of Asia Minor was often plundered by the Mussulmans, but it was never conquered. Now, in Asia as in Europe, came a time of advance. For eighty years, with some fluctuations, the Empire grew on its eastern side. The Bagdad caliphate was now broken up, and the smaller emirates were more easily overcome. ?Asiatic conquests of NikÊphoros and John, 963-976;? The wars of NikÊphoros PhÔkas and John TzimiskÊs restored Kilikia and Syria to the list of Roman provinces, Tarsos, Antioch, and Edessa to the list of Christian cities. ?of Basil the Second, 991-1022.
Beginning of the annexation of Armenia 1021; Ani, 1045; of Kars, 1064.? Basil the Second extended the Imperial power over the Iberian and Abasgian lands east of the Euxine, and began a series of transactions by which, in the space of forty years, all Armenia was added to the Empire on the very eve of the downfall of the Imperial power in Asia.

?New enemies.?

For the great extension of the Empire laid it open to new enemies in both continents. ?Turks.
Magyars.? In Asia it became the neighbour of the Seljuk Turks, in Europe of the Magyars or Hungarians, who bear the name of Turks in the Byzantine writers of the tenth century. Hungary had now settled down into a Christian kingdom. ?Revolt of Servia, 1040.
Loss of Belgrade, 1064.? A Servian revolt presently placed a new independent state between Hungary and Romania, but Belgrade remained an Imperial possession till it passed under Magyar rule twenty-four years later. ?Advance of the Turks.? By this time the Empire had begun to be cut short in a far more terrible way in Asia. The Seljuk Turks now reached the new Roman frontier. ?Loss of Ani, 1064.? Plunder grew into conquest, and the first Turkish conquest, that of Ani, happened in the same year as the last Imperial acquisition of Kars. The Emperors now tried to strengthen this dangerous frontier by the erection of vassal principalities. The very name of Armenia now changes its place. ?Lesser Armenia, 1080.? The new or Lesser Armenia arose in the Kilikian mountains, and was ruled by princes of the old Armenian dynasty, whose allegiance to the Empire gradually died out. But before this time the Turkish power was fully established in the peninsula of Asia Minor. The plunderers had become conquerors. ?1071.? The battle of Manzikert led to formal cessions and further advances. ?1074.? Throughout Asia Minor the Empire at most kept the coast; the mass of the inland country became Turkish. ?The Sultans of Roum.
1081.? But the Roman name did not pass away; the invaders took the name of Sultans of Roum. Their capital was at Nikaia, a threatening position indeed for Constantinople. But distant positions like Trebizond and Antioch were still held as dependencies. ?Loss of Antioch, 1081.? Antioch was before long betrayed to the Turks.

By this time the Empire was attacked by a new enemy in its European peninsula. ?Normans in Corfu and Epeiros. 1081-1085.? The Norman conquerors of Apulia and Sicily crossed the Hadriatic, and occupied various points, both insular and continental, especially Dyrrhachion or Durazzo and the island of Korkyra, now called by a new Greek name, KoryphÔ or Corfu. At every point of its frontier the Empire had, towards the end of the eleventh century, altogether fallen back from the splendid position which it held at its beginning. ?Geographical aspect of the Empire.? The geographical aspect of the Empire was now the exact opposite of what it had been in the eighth and ninth centuries. Then its main strength seemed to lie in Asia. Its European dominion had been cut down to the coasts and islands; but its Asiatic peninsula was firmly held, touched only by passing ravages. Now the Asiatic dominion was cut down to the coasts and islands, while the great European peninsula was, in the greater part of its extent, still firmly held. Never before had the main power of the Empire been so thoroughly European. No wonder that in Western eyes the Empire of Romania began to look like a kingdom of Greece.

The states founded by the Crusaders will be dealt with elsewhere. ?Recovery of Asiatic territory, 1097.? The crusades concern us here only as helping towards the next revival of the Imperial power under the house of KomnÊnos. Alexios himself won back Nikaia and the other great cities of western Asia Minor. Some of these, as Laodikeia, were received rather as free cities of the Empire than as mere subjects. ?Reigns of John and Manuel.? The conquering reigns of John and Manuel again extended the Empire in both continents. ?1097.? The Turk still ruled in the inland regions of Asia, but his capital was driven back from Nikaia to Ikonion. ?1137.? The superiority of the Empire was restored over Antioch and Kilikian Armenia at the one end, over Servia at the other. ?1148.? Hungary itself had to yield Zeugmin, Sirmium, and all Dalmatia. ?1163-1168.? For a moment the Empire again took in the whole eastern coast of the Hadriatic and its islands; even on its western shore Ancona became something like a dependency of the Eastern CÆsar.

?Falling of distant possessions.?

The conquests of Manuel were clearly too great for the real strength of the Empire. Some lands fell away at once. ?Dalmatia, 1181.? Dalmatia was left to be struggled for between Venice and Hungary. And the tendency to fall away within the Empire became strengthened by increased intercourse with the feudal ideas of the West. Cyprus, Trebizond, old Greece itself, came into the hands of rulers who were rather feudal vassals than Roman governors. We have seen how Cyprus fell away. Its Poitevin conqueror presently gave it to Guy of Lusignan. ?Latin kingdom of Cyprus, 1192.? Thus, before the Latin conquest of Constantinople, a province had been torn from the Eastern Empire to become a Latin kingdom. The Greek-speaking lands were now beginning largely to pass under Latin rule. In Sicily the Frank might pass for a deliverer; in Corfu and Cyprus he was a mere foreign invader.

Meanwhile the Empire was again cut short to the north by a new Bulgarian revolt, which established a third Bulgarian kingdom, but a kingdom which seems to have been as much Vlach or Rouman as strictly Bulgarian. The new kingdom took in the old Bulgarian land between Danube and HÆmus, and it presently spread both to the west and to the south. ?Other Slavonic revolts.? The Bulgarian revolt was followed by other movements among the Thracian and Macedonian Slaves, which did not lead to the foundation of any new states, but which had their share in the general break-up of the Imperial power. ?Increased Greek character of the Empire.? The work of Basil and Manuel was now undone, but its undoing had the effect of making the Empire more nearly a Greek state than ever. It did not wholly coincide with the Greek-speaking lands: the Empire had subjects who were not Greeks, and there were Greeks who were not subjects of the Empire. But the Greek speech and the new Greek nationality were dominant within the lands which were still left to the Empire. The Roman name was now merely a name: Roman and Greek meant the same thing. Whatever was not Greek in European Romania was mainly Albanian and Vlach. The dominion of the Empire in the peninsula was mainly confined to the primitive races of the peninsula. ?The Slavonic states.? The great element of later times, the Slavonic settlers, had almost wholly separated themselves from the Empire, establishing their independence, but not their unity. They formed a group of independent powers which had simply fallen away from the Empire; it was by the powers of the West that the Empire itself was to be broken in pieces.

The taking of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was the work of an alliance between the now independent commonwealth of Venice and a body of Western crusaders who, along with the states which they founded, may be indifferently called Latins or Franks. ?Act of Partition.? A regular act of partition was drawn out, by which the Empire was to be divided into three parts. One was to be assigned to a Latin Emperor of Romania, another of the pilgrims as his feudatories, a third to the commonwealth of Venice. But the partition was never carried out. A large part of the Empire was never conquered; another large part was not assigned by the act of partition. In fact the scheme of partition is hardly a geographical fact at all. The real partition to which the Latin conquest led was one of quite another kind, a partition of the Empire among a crowd of powers, Greek, Frank, and Venetian, more than one of which had some claim to represent the Empire itself.

These were the Latin Empire of Romania, and the Greek Empire which maintained itself at Nikaia, and which, after nearly sixty years of banishment, won back the Imperial city. In the crusading scheme the Latin Emperor was to be the feudal superior of the lesser princes who were to establish themselves within the Empire. For his own Imperial domain he was to have the whole of the Imperial possessions in Asia, with a Thracian dominion stretching as far north as Agathopolis. Hadrianople, with a narrow strip of territory stretching down to the Propontis, was to be Venetian. The actual result was very different. ?Its extent.? The Latin Emperors never got any footing in Asia beyond parts of the themes bordering on the Propontis, reaching from Adramyttion to the mouth of the Sangarios. In Europe they held the eastern part of Thrace, with a fluctuating border towards Bulgaria on the north, and to the new Latin and Greek states which arose to the west. Their dominion also took in LÊmnos, Lesbos, Chios, and some others of the ÆgÆan islands.

But the Latin Empire of Romania was not the only Empire which arose out of the break-up of the old East-Roman power. Two, for a time three, Greek princes bore the Imperial title; there was also a Latin king. It will be convenient for a while to leave out of sight both Asia and southern Greece, and to look to the revolutions of Thrace, Macedonia, northern Greece, and what we may now begin to call Albania. The immediate result of the Latin conquest was to divide these lands between three powers, two Latin and one Greek. ?Kingdom of ThessalonikÊ. 1204-1222. Despotat of Epeiros.? Besides the Empire of Romania, there was the Latin kingdom of ThessalonikÊ, and the Greek despotat[27] of Epeiros held by the house of Angelos. Of these the Thessalonian kingdom was the most short-lived, and there can be little doubt that its creation was the ruin of the Latin Empire. It cut off the Emperor from his distant vassals in Greece, whose vassalage soon became nominal. It gave him, in successive reigns, a powerful neighbour who knew his own power, and a weak neighbour, who fell before the Greek advance sooner than himself. But the beginnings of the kingdom, under its first king Boniface, were promising. His power stretched over Thessaly, now known as Great Vlachia, and he received the homage of the Frank princes further to the south. But within twenty years from its foundation, Frank rule had ceased in Macedonia. ?ThessalonikÊ again Greek.? ThessalonikÊ was again a Greek and an Imperial city, and its recovery by the Greeks split the Latin Empire asunder.

This blow came from the west. It was the Nicene Empire which did in the end win back the Imperial city; but, for some years after the Latin conquest, things looked as if the restoration of the Greek power in Europe was designed for Epeiros. The first despot Michael paid a nominal homage to all the neighbouring powers, Greek and Frank, in turn; but in truth he was the lord of an independent and growing state. His power began in the Epeirot land west of Pindos. ?1208-1210.? For a moment he held in PeloponnÊsos Corinth, Nauplia, and Argos. Durazzo and Corfu were won from Venice. ?1215.? The Epeirot power advanced also to the east. ?1222.
1225.? ThessalonikÊ was taken; its ruler took the Imperial title; Hadrianople followed, and the new Empire stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea, and took in Thessaly to the south. But the Thessalonian Empire was hardly more long-lived than the Thessalonian kingdom. It was first dismembered among the princes of the ruling house. ?Separation of Epeiros and Thessalonia. 1237.? The original Epeirot despotat, along with Corfu, parted away from the new Macedonian power, to survive it by many years. But by this time the championship of the Greek speech and faith against the Latin lords of Constantinople had passed to the foremost of the Greek powers which had grown up in Asia, to the Empire of Nikaia.

These Greek powers were two, which arose at the same time, but by different processes and with different destinies. ?The Empire of Trebizond, 1204-1461.? The Empire of Nikaia was the truer continuation of the old East-Roman power; the Empire of Trapezous or Trebizond was the last independent fragment of Roman dominion and Greek culture. The Trapezuntine Empire was not in strictness one of the states which arose out of the Latin partition. One of the parts of the Empire which showed most disposition to fall away was independently seized by a rival Emperor, at the very moment of the Latin conquest. Alexios KomnÊnos occupied Trebizond, an occupation largely wrought by Iberian help, as if the Empire, already dismembered by the Christians of the West, was to be further dismembered by the Christians of the further East. ?Extent of the Komnenian dominion.? The dominions of Alexios, enlarged by his brother David to the west, at first took in the whole south coast of the Euxine from the Sangarios eastward, broken by the city of Amisos, which contrived to make itself virtually independent, and by the neighbouring Turkish settlement at Samsoun. But this dominion was only momentary. The eastern part alone survived to form the later Empire of Trebizond; the western part, the government of David, soon passed to the rising power of Nikaia.

The founder of that power was Theodore Laskaris, in whom the succession of the Eastern Empire was held to be continued. ?1214.? Ten years after the taking of Constantinople, a treaty fixed his border towards the small Latin dominion in Asia. ?1220.
1240.? Six years later the Latins kept only the lands north of the gulf of NikomÊdeia; sixteen years later they held only the Asiatic coast of the Bosporos. ?1247.? Seven years later Chios, LÊmnos, Samos, KÔs, and other islands were won back by the growing Greek state. ?The Nicene Empire in Europe. 1235.? But, long before this, the Nicene Empire had become an European power. The Thracian ChersonÊsos was first won, the work beginning at Kallipolis. ?1242.
1246.? Presently the Thessalonian Emperor sank to the rank of a despot under him of Nikaia; four years later ThessalonikÊ was incorporated with the Nicene dominions. ?1245-1256.? A series of Bulgarian campaigns carried the Imperial frontier, first to the Hebros—already the Slavonic Maritza—and then to the foot of HÆmus. ?1254-1259.? A series of Epeirot campaigns won a Hadriatic seaboard, and made Durazzo for a while again a city of the Empire. ?1259.? The Nicene power in these regions was confirmed by the victory of Pelagonia, won over the combined forces of Epeiros, Achaia, and Sicily. ?1260.? The next year Selymbria was won from the Latins, and the Frank Empire was cut down to so much territory as could be guarded from the walls of Constantinople. ?Recovery of Constantinople, 1261.? At last the recovery of Constantinople changed the Empire of Nikaia into the revived Byzantine Empire of the Palaiologoi.

That Empire still lasted a hundred and ninety years, and we must carefully distinguish between its European and its Asiatic history. The Asiatic border fell back almost as soon as the seat of rule was restored to Europe. ?Advance of the Empire in Europe.? In Europe the revived Empire kept the character of an advancing power till just before the entrance of the Ottoman into Europe, in some parts till just before the fall of Constantinople. Many events helped to weaken the real power of the Empire, which did not affect its geography. ?1302.? Such were the earlier Turkish inroads and the destroying visit of the Catalans. ?Advance in PeloponnÊsos.? The land in which advance was most steady was PeloponnÊsos, where, at the time of the recovery of Constantinople, the Empire did not hold a foot of ground. ?1262.? Misithra, Monembasia, and Maina were the fruits of the day of Pelagonia. For a while the Imperial frontier was stationary, but from the beginning of the fourteenth century it steadily advanced. It advanced perhaps all the more after PeloponnÊsos became an Imperial dependency, or an appanage for princes of the Imperial house, rather than an immediate possession of the Empire. ?1404.? Early in the fifteenth century the greater part of the peninsula, including Corinth, was again in Greek hands. ?1430.? At last, twenty-three years only before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, all PeloponnÊsos, except the points held by Venice, was under the superiority of the Empire.

In more northern parts the advance of the Empire, though chequered by more reverses, went on steadily till the growth of the Servian power in the middle of the fourteenth century. ?1308.? The frontier varied towards Servia, Bulgaria, Epeiros, and the Angevin power which established itself on the Hadriatic coast. Even under Andronikos the Second the Imperial dominion was extended over the greater part of Thessaly or Great Vlachia. ?1318-1339.? Later still, all Epeiros, JÔannina and Arta—once Ambrakia—were won. At the moment of the great Servian advance, the Empire held the uninterrupted seaboard from the Euxine to the Pagasaian Gulf, as well as its Hadriatic seaboard from the Ambrakian gulf northward. But the Frank principalities still cut off the main body of the Empire from its possessions in PeloponnÊsos.

