FRANCE.-1302, Defeat at Courtray-Papal Quarrels.-1307, Templars abolished-Salic Law.-1346, Battle of Cressy; 1356, of Poitiers.1358, The Jacquerie.—1364, Charles V. BRITAIN.-1314, Battle of Bannockburn.-1346, The Black Prince.1371, The Stuarts.-1381, Wat Tyler.-1399, HOUSE OF LANCASTER -Henry IV. SPANISH PENINSULA.-1340, Battle of Tarifa; Cannons first used.— 1350, Peter the Cruel.-1368, Henry of Trastamare.—1385, John or Portugal. CHURCH.-1360, John Wickliffe.-1378, Great Schism of the West.- INVENTIONS.-1306, The Mariner's Compass-Linen Paper-Cannons, GREEK EMPIRE. A nation so degraded as the Greeks was unable to defend itself against the Turks, to repel whose attacks ANDRONICUS II. hired 7000 Catalonians, whom the reconciliation of the houses of Anjou and Aragon had left without employment; but these mercenaries, uniting with the Turks, pillaged Thrace and Thessaly, and seized on the duchy of Athens, 1312. Further, the knights of St John wrested Cos, Rhodes, and several adjacent islands, from the Byzantine emperor. Internal dissensions led to the dethronement of the sovereign by his grandson, Andronicus the Younger, 1328, under whom the abuses of the government increased. Bithynia was conquered by the Turks ; and his reign of thirteen years was imbittered by a declining popularity and a premature old age, the consequence of youthful excess. John Palæologus, 1341, was left in his ninth year under the guardianship of the regent CANTACUZENE, who had the merit of restoring Lesbos and Ætolia to the empire. The intrigues of jealous courtiers led him to assume the imperial title. During six years the flames of civil discord burned with various success; and while internal factions weakened the state, the barbarians were breaking through the whole line of the frontiers. The regent finally triumphed, but his reign was disturbed by faction; and he descended from the throne to a cloister, 1355, when John resumed the purple. In this year a terrible earthquake shook most of the cities in South Roumelia,—an event of which the Turks took advantage to seize on them, and fortify Gallipoli and Zympe. Opposed on all sides, by Christians and infidels alike, the emperor besought the protection of the pope, and endeavoured to effect a union between the two churches. But this was unavailing against the victories of Amurath, to whom he became almost a tributary vassal, and the Greek empire was soon confined to a corner of Thrace between the Sea of Marmora and the Euxine, scarcely 1500 miles square-Philadelphia, the last city held by the Greeks in Asia Minor, having been wrested from them in 1390.-MANUEL II., 1391, who had served under Bajazet, preserved his military reputation by a lengthened struggle with his rival John of Selymbria. The threatening power and haughty summons of Bajazet led to an ignominious truce of ten years, in virtue of which the religion of Mohammed was tolerated in the Christian capital. THE EAST. OTTOMAN EMPIRE.-Profiting by the weakness of the Seljukians of Iconium, many Turkish families had retired into the mountains of Asia Minor, where they formed several petty states, and preserved their warlike habits by continual inroads into the Greek territories. Among these was OTHMAN, who, fixing his residence at Karahissar, extended his power into Bithynia; and his son Orcan, who succeeded him, 1326, having assumed the title of sultan, rapidly enlarged his dominions. Invited into Europe by one of the factions of the capital, the barbarians established themselves in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, whence they subdued the whole province from the Hellespont to Mount Hæmus, 1360. AMURATH I. at length reduced the Greek emperor to the ignominy of sending his four sons as hostages to the Ottoman camp. To him, or to his predecessor Orcan, the celebrated Janizaries owe their origin. Aware of the real superiority of the Europeans in warlike matters, he selected the stoutest of the Christian prisoners, and educated them in habits of martial discipline. This new militia was consecrated by a renowned dervise, who said, "Let them be called Janizaries-new soldiers; may their hands be ever victorious, and their swords keen." BAJAZET I., surnamed Ilderim, 1389, reigned fourteen years; and his rapid movements soon reduced to obedience all the country between the Euphrates and the Danube. At the battle of Nicopolis, 1396, he defeated Sigismond the king of Hungary, and the bravest knights of France and Germany, who had marched to the support of Europe and the Church. It was the insolent boast of this proud army of 100,000 Christians, that if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The impetuosity of the French caused the loss of the day, and the lives of many of the most gallant soldiers. With savage cruelty Bajazet led out the prisoners, amounting to no fewer than 10,000, to be slaughtered in cold blood. The Duke of Burgundy was compelled to be a spectator of this inhuman massacre, which lasted from early morn till four o'clock P. m.; and then was only stopped at the intercession of some of the Mohammedan leaders. The siege of Constantinople was next meditated, but the sultan was compelled to defend himself against the formidable Tamerlane. The two armies met at Angora, 1402; Bajazet was defeated and made captive, and carried about in triumph in an iron cage, or litter with iron lattice-work. TAMERLANE.