Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

204 HOME LIFE IN HELLASwhich the country has suffered point the otherway.The long Roman subjection, the invasionsof Avar, Slav, and Norman, the Frankish dominationof more than two and a half centuries, theVenetian conquests, and the Turkish rule ofnearly four hundred years cannot but have leftsome traces. To these must be added the manyimmigrations and intrusions of a peaceful character.In 1397, long before the Turkish Conquest,Anatolian Turks settled in considerable numbersin Thessaly, and early in the following centuryabout six thousand families came to augment thecolony. These people were known as Koniarides,from Konia, the ancient Iconium, their place oforigin. About the same period there was aninflux of Yuruks, the pastoral nomads of Turkishrace who are still to be met with on the uplandsof Asia Minor. A little later Mohamed IIdivided large districts into military fiefs granted toTurks who had served him and his predecessors.Not so long ago, two Turks, landowners ofThessaly, sat as members of the Greek Parliament.It may be urged that the progeny of Greekintermarriage with Turks remained Mohammedans,distinct from the Greek population, butthere must have been some leakage. There were,and probably still are, a score of families in thedeme of Boeae, and a whole village near Kastania,speaking Greek and devout Christians, who areknown to be descendants of Turks convertedduring the revolution of 1821. At the capture of