In Asia there is another tale to tell. There the frontier of the Empire steadily went back from the recovery of Constantinople. A few points gained or lost to European powers go for little. ?1260.? Smyrna passed for a while to Genoa. ?The Knights of Saint John, 1309-1315.? The Knights of Saint John won Rhodes, KÔs, and other islands, but they did not become a power on the mainland of Asia till the Empire had almost withdrawn from that continent. ?Advance of the Turks.? The Imperial power steadily crumbled away before the advance of the Turk, first the Seljuk and then the Ottoman. The small Turkish powers into which the Sultanate of Roum had now split up began to encroach on the Greek dominion in Asia as soon as its centre was transferred to Europe. By the end of the thirteenth century, the Imperial possessions in Asia had again shrunk up to a narrow strip on the Propontis, from the ÆgÆan to the Euxine. Losses followed more speedily when the Turkish power passed from the Seljuk to the Ottoman. ?1326-1338.? Brusa, Nikaia, NikomÊdeia, were all lost within twelve years. By the middle of the fourteenth century, the Emperors kept nothing in Asia, save a strip of land just opposite Constantinople, and the outlying cities of Philadelphia and PhÔkaia, their allies rather than their subjects.

The Ottoman was now all but ready to pass into Europe, and the way was made easier for him by the rise and fall of an European power which again cut short the Empire in its western provinces. ?The Empire falls back towards Servia and Bulgaria.
1331.? While the Imperial frontier was advancing in Epeiros and Thessaly, it fell back towards Servia, and advanced towards Bulgaria only to fall back again. ?Loss of Philippopolis, 1344.? Philippopolis, so often lost and won, now passed away for ever. ?Conquest. Stephen Dushan.? And now came the great momentary advance of Servia under Stephen Dushan, which wrested from the Empire a large part of its Thracian, Macedonian, Albanian, and Greek possessions. ?Extent of the Empire.? At the middle of the fourteenth century, the Empire, all but banished from Asia, kept no unbroken European dominion out of Thrace. Its other possessions were isolated. It kept ThessalonikÊ and ChalkidikÊ, with a small strip of Macedonia as far as Berrhoia and Vodena. It kept a small Thessalian territory about Lamia or Zeitouni. There was the Peloponnesian province, fast growing into importance; there was Lesbos and a few other islands. ?1355.? On Stephen’s death his dominion broke in pieces, but the Empire did not win back its lost lands. For the Ottoman was already in Europe, ready, in the space of the next hundred years, to swallow up all that was left.

As in the recovery of Romania by the Greeks of Nikaia, so in the final conquest of Romania by the Turks of Brusa, Constantinople itself was—with the exception of the Peloponnesian appanage—the last point of the Empire to fall. The Turk, like the Greek, made his way in by Kallipolis; like the Greek, he hemmed in the Imperial city for years before it fell into his hands. ?Loss of Hadrianople, 1361.
1366.? In seven years from his first landing, Hadrianople had become the European capital of the Turk; the Empire was his tributary, keeping, besides its outlying possessions, only the land just round the city. The romantic expedition of Amadeo of Savoy gave back to the Empire its Euxine coast as far as MesÊmbria. ?Loss of Philadelphia, 1374-1391.? Before the end of the century Philadelphia was lost in Asia, and the Imperial dominion in Europe hardly reached beyond the city itself and the Peloponnesian province. ThessalonikÊ and the Thessalian province were both lost for a while. ?Effects of Timour’s invasion, 1401.? Bajazet was on the point of doing the work of Mahomet, when the Empire was saved for another half-century by the invasion of Timour and the consequent break-up of the Ottoman power. During the Ottoman civil wars, the outlying points of the Empire were restored and seized again more than once. ?1424.? At last the boundaries of the Empire were fixed by treaty between Sultan Mahomet and the Emperor Manuel, much as they had stood sixty years before. The coast of the Propontis to Selymbria, the coast of the Euxine to MesÊmbria, ThessalonikÊ and ChalkidikÊ, the Peloponnesian province, the smaller Thessalian province, the overlordship of Lesbos, Ainos, and Thasos, was all that was left. Further losses soon followed. ?1426.? ThessalonikÊ passed from the Empire within two years. ?1453.? At last, as all the world knows, the Imperial city itself fell, and the name of the Eastern Roman Empire was blotted out of European geography. ?1460.? Six years later came the conquest of PeloponnÊsos, and the whole of European Greece passed into the hands of foreign masters.

Having thus sketched the changes in the extent of the Eastern Roman Empire during a period of six hundred and fifty years, we have now to trace the geography of the states which, within that time, grew up within its borders or upon its frontiers. These fall naturally into four groups. ?The Slavonic states.? First come the national states which were formed by throwing off the dominion of the Empire. These are mainly the Slavonic powers to the north, Bulgaria, Servia, Croatia, and the later states which arose out of their divisions and combinations. ?Hungary.
Rouman states.? And with these, different as was their origin, we must, for our purposes, place both the Hungarian kingdom which annexed so many of the Slavonic lands, and the Rouman states, so closely connected with Hungarian history, which arose by migrations out of the Empire. ?The Greek states.? Another group consists of the Greek states which split off from the Empire before or at the Latin conquest, and which were not recovered by the Greek Emperors of Nikaia and Constantinople. Both these classes of states belong strictly to Eastern Christendom. Catholic Hungary ruling over Orthodox Slaves forms a link between the East and the West; so do those Slaves who themselves belong to the Latin Church. ?Latin states with the Empire.? Another link is supplied by a third group of states, namely, those parts of the Empire which, either at or before the Latin conquest, came under Latin rule. This class is not confined to the Frank powers in Romania or to the Eastern settlements of Venice and Genoa. ?Kingdom of Sicily.
Kingdom of Jerusalem.? From our point of view it takes in the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem with its fiefs. In all these cases, territory which had formed part of the Eastern Empire came under Latin rule. And in all these cases, Latin masters bore rule over alien subjects, Greek, Slave, Syrian, or any other. None of the Latin powers were national states, like the Slavonic or even like the Greek powers. But the foreign masters of these lands were at least European and Christian. The last class consists of powers which lie beyond the range of European and Christian civilization. ?Turkish dynasties.? These are the Turkish dynasties which arose within the Empire. ?The Ottomans.? Of these only the last and greatest, the dynasty of Othman, became geographically European, and swallowed up nearly all the lands which had belonged to the Empire in Europe, together with much which lay beyond its bounds. Here we have, not only the absence of national being, but the rule of the Asiatic over the European, of the Mussulman over the Christian. ?The New States.? Lastly, we come to the partial redressing of this wrong by the re-establishment of independent Greek and Slavonic states in our own century.

These seem to make four natural groups, and it is needful to bear in mind their nature and relations to each other. But it will be more convenient to speak of the several states thus formed in an order approaching more nearly to the order of their separation from the Empire. And first comes a power which parted off so early, and which became so thoroughly a part of Western Europe, that it needs an effort to grasp the fact that its right place is among the powers which had their beginning in separation from the Imperial throne of Constantinople.

§ 2. The Kingdom of Sicily.

This is the power which, in the course of the eleventh century, was formed by the Norman adventurers in southern Italy and in Sicily. It was not wholly formed at the expense of the Eastern Empire. But all its insular, and the greater part of its continental, territory, was either won from the Eastern Empire and its vassals, or else had once formed part of that Empire. Its kings also more than once established their power, for a longer or shorter time, in the Imperial lands east of the Hadriatic. With the Western Empire and the Kingdom of Italy the Sicilian kingdom had in its beginnings nothing to do, though it was afterwards somewhat enlarged at their expense.

When the Norman conquests in Italy began, early in the eleventh century, the Eastern Empire still kept the coast of both seas from the further side of the peninsula of Gargano to the head of the gulf of Policastro. The Imperial duchies of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, lying to the north of this point, were cut off by the duchies of Benevento, Capua, and Salerno, over which the Empire had at the most a very precarious superiority. ?Advance of the Normans.? Within a hundred years, all these lands, together with the island of Sicily, were brought under Norman rule. Thus grew up a new European power, sometimes forming one kingdom, sometimes two, sometimes held alone, sometimes together with other kingdoms. This power supplanted alike the Eastern Empire, the Saracen powers of Sicily, and the Lombard princes of southern Italy. It started from two points, two distinct Norman settlements, of which the later outshone the earlier. ?County of Aversa, 1021.? The earliest Norman territorial settlement was the county of Aversa, held in vassalage of the Imperial duchy of Naples. ?Principality of Capua, 1062-1068.? Forty years later its counts became possessed of the principality of Capua, of which they received a papal confirmation which implied a denial of all dependence on either Empire. The more lasting duchy of Apulia began later under the adventurers of the house of Hauteville. ?County of Apulia, 1042.? Their first stage is marked by the foundation of the county of Apulia, with Melfi as its capital, under William of-the-Iron-arm. This took in the peninsula of Gargano and the lands immediately to the south of it. ?Investiture by Pope Leo, 1053.? The next stage is when Leo the Ninth invested Count Humfrey, or rather the Normans as a body, with all that they could conquer in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. ?Robert Wiscard Duke, 1059.
Completion of the Apulian duchy, 1077.? The first of several takings of Tarentum, and the assumption of the ducal title by Robert Wiscard, mark another stage. Less than twenty years later the Eastern Empire kept nothing but the duchy of Naples; Benevento had passed to the Popes. The rest of the lands both of the Empire and of the Lombard princes were now very unequally divided between two Norman lords, the Duke of Apulia and the Prince of Capua. ?Robert Wiscard in Epeiros, 1081-1085.? The Byzantine power west of the Hadriatic being thus overthrown, Robert Wiscard for the first time pushed the Norman arms into the Eastern peninsula itself. For the last few years of his life he held the islands of Corfu and KephallÊnia, with Durazzo and the coast to the south, and even inland as far as Kastoria and Trikkala. ?1147-1150.? His power was renewed for a moment by his son Bohemond, and in the middle of the next century Corfu was again for a short time held by King Roger.

For by that time the island of Sicily was a kingdom of Western Christendom. The second time of Mussulman rule over the whole island was short. In the space of thirty years Count Roger won the great island alike from Islam and from Eastern Christendom. ?Taking of Messina, 1061;
of Palermo, 1072;
of Syracuse, 1086;
of Noto, 1091;? Greek Messina was first won; after a while Saracen Palermo followed; Syracuse was won much later; the last Saracen post in the island to hold out was Noto in the south-eastern corner. ?of Malta, 1091.? Malta, the natural appendage of Sicily, was soon added. The first Norman capital was Messina. Duke Robert, as overlord of his brother Count Roger, kept Palermo and the surrounding district in his own hands. It was not till the next century that the Count of Sicily won full possession of the city. ?Palermo capital of Sicily.? Palermo then became again, as it had been under the Saracens, the head of Sicily.

The ruler of Sicily also became a potentate on the Italian mainland. First the half, then the whole, of Calabria formed part of his dominions. ?Roger the Second, 1105-1154.
King, 1130.? The third Great Count, the first King, of Sicily, Roger the Second, gradually won the whole possessions of his family on the mainland. ?Capua, 1132-1136.? To these he presently added the Norman principality of Capua, first as a dependent territory, then as fully incorporated with his dominions. ?Naples, 1138.? He next won the last possession in the West which was still held by the Eastern Empire, the city of Naples. ?The Abruzzi, 1140.? He then pressed beyond the bounds both of the Eastern Empire and of the early Norman conquests by the annexation of the Abruzzi. He then, as we have seen, extended his power for a moment east of the Hadriatic. Meanwhile he was more successful against the common enemies of Eastern and Western Christendom. ?Conquests in Africa, 1135-1137.? As Sicily had twice been conquered from Africa, Africa now began to be conquered from Sicily. ?1160.? Roger held a considerable dominion on the African coast including Mehadia, Bona, and other points, which were lost under his son William.

Thus was founded a kingdom which has, perhaps oftener than any other European state, been divided and united and handed over from one dynasty of strangers to another, but whose boundaries, strictly so called, have hardly changed at all. For the only immediate neighbour of the Sicilian king was his ecclesiastical overlord. The question was whether the king of the mainland should be also king of the island. But the successive dynasties which reigned both over the whole kingdom and over its divided parts were for a long time eager to carry out the policy of their first founder, by conquests east of the Hadriatic. ?Epeirot conquests of William the Good, 1185.? Before the fall of the old Empire, William the Good began again to establish an Epeirot and insular dominion by the conquest of Durazzo, Corfu, KephallÊnia, and Zakynthos. ?Kingdom of Margarito, 1186.
1338.? But these outlying dominions were granted in fief to the Sicilian Admiral Margarito,[28] who, himself bearing the strange title of King of the Epeirots, founded a dynasty which, with the title of Count Palatine, held KephallÊnia, Zakynthos, and IthakÊ into the fourteenth century. Thus these lands, like Cyprus and Trebizond, were cut off from the Empire just before its fall, and the revolutions of Sicily cut them off equally from the Sicilian kingdom. ?Epeirot dominion of Manfred, 1258.? A more lasting power in these regions began under Manfred, who received with his Greek wife Corfu, Durazzo, and a strip of the Albanian coast, with the title of Lord of Romania. ?Of Charles of Anjou, 1266-69.
1272-1276.? This dominion passed to his conqueror Charles of Anjou, who further established a feudal superiority over the Epeirot despotat. ?1282.? But his plans were cut short by the revolution of the Vespers. ?History of Durazzo, 1322.
Duchy of Durazzo, 1333-1360.
1378.? Durazzo was lost and won more than once; but it came back to the Angevin house, to become a separate Angevin duchy, till it fell before the growth of the Albanian powers. Another branch held Lepanto—once Naupaktos—which lasted longer. ?1373-1386.? Corfu and Butrinto became immediate possessions of the Neapolitan crown till they found more lasting masters at Venice.

This Eastern dominion of the two Sicilian crowns, besides their influence of which we shall have presently to speak in southern Greece, tends to keep up the connexion of the Sicilian kingdoms with the Empire out of which they sprang. But it can hardly be called a geographical enlargement of the kingdoms themselves. ?Acre occupied by Charles of Anjou.? Still less can that name be given to the short occupation of Acre by Charles of Anjou in his character of one of the many Kings of Jerusalem. ?Malta granted to the Knights, 1530.? The Sicilian kingdoms themselves cannot be said to have gained or lost territory till Charles the Fifth granted Malta to the Knights of Saint John, till Philip the Second added the Stati degli Presidi to the Two Sicilies. The great revolution of all has taken place in our own day. The name of Sicily has for the first time been wiped from the European map. The island of HierÔn and Roger has sunk to form seven provinces of a prince who has not deigned to take the crown or the title of that illustrious realm.

§ 3. The Crusading States.

The Sicilian kingdom has much in common with the states formed by the crusaders in Asia and Eastern Europe. Both grew out of lands won by Western conquerors, partly from the Eastern Empire itself, partly from Mussulman holders of lands which had belonged to the Eastern Empire. But the order of the two processes is different. The Sicilian Normans began by conquering lands of the Empire, and then went on to win the island which the Saracens had torn from the Empire. The successive crusades first founded Christian states in the lands which the Mussulmans had won from the Empire, and then partitioned the Empire itself. The first crusaders undertook to hold their conquest as fiefs of the Eastern Empire. This condition was only very partially carried out; but the mere theory marks a stage in the relations between the Eastern Empire and the Latin powers of Palestine which has nothing answering to it in the case of Sicily.

First among these powers come the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Frank principalities which arose out of the first crusade. ?Cyprus.? The kingdom of Cyprus, which in some sort continued the Kingdom of Jerusalem, forms a link between the true crusading states and those which arose out of the partition of the Empire in the fourth crusade. ?Armenia.? And closely connected with this was the kingdom of Kilikian Armenia whose foundation we have already mentioned.[29] This last was an Eastern state which became to some extent Latinized. But the Syrian states, Cyprus, and the Latin powers which arose out of the partition of the Empire, all agree in being colonies of Western Europe in Eastern lands, states where the Latin settlers appear as a dominant race over the natives, of whatever blood or creed.