-Under the successors of Genghis Khan in the fourteenth century, the vices common to all Asiastic monarchies appeared. The provincial governors asserted their independence in 1355, and the dynasty of the Ilkhanians at Bagdad extended their authority to the Caspian Sea. At the same time, the khan's officers deprived him of his power, and governed the empire in his name. Lastly, the inroads of the Turkomans, and of the Mongol Khan of the Kaptschak, who several times entered Persia, but particularly those of Tamerlane, put an end to their dominion. This famous warrior was not distinguished in arms until the age of twenty-seven; his youth having been passed in tending the flocks and herds of the family. At nineteen he became religious, and made a vow never to injure any living thing. His first adventures were the struggles upon which he entered to restore to independence his country, that had been invaded by the Calmucks. He ascended the throne of Zagatai, 1370; but before his death the crown of that kingdom was only one of fourteen that encircled his brows. Turkestan was subdued in 1383; Persia in 1393; and Eastern Tartary was invaded with a mighty army, whose front covered thirteen miles. Hindostan was assailed by 92,000 horsemen ; and 10,000 prisoners, whom they took on their march, were all massacred. Delhi was captured and delivered up to an undisciplined soldiery; and after a campaign of one year, Tamerlane returned home. His designs of conquest were probably changed by the news he received of the ambitious projects of Bajazet. Quitting the banks of the Ganges, he marched against his rival; Sebaste, on the borders of Anatolia was taken, and the garrison, consisting of 4000 Armenians, buried alive. His incursions into Syria and Persia during the next two years enabled Bajazet to collect forces; and after various delays, the two armies met in the heart of the Ottoman empire. The result of the battle of Angora, 1402, did not disgrace the thirty years' experience of Tamerlane. Almost the whole of Asia was now in his hands; but while meditating new designs of vast extent, which included nothing less than the conquest of the world, death put a term to his career in 1405. With his life the glory of his empire faded, and, before the end of the fifteenth century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled upon by their Turkoman neighbours. GERMANY. After the death of his rival Adolphus in 1298, Albert of Austria received the imperial crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, notwithstanding the determined opposition of Boniface VIII., who, nevertheless, becoming reconciled, assisted him in placing on the throne of Hungary their common friend, Carobert of Naples, 1308. The emperor next disposed of the Bohemian territory in favour of two of his sons, Rodolph and Frederick. But the states had already conferred the sovereignty on Henry of Carinthia, brother-in-law of the preceding king, Wenceslaus V. Albert, after making several vain efforts to support the rights of his own family, turned all the fury of his anger against the Swiss. HELVETIC CONFEDERACY.-The Swiss towns did not rise into importance before the twelfth century, nor did their country bear its present name. Part belonged to the duchy of Swabia; part to the kingdom of Arles; part to Burgundy; and though all as a body were dependent on the empire, certain fiefs appertained to the house of Austria. At the end of the thirteenth century, the politic and enterprising Rodolph, with his son Albert, had obtained a great ascendency among them. The latter, however, was viewed with distrust, and his conduct in sending some imperial bailiffs as administrators of criminal justice, excited a brave and simple-minded people to insurrection. Stauffacher, Furst, and Melchthal united in the cause of liberty, and the cantons of Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwalden, which they represented, unanimously rose and expelled their op pressors in 1308. Tell, the son-in-law of Furst, having offended the bailiff Gessler by refusing to bow to a hat on the top of a pole, was seized, and in violation of the privileges of his canton, placed in a boat to be carried across the lake. A storm having arisen, he was loosed from his fetters to navigate the vessel, when he found an opportunity of effecting his escape. He shortly after met his enemy and shot him in a hollow way in 1307.* Leopold duke of Austria led a considerable force to reduce the peasants who had rebelled against his father; but the battle of Morgarten, the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the independence of the three cantons, 1315. In this conflict a display of patriotic firmness occurred, not unworthy the best days of ancient Rome. Fifty men, who had been banished from Schweitz, solicited permission to fight in defence of their native homes; the magistrates declined the offer, being unwilling to allow the approach of danger to relax the ordinances of the state. But the exiles, though thus rejected, posted themselves on an eminence beyond the frontier of the canton, where they contributed to the victory of those by whom their services had been refused. They obtained from the gratitude of their country, what they had vainly sought from its fears, and were all restored. The battle of Sempach, in 1386, was the last in which Austria endeavoured to subdue those independent mountaineers. It was rendered illustrious by an heroic act, deserving to be ever remembered among the instances of generous self-devotion. When the confederates had been defeated in every attempt to break the line of the enemy, another Codrus, Arnold Struthan, knight of Unterwalden, cried to his countrymen that he would open a passage, desiring them to provide for his wife and children, and to honour his race. Then throwing himself on the opposing pikes, he grasped as many of them as he could, buried them in his bosom, and bore them to the ground, leaving a space open for the advance of his companions. Before the middle of the century, the confederacy had been strengthened by the addition of Lucerne, Zurich, Berne, Zug, and Glaris, composing the eight ancient cantons. Friburg, Appenzel, Soleure, Basle, and Schaffhausen, afterwards became *The authenticity of the romantic story of Tell and his son is very doubtful. Saxo Grammaticus, the Swedish historian, relates a precisely similar event, which happened to the Danish Toko, under Harold the Blue, king of Denmark, in the 10th century. |