In the latter half of the fourteenth century Christianity in Europe was threatened by a new foe. The warlike followers of Osman had, by the capture of Adrianople firmly laid the foundations of their powerful empire in Europe. Youths, forcibly taken at a tender age from their Christian parents, and educated afterwards in implicit obedience to the behests of the Sultan, were rigorously trained as soldiers after the most approved fashion of the day, and the troops thus obtained were destined to become the most formidable aid in the building of the Ottoman power in Europe. The Eastern empire had sunk too low, at that time, to be able, single-handed, to resist such a power, and she lost her strongholds, one after the other. In this strait her ruler resorted to one of those deceitful devices characterizing the policy of the Eastern court. John Palæologos, the Eastern emperor, proceeded to the court of the king of Hungary, at Buda, and, promising to give in his adhesion to the Western Church, he asked the aid of Louis against the savage enemy. The “Banner-bearer of the Church,” as the king of Hungary was styled by the Pope, deemed it his duty, under these circumstances, to come to the rescue of the distressed emperor, and shortly afterwards the two kindred nations, the Turks and the Hungarians, met in hostile array on the banks of the Maritza. This was the first warlike contest of the two nations. It resulted in the victory of 20,000 Hungarians over a Turkish army four times as large, a victory commemorated to this day by the treasures and appropriate inscriptions still to be seen at the church of Mariazell in Styria. Casimir, the last Polish king of the house of Piast, died on the 5th of November, 1370. His death was caused by an injury contracted in falling from his horse during the chase.