204: THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. monasteries were open and existed in great numbers. In ^ . the capital the district of the Petrion contained Monafiteries. ^ several, wliile outside the walls and on the neigh- boring bills were others, the ruins of which show that at one time the number of monks must have been very great. In the Eastern Church, however, monasticism has never assumed the strict and gloomy forms which the great Western orders of monks have given to it. "Wealth such as I have attempted to describe, luxuries which were almost unknown unless by name in Western Eu- rope, a city which was the storehouse of art and of learning, all imply an amount of civilization which, when compared with that which prevailed during the time of Kichard the First and John in England, may justly be called high. Nor must it be forgotten that that which constituted the most essential element in the civilization of the Sense of se- . . i i i i • tt-t cnrityiuthe capital and its ueiochborhood was its securitv. We capital. 1 o J read in Benjamin of Tudela, and in other Western as well as in Greek writers, of the abundance of which he saw the signs as he passed through the empire, of the con- fidence which, in spite of invasions on all the frontiers, the population had in the power of the government to protect it. At a time when feudalism had organized the great masses of the West into armed populations, and looked upon commerce and the exercise of handicraft with the contempt of igno- rance, the inhabitants of the empire were freely carrying on trade or tilling the ground. There were within the empire no feudal towers, with serfs and retainers ready at any mo- ment to engage in private warfare, but a country full of farms, prosperous and secure. The jpax Romana iiad been well maintained within the empire, and around the capital had hardly yet been disturbed. More fortunate than its elder rival, the New Rome had never seen a hostile army within its walls. The shores of the Marmora were dotted with the pleasant villas of merchants and nobles, for the roads were good, and the capital to the last provided security for life and property. In the foregoing pages I have endeavored to describe the
