Chapter X
The entirety of Constantine’s reign was preoccupied with the war with the Turks from 1470-1473. The peace concluded in June was the greatest achievement of his short reign, seeing that the seeds for the Greek Renaissance were not, in any way, put in place by the policies of Constantine. His death in late Augusts, just two months after having preserved the fragile empire may have helped in his expiration, after all, at an elderly age and having suffered – almost immediately after his coronation, the duty of maintaining the ancient empire in the midst of a trying war with their rivals the Turks certainly drained what little life was left in Constantine. Upon his death, Constantine was raised to sainthood within the Roman Church – not surprising given the circumstances of his life and perceived heroism during the most recent war; yet, a man who had killed as many men as he – indirectly through leadership or directly with his own blade, seems to be a betrayal of the very essence of sainthood and the martyrs who courageously stood to proclaim the gospel in an age of intolerance and repression aimed at the early Christian community of the first and second centuries.
Indeed, the succession to a cousin, John IX, would lead him into a tenuous position as emperor. John IX had to deal with the fallout of the war, as well as an assortment of problems that were plaguing the empire. The peasantry had been decimated by the recent war and stern conscription policies that literally dragged young men, not even of age, out of their homes to be pressed into the ranks of the Roman Army that desperately needed men for their ranks. Many of these young men would not return to their gaining plots of agriculture, and those that could were forced to remain in the military as the permanent replacements to the standing soldiers who had been killed in the war.
To give credit to John IX, he attempted to relieve the affliction on the Roman peasantry and underclasses by instituting a sweeping series of agrarian reforms aimed at providing restitution and welfare to the families whose sons had died or were now permanently serving in the Roman army when, less than a year ago, they were expected to remain as farm hands on the large agricultural plots, primarily focused in the Desptoate of the Morea. John seemed to be genuinely moved by their plight, but his policies he pursued were largely ineffective and gave greater power to the local rulers of the despotates. The reign of John IX, although warmhearted, marked the ascendency of the despotates in this new era of the Late Period Empire. These policies of restitution, in which wealthy families, not necessarily the poor peasant families whose sons had been drafted to war, received generous bestowments of Imperial coinage to compensate for their losses, would often pocket the moneys given to them to aid in the agricultural rapprochement. As a result, corruption was heightened, and inflation rose without many checks – few in the Roman administration understood the gravity of inflation within the Roman economic state. Naturally, this would be a later cause of problems during John’s reign.
In addition to this – the money sent to the wealthy landowners also increased their power. With the Imperial Army still confined to the defense of Constantinople, local land barons and nobles started to recruit private armies with the money given to them by the emperor and imperial administration. Many reached out to the Condottieri in Italy to fill the ranks of a permanent private enforcement army – to which several of the noble families reinstituted old rivalries that would be settled in pitched battle by private armies serving the local landlords while John was powerless from Constantinople to do anything but perhaps – as he did – to choose a particular noble and fund him during the struggle in hopes of keeping the peace and preserving the continuity of the empire.
In the Morea, the Kantakouzenos and Dragas families were extremely hostile to one another. With a weak administration in Constantinople, the Kantakouzenoi from Thessaly and the Draga from the Peloponnese aimed to settle a centuries old score by waging war against one another. Alexandros Kantakouzenos rallied a band of 2000 mercenaries, mostly from degenerates from the Kingdom of Naples, to invade the Peloponnese and dislodge the Dragas. The Dragas were from the old Serbian aristocracy who had married into the Palaiologoi family – Constantine XI himself was partly from this bloodline from his mother’s side, Helena. The Kantakouzenos were fully Greek and proud of this fact, and they saw the Dragas Family as foreign invaders unworthy of their positions and titles. With the Dragas line of the Palaiologoi gone with the ascendency of John IX – the situation was ripe for conflict.
Alexandros marched south and forced Jovan Dragas to surrender his estate upon seeing the private army of Alexandros. As Jovan was led out, he was mocked, tied to a donkey, and placed in the town stockade for further humiliation. Stripped of his titles and estate, he faded away into history – never to be heard from again. Some speculate that he was murdered. Others say he fled to the Turks and became an agent for the Mohammedan cause against the Romans. Even others say he became a wanderer of the lands until he finally expired. Regardless, the actions of Alexandros became the norm during John’s reign as local and often petty princes warred with one another for the spoils of the empire.
