es of the Peninsula, distracted by the quarrels of their petty princes,
fell an easy prey to the advancing might of the Moslem invader.

_The Turkish Conquest._--In 1340 the Turks had begun to ravage the valley
of the Maritza; in 1362 they captured Philippopolis, and in 1382 Sofia. In
1366 Ivan Shishman III., the last Bulgarian tsar, was compelled to declare
himself the vassal of the sultan Murad I., and to send his sister to the
harem of the conqueror. In 1389 the rout of the Servians, Bosnians and
Croats on the famous field of Kossovo decided the fate of the Peninsula.
Shortly afterwards Ivan Shishman was attacked by the Turks; and Trnovo,
after a siege of three months, was captured, sacked and burnt in 1393. The
fate of the last Bulgarian sovereign is unknown: the national legend
represents him as perishing in a battle near Samakov. Vidin, where Ivan's
brother, Strazhimir, had established himself, was taken in 1396, and with
its fall the last remnant of Bulgarian independence disappeared.

The five centuries of Turkish rule (1396-1878) form a dark epoch in
Bulgarian history. The invaders carried fire and sword through the land;
towns, villages and monasteries were sacked and destroyed, and whole
districts were converted into desolate wastes. The inhabitants of the
plains fled to the mountains, where they founded new settlements. Many of
the nobles embraced the creed of Islam, and were liberally rewarded for
their apostasy; others, together with numbers of the priests and people,
took refuge across the Danube. All the regions formerly ruled by the
Bulgarian tsars, including Macedonia and Thrace, were placed under the
administration of a governor-general, styled the beylerbey of Rum-ili,
residing at Sofia; Bulgaria proper was divided into the sanjaks of Sofia,
Nikopolis, Vidin, Silistria and Kiustendil. Only a small proportion of the
people followed the example of the boyars in abandoning Christianity; the
conversion of the isolated communities now represented by the Pomaks took
place at various intervals during the next three centuries. A new kind of
feudal system replaced that of the boyars, and fiefs or _spahiliks_ were
conferred on the Ottoman chiefs and the renegade Bulgarian nobles. The
Christian population was subjected to heavy imposts, the principal being
the _haratch_, or capitation-tax, paid to the imperial treasury, and the
tithe on agricultural produce, which was collected by the feudal lord.
Among the most