The consideration of these facts is of importance in tracing the spread of Islam in Albania, for it appears to have been propagated very gradually by the people of the country themselves, and not under pressure of foreign influences. The details that we possess of this movement are very meagre, as the history of Albania from the close of the fifteenth century to the rise of ʻAlī Pasha three hundred years later, is almost a blank; what knowledge we have, therefore, of the slow but continuous accession of converts to Islam during this period, is derived from the ecclesiastical chronicles of the various dioceses, [573] and the reports sent in from time to time to the Pope and the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. [574] But it goes without saying that the very nature of these sources gives the information derived from them the stamp of imperfection—especially in the matter of the motives assigned for conversion. For an ecclesiastic of those times to have even entertained the possibility of a conversion to Islam from genuine conviction—much less have openly expressed such an opinion in writing to his superiors—is well-nigh inconceivable. During the sixteenth century, Islam appears to have made but little progress, though the tide of conversion had already set in. In 1610 the Christian population exceeded the Muhammadan in the proportion of ten to one, [575] and as most of the villages were inhabited by Christians, with a very small admixture of Muhammadans, [576] the conversions appear to have been more frequent in the large towns. In Antivari, for example, while many Christians elected to emigrate into the neighbouring Christian countries, the majority of those who remained, both high-born and low, went over gradually to the Muslim faith, so that the Christian population grew less and less day by day. [577] As the number of accessions to Islam increased, churches were converted into mosques—a measure which, though contrary to the terms of the capitulation, seems justified by the change in the religion of the people. [578] In 1610 two collegiate churches only remained in the hands of the Latin Christians, but these appear to have sufficed for the needs of the community; [579] what this amounted to can only roughly be guessed from the words of Marco Bizzi: “There are about 600 houses inhabited indiscriminately by Muhammadans and Christians—both Latin and Schismatics (i.e. of the Orthodox Greek Church): the number of the Muhammadans is a little in excess of the Christians, and that of the Latins in excess of the Schismatics.” In the accounts we have of the social relations between the Christians and the Muslims, and in the absence of any sharp line of demarcation between the two communities, we find some clue to the manner in which Muhammadan influences gradually gained converts from among the Christian population in proportion as the vigour and the spiritual life of the Church declined.