Despotate soldiers attacking soldiers from another Roman Despotate. This ongoing power struggle sapped central Roman power and authority.
In Anatolia, the Despotate of the Trebizond was the sight of ugly confrontation – not from quarrelling nobles, although there certainly was this – but from the subjugated Mohammedan population who suddenly found themselves the centerpiece and organ of Roman intolerance and persecution. Unlike the Turkish Kingdom which was relatively tolerant toward the Christian minority, the same cannot be said of the Romans toward religious minorities, let alone heretics; whom which many saw the Mohammedans as. To the Romans, Mohammedanism was a dry and barren Unitarian monotheism devoid of the mysticism and spirituality of Eastern Christianity. Their denial of the Trinity, despite their veneration of Mary and Jesus, was not the focus of building a healing relationship as it was in the Turkish territories but the focus of ridicule, attack, and outright hostility from a depressed Christian population that longed for the restoration of the Roman Empire and Imperial Christendom like the days of old. Not to mention that bishops and even patriarchs fueled the flames by wild remarks of a restoration of the Pentarchy – which not only worried the Mohammedan faithful but also the Pope in Rome!
This rising factionalism is indicative of the entire period leading up to the ascendency of John X, to which he himself struggled to confront during his 27 year reign. Yet, the rising of the factionalists also had unintended benefits for the empire in the most unseen ways. First, it drew Mohammedan attention away from the walls of Constantinople as warring factions elsewhere in the empire threatened to spill over into the Turkish border. Second, the factional rivalries among noble families prompted some to marry with the noble families of Serbia, Hungary, and Bosnia for leverage and power gains – thus indirectly cementing pro-Roman sentiments among the elites in these countries who have, or will find, common cause with the Romans against the Mohammedans in Europe. Third, decentralized ruling also allowed for the most capable individuals to possess and develop lands that would have otherwise been left to rot into the abyss. Fourth, the mercenaries raised by these feudal, and often petty, lords, created a new medium by which Roman military power could be concentrated in a future war against the Mohammedans, and later even the Italians!
Yet, at the same time, the rise of the despotates hurt the central administration and authority of the emperor. Onlookers saw the quarrelling in Greece and Trebizond as indicators of Roman decline and lack of prestige, despite the semi-revival that had been undertaken by John VIII and the preservation of the empire under Constantine XI. John IX therefore was in a precarious position, he needed to cement Roman relationships with pro-Christian neighbors to survive the building Mohammedan coalition against him. He also needed to restore order in the despotates to send an image of strength and prestige to his allies and enemies alike. Lastly, the most important to which he never accomplished, was the badly needed centralization reforms of the Roman state which could have accomplished the other two goals of John.
In 1475 in Despotate of the Trebizond, a large Mohammedan uprising occurred. Fueled by the incendiary remarks of the local Christian population, and the perceived oppression that they were facing, the Mohammedans of Candar took up arms and raised over 11,000 to their cause. To throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and to join the Mohammedan Turkish Sultanate would be a devastating blow to Rome, something that John knew he could not allow to happen under his authority. Meanwhile, Duke Andronicus Komneonos, the ruling regent of the Despotate of Trebizond, was routed at Sinope by the rioting Mohammedans. He fled with haste back to his castle along the Black Sea coast, the individual with the misfortune of having been defeated by peasants with pitchforks.
Understanding the gravity of the situation, Emperor John gathered the Imperial Army and dispatched 7,000 soldiers and Condottieri to recapture the lost lands from the Mohammedan uprising. The Mohammedan army, numbering about 10,000 men, not necessarily soldiers, made their stand at Sinope. Georgios Diogenes, one of the Roman heroes of the Macedonian War under Constantine XI, personally accompanied the emperor as his military advisor. John IX was eager for a victory, but the more experienced general cautioned the emperor from making a rash and unnecessary decision that would cost the lives of the men under his command.
Surprisingly, John listened to his subordinate – something that was often uncommon when emperors were leading the armies. The Roman army surrounded the city and planned to starve the Mohammedan defenders into submission. There was however, one problem with this plan – the Mohammedans had expected this, and Al-Faruq, the charismatic Mohammedan leader of the uprising, had been busy raiding the countryside for food and other grains after whipping Duke Andronicus and waiting for the arrival of the Roman army. After two months of inconclusive action, John became impatient with the progress of the siege and decided to press that battle by attacking the Mohammedans outright. Diogenes argued to place the mercenary troops first – after all, dead mercenaries no longer need to be paid.