The great geographical result of the first crusade was to cut off the Mussulman powers from the seas of Asia and Eastern Europe. In the first years of the twelfth century the Christian powers, Byzantine, Armenian, and Latin, held the whole coast of Asia Minor and Syria. ?Extent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.? The Kingdom of Jerusalem, at its greatest extent, stretched along the coast from Berytos to Gaza. To the east it reached some way beyond Jordan and the Dead Sea, with a strip of territory reaching southward to the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. To the north lay two Latin states which, in the days of Komnenian revival, acknowledged the superiority of the Eastern Emperor. ?Tripolis.
Antioch.? These were the county of Tripolis, reaching northwards to the Syrian Alexandretta, and the more famous principality of Antioch. ?640.
968.
1081.
1098.
1268.? That great city, lost to Christendom in the first days of Saracen conquest, won back to the Empire in the Macedonian revival, lost to the Turk, won back by the Frank, remained a Christian principality long after the fall of Jerusalem, and did not pass again under Mussulman rule till late in the thirteenth century. ?Edessa.? North-east of Antioch lay the furthest of the Latin possessions, the inland county of Edessa. ?1128-1173.? This was the first to be lost; it fell under the power of the Turkish Attabegs of Syria. ?Loss of the lands beyond Jordan.? They cut short the kingdom of Jerusalem, taking away the territory east of Jordan. On their ruin arose the mightier power of Saladin, lord alike of Egypt and Syria. ?Jerusalem taken by Saladin, 1187.? He took Jerusalem, and the kingdom which still bore that name was cut down to the lands just round Tyre. ?Jerusalem recovered by Frederick the Second, 1228.? The crusades which followed won back Acre and various points, and at last the diplomacy of Frederick the Second won back from the Egyptian Sultan Tyre, Sidon, and the Holy City itself. A strip of coast running inland at two points, so as to take in Tiberias and Nazareth at one end, Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the other, formed the Eastern realm of the lord of Rome and Sicily. ?1239-1243.
Final loss of Jerusalem, 1244.? Lost and won again by the Christians, Jerusalem was finally won for Islam by the invasion of the Chorasmians from the shores of the Caspian. But for nearly fifty years longer the points on the coast were lost and won, as the Mussulman powers or fresh crusaders from Europe had the upper hand. ?Fall of Acre, 1291.? With the fall of Acre, the Latin dominion on the Syrian mainland came to an end. The land won by the Western Christians from the Mussulman went back to the disciples of the Prophet. The land won by the Western Christian from the Eastern, and the land where the Eastern Christian still maintained his independence, held out longer.

These were the kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia. ?Famagosta Genoese.? The frontier of Cyprus hardly admitted of geographical change, unless it were when, for a part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the city and haven of Famagosta passed to Genoa. ?Connexion between Cyprus and Jerusalem.? The kings of Cyprus however claimed the crown of Jerusalem, and sometimes, before the whole Syrian coast was lost, they really held this or that piece of territory on the mainland. ?Armenia acknowledges the Western Emperor, 1190.? Meanwhile the Armenian kingdom in some sort entered the Western world, when its king, after receiving one confirmation from the Eastern Emperor, thought it wise to receive another from the Western Emperor also. ?1342.? The kingdom, though sadly cut short by its Mussulman neighbours, lived on under native princes till the middle of the fourteenth century. ?Connexion between Armenia and Cyprus, 1393.? Then the fragments of the kingdom passed, first to a branch of the Cypriot royal family, and then to the reigning king of Cyprus. But the first joint reign was the last. ?End of Armenia and Cyprus, 1489.? The remnant of independent Armenia was swallowed up by the Mameluke lords of Syria, while Cyprus lingered on till Saint Mark and his commonwealth became the heirs of its last king.

The kingdom of Cyprus forms a link between the Latin states in Syria and those which arose in Romania after the crusading capture of Constantinople. And these last again fall into two classes. ?Frank principalities in Greece.
Possessions of the maritime commonwealths.? There are the Frank principalities on the mainland of Greece, and there are the lands, chiefly insular, which fell to the lot of the maritime commonwealths of the West and of their citizens. Among these the first place belongs to the great commonwealth which had now cast off all traces of allegiance to the Empire. ?Genoa.? Genoa, which had no share in the original partition of the Empire, obtained several points of Imperial territory, both for the commonwealth itself and for particular Genoese citizens. ?Venice.? But the part played by Genoa in the East is small beside the great and abiding dominion of Venice. No result of the partition was greater than the field which it gave to Venetian growth. ?Comparison between the two.? The position of the two commonwealths is different. Genoa was a mere stranger in the East; Venice was in a manner at home. Once an outlying possession of the Empire, her really great historical position is due to her share in its overthrow.

§ 4. The Eastern Dominion of Venice and Genoa.

We have already seen the origin of the Venetian state, and the beginning of Venetian rule over the Slavonic coasts of the Hadriatic. ?Connexion of the Dalmatian and Greek dominion of Venice.? The Eastern dominion of Venice now began, and, in a strictly geographical view, her Istrian and Dalmatian dominion cannot be separated from her Albanian and purely Greek dominion. But Venice did not become a great European power till she passed from the Slavonic lands whose connexion with the Empire was nominal or precarious into the Albanian and Greek lands which were among its immediate possessions. ?Effect of the partition on Venice.? The greatness of Venice dates from that partition of the Empire which was the surest proof that she had wholly cast aside her Byzantine allegiance. ?Comparison between Venice and Sicily.? In this point of view the history of Venice may be compared and contrasted with the history of Sicily. In each case, a part of the dominions of the Eastern Rome grew into a separate power; that power passed, so to speak, from Eastern Europe to Western, and, in its new Western character, it appeared as a conqueror in the Eastern lands. But, as Venice and Sicily parted from the Empire in different ways, so their later relations to the Empire were widely different. The Sicilian state began in actual conquests made by foreign invaders at the expense of the Empire. Venice was a dependency of the Empire which gradually drifted into independence. Thus Sicily became more thoroughly Western than Venice. The attempts of the kings, both of the whole Sicilian kingdom and of its divided parts, to establish an Eastern dominion were attacks from without, and were not really lasting. ?Venice inherits the position of the Empire.? But Venice, whose princes were lords of one fourth and one eighth of the Empire of Romania,[30] took up in some sort the position of the Empire itself. If she destroyed one bulwark against the Mussulman, she set up another. As long as Venice was really a great power, her main interests lay east of the Hadriatic. ?Importance of the fourth crusade in Venetian history.? The fourth crusade was her turning point. It was at once the beginning of her Greek dominion and the recovery of her Dalmatian dominion.

The scheme of partition gave to Venice a vast dominion, insular and continental. She was to be mistress of the Hadriatic and Ionian seas. To her were assigned, not only the islands off the west coast of the Empire, but the whole western coast itself, from the north of Albania to the southern point of PeloponnÊsos. She was to have some points in the ÆgÆan, among them Oreos and Karystos at the two ends of Euboia. She was to have her quarter of the capital, with a Thracian and an Asiatic dominion, including, according to some versions, the strange allotment of Lazia at the east of the Euxine[31]. ?Her actual possessions.? The actual possessions of Venice in the East have a very different look. Much of the territory which was assigned to the republic never became hers, while she obtained large possessions which were not assigned to her. ?Her dominion primarily Hadriatic.? But the main point, the dominion of the Hadriatic, was never forgotten, though some both of her earliest and of her latest conquests lay beyond its necessary range.

Among those possessions of Venice which were not assigned to her in the act of partition was her greatest and most lasting possession of all, the island of Crete. ?1645-1669.? This she won almost at the first moment of the conquest, and she kept it for more than four centuries and a half, till the war of Candia handed over all Crete, save two fortresses, to the Ottoman. ?Acquisition of Cyprus. 1489.? Before this loss, Saint Mark had won and lost another great island which lay altogether beyond the scheme of the Latin conquerors of Constantinople. Late in the fifteenth century the republic succeeded the Latin kings in the possession of Cyprus. ?Loss of Cyprus, 1571.? But this was held for less than a century. Cyprus, like Crete and Sicily, was a special scene of struggle between European and barbarian powers. But it shared the fate, not of Sicily but of Crete, and became the solid prize of the Ottoman, when Christendom won the barren laurels of Lepanto. ?Occupation of ThessalonikÊ, 1426-1430.? Another possession which lay out of the usual course of Venetian dominion was the short occupation of ThessalonikÊ. Bought of a Greek despot, it was after four years taken by the Turk. Had ThessalonikÊ been kept, it might have passed as a late compensation to the republic for the early loss of Hadrianople and her other Thracian territory.

But the true scene of Venetian enterprise in the East is primarily the Hadriatic, and next to that, the coasts and islands of the ÆgÆan. She remained both a Dalmatian and a Greek power down to the moment of her overthrow, and, at the moment of her overthrow, it was not eighty years since she had ceased to be a Peloponnesian and an ÆgÆan power. The Greek dominion of Venice was an enlargement of her Dalmatian dominion. ?Taking of Zara, 1202.? It is significant that Zara was taken—not for the first or the last time—on the way to the taking of Constantinople. ?Hadriatic dominion of Venice.? Already mistress, or striving to be mistress, of the northern part of the eastern coast of the Hadriatic, the partition of the Empire opened to Venice the hope of becoming mistress of the southern part. Mistress of the whole coast she never was at any one moment; one point was gained and another lost. But extension in those lands was steadily aimed at for more than seven hundred years, and the greater part of the eastern Hadriatic coast has been, at one time or another, under Venetian rule.

The story of Venetian dominion in these parts cannot be kept apart from the story of the neighbouring Slavonic lands. The states of Servia and Croatia were from the beginning the inland neighbours of the Dalmatian coast cities. ?Servian districts on the coast.? The river Tzettina may pass as the boundary between the Servian and Croatian states. Pagania on the Narenta, Zachloumia between the Narenta and Ragusa, Terbounia, represented by the modern Trebinje, the coast district of the Canali, Dioklea, taking in the modern Montenegro with the coast as far as the Drin—Skodra or Scutari on its lake, the harbours of Spizza, Antivari, and Dulcigno, were all originally Servian. ?The Dalmatian cities.? The Dalmatian coast cities, Dekatera or Cattaro, Raousion or Ragusa, Tragourion or TraÜ, Diadora, Jadera, or Zara, formed a Roman fringe on what had become a Slavonic body. It was not even a continuous fringe, as the Slaves came down to the sea at more than one point. ?Pagania.? Pagania above all, the land of the heathen Narentines, cut Roman Dalmatia into two marked parts. ?The Islands.? It even took in most of the great islands, Curzola—once Black Korkyra—Meleda, Lesina—once Pharos—and others. At the separation of the two Empires the Croatian power was strongest in those lands. ?Croatia under Charles the Great, 806-810.? The wars of Charles the Great left the coast cities to the Eastern Empire, while inland Dalmatia and Croatia passed under Frankish rule. ?825-830.? Presently Croatia won its independence of the Western Empire, while the coast cities were practically lost by the Eastern. ?Settlement under Basil the Macedonian, 868-878.? Under Basil the Macedonian the Imperial authority was admitted, in name at least, both by the cities and by the Croatian prince. ?First Venetian Conquest, 995-997.? More than a century later came the first Venetian conquest, which was looked on at Venice as a deliverance of the cities from Croatian rule. The pagan power on the Narenta was destroyed, and the Duke of Venice took the title of Duke of Dalmatia. But all this involved no formal separation from the Empire.[32] ?The cities under Croatia, 1052.
Dalmatian Kingdom, 1062.? Such a separation may be held to have taken place in the middle of the next century, when the cities again passed under Croatian rule, and when the taking of the title of King of Dalmatia by Croatian Kresimir may pass for an assertion of complete independence. ?Magyar Kingdom of Croatia, 1091;
of Dalmatia, 1102.? But the kingdoms, first of Croatia, then of Dalmatia, were presently swallowed up by the growing power of the Magyar. Then comes a time in which this city and that passes to and fro between Venice and Hungary. ?Croatia and Dalmatia restored to the Empire, 1171.
Dalmatia passes to Hungary.? Under Manuel KomnÊnos the whole of Croatia and Dalmatia was fully restored to the Empire; but ten years later the cities again passed to Hungary. This was their final separation from the Empire, and by this time Venice had thrown off all Byzantine allegiance.

From this time the history of Croatia forms part of the history of the Hungarian kingdom. The history of Dalmatia becomes part of the long struggle of Venice for Hadriatic dominion. For five hundred years the cities and islands of the whole Hadriatic coast were lost and won over and over again in the strifes of the powers of the mainland. These were in Dalmatia the Hungarian and Bosnian Kings; more to the south they were the endless powers which rose and fell in Albania and northern Greece. In after times the Ottoman took the place of all. And many of the cities were able, amid the disputes of their stronger neighbours, to make themselves independent commonwealths for a longer or shorter time. ?Independence of Ragusa;? Ragusa, above all, kept her independence during the whole time, modified in later times by a certain external dependence on the Turk. ?of Polizza.? And the almost invisible inland commonwealth of Polizza—a Slavonic San Marino—kept its separate being into the present century.

The crusading conquest of Zara was the beginning of this long struggle. The frontier fluctuated during the whole of the thirteenth century; early in the fourteenth the whole coast was again Venetian. Meanwhile the republic was striving to make good her position further south. The Epeirot despotat long hindered her establishment either on the coasts or the islands of northern Greece. ?Final conquest of Durazzo and Corfu, 1206.
1216.? Durazzo, the central point between the older and the newer Venetian range, was won, along with Corfu, in the earliest days of the conquest; but they were presently lost, to come back again in after times. ?History of Corfu.? The famous island of Korkyra or Corfu has a special history of its own. No part of Greece has been so often cut off from the Greek body. Under Pyrrhos and AgathoklÊs, no less than under Michael Angelos and Roger, it obeyed an Epeirot or a Sicilian master. It was among the first parts of Greece to pass permanently under Roman dependence. ?Second Venetian conquest of Corfu, 1386-1797.? At last, after yet another turn of Sicilian rule, it passed for four hundred years to the great commonwealth. In our own day Corfu was not added to free Greece till long after the deliverance of Attica and PeloponnÊsos. But, under so many changes of foreign masters, the island has always remained part of Europe and of Christendom. Alone among the Greek lands, Corfu has never passed under barbarian rule. ?1716.
1800.? It has seen the Turk only, for one moment as an invader, for another moment as a nominal overlord.

The second Venetian occupation of Corfu was the beginning of a great advance among the neighbouring islands. But, during the hundred and eighty years between the two occupations, the main fields of Venetian action lay more to the north and more to the south. The Greek acquisitions of the republic at this time were in PeloponnÊsos and the ÆgÆan islands. ?Modon and Coron, 1206.? On the mainland she won, at the very beginning of Latin settlement in the East, the south-western peninsula of PeloponnÊsos, with the towns of MethÔnÊ and KÔrÔnÊ—otherwise Modon and Coron—which she held for nearly three hundred years. ?History of Euboia.? Among the ÆgÆan islands Venice began very early to win an influence in the greatest of their number, that of Euboia, often disguised under the specially barbarous name of Negropont.[33] The history of that island, the endless shiftings between its Latin lords and the neighbouring powers of all kinds, is the most perplexed part of the perplexed Greek history of the time. ?Complete occupation of Euboia, 1390.? Venice, mixed up in its affairs throughout, obtained in the end complete possession, but not till after the second occupation of Corfu. ?Turkish conquest of Euboia, 1470.? The island was kept till the Turkish conquest eighty years later. Several other islands were held by the republic at different times. ?Loss of the ÆgÆan islands, 1718.? Of these TÊnos and Mykonos were not finally lost till Venice was in the eighteenth century confined to the western seas.

