heels, and was compelled at Kljuć to surrender on promise of life and freedom, but, in spite of this, he was put to death, after being utilized to order all commandants of cities and castles to surrender them. Within eight days more than seventy towns fell into the hands of the Turks, and by the middle of June all Bosnia was in their possession. Then Mahomet turned southward to overrun the territories of Stephen Vukcić, but the mountains of Herzegovina were bravely defended by the Cathari, and by the end of June the Turkish host took its way homeward, carrying with it one hundred thousand prisoners and thirty thousand youths to be converted into Janissaries.[352] Thus abandoned by Christendom, except to hasten the end through perpetually inflaming religious strife, Bosnia was conquered without a struggle, while Herzegovina held out for twenty years longer. How easily the catastrophe might have been averted is seen in the fact that before the year 1463 was out Matthias Corvinus had reconquered a large portion of the territory so easily won, which was held until the Hungarian power was broken on the disastrous field of Mohacs in 1526. In the Turkish lands the Cathari for the most part embraced Mahometanism, and the sect which had so stubbornly endured the vicissitudes of more than a thousand years disappeared in obscurity. The Christians had the resource of flight, which they embraced, commencing an emigration which continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. This was rather to escape oppression than persecution, for the Turks permitted them the exercise of their religion. When the blessed Angelo of Verbosa, the disciple of Giacomo della Marca, persuaded his fellow-believers to leave the country, Mahomet sent for him and menacingly asked him his reasons. “To worship God elsewhere,” he boldly replied, and so eloquently pleaded his cause that the Turk ordered the Christians to be unmolested, and gave Angelo permission to preach. Thenceforth the Franciscans were the refuge and support of the Christians up to modern times, though they had many cruelties to endure at the hands of the barbarous conquerors.[353] CHAPTER VI. GERMANY.