The Condottieri performed well, scaling the walls and bringing the fight straight to the Mohammedan defenders. Having cleared the way for the young and inexperienced Roman troops, many of them having never seen combat, with a substantial amount mere boys really – Diogenes hoped that the more experienced Italians would allow for the young Roman troops to be met with a broken and battered enemy to which the Roman soldiers could gird their loins and sharpen their steel against. This plan, as immoral as it might have been – worked to great effect. The Mohammedans were broken within the first few hours of fighting. However, none surrendered knowing the fate that would await them – thus, all would die as martyrs of the faith.
Overlooking his victory, John grew wild with optimism and promptly took credit for the defeat of the Mohammedan army. Restoring order in the region was a major accomplishment for the decentralized emperor, who would just as quickly board his personal ship and sail back to the Golden Horn and take up residence in the Imperial Palace having given back administrative rule to Duke Andronicus, who negotiated for the keeping of 1,000 of the Italians as his personal bodyguard and police force. Naturally, the lack of a centralized authority passed down to the rule of degenerate prince caused further hardship unto the Roman Christian and Mohammedan populace in the western edges of the despotate.
Italian mercenaries like this one above, known as "Condottieri", were the mainstay of the personal soldiers of private despotate armies commanded by warring Roman nobles seeking greater power and authority. These private armies posed a serious threat to the Roman Army under the command of the emperor.
Duke Andronicus, like Alexandros Kantakouzenos in Greece, cemented his personal control over the region economically, politically, and militarily. His policies of tax farming and favoritism only furthered his political alliance among the lesser nobles in the region. Of course, those who opposed him often found themselves facing down the point of Andronicus’ mercenaries – who were employed as his personal enforcers. Some may have even been murdered on his orders! Yet, such deceit and corruption had become so common in the Late Period Empire; it doesn’t stand out as something shocking.
In the schools, in the churches, even the palaces throughout the Roman Empire one must tirelessly search for a righteous soul within the empire – and not a single soul will anyone find worthy of salvation. This is a testimony to the moral character of the Romans, who rank immeasurably lower in civic virtue, love of liberty, and moral fortitude than even the Pagans! Indeed, Eirenaios Tornikes, the Pagan philosopher and man who reestablished the Imperial Cult was more virtuous than most, if not all, the men who proclaimed to follow the human spirit of the gospels and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The constant backroom politicking practiced by the Roman nobility would make the members of Parliament seem like saints by comparison.
As the Despotates grew in power, the central authority of Emperor John decreased, and at his expense – the fragile empire was not structurally getting stronger despite perceptions that it may have been growing in strength. The strength and wealth of the empire was spread among the local authorities, the Skanderberg family in Albania, Charlotte in Cyprus, and Dukes Alexandros and Andronicus in Greece and Trebizond. The influx of Mediterranean trade never found its way to the Imperial Treasury, but to the local treasury of the nobles – who would not hesitate in raiding Imperial tax collectors to gain a larger share of money to line their own pockets.
Yet, John seemed oblivious to this – or he did not have the political courage or will to challenge the petty nobles running rampant throughout the empire. In a bid to hedge the growing power of the nobles, he isolated himself among the peasantry during the non-Possessor movements of the late fifteenth century when ecclesiastical authorities were besieged, both by the peasantry and certain powerful nobles, to relinquish their lands and live among the people as Christ had done in First Century Galilee. Seizing this opportunity to strike back at the nobles, Emperor John supported the clergy in defending the vast territory of land and wealth owned by the Church. John may have curbed the rising power of some of the nobles, but his actions could not curtail the rising influence and power of localized politics and militaries that threatened to upend the balance of power between the emperor in Constantinople and his subjects separated from him by the Turkish Kingdom. Also, he isolated himself from the peasantry, who – unlike the nobles, were in plight and saw the Church lands and wealth as a medium for great prosperity. Unlike some advisors who suggested the impiety among the peasantry had led them to this position, the opposite is almost certainly true – the peasants were the most faithful stewards of the Christian faith in the longest standing Christian empire in the world.
