the last of her race, the last of the glories of the
Byzantine kingdom, then retired to a convent to pass the remainder of
her days in prayers for the repose of the souls of her loved ones. Grief
soon brought her to a refuge from all earthly sorrows in the grave.

The story of womanhood in the Byzantine Empire of the decadence is an
extremely sad one. The times were out of joint; corruption and
immorality prevailed; the emperors were almost without exception
extremely selfish, cruel, and unprincipled. It was impossible for
womanhood in such a period not to be tainted by the general ruin, yet we
have found many noble characters, and whatever may have been their
feminine weaknesses and foibles, however much their lots may have been
circumscribed by the caprices of sovereigns and the ceremonials of
courts, the princesses of the Comneni, the Palaeologi and the Cantacuzeni
have, as a rule, shown themselves in virtue and in capability the
superiors of their brothers.

The rest of our story of Christian women of Greek or Byzantine
traditions is soon told. During all the period we have covered in this
chapter there was a flourishing mediaeval life further south under Greek
skies, in Athens, under a Frankish and, later, a Florentine duchy, and
in the Peloponnesus, or the Morea, under Frankish or Venetian princes.
But this was the feudal life of mediaeval times transferred to Greek
soil, the life of foreigners among a conquered people, and does not
concern us here.

When the Turks extended their conquests over Greek lands, it looked as
if the torch of freedom, the light of Hellenic tradition, the lamp of
Christianity which had for so many centuries brightened the life of
Oriental women, had been extinguished forever. But all during the dark
age of Turkish oppression, the Christian Church kept alive the nobler
aspirations of the Greek race. Women have always been the chief
exponents of religious faith, and Greek women handed on from generation
to generation the traditions of religion and liberty and intellectual
culture. Many of the women of Greek lands were forced to spend their
lives within the narrow walls of a Turkish harem; many saw their
children taken from them and carried to Constantinople to be brought up
as Mussulmans for the service of the Sultan; many had to undergo
ignominy and insults at the hands of petty officials. But the Church
found a constant and enthusiastic ally in Greek womanhood in preserving
the langua