Between the first and the second occupation of Corfu, the Venetian power in Dalmatia had risen and fallen again. ?Peace of Zara, 1358.
Dalmatia Hungarian.? By the peace of Zara, Lewis the Great of Hungary shut out Venice altogether from the Dalmatian coasts, and, as Dalmatian King, he required the Venetian Duke to give up his Dalmatian title. ?New advance of Venice.? Later in the century Venice again gained ground, and her Dalmatian, Albanian, and Greek possessions began to draw near together, and to form one whole, though never a continuous whole. ?1378-1455.
Recovery of Dalmatia.? In the space of about eighty years, amid many fluctuations towards Hungary, Bosnia, and Genoa—a new claimant called into rivalry by the war of Chioggia—Venice again became mistress of the greater part of Dalmatia. Some districts however formed part of the Duchy of Saint Sava, and Hungary kept part of the inland territory, with the fortress of Clissa. The point where the Hadriatic coast turns nearly due south may be taken as the boundary of the lasting and nearly continuous dominion of the Republic; but for the present the Venetian power went on spreading far south of that point. ?Advance in Albania and Greece, 1392.? On the second occupation of Corfu followed the acquisition of Durazzo, Alessio, and of the Albanian Skodra or Scutari. ?1401.
1407.? Butrinto and the ever memorable Parga put themselves under Venetian protection, and Lepanto was ceded by a Prince of Achaia. ?1388.? In PeloponnÊsos the Messenian towns were still held, and to them were now added Argos and its port of Nauplia, known in Italian as Napoli di Romania. ?1408-1415.
1419.
1423.? Patras was held for a few years, Monembasia was won, and the isle of Aigina, which might almost pass for part of PeloponnÊsos. On the other side of Greece, the possession of Corfu led to the acquisition of the other so-called Ionian Islands. ?The Western Islands. 1449.? The prince of KephallÊnia, of Zakynthos or Zante, and of Leukadia or Santa Maura, found it to his interest, for fear of the advancing Ottoman, to put his dominions under the overlordship of Saint Mark.

This marks an epoch in the history of Venice and of Europe. The championship of Christendom against the Turk now passes from the New Rome to the hardly less Byzantine city in the Lagoons. The short occupation of ThessalonikÊ may pass for the beginning of the struggle. Later in the fifteenth century, Venice and the Turk were meeting at every point. ?Loss of Argos, 1463.? In PeloponnÊsos, Argos was first lost to the Turk; at the same moment he appeared far to the north, and gradually occupied the Bosnian and Hungarian districts of Dalmatia. ?1505-1699.? Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the inland districts and the smaller towns were lost over and over again, but the Republic always kept the chief coast cities, Zara, Sebenico, and Spalato. ?Losses of Venice.? Meanwhile, to the south of Dalmatia, the Venetian power went back everywhere, except in the western islands. ?1474-1478.? On the mainland Croja, the city of Scanderbeg, was held for a while. ?1479.? But both Croja and Skodra were won by Mahomet the Conqueror, and the treaty which ended this war left to the Republic nothing on the coast of Albania and Northern Greece, save Durazzo, Antivari, and Butrinto. ?1500.? The treaty which followed the next war took away Durazzo, Butrinto, and Lepanto. ?The Western Islands, 1481-1483.? A series of revolutions in the islands of which the Republic already held the overlordship placed them under her immediate dominion, to be struggled for against the Turk. ?1485.
1502.? By the next peace Zakynthos was kept, on payment of a tribute to the Sultan; KephallÊnia passed to the Turk, to be won back seventeen years later, and then to be permanently kept. ?1502-1504.? Leukadia was at the same time won for a moment and lost again. ?Loss of the Peloponnesian fortresses, 1502.
1540.? In PeloponnÊsos Modon and Koron were lost along with Durazzo and Lepanto, and the great naval war with Suleiman cost the Republic her last Peloponnesian possessions, Nauplia and Monembasia, together with all her ÆgÆan islands, except TÊnos and Mykonos. The strictly Greek dominion of Venice was now for a hundred and forty years confined to the islands, and, after the loss of Cyprus and Crete, almost wholly to the Western islands. But after the loss of Crete came a revival of the Venetian power, like one of the old revivals of the Empire. ?Venetian conquest of PeloponnÊsos, 1685-1699.? The great campaigns of Francesco Morosini, confirmed by the peace of Carlowitz, freed all PeloponnÊsos from the Turk, and added it to the dominion of Saint Mark.

The same treaty confirmed Venice in the possession of the greater part of Dalmatia. ?Loss of PeloponnÊsos, 1715-1718.? The next war cost her the whole of PeloponnÊsos, her two Cretan fortresses, and her two remaining ÆgÆan islands. She now withdrew wholly to the western side of Greece, where she had again won Leukadia and Butrinto, and had enlarged her dominion by the acquisition of Prevesa. ?Extent of Venetian dominion in Greece in the last century.? During the last century the Venetian possessions in Greece consisted of the seven so-called Ionian islands, with the continental posts of Butrinto, Prevesa, and Parga.

The Dalmatian territory of the Republic during the same time consisted of a considerable inland district in the north-east, and of the whole coast down to Budua, except where the territory of independent Ragusa broke the continuity of her rule. ?Ragusan frontier.? Ragusa was so jealous of the mightier commonwealth that she preferred the Turk as a neighbour. At two points of the coast, at Klek at the bottom of the gulf formed by the long peninsula of Sabbioncello, and again at Sutorina on the Bocche, the Ottoman territory came down to the sea, so as to isolate the dominion of Ragusa from the Venetian possessions on either side. Such was the frontier of the two Hadriatic commonwealths down to the days when, first Venice and then Ragusa, passed away.

Meanwhile, besides the direct possessions of the Venetian commonwealth, there were other lands within the former dominions of the Eastern Empire which were held by Venetian lords, as vassals either of the republic or of the Empire of Romania. It would be endless to trace out the revolutions of every ÆgÆan island; but one among the few which claim our notice became the seat of a dynasty which proved, next to the Venetian commonwealth itself, the most long-lived Latin power in the Greek world. ?The Duchy of Naxos.? This is the duchy variously known as that of Naxos, of the DÔdekannÊsos, and of the Archipelago, the barbarous name given to the ÆgÆan or White Sea.[34] ?1207.
1566.? Founded in the early years of Latin settlement by the Venetian Marco Sanudo, the island duchy lived on as a Latin state, commonly as a vassal or tributary state of some greater power, till the last half of the sixteenth century. ?Annexed by the Turk, 1579.
1617.? Shorn of many of its islands by its Ottoman overlord, granted afresh to a Jewish duke, it passed thirteen years later under the immediate dominion of the Sultan. Most of the Kyklades were either parts of this duchy or fiefs held of it by other Venetian families. All came into the hands of the Turk; but some of the very smallest remained merely tributary, and not fully annexed, into the seventeenth century.

The year which saw the Naxian duchy pass from Latin to Hebrew hands saw the fall of the most remarkable of the Genoese settlements in the Greek lands. These settlements, like those of Venice, formed two classes, those which were possessions of the Genoese commonwealth itself and those which came into the hands of Genoese citizens. ?1304.? Genoa had no share in the fourth Crusade; she had therefore no share in the division of the Empire, though, after the restoration of Byzantine rule, her colony of Galata made her almost a sharer in the capital of the Empire. ?Possessions of Genoa on the Euxine, 1461.? But the seat of direct Genoese dominion in the East was not the ÆgÆan but the Euxine. On the southern coast of that sea the republic held Amastris and Amisos, and in the Tauric ChersonÊsos was her great colony of Kaffa. ?1475.? The Euxine dominion of Genoa came to an end during the later half of the fifteenth century; but it outlived the Empires both of Constantinople and of Trebizond.

The ÆgÆan dominion of the citizens of Genoa was longer lived than the Euxine dominion of Genoa herself. ?Lesbos. 1354-1462.? The family of Gattilusio received Lesbos as an Imperial fief in the fourteenth century, and kept it till after the fall of Constantinople. But the most remarkable Genoese settlement in the ÆgÆan was that of Chios. ?The Zaccaria at Chios. 1304-1346.
The Maona. 1346-1566.? First held by princes of the Genoese house of Zaccaria, the island, with some of its neighbours, passed into the hands of a Genoese commercial company or Maona, a body somewhat like our own East India Company. ?1566.? Samos, KÔs, and PhÔkaia on the mainland, came at different times under their power, and Chios did not fall under the Ottoman yoke till the same year as the duchy of Naxos.

One more insular dominion remains, chiefly famous as the possession, not indeed of a commonwealth, but of an order. ?Revolutions of Rhodes.? In a few years of the thirteenth century the island of Rhodes passed through all possible revolutions. ?1233.? In the first moment of the Latin conquest, it became an independent Greek principality, like Epeiros and Trebizond. ?1246.? Then it admitted the overlordship of the Nicene Emperors. ?1249.? Seized by Genoa, it was presently won back to the Empire, till seventy years later it was again seized by the Knights of Saint John. ?Establishment of the Knights, 1310.
1315.? From Rhodes as a centre, the order established its dominion over KÔs and some other islands, and on some points of the Asiatic coast, especially their famous fortress of Halikarnassos. ?1480.
1522.? They beat back Mahomet the Conqueror, but they yielded to Suleiman the Lawgiver forty years later. ?Their removal to Malta, 1530.? Banished from Rhodes, the order received Malta from Charles the Fifth as a fief of his Sicilian kingdom. We are thus brought back to the island which had been lost to the Eastern Empire for seven hundred years. ?1566.? The knights in their new home beat back their former conqueror Suleiman, and kept their island till the times of confusion. ?Revolutions of Malta.
1814.? Held by France, held by England, held, nominally at least, by its own Sicilian overlord, this fragment of the Empire of Leo and of the kingdom of Roger finally passed at the peace under the acknowledged rule of England.

§ 5. The Principalities of the Greek Mainland.

The Greek possessions of Venice, of Genoa, and of the Knights of Saint John, consisted mainly of islands and detached points of coast. The Venetian conquest of PeloponnÊsos was the only exception on a great scale. In this they are distinguished from the several powers, Greek and Frank, which arose on the Greek mainland. We have already heard, and we shall hear again, of the Greek despotat of Epeiros, which for a moment grew into an Empire of ThessalonikÊ. Among the Latin powers two rose to European importance. ?Duchy of Athens.
Principality of Achaia.? These are the duchy of Athens in central Greece—in Hellas, according to the Byzantine nomenclature—and the principality of Achaia or MÔraia in PeloponnÊsos. ?Use of the name MÔraia.? This last name, of uncertain origin,[35] has come, in its Italian shape, to be a modern name of the peninsula itself. But the name of MÔraia seems strictly to belong to the domain lands of the principality, and never to go beyond the bounds of the principality, which at no time took in the whole of PeloponnÊsos.

Both these powers were founded in the first days of the Latin conquest, and the Turk did not finally annex the territories of either till after the fall of Constantinople. But while the Athenian duchy lived on to become itself the prize of Mahomet the Conqueror, the lands of the Achaian principality had already gone back into Greek hands. ?Lordship of Athens. 1204-1205.? The lordship of Athens, founded by Otho de la Roche, was first a fief of the kingdom of ThessalonikÊ, then of the Empire of Romania. ?The Duchy.? But it was by the grant of Saint Lewis of France that the title of Great Lord[36] was exchanged for that of Duke. ?1260.
The Catalan Conquest, 1311.? The duchy fell into the hands of the Catalan Great Company, who in central Greece grew from mere ravagers into territorial occupiers. ?The Sicilian Dukes.? They brought with them the Thessalian land of Neopatra, and transferred the nominal title of Duke of Athens and Neopatra to princes of the Sicilian branch of the House of Aragon. Thus the two claimants of the Sicilian crown were brought face to face on old Greek ground. ?Dukes of the house of Acciauoli.? The duchy next passed to the Florentine house of Acciauoli, which already held Corinth, Megara, SikyÔn, and the greater part of Argolis. But their Peloponnesian dominion passed to the Byzantine lords of the peninsula, and Neopatra fell into the hands of the Turk. ?1390.? The Athenian duchy itself, taking in Attica and BoiÔtia, lived on, the vassal in turn of the Angevin king at Naples, of the Greek despot of PeloponnÊsos, and of the Ottoman Sultan. ?Ottoman conquest. 1456-1460.
1466.
1687.? Annexed at last to the Ottoman dominions, Athens remained in bondage till our own day, save only two momentary occupations by Venice, one soon after the first conquest, the other in the great war of Morosini.

The smaller principalities of SalÔna and Bodonitza play their part in the history of the Athenian duchy; but we turn to the chief Latin power of PeloponnÊsos, the principality of Achaia. The shiftings of its dynasties and feudal relations are endless; its geographical history is simpler. The peninsula was, at the time of the Latin conquest, already beginning to fall away from the Empire. ?1205.? King Boniface of ThessalonikÊ had to win the land from its Greek lord LeÔn Sgouros. The princes of the house of Champlitte and Villehardouin were his vassals. They had to struggle with the Venetian settlement in MessÊnia, and with the Greek despot of Epeiros, who, oddly enough, held Corinth, Argos, and Nauplia. ?1210-1212.? These last towns were won by the Latins, and became an Achaian fief in the hands of Otho of Athens. ?Its greatest extent. 1248.? Before the end of half a century, the conquest of the whole peninsula, save the Venetian possessions, was completed by the taking of Monembasia. Things looked as if, now that the Latin power was waning at Constantinople, a stronger Latin power had arisen in PeloponnÊsos. A crowd of Greek lands, Zakynthos, Naxos, Euboia, Athens, even Epeiros and ThessalonikÊ, acknowledged at one time or another the supremacy of Achaia. But Latin Achaia, like Latin Constantinople, had to yield to revived Greek energy. ?Recovery of lands in PeloponnÊsos by the Empire 1262.? The Empire won back the three LacedÆmonian fortresses,[37] and presently made Kalabryta in northern Arkadia a Greek outpost. ?1263.? Here the Greek advance stopped for a while.

Before the end of the century the Frank principality lost its independence. It passed into vassalage to the Angevin crown, and was held, sometimes by the Neapolitan kings themselves, sometimes by princes of their house—some of them nominal Emperors of Romania—sometimes by princes of Savoy, who carried the Achaian name into Northern Italy.[38] ?Dismemberment of the principality. 1337.? In the course of the fourteenth century the principality crumbled away. ?1356.? Patras became an ecclesiastical principality under the overlordship of the Pope of the Old Rome. Argos and its port became a separate lordship. ?1358.? Both of these passed for a longer or a shorter time under the power of Venice. Corinth and the north-east corner of the peninsula passed to the Acciauoli. ?Byzantine advance. 1348-1383.? Meantime the Byzantine province grew. For some while, under despots of the house of KantakouzÊnos, it might almost pass for an independent Greek state. ?1381.
1387.
1442.? Notwithstanding the inroads of the Navarrese, the second Spanish invaders of Greece, and the first appearance of the Ottoman, the Greek power advanced, till it took in all PeloponnÊsos save the Venetian towns. ?Conquests of Constantine Palaiologos.? The last Constantine even appeared as a conqueror at Athens and in central Greece. ?1458-1460.? Then came more Ottoman inroads, dismemberment, Albanian colonization, final annexation by the Turk. ?Successive Turkish conquests of PeloponnÊsos.? But the last conqueror has been twice driven to conquer PeloponnÊsos afresh. The first revolt under Venetian support was crushed a few years after the first conquest. ?1463-1540.
1670.
1685.? Then the Turk gradually gathered in the Venetian ports, and the whole peninsula was his, save so far as Maina kept on a kind of wild independence almost down to the last Venetian conquest. The complete and unbroken possession of all PeloponnÊsos by the Ottoman has never filled up the whole of any one century.

