and camp of the khan—for their investiture, and to submit to its authority whenever it chose to interfere with them. To the horde they had to pay their tribute. Even at home they were hampered by the presence of residents called "baskàks." That thirteenth century, which is to us a very golden age—the age of St. Francis and the friars and the awakening of democratic religion throughout the West—the age of early English architecture and cathedral building—the age of the great English king Edward i. and the rise of the House of Commons—the age of Dante and the origin of modern literature—the age of Giotto and Fra Angelico and the beginnings of modern painting—this was in Russia the darkest of ages, the age of oppression and stagnation and misery. Russia had shared with Constantinople the glories of the earlier period, when the rest of Europe was abandoned to the barbarism which followed the break-up of the Roman Empire, and which we have been taught to call the Dark Ages. Now the case was completely reversed. The darkness lifted from the West, and a brilliant day dawned in England, France, and Italy; at the same time the darkness settled down on Russia—just when the abominable "Latin Empire" was filling Constantinople and the Eastern Church with gloom and misery.
This national calamity of Russia could not but have a profound effect on the Church and the course of her life during the period of trial. Here the first thing to observe is that the Mongols, even after they became Mohammedans, did not persecute the Christians in Russia. That country was still the land least stained with the blood of martyrs. It was when she began to persecute her own sons whom she reckoned heretics, the members of the various prohibited sects, that this cruelty became common in Russia. The Mongols permitted the Christians to enjoy their religion freely and to conduct its public services. The khans even protected the Church from attack, and exempted its property from confiscation. But this very fact had its peculiar influence, especially when it was combined with the political factors of the case. Russia
