by Ted Stewart
By the fifteenth century, however, Europe was exhausted—worn down by violence, constant war, lawlessness, poverty, corruption, and disease.
This fatigue could not have occurred at a less opportune time, for it happened just as the Islamic world, under Turkish leadership, was flexing its muscles in the form of the Ottoman Empire. This great kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Turkish Empire, came into being in 1299. At its height, it extended into three continents and lasted for more than six hundred years.
In the last half of the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Empire began to make significant inroads into that part of southeast Europe known as the Balkans. In 1402, they undertook a siege of Constantinople, the last vestige of the Roman Empire remaining in the East. This city, the single greatest bulwark against Islamic conquest of Eastern Europe, was saved only because of a surprise attack against the Turks by Tamerlane the Great, one of the last of the Mongol conquerors.
Though saved for the moment, Constantinople recognized its exceedingly precarious position. Knowing it couldn’t defend itself, it went begging for help from the rest of Europe. None was forthcoming. The Western Catholic church simply refused to allow its kings to aid the Greek Catholics. Such was the brutal tenor of the times, as well as an indicator of the level of corruption among the leaders of the Roman Catholic church.
It was during this interlude that the Islamic rulers of the Ottoman Empire undertook the creation of the janissaries, Christian children who had been taken from the people of the conquered Balkans and raised up as soldiers in the Ottoman Empire. These janissaries proved to be great warriors, leading to the bitter fact that much of the fighting in Europe was soon to become Christian against Christian.
In AD 1422 the Turks returned to the Balkans, retaking the Peninsula with relative ease. By 1452, Constantinople was under siege once more. Again, the city pleaded for assistance from Western Europe. Again, no help came.
Constantinople fell in May of 1453.
Despite their unwillingness to send assistance, the leaders of the West did not receive this as good news, for they realized that Constantinople was the major gateway to all of Europe. With the fall of the great city, the door to invasion from the east was kicked open:
The capture of Constantinople shook every throne in Europe. The bulwark had fallen that had protected Europe from Asia for over a thousand years. That Moslem power and faith which the Crusaders had hoped to drive back into inner Asia had now made its way over the corpse of Byzantium, and through the Balkans to the very gates of Hungary. The papacy, which had dreamed of all Greek Christianity submitting to the rule of Rome, saw with dismay the rapid conversion of millions of southeastern Europeans to Islam. Routes of commerce once open to Western vessels were now in alien hands.2
Encouraged by their victory over Constantinople, a prize they had been eyeing for many generations, the Turks reenergized their offensive campaign. Two hundred years of war between Europe and the Ottoman Empire were to follow—two hundred years of battles, conquests, and defeats; two hundred years of death and destruction, fear and reprisal, Europe exhausting its resources in war and self-defense.
Pushing farther into Europe, Turkish armies eventually came to Italy, pillaging within a few miles of Venice, which survived only because it agreed to pay tribute. The kingdom of Naples was then attacked, as well as Otranto, a city on the southern tip of the Italian heel, its Christian archbishop cut in two. “The fate of Christianity and monogamy teetered in the scales.”3
By 1481, the Islamic tide was stopped—but only for the moment. Forty-five years later, the Turks renewed their effort to “reduce all Europe to the one true faith—Islam.”4
In 1526, at the invitation of King Francis I of France (who apparently favored the Turkish invaders over his fellow Europeans) and with the encouragement of the Lutherans (indicating the hatred between the emerging Christian sects), the Turks succeeded in conquering Hungary. Three years later, they undertook a long and bitter cycle of sieges against Vienna, a contest that lasted for another 150 years.
Although they were never able to claim Vienna, the Turks became well established in other parts of Europe. They controlled the Balkans and Hungary and remained there for centuries. With the Turkish navy controlling the Mediterranean Sea, the Ottoman Empire was at the height of its power.5 It had become, as one contemporary historian described it, “‘the present Terror of the World.’”6
It appeared that the rise of Islam was, once again, unstoppable.
How Europe withstood the onslaught of the much more powerful Ottoman Empire is one of the great questions of the day. But one thing is certain: it wouldn’t have happened without the discovery of the New World.
Along the Black Sea’s Western Shore December 1493
“I don’t understand it,” the Arab muttered. It seemed that he was growing angry with frustration now. “You come from the most backward civilization that I know of. And I have traveled the world. I know whereof I speak. The pagans on the plains of India are more advanced than you. The yellow skins of Asia have more science than you do! Ninety percent of your people are mere serfs, nothing more than slaves condemned to serve their kings for life. Don’t get me wrong; I understand there is glory in serving a good master, but where is the glory in your kings? They are nothing more than weak and prideful monarchs ruling a single forest or famished plat of land. Your religion is in chaos, its leaders whispering and greedy men. You war and you kill and you accomplish little else. You huddle in fear and anticipation of the next catastrophic event. You used to be a greater people—not great, mind you, but greater than you are now. Surely, if there are any on the slide of history, it is your people in this day.”
