Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/223

EAVAGBS OF BLACK DEATH AND PLAGUE 189 Turkish conquests. Large numbers of the Christian popula- tion were killed ; larger numbers were driven away to wander houseless and homeless and either to die of starvation or find their way into the towns. Conquest of a territory or capture of a city, forcible expulsion of the inhabitants or massacre of most of them and occupation of the captured places followed each other with wearisome regularity. The military occupation was that of nomads who replaced agriculturists. Everywhere the cattle of the Christians were raided. Arable lands became the wasteful sheep-walks of nomad Turks. 1 Lastly, the depopulation caused by the terrible diseases Black which visited Europe in the century preceding the Moslem Death conquest aided greatly in destroying the empire. The pre- valence of Black Death or Plague killed in the Balkan peninsula and especially in the towns hundreds of thou- sands and possibly millions of the population. In 1347 this scourge, probably the most deadly form of epidemic that has ever afflicted humanity, made its appearance in Eastern Europe. The cities of the empire contained large populations crowded together, and their normal population was increased by many fugitives. These crowded cities, with their defective sanitary arrangements and poverty-stricken inhabitants, offered a favourable soil for a rich harvest of death. The disease had followed the coasts from the Black Sea, where, says Cantacuzenus, it had carried off nearly all the inhabitants. At Constantinople it raged during two years, one of its first victims being the eldest son of Canta- cuzenus himself. 2 Eich as well as poor succumbed to it. What proportion of the inhabitants of the city died it is im- possible to say, but, judging by what is known of its effect elsewhere, we should probably not be wrong in suggesting that half the people perished. But its ravages were not con- fined to the towns, and from one end of the Balkan peninsula 1 The Turkish system of occupying conquered territories by military colonies and driving away the original inhabitants excited great opposition among the Serbians and led, says Von Eanke, to the struggle which ended in 1389 on the plains of Cossovo. (History of Serbia, Bohn's edition, p. 16.) 2 Cantacuzenus, iv. 8.