The Rise of the Despotates and Their Petty Squabbles and Wars
The entirety of Constantine’s reign was preoccupied with the war with the Turks from 1470-1473. The peace concluded in June was the greatest achievement of his short reign, seeing that the seeds for the Greek Renaissance were not, in any way, put in place by the policies of Constantine. His death in late Augusts, just two months after having preserved the fragile empire may have helped in his expiration, after all, at an elderly age and having suffered – almost immediately after his coronation, the duty of maintaining the ancient empire in the midst of a trying war with their rivals the Turks certainly drained what little life was left in Constantine. Upon his death, Constantine was raised to sainthood within the Roman Church – not surprising given the circumstances of his life and perceived heroism during the most recent war; yet, a man who had killed as many men as he – indirectly through leadership or directly with his own blade, seems to be a betrayal of the very essence of sainthood and the martyrs who courageously stood to proclaim the gospel in an age of intolerance and repression aimed at the early Christian community of the first and second centuries.
Indeed, the succession to a cousin, John IX, would lead him into a tenuous position as emperor. John IX had to deal with the fallout of the war, as well as an assortment of problems that were plaguing the empire. The peasantry had been decimated by the recent war and stern conscription policies that literally dragged young men, not even of age, out of their homes to be pressed into the ranks of the Roman Army that desperately needed men for their ranks. Many of these young men would not return to their gaining plots of agriculture, and those that could were forced to remain in the military as the permanent replacements to the standing soldiers who had been killed in the war.
To give credit to John IX, he attempted to relieve the affliction on the Roman peasantry and underclasses by instituting a sweeping series of agrarian reforms aimed at providing restitution and welfare to the families whose sons had died or were now permanently serving in the Roman army when, less than a year ago, they were expected to remain as farm hands on the large agricultural plots, primarily focused in the Desptoate of the Morea. John seemed to be genuinely moved by their plight, but his policies he pursued were largely ineffective and gave greater power to the local rulers of the despotates. The reign of John IX, although warmhearted, marked the ascendency of the despotates in this new era of the Late Period Empire. These policies of restitution, in which wealthy families, not necessarily the poor peasant families whose sons had been drafted to war, received generous bestowments of Imperial coinage to compensate for their losses, would often pocket the moneys given to them to aid in the agricultural rapprochement. As a result, corruption was heightened, and inflation rose without many checks – few in the Roman administration understood the gravity of inflation within the Roman economic state. Naturally, this would be a later cause of problems during John’s reign.
In addition to this – the money sent to the wealthy landowners also increased their power. With the Imperial Army still confined to the defense of Constantinople, local land barons and nobles started to recruit private armies with the money given to them by the emperor and imperial administration. Many reached out to the Condottieri in Italy to fill the ranks of a permanent private enforcement army – to which several of the noble families reinstituted old rivalries that would be settled in pitched battle by private armies serving the local landlords while John was powerless from Constantinople to do anything but perhaps – as he did – to choose a particular noble and fund him during the struggle in hopes of keeping the peace and preserving the continuity of the empire.
In the Morea, the Kantakouzenos and Dragas families were extremely hostile to one another. With a weak administration in Constantinople, the Kantakouzenoi from Thessaly and the Draga from the Peloponnese aimed to settle a centuries old score by waging war against one another. Alexandros Kantakouzenos rallied a band of 2000 mercenaries, mostly from degenerates from the Kingdom of Naples, to invade the Peloponnese and dislodge the Dragas. The Dragas were from the old Serbian aristocracy who had married into the Palaiologoi family – Constantine XI himself was partly from this bloodline from his mother’s side, Helena. The Kantakouzenos were fully Greek and proud of this fact, and they saw the Dragas Family as foreign invaders unworthy of their positions and titles. With the Dragas line of the Palaiologoi gone with the ascendency of John IX – the situation was ripe for conflict.
Alexandros marched south and forced Jovan Dragas to surrender his estate upon seeing the private army of Alexandros. As Jovan was led out, he was mocked, tied to a donkey, and placed in the town stockade for further humiliation. Stripped of his titles and estate, he faded away into history – never to be heard from again. Some speculate that he was murdered. Others say he fled to the Turks and became an agent for the Mohammedan cause against the Romans. Even others say he became a wanderer of the lands until he finally expired. Regardless, the actions of Alexandros became the norm during John’s reign as local and often petty princes warred with one another for the spoils of the empire.
