to an adequate knowledge of the succession of events. But what is preserved is enough to show that we do not lose much for lack of fuller information. We are now approaching the age of the Mamelukes. These were at first barbarous slaves who pushed to the front and seized the power of government. Their rule began in the year 1260, and it came as an improvement on the government of the degenerate sultans and caliphs. They elevated two successive nominal caliphs of the Abbasidæ line, who were mere shadows. After the year 1382 a Circassian dynasty of Mamelukes ruled, without that pretence of respect for antiquarianism. The Mamelukes have been described as "jealous, cruel, suspicious, avaricious."[1] But they lightened taxes and executed some public works. These rulers of an alien race held themselves aloof both from the Arabs and from the Copts. They remained in power till the year 1517. It was really an oligarchical government with nominal boy sultans, carried on in the midst of plots and assassinations. Meanwhile great events were being transacted in Eastern Europe, But the establishment of the Ottoman rule and the fall of Constantinople had no appreciable effect on the fortunes of the Copts. They had been long under the yoke of Islam, and the change of masters from one dynasty to another, and even from race to race, made little difference to their subject condition. Just and merciful governors left them at peace with their guaranteed rights; vicious and iniquitous rulers preyed upon them and persecuted them. The variations of treatment depended more on the personnel of the authorities than on the name and source of the government.
Within the Church itself the movement of the times brought two successive influences from without to bear on it. These were the Uniat propaganda associated with the council of Florence and the Protestant ideas that Cyril Lucar introduced after his travels in the West.
The Coptic Church had but little active concern with
- ↑ Sir W. Muir, The Mamelukes, etc., p. 66.