The European stared down from the hill. Two of his men were cutting up a beef carcass with a large saw, part of the celebration that would be held tonight. He glanced at the Arab sideways.
The Arab looked at him and continued: “Your lords control you to the point that your daughters must have their permission even to marry. Your unmarried daughters are forced into cloisters where the church must take them or they will starve to death. If your lord sells a swath of land, the serfs go with it, as if you were nothing more than cattle. No . . . as if you were nothing more than goats, for a good cow is worth more than a man.
“Did you know that the Chinese have developed a way to immunize themselves against the Black Death? Do you even know what immunize means? They have defeated the Black Death while your people die in hordes. Think on that, my friend! Your people die so quickly they don’t have time to bury all the dead.”
He checked his tirade, leaving an awkward silence in its place.
“You have made a good trade,” the old Italian finally ventured, apparently eager to change the topic. “I look forward to meeting you again next year. The same cargo. The same terms.”
The Arab shook his head. This was the last time the men would trade. That was part of the reason he was so angry at how the world was going to change.
“Constant war in Europe,” he picked up again, his voice rising with frustration. “Constant hunger. Constant death and disease. You suffer and then you die!
“And yet . . . and yet, I am worried in my heart. This news, it troubles me in ways that I cannot describe. It will change everything. You. Me. The world in which we live. The things we take for granted. Our expectations for our future. Our children will see a world that you and I don’t understand. And anyone who doesn’t see it is nothing but a fool.”
The European sipped from his leather flash, washed his mouth out, and spat. All the time he nodded, as if he agreed.
But the Arab could see the truth: His trading partner had no idea what he was talking about.
An Unchristian Europe
The immeasurable influence of Christianity on the West is undeniable. In addition, the greatness of Christianity, and the overwhelmingly positive role
that it has played in the development of freedom and civilization, is also irrefutable. These arguments have been made again and again in this book.
It is ironic, then, that one of the greatest proofs of the truthfulness of these statements is the fact that Christianity was able to survive the corruption that befell the church in the latter centuries of the Middle Ages.
This is worth restating. The fact that Christianity, and more specifically the Catholic church, was able to withstand the level of corruption that permeated its priesthood during this time is more a testament of its strength than a witness of its failure. The fact that it could not only withstand this phase of corruption but correct itself to the point that it was once again able to nurture the cause of freedom is an affirmation of its worth.
Despite the fact that the church was “the chief source of order and peace in the Dark Ages” and “to the Church, more than to any other institution, Europe owed the resurrection of civilization in the West after the barbarian inundation of Italy, Gaul, Britain, and Spain,”7 it is also clear that the church fell on very bad times in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
From being an influence for great morality and good, as well as one of the world’s greatest advocates of order, scholarship, family, and discipline, the church degenerated “into a vested interest absorbed in self-perpetuation and finance.”8
The church taught that the pope’s power came from God. Even if the pope was a great sinner, he had to be obeyed. Because of this, the pope assumed absolute sovereignty over all the kings of the earth, claiming power to install or remove kings and emperors at his will. Several popes created their own armies, their power becoming based on their military prowess rather than their moral leadership.
The logical consequence of political power being assumed by the pope was the exercise of competitive and destructive power to select or manipulate the pope. For example, during one sixty-eight-year period, the pope was the pawn of France, used almost exclusively as a tool of France’s political and military intrigues. (For a time, the home of the papacy was actually shifted from Rome to Avignon, a city in southern France.)
Sadly, during this era, many of the popes were also great sinners. Before he ascended to the papacy, Pope John XXII, vicar of Bologna, was infamous for permitting and then taxing prostitution and gambling. According to his personal assistant, he seduced two hundred virgins, matrons, widows, and nuns. His most persuasive argument for being named pope was that he controlled a powerful army.
The supposedly celibate Pope Innocent VIII celebrated the marriages of his children in the Vatican. Alexander VI had five children prior to becoming pope. Perhaps the most corrupt of all the popes was Rodrigo de Borgia, a dishonest Spanish lord. Installed in August 1492, he obtained the papacy by bribery, threats, and blackmail. A father of an unknown number of children, Borgia instituted policies that would, in the words of Kirkpatrick Sale, encourage “almost continuous and disastrous warfare . . . , open auction of lucrative ecclesiastical offices to the richest and most corrupt . . . , [and] readings of pornography from the papal library.”9
During what is known as the Great Papal Schism (1378 to 1417), there were two and then three popes, all of whom claimed the authority of the great apostle Peter. This forty-year period of conflict and uncertainty sapped the moral strength of the church, creating more harm to the papacy than all of its other faults, for “the Church was rent in twain.”10
During this time, the church came to love wealth. And it succeeded in acquiring it.