We have seen how the despotat of Epeiros parted away from the momentary Empire of ThessalonikÊ. The despots, like their neighbours, often found it convenient to acknowledge the overlordship of some other power, Venice, Nikaia, Sicily, or Achaia. The boundaries of their dominions were greatly cut short by the advance of the restored Empire and by the cessions to Manfred of Sicily. ?Dismemberment of the despotat.? A state was left which took in old Epeiros, Akarnania, and AitÔlia, save the points on the coast which were held by other powers. Arta, the old Ambrakia, was, as in the days of Pyrrhos, its head. ?1271-1318.
1309.? Another branch reigned in Great Blachia or Thessaly, with its capital at Neopatra, a capital presently lost to the Catalan invaders. ?1318.
1339.
Servian conquest. 1331-1355.? Next the greater part of Thessaly, and then Epeiros itself, were recovered by the Empire, and then all gradually passed under the Servian power. On the break-up of that power came a time of utter confusion and endless shiftings, which has however one marked feature. ?Advance of the Albanians.? The Albanian race now comes fully to the front. Albanian settlers press into all the southern lands, and Albanian principalities stand forth on a level with those held by Greek and Latin lords.

The chief Albanian power which arose within the bounds of the despotat was the house of Thopia in northern Epeiros. ?1366.? They called themselves Kings of Albania; they won Durazzo from the Angevins, and their power lasted till that duchy passed to Venice. ?Servian dynasty in Epeiros. 1359.? To the south of them, in southern Epeiros, Akarnania, and Aitolia, reigned a Servian dynasty, whose prince Stephen Urosh added Thessaly to his dominions, and called himself Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks.[39] ?1363.? His western dominion passed from him. A Servian despot ruled at JÔannina, and an Albanian despot at Arta. ?Kingdom of Thessaly.
Turkish conquest.
1393.? But Thessaly went on as a kingdom, taking in the greater part of the land anciently so called,[40] a kingdom which was the first Hellenic land to pass under the power of the Turk. ?1396.? Neopatra and SalÔna followed, and the Ottoman power stretched to the Corinthian gulf, and parted asunder the still independent states of Western Greece from Attica and PeloponnÊsos.

In Epeiros the Servian and Albanian despots had both to yield to Italian houses. ?Buondelmonti in Northern Epeiros.? Northern Epeiros passed to the Florentine house of Buondelmonte. ?The house of Tocco.? To the south arose a dynasty of greater interest, the Beneventan house of Tocco, the last independent princes in Western Greece. ?1357.? They first, as counts palatine, held KephallÊnia and Zakynthos as a fief of the Latin Empire. ?1362.? Then they won Leukadia with the ducal title. ?1394.? They next began a continental dominion, first for a moment in PeloponnÊsos, then more lastingly in the lands near their island duchy. ?1405-1418.? Duke Charles of Leukadia gradually won all Epeiros save the Venetian posts; and he, his wife, and his heirs were called Despot of Romania, King of Epeiros, and even Empress of the Romans.[41] ?Its effects.? This dynasty, though not long-lived on the mainland, is of real and abiding importance in the history of the Greek nation. The advance of the Albanians was checked; their settlements were thrust further north and further south, while the Beneventan dominions became and remained purely Greek. ?Venetian and Turkish occupation. 1430.? Soon after the death of Duke Charles, the Turk won JÔannina and the greater part of Epeiros; but his son kept Arta and its neighbourhood for nineteen years as a vassal of Venice. ?1449.? Then the dominions of Duke Charles became the Turkish province of Karlili. ?1449-1479.
1481-1483.? The house of Tocco kept its island possessions for thirty years longer. Then they too passed to the Turk, to be recovered for a moment by their own Duke, and then to be struggled for between Turk and Venetian.

Meanwhile the strictly Albanian lands, from the Akrokeraunian point northwards, were subdued by the Turk, were freed, and subdued again. ?1414.
Turkish conquest. 1431.? Early in the fifteenth century the Turk won all Albania, except the Venetian posts. ?Revolt. 1448.? Seventeen years later came a revolt and a successful defence of the country, whose later stages are ennobled by the name of George Kastriota of Croja, the famous Scanderbeg. ?Death of Scanderbeg. 1467.? His death gave his land back to the Ottoman, while Croja itself was for a while held by Venice. The whole Greek and Albanian mainland was now divided between Turk and Venetian.

Lastly, we must not forget that Greek state which outlived all the rest. Far away, on the furthest bounds of the elder Empire, the Empire of Trebizond had the honour of being the last remaining fragment of the Eastern Roman power. The rule of the Grand KomnÊnos survived the fall of Constantinople; it survived the conquest of Athens and PeloponnÊsos.

We have seen the origin and early history of this power. After its western dominions passed to the Nicene Emperors and SinÔpÊ to the Turk, the Trapezuntine Empire was confined to the eastern part of the south coast of the Euxine, stretching over part of Iberia, and keeping the Imperial possessions in the Tauric ChersonÊsos. Sometimes independent, sometimes tributary to Turks or Mongols, the power of Trebizond lived on for nearly eighty years as a distinct and rival Roman Empire. ?Agreement between Constantinople and Trebizond, 1281.? Then, when Constantinople was again in Greek hands, John KomnÊnos of Trebizond was content to acknowledge Michael Palaiologos as Emperor of the Romans, and to content himself with the style of ‘Emperor of all the East, of Iberia, and of Perateia.’ This last name means the province beyond the sea, in the Tauric ChersonÊsos or Crim. We thus see that the style of ‘Emperor of the East,’ which it is sometimes convenient to give to him of Constantinople, strictly belongs to him of Trebizond. The new Empire of the East suffered many fluctuations of territory, chiefly at the hands of the neighbouring Turkomans. Chalybia, the land of iron, was lost; the coast-line was split asunder; the Empire bowed to Timour. ?Turkish conquest of Trebizond; 1461.? But the capital and a large part of the coast bore up to the last, and did not pass under the Ottoman yoke till eight years after the fall of Constantinople. ?of Perateia. 1472.? The outlying dependency of Perateia or Gothia was not conquered till eleven years later still. As the Tauric ChersonÊsos had sheltered the last Greek commonwealth, it sheltered also the last Greek principality.

§ 6. The Slavonic States.

The Greek and Frank states of which we have just been speaking arose, for the most part they directly arose, out of the Latin partition of the Empire. ?Effects of the partition of the Empire on the Slavonic states.? On the Slavonic powers the effect of that partition was only indirect. Servia and Bulgaria had begun their second career of independence before the partition. The partition touched them only so far as the splitting up of the Empire into a number of small states took away all fear of their being again brought under its obedience. In Croatia and Dalmatia all trace of the Imperial power passed away. The Magyar held the inland parts; the question was whether the Magyar or the Venetian should hold the coast.

The chief independent Slavonic powers were those of Servia and Bulgaria. Of these, Servia represents the unmixed Slave, as unmixed, that is, as any nation can be; Bulgaria represents the Slave brought under some measure of Turanian influence and mixture. The history of the purer race is the longer and the more brilliant. The Servian people made a longer resistance to the Turk than the Bulgarian people; they were the first to throw off his yoke; one part of them never submitted to his yoke at all. ?Extent of Servia.? The oldest Servia, as we have seen, stretched far beyond the bounds of the present principality, and had a considerable Hadriatic sea-board, though interrupted by the Roman cities. Among the Zupans or princes of the many Servian tribes, the chief were the northern Grand-Zupans of Desnica on the Drina, and the southern Grand-Zupans of Dioklea or Rascia, so called from their capital Rassa, the modern Novi-Bazar. This last principality was the germ of the historical kingdom of Servia. ?Relations to the Empire.? But till the fall of the old Empire, the Imperial claims over Servia were always asserted and were often enforced. ?1018.? Indeed common enmity to the Bulgarian, the momentary conqueror of Servia,[42] formed a tie between Servia and the Empire down to the complete incorporation of Servia by Basil the Second. ?1040.
Conquest by Manuel KomnÊnos; 1148.? The successful revolt of Servia made room for more than one claimant of Servian dominion and kingship; but the Imperial claims remained, to be enforced again in their fulness by Manuel KomnÊnos. At last the Latin conquest relieved Servia from all danger on the part of Constantinople; Servia stood forth as an independent power under the kings of the house of Nemanja.

They had to struggle against more dangerous enemies to the north in the Kings of Hungary. ?Loss of Bosnia.? Even before the last Imperial conquest, the Magyars had cut away the western part of Servia, the land beyond the Drina, known as Bosnia or Rama. Under the last name it gave the Hungarian princes one of their royal titles. ?1286.? This land was more than once won back by Servia; but its tendency was to separation and to growth at the cost of Servia. ?1326.? In the first half of the fourteenth century, Bosnia was enlarged by the Servian lands bordering on the Dalmatian coast, the lands of Zachloumia and Terbounia, which were never permanently won back. So the lands on the Save, between the Drina and the Morava, taking in the modern capital of Belgrade, passed, in the endless shiftings of the frontier, at one time to Bulgaria and at another to Hungary. ?Servian advance eastward and southward.? Servia, thus cut short to the north and west, was driven to advance southward and eastward, at the expense of Bulgaria and of the powers which had taken the place of the Empire on the lower Hadriatic coast. From the latter part of the thirteenth century onwards, Servia grew to be the greatest power in the south-eastern peninsula. ?Her seaboard. 1296.? Shorn of her old Hadriatic seaboard, she gained a new and longer one, stretching from the mouths of Cattaro to Durazzo. ?1319-1322.? Durazzo itself twice fell into Servian hands; but at the time of the highest power of Servia that city remained an Angevin outpost on the Servian mainland. ?Reign of Stephen Dushan, 1331-1355.? That highest power was reached in the reign of Stephen Dushan, who spread his dominions far indeed at the cost of Greeks and Franks, at the cost of his old Slavonic neighbours and of the rising powers of Albania. In the new Servian capital of Skopia, Skoupi, or Skopje, the Tzar Stephen took an Imperial crown as Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. ?1346.
The Servian Empire.? The new Empire stretched uninterruptedly from the Danube to the Corinthian gulf. At one end Bosnia was won back; at the other end the Servian rule was spread over AitÔlia and Thessaly, over Macedonia and Thrace as far as Christopolis. It only remained to give a head to this great body, and to make New Rome the seat of the Servian power.

But the Servian tzardom broke in pieces at the death of the great Servian Tzar; and before he died, the Ottoman was already in Europe. In fact the historical result of the great advance of Servia was to split up the whole of the Greek and Slavonic lands, and to leave no power of either race able to keep out the barbarian. We have seen how the titles of Stephen’s Empire lived for a generation in the Greek part of his dominions.[43] In Macedonia and Thrace several small principalities sprang up, and a power arose at Skodra of which we shall have to speak again. To the north Bosnia fell away, and carried Zachloumia with it. ?Later Kingdom of Servia.? Servia itself comes out of the chaos as a separate kingdom, a kingdom wholly cut off from the sea, but stretching southward as far as Prisrend, and again holding the lands between the Drina and the Morava. ?Conquests and deliverances of Servia. 1375.? The Turk first took Nish, and brought the kingdom under tribute. ?1389.? The overthrow at Kossovo made Servia wholly dependent. ?1403.? With the fall of Bajazet it again became free for a generation. ?1438.? Then the Turk won the whole land except Belgrade. ?1442.
1444.? Then the campaign of Huniades restored Servia as a free kingdom; the event of Varna again brought her under tribute. ?1459.? At last Mahomet the Conqueror incorporated all Servia, except Belgrade, with his dominions.

The history of Bosnia, as a really separate power, holding its own place in Europe, begins with the break-up of the momentary Servian Empire. ?Its origin, 1376.? The Ban Stephen Tvartko became the first king of the last Bosnian dynasty, under the nominal superiority of the Hungarian crown. Thus, at the very moment of the coming of the Turk, a kingdom of Latin creed and associations became the first power among the south-eastern Slaves. For a while it seemed as if Bosnia was going to take the place which had been held by Servia. ?Greatest extent of Bosnia, 1382.? The Bosnian kingdom at its greatest extent took in all the present Bosnia and Herzegovina, with, it would seem, all Dalmatia except Zara, and the north-west corner of Servia stretching beyond the Drina. But the Bosnian power was broken at Kossovo as well as that of Servia. ?Loss of Jayce, 1391.? In the time of confusion which followed, Jayce in the north-west corner became a power connected with both Hungary and Bosnia, while the Turk established himself in the extreme south. The Turk was driven out for a while, but the kingdom was dismembered to form a new Latin power. ?Duchy of Saint Saba or Herzegovina. 1440.? The Lord of the old Zachloumia, a Bosnian vassal, transferred his homage to the Austrian king of the Romans, and, became sovereign Duke of Saint Sava, perhaps rather of Primorie. Thus arose the state of Herzegovina, that is the Duchy, commemorating in its half-German name the relation of its prince to the Western Empire. But neither kingdom nor duchy was long-lived. ?1449.? Within ten years after the separation of Herzegovina the Turk held western Bosnia. ?Turkish conquest of Bosnia, 1463;? Fourteen years later he subdued the whole kingdom. ?of Herzegovina, 1483.? The next year the duchy became tributary, and twenty years after the conquest of Bosnia it was incorporated with the now Turkish province of Bosnia. But in the long struggle between Venice and the Turk various parts of its territory, especially the coast, came under the power of the Republic.

Meanwhile one small Slavonic land, one surviving fragment of the great Servian dominion, maintained its independence through all changes.

In the break-up of the Servian Empire, a small state, with Skodra for its capital, formed itself in the district of Zeta, reaching northwards as far as Cattaro. ?Dominion of the house of Balsa at Skodra.
Loss of Skodra, 1394.? For a moment its princes of the house of Balsa spread their power over all Northern Albania; but the new state was cut short on all sides by Bosnia, Venice, and the Turk, and Skodra itself was sold to Venice. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the state took a more definite shape, though with a smaller territory, under a new dynasty, that of Tzernojevich. ?Beginning of Montenegro, 1456.? This independent remnant answered to the modern Tzernagora or Montenegro, with a greater extent to the east and with a small seaboard taking in Antivari. ?Establishment of Tzetinje, 1488.? Its capital Zabljak was more than once lost and won from the Turk; at the end of the century it was found hopeless to defend the lower districts, and prince and people withdrew to the natural fortress of the Black Mountain with its newly founded capital of Tzetinje. ?The Vladikas, 1499.
Lay princes, 1851.? The last prince of the dynasty resigned his power to the metropolitan bishop, and Montenegro remained an independent state under its Vladikas or hereditary prelates, till their dominion was in our own time again exchanged for that of temporal princes. During all this time the territory of Montenegro was simply so much of the mountain region as could maintain its independence against the ceaseless attacks of the Turk. Yet Montenegro, as the ally of England and Russia, bore her part in the great European struggle, and won for herself a haven and a capital at Cattaro. ?1813.
1858.? Her allies stood by while Cattaro was filched by the Austrian; and, more than forty years later, when a definite frontier was first traced, Western diplomacy so traced it as to give the Turk an inlet on both sides to the unconquered Christian land. ?Montenegrin conquests, 1876-1877.? In the latest times the Montenegrin arms set free a large part of the kindred land of Herzegovina, and won back a considerable part of the lost territory to the east, including part of the old seaboard as far as Dulcigno. ?1878.? Then Western diplomacy drew another frontier, which forbade any large incorporation of the kindred Slavonic districts, while a small extension was allowed in that part of the lost ancient territory which had become Albanian. Of three havens won by Montenegro in the war, Dulcigno has been given back to the Turk. ?Spizza.? Austria has been allowed to filch Spizza, as she had before filched Ragusa and Cattaro. The third haven, that of Antivari, was left to those who had won it under such restrictions as armed wrong knows how to impose on the weaker power of right.

The continued independence of Montenegro enables the Servian branch of the Slavonic race to say that their nation has never been wholly enslaved. ?The third Bulgarian kingdom.? The case has been different with Bulgaria. We have seen the origin of the third Bulgarian, or rather Vlacho-Bulgarian, kingdom which won its independence of the Empire in the last years of the twelfth century. From that time to the Turkish conquest, one or more Bulgarian states always existed. And throughout the thirteenth century, the Bulgarian kingdom, though its boundaries were ever shifting, was one of the chief powers of the south-eastern peninsula.