Despotate soldiers attacking soldiers from another Roman Despotate. This ongoing power struggle sapped central Roman power and authority.
In Anatolia, the Despotate of the Trebizond was the sight of ugly confrontation – not from quarrelling nobles, although there certainly was this – but from the subjugated Mohammedan population who suddenly found themselves the centerpiece and organ of Roman intolerance and persecution. Unlike the Turkish Kingdom which was relatively tolerant toward the Christian minority, the same cannot be said of the Romans toward religious minorities, let alone heretics; whom which many saw the Mohammedans as. To the Romans, Mohammedanism was a dry and barren Unitarian monotheism devoid of the mysticism and spirituality of Eastern Christianity. Their denial of the Trinity, despite their veneration of Mary and Jesus, was not the focus of building a healing relationship as it was in the Turkish territories but the focus of ridicule, attack, and outright hostility from a depressed Christian population that longed for the restoration of the Roman Empire and Imperial Christendom like the days of old. Not to mention that bishops and even patriarchs fueled the flames by wild remarks of a restoration of the Pentarchy – which not only worried the Mohammedan faithful but also the Pope in Rome!
This rising factionalism is indicative of the entire period leading up to the ascendency of John X, to which he himself struggled to confront during his 27 year reign. Yet, the rising of the factionalists also had unintended benefits for the empire in the most unseen ways. First, it drew Mohammedan attention away from the walls of Constantinople as warring factions elsewhere in the empire threatened to spill over into the Turkish border. Second, the factional rivalries among noble families prompted some to marry with the noble families of Serbia, Hungary, and Bosnia for leverage and power gains – thus indirectly cementing pro-Roman sentiments among the elites in these countries who have, or will find, common cause with the Romans against the Mohammedans in Europe. Third, decentralized ruling also allowed for the most capable individuals to possess and develop lands that would have otherwise been left to rot into the abyss. Fourth, the mercenaries raised by these feudal, and often petty, lords, created a new medium by which Roman military power could be concentrated in a future war against the Mohammedans, and later even the Italians!
Yet, at the same time, the rise of the despotates hurt the central administration and authority of the emperor. Onlookers saw the quarrelling in Greece and Trebizond as indicators of Roman decline and lack of prestige, despite the semi-revival that had been undertaken by John VIII and the preservation of the empire under Constantine XI. John IX therefore was in a precarious position, he needed to cement Roman relationships with pro-Christian neighbors to survive the building Mohammedan coalition against him. He also needed to restore order in the despotates to send an image of strength and prestige to his allies and enemies alike. Lastly, the most important to which he never accomplished, was the badly needed centralization reforms of the Roman state which could have accomplished the other two goals of John.
In 1475 in Despotate of the Trebizond, a large Mohammedan uprising occurred. Fueled by the incendiary remarks of the local Christian population, and the perceived oppression that they were facing, the Mohammedans of Candar took up arms and raised over 11,000 to their cause. To throw off the shackles of Roman oppression and to join the Mohammedan Turkish Sultanate would be a devastating blow to Rome, something that John knew he could not allow to happen under his authority. Meanwhile, Duke Andronicus Komneonos, the ruling regent of the Despotate of Trebizond, was routed at Sinope by the rioting Mohammedans. He fled with haste back to his castle along the Black Sea coast, the individual with the misfortune of having been defeated by peasants with pitchforks.
Understanding the gravity of the situation, Emperor John gathered the Imperial Army and dispatched 7,000 soldiers and Condottieri to recapture the lost lands from the Mohammedan uprising. The Mohammedan army, numbering about 10,000 men, not necessarily soldiers, made their stand at Sinope. Georgios Diogenes, one of the Roman heroes of the Macedonian War under Constantine XI, personally accompanied the emperor as his military advisor. John IX was eager for a victory, but the more experienced general cautioned the emperor from making a rash and unnecessary decision that would cost the lives of the men under his command.
Surprisingly, John listened to his subordinate – something that was often uncommon when emperors were leading the armies. The Roman army surrounded the city and planned to starve the Mohammedan defenders into submission. There was however, one problem with this plan – the Mohammedans had expected this, and Al-Faruq, the charismatic Mohammedan leader of the uprising, had been busy raiding the countryside for food and other grains after whipping Duke Andronicus and waiting for the arrival of the Roman army. After two months of inconclusive action, John became impatient with the progress of the siege and decided to press that battle by attacking the Mohammedans outright. Diogenes argued to place the mercenary troops first – after all, dead mercenaries no longer need to be paid.
