Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/50

32 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. struggled manfully against their fate. Over and over again the invaders were driven back ; but until the time of Suliman, although their inexhaustible numbers had always enabled the Turks to recover the ground which the riglitful owners had been able for a time to reoccupy, yet the inhabitants of the empire had never ceased to be united in regarding the in- vaders as the common enemy. Under the first Sultan of Roum, however, a remarkable change of policy was adopted. Suliman saw that so Ions; as the inhabitants of the cities were against him, and were in communication with the capital by the great Eoman roads, so long as there was a hostile agricul- tural population which could not be absolutely destroyed, so long would it be impossible for his nomads to maintain possession of the territory which they had conquered. He They ally therefore determined to declare for the tenants of Suh peal-^ the lands against their lords. The Byzantine nobles ^"^^* claimed rights over the village communities which cultivated the lands, as part proprietors with them. Some- times these nobles held their lands on a tenure which English- men would call fee simple, and had them cultivated by slaves or serfs, or by both. Oftener, probably, the village commu- nity was coproprietor with the noble in much the same way that prevails in the Mir system in Russia and in our own Indian village communities. Suliman allowed these commu- nities and the slaves or serfs to become or remain proprietors on their paying tribute to him. In other words, he allured them to his side by confiscating the share which had gone to the landlord, and by making the villagers exclusive proprietors of the soil. This policy was so far successful that an emigra- tion began, which within a century grew to serious proportions, of Christians who flocked to obtain protection under the Seljuk sultans from the troubles which, as we shall see, were pouring in upon the empire. Up to the time of Suliman, though Asia Minor had been Setfioment of devastated by the Turks, as at an earlier period it seijiiks. ]j,^j been subject to invasions by the Arabs, no serious attempt had been made to conquer and annex it. Circum- stances, however, favored Suliman in his design to establish