The oldest Bulgaria between Danube and HÆmus was the first to throw off the Byzantine dominion, and the last to come under the power of the Turk. ?Bulgarian advance. 1197-1207.? But the new Bulgarian power grew fast, and for a while called back the days of Simeon and Samuel. Under Joannice the frontier stretched far to the north-west, over lands which gradually passed to Servia, taking in Skupi, Nish, and even Belgrade. ?Dominion of John Asan. 1218-1241.? Under the Tzar John Asan the new Bulgaria, the kingdom of Tirnovo, reached its greatest extent. The greater part of Thrace, Philippopolis and the whole land of RhodopÊ or Achridos, Hadrianople itself, Macedonia too stretching away to Samuel’s Ochrida and to Albanon or Elbassan, were all under his rule. If his realm did not touch the Hadriatic or the ÆgÆan, it came very near to both; but ThessalonikÊ at least always remained to its Frank and Greek lords.[44] But this great power, like so many other powers of its kind, did not survive its founder. ?Decline of Bulgaria. 1246-1257.? The revived Greek states, the Nicene Empire and the Epeirot despotat, cut the Bulgarian realm short. The disputes of an older and of a later time went on.[45] ?Shiftings of the frontier.? There was undisputed Bulgaria north of HÆmus, an ever-shifting frontier south of it. The inland Philippopolis, and the coast towns of Anchialos and MesÊmbria, passed backwards and forwards between Greek and Bulgarian. ?Philippopolis finally Bulgarian. 1344-1366.? The last state of things, immediately before the common overthrow, gave Philippopolis to Bulgaria and the coast towns to the Empire.

An attempt at extension of the north by an attack on the Hungarian Banat of Severin, the western part of modern Wallachia, led only to a Hungarian invasion, to a temporary loss of Widdin, and the assumption of a Bulgarian title by the Magyar king. ?Cuman dynasty in Bulgaria. 1280.? Presently a new Turanian dynasty, this time of Cuman descent, reigned in Bulgaria, and soon after, the kingdom passed for the moment under a mightier overlord in the person of Nogai Khan. ?Break-up of the kingdom. 1357.? In the fourteenth century the kingdom broke up. ?Principality of Dobrutcha.? The despot Dobroditius—his name has many spellings—formed a separate dominion on the seaboard, stretching from the Danube to the Imperial frontier, cutting off the King of Tirnovo from the sea. Part of his land preserves his memory in its modern name Dobrutcha. Presently we hear of three Bulgarias, the central state at Tirnovo, the sea-land of Dobroditius, and a north-western state at Widdin. ?1362.
1365-1369.? By this time the Ottoman inroads had begun; Philippopolis was lost, and Bulgarian princes were blind enough to employ Turkish help in a second attack on Severin, which led only to a second temporary loss of Widdin. ?1382.
1388.? The Turk now pressed on; Sofia was taken; the whole land became a Turkish dependency. ?Conquest by Bajazet, 1393.? After Kossovo the land was wholly conquered, save only that the northern part of the land of Dobroditius passed to Wallachia. Bulgaria passed away from the list of European states both sooner and more utterly than Servia. Servia still had its alternations of freedom and bondage for sixty years. In after times large parts of it passed to a rule which, if foreign, was at least European. In later days Servia was the first of the subject nations to win its freedom. But the bondage of Bulgaria was never disturbed from the days of Bajazet to our own time.

§ 7. The Kingdom of Hungary.

The origin of the Hungarian kingdom and the reasons for dealing with along with the states which arose out of the break-up of the Eastern Empire have already been spoken of.[46] ?Character of the Hungarian kingdom.? The Finnish conquerors of the Slave, admitted within the pale of Western Christendom, founding a new Hungary on the Danube and the Theiss while they left behind them an older Hungary on the Kama, have points of contact at once with Asia and with both Eastern and Western Europe. ?Its position in south-eastern Europe.? But, as closely connected in their history with the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, as sharers in the bondage and in the deliverance of Servia, Greece, and Bulgaria, in our geographical survey they claim a place where they may be looked at strictly as part of the south-eastern world.

It has been already noticed[47] that the main geographical work of the Magyar was to cut off that south-eastern world, the world where the Greek and the Slave, struggling for its supremacy, were both swallowed up by the Ottoman, from the Slavonic region between the Carpathians and the Baltic. ?Great Moravia. 884-894.? At the moment of the Magyar inroad, the foundation of the Great-Moravian kingdom, the kingdom of Sviatopluk, made it more likely than it has ever been since that the Slaves of the two regions might be united into a single power. That kingdom, stretching to Sirmium, marched on the north-western dependencies of the Eastern Empire, while on the north it took in the Chrobatian land which was afterwards Little Poland. Such a power might have been dangerous to both Empires at once; but the invaders whom the two Emperors called in proved far more dangerous than Great Moravia could ever have been. The Magyars, Ogres, or Hungarians, the Turks of the Imperial geographer,[48] were called in by his father Leo to check the Bulgarians, as they were called in by Arnulf in the West to check the new power of Moravia. They passed, from the north rather than from the east, into the land which was disputed between Moravian and Bulgarian. ?906. Relations between Hungary and Germany.? The Moravian power was overthrown, and the Magyars, stepping into its place, became constant invaders of both Empires and their dependent lands. But to the west, the victories of the Saxon kings put a check to their inroads, and, save some shiftings on the Austrian march, the frontier of Germany and Hungary has been singularly abiding.

While the Magyar settlement placed a barrier between the two chief regions of the Slavonic race as a whole, it specially placed a barrier between the two divisions of the Croatian or Chrobatian people, those on the Vistula and those on the Drave and Save. ?1025.? The northern Chrobatia still reached south of the Carpathians, and it was not until the eleventh century that the Magyar kingdom, by the acquisition of its southern part, gained a natural frontier which, with some shiftings, served to part it off from the Slavonic powers to the north of it. To the south-east an uncultivated and wooded tract separated the Magyar territory from the lands between the Carpathians and the lower Danube which were still held by the Patzinaks. ?Geographical position of the Magyars.? The oldest Magyar settlement thus occupied the central part of the modern kingdom, on the Theiss and the middle Danube. There the Turanian invaders formed a ruling and central race, within a Slavonic fringe at each end. There were northern and southern Croats, Slovaks to the north, and Ruthenians to the north-west, towards the kindred land of Halicz or Red Russia.

Hungary, ranking from the beginning of the eleventh century as a kingdom of Latin Christendom, presently grew in all directions. We have just seen its advance at the expense of the northern Chrobatian land. Its advance at the expense of the southern branch of that race, and of the other Slavonic lands which owed more or less of allegiance to the Eastern Empire, was still more marked. ?Hungary and Croatia.? All these lands at one time or another gave royal titles to the King of Hungary, King also of Croatia, of Dalmatia, of Rama, even of Bulgaria. But in most of these lands the Hungarian kingship was temporary or nominal; in Croatia alone, though the frontier has often shifted, Hungarian rule has been abiding. Croatia has never formed an independent state since the first Hungarian conquest; it has never been fully wrested from Hungary since the days of Manuel KomnÊnos. In those days it was indeed a question whether Hungary itself had not an overlord in the Eastern Emperor. After the great Bulgarian revolt that question could never be raised again. But the Hungarian frontier was ever shifting towards the former lands of the Empire, Venetian, Servian, and Bulgarian. ?Kingdom of Slavonia. 1492.? One part of the old Croatian kingdom, the land between Save and Drave, was cut off to form, first an appanage, then an annexed kingdom, by the special name of Slavonia, a name shared by it with lands on the Baltic, perhaps on the ÆgÆan.

But, from the first days of its conversion, the Hungarian realm began to advance in other directions, in lands which had formed no part of the Empire since the days of Aurelian. ?Transsilvania or SiebenbÜrgen.
1004.? Before their Chrobatian conquest, the Magyars passed the boundary which divided them from the Patzinaks, and won the land which from its position took the name of Transsilvania.[49] Colonists were invited to settle in the thinly inhabited land. One chief settlement was of the Low-Dutch speech from Saxony and Flanders. ?Various colonies.? Another element was formed by the Turanian Szeklers, whose Latin form of Siculi might easily mislead. Another migration brought back the name and speech of the Old Rome to the first land from which she had withdrawn her power.

The legendary belief in the unbroken life of the Roman name and speech in the lands north of the Danube is merely a legendary belief.[50] There can be no reasonable doubt that the present principality of Roumania and the Rouman lands beyond its borders derived their present population and language from a settlement of the Rouman people further south. South of the Danube, the Rouman or Vlach population, scattered among Greeks, Slaves, and Albanians, at many points from Pindos northwards, has kept its distinct nationality, but it has never formed a political whole. ?Their Northern migration.? But a migration beyond the Danube enabled the Roumans in course of time to found two distinct principalities, and to form a chief element in the population of a third. There is no sign of any Rouman population north of the Danube before the thirteenth century. The events of that century opened a way for a reversal of the ordinary course of migration, for the settlement of lands beyond the Empire by former subjects of the Empire.

We have seen that the third Bulgarian kingdom, that which arose at the end of the twelfth century, was in its origin as much Rouman as Bulgarian. ?Cumans in Dacia.? By this time the rule of the Patzinaks beyond the lower Danube had given way to that of the kindred Cumans. ?Mongolian invasion.? Then the storm of Mongolian invasion, which crushed Hungary itself for a moment, crushed the Cuman power for ever. But the remnant of the Cuman nation lived on within the Magyar realm, and gave its king yet another title, that of King of Cumania. ?Rouman settlement in the Cuman land.? The former Cuman land now lay open to new settlers, and the Rouman part of the inhabitants of the new Bulgaria began to cross the Danube into that land and the neighbouring districts. In the course of the thirteenth century they occupied the present Wallachia, and already formed an element in the mixed population of Transsilvania. A Rouman state thus began to be formed, which took the name by which the Roumans were known to their neighbours. The new Vlachia, Wallachia, stretched on both sides of the Aluta. ?Little Wallachia.? To the west of that river, Little Wallachia formed, as the banat of Severin, an integral part of the Hungarian kingdom. ?Great Wallachia.? Great Wallachia to the east formed a separate principality, dependent or independent on Hungary, according to its strength from time to time. ?Dobrutcha.? And, towards the end of the fourteenth century, the land south of the Danube, called Dobrutcha, passed from Bulgaria to Wallachia. ?Moldavia. c. 1341.? Another Rouman migration, passing from the land of Marmaros north of Transsilvania, founded the principality of Moldavia between the Carpathians and the Dniester. This too stood to the Hungarian crown in the same shifting relation as Great Wallachia, and sometimes transferred its vassalage to Lithuania and Poland.

The greatest extension of the Hungarian dominion was in the fourteenth century, under the Angevin King Lewis the Great. Before his time the Magyar frontier had advanced and fallen back. ?First possession of Halicz, 1185-1220,? Hungary, having a Russian population within its borders, had for a while enlarged its Russian dominion by the annexation of the Red Russian land of Halicz or Galicia. ?of Widdin, 1260-1264.? It had also, for a shorter time, occupied the Bulgarian town of Widdin. ?Conquests of Lewis, Halicz and Vladimir, 1342; Widdin, 1365-1369.? Lewis renewed both these conquests, and made others. Halicz was not only won again, but was enlarged by the neighbouring principality of Vladimir. The great day of Hungary was contemporary with the great day of Servia, but it was a longer day, and Hungary profited greatly by the fall of Servia. ?1356.? While Lewis annexed Dalmatia, he also at various times established his supremacy over Bosnia and the Rouman principalities. That Lewis was king of Poland by a personal union did not affect Hungarian geography. ?Red Russia restored to Poland, 1390.? But the separation of the crowns at his death led presently to the restoration of the Red Russian provinces to Poland. ?Pledging of Zips, 1412.? Somewhat later, under Sigismund, a territory within the Hungarian border, part of the county of Zips or Czepusz, was pledged to Poland, and continued to be held by that power.

Meanwhile the Ottoman was on his march to overthrow Hungary as well as its neighbours, though the position of the Magyar kingdom made it the last to be devoured and the first to be delivered. The Turkish inroads as yet barely grazed the strictly Hungarian frontier. ?First Turkish invasion. 1391.? The first Turkish invasion of Hungary, the first Turkish exaction of tribute from Wallachia, came in the same year in which Sigismund established his supremacy over Bosnia. ?Battle of Nikopolis. 1396.
Campaign of Huniades 1443.
Battle of Varna. 1444.? The defeat of Nikopolis confirmed the Turkish supremacy in Wallachia, a supremacy which was again won for Hungary in the great campaign of Huniades, and was again lost at Varna. ?Disputes for Dalmatia.? Meanwhile the full possession of Dalmatia did not outlive the reign of Lewis. Henceforth Hungary is merely one competitor among others in the ceaseless shiftings of the Dalmatian frontier.

Later in the fifteenth century came another day of Hungarian greatness under the son of Huniades, Matthias Corvinus. ?1477.
1485.? Its most distinguishing feature was the extension of the Magyar power to the west, over Bohemia and its dependencies, and even over the Austrian archduchy. ?1467.? In the south-eastern lands Wallachia and Moldavia again became Hungarian dependencies. ?1463.? Jayce was won back from the Turk, now lord of Bosnia, and, Belgrade being now Hungarian, the frontier towards the Ottoman was fixed till the time of his great advance northwards.

The first stage of Ottoman conquest in Hungary, as distinguished from mere ravage, was the taking of Belgrade. ?Battle of Mohacz. 1526.? With the battle of Mohacz, five years later, the separate history of Hungary ends. ?Turkish occupation of the greater part of Hungary. 1552-1687.? That victory, followed by the disputes for the Hungarian crown between an Austrian archduke and a Transsilvanian palatine, enabled Suleiman to make himself master of the greater part of the kingdom, especially of the part which was most thoroughly Magyar. From the middle of the sixteenth century till the latter years of the seventeenth, the Austrian Kings of Hungary kept only a fragment of Croatia, including Zagrab or Agram, and a strip of north-western Hungary, including Pressburg. The whole central part of the kingdom passed under the immediate dominion of the Turk, and a Pasha ruled at Buda. Besides this great incorporation of Hungarian soil, the Turk held three vassal principalities within the dominions of Lewis the Great. ?Tributary principalities: Transsilvania, Wallachia, Moldavia. 1497.? One was Transsilvania, increased by a large part of north-eastern Hungary; the second was Wallachia; the third was Moldavia, which began to be tributary late in the fifteenth century. The Rouman lands became more and more closely dependent on the Turk, who took on him to name their princes. ?1606.? Indeed, one might for a while add the Austrian kingdom of Hungary itself as a fourth vassal state, as it paid tribute to the Turk into the seventeenth century. ?The Rouman lands disputed between Poland and the Turk.? For the superiority of the Rouman principalities an endless struggle went on between Poland and the Turk. At last the same Slavonic power stepped in to deliver Hungary and Austria also. ?Battle of Vienna. 1683.? With the overthrow of the Turk before Vienna began the reaction of Christendom against Islam which has gone on to our own day.