The Condottieri performed well, scaling the walls and bringing the fight straight to the Mohammedan defenders. Having cleared the way for the young and inexperienced Roman troops, many of them having never seen combat, with a substantial amount mere boys really – Diogenes hoped that the more experienced Italians would allow for the young Roman troops to be met with a broken and battered enemy to which the Roman soldiers could gird their loins and sharpen their steel against. This plan, as immoral as it might have been – worked to great effect. The Mohammedans were broken within the first few hours of fighting. However, none surrendered knowing the fate that would await them – thus, all would die as martyrs of the faith.
Overlooking his victory, John grew wild with optimism and promptly took credit for the defeat of the Mohammedan army. Restoring order in the region was a major accomplishment for the decentralized emperor, who would just as quickly board his personal ship and sail back to the Golden Horn and take up residence in the Imperial Palace having given back administrative rule to Duke Andronicus, who negotiated for the keeping of 1,000 of the Italians as his personal bodyguard and police force. Naturally, the lack of a centralized authority passed down to the rule of degenerate prince caused further hardship unto the Roman Christian and Mohammedan populace in the western edges of the despotate.
Italian mercenaries like this one above, known as "Condottieri", were the mainstay of the personal soldiers of private despotate armies commanded by warring Roman nobles seeking greater power and authority. These private armies posed a serious threat to the Roman Army under the command of the emperor.
Duke Andronicus, like Alexandros Kantakouzenos in Greece, cemented his personal control over the region economically, politically, and militarily. His policies of tax farming and favoritism only furthered his political alliance among the lesser nobles in the region. Of course, those who opposed him often found themselves facing down the point of Andronicus’ mercenaries – who were employed as his personal enforcers. Some may have even been murdered on his orders! Yet, such deceit and corruption had become so common in the Late Period Empire; it doesn’t stand out as something shocking.
In the schools, in the churches, even the palaces throughout the Roman Empire one must tirelessly search for a righteous soul within the empire – and not a single soul will anyone find worthy of salvation. This is a testimony to the moral character of the Romans, who rank immeasurably lower in civic virtue, love of liberty, and moral fortitude than even the Pagans! Indeed, Eirenaios Tornikes, the Pagan philosopher and man who reestablished the Imperial Cult was more virtuous than most, if not all, the men who proclaimed to follow the human spirit of the gospels and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The constant backroom politicking practiced by the Roman nobility would make the members of Parliament seem like saints by comparison.
As the Despotates grew in power, the central authority of Emperor John decreased, and at his expense – the fragile empire was not structurally getting stronger despite perceptions that it may have been growing in strength. The strength and wealth of the empire was spread among the local authorities, the Skanderberg family in Albania, Charlotte in Cyprus, and Dukes Alexandros and Andronicus in Greece and Trebizond. The influx of Mediterranean trade never found its way to the Imperial Treasury, but to the local treasury of the nobles – who would not hesitate in raiding Imperial tax collectors to gain a larger share of money to line their own pockets.
Yet, John seemed oblivious to this – or he did not have the political courage or will to challenge the petty nobles running rampant throughout the empire. In a bid to hedge the growing power of the nobles, he isolated himself among the peasantry during the non-Possessor movements of the late fifteenth century when ecclesiastical authorities were besieged, both by the peasantry and certain powerful nobles, to relinquish their lands and live among the people as Christ had done in First Century Galilee. Seizing this opportunity to strike back at the nobles, Emperor John supported the clergy in defending the vast territory of land and wealth owned by the Church. John may have curbed the rising power of some of the nobles, but his actions could not curtail the rising influence and power of localized politics and militaries that threatened to upend the balance of power between the emperor in Constantinople and his subjects separated from him by the Turkish Kingdom. Also, he isolated himself from the peasantry, who – unlike the nobles, were in plight and saw the Church lands and wealth as a medium for great prosperity. Unlike some advisors who suggested the impiety among the peasantry had led them to this position, the opposite is almost certainly true – the peasants were the most faithful stewards of the Christian faith in the longest standing Christian empire in the world.
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