the Mamluks succeeded in driving out the Pasha and making Egypt independent again. But this only lasted four years. Then, as usual under the Porte, the province became very nearly independent. As long as the Sultan was acknowledged in theory, and received his tribute regularly, he took no trouble about the internal affairs of the various provinces. So the Mamluks fought among themselves and again reduced the unhappy land to its usual state of misery. Only this time each usurper went through the formality of getting an appointment from Constantinople.
Meanwhile, the Copts have scarcely any history. For one thing, our sources have come to an end before this time. Maḳrīzī died in 1441; the continuators of Severus (in the History of the Patriarchs) and Renaudot's compilation from them, Wansleb and Abū-Ḏaḳn, give nothing but a meagre list of Patriarchs. This is less to be regretted, since from what we know of the general state of Egypt and of all Christians under the Porte, we can imagine the lot of the Copts fairly accurately. They became one more millah (nation) of rayahs, like the others. Their bishops paid the usual fee and got their berat from the Government; the laity paid their poll-tax. Centuries of persecution had wrought the natural effect. When the Moslems first entered Egypt in the 7th century, except for a small minority of Orthodox, the whole land was Coptic. Under the Turks the Copts had become a mere handful among a Moslem population (descendants of apostates); the Orthodox were a still smaller body. Both suffered from the unruliness of the rebel Mamluks. One result of the Turkish conquest is curious. The Turk of the two preferred the Orthodox to the Copts. He was used to the Orthodox. He had millions of them already in his empire. They acknowledged some kind of vague authority on the part of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was the Sultan's creature and, in any case, was the civil chief of all his co-religionists.[1] So the Orthodox were the Christians centralized at Constantinople. The Turk gave them at least equal rights with the Copts; indeed, he was inclined to be on their side in a quarrel. Under the Turk the Orthodox community of Egypt revives and is comparatively flourishing again (as far as any Christians can be said to flourish under a Moslem govern-
- ↑ See Orth. Eastern Church, pp. 239, 284-285, etc.