The wars which follow answer to the wars of independence in Servia and Greece in so far as the Turk was driven out of a Christian land. They differ in this, that the Turk was driven out of Greece and Servia to the profit of Greece and Servia themselves, while he was driven out of Hungary to the profit of the Austrian king. ?Peace of Carlowitz. 1699.? The first stage of the work, the war which was ended by the Peace of Carlowitz, won back nearly all Croatia and Slavonia, and all Hungary proper, except the land of Temeswar between Danube, Theiss, and Maros. ?Incorporation of Transsilvania. 1713.? Transsilvania became a dependency of the Hungarian kingdom, with which it was presently incorporated. Wallachia and Moldavia remained under Turkish supremacy. ?Peace of Passarowitz. 1718.? The next war, ended by the Peace of Passarowitz, fully restored the Hungarian kingdom as part of Christendom. The Turk kept only a small part of Croatia. All Slavonia and the banat of Temeswar were won back; the frontier was even carried south of the Save, so as to take in a small strip of Bosnia and a great part of Servia, as also the Lesser Wallachia, the old banat of Severin. Thus, while the first stage delivered Buda, the second delivered Belgrade. But the next war, ended by the Peace of Belgrade, largely undid the work. ?Losses by the Peace of Belgrade. 1739.? The frontier fell back to the point at which it stayed till our own day. From the mouth of the Unna to Orsovo, the Save and the Danube became the frontier. Belgrade, and all the land south of those rivers, passed again to the Turk, and Little Wallachia became again part of a Turkish dependency. ?Final loss of Belgrade. 1789-1791.? At a later stage of the century Belgrade was again delivered and again lost.

The later acquisitions of the House of Austria were made in the character of Hungarian kings, but they did not lead to any enlargement of the Hungarian kingdom. Thus the claim to the Austrian acquisitions made at the first and third partitions of Poland, rested solely on the two Hungarian occupations of Red Russia. ?Galicia and Lodomeria.? Under the softened forms of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Red Russian lands of Halicz and Vladimir, together with part of Poland itself, became a new kingdom of the House of Habsburg, as the greater part of the territory thus won still remains. ?Acquisition of Bukovina. 1776-1786.? Between the two partitions the new kingdom was increased by the addition of Bukovina, the north-western corner of Moldavia, which was claimed as an ancient part of the Transsilvanian principality. It was again only in its Hungarian character that the House of Habsburg could make any claim to Dalmatia. ?Dalmatia.? Certainly no Austrian duke had ever reigned over Dalmatia, Red Russia, or the Rouman principalities. Yet in the present dual arrangement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy the so-called triple kingdom of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia, is divided between the rule of Pest and the rule of Vienna. Galicia also counts to the Austrian, and not to the Hungarian, division of the monarchy. All this is perhaps in harmony with the generally anomalous character of the power of which they form part. ?Spizza. 1878.? The port of Spizza has been added to the Dalmatian kingdom. ?Bosnia and Herzegovina.? It is hard to say in which of his many characters the Hungarian King and Austrian Archduke holds the lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which the Treaty of Berlin confers on him, not the sovereignty, but the administration. They might have been claimed by the Hungarian king in his ancient character of King of Rama. But the formal aspect of the transaction would seem rather to be that he has, like his predecessors in the sixteenth century, become the man of the Turk.

After the restoration of the Lesser Wallachia to the Turk and the addition of Bukovina to Galicia, the geographical history of the Rouman principalities parts off wholly from that of Hungary, and will be more fittingly treated in another section.

§ 8. The Ottoman Power.

Last among the powers which among them supplanted the Eastern Empire, comes the greatest and most terrible of all, that which overthrew the Empire itself and most of the states which arose out of its ruins, and which stands distinguished from all the rest by its abiding possession of the Imperial city. This is the power of the Ottoman Turks. ?Their special character as Mahometans.? They stand distinguished from all the other invaders of the European mainland of the Empire by being Mahometan invaders. The examples of Bulgaria and Hungary show that Turanian invaders, as such, are not incapable of being received into European fellowship. This could not be in the case of a Mahometan power, bound by its religion to keep its Christian subjects in the condition of bondmen. The Ottomans could not, like the Bulgarians, be lost in the greater mass of those whom they conquered. ?Preservation of the subject nations.? But this very necessity helped in some measure to preserve the national being of the subject nations. Greeks, Servians, Bulgarians, have under Ottoman rule remained Greeks, Servians, and Bulgarians, ready to begin their national career afresh whenever the time for independence should come. ?Comparison with the Saracen power in Spain.? The dominion of the Turk in Eastern Europe answers, as a Mahometan dominion, to the dominion of the Saracen in Western Europe. But in everything, save the mere reckoning of years, it has been far more abiding. The Mahometan dominion in southern Spain did indeed last two hundred years longer than Mahometan dominion has yet lasted in any part of Eastern Europe. But the Saracen power in the West began to fall back as soon as it was established, and its last two hundred years were a mere survival. The Ottomans underwent no considerable loss of territory till more than four centuries and a half after their first appearance in Asia, till more than three centuries after their passage into Europe. Constantinople has been Ottoman sixty years longer than Toledo was Saracen.

The Ottoman, possessor of the Eastern Rome, does in a rough way represent the Eastern Roman in the extent of his dominion. The dominions and dependencies of the Sultans at the height of their power took in, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, nearly all that had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, with a large territory, both in Europe and Asia, which Justinian had not held. Justinian held nothing north of the Danube; Suleiman held, as sovereign or as overlord, a vast dominion from Buda to Azof. On the other hand, no part of the dominions of Justinian in Western Europe, save one city for one moment, ever came under Ottoman rule. The Eastern Empire in the year 800 was smaller than even the present reduced dominion of the Turk. The Eastern Empire, at its height in the eleventh century, held in Europe a dominion far smaller than the dominion of the Turk in the sixteenth century, far larger than his dominion now. But in the essential feature of Byzantine geography, the possession of Constantinople and of the lands on each side of the Bosporos and Hellespont, the Ottoman Sultan took the place of the Eastern Emperor, and as yet he keeps it.

The history of the Eastern Empire, and that of the Ottomans in connexion with it, was largely affected by the movements of the Mongols in the further East. Mongolian pressure weakened the Seljuk Turks, and so allowed the growth of the Nicene Empire. Mongolian invasions also led indirectly to the growth of the Ottoman power, and at a later time they gave it its greatest check. ?Origin of the Ottomans.? The Ottomans grew out of a Turkish band who served the Seljuk Sultan against the Mongols. As his vassals, they began to be a power in Asia and to harry the coasts of Europe. They passed into Europe, and won a great European dominion far more quickly than they had won their Asiatic dominion. This is the special characteristic of the Ottoman power. Asiatic in everything else, it is geographically European; most of its Asiatic and all its African dominion was won from an European centre. ?Break-up and reunion of the Ottoman power.? Already a power in Europe, but not yet in possession of the Imperial city, the new Ottoman power was for a moment utterly broken in pieces by the second flood of Mongol invasion. That the shattered dominion came together again is an event without a parallel in Eastern history. The restored Ottoman power then won Constantinople, and from Constantinople, as representing the fallen Empire, it won back the lost dominion of the Empire. ?Its permanence.? The permanence of the Ottoman power, when Constantinople was once won, is in no way wonderful. Even the unreclaimed Asiatic, when he was once seated on the throne of the New Rome, inherited his share of Rome’s eternity.

The first settlements of the Ottoman Turks were on the banks of the Sangarios, which gave them from the beginning a threatening position towards Europe. ?1299.? By the end of the thirteenth century they were firmly established in that region. In the first half of the fourteenth they became the leading power in Western Asia. ?Conquest of Brusa. 1326-1330.? Brusa, the Asiatic capital, won in the last days of the Emir Othman, has a manifest eye towards Europe. ?Of Nikaia and NikomÊdeia. 1330-1338.? Nikaia and NikomÊdeia followed, and the Ottoman stepped geographically into the same position towards the revived Greek Empire which the Nicene princes had held towards the Latin Empire. ?Entry into Europe. 1354.
Conquest of Hadrianople. 1361.? In the last days of the Emir Othman came their passage into Europe, and a few more years saw Amurath in his European capital of Hadrianople, completely hemming Constantinople in. ?Ottoman advance.? The second half of the fourteenth century was a time of the most speedy Ottoman advance, and the amount of real advance is by no means represented by the change on the map. We have seen in the case of Servia, of Greece, and of Hungary, that the course of Turkish invasion commonly went through three stages. There was first the time of mere plunder. Then came the tributary stage, and lastly, the day of complete bondage. ?Bajazet first Sultan, 1389-1402.? Under Bajazet, the first Ottoman prince who bore the title of Sultan, the immediate Ottoman dominion in Europe stretched from the ÆgÆan to the Danube. It took in all Bulgaria, all Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace, save only ChalkidikÊ and the district just round Constantinople. Servia and Wallachia were dependent states, as indeed was the Empire itself. Central and southern Greece, Bosnia, Hungary, even Styria, were lands open to plunder.

This great dominion was broken in pieces by the victory of Timour at Angora. It seemed that the empire of the Ottoman had passed away like the empire of the Servian. ?Break up of the Ottoman power.? The dominion of Bajazet was divided among his sons and the princes of the dispossessed Turkish dynasties. The Christian states had a breathing-time, and the sons of Bajazet were glad to give back to the Empire some important parts of its lost territories. ?Reunited under Mahomet. 1413.? The Ottoman power came together again under Mahomet the First; but for nearly half a century its advance was slower than in the half-century before. The conquests of Mahomet and of Amurath the Second lay mainly in the Greek and Albanian lands. ?Conquest of ThessalonikÊ. 1430.? The Turk now reached the Hadriatic, and the conquest of ThessalonikÊ gave him a firmer hold on the ÆgÆan. Towards Servia and Hungary he lost and he won again; he hardly conquered. ?Mahomet the Conqueror. 1451-1481.? It was the thirty years of Mahomet the Conqueror which finally gave the Ottoman dominion its European position. ?Conquest of Constantinople. 1453.? From his first and greatest conquest of the New Rome, he gathered in what remained, Greek, Frank, and Slave. The conquest of the Greek mainland, of Albania and Bosnia, the final conquest of Servia, made him master of the whole south-eastern peninsula, save only the points held by Venice and the unconquered height of the Black Mountain. He began to gather in the Western islands, and he struck the first great blow to the Venetian power by the conquest of Euboia. Around the Euxine he won the Empire of Trebizond and the points held by Genoa. The great mass of the islands and the few Venetian points on the coast still escaped. ?Extent of his dominion.? Otherwise Mahomet the Conqueror held the whole European dominions of Basil the Second, with a greater dominion in Asia than that of Manuel KomnÊnos. From the Danube to the Tanais and beyond it, he held a vast overlordship, over lands which had obeyed no Emperor since Aurelian, over lands which had never obeyed any Emperor at all. At last the Mussulman lord of Constantinople seemed about to win back the Italian dominion of its Christian lords. ?Taking of Otranto, 1480.? In his last days, by the possession of Otranto, Mahomet ruled west of the Hadriatic.

It might have been deemed that the little cloud which now lighted on Otranto would grow as fast as the little cloud which a hundred and thirty years before had lighted on Kallipolis. But Bajazet the Second made no conquests save the points which were won from Venice. ?Conquest of Syria and Egypt. 1516-17.? Selim the First, the greatest conqueror of his line against fellow Mahometans, had no leisure, while winning Syria and Egypt, to make any advance on Christian ground. ?Conquests of Suleiman. 1520-1566.? But under Suleiman the Lawgiver, not only the overlordship but the immediate rule of Constantinople under its Turkish Sultans was spread over wide European lands which had never obeyed its Christian Emperors. ?His African overlordship.? Then too its Mussulman lords won back at least the nominal overlordship of that African seaboard which the first Mussulmans had rent away from the allegiance of Constantinople. The greatest conquest of Suleiman was made in Hungary; but he also made the ÆgÆan an Ottoman sea. The early years of his reign saw the driving of the Knights from Rhodes, and the winning of their fortress of Halikarnassos, the last European possession on Asiatic ground. His last days saw the annexation of the Naxian duchy; at an intermediate stage Venice lost her Peloponnesian strongholds. ?Algiers. 1519.? In Africa the Turk received the commendation of Algiers and of Tunis. ?Tunis conquered by Charles the Fifth. 1531.
1535.? But Tunis, won for Christendom by the Imperial King of the Two Sicilies, was lost and won again, till it was finally won for Islam by the second Selim. Tripolis, granted to the Knights, also passed to Suleiman. ?1574.? Under Selim Cyprus was added; the fight of Lepanto could neither save nor recover it; but the advance of the Turk was stopped. ?Decline of the Ottoman power.? The conquests of the seventeenth century were small compared with those of earlier days, and, before that century was out, the Ottoman Terminus had begun to go back.

Yet it was in the last half of the seventeenth century that the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent. ?Conquest of Crete. 1641-1669.
of Podolia. 1672-1676.? Crete was now won; a few years later Kamienetz and all Podolia were ceded to the Turk by Poland. This was not absolutely his last European acquisition, but it was his last acquisition of a great province. The Ottoman dominion now covered a wider space on the map than it had done at any earlier moment. Suleiman in all his glory had not reigned over Cyprus, Crete, and Podolia. The tide now turned for ever. ?The Ottoman frontier falls back.? From that time the Ottoman has, like his Byzantine predecessor, had his periods of revival and recovery, but on the whole his frontier has steadily gone back.

The first great blow to the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire was dealt in the war which was ended by the Peace of Carlowitz. We have seen how Hungary and PeloponnÊsos were won back for Christendom; so was Podolia. We have seen too how at the next stage the Turk gained at one end and lost at the other, winning back PeloponnÊsos, winning Mykonos and TÊnos, but losing on the Save and the Danube. The next stage shows the Ottoman frontier again in advance; in our own day we have seen it again fall back. And the change which has given Bosnia and Herzegovina to the master of Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Cattaro has, besides throwing back the frontier of the Turk, redressed a very old geographical wrong. ?Union of inland and maritime Illyricum.? Ever since the first Slavonic settlements, the inland region of northern Illyricum has been more or less thoroughly cut off from the coast cities which form its natural outlets. Whatever may be the fate of those lands, the body is again joined to the mouth, and the mouth to the body, and we can hardly fancy them again severed.

The same arrangements which transferred the ‘administration’ of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the King of Hungary and Dalmatia, have transferred another part of the Ottoman dominion to a more distant European power on terms which are still less easy to understand. ?Cyprus. 1878.? The Greek island of Cyprus has passed to English rule; but it is after a fashion which may imply that the conquest of Richard of Poitou is held—not, it is to be hoped, by the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, but possibly by the Empress of India—as a tributary of the Ottoman Sultan.

During the former half of the eighteenth century the shiftings of the Ottoman territory to the north were all on the side of Austria or Hungary. ?Relations of the Turk towards Russia.? But a new enemy of the Turk appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century, one who was, before the end of the eighteenth, to stand forth as his chief enemy. ?Loss and recovery of Azof. 1696-1711.? Under Peter the Great Azof was won by Russia and lost again. Sixty years later great geographical changes took place in the same region. ?Treaty of Kainardji. 1774.
Independence of Crim.? By the Treaty of Kainardji, the dependent khanate of Crim—the old Tauric ChersonÊsos and the neighbouring lands—was released from the superiority of the Sultan. ?Russian annexation of Crim. 1783.? This was a natural step towards its annexation by Russia, which thus again made her way to the Euxine. ?Of Jedisan. 1791.? The Bug was now the frontier; presently, by the Russian annexation of Oczakow and the land of Jedisan, it fell back to the Dniester. By the treaty of Bucharest the frontier alike of the dominion and of the overlordship of the Turk fell back to the Pruth and the lower Danube. ?Of Bessarabia. 1812.
Shiftings of the Moldavian frontier.? Russia thus gained Bessarabia and the eastern part of Moldavia. ?Treaty of Hadrianople. 1829.? By the Treaty of Hadrianople she further won the islands at the mouth of the Danube. ?Treaty of Paris, 1856;? The Treaty of Paris restored to Moldavia a small part of the lands ceded at Bucharest, so as to keep the Russian frontier away from the Danube. ?of Berlin, 1878.? This last cession, with the exception of the islands, was recovered by Russia at the Treaty of Berlin. But changes of frontier in those regions no longer affect the dominion of the Turk.

§ 9. The Liberated States.

