240

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

LXVIIL

rian; nor shall I enumerate the civil and reli-gious edifices that were profaned or erected byits Turkish masters: the population was speedily renewed ; and before the end of September,five thousand families of Anatolia and Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoinedthem, under pain of death, to occupy their newhabitations in the capital. The throne of Ma-homet was guarded by the numbers and fide-lity of his Moslem subjects: but his rationalpolicy aspired to collect the remnant of theGreeks; and they returned in crowds as soonas they were assured of their lives, their liber-ties, and the free exercise of their religion. Inthe election and investiture of a patriarch, theceremonial of the Byzantine court was revivedand imitated. With a mixture of satisfactionand horror, they beheld the sultan on his throne ;who delivered into the hands of Gennadius thecrosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his eccle-siastical office ; who conducted the patriarch tothe gate of the seraglio, presented him with anhorse richly caparisoned, and directed the vizirsand bashaws to lead him to the palace which hadbeen allotted for his residence . 11 The churchesof Constantinople were shared between the tworeligions: their limits were marked; and, tillit was infringed by Selim, the grandson of Maho-

* Phranza (1. iii, c. 19 ) relates the ceremony,which has possibly beenadorned in the Greek reports to each other, and to the Latins. Thefact is confirmed by Emanuel Malaxns, who wrote, in vulgar Greek,the history of the Patriarchs after the taking of Constantinople , insert-ed in the Tuico-Graecia of Crusius (1. v, p. 106-184). But the mostpatient reader will not believe that Mahomet adopted the Catholicform, “ Saricta Triuitas qure mihi donavit imperium te in patriarcham“ novae Rom® deligit.”