It became common for church positions to be sold, usually to the highest bidder. Levies were imposed by the church upon the kings, as well as every other level of civic government. By the early sixteenth century, it is estimated that the Catholic church controlled one-third to one-half of the wealth of Germany and as much as three-quarters of the wealth of France, becoming the greatest landowner in all of Europe.11
Bribery was rampant in the secular world, and the church was not insulated from such dishonesty. Quite the contrary: everything was for sale in Rome, it being said that there was nothing that couldn’t be had if one had enough money. Bribery and corruption became so deeply instilled within the community of the church that the “fattest bribes in Europe were paid at the Roman court.”12
Perhaps most shocking was the fact that no sin, regardless of how heinous, was beyond forgiveness—if the price was right. The selling of indulgences (payment of a fine in order to release a confessing sinner from guilt or punishment for sins) became a source of great revenue to the church. It also became one of the greatest complaints against the church. In addition, church leaders were frequently paid for saying masses in order to reduce the time a sinner had to spend being punished for his sins.
“No man could say with honesty at the end of the fifteenth century that the supremacy of the Papacy was exercised in the cause of justice, reason, or morality.”13
And corruption was not the exclusive failing of the upper levels of the church. The selling of indulgences was common with local priests as well. Drunkenness, adultery, gluttony, and sloth were rampant among the friars. It was often asserted that many convents and monasteries were nothing but common brothels.14
Pettiness among the local clergy was common. In Paris, a church had been the scene of a fight between two beggars. Because blood had been shed, the church was deemed unclean. The local bishop, “a very ostentatious, grasping man, of a more worldly disposition than his station required,” refused to reconsecrate the church until some money had been paid. The beggars could not come up with the sum, so church services were not held for weeks.15 The bishop’s successor prohibited burials in the churchyard until he had been paid a demanded tax.
All of these things led to the perception that the church was corrupt, another failed institution in an exhausted land. Because of the weakness of the church, Christianity itself was viewed as being in steep decline. Indeed, it appeared that Christianity, like so many religions before it, was headed for the dustbin of history, just another religious philosophy destined to fade into oblivion.16
Bring Out Your Dead
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a dreadful time in so many other ways as well.
It appeared that human progress had stopped. There had been no new advancements in natural science since before the fourteenth century. Learning and university attendance were in decline. Instead of being engaged in looking to the future and advancing mankind, the educated in society were obsessed with longing for the classical era of the Greeks and the Romans and the study of Europe’s pagan past.
More sobering, it was an age of violence, lawlessness, and poverty.
Family feuds and party conflicts were at their height. “From the thirteenth century onward inveterate party quarrels arise in nearly all countries: first in Italy, then in France, the Netherlands, Germany and England.”
It’s interesting to note that the motives for these conflicts were not economic, but simply the result “of hatred and of vengeance.”17
Everyone was at war with someone: city against city, region against region, nation against nation, a condition that led to great increases in famine, poverty, and misery.
As Kirkpatrick Sale put it, “death was so daily, brutality so commonplace, destruction of the animate and inanimate so customary—that it is shocking even in our own age of mass destruction.”18
An example: On August 2, 1492, just one day before Christopher Columbus was to sail on his great voyage, the Spanish king had set a deadline for the banishment of all Jews from Spain. Upon their departure, they were permitted to take only a few personal possessions. All of their real property, gold, and silver was appropriated by the king. It is estimated that between 120,000 and 150,000 Jews were expelled. Many of these families had been in Spain for centuries.19
During this time, church leaders undertook the infamous Inquisition, a bloody effort
to purify the church through torture and execution.
The authority of the nation-states was weak, with very little respect for human rights. The strong took from the weak. Thievery at the local and national level was the norm. Towns were too poor to have any type of police force, allowing criminals to thrive. No one in Europe escaped the anarchy, including the residents of the British Isles, for, as Will Durant has stated, “Never in known history had Englishmen (now so law-abiding) been so lawless.”20
The judicial system was pitiable, with widespread cruelty. In the late fifteenth century, England’s King Edward IV instituted the use of torture for both the accused and witnesses in judicial proceedings, a practice that continued for two hundred years.21 One of the most disturbing aspects of such cruelty was the public enjoyment of it. For example, the city of Mons (in modern-day Belgium) bought a convicted man just “for the pleasure of seeing him quartered, ‘at which the people rejoiced more than if a new holy body had risen from the dead.’”22 Another sign of the cruelty of the age was the conscious deprivation of condemned criminals of the rights of church confession.
Poverty was rampant. In Paris in 1422, there were twenty-four thousand empty homes and eighty thousand beggars within an overall population of about three hundred thousand. Hunger stalked the streets, famine a constant possibility.23 Corn and potatoes were still unknown. Meat was rarely available. Meals were usually nothing but a piece of wheat or barley bread floating in thin soup. Widespread famines throughout France and Spain left hundreds of thousands dead.
The cities had been built up once again, creating an ideal environment for contagions, which meant that if a famine did not destroy a person, any number of diseases likely would. Bubonic plague—the Black Death—roamed throughout Europe. In England, one out of every three people died from the plague, which seemed to return again and again. Hamburg was revisited by the bubonic plague ten times during the fifteenth century alone. And other scourges ran rampant as well: leprosy, scurvy, smallpox, tuberculosis, and influenza.