The losses which the Ottoman power has undergone at the hands of its independent neighbours, Russia, Montenegro, and Austria or Hungary, must be distinguished from the liberation of certain lands from Turkish rule to form new or revived European states. We have seen that the kingdom of Hungary and its dependent lands might fairly come under this head, and we have seen in what the circumstances of their liberation differ from the liberation of Greece or Servia or Bulgaria. But it is important to bear in mind that the Turk had to be driven from Hungary, no less than from Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria. If the Turk has ruled at Belgrade, at Athens, and at Tirnovo, he has ruled at Buda no less. All stand in the same opposition to Tzetinje, where he has never ruled.

As the Servian people was the only one among the south-eastern nations of which any part maintained its abiding independence, so the enslaved part of the Servian people was the first among the subject nations to throw off the yoke. ?The Ionian Islands.? But the first attempt to form anything like a free state in south-eastern Europe was made among a branch of the Greek nation, in the so-called Ionian Islands. But the form which the attempt took was no lessening of the Turkish dominion, but its increase. ?Ceded to France. 1797.? By the peace of Campoformio, the islands, with the few Venetian points on the mainland, were to pass to France. ?Septinsular Republic under Ottoman overlordship. 1798.? By the treaty of the next year between Russia and the Turk, the points on the mainland were to be handed over to the Turk, while the islands were to form a commonwealth, tributary to the Turk, but under the protection of Russia. ?The Venetian outposts given to the Turk.? Thus, besides an advance of the Turk’s immediate dominion on the mainland, his overlordship was to be extended over the islands, including Corfu, the one island which had never come under his power. ?Surrender of Parga. 1819.? The other points on the mainland passed, not so much to the Sultan as to his rebellious vassal Ali of JÔannina; but Parga kept its freedom till five years after the general peace. ?All Albania and continental Greece under the Turk.? Thus the Turk made his last encroachment on Christendom, and held for a moment the whole of the Greek and Albanian mainland. ?The Ionian Islands under English protection. 1815.? The islands meanwhile, tossed to and fro during the war between France and England, were at the peace again made into a nominal commonwealth, but under a form of British protection which it is not easy to distinguish from British sovereignty. Still a nominally free Greek state was again set up, and the possibility of Greek freedom on a larger scale was practically acknowledged.

It was only for a very short time that the Turk held complete possession of all Albania and continental Greece. Two years after the betrayal of Parga began the Greek War of Independence. ?Extent of the Greek nation.? The geographical disposition of the Greek nation has changed very little since the Latin conquest of Constantinople; it has changed very little since the later days of old Hellas. At all these stages some other people has held the solid mainland of south-eastern Europe and of western Asia, while the Greek has been the prevailing race on the coasts, the islands, the peninsular lands, of both continents, from Durazzo to Trebizond. ?General Greek revolt.? Within this range the Greeks revolted at every point where they were strong enough to revolt at all. ?Extent of the liberated territory.? But it was only in the old Hellenic mainland, and in Crete and others of the ÆgÆan islands, that the Greeks were able to hold their ground. ?1829-1833.? Of these lands some parts were allowed by Western diplomacy to keep their freedom. ?Kingdom of Greece.? A Kingdom of Greece was formed, taking in PeloponnÊsos, Euboia, the Kyklades, and a small part of central Greece, south of a line drawn from the gulf of Arta to the gulf of Volo. But the Turk was allowed to hold, not only the more distant Greek lands and islands, but Epeiros, Thessaly, and Crete. ?Ionian islands added to Greece. 1864.? The kingdom was afterwards enlarged by the addition of the Ionian islands, whose nominal Septinsular Republic was merged in the kingdom. ?Treaty of Berlin. 1878.? By the Treaty of Berlin, Crete, which had twice risen, was thrust back into bondage, but parts of Thessaly and Epeiros were ordered to be set free and to be added to the kingdom. ?Its promises unfulfilled.? But even this small instalment of Greek emancipation has not yet been carried out.

Between the first and the second establishment of the Ionian commonwealth, Servia had been delivered and had been conquered again. The first revolt made Servia a tributary principality. ?Second revolt and deliverance. 1817-1829.? It was then won back by the Turk and again delivered. ?1826-1829.? Its freedom, modified by the payment of tribute and by the presence of Turkish garrisons in certain towns, was decreed by the peace of Akerman, and was carried out by the treaty of Hadrianople. ?Withdrawal of Turkish garrisons. 1867.? Fifty years after the second establishment of the principality, its practical freedom was made good by the withdrawal of the Turkish garrisons. ?Servia independent with an enlarged territory. 1878.? The last changes have made Servia, under a native dynasty, an independent state, released from all tribute or vassalage. The same changes have given Servia a slight increase of territory. ?Servian territory left to the Turk.? But the boundary is so drawn as to leave part of the old Servian land to the Turk, and carefully to keep the frontiers of the Servian and Montenegrin principalities apart. That is to say, the Servian nation is split into four parts—Montenegro, free Servia, Turkish Servia, and those Servian lands which are, some under the ‘administration,’ some under the acknowledged rule, of the King of Hungary and Dalmatia.

While Servia and Greece were under the immediate rule of the Turk, the Rouman lands of Wallachia and Moldavia always kept a certain measure of separate being. The Turk named and deposed their princes, but they never came under his direct rule. ?Union of Wallachia and Moldavia. 1861.? After the Treaty of Paris, the two principalities, being again allowed to choose for themselves, took the first step towards union by choosing the same prince. Then followed their complete union as the Principality of Roumania, paying tribute to the Turk, but otherwise free. ?Independence of Roumania. 1878.? The last changes have made Roumania, as well as Servia, an independent state. Its frontier towards Russia, enlarged at Paris, was cut short at Berlin. ?Change of its frontier.? But this last treaty restored to it the land of Dobrutcha south of the Danube, thus giving the new state a certain Euxine sea-board. Thus the Roumans, the Romance-speaking people of Eastern Europe, still a scattered remnant in their older seats, have, in their great colony on the Danube, won for themselves a place among the nations of Europe.

Lastly, while Servia and Roumania have been wholly freed from the yoke, a part of Bulgaria has been raised to that position of practical independence which they formerly held. ?The Bulgaria of San Stefano. 1878.? The Russian treaty of San Stefano decreed a tributary principality of Bulgaria, whose boundaries came most nearly to those of the third Bulgarian kingdom at its greatest extent. But it was to have, what no Bulgarian state had had before, a considerable ÆgÆan sea-board. This would have had the effect of splitting the immediate dominion of the Turk in two. It would also have had the real fault of adding to Bulgaria some districts which ought rather to be added to free Greece. ?Treaty of Berlin.
Division of Bulgaria.? By the Treaty of Berlin the Turk was to keep the whole north coast of the ÆgÆan, while the Bulgarian nation was split into three parts, in three different political conditions. ?Free.? The oldest and latest Bulgarian land, the land between Danube and Balkan, forms, with the exception of the corner ceded to Roumania, the tributary Principality of Bulgaria. ?Half-free.? The land immediately south of the Danube, the southern Bulgaria of history—northern Roumelia, according to the compass—receives the diplomatic name of Eastern Roumelia, a name which would more naturally take in Constantinople. Its political condition is described as ‘administrative autonomy,’ a half-way house, it would seem, between bondage and freedom. ?Enslaved.? Meanwhile in the old Macedonian land, the land for which Basil and Samuel strove so stoutly, the question between Greek and Bulgarian is held to be solved by handing over Greek and Bulgarian alike to the uncovenanted mercies of the Turk.

We may end our survey of the south-eastern lands by taking a general view of their geographical position at some of the most important points in their history. ?800.? At the end of the eighth century we see the Eastern Empire still stretching from Tauros to Sardinia; but everywhere, save in its solid Asiatic peninsula, it has shrunk up into a dominion of coasts and islands. It still holds Sicily, Sardinia, and Crete, the heel and the toe of Italy, the outlying duchies of Campania, the outlying duchy at the head of the Hadriatic. In its great European peninsula it holds the whole of the ÆgÆan coast, a great part of the coasts of the Euxine and the Hadriatic. But the lord of the sea rules nowhere far from the sea; the inland regions are held, partly by the great Bulgarian power, partly by smaller Slavonic tribes fluctuating between independence and formal submission. ?900.? At the end of the next century the general character of the East-Roman dominion remains the same, but many points of detail have changed. Sardinia and Crete are lost; a corner is all that is left in Sicily; but the Imperial power is acknowledged along the whole eastern Hadriatic coast; the heel and the toe have grown into the dominion of all southern Italy; all Greece has been won back to the Empire. But the Empire has now new neighbours. The Turanian Magyar is seated on the Danube, and other kindred nations are pressing in his wake. Russians, Slaves that is under Scandinavian leadership, threaten the Empire by sea. ?1000.? The last year of the tenth century shows Sicily wholly lost, but Crete and Cyprus won back; Kilikia and Northern Syria are won again; Bulgaria is won and lost again; Russian establishment on the Danube is put off for eight hundred years; the great struggle is going on to decide whether the Slave or the Eastern Roman is to rule in the south-eastern peninsula. ?c. 1040.? At one moment in the eleventh century we see the dominion of the New Rome at its full height. Europe south of the Danube and its great tributaries, Asia to Caucasus and almost to the Caspian, form a compact body of dominion, stretching from the Venetian isles to the old Phoenician cities. The Italian and insular dominion is untouched; it is enlarged for a moment by Sicilian conquest. ?c. 1090.? Another glance, half-a-century later, shows the time when the Empire was most frightfully cut short by old enemies and new. The Servian wins back his own land; the Saracen wins back Sicily. The Norman in Italy cuts down the Imperial dominion to the nominal superiority of Naples, the last of Greek cities in the West, as KymÊ was the first. For a moment he even plants himself east of Hadria, and rends away Corfu and Durazzo from the Eastern world, as Rome rent them away thirteen centuries before. The Turk swallows up the inland provinces of Asia; he plants his throne at Nikaia, and leaves to the Empire no Asiatic dominion beyond a strip of Euxine and ÆgÆan coast. ?c. 1180.? Towards the end of the twelfth century, the Empire is restored to its full extent in Europe; Servia and Dalmatia are won back, Hungary itself looks like a vassal. In Asia the inland realm of the Turk is hemmed in by the strong Imperial grasp of the whole coast-line, Euxine, ÆgÆan, and Mediterranean. ?c. 1200.? At the next moment comes the beginning of the final overthrow; before the century is out, the distant possessions of the Empire have either fallen away of themselves, or have been rent away by other powers. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Trebizond, Corfu, even Epeiros and Hellas, have parted away, or are in the act of parting away. ?1204.? Venice, its long nominal homage cast aside, joins with faithless crusaders to split the Empire in pieces. The Flemish Emperor reigns at Constantinople; the Lombard King reigns at ThessalonikÊ; Achaia, Athens, Naxos, give their names to more abiding dynasties; Venice plants herself firmly in Crete and PeloponnÊsos. Still the Empire is not dead. The Frank, victorious in Europe, hardly wins a footing in Asia. Nikaia and Trebizond keep on the Imperial succession, and a third Greek power, for a moment Imperial also, holds it in Western Greece and the islands. ?1250.? Fifty years later, the Empire of Nikaia has become an European power; it has already outlived the Latin dominion at ThessalonikÊ; it has checked the revived power of Bulgaria; it has cut short the Latin Empire to the immediate neighbourhood of the Imperial city. To the north Servia is strengthening herself; Bosnia is coming into being; the Dalmatian cities are tossed to and fro among their neighbours. ?1300.? Another glance at the end of the thirteenth century shows us the revived East-Roman Empire in its old Imperial seat, still in Europe an advancing and conquering power, ruling on the three seas of its own peninsula, established once more in PeloponnÊsos, a compact and seemingly powerful state, as compared with the Epeirot, Achaian, and Athenian principalities, or with the scattered possessions of Venice in the Greek lands. But the power which seems so firmly established in Europe has all but passed away in Asia. There the Turk has taken the place of the Greek, and the Greek the place of the Frank, as they stood a hundred years earlier. And behind the immediate Turkish enemies stands that younger and mightier Turkish power which is to swallow up all its neighbours, Mussulman and Christian. ?c. 1354.? In the central years of the fourteenth century we see the Empire hemmed in between two enemies, European and Asiatic, which have risen to unexpected power at the same time. Part of Thrace, ChalkidikÊ, part of Thessaly, a few scattered points in Asia, are left to the Empire; in PeloponnÊsos alone is it an advancing power; everywhere else its frontiers have fallen back. The Servian Tzar rules from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth. The Ottoman Emir has left but a few fragments to the Empire in Asia, and has already fixed his grasp on Europe. ?1400.? Before the century is ended, neither Constantinople, nor Servia, nor any other Christian power, is dominant in the south-eastern peninsula. The Ottoman rules in their stead. The Empire is cut short to a corner of Thrace, with ThessalonikÊ, ChalkidikÊ, and the Peloponnesian province which now forms its greatest possession. Instead of the great power of Servia, we see a crowd of small principalities, Greek, Slavonic, and Albanian, falling for the most part under either Ottoman or Venetian supremacy. The Servian name is still borne by one of them; but its prince is a Turkish vassal; the true representative of Servian independence has already begun to show itself among the mountains which look down on the mouths of Cattaro and the lake of Skodra. Bulgaria has fallen lower still; the Turk’s immediate power reaches to the Danube. Bosnia at one end, the Frank principalities at the other end, the Venetian islands in either sea, still hold out; but the Turk has begun, if not to rule over them, at least to harry them. Within the memory of men who could remember when the Empire of Servia was not yet, who could remember when the eagles of Constantinople still went forth to victory, the Ottoman had become the true master of the South-Eastern lands; whatever has as yet escaped his grasp remained simply as remnants ready for the gleaning.

We will take our next glance in the later years of the fifteenth century, a few years after the death of the great conqueror. The momentary break-up of the power of the Ottoman has been followed by the greatest of his conquests. All now is over. The New Rome is the seat of barbarian power. Trebizond, PeloponnÊsos, Athens, Euboia, the remnant of independent Epeiros, Servia, Bosnia, Albania, all are gathered in. The islands are still mostly untouched; but the whole mainland is conquered, save where Venice still holds her outposts, and where the warrior prelates of the Black Mountain, the one independent Christian power from the Save to Cape Matapan, have entered on their career of undying glory. With these small exceptions, the whole dominion of the Macedonian Emperors has passed into Ottoman hands, together with a vast tributary dominion beyond the Danube, much of which had never bowed to either Rome. ?1600.? At the end of another century, we see all Hungary, save a tributary remnant, a subject land of the Turk. We see Venice shorn of Cyprus and all her Peloponnesian possessions. The Dukes have gone from Naxos and the Knights from Rhodes, and the Mussulman lord of so many Christian lands has spread his power over his fellow Mussulmans in Syria, Egypt, and Africa. ?1700.? Another century passes, and the tide is turned. The Turk can still conquer; he has won Crete abidingly and Podolia for a moment. But the crescent has passed away for ever from Buda and from the Western isles; it has passed away for a moment from Corinth and all PeloponnÊsos. ?1800.? At the end of another century we see the Turk’s immediate possession bounded by the Save and the Danube, and his overlordship bounded by the Dniester. His old rivals Poland and Venice are no more; but Austria hems in his Slavonic provinces; France struggles for the islands off his western shore; Russia watches him from the peninsula so long held by the free Goth and the free Greek. ?1878.? Seventy-eight years more, and his shadow of overlordship ends at the Danube, his shadow of immediate dominion ends at the Balkan. Free Greece, free Servia, free Roumania—Montenegro again reaching to her own sea—Bulgaria parted into three, but longing for reunion—Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus, held in a mysterious way by neighbouring or distant European powers—all join to form, not so much a picture as a dissolving view. We see in them a transitional state of things, which diplomacy fondly believes to be an eternal settlement of an eternal question, but of which reason and history can say only that we know not what